Shirley (79 page)

"They will miss you, and wonder where you are."

"Let them. I can take care of myself, I suppose."

Martin knew that he had already incurred the penalty of a lecture, and dry bread for his tea. No matter; the evening had furnished him with an adventure. It was better than muffins and toast.

He walked home with Caroline. On the way he promised to see Mr. Moore, in spite of the dragon

who guarded his chamber, and appointed an hour on the next day when Caroline was to come to Briarmains Wood and get tidings of him. He would meet her at a certain tree. The scheme led to nothing; still he liked it.

Having reached home, the dry bread and the lecture were duly administered to him, and he was dismissed to bed at an early hour. He accepted his punishment with the toughest stoicism.

Ere ascending to his chamber he paid a secret visit to the dining-room, a still, cold, stately apartment, seldom used, for the family customarily dined in the back parlour. He stood before the mantelpiece, and lifted his candle to two pictures hung above—female heads: one, a type of serene beauty, happy and innocent; the other, more lovely, but forlorn and desperate.

"She looked like
that
," he said, gazing on the latter sketch, "when she sobbed, turned white, and leaned against the tree."

"I suppose," he pursued, when he was in his room, and seated on the edge of his pallet-bed—"I suppose she is what they call '
in love
'—yes,
in love
with that long thing in the next chamber. Whisht! is that Horsfall clattering him? I wonder he does not yell out. It really sounds as if she had fallen on him tooth and nail; but I suppose she is making the bed. I saw her at it once. She hit into the mattresses as if she was boxing. It is queer, Zillah (they call her Zillah)—Zillah Horsfall is a woman, and Caroline Helstone is a woman; they are two individuals of the same species—not much alike though. Is she a

pretty girl, that Caroline? I suspect she is; very nice to look at—something so clear in her face, so soft in her eyes. I approve of her looking at me; it does me good. She has long eyelashes. Their shadow seems to rest where she gazes, and to instil peace and thought. If she behaves well, and continues to suit me as she has suited me to-day, I may do her a good turn. I rather relish the notion of circumventing my mother and that ogress old Horsfall. Not that I like humouring Moore; but whatever I do I'll be paid for, and in coin of my own choosing. I know what reward I will claim—one

displeasing to Moore, and agreeable to myself."

He turned into bed.

33

Chapter

MARTIN'S TACTICS.

It was necessary to the arrangement of Martin's plan that he should stay at home that day. Accordingly,

he found no appetite for breakfast, and just about school-time took a severe pain about his heart, which rendered it advisable that, instead of setting out to the grammar school with Mark, he should

succeed to his father's arm-chair by the fireside, and also to his morning paper. This point being satisfactorily settled, and Mark being gone to Mr. Summer's class, and Matthew and Mr. Yorke withdrawn to the counting-house, three other exploits—nay, four—remained to be achieved.

The first of these was to realize the breakfast he had not yet tasted, and with which his appetite of

fifteen could ill afford to dispense; the second, third, fourth, to get his mother, Miss Moore, and Mrs.

Horsfall successfully out of the way before four o'clock that afternoon.

The first was, for the present, the most pressing, since the work before him demanded an amount of

energy which the present empty condition of his youthful stomach did not seem likely to supply.

Martin knew the way to the larder, and knowing this way he took it. The servants were in the kitchen, breakfasting solemnly with closed doors; his mother and Miss Moore were airing themselves

on the lawn, and discussing the closed doors aforesaid. Martin, safe in the larder, made fastidious selection from its stores. His breakfast had been delayed; he was determined it should be
recherché
. It appeared to him that a variety on his usual somewhat insipid fare of bread and milk was both desirable and advisable; the savoury and the salutary he thought might be combined. There was store

of rosy apples laid in straw upon a shelf; he picked out three. There was pastry upon a dish; he selected an apricot puff and a damson tart. On the plain household bread his eye did not dwell; but he

surveyed with favour some currant tea-cakes, and condescended to make choice of one. Thanks to his

clasp-knife, he was able to appropriate a wing of fowl and a slice of ham; a cantlet of cold custard-

pudding he thought would harmonize with these articles; and having made this final addition to his booty, he at length sallied forth into the hall.

