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diff --git a/old/1028-0.txt b/old/1028-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..278e719 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/1028-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9422 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PROFESSOR *** + + + + +THE PROFESSOR + +by (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell + + + + + +CONTENTS + + + +PREFACE. + + + +T H E P R O F E S S O R + +CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY. + +CHAPTER II. + +CHAPTER III. + +CHAPTER IV. + +CHAPTER V. + +CHAPTER VI. + +CHAPTER VII. + +CHAPTER VIII. + +CHAPTER IX. + +CHAPTER X. + +CHAPTER XI. + +CHAPTER XII. + +CHAPTER XIII. + +CHAPTER XIV. + +CHAPTER XV. + +CHAPTER XVI. + +CHAPTER XVII. + +CHAPTER XVIII. + +CHAPTER XIX. + +CHAPTER XX. + +CHAPTER XXI. + +CHAPTER XXII + +CHAPTER XXIII + +CHAPTER XXIV. + +CHAPTER XXV. + + + + + + + + +PREFACE. + +This little book was written before either “Jane Eyre” or “Shirley,” + and yet no indulgence can be solicited for it on the plea of a first +attempt. A first attempt it certainly was not, as the pen which wrote it +had been previously worn a good deal in a practice of some years. I had +not indeed published anything before I commenced “The Professor,” but +in many a crude effort, destroyed almost as soon as composed, I had +got over any such taste as I might once have had for ornamented and +redundant composition, and come to prefer what was plain and homely. +At the same time I had adopted a set of principles on the subject of +incident, &c., such as would be generally approved in theory, but the +result of which, when carried out into practice, often procures for an +author more surprise than pleasure. + +I said to myself that my hero should work his way through life as I had +seen real living men work theirs--that he should never get a shilling +he had not earned--that no sudden turns should lift him in a moment to +wealth and high station; that whatever small competency he might gain, +should be won by the sweat of his brow; that, before he could find so +much as an arbour to sit down in, he should master at least half the +ascent of “the Hill of Difficulty;” that he should not even marry a +beautiful girl or a lady of rank. As Adam’s son he should share Adam’s +doom, and drain throughout life a mixed and moderate cup of enjoyment. + +In the sequel, however, I find that publishers in general scarcely +approved of this system, but would have liked something more imaginative +and poetical--something more consonant with a highly wrought fancy, with +a taste for pathos, with sentiments more tender, elevated, unworldly. +Indeed, until an author has tried to dispose of a manuscript of this +kind, he can never know what stores of romance and sensibility lie +hidden in breasts he would not have suspected of casketing such +treasures. Men in business are usually thought to prefer the real; on +trial the idea will be often found fallacious: a passionate preference +for the wild, wonderful, and thrilling--the strange, startling, and +harrowing--agitates divers souls that show a calm and sober surface. + +Such being the case, the reader will comprehend that to have reached +him in the form of a printed book, this brief narrative must have gone +through some struggles--which indeed it has. And after all, its +worst struggle and strongest ordeal is yet to come but it takes +comfort--subdues fear--leans on the staff of a moderate expectation--and +mutters under its breath, while lifting its eye to that of the public, + +“He that is low need fear no fall.” + +CURRER BELL. + +The foregoing preface was written by my wife with a view to the +publication of “The Professor,” shortly after the appearance of +“Shirley.” Being dissuaded from her intention, the authoress made some +use of the materials in a subsequent work--“Villette.” As, however, +these two stories are in most respects unlike, it has been represented +to me that I ought not to withhold “The Professor” from the public. I +have therefore consented to its publication. + +A. B. NICHOLLS + +Haworth Parsonage, + +September 22nd, 1856. + + + + + + +T H E P R O F E S S O R + + + + +CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY. + +THE other day, in looking over my papers, I found in my desk the +following copy of a letter, sent by me a year since to an old school +acquaintance:-- + +“DEAR CHARLES, + +“I think when you and I were at Eton together, we were neither of +us what could be called popular characters: you were a sarcastic, +observant, shrewd, cold-blooded creature; my own portrait I will +not attempt to draw, but I cannot recollect that it was a strikingly +attractive one--can you? What animal magnetism drew thee and me together +I know not; certainly I never experienced anything of the Pylades and +Orestes sentiment for you, and I have reason to believe that you, on +your part, were equally free from all romantic regard to me. Still, +out of school hours we walked and talked continually together; when the +theme of conversation was our companions or our masters we understood +each other, and when I recurred to some sentiment of affection, some +vague love of an excellent or beautiful object, whether in animate or +inanimate nature, your sardonic coldness did not move me. I felt myself +superior to that check THEN as I do NOW. + +“It is a long time since I wrote to you, and a still longer time since +I saw you. Chancing to take up a newspaper of your county the other day, +my eye fell upon your name. I began to think of old times; to run over +the events which have transpired since we separated; and I sat down +and commenced this letter. What you have been doing I know not; but you +shall hear, if you choose to listen, how the world has wagged with me. + +“First, after leaving Eton, I had an interview with my maternal uncles, +Lord Tynedale and the Hon. John Seacombe. They asked me if I would enter +the Church, and my uncle the nobleman offered me the living of Seacombe, +which is in his gift, if I would; then my other uncle, Mr. Seacombe, +hinted that when I became rector of Seacombe-cum-Scaife, I might perhaps +be allowed to take, as mistress of my house and head of my parish, one +of my six cousins, his daughters, all of whom I greatly dislike. + +“I declined both the Church and matrimony. A good clergyman is a good +thing, but I should have made a very bad one. As to the wife--oh how +like a night-mare is the thought of being bound for life to one of +my cousins! No doubt they are accomplished and pretty; but not an +accomplishment, not a charm of theirs, touches a chord in my bosom. +To think of passing the winter evenings by the parlour fire-side of +Seacombe Rectory alone with one of them--for instance, the large and +well-modelled statue, Sarah--no; I should be a bad husband, under such +circumstances, as well as a bad clergyman. + +“When I had declined my uncles’ offers they asked me ‘what I intended +to do?’ I said I should reflect. They reminded me that I had no fortune, +and no expectation of any, and, after a considerable pause, Lord +Tynedale demanded sternly, ‘Whether I had thoughts of following my +father’s steps and engaging in trade?’ Now, I had had no thoughts of the +sort. I do not think that my turn of mind qualifies me to make a good +tradesman; my taste, my ambition does not lie in that way; but such was +the scorn expressed in Lord Tynedale’s countenance as he pronounced +the word TRADE--such the contemptuous sarcasm of his tone--that I was +instantly decided. My father was but a name to me, yet that name I did +not like to hear mentioned with a sneer to my very face. I answered +then, with haste and warmth, ‘I cannot do better than follow in +my father’s steps; yes, I will be a tradesman.’ My uncles did not +remonstrate; they and I parted with mutual disgust. In reviewing this +transaction, I find that I was quite right to shake off the burden of +Tynedale’s patronage, but a fool to offer my shoulders instantly for the +reception of another burden--one which might be more intolerable, and +which certainly was yet untried. + +“I wrote instantly to Edward--you know Edward--my only brother, ten +years my senior, married to a rich mill-owner’s daughter, and now +possessor of the mill and business which was my father’s before he +failed. You are aware that my father--once reckoned a Croesus of +wealth--became bankrupt a short time previous to his death, and that my +mother lived in destitution for some six months after him, unhelped by +her aristocratical brothers, whom she had mortally offended by her union +with Crimsworth, the----shire manufacturer. At the end of the six months +she brought me into the world, and then herself left it without, I +should think, much regret, as it contained little hope or comfort for +her. + +“My father’s relations took charge of Edward, as they did of me, till I +was nine years old. At that period it chanced that the representation of +an important borough in our county fell vacant; Mr. Seacombe stood for +it. My uncle Crimsworth, an astute mercantile man, took the opportunity +of writing a fierce letter to the candidate, stating that if he and Lord +Tynedale did not consent to do something towards the support of their +sister’s orphan children, he would expose their relentless and malignant +conduct towards that sister, and do his best to turn the circumstances +against Mr. Seacombe’s election. That gentleman and Lord T. knew well +enough that the Crimsworths were an unscrupulous and determined race; +they knew also that they had influence in the borough of X----; and, +making a virtue of necessity, they consented to defray the expenses of +my education. I was sent to Eton, where I remained ten years, during +which space of time Edward and I never met. He, when he grew up, entered +into trade, and pursued his calling with such diligence, ability, and +success, that now, in his thirtieth year, he was fast making a fortune. +Of this I was apprised by the occasional short letters I received from +him, some three or four times a year; which said letters never concluded +without some expression of determined enmity against the house of +Seacombe, and some reproach to me for living, as he said, on the bounty +of that house. At first, while still in boyhood, I could not understand +why, as I had no parents, I should not be indebted to my uncles Tynedale +and Seacombe for my education; but as I grew up, and heard by degrees of +the persevering hostility, the hatred till death evinced by them against +my father--of the sufferings of my mother--of all the wrongs, in short, +of our house--then did I conceive shame of the dependence in which I +lived, and form a resolution no more to take bread from hands which had +refused to minister to the necessities of my dying mother. It was by +these feelings I was influenced when I refused the Rectory of Seacombe, +and the union with one of my patrician cousins. + +“An irreparable breach thus being effected between my uncles and myself, +I wrote to Edward; told him what had occurred, and informed him of my +intention to follow his steps and be a tradesman. I asked, moreover, if +he could give me employment. His answer expressed no approbation of my +conduct, but he said I might come down to ----shire, if I liked, and he +would ‘see what could be done in the way of furnishing me with work.’ +I repressed all--even mental comment on his note--packed my trunk and +carpet-bag, and started for the North directly. + +“After two days’ travelling (railroads were not then in existence) I +arrived, one wet October afternoon, in the town of X----. I had always +understood that Edward lived in this town, but on inquiry I found that +it was only Mr. Crimsworth’s mill and warehouse which were situated in +the smoky atmosphere of Bigben Close; his RESIDENCE lay four miles out, +in the country. + +“It was late in the evening when I alighted at the gates of the +habitation designated to me as my brother’s. As I advanced up the +avenue, I could see through the shades of twilight, and the dark gloomy +mists which deepened those shades, that the house was large, and the +grounds surrounding it sufficiently spacious. I paused a moment on the +lawn in front, and leaning my back against a tall tree which rose in the +centre, I gazed with interest on the exterior of Crimsworth Hall. + +“Edward is rich,” thought I to myself. ‘I believed him to be doing +well--but I did not know he was master of a mansion like this.’ Cutting +short all marvelling; speculation, conjecture, &c., I advanced to the +front door and rang. A man-servant opened it--I announced myself--he +relieved me of my wet cloak and carpet-bag, and ushered me into a +room furnished as a library, where there was a bright fire and candles +burning on the table; he informed me that his master was not yet +returned from X----market, but that he would certainly be at home in the +course of half an hour. + +“Being left to myself, I took the stuffed easy chair, covered with red +morocco, which stood by the fireside, and while my eyes watched the +flames dart from the glowing coals, and the cinders fall at intervals on +the hearth, my mind busied itself in conjectures concerning the meeting +about to take place. Amidst much that was doubtful in the subject of +these conjectures, there was one thing tolerably certain--I was in no +danger of encountering severe disappointment; from this, the moderation +of my expectations guaranteed me. I anticipated no overflowings of +fraternal tenderness; Edward’s letters had always been such as to +prevent the engendering or harbouring of delusions of this sort. Still, +as I sat awaiting his arrival, I felt eager--very eager--I cannot tell +you why; my hand, so utterly a stranger to the grasp of a kindred hand, +clenched itself to repress the tremor with which impatience would fain +have shaken it. + +“I thought of my uncles; and as I was engaged in wondering whether +Edward’s indifference would equal the cold disdain I had always +experienced from them, I heard the avenue gates open: wheels approached +the house; Mr. Crimsworth was arrived; and after the lapse of some +minutes, and a brief dialogue between himself and his servant in the +hall, his tread drew near the library door--that tread alone announced +the master of the house. + +“I still retained some confused recollection of Edward as he was ten +years ago--a tall, wiry, raw youth; NOW, as I rose from my seat and +turned towards the library door, I saw a fine-looking and powerful man, +light-complexioned, well-made, and of athletic proportions; the first +glance made me aware of an air of promptitude and sharpness, shown +as well in his movements as in his port, his eye, and the general +expression of his face. He greeted me with brevity, and, in the moment +of shaking hands, scanned me from head to foot; he took his seat in the +morocco covered arm-chair, and motioned me to another seat. + +“‘I expected you would have called at the counting-house in the Close,’ +said he; and his voice, I noticed, had an abrupt accent, probably +habitual to him; he spoke also with a guttural northern tone, which +sounded harsh in my ears, accustomed to the silvery utterance of the +South. + +“‘The landlord of the inn, where the coach stopped, directed me here,’ +said I. ‘I doubted at first the accuracy of his information, not being +aware that you had such a residence as this.’ + +“‘Oh, it is all right!’ he replied, ‘only I was kept half an hour behind +time, waiting for you--that is all. I thought you must be coming by the +eight o’clock coach.’ + +“I expressed regret that he had had to wait; he made no answer, but +stirred the fire, as if to cover a movement of impatience; then he +scanned me again. + +“I felt an inward satisfaction that I had not, in the first moment of +meeting, betrayed any warmth, any enthusiasm; that I had saluted this +man with a quiet and steady phlegm. + +“‘Have you quite broken with Tynedale and Seacombe?’ he asked hastily. + +“‘I do not think I shall have any further communication with them; my +refusal of their proposals will, I fancy, operate as a barrier against +all future intercourse.’ + +“‘Why,’ said he, ‘I may as well remind you at the very outset of our +connection, that “no man can serve two masters.” Acquaintance with Lord +Tynedale will be incompatible with assistance from me.’ There was a kind +of gratuitous menace in his eye as he looked at me in finishing this +observation. + +“Feeling no disposition to reply to him, I contented myself with an +inward speculation on the differences which exist in the constitution +of men’s minds. I do not know what inference Mr. Crimsworth drew from +my silence--whether he considered it a symptom of contumacity or an +evidence of my being cowed by his peremptory manner. After a long and +hard stare at me, he rose sharply from his seat. + +“‘To-morrow,’ said he, ‘I shall call your attention to some other +points; but now it is supper time, and Mrs. Crimsworth is probably +waiting; will you come?’ + +“He strode from the room, and I followed. In crossing the hall, I +wondered what Mrs. Crimsworth might be. ‘Is she,’ thought I, ‘as alien +to what I like as Tynedale, Seacombe, the Misses Seacombe--as the +affectionate relative now striding before me? or is she better than +these? Shall I, in conversing with her, feel free to show something of +my real nature; or--’ Further conjectures were arrested by my entrance +into the dining-room. + +“A lamp, burning under a shade of ground-glass, showed a handsome +apartment, wainscoted with oak; supper was laid on the table; by the +fire-place, standing as if waiting our entrance, appeared a lady; +she was young, tall, and well shaped; her dress was handsome and +fashionable: so much my first glance sufficed to ascertain. A gay +salutation passed between her and Mr. Crimsworth; she chid him, half +playfully, half poutingly, for being late; her voice (I always take +voices into the account in judging of character) was lively--it +indicated, I thought, good animal spirits. Mr. Crimsworth soon checked +her animated scolding with a kiss--a kiss that still told of the +bridegroom (they had not yet been married a year); she took her seat +at the supper-table in first-rate spirits. Perceiving me, she begged +my pardon for not noticing me before, and then shook hands with me, as +ladies do when a flow of good-humour disposes them to be cheerful to +all, even the most indifferent of their acquaintance. It was now further +obvious to me that she had a good complexion, and features sufficiently +marked but agreeable; her hair was red--quite red. She and Edward +talked much, always in a vein of playful contention; she was vexed, or +pretended to be vexed, that he had that day driven a vicious horse in +the gig, and he made light of her fears. Sometimes she appealed to me. + +“‘Now, Mr. William, isn’t it absurd in Edward to talk so? He says he +will drive Jack, and no other horse, and the brute has thrown him twice +already. + +“She spoke with a kind of lisp, not disagreeable, but childish. I +soon saw also that there was more than girlish--a somewhat infantine +expression in her by no means small features; this lisp and expression +were, I have no doubt, a charm in Edward’s eyes, and would be so to +those of most men, but they were not to mine. I sought her eye, desirous +to read there the intelligence which I could not discern in her face +or hear in her conversation; it was merry, rather small; by turns I saw +vivacity, vanity, coquetry, look out through its irid, but I watched in +vain for a glimpse of soul. I am no Oriental; white necks, carmine lips +and cheeks, clusters of bright curls, do not suffice for me without that +Promethean spark which will live after the roses and lilies are faded, +the burnished hair grown grey. In sunshine, in prosperity, the flowers +are very well; but how many wet days are there in life--November seasons +of disaster, when a man’s hearth and home would be cold indeed, without +the clear, cheering gleam of intellect. + +“Having perused the fair page of Mrs. Crimsworth’s face, a deep, +involuntary sigh announced my disappointment; she took it as a homage to +her beauty, and Edward, who was evidently proud of his rich and handsome +young wife, threw on me a glance--half ridicule, half ire. + +“I turned from them both, and gazing wearily round the room, I saw two +pictures set in the oak panelling--one on each side the mantel-piece. +Ceasing to take part in the bantering conversation that flowed on +between Mr. and Mrs. Crimsworth, I bent my thoughts to the examination +of these pictures. They were portraits--a lady and a gentleman, both +costumed in the fashion of twenty years ago. The gentleman was in the +shade. I could not see him well. The lady had the benefit of a full beam +from the softly shaded lamp. I presently recognised her; I had seen this +picture before in childhood; it was my mother; that and the companion +picture being the only heir-looms saved out of the sale of my father’s +property. + +“The face, I remembered, had pleased me as a boy, but then I did not +understand it; now I knew how rare that class of face is in the world, +and I appreciated keenly its thoughtful, yet gentle expression. The +serious grey eye possessed for me a strong charm, as did certain lines +in the features indicative of most true and tender feeling. I was sorry +it was only a picture. + +“I soon left Mr. and Mrs. Crimsworth to themselves; a servant +conducted me to my bed-room; in closing my chamber-door, I shut out all +intruders--you, Charles, as well as the rest. + +“Good-bye for the present, + +“WILLIAM CRIMSWORTH.” + +To this letter I never got an answer; before my old friend received it, +he had accepted a Government appointment in one of the colonies, and was +already on his way to the scene of his official labours. What has become +of him since, I know not. + +The leisure time I have at command, and which I intended to employ +for his private benefit, I shall now dedicate to that of the public at +large. My narrative is not exciting, and above all, not marvellous; +but it may interest some individuals, who, having toiled in the same +vocation as myself, will find in my experience frequent reflections +of their own. The above letter will serve as an introduction. I now +proceed. + + + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +A FINE October morning succeeded to the foggy evening that had witnessed +my first introduction to Crimsworth Hall. I was early up and walking in +the large park-like meadow surrounding the house. The autumn sun, rising +over the ----shire hills, disclosed a pleasant country; woods brown and +mellow varied the fields from which the harvest had been lately carried; +a river, gliding between the woods, caught on its surface the somewhat +cold gleam of the October sun and sky; at frequent intervals along the +banks of the river, tall, cylindrical chimneys, almost like slender +round towers, indicated the factories which the trees half concealed; +here and there mansions, similar to Crimsworth Hall, occupied agreeable +sites on the hill-side; the country wore, on the whole, a cheerful, +active, fertile look. Steam, trade, machinery had long banished from +it all romance and seclusion. At a distance of five miles, a valley, +opening between the low hills, held in its cups the great town of X----. +A dense, permanent vapour brooded over this locality--there lay Edward’s +“Concern.” + +I forced my eye to scrutinize this prospect, I forced my mind to dwell +on it for a time, and when I found that it communicated no pleasurable +emotion to my heart--that it stirred in me none of the hopes a man ought +to feel, when he sees laid before him the scene of his life’s career--I +said to myself, “William, you are a rebel against circumstances; you are +a fool, and know not what you want; you have chosen trade and you shall +be a tradesman. Look!” I continued mentally--“Look at the sooty smoke in +that hollow, and know that there is your post! There you cannot dream, +you cannot speculate and theorize--there you shall out and work!” + +Thus self-schooled, I returned to the house. My brother was in the +breakfast-room. I met him collectedly--I could not meet him cheerfully; +he was standing on the rug, his back to the fire--how much did I read in +the expression of his eye as my glance encountered his, when I advanced +to bid him good morning; how much that was contradictory to my nature! +He said “Good morning” abruptly and nodded, and then he snatched, rather +than took, a newspaper from the table, and began to read it with the air +of a master who seizes a pretext to escape the bore of conversing with +an underling. It was well I had taken a resolution to endure for a time, +or his manner would have gone far to render insupportable the disgust +I had just been endeavouring to subdue. I looked at him: I measured his +robust frame and powerful proportions; I saw my own reflection in the +mirror over the mantel-piece; I amused myself with comparing the two +pictures. In face I resembled him, though I was not so handsome; my +features were less regular; I had a darker eye, and a broader brow--in +form I was greatly inferior--thinner, slighter, not so tall. As an +animal, Edward excelled me far; should he prove as paramount in mind +as in person I must be a slave--for I must expect from him no lion-like +generosity to one weaker than himself; his cold, avaricious eye, his +stern, forbidding manner told me he would not spare. Had I then force of +mind to cope with him? I did not know; I had never been tried. + +Mrs. Crimsworth’s entrance diverted my thoughts for a moment. She looked +well, dressed in white, her face and her attire shining in morning +and bridal freshness. I addressed her with the degree of ease her last +night’s careless gaiety seemed to warrant, but she replied with coolness +and restraint: her husband had tutored her; she was not to be too +familiar with his clerk. + +As soon as breakfast was over Mr. Crimsworth intimated to me that they +were bringing the gig round to the door, and that in five minutes he +should expect me to be ready to go down with him to X----. I did not +keep him waiting; we were soon dashing at a rapid rate along the +road. The horse he drove was the same vicious animal about which Mrs. +Crimsworth had expressed her fears the night before. Once or twice +Jack seemed disposed to turn restive, but a vigorous and determined +application of the whip from the ruthless hand of his master soon +compelled him to submission, and Edward’s dilated nostril expressed his +triumph in the result of the contest; he scarcely spoke to me during the +whole of the brief drive, only opening his lips at intervals to damn his +horse. + +X---- was all stir and bustle when we entered it; we left the clean +streets where there were dwelling-houses and shops, churches, and public +buildings; we left all these, and turned down to a region of mills and +warehouses; thence we passed through two massive gates into a great +paved yard, and we were in Bigben Close, and the mill was before us, +vomiting soot from its long chimney, and quivering through its thick +brick walls with the commotion of its iron bowels. Workpeople were +passing to and fro; a waggon was being laden with pieces. Mr. Crimsworth +looked from side to side, and seemed at one glance to comprehend all +that was going on; he alighted, and leaving his horse and gig to the +care of a man who hastened to take the reins from his hand, he bid me +follow him to the counting-house. We entered it; a very different place +from the parlours of Crimsworth Hall--a place for business, with a bare, +planked floor, a safe, two high desks and stools, and some chairs. A +person was seated at one of the desks, who took off his square cap when +Mr. Crimsworth entered, and in an instant was again absorbed in his +occupation of writing or calculating--I know not which. + +Mr. Crimsworth, having removed his mackintosh, sat down by the fire. I +remained standing near the hearth; he said presently-- + +“Steighton, you may leave the room; I have some business to transact +with this gentleman. Come back when you hear the bell.” + +The individual at the desk rose and departed, closing the door as he +went out. Mr. Crimsworth stirred the fire, then folded his arms, and sat +a moment thinking, his lips compressed, his brow knit. I had nothing to +do but to watch him--how well his features were cut! what a handsome man +he was! Whence, then, came that air of contraction--that narrow and hard +aspect on his forehead, in all his lineaments? + +Turning to me he began abruptly: + +“You are come down to ----shire to learn to be a tradesman?” + +“Yes, I am.” + +“Have you made up your mind on the point? Let me know that at once.” + +“Yes.” + +“Well, I am not bound to help you, but I have a place here vacant, if +you are qualified for it. I will take you on trial. What can you do? Do +you know anything besides that useless trash of college learning--Greek, +Latin, and so forth?” + +“I have studied mathematics.” + +“Stuff! I dare say you have.” + +“I can read and write French and German.” + +“Hum!” He reflected a moment, then opening a drawer in a desk near him +took out a letter, and gave it to me. + +“Can you read that?” he asked. + +It was a German commercial letter; I translated it; I could not tell +whether he was gratified or not--his countenance remained fixed. + +“It is well,” he said, after a pause, “that you are acquainted with +something useful, something that may enable you to earn your board and +lodging: since you know French and German, I will take you as second +clerk to manage the foreign correspondence of the house. I shall give +you a good salary--90l. a year--and now,” he continued, raising his +voice, “hear once for all what I have to say about our relationship, and +all that sort of humbug! I must have no nonsense on that point; it +would never suit me. I shall excuse you nothing on the plea of being my +brother; if I find you stupid, negligent, dissipated, idle, or possessed +of any faults detrimental to the interests of the house, I shall dismiss +you as I would any other clerk. Ninety pounds a year are good wages, and +I expect to have the full value of my money out of you; remember, +too, that things are on a practical footing in my +establishment--business-like habits, feelings, and ideas, suit me best. +Do you understand?” + +“Partly,” I replied. “I suppose you mean that I am to do my work for my +wages; not to expect favour from you, and not to depend on you for any +help but what I earn; that suits me exactly, and on these terms I will +consent to be your clerk.” + +I turned on my heel, and walked to the window; this time I did not +consult his face to learn his opinion: what it was I do not know, nor +did I then care. After a silence of some minutes he recommenced:-- + +“You perhaps expect to be accommodated with apartments at Crimsworth +Hall, and to go and come with me in the gig. I wish you, however, to be +aware that such an arrangement would be quite inconvenient to me. I +like to have the seat in my gig at liberty for any gentleman whom for +business reasons I may wish to take down to the hall for a night or so. +You will seek out lodgings in X----.” + +Quitting the window, I walked back to the hearth. + +“Of course I shall seek out lodgings in X----,” I answered. “It would +not suit me either to lodge at Crimsworth Hall.” + +My tone was quiet. I always speak quietly. Yet Mr. Crimsworth’s blue eye +became incensed; he took his revenge rather oddly. Turning to me he said +bluntly-- + +“You are poor enough, I suppose; how do you expect to live till your +quarter’s salary becomes due?” + +“I shall get on,” said I. + +“How do you expect to live?” he repeated in a louder voice. + +“As I can, Mr. Crimsworth.” + +“Get into debt at your peril! that’s all,” he answered. “For aught I +know you may have extravagant aristocratic habits: if you have, drop +them; I tolerate nothing of the sort here, and I will never give you a +shilling extra, whatever liabilities you may incur--mind that.” + +“Yes, Mr. Crimsworth, you will find I have a good memory.” + +I said no more. I did not think the time was come for much parley. I +had an instinctive feeling that it would be folly to let one’s temper +effervesce often with such a man as Edward. I said to myself, “I will +place my cup under this continual dropping; it shall stand there still +and steady; when full, it will run over of itself--meantime patience. +Two things are certain. I am capable of performing the work Mr. +Crimsworth has set me; I can earn my wages conscientiously, and those +wages are sufficient to enable me to live. As to the fact of my brother +assuming towards me the bearing of a proud, harsh master, the fault is +his, not mine; and shall his injustice, his bad feeling, turn me at once +aside from the path I have chosen? No; at least, ere I deviate, I will +advance far enough to see whither my career tends. As yet I am only +pressing in at the entrance--a strait gate enough; it ought to have a +good terminus.” While I thus reasoned, Mr. Crimsworth rang a bell; his +first clerk, the individual dismissed previously to our conference, +re-entered. + +“Mr. Steighton,” said he, “show Mr. William the letters from Voss, +Brothers, and give him English copies of the answers; he will translate +them.” + +Mr. Steighton, a man of about thirty-five, with a face at once sly and +heavy, hastened to execute this order; he laid the letters on the +desk, and I was soon seated at it, and engaged in rendering the English +answers into German. A sentiment of keen pleasure accompanied this first +effort to earn my own living--a sentiment neither poisoned nor weakened +by the presence of the taskmaster, who stood and watched me for some +time as I wrote. I thought he was trying to read my character, but I +felt as secure against his scrutiny as if I had had on a casque with the +visor down--or rather I showed him my countenance with the confidence +that one would show an unlearned man a letter written in Greek; he might +see lines, and trace characters, but he could make nothing of them; my +nature was not his nature, and its signs were to him like the words of +an unknown tongue. Ere long he turned away abruptly, as if baffled, and +left the counting-house; he returned to it but twice in the course of +that day; each time he mixed and swallowed a glass of brandy-and-water, +the materials for making which he extracted from a cupboard on one side +of the fireplace; having glanced at my translations--he could read both +French and German--he went out again in silence. + + + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +I SERVED Edward as his second clerk faithfully, punctually, diligently. +What was given me to do I had the power and the determination to do +well. Mr. Crimsworth watched sharply for defects, but found none; he set +Timothy Steighton, his favourite and head man, to watch also. Tim was +baffled; I was as exact as himself, and quicker. Mr. Crimsworth made +inquiries as to how I lived, whether I got into debt--no, my accounts +with my landlady were always straight. I had hired small lodgings, which +I contrived to pay for out of a slender fund--the accumulated savings of +my Eton pocket-money; for as it had ever been abhorrent to my nature to +ask pecuniary assistance, I had early acquired habits of self-denying +economy; husbanding my monthly allowance with anxious care, in order to +obviate the danger of being forced, in some moment of future exigency, +to beg additional aid. I remember many called me miser at the time, +and I used to couple the reproach with this consolation--better to be +misunderstood now than repulsed hereafter. At this day I had my reward; +I had had it before, when on parting with my irritated uncles one of +them threw down on the table before me a 5l. note, which I was able to +leave there, saying that my travelling expenses were already provided +for. Mr. Crimsworth employed Tim to find out whether my landlady had +any complaint to make on the score of my morals; she answered that she +believed I was a very religious man, and asked Tim, in her turn, if he +thought I had any intention of going into the Church some day; for, she +said, she had had young curates to lodge in her house who were nothing +equal to me for steadiness and quietness. Tim was “a religious man” + himself; indeed, he was “a joined Methodist,” which did not (be it +understood) prevent him from being at the same time an engrained rascal, +and he came away much posed at hearing this account of my piety. Having +imparted it to Mr. Crimsworth, that gentleman, who himself frequented +no place of worship, and owned no God but Mammon, turned the information +into a weapon of attack against the equability of my temper. He +commenced a series of covert sneers, of which I did not at first +perceive the drift, till my landlady happened to relate the conversation +she had had with Mr. Steighton; this enlightened me; afterwards I came +to the counting-house prepared, and managed to receive the millowner’s +blasphemous sarcasms, when next levelled at me, on a buckler of +impenetrable indifference. Ere long he tired of wasting his ammunition +on a statue, but he did not throw away the shafts--he only kept them +quiet in his quiver. + +Once during my clerkship I had an invitation to Crimsworth Hall; it +was on the occasion of a large party given in honour of the master’s +birthday; he had always been accustomed to invite his clerks on similar +anniversaries, and could not well pass me over; I was, however, kept +strictly in the background. Mrs. Crimsworth, elegantly dressed in satin +and lace, blooming in youth and health, vouchsafed me no more notice +than was expressed by a distant move; Crimsworth, of course, never +spoke to me; I was introduced to none of the band of young ladies, who, +enveloped in silvery clouds of white gauze and muslin, sat in array +against me on the opposite side of a long and large room; in fact, I was +fairly isolated, and could but contemplate the shining ones from afar, +and when weary of such a dazzling scene, turn for a change to the +consideration of the carpet pattern. Mr. Crimsworth, standing on the +rug, his elbow supported by the marble mantelpiece, and about him +a group of very pretty girls, with whom he conversed gaily--Mr. +Crimsworth, thus placed, glanced at me; I looked weary, solitary, kept +down like some desolate tutor or governess; he was satisfied. + +Dancing began; I should have liked well enough to be introduced to some +pleasing and intelligent girl, and to have freedom and opportunity +to show that I could both feel and communicate the pleasure of social +intercourse--that I was not, in short, a block, or a piece of furniture, +but an acting, thinking, sentient man. Many smiling faces and graceful +figures glided past me, but the smiles were lavished on other eyes, the +figures sustained by other hands than mine. I turned away tantalized, +left the dancers, and wandered into the oak-panelled dining-room. No +fibre of sympathy united me to any living thing in this house; I looked +for and found my mother’s picture. I took a wax taper from a stand, +and held it up. I gazed long, earnestly; my heart grew to the image. +My mother, I perceived, had bequeathed to me much of her features and +countenance--her forehead, her eyes, her complexion. No regular beauty +pleases egotistical human beings so much as a softened and refined +likeness of themselves; for this reason, fathers regard with complacency +the lineaments of their daughters’ faces, where frequently their own +similitude is found flatteringly associated with softness of hue and +delicacy of outline. I was just wondering how that picture, to me so +interesting, would strike an impartial spectator, when a voice close +behind me pronounced the words-- + +“Humph! there’s some sense in that face.” + +I turned; at my elbow stood a tall man, young, though probably five or +six years older than I--in other respects of an appearance the opposite +to common place; though just now, as I am not disposed to paint his +portrait in detail, the reader must be content with the silhouette I +have just thrown off; it was all I myself saw of him for the moment: I +did not investigate the colour of his eyebrows, nor of his eyes either; +I saw his stature, and the outline of his shape; I saw, too, his +fastidious-looking RETROUSSE nose; these observations, few in number, +and general in character (the last excepted), sufficed, for they enabled +me to recognize him. + +“Good evening, Mr. Hunsden,” muttered I with a bow, and then, like a +shy noodle as I was, I began moving away--and why? Simply because Mr. +Hunsden was a manufacturer and a millowner, and I was only a clerk, and +my instinct propelled me from my superior. I had frequently seen Hunsden +in Bigben Close, where he came almost weekly to transact business with +Mr. Crimsworth, but I had never spoken to him, nor he to me, and I owed +him a sort of involuntary grudge, because he had more than once been the +tacit witness of insults offered by Edward to me. I had the conviction +that he could only regard me as a poor-spirited slave, wherefore I now +went about to shun his presence and eschew his conversation. + +“Where are you going?” asked he, as I edged off sideways. I had already +noticed that Mr. Hunsden indulged in abrupt forms of speech, and I +perversely said to myself-- + +“He thinks he may speak as he likes to a poor clerk; but my mood is not, +perhaps, so supple as he deems it, and his rough freedom pleases me not +at all.” + +I made some slight reply, rather indifferent than courteous, and +continued to move away. He coolly planted himself in my path. + +“Stay here awhile,” said he: “it is so hot in the dancing-room; besides, +you don’t dance; you have not had a partner to-night.” + +He was right, and as he spoke neither his look, tone, nor manner +displeased me; my AMOUR-PROPRE was propitiated; he had not addressed +me out of condescension, but because, having repaired to the cool +dining-room for refreshment, he now wanted some one to talk to, by way +of temporary amusement. I hate to be condescended to, but I like well +enough to oblige; I stayed. + +“That is a good picture,” he continued, recurring to the portrait. + +“Do you consider the face pretty?” I asked. + +“Pretty! no--how can it be pretty, with sunk eyes and hollow cheeks? +but it is peculiar; it seems to think. You could have a talk with that +woman, if she were alive, on other subjects than dress, visiting, and +compliments.” + +I agreed with him, but did not say so. He went on. + +“Not that I admire a head of that sort; it wants character and force; +there’s too much of the sen-si-tive (so he articulated it, curling +his lip at the same time) in that mouth; besides, there is Aristocrat +written on the brow and defined in the figure; I hate your aristocrats.” + +“You think, then, Mr. Hunsden, that patrician descent may be read in a +distinctive cast of form and features?” + +“Patrician descent be hanged! Who doubts that your lordlings may have +their ‘distinctive cast of form and features’ as much as we----shire +tradesmen have ours? But which is the best? Not theirs assuredly. As +to their women, it is a little different: they cultivate beauty from +childhood upwards, and may by care and training attain to a certain +degree of excellence in that point, just like the oriental odalisques. +Yet even this superiority is doubtful. Compare the figure in that frame +with Mrs. Edward Crimsworth--which is the finer animal?” + +I replied quietly: “Compare yourself and Mr. Edward Crimsworth, Mr +Hunsden.” + +“Oh, Crimsworth is better filled up than I am, I know besides he has a +straight nose, arched eyebrows, and all that; but these advantages--if +they are advantages--he did not inherit from his mother, the patrician, +but from his father, old Crimsworth, who, MY father says, was as +veritable a ----shire blue-dyer as ever put indigo in a vat yet withal +the handsomest man in the three Ridings. It is you, William, who are +the aristocrat of your family, and you are not as fine a fellow as your +plebeian brother by long chalk.” + +There was something in Mr. Hunsden’s point-blank mode of speech which +rather pleased me than otherwise because it set me at my ease. I +continued the conversation with a degree of interest. + +“How do you happen to know that I am Mr. Crimsworth’s brother? I thought +you and everybody else looked upon me only in the light of a poor +clerk.” + +“Well, and so we do; and what are you but a poor clerk? You do +Crimsworth’s work, and he gives you wages--shabby wages they are, too.” + +I was silent. Hunsden’s language now bordered on the impertinent, still +his manner did not offend me in the least--it only piqued my curiosity; +I wanted him to go on, which he did in a little while. + +“This world is an absurd one,” said he. + +“Why so, Mr. Hunsden?” + +“I wonder you should ask: you are yourself a strong proof of the +absurdity I allude to.” + +I was determined he should explain himself of his own accord, without my +pressing him so to do--so I resumed my silence. + +“Is it your intention to become a tradesman?” he inquired presently. + +“It was my serious intention three months ago.” + +“Humph! the more fool you--you look like a tradesman! What a practical +business-like face you have!” + +“My face is as the Lord made it, Mr. Hunsden.” + +“The Lord never made either your face or head for X---- What good can +your bumps of ideality, comparison, self-esteem, conscientiousness, +do you here? But if you like Bigben Close, stay there; it’s your own +affair, not mine.” + +“Perhaps I have no choice.” + +“Well, I care nought about it--it will make little difference to me what +you do or where you go; but I’m cool now--I want to dance again; and +I see such a fine girl sitting in the corner of the sofa there by +her mamma; see if I don’t get her for a partner in a jiffy! There’s +Waddy--Sam Waddy making up to her; won’t I cut him out?” + +And Mr. Hunsden strode away. I watched him through the open +folding-doors; he outstripped Waddy, applied for the hand of the +fine girl, and led her off triumphant. She was a tall, well-made, +full-formed, dashingly-dressed young woman, much in the style of Mrs. E. +Crimsworth; Hunsden whirled her through the waltz with spirit; he kept +at her side during the remainder of the evening, and I read in her +animated and gratified countenance that he succeeded in making himself +perfectly agreeable. The mamma too (a stout person in a turban--Mrs. +Lupton by name) looked well pleased; prophetic visions probably +flattered her inward eye. The Hunsdens were of an old stem; and scornful +as Yorke (such was my late interlocutor’s name) professed to be of +the advantages of birth, in his secret heart he well knew and fully +appreciated the distinction his ancient, if not high lineage conferred +on him in a mushroom-place like X----, concerning whose inhabitants +it was proverbially said, that not one in a thousand knew his own +grandfather. Moreover the Hunsdens, once rich, were still independent; +and report affirmed that Yorke bade fair, by his success in business, +to restore to pristine prosperity the partially decayed fortunes of his +house. These circumstances considered, Mrs. Lupton’s broad face might +well wear a smile of complacency as she contemplated the heir of Hunsden +Wood occupied in paying assiduous court to her darling Sarah Martha. I, +however, whose observations being less anxious, were likely to be more +accurate, soon saw that the grounds for maternal self-congratulation +were slight indeed; the gentleman appeared to me much more desirous of +making, than susceptible of receiving an impression. I know not what it +was in Mr. Hunsden that, as I watched him (I had nothing better to do), +suggested to me, every now and then, the idea of a foreigner. In form +and features he might be pronounced English, though even there one +caught a dash of something Gallic; but he had no English shyness: he had +learnt somewhere, somehow, the art of setting himself quite at his ease, +and of allowing no insular timidity to intervene as a barrier between +him and his convenience or pleasure. Refinement he did not affect, yet +vulgar he could not be called; he was not odd--no quiz--yet he resembled +no one else I had ever seen before; his general bearing intimated +complete, sovereign satisfaction with himself; yet, at times, an +indescribable shade passed like an eclipse over his countenance, and +seemed to me like the sign of a sudden and strong inward doubt of +himself, his words and actions an energetic discontent at his life or +his social position, his future prospects or his mental attainments--I +know not which; perhaps after all it might only be a bilious caprice. + + + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +No man likes to acknowledge that he has made a mistake in the choice of +his profession, and every man, worthy of the name, will row long against +wind and tide before he allows himself to cry out, “I am baffled!” and +submits to be floated passively back to land. From the first week of my +residence in X---- I felt my occupation irksome. The thing itself--the +work of copying and translating business-letters--was a dry and tedious +task enough, but had that been all, I should long have borne with the +nuisance; I am not of an impatient nature, and influenced by the double +desire of getting my living and justifying to myself and others the +resolution I had taken to become a tradesman, I should have endured +in silence the rust and cramp of my best faculties; I should not have +whispered, even inwardly, that I longed for liberty; I should have pent +in every sigh by which my heart might have ventured to intimate its +distress under the closeness, smoke, monotony and joyless tumult of +Bigben Close, and its panting desire for freer and fresher scenes; I +should have set up the image of Duty, the fetish of Perseverance, in my +small bedroom at Mrs. King’s lodgings, and they two should have been +my household gods, from which my darling, my cherished-in-secret, +Imagination, the tender and the mighty, should never, either by softness +or strength, have severed me. But this was not all; the antipathy which +had sprung up between myself and my employer striking deeper root and +spreading denser shade daily, excluded me from every glimpse of the +sunshine of life; and I began to feel like a plant growing in humid +darkness out of the slimy walls of a well. + +Antipathy is the only word which can express the feeling Edward +Crimsworth had for me--a feeling, in a great measure, involuntary, and +which was liable to be excited by every, the most trifling movement, +look, or word of mine. My southern accent annoyed him; the degree +of education evinced in my language irritated him; my punctuality, +industry, and accuracy, fixed his dislike, and gave it the high flavour +and poignant relish of envy; he feared that I too should one day make a +successful tradesman. Had I been in anything inferior to him, he would +not have hated me so thoroughly, but I knew all that he knew, and, what +was worse, he suspected that I kept the padlock of silence on mental +wealth in which he was no sharer. If he could have once placed me in a +ridiculous or mortifying position, he would have forgiven me much, but I +was guarded by three faculties--Caution, Tact, Observation; and +prowling and prying as was Edward’s malignity, it could never baffle +the lynx-eyes of these, my natural sentinels. Day by day did his malice +watch my tact, hoping it would sleep, and prepared to steal snake-like +on its slumber; but tact, if it be genuine, never sleeps. + +I had received my first quarter’s wages, and was returning to my +lodgings, possessed heart and soul with the pleasant feeling that +the master who had paid me grudged every penny of that hard-earned +pittance--(I had long ceased to regard Mr. Crimsworth as my brother--he +was a hard, grinding master; he wished to be an inexorable tyrant: that +was all). Thoughts, not varied but strong, occupied my mind; two voices +spoke within me; again and again they uttered the same monotonous +phrases. One said: “William, your life is intolerable.” The other: “What +can you do to alter it?” I walked fast, for it was a cold, frosty night +in January; as I approached my lodgings, I turned from a general view of +my affairs to the particular speculation as to whether my fire would be +out; looking towards the window of my sitting-room, I saw no cheering +red gleam. + +“That slut of a servant has neglected it as usual,” said I, “and I shall +see nothing but pale ashes if I go in; it is a fine starlight night--I +will walk a little farther.” + +It WAS a fine night, and the streets were dry and even clean for X----; +there was a crescent curve of moonlight to be seen by the parish church +tower, and hundreds of stars shone keenly bright in all quarters of the +sky. + +Unconsciously I steered my course towards the country; I had got into +Grove-street, and began to feel the pleasure of seeing dim trees at the +extremity, round a suburban house, when a person leaning over the iron +gate of one of the small gardens which front the neat dwelling-houses in +this street, addressed me as I was hurrying with quick stride past. + +“What the deuce is the hurry? Just so must Lot have left Sodom, when he +expected fire to pour down upon it, out of burning brass clouds.” + +I stopped short, and looked towards the speaker. I smelt the fragrance, +and saw the red spark of a cigar; the dusk outline of a man, too, bent +towards me over the wicket. + +“You see I am meditating in the field at eventide,” continued this +shade. “God knows it’s cool work! especially as instead of Rebecca on +a camel’s hump, with bracelets on her arms and a ring in her nose, Fate +sends me only a counting-house clerk, in a grey tweed wrapper.” The +voice was familiar to me--its second utterance enabled me to seize the +speaker’s identity. + +“Mr. Hunsden! good evening.” + +“Good evening, indeed! yes, but you would have passed me without +recognition if I had not been so civil as to speak first.” + +“I did not know you.” + +“A famous excuse! You ought to have known me; I knew you, though you +were going ahead like a steam-engine. Are the police after you?” + +“It wouldn’t be worth their while; I’m not of consequence enough to +attract them.” + +“Alas, poor shepherd! Alack and well-a-day! What a theme for regret, and +how down in the mouth you must be, judging from the sound of your voice! +But since you’re not running from the police, from whom are you running? +the devil?” + +“On the contrary, I am going post to him.” + +“That is well--you’re just in luck: this is Tuesday evening; there are +scores of market gigs and carts returning to Dinneford to-night; and he, +or some of his, have a seat in all regularly; so, if you’ll step in +and sit half-an-hour in my bachelor’s parlour, you may catch him as he +passes without much trouble. I think though you’d better let him alone +to-night, he’ll have so many customers to serve; Tuesday is his busy day +in X---- and Dinneford; come in at all events.” + +He swung the wicket open as he spoke. + +“Do you really wish me to go in?” I asked. + +“As you please--I’m alone; your company for an hour or two would be +agreeable to me; but, if you don’t choose to favour me so far, I’ll not +press the point. I hate to bore any one.” + +It suited me to accept the invitation as it suited Hunsden to give it. +I passed through the gate, and followed him to the front door, which he +opened; thence we traversed a passage, and entered his parlour; the door +being shut, he pointed me to an arm-chair by the hearth; I sat down, and +glanced round me. + +It was a comfortable room, at once snug and handsome; the bright grate +was filled with a genuine ----shire fire, red, clear, and generous, no +penurious South-of-England embers heaped in the corner of a grate. On +the table a shaded lamp diffused around a soft, pleasant, and equal +light; the furniture was almost luxurious for a young bachelor, +comprising a couch and two very easy chairs; bookshelves filled the +recesses on each side of the mantelpiece; they were well-furnished, and +arranged with perfect order. The neatness of the room suited my taste; +I hate irregular and slovenly habits. From what I saw I concluded that +Hunsden’s ideas on that point corresponded with my own. While he removed +from the centre-table to the side-board a few pamphlets and periodicals, +I ran my eye along the shelves of the book-case nearest me. French and +German works predominated, the old French dramatists, sundry modern +authors, Thiers, Villemain, Paul de Kock, George Sand, Eugene Sue; in +German--Goethe, Schiller, Zschokke, Jean Paul Richter; in English there +were works on Political Economy. I examined no further, for Mr. Hunsden +himself recalled my attention. + +“You shall have something,” said he, “for you ought to feel disposed for +refreshment after walking nobody knows how far on such a Canadian night +as this; but it shall not be brandy-and-water, and it shall not be +a bottle of port, nor ditto of sherry. I keep no such poison. I have +Rhein-wein for my own drinking, and you may choose between that and +coffee.” + +Here again Hunsden suited me: if there was one generally received +practice I abhorred more than another, it was the habitual imbibing of +spirits and strong wines. I had, however, no fancy for his acid German +nectar, but I liked coffee, so I responded-- + +“Give me some coffee, Mr. Hunsden.” + +I perceived my answer pleased him; he had doubtless expected to see a +chilling effect produced by his steady announcement that he would give +me neither wine nor spirits; he just shot one searching glance at my +face to ascertain whether my cordiality was genuine or a mere feint +of politeness. I smiled, because I quite understood him; and, while I +honoured his conscientious firmness, I was amused at his mistrust; he +seemed satisfied, rang the bell, and ordered coffee, which was presently +brought; for himself, a bunch of grapes and half a pint of something +sour sufficed. My coffee was excellent; I told him so, and expressed the +shuddering pity with which his anchorite fare inspired me. He did not +answer, and I scarcely think heard my remark. At that moment one of +those momentary eclipses I before alluded to had come over his face, +extinguishing his smile, and replacing, by an abstracted and alienated +look, the customarily shrewd, bantering glance of his eye. I employed +the interval of silence in a rapid scrutiny of his physiognomy. I had +never observed him closely before; and, as my sight is very short, I had +gathered only a vague, general idea of his appearance; I was surprised +now, on examination, to perceive how small, and even feminine, were his +lineaments; his tall figure, long and dark locks, his voice and general +bearing, had impressed me with the notion of something powerful and +massive; not at all:--my own features were cast in a harsher and squarer +mould than his. I discerned that there would be contrasts between his +inward and outward man; contentions, too; for I suspected his soul +had more of will and ambition than his body had of fibre and muscle. +Perhaps, in these incompatibilities of the “physique” with the “morale,” + lay the secret of that fitful gloom; he WOULD but COULD not, and the +athletic mind scowled scorn on its more fragile companion. As to his +good looks, I should have liked to have a woman’s opinion on that +subject; it seemed to me that his face might produce the same effect +on a lady that a very piquant and interesting, though scarcely pretty, +female face would on a man. I have mentioned his dark locks--they were +brushed sideways above a white and sufficiently expansive forehead; his +cheek had a rather hectic freshness; his features might have done well +on canvas, but indifferently in marble: they were plastic; character +had set a stamp upon each; expression re-cast them at her pleasure, and +strange metamorphoses she wrought, giving him now the mien of a morose +bull, and anon that of an arch and mischievous girl; more frequently, +the two semblances were blent, and a queer, composite countenance they +made. + +Starting from his silent fit, he began:-- + +“William! what a fool you are to live in those dismal lodgings of Mrs. +King’s, when you might take rooms here in Grove Street, and have a +garden like me!” + +“I should be too far from the mill.” + +“What of that? It would do you good to walk there and back two or three +times a day; besides, are you such a fossil that you never wish to see a +flower or a green leaf?” + +“I am no fossil.” + +“What are you then? You sit at that desk in Crimsworth’s counting-house +day by day and week by week, scraping with a pen on paper, just like an +automaton; you never get up; you never say you are tired; you never ask +for a holiday; you never take change or relaxation; you give way to +no excess of an evening; you neither keep wild company, nor indulge in +strong drink.” + +“Do you, Mr. Hunsden?” + +“Don’t think to pose me with short questions; your case and mine +are diametrically different, and it is nonsense attempting to draw a +parallel. I say, that when a man endures patiently what ought to be +unendurable, he is a fossil.” + +“Whence do you acquire the knowledge of my patience?” + +“Why, man, do you suppose you are a mystery? The other night you seemed +surprised at my knowing to what family you belonged; now you find +subject for wonderment in my calling you patient. What do you think I do +with my eyes and ears? I’ve been in your counting-house more than once +when Crimsworth has treated you like a dog; called for a book, for +instance, and when you gave him the wrong one, or what he chose to +consider the wrong one, flung it back almost in your face; desired you +to shut or open the door as if you had been his flunkey; to say nothing +of your position at the party about a month ago, where you had neither +place nor partner, but hovered about like a poor, shabby hanger-on; and +how patient you were under each and all of these circumstances!” + +“Well, Mr. Hunsden, what then?” + +“I can hardly tell you what then; the conclusion to be drawn as to +your character depends upon the nature of the motives which guide +your conduct; if you are patient because you expect to make something +eventually out of Crimsworth, notwithstanding his tyranny, or perhaps by +means of it, you are what the world calls an interested and mercenary, +but may be a very wise fellow; if you are patient because you think it a +duty to meet insult with submission, you are an essential sap, and in +no shape the man for my money; if you are patient because your nature is +phlegmatic, flat, inexcitable, and that you cannot get up to the pitch +of resistance, why, God made you to be crushed; and lie down by all +means, and lie flat, and let Juggernaut ride well over you.” + +Mr. Hunsden’s eloquence was not, it will be perceived, of the smooth and +oily order. As he spoke, he pleased me ill. I seem to recognize in him +one of those characters who, sensitive enough themselves, are selfishly +relentless towards the sensitiveness