“Can she marry him?”
“You will see.”
“I want to know his name, Cary.”
“Guess it.”
“Is it anyone in this neighbourhood?”
“Yes, in Briarfield parish.”
“Then it is some person unworthy of her. I don’t know a soul in Briarfield parish her equal.”
“Guess.”
“Impossible. I suppose she is under a delusion, and will plunge into some absurdity, after all.”
Caroline smiled.
“Do you approve the choice?” asked Moore.
“Quite, quite.”
“Then I am puzzled; for the head which owns this bounteous fall of hazel curls is an excellent little thinking machine, most accurate in its working. It boasts a correct, steady judgment, inherited from ‘mamma,’ I suppose.”
“And I quite approve, and mamma was charmed.”
“ ‘Mamma’ charmed—Mrs. Pryor! It can’t be romantic, then?”
“It is romantic, but it is also right.”
“Tell me, Cary—tell me out of pity; I am too weak to be tantalized.”
“You shall be tantalized—it will do you no harm; you are not so weak as you pretend.”
“I have twice this evening had some thoughts of falling on the floor at your feet.”
“You had better not. I shall decline to help you up.”
“And worshipping you downright. My mother was a Roman Catholic. You look like the loveliest of her pictures of the Virgin. I think I will embrace her faith and kneel and adore.”
“Robert, Robert, sit still; don’t be absurd. I will go to Hortense if you commit extravagances.”
“You have stolen my senses. Just now nothing will come into my mind but les litanies de la sainte Vièrge. Rose céleste, reine des anges!”
“Tour d’ivoire, maison d’or—is not that the jargon? Well, sit down quietly, and guess your riddle.”
“But ‘mamma’ charmed—there’s the puzzle.”
“I’ll tell you what mamma said when I told her. ‘Depend upon it, my dear, such a choice will make the happiness of Miss Keeldar’s life.’ ”
“I’ll guess once, and no more. It is old Helstone. She is going to be your aunt.”
“I’ll tell my uncle; I’ll tell Shirley!” cried Caroline, laughing gleefully. “Guess again, Robert; your blunders are charming.”
“It is the parson—Hall.”
“Indeed, no; he is mine, if you please.”
“Yours! Ay, the whole generation of women in Briarfield seem to have made an idol of that priest. I wonder why; he is bald, sand-blind, gray-haired.”
“Fanny will be here to fetch me before you have solved the riddle, if you don’t make haste.”
“I’ll guess no more—I am tired; and then I don’t care. Miss Keeldar may marry le grand Turc for me.”
“Must I whisper?”
“That you must, and quickly. Here comes Hortense; come near, a little nearer, my own Lina. I care for the whisper more than the words.”
She whispered. Robert gave a start, a flash of the eye, a brief laugh. Miss Moore entered, and Sarah followed behind, with information that Fanny was come. The hour of converse was over.
Robert found a moment to exchange a few more whispered sentences. He was waiting at the foot of the staircase as Caroline descended after putting on her shawl.
“Must I call Shirley a noble creature now?” he asked.
“If you wish to speak the truth, certainly.”
“Must I forgive her?”
“Forgive her? Naughty Robert! Was she in the wrong, or were you?”
“Must I at length love her downright, Cary?”
Caroline looked keenly up, and made a movement towards him, something between the loving and the petulant.
“Only give the word, and I’ll try to obey you.”
“Indeed, you must not love her; the bare idea is perverse.”
“But then she is handsome, peculiarly handsome. Hers is a beauty that grows on you. You think her but graceful when you first see her; you discover her to be beautiful when you have known her for a year.”
“It is not you who are to say these things. Now, Robert, be good.”
“O Cary, I have no love to give. Were the goddess of beauty to woo me, I could not meet her advances. There is no heart which I can call mine in this breast.”
“So much the better; you are a great deal safer without. Good night.”
“Why must you always go, Lina, at the very instant when I most want you to stay?”
“Because you most wish to retain when you are most certain to lose.”
“Listen; one other word. Take care of your own heart—do you hear me?”
“There is no danger.”
“I am not convinced of that. The Platonic parson, for instance.”
“Who—Malone?”
“Cyril Hall. I owe more than one twinge of jealousy to that quarter.”
“As to you, you have been flirting with Miss Mann. She showed me the other day a plant you had given her.—Fanny, I am ready.”
XXXVI
Written in the Schoolroom
Louis Moore’s doubts respecting the immediate evacuation of Fieldhead by Mr. Sympson turned out to be perfectly well founded. The very next day after the grand quarrel about Sir Philip Nunnely a sort of reconciliation was patched up between uncle and niece. Shirley, who could never find it in her heart to be or to seem inhospitable (except in the single instance of Mr. Donne), begged the whole party to stay a little longer. She begged in such earnest it was evident she wished it for some reason. They took her at her word. Indeed, the uncle could not bring himself to leave her quite unwatched—at full liberty to marry Robert Moore as soon as that gentleman should be able (Mr. Sympson piously prayed this might never be the case) to reassert his supposed pretensions to her hand. They all stayed.
In his first rage against all the house of Moore, Mr. Sympson had so conducted himself towards Mr. Louis that that gentleman—patient of labour or suffering, but intolerant of coarse insolence—had promptly resigned his post, and could now be induced to resume and retain it only till such time as the family should quit Yorkshire. Mrs. Sympson’s entreaties prevailed with him thus far; his own attachment to his pupil constituted an additional motive for concession; and probably he had a third motive, stronger than either of the other two. Probably he would have found it very hard indeed to leave Fieldhead just now.
Things went on for some time pretty smoothly. Miss Keeldar’s health was reestablished; her spirits resumed
