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

she had now got into the way of parrying these home-thrusts like a little Quakeress.

“Pique you? In what way does it pique you?” she said.

“Here he comes!” suddenly exclaimed Shirley, breaking off, starting up and running to the window. “Here comes a diversion. I never told you of a superb conquest I have made lately⁠—made at those parties to which I can never persuade you to accompany me; and the thing has been done without effort or intention on my part⁠—that I aver. There is the bell⁠—and, by all that’s delicious! there are two of them. Do they never hunt, then, except in couples? You may have one, Lina, and you may take your choice. I hope I am generous enough. Listen to Tartar!”

The black-muzzled, tawny dog, a glimpse of which was seen in the chapter which first introduced its mistress to the reader, here gave tongue in the hall, amidst whose hollow space the deep bark resounded formidably. A growl more terrible than the bark, menacing as muttered thunder, succeeded.

“Listen!” again cried Shirley, laughing. “You would think that the prelude to a bloody onslaught. They will be frightened. They don’t know old Tartar as I do. They are not aware his uproars are all sound and fury, signifying nothing!”

Some bustle was heard. “Down, sir, down!” exclaimed a high-toned, imperious voice, and then came a crack of a cane or whip. Immediately there was a yell⁠—a scutter⁠—a run⁠—a positive tumult.

“O Malone, Malone!”

“Down! down! down!” cried the high voice.

“He really is worrying them!” exclaimed Shirley. “They have struck him. A blow is what he is not used to, and will not take.”

Out she ran. A gentleman was fleeing up the oak staircase, making for refuge in the gallery or chambers in hot haste; another was backing fast to the stairfoot, wildly flourishing a knotty stick, at the same time reiterating, “Down! down! down!” while the tawny dog bayed, bellowed, howled at him, and a group of servants came bundling from the kitchen. The dog made a spring; the second gentleman turned tail and rushed after his comrade. The first was already safe in a bedroom; he held the door against his fellow⁠—nothing so merciless as terror. But the other fugitive struggled hard; the door was about to yield to his strength.

“Gentlemen,” was uttered in Miss Keeldar’s silvery but vibrating tones, “spare my locks, if you please. Calm yourselves! Come down! Look at Tartar; he won’t harm a cat.”

She was caressing the said Tartar. He lay crouched at her feet, his fore paws stretched out, his tail still in threatening agitation, his nostrils snorting, his bulldog eyes conscious of a dull fire. He was an honest, phlegmatic, stupid, but stubborn canine character. He loved his mistress and John⁠—the man who fed him⁠—but was mostly indifferent to the rest of the world. Quiet enough he was, unless struck or threatened with a stick, and that put a demon into him at once.

“Mr. Malone, how do you do?” continued Shirley, lifting up her mirth-lit face to the gallery. “That is not the way to the oak parlour; that is Mrs. Pryor’s apartment. Request your friend Mr. Donne to evacuate. I shall have the greatest pleasure in receiving him in a lower room.”

“Ha! ha!” cried Malone, in hollow laughter, quitting the door, and leaning over the massive balustrade. “Really that animal alarmed Donne. He is a little timid,” he proceeded, stiffening himself, and walking trimly to the stairhead. “I thought it better to follow, in order to reassure him.”

“It appears you did. Well, come down, if you please.⁠—John” (turning to her manservant), “go upstairs and liberate Mr. Donne.⁠—Take care, Mr. Malone; the stairs are slippery.”

In truth they were, being of polished oak. The caution came a little late for Malone. He had slipped already in his stately descent, and was only saved from falling by a clutch at the banisters, which made the whole structure creak again.

Tartar seemed to think the visitor’s descent effected with unwarranted éclat, and accordingly he growled once more. Malone, however, was no coward. The spring of the dog had taken him by surprise, but he passed him now in suppressed fury rather than fear. If a look could have strangled Tartar, he would have breathed no more. Forgetting politeness in his sullen rage, Malone pushed into the parlour before Miss Keeldar. He glanced at Miss Helstone; he could scarcely bring himself to bend to her. He glared on both the ladies. He looked as if, had either of them been his wife, he would have made a glorious husband at the moment. In each hand he seemed as if he would have liked to clutch one and grip her to death.

However, Shirley took pity. She ceased to laugh; and Caroline was too true a lady to smile even at anyone under mortification. Tartar was dismissed; Peter Augustus was soothed⁠—for Shirley had looks and tones that might soothe a very bull. He had sense to feel that, since he could not challenge the owner of the dog, he had better be civil. And civil he tried to be; and his attempts being well received, he grew presently very civil and quite himself again. He had come, indeed, for the express purpose of making himself charming and fascinating. Rough portents had met him on his first admission to Fieldhead; but that passage got over, charming and fascinating he resolved to be. Like March, having come in like a lion, he purposed to go out like a lamb.

For the sake of air, as it appeared, or perhaps for that of ready exit in case of some new emergency arising, he took his seat⁠—not on the sofa, where Miss Keeldar offered him enthronization, nor yet near the fireside, to which Caroline, by a friendly sign, gently invited him, but on a chair close to the door. Being no longer sullen or furious, he grew, after his fashion, constrained and embarrassed. He talked to the ladies by fits and starts, choosing for topics whatever was most intensely commonplace.