remained with him till the chaise came; I marshalled him to it, he scolding all the way. He was terribly bewildered, as well as enraged; he would have resisted me, but knew not how; he called for his wife and daughters to come. I said they should follow him as soon as they could prepare. The smoke, the fume, the fret of his demeanour was inexpressible, but it was a fury incapable of producing a deed. That man, properly handled, must ever remain impotent. I know he will never touch me with the law. I know his wife, over whom he tyrannizes in trifles, guides him in matters of importance. I have long since earned her undying mother’s gratitude by my devotion to her boy; in some of Henry’s ailments I have nursed him—better, she said, than any woman could nurse; she will never forget that. She and her daughters quitted me to-day, in mute wrath and consternation—but she respects me. When Henry clung to my neck, as I lifted him into the carriage and placed him by her side—when I arranged her own wrapping to make her warm, though she turned her head from me, I saw the tears start to her eyes. She will but the more zealously advocate my cause, because she has left me in anger. I am glad of this, not for my own sake, but for that of my life and idol—my Shirley.’
Once again he writes—a week after:
‘I am now at Stilbro’: I have taken up my temporary abode with a friend—a professional man—in whose business I can be useful. Every day I ride over to Fieldhead. How long will it be before I can call that place my home, and its mistress mine? I am not easy—not tranquil; I am tantalized—sometimes tortured. To see her now, one would think she had never pressed her cheek to my shoulder, or clung to me with tenderness or trust. I feel unsafe; she renders me miserable. I am shunned when I visit her; she withdraws from my reach. Once, this day, I lifted her face, resolved to get a full look down her deep, dark eyes; difficult to describe what I read there! Pantheress!—beautiful forest-born—wily, tameless, peerless nature! She gnaws her chain; I see the white teeth working at the steel! She has dreams of her wild woods, and pinings after virgin freedom. I wish Sympson would come again, and oblige her again to entwine her arms about me. I wish there was danger she should lose me, as there is risk I shall lose her. No; final loss I do not fear, but long delay—
‘It is now night—midnight. I have spent the afternoon and evening at Fieldhead. Some hours ago she passed me, coming down the oak staircase to the hall: she did not know I was standing in the twilight, near the staircase window, looking at the frost-bright constellations. How closely she glided against the banisters! How shyly shone her large eyes upon me! How evanescent, fugitive, fitful, she looked— slim and swift as a Northern Streamer!
‘I followed her into the drawing-room: Mrs. Pryor and Caroline Helstone were both there; she has summoned them to bear her company awhile. In her white evening dress, with her long hair flowing full and wavy, with her noiseless step, her pale cheek, her eye full of night and lightning, she looked, I thought, spirit- like—a thing made of an element—the child of a breeze and a flame—the daughter of ray and rain-drop —a thing never to be overtaken, arrested, fixed. I wished I could avoid following her with my gaze, as she moved here and there, but it was impossible. I talked with the other ladies as well as I could, but still I looked at her. She was very silent; I think she never spoke to me—not even when she offered me tea. It happened that she was called out a minute by Mrs. Gill. I passed into the moon-lit hall, with the design of getting a word as she returned; nor in this did I fail.
‘ “Miss Keeldar, stay one instant!” said I, meeting her.
‘ “Why?—the hall is too cold.”
‘ “It is not cold for me: at my side, it should not be cold for you.”
‘ “But I shiver.”
‘ “With fear, I believe. What makes you fear me? You are quiet and distant: why?”
‘ “I may well fear what looks like a great dark goblin meeting me in the moonlight.”