"You would like to wear them?" exclaimed Dorothea, an air ofastonished discovery animating her whole person with a dramatic actionwhich she had caught from that very Madame Poincon who wore theornaments. "Of course, then, let us have them out. Why did you not tellme before? But the keys, the keys!" She pressed her hands against thesides of her head and seemed to despair of her memory.
"They are here," said Celia, with whom this explanation had beenlong meditated and prearranged.
"Pray open the large drawer of the cabinet and get out the jewel-box."
The casket was soon open before them, and the various jewelsspread out, making a bright parterre on the table. It was no greatcollection, but a few of the ornaments were really of remarkable beauty,the finest that was obvious at first being a necklace of purple amethystsset in exquisite gold work, and a pearl cross with five brilliants in it.Dorothea immediately took up the necklace and fastened it round hersister's neck, where it fitted almost as closely as a bracelet; but the circlesuited the Henrietta-Maria style of Celia's head and neck, and she couldsee that it did, in the pier-glass opposite.
"There, Celia! you can wear that with your Indian muslin. But thiscross you must wear with your dark dresses."
Celia was trying not to smile with pleasure. "O Dodo, you must keepthe cross yourself."
"No, no, dear, no," said Dorothea, putting up her hand with carelessdeprecation.
"Yes, indeed you must; it would suit you—in your black dress, now,"said Celia, insistingly. "You might wear that."
"Not for the world, not for the world. A cross is the last thing Iwould wear as a trinket." Dorothea shuddered slightly.
"Then you will think it wicked in me to wear it," said Celia, uneasily.
"No, dear, no," said Dorothea, stroking her sister's cheek. "Souls havecomplexions too: what will suit one will not suit another."
"But you might like to keep it for mamma's sake."
"No, I have other things of mamma's—her sandal-wood box which Iam so fond of—plenty of things. In fact, they are all yours, dear. Weneed discuss them no longer. There—take away your property."
Celia felt a little hurt. There was a strong assumption of superiorityin this Puritanic toleration, hardly less trying to the blond flesh of anunenthusiastic sister than a Puritanic persecution.
"But how can I wear ornaments if you, who are the elder sister, willnever wear them?"
"Nay, Celia, that is too much to ask, that I should wear trinkets tokeep you in countenance. If I were to put on such a necklace as that, Ishould feel as if I had been pirouetting. The world would go round withme, and I should not know how to walk."
Celia had unclasped the necklace and drawn it off. "It would be alittle tight for your neck; something to lie down and hang would suit youbetter," she said, with some satisfaction. The complete unfitness of thenecklace from all points of view for Dorothea, made Celia happier intaking it. She was opening some ring-boxes, which disclosed a fineemerald with diamonds, and just then the sun passing beyond a cloudsent a bright gleam over the table.
"How very beautiful these gems are!" said Dorothea, under a newcurrent of feeling, as sudden as the gleam. "It is strange how deeplycolors seem to penetrate one, like scent. I suppose that is the reason whygems are used as spiritual emblems in the Revelation of St. John. Theylook like fragments of heaven. I think that emerald is more beautifulthan any of them."
"And there is a bracelet to match it," said Celia. "We did not noticethis at first."
"They are lovely," said Dorothea, slipping the ring and bracelet onher finely turned finger and wrist, and holding them towards the windowon a level with her eyes. All the while her thought was trying to justifyher delight in the colors by merging them in her mystic religious joy.
"You would like those, Dorothea," said Celia, rather falteringly,beginning to think with wonder that her sister showed some weakness,and also that emeralds would suit her own complexion even better thanpurple amethysts. "You must keep that ring and bracelet—if nothing else.But see, these agates are very pretty and quiet."
"Yes! I will keep these—this ring and bracelet," said Dorothea. Then,letting her hand fall on the table, she said in another tone—"Yet whatmiserable men find such things, and work at them, and sell them!" Shepaused again, and Celia thought that her sister was going to renouncethe ornaments, as in consistency she ought to do.
"Yes, dear, I will keep these," said Dorothea, decidedly. "But take allthe rest away, and the casket."
She took up her pencil without removing the jewels, and still lookingat them. She thought of often having them by her, to feed her eye atthese little fountains of pure color.
"Shall you wear them in company?" said Celia, who was watching herwith real curiosity as to what she would do.