of others. Moreover, though he +was neither like Crimsworth nor Lord Tynedale, yet he was acrid, and, I +suspected, overbearing in his way: there was a tone of despotism in +the urgency of the very reproaches by which he aimed at goading the +oppressed into rebellion against the oppressor. Looking at him still +more fixedly than I had yet done, I saw written in his eye and mien a +resolution to arrogate to himself a freedom so unlimited that it might +often trench on the just liberty of his neighbours. I rapidly ran over +these thoughts, and then I laughed a low and involuntary laugh, moved +thereto by a slight inward revelation of the inconsistency of man. +It was as I thought: Hunsden had expected me to take with calm his +incorrect and offensive surmises, his bitter and haughty taunts; and +himself was chafed by a laugh, scarce louder than a whisper. + +His brow darkened, his thin nostril dilated a little. + +“Yes,” he began, “I told you that you were an aristocrat, and who but +an aristocrat would laugh such a laugh as that, and look such a look? +A laugh frigidly jeering; a look lazily mutinous; gentlemanlike irony, +patrician resentment. What a nobleman you would have made, William +Crimsworth! You are cut out for one; pity Fortune has baulked Nature! +Look at the features, figure, even to the hands--distinction all +over--ugly distinction! Now, if you’d only an estate and a mansion, +and a park, and a title, how you could play the exclusive, maintain the +rights of your class, train your tenantry in habits of respect to the +peerage, oppose at every step the advancing power of the people, support +your rotten order, and be ready for its sake to wade knee-deep in +churls’ blood; as it is, you’ve no power; you can do nothing; you’re +wrecked and stranded on the shores of commerce; forced into collision +with practical men, with whom you cannot cope, for YOU’LL NEVER BE A +TRADESMAN.” + +The first part of Hunsden’s speech moved me not at all, or, if it did, +it was only to wonder at the perversion into which prejudice had twisted +his judgment of my character; the concluding sentence, however, not only +moved, but shook me; the blow it gave was a severe one, because Truth +wielded the weapon. If I smiled now, it, was only in disdain of myself. + +Hunsden saw his advantage; he followed it up. + +“You’ll make nothing by trade,” continued he; “nothing more than the +crust of dry bread and the draught of fair water on which you now live; +your only chance of getting a competency lies in marrying a rich widow, +or running away with an heiress.” + +“I leave such shifts to be put in practice by those who devise them,” + said I, rising. + +“And even that is hopeless,” he went on coolly. “What widow would have +you? Much less, what heiress? You’re not bold and venturesome enough for +the one, nor handsome and fascinating enough for the other. You think +perhaps you look intelligent and polished; carry your intellect and +refinement to market, and tell me in a private note what price is bid +for them.” + +Mr. Hunsden had taken his tone for the night; the string he struck was +out of tune, he would finger no other. Averse to discord, of which I had +enough every day and all day long, I concluded, at last, that silence +and solitude were preferable to jarring converse; I bade him good-night. + +“What! Are you going, lad? Well, good-night: you’ll find the door.” And +he sat still in front of the fire, while I left the room and the house. +I had got a good way on my return to my lodgings before I found out that +I was walking very fast, and breathing very hard, and that my nails were +almost stuck into the palms of my clenched hands, and that my teeth were +set fast; on making this discovery, I relaxed both my pace, fists, and +jaws, but I could not so soon cause the regrets rushing rapidly through +my mind to slacken their tide. Why did I make myself a tradesman? Why +did I enter Hunsden’s house this evening? Why, at dawn to-morrow, must +I repair to Crimsworth’s mill? All that night did I ask myself these +questions, and all that night fiercely demanded of my soul an answer. I +got no sleep; my head burned, my feet froze; at last the factory bells +rang, and I sprang from my bed with other slaves. + + + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +THERE is a climax to everything, to every state of feeling as well as to +every position in life. I turned this truism over in my mind as, in the +frosty dawn of a January morning, I hurried down the steep and now +icy street which descended from Mrs. King’s to the Close. The factory +workpeople had preceded me by nearly an hour, and the mill was all +lighted up and in full operation when I reached it. I repaired to my +post in the counting-house as usual; the fire there, but just lit, as +yet only smoked; Steighton had not yet arrived. I shut the door and sat +down at the desk; my hands, recently washed in half-frozen water, were +still numb; I could not write till they had regained vitality, so I +went on thinking, and still the theme of my thoughts was the “climax.” + Self-dissatisfaction troubled exceedingly the current of my meditations. + +“Come, William Crimsworth,” said my conscience, or whatever it is that +within ourselves takes ourselves to task--“come, get a clear notion of +what you would have, or what you would not have. You talk of a climax; +pray has your endurance reached its climax? It is not four months old. +What a fine resolute fellow you imagined yourself to be when you told +Tynedale you would tread in your father’s steps, and a pretty treading +you are likely to make of it! How well you like X----! Just at this +moment how redolent of pleasant associations are its streets, its shops, +its warehouses, its factories! How the prospect of this day cheers +you! Letter-copying till noon, solitary dinner at your lodgings, +letter-copying till evening, solitude; for you neither find pleasure +in Brown’s, nor Smith’s, nor Nicholl’s, nor Eccle’s company; and as +to Hunsden, you fancied there was pleasure to be derived from his +society--he! he! how did you like the taste you had of him last night? +was it sweet? Yet he is a talented, an original-minded man, and even +he does not like you; your self-respect defies you to like him; he has +always seen you to disadvantage; he always will see you to disadvantage; +your positions are unequal, and were they on the same level your +minds could not assimilate; never hope, then, to gather the honey of +friendship out of that thorn-guarded plant. Hello, Crimsworth! where are +your thoughts tending? You leave the recollection of Hunsden as a bee +would a rock, as a bird a desert; and your aspirations spread eager +wings towards a land of visions where, now in advancing daylight--in +X---- daylight--you dare to dream of congeniality, repose, union. Those +three you will never meet in this world; they are angels. The souls of +just men made perfect may encounter them in heaven, but your soul will +never be made perfect. Eight o’clock strikes! your hands are thawed, get +to work!” + +“Work? why should I work?” said I sullenly: “I cannot please though I +toil like a slave.” “Work, work!” reiterated the inward voice. “I may +work, it will do no good,” I growled; but nevertheless I drew out a +packet of letters and commenced my task--task thankless and bitter as +that of the Israelite crawling over the sun-baked fields of Egypt in +search of straw and stubble wherewith to accomplish his tale of bricks. + +About ten o’clock I heard Mr. Crimsworth’s gig turn into the yard, and +in a minute or two he entered the counting-house. It was his custom to +glance his eye at Steighton and myself, to hang up his mackintosh, stand +a minute with his back to the fire, and then walk out. Today he did +not deviate from his usual habits; the only difference was that when +he looked at me, his brow, instead of being merely hard, was surly; his +eye, instead of being cold, was fierce. He studied me a minute or two +longer than usual, but went out in silence. + +Twelve o’clock arrived; the bell rang for a suspension of labour; the +workpeople went off to their dinners; Steighton, too, departed, desiring +me to lock the counting-house door, and take the key with me. I +was tying up a bundle of papers, and putting them in their place, +preparatory to closing my desk, when Crimsworth reappeared at the door, +and entering closed it behind him. + +“You’ll stay here a minute,” said he, in a deep, brutal voice, while his +nostrils distended and his eye shot a spark of sinister fire. + +Alone with Edward I remembered our relationship, and remembering that +forgot the difference of position; I put away deference and careful +forms of speech; I answered with simple brevity. + +“It is time to go home,” I said, turning the key in my desk. + +“You’ll stay here!” he reiterated. “And take your hand off that key! +leave it in the lock!” + +“Why?” asked I. “What cause is there for changing my usual plans?” + +“Do as I order,” was the answer, “and no questions! You are my servant, +obey me! What have you been about--?” He was going on in the same +breath, when an abrupt pause announced that rage had for the moment got +the better of articulation. + +“You may look, if you wish to know,” I replied. “There is the open desk, +there are the papers.” + +“Confound your insolence! What have you been about?” + +“Your work, and have done it well.” + +“Hypocrite and twaddler! Smooth-faced, snivelling greasehorn!” (This +last term is, I believe, purely ----shire, and alludes to the horn of +black, rancid whale-oil, usually to be seen suspended to cart-wheels, +and employed for greasing the same.) + +“Come, Edward Crimsworth, enough of this. It is time you and I wound up +accounts. I have now given your service three months’ trial, and I find +it the most nauseous slavery under the sun. Seek another clerk. I stay +no longer.” + +“What! do you dare to give me notice? Stop at least for your wages.” He +took down the heavy gig whip hanging beside his mackintosh. + +I permitted myself to laugh with a degree of scorn I took no pains to +temper or hide. His fury boiled up, and when he had sworn half-a-dozen +vulgar, impious oaths, without, however, venturing to lift the whip, he +continued: + +“I’ve found you out and know you thoroughly, you mean, whining +lickspittle! What have you been saying all over X---- about me? answer +me that!” + +“You? I have neither inclination nor temptation to talk about you.” + +“You lie! It is your practice to talk about me; it is your constant +habit to make public complaint of the treatment you receive at my hands. +You have gone and told it far and near that I give you low wages and +knock you about like a dog. I wish you were a dog! I’d set-to this +minute, and never stir from the spot till I’d cut every strip of flesh +from your bones with this whip.” + +He flourished his tool. The end of the lash just touched my forehead. +A warm excited thrill ran through my veins, my blood seemed to give a +bound, and then raced fast and hot along its channels. I got up nimbly, +came round to where he stood, and faced him. + +“Down with your whip!” said I, “and explain this instant what you mean.” + +“Sirrah! to whom are you speaking?” + +“To you. There is no one else present, I think. You say I have been +calumniating you--complaining of your low wages and bad treatment. Give +your grounds for these assertions.” + +Crimsworth had no dignity, and when I sternly demanded an explanation, +he gave one in a loud, scolding voice. + +“Grounds! you shall have them; and turn to the light that I may see your +brazen face blush black, when you hear yourself proved to be a liar and +a hypocrite. At a public meeting in the Town-hall yesterday, I had the +pleasure of hearing myself insulted by the speaker opposed to me in the +question under discussion, by allusions to my private affairs; by cant +about monsters without natural affection, family despots, and such +trash; and when I rose to answer, I was met by a shout from the filthy +mob, where the mention of your name enabled me at once to detect the +quarter in which this base attack had originated. When I looked round, I +saw that treacherous villain, Hunsden acting as fugleman. I detected you +in close conversation with Hunsden at my house a month ago, and I know +that you were at Hunsden’s rooms last night. Deny it if you dare.” + +“Oh, I shall not deny it! And if Hunsden hounded on the people to hiss +you, he did quite right. You deserve popular execration; for a worse +man, a harder master, a more brutal brother than you are has seldom +existed.” + +“Sirrah! sirrah!” reiterated Crimsworth; and to complete his apostrophe, +he cracked the whip straight over my head. + +A minute sufficed to wrest it from him, break it in two pieces, and +throw it under the grate. He made a headlong rush at me, which I evaded, +and said-- + +“Touch me, and I’ll have you up before the nearest magistrate.” + +Men like Crimsworth, if firmly and calmly resisted, always abate +something of their exorbitant insolence; he had no mind to be brought +before a magistrate, and I suppose he saw I meant what I said. After +an odd and long stare at me, at once bull-like and amazed, he seemed +to bethink himself that, after all, his money gave him sufficient +superiority over a beggar like me, and that he had in his hands a surer +and more dignified mode of revenge than the somewhat hazardous one of +personal chastisement. + +“Take your hat,” said he. “Take what belongs to you, and go out at +that door; get away to your parish, you pauper: beg, steal, starve, get +transported, do what you like; but at your peril venture again into +my sight! If ever I hear of your setting foot on an inch of ground +belonging to me, I’ll hire a man to cane you.” + +“It is not likely you’ll have the chance; once off your premises, what +temptation can I have to return to them? I leave a prison, I leave a +tyrant; I leave what is worse than the worst that can lie before me, so +no fear of my coming back.” + +“Go, or I’ll make you!” exclaimed Crimsworth. + +I walked deliberately to my desk, took out such of its contents as were +my own property, put them in my pocket, locked the desk, and placed the +key on the top. + +“What are you abstracting from that desk?” demanded the millowner. +“Leave all behind in its place, or I’ll send for a policeman to search +you.” + +“Look sharp about it, then,” said I, and I took down my hat, drew on my +gloves, and walked leisurely out of the counting-house--walked out of it +to enter it no more. + +I recollect that when the mill-bell rang the dinner hour, before Mr. +Crimsworth entered, and the scene above related took place, I had had +rather a sharp appetite, and had been waiting somewhat impatiently to +hear the signal of feeding time. I forgot it now, however; the images +of potatoes and roast mutton were effaced from my mind by the stir and +tumult which the transaction of the last half-hour had there excited. I +only thought of walking, that the action of my muscles might harmonize +with the action of my nerves; and walk I did, fast and far. How could +I do otherwise? A load was lifted off my heart; I felt light and +liberated. I had got away from Bigben Close without a breach of +resolution; without injury to my self-respect. I had not forced +circumstances; circumstances had freed me. Life was again open to me; +no longer was its horizon limited by the high black wall surrounding +Crimsworth’s mill. Two hours had elapsed before my sensations had so far +subsided as to leave me calm enough to remark for what wider and clearer +boundaries I had exchanged that sooty girdle. When I did look up, lo! +straight before me lay Grovetown, a village of villas about five miles +out of X----. The short winter day, as I perceived from the far-declined +sun, was already approaching its close; a chill frost-mist was rising +from the river on which X---- stands, and along whose banks the road I +had taken lay; it dimmed the earth, but did not obscure the clear icy +blue of the January sky. There was a great stillness near and far; the +time of the day favoured tranquillity, as the people were all employed +within-doors, the hour of evening release from the factories not being +yet arrived; a sound of full-flowing water alone pervaded the air, for +the river was deep and abundant, swelled by the melting of a late snow. +I stood awhile, leaning over a wall; and looking down at the current: +I watched the rapid rush of its waves. I desired memory to take a clear +and permanent impression of the scene, and treasure it for future years. +Grovetown church clock struck four; looking up, I beheld the last of +that day’s sun, glinting red through the leafless boughs of some +very old oak trees surrounding the church--its light coloured and +characterized the picture as I wished. I paused yet a moment, till the +sweet, slow sound of the bell had quite died out of the air; then ear, +eye and feeling satisfied, I quitted the wall and once more turned my +face towards X----. + + + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +I RE-ENTERED the town a hungry man; the dinner I had forgotten recurred +seductively to my recollection; and it was with a quick step and sharp +appetite I ascended the narrow street leading to my lodgings. It was +dark when I opened the front door and walked into the house. I wondered +how my fire would be; the night was cold, and I shuddered at the +prospect of a grate full of sparkless cinders. To my joyful surprise, +I found, on entering my sitting-room, a good fire and a clean hearth. +I had hardly noticed this phenomenon, when I became aware of another +subject for wonderment; the chair I usually occupied near the hearth was +already filled; a person sat there with his arms folded on his chest, +and his legs stretched out on the rug. Short-sighted as I am, doubtful +as was the gleam of the firelight, a moment’s examination enabled me to +recognize in this person my acquaintance, Mr. Hunsden. I could not of +course be much pleased to see him, considering the manner in which I had +parted from him the night before, and as I walked to the hearth, stirred +the fire, and said coolly, “Good evening,” my demeanour evinced as +little cordiality as I felt; yet I wondered in my own mind what had +brought him there; and I wondered, also, what motives had induced him to +interfere so actively between me and Edward; it was to him, it appeared, +that I owed my welcome dismissal; still I could not bring myself to +ask him questions, to show any eagerness of curiosity; if he chose to +explain, he might, but the explanation should be a perfectly voluntary +one on his part; I thought he was entering upon it. + +“You owe me a debt of gratitude,” were his first words. + +“Do I?” said I; “I hope it is not a large one, for I am much too poor to +charge myself with heavy liabilities of any kind.” + +“Then declare yourself bankrupt at once, for this liability is a ton +weight at least. When I came in I found your fire out, and I had it lit +again, and made that sulky drab of a servant stay and blow at it with +the bellows till it had burnt up properly; now, say ‘Thank you!’” + +“Not till I have had something to eat; I can thank nobody while I am so +famished.” + +I rang the bell and ordered tea and some cold meat. + +“Cold meat!” exclaimed Hunsden, as the servant closed the door, “what a +glutton you are; man! Meat with tea! you’ll die of eating too much.” + +“No, Mr. Hunsden, I shall not.” I felt a necessity for contradicting +him; I was irritated with hunger, and irritated at seeing him there, and +irritated at the continued roughness of his manner. + +“It is over-eating that makes you so ill-tempered,” said he. + +“How do you know?” I demanded. “It is like you to give a pragmatical +opinion without being acquainted with any of the circumstances of the +case; I have had no dinner.” + +What I said was petulant and snappish enough, and Hunsden only replied +by looking in my face and laughing. + +“Poor thing!” he whined, after a pause. “It has had no dinner, has it? +What! I suppose its master would not let it come home. Did Crimsworth +order you to fast by way of punishment, William!” + +“No, Mr. Hunsden.” Fortunately at this sulky juncture, tea, was brought +in, and I fell to upon some bread and butter and cold beef directly. +Having cleared a plateful, I became so far humanized as to intimate to +Mr. Hunsden that he need not sit there staring, but might come to the +table and do as I did, if he liked. + +“But I don’t like in the least,” said he, and therewith he summoned the +servant by a fresh pull of the bell-rope, and intimated a desire to +have a glass of toast-and-water. “And some more coal,” he added; “Mr. +Crimsworth shall keep a good fire while I stay.” + +His orders being executed, he wheeled his chair round to the table, so +as to be opposite me. + +“Well,” he proceeded. “You are out of work, I suppose.” + +“Yes,” said I; and not disposed to show the satisfaction I felt on this +point, I, yielding to the whim of the moment, took up the subject as +though I considered myself aggrieved rather than benefited by what had +been done. “Yes--thanks to you, I am. Crimsworth turned me off at +a minute’s notice, owing to some interference of yours at a public +meeting, I understand.” + +“Ah! what! he mentioned that? He observed me signalling the lads, did +he? What had he to say about his friend Hunsden--anything sweet?” + +“He called you a treacherous villain.” + +“Oh, he hardly knows me yet! I’m one of those shy people who don’t come +out all at once, and he is only just beginning to make my acquaintance, +but he’ll find I’ve some good qualities--excellent ones! The Hunsdens +were always unrivalled at tracking a rascal; a downright, dishonourable +villain is their natural prey--they could not keep off him wherever +they met him; you used the word pragmatical just now--that word is the +property of our family; it has been applied to us from generation to +generation; we have fine noses for abuses; we scent a scoundrel a mile +off; we are reformers born, radical reformers; and it was impossible for +me to live in the same town with Crimsworth, to come into weekly contact +with him, to witness some of his conduct to you (for whom personally +I care nothing; I only consider the brutal injustice with which he +violated your natural claim to equality)--I say it was impossible for +me to be thus situated and not feel the angel or the demon of my race +at work within me. I followed my instinct, opposed a tyrant, and broke a +chain.” + +Now this speech interested me much, both because it brought out +Hunsden’s character, and because it explained his motives; it interested +me so much that I forgot to reply to it, and sat silent, pondering over +a throng of ideas it had suggested. + +“Are you grateful to me?” he asked, presently. + +In fact I was grateful, or almost so, and I believe I half liked him at +the moment, notwithstanding his proviso that what he had done was not +out of regard for me. But human nature is perverse. Impossible to answer +his blunt question in the affirmative, so I disclaimed all tendency +to gratitude, and advised him if he expected any reward for his +championship, to look for it in a better world, as he was not likely +to meet with it here. In reply he termed me “a dry-hearted aristocratic +scamp,” whereupon I again charged him with having taken the bread out of +my mouth. + +“Your bread was dirty, man!” cried Hunsden--“dirty and unwholesome! +It came through the hands of a tyrant, for I tell you Crimsworth is a +tyrant,--a tyrant to his workpeople, a tyrant to his clerks, and will +some day be a tyrant to his wife.” + +“Nonsense! bread is bread, and a salary is a salary. I’ve lost mine, and +through your means.” + +“There’s sense in what you say, after all,” rejoined Hunsden. “I must +say I am rather agreeably surprised to hear you make so practical +an observation as that last. I had imagined now, from my previous +observation of your character, that the sentimental delight you would +have taken in your newly regained liberty would, for a while at least, +have effaced all ideas of forethought and prudence. I think better of +you for looking steadily to the needful.” + +“Looking steadily to the needful! How can I do otherwise? I must live, +and to live I must have what you call ‘the needful,’ which I can only +get by working. I repeat it, you have taken my work from me.” + +“What do you mean to do?” pursued Hunsden coolly. “You have influential +relations; I suppose they’ll soon provide you with another place.” + +“Influential relations? Who? I should like to know their names.” + +“The Seacombes.” + +“Stuff! I have cut them.” + +Hunsden looked at me incredulously. + +“I have,” said I, “and that definitively.” + +“You must mean they have cut you, William.” + +“As you please. They offered me their patronage on condition of my +entering the Church; I declined both the terms and the recompence; I +withdrew from my cold uncles, and preferred throwing myself into my +elder brother’s arms, from whose affectionate embrace I am now torn by +the cruel intermeddling of a stranger--of yourself, in short.” + +I could not repress a half-smile as I said this; a similar +demi-manifestation of feeling appeared at the same moment on Hunsden’s +lips. + +“Oh, I see!” said he, looking into my eyes, and it was evident he did +see right down into my heart. Having sat a minute or two with his chin +resting on his hand, diligently occupied in the continued perusal of my +countenance, he went on: + +“Seriously, have you then nothing to expect from the Seacombes?” + +“Yes, rejection and repulsion. Why do you ask me twice? How can hands +stained with the ink of a counting-house, soiled with the grease of +a wool-warehouse, ever again be permitted to come into contact with +aristocratic palms?” + +“There would be a difficulty, no doubt; still you are such a complete +Seacombe in appearance, feature, language, almost manner, I wonder they +should disown you.” + +“They have disowned me; so talk no more about it.” + +“Do you regret it, William?” + +“No.” + +“Why not, lad?” + +“Because they are not people with whom I could ever have had any +sympathy.” + +“I say you are one of them.” + +“That merely proves that you know nothing at all about it; I am my +mother’s son, but not my uncles’ nephew.” + +“Still--one of your uncles is a lord, though rather an obscure and not a +very wealthy one, and the other a right honourable: you should consider +worldly interest.” + +“Nonsense, Mr. Hunsden. You know or may know that even had I desired to +be submissive to my uncles, I could not have stooped with a good enough +grace ever to have won their favour. I should have sacrificed my own +comfort and not have gained their patronage in return.” + +“Very likely--so you calculated your wisest plan was to follow your own +devices at once?” + +“Exactly. I must follow my own devices--I must, till the day of my +death; because I can neither comprehend, adopt, nor work out those of +other people.” + +Hunsden yawned. “Well,” said he, “in all this, I see but one thing +clearly-that is, that the whole affair is no business of mine.” He +stretched himself and again yawned. “I wonder what time it is,” he went +on: “I have an appointment for seven o’clock.” + +“Three quarters past six by my watch.” + +“Well, then I’ll go.” He got up. “You’ll not meddle with trade again?” + said he, leaning his elbow on the mantelpiece. + +“No; I think not.” + +“You would be a fool if you did. Probably, after all, you’ll think +better of your uncles’ proposal and go into the Church.” + +“A singular regeneration must take place in my whole inner and outer man +before I do that. A good clergyman is one of the best of men.” + +“Indeed! Do you think so?” interrupted Hunsden, scoffingly. + +“I do, and no mistake. But I have not the peculiar points which go to +make a good clergyman; and rather than adopt a profession for which I +have no vocation, I would endure extremities of hardship from poverty.” + +“You’re a mighty difficult customer to suit. You won’t be a tradesman +or a parson; you can’t be a lawyer, or a doctor, or a gentleman, because +you’ve no money. I’d recommend you to travel.” + +“What! without money?” + +“You must travel in search of money, man. You can speak French--with +a vile English accent, no doubt--still, you can speak it. Go on to the +Continent, and see what will turn up for you there.” + +“God knows I should like to go!” exclaimed I with involuntary ardour. + +“Go: what the deuce hinders you? You may get to Brussels, for instance, +for five or six pounds, if you know how to manage with economy.” + +“Necessity would teach me if I didn’t.” + +“Go, then, and let your wits make a way for you when you get there. I +know Brussels almost as well as I know X----, and I am sure it would +suit such a one as you better than London.” + +“But occupation, Mr. Hunsden! I must go where occupation is to be had; +and how could I get recommendation, or introduction, or employment at +Brussels?” + +“There speaks the organ of caution. You hate to advance a step before +you know every inch of the way. You haven’t a sheet of paper and a +pen-and-ink?” + +“I hope so,” and I produced writing materials with alacrity; for I +guessed what he was going to do. He sat down, wrote a few lines, folded, +sealed, and addressed a letter, and held it out to me. + +“There, Prudence, there’s a pioneer to hew down the first rough +difficulties of your path. I know well enough, lad, you are not one of +those who will run their neck into a noose without seeing how they +are to get it out again, and you’re right there. A reckless man is +my aversion, and nothing should ever persuade me to meddle with the +concerns of such a one. Those who are reckless for themselves are +generally ten times more so for their friends.” + +“This is a letter of introduction, I suppose?” said I, taking the +epistle. + +“Yes. With that in your pocket you will run no risk of finding yourself +in a state of absolute destitution, which, I know, you will regard as a +degradation--so should I, for that matter. The person to whom you will +present it generally has two or three respectable places depending upon +his recommendation.” + +“That will just suit me,” said I. + +“Well, and where’s your gratitude?” demanded Mr. Hunsden; “don’t you +know how to say ‘Thank you?’” + +“I’ve fifteen pounds and a watch, which my godmother, whom I never saw, +gave me eighteen years ago,” was my rather irrelevant answer; and I +further avowed myself a happy man, and professed that I did not envy any +being in Christendom. + +“But your gratitude?” + +“I shall be off presently, Mr. Hunsden--to-morrow, if all be well: I’ll +not stay a day longer in X---- than I’m obliged.” + +“Very good--but it will be decent to make due acknowledgment for the +assistance you have received; be quick! It is just going to strike +seven: I’m waiting to be thanked.” + +“Just stand out of the way, will you, Mr. Hunsden: I want a key there is +on the corner of the mantelpiece. I’ll pack my portmanteau before I go +to bed.” + +The house clock struck seven. + +“The lad is a heathen,” said Hunsden, and taking his hat from a +sideboard, he left the room, laughing to himself. I had half an +inclination to follow him: I really intended to leave X---- the next +morning, and should certainly not have another opportunity of bidding +him good-bye. The front door banged to. + +“Let him go,” said I, “we shall meet again some day.” + + + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +READER, perhaps you were never in Belgium? Haply you don’t know the +physiognomy of the country? You have not its lineaments defined upon +your memory, as I have them on mine? + +Three--nay four--pictures line the four-walled cell where are stored for +me the records of the past. First, Eton. All in that picture is in far +perspective, receding, diminutive; but freshly coloured, green, dewy, +with a spring sky, piled with glittering yet showery clouds; for my +childhood was not all sunshine--it had its overcast, its cold, its +stormy hours. Second, X----, huge, dingy; the canvas cracked and smoked; +a yellow sky, sooty clouds; no sun, no azure; the verdure of the suburbs +blighted and sullied--a very dreary scene. + +Third, Belgium; and I will pause before this landscape. As to the +fourth, a curtain covers it, which I may hereafter withdraw, or may not, +as suits my convenience and capacity. At any rate, for the present it +must hang undisturbed. Belgium! name unromantic and unpoetic, yet name +that whenever uttered has in my ear a sound, in my heart an echo, such +as no other assemblage of syllables, however sweet or classic, can +produce. Belgium! I repeat the word, now as I sit alone near midnight. +It stirs my world of the past like a summons to resurrection; the graves +unclose, the dead are raised; thoughts, feelings, memories that slept, +are seen by me ascending from the clouds--haloed most of them--but while +I gaze on their vapoury forms, and strive to ascertain definitely their +outline, the sound which wakened them dies, and they sink, each and all, +like a light wreath of mist, absorbed in the mould, recalled to urns, +resealed in monuments. Farewell, luminous phantoms! + +This is Belgium, reader. Look! don’t call the picture a flat or a dull +one--it was neither flat nor dull to me when I first beheld it. When I +left Ostend on a mild February morning, and found myself on the road +to Brussels, nothing could look vapid to me. My sense of enjoyment +possessed an edge whetted to the finest, untouched, keen, exquisite. +I was young; I had good health; pleasure and I had never met; no +indulgence of hers had enervated or sated one faculty of my nature. +Liberty I clasped in my arms for the first time, and the influence of +her smile and embrace revived my life like the sun and the west wind. +Yes, at that epoch I felt like a morning traveller who doubts not that +from the hill he is ascending he shall behold a glorious sunrise; what +if the track be strait, steep, and stony? he sees it not; his eyes are +fixed on that summit, flushed already, flushed and gilded, and having +gained it he is certain of the scene beyond. He knows that the sun will +face him, that his chariot is even now coming over the eastern horizon, +and that the herald breeze he feels on his cheek is opening for the +god’s career a clear, vast path of azure, amidst clouds soft as pearl +and warm as flame. Difficulty and toil were to be my lot, but sustained +by energy, drawn on by hopes as bright as vague, I deemed such a lot +no hardship. I mounted now the hill in shade; there were pebbles, +inequalities, briars in my path, but my eyes were fixed on the crimson +peak above; my imagination was with the refulgent firmament beyond, and +I thought nothing of the stones turning under my feet, or of the thorns +scratching my face and hands. + +I gazed often, and always with delight, from the window of the diligence +(these, be it remembered, were not the days of trains and railroads). +Well! and what did I see? I will tell you faithfully. Green, reedy +swamps; fields fertile but flat, cultivated in patches that made them +look like magnified kitchen-gardens; belts of cut trees, formal as +pollard willows, skirting the horizon; narrow canals, gliding slow by +the road-side; painted Flemish farmhouses; some very dirty hovels; a +gray, dead sky; wet road, wet fields, wet house-tops: not a beautiful, +scarcely a picturesque object met my eye along the whole route; yet to +me, all was beautiful, all was more than picturesque. It continued fair +so long as daylight lasted, though the moisture of many preceding damp +days had sodden the whole country; as it grew dark, however, the rain +recommenced, and it was through streaming and starless darkness my eye +caught the first gleam of the lights of Brussels. I saw little of the +city but its lights that night. Having alighted from the diligence, a +fiacre conveyed me to the Hotel de ----, where I had been advised by a +fellow-traveller to put up; having eaten a traveller’s supper, I retired +to bed, and slept a traveller’s sleep. + +Next morning I awoke from prolonged and sound repose with the impression +that I was yet in X----, and perceiving it to be broad daylight I +started up, imagining that I had overslept myself and should be behind +time at the counting-house. The momentary and painful sense of restraint +vanished before the revived and reviving consciousness of freedom, as, +throwing back the white curtains of my bed, I looked forth into a wide, +lofty foreign chamber; how different from the small and dingy, though +not uncomfortable, apartment I had occupied for a night or two at a +respectable inn in London while waiting for the sailing of the packet! +Yet far be it from me to profane the memory of that little dingy room! +It, too, is dear to my soul; for there, as I lay in quiet and darkness, +I first heard the great bell of St. Paul’s telling London it was +midnight, and well do I recall the deep, deliberate tones, so full +charged with colossal phlegm and force. From the small, narrow window +of that room, I first saw THE dome, looming through a London mist. I +suppose the sensations, stirred by those first sounds, first sights, are +felt but once; treasure them, Memory; seal them in urns, and keep them +in safe niches! Well--I rose. Travellers talk of the apartments in +foreign dwellings being bare and uncomfortable; I thought my chamber +looked stately and cheerful. It had such large windows--CROISEES that +opened like doors, with such broad, clear panes of glass; such a great +looking-glass stood on my dressing-table--such a fine mirror glittered +over the mantelpiece--the painted floor looked so clean and glossy; +when I had dressed and was descending the stairs, the broad marble steps +almost awed me, and so did the lofty hall into which they conducted. +On the first landing I met a Flemish housemaid: she had wooden shoes, a +short red petticoat, a printed cotton bedgown, her face was broad, +her physiognomy eminently stupid; when I spoke to her in French, she +answered me in Flemish, with an air the reverse of civil; yet I thought +her charming; if she was not pretty or polite, she was, I conceived, +very picturesque; she reminded me of the female figures in certain Dutch +paintings I had seen in other years at Seacombe Hall. + +I repaired to the public room; that, too, was very large and very lofty, +and warmed by a stove; the floor was black, and the stove was black, and +most of the furniture was black: yet I never experienced a freer +sense of exhilaration than when I sat down at a very long, black table +(covered, however, in part by a white cloth), and, having ordered +breakfast, began to pour out my coffee from a little black coffee-pot. +The stove might be dismal-looking to some eyes, not to mine, but it +was indisputably very warm, and there were two gentlemen seated by +it talking in French; impossible to follow their rapid utterance, or +comprehend much of the purport of what they said--yet French, in the +mouths of Frenchmen, or Belgians (I was not then sensible of the horrors +of the Belgian accent) was as music to my ears. One of these gentlemen +presently discerned me to be an Englishman--no doubt from the fashion in +which I addressed the waiter; for I would persist in speaking French in +my execrable South-of-England style, though the man understood English. +The gentleman, after looking towards me once or twice, politely accosted +me in very good English; I remember I wished to God that I could speak +French as well; his fluency and correct pronunciation impressed me for +the first time with a due notion of the cosmopolitan character of the +capital I was in; it was my first experience of that skill in living +languages I afterwards found to be so general in Brussels. + +I lingered over my breakfast as long as I could; while it was there +on the table, and while that stranger continued talking to me, I was a +free, independent traveller; but at last the things were removed, the +two gentlemen left the room; suddenly the illusion ceased, reality and +business came back. I, a bondsman just released from the yoke, freed for +one week from twenty-one years of constraint, must, of necessity, resume +the fetters of dependency. Hardly had I tasted the delight of being +without a master when duty issued her stern mandate: “Go forth and seek +another service.” I never linger over a painful and necessary task; I +never take pleasure before business, it is not in my nature to do so; +impossible to enjoy a leisurely walk over the city, though I perceived +the morning was very fine, until I had first presented Mr. Hunsden’s +letter of introduction, and got fairly on to the track of a new +situation. Wrenching my mind from liberty and delight, I seized my hat, +and forced my reluctant body out of the Hotel de ---- into the foreign +street. + +It was a fine day, but I would not look at the blue sky or at the +stately houses round me; my mind was bent on one thing, finding out “Mr. +Brown, Numero --, Rue Royale,” for so my letter was addressed. By dint +of inquiry I succeeded; I stood at last at the desired door, knocked, +asked for Mr. Brown, and was admitted. + +Being shown into a small breakfast-room, I found myself in the +presence of an elderly gentleman--very grave, business-like, and +respectable-looking. I presented Mr. Hunsden’s letter; he received me +very civilly. After a little desultory conversation he asked me if there +was anything in which his advice or experience could be of use. I said, +“Yes,” and then proceeded to tell him that I was not a gentleman of +fortune, travelling for pleasure, but an ex-counting-house clerk, who +wanted employment of some kind, and that immediately too. He replied +that as a friend of Mr. Hunsden’s he would be willing to assist me as +well as he could. After some meditation he named a place in a mercantile +house at Liege, and another in a bookseller’s shop at Louvain. + +“Clerk and shopman!” murmured I to myself. “No.” I shook my head. I +had tried the high stool; I hated it; I believed there were other +occupations that would suit me better; besides I did not wish to leave +Brussels. + +“I know of no place in Brussels,” answered Mr. Brown, “unless indeed you +were disposed to turn your attention to teaching. I am acquainted with +the director of a large establishment who is in want of a professor of +English and Latin.” + +I thought two minutes, then I seized the idea eagerly. + +“The very thing, sir!” said I. + +“But,” asked he, “do you understand French well enough to teach Belgian +boys English?” + +Fortunately I could answer this question in the affirmative; +having studied French under a Frenchman, I could speak the language +intelligibly though not fluently. I could also read it well, and write +it decently. + +“Then,” pursued Mr. Brown, “I think I can promise you the place, for +Monsieur Pelet will not refuse a professor recommended by me; but come +here again at five o’clock this afternoon, and I will introduce you to +him.” + +The word “professor” struck me. “I am not a professor,” said I. + +“Oh,” returned Mr. Brown, “professor, here in Belgium, means a teacher, +that is all.” + +My conscience thus quieted, I thanked Mr. Brown, and, for the present, +withdrew. This time I stepped out into the street with a relieved heart; +the task I had imposed on myself for that day was executed. I might now +take some hours of holiday. I felt free to look up. For the first time +I remarked the sparkling clearness of the air, the deep blue of the sky, +the gay clean aspect of the white-washed or painted houses; I saw what +a fine street was the Rue Royale, and, walking leisurely along its broad +pavement, I continued to survey its stately hotels, till the palisades, +the gates, and trees of the park appearing in sight, offered to my eye a +new attraction. I remember, before entering the park, I stood awhile to +contemplate the statue of General Belliard, and then I advanced to the +top of the great staircase just beyond, and I looked down into a narrow +back street, which I afterwards learnt was called the Rue d’Isabelle. +I well recollect that my eye rested on the green door of a rather large +house opposite, where, on a brass plate, was inscribed, “Pensionnat de +Demoiselles.” Pensionnat! The word excited an uneasy sensation in +my mind; it seemed to speak of restraint. Some of the demoiselles, +externats no doubt, were at that moment issuing from the door--I looked +for a pretty face amongst them, but their close, little French bonnets +hid their features; in a moment they were gone. + +I had traversed a good deal of Brussels before five o’clock arrived, +but punctually as that hour struck I was again in the Rue Royale. +Re-admitted to Mr. Brown’s breakfast-room, I found him, as before, +seated at the table, and he was not alone--a gentleman stood by the +hearth. Two words of introduction designated him as my future master. +“M. Pelet, Mr. Crimsworth; Mr. Crimsworth, M. Pelet,” a bow on each +side finished the ceremony. I don’t know what sort of a bow I made; an +ordinary one, I suppose, for I was in a tranquil, commonplace frame of +mind; I felt none of the agitation which had troubled my first interview +with Edward Crimsworth. M. Pelet’s bow was extremely polite, yet not +theatrical, scarcely French; he and I were presently seated opposite to +each other. In a pleasing voice, low, and, out of consideration to my +foreign ears, very distinct and deliberate, M. Pelet intimated that he +had just been receiving from “le respectable M. Brown,” an account of my +attainments and character, which relieved him from all scruple as to +the propriety of engaging me as professor of English and Latin in +his establishment; nevertheless, for form’s sake, he would put a few +questions to test my powers. He did, and expressed in flattering terms +his satisfaction at my answers. The subject of salary next came on; it +was fixed at one thousand francs per annum, besides board and lodging. +“And in addition,” suggested M. Pelet, “as there will be some hours +in each day during which your services will not be required in my +establishment, you may, in time, obtain employment in other seminaries, +and thus turn your vacant moments to profitable account.” + +I thought this very kind, and indeed I found afterwards that the terms +on which M. Pelet had engaged me were really liberal for Brussels; +instruction being extremely cheap there on account of the number of +teachers. It was further arranged that I should be installed in my new +post the very next day, after which M. Pelet and I parted. + +Well, and what was he like? and what were my impressions concerning him? +He was a man of about forty years of age, of middle size, and rather +emaciated figure; his face was pale, his cheeks were sunk, and his eyes +hollow; his features were pleasing and regular, they had a French +turn (for M. Pelet was no Fleming, but a Frenchman both by birth +and parentage), yet the degree of harshness inseparable from Gallic +lineaments was, in his case, softened by a mild blue eye, and a +melancholy, almost suffering, expression of countenance; his physiognomy +was “fine et spirituelle.” I use two French words because they define +better than any English terms the species of intelligence with which his +features were imbued. He was altogether an interesting and prepossessing +personage. I wondered only at the utter absence of all the ordinary +characteristics of his profession, and almost feared he could not be +stern and resolute enough for a schoolmaster. Externally at least +M. Pelet presented an absolute contrast to my late master, Edward +Crimsworth. + +Influenced by the impression I had received of his gentleness, I was a +good deal surprised when, on arriving the next day at my new employer’s +house, and being admitted to a first view of what was to be the +sphere of my future labours, namely the large, lofty, and well-lighted +schoolrooms, I beheld a numerous assemblage of pupils, boys of course, +whose collective appearance showed all the signs of a full, flourishing, +and well-disciplined seminary. As I traversed the classes in company +with M. Pelet, a profound silence reigned on all sides, and if by chance +a murmur or a whisper arose, one glance from the pensive eye of this +most gentle pedagogue stilled it instantly. It was astonishing, I +thought, how so mild a check could prove so effectual. When I had +perambulated the length and breadth of the classes, M. Pelet turned and +said to me-- + +“Would you object to taking the boys as they are, and testing their +proficiency in English?” + +The proposal was unexpected. I had thought I should have been allowed at +least three days to prepare; but it is a bad omen to commence any career +by hesitation, so I just stepped to the professor’s desk near which we +stood, and faced the circle of my pupils. I took a moment to collect +my thoughts, and likewise to frame in French the sentence by which I +proposed to open business. I made it as short as possible:-- + +“Messieurs, prenez vos livres de lecture.” + +“Anglais ou Francais, monsieur?” demanded a thickset, moon-faced young +Flamand in a blouse. The answer was fortunately easy:-- + +“Anglais.” + +I determined to give myself as little trouble as possible in this +lesson; it would not do yet to trust my unpractised tongue with the +delivery of explanations; my accent and idiom would be too open to the +criticisms of the young gentlemen before me, relative to whom I felt +already it would be necessary at once to take up an advantageous +position, and I proceeded to employ means accordingly. + +“Commencez!” cried I, when they had all produced their books. The +moon-faced youth (by name Jules Vanderkelkov, as I afterwards learnt) +took the first sentence. The “livre de lecture” was the “Vicar of +Wakefield,” much used in foreign schools because it is supposed to +contain prime samples of conversational English; it might, however, +have been a Runic scroll for any resemblance the words, as enunciated by +Jules, bore to the language in ordinary use amongst the natives of Great +Britain. My God! how he did snuffle, snort, and wheeze! All he said was +said in his throat and nose, for it is thus the Flamands speak, but +I heard him to the end of his paragraph without proffering a word of +correction, whereat he looked vastly self-complacent, convinced, +no doubt, that he had acquitted himself like a real born and bred +“Anglais.” In the same unmoved silence I listened to a dozen in +rotation, and when the twelfth had concluded with splutter, hiss, and +mumble, I solemnly laid down the book. + +“Arretez!” said I. There was a pause, during which I regarded them all +with a steady and somewhat stern gaze; a dog, if stared at hard enough +and long enough, will show symptoms of embarrassment, and so at length +did my bench of Belgians. Perceiving that some of the faces before me +were beginning to look sullen, and others ashamed, I slowly joined my +hands, and ejaculated in a deep “voix de poitrine”-- + +“Comme c’est affreux!” + +They looked at each other, pouted, coloured, swung their heels; they +were not pleased, I saw, but they were impressed, and in the way +I wished them to be. Having thus taken them down a peg in their +self-conceit, the next step was to raise myself in their estimation; not +a very easy thing, considering that I hardly dared to speak for fear of +betraying my own deficiencies. + +“Ecoutez, messieurs!” said I, and I endeavoured to throw into my +accents the compassionate tone of a superior being, who, touched by the +extremity of the helplessness, which at first only excited his scorn, +deigns at length to bestow aid. I then began at the very beginning of +the “Vicar of Wakefield,” and read, in a slow, distinct voice, some +twenty pages, they all the while sitting mute and listening with fixed +attention; by the time I had done nearly an hour had elapsed. I then +rose and said:-- + +“C’est assez pour aujourd’hui, messieurs; demain nous recommencerons, et +j’espere que tout ira bien.” + +With this oracular sentence I bowed, and in company with M. Pelet +quitted the school-room. + +“C’est bien! c’est tres bien!” said my principal as we entered his +parlour. “Je vois que monsieur a de l’adresse; cela, me plait, car, dans +l’instruction, l’adresse fait tout autant que le savoir.” + +From the parlour M. Pelet conducted me to my apartment, my “chambre,” + as Monsieur said with a certain air of complacency. It was a very small +room, with an excessively small bed, but M. Pelet gave me to understand +that I was to occupy it quite alone, which was of course a great +comfort. Yet, though so limited in dimensions, it had two windows. Light +not being taxed in Belgium, the people never grudge its admission into +their houses; just here, however, this observation is not very APROPOS, +for one of these windows was boarded up; the open windows looked into +the boys’ playground. I glanced at the other, as wondering what aspect +it would present if disencumbered of the boards. M. Pelet read, I +suppose, the expression of my eye; he explained:-- + +“La fenetre fermee donne sur un jardin appartenant a un pensionnat +de demoiselles,” said he, “et les convenances exigent--enfin, vous +comprenez--n’est-ce pas, monsieur?” + +“Oui, oui,” was my reply, and I looked of course quite satisfied; but +when M. Pelet had retired and closed the door after him, the first thing +I did was to scrutinize closely the nailed boards, hoping to find +some chink or crevice which I might enlarge, and so get a peep at the +consecrated ground. My researches were vain, for the boards were well +joined and strongly nailed. It is astonishing how disappointed I felt. I +thought it would have been so pleasant to have looked out upon a +garden planted with flowers and trees, so amusing to have watched the +demoiselles at their play; to have studied female character in a variety +of phases, myself the while sheltered from view by a modest muslin +curtain, whereas, owing doubtless to the absurd scruples of some old +duenna of a directress, I had now only the option of looking at a bare +gravelled court, with an enormous “pas de geant” in the middle, and the +monotonous walls and windows of a boys’ school-house round. Not only +then, but many a time after, especially in moments of weariness and +low spirits, did I look with dissatisfied eyes on that most tantalizing +board, longing to tear it away and get a glimpse of the green region +which I imagined to lie beyond. I knew a tree grew close up to the +window, for though there were as yet no leaves to rustle, I often heard +at night the tapping of branches against the panes. In the daytime, +when I listened attentively, I could hear, even through the boards, the +voices of the demoiselles in their hours of recreation, and, to speak +the honest truth, my sentimental reflections were occasionally a trifle +disarranged by the not quite silvery, in fact the too often brazen +sounds, which, rising from the unseen paradise below, penetrated +clamorously into my solitude. Not to mince matters, it really seemed to +me a doubtful case whether the lungs of Mdlle. Reuter’s girls or those +of M. Pelet’s boys were the strongest, and when it came to shrieking +the girls indisputably beat the boys hollow. I forgot to say, by-the-by, +that Reuter was the name of the old lady who had had my window bearded +up. I say old, for such I, of course, concluded her to be, judging from +her cautious, chaperon-like proceedings; besides, nobody ever spoke of +her as young. I remember I was very much amused when I first heard her +Christian name; it was Zoraide--Mademoiselle Zoraide Reuter. But the +continental nations do allow themselves vagaries in the choice of names, +such as we sober English never run into. I think, indeed, we have too +limited a list to choose from. + +Meantime my path was gradually growing smooth before me. I, in a +few weeks, conquered the teasing difficulties inseparable from the +commencement of almost every career. Ere long I had acquired as much +facility in speaking French as set me at my ease with my pupils; and +as I had encountered them on a right footing at the very beginning, and +continued tenaciously to retain the advantage I had early gained, they +never attempted mutiny, which circumstance, all who are in any degree +acquainted with the ongoings of Belgian schools, and who know the +relation in which professors and pupils too frequently stand towards +each other in those establishments, will consider an important and +uncommon one. Before concluding this chapter I will say a word on the +system I pursued with regard to my classes: my experience may possibly +be of use to others. + +It did not require very keen observation to detect the character of the +youth of Brabant, but it needed a certain degree of tact to adopt one’s +measures to their capacity. Their intellectual faculties were generally +weak, their animal propensities strong; thus there was at once an +impotence and a kind of inert force in their natures; they were dull, +but they were also singularly stubborn, heavy as lead and, like lead, +most difficult to move. Such being the case, it would have been truly +absurd to exact from them much in the way of mental exertion; having +short memories, dense intelligence, feeble reflective powers, they +recoiled with repugnance from any occupation that demanded close study +or deep thought. Had the abhorred effort been extorted from them by +injudicious and arbitrary measures on the part of the Professor, they +would have resisted as obstinately, as clamorously, as desperate swine; +and though not brave singly, they were relentless acting EN MASSE. + +I understood that before my arrival in M. Pelet’s establishment, the +combined insubordination of the pupils had effected the dismissal of +more than one English master. It was necessary then to exact only the +most moderate application from natures so little qualified to apply--to +assist, in every practicable way, understandings so opaque and +contracted--to be ever gentle, considerate, yielding even, to a certain +point, with dispositions so irrationally perverse; but, having reached +that culminating point of indulgence, you must fix your foot, plant it, +root it in rock--become immutable as the towers of Ste. Gudule; for a +step--but half a step farther, and you would plunge headlong into the +gulf of imbecility; there lodged, you would speedily receive proofs +of Flemish gratitude and magnanimity in showers of Brabant saliva and +handfuls of Low Country mud. You might smooth to the utmost the path of +learning, remove every pebble from the track; but then you must finally +insist with decision on the pupil taking your arm and allowing himself +to be led quietly along the prepared road. When I had brought down my +lesson to the lowest level of my dullest pupil’s capacity--when I +had shown myself the mildest, the most tolerant of masters--a word of +impertinence, a movement of disobedience, changed me at once into +a despot. I offered then but one alternative--submission and +acknowledgment of error, or ignominious expulsion. This system answered, +and my influence, by degrees, became established on a firm basis. “The +boy is father to the man,” it is said; and so I often thought when +looked at my boys and remembered the political history of their +ancestors. Pelet’s school was merely an epitome of the Belgian nation. + + + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +AND Pelet himself? How did I continue to like him? Oh, extremely well! +Nothing could be more smooth, gentlemanlike, and even friendly, than +his demeanour to me. I had to endure from him neither cold neglect, +irritating interference, nor pretentious assumption of superiority. I +fear, however, two poor, hard-worked Belgian ushers in the establishment +could not have said as much; to them the director’s manner was +invariably dry, stern, and cool. I believe he perceived once or twice +that I was a little shocked at the difference he made between them and +me, and accounted for it by saying, with a quiet sarcastic smile-- + +“Ce ne sont que des Flamands--allez!” + +And then he took his cigar gently from his lips and spat on the painted +floor of the room in which we were sitting. Flamands certainly they +were, and both had the true Flamand physiognomy, where intellectual +inferiority is marked in lines none can mistake; still they were men, +and, in the main, honest men; and I could not see why their being +aboriginals of the flat, dull soil should serve as a pretext for +treating them with perpetual severity and contempt. This idea, of +injustice somewhat poisoned the pleasure I might otherwise have derived +from Pelet’s soft affable manner to myself. Certainly it was agreeable, +when the day’s work was over, to find one’s employer an intelligent +and cheerful companion; and if he was sometimes a little sarcastic +and sometimes a little too insinuating, and if I did discover that +his mildness was more a matter of appearance than of reality--if I did +occasionally suspect the existence of flint or steel under an external +covering of velvet--still we are none of us perfect; and weary as I was +of the atmosphere of brutality and insolence in which I had constantly +lived at X----, I had no inclination now, on casting anchor in calmer +regions, to institute at once a prying search after defects that were +scrupulously withdrawn and carefully veiled from my view. I was willing +to take Pelet for what he seemed--to believe him benevolent and friendly +until some untoward event should prove him otherwise. He was not +married, and I soon perceived he had all a Frenchman’s, all a Parisian’s +notions about matrimony and women. I suspected a degree of laxity in +his code of morals, there was something so cold and BLASE in his tone +whenever he alluded to what he called “le beau sexe;” but he was too +gentlemanlike to intrude topics I did not invite, and as he was really +intelligent and really fond of intellectual subjects of discourse, he +and I always found enough to talk about, without seeking themes in the +mire. I hated his fashion of mentioning love; I abhorred, from my soul, +mere licentiousness. He felt the difference of our notions, and, by +mutual consent, we kept off ground debateable. + +Pelet’s house was kept and his kitchen managed by his mother, a real +old Frenchwoman; she had been handsome--at least she told me so, and I +strove to believe her; she was now ugly, as only continental old women +can be; perhaps, though, her style of dress made her look uglier than +she really was. Indoors she would go about without cap, her grey hair +strangely dishevelled; then, when at home, she seldom wore a gown--only +a shabby cotton camisole; shoes, too, were strangers to her feet, and in +lieu of them she sported roomy slippers, trodden down at the heels. On +the other hand, whenever it was her pleasure to appear abroad, as on +Sundays and fete-days, she would put on some very brilliant-coloured +dress, usually of thin texture, a silk bonnet with a wreath of flowers, +and a very fine shawl. She was not, in the main, an ill-natured old +woman, but an incessant and most indiscreet talker; she kept chiefly +in and about the kitchen, and seemed