Caroline Helstone

“ Oliphant. Caroline Helstone does not justify it. She is no window-gazing virgin on the look-out, in love already before the man has come. She is a young girl, very naturally in love with a man whom she has known for years, who is always on the spot. As for Shirley, she flung herself with all the vehemence of her prophetic soul on the hypocritical convention that would make every woman dependent on some man, and at the same time despises her for the possession of her natural instincts. And Caroline followed her. ”

“ It is queer, Zillah (they call her Zillah) —Zillah Horsfall is a woman, and Caroline Helstone is a woman: they are two individuals of the same species—not much alike though. Is she a pretty girl, that Caroline? I suspect she is—very nice to look at—something so clear in her face—so soft in her eyes. ”

“ FIELDHEAD.
Yet Caroline refused tamely to succumb: she had native strength in her girl's heart, and she used it. Men and women never struggle so hard as when they struggle alone, without witness, counsellor, or confidant; unencouraged, unadvised, and unpitied.
Miss Helstone was in this position. Her sufferings were her only spur; and being very real and sharp, they roused her spirit keenly. Bent on victory over a mortal pain, she did her best to quell it. Never had she been seen so busy, so studious, and, above all, so active. ”

“ Be satisfied, my dear: let all the single be satisfied with their freedom."
"You echo my uncle's words!" exclaimed Caroline, in a tone of dismay: "you speak like Mrs. Yorke, in her most gloomy moments:—like Miss Mann, when she is most sourly and hypochondriacally disposed. This is terrible!"
"No, it is only true. Oh, child! you have only lived the pleasant morning time of life: the hot, weary noon, the sad evening, the sunless night are yet to come for you! Mr. Helstone, you say, talks as I talk; and I wonder how Mrs. Matthewson Helstone would have talked had she been living. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Helstone was too harsh with his niece. But Caroline comprehended.
"Oh, that is nothing," she replied. "My uncle and I get on very well. We never quarrel—I don't call him harsh—he never scolds me. Sometimes I wish somebody in the world loved me, but I cannot say that I particularly wish him to have more affection for me than he has. As a child, I should perhaps have felt the want of attention, only the servants were very kind to me; but when people are long indifferent to us, we grow indifferent to their indifference. ”

“ He wondered (he remarked parenthetically) what noodle first made it the fashion to teach women French: nothing was more improper for them; it was like feeding a rickety child on chalk and water-gruel: Caroline must give it up, and give up her cousins too: they were dangerous people.
Mr. Helstone quite expected opposition to this order: he expected tears. Seldom did he trouble himself about Caroline's movements, but a vague idea possessed him that she was fond of going to Hollow's cottage: also he suspected that she liked Robert Moore's occasional presence at the Rectory. ”

“ Moore; at least he is the only gentleman who is not gray haired: my two venerable favourites, Mr. Helstone and Mr. Yorke, it is true, are fine old beaux; infinitely better than any of the stupid young ones."
Mrs. Pryor was silent.
"You do not like Mr. Helstone, ma'am?"
"My dear. Mr. Helstone's office secures him from criticism."
"You generally contrive to leave the room when he is announced."
"Do you walk out this morning, my dear?"
"Yes, I shall go to the Rectory, and seek and find Caroline Helstone, and make her take some exercise: she shall have a breezy walk over Nunnely Common." ”

“ It was only with young, handsome, fashionable, and stylish ladies he felt a little shy. Being himself a plain man—plain in aspect, plain in manners, plain in speech—he seemed to fear their dash, elegance, and airs. But Miss Helstone had neither dash nor airs, and her native elegance was of a very quiet order—quiet as the beauty of a ground-loving hedge-flower. He was a fluent, cheerful, agreeable talker. Caroline could talk too in a tête-à-tête. She liked Mr. Hall to come and take the seat next her in a party, and thus secure her from Peter Augustus Malone, Joseph Donne, or John Sykes ”