Dorothea glanced quickly at her sister. Across all her imaginativeadornment of those whom she loved, there darted now and then a keendiscernment, which was not without a scorching quality. If Miss Brookeever attained perfect meekness, it would not be for lack of inward fire.
"Perhaps," she said, rather haughtily. "I cannot tell to what level Imay sink."
Celia blushed, and was unhappy: she saw that she had offended hersister, and dared not say even anything pretty about the gift of theornaments which she put back into the box and carried away. Dorotheatoo was unhappy, as she went on with her plan-drawing, questioning thepurity of her own feeling and speech in the scene which had ended withthat little explosion.
Celia's consciousness told her that she had not been at all in thewrong: it was quite natural and justifiable that she should have askedthat question, and she repeated to herself that Dorothea wasinconsistent: either she should have taken her full share of the jewels, or,after what she had said, she should have renounced them altogether.
"I am sure—at least, I trust," thought Celia, "that the wearing of anecklace will not interfere with my prayers. And I do not see that Ishould be bound by Dorothea's opinions now we are going into society,though of course she herself ought to be bound by them. But Dorothea isnot always consistent."
Thus Celia, mutely bending over her tapestry, until she heard hersister calling her.
"Here, Kitty, come and look at my plan; I shall think I am a greatarchitect, if I have not got incompatible stairs and fireplaces."
As Celia bent over the paper, Dorothea put her cheek against hersister's arm caressingly. Celia understood the action. Dorothea saw thatshe had been in the wrong, and Celia pardoned her. Since they couldremember, there had been a mixture of criticism and awe in the attitudeof Celia's mind towards her elder sister. The younger had always worn ayoke; but is there any yoked creature without its private opinions?
CHAPTER II.
"'Dime; no ves aquel caballero que hacia nosotros viene sobre un
caballo rucio rodado que trae puesto en la cabeza un yelmo de oro?' 'Lo
que veo y columbro,' respondio Sancho, 'no es sino un hombre sobre
un as no pardo como el mio, que trae sobre la cabeza una cosa que
relumbra.' 'Pues ese es el yelmo de Mambrino,' dijo Don Quijote."—
CERVANTES.
"'Seest thou not yon cavalier who cometh toward us on a dapple-gray
steed, and weareth a golden helmet?' 'What I see,' answered Sancho, 'is
nothing but a man on a gray ass like my own, who carries something
shiny on his head.' 'Just so,' answered Don Quixote: 'and that
resplendent object is the helmet of Mambrino.'"
"Sir Humphry Davy?" said Mr. Brooke, over the soup, in his easysmiling way, taking up Sir James Chettam's remark that he was studyingDavy's Agricultural Chemistry. "Well, now, Sir Humphry Davy; I dinedwith him years ago at Cartwright's, and Wordsworth was there too—thepoet Wordsworth, you know. Now there was something singular. I was atCambridge when Wordsworth was there, and I never met him—and Idined with him twenty years afterwards at Cartwright's. There's anoddity in things, now. But Davy was there: he was a poet too. Or, as Imay say, Wordsworth was poet one, and Davy was poet two. That wastrue in every sense, you know."
Dorothea felt a little more uneasy than usual. In the beginning ofdinner, the party being small and the room still, these motes from themass of a magistrate's mind fell too noticeably. She wondered how a manlike Mr. Casaubon would support such triviality. His manners, shethought, were very dignified; the set of his iron-gray hair and his deepeye-sockets made him resemble the portrait of Locke. He had the spareform and the pale complexion which became a student; as different aspossible from the blooming Englishman of the red-whiskered typerepresented by Sir James Chettam.
"I am reading the Agricultural Chemistry," said this excellent baronet,"because I am going to take one of the farms into my own hands, and seeif something cannot be done in setting a good pattern of farming amongmy tenants. Do you approve of that, Miss Brooke?"
"A great mistake, Chettam," interposed Mr. Brooke, "going intoelectrifying your land and that kind of thing, and making a parlor of yourcow-house. It won't do. I went into science a great deal myself at onetime; but I saw it would not do. It leads to everything; you can letnothing alone. No, no—see that your tenants don't sell their straw, andthat kind of thing; and give them draining-tiles, you know. But yourfancy farming will not do—the most expensive sort of whistle you canbuy: you may as well keep a pack of hounds."
"Surely," said Dorothea, "it is better to spend money in finding outhow men can make the most of the land which supports them all, than inkeeping dogs and horses only to gallop over it. It is not a sin to makeyourself poor in performing experiments for the good of all."
