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diff --git a/9182-h/9182-h.htm b/9182-h/9182-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1ea9879 --- /dev/null +++ b/9182-h/9182-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,27385 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" +"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" /> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Villette, by Charlotte Brontë</title> + +<style type="text/css"> + +body { margin-left: 20%; + margin-right: 20%; + text-align: justify; } + +h1, h2, h3, h4, h5 {text-align: center; font-style: normal; font-weight: +normal; line-height: 1.5; margin-top: .5em; margin-bottom: .5em;} + +h1 {font-size: 300%; + margin-top: 0.6em; + margin-bottom: 0.6em; + letter-spacing: 0.12em; + word-spacing: 0.2em; + text-indent: 0em;} +h2 {font-size: 150%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 1em;} +h3 {font-size: 130%; margin-top: 1em;} +h4 {font-size: 120%;} +h5 {font-size: 110%;} + +.no-break {page-break-before: avoid;} /* for epubs */ + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always; margin-top: 4em;} + +hr {width: 80%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em;} + +p {text-indent: 1em; + margin-top: 0.25em; + margin-bottom: 0.25em; } + +.p2 {margin-top: 2em;} + +p.poem {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-size: 90%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.letter {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.noindent {text-indent: 0% } + +p.right {text-align: right; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +a:link {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:visited {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:hover {color:red} + +</style> + +</head> + +<body> + +<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Villette, by Charlotte Brontë</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online +at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you +are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the +country where you are located before using this eBook. +</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Villette</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Charlotte Brontë</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: September 12, 2003 [eBook #9182]<br /> +[Most recently updated: May 22, 2023]</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Delphine Lettau, Charles Franks and Distributed Proofreaders</div> +<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VILLETTE ***</div> + +<h1>Villette</h1> + +<h2 class="no-break">by Charlotte Brontë</h2> + +<hr /> + +<h2>Contents</h2> + +<table summary="" style=""> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap01">I. BRETTON</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap02">II. PAULINA</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap03">III. THE PLAYMATES</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap04">IV. MISS MARCHMONT</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap05">V. TURNING A NEW LEAF</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap06">VI. LONDON</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap07">VII. VILLETTE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap08">VIII. MADAME BECK</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap09">IX. ISIDORE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap10">X. DR. JOHN</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap11">XI. THE PORTRESS’S CABINET</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap12">XII. THE CASKET</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap13">XIII. A SNEEZE OUT OF SEASON</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap14">XIV. THE FÊTE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap15">XV. THE LONG VACATION</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap16">XVI. AULD LANG SYNE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap17">XVII. LA TERRASSE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap18">XVIII. WE QUARREL</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap19">XIX. THE CLEOPATRA</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap20">XX. THE CONCERT</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap21">XXI. REACTION</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap22">XXII. THE LETTER</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap23">XXIII. VASHTI</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap24">XXIV. M. DE BASSOMPIERRE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap25">XXV. THE LITTLE COUNTESS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap26">XXVI. A BURIAL</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap27">XXVII. THE HÔTEL CRÉCY</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap28">XXVIII. THE WATCHGUARD</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap29">XXIX. MONSIEUR’S FÊTE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap30">XXX. M. PAUL</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap31">XXXI. THE DRYAD</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap32">XXXII. THE FIRST LETTER</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap33">XXXIII. M. PAUL KEEPS HIS PROMISE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap34">XXXIV. MALEVOLA</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap35">XXXV. FRATERNITY</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap36">XXXVI. THE APPLE OF DISCORD</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap37">XXXVII. SUNSHINE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap38">XXXVIII. CLOUD</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap39">XXXIX. OLD AND NEW ACQUAINTANCE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap40">XL. THE HAPPY PAIR</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap41">XLI. FAUBOURG CLOTILDE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap42">XLII. FINIS</a></td> +</tr> +</table> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>VILLETTE.</h2> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap01"></a>CHAPTER I.<br/> +BRETTON.</h2> + +<p> +My godmother lived in a handsome house in the clean and ancient town of +Bretton. Her husband’s family had been residents there for generations, and +bore, indeed, the name of their birthplace—Bretton of Bretton: whether by +coincidence, or because some remote ancestor had been a personage of sufficient +importance to leave his name to his neighbourhood, I know not. +</p> + +<p> +When I was a girl I went to Bretton about twice a year, and well I liked the +visit. The house and its inmates specially suited me. The large peaceful rooms, +the well-arranged furniture, the clear wide windows, the balcony outside, +looking down on a fine antique street, where Sundays and holidays seemed always +to abide—so quiet was its atmosphere, so clean its pavement—these things +pleased me well. +</p> + +<p> +One child in a household of grown people is usually made very much of, and in a +quiet way I was a good deal taken notice of by Mrs. Bretton, who had been left +a widow, with one son, before I knew her; her husband, a physician, having died +while she was yet a young and handsome woman. +</p> + +<p> +She was not young, as I remember her, but she was still handsome, tall, +well-made, and though dark for an Englishwoman, yet wearing always the +clearness of health in her brunette cheek, and its vivacity in a pair of fine, +cheerful black eyes. People esteemed it a grievous pity that she had not +conferred her complexion on her son, whose eyes were blue—though, even in +boyhood, very piercing—and the colour of his long hair such as friends did not +venture to specify, except as the sun shone on it, when they called it golden. +He inherited the lines of his mother’s features, however; also her good teeth, +her stature (or the promise of her stature, for he was not yet full-grown), +and, what was better, her health without flaw, and her spirits of that tone and +equality which are better than a fortune to the possessor. +</p> + +<p> +In the autumn of the year —— I was staying at Bretton; my godmother having come +in person to claim me of the kinsfolk with whom was at that time fixed my +permanent residence. I believe she then plainly saw events coming, whose very +shadow I scarce guessed; yet of which the faint suspicion sufficed to impart +unsettled sadness, and made me glad to change scene and society. +</p> + +<p> +Time always flowed smoothly for me at my godmother’s side; not with tumultuous +swiftness, but blandly, like the gliding of a full river through a plain. My +visits to her resembled the sojourn of Christian and Hopeful beside a certain +pleasant stream, with “green trees on each bank, and meadows beautified with +lilies all the year round.” The charm of variety there was not, nor the +excitement of incident; but I liked peace so well, and sought stimulus so +little, that when the latter came I almost felt it a disturbance, and wished +rather it had still held aloof. +</p> + +<p> +One day a letter was received of which the contents evidently caused Mrs. +Bretton surprise and some concern. I thought at first it was from home, and +trembled, expecting I know not what disastrous communication: to me, however, +no reference was made, and the cloud seemed to pass. +</p> + +<p> +The next day, on my return from a long walk, I found, as I entered my bedroom, +an unexpected change. In addition to my own French bed in its shady recess, +appeared in a corner a small crib, draped with white; and in addition to my +mahogany chest of drawers, I saw a tiny rosewood chest. I stood still, gazed, +and considered. +</p> + +<p> +“Of what are these things the signs and tokens?” I asked. The answer was +obvious. “A second guest is coming: Mrs. Bretton expects other visitors.” +</p> + +<p> +On descending to dinner, explanations ensued. A little girl, I was told, would +shortly be my companion: the daughter of a friend and distant relation of the +late Dr. Bretton’s. This little girl, it was added, had recently lost her +mother; though, indeed, Mrs. Bretton ere long subjoined, the loss was not so +great as might at first appear. Mrs. Home (Home it seems was the name) had been +a very pretty, but a giddy, careless woman, who had neglected her child, and +disappointed and disheartened her husband. So far from congenial had the union +proved, that separation at last ensued—separation by mutual consent, not after +any legal process. Soon after this event, the lady having over-exerted herself +at a ball, caught cold, took a fever, and died after a very brief illness. Her +husband, naturally a man of very sensitive feelings, and shocked inexpressibly +by too sudden communication of the news, could hardly, it seems, now be +persuaded but that some over-severity on his part—some deficiency in patience +and indulgence—had contributed to hasten her end. He had brooded over this idea +till his spirits were seriously affected; the medical men insisted on +travelling being tried as a remedy, and meanwhile Mrs. Bretton had offered to +take charge of his little girl. “And I hope,” added my godmother in conclusion, +“the child will not be like her mamma; as silly and frivolous a little flirt as +ever sensible man was weak enough to marry. For,” said she, “Mr. Home <i>is</i> +a sensible man in his way, though not very practical: he is fond of science, +and lives half his life in a laboratory trying experiments—a thing his +butterfly wife could neither comprehend nor endure; and indeed” confessed my +godmother, “I should not have liked it myself.” +</p> + +<p> +In answer to a question of mine, she further informed me that her late husband +used to say, Mr. Home had derived this scientific turn from a maternal uncle, a +French savant; for he came, it seems; of mixed French and Scottish origin, and +had connections now living in France, of whom more than one wrote <i>de</i> +before his name, and called himself noble. +</p> + +<p> +That same evening at nine o’clock, a servant was despatched to meet the coach +by which our little visitor was expected. Mrs. Bretton and I sat alone in the +drawing-room waiting her coming; John Graham Bretton being absent on a visit to +one of his schoolfellows who lived in the country. My godmother read the +evening paper while she waited; I sewed. It was a wet night; the rain lashed +the panes, and the wind sounded angry and restless. +</p> + +<p> +“Poor child!” said Mrs. Bretton from time to time. “What weather for her +journey! I wish she were safe here.” +</p> + +<p> +A little before ten the door-bell announced Warren’s return. No sooner was the +door opened than I ran down into the hall; there lay a trunk and some +band-boxes, beside them stood a person like a nurse-girl, and at the foot of +the staircase was Warren with a shawled bundle in his arms. +</p> + +<p> +“Is that the child?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, miss.” +</p> + +<p> +I would have opened the shawl, and tried to get a peep at the face, but it was +hastily turned from me to Warren’s shoulder. +</p> + +<p> +“Put me down, please,” said a small voice when Warren opened the drawing-room +door, “and take off this shawl,” continued the speaker, extracting with its +minute hand the pin, and with a sort of fastidious haste doffing the clumsy +wrapping. The creature which now appeared made a deft attempt to fold the +shawl; but the drapery was much too heavy and large to be sustained or wielded +by those hands and arms. “Give it to Harriet, please,” was then the direction, +“and she can put it away.” This said, it turned and fixed its eyes on Mrs. +Bretton. +</p> + +<p> +“Come here, little dear,” said that lady. “Come and let me see if you are cold +and damp: come and let me warm you at the fire.” +</p> + +<p> +The child advanced promptly. Relieved of her wrapping, she appeared exceedingly +tiny; but was a neat, completely-fashioned little figure, light, slight, and +straight. Seated on my godmother’s ample lap, she looked a mere doll; her neck, +delicate as wax, her head of silky curls, increased, I thought, the +resemblance. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Bretton talked in little fond phrases as she chafed the child’s hands, +arms, and feet; first she was considered with a wistful gaze, but soon a smile +answered her. Mrs. Bretton was not generally a caressing woman: even with her +deeply-cherished son, her manner was rarely sentimental, often the reverse; but +when the small stranger smiled at her, she kissed it, asking, “What is my +little one’s name?” +</p> + +<p> +“Missy.” +</p> + +<p> +“But besides Missy?” +</p> + +<p> +“Polly, papa calls her.” +</p> + +<p> +“Will Polly be content to live with me?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not <i>always</i>; but till papa comes home. Papa is gone away.” She shook her +head expressively. +</p> + +<p> +“He will return to Polly, or send for her.” +</p> + +<p> +“Will he, ma’am? Do you know he will?” +</p> + +<p> +“I think so.” +</p> + +<p> +“But Harriet thinks not: at least not for a long while. He is ill.” +</p> + +<p> +Her eyes filled. She drew her hand from Mrs. Bretton’s and made a movement to +leave her lap; it was at first resisted, but she said—“Please, I wish to go: I +can sit on a stool.” +</p> + +<p> +She was allowed to slip down from the knee, and taking a footstool, she carried +it to a corner where the shade was deep, and there seated herself. Mrs. +Bretton, though a commanding, and in grave matters even a peremptory woman, was +often passive in trifles: she allowed the child her way. She said to me, “Take +no notice at present.” But I did take notice: I watched Polly rest her small +elbow on her small knee, her head on her hand; I observed her draw a square +inch or two of pocket-handkerchief from the doll-pocket of her doll-skirt, and +then I heard her weep. Other children in grief or pain cry aloud, without shame +or restraint; but this being wept: the tiniest occasional sniff testified to +her emotion. Mrs. Bretton did not hear it: which was quite as well. Ere long, a +voice, issuing from the corner, demanded—“May the bell be rung for Harriet!” +</p> + +<p> +I rang; the nurse was summoned and came. +</p> + +<p> +“Harriet, I must be put to bed,” said her little mistress. “You must ask where +my bed is.” +</p> + +<p> +Harriet signified that she had already made that inquiry. +</p> + +<p> +“Ask if you sleep with me, Harriet.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, Missy,” said the nurse: “you are to share this young lady’s room,” +designating me. +</p> + +<p> +Missy did not leave her seat, but I saw her eyes seek me. After some minutes’ +silent scrutiny, she emerged from her corner. +</p> + +<p> +“I wish you, ma’am, good night,” said she to Mrs. Bretton; but she passed me +mute. +</p> + +<p> +“Good-night, Polly,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +“No need to say good-night, since we sleep in the same chamber,” was the reply, +with which she vanished from the drawing-room. We heard Harriet propose to +carry her up-stairs. “No need,” was again her answer—“no need, no need:” and +her small step toiled wearily up the staircase. +</p> + +<p> +On going to bed an hour afterwards, I found her still wide awake. She had +arranged her pillows so as to support her little person in a sitting posture: +her hands, placed one within the other, rested quietly on the sheet, with an +old-fashioned calm most unchildlike. I abstained from speaking to her for some +time, but just before extinguishing the light, I recommended her to lie down. +</p> + +<p> +“By and by,” was the answer. +</p> + +<p> +“But you will take cold, Missy.” +</p> + +<p> +She took some tiny article of raiment from the chair at her crib side, and with +it covered her shoulders. I suffered her to do as she pleased. Listening awhile +in the darkness, I was aware that she still wept,—wept under restraint, quietly +and cautiously. +</p> + +<p> +On awaking with daylight, a trickling of water caught my ear. Behold! there she +was risen and mounted on a stool near the washstand, with pains and difficulty +inclining the ewer (which she could not lift) so as to pour its contents into +the basin. It was curious to watch her as she washed and dressed, so small, +busy, and noiseless. Evidently she was little accustomed to perform her own +toilet; and the buttons, strings, hooks and eyes, offered difficulties which +she encountered with a perseverance good to witness. She folded her +night-dress, she smoothed the drapery of her couch quite neatly; withdrawing +into a corner, where the sweep of the white curtain concealed her, she became +still. I half rose, and advanced my head to see how she was occupied. On her +knees, with her forehead bent on her hands, I perceived that she was praying. +</p> + +<p> +Her nurse tapped at the door. She started up. +</p> + +<p> +“I am dressed, Harriet,” said she; “I have dressed myself, but I do not feel +neat. Make me neat!” +</p> + +<p> +“Why did you dress yourself, Missy?” +</p> + +<p> +“Hush! speak low, Harriet, for fear of waking <i>the girl</i>” (meaning me, who +now lay with my eyes shut). “I dressed myself to learn, against the time you +leave me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you want me to go?” +</p> + +<p> +“When you are cross, I have many a time wanted you to go, but not now. Tie my +sash straight; make my hair smooth, please.” +</p> + +<p> +“Your sash is straight enough. What a particular little body you are!” +</p> + +<p> +“It must be tied again. Please to tie it.” +</p> + +<p> +“There, then. When I am gone you must get that young lady to dress you.” +</p> + +<p> +“On no account.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why? She is a very nice young lady. I hope you mean to behave prettily to her, +Missy, and not show your airs.” +</p> + +<p> +“She shall dress me on no account.” +</p> + +<p> +“Comical little thing!” +</p> + +<p> +“You are not passing the comb straight through my hair, Harriet; the line will +be crooked.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, you are ill to please. Does that suit?” +</p> + +<p> +“Pretty well. Where should I go now that I am dressed?” +</p> + +<p> +“I will take you into the breakfast-room.” +</p> + +<p> +“Come, then.” +</p> + +<p> +They proceeded to the door. She stopped. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! Harriet, I wish this was papa’s house! I don’t know these people.” +</p> + +<p> +“Be a good child, Missy.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am good, but I ache here;” putting her hand to her heart, and moaning while +she reiterated, “Papa! papa!” +</p> + +<p> +I roused myself and started up, to check this scene while it was yet within +bounds. +</p> + +<p> +“Say good-morning to the young lady,” dictated Harriet. She said, +“Good-morning,” and then followed her nurse from the room. Harriet temporarily +left that same day, to go to her own friends, who lived in the neighbourhood. +</p> + +<p> +On descending, I found Paulina (the child called herself Polly, but her full +name was Paulina Mary) seated at the breakfast-table, by Mrs. Bretton’s side; a +mug of milk stood before her, a morsel of bread filled her hand, which lay +passive on the table-cloth: she was not eating. +</p> + +<p> +“How we shall conciliate this little creature,” said Mrs. Bretton to me, “I +don’t know: she tastes nothing, and by her looks, she has not slept.” +</p> + +<p> +I expressed my confidence in the effects of time and kindness. +</p> + +<p> +“If she were to take a fancy to anybody in the house, she would soon settle; +but not till then,” replied Mrs. Bretton. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap02"></a>CHAPTER II.<br/> +PAULINA.</h2> + +<p> +Some days elapsed, and it appeared she was not likely to take much of a fancy +to anybody in the house. She was not exactly naughty or wilful: she was far +from disobedient; but an object less conducive to comfort—to tranquillity +even—than she presented, it was scarcely possible to have before one’s eyes. +She moped: no grown person could have performed that uncheering business +better; no furrowed face of adult exile, longing for Europe at Europe’s +antipodes, ever bore more legibly the signs of home sickness than did her +infant visage. She seemed growing old and unearthly. I, Lucy Snowe, plead +guiltless of that curse, an overheated and discursive imagination; but +whenever, opening a room-door, I found her seated in a corner alone, her head +in her pigmy hand, that room seemed to me not inhabited, but haunted. +</p> + +<p> +And again, when of moonlight nights, on waking, I beheld her figure, white and +conspicuous in its night-dress, kneeling upright in bed, and praying like some +Catholic or Methodist enthusiast—some precocious fanatic or untimely saint—I +scarcely know what thoughts I had; but they ran risk of being hardly more +rational and healthy than that child’s mind must have been. +</p> + +<p> +I seldom caught a word of her prayers, for they were whispered low: sometimes, +indeed, they were not whispered at all, but put up unuttered; such rare +sentences as reached my ear still bore the burden, “Papa; my dear papa!” This, +I perceived, was a one-idea’d nature; betraying that monomaniac tendency I have +ever thought the most unfortunate with which man or woman can be cursed. +</p> + +<p> +What might have been the end of this fretting, had it continued unchecked, can +only be conjectured: it received, however, a sudden turn. +</p> + +<p> +One afternoon, Mrs. Bretton, coaxing her from her usual station in a corner, +had lifted her into the window-seat, and, by way of occupying her attention, +told her to watch the passengers and count how many ladies should go down the +street in a given time. She had sat listlessly, hardly looking, and not +counting, when—my eye being fixed on hers—I witnessed in its iris and pupil a +startling transfiguration. These sudden, dangerous natures—<i>sensitive</i> as +they are called—offer many a curious spectacle to those whom a cooler +temperament has secured from participation in their angular vagaries. The fixed +and heavy gaze swum, trembled, then glittered in fire; the small, overcast brow +cleared; the trivial and dejected features lit up; the sad countenance +vanished, and in its place appeared a sudden eagerness, an intense expectancy. +“It <i>is</i>!” were her words. +</p> + +<p> +Like a bird or a shaft, or any other swift thing, she was gone from the room. +How she got the house-door open I cannot tell; probably it might be ajar; +perhaps Warren was in the way and obeyed her behest, which would be impetuous +enough. I—watching calmly from the window—saw her, in her black frock and tiny +braided apron (to pinafores she had an antipathy), dart half the length of the +street; and, as I was on the point of turning, and quietly announcing to Mrs. +Bretton that the child was run out mad, and ought instantly to be pursued, I +saw her caught up, and rapt at once from my cool observation, and from the +wondering stare of the passengers. A gentleman had done this good turn, and +now, covering her with his cloak, advanced to restore her to the house whence +he had seen her issue. +</p> + +<p> +I concluded he would leave her in a servant’s charge and withdraw; but he +entered: having tarried a little while below, he came up-stairs. +</p> + +<p> +His reception immediately explained that he was known to Mrs. Bretton. She +recognised him; she greeted him, and yet she was fluttered, surprised, taken +unawares. Her look and manner were even expostulatory; and in reply to these, +rather than her words, he said,—“I could not help it, madam: I found it +impossible to leave the country without seeing with my own eyes how she +settled.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you will unsettle her.” +</p> + +<p> +“I hope not. And how is papa’s little Polly?” +</p> + +<p> +This question he addressed to Paulina, as he sat down and placed her gently on +the ground before him. +</p> + +<p> +“How is Polly’s papa?” was the reply, as she leaned on his knee, and gazed up +into his face. +</p> + +<p> +It was not a noisy, not a wordy scene: for that I was thankful; but it was a +scene of feeling too brimful, and which, because the cup did not foam up high +or furiously overflow, only oppressed one the more. On all occasions of +vehement, unrestrained expansion, a sense of disdain or ridicule comes to the +weary spectator’s relief; whereas I have ever felt most burdensome that sort of +sensibility which bends of its own will, a giant slave under the sway of good +sense. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Home was a stern-featured—perhaps I should rather say, a hard-featured man: +his forehead was knotty, and his cheekbones were marked and prominent. The +character of his face was quite Scotch; but there was feeling in his eye, and +emotion in his now agitated countenance. His northern accent in speaking +harmonised with his physiognomy. He was at once proud-looking and +homely-looking. He laid his hand on the child’s uplifted head. She said—“Kiss +Polly.” +</p> + +<p> +He kissed her. I wished she would utter some hysterical cry, so that I might +get relief and be at ease. She made wonderfully little noise: she seemed to +have got what she wanted—<i>all</i> she wanted, and to be in a trance of +content. Neither in mien nor in features was this creature like her sire, and +yet she was of his strain: her mind had been filled from his, as the cup from +the flagon. +</p> + +<p> +Indisputably, Mr. Home owned manly self-control, however he might secretly feel +on some matters. “Polly,” he said, looking down on his little girl, “go into +the hall; you will see papa’s great-coat lying on a chair; put your hand into +the pockets, you will find a pocket-handkerchief there; bring it to me.” +</p> + +<p> +She obeyed; went and returned deftly and nimbly. He was talking to Mrs. Bretton +when she came back, and she waited with the handkerchief in her hand. It was a +picture, in its way, to see her, with her tiny stature, and trim, neat shape, +standing at his knee. Seeing that he continued to talk, apparently unconscious +of her return, she took his hand, opened the unresisting fingers, insinuated +into them the handkerchief, and closed them upon it one by one. He still seemed +not to see or to feel her; but by-and-by, he lifted her to his knee; she +nestled against him, and though neither looked at nor spoke to the other for an +hour following, I suppose both were satisfied. +</p> + +<p> +During tea, the minute thing’s movements and behaviour gave, as usual, full +occupation to the eye. First she directed Warren, as he placed the chairs. +</p> + +<p> +“Put papa’s chair here, and mine near it, between papa and Mrs. Bretton: +<i>I</i> must hand his tea.” +</p> + +<p> +She took her own seat, and beckoned with her hand to her father. +</p> + +<p> +“Be near me, as if we were at home, papa.” +</p> + +<p> +And again, as she intercepted his cup in passing, and would stir the sugar, and +put in the cream herself, “I always did it for you at home; papa: nobody could +do it as well, not even your own self.” +</p> + +<p> +Throughout the meal she continued her attentions: rather absurd they were. The +sugar-tongs were too wide for one of her hands, and she had to use both in +wielding them; the weight of the silver cream-ewer, the bread-and-butter +plates, the very cup and saucer, tasked her insufficient strength and +dexterity; but she would lift this, hand that, and luckily contrived through it +all to break nothing. Candidly speaking, I thought her a little busy-body; but +her father, blind like other parents, seemed perfectly content to let her wait +on him, and even wonderfully soothed by her offices. +</p> + +<p> +“She is my comfort!” he could not help saying to Mrs. Bretton. That lady had +her own “comfort” and nonpareil on a much larger scale, and, for the moment, +absent; so she sympathised with his foible. +</p> + +<p> +This second “comfort” came on the stage in the course of the evening. I knew +this day had been fixed for his return, and was aware that Mrs. Bretton had +been expecting him through all its hours. We were seated round the fire, after +tea, when Graham joined our circle: I should rather say, broke it up—for, of +course, his arrival made a bustle; and then, as Mr. Graham was fasting, there +was refreshment to be provided. He and Mr. Home met as old acquaintance; of the +little girl he took no notice for a time. +</p> + +<p> +His meal over, and numerous questions from his mother answered, he turned from +the table to the hearth. Opposite where he had placed himself was seated Mr. +Home, and at his elbow, the child. When I say <i>child</i> I use an +inappropriate and undescriptive term—a term suggesting any picture rather than +that of the demure little person in a mourning frock and white chemisette, that +might just have fitted a good-sized doll—perched now on a high chair beside a +stand, whereon was her toy work-box of white varnished wood, and holding in her +hands a shred of a handkerchief, which she was professing to hem, and at which +she bored perseveringly with a needle, that in her fingers seemed almost a +skewer, pricking herself ever and anon, marking the cambric with a track of +minute red dots; occasionally starting when the perverse weapon—swerving from +her control—inflicted a deeper stab than usual; but still silent, diligent, +absorbed, womanly. +</p> + +<p> +Graham was at that time a handsome, faithless-looking youth of sixteen. I say +faithless-looking, not because he was really of a very perfidious disposition, +but because the epithet strikes me as proper to describe the fair, Celtic (not +Saxon) character of his good looks; his waved light auburn hair, his supple +symmetry, his smile frequent, and destitute neither of fascination nor of +subtlety (in no bad sense). A spoiled, whimsical boy he was in those days. +</p> + +<p> +“Mother,” he said, after eyeing the little figure before him in silence for +some time, and when the temporary absence of Mr. Home from the room relieved +him from the half-laughing bashfulness, which was all he knew of +timidity—-“Mother, I see a young lady in the present society to whom I have not +been introduced.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Home’s little girl, I suppose you mean,” said his mother. +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed, ma’am,” replied her son, “I consider your expression of the least +ceremonious: Miss Home <i>I</i> should certainly have said, in venturing to +speak of the gentlewoman to whom I allude.” +</p> + +<p> +“Now, Graham, I will not have that child teased. Don’t flatter yourself that I +shall suffer you to make her your butt.” +</p> + +<p> +“Miss Home,” pursued Graham, undeterred by his mother’s remonstrance, “might I +have the honour to introduce myself, since no one else seems willing to render +you and me that service? Your slave, John Graham Bretton.” +</p> + +<p> +She looked at him; he rose and bowed quite gravely. She deliberately put down +thimble, scissors, work; descended with precaution from her perch, and +curtsying with unspeakable seriousness, said, “How do you do?” +</p> + +<p> +“I have the honour to be in fair health, only in some measure fatigued with a +hurried journey. I hope, ma’am, I see you well?” +</p> + +<p> +“Tor-rer-ably well,” was the ambitious reply of the little woman and she now +essayed to regain her former elevation, but finding this could not be done +without some climbing and straining—a sacrifice of decorum not to be thought +of—and being utterly disdainful of aid in the presence of a strange young +gentleman, she relinquished the high chair for a low stool: towards that low +stool Graham drew in his chair. +</p> + +<p> +“I hope, ma’am, the present residence, my mother’s house, appears to you a +convenient place of abode?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not par-tic-er-er-ly; I want to go home.” +</p> + +<p> +“A natural and laudable desire, ma’am; but one which, notwithstanding, I shall +do my best to oppose. I reckon on being able to get out of you a little of that +precious commodity called amusement, which mamma and Mistress Snowe there fail +to yield me.” +</p> + +<p> +“I shall have to go with papa soon: I shall not stay long at your mother’s.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, yes; you will stay with me, I am sure. I have a pony on which you shall +ride, and no end of books with pictures to show you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Are <i>you</i> going to live here now?” +</p> + +<p> +“I am. Does that please you? Do you like me?” +</p> + +<p> +“No.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why?” +</p> + +<p> +“I think you queer.” +</p> + +<p> +“My face, ma’am?” +</p> + +<p> +“Your face and all about you: You have long red hair.” +</p> + +<p> +“Auburn hair, if you please: mamma calls it auburn, or golden, and so do all +her friends. But even with my ‘long red hair’” (and he waved his mane with a +sort of triumph—tawny he himself well knew that it was, and he was proud of the +leonine hue), “I cannot possibly be queerer than is your ladyship.” +</p> + +<p> +“You call me queer?” +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly.” +</p> + +<p> +(After a pause) “I think I shall go to bed.” +</p> + +<p> +“A little thing like you ought to have been in bed many hours since; but you +probably sat up in the expectation of seeing me?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, indeed.” +</p> + +<p> +“You certainly wished to enjoy the pleasure of my society. You knew I was +coming home, and would wait to have a look at me.” +</p> + +<p> +“I sat up for papa, and not for you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very good, Miss Home. I am going to be a favourite: preferred before papa +soon, I daresay.” +</p> + +<p> +She wished Mrs. Bretton and myself good-night; she seemed hesitating whether +Graham’s deserts entitled him to the same attention, when he caught her up with +one hand, and with that one hand held her poised aloft above his head. She saw +herself thus lifted up on high, in the glass over the fireplace. The +suddenness, the freedom, the disrespect of the action were too much. +</p> + +<p> +“For shame, Mr. Graham!” was her indignant cry, “put me down!”—and when again +on her feet, “I wonder what you would think of me if I were to treat you in +that way, lifting you with my hand“ (raising that mighty member) “as Warren +lifts the little cat.” +</p> + +<p> +So saying, she departed. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap03"></a>CHAPTER III.<br/> +THE PLAYMATES.</h2> + +<p> +Mr. Home stayed two days. During his visit he could not be prevailed on to go +out: he sat all day long by the fireside, sometimes silent, sometimes receiving +and answering Mrs. Bretton’s chat, which was just of the proper sort for a man +in his morbid mood—not over-sympathetic, yet not too uncongenial, sensible; and +even with a touch of the motherly—she was sufficiently his senior to be +permitted this touch. +</p> + +<p> +As to Paulina, the child was at once happy and mute, busy and watchful. Her +father frequently lifted her to his knee; she would sit there till she felt or +fancied he grew restless; then it was—“Papa, put me down; I shall tire you with +my weight.” +</p> + +<p> +And the mighty burden slid to the rug, and establishing itself on carpet or +stool just at “papa’s“ feet, the white work-box and the scarlet-speckled +handkerchief came into play. This handkerchief, it seems, was intended as a +keepsake for “papa,” and must be finished before his departure; consequently +the demand on the sempstress’s industry (she accomplished about a score of +stitches in half-an-hour) was stringent. +</p> + +<p> +The evening, by restoring Graham to the maternal roof (his days were passed at +school), brought us an accession of animation—a quality not diminished by the +nature of the scenes pretty sure to be enacted between him and Miss Paulina. +</p> + +<p> +A distant and haughty demeanour had been the result of the indignity put upon +her the first evening of his arrival: her usual answer, when he addressed her, +was—“I can’t attend to you; I have other things to think about.” Being implored +to state <i>what</i> things: +</p> + +<p> +“Business.” +</p> + +<p> +Graham would endeavour to seduce her attention by opening his desk and +displaying its multifarious contents: seals, bright sticks of wax, pen-knives, +with a miscellany of engravings—some of them gaily coloured—which he had +amassed from time to time. Nor was this powerful temptation wholly unavailing: +her eyes, furtively raised from her work, cast many a peep towards the +writing-table, rich in scattered pictures. An etching of a child playing with a +Blenheim spaniel happened to flutter to the floor. +</p> + +<p> +“Pretty little dog!” said she, delighted. +</p> + +<p> +Graham prudently took no notice. Ere long, stealing from her corner, she +approached to examine the treasure more closely. The dog’s great eyes and long +ears, and the child’s hat and feathers, were irresistible. +</p> + +<p> +“Nice picture!” was her favourable criticism. +</p> + +<p> +“Well—you may have it,” said Graham. +</p> + +<p> +She seemed to hesitate. The wish to possess was strong, but to accept would be +a compromise of dignity. No. She put it down and turned away. +</p> + +<p> +“You won’t have it, then, Polly?” +</p> + +<p> +“I would rather not, thank you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Shall I tell you what I will do with the picture if you refuse it?” +</p> + +<p> +She half turned to listen. +</p> + +<p> +“Cut it into strips for lighting the taper.” +</p> + +<p> +“No!” +</p> + +<p> +“But I shall.” +</p> + +<p> +“Please—don’t.” +</p> + +<p> +Graham waxed inexorable on hearing the pleading tone; he took the scissors from +his mother’s work-basket. +</p> + +<p> +“Here goes!” said he, making a menacing flourish. “Right through Fido’s head, +and splitting little Harry’s nose.” +</p> + +<p> +“No! <i>No!</i> NO!” +</p> + +<p> +“Then come to me. Come quickly, or it is done.” +</p> + +<p> +She hesitated, lingered, but complied. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, will you have it?” he asked, as she stood before him. +</p> + +<p> +“Please.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I shall want payment.” +</p> + +<p> +“How much?” +</p> + +<p> +“A kiss.” +</p> + +<p> +“Give the picture first into my hand.” +</p> + +<p> +Polly, as she said this, looked rather faithless in her turn. Graham gave it. +She absconded a debtor, darted to her father, and took refuge on his knee. +Graham rose in mimic wrath and followed. She buried her face in Mr. Home’s +waistcoat. +</p> + +<p> +“Papa—papa—send him away!” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll not be sent away,” said Graham. +</p> + +<p> +With face still averted, she held out her hand to keep him off. +</p> + +<p> +“Then, I shall kiss the hand,” said he; but that moment it became a miniature +fist, and dealt him payment in a small coin that was not kisses. +</p> + +<p> +Graham—not failing in his way to be as wily as his little playmate—retreated +apparently quite discomfited; he flung himself on a sofa, and resting his head +against the cushion, lay like one in pain. Polly, finding him silent, presently +peeped at him. His eyes and face were covered with his hands. She turned on her +father’s knee, and gazed at her foe anxiously and long. Graham groaned. +</p> + +<p> +“Papa, what is the matter?” she whispered. +</p> + +<p> +“You had better ask him, Polly.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is he hurt?” (groan second.) +</p> + +<p> +“He makes a noise as if he were,” said Mr. Home. +</p> + +<p> +“Mother,” suggested Graham, feebly, “I think you had better send for the +doctor. Oh my eye!” (renewed silence, broken only by sighs from Graham.) +</p> + +<p> +“If I were to become blind——?” suggested this last. +</p> + +<p> +His chastiser could not bear the suggestion. She was beside him directly. +</p> + +<p> +“Let me see your eye: I did not mean to touch it, only your mouth; and I did +not think I hit so <i>very</i> hard.” +</p> + +<p> +Silence answered her. Her features worked,—“I am sorry; I am sorry!” +</p> + +<p> +Then succeeded emotion, faltering; weeping. +</p> + +<p> +“Have done trying that child, Graham,” said Mrs. Bretton. +</p> + +<p> +“It is all nonsense, my pet,” cried Mr. Home. +</p> + +<p> +And Graham once more snatched her aloft, and she again punished him; and while +she pulled his lion’s locks, termed him—“The naughtiest, rudest, worst, +untruest person that ever was.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +On the morning of Mr. Home’s departure, he and his daughter had some +conversation in a window-recess by themselves; I heard part of it. +</p> + +<p> +“Couldn’t I pack my box and go with you, papa?” she whispered earnestly. +</p> + +<p> +He shook his head. +</p> + +<p> +“Should I be a trouble to you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, Polly.” +</p> + +<p> +“Because I am little?” +</p> + +<p> +“Because you are little and tender. It is only great, strong people that should +travel. But don’t look sad, my little girl; it breaks my heart. Papa, will soon +come back to his Polly.” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed, indeed, I am not sad, scarcely at all.” +</p> + +<p> +“Polly would be sorry to give papa pain; would she not?” +</p> + +<p> +“Sorrier than sorry.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then Polly must be cheerful: not cry at parting; not fret afterwards. She must +look forward to meeting again, and try to be happy meanwhile. Can she do this?” +</p> + +<p> +“She will try.” +</p> + +<p> +“I see she will. Farewell, then. It is time to go.” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Now</i>?—just <i>now</i>? +</p> + +<p> +“Just now.” +</p> + +<p> +She held up quivering lips. Her father sobbed, but she, I remarked, did not. +Having put her down, he shook hands with the rest present, and departed. +</p> + +<p> +When the street-door closed, she dropped on her knees at a chair with a +cry—“Papa!” +</p> + +<p> +It was low and long; a sort of “Why hast thou forsaken me?” During an ensuing +space of some minutes, I perceived she endured agony. She went through, in that +brief interval of her infant life, emotions such as some never feel; it was in +her constitution: she would have more of such instants if she lived. Nobody +spoke. Mrs. Bretton, being a mother, shed a tear or two. Graham, who was +writing, lifted up his eyes and gazed at her. I, Lucy Snowe, was calm. +</p> + +<p> +The little creature, thus left unharassed, did for herself what none other +could do—contended with an intolerable feeling; and, ere long, in some degree, +repressed it. That day she would accept solace from none; nor the next day: she +grew more passive afterwards. +</p> + +<p> +On the third evening, as she sat on the floor, worn and quiet, Graham, coming +in, took her up gently, without a word. She did not resist: she rather nestled +in his arms, as if weary. When he sat down, she laid her head against him; in a +few minutes she slept; he carried her upstairs to bed. I was not surprised +that, the next morning, the first thing she demanded was, “Where is Mr. +Graham?” +</p> + +<p> +It happened that Graham was not coming to the breakfast-table; he had some +exercises to write for that morning’s class, and had requested his mother to +send a cup of tea into the study. Polly volunteered to carry it: she must be +busy about something, look after somebody. The cup was entrusted to her; for, +if restless, she was also careful. As the study was opposite the +breakfast-room, the doors facing across the passage, my eye followed her. +</p> + +<p> +“What are you doing?” she asked, pausing on the threshold. +</p> + +<p> +“Writing,” said Graham. +</p> + +<p> +“Why don’t you come to take breakfast with your mamma?” +</p> + +<p> +“Too busy.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you want any breakfast?” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course.” +</p> + +<p> +“There, then.” +</p> + +<p> +And she deposited the cup on the carpet, like a jailor putting a prisoner’s +pitcher of water through his cell-door, and retreated. Presently she returned. +</p> + +<p> +“What will you have besides tea—what to eat?” +</p> + +<p> +“Anything good. Bring me something particularly nice; that’s a kind little +woman.” +</p> + +<p> +She came back to Mrs. Bretton. +</p> + +<p> +“Please, ma’am, send your boy something good.” +</p> + +<p> +“You shall choose for him, Polly; what shall my boy have?” +</p> + +<p> +She selected a portion of whatever was best on the table; and, ere long, came +back with a whispered request for some marmalade, which was not there. Having +got it, however, (for Mrs. Bretton refused the pair nothing), Graham was +shortly after heard lauding her to the skies; promising that, when he had a +house of his own, she should be his housekeeper, and perhaps—if she showed any +culinary genius—his cook; and, as she did not return, and I went to look after +her, I found Graham and her breakfasting <i>tête-à-tête</i>—she standing at his +elbow, and sharing his fare: excepting the marmalade, which she delicately +refused to touch, lest, I suppose, it should appear that she had procured it as +much on her own account as his. She constantly evinced these nice perceptions +and delicate instincts. +</p> + +<p> +The league of acquaintanceship thus struck up was not hastily dissolved; on the +contrary, it appeared that time and circumstances served rather to cement than +loosen it. Ill-assimilated as the two were in age, sex, pursuits, &c., they +somehow found a great deal to say to each other. As to Paulina, I observed that +her little character never properly came out, except with young Bretton. As she +got settled, and accustomed to the house, she proved tractable enough with Mrs. +Bretton; but she would sit on a stool at that lady’s feet all day long, +learning her task, or sewing, or drawing figures with a pencil on a slate, and +never kindling once to originality, or showing a single gleam of the +peculiarities of her nature. I ceased to watch her under such circumstances: +she was not interesting. But the moment Graham’s knock sounded of an evening, a +change occurred; she was instantly at the head of the staircase. Usually her +welcome was a reprimand or a threat. +</p> + +<p> +“You have not wiped your shoes properly on the mat. I shall tell your mamma.” +</p> + +<p> +“Little busybody! Are you there?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes—and you can’t reach me: I am higher up than you“ (peeping between the +rails of the banister; she could not look over them). +</p> + +<p> +“Polly!” +</p> + +<p> +“My dear boy!” (such was one of her terms for him, adopted in imitation of his +mother.) +</p> + +<p> +“I am fit to faint with fatigue,” declared Graham, leaning against the +passage-wall in seeming exhaustion. “Dr. Digby“ (the headmaster) “has quite +knocked me up with overwork. Just come down and help me to carry up my books.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah! you’re cunning!” +</p> + +<p> +“Not at all, Polly—it is positive fact. I’m as weak as a rush. Come down.” +</p> + +<p> +“Your eyes are quiet like the cat’s, but you’ll spring.” +</p> + +<p> +“Spring? Nothing of the kind: it isn’t in me. Come down.” +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps I may—if you’ll promise not to touch—not to snatch me up, and not to +whirl me round.” +</p> + +<p> +“I? I couldn’t do it!” (sinking into a chair.) +</p> + +<p> +“Then put the books down on the first step, and go three yards off.“ +</p> + +<p> +This being done, she descended warily, and not taking her eyes from the feeble +Graham. Of course her approach always galvanized him to new and spasmodic life: +the game of romps was sure to be exacted. Sometimes she would be angry; +sometimes the matter was allowed to pass smoothly, and we could hear her say as +she led him up-stairs: “Now, my dear boy, come and take your tea—I am sure you +must want something.” +</p> + +<p> +It was sufficiently comical to observe her as she sat beside Graham, while he +took that meal. In his absence she was a still personage, but with him the most +officious, fidgety little body possible. I often wished she would mind herself +and be tranquil; but no—herself was forgotten in him: he could not be +sufficiently well waited on, nor carefully enough looked after; he was more +than the Grand Turk in her estimation. She would gradually assemble the various +plates before him, and, when one would suppose all he could possibly desire was +within his reach, she would find out something else: “Ma’am,” she would whisper +to Mrs. Bretton,—“perhaps your son would like a little cake—sweet cake, you +know—there is some in there“ (pointing to the sideboard cupboard). Mrs. +Bretton, as a rule, disapproved of sweet cake at tea, but still the request was +urged,—“One little piece—only for him—as he goes to school: girls—such as me +and Miss Snowe—don’t need treats, but <i>he</i> would like it.” +</p> + +<p> +Graham did like it very well, and almost always got it. To do him justice, he +would have shared his prize with her to whom he owed it; but that was never +allowed: to insist, was to ruffle her for the evening. To stand by his knee, +and monopolize his talk and notice, was the reward she wanted—not a share of +the cake. +</p> + +<p> +With curious readiness did she adapt herself to such themes as interested him. +One would have thought the child had no mind or life of her own, but must +necessarily live, move, and have her being in another: now that her father was +taken from her, she nestled to Graham, and seemed to feel by his feelings: to +exist in his existence. She learned the names of all his schoolfellows in a +trice: she got by heart their characters as given from his lips: a single +description of an individual seemed to suffice. She never forgot, or confused +identities: she would talk with him the whole evening about people she had +never seen, and appear completely to realise their aspect, manners, and +dispositions. Some she learned to mimic: an under-master, who was an aversion +of young Bretton’s, had, it seems, some peculiarities, which she caught up in a +moment from Graham’s representation, and rehearsed for his amusement; this, +however, Mrs. Bretton disapproved and forbade. +</p> + +<p> +The pair seldom quarrelled; yet once a rupture occurred, in which her feelings +received a severe shock. +</p> + +<p> +One day Graham, on the occasion of his birthday, had some friends—lads of his +own age—to dine with him. Paulina took much interest in the coming of these +friends; she had frequently heard of them; they were amongst those of whom +Graham oftenest spoke. After dinner, the young gentlemen were left by +themselves in the dining-room, where they soon became very merry and made a +good deal of noise. Chancing to pass through the hall, I found Paulina sitting +alone on the lowest step of the staircase, her eyes fixed on the glossy panels +of the dining-room door, where the reflection of the hall-lamp was shining; her +little brow knit in anxious meditation. +</p> + +<p> +“What are you thinking about, Polly?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing particular; only I wish that door was clear glass—that I might see +through it. The boys seem very cheerful, and I want to go to them: I want to be +with Graham, and watch his friends.” +</p> + +<p> +“What hinders you from going?” +</p> + +<p> +“I feel afraid: but may I try, do you think? May I knock at the door, and ask +to be let in?” +</p> + +<p> +I thought perhaps they might not object to have her as a playmate, and +therefore encouraged the attempt. +</p> + +<p> +She knocked—too faintly at first to be heard, but on a second essay the door +unclosed; Graham’s head appeared; he looked in high spirits, but impatient. +</p> + +<p> +“What do you want, you little monkey?” +</p> + +<p> +“To come to you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you indeed? As if I would be troubled with you! Away to mamma and Mistress +Snowe, and tell them to put you to bed.” The auburn head and bright flushed +face vanished,—the door shut peremptorily. She was stunned. +</p> + +<p> +“Why does he speak so? He never spoke so before,” she said in consternation. +“What have I done?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing, Polly; but Graham is busy with his school-friends.” +</p> + +<p> +“And he likes them better than me! He turns me away now they are here!” +</p> + +<p> +I had some thoughts of consoling her, and of improving the occasion by +inculcating some of those maxims of philosophy whereof I had ever a tolerable +stock ready for application. She stopped me, however, by putting her fingers in +her ears at the first words I uttered, and then lying down on the mat with her +face against the flags; nor could either Warren or the cook root her from that +position: she was allowed to lie, therefore, till she chose to rise of her own +accord. +</p> + +<p> +Graham forgot his impatience the same evening, and would have accosted her as +usual when his friends were gone, but she wrenched herself from his hand; her +eye quite flashed; she would not bid him good-night; she would not look in his +face. The next day he treated her with indifference, and she grew like a bit of +marble. The day after, he teased her to know what was the matter; her lips +would not unclose. Of course he could not feel real anger on his side: the +match was too unequal in every way; he tried soothing and coaxing. “Why was she +so angry? What had he done?” By-and-by tears answered him; he petted her, and +they were friends. But she was one on whom such incidents were not lost: I +remarked that never after this rebuff did she seek him, or follow him, or in +any way solicit his notice. I told her once to carry a book or some other +article to Graham when he was shut up in his study. +</p> + +<p> +“I shall wait till he comes out,” said she, proudly; “I don’t choose to give +him the trouble of rising to open the door.” +</p> + +<p> +Young Bretton had a favourite pony on which he often rode out; from the window +she always watched his departure and return. It was her ambition to be +permitted to have a ride round the courtyard on this pony; but far be it from +her to ask such a favour. One day she descended to the yard to watch him +dismount; as she leaned against the gate, the longing wish for the indulgence +of a ride glittered in her eye. +</p> + +<p> +“Come, Polly, will you have a canter?” asked Graham, half carelessly. +</p> + +<p> +I suppose she thought he was <i>too</i> careless. +</p> + +<p> +“No, thank you,” said she, turning away with the utmost coolness. +</p> + +<p> +“You’d better,” pursued he. “You will like it, I am sure.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t think I should care a fig about it,” was the response. +</p> + +<p> +“That is not true. You told Lucy Snowe you longed to have a ride.” +</p> + +<p> +“Lucy Snowe is a <i>tatter</i>-box,” I heard her say (her imperfect +articulation was the least precocious thing she had about her); and with this; +she walked into the house. +</p> + +<p> +Graham, coming in soon after, observed to his mother,—“Mamma, I believe that +creature is a changeling: she is a perfect cabinet of oddities; but I should be +dull without her: she amuses me a great deal more than you or Lucy Snowe.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +“Miss Snowe,” said Paulina to me (she had now got into the habit of +occasionally chatting with me when we were alone in our room at night), “do you +know on what day in the week I like Graham best?” +</p> + +<p> +“How can I possibly know anything so strange? Is there one day out of the seven +when he is otherwise than on the other six?” +</p> + +<p> +“To be sure! Can’t you see? Don’t you know? I find him the most excellent on a +Sunday; then we have him the whole day, and he is quiet, and, in the evening, +<i>so</i> kind.” +</p> + +<p> +This observation was not altogether groundless: going to church, &c., kept +Graham quiet on the Sunday, and the evening he generally dedicated to a serene, +though rather indolent sort of enjoyment by the parlour fireside. He would take +possession of the couch, and then he would call Polly. +</p> + +<p> +Graham was a boy not quite as other boys are; all his delight did not lie in +action: he was capable of some intervals of contemplation; he could take a +pleasure too in reading, nor was his selection of books wholly indiscriminate: +there were glimmerings of characteristic preference, and even of instinctive +taste in the choice. He rarely, it is true, remarked on what he read, but I +have seen him sit and think of it. +</p> + +<p> +Polly, being near him, kneeling on a little cushion or the carpet, a +conversation would begin in murmurs, not inaudible, though subdued. I caught a +snatch of their tenor now and then; and, in truth, some influence better and +finer than that of every day, seemed to soothe Graham at such times into no +ungentle mood. +</p> + +<p> +“Have you learned any hymns this week, Polly?” +</p> + +<p> +“I have learned a very pretty one, four verses long. Shall I say it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Speak nicely, then: don’t be in a hurry.” +</p> + +<p> +The hymn being rehearsed, or rather half-chanted, in a little singing voice, +Graham would take exceptions at the manner, and proceed to give a lesson in +recitation. She was quick in learning, apt in imitating; and, besides, her +pleasure was to please Graham: she proved a ready scholar. To the hymn would +succeed some reading—perhaps a chapter in the Bible; correction was seldom +required here, for the child could read any simple narrative chapter very well; +and, when the subject was such as she could understand and take an interest in, +her expression and emphasis were something remarkable. Joseph cast into the +pit; the calling of Samuel; Daniel in the lions’ den;—these were favourite +passages: of the first especially she seemed perfectly to feel the pathos. +</p> + +<p> +“Poor Jacob!” she would sometimes say, with quivering lips. “How he loved his +son Joseph! As much,” she once added—“as much, Graham, as I love you: if you +were to die“ (and she re-opened the book, sought the verse, and read), “I +should refuse to be comforted, and go down into the grave to you mourning.” +</p> + +<p> +With these words she gathered Graham in her little arms, drawing his +long-tressed head towards her. The action, I remember, struck me as strangely +rash; exciting the feeling one might experience on seeing an animal dangerous +by nature, and but half-tamed by art, too heedlessly fondled. Not that I feared +Graham would hurt, or very roughly check her; but I thought she ran risk of +incurring such a careless, impatient repulse, as would be worse almost to her +than a blow. On the whole, however, these demonstrations were borne passively: +sometimes even a sort of complacent wonder at her earnest partiality would +smile not unkindly in his eyes. Once he said:—“You like me almost as well as if +you were my little sister, Polly.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! I <i>do</i> like you,” said she; “I <i>do</i> like you very much.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +I was not long allowed the amusement of this study of character. She had +scarcely been at Bretton two months, when a letter came from Mr. Home, +signifying that he was now settled amongst his maternal kinsfolk on the +Continent; that, as England was become wholly distasteful to him, he had no +thoughts of returning hither, perhaps, for years; and that he wished his little +girl to join him immediately. +</p> + +<p> +“I wonder how she will take this news?” said Mrs. Bretton, when she had read +the letter. <i>I</i> wondered, too, and I took upon myself to communicate it. +</p> + +<p> +Repairing to the drawing-room—in which calm and decorated apartment she was +fond of being alone, and where she could be implicitly trusted, for she +fingered nothing, or rather soiled nothing she fingered—I found her seated, +like a little Odalisque, on a couch, half shaded by the drooping draperies of +the window near. She seemed happy; all her appliances for occupation were about +her; the white wood workbox, a shred or two of muslin, an end or two of ribbon +collected for conversion into doll-millinery. The doll, duly night-capped and +night-gowned, lay in its cradle; she was rocking it to sleep, with an air of +the most perfect faith in its possession of sentient and somnolent faculties; +her eyes, at the same time, being engaged with a picture-book, which lay open +on her lap. +</p> + +<p> +“Miss Snowe,” said she in a whisper, “this is a wonderful book. Candace” (the +doll, christened by Graham; for, indeed, its begrimed complexion gave it much +of an Ethiopian aspect)—“Candace is asleep now, and I may tell you about it; +only we must both speak low, lest she should waken. This book was given me by +Graham; it tells about distant countries, a long, long way from England, which +no traveller can reach without sailing thousands of miles over the sea. Wild +men live in these countries, Miss Snowe, who wear clothes different from ours: +indeed, some of them wear scarcely any clothes, for the sake of being cool, you +know; for they have very hot weather. Here is a picture of thousands gathered +in a desolate place—a plain, spread with sand—round a man in black,—a good, +<i>good</i> Englishman—a missionary, who is preaching to them under a +palm-tree.” (She showed a little coloured cut to that effect.) “And here are +pictures” (she went on) “more stranger” (grammar was occasionally forgotten) +“than that. There is the wonderful Great Wall of China; here is a Chinese lady, +with a foot littler than mine. There is a wild horse of Tartary; and here, most +strange of all—is a land of ice and snow, without green fields, woods, or +gardens. In this land, they found some mammoth bones: there are no mammoths +now. You don’t know what it was; but I can tell you, because Graham told me. A +mighty, goblin creature, as high as this room, and as long as the hall; but not +a fierce, flesh-eating thing, Graham thinks. He believes, if I met one in a +forest, it would not kill me, unless I came quite in its way; when it would +trample me down amongst the bushes, as I might tread on a grasshopper in a +hayfield without knowing it.” +</p> + +<p> +Thus she rambled on. +</p> + +<p> +“Polly,” I interrupted, “should you like to travel?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not just yet,” was the prudent answer; “but perhaps in twenty years, when I am +grown a woman, as tall as Mrs. Bretton, I may travel with Graham. We intend +going to Switzerland, and climbing Mount Blanck; and some day we shall sail +over to South America, and walk to the top of Kim-kim-borazo.” +</p> + +<p> +“But how would you like to travel now, if your papa was with you?” +</p> + +<p> +Her reply—not given till after a pause—evinced one of those unexpected turns of +temper peculiar to her. +</p> + +<p> +“Where is the good of talking in that silly way?” said she. “Why do you mention +papa? What is papa to you? I was just beginning to be happy, and not think +about him so much; and there it will be all to do over again!” +</p> + +<p> +Her lip trembled. I hastened to disclose the fact of a letter having been +received, and to mention the directions given that she and Harriet should +immediately rejoin this dear papa. “Now, Polly, are you not glad?” I added. +</p> + +<p> +She made no answer. She dropped her book and ceased to rock her doll; she gazed +at me with gravity and earnestness. +</p> + +<p> +“Shall not you like to go to papa?” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course,” she said at last in that trenchant manner she usually employed in +speaking to me; and which was quite different from that she used with Mrs. +Bretton, and different again from the one dedicated to Graham. I wished to +ascertain more of what she thought but no: she would converse no more. +Hastening to Mrs. Bretton, she questioned her, and received the confirmation of +my news. The weight and importance of these tidings kept her perfectly serious +the whole day. In the evening, at the moment Graham’s entrance was heard below, +I found her at my side. She began to arrange a locket-ribbon about my neck, she +displaced and replaced the comb in my hair; while thus busied, Graham entered. +</p> + +<p> +“Tell him by-and-by,” she whispered; “tell him I am going.” +</p> + +<p> +In the course of tea-time I made the desired communication. Graham, it chanced, +was at that time greatly preoccupied about some school-prize, for which he was +competing. The news had to be told twice before it took proper hold of his +attention, and even then he dwelt on it but momently. +</p> + +<p> +“Polly going? What a pity! Dear little Mousie, I shall be sorry to lose her: +she must come to us again, mamma.” +</p> + +<p> +And hastily swallowing his tea, he took a candle and a small table to himself +and his books, and was soon buried in study. +</p> + +<p> +“Little Mousie” crept to his side, and lay down on the carpet at his feet, her +face to the floor; mute and motionless she kept that post and position till +bed-time. Once I saw Graham—wholly unconscious of her proximity—push her with +his restless foot. She receded an inch or two. A minute after one little hand +stole out from beneath her face, to which it had been pressed, and softly +caressed the heedless foot. When summoned by her nurse she rose and departed +very obediently, having bid us all a subdued good-night. +</p> + +<p> +I will not say that I dreaded going to bed, an hour later; yet I certainly went +with an unquiet anticipation that I should find that child in no peaceful +sleep. The forewarning of my instinct was but fulfilled, when I discovered her, +all cold and vigilant, perched like a white bird on the outside of the bed. I +scarcely knew how to accost her; she was not to be managed like another child. +She, however, accosted me. As I closed the door, and put the light on the +dressing-table, she turned to me with these words:—“I cannot—<i>cannot</i> +sleep; and in this way I cannot—<i>cannot</i> live!” +</p> + +<p> +I asked what ailed her. +</p> + +<p> +“Dedful miz-er-y!” said she, with her piteous lisp. +</p> + +<p> +“Shall I call Mrs. Bretton?” +</p> + +<p> +“That is downright silly,” was her impatient reply; and, indeed, I well knew +that if she had heard Mrs. Bretton’s foot approach, she would have nestled +quiet as a mouse under the bedclothes. Whilst lavishing her eccentricities +regardlessly before me—for whom she professed scarcely the semblance of +affection—she never showed my godmother one glimpse of her inner self: for her, +she was nothing but a docile, somewhat quaint little maiden. I examined her; +her cheek was crimson; her dilated eye was both troubled and glowing, and +painfully restless: in this state it was obvious she must not be left till +morning. I guessed how the case stood. +</p> + +<p> +“Would you like to bid Graham good-night again?” I asked. “He is not gone to +his room yet.” +</p> + +<p> +She at once stretched out her little arms to be lifted. Folding a shawl round +her, I carried her back to the drawing-room. Graham was just coming out. +</p> + +<p> +“She cannot sleep without seeing and speaking to you once more,” I said. “She +does not like the thought of leaving you.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve spoilt her,” said he, taking her from me with good humour, and kissing +her little hot face and burning lips. “Polly, you care for me more than for +papa, now—” +</p> + +<p> +“I <i>do</i> care for you, but you care nothing for me,” was her whisper. +</p> + +<p> +She was assured to the contrary, again kissed, restored to me, and I carried +her away; but, alas! not soothed. +</p> + +<p> +When I thought she could listen to me, I said—“Paulina, you should not grieve +that Graham does not care for you so much as you care for him. It must be so.” +</p> + +<p> +Her lifted and questioning eyes asked why. +</p> + +<p> +“Because he is a boy and you are a girl; he is sixteen and you are only six; +his nature is strong and gay, and yours is otherwise.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I love him so much; he <i>should</i> love me a little.” +</p> + +<p> +“He does. He is fond of you. You are his favourite.” +</p> + +<p> +“Am I Graham’s favourite?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, more than any little child I know.” +</p> + +<p> +The assurance soothed her; she smiled in her anguish. +</p> + +<p> +“But,” I continued, “don’t fret, and don’t expect too much of him, or else he +will feel you to be troublesome, and then it is all over.” +</p> + +<p> +“All over!” she echoed softly; “then I’ll be good. I’ll try to be good, Lucy +Snowe.” +</p> + +<p> +I put her to bed. +</p> + +<p> +“Will he forgive me this one time?” she asked, as I undressed myself. I assured +her that he would; that as yet he was by no means alienated; that she had only +to be careful for the future. +</p> + +<p> +“There is no future,” said she: “I am going. Shall I ever—ever—see him again, +after I leave England?” +</p> + +<p> +I returned an encouraging response. The candle being extinguished, a still +half-hour elapsed. I thought her asleep, when the little white shape once more +lifted itself in the crib, and the small voice asked—“Do you like Graham, Miss +Snowe?” +</p> + +<p> +“Like him! Yes, a little.” +</p> + +<p> +“Only a little! Do you like him as I do?” +</p> + +<p> +“I think not. No: not as you do.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you like him much?” +</p> + +<p> +“I told you I liked him a little. Where is the use of caring for him so very +much: he is full of faults.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is he?” +</p> + +<p> +“All boys are.” +</p> + +<p> +“More than girls?” +</p> + +<p> +“Very likely. Wise people say it is folly to think anybody perfect; and as to +likes and dislikes, we should be friendly to all, and worship none.” +</p> + +<p> +“Are you a wise person?” +</p> + +<p> +“I mean to try to be so. Go to sleep.” +</p> + +<p> +“I <i>cannot</i> go to sleep. Have you no pain just here” (laying her elfish +hand on her elfish breast,) “when you think <i>you</i> shall have to leave +Graham; for <i>your</i> home is not here?” +</p> + +<p> +“Surely, Polly,” said I, “you should not feel so much pain when you are very +soon going to rejoin your father. Have you forgotten him? Do you no longer wish +to be his little companion?” +</p> + +<p> +Dead silence succeeded this question. +</p> + +<p> +“Child, lie down and sleep,” I urged. +</p> + +<p> +“My bed is cold,” said she. “I can’t warm it.” +</p> + +<p> +I saw the little thing shiver. “Come to me,” I said, wishing, yet scarcely +hoping, that she would comply: for she was a most strange, capricious, little +creature, and especially whimsical with me. She came, however, instantly, like +a small ghost gliding over the carpet. I took her in. She was chill: I warmed +her in my arms. She trembled nervously; I soothed her. Thus tranquillized and +cherished she at last slumbered. +</p> + +<p> +“A very unique child,” thought I, as I viewed her sleeping countenance by the +fitful moonlight, and cautiously and softly wiped her glittering eyelids and +her wet cheeks with my handkerchief. “How will she get through this world, or +battle with this life? How will she bear the shocks and repulses, the +humiliations and desolations, which books, and my own reason, tell me are +prepared for all flesh?” +</p> + +<p> +She departed the next day; trembling like a leaf when she took leave, but +exercising self-command. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap04"></a>CHAPTER IV.<br/> +MISS MARCHMONT.</h2> + +<p> +On quitting Bretton, which I did a few weeks after Paulina’s departure—little +thinking then I was never again to visit it; never more to tread its calm old +streets—I betook myself home, having been absent six months. It will be +conjectured that I was of course glad to return to the bosom of my kindred. +Well! the amiable conjecture does no harm, and may therefore be safely left +uncontradicted. Far from saying nay, indeed, I will permit the reader to +picture me, for the next eight years, as a bark slumbering through halcyon +weather, in a harbour still as glass—the steersman stretched on the little +deck, his face up to heaven, his eyes closed: buried, if you will, in a long +prayer. A great many women and girls are supposed to pass their lives something +in that fashion; why not I with the rest? +</p> + +<p> +Picture me then idle, basking, plump, and happy, stretched on a cushioned deck, +warmed with constant sunshine, rocked by breezes indolently soft. However, it +cannot be concealed that, in that case, I must somehow have fallen overboard, +or that there must have been wreck at last. I too well remember a time—a long +time—of cold, of danger, of contention. To this hour, when I have the +nightmare, it repeats the rush and saltness of briny waves in my throat, and +their icy pressure on my lungs. I even know there was a storm, and that not of +one hour nor one day. For many days and nights neither sun nor stars appeared; +we cast with our own hands the tackling out of the ship; a heavy tempest lay on +us; all hope that we should be saved was taken away. In fine, the ship was +lost, the crew perished. +</p> + +<p> +As far as I recollect, I complained to no one about these troubles. Indeed, to +whom could I complain? Of Mrs. Bretton I had long lost sight. Impediments, +raised by others, had, years ago, come in the way of our intercourse, and cut +it off. Besides, time had brought changes for her, too: the handsome property +of which she was left guardian for her son, and which had been chiefly invested +in some joint-stock undertaking, had melted, it was said, to a fraction of its +original amount. Graham, I learned from incidental rumours, had adopted a +profession; both he and his mother were gone from Bretton, and were understood +to be now in London. Thus, there remained no possibility of dependence on +others; to myself alone could I look. I know not that I was of a self-reliant +or active nature; but self-reliance and exertion were forced upon me by +circumstances, as they are upon thousands besides; and when Miss Marchmont, a +maiden lady of our neighbourhood, sent for me, I obeyed her behest, in the hope +that she might assign me some task I could undertake. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Marchmont was a woman of fortune, and lived in a handsome residence; but +she was a rheumatic cripple, impotent, foot and hand, and had been so for +twenty years. She always sat upstairs: her drawing-room adjoined her bed-room. +I had often heard of Miss Marchmont, and of her peculiarities (she had the +character of being very eccentric), but till now had never seen her. I found +her a furrowed, grey-haired woman, grave with solitude, stern with long +affliction, irritable also, and perhaps exacting. It seemed that a maid, or +rather companion, who had waited on her for some years, was about to be +married; and she, hearing of my bereaved lot, had sent for me, with the idea +that I might supply this person’s place. She made the proposal to me after tea, +as she and I sat alone by her fireside. +</p> + +<p> +“It will not be an easy life;” said she candidly, “for I require a good deal of +attention, and you will be much confined; yet, perhaps, contrasted with the +existence you have lately led, it may appear tolerable.” +</p> + +<p> +I reflected. Of course it ought to appear tolerable, I argued inwardly; but +somehow, by some strange fatality, it would not. To live here, in this close +room, the watcher of suffering—sometimes, perhaps, the butt of temper—through +all that was to come of my youth; while all that was gone had passed, to say +the least, not blissfully! My heart sunk one moment, then it revived; for +though I forced myself to <i>realise</i> evils, I think I was too prosaic to +<i>idealise</i>, and consequently to exaggerate them. +</p> + +<p> +“My doubt is whether I should have strength for the undertaking,” I observed. +</p> + +<p> +“That is my own scruple,” said she; “for you look a worn-out creature.” +</p> + +<p> +So I did. I saw myself in the glass, in my mourning-dress, a faded, hollow-eyed +vision. Yet I thought little of the wan spectacle. The blight, I believed, was +chiefly external: I still felt life at life’s sources. +</p> + +<p> +“What else have you in view—anything?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing clear as yet: but I may find something.” +</p> + +<p> +“So you imagine: perhaps you are right. Try your own method, then; and if it +does not succeed, test mine. The chance I have offered shall be left open to +you for three months.” +</p> + +<p> +This was kind. I told her so, and expressed my gratitude. While I was speaking, +a paroxysm of pain came on. I ministered to her; made the necessary +applications, according to her directions, and, by the time she was relieved, a +sort of intimacy was already formed between us. I, for my part, had learned +from the manner in which she bore this attack, that she was a firm, patient +woman (patient under physical pain, though sometimes perhaps excitable under +long mental canker); and she, from the good-will with which I succoured her, +discovered that she could influence my sympathies (such as they were). She sent +for me the next day; for five or six successive days she claimed my company. +Closer acquaintance, while it developed both faults and eccentricities, opened, +at the same time, a view of a character I could respect. Stern and even morose +as she sometimes was, I could wait on her and sit beside her with that calm +which always blesses us when we are sensible that our manners, presence, +contact, please and soothe the persons we serve. Even when she scolded me—which +she did, now and then, very tartly—it was in such a way as did not humiliate, +and left no sting; it was rather like an irascible mother rating her daughter, +than a harsh mistress lecturing a dependant: lecture, indeed, she could not, +though she could occasionally storm. Moreover, a vein of reason ever ran +through her passion: she was logical even when fierce. Ere long a growing sense +of attachment began to present the thought of staying with her as companion in +quite a new light; in another week I had agreed to remain. +</p> + +<p> +Two hot, close rooms thus became my world; and a crippled old woman, my +mistress, my friend, my all. Her service was my duty—her pain, my suffering—her +relief, my hope—her anger, my punishment—her regard, my reward. I forgot that +there were fields, woods, rivers, seas, an ever-changing sky outside the +steam-dimmed lattice of this sick chamber; I was almost content to forget it. +All within me became narrowed to my lot. Tame and still by habit, disciplined +by destiny, I demanded no walks in the fresh air; my appetite needed no more +than the tiny messes served for the invalid. In addition, she gave me the +originality of her character to study: the steadiness of her virtues, I will +add, the power of her passions, to admire; the truth of her feelings to trust. +All these things she had, and for these things I clung to her. +</p> + +<p> +For these things I would have crawled on with her for twenty years, if for +twenty years longer her life of endurance had been protracted. But another +decree was written. It seemed I must be stimulated into action. I must be +goaded, driven, stung, forced to energy. My little morsel of human affection, +which I prized as if it were a solid pearl, must melt in my fingers and slip +thence like a dissolving hailstone. My small adopted duty must be snatched from +my easily contented conscience. I had wanted to compromise with Fate: to escape +occasional great agonies by submitting to a whole life of privation and small +pains. Fate would not so be pacified; nor would Providence sanction this +shrinking sloth and cowardly indolence. +</p> + +<p> +One February night—I remember it well—there came a voice near Miss Marchmont’s +house, heard by every inmate, but translated, perhaps, only by one. After a +calm winter, storms were ushering in the spring. I had put Miss Marchmont to +bed; I sat at the fireside sewing. The wind was wailing at the windows; it had +wailed all day; but, as night deepened, it took a new tone—an accent keen, +piercing, almost articulate to the ear; a plaint, piteous and disconsolate to +the nerves, trilled in every gust. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, hush! hush!” I said in my disturbed mind, dropping my work, and making a +vain effort to stop my ears against that subtle, searching cry. I had heard +that very voice ere this, and compulsory observation had forced on me a theory +as to what it boded. Three times in the course of my life, events had taught me +that these strange accents in the storm—this restless, hopeless cry—denote a +coming state of the atmosphere unpropitious to life. Epidemic diseases, I +believed, were often heralded by a gasping, sobbing, tormented, long-lamenting +east wind. Hence, I inferred, arose the legend of the Banshee. I fancied, too, +I had noticed—but was not philosopher enough to know whether there was any +connection between the circumstances—that we often at the same time hear of +disturbed volcanic action in distant parts of the world; of rivers suddenly +rushing above their banks; and of strange high tides flowing furiously in on +low sea-coasts. “Our globe,” I had said to myself, “seems at such periods torn +and disordered; the feeble amongst us wither in her distempered breath, rushing +hot from steaming volcanoes.” +</p> + +<p> +I listened and trembled; Miss Marchmont slept. +</p> + +<p> +About midnight, the storm in one half-hour fell to a dead calm. The fire, which +had been burning dead, glowed up vividly. I felt the air change, and become +keen. Raising blind and curtain, I looked out, and saw in the stars the keen +sparkle of a sharp frost. +</p> + +<p> +Turning away, the object that met my eyes was Miss Marchmont awake, lifting her +head from the pillow, and regarding me with unusual earnestness. +</p> + +<p> +“Is it a fine night?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +I replied in the affirmative. +</p> + +<p> +“I thought so,” she said; “for I feel so strong, so well. Raise me. I feel +young to-night,” she continued: “young, light-hearted, and happy. What if my +complaint be about to take a turn, and I am yet destined to enjoy health? It +would be a miracle!” +</p> + +<p> +“And these are not the days of miracles,” I thought to myself, and wondered to +hear her talk so. She went on directing her conversation to the past, and +seeming to recall its incidents, scenes, and personages, with singular +vividness. +</p> + +<p> +“I love Memory to-night,” she said: “I prize her as my best friend. She is just +now giving me a deep delight: she is bringing back to my heart, in warm and +beautiful life, realities—not mere empty ideas, but what were once realities, +and that I long have thought decayed, dissolved, mixed in with grave-mould. I +possess just now the hours, the thoughts, the hopes of my youth. I renew the +love of my life—its only love—almost its only affection; for I am not a +particularly good woman: I am not amiable. Yet I have had my feelings, strong +and concentrated; and these feelings had their object; which, in its single +self, was dear to me, as to the majority of men and women, are all the +unnumbered points on which they dissipate their regard. While I loved, and +while I was loved, what an existence I enjoyed! What a glorious year I can +recall—how bright it comes back to me! What a living spring—what a warm, glad +summer—what soft moonlight, silvering the autumn evenings—what strength of hope +under the ice-bound waters and frost-hoar fields of that year’s winter! Through +that year my heart lived with Frank’s heart. O my noble Frank—my faithful +Frank—my <i>good</i> Frank! so much better than myself—his standard in all +things so much higher! This I can now see and say: if few women have suffered +as I did in his loss, few have enjoyed what I did in his love. It was a far +better kind of love than common; I had no doubts about it or him: it was such a +love as honoured, protected, and elevated, no less than it gladdened her to +whom it was given. Let me now ask, just at this moment, when my mind is so +strangely clear,—let me reflect why it was taken from me? For what crime was I +condemned, after twelve months of bliss, to undergo thirty years of sorrow? +</p> + +<p> +“I do not know,” she continued after a pause: “I cannot—<i>cannot</i> see the +reason; yet at this hour I can say with sincerity, what I never tried to say +before, Inscrutable God, Thy will be done! And at this moment I can believe +that death will restore me to Frank. I never believed it till now.” +</p> + +<p> +“He is dead, then?” I inquired in a low voice. +</p> + +<p> +“My dear girl,” she said, “one happy Christmas Eve I dressed and decorated +myself, expecting my lover, very soon to be my husband, would come that night +to visit me. I sat down to wait. Once more I see that moment—I see the snow +twilight stealing through the window over which the curtain was not dropped, +for I designed to watch him ride up the white walk; I see and feel the soft +firelight warming me, playing on my silk dress, and fitfully showing me my own +young figure in a glass. I see the moon of a calm winter night, float full, +clear, and cold, over the inky mass of shrubbery, and the silvered turf of my +grounds. I wait, with some impatience in my pulse, but no doubt in my breast. +The flames had died in the fire, but it was a bright mass yet; the moon was +mounting high, but she was still visible from the lattice; the clock neared +ten; he rarely tarried later than this, but once or twice he had been delayed +so long. +</p> + +<p> +“Would he for once fail me? No—not even for once; and now he was coming—and +coming fast—to atone for lost time. ‘Frank! you furious rider,’ I said +inwardly, listening gladly, yet anxiously, to his approaching gallop, ‘you +shall be rebuked for this: I will tell you it is <i>my</i> neck you are putting +in peril; for whatever is yours is, in a dearer and tenderer sense, mine.’ +There he was: I saw him; but I think tears were in my eyes, my sight was so +confused. I saw the horse; I heard it stamp—I saw at least a mass; I heard a +clamour. <i>Was</i> it a horse? or what heavy, dragging thing was it, crossing, +strangely dark, the lawn. How could I name that thing in the moonlight before +me? or how could I utter the feeling which rose in my soul? +</p> + +<p> +“I could only run out. A great animal—truly, Frank’s black horse—stood +trembling, panting, snorting before the door; a man held it, Frank, as I +thought. +</p> + +<p> +“‘What is the matter?’ I demanded. Thomas, my own servant, answered by saying +sharply, ‘Go into the house, madam.’ And then calling to another servant, who +came hurrying from the kitchen as if summoned by some instinct, ‘Ruth, take +missis into the house directly.’ But I was kneeling down in the snow, beside +something that lay there—something that I had seen dragged along the +ground—something that sighed, that groaned on my breast, as I lifted and drew +it to me. He was not dead; he was not quite unconscious. I had him carried in; +I refused to be ordered about and thrust from him. I was quite collected +enough, not only to be my own mistress but the mistress of others. They had +begun by trying to treat me like a child, as they always do with people struck +by God’s hand; but I gave place to none except the surgeon; and when he had +done what he could, I took my dying Frank to myself. He had strength to fold me +in his arms; he had power to speak my name; he heard me as I prayed over him +very softly; he felt me as I tenderly and fondly comforted him. +</p> + +<p> +“‘Maria,’ he said, ‘I am dying in Paradise.’ He spent his last breath in +faithful words for me. When the dawn of Christmas morning broke, my Frank was +with God. +</p> + +<p> +“And that,” she went on, “happened thirty years ago. I have suffered since. I +doubt if I have made the best use of all my calamities. Soft, amiable natures +they would have refined to saintliness; of strong, evil spirits they would have +made demons; as for me, I have only been a woe-struck and selfish woman.” +</p> + +<p> +“You have done much good,” I said; for she was noted for her liberal +almsgiving. +</p> + +<p> +“I have not withheld money, you mean, where it could assuage affliction. What +of that? It cost me no effort or pang to give. But I think from this day I am +about to enter a better frame of mind, to prepare myself for reunion with +Frank. You see I still think of Frank more than of God; and unless it be +counted that in thus loving the creature so much, so long, and so exclusively, +I have not at least blasphemed the Creator, small is my chance of salvation. +What do you think, Lucy, of these things? Be my chaplain, and tell me.” +</p> + +<p> +This question I could not answer: I had no words. It seemed as if she thought I +<i>had</i> answered it. +</p> + +<p> +“Very right, my child. We should acknowledge God merciful, but not always for +us comprehensible. We should accept our own lot, whatever it be, and try to +render happy that of others. Should we not? Well, to-morrow I will begin by +trying to make you happy. I will endeavour to do something for you, Lucy: +something that will benefit you when I am dead. My head aches now with talking +too much; still I am happy. Go to bed. The clock strikes two. How late you sit +up; or rather how late I, in my selfishness, keep you up. But go now; have no +more anxiety for me; I feel I shall rest well.” +</p> + +<p> +She composed herself as if to slumber. I, too, retired to my crib in a closet +within her room. The night passed in quietness; quietly her doom must at last +have come: peacefully and painlessly: in the morning she was found without +life, nearly cold, but all calm and undisturbed. Her previous excitement of +spirits and change of mood had been the prelude of a fit; one stroke sufficed +to sever the thread of an existence so long fretted by affliction. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap05"></a>CHAPTER V.<br/> +TURNING A NEW LEAF.</h2> + +<p> +My mistress being dead, and I once more alone, I had to look out for a new +place. About this time I might be a little—a very little—shaken in nerves. I +grant I was not looking well, but, on the contrary, thin, haggard, and +hollow-eyed; like a sitter-up at night, like an overwrought servant, or a +placeless person in debt. In debt, however, I was not; nor quite poor; for +though Miss Marchmont had not had time to benefit me, as, on that last night, +she said she intended, yet, after the funeral, my wages were duly paid by her +second cousin, the heir, an avaricious-looking man, with pinched nose and +narrow temples, who, indeed, I heard long afterwards, turned out a thorough +miser: a direct contrast to his generous kinswoman, and a foil to her memory, +blessed to this day by the poor and needy. The possessor, then, of fifteen +pounds; of health, though worn, not broken, and of a spirit in similar +condition; I might still; in comparison with many people, be regarded as +occupying an enviable position. An embarrassing one it was, however, at the +same time; as I felt with some acuteness on a certain day, of which the +corresponding one in the next week was to see my departure from my present +abode, while with another I was not provided. +</p> + +<p> +In this dilemma I went, as a last and sole resource, to see and consult an old +servant of our family; once my nurse, now housekeeper at a grand mansion not +far from Miss Marchmont’s. I spent some hours with her; she comforted, but knew +not how to advise me. Still all inward darkness, I left her about twilight; a +walk of two miles lay before me; it was a clear, frosty night. In spite of my +solitude, my poverty, and my perplexity, my heart, nourished and nerved with +the vigour of a youth that had not yet counted twenty-three summers, beat light +and not feebly. Not feebly, I am sure, or I should have trembled in that lonely +walk, which lay through still fields, and passed neither village nor farmhouse, +nor cottage: I should have quailed in the absence of moonlight, for it was by +the leading of stars only I traced the dim path; I should have quailed still +more in the unwonted presence of that which to-night shone in the north, a +moving mystery—the Aurora Borealis. But this solemn stranger influenced me +otherwise than through my fears. Some new power it seemed to bring. I drew in +energy with the keen, low breeze that blew on its path. A bold thought was sent +to my mind; my mind was made strong to receive it. +</p> + +<p> +“Leave this wilderness,” it was said to me, “and go out hence.” +</p> + +<p> +“Where?” was the query. +</p> + +<p> +I had not very far to look; gazing from this country parish in that flat, rich +middle of England—I mentally saw within reach what I had never yet beheld with +my bodily eyes: I saw London. +</p> + +<p> +The next day I returned to the hall, and asking once more to see the +housekeeper, I communicated to her my plan. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Barrett was a grave, judicious woman, though she knew little more of the +world than myself; but grave and judicious as she was, she did not charge me +with being out of my senses; and, indeed, I had a staid manner of my own which +ere now had been as good to me as cloak and hood of hodden grey, since under +its favour I had been enabled to achieve with impunity, and even approbation, +deeds that, if attempted with an excited and unsettled air, would in some minds +have stamped me as a dreamer and zealot. +</p> + +<p> +The housekeeper was slowly propounding some difficulties, while she prepared +orange-rind for marmalade, when a child ran past the window and came bounding +into the room. It was a pretty child, and as it danced, laughing, up to me—for +we were not strangers (nor, indeed, was its mother—a young married daughter of +the house—a stranger)—I took it on my knee. +</p> + +<p> +Different as were our social positions now, this child’s mother and I had been +schoolfellows, when I was a girl of ten and she a young lady of sixteen; and I +remembered her, good-looking, but dull, in a lower class than mine. +</p> + +<p> +I was admiring the boy’s handsome dark eyes, when the mother, young Mrs. Leigh, +entered. What a beautiful and kind-looking woman was the good-natured and +comely, but unintellectual, girl become! Wifehood and maternity had changed her +thus, as I have since seen them change others even less promising than she. Me +she had forgotten. I was changed too, though not, I fear, for the better. I +made no attempt to recall myself to her memory; why should I? She came for her +son to accompany her in a walk, and behind her followed a nurse, carrying an +infant. I only mention the incident because, in addressing the nurse, Mrs. +Leigh spoke French (very bad French, by the way, and with an incorrigibly bad +accent, again forcibly reminding me of our school-days): and I found the woman +was a foreigner. The little boy chattered volubly in French too. When the whole +party were withdrawn, Mrs. Barrett remarked that her young lady had brought +that foreign nurse home with her two years ago, on her return from a +Continental excursion; that she was treated almost as well as a governess, and +had nothing to do but walk out with the baby and chatter French with Master +Charles; “and,” added Mrs. Barrett, “she says there are many Englishwomen in +foreign families as well placed as she.” +</p> + +<p> +I stored up this piece of casual information, as careful housewives store +seemingly worthless shreds and fragments for which their prescient minds +anticipate a possible use some day. Before I left my old friend, she gave me +the address of a respectable old-fashioned inn in the City, which, she said, my +uncles used to frequent in former days. +</p> + +<p> +In going to London, I ran less risk and evinced less enterprise than the reader +may think. In fact, the distance was only fifty miles. My means would suffice +both to take me there, to keep me a few days, and also to bring me back if I +found no inducement to stay. I regarded it as a brief holiday, permitted for +once to work-weary faculties, rather than as an adventure of life and death. +There is nothing like taking all you do at a moderate estimate: it keeps mind +and body tranquil; whereas grandiloquent notions are apt to hurry both into +fever. +</p> + +<p> +Fifty miles were then a day’s journey (for I speak of a time gone by: my hair, +which, till a late period, withstood the frosts of time, lies now, at last +white, under a white cap, like snow beneath snow). About nine o’clock of a wet +February night I reached London. +</p> + +<p> +My reader, I know, is one who would not thank me for an elaborate reproduction +of poetic first impressions; and it is well, inasmuch as I had neither time nor +mood to cherish such; arriving as I did late, on a dark, raw, and rainy +evening, in a Babylon and a wilderness, of which the vastness and the +strangeness tried to the utmost any powers of clear thought and steady +self-possession with which, in the absence of more brilliant faculties, Nature +might have gifted me. +</p> + +<p> +When I left the coach, the strange speech of the cabmen and others waiting +round, seemed to me odd as a foreign tongue. I had never before heard the +English language chopped up in that way. However, I managed to understand and +to be understood, so far as to get myself and trunk safely conveyed to the old +inn whereof I had the address. How difficult, how oppressive, how puzzling +seemed my flight! In London for the first time; at an inn for the first time; +tired with travelling; confused with darkness; palsied with cold; unfurnished +with either experience or advice to tell me how to act, and yet—to act obliged. +</p> + +<p> +Into the hands of common sense I confided the matter. Common sense, however, +was as chilled and bewildered as all my other faculties, and it was only under +the spur of an inexorable necessity that she spasmodically executed her trust. +Thus urged, she paid the porter: considering the crisis, I did not blame her +too much that she was hugely cheated; she asked the waiter for a room; she +timorously called for the chambermaid; what is far more, she bore, without +being wholly overcome, a highly supercilious style of demeanour from that young +lady, when she appeared. +</p> + +<p> +I recollect this same chambermaid was a pattern of town prettiness and +smartness. So trim her waist, her cap, her dress—I wondered how they had all +been manufactured. Her speech had an accent which in its mincing glibness +seemed to rebuke mine as by authority; her spruce attire flaunted an easy scorn +to my plain country garb. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, it can’t be helped,” I thought, “and then the scene is new, and the +circumstances; I shall gain good.” +</p> + +<p> +Maintaining a very quiet manner towards this arrogant little maid, and +subsequently observing the same towards the parsonic-looking, black-coated, +white-neckclothed waiter, I got civility from them ere long. I believe at first +they thought I was a servant; but in a little while they changed their minds, +and hovered in a doubtful state between patronage and politeness. +</p> + +<p> +I kept up well till I had partaken of some refreshment, warmed myself by a +fire, and was fairly shut into my own room; but, as I sat down by the bed and +rested my head and arms on the pillow, a terrible oppression overcame me. All +at once my position rose on me like a ghost. Anomalous, desolate, almost blank +of hope it stood. What was I doing here alone in great London? What should I do +on the morrow? What prospects had I in life? What friends had I on earth? +Whence did I come? Whither should I go? What should I do? +</p> + +<p> +I wet the pillow, my arms, and my hair, with rushing tears. A dark interval of +most bitter thought followed this burst; but I did not regret the step taken, +nor wish to retract it. A strong, vague persuasion that it was better to go +forward than backward, and that I <i>could</i> go forward—that a way, however +narrow and difficult, would in time open—predominated over other feelings: its +influence hushed them so far, that at last I became sufficiently tranquil to be +able to say my prayers and seek my couch. I had just extinguished my candle and +lain down, when a deep, low, mighty tone swung through the night. At first I +knew it not; but it was uttered twelve times, and at the twelfth colossal hum +and trembling knell, I said: “I lie in the shadow of St. Paul’s.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap06"></a>CHAPTER VI.<br/> +LONDON.</h2> + +<p> +The next day was the first of March, and when I awoke, rose, and opened my +curtain, I saw the risen sun struggling through fog. Above my head, above the +house-tops, co-elevate almost with the clouds, I saw a solemn, orbed mass, dark +blue and dim—THE DOME. While I looked, my inner self moved; my spirit shook its +always-fettered wings half loose; I had a sudden feeling as if I, who never yet +truly lived, were at last about to taste life. In that morning my soul grew as +fast as Jonah’s gourd. +</p> + +<p> +“I did well to come,” I said, proceeding to dress with speed and care. “I like +the spirit of this great London which I feel around me. Who but a coward would +pass his whole life in hamlets; and for ever abandon his faculties to the +eating rust of obscurity?” +</p> + +<p> +Being dressed, I went down; not travel-worn and exhausted, but tidy and +refreshed. When the waiter came in with my breakfast, I managed to accost him +sedately, yet cheerfully; we had ten minutes’ discourse, in the course of which +we became usefully known to each other. +</p> + +<p> +He was a grey-haired, elderly man; and, it seemed, had lived in his present +place twenty years. Having ascertained this, I was sure he must remember my two +uncles, Charles and Wilmot, who, fifteen, years ago, were frequent visitors +here. I mentioned their names; he recalled them perfectly, and with respect. +Having intimated my connection, my position in his eyes was henceforth clear, +and on a right footing. He said I was like my uncle Charles: I suppose he spoke +truth, because Mrs. Barrett was accustomed to say the same thing. A ready and +obliging courtesy now replaced his former uncomfortably doubtful manner; +henceforth I need no longer be at a loss for a civil answer to a sensible +question. +</p> + +<p> +The street on which my little sitting-room window looked was narrow, perfectly +quiet, and not dirty: the few passengers were just such as one sees in +provincial towns: here was nothing formidable; I felt sure I might venture out +alone. +</p> + +<p> +Having breakfasted, out I went. Elation and pleasure were in my heart: to walk +alone in London seemed of itself an adventure. Presently I found myself in +Paternoster Row—classic ground this. I entered a bookseller’s shop, kept by one +Jones: I bought a little book—a piece of extravagance I could ill afford; but I +thought I would one day give or send it to Mrs. Barrett. Mr. Jones, a dried-in +man of business, stood behind his desk: he seemed one of the greatest, and I +one of the happiest of beings. +</p> + +<p> +Prodigious was the amount of life I lived that morning. Finding myself before +St. Paul’s, I went in; I mounted to the dome: I saw thence London, with its +river, and its bridges, and its churches; I saw antique Westminster, and the +green Temple Gardens, with sun upon them, and a glad, blue sky, of early spring +above; and between them and it, not too dense, a cloud of haze. +</p> + +<p> +Descending, I went wandering whither chance might lead, in a still ecstasy of +freedom and enjoyment; and I got—I know not how—I got into the heart of city +life. I saw and felt London at last: I got into the Strand; I went up Cornhill; +I mixed with the life passing along; I dared the perils of crossings. To do +this, and to do it utterly alone, gave me, perhaps an irrational, but a real +pleasure. Since those days, I have seen the West End, the parks, the fine +squares; but I love the city far better. The city seems so much more in +earnest: its business, its rush, its roar, are such serious things, sights, and +sounds. The city is getting its living—the West End but enjoying its pleasure. +At the West End you may be amused, but in the city you are deeply excited. +</p> + +<p> +Faint, at last, and hungry (it was years since I had felt such healthy hunger), +I returned, about two o’clock, to my dark, old, and quiet inn. I dined on two +dishes—a plain joint and vegetables; both seemed excellent: how much better +than the small, dainty messes Miss Marchmont’s cook used to send up to my kind, +dead mistress and me, and to the discussion of which we could not bring half an +appetite between us! Delightfully tired, I lay down, on three chairs for an +hour (the room did not boast a sofa). I slept, then I woke and thought for two +hours. +</p> + +<p> +My state of mind, and all accompanying circumstances, were just now such as +most to favour the adoption of a new, resolute, and daring—perhaps +desperate—line of action. I had nothing to lose. Unutterable loathing of a +desolate existence past, forbade return. If I failed in what I now designed to +undertake, who, save myself, would suffer? If I died far away from—home, I was +going to say, but I had no home—from England, then, who would weep? +</p> + +<p> +I might suffer; I was inured to suffering: death itself had not, I thought, +those terrors for me which it has for the softly reared. I had, ere this, +looked on the thought of death with a quiet eye. Prepared, then, for any +consequences, I formed a project. +</p> + +<p> +That same evening I obtained from my friend, the waiter, information +respecting, the sailing of vessels for a certain continental port, Boue-Marine. +No time, I found, was to be lost: that very night I must take my berth. I +might, indeed, have waited till the morning before going on board, but would +not run the risk of being too late. +</p> + +<p> +“Better take your berth at once, ma’am,” counselled the waiter. I agreed with +him, and having discharged my bill, and acknowledged my friend’s services at a +rate which I now know was princely, and which in his eyes must have seemed +absurd—and indeed, while pocketing the cash, he smiled a faint smile which +intimated his opinion of the donor’s <i>savoir-faire</i>—he proceeded to call a +coach. To the driver he also recommended me, giving at the same time an +injunction about taking me, I think, to the wharf, and not leaving me to the +watermen; which that functionary promised to observe, but failed in keeping his +promise: on the contrary, he offered me up as an oblation, served me as a +dripping roast, making me alight in the midst of a throng of watermen. +</p> + +<p> +This was an uncomfortable crisis. It was a dark night. The coachman instantly +drove off as soon as he had got his fare: the watermen commenced a struggle for +me and my trunk. Their oaths I hear at this moment: they shook my philosophy +more than did the night, or the isolation, or the strangeness of the scene. One +laid hands on my trunk. I looked on and waited quietly; but when another laid +hands on me, I spoke up, shook off his touch, stepped at once into a boat, +desired austerely that the trunk should be placed beside me—“Just there,”—which +was instantly done; for the owner of the boat I had chosen became now an ally: +I was rowed off. +</p> + +<p> +Black was the river as a torrent of ink; lights glanced on it from the piles of +building round, ships rocked on its bosom. They rowed me up to several vessels; +I read by lantern-light their names painted in great white letters on a dark +ground. “The Ocean,” “The Phoenix,” “The Consort,” “The Dolphin,” were passed +in turns; but “The Vivid” was my ship, and it seemed she lay further down. +</p> + +<p> +Down the sable flood we glided, I thought of the Styx, and of Charon rowing +some solitary soul to the Land of Shades. Amidst the strange scene, with a +chilly wind blowing in my face and midnight clouds dropping rain above my head; +with two rude rowers for companions, whose insane oaths still tortured my ear, +I asked myself if I was wretched or terrified. I was neither. Often in my life +have I been far more so under comparatively safe circumstances. “How is this?” +said I. “Methinks I am animated and alert, instead of being depressed and +apprehensive?” I could not tell how it was. +</p> + +<p> +“THE VIVID” started out, white and glaring, from the black night at last.—“Here +you are!” said the waterman, and instantly demanded six shillings. +</p> + +<p> +“You ask too much,” I said. He drew off from the vessel and swore he would not +embark me till I paid it. A young man, the steward as I found afterwards, was +looking over the ship’s side; he grinned a smile in anticipation of the coming +contest; to disappoint him, I paid the money. Three times that afternoon I had +given crowns where I should have given shillings; but I consoled myself with +the reflection, “It is the price of experience.” +</p> + +<p> +“They’ve cheated you!” said the steward exultingly when I got on board. I +answered phlegmatically that “I knew it,” and went below. +</p> + +<p> +A stout, handsome, and showy woman was in the ladies’ cabin. I asked to be +shown my berth; she looked hard at me, muttered something about its being +unusual for passengers to come on board at that hour, and seemed disposed to be +less than civil. What a face she had—so comely—so insolent and so selfish! +</p> + +<p> +“Now that I am on board, I shall certainly stay here,” was my answer. “I will +trouble you to show me my berth.” +</p> + +<p> +She complied, but sullenly. I took off my bonnet, arranged my things, and lay +down. Some difficulties had been passed through; a sort of victory was won: my +homeless, anchorless, unsupported mind had again leisure for a brief repose. +Till the “Vivid” arrived in harbour, no further action would be required of me; +but then…. Oh! I could not look forward. Harassed, exhausted, I lay in a +half-trance. +</p> + +<p> +The stewardess talked all night; not to me but to the young steward, her son +and her very picture. He passed in and out of the cabin continually: they +disputed, they quarrelled, they made it up again twenty times in the course of +the night. She professed to be writing a letter home—she said to her father; +she read passages of it aloud, heeding me no more than a stock—perhaps she +believed me asleep. Several of these passages appeared to comprise family +secrets, and bore special reference to one “Charlotte,” a younger sister who, +from the bearing of the epistle, seemed to be on the brink of perpetrating a +romantic and imprudent match; loud was the protest of this elder lady against +the distasteful union. The dutiful son laughed his mother’s correspondence to +scorn. She defended it, and raved at him. They were a strange pair. She might +be thirty-nine or forty, and was buxom and blooming as a girl of twenty. Hard, +loud, vain and vulgar, her mind and body alike seemed brazen and imperishable. +I should think, from her childhood, she must have lived in public stations; and +in her youth might very likely have been a barmaid. +</p> + +<p> +Towards morning her discourse ran on a new theme: “the Watsons,” a certain +expected family-party of passengers, known to her, it appeared, and by her much +esteemed on account of the handsome profit realized in their fees. She said, +“It was as good as a little fortune to her whenever this family crossed.” +</p> + +<p> +At dawn all were astir, and by sunrise the passengers came on board. Boisterous +was the welcome given by the stewardess to the “Watsons,” and great was the +bustle made in their honour. They were four in number, two males and two +females. Besides them, there was but one other passenger—a young lady, whom a +gentlemanly, though languid-looking man escorted. The two groups offered a +marked contrast. The Watsons were doubtless rich people, for they had the +confidence of conscious wealth in their bearing; the women—youthful both of +them, and one perfectly handsome, as far as physical beauty went—were dressed +richly, gaily, and absurdly out of character for the circumstances. Their +bonnets with bright flowers, their velvet cloaks and silk dresses, seemed +better suited for park or promenade than for a damp packet deck. The men were +of low stature, plain, fat, and vulgar; the oldest, plainest, greasiest, +broadest, I soon found was the husband—the bridegroom I suppose, for she was +very young—of the beautiful girl. Deep was my amazement at this discovery; and +deeper still when I perceived that, instead of being desperately wretched in +such a union, she was gay even to giddiness. “Her laughter,” I reflected, “must +be the mere frenzy of despair.” And even while this thought was crossing my +mind, as I stood leaning quiet and solitary against the ship’s side, she came +tripping up to me, an utter stranger, with a camp-stool in her hand, and +smiling a smile of which the levity puzzled and startled me, though it showed a +perfect set of perfect teeth, she offered me the accommodation of this piece of +furniture. I declined it of course, with all the courtesy I could put into my +manner; she danced off heedless and lightsome. She must have been good-natured; +but what had made her marry that individual, who was at least as much like an +oil-barrel as a man? +</p> + +<p> +The other lady passenger, with the gentleman-companion, was quite a girl, +pretty and fair: her simple print dress, untrimmed straw-bonnet and large +shawl, gracefully worn, formed a costume plain to quakerism: yet, for her, +becoming enough. Before the gentleman quitted her, I observed him throwing a +glance of scrutiny over all the passengers, as if to ascertain in what company +his charge would be left. With a most dissatisfied air did his eye turn from +the ladies with the gay flowers; he looked at me, and then he spoke to his +daughter, niece, or whatever she was: she also glanced in my direction, and +slightly curled her short, pretty lip. It might be myself, or it might be my +homely mourning habit, that elicited this mark of contempt; more likely, both. +A bell rang; her father (I afterwards knew that it was her father) kissed her, +and returned to land. The packet sailed. +</p> + +<p> +Foreigners say that it is only English girls who can thus be trusted to travel +alone, and deep is their wonder at the daring confidence of English parents and +guardians. As for the “jeunes Meess,” by some their intrepidity is pronounced +masculine and “inconvenant,” others regard them as the passive victims of an +educational and theological system which wantonly dispenses with proper +“surveillance.” Whether this particular young lady was of the sort that can the +most safely be left unwatched, I do not know: or, rather did not <i>then</i> +know; but it soon appeared that the dignity of solitude was not to her taste. +She paced the deck once or twice backwards and forwards; she looked with a +little sour air of disdain at the flaunting silks and velvets, and the bears +which thereon danced attendance, and eventually she approached me and spoke. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you fond of a sea-voyage?” was her question. +</p> + +<p> +I explained that my <i>fondness</i> for a sea-voyage had yet to undergo the +test of experience; I had never made one. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, how charming!” cried she. “I quite envy you the novelty: first +impressions, you know, are so pleasant. Now I have made so many, I quite forget +the first: I am quite <i>blasée</i> about the sea and all that.” +</p> + +<p> +I could not help smiling. +</p> + +<p> +“Why do you laugh at me?” she inquired, with a frank testiness that pleased me +better than her other talk. +</p> + +<p> +“Because you are so young to be <i>blasée</i> about anything.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am seventeen” (a little piqued). +</p> + +<p> +“You hardly look sixteen. Do you like travelling alone?” +</p> + +<p> +“Bah! I care nothing about it. I have crossed the Channel ten times, alone; but +then I take care never to be long alone: I always make friends.” +</p> + +<p> +“You will scarcely make many friends this voyage, I think” (glancing at the +Watson-group, who were now laughing and making a great deal of noise on deck). +</p> + +<p> +“Not of those odious men and women,” said she: “such people should be steerage +passengers. Are you going to school?” +</p> + +<p> +“No.” +</p> + +<p> +“Where are you going?” +</p> + +<p> +“I have not the least idea—beyond, at least, the port of Boue-Marine.” +</p> + +<p> +She stared, then carelessly ran on: +</p> + +<p> +“I am going to school. Oh, the number of foreign schools I have been at in my +life! And yet I am quite an ignoramus. I know nothing—nothing in the world—I +assure you; except that I play and dance beautifully,—and French and German of +course I know, to speak; but I can’t read or write them very well. Do you know +they wanted me to translate a page of an easy German book into English the +other day, and I couldn’t do it. Papa was so mortified: he says it looks as if +M. de Bassompierre—my godpapa, who pays all my school-bills—had thrown away all +his money. And then, in matters of information—in history, geography, +arithmetic, and so on, I am quite a baby; and I write English so badly—such +spelling and grammar, they tell me. Into the bargain I have quite forgotten my +religion; they call me a Protestant, you know, but really I am not sure whether +I am one or not: I don’t well know the difference between Romanism and +Protestantism. However, I don’t in the least care for that. I was a Lutheran +once at Bonn—dear Bonn!—charming Bonn!—where there were so many handsome +students. Every nice girl in our school had an admirer; they knew our hours for +walking out, and almost always passed us on the promenade: ‘Schönes Mädchen,’ +we used to hear them say. I was excessively happy at Bonn!” +</p> + +<p> +“And where are you now?” I inquired. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! at—<i>chose</i>,” said she. +</p> + +<p> +Now, Miss Ginevra Fanshawe (such was this young person’s name) only substituted +this word “<i>chose</i>” in temporary oblivion of the real name. It was a habit +she had: “<i>chose</i>” came in at every turn in her conversation—the +convenient substitute for any missing word in any language she might chance at +the time to be speaking. French girls often do the like; from them she had +caught the custom. “<i>Chose</i>,” however, I found in this instance, stood for +Villette—the great capital of the great kingdom of Labassecour. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you like Villette?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Pretty well. The natives, you know, are intensely stupid and vulgar; but there +are some nice English families.” +</p> + +<p> +“Are you in a school?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“A good one?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, no! horrid: but I go out every Sunday, and care nothing about the +<i>maîtresses</i> or the <i>professeurs</i>, or the <i>élèves</i>, and send +lessons <i>au diable</i> (one daren’t say that in English, you know, but it +sounds quite right in French); and thus I get on charmingly…. You are laughing +at me again?” +</p> + +<p> +“No—I am only smiling at my own thoughts.” +</p> + +<p> +“What are they?” (Without waiting for an answer)—“Now, <i>do</i> tell me where +you are going.” +</p> + +<p> +“Where Fate may lead me. My business is to earn a living where I can find it.” +</p> + +<p> +“To earn!” (in consternation) “are you poor, then?” +</p> + +<p> +“As poor as Job.” +</p> + +<p> +(After a pause) “Bah! how unpleasant! But <i>I</i> know what it is to be poor: +they are poor enough at home—papa and mamma, and all of them. Papa is called +Captain Fanshawe; he is an officer on half-pay, but well-descended, and some of +our connections are great enough; but my uncle and godpapa De Bassompierre, who +lives in France, is the only one that helps us: he educates us girls. I have +five sisters and three brothers. By-and-by we are to marry—rather elderly +gentlemen, I suppose, with cash: papa and mamma manage that. My sister Augusta +is married now to a man much older-looking than papa. Augusta is very +beautiful—not in my style—but dark; her husband, Mr. Davies, had the yellow +fever in India, and he is still the colour of a guinea; but then he is rich, +and Augusta has her carriage and establishment, and we all think she has done +perfectly well. Now, this is better than ‘earning a living,’ as you say. By the +way, are you clever?” +</p> + +<p> +“No—not at all.” +</p> + +<p> +“You can play, sing, speak three or four languages?” +</p> + +<p> +“By no means.” +</p> + +<p> +“Still I think you are clever” (a pause and a yawn). +</p> + +<p> +“Shall you be sea-sick?” +</p> + +<p> +“Shall you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, immensely! as soon as ever we get in sight of the sea: I begin, indeed, to +feel it already. I shall go below; and won’t I order about that fat odious +stewardess! Heureusement je sais faire aller mon monde.” +</p> + +<p> +Down she went. +</p> + +<p> +It was not long before the other passengers followed her: throughout the +afternoon I remained on deck alone. When I recall the tranquil, and even happy +mood in which I passed those hours, and remember, at the same time, the +position in which I was placed; its hazardous—some would have said its +hopeless—character; I feel that, as— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“Stone walls do not a prison make,<br/> +Nor iron bars—a cage,” +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +so peril, loneliness, an uncertain future, are not oppressive evils, so long as +the frame is healthy and the faculties are employed; so long, especially, as +Liberty lends us her wings, and Hope guides us by her star. +</p> + +<p> +I was not sick till long after we passed Margate, and deep was the pleasure I +drank in with the sea-breeze; divine the delight I drew from the heaving +Channel waves, from the sea-birds on their ridges, from the white sails on +their dark distance, from the quiet yet beclouded sky, overhanging all. In my +reverie, methought I saw the continent of Europe, like a wide dream-land, far +away. Sunshine lay on it, making the long coast one line of gold; tiniest +tracery of clustered town and snow-gleaming tower, of woods deep massed, of +heights serrated, of smooth pasturage and veiny stream, embossed the +metal-bright prospect. For background, spread a sky, solemn and dark blue, +and—grand with imperial promise, soft with tints of enchantment—strode from +north to south a God-bent bow, an arch of hope. +</p> + +<p> +Cancel the whole of that, if you please, reader—or rather let it stand, and +draw thence a moral—an alliterative, text-hand copy— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Day-dreams are delusions of the demon. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Becoming excessively sick, I faltered down into the cabin. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Fanshawe’s berth chanced to be next mine; and, I am sorry to say, she +tormented me with an unsparing selfishness during the whole time of our mutual +distress. Nothing could exceed her impatience and fretfulness. The Watsons, who +were very sick too, and on whom the stewardess attended with shameless +partiality, were stoics compared with her. Many a time since have I noticed, in +persons of Ginevra Fanshawe’s light, careless temperament, and fair, fragile +style of beauty, an entire incapacity to endure: they seem to sour in +adversity, like small beer in thunder. The man who takes such a woman for his +wife, ought to be prepared to guarantee her an existence all sunshine. +Indignant at last with her teasing peevishness, I curtly requested her “to hold +her tongue.” The rebuff did her good, and it was observable that she liked me +no worse for it. +</p> + +<p> +As dark night drew on, the sea roughened: larger waves swayed strong against +the vessel’s side. It was strange to reflect that blackness and water were +round us, and to feel the ship ploughing straight on her pathless way, despite +noise, billow, and rising gale. Articles of furniture began to fall about, and +it became needful to lash them to their places; the passengers grew sicker than +ever; Miss Fanshawe declared, with groans, that she must die. +</p> + +<p> +“Not just yet, honey,” said the stewardess. “We’re just in port.” Accordingly, +in another quarter of an hour, a calm fell upon us all; and about midnight the +voyage ended. +</p> + +<p> +I was sorry: yes, I was sorry. My resting-time was past; my difficulties—my +stringent difficulties—recommenced. When I went on deck, the cold air and black +scowl of the night seemed to rebuke me for my presumption in being where I was: +the lights of the foreign sea-port town, glimmering round the foreign harbour, +met me like unnumbered threatening eyes. Friends came on board to welcome the +Watsons; a whole family of friends surrounded and bore away Miss Fanshawe; +I—but I dared not for one moment dwell on a comparison of positions. +</p> + +<p> +Yet where should I go? I must go somewhere. Necessity dare not be nice. As I +gave the stewardess her fee—and she seemed surprised at receiving a coin of +more value than, from such a quarter, her coarse calculations had probably +reckoned on—I said, “Be kind enough to direct me to some quiet, respectable +inn, where I can go for the night.” +</p> + +<p> +She not only gave me the required direction, but called a commissionaire, and +bid him take charge of me, and—<i>not</i> my trunk, for that was gone to the +custom-house. +</p> + +<p> +I followed this man along a rudely-paved street, lit now by a fitful gleam of +moonlight; he brought me to the inn. I offered him sixpence, which he refused +to take; supposing it not enough, I changed it for a shilling; but this also he +declined, speaking rather sharply, in a language to me unknown. A waiter, +coming forward into the lamp-lit inn-passage, reminded me, in broken English, +that my money was foreign money, not current here. I gave him a sovereign to +change. This little matter settled, I asked for a bedroom; supper I could not +take: I was still sea-sick and unnerved, and trembling all over. How deeply +glad I was when the door of a very small chamber at length closed on me and my +exhaustion. Again I might rest: though the cloud of doubt would be as thick +to-morrow as ever; the necessity for exertion more urgent, the peril (of +destitution) nearer, the conflict (for existence) more severe. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap07"></a>CHAPTER VII.<br/> +VILLETTE.</h2> + +<p> +I awoke next morning with courage revived and spirits refreshed: physical +debility no longer enervated my judgment; my mind felt prompt and clear. +</p> + +<p> +Just as I finished dressing, a tap came to the door: I said, “Come in,” +expecting the chambermaid, whereas a rough man walked in and said,— +</p> + +<p> +“Gif me your keys, Meess.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Gif!” said he impatiently; and as he half-snatched them from my hand, he +added, “All right! haf your tronc soon.” +</p> + +<p> +Fortunately it did turn out all right: he was from the custom-house. Where to +go to get some breakfast I could not tell; but I proceeded, not without +hesitation, to descend. +</p> + +<p> +I now observed, what I had not noticed in my extreme weariness last night, viz. +that this inn was, in fact, a large hotel; and as I slowly descended the broad +staircase, halting on each step (for I was in wonderfully little haste to get +down), I gazed at the high ceiling above me, at the painted walls around, at +the wide windows which filled the house with light, at the veined marble I trod +(for the steps were all of marble, though uncarpeted and not very clean), and +contrasting all this with the dimensions of the closet assigned to me as a +chamber, with the extreme modesty of its appointments, I fell into a +philosophizing mood. +</p> + +<p> +Much I marvelled at the sagacity evinced by waiters and chamber-maids in +proportioning the accommodation to the guest. How could inn-servants and +ship-stewardesses everywhere tell at a glance that I, for instance, was an +individual of no social significance, and little burdened by cash? They +<i>did</i> know it evidently: I saw quite well that they all, in a moment’s +calculation, estimated me at about the same fractional value. The fact seemed +to me curious and pregnant: I would not disguise from myself what it indicated, +yet managed to keep up my spirits pretty well under its pressure. +</p> + +<p> +Having at last landed in a great hall, full of skylight glare, I made my way +somehow to what proved to be the coffee-room. It cannot be denied that on +entering this room I trembled somewhat; felt uncertain, solitary, wretched; +wished to Heaven I knew whether I was doing right or wrong; felt convinced that +it was the last, but could not help myself. Acting in the spirit and with the +calm of a fatalist, I sat down at a small table, to which a waiter presently +brought me some breakfast; and I partook of that meal in a frame of mind not +greatly calculated to favour digestion. There were many other people +breakfasting at other tables in the room; I should have felt rather more happy +if amongst them all I could have seen any women; however, there was not one—all +present were men. But nobody seemed to think I was doing anything strange; one +or two gentlemen glanced at me occasionally, but none stared obtrusively: I +suppose if there was anything eccentric in the business, they accounted for it +by this word “Anglaise!” +</p> + +<p> +Breakfast over, I must again move—in what direction? “Go to Villette,” said an +inward voice; prompted doubtless by the recollection of this slight sentence +uttered carelessly and at random by Miss Fanshawe, as she bid me good-by: “I +wish you would come to Madame Beck’s; she has some marmots whom you might look +after; she wants an English gouvernante, or was wanting one two months ago.” +</p> + +<p> +Who Madame Beck was, where she lived, I knew not; I had asked, but the question +passed unheard: Miss Fanshawe, hurried away by her friends, left it unanswered. +I presumed Villette to be her residence—to Villette I would go. The distance +was forty miles. I knew I was catching at straws; but in the wide and weltering +deep where I found myself, I would have caught at cobwebs. Having inquired +about the means of travelling to Villette, and secured a seat in the diligence, +I departed on the strength of this outline—this shadow of a project. Before you +pronounce on the rashness of the proceeding, reader, look back to the point +whence I started; consider the desert I had left, note how little I perilled: +mine was the game where the player cannot lose and may win. +</p> + +<p> +Of an artistic temperament, I deny that I am; yet I must possess something of +the artist’s faculty of making the most of present pleasure: that is to say, +when it is of the kind to my taste. I enjoyed that day, though we travelled +slowly, though it was cold, though it rained. Somewhat bare, flat, and treeless +was the route along which our journey lay; and slimy canals crept, like +half-torpid green snakes, beside the road; and formal pollard willows edged +level fields, tilled like kitchen-garden beds. The sky, too, was monotonously +gray; the atmosphere was stagnant and humid; yet amidst all these deadening +influences, my fancy budded fresh and my heart basked in sunshine. These +feelings, however, were well kept in check by the secret but ceaseless +consciousness of anxiety lying in wait on enjoyment, like a tiger crouched in a +jungle. The breathing of that beast of prey was in my ear always; his fierce +heart panted close against mine; he never stirred in his lair but I felt him: I +knew he waited only for sun-down to bound ravenous from his ambush. +</p> + +<p> +I had hoped we might reach Villette ere night set in, and that thus I might +escape the deeper embarrassment which obscurity seems to throw round a first +arrival at an unknown bourne; but, what with our slow progress and long +stoppages—what with a thick fog and small, dense rain—darkness, that might +almost be felt, had settled on the city by the time we gained its suburbs. +</p> + +<p> +I know we passed through a gate where soldiers were stationed—so much I could +see by lamplight; then, having left behind us the miry Chaussée, we rattled +over a pavement of strangely rough and flinty surface. At a bureau, the +diligence stopped, and the passengers alighted. My first business was to get my +trunk; a small matter enough, but important to me. Understanding that it was +best not to be importunate or over-eager about luggage, but to wait and watch +quietly the delivery of other boxes till I saw my own, and then promptly claim +and secure it, I stood apart; my eye fixed on that part of the vehicle in which +I had seen my little portmanteau safely stowed, and upon which piles of +additional bags and boxes were now heaped. One by one, I saw these removed, +lowered, and seized on. +</p> + +<p> +I was sure mine ought to be by this time visible: it was not. I had tied on the +direction-card with a piece of green ribbon, that I might know it at a glance: +not a fringe or fragment of green was perceptible. Every package was removed; +every tin-case and brown-paper parcel; the oilcloth cover was lifted; I saw +with distinct vision that not an umbrella, cloak, cane, hat-box or band-box +remained. +</p> + +<p> +And my portmanteau, with my few clothes and little pocket-book enclasping the +remnant of my fifteen pounds, where were they? +</p> + +<p> +I ask this question now, but I could not ask it then. I could say nothing +whatever; not possessing a phrase of <i>speaking</i> French: and it was French, +and French only, the whole world seemed now gabbling around me. <i>What</i> +should I do? Approaching the conductor, I just laid my hand on his arm, pointed +to a trunk, thence to the diligence-roof, and tried to express a question with +my eyes. He misunderstood me, seized the trunk indicated, and was about to +hoist it on the vehicle. +</p> + +<p> +“Let that alone—will you?” said a voice in good English; then, in correction, +“Qu’est-ce que vous faîtes donc? Cette malle est à moi.” +</p> + +<p> +But I had heard the Fatherland accents; they rejoiced my heart; I turned: +“Sir,” said I, appealing to the stranger, without, in my distress, noticing +what he was like, “I cannot speak French. May I entreat you to ask this man +what he has done with my trunk?” +</p> + +<p> +Without discriminating, for the moment, what sort of face it was to which my +eyes were raised and on which they were fixed, I felt in its expression +half-surprise at my appeal and half-doubt of the wisdom of interference. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Do</i> ask him; I would do as much for you,” said I. +</p> + +<p> +I don’t know whether he smiled, but he said in a gentlemanly tone—that is to +say, a tone not hard nor terrifying,—“What sort of trunk was yours?” +</p> + +<p> +I described it, including in my description the green ribbon. And forthwith he +took the conductor under hand, and I felt, through all the storm of French +which followed, that he raked him fore and aft. Presently he returned to me. +</p> + +<p> +“The fellow avers he was overloaded, and confesses that he removed your trunk +after you saw it put on, and has left it behind at Boue-Marine with other +parcels; he has promised, however, to forward it to-morrow; the day after, +therefore, you will find it safe at this bureau.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you,” said I: but my heart sank. +</p> + +<p> +Meantime what should I do? Perhaps this English gentleman saw the failure of +courage in my face; he inquired kindly, “Have you any friends in this city?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, and I don’t know where to go.” +</p> + +<p> +There was a little pause, in the course of which, as he turned more fully to +the light of a lamp above him, I saw that he was a young, distinguished, and +handsome man; he might be a lord, for anything I knew: nature had made him good +enough for a prince, I thought. His face was very pleasant; he looked high but +not arrogant, manly but not overbearing. I was turning away, in the deep +consciousness of all absence of claim to look for further help from such a one +as he. +</p> + +<p> +“Was all your money in your trunk?” he asked, stopping me. +</p> + +<p> +How thankful was I to be able to answer with truth—“No. I have enough in my +purse” (for I had near twenty francs) “to keep me at a quiet inn till the day +after to-morrow; but I am quite a stranger in Villette, and don’t know the +streets and the inns.” +</p> + +<p> +“I can give you the address of such an inn as you want,” said he; “and it is +not far off: with my direction you will easily find it.” +</p> + +<p> +He tore a leaf from his pocket-book, wrote a few words and gave it to me. I +<i>did</i> think him kind; and as to distrusting him, or his advice, or his +address, I should almost as soon have thought of distrusting the Bible. There +was goodness in his countenance, and honour in his bright eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“Your shortest way will be to follow the Boulevard and cross the park,” he +continued; “but it is too late and too dark for a woman to go through the park +alone; I will step with you thus far.” +</p> + +<p> +He moved on, and I followed him, through the darkness and the small soaking +rain. The Boulevard was all deserted, its path miry, the water dripping from +its trees; the park was black as midnight. In the double gloom of trees and +fog, I could not see my guide; I could only follow his tread. Not the least +fear had I: I believe I would have followed that frank tread, through continual +night, to the world’s end. +</p> + +<p> +“Now,” said he, when the park was traversed, “you will go along this broad +street till you come to steps; two lamps will show you where they are: these +steps you will descend: a narrower street lies below; following that, at the +bottom you will find your inn. They speak English there, so your difficulties +are now pretty well over. Good-night.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good-night, sir,” said I: “accept my sincerest thanks.” And we parted. +</p> + +<p> +The remembrance of his countenance, which I am sure wore a light not +unbenignant to the friendless—the sound in my ear of his voice, which spoke a +nature chivalric to the needy and feeble, as well as the youthful and fair—were +a sort of cordial to me long after. He was a true young English gentleman. +</p> + +<p> +On I went, hurrying fast through a magnificent street and square, with the +grandest houses round, and amidst them the huge outline of more than one +overbearing pile; which might be palace or church—I could not tell. Just as I +passed a portico, two mustachioed men came suddenly from behind the pillars; +they were smoking cigars: their dress implied pretensions to the rank of +gentlemen, but, poor things! they were very plebeian in soul. They spoke with +insolence, and, fast as I walked, they kept pace with me a long way. At last I +met a sort of patrol, and my dreaded hunters were turned from the pursuit; but +they had driven me beyond my reckoning: when I could collect my faculties, I no +longer knew where I was; the staircase I must long since have passed. Puzzled, +out of breath, all my pulses throbbing in inevitable agitation, I knew not +where to turn. It was terrible to think of again encountering those bearded, +sneering simpletons; yet the ground must be retraced, and the steps sought out. +</p> + +<p> +I came at last to an old and worn flight, and, taking it for granted that this +must be the one indicated, I descended them. The street into which they led was +indeed narrow, but it contained no inn. On I wandered. In a very quiet and +comparatively clean and well-paved street, I saw a light burning over the door +of a rather large house, loftier by a story than those round it. <i>This</i> +might be the inn at last. I hastened on: my knees now trembled under me: I was +getting quite exhausted. +</p> + +<p> +No inn was this. A brass-plate embellished the great porte-cochère: “Pensionnat +de Demoiselles” was the inscription; and beneath, a name, “Madame Beck.” +</p> + +<p> +I started. About a hundred thoughts volleyed through my mind in a moment. Yet I +planned nothing, and considered nothing: I had not time. Providence said, “Stop +here; this is <i>your</i> inn.” Fate took me in her strong hand; mastered my +will; directed my actions: I rang the door-bell. +</p> + +<p> +While I waited, I would not reflect. I fixedly looked at the street-stones, +where the door-lamp shone, and counted them and noted their shapes, and the +glitter of wet on their angles. I rang again. They opened at last. A bonne in a +smart cap stood before me. +</p> + +<p> +“May I see Madame Beck?” I inquired. +</p> + +<p> +I believe if I had spoken French she would not have admitted me; but, as I +spoke English, she concluded I was a foreign teacher come on business connected +with the pensionnat, and, even at that late hour, she let me in, without a word +of reluctance, or a moment of hesitation. +</p> + +<p> +The next moment I sat in a cold, glittering salon, with porcelain stove, unlit, +and gilded ornaments, and polished floor. A pendule on the mantel-piece struck +nine o’clock. +</p> + +<p> +A quarter of an hour passed. How fast beat every pulse in my frame! How I +turned cold and hot by turns! I sat with my eyes fixed on the door—a great +white folding-door, with gilt mouldings: I watched to see a leaf move and open. +All had been quiet: not a mouse had stirred; the white doors were closed and +motionless. +</p> + +<p> +“You ayre Engliss?” said a voice at my elbow. I almost bounded, so unexpected +was the sound; so certain had I been of solitude. +</p> + +<p> +No ghost stood beside me, nor anything of spectral aspect; merely a motherly, +dumpy little woman, in a large shawl, a wrapping-gown, and a clean, trim +nightcap. +</p> + +<p> +I said I was English, and immediately, without further prelude, we fell to a +most remarkable conversation. Madame Beck (for Madame Beck it was—she had +entered by a little door behind me, and, being shod with the shoes of silence, +I had heard neither her entrance nor approach)—Madame Beck had exhausted her +command of insular speech when she said, “You ayre Engliss,” and she now +proceeded to work away volubly in her own tongue. I answered in mine. She +partly understood me, but as I did not at all understand her—though we made +together an awful clamour (anything like Madame’s gift of utterance I had not +hitherto heard or imagined)—we achieved little progress. She rang, ere long, +for aid; which arrived in the shape of a “maîtresse,” who had been partly +educated in an Irish convent, and was esteemed a perfect adept in the English +language. A bluff little personage this maîtresse was—Labassecourienne from top +to toe: and how she did slaughter the speech of Albion! However, I told her a +plain tale, which she translated. I told her how I had left my own country, +intent on extending my knowledge, and gaining my bread; how I was ready to turn +my hand to any useful thing, provided it was not wrong or degrading; how I +would be a child’s-nurse, or a lady’s-maid, and would not refuse even housework +adapted to my strength. Madame heard this; and, questioning her countenance, I +almost thought the tale won her ear: +</p> + +<p> +“Il n’y a que les Anglaises pour ces sortes d’entreprises,” said she: +“sont-elles donc intrépides ces femmes là!” +</p> + +<p> +She asked my name, my age; she sat and looked at me—not pityingly, not with +interest: never a gleam of sympathy, or a shade of compassion, crossed her +countenance during the interview. I felt she was not one to be led an inch by +her feelings: grave and considerate, she gazed, consulting her judgment and +studying my narrative. A bell rang. +</p> + +<p> +“Voilà pour la prière du soir!” said she, and rose. Through her interpreter, +she desired me to depart now, and come back on the morrow; but this did not +suit me: I could not bear to return to the perils of darkness and the street. +With energy, yet with a collected and controlled manner, I said, addressing +herself personally, and not the maîtresse: “Be assured, madame, that by +instantly securing my services, your interests will be served and not injured: +you will find me one who will wish to give, in her labour, a full equivalent +for her wages; and if you hire me, it will be better that I should stay here +this night: having no acquaintance in Villette, and not possessing the language +of the country, how can I secure a lodging?” +</p> + +<p> +“It is true,” said she; “but at least you can give a reference?” +</p> + +<p> +“None.” +</p> + +<p> +She inquired after my luggage: I told her when it would arrive. She mused. At +that moment a man’s step was heard in the vestibule, hastily proceeding to the +outer door. (I shall go on with this part of my tale as if I had understood all +that passed; for though it was then scarce intelligible to me, I heard it +translated afterwards). +</p> + +<p> +“Who goes out now?” demanded Madame Beck, listening to the tread. +</p> + +<p> +“M. Paul,” replied the teacher. “He came this evening to give a reading to the +first class.” +</p> + +<p> +“The very man I should at this moment most wish to see. Call him.” +</p> + +<p> +The teacher ran to the salon door. M. Paul was summoned. He entered: a small, +dark and spare man, in spectacles. +</p> + +<p> +“Mon cousin,” began Madame, “I want your opinion. We know your skill in +physiognomy; use it now. Read that countenance.” +</p> + +<p> +The little man fixed on me his spectacles: A resolute compression of the lips, +and gathering of the brow, seemed to say that he meant to see through me, and +that a veil would be no veil for him. +</p> + +<p> +“I read it,” he pronounced. +</p> + +<p> +“Et qu’en dites vous?” +</p> + +<p> +“Mais—bien des choses,” was the oracular answer. +</p> + +<p> +“Bad or good?” +</p> + +<p> +“Of each kind, without doubt,” pursued the diviner. +</p> + +<p> +“May one trust her word?” +</p> + +<p> +“Are you negotiating a matter of importance?” +</p> + +<p> +“She wishes me to engage her as bonne or gouvernante; tells a tale full of +integrity, but gives no reference.” +</p> + +<p> +“She is a stranger?” +</p> + +<p> +“An Englishwoman, as one may see.” +</p> + +<p> +“She speaks French?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not a word.” +</p> + +<p> +“She understands it?” +</p> + +<p> +“No.” +</p> + +<p> +“One may then speak plainly in her presence?” +</p> + +<p> +“Doubtless.” +</p> + +<p> +He gazed steadily. “Do you need her services?” +</p> + +<p> +“I could do with them. You know I am disgusted with Madame Svini.” +</p> + +<p> +Still he scrutinized. The judgment, when it at last came, was as indefinite as +what had gone before it. +</p> + +<p> +“Engage her. If good predominates in that nature, the action will bring its own +reward; if evil—eh bien! ma cousine, ce sera toujours une bonne œuvre.” And +with a bow and a “bon soir,” this vague arbiter of my destiny vanished. +</p> + +<p> +And Madame did engage me that very night—by God’s blessing I was spared the +necessity of passing forth again into the lonesome, dreary, hostile street. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap08"></a>CHAPTER VIII.<br/> +MADAME BECK.