Shirley Part 12

"If you do, Robert, I'll take Shakespeare away; and I'll shrivel up within myself, and put on my bonnet and go home."

"Sit down. Here I begin."

"One minute, if you please, brother," interrupted mademoiselle. "When the gentleman of a family reads, the ladies should always sew.-Caroline, dear child, take your embroidery. You may get three sprigs done to-night."

Caroline looked dismayed. "I can't see by lamp-light; my eyes are tired, and I can't do two things well at once. If I sew, I cannot listen; if I listen, I cannot sew."

"Fi, donc! Quel enfantillage!" began Hortense. Mr. Moore, as usual, suavely interposed.

"Permit her to neglect the embroidery for this evening. I wish her whole attention to be fixed on my accent; and to ensure this, she must follow the reading with her eyes-she must look at the book."

He placed it between them, reposed his arm on the back of Caroline's chair, and thus began to read.

The very first scene in "Coriola.n.u.s" came with smart relish to his intellectual palate, and still as he read he warmed. He delivered the haughty speech of Caius Marcius to the starving citizens with unction; he did not say he thought his irrational pride right, but he seemed to feel it so. Caroline looked up at him with a singular smile.

"There's a vicious point hit already," she said. "You sympathize with that proud patrician who does not sympathize with his famished fellow-men, and insults them. There, go on." He proceeded. The warlike portions did not rouse him much; he said all that was out of date, or should be; the spirit displayed was barbarous; yet the encounter single-handed between Marcius and Tullus Aufidius he delighted in. As he advanced, he forgot to criticise; it was evident he appreciated the power, the truth of each portion; and, stepping out of the narrow line of private prejudices, began to revel in the large picture of human nature, to feel the reality stamped upon the characters who were speaking from that page before him.

He did not read the comic scenes well; and Caroline, taking the book out of his hand, read these parts for him. From her he seemed to enjoy them, and indeed she gave them with a spirit no one could have expected of her, with a pithy expression with which she seemed gifted on the81 spot, and for that brief moment only. It may be remarked, in pa.s.sing, that the general character of her conversation that evening, whether serious or sprightly, grave or gay, was as of something untaught, unstudied, intuitive, fitful-when once gone, no more to be reproduced as it had been than the glancing ray of the meteor, than the tints of the dew-gem, than the colour or form of the sunset cloud, than the fleeting and glittering ripple varying the flow of a rivulet.

Coriola.n.u.s in glory, Coriola.n.u.s in disaster, Coriola.n.u.s banished, followed like giant shades one after the other. Before the vision of the banished man Moore's spirit seemed to pause. He stood on the hearth of Aufidius's hall, facing the image of greatness fallen, but greater than ever in that low estate. He saw "the grim appearance," the dark face "bearing command in it," "the n.o.ble vessel with its tackle torn." With the revenge of Caius Marcius, Moore perfectly sympathized; he was not scandalized by it; and again Caroline whispered, "There I see another glimpse of brotherhood in error."

The march on Rome, the mother's supplication, the long resistance, the final yielding of bad pa.s.sions to good, which ever must be the case in a nature worthy the epithet of n.o.ble, the rage of Aufidius at what he considered his ally's weakness, the death of Coriola.n.u.s, the final sorrow of his great enemy-all scenes made of condensed truth and strength-came on in succession and carried with them in their deep, fast flow the heart and mind of reader and listener.

"Now, have you felt Shakespeare?" asked Caroline, some ten minutes after her cousin had closed the book.

"I think so."

"And have you felt anything in Coriola.n.u.s like you?"

"Perhaps I have."

"Was he not faulty as well as great?"

Moore nodded.

"And what was his fault? What made him hated by the citizens? What caused him to be banished by his countrymen?"

"What do you think it was?"

"I ask again-

'Whether was it pride, Which out of daily fortune ever taints The happy man? whether defect of judgment,82 To fail in the disposing of those chances Which he was lord of? or whether nature, Not to be other than one thing, not moving From the casque to the cus.h.i.+on, but commanding peace Even with the same austerity and garb As he controlled the war?'"

"Well, answer yourself, Sphinx."

"It was a spice of all; and you must not be proud to your workpeople; you must not neglect chances of soothing them; and you must not be of an inflexible nature, uttering a request as austerely as if it were a command."

"That is the moral you tack to the play. What puts such notions into your head?"

"A wish for your good, a care for your safety, dear Robert, and a fear, caused by many things which I have heard lately, that you will come to harm."

"Who tells you these things?"

"I hear my uncle talk about you. He praises your hard spirit, your determined cast of mind, your scorn of low enemies, your resolution not 'to truckle to the mob,' as he says."

"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 and83 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 Andre Chenier-'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 Chenier. The last three stanzas she rehea.r.s.ed well.

"Mon beau voyage encore est si loin de sa fin!

Je pars, et des ormeaux qui bordent le chemin J'ai pa.s.se le premiers a peine.

Au banquet de la vie a peine commence, Un instant seulement mes levres ont presse 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 annee, Brillante sur ma tige, et l'honneur du jardin Je n'ai vu luire encore que les feux du matin, Je veux achever ma journee!"

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 suns.h.i.+ne 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-friends.h.i.+p, 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?"

84"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 pa.s.s 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."