Delphi Complete Works of the Brontes Charlotte, Emily, Anne Brontë (Illustrated) (126 page)

These single flowers — the last of their race — Shirley culled as she wandered thoughtfully amongst the beds. She was fastening into her girdle a hueless and scentless nosegay, when Henry Sympson called to her as he came limping from the house.

“Shirley, Mr. Moore would be glad to see you in the schoolroom and to hear you read a little French, if you have no more urgent occupation.”

The messenger delivered his commission very simply, as if it were a mere matter of course.

“Did Mr. Moore tell you to say that?”

“Certainly; why not? And now, do come, and let us once more be as we were at Sympson Grove. We used to have pleasant school-hours in those days.”

Miss Keeldar perhaps thought that circumstances were changed since then; however, she made no remark, but after a little reflection quietly followed Henry.

Entering the schoolroom, she inclined her head with a decent obeisance, as had been her wont in former times. She removed her bonnet, and hung it up beside Henry’s cap. Louis Moore sat at his desk, turning the leaves of a book, open before him, and marking passages with his pencil. He just moved, in acknowledgment of her curtsy, but did not rise.

“You proposed to read to me a few nights ago,” said he. “I could not hear you then. My attention is now at your service. A little renewed practice in French may not be unprofitable. Your accent, I have observed, begins to rust.”

“What book shall I take?”

“Here are the posthumous works of St. Pierre. Read a few pages of the ‘Fragments de l’Amazone.’”

She accepted the chair which he had placed in readiness near his own; the volume lay on his desk — there was but one between them; her sweeping curls dropped so low as to hide the page from him.

“Put back your hair,” he said.

For one moment Shirley looked not quite certain whether she would obey the request or disregard it. A flicker of her eye beamed furtive on the professor’s face. Perhaps if he had been looking at her harshly or timidly, or if one undecided line had marked his countenance, she would have rebelled, and the lesson had ended there and then; but he was only awaiting her compliance — as calm as marble, and as cool. She threw the veil of tresses behind her ear. It was well her face owned an agreeable outline, and that her cheek possessed the polish and the roundness of early youth, or, thus robbed of a softening shade, the contours might have lost their grace. But what mattered that in the present society? Neither Calypso nor Eucharis cared to fascinate Mentor.

She began to read. The language had become strange to her tongue; it faltered; the lecture flowed unevenly, impeded by hurried breath, broken by Anglicized tones. She stopped.

“I can’t do it. Read me a paragraph, if you please, Mr. Moore.”

What
he
read
she
repeated. She caught his accent in three minutes.

“Très bien,” was the approving comment at the close of the piece.

“C’est presque le Français rattrapé, n’est-ce pas?”

“You could not write French as you once could, I dare say?”

“Oh no! I should make strange work of my concords now.”

“You could not compose the
devoir
of ‘La Première Femme Savante’?”

“Do you still remember that rubbish?”

“Every line.”

“I doubt you.”

“I will engage to repeat it word for word.”

“You would stop short at the first line.”

“Challenge me to the experiment.”

“I challenge you.”

He proceeded to recite the following. He gave it in French, but we must translate, on pain of being unintelligible to some readers.

“And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.”

This was in the dawn of time, before the morning stars were set, and while they yet sang together.

The epoch is so remote, the mists and dewy gray of matin twilight veil it with so vague an obscurity, that all distinct feature of custom, all clear line of locality, evade perception and baffle research. It must suffice to know that the world then existed; that men peopled it; that man’s nature, with its passions, sympathies, pains, and pleasures, informed the planet and gave it soul.

A certain tribe colonized a certain spot on the globe; of what race this tribe — unknown; in what region that spot — untold. We usually think of the East when we refer to transactions of that date; but who shall declare that there was no life in the West, the South, the North? What is to disprove that this tribe, instead of camping under palm groves in Asia, wandered beneath island oak woods rooted in our own seas of Europe?

It is no sandy plain, nor any circumscribed and scant oasis I seem to realize. A forest valley, with rocky sides and brown profundity of shade, formed by tree crowding on tree, descends deep before me. Here, indeed, dwell human beings, but so few, and in alleys so thick branched and overarched, they are neither heard nor seen. Are they savage? Doubtless. They live by the crook and the bow; half shepherds, half hunters, their flocks wander wild as their prey. Are they happy? No, not more happy than we are at this day. Are they good? No, not better than ourselves. Their nature is our nature — human both. There is one in this tribe too often miserable — a child bereaved of both parents. None cares for this child. She is fed sometimes, but oftener forgotten. A hut rarely receives her; the hollow tree and chill cavern are her home. Forsaken, lost, and wandering, she lives more with the wild beast and bird than with her own kind. Hunger and cold are her comrades; sadness hovers over, and solitude besets her round. Unheeded and unvalued, she should die; but she both lives and grows. The green wilderness nurses her, and becomes to her a mother; feeds her on juicy berry, on saccharine root and nut.