rather to avoid her son’s august +presence; of him, indeed, she evidently stood in awe. When he reproved +her, his reproofs were bitter and unsparing; but he seldom gave himself +that trouble. + +Madame Pelet had her own society, her own circle of chosen visitors, +whom, however, I seldom saw, as she generally entertained them in what +she called her “cabinet,” a small den of a place adjoining the kitchen, +and descending into it by one or two steps. On these steps, by-the-by, +I have not unfrequently seen Madame Pelet seated with a trencher on +her knee, engaged in the threefold employment of eating her dinner, +gossiping with her favourite servant, the housemaid, and scolding her +antagonist, the cook; she never dined, and seldom indeed took any meal +with her son; and as to showing her face at the boys’ table, that was +quite out of the question. These details will sound very odd in English +ears, but Belgium is not England, and its ways are not our ways. + +Madame Pelet’s habits of life, then, being taken into consideration, +I was a good deal surprised when, one Thursday evening (Thursday was +always a half-holiday), as I was sitting all alone in my apartment, +correcting a huge pile of English and Latin exercises, a servant +tapped at the door, and, on its being opened, presented Madame Pelet’s +compliments, and she would be happy to see me to take my “gouter” (a +meal which answers to our English “tea”) with her in the dining-room. + +“Plait-il?” said I, for I thought I must have misunderstood, the +message and invitation were so unusual; the same words were repeated. I +accepted, of course, and as I descended the stairs, I wondered what +whim had entered the old lady’s brain; her son was out--gone to pass the +evening at the Salle of the Grande Harmonie or some other club of which +he was a member. Just as I laid my hand on the handle of the dining-room +door, a queer idea glanced across my mind. + +“Surely she’s not going to make love to me,” said I. “I’ve heard of +old Frenchwomen doing odd things in that line; and the gouter? They +generally begin such affairs with eating and drinking, I believe.” + +There was a fearful dismay in this suggestion of my excited imagination, +and if I had allowed myself time to dwell upon it, I should no doubt +have cut there and then, rushed back to my chamber, and bolted myself +in; but whenever a danger or a horror is veiled with uncertainty, +the primary wish of the mind is to ascertain first the naked truth, +reserving the expedient of flight for the moment when its dread +anticipation shall be realized. I turned the door-handle, and in an +instant had crossed the fatal threshold, closed the door behind me, and +stood in the presence of Madame Pelet. + +Gracious heavens! The first view of her seemed to confirm my worst +apprehensions. There she sat, dressed out in a light green muslin gown, +on her head a lace cap with flourishing red roses in the frill; her +table was carefully spread; there were fruit, cakes, and coffee, with a +bottle of something--I did not know what. Already the cold sweat started +on my brow, already I glanced back over my shoulder at the closed +door, when, to my unspeakable relief, my eye, wandering mildly in the +direction of the stove, rested upon a second figure, seated in a large +fauteuil beside it. This was a woman, too, and, moreover, an old woman, +and as fat and as rubicund as Madame Pelet was meagre and yellow; her +attire was likewise very fine, and spring flowers of different hues +circled in a bright wreath the crown of her violet-coloured velvet +bonnet. + +I had only time to make these general observations when Madame Pelet, +coming forward with what she intended should be a graceful and elastic +step, thus accosted me: + +“Monsieur is indeed most obliging to quit his books, his studies, at the +request of an insignificant person like me--will Monsieur complete his +kindness by allowing me to present him to my dear friend Madame Reuter, +who resides in the neighbouring house--the young ladies’ school.” + +“Ah!” thought I, “I knew she was old,” and I bowed and took my seat. +Madame Reuter placed herself at the table opposite to me. + +“How do you like Belgium, Monsieur?” asked she, in an accent of the +broadest Bruxellois. I could now well distinguish the difference between +the fine and pure Parisian utterance of M. Pelet, for instance, and +the guttural enunciation of the Flamands. I answered politely, and then +wondered how so coarse and clumsy an old woman as the one before me +should be at the head of a ladies’ seminary, which I had always heard +spoken of in terms of high commendation. In truth there was something +to wonder at. Madame Reuter looked more like a joyous, free-living old +Flemish fermiere, or even a maitresse d’auberge, than a staid, grave, +rigid directrice de pensionnat. In general the continental, or at least +the Belgian old women permit themselves a licence of manners, speech, +and aspect, such as our venerable granddames would recoil from as +absolutely disreputable, and Madame Reuter’s jolly face bore evidence +that she was no exception to the rule of her country; there was a +twinkle and leer in her left eye; her right she kept habitually half +shut, which I thought very odd indeed. After several vain attempts to +comprehend the motives of these two droll old creatures for inviting me +to join them at their gouter, I at last fairly gave it up, and resigning +myself to inevitable mystification, I sat and looked first at one, then +at the other, taking care meantime to do justice to the confitures, +cakes, and coffee, with which they amply supplied me. They, too, ate, +and that with no delicate appetite, and having demolished a large +portion of the solids, they proposed a “petit verre.” I declined. Not +so Mesdames Pelet and Reuter; each mixed herself what I thought rather +a stiff tumbler of punch, and placing it on a stand near the stove, they +drew up their chairs to that convenience, and invited me to do the same. +I obeyed; and being seated fairly between them, I was thus addressed +first by Madame Pelet, then by Madame Reuter. + +“We will now speak of business,” said Madame Pelet, and she went on to +make an elaborate speech, which, being interpreted, was to the effect +that she had asked for the pleasure of my company that evening in +order to give her friend Madame Reuter an opportunity of broaching an +important proposal, which might turn out greatly to my advantage. + +“Pourvu que vous soyez sage,” said Madame Reuter, “et a vrai dire, +vous en avez bien l’air. Take one drop of the punch” (or ponche, as she +pronounced it); “it is an agreeable and wholesome beverage after a full +meal.” + +I bowed, but again declined it. She went on: + +“I feel,” said she, after a solemn sip--“I feel profoundly the +importance of the commission with which my dear daughter has entrusted +me, for you are aware, Monsieur, that it is my daughter who directs the +establishment in the next house?” + +“Ah! I thought it was yourself, madame.” Though, indeed, at that moment +I recollected that it was called Mademoiselle, not Madame Reuter’s +pensionnat. + +“I! Oh, no! I manage the house and look after the servants, as my friend +Madame Pelet does for Monsieur her son--nothing more. Ah! you thought I +gave lessons in class--did you?” + +And she laughed loud and long, as though the idea tickled her fancy +amazingly. + +“Madame is in the wrong to laugh,” I observed; “if she does not give +lessons, I am sure it is not because she cannot;” and I whipped out a +white pocket-handkerchief and wafted it, with a French grace, past my +nose, bowing at the same time. + +“Quel charmant jeune homme!” murmured Madame Pelet in a low voice. +Madame Reuter, being less sentimental, as she was Flamand and not +French, only laughed again. + +“You are a dangerous person, I fear,” said she; “if you can forge +compliments at that rate, Zoraide will positively be afraid of you; but +if you are good, I will keep your secret, and not tell her how well you +can flatter. Now, listen what sort of a proposal she makes to you. She +has heard that you are an excellent professor, and as she wishes to get +the very best masters for her school (car Zoraide fait tout comme une +reine, c’est une veritable maitresse-femme), she has commissioned me to +step over this afternoon, and sound Madame Pelet as to the possibility +of engaging you. Zoraide is a wary general; she never advances without +first examining well her ground. I don’t think she would be pleased +if she knew I had already disclosed her intentions to you; she did not +order me to go so far, but I thought there would be no harm in letting +you into the secret, and Madame Pelet was of the same opinion. Take +care, however, you don’t betray either of us to Zoraide--to my +daughter, I mean; she is so discreet and circumspect herself, she cannot +understand that one should find a pleasure in gossiping a little--” + +“C’est absolument comme mon fils!” cried Madame Pelet. + +“All the world is so changed since our girlhood!” rejoined the other: +“young people have such old heads now. But to return, Monsieur. Madame +Pelet will mention the subject of your giving lessons in my daughter’s +establishment to her son, and he will speak to you; and then to-morrow, +you will step over to our house, and ask to see my daughter, and you +will introduce the subject as if the first intimation of it had reached +you from M. Pelet himself, and be sure you never mention my name, for I +would not displease Zoraide on any account.” + +“Bien! bien!” interrupted I--for all this chatter and circumlocution +began to bore me very much; “I will consult M. Pelet, and the thing +shall be settled as you desire. Good evening, mesdames--I am infinitely +obliged to you.” + +“Comment! vous vous en allez deja?” exclaimed Madame Pelet. + +“Prenez encore quelquechose, monsieur; une pomme cuite, des biscuits, +encore une tasse de cafe?” + +“Merci, merci, madame--au revoir.” And I backed at last out of the +apartment. + +Having regained my own room, I set myself to turn over in my mind +the incident of the evening. It seemed a queer affair altogether, and +queerly managed; the two old women had made quite a little intricate +mess of it; still I found that the uppermost feeling in my mind on the +subject was one of satisfaction. In the first place it would be a change +to give lessons in another seminary, and then to teach young ladies +would be an occupation so interesting--to be admitted at all into a +ladies’ boarding-school would be an incident so new in my life. Besides, +thought I, as I glanced at the boarded window, “I shall now at last see +the mysterious garden: I shall gaze both on the angels and their Eden.” + + + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +M. PELET could not of course object to the proposal made by Mdlle. +Reuter; permission to accept such additional employment, should it +offer, having formed an article of the terms on which he had engaged me. +It was, therefore, arranged in the course of next day that I should +be at liberty to give lessons in Mdlle. Reuter’s establishment four +afternoons in every week. + +When evening came I prepared to step over in order to seek a conference +with Mademoiselle herself on the subject; I had not had time to pay the +visit before, having been all day closely occupied in class. I remember +very well that before quitting my chamber, I held a brief debate with +myself as to whether I should change my ordinary attire for something +smarter. At last I concluded it would be a waste of labour. “Doubtless,” + thought I, “she is some stiff old maid; for though the daughter of +Madame Reuter, she may well number upwards of forty winters; besides, if +it were otherwise, if she be both young and pretty, I am not handsome, +and no dressing can make me so, therefore I’ll go as I am.” And off +I started, cursorily glancing sideways as I passed the toilet-table, +surmounted by a looking-glass: a thin irregular face I saw, with sunk, +dark eyes under a large, square forehead, complexion destitute of bloom +or attraction; something young, but not youthful, no object to win a +lady’s love, no butt for the shafts of Cupid. + +I was soon at the entrance of the pensionnat, in a moment I had pulled +the bell; in another moment the door was opened, and within appeared a +passage paved alternately with black and white marble; the walls were +painted in imitation of marble also; and at the far end opened a glass +door, through which I saw shrubs and a grass-plat, looking pleasant in +the sunshine of the mild spring evening--for it was now the middle of +April. + +This, then, was my first glimpse of the garden; but I had not time to +look long, the portress, after having answered in the affirmative +my question as to whether her mistress was at home, opened the +folding-doors of a room to the left, and having ushered me in, closed +them behind me. I found myself in a salon with a very well-painted, +highly varnished floor; chairs and sofas covered with white draperies, +a green porcelain stove, walls hung with pictures in gilt frames, a gilt +pendule and other ornaments on the mantelpiece, a large lustre pendent +from the centre of the ceiling, mirrors, consoles, muslin curtains, and +a handsome centre table completed the inventory of furniture. All looked +extremely clean and glittering, but the general effect would have been +somewhat chilling had not a second large pair of folding-doors, standing +wide open, and disclosing another and smaller salon, more snugly +furnished, offered some relief to the eye. This room was carpeted, and +therein was a piano, a couch, a chiffonniere--above all, it contained +a lofty window with a crimson curtain, which, being undrawn, afforded +another glimpse of the garden, through the large, clear panes, round +which some leaves of ivy, some tendrils of vine were trained. + +“Monsieur Creemsvort, n’est ce pas?” said a voice behind me; and, +starting involuntarily, I turned. I had been so taken up with the +contemplation of the pretty little salon that I had not noticed the +entrance of a person into the larger room. It was, however, Mdlle. +Reuter who now addressed me, and stood close beside me; and when I had +bowed with instantaneously recovered sang-froid--for I am not easily +embarrassed--I commenced the conversation by remarking on the pleasant +aspect of her little cabinet, and the advantage she had over M. Pelet in +possessing a garden. + +“Yes,” she said, “she often thought so;” and added, “it is my garden, +monsieur, which makes me retain this house, otherwise I should probably +have removed to larger and more commodious premises long since; but you +see I could not take my garden with me, and I should scarcely find one +so large and pleasant anywhere else in town.” + +I approved her judgment. + +“But you have not seen it yet,” said she, rising; “come to the window +and take a better view.” I followed her; she opened the sash, and +leaning out I saw in full the enclosed demesne which had hitherto been +to me an unknown region. It was a long, not very broad strip of cultured +ground, with an alley bordered by enormous old fruit trees down the +middle; there was a sort of lawn, a parterre of rose-trees, some +flower-borders, and, on the far side, a thickly planted copse of lilacs, +laburnums, and acacias. It looked pleasant, to me--very pleasant, so +long a time had elapsed since I had seen a garden of any sort. But it +was not only on Mdlle. Reuter’s garden that my eyes dwelt; when I had +taken a view of her well-trimmed beds and budding shrubberies, I allowed +my glance to come back to herself, nor did I hastily withdraw it. + +I had thought to see a tall, meagre, yellow, conventual image in black, +with a close white cap, bandaged under the chin like a nun’s head-gear; +whereas, there stood by me a little and roundly formed woman, who might +indeed be older than I, but was still young; she could not, I thought, +be more than six or seven and twenty; she was as fair as a fair +Englishwoman; she had no cap; her hair was nut-brown, and she wore it +in curls; pretty her features were not, nor very soft, nor very regular, +but neither were they in any degree plain, and I already saw cause +to deem them expressive. What was their predominant cast? Was it +sagacity?--sense? Yes, I thought so; but I could scarcely as yet be +sure. I discovered, however, that there was a certain serenity of eye, +and freshness of complexion, most pleasing to behold. The colour on her +cheek was like the bloom on a good apple, which is as sound at the core +as it is red on the rind. + +Mdlle. Reuter and I entered upon business. She said she was not +absolutely certain of the wisdom of the step she was about to take, +because I was so young, and parents might possibly object to a professor +like me for their daughters: “But it is often well to act on one’s own +judgment,” said she, “and to lead parents, rather than be led by them. +The fitness of a professor is not a matter of age; and, from what I have +heard, and from what I observe myself, I would much rather trust you +than M. Ledru, the music-master, who is a married man of near fifty.” + +I remarked that I hoped she would find me worthy of her good opinion; +that if I knew myself, I was incapable of betraying any confidence +reposed in me. “Du reste,” said she, “the surveillance will be strictly +attended to.” And then she proceeded to discuss the subject of terms. +She was very cautious, quite on her guard; she did not absolutely +bargain, but she warily sounded me to find out what my expectations +might be; and when she could not get me to name a sum, she reasoned and +reasoned with a fluent yet quiet circumlocution of speech, and at last +nailed me down to five hundred francs per annum--not too much, but I +agreed. Before the negotiation was completed, it began to grow a little +dusk. I did not hasten it, for I liked well enough to sit and hear +her talk; I was amused with the sort of business talent she displayed. +Edward could not have shown himself more practical, though he might have +evinced more coarseness and urgency; and then she had so many reasons, +so many explanations; and, after all, she succeeded in proving herself +quite disinterested and even liberal. At last she concluded, she could +say no more, because, as I acquiesced in all things, there was no +further ground for the exercise of her parts of speech. I was obliged to +rise. I would rather have sat a little longer; what had I to return to +but my small empty room? And my eyes had a pleasure in looking at +Mdlle. Reuter, especially now, when the twilight softened her features a +little, and, in the doubtful dusk, I could fancy her forehead as open +as it was really elevated, her mouth touched with turns of sweetness +as well as defined in lines of sense. When I rose to go, I held out +my hand, on purpose, though I knew it was contrary to the etiquette of +foreign habits; she smiled, and said-- + +“Ah! c’est comme tous les Anglais,” but gave me her hand very kindly. + +“It is the privilege of my country, Mademoiselle,” said I; “and, +remember, I shall always claim it.” + +She laughed a little, quite good-naturedly, and with the sort of +tranquillity obvious in all she did--a tranquillity which soothed and +suited me singularly, at least I thought so that evening. Brussels +seemed a very pleasant place to me when I got out again into the street, +and it appeared as if some cheerful, eventful, upward-tending career +were even then opening to me, on that selfsame mild, still April night. +So impressionable a being is man, or at least such a man as I was in +those days. + + + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +NEXT day the morning hours seemed to pass very slowly at M. Pelet’s; I +wanted the afternoon to come that I might go again to the neighbouring +pensionnat and give my first lesson within its pleasant precincts; for +pleasant they appeared to me. At noon the hour of recreation arrived; at +one o’clock we had lunch; this got on the time, and at last St. Gudule’s +deep bell, tolling slowly two, marked the moment for which I had been +waiting. + +At the foot of the narrow back-stairs that descended from my room, I met +M. Pelet. + +“Comme vous avez l’air rayonnant!” said he. “Je ne vous ai jamais vu +aussi gai. Que s’est-il donc passe?” + +“Apparemment que j’aime les changements,” replied I. + +“Ah! je comprends--c’est cela--soyez sage seulement. Vous etes bien +jeune--trop jeune pour le role que vous allez jouer; il faut prendre +garde--savez-vous?” + +“Mais quel danger y a-t-il?” + +“Je n’en sais rien--ne vous laissez pas aller a de vives +impressions--voila tout.” + +I laughed: a sentiment of exquisite pleasure played over my nerves at +the thought that “vives impressions” were likely to be created; it was +the deadness, the sameness of life’s daily ongoings that had hitherto +been my bane; my blouse-clad “eleves” in the boys’ seminary never +stirred in me any “vives impressions” except it might be occasionally +some of anger. I broke from M. Pelet, and as I strode down the passage +he followed me with one of his laughs--a very French, rakish, mocking +sound. + +Again I stood at the neighbouring door, and soon was re-admitted into +the cheerful passage with its clear dove-colour imitation marble walls. +I followed the portress, and descending a step, and making a turn, I +found myself in a sort of corridor; a side-door opened, Mdlle. Reuter’s +little figure, as graceful as it was plump, appeared. I could now see +her dress in full daylight; a neat, simple mousseline-laine gown fitted +her compact round shape to perfection--delicate little collar and +manchettes of lace, trim Parisian brodequins showed her neck, wrists, +and feet, to complete advantage; but how grave was her face as she +came suddenly upon me! Solicitude and business were in her eye--on her +forehead; she looked almost stern. Her “Bon jour, monsieur,” was quite +polite, but so orderly, so commonplace, it spread directly a cool, damp +towel over my “vives impressions.” The servant turned back when her +mistress appeared, and I walked slowly along the corridor, side by side +with Mdlle. Reuter. + +“Monsieur will give a lesson in the first class to-day,” said she; +“dictation or reading will perhaps be the best thing to begin with, for +those are the easiest forms of communicating instruction in a foreign +language; and, at the first, a master naturally feels a little +unsettled.” + +She was quite right, as I had found from experience; it only remained +for me to acquiesce. We proceeded now in silence. The corridor +terminated in a hall, large, lofty, and square; a glass door on one side +showed within a long narrow refectory, with tables, an armoire, and +two lamps; it was empty; large glass doors, in front, opened on the +playground and garden; a broad staircase ascended spirally on the +opposite side; the remaining wall showed a pair of great folding-doors, +now closed, and admitting, doubtless, to the classes. + +Mdlle. Reuter turned her eye laterally on me, to ascertain, probably, +whether I was collected enough to be ushered into her sanctum sanctorum. +I suppose she judged me to be in a tolerable state of self-government, +for she opened the door, and I followed her through. A rustling sound of +uprising greeted our entrance; without looking to the right or left, I +walked straight up the lane between two sets of benches and desks, +and took possession of the empty chair and isolated desk raised on an +estrade, of one step high, so as to command one division; the other +division being under the surveillance of a maitresse similarly elevated. +At the back of the estrade, and attached to a moveable partition +dividing this schoolroom from another beyond, was a large tableau of +wood painted black and varnished; a thick crayon of white chalk lay on +my desk for the convenience of elucidating any grammatical or verbal +obscurity which might occur in my lessons by writing it upon the +tableau; a wet sponge appeared beside the chalk, to enable me to efface +the marks when they had served the purpose intended. + +I carefully and deliberately made these observations before allowing +myself to take one glance at the benches before me; having handled the +crayon, looked back at the tableau, fingered the sponge in order to +ascertain that it was in a right state of moisture, I found myself cool +enough to admit of looking calmly up and gazing deliberately round me. + +And first I observed that Mdlle. Reuter had already glided away, she +was nowhere visible; a maitresse or teacher, the one who occupied the +corresponding estrade to my own, alone remained to keep guard over me; +she was a little in the shade, and, with my short sight, I could only +see that she was of a thin bony figure and rather tallowy complexion, +and that her attitude, as she sat, partook equally of listlessness and +affectation. More obvious, more prominent, shone on by the full light of +the large window, were the occupants of the benches just before me, of +whom some were girls of fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, some young women +from eighteen (as it appeared to me) up to twenty; the most modest +attire, the simplest fashion of wearing the hair, were apparent in all; +and good features, ruddy, blooming complexions, large and brilliant +eyes, forms full, even to solidity, seemed to abound. I did not bear +the first view like a stoic; I was dazzled, my eyes fell, and in a voice +somewhat too low I murmured-- + +“Prenez vos cahiers de dictee, mesdemoiselles.” + +Not so had I bid the boys at Pelet’s take their reading-books. A +rustle followed, and an opening of desks; behind the lifted lids which +momentarily screened the heads bent down to search for exercise-books, I +heard tittering and whispers. + +“Eulalie, je suis prete a pleuer de rire,” observed one. + +“Comme il a rougi en parlant!” + +“Oui, c’est un veritable blanc-bec.” + +“Tais-toi, Hortense--il nous ecoute.” + +And now the lids sank and the heads reappeared; I had marked three, the +whisperers, and I did not scruple to take a very steady look at them as +they emerged from their temporary eclipse. It is astonishing what ease +and courage their little phrases of flippancy had given me; the idea by +which I had been awed was that the youthful beings before me, with their +dark nun-like robes and softly braided hair, were a kind of half-angels. +The light titter, the giddy whisper, had already in some measure +relieved my mind of that fond and oppressive fancy. + +The three I allude to were just in front, within half a yard of my +estrade, and were among the most womanly-looking present. Their names +I knew afterwards, and may as well mention now; they were Eulalie, +Hortense, Caroline. Eulalie was tall, and very finely shaped: she was +fair, and her features were those of a Low Country Madonna; many a +“figure de Vierge” have I seen in Dutch pictures exactly resembling +hers; there were no angles in her shape or in her face, all was curve +and roundness--neither thought, sentiment, nor passion disturbed by line +or flush the equality of her pale, clear skin; her noble bust heaved +with her regular breathing, her eyes moved a little--by these evidences +of life alone could I have distinguished her from some large handsome +figure moulded in wax. Hortense was of middle size and stout, her +form was ungraceful, her face striking, more alive and brilliant than +Eulalie’s, her hair was dark brown, her complexion richly coloured; +there were frolic and mischief in her eye: consistency and good sense +she might possess, but none of her features betokened those qualities. + +Caroline was little, though evidently full grown; raven-black hair, +very dark eyes, absolutely regular features, with a colourless olive +complexion, clear as to the face and sallow about the neck, formed in +her that assemblage of points whose union many persons regard as the +perfection of beauty. How, with the tintless pallor of her skin and the +classic straightness of her lineaments, she managed to look sensual, I +don’t know. I think her lips and eyes contrived the affair between +them, and the result left no uncertainty on the beholder’s mind. She was +sensual now, and in ten years’ time she would be coarse--promise plain +was written in her face of much future folly. + +If I looked at these girls with little scruple, they looked at me +with still less. Eulalie raised her unmoved eye to mine, and seemed to +expect, passively but securely, an impromptu tribute to her majestic +charms. Hortense regarded me boldly, and giggled at the same time, while +she said, with an air of impudent freedom-- + +“Dictez-nous quelquechose de facile pour commencer, monsieur.” + +Caroline shook her loose ringlets of abundant but somewhat coarse hair +over her rolling black eyes; parting her lips, as full as those of a +hot-blooded Maroon, she showed her well-set teeth sparkling between +them, and treated me at the same time to a smile “de sa facon.” + Beautiful as Pauline Borghese, she looked at the moment scarcely purer +than Lucrece de Borgia. Caroline was of noble family. I heard her +lady-mother’s character afterwards, and then I ceased to wonder at the +precocious accomplishments of the daughter. These three, I at once saw, +deemed themselves the queens of the school, and conceived that by their +splendour they threw all the rest into the shade. In less than five +minutes they had thus revealed to me their characters, and in less than +five minutes I had buckled on a breast-plate of steely indifference, and +let down a visor of impassible austerity. + +“Take your pens and commence writing,” said I, in as dry and trite a +voice as if I had been addressing only Jules Vanderkelkov and Co. + +The dictee now commenced. My three belles interrupted me perpetually +with little silly questions and uncalled-for remarks, to some of which I +made no answer, and to others replied very quietly and briefly. “Comment +dit-on point et virgule en Anglais, monsieur?” + +“Semi-colon, mademoiselle.” + +“Semi-collong? Ah, comme c’est drole!” (giggle.) + +“J’ai une si mauvaise plume--impossible d’ecrire!” + +“Mais, monsieur--je ne sais pas suivre--vous allez si vite.” + +“Je n’ai rien compris, moi!” + +Here a general murmur arose, and the teacher, opening her lips for the +first time, ejaculated-- + +“Silence, mesdemoiselles!” + +No silence followed--on the contrary, the three ladies in front began to +talk more loudly. + +“C’est si difficile, l’Anglais!” + +“Je deteste la dictee.” + +“Quel ennui d’ecrire quelquechose que l’on ne comprend pas!” + +Some of those behind laughed: a degree of confusion began to pervade the +class; it was necessary to take prompt measures. + +“Donnez-moi votre cahier,” said I to Eulalie in an abrupt tone; and +bending over, I took it before she had time to give it. + +“Et vous, mademoiselle--donnez-moi le votre,” continued I, more mildly, +addressing a little pale, plain looking girl who sat in the first row of +the other division, and whom I had remarked as being at once the ugliest +and the most attentive in the room; she rose up, walked over to me, and +delivered her book with a grave, modest curtsey. I glanced over the +two dictations; Eulalie’s was slurred, blotted, and full of silly +mistakes--Sylvie’s (such was the name of the ugly little girl) was +clearly written, it contained no error against sense, and but few +faults of orthography. I coolly read aloud both exercises, marking the +faults--then I looked at Eulalie: + +“C’est honteux!” said I, and I deliberately tore her dictation in four +parts, and presented her with the fragments. I returned Sylvie her book +with a smile, saying-- + +“C’est bien--je suis content de vous.” + +Sylvie looked calmly pleased, Eulalie swelled like an incensed turkey, +but the mutiny was quelled: the conceited coquetry and futile flirtation +of the first bench were exchanged for a taciturn sullenness, much more +convenient to me, and the rest of my lesson passed without interruption. + +A bell clanging out in the yard announced the moment for the cessation +of school labours. I heard our own bell at the same time, and that of a +certain public college immediately after. Order dissolved instantly; up +started every pupil, I hastened to seize my hat, bow to the maitresse, +and quit the room before the tide of externats should pour from the +inner class, where I knew near a hundred were prisoned, and whose rising +tumult I already heard. + +I had scarcely crossed the hall and gained the corridor, when Mdlle. +Reuter came again upon me. + +“Step in here a moment,” said she, and she held open the door of +the side room from whence she had issued on my arrival; it was a +SALLE-A-MANGER, as appeared from the beaufet and the armoire vitree, +filled with glass and china, which formed part of its furniture. Ere she +had closed the door on me and herself, the corridor was already filled +with day-pupils, tearing down their cloaks, bonnets, and cabas from +the wooden pegs on which they were suspended; the shrill voice of a +maitresse was heard at intervals vainly endeavouring to enforce some +sort of order; vainly, I say: discipline there was none in these rough +ranks, and yet this was considered one of the best-conducted schools in +Brussels. + +“Well, you have given your first lesson,” began Mdlle. Reuter in the +most calm, equable voice, as though quite unconscious of the chaos from +which we were separated only by a single wall. + +“Were you satisfied with your pupils, or did any circumstance in their +conduct give you cause for complaint? Conceal nothing from me, repose in +me entire confidence.” + +Happily, I felt in myself complete power to manage my pupils without +aid; the enchantment, the golden haze which had dazzled my perspicuity +at first, had been a good deal dissipated. I cannot say I was chagrined +or downcast by the contrast which the reality of a pensionnat de +demoiselles presented to my vague ideal of the same community; I was +only enlightened and amused; consequently, I felt in no disposition to +complain to Mdlle. Reuter, and I received her considerate invitation to +confidence with a smile. + +“A thousand thanks, mademoiselle, all has gone very smoothly.” + +She looked more than doubtful. + +“Et les trois demoiselles du premier banc?” said she. + +“Ah! tout va au mieux!” was my answer, and Mdlle. Reuter ceased to +question me; but her eye--not large, not brilliant, not melting, or +kindling, but astute, penetrating, practical, showed she was even with +me; it let out a momentary gleam, which said plainly, “Be as close as +you like, I am not dependent on your candour; what you would conceal I +already know.” + +By a transition so quiet as to be scarcely perceptible, the directress’s +manner changed; the anxious business-air passed from her face, and she +began chatting about the weather and the town, and asking in neighbourly +wise after M. and Madame Pelet. I answered all her little questions; she +prolonged her talk, I went on following its many little windings; she +sat so long, said so much, varied so often the topics of discourse, +that it was not difficult to perceive she had a particular aim in thus +detaining me. Her mere words could have afforded no clue to this +aim, but her countenance aided; while her lips uttered only affable +commonplaces, her eyes reverted continually to my face. Her glances were +not given in full, but out of the corners, so quietly, so stealthily, +yet I think I lost not one. I watched her as keenly as she watched me; +I perceived soon that she was feeling after my real character; she was +searching for salient points, and weak points, and eccentric points; +she was applying now this test, now that, hoping in the end to find some +chink, some niche, where she could put in her little firm foot and stand +upon my neck--mistress of my nature. Do not mistake me, reader, it was +no amorous influence she wished to gain--at that time it was only the +power of the politician to which she aspired; I was now installed as a +professor in her establishment, and she wanted to know where her mind +was superior to mine--by what feeling or opinion she could lead me. + +I enjoyed the game much, and did not hasten its conclusion; sometimes I +gave her hopes, beginning a sentence rather weakly, when her shrewd eye +would light up--she thought she had me; having led her a little way, I +delighted to turn round and finish with sound, hard sense, whereat her +countenance would fall. At last a servant entered to announce dinner; +the conflict being thus necessarily terminated, we parted without having +gained any advantage on either side: Mdlle. Reuter had not even given +me an opportunity of attacking her with feeling, and I had managed to +baffle her little schemes of craft. It was a regular drawn battle. I +again held out my hand when I left the room, she gave me hers; it was a +small and white hand, but how cool! I met her eye too in full--obliging +her to give me a straightforward look; this last test went against +me: it left her as it found her--moderate, temperate, tranquil; me it +disappointed. + +“I am growing wiser,” thought I, as I walked back to M. Pelet’s. “Look +at this little woman; is she like the women of novelists and romancers? +To read of female character as depicted in Poetry and Fiction, one would +think it was made up of sentiment, either for good or bad--here is +a specimen, and a most sensible and respectable specimen, too, whose +staple ingredient is abstract reason. No Talleyrand was ever more +passionless than Zoraide Reuter!” So I thought then; I found +afterwards that blunt susceptibilities are very consistent with strong +propensities. + + + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +I HAD indeed had a very long talk with the crafty little politician, and +on regaining my quarters, I found that dinner was half over. To be late +at meals was against a standing rule of the establishment, and had it +been one of the Flemish ushers who thus entered after the removal of the +soup and the commencement of the first course, M. Pelet would probably +have greeted him with a public rebuke, and would certainly have mulcted +him both of soup and fish; as it was, that polite though partial +gentleman only shook his head, and as I took my place, unrolled my +napkin, and said my heretical grace to myself, he civilly despatched a +servant to the kitchen, to bring me a plate of “puree aux carottes” + (for this was a maigre-day), and before sending away the first course, +reserved for me a portion of the stock-fish of which it consisted. +Dinner being over, the boys rushed out for their evening play; Kint and +Vandam (the two ushers) of course followed them. Poor fellows! if they +had not looked so very heavy, so very soulless, so very indifferent to +all things in heaven above or in the earth beneath, I could have pitied +them greatly for the obligation they were under to trail after those +rough lads everywhere and at all times; even as it was, I felt disposed +to scout myself as a privileged prig when I turned to ascend to my +chamber, sure to find there, if not enjoyment, at least liberty; but +this evening (as had often happened before) I was to be still farther +distinguished. + +“Eh bien, mauvais sujet!” said the voice of M. Pelet behind me, as I +set my foot on the first step of the stair, “ou allez-vous? Venez a la +salle-a-manger, que je vous gronde un peu.” + +“I beg pardon, monsieur,” said I, as I followed him to his private +sitting-room, “for having returned so late--it was not my fault.” + +“That is just what I want to know,” rejoined M. Pelet, as he ushered me +into the comfortable parlour with a good wood-fire--for the stove had +now been removed for the season. Having rung the bell he ordered “Coffee +for two,” and presently he and I were seated, almost in English comfort, +one on each side of the hearth, a little round table between us, with +a coffee-pot, a sugar-basin, and two large white china cups. While +M. Pelet employed himself in choosing a cigar from a box, my thoughts +reverted to the two outcast ushers, whose voices I could hear even now +crying hoarsely for order in the playground. + +“C’est une grande responsabilite, que la surveillance,” observed I. + +“Plait-il?” dit M. Pelet. + +I remarked that I thought Messieurs Vandam and Kint must sometimes be a +little fatigued with their labours. + +“Des betes de somme,--des betes de somme,” murmured scornfully the +director. Meantime I offered him his cup of coffee. + +“Servez-vous mon garcon,” said he blandly, when I had put a couple of +huge lumps of continental sugar into his cup. “And now tell me why you +stayed so long at Mdlle. Reuter’s. I know that lessons conclude, in her +establishment as in mine, at four o’clock, and when you returned it was +past five.” + +“Mdlle. wished to speak with me, monsieur.” + +“Indeed! on what subject? if one may ask.” + +“Mademoiselle talked about nothing, monsieur.” + +“A fertile topic! and did she discourse thereon in the schoolroom, +before the pupils?” + +“No; like you, monsieur, she asked me to walk into her parlour.” + +“And Madame Reuter--the old duenna--my mother’s gossip, was there, of +course?” + +“No, monsieur; I had the honour of being quite alone with mademoiselle.” + +“C’est joli--cela,” observed M. Pelet, and he smiled and looked into the +fire. + +“Honi soit qui mal y pense,” murmured I, significantly. + +“Je connais un peu ma petite voisine--voyez-vous.” + +“In that case, monsieur will be able to aid me in finding out what was +mademoiselle’s reason for making me sit before her sofa one mortal hour, +listening to the most copious and fluent dissertation on the merest +frivolities.” + +“She was sounding your character.” + +“I thought so, monsieur.” + +“Did she find out your weak point?” + +“What is my weak point?” + +“Why, the sentimental. Any woman sinking her shaft deep enough, will +at last reach a fathomless spring of sensibility in thy breast, +Crimsworth.” + +I felt the blood stir about my heart and rise warm to my cheek. + +“Some women might, monsieur.” + +“Is Mdlle. Reuter of the number? Come, speak frankly, mon fils; elle est +encore jeune, plus agee que toi peut-etre, mais juste assey pour unir +la tendresse d’une petite maman a l’amour d’une epouse devouee; n’est-ce +pas que cela t’irait superieurement?” + +“No, monsieur; I should like my wife to be my wife, and not half my +mother.” + +“She is then a little too old for you?” + +“No, monsieur, not a day too old if she suited me in other things.” + +“In what does she not suit you, William? She is personally agreeable, is +she not?” + +“Very; her hair and complexion are just what I admire; and her turn of +form, though quite Belgian, is full of grace.” + +“Bravo! and her face? her features? How do you like them?” + +“A little harsh, especially her mouth.” + +“Ah, yes! her mouth,” said M. Pelet, and he chuckled inwardly. “There is +character about her mouth--firmness--but she has a very pleasant smile; +don’t you think so?” + +“Rather crafty.” + +“True, but that expression of craft is owing to her eyebrows; have you +remarked her eyebrows?” + +I answered that I had not. + +“You have not seen her looking down then?” said he. + +“No.” + +“It is a treat, notwithstanding. Observe her when she has some knitting, +or some other woman’s work in hand, and sits the image of peace, calmly +intent on her needles and her silk, some discussion meantime going on +around her, in the course of which peculiarities of character are being +developed, or important interests canvassed; she takes no part in it; +her humble, feminine mind is wholly with her knitting; none of her +features move; she neither presumes to smile approval, nor frown +disapprobation; her little hands assiduously ply their unpretending +task; if she can only get this purse finished, or this bonnet-grec +completed, it is enough for her. If gentlemen approach her chair, a +deeper quiescence, a meeker modesty settles on her features, and clothes +her general mien; observe then her eyebrows, et dites-moi s’il n’y a pas +du chat dans l’un et du renard dans l’autre.” + +“I will take careful notice the first opportunity,” said I. + +“And then,” continued M. Pelet, “the eyelid will flicker, the +light-coloured lashes be lifted a second, and a blue eye, glancing out +from under the screen, will take its brief, sly, searching survey, and +retreat again.” + +I smiled, and so did Pelet, and after a few minutes’ silence, I asked: + +“Will she ever marry, do you think?” + +“Marry! Will birds pair? Of course it is both her intention and +resolution to marry when she finds a suitable match, and no one is +better aware than herself of the sort of impression she is capable +of producing; no one likes better to captivate in a quiet way. I am +mistaken if she will not yet leave the print of her stealing steps on +thy heart, Crimsworth.” + +“Of her steps? Confound it, no! My heart is not a plank to be walked +on.” + +“But the soft touch of a patte de velours will do it no harm.” + +“She offers me no patte de velours; she is all form and reserve with +me.” + +“That to begin with; let respect be the foundation, affection the first +floor, love the superstructure; Mdlle. Reuter is a skilful architect.” + +“And interest, M. Pelet--interest. Will not mademoiselle consider that +point?” + +“Yes, yes, no doubt; it will be the cement between every stone. And now +we have discussed the directress, what of the pupils? N’y a-t-il pas de +belles etudes parmi ces jeunes tetes?” + +“Studies of character? Yes; curious ones, at least, I imagine; but one +cannot divine much from a first interview.” + +“Ah, you affect discretion; but tell me now, were you not a little +abashed before these blooming young creatures?” + +“At first, yes; but I rallied and got through with all due sang-froid.” + +“I don’t believe you.” + +“It is true, notwithstanding. At first I thought them angels, but they +did not leave me long under that delusion; three of the eldest and +handsomest undertook the task of setting me right, and they managed +so cleverly that in five minutes I knew them, at least, for what they +were--three arrant coquettes.” + +“Je les connais!” exclaimed M. Pelet. “Elles sont toujours au premier +rang a l’eglise et a la promenade; une blonde superbe, une jolie +espiegle, une belle brune.” + +“Exactly.” + +“Lovely creatures all of them--heads for artists; what a group they +would make, taken together! Eulalie (I know their names), with her +smooth braided hair and calm ivory brow. Hortense, with her rich chesnut +locks so luxuriantly knotted, plaited, twisted, as if she did not know +how to dispose of all their abundance, with her vermilion lips, damask +cheek, and roguish laughing eye. And Caroline de Blemont! Ah, there is +beauty! beauty in perfection. What a cloud of sable curls about the face +of a houri! What fascinating lips! What glorious black eyes! Your Byron +would have worshipped her, and you--you cold, frigid islander!--you +played the austere, the insensible in the presence of an Aphrodite so +exquisite?” + +I might have laughed at the director’s enthusiasm had I believed +it real, but there was something in his tone which indicated got-up +raptures. I felt he was only affecting fervour in order to put me off my +guard, to induce me to come out in return, so I scarcely even smiled. He +went on: + +“Confess, William, do not the mere good looks of Zoraide Reuter appear +dowdyish and commonplace compared with the splendid charms of some of +her pupils?” + +The question discomposed me, but I now felt plainly that my principal +was endeavouring (for reasons best known to himself--at that time I +could not fathom them) to excite ideas and wishes in my mind alien to +what was right and honourable. The iniquity of the instigation proved +its antidote, and when he further added:-- + +“Each of those three beautiful girls will have a handsome fortune; and +with a little address, a gentlemanlike, intelligent young fellow like +you might make himself master of the hand, heart, and purse of any one +of the trio.” + +I replied by a look and an interrogative “Monsieur?” which startled him. + +He laughed a forced laugh, affirmed that he had only been joking, and +demanded whether I could possibly have thought him in earnest. Just then +the bell rang; the play-hour was over; it was an evening on which M. +Pelet was accustomed to read passages from the drama and the belles +lettres to his pupils. He did not wait for my answer, but rising, left +the room, humming as he went some gay strain of Beranger’s. + + + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +DAILY, as I continued my attendance at the seminary of Mdlle. Reuter, +did I find fresh occasions to compare the ideal with the real. What +had I known of female character previously to my arrival at Brussels? +Precious little. And what was my notion of it? Something vague, slight, +gauzy, glittering; now when I came in contact with it I found it to be +a palpable substance enough; very hard too sometimes, and often heavy; +there was metal in it, both lead and iron. + +Let the idealists, the dreamers about earthly angel and human flowers, +just look here while I open my portfolio and show them a sketch or +two, pencilled after nature. I took these sketches in the second-class +schoolroom of Mdlle. Reuter’s establishment, where about a hundred +specimens of the genus “jeune fille” collected together offered a +fertile variety of subject. A miscellaneous assortment they were, +differing both in caste and country; as I sat on my estrade and glanced +over the long range of desks, I had under my eye French, English, +Belgians, Austrians, and Prussians. The majority belonged to the class +bourgeois; but there were many countesses, there were the daughters of +two generals and of several colonels, captains, and government EMPLOYES; +these ladies sat side by side with young females destined to be +demoiselles de magasins, and with some Flamandes, genuine aborigines of +the country. In dress all were nearly similar, and in manners there was +small difference; exceptions there were to the general rule, but the +majority gave the tone to the establishment, and that tone was rough, +boisterous, masked by a point-blank disregard of all forbearance towards +each other or their teachers; an eager pursuit by each individual of her +own interest and convenience; and a coarse indifference to the interest +and convenience of every one else. Most of them could lie with audacity +when it appeared advantageous to do so. All understood the art of +speaking fair when a point was to be gained, and could with consummate +skill and at a moment’s notice turn the cold shoulder the instant +civility ceased to be profitable. Very little open quarrelling ever took +place amongst them; but backbiting and talebearing were universal. Close +friendships were forbidden by the rules of the school, and no one girl +seemed to cultivate more regard for another than was just necessary to +secure a companion when solitude would have been irksome. They were each +and all supposed to have been reared in utter unconsciousness of vice. +The precautions used to keep them ignorant, if not innocent, were +innumerable. How was it, then, that scarcely one of those girls having +attained the age of fourteen could look a man in the face with modesty +and propriety? An air of bold, impudent flirtation, or a loose, silly +leer, was sure to answer the most ordinary glance from a masculine eye. +I know nothing of the arcana of the Roman Catholic religion, and I +am not a bigot in matters of theology, but I suspect the root of this +precocious impurity, so obvious, so general in Popish countries, is to +be found in the discipline, if not the doctrines of the Church of Rome. +I record what I have seen: these girls belonged to what are called the +respectable ranks of society; they had all been carefully brought up, +yet was the mass of them mentally depraved. So much for the general +view: now for one or two selected specimens. + +The first picture is a full length of Aurelia Koslow, a German fraulein, +or rather a half-breed between German and Russian. She is eighteen years +of age, and has been sent to Brussels to finish her education; she is +of middle size, stiffly made, body long, legs short, bust much developed +but not compactly moulded, waist disproportionately compressed by an +inhumanly braced corset, dress carefully arranged, large feet tortured +into small bottines, head small, hair smoothed, braided, oiled, and +gummed to perfection; very low forehead, very diminutive and vindictive +grey eyes, somewhat Tartar features, rather flat nose, rather high-cheek +bones, yet the ensemble not positively ugly; tolerably good complexion. +So much for person. As to mind, deplorably ignorant and ill-informed: +incapable of writing or speaking correctly even German, her native +tongue, a dunce in French, and her attempts at learning English a mere +farce, yet she has been at school twelve years; but as she invariably +gets her exercises, of every description, done by a fellow pupil, and +reads her lessons off a book concealed in her lap, it is not wonderful +that her progress has been so snail-like. I do not know what Aurelia’s +daily habits of life are, because I have not the opportunity of +observing her at all times; but from what I see of the state of her +desk, books, and papers, I should say she is slovenly and even dirty; +her outward dress, as I have said, is well attended to, but in passing +behind her bench, I have remarked that her neck is gray for want of +washing, and her hair, so glossy with gum and grease, is not such as +one feels tempted to pass the hand over, much less to run the fingers +through. Aurelia’s conduct in class, at least when I am present, is +something extraordinary, considered as an index of girlish innocence. +The moment I enter the room, she nudges her next neighbour and indulges +in a half-suppressed laugh. As I take my seat on the estrade, she +fixes her eye on me; she seems resolved to attract, and, if possible, +monopolize my notice: to this end she launches at me all sorts of looks, +languishing, provoking, leering, laughing. As I am found quite proof +against this sort of artillery--for we scorn what, unasked, is lavishly +offered--she has recourse to the expedient of making noises; sometimes +she sighs, sometimes groans, sometimes utters inarticulate sounds, for +which language has no name. If, in walking up the schoolroom, I pass +near her, she puts out her foot that it may touch mine; if I do not +happen to observe the manoeuvre, and my boot comes in contact with her +brodequin, she affects to fall into convulsions of suppressed laughter; +if I notice the snare and avoid it, she expresses her mortification in +sullen muttering, where I hear myself abused in bad French, pronounced +with an intolerable Low German accent. + +Not far from Mdlle. Koslow sits another young lady by name Adele +Dronsart: this is a Belgian, rather low of stature, in form heavy, +with broad waist, short neck and limbs, good red and white complexion, +features well chiselled and regular, well-cut eyes of a clear brown +colour, light brown hair, good teeth, age not much above fifteen, but as +full-grown as a stout young Englishwoman of twenty. This portrait gives +the idea of a somewhat dumpy but good-looking damsel, does it not? Well, +when I looked along the row of young heads, my eye generally stopped at +this of Adele’s; her gaze was ever waiting for mine, and it frequently +succeeded in arresting it. She was an unnatural-looking being--so young, +fresh, blooming, yet so Gorgon-like. Suspicion, sullen ill-temper were +on her forehead, vicious propensities in her eye, envy and panther-like +deceit about her mouth. In general she sat very still; her massive shape +looked as if it could not bend much, nor did her large head--so broad +at the base, so narrow towards the top--seem made to turn readily on her +short neck. She had but two varieties of expression; the prevalent one +a forbidding, dissatisfied scowl, varied sometimes by a most pernicious +and perfidious smile. She was shunned by her fellow-pupils, for, bad as +many of them were, few were as bad as she. + +Aurelia and Adele were in the first division of the second class; the +second division was headed by a pensionnaire named Juanna Trista. This +girl was of mixed Belgian and Spanish origin; her Flemish mother was +dead, her Catalonian father was a merchant residing in the ---- Isles, +where Juanna had been born and whence she was sent to Europe to be +educated. I wonder that any one, looking at that girl’s head and +countenance, would have received her under their roof. She had precisely +the same shape of skull as Pope Alexander the Sixth; her organs +of benevolence, veneration, conscientiousness, adhesiveness, were +singularly small, those of self-esteem, firmness, destructiveness, +combativeness, preposterously large; her head sloped up in the penthouse +shape, was contracted about the forehead, and prominent behind; she +had rather good, though large and marked features; her temperament was +fibrous and bilious, her complexion pale and dark, hair and eyes black, +form angular and rigid but proportionate, age fifteen. + +Juanna was not very thin, but she had a gaunt visage, and her “regard” + was fierce and hungry; narrow as was her brow, it presented space enough +for the legible graving of two words, Mutiny and Hate; in some one of +her other lineaments I think the eye--cowardice had also its distinct +cipher. Mdlle. Trista thought fit to trouble my first lessons with a +coarse work-day sort of turbulence; she made noises with her mouth like +a horse, she ejected her saliva, she uttered brutal expressions; behind +and below her were seated a band of very vulgar, inferior-looking +Flamandes, including two or three examples of that deformity of person +and imbecility of intellect whose frequency in the Low Countries would +seem to furnish proof that the climate is such as to induce degeneracy +of the human mind and body; these, I soon found, were completely under +her influence, and with their aid she got up and sustained a swinish +tumult, which I was constrained at last to quell by ordering her and two +of her tools to rise from their seats, and, having kept them standing +five minutes, turning them bodily out of the schoolroom: the accomplices +into a large place adjoining called the grands salle; the principal +into a cabinet, of which I closed the door and pocketed the key. This +judgment I executed in the presence of Mdlle. Reuter, who looked much +aghast at beholding so decided a proceeding--the most severe that had +ever been ventured on in her establishment. Her look of affright I +answered with one of composure, and finally with a smile, which perhaps +flattered, and certainly soothed her. Juanna Trista remained in Europe +long enough to repay, by malevolence and ingratitude, all who had ever +done her a good turn; and she then went to join her father in the---- +Isles, exulting in the thought that she should there have slaves, whom, +as she said, she could kick and strike at will. + +These three pictures are from the life. I possess others, as marked and +as little agreeable, but I will spare my reader the exhibition of them. + +Doubtless it will be thought that I ought now, by way of contrast, to +show something charming; some gentle virgin head, circled with a halo, +some sweet personification of innocence, clasping the dove of peace to +her bosom. No: I saw nothing of the sort, and therefore cannot portray +it. The pupil in the school possessing the happiest disposition was +a young girl from the country, Louise Path; she was sufficiently +benevolent and obliging, but not well taught nor well mannered; +moreover, the plague-spot of dissimulation was in her also; honour and +principle were unknown to her, she had scarcely heard their names. The +least exceptionable pupil was the poor little Sylvie I have mentioned +once before. Sylvie was gentle in manners, intelligent in mind; she was +even sincere, as far as her religion would permit her to be so, but her +physical organization was defective; weak health stunted her growth and +chilled her spirits, and then, destined as she was for the cloister, +her whole soul was warped to a conventual bias, and in the tame, trained +subjection of her manner, one read that she had already prepared herself +for her future course of life, by giving up her independence of thought +and action into the hands of some despotic confessor. She permitted +herself no original opinion, no preference of companion or employment; +in everything she was guided by another. With a pale, passive, automaton +air, she went about all day long doing what she was bid; never what she +liked, or what, from innate conviction, she thought it right to do. The +poor little future religieuse had been early taught to make the dictates +of her own reason and conscience quite subordinate to the will of +her spiritual director. She was the model pupil of Mdlle. Reuter’s +establishment; pale, blighted image, where life lingered feebly, but +whence the soul had been conjured by Romish wizard-craft! + +A few English pupils there were in this school, and these might be +divided into two classes. 1st. The continental English--the daughters +chiefly of broken adventurers, whom debt or dishonour had driven from +their own country. These poor girls had never known the advantages +of settled homes, decorous example, or honest Protestant education; +resident a few months now in one Catholic school, now in another, as +their parents wandered from land to land--from France to Germany, from +Germany to Belgium--they had picked up some scanty instruction, many bad +habits, losing every notion even of the first elements of religion and +morals, and acquiring an imbecile indifference to every sentiment that +can elevate humanity; they were distinguishable by an habitual look +of sullen dejection, the result of crushed self-respect and constant +browbeating from their Popish fellow-pupils, who hated them as English, +and scorned them as heretics. + +The second class were British English. Of these I did not encounter half +a dozen during the whole time of my attendance at the seminary; their +characteristics were clean but careless dress, ill-arranged hair +(compared with the tight and trim foreigners), erect carriage, flexible +figures, white and taper hands, features more irregular, but also more +intellectual than those of the Belgians, grave and modest countenances, +a general air of native propriety and decency; by this last circumstance +alone I could at a glance distinguish the daughter of Albion and +nursling of Protestantism from the foster-child of Rome, the PROTEGEE +of Jesuistry: proud, too, was the aspect of these British girls; at once +envied and ridiculed by their continental associates, they warded off +insult with austere civility, and met hate with mute disdain; they +eschewed company-keeping, and in the midst of numbers seemed to dwell +isolated. + +The teachers presiding over this mixed multitude were three in number, +all French--their names Mdlles. Zephyrine, Pelagie, and Suzette; the two +last were commonplace personages enough; their look was ordinary, +their manner was ordinary, their temper was ordinary, their thoughts, +feelings, and views were all ordinary--were I to write a chapter on the +subject I could not elucidate it further. Zephyrine was somewhat more +distinguished in appearance and deportment than Pelagie and Suzette, +but in character genuine Parisian coquette, perfidious, mercenary, and +dry-hearted. A fourth maitresse I sometimes saw who seemed to come daily +to teach needlework, or netting, or lace-mending, or some such flimsy +art; but of her I never had more than a passing glimpse, as she sat in +the CARRE, with her frames and some dozen of the elder pupils about her, +consequently I had no opportunity of studying her character, or even of +observing her person much; the latter, I remarked, had a very English +air for a maitresse, otherwise it was not striking; of character I +should think she possessed but little, as her pupils seemed constantly +“en revolte” against her authority. She did not reside in the house; her +name, I think, was Mdlle. Henri. + +Amidst this assemblage of all that was insignificant and defective, much +that was vicious and repulsive (by that last epithet many would have +described the two or three stiff, silent, decently behaved, ill-dressed +British girls), the sensible, sagacious, affable directress shone like a +steady star over a marsh full of Jack-o’-lanthorns; profoundly aware +of her superiority, she derived an inward bliss from that consciousness +which sustained her under all the care and responsibility inseparable +from her position; it kept her temper calm, her brow smooth, her manner +tranquil. She liked--as who would not?