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

“Strange!” cried Shirley. “I never feel so.” Mrs. Pryor said nothing.

“Fine weather, pleasant days, pleasant scenes, are powerless to give me pleasure,” continued Caroline. “Calm evenings are not calm to me. Moonlight, which I used to think mild, now only looks mournful. Is this weakness of mind, Mrs. Pryor, or what is it? I cannot help it. I often struggle against it. I reason; but reason and effort make no difference.”

“You should take more exercise,” said Mrs. Pryor.

“Exercise! I exercise sufficiently. I exercise till I am ready to drop.”

“My dear, you should go from home.”

“Mrs. Pryor, I should like to go from home, but not on any purposeless excursion or visit. I wish to be a governess, as you have been. It would oblige me greatly if you would speak to my uncle on the subject.”

“Nonsense!” broke in Shirley. “What an idea! Be a governess! Better be a slave at once. Where is the necessity of it? Why should you dream of such a painful step?”

“My dear,” said Mrs. Pryor, “you are very young to be a governess, and not sufficiently robust. The duties a governess undertakes are often severe.”

“And I believe I want severe duties to occupy me.”

“Occupy you!” cried Shirley. “When are you idle? I never saw a more industrious girl than you. You are always at work. Come,” she continued⁠—“come and sit by my side, and take some tea to refresh you. You don’t care much for my friendship, then, that you wish to leave me?”

“Indeed I do, Shirley; and I don’t wish to leave you. I shall never find another friend so dear.”

At which words Miss Keeldar put her hand into Caroline’s with an impulsively affectionate movement, which was well seconded by the expression of her face.

“If you think so, you had better make much of me,” she said, “and not run away from me. I hate to part with those to whom I am become attached. Mrs. Pryor there sometimes talks of leaving me, and says I might make a more advantageous connection than herself. I should as soon think of exchanging an old-fashioned mother for something modish and stylish. As for you⁠—why, I began to flatter myself we were thoroughly friends; that you liked Shirley almost as well as Shirley likes you, and she does not stint her regard.”

“I do like Shirley. I like her more and more every day. But that does not make me strong or happy.”

“And would it make you strong or happy to go and live as a dependent amongst utter strangers? It would not. And the experiment must not be tried; I tell you it would fail. It is not in your nature to bear the desolate life governesses generally lead; you would fall ill. I won’t hear of it.”

And Miss Keeldar paused, having uttered this prohibition very decidedly. Soon she recommenced, still looking somewhat courroucée, “Why, it is my daily pleasure now to look out for the little cottage bonnet and the silk scarf glancing through the trees in the lane, and to know that my quiet, shrewd, thoughtful companion and monitress is coming back to me; that I shall have her sitting in the room to look at, to talk to or to let alone, as she and I please. This may be a selfish sort of language⁠—I know it is⁠—but it is the language which naturally rises to my lips, therefore I utter it.”

“I would write to you, Shirley.”

“And what are letters? Only a sort of pis aller. Drink some tea, Caroline. Eat something⁠—you eat nothing. Laugh and be cheerful, and stay at home.”

Miss Helstone shook her head and sighed. She felt what difficulty she would have to persuade anyone to assist or sanction her in making that change in her life which she believed desirable. Might she only follow her own judgment, she thought she should be able to find perhaps a harsh but an effectual cure for her sufferings. But this judgment, founded on circumstances she could fully explain to none, least of all to Shirley, seemed, in all eyes but her own, incomprehensible and fantastic, and was opposed accordingly.

There really was no present pecuniary need for her to leave a comfortable home and “take a situation;” and there was every probability that her uncle might, in some way, permanently provide for her. So her friends thought, and, as far as their lights enabled them to see, they reasoned correctly; but of Caroline’s strange sufferings, which she desired so eagerly to overcome or escape, they had no idea, of her racked nights and dismal days no suspicion. It was at once impossible and hopeless to explain; to wait and endure was her only plan. Many that want food and clothing have cheerier lives and brighter prospects than she had; many, harassed by poverty, are in a strait less afflictive.

“Now, is your mind quieted?” inquired Shirley. “Will you consent to stay at home?”

“I shall not leave it against the approbation of my friends,” was the reply; “but I think in time they will be obliged to think as I do.”

During this conversation Mrs. Pryor looked far from easy. Her extreme habitual reserve would rarely permit her to talk freely or to interrogate others closely. She could think a multitude of questions she never ventured to put, give advice in her mind which her tongue never delivered. Had she been alone with Caroline, she might possibly have said something to the point: Miss Keeldar’s presence, accustomed as she was to it, sealed her lips. Now, as on a thousand other occasions, inexplicable nervous scruples kept her back from interfering. She merely showed her concern for Miss Helstone in an indirect way, by asking her if the fire made her too warm, placing a screen between her chair and the hearth, closing a window whence she imagined a draught proceeded, and often and restlessly glancing at her. Shirley resumed: “Having destroyed your plan,” she said, “which I hope I have done, I shall construct a new one of