</h2> + +<p> +Being delivered into the charge of the maîtresse, I was led through a long +narrow passage into a foreign kitchen, very clean but very strange. It seemed +to contain no means of cooking—neither fireplace nor oven; I did not understand +that the great black furnace which filled one corner, was an efficient +substitute for these. Surely pride was not already beginning its whispers in my +heart; yet I felt a sense of relief when, instead of being left in the kitchen, +as I half anticipated, I was led forward to a small inner room termed a +“cabinet.” A cook in a jacket, a short petticoat and sabots, brought my supper: +to wit—some meat, nature unknown, served in an odd and acid, but pleasant +sauce; some chopped potatoes, made savoury with, I know not what: vinegar and +sugar, I think: a tartine, or slice of bread and butter, and a baked pear. +Being hungry, I ate and was grateful. +</p> + +<p> +After the “prière du soir,” Madame herself came to have another look at me. She +desired me to follow her up-stairs. Through a series of the queerest little +dormitories—which, I heard afterwards, had once been nuns’ cells: for the +premises were in part of ancient date—and through the oratory—a long, low, +gloomy room, where a crucifix hung, pale, against the wall, and two tapers kept +dim vigils—she conducted me to an apartment where three children were asleep in +three tiny beds. A heated stove made the air of this room oppressive; and, to +mend matters, it was scented with an odour rather strong than delicate: a +perfume, indeed, altogether surprising and unexpected under the circumstances, +being like the combination of smoke with some spirituous essence—a smell, in +short, of whisky. +</p> + +<p> +Beside a table, on which flared the remnant of a candle guttering to waste in +the socket, a coarse woman, heterogeneously clad in a broad striped showy silk +dress, and a stuff apron, sat in a chair fast asleep. To complete the picture, +and leave no doubt as to the state of matters, a bottle and an empty glass +stood at the sleeping beauty’s elbow. +</p> + +<p> +Madame contemplated this remarkable tableau with great calm; she neither smiled +nor scowled; no impress of anger, disgust, or surprise, ruffled the equality of +her grave aspect; she did not even wake the woman! Serenely pointing to a +fourth bed, she intimated that it was to be mine; then, having extinguished the +candle and substituted for it a night-lamp, she glided through an inner door, +which she left ajar—the entrance to her own chamber, a large, well-furnished +apartment; as was discernible through the aperture. +</p> + +<p> +My devotions that night were all thanksgiving. Strangely had I been led since +morning—unexpectedly had I been provided for. Scarcely could I believe that not +forty-eight hours had elapsed since I left London, under no other guardianship +than that which protects the passenger-bird—with no prospect but the dubious +cloud-tracery of hope. +</p> + +<p> +I was a light sleeper; in the dead of night I suddenly awoke. All was hushed, +but a white figure stood in the room—Madame in her night-dress. Moving without +perceptible sound, she visited the three children in the three beds; she +approached me: I feigned sleep, and she studied me long. A small pantomime +ensued, curious enough. I daresay she sat a quarter of an hour on the edge of +my bed, gazing at my face. She then drew nearer, bent close over me; slightly +raised my cap, and turned back the border so as to expose my hair; she looked +at my hand lying on the bedclothes. This done, she turned to the chair where my +clothes lay: it was at the foot of the bed. Hearing her touch and lift them, I +opened my eyes with precaution, for I own I felt curious to see how far her +taste for research would lead her. It led her a good way: every article did she +inspect. I divined her motive for this proceeding, viz. the wish to form from +the garments a judgment respecting the wearer, her station, means, neatness, +&c. The end was not bad, but the means were hardly fair or justifiable. In +my dress was a pocket; she fairly turned it inside out: she counted the money +in my purse; she opened a little memorandum-book, coolly perused its contents, +and took from between the leaves a small plaited lock of Miss Marchmont’s grey +hair. To a bunch of three keys, being those of my trunk, desk, and work-box, +she accorded special attention: with these, indeed, she withdrew a moment to +her own room. I softly rose in my bed and followed her with my eye: these keys, +reader, were not brought back till they had left on the toilet of the adjoining +room the impress of their wards in wax. All being thus done decently and in +order, my property was returned to its place, my clothes were carefully +refolded. Of what nature were the conclusions deduced from this scrutiny? Were +they favourable or otherwise? Vain question. Madame’s face of stone (for of +stone in its present night aspect it looked: it had been human, and, as I said +before, motherly, in the salon) betrayed no response. +</p> + +<p> +Her duty done—I felt that in her eyes this business was a duty—she rose, +noiseless as a shadow: she moved towards her own chamber; at the door, she +turned, fixing her eye on the heroine of the bottle, who still slept and loudly +snored. Mrs. Svini (I presume this was Mrs. Svini, Anglicé or Hibernicé, +Sweeny)—Mrs. Sweeny’s doom was in Madame Beck’s eye—an immutable purpose that +eye spoke: Madame’s visitations for shortcomings might be slow, but they were +sure. All this was very un-English: truly I was in a foreign land. +</p> + +<p> +The morrow made me further acquainted with Mrs. Sweeny. It seems she had +introduced herself to her present employer as an English lady in reduced +circumstances: a native, indeed, of Middlesex, professing to speak the English +tongue with the purest metropolitan accent. Madame—reliant on her own +infallible expedients for finding out the truth in time—had a singular +intrepidity in hiring service off-hand (as indeed seemed abundantly proved in +my own case). She received Mrs. Sweeny as nursery-governess to her three +children. I need hardly explain to the reader that this lady was in effect a +native of Ireland; her station I do not pretend to fix: she boldly declared +that she had “had the bringing-up of the son and daughter of a marquis.” I +think myself, she might possibly have been a hanger-on, nurse, fosterer, or +washerwoman, in some Irish family: she spoke a smothered tongue, curiously +overlaid with mincing cockney inflections. By some means or other she had +acquired, and now held in possession, a wardrobe of rather suspicious +splendour—gowns of stiff and costly silk, fitting her indifferently, and +apparently made for other proportions than those they now adorned; caps with +real lace borders, and—the chief item in the inventory, the spell by which she +struck a certain awe through the household, quelling the otherwise scornfully +disposed teachers and servants, and, so long as her broad shoulders <i>wore</i> +the folds of that majestic drapery, even influencing Madame herself—<i>a real +Indian shawl</i>—“un véritable cachemire,” as Madame Beck said, with unmixed +reverence and amaze. I feel quite sure that without this “cachemire” she would +not have kept her footing in the pensionnat for two days: by virtue of it, and +it only, she maintained the same a month. +</p> + +<p> +But when Mrs. Sweeny knew that I was come to fill her shoes, then it was that +she declared herself—then did she rise on Madame Beck in her full power—then +come down on me with her concentrated weight. Madame bore this revelation and +visitation so well, so stoically, that I for very shame could not support it +otherwise than with composure. For one little moment Madame Beck absented +herself from the room; ten minutes after, an agent of the police stood in the +midst of us. Mrs. Sweeny and her effects were removed. Madame’s brow had not +been ruffled during the scene—her lips had not dropped one sharply-accented +word. +</p> + +<p> +This brisk little affair of the dismissal was all settled before breakfast: +order to march given, policeman called, mutineer expelled; “chambre d’enfans” +fumigated and cleansed, windows thrown open, and every trace of the +accomplished Mrs. Sweeny—even to the fine essence and spiritual fragrance which +gave token so subtle and so fatal of the head and front of her offending—was +annihilated from the Rue Fossette: all this, I say, was done between the moment +of Madame Beck’s issuing like Aurora from her chamber, and that in which she +coolly sat down to pour out her first cup of coffee. +</p> + +<p> +About noon, I was summoned to dress Madame. (It appeared my place was to be a +hybrid between gouvernante and lady’s-maid.) Till noon, she haunted the house +in her wrapping-gown, shawl, and soundless slippers. How would the lady-chief +of an English school approve this custom? +</p> + +<p> +The dressing of her hair puzzled me; she had plenty of it: auburn, unmixed with +grey: though she was forty years old. Seeing my embarrassment, she said, “You +have not been a femme-de-chambre in your own country?” And taking the brush +from my hand, and setting me aside, not ungently or disrespectfully, she +arranged it herself. In performing other offices of the toilet, she +half-directed, half-aided me, without the least display of temper or +impatience. N.B.—That was the first and last time I was required to dress her. +Henceforth, on Rosine, the portress, devolved that duty. +</p> + +<p> +When attired, Madame Beck appeared a personage of a figure rather short and +stout, yet still graceful in its own peculiar way; that is, with the grace +resulting from proportion of parts. Her complexion was fresh and sanguine, not +too rubicund; her eye, blue and serene; her dark silk dress fitted her as a +French sempstress alone can make a dress fit; she looked well, though a little +bourgeoise; as bourgeoise, indeed, she was. I know not what of harmony pervaded +her whole person; and yet her face offered contrast, too: its features were by +no means such as are usually seen in conjunction with a complexion of such +blended freshness and repose: their outline was stern: her forehead was high +but narrow; it expressed capacity and some benevolence, but no expanse; nor did +her peaceful yet watchful eye ever know the fire which is kindled in the heart +or the softness which flows thence. Her mouth was hard: it could be a little +grim; her lips were thin. For sensibility and genius, with all their tenderness +and temerity, I felt somehow that Madame would be the right sort of Minos in +petticoats. +</p> + +<p> +In the long run, I found she was something else in petticoats too. Her name was +Modeste Maria Beck, née Kint: it ought to have been Ignacia. She was a +charitable woman, and did a great deal of good. There never was a mistress +whose rule was milder. I was told that she never once remonstrated with the +intolerable Mrs. Sweeny, despite her tipsiness, disorder, and general neglect; +yet Mrs. Sweeny had to go the moment her departure became convenient. I was +told, too, that neither masters nor teachers were found fault with in that +establishment; yet both masters and teachers were often changed: they vanished +and others filled their places, none could well explain how. +</p> + +<p> +The establishment was both a pensionnat and an externat: the externes or +day-pupils exceeded one hundred in number; the boarders were about a score. +Madame must have possessed high administrative powers: she ruled all these, +together with four teachers, eight masters, six servants, and three children, +managing at the same time to perfection the pupils’ parents and friends; and +that without apparent effort; without bustle, fatigue, fever, or any symptom of +undue excitement: occupied she always was—busy, rarely. It is true that Madame +had her own system for managing and regulating this mass of machinery; and a +very pretty system it was: the reader has seen a specimen of it, in that small +affair of turning my pocket inside out, and reading my private memoranda. +“Surveillance,” “espionage,”—these were her watchwords. +</p> + +<p> +Still, Madame knew what honesty was, and liked it—that is, when it did not +obtrude its clumsy scruples in the way of her will and interest. She had a +respect for “Angleterre;” and as to “les Anglaises,” she would have the women +of no other country about her own children, if she could help it. +</p> + +<p> +Often in the evening, after she had been plotting and counter-plotting, spying +and receiving the reports of spies all day, she would come up to my room—a +trace of real weariness on her brow—and she would sit down and listen while the +children said their little prayers to me in English: the Lord’s Prayer, and the +hymn beginning “Gentle Jesus,” these little Catholics were permitted to repeat +at my knee; and, when I had put them to bed, she would talk to me (I soon +gained enough French to be able to understand, and even answer her) about +England and Englishwomen, and the reasons for what she was pleased to term +their superior intelligence, and more real and reliable probity. Very good +sense she often showed; very sound opinions she often broached: she seemed to +know that keeping girls in distrustful restraint, in blind ignorance, and under +a surveillance that left them no moment and no corner for retirement, was not +the best way to make them grow up honest and modest women; but she averred that +ruinous consequences would ensue if any other method were tried with +continental children: they were so accustomed to restraint, that relaxation, +however guarded, would be misunderstood and fatally presumed on. She was sick, +she would declare, of the means she had to use, but use them she must; and +after discoursing, often with dignity and delicacy, to me, she would move away +on her “souliers de silence,” and glide ghost-like through the house, watching +and spying everywhere, peering through every keyhole, listening behind every +door. +</p> + +<p> +After all, Madame’s system was not bad—let me do her justice. Nothing could be +better than all her arrangements for the physical well-being of her scholars. +No minds were overtasked: the lessons were well distributed and made +incomparably easy to the learner; there was a liberty of amusement, and a +provision for exercise which kept the girls healthy; the food was abundant and +good: neither pale nor puny faces were anywhere to be seen in the Rue Fossette. +She never grudged a holiday; she allowed plenty of time for sleeping, dressing, +washing, eating; her method in all these matters was easy, liberal, salutary, +and rational: many an austere English school-mistress would do vastly well to +imitate her—and I believe many would be glad to do so, if exacting English +parents would let them. +</p> + +<p> +As Madame Beck ruled by espionage, she of course had her staff of spies: she +perfectly knew the quality of the tools she used, and while she would not +scruple to handle the dirtiest for a dirty occasion—flinging this sort from her +like refuse rind, after the orange has been duly squeezed—I have known her +fastidious in seeking pure metal for clean uses; and when once a bloodless and +rustless instrument was found, she was careful of the prize, keeping it in silk +and cotton-wool. Yet, woe be to that man or woman who relied on her one inch +beyond the point where it was her interest to be trustworthy: interest was the +master-key of Madame’s nature—the mainspring of her motives—the alpha and omega +of her life. I have seen her <i>feelings</i> appealed to, and I have smiled in +half-pity, half-scorn at the appellants. None ever gained her ear through that +channel, or swayed her purpose by that means. On the contrary, to attempt to +touch her heart was the surest way to rouse her antipathy, and to make of her a +secret foe. It proved to her that she had no heart to be touched: it reminded +her where she was impotent and dead. Never was the distinction between charity +and mercy better exemplified than in her. While devoid of sympathy, she had a +sufficiency of rational benevolence: she would give in the readiest manner to +people she had never seen—rather, however, to classes than to individuals. +“Pour les pauvres,” she opened her purse freely—against <i>the poor man</i>, as +a rule, she kept it closed. In philanthropic schemes for the benefit of society +at large she took a cheerful part; no private sorrow touched her: no force or +mass of suffering concentrated in one heart had power to pierce hers. Not the +agony in Gethsemane, not the death on Calvary, could have wrung from her eyes +one tear. +</p> + +<p> +I say again, Madame was a very great and a very capable woman. That school +offered her for her powers too limited a sphere; she ought to have swayed a +nation: she should have been the leader of a turbulent legislative assembly. +Nobody could have browbeaten her, none irritated her nerves, exhausted her +patience, or over-reached her astuteness. In her own single person, she could +have comprised the duties of a first minister and a superintendent of police. +Wise, firm, faithless; secret, crafty, passionless; watchful and inscrutable; +acute and insensate—withal perfectly decorous—what more could be desired? +</p> + +<p> +The sensible reader will not suppose that I gained all the knowledge here +condensed for his benefit in one month, or in one half-year. No! what I saw at +first was the thriving outside of a large and flourishing educational +establishment. Here was a great house, full of healthy, lively girls, all +well-dressed and many of them handsome, gaining knowledge by a marvellously +easy method, without painful exertion or useless waste of spirits; not, +perhaps, making very rapid progress in anything; taking it easy, but still +always employed, and never oppressed. Here was a corps of teachers and masters, +more stringently tasked, as all the real head-labour was to be done by them, in +order to save the pupils, yet having their duties so arranged that they +relieved each other in quick succession whenever the work was severe: here, in +short, was a foreign school; of which the life, movement, and variety made it a +complete and most charming contrast to many English institutions of the same +kind. +</p> + +<p> +Behind the house was a large garden, and, in summer, the pupils almost lived +out of doors amongst the rose-bushes and the fruit-trees. Under the vast and +vine-draped berceau, Madame would take her seat on summer afternoons, and send +for the classes, in turns, to sit round her and sew and read. Meantime, masters +came and went, delivering short and lively lectures, rather than lessons, and +the pupils made notes of their instructions, or did <i>not</i> make them—just +as inclination prompted; secure that, in case of neglect, they could copy the +notes of their companions. Besides the regular monthly <i>jours de sortie</i>, +the Catholic fête-days brought a succession of holidays all the year round; and +sometimes on a bright summer morning, or soft summer evening; the boarders were +taken out for a long walk into the country, regaled with <i>gaufres</i> and +<i>vin blanc</i>, or new milk and <i>pain bis</i>, or <i>pistolets au +beurre</i> (rolls) and coffee. All this seemed very pleasant, and Madame +appeared goodness itself; and the teachers not so bad but they might be worse; +and the pupils, perhaps, a little noisy and rough, but types of health and +glee. +</p> + +<p> +Thus did the view appear, seen through the enchantment of distance; but there +came a time when distance was to melt for me—when I was to be called down from +my watch-tower of the nursery, whence I had hitherto made my observations, and +was to be compelled into closer intercourse with this little world of the Rue +Fossette. +</p> + +<p> +I was one day sitting up-stairs, as usual, hearing the children their English +lessons, and at the same time turning a silk dress for Madame, when she came +sauntering into the room with that absorbed air and brow of hard thought she +sometimes wore, and which made her look so little genial. Dropping into a seat +opposite mine, she remained some minutes silent. Désirée, the eldest girl, was +reading to me some little essay of Mrs. Barbauld’s, and I was making her +translate currently from English to French as she proceeded, by way of +ascertaining that she comprehended what she read: Madame listened. +</p> + +<p> +Presently, without preface or prelude, she said, almost in the tone of one +making an accusation, “Meess, in England you were a governess?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, Madame,” said I smiling, “you are mistaken.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is this your first essay at teaching—this attempt with my children?” +</p> + +<p> +I assured her it was. Again she became silent; but looking up, as I took a pin +from the cushion, I found myself an object of study: she held me under her eye; +she seemed turning me round in her thoughts—measuring my fitness for a purpose, +weighing my value in a plan. Madame had, ere this, scrutinized all I had, and I +believe she esteemed herself cognizant of much that I was; but from that day, +for the space of about a fortnight, she tried me by new tests. She listened at +the nursery door when I was shut in with the children; she followed me at a +cautious distance when I walked out with them, stealing within ear-shot +whenever the trees of park or boulevard afforded a sufficient screen: a strict +preliminary process having thus been observed, she made a move forward. +</p> + +<p> +One morning, coming on me abruptly, and with the semblance of hurry, she said +she found herself placed in a little dilemma. Mr. Wilson, the English master, +had failed to come at his hour, she feared he was ill; the pupils were waiting +in classe; there was no one to give a lesson; should I, for once, object to +giving a short dictation exercise, just that the pupils might not have it to +say they had missed their English lesson? +</p> + +<p> +“In classe, Madame?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, in classe: in the second division.” +</p> + +<p> +“Where there are sixty pupils,” said I; for I knew the number, and with my +usual base habit of cowardice, I shrank into my sloth like a snail into its +shell, and alleged incapacity and impracticability as a pretext to escape +action. If left to myself, I should infallibly have let this chance slip. +Inadventurous, unstirred by impulses of practical ambition, I was capable of +sitting twenty years teaching infants the hornbook, turning silk dresses and +making children’s frocks. Not that true contentment dignified this infatuated +resignation: my work had neither charm for my taste, nor hold on my interest; +but it seemed to me a great thing to be without heavy anxiety, and relieved +from intimate trial: the negation of severe suffering was the nearest approach +to happiness I expected to know. Besides, I seemed to hold two lives—the life +of thought, and that of reality; and, provided the former was nourished with a +sufficiency of the strange necromantic joys of fancy, the privileges of the +latter might remain limited to daily bread, hourly work, and a roof of shelter. +</p> + +<p> +“Come,” said Madame, as I stooped more busily than ever over the cutting-out of +a child’s pinafore, “leave that work.” +</p> + +<p> +“But Fifine wants it, Madame.” +</p> + +<p> +“Fifine must want it, then, for I want <i>you</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +And as Madame Beck did really want and was resolved to have me—as she had long +been dissatisfied with the English master, with his shortcomings in +punctuality, and his careless method of tuition—as, too, <i>she</i> did not +lack resolution and practical activity, whether <i>I</i> lacked them or +not—she, without more ado, made me relinquish thimble and needle; my hand was +taken into hers, and I was conducted down-stairs. When we reached the carré, a +large square hall between the dwelling-house and the pensionnat, she paused, +dropped my hand, faced, and scrutinized me. I was flushed, and tremulous from +head to foot: tell it not in Gath, I believe I was crying. In fact, the +difficulties before me were far from being wholly imaginary; some of them were +real enough; and not the least substantial lay in my want of mastery over the +medium through which I should be obliged to teach. I had, indeed, studied +French closely since my arrival in Villette; learning its practice by day, and +its theory in every leisure moment at night, to as late an hour as the rule of +the house would allow candle-light; but I was far from yet being able to trust +my powers of correct oral expression. +</p> + +<p> +“Dîtes donc,” said Madame sternly, “vous sentez vous réellement trop faible?” +</p> + +<p> +I might have said “Yes,” and gone back to nursery obscurity, and there, +perhaps, mouldered for the rest of my life; but looking up at Madame, I saw in +her countenance a something that made me think twice ere I decided. At that +instant she did not wear a woman’s aspect, but rather a man’s. Power of a +particular kind strongly limned itself in all her traits, and that power was +not my kind of power: neither sympathy, nor congeniality, nor submission, were +the emotions it awakened. I stood—not soothed, nor won, nor overwhelmed. It +seemed as if a challenge of strength between opposing gifts was given, and I +suddenly felt all the dishonour of my diffidence—all the pusillanimity of my +slackness to aspire. +</p> + +<p> +“Will you,” she said, “go backward or forward?” indicating with her hand, +first, the small door of communication with the dwelling-house, and then the +great double portals of the classes or schoolrooms. +</p> + +<p> +“En avant,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +“But,” pursued she, cooling as I warmed, and continuing the hard look, from +very antipathy to which I drew strength and determination, “can you face the +classes, or are you over-excited?” +</p> + +<p> +She sneered slightly in saying this: nervous excitability was not much to +Madame’s taste. +</p> + +<p> +“I am no more excited than this stone,” I said, tapping the flag with my toe: +“or than you,” I added, returning her look. +</p> + +<p> +“Bon! But let me tell you these are not quiet, decorous, English girls you are +going to encounter. Ce sont des Labassecouriennes, rondes, franches, brusques, +et tant soit peu rebelles.” +</p> + +<p> +I said: “I know; and I know, too, that though I have studied French hard since +I came here, yet I still speak it with far too much hesitation—too little +accuracy to be able to command their respect I shall make blunders that will +lay me open to the scorn of the most ignorant. Still I mean to give the +lesson.” +</p> + +<p> +“They always throw over timid teachers,” said she. +</p> + +<p> +“I know that too, Madame; I have heard how they rebelled against and persecuted +Miss Turner”—a poor friendless English teacher, whom Madame had employed, and +lightly discarded; and to whose piteous history I was no stranger. +</p> + +<p> +“C’est vrai,” said she, coolly. “Miss Turner had no more command over them than +a servant from the kitchen would have had. She was weak and wavering; she had +neither tact nor intelligence, decision nor dignity. Miss Turner would not do +for these girls at all.” +</p> + +<p> +I made no reply, but advanced to the closed schoolroom door. +</p> + +<p> +“You will not expect aid from me, or from any one,” said Madame. “That would at +once set you down as incompetent for your office.” +</p> + +<p> +I opened the door, let her pass with courtesy, and followed her. There were +three schoolrooms, all large. That dedicated to the second division, where I +was to figure, was considerably the largest, and accommodated an assemblage +more numerous, more turbulent, and infinitely more unmanageable than the other +two. In after days, when I knew the ground better, I used to think sometimes +(if such a comparison may be permitted), that the quiet, polished, tame first +division was to the robust, riotous, demonstrative second division, what the +English House of Lords is to the House of Commons. +</p> + +<p> +The first glance informed me that many of the pupils were more than girls—quite +young women; I knew that some of them were of noble family (as nobility goes in +Labassecour), and I was well convinced that not one amongst them was ignorant +of my position in Madame’s household. As I mounted the estràde (a low platform, +raised a step above the flooring), where stood the teacher’s chair and desk, I +beheld opposite to me a row of eyes and brows that threatened stormy +weather—eyes full of an insolent light, and brows hard and unblushing as +marble. The continental “female” is quite a different being to the insular +“female” of the same age and class: I never saw such eyes and brows in England. +Madame Beck introduced me in one cool phrase, sailed from the room, and left me +alone in my glory. +</p> + +<p> +I shall never forget that first lesson, nor all the under-current of life and +character it opened up to me. Then first did I begin rightly to see the wide +difference that lies between the novelist’s and poet’s ideal “jeune fille” and +the said “jeune fille” as she really is. +</p> + +<p> +It seems that three titled belles in the first row had sat down predetermined +that a <i>bonne d’enfants</i> should not give them lessons in English. They +knew they had succeeded in expelling obnoxious teachers before now; they knew +that Madame would at any time throw overboard a professeur or maitresse who +became unpopular with the school—that she never assisted a weak official to +retain his place—that if he had not strength to fight, or tact to win his way, +down he went: looking at “Miss Snowe,” they promised themselves an easy +victory. +</p> + +<p> +Mesdemoiselles Blanche, Virginie, and Angélique opened the campaign by a series +of titterings and whisperings; these soon swelled into murmurs and short +laughs, which the remoter benches caught up and echoed more loudly. This +growing revolt of sixty against one, soon became oppressive enough; my command +of French being so limited, and exercised under such cruel constraint. +</p> + +<p> +Could I but have spoken in my own tongue, I felt as if I might have gained a +hearing; for, in the first place, though I knew I looked a poor creature, and +in many respects actually was so, yet nature had given me a voice that could +make itself heard, if lifted in excitement or deepened by emotion. In the +second place, while I had no flow, only a hesitating trickle of language, in +ordinary circumstances, yet—under stimulus such as was now rife through the +mutinous mass—I could, in English, have rolled out readily phrases stigmatizing +their proceedings as such proceedings deserved to be stigmatized; and then with +some sarcasm, flavoured with contemptuous bitterness for the ringleaders, and +relieved with easy banter for the weaker but less knavish followers, it seemed +to me that one might possibly get command over this wild herd, and bring them +into training, at least. All I could now do was to walk up to +Blanche—Mademoiselle de Melcy, a young baronne—the eldest, tallest, handsomest, +and most vicious—stand before her desk, take from under her hand her +exercise-book, remount the estrade, deliberately read the composition, which I +found very stupid, and, as deliberately, and in the face of the whole school, +tear the blotted page in two. +</p> + +<p> +This action availed to draw attention and check noise. One girl alone, quite in +the background, persevered in the riot with undiminished energy. I looked at +her attentively. She had a pale face, hair like night, broad strong eyebrows, +decided features, and a dark, mutinous, sinister eye: I noted that she sat +close by a little door, which door, I was well aware, opened into a small +closet where books were kept. She was standing up for the purpose of conducting +her clamour with freer energies. I measured her stature and calculated her +strength. She seemed both tall and wiry; but, so the conflict were brief and +the attack unexpected, I thought I might manage her. +</p> + +<p> +Advancing up the room, looking as cool and careless as I possibly could, in +short, <i>ayant l’air de rien</i>, I slightly pushed the door and found it was +ajar. In an instant, and with sharpness, I had turned on her. In another +instant she occupied the closet, the door was shut, and the key in my pocket. +</p> + +<p> +It so happened that this girl, Dolores by name, and a Catalonian by race, was +the sort of character at once dreaded and hated by all her associates; the act +of summary justice above noted proved popular: there was not one present but, +in her heart, liked to see it done. They were stilled for a moment; then a +smile—not a laugh—passed from desk to desk: then—when I had gravely and +tranquilly returned to the estrade, courteously requested silence, and +commenced a dictation as if nothing at all had happened—the pens travelled +peacefully over the pages, and the remainder of the lesson passed in order and +industry. +</p> + +<p> +“C’est bien,” said Madame Beck, when I came out of class, hot and a little +exhausted. “Ca ira.” +</p> + +<p> +She had been listening and peeping through a spy-hole the whole time. +</p> + +<p> +From that day I ceased to be nursery governess, and became English teacher. +Madame raised my salary; but she got thrice the work out of me she had +extracted from Mr. Wilson, at half the expense. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap09"></a>CHAPTER IX.<br/> +ISIDORE.</h2> + +<p> +My time was now well and profitably filled up. What with teaching others and +studying closely myself, I had hardly a spare moment. It was pleasant. I felt I +was getting on; not lying the stagnant prey of mould and rust, but polishing +my faculties and whetting them to a keen edge with constant use. Experience of +a certain kind lay before me, on no narrow scale. Villette is a cosmopolitan +city, and in this school were girls of almost every European nation, and +likewise of very varied rank in life. Equality is much practised in +Labassecour; though not republican in form, it is nearly so in substance, and +at the desks of Madame Beck’s establishment the young countess and the young +bourgeoise sat side by side. Nor could you always by outward indications decide +which was noble and which plebeian; except that, indeed, the latter had often +franker and more courteous manners, while the former bore away the bell for a +delicately-balanced combination of insolence and deceit. In the former there +was often quick French blood mixed with the marsh-phlegm: I regret to say that +the effect of this vivacious fluid chiefly appeared in the oilier glibness with +which flattery and fiction ran from the tongue, and in a manner lighter and +livelier, but quite heartless and insincere. +</p> + +<p> +To do all parties justice, the honest aboriginal Labassecouriennes had an +hypocrisy of their own, too; but it was of a coarse order, such as could +deceive few. Whenever a lie was necessary for their occasions, they brought it +out with a careless ease and breadth altogether untroubled by the rebuke of +conscience. Not a soul in Madame Beck’s house, from the scullion to the +directress herself, but was above being ashamed of a lie; they thought nothing +of it: to invent might not be precisely a virtue, but it was the most venial of +faults. “J’ai menti plusieurs fois,” formed an item of every girl’s and woman’s +monthly confession: the priest heard unshocked, and absolved unreluctant. If +they had missed going to mass, or read a chapter of a novel, that was another +thing: these were crimes whereof rebuke and penance were the unfailing weed. +</p> + +<p> +While yet but half-conscious of this state of things, and unlearned in its +results, I got on in my new sphere very well. After the first few difficult +lessons, given amidst peril and on the edge of a moral volcano that rumbled +under my feet and sent sparks and hot fumes into my eyes, the eruptive spirit +seemed to subside, as far as I was concerned. My mind was a good deal bent on +success: I could not bear the thought of being baffled by mere undisciplined +disaffection and wanton indocility, in this first attempt to get on in life. +Many hours of the night I used to lie awake, thinking what plan I had best +adopt to get a reliable hold on these mutineers, to bring this stiff-necked +tribe under permanent influence. In the first place, I saw plainly that aid in +no shape was to be expected from Madame: her righteous plan was to maintain an +unbroken popularity with the pupils, at any and every cost of justice or +comfort to the teachers. For a teacher to seek her alliance in any crisis of +insubordination was equivalent to securing her own expulsion. In intercourse +with her pupils, Madame only took to herself what was pleasant, amiable, and +recommendatory; rigidly requiring of her lieutenants sufficiency for every +annoying crisis, where to act with adequate promptitude was to be unpopular. +Thus, I must look only to myself. +</p> + +<p> +Imprimis—it was clear as the day that this swinish multitude were not to be +driven by force. They were to be humoured, borne with very patiently: a +courteous though sedate manner impressed them; a very rare flash of raillery +did good. Severe or continuous mental application they could not, or would not, +bear: heavy demand on the memory, the reason, the attention, they rejected +point-blank. Where an English girl of not more than average capacity and +docility would quietly take a theme and bind herself to the task of +comprehension and mastery, a Labassecourienne would laugh in your face, and +throw it back to you with the phrase,—“Dieu, que c’est difficile! Je n’en veux +pas. Cela m’ennuie trop.” +</p> + +<p> +A teacher who understood her business would take it back at once, without +hesitation, contest, or expostulation—proceed with even exaggerated care to +smoothe every difficulty, to reduce it to the level of their understandings, +return it to them thus modified, and lay on the lash of sarcasm with unsparing +hand. They would feel the sting, perhaps wince a little under it; but they bore +no malice against this sort of attack, provided the sneer was not <i>sour</i>, +but <i>hearty</i>, and that it held well up to them, in a clear, light, and +bold type, so that she who ran might read, their incapacity, ignorance, and +sloth. They would riot for three additional lines to a lesson; but I never knew +them rebel against a wound given to their self-respect: the little they had of +that quality was trained to be crushed, and it rather liked the pressure of a +firm heel than otherwise. +</p> + +<p> +By degrees, as I acquired fluency and freedom in their language, and could make +such application of its more nervous idioms as suited their case, the elder and +more intelligent girls began rather to like me in their way: I noticed that +whenever a pupil had been roused to feel in her soul the stirring of worthy +emulation, or the quickening of honest shame, from that date she was won. If I +could but once make their (usually large) ears burn under their thick glossy +hair, all was comparatively well. By-and-by bouquets began to be laid on my +desk in the morning; by way of acknowledgment for this little foreign +attention, I used sometimes to walk with a select few during recreation. In the +course of conversation it befel once or twice that I made an unpremeditated +attempt to rectify some of their singularly distorted notions of principle; +especially I expressed my ideas of the evil and baseness of a lie. In an +unguarded moment, I chanced to say that, of the two errors; I considered +falsehood worse than an occasional lapse in church-attendance. The poor girls +were tutored to report in Catholic ears whatever the Protestant teacher said. +An edifying consequence ensued. Something—an unseen, an indefinite, a +nameless—something stole between myself and these my best pupils: the bouquets +continued to be offered, but conversation thenceforth became impracticable. As +I paced the alleys or sat in the berceau, a girl never came to my right hand +but a teacher, as if by magic, appeared at my left. Also, wonderful to relate, +Madame’s shoes of silence brought her continually to my back, as quick, as +noiseless and unexpected, as some wandering zephyr. +</p> + +<p> +The opinion of my Catholic acquaintance concerning my spiritual prospects was +somewhat naïvely expressed to me on one occasion. A pensionnaire, to whom I had +rendered some little service, exclaimed one day as she sat beside me: +“Mademoiselle, what a pity you are a Protestant!” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, Isabelle?” +</p> + +<p> +“Parceque, quand vous serez morte—vous brûlerez tout de suite dans l’Enfer.” +</p> + +<p> +“Croyez-vous?” +</p> + +<p> +“Certainement que j’y crois: tout le monde le sait; et d’ailleurs le prêtre me +l’a dit.” +</p> + +<p> +Isabelle was an odd, blunt little creature. She added, <i>sotto voce</i>: “Pour +assurer votre salut là-haut, on ferait bien de vous brûler toute vive ici-bas.” +</p> + +<p> +I laughed, as, indeed, it was impossible to do otherwise. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Has the reader forgotten Miss Ginevra Fanshawe? If so, I must be allowed to +re-introduce that young lady as a thriving pupil of Madame Beck’s; for such she +was. On her arrival in the Rue Fossette, two or three days after my sudden +settlement there, she encountered me with very little surprise. She must have +had good blood in her veins, for never was any duchess more perfectly, +radically, unaffectedly <i>nonchalante</i> than she: a weak, transient amaze +was all she knew of the sensation of wonder. Most of her other faculties seemed +to be in the same flimsy condition: her liking and disliking, her love and +hate, were mere cobweb and gossamer; but she had one thing about her that +seemed strong and durable enough, and that was—her selfishness. +</p> + +<p> +She was not proud; and—<i>bonne d’enfants</i> as I was—she would forthwith have +made of me a sort of friend and confidant. She teased me with a thousand vapid +complaints about school-quarrels and household economy: the cookery was not to +her taste; the people about her, teachers and pupils, she held to be +despicable, because they were foreigners. I bore with her abuse of the Friday’s +salt fish and hard eggs—with her invective against the soup, the bread, the +coffee—with some patience for a time; but at last, wearied by iteration, I +turned crusty, and put her to rights: a thing I ought to have done in the very +beginning, for a salutary setting down always agreed with her. +</p> + +<p> +Much longer had I to endure her demands on me in the way of work. Her wardrobe, +so far as concerned articles of external wear, was well and elegantly supplied; +but there were other habiliments not so carefully provided: what she had, +needed frequent repair. She hated needle-drudgery herself, and she would bring +her hose, &c. to me in heaps, to be mended. A compliance of some weeks +threatening to result in the establishment of an intolerable bore—I at last +distinctly told her she must make up her mind to mend her own garments. She +cried on receiving this information, and accused me of having ceased to be her +friend; but I held by my decision, and let the hysterics pass as they could. +</p> + +<p> +Notwithstanding these foibles, and various others needless to mention—but by no +means of a refined or elevating character—how pretty she was! How charming she +looked, when she came down on a sunny Sunday morning, well-dressed and +well-humoured, robed in pale lilac silk, and with her fair long curls reposing +on her white shoulders. Sunday was a holiday which she always passed with +friends resident in town; and amongst these friends she speedily gave me to +understand was one who would fain become something more. By glimpses and hints +it was shown me, and by the general buoyancy of her look and manner it was ere +long proved, that ardent admiration—perhaps genuine love—was at her command. +She called her suitor “Isidore:” this, however, she intimated was not his real +name, but one by which it pleased her to baptize him—his own, she hinted, not +being “very pretty.” Once, when she had been bragging about the vehemence of +“Isidore’s” attachment, I asked if she loved him in return. +</p> + +<p> +“Comme cela,” said she: “he is handsome, and he loves me to distraction, so +that I am well amused. Ca suffit.” +</p> + +<p> +Finding that she carried the thing on longer than, from her very fickle tastes, +I had anticipated, I one day took it upon me to make serious inquiries as to +whether the gentleman was such as her parents, and especially her uncle—on +whom, it appeared, she was dependent—would be likely to approve. She allowed +that this was very doubtful, as she did not believe “Isidore” had much money. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you encourage him?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Furieusement sometimes,” said she. +</p> + +<p> +“Without being certain that you will be permitted to marry him?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, how dowdyish you are! I don’t want to be married. I am too young.” +</p> + +<p> +“But if he loves you as much as you say, and yet it comes to nothing in the +end, he will be made miserable.” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course he will break his heart. I should be shocked and, disappointed if he +didn’t.” +</p> + +<p> +“I wonder whether this M. Isidore is a fool?” said I. +</p> + +<p> +“He is, about me; but he is wise in other things, à ce qu’on dit. Mrs. +Cholmondeley considers him extremely clever: she says he will push his way by +his talents; all I know is, that he does little more than sigh in my presence, +and that I can wind him round my little finger.” +</p> + +<p> +Wishing to get a more definite idea of this love-stricken M. Isidore; whose +position seemed to me of the least secure, I requested her to favour me with a +personal description; but she could not describe: she had neither words nor the +power of putting them together so as to make graphic phrases. She even seemed +not properly to have noticed him: nothing of his looks, of the changes in his +countenance, had touched her heart or dwelt in her memory—that he was “beau, +mais plutôt bel homme que joli garçon,” was all she could assert. My patience +would often have failed, and my interest flagged, in listening to her, but for +one thing. All the hints she dropped, all the details she gave, went +unconsciously to prove, to my thinking, that M. Isidore’s homage was offered +with great delicacy and respect. I informed her very plainly that I believed +him much too good for her, and intimated with equal plainness my impression +that she was but a vain coquette. She laughed, shook her curls from her eyes, +and danced away as if I had paid her a compliment. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Ginevra’s school-studies were little better than nominal; there were but +three things she practised in earnest, viz. music, singing, and dancing; also +embroidering the fine cambric handkerchiefs which she could not afford to buy +ready worked: such mere trifles as lessons in history, geography, grammar, and +arithmetic, she left undone, or got others to do for her. Very much of her time +was spent in visiting. Madame, aware that her stay at school was now limited to +a certain period, which would not be extended whether she made progress or not, +allowed her great licence in this particular. Mrs. Cholmondeley—her +<i>chaperon</i>—a gay, fashionable lady, invited her whenever she had company +at her own house, and sometimes took her to evening-parties at the houses of +her acquaintance. Ginevra perfectly approved this mode of procedure: it had but +one inconvenience; she was obliged to be well dressed, and she had not money to +buy variety of dresses. All her thoughts turned on this difficulty; her whole +soul was occupied with expedients for effecting its solution. It was wonderful +to witness the activity of her otherwise indolent mind on this point, and to +see the much-daring intrepidity to which she was spurred by a sense of +necessity, and the wish to shine. +</p> + +<p> +She begged boldly of Mrs. Cholmondeley—boldly, I say: not with an air of +reluctant shame, but in this strain:— +</p> + +<p> +“My darling Mrs. C., I have nothing in the world fit to wear for your party +next week; you <i>must</i> give me a book-muslin dress, and then a <i>ceinture +bleu celeste</i>: <i>do</i>—there’s an angel! will you?” +</p> + +<p> +The “darling Mrs. C.” yielded at first; but finding that applications increased +as they were complied with, she was soon obliged, like all Miss Fanshawe’s +friends, to oppose resistance to encroachment. After a while I heard no more of +Mrs. Cholmondeley’s presents; but still, visiting went on, and the absolutely +necessary dresses continued to be supplied: also many little expensive +<i>etcetera</i>—gloves, bouquets, even trinkets. These things, contrary to her +custom, and even nature—for she was not secretive—were most sedulously kept out +of sight for a time; but one evening, when she was going to a large party for +which particular care and elegance of costume were demanded, she could not +resist coming to my chamber to show herself in all her splendour. +</p> + +<p> +Beautiful she looked: so young, so fresh, and with a delicacy of skin and +flexibility of shape altogether English, and not found in the list of +continental female charms. Her dress was new, costly, and perfect. I saw at a +glance that it lacked none of those finishing details which cost so much, and +give to the general effect such an air of tasteful completeness. +</p> + +<p> +I viewed her from top to toe. She turned airily round that I might survey her +on all sides. Conscious of her charms, she was in her best humour: her rather +small blue eyes sparkled gleefully. She was going to bestow on me a kiss, in +her school-girl fashion of showing her delights but I said, “Steady! Let us be +Steady, and know what we are about, and find out the meaning of our +magnificence”—and so put her off at arm’s length, to undergo cooler inspection. +</p> + +<p> +“Shall I do?” was her question. +</p> + +<p> +“Do?” said I. “There are different ways of doing; and, by my word, I don’t +understand yours.” +</p> + +<p> +“But how do I look?” +</p> + +<p> +“You look well dressed.” +</p> + +<p> +She thought the praise not warm enough, and proceeded to direct attention to +the various decorative points of her attire. “Look at this <i>parure</i>,” said +she. “The brooch, the ear-rings, the bracelets: no one in the school has such a +set—not Madame herself.” +</p> + +<p> +“I see them all.” (Pause.) “Did M. de Bassompierre give you those jewels?” +</p> + +<p> +“My uncle knows nothing about them.” +</p> + +<p> +“Were they presents from Mrs. Cholmondeley?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not they, indeed. Mrs. Cholmondeley is a mean, stingy creature; she never +gives me anything now.” +</p> + +<p> +I did not choose to ask any further questions, but turned abruptly away. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, old Crusty—old Diogenes” (these were her familiar terms for me when we +disagreed), “what is the matter now?” +</p> + +<p> +“Take yourself away. I have no pleasure in looking at you or your +<i>parure</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +For an instant, she seemed taken by surprise. +</p> + +<p> +“What now, Mother Wisdom? I have not got into debt for it—that is, not for the +jewels, nor the gloves, nor the bouquet. My dress is certainly not paid for, +but uncle de Bassompierre will pay it in the bill: he never notices items, but +just looks at the total; and he is so rich, one need not care about a few +guineas more or less.” +</p> + +<p> +“Will you go? I want to shut the door…. Ginevra, people may tell you you are +very handsome in that ball-attire; but, in <i>my</i> eyes, you will never look +so pretty as you did in the gingham gown and plain straw bonnet you wore when I +first saw you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Other people have not your puritanical tastes,” was her angry reply. “And, +besides, I see no right you have to sermonize me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly! I have little right; and you, perhaps, have still less to come +flourishing and fluttering into my chamber—a mere jay in borrowed plumes. I +have not the least respect for your feathers, Miss Fanshawe; and especially the +peacock’s eyes you call a <i>parure</i>: very pretty things, if you had bought +them with money which was your own, and which you could well spare, but not at +all pretty under present circumstances.” +</p> + +<p> +“On est là pour Mademoiselle Fanshawe!” was announced by the portress, and away +she tripped. +</p> + +<p> +This semi-mystery of the <i>parure</i> was not solved till two or three days +afterwards, when she came to make a voluntary confession. +</p> + +<p> +“You need not be sulky with me,” she began, “in the idea that I am running +somebody, papa or M. de Bassompierre, deeply into debt. I assure you nothing +remains unpaid for, but the few dresses I have lately had: all the rest is +settled.” +</p> + +<p> +“There,” I thought, “lies the mystery; considering that they were not given you +by Mrs. Cholmondeley, and that your own means are limited to a few shillings, +of which I know you to be excessively careful.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ecoutez!” she went on, drawing near and speaking in her most confidential and +coaxing tone; for my “sulkiness” was inconvenient to her: she liked me to be in +a talking and listening mood, even if I only talked to chide and listened to +rail. “Ecoutez, chère grogneuse! I will tell you all how and about it; and you +will then see, not only how right the whole thing is, but how cleverly managed. +In the first place, I <i>must</i> go out. Papa himself said that he wished me +to see something of the world; he particularly remarked to Mrs. Cholmondeley, +that, though I was a sweet creature enough, I had rather a +bread-and-butter-eating, school-girl air; of which it was his special desire +that I should get rid, by an introduction to society here, before I make my +regular début in England. Well, then, if I go out, I <i>must</i> dress. Mrs. +Cholmondeley is turned shabby, and will give nothing more; it would be too hard +upon uncle to make him pay for <i>all</i> the things I need: <i>that</i> you +can’t deny—<i>that</i> agrees with your own preachments. Well, but SOMEBODY who +heard me (quite by chance, I assure you) complaining to Mrs. Cholmondeley of my +distressed circumstances, and what straits I was put to for an ornament or +two—<i>somebody</i>, far from grudging one a present, was quite delighted at +the idea of being permitted to offer some trifle. You should have seen what a +<i>blanc-bec</i> he looked when he first spoke of it: how he hesitated and +blushed, and positively trembled from fear of a repulse.” +</p> + +<p> +“That will do, Miss Fanshawe. I suppose I am to understand that M. Isidore is +the benefactor: that it is from him you have accepted that costly +<i>parure</i>; that he supplies your bouquets and your gloves?” +</p> + +<p> +“You express yourself so disagreeably,” said she, “one hardly knows how to +answer; what I mean to say is, that I occasionally allow Isidore the pleasure +and honour of expressing his homage by the offer of a trifle.” +</p> + +<p> +“It comes to the same thing…. Now, Ginevra, to speak the plain truth, I don’t +very well understand these matters; but I believe you are doing very +wrong—seriously wrong. Perhaps, however, you now feel certain that you will be +able to marry M. Isidore; your parents and uncle have given their consent, and, +for your part, you love him entirely?” +</p> + +<p> +“Mais pas du tout!” (she always had recourse to French when about to say +something specially heartless and perverse). “Je suis sa reine, mais il n’est +pas mon roi.” +</p> + +<p> +“Excuse me, I must believe this language is mere nonsense and coquetry. There +is nothing great about you, yet you are above profiting by the good nature and +purse of a man to whom you feel absolute indifference. You love M. Isidore far +more than you think, or will avow.” +</p> + +<p> +“No. I danced with a young officer the other night, whom I love a thousand +times more than he. I often wonder why I feel so very cold to Isidore, for +everybody says he is handsome, and other ladies admire him; but, somehow, he +bores me: let me see now how it is….” +</p> + +<p> +And she seemed to make an effort to reflect. In this I encouraged her. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes!” I said, “try to get a clear idea of the state of your mind. To me it +seems in a great mess—chaotic as a rag-bag.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is something in this fashion,” she cried out ere long: “the man is too +romantic and devoted, and he expects something more of me than I find it +convenient to be. He thinks I am perfect: furnished with all sorts of sterling +qualities and solid virtues, such as I never had, nor intend to have. Now, one +can’t help, in his presence, rather trying to justify his good opinion; and it +does so tire one to be goody, and to talk sense,—for he really thinks I am +sensible. I am far more at my ease with you, old lady—you, you dear +crosspatch—who take me at my lowest, and know me to be coquettish, and +ignorant, and flirting, and fickle, and silly, and selfish, and all the other +sweet things you and I have agreed to be a part of my character.” +</p> + +<p> +“This is all very well,” I said, making a strenuous effort to preserve that +gravity and severity which ran risk of being shaken by this whimsical candour, +“but it does not alter that wretched business of the presents. Pack them up, +Ginevra, like a good, honest girl, and send them back.” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed, I won’t,” said she, stoutly. +</p> + +<p> +“Then you are deceiving M. Isidore. It stands to reason that by accepting his +presents you give him to understand he will one day receive an equivalent, in +your regard…” +</p> + +<p> +“But he won’t,” she interrupted: “he has his equivalent now, in the pleasure of +seeing me wear them—quite enough for him: he is only bourgeois.” +</p> + +<p> +This phrase, in its senseless arrogance, quite cured me of the temporary +weakness which had made me relax my tone and aspect. She rattled on: +</p> + +<p> +“My present business is to enjoy youth, and not to think of fettering myself, +by promise or vow, to this man or that. When first I saw Isidore, I believed he +would help me to enjoy it I believed he would be content with my being a pretty +girl; and that we should meet and part and flutter about like two butterflies, +and be happy. Lo, and behold! I find him at times as grave as a judge, and +deep-feeling and thoughtful. Bah! Les penseurs, les hommes profonds et +passionnés ne sont pas à mon goût. Le Colonel Alfred de Hamal suits me far +better. Va pour les beaux fats et les jolis fripons! Vive les joies et les +plaisirs! A bas les grandes passions et les sévères vertus!” +</p> + +<p> +She looked for an answer to this tirade. I gave none. +</p> + +<p> +“J’aime mon beau Colonel,” she went on: “je n’aimerai jamais son rival. Je ne +serai jamais femme de bourgeois, moi!” +</p> + +<p> +I now signified that it was imperatively necessary my apartment should be +relieved of the honour of her presence: she went away laughing. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap10"></a>CHAPTER X.<br/> +DR JOHN.</h2> + +<p> +Madame Beck was a most consistent character; forbearing with all the world, and +tender to no part of it. Her own children drew her into no deviation from the +even tenor of her stoic calm. She was solicitous about her family, vigilant for +their interests and physical well-being; but she never seemed to know the wish +to take her little children upon her lap, to press their rosy lips with her +own, to gather them in a genial embrace, to shower on them softly the benignant +caress, the loving word. +</p> + +<p> +I have watched her sometimes sitting in the garden, viewing the little bees +afar off, as they walked in a distant alley with Trinette, their <i>bonne</i>; +in her mien spoke care and prudence. I know she often pondered anxiously what +she called “leur avenir;” but if the youngest, a puny and delicate but engaging +child, chancing to spy her, broke from its nurse, and toddling down the walk, +came all eager and laughing and panting to clasp her knee, Madame would just +calmly put out one hand, so as to prevent inconvenient concussion from the +child’s sudden onset: “Prends garde, mon enfant!” she would say unmoved, +patiently permit it to stand near her a few moments, and then, without smile or +kiss, or endearing syllable, rise and lead it back to Trinette. +</p> + +<p> +Her demeanour to the eldest girl was equally characteristic in another way. +This was a vicious child. “Quelle peste que cette Désirée! Quel poison que cet +enfant là!” were the expressions dedicated to her, alike in kitchen and in +schoolroom. Amongst her other endowments she boasted an exquisite skill in the +art, of provocation, sometimes driving her <i>bonne</i> and the servants almost +wild. She would steal to their attics, open their drawers and boxes, wantonly +tear their best caps and soil their best shawls; she would watch her +opportunity to get at the buffet of the salle-à-manger, where she would smash +articles of porcelain or glass—or to the cupboard of the storeroom, where she +would plunder the preserves, drink the sweet wine, break jars and bottles, and +so contrive as to throw the onus of suspicion on the cook and the kitchen-maid. +All this when Madame saw, and of which when she received report, her sole +observation, uttered with matchless serenity, was: +</p> + +<p> +“Désirée a besoin d’une surveillance toute particulière.” Accordingly she kept +this promising olive-branch a good deal at her side. Never once, I believe, did +she tell her faithfully of her faults, explain the evil of such habits, and +show the results which must thence ensue. Surveillance must work the whole +cure. It failed of course. Désirée was kept in some measure from the servants, +but she teased and pillaged her mamma instead. Whatever belonging to Madame’s +work-table or toilet she could lay her hands on, she stole and hid. Madame saw +all this, but she still pretended not to see: she had not rectitude of soul to +confront the child with her vices. When an article disappeared whose value +rendered restitution necessary, she would profess to think that Désirée had +taken it away in play, and beg her to restore it. Désirée was not to be so +cheated: she had learned to bring falsehood to the aid of theft, and would deny +having touched the brooch, ring, or scissors. Carrying on the hollow system, +the mother would calmly assume an air of belief, and afterwards ceaselessly +watch and dog the child till she tracked her: to her hiding-places—some hole in +the garden-wall—some chink or cranny in garret or out-house. This done, Madame +would send Désirée out for a walk with her <i>bonne</i>, and profit by her +absence to rob the robber. Désirée proved herself the true daughter of her +astute parent, by never suffering either her countenance or manner to betray +the least sign of mortification on discovering the loss. +</p> + +<p> +The second child, Fifine, was said to be like its dead father. Certainly, +though the mother had given it her healthy frame, her blue eye and ruddy cheek, +not from her was derived its moral being. It was an honest, gleeful little +soul: a passionate, warm-tempered, bustling creature it was too, and of the +sort likely to blunder often into perils and difficulties. One day it bethought +itself to fall from top to bottom of a steep flight of stone steps; and when +Madame, hearing the noise (she always heard every noise), issued from the +salle-à-manger and picked it up, she said quietly,—“Cet enfant a un os de +cassé.” +</p> + +<p> +At first we hoped this was not the case. It was, however, but too true: one +little plump arm hung powerless. +</p> + +<p> +“Let Meess” (meaning me) “take her,” said Madame; “et qu’on aille tout de suite +chercher un fiacre.” +</p> + +<p> +In a <i>fiacre</i> she promptly, but with admirable coolness and +self-possession, departed to fetch a surgeon. +</p> + +<p> +It appeared she did not find the family-surgeon at home; but that mattered not: +she sought until she laid her hand on a substitute to her mind, and brought him +back with her. Meantime I had cut the child’s sleeve from its arm, undressed +and put it to bed. +</p> + +<p> +We none of us, I suppose (by <i>we</i> I mean the bonne, the cook, the +portress, and myself, all which personages were now gathered in the small and +heated chamber), looked very scrutinizingly at the new doctor when he came into +the room. I, at least, was taken up with endeavouring to soothe Fifine; whose +cries (for she had good lungs) were appalling to hear. These cries redoubled in +intensity as the stranger approached her bed; when he took her up, “Let alone!” +she cried passionately, in her broken English (for she spoke English as did the +other children). “I will not you: I will Dr. Pillule!” +</p> + +<p> +“And Dr. Pillule is my very good friend,” was the answer, in perfect English; +“but he is busy at a place three leagues off, and I am come in his stead. So +now, when we get a little calmer, we must commence business; and we will soon +have that unlucky little arm bandaged and in right order.” +</p> + +<p> +Hereupon he called for a glass of <i>eau sucrée</i>, fed her with some +teaspoonfuls of the sweet liquid (Fifine was a frank gourmande; anybody could +win her heart through her palate), promised her more when the operation should +be over, and promptly went to work. Some assistance being needed, he demanded +it of the cook, a robust, strong-armed woman; but she, the portress, and the +nurse instantly fled. I did not like to touch that small, tortured limb, but +thinking there was no alternative, my hand was already extended to do what was +requisite. I was anticipated; Madame Beck had put out her own hand: hers was +steady while mine trembled. +</p> + +<p> +“Ca vaudra mieux,” said the doctor, turning from me to her. +</p> + +<p> +He showed wisdom in his choice. Mine would have been feigned stoicism, forced +fortitude. Hers was neither forced nor feigned. +</p> + +<p> +“Merci, Madame; très bien, fort bien!” said the operator when he had finished. +“Voilà un sang-froid bien opportun, et qui vaut mille élans de sensibilité +déplacée.” +</p> + +<p> +He was pleased with her firmness, she with his compliment. It was likely, too, +that his whole general appearance, his voice, mien, and manner, wrought +impressions in his favour. Indeed, when you looked well at him, and when a lamp +was brought in—for it was evening and now waxing dusk—you saw that, unless +Madame Beck had been less than woman, it could not well be otherwise. This +young doctor (he <i>was</i> young) had no common aspect. His stature looked +imposingly tall in that little chamber, and amidst that group of Dutch-made +women; his profile was clear, fine and expressive: perhaps his eye glanced from +face to face rather too vividly, too quickly, and too often; but it had a most +pleasant character, and so had his mouth; his chin was full, cleft, Grecian, +and perfect. As to his smile, one could not in a hurry make up one’s mind as to +the descriptive epithet it merited; there was something in it that pleased, but +something too that brought surging up into the mind all one’s foibles and weak +points: all that could lay one open to a laugh. Yet Fifine liked this doubtful +smile, and thought the owner genial: much as he had hurt her, she held out her +hand to bid him a friendly good-night. He patted the little hand kindly, and +then he and Madame went down-stairs together; she talking in her highest tide +of spirits and volubility, he listening with an air of good-natured amenity, +dashed with that unconscious roguish archness I find it difficult to describe. +</p> + +<p> +I noticed that though he spoke French well, he spoke English better; he had, +too, an English complexion, eyes, and form. I noticed more. As he passed me in +leaving the room, turning his face in my direction one moment—not to address +me, but to speak to Madame, yet so standing, that I almost necessarily looked +up at him—a recollection which had been struggling to form in my memory, since +the first moment I heard his voice, started up perfected. This was the very +gentleman to whom I had spoken at the bureau; who had helped me in the matter +of the trunk; who had been my guide through the dark, wet park. Listening, as +he passed down the long vestibule out into the street, I recognised his very +tread: it was the same firm and equal stride I had followed under the dripping +trees. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +It was to be concluded that this young surgeon-physician’s first visit to the +Rue Fossette would be the last. The respectable Dr. Pillule being expected home +the next day, there appeared no reason why his temporary substitute should +again represent him; but the Fates had written their decree to the contrary. +</p> + +<p> +Dr. Pillule had been summoned to see a rich old hypochondriac at the antique +university town of Bouquin-Moisi, and upon his prescribing change of air and +travel as remedies, he was retained to accompany the timid patient on a tour of +some weeks; it but remained, therefore, for the new doctor to continue his +attendance at the Rue Fossette. +</p> + +<p> +I often saw him when he came; for Madame would not trust the little invalid to +Trinette, but required me to spend much of my time in the nursery. I think he +was skilful. Fifine recovered rapidly under his care, yet even her +convalescence did not hasten his dismissal. Destiny and Madame Beck seemed in +league, and both had ruled that he should make deliberate acquaintance with the +vestibule, the private staircase and upper chambers of the Rue Fossette. +</p> + +<p> +No sooner did Fifine emerge from his hands than Désirée declared herself ill. +That possessed child had a genius for simulation, and captivated by the +attentions and indulgences of a sick-room, she came to the conclusion that an +illness would perfectly accommodate her tastes, and took her bed accordingly. +She acted well, and her mother still better; for while the whole case was +transparent to Madame Beck as the day, she treated it with an astonishingly +well-assured air of gravity and good faith. +</p> + +<p> +What surprised me was, that Dr. John (so the young Englishman had taught Fifine +to call him, and we all took from her the habit of addressing him by this name, +till it became an established custom, and he was known by no other in the Rue +Fossette)—that Dr. John consented tacitly to adopt Madame’s tactics, and to +fall in with her manœuvres. He betrayed, indeed, a period of comic doubt, cast +one or two rapid glances from the child to the mother, indulged in an interval +of self-consultation, but finally resigned himself with a good grace to play +his part in the farce. Désirée eat like a raven, gambolled day and night in her +bed, pitched tents with the sheets and blankets, lounged like a Turk amidst +pillows and bolsters, diverted herself with throwing her shoes at her bonne and +grimacing at her sisters—over-flowed, in short, with unmerited health and evil +spirits; only languishing when her mamma and the physician paid their diurnal +visit. Madame Beck, I knew, was glad, at any price, to have her daughter in bed +out of the way of mischief; but I wondered that Dr. John did not tire of the +business. +</p> + +<p> +Every day, on this mere pretext of a motive, he gave punctual attendance; +Madame always received him with the same empressement, the same sunshine for +himself, the same admirably counterfeited air of concern for her child. Dr. +John wrote harmless prescriptions for the patient, and viewed her mother with a +shrewdly sparkling eye. Madame caught his rallying looks without resenting +them—she had too much good sense for that. Supple as the young doctor seemed, +one could not despise him—this pliant part was evidently not adopted in the +design to curry favour with his employer: while he liked his office at the +pensionnat, and lingered strangely about the Rue Fossette, he was independent, +almost careless in his carriage there; and yet, too, he was often thoughtful +and preoccupied. +</p> + +<p> +It was not perhaps my business to observe the mystery of his bearing, or search +out its origin or aim; but, placed as I was, I could hardly help it. He laid +himself open to my observation, according to my presence in the room just that +degree of notice and consequence a person of my exterior habitually expects: +that is to say, about what is given to unobtrusive articles of furniture, +chairs of ordinary joiner’s work, and carpets of no striking pattern. Often, +while waiting for Madame, he would muse, smile, watch, or listen like a man who +thinks himself alone. I, meantime, was free to puzzle over his countenance and +movements, and wonder what could be the meaning of that peculiar interest and +attachment—all mixed up with doubt and strangeness, and inexplicably ruled by +some presiding spell—which wedded him to this demi-convent, secluded in the +built-up core of a capital. He, I believe, never remembered that I had eyes in +my head, much less a brain behind them. +</p> + +<p> +Nor would he ever have found this out, but that one day, while he sat in the +sunshine and I was observing the colouring of his hair, whiskers, and +complexion—the whole being of such a tone as a strong light brings out with +somewhat perilous force (indeed I recollect I was driven to compare his beamy +head in my thoughts to that of the “golden image” which Nebuchadnezzar the king +had set up), an idea new, sudden, and startling, riveted my attention with an +over-mastering strength and power of attraction. I know not to this day how I +looked at him: the force of surprise, and also of conviction, made me forget +myself; and I only recovered wonted consciousness when I saw that his notice +was arrested, and that it had caught my movement in a clear little oval mirror +fixed in the side of the window recess—by the aid of which reflector Madame +often secretly spied persons walking in the garden below. Though of so gay and +sanguine a temperament, he was not without a certain nervous sensitiveness +which made him ill at ease under a direct, inquiring gaze. On surprising me +thus, he turned and said, in a tone which, though courteous, had just so much +dryness in it as to mark a shade of annoyance, as well as to give to what was +said the character of rebuke, “Mademoiselle does not spare me: I am not vain +enough to fancy that it is my merits which attract her attention; it must then +be some defect. Dare I ask—what?” +</p> + +<p> +I was confounded, as the reader may suppose, yet not with an irrecoverable +confusion; being conscious that it was from no emotion of incautious +admiration, nor yet in a spirit of unjustifiable inquisitiveness, that I had +incurred this reproof. I might have cleared myself on the spot, but would not. +I did not speak. I was not in the habit of speaking to him. Suffering him, +then, to think what he chose and accuse me of what he would, I resumed some +work I had dropped, and kept my head bent over it during the remainder of his +stay. There is a perverse mood of the mind which is rather soothed than +irritated by misconstruction; and in quarters where we can never be rightly +known, we take pleasure, I think, in being consummately ignored. What honest +man, on being casually taken for a housebreaker, does not feel rather tickled +than vexed at the mistake? +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap11"></a>CHAPTER XI.<br/> +THE PORTRESS’S CABINET.