--on entering the school-room, +to feel that her sole presence sufficed to diffuse that order and +quiet which all the remonstrances, and even commands, of her underlings +frequently failed to enforce; she liked to stand in comparison, or +rather--contrast, with those who surrounded her, and to know that in +personal as well as mental advantages, she bore away the undisputed +palm of preference--(the three teachers were all plain.) Her pupils she +managed with such indulgence and address, taking always on herself the +office of recompenser and eulogist, and abandoning to her subalterns +every invidious task of blame and punishment, that they all regarded her +with deference, if not with affection; her teachers did not love her, +but they submitted because they were her inferiors in everything; the +various masters who attended her school were each and all in some way +or other under her influence; over one she had acquired power by her +skilful management of his bad temper; over another by little attentions +to his petty caprices; a third she had subdued by flattery; a fourth--a +timid man--she kept in awe by a sort of austere decision of mien; me, +she still watched, still tried by the most ingenious tests--she roved +round me, baffled, yet persevering; I believe she thought I was like +a smooth and bare precipice, which offered neither jutting stone nor +tree-root, nor tuft of grass to aid the climber. Now she flattered +with exquisite tact, now she moralized, now she tried how far I was +accessible to mercenary motives, then she disported on the brink of +affection--knowing that some men are won by weakness--anon, she talked +excellent sense, aware that others have the folly to admire judgment. +I found it at once pleasant and easy to evade all these efforts; it was +sweet, when she thought me nearly won, to turn round and to smile in +her very eyes, half scornfully, and then to witness her scarcely veiled, +though mute mortification. Still she persevered, and at last, I am bound +to confess it, her finger, essaying, proving every atom of the casket, +touched its secret spring, and for a moment the lid sprung open; she +laid her hand on the jewel within; whether she stole and broke it, or +whether the lid shut again with a snap on her fingers, read on, and you +shall know. + +It happened that I came one day to give a lesson when I was indisposed; +I had a bad cold and a cough; two hours’ incessant talking left me very +hoarse and tired; as I quitted the schoolroom, and was passing along the +corridor, I met Mdlle. Reuter; she remarked, with an anxious air, that +I looked very pale and tired. “Yes,” I said, “I was fatigued;” and then, +with increased interest, she rejoined, “You shall not go away till you +have had some refreshment.” She persuaded me to step into the parlour, +and was very kind and gentle while I stayed. The next day she was kinder +still; she came herself into the class to see that the windows were +closed, and that there was no draught; she exhorted me with friendly +earnestness not to over-exert myself; when I went away, she gave me +her hand unasked, and I could not but mark, by a respectful and gentle +pressure, that I was sensible of the favour, and grateful for it. My +modest demonstration kindled a little merry smile on her countenance; +I thought her almost charming. During the remainder of the evening, my +mind was full of impatience for the afternoon of the next day to arrive, +that I might see her again. + +I was not disappointed, for she sat in the class during the whole of my +subsequent lesson, and often looked at me almost with affection. At four +o’clock she accompanied me out of the schoolroom, asking with solicitude +after my health, then scolding me sweetly because I spoke too loud and +gave myself too much trouble; I stopped at the glass-door which led into +the garden, to hear her lecture to the end; the door was open, it was a +very fine day, and while I listened to the soothing reprimand, I looked +at the sunshine and flowers, and felt very happy. The day-scholars began +to pour from the schoolrooms into the passage. + +“Will you go into the garden a minute or two,” asked she, “till they are +gone?” + +I descended the steps without answering, but I looked back as much as to +say-- + +“You will come with me?” + +In another minute I and the directress were walking side by side down +the alley bordered with fruit-trees, whose white blossoms were then in +full blow as well as their tender green leaves. The sky was blue, the +air still, the May afternoon was full of brightness and fragrance. +Released from the stifling class, surrounded with flowers and foliage, +with a pleasing, smiling, affable woman at my side--how did I feel? Why, +very enviably. It seemed as if the romantic visions my imagination had +suggested of this garden, while it was yet hidden from me by the jealous +boards, were more than realized; and, when a turn in the alley shut out +the view of the house, and some tall shrubs excluded M. Pelet’s +mansion, and screened us momentarily from the other houses, rising +amphitheatre-like round this green spot, I gave my arm to Mdlle. Reuter, +and led her to a garden-chair, nestled under some lilacs near. She sat +down; I took my place at her side. She went on talking to me with that +ease which communicates ease, and, as I listened, a revelation dawned +in my mind that I was on the brink of falling in love. The dinner-bell +rang, both at her house and M. Pelet’s; we were obliged to part; I +detained her a moment as she was moving away. + +“I want something,” said I. + +“What?” asked Zoraide naively. + +“Only a flower.” + +“Gather it then--or two, or twenty, if you like.” + +“No--one will do--but you must gather it, and give it to me.” + +“What a caprice!” she exclaimed, but she raised herself on her tip-toes, +and, plucking a beautiful branch of lilac, offered it to me with grace. +I took it, and went away, satisfied for the present, and hopeful for the +future. + +Certainly that May day was a lovely one, and it closed in moonlight +night of summer warmth and serenity. I remember this well; for, having +sat up late that evening, correcting devoirs, and feeling weary and +a little oppressed with the closeness of my small room, I opened the +often-mentioned boarded window, whose boards, however, I had persuaded +old Madame Pelet to have removed since I had filled the post of +professor in the pensionnat de demoiselles, as, from that time, it +was no longer “inconvenient” for me to overlook my own pupils at their +sports. I sat down in the window-seat, rested my arm on the sill, +and leaned out: above me was the clear-obscure of a cloudless +night sky--splendid moonlight subdued the tremulous sparkle of the +stars--below lay the garden, varied with silvery lustre and deep shade, +and all fresh with dew--a grateful perfume exhaled from the closed +blossoms of the fruit-trees--not a leaf stirred, the night was +breezeless. My window looked directly down upon a certain walk of Mdlle. +Reuter’s garden, called “l’allee defendue,” so named because the pupils +were forbidden to enter it on account of its proximity to the boys’ +school. It was here that the lilacs and laburnums grew especially thick; +this was the most sheltered nook in the enclosure, its shrubs screened +the garden-chair where that afternoon I had sat with the young +directress. I need not say that my thoughts were chiefly with her as +I leaned from the lattice, and let my eye roam, now over the walks and +borders of the garden, now along the many-windowed front of the house +which rose white beyond the masses of foliage. I wondered in what part +of the building was situated her apartment; and a single light, shining +through the persiennes of one croisee, seemed to direct me to it. + +“She watches late,” thought I, “for it must be now near midnight. She +is a fascinating little woman,” I continued in voiceless soliloquy; “her +image forms a pleasant picture in memory; I know she is not what the +world calls pretty--no matter, there is harmony in her aspect, and I +like it; her brown hair, her blue eye, the freshness of her cheek, the +whiteness of her neck, all suit my taste. Then I respect her talent; +the idea of marrying a doll or a fool was always abhorrent to me: I know +that a pretty doll, a fair fool, might do well enough for the honeymoon; +but when passion cooled, how dreadful to find a lump of wax and wood +laid in my bosom, a half idiot clasped in my arms, and to remember that +I had made of this my equal--nay, my idol--to know that I must pass the +rest of my dreary life with a creature incapable of understanding what +I said, of appreciating what I thought, or of sympathizing with what I +felt! “Now, Zoraide Reuter,” thought I, “has tact, CARACTERE, judgment, +discretion; has she heart? What a good, simple little smile played +about her lips when she gave me the branch of lilacs! I have thought her +crafty, dissembling, interested sometimes, it is true; but may not much +that looks like cunning and dissimulation in her conduct be only +the efforts made by a bland temper to traverse quietly perplexing +difficulties? And as to interest, she wishes to make her way in the +world, no doubt, and who can blame her? Even if she be truly deficient +in sound principle, is it not rather her misfortune than her fault? She +has been brought up a Catholic: had she been born an Englishwoman, and +reared a Protestant, might she not have added straight integrity to +all her other excellences? Supposing she were to marry an English and +Protestant husband, would she not, rational, sensible as she is, quickly +acknowledge the superiority of right over expediency, honesty over +policy? It would be worth a man’s while to try the experiment; to-morrow +I will renew my observations. She knows that I watch her: how calm she +is under scrutiny! it seems rather to gratify than annoy her.” Here a +strain of music stole in upon my monologue, and suspended it; it was +a bugle, very skilfully played, in the neighbourhood of the park, I +thought, or on the Place Royale. So sweet were the tones, so subduing +their effect at that hour, in the midst of silence and under the +quiet reign of moonlight, I ceased to think, that I might listen more +intently. The strain retreated, its sound waxed fainter and was soon +gone; my ear prepared to repose on the absolute hush of midnight once +more. No. What murmur was that which, low, and yet near and approaching +nearer, frustrated the expectation of total silence? It was some one +conversing--yes, evidently, an audible, though subdued voice spoke in +the garden immediately below me. Another answered; the first voice was +that of a man, the second that of a woman; and a man and a woman I saw +coming slowly down the alley. Their forms were at first in shade, I +could but discern a dusk outline of each, but a ray of moonlight met +them at the termination of the walk, when they were under my very nose, +and revealed very plainly, very unequivocally, Mdlle. Zoraide Reuter, +arm-in-arm, or hand-in-hand (I forget which) with my principal, +confidant, and counsellor, M. Francois Pelet. And M. Pelet was saying-- + +“A quand donc le jour des noces, ma bien-aimee?” + +And Mdlle. Reuter answered-- + +“Mais, Francois, tu sais bien qu’il me serait impossible de me marier +avant les vacances.” + +“June, July, August, a whole quarter!” exclaimed the director. “How can +I wait so long?--I who am ready, even now, to expire at your feet with +impatience!” + +“Ah! if you die, the whole affair will be settled without any trouble +about notaries and contracts; I shall only have to order a slight +mourning dress, which will be much sooner prepared than the nuptial +trousseau.” + +“Cruel Zoraide! you laugh at the distress of one who loves you so +devotedly as I do: my torment is your sport; you scruple not to stretch +my soul on the rack of jealousy; for, deny it as you will, I am certain +you have cast encouraging glances on that school-boy, Crimsworth; he has +presumed to fall in love, which he dared not have done unless you had +given him room to hope.” + +“What do you say, Francois? Do you say Crimsworth is in love with me?” + +“Over head and ears.” + +“Has he told you so?” + +“No--but I see it in his face: he blushes whenever your name is +mentioned.” A little laugh of exulting coquetry announced Mdlle. +Reuter’s gratification at this piece of intelligence (which was a lie, +by-the-by--I had never been so far gone as that, after all). M. Pelet +proceeded to ask what she intended to do with me, intimating pretty +plainly, and not very gallantly, that it was nonsense for her to think +of taking such a “blanc-bec” as a husband, since she must be at least +ten years older than I (was she then thirty-two? I should not have +thought it). I heard her disclaim any intentions on the subject--the +director, however, still pressed her to give a definite answer. + +“Francois,” said she, “you are jealous,” and still she laughed; then, as +if suddenly recollecting that this coquetry was not consistent with the +character for modest dignity she wished to establish, she proceeded, +in a demure voice: “Truly, my dear Francois, I will not deny that this +young Englishman may have made some attempts to ingratiate himself with +me; but, so far from giving him any encouragement, I have always treated +him with as much reserve as it was possible to combine with civility; +affianced as I am to you, I would give no man false hopes; believe me, +dear friend.” Still Pelet uttered murmurs of distrust--so I judged, at +least, from her reply. + +“What folly! How could I prefer an unknown foreigner to you? And +then--not to flatter your vanity--Crimsworth could not bear comparison +with you either physically or mentally; he is not a handsome man at all; +some may call him gentleman-like and intelligent-looking, but for my +part--” + +The rest of the sentence was lost in the distance, as the pair, rising +from the chair in which they had been seated, moved away. I waited their +return, but soon the opening and shutting of a door informed me that +they had re-entered the house; I listened a little longer, all was +perfectly still; I listened more than an hour--at last I heard M. Pelet +come in and ascend to his chamber. Glancing once more towards the long +front of the garden-house, I perceived that its solitary light was +at length extinguished; so, for a time, was my faith in love and +friendship. I went to bed, but something feverish and fiery had got into +my veins which prevented me from sleeping much that night. + + + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +NEXT morning I rose with the dawn, and having dressed myself and stood +half-an-hour, my elbow leaning on the chest of drawers, considering what +means I should adopt to restore my spirits, fagged with sleeplessness, +to their ordinary tone--for I had no intention of getting up a scene +with M. Pelet, reproaching him with perfidy, sending him a challenge, or +performing other gambadoes of the sort--I hit at last on the +expedient of walking out in the cool of the morning to a neighbouring +establishment of baths, and treating myself to a bracing plunge. +The remedy produced the desired effect. I came back at seven o’clock +steadied and invigorated, and was able to greet M. Pelet, when he +entered to breakfast, with an unchanged and tranquil countenance; even +a cordial offering of the hand and the flattering appellation of “mon +fils,” pronounced in that caressing tone with which Monsieur had, of +late days especially, been accustomed to address me, did not elicit any +external sign of the feeling which, though subdued, still glowed at +my heart. Not that I nursed vengeance--no; but the sense of insult and +treachery lived in me like a kindling, though as yet smothered coal. God +knows I am not by nature vindictive; I would not hurt a man because I +can no longer trust or like him; but neither my reason nor feelings +are of the vacillating order--they are not of that sand-like sort where +impressions, if soon made, are as soon effaced. Once convinced that my +friend’s disposition is incompatible with my own, once assured that he +is indelibly stained with certain defects obnoxious to my principles, +and I dissolve the connection. I did so with Edward. As to Pelet, the +discovery was yet new; should I act thus with him? It was the question I +placed before my mind as I stirred my cup of coffee with a half-pistolet +(we never had spoons), Pelet meantime being seated opposite, his pallid +face looking as knowing and more haggard than usual, his blue eye +turned, now sternly on his boys and ushers, and now graciously on me. + +“Circumstances must guide me,” said I; and meeting Pelet’s false glance +and insinuating smile, I thanked heaven that I had last night opened +my window and read by the light of a full moon the true meaning of that +guileful countenance. I felt half his master, because the reality of +his nature was now known to me; smile and flatter as he would, I saw his +soul lurk behind his smile, and heard in every one of his smooth phrases +a voice interpreting their treacherous import. + +But Zoraide Reuter? Of course her defection had cut me to the quick? +That stint must have gone too deep for any consolations of philosophy +to be available in curing its smart? Not at all. The night fever over, +I looked about for balm to that wound also, and found some nearer home +than at Gilead. Reason was my physician; she began by proving that the +prize I had missed was of little value: she admitted that, physically, +Zoraide might have suited me, but affirmed that our souls were not in +harmony, and that discord must have resulted from the union of her mind +with mine. She then insisted on the suppression of all repining, +and commanded me rather to rejoice that I had escaped a snare. Her +medicament did me good. I felt its strengthening effect when I met the +directress the next day; its stringent operation on the nerves suffered +no trembling, no faltering; it enabled me to face her with firmness, +to pass her with ease. She had held out her hand to me--that I did not +choose to see. She had greeted me with a charming smile--it fell on my +heart like light on stone. I passed on to the estrade, she followed me; +her eye, fastened on my face, demanded of every feature the meaning of +my changed and careless manner. “I will give her an answer,” thought I; +and, meeting her gaze full, arresting, fixing her glance, I shot into +her eyes, from my own, a look, where there was no respect, no love, +no tenderness, no gallantry; where the strictest analysis could detect +nothing but scorn, hardihood, irony. I made her bear it, and feel it; +her steady countenance did not change, but her colour rose, and she +approached me as if fascinated. She stepped on to the estrade, and +stood close by my side; she had nothing to say. I would not relieve her +embarrassment, and negligently turned over the leaves of a book. + +“I hope you feel quite recovered to-day,” at last she said, in a low +tone. + +“And I, mademoiselle, hope that you took no cold last night in +consequence of your late walk in the garden.” + +Quick enough of comprehension, she understood me directly; her face +became a little blanched--a very little--but no muscle in her rather +marked features moved; and, calm and self-possessed, she retired from +the estrade, taking her seat quietly at a little distance, and occupying +herself with netting a purse. I proceeded to give my lesson; it was a +“Composition,” i.e., I dictated certain general questions, of which the +pupils were to compose the answers from memory, access to books being +forbidden. While Mdlle. Eulalie, Hortense, Caroline, &c., were pondering +over the string of rather abstruse grammatical interrogatories I had +propounded, I was at liberty to employ the vacant half hour in further +observing the directress herself. The green silk purse was progressing +fast in her hands; her eyes were bent upon it; her attitude, as she +sat netting within two yards of me, was still yet guarded; in her whole +person were expressed at once, and with equal clearness, vigilance and +repose--a rare union! Looking at her, I was forced, as I had often been +before, to offer her good sense, her wondrous self-control, the tribute +of involuntary admiration. She had felt that I had withdrawn from her +my esteem; she had seen contempt and coldness in my eye, and to her, who +coveted the approbation of all around her, who thirsted after universal +good opinion, such discovery must have been an acute wound. I had +witnessed its effect in the momentary pallor of her cheek--cheek unused +to vary; yet how quickly, by dint of self-control, had she recovered +her composure! With what quiet dignity she now sat, almost at my side, +sustained by her sound and vigorous sense; no trembling in her somewhat +lengthened, though shrewd upper lip, no coward shame on her austere +forehead! + +“There is metal there,” I said, as I gazed. “Would that there were fire +also, living ardour to make the steel glow--then I could love her.” + +Presently I discovered that she knew I was watching her, for she stirred +not, she lifted not her crafty eyelid; she had glanced down from her +netting to her small foot, peeping from the soft folds of her purple +merino gown; thence her eye reverted to her hand, ivory white, with a +bright garnet ring on the forefinger, and a light frill of lace round +the wrist; with a scarcely perceptible movement she turned her head, +causing her nut-brown curls to wave gracefully. In these slight signs +I read that the wish of her heart, the design of her brain, was to lure +back the game she had scared. A little incident gave her the opportunity +of addressing me again. + +While all was silence in the class--silence, but for the rustling of +copy-books and the travelling of pens over their pages--a leaf of the +large folding-door, opening from the hall, unclosed, admitting a +pupil who, after making a hasty obeisance, ensconced herself with some +appearance of trepidation, probably occasioned by her entering so +late, in a vacant seat at the desk nearest the door. Being seated, she +proceeded, still with an air of hurry and embarrassment, to open her +cabas, to take out her books; and, while I was waiting for her to look +up, in order to make out her identity--for, shortsighted as I was, I had +not recognized her at her entrance--Mdlle. Reuter, leaving her chair, +approached the estrade. + +“Monsieur Creemsvort,” said she, in a whisper: for when the schoolrooms +were silent, the directress always moved with velvet tread, and spoke +in the most subdued key, enforcing order and stillness fully as much +by example as precept: “Monsieur Creemsvort, that young person, who has +just entered, wishes to have the advantage of taking lessons with you in +English; she is not a pupil of the house; she is, indeed, in one sense, +a teacher, for she gives instruction in lace-mending, and in little +varieties of ornamental needle-work. She very properly proposes to +qualify herself for a higher department of education, and has asked +permission to attend your lessons, in order to perfect her knowledge +of English, in which language she has, I believe, already made +some progress; of course it is my wish to aid her in an effort +so praiseworthy; you will permit her then to benefit by your +instruction--n’est ce pas, monsieur?” And Mdlle. Reuter’s eyes were +raised to mine with a look at once naive, benign, and beseeching. + +I replied, “Of course,” very laconically, almost abruptly. + +“Another word,” she said, with softness: “Mdlle. Henri has not received +a regular education; perhaps her natural talents are not of the highest +order: but I can assure you of the excellence of her intentions, and +even of the amiability of her disposition. Monsieur will then, I am +sure, have the goodness to be considerate with her at first, and not +expose her backwardness, her inevitable deficiencies, before the young +ladies, who, in a sense, are her pupils. Will Monsieur Creemsvort favour +me by attending to this hint?” I nodded. She continued with subdued +earnestness-- + +“Pardon me, monsieur, if I venture to add that what I have just said is +of importance to the poor girl; she already experiences great difficulty +in impressing these giddy young things with a due degree of deference +for her authority, and should that difficulty be increased by new +discoveries of her incapacity, she might find her position in my +establishment too painful to be retained; a circumstance I should much +regret for her sake, as she can ill afford to lose the profits of her +occupation here.” + +Mdlle. Reuter possessed marvellous tact; but tact the most exclusive, +unsupported by sincerity, will sometimes fail of its effect; thus, on +this occasion, the longer she preached about the necessity of being +indulgent to the governess pupil, the more impatient I felt as I +listened. I discerned so clearly that while her professed motive was a +wish to aid the dull, though well-meaning Mdlle. Henri, her real one +was no other than a design to impress me with an idea of her own exalted +goodness and tender considerateness; so having again hastily nodded +assent to her remarks, I obviated their renewal by suddenly demanding +the compositions, in a sharp accent, and stepping from the estrade, I +proceeded to collect them. As I passed the governess-pupil, I said to +her-- + +“You have come in too late to receive a lesson to-day; try to be more +punctual next time.” + +I was behind her, and could not read in her face the effect of my not +very civil speech. Probably I should not have troubled myself to do so, +had I been full in front; but I observed that she immediately began +to slip her books into her cabas again; and, presently, after I had +returned to the estrade, while I was arranging the mass of compositions, +I heard the folding-door again open and close; and, on looking up, I +perceived her place vacant. I thought to myself, “She will consider her +first attempt at taking a lesson in English something of a failure;” and +I wondered whether she had departed in the sulks, or whether stupidity +had induced her to take my words too literally, or, finally, whether +my irritable tone had wounded her feelings. The last notion I dismissed +almost as soon as I had conceived it, for not having seen any appearance +of sensitiveness in any human face since my arrival in Belgium, I had +begun to regard it almost as a fabulous quality. Whether her physiognomy +announced it I could not tell, for her speedy exit had allowed me no +time to ascertain the circumstance. I had, indeed, on two or three +previous occasions, caught a passing view of her (as I believe has been +mentioned before); but I had never stopped to scrutinize either her face +or person, and had but the most vague idea of her general appearance. +Just as I had finished rolling up the compositions, the four o’clock +bell rang; with my accustomed alertness in obeying that signal, I +grasped my hat and evacuated the premises. + + + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +IF I was punctual in quitting Mdlle. Reuter’s domicile, I was at least +equally punctual in arriving there; I came the next day at five minutes +before two, and on reaching the schoolroom door, before I opened it, I +heard a rapid, gabbling sound, which warned me that the “priere du midi” + was not yet concluded. I waited the termination thereof; it would have +been impious to intrude my heretical presence during its progress. How +the repeater of the prayer did cackle and splutter! I never before or +since heard language enounced with such steam-engine haste. “Notre Pere +qui etes au ciel” went off like a shot; then followed an address to +Marie “vierge celeste, reine des anges, maison d’or, tour d’ivoire!” and +then an invocation to the saint of the day; and then down they all sat, +and the solemn (?) rite was over; and I entered, flinging the door wide +and striding in fast, as it was my wont to do now; for I had found +that in entering with aplomb, and mounting the estrade with emphasis, +consisted the grand secret of ensuring immediate silence. The +folding-doors between the two classes, opened for the prayer, were +instantly closed; a maitresse, work-box in hand, took her seat at her +appropriate desk; the pupils sat still with their pens and books before +them; my three beauties in the van, now well humbled by a demeanour of +consistent coolness, sat erect with their hands folded quietly on their +knees; they had given up giggling and whispering to each other, and no +longer ventured to utter pert speeches in my presence; they now only +talked to me occasionally with their eyes, by means of which organs +they could still, however, say very audacious and coquettish things. Had +affection, goodness, modesty, real talent, ever employed those bright +orbs as interpreters, I do not think I could have refrained from giving +a kind and encouraging, perhaps an ardent reply now and then; but as it +was, I found pleasure in answering the glance of vanity with the gaze +of stoicism. Youthful, fair, brilliant, as were many of my pupils, I can +truly say that in me they never saw any other bearing than such as an +austere, though just guardian, might have observed towards them. If any +doubt the accuracy of this assertion, as inferring more conscientious +self-denial or Scipio-like self-control than they feel disposed to +give me credit for, let them take into consideration the following +circumstances, which, while detracting from my merit, justify my +veracity. + +Know, O incredulous reader! that a master stands in a somewhat different +relation towards a pretty, light-headed, probably ignorant girl, to +that occupied by a partner at a ball, or a gallant on the promenade. +A professor does not meet his pupil to see her dressed in satin and +muslin, with hair perfumed and curled, neck scarcely shaded by aerial +lace, round white arms circled with bracelets, feet dressed for the +gliding dance. It is not his business to whirl her through the waltz, +to feed her with compliments, to heighten her beauty by the flush of +gratified vanity. Neither does he encounter her on the smooth-rolled, +tree shaded Boulevard, in the green and sunny park, whither she repairs +clad in her becoming walking dress, her scarf thrown with grace over her +shoulders, her little bonnet scarcely screening her curls, the red rose +under its brim adding a new tint to the softer rose on her cheek; her +face and eyes, too, illumined with smiles, perhaps as transient as the +sunshine of the gala-day, but also quite as brilliant; it is not his +office to walk by her side, to listen to her lively chat, to carry her +parasol, scarcely larger than a broad green leaf, to lead in a ribbon +her Blenheim spaniel or Italian greyhound. No: he finds her in the +schoolroom, plainly dressed, with books before her. Owing to her +education or her nature books are to her a nuisance, and she opens them +with aversion, yet her teacher must instil into her mind the contents +of these books; that mind resists the admission of grave information, it +recoils, it grows restive, sullen tempers are shown, disfiguring frowns +spoil the symmetry of the face, sometimes coarse gestures banish grace +from the deportment, while muttered expressions, redolent of native and +ineradicable vulgarity, desecrate the sweetness of the voice. Where the +temperament is serene though the intellect be sluggish, an unconquerable +dullness opposes every effort to instruct. Where there is cunning but +not energy, dissimulation, falsehood, a thousand schemes and tricks +are put in play to evade the necessity of application; in short, to the +tutor, female youth, female charms are like tapestry hangings, of which +the wrong side is continually turned towards him; and even when he sees +the smooth, neat external surface he so well knows what knots, long +stitches, and jagged ends are behind that he has scarce a temptation to +admire too fondly the seemly forms and bright colours exposed to general +view. + +Our likings are regulated by our circumstances. The artist prefers a +hilly country because it is picturesque; the engineer a flat one because +it is convenient; the man of pleasure likes what he calls “a fine +woman”--she suits him; the fashionable young gentleman admires the +fashionable young lady--she is of his kind; the toil-worn, fagged, +probably irritable tutor, blind almost to beauty, insensible to airs and +graces, glories chiefly in certain mental qualities: application, love +of knowledge, natural capacity, docility, truthfulness, gratefulness, +are the charms that attract his notice and win his regard. These he +seeks, but seldom meets; these, if by chance he finds, he would fain +retain for ever, and when separation deprives him of them he feels as if +some ruthless hand had snatched from him his only ewe-lamb. Such being +the case, and the case it is, my readers will agree with me that there +was nothing either very meritorious or very marvellous in the +integrity and moderation of my conduct at Mdlle. Reuter’s pensionnat de +demoiselles. + +My first business this afternoon consisted in reading the list of +places for the month, determined by the relative correctness of the +compositions given the preceding day. The list was headed, as usual, +by the name of Sylvie, that plain, quiet little girl I have described +before as being at once the best and ugliest pupil in the establishment; +the second place had fallen to the lot of a certain Leonie Ledru, a +diminutive, sharp-featured, and parchment-skinned creature of quick +wits, frail conscience, and indurated feelings; a lawyer-like thing, of +whom I used to say that, had she been a boy, she would have made a +model of an unprincipled, clever attorney. Then came Eulalie, the proud +beauty, the Juno of the school, whom six long years of drilling in the +simple grammar of the English language had compelled, despite the stiff +phlegm of her intellect, to acquire a mechanical acquaintance with most +of its rules. No smile, no trace of pleasure or satisfaction appeared in +Sylvie’s nun-like and passive face as she heard her name read first. +I always felt saddened by the sight of that poor girl’s absolute +quiescence on all occasions, and it was my custom to look at her, to +address her, as seldom as possible; her extreme docility, her assiduous +perseverance, would have recommended her warmly to my good opinion; +her modesty, her intelligence, would have induced me to feel most +kindly--most affectionately towards her, notwithstanding the almost +ghastly plainness of her features, the disproportion of her form, the +corpse-like lack of animation in her countenance, had I not been aware +that every friendly word, every kindly action, would be reported by her +to her confessor, and by him misinterpreted and poisoned. Once I laid my +hand on her head, in token of approbation; I thought Sylvie was going to +smile, her dim eye almost kindled; but, presently, she shrank from me; +I was a man and a heretic; she, poor child! a destined nun and devoted +Catholic: thus a four-fold wall of separation divided her mind from +mine. A pert smirk, and a hard glance of triumph, was Leonie’s method of +testifying her gratification; Eulalie looked sullen and envious--she had +hoped to be first. Hortense and Caroline exchanged a reckless grimace on +hearing their names read out somewhere near the bottom of the list; the +brand of mental inferiority was considered by them as no disgrace, their +hopes for the future being based solely on their personal attractions. + +This affair arranged, the regular lesson followed. During a brief +interval, employed by the pupils in ruling their books, my eye, ranging +carelessly over the benches, observed, for the first time, that the +farthest seat in the farthest row--a seat usually vacant--was +again filled by the new scholar, the Mdlle. Henri so ostentatiously +recommended to me by the directress. To-day I had on my spectacles; her +appearance, therefore, was clear to me at the first glance; I had not to +puzzle over it. She looked young; yet, had I been required to name her +exact age, I should have been somewhat nonplussed; the slightness of her +figure might have suited seventeen; a certain anxious and pre-occupied +expression of face seemed the indication of riper years. She was +dressed, like all the rest, in a dark stuff gown and a white collar; her +features were dissimilar to any there, not so rounded, more defined, yet +scarcely regular. The shape of her head too was different, the superior +part more developed, the base considerably less. I felt assured, +at first sight, that she was not a Belgian; her complexion, her +countenance, her lineaments, her figure, were all distinct from theirs, +and, evidently, the type of another race--of a race less gifted with +fullness of flesh and plenitude of blood; less jocund, material, +unthinking. When I first cast my eyes on her, she sat looking fixedly +down, her chin resting on her hand, and she did not change her attitude +till I commenced the lesson. None of the Belgian girls would have +retained one position, and that a reflective one, for the same length of +time. Yet, having intimated that her appearance was peculiar, as +being unlike that of her Flemish companions, I have little more to say +respecting it; I can pronounce no encomiums on her beauty, for she was +not beautiful; nor offer condolence on her plainness, for neither +was she plain; a careworn character of forehead, and a corresponding +moulding of the mouth, struck me with a sentiment resembling surprise, +but these traits would probably have passed unnoticed by any less +crotchety observer. + +Now, reader, though I have spent more than a page in describing Mdlle. +Henri, I know well enough that I have left on your mind’s eye no +distinct picture of her; I have not painted her complexion, nor her +eyes, nor her hair, nor even drawn the outline of her shape. You cannot +tell whether her nose was aquiline or retrousse, whether her chin was +long or short, her face square or oval; nor could I the first day, +and it is not my intention to communicate to you at once a knowledge I +myself gained by little and little. + +I gave a short exercise: which they all wrote down. I saw the new pupil +was puzzled at first with the novelty of the form and language; once +or twice she looked at me with a sort of painful solicitude, as not +comprehending at all what I meant; then she was not ready when the +others were, she could not write her phrases so fast as they did; I +would not help her, I went on relentless. She looked at me; her eye +said most plainly, “I cannot follow you.” I disregarded the appeal, and, +carelessly leaning back in my chair, glancing from time to time with a +NONCHALANT air out of the window, I dictated a little faster. On looking +towards her again, I perceived her face clouded with embarrassment, but +she was still writing on most diligently; I paused a few seconds; she +employed the interval in hurriedly re-perusing what she had written, and +shame and discomfiture were apparent in her countenance; she evidently +found she had made great nonsense of it. In ten minutes more the +dictation was complete, and, having allowed a brief space in which to +correct it, I took their books; it was with a reluctant hand Mdlle. +Henri gave up hers, but, having once yielded it to my possession, she +composed her anxious face, as if, for the present she had resolved to +dismiss regret, and had made up her mind to be thought unprecedentedly +stupid. Glancing over her exercise, I found that several lines had been +omitted, but what was written contained very few faults; I instantly +inscribed “Bon” at the bottom of the page, and returned it to her; she +smiled, at first incredulously, then as if reassured, but did not +lift her eyes; she could look at me, it seemed, when perplexed and +bewildered, but not when gratified; I thought that scarcely fair. + + + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + +SOME time elapsed before I again gave a lesson in the first class; the +holiday of Whitsuntide occupied three days, and on the fourth it was the +turn of the second division to receive my instructions. As I made +the transit of the CARRE, I observed, as usual, the band of sewers +surrounding Mdlle. Henri; there were only about a dozen of them, but +they made as much noise as might have sufficed for fifty; they seemed +very little under her control; three or four at once assailed her with +importunate requirements; she looked harassed, she demanded silence, but +in vain. She saw me, and I read in her eye pain that a stranger should +witness the insubordination of her pupils; she seemed to entreat +order--her prayers were useless; then I remarked that she compressed +her lips and contracted her brow; and her countenance, if I read +it correctly, said--“I have done my best; I seem to merit blame +notwithstanding; blame me then who will.” I passed on; as I closed the +school-room door, I heard her say, suddenly and sharply, addressing one +of the eldest and most turbulent of the lot-- + +“Amelie Mullenberg, ask me no question, and request of me no assistance, +for a week to come; during that space of time I will neither speak to +you nor help you.” + +The words were uttered with emphasis--nay, with vehemence--and a +comparative silence followed; whether the calm was permanent, I know +not; two doors now closed between me and the CARRE. + +Next day was appropriated to the first class; on my arrival, I found the +directress seated, as usual, in a chair between the two estrades, and +before her was standing Mdlle. Henri, in an attitude (as it seemed to +me) of somewhat reluctant attention. The directress was knitting and +talking at the same time. Amidst the hum of a large school-room, it was +easy so to speak in the ear of one person, as to be heard by that person +alone, and it was thus Mdlle. Reuter parleyed with her teacher. The face +of the latter was a little flushed, not a little troubled; there was +vexation in it, whence resulting I know not, for the directress looked +very placid indeed; she could not be scolding in such gentle whispers, +and with so equable a mien; no, it was presently proved that her +discourse had been of the most friendly tendency, for I heard the +closing words-- + +“C’est assez, ma bonne amie; a present je ne veux pas vous retenir +davantage.” + +Without reply, Mdlle. Henri turned away; dissatisfaction was plainly +evinced in her face, and a smile, slight and brief, but bitter, +distrustful, and, I thought, scornful, curled her lip as she took her +place in the class; it was a secret, involuntary smile, which lasted but +a second; an air of depression succeeded, chased away presently by one +of attention and interest, when I gave the word for all the pupils to +take their reading-books. In general I hated the reading-lesson, it +was such a torture to the ear to listen to their uncouth mouthing of +my native tongue, and no effort of example or precept on my part ever +seemed to effect the slightest improvement in their accent. To-day, +each in her appropriate key, lisped, stuttered, mumbled, and jabbered as +usual; about fifteen had racked me in turn, and my auricular nerve was +expecting with resignation the discords of the sixteenth, when a full, +though low voice, read out, in clear correct English. + +“On his way to Perth, the king was met by a Highland woman, calling +herself a prophetess; she stood at the side of the ferry by which he was +about to travel to the north, and cried with a loud voice, ‘My lord the +king, if you pass this water you will never return again alive!’”--(VIDE +the HISTORY OF SCOTLAND). + +I looked up in amazement; the voice was a voice of Albion; the accent +was pure and silvery; it only wanted firmness, and assurance, to be the +counterpart of what any well-educated lady in Essex or Middlesex might +have enounced, yet the speaker or reader was no other than Mdlle. Henri, +in whose grave, joyless face I saw no mark of consciousness that she had +performed any extraordinary feat. No one else evinced surprise either. +Mdlle. Reuter knitted away assiduously; I was aware, however, that at +the conclusion of the paragraph, she had lifted her eyelid and honoured +me with a glance sideways; she did not know the full excellency of the +teacher’s style of reading, but she perceived that her accent was not +that of the others, and wanted to discover what I thought; I masked my +visage with indifference, and ordered the next girl to proceed. + +When the lesson was over, I took advantage of the confusion caused by +breaking up, to approach Mdlle. Henri; she was standing near the window +and retired as I advanced; she thought I wanted to look out, and did +not imagine that I could have anything to say to her. I took her +exercise-book out of her hand; as I turned over the leaves I addressed +her:-- + +“You have had lessons in English before?” I asked. + +“No, sir.” + +“No! you read it well; you have been in England?” + +“Oh, no!” with some animation. + +“You have been in English families?” + +Still the answer was “No.” Here my eye, resting on the flyleaf of the +book, saw written, “Frances Evan Henri.” + +“Your name?” I asked + +“Yes, sir.” + +My interrogations were cut short; I heard a little rustling behind me, +and close at my back was the directress, professing to be examining the +interior of a desk. + +“Mademoiselle,” said she, looking up and addressing the teacher, “Will +you have the goodness to go and stand in the corridor, while the young +ladies are putting on their things, and try to keep some order?” + +Mdlle. Henri obeyed. + +“What splendid weather!” observed the directress cheerfully, glancing at +the same time from the window. I assented and was withdrawing. “What of +your new pupil, monsieur?” continued she, following my retreating steps. +“Is she likely to make progress in English?” + +“Indeed I can hardly judge. She possesses a pretty good accent; of +her real knowledge of the language I have as yet had no opportunity of +forming an opinion.” + +“And her natural capacity, monsieur? I have had my fears about that: can +you relieve me by an assurance at least of its average power?” + +“I see no reason to doubt its average power, mademoiselle, but really +I scarcely know her, and have not had time to study the calibre of her +capacity. I wish you a very good afternoon.” + +She still pursued me. “You will observe, monsieur, and tell me what you +think; I could so much better rely on your opinion than on my own; women +cannot judge of these things as men can, and, excuse my pertinacity, +monsieur, but it is natural I should feel interested about this poor +little girl (pauvre petite); she has scarcely any relations, her own +efforts are all she has to look to, her acquirements must be her sole +fortune; her present position has once been mine, or nearly so; it is +then but natural I should sympathize with her; and sometimes when I see +the difficulty she has in managing pupils, I feel quite chagrined. +I doubt not she does her best, her intentions are excellent; but, +monsieur, she wants tact and firmness. I have talked to her on the +subject, but I am not fluent, and probably did not express myself +with clearness; she never appears to comprehend me. Now, would you +occasionally, when you see an opportunity, slip in a word of advice +to her on the subject; men have so much more influence than women +have--they argue so much more logically than we do; and you, monsieur, +in particular, have so paramount a power of making yourself obeyed; +a word of advice from you could not but do her good; even if she were +sullen and headstrong (which I hope she is not), she would scarcely +refuse to listen to you; for my own part, I can truly say that I never +attend one of your lessons without deriving benefit from witnessing your +management of the pupils. The other masters are a constant source of +anxiety to me; they cannot impress the young ladies with sentiments of +respect, nor restrain the levity natural to youth: in you, monsieur, I +feel the most absolute confidence; try then to put this poor child +into the way of controlling our giddy, high-spirited Brabantoises. +But, monsieur, I would add one word more; don’t alarm her AMOUR PROPRE; +beware of inflicting a wound there. I reluctantly admit that in that +particular she is blameably--some would say ridiculously--susceptible. +I fear I have touched this sore point inadvertently, and she cannot get +over it.” + +During the greater part of this harangue my hand was on the lock of the +outer door; I now turned it. + +“Au revoir, mademoiselle,” said I, and I escaped. I saw the directress’s +stock of words was yet far from exhausted. She looked after me, she +would fain have detained me longer. Her manner towards me had +been altered ever since I had begun to treat her with hardness and +indifference: she almost cringed to me on every occasion; she consulted +my countenance incessantly, and beset me with innumerable little +officious attentions. Servility creates despotism. This slavish homage, +instead of softening my heart, only pampered whatever was stern and +exacting in its mood. The very circumstance of her hovering round me +like a fascinated bird, seemed to transform me into a rigid pillar of +stone; her flatteries irritated my scorn, her blandishments confirmed +my reserve. At times I wondered what she meant by giving herself such +trouble to win me, when the more profitable Pelet was already in her +nets, and when, too, she was aware that I possessed her secret, for I +had not scrupled to tell her as much: but the fact is that as it was +her nature to doubt the reality and under-value the worth of modesty, +affection, disinterestedness--to regard these qualities as foibles of +character--so it was equally her tendency to consider pride, hardness, +selfishness, as proofs of strength. She would trample on the neck +of humility, she would kneel at the feet of disdain; she would meet +tenderness with secret contempt, indifference she would woo with +ceaseless assiduities. Benevolence, devotedness, enthusiasm, were +her antipathies; for dissimulation and self-interest she had a +preference--they were real wisdom in her eyes; moral and physical +degradation, mental and bodily inferiority, she regarded with +indulgence; they were foils capable of being turned to good account as +set-offs for her own endowments. To violence, injustice, tyranny, she +succumbed--they were her natural masters; she had no propensity to hate, +no impulse to resist them; the indignation their behests awake in some +hearts was unknown in hers. From all this it resulted that the false and +selfish called her wise, the vulgar and debased termed her charitable, +the insolent and unjust dubbed her amiable, the conscientious and +benevolent generally at first accepted as valid her claim to be +considered one of themselves; but ere long the plating of pretension +wore off, the real material appeared below, and they laid her aside as a +deception. + + + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + +In the course of another fortnight I had seen sufficient of Frances +Evans Henri, to enable me to form a more definite opinion of her +character. I found her possessed in a somewhat remarkable degree of at +least two good points, viz., perseverance and a sense of duty; I +found she was really capable of applying to study, of contending with +difficulties. At first I offered her the same help which I had always +found it necessary to confer on the others; I began with unloosing for +her each knotty point, but I soon discovered that such help was regarded +by my new pupil as degrading; she recoiled from it with a certain proud +impatience. Hereupon I appointed her long lessons, and left her to solve +alone any perplexities they might present. She set to the task with +serious ardour, and having quickly accomplished one labour, eagerly +demanded more. So much for her perseverance; as to her sense of duty, +it evinced itself thus: she liked to learn, but hated to teach; her +progress as a pupil depended upon herself, and I saw that on herself she +could calculate with certainty; her success as a teacher rested partly, +perhaps chiefly, upon the will of others; it cost her a most painful +effort to enter into conflict with this foreign will, to endeavour +to bend it into subjection to her own; for in what regarded people in +general the action of her will was impeded by many scruples; it was as +unembarrassed as strong where her own affairs were concerned, and to it +she could at any time subject her inclination, if that inclination went +counter to her convictions of right; yet when called upon to wrestle +with the propensities, the habits, the faults of others, of children +especially, who are deaf to reason, and, for the most part, insensate to +persuasion, her will sometimes almost refused to act; then came in the +sense of duty, and forced the reluctant will into operation. A wasteful +expense of energy and labour was frequently the consequence; Frances +toiled for and with her pupils like a drudge, but it was long ere her +conscientious exertions were rewarded by anything like docility on their +part, because they saw that they had power over her, inasmuch as by +resisting her painful attempts to convince, persuade, control--by +forcing her to the employment of coercive measures--they could +inflict upon her exquisite suffering. Human beings--human children +especially--seldom deny themselves the pleasure of exercising a power +which they are conscious of possessing, even though that power consist +only in a capacity to make others wretched; a pupil whose sensations are +duller than those of his instructor, while his nerves are tougher and +his bodily strength perhaps greater, has an immense advantage over that +instructor, and he will generally use it relentlessly, because the very +young, very healthy, very thoughtless, know neither how to sympathize +nor how to spare. Frances, I fear, suffered much; a continual weight +seemed to oppress her spirits; I have said she did not live in the +house, and whether in her own abode, wherever that might be, she wore +the same preoccupied, unsmiling, sorrowfully resolved air that always +shaded her features under the roof of Mdlle. Reuter, I could not tell. + +One day I gave, as a devoir, the trite little anecdote of Alfred tending +cakes in the herdsman’s hut, to be related with amplifications. A +singular affair most of the pupils made of it; brevity was what they +had chiefly studied; the majority of the narratives were perfectly +unintelligible; those of Sylvie and Leonie Ledru alone pretended to +anything like sense and connection. Eulalie, indeed, had hit, upon a +clever expedient for at once ensuring accuracy and saving trouble; she +had obtained access somehow to an abridged history of England, and had +copied the anecdote out fair. I wrote on the margin of her production +“Stupid and deceitful,” and then tore it down the middle. + +Last in the pile of single-leaved devoirs, I found one of several +sheets, neatly written out and stitched together; I knew the hand, and +scarcely needed the evidence of the signature “Frances Evans Henri” to +confirm my conjecture as to the writer’s identity. + +Night was my usual time for correcting devoirs, and my own room the +usual scene of such task--task most onerous hitherto; and it seemed +strange to me to feel rising within me an incipient sense of interest, +as I snuffed the candle and addressed myself to the perusal of the poor +teacher’s manuscript. + +“Now,” thought I, “I shall see a glimpse of what she really is; I shall +get an idea of the nature and extent of her powers; not that she can be +expected to express herself well in a foreign tongue, but still, if she +has any mind, here will be a reflection of it.” + +The narrative commenced by a description of a Saxon peasant’s hut, +situated within the confines of a great, leafless, winter forest; it +represented an evening in December; flakes of snow were falling, and +the herdsman foretold a heavy storm; he summoned his wife to aid him in +collecting their flock, roaming far away on the pastoral banks of the +Thone; he warns her that it will be late ere they return. The good woman +is reluctant to quit her occupation of baking cakes for the evening +meal; but acknowledging the primary importance of securing the herds and +flocks, she puts on her sheep-skin mantle; and, addressing a stranger +who rests half reclined on a bed of rushes near the hearth, bids him +mind the bread till her return. + +“Take care, young man,” she continues, “that you fasten the door well +after us; and, above all, open to none in our absence; whatever sound +you hear, stir not, and look not out. The night will soon fall; this +forest is most wild and lonely; strange noises are often heard therein +after sunset; wolves haunt these glades, and Danish warriors infest the +country; worse things are talked of; you might chance to hear, as it +were, a child cry, and on opening the door to afford it succour, a great +black bull, or a shadowy goblin dog, might rush over the threshold; +or, more awful still, if something flapped, as with wings, against the +lattice, and then a raven or a white dove flew in and settled on the +hearth, such a visitor would be a sure sign of misfortune to the house; +therefore, heed my advice, and lift the latchet for nothing.” + +Her husband calls her away, both depart. The stranger, left alone, +listens awhile to the muffled snow-wind, the remote, swollen sound of +the river, and then he speaks. + +“It is Christmas Eve,” says he, “I mark the date; here I sit alone on +a rude couch of rushes, sheltered by the thatch of a herdsman’s hut; +I, whose inheritance was a kingdom, owe my night’s harbourage to a poor +serf; my throne is usurped, my crown presses the brow of an invader; I +have no friends; my troops wander broken in the hills of Wales; reckless +robbers spoil my country; my subjects lie prostrate, their breasts +crushed by the heel of the brutal Dane. Fate! thou hast done thy worst, +and now thou standest before me resting thy hand on thy blunted blade. +Ay; I see thine eye confront mine and demand why I still live, why I +still hope. Pagan demon, I credit not thine omnipotence, and so cannot +succumb to thy power. My God, whose Son, as on this night, took on Him +the form of man, and for man vouchsafed to suffer and bleed, controls +thy hand, and without His behest thou canst not strike a stroke. My God +is sinless, eternal, all-wise--in Him is my trust; and though stripped +and crushed by thee--though naked, desolate, void of resource--I do not +despair, I cannot despair: were the lance of Guthrum now wet with my +blood, I should not despair. I watch, I toil, I hope, I pray; Jehovah, +in his own time, will aid.” + +I need not continue the quotation; the whole devoir was in the same +strain. There were errors of orthography, there were foreign idioms, +there were some faults of construction, there were verbs irregular +transformed into verbs regular; it was mostly made up, as the above +example shows, of short and somewhat rude sentences, and the style stood +in great need of polish and sustained dignity; yet such as it was, I +had hitherto seen nothing like it in the course of my professorial +experience. The girl’s mind had conceived a picture of the hut, of the +two peasants, of the crownless king; she had imagined the wintry forest, +she had recalled the old Saxon ghost-legends, she had appreciated +Alfred’s courage under calamity, she had remembered his Christian +education, and had shown him, with the rooted confidence of those +primitive days, relying on the scriptural Jehovah for aid against the +mythological Destiny. This she had done without a hint from me: I had +given the subject, but not said a word about the manner of treating it. + +“I will find, or make, an opportunity of speaking to her,” I said to +myself as I rolled the devoir up; “I will learn what she has of English +in her besides the name of Frances Evans; she is no novice in the +language, that is evident, yet she told me she had neither been in +England, nor taken lessons in English, nor lived in English families.” + +In the course of my next lesson, I made a report of the other devoirs, +dealing out praise and blame in very small retail parcels, according to +my custom, for there was no use in blaming severely, and high encomiums +were rarely merited. I said nothing of Mdlle. Henri’s exercise, and, +spectacles on nose, I endeavoured to decipher in her countenance her +sentiments at the omission. I wanted to find out whether in her existed +a consciousness of her own talents. “If she thinks she did a clever +thing in composing that devoir, she will now look mortified,” thought +I. Grave as usual, almost sombre, was her face; as usual, her eyes were +fastened on the cahier open before her; there was something, I thought, +of expectation in her attitude, as I concluded a brief review of the +last devoir, and when, casting it from me and rubbing my hands, I bade +them take their grammars, some slight change did pass over her air +and mien, as though she now relinquished a faint prospect of pleasant +excitement; she had been waiting for something to be discussed in which +she had a degree of interest; the discussion was not to come on, so +expectation sank back, shrunk and sad, but attention, promptly filling +up the void, repaired in a moment the transient collapse of feature; +still, I felt, rather than saw, during the whole course of the lesson, +that a hope had been wrenched from her, and that if she did not show +distress, it