The Worlds Greatest Books - Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
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To-night he stood on the kitchen hearth of Hollow's cottage, after his
return from Whinbury cloth-market, and Caroline, who had come over to
the cottage from the vicarage, stood beside him. Looking down, his
glance rested on an uplifted face, flushed, smiling, happy, shaded with
silky curls, lit with fine eyes. Moore placed his hand a moment on his
young cousin's shoulder, stooped, and left a kiss on her forehead.
"Are you certain, Robert, you are not fretting about your frames and
your business, and the war?" she asked.
"Not just now."
"Are you positive you don't feel Hollow's cottage too small for you, and
narrow, and dismal?"
"At this moment, no."
"Can you affirm that you are not bitter at heart because rich and great
people forget you?"
"No more questions. I am not anxious to curry favour with rich and great
people. I only want means--a position--a career."
"Which your own talent and goodness shall win for you. You were made to
be great; you shall be great."
"Ah! You judge me with your heart; you should judge me with your head."
It was the dark days of the Napoleonic wars, when the cloth of the West
Riding was shut out from the markets of the world, and ruin threatened
the manufacturers, while the introduction of machinery so reduced the
numbers of the factory hands that desperation was born of misery and
famine.
Robert Moore, of Hollow's Mill, was one of the most unpopular of the
mill-owners, partly because he haughtily declined to conciliate the
working class, and partly because of his foreign demeanour, for he was
the son of a Flemish mother, had been educated abroad, and had only come
home recently to attempt to retrieve, by modern trading methods, the
fallen fortune of the ancient firm of his Yorkshire forefathers.
The last trade outrage of the district had been the destruction on
Stilbro' Moor of the new machines that were being brought by night to
his mill.
Caroline Helstone was eighteen years old, drawing near the confines of
illusive dreams. Elf-land behind her, the shores of Reality in front. To
herself she said that night, after Robert had walked home with her to
the rectory gate: "I love Robert, and I feel sure that he loves me. I
have thought so many a time before; to-day I felt it."
And Robert, leaning later on his own yard gate, with the hushed, dark
mill before him, exclaimed: "This won't do. There's weakness--there's
downright ruin in all this."
For Caroline Helstone was a fatherless and portionless girl, entirely
dependent on her uncle, the vicar of Briarfield.
_II.--The Master of Hollows Mill_
"Come, child, put away your books. Lock them up! Get your bonnet on; I
want you to make a call with me."
"With you, uncle?"
Thus the Rev. Matthewson Helstone, the imperious little vicar of
Briarfield, to his niece, who, obeyed his unusual request, asked where
they were going.
"To Fieldhead," replied the Rev. Matthewson Helstone. "We are going to
see Miss Shirley Keeldar."
"Miss Keeldar! Is she come to Yorkshire?"
"She is; and will reside for a time on her property."
The Keeldars were the lords of the manor, and their property included
the mill rented by Mr. Robert Moore.
The visitors were received at Fieldhead by a middle-aged nervous English
lady, to whom Caroline at once found it natural to talk with a gentle
ease, until Miss Shirley Keeldar, entering the room, introduced them to
Mrs. Pryor, who, she added, "was my governess, and is still my friend."
Shirley Keeldar was no ugly heiress. She was agreeable to the eye,
gracefully made, and her face, pale, intelligent, and of varied
expression, also possessed the charm of grace.
The interview had not proceeded far before Shirley hoped they would
often have the presence of Miss Helstone at Fieldhead; a request
repeated by Mrs. Pryor.
"You are distinguished more than you think," said Shirley, "for Mrs.
Pryor often tantalises me by the extreme caution of her judgments. I
have entreated her to say what she thinks of my gentleman-tenant, Mr.
Moore, but she evades an answer. What are Mr. Moore's politics?"
"Those of a tradesman," returned the rector; "narrow, selfish, and
unpatriotic."
"He looks a gentleman, and it pleases me to think he is such."
"And decidedly he is," joined in Caroline, in distinct tones.
"You are his friend, at any rate," said Shirley, flashing a searching
glance at the speaker.
"I am both his friend and relative."
"I like that romantic Hollow with all my heart--the old mill, and the
white cottage, and the counting-house."
"And the trade?" inquired the rector.
"Half my income comes from the works in that Hollow."
"Don't enter into partnership, that's all."
"You've put it into my head!" she exclaimed, with a joyous laugh. "It
will never get out; thank you."
Some days later, the new friends were walking together towards the
rectory when the talk turned on the qualities which prove that a man can
be trusted.
