“And would you have me truckle to them?”
“No, not for the world. I never wish you to lower yourself; but somehow I cannot help thinking it unjust to include all poor working-people under the general and insulting name of ‘the mob,’ and continually to think of them and treat them haughtily.”
“You are a little democrat, Caroline. If your uncle knew, what would he say?”
“I rarely talk to my uncle, as you know, and never about such things. He thinks everything but sewing and cooking above women’s comprehension, and out of their line.”
“And do you fancy you comprehend the subjects on which you advise me?”
“As far as they concern you, I comprehend them. I know it would be better for you to be loved by your workpeople than to be hated by them, and I am sure that kindness is more likely to win their regard than pride. If you were proud and cold to me and Hortense, should we love you? When you are cold to me, as you are sometimes, can I venture to be affectionate in return?”
“Now, Lina, I’ve had my lesson both in languages and ethics, with a touch on politics; it is your turn. Hortense tells me you were much taken by a little piece of poetry you learned the other day, a piece by poor André Chénier — ‘La Jeune Captive.’ Do you remember it still?”
“I think so.”
“Repeat it, then. Take your time and mind your accent; especially let us have no English u’s.”
Caroline, beginning in a low, rather tremulous voice, but gaining courage as she proceeded, repeated the sweet verses of Chénier. The last three stanzas she rehearsed well.
“Mon beau voyage encore est si loin de sa fin!
Je pars, et des ormeaux qui bordent le chemin
J’ai passé le premiers à peine.
Au banquet de la vie à peine commencé,
Un instant seulement mes lèvres ont pressé
La coupe en mes mains encore pleine.
“Je ne suis qu’au printemps — je veux voir la moisson;
Et comme le soleil, de saison en saison,
Je veux achever mon année,
Brillante sur ma tige, et l’honneur du jardin
Je n’ai vu luire encore que les feux du matin,
Je veux achever ma journée!”
Moore listened at first with his eyes cast down, but soon he furtively raised them. Leaning back in his chair he could watch Caroline without her perceiving where his gaze was fixed. Her cheek had a colour, her eyes a light, her countenance an expression this evening which would have made even plain features striking; but there was not the grievous defect of plainness to pardon in her case. The sunshine was not shed on rough barrenness; it fell on soft bloom. Each lineament was turned with grace; the whole aspect was pleasing. At the present moment — animated, interested, touched — she might be called beautiful. Such a face was calculated to awaken not only the calm sentiment of esteem, the distant one of admiration, but some feeling more tender, genial, intimate — friendship, perhaps, affection, interest. When she had finished, she turned to Moore, and met his eye.
“Is that pretty well repeated?” she inquired, smiling like any happy, docile child.
“I really don’t know.”
“Why don’t you know? Have you not listened?”
“Yes — and looked. You are fond of poetry, Lina?”
“When I meet with real poetry, I cannot rest till I have learned it by heart, and so made it partly mine.”
Mr. Moore now sat silent for several minutes. It struck nine o’clock. Sarah entered, and said that Mr. Helstone’s servant was come for Miss Caroline.
“Then the evening is gone already,” she observed, “and it will be long, I suppose, before I pass another here.”
Hortense had been for some time nodding over her knitting; fallen into a doze now, she made no response to the remark.
“You would have no objection to come here oftener of an evening?” inquired Robert, as he took her folded mantle from the side-table, where it still lay, and carefully wrapped it round her.
“I like to come here; but I have no desire to be intrusive. I am not hinting to be asked; you must understand that.”
“Oh! I understand thee, child. You sometimes lecture me for wishing to be rich, Lina; but if I were rich, you should live here always — at any rate, you should live with me wherever my habitation might be.”
“That would be pleasant; and if you were poor — ever so poor — it would still be pleasant. Goodnight, Robert.”
“I promised to walk with you up to the rectory.”
“I know you did; but I thought you had forgotten, and I hardly knew how to remind you, though I wished to do it. But would you like to go? It is a cold night, and as Fanny is come, there is no necessity — — “
“Here is your muff; don’t wake Hortense — come.”
The half mile to the rectory was soon traversed. They parted in the garden without kiss, scarcely with a pressure of hands; yet Robert sent his cousin in excited and joyously troubled. He had been singularly kind to her that day — not in phrase, compliment, profession, but in manner, in look, and in soft and friendly tones.
For himself, he came home grave, almost morose. As he stood leaning on his own yard-gate, musing in the watery moonlight all alone, the hushed, dark mill before him, the hill-environed hollow round, he exclaimed, abruptly, —
“This won’t do! There’s weakness — there’s downright ruin in all this. However,” he added, dropping his voice, “the frenzy is quite temporary. I know it very well; I have had it before. It will be gone tomorrow.”
CHAPTER VII.
THE CURATES AT TEA.
Caroline Helstone was just eighteen years old, and at eighteen the true narrative of life is yet to be commenced. Before that time we sit listening to a tale, a marvellous fiction, delightful sometimes, and sad sometimes, almost always unreal. Before that time our world is heroic, its inhabitants half-divine or semi-demon; its scenes are dream-scenes; darker woods and stranger hills, brighter skies, more dangerous waters, sweeter flowers, more tempting fruits, wider plains, drearier deserts, sunnier fields than are found in nature, overspread our enchanted globe. What a moon we gaze on before that time! How the trembling of our hearts at her aspect bears witness to its unutterable beauty! As to our sun, it is a burning heaven — the world of gods.
At that time, at eighteen, drawing near the confines of illusive, void dreams, Elf-land lies behind us, the shores of Reality rise in front. These shores are yet distant; they look so blue, soft, gentle, we long to reach them. In sunshine we see a greenness beneath the azure, as of spring meadows; we catch glimpses of silver lines, and imagine the roll of living waters. Could we but reach this land, we think to hunger and thirst no more; whereas many a wilderness, and often the flood of death, or some stream of sorrow as cold and almost as black as death, is to be crossed ere true bliss can be tasted. Every joy that life gives must be earned ere it is secured; and how hardly earned, those only know who have wrestled for great prizes. The heart’s blood must gem with red beads the brow of the combatant, before the wreath of victory rustles over it.
At eighteen we are not aware of this. Hope, when she smiles on us, and promises happiness tomorrow, is implicitly believed; Love, when he comes wandering like a lost angel to our door, is at once admitted, welcomed, embraced. His quiver is not seen; if his arrows penetrate, their wound is like a thrill of new life. There are no fears of poison,