</h2> + +<p> +It was summer and very hot. Georgette, the youngest of Madame Beck’s children, +took a fever. Désirée, suddenly cured of her ailments, was, together with +Fifine, packed off to Bonne-Maman, in the country, by way of precaution against +infection. Medical aid was now really needed, and Madame, choosing to ignore +the return of Dr. Pillule, who had been at home a week, conjured his English +rival to continue his visits. One or two of the pensionnaires complained of +headache, and in other respects seemed slightly to participate in Georgette’s +ailment. “Now, at last,” I thought, “Dr. Pillule must be recalled: the prudent +directress will never venture to permit the attendance of so young a man on the +pupils.” +</p> + +<p> +The directress was very prudent, but she could also be intrepidly venturous. +She actually introduced Dr. John to the school-division of the premises, and +established him in attendance on the proud and handsome Blanche de Melcy, and +the vain, flirting Angélique, her friend. Dr. John, I thought, testified a +certain gratification at this mark of confidence; and if discretion of bearing +could have justified the step, it would by him have been amply justified. Here, +however, in this land of convents and confessionals, such a presence as his was +not to be suffered with impunity in a “pensionnat de demoiselles.” The school +gossiped, the kitchen whispered, the town caught the rumour, parents wrote +letters and paid visits of remonstrance. Madame, had she been weak, would now +have been lost: a dozen rival educational houses were ready to improve this +false step—if false step it were—to her ruin; but Madame was not weak, and +little Jesuit though she might be, yet I clapped the hands of my heart, and +with its voice cried “brava!” as I watched her able bearing, her skilled +management, her temper and her firmness on this occasion. +</p> + +<p> +She met the alarmed parents with a good-humoured, easy grace for nobody matched +her in, I know not whether to say the possession or the assumption of a certain +“rondeur et franchise de bonne femme;” which on various occasions gained the +point aimed at with instant and complete success, where severe gravity and +serious reasoning would probably have failed. +</p> + +<p> +“Ce pauvre Docteur Jean!” she would say, chuckling and rubbing joyously her fat +little white hands; “ce cher jeune homme! le meilleur créature du monde!” and +go on to explain how she happened to be employing him for her own children, who +were so fond of him they would scream themselves into fits at the thought of +another doctor; how, where she had confidence for her own, she thought it +natural to repose trust for others, and au reste, it was only the most +temporary expedient in the world; Blanche and Angélique had the migraine; Dr. +John had written a prescription; voilà tout! +</p> + +<p> +The parents’ mouths were closed. Blanche and Angélique saved her all remaining +trouble by chanting loud duets in their physician’s praise; the other pupils +echoed them, unanimously declaring that when they were ill they would have Dr. +John and nobody else; and Madame laughed, and the parents laughed too. The +Labassecouriens must have a large organ of philoprogenitiveness: at least the +indulgence of offspring is carried by them to excessive lengths; the law of +most households being the children’s will. Madame now got credit for having +acted on this occasion in a spirit of motherly partiality: she came off with +flying colours; people liked her as a directress better than ever. +</p> + +<p> +To this day I never fully understood why she thus risked her interest for the +sake of Dr. John. What people said, of course I know well: the whole +house—pupils, teachers, servants included—affirmed that she was going to marry +him. So they had settled it; difference of age seemed to make no obstacle in +their eyes: it was to be so. +</p> + +<p> +It must be admitted that appearances did not wholly discountenance this idea; +Madame seemed so bent on retaining his services, so oblivious of her former +protégé, Pillule. She made, too, such a point of personally receiving his +visits, and was so unfailingly cheerful, blithe, and benignant in her manner to +him. Moreover, she paid, about this time, marked attention to dress: the +morning dishabille, the nightcap and shawl, were discarded; Dr. John’s early +visits always found her with auburn braids all nicely arranged, silk dress +trimly fitted on, neat laced brodequins in lieu of slippers: in short the whole +toilette complete as a model, and fresh as a flower. I scarcely think, however, +that her intention in this went further than just to show a very handsome man +that she was not quite a plain woman; and plain she was not. Without beauty of +feature or elegance of form, she pleased. Without youth and its gay graces, she +cheered. One never tired of seeing her: she was never monotonous, or insipid, +or colourless, or flat. Her unfaded hair, her eye with its temperate blue +light, her cheek with its wholesome fruit-like bloom—these things pleased in +moderation, but with constancy. +</p> + +<p> +Had she, indeed, floating visions of adopting Dr. John as a husband, taking him +to her well-furnished home, endowing him with her savings, which were said to +amount to a moderate competency, and making him comfortable for the rest of his +life? Did Dr. John suspect her of such visions? I have met him coming out of +her presence with a mischievous half-smile about his lips, and in his eyes a +look as of masculine vanity elate and tickled. With all his good looks and +good-nature, he was not perfect; he must have been very imperfect if he +roguishly encouraged aims he never intended to be successful. But did he not +intend them to be successful? People said he had no money, that he was wholly +dependent upon his profession. Madame—though perhaps some fourteen years his +senior—was yet the sort of woman never to grow old, never to wither, never to +break down. They certainly were on good terms. <i>He</i> perhaps was not in +love; but how many people ever <i>do</i> love, or at least marry for love, in +this world. We waited the end. +</p> + +<p> +For what <i>he</i> waited, I do not know, nor for what he watched; but the +peculiarity of his manner, his expectant, vigilant, absorbed, eager look, never +wore off: it rather intensified. He had never been quite within the compass of +my penetration, and I think he ranged farther and farther beyond it. +</p> + +<p> +One morning little Georgette had been more feverish and consequently more +peevish; she was crying, and would not be pacified. I thought a particular +draught ordered, disagreed with her, and I doubted whether it ought to be +continued; I waited impatiently for the doctor’s coming in order to consult +him. +</p> + +<p> +The door-bell rang, he was admitted; I felt sure of this, for I heard his voice +addressing the portress. It was his custom to mount straight to the nursery, +taking about three degrees of the staircase at once, and coming upon us like a +cheerful surprise. Five minutes elapsed—ten—and I saw and heard nothing of him. +What could he be doing? Possibly waiting in the corridor below. Little +Georgette still piped her plaintive wail, appealing to me by her familiar term, +“Minnie, Minnie, me very poorly!” till my heart ached. I descended to ascertain +why he did not come. The corridor was empty. Whither was he vanished? Was he +with Madame in the <i>salle-à-manger?</i> Impossible: I had left her but a +short time since, dressing in her own chamber. I listened. Three pupils were +just then hard at work practising in three proximate rooms—the dining-room and +the greater and lesser drawing-rooms, between which and the corridor there was +but the portress’s cabinet communicating with the salons, and intended +originally for a boudoir. Farther off, at a fourth instrument in the oratory, a +whole class of a dozen or more were taking a singing lesson, and just then +joining in a “barcarole” (I think they called it), whereof I yet remember these +words “fraîchë,” “brisë,” and “Venisë.” Under these circumstances, what could I +hear? A great deal, certainly; had it only been to the purpose. +</p> + +<p> +Yes; I heard a giddy treble laugh in the above-mentioned little cabinet, close +by the door of which I stood—that door half-unclosed; a man’s voice in a soft, +deep, pleading tone, uttered some words, whereof I only caught the adjuration, +“For God’s sake!” Then, after a second’s pause, forth issued Dr. John, his eye +full shining, but not with either joy or triumph; his fair English cheek +high-coloured; a baffled, tortured, anxious, and yet a tender meaning on his +brow. +</p> + +<p> +The open door served me as a screen; but had I been full in his way, I believe +he would have passed without seeing me. Some mortification, some strong +vexation had hold of his soul: or rather, to write my impressions now as I +received them at the time I should say some sorrow, some sense of injustice. I +did not so much think his pride was hurt, as that his affections had been +wounded—cruelly wounded, it seemed to me. But who was the torturer? What being +in that house had him so much in her power? Madame I believed to be in her +chamber; the room whence he had stepped was dedicated to the portress’s sole +use; and she, Rosine Matou, an unprincipled though pretty little French +grisette, airy, fickle, dressy, vain, and mercenary—it was not, surely, to +<i>her</i> hand he owed the ordeal through which he seemed to have passed? +</p> + +<p> +But while I pondered, her voice, clear, though somewhat sharp, broke out in a +lightsome French song, trilling through the door still ajar: I glanced in, +doubting my senses. There at the table she sat in a smart dress of “jaconas +rose,” trimming a tiny blond cap: not a living thing save herself was in the +room, except indeed some gold fish in a glass globe, some flowers in pots, and +a broad July sunbeam. +</p> + +<p> +Here was a problem: but I must go up-stairs to ask about the medicine. +</p> + +<p> +Dr. John sat in a chair at Georgette’s bedside; Madame stood before him; the +little patient had been examined and soothed, and now lay composed in her crib. +Madame Beck, as I entered, was discussing the physician’s own health, remarking +on some real or fancied change in his looks, charging him with over-work, and +recommending rest and change of air. He listened good-naturedly, but with +laughing indifference, telling her that she was “trop bonne,” and that he felt +perfectly well. Madame appealed to me—Dr. John following her movement with a +slow glance which seemed to express languid surprise at reference being made to +a quarter so insignificant. +</p> + +<p> +“What do you think, Miss Lucie?” asked Madame. “Is he not paler and thinner?” +</p> + +<p> +It was very seldom that I uttered more than monosyllables in Dr. John’s +presence; he was the kind of person with whom I was likely ever to remain the +neutral, passive thing he thought me. Now, however, I took licence to answer in +a phrase: and a phrase I purposely made quite significant. +</p> + +<p> +“He looks ill at this moment; but perhaps it is owing to some temporary cause: +Dr. John may have been vexed or harassed.” I cannot tell how he took this +speech, as I never sought his face for information. Georgette here began to ask +me in her broken English if she might have a glass of <i>eau sucrée</i>. I +answered her in English. For the first time, I fancy, he noticed that I spoke +his language; hitherto he had always taken me for a foreigner, addressing me as +“Mademoiselle,” and giving in French the requisite directions about the +children’s treatment. He seemed on the point of making a remark; but thinking +better of it, held his tongue. +</p> + +<p> +Madame recommenced advising him; he shook his head, laughing, rose and bid her +good-morning, with courtesy, but still with the regardless air of one whom too +much unsolicited attention was surfeiting and spoiling. +</p> + +<p> +When he was gone, Madame dropped into the chair he had just left; she rested +her chin in her hand; all that was animated and amiable vanished from her face: +she looked stony and stern, almost mortified and morose. She sighed; a single, +but a deep sigh. A loud bell rang for morning-school. She got up; as she passed +a dressing-table with a glass upon it, she looked at her reflected image. One +single white hair streaked her nut-brown tresses; she plucked it out with a +shudder. In the full summer daylight, her face, though it still had the colour, +could plainly be seen to have lost the texture of youth; and then, where were +youth’s contours? Ah, Madame! wise as you were, even <i>you</i> knew weakness. +Never had I pitied Madame before, but my heart softened towards her, when she +turned darkly from the glass. A calamity had come upon her. That hag +Disappointment was greeting her with a grisly “All-hail,” and her soul rejected +the intimacy. +</p> + +<p> +But Rosine! My bewilderment there surpasses description. I embraced five +opportunities of passing her cabinet that day, with a view to contemplating her +charms, and finding out the secret of their influence. She was pretty, young, +and wore a well-made dress. All very good points, and, I suppose, amply +sufficient to account, in any philosophic mind, for any amount of agony and +distraction in a young man, like Dr. John. Still, I could not help forming half +a wish that the said doctor were my brother; or at least that he had a sister +or a mother who would kindly sermonize him. I say <i>half</i> a wish; I broke +it, and flung it away before it became a whole one, discovering in good time +its exquisite folly. “Somebody,” I argued, “might as well sermonize Madame +about her young physician: and what good would that do?” +</p> + +<p> +I believe Madame sermonized herself. She did not behave weakly, or make herself +in any shape ridiculous. It is true she had neither strong feelings to +overcome, nor tender feelings by which to be miserably pained. It is true +likewise that she had an important avocation, a real business to fill her time, +divert her thoughts, and divide her interest. It is especially true that she +possessed a genuine good sense which is not given to all women nor to all men; +and by dint of these combined advantages she behaved wisely—she behaved well. +Brava! once more, Madame Beck. I saw you matched against an Apollyon of a +predilection; you fought a good fight, and you overcame! +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap12"></a>CHAPTER XII.<br/> +THE CASKET.</h2> + +<p> +Behind the house at the Rue Fossette there was a garden—large, considering that +it lay in the heart of a city, and to my recollection at this day it seems +pleasant: but time, like distance, lends to certain scenes an influence so +softening; and where all is stone around, blank wall and hot pavement, how +precious seems one shrub, how lovely an enclosed and planted spot of ground! +</p> + +<p> +There went a tradition that Madame Beck’s house had in old days been a convent. +That in years gone by—how long gone by I cannot tell, but I think some +centuries—before the city had over-spread this quarter, and when it was tilled +ground and avenue, and such deep and leafy seclusion as ought to embosom a +religious house—that something had happened on this site which, rousing fear +and inflicting horror, had left to the place the inheritance of a ghost-story. +A vague tale went of a black and white nun, sometimes, on some night or nights +of the year, seen in some part of this vicinage. The ghost must have been built +out some ages ago, for there were houses all round now; but certain +convent-relics, in the shape of old and huge fruit-trees, yet consecrated the +spot; and, at the foot of one—a Methuselah of a pear-tree, dead, all but a few +boughs which still faithfully renewed their perfumed snow in spring, and their +honey-sweet pendants in autumn—you saw, in scraping away the mossy earth +between the half-bared roots, a glimpse of slab, smooth, hard, and black. The +legend went, unconfirmed and unaccredited, but still propagated, that this was +the portal of a vault, imprisoning deep beneath that ground, on whose surface +grass grew and flowers bloomed, the bones of a girl whom a monkish conclave of +the drear middle ages had here buried alive for some sin against her vow. Her +shadow it was that tremblers had feared, through long generations after her +poor frame was dust; her black robe and white veil that, for timid eyes, +moonlight and shade had mocked, as they fluctuated in the night-wind through +the garden-thicket. +</p> + +<p> +Independently of romantic rubbish, however, that old garden had its charms. On +summer mornings I used to rise early, to enjoy them alone; on summer evenings, +to linger solitary, to keep tryste with the rising moon, or taste one kiss of +the evening breeze, or fancy rather than feel the freshness of dew descending. +The turf was verdant, the gravelled walks were white; sun-bright nasturtiums +clustered beautiful about the roots of the doddered orchard giants. There was a +large berceau, above which spread the shade of an acacia; there was a smaller, +more sequestered bower, nestled in the vines which ran all along a high and +grey wall, and gathered their tendrils in a knot of beauty, and hung their +clusters in loving profusion about the favoured spot where jasmine and ivy met +and married them. +</p> + +<p> +Doubtless at high noon, in the broad, vulgar middle of the day, when Madame +Beck’s large school turned out rampant, and externes and pensionnaires were +spread abroad, vying with the denizens of the boys’ college close at hand, in +the brazen exercise of their lungs and limbs—doubtless <i>then</i> the garden +was a trite, trodden-down place enough. But at sunset or the hour of +<i>salut</i>, when the externes were gone home, and the boarders quiet at their +studies; pleasant was it then to stray down the peaceful alleys, and hear the +bells of St. Jean Baptiste peal out with their sweet, soft, exalted sound. +</p> + +<p> +I was walking thus one evening, and had been detained farther within the verge +of twilight than usual, by the still-deepening calm, the mellow coolness, the +fragrant breathing with which flowers no sunshine could win now answered the +persuasion of the dew. I saw by a light in the oratory window that the Catholic +household were then gathered to evening prayer—a rite, from attendance on +which, I now and then, as a Protestant, exempted myself. +</p> + +<p> +“One moment longer,” whispered solitude and the summer moon, “stay with us: all +is truly quiet now; for another quarter of an hour your presence will not be +missed: the day’s heat and bustle have tired you; enjoy these precious +minutes.” +</p> + +<p> +The windowless backs of houses built in this garden, and in particular the +whole of one side, was skirted by the rear of a long line of premises—being the +boarding-houses of the neighbouring college. This rear, however, was all blank +stone, with the exception of certain attic loopholes high up, opening from the +sleeping-rooms of the women-servants, and also one casement in a lower story +said to mark the chamber or study of a master. But, though thus secure, an +alley, which ran parallel with the very high wall on that side the garden, was +forbidden to be entered by the pupils. It was called indeed “l’allée défendue,” +and any girl setting foot there would have rendered herself liable to as severe +a penalty as the mild rules of Madame Beck’s establishment permitted. Teachers +might indeed go there with impunity; but as the walk was narrow, and the +neglected shrubs were grown very thick and close on each side, weaving overhead +a roof of branch and leaf which the sun’s rays penetrated but in rare chequers, +this alley was seldom entered even during day, and after dusk was carefully +shunned. +</p> + +<p> +From the first I was tempted to make an exception to this rule of avoidance: +the seclusion, the very gloom of the walk attracted me. For a long time the +fear of seeming singular scared me away; but by degrees, as people became +accustomed to me and my habits, and to such shades of peculiarity as were +engrained in my nature—shades, certainly not striking enough to interest, and +perhaps not prominent enough to offend, but born in and with me, and no more to +be parted with than my identity—by slow degrees I became a frequenter of this +strait and narrow path. I made myself gardener of some tintless flowers that +grew between its closely-ranked shrubs; I cleared away the relics of past +autumns, choking up a rustic seat at the far end. Borrowing of Goton, the +cuisinière, a pail of water and a scrubbing-brush, I made this seat clean. +Madame saw me at work and smiled approbation: whether sincerely or not I don’t +know; but she <i>seemed</i> sincere. +</p> + +<p> +“Voyez-vous,” cried she, “comme elle est propre, cette demoiselle Lucie? Vous +aimez donc cette allée, meess?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” I said, “it is quiet and shady.” +</p> + +<p> +“C’est juste,” cried she with an air of bonté; and she kindly recommended me to +confine myself to it as much as I chose, saying, that as I was not charged with +the surveillance, I need not trouble myself to walk with the pupils: only I +might permit her children to come there, to talk English with me. +</p> + +<p> +On the night in question, I was sitting on the hidden seat reclaimed from fungi +and mould, listening to what seemed the far-off sounds of the city. Far off, in +truth, they were not: this school was in the city’s centre; hence, it was but +five minutes’ walk to the park, scarce ten to buildings of palatial splendour. +Quite near were wide streets brightly lit, teeming at this moment with life: +carriages were rolling through them to balls or to the opera. The same hour +which tolled curfew for our convent, which extinguished each lamp, and dropped +the curtain round each couch, rang for the gay city about us the summons to +festal enjoyment. Of this contrast I thought not, however: gay instincts my +nature had few; ball or opera I had never seen; and though often I had heard +them described, and even wished to see them, it was not the wish of one who +hopes to partake a pleasure if she could only reach it—who feels fitted to +shine in some bright distant sphere, could she but thither win her way; it was +no yearning to attain, no hunger to taste; only the calm desire to look on a +new thing. +</p> + +<p> +A moon was in the sky, not a full moon, but a young crescent. I saw her through +a space in the boughs overhead. She and the stars, visible beside her, were no +strangers where all else was strange: my childhood knew them. I had seen that +golden sign with the dark globe in its curve leaning back on azure, beside an +old thorn at the top of an old field, in Old England, in long past days, just +as it now leaned back beside a stately spire in this continental capital. +</p> + +<p> +Oh, my childhood! I had feelings: passive as I lived, little as I spoke, cold +as I looked, when I thought of past days, I <i>could</i> feel. About the +present, it was better to be stoical; about the future—such a future as mine—to +be dead. And in catalepsy and a dead trance, I studiously held the quick of my +nature. +</p> + +<p> +At that time, I well remember whatever could excite—certain accidents of the +weather, for instance, were almost dreaded by me, because they woke the being I +was always lulling, and stirred up a craving cry I could not satisfy. One night +a thunder-storm broke; a sort of hurricane shook us in our beds: the Catholics +rose in panic and prayed to their saints. As for me, the tempest took hold of +me with tyranny: I was roughly roused and obliged to live. I got up and dressed +myself, and creeping outside the casement close by my bed, sat on its ledge, +with my feet on the roof of a lower adjoining building. It was wet, it was +wild, it was pitch-dark. Within the dormitory they gathered round the +night-lamp in consternation, praying loud. I could not go in: too resistless +was the delight of staying with the wild hour, black and full of thunder, +pealing out such an ode as language never delivered to man—too terribly +glorious, the spectacle of clouds, split and pierced by white and blinding +bolts. +</p> + +<p> +I did long, achingly, then and for four and twenty hours afterwards, for +something to fetch me out of my present existence, and lead me upwards and +onwards. This longing, and all of a similar kind, it was necessary to knock on +the head; which I did, figuratively, after the manner of Jael to Sisera, +driving a nail through their temples. Unlike Sisera, they did not die: they +were but transiently stunned, and at intervals would turn on the nail with a +rebellious wrench: then did the temples bleed, and the brain thrill to its +core. +</p> + +<p> +To-night, I was not so mutinous, nor so miserable. My Sisera lay quiet in the +tent, slumbering; and if his pain ached through his slumbers, something like an +angel—the ideal—knelt near, dropping balm on the soothed temples, holding +before the sealed eyes a magic glass, of which the sweet, solemn visions were +repeated in dreams, and shedding a reflex from her moonlight wings and robe +over the transfixed sleeper, over the tent threshold, over all the landscape +lying without. Jael, the stern woman; sat apart, relenting somewhat over her +captive; but more prone to dwell on the faithful expectation of Heber coming +home. By which words I mean that the cool peace and dewy sweetness of the night +filled me with a mood of hope: not hope on any definite point, but a general +sense of encouragement and heart-ease. +</p> + +<p> +Should not such a mood, so sweet, so tranquil, so unwonted, have been the +harbinger of good? Alas, no good came of it! I Presently the rude Real burst +coarsely in—all evil grovelling and repellent as she too often is. +</p> + +<p> +Amid the intense stillness of that pile of stone overlooking the walk, the +trees, the high wall, I heard a sound; a casement [all the windows here are +casements, opening on hinges] creaked. Ere I had time to look up and mark +where, in which story, or by whom unclosed, a tree overhead shook, as if struck +by a missile; some object dropped prone at my feet. +</p> + +<p> +Nine was striking by St. Jean Baptiste’s clock; day was fading, but it was not +dark: the crescent moon aided little, but the deep gilding of that point in +heaven where the sun beamed last, and the crystalline clearness of a wide space +above, sustained the summer twilight; even in my dark walk I could, by +approaching an opening, have managed to read print of a small type. Easy was it +to see then that the missile was a box, a small box of white and coloured +ivory; its loose lid opened in my hand; violets lay within, violets smothering +a closely folded bit of pink paper, a note, superscribed, “Pour la robe grise.” +I wore indeed a dress of French grey. +</p> + +<p> +Good. Was this a billet-doux? A thing I had heard of, but hitherto had not had +the honour of seeing or handling. Was it this sort of commodity I held between +my finger and thumb at this moment? +</p> + +<p> +Scarcely: I did not dream it for a moment. Suitor or admirer my very thoughts +had not conceived. All the teachers had dreams of some lover; one (but she was +naturally of a credulous turn) believed in a future husband. All the pupils +above fourteen knew of some prospective bridegroom; two or three were already +affianced by their parents, and had been so from childhood: but into the realm +of feelings and hopes which such prospects open, my speculations, far less my +presumptions, had never once had warrant to intrude. If the other teachers went +into town, or took a walk on the boulevards, or only attended mass, they were +very certain (according to the accounts brought back) to meet with some +individual of the “opposite sex,” whose rapt, earnest gaze assured them of +their power to strike and to attract. I can’t say that my experience tallied +with theirs, in this respect. I went to church and I took walks, and am very +well convinced that nobody minded me. There was not a girl or woman in the Rue +Fossette who could not, and did not testify to having received an admiring beam +from our young doctor’s blue eyes at one time or other. I am obliged, however +humbling it may sound, to except myself: as far as I was concerned, those blue +eyes were guiltless, and calm as the sky, to whose tint theirs seemed akin. So +it came to pass that I heard the others talk, wondered often at their gaiety, +security, and self-satisfaction, but did not trouble myself to look up and gaze +along the path they seemed so certain of treading. This then was no +billet-doux; and it was in settled conviction to the contrary that I quietly +opened it. Thus it ran—I translate:— +</p> + +<p> +“Angel of my dreams! A thousand, thousand thanks for the promise kept: scarcely +did I venture to hope its fulfilment. I believed you, indeed, to be half in +jest; and then you seemed to think the enterprise beset with such danger—the +hour so untimely, the alley so strictly secluded—often, you said, haunted by +that dragon, the English teacher—une véritable bégueule Britannique à ce que +vous dites—espèce de monstre, brusque et rude comme un vieux caporal de +grenadiers, et revêche comme une religieuse” (the reader will excuse my modesty +in allowing this flattering sketch of my amiable self to retain the slight veil +of the original tongue). “You are aware,” went on this precious effusion, “that +little Gustave, on account of his illness, has been removed to a master’s +chamber—that favoured chamber, whose lattice overlooks your prison-ground. +There, I, the best uncle in the world, am admitted to visit him. How +tremblingly I approached the window and glanced into your Eden—an Eden for me, +though a desert for you!—how I feared to behold vacancy, or the dragon +aforesaid! How my heart palpitated with delight when, through apertures in the +envious boughs, I at once caught the gleam of your graceful straw-hat, and the +waving of your grey dress—dress that I should recognise amongst a thousand. But +why, my angel, will you not look up? Cruel, to deny me one ray of those +adorable eyes!—how a single glance would have revived me! I write this in fiery +haste; while the physician examines Gustave, I snatch an opportunity to enclose +it in a small casket, together with a bouquet of flowers, the sweetest that +blow—yet less sweet than thee, my Peri—my all-charming! ever thine-thou well +knowest whom!” +</p> + +<p> +“I wish I did know whom,” was my comment; and the wish bore even closer +reference to the person addressed in this choice document, than to the writer +thereof. Perhaps it was from the fiancé of one of the engaged pupils; and, in +that case, there was no great harm done or intended—only a small irregularity. +Several of the girls, the majority, indeed, had brothers or cousins at the +neighbouring college. But “la robe grise, le chapeau de paille,” here surely +was a clue—a very confusing one. The straw-hat was an ordinary garden +head-screen, common to a score besides myself. The grey dress hardly gave more +definite indication. Madame Beck herself ordinarily wore a grey dress just now; +another teacher, and three of the pensionnaires, had had grey dresses purchased +of the same shade and fabric as mine: it was a sort of every-day wear which +happened at that time to be in vogue. +</p> + +<p> +Meanwhile, as I pondered, I knew I must go in. Lights, moving in the dormitory, +announced that prayers were over, and the pupils going to bed. Another +half-hour and all doors would be locked—all lights extinguished. The front door +yet stood open, to admit into the heated house the coolness of the summer +night; from the portress’s cabinet close by shone a lamp, showing the long +vestibule with the two-leaved drawing-room doors on one side, the great +street-door closing the vista. +</p> + +<p> +All at once, quick rang the bell—quick, but not loud—a cautious tinkle—a sort +of warning metal whisper. Rosine darted from her cabinet and ran to open. The +person she admitted stood with her two minutes in parley: there seemed a demur, +a delay. Rosine came to the garden door, lamp in hand; she stood on the steps, +lifting her lamp, looking round vaguely. +</p> + +<p> +“Quel conte!” she cried, with a coquettish laugh. “Personne n’y a été.” +</p> + +<p> +“Let me pass,” pleaded a voice I knew: “I ask but five minutes;” and a familiar +shape, tall and grand (as we of the Rue Fossette all thought it), issued from +the house, and strode down amongst the beds and walks. It was sacrilege—the +intrusion of a man into that spot, at that hour; but he knew himself +privileged, and perhaps he trusted to the friendly night. He wandered down the +alleys, looking on this side and on that—he was lost in the shrubs, trampling +flowers and breaking branches in his search—he penetrated at last the +“forbidden walk.” There I met him, like some ghost, I suppose. +</p> + +<p> +“Dr. John! it is found.” +</p> + +<p> +He did not ask by whom, for with his quick eye he perceived that I held it in +my hand. +</p> + +<p> +“Do not betray her,” he said, looking at me as if I were indeed a dragon. +</p> + +<p> +“Were I ever so disposed to treachery, I cannot betray what I do not know,” was +my answer. “Read the note, and you will see how little it reveals.” +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps you have read it,” I thought to myself; and yet I could not believe he +wrote it: that could hardly be his style: besides, I was fool enough to think +there would be a degree of hardship in his calling me such names. His own look +vindicated him; he grew hot, and coloured as he read. +</p> + +<p> +“This is indeed too much: this is cruel, this is humiliating,” were the words +that fell from him. +</p> + +<p> +I thought it <i>was</i> cruel, when I saw his countenance so moved. No matter +whether he was to blame or not; somebody, it seemed to me, must be more to +blame. +</p> + +<p> +“What shall you do about it?” he inquired of me. “Shall you tell Madame Beck +what you have found, and cause a stir—an esclandre?” +</p> + +<p> +I thought I ought to tell, and said so; adding that I did not believe there +would be either stir or esclandre: Madame was much too prudent to make a noise +about an affair of that sort connected with her establishment. +</p> + +<p> +He stood looking down and meditating. He was both too proud and too honourable +to entreat my secresy on a point which duty evidently commanded me to +communicate. I wished to do right, yet loathed to grieve or injure him. Just +then Rosine glanced out through the open door; she could not see us, though +between the trees I could plainly see her: her dress was grey, like mine. This +circumstance, taken in connection with prior transactions, suggested to me that +perhaps the case, however deplorable, was one in which I was under no +obligation whatever to concern myself. Accordingly, I said,—“If you can assure +me that none of Madame Beck’s pupils are implicated in this business, I shall +be very happy to stand aloof from all interference. Take the casket, the +bouquet, and the billet; for my part, I gladly forget the whole affair.” +</p> + +<p> +“Look there!” he whispered suddenly, as his hand closed on what I offered, and +at the same time he pointed through the boughs. +</p> + +<p> +I looked. Behold Madame, in shawl, wrapping-gown, and slippers, softly +descending the steps, and stealing like a cat round the garden: in two minutes +she would have been upon Dr. John. If <i>she</i> were like a cat, however, +<i>he</i>, quite as much, resembled a leopard: nothing could be lighter than +his tread when he chose. He watched, and as she turned a corner, he took the +garden at two noiseless bounds. She reappeared, and he was gone. Rosine helped +him, instantly interposing the door between him and his huntress. I, too, might +have got away, but I preferred to meet Madame openly. +</p> + +<p> +Though it was my frequent and well-known custom to spend twilight in the +garden, yet, never till now, had I remained so late. Full sure was I that +Madame had missed—was come in search of me, and designed now to pounce on the +defaulter unawares. I expected a reprimand. No. Madame was all goodness. She +tendered not even a remonstrance; she testified no shade of surprise. With that +consummate tact of hers, in which I believe she was never surpassed by living +thing, she even professed merely to have issued forth to taste “la brise du +soir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Quelle belle nuit!” cried she, looking up at the stars—the moon was now gone +down behind the broad tower of Jean Baptiste. “Qu’il fait bon? que l’air est +frais!” +</p> + +<p> +And, instead of sending me in, she detained me to take a few turns with her +down the principal alley. When at last we both re-entered, she leaned affably +on my shoulder by way of support in mounting the front-door steps; at parting, +her cheek was presented to my lips, and “Bon soir, my bonne amie; dormez bien!” +was her kindly adieu for the night. +</p> + +<p> +I caught myself smiling as I lay awake and thoughtful on my couch—smiling at +Madame. The unction, the suavity of her behaviour offered, for one who knew +her, a sure token that suspicion of some kind was busy in her brain. From some +aperture or summit of observation, through parted bough or open window, she had +doubtless caught a glimpse, remote or near, deceptive or instructive, of that +night’s transactions. Finely accomplished as she was in the art of +surveillance, it was next to impossible that a casket could be thrown into her +garden, or an interloper could cross her walks to seek it, without that she, in +shaken branch, passing shade, unwonted footfall, or stilly murmur (and though +Dr. John had spoken very low in the few words he dropped me, yet the hum of his +man’s voice pervaded, I thought, the whole conventual ground)—without, I say, +that she should have caught intimation of things extraordinary transpiring on +her premises. <i>What</i> things, she might by no means see, or at that time be +able to discover; but a delicious little ravelled plot lay tempting her to +disentanglement; and in the midst, folded round and round in cobwebs, had she +not secured “Meess Lucie” clumsily involved, like the foolish fly she was? +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap13"></a>CHAPTER XIII.<br/> +A SNEEZE OUT OF SEASON.</h2> + +<p> +I had occasion to smile—nay, to laugh, at Madame again, within the space of +four and twenty hours after the little scene treated of in the last chapter. +</p> + +<p> +Villette owns a climate as variable, though not so humid, as that of any +English town. A night of high wind followed upon that soft sunset, and all the +next day was one of dry storm—dark, beclouded, yet rainless,—the streets were +dim with sand and dust, whirled from the boulevards. I know not that even +lovely weather would have tempted me to spend the evening-time of study and +recreation where I had spent it yesterday. My alley, and, indeed, all the walks +and shrubs in the garden, had acquired a new, but not a pleasant interest; +their seclusion was now become precarious; their calm—insecure. That casement +which rained billets, had vulgarized the once dear nook it overlooked; and +elsewhere, the eyes of the flowers had gained vision, and the knots in the +tree-boles listened like secret ears. Some plants there were, indeed, trodden +down by Dr. John in his search, and his hasty and heedless progress, which I +wished to prop up, water, and revive; some footmarks, too, he had left on the +beds: but these, in spite of the strong wind, I found a moment’s leisure to +efface very early in the morning, ere common eyes had discovered them. With a +pensive sort of content, I sat down to my desk and my German, while the pupils +settled to their evening lessons; and the other teachers took up their +needlework. +</p> + +<p> +The scene of the “etude du soir” was always the refectory, a much smaller +apartment than any of the three classes or schoolrooms; for here none, save the +boarders, were ever admitted, and these numbered only a score. Two lamps hung +from the ceiling over the two tables; these were lit at dusk, and their +kindling was the signal for school-books being set aside, a grave demeanour +assumed, general silence enforced, and then commenced “la lecture pieuse.” This +said “lecture pieuse” was, I soon found, mainly designed as a wholesome +mortification of the Intellect, a useful humiliation of the Reason; and such a +dose for Common Sense as she might digest at her leisure, and thrive on as she +best could. +</p> + +<p> +The book brought out (it was never changed, but when finished, recommenced) was +a venerable volume, old as the hills—grey as the Hôtel de Ville. +</p> + +<p> +I would have given two francs for the chance of getting that book once into my +hands, turning over the sacred yellow leaves, ascertaining the title, and +perusing with my own eyes the enormous figments which, as an unworthy heretic, +it was only permitted me to drink in with my bewildered ears. This book +contained legends of the saints. Good God! (I speak the words reverently) what +legends they were. What gasconading rascals those saints must have been, if +they first boasted these exploits or invented these miracles. These legends, +however, were no more than monkish extravagances, over which one laughed +inwardly; there were, besides, priestly matters, and the priestcraft of the +book was far worse than its monkery. The ears burned on each side of my head as +I listened, perforce, to tales of moral martyrdom inflicted by Rome; the dread +boasts of confessors, who had wickedly abused their office, trampling to deep +degradation high-born ladies, making of countesses and princesses the most +tormented slaves under the sun. Stories like that of Conrad and Elizabeth of +Hungary, recurred again and again, with all its dreadful viciousness, sickening +tyranny and black impiety: tales that were nightmares of oppression, privation, +and agony. +</p> + +<p> +I sat out this “lecture pieuse” for some nights as well as I could, and as +quietly too; only once breaking off the points of my scissors by involuntarily +sticking them somewhat deep in the worm-eaten board of the table before me. +But, at last, it made me so burning hot, and my temples, and my heart, and my +wrist throbbed so fast, and my sleep afterwards was so broken with excitement, +that I could sit no longer. Prudence recommended henceforward a swift clearance +of my person from the place, the moment that guilty old book was brought out. +No Mause Headrigg ever felt a stronger call to take up her testimony against +Sergeant Bothwell, than I—to speak my mind in this matter of the popish +“lecture pieuse.” However, I did manage somehow to curb and rein in; and though +always, as soon as Rosine came to light the lamps, I shot from the room +quickly, yet also I did it quietly; seizing that vantage moment given by the +little bustle before the dead silence, and vanishing whilst the boarders put +their books away. +</p> + +<p> +When I vanished—it was into darkness; candles were not allowed to be carried +about, and the teacher who forsook the refectory, had only the unlit hall, +schoolroom, or bedroom, as a refuge. In winter I sought the long classes, and +paced them fast to keep myself warm—fortunate if the moon shone, and if there +were only stars, soon reconciled to their dim gleam, or even to the total +eclipse of their absence. In summer it was never quite dark, and then I went +up-stairs to my own quarter of the long dormitory, opened my own casement (that +chamber was lit by five casements large as great doors), and leaning out, +looked forth upon the city beyond the garden, and listened to band-music from +the park or the palace-square, thinking meantime my own thoughts, living my own +life, in my own still, shadow-world. +</p> + +<p> +This evening, fugitive as usual before the Pope and his works, I mounted the +staircase, approached the dormitory, and quietly opened the door, which was +always kept carefully shut, and which, like every other door in this house, +revolved noiselessly on well-oiled hinges. Before I <i>saw</i>, I <i>felt</i> +that life was in the great room, usually void: not that there was either stir +or breath, or rustle of sound, but Vacuum lacked, Solitude was not at home. All +the white beds—the “lits d’ange,” as they were poetically termed—lay visible at +a glance; all were empty: no sleeper reposed therein. The sound of a drawer +cautiously slid out struck my ear; stepping a little to one side, my vision +took a free range, unimpeded by falling curtains. I now commanded my own bed +and my own toilet, with a locked work-box upon it, and locked drawers +underneath. +</p> + +<p> +Very good. A dumpy, motherly little body, in decent shawl and the cleanest of +possible nightcaps, stood before this toilet, hard at work apparently doing me +the kindness of “tidying out” the “meuble.” Open stood the lid of the work-box, +open the top drawer; duly and impartially was each succeeding drawer opened in +turn: not an article of their contents but was lifted and unfolded, not a paper +but was glanced over, not a little box but was unlidded; and beautiful was the +adroitness, exemplary the care with which the search was accomplished. Madame +wrought at it like a true star, “unhasting yet unresting.” I will not deny that +it was with a secret glee I watched her. Had I been a gentleman I believe +Madame would have found favour in my eyes, she was so handy, neat, thorough in +all she did: some people’s movements provoke the soul by their loose +awkwardness, hers—satisfied by their trim compactness. I stood, in short, +fascinated; but it was necessary to make an effort to break this spell, a +retreat must be beaten. The searcher might have turned and caught me; there +would have been nothing for it then but a scene, and she and I would have had +to come all at once, with a sudden clash, to a thorough knowledge of each +other: down would have gone conventionalities, away swept disguises, and +<i>I</i> should have looked into her eyes, and she into mine—we should have +known that we could work together no more, and parted in this life for ever. +</p> + +<p> +Where was the use of tempting such a catastrophe? I was not angry, and had no +wish in the world to leave her. I could hardly get another employer whose yoke +would be so light and so easy of carriage; and truly I liked Madame for her +capital sense, whatever I might think of her principles: as to her system, it +did me no harm; she might work me with it to her heart’s content: nothing would +come of the operation. Loverless and inexpectant of love, I was as safe from +spies in my heart-poverty, as the beggar from thieves in his destitution of +purse. I turned, then, and fled; descending the stairs with progress as swift +and soundless as that of the spider, which at the same instant ran down the +bannister. +</p> + +<p> +How I laughed when I reached the schoolroom. I knew now she had certainly seen +Dr. John in the garden; I knew what her thoughts were. The spectacle of a +suspicious nature so far misled by its own inventions, tickled me much. Yet as +the laugh died, a kind of wrath smote me, and then bitterness followed: it was +the rock struck, and Meribah’s waters gushing out. I never had felt so strange +and contradictory an inward tumult as I felt for an hour that evening: soreness +and laughter, and fire, and grief, shared my heart between them. I cried hot +tears: not because Madame mistrusted me—I did not care twopence for her +mistrust—but for other reasons. Complicated, disquieting thoughts broke up the +whole repose of my nature. However, that turmoil subsided: next day I was again +Lucy Snowe. +</p> + +<p> +On revisiting my drawers, I found them all securely locked; the closest +subsequent examination could not discover change or apparent disturbance in the +position of one object. My few dresses were folded as I had left them; a +certain little bunch of white violets that had once been silently presented to +me by a stranger (a stranger to me, for we had never exchanged words), and +which I had dried and kept for its sweet perfume between the folds of my best +dress, lay there unstirred; my black silk scarf, my lace chemisette and +collars, were unrumpled. Had she creased one solitary article, I own I should +have felt much greater difficulty in forgiving her; but finding all straight +and orderly, I said, “Let bygones be bygones. I am unharmed: why should I bear +malice?” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +A thing there was which puzzled myself, and I sought in my brain a key to that +riddle almost as sedulously as Madame had sought a guide to useful knowledge in +my toilet drawers. How was it that Dr. John, if he had not been accessory to +the dropping of that casket into the garden, should have known that it +<i>was</i> dropped, and appeared so promptly on the spot to seek it? So strong +was the wish to clear up this point that I began to entertain this daring +suggestion: “Why may I not, in case I should ever have the opportunity, ask Dr. +John himself to explain this coincidence?” +</p> + +<p> +And so long as Dr. John was absent, I really believed I had courage to test him +with such a question. +</p> + +<p> +Little Georgette was now convalescent; and her physician accordingly made his +visits very rare: indeed, he would have ceased them altogether, had not Madame +insisted on his giving an occasional call till the child should be quite well. +</p> + +<p> +She came into the nursery one evening just after I had listened to Georgette’s +lisped and broken prayer, and had put her to bed. Taking the little one’s hand, +she said, “Cette enfant a toujours un peu de fièvre.” And presently afterwards, +looking at me with a quicker glance than was habitual to her quiet eye, “Le +Docteur John l’a-t-il vue dernièrement? Non, n’est-ce pas?” +</p> + +<p> +Of course she knew this better than any other person in the house. “Well,” she +continued, “I am going out, pour faire quelques courses en fiacre. I shall call +on Dr. John, and send him to the child. I will that he sees her this evening; +her cheeks are flushed, her pulse is quick; <i>you</i> will receive him—for my +part, I shall be from home.” +</p> + +<p> +Now the child was well enough, only warm with the warmth of July; it was +scarcely less needful to send for a priest to administer extreme unction than +for a doctor to prescribe a dose; also Madame rarely made “courses,” as she +called them, in the evening: moreover, this was the first time she had chosen +to absent herself on the occasion of a visit from Dr. John. The whole +arrangement indicated some plan; this I saw, but without the least anxiety. +“Ha! ha! Madame,” laughed Light-heart the Beggar, “your crafty wits are on the +wrong tack.” +</p> + +<p> +She departed, attired very smartly, in a shawl of price, and a certain +<i>chapeau vert tendre</i>—hazardous, as to its tint, for any complexion less +fresh than her own, but, to her, not unbecoming. I wondered what she intended: +whether she really would send Dr. John or not; or whether indeed he would come: +he might be engaged. +</p> + +<p> +Madame had charged me not to let Georgette sleep till the doctor came; I had +therefore sufficient occupation in telling her nursery tales and palavering the +little language for her benefit. I affected Georgette; she was a sensitive and +a loving child: to hold her in my lap, or carry her in my arms, was to me a +treat. To-night she would have me lay my head on the pillow of her crib; she +even put her little arms round my neck. Her clasp, and the nestling action with +which she pressed her cheek to mine, made me almost cry with a tender pain. +Feeling of no kind abounded in that house; this pure little drop from a pure +little source was too sweet: it penetrated deep, and subdued the heart, and +sent a gush to the eyes. Half an hour or an hour passed; Georgette murmured in +her soft lisp that she was growing sleepy. “And you <i>shall</i> sleep,” +thought I, “malgré maman and médecin, if they are not here in ten minutes.” +</p> + +<p> +Hark! There was the ring, and there the tread, astonishing the staircase by the +fleetness with which it left the steps behind. Rosine introduced Dr. John, and, +with a freedom of manner not altogether peculiar to herself, but characteristic +of the domestics of Villette generally, she stayed to hear what he had to say. +Madame’s presence would have awed her back to her own realm of the vestibule +and the cabinet—for mine, or that of any other teacher or pupil, she cared not +a jot. Smart, trim and pert, she stood, a hand in each pocket of her gay +grisette apron, eyeing Dr. John with no more fear or shyness than if he had +been a picture instead of a living gentleman. +</p> + +<p> +“Le marmot n’a rien n’est ce pas?” said she, indicating Georgette with a jerk +of her chin. +</p> + +<p> +“Pas beaucoup,” was the answer, as the doctor hastily scribbled with his pencil +some harmless prescription. +</p> + +<p> +“Eh bien!” pursued Rosine, approaching him quite near, while he put up his +pencil. “And the box—did you get it? Monsieur went off like a coup-de-vent the +other night; I had not time to ask him.” +</p> + +<p> +“I found it: yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“And who threw it, then?” continued Rosine, speaking quite freely the very +words I should so much have wished to say, but had no address or courage to +bring it out: how short some people make the road to a point which, for others, +seems unattainable! +</p> + +<p> +“That may be my secret,” rejoined Dr. John briefly, but with no sort of +hauteur: he seemed quite to understand the Rosine or grisette character. +</p> + +<p> +“Mais enfin,” continued she, nothing abashed, “monsieur knew it was thrown, +since he came to seek it—how did he know?” +</p> + +<p> +“I was attending a little patient in the college near,” said he, “and saw it +dropped out of his chamber window, and so came to pick it up.” +</p> + +<p> +How simple the whole explanation! The note had alluded to a physician as then +examining “Gustave.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah ça!” pursued Rosine; “il n’y a donc rien là-dessous: pas de mystère, pas +d’amourette, par exemple?” +</p> + +<p> +“Pas plus que sur ma main,” responded the doctor, showing his palm. +</p> + +<p> +“Quel dommage!” responded the grisette: “et moi—à qui tout cela commençait à +donner des idées.” +</p> + +<p> +“Vraiment! vous en êtes pour vos frais,” was the doctor’s cool rejoinder. +</p> + +<p> +She pouted. The doctor could not help laughing at the sort of “moue” she made: +when he laughed, he had something peculiarly good-natured and genial in his +look. I saw his hand incline to his pocket. +</p> + +<p> +“How many times have you opened the door for me within this last month?” he +asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Monsieur ought to have kept count of that,” said Rosine, quite readily. +</p> + +<p> +“As if I had not something better to do!” rejoined he; but I saw him give her a +piece of gold, which she took unscrupulously, and then danced off to answer the +door-bell, ringing just now every five minutes, as the various servants came to +fetch the half-boarders. +</p> + +<p> +The reader must not think too hardly of Rosine; on the whole, she was not a bad +sort of person, and had no idea there could be any disgrace in grasping at +whatever she could get, or any effrontery in chattering like a pie to the best +gentleman in Christendom. +</p> + +<p> +I had learnt something from the above scene besides what concerned the ivory +box: viz., that not on the robe de jaconas, pink or grey, nor yet on the +frilled and pocketed apron, lay the blame of breaking Dr. John’s heart: these +items of array were obviously guiltless as Georgette’s little blue tunic. So +much the better. But who then was the culprit? What was the ground—what the +origin—what the perfect explanation of the whole business? Some points had been +cleared, but how many yet remained obscure as night! +</p> + +<p> +“However,” I said to myself, “it is no affair of yours;” and turning from the +face on which I had been unconsciously dwelling with a questioning gaze, I +looked through the window which commanded the garden below. Dr. John, meantime, +standing by the bed-side, was slowly drawing on his gloves and watching his +little patient, as her eyes closed and her rosy lips parted in coming sleep. I +waited till he should depart as usual, with a quick bow and scarce articulate +“good-night.”. Just as he took his hat, my eyes, fixed on the tall houses +bounding the garden, saw the one lattice, already commemorated, cautiously +open; forth from the aperture projected a hand and a white handkerchief; both +waved. I know not whether the signal was answered from some viewless quarter of +our own dwelling; but immediately after there fluttered from the lattice a +falling object, white and light—billet the second, of course. +</p> + +<p> +“There!” I ejaculated involuntarily. +</p> + +<p> +“Where?”, asked Dr. John with energy, making direct for the window. “What, is +it?” +</p> + +<p> +“They have gone and done it again,” was my reply. “A handkerchief waved and +something fell:” and I pointed to the lattice, now closed and looking +hypocritically blank. +</p> + +<p> +“Go, at once; pick it up and bring it here,” was his prompt direction; adding, +“Nobody will take notice of <i>you: I</i> should be seen.” +</p> + +<p> +Straight I went. After some little search, I found a folded paper, lodged on +the lower branch of a shrub; I seized and brought it direct to Dr. John. This +time, I believe not even Rosine saw me. +</p> + +<p> +He instantly tore the billet into small pieces, without reading it. “It is not +in the least <i>her</i> fault, you must remember,” he said, looking at me. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Whose</i> fault?” I asked. “<i>Who</i> is it?” +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t yet know, then?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not in the least.” +</p> + +<p> +“Have you no guess?” +</p> + +<p> +“None.” +</p> + +<p> +“If I knew you better, I might be tempted to risk some confidence, and thus +secure you as guardian over a most innocent and excellent, but somewhat +inexperienced being.” +</p> + +<p> +“As a duenna?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said he abstractedly. “What snares are round her!” he added, musingly: +and now, certainly for the first time, he examined my face, anxious, doubtless, +to see if any kindly expression there, would warrant him in recommending to my +care and indulgence some ethereal creature, against whom powers of darkness +were plotting. I felt no particular vocation to undertake the surveillance of +ethereal creatures; but recalling the scene at the bureau, it seemed to me that +I owed <i>him</i> a good turn: if I <i>could</i> help him then I would, and it +lay not with me to decide how. With as little reluctance as might be, I +intimated that “I was willing to do what I could towards taking care of any +person in whom he might be interested.”. +</p> + +<p> +“I am no farther interested than as a spectator,” said he, with a modesty, +admirable, as I thought, to witness. “I happen to be acquainted with the rather +worthless character of the person, who, from the house opposite, has now twice +invaded the sanctity of this place; I have also met in society the object at +whom these vulgar attempts are aimed. Her exquisite superiority and innate +refinement ought, one would think, to scare impertinence from her very idea. It +is not so, however; and innocent, unsuspicious as she is, I would guard her +from evil if I could. In person, however, I can do nothing, I cannot come near +her”—he paused. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I am willing to help you,” said I, “only tell me how.” And busily, in my +own mind, I ran over the list of our inmates, seeking this paragon, this pearl +of great price, this gem without flaw. “It must be Madame,” I concluded. +“<i>She</i> only, amongst us all, has the art even to <i>seem</i> superior: but +as to being unsuspicious, inexperienced, &c., Dr. John need not distract +himself about that. However, this is just his whim, and I will not contradict +him; he shall be humoured: his angel shall be an angel.” +</p> + +<p> +“Just notify the quarter to which my care is to be directed,” I continued +gravely: chuckling, however, to myself over the thought of being set to +chaperon Madame Beck or any of her pupils. Now Dr. John had a fine set of +nerves, and he at once felt by instinct, what no more coarsely constituted mind +would have detected; namely, that I was a little amused at him. The colour rose +to his cheek; with half a smile he turned and took his hat—he was going. My +heart smote me. +</p> + +<p> +“I will—I will help you,” said I eagerly. “I will do what you wish. I will +watch over your angel; I will take care of her, only tell me who she is.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you <i>must</i> know,” said he then with earnestness, yet speaking very +low. “So spotless, so good, so unspeakably beautiful! impossible that one house +should contain two like her. I allude, of course—” +</p> + +<p> +Here the latch of Madame Beck’s chamber-door (opening into the nursery) gave a +sudden click, as if the hand holding it had been slightly convulsed; there was +the suppressed explosion of an irrepressible sneeze. These little accidents +will happen to the best of us. Madame—excellent woman! was then on duty. She +had come home quietly, stolen up-stairs on tip-toe; she was in her chamber. If +she had not sneezed, she would have heard all, and so should I; but that +unlucky sternutation routed Dr. John. While he stood aghast, she came forward +alert, composed, in the best yet most tranquil spirits: no novice to her habits +but would have thought she had just come in, and scouted the idea of her ear +having been glued to the key-hole for at least ten minutes. She affected to +sneeze again, declared she was “enrhumée,” and then proceeded volubly to +recount her “courses en fiacre.” The prayer-bell rang, and I left her with the +doctor. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap14"></a>CHAPTER XIV.<br/> +THE FÊTE.</h2> + +<p> +As soon as Georgette was well, Madame sent her away into the country. I was +sorry; I loved the child, and her loss made me poorer than before. But I must +not complain. I lived in a house full of robust life; I might have had +companions, and I chose solitude. Each of the teachers in turn made me +overtures of special intimacy; I tried them all. One I found to be an honest +woman, but a narrow thinker, a coarse feeler, and an egotist. The second was a +Parisienne, externally refined—at heart, corrupt—without a creed, without a +principle, without an affection: having penetrated the outward crust of decorum +in this character, you found a slough beneath. She had a wonderful passion for +presents; and, in this point, the third teacher—a person otherwise +characterless and insignificant—closely resembled her. This last-named had also +one other distinctive property—that of avarice. In her reigned the love of +money for its own sake. The sight of a piece of gold would bring into her eyes +a green glisten, singular to witness. She once, as a mark of high favour, took +me up-stairs, and, opening a secret door, showed me a hoard—a mass of coarse, +large coin—about fifteen guineas, in five-franc pieces. She loved this hoard as +a bird loves its eggs. These were her savings. She would come and talk to me +about them with an infatuated and persevering dotage, strange to behold in a +person not yet twenty-five. +</p> + +<p> +The Parisienne, on the other hand, was prodigal and profligate (in disposition, +that is: as to action, I do not know). That latter quality showed its +snake-head to me but once, peeping out very cautiously. A curious kind of +reptile it seemed, judging from the glimpse I got; its novelty whetted my +curiosity: if it would have come out boldly, perhaps I might philosophically +have stood my ground, and coolly surveyed the long thing from forked tongue to +scaly tail-tip; but it merely rustled in the leaves of a bad novel; and, on +encountering a hasty and ill-advised demonstration of wrath, recoiled and +vanished, hissing. She hated me from that day. +</p> + +<p> +This Parisienne was always in debt; her salary being anticipated, not only in +dress, but in perfumes, cosmetics, confectionery, and condiments. What a cold, +callous epicure she was in all things! I see her now. Thin in face and figure, +sallow in complexion, regular in features, with perfect teeth, lips like a +thread, a large, prominent chin, a well-opened, but frozen eye, of light at +once craving and ingrate. She mortally hated work, and loved what she called +pleasure; being an insipid, heartless, brainless dissipation of time. +</p> + +<p> +Madame Beck knew this woman’s character perfectly well. She once talked to me +about her, with an odd mixture of discrimination, indifference, and antipathy. +I asked why she kept her in the establishment. She answered plainly, “because +it suited her interest to do so;” and pointed out a fact I had already noticed, +namely, that Mademoiselle St. Pierre possessed, in an almost unique degree, the +power of keeping order amongst her undisciplined ranks of scholars. A certain +petrifying influence accompanied and surrounded her: without passion, noise, or +violence, she held them in check as a breezeless frost-air might still a +brawling stream. She was of little use as far as communication of knowledge +went, but for strict surveillance and maintenance of rules she was invaluable. +“Je sais bien qu’elle n’a pas de principes, ni, peut-être, de moeurs,” admitted +Madame frankly; but added with philosophy, “son maintien en classe est toujours +convenable et rempli même d’une certaine dignité: c’est tout ce qu’il faut. Ni +les élèves ni les parents ne regardent plus loin; ni, par conséquent, moi non +plus.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +A strange, frolicsome, noisy little world was this school: great pains were +taken to hide chains with flowers: a subtle essence of Romanism pervaded every +arrangement: large sensual indulgence (so to speak) was permitted by way of +counterpoise to jealous spiritual restraint. Each mind was being reared in +slavery; but, to prevent reflection from dwelling on this fact, every pretext +for physical recreation was seized and made the most of. There, as elsewhere, +the CHURCH strove to bring up her children robust in body, feeble in soul, fat, +ruddy, hale, joyous, ignorant, unthinking, unquestioning. “Eat, drink, and +live!” she says. “Look after your bodies; leave your souls to me. I hold their +cure—guide their course: I guarantee their final fate.” A bargain, in which +every true Catholic deems himself a gainer. Lucifer just offers the same terms: +“All this power will I give thee, and the glory of it; for that is delivered +unto me, and to whomsoever I will I give it. If thou, therefore, wilt worship +me, all shall be thine!” +</p> + +<p> +About this time—in the ripest glow of summer—Madame Beck’s house became as +merry a place as a school could well be. All day long the broad folding-doors +and the two-leaved casements stood wide open: settled sunshine seemed +naturalized in the atmosphere; clouds were far off, sailing away beyond sea, +resting, no doubt, round islands such as England—that dear land of mists—but +withdrawn wholly from the drier continent. We lived far more in the garden than +under a roof: classes were held, and meals partaken of, in the “grand berceau.” +Moreover, there was a note of holiday preparation, which almost turned freedom +into licence. The autumnal long vacation was but two months distant; but before +that, a great day—an important ceremony—none other than the fête of +Madame—awaited celebration. +</p> + +<p> +The conduct of this fête devolved chiefly on Mademoiselle St. Pierre: Madame +herself being supposed to stand aloof, disinterestedly unconscious of what +might be going forward in her honour. Especially, she never knew, never in the +least suspected, that a subscription was annually levied on the whole school +for the purchase of a handsome present. The polite tact of the reader will +please to leave out of the account a brief, secret consultation on this point +in Madame’s own chamber. +</p> + +<p> +“What will you have this year?” was asked by her Parisian lieutenant. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, no matter! Let it alone. Let the poor children keep their francs,” And +Madame looked benign and modest. +</p> + +<p> +The St. Pierre would here protrude her chin; she knew Madame by heart; she +always called her airs of “bonté”—“des grimaces.” She never even professed to +respect them one instant. +</p> + +<p> +“Vite!” she would say coldly. “Name the article. Shall it be jewellery or +porcelain, haberdashery or silver?” +</p> + +<p> +“Eh bien! Deux ou trois cuillers, et autant de fourchettes en argent.” +</p> + +<p> +And the result was a handsome case, containing 300 francs worth of plate. +</p> + +<p> +The programme of the fête-day’s proceedings comprised: Presentation of plate, +collation in the garden, dramatic performance (with pupils and teachers for +actors), a dance and supper. Very gorgeous seemed the effect of the whole to +me, as I well remember. Zélie St. Pierre understood these things and managed +them ably. +</p> + +<p> +The play was the main point; a month’s previous drilling being there required. +The choice, too, of the actors required knowledge and care; then came lessons +in elocution, in attitude, and then the fatigue of countless rehearsals. For +all this, as may well be supposed, St. Pierre did not suffice: other +management, other accomplishments than hers were requisite here. They were +supplied in the person of a master—M. Paul Emanuel, professor of literature. It +was never my lot to be present at the histrionic lessons of M. Paul, but I +often saw him as he crossed the <i>carré</i> (a square hall between the +dwelling-house and school-house). I heard him, too, in the warm evenings, +lecturing with open doors, and his name, with anecdotes of him, resounded in +ones ears from all sides. Especially our former acquaintance, Miss Ginevra +Fanshawe,—who had been selected to take a prominent part in the play—used, in +bestowing upon me a large portion of her leisure, to lard her discourse with +frequent allusions to his sayings and doings. She esteemed him hideously plain, +and used to profess herself frightened almost into hysterics at the sound of +his step or voice. A dark little man he certainly was; pungent and austere. +Even to me he seemed a harsh apparition, with his close-shorn, black head, his +broad, sallow brow, his thin cheek, his wide and quivering nostril, his +thorough glance, and hurried bearing. Irritable he was; one heard that, as he +apostrophized with vehemence the awkward squad under his orders. Sometimes he +would break out on these raw amateur actresses with a passion of impatience at +their falseness of conception, their coldness of emotion, their feebleness of +delivery. “Ecoutez!” he would cry; and then his voice rang through the premises +like a trumpet; and when, mimicking it, came the small pipe of a Ginevra, a +Mathilde, or a Blanche, one understood why a hollow groan of scorn, or a fierce +hiss of rage, rewarded the tame echo. +</p> + +<p> +“Vous n’êtes donc que des poupées,” I heard him thunder. “Vous n’avez pas de +passions—vous autres. Vous ne sentez donc rien? Votre chair est de neige, votre +sang de glace! Moi, je veux que tout cela s’allume, qu’il ait une vie, une +âme!” +</p> + +<p> +Vain resolve! And when he at last found it <i>was</i> vain, he suddenly broke +the whole business down. Hitherto he had been teaching them a grand tragedy; he +tore the tragedy in morsels, and came next day with a compact little comic +trifle. To this they took more kindly; he presently knocked it all into their +smooth round pates. +</p> + +<p> +Mademoiselle St. Pierre always presided at M. Emanuel’s lessons, and I was told +that the polish of her manner, her seeming attention, her tact and grace, +impressed that gentleman very favourably. She had, indeed, the art of pleasing, +for a given time, whom she would; but the feeling would not last: in an hour it +was dried like dew, vanished like gossamer. +</p> + +<p> +The day preceding Madame’s fête was as much a holiday as the fête itself. It +was devoted to clearing out, cleaning, arranging and decorating the three +schoolrooms. All within-doors was the gayest bustle; neither up-stairs nor down +could a quiet, isolated person find rest for the sole of her foot; accordingly, +for my part, I took refuge in the garden. The whole day did I wander or sit +there alone, finding warmth in the sun, shelter among the trees, and a sort of +companionship in my own thoughts. I well remember that I exchanged but two +sentences that day with any living being: not that I felt solitary; I was glad +to be quiet. For a looker-on, it sufficed to pass through the rooms once or +twice, observe what changes were being wrought, how a green-room and a +dressing-room were being contrived, a little stage with scenery erected, how M. +Paul Emanuel, in conjunction with Mademoiselle St. Pierre, was directing all, +and how an eager band of pupils, amongst them Ginevra Fanshawe, were working +gaily under his control. +</p> + +<p> +The great day arrived. The sun rose hot and unclouded, and hot and unclouded it +burned on till evening. All the doors and all the windows were set open, which +gave a pleasant sense of summer freedom—and freedom the most complete seemed +indeed the order of the day. Teachers and pupils descended to breakfast in +dressing-gowns and curl-papers: anticipating “avec délices” the toilette of the +evening, they seemed to take a pleasure in indulging that forenoon in a luxury +of slovenliness; like aldermen fasting in preparation for a feast. About nine +o’clock A.M., an important functionary, the “coiffeur,” arrived. Sacrilegious +to state, he fixed his head-quarters in the oratory, and there, in presence of +<i>bénitier</i>, candle, and crucifix, solemnised the mysteries of his art. +Each girl was summoned in turn to pass through his hands; emerging from them +with head as smooth as a shell, intersected by faultless white lines, and +wreathed about with Grecian plaits that shone as if lacquered. I took my turn +with the rest, and could hardly believe what the glass said when I applied to +it for information afterwards; the lavished garlandry of woven brown hair +amazed me—I feared it was not all my own, and it required several convincing +pulls to give assurance to the contrary. I then acknowledged in the coiffeur a +first-rate artist—one who certainly made the most of indifferent materials. +</p> + +<p> +The oratory closed, the dormitory became the scene of ablutions, arrayings and +bedizenings curiously elaborate. To me it was, and ever must be an enigma, how +they contrived to spend so much time in doing so little. The operation seemed +close, intricate, prolonged: the result simple. A clear white muslin dress, a +blue sash (the Virgin’s colours), a pair of white, or straw-colour kid +gloves—such was the gala uniform, to the assumption whereof that houseful of +teachers and pupils devoted three mortal hours. But though simple, it must be +allowed the array was perfect—perfect in fashion, fit, and freshness; every +head being also dressed with exquisite nicety, and a certain compact +taste—suiting the full, firm comeliness of Labassecourien contours, though too +stiff for any more flowing and flexible style of beauty—the general effect was, +on the whole, commendable. +</p> + +<p> +In beholding this diaphanous and snowy mass, I well remember feeling myself to +be a mere shadowy spot on a field of light; the courage was not in me to put on +a transparent white dress: something thin I must wear—the weather and rooms +being too hot to give substantial fabrics sufferance, so I had sought through a +dozen shops till I lit upon a crape-like material of purple-gray—the colour, in +short, of dun mist, lying on a moor in bloom. My <i>tailleuse</i> had kindly +made it as well as she could: because, as she judiciously observed, it was “si +triste—si pen voyant,” care in the fashion was the more imperative: it was well +she took this view of the matter, for I, had no flower, no jewel to relieve it: +and, what was more, I had no natural rose of complexion. +</p> + +<p> +We become oblivious of these deficiencies in the uniform routine of daily +drudgery, but they <i>will</i> force upon us their unwelcome blank on those +bright occasions when beauty should shine. +</p> + +<p> +However, in this same gown of shadow, I felt at home and at ease; an advantage +I should not have enjoyed in anything more brilliant or striking. Madame Beck, +too, kept me in countenance; her dress was almost as quiet as mine, except that +she wore a bracelet, and a large brooch bright with gold and fine stones. We +chanced to meet on the stairs, and she gave me a nod and smile of approbation. +Not that she thought I was looking well—a point unlikely to engage her +interest—but she considered me dressed “convenablement,” “décemment,” and la +Convenance et la Décence were the two calm deities of Madame’s worship. She +even paused, laid on my shoulder her gloved hand, holding an embroidered and +perfumed handkerchief, and confided to my ear a sarcasm on the other teachers +(whom she had just been complimenting to their faces). “Nothing so absurd,” she +said, “as for des femmes mûres ‘to dress themselves like girls of +fifteen’—quant à la St. Pierre, elle a l’air d’une vieille coquette qui fait +l’ingénue.” +</p> + +<p> +Being dressed at least a couple of hours before anybody else, I felt a pleasure +in betaking myself—not to the garden, where servants were busy propping up long +tables, placing seats, and spreading cloths in readiness for the collation but +to the schoolrooms, now empty, quiet, cool, and clean; their walls fresh +stained, their planked floors fresh scoured and scarce dry; flowers fresh +gathered adorning the recesses in pots, and draperies, fresh hung, beautifying +the great windows. +</p> + +<p> +Withdrawing to the first classe, a smaller and neater room than the others, and +taking from the glazed bookcase, of which I kept the key, a volume whose title +promised some interest, I sat down to read. The glass-door of this “classe,” or +schoolroom, opened into the large berceau; acacia-boughs caressed its panes, as +they stretched across to meet a rose-bush blooming by the opposite lintel: in +this rose-bush bees murmured busy and happy. I commenced reading. Just as the +stilly hum, the embowering shade, the warm, lonely calm of my retreat were +beginning to steal meaning from the page, vision from my eyes, and to lure me +along the track of reverie, down into some deep dell of dreamland—just then, +the sharpest ring of the street-door bell to which that much-tried instrument +had ever thrilled, snatched me back to consciousness. +</p> + +<p> +Now the bell had been ringing all the morning, as workmen, or servants, or +<i>coiffeurs</i>, or <i>tailleuses</i>, went and came on their several errands. +Moreover, there was good reason to expect it would ring all the afternoon, +since about one hundred externes were yet to arrive in carriages or fiacres: +nor could it be expected to rest during the evening, when parents and friends +would gather thronging to the play. Under these circumstances, a ring—even a +sharp ring—was a matter of course: yet this particular peal had an accent of +its own, which chased my dream, and startled my book from my knee. +</p> + +<p> +I was stooping to pick up this last, when—firm, fast, straight—right on through +vestibule—along corridor, across carré, through first division, second +division, grand salle—strode a step, quick, regular, intent. The closed door of +the first classe—my sanctuary—offered no obstacle; it burst open, and a paletôt +and a bonnet grec filled the void; also two eyes first vaguely struck upon, and +then hungrily dived into me. +</p> + +<p> +“C’est cela!” said a voice. “Je la connais: c’est l’Anglaise. Tant pis. Toute +Anglaise, et, par conséquent, toute bégueule qu’elle soit—elle fera mon +affaire, ou je saurai pourquoi.” +</p> + +<p> +Then, with a certain stern politeness (I suppose he thought I had not caught +the drift of his previous uncivil mutterings), and in a jargon the most +execrable that ever was heard, “Meess——, play you must: I am planted there.” +</p> + +<p> +“What can I do for you, M. Paul Emanuel?” I inquired: for M. Paul Emanuel it +was, and in a state of no little excitement. +</p> + +<p> +“Play you must. I will not have you shrink, or frown, or make the prude. I read +your skull that night you came; I see your moyens: play you can; play you +must.” +</p> + +<p> +“But how, M. Paul? What do you mean?” +</p> + +<p> +“There is no time to be lost,” he went on, now speaking in French; “and let us +thrust to the wall all reluctance, all excuses, all minauderies. You must take +a part.” +</p> + +<p> +“In the vaudeville?” +</p> + +<p> +“In the vaudeville. You have said it.” +</p> + +<p> +I gasped, horror-struck. <i>What</i> did the little man mean? +</p> + +<p> +“Listen!” he said. “The case shall be stated, and you shall then answer me Yes, +or No; and according to your answer shall I ever after estimate you.” +</p> + +<p> +The scarce-suppressed impetus of a most irritable nature glowed in his cheek, +fed with sharp shafts his glances, a nature—the injudicious, the mawkish, the +hesitating, the sullen, the affected, above all, the unyielding, might quickly +render violent and implacable. Silence and attention was the best balm to +apply: I listened. +</p> + +<p> +“The whole matter is going to fail,” he began. “Louise Vanderkelkov has fallen +ill—at least so her ridiculous mother asserts; for my part, I feel sure she +might play if she would: it is only good-will that lacks. She was charged with +a <i>rôle</i>, as you know, or do <i>not</i> know—it is equal: without that +<i>rôle</i> the play is stopped. There are now but a few hours in which to +learn it: not a girl in this school would hear reason, and accept the task. +Forsooth, it is not an interesting, not an amiable, part; their vile +<i>amour-propre</i>—that base quality of which women have so much—would revolt +from it. Englishwomen are either the best or the worst of their sex. Dieu sait +que je les déteste comme la peste, ordinairement” (this between his recreant +teeth). “I apply to an Englishwoman to rescue me. What is her answer—Yes, or +No?” +</p> + +<p> +A thousand objections rushed into my mind. The foreign language, the limited +time, the public display… Inclination recoiled, Ability faltered, Self-respect +(that “vile quality”) trembled. “Non, non, non!” said all these; but looking up +at M. Paul, and seeing in his vexed, fiery, and searching eye, a sort of appeal +behind all its menace, my lips dropped the word “oui”. For a moment his rigid +countenance relaxed with a quiver of content: quickly bent up again, however, +he went on,— +</p> + +<p> +“Vite à l’ouvrage! Here is the book; here is your <i>rôle</i>: read.” And I +read. He did not commend; at some passages he scowled and stamped. He gave me a +lesson: I diligently imitated. It was a disagreeable part—a man’s—an +empty-headed fop’s. One could put into it neither heart nor soul: I hated it. +The play—a mere trifle—ran chiefly on the efforts of a brace of rivals to gain +the hand of a fair coquette. One lover was called the “Ours,” a good and +gallant but unpolished man, a sort of diamond in the rough; the other was a +butterfly, a talker, and a traitor: and I was to be the butterfly, talker, and +traitor. +</p> + +<p> +I did my best—which was bad, I know: it provoked M. Paul; he fumed. Putting +both hands to the work, I endeavoured to do better than my best; I presume he +gave me credit for good intentions; he professed to be partially content. “Ca +ira!” he cried; and as voices began sounding from the garden, and white dresses +fluttering among the trees, he added: “You must withdraw: you must be alone to +learn this. Come with me.” +</p> + +<p> +Without being allowed time or power to deliberate, I found myself in the same +breath convoyed along as in a species of whirlwind, up-stairs, up two pair of +stairs, nay, actually up three (for this fiery little man seemed as by instinct +to know his way everywhere); to the solitary and lofty attic was I borne, put +in and locked in, the key being, in the door, and that key he took with him and +vanished. +</p> + +<p> +The attic was no pleasant place: I believe he did not know how unpleasant it +was, or he never would have locked me in with so little ceremony. In this +summer weather, it was hot as Africa; as in winter, it was always cold as +Greenland. Boxes and lumber filled it; old dresses draped its unstained +wall—cobwebs its unswept ceiling. Well was it known to be tenanted by rats, by +black beetles, and by cockroaches—nay, rumour affirmed that the ghostly Nun of +the garden had once been seen here. A partial darkness obscured one end, across +which, as for deeper mystery, an old russet curtain was drawn, by way of screen +to a sombre band of winter cloaks, pendent each from its pin, like a malefactor +from his gibbet. From amongst these cloaks, and behind that curtain, the Nun +was said to issue. I did not believe this, nor was I troubled by apprehension +thereof; but I saw a very dark and large rat, with a long tail, come gliding +out from that squalid alcove; and, moreover, my eye fell on many a +black-beetle, dotting the floor. These objects discomposed me more, perhaps, +than it would be wise to say, as also did the dust, lumber, and stifling heat +of the place. The last inconvenience would soon have become intolerable, had I +not found means to open and prop up the skylight, thus admitting some +freshness. Underneath this aperture I pushed a large empty chest, and having +mounted upon it a smaller box, and wiped from both the dust, I gathered my +dress (my best, the reader must remember, and therefore a legitimate object of +care) fastidiously around me, ascended this species of extempore throne, and +being seated, commenced the acquisition of my task; while I learned, not +forgetting to keep a sharp look-out on the black-beetles and cockroaches, of +which, more even, I believe, than of the rats, I sat in mortal dread. +</p> + +<p> +My impression at first was that I had undertaken what it really was impossible +to perform, and I simply resolved to do my best and be resigned to fail. I soon +found, however, that one part in so short a piece was not more than memory +could master at a few hours’ notice. I learned and learned on, first in a +whisper, and then aloud. Perfectly secure from human audience, I acted my part +before the garret-vermin. Entering into its emptiness, frivolity, and +falsehood, with a spirit inspired by scorn and impatience, I took my revenge on +this “fat,” by making him as fatuitous as I possibly could. +</p> + +<p> +In this exercise the afternoon passed: day began to glide into evening; and I, +who had eaten nothing since breakfast, grew excessively hungry. Now I thought +of the collation, which doubtless they were just then devouring in the garden +far below. (I had seen in the vestibule a basketful of small <i>pâtés à la +crême</i>, than which nothing in the whole range of cookery seemed to me +better). A <i>pâté</i>, or a square of cake, it seemed to me would come very +<i>àpropos;</i> and as my relish for those dainties increased, it began to +appear somewhat hard that I should pass my holiday, fasting and in prison. +Remote as was the attic from the street-door and vestibule, yet the +ever-tinkling bell was faintly audible here; and also the ceaseless roll of +wheels, on the tormented pavement. I knew that the house and garden were +thronged, and that all was gay and glad below; here it began to grow dusk: the +beetles were fading from my sight; I trembled lest they should steal on me a +march, mount my throne unseen, and, unsuspected, invade my skirts. Impatient +and apprehensive, I recommenced the rehearsal of my part merely to kill time. +Just as I was concluding, the long-delayed rattle of the key in the lock came +to my ear—no unwelcome sound. M. Paul (I could just see through the dusk that +it <i>was</i> M. Paul, for light enough still lingered to show the velvet +blackness of his close-shorn head, and the sallow ivory of his brow) looked in. +</p> + +<p> +“Brava!” cried he, holding the door open and remaining at the threshold. “J’ai +tout entendu. C’est assez bien. Encore!” +</p> + +<p> +A moment I hesitated. +</p> + +<p> +“Encore!” said he sternly. “Et point de grimaces! A bas la timidité!” +</p> + +<p> +Again I went through the part, but not half so well as I had spoken it alone. +</p> + +<p> +“Enfin, elle sait,” said he, half dissatisfied, “and one cannot be fastidious +or exacting under the circumstances.” Then he added, “You may yet have twenty +minutes for preparation: au revoir!” And he was going. +</p> + +<p> +“Monsieur,” I called out, taking courage. +</p> + +<p> +“Eh bien! Qu’est-ce que c’est, Mademoiselle?” +</p> + +<p> +“J’ai bien faim.” +</p> + +<p> +“Comment, vous avez faim! Et la collation?” +</p> + +<p> +“I know nothing about it. I have not seen it, shut up here.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah! C’est vrai,” cried he. +</p> + +<p> +In a moment my throne was abdicated, the attic evacuated; an inverse repetition +of the impetus which had brought me up into the attic, instantly took me +down—down—down to the very kitchen. I thought I should have gone to the cellar. +The cook was imperatively ordered to produce food, and I, as imperatively, was +commanded to eat. To my great joy this food was limited to coffee and cake: I +had feared wine and sweets, which I did not like. How he guessed that I should +like a <i>petit pâté à la crême</i> I cannot tell; but he went out and procured +me one from some quarter. With considerable willingness I ate and drank, +keeping the <i>petit pâté</i> till the last, as a <i>bonne bouche</i>. M. Paul +superintended my repast, and almost forced upon me more than I could swallow. +</p> + +<p> +“A la bonne heure,” he cried, when I signified that I really could take no +more, and, with uplifted hands, implored to be spared the additional roll on +which he had just spread butter. “You will set me down as a species of tyrant +and Bluebeard, starving women in a garret; whereas, after all, I am no such +thing. Now, Mademoiselle, do you feel courage and strength to appear?” +</p> + +<p> +I said, I thought I did; though, in truth, I was perfectly confused, and could +hardly tell how I felt: but this little man was of the order of beings who must +not be opposed, unless you possessed an all-dominant force sufficient to crush +him at once. +</p> + +<p> +“Come then,” said he, offering his hand. +</p> + +<p> +I gave him mine, and he set off with a rapid walk, which obliged me to run at +his side in order to keep pace. In the carré he stopped a moment: it was lit +with large lamps; the wide doors of the classes were open, and so were the +equally wide garden-doors; orange-trees in tubs, and tall flowers in pots, +ornamented these portals on each side; groups of ladies and gentlemen in +evening-dress stood and walked amongst the flowers. Within, the long vista of +the school-rooms presented a thronging, undulating, murmuring, waving, +streaming multitude, all rose, and blue, and half translucent white. There were +lustres burning overhead; far off there was a stage, a solemn green curtain, a +row of footlights. +</p> + +<p> +“N’est-ce pas que c’est beau?” demanded my companion. +</p> + +<p> +I should have said it was, but my heart got up into my throat. M. Paul +discovered this, and gave me a side-scowl and a little shake for my pains. +</p> + +<p> +“I will do my best, but I wish it was over,” said I; then I asked: “Are we to +walk through that crowd?” +</p> + +<p> +“By no means: I manage matters better: we pass through the garden—here.” +</p> + +<p> +In an instant we were out of doors: the cool, calm night revived me somewhat. +It was moonless, but the reflex from the many glowing windows lit the court +brightly, and even the alleys—dimly. Heaven was cloudless, and grand with the +quiver of its living fires. How soft are the nights of the Continent! How +bland, balmy, safe! No sea-fog; no chilling damp: mistless as noon, and fresh +as morning. +</p> + +<p> +Having crossed court and garden, we reached the glass door of the first classe. +It stood open, like all other doors that night; we passed, and then I was +ushered into a small cabinet, dividing the first classe from the grand salle. +This cabinet dazzled me, it was so full of light: it deafened me, it was +clamorous with voices: it stifled me, it was so hot, choking, thronged. +</p> + +<p> +“De l’ordre! Du silence!” cried M. Paul. “Is this chaos?”, he demanded; and +there was a hush. With a dozen words, and as many gestures, he turned out half +the persons present, and obliged the remnant to fall into rank. Those left were +all in costume: they were the performers, and this was the green-room. M. Paul +introduced me. All stared and some tittered. It was a surprise: they had not +expected the Englishwoman would play in a <i>vaudeville</i>. Ginevra Fanshawe, +beautifully dressed for her part, and looking fascinatingly pretty, turned on +me a pair of eyes as round as beads. In the highest spirit, unperturbed by fear +or bashfulness, delighted indeed at the thought of shining off before +hundreds—my entrance seemed to transfix her with amazement in the midst of her +joy. She would have exclaimed, but M. Paul held her and all the rest in check. +</p> + +<p> +Having surveyed and criticized the whole troop, he turned to me. +</p> + +<p> +“You, too, must be dressed for your part.” +</p> + +<p> +“Dressed—dressed like a man!” exclaimed Zélie St. Pierre, darting forwards; +adding with officiousness, “I will dress her myself.” +</p> + +<p> +To be dressed like a man did not please, and would not suit me. I had consented +to take a man’s name and part; as to his dress—<i>halte là!</i> No. I would +keep my own dress, come what might. M. Paul might storm, might rage: I would +keep my own dress. I said so, with a voice as resolute in intent, as it was +low, and perhaps unsteady in utterance. +</p> + +<p> +He did not immediately storm or rage, as I fully thought he would he stood +silent. But Zélie again interposed. +</p> + +<p> +“She will make a capital <i>petit-mâitre</i>. Here are the garments, all—all +complete: somewhat too large, but—I will arrange all that. Come, chère +amie—belle Anglaise!” +</p> + +<p> +And she sneered, for I was not “belle.” She seized my hand, she was drawing me +away. M. Paul stood impassable—neutral. +</p> + +<p> +“You must not resist,” pursued St. Pierre—for resist I did. “You will spoil +all, destroy the mirth of the piece, the enjoyment of the company, sacrifice +everything to your <i>amour-propre</i>. This would be too bad—monsieur will +never permit this?” +</p> + +<p> +She sought his eye. I watched, likewise, for a glance. He gave her one, and +then he gave me one. “Stop!” he said slowly, arresting St. Pierre, who +continued her efforts to drag me after her. Everybody awaited the decision. He +was not angry, not irritated; I perceived that, and took heart. +</p> + +<p> +“You do not like these clothes?” he asked, pointing to the masculine vestments. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t object to some of them, but I won’t have them all.” +</p> + +<p> +“How must it be, then? How accept a man’s part, and go on the stage dressed as +a woman? This is an amateur affair, it is true—a <i>vaudeville de +pensionnat;</i> certain modifications I might sanction, yet something you must +have to announce you as of the nobler sex.” +</p> + +<p> +“And I will, Monsieur; but it must be arranged in my own way: nobody must +meddle; the things must not be forced upon me. Just let me dress myself.” +</p> + +<p> +Monsieur, without another word, took the costume from St. Pierre, gave it to +me, and permitted me to pass into the dressing-room. Once alone, I grew calm, +and collectedly went to work. Retaining my woman’s garb without the slightest +retrenchment, I merely assumed, in addition, a little vest, a collar, and +cravat, and a paletôt of small dimensions; the whole being the costume of a +brother of one of the pupils. Having loosened my hair out of its braids, made +up the long back-hair close, and brushed the front hair to one side, I took my +hat and gloves in my hand and came out. M. Paul was waiting, and so were the +others. He looked at me. “That may pass in a pensionnat,” he pronounced. Then +added, not unkindly, “Courage, mon ami! Un peu de sangfroid—un peu d’aplomb, M. +Lucien, et tout ira bien.” +</p> + +<p> +St. Pierre sneered again, in her cold snaky manner. +</p> + +<p> +I was irritable, because excited, and I could not help turning upon her and +saying, that if she were not a lady and I a gentleman, I should feel disposed +to call her out. +</p> + +<p> +“After the play, after the play,” said M. Paul. “I will then divide my pair of +pistols between you, and we will settle the dispute according to form: it will +only be the old quarrel of France and England.” +</p> + +<p> +But now the moment approached for the performance to commence. M. Paul, setting +us before him, harangued us briefly, like a general addressing soldiers about +to charge. I don’t know what he said, except that he recommended each to +penetrate herself with a sense of her personal insignificance. God knows I +thought this advice superfluous for some of us. A bell tinkled. I and two more +were ushered on to the stage. The bell tinkled again. I had to speak the very +first words. +</p> + +<p> +“Do not look at the crowd, nor think of it,” whispered M. Paul in my ear. +“Imagine yourself in the garret, acting to the rats.” +</p> + +<p> +He vanished. The curtain drew up—shrivelled to the ceiling: the bright lights, +the long room, the gay throng, burst upon us. I thought of the black-beetles, +the old boxes, the worm-eaten bureau. I said my say badly; but I said it. That +first speech was the difficulty; it revealed to me this fact, that it was not +the crowd I feared so much as my own voice. Foreigners and strangers, the crowd +were nothing to me. Nor did I think of them. When my tongue once got free, and +my voice took its true pitch, and found its natural tone, I thought of nothing +but the personage I represented—and of M. Paul, who was listening, watching, +prompting in the side-scenes. +</p> + +<p> +By-and-by, feeling the right power come—the spring demanded gush and rise +inwardly—I became sufficiently composed to notice my fellow-actors. Some of +them played very well; especially Ginevra Fanshawe, who had to coquette between +two suitors, and managed admirably: in fact she was in her element. I observed +that she once or twice threw a certain marked fondness and pointed partiality +into her manner towards me—the fop. With such emphasis and animation did she +favour me, such glances did she dart out into the listening and applauding +crowd, that to me—who knew her—it presently became evident she was acting +<i>at</i> some one; and I followed her eye, her smile, her gesture, and ere +long discovered that she had at least singled out a handsome and distinguished +aim for her shafts; full in the path of those arrows—taller than other +spectators, and therefore more sure to receive them—stood, in attitude quiet +but intent, a well-known form—that of Dr. John. +</p> + +<p> +The spectacle seemed somehow suggestive. There was language in Dr. John’s look, +though I cannot tell what he said; it animated me: I drew out of it a history; +I put my idea into the part I performed; I threw it into my wooing of Ginevra. +In the “Ours,” or sincere lover, I saw Dr. John. Did I pity him, as erst? No, I +hardened my heart, rivalled and out-rivalled him. I knew myself but a fop, but +where <i>he</i> was outcast <i>I</i> could please. Now I know I acted as if +wishful and resolute to win and conquer. Ginevra seconded me; between us we +half-changed the nature of the <i>rôle</i>, gilding it from top to toe. Between +the acts M. Paul, told us he knew not what possessed us, and half expostulated. +“C’est peut-être plus beau que votre modèle,” said he, “mais ce n’est pas +juste.” I know not what possessed me either; but somehow, my longing was to +eclipse the “Ours,” <i>i.e.</i>, Dr. John. Ginevra was tender; how could I be +otherwise than chivalric? Retaining the letter, I recklessly altered the spirit +of the <i>rôle</i>. Without heart, without interest, I could not play it at +all. It must be played—in went the yearned-for seasoning—thus favoured, I +played it with relish. +</p> + +<p> +What I felt that night, and what I did, I no more expected to feel and do, than +to be lifted in a trance to the seventh heaven. Cold, reluctant, apprehensive, +I had accepted a part to please another: ere long, warming, becoming +interested, taking courage, I acted to please myself. Yet the next day, when I +thought it over, I quite disapproved of these amateur performances; and though +glad that I had obliged M. Paul, and tried my own strength for once, I took a +firm resolution, never to be drawn into a similar affair. A keen relish for +dramatic expression had revealed itself as part of my nature; to cherish and +exercise this new-found faculty might gift me with a world of delight, but it +would not do for a mere looker-on at life: the strength and longing must be put +by; and I put them by, and fastened them in with the lock of a resolution which +neither Time nor Temptation has since picked. +</p> + +<p> +No sooner was the play over, and <i>well</i> over, than the choleric and +arbitrary M. Paul underwent a metamorphosis. His hour of managerial +responsibility past, he at once laid aside his magisterial austerity; in a +moment he stood amongst us, vivacious, kind, and social, shook hands with us +all round, thanked us separately, and announced his determination that each of +us should in turn be his partner in the coming ball. On his claiming my +promise, I told him I did not dance. “For once I must,” was the answer; and if +I had not slipped aside and kept out of his way, he would have compelled me to +this second performance. But I had acted enough for one evening; it was time I +retired into myself and my ordinary life. My dun-coloured dress did well enough +under a paletôt on the stage, but would not suit a waltz or a quadrille. +Withdrawing to a quiet nook, whence unobserved I could observe—the ball, its +splendours and its pleasures, passed before me as a spectacle. +</p> + +<p> +Again Ginevra Fanshawe was the belle, the fairest and the gayest present; she +was selected to open the ball: very lovely she looked, very gracefully she +danced, very joyously she smiled. Such scenes were her triumphs—she was the +child of pleasure. Work or suffering found her listless and dejected, powerless +and repining; but gaiety expanded her butterfly’s wings, lit up their gold-dust +and bright spots, made her flash like a gem, and flush like a flower. At all +ordinary diet and plain beverage she would pout; but she fed on creams and ices +like a humming-bird on honey-paste: sweet wine was her element, and sweet cake +her daily bread. Ginevra lived her full life in a ball-room; elsewhere she +drooped dispirited. +</p> + +<p> +Think not, reader, that she thus bloomed and sparkled for the mere sake of M. +Paul, her partner, or that she lavished her best graces that night for the +edification of her companions only, or for that of the parents and +grand-parents, who filled the carré, and lined the ball-room; under +circumstances so insipid and limited, with motives so chilly and vapid, Ginevra +would scarce have deigned to walk one quadrille, and weariness and fretfulness +would have replaced animation and good-humour, but she knew of a leaven in the +otherwise heavy festal mass which lighted the whole; she tasted a condiment +which gave it zest; she perceived reasons justifying the display of her +choicest attractions. +</p> + +<p> +In the ball-room, indeed, not a single male spectator was to be seen who was +not married and a father—M. Paul excepted—that gentleman, too, being the sole +creature of his sex permitted to lead out a pupil to the dance; and this +exceptional part was allowed him, partly as a matter of old-established custom +(for he was a kinsman of Madame Beck’s, and high in her confidence), partly +because he would always have his own way and do as he pleased, and partly +because—wilful, passionate, partial, as he might be—he was the soul of honour, +and might be trusted with a regiment of the fairest and purest; in perfect +security that under his leadership they would come to no harm. Many of the +girls—it may be noted in parenthesis—were not pure-minded at all, very much +otherwise; but they no more dare betray their natural coarseness in M. Paul’s +presence, than they dare tread purposely on his corns, laugh in his face during +a stormy apostrophe, or speak above their breath while some crisis of +irritability was covering his human visage with the mask of an intelligent +tiger. M. Paul, then, might dance with whom he would—and woe be to the +interference which put him out of step. +</p> + +<p> +Others there were admitted as spectators—with (seeming) reluctance, through +prayers, by influence, under restriction, by special and difficult exercise of +Madame Beck’s gracious good-nature, and whom she all the evening—with her own +personal surveillance—kept far aloof at the remotest, drearest, coldest, +darkest side of the carré—a small, forlorn band of “jeunes gens;” these being +all of the best families, grown-up sons of mothers present, and whose sisters +were pupils in the school. That whole evening was Madame on duty beside these +“jeunes gens”—attentive to them as a mother, but strict with them as a dragon. +There was a sort of cordon stretched before them, which they wearied her with +prayers to be permitted to pass, and just to revive themselves by one dance +with that “belle blonde,” or that “jolie brune,” or “cette jeune fille +magnifique aux cheveux noirs comme le jais.” +</p> + +<p> +“Taisez-vous!” Madame would reply, heroically and inexorably. “Vous ne passerez +pas à moins que ce ne soit sur mon cadavre, et vous ne danserez qu’avec la +nonnette du jardin” (alluding to the legend). And she majestically walked to +and fro along their disconsolate and impatient line, like a little Bonaparte in +a mouse-coloured silk gown. +</p> + +<p> +Madame knew something of the world; Madame knew much of human nature. I don’t +think that another directress in Villette would have dared to admit a “jeune +homme” within her walls; but Madame knew that by granting such admission, on an +occasion like the present, a bold stroke might be struck, and a great point +gained. +</p> + +<p> +In the first place, the parents were made accomplices to the deed, for it was +only through their mediation it was brought about. Secondly: the admission of +these rattlesnakes, so fascinating and so dangerous, served to draw out Madame +precisely in her strongest character—that of a first-rate <i>surveillante</i>. +Thirdly: their presence furnished a most piquant ingredient to the +entertainment: the pupils knew it, and saw it, and the view of such golden +apples shining afar off, animated them with a spirit no other circumstance +could have kindled. The children’s pleasure spread to the parents; life and +mirth circulated quickly round the ball-room; the “jeunes gens” themselves, +though restrained, were amused: for Madame never permitted them to feel +dull—and thus Madame Beck’s fête annually ensured a success unknown to the fête +of any other directress in the land. +</p> + +<p> +I observed that Dr. John was at first permitted to walk at large through the +classes: there was about him a manly, responsible look, that redeemed his +youth, and half-expiated his beauty; but as soon as the ball began, Madame ran +up to him. +</p> + +<p> +“Come, Wolf; come,” said she, laughing: “you wear sheep’s clothing, but you +must quit the fold notwithstanding. Come; I have a fine menagerie of twenty +here in the carré: let me place you amongst my collection.” +</p> + +<p> +“But first suffer me to have one dance with one pupil of my choice.” +</p> + +<p> +“Have you the face to ask such a thing? It is madness: it is impiety. Sortez, +sortez, au plus vite.” +</p> + +<p> +She drove him before her, and soon had him enclosed within the cordon. +</p> + +<p> +Ginevra being, I suppose, tired with dancing, sought me out in my retreat. She +threw herself on the bench beside me, and (a demonstration I could very well +have dispensed with) cast her arms round my neck. +</p> + +<p> +“Lucy Snowe! Lucy Snowe!” she cried in a somewhat sobbing voice, half +hysterical. +</p> + +<p> +“What in the world is the matter?” I drily said. +</p> + +<p> +“How do I look—how do I look to-night?” she demanded. +</p> + +<p> +“As usual,” said I; “preposterously vain.” +</p> + +<p> +“Caustic creature! You never have a kind word for me; but in spite of you, and +all other envious detractors, I know I am beautiful; I feel it, I see it—for +there is a great looking-glass in the dressing-room, where I can view my shape +from head to foot. Will you go with me now, and let us two stand before it?” +</p> + +<p> +“I will, Miss Fanshawe: you shall be humoured even to the top of your bent.” +</p> + +<p> +The dressing-room was very near, and we stepped in. Putting her arm through +mine, she drew me to the mirror. Without resistance remonstrance, or remark, I +stood and let her self-love have its feast and triumph: curious to see how much +it could swallow—whether it was possible it could feed to satiety—whether any +whisper of consideration for others could penetrate her heart, and moderate its +vainglorious exultation. +</p> + +<p> +Not at all. She turned me and herself round; she viewed us both on all sides; +she smiled, she waved her curls, she retouched her sash, she spread her dress, +and finally, letting go my arm, and curtseying with mock respect, she said: “I +would not be you for a kingdom.” +</p> + +<p> +The remark was too <i>naïve</i> to rouse anger; I merely said: “Very good.” +</p> + +<p> +“And what would <i>you</i> give to be ME?” she inquired. +</p> + +<p> +“Not a bad sixpence—strange as it may sound,” I replied. “You are but a poor +creature.” +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t think so in your heart.” +</p> + +<p> +“No; for in my heart you have not the outline of a place: I only occasionally +turn you over in my brain.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, but,” said she, in an expostulatory tone, “just listen to the difference +of our positions, and then see how happy am I, and how miserable are you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Go on; I listen.” +</p> + +<p> +“In the first place: I am the daughter of a gentleman of family, and though my +father is not rich, I have expectations from an uncle. Then, I am just +eighteen, the finest age possible. I have had a continental education, and +though I can’t spell, I have abundant accomplishments. I <i>am</i> pretty; +<i>you</i> can’t deny that; I may have as many admirers as I choose. This very +night I have been breaking the hearts of two gentlemen, and it is the dying +look I had from one of them just now, which puts me in such spirits. I do so +like to watch them turn red and pale, and scowl and dart fiery glances at each +other, and languishing ones at me. There is <i>me</i>—happy ME; now for +<i>you</i>, poor soul! +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose you are nobody’s daughter, since you took care of little children +when you first came to Villette: you have no relations; you can’t call yourself +young at twenty-three; you have no attractive accomplishments—no beauty. As to +admirers, you hardly know what they are; you can’t even talk on the subject: +you sit dumb when the other teachers quote their conquests. I believe you never +were in love, and never will be: you don’t know the feeling, and so much the +better, for though you might have your own heart broken, no living heart will +you ever break. Isn’t it all true?” +</p> + +<p> +“A good deal of it is true as gospel, and shrewd besides. There must be good in +you, Ginevra, to speak so honestly; that snake, Zélie St. Pierre, could not +utter what you have uttered. Still, Miss Fanshawe, hapless as I am, according +to your showing, sixpence I would not give to purchase you, body and soul.” +</p> + +<p> +“Just because I am not clever, and that is all <i>you</i> think of. Nobody in +the world but you cares for cleverness.” +</p> + +<p> +“On the contrary, I consider you <i>are</i> clever, in your way—very smart +indeed. But you were talking of breaking hearts—that edifying amusement into +the merits of which I don’t quite enter; pray on whom does your vanity lead you +to think you have done execution to-night?” +</p> + +<p> +She approached her lips to my ear—“Isidore and Alfred de Hamal are both here,” +she whispered. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! they are? I should like to see them.” +</p> + +<p> +“There’s a dear creature! your curiosity is roused at last. Follow me, I will +point them out.” +</p> + +<p> +She proudly led the way—“But you cannot see them well from the classes,” said +she, turning, “Madame keeps them too far off. Let us cross the garden, enter by +the corridor, and get close to them behind: we shall be scolded if we are seen, +but never mind.” +</p> + +<p> +For once, I did not mind. Through the garden we went—penetrated into the +corridor by a quiet private entrance, and approaching the <i>carré</i>, yet +keeping in the corridor shade, commanded a near view of the band of “jeunes +gens.” +</p> + +<p> +I believe I could have picked out the conquering de Hamal even undirected. He +was a straight-nosed, very correct-featured little dandy. I say <i>little</i> +dandy, though he was not beneath the middle standard in stature; but his +lineaments were small, and so were his hands and feet; and he was pretty and +smooth, and as trim as a doll: so nicely dressed, so nicely curled, so booted +and gloved and cravated—he was charming indeed. I said so. “What, a dear +personage!” cried I, and commended Ginevra’s taste warmly; and asked her what +she thought de Hamal might have done with the precious fragments of that heart +she had broken—whether he kept them in a scent-vial, and conserved them in otto +of roses? I observed, too, with deep rapture of approbation, that the colonel’s +hands were scarce larger than Miss Fanshawe’s own, and suggested that this +circumstance might be convenient, as he could wear her gloves at a pinch. On +his dear curls, I told her I doated: and as to his low, Grecian brow, and +exquisite classic headpiece, I confessed I had no language to do such +perfections justice. +</p> + +<p> +“And if he were your lover?” suggested the cruelly exultant Ginevra. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! heavens, what bliss!” said I; “but do not be inhuman, Miss Fanshawe: to +put such thoughts into my head is like showing poor outcast Cain a far, glimpse +of Paradise.” +</p> + +<p> +“You like him, then?” +</p> + +<p> +“As I like sweets, and jams, and comfits, and conservatory flowers.” +</p> + +<p> +Ginevra admired my taste, for all these things were her adoration; she could +then readily credit that they were mine too. +</p> + +<p> +“Now for Isidore,” I went on. I own I felt still more curious to see him than +his rival; but Ginevra was absorbed in the latter. +</p> + +<p> +“Alfred was admitted here to-night,” said she, “through the influence of his +aunt, Madame la Baronne de Dorlodot; and now, having seen him, can you not +understand why I have been in such spirits all the evening, and acted so well, +and danced with such life, and why I am now happy as a queen? Dieu! Dieu! It +was such good fun to glance first at him and then at the other, and madden them +both.” +</p> + +<p> +“But that other—where is he? Show me Isidore.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t like.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why not?” +</p> + +<p> +“I am ashamed of him.” +</p> + +<p> +“For what reason?” +</p> + +<p> +“Because—because” (in a whisper) “he has such—such whiskers, orange—red—there +now!” +</p> + +<p> +“The murder is out,” I subjoined. “Never mind, show him all the same; I engage +not to faint.” +</p> + +<p> +She looked round. Just then an English voice spoke behind her and me. +</p> + +<p> +“You are both standing in a draught; you must leave this corridor.” +</p> + +<p> +“There is no draught, Dr. John,” said I, turning. +</p> + +<p> +“She takes cold so easily,” he pursued, looking at Ginevra with extreme +kindness. “She is delicate; she must be cared for: fetch her a shawl.” +</p> + +<p> +“Permit me to judge for myself,” said Miss Fanshawe, with hauteur. “I want no +shawl.” +</p> + +<p> +“Your dress is thin, you have been dancing, you are heated.” +</p> + +<p> +“Always preaching,” retorted she; “always coddling and admonishing.” +</p> + +<p> +The answer Dr. John would have given did not come; that his heart was hurt +became evident in his eye; darkened, and saddened, and pained, he turned a +little aside, but was patient. I knew where there were plenty of shawls near at +hand; I ran and fetched one. +</p> + +<p> +“She shall wear this, if I have strength to make her,” said I, folding it well +round her muslin dress, covering carefully her neck and her arms. “Is that +Isidore?” I asked, in a somewhat fierce whisper. +</p> + +<p> +She pushed up her lip, smiled, and nodded. +</p> + +<p> +“Is <i>that</i> Isidore?” I repeated, giving her a shake: I could have given +her a dozen. +</p> + +<p> +“C’est lui-même,” said she. “How coarse he is, compared with the Colonel-Count! +And then—oh ciel!—the whiskers!” +</p> + +<p> +Dr. John now passed on. +</p> + +<p> +“The Colonel-Count!” I echoed. “The doll—the puppet—the manikin—the poor +inferior creature! A mere lackey for Dr. John his valet, his foot-boy! Is it +possible that fine generous gentleman—handsome as a vision—offers you his +honourable hand and gallant heart, and promises to protect your flimsy person +and feckless mind through the storms and struggles of life—and you hang +back—you scorn, you sting, you torture him! Have you power to do this? Who gave +you that power? Where is it? Does it lie all in your beauty—your pink and white +complexion, and your yellow hair? Does this bind his soul at your feet, and +bend his neck under your yoke? Does this purchase for you his affection, his +tenderness, his thoughts, his hopes, his interest, his noble, cordial love—and +will you not have it? Do you scorn it? You are only dissembling: you are not in +earnest: you love him; you long for him; but you trifle with his heart to make +him more surely yours?” +</p> + +<p> +“Bah! How you run on! I don’t understand half you have said.” +</p> + +<p> +I had got her out into the garden ere this. I now set her down on a seat and +told her she should not stir till she had avowed which she meant in the end to +accept—the man or the monkey. +</p> + +<p> +“Him you call the man,” said she, “is bourgeois, sandy-haired, and answers to +the name of John!—cela suffit: je n’en veux pas. Colonel de Hamal is a +gentleman of excellent connections, perfect manners, sweet appearance, with +pale interesting face, and hair and eyes like an Italian. Then too he is the +most delightful company possible—a man quite in my way; not sensible and +serious like the other; but one with whom I can talk on equal terms—who does +not plague and bore, and harass me with depths, and heights, and passions, and +talents for which I have no taste. There now. Don’t hold me so fast.” +</p> + +<p> +I slackened my grasp, and she darted off. I did not care to pursue her. +</p> + +<p> +Somehow I could not avoid returning once more in the direction of the corridor +to get another glimpse of Dr. John; but I met him on the garden-steps, standing +where the light from a window fell broad. His well-proportioned figure was not +to be mistaken, for I doubt whether there was another in that assemblage his +equal. He carried his hat in his hand; his uncovered head, his face and fine +brow were most handsome and manly. <i>His</i> features were not delicate, not +slight like those of a woman, nor were they cold, frivolous, and feeble; though +well cut, they were not so chiselled, so frittered away, as to lose in +expression or significance what they gained in unmeaning symmetry. Much feeling +spoke in them at times, and more sat silent in his eye. Such at least were my +thoughts of him: to me he seemed all this. An inexpressible sense of wonder +occupied me, as I looked at this man, and reflected that <i>he</i> could not be +slighted. +</p> + +<p> +It was, not my intention to approach or address him in the garden, our terms of +acquaintance not warranting such a step; I had only meant to view him in the +crowd—myself unseen: coming upon him thus alone, I withdrew. But he was looking +out for me, or rather for her who had been with me: therefore he descended the +steps, and followed me down the alley. +</p> + +<p> +“You know Miss Fanshawe? I have often wished to ask whether you knew her,” said +he. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes: I know her.” +</p> + +<p> +“Intimately?” +</p> + +<p> +“Quite as intimately as I wish.” +</p> + +<p> +“What have you done with her now?” +</p> + +<p> +“Am I her keeper?” I felt inclined to ask; but I simply answered, “I have +shaken her well, and would have shaken her better, but she escaped out of my +hands and ran away.” +</p> + +<p> +“Would you favour me,” he asked, “by watching over her this one evening, and +observing that she does nothing imprudent—does not, for instance, run out into +the night-air immediately after dancing?” +</p> + +<p> +“I may, perhaps, look after her a little; since you wish it; but she likes her +own way too well to submit readily to control.” +</p> + +<p> +“She is so young, so thoroughly artless,” said he. +</p> + +<p> +“To me she is an enigma,” I responded. +</p> + +<p> +“Is she?” he asked—much interested. “How?” +</p> + +<p> +“It would be difficult to say how—difficult, at least, to tell <i>you</i> how.” +</p> + +<p> +“And why me?” +</p> + +<p> +“I wonder she is not better pleased that you are so much her friend.” +</p> + +<p> +“But she has not the slightest idea how much I <i>am</i> her friend. That is +precisely the point I cannot teach her. May I inquire did she ever speak of me +to you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Under the name of ‘Isidore’ she has talked about you often; but I must add +that it is only within the last ten minutes I have discovered that you and +‘Isidore’ are identical. It is only, Dr. John, within that brief space of time +I have learned that Ginevra Fanshawe is the person, under this roof, in whom +you have long been interested—that she is the magnet which attracts you to the +Rue Fossette, that for her sake you venture into this garden, and seek out +caskets dropped by rivals.” +</p> + +<p> +“You know all?” +</p> + +<p> +“I know so much.” +</p> + +<p> +“For more than a year I have been accustomed to meet her in society. Mrs. +Cholmondeley, her friend, is an acquaintance of mine; thus I see her every +Sunday. But you observed that under the name of ‘Isidore’ she often spoke of +me: may I—without inviting you to a breach of confidence—inquire what was the +tone, what the feeling of her remarks? I feel somewhat anxious to know, being a +little tormented with uncertainty as to how I stand with her.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, she varies: she shifts and changes like the wind.” +</p> + +<p> +“Still, you can gather some general idea—?” +</p> + +<p> +“I can,” thought I, “but it would not do to communicate that general idea to +you. Besides, if I said she did not love you, I know you would not believe me.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are silent,” he pursued. “I suppose you have no good news to impart. No +matter. If she feels for me positive coldness and aversion, it is a sign I do +not deserve her.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you doubt yourself? Do you consider yourself the inferior of Colonel de +Hamal?” +</p> + +<p> +“I love Miss Fanshawe far more than de Hamal loves any human being, and would +care for and guard her better than he. Respecting de Hamal, I fear she is under +an illusion; the man’s character is known to me, all his antecedents, all his +scrapes. He is not worthy of your beautiful young friend.” +</p> + +<p> +“My ‘beautiful young friend’ ought to know that, and to know or feel who is +worthy of her,” said I. “If her beauty or her brains will not serve her so far, +she merits the sharp lesson of experience.” +</p> + +<p> +“Are you not a little severe?” +</p> + +<p> +“I am excessively severe—more severe than I choose to show you. You should hear +the strictures with which I favour my ‘beautiful young friend,’ only that you +would be unutterably shocked at my want of tender considerateness for her +delicate nature.” +</p> + +<p> +“She is so lovely, one cannot but be loving towards her. You—every woman older +than herself, must feel for such a simple, innocent, girlish fairy a sort of +motherly or elder-sisterly fondness. Graceful angel! Does not your heart yearn +towards her when she pours into your ear her pure, childlike confidences? How +you are privileged!” And he sighed. +</p> + +<p> +“I cut short these confidences somewhat abruptly now and then,” said I. “But +excuse me, Dr. John, may I change the theme for one instant? What a god-like +person is that de Hamal! What a nose on his face—perfect! Model one in putty or +clay, you could not make a better or straighter, or neater; and then, such +classic lips and chin—and his bearing—sublime.” +</p> + +<p> +“De Hamal is an unutterable puppy, besides being a very white-livered hero.” +</p> + +<p> +“You, Dr. John, and every man of a less-refined mould than he, must feel for +him a sort of admiring affection, such as Mars and the coarser deities may be +supposed to have borne the young, graceful Apollo.” +</p> + +<p> +“An unprincipled, gambling little jackanapes!” said Dr. John curtly, “whom, +with one hand, I could lift up by the waistband any day, and lay low in the +kennel if I liked.” +</p> + +<p> +“The sweet seraph!” said I. “What a cruel idea! Are you not a little severe, +Dr. John?” +</p> + +<p> +And now I paused. For the second time that night I was going beyond +myself—venturing out of what I looked on as my natural habits—speaking in an +unpremeditated, impulsive strain, which startled me strangely when I halted to +reflect. On rising that morning, had I anticipated that before night I should +have acted the part of a gay lover in a vaudeville; and an hour after, frankly +discussed with Dr. John the question of his hapless suit, and rallied him on +his illusions? I had no more presaged such feats than I had looked forward to +an ascent in a balloon, or a voyage to Cape Horn. +</p> + +<p> +The Doctor and I, having paced down the walk, were now returning; the reflex +from the window again lit his face: he smiled, but his eye was melancholy. How +I wished that he could feel heart’s-ease! How I grieved that he brooded over +pain, and pain from such a cause! He, with his great advantages, <i>he</i> to +love in vain! I did not then know that the pensiveness of reverse is the best +phase for some minds; nor did I reflect that some herbs, “though scentless when +entire, yield fragrance when they’re bruised.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do not be sorrowful, do not grieve,” I broke out. “If there is in Ginevra one +spark of worthiness of your affection, she will—she <i>must</i> feel devotion +in return. Be cheerful, be hopeful, Dr. John. Who should hope, if not you?” +</p> + +<p> +In return for this speech I got—what, it must be supposed, I deserved—a look of +surprise: I thought also of some disapprobation. We parted, and I went into the +house very chill. The clocks struck and the bells tolled midnight; people were +leaving fast: the fête was over; the lamps were fading. In another hour all the +dwelling-house, and all the pensionnat, were dark and hushed. I too was in bed, +but not asleep. To me it was not easy to sleep after a day of such excitement. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap15"></a>CHAPTER XV.<br/> +THE LONG VACATION.</h2> + +<p> +Following Madame Beck’s fête, with its three preceding weeks of relaxation, its +brief twelve hours’ burst of hilarity and dissipation, and its one subsequent +day of utter languor, came a period of reaction; two months of real +application, of close, hard study. These two months, being the last of the +“année scolaire,” were indeed the only genuine working months in the year. To +them was procrastinated—into them concentrated, alike by professors, +mistresses, and pupils—the main burden of preparation for the examinations +preceding the distribution of prizes. Candidates for rewards had then to work +in good earnest; masters and teachers had to set their shoulders to the wheel, +to urge on the backward, and diligently aid and train the more promising. A +showy demonstration—a telling exhibition—must be got up for public view, and +all means were fair to this end. +</p> + +<p> +I scarcely noted how the other teachers went to work; I had my own business to +mind; and <i>my</i> task was not the least onerous, being to imbue some ninety +sets of brains with a due tincture of what they considered a most complicated +and difficult science, that of the English language; and to drill ninety +tongues in what, for them, was an almost impossible pronunciation—the lisping +and hissing dentals of the Isles. +</p> + +<p> +The examination-day arrived. Awful day! Prepared for with anxious care, dressed +for with silent despatch—nothing vaporous or fluttering now—no white gauze or +azure streamers; the grave, close, compact was the order of the toilette. It +seemed to me that I was this day, especially doomed—the main burden and trial +falling on me alone of all the female teachers. The others were not expected to +examine in the studies they taught; the professor of literature, M. Paul, +taking upon himself this duty. He, this school autocrat, gathered all and +sundry reins into the hollow of his one hand; he irefully rejected any +colleague; he would not have help. Madame herself, who evidently rather wished +to undertake the examination in geography—her favourite study, which she taught +well—was forced to succumb, and be subordinate to her despotic kinsman’s +direction. The whole staff of instructors, male and female, he set aside, and +stood on the examiner’s estrade alone. It irked him that he was forced to make +one exception to this rule. He could not manage English: he was obliged to +leave that branch of education in the English teacher’s hands; which he did, +not without a flash of naïve jealousy. +</p> + +<p> +A constant crusade against the “amour-propre” of every human being but himself, +was the crotchet of this able, but fiery and grasping little man. He had a +strong relish for public representation in his own person, but an extreme +abhorrence of the like display in any other. He quelled, he kept down when he +could; and when he could not, he fumed like a bottled storm. +</p> + +<p> +On the evening preceding the examination-day, I was walking in the garden, as +were the other teachers and all the boarders. M. Emanuel joined me in the +“allée défendue;” his cigar was at his lips; his paletôt—a most characteristic +garment of no particular shape—hung dark and menacing; the tassel of his bonnet +grec sternly shadowed his left temple; his black whiskers curled like those of +a wrathful cat; his blue eye had a cloud in its glitter. +</p> + +<p> +“Ainsi,” he began, abruptly fronting and arresting me, “vous allez trôner comme +une reine; demain—trôner à mes côtés? Sans doute vous savourez d’avance les +délices de l’autorité. Je crois voir en je ne sais quoi de rayonnante, petite +ambitieuse!” +</p> + +<p> +Now the fact was, he happened to be entirely mistaken. I did not—could +not—estimate the admiration or the good opinion of tomorrow’s audience at the +same rate he did. Had that audience numbered as many personal friends and +acquaintance for me as for him, I know not how it might have been: I speak of +the case as it stood. On me school-triumphs shed but a cold lustre. I had +wondered—and I wondered now—how it was that for him they seemed to shine as +with hearth-warmth and hearth-glow. <i>He</i> cared for them perhaps too much; +<i>I</i>, probably, too little. However, I had my own fancies as well as he. I +liked, for instance, to see M. Emanuel jealous; it lit up his nature, and woke +his spirit; it threw all sorts of queer lights and shadows over his dun face, +and into his violet-azure eyes (he used to say that his black hair and blue +eyes were “une de ses beautés”). There was a relish in his anger; it was +artless, earnest, quite unreasonable, but never hypocritical. I uttered no +disclaimer then of the complacency he attributed to me; I merely asked where +the English examination came in—whether at the commencement or close of the +day? +</p> + +<p> +“I hesitate,” said he, “whether at the very beginning, before many persons are +come, and when your aspiring nature will not be gratified by a large audience, +or quite at the close, when everybody is tired, and only a jaded and worn-out +attention will be at your service.” +</p> + +<p> +“Que vous êtes dur, Monsieur!” I said, affecting dejection. +</p> + +<p> +“One ought to be ‘dur’ with you. You are one of those beings who must be +<i>kept down</i>. I know you! I know you! Other people in this house see you +pass, and think that a colourless shadow has gone by. As for me, I scrutinized +your face once, and it sufficed.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are satisfied that you understand me?” +</p> + +<p> +Without answering directly, he went on, “Were you not gratified when you +succeeded in that vaudeville? I watched you and saw a passionate ardour for +triumph in your physiognomy. What fire shot into the glance! Not mere light, +but flame: je me tiens pour averti.” +</p> + +<p> +“What feeling I had on that occasion, Monsieur—and pardon me, if I say, you +immensely exaggerate both its quality and quantity—was quite abstract. I did +not care for the vaudeville. I hated the part you assigned me. I had not the +slightest sympathy with the audience below the stage. They are good people, +doubtless, but do I know them? Are they anything to me? Can I care for being +brought before their view again to-morrow? Will the examination be anything but +a task to me—a task I wish well over?” +</p> + +<p> +“Shall I take it out of your hands?” +</p> + +<p> +“With all my heart; if you do not fear failure.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I should fail. I only know three phrases of English, and a few words: par +exemple, de sonn, de mone, de stare—est-ce bien dit? My opinion is that it +would be better to give up the thing altogether: to have no English +examination, eh?” +</p> + +<p> +“If Madame consents, I consent.” +</p> + +<p> +“Heartily?” +</p> + +<p> +“Very heartily.” +</p> + +<p> +He smoked his cigar in silence. He turned suddenly. +</p> + +<p> +“Donnez-moi la main,” said he, and the spite and jealousy melted out of his +face, and a generous kindliness shone there instead. +</p> + +<p> +“Come, we will not be rivals, we will be friends,” he pursued. “The examination +shall take place, and I will choose a good moment; and instead of vexing and +hindering, as I felt half-inclined ten minutes ago—for I have my malevolent +moods: I always had from childhood—I will aid you sincerely. After all, you are +solitary and a stranger, and have your way to make and your bread to earn; it +may be well that you should become known. We will be friends: do you agree?” +</p> + +<p> +“Out of my heart, Monsieur. I am glad of a friend. I like that better than a +triumph.” +</p> + +<p> +“Pauvrette!” said he, and turned away and left the alley. +</p> + +<p> +The examination passed over well; M. Paul was as good as his word, and did his +best to make my part easy. The next day came the distribution of prizes; that +also passed; the school broke up; the pupils went home, and now began the long +vacation. +</p> + +<p> +That vacation! Shall I ever forget it? I think not. Madame Beck went, the first +day of the holidays, to join her children at the sea-side; all the three +teachers had parents or friends with whom they took refuge; every professor +quitted the city; some went to Paris, some to Boue-Marine; M. Paul set forth on +a pilgrimage to Rome; the house was left quite empty, but for me, a servant, +and a poor deformed and imbecile pupil, a sort of crétin, whom her stepmother +in a distant province would not allow to return home. +</p> + +<p> +My heart almost died within me; miserable longings strained its chords. How +long were the September days! How silent, how lifeless! How vast and void +seemed the desolate premises! How gloomy the forsaken garden—grey now with the +dust of a town summer departed. Looking forward at the commencement of those +eight weeks, I hardly knew how I was to live to the end. My spirits had long +been gradually sinking; now that the prop of employment was withdrawn, they +went down fast. Even to look forward was not to hope: the dumb future spoke no +comfort, offered no promise, gave no inducement to bear present evil in +reliance on future good. A sorrowful indifference to existence often pressed on +me—a despairing resignation to reach betimes the end of all things earthly. +Alas! When I had full leisure to look on life as life must be looked on by such +as me, I found it but a hopeless desert: tawny sands, with no green fields, no +palm-tree, no well in view. The hopes which are dear to youth, which bear it up +and lead it on, I knew not and dared not know. If they knocked at my heart +sometimes, an inhospitable bar to admission must be inwardly drawn. When they +turned away thus rejected, tears sad enough sometimes flowed: but it could not +be helped: I dared not give such guests lodging. So mortally did I fear the sin +and weakness of presumption. +</p> + +<p> +Religious reader, you will preach to me a long sermon about what I have just +written, and so will you, moralist: and you, stern sage: you, stoic, will +frown; you, cynic, sneer; you, epicure, laugh. Well, each and all, take it your +own way. I accept the sermon, frown, sneer, and laugh; perhaps you are all +right: and perhaps, circumstanced like me, you would have been, like me, wrong. +The first month was, indeed, a long, black, heavy month to me. +</p> + +<p> +The crétin did not seem unhappy. I did my best to feed her well and keep her +warm, and she only asked food and sunshine, or when that lacked, fire. Her weak +faculties approved of inertion: her brain, her eyes, her ears, her heart slept +content; they could not wake to work, so lethargy was their Paradise. +</p> + +<p> +Three weeks of that vacation were hot, fair, and dry, but the fourth and fifth +were tempestuous and wet. I do not know why that change in the atmosphere made +a cruel impression on me, why the raging storm and beating rain crushed me with +a deadlier paralysis than I had experienced while the air had remained serene; +but so it was; and my nervous system could hardly support what it had for many +days and nights to undergo in that huge empty house. How I used to pray to +Heaven for consolation and support! With what dread force the conviction would +grasp me that Fate was my permanent foe, never to be conciliated. I did not, in +my heart, arraign the mercy or justice of God for this; I concluded it to be a +part of his great plan that some must deeply suffer while they live, and I +thrilled in the certainty that of this number, I was one. +</p> + +<p> +It was some relief when an aunt of the crétin, a kind old woman, came one day, +and took away my strange, deformed companion. The hapless creature had been at +times a heavy charge; I could not take her out beyond the garden, and I could +not leave her a minute alone: for her poor mind, like her body, was warped: its +propensity was to evil. A vague bent to mischief, an aimless malevolence, made +constant vigilance indispensable. As she very rarely spoke, and would sit for +hours together moping and mowing, and distorting her features with +indescribable grimaces, it was more like being prisoned with some strange +tameless animal, than associating with a human being. Then there were personal +attentions to be rendered which required the nerve of a hospital nurse; my +resolution was so tried, it sometimes fell dead-sick. These duties should not +have fallen on me; a servant, now absent, had rendered them hitherto, and in +the hurry of holiday departure, no substitute to fill this office had been +provided. This tax and trial were by no means the least I have known in life. +Still, menial and distasteful as they were, my mental pain was far more wasting +and wearing. Attendance on the crétin deprived me often of the power and +inclination to swallow a meal, and sent me faint to the fresh air, and the well +or fountain in the court; but this duty never wrung my heart, or brimmed my +eyes, or scalded my cheek with tears hot as molten metal. +</p> + +<p> +The crétin being gone, I was free to walk out. At first I lacked courage to +venture very far from the Rue Fossette, but by degrees I sought the city gates, +and passed them, and then went wandering away far along chaussées, through +fields, beyond cemeteries, Catholic and Protestant, beyond farmsteads, to lanes +and little woods, and I know not where. A goad thrust me on, a fever forbade me +to rest; a want of companionship maintained in my soul the cravings of a most +deadly famine. I often walked all day, through the burning noon and the arid +afternoon, and the dusk evening, and came back with moonrise. +</p> + +<p> +While wandering in solitude, I would sometimes picture the present probable +position of others, my acquaintance. There was Madame Beck at a cheerful +watering-place with her children, her mother, and a whole troop of friends who +had sought the same scene of relaxation. Zélie St. Pierre was at Paris, with +her relatives; the other teachers were at their homes. There was Ginevra +Fanshawe, whom certain of her connections had carried on a pleasant tour +southward. Ginevra seemed to me the happiest. She was on the route of beautiful +scenery; these September suns shone for her on fertile plains, where harvest +and vintage matured under their mellow beam. These gold and crystal moons rose +on her vision over blue horizons waved in mounted lines. +</p> + +<p> +But all this was nothing; I too felt those autumn suns and saw those harvest +moons, and I almost wished to be covered in with earth and turf, deep out of +their influence; for I could not live in their light, nor make them comrades, +nor yield them affection. But Ginevra had a kind of spirit with her, empowered +to give constant strength and comfort, to gladden daylight and embalm darkness; +the best of the good genii that guard humanity curtained her with his wings, +and canopied her head with his bending form. By True Love was Ginevra followed: +never could she be alone. Was she insensible to this presence? It seemed to me +impossible: I could not realize such deadness. I imagined her grateful in +secret, loving now with reserve; but purposing one day to show how much she +loved: I pictured her faithful hero half conscious of her coy fondness, and +comforted by that consciousness: I conceived an electric chord of sympathy +between them, a fine chain of mutual understanding, sustaining union through a +separation of a hundred leagues—carrying, across mound and hollow, +communication by prayer and wish. Ginevra gradually became with me a sort of +heroine. One day, perceiving this growing illusion, I said, “I really believe +my nerves are getting overstretched: my mind has suffered somewhat too much a +malady is growing upon it—what shall I do? How shall I keep well?” +</p> + +<p> +Indeed there was no way to keep well under the circumstances. At last a day and +night of peculiarly agonizing depression were succeeded by physical illness, I +took perforce to my bed. About this time the Indian summer closed and the +equinoctial storms began; and for nine dark and wet days, of which the hours +rushed on all turbulent, deaf, dishevelled—bewildered with sounding hurricane—I +lay in a strange fever of the nerves and blood. Sleep went quite away. I used +to rise in the night, look round for her, beseech her earnestly to return. A +rattle of the window, a cry of the blast only replied—Sleep never came! +</p> + +<p> +I err. She came once, but in anger. Impatient of my importunity she brought +with her an avenging dream. By the clock of St. Jean Baptiste, that dream +remained scarce fifteen minutes—a brief space, but sufficing to wring my whole +frame with unknown anguish; to confer a nameless experience that had the hue, +the mien, the terror, the very tone of a visitation from eternity. Between +twelve and one that night a cup was forced to my lips, black, strong, strange, +drawn from no well, but filled up seething from a bottomless and boundless sea. +Suffering, brewed in temporal or calculable measure, and mixed for mortal lips, +tastes not as this suffering tasted. Having drank and woke, I thought all was +over: the end come and past by. Trembling fearfully—as consciousness +returned—ready to cry out on some fellow-creature to help me, only that I knew +no fellow-creature was near enough to catch the wild summons—Goton in her far +distant attic could not hear—I rose on my knees in bed. Some fearful hours went +over me: indescribably was I torn, racked and oppressed in mind. Amidst the +horrors of that dream I think the worst lay here. Methought the well-loved +dead, who had loved <i>me</i> well in life, met me elsewhere, alienated: galled +was my inmost spirit with an unutterable sense of despair about the future. +Motive there was none why I should try to recover or wish to live; and yet +quite unendurable was the pitiless and haughty voice in which Death challenged +me to engage his unknown terrors. When I tried to pray I could only utter these +words: “From my youth up Thy terrors have I suffered with a troubled mind.” +</p> + +<p> +Most true was it. +</p> + +<p> +On bringing me my tea next morning Goton urged me to call in a doctor. I would +not: I thought no doctor could cure me. +</p> + +<p> +One evening—and I was not delirious: I was in my sane mind, I got up—I dressed +myself, weak and shaking. The solitude and the stillness of the long dormitory +could not be borne any longer; the ghastly white beds were turning into +spectres—the coronal of each became a death’s-head, huge and sun-bleached—dead +dreams of an elder world and mightier race lay frozen in their wide gaping +eyeholes. That evening more firmly than ever fastened into my soul the +conviction that Fate was of stone, and Hope a false idol—blind, bloodless, and +of granite core. I felt, too, that the trial God had appointed me was gaining +its climax, and must now be turned by my own hands, hot, feeble, trembling as +they were. It rained still, and blew; but with more clemency, I thought, than +it had poured and raged all day. Twilight was falling, and I deemed its +influence pitiful; from the lattice I saw coming night-clouds trailing low like +banners drooping. It seemed to me that at this hour there was affection and +sorrow in Heaven above for all pain suffered on earth beneath; the weight of my +dreadful dream became alleviated—that insufferable thought of being no more +loved—no more owned, half-yielded to hope of the contrary—I was sure this hope +would shine clearer if I got out from under this house-roof, which was crushing +as the slab of a tomb, and went outside the city to a certain quiet hill, a +long way distant in the fields. Covered with a cloak (I could not be delirious, +for I had sense and recollection to put on warm clothing), forth I set. The +bells of a church arrested me in passing; they seemed to call me in to the +<i>salut</i>, and I went in. Any solemn rite, any spectacle of sincere worship, +any opening for appeal to God was as welcome to me then as bread to one in +extremity of want. I knelt down with others on the stone pavement. It was an +old solemn church, its pervading gloom not gilded but purpled by light shed +through stained glass. +</p> + +<p> +Few worshippers were assembled, and, the <i>salut</i> over, half of them +departed. I discovered soon that those left remained to confess. I did not +stir. Carefully every door of the church was shut; a holy quiet sank upon, and +a solemn shade gathered about us. After a space, breathless and spent in +prayer, a penitent approached the confessional. I watched. She whispered her +avowal; her shrift was whispered back; she returned consoled. Another went, and +another. A pale lady, kneeling near me, said in a low, kind voice:—“Go you now, +I am not quite prepared.” +</p> + +<p> +Mechanically obedient, I rose and went. I knew what I was about; my mind had +run over the intent with lightning-speed. To take this step could not make me +more wretched than I was; it might soothe me. +</p> + +<p> +The priest within the confessional never turned his eyes to regard me; he only +quietly inclined his ear to my lips. He might be a good man, but this duty had +become to him a sort of form: he went through it with the phlegm of custom. I +hesitated; of the formula of confession I was ignorant: instead of commencing, +then, with the prelude usual, I said:—“Mon père, je suis Protestante.” +</p> + +<p> +He directly turned. He was not a native priest: of that class, the cast of +physiognomy is, almost invariably, grovelling: I saw by his profile and brow he +was a Frenchman; though grey and advanced in years, he did not, I think, lack +feeling or intelligence. He inquired, not unkindly, why, being a Protestant, I +came to him? +</p> + +<p> +I said I was perishing for a word of advice or an accent of comfort. I had been +living for some weeks quite alone; I had been ill; I had a pressure of +affliction on my mind of which it would hardly any longer endure the weight. +</p> + +<p> +“Was it a sin, a crime?” he inquired, somewhat startled. I reassured him on +this point, and, as well as I could, I showed him the mere outline of my +experience. +</p> + +<p> +He looked thoughtful, surprised, puzzled. “You take me unawares,” said he. “I +have not had such a case as yours before: ordinarily we know our routine, and +are prepared; but this makes a great break in the common course of confession. +I am hardly furnished with counsel fitting the circumstances.” +</p> + +<p> +Of course, I had not expected he would be; but the mere relief of communication +in an ear which was human and sentient, yet consecrated—the mere pouring out of +some portion of long accumulating, long pent-up pain into a vessel whence it +could not be again diffused—had done me good. I was already solaced. +</p> + +<p> +“Must I go, father?” I asked of him as he sat silent. +</p> + +<p> +“My daughter,” he said kindly—and I am sure he was a kind man: he had a +compassionate eye—“for the present you had better go: but I assure you your +words have struck me. Confession, like other things, is apt to become formal +and trivial with habit. You have come and poured your heart out; a thing seldom +done. I would fain think your case over, and take it with me to my oratory. +Were you of our faith I should know what to say—a mind so tossed can find +repose but in the bosom of retreat, and the punctual practice of piety. The +world, it is well known, has no satisfaction for that class of natures. Holy +men have bidden penitents like you to hasten their path upward by penance, +self-denial, and difficult good works. Tears are given them here for meat and +drink—bread of affliction and waters of affliction—their recompence comes +hereafter. It is my own conviction that these impressions under which you are +smarting are messengers from God to bring you back to the true Church. You were +made for our faith: depend upon it our faith alone could heal and help +you—Protestantism is altogether too dry, cold, prosaic for you. The further I +look into this matter, the more plainly I see it is entirely out of the common +order of things. On no account would I lose sight of you. Go, my daughter, for +the present; but return to me again.” +</p> + +<p> +I rose and thanked him. I was withdrawing when he signed me to return. +</p> + +<p> +“You must not come to this church,” said he: “I see you are ill, and this +church is too cold; you must come to my house: I live——” (and he gave me his +address). “Be there to-morrow morning at ten.” +</p> + +<p> +In reply to this appointment, I only bowed; and pulling down my veil, and +gathering round me my cloak, I glided away. +</p> + +<p> +Did I, do you suppose, reader, contemplate venturing again within that worthy +priest’s reach? As soon should I have thought of walking into a Babylonish +furnace. That priest had arms which could influence me: he was naturally kind, +with a sentimental French kindness, to whose softness I knew myself not wholly +impervious. Without respecting some sorts of affection, there was hardly any +sort having a fibre of root in reality, which I could rely on my force wholly +to withstand. Had I gone to him, he would have shown me all that was tender, +and comforting, and gentle, in the honest Popish superstition. Then he would +have tried to kindle, blow and stir up in me the zeal of good works. I know not +how it would all have ended. We all think ourselves strong in some points; we +all know ourselves weak in many; the probabilities are that had I visited +Numero 10, Rue des Mages, at the hour and day appointed, I might just now, +instead of writing this heretic narrative, be counting my beads in the cell of +a certain Carmelite convent on the Boulevard of Crécy, in Villette. There was +something of Fénélon about that benign old priest; and whatever most of his +brethren may be, and whatever I may think of his Church and creed (and I like +neither), of himself I must ever retain a grateful recollection. He was kind +when I needed kindness; he did me good. May Heaven bless him! +</p> + +<p> +Twilight had passed into night, and the lamps were lit in the streets ere I +issued from that sombre church. To turn back was now become possible to me; the +wild longing to breathe this October wind on the little hill far without the +city walls had ceased to be an imperative impulse, and was softened into a wish +with which Reason could cope: she put it down, and I turned, as I thought, to +the Rue Fossette. But I had become involved in a part of the city with which I +was not familiar; it was the old part, and full of narrow streets of +picturesque, ancient, and mouldering houses. I was much too weak to be very +collected, and I was still too careless of my own welfare and safety to be +cautious; I grew embarrassed; I got immeshed in a network of turns unknown. I +was lost and had no resolution to ask guidance of any passenger. +</p> + +<p> +If the storm had lulled a little at sunset, it made up now for lost time. +Strong and horizontal thundered the current of the wind from north-west to +south-east; it brought rain like spray, and sometimes a sharp hail, like shot: +it was cold and pierced me to the vitals. I bent my head to meet it, but it +beat me back. My heart did not fail at all in this conflict; I only wished that +I had wings and could ascend the gale, spread and repose my pinions on its +strength, career in its course, sweep where it swept. While wishing this, I +suddenly felt colder where before I was cold, and more powerless where before I +was weak. I tried to reach the porch of a great building near, but the mass of +frontage and the giant spire turned black and vanished from my eyes. Instead of +sinking on the steps as I intended, I seemed to pitch headlong down an abyss. I +remember no more. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap16"></a>CHAPTER XVI.<br/> +AULD LANG SYNE.</h2> + +<p> +Where my soul went during that swoon I cannot tell. Whatever she saw, or +wherever she travelled in her trance on that strange night she kept her own +secret; never whispering a word to Memory, and baffling imagination by an +indissoluble silence. She may have gone upward, and come in sight of her +eternal home, hoping for leave to rest now, and deeming that her painful union +with matter was at last dissolved. While she so deemed, an angel may have +warned her away from heaven’s threshold, and, guiding her weeping down, have +bound her, once more, all shuddering and unwilling, to that poor frame, cold +and wasted, of whose companionship she was grown more than weary. +</p> + +<p> +I know she re-entered her prison with pain, with reluctance, with a moan and a +long shiver. The divorced mates, Spirit and Substance, were hard to re-unite: +they greeted each other, not in an embrace, but a racking sort of struggle. The +returning sense of sight came upon me, red, as if it swam in blood; suspended +hearing rushed back loud, like thunder; consciousness revived in fear: I sat up +appalled, wondering into what region, amongst what strange beings I was waking. +At first I knew nothing I looked on: a wall was not a wall—a lamp not a lamp. I +should have understood what we call a ghost, as well as I did the commonest +object: which is another way of intimating that all my eye rested on struck it +as spectral. But the faculties soon settled each in his place; the life-machine +presently resumed its wonted and regular working. +</p> + +<p> +Still, I knew not where I was; only in time I saw I had been removed from the +spot where I fell: I lay on no portico-step; night and tempest were excluded by +walls, windows, and ceiling. Into some house I had been carried—but what house? +</p> + +<p> +I could only think of the pensionnat in the Rue Fossette. Still half-dreaming, +I tried hard to discover in what room they had put me; whether the great +dormitory, or one of the little dormitories. I was puzzled, because I could not +make the glimpses of furniture I saw accord with my knowledge of any of these +apartments. The empty white beds were wanting, and the long line of large +windows. “Surely,” thought I, “it is not to Madame Beck’s own chamber they have +carried me!” And here my eye fell on an easy-chair covered with blue damask. +Other seats, cushioned to match, dawned on me by degrees; and at last I took in +the complete fact of a pleasant parlour, with a wood fire on a clear-shining +hearth, a carpet where arabesques of bright blue relieved a ground of shaded +fawn; pale walls over which a slight but endless garland of azure +forget-me-nots ran mazed and bewildered amongst myriad gold leaves and +tendrils. A gilded mirror filled up the space between two windows, curtained +amply with blue damask. In this mirror I saw myself laid, not in bed, but on a +sofa. I looked spectral; my eyes larger and more hollow, my hair darker than +was natural, by contrast with my thin and ashen face. It was obvious, not only +from the furniture, but from the position of windows, doors, and fireplace, +that this was an unknown room in an unknown house. +</p> + +<p> +Hardly less plain was it that my brain was not yet settled; for, as I gazed at +the blue arm-chair, it appeared to grow familiar; so did a certain +scroll-couch, and not less so the round centre-table, with a blue-covering, +bordered with autumn-tinted foliage; and, above all, two little footstools with +worked covers, and a small ebony-framed chair, of which the seat and back were +also worked with groups of brilliant flowers on a dark ground. +</p> + +<p> +Struck with these things, I explored further. Strange to say, old acquaintance +were all about me, and “auld lang syne” smiled out of every nook. There were +two oval miniatures over the mantel-piece, of which I knew by heart the pearls +about the high and powdered “heads;” the velvets circling the white throats; +the swell of the full muslin kerchiefs: the pattern of the lace sleeve-ruffles. +Upon the mantel-shelf there were two china vases, some relics of a diminutive +tea-service, as smooth as enamel and as thin as egg-shell, and a white centre +ornament, a classic group in alabaster, preserved under glass. Of all these +things I could have told the peculiarities, numbered the flaws or cracks, like +any <i>clairvoyante</i>. Above all, there was a pair of handscreens, with +elaborate pencil-drawings finished like line engravings; these, my very eyes +ached at beholding again, recalling hours when they had followed, stroke by +stroke and touch by touch, a tedious, feeble, finical, school-girl pencil held +in these fingers, now so skeleton-like. +</p> + +<p> +Where was I? Not only in what spot of the world, but in what year of our Lord? +For all these objects were of past days, and of a distant country. Ten years +ago I bade them good-by; since my fourteenth year they and I had never met. I +gasped audibly, “Where am I?” +</p> + +<p> +A shape hitherto unnoticed, stirred, rose, came forward: a shape inharmonious +with the environment, serving only to complicate the riddle further. This was +no more than a sort of native bonne, in a common-place bonne’s cap and +print-dress. She spoke neither French nor English, and I could get no +intelligence from her, not understanding her phrases of dialect. But she bathed +my temples and forehead with some cool and perfumed water, and then she +heightened the cushion on which I reclined, made signs that I was not to speak, +and resumed her post at the foot of the sofa. +</p> + +<p> +She was busy knitting; her eyes thus drawn from me, I could gaze on her without +interruption. I did mightily wonder how she came there, or what she could have +to do among the scenes, or with the days of my girlhood. Still more I marvelled +what those scenes and days could now have to do with me. +</p> + +<p> +Too weak to scrutinize thoroughly the mystery, I tried to settle it by saying +it was a mistake, a dream, a fever-fit; and yet I knew there could be no +mistake, and that I was not sleeping, and I believed I was sane. I wished the +room had not been so well lighted, that I might not so clearly have seen the +little pictures, the ornaments, the screens, the worked chair. All these +objects, as well as the blue-damask furniture, were, in fact, precisely the +same, in every minutest detail, with those I so well remembered, and with which +I had been so thoroughly intimate, in the drawing-room of my godmother’s house +at Bretton. Methought the apartment only was changed, being of different +proportions and dimensions. +</p> + +<p> +I thought of Bedreddin Hassan, transported in his sleep from Cairo to the gates +of Damascus. Had a Genius stooped his dark wing down the storm to whose stress +I had succumbed, and gathering me from the church-steps, and “rising high into +the air,” as the eastern tale said, had he borne me over land and ocean, and +laid me quietly down beside a hearth of Old England? But no; I knew the fire of +that hearth burned before its Lares no more—it went out long ago, and the +household gods had been carried elsewhere. +</p> + +<p> +The bonne turned again to survey me, and seeing my eyes wide open, and, I +suppose, deeming their expression perturbed and excited, she put down her +knitting. I saw her busied for a moment at a little stand; she poured out +water, and measured drops from a phial: glass in hand, she approached me. What +dark-tinged draught might she now be offering? what Genii-elixir or +Magi-distillation? +</p> + +<p> +It was too late to inquire—I had swallowed it passively, and at once. A tide of +quiet thought now came gently caressing my brain; softer and softer rose the +flow, with tepid undulations smoother than balm. The pain of weakness left my +limbs, my muscles slept. I lost power to move; but, losing at the same time +wish, it was no privation. That kind bonne placed a screen between me and the +lamp; I saw her rise to do this, but do not remember seeing her resume her +place: in the interval between the two acts, I “fell on sleep.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +At waking, lo! all was again changed. The light of high day surrounded me; not, +indeed, a warm, summer light, but the leaden gloom of raw and blustering +autumn. I felt sure now that I was in the pensionnat—sure by the beating rain +on the casement; sure by the “wuther” of wind amongst trees, denoting a garden +outside; sure by the chill, the whiteness, the solitude, amidst which I lay. I +say <i>whiteness</i>—for the dimity curtains, dropped before a French bed, +bounded my view. +</p> + +<p> +I lifted them; I looked out. My eye, prepared to take in the range of a long, +large, and whitewashed chamber, blinked baffled, on encountering the limited +area of a small cabinet—a cabinet with sea-green walls; also, instead of five +wide and naked windows, there was one high lattice, shaded with muslin +festoons: instead of two dozen little stands of painted wood, each holding a +basin and an ewer, there was a toilette-table dressed, like a lady for a ball, +in a white robe over a pink skirt; a polished and large glass crowned, and a +pretty pin-cushion frilled with lace, adorned it. This toilette, together with +a small, low, green and white chintz arm-chair, a washstand topped with a +marble slab, and supplied with utensils of pale-green ware, sufficiently +furnished the tiny chamber. +</p> + +<p> +Reader; I felt alarmed! Why? you will ask. What was there in this simple and +somewhat pretty sleeping-closet to startle the most timid? Merely this—These +articles of furniture could not be real, solid arm-chairs, looking-glasses, and +washstands—they must be the ghosts of such articles; or, if this were denied as +too wild an hypothesis—and, confounded as I was, I <i>did</i> deny it—there +remained but to conclude that I had myself passed into an abnormal state of +mind; in short, that I was very ill and delirious: and even then, mine was the +strangest figment with which delirium had ever harassed a victim. +</p> + +<p> +I knew—I was obliged to know—the green chintz of that little chair; the little +snug chair itself, the carved, shining-black, foliated frame of that glass; the +smooth, milky-green of the china vessels on the stand; the very stand too, with +its top of grey marble, splintered at one corner;—all these I was compelled to +recognise and to hail, as last night I had, perforce, recognised and hailed the +rosewood, the drapery, the porcelain, of the drawing-room. +</p> + +<p> +Bretton! Bretton! and ten years ago shone reflected in that mirror. And why did +Bretton and my fourteenth year haunt me thus? Why, if they came at all, did +they not return complete? Why hovered before my distempered vision the mere +furniture, while the rooms and the locality were gone? As to that pincushion +made of crimson satin, ornamented with gold beads and frilled with thread-lace, +I had the same right to know it as to know the screens—I had made it myself. +Rising with a start from the bed, I took the cushion in my hand and examined +it. There was the cipher “L. L. B.” formed in gold beds, and surrounded with an +oval wreath embroidered in white silk. These were the initials of my +godmother’s name—Louisa Lucy Bretton. +</p> + +<p> +“Am I in England? Am I at Bretton?” I muttered; and hastily pulling up the +blind with which the lattice was shrouded, I looked out to try and discover +<i>where</i> I was; half-prepared to meet the calm, old, handsome buildings and +clean grey pavement of St. Ann’s Street, and to see at the end the towers of +the minster: or, if otherwise, fully expectant of a town view somewhere, a rue +in Villette, if not a street in a pleasant and ancient English city. +</p> + +<p> +I looked, on the contrary, through a frame of leafage, clustering round the +high lattice, and forth thence to a grassy mead-like level, a lawn-terrace with +trees rising from the lower ground beyond—high forest-trees, such as I had not +seen for many a day. They were now groaning under the gale of October, and +between their trunks I traced the line of an avenue, where yellow leaves lay in +heaps and drifts, or were whirled singly before the sweeping west wind. +Whatever landscape might lie further must have been flat, and these tall +beeches shut it out. The place seemed secluded, and was to me quite strange: I +did not know it at all. +</p> + +<p> +Once more I lay down. My bed stood in a little alcove; on turning my face to +the wall, the room with its bewildering accompaniments became excluded. +Excluded? No! For as I arranged my position in this hope, behold, on the green +space between the divided and looped-up curtains, hung a broad, gilded +picture-frame enclosing a portrait. It was drawn—well drawn, though but a +sketch—in water-colours; a head, a boy’s head, fresh, life-like, speaking, and +animated. It seemed a youth of sixteen, fair-complexioned, with sanguine health +in his cheek; hair long, not dark, and with a sunny sheen; penetrating eyes, an +arch mouth, and a gay smile. On the whole a most pleasant face to look at, +especially for those claiming a right to that youth’s affections—parents, for +instance, or sisters. Any romantic little school-girl might almost have loved +it in its frame. Those eyes looked as if when somewhat older they would flash a +lightning-response to love: I cannot tell whether they kept in store the +steady-beaming shine of faith. For whatever sentiment met him in form too +facile, his lips menaced, beautifully but surely, caprice and light esteem. +</p> + +<p> +Striving to take each new discovery as quietly as I could, I whispered to +myself— +</p> + +<p> +“Ah! that portrait used to hang in the breakfast-room, over the mantel-piece: +somewhat too high, as I thought. I well remember how I used to mount a +music-stool for the purpose of unhooking it, holding it in my hand, and +searching into those bonny wells of eyes, whose glance under their hazel lashes +seemed like a pencilled laugh; and well I liked to note the colouring of the +cheek, and the expression of the mouth.” I hardly believed fancy could improve +on the curve of that mouth, or of the chin; even <i>my</i> ignorance knew that +both were beautiful, and pondered perplexed over this doubt: “How it was that +what charmed so much, could at the same time so keenly pain?” Once, by way of +test, I took little Missy Home, and, lifting her in my arms, told her to look +at the picture. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you like it, Polly?” I asked. She never answered, but gazed long, and at +last a darkness went trembling through her sensitive eye, as she said, “Put me +down.” So I put her down, saying to myself. “The child feels it too.” +</p> + +<p> +All these things do I now think over, adding, “He had his faults, yet scarce +ever was a finer nature; liberal, suave, impressible.” My reflections closed in +an audibly pronounced word, “Graham!” +</p> + +<p> +“Graham!” echoed a sudden voice at the bedside. “Do you want Graham?” +</p> + +<p> +I looked. The plot was but thickening; the wonder but culminating. If it was +strange to see that well-remembered pictured form on the wall, still stranger +was it to turn and behold the equally well-remembered living form opposite—a +woman, a lady, most real and substantial, tall, well-attired, wearing widow’s +silk, and such a cap as best became her matron and motherly braids of hair. +Hers, too, was a good face; too marked, perhaps, now for beauty, but not for +sense or character. She was little changed; something sterner, something more +robust—but she was my godmother: still the distinct vision of Mrs. Bretton. +</p> + +<p> +I kept quiet, yet internally <i>I</i> was much agitated: my pulse fluttered, +and the blood left my cheek, which turned cold. +</p> + +<p> +“Madam, where am I?” I inquired. +</p> + +<p> +“In a very safe asylum; well protected for the present; make your mind quite +easy till you get a little better; you look ill this morning.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am so entirely bewildered, I do not know whether I can trust my senses at +all, or whether they are misleading me in every particular: but you speak +English, do you not, madam?” +</p> + +<p> +“I should think you might hear that: it would puzzle me to hold a long +discourse in French.” +</p> + +<p> +“You do not come from England?” +</p> + +<p> +“I am lately arrived thence. Have you been long in this country? You seem to +know my son?” +</p> + +<p> +“Do, I, madam? Perhaps I do. Your son—the picture there?” +</p> + +<p> +“That is his portrait as a youth. While looking at it, you pronounced his +name.” +</p> + +<p> +“Graham Bretton?” +</p> + +<p> +She nodded. +</p> + +<p> +“I speak to Mrs. Bretton, formerly of Bretton, ——shire?” +</p> + +<p> +“Quite right; and you, I am told, are an English teacher in a foreign school +here: my son recognised you as such.” +</p> + +<p> +“How was I found, madam, and by whom?” +</p> + +<p> +“My son shall tell you that by-and-by,” said she; “but at present you are too +confused and weak for conversation: try to eat some breakfast, and then sleep.” +</p> + +<p> +Notwithstanding all I had undergone—the bodily fatigue, the perturbation of +spirits, the exposure to weather—it seemed that I was better: the fever, the +real malady which had oppressed my frame, was abating; for, whereas during the +last nine days I had taken no solid food, and suffered from continual thirst, +this morning, on breakfast being offered, I experienced a craving for +nourishment: an inward faintness which caused me eagerly to taste the tea this +lady offered, and to eat the morsel of dry toast she allowed in accompaniment. +It was only a morsel, but it sufficed; keeping up my strength till some two or +three hours afterwards, when the bonne brought me a little cup of broth and a +biscuit. +</p> + +<p> +As evening began to darken, and the ceaseless blast still blew wild and cold, +and the rain streamed on, deluge-like, I grew weary—very weary of my bed. The +room, though pretty, was small: I felt it confining: I longed for a change. The +increasing chill and gathering gloom, too, depressed me; I wanted to see—to +feel firelight. Besides, I kept thinking of the son of that tall matron: when +should I see him? Certainly not till I left my room. +</p> + +<p> +At last the bonne came to make my bed for the night. She prepared to wrap me in +a blanket and place me in the little chintz chair; but, declining these +attentions, I proceeded to dress myself: +</p> + +<p> +The business was just achieved, and I was sitting down to take breath, when +Mrs. Bretton once more appeared. +</p> + +<p> +“Dressed!” she exclaimed, smiling with that smile I so well knew—a pleasant +smile, though not soft. “You are quite better then? Quite strong—eh?” +</p> + +<p> +She spoke to me so much as of old she used to speak that I almost fancied she +was beginning to know me. There was the same sort of patronage in her voice and +manner that, as a girl, I had always experienced from her—a patronage I yielded +to and even liked; it was not founded on conventional grounds of superior +wealth or station (in the last particular there had never been any inequality; +her degree was mine); but on natural reasons of physical advantage: it was the +shelter the tree gives the herb. I put a request without further ceremony. +</p> + +<p> +“Do let me go down-stairs, madam; I am so cold and dull here.” +</p> + +<p> +“I desire nothing better, if you are strong enough to bear the change,” was her +reply. “Come then; here is an arm.” And she offered me hers: I took it, and we +descended one flight of carpeted steps to a landing where a tall door, standing +open, gave admission into the blue-damask room. How pleasant it was in its air +of perfect domestic comfort! How warm in its amber lamp-light and vermilion +fire-flush! To render the picture perfect, tea stood ready on the table—an +English tea, whereof the whole shining service glanced at me familiarly; from +the solid silver urn, of antique pattern, and the massive pot of the same +metal, to the thin porcelain cups, dark with purple and gilding. I knew the +very seed-cake of peculiar form, baked in a peculiar mould, which always had a +place on the tea-table at Bretton. Graham liked it, and there it was as of +yore—set before Graham’s plate with the silver knife and fork beside it. Graham +was then expected to tea: Graham was now, perhaps, in the house; ere many +minutes I might see him. +</p> + +<p> +“Sit down—sit down,” said my conductress, as my step faltered a little in +passing to the hearth. She seated me on the sofa, but I soon passed behind it, +saying the fire was too hot; in its shade I found another seat which suited me +better. Mrs. Bretton was never wont to make a fuss about any person or +anything; without remonstrance she suffered me to have my own way. She made the +tea, and she took up the newspaper. I liked to watch every action of my +godmother; all her movements were so young: she must have been now above fifty, +yet neither her sinews nor her spirit seemed yet touched by the rust of age. +Though portly, she was alert, and though serene, she was at times +impetuous—good health and an excellent temperament kept her green as in her +spring. +</p> + +<p> +While she read, I perceived she listened—listened for her son. She was not the +woman ever to confess herself uneasy, but there was yet no lull in the weather, +and if Graham were out in that hoarse wind—roaring still unsatisfied—I well +knew his mother’s heart would be out with him. +</p> + +<p> +“Ten minutes behind his time,” said she, looking at her watch; then, in another +minute, a lifting of her eyes from the page, and a slight inclination of her +head towards the door, denoted that she heard some sound. Presently her brow +cleared; and then even my ear, less practised, caught the iron clash of a gate +swung to, steps on gravel, lastly the door-bell. He was come. His mother filled +the teapot from the urn, she drew nearer the hearth the stuffed and cushioned +blue chair—her own chair by right, but I saw there was one who might with +impunity usurp it. And when that <i>one</i> came up the stairs—which he soon +did, after, I suppose, some such attention to the toilet as the wild and wet +night rendered necessary, and strode straight in— +</p> + +<p> +“Is it you, Graham?” said his mother, hiding a glad smile and speaking curtly. +</p> + +<p> +“Who else should it be, mamma?” demanded the Unpunctual, possessing himself +irreverently of the abdicated throne. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you deserve cold tea, for being late?” +</p> + +<p> +“I shall not get my deserts, for the urn sings cheerily.” +</p> + +<p> +“Wheel yourself to the table, lazy boy: no seat will serve you but mine; if you +had one spark of a sense of propriety, you would always leave that chair for +the Old Lady.” +</p> + +<p> +“So I should; only the dear Old Lady persists in leaving it for me. How is your +patient, mamma?” +</p> + +<p> +“Will she come forward and speak for herself?” said Mrs. Bretton, turning to my +corner; and at this invitation, forward I came. Graham courteously rose up to +greet me. He stood tall on the hearth, a figure justifying his mother’s +unconcealed pride. +</p> + +<p> +“So you are come down,” said he; “you must be better then—much better. I +scarcely expected we should meet thus, or here. I was alarmed last night, and +if I had not been forced to hurry away to a dying patient, I certainly would +not have left you; but my mother herself is something of a doctress, and Martha +an excellent nurse. I saw the case was a fainting-fit, not necessarily +dangerous. What brought it on, I have yet to learn, and all particulars; +meantime, I trust you really do feel better?” +</p> + +<p> +“Much better,” I said calmly. “Much better, I thank you, Dr. John.” +</p> + +<p> +For, reader, this tall young man—this darling son—this host of mine—this Graham +Bretton, <i>was</i> Dr. John: he, and no other; and, what is more, I +ascertained this identity scarcely with surprise. What is more, when I heard +Graham’s step on the stairs, I knew what manner of figure would enter, and for +whose aspect to prepare my eyes. The discovery was not of to-day, its dawn had +penetrated my perceptions long since. Of course I remembered young Bretton +well; and though ten years (from sixteen to twenty-six) may greatly change the +boy as they mature him to the man, yet they could bring no such utter +difference as would suffice wholly to blind my eyes, or baffle my memory. Dr. +John Graham Bretton retained still an affinity to the youth of sixteen: he had +his eyes; he had some of his features; to wit, all the excellently-moulded +lower half of the face; I found him out soon. I first recognised him on that +occasion, noted several chapters back, when my unguardedly-fixed attention had +drawn on me the mortification of an implied rebuke. Subsequent observation +confirmed, in every point, that early surmise. I traced in the gesture, the +port, and the habits of his manhood, all his boy’s promise. I heard in his now +deep tones the accent of former days. Certain turns of phrase, peculiar to him +of old, were peculiar to him still; and so was many a trick of eye and lip, +many a smile, many a sudden ray levelled from the irid, under his +well-charactered brow. +</p> + +<p> +To <i>say</i> anything on the subject, to <i>hint</i> at my discovery, had not +suited my habits of thought, or assimilated with my system of feeling. On the +contrary, I had preferred to keep the matter to myself. I liked entering his +presence covered with a cloud he had not seen through, while he stood before me +under a ray of special illumination which shone all partial over his head, +trembled about his feet, and cast light no farther. +</p> + +<p> +Well I knew that to him it could make little difference, were I to come forward +and announce, “This is Lucy Snowe!” So I kept back in my teacher’s place; and +as he never asked my name, so I never gave it. He heard me called “Miss,” and +“Miss Lucy;” he never heard the surname, “Snowe.” As to spontaneous +recognition—though I, perhaps, was still less changed than he—the idea never +approached his mind, and why should I suggest it? +</p> + +<p> +During tea, Dr. John was kind, as it was his nature to be; that meal over, and +the tray carried out, he made a cosy arrangement of the cushions in a corner of +the sofa, and obliged me to settle amongst them. He and his mother also drew to +the fire, and ere we had sat ten minutes, I caught the eye of the latter +fastened steadily upon me. Women are certainly quicker in some things than men. +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” she exclaimed, presently, “I have seldom seen a stronger likeness! +Graham, have you observed it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Observed what? What ails the Old Lady now? How you stare, mamma! One would +think you had an attack of second sight.” +</p> + +<p> +“Tell me, Graham, of whom does that young lady remind you?” pointing to me. +</p> + +<p> +“Mamma, you put her out of countenance. I often tell you abruptness is your +fault; remember, too, that to you she is a stranger, and does not know your +ways.” +</p> + +<p> +“Now, when she looks down; now, when she turns sideways, who is she like, +Graham?” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed, mamma, since you propound the riddle, I think you ought to solve it!” +</p> + +<p> +“And you have known her some time, you say—ever since you first began to attend +the school in the Rue Fossette:—yet you never mentioned to me that singular +resemblance!” +</p> + +<p> +“I could not mention a thing of which I never thought, and which I do not now +acknowledge. What <i>can</i> you mean?” +</p> + +<p> +“Stupid boy! look at her.” +</p> + +<p> +Graham did look: but this was not to be endured; I saw how it must end, so I +thought it best to anticipate. +</p> + +<p> +“Dr. John,” I said, “has had so much to do and think of, since he and I shook +hands at our last parting in St. Ann’s Street, that, while I readily found out +Mr. Graham Bretton, some months ago, it never occurred to me as possible that +he should recognise Lucy Snowe.” +</p> + +<p> +“Lucy Snowe! I thought so! I knew it!” cried Mrs. Bretton. And she at once +stepped across the hearth and kissed me. Some ladies would, perhaps, have made +a great bustle upon such a discovery without being particularly glad of it; but +it was not my godmother’s habit to make a bustle, and she preferred all +sentimental demonstrations in bas-relief. So she and I got over the surprise +with few words and a single salute; yet I daresay she was pleased, and I know I +was. While we renewed old acquaintance, Graham, sitting opposite, silently +disposed of his paroxysm of astonishment. +</p> + +<p> +“Mamma calls me a stupid boy, and I think I am so,” at length he said; “for, +upon my honour, often as I have seen you, I never once suspected this fact: and +yet I perceive it all now. Lucy Snowe! To be sure! I recollect her perfectly, +and there she sits; not a doubt of it. But,” he added, “you surely have not +known me as an old acquaintance all this time, and never mentioned it.” +</p> + +<p> +“That I have,” was my answer. +</p> + +<p> +Dr. John commented not. I supposed he regarded my silence as eccentric, but he +was indulgent in refraining from censure. I daresay, too, he would have deemed +it impertinent to have interrogated me very closely, to have asked me the why +and wherefore of my reserve; and, though he might feel a little curious, the +importance of the case was by no means such as to tempt curiosity to infringe +on discretion. +</p> + +<p> +For my part, I just ventured to inquire whether he remembered the circumstance +of my once looking at him very fixedly; for the slight annoyance he had +betrayed on that occasion still lingered sore on my mind. +</p> + +<p> +“I think I do!” said he: “I think I was even cross with you.” +</p> + +<p> +“You considered me a little bold; perhaps?” I inquired. +</p> + +<p> +“Not at all. Only, shy and retiring as your general manner was, I wondered what +personal or facial enormity in me proved so magnetic to your usually averted +eyes.” +</p> + +<p> +“You see how it was now?” +</p> + +<p> +“Perfectly.” +</p> + +<p> +And here Mrs. Bretton broke in with many, many questions about past times; and +for her satisfaction I had to recur to gone-by troubles, to explain causes of +seeming estrangement, to touch on single-handed conflict with Life, with Death, +with Grief, with Fate. Dr. John listened, saying little. He and she then told +me of changes they had known: even with them all had not gone smoothly, and +fortune had retrenched her once abundant gifts. But so courageous a mother, +with such a champion in her son, was well fitted to fight a good fight with the +world, and to prevail ultimately. Dr. John himself was one of those on whose +birth benign planets have certainly smiled. Adversity might set against him her +most sullen front: he was the man to beat her down with smiles. Strong and +cheerful, and firm and courteous; not rash, yet valiant; he was the aspirant to +woo Destiny herself, and to win from her stone eyeballs a beam almost loving. +</p> + +<p> +In the profession he had adopted, his success was now quite decided. Within the +last three months he had taken this house (a small château, they told me, about +half a league without the Porte de Crécy); this country site being chosen for +the sake of his mother’s health, with which town air did not now agree. Hither +he had invited Mrs. Bretton, and she, on leaving England, had brought with her +such residue furniture of the former St. Ann’s Street mansion as she had +thought fit to keep unsold. Hence my bewilderment at the phantoms of chairs, +and the wraiths of looking-glasses, tea-urns, and teacups. +</p> + +<p> +As the clock struck eleven, Dr. John stopped his mother. +</p> + +<p> +“Miss Snowe must retire now,” he said; “she is beginning to look very pale. +To-morrow I will venture to put some questions respecting the cause of her loss +of health. She is much changed, indeed, since last July, when I saw her enact +with no little spirit the part of a very killing fine gentleman. As to last +night’s catastrophe, I am sure thereby hangs a tale, but we will inquire no +further this evening. Good-night, Miss Lucy.” +</p> + +<p> +And so he kindly led me to the door, and holding a wax-candle, lighted me up +the one flight of stairs. +</p> + +<p> +When I had said my prayers, and when I was undressed and laid down, I felt that +I still had friends. Friends, not professing vehement attachment, not offering +the tender solace of well-matched and congenial relationship; on whom, +therefore, but moderate demand of affection was to be made, of whom but +moderate expectation formed; but towards whom my heart softened instinctively, +and yearned with an importunate gratitude, which I entreated Reason betimes to +check. +</p> + +<p> +“Do not let me think of them too often, too much, too fondly,” I implored: “let +me be content with a temperate draught of this living stream: let me not run +athirst, and apply passionately to its welcome waters: let me not imagine in +them a sweeter taste than earth’s fountains know. Oh! would to God I may be +enabled to feel enough sustained by an occasional, amicable intercourse, rare, +brief, unengrossing and tranquil: quite tranquil!” +</p> + +<p> +Still repeating this word, I turned to my pillow; and <i>still</i> repeating +it, I steeped that pillow with tears. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap17"></a>CHAPTER XVII.<br/> +LA TERRASSE.</h2> + +<p> +These struggles with the natural character, the strong native bent of the +heart, may seem futile and fruitless, but in the end they do good. They tend, +however slightly, to give the actions, the conduct, that turn which Reason +approves, and which Feeling, perhaps, too often opposes: they certainly make a +difference in the general tenour of a life, and enable it to be better +regulated, more equable, quieter on the surface; and it is on the surface only +the common gaze will fall. As to what lies below, leave that with God. Man, +your equal, weak as you, and not fit to be your judge, may be shut out thence: +take it to your Maker—show Him the secrets of the spirit He gave—ask Him how +you are to bear the pains He has appointed—kneel in His presence, and pray with +faith for light in darkness, for strength in piteous weakness, for patience in +extreme need. Certainly, at some hour, though perhaps not <i>your</i> hour, the +waiting waters will stir; in <i>some</i> shape, though perhaps not the shape +you dreamed, which your heart loved, and for which it bled, the healing herald +will descend, the cripple and the blind, and the dumb, and the possessed will +be led to bathe. Herald, come quickly! Thousands lie round the pool, weeping +and despairing, to see it, through slow years, stagnant. Long are the “times” +of Heaven: the orbits of angel messengers seem wide to mortal vision; they may +enring ages: the cycle of one departure and return may clasp unnumbered +generations; and dust, kindling to brief suffering life, and through pain, +passing back to dust, may meanwhile perish out of memory again, and yet again. +To how many maimed and mourning millions is the first and sole angel visitant, +him easterns call Azrael! +</p> + +<p> +I tried to get up next morning, but while I was dressing, and at intervals +drinking cold water from the <i>carafe</i> on my washstand, with design to +brace up that trembling weakness which made dressing so difficult, in came Mrs. +Bretton. +</p> + +<p> +“Here is an absurdity!” was her morning accost. “Not so,” she added, and +dealing with me at once in her own brusque, energetic fashion—that fashion +which I used formerly to enjoy seeing applied to her son, and by him vigorously +resisted—in two minutes she consigned me captive to the French bed. +</p> + +<p> +“There you lie till afternoon,” said she. “My boy left orders before he went +out that such should be the case, and I can assure you my son is master and +must be obeyed. Presently you shall have breakfast.” +</p> + +<p> +Presently she brought that meal—brought it with her own active hands—not +leaving me to servants. She seated herself on the bed while I ate. Now it is +not everybody, even amongst our respected friends and esteemed acquaintance, +whom we like to have near us, whom we like to watch us, to wait on us, to +approach us with the proximity of a nurse to a patient. It is not every friend +whose eye is a light in a sick room, whose presence is there a solace: but all +this was Mrs. Bretton to me; all this she had ever been. Food or drink never +pleased me so well as when it came through her hands. I do not remember the +occasion when her entrance into a room had not made that room cheerier. Our +natures own predilections and antipathies alike strange. There are people from +whom we secretly shrink, whom we would personally avoid, though reason +confesses that they are good people: there are others with faults of temper, +&c., evident enough, beside whom we live content, as if the air about them +did us good. My godmother’s lively black eye and clear brunette cheek, her +warm, prompt hand, her self-reliant mood, her decided bearing, were all +beneficial to me as the atmosphere of some salubrious climate. Her son used to +call her “the old lady;” it filled me with pleasant wonder to note how the +alacrity and power of five-and-twenty still breathed from her and around her. +</p> + +<p> +“I would bring my work here,” she said, as she took from me the emptied teacup, +“and sit with you the whole day, if that overbearing John Graham had not put +his veto upon such a proceeding. ‘Now, mamma,’ he said, when he went out, ‘take +notice, you are not to knock up your god-daughter with gossip,’ and he +particularly desired me to keep close to my own quarters, and spare you my fine +company. He says, Lucy, he thinks you have had a nervous fever, judging from +your look,—is that so?” +</p> + +<p> +I replied that I did not quite know what my ailment had been, but that I had +certainly suffered a good deal especially in mind. Further, on this subject, I +did not consider it advisable to dwell, for the details of what I had undergone +belonged to a portion of my existence in which I never expected my godmother to +take a share. Into what a new region would such a confidence have led that +hale, serene nature! The difference between her and me might be figured by that +between the stately ship cruising safe on smooth seas, with its full complement +of crew, a captain gay and brave, and venturous and provident; and the +life-boat, which most days of the year lies dry and solitary in an old, dark +boat-house, only putting to sea when the billows run high in rough weather, +when cloud encounters water, when danger and death divide between them the rule +of the great deep. No, the “Louisa Bretton” never was out of harbour on such a +night, and in such a scene: her crew could not conceive it; so the half-drowned +life-boat man keeps his own counsel, and spins no yarns. +</p> + +<p> +She left me, and I lay in bed content: it was good of Graham to remember me +before he went out. +</p> + +<p> +My day was lonely, but the prospect of coming evening abridged and cheered it. +Then, too, I felt weak, and rest seemed welcome; and after the morning hours +were gone by,—those hours which always bring, even to the necessarily +unoccupied, a sense of business to be done, of tasks waiting fulfilment, a +vague impression of obligation to be employed—when this stirring time was past, +and the silent descent of afternoon hushed housemaid steps on the stairs and in +the chambers, I then passed into a dreamy mood, not unpleasant. +</p> + +<p> +My calm little room seemed somehow like a cave in the sea. There was no colour +about it, except that white and pale green, suggestive of foam and deep water; +the blanched cornice was adorned with shell-shaped ornaments, and there were +white mouldings like dolphins in the ceiling-angles. Even that one touch of +colour visible in the red satin pincushion bore affinity to coral; even that +dark, shining glass might have mirrored a mermaid. When I closed my eyes, I +heard a gale, subsiding at last, bearing upon the house-front like a settling +swell upon a rock-base. I heard it drawn and withdrawn far, far off, like a +tide retiring from a shore of the upper world—a world so high above that the +rush of its largest waves, the dash of its fiercest breakers, could sound down +in this submarine home, only like murmurs and a lullaby. +</p> + +<p> +Amidst these dreams came evening, and then Martha brought a light; with her aid +I was quickly dressed, and stronger now than in the morning, I made my way down +to the blue saloon unassisted. +</p> + +<p> +Dr. John, it appears, had concluded his round of professional calls earlier +than usual; his form was the first object that met my eyes as I entered the +parlour; he stood in that window-recess opposite the door, reading the close +type of a newspaper by such dull light as closing day yet gave. The fire shone +clear, but the lamp stood on the table unlit, and tea was not yet brought up. +</p> + +<p> +As to Mrs. Bretton, my active godmother—who, I afterwards found, had been out +in the open air all day—lay half-reclined in her deep-cushioned chair, actually +lost in a nap. Her son seeing me, came forward. I noticed that he trod +carefully, not to wake the sleeper; he also spoke low: his mellow voice never +had any sharpness in it; modulated as at present, it was calculated rather to +soothe than startle slumber. +</p> + +<p> +“This is a quiet little château,” he observed, after inviting me to sit near +the casement. “I don’t know whether you may have noticed it in your walks: +though, indeed, from the chaussée it is not visible; just a mile beyond the +Porte de Crécy, you turn down a lane which soon becomes an avenue, and that +leads you on, through meadow and shade, to the very door of this house. It is +not a modern place, but built somewhat in the old style of the Basse-Ville. It +is rather a manoir than a château; they call it ‘La Terrasse,’ because its +front rises from a broad turfed walk, whence steps lead down a grassy slope to +the avenue. See yonder! The moon rises: she looks well through the tree-boles.” +</p> + +<p> +Where, indeed, does the moon not look well? What is the scene, confined or +expansive, which her orb does not hallow? Rosy or fiery, she mounted now above +a not distant bank; even while we watched her flushed ascent, she cleared to +gold, and in very brief space, floated up stainless into a now calm sky. Did +moonlight soften or sadden Dr. Bretton? Did it touch him with romance? I think +it did. Albeit of no sighing mood, he sighed in watching it: sighed to himself +quietly. No need to ponder the cause or the course of that sigh; I knew it was +wakened by beauty; I knew it pursued Ginevra. Knowing this, the idea pressed +upon me that it was in some sort my duty to speak the name he meditated. Of +course he was ready for the subject: I saw in his countenance a teeming +plenitude of comment, question and interest; a pressure of language and +sentiment, only checked, I thought, by sense of embarrassment how to begin. To +spare him this embarrassment was my best, indeed my sole use. I had but to +utter the idol’s name, and love’s tender litany would flow out. I had just +found a fitting phrase, “You know that Miss Fanshawe is gone on a tour with the +Cholmondeleys,” and was opening my lips to speak to it, when he scattered my +plans by introducing another theme. +</p> + +<p> +“The first thing this morning,” said he, putting his sentiment in his pocket, +turning from the moon, and sitting down, “I went to the Rue Fossette, and told +the cuisinière that you were safe and in good hands. Do you know that I +actually found that she had not yet discovered your absence from the house: she +thought you safe in the great dormitory. With what care you must have been +waited on!” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! all that is very conceivable,” said I. “Goton could do nothing for me but +bring me a little tisane and a crust of bread, and I had rejected both so often +during the past week, that the good woman got tired of useless journeys from +the dwelling-house kitchen to the school-dormitory, and only came once a day at +noon to make my bed. I believe, however, that she is a good-natured creature, +and would have been delighted to cook me côtelettes de mouton, if I could have +eaten them.” +</p> + +<p> +“What did Madame Beck mean by leaving you alone?” +</p> + +<p> +“Madame Beck could not foresee that I should fall ill.” +</p> + +<p> +“Your nervous system bore a good share of the suffering?” +</p> + +<p> +“I am not quite sure what my nervous system is, but I was dreadfully +low-spirited.” +</p> + +<p> +“Which disables me from helping you by pill or potion. Medicine can give nobody +good spirits. My art halts at the threshold of Hypochondria: she just looks in +and sees a chamber of torture, but can neither say nor do much. Cheerful +society would be of use; you should be as little alone as possible; you should +take plenty of exercise.” +</p> + +<p> +Acquiescence and a pause followed these remarks. They sounded all right, I +thought, and bore the safe sanction of custom, and the well-worn stamp of use. +</p> + +<p> +“Miss Snowe,” recommenced Dr. John—my health, nervous system included, being +now, somewhat to my relief, discussed and done with—“is it permitted me to ask +what your religion is? Are you a Catholic?” +</p> + +<p> +I looked up in some surprise—“A Catholic? No! Why suggest such an idea?” +</p> + +<p> +“The manner in which you were consigned to me last night made me doubt.” +</p> + +<p> +“I consigned to you? But, indeed, I forget. It yet remains for me to learn how +I fell into your hands.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, under circumstances that puzzled me. I had been in attendance all day +yesterday on a case of singularly interesting and critical character; the +disease being rare, and its treatment doubtful: I saw a similar and still finer +case in a hospital in Paris; but that will not interest you. At last a +mitigation of the patient’s most urgent symptoms (acute pain is one of its +accompaniments) liberated me, and I set out homeward. My shortest way lay +through the Basse-Ville, and as the night was excessively dark, wild, and wet, +I took it. In riding past an old church belonging to a community of Béguines, I +saw by a lamp burning over the porch or deep arch of the entrance, a priest +lifting some object in his arms. The lamp was bright enough to reveal the +priest’s features clearly, and I recognised him; he was a man I have often met +by the sick beds of both rich and poor: and chiefly the latter. He is, I think, +a good old man, far better than most of his class in this country; superior, +indeed, in every way, better informed, as well as more devoted to duty. Our +eyes met; he called on me to stop: what he supported was a woman, fainting or +dying. I alighted. +</p> + +<p> +“‘This person is one of your countrywomen,’ he said: ‘save her, if she is not +dead.’ +</p> + +<p> +“My countrywoman, on examination, turned out to be the English teacher at +Madame Beck’s pensionnat. She was perfectly unconscious, perfectly bloodless, +and nearly cold. +</p> + +<p> +“‘What does it all mean?’ was my inquiry. +</p> + +<p> +“He communicated a curious account; that you had been to him that evening at +confessional; that your exhausted and suffering appearance, coupled with some +things you had said—” +</p> + +<p> +“Things I had said? I wonder what things!” +</p> + +<p> +“Awful crimes, no doubt; but he did not tell me what: there, you know, the seal +of the confessional checked his garrulity, and my curiosity. Your confidences, +however, had not made an enemy of the good father; it seems he was so struck, +and felt so sorry that you should be out on such a night alone, that he had +esteemed it a Christian duty to watch you when you quitted the church, and so +to manage as not to lose sight of you, till you should have reached home. +Perhaps the worthy man might, half unconsciously, have blent in this proceeding +some little of the subtlety of his class: it might have been his resolve to +learn the locality of your home—did you impart that in your confession?” +</p> + +<p> +“I did not: on the contrary, I carefully avoided the shadow of any indication: +and as to my confession, Dr. John, I suppose you will think me mad for taking +such a step, but I could not help it: I suppose it was all the fault of what +you call my ‘nervous system.’ I cannot put the case into words, but my days and +nights were grown intolerable: a cruel sense of desolation pained my mind: a +feeling that would make its way, rush out, or kill me—like (and this you will +understand, Dr. John) the current which passes through the heart, and which, if +aneurism or any other morbid cause obstructs its natural channels, seeks +abnormal outlet. I wanted companionship, I wanted friendship, I wanted counsel. +I could find none of these in closet or chamber, so I went and sought them in +church and confessional. As to what I said, it was no confidence, no narrative. +I have done nothing wrong: my life has not been active enough for any dark +deed, either of romance or reality: all I poured out was a dreary, desperate +complaint.” +</p> + +<p> +“Lucy, you ought to travel for about six months: why, your calm nature is +growing quite excitable! Confound Madame Beck! Has the little buxom widow no +bowels, to condemn her best teacher to solitary confinement?” +</p> + +<p> +“It was not Madame Beck’s fault,” said I; “it is no living being’s fault, and I +won’t hear any one blamed.” +</p> + +<p> +“Who is in the wrong, then, Lucy?” +</p> + +<p> +“Me—Dr. John—me; and a great abstraction on whose wide shoulders I like to lay +the mountains of blame they were sculptured to bear: me and Fate.” +</p> + +<p> +“‘Me’ must take better care in future,” said Dr. John—smiling, I suppose, at my +bad grammar. +</p> + +<p> +“Change of air—change of scene; those are my prescriptions,” pursued the +practical young doctor. “But to return to our muttons, Lucy. As yet, Père +Silas, with all his tact (they say he is a Jesuit), is no wiser than you choose +him to be; for, instead of returning to the Rue Fossette, your fevered +wanderings—there must have been high fever—” +</p> + +<p> +“No, Dr. John: the fever took its turn that night—now, don’t make out that I +was delirious, for I know differently.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good! you were as collected as myself at this moment, no doubt. Your +wanderings had taken an opposite direction to the pensionnat. Near the +Béguinage, amidst the stress of flood and gust, and in the perplexity of +darkness, you had swooned and fallen. The priest came to your succour, and the +physician, as we have seen, supervened. Between us we procured a fiacre and +brought you here. Père Silas, old as he is, would carry you up-stairs, and lay +you on that couch himself. He would certainly have remained with you till +suspended animation had been restored: and so should I, but, at that juncture, +a hurried messenger arrived from the dying patient I had scarcely left—the last +duties were called for—the physician’s last visit and the priest’s last rite; +extreme unction could not be deferred. Père Silas and myself departed together, +my mother was spending the evening abroad; we gave you in charge to Martha, +leaving directions, which it seems she followed successfully. Now, are you a +Catholic?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not yet,” said I, with a smile. “And never let Père Silas know where I live, +or he will try to convert me; but give him my best and truest thanks when you +see him, and if ever I get rich I will send him money for his charities. See, +Dr. John, your mother wakes; you ought to ring for tea.” +</p> + +<p> +Which he did; and, as Mrs. Bretton sat up—astonished and indignant at herself +for the indulgence to which she had succumbed, and fully prepared to deny that +she had slept at all—her son came gaily to the attack. +</p> + +<p> +“Hushaby, mamma! Sleep again. You look the picture of innocence in your +slumbers.” +</p> + +<p> +“My slumbers, John Graham! What are you talking about? You know I never +<i>do</i> sleep by day: it was the slightest doze possible.” +</p> + +<p> +“Exactly! a seraph’s gentle lapse—a fairy’s dream. Mamma, under such +circumstances, you always remind me of Titania.” +</p> + +<p> +“That is because you, yourself, are so like Bottom.” +</p> + +<p> +“Miss Snowe—did you ever hear anything like mamma’s wit? She is a most +sprightly woman of her size and age.” +</p> + +<p> +“Keep your compliments to yourself, sir, and do not neglect your own size: +which seems to me a good deal on the increase. Lucy, has he not rather the air +of an incipient John Bull? He used to be slender as an eel, and now I fancy in +him a sort of heavy dragoon bent—a beef-eater tendency. Graham, take notice! If +you grow fat I disown you.” +</p> + +<p> +“As if you could not sooner disown your own personality! I am indispensable to +the old lady’s happiness, Lucy. She would pine away in green and yellow +melancholy if she had not my six feet of iniquity to scold. It keeps her +lively—it maintains the wholesome ferment of her spirits.” +</p> + +<p> +The two were now standing opposite to each other, one on each side the +fire-place; their words were not very fond, but their mutual looks atoned for +verbal deficiencies. At least, the best treasure of Mrs. Bretton’s life was +certainly casketed in her son’s bosom; her dearest pulse throbbed in his heart. +As to him, of course another love shared his feelings with filial love, and, no +doubt, as the new passion was the latest born, so he assigned it in his +emotions Benjamin’s portion. Ginevra! Ginevra! Did Mrs. Bretton yet know at +whose feet her own young idol had laid his homage? Would she approve that +choice? I could not tell; but I could well guess that if she knew Miss +Fanshawe’s conduct towards Graham: her alternations between coldness and +coaxing, and repulse and allurement; if she could at all suspect the pain with +which she had tried him; if she could have seen, as I had seen, his fine +spirits subdued and harassed, his inferior preferred before him, his +subordinate made the instrument of his humiliation—<i>then</i> Mrs. Bretton +would have pronounced Ginevra imbecile, or perverted, or both. Well—I thought +so too. +</p> + +<p> +That second evening passed as sweetly as the first—<i>more</i> sweetly indeed: +we enjoyed a smoother interchange of thought; old troubles were not reverted +to, acquaintance was better cemented; I felt happier, easier, more at home. +That night—instead of crying myself asleep—I went down to dreamland by a +pathway bordered with pleasant thoughts. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap18"></a>CHAPTER XVIII.<br/> +WE QUARREL.</h2> + +<p> +During the first days of my stay at the Terrace, Graham never took a seat near +me, or in his frequent pacing of the room approached the quarter where I sat, +or looked pre-occupied, or more grave than usual, but I thought of Miss +Fanshawe and expected her name to leap from his lips. I kept my ear and mind in +perpetual readiness for the tender theme; my patience was ordered to be +permanently under arms, and my sympathy desired to keep its cornucopia +replenished and ready for outpouring. At last, and after a little inward +struggle, which I saw and respected, he one day launched into the topic. It was +introduced delicately; anonymously as it were. +</p> + +<p> +“Your friend is spending her vacation in travelling, I hear?” +</p> + +<p> +“Friend, forsooth!” thought I to myself: but it would not do to contradict; he +must have his own way; I must own the soft impeachment: friend let it be. +Still, by way of experiment, I could not help asking whom he meant? +</p> + +<p> +He had taken a seat at my work-table; he now laid hands on a reel of thread +which he proceeded recklessly to unwind. +</p> + +<p> +“Ginevra—Miss Fanshawe, has accompanied the Cholmondeleys on a tour through the +south of France?” +</p> + +<p> +“She has.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you and she correspond?” +</p> + +<p> +“It will astonish you to hear that I never once thought of making application +for that privilege.” +</p> + +<p> +“You have seen letters of her writing?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; several to her uncle.” +</p> + +<p> +“They will not be deficient in wit and <i>naïveté</i>; there is so much +sparkle, and so little art in her soul?” +</p> + +<p> +“She writes comprehensively enough when she writes to M. de Bassompierre: he +who runs may read.” (In fact, Ginevra’s epistles to her wealthy kinsman were +commonly business documents, unequivocal applications for cash.) +</p> + +<p> +“And her handwriting? It must be pretty, light, ladylike, I should think?” +</p> + +<p> +It was, and I said so. +</p> + +<p> +“I verily believe that all she does is well done,” said Dr. John; and as I +seemed in no hurry to chime in with this remark, he added “You, who know her, +could you name a point in which she is deficient?” +</p> + +<p> +“She does several things very well.” (“Flirtation amongst the rest,” subjoined +I, in thought.) +</p> + +<p> +“When do you suppose she will return to town?” he soon inquired. +</p> + +<p> +“Pardon me, Dr. John, I must explain. You honour me too much in ascribing to me +a degree of intimacy with Miss Fanshawe I have not the felicity to enjoy. I +have never been the depositary of her plans and secrets. You will find her +particular friends in another sphere than mine: amongst the Cholmondeleys, for +instance.” +</p> + +<p> +He actually thought I was stung with a kind of jealous pain similar to his own! +</p> + +<p> +“Excuse her,” he said; “judge her indulgently; the glitter of fashion misleads +her, but she will soon find out that these people are hollow, and will return +to you with augmented attachment and confirmed trust. I know something of the +Cholmondeleys: superficial, showy, selfish people; depend on it, at heart +Ginevra values you beyond a score of such.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are very kind,” I said briefly. +</p> + +<p> +A disclaimer of the sentiments attributed to me burned on my lips, but I +extinguished the flame. I submitted to be looked upon as the humiliated, +cast-off, and now pining confidante of the distinguished Miss Fanshawe: but, +reader, it was a hard submission. +</p> + +<p> +“Yet, you see,” continued Graham, “while I comfort <i>you</i>, I cannot take +the same consolation to myself; I cannot hope she will do me justice. De Hamal +is most worthless, yet I fear he pleases her: wretched delusion!” +</p> + +<p> +My patience really gave way, and without notice: all at once. I suppose illness +and weakness had worn it and made it brittle. +</p> + +<p> +“Dr. Bretton,” I broke out, “there is no delusion like your own. On all points +but one you are a man, frank, healthful, right-thinking, clear-sighted: on this +exceptional point you are but a slave. I declare, where Miss Fanshawe is +concerned, you merit no respect; nor have you mine.” +</p> + +<p> +I got up, and left the room very much excited. +</p> + +<p> +This little scene took place in the morning; I had to meet him again in the +evening, and then I saw I had done mischief. He was not made of common clay, +not put together out of vulgar materials; while the outlines of his nature had +been shaped with breadth and vigour, the details embraced workmanship of almost +feminine delicacy: finer, much finer, than you could be prepared to meet with; +than you could believe inherent in him, even after years of acquaintance. +Indeed, till some over-sharp contact with his nerves had betrayed, by its +effects, their acute sensibility, this elaborate construction must be ignored; +and the more especially because the sympathetic faculty was not prominent in +him: to feel, and to seize quickly another’s feelings, are separate properties; +a few constructions possess both, some neither. Dr. John had the one in +exquisite perfection; and because I have admitted that he was not endowed with +the other in equal degree, the reader will considerately refrain from passing +to an extreme, and pronouncing him _un_sympathizing, unfeeling: on the +contrary, he was a kind, generous man. Make your need known, his hand was open. +Put your grief into words, he turned no deaf ear. Expect refinements of +perception, miracles of intuition, and realize disappointment. This night, when +Dr. John entered the room, and met the evening lamp, I saw well and at one +glance his whole mechanism. +</p> + +<p> +To one who had named him “slave,” and, on any point, banned him from respect, +he must now have peculiar feelings. That the epithet was well applied, and the +ban just, might be; he put forth no denial that it was so: his mind even +candidly revolved that unmanning possibility. He sought in this accusation the +cause of that ill-success which had got so galling a hold on his mental peace: +Amid the worry of a self-condemnatory soliloquy, his demeanour seemed grave, +perhaps cold, both to me and his mother. And yet there was no bad feeling, no +malice, no rancour, no littleness in his countenance, beautiful with a man’s +best beauty, even in its depression. When I placed his chair at the table, +which I hastened to do, anticipating the servant, and when I handed him his +tea, which I did with trembling care, he said: “Thank you, Lucy,” in as kindly +a tone of his full pleasant voice as ever my ear welcomed. +</p> + +<p> +For my part, there was only one plan to be pursued; I must expiate my culpable +vehemence, or I must not sleep that night. This would not do at all; I could +not stand it: I made no pretence of capacity to wage war on this footing. +School solitude, conventual silence and stagnation, anything seemed preferable +to living embroiled with Dr. John. As to Ginevra, she might take the silver +wings of a dove, or any other fowl that flies, and mount straight up to the +highest place, among the highest stars, where her lover’s highest flight of +fancy chose to fix the constellation of her charms: never more be it mine to +dispute the arrangement. Long I tried to catch his eye. Again and again that +eye just met mine; but, having nothing to say, it withdrew, and I was baffled. +After tea, he sat, sad and quiet, reading a book. I wished I could have dared +to go and sit near him, but it seemed that if I ventured to take that step, he +would infallibly evince hostility and indignation. I longed to speak out, and I +dared not whisper. His mother left the room; then, moved by insupportable +regret, I just murmured the words “Dr. Bretton.” +</p> + +<p> +He looked up from his book; his eyes were not cold or malevolent, his mouth was +not cynical; he was ready and willing to hear what I might have to say: his +spirit was of vintage too mellow and generous to sour in one thunder-clap. +</p> + +<p> +“Dr. Bretton, forgive my hasty words: <i>do, do</i> forgive them.” +</p> + +<p> +He smiled that moment I spoke. “Perhaps I deserved them, Lucy. If you don’t +respect me, I am sure it is because I am not respectable. I fear, I am an +awkward fool: I must manage badly in some way, for where I wish to please, it +seems I don’t please.” +</p> + +<p> +“Of that you cannot be sure; and even if such be the case, is it the fault of +your character, or of another’s perceptions? But now, let me unsay what I said +in anger. In one thing, and in all things, I deeply respect you. If you think +scarcely enough of yourself, and too much of others, what is that but an +excellence?” +</p> + +<p> +“Can I think too much of Ginevra?” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>I</i> believe you may; <i>you</i> believe you can’t. Let us agree to +differ. Let me be pardoned; that is what I ask.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you think I cherish ill-will for one warm word?” +</p> + +<p> +“I see you do not and cannot; but just say, ‘Lucy, I forgive you!’ Say that, to +ease me of the heart-ache.” +</p> + +<p> +“Put away your heart-ache, as I will put away mine; for you wounded me a +little, Lucy. Now, when the pain is gone, I more than forgive: I feel grateful, +as to a sincere well-wisher.” +</p> + +<p> +“I <i>am</i> your sincere well-wisher: you are right.” +</p> + +<p> +Thus our quarrel ended. +</p> + +<p> +Reader, if in the course of this work, you find that my opinion of Dr. John +undergoes modification, excuse the seeming inconsistency. I give the feeling as +at the time I felt it; I describe the view of character as it appeared when +discovered. +</p> + +<p> +He showed the fineness of his nature by being kinder to me after that +misunderstanding than before. Nay, the very incident which, by my theory, must +in some degree estrange me and him, changed, indeed, somewhat our relations; +but not in the sense I painfully anticipated. An invisible, but a cold +something, very slight, very transparent, but very chill: a sort of screen of +ice had hitherto, all through our two lives, glazed the medium through which we +exchanged intercourse. Those few warm words, though only warm with anger, +breathed on that frail frost-work of reserve; about this time, it gave note of +dissolution. I think from that day, so long as we continued friends, he never +in discourse stood on topics of ceremony with me. He seemed to know that if he +would but talk about himself, and about that in which he was most interested, +my expectation would always be answered, my wish always satisfied. It follows, +as a matter of course, that I continued to hear much of “Ginevra.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ginevra!” He thought her so fair, so good; he spoke so lovingly of her charms, +her sweetness, her innocence, that, in spite of my plain prose knowledge of the +reality, a kind of reflected glow began to settle on her idea, even for me. +Still, reader, I am free to confess, that he often talked nonsense; but I +strove to be unfailingly patient with him. I had had my lesson: I had learned +how severe for me was the pain of crossing, or grieving, or disappointing him. +In a strange and new sense, I grew most selfish, and quite powerless to deny +myself the delight of indulging his mood, and being pliant to his will. He +still seemed to me most absurd when he obstinately doubted, and desponded about +his power to win in the end Miss Fanshawe’s preference. The fancy became rooted +in my own mind more stubbornly than ever, that she was only coquetting to goad +him, and that, at heart, she coveted every one of his words and looks. +Sometimes he harassed me, in spite of my resolution to bear and hear; in the +midst of the indescribable gall-honey pleasure of thus bearing and hearing, he +struck so on the flint of what firmness I owned, that it emitted fire once and +again. I chanced to assert one day, with a view to stilling his impatience, +that in my own mind, I felt positive Miss Fanshawe <i>must</i> intend +eventually to accept him. +</p> + +<p> +“Positive! It was easy to say so, but had I any grounds for such assurance?” +</p> + +<p> +“The best grounds.” +</p> + +<p> +“Now, Lucy, <i>do</i> tell me what!” +</p> + +<p> +“You know them as well as I; and, knowing them, Dr. John, it really amazes me +that you should not repose the frankest confidence in her fidelity. To doubt, +under the circumstances, is almost to insult.” +</p> + +<p> +“Now you are beginning to speak fast and to breathe short; but speak a little +faster and breathe a little shorter, till you have given an explanation—a full +explanation: I must have it.” +</p> + +<p> +“You shall, Dr. John. In some cases, you are a lavish, generous man: you are a +worshipper ever ready with the votive offering should Père Silas ever convert +<i>you</i>, you will give him abundance of alms for his poor, you will supply +his altar with tapers, and the shrine of your favourite saint you will do your +best to enrich: Ginevra, Dr. John—” +</p> + +<p> +“Hush!” said he, “don’t go on.” +</p> + +<p> +“Hush, I will <i>not</i>: and go on I <i>will</i>: Ginevra has had her hands +filled from your hands more times than I can count. You have sought for her the +costliest flowers; you have busied your brain in devising gifts the most +delicate: such, one would have thought, as only a woman could have imagined; +and in addition, Miss Fanshawe owns a set of ornaments, to purchase which your +generosity must have verged on extravagance.” +</p> + +<p> +The modesty Ginevra herself had never evinced in this matter, now flushed all +over the face of her admirer. +</p> + +<p> +“Nonsense!” he said, destructively snipping a skein of silk with my scissors. +“I offered them to please myself: I felt she did me a favour in accepting +them.” +</p> + +<p> +“She did more than a favour, Dr. John: she pledged her very honour that she +would make you some return; and if she cannot pay you in affection, she ought +to hand out a business-like equivalent, in the shape of some rouleaux of gold +pieces.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you don’t understand her; she is far too disinterested to care for my +gifts, and too simple-minded to know their value.” +</p> + +<p> +I laughed out: I had heard her adjudge to every jewel its price; and well I +knew money-embarrassment, money-schemes; money’s worth, and endeavours to +realise supplies, had, young as she was, furnished the most frequent, and the +favourite stimulus of her thoughts for years. +</p> + +<p> +He pursued. “You should have seen her whenever I have laid on her lap some +trifle; so cool, so unmoved: no eagerness to take, not even pleasure in +contemplating. Just from amiable reluctance to grieve me, she would permit the +bouquet to lie beside her, and perhaps consent to bear it away. Or, if I +achieved the fastening of a bracelet on her ivory arm, however pretty the +trinket might be (and I always carefully chose what seemed to <i>me</i> pretty, +and what of course was not valueless), the glitter never dazzled her bright +eyes: she would hardly cast one look on my gift.