"Do you know what soothsayers I would consult?" asked Caroline.
"Let me hear."
"Neither man nor woman, elderly nor young; the little Irish beggar that
comes barefoot to my door; the mouse that steals out of the cranny in
the wainscot; the bird that, in frost and snow, pecks at the window for
a crumb. I know somebody to whose knee the black cat loves to climb,
against whose shoulder and cheek it loves to purr. The old dog always
comes out of his kennel and wags his tail when somebody passes."
"Is it Robert?"
"It is Robert."
"Handsome fellow!" said Shirley, with enthusiasm. "He is both graceful
and good."
"I was sure that you would see that he was. When I first looked at your
face I knew that you would."
"I was well inclined to him before I saw him; I liked him when I did see
him; I admire him now."
When they kissed each other and parted at the rectory gate, Shirley
said:
"Caroline Helstone, I have never in my whole life been able to talk to a
young lady as I have talked to you this morning."
"This is the worst passage I have come to yet," said Caroline to
herself. "Still, I was prepared for it. I gave Robert up to Shirley the
first day I heard she was come."
_III.--Caroline Finds a Mother_
The Whitsuntide school treats were being held, and it was Shirley
Keeldar who, at the head of the tea-table, kept a place for Robert
Moore, and whose temper became clouded when he was late. When he did
come he was hard and preoccupied, and presently the two girls noticed he
was shaking hands and renewing a broken friendship with a militant
rector in the playing field, and that the more vigorous of their
manufacturing neighbours had gathered in a group to talk.
"There is some mystery afloat," said Shirley. "Some event is expected,
some preparation to be made; and Robert's secrecy vexes me. See, they
are all shaking hands with emphasis, as if ratifying some league."
"We must be on the alert," said Caroline, "and perhaps we shall find a
clue."
Later, the rector came to them to mention that he would not sleep at
home that night, and Shirley had better stay with Caroline--arrangements
which they could not but connect with a glimpse of martial scarlet they
had observed on a distant moor earlier in the day, and the passage, by a
quiet route, of six cavalry soldiers.
So the girls sat up that night and watched, until, close upon midnight,
they heard the tramp of hundreds of marching feet. The mob halted by the
rectory for a muttered consultation, and then moved cautiously along
towards the Hollow's Mill.
In vain did the two watchers try to cross to the mill by fenced fields
and give the alarm. When they reached a point from which they could
overlook the mill, the attack had already begun, and the yard-gates were
being forced. A volley of stones smashed every window, but the mill
remained mute as a mausoleum.
"He cannot be alone," whispered Caroline.
"I would stake all I have that he is as little alone as he is alarmed,"
responded Shirley.
Shots were discharged by the rioters. Had the defenders waited for this
signal? It seemed so. The inert mill woke, and a volley of musketry
pealed sharp through the Hollow. It was difficult in the darkness to
distinguish what was going on now. The mill yard was full of
battle-movement; there was struggling, rushing, trampling, and shouting,
and then the rioters, who had never dreamed of encountering an organised
defence, fell back defeated, but leaving the premises a blot of
desolation on the fresh front of the summer dawn.
Caroline Helstone now fell into a state of depression and physical
weakness which she tried in vain to combat.
"It is scarcely living to measure time as I do at the rectory," she
confessed one day to Mrs. Pryor, who had become her instructress and
friend. "The hours pass, and I get over them somehow, but I do not live
I endure existence, but I barely enjoy it. I want to go away from this
place and forget it."
"You know I am at present residing with Miss Keeldar in the capacity of
companion," Mrs. Pryor replied. "Should she marry, and that she will
marry ere long many circumstances induce me to conclude, I shall cease
to be necessary to her. I possess a small independency, arising partly
from my own savings and partly from a legacy. Whenever I leave Fieldhead
I shall take a house of my own. I have no relations to invite to close
intimacy. To you, my dear, I need not say I am attached. With you I am
happier than I have been with any living thing. You will come to me
then, Caroline?"
"Indeed, I love you," was the reply, "and I should like to live with
you."
"All I have I would leave to you."
"But, my dear madam, I have no claim on this generosity--"
Mrs. Pryor now displayed such agitation that it was Caroline who had to
become comforter.
The sequel to this scene appeared when Caroline sank into so weak a
state that constant nursing was needed, and Mrs. Pryor established
herself at the rectory.