He was already half-way across—three steps more would have anchored him in the harbour of the

back parlour—when the front door opened, and there stood Matthew. Better far had it been the Old Gentleman, in full equipage of horns, hoofs, and tail.

Matthew, sceptic and scoffer, had already failed to subscribe a prompt belief in that pain about the

heart. He had muttered some words, amongst which the phrase "shamming Abraham" had been very

distinctly audible, and the succession to the armchair and newspaper had appeared to affect him with

mental spasms. The spectacle now before him—the apples, the tarts, the tea-cakes, the fowl, ham, and

pudding—offered evidence but too well calculated to inflate his opinion of his own sagacity.

Martin paused
interdit
one minute, one instant; the next he knew his ground, and pronounced all well. With the true perspicacity
des âmes élites
, he at once saw how this at first sight untoward event might be turned to excellent account. He saw how it might be so handled as to secure the accomplishment of his second task—namely, the disposal of his mother. He knew that a collision between him and Matthew always suggested to Mrs. Yorke the propriety of a fit of hysterics. He further knew that, on the principle of calm succeeding to storm, after a morning of hysterics his mother was sure to indulge in an afternoon of bed. This would accommodate him perfectly.

The collision duly took place in the hall. A dry laugh, an insulting sneer, a contemptuous taunt, met

by a nonchalant but most cutting reply, were the signals. They rushed at it. Martin, who usually made

little noise on these occasions, made a great deal now. In flew the servants, Mrs. Yorke, Miss Moore.

No female hand could separate them. Mr. Yorke was summoned.

"Sons," said he, "one of you must leave my roof if this occurs again. I will have no Cain and Abel strife here."

Martin now allowed himself to be taken off. He had been hurt; he was the youngest and slightest. He

was quite cool, in no passion; he even smiled, content that the most difficult part of the labour he had set himself was over.

Once he seemed to flag in the course of the morning.

"It is not worth while to bother myself for that Caroline," he remarked. But a quarter of an hour afterwards he was again in the dining-room, looking at the head with dishevelled tresses, and eyes turbid with despair.

"Yes," he said, "I made her sob, shudder, almost faint. I'll see her smile before I've done with her; besides, I want to outwit all these womenites."

Directly after dinner Mrs. Yorke fulfilled her son's calculation by withdrawing to her chamber.

Now for Hortense.

That lady was just comfortably settled to stocking-mending in the back parlour, when Martin—

laying down a book which, stretched on the sofa (he was still indisposed, according to his own account), he had been perusing in all the voluptuous ease of a yet callow pacha—lazily introduced some discourse about Sarah, the maid at the Hollow. In the course of much verbal meandering he insinuated information that this damsel was said to have three suitors—Frederic Murgatroyd,

Jeremiah Pighills, and John-of-Mally's-of-Hannah's-of-Deb's; and that Miss Mann had affirmed she knew for a fact that, now the girl was left in sole charge of the cottage, she often had her swains to

meals, and entertained them with the best the house afforded.

It needed no more. Hortense could not have lived another hour without betaking herself to the scene

of these nefarious transactions, and inspecting the state of matters in person. Mrs. Horsfall remained.

Martin, master of the field now, extracted from his mother's work-basket a bunch of keys; with these he opened the sideboard cupboard, produced thence a black bottle and a small glass, placed them on the table, nimbly mounted the stairs, made for Mr. Moore's door, tapped; the nurse opened.

"If you please, ma'am, you are invited to step into the back parlour and take some refreshment. You will not be disturbed; the family are out."

He watched her down; he watched her in; himself shut the door. He knew she was safe.

The hard work was done; now for the pleasure. He snatched his cap, and away for the wood.