There is something in the air of this clime which fosters life kindly. There must be something, too, in its dews which heals with sovereign balm. Its gentle seasons exaggerate no passion, no sense; its temperature tends to harmony; its breezes, you would say, bring down from heaven the germ of pure thought and purer feeling. Not grotesquely fantastic are the forms of cliff and foliage, not violently vivid the colouring of flower and bird. In all the grandeur of these forests there is repose; in all their freshness there is tenderness.

The gentle charm vouchsafed to flower and tree, bestowed on deer and dove, has not been denied to the human nursling. All solitary, she has sprung up straight and graceful. Nature cast her features in a fine mould; they have matured in their pure, accurate first lines, unaltered by the shocks of disease. No fierce dry blast has dealt rudely with the surface of her frame; no burning sun has crisped or withered her tresses. Her form gleams ivory-white through the trees; her hair flows plenteous, long, and glossy; her eyes, not dazzled by vertical fires, beam in the shade large and open, and full and dewy. Above those eyes, when the breeze bares her forehead, shines an expanse fair and ample — a clear, candid page, whereon knowledge, should knowledge ever come, might write a golden record. You see in the desolate young savage nothing vicious or vacant. She haunts the wood harmless and thoughtful, though of what one so untaught can think it is not easy to divine.

On the evening of one summer day, before the Flood, being utterly alone — for she had lost all trace of her tribe, who had wandered leagues away, she knew not where — she went up from the vale, to watch Day take leave and Night arrive. A crag overspread by a tree was her station. The oak roots, turfed and mossed, gave a seat; the oak boughs, thick-leaved, wove a canopy.

Slow and grand the Day withdrew, passing in purple fire, and parting to the farewell of a wild, low chorus from the woodlands. Then Night entered, quiet as death. The wind fell, the birds ceased singing. Now every nest held happy mates, and hart and hind slumbered blissfully safe in their lair.

The girl sat, her body still, her soul astir; occupied, however, rather in feeling than in thinking, in wishing than hoping, in imagining than projecting. She felt the world, the sky, the night, boundlessly mighty. Of all things herself seemed to herself the centre — a small, forgotten atom of life, a spark of soul, emitted inadvertent from the great creative source, and now burning unmarked to waste in the heart of a black hollow. She asked, was she thus to burn out and perish, her living light doing no good, never seen, never needed — a star in an else starless firmament, which nor shepherd, nor wanderer, nor sage, nor priest tracked as a guide or read as a prophecy? Could this be, she demanded, when the flame of her intelligence burned so vivid; when her life beat so true, and real, and potent; when something within her stirred disquieted, and restlessly asserted a God-given strength, for which it insisted she should find exercise?

She gazed abroad on Heaven and Evening. Heaven and Evening gazed back on her. She bent down, searching bank, hill, river, spread dim below. All she questioned responded by oracles. She heard — she was impressed; but she could not understand. Above her head she raised her hands joined together.

“Guidance — help — comfort — come!” was her cry.

There was no voice, nor any that answered.

She waited, kneeling, steadfastly looking up. Yonder sky was sealed; the solemn stars shone alien and remote.

At last one overstretched chord of her agony slacked; she thought Something above relented; she felt as if Something far round drew nigher; she heard as if Silence spoke. There was no language, no word, only a tone.

Again — a fine, full, lofty tone, a deep, soft sound, like a storm whispering, made twilight undulate.

Once more, profounder, nearer, clearer, it rolled harmonious.

Yet again — a distinct voice passed between Heaven and Earth.

“Eva!”

If Eva were not this woman’s name, she had none. She rose. “Here am I.”

“Eva!”

“O Night (it can be but Night that speaks), I am here!”

The voice, descending, reached Earth.

“Eva!”

“Lord,” she cried, “behold thine handmaid!”

She had her religion — all tribes held some creed.

“I come — a Comforter!”

“Lord, come quickly!”

The Evening flushed full of hope; the Air panted; the Moon — rising before — ascended large, but her light showed no shape.

“Lean towards me, Eva. Enter my arms; repose thus.”

“Thus I lean, O Invisible but felt! And what art thou?”

“Eva, I have brought a living draught from heaven. Daughter of Man, drink of my cup!”

“I drink: it is as if sweetest dew visited my lips in a full current. My arid heart revives; my affliction is lightened; my strait and struggle are gone. And the night changes! the wood, the hill, the moon, the wide sky — all change!”

“All change, and for ever. I take from thy vision darkness; I loosen from thy faculties fetters! I level in thy path obstacles; I with my presence fill vacancy. I claim as mine the lost atom of life. I take to myself the spark of soul — burning heretofore forgotten!”

“O take me! O claim me!
This is a god.”

“This is a son of God — one who feels himself in the portion of life that stirs you. He is suffered to reclaim his own, and so to foster and aid that it shall not perish hopeless.”

“A son of God! Am I indeed chosen?”

“Thou only in this land. I saw thee that thou wert fair; I knew thee that thou wert mine. To me it is given to rescue, to sustain, to cherish mine own. Acknowledge in me that Seraph on earth named Genius.”

“My glorious Bridegroom! true Dayspring from on high! All I would have at last I possess. I receive a revelation. The dark hint, the obscure whisper, which have haunted me from childhood, are interpreted. Thou art He I sought. Godborn, take me, thy bride!”