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then, of course, not valuing it, she would unloose, and return it to you?” +</p> + +<p> +“No; for such a repulse she was too good-natured. She would consent to seem to +forget what I had done, and retain the offering with lady-like quiet and easy +oblivion. Under such circumstances, how can a man build on acceptance of his +presents as a favourable symptom? For my part, were I to offer her all I have, +and she to take it, such is her incapacity to be swayed by sordid +considerations, I should not venture to believe the transaction advanced me one +step.” +</p> + +<p> +“Dr. John,” I began, “Love is blind;” but just then a blue subtle ray sped +sideways from Dr. John’s eye: it reminded me of old days, it reminded me of his +picture: it half led me to think that part, at least, of his professed +persuasion of Miss Fanshawe’s <i>naïveté</i> was assumed; it led me dubiously +to conjecture that perhaps, in spite of his passion for her beauty, his +appreciation of her foibles might possibly be less mistaken, more +clear-sighted, than from his general language was presumable. After all it +might be only a chance look, or at best the token of a merely momentary +impression. Chance or intentional real or imaginary, it closed the +conversation. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap19"></a>CHAPTER XIX.<br/> +THE CLEOPATRA.</h2> + +<p> +My stay at La Terrasse was prolonged a fortnight beyond the close of the +vacation. Mrs. Bretton’s kind management procured me this respite. Her son +having one day delivered the dictum that “Lucy was not yet strong enough to go +back to that den of a pensionnat,” she at once drove over to the Rue Fossette, +had an interview with the directress, and procured the indulgence, on the plea +of prolonged rest and change being necessary to perfect recovery. Hereupon, +however, followed an attention I could very well have dispensed with, viz.—a +polite call from Madame Beck. +</p> + +<p> +That lady—one fine day—actually came out in a fiacre as far as the château. I +suppose she had resolved within herself to see what manner of place Dr. John +inhabited. Apparently, the pleasant site and neat interior surpassed her +expectations; she eulogized all she saw, pronounced the blue salon “une pièce +magnifique,” profusely congratulated me on the acquisition of friends, +“tellement dignes, aimables, et respectables,” turned also a neat compliment in +my favour, and, upon Dr. John coming in, ran up to him with the utmost +buoyancy, opening at the same time such a fire of rapid language, all sparkling +with felicitations and protestations about his “château,”—“madame sa mère, la +digne châtelaine:” also his looks; which, indeed, were very flourishing, and at +the moment additionally embellished by the good-natured but amused smile with +which he always listened to Madame’s fluent and florid French. In short, Madame +shone in her very best phase that day, and came in and went out quite a living +catherine-wheel of compliments, delight, and affability. Half purposely, and +half to ask some question about school-business, I followed her to the +carriage, and looked in after she was seated and the door closed. In that brief +fraction of time what a change had been wrought! An instant ago, all sparkles +and jests, she now sat sterner than a judge and graver than a sage. Strange +little woman! +</p> + +<p> +I went back and teased Dr. John about Madame’s devotion to him. How he laughed! +What fun shone in his eyes as he recalled some of her fine speeches, and +repeated them, imitating her voluble delivery! He had an acute sense of humour, +and was the finest company in the world—when he could forget Miss Fanshawe. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +To “sit in sunshine calm and sweet” is said to be excellent for weak people; it +gives them vital force. When little Georgette Beck was recovering from her +illness, I used to take her in my arms and walk with her in the garden by the +hour together, beneath a certain wall hung with grapes, which the Southern sun +was ripening: that sun cherished her little pale frame quite as effectually as +it mellowed and swelled the clustering fruit. +</p> + +<p> +There are human tempers, bland, glowing, and genial, within whose influence it +is as good for the poor in spirit to live, as it is for the feeble in frame to +bask in the glow of noon. Of the number of these choice natures were certainly +both Dr. Bretton’s and his mother’s. They liked to communicate happiness, as +some like to occasion misery: they did it instinctively; without fuss, and +apparently with little consciousness; the means to give pleasure rose +spontaneously in their minds. Every day while I stayed with them, some little +plan was proposed which resulted in beneficial enjoyment. Fully occupied as was +Dr. John’s time, he still made it in his way to accompany us in each brief +excursion. I can hardly tell how he managed his engagements; they were +numerous, yet by dint of system, he classed them in an order which left him a +daily period of liberty. I often saw him hard-worked, yet seldom over-driven, +and never irritated, confused, or oppressed. What he did was accomplished with +the ease and grace of all-sufficing strength; with the bountiful cheerfulness +of high and unbroken energies. Under his guidance I saw, in that one happy +fortnight, more of Villette, its environs, and its inhabitants, than I had seen +in the whole eight months of my previous residence. He took me to places of +interest in the town, of whose names I had not before so much as heard; with +willingness and spirit he communicated much noteworthy information. He never +seemed to think it a trouble to talk to me, and, I am sure, it was never a task +to me to listen. It was not his way to treat subjects coldly and vaguely; he +rarely generalized, never prosed. He seemed to like nice details almost as much +as I liked them myself: he seemed observant of character: and not superficially +observant, either. These points gave the quality of interest to his discourse; +and the fact of his speaking direct from his own resources, and not borrowing +or stealing from books—here a dry fact, and there a trite phrase, and elsewhere +a hackneyed opinion—ensured a freshness, as welcome as it was rare. Before my +eyes, too, his disposition seemed to unfold another phase; to pass to a fresh +day: to rise in new and nobler dawn. +</p> + +<p> +His mother possessed a good development of benevolence, but he owned a better +and larger. I found, on accompanying him to the Basse-Ville—the poor and +crowded quarter of the city—that his errands there were as much those of the +philanthropist as the physician. I understood presently that cheerfully, +habitually, and in single-minded unconsciousness of any special merit +distinguishing his deeds—he was achieving, amongst a very wretched population, +a world of active good. The lower orders liked him well; his poor patients in +the hospitals welcomed him with a sort of enthusiasm. +</p> + +<p> +But stop—I must not, from the faithful narrator, degenerate into the partial +eulogist. Well, full well, do I know that Dr. John was not perfect, any more +than I am perfect. Human fallibility leavened him throughout: there was no +hour, and scarcely a moment of the time I spent with him that in act or speech, +or look, he did not betray something that was not of a god. A god could not +have the cruel vanity of Dr. John, nor his sometime levity. No immortal could +have resembled him in his occasional temporary oblivion of all but the +present—in his passing passion for that present; shown not coarsely, by +devoting it to material indulgence, but selfishly, by extracting from it +whatever it could yield of nutriment to his masculine self-love: his delight +was to feed that ravenous sentiment, without thought of the price of provender, +or care for the cost of keeping it sleek and high-pampered. +</p> + +<p> +The reader is requested to note a seeming contradiction in the two views which +have been given of Graham Bretton—the public and private—the out-door and the +in-door view. In the first, the public, he is shown oblivious of self; as +modest in the display of his energies, as earnest in their exercise. In the +second, the fireside picture, there is expressed consciousness of what he has +and what he is; pleasure in homage, some recklessness in exciting, some vanity +in receiving the same. Both portraits are correct. +</p> + +<p> +It was hardly possible to oblige Dr. John quietly and in secret. When you +thought that the fabrication of some trifle dedicated to his use had been +achieved unnoticed, and that, like other men, he would use it when placed ready +for his use, and never ask whence it came, he amazed you by a smilingly-uttered +observation or two, proving that his eye had been on the work from commencement +to close: that he had noted the design, traced its progress, and marked its +completion. It pleased him to be thus served, and he let his pleasure beam in +his eye and play about his mouth. +</p> + +<p> +This would have been all very well, if he had not added to such kindly and +unobtrusive evidence a certain wilfulness in discharging what he called debts. +When his mother worked for him, he paid her by showering about her his bright +animal spirits, with even more affluence than his gay, taunting, teasing, +loving wont. If Lucy Snowe were discovered to have put her hand to such work, +he planned, in recompence, some pleasant recreation. +</p> + +<p> +I often felt amazed at his perfect knowledge of Villette; a knowledge not +merely confined to its open streets, but penetrating to all its galleries, +salles, and cabinets: of every door which shut in an object worth seeing, of +every museum, of every hall, sacred to art or science, he seemed to possess the +“Open! Sesame.” I never had a head for science, but an ignorant, blind, fond +instinct inclined me to art. I liked to visit the picture-galleries, and I +dearly liked to be left there alone. In company, a wretched idiosyncracy +forbade me to see much or to feel anything. In unfamiliar company, where it was +necessary to maintain a flow of talk on the subjects in presence, half an hour +would knock me up, with a combined pressure of physical lassitude and entire +mental incapacity. I never yet saw the well-reared child, much less the +educated adult, who could not put me to shame, by the sustained intelligence of +its demeanour under the ordeal of a conversable, sociable visitation of +pictures, historical sights or buildings, or any lions of public interest. Dr. +Bretton was a cicerone after my own heart; he would take me betimes, ere the +galleries were filled, leave me there for two or three hours, and call for me +when his own engagements were discharged. Meantime, I was happy; happy, not +always in admiring, but in examining, questioning, and forming conclusions. In +the commencement of these visits, there was some misunderstanding and +consequent struggle between Will and Power. The former faculty exacted +approbation of that which it was considered orthodox to admire; the latter +groaned forth its utter inability to pay the tax; it was then self-sneered at, +spurred up, goaded on to refine its taste, and whet its zest. The more it was +chidden, however, the more it wouldn’t praise. Discovering gradually that a +wonderful sense of fatigue resulted from these conscientious efforts, I began +to reflect whether I might not dispense with that great labour, and concluded +eventually that I might, and so sank supine into a luxury of calm before +ninety-nine out of a hundred of the exhibited frames. +</p> + +<p> +It seemed to me that an original and good picture was just as scarce as an +original and good book; nor did I, in the end, tremble to say to myself, +standing before certain <i>chef-d’œuvres</i> bearing great names, “These are +not a whit like nature. Nature’s daylight never had that colour: never was made +so turbid, either by storm or cloud, as it is laid out there, under a sky of +indigo: and that indigo is not ether; and those dark weeds plastered upon it +are not trees.” Several very well executed and complacent-looking fat women +struck me as by no means the goddesses they appeared to consider themselves. +Many scores of marvellously-finished little Flemish pictures, and also of +sketches, excellent for fashion-books displaying varied costumes in the +handsomest materials, gave evidence of laudable industry whimsically applied. +And yet there were fragments of truth here and there which satisfied the +conscience, and gleams of light that cheered the vision. Nature’s power here +broke through in a mountain snow-storm; and there her glory in a sunny southern +day. An expression in this portrait proved clear insight into character; a face +in that historical painting, by its vivid filial likeness, startlingly reminded +you that genius gave it birth. These exceptions I loved: they grew dear as +friends. +</p> + +<p> +One day, at a quiet early hour, I found myself nearly alone in a certain +gallery, wherein one particular picture of portentous size, set up in the best +light, having a cordon of protection stretched before it, and a cushioned bench +duly set in front for the accommodation of worshipping connoisseurs, who, +having gazed themselves off their feet, might be fain to complete the business +sitting: this picture, I say, seemed to consider itself the queen of the +collection. +</p> + +<p> +It represented a woman, considerably larger, I thought, than the life. I +calculated that this lady, put into a scale of magnitude, suitable for the +reception of a commodity of bulk, would infallibly turn from fourteen to +sixteen stone. She was, indeed, extremely well fed: very much butcher’s meat—to +say nothing of bread, vegetables, and liquids—must she have consumed to attain +that breadth and height, that wealth of muscle, that affluence of flesh. She +lay half-reclined on a couch: why, it would be difficult to say; broad daylight +blazed round her; she appeared in hearty health, strong enough to do the work +of two plain cooks; she could not plead a weak spine; she ought to have been +standing, or at least sitting bolt upright. She, had no business to lounge away +the noon on a sofa. She ought likewise to have worn decent garments; a gown +covering her properly, which was not the case: out of abundance of +material—seven-and-twenty yards, I should say, of drapery—she managed to make +inefficient raiment. Then, for the wretched untidiness surrounding her, there +could be no excuse. Pots and pans—perhaps I ought to say vases and goblets—were +rolled here and there on the foreground; a perfect rubbish of flowers was mixed +amongst them, and an absurd and disorderly mass of curtain upholstery smothered +the couch and cumbered the floor. On referring to the catalogue, I found that +this notable production bore the name “Cleopatra.” +</p> + +<p> +Well, I was sitting wondering at it (as the bench was there, I thought I might +as well take advantage of its accommodation), and thinking that while some of +the details—as roses, gold cups, jewels, &c., were very prettily painted, +it was on the whole an enormous piece of claptrap; the room, almost vacant when +I entered, began to fill. Scarcely noticing this circumstance (as, indeed, it +did not matter to me) I retained my seat; rather to rest myself than with a +view to studying this huge, dark-complexioned gipsy-queen; of whom, indeed, I +soon tired, and betook myself for refreshment to the contemplation of some +exquisite little pictures of still life: wild-flowers, wild-fruit, mossy +wood-nests, casketing eggs that looked like pearls seen through clear green +sea-water; all hung modestly beneath that coarse and preposterous canvas. +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly a light tap visited my shoulder. Starting, turning, I met a face bent +to encounter mine; a frowning, almost a shocked face it was. +</p> + +<p> +“Que faites-vous ici?” said a voice. +</p> + +<p> +“Mais, Monsieur, je m’amuse.” +</p> + +<p> +“Vous vous amusez! et à quoi, s’il vous plait? Mais d’abord, faites-moi le +plaisir de vous lever; prenez mon bras, et allons de l’autre côté.” +</p> + +<p> +I did precisely as I was bid. M. Paul Emanuel (it was he) returned from Rome, +and now a travelled man, was not likely to be less tolerant of insubordination +now, than before this added distinction laurelled his temples. +</p> + +<p> +“Permit me to conduct you to your party,” said he, as we crossed the room. +</p> + +<p> +“I have no party.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are not alone?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, Monsieur.” +</p> + +<p> +“Did you come here unaccompanied?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, Monsieur. Dr. Bretton brought me here.” +</p> + +<p> +“Dr. Bretton and Madame his mother, of course?” +</p> + +<p> +“No; only Dr. Bretton.” +</p> + +<p> +“And he told you to look at <i>that</i> picture?” +</p> + +<p> +“By no means; I found it out for myself.” +</p> + +<p> +M. Paul’s hair was shorn close as raven down, or I think it would have bristled +on his head. Beginning now to perceive his drift, I had a certain pleasure in +keeping cool, and working him up. +</p> + +<p> +“Astounding insular audacity!” cried the Professor. “Singulières femmes que ces +Anglaises!” +</p> + +<p> +“What is the matter, Monsieur?” +</p> + +<p> +“Matter! How dare you, a young person, sit coolly down, with the +self-possession of a garçon, and look at <i>that</i> picture?” +</p> + +<p> +“It is a very ugly picture, but I cannot at all see why I should not look at +it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Bon! bon! Speak no more of it. But you ought not to be here alone.” +</p> + +<p> +“If, however, I have no society—no <i>party</i>, as you say? And then, what +does it signify whether I am alone, or accompanied? nobody meddles with me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Taisez-vous, et asseyez-vous là—là!”—setting down a chair with emphasis in a +particularly dull corner, before a series of most specially dreary “cadres.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mais, Monsieur?” +</p> + +<p> +“Mais, Mademoiselle, asseyez-vous, et ne bougez pas—entendez-vous?—jusqu’à ce +qu’on vienne vous chercher, ou que je vous donne la permission.” +</p> + +<p> +“Quel triste coin!” cried I, “et quelles laids tableaux!” +</p> + +<p> +And “laids,” indeed, they were; being a set of four, denominated in the +catalogue “La vie d’une femme.” They were painted rather in a remarkable +style—flat, dead, pale, and formal. The first represented a “Jeune Fille,” +coming out of a church-door, a missal in her hand, her dress very prim, her +eyes cast down, her mouth pursed up—the image of a most villanous little +precocious she-hypocrite. The second, a “Mariée,” with a long white veil, +kneeling at a prie-dieu in her chamber, holding her hands plastered together, +finger to finger, and showing the whites of her eyes in a most exasperating +manner. The third, a “Jeune Mère,” hanging disconsolate over a clayey and puffy +baby with a face like an unwholesome full moon. The fourth, a “Veuve,” being a +black woman, holding by the hand a black little girl, and the twain studiously +surveying an elegant French monument, set up in a corner of some Père la +Chaise. All these four “Anges” were grim and grey as burglars, and cold and +vapid as ghosts. What women to live with! insincere, ill-humoured, bloodless, +brainless nonentities! As bad in their way as the indolent gipsy-giantess, the +Cleopatra, in hers. +</p> + +<p> +It was impossible to keep one’s attention long confined to these master-pieces, +and so, by degrees, I veered round, and surveyed the gallery. +</p> + +<p> +A perfect crowd of spectators was by this time gathered round the Lioness, from +whose vicinage I had been banished; nearly half this crowd were ladies, but M. +Paul afterwards told me, these were “des dames,” and it was quite proper for +them to contemplate what no “demoiselle” ought to glance at. I assured him +plainly I could not agree in this doctrine, and did not see the sense of it; +whereupon, with his usual absolutism, he merely requested my silence, and also, +in the same breath, denounced my mingled rashness and ignorance. A more +despotic little man than M. Paul never filled a professor’s chair. I noticed, +by the way, that he looked at the picture himself quite at his ease, and for a +very long while: he did not, however, neglect to glance from time to time my +way, in order, I suppose, to make sure that I was obeying orders, and not +breaking bounds. By-and-by, he again accosted me. +</p> + +<p> +“Had I not been ill?” he wished to know: “he understood I had.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, but I was now quite well.” +</p> + +<p> +“Where had I spent the vacation?” +</p> + +<p> +“Chiefly in the Rue Fossette; partly with Madame Bretton.” +</p> + +<p> +“He had heard that I was left alone in the Rue Fossette; was that so?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not quite alone: Marie Broc” (the crétin) “was with me.” +</p> + +<p> +He shrugged his shoulders; varied and contradictory expressions played rapidly +over his countenance. Marie Broc was well known to M. Paul; he never gave a +lesson in the third division (containing the least advanced pupils), that she +did not occasion in him a sharp conflict between antagonistic impressions. Her +personal appearance, her repulsive manners, her often unmanageable disposition, +irritated his temper, and inspired him with strong antipathy; a feeling he was +too apt to conceive when his taste was offended or his will thwarted. On the +other hand, her misfortunes, constituted a strong claim on his forbearance and +compassion—such a claim as it was not in his nature to deny; hence resulted +almost daily drawn battles between impatience and disgust on the one hand, pity +and a sense of justice on the other; in which, to his credit be it said, it was +very seldom that the former feelings prevailed: when they did, however, M. Paul +showed a phase of character which had its terrors. His passions were strong, +his aversions and attachments alike vivid; the force he exerted in holding both +in check by no means mitigated an observer’s sense of their vehemence. With +such tendencies, it may well be supposed he often excited in ordinary minds +fear and dislike; yet it was an error to fear him: nothing drove him so nearly +frantic as the tremor of an apprehensive and distrustful spirit; nothing +soothed him like confidence tempered with gentleness. To evince these +sentiments, however, required a thorough comprehension of his nature; and his +nature was of an order rarely comprehended. +</p> + +<p> +“How did you get on with Marie Broc?” he asked, after some minutes’ silence. +</p> + +<p> +“Monsieur, I did my best; but it was terrible to be alone with her!” +</p> + +<p> +“You have, then, a weak heart! You lack courage; and, perhaps, charity. Yours +are not the qualities which might constitute a Sister of Mercy.” +</p> + +<p> +[He was a religious little man, in his way: the self-denying and +self-sacrificing part of the Catholic religion commanded the homage of his +soul.] +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know, indeed: I took as good care of her as I could; but when her aunt +came to fetch her away, it was a great relief.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah! you are an egotist. There are women who have nursed hospitals-full of +similar unfortunates. You could not do that?” +</p> + +<p> +“Could Monsieur do it himself?” +</p> + +<p> +“Women who are worthy the name ought infinitely to surpass; our coarse, +fallible, self-indulgent sex, in the power to perform such duties.” +</p> + +<p> +“I washed her, I kept her clean, I fed her, I tried to amuse her; but she made +mouths at me instead of speaking.” +</p> + +<p> +“You think you did great things?” +</p> + +<p> +“No; but as great as I <i>could</i> do.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then limited are your powers, for in tending one idiot you fell sick.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not with that, Monsieur; I had a nervous fever: my mind was ill.” +</p> + +<p> +“Vraiment! Vous valez peu de chose. You are not cast in an heroic mould; your +courage will not avail to sustain you in solitude; it merely gives you the +temerity to gaze with sang-froid at pictures of Cleopatra.” +</p> + +<p> +It would have been easy to show anger at the teasing, hostile tone of the +little man. I had never been angry with him yet, however, and had no present +disposition to begin. +</p> + +<p> +“Cleopatra!” I repeated, quietly. “Monsieur, too, has been looking at +Cleopatra; what does he think of her?” +</p> + +<p> +“Cela ne vaut rien,” he responded. “Une femme superbe—une taille d’impératrice, +des formes de Junon, mais une personne dont je ne voudrais ni pour femme, ni +pour fille, ni pour sœur. Aussi vous ne jeterez plus un seul coup d’oeil de sa +côté.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I have looked at her a great many times while Monsieur has been talking: I +can see her quite well from this corner.” +</p> + +<p> +“Turn to the wall and study your four pictures of a woman’s life.” +</p> + +<p> +“Excuse me, M. Paul; they are too hideous: but if you admire them, allow me to +vacate my seat and leave you to their contemplation.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mademoiselle,” he said, grimacing a half-smile, or what he intended for a +smile, though it was but a grim and hurried manifestation. “You nurslings of +Protestantism astonish me. You unguarded Englishwomen walk calmly amidst +red-hot ploughshares and escape burning. I believe, if some of you were thrown +into Nebuchadnezzar’s hottest furnace you would issue forth untraversed by the +smell of fire.” +</p> + +<p> +“Will Monsieur have the goodness to move an inch to one side?” +</p> + +<p> +“How! At what are you gazing now? You are not recognising an acquaintance +amongst that group of jeunes gens?” +</p> + +<p> +“I think so—Yes, I see there a person I know.” +</p> + +<p> +In fact, I had caught a glimpse of a head too pretty to belong to any other +than the redoubted Colonel de Hamal. What a very finished, highly polished +little pate it was! What a figure, so trim and natty! What womanish feet and +hands! How daintily he held a glass to one of his optics! with what admiration +he gazed upon the Cleopatra! and then, how engagingly he tittered and whispered +a friend at his elbow! Oh, the man of sense! Oh, the refined gentleman of +superior taste and tact! I observed him for about ten minutes, and perceived +that he was exceedingly taken with this dusk and portly Venus of the Nile. So +much was I interested in his bearing, so absorbed in divining his character by +his looks and movements, I temporarily forgot M. Paul; in the interim a group +came between that gentleman and me; or possibly his scruples might have +received another and worse shock from my present abstraction, causing him to +withdraw voluntarily: at any rate, when I again looked round, he was gone. +</p> + +<p> +My eye, pursuant of the search, met not him, but another and dissimilar figure, +well seen amidst the crowd, for the height as well as the port lent each its +distinction. This way came Dr. John, in visage, in shape, in hue, as unlike the +dark, acerb, and caustic little professor, as the fruit of the Hesperides might +be unlike the sloe in the wild thicket; as the high-couraged but tractable +Arabian is unlike the rude and stubborn “sheltie.” He was looking for me, but +had not yet explored the corner where the schoolmaster had just put me. I +remained quiet; yet another minute I would watch. +</p> + +<p> +He approached de Hamal; he paused near him; I thought he had a pleasure in +looking over his head; Dr. Bretton, too, gazed on the Cleopatra. I doubt if it +were to his taste: he did not simper like the little Count; his mouth looked +fastidious, his eye cool; without demonstration he stepped aside, leaving room +for others to approach. I saw now that he was waiting, and, rising, I joined +him. +</p> + +<p> +We took one turn round the gallery; with Graham it was very pleasant to take +such a turn. I always liked dearly to hear what he had to say about either +pictures or books; because without pretending to be a connoisseur, he always +spoke his thought, and that was sure to be fresh: very often it was also just +and pithy. It was pleasant also to tell him some things he did not know—he +listened so kindly, so teachably; unformalized by scruples lest so to bend his +bright handsome head, to gather a woman’s rather obscure and stammering +explanation, should imperil the dignity of his manhood. And when he +communicated information in return, it was with a lucid intelligence that left +all his words clear graven on the memory; no explanation of his giving, no fact +of his narrating, did I ever forget. +</p> + +<p> +As we left the gallery, I asked him what he thought of the Cleopatra (after +making him laugh by telling him how Professor Emanuel had sent me to the right +about, and taking him to see the sweet series of pictures recommended to my +attention.) +</p> + +<p> +“Pooh!” said he. “My mother is a better-looking woman. I heard some French +fops, yonder, designating her as ‘le type du voluptueux;’ if so, I can only +say, ‘le voluptueux’ is little to my liking. Compare that mulatto with +Ginevra!” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap20"></a>CHAPTER XX.<br/> +THE CONCERT.</h2> + +<p> +One morning, Mrs. Bretton, coming promptly into my room, desired me to open my +drawers and show her my dresses; which I did, without a word. +</p> + +<p> +“That will do,” said she, when she had turned them over. “You must have a new +one.” +</p> + +<p> +She went out. She returned presently with a dressmaker. She had me measured. “I +mean,” said she, “to follow my own taste, and to have my own way in this little +matter.” +</p> + +<p> +Two days after came home—a pink dress! +</p> + +<p> +“That is not for me,” I said, hurriedly, feeling that I would almost as soon +clothe myself in the costume of a Chinese lady of rank. +</p> + +<p> +“We shall see whether it is for you or not,” rejoined my godmother, adding with +her resistless decision: “Mark my words. You will wear it this very evening.” +</p> + +<p> +I thought I should not; I thought no human force should avail to put me into +it. A pink dress! I knew it not. It knew not me. I had not proved it. +</p> + +<p> +My godmother went on to decree that I was to go with her and Graham to a +concert that same night: which concert, she explained, was a grand affair to be +held in the large salle, or hall, of the principal musical society. The most +advanced of the pupils of the Conservatoire were to perform: it was to be +followed by a lottery “au bénéfice des pauvres;” and to crown all, the King, +Queen, and Prince of Labassecour were to be present. Graham, in sending +tickets, had enjoined attention to costume as a compliment due to royalty: he +also recommended punctual readiness by seven o’clock. +</p> + +<p> +About six, I was ushered upstairs. Without any force at all, I found myself led +and influenced by another’s will, unconsulted, unpersuaded, quietly overruled. +In short, the pink dress went on, softened by some drapery of black lace. I was +pronounced to be en grande tenue, and requested to look in the glass. I did so +with some fear and trembling; with more fear and trembling, I turned away. +Seven o’clock struck; Dr. Bretton was come; my godmother and I went down. +<i>She</i> was clad in brown velvet; as I walked in her shadow, how I envied +her those folds of grave, dark majesty! Graham stood in the drawing-room +doorway. +</p> + +<p> +“I <i>do</i> hope he will not think I have been decking myself out to draw +attention,” was my uneasy aspiration. +</p> + +<p> +“Here, Lucy, are some flowers,” said he, giving me a bouquet. He took no +further notice of my dress than was conveyed in a kind smile and satisfied nod, +which calmed at once my sense of shame and fear of ridicule. For the rest; the +dress was made with extreme simplicity, guiltless of flounce or furbelow; it +was but the light fabric and bright tint which scared me, and since Graham +found in it nothing absurd, my own eye consented soon to become reconciled. +</p> + +<p> +I suppose people who go every night to places of public amusement, can hardly +enter into the fresh gala feeling with which an opera or a concert is enjoyed +by those for whom it is a rarity: I am not sure that I expected great pleasure +from the concert, having but a very vague notion of its nature, but I liked the +drive there well. The snug comfort of the close carriage on a cold though fine +night, the pleasure of setting out with companions so cheerful and friendly, +the sight of the stars glinting fitfully through the trees as we rolled along +the avenue; then the freer burst of the night-sky when we issued forth to the +open chaussée, the passage through the city gates, the lights there burning, +the guards there posted, the pretence of inspection, to which we there +submitted, and which amused us so much—all these small matters had for me, in +their novelty, a peculiarly exhilarating charm. How much of it lay in the +atmosphere of friendship diffused about me, I know not: Dr. John and his mother +were both in their finest mood, contending animatedly with each other the whole +way, and as frankly kind to me as if I had been of their kin. +</p> + +<p> +Our way lay through some of the best streets of Villette, streets brightly lit, +and far more lively now than at high noon. How brilliant seemed the shops! How +glad, gay, and abundant flowed the tide of life along the broad pavement! While +I looked, the thought of the Rue Fossette came across me—of the walled-in +garden and school-house, and of the dark, vast “classes,” where, as at this +very hour, it was my wont to wander all solitary, gazing at the stars through +the high, blindless windows, and listening to the distant voice of the reader +in the refectory, monotonously exercised upon the “lecture pieuse.” Thus must I +soon again listen and wander; and this shadow of the future stole with timely +sobriety across the radiant present. +</p> + +<p> +By this time we had got into a current of carriages all tending in one +direction, and soon the front of a great illuminated building blazed before us. +Of what I should see within this building, I had, as before intimated, but an +imperfect idea; for no place of public entertainment had it ever been my lot to +enter yet. +</p> + +<p> +We alighted under a portico where there was a great bustle and a great crowd, +but I do not distinctly remember further details, until I found myself mounting +a majestic staircase wide and easy of ascent, deeply and softly carpeted with +crimson, leading up to great doors closed solemnly, and whose panels were also +crimson-clothed. +</p> + +<p> +I hardly noticed by what magic these doors were made to roll back—Dr. John +managed these points; roll back they did, however, and within was disclosed a +hall—grand, wide, and high, whose sweeping circular walls, and domed hollow +ceiling, seemed to me all dead gold (thus with nice art was it stained), +relieved by cornicing, fluting, and garlandry, either bright, like gold +burnished, or snow-white, like alabaster, or white and gold mingled in wreaths +of gilded leaves and spotless lilies: wherever drapery hung, wherever carpets +were spread, or cushions placed, the sole colour employed was deep crimson. +Pendent from the dome, flamed a mass that dazzled me—a mass, I thought, of +rock-crystal, sparkling with facets, streaming with drops, ablaze with stars, +and gorgeously tinged with dews of gems dissolved, or fragments of rainbows +shivered. It was only the chandelier, reader, but for me it seemed the work of +eastern genii: I almost looked to see if a huge, dark, cloudy hand—that of the +Slave of the Lamp—were not hovering in the lustrous and perfumed atmosphere of +the cupola, guarding its wondrous treasure. +</p> + +<p> +We moved on—I was not at all conscious whither—but at some turn we suddenly +encountered another party approaching from the opposite direction. I just now +see that group, as it flashed—upon me for one moment. A handsome middle-aged +lady in dark velvet; a gentleman who might be her son—the best face, the finest +figure, I thought, I had ever seen; a third person in a pink dress and black +lace mantle. +</p> + +<p> +I noted them all—the third person as well as the other two—and for the fraction +of a moment believed them all strangers, thus receiving an impartial impression +of their appearance. But the impression was hardly felt and not fixed, before +the consciousness that I faced a great mirror, filling a compartment between +two pillars, dispelled it: the party was our own party. Thus for the first, and +perhaps only time in my life, I enjoyed the “giftie” of seeing myself as others +see me. No need to dwell on the result. It brought a jar of discord, a pang of +regret; it was not flattering, yet, after all, I ought to be thankful; it might +have been worse. +</p> + +<p> +At last, we were seated in places commanding a good general view of that vast +and dazzling, but warm and cheerful hall. Already it was filled, and filled +with a splendid assemblage. I do not know that the women were very beautiful, +but their dresses were so perfect; and foreigners, even such as are ungraceful +in domestic privacy, seem to possess the art of appearing graceful in public: +however blunt and boisterous those every-day and home movements connected with +peignoir and papillotes, there is a slide, a bend, a carriage of the head and +arms, a mien of the mouth and eyes, kept nicely in reserve for gala use—always +brought out with the grande toilette, and duly put on with the “parure.” +</p> + +<p> +Some fine forms there were here and there, models of a peculiar style of +beauty; a style, I think, never seen in England; a solid, firm-set, sculptural +style. These shapes have no angles: a caryatid in marble is almost as flexible; +a Phidian goddess is not more perfect in a certain still and stately sort. They +have such features as the Dutch painters give to their madonnas: low-country +classic features, regular but round, straight but stolid; and for their depth +of expressionless calm, of passionless peace, a polar snow-field could alone +offer a type. Women of this order need no ornament, and they seldom wear any; +the smooth hair, closely braided, supplies a sufficient contrast to the +smoother cheek and brow; the dress cannot be too simple; the rounded arm and +perfect neck require neither bracelet nor chain. +</p> + +<p> +With one of these beauties I once had the honour and rapture to be perfectly +acquainted: the inert force of the deep, settled love she bore herself, was +wonderful; it could only be surpassed by her proud impotency to care for any +other living thing. Of blood, her cool veins conducted no flow; placid lymph +filled and almost obstructed her arteries. +</p> + +<p> +Such a Juno as I have described sat full in our view—a sort of mark for all +eyes, and quite conscious that so she was, but proof to the magnetic influence +of gaze or glance: cold, rounded, blonde, and beauteous as the white column, +capitalled with gilding, which rose at her side. +</p> + +<p> +Observing that Dr. John’s attention was much drawn towards her, I entreated him +in a low voice “for the love of heaven to shield well his heart. You need not +fall in love with <i>that</i> lady,” I said, “because, I tell you beforehand, +you might die at her feet, and she would not love you again.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very well,” said he, “and how do you know that the spectacle of her grand +insensibility might not with me be the strongest stimulus to homage? The sting +of desperation is, I think, a wonderful irritant to my emotions: but” +(shrugging his shoulders) “you know nothing about these things; I’ll address +myself to my mother. Mamma, I’m in a dangerous way.” +</p> + +<p> +“As if that interested me!” said Mrs. Bretton. +</p> + +<p> +“Alas! the cruelty of my lot!” responded her son. “Never man had a more +unsentimental mother than mine: she never seems to think that such a calamity +can befall her as a daughter-in-law.” +</p> + +<p> +“If I don’t, it is not for want of having that same calamity held over my head: +you have threatened me with it for the last ten years. ‘Mamma, I am going to be +married soon!’ was the cry before you were well out of jackets.” +</p> + +<p> +“But, mother, one of these days it will be realized. All of a sudden, when you +think you are most secure, I shall go forth like Jacob or Esau, or any other +patriarch, and take me a wife: perhaps of these which are of the daughters of +the land.” +</p> + +<p> +“At your peril, John Graham! that is all.” +</p> + +<p> +“This mother of mine means me to be an old bachelor. What a jealous old lady it +is! But now just look at that splendid creature in the pale blue satin dress, +and hair of paler brown, with ‘reflets satinés’ as those of her robe. Would you +not feel proud, mamma, if I were to bring that goddess home some day, and +introduce her to you as Mrs. Bretton, junior?” +</p> + +<p> +“You will bring no goddess to La Terrasse: that little château will not contain +two mistresses; especially if the second be of the height, bulk, and +circumference of that mighty doll in wood and wax, and kid and satin.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mamma, she would fill your blue chair so admirably!” +</p> + +<p> +“Fill my chair? I defy the foreign usurper! a rueful chair should it be for +her: but hush, John Graham! Hold your tongue, and use your eyes.” +</p> + +<p> +During the above skirmish, the hall, which, I had thought, seemed full at the +entrance, continued to admit party after party, until the semicircle before the +stage presented one dense mass of heads, sloping from floor to ceiling. The +stage, too, or rather the wide temporary platform, larger than any stage, +desert half an hour since, was now overflowing with life; round two grand +pianos, placed about the centre, a white flock of young girls, the pupils of +the Conservatoire, had noiselessly poured. I had noticed their gathering, while +Graham and his mother were engaged in discussing the belle in blue satin, and +had watched with interest the process of arraying and marshalling them. Two +gentlemen, in each of whom I recognised an acquaintance, officered this virgin +troop. One, an artistic-looking man, bearded, and with long hair, was a noted +pianiste, and also the first music-teacher in Villette; he attended twice a +week at Madame Beck’s pensionnat, to give lessons to the few pupils whose +parents were rich enough to allow their daughters the privilege of his +instructions; his name was M. Josef Emanuel, and he was half-brother to M. +Paul: which potent personage was now visible in the person of the second +gentleman. +</p> + +<p> +M. Paul amused me; I smiled to myself as I watched him, he seemed so thoroughly +in his element—standing conspicuous in presence of a wide and grand assemblage, +arranging, restraining, over-aweing about one hundred young ladies. He was, +too, so perfectly in earnest—so energetic, so intent, and, above all, so +absolute: and yet what business had he there? What had he to do with music or +the Conservatoire—he who could hardly distinguish one note from another? I knew +that it was his love of display and authority which had brought him there—a +love not offensive, only because so naive. It presently became obvious that his +brother, M. Josef, was as much under his control as were the girls themselves. +Never was such a little hawk of a man as that M. Paul! Ere long, some noted +singers and musicians dawned upon the platform: as these stars rose, the +comet-like professor set. Insufferable to him were all notorieties and +celebrities: where he could not outshine, he fled. +</p> + +<p> +And now all was prepared: but one compartment of the hall waited to be filled—a +compartment covered with crimson, like the grand staircase and doors, furnished +with stuffed and cushioned benches, ranged on each side of two regal chairs, +placed solemnly under a canopy. +</p> + +<p> +A signal was given, the doors rolled back, the assembly stood up, the orchestra +burst out, and, to the welcome of a choral burst, enter the King, the Queen, +the Court of Labassecour. +</p> + +<p> +Till then, I had never set eyes on living king or queen; it may consequently be +conjectured how I strained my powers of vision to take in these specimens of +European royalty. By whomsoever majesty is beheld for the first time, there +will always be experienced a vague surprise bordering on disappointment, that +the same does not appear seated, en permanence, on a throne, bonneted with a +crown, and furnished, as to the hand, with a sceptre. Looking out for a king +and queen, and seeing only a middle-aged soldier and a rather young lady, I +felt half cheated, half pleased. +</p> + +<p> +Well do I recall that King—a man of fifty, a little bowed, a little grey: there +was no face in all that assembly which resembled his. I had never read, never +been told anything of his nature or his habits; and at first the strong +hieroglyphics graven as with iron stylet on his brow, round his eyes, beside +his mouth, puzzled and baffled instinct. Ere long, however, if I did not know, +at least I felt, the meaning of those characters written without hand. There +sat a silent sufferer—a nervous, melancholy man. Those eyes had looked on the +visits of a certain ghost—had long waited the comings and goings of that +strangest spectre, Hypochondria. Perhaps he saw her now on that stage, over +against him, amidst all that brilliant throng. Hypochondria has that wont, to +rise in the midst of thousands—dark as Doom, pale as Malady, and well-nigh +strong as Death. Her comrade and victim thinks to be happy one moment—“Not so,” +says she; “I come.” And she freezes the blood in his heart, and beclouds the +light in his eye. +</p> + +<p> +Some might say it was the foreign crown pressing the King’s brows which bent +them to that peculiar and painful fold; some might quote the effects of early +bereavement. Something there might be of both these; but these are embittered +by that darkest foe of humanity—constitutional melancholy. The Queen, his wife, +knew this: it seemed to me, the reflection of her husband’s grief lay, a +subduing shadow, on her own benignant face. A mild, thoughtful, graceful woman +that princess seemed; not beautiful, not at all like the women of solid charms +and marble feelings described a page or two since. Hers was a somewhat slender +shape; her features, though distinguished enough, were too suggestive of +reigning dynasties and royal lines to give unqualified pleasure. The expression +clothing that profile was agreeable in the present instance; but you could not +avoid connecting it with remembered effigies, where similar lines appeared, +under phase ignoble; feeble, or sensual, or cunning, as the case might be. The +Queen’s eye, however, was her own; and pity, goodness, sweet sympathy, blessed +it with divinest light. She moved no sovereign, but a lady—kind, loving, +elegant. Her little son, the Prince of Labassecour, and young Duc de +Dindonneau, accompanied her: he leaned on his mother’s knee; and, ever and +anon, in the course of that evening, I saw her observant of the monarch at her +side, conscious of his beclouded abstraction, and desirous to rouse him from it +by drawing his attention to their son. She often bent her head to listen to the +boy’s remarks, and would then smilingly repeat them to his sire. The moody King +started, listened, smiled, but invariably relapsed as soon as his good angel +ceased speaking. Full mournful and significant was that spectacle! Not the less +so because, both for the aristocracy and the honest bourgeoisie of Labassecour, +its peculiarity seemed to be wholly invisible: I could not discover that one +soul present was either struck or touched. +</p> + +<p> +With the King and Queen had entered their court, comprising two or three +foreign ambassadors; and with them came the elite of the foreigners then +resident in Villette. These took possession of the crimson benches; the ladies +were seated; most of the men remained standing: their sable rank, lining the +background, looked like a dark foil to the splendour displayed in front. Nor +was this splendour without varying light and shade and gradation: the middle +distance was filled with matrons in velvets and satins, in plumes and gems; the +benches in the foreground, to the Queen’s right hand, seemed devoted +exclusively to young girls, the flower—perhaps, I should rather say, the bud—of +Villette aristocracy. Here were no jewels, no head-dresses, no velvet pile or +silken sheen: purity, simplicity, and aërial grace reigned in that virgin band. +Young heads simply braided, and fair forms (I was going to write <i>sylph</i> +forms, but that would have been quite untrue: several of these “jeunes filles,” +who had not numbered more than sixteen or seventeen years, boasted contours as +robust and solid as those of a stout Englishwoman of five-and-twenty)—fair +forms robed in white, or pale rose, or placid blue, suggested thoughts of +heaven and angels. I knew a couple, at least, of these “rose et blanche” +specimens of humanity. Here was a pair of Madame Beck’s late +pupils—Mesdemoiselles Mathilde and Angélique: pupils who, during their last +year at school, ought to have been in the first class, but whose brains never +got them beyond the second division. In English, they had been under my own +charge, and hard work it was to get them to translate rationally a page of +<i>The Vicar of Wakefield</i>. Also during three months I had one of them for +my vis-à-vis at table, and the quantity of household bread, butter, and stewed +fruit, she would habitually consume at “second déjeuner” was a real world’s +wonder—to be exceeded only by the fact of her actually pocketing slices she +could not eat. Here be truths—wholesome truths, too. +</p> + +<p> +I knew another of these seraphs—the prettiest, or, at any rate, the least +demure and hypocritical looking of the lot: she was seated by the daughter of +an English peer, also an honest, though haughty-looking girl: both had entered +in the suite of the British embassy. She (<i>i.e.</i> my acquaintance) had a +slight, pliant figure, not at all like the forms of the foreign damsels: her +hair, too, was not close-braided, like a shell or a skull-cap of satin; it +looked <i>like</i> hair, and waved from her head, long, curled, and flowing. +She chatted away volubly, and seemed full of a light-headed sort of +satisfaction with herself and her position. I did not look at Dr. Bretton; but +I knew that he, too, saw Ginevra Fanshawe: he had become so quiet, he answered +so briefly his mother’s remarks, he so often suppressed a sigh. Why should he +sigh? He had confessed a taste for the pursuit of love under difficulties; here +was full gratification for that taste. His lady-love beamed upon him from a +sphere above his own: he could not come near her; he was not certain that he +could win from her a look. I watched to see if she would so far favour him. Our +seat was not far from the crimson benches; we must inevitably be seen thence, +by eyes so quick and roving as Miss Fanshawe’s, and very soon those optics of +hers were upon us: at least, upon Dr. and Mrs. Bretton. I kept rather in the +shade and out of sight, not wishing to be immediately recognised: she looked +quite steadily at Dr. John, and then she raised a glass to examine his mother; +a minute or two afterwards she laughingly whispered her neighbour; upon the +performance commencing, her rambling attention was attracted to the platform. +</p> + +<p> +On the concert I need not dwell; the reader would not care to have my +impressions thereanent: and, indeed, it would not be worth while to record +them, as they were the impressions of an ignorance crasse. The young ladies of +the Conservatoire, being very much frightened, made rather a tremulous +exhibition on the two grand pianos. M. Josef Emanuel stood by them while they +played; but he had not the tact or influence of his kinsman, who, under similar +circumstances, would certainly have <i>compelled</i> pupils of his to demean +themselves with heroism and self-possession. M. Paul would have placed the +hysteric débutantes between two fires—terror of the audience, and terror of +himself—and would have inspired them with the courage of desperation, by making +the latter terror incomparably the greater: M. Josef could not do this. +</p> + +<p> +Following the white muslin pianistes, came a fine, full-grown, sulky lady in +white satin. She sang. Her singing just affected me like the tricks of a +conjuror: I wondered how she did it—how she made her voice run up and down, and +cut such marvellous capers; but a simple Scotch melody, played by a rude street +minstrel, has often moved me more deeply. +</p> + +<p> +Afterwards stepped forth a gentleman, who, bending his body a good deal in the +direction of the King and Queen, and frequently approaching his white-gloved +hand to the region of his heart, vented a bitter outcry against a certain +“fausse Isabelle.” I thought he seemed especially to solicit the Queen’s +sympathy; but, unless I am egregiously mistaken, her Majesty lent her attention +rather with the calm of courtesy than the earnestness of interest. This +gentleman’s state of mind was very harrowing, and I was glad when he wound up +his musical exposition of the same. +</p> + +<p> +Some rousing choruses struck me as the best part of the evening’s +entertainment. There were present deputies from all the best provincial choral +societies; genuine, barrel-shaped, native Labassecouriens. These worthies gave +voice without mincing the matter their hearty exertions had at least this good +result—the ear drank thence a satisfying sense of power. +</p> + +<p> +Through the whole performance—timid instrumental duets, conceited vocal solos, +sonorous, brass-lunged choruses—my attention gave but one eye and one ear to +the stage, the other being permanently retained in the service of Dr. Bretton: +I could not forget him, nor cease to question how he was feeling, what he was +thinking, whether he was amused or the contrary. At last he spoke. +</p> + +<p> +“And how do you like it all, Lucy? You are very quiet,” he said, in his own +cheerful tone. +</p> + +<p> +“I am quiet,” I said, “because I am so very, <i>very</i> much interested: not +merely with the music, but with everything about me.” +</p> + +<p> +He then proceeded to make some further remarks, with so much equanimity and +composure that I began to think he had really not seen what I had seen, and I +whispered—“Miss Fanshawe is here: have you noticed her?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes! and I observed that you noticed her too.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is she come with Mrs. Cholmondeley, do you think?” +</p> + +<p> +“Mrs. Cholmondeley is there with a very grand party. Yes; Ginevra was in +<i>her</i> train; and Mrs. Cholmondeley was in Lady ——’s train, who was in the +Queen’s train. If this were not one of the compact little minor European +courts, whose very formalities are little more imposing than familiarities, and +whose gala grandeur is but homeliness in Sunday array, it would sound all very +fine.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ginevra saw you, I think?” +</p> + +<p> +“So do I think so. I have had my eye on her several times since you withdrew +yours; and I have had the honour of witnessing a little spectacle which you +were spared.” +</p> + +<p> +I did not ask what; I waited voluntary information, which was presently given. +</p> + +<p> +“Miss Fanshawe,” he said, “has a companion with her—a lady of rank. I happen to +know Lady Sara by sight; her noble mother has called me in professionally. She +is a proud girl, but not in the least insolent, and I doubt whether Ginevra +will have gained ground in her estimation by making a butt of her neighbours.” +</p> + +<p> +“What neighbours?” +</p> + +<p> +“Merely myself and my mother. As to me it is all very natural: nothing, I +suppose, can be fairer game than the young bourgeois doctor; but my mother! I +never saw her ridiculed before. Do you know, the curling lip, and sarcastically +levelled glass thus directed, gave me a most curious sensation?” +</p> + +<p> +“Think nothing of it, Dr. John: it is not worth while. If Ginevra were in a +giddy mood, as she is eminently to-night, she would make no scruple of laughing +at that mild, pensive Queen, or that melancholy King. She is not actuated by +malevolence, but sheer, heedless folly. To a feather-brained school-girl +nothing is sacred.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you forget: I have not been accustomed to look on Miss Fanshawe in the +light of a feather-brained school-girl. Was she not my divinity—the angel of my +career?” +</p> + +<p> +“Hem! There was your mistake.” +</p> + +<p> +“To speak the honest truth, without any false rant or assumed romance, there +actually was a moment, six months ago, when I thought her divine. Do you +remember our conversation about the presents? I was not quite open with you in +discussing that subject: the warmth with which you took it up amused me. By way +of having the full benefit of your lights, I allowed you to think me more in +the dark than I really was. It was that test of the presents which first proved +Ginevra mortal. Still her beauty retained its fascination: three days—three +hours ago, I was very much her slave. As she passed me to-night, triumphant in +beauty, my emotions did her homage; but for one luckless sneer, I should yet be +the humblest of her servants. She might have scoffed at <i>me</i>, and, while +wounding, she would not soon have alienated me: through myself, she could not +in ten years have done what, in a moment, she has done through my mother.” +</p> + +<p> +He held his peace awhile. Never before had I seen so much fire, and so little +sunshine in Dr. John’s blue eye as just now. +</p> + +<p> +“Lucy,” he recommenced, “look well at my mother, and say, without fear or +favour, in what light she now appears to you.” +</p> + +<p> +“As she always does—an English, middle-class gentlewoman; well, though gravely +dressed, habitually independent of pretence, constitutionally composed and +cheerful.” +</p> + +<p> +“So she seems to me—bless her! The merry may laugh <i>with</i> mamma, but the +weak only will laugh <i>at</i> her. She shall not be ridiculed, with my +consent, at least; nor without my—my scorn—my antipathy—my—” +</p> + +<p> +He stopped: and it was time—for he was getting excited—more it seemed than the +occasion warranted. I did not then know that he had witnessed double cause for +dissatisfaction with Miss Fanshawe. The glow of his complexion, the expansion +of his nostril, the bold curve which disdain gave his well-cut under lip, +showed him in a new and striking phase. Yet the rare passion of the +constitutionally suave and serene, is not a pleasant spectacle; nor did I like +the sort of vindictive thrill which passed through his strong young frame. +</p> + +<p> +“Do I frighten you, Lucy?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“I cannot tell why you are so very angry.” +</p> + +<p> +“For this reason,” he muttered in my ear. “Ginevra is neither a pure angel, nor +a pure-minded woman.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nonsense! you exaggerate: she has no great harm in her.” +</p> + +<p> +“Too much for me. <i>I</i> can see where <i>you</i> are blind. Now dismiss the +subject. Let me amuse myself by teasing mamma: I will assert that she is +flagging. Mamma, pray rouse yourself.” +</p> + +<p> +“John, I will certainly rouse you if you are not better conducted. Will you and +Lucy be silent, that I may hear the singing?” +</p> + +<p> +They were then thundering in a chorus, under cover of which all the previous +dialogue had taken place. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>You</i> hear the singing, mamma! Now, I will wager my studs, which are +genuine, against your paste brooch—” +</p> + +<p> +“My paste brooch, Graham? Profane boy! you know that it is a stone of value.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! that is one of your superstitions: you were cheated in the business.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am cheated in fewer things than you imagine. How do you happen to be +acquainted with young ladies of the court, John? I have observed two of them +pay you no small attention during the last half-hour.” +</p> + +<p> +“I wish you would not observe them.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why not? Because one of them satirically levels her eyeglass at me? She is a +pretty, silly girl: but are you apprehensive that her titter will discomfit the +old lady?” +</p> + +<p> +“The sensible, admirable old lady! Mother, you are better to me than ten wives +yet.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t be demonstrative, John, or I shall faint, and you will have to carry me +out; and if that burden were laid upon you, you would reverse your last speech, +and exclaim, ‘Mother, ten wives could hardly be worse to me than you are!’” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +The concert over, the Lottery “au bénéfice des pauvres” came next: the interval +between was one of general relaxation, and the pleasantest imaginable stir and +commotion. The white flock was cleared from the platform; a busy throng of +gentlemen crowded it instead, making arrangements for the drawing; and amongst +these—the busiest of all—re-appeared that certain well-known form, not tall but +active, alive with the energy and movement of three tall men. How M. Paul did +work! How he issued directions, and, at the same time, set his own shoulder to +the wheel! Half-a-dozen assistants were at his beck to remove the pianos, +&c.; no matter, he must add to their strength his own. The redundancy of +his alertness was half-vexing, half-ludicrous: in my mind I both disapproved +and derided most of this fuss. Yet, in the midst of prejudice and annoyance, I +could not, while watching, avoid perceiving a certain not disagreeable naïveté +in all he did and said; nor could I be blind to certain vigorous +characteristics of his physiognomy, rendered conspicuous now by the contrast +with a throng of tamer faces: the deep, intent keenness of his eye, the power +of his forehead, pale, broad, and full—the mobility of his most flexible mouth. +He lacked the calm of force, but its movement and its fire he signally +possessed. +</p> + +<p> +Meantime the whole hall was in a stir; most people rose and remained standing, +for a change; some walked about, all talked and laughed. The crimson +compartment presented a peculiarly animated scene. The long cloud of gentlemen, +breaking into fragments, mixed with the rainbow line of ladies; two or three +officer-like men approached the King and conversed with him. The Queen, leaving +her chair, glided along the rank of young ladies, who all stood up as she +passed; and to each in turn I saw her vouchsafe some token of kindness—a +gracious word, look or smile. To the two pretty English girls, Lady Sara and +Ginevra Fanshawe, she addressed several sentences; as she left them, both, and +especially the latter, seemed to glow all over with gratification. They were +afterwards accosted by several ladies, and a little circle of gentlemen +gathered round them; amongst these—the nearest to Ginevra—stood the Count de +Hamal. +</p> + +<p> +“This room is stiflingly hot,” said Dr. Bretton, rising with sudden impatience. +“Lucy—mother—will you come a moment to the fresh air?” +</p> + +<p> +“Go with him, Lucy,” said Mrs. Bretton. “I would rather keep my seat.” +</p> + +<p> +Willingly would I have kept mine also, but Graham’s desire must take precedence +of my own; I accompanied him. +</p> + +<p> +We found the night-air keen; or at least I did: he did not seem to feel it; but +it was very still, and the star-sown sky spread cloudless. I was wrapped in a +fur shawl. We took some turns on the pavement; in passing under a lamp, Graham +encountered my eye. +</p> + +<p> +“You look pensive, Lucy: is it on my account?” +</p> + +<p> +“I was only fearing that you were grieved.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not at all: so be of good cheer—as I am. Whenever I die, Lucy, my persuasion +is that it will not be of heart-complaint. I may be stung, I may seem to droop +for a time, but no pain or malady of sentiment has yet gone through my whole +system. You have always seen me cheerful at home?” +</p> + +<p> +“Generally.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am glad she laughed at my mother. I would not give the old lady for a dozen +beauties. That sneer did me all the good in the world. Thank you, Miss +Fanshawe!” And he lifted his hat from his waved locks, and made a mock +reverence. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” he said, “I thank her. She has made me feel that nine parts in ten of my +heart have always been sound as a bell, and the tenth bled from a mere +puncture: a lancet-prick that will heal in a trice.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are angry just now, heated and indignant; you will think and feel +differently to-morrow.” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>I</i> heated and indignant! You don’t know me. On the contrary, the heat is +gone: I am as cool as the night—which, by the way, may be too cool for you. We +will go back.” +</p> + +<p> +“Dr. John, this is a sudden change.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not it: or if it be, there are good reasons for it—two good reasons: I have +told you one. But now let us re-enter.” +</p> + +<p> +We did not easily regain our seats; the lottery was begun, and all was excited +confusion; crowds blocked the sort of corridor along which we had to pass: it +was necessary to pause for a time. Happening to glance round—indeed I half +fancied I heard my name pronounced—I saw quite near, the ubiquitous, the +inevitable M. Paul. He was looking at me gravely and intently: at me, or rather +at my pink dress—sardonic comment on which gleamed in his eye. Now it was his +habit to indulge in strictures on the dress, both of the teachers and pupils, +at Madame Beck’s—a habit which the former, at least, held to be an offensive +impertinence: as yet I had not suffered from it—my sombre daily attire not +being calculated to attract notice. I was in no mood to permit any new +encroachment to-night: rather than accept his banter, I would ignore his +presence, and accordingly steadily turned my face to the sleeve of Dr. John’s +coat; finding in that same black sleeve a prospect more redolent of pleasure +and comfort, more genial, more friendly, I thought, than was offered by the +dark little Professor’s unlovely visage. Dr. John seemed unconsciously to +sanction the preference by looking down and saying in his kind voice, “Ay, keep +close to my side, Lucy: these crowding burghers are no respecters of persons.” +</p> + +<p> +I could not, however, be true to myself. Yielding to some influence, mesmeric +or otherwise—an influence unwelcome, displeasing, but effective—I again glanced +round to see if M. Paul was gone. No, there he stood on the same spot, looking +still, but with a changed eye; he had penetrated my thought, and read my wish +to shun him. The mocking but not ill-humoured gaze was turned to a swarthy +frown, and when I bowed, with a view to conciliation, I got only the stiffest +and sternest of nods in return. +</p> + +<p> +“Whom have you made angry, Lucy?” whispered Dr. Bretton, smiling. “Who is that +savage-looking friend of yours?” +</p> + +<p> +“One of the professors at Madame Beck’s: a very cross little man.” +</p> + +<p> +“He looks mighty cross just now: what have you done to him? What is it all +about? Ah, Lucy, Lucy! tell me the meaning of this.” +</p> + +<p> +“No mystery, I assure you. M. Emanuel is very exigeant, and because I looked at +your coat-sleeve, instead of curtseying and dipping to him, he thinks I have +failed in respect.” +</p> + +<p> +“The little—” began Dr. John: I know not what more he would have added, for at +that moment I was nearly thrown down amongst the feet of the crowd. M. Paul had +rudely pushed past, and was elbowing his way with such utter disregard to the +convenience and security of all around, that a very uncomfortable pressure was +the consequence. +</p> + +<p> +“I think he is what he himself would call ‘méchant,’” said Dr. Bretton. I +thought so, too. +</p> + +<p> +Slowly and with difficulty we made our way along the passage, and at last +regained our seats. The drawing of the lottery lasted nearly an hour; it was an +animating and amusing scene; and as we each held tickets, we shared in the +alternations of hope and fear raised by each turn of the wheel. Two little +girls, of five and six years old, drew the numbers: and the prizes were duly +proclaimed from the platform. These prizes were numerous, though of small +value. It so fell out that Dr. John and I each gained one: mine was a +cigar-case, his a lady’s head-dress—a most airy sort of blue and silver turban, +with a streamer of plumage on one side, like a snowy cloud. He was excessively +anxious to make an exchange; but I could not be brought to hear reason, and to +this day I keep my cigar-case: it serves, when I look at it, to remind me of +old times, and one happy evening. +</p> + +<p> +Dr. John, for his part, held his turban at arm’s length between his finger and +thumb, and looked at it with a mixture of reverence and embarrassment highly +provocative of laughter. The contemplation over, he was about coolly to deposit +the delicate fabric on the ground between his feet; he seemed to have no shadow +of an idea of the treatment or stowage it ought to receive: if his mother had +not come to the rescue, I think he would finally have crushed it under his arm +like an opera-hat; she restored it to the band-box whence it had issued. +</p> + +<p> +Graham was quite cheerful all the evening, and his cheerfulness seemed natural +and unforced. His demeanour, his look, is not easily described; there was +something in it peculiar, and, in its way, original. I read in it no common +mastery of the passions, and a fund of deep and healthy strength which, without +any exhausting effort, bore down Disappointment and extracted her fang. His +manner, now, reminded me of qualities I had noticed in him when professionally +engaged amongst the poor, the guilty, and the suffering, in the Basse-Ville: he +looked at once determined, enduring, and sweet-tempered. Who could help liking +him? <i>He</i> betrayed no weakness which harassed all your feelings with +considerations as to how its faltering must be propped; from <i>him</i> broke +no irritability which startled calm and quenched mirth; <i>his</i> lips let +fall no caustic that burned to the bone; <i>his</i> eye shot no morose shafts +that went cold, and rusty, and venomed through your heart: beside him was rest +and refuge—around him, fostering sunshine. +</p> + +<p> +And yet he had neither forgiven nor forgotten Miss Fanshawe. Once angered, I +doubt if Dr. Bretton were to be soon propitiated—once alienated, whether he +were ever to be reclaimed. He looked at her more than once; not stealthily or +humbly, but with a movement of hardy, open observation. De Hamal was now a +fixture beside her; Mrs. Cholmondeley sat near, and they and she were wholly +absorbed in the discourse, mirth, and excitement, with which the crimson seats +were as much astir as any plebeian part of the hall. In the course of some +apparently animated discussion, Ginevra once or twice lifted her hand and arm; +a handsome bracelet gleamed upon the latter. I saw that its gleam flickered in +Dr. John’s eye—quickening therein a derisive, ireful sparkle; he laughed:—— +</p> + +<p> +“I think,” he said, “I will lay my turban on my wonted altar of offerings; +there, at any rate, it would be certain to find favour: no grisette has a more +facile faculty of acceptance. Strange! for after all, I know she is a girl of +family.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you don’t know her education, Dr. John,” said I. “Tossed about all her +life from one foreign school to another, she may justly proffer the plea of +ignorance in extenuation of most of her faults. And then, from what she says, I +believe her father and mother were brought up much as she has been brought up.” +</p> + +<p> +“I always understood she had no fortune; and once I had pleasure in the +thought,” said he. +</p> + +<p> +“She tells me,” I answered, “that they are poor at home; she always speaks +quite candidly on such points: you never find her lying, as these foreigners +will often lie. Her parents have a large family: they occupy such a station and +possess such connections as, in their opinion, demand display; stringent +necessity of circumstances and inherent thoughtlessness of disposition +combined, have engendered reckless unscrupulousness as to how they obtain the +means of sustaining a good appearance. This is the state of things, and the +only state of things, she has seen from childhood upwards.” +</p> + +<p> +“I believe it—and I thought to mould her to something better: but, Lucy, to +speak the plain truth, I have felt a new thing to-night, in looking at her and +de Hamal. I felt it before noticing the impertinence directed at my mother. I +saw a look interchanged between them immediately after their entrance, which +threw a most unwelcome light on my mind.” +</p> + +<p> +“How do you mean? You have been long aware of the flirtation they keep up?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, flirtation! That might be an innocent girlish wile to lure on the true +lover; but what I refer to was not flirtation: it was a look marking mutual and +secret understanding—it was neither girlish nor innocent. No woman, were she as +beautiful as Aphrodite, who could give or receive such a glance, shall ever be +sought in marriage by me: I would rather wed a paysanne in a short petticoat +and high cap—and be sure that she was honest.” +</p> + +<p> +I could not help smiling. I felt sure he now exaggerated the case: Ginevra, I +was certain, was honest enough, with all her giddiness. I told him so. He shook +his head, and said he would not be the man to trust her with his honour. +</p> + +<p> +“The only thing,” said I, “with which you may safely trust her. She would +unscrupulously damage a husband’s purse and property, recklessly try his +patience and temper: I don’t think she would breathe, or let another breathe, +on his honour.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are becoming her advocate,” said he. “Do you wish me to resume my old +chains?” +</p> + +<p> +“No: I am glad to see you free, and trust that free you will long remain. Yet +be, at the same time, just.