Shirley (81 page)

"Some bread, Rose, if you please," requested Martin, with intense gravity, serenity, phlegm. The boy had naturally a low, plaintive voice, which in his "dour moods" rose scarcely above a lady's whisper. The more inflexibly stubborn the humour, the softer, the sadder the tone. He rang the bell,

and gently asked for his walking-shoes.

"But, Martin," urged his sire, "there is drift all the way; a man could hardly wade through it.

However, lad," he continued, seeing that the boy rose as the church bell began to toll, "this is a case wherein I would by no means balk the obdurate chap of his will. Go to church by all means. There is a

pitiless wind, and a sharp, frozen sleet, besides the depth under foot. Go out into it, since thou prefers it to a warm fireside."

Martin quietly assumed his cloak, comforter, and cap, and deliberately went out.

"My father has more sense than my mother," he pronounced. "How women miss it! They drive the nail into the flesh, thinking they are hammering away at insensate stone."

He reached church early.

"Now, if the weather frightens her (and it is a real December tempest), or if that Mrs. Pryor objects to her going out, and I should miss her after all, it will vex me; but, tempest or tornado, hail or ice, she
ought
to come, and if she has a mind worthy of her eyes and features she
will
come. She will be here for the chance of seeing me, as I am here for the chance of seeing her. She will want to get a word respecting her confounded sweetheart, as I want to get another flavour of what I think the essence of life—a taste of existence, with the spirit preserved in it, and not evaporated. Adventure is to stagnation what champagne is to flat porter."

He looked round. The church was cold, silent, empty, but for one old woman. As the chimes subsided and the single bell tolled slowly, another and another elderly parishioner came dropping in,

and took a humble station in the free sittings. It is always the frailest, the oldest, and the poorest that brave the worst weather, to prove and maintain their constancy to dear old mother church. This wild

morning not one affluent family attended, not one carriage party appeared—all the lined and cushioned pews were empty; only on the bare oaken seats sat ranged the gray-haired elders and feeble

paupers.

"I'll scorn her if she doesn't come," muttered Martin, shortly and savagely, to himself. The rector's shovel-hat had passed the porch. Mr. Helstone and his clerk were in the vestry.

The bells ceased—the reading-desk was filled—the doors were closed—the service commenced.

Void stood the rectory pew—she was not there. Martin scorned her.

"Worthless thing! vapid thing! commonplace humbug! Like all other girls—weakly, selfish,

shallow!"

Such was Martin's liturgy.

"She is not like our picture. Her eyes are not large and expressive; her nose is not straight, delicate, Hellenic; her mouth has not that charm I thought it had, which I imagined could beguile me of sullenness in my worst moods. What is she? A thread-paper, a doll, a toy, a
girl
, in short."

So absorbed was the young cynic he forgot to rise from his knees at the proper place, and was still

in an exemplary attitude of devotion when, the litany over, the first hymn was given out. To be so caught did not contribute to soothe him. He started up red (for he was as sensitive to ridicule as any

girl). To make the matter worse, the church door had reopened, and the aisles were filling: patter, patter, patter, a hundred little feet trotted in. It was the Sunday scholars. According to Briarfield winter custom, these children had till now been kept where there was a warm stove, and only led into church

just before the communion and sermon.

The little ones were settled first, and at last, when the boys and the younger girls were all arranged

—when the organ was swelling high, and the choir and congregation were rising to uplift a spiritual

song—a tall class of young women came quietly in, closing the procession. Their teacher, having seen them seated, passed into the rectory pew. The French-gray cloak and small beaver bonnet were

known to Martin; it was the very costume his eyes had ached to catch. Miss Helstone had not suffered

the storm to prove an impediment. After all, she was come to church. Martin probably whispered his

satisfaction to his hymn book; at any rate, he therewith hid his face two minutes.

Satisfied or not, he had time to get very angry with her again before the sermon was over. She had

never once looked his way; at least he had not been so lucky as to encounter a glance.