“ Shirley showed she had been sincere in saying she should be glad of Caroline's society, by frequently seeking it: and, indeed, if she had not sought it, she would not have had it; for Miss Helstone was slow to make fresh acquaintance. She was always held back by the idea that people could not want her: that she could not amuse them; and a brilliant, happy, youthful creature, like the heiress of Fieldhead, seemed to her too completely independent of society so uninteresting as hers, ever to find it really welcome. ”

“ It was by no means naïve simplicity which inspired Caroline's next remark; it was a sense of antipathy to such opinions, and of displeasure at him who held them.
"One would think you had never been married, uncle. One would think you were an old bachelor."
"Practically, I am so."
"But you have been married. Why were you so inconsistent as to marry?"
"Every man is mad once or twice in his life."
"So you tired of my aunt, and my aunt of you, and you were miserable together?"
Mr. Helstone pushed out his cynical lip, wrinkled his brown forehead, and gave an inarticulate grunt. ”

“ Helstone opined that "they were like other fools who had just paired—insensible to inconvenience just for the moment." Caroline, made perhaps a little too courageous by her temporary good spirits, here hazarded a remark of a kind she had never before ventured to make on observations dropped by her revered relative.
"Uncle," said she, "whenever you speak of marriage you speak of it scornfully. Do you think people shouldn't marry?" ”

“ Caroline is laughing, Mrs. Pryor: I made her laugh; I have done her good."
"I shall like to go, Shirley," again said Miss Helstone. "I long to hear the sound of waves—ocean-waves, and to see them as I have imagined them in dreams, like tossing banks of green light, strewed with vanishing and re-appearing wreaths of foam, whiter than lilies. I shall delight to pass the shores of those lone rock-islets where the sea-birds live and breed unmolested. We shall be on the track of the old Scandinavians—of the Norsemen: we shall almost see the shores of Norway. ”

“ She wouldn't be a woman otherwise. There! Away now for your bonnet at once!"
Not naturally very confident, a failure of physical strength and a depression of spirits had not tended to increase Caroline's presence of mind and ease of manner, or to give her additional courage to face strangers, and she quailed, in spite of self-remonstrance, as she and her uncle walked up the broad, paved approach leading from the gateway of Fieldhead to its porch. She followed Mr. Helstone reluctantly through that porch into the sombre old vestibule beyond. ”

“ Then she was prim in dress and manner: she looked, spoke, and moved the complete old maid.
Her welcome to Caroline was formal, even in its kindness—for it was kind; but Miss Helstone excused this. She knew something of the benevolence of the heart which beat under that starched kerchief; all the neighbourhood—at least all the female neighbourhood—knew something of it: no one spoke against Miss Ainley except lively young gentlemen, and inconsiderate old ones, who declared her hideous. ”

“ Helstone; “I was little acquainted with her. I have not heard from her for years: but wherever she is, she thinks nothing of you; she never inquires about you; I have reason to believe she does not wish to see you. Come, it is school-time: you go to your cousin at ten, don’t you? The clock has struck.”
Perhaps Caroline would have said more; but Fanny coming in, informed her master that the churchwardens wanted to speak to him in the vestry. He hastened to join them, and his niece presently set out for the cottage. ”

“ Robert Moore had risen when she did—perhaps he meant to speak to her; but there was yet a parting word to exchange with Miss Keeldar, and while it was being uttered Caroline had vanished.
Hortense received her former pupil with a demeanour of more dignity than warmth. She had been seriously offended by Mr. Helstone's proceedings, and had all along considered Caroline to blame in obeying her uncle too literally.
"You are a very great stranger," she said austerely, as her pupil held and pressed her hand. The pupil knew her too well to remonstrate or complain of coldness. ”

“ Helstone, as murderers—is at this moment, I believe, most assiduously engaged in fitting it up with feather-beds, pillows, bolsters, blankets, etc. The victims lack no attentions, I promise you. Mr. Hall, your favourite parson, has been with them ever since six o'clock, exhorting them, praying with them, and even waiting on them like any nurse; and Caroline's good friend, Miss Ainley, that very plain old maid, sent in a stock of lint and linen, something in the proportion of another lady's allowance of beef and wine. ”