One day, when the watchful nurse could not forbear to weep--her full
heart overflowing--her patient asked:
"Do you think I shall not get better? I do not feel very ill--only
weak."
"But your mind, Caroline; your mind is crushed; your heart is broken;
you have been left so desolate."
"I sometimes think if an abundant gush of happiness came on me, I could
revive yet."
"You love me, Caroline?"
"Inexpressibly. I sometimes feel as if I could almost grow to your
heart."
"Then, if you love me so, it will be neither shock nor pain for you to
know that you are my own child."
"Mrs. Pryor! That is--that means--you have adopted me?"
"It means that I am your true mother."
"But Mrs. James Helstone--but my father's wife, whom I do not remember
to have seen, she is my mother?"
"She is your mother," Mrs. Pryor assured her. "James Helstone was my
husband."
"Is what I hear true? Is it no dream? My own mother! And one I can be so
fond of! If you are my mother, the world is all changed to me."
The offspring nestled to the parent, who gathered her to her bosom,
covered her with noiseless kisses, and murmured love over her like a
cushat fostering its young.
_IV.--An Old Acquaintance_
An uncle of Shirley Keeldar, Sympson by name, now came with his family
to stay at Feidhead, and accompanying them, as tutor to a crippled son
Harry, was Louis Moore, Robert's younger brother.
"Shirley," said Caroline one day as they sat in the summer-house, "you
are a singular being. I thought I knew you quite well; I begin to find
myself mistaken. Did you know that my cousin Louis was tutor in your
uncle's family before the Sympsons came down here?"
"Yes, of course; I knew it well."
"How chanced it that you never mentioned it to me?" asked Caroline. "You
knew Mrs. Pryor was my mother, and were silent, and now here again is
another secret."
"I never made it a secret; you never asked me who Henry's tutor was, or
I would have told you."
"I am puzzled about more things than one in this matter. You don't like
poor Louis--why? Do you wish that Robert's brother were more highly
placed?"
"Robert's brother, indeed!" was the exclamation in a tone of scorn, and,
with a movement of proud impatience, Shirley snatched a rose from a
branch peeping through the open lattice. "Robert's brother! Robert's
brother is a topic on which you and I shall quarrel if we discuss it
often; so drop it henceforth and for ever."
She would have understood the meaning of that outburst better if she had
heard a conversation in the schoolroom a few days later between Louis
Moore and Shirley.
"For two years," he was saying, "I had once a pupil who grew very dear
to me. Henry is dear, but she was dearer. Henry never gives me trouble;
she--well--she did. She spilled the draught from my cup; and having
taken from me my peace of mind and ease of life, she took from me
herself, quite coolly--just as if, when she was gone, the world would be
all the same to me. At the end of two years it fell out that we
encountered again. She received me haughtily; but then she was
inconsistent: she tantalised as before. When I thought of her only as a
lofty stranger, she would suddenly show me a glimpse of loving
simplicity, warm me with such a beam of reviving sympathy that I could
no more shut my heart to her image than I could close that door against
her presence. Explain why she distressed me so."
"She could not bear to be quite outcast," was the docile reply.
Caroline would have understood still more could she have read what Louis
Moore wrote in his diary that night: "What a child she is sometimes!
What an unsophisticated, untaught thing! I worship her perfections; but
it is her faults, or at least her foibles, that bring her near to me. If
I were a king and she were a housemaid, my eye would recognise her
qualities."
Robert Moore had long been absent from Briarfield, and no one knew why
he stayed away. It could not be that he was afraid, for he had shown the
utmost fearlessness in bringing to justice and transportation the four
ringleaders in the attack on the mill. He had now returned, and one day
as he rode over Rushedge Moore from Stilbro' market with a bluff
neighbour, he unbosomed himself of the reason why he had remained thus
long from home.
"I certainly believed she loved me," he said. "I have seen her eyes
sparkle when she found me out in a crowd. When my name was uttered she
changed countenance; I knew she did. She was cordial to me; she took an
interest in me; she was anxious about me. I saw power in her; I owed her
gratitude. She aided me substantially and effectively with a loan of
five thousand pounds. Could I believe she loved me? With an admiration
dedicated entirely to myself I smiled at her being the first to love and
to show it. That whip of yours seems to have a good heavy handle. Knock
me out of the saddle with it if you choose, for I never felt as if
nature meant her to be my other and better self. Yet I walked up to
Fieldhead and in a hard, firm fashion offered myself--my fine person--
with all my debts, of course, as a settlement. There was no
misunderstanding her aspect and voice as she indignantly ejaculated:
'God bless me!' Her eyes lightened as she said: 'You have pained me; you
have outraged me; you have deceived me. I did respect, I did admire, I
did like you, and you would immolate me to that mill--your Moloch!' I
was obliged to say, 'Forgive me!' To which she replied, 'I could if
there was not myself to forgive too, but to mislead a sagacious man so
far I must have done wrong.' She added, 'I am sorry for what has
happened.' So was I, God knows."