"If," he said—"if she takes no notice of me, if she shows I am not in her thoughts, I shall have a worse, a meaner opinion of her than ever. Most despicable would it be to come for the sake of those

sheep-faced Sunday scholars, and not for my sake or that long skeleton Moore's."

The sermon found an end; the benediction was pronounced; the congregation dispersed. She had not been near him.

Now, indeed, as Martin set his face homeward, he felt that the sleet was sharp and the east wind cold.

His nearest way lay through some fields. It was a dangerous, because an untrodden way. He did not

care; he would take it. Near the second stile rose a clump of trees. Was that an umbrella waiting there?

Yes, an umbrella, held with evident difficulty against the blast; behind it fluttered a French-gray cloak.

Martin grinned as he toiled up the steep, encumbered field, difficult to the foot as a slope in the upper realms of Etna. There was an inimitable look in his face when, having gained the stile, he seated himself coolly thereupon, and thus opened a conference which, for his own part, he was willing to prolong indefinitely.

"I think you had better strike a bargain. Exchange me for Mrs. Pryor."

"I was not sure whether you would come this way, Martin, but I thought I would run the chance.

There is no such thing as getting a quiet word spoken in the church or churchyard."

"Will you agree?—make over Mrs. Pryor to my mother, and put me in her skirts?"

"As if I could understand you! What puts Mrs. Pryor into your head?"

"You call her 'mamma,' don't you?"

"She
is
my mamma."

"Not possible—or so inefficient, so careless a mamma; I should make a five times better one. You

may
laugh. I have no objection to see you laugh. Your teeth—I hate ugly teeth; but yours are as pretty as a pearl necklace, and a necklace of which the pearls are very fair, even, and well matched too."

"Martin, what now? I thought the Yorkes never paid compliments?"

"They have not done till this generation; but I feel as if it were my vocation to turn out a new variety of the Yorke species. I am rather tired of my own ancestors. We have traditions going back for

four ages—tales of Hiram, which was the son of Hiram, which was the son of Samuel, which was the

son of John, which was the son of Zerubbabel Yorke. All, from Zerubbabel down to the last Hiram,

were such as you see my father. Before that there was a Godfrey. We have his picture; it hangs in Moore's bedroom; it is like me. Of his character we know nothing; but I am sure it was different to

his descendants. He has long, curling dark hair; he is carefully and cavalierly dressed. Having said that he is like me, I need not add that he is handsome."

"You are not handsome, Martin."

"No; but wait awhile—just let me take my time. I mean to begin from this day to cultivate, to polish, and we shall see."

"You are a very strange, a very unaccountable boy, Martin. But don't imagine you ever will be handsome; you cannot."

"I mean to try. But we were talking about Mrs. Pryor. She must be the most unnatural mamma in existence, coolly to let her daughter come out in this weather. Mine was in such a rage because I would go to church; she was fit to fling the kitchen brush after me."

"Mamma was very much concerned about me; but I am afraid I was obstinate. I
would
go."

"To see me?"

"Exactly; I thought of nothing else. I greatly feared the snow would hinder you from coming. You

don't know how pleased I was to see you all by yourself in the pew."

"
I
came to fulfil my duty, and set the parish a good example. And so you were obstinate, were you?

I should like to see you obstinate, I should. Wouldn't I have you in good discipline if I owned you? Let me take the umbrella."

"I can't stay two minutes; our dinner will be ready."

"And so will ours; and we have always a hot dinner on Sundays. Roast goose to-day, with apple-pie

and rice-pudding. I always contrive to know the bill of fare. Well, I like these things uncommonly; but

I'll make the sacrifice, if you will."

"We have a cold dinner. My uncle will allow no unnecessary cooking on the Sabbath. But I must return; the house would be in commotion if I failed to appear."

"So will Briarmains, bless you! I think I hear my father sending out the overlooker and five of the dyers, to look in six directions for the body of his prodigal son in the snow; and my mother repenting

her of her many misdeeds towards me, now I am gone."

"Martin, how is Mr. Moore?"

"
That
is what you came for, just to say that word."