It was yet but half-past three. It had been a fine morning, but the sky looked dark now. It was beginning to snow; the wind blew cold; the wood looked dismal, the old tree grim. Yet Martin approved the shadow on his path. He found a charm in the spectral aspect of the doddered oak.

He had to wait. To and fro he walked, while the flakes fell faster; and the wind, which at first had

but moaned, pitifully howled.

"She is long in coming," he muttered, as he glanced along the narrow track. "I wonder," he subjoined, "what I wish to see her so much for? She is not coming for me. But I have power over her, and I want her to come that I may use that power."

He continued his walk.

"Now," he resumed, when a further period had elapsed, "if she fails to come, I shall hate and scorn her."

It struck four. He heard the church clock far away. A step so quick, so light, that, but for the rustling of leaves, it would scarcely have sounded on the wood-walk, checked his impatience. The wind blew

fiercely now, and the thickening white storm waxed bewildering; but on she came, and not dismayed.

"Well, Martin," she said eagerly, "how is he?"

"It is queer how she thinks of
him
," reflected Martin. "The blinding snow and bitter cold are nothing to her, I believe; yet she is but a 'chitty-faced creature,' as my mother would say. I could find in my

heart to wish I had a cloak to wrap her in."

Thus meditating to himself, he neglected to answer Miss Helstone.

"You have seen him?"

"No."

"Oh! you promised you would."

"I mean to do better by you than that. Didn't I say
I
don't care to see him?"

"But now it will be so long before I get to know any thing certain about him, and I am sick of waiting. Martin,
do
see him, and give him Caroline Helstone's regards, and say she wished to know how he was, and if anything could be done for his comfort."

"I won't."

"You are changed. You were so friendly last night."

"Come, we must not stand in this wood; it is too cold."

"But before I go promise me to come again to-morrow with news."

"No such thing. I am much too delicate to make and keep such appointments in the winter season. If

you knew what a pain I had in my chest this morning, and how I went without breakfast, and was knocked down besides, you'd feel the impropriety of bringing me here in the snow. Come, I say."

"Are you really delicate, Martin?"

"Don't I look so?"

"You have rosy cheeks."

"That's hectic. Will you come—or you won't?"

"Where?"

"With me. I was a fool not to bring a cloak. I would have made you cosy."

"You are going home; my nearest road lies in the opposite direction."

"Put your arm through mine; I'll take care of you."

"But the wall—the hedge—it is such hard work climbing, and you are too slender and young to help me without hurting yourself."

"You shall go through the gate."

"But——"

"But, but—will you trust me or not?"

She looked into his face.

"I think I will. Anything rather than return as anxious as I came."

"I can't answer for that. This, however, I promise you: be ruled by me, and you shall see Moore yourself."

"See him myself?"

"Yourself."

"But, dear Martin, does he know?"

"Ah! I'm dear now. No, he doesn't know."

"And your mother and the others?"

"All is right."

Caroline fell into a long, silent fit of musing, but still she walked on with her guide. They came in

sight of Briarmains.

"Have you made up your mind?" he asked.

She was silent.

"Decide; we are just on the spot. I
won't
see him—that I tell you—except to announce your arrival."

"Martin, you are a strange boy, and this is a strange step; but all I feel
is
and
has
been, for a long time, strange. I will see him."

"Having said that, you will neither hesitate nor retract?"

"No."

"Here we are, then. Do not be afraid of passing the parlour window; no one will see you. My father

and Matthew are at the mill, Mark is at school, the servants are in the back kitchen, Miss Moore is at

the cottage, my mother in her bed, and Mrs. Horsfall in paradise. Observe—I need not ring. I open the

door; the hall is empty, the staircase quiet; so is the gallery. The whole house and all its inhabitants are under a spell, which I will not break till you are gone."

"Martin, I trust you."

"You never said a better word. Let me take your shawl. I will shake off the snow and dry it for you.

You are cold and wet. Never mind; there is a fire upstairs. Are you ready?"

"Yes."

"Follow me."

He left his shoes on the mat, mounted the stair unshod. Caroline stole after, with noiseless step.