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

goods. I manufacture for a future day. I make myself ready to take advantage of the first opening that shall occur. Three months ago this was impossible to me; I had exhausted both credit and capital. You well know who came to my rescue, from what hand I received the loan which saved me. It is on the strength of that loan I am enabled to continue the bold game which, a while since, I feared I should never play more. Total ruin I know will follow loss, and I am aware that gain is doubtful; but I am quite cheerful. So long as I can be active, so long as I can strive, so long, in short, as my hands are not tied, it is impossible for me to be depressed. One year⁠—nay, but six months⁠—of the reign of the olive, and I am safe; for, as you say, peace will give an impulse to commerce. In this you are right; but as to the restored tranquillity of the neighbourhood, as to the permanent good effect of your charitable fund, I doubt. Eleemosynary relief never yet tranquillized the working-classes⁠—it never made them grateful; it is not in human nature that it should. I suppose, were all things ordered aright, they ought not to be in a position to need that humiliating relief; and this they feel. We should feel it were we so placed. Besides, to whom should they be grateful? To you, to the clergy perhaps, but not to us mill-owners. They hate us worse than ever. Then the disaffected here are in correspondence with the disaffected elsewhere. Nottingham is one of their headquarters, Manchester another, Birmingham a third. The subalterns receive orders from their chiefs; they are in a good state of discipline; no blow is struck without mature deliberation. In sultry weather you have seen the sky threaten thunder day by day, and yet night after night the clouds have cleared, and the sun has set quietly; but the danger was not gone⁠—it was only delayed. The long-threatening storm is sure to break at last. There is analogy between the moral and physical atmosphere.”

“Well, Mr. Moore” (so these conferences always ended), “take care of yourself. If you think that I have ever done you any good, reward me by promising to take care of yourself.”

“I do; I will take close and watchful care. I wish to live, not to die. The future opens like Eden before me; and still, when I look deep into the shades of my paradise, I see a vision that I like better than seraph or cherub glide across remote vistas.”

“Do you? Pray, what vision?”

“I see⁠—”

The maid came bustling in with the tea-things.

The early part of that May, as we have seen, was fine; the middle was wet; but in the last week, at change of moon, it cleared again. A fresh wind swept off the silver-white, deep-piled rain-clouds, bearing them, mass on mass, to the eastern horizon, on whose verge they dwindled, and behind whose rim they disappeared, leaving the vault behind all pure blue space, ready for the reign of the summer sun. That sun rose broad on Whitsuntide. The gathering of the schools was signalized by splendid weather.

Whit-Tuesday was the great day, in preparation for which the two large schoolrooms of Briarfield, built by the present rector, chiefly at his own expense, were cleaned out, whitewashed, repainted, and decorated with flowers and evergreens⁠—some from the rectory garden, two cartloads from Fieldhead, and a wheel-barrowful from the more stingy domain of De Walden, the residence of Mr. Wynne. In these schoolrooms twenty tables, each calculated to accommodate twenty guests, were laid out, surrounded with benches, and covered with white cloths. Above them were suspended at least some twenty cages, containing as many canaries, according to a fancy of the district, specially cherished by Mr. Helstone’s clerk, who delighted in the piercing song of these birds, and knew that amidst confusion of tongues they always carolled loudest. These tables, be it understood, were not spread for the twelve hundred scholars to be assembled from the three parishes, but only for the patrons and teachers of the schools. The children’s feast was to be spread in the open air. At one o’clock the troops were to come in; at two they were to be marshalled; till four they were to parade the parish; then came the feast, and afterwards the meeting, with music and speechifying in the church.

Why Briarfield was chosen for the point of rendezvous⁠—the scene of the fête⁠—should be explained. It was not because it was the largest or most populous parish⁠—Whinbury far outdid it in that respect; nor because it was the oldest, antique as were the hoary church and rectory⁠—Nunnely’s low-roofed temple and mossy parsonage, buried both in coeval oaks, outstanding sentinels of Nunnwood, were older still. It was simply because Mr. Helstone willed it so, and Mr. Helstone’s will was stronger than that of Boultby or Hall; the former could not, the latter would not, dispute a point of precedence with their resolute and imperious brother. They let him lead and rule.

This notable anniversary had always hitherto been a trying day to Caroline Helstone, because it dragged her perforce into public, compelling her to face all that was wealthy, respectable, influential in the neighbourhood; in whose presence, but for the kind countenance of Mr. Hall, she would have appeared unsupported. Obliged to be conspicuous; obliged to walk at the head of her regiment as the rector’s niece, and first teacher of the first class; obliged to make tea at the first table for a mixed multitude of ladies and gentlemen, and to do all this without the countenance of mother, aunt, or other chaperon⁠—she, meantime, being a nervous person, who mortally feared publicity⁠—it will be comprehended that, under these circumstances, she trembled at the approach of Whitsuntide.

But this year Shirley was to be with her, and that changed the aspect of the trial singularly⁠—it changed it utterly. It was a trial no longer⁠—it