"Come, tell me quickly."

"Hang him! he is no worse; but as ill-used as ever—mewed up, kept in solitary confinement. They

mean to make either an idiot or a maniac of him, and take out a commission of lunacy. Horsfall starves him; you saw how thin he was."

"You were very good the other day, Martin."

"What day? I am always good—a model."

"When will you be so good again?"

"I see what you are after; but you'll not wheedle me—I am no cat's-paw."

"But it must be done. It is quite a right thing, and a necessary thing."

"How you encroach! Remember, I managed the matter of my own free will before."

"And you will again."

"I won't. The business gave me far too much trouble. I like my ease."

"Mr. Moore wishes to see me, Martin, and I wish to see him."

"I dare say" (coolly).

"It is too bad of your mother to exclude his friends."

"Tell her so."

"His own relations."

"Come and blow her up."

"You know that would advance nothing. Well, I shall stick to my point. See him I will. If you won't help me, I'll manage without help."

"Do; there is nothing like self-reliance, self-dependence."

"I have no time to reason with you now; but I consider you provoking. Good-morning."

Away she went, the umbrella shut, for she could not carry it against the wind.

"She is not vapid; she is not shallow," said Martin. "I shall like to watch, and mark how she will work her way without help. If the storm were not of snow, but of fire—such as came refreshingly down on the cities of the plain—she would go through it to procure five minutes' speech of that Moore. Now, I consider I have had a pleasant morning. The disappointments got time on; the fears and fits of anger only made that short discourse pleasanter, when it came at last. She expected to coax

me at once. She'll not manage that in one effort. She shall come again, again, and yet again. It would

please me to put her in a passion—to make her cry. I want to discover how far she will go—what she

will do and dare—to get her will. It seems strange and new to find one human being thinking so much

about another as she thinks about Moore. But it is time to go home; my appetite tells me the hour.

Won't I walk into that goose? and we'll try whether Matthew or I shall get the largest cut of the apple-

pie to-day."

35

Chapter

WHEREIN MATTERS MAKE SOME PROGRESS, BUT NOT

MUCH.

Martin had planned well. He had laid out a dexterously concerted scheme for his private amusement.

But older and wiser schemers than he are often doomed to see their finest-spun projects swept to annihilation by the sudden broom of Fate, that fell housewife whose red arm none can control. In the

present instance this broom was manufactured out of the tough fibres of Moore's own stubborn purpose, bound tight with his will. He was now resuming his strength, and making strange head against Mrs. Horsfall. Each morning he amazed that matron with a fresh astonishment. First he discharged her from her valet duties; he would dress himself. Then he refused the coffee she brought

him; he would breakfast with the family. Lastly, he forbade her his chamber. On the same day, amidst

the outcries of all the women in the place, he put his head out of doors. The morning after, he followed Mr. Yorke to his counting-house, and requested an envoy to fetch a chaise from the Red House Inn. He was resolved, he said, to return home to the Hollow that very afternoon. Mr. Yorke, instead of opposing, aided and abetted him. The chaise was sent for, though Mrs. Yorke declared the

step would be his death. It came. Moore, little disposed to speak, made his purse do duty for his tongue. He expressed his gratitude to the servants and to Mrs. Horsfall by the chink of his coin. The

latter personage approved and understood this language perfectly; it made amends for all previous contumacy. She and her patient parted the best friends in the world.

The kitchen visited and soothed, Moore betook himself to the parlour. He had Mrs. Yorke to appease; not quite so easy a task as the pacification of her housemaids. There she sat plunged in sullen dudgeon, the gloomiest speculations on the depths of man's ingratitude absorbing her thoughts. He drew near and bent over her; she was obliged to look up, if it were only to bid him "avaunt." There was beauty still in his pale, wasted features; there was earnestness and a sort of sweetness—for he was

smiling—in his hollow eyes.

"Good-bye!" he said, and as he spoke the smile glittered and melted. He had no iron mastery of his sensations now; a trifling emotion made itself apparent in his present weak state.