Shirley. Шарлотта Бронте
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passed as usual. Mademoiselle, ever breathlessly busy, spent it in bustling from kitchen to parlour, now scolding Sarah, now looking over Caroline’s exercise or hearing her repetition-lesson. However faultlessly these tasks were achieved, she never commended: it was a maxim with her that praise is inconsistent with a teacher’s dignity, and that blame, in more or less unqualified measure, is indispensable to it. She thought incessant reprimand, severe or slight, quite necessary to the maintenance of her authority; and if no possible error was to be found in the lesson, it was the pupil’s carriage, or air, or dress, or mien, which required correction.
The usual affray took place about the dinner, which meal, when Sarah at last brought it into the room, she almost flung upon the table, with a look that expressed quite plainly, “I never dished such stuff i’ my life afore; it’s not fit for dogs.” Notwithstanding Sarah’s scorn, it was a savoury repast enough. The soup was a sort of puree of dried peas, which mademoiselle had prepared amidst bitter lamentations that in this desolate country of England no haricot beans were to be had. Then came a dish of meat—nature unknown, but supposed to be miscellaneous—singularly chopped up with crumbs of bread, seasoned uniquely though not unpleasantly, and baked in a mould—a queer but by no means unpalatable dish. Greens, oddly bruised, formed the accompanying vegetable; and a pate of fruit, conserved after a recipe devised by Madame Gerard Moore’s “grand’mere,” and from the taste of which it appeared probable that “melasse” had been substituted for sugar, completed the dinner.
Caroline had no objection to this Belgian cookery—indeed she rather liked it for a change; and it was well she did so, for had she evinced any disrelish thereof, such manifestation would have injured her in mademoiselle’s good graces for ever; a positive crime might have been more easily pardoned than a symptom of distaste for the foreign comestibles.
Soon after dinner Caroline coaxed her governess-cousin upstairs to dress. This manoeuvre required management. To have hinted that the jupon, camisole, and curl-papers were odious objects, or indeed other than quite meritorious points, would have been a felony. Any premature attempt to urge their disappearance was therefore unwise, and would be likely to issue in the persevering wear of them during the whole day. Carefully avoiding rocks and quicksands, however, the pupil, on pretence of requiring a change of scene, contrived to get the teacher aloft; and, once in the bedroom, she persuaded her that it was not worth while returning thither, and that she might as well make her toilet now; and while mademoiselle delivered a solemn homily on her own surpassing merit in disregarding all frivolities of fashion, Caroline denuded her of the camisole, invested her with a decent gown, arranged her collar, hair, etc., and made her quite presentable. But Hortense would put the finishing touches herself, and these finishing touches consisted in a thick handkerchief tied round the throat, and a large, servant-like black apron, which spoiled everything. On no account would mademoiselle have appeared in her own house without the thick handkerchief and the voluminous apron. The first was a positive matter of morality—it was quite improper not to wear a fichu; the second was the ensign of a good housewife—she appeared to think that by means of it she somehow effected a large saving in her brother’s income. She had, with her own hands, made and presented to Caroline similar equipments; and the only serious quarrel they had ever had, and which still left a soreness in the elder cousin’s soul, had arisen from the refusal of the younger one to accept of and profit by these elegant presents.
“I wear a high dress and a collar,” said Caroline, “and I should feel suffocated with a handkerchief in addition; and my short aprons do quite as well as that very long one. I would rather make no change.”
Yet Hortense, by dint of perseverance, would probably have compelled her to make a change, had not Mr. Moore chanced to overhear a dispute on the subject, and decided that Caroline’s little aprons would suffice, and that, in his opinion, as she was still but a child, she might for the present dispense with the fichu, especially as her curls were long, and almost touched her shoulders.
There was no appeal against Robert’s opinion, therefore his sister was compelled to yield; but she disapproved entirely of the piquant neatness of Caroline’s costume, and the ladylike grace of her appearance. Something more solid and homely she would have considered “beaucoup plus convenable.”
The afternoon was devoted to sewing. Mademoiselle, like most Belgian ladies, was specially skilful with her needle. She by no means thought it waste of time to devote unnumbered hours to fine embroidery, sight-destroying lace-work, marvellous netting and knitting, and, above all, to most elaborate stocking-mending. She would give a day to the mending of two holes in a stocking any time, and think her “mission” nobly fulfilled when she had accomplished it. It was another of Caroline’s troubles to be condemned to learn this foreign style of darning, which was done stitch by stitch, so as exactly to imitate the fabric of the stocking itself—a wearifu’ process, but considered by Hortense Gerard, and by her ancestresses before her for long generations back, as one of the first “duties of a woman.” She herself had had a needle, cotton, and a fearfully torn stocking put into her hand while she yet wore a child’s coif on her little black head; her “hauts faits” in the darning line had been exhibited to company ere she was six years old; and when she first discovered that Caroline was profoundly ignorant of this most essential of attainments, she could have wept with pity over her miserably-neglected youth.
No time did she lose in seeking up a hopeless pair of hose, of which the heels were entirely gone, and in setting the ignorant English girl to repair the deficiency. This task had been commenced two years ago, and Caroline had the stockings in her work-bag yet. She did a few rows every day, by way of penance for the expiation of her sins. They were a grievous burden to her; she would much have liked to put them in the fire; and once Mr. Moore, who had observed her sitting and sighing over them, had proposed a private incremation in the counting-house; but to this proposal Caroline knew it would have been impolitic to accede—the result could only be a fresh pair of hose, probably in worse condition. She adhered, therefore, to the ills she knew.
All the afternoon the two ladies sat and sewed, till the eyes and fingers, and even the spirits of one of them, were weary. The sky since dinner had darkened; it had begun to rain again, to pour fast. Secret fears began to steal on Caroline that Robert would be persuaded by Mr. Sykes or Mr. Yorke to remain at Whinbury till it cleared, and of that there appeared no present chance. Five o’clock struck, and time stole on; still the clouds streamed. A sighing wind whispered in the roof-trees of the cottage; day seemed already closing; the parlour fire shed on the clear hearth a glow ruddy as at twilight.
“It will not be fair till the moon rises,” pronounced Mademoiselle Moore, “consequently I feel assured that my brother will not return till then. Indeed I should be sorry if he did. We will have coffee. It would be vain to wait for him.”
“I am tired. May I leave my work now, cousin?”
“You may, since it grows too dark to see to do it well. Fold it up; put it carefully in your bag; then step into the kitchen and desire Sarah to bring in the gouter, or tea, as you call it.”
“But it has not yet struck six. He may still come.”
“He will not, I tell you. I can calculate his movements. I understand my brother.”
Suspense is irksome, disappointment bitter. All the world has, some time or other, felt that. Caroline, obedient to orders, passed into the kitchen. Sarah was making a dress for herself at the table.
“You are to bring in coffee,” said the young lady in a spiritless tone; and then she leaned her arm and head against the kitchen mantelpiece, and hung listlessly over the fire.
“How low you seem, miss! But it’s all because your cousin keeps you so close to work. It’s a shame!”
“Nothing of the kind, Sarah,” was the brief reply.
“Oh! but I know it is. You’re fit to cry just this minute, for nothing else but because you’ve sat still the whole day. It would make a kitten dull to be mewed up so.”
“Sarah, does your master often come home early from market when it is wet?”
“Never, hardly; but just to-day, for some reason, he has made a difference.”