“ Helstone's study. With him she remained closeted a long time—half the morning. On returning to her sick young friend, she laid aside shawl and bonnet: she stood a while at the bedside, one hand placed in the other, gently rocking herself to and fro, in an attitude and with a movement habitual to her. At last she said,—
"I have sent Fanny to Fieldhead to fetch a few things for me, such as I shall want during a short stay here: it is my wish to remain with you till you are better. Your uncle kindly permits my attendance: will it to yourself be acceptable, Caroline?" ”

“ Caroline, as the rector's niece, took her place at one of the three first tables; Mrs. Boultby and Margaret Hall officiated at the others. At these tables the élite of the [Pg 268] company were to be entertained, strict rules of equality not being more in fashion at Briarfield than elsewhere. Miss Helstone removed her bonnet and scarf, that she might be less oppressed with the heat. Her long curls, falling on her neck, served almost in place of a veil; and for the rest, her muslin dress was fashioned modestly as a nun's robe, enabling her thus to dispense with the encumbrance of a shawl. ”

“ Caroline was triumphant in her assurance of a well-filled purse; in her security of dominion over a dull, dogged, self-willed little husband, who was never more her slave than when he affected to act and think for himself; happy too in the knowledge that she had two of the cleverest men in England for her prime minister and her chamberlain; scornfully tolerant of a rival who helped her to bear the burden of her husband's society; indulgent to all the world, and proud of being admired and loved by the cleverest men in her dominions. ”

“ As Caroline bent over the letter, the three younger girls put down their knitting and drew closer, while their charming faces, brown, flushed, and sparkling, appeared to catch and hold the glow of the flames. They were so unlike Caroline, that she might have been mistaken, by a stranger, for a woman of a different race. While she bent there in the firelight, her slender figure, in its cambric blouse and skirt of faded blue serge, flowed in a single lovely curve from her drooping dark head to her narrow feet in their worn russet shoes. ”

“ Caroline, toppling, caught in one dizzy backward glance a vision of a face in the automobile staring down on her, white as chalk, under a black moustache and staring goggles, and another face, Delia's, white too, with eyes more strained and terrible than the goggles themselves. One second that look swept her and Miss Honey, and then, shifting, fell upon the General strapped securely into his carriage. Even as Caroline caught her breath, he flew by her like an arrow, his blue eyes round with surprise under a whirl of white parasol, the wicker body of the perambulator swaying and lurching. ”

“ Caroline walked ahead, her chin well up, her nose sniffing pleasurably the unaccustomed asphalt, the fresh damp of the river and the watered bridle path. The starched ties at the back of her white pinafore fairly took the breeze, as she swung along to the thrilling clangor of the monster hurdy-gurdy. Miss Honey, urban and blasé, balanced herself with dignity upon her roller-skates and watched with patronizing interest the mysterious jumping of young persons with whom she was unacquainted through complicated diagrams chalked on the pavement. ”

“ Caroline and the woman sat in silence. At last Rose-Marie yawned pitifully and his mistress got up with reluctance.
"Good-by, Mrs. Winterpine," she said soberly; "I have to go home. They'll be anxious about me. But I'll come again."
"Do, my dear," said the other; "this'll be a wonderful summer for me, with so much company. Wonderful. He'll be interested. But you run right on: don't let the folks worry. I never [330] had any children, but I always had my heart set on a daughter. Good-by."
Caroline and the donkey walked slowly off toward the wood, which cast cool shadows. ”

“ There could not possibly be a greater contrast than that between Caroline’s life in Hanover and her life in England. From being a maid-of-all-work in a not very interesting family, where there was a dull monotony in her daily routine of drudgery, she found she was to become a public singer, an astronomer’s apprentice, and an assistant manufacturer of scientific instruments; she was not only her brother’s housekeeper, but his helper and coadjutor in every act of his life. Nothing is more remarkable than the account of the life of William and Caroline Herschel at Bath. ”