LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

the instrument of my doom. I wanted to know further, but he left me with these words, ‘The end is not yet.’”

      “Have you ever seen him since?”

      “About a month afterwards, in returning from market, I encountered him and Moses Barraclough, both in an advanced stage of inebriation. They were praying in frantic sort at the roadside. They accosted me as Satan, bid me avaunt, and clamoured to be delivered from temptation. Again, but a few days ago, Michael took the trouble of appearing at the counting-house door, hatless, in his shirt-sleeves — his coat and castor having been detained at the public-house in pledge. He delivered himself of the comfortable message that he could wish Mr. Moore to set his house in order, as his soul was likely shortly to be required of him.”

      “Do you make light of these things?”

      “The poor man had been drinking for weeks, and was in a state bordering on delirium tremens.”

      “What then? He is the more likely to attempt the fulfilment of his own prophecies.”

      “It would not do to permit incidents of this sort to affect one’s nerves.”

      “Mr. Moore, go home!”

      “So soon?”

      “Pass straight down the fields, not round by the lade and plantations.”

      “It is early yet.”

      “It is late. For my part, I am going in. Will you promise me not to wander in the Hollow tonight?”

      “If you wish it.”

      “I do wish it. May I ask whether you consider life valueless?”

      “By no means. On the contrary, of late I regard my life as invaluable.”

      “Of late?”

      “Existence is neither aimless nor hopeless to me now, and it was both three months ago. I was then drowning, and rather wished the operation over. All at once a hand was stretched to me — such a delicate hand I scarcely dared trust it; its strength, however, has rescued me from ruin.”

      “Are you really rescued?”

      “For the time. Your assistance has given me another chance.”

      “Live to make the best of it. Don’t offer yourself as a target to Michael Hartley; and goodnight!”

      Miss Helstone was under a promise to spend the evening of the next day at Fieldhead. She kept her promise. Some gloomy hours had she spent in the interval. Most of the time had been passed shut up in her own apartment, only issuing from it, indeed, to join her uncle at meals, and anticipating inquiries from Fanny by telling her that she was busy altering a dress, and preferred sewing upstairs, to avoid interruption.

      She did sew. She plied her needle continuously, ceaselessly, but her brain worked faster than her fingers. Again, and more intensely than ever, she desired a fixed occupation, no matter how onerous, how irksome. Her uncle must be once more entreated, but first she would consult Mrs. Pryor. Her head laboured to frame projects as diligently as her hands to plait and stitch the thin texture of the muslin summer dress spread on the little white couch at the foot of which she sat. Now and then, while thus doubly occupied, a tear would fill her eyes and fall on her busy hands; but this sign of emotion was rare and quickly effaced. The sharp pang passed; the dimness cleared from her vision. She would re-thread her needle, rearrange tuck and trimming, and work on.

      Late in the afternoon she dressed herself. She reached Fieldhead, and appeared in the oak parlour just as tea was brought in. Shirley asked her why she came so late.

      “Because I have been making my dress,” said she. “These fine sunny days began to make me ashamed of my winter merino, so I have furbished up a lighter garment.”

      “In which you look as I like to see you,” said Shirley. “You are a ladylike little person, Caroline. — Is she not, Mrs. Pryor?”

      Mrs. Pryor never paid compliments, and seldom indulged in remarks, favourable or otherwise, on personal appearance. On the present occasion she only swept Caroline’s curls from her cheek as she took a seat near her, caressed the oval outline, and observed, “You get somewhat thin, my love, and somewhat pale. Do you sleep well? your eyes have a languid look.” And she gazed at her anxiously.

      “I sometimes dream melancholy dreams,” answered Caroline; “and if I lie awake for an hour or two in the night, I am continually thinking of the rectory as a dreary old place. You know it is very near the churchyard. The back part of the house is extremely ancient, and it is said that the out-kitchens there were once enclosed in the churchyard, and that there are graves under them. I rather long to leave the rectory.”

      “My dear, you are surely not superstitious?”

      “No, Mrs. Pryor; but I think I grow what is called nervous. I see things under a darker aspect than I used to do. I have fears I never used to have — not of ghosts, but of omens and disastrous events; and I have an inexpressible weight on my mind which I would give the world to shake off, and I cannot do it.”

      “Strange!” cried Shirley. “I never feel so.” Mrs. Pryor said nothing.

      “Fine weather, pleasant days, pleasant scenes, are powerless to give me pleasure,” continued Caroline. “Calm evenings are not calm to me. Moonlight, which I used to think mild, now only looks mournful. Is this weakness of mind, Mrs. Pryor, or what is it? I cannot help it. I often struggle against it. I reason; but reason and effort make no difference.”

      “You should take more exercise,” said Mrs. Pryor.

      “Exercise! I exercise sufficiently. I exercise till I am ready to drop.”

      “My dear, you should go from home.”

      “Mrs. Pryor, I should like to go from home, but not on any purposeless excursion or visit. I wish to be a governess, as you have been. It would oblige me greatly if you would speak to my uncle on the subject.”

      “Nonsense!” broke in Shirley. “What an idea! Be a governess! Better be a slave at once. Where is the necessity of it? Why should you dream of such a painful step?”

      “My dear,” said Mrs. Pryor, “you are very young to be a governess, and not sufficiently robust. The duties a governess undertakes are often severe.”

      “And I believe I want severe duties to occupy me.”

      “Occupy you!” cried Shirley. “When are you idle? I never saw a more industrious girl than you. You are always at work. Come,” she continued — “come and sit by my side, and take some tea to refresh you. You don’t care much for my friendship, then, that you wish to leave me?”

      “Indeed I do, Shirley; and I don’t wish to leave you. I shall never find another friend so dear.”

      At which words Miss Keeldar put her hand into Caroline’s with an impulsively affectionate movement, which was well seconded by the expression of her face.

      “If you think so, you had better make much of me,” she said, “and not run away from me. I hate to part with those to whom I am become attached. Mrs. Pryor there sometimes talks of leaving me, and says I might make a more advantageous connection than herself. I should as soon think of exchanging an old-fashioned mother for something modish and stylish. As for you — why, I began to flatter myself we were thoroughly friends; that you liked Shirley almost as well as Shirley likes you, and she does not stint her regard.”

      “I do like Shirley. I like her more and more every day. But that does not make me strong or happy.”

      “And would it make you strong or happy to go and live as a dependent amongst utter strangers? It would not. And the experiment must not be tried; I tell you it would fail. It is not in your nature to bear the desolate life governesses generally lead; you would fall ill. I won’t hear of it.”

      And Miss Keeldar paused, having uttered this prohibition very decidedly. Soon she recommenced, still looking somewhat courroucée,

Скачать книгу