It was after this talk that Moore was shot down by a concealed assassin.
_V.--Love Scenes_
On the very night that Robert Moore arrived at his cottage in the
Hollow, after being nursed back to life in the house of the neighbour
who was with him when he was shot by a fanatical revolutionist, he
scribbled a note to ask his cousin Caroline to call, as was her wont
before the days of misunderstanding.
"Caroline, you look as if you had heard good tidings," said Robert.
"What is the source of the sunshine I perceive about you?"
"For one thing, I am happy in mamma. I love her more tenderly every day.
And I am glad you are better, and that we are friends."
"Cary, I mean to tell you some day a thing about myself that is not to
my credit. I cannot bear that you should think better of me than I
deserve."
"But I believe I know all about it. I inferred something, gathered more
from rumour, and made out the rest by instinct."
"I wanted to marry Shirley for the sake of her money, and she refused me
scornfully; you needn't prick your fingers with your needle, that is the
plain truth--and I had not an emotion of tenderness for her."
"Then, Robert, it was very wicked in you to want to marry her."
"And very mean, my little pastor; but, Cary, I had no love to give--no
heart that I could call my own."
It is Louis who is once more speaking to Shirley in the schoolroom.
"For the first time, Shirley, I stand before you--myself. I fling off
the tutor and introduce you to the man. My pupil."
"My master," was the low answer.
"I have to tell you that for five years you have been growing into your
tutor's heart, and that you are rooted there now. I have to declare that
you have bewitched me, in spite of sense and experience, and difference
of station and estate, and that I love you with all my life and
strength."
"Dear Louis, be faithful to me; never leave me. I don't care for life
unless I pass it at your side." She looked up with a sweet, open,
earnest countenance. "Teach me and help me to be good. Show me how to
sustain my part. Your judgment is well-balanced; your heart is kind; I
know you are wise. Be my companion through life, my guide where I am
ignorant, my master where I am faulty."
The Orders in Council are repealed, the blockaded ports are thrown open,
and the ringers in Briarfield belfry crack a bell that remains dissonant
to this day. Caroline Helstone is in the garden listening to this call
to be gay when a hand steals quietly round her waist.
"Caroline," says a manly voice. "I have sought you for an audience. The
repeal of the Orders in Council saves me. Now I shall not turn bankrupt,
now I shall be no longer poor, now I can pay my debts; now all the cloth
I have in my warehouses will be taken off my hands. This day lays my
fortune on a foundation on which for the first time I can securely
build."
"Your heavy difficulties are lifted?"
"They are lifted; I breathe; I can act. Now I can take more workmen,
give better wages, be less selfish. Now, Caroline, I can have a home
that is truly mine, and seek a wife. Will Caroline forget all I have
made her suffer; forget my poor ambition; my sordid schemes? Will she
let me prove I can love faithfully? Is Caroline mine?"
His hand was in hers still, and a gentle pressure answered him,
"Caroline is yours."
"I love you, Robert," she said simply, and mutely offered a kiss, an
offer of which he took unfair advantage.
* * * * *
Villette
Villette is Brussels, and the experiences of the heroine,
Lucy Snowe, in travelling thither and teaching there are based
on the journeys and the life of Charlotte Bronte when she was
a teacher in the Pensionnat Heger. The principal characters in
the story have been identified, more or less completely, with
people whom the writer knew. Paul Emanuel resembles M. Heger
in many ways, and Madame Beck is a severe portrait of Madame
Heger. Dr. John Graham Bretton is a reflection of George
Smith, Charlotte Bronte's friendly publisher; and Mrs. Bretton
is Mr. Smith's mother. Lucy Snowe is Jane Eyre, otherwise
Charlotte Bronte, placed amidst different surroundings; and
Ginevra Fanshawe was sketched from one of the pupils in
Heger's school. The materials used in "Villette" were taken,
in part, from an earlier work, "The Professor," which suffered
rejection nine times at the hands of publishers. Though there
was similarity of scene, and in some degree of subject, the
two books are in no way identical. "Villette" was published on
January 24, 1853, and achieved an immediate success. It was
felt to have more movement and force than "Shirley," and less
of the crudeness that accompanied the strength of "Jane Eyre."