was because she would not. + +At four o’clock, when the bell rang and the room was in immediate +tumult, instead of taking my hat and starting from the estrade, I sat +still a moment. I looked at Frances, she was putting her books into her +cabas; having fastened the button, she raised her head; encountering my +eye, she made a quiet, respectful obeisance, as bidding good afternoon, +and was turning to depart:-- + +“Come here,” said I, lifting my finger at the same time. She hesitated; +she could not hear the words amidst the uproar now pervading both +school-rooms; I repeated the sign; she approached; again she paused +within half a yard of the estrade, and looked shy, and still doubtful +whether she had mistaken my meaning. + +“Step up,” I said, speaking with decision. It is the only way of dealing +with diffident, easily embarrassed characters, and with some slight +manual aid I presently got her placed just where I wanted her to be, +that is, between my desk and the window, where she was screened from the +rush of the second division, and where no one could sneak behind her to +listen. + +“Take a seat,” I said, placing a tabouret; and I made her sit down. I +knew what I was doing would be considered a very strange thing, and, +what was more, I did not care. Frances knew it also, and, I fear, by an +appearance of agitation and trembling, that she cared much. I drew from +my pocket the rolled-up devoir. + +“This is yours, I suppose?” said I, addressing her in English, for I now +felt sure she could speak English. + +“Yes,” she answered distinctly; and as I unrolled it and laid it out +flat on the desk before her with my hand upon it, and a pencil in that +hand, I saw her moved, and, as it were, kindled; her depression beamed +as a cloud might behind which the sun is burning. + +“This devoir has numerous faults,” said I. “It will take you some years +of careful study before you are in a condition to write English with +absolute correctness. Attend: I will point out some principal defects.” + And I went through it carefully, noting every error, and demonstrating +why they were errors, and how the words or phrases ought to have been +written. In the course of this sobering process she became calm. I now +went on: + +“As to the substance of your devoir, Mdlle. Henri, it has surprised me; +I perused it with pleasure, because I saw in it some proofs of taste and +fancy. Taste and fancy are not the highest gifts of the human mind, but +such as they are you possess them--not probably in a paramount degree, +but in a degree beyond what the majority can boast. You may then take +courage; cultivate the faculties that God and nature have bestowed on +you, and do not fear in any crisis of suffering, under any pressure of +injustice, to derive free and full consolation from the consciousness of +their strength and rarity.” + +“Strength and rarity!” I repeated to myself; “ay, the words are probably +true,” for on looking up, I saw the sun had dissevered its screening +cloud, her countenance was transfigured, a smile shone in her eyes--a +smile almost triumphant; it seemed to say-- + +“I am glad you have been forced to discover so much of my nature; you +need not so carefully moderate your language. Do you think I am myself a +stranger to myself? What you tell me in terms so qualified, I have known +fully from a child.” + +She did say this as plainly as a frank and flashing glance could, but +in a moment the glow of her complexion, the radiance of her aspect, +had subsided; if strongly conscious of her talents, she was equally +conscious of her harassing defects, and the remembrance of these +obliterated for a single second, now reviving with sudden force, at once +subdued the too vivid characters in which her sense of her powers had +been expressed. So quick was the revulsion of feeling, I had not time to +check her triumph by reproof; ere I could contract my brows to a frown +she had become serious and almost mournful-looking. + +“Thank you, sir,” said she, rising. There was gratitude both in her +voice and in the look with which she accompanied it. It was time, +indeed, for our conference to terminate; for, when I glanced around, +behold all the boarders (the day-scholars had departed) were congregated +within a yard or two of my desk, and stood staring with eyes and mouths +wide open; the three maitresses formed a whispering knot in one corner, +and, close at my elbow, was the directress, sitting on a low chair, +calmly clipping the tassels of her finished purse. + + + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + +AFTER all I had profited but imperfectly by the opportunity I had so +boldly achieved of speaking to Mdlle. Henri; it was my intention to ask +her how she came to be possessed of two English baptismal names, Frances +and Evans, in addition to her French surname, also whence she derived +her good accent. I had forgotten both points, or, rather, our colloquy +had been so brief that I had not had time to bring them forward; +moreover, I had not half tested her powers of speaking English; all I +had drawn from her in that language were the words “Yes,” and “Thank +you, sir.” “No matter,” I reflected. “What has been left incomplete now, +shall be finished another day.” Nor did I fail to keep the promise thus +made to myself. It was difficult to get even a few words of particular +conversation with one pupil among so many; but, according to the old +proverb, “Where there is a will, there is a way;” and again and again +I managed to find an opportunity for exchanging a few words with Mdlle. +Henri, regardless that envy stared and detraction whispered whenever I +approached her. + +“Your book an instant.” Such was the mode in which I often began these +brief dialogues; the time was always just at the conclusion of the +lesson; and motioning to her to rise, I installed myself in her place, +allowing her to stand deferentially at my side; for I esteemed it wise +and right in her case to enforce strictly all forms ordinarily in +use between master and pupil; the rather because I perceived that in +proportion as my manner grew austere and magisterial, hers became easy +and self-possessed--an odd contradiction, doubtless, to the ordinary +effect in such cases; but so it was. + +“A pencil,” said I, holding out my hand without looking at her. (I am +now about to sketch a brief report of the first of these conferences.) +She gave me one, and while I underlined some errors in a grammatical +exercise she had written, I observed-- + +“You are not a native of Belgium?” + +“No.” + +“Nor of France?” + +“No.” + +“Where, then, is your birthplace?” + +“I was born at Geneva.” + +“You don’t call Frances and Evans Swiss names, I presume?” + +“No, sir; they are English names.” + +“Just so; and is it the custom of the Genevese to give their children +English appellatives?” + +“Non, Monsieur; mais--” + +“Speak English, if you please.” + +“Mais--” + +“English--” + +“But” (slowly and with embarrassment) “my parents were not all the two +Genevese.” + +“Say BOTH, instead of ‘all the two,’ mademoiselle.” + +“Not BOTH Swiss: my mother was English.” + +“Ah! and of English extraction?” + +“Yes--her ancestors were all English.” + +“And your father?” + +“He was Swiss.” + +“What besides? What was his profession?” + +“Ecclesiastic--pastor--he had a church.” + +“Since your mother is an Englishwoman, why do you not speak English with +more facility?” + +“Maman est morte, il y a dix ans.” + +“And you do homage to her memory by forgetting her language. Have the +goodness to put French out of your mind so long as I converse with +you--keep to English.” + +“C’est si difficile, monsieur, quand on n’en a plus l’habitude.” + +“You had the habitude formerly, I suppose? Now answer me in your mother +tongue.” + +“Yes, sir, I spoke the English more than the French when I was a child.” + +“Why do you not speak it now?” + +“Because I have no English friends.” + +“You live with your father, I suppose?” + +“My father is dead.” + +“You have brothers and sisters?” + +“Not one.” + +“Do you live alone?” + +“No--I have an aunt--ma tante Julienne.” + +“Your father’s sister?” + +“Justement, monsieur.” + +“Is that English?” + +“No--but I forget--” + +“For which, mademoiselle, if you were a child I should certainly devise +some slight punishment; at your age--you must be two or three and +twenty, I should think?” + +“Pas encore, monsieur--en un mois j’aurai dix-neuf ans.” + +“Well, nineteen is a mature age, and, having attained it, you ought to +be so solicitous for your own improvement, that it should not be needful +for a master to remind you twice of the expediency of your speaking +English whenever practicable.” + +To this wise speech I received no answer; and, when I looked up, my +pupil was smiling to herself a much-meaning, though not very gay smile; +it seemed to say, “He talks of he knows not what:” it said this +so plainly, that I determined to request information on the point +concerning which my ignorance seemed to be thus tacitly affirmed. + +“Are you solicitous for your own improvement?” + +“Rather.” + +“How do you prove it, mademoiselle?” + +An odd question, and bluntly put; it excited a second smile. + +“Why, monsieur, I am not inattentive--am I? I learn my lessons well--” + +“Oh, a child can do that! and what more do you do?” + +“What more can I do?” + +“Oh, certainly, not much; but you are a teacher, are you not, as well as +a pupil?” + +“Yes.” + +“You teach lace-mending?” + +“Yes.” + +“A dull, stupid occupation; do you like it?” + +“No--it is tedious.” + +“Why do you pursue it? Why do you not rather teach history, geography, +grammar, even arithmetic?” + +“Is monsieur certain that I am myself thoroughly acquainted with these +studies?” + +“I don’t know; you ought to be at your age.” + +“But I never was at school, monsieur--” + +“Indeed! What then were your friends--what was your aunt about? She is +very much to blame.” + +“No monsieur, no--my aunt is good--she is not to blame--she does what +she can; she lodges and nourishes me” (I report Mdlle. Henri’s phrases +literally, and it was thus she translated from the French). “She is not +rich; she has only an annuity of twelve hundred francs, and it would be +impossible for her to send me to school.” + +“Rather,” thought I to myself on hearing this, but I continued, in the +dogmatical tone I had adopted:-- + +“It is sad, however, that you should be brought up in ignorance of the +most ordinary branches of education; had you known something of history +and grammar you might, by degrees, have relinquished your lace-mending +drudgery, and risen in the world.” + +“It is what I mean to do.” + +“How? By a knowledge of English alone? That will not suffice; no +respectable family will receive a governess whose whole stock of +knowledge consists in a familiarity with one foreign language.” + +“Monsieur, I know other things.” + +“Yes, yes, you can work with Berlin wools, and embroider handkerchiefs +and collars--that will do little for you.” + +Mdlle. Henri’s lips were unclosed to answer, but she checked herself, +as thinking the discussion had been sufficiently pursued, and remained +silent. + +“Speak,” I continued, impatiently; “I never like the appearance of +acquiescence when the reality is not there; and you had a contradiction +at your tongue’s end.” + +“Monsieur, I have had many lessons both in grammar, history, geography, +and arithmetic. I have gone through a course of each study.” + +“Bravo! but how did you manage it, since your aunt could not afford to +send you to school?” + +“By lace-mending; by the thing monsieur despises so much.” + +“Truly! And now, mademoiselle, it will be a good exercise for you to +explain to me in English how such a result was produced by such means.” + +“Monsieur, I begged my aunt to have me taught lace-mending soon after +we came to Brussels, because I knew it was a METIER, a trade which was +easily learnt, and by which I could earn some money very soon. I learnt +it in a few days, and I quickly got work, for all the Brussels ladies +have old lace--very precious--which must be mended all the times it is +washed. I earned money a little, and this money I gave for lessons +in the studies I have mentioned; some of it I spent in buying books, +English books especially; soon I shall try to find a place of governess, +or school-teacher, when I can write and speak English well; but it will +be difficult, because those who know I have been a lace-mender will +despise me, as the pupils here despise me. Pourtant j’ai mon projet,” + she added in a lower tone. + +“What is it?” + +“I will go and live in England; I will teach French there.” + +The words were pronounced emphatically. She said “England” as you might +suppose an Israelite of Moses’ days would have said Canaan. + +“Have you a wish to see England?” + +“Yes, and an intention.” + +And here a voice, the voice of the directress, interposed: + +“Mademoiselle Henri, je crois qu’il va pleuvoir; vous feriez bien, ma +bonne amie, de retourner chez vous tout de suite.” + +In silence, without a word of thanks for this officious warning, Mdlle. +Henri collected her books; she moved to me respectfully, endeavoured to +move to her superior, though the endeavour was almost a failure, for her +head seemed as if it would not bend, and thus departed. + +Where there is one grain of perseverance or wilfulness in the +composition, trifling obstacles are ever known rather to stimulate than +discourage. Mdlle. Reuter might as well have spared herself the trouble +of giving that intimation about the weather (by-the-by her prediction +was falsified by the event--it did not rain that evening). At the close +of the next lesson I was again at Mdlle. Henri’s desk. Thus did I accost +her:-- + +“What is your idea of England, mademoiselle? Why do you wish to go +there?” + +Accustomed by this time to the calculated abruptness of my manner, it no +longer discomposed or surprised her, and she answered with only so +much of hesitation as was rendered inevitable by the difficulty she +experienced in improvising the translation of her thoughts from French +to English. + +“England is something unique, as I have heard and read; my idea of it is +vague, and I want to go there to render my idea clear, definite.” + +“Hum! How much of England do you suppose you could see if you went there +in the capacity of a teacher? A strange notion you must have of getting +a clear and definite idea of a country! All you could see of Great +Britain would be the interior of a school, or at most of one or two +private dwellings.” + +“It would be an English school; they would be English dwellings.” + +“Indisputably; but what then? What would be the value of observations +made on a scale so narrow?” + +“Monsieur, might not one learn something by analogy? +An--echantillon--a--a sample often serves to give an idea of the whole; +besides, narrow and wide are words comparative, are they not? All my +life would perhaps seem narrow in your eyes--all the life of a--that +little animal subterranean--une taupe--comment dit-on?” + +“Mole.” + +“Yes--a mole, which lives underground would seem narrow even to me.” + +“Well, mademoiselle--what then? Proceed.” + +“Mais, monsieur, vous me comprenez.” + +“Not in the least; have the goodness to explain.” + +“Why, monsieur, it is just so. In Switzerland I have done but little, +learnt but little, and seen but little; my life there was in a circle; +I walked the same round every day; I could not get out of it; had I +rested--remained there even till my death, I should never have enlarged +it, because I am poor and not skilful, I have not great acquirements; +when I was quite tired of this round, I begged my aunt to go to +Brussels; my existence is no larger here, because I am no richer or +higher; I walk in as narrow a limit, but the scene is changed; it would +change again if I went to England. I knew something of the bourgeois of +Geneva, now I know something of the bourgeois of Brussels; if I went to +London, I would know something of the bourgeois of London. Can you make +any sense out of what I say, monsieur, or is it all obscure?” + +“I see, I see--now let us advert to another subject; you propose to +devote your life to teaching, and you are a most unsuccessful teacher; +you cannot keep your pupils in order.” + +A flush of painful confusion was the result of this harsh remark; she +bent her head to the desk, but soon raising it replied-- + +“Monsieur, I am not a skilful teacher, it is true, but practice +improves; besides, I work under difficulties; here I only teach sewing, +I can show no power in sewing, no superiority--it is a subordinate +art; then I have no associates in this house, I am isolated; I am too a +heretic, which deprives me of influence.” + +“And in England you would be a foreigner; that too would deprive you +of influence, and would effectually separate you from all round you; in +England you would have as few connections, as little importance as you +have here.” + +“But I should be learning something; for the rest, there are probably +difficulties for such as I everywhere, and if I must contend, and +perhaps be conquered, I would rather submit to English pride than to +Flemish coarseness; besides, monsieur--” + +She stopped--not evidently from any difficulty in finding words to +express herself, but because discretion seemed to say, “You have said +enough.” + +“Finish your phrase,” I urged. + +“Besides, monsieur, I long to live once more among Protestants; they are +more honest than Catholics; a Romish school is a building with porous +walls, a hollow floor, a false ceiling; every room in this house, +monsieur, has eyeholes and ear-holes, and what the house is, the +inhabitants are, very treacherous; they all think it lawful to tell +lies; they all call it politeness to profess friendship where they feel +hatred.” + +“All?” said I; “you mean the pupils--the mere children--inexperienced, +giddy things, who have not learnt to distinguish the difference between +right and wrong?” + +“On the contrary, monsieur--the children are the most sincere; they have +not yet had time to become accomplished in duplicity; they will tell +lies, but they do it inartificially, and you know they are lying; but +the grown-up people are very false; they deceive strangers, they deceive +each other--” + +A servant here entered:-- + +“Mdlle. Henri--Mdlle. Reuter vous prie de vouloir bien conduire la +petite de Dorlodot chez elle, elle vous attend dans le cabinet +de Rosalie la portiere--c’est que sa bonne n’est pas venue la +chercher--voyez-vous.” + +“Eh bien! est-ce que je suis sa bonne--moi?” demanded Mdlle. Henri; then +smiling, with that same bitter, derisive smile I had seen on her lips +once before, she hastily rose and made her exit. + + + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + +THE young Anglo-Swiss evidently derived both pleasure and profit from +the study of her mother-tongue. In teaching her I did not, of course, +confine myself to the ordinary school routine; I made instruction in +English a channel for instruction in literature. I prescribed to her a +course of reading; she had a little selection of English classics, a +few of which had been left her by her mother, and the others she had +purchased with her own penny-fee. I lent her some more modern works; all +these she read with avidity, giving me, in writing, a clear summary of +each work when she had perused it. Composition, too, she delighted in. +Such occupation seemed the very breath of her nostrils, and soon her +improved productions wrung from me the avowal that those qualities in +her I had termed taste and fancy ought rather to have been denominated +judgment and imagination. When I intimated so much, which I did as usual +in dry and stinted phrase, I looked for the radiant and exulting smile +my one word of eulogy had elicited before; but Frances coloured. If she +did smile, it was very softly and shyly; and instead of looking up to me +with a conquering glance, her eyes rested on my hand, which, stretched +over her shoulder, was writing some directions with a pencil on the +margin of her book. + +“Well, are you pleased that I am satisfied with your progress?” I asked. + +“Yes,” said she slowly, gently, the blush that had half subsided +returning. + +“But I do not say enough, I suppose?” I continued. “My praises are too +cool?” + +She made no answer, and, I thought, looked a little sad. I divined her +thoughts, and should much have liked to have responded to them, had +it been expedient so to do. She was not now very ambitious of +my admiration--not eagerly desirous of dazzling me; a little +affection--ever so little--pleased her better than all the panegyrics in +the world. Feeling this, I stood a good while behind her, writing on +the margin of her book. I could hardly quit my station or relinquish my +occupation; something retained me bending there, my head very near +hers, and my hand near hers too; but the margin of a copy-book is not an +illimitable space--so, doubtless, the directress thought; and she took +occasion to walk past in order to ascertain by what art I prolonged so +disproportionately the period necessary for filling it. I was obliged to +go. Distasteful effort--to leave what we most prefer! + +Frances did not become pale or feeble in consequence of her sedentary +employment; perhaps the stimulus it communicated to her mind +counterbalanced the inaction it imposed on her body. She changed, +indeed, changed obviously and rapidly; but it was for the better. When +I first saw her, her countenance was sunless, her complexion colourless; +she looked like one who had no source of enjoyment, no store of bliss +anywhere in the world; now the cloud had passed from her mien, leaving +space for the dawn of hope and interest, and those feelings rose like a +clear morning, animating what had been depressed, tinting what had been +pale. Her eyes, whose colour I had not at first known, so dim were they +with repressed tears, so shadowed with ceaseless dejection, now, lit by +a ray of the sunshine that cheered her heart, revealed irids of bright +hazel--irids large and full, screened with long lashes; and pupils +instinct with fire. That look of wan emaciation which anxiety or low +spirits often communicates to a thoughtful, thin face, rather long than +round, having vanished from hers, a clearness of skin almost bloom, +and a plumpness almost embonpoint, softened the decided lines of +her features. Her figure shared in this beneficial change; it became +rounder, and as the harmony of her form was complete and her stature of +the graceful middle height, one did not regret (or at least I did not +regret) the absence of confirmed fulness, in contours, still slight, +though compact, elegant, flexible--the exquisite turning of waist, +wrist, hand, foot, and ankle satisfied completely my notions of +symmetry, and allowed a lightness and freedom of movement which +corresponded with my ideas of grace. + +Thus improved, thus wakened to life, Mdlle. Henri began to take a +new footing in the school; her mental power, manifested gradually but +steadily, ere long extorted recognition even from the envious; and when +the young and healthy saw that she could smile brightly, converse gaily, +move with vivacity and alertness, they acknowledged in her a sisterhood +of youth and health, and tolerated her as of their kind accordingly. + +To speak truth, I watched this change much as a gardener watches the +growth of a precious plant, and I contributed to it too, even as the +said gardener contributes to the development of his favourite. To me it +was not difficult to discover how I could best foster my pupil, cherish +her starved feelings, and induce the outward manifestation of that +inward vigour which sunless drought and blighting blast had hitherto +forbidden to expand. Constancy of attention--a kindness as mute +as watchful, always standing by her, cloaked in the rough garb of +austerity, and making its real nature known only by a rare glance of +interest, or a cordial and gentle word; real respect masked with seeming +imperiousness, directing, urging her actions, yet helping her too, and +that with devoted care: these were the means I used, for these means +best suited Frances’ feelings, as susceptible as deep vibrating--her +nature at once proud and shy. + +The benefits of my system became apparent also in her altered demeanour +as a teacher; she now took her place amongst her pupils with an air +of spirit and firmness which assured them at once that she meant to be +obeyed--and obeyed she was. They felt they had lost their power over +her. If any girl had rebelled, she would no longer have taken her +rebellion to heart; she possessed a source of comfort they could not +drain, a pillar of support they could not overthrow: formerly, when +insulted, she wept; now, she smiled. + +The public reading of one of her devoirs achieved the revelation of her +talents to all and sundry; I remember the subject--it was an emigrant’s +letter to his friends at home. It opened with simplicity; some natural +and graphic touches disclosed to the reader the scene of virgin forest +and great, New-World river--barren of sail and flag--amidst which the +epistle was supposed to be indited. The difficulties and dangers that +attend a settler’s life, were hinted at; and in the few words said on +that subject, Mdlle. Henri failed not to render audible the voice of +resolve, patience, endeavour. The disasters which had driven him +from his native country were alluded to; stainless honour, inflexible +independence, indestructible self-respect there took the word. Past +days were spoken of; the grief of parting, the regrets of absence, were +touched upon; feeling, forcible and fine, breathed eloquent in every +period. At the close, consolation was suggested; religious faith became +there the speaker, and she spoke well. + +The devoir was powerfully written in language at once chaste and choice, +in a style nerved with vigour and graced with harmony. + +Mdlle. Reuter was quite sufficiently acquainted with English to +understand it when read or spoken in her presence, though she could +neither speak nor write it herself. During the perusal of this devoir, +she sat placidly busy, her eyes and fingers occupied with the formation +of a “riviere” or open-work hem round a cambric handkerchief; she +said nothing, and her face and forehead, clothed with a mask of purely +negative expression, were as blank of comment as her lips. As neither +surprise, pleasure, approbation, nor interest were evinced in her +countenance, so no more were disdain, envy, annoyance, weariness; if +that inscrutable mien said anything, it was simply this-- + +“The matter is too trite to excite an emotion, or call forth an +opinion.” + +As soon as I had done, a hum rose; several of the pupils, pressing round +Mdlle. Henri, began to beset her with compliments; the composed voice of +the directress was now heard:-- + +“Young ladies, such of you as have cloaks and umbrellas will hasten +to return home before the shower becomes heavier” (it was raining a +little), “the remainder will wait till their respective servants arrive +to fetch them.” And the school dispersed, for it was four o’clock. + +“Monsieur, a word,” said Mdlle. Reuter, stepping on to the estrade, and +signifying, by a movement of the hand, that she wished me to relinquish, +for an instant, the castor I had clutched. + +“Mademoiselle, I am at your service.” + +“Monsieur, it is of course an excellent plan to encourage effort in +young people by making conspicuous the progress of any particularly +industrious pupil; but do you not think that in the present instance, +Mdlle. Henri can hardly be considered as a concurrent with the other +pupils? She is older than most of them, and has had advantages of an +exclusive nature for acquiring a knowledge of English; on the other +hand, her sphere of life is somewhat beneath theirs; under these +circumstances, a public distinction, conferred upon Mdlle. Henri, may be +the means of suggesting comparisons, and exciting feelings such as would +be far from advantageous to the individual forming their object. The +interest I take in Mdlle. Henri’s real welfare makes me desirous of +screening her from annoyances of this sort; besides, monsieur, as I +have before hinted to you, the sentiment of AMOUR-PROPRE has a somewhat +marked preponderance in her character; celebrity has a tendency to +foster this sentiment, and in her it should be rather repressed--she +rather needs keeping down than bringing forward; and then I think, +monsieur--it appears to me that ambition, LITERARY ambition especially, +is not a feeling to be cherished in the mind of a woman: would not +Mdlle. Henri be much safer and happier if taught to believe that in the +quiet discharge of social duties consists her real vocation, than if +stimulated to aspire after applause and publicity? She may never marry; +scanty as are her resources, obscure as are her connections, uncertain +as is her health (for I think her consumptive, her mother died of that +complaint), it is more than probable she never will. I do not see how +she can rise to a position, whence such a step would be possible; but +even in celibacy it would be better for her to retain the character and +habits of a respectable decorous female.” + +“Indisputably, mademoiselle,” was my answer. “Your opinion admits of no +doubt;” and, fearful of the harangue being renewed, I retreated under +cover of that cordial sentence of assent. + +At the date of a fortnight after the little incident noted above, I find +it recorded in my diary that a hiatus occurred in Mdlle. Henri’s usually +regular attendance in class. The first day or two I wondered at her +absence, but did not like to ask an explanation of it; I thought indeed +some chance word might be dropped which would afford me the information +I wished to obtain, without my running the risk of exciting silly smiles +and gossiping whispers by demanding it. But when a week passed and +the seat at the desk near the door still remained vacant, and when +no allusion was made to the circumstance by any individual of the +class--when, on the contrary, I found that all observed a marked silence +on the point--I determined, COUTE QUI COUTE, to break the ice of this +silly reserve. I selected Sylvie as my informant, because from her I +knew that I should at least get a sensible answer, unaccompanied by +wriggle, titter, or other flourish of folly. + +“Ou donc est Mdlle. Henri?” I said one day as I returned an +exercise-book I had been examining. + +“Elle est partie, monsieur.” + +“Partie? et pour combien de temps? Quand reviendra-t-elle?” + +“Elle est partie pour toujours, monsieur; elle ne reviendra plus.” + +“Ah!” was my involuntary exclamation; then after a pause:-- + +“En etes-vous bien sure, Sylvie?” + +“Oui, oui, monsieur, mademoiselle la directrice nous l’a dit elle-meme +il y a deux ou trois jours.” + +And I could pursue my inquiries no further; time, place, and +circumstances forbade my adding another word. I could neither comment on +what had been said, nor demand further particulars. A question as to the +reason of the teacher’s departure, as to whether it had been voluntary +or otherwise, was indeed on my lips, but I suppressed it--there were +listeners all round. An hour after, in passing Sylvie in the corridor as +she was putting on her bonnet, I stopped short and asked:-- + +“Sylvie, do you know Mdlle. Henri’s address? I have some books of hers,” + I added carelessly, “and I should wish to send them to her.” + +“No, monsieur,” replied Sylvie; “but perhaps Rosalie, the portress, will +be able to give it you.” + +Rosalie’s cabinet was just at hand; I stepped in and repeated the +inquiry. Rosalie--a smart French grisette--looked up from her work with +a knowing smile, precisely the sort of smile I had been so desirous to +avoid exciting. Her answer was prepared; she knew nothing whatever +of Mdlle. Henri’s address--had never known it. Turning from her with +impatience--for I believed she lied and was hired to lie--I almost +knocked down some one who had been standing at my back; it was the +directress. My abrupt movement made her recoil two or three steps. I was +obliged to apologize, which I did more concisely than politely. No man +likes to be dogged, and in the very irritable mood in which I then +was the sight of Mdlle. Reuter thoroughly incensed me. At the moment I +turned her countenance looked hard, dark, and inquisitive; her eyes +were bent upon me with an expression of almost hungry curiosity. I had +scarcely caught this phase of physiognomy ere it had vanished; a +bland smile played on her features; my harsh apology was received with +good-humoured facility. + +“Oh, don’t mention it, monsieur; you only touched my hair with your +elbow; it is no worse, only a little dishevelled.” She shook it back, +and passing her fingers through her curls, loosened them into more +numerous and flowing ringlets. Then she went on with vivacity: + +“Rosalie, I was coming to tell you to go instantly and close the windows +of the salon; the wind is rising, and the muslin curtains will be +covered with dust.” + +Rosalie departed. “Now,” thought I, “this will not do; Mdlle. Reuter +thinks her meanness in eaves-dropping is screened by her art in devising +a pretext, whereas the muslin curtains she speaks of are not more +transparent than this same pretext.” An impulse came over me to thrust +the flimsy screen aside, and confront her craft boldly with a word or +two of plain truth. “The rough-shod foot treads most firmly on slippery +ground,” thought I; so I began: + +“Mademoiselle Henri has left your establishment--been dismissed, I +presume?” + +“Ah, I wished to have a little conversation with you, monsieur,” replied +the directress with the most natural and affable air in the world; +“but we cannot talk quietly here; will Monsieur step into the garden a +minute?” And she preceded me, stepping out through the glass-door I have +before mentioned. + +“There,” said she, when we had reached the centre of the middle alley, +and when the foliage of shrubs and trees, now in their summer pride, +closing behind and around us, shut out the view of the house, and thus +imparted a sense of seclusion even to this little plot of ground in the +very core of a capital. + +“There, one feels quiet and free when there are only pear-trees and +rose-bushes about one; I dare say you, like me, monsieur, are sometimes +tired of being eternally in the midst of life; of having human faces +always round you, human eyes always upon you, human voices always in +your ear. I am sure I often wish intensely for liberty to spend a whole +month in the country at some little farm-house, bien gentille, bien +propre, tout entouree de champs et de bois; quelle vie charmante que la +vie champetre! N’est-ce pas, monsieur?” + +“Cela depend, mademoiselle.” + +“Que le vent est bon et frais!” continued the directress; and she was +right there, for it was a south wind, soft and sweet. I carried my hat +in my hand, and this gentle breeze, passing through my hair, soothed my +temples like balm. Its refreshing effect, however, penetrated no deeper +than the mere surface of the frame; for as I walked by the side of +Mdlle. Reuter, my heart was still hot within me, and while I was musing +the fire burned; then spake I with my tongue:-- + +“I understand Mdlle. Henri is gone from hence, and will not return?” + +“Ah, true! I meant to have named the subject to you some days ago, but +my time is so completely taken up, I cannot do half the things I wish: +have you never experienced what it is, monsieur, to find the day too +short by twelve hours for your numerous duties?” + +“Not often. Mdlle. Henri’s departure was not voluntary, I presume? If it +had been, she would certainly have given me some intimation of it, being +my pupil.” + +“Oh, did she not tell you? that was strange; for my part, I never +thought of adverting to the subject; when one has so many things to +attend to, one is apt to forget little incidents that are not of primary +importance.” + +“You consider Mdlle. Henri’s dismission, then, as a very insignificant +event?” + +“Dismission? Ah! she was not dismissed; I can say with truth, monsieur, +that since I became the head of this establishment no master or teacher +has ever been dismissed from it.” + +“Yet some have left it, mademoiselle?” + +“Many; I have found it necessary to change frequently--a change of +instructors is often beneficial to the interests of a school; it gives +life and variety to the proceedings; it amuses the pupils, and suggests +to the parents the idea of exertion and progress.” + +“Yet when you are tired of a professor or maitresse, you scruple to +dismiss them?” + +“No need to have recourse to such extreme measures, I assure you. +Allons, monsieur le professeur--asseyons-nous; je vais vous donner une +petite lecon dans votre etat d’instituteur.” (I wish I might write +all she said to me in French--it loses sadly by being translated into +English.) We had now reached THE garden-chair; the directress sat down, +and signed to me to sit by her, but I only rested my knee on the seat, +and stood leaning my head and arm against the embowering branch of a +huge laburnum, whose golden flowers, blent with the dusky green leaves +of a lilac-bush, formed a mixed arch of shade and sunshine over the +retreat. Mdlle. Reuter sat silent a moment; some novel movements were +evidently working in her mind, and they showed their nature on her +astute brow; she was meditating some CHEF D’OEUVRE of policy. Convinced +by several months’ experience that the affectation of virtues she did +not possess was unavailing to ensnare me--aware that I had read her real +nature, and would believe nothing of the character she gave out as being +hers--she had determined, at last, to try a new key, and see if the lock +of my heart would yield to that; a little audacity, a word of truth, a +glimpse of the real. “Yes, I will try,” was her inward resolve; and then +her blue eye glittered upon me--it did not flash--nothing of flame ever +kindled in its temperate gleam. + +“Monsieur fears to sit by me?” she inquired playfully. + +“I have no wish to usurp Pelet’s place,” I answered, for I had got the +habit of speaking to her bluntly--a habit begun in anger, but continued +because I saw that, instead of offending, it fascinated her. She cast +down her eyes, and drooped her eyelids; she sighed uneasily; she turned +with an anxious gesture, as if she would give me the idea of a bird that +flutters in its cage, and would fain fly from its jail and jailer, and +seek its natural mate and pleasant nest. + +“Well--and your lesson?” I demanded briefly. + +“Ah!” she exclaimed, recovering herself, “you are so young, so frank +and fearless, so talented, so impatient of imbecility, so disdainful of +vulgarity, you need a lesson; here it is then: far more is to be done +in this world by dexterity than by strength; but, perhaps, you knew +that before, for there is delicacy as well as power in your +character--policy, as well as pride?” + +“Go on,” said I; and I could hardly help smiling, the flattery was so +piquant, so finely seasoned. She caught the prohibited smile, though I +passed my hand over my month to conceal it; and again she made room for +me to sit beside her. I shook my head, though temptation penetrated to +my senses at the moment, and once more I told her to go on. + +“Well, then, if ever you are at the head of a large establishment, +dismiss nobody. To speak truth, monsieur (and to you I will speak +truth), I despise people who are always making rows, blustering, sending +off one to the right, and another to the left, urging and hurrying +circumstances. I’ll tell you what I like best to do, monsieur, shall I?” + She looked up again; she had compounded her glance well this time--much +archness, more deference, a spicy dash of coquetry, an unveiled +consciousness of capacity. I nodded; she treated me like the great +Mogul; so I became the great Mogul as far as she was concerned. + +“I like, monsieur, to take my knitting in my hands, and to sit quietly +down in my chair; circumstances defile past me; I watch their march; so +long as they follow the course I wish, I say nothing, and do nothing; I +don’t clap my hands, and cry out ‘Bravo! How lucky I am!’ to attract +the attention and envy of my neighbours--I am merely passive; but when +events fall out ill--when circumstances become adverse--I watch very +vigilantly; I knit on still, and still I hold my tongue; but every now +and then, monsieur, I just put my toe out--so--and give the rebellious +circumstance a little secret push, without noise, which sends it the way +I wish, and I am successful after all, and nobody has seen my expedient. +So, when teachers or masters become troublesome and inefficient--when, +in short, the interests of the school would suffer from their retaining +their places--I mind my knitting, events progress, circumstances glide +past; I see one which, if pushed ever so little awry, will render +untenable the post I wish to have vacated--the deed is done--the +stumbling-block removed--and no one saw me: I have not made an enemy, I +am rid of an incumbrance.” + +A moment since, and I thought her alluring; this speech concluded, I +looked on her with distaste. “Just like you,” was my cold answer. +“And in this way you have ousted Mdlle. Henri? You wanted her office, +therefore you rendered it intolerable to her?” + +“Not at all, monsieur, I was merely anxious about Mdlle. Henri’s health; +no, your moral sight is clear and piercing, but there you have failed +to discover the truth. I took--I have always taken a real interest in +Mdlle. Henri’s welfare; I did not like her going out in all weathers; +I thought it would be more advantageous for her to obtain a permanent +situation; besides, I considered her now qualified to do something more +than teach sewing. I reasoned with her; left the decision to herself; +she saw the correctness of my views, and adopted them.” + +“Excellent! and now, mademoiselle, you will have the goodness to give me +her address.” + +“Her address!” and a sombre and stony change came over the mien of +the directress. “Her address? Ah?--well--I wish I could oblige you, +monsieur, but I cannot, and I will tell you why; whenever I myself asked +her for her address, she always evaded the inquiry. I thought--I may +be wrong--but I THOUGHT her motive for doing so, was a natural, though +mistaken reluctance to introduce me to some, probably, very poor +abode; her means were narrow, her origin obscure; she lives somewhere, +doubtless, in the ‘basse ville.’” + +“I’ll not lose sight of my best pupil yet,” said I, “though she were +born of beggars and lodged in a cellar; for the rest, it is absurd to +make a bugbear of her origin to me--I happen to know that she was a +Swiss pastor’s daughter, neither more nor less; and, as to her narrow +means, I care nothing for the poverty of her purse so long as her heart +overflows with affluence.” + +“Your sentiments are perfectly noble, monsieur,” said the directress, +affecting to suppress a yawn; her sprightliness was now extinct, her +temporary candour shut up; the little, red-coloured, piratical-looking +pennon of audacity she had allowed to float a minute in the air, was +furled, and the broad, sober-hued flag of dissimulation again hung +low over the citadel. I did not like her thus, so I cut short the +TETE-A-TETE and departed. + + + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + +NOVELISTS should never allow themselves to weary of the study of real +life. If they observed this duty conscientiously, they would give us +fewer pictures chequered with vivid contrasts of light and shade; +they would seldom elevate their heroes and heroines to the heights of +rapture--still seldomer sink them to the depths of despair; for if we +rarely taste the fulness of joy in this life, we yet more rarely savour +the acrid bitterness of hopeless anguish; unless, indeed, we have +plunged like beasts into sensual indulgence, abused, strained, +stimulated, again overstrained, and, at last, destroyed our faculties +for enjoyment; then, truly, we may find ourselves without support, +robbed of hope. Our agony is great, and how can it end? We have broken +the spring of our powers; life must be all suffering--too feeble to +conceive faith--death must be darkness--God, spirits, religion can have +no place in our collapsed minds, where linger only hideous and polluting +recollections of vice; and time brings us on to the brink of the grave, +and dissolution flings us in--a rag eaten through and through with +disease, wrung together with pain, stamped into the churchyard sod by +the inexorable heel of despair. + +But the man of regular life and rational mind never despairs. He loses +his property--it is a blow--he staggers a moment; then, his energies, +roused by the smart, are at work to seek a remedy; activity soon +mitigates regret. Sickness affects him; he takes patience--endures what +he cannot cure. Acute pain racks him; his writhing limbs know not where +to find rest; he leans on Hope’s anchors. Death takes from him what +he loves; roots up, and tears violently away the stem round which his +affections were twined--a dark, dismal time, a frightful wrench--but +some morning Religion looks into his desolate house with sunrise, and +says, that in another world, another life, he shall meet his kindred +again. She speaks of that world as a place unsullied by sin--of that +life, as an era unembittered by suffering; she mightily strengthens +her consolation by connecting with it two ideas--which mortals cannot +comprehend, but on which they love to repose--Eternity, Immortality; and +the mind of the mourner, being filled with an image, faint yet glorious, +of heavenly hills all light and peace--of a spirit resting there in +bliss--of a day when his spirit shall also alight there, free and +disembodied--of a reunion perfected by love, purified from fear--he +takes courage--goes out to encounter the necessities and discharge the +duties of life; and, though sadness may never lift her burden from his +mind, Hope will enable him to support it. + +Well--and what suggested all this? and what is the inference to be drawn +therefrom? What suggested it, is the circumstance of my best pupil--my +treasure--being snatched from my hands, and put away out of my reach; +the inference to be drawn from it is--that, being a steady, reasonable +man, I did not allow the resentment, disappointment, and grief, +engendered in my mind by this evil chance, to grow there to any +monstrous size; nor did I allow them to monopolize the whole space of my +heart; I pent them, on the contrary, in one strait and secret nook. In +the daytime, too, when I was about my duties, I put them on the silent +system; and it was only after I had closed the door of my chamber +at night that I somewhat relaxed my severity towards these morose +nurslings, and allowed vent to their language of murmurs; then, in +revenge, they sat on my pillow, haunted my bed, and kept me awake with +their long, midnight cry. + +A week passed. I had said nothing more to Mdlle. Reuter. I had been calm +in my demeanour to her, though stony cold and hard. When I looked at +her, it was with the glance fitting to be bestowed on one who I knew +had consulted jealousy as an adviser, and employed treachery as an +instrument--the glance of quiet disdain and rooted distrust. On Saturday +evening, ere I left the house, I stept into the SALLE-A-MANGER, where +she was sitting alone, and, placing myself before her, I asked, with +the same tranquil tone and manner that I should have used had I put the +question for the first time-- + +“Mademoiselle, will you have the goodness to give me the address of +Frances Evans Henri?” + +A little surprised, but not disconcerted, she smilingly disclaimed any +knowledge of that address, adding, “Monsieur has perhaps forgotten that +I explained all about that circumstance before--a week ago?” + +“Mademoiselle,” I continued, “you would greatly oblige me by directing +me to that young person’s abode.” + +She seemed somewhat puzzled; and, at last, looking up with an admirably +counterfeited air of naivete, she demanded, “Does Monsieur think I am +telling an untruth?” + +Still avoiding to give her a direct answer, I said, “It is not then your +intention, mademoiselle, to oblige me in this particular?” + +“But, monsieur, how can I tell you what I do not know?” + +“Very well; I understand you perfectly, mademoiselle, and now I have +only two or three words to say. This is the last week in July; in +another month the vacation will commence, have the goodness to avail +yourself of the leisure it will afford you to look out for another +English master--at the close of August, I shall be under the necessity +of resigning my post in your establishment.” + +I did not wait for her comments on this announcement, but bowed and +immediately withdrew. + +That same evening, soon after dinner, a servant brought me a small +packet; it was directed in a hand I knew, but had not hoped so soon to +see again; being in my own apartment and alone, there was nothing to +prevent my immediately opening it; it contained four five-franc pieces, +and a note in English. + +“MONSIEUR, + +“I came to Mdlle. Reuter’s house yesterday, at the time when I knew you +would be just about finishing your lesson, and I asked if I might go +into the schoolroom and speak to you. Mdlle. Reuter came out and said +you were already gone; it had not yet struck four, so I thought she must +be mistaken, but concluded it would be vain to call another day on the +same errand. In one sense a note will do as well--it will wrap up the +20 francs, the price of the lessons I have received from you; and if it +will not fully express the thanks I owe you in addition--if it will not +bid you good-bye as I could wish to have done--if it will not tell you, +as I long to do, how sorry I am that I shall probably never see you +more--why, spoken words would hardly be more adequate to the task. Had +I seen you, I should probably have stammered out something feeble and +unsatisfactory--something belying my feelings rather than explaining +them; so it is perhaps as well that I was denied admission to your +presence. You often remarked, monsieur, that my devoirs dwelt a great +deal on fortitude in bearing grief--you said I introduced that theme too +often: I find indeed that it is much easier to write about a severe duty +than to perform it, for I am oppressed when I see and feel to what a +reverse fate has condemned me; you were kind to me, monsieur--very kind; +I am afflicted--I am heart-broken to be quite separated from you; soon +I shall have no friend on earth. But it is useless troubling you with my +distresses. What claim have I on your sympathy? None; I will then say no +more. + +“Farewell, Monsieur. + +“F. E. HENRI.” + +I put up the note in my pocket-book. I slipped the five-franc pieces +into my purse--then I took a turn through my narrow chamber. + +“Mdlle. Reuter talked about her poverty,” said I, “and she is poor; +yet she pays her debts and more. I have not yet given her a quarter’s +lessons, and she has sent me a quarter’s due. I wonder of what she +deprived herself to scrape together the twenty francs--I wonder what +sort of a place she has to live in, and what sort of a woman her aunt +is, and whether she is likely to get employment to supply the place she +has lost. No doubt she will have to trudge about long enough from school +to school, to inquire here, and apply there--be rejected in this place, +disappointed in that. Many an evening she’ll go to her bed tired +and unsuccessful. And the directress would not let her in to bid me +good-bye? I might not have the chance of standing with her for a few +minutes at a window in the schoolroom and exchanging some half-dozen of +sentences--getting to know where she lived--putting matters in train +for having all things arranged to my mind? No address on the note”--I +continued, drawing it again from the pocket-book and examining it on +each side of the two leaves: “women are women, that is certain, and +always do business like women; men mechanically put a date and address +to their communications. And these five-franc pieces?”--(I hauled them +forth from my purse)--“if she had offered me them herself instead of +tying them up with a thread of green silk in a kind of Lilliputian +packet, I could have thrust them back into her little hand, and shut +up the small, taper fingers over them--so--and compelled her shame, her +pride, her shyness, all to yield to a little bit of determined Will--now +where is she? How can I get at her?” + +Opening my chamber door I walked down into the kitchen. + +“Who brought the packet?” I asked of the servant who had delivered it to +me. + +“Un petit commissionaire, monsieur.” + +“Did he say anything?” + +“Rien.” + +And I wended my way up the back-stairs, wondrously the wiser for my +inquiries. + +“No matter,” said I to myself, as I again closed the door. “No +matter--I’ll seek her through Brussels.” + +And I did. I sought her day by day whenever I had a moment’s leisure, +for four weeks; I sought her on Sundays all day long; I sought her on +the Boulevards, in the Allee Verte, in the Park; I sought her in Ste. +Gudule and St. Jacques; I sought her in the two Protestant chapels; I +attended these latter at the German, French, and English services, not +doubting that I should meet her at one of them. All my researches were +absolutely fruitless; my security on the last point was proved by the +event to be equally groundless with my other calculations. I stood +at the door of each chapel after the service, and waited till every +individual had come out, scrutinizing every gown draping a slender form, +peering under every bonnet covering a young head. In vain; I saw +girlish figures pass me, drawing their black scarfs over their sloping +shoulders, but none of them had the exact turn and air of Mdlle. +Henri’s; I saw pale and thoughtful faces “encadrees” in bands of brown +hair, but I never found her forehead, her eyes, her eyebrows. All the +features of all the faces I met seemed frittered away, because my eye +failed to recognize the peculiarities it was bent upon; an ample space +of brow and a large, dark, and serious eye, with a fine but decided line +of eyebrow traced above. + +“She has probably left Brussels--perhaps is gone to England, as she +said she would,” muttered I inwardly, as on the afternoon of the fourth +Sunday, I turned from the door of the chapel-royal which the door-keeper +had just closed and locked, and followed in the wake of the last of the +congregation, now dispersed and dispersing over the square. I had +soon outwalked the couples of English gentlemen and ladies. (Gracious +goodness! why don’t they dress better? My eye is yet filled with visions +of the high-flounced, slovenly, and tumbled dresses in costly silk and +satin, of the large unbecoming collars in expensive lace; of the ill-cut +coats and strangely fashioned pantaloons which every Sunday, at the +English service, filled the choirs of the chapel-royal, and after it, +issuing forth into the square, came into disadvantageous contrast with +freshly and trimly attired foreign figures, hastening to attend salut +at the church of Coburg.) I had passed these pairs of Britons, and +the groups of pretty British children, and the British footmen and +waiting-maids; I had crossed the Place Royale, and got into the Rue +Royale, thence I had diverged into the Rue de Louvain--an old and quiet +street. I remember that, feeling a little hungry, and not desiring to +go back and take my share of the “gouter,” now on the refectory-table +at Pelet’s--to wit, pistolets and water--I stepped into a baker’s and +refreshed myself on a COUC(?)--it is a Flemish word, I don’t know how +to spell it--A CORINTHE-ANGLICE, a currant bun--and a cup of coffee; and +then I strolled on towards the Porte de Louvain. Very soon I was out of +the city, and slowly mounting the hill, which ascends from the gate, I +took my time; for the afternoon, though cloudy, was very sultry, and not +a breeze stirred to refresh the atmosphere. No inhabitant of Brussels +need wander far to search for solitude; let him but move half a league +from his own city and he will find her brooding still and blank over +the wide fields, so drear though so fertile, spread out treeless and +trackless round the capital of Brabant. Having gained the summit of the +hill, and having stood and looked long over the cultured but lifeless +campaign, I felt a wish to quit the high road, which I had hitherto +followed, and get in among those tilled grounds--fertile as the beds +of a Brobdignagian kitchen-garden--spreading far and wide even to the +boundaries of the horizon, where, from a dusk green, distance changed +them to a sullen blue, and confused their tints with those of the livid +and thunderous-looking sky. Accordingly I turned up a by-path to the +right; I had not followed it far ere it brought me, as I expected, into +the fields, amidst which, just before me, stretched a long and lofty +white wall enclosing, as it seemed from the foliage showing above, some +thickly planted nursery of yew and cypress, for of that species were +the branches resting on the pale parapets, and crowding gloomily about a +massive cross, planted doubtless on a central eminence and extending its +arms, which seemed of black marble, over the summits of those sinister +trees. I approached, wondering to what house this well-protected garden +appertained; I turned the angle of the wall, thinking to see some +stately residence; I was close upon great iron gates; there was a +hut serving for a lodge near, but I had no occasion to apply for the +key--the gates were open; I pushed one leaf back--rain had rusted +its hinges, for it groaned dolefully as they revolved. Thick planting +embowered the entrance. Passing up the avenue, I saw objects on +each hand which, in their own mute language of inscription and sign, +explained clearly to what abode I had made my way. This was the +house appointed for all living; crosses, monuments, and garlands of +everlastings announced, “The Protestant Cemetery, outside the gate of +Louvain.” + +The place was large enough to afford half an hour’s strolling without +the monotony of treading continually the same path; and, for those who +love to peruse the annals of graveyards, here was variety of inscription +enough to occupy the attention for double or treble that space of time. +Hither people of many kindreds, tongues, and nations, had brought their +dead for interment; and here, on pages of stone, of marble, and of +brass, were written names, dates, last tributes of pomp or love, in +English, in French, in German, and Latin. Here the Englishman had +erected a marble monument over the remains of his Mary Smith or Jane +Brown, and inscribed it only with her name. There the French widower had +shaded the grave of his Elmire or Celestine with a brilliant thicket +of roses, amidst which a little tablet rising, bore an equally bright +testimony to her countless virtues. Every nation, tribe, and kindred, +mourned after its own fashion; and how soundless was the mourning of +all! My own tread, though slow and upon smooth-rolled paths, seemed to +startle, because it formed the sole break to a silence otherwise total. +Not only the winds, but the very fitful, wandering airs, were that +afternoon, as by common consent, all fallen asleep in their various +quarters; the north was hushed, the south silent, the east sobbed not, +nor did the west whisper. The clouds in heaven were condensed and +dull, but apparently quite motionless. Under the trees of this cemetery +nestled a warm breathless gloom, out of which the cypresses stood up +straight and mute, above which the willows hung low and still; where +the flowers, as languid as fair, waited listless for night dew or +thunder-shower; where the tombs, and those they hid, lay impassible to +sun or shadow, to rain or drought. + +Importuned by the sound of my own footsteps, I turned off upon the turf, +and slowly advanced to a grove of yews; I saw something stir among the +stems; I thought it might be a broken branch swinging, my short-sighted +vision had caught no form, only a sense of motion; but the dusky shade +passed on, appearing and disappearing at the openings in the avenue. I +soon discerned it was a living thing, and a human thing; and, drawing +nearer, I perceived it was a woman, pacing slowly to and fro, and +evidently deeming herself alone as I had deemed myself alone, and +meditating as I had been meditating. Ere long she returned to a seat +which I fancy she had but just quitted, or I should have caught sight +of her before. It was in a nook, screened by a clump of trees; there was +the white wall before her, and a little stone set up against the wall, +and, at the foot of the stone, was an allotment of turf freshly turned +up, a new-made grave. I put on my spectacles, and passed softly close +behind her; glancing at the inscription on the stone, I read, “Julienne +Henri, died at Brussels, aged sixty. August 10th, 18--.” Having perused +the inscription, I looked down at the form sitting bent and thoughtful +just under my eyes, unconscious of the vicinity of any living thing; it +was a slim, youthful figure in mourning apparel of the plainest black +stuff, with a little simple, black crape bonnet; I felt, as well as +saw, who it was; and, moving neither hand nor foot, I stood some moments +enjoying the security of conviction. I had sought her for a month, and +had never discovered one of her traces--never met a hope, or seized +a chance of encountering her anywhere. I had been forced to loosen my +grasp on expectation; and, but an hour ago, had sunk slackly under +the discouraging thought that the current of life, and the impulse +of destiny, had swept her for ever from my reach; and, behold, while +bending suddenly earthward beneath the pressure of despondency--while +following with my eyes the track of sorrow on the turf of a +graveyard--here was my lost jewel dropped on the tear-fed herbage, +nestling in the messy and mouldy roots of yew-trees. + +Frances sat very quiet, her elbow on her knee, and her head on her hand. +I knew she could retain a thinking attitude a long time without change; +at last, a tear fell; she had been looking at the name on the +stone before her, and her heart had no doubt endured one of those +constrictions with which the desolate living, regretting the dead, are, +at times, so sorely oppressed. Many tears rolled down, which she wiped +away, again and again, with her handkerchief; some distressed sobs +escaped her, and then, the paroxysm over, she sat quiet as before. I put +my hand gently on her shoulder; no need further to prepare her, for +she was neither hysterical nor liable to fainting-fits; a sudden push, +indeed, might have startled her, but the contact of my quiet touch +merely woke attention as I wished; and, though she turned quickly, yet +so lightning-swift is thought--in some minds especially--I believe the +wonder of what--the consciousness of who it was that thus stole unawares +on her solitude, had passed through her brain, and flashed into her +heart, even before she had effected that hasty movement; at least, +Amazement had hardly opened her eyes and raised them to mine, ere +Recognition informed their irids with most speaking brightness. Nervous +surprise had hardly discomposed her features ere a sentiment of most +vivid joy shone clear and warm on her whole countenance. I had hardly +time to observe that she was wasted and pale, ere called to feel a +responsive inward pleasure by the sense of most full and exquisite +pleasure glowing in the animated flush, and shining in the expansive +light, now diffused over my pupil’s face. It was the summer sun flashing +out after the heavy summer shower; and what fertilizes more rapidly than +that beam, burning almost like fire in its ardour? + +I hate boldness--that boldness which is of the brassy brow and insensate +nerves; but I love the courage of the strong heart, the fervour of the +generous blood; I loved with passion the light of Frances Evans’ clear +hazel eye when it did not fear to look straight into mine; I loved the +tones with which she uttered the words-- + +“Mon maitre! mon maitre!” + +I loved the movement with which she confided her hand to my hand; I +loved her as she stood there, penniless and parentless; for a sensualist +charmless, for me a treasure--my best object of sympathy on earth, +thinking such thoughts as I thought, feeling such feelings as I felt; my +ideal of the shrine in which to seal my stores of love; personification +of discretion and forethought, of diligence and perseverance, of +self-denial and self-control--those guardians, those trusty keepers of +the gift I longed to confer on her--the gift of all my affections; +model of truth and honour, of independence and conscientiousness--those +refiners and sustainers of an honest life; silent possessor of a well +of tenderness, of a flame, as genial as still, as pure as quenchless, +of natural feeling, natural passion--those sources of refreshment and +comfort to the sanctuary of home. I knew how quietly and how deeply the +well bubbled in her heart; I knew how the more dangerous flame burned +safely under the eye of reason; I had seen when the fire shot up a +moment high and vivid, when the accelerated heat troubled life’s current +in its channels; I had seen reason reduce the rebel, and humble its +blaze to embers. I had confidence in Frances Evans; I had respect +for her, and as I drew her arm through mine, and led her out of the +cemetery, I felt I had another sentiment, as strong as confidence, as +firm as respect, more fervid than either--that of love. + +“Well, my pupil,” said I, as the ominous sounding gate swung to behind +us--“Well, I have found you again: a month’s search has seemed long, +and I little thought to have discovered my lost sheep straying amongst +graves.” + +Never had I addressed her but as “Mademoiselle” before, and to speak +thus was to take up a tone new to both her and me. Her answer suprised +me that this language ruffled none of her feelings, woke no discord in +her heart: + +“Mon maitre,” she said, “have you troubled yourself to seek me? I little +imagined you would think much of my absence, but I grieved bitterly to +be taken away from you. I was sorry for that circumstance when heavier +troubles ought to have made me forget it.” + +“Your aunt is dead?” + +“Yes, a fortnight since, and she died full of regret, which I could not +chase from her mind; she kept repeating, even during the last night +of her existence, ‘Frances, you will be so lonely when I am gone, +so friendless:’ she wished too that she could have been buried in +Switzerland, and it was I who persuaded her in her old age to leave the +banks of Lake Leman, and to come, only as it seems to die, in this flat +region of Flanders. Willingly would I have observed her last wish, and +taken her remains back to our own country, but that was impossible; I +was forced to lay her here.” + +“She was ill but a short time, I presume?” + +“But three weeks. When she began to sink I asked Mdlle. Reuter’s leave +to stay with her and wait on her; I readily got leave.” + +“Do you return to the pensionnat!” I demanded hastily. + +“Monsieur, when I had been at home a week Mdlle. Reuter called one +evening, just after I had got my aunt to bed; she went into her room +to speak to her, and was extremely civil and affable, as she always is; +afterwards she came and sat with me a long time, and just as she rose to +go away, she said: “Mademoiselle, I shall not soon cease to regret your +departure from my establishment, though indeed it is true that you have +taught your class of pupils so well that they are all quite accomplished +in the little works you manage so skilfully, and have not the slightest +need of further instruction; my second teacher must in future supply +your place, with regard to the younger pupils, as well as she can, +though she is indeed an inferior artiste to you, and doubtless it will +be your part now to assume a higher position in your calling; I am sure +you will everywhere find schools and families willing to profit by your +talents.’ And then she paid me my last quarter’s salary. I asked, as +mademoiselle would no doubt think, very bluntly, if she designed to +discharge me from the establishment. She smiled at my inelegance of +speech, and answered that ‘our connection as employer and employed was +certainly dissolved, but that she hoped still to retain the pleasure of +my acquaintance; she should always be happy to see me as a friend;’ and +then she said something about the excellent condition of the streets, +and the long continuance of fine weather, and went away quite cheerful.” + +I laughed inwardly; all this was so like the directress--so like what I +had expected and guessed of her conduct; and then the exposure and proof +of her lie, unconsciously afforded by Frances:--“She had frequently +applied for Mdlle. Henri’s address,” forsooth; “Mdlle. Henri had always +evaded giving it,” &c., &c., and here I found her a visitor at the very +house of whose locality she had professed absolute ignorance! + +Any comments I might have intended to make on my pupil’s communication, +were checked by the plashing of large rain-drops on our faces and on the +path, and by the muttering of a distant but coming storm. The warning +obvious in stagnant air and leaden sky had already induced me to take +the road leading back to Brussels, and now I hastened my own steps and +those of my companion, and, as our way lay downhill, we got on rapidly. +There was an interval after the fall of the first broad drops before +heavy rain came on; in the meantime we had passed through the Porte de +Louvain, and were again in the city. + +“Where do you live?” I asked; “I will see you safe home.” + +“Rue Notre Dame aux Neiges,” answered Frances. + +It was not far from the Rue de Louvain, and we stood on the doorsteps +of the house we sought ere the clouds, severing with loud peal and +shattered cataract of lightning, emptied their livid folds in a torrent, +heavy, prone, and broad. + +“Come in! come in!” said Frances, as, after putting her into the house, +I paused ere I followed: the word decided me; I stepped across the +threshold, shut the door on the rushing, flashing, whitening storm, and +followed her upstairs to her apartments. Neither she nor I were wet; a +projection over the door had warded off the straight-descending flood; +none but the first, large drops had touched our garments; one minute +more and we should not have had a dry thread on us. + +Stepping over a little mat of green wool, I found myself in a small room +with a painted floor and a square of green carpet in the middle; the +articles of furniture were few, but all bright and exquisitely clean; +order reigned through its narrow limits--such order as it soothed my +punctilious soul to behold. And I had hesitated to enter the abode, +because I apprehended after all that Mdlle. Reuter’s hint about its +extreme poverty might be too well-founded, and I feared to embarrass the +lace-mender by entering her lodgings unawares! Poor the place might be; +poor truly it was; but its neatness was better than elegance, and had +but a bright little fire shone on that clean hearth, I should have +deemed it more attractive than a palace. No fire was there, however, and +no fuel laid ready to light; the lace-mender was unable to allow herself +that indulgence, especially now when, deprived by death of her sole +relative, she had only her own unaided exertions to rely on. Frances +went into an inner room to take off her bonnet, and she came out a +model of frugal neatness, with her well-fitting black stuff dress, so +accurately defining her elegant bust and taper waist, with her spotless +white collar turned back from a fair and shapely neck, with her +plenteous brown hair arranged in smooth bands on her temples, and in +a large Grecian plait behind: ornaments she had none--neither brooch, +ring, nor ribbon; she did well enough without them--perfection of fit, +proportion of form, grace of carriage, agreeably supplied their place. +Her eye, as she re-entered the small sitting-room, instantly sought +mine, which was just then lingering on the hearth; I knew she read at +once the sort of inward ruth and pitying pain which the chill vacancy of +that hearth stirred in my soul: quick to penetrate, quick to determine, +and quicker to put in practice, she had in a moment tied a holland apron +round her waist; then she disappeared, and reappeared with a basket; +it had a cover; she opened it, and produced wood and coal; deftly and +compactly she arranged them in the grate. + +“It is her whole stock, and she will exhaust it out of hospitality,” + thought I. + +“What are you going to do?” I asked: “not surely to light a fire this +hot evening? I shall be smothered.” + +“Indeed, monsieur, I feel it very chilly since the rain began; besides, +I must boil the water for my tea, for I take tea on Sundays; you will be +obliged to try and bear the heat.” + +She had struck a light; the wood was already in a blaze; and truly, when +contrasted with the darkness, the wild tumult of the tempest without, +that peaceful glow which began to beam on the now animated hearth, +seemed very cheering. A low, purring sound, from some quarter, announced +that another being, besides myself, was pleased with the change; a +black cat, roused by the light from its sleep on a little cushioned +foot-stool, came and rubbed its head against Frances’ gown as she knelt; +she caressed it, saying it had been a favourite with her “pauvre tante +Julienne.” + +The fire being lit, the hearth swept, and a small kettle of a very +antique pattern, such as I thought I remembered to have seen in old +farmhouses in England, placed over the now ruddy flame, Frances’ hands +were washed, and her apron removed in an instant; then she opened a +cupboard, and took out a tea-tray, on which she had soon arranged a +china tea-equipage, whose pattern, shape, and size, denoted a remote +antiquity; a little, old-fashioned silver spoon was deposited in each +saucer; and a pair of silver tongs, equally old-fashioned, were laid +on the sugar-basin; from the cupboard, too, was produced a tidy +silver cream-ewer, not larger then an egg-shell. While making these +preparations, she chanced to look up, and, reading curiosity in my eyes, +she smiled and asked-- + +“Is this like England, monsieur?” + +“Like the England of a hundred years ago,” I replied. + +“Is it truly? Well, everything on this tray is at least a hundred +years old: these cups, these spoons, this ewer, are all heirlooms; my +great-grandmother left them to my grandmother, she to my mother, and my +mother brought them with her from England to Switzerland, and left them +to me; and, ever since I was a little girl, I have thought I should like +to carry them back to England, whence they came.” + +She put some pistolets on the table; she made the tea, as foreigners do +make tea--i.e., at the rate of a teaspoonful to half-a-dozen cups; +she placed me a chair, and, as I took it, she asked, with a sort of +exaltation-- + +“Will it make you think yourself at home for a moment?” + +“If I had a home in England, I believe it would recall it,” I +answered; and, in truth, there was a sort of illusion in seeing the +fair-complexioned English-looking girl presiding at the English meal, +and speaking in the English language. + +“You have then no home?” was her remark. + +“None, nor ever have had. If ever I possess a home, it must be of my own +making, and the task is yet to begin.” And, as I spoke, a pang, new to +me, shot across my heart: it was a pang of mortification at the humility +of my position, and the inadequacy of my means; while with that pang was +born a strong desire to do more, earn more, be more, possess more; +and in the increased possessions, my roused and eager spirit panted to +include the home I had never had, the wife I inwardly vowed to win. + +Frances’ tea was little better than hot water, sugar, and milk; and her +pistolets, with which she could not offer me butter, were sweet to my +palate as manna. + +The repast over, and the treasured plate and porcelain being washed and +put by, the bright table rubbed still brighter, “le chat de ma tante +Julienne” also being fed with provisions brought forth on a plate for +its special use, a few stray cinders, and a scattering of ashes too, +being swept from the hearth, Frances at last sat down; and then, as she +took a chair opposite to me, she betrayed, for the first time, a little +embarrassment; and no wonder, for indeed I had unconsciously watched +her rather too closely, followed all her steps and all her movements +a little too perseveringly with my eyes, for she mesmerized me by +the grace and alertness of her action--by the deft, cleanly, and even +decorative effect resulting from each touch of her slight and fine +fingers; and when, at last, she subsided to stillness, the intelligence +of her face seemed beauty to me, and I dwelt on it accordingly. Her +colour, however, rising, rather than settling with repose, and her eyes +remaining downcast, though I kept waiting for the lids to be raised that +I might drink a ray of the light I loved--a light where fire dissolved +in softness, where affection tempered penetration, where, just now +at least, pleasure played with thought--this expectation not being +gratified, I began at last to suspect that I had probably myself to +blame for the disappointment; I must cease gazing, and begin talking, +if I wished to break the spell under which she now sat motionless; so +recollecting the composing effect which an authoritative tone and manner +had ever been wont to produce on her, I said-- + +“Get one of your English books, mademoiselle, for the rain yet falls +heavily, and will probably detain me half an hour longer.” + +Released, and set at ease, up she rose, got her book, and accepted at +once the chair I placed for her at my side. She had selected “Paradise +Lost” from her shelf of classics, thinking, I suppose, the religious +character of the book best adapted it to Sunday; I told her to begin at +the beginning, and while she read Milton’s invocation to that heavenly +muse, who on the “secret top of Oreb or Sinai” had taught the Hebrew +shepherd how in the womb of chaos, the conception of a world had +originated and ripened, I enjoyed, undisturbed, the treble pleasure of +having her near me, hearing the sound of her voice--a sound sweet and +satisfying in my ear--and looking, by intervals, at her face: of this +last privilege, I chiefly availed myself when I found fault with an +intonation, a pause, or an emphasis; as long as I dogmatized, I might +also gaze, without exciting too warm a flush. + +“Enough,” said I, when she had gone through some half dozen pages (a +work of time with her, for she read slowly and paused often to ask and +receive information)--“enough; and now the rain is ceasing, and I must +soon go.” For indeed, at that moment, looking towards the window, I +saw it all blue; the thunder-clouds were broken and scattered, and the +setting August sun sent a gleam like the reflection of rubies through +the lattice. I got up; I drew on my gloves. + +“You have not yet found another situation to supply the place of that +from which you were dismissed by Mdlle. Reuter?” + +“No, monsieur; I have made inquiries everywhere, but they all ask me +for references; and to speak truth, I do not like to apply to the +directress, because I consider she acted neither justly nor honourably +towards me; she used underhand means to set my pupils against me, and +thereby render me unhappy while I held my place in her establishment, +and she eventually deprived me of it by a masked and hypocritical +manoeuvre, pretending that she was acting for my good, but really +snatching from me my chief means of subsistence, at a crisis when not +only my own life, but that of another, depended on my exertions: of her +I will never more ask a favour.” + +“How, then, do you propose to get on? How do you live now?” + +“I have still my lace-mending trade; with care it will keep me from +starvation, and I doubt not by dint of exertion to get better employment +yet; it is only a fortnight since I began to try; my courage or hopes +are by no means worn out yet.” + +“And if you get what you wish, what then? what are your ultimate views?” + +“To save enough to cross the Channel: I always look to England as my +Canaan.” + +“Well, well--ere long I shall pay you another visit; good evening now,” + and I left her rather abruptly; I had much ado to resist a strong inward +impulse, urging me to take a warmer, more expressive leave: what so +natural as to fold her for a moment in a close embrace, to imprint one +kiss on her cheek or forehead? I was not unreasonable--that was all I +wanted; satisfied in that point, I could go away content; and Reason +denied me even this; she ordered me to turn my eyes from her face, and +my steps from her apartment--to quit her as dryly and coldly as I would +have quitted old Madame Pelet. I obeyed, but I swore rancorously to be +avenged one day. “I’ll earn a right to do as I please in this matter, +or I’ll die in the contest. I have one object before me now--to get that +Genevese girl for my wife; and my wife she shall be--that is, provided +she has as much, or half as much regard for her master as he has +for her. And would she be so docile, so smiling, so happy under my +instructions if she had not? would she sit at my side when I dictate +or correct, with such a still, contented, halcyon mien?” for I had ever +remarked, that however sad or harassed her countenance might be when +I entered a room, yet after I had been near her, spoken to her a few +words, given her some directions, uttered perhaps some reproofs, she +would, all at once, nestle into a nook of happiness, and look up serene +and revived. The reproofs suited her best of all: while I scolded she +would chip away with her pen-knife at a pencil or a pen; fidgetting a +little, pouting a little, defending herself by monosyllables, and when I +deprived her of the pen or pencil, fearing it would be all cut away, +and when I interdicted even the monosyllabic defence, for the purpose +of working up the subdued excitement a little higher, she would at last +raise her eyes and give me a certain glance, sweetened with gaiety, and +pointed with defiance, which, to speak truth, thrilled me as nothing had +ever done, and made me, in a fashion (though happily she did not know +it), her subject, if not her slave. After such little scenes her spirits +would maintain their flow, often for some hours, and, as I remarked +before, her health therefrom took a sustenance and vigour which, +previously to the event of her aunt’s death and her dismissal, had +almost recreated her whole frame. + +It has taken me several minutes to write these last sentences; but I had +thought all their purport during the brief interval of descending the +stairs from Frances’ room. Just as I was opening the outer door, +I remembered the twenty francs which I had not restored; I paused: +impossible to carry them away with me; difficult to force them back +on their original owner; I had now seen her in her own humble abode, +witnessed the dignity of her poverty, the pride of order, the fastidious +care of conservatism, obvious in the arrangement and economy of her +little home; I was sure she would not suffer herself to be excused +paying her debts; I was certain the favour of indemnity would be +accepted from no hand, perhaps least of all from mine: yet these four +five-franc pieces were a burden to my self-respect, and I must get +rid of them. An expedient--a clumsy one no doubt, but the best I +could devise-suggested itself to me. I darted up the stairs, knocked, +re-entered the room as if in haste:-- + +“Mademoiselle, I have forgotten one of my gloves; I must have left it +here.” + +She instantly rose to seek it; as she turned her back, I--being now +at the hearth--noiselessly lifted a little vase, one of a set of china +ornaments, as old-fashioned as the tea-cups--slipped the money under it, +then saying--“Oh here is my glove! I had dropped it within the fender; +good evening, mademoiselle,” I made my second exit. + +Brief as my impromptu return had been, it had afforded me time to pick +up a heart-ache; I remarked that Frances had already removed the red +embers of her cheerful little fire from the grate: forced to calculate +every item, to save in every detail, she had instantly on my departure +retrenched a luxury too expensive to be enjoyed alone. + +“I am glad it is not yet winter,” thought I; “but in two months more +come the winds and rains of November; would to God that before then I +could earn the right, and the power, to shovel coals into that grate AD +LIBITUM!” + +Already the pavement was drying; a balmy and fresh breeze stirred the +air, purified by lightning; I felt the West behind me, where spread a +sky like opal; azure immingled with crimson: the enlarged sun, glorious +in Tyrian tints, dipped his brim already; stepping, as I was, eastward, +I faced a vast bank of clouds, but also I had before me the arch of an +evening rainbow; a perfect rainbow--high, wide, vivid. I looked long; +my eye drank in the scene, and I suppose my brain must have absorbed +it; for that night, after lying awake in pleasant fever a long time, +watching the silent sheet-lightning, which still played among the +retreating clouds, and flashed silvery over the stars, I at last fell +asleep; and then in a dream were reproduced the setting sun, the bank of +clouds, the mighty rainbow. I stood, methought, on a terrace; I leaned +over a parapeted wall; there was space below me, depth I could not +fathom, but hearing an endless dash of waves, I believed it to be the +sea; sea spread to the horizon; sea of changeful green and intense +blue: all was soft in the distance; all vapour-veiled. A spark of gold +glistened on the line between water and air, floated up, approached, +enlarged, changed; the object hung midway between heaven and earth, +under the arch of the rainbow; the soft but dusk clouds diffused behind. +It hovered as on wings; pearly, fleecy, gleaming air streamed like +raiment round it; light, tinted with carnation, coloured what seemed +face and limbs; a large star shone with still lustre on an angel’s +forehead; an upraised arm and hand, glancing like a ray, pointed to the +bow overhead, and a voice in my heart whispered-- + +“Hope smiles on Effort!” + + + + + + +CHAPTER XX. + +A COMPETENCY was what I wanted; a competency it was now my aim and +resolve to secure; but never had I been farther from the mark. With +August the school-year (l’annee scolaire) closed, the examinations +concluded, the prizes were adjudged, the schools dispersed, the gates of +all colleges, the doors of all pensionnats shut, not to be reopened till +the beginning or middle of October. The last day of August was at hand, +and what was my position? Had I advanced a step since the commencement +of the past quarter? On the contrary, I had receded one. By renouncing +my engagement as English master in Mdlle. Reuter’s establishment, I had +voluntarily cut off 20l. from my yearly income; I had diminished my 60l. +per annum to 40l., and even that sum I now held by a very precarious +tenure. + +It is some time since I made any reference to M. Pelet. The moonlight +walk is, I think, the last incident recorded in this narrative where +that gentleman cuts any conspicuous figure: the fact is, since that +event, a change had come over the spirit of our intercourse. He, indeed, +ignorant that the still hour, a cloudless moon, and an open lattice, +had revealed to me the secret of his selfish love and false friendship, +would have continued smooth and complaisant as ever; but I grew spiny as +a porcupine, and inflexible as a blackthorn cudgel; I never had a smile +for his raillery, never a moment for his society; his invitations to +take coffee with him in his parlour were invariably rejected, and +very stiffly and sternly rejected too; his jesting allusions to the +directress (which he still continued) were heard with a grim calm very +different from the petulant pleasure they were formerly wont to excite. +For a long time Pelet bore with my frigid demeanour very patiently; +he even increased his attentions; but finding that even a cringing +politeness failed to thaw or move me, he at last altered too; in +his turn he cooled; his invitations ceased; his countenance became +suspicious and overcast, and I read in the perplexed yet brooding aspect +of his brow, a constant examination and comparison of premises, and an +anxious endeavour to draw thence some explanatory inference. Ere long, +I fancy, he succeeded, for he was not without penetration; perhaps, too, +Mdlle. Zoraide might have aided him in the solution of the enigma; at +any rate I soon found that the uncertainty of doubt had vanished from +his manner; renouncing all pretence of friendship and cordiality, he +adopted a reserved, formal, but still scrupulously polite deportment. +This was the point to which I had wished to bring him, and I was now +again comparatively at my ease. I did not, it is true, like my position +in his house; but being freed from the annoyance of false professions +and double-dealing I could endure it, especially as no heroic sentiment +of hatred or jealousy of the director distracted my philosophical soul; +he had not, I found, wounded me in a very tender point, the wound was so +soon and so radically healed, leaving only a sense of contempt for +the treacherous fashion in which it had been inflicted, and a lasting +mistrust of the hand which I had detected attempting to stab in the +dark. + +This state of things continued till about the middle of July, and then +there was a little change; Pelet came home one night, an hour after his +usual time, in a state of unequivocal intoxication, a thing anomalous +with him; for if he had some of the worst faults of his countrymen, +he had also one at least of their virtues, i.e. sobriety. So drunk, +however, was he upon this occasion, that after having roused the whole +establishment (except the pupils, whose dormitory being over the classes +in a building apart from the dwelling-house, was consequently out of the +reach of disturbance) by violently ringing the hall-bell and ordering +lunch to be brought in immediately, for he imagined it was noon, whereas +the city bells had just tolled midnight; after having furiously rated +the servants for their want of punctuality, and gone near to chastise +his poor old mother, who advised him to go to bed, he began raving +dreadfully about “le maudit Anglais, Creemsvort.” I had not yet retired; +some German books I had got hold of had kept me up late; I heard the +uproar below, and could distinguish the director’s voice exalted in +a manner as appalling as it was unusual. Opening my door a little, I +became aware of a demand on his part for “Creemsvort” to be brought +down to him that he might cut his throat on the hall-table and wash +his honour, which he affirmed to be in a dirty condition, in infernal +British blood. “He is either mad or drunk,” thought I, “and in either +case the old woman and the servants will be the better of a man’s +assistance,” so I descended straight to the hall. I found him staggering +about, his eyes in a fine frenzy rolling--a pretty sight he was, a just +medium between the fool and the lunatic. + +“Come, M. Pelet,” said I, “you had better go to bed,” and I took hold of +his arm. His excitement, of course, increased greatly at sight and touch +of the individual for whose blood he had been making application: he +struggled and struck with fury--but a drunken man is no match for a +sober one; and, even in his normal state, Pelet’s worn out frame could +not have stood against my sound one. I got him up-stairs, and, in +process of time, to bed. During the operation he did not fail to +utter comminations which, though broken, had a sense in them; while +stigmatizing me as the treacherous spawn of a perfidious country, he, +in the same breath, anathematized Zoraide Reuter; he termed her “femme +sotte et vicieuse,” who, in a fit of lewd caprice, had thrown herself +away on an unprincipled adventurer; directing the point of the last +appellation by a furious blow, obliquely aimed at me. I left him in the +act of bounding elastically out of the bed into which I had tucked him; +but, as I took the precaution of turning the key in the door behind me, +I retired to my own room, assured of his safe custody till the morning, +and free to draw undisturbed conclusions from the scene I had just +witnessed. + +Now, it was precisely about this time that the directress, stung by +my coldness, bewitched by my scorn, and excited by the preference she +suspected me of cherishing for another, had fallen into a snare of her +own laying--was herself caught in the meshes of the very passion with +which she wished to entangle me. Conscious of the state of things in +that quarter, I gathered, from the condition in which I saw my +employer, that his lady-love had betrayed the alienation of her +affections--inclinations, rather, I would say; affection is a word at +once too warm and too pure for the subject--had let him see that the +cavity of her hollow heart, emptied of his image, was now occupied by +that of his usher. It was not without some surprise that I found +myself obliged to entertain this view of the case; Pelet, with +his old-established school, was so convenient, so profitable a +match--Zoraide was so calculating, so interested a woman--I wondered +mere personal preference could, in her mind, have prevailed for a moment +over worldly advantage: yet, it was evident, from what Pelet said, that, +not only had she repulsed him, but had even let slip expressions of +partiality for me. One of his drunken exclamations was, “And the +jade doats on your youth, you raw blockhead! and talks of your noble +deportment, as she calls your accursed English formality--and your pure +morals, forsooth! des moeurs de Caton a-t-elle dit--sotte!” Hers, I +thought, must be a curious soul, where in spite of a strong, natural +tendency to estimate unduly advantages of wealth and station, the +sardonic disdain of a fortuneless subordinate had wrought a deeper +impression than could be imprinted by the most flattering assiduities of +a prosperous CHEF D’INSTITUTION. I smiled inwardly; and strange to say, +though my AMOUR PROPRE was excited not disagreeably by the conquest, my +better feelings remained untouched. Next day, when I saw the directress, +and when she made an excuse to meet me in the corridor, and besought my +notice by a demeanour and look subdued to Helot humility, I could +not love, I could scarcely pity her. To answer briefly and dryly +some interesting inquiry about my health--to pass her by with a stern +bow--was all I could; her presence and manner had then, and for some +time previously and consequently, a singular effect upon me: they +sealed up all that was good, elicited all that was noxious in my nature; +sometimes they enervated my senses, but they always hardened my heart. +I was aware of the detriment done, and quarrelled with myself for the +change. I had ever hated a tyrant; and, behold, the possession of a +slave, self-given, went near to transform me into what I abhorred! +There was at once a sort of low gratification in receiving this luscious +incense from an attractive and still young worshipper; and an irritating +sense of degradation in the very experience of the pleasure. When she +stole about me with the soft step of a slave, I felt at once barbarous +and sensual as a pasha. I endured her homage sometimes; sometimes I +rebuked it. My indifference or harshness served equally to increase the +evil I desired to check. + +“Que le dedain lui sied bien!” I once overheard her say to her mother: +“il est beau comme Apollon quand il sourit de son air hautain.” + +And the jolly old dame laughed, and said she thought her daughter was +bewitched, for I had no point of a handsome man about me, except being +straight and without deformity. “Pour moi,” she continued, “il me fait +tout l’effet d’un chat-huant, avec ses besicles.” + +Worthy old girl! I could have gone and kissed her had she not been a +little too old, too fat, and too red-faced; her sensible, truthful +words seemed so wholesome, contrasted with the morbid illusions of her +daughter. + +When Pelet awoke on the morning after his frenzy fit, he retained no +recollection of what had happened the previous night, and his mother +fortunately had the discretion to refrain from informing him that I had +been a witness of his degradation. He did not again have recourse to +wine for curing his griefs, but even in his sober mood he soon showed +that the iron of jealousy had entered into his soul. A thorough +Frenchman, the national characteristic of ferocity had not been omitted +by nature in compounding the ingredients of his character; it had +appeared first in his access of drunken wrath, when some of his +demonstrations of hatred to my person were of a truly fiendish +character, and now it was more covertly betrayed by momentary +contractions of the features, and flashes of fierceness in his light +blue eyes, when their glance chanced to encounter mine. He absolutely +avoided speaking to me; I was now spared even the falsehood of his +politeness. In this state of our mutual relations, my soul rebelled +sometimes almost ungovernably, against living in the house and +discharging the service of such a man; but who is free from the +constraint of circumstances? At that time, I was not: I used to rise +each morning eager to shake off his yoke, and go out with my portmanteau +under my arm, if a beggar, at least a freeman; and in the evening, when +I came back from the pensionnat de demoiselles, a certain pleasant voice +in my ear; a certain face, so intelligent, yet so docile, so reflective, +yet so soft, in my eyes; a certain cast of character, at once proud +and pliant, sensitive and sagacious, serious and ardent, in my head; a +certain tone of feeling, fervid and modest, refined and practical, pure +and powerful, delighting and troubling my memory--visions of new ties I +longed to contract, of new duties I longed to undertake, had taken the +rover and the rebel out of me, and had shown endurance of my hated lot +in the light of a Spartan virtue. + +But Pelet’s fury subsided; a fortnight sufficed for its rise, progress, +and extinction: in that space of time the dismissal of the obnoxious +teacher had been effected in the neighbouring house, and in the same +interval I had declared my resolution to follow and find out my pupil, +and upon my application for her address being refused, I had summarily +resigned my own post. This last act seemed at once to restore Mdlle. +Reuter to her senses; her sagacity, her judgment, so long misled by a +fascinating delusion, struck again into the right track the moment +that delusion vanished. By the right track, I do not mean the steep and +difficult path of principle--in that path she never trod; but the plain +highway of common sense, from which she had of late widely diverged. +When there she carefully sought, and having found, industriously pursued +the trail of her old suitor, M. Pelet. She soon overtook him. What arts +she employed to soothe and blind him I know not, but she succeeded both +in allaying his wrath, and hoodwinking his discernment, as was soon +proved by the alteration in his mien and manner; she must have managed +to convince him that I neither was, nor ever had been, a rival of his, +for the fortnight of fury against me terminated in a fit of exceeding +graciousness and amenity, not unmixed with a dash of exulting +self-complacency, more ludicrous than irritating. Pelet’s bachelor’s +life had been passed in proper French style with due disregard to moral +restraint, and I thought his married life promised to be very French +also. He often boasted to me what a terror he had been to certain +husbands of his acquaintance; I perceived it would not now be difficult +to pay him back in his own coin. + +The crisis drew on. No sooner had the holidays commenced than note of +preparation for some momentous event sounded all through the premises +of Pelet: painters, polishers, and upholsterers were immediately set +to work, and there was talk of “la chambre de Madame,” “le salon de +Madame.” Not deeming it probable that the old duenna at present graced +with that title in our house, had inspired her son with such enthusiasm +of filial piety, as to induce him to fit up apartments expressly for her +use, I concluded, in common with the cook, the two housemaids, and the +kitchen-scullion, that a new and more juvenile Madame was destined to be +the tenant of these gay chambers. + +Presently official announcement of the coming event was put forth. In +another week’s time M. Francois Pelet, directeur, and Mdlle. Zoraide +Reuter, directrice, were to be joined together in the bands of +matrimony. Monsieur, in person, heralded the fact to me; terminating +his communication by an obliging expression of his desire that I should +continue, as heretofore, his ablest assistant and most trusted friend; +and a proposition to raise my salary by an additional two hundred francs +per annum. I thanked him, gave no conclusive answer at the time, and, +when he had left me, threw off my blouse, put on my coat, and set out +on a long walk outside the Porte de Flandre, in order, as I thought, to +cool my blood, calm my nerves, and shake my disarranged ideas into some +order. In fact, I had just received what was virtually my dismissal. +I could not conceal, I did not desire to conceal from myself the +conviction that, being now certain that Mdlle. Reuter was destined to +become Madame Pelet it would not do for me to remain a dependent dweller +in the house which was soon to be hers. Her present demeanour towards +me was deficient neither in dignity nor propriety; but I knew her former +feeling was unchanged. Decorum now repressed, and Policy masked it, but +Opportunity would be too strong for either of these--Temptation would +shiver their restraints. + +I was no pope--I could not boast infallibility: in short, if I stayed, +the probability was that, in three months’ time, a practical modern +French novel would be in full process of concoction under the roof of +the unsuspecting Pelet. Now, modern French novels are not to my +taste, either practically or theoretically. Limited as had yet been my +experience of life, I had once had the opportunity of contemplating, +near at hand, an example of the results produced by a course of +interesting and romantic domestic treachery. No golden halo of fiction +was about this example, I saw it bare and real, and it was very +loathsome. I saw a mind degraded by the practice of mean subterfuge, by +the habit of perfidious deception, and a body depraved by the infectious +influence of the vice-polluted soul. I had suffered much from the forced +and prolonged view of this spectacle; those sufferings I did not now +regret, for their simple recollection acted as a most wholesome antidote +to temptation. They had inscribed on my reason the conviction that +unlawful pleasure, trenching on another’s rights, is delusive and +envenomed pleasure--its hollowness disappoints at the time, its poison +cruelly tortures afterwards, its effects deprave for ever. + +From all this resulted the conclusion that I must leave Pelet’s, and +that instantly; “but,” said Prudence, “you know not where to go, nor how +to live;” and then the dream of true love came over me: Frances Henri +seemed to stand at my side; her slender waist to invite my arm; her +hand to court my hand; I felt it was made to nestle in mine; I could not +relinquish my right to it, nor could I withdraw my eyes for ever from +hers, where I saw so much happiness, such a correspondence of heart with +heart; over whose expression I had such influence; where I could kindle +bliss, infuse awe, stir deep delight, rouse sparkling spirit, and +sometimes waken pleasurable dread. My hopes to will and possess, my +resolutions to merit and rise, rose in array against me; and here I was +about to plunge into the gulf of absolute destitution; “and all this,” + suggested an inward voice, “because you fear an evil which may never +happen!” “It will happen; you KNOW it will,” answered that stubborn +monitor, Conscience. “Do what you feel is right; obey me, and even in +the sloughs of want I will plant for you firm footing.” And then, as I +walked fast along the road, there rose upon me a strange, inly-felt idea +of some Great Being, unseen, but all present, who in His beneficence +desired only my welfare, and now watched the struggle of good and evil +in my heart, and waited to see whether I should obey His voice, heard in +the whispers of my conscience, or lend an ear to the sophisms by which +His enemy and mine--the Spirit of Evil--sought to lead me astray. +Rough and steep was the path indicated by divine suggestion; mossy and +declining the green way along which Temptation strewed flowers; but +whereas, methought, the Deity of Love, the Friend of all that exists, +would smile well-pleased were I to gird up my loins and address myself +to the rude ascent; so, on the other hand, each inclination to the +velvet declivity seemed to kindle a gleam of triumph on the brow of the +man-hating, God-defying demon. Sharp and short I turned round; fast I +retraced my steps; in half an hour I was again at M. Pelet’s: I sought +him in his study; brief parley, concise explanation sufficed; my manner +proved that I was resolved; he, perhaps, at heart approved my +decision. After twenty minutes’ conversation, I re-entered my own room, +self-deprived of the means of living, self-sentenced to leave my present +home, with the short notice of a week in which to provide another. + + + + + + +CHAPTER XXI. + +DIRECTLY as I closed the door, I saw laid on the table two letters; my +thought was, that they were notes of invitation from the friends of some +of my pupils; I had received such marks of attention occasionally, and +with me, who had no friends, correspondence of more interest was out +of the question; the postman’s arrival had never yet been an event of +interest to me since I came to Brussels. I laid my hand carelessly on +the documents, and coldly and slowly glancing at them, I prepared to +break the seals; my eye was arrested and my hand too; I saw what excited +me, as if I had found a vivid picture where I expected only to discover +a blank page: on one cover was an English postmark; on the other, a +lady’s clear, fine autograph; the last I opened first:-- + +“MONSIEUR, + +“I FOUND out what you had done the very morning after your visit to me; +you might be sure I should dust the china, every day; and, as no one but +you had been in my room for a week, and as fairy-money is not current +in Brussels, I could not doubt who left the twenty francs on the +chimney-piece. I thought I heard you stir the vase when I was stooping +to look for your glove under the table, and I wondered you should +imagine it had got into such a little cup. Now, monsieur, the money +is not mine, and I shall not keep it; I will not send it in this note +because it might be lost--besides, it is heavy; but I will restore it +to you the first time I see you, and you must make no difficulties about +taking it; because, in the first place, I am sure, monsieur, you can +understand that one likes to pay one’s debts; that it is satisfactory +to owe no man anything; and, in the second place, I can now very well +afford to be honest, as I am provided with a situation. This last +circumstance is, indeed, the reason of my writing to you, for it is +pleasant to communicate good news; and, in these days, I have only my +master to whom I can tell anything. + +“A week ago, monsieur, I was sent for by a Mrs. Wharton, an English +lady; her eldest daughter was going to be married, and some rich +relation having made her a present of a veil and dress in costly old +lace, as precious, they said, almost as jewels, but a little damaged by +time, I was commissioned to put them in repair. I had to do it at the +house; they gave me, besides, some embroidery to complete, and nearly +a week elapsed before I had finished everything. While I worked, Miss +Wharton often came into the room and sat with me, and so did Mrs. +Wharton; they made me talk English; asked how I had learned to speak it +so well; then they inquired what I knew besides--what books I had read; +soon they seemed to make a sort of wonder of me, considering me no doubt +as a learned grisette. One afternoon, Mrs. Wharton brought in a Parisian +lady to test the accuracy of my knowledge of French; the result of +it was that, owing probably in a great degree to the mother’s and +daughter’s good humour about the marriage, which inclined them to +do beneficent deeds, and partly, I think, because they are naturally +benevolent people, they decided that the wish I had expressed to do +something more than mend lace was a very legitimate one; and the same +day they took me in their carriage to Mrs. D.’s, who is the directress +of the first English school at Brussels. It seems she happened to be in +want of a French lady to give lessons in geography, history, grammar, +and composition, in the French language. Mrs. Wharton recommended me +very warmly; and, as two of her younger daughters are pupils in the +house, her patronage availed to get me the place. It was settled that I +am to attend six hours daily (for, happily, it was not required that +I should live in the house; I should have been sorry to leave my +lodgings), and, for this, Mrs. D. will give me twelve hundred francs per +annum. + +“You see, therefore, monsieur, that I am now rich; richer almost than +I ever hoped to be: I feel thankful for it, especially as my sight was +beginning to be injured by constant working at fine lace; and I was +getting, too, very weary of sitting up late at nights, and yet not being +able to find time for reading or study. I began to fear that I should +fall ill, and be unable to pay my way; this fear is now, in a great +measure, removed; and, in truth, monsieur, I am very grateful to God for +the relief; and I feel it necessary, almost, to speak of my happiness +to some one who is kind-hearted enough to derive joy from seeing others +joyful. I could not, therefore, resist the temptation of writing to you; +I argued with myself it is very pleasant for me to write, and it will +not be exactly painful, though it may be tiresome to monsieur to +read. Do not be too angry with my circumlocution and inelegancies of +expression, and, believe me + +“Your attached pupil, + +“F. E. HENRI.” + +Having read this letter, I mused on its contents for a few +moments--whether with sentiments pleasurable or otherwise I will +hereafter note--and then took up the other. It was directed in a hand +to me unknown--small, and rather neat; neither masculine nor exactly +feminine; the seal bore a coat of arms, concerning which I could only +decipher that it was not that of the Seacombe family, consequently the +epistle could be from none of my almost forgotten, and certainly quite +forgetting patrician relations. From whom, then, was it? I removed the +envelope; the note folded within ran as follows: + +“I have no doubt in the world that you are doing well in that greasy +Flanders; living probably on the fat of the unctuous land; sitting like +a black-haired, tawny-skinned, long-nosed Israelite by the flesh-pots +of Egypt; or like a rascally son of Levi near the brass cauldrons of the +sanctuary, and every now and then plunging in a consecrated hook, and +drawing out of the sea of broth the fattest of heave-shoulders and the +fleshiest of wave-breasts. I know this, because you never write to any +one in England. Thankless dog that you are! I, by the sovereign efficacy +of my recommendation, got you the place where you are now living in +clover, and yet not a word of gratitude, or even acknowledgment, have +you ever offered in return; but I am coming to see you, and small +conception can you, with your addled aristocratic brains, form of the +sort of moral kicking I have, ready packed in my carpet-bag, destined to +be presented to you immediately on my arrival. + +“Meantime I know all about your affairs, and have just got information, +by Brown’s last letter, that you are said to be on the point of forming +an advantageous match with a pursy, little Belgian schoolmistress--a +Mdlle. Zenobie, or some such name. Won’t I have a look at her when I +come over! And this you may rely on: if she pleases my taste, or if I +think it worth while in a pecuniary point of view, I’ll pounce on your +prize and bear her away triumphant in spite of your teeth. Yet I don’t +like dumpies either, and Brown says she is little and stout--the better +fitted for a wiry, starved-looking chap like you. “Be on the look-out, +for you know neither the day nor hour when your ----” (I don’t wish to +blaspheme, so I’ll leave a blank)--cometh. + +“Yours truly, + +“HUNSDEN YORKE HUNSDEN.” + +“Humph!” said I; and ere I laid the letter down, I again glanced at the +small, neat handwriting, not a bit like that of a mercantile man, nor, +indeed, of any man except Hunsden himself. They talk of affinities +between the autograph and the character: what affinity was there here? +I recalled the writer’s peculiar face and certain traits I suspected, +rather than knew, to appertain to his nature, and I answered, “A great +deal.” + +Hunsden, then, was coming to Brussels, and coming I knew not when; +coming charged with the expectation of finding me on the summit of +prosperity, about to be married, to step into a warm nest, to lie +comfortably down by the side of a snug, well-fed little mate. + +“I wish him joy of the fidelity of the picture he has painted,” thought +I. “What will he say when, instead of a pair of plump turtle doves, +billing and cooing in a bower of roses, he finds a single lean +cormorant, standing mateless and shelterless on poverty’s bleak cliff? +Oh, confound him! Let him come, and let him laugh at the contrast +between rumour and fact. Were he the devil himself, instead of being +merely very like him, I’d not condescend to get out of his way, or to +forge a smile or a cheerful word wherewith to avert his sarcasm.” + +Then I recurred to the other letter: that struck a chord whose sound I +could not deaden by thrusting my fingers into my ears, for it vibrated +within; and though its swell might be exquisite music, its cadence was a +groan. + +That Frances was relieved from the pressure of want, that the curse of +excessive labour was taken off her, filled me with happiness; that her +first thought in prosperity should be to augment her joy by sharing +it with me, met and satisfied the wish of my heart. Two results of her +letter were then pleasant, sweet as two draughts of nectar; but applying +my lips for the third time to the cup, and they were excoriated as with +vinegar and gall. + +Two persons whose desires are moderate may live well enough in Brussels +on an income which would scarcely afford a respectable maintenance for +one in London: and that, not because the necessaries of life are so +much dearer in the latter capital, or taxes so much higher than in the +former, but because the English surpass in folly all the nations on +God’s earth, and are more abject slaves to custom, to opinion, to +the desire to keep up a certain appearance, than the Italians are to +priestcraft, the French to vain-glory, the Russians to their Czar, or +the Germans to black beer. I have seen a degree of sense in the modest +arrangement of one homely Belgian household, that might put to shame the +elegance, the superfluities, the luxuries, the strained refinements of +a hundred genteel English mansions. In Belgium, provided you can +make money, you may save it; this is scarcely possible in England; +ostentation there lavishes in a month what industry has earned in a +year. More shame to all classes in that most bountiful and beggarly +country for their servile following of Fashion; I could write a chapter +or two on this subject, but must forbear, at least for the present. Had +I retained my 60l. per annum I could, now that Frances was in possession +of 50l., have gone straight to her this very evening, and spoken out the +words which, repressed, kept fretting my heart with fever; our united +income would, as we should have managed it, have sufficed well for +our mutual support; since we lived in a country where economy was not +confounded with meanness, where frugality in dress, food, and furniture, +was not synonymous with vulgarity in these various points. But the +placeless usher, bare of resource, and unsupported by connections, must +not think of this; such a sentiment as love, such a word as marriage, +were misplaced in his heart, and on his lips. Now for the first time did +I truly feel what it was to be poor; now did the sacrifice I had made +in casting from me the means of living put on a new aspect; instead of +a correct, just, honourable act, it seemed a deed at once light and +fanatical; I took several turns in my room, under the goading influence +of most poignant remorse; I walked a quarter of an hour from the wall to +the window; and at the window, self-reproach seemed to face me; at the +wall, self-disdain: all at once out spoke Conscience:-- + +“Down, stupid tormenters!” cried she; “the man has done his duty; +you shall not bait him thus by thoughts of what might have been; he +relinquished a temporary and contingent good to avoid a permanent and +certain evil he did well. Let him reflect now, and when your blinding +dust and deafening hum subside, he will discover a path.” + +I sat down; I propped my forehead on both my hands; I thought and +thought an hour--two hours; vainly. I seemed like one sealed in a +subterranean vault, who gazes at utter blackness; at blackness ensured +by yard-thick stone walls around, and by piles of building above, +expecting light to penetrate through granite, and through cement firm +as granite. But there are chinks, or there may be chinks, in the +best adjusted masonry; there was a chink in my cavernous cell; for, +eventually, I saw, or seemed to see, a ray--pallid, indeed, and cold, +and doubtful, but still a ray, for it showed that narrow path which +conscience had promised after two, three hours’ torturing research in +brain and memory, I disinterred certain remains of circumstances, and +conceived a hope that by putting them together an expedient might be +framed, and a resource discovered. The circumstances were briefly these: + +Some three months ago M. Pelet had, on the occasion of his fete, given +the boys a treat, which treat consisted in a party of pleasure to a +certain place of public resort in the outskirts of Brussels, of which +I do not at this moment remember the name, but near it were several of +those lakelets called etangs; and there was one etang, larger than the +rest, where on holidays people were accustomed to amuse themselves by +rowing round it in little boats. The boys having eaten an unlimited +quantity of “gaufres,” and drank several bottles of Louvain beer, amid +the shades of a garden made and provided for such crams, petitioned +the director for leave to take a row on the etang. Half a dozen of the +eldest succeeded in obtaining leave, and I was commissioned to accompany +them as surveillant. Among the half dozen happened to be a certain Jean +Baptiste Vandenhuten, a most ponderous young Flamand, not tall, but +even now, at the early age of sixteen, possessing a breadth and depth of +personal development truly national. It chanced that Jean was the first +lad to step into the boat; he stumbled, rolled to one side, the boat +revolted at his weight and capsized. Vandenhuten sank like lead, rose, +sank again. My coat and waistcoat were off in an instant; I had not been +brought up at Eton and boated and bathed and swam there ten long years +for nothing; it was a natural and easy act for me to leap to the rescue. +The lads and the boatmen yelled; they thought there would be two deaths +by drowning instead of one; but as Jean rose the third time, I clutched +him by one leg and the collar, and in three minutes more both he and I +were safe landed. To speak heaven’s truth, my merit in the action was +small indeed, for I had run no risk, and subsequently did not even catch +cold from the wetting; but when M. and Madame Vandenhuten, of whom Jean +Baptiste was the sole hope, came to hear of the exploit, they seemed +to think I had evinced a bravery and devotion which no thanks could +sufficiently repay. Madame, in particular, was “certain I must have +dearly loved their sweet son, or I would not thus have hazarded my own +life to save his.” Monsieur, an honest-looking, though phlegmatic man, +said very little, but he would not suffer me to leave the room, till +I had promised that in case I ever stood in need of help I would, by +applying to him, give him a chance of discharging the obligation under +which he affirmed I had laid him. These words, then, were my glimmer of +light; it was here I found my sole outlet; and in truth, though the cold +light roused, it did not cheer me; nor did the outlet seem such as I +should like to pass through. Right I had none to M. Vandenhuten’s good +offices; it was not on the ground of merit I could apply to him; no, I +must stand on that of necessity: I had no work; I wanted work; my best +chance of obtaining it lay in securing his recommendation. This I knew +could be had by asking for it; not to ask, because the request revolted +my pride and contradicted my habits, would, I felt, be an indulgence of +false and indolent fastidiousness. I might repent the omission all my +life; I would not then be guilty of it. + +That evening I went to M. Vandenhuten’s; but I had bent the bow and +adjusted the shaft in vain; the string broke. I rang the bell at the +great door (it was a large, handsome house in an expensive part of the +town); a manservant opened; I asked for M. Vandenhuten; M. Vandenhuten +and family were all out of town--gone to Ostend--did not know when they +would be back. I left my card, and retraced my steps. + + + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +A WEEK is gone; LE JOUR DES NOCES arrived; the marriage was solemnized +at St. Jacques; Mdlle. Zoraide became Madame Pelet, NEE Reuter; and, in +about an hour after this transformation, “the happy pair,” as newspapers +phrase it, were on their way to Paris; where, according to previous +arrangement, the honeymoon was to be spent. The next day I quitted the +pensionnat. Myself and my chattels (some books and clothes) were soon +transferred to a modest lodging I had hired in a street not far off. In +half an hour my clothes were arranged in a commode, my books on a shelf, +and the “flitting” was effected. I should not have been unhappy that day +had not one pang tortured me--a longing to go to the Rue Notre Dame +aux Neiges, resisted, yet irritated by an inward resolve to avoid +that street till such time as the mist of doubt should clear from my +prospects. + +It was a sweet September evening--very mild, very still; I had nothing +to do; at that hour I knew Frances would be equally released from +occupation; I thought she might possibly be wishing for her master, I +knew I wished for my pupil. Imagination began with her low whispers, +infusing into my soul the soft tale of pleasures that might be. + +“You will find her reading or writing,” said she; “you can take your +seat at her side; you need not startle her peace by undue excitement; +you need not embarrass her manner by unusual action or language. Be as +you always are; look over what she has written; listen while she reads; +chide her, or quietly approve; you know the effect of either system; you +know her smile when pleased, you know the play of her looks when roused; +you have the secret of awakening what expression you will, and you can +choose amongst that pleasant variety. With you she will sit silent as +long as it suits you to talk alone; you can hold her under a potent +spell: intelligent as she is, eloquent as she can be, you can seal her +lips, and veil her bright countenance with diffidence; yet, you know, +she is not all monotonous mildness; you have seen, with a sort of +strange pleasure, revolt, scorn, austerity, bitterness, lay energetic +claim to a place in her feelings and physiognomy; you know that few +could rule her as you do; you know she might break, but never bend under +the hand of Tyranny and Injustice, but Reason and Affection can guide +her by a sign. Try their influence now. Go--they are not passions; you +may handle them safely.” + +“I will NOT go was my answer to the sweet temptress. A man is master +of himself to a certain point, but not beyond it. Could I seek Frances +to-night, could I sit with her alone in a quiet room, and address her +only in the language of Reason and Affection?” + +“No,” was the brief, fervent reply of that Love which had conquered and +now controlled me. + +Time seemed to stagnate; the sun would not go down; my watch ticked, but +I thought the hands were paralyzed. + +“What a hot evening!” I cried, throwing open the lattice; for, indeed, I +had seldom felt so feverish. Hearing a step ascending the common stair, +I wondered whether the “locataire,” now mounting to his apartments, were +as unsettled in mind and condition as I was, or whether he lived in the +calm of certain resources, and in the freedom of unfettered feelings. +What! was he coming in person to solve the problem hardly proposed in +inaudible thought? He had actually knocked at the door--at MY door; a +smart, prompt rap; and, almost before I could invite him in, he was over +the threshold, and had closed the door behind him. + +“And how are you?” asked an indifferent, quiet voice, in the English +language; while my visitor, without any sort of bustle or introduction, +put his hat on the table, and his gloves into his hat, and drawing +the only armchair the room afforded a little forward, seated himself +tranquilly therein. + +“Can’t you speak?” he inquired in a few moments, in a tone whose +nonchalance seemed to intimate that it was much the same thing whether +I answered or not. The fact is, I found it desirable to have recourse to +my good friends “les besicles;” not exactly to ascertain the identity of +my visitor--for I already knew him, confound his impudence! but to see +how he looked--to get a clear notion of his mien