Shirley, Charlotte Brontë [free children's ebooks online .txt] 📗

as I thought you, I could not have believed⁠—”

“Now, sir, do you begin to be aware that it is useless to scheme for me; that in doing so you but sow the wind to reap the whirlwind? I sweep your cobweb projects from my path, that I may pass on unsullied. I am anchored on a resolve you cannot shake. My heart, my conscience shall dispose of my hand⁠—they only. Know this at last.”

Mr. Sympson was becoming a little bewildered.

“Never heard such language!” he muttered again and again; “never was so addressed in my life⁠—never was so used!”

“You are quite confused, sir. You had better withdraw, or I will.”

He rose hastily. “We must leave this place; they must pack up at once.”

“Do not hurry my aunt and cousins; give them time.”

“No more intercourse; she’s not proper.”

He made his way to the door. He came back for his handkerchief. He dropped his snuffbox, leaving the contents scattered on the carpet; he stumbled out. Tartar lay outside across the mat; Mr. Sympson almost fell over him. In the climax of his exasperation he hurled an oath at the dog and a coarse epithet at his mistress.

“Poor Mr. Sympson! he is both feeble and vulgar,” said Shirley to herself. “My head aches, and I am tired,” she added; and leaning her head upon a cushion, she softly subsided from excitement to repose. One, entering the room a quarter of an hour afterwards, found her asleep. When Shirley had been agitated, she generally took this natural refreshment; it would come at her call.

The intruder paused in her unconscious presence, and said, “Miss Keeldar.”

Perhaps his voice harmonized with some dream into which she was passing. It did not startle, it hardly roused her. Without opening her eyes, she but turned her head a little, so that her cheek and profile, before hidden by her arm, became visible. She looked rosy, happy, half smiling, but her eyelashes were wet. She had wept in slumber; or perhaps, before dropping asleep, a few natural tears had fallen after she had heard that epithet. No man⁠—no woman⁠—is always strong, always able to bear up against the unjust opinion, the vilifying word. Calumny, even from the mouth of a fool, will sometimes cut into unguarded feelings. Shirley looked like a child that had been naughty and punished, but was now forgiven and at rest.

“Miss Keeldar,” again said the voice. This time it woke her. She looked up, and saw at her side Louis Moore⁠—not close at her side, but standing, with arrested step, two or three yards from her.

“O Mr. Moore!” she said. “I was afraid it was my uncle again: he and I have quarrelled.”

“Mr. Sympson should let you alone,” was the reply. “Can he not see that you are as yet far from strong?”

“I assure you he did not find me weak. I did not cry when he was here.”

“He is about to evacuate Fieldhead⁠—so he says. He is now giving orders to his family. He has been in the schoolroom issuing commands in a manner which, I suppose, was a continuation of that with which he has harassed you.”

“Are you and Henry to go?”

“I believe, as far as Henry is concerned, that was the tenor of his scarcely intelligible directions; but he may change all tomorrow. He is just in that mood when you cannot depend on his consistency for two consecutive hours. I doubt whether he will leave you for weeks yet. To myself he addressed some words which will require a little attention and comment by-and-by, when I have time to bestow on them. At the moment he came in I was busied with a note I had got from Mr. Yorke⁠—so fully busied that I cut short the interview with him somewhat abruptly. I left him raving. Here is the note. I wish you to see it. It refers to my brother Robert.” And he looked at Shirley.

“I shall be glad to hear news of him. Is he coming home?”

“He is come. He is in Yorkshire. Mr. Yorke went yesterday to Stilbro’ to meet him.”

“Mr. Moore, something is wrong⁠—”

“Did my voice tremble? He is now at Briarmains, and I am going to see him.”

“What has occurred?”

“If you turn so pale I shall be sorry I have spoken. It might have been worse. Robert is not dead, but much hurt.”

“O sir, it is you who are pale. Sit down near me.”

“Read the note. Let me open it.”

Miss Keeldar read the note. It briefly signified that last night Robert Moore had been shot at from behind the wall of Milldean plantation, at the foot of the Brow; that he was wounded severely, but it was hoped not fatally. Of the assassin, or assassins, nothing was known; they had escaped. “No doubt,” Mr. Yorke observed, “it was done in revenge. It was a pity ill-will had ever been raised; but that could not be helped now.”

“He is my only brother,” said Louis, as Shirley returned the note. “I cannot hear unmoved that ruffians have laid in wait for him, and shot him down, like some wild beast from behind a wall.”

“Be comforted; be hopeful. He will get better⁠—I know he will.”

Shirley, solicitous to soothe, held her hand over Mr. Moore’s as it lay on the arm of the chair. She just touched it lightly, scarce palpably.

“Well, give me your hand,” he said. “It will be for the first time; it is in a moment of calamity. Give it me.”

Awaiting neither consent nor refusal, he took what he asked.

“I am going to Briarmains now,” he went on. “I want you to step over to the rectory and tell Caroline Helstone what has happened. Will you do this? She will hear it best from you.”

“Immediately,” said Shirley, with docile promptitude. “Ought I to say that there is no danger?”

“Say so.”

“You will come back soon, and let me know more?”

“I will either come or write.”

“Trust me for watching over Caroline. I will communicate with your sister too; but doubtless she is already with Robert?”

“Doubtless, or will be soon. Good morning