_I.--Little Miss Caprice_
My godmother lived in a handsome house in the ancient town of Bretton--
the widow of Bretton--and there I, Lucy Snowe, visited her about twice a
year, and liked the visit well, for time flowed smoothly for me at her
side, like the gliding of a full river through a verdant plain.
During one of my visits I was told that the little daughter of a distant
relation of my godmother was coming to be my companion, and well do I
remember the rainy night when, outside the opened door, we saw the
servant Waren with a shawled bundle in his arms and a nurse-girl by his
side.
"Put me down, please," said a small voice. "Take off the shawl; give it
to Harriet, and she can put it away."
The child who gave these orders was a tiny, neat little figure, delicate
as wax, and like a mere doll, though she was six years of age.
Mrs. Bretton drew the little stranger to her when they had entered the
drawing-room, kissed her, and asked: "What is my little one's name?"
"Polly, papa calls her," was the reply.
"And will Polly be content to live with me?"
"Not always; but till papa comes home." Her eyes filled with tears, and,
drawing away from Mrs. Bretton, she added: "I can sit on a stool."
Her emotion at finding herself among strangers was, however, only
expressed by the tiniest occasional sniff, and presently the managing
little body remarked:
"Harriet, I must be put to bed. Ask if you sleep with me."
"No, missy," said the nurse; "you are to share this young lady's
room"--designating me.
"I wish you, ma'am, good-night," said the little creature to Mrs.
Bretton; but she passed me mute.
"Good-night, Polly," I said.
"No need to say good-night, since we sleep in the same chamber," was the
reply.
Paulina Home's father was obliged to travel to recruit his health, and
her mother being dead, Mrs. Bretton had offered to take temporary charge
of the child.
During the two months Paulina stayed with us, the one member of the
household who reconciled her to absence from her father was John Graham
Bretton, Mrs. Bretton's only child, a handsome, whimsical youth of
sixteen. He began by treating her with mock seriousness as a person of
consideration, and before long was more than the Grand Turk in her
estimation; indeed, when a letter came from her father on the Continent,
asking that his little girl might join him there, we wondered how she
would take the news. I found her in the drawing-room engaged with a
picture-book.
"Miss Snowe," said she, "this is a wonderful book. It was given me by
Graham. It tells of distant countries."
"Polly," I interrupted, "should you like to travel?"
"Not just yet," was the prudent answer; "but perhaps when I am grown a
woman I may travel with Graham."
"But would you like to travel now if your papa was with you?"
"What is the good of talking in that silly way?" said she. "What is papa
to you? I was just beginning to be happy."
Then I told her of the letter, and the tidings kept her serious the
whole day. When Graham came home in the evening, she whispered, as she
heard him in the hall: "Tell him by-and-by; tell him I am going."
But Graham, who was preoccupied about some school prize, had to be told
twice before the news took proper hold of his attention. "Polly going?"
he said. "What a pity! Dear little Mouse, I shall be sorry to lose her;
she must come to us again."
On going to bed, I found the child wide awake, and in what she called
"dreadful misery!"
"Paulina," I said, "you should not grieve that Graham does not care for
you so much as you care for him. It must be so."
Her questioning eyes asked why.
"Because he is a boy and you are a girl; he is sixteen and you are only
six; his nature is strong and gay, and yours is otherwise."
"But I love him so much. He should love me a little."
"He does. He is fond of you; you are his favourite."
"Am I Graham's favourite?"
"Yes, more than any little child I know."
The assurance soothed her, and she smiled in her anguish. As I warmed
the shivering, capricious little creature in my arms I wondered how she
would battle with life, and bear its shocks, repulses, and humiliations.
_II.--Madame Beck's School_
The next eight years of my life brought changes. My own household and
that of the Brettons suffered wreck. My friends went abroad and were
lost sight of, and I, after a period of companionship with a woman of
fortune, found myself, at her death, with fifteen pounds in my pocket
looking for a new place. Then it was that I saw mentally within reach
what I had never yet beheld with my bodily eyes--I saw London.
When I awoke there next morning, my spirit shook its always fettered
wings half loose. I had a feeling as if I were at last about to taste
life. In that morning my soul grew as fast as Jonah's gourd. I wandered
whither chance might lead in a still ecstasy of freedom and enjoyment.