and countenance. +I wiped the glasses very deliberately, and put them on quite as +deliberately; adjusting them so as not to hurt the bridge of my nose +or get entangled in my short tufts of dun hair. I was sitting in the +window-seat, with my back to the light, and I had him VIS-A-VIS; a +position he would much rather have had reversed; for, at any time, he +preferred scrutinizing to being scrutinized. Yes, it was HE, and no +mistake, with his six feet of length arranged in a sitting attitude; +with his dark travelling surtout with its velvet collar, his gray +pantaloons, his black stock, and his face, the most original one Nature +ever modelled, yet the least obtrusively so; not one feature that could +be termed marked or odd, yet the effect of the whole unique. There is no +use in attempting to describe what is indescribable. Being in no hurry +to address him, I sat and stared at my ease. + +“Oh, that’s your game--is it?” said he at last. “Well, we’ll see which +is soonest tired.” And he slowly drew out a fine cigar-case, picked one +to his taste, lit it, took a book from the shelf convenient to his hand, +then leaning back, proceeded to smoke and read as tranquilly as if he +had been in his own room, in Grove-street, X---shire, England. I knew +he was capable of continuing in that attitude till midnight, if he +conceived the whim, so I rose, and taking the book from his hand, I +said,-- + +“You did not ask for it, and you shall not have it.” + +“It is silly and dull,” he observed, “so I have not lost much;” then the +spell being broken, he went on: “I thought you lived at Pelet’s; I went +there this afternoon expecting to be starved to death by sitting in +a boarding-school drawing-room, and they told me you were gone, had +departed this morning; you had left your address behind you though, +which I wondered at; it was a more practical and sensible precaution +than I should have imagined you capable of. Why did you leave?” + +“Because M. Pelet has just married the lady whom you and Mr. Brown +assigned to me as my wife.” + +“Oh, indeed!” replied Hunsden with a short laugh; “so you’ve lost both +your wife and your place?” + +“Precisely so.” + +I saw him give a quick, covert glance all round my room; he marked its +narrow limits, its scanty furniture: in an instant he had comprehended +the state of matters--had absolved me from the crime of prosperity. A +curious effect this discovery wrought in his strange mind; I am morally +certain that if he had found me installed in a handsome parlour, +lounging on a soft couch, with a pretty, wealthy wife at my side, he +would have hated me; a brief, cold, haughty visit, would in such a case +have been the extreme limit of his civilities, and never would he have +come near me more, so long as the tide of fortune bore me smoothly on +its surface; but the painted furniture, the bare walls, the cheerless +solitude of my room relaxed his rigid pride, and I know not what +softening change had taken place both in his voice and look ere he spoke +again. + +“You have got another place?” + +“No.” + +“You are in the way of getting one?” + +“No.” + +“That is bad; have you applied to Brown?” + +“No, indeed.” + +“You had better; he often has it in his power to give useful information +in such matters.” + +“He served me once very well; I have no claim on him, and am not in the +humour to bother him again.” + +“Oh, if you’re bashful, and dread being intrusive, you need only +commission me. I shall see him to-night; I can put in a word.” + +“I beg you will not, Mr. Hunsden; I am in your debt already; you did me +an important service when I was at X----; got me out of a den where I +was dying: that service I have never repaid, and at present I decline +positively adding another item to the account.” + +“If the wind sits that way, I’m satisfied. I thought my unexampled +generosity in turning you out of that accursed counting-house would be +duly appreciated some day: ‘Cast your bread on the waters, and it +shall be found after many days,’ say the Scriptures. Yes, that’s right, +lad--make much of me--I’m a nonpareil: there’s nothing like me in the +common herd. In the meantime, to put all humbug aside and talk sense for +a few moments, you would be greatly the better of a situation, and what +is more, you are a fool if you refuse to take one from any hand that +offers it.” + +“Very well, Mr. Hunsden; now you have settled that point, talk of +something else. What news from X----?” + +“I have not settled that point, or at least there is another to settle +before we get to X----. Is this Miss Zenobie” (Zoraide, interposed +I)--“well, Zoraide--is she really married to Pelet?” + +“I tell you yes--and if you don’t believe me, go and ask the cure of St. +Jacques.” + +“And your heart is broken?” + +“I am not aware that it is; it feels all right--beats as usual.” + +“Then your feelings are less superfine than I took them to be; you must +be a coarse, callous character, to bear such a thwack without staggering +under it.” + +“Staggering under it? What the deuce is there to stagger under in the +circumstance of a Belgian schoolmistress marrying a French schoolmaster? +The progeny will doubtless be a strange hybrid race; but that’s their +look-out--not mine.” + +“He indulges in scurrilous jests, and the bride was his affianced one!” + +“Who said so?” + +“Brown.” + +“I’ll tell you what, Hunsden--Brown is an old gossip.” + +“He is; but in the meantime, if his gossip be founded on less than +fact--if you took no particular interest in Miss Zoraide--why, O +youthful pedagogue! did you leave your place in consequence of her +becoming Madame Pelet?” + +“Because--” I felt my face grow a little hot; “because--in short, Mr. +Hunsden, I decline answering any more questions,” and I plunged my hands +deep in my breeches pocket. + +Hunsden triumphed: his eyes--his laugh announced victory. + +“What the deuce are you laughing at, Mr. Hunsden?” + +“At your exemplary composure. Well, lad, I’ll not bore you; I see how +it is: Zoraide has jilted you--married some one richer, as any sensible +woman would have done if she had had the chance.” + +I made no reply--I let him think so, not feeling inclined to enter into +an explanation of the real state of things, and as little to forge a +false account; but it was not easy to blind Hunsden; my very silence, +instead of convincing him that he had hit the truth, seemed to render +him doubtful about it; he went on:-- + +“I suppose the affair has been conducted as such affairs always +are amongst rational people: you offered her your youth and your +talents--such as they are--in exchange for her position and money: I +don’t suppose you took appearance, or what is called LOVE, into the +account--for I understand she is older than you, and Brown says, rather +sensible-looking than beautiful. She, having then no chance of making +a better bargain, was at first inclined to come to terms with you, but +Pelet--the head of a flourishing school--stepped in with a higher bid; +she accepted, and he has got her: a correct transaction--perfectly +so--business-like and legitimate. And now we’ll talk of something else.” + +“Do,” said I, very glad to dismiss the topic, and especially glad to +have baffled the sagacity of my cross-questioner--if, indeed, I had +baffled it; for though his words now led away from the dangerous point, +his eyes, keen and watchful, seemed still preoccupied with the former +idea. + +“You want to hear news from X----? And what interest can you have in +X----? You left no friends there, for you made none. Nobody ever asks +after you--neither man nor woman; and if I mention your name in company, +the men look as if I had spoken of Prester John; and the women sneer +covertly. Our X---- belles must have disliked you. How did you excite +their displeasure?” + +“I don’t know. I seldom spoke to them--they were nothing to me. I +considered them only as something to be glanced at from a distance; +their dresses and faces were often pleasing enough to the eye: but +I could not understand their conversation, nor even read their +countenances. When I caught snatches of what they said, I could never +make much of it; and the play of their lips and eyes did not help me at +all.” + +“That was your fault, not theirs. There are sensible, as well as +handsome women in X----; women it is worth any man’s while to talk to, +and with whom I can talk with pleasure: but you had and have no pleasant +address; there is nothing in you to induce a woman to be affable. I have +remarked you sitting near the door in a room full of company, bent on +hearing, not on speaking; on observing, not on entertaining; looking +frigidly shy at the commencement of a party, confusingly vigilant about +the middle, and insultingly weary towards the end. Is that the way, do +you think, ever to communicate pleasure or excite interest? No; and if +you are generally unpopular, it is because you deserve to be so.” + +“Content!” I ejaculated. + +“No, you are not content; you see beauty always turning its back on +you; you are mortified and then you sneer. I verily believe all that is +desirable on earth--wealth, reputation, love--will for ever to you be +the ripe grapes on the high trellis: you’ll look up at them; they will +tantalize in you the lust of the eye; but they are out of reach: you +have not the address to fetch a ladder, and you’ll go away calling them +sour.” + +Cutting as these words might have been under some circumstances, they +drew no blood now. My life was changed; my experience had been varied +since I left X----, but Hunsden could not know this; he had seen me only +in the character of Mr. Crimsworth’s clerk--a dependant amongst wealthy +strangers, meeting disdain with a hard front, conscious of an unsocial +and unattractive exterior, refusing to sue for notice which I was sure +would be withheld, declining to evince an admiration which I knew would +be scorned as worthless. He could not be aware that since then youth and +loveliness had been to me everyday objects; that I had studied them at +leisure and closely, and had seen the plain texture of truth under +the embroidery of appearance; nor could he, keen-sighted as he +was, penetrate into my heart, search my brain, and read my peculiar +sympathies and antipathies; he had not known me long enough, or well +enough, to perceive how low my feelings would ebb under some influences, +powerful over most minds; how high, how fast they would flow under +other influences, that perhaps acted with the more intense force on me, +because they acted on me alone. Neither could he suspect for an instant +the history of my communications with Mdlle. Reuter; secret to him +and to all others was the tale of her strange infatuation; her +blandishments, her wiles had been seen but by me, and to me only were +they known; but they had changed me, for they had proved that I COULD +impress. A sweeter secret nestled deeper in my heart; one full of +tenderness and as full of strength: it took the sting out of Hunsden’s +sarcasm; it kept me unbent by shame, and unstirred by wrath. But of all +this I could say nothing--nothing decisive at least; uncertainty sealed +my lips, and during the interval of silence by which alone I replied to +Mr. Hunsden, I made up my mind to be for the present wholly misjudged +by him, and misjudged I was; he thought he had been rather too hard +upon me, and that I was crushed by the weight of his upbraidings; so to +re-assure me he said, doubtless I should mend some day; I was only at +the beginning of life yet; and since happily I was not quite without +sense, every false step I made would be a good lesson. + +Just then I turned my face a little to the light; the approach of +twilight, and my position in the window-seat, had, for the last ten +minutes, prevented him from studying my countenance; as I moved, +however, he caught an expression which he thus interpreted:-- + +“Confound it! How doggedly self-approving the lad looks! I thought he +was fit to die with shame, and there he sits grinning smiles, as good as +to say, ‘Let the world wag as it will, I’ve the philosopher’s stone +in my waist-coat pocket, and the elixir of life in my cupboard; I’m +independent of both Fate and Fortune.’” + +“Hunsden--you spoke of grapes; I was thinking of a fruit I like better +than your X---- hot-house grapes--an unique fruit, growing wild, which I +have marked as my own, and hope one day to gather and taste. It is of no +use your offering me the draught of bitterness, or threatening me with +death by thirst: I have the anticipation of sweetness on my palate; the +hope of freshness on my lips; I can reject the unsavoury, and endure the +exhausting.” + +“For how long?” + +“Till the next opportunity for effort; and as the prize of success will +be a treasure after my own heart, I’ll bring a bull’s strength to the +struggle.” + +“Bad luck crushes bulls as easily as bullaces; and, I believe, the fury +dogs you: you were born with a wooden spoon in your mouth, depend on +it.” + +“I believe you; and I mean to make my wooden spoon do the work of some +people’s silver ladles: grasped firmly, and handled nimbly, even a +wooden spoon will shovel up broth.” + +Hunsden rose: “I see,” said he; “I suppose you’re one of those who +develop best unwatched, and act best unaided--work your own way. Now, +I’ll go.” And, without another word, he was going; at the door he +turned:-- + +“Crimsworth Hall is sold,” said he. + +“Sold!” was my echo. + +“Yes; you know, of course, that your brother failed three months ago?” + +“What! Edward Crimsworth?” + +“Precisely; and his wife went home to her father’s; when affairs went +awry, his temper sympathized with them; he used her ill; I told you he +would be a tyrant to her some day; as to him--” + +“Ay, as to him--what is become of him?” + +“Nothing extraordinary--don’t be alarmed; he put himself under the +protection of the court, compounded with his creditors--tenpence in +the pound; in six weeks set up again, coaxed back his wife, and is +flourishing like a green bay-tree.” + +“And Crimsworth Hall--was the furniture sold too?” + +“Everything--from the grand piano down to the rolling-pin.” + +“And the contents of the oak dining-room--were they sold?” + +“Of course; why should the sofas and chairs of that room be held more +sacred than those of any other?” + +“And the pictures?” + +“What pictures? Crimsworth had no special collection that I know of--he +did not profess to be an amateur.” + +“There were two portraits, one on each side the mantelpiece; you cannot +have forgotten them, Mr. Hunsden; you once noticed that of the lady--” + +“Oh, I know! the thin-faced gentlewoman with a shawl put on like +drapery.--Why, as a matter of course, it would be sold among the other +things. If you had been rich, you might have bought it, for I remember +you said it represented your mother: you see what it is to be without a +sou.” + +I did. “But surely,” I thought to myself, “I shall not always be so +poverty-stricken; I may one day buy it back yet.--Who purchased it? do +you know?” I asked. + +“How is it likely? I never inquired who purchased anything; there spoke +the unpractical man--to imagine all the world is interested in what +interests himself! Now, good night--I’m off for Germany to-morrow +morning; I shall be back here in six weeks, and possibly I may call +and see you again; I wonder whether you’ll be still out of place!” + he laughed, as mockingly, as heartlessly as Mephistopheles, and so +laughing, vanished. + +Some people, however indifferent they may become after a considerable +space of absence, always contrive to leave a pleasant impression just +at parting; not so Hunsden, a conference with him affected one like a +draught of Peruvian bark; it seemed a concentration of the specially +harsh, stringent, bitter; whether, like bark, it invigorated, I scarcely +knew. + +A ruffled mind makes a restless pillow; I slept little on the night +after this interview; towards morning I began to doze, but hardly had my +slumber become sleep, when I was roused from it by hearing a noise in +my sitting room, to which my bed-room adjoined--a step, and a shoving of +furniture; the movement lasted barely two minutes; with the closing +of the door it ceased. I listened; not a mouse stirred; perhaps I +had dreamt it; perhaps a locataire had made a mistake, and entered my +apartment instead of his own. It was yet but five o’clock; neither I nor +the day were wide awake; I turned, and was soon unconscious. When I did +rise, about two hours later, I had forgotten the circumstance; the first +thing I saw, however, on quitting my chamber, recalled it; just pushed +in at the door of my sitting-room, and still standing on end, was a +wooden packing-case--a rough deal affair, wide but shallow; a porter +had doubtless shoved it forward, but seeing no occupant of the room, had +left it at the entrance. + +“That is none of mine,” thought I, approaching; “it must be meant for +somebody else.” I stooped to examine the address:-- + +“Wm. Crimsworth, Esq., No --, -- St., Brussels.” + +I was puzzled, but concluding that the best way to obtain information +was to ask within, I cut the cords and opened the case. Green baize +enveloped its contents, sewn carefully at the sides; I ripped the +pack-thread with my pen-knife, and still, as the seam gave way, glimpses +of gilding appeared through the widening interstices. Boards and baize +being at length removed, I lifted from the case a large picture, in a +magnificent frame; leaning it against a chair, in a position where the +light from the window fell favourably upon it, I stepped back--already I +had mounted my spectacles. A portrait-painter’s sky (the most sombre and +threatening of welkins), and distant trees of a conventional depth of +hue, raised in full relief a pale, pensive-looking female face, shadowed +with soft dark hair, almost blending with the equally dark clouds; +large, solemn eyes looked reflectively into mine; a thin cheek rested +on a delicate little hand; a shawl, artistically draped, half hid, half +showed a slight figure. A listener (had there been one) might have heard +me, after ten minutes’ silent gazing, utter the word “Mother!” I might +have said more--but with me, the first word uttered aloud in soliloquy +rouses consciousness; it reminds me that only crazy people talk to +themselves, and then I think out my monologue, instead of speaking it. +I had thought a long while, and a long while had contemplated the +intelligence, the sweetness, and--alas! the sadness also of those fine, +grey eyes, the mental power of that forehead, and the rare sensibility +of that serious mouth, when my glance, travelling downwards, fell on a +narrow billet, stuck in the corner of the picture, between the frame and +the canvas. Then I first asked, “Who sent this picture? Who thought of +me, saved it out of the wreck of Crimsworth Hall, and now commits it to +the care of its natural keeper?” I took the note from its niche; thus it +spoke:-- + +“There is a sort of stupid pleasure in giving a child sweets, a fool his +bells, a dog a bone. You are repaid by seeing the child besmear his face +with sugar; by witnessing how the fool’s ecstasy makes a greater fool of +him than ever; by watching the dog’s nature come out over his bone. +In giving William Crimsworth his mother’s picture, I give him sweets, +bells, and bone all in one; what grieves me is, that I cannot behold +the result; I would have added five shillings more to my bid if the +auctioneer could only have promised me that pleasure. + +“H. Y. H. + +“P.S.--You said last night you positively declined adding another item +to your account with me; don’t you think I’ve saved you that trouble?” + +I muffled the picture in its green baize covering, restored it to the +case, and having transported the whole concern to my bed-room, put it +out of sight under my bed. My pleasure was now poisoned by pungent pain; +I determined to look no more till I could look at my ease. If Hunsden +had come in at that moment, I should have said to him, “I owe you +nothing, Hunsden--not a fraction of a farthing: you have paid yourself +in taunts!” + +Too anxious to remain any longer quiescent, I had no sooner breakfasted, +than I repaired once more to M. Vandenhuten’s, scarcely hoping to find +him at home; for a week had barely elapsed since my first call: but +fancying I might be able to glean information as to the time when his +return was expected. A better result awaited me than I had anticipated, +for though the family were yet at Ostend, M. Vandenhuten had come over +to Brussels on business for the day. He received me with the quiet +kindness of a sincere though not excitable man. I had not sat five +minutes alone with him in his bureau, before I became aware of a sense +of ease in his presence, such as I rarely experienced with strangers. +I was surprised at my own composure, for, after all, I had come on +business to me exceedingly painful--that of soliciting a favour. I asked +on what basis the calm rested--I feared it might be deceptive. Ere long +I caught a glimpse of the ground, and at once I felt assured of its +solidity; I knew where it was. + +M. Vandenhuten was rich, respected, and influential; I, poor, despised +and powerless; so we stood to the world at large as members of the +world’s society; but to each other, as a pair of human beings, our +positions were reversed. The Dutchman (he was not Flamand, but pure +Hollandais) was slow, cool, of rather dense intelligence, though sound +and accurate judgment; the Englishman far more nervous, active, quicker +both to plan and to practise, to conceive and to realize. The Dutchman +was benevolent, the Englishman susceptible; in short our characters +dovetailed, but my mind having more fire and action than his, +instinctively assumed and kept the predominance. + +This point settled, and my position well ascertained, I addressed him +on the subject of my affairs with that genuine frankness which full +confidence can alone inspire. It was a pleasure to him to be so appealed +to; he thanked me for giving him this opportunity of using a little +exertion in my behalf. I went on to explain to him that my wish was not +so much to be helped, as to be put into the way of helping myself; +of him I did not want exertion--that was to be my part--but only +information and recommendation. Soon after I rose to go. He held out his +hand at parting--an action of greater significance with foreigners +than with Englishmen. As I exchanged a smile with him, I thought the +benevolence of his truthful face was better than the intelligence of my +own. Characters of my order experience a balm-like solace in the contact +of such souls as animated the honest breast of Victor Vandenhuten. + +The next fortnight was a period of many alternations; my existence +during its lapse resembled a sky of one of those autumnal nights which +are specially haunted by meteors and falling stars. Hopes and fears, +expectations and disappointments, descended in glancing showers from +zenith to horizon; but all were transient, and darkness followed swift +each vanishing apparition. M. Vandenhuten aided me faithfully; he set me +on the track of several places, and himself made efforts to secure +them for me; but for a long time solicitation and recommendation were +vain--the door either shut in my face when I was about to walk in, +or another candidate, entering before me, rendered my further advance +useless. Feverish and roused, no disappointment arrested me; defeat +following fast on defeat served as stimulants to will. I forgot +fastidiousness, conquered reserve, thrust pride from me: I asked, I +persevered, I remonstrated, I dunned. It is so that openings are forced +into the guarded circle where Fortune sits dealing favours round. My +perseverance made me known; my importunity made me remarked. I was +inquired about; my former pupils’ parents, gathering the reports of +their children, heard me spoken of as talented, and they echoed the +word: the sound, bandied about at random, came at last to ears which, +but for its universality, it might never have reached; and at the very +crisis when I had tried my last effort and knew not what to do, Fortune +looked in at me one morning, as I sat in drear and almost desperate +deliberation on my bedstead, nodded with the familiarity of an old +acquaintance--though God knows I had never met her before--and threw a +prize into my lap. + +In the second week of October, 18--, I got the appointment of English +professor to all the classes of ---- College, Brussels, with a salary +of three thousand francs per annum; and the certainty of being able, by +dint of the reputation and publicity accompanying the position, to make +as much more by private means. The official notice, which communicated +this information, mentioned also that it was the strong recommendation +of M. Vandenhuten, negociant, which had turned the scale of choice in my +favour. + +No sooner had I read the announcement than I hurried to M. Vandenhuten’s +bureau, pushed the document under his nose, and when he had perused +it, took both his hands, and thanked him with unrestrained vivacity. +My vivid words and emphatic gesture moved his Dutch calm to unwonted +sensation. He said he was happy--glad to have served me; but he had +done nothing meriting such thanks. He had not laid out a centime--only +scratched a few words on a sheet of paper. + +Again I repeated to him-- + +“You have made me quite happy, and in a way that suits me; I do not +feel an obligation irksome, conferred by your kind hand; I do not feel +disposed to shun you because you have done me a favour; from this day +you must consent to admit me to your intimate acquaintance, for I shall +hereafter recur again and again to the pleasure of your society.” + +“Ainsi soit-il,” was the reply, accompanied by a smile of benignant +content. I went away with its sunshine in my heart. + + + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +IT was two o’clock when I returned to my lodgings; my dinner, just +brought in from a neighbouring hotel, smoked on the table; I sat down +thinking to eat--had the plate been heaped with potsherds and broken +glass, instead of boiled beef and haricots, I could not have made a more +signal failure: appetite had forsaken me. Impatient of seeing food +which I could not taste, I put it all aside into a cupboard, and then +demanded, “What shall I do till evening?” for before six P.M. it would +be vain to seek the Rue Notre Dame aux Neiges; its inhabitant (for me +it had but one) was detained by her vocation elsewhere. I walked in the +streets of Brussels, and I walked in my own room from two o’clock +till six; never once in that space of time did I sit down. I was in my +chamber when the last-named hour struck; I had just bathed my face and +feverish hands, and was standing near the glass; my cheek was crimson, +my eye was flame, still all my features looked quite settled and +calm. Descending swiftly the stair and stepping out, I was glad to see +Twilight drawing on in clouds; such shade was to me like a grateful +screen, and the chill of latter Autumn, breathing in a fitful wind from +the north-west, met me as a refreshing coolness. Still I saw it was cold +to others, for the women I passed were wrapped in shawls, and the men +had their coats buttoned close. + +When are we quite happy? Was I so then? No; an urgent and growing dread +worried my nerves, and had worried them since the first moment good +tidings had reached me. How was Frances? It was ten weeks since I had +seen her, six since I had heard from her, or of her. I had answered +her letter by a brief note, friendly but calm, in which no mention of +continued correspondence or further visits was made. At that hour my +bark hung on the topmost curl of a wave of fate, and I knew not on what +shoal the onward rush of the billow might hurl it; I would not then +attach her destiny to mine by the slightest thread; if doomed to split +on the rock, or run aground on the sand-bank, I was resolved no other +vessel should share my disaster: but six weeks was a long time; and +could it be that she was still well and doing well? Were not all sages +agreed in declaring that happiness finds no climax on earth? Dared +I think that but half a street now divided me from the full cup of +contentment--the draught drawn from waters said to flow only in heaven? + +I was at the door; I entered the quiet house; I mounted the stairs; the +lobby was void and still, all the doors closed; I looked for the neat +green mat; it lay duly in its place. + +“Signal of hope!” I said, and advanced. “But I will be a little calmer; +I am not going to rush in, and get up a scene directly.” Forcibly +staying my eager step, I paused on the mat. + +“What an absolute hush! Is she in? Is anybody in?” I demanded to +myself. A little tinkle, as of cinders falling from a grate, replied; +a movement--a fire was gently stirred; and the slight rustle of life +continuing, a step paced equably backwards and forwards, backwards and +forwards, in the apartment. Fascinated, I stood, more fixedly fascinated +when a voice rewarded the attention of my strained ear--so low, so +self-addressed, I never fancied the speaker otherwise than alone; +solitude might speak thus in a desert, or in the hall of a forsaken +house. + + + “‘And ne’er but once, my son,’ he said, + ‘Was yon dark cavern trod; + In persecution’s iron days, + When the land was left by God. + From Bewley’s bog, with slaughter red, + A wanderer hither drew; + And oft he stopp’d and turn’d his head, + As by fits the night-winds blew. + For trampling round by Cheviot-edge + Were heard the troopers keen; + And frequent from the Whitelaw ridge + The death-shot flash’d between.’” etc. etc. + +The old Scotch ballad was partly recited, then dropt; a pause ensued; +then another strain followed, in French, of which the purport, +translated, ran as follows:-- + + + I gave, at first, attention close; + Then interest warm ensued; + From interest, as improvement rose, + Succeeded gratitude. + + Obedience was no effort soon, + And labour was no pain; + If tired, a word, a glance alone + Would give me strength again. + + From others of the studious band, + Ere long he singled me; + But only by more close demand, + And sterner urgency. + + The task he from another took, + From me he did reject; + He would no slight omission brook, + And suffer no defect. + + If my companions went astray, + He scarce their wanderings blam’d; + If I but falter’d in the way, + His anger fiercely flam’d. + +Something stirred in an adjoining chamber; it would not do to be +surprised eaves-dropping; I tapped hastily, and as hastily entered. +Frances was just before me; she had been walking slowly in her room, +and her step was checked by my advent: Twilight only was with her, and +tranquil, ruddy Firelight; to these sisters, the Bright and the Dark, +she had been speaking, ere I entered, in poetry. Sir Walter Scott’s +voice, to her a foreign, far-off sound, a mountain echo, had uttered +itself in the first stanzas; the second, I thought, from the style and +the substance, was the language of her own heart. Her face was grave, +its expression concentrated; she bent on me an unsmiling eye--an eye +just returning from abstraction, just awaking from dreams: well-arranged +was her simple attire, smooth her dark hair, orderly her tranquil room; +but what--with her thoughtful look, her serious self-reliance, her +bent to meditation and haply inspiration--what had she to do with love? +“Nothing,” was the answer of her own sad, though gentle countenance; it +seemed to say, “I must cultivate fortitude and cling to poetry; one is +to be my support and the other my solace through life. Human affections +do not bloom, nor do human passions glow for me.” Other women have such +thoughts. Frances, had she been as desolate as she deemed, would not +have been worse off than thousands of her sex. Look at the rigid and +formal race of old maids--the race whom all despise; they have fed +themselves, from youth upwards, on maxims of resignation and endurance. +Many of them get ossified with the dry diet; self-control is so +continually their thought, so perpetually their object, that at last +it absorbs the softer and more agreeable qualities of their nature; and +they die mere models of austerity, fashioned out of a little parchment +and much bone. Anatomists will tell you that there is a heart in the +withered old maid’s carcass--the same as in that of any cherished wife +or proud mother in the land. Can this be so? I really don’t know; but +feel inclined to doubt it. + +I came forward, bade Frances “good evening,” and took my seat. The chair +I had chosen was one she had probably just left; it stood by a little +table where were her open desk and papers. I know not whether she had +fully recognized me at first, but she did so now; and in a voice, soft +but quiet, she returned my greeting. I had shown no eagerness; she took +her cue from me, and evinced no surprise. We met as we had always met, +as master and pupil--nothing more. I proceeded to handle the papers; +Frances, observant and serviceable, stepped into an inner room, brought +a candle, lit it, placed it by me; then drew the curtain over the +lattice, and having added a little fresh fuel to the already bright +fire, she drew a second chair to the table and sat down at my right +hand, a little removed. The paper on the top was a translation of +some grave French author into English, but underneath lay a sheet with +stanzas; on this I laid hands. Frances half rose, made a movement to +recover the captured spoil, saying, that was nothing--a mere copy of +verses. I put by resistance with the decision I knew she never long +opposed; but on this occasion her fingers had fastened on the paper. I +had quietly to unloose them; their hold dissolved to my touch; her hand +shrunk away; my own would fain have followed it, but for the present I +forbade such impulse. The first page of the sheet was occupied with +the lines I had overheard; the sequel was not exactly the writer’s own +experience, but a composition by portions of that experience suggested. +Thus while egotism was avoided, the fancy was exercised, and the heart +satisfied. I translate as before, and my translation is nearly literal; +it continued thus:-- + + + When sickness stay’d awhile my course, + He seem’d impatient still, + Because his pupil’s flagging force + Could not obey his will. + + One day when summoned to the bed + Where pain and I did strive, + I heard him, as he bent his head, + Say, “God, she must revive!” + + I felt his hand, with gentle stress, + A moment laid on mine, + And wished to mark my consciousness + By some responsive sign. + + But pow’rless then to speak or move, + I only felt, within, + The sense of Hope, the strength of Love, + Their healing work begin. + + And as he from the room withdrew, + My heart his steps pursued; + I long’d to prove, by efforts new; + My speechless gratitude. + + When once again I took my place, + Long vacant, in the class, + Th’ unfrequent smile across his face + Did for one moment pass. + + The lessons done; the signal made + Of glad release and play, + He, as he passed, an instant stay’d, + One kindly word to say. + + “Jane, till to-morrow you are free + From tedious task and rule; + This afternoon I must not see + That yet pale face in school. + + “Seek in the garden-shades a seat, + Far from the play-ground din; + The sun is warm, the air is sweet: + Stay till I call you in.” + + A long and pleasant afternoon + I passed in those green bowers; + All silent, tranquil, and alone + With birds, and bees, and flowers. + + Yet, when my master’s voice I heard + Call, from the window, “Jane!” + I entered, joyful, at the word, + The busy house again. + + He, in the hall, paced up and down; + He paused as I passed by; + His forehead stern relaxed its frown: + He raised his deep-set eye. + + “Not quite so pale,” he murmured low. + “Now Jane, go rest awhile.” + And as I smiled, his smoothened brow + Returned as glad a smile. + + My perfect health restored, he took + His mien austere again; + And, as before, he would not brook + The slightest fault from Jane. + + The longest task, the hardest theme + Fell to my share as erst, + And still I toiled to place my name + In every study first. + + He yet begrudged and stinted praise, + But I had learnt to read + The secret meaning of his face, + And that was my best meed. + + Even when his hasty temper spoke + In tones that sorrow stirred, + My grief was lulled as soon as woke + By some relenting word. + + And when he lent some precious book, + Or gave some fragrant flower, + I did not quail to Envy’s look, + Upheld by Pleasure’s power. + + At last our school ranks took their ground, + The hard-fought field I won; + The prize, a laurel-wreath, was bound + My throbbing forehead on. + + Low at my master’s knee I bent, + The offered crown to meet; + Its green leaves through my temples sent + A thrill as wild as sweet. + + The strong pulse of Ambition struck + In every vein I owned; + At the same instant, bleeding broke + A secret, inward wound. + + The hour of triumph was to me + The hour of sorrow sore; + A day hence I must cross the sea, + Ne’er to recross it more. + + An hour hence, in my master’s room + I with him sat alone, + And told him what a dreary gloom + O’er joy had parting thrown. + + He little said; the time was brief, + The ship was soon to sail, + And while I sobbed in bitter grief, + My master but looked pale. + + They called in haste; he bade me go, + Then snatched me back again; + He held me fast and murmured low, + “Why will they part us, Jane?” + + “Were you not happy in my care? + Did I not faithful prove? + Will others to my darling bear + As true, as deep a love? + + “O God, watch o’er my foster child! + O guard her gentle head! + When minds are high and tempests wild + Protection round her spread! + + “They call again; leave then my breast; + Quit thy true shelter, Jane; + But when deceived, repulsed, opprest, + Come home to me again!” + +I read--then dreamily made marks on the margin with my pencil; thinking +all the while of other things; thinking that “Jane” was now at my side; +no child, but a girl of nineteen; and she might be mine, so my heart +affirmed; Poverty’s curse was taken off me; Envy and Jealousy were +far away, and unapprized of this our quiet meeting; the frost of the +Master’s manner might melt; I felt the thaw coming fast, whether I would +or not; no further need for the eye to practise a hard look, for the +brow to compress its expanse into a stern fold: it was now permitted +to suffer the outward revelation of the inward glow--to seek, demand, +elicit an answering ardour. While musing thus, I thought that the grass +on Hermon never drank the fresh dews of sunset more gratefully than my +feelings drank the bliss of this hour. + +Frances rose, as if restless; she passed before me to stir the fire, +which did not want stirring; she lifted and put down the little +ornaments on the mantelpiece; her dress waved within a yard of me; +slight, straight, and elegant, she stood erect on the hearth. + +There are impulses we can control; but there are others which control +us, because they attain us with a tiger-leap, and are our masters ere +we have seen them. Perhaps, though, such impulses are seldom altogether +bad; perhaps Reason, by a process as brief as quiet, a process that +is finished ere felt, has ascertained the sanity of the deed. Instinct +meditates, and feels justified in remaining passive while it is +performed. I know I did not reason, I did not plan or intend, yet, +whereas one moment I was sitting solus on the chair near the table, +the next, I held Frances on my knee, placed there with sharpness and +decision, and retained with exceeding tenacity. + +“Monsieur!” cried Frances, and was still: not another word escaped her +lips; sorely confounded she seemed during the lapse of the first few +moments; but the amazement soon subsided; terror did not succeed, nor +fury: after all, she was only a little nearer than she had ever been +before, to one she habitually respected and trusted; embarrassment might +have impelled her to contend, but self-respect checked resistance where +resistance was useless. + +“Frances, how much regard have you for me?” was my demand. No answer; +the situation was yet too new and surprising to permit speech. On this +consideration, I compelled myself for some seconds to tolerate her +silence, though impatient of it: presently, I repeated the same +question--probably, not in the calmest of tones; she looked at me; my +face, doubtless, was no model of composure, my eyes no still wells of +tranquillity. + +“Do speak,” I urged; and a very low, hurried, yet still arch voice +said-- + +“Monsieur, vous me faites mal; de grace lachez un peu ma main droite.” + +In truth I became aware that I was holding the said “main droite” in +a somewhat ruthless grasp: I did as desired; and, for the third time, +asked more gently-- + +“Frances, how much regard have you for me?” + +“Mon maitre, j’en ai beaucoup,” was the truthful rejoinder. + +“Frances, have you enough to give yourself to me as my wife?--to accept +me as your husband?” + +I felt the agitation of the heart, I saw “the purple light of love” cast +its glowing reflection on cheeks, temples, neck; I desired to consult +the eye, but sheltering lash and lid forbade. + +“Monsieur,” said the soft voice at last,--“Monsieur desire savoir si je +consens--si--enfin, si je veux me marier avec lui?” + +“Justement.” + +“Monsieur sera-t-il aussi bon mari qu’il a ete bon maitre?” + +“I will try, Frances.” + +A pause; then with a new, yet still subdued inflexion of the voice--an +inflexion which provoked while it pleased me--accompanied, too, by a +“sourire a la fois fin et timide” in perfect harmony with the tone:-- + +“C’est a dire, monsieur sera toujours un peu entete exigeant, +volontaire--?” + +“Have I been so, Frances?” + +“Mais oui; vous le savez bien.” + +“Have I been nothing else?” + +“Mais oui; vous avez ete mon meilleur ami.” + +“And what, Frances, are you to me?” + +“Votre devouee eleve, qui vous aime de tout son coeur.” + +“Will my pupil consent to pass her life with me? Speak English now, +Frances.” + +Some moments were taken for reflection; the answer, pronounced slowly, +ran thus:-- + +“You have always made me happy; I like to hear you speak; I like to +see you; I like to be near you; I believe you are very good, and very +superior; I know you are stern to those who are careless and idle, but +you are kind, very kind to the attentive and industrious, even if they +are not clever. Master, I should be GLAD to live with you always;” + and she made a sort of movement, as if she would have clung to me, but +restraining herself she only added with earnest emphasis--“Master, I +consent to pass my life with you.” + +“Very well, Frances.” + +I drew her a little nearer to my heart; I took a first kiss from her +lips, thereby sealing the compact, now framed between us; afterwards she +and I were silent, nor was our silence brief. Frances’ thoughts, during +this interval, I know not, nor did I attempt to guess them; I was not +occupied in searching her countenance, nor in otherwise troubling her +composure. The peace I felt, I wished her to feel; my arm, it is true, +still detained her; but with a restraint that was gentle enough, so long +as no opposition tightened it. My gaze was on the red fire; my heart was +measuring its own content; it sounded and sounded, and found the depth +fathomless. + +“Monsieur,” at last said my quiet companion, as stirless in her +happiness as a mouse in its terror. Even now in speaking she scarcely +lifted her head. + +“Well, Frances?” I like unexaggerated intercourse; it is not my way to +overpower with amorous epithets, any more than to worry with selfishly +importunate caresses. + +“Monsieur est raisonnable, n’est-ce pas?” + +“Yes; especially when I am requested to be so in English: but why do +you ask me? You see nothing vehement or obtrusive in my manner; am I not +tranquil enough?” + +“Ce n’est pas cela--” began Frances. + +“English!” I reminded her. + +“Well, monsieur, I wished merely to say, that I should like, of course, +to retain my employment of teaching. You will teach still, I suppose, +monsieur?” + +“Oh, yes! It is all I have to depend on.” + +“Bon!--I mean good. Thus we shall have both the same profession. I like +that; and my efforts to get on will be as unrestrained as yours--will +they not, monsieur?” + +“You are laying plans to be independent of me,” said I. + +“Yes, monsieur; I must be no incumbrance to you--no burden in any way.” + +“But, Frances, I have not yet told you what my prospects are. I have +left M. Pelet’s; and after nearly a month’s seeking, I have got another +place, with a salary of three thousand francs a year, which I can easily +double by a little additional exertion. Thus you see it would be useless +for you to fag yourself by going out to give lessons; on six thousand +francs you and I can live, and live well.” + +Frances seemed to consider. There is something flattering to man’s +strength, something consonant to his honourable pride, in the idea of +becoming the providence of what he loves--feeding and clothing it, as +God does the lilies of the field. So, to decide her resolution, I went +on:-- + +“Life has been painful and laborious enough to you so far, Frances; you +require complete rest; your twelve hundred francs would not form a very +important addition to our income, and what sacrifice of comfort to earn +it! Relinquish your labours: you must be weary, and let me have the +happiness of giving you rest.” + +I am not sure whether Frances had accorded due attention to my harangue; +instead of answering me with her usual respectful promptitude, she only +sighed and said,-- + +“How rich you are, monsieur!” and then she stirred uneasy in my +arms. “Three thousand francs!” she murmured, “While I get only twelve +hundred!” She went on faster. “However, it must be so for the present; +and, monsieur, were you not saying something about my giving up my +place? Oh no! I shall hold it fast;” and her little fingers emphatically +tightened on mine. + +“Think of my marrying you to be kept by you, monsieur! I could not do +it; and how dull my days would be! You would be away teaching in close, +noisy school-rooms, from morning till evening, and I should be lingering +at home, unemployed and solitary; I should get depressed and sullen, and +you would soon tire of me.” + +“Frances, you could read and study--two things you like so well.” + +“Monsieur, I could not; I like a contemplative life, but I like an +active life better; I must act in some way, and act with you. I have +taken notice, monsieur, that people who are only in each other’s company +for amusement, never really like each other so well, or esteem each +other so highly, as those who work together, and perhaps suffer +together.” + +“You speak God’s truth,” said I at last, “and you shall have your own +way, for it is the best way. Now, as a reward for such ready consent, +give me a voluntary kiss.” + +After some hesitation, natural to a novice in the art of kissing, she +brought her lips into very shy and gentle contact with my forehead; I +took the small gift as a loan, and repaid it promptly, and with generous +interest. + +I know not whether Frances was really much altered since the time +I first saw her; but, as I looked at her now, I felt that she was +singularly changed for me; the sad eye, the pale cheek, the dejected +and joyless countenance I remembered as her early attributes, were quite +gone, and now I saw a face dressed in graces; smile, dimple, and +rosy tint rounded its contours and brightened its hues. I had been +accustomed to nurse a flattering idea that my strong attachment to her +proved some particular perspicacity in my nature; she was not handsome, +she was not rich, she was not even accomplished, yet was she my life’s +treasure; I must then be a man of peculiar discernment. To-night my eyes +opened on the mistake I had made; I began to suspect that it was only my +tastes which were unique, not my power of discovering and appreciating +the superiority of moral worth over physical charms. For me Frances +had physical charms: in her there was no deformity to get over; none of +those prominent defects of eyes, teeth, complexion, shape, which hold at +bay the admiration of the boldest male champions of intellect (for +women can love a downright ugly man if he be but talented); had she been +either “edentee, myope, rugueuse, ou bossue,” my feelings towards +her might still have been kindly, but they could never have been +impassioned; I had affection for the poor little misshapen Sylvie, but +for her I could never have had love. It is true Frances’ mental points +had been the first to interest me, and they still retained the strongest +hold on my preference; but I liked the graces of her person too. I +derived a pleasure, purely material, from contemplating the clearness +of her brown eyes, the fairness of her fine skin, the purity of her +well-set teeth, the proportion of her delicate form; and that pleasure +I could ill have dispensed with. It appeared, then, that I too was a +sensualist, in my temperate and fastidious way. + +Now, reader, during the last two pages I have been giving you honey +fresh from flowers, but you must not live entirely on food so luscious; +taste then a little gall--just a drop, by way of change. + +At a somewhat late hour I returned to my lodgings: having temporarily +forgotten that man had any such coarse cares as those of eating and +drinking, I went to bed fasting. I had been excited and in action all +day, and had tasted no food since eight that morning; besides, for a +fortnight past, I had known no rest either of body or mind; the last few +hours had been a sweet delirium, it would not subside now, and till long +after midnight, broke with troubled ecstacy the rest I so much needed. +At last I dozed, but not for long; it was yet quite dark when I awoke, +and my waking was like that of Job when a spirit passed before his face, +and like him, “the hair of my flesh stood up.” I might continue the +parallel, for in truth, though I saw nothing, yet “a thing was secretly +brought unto me, and mine ear received a little thereof; there was +silence, and I heard a voice,” saying--“In the midst of life we are in +death.” + +That sound, and the sensation of chill anguish accompanying it, many +would have regarded as supernatural; but I recognized it at once as the +effect of reaction. Man is ever clogged with his mortality, and it was +my mortal nature which now faltered and plained; my nerves, which jarred +and gave a false sound, because the soul, of late rushing headlong to an +aim, had overstrained the body’s comparative weakness. A horror of great +darkness fell upon me; I felt my chamber invaded by one I had known +formerly, but had thought for ever departed. I was temporarily a prey to +hypochondria. + +She had been my acquaintance, nay, my guest, once before in boyhood; I +had entertained her at bed and board for a year; for that space of time +I had her to myself in secret; she lay with me, she ate with me, she +walked out with me, showing me nooks in woods, hollows in hills, where +we could sit together, and where she could drop her drear veil over me, +and so hide sky and sun, grass and green tree; taking me entirely to her +death-cold bosom, and holding me with arms of bone. What tales she would +tell me at such hours! What songs she would recite in my ears! How she +would discourse to me of her own country--the grave--and again and again +promise to conduct me there ere long; and, drawing me to the very brink +of a black, sullen river, show me, on the other side, shores unequal +with mound, monument, and tablet, standing up in a glimmer more hoary +than moonlight. “Necropolis!” she would whisper, pointing to the pale +piles, and add, “It contains a mansion prepared for you.” + +But my boyhood was lonely, parentless; uncheered by brother or sister; +and there was no marvel that, just as I rose to youth, a sorceress, +finding me lost in vague mental wanderings, with many affections and few +objects, glowing aspirations and gloomy prospects, strong desires and +slender hopes, should lift up her illusive lamp to me in the distance, +and lure me to her vaulted home of horrors. No wonder her spells +THEN had power; but NOW, when my course was widening, my prospect +brightening; when my affections had found a rest; when my desires, +folding wings, weary with long flight, had just alighted on the very lap +of fruition, and nestled there warm, content, under the caress of a soft +hand--why did hypochondria accost me now? + +I repulsed her as one would a dreaded and ghastly concubine coming to +embitter a husband’s heart toward his young bride; in vain; she kept her +sway over me for that night and the next day, and eight succeeding days. +Afterwards, my spirits began slowly to recover their tone; my appetite +returned, and in a fortnight I was well. I had gone about as usual all +the time, and had said nothing to anybody of what I felt; but I was glad +when the evil spirit departed from me, and I could again seek Frances, +and sit at her side, freed from the dreadful tyranny of my demon. + + + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. + +ONE fine, frosty Sunday in November, Frances and I took a long walk; we +made the tour of the city by the Boulevards; and, afterwards, Frances +being a little tired, we sat down on one of those wayside seats placed +under the trees, at intervals, for the accommodation of the weary. +Frances was telling me about Switzerland; the subject animated her; +and I was just thinking that her eyes spoke full as eloquently as her +tongue, when she stopped and remarked-- + +“Monsieur, there is a gentleman who knows you.” + +I looked up; three fashionably dressed men were just then +passing--Englishmen, I knew by their air and gait as well as by their +features; in the tallest of the trio I at once recognized Mr. Hunsden; +he was in the act of lifting his hat to Frances; afterwards, he made a +grimace at me, and passed on. + +“Who is he?” + +“A person I knew in England.” + +“Why did he bow to me? He does not know me.” + +“Yes, he does know you, in his way.” + +“How, monsieur?” (She still called me “monsieur”; I could not persuade +her to adopt any more familiar term.) + +“Did you not read the expression of his eyes?” + +“Of his eyes? No. What did they say?” + +“To you they said, ‘How do you do, Wilhelmina Crimsworth?’ To me, ‘So +you have found your counterpart at last; there she sits, the female of +your kind!’” + +“Monsieur, you could not read all that in his eyes; he was so soon +gone.” + +“I read that and more, Frances; I read that he will probably call on me +this evening, or on some future occasion shortly; and I have no doubt +he will insist on being introduced to you; shall I bring him to your +rooms?” + +“If you please, monsieur--I have no objection; I think, indeed, I should +rather like to see him nearer; he looks so original.” + +As I had anticipated, Mr. Hunsden came that evening. The first thing he +said was:-- + +“You need not begin boasting, Monsieur le Professeur; I know about your +appointment to ---- College, and all that; Brown has told me.” Then +he intimated that he had returned from Germany but a day or two since; +afterwards, he abruptly demanded whether that was Madame Pelet-Reuter +with whom he had seen me on the Boulevards. I was going to utter a +rather emphatic negative, but on second thoughts I checked myself, and, +seeming to assent, asked what he thought of her? + +“As to her, I’ll come to that directly; but first I’ve a word for you. I +see you are a scoundrel; you’ve no business to be promenading about with +another man’s wife. I thought you had sounder sense than to get mixed up +in foreign hodge-podge of this sort.” + +“But the lady?” + +“She’s too good for you evidently; she is like you, but something better +than you--no beauty, though; yet when she rose (for I looked back to +see you both walk away) I thought her figure and carriage good. These +foreigners understand grace. What the devil has she done with Pelet? She +has not been married to him three months--he must be a spoon!” + +I would not let the mistake go too far; I did not like it much. + +“Pelet? How your head runs on Mons. and Madame Pelet! You are always +talking about them. I wish to the gods you had wed Mdlle. Zoraide +yourself!” + +“Was that young gentlewoman not Mdlle. Zoraide?” + +“No; nor Madame Zoraide either.” + +“Why did you tell a lie, then?” + +“I told no lie; but you are is such a hurry. She is a pupil of mine--a +Swiss girl.” + +“And of course you are going to be married to her? Don’t deny that.” + +“Married! I think I shall--if Fate spares us both ten weeks longer. That +is my little wild strawberry, Hunsden, whose sweetness made me careless +of your hothouse grapes.” + +“Stop! No boasting--no heroics; I won’t hear them. What is she? To what +caste does she belong?” + +I smiled. Hunsden unconsciously laid stress on the word caste, and, in +fact, republican, lord-hater as he was, Hunsden was as proud of his old +----shire blood, of his descent and family standing, respectable and +respected through long generations back, as any peer in the realm of +his Norman race and Conquest-dated title. Hunsden would as little have +thought of taking a wife from a caste inferior to his own, as a Stanley +would think of mating with a Cobden. I enjoyed the surprise I should +give; I enjoyed the triumph of my practice over his theory; and leaning +over the table, and uttering the words slowly but with repressed glee, I +said concisely-- + +“She is a lace-mender.” + +Hunsden examined me. He did not SAY he was surprised, but surprised he +was; he had his own notions of good breeding. I saw he suspected I +was going to take some very rash step; but repressing declamation or +remonstrance, he only answered-- + +“Well, you are the best judge of your own affairs. A lace-mender may +make a good wife as well as a lady; but of course you have taken care +to ascertain thoroughly that since she has not education, fortune or +station, she is well furnished with such natural qualities as you think +most likely to conduce to your happiness. Has she many relations?” + +“None in Brussels.” + +“That is better. Relations are often the real evil in such cases. I +cannot but think that a train of inferior connections would have been a +bore to you to your life’s end.” + +After sitting in silence a little while longer, Hunsden rose, and was +quietly bidding me good evening; the polite, considerate manner in which +he offered me his hand (a thing he had never done before), convinced me +that he thought I had made a terrible fool of myself; and that, ruined +and thrown away as I was, it was no time for sarcasm or cynicism, or +indeed for anything but indulgence and forbearance. + +“Good night, William,” he said, in a really soft voice, while his face +looked benevolently compassionate. “Good night, lad. I wish you and your +future wife much prosperity; and I hope she will satisfy your fastidious +soul.” + +I had much ado to refrain from laughing as I beheld the magnanimous pity +of his mien; maintaining, however, a grave air, I said:-- + +“I thought you would have liked to have seen Mdlle. Henri?” + +“Oh, that is the name! Yes--if it would be convenient, I should like to +see her--but----.” He hesitated. + +“Well?” + +“I should on no account wish to intrude.” + +“Come, then,” said I. We set out. Hunsden no doubt regarded me as a +rash, imprudent man, thus to show my poor little grisette sweetheart, +in her poor little unfurnished grenier; but he prepared to act the real +gentleman, having, in fact, the kernel of that character, under the +harsh husk it pleased him to wear by way of mental mackintosh. He talked +affably, and even gently, as we went along the street; he had never been +so civil to me in his life. We reached the house, entered, ascended the +stair; on gaining the lobby, Hunsden turned to mount a narrower stair +which led to a higher story; I saw his mind was bent on the attics. + +“Here, Mr. Hunsden,” said I quietly, tapping at Frances’ door. He +turned; in his genuine politeness he was a little disconcerted at +having made the mistake; his eye reverted to the green mat, but he said +nothing. + +We walked in, and Frances rose from her seat near the table to receive +us; her mourning attire gave her a recluse, rather conventual, but +withal very distinguished look; its grave simplicity added nothing +to beauty, but much to dignity; the finish of the white collar and +manchettes sufficed for a relief to the merino gown of solemn black; +ornament was forsworn. Frances curtsied with sedate grace, looking, as +she always did, when one first accosted her, more a woman to respect +than to love; I introduced Mr. Hunsden, and she expressed her happiness +at making his acquaintance in French. The pure and polished accent, the +low yet sweet and rather full voice, produced their effect immediately; +Hunsden spoke French in reply; I had not heard him speak that language +before; he managed it very well. I retired to the window-seat; Mr. +Hunsden, at his hostess’s invitation, occupied a chair near the hearth; +from my position I could see them both, and the room too, at a glance. +The room was so clean and bright, it looked like a little polished +cabinet; a glass filled with flowers in the centre of the table, a +fresh rose in each china cup on the mantelpiece gave it an air of FETE. +Frances was serious, and Mr. Hunsden subdued, but both mutually polite; +they got on at the French swimmingly: ordinary topics were discussed +with great state and decorum; I thought I had never seen two such models +of propriety, for Hunsden (thanks to the constraint of the foreign +tongue) was obliged to shape his phrases, and measure his sentences, +with a care that forbade any eccentricity. At last England was +mentioned, and Frances proceeded to ask questions. Animated by degrees, +she began to change, just as a grave night-sky changes at the approach +of sunrise: first it seemed as if her forehead cleared, then her eyes +glittered, her features relaxed, and became quite mobile; her subdued +complexion grew warm and transparent; to me, she now looked pretty; +before, she had only looked ladylike. + +She had many things to say to the Englishman just fresh from his +island-country, and she urged him with an enthusiasm of curiosity, which +ere long thawed Hunsden’s reserve as fire thaws a congealed viper. I use +this not very flattering comparison because he vividly reminded me of a +snake waking from torpor, as he erected his tall form, reared his head, +before a little declined, and putting back his hair from his broad Saxon +forehead, showed unshaded the gleam of almost savage satire which his +interlocutor’s tone of eagerness and look of ardour had sufficed at +once to kindle in his soul and elicit from his eyes: he was himself; +as Frances was herself, and in none but his own language would he now +address her. + +“You understand English?” was the prefatory question. + +“A little.” + +“Well, then, you shall have plenty of it; and first, I see you’ve not +much more sense than some others of my acquaintance” (indicating me +with his thumb), “or else you’d never turn rabid about that dirty little +country called England; for rabid, I see you are; I read Anglophobia in +your looks, and hear it in your words. Why, mademoiselle, is it possible +that anybody with a grain of rationality should feel enthusiasm about a +mere name, and that name England? I thought you were a lady-abbess five +minutes ago, and respected you accordingly; and now I see you are a sort +of Swiss sibyl, with high Tory and high Church principles!” + +“England is your country?” asked Frances. + +“Yes.” + +“And you don’t like it?” + +“I’d be sorry to like it! A little corrupt, venal, lord-and-king-cursed +nation, full of mucky pride (as they say in ----shire), and helpless +pauperism; rotten with abuses, worm-eaten with prejudices!” + +“You might say so of almost every state; there are abuses and prejudices +everywhere, and I thought fewer in England than in other countries.” + +“Come to England and see. Come to Birmingham and Manchester; come to St. +Giles’ in London, and get a practical notion of how our system works. +Examine the footprints of our august aristocracy; see how they walk +in blood, crushing hearts as they go. Just put your head in at English +cottage doors; get a glimpse of Famine crouched torpid on black +hearthstones; of Disease lying bare on beds without coverlets, of +Infamy wantoning viciously with Ignorance, though indeed Luxury is her +favourite paramour, and princely halls are dearer to her than thatched +hovels----” + +“I was not thinking of the wretchedness and vice in England; I was +thinking of the good side--of what is elevated in your character as a +nation.” + +“There is no good side--none at least of which you can have any +knowledge; for you cannot appreciate the efforts of industry, the +achievements of enterprise, or the discoveries of science: narrowness +of education and obscurity of position quite incapacitate you +from understanding these points; and as to historical and poetical +associations, I will not insult you, mademoiselle, by supposing that you +alluded to such humbug.” + +“But I did partly.” + +Hunsden laughed--his laugh of unmitigated scorn. + +“I did, Mr. Hunsden. Are you of the number of those to whom such +associations give no pleasure?” + +“Mademoiselle, what is an association? I never saw one. What is its +length, breadth, weight, value--ay, VALUE? What price will it bring in +the market?” + +“Your portrait, to any one who loved you, would, for the sake of +association, be without price.” + +That inscrutable Hunsden heard this remark and felt it rather acutely, +too, somewhere; for he coloured--a thing not unusual with him, when hit +unawares on a tender point. A sort of trouble momentarily darkened +his eye, and I believe he filled up the transient pause succeeding his +antagonist’s home-thrust, by a wish that some one did love him as +he would like to be loved--some one whose love he could unreservedly +return. + +The lady pursued her temporary advantage. + +“If your world is a world without associations, Mr. Hunsden, I no longer +wonder that you hate England so. I don’t clearly know what Paradise is, +and what angels are; yet taking it to be the most glorious region I can +conceive, and angels the most elevated existences--if one of them--if +Abdiel the Faithful himself” (she was thinking of Milton) “were suddenly +stripped of the faculty of association, I think he would soon rush forth +from ‘the ever-during gates,’ leave heaven, and seek what he had lost in +hell. Yes, in the very hell from which he turned ‘with retorted scorn.’” + +Frances’ tone in saying this was as marked as her language, and it +was when the word “hell” twanged off from her lips, with a somewhat +startling emphasis, that Hunsden deigned to bestow one slight glance of +admiration. He liked something strong, whether in man or woman; he liked +whatever dared to clear conventional limits. He had never before heard +a lady say “hell” with that uncompromising sort of accent, and the sound +pleased him from a lady’s lips; he would fain have had Frances to strike +the string again, but it was not in her way. The display of eccentric +vigour never gave her pleasure, and it only sounded in her voice or +flashed in her countenance when extraordinary circumstances--and those +generally painful--forced it out of the depths where it burned latent. +To me, once or twice, she had in intimate conversation, uttered +venturous thoughts in nervous language; but when the hour of such +manifestation was past, I could not recall it; it came of itself and of +itself departed. Hunsden’s excitations she put by soon with a smile, and +recurring to the theme of disputation, said-- + +“Since England is nothing, why do the continental nations respect her +so?” + +“I should have thought no child would have asked that question,” replied +Hunsden, who never at any time gave information without reproving for +stupidity those who asked it of him. “If you had been my pupil, as I +suppose you once had the misfortune to be that of a deplorable character +not a hundred miles off, I would have put you in the corner for such a +confession of ignorance. Why, mademoiselle, can’t you see that it is +our GOLD which buys us French politeness, German good-will, and Swiss +servility?” And he sneered diabolically. + +“Swiss?” said Frances, catching the word “servility.” “Do you call my +countrymen servile?” and she started up. I could not suppress a low +laugh; there was ire in her glance and defiance in her attitude. “Do +you abuse Switzerland to me, Mr. Hunsden? Do you think I have no +associations? Do you calculate that I am prepared to dwell only on what +vice and degradation may be found in Alpine villages, and to leave +quite out of my heart the social greatness of my countrymen, and our +blood-earned freedom, and the natural glories of our mountains? You’re +mistaken--you’re mistaken.” + +“Social greatness? Call it what you will, your countrymen are sensible +fellows; they make a marketable article of what to you is an abstract +idea; they have, ere this, sold their social greatness and also their +blood-earned freedom to be the servants of foreign kings.” + +“You never were in Switzerland?” + +“Yes--I have been there twice.” + +“You know nothing of it.” + +“I do.” + +“And you say the Swiss are mercenary, as a parrot says ‘Poor Poll,’ or +as the Belgians here say the English are not brave, or as the French +accuse them of being perfidious: there is no justice in your dictums.” + +“There is truth.” + +“I tell you, Mr. Hunsden, you are a more unpractical man than I am an +unpractical woman, for you don’t acknowledge what really exists; you +want to annihilate individual patriotism and national greatness as +an atheist would annihilate God and his own soul, by denying their +existence.” + +“Where are you flying to? You are off at a tangent--I thought we were +talking about the mercenary nature of the Swiss.” + +“We were--and if you proved to me that the Swiss are mercenary to-morrow +(which you cannot do) I should love Switzerland still.” + +“You would be mad, then--mad as a March hare--to indulge in a passion +for millions of shiploads of soil, timber, snow, and ice.” + +“Not so mad as you who love nothing.” + +“There’s a method in my madness; there’s none in yours.” + +“Your method is to squeeze the sap out of creation and make manure of +the refuse, by way of turning it to what you call use.” + +“You cannot reason at all,” said Hunsden; “there is no logic in you.” + +“Better to be without logic than without feeling,” retorted Frances, who +was now passing backwards and forwards from her cupboard to the table, +intent, if not on hospitable thoughts, at least on hospitable deeds, for +she was laying the cloth, and putting plates, knives and forks thereon. + +“Is that a hit at me, mademoiselle? Do you suppose I am without +feeling?” + +“I suppose you are always interfering with your own feelings, and those +of other people, and dogmatizing about the irrationality of this, that, +and the other sentiment, and then ordering it to be suppressed because +you imagine it to be inconsistent with logic.” + +“I do right.” + +Frances had stepped out of sight into a sort of little pantry; she soon +reappeared. + +“You do right? Indeed, no! You are much mistaken if you think so. Just +be so good as to let me get to the fire, Mr. Hunsden; I have something +to cook.” (An interval occupied in settling a casserole on the fire; +then, while she stirred its contents:) “Right! as if it were right to +crush any pleasurable sentiment that God has given to man, especially +any sentiment that, like patriotism, spreads man’s selfishness in wider +circles” (fire stirred, dish put down before it). + +“Were you born in Switzerland?” + +“I should think so, or else why should I call it my country?” + +“And where did you get your English features and figure?” + +“I am English, too; half the blood in my veins is English; thus I have +a right to a double power of patriotism, possessing an interest in two +noble, free, and fortunate countries.” + +“You had an English mother?” + +“Yes, yes; and you, I suppose, had a mother from the moon or from +Utopia, since not a nation in Europe has a claim on your interest?” + +“On the contrary, I’m a universal patriot, if you could understand me +rightly: my country is the world.” + +“Sympathies so widely diffused must be very shallow: will you have +the goodness to come to table. Monsieur” (to me who appeared to be now +absorbed in reading by moonlight)--“Monsieur, supper is served.” + +This was said in quite a different voice to that in which she had been +bandying phrases with Mr. Hunsden--not so short, graver and softer. + +“Frances, what do you mean by preparing, supper? we had no intention of +staying.” + +“Ah, monsieur, but you have stayed, and supper is prepared; you have +only the alternative of eating it.” + +The meal was a foreign one, of course; it consisted in two small but +tasty dishes of meat prepared with skill and served with nicety; a salad +and “fromage francais,” completed it. The business of eating interposed +a brief truce between the belligerents, but no sooner was supper +disposed of than they were at it again. The fresh subject of dispute +ran on the spirit of religious intolerance which Mr. Hunsden affirmed to +exist strongly in Switzerland, notwithstanding the professed attachment +of the Swiss to freedom. Here Frances had greatly the worst of it, +not only because she was unskilled to argue, but because her own real +opinions on the point in question happened to coincide pretty nearly +with Mr. Hunsden’s, and she only contradicted him out of opposition. At +last she gave in, confessing that she thought as he thought, but bidding +him take notice that she did not consider herself beaten. + +“No more did the French at Waterloo,” said Hunsden. + +“There is no comparison between the cases,” rejoined Frances; “mine was +a sham fight.” + +“Sham or real, it’s up with you.” + +“No; though I have neither logic nor wealth of words, yet in a case +where my opinion really differed from yours, I would adhere to it when +I had not another word to say in its defence; you should be baffled by +dumb determination. You speak of Waterloo; your Wellington ought to have +been conquered there, according to Napoleon; but he persevered in spite +of the laws of war, and was victorious in defiance of military tactics. +I would do as he did.” + +“I’ll be bound for it you would; probably you have some of the same sort +of stubborn stuff in you.” + +“I should be sorry if I had not; he and Tell were brothers, and I’d +scorn the Swiss, man or woman, who had none of the much-enduring nature +of our heroic William in his soul.” + +“If Tell was like Wellington, he was an ass.” + +“Does not ASS mean BAUDET?” asked Frances, turning to me. + +“No, no,” replied I, “it means an ESPRIT-FORT; and now,” I continued, as +I saw that fresh occasion of strife was brewing between these two, “it +is high time to go.” + +Hunsden rose. “Good bye,” said he to Frances; “I shall be off for this +glorious England to-morrow, and it may be twelve months or more before +I come to Brussels again; whenever I do come I’ll seek you out, and +you shall see if I don’t find means to make you fiercer than a dragon. +You’ve done pretty well this evening, but next interview you shall +challenge me outright. Meantime you’re doomed to become Mrs. William +Crimsworth, I suppose; poor young lady? but you have a spark of spirit; +cherish it, and give the Professor the full benefit thereof.” + +“Are you married. Mr. Hunsden?” asked Frances, suddenly. + +“No. I should have thought you might have guessed I was a Benedict by my +look.” + +“Well, whenever you marry don’t take a wife out of Switzerland; for if +you begin blaspheming Helvetia, and cursing the cantons--above all, if +you mention the word ASS in the same breath with the name Tell (for +ass IS baudet, I know; though Monsieur is pleased to translate +it ESPRIT-FORT) your mountain maid will some night smother her +Breton-bretonnant, even as your own Shakspeare’s Othello smothered +Desdemona.” + +“I am warned,” said Hunsden; “and so are you, lad,” (nodding to me). “I +hope yet to hear of a travesty of the Moor and his gentle lady, in which +the parts shall be reversed according to the plan just sketched--you, +however, being in my nightcap. Farewell, mademoiselle!” He bowed on her +hand, absolutely like Sir Charles Grandison on that of Harriet Byron; +adding--“Death from such fingers would not be without charms.” + +“Mon Dieu!” murmured Frances, opening her large eyes and lifting her +distinctly arched brows; “c’est qu’il fait des compliments! je ne m’y +suis pas attendu.” She smiled, half in ire, half in mirth, curtsied with +foreign grace, and so they parted. + +No sooner had we got into the street than Hunsden collared me. + +“And that is your lace-mender?” said he; “and you reckon you have done +a fine, magnanimous thing in offering to marry her? You, a scion of +Seacombe, have proved your disdain of social distinctions by taking up +with an ouvriere! And I pitied the fellow, thinking his feelings had +misled him, and that he had hurt himself by contracting a low match!” + +“Just let go my collar, Hunsden.” + +On the contrary, he swayed me to and fro; so I grappled him round the +waist. It was dark; the street lonely and lampless. We had then a +tug for it; and after we had both rolled on the pavement, and with +difficulty picked ourselves up, we agreed to walk on more soberly. + +“Yes, that’s my lace-mender,” said I; “and she is to be mine for +life--God willing.” + +“God is not willing--you can’t suppose it; what business have you to +be suited so well with a partner? And she treats you with a sort of +respect, too, and says, ‘Monsieur’ and modulates her tone in addressing +you, actually, as if you were something superior! She could not evince +more deference to such a one as I, were she favoured by fortune to the +supreme extent of being my choice instead of yours.” + +“Hunsden, you’re a puppy. But you’ve only seen the title-page of my +happiness; you don’t know the tale that follows; you cannot conceive the +interest and sweet variety and thrilling excitement of the narrative.” + +Hunsden--speaking low and deep, for we had now entered a busier +street--desired me to hold my peace, threatening to do something +dreadful if I stimulated his wrath further by boasting. I laughed till +my sides ached. We soon reached his hotel; before he entered it, he +said-- + +“Don’t be vainglorious. Your lace-mender is too good for you, but not +good enough for me; neither physically nor morally does she come up +to my ideal of a woman. No; I dream of something far beyond that +pale-faced, excitable little Helvetian (by-the-by she has infinitely +more of the nervous, mobile Parisienne in her than of the the robust +‘jungfrau’). Your Mdlle. Henri is in person “chetive”, in mind “sans +caractere”, compared with the queen of my visions. You, indeed, may put +up with that “minois chiffone”; but when I marry I must have straighter +and more harmonious features, to say nothing of a nobler and better +developed shape than that perverse, ill-thriven child can boast.” + +“Bribe a seraph to fetch you a coal of fire from heaven, if you will,” + said I, “and with it kindle life in the tallest, fattest, most boneless, +fullest-blooded of Ruben’s painted women--leave me only my Alpine peri, +and I’ll not envy you.” + +With a simultaneous movement, each turned his back on the other. Neither +said “God bless you;” yet on the morrow the sea was to roll between us. + + + + + + +CHAPTER XXV. + +IN two months more Frances had fulfilled the time of mourning for her +aunt. One January morning--the first of the new year holidays--I went in +a fiacre, accompanied only by M. Vandenhuten, to the Rue Notre Dame aux +Neiges, and having alighted alone and walked upstairs, I found Frances +apparently waiting for me, dressed in a style scarcely appropriate to +that cold, bright, frosty day. Never till now had I seen her attired in +any other than black or sad-coloured stuff; and there she stood by the +window, clad all in white, and white of a most diaphanous texture; her +array was very simple, to be sure, but it looked imposing and festal +because it was so clear, full, and floating; a veil shadowed her head, +and hung below her knee; a little wreath of pink flowers fastened it +to her thickly tressed Grecian plait, and thence it fell softly on each +side of her face. Singular to state, she was, or had been crying; when +I asked her if she were ready, she said “Yes, monsieur,” with something +very like a checked sob; and when I took a shawl, which lay on the +table, and folded it round her, not only did tear after tear course +unbidden down her cheek, but she shook to my ministration like a reed. +I said I was sorry to see her in such low spirits, and requested to +be allowed an insight into the origin thereof. She only said, “It was +impossible to help it,” and then voluntarily, though hurriedly, putting +her hand into mine, accompanied me out of the room, and ran downstairs +with a quick, uncertain step, like one who was eager to get some +formidable piece of business over. I put her into the fiacre. M. +Vandenhuten received her, and seated her beside himself; we drove all +together to the Protestant chapel, went through a certain service in the +Common Prayer Book, and she and I came out married. M. Vandenhuten had +given the bride away. + +We took no bridal trip; our modesty, screened by the peaceful obscurity +of our station, and the pleasant isolation of our circumstances, did not +exact that additional precaution. We repaired at once to a small house +I had taken in the faubourg nearest to that part of the city where the +scene of our avocations lay. + +Three or four hours after the wedding ceremony, Frances, divested of her +bridal snow, and attired in a pretty lilac gown of warmer materials, +a piquant black silk apron, and a lace collar with some finishing +decoration of lilac ribbon, was kneeling on the carpet of a neatly +furnished though not spacious parlour, arranging on the shelves of a +chiffoniere some books, which I handed to her from the table. It was +snowing fast out of doors; the afternoon had turned out wild and +cold; the leaden sky seemed full of drifts, and the street was already +ankle-deep in the white downfall. Our fire burned bright, our new +habitation looked brilliantly clean and fresh, the furniture was all +arranged, and there were but some articles of glass, china, books, +&c., to put in order. Frances found in this business occupation till +tea-time, and then, after I had distinctly instructed her how to make +a cup of tea in rational English style, and after she had got over the +dismay occasioned by seeing such an extravagant amount of material put +into the pot, she administered to me a proper British repast, at which +there wanted neither candles nor urn, firelight nor comfort. + +Our week’s holiday glided by, and we readdressed ourselves to labour. +Both my wife and I began in good earnest with the notion that we were +working people, destined to earn our bread by exertion, and that of the +most assiduous kind. Our days were thoroughly occupied; we used to part +every morning at eight o’clock, and not meet again till five P.M.; but +into what sweet rest did the turmoil of each busy day decline! Looking +down the vista of memory, I see the evenings passed in that little +parlour like a long string of rubies circling the dusky brow of the past. +Unvaried were they as each cut gem, and like each gem brilliant and +burning. + +A year and a half passed. One morning (it was a FETE, and we had the day +to ourselves) Frances said to me, with a suddenness peculiar to her when +she had been thinking long on a subject, and at last, having come to +a conclusion, wished to test its soundness by the touchstone of my +judgment:-- + +“I don’t work enough.” + +“What now?” demanded I, looking up from my coffee, which I had been +deliberately stirring while enjoying, in anticipation, a walk I proposed +to take with Frances, that fine summer day (it was June), to a certain +farmhouse in the country, where we were to dine. “What now?” and I +saw at once, in the serious ardour of her face, a project of vital +importance. + +“I am not satisfied,” returned she: “you are now earning eight thousand +francs a year” (it was true; my efforts, punctuality, the fame of my +pupils’ progress, the publicity of my station, had so far helped me +on), “while I am still at my miserable twelve hundred francs. I CAN do +better, and I WILL.” + +“You work as long and as diligently as I do, Frances.” + +“Yes, monsieur, but I am not working in the right way, and I am +convinced of it.” + +“You wish to change--you have a plan for progress in your mind; go and +put on your bonnet; and, while we take our walk, you shall tell me of +it.” + +“Yes, monsieur.” + +She went--as docile as a well-trained child; she was a curious mixture +of tractability and firmness: I sat thinking about her, and wondering +what her plan could be, when she re-entered. + +“Monsieur, I have given Minnie” (our bonne) “leave to go out too, as it +is so very fine; so will you be kind enough to lock the door, and take +the key with you?” + +“Kiss me, Mrs. Crimsworth,” was my not very apposite reply; but she +looked so engaging in her light summer dress and little cottage bonnet, +and her manner in speaking to me was then, as always, so unaffectedly +and suavely respectful, that my heart expanded at the sight of her, and +a kiss seemed necessary to content its importunity. + +“There, monsieur.” + +“Why do you always call me ‘Monsieur’? Say, ‘William.’” + +“I cannot pronounce your W; besides, ‘Monsieur’ belongs to you; I like +it best.” + +Minnie having departed in clean cap and smart shawl, we, too, set out, +leaving the house solitary and silent--silent, at least, but for +the ticking of the clock. We were soon clear of Brussels; the fields +received us, and then the lanes, remote from carriage-resounding +CHAUSSEES. Ere long we came upon a nook, so rural, green, and secluded, +it might have been a spot in some pastoral English province; a bank of +short and mossy grass, under a hawthorn, offered a seat too tempting +to be declined; we took it, and when we had admired and examined some +English-looking wild-flowers growing at our feet, I recalled Frances’ +attention and my own to the topic touched on at breakfast. + +“What was her plan?” A natural one--the next step to be mounted by +us, or, at least, by her, if she wanted to rise in her profession. She +proposed to begin a school. We already had the means for commencing on +a careful scale, having lived greatly within our income. We possessed, +too, by this time, an extensive and eligible connection, in the sense +advantageous to our business; for, though our circle of visiting +acquaintance continued as limited as ever, we were now widely known in +schools and families as teachers. When Frances had developed her plan, +she intimated, in some closing sentences, her hopes for the future. If +we only had good health and tolerable success, me might, she was sure, +in time realize an independency; and that, perhaps, before we were too +old to enjoy it; then both she and I would rest; and what was to hinder +us from going to live in England? England was still her Promised Land. + +I put no obstacle in her way; raised no objection; I knew she was +not one who could live quiescent and inactive, or even comparatively +inactive. Duties she must have to fulfil, and important duties; work to +do--and exciting, absorbing, profitable work; strong faculties stirred +in her frame, and they demanded full nourishment, free exercise: mine +was not the hand ever to starve or cramp them; no, I delighted in +offering them sustenance, and in clearing them wider space for action. + +“You have conceived a plan, Frances,” said I, “and a good plan; execute +it; you have my free consent, and wherever and whenever my assistance is +wanted, ask and you shall have.” + +Frances’ eyes thanked me almost with tears; just a sparkle or two, soon +brushed away; she possessed herself of my hand too, and held it for +some time very close clasped in both her own, but she said no more than +“Thank you, monsieur.” + +We passed a divine day, and came home late, lighted by a full summer +moon. + +Ten years rushed now upon me with dusty, vibrating, unresting wings; +years of bustle, action, unslacked endeavour; years in which I and +my wife, having launched ourselves in the full career of progress, as +progress whirls on in European capitals, scarcely knew repose, were +strangers to amusement, never thought of indulgence, and yet, as +our course ran side by side, as we marched hand in hand, we neither +murmured, repented, nor faltered. Hope indeed cheered us; health kept us +up; harmony of thought and deed smoothed many difficulties, and finally, +success bestowed every now and then encouraging reward on diligence. Our +school became one of the most popular in Brussels, and as by degrees +we raised our terms and elevated our system of education, our choice of +pupils grew more select, and at length included the children of the +best families in Belgium. We had too an excellent connection in England, +first opened by the unsolicited recommendation of Mr. Hunsden, who +having been over, and having abused me for my prosperity in set terms, +went back, and soon after sent a leash of young ----shire heiresses--his +cousins; as he said “to be polished off by Mrs. Crimsworth.” + +As to this same Mrs. Crimsworth, in one sense she was become another +woman, though in another she remained unchanged. So different was +she under different circumstances. I seemed to possess two wives. The +faculties of her nature, already disclosed when I married her, remained +fresh and fair; but other faculties shot up strong, branched out +broad, and quite altered the external character of the plant. Firmness, +activity, and enterprise, covered with grave foliage, poetic feeling +and fervour; but these flowers were still there, preserved pure and dewy +under the umbrage of later growth and hardier nature: perhaps I only in +the world knew the secret of their existence, but to me they were ever +ready to yield an exquisite fragrance and present a beauty as chaste as +radiant. + +In the daytime my house and establishment were conducted by Madame the +directress, a stately and elegant woman, bearing much anxious thought on +her large brow; much calculated dignity in her serious mien: immediately +after breakfast I used to part with this lady; I went to my college, +she to her schoolroom; returning for an hour in the course of the day, +I found her always in class, intently occupied; silence, industry, +observance, attending on her presence. When not actually teaching, +she was overlooking and guiding by eye and gesture; she then appeared +vigilant and solicitous. When communicating instruction, her aspect was +more animated; she seemed to feel a certain enjoyment in the occupation. +The language in which she addressed her pupils, though simple and +unpretending, was never trite or dry; she did not speak from routine +formulas--she made her own phrases as she went on, and very nervous +and impressive phrases they frequently were; often, when elucidating +favourite points of history, or geography, she would wax genuinely +eloquent in her earnestness. Her pupils, or at least the elder and more +intelligent amongst them, recognized well the language of a superior +mind; they felt too, and some of them received the impression of +elevated sentiments; there was little fondling between mistress and +girls, but some of Frances’ pupils in time learnt to love her sincerely, +all of them beheld her with respect; her general demeanour towards +them was serious; sometimes benignant when they pleased her with their +progress and attention, always scrupulously refined and considerate. +In cases where reproof or punishment was called for she was usually +forbearing enough; but if any took advantage of that forbearance, which +sometimes happened, a sharp, sudden and lightning-like severity taught +the culprit the extent of the mistake committed. Sometimes a gleam of +tenderness softened her eyes and manner, but this was rare; only when +a pupil was sick, or when it pined after home, or in the case of some +little motherless child, or of one much poorer than its companions, +whose scanty wardrobe and mean appointments brought on it the contempt +of the jewelled young countesses and silk-clad misses. Over such feeble +fledglings the directress spread a wing of kindliest protection: it was +to their bedside she came at night to tuck them warmly in; it was after +them she looked in winter to see that they always had a comfortable seat +by the stove; it was they who by turns were summoned to the salon to +receive some little dole of cake or fruit--to sit on a footstool at +the fireside--to enjoy home comforts, and almost home liberty, for +an evening together--to be spoken to gently and softly, comforted, +encouraged, cherished--and when bedtime came, dismissed with a kiss +of true tenderness. As to Julia and Georgiana G----, daughters of an +English baronet, as to Mdlle. Mathilde de ----, heiress of a Belgian +count, and sundry other children of patrician race, the directress was +careful of them as of the others, anxious for their progress, as for +that of the rest--but it never seemed to enter her head to distinguish +them by a mark of preference; one girl of noble blood she loved +dearly--a young Irish baroness--lady Catherine ----; but it was for her +enthusiastic heart and clever head, for her generosity and her genius, +the title and rank went for nothing. + +My afternoons were spent also in college, with the exception of an hour +that my wife daily exacted of me for her establishment, and with which +she would not dispense. She said that I must spend that time amongst her +pupils to learn their characters, to be AU COURANT with everything that +was passing in the house, to become interested in what interested her, +to be able to give her my opinion on knotty points when she required it, +and this she did constantly, never allowing my interest in the pupils +to fall asleep, and never making any change of importance without +my cognizance and consent. She delighted to sit by me when I gave my +lessons (lessons in literature), her hands folded on her knee, the most +fixedly attentive of any present. She rarely addressed me in class; when +she did it was with an air of marked deference; it was her pleasure, her +joy to make me still the master in all things. + +At six o’clock P.M. my daily labours ceased. I then came home, for +my home was my heaven; ever at that hour, as I entered our private +sitting-room, the lady-directress vanished from before my eyes, and +Frances Henri, my own little lace-mender, was magically restored to my +arms; much disappointed she would have been if her master had not been +as constant to the tryst as herself, and if his truthfull kiss had not +been prompt to answer her soft, “Bon soir, monsieur.” + +Talk French to me she would, and many a punishment she has had for +her wilfulness. I fear the choice of chastisement must have been +injudicious, for instead of correcting the fault, it seemed to encourage +its renewal. Our evenings were our own; that recreation was necessary to +refresh our strength for the due discharge of our duties; sometimes we +spent them all in conversation, and my young Genevese, now that she was +thoroughly accustomed to her English professor, now that she loved +him too absolutely to fear him much, reposed in him a confidence so +unlimited that topics of conversation could no more be wanting with him +than subjects for communion with her own heart. In those moments, happy +as a bird with its mate, she would show me what she had of vivacity, of +mirth, of originality in her well-dowered nature. She would show, too, +some stores of raillery, of “malice,” and would vex, tease, pique me +sometimes about what she called my “bizarreries anglaises,” my “caprices +insulaires,” with a wild and witty wickedness that made a perfect white +demon of her while it lasted. This was rare, however, and the elfish +freak was always short: sometimes when driven a little hard in the war +of words--for her tongue did ample justice to the pith, the point, the +delicacy of her native French, in which language she always attacked +me--I used to turn upon her with my old decision, and arrest bodily the +sprite that teased me. Vain idea! no sooner had I grasped hand or arm +than the elf was gone; the provocative smile quenched in the expressive +brown eyes, and a ray of gentle homage shone under the lids in its +place. I had seized a mere vexing fairy, and found a submissive and +supplicating little mortal woman in my arms. Then I made her get a book, +and read English to me for an hour by way of penance. I frequently dosed +her with Wordsworth in this way, and Wordsworth steadied her soon; she +had a difficulty in comprehending his deep, serene, and sober mind; his +language, too, was not facile to her; she had to ask questions, to sue +for explanations, to be like a child and a novice, and to acknowledge +me as her senior and director. Her instinct instantly penetrated and +possessed the meaning of more ardent and imaginative writers. Byron +excited her; Scott she loved; Wordsworth only she puzzled at, wondered +over, and hesitated to pronounce an opinion upon. + +But whether she read to me, or talked with me; whether she teased me +in French, or entreated me in English; whether she jested with wit, +or inquired with deference; narrated with interest, or listened with +attention; whether she smiled at me or on me, always at nine o’clock I +was left abandoned. She would extricate herself from my arms, quit +my side, take her lamp, and be gone. Her mission was upstairs; I have +followed her sometimes and watched her. First she opened the door of the +dortoir (the pupils’ chamber), noiselessly she glided up the long room +between the two rows of white beds, surveyed all the sleepers; if any +were wakeful, especially if any were sad, spoke to them and soothed +them; stood some minutes to ascertain that all was safe and tranquil; +trimmed the watch-light which burned in the apartment all night, then +withdrew, closing the door behind her without sound. Thence she glided +to our own chamber; it had a little cabinet within; this she sought; +there, too, appeared a bed, but one, and that a very small one; her face +(the night I followed and observed her) changed as she approached this +tiny couch; from grave it warmed to earnest; she shaded with one hand +the lamp she held in the other; she bent above the pillow and hung +over a child asleep; its slumber (that evening at least, and usually, +I believe) was sound and calm; no tear wet its dark eyelashes; no fever +heated its round cheek; no ill dream discomposed its budding features. +Frances gazed, she did not smile, and yet the deepest delight filled, +flushed her face; feeling pleasurable, powerful, worked in her whole +frame, which still was motionless. I saw, indeed, her heart heave, her +lips were a little apart, her breathing grew somewhat hurried; the child +smiled; then at last the mother smiled too, and said in low soliloquy, +“God bless my little son!” She stooped closer over him, breathed the +softest of kisses on his brow, covered his minute hand with hers, and +at last started up and came away. I regained the parlour before her. +Entering it two minutes later she said quietly as she put down her +extinguished lamp-- + +“Victor rests well: he smiled in his sleep; he has your smile, +monsieur.” + +The said Victor was of course her own boy, born in the third year of +our marriage: his Christian name had been given him in honour of M. +Vandenhuten, who continued always our trusty and well-beloved friend. + +Frances was then a good and dear wife to me, because I was to her a +good, just, and faithful husband. What she would have been had she +married a harsh, envious, careless man--a profligate, a prodigal, +a drunkard, or a tyrant--is another question, and one which I once +propounded to her. Her answer, given after some reflection, was-- + +“I should have tried to endure the evil or cure it for awhile; and when +I found it intolerable and incurable, I should have left my torturer +suddenly and silently.” + +“And if law or might had forced you back again?” + +“What, to a drunkard, a profligate, a selfish spendthrift, an unjust +fool?” + +“Yes.” + +“I would have gone back; again assured myself whether or not his vice +and my misery were capable of remedy; and if not, have left him again.” + +“And if again forced to return, and compelled to abide?” + +“I don’t know,” she said, hastily. “Why do you ask me, monsieur?” + +I would have an answer, because I saw a strange kind of spirit in her +eye, whose voice I determined to waken. + +“Monsieur, if a wife’s nature loathes that of the man she is wedded to, +marriage must be slavery. Against slavery all right thinkers revolt, and +though torture be the price of resistance, torture must be dared: though +the only road to freedom lie through the gates of death, those gates +must be passed; for freedom is indispensable. Then, monsieur, I would +resist as far as my strength permitted; when that strength failed I +should be sure of a refuge. Death would certainly screen me both from +bad laws and their consequences.” + +“Voluntary death, Frances?” + +“No, monsieur. I’d have courage to live out every throe of anguish fate +assigned me, and principle to contend for justice and liberty to the +last.” + +“I see you would have made no patient Grizzle. And now, supposing fate +had merely assigned you the lot of an old maid, what then? How would you +have liked celibacy?” + +“Not much, certainly. An old maid’s life must doubtless be void and +vapid--her heart strained and empty. Had I been an old maid I should +have spent existence in efforts to fill the void and ease the aching. I +should have probably failed, and died weary and disappointed, despised +and of no account, like other single women. But I’m not an old maid,” + she added quickly. “I should have been, though, but for my master. I +should never have suited any man but Professor Crimsworth--no other +gentleman, French, English, or Belgian, would have thought me amiable or +handsome; and I doubt whether I should have cared for the approbation +of many others, if I could have obtained it. Now, I have been Professor +Crimsworth’s wife eight years, and what is he in my eyes? Is he +honourable, beloved ----?” She stopped, her voice was cut off, her eyes +suddenly suffused. She and I were standing side by side; she threw her +arms round me, and strained me to her heart with passionate earnestness: +the energy of her whole being glowed in her dark and then dilated +eye, and crimsoned her animated cheek; her look and movement were like +inspiration; in one there was such a flash, in the other such a power. +Half an hour afterwards, when she had become calm, I asked where all +that wild vigour was gone which had transformed her ere-while and made +her glance so thrilling and ardent--her action so rapid and strong. She +looked down, smiling softly and passively:-- + +“I cannot tell where it is gone, monsieur,” said she, “but I know that, +whenever it is wanted, it will come back again.” + +Behold us now at the close of the ten years, and we have realized an +independency. The rapidity with which we attained this end had its +origin in three reasons:-- Firstly, we worked so hard for it; secondly, +we had no incumbrances to delay success; thirdly, as soon as we had +capital to invest, two well-skilled counsellors, one in Belgium, one in +England, viz. Vandenhuten and Hunsden, gave us each a word of advice +as to the sort of investment to be chosen. The suggestion made was +judicious; and, being promptly acted on, the result proved gainful--I +need not say how gainful; I communicated details to Messrs. Vandenhuten +and Hunsden; nobody else can be interested in hearing them. + +Accounts being wound up, and our professional connection disposed of, we +both agreed that, as mammon was not our master, nor his service that in +which we desired to spend our lives; as our desires were temperate, and +our habits unostentatious, we had now abundance to live on--abundance to +leave our boy; and should besides always have a balance on hand, which, +properly managed by right sympathy and unselfish activity, might +help philanthropy in her enterprises, and put solace into the hand of +charity. + +To England we now resolved to take wing; we arrived there safely; +Frances realized the dream of her lifetime. We spent a whole summer +and autumn in travelling from end to end of the British islands, and +afterwards passed a winter in London. Then we thought it high time +to fix our residence. My heart yearned towards my native county of +----shire; and it is in ----shire I now live; it is in the library of my +own home I am now writing. That home lies amid a sequestered and rather +hilly region, thirty miles removed from X----; a region whose verdure +the smoke of mills has not yet sullied, whose waters still run pure, +whose swells of moorland preserve in some ferny glens that lie between +them the very primal wildness of nature, her moss, her bracken, her +blue-bells, her scents of reed and heather, her free and fresh breezes. +My house is a picturesque and not too spacious dwelling, with low and +long windows, a trellised and leaf-veiled porch over the front door, +just now, on this summer evening, looking like an arch of roses and ivy. +The garden is chiefly laid out in lawn, formed of the sod of the hills, +with herbage short and soft as moss, full of its own peculiar flowers, +tiny and starlike, imbedded in the minute embroidery of their fine +foliage. At the bottom of the sloping garden there is a wicket, which +opens upon a lane as green as the lawn, very long, shady, and little +frequented; on the turf of this lane generally appear the first daisies +of spring--whence its name--Daisy Lane; serving also as a distinction to +the house. + +It terminates (the lane I mean) in a valley full of wood; which +wood--chiefly oak and beech--spreads shadowy about the vicinage of a +very old mansion, one of the Elizabethan structures, much larger, as +well as more antique than Daisy Lane, the property and residence of +an individual familiar both to me and to the reader. Yes, in Hunsden +Wood--for so are those glades and that grey building, with many gables +and more chimneys, named--abides Yorke Hunsden, still unmarried; never, +I suppose, having yet found his ideal, though I know at least a score +of young ladies within a circuit of forty miles, who would be willing to +assist him in the search. + +The estate fell to him by the death of his father, five years since; he +has given up trade, after having made by it sufficient to pay off some +incumbrances by which the family heritage was burdened. I say he abides +here, but I do not think he is resident above five months out of the +twelve; he wanders from land to land, and spends some part of each +winter in town: he frequently brings visitors with him when he comes to +----shire, and these visitors are often foreigners; sometimes he has +a German metaphysician, sometimes a French savant; he had once a +dissatisfied and savage-looking Italian, who neither sang nor played, +and of whom Frances affirmed that he had “tout l’air d’un conspirateur.” + +What English guests Hunsden invites, are all either men of Birmingham or +Manchester--hard men, seemingly knit up in one thought, whose talk is +of free trade. The foreign visitors, too, are politicians; they take a +wider theme--European progress--the spread of liberal sentiments over +the Continent; on their mental tablets, the names of Russia, Austria, +and the Pope, are inscribed in red ink. I have heard some of them talk +vigorous sense--yea, I have been present at polyglot discussions in the +old, oak-lined dining-room at Hunsden Wood, where a singular insight +was given of the sentiments entertained by resolute minds respecting old +northern despotisms, and old southern superstitions: also, I have heard +much twaddle, enounced chiefly in French and Deutsch, but let that pass. +Hunsden himself tolerated the drivelling theorists; with the practical +men he seemed leagued hand and heart. + +When Hunsden is staying alone at the Wood (which seldom happens) he +generally finds his way two or three times a week to Daisy Lane. He has +a philanthropic motive for coming to smoke his cigar in our porch on +summer evenings; he says he does it to kill the earwigs amongst the +roses, with which insects, but for his benevolent fumigations, he +intimates we should certainly be overrun. On wet days, too, we are +almost sure to see him; according to him, it gets on time to work +me into lunacy by treading on my mental corns, or to force from Mrs. +Crimsworth revelations of the dragon within her, by insulting the memory +of Hofer and Tell. + +We also go frequently to Hunsden Wood, and both I and Frances relish a +visit there highly. If there are other guests, their characters are +an interesting study; their conversation is exciting and strange; the +absence of all local narrowness both in the host and his chosen society +gives a metropolitan, almost a cosmopolitan freedom and largeness to the +talk. Hunsden himself is a polite man in his own house: he has, when he +chooses to employ it, an inexhaustible power of entertaining guests; his +very mansion too is interesting, the rooms look storied, the +passages legendary, the low-ceiled chambers, with their long rows of +diamond-paned lattices, have an old-world, haunted air: in his travels +he has collected stores of articles of VERTU, which are well and +tastefully disposed in his panelled or tapestried rooms: I have seen +there one or two pictures, and one or two pieces of statuary which many +an aristocratic connoisseur might have envied. + +When I and Frances have dined and spent an evening with Hunsden, he +often walks home with us. His wood is large, and some of the timber +is old and of huge growth. There are winding ways in it which, pursued +through glade and brake, make the walk back to Daisy Lane a somewhat +long one. Many a time, when we have had the benefit of a full moon, +and when the night has been mild and balmy, when, moreover, a certain +nightingale has been singing, and a certain stream, hid in alders, has +lent the song a soft accompaniment, the remote church-bell of the one +hamlet in a district of ten miles, has tolled midnight ere the lord of +the wood left us at our porch. Free-flowing was his talk at such hours, +and far more quiet and gentle than in the day-time and before numbers. +He would then forget politics and discussion, and would dwell on the +past times of his house, on his family history, on himself and his own +feelings--subjects each and all invested with a peculiar zest, for they +were each and all unique. One glorious night in June, after I had been +taunting him about his ideal bride and asking him when she would +come and graft her foreign beauty on the old Hunsden oak, he answered +suddenly-- + +“You call her ideal; but see, here is her shadow; and there cannot be a +shadow without a substance.” + +He had led us from the depth of the “winding way” into a glade from +whence the beeches withdrew, leaving it open to the sky; an unclouded +moon poured her light into this glade, and Hunsden held out under her +beam an ivory miniature. + +Frances, with eagerness, examined it first; then she gave it to +me--still, however, pushing her little face close to mine, and seeking +in my eyes what I thought of the portrait. I thought it represented a +very handsome and very individual-looking female face, with, as he had +once said, “straight and harmonious features.” It was dark; the hair, +raven-black, swept not only from the brow, but from the temples--seemed +thrust away carelessly, as if such beauty dispensed with, nay, +despised arrangement. The Italian eye looked straight into you, and an +independent, determined eye it was; the mouth was as firm as fine; the +chin ditto. On the back of the miniature was gilded “Lucia.” + +“That is a real head,” was my conclusion. + +Hunsden smiled. + +“I think so,” he replied. “All was real in Lucia.” + +“And she was somebody you would have liked to marry--but could not?” + +“I should certainly have liked to marry her, and that I HAVE not done so +is a proof that I COULD not.” + +He repossessed himself of the miniature, now again in Frances’ hand, and +put it away. + +“What do YOU think of it?” he asked of my wife, as he buttoned his coat +over it. + +“I am sure Lucia once wore chains and broke them,” was the strange +answer. “I do not mean matrimonial chains,” she added, correcting +herself, as if she feared mis-interpretation, “but social chains of some +sort. The face is that of one who has made an effort, and a successful +and triumphant effort, to wrest some vigorous and valued faculty from +insupportable constraint; and when Lucia’s faculty got free, I am +certain it spread wide pinions and carried her higher than--” she +hesitated. + +“Than what?” demanded Hunsden. + +“Than ‘les convenances’ permitted you to follow.” + +“I think you grow spiteful--impertinent.” + +“Lucia has trodden the stage,” continued Frances. “You never seriously +thought of marrying her; you admired her originality, her fearlessness, +her energy of body and mind; you delighted in her talent, whatever that +was, whether song, dance, or dramatic representation; you worshipped her +beauty, which was of the sort after your own heart: but I am sure she +filled a sphere from whence you would never have thought of taking a +wife.” + +“Ingenious,” remarked Hunsden; “whether true or not is another question. +Meantime, don’t you feel your little lamp of a spirit wax very pale, +beside such a girandole as Lucia’s?” + +“Yes.” + +“Candid, at least; and the Professor will soon be dissatisfied with the +dim light you give?” + +“Will you, monsieur?” + +“My sight was always too weak to endure a blaze, Frances,” and we had +now reached the wicket. + +I said, a few pages back, that this is a sweet summer evening; it +is--there has been a series of lovely days, and this is the loveliest; +the hay is just carried from my fields, its perfume still lingers in the +air. Frances proposed to me, an hour or two since, to take tea out +on the lawn; I see the round table, loaded with china, placed under a +certain beech; Hunsden is expected--nay, I hear he is come--there is his +voice, laying down the law on some point with authority; that of Frances +replies; she opposes him of course. They are disputing about Victor, +of whom Hunsden affirms that his mother is making a milksop. Mrs. +Crimsworth retaliates:-- + +“Better a thousand times he should be a milksop than what he, Hunsden, +calls ‘a fine lad;’ and moreover she says that if Hunsden were to become +a fixture in the neighbourhood, and were not a mere comet, coming and +going, no one knows how, when, where, or why, she should be quite uneasy +till she had got Victor away to a school at least a hundred miles off; +for that with his mutinous maxims and unpractical dogmas, he would ruin +a score of children.” + +I have a word to say of Victor ere I shut this manuscript in my +desk--but it must be a brief one, for I hear the tinkle of silver on +porcelain. + +Victor is as little of a pretty child as I am of a handsome man, or his +mother of a fine woman; he is pale and spare, with large eyes, as dark +as those of Frances, and as deeply set as mine. His shape is symmetrical +enough, but slight; his health is good. I never saw a child smile less +than he does, nor one who knits such a formidable brow when sitting over +a book that interests him, or while listening to tales of adventure, +peril, or wonder, narrated by his mother, Hunsden, or myself. But +though still, he is not unhappy--though serious, not morose; he has a +susceptibility to pleasurable sensations almost too keen, for it amounts +to enthusiasm. He learned to read in the old-fashioned way out of a +spelling-book at his mother’s knee, and as he got on without driving by +that method, she thought it unnecessary to buy him ivory letters, or to +try any of the other inducements to learning now deemed indispensable. +When he could read, he became a glutton of books, and is so still. +His toys have been few, and he has never wanted more. For those he +possesses, he seems to have contracted a partiality amounting to +affection; this feeling, directed towards one or two living animals of +the house, strengthens almost to a passion. + +Mr. Hunsden gave him a mastiff cub, which he called Yorke, after the +donor; it grew to a superb dog, whose fierceness, however, was much +modified by the companionship and caresses of its young master. He would +go nowhere, do nothing without Yorke; Yorke lay at his feet while he +learned his lessons, played with him in the garden, walked with him in +the lane and wood, sat near his chair at meals, was fed always by his +own hand, was the first thing he sought in the morning, the last he left +at night. Yorke accompanied Mr. Hunsden one day to X----, and was bitten +in the street by a dog in a rabid state. As soon as Hunsden had brought +him home, and had informed me of the circumstance, I went into the yard +and shot him where he lay licking his wound: he was dead in an instant; +he had not seen me level the gun; I stood behind him. I had scarcely +been ten minutes in the house, when my ear was struck with sounds of +anguish: I repaired to the yard once more, for they proceeded thence. +Victor was kneeling beside his dead mastiff, bent over it, embracing its +bull-like neck, and lost in a passion of the wildest woe: he saw me. + +“Oh, papa, I’ll never forgive you! I’ll never forgive you!” was his +exclamation. “You shot Yorke--I saw it from the window. I never believed +you could be so cruel--I can love you no more!” + +I had much ado to explain to him, with a steady voice, the stern +necessity of the deed; he still, with that inconsolable and bitter +accent which I cannot render, but which pierced my heart, repeated-- + +“He might have been cured--you should have tried--you should have burnt +the wound with a hot iron, or covered it with caustic. You gave no time; +and now it is too late--he is dead!” + +He sank fairly down on the senseless carcase; I waited patiently a long +while, till his grief had somewhat exhausted him; and then I lifted him +in my arms and carried him to his mother, sure that she would comfort +him best. She had witnessed the whole scene from a window; she would not +come out for fear of increasing my difficulties by her emotion, but she +was ready now to receive him. She took him to her kind heart, and on +to her gentle lap; consoled him but with her lips, her eyes, her soft +embrace, for some time; and then, when his sobs diminished, told him +that Yorke had felt no pain in dying, and that if he had been left to +expire naturally, his end would have been most horrible; above all, she +told him that I was not cruel (for that idea seemed to give exquisite +pain to poor Victor), that it was my affection for Yorke and him which +had made me act so, and that I was now almost heart-broken to see him +weep thus bitterly. + +Victor would have been no true son of his father, had these +considerations, these reasons, breathed in so low, so sweet a +tone--married to caresses so benign, so tender--to looks so inspired +with pitying sympathy--produced no effect on him. They did produce an +effect: he grew calmer, rested his face on her shoulder, and lay still +in her arms. Looking up, shortly, he asked his mother to tell him over +again what she had said about Yorke having suffered no pain, and my not +being cruel; the balmy words being repeated, he again pillowed his cheek +on her breast, and was again tranquil. + +Some hours after, he came to me in my library, asked if I forgave him, +and desired to be reconciled. I drew the lad to my side, and there I +kept him a good while, and had much talk with him, in the course of +which he disclosed many points of feeling and thought I approved of in +my son. I found, it is true, few elements of the “good fellow” or the +“fine fellow” in him; scant sparkles of the spirit which loves to flash +over the wine cup, or which kindles the passions to a destroying +fire; but I saw in the soil of his heart healthy and swelling germs +of compassion, affection, fidelity. I discovered in the garden of his +intellect a rich growth of wholesome principles--reason, justice, moral +courage, promised, if not blighted, a fertile bearing. So I bestowed on +his large forehead, and on his cheek--still pale with tears--a proud and +contented kiss, and sent him away comforted. Yet I saw him the next day +laid on the mound under which Yorke had been buried, his face covered +with his hands; he was melancholy for some weeks, and more than a year +elapsed before he would listen to any proposal of having another dog. + +Victor learns fast. He must soon go to Eton, where, I suspect, his first +year or two will be utter wretchedness: to leave me, his mother, and his +home, will give his heart an agonized wrench; then, the fagging will not +suit him--but emulation, thirst after knowledge, the glory of success, +will stir and reward him in time. Meantime, I feel in myself a strong +repugnance to fix the hour which will uproot my sole olive branch, and +transplant it far from me; and, when I speak to Frances on the subject, +I am heard with a kind of patient pain, as though I alluded to some +fearful operation, at which her nature shudders, but from which her +fortitude will not permit her to recoil. The step must, however, be +taken, and it shall be; for, though Frances will not make a milksop of +her son, she will accustom him to a style of treatment, a forbearance, +a congenial tenderness, he will meet with from none else. She sees, as +I also see, a something in Victor’s temper--a kind of electrical ardour +and power--which emits, now and then, ominous sparks; Hunsden calls it +his spirit, and says it should not be curbed. I call it the leaven of +the offending Adam, and consider that it should be, if not WHIPPED out +of him, at least soundly disciplined; and that he will be cheap of +any amount of either bodily or mental suffering which will ground him +radically in the art of self-control. Frances gives this something in +her son’s marked character no name; but when it appears in the grinding +of his teeth, in the glittering of his eye, in the fierce revolt of +feeling against disappointment, mischance, sudden sorrow, or supposed +injustice, she folds him to her breast, or takes him to walk with her +alone in the wood; then she reasons with him like any philosopher, and +to reason Victor is ever accessible; then she looks at him with eyes of +love, and by love Victor can be infallibly subjugated; but will reason +or love be the weapons with which in future the world will meet his +violence? Oh, no! for that flash in his black eye--for that cloud on +his bony brow--for that compression of his statuesque lips, the lad will +some day get blows instead of blandishments--kicks instead of kisses; +then for the fit of mute fury which will sicken his body and madden +his soul; then for the ordeal of merited and salutary suffering, out of +which he will come (I trust) a wiser and a better man. + +I see him now; he stands by Hunsden, who is seated on the lawn under the +beech; Hunsden’s hand rests on the boy’s collar, and he is instilling +God knows what principles into his ear. Victor looks well just now, for +he listens with a sort of smiling interest; he never looks so like his +mother as when he smiles--pity the sunshine breaks out so rarely! Victor +has a preference for Hunsden, full as strong as I deem desirable, being +considerably more potent, decided, and indiscriminating, than any I ever +entertained for that personage myself. Frances, too, regards it with a +sort of unexpressed anxiety; while her son leans on Hunsden’s knee, or +rests against his shoulder, she roves with restless movement round, +like a dove guarding its young from a hovering hawk; she says she wishes +Hunsden had children of his own, for then he would better know the +danger of inciting their pride end indulging their foibles. + +Frances approaches my library window; puts aside the honeysuckle which +half covers it, and tells me tea is ready; seeing that I continue busy +she enters the room, comes near me quietly, and puts her hand on my +shoulder. + +“Monsieur est trop applique.” + +“I shall soon have done.” + +She draws a chair near, and sits down to wait till I have finished; her +presence is as pleasant to my mind as the perfume of the fresh hay and +spicy flowers, as the glow of the westering sun, as the repose of the +midsummer eve are to my senses. + +But Hunsden comes; I hear his step, and there he is, bending through the +lattice, from which he has thrust away the woodbine with unsparing hand, +disturbing two bees and a butterfly. + +“Crimsworth! I say, Crimsworth! take that pen out of his hand, mistress, +and make him lift up his head.” + +“Well, Hunsden? I hear you--” + +“I was at X---- yesterday! your brother Ned is getting richer than +Croesus by railway speculations; they call him in the Piece Hall a stag +of ten; and I have heard from Brown. M. and Madame Vandenhuten and Jean +Baptiste talk of coming to see you next month. He mentions the Pelets +too; he says their domestic harmony is not the finest in the world, but +in business they are doing ‘on ne peut mieux,’ which circumstance +he concludes will be a sufficient consolation to both for any little +crosses in the affections. Why don’t you invite the Pelets to ----shire, +Crimsworth? I should so like to see your first flame, Zoraide. Mistress, +don’t be jealous, but he loved that lady to distraction; I know it for a +fact. Brown says she weighs twelve stones now; you see what you’ve +lost, Mr. Professor. Now, Monsieur and Madame, if you don’t come to tea, +Victor and I will begin without you.” + +“Papa, come!” + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PROFESSOR ***
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