She spoke with more energy than is expected of so young a lady, butSir James had appealed to her. He was accustomed to do so, and she hadoften thought that she could urge him to many good actions when he washer brother-in-law.
Mr. Casaubon turned his eyes very markedly on Dorothea while shewas speaking, and seemed to observe her newly.
"Young ladies don't understand political economy, you know," saidMr. Brooke, smiling towards Mr. Casaubon. "I remember when we wereall reading Adam Smith. There is a book, now. I took in all the new ideasat one time—human perfectibility, now. But some say, history moves incircles; and that may be very well argued; I have argued it myself. Thefact is, human reason may carry you a little too far—over the hedge, infact. It carried me a good way at one time; but I saw it would not do. Ipulled up; I pulled up in time. But not too hard. I have always been infavor of a little theory: we must have Thought; else we shall be landedback in the dark ages. But talking of books, there is Southey's 'PeninsularWar.' I am reading that of a morning. You know Southey?"
"No" said Mr. Casaubon, not keeping pace with Mr. Brooke'simpetuous reason, and thinking of the book only. "I have little leisure forsuch literature just now. I have been using up my eyesight on oldcharacters lately; the fact is, I want a reader for my evenings; but I amfastidious in voices, and I cannot endure listening to an imperfect reader.It is a misfortune, in some senses: I feed too much on the inwardsources; I live too much with the dead. My mind is something like theghost of an ancient, wandering about the world and trying mentally toconstruct it as it used to be, in spite of ruin and confusing changes. But Ifind it necessary to use the utmost caution about my eyesight."
This was the first time that Mr. Casaubon had spoken at any length.He delivered himself with precision, as if he had been called upon tomake a public statement; and the balanced sing-song neatness of hisspeech, occasionally corresponded to by a movement of his head, wasthe more conspicuous from its contrast with good Mr. Brooke's scrappyslovenliness. Dorothea said to herself that Mr. Casaubon was the mostinteresting man she had ever seen, not excepting even Monsieur Liret,the Vaudois clergyman who had given conferences on the history of theWaldenses. To reconstruct a past world, doubtless with a view to thehighest purposes of truth—what a work to be in any way present at, toassist in, though only as a lamp-holder! This elevating thought lifted herabove her annoyance at being twitted with her ignorance of politicaleconomy, that never-explained science which was thrust as anextinguisher over all her lights.
"But you are fond of riding, Miss Brooke," Sir James presently tookan opportunity of saying. "I should have thought you would enter a littleinto the pleasures of hunting. I wish you would let me send over achestnut horse for you to try. It has been trained for a lady. I saw you onSaturday cantering over the hill on a nag not worthy of you. My groomshall bring Corydon for you every day, if you will only mention the time." "Thank you, you are very good. I mean to give up riding. I shall notride any more," said Dorothea, urged to this brusque resolution by alittle annoyance that Sir James would be soliciting her attention whenshe wanted to give it all to Mr. Casaubon.
"No, that is too hard," said Sir James, in a tone of reproach thatshowed strong interest. "Your sister is given to self-mortification, is shenot?" he continued, turning to Celia, who sat at his right hand.
"I think she is," said Celia, feeling afraid lest she should saysomething that would not please her sister, and blushing as prettily aspossible above her necklace. "She likes giving up."
"If that were true, Celia, my giving-up would be self-indulgence, notself-mortification. But there may be good reasons for choosing not to dowhat is very agreeable," said Dorothea.
Mr. Brooke was speaking at the same time, but it was evident thatMr. Casaubon was observing Dorothea, and she was aware of it.
"Exactly," said Sir James. "You give up from some high, generousmotive."
"No, indeed, not exactly. I did not say that of myself," answeredDorothea, reddening. Unlike Celia, she rarely blushed, and only fromhigh delight or anger. At this moment she felt angry with the perverse SirJames. Why did he not pay attention to Celia, and leave her to listen toMr. Casaubon?—if that learned man would only talk, instead of allowinghimself to be talked to by Mr. Brooke, who was just then informing himthat the Reformation either meant something or it did not, that hehimself was a Protestant to the core, but that Catholicism was a fact; andas to refusing an acre of your ground for a Romanist chapel, all menneeded the bridle of religion, which, properly speaking, was the dread ofa Hereafter.