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am so: just as Rhadamanthus, Lucy. When once I am thoroughly estranged, I +cannot help being severe. But look! the King and Queen are rising. I like that +Queen: she has a sweet countenance. Mamma, too, is excessively tired; we shall +never get the old lady home if we stay longer.” +</p> + +<p> +“I tired, John?” cried Mrs. Bretton, looking at least as animated and as +wide-awake as her son. “I would undertake to sit you out yet: leave us both +here till morning, and we should see which would look the most jaded by +sunrise.” +</p> + +<p> +“I should not like to try the experiment; for, in truth, mamma, you are the +most unfading of evergreens and the freshest of matrons. It must then be on the +plea of your son’s delicate nerves and fragile constitution that I found a +petition for our speedy adjournment.” +</p> + +<p> +“Indolent young man! You wish you were in bed, no doubt; and I suppose you must +be humoured. There is Lucy, too, looking quite done up. For shame, Lucy! At +your age, a week of evenings-out would not have made me a shade paler. Come +away, both of you; and you may laugh at the old lady as much as you please, +but, for my part, I shall take charge of the bandbox and turban.” +</p> + +<p> +Which she did accordingly. I offered to relieve her, but was shaken off with +kindly contempt: my godmother opined that I had enough to do to take care of +myself. Not standing on ceremony now, in the midst of the gay “confusion worse +confounded” succeeding to the King and Queen’s departure, Mrs. Bretton preceded +us, and promptly made us a lane through the crowd. Graham followed, +apostrophizing his mother as the most flourishing grisette it had ever been his +good fortune to see charged with carriage of a bandbox; he also desired me to +mark her affection for the sky-blue turban, and announced his conviction that +she intended one day to wear it. +</p> + +<p> +The night was now very cold and very dark, but with little delay we found the +carriage. Soon we were packed in it, as warm and as snug as at a fire-side; and +the drive home was, I think, still pleasanter than the drive to the concert. +Pleasant it was, even though the coachman—having spent in the shop of a +“marchand de vin” a portion of the time we passed at the concert—drove us along +the dark and solitary chaussée far past the turn leading down to La Terrasse; +we, who were occupied in talking and laughing, not noticing the aberration +till, at last, Mrs. Bretton intimated that, though she had always thought the +château a retired spot, she did not know it was situated at the world’s end, as +she declared seemed now to be the case, for she believed we had been an hour +and a half en route, and had not yet taken the turn down the avenue. +</p> + +<p> +Then Graham looked out, and perceiving only dim-spread fields, with unfamiliar +rows of pollards and limes ranged along their else invisible sunk-fences, began +to conjecture how matters were, and calling a halt and descending, he mounted +the box and took the reins himself. Thanks to him, we arrived safe at home +about an hour and a half beyond our time. +</p> + +<p> +Martha had not forgotten us; a cheerful fire was burning, and a neat supper +spread in the dining-room: we were glad of both. The winter dawn was actually +breaking before we gained our chambers. I took off my pink dress and lace +mantle with happier feelings than I had experienced in putting them on. Not +all, perhaps, who had shone brightly arrayed at that concert could say the +same; for not all had been satisfied with friendship—with its calm comfort and +modest hope. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap21"></a>CHAPTER XXI.<br/> +REACTION.</h2> + +<p> +Yet three days, and then I must go back to the <i>pensionnat</i>. I almost +numbered the moments of these days upon the clock; fain would I have retarded +their flight; but they glided by while I watched them: they were already gone +while I yet feared their departure. +</p> + +<p> +“Lucy will not leave us to-day,” said Mrs. Bretton, coaxingly at breakfast; +“she knows we can procure a second respite.” +</p> + +<p> +“I would not ask for one if I might have it for a word,” said I. “I long to get +the good-by over, and to be settled in the Rue Fossette again. I must go this +morning: I must go directly; my trunk is packed and corded.” +</p> + +<p> +It appeared; however, that my going depended upon Graham; he had said he would +accompany me, and it so fell out that he was engaged all day, and only +returned home at dusk. Then ensued a little combat of words. Mrs. Bretton and +her son pressed me to remain one night more. I could have cried, so irritated +and eager was I to be gone. I longed to leave them as the criminal on the +scaffold longs for the axe to descend: that is, I wished the pang over. How +much I wished it, they could not tell. On these points, mine was a state of +mind out of their experience. +</p> + +<p> +It was dark when Dr. John handed me from the carriage at Madame Beck’s door. +The lamp above was lit; it rained a November drizzle, as it had rained all day: +the lamplight gleamed on the wet pavement. Just such a night was it as that on +which, not a year ago, I had first stopped at this very threshold; just similar +was the scene. I remembered the very shapes of the paving-stones which I had +noted with idle eye, while, with a thick-beating heart, I waited the unclosing +of that door at which I stood—a solitary and a suppliant. On that night, too, I +had briefly met him who now stood with me. Had I ever reminded him of that +rencontre, or explained it? I had not, nor ever felt the inclination to do so: +it was a pleasant thought, laid by in my own mind, and best kept there. +</p> + +<p> +Graham rung the bell. The door was instantly opened, for it was just that +period of the evening when the half-boarders took their departure—consequently, +Rosine was on the alert. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t come in,” said I to him; but he stepped a moment into the well-lighted +vestibule. I had not wished him to see that “the water stood in my eyes,” for +his was too kind a nature ever to be needlessly shown such signs of sorrow. He +always wished to heal—to relieve—when, physician as he was, neither cure nor +alleviation were, perhaps, in his power. +</p> + +<p> +“Keep up your courage, Lucy. Think of my mother and myself as true friends. We +will not forget you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nor will I forget you, Dr. John.” +</p> + +<p> +My trunk was now brought in. We had shaken hands; he had turned to go, but he +was not satisfied: he had not done or said enough to content his generous +impulses. +</p> + +<p> +“Lucy,”—stepping after me—“shall you feel very solitary here?” +</p> + +<p> +“At first I shall.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, my mother will soon call to see you; and, meantime, I’ll tell you what +I’ll do. I’ll write—just any cheerful nonsense that comes into my head—shall +I?” +</p> + +<p> +“Good, gallant heart!” thought I to myself; but I shook my head, smiling, and +said, “Never think of it: impose on yourself no such task. <i>You</i> write to +<i>me</i>!—you’ll not have time.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! I will find or make time. Good-by!” +</p> + +<p> +He was gone. The heavy door crashed to: the axe had fallen—the pang was +experienced. +</p> + +<p> +Allowing myself no time to think or feel—swallowing tears as if they had been +wine—I passed to Madame’s sitting-room to pay the necessary visit of ceremony +and respect. She received me with perfectly well-acted cordiality—was even +demonstrative, though brief, in her welcome. In ten minutes I was dismissed. +From the salle-à-manger I proceeded to the refectory, where pupils and teachers +were now assembled for evening study: again I had a welcome, and one not, I +think, quite hollow. That over, I was free to repair to the dormitory. +</p> + +<p> +“And will Graham really write?” I questioned, as I sank tired on the edge of +the bed. +</p> + +<p> +Reason, coming stealthily up to me through the twilight of that long, dim +chamber, whispered sedately—“He may write once. So kind is his nature, it may +stimulate him for once to make the effort. But it <i>cannot</i> be continued—it +<i>may</i> not be repeated. Great were that folly which should build on such a +promise—insane that credulity which should mistake the transitory rain-pool, +holding in its hollow one draught, for the perennial spring yielding the supply +of seasons.” +</p> + +<p> +I bent my head: I sat thinking an hour longer. Reason still whispered me, +laying on my shoulder a withered hand, and frostily touching my ear with the +chill blue lips of eld. +</p> + +<p> +“If,” muttered she, “if he <i>should</i> write, what then? Do you meditate +pleasure in replying? Ah, fool! I warn you! Brief be your answer. Hope no +delight of heart—no indulgence of intellect: grant no expansion to feeling—give +holiday to no single faculty: dally with no friendly exchange: foster no genial +intercommunion….” +</p> + +<p> +“But I have talked to Graham and you did not chide,” I pleaded. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said she, “I needed not. Talk for you is good discipline. You converse +imperfectly. While you speak, there can be no oblivion of inferiority—no +encouragement to delusion: pain, privation, penury stamp your language….” +</p> + +<p> +“But,” I again broke in, “where the bodily presence is weak and the speech +contemptible, surely there cannot be error in making written language the +medium of better utterance than faltering lips can achieve?” +</p> + +<p> +Reason only answered, “At your peril you cherish that idea, or suffer its +influence to animate any writing of yours!” +</p> + +<p> +“But if I feel, may I <i>never</i> express?” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Never!</i>” declared Reason. +</p> + +<p> +I groaned under her bitter sternness. Never—never—oh, hard word! This hag, this +Reason, would not let me look up, or smile, or hope: she could not rest unless +I were altogether crushed, cowed, broken-in, and broken-down. According to her, +I was born only to work for a piece of bread, to await the pains of death, and +steadily through all life to despond. Reason might be right; yet no wonder we +are glad at times to defy her, to rush from under her rod and give a truant +hour to Imagination—<i>her</i> soft, bright foe, <i>our</i> sweet Help, our +divine Hope. We shall and must break bounds at intervals, despite the terrible +revenge that awaits our return. Reason is vindictive as a devil: for me she was +always envenomed as a step-mother. If I have obeyed her it has chiefly been +with the obedience of fear, not of love. Long ago I should have died of her +ill-usage her stint, her chill, her barren board, her icy bed, her savage, +ceaseless blows; but for that kinder Power who holds my secret and sworn +allegiance. Often has Reason turned me out by night, in mid-winter, on cold +snow, flinging for sustenance the gnawed bone dogs had forsaken: sternly has +she vowed her stores held nothing more for me—harshly denied my right to ask +better things…. Then, looking up, have I seen in the sky a head amidst circling +stars, of which the midmost and the brightest lent a ray sympathetic and +attent. A spirit, softer and better than Human Reason, has descended with quiet +flight to the waste—bringing all round her a sphere of air borrowed of eternal +summer; bringing perfume of flowers which cannot fade—fragrance of trees whose +fruit is life; bringing breezes pure from a world whose day needs no sun to +lighten it. My hunger has this good angel appeased with food, sweet and +strange, gathered amongst gleaning angels, garnering their dew-white harvest in +the first fresh hour of a heavenly day; tenderly has she assuaged the +insufferable fears which weep away life itself—kindly given rest to deadly +weariness—generously lent hope and impulse to paralyzed despair. Divine, +compassionate, succourable influence! When I bend the knee to other than God, +it shall be at thy white and winged feet, beautiful on mountain or on plain. +Temples have been reared to the Sun—altars dedicated to the Moon. Oh, greater +glory! To thee neither hands build, nor lips consecrate: but hearts, through +ages, are faithful to thy worship. A dwelling thou hast, too wide for walls, +too high for dome—a temple whose floors are space—rites whose mysteries +transpire in presence, to the kindling, the harmony of worlds! +</p> + +<p> +Sovereign complete! thou hadst, for endurance, thy great army of martyrs; for +achievement, thy chosen band of worthies. Deity unquestioned, thine essence +foils decay! +</p> + +<p> +This daughter of Heaven remembered me to-night; she saw me weep, and she came +with comfort: “Sleep,” she said. “Sleep, sweetly—I gild thy dreams!” +</p> + +<p> +She kept her word, and watched me through a night’s rest; but at dawn Reason +relieved the guard. I awoke with a sort of start; the rain was dashing against +the panes, and the wind uttering a peevish cry at intervals; the night-lamp was +dying on the black circular stand in the middle of the dormitory: day had +already broken. How I pity those whom mental pain stuns instead of rousing! +This morning the pang of waking snatched me out of bed like a hand with a +giant’s gripe. How quickly I dressed in the cold of the raw dawn! How deeply I +drank of the ice-cold water in my carafe! This was always my cordial, to which, +like other dram-drinkers, I had eager recourse when unsettled by chagrin. +</p> + +<p> +Ere long the bell rang its <i>réveillée</i> to the whole school. Being dressed, +I descended alone to the refectory, where the stove was lit and the air was +warm; through the rest of the house it was cold, with the nipping severity of a +continental winter: though now but the beginning of November, a north wind had +thus early brought a wintry blight over Europe: I remember the black stoves +pleased me little when I first came; but now I began to associate with them a +sense of comfort, and liked them, as in England we like a fireside. +</p> + +<p> +Sitting down before this dark comforter, I presently fell into a deep argument +with myself on life and its chances, on destiny and her decrees. My mind, +calmer and stronger now than last night, made for itself some imperious rules, +prohibiting under deadly penalties all weak retrospect of happiness past; +commanding a patient journeying through the wilderness of the present, +enjoining a reliance on faith—a watching of the cloud and pillar which subdue +while they guide, and awe while they illumine—hushing the impulse to fond +idolatry, checking the longing out-look for a far-off promised land whose +rivers are, perhaps, never to be reached save in dying dreams, whose sweet +pastures are to be viewed but from the desolate and sepulchral summit of a +Nebo. +</p> + +<p> +By degrees, a composite feeling of blended strength and pain wound itself +wirily round my heart, sustained, or at least restrained, its throbbings, and +made me fit for the day’s work. I lifted my head. +</p> + +<p> +As I said before, I was sitting near the stove, let into the wall beneath the +refectory and the carré, and thus sufficing to heat both apartments. Piercing +the same wall, and close beside the stove, was a window, looking also into the +carré; as I looked up a cap-tassel, a brow, two eyes, filled a pane of that +window; the fixed gaze of those two eyes hit right against my own glance: they +were watching me. I had not till that moment known that tears were on my cheek, +but I felt them now. +</p> + +<p> +This was a strange house, where no corner was sacred from intrusion, where not +a tear could be shed, nor a thought pondered, but a spy was at hand to note and +to divine. And this new, this out-door, this male spy, what business had +brought him to the premises at this unwonted hour? What possible right had he +to intrude on me thus? No other professor would have dared to cross the carré +before the class-bell rang. M. Emanuel took no account of hours nor of claims: +there was some book of reference in the first-class library which he had +occasion to consult; he had come to seek it: on his way he passed the +refectory. It was very much his habit to wear eyes before, behind, and on each +side of him: he had seen me through the little window—he now opened the +refectory door, and there he stood. +</p> + +<p> +“Mademoiselle, vous êtes triste.” +</p> + +<p> +“Monsieur, j’en ai bien le droit.” +</p> + +<p> +“Vous êtes malade de cœur et d’humeur,” he pursued. “You are at once mournful +and mutinous. I see on your cheek two tears which I know are hot as two sparks, +and salt as two crystals of the sea. While I speak you eye me strangely. Shall +I tell you of what I am reminded while watching you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Monsieur, I shall be called away to prayers shortly; my time for conversation +is very scant and brief at this hour—excuse——” +</p> + +<p> +“I excuse everything,” he interrupted; “my mood is so meek, neither rebuff nor, +perhaps, insult could ruffle it. You remind me, then, of a young she wild +creature, new caught, untamed, viewing with a mixture of fire and fear the +first entrance of the breaker-in.” +</p> + +<p> +Unwarrantable accost!—rash and rude if addressed to a pupil; to a teacher +inadmissible. He thought to provoke a warm reply; I had seen him vex the +passionate to explosion before now. In me his malice should find no +gratification; I sat silent. +</p> + +<p> +“You look,” said he, “like one who would snatch at a draught of sweet poison, +and spurn wholesome bitters with disgust.” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed, I never liked bitters; nor do I believe them wholesome. And to +whatever is sweet, be it poison or food, you cannot, at least, deny its own +delicious quality—sweetness. Better, perhaps, to die quickly a pleasant death, +than drag on long a charmless life.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yet,” said he, “you should take your bitter dose duly and daily, if I had the +power to administer it; and, as to the well-beloved poison, I would, perhaps, +break the very cup which held it.” +</p> + +<p> +I sharply turned my head away, partly because his presence utterly displeased +me, and partly because I wished to shun questions: lest, in my present mood, +the effort of answering should overmaster self-command. +</p> + +<p> +“Come,” said he, more softly, “tell me the truth—you grieve at being parted +from friends—is it not so?” +</p> + +<p> +The insinuating softness was not more acceptable than the inquisitorial +curiosity. I was silent. He came into the room, sat down on the bench about two +yards from me, and persevered long, and, for him, patiently, in attempts to +draw me into conversation—attempts necessarily unavailing, because I +<i>could</i> not talk. At last I entreated to be let alone. In uttering the +request, my voice faltered, my head sank on my arms and the table. I wept +bitterly, though quietly. He sat a while longer. I did not look up nor speak, +till the closing door and his retreating step told me that he was gone. These +tears proved a relief. +</p> + +<p> +I had time to bathe my eyes before breakfast, and I suppose I appeared at that +meal as serene as any other person: not, however, quite as jocund-looking as +the young lady who placed herself in the seat opposite mine, fixed on me a pair +of somewhat small eyes twinkling gleefully, and frankly stretched across the +table a white hand to be shaken. Miss Fanshawe’s travels, gaieties, and +flirtations agreed with her mightily; she had become quite plump, her cheeks +looked as round as apples. I had seen her last in elegant evening attire. I +don’t know that she looked less charming now in her school-dress, a kind of +careless peignoir of a dark-blue material, dimly and dingily plaided with +black. I even think this dusky wrapper gave her charms a triumph; enhancing by +contrast the fairness of her skin, the freshness of her bloom, the golden +beauty of her tresses. +</p> + +<p> +“I am glad you are come back, Timon,” said she. Timon was one of her dozen +names for me. “You don’t know how often I have wanted you in this dismal hole.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, have you? Then, of course, if you wanted me, you have something for me to +do: stockings to mend, perhaps.” I never gave Ginevra a minute’s or a +farthing’s credit for disinterestedness. +</p> + +<p> +“Crabbed and crusty as ever!” said she. “I expected as much: it would not be +you if you did not snub one. But now, come, grand-mother, I hope you like +coffee as much, and pistolets as little as ever: are you disposed to barter?” +</p> + +<p> +“Take your own way.” +</p> + +<p> +This way consisted in a habit she had of making me convenient. She did not like +the morning cup of coffee; its school brewage not being strong or sweet enough +to suit her palate; and she had an excellent appetite, like any other healthy +school-girl, for the morning pistolets or rolls, which were new-baked and very +good, and of which a certain allowance was served to each. This allowance being +more than I needed, I gave half to Ginevra; never varying in my preference, +though many others used to covet the superfluity; and she in return would +sometimes give me a portion of her coffee. This morning I was glad of the +draught; hunger I had none, and with thirst I was parched. I don’t know why I +chose to give my bread rather to Ginevra than to another; nor why, if two had +to share the convenience of one drinking-vessel, as sometimes happened—for +instance, when we took a long walk into the country, and halted for refreshment +at a farm—I always contrived that she should be my convive, and rather liked to +let her take the lion’s share, whether of the white beer, the sweet wine, or +the new milk: so it was, however, and she knew it; and, therefore, while we +wrangled daily, we were never alienated. +</p> + +<p> +After breakfast my custom was to withdraw to the first classe, and sit and +read, or think (oftenest the latter) there alone, till the nine-o’clock bell +threw open all doors, admitted the gathered rush of externes and +demi-pensionnaires, and gave the signal for entrance on that bustle and +business to which, till five P.M., there was no relax. +</p> + +<p> +I was just seated this morning, when a tap came to the door. +</p> + +<p> +“Pardon, Mademoiselle,” said a pensionnaire, entering gently; and having taken +from her desk some necessary book or paper, she withdrew on tip-toe, murmuring +as she passed me, “Que mademoiselle est appliquée!” +</p> + +<p> +Appliquée, indeed! The means of application were spread before me, but I was +doing nothing; and had done nothing, and meant to do nothing. Thus does the +world give us credit for merits we have not. Madame Beck herself deemed me a +regular bas-bleu, and often and solemnly used to warn me not to study too much, +lest “the blood should all go to my head.” Indeed, everybody in the Rue +Fossette held a superstition that “Meess Lucie” was learned; with the notable +exception of M. Emanuel, who, by means peculiar to himself, and quite +inscrutable to me, had obtained a not inaccurate inkling of my real +qualifications, and used to take quiet opportunities of chuckling in my ear his +malign glee over their scant measure. For my part, I never troubled myself +about this penury. I dearly like to think my own thoughts; I had great pleasure +in reading a few books, but not many: preferring always those on whose style or +sentiment the writer’s individual nature was plainly stamped; flagging +inevitably over characterless books, however clever and meritorious: perceiving +well that, as far as my own mind was concerned, God had limited its powers and, +its action—thankful, I trust, for the gift bestowed, but unambitious of higher +endowments, not restlessly eager after higher culture. +</p> + +<p> +The polite pupil was scarcely gone, when, unceremoniously, without tap, in +burst a second intruder. Had I been blind I should have known who this was. A +constitutional reserve of manner had by this time told with wholesome and, for +me, commodious effect, on the manners of my co-inmates; rarely did I now suffer +from rude or intrusive treatment. When I first came, it would happen once and +again that a blunt German would clap me on the shoulder, and ask me to run a +race; or a riotous Labassecourienne seize me by the arm and drag me towards the +playground: urgent proposals to take a swing at the “Pas de Géant,” or to join +in a certain romping hide-and-seek game called “Un, deux, trois,” were formerly +also of hourly occurrence; but all these little attentions had ceased some time +ago—ceased, too, without my finding it necessary to be at the trouble of +point-blank cutting them short. I had now no familiar demonstration to dread or +endure, save from one quarter; and as that was English I could bear it. Ginevra +Fanshawe made no scruple of—at times—catching me as I was crossing the carré, +whirling me round in a compulsory waltz, and heartily enjoying the mental and +physical discomfiture her proceeding induced. Ginevra Fanshawe it was who now +broke in upon “my learned leisure.” She carried a huge music-book under her +arm. +</p> + +<p> +“Go to your practising,” said I to her at once: “away with you to the little +salon!” +</p> + +<p> +“Not till I have had a talk with you, chère amie. I know where you have been +spending your vacation, and how you have commenced sacrificing to the graces, +and enjoying life like any other belle. I saw you at the concert the other +night, dressed, actually, like anybody else. Who is your tailleuse?” +</p> + +<p> +“Tittle-tattle: how prettily it begins! My tailleuse!—a fiddlestick! Come, +sheer off, Ginevra. I really don’t want your company.” +</p> + +<p> +“But when I want yours so much, ange farouche, what does a little reluctance on +your part signify? Dieu merci! we know how to manœuvre with our gifted +compatriote—the learned ‘ourse Britannique.’ And so, Ourson, you know Isidore?” +</p> + +<p> +“I know John Bretton.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, hush!” (putting her fingers in her ears) “you crack my tympanums with your +rude Anglicisms. But, how is our well-beloved John? Do tell me about him. The +poor man must be in a sad way. What did he say to my behaviour the other night? +Wasn’t I cruel?” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you think I noticed you?” +</p> + +<p> +“It was a delightful evening. Oh, that divine de Hamal! And then to watch the +other sulking and dying in the distance; and the old lady—my future +mamma-in-law! But I am afraid I and Lady Sara were a little rude in quizzing +her.” +</p> + +<p> +“Lady Sara never quizzed her at all; and for what <i>you</i> did, don’t make +yourself in the least uneasy: Mrs. Bretton will survive <i>your</i> sneer.” +</p> + +<p> +“She may: old ladies are tough; but that poor son of hers! Do tell me what he +said: I saw he was terribly cut up.” +</p> + +<p> +“He said you looked as if at heart you were already Madame de Hamal.” +</p> + +<p> +“Did he?” she cried with delight. “He noticed that? How charming! I thought he +would be mad with jealousy.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ginevra, have you seriously done with Dr. Bretton? Do you want him to give you +up?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! you know he <i>can’t</i> do that: but wasn’t he mad?” +</p> + +<p> +“Quite mad,” I assented; “as mad as a March hare.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, and how <i>ever</i> did you get him home?” +</p> + +<p> +“How <i>ever</i>, indeed! Have you no pity on his poor mother and me? Fancy us +holding him tight down in the carriage, and he raving between us, fit to drive +everybody delirious. The very coachman went wrong, somehow, and we lost our +way.” +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t say so? You are laughing at me. Now, Lucy Snowe—” +</p> + +<p> +“I assure you it is fact—and fact, also, that Dr. Bretton would <i>not</i> stay +in the carriage: he broke from us, and <i>would</i> ride outside.” +</p> + +<p> +“And afterwards?” +</p> + +<p> +“Afterwards—when he <i>did</i> reach home—the scene transcends description.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, but describe it—you know it is such fun!” +</p> + +<p> +“Fun for <i>you</i>, Miss Fanshawe? but” (with stern gravity) “you know the +proverb—‘What is sport to one may be death to another.’” +</p> + +<p> +“Go on, there’s a darling Timon.” +</p> + +<p> +“Conscientiously, I cannot, unless you assure me you have some heart.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have—such an immensity, you don’t know!” +</p> + +<p> +“Good! In that case, you will be able to conceive Dr. Graham Bretton rejecting +his supper in the first instance—the chicken, the sweetbread prepared for his +refreshment, left on the table untouched. Then——but it is of no use dwelling at +length on the harrowing details. Suffice it to say, that never, in the most +stormy fits and moments of his infancy, had his mother such work to tuck the +sheets about him as she had that night.” +</p> + +<p> +“He wouldn’t lie still?” +</p> + +<p> +“He wouldn’t lie still: there it was. The sheets might be tucked in, but the +thing was to keep them tucked in.” +</p> + +<p> +“And what did he say?” +</p> + +<p> +“Say! Can’t you imagine him demanding his divine Ginevra, anathematizing that +demon, de Hamal—raving about golden locks, blue eyes, white arms, glittering +bracelets?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, did he? He saw the bracelet?” +</p> + +<p> +“Saw the bracelet? Yes, as plain as I saw it: and, perhaps, for the first time, +he saw also the brand-mark with which its pressure has encircled your arm. +Ginevra” (rising, and changing my tone), “come, we will have an end of this. Go +away to your practising.” +</p> + +<p> +And I opened the door. +</p> + +<p> +“But you have not told me all.” +</p> + +<p> +“You had better not wait until I <i>do</i> tell you all. Such extra +communicativeness could give you no pleasure. March!” +</p> + +<p> +“Cross thing!” said she; but she obeyed: and, indeed, the first classe was my +territory, and she could not there legally resist a notice of quittance from +me. +</p> + +<p> +Yet, to speak the truth, never had I been less dissatisfied with her than I was +then. There was pleasure in thinking of the contrast between the reality and my +description—to remember Dr. John enjoying the drive home, eating his supper +with relish, and retiring to rest with Christian composure. It was only when I +saw him really unhappy that I felt really vexed with the fair, frail cause of +his suffering. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +A fortnight passed; I was getting once more inured to the harness of school, +and lapsing from the passionate pain of change to the palsy of custom. One +afternoon, in crossing the carré, on my way to the first classe, where I was +expected to assist at a lesson of “style and literature,” I saw, standing by +one of the long and large windows, Rosine, the portress. Her attitude, as +usual, was quite nonchalante. She always “stood at ease;” one of her hands +rested in her apron-pocket, the other at this moment held to her eyes a letter, +whereof Mademoiselle coolly perused the address, and deliberately studied the +seal. +</p> + +<p> +A letter! The shape of a letter similar to that had haunted my brain in its +very core for seven days past. I had dreamed of a letter last night. Strong +magnetism drew me to that letter now; yet, whether I should have ventured to +demand of Rosine so much as a glance at that white envelope, with the spot of +red wax in the middle, I know not. No; I think I should have sneaked past in +terror of a rebuff from Disappointment: my heart throbbed now as if I already +heard the tramp of her approach. Nervous mistake! It was the rapid step of the +Professor of Literature measuring the corridor. I fled before him. Could I but +be seated quietly at my desk before his arrival, with the class under my orders +all in disciplined readiness, he would, perhaps, exempt me from notice; but, if +caught lingering in the carré, I should be sure to come in for a special +harangue. I had time to get seated, to enforce perfect silence, to take out my +work, and to commence it amidst the profoundest and best trained hush, ere M. +Emanuel entered with his vehement burst of latch and panel, and his deep, +redundant bow, prophetic of choler. +</p> + +<p> +As usual he broke upon us like a clap of thunder; but instead of flashing +lightning-wise from the door to the estrade, his career halted midway at my +desk. Setting his face towards me and the window, his back to the pupils and +the room, he gave me a look—such a look as might have licensed me to stand +straight up and demand what he meant—a look of scowling distrust. +</p> + +<p> +“Voilà! pour vous,” said he, drawing his hand from his waist-coat, and placing +on my desk a letter—the very letter I had seen in Rosine’s hand—the letter +whose face of enamelled white and single Cyclop’s-eye of vermilion-red had +printed themselves so clear and perfect on the retina of an inward vision. I +knew it, I felt it to be the letter of my hope, the fruition of my wish, the +release from my doubt, the ransom from my terror. This letter M. Paul, with his +unwarrantably interfering habits, had taken from the portress, and now +delivered it himself. +</p> + +<p> +I might have been angry, but had not a second for the sensation. Yes: I held in +my hand not a slight note, but an envelope, which must, at least, contain a +sheet: it felt not flimsy, but firm, substantial, satisfying. And here was the +direction, “Miss Lucy Snowe,” in a clean, clear, equal, decided hand; and here +was the seal, round, full, deftly dropped by untremulous fingers, stamped with +the well-cut impress of initials, “J. G. B.” I experienced a happy feeling—a +glad emotion which went warm to my heart, and ran lively through all my veins. +For once a hope was realized. I held in my hand a morsel of real solid joy: not +a dream, not an image of the brain, not one of those shadowy chances +imagination pictures, and on which humanity starves but cannot live; not a mess +of that manna I drearily eulogized awhile ago—which, indeed, at first melts on +the lips with an unspeakable and preternatural sweetness, but which, in the +end, our souls full surely loathe; longing deliriously for natural and +earth-grown food, wildly praying Heaven’s Spirits to reclaim their own +spirit-dew and essence—an aliment divine, but for mortals deadly. It was +neither sweet hail nor small coriander-seed—neither slight wafer, nor luscious +honey, I had lighted on; it was the wild, savoury mess of the hunter, +nourishing and salubrious meat, forest-fed or desert-reared, fresh, healthful, +and life-sustaining. It was what the old dying patriarch demanded of his son +Esau, promising in requital the blessing of his last breath. It was a godsend; +and I inwardly thanked the God who had vouchsafed it. Outwardly I only thanked +man, crying, “Thank you, thank you, Monsieur!” +</p> + +<p> +Monsieur curled his lip, gave me a vicious glance of the eye, and strode to his +estrade. M. Paul was not at all a good little man, though he had good points. +</p> + +<p> +Did I read my letter there and then? Did I consume the venison at once and with +haste, as if Esau’s shaft flew every day? +</p> + +<p> +I knew better. The cover with its address—the seal, with its three clear +letters—was bounty and abundance for the present. I stole from the room, I +procured the key of the great dormitory, which was kept locked by day. I went +to my bureau; with a sort of haste and trembling lest Madame should creep +up-stairs and spy me, I opened a drawer, unlocked a box, and took out a case, +and—having feasted my eyes with one more look, and approached the seal with a +mixture of awe and shame and delight, to my lips—I folded the untasted +treasure, yet all fair and inviolate, in silver paper, committed it to the +case, shut up box and drawer, reclosed, relocked the dormitory, and returned to +class, feeling as if fairy tales were true, and fairy gifts no dream. Strange, +sweet insanity! And this letter, the source of my joy, I had not yet read: did +not yet know the number of its lines. +</p> + +<p> +When I re-entered the schoolroom, behold M. Paul raging like a pestilence! Some +pupil had not spoken audibly or distinctly enough to suit his ear and taste, +and now she and others were weeping, and he was raving from his estrade, almost +livid. Curious to mention, as I appeared, he fell on me. +</p> + +<p> +“Was I the mistress of these girls? Did I profess to teach them the conduct +befitting ladies?—and did I permit and, he doubted not, encourage them to +strangle their mother-tongue in their throats, to mince and mash it between +their teeth, as if they had some base cause to be ashamed of the words they +uttered? Was this modesty? He knew better. It was a vile pseudo sentiment—the +offspring or the forerunner of evil. Rather than submit to this mopping and +mowing, this mincing and grimacing, this, grinding of a noble tongue, this +general affectation and sickening stubbornness of the pupils of the first +class, he would throw them up for a set of insupportable petites maîtresses, +and confine himself to teaching the ABC to the babies of the third division.” +</p> + +<p> +What could I say to all this? Really nothing; and I hoped he would allow me to +be silent. The storm recommenced. +</p> + +<p> +“Every answer to his queries was then refused? It seemed to be considered in +<i>that</i> place—that conceited boudoir of a first classe, with its +pretentious book-cases, its green-baized desks, its rubbish of flower-stands, +its trash of framed pictures and maps, and its foreign surveillante, +forsooth!—it seemed to be the fashion to think <i>there</i> that the Professor +of Literature was not worthy of a reply! These were new ideas; imported, he did +not doubt, straight from ‘la Grande Bretagne:’ they savoured of island +insolence and arrogance.” +</p> + +<p> +Lull the second—the girls, not one of whom was ever known to weep a tear for +the rebukes of any other master, now all melting like snow-statues before the +intemperate heat of M. Emanuel: I not yet much shaken, sitting down, and +venturing to resume my work. +</p> + +<p> +Something—either in my continued silence or in the movement of my hand, +stitching—transported M. Emanuel beyond the last boundary of patience; he +actually sprang from his estrade. The stove stood near my desk, he attacked it; +the little iron door was nearly dashed from its hinges, the fuel was made to +fly. +</p> + +<p> +“Est-ce que vous avez l’intention de m’insulter?” said he to me, in a low, +furious voice, as he thus outraged, under pretence of arranging the fire. +</p> + +<p> +It was time to soothe him a little if possible. +</p> + +<p> +“Mais, Monsieur,” said I, “I would not insult you for the world. I remember too +well that you once said we should be friends.” +</p> + +<p> +I did not intend my voice to falter, but it did: more, I think, through the +agitation of late delight than in any spasm of present fear. Still there +certainly was something in M. Paul’s anger—a kind of passion of emotion—that +specially tended to draw tears. I was not unhappy, nor much afraid, yet I wept. +</p> + +<p> +“Allons, allons!” said he presently, looking round and seeing the deluge +universal. “Decidedly I am a monster and a ruffian. I have only one +pocket-handkerchief,” he added, “but if I had twenty, I would offer you each +one. Your teacher shall be your representative. Here, Miss Lucy.” +</p> + +<p> +And he took forth and held out to me a clean silk handkerchief. Now a person +who did not know M. Paul, who was unused to him and his impulses, would +naturally have bungled at this offer—declined accepting the same—et cetera. But +I too plainly felt this would never do: the slightest hesitation would have +been fatal to the incipient treaty of peace. I rose and met the handkerchief +half-way, received it with decorum, wiped therewith my eyes, and, resuming my +seat, and retaining the flag of truce in my hand and on my lap, took especial +care during the remainder of the lesson to touch neither needle nor thimble, +scissors nor muslin. Many a jealous glance did M. Paul cast at these +implements; he hated them mortally, considering sewing a source of distraction +from the attention due to himself. A very eloquent lesson he gave, and very +kind and friendly was he to the close. Ere he had done, the clouds were +dispersed and the sun shining out—tears were exchanged for smiles. +</p> + +<p> +In quitting the room he paused once more at my desk. +</p> + +<p> +“And your letter?” said he, this time not quite fiercely. +</p> + +<p> +“I have not yet read it, Monsieur.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah! it is too good to read at once; you save it, as, when I was a boy, I used +to save a peach whose bloom was very ripe?” +</p> + +<p> +The guess came so near the truth, I could not prevent a suddenly-rising warmth +in my face from revealing as much. +</p> + +<p> +“You promise yourself a pleasant moment,” said he, “in reading that letter; you +will open it when alone—n’est-ce pas? Ah! a smile answers. Well, well! one +should not be too harsh; ‘la jeunesse n’a qu’un temps.’” +</p> + +<p> +“Monsieur, Monsieur!” I cried, or rather whispered after him, as he turned to +go, “do not leave me under a mistake. This is merely a friend’s letter. Without +reading it, I can vouch for that.” +</p> + +<p> +“Je conçois, je conçois: on sait ce que c’est qu’un ami. Bonjour, +Mademoiselle!” +</p> + +<p> +“But, Monsieur, here is your handkerchief.” +</p> + +<p> +“Keep it, keep it, till the letter is read, then bring it me; I shall read the +billet’s tenor in your eyes.” +</p> + +<p> +When he was gone, the pupils having already poured out of the schoolroom into +the berceau, and thence into the garden and court to take their customary +recreation before the five-o’clock dinner, I stood a moment thinking, and +absently twisting the handkerchief round my arm. For some reason—gladdened, I +think, by a sudden return of the golden glimmer of childhood, roused by an +unwonted renewal of its buoyancy, made merry by the liberty of the closing +hour, and, above all, solaced at heart by the joyous consciousness of that +treasure in the case, box, drawer up-stairs,—I fell to playing with the +handkerchief as if it were a ball, casting it into the air and catching it—as +it fell. The game was stopped by another hand than mine—a hand emerging from a +paletôt-sleeve and stretched over my shoulder; it caught the extemporised +plaything and bore it away with these sullen words: +</p> + +<p> +“Je vois bien que vous vous moquez de moi et de mes effets.” +</p> + +<p> +Really that little man was dreadful: a mere sprite of caprice and, ubiquity: +one never knew either his whim or his whereabout. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap22"></a>CHAPTER XXII.<br/> +THE LETTER.</h2> + +<p> +When all was still in the house; when dinner was over and the noisy +recreation-hour past; when darkness had set in, and the quiet lamp of study was +lit in the refectory; when the externes were gone home, the clashing door and +clamorous bell hushed for the evening; when Madame was safely settled in the +salle-à-manger in company with her mother and some friends; I then glided to +the kitchen, begged a bougie for one half-hour for a particular occasion, found +acceptance of my petition at the hands of my friend Goton, who answered, “Mais +certainement, chou-chou, vous en aurez deux, si vous voulez;” and, light in +hand, I mounted noiseless to the dormitory. +</p> + +<p> +Great was my chagrin to find in that apartment a pupil gone to bed +indisposed,—greater when I recognised, amid the muslin nightcap borders, the +“figure chiffonnée” of Mistress Ginevra Fanshawe; supine at this moment, it is +true—but certain to wake and overwhelm me with chatter when the interruption +would be least acceptable: indeed, as I watched her, a slight twinkling of the +eyelids warned me that the present appearance of repose might be but a ruse, +assumed to cover sly vigilance over “Timon’s” movements; she was not to be +trusted. And I had so wished to be alone, just to read my precious letter in +peace. +</p> + +<p> +Well, I must go to the classes. Having sought and found my prize in its casket, +I descended. Ill-luck pursued me. The classes were undergoing sweeping and +purification by candle-light, according to hebdomadal custom: benches were +piled on desks, the air was dim with dust, damp coffee-grounds (used by +Labassecourien housemaids instead of tea-leaves) darkened the floor; all was +hopeless confusion. Baffled, but not beaten, I withdrew, bent as resolutely as +ever on finding solitude <i>somewhere</i>. +</p> + +<p> +Taking a key whereof I knew the repository, I mounted three staircases in +succession, reached a dark, narrow, silent landing, opened a worm-eaten door, +and dived into the deep, black, cold garret. Here none would follow me—none +interrupt—not Madame herself. I shut the garret-door; I placed my light on a +doddered and mouldy chest of drawers; I put on a shawl, for the air was +ice-cold; I took my letter; trembling with sweet impatience, I broke its seal. +</p> + +<p> +“Will it be long—will it be short?” thought I, passing my hand across my eyes +to dissipate the silvery dimness of a suave, south-wind shower. +</p> + +<p> +It was long. +</p> + +<p> +“Will it be cool?—will it be kind?” +</p> + +<p> +It was kind. +</p> + +<p> +To my checked, bridled, disciplined expectation, it seemed very kind: to my +longing and famished thought it seemed, perhaps, kinder than it was. +</p> + +<p> +So little had I hoped, so much had I feared; there was a fulness of delight in +this taste of fruition—such, perhaps, as many a human being passes through life +without ever knowing. The poor English teacher in the frosty garret, reading by +a dim candle guttering in the wintry air, a letter simply good-natured—nothing +more; though that good-nature then seemed to me godlike—was happier than most +queens in palaces. +</p> + +<p> +Of course, happiness of such shallow origin could be but brief; yet, while it +lasted it was genuine and exquisite: a bubble—but a sweet bubble—of real +honey-dew. Dr. John had written to me at length; he had written to me with +pleasure; he had written with benignant mood, dwelling with sunny satisfaction +on scenes that had passed before his eyes and mine,—on places we had visited +together—on conversations we had held—on all the little subject-matter, in +short, of the last few halcyon weeks. But the cordial core of the delight was, +a conviction the blithe, genial language generously imparted, that it had been +poured out not merely to content <i>me</i>—but to gratify <i>himself</i>. A +gratification he might never more desire, never more seek—an hypothesis in +every point of view approaching the certain; but <i>that</i> concerned the +future. This present moment had no pain, no blot, no want; full, pure, perfect, +it deeply blessed me. A passing seraph seemed to have rested beside me, leaned +towards my heart, and reposed on its throb a softening, cooling, healing, +hallowing wing. Dr. John, you pained me afterwards: forgiven be every +ill—freely forgiven—for the sake of that one dear remembered good! +</p> + +<p> +Are there wicked things, not human, which envy human bliss? Are there evil +influences haunting the air, and poisoning it for man? What was near me? +</p> + +<p> +Something in that vast solitary garret sounded strangely. Most surely and +certainly I heard, as it seemed, a stealthy foot on that floor: a sort of +gliding out from the direction of the black recess haunted by the malefactor +cloaks. I turned: my light was dim; the room was long—but as I live! I saw in +the middle of that ghostly chamber a figure all black and white; the skirts +straight, narrow, black; the head bandaged, veiled, white. +</p> + +<p> +Say what you will, reader—tell me I was nervous or mad; affirm that I was +unsettled by the excitement of that letter; declare that I dreamed; this I +vow—I saw there—in that room—on that night—an image like—a NUN. +</p> + +<p> +I cried out; I sickened. Had the shape approached me I might have swooned. It +receded: I made for the door. How I descended all the stairs I know not. By +instinct I shunned the refectory, and shaped my course to Madame’s +sitting-room: I burst in. I said— +</p> + +<p> +“There is something in the grenier; I have been there: I saw something. Go and +look at it, all of you!” +</p> + +<p> +I said, “All of you;” for the room seemed to me full of people, though in truth +there were but four present: Madame Beck; her mother, Madame Kint, who was out +of health, and now staying with her on a visit; her brother, M. Victor Kint, +and another gentleman, who, when I entered the room, was conversing with the +old lady, and had his back towards the door. +</p> + +<p> +My mortal fear and faintness must have made me deadly pale. I felt cold and +shaking. They all rose in consternation; they surrounded me. I urged them to go +to the grenier; the sight of the gentlemen did me good and gave me courage: it +seemed as if there were some help and hope, with men at hand. I turned to the +door, beckoning them to follow. They wanted to stop me, but I said they must +come this way: they must see what I had seen—something strange, standing in the +middle of the garret. And, now, I remembered my letter, left on the drawers +with the light. This precious letter! Flesh or spirit must be defied for its +sake. I flew up-stairs, hastening the faster as I knew I was followed: they +were obliged to come. +</p> + +<p> +Lo! when I reached the garret-door, all within was dark as a pit: the light was +out. Happily some one—Madame, I think, with her usual calm sense—had brought a +lamp from the room; speedily, therefore, as they came up, a ray pierced the +opaque blackness. There stood the bougie quenched on the drawers; but where was +the letter? And I looked for <i>that</i> now, and not for the nun. +</p> + +<p> +“My letter! my letter!” I panted and plained, almost beside myself. I groped on +the floor, wringing my hands wildly. Cruel, cruel doom! To have my bit of +comfort preternaturally snatched from me, ere I had well tasted its virtue! +</p> + +<p> +I don’t know what the others were doing; I could not watch them: they asked me +questions I did not answer; they ransacked all corners; they prattled about +this and that disarrangement of cloaks, a breach or crack in the sky-light—I +know not what. “Something or somebody has been here,” was sagely averred. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! they have taken my letter!” cried the grovelling, groping, monomaniac. +</p> + +<p> +“What letter, Lucy? My dear girl, what letter?” asked a known voice in my ear. +Could I believe that ear? No: and I looked up. Could I trust my eyes? Had I +recognised the tone? Did I now look on the face of the writer of that very +letter? Was this gentleman near me in this dim garret, John Graham—Dr. Bretton +himself? +</p> + +<p> +Yes: it was. He had been called in that very evening to prescribe for some +access of illness in old Madame Kint; he was the second gentleman present in +the salle-à-manger when I entered. +</p> + +<p> +“Was it <i>my</i> letter, Lucy?” +</p> + +<p> +“Your own: yours—the letter you wrote to me. I had come here to read it +quietly. I could not find another spot where it was possible to have it to +myself. I had saved it all day—never opened it till this evening: it was +scarcely glanced over: I <i>cannot bear</i> to lose it. Oh, my letter!” +</p> + +<p> +“Hush! don’t cry and distress yourself so cruelly. What is it worth? Hush! Come +out of this cold room; they are going to send for the police now to examine +further: we need not stay here—come, we will go down.” +</p> + +<p> +A warm hand, taking my cold fingers, led me down to a room where there was a +fire. Dr. John and I sat before the stove. He talked to me and soothed me with +unutterable goodness, promising me twenty letters for the one lost. If there +are words and wrongs like knives, whose deep-inflicted lacerations never +heal—cutting injuries and insults of serrated and poison-dripping edge—so, too, +there are consolations of tone too fine for the ear not fondly and for ever to +retain their echo: caressing kindnesses—loved, lingered over through a whole +life, recalled with unfaded tenderness, and answering the call with undimmed +shine, out of that raven cloud foreshadowing Death himself. I have been told +since that Dr. Bretton was not nearly so perfect as I thought him: that his +actual character lacked the depth, height, compass, and endurance it possessed +in my creed. I don’t know: he was as good to me as the well is to the parched +wayfarer—as the sun to the shivering jailbird. I remember him heroic. Heroic at +this moment will I hold him to be. +</p> + +<p> +He asked me, smiling, why I cared for his letter so very much. I thought, but +did not say, that I prized it like the blood in my veins. I only answered that +I had so few letters to care for. +</p> + +<p> +“I am sure you did not read it,” said he; “or you would think nothing of it!” +</p> + +<p> +“I read it, but only once. I want to read it again. I am sorry it is lost.” And +I could not help weeping afresh. +</p> + +<p> +“Lucy, Lucy, my poor little god-sister (if there be such a relationship), +here—<i>here</i> is your letter. Why is it not better worth such tears, and +such tenderly exaggerating faith?” +</p> + +<p> +Curious, characteristic manœuvre! His quick eye had seen the letter on the +floor where I sought it; his hand, as quick, had snatched it up. He had hidden +it in his waistcoat pocket. If my trouble had wrought with a whit less stress +and reality, I doubt whether he would ever have acknowledged or restored it. +Tears of temperature one degree cooler than those I shed would only have amused +Dr. John. +</p> + +<p> +Pleasure at regaining made me forget merited reproach for the teasing torment; +my joy was great; it could not be concealed: yet I think it broke out more in +countenance than language. I said little. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you satisfied now?” asked Dr. John. +</p> + +<p> +I replied that I was—satisfied and happy. +</p> + +<p> +“Well then,” he proceeded, “how do you feel physically? Are you growing calmer? +Not much: for you tremble like a leaf still.” +</p> + +<p> +It seemed to me, however, that I was sufficiently calm: at least I felt no +longer terrified. I expressed myself composed. +</p> + +<p> +“You are able, consequently, to tell me what you saw? Your account was quite +vague, do you know? You looked white as the wall; but you only spoke of +‘something,’ not defining <i>what</i>. Was it a man? Was it an animal? What was +it?” +</p> + +<p> +“I never will tell exactly what I saw,” said I, “unless some one else sees it +too, and then I will give corroborative testimony; but otherwise, I shall be +discredited and accused of dreaming.” +</p> + +<p> +“Tell me,” said Dr. Bretton; “I will hear it in my professional character: I +look on you now from a professional point of view, and I read, perhaps, all you +would conceal—in your eye, which is curiously vivid and restless: in your +cheek, which the blood has forsaken; in your hand, which you cannot steady. +Come, Lucy, speak and tell me.” +</p> + +<p> +“You would laugh—?” +</p> + +<p> +“If you don’t tell me you shall have no more letters.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are laughing now.” +</p> + +<p> +“I will again take away that single epistle: being mine, I think I have a right +to reclaim it.” +</p> + +<p> +I felt raillery in his words: it made me grave and quiet; but I folded up the +letter and covered it from sight. +</p> + +<p> +“You may hide it, but I can possess it any moment I choose. You don’t know my +skill in sleight of hand; I might practise as a conjuror if I liked. Mamma says +sometimes, too, that I have a harmonizing property of tongue and eye; but you +never saw that in me—did you, Lucy?” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed—indeed—when you were a mere boy I used to see both: far more then than +now—for now you are strong, and strength dispenses with subtlety. But +still,—Dr. John, you have what they call in this country ‘un air fin,’ that +nobody can mistake. Madame Beck saw it, and—” +</p> + +<p> +“And liked it,” said he, laughing, “because she has it herself. But, Lucy, give +me that letter—you don’t really care for it.” +</p> + +<p> +To this provocative speech I made no answer. Graham in mirthful mood must not +be humoured too far. Just now there was a new sort of smile playing about his +lips—very sweet, but it grieved me somehow—a new sort of light sparkling in his +eyes: not hostile, but not reassuring. I rose to go—I bid him good-night a +little sadly. +</p> + +<p> +His sensitiveness—that peculiar, apprehensive, detective faculty of his—felt in +a moment the unspoken complaint—the scarce-thought reproach. He asked quietly +if I was offended. I shook my head as implying a negative. +</p> + +<p> +“Permit me, then, to speak a little seriously to you before you go. You are in +a highly nervous state. I feel sure from what is apparent in your look and +manner, however well controlled, that whilst alone this evening in that dismal, +perishing sepulchral garret—that dungeon under the leads, smelling of damp and +mould, rank with phthisis and catarrh: a place you never ought to enter—that +you saw, or <i>thought</i> you saw, some appearance peculiarly calculated to +impress the imagination. I know that you <i>are</i> not, nor ever were, subject +to material terrors, fears of robbers, &c.—I am not so sure that a +visitation, bearing a spectral character, would not shake your very mind. Be +calm now. This is all a matter of the nerves, I see: but just specify the +vision.” +</p> + +<p> +“You will tell nobody?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nobody—most certainly. You may trust me as implicitly as you did Père Silas. +Indeed, the doctor is perhaps the safer confessor of the two, though he has not +grey hair.” +</p> + +<p> +“You will not laugh?” +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps I may, to do you good: but not in scorn. Lucy, I feel as a friend +towards you, though your timid nature is slow to trust.” +</p> + +<p> +He now looked like a friend: that indescribable smile and sparkle were gone; +those formidable arched curves of lip, nostril, eyebrow, were depressed; repose +marked his attitude—attention sobered his aspect. Won to confidence, I told him +exactly what I had seen: ere now I had narrated to him the legend of the +house—whiling away with that narrative an hour of a certain mild October +afternoon, when he and I rode through Bois l’Etang. +</p> + +<p> +He sat and thought, and while he thought, we heard them all coming down-stairs. +</p> + +<p> +“Are they going to interrupt?” said he, glancing at the door with an annoyed +expression. +</p> + +<p> +“They will not come here,” I answered; for we were in the little salon where +Madame never sat in the evening, and where it was by mere chance that heat was +still lingering in the stove. They passed the door and went on to the +salle-à-manger. +</p> + +<p> +“Now,” he pursued, “they will talk about thieves, burglars, and so on: let them +do so—mind you say nothing, and keep your resolution of describing your nun to +nobody. She may appear to you again: don’t start.” +</p> + +<p> +“You think then,” I said, with secret horror, “she came out of my brain, and is +now gone in there, and may glide out again at an hour and a day when I look not +for her?” +</p> + +<p> +“I think it a case of spectral illusion: I fear, following on and resulting +from long-continued mental conflict.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Doctor John—I shudder at the thought of being liable to such an illusion! +It seemed so real. Is there no cure?—no preventive?” +</p> + +<p> +“Happiness is the cure—a cheerful mind the preventive: cultivate both.” +</p> + +<p> +No mockery in this world ever sounds to me so hollow as that of being told to +<i>cultivate</i> happiness. What does such advice mean? Happiness is not a +potato, to be planted in mould, and tilled with manure. Happiness is a glory +shining far down upon us out of Heaven. She is a divine dew which the soul, on +certain of its summer mornings, feels dropping upon it from the amaranth bloom +and golden fruitage of Paradise. +</p> + +<p> +“Cultivate happiness!” I said briefly to the doctor: “do <i>you</i> cultivate +happiness? How do you manage?” +</p> + +<p> +“I am a cheerful fellow by nature: and then ill-luck has never dogged me. +Adversity gave me and my mother one passing scowl and brush, but we defied her, +or rather laughed at her, and she went by.”. +</p> + +<p> +“There is no cultivation in all this.” +</p> + +<p> +“I do not give way to melancholy.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes: I have seen you subdued by that feeling.” +</p> + +<p> +“About Ginevra Fanshawe—eh?” +</p> + +<p> +“Did she not sometimes make you miserable?” +</p> + +<p> +“Pooh! stuff! nonsense! You see I am better now.” +</p> + +<p> +If a laughing eye with a lively light, and a face bright with beaming and +healthy energy, could attest that he was better, better he certainly was. +</p> + +<p> +“You do not look much amiss, or greatly out of condition,” I allowed. +</p> + +<p> +“And why, Lucy, can’t you look and feel as I do—buoyant, courageous, and fit to +defy all the nuns and flirts in Christendom? I would give gold on the spot just +to see you snap your fingers. Try the manœuvre.” +</p> + +<p> +“If I were to bring Miss Fanshawe into your presence just now?” +</p> + +<p> +“I vow, Lucy, she should not move me: or, she should move me but by one +thing—true, yes, and passionate love. I would accord forgiveness at no less a +price.” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed! a smile of hers would have been a fortune to you a while since.” +</p> + +<p> +“Transformed, Lucy: transformed! Remember, you once called me a slave! but I am +a free man now!” +</p> + +<p> +He stood up: in the port of his head, the carriage of his figure, in his +beaming eye and mien, there revealed itself a liberty which was more than +ease—a mood which was disdain of his past bondage. +</p> + +<p> +“Miss Fanshawe,” he pursued, “has led me through a phase of feeling which is +over: I have entered another condition, and am now much disposed to exact love +for love—passion for passion—and good measure of it, too.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, Doctor! Doctor! you said it was your nature to pursue Love under +difficulties—to be charmed by a proud insensibility!”. +</p> + +<p> +He laughed, and answered, “My nature varies: the mood of one hour is sometimes +the mockery of the next. Well, Lucy” (drawing on his gloves), “will the Nun +come again to-night, think you?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t think she will.” +</p> + +<p> +“Give her my compliments, if she does—Dr. John’s compliments—and entreat her to +have the goodness to wait a visit from him. Lucy, was she a pretty nun? Had she +a pretty face? You have not told me that yet; and <i>that</i> is the really +important point.” +</p> + +<p> +“She had a white cloth over her face,” said I, “but her eyes glittered.” +</p> + +<p> +“Confusion to her goblin trappings!” cried he, irreverently: “but at least she +had handsome eyes—bright and soft.” +</p> + +<p> +“Cold and fixed,” was the reply. +</p> + +<p> +“No, no, we’ll none of her: she shall not haunt you, Lucy. Give her that shake +of the hand, if she comes again. Will she stand <i>that</i>, do you think?” +</p> + +<p> +I thought it too kind and cordial for a ghost to stand: and so was the smile +which matched it, and accompanied his “Good-night.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +And had there been anything in the garret? What did they discover? I believe, +on the closest examination, their discoveries amounted to very little. They +talked, at first, of the cloaks being disturbed; but Madame Beck told me +afterwards she thought they hung much as usual: and as for the broken pane in +the skylight, she affirmed that aperture was rarely without one or more panes +broken or cracked: and besides, a heavy hail-storm had fallen a few days ago. +Madame questioned me very closely as to what I had seen, but I only described +an obscure figure clothed in black: I took care not to breathe the word “nun,” +certain that this word would at once suggest to her mind an idea of romance and +unreality. She charged me to say nothing on the subject to any servant, pupil, +or teacher, and highly commended my discretion in coming to her private +salle-à-manger, instead of carrying the tale of horror to the school refectory. +Thus the subject dropped. I was left secretly and sadly to wonder, in my own +mind, whether that strange thing was of this world, or of a realm beyond the +grave; or whether indeed it was only the child of malady, and I of that malady +the prey. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap23"></a>CHAPTER XXIII.<br/> +VASHTI.</h2> + +<p> +To wonder sadly, did I say? No: a new influence began to act upon my life, and +sadness, for a certain space, was held at bay. Conceive a dell, deep-hollowed +in forest secresy; it lies in dimness and mist: its turf is dank, its herbage +pale and humid. A storm or an axe makes a wide gap amongst the oak-trees; the +breeze sweeps in; the sun looks down; the sad, cold dell becomes a deep cup of +lustre; high summer pours her blue glory and her golden light out of that +beauteous sky, which till now the starved hollow never saw. +</p> + +<p> +A new creed became mine—a belief in happiness. +</p> + +<p> +It was three weeks since the adventure of the garret, and I possessed in that +case, box, drawer up-stairs, casketed with that first letter, four companions +like to it, traced by the same firm pen, sealed with the same clear seal, full +of the same vital comfort. Vital comfort it seemed to me then: I read them in +after years; they were kind letters enough—pleasing letters, because composed +by one well pleased; in the two last there were three or four closing lines +half-gay, half-tender, “by <i>feeling</i> touched, but not subdued.” Time, dear +reader, mellowed them to a beverage of this mild quality; but when I first +tasted their elixir, fresh from the fount so honoured, it seemed juice of a +divine vintage: a draught which Hebe might fill, and the very gods approve. +</p> + +<p> +Does the reader, remembering what was said some pages back, care to ask how I +answered these letters: whether under the dry, stinting check of Reason, or +according to the full, liberal impulse of Feeling? +</p> + +<p> +To speak truth, I compromised matters; I served two masters: I bowed down in +the houses of Rimmon, and lifted the heart at another shrine. I wrote to these +letters two answers—one for my own relief, the other for Graham’s perusal. +</p> + +<p> +To begin with: Feeling and I turned Reason out of doors, drew against her bar +and bolt, then we sat down, spread our paper, dipped in the ink an eager pen, +and, with deep enjoyment, poured out our sincere heart. When we had done—when +two sheets were covered with the language of a strongly-adherent affection, a +rooted and active gratitude—(once, for all, in this parenthesis, I disclaim, +with the utmost scorn, every sneaking suspicion of what are called “warmer +feelings:” women do not entertain these “warmer feelings” where, from the +commencement, through the whole progress of an acquaintance, they have never +once been cheated of the conviction that, to do so would be to commit a mortal +absurdity: nobody ever launches into Love unless he has seen or dreamed the +rising of Hope’s star over Love’s troubled waters)—when, then, I had given +expression to a closely-clinging and deeply-honouring attachment—an attachment +that wanted to attract to itself and take to its own lot all that was painful +in the destiny of its object; that would, if it could, have absorbed and +conducted away all storms and lightnings from an existence viewed with a +passion of solicitude—then, just at that moment, the doors of my heart would +shake, bolt and bar would yield, Reason would leap in vigorous and revengeful, +snatch the full sheets, read, sneer, erase, tear up, re-write, fold, seal, +direct, and send a terse, curt missive of a page. She did right. +</p> + +<p> +I did not live on letters only: I was visited, I was looked after; once a week +I was taken out to La Terrasse; always I was made much of. Dr. Bretton failed +not to tell me <i>why</i> he was so kind: “To keep away the nun,” he said; “he +was determined to dispute with her her prey. He had taken,” he declared, “a +thorough dislike to her, chiefly on account of that white face-cloth, and those +cold grey eyes: the moment he heard of those odious particulars,” he affirmed, +“consummate disgust had incited him to oppose her; he was determined to try +whether he or she was the cleverest, and he only wished she would once more +look in upon me when he was present:” but <i>that</i> she never did. In short, +he regarded me scientifically in the light of a patient, and at once exercised +his professional skill, and gratified his natural benevolence, by a course of +cordial and attentive treatment. +</p> + +<p> +One evening, the first in December, I was walking by myself in the carré; it +was six o’clock; the classe-doors were closed; but within, the pupils, rampant +in the licence of evening recreation, were counterfeiting a miniature chaos. +The carré was quite dark, except a red light shining under and about the stove; +the wide glass-doors and the long windows were frosted over; a crystal sparkle +of starlight, here and there spangling this blanched winter veil, and breaking +with scattered brilliance the paleness of its embroidery, proved it a clear +night, though moonless. That I should dare to remain thus alone in darkness, +showed that my nerves were regaining a healthy tone: I thought of the nun, but +hardly feared her; though the staircase was behind me, leading up, through +blind, black night, from landing to landing, to the haunted grenier. Yet I own +my heart quaked, my pulse leaped, when I suddenly heard breathing and rustling, +and turning, saw in the deep shadow of the steps a deeper shadow still—a shape +that moved and descended. It paused a while at the classe-door, and then it +glided before me. Simultaneously came a clangor of the distant door-bell. +Life-like sounds bring life-like feelings: this shape was too round and low for +my gaunt nun: it was only Madame Beck on duty. +</p> + +<p> +“Mademoiselle Lucy!” cried Rosine, bursting in, lamp in hand, from the +corridor, “on est là pour vous au salon.” +</p> + +<p> +Madame saw me, I saw Madame, Rosine saw us both: there was no mutual +recognition. I made straight for the salon. There I found what I own I +anticipated I should find—Dr. Bretton; but he was in evening-dress. +</p> + +<p> +“The carriage is at the door,” said he; “my mother has sent it to take you to +the theatre; she was going herself, but an arrival has prevented her: she +immediately said, ‘Take Lucy in my place.’ Will you go?” +</p> + +<p> +“Just now? I am not dressed,” cried I, glancing despairingly at my dark merino. +</p> + +<p> +“You have half an hour to dress. I should have given you notice, but I only +determined on going since five o’clock, when I heard there was to be a genuine +regale in the presence of a great actress.” +</p> + +<p> +And he mentioned a name that thrilled me—a name that, in those days, could +thrill Europe. It is hushed now: its once restless echoes are all still; she +who bore it went years ago to her rest: night and oblivion long since closed +above her; but <i>then</i> her day—a day of Sirius—stood at its full height, +light and fervour. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll go; I will be ready in ten minutes,” I vowed. And away I flew, never once +checked, reader, by the thought which perhaps at this moment checks you: +namely, that to go anywhere with Graham and without Mrs. Bretton could be +objectionable. I could not have conceived, much less have expressed to Graham, +such thought—such scruple—without risk of exciting a tyrannous self-contempt: +of kindling an inward fire of shame so quenchless, and so devouring, that I +think it would soon have licked up the very life in my veins. Besides, my +godmother, knowing her son, and knowing me, would as soon have thought of +chaperoning a sister with a brother, as of keeping anxious guard over our +incomings and outgoings. +</p> + +<p> +The present was no occasion for showy array; my dun mist crape would suffice, +and I sought the same in the great oak-wardrobe in the dormitory, where hung no +less than forty dresses. But there had been changes and reforms, and some +innovating hand had pruned this same crowded wardrobe, and carried divers +garments to the grenier—my crape amongst the rest. I must fetch it. I got the +key, and went aloft fearless, almost thoughtless. I unlocked the door, I +plunged in. The reader may believe it or not, but when I thus suddenly entered, +that garret was not wholly dark as it should have been: from one point there +shone a solemn light, like a star, but broader. So plainly it shone, that it +revealed the deep alcove with a portion of the tarnished scarlet curtain drawn +over it. Instantly, silently, before my eyes, it vanished; so did the curtain +and alcove: all that end of the garret became black as night. I ventured no +research; I had not time nor will; snatching my dress, which hung on the wall, +happily near the door, I rushed out, relocked the door with convulsed haste, +and darted downwards to the dormitory. +</p> + +<p> +But I trembled too much to dress myself: impossible to arrange hair or fasten +hooks-and-eyes with such fingers, so I called Rosine and bribed her to help me. +Rosine liked a bribe, so she did her best, smoothed and plaited my hair as well +as a coiffeur would have done, placed the lace collar mathematically straight, +tied the neck-ribbon accurately—in short, did her work like the neat-handed +Phillis she could be when she chose. Having given me my handkerchief and +gloves, she took the candle and lighted me down-stairs. After all, I had +forgotten my shawl; she ran back to fetch it; and I stood with Dr. John in the +vestibule, waiting. +</p> + +<p> +“What is this, Lucy?” said he, looking down at me narrowly. “Here is the old +excitement. Ha! the nun again?” +</p> + +<p> +But I utterly denied the charge: I was vexed to be suspected of a second +illusion. He was sceptical. +</p> + +<p> +“She has been, as sure as I live,” said he; “her figure crossing your eyes +leaves on them a peculiar gleam and expression not to be mistaken.” +</p> + +<p> +“She has <i>not</i> been,” I persisted: for, indeed, I could deny her +apparition with truth. +</p> + +<p> +“The old symptoms are there,” he affirmed: “a particular pale, and what the +Scotch call a ‘raised’ look.” +</p> + +<p> +He was so obstinate, I thought it better to tell him what I really <i>had</i> +seen. Of course with him it was held to be another effect of the same cause: it +was all optical illusion—nervous malady, and so on. Not one bit did I believe +him; but I dared not contradict: doctors are so self-opinionated, so immovable +in their dry, materialist views. +</p> + +<p> +Rosine brought the shawl, and I was bundled into the carriage. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +The theatre was full—crammed to its roof: royal and noble were there: palace +and hotel had emptied their inmates into those tiers so thronged and so hushed. +Deeply did I feel myself privileged in having a place before that stage; I +longed to see a being of whose powers I had heard reports which made me +conceive peculiar anticipations. I wondered if she would justify her renown: +with strange curiosity, with feelings severe and austere, yet of riveted +interest, I waited. She was a study of such nature as had not encountered my +eyes yet: a great and new planet she was: but in what shape? I waited her +rising. +</p> + +<p> +She rose at nine that December night: above the horizon I saw her come. She +could shine yet with pale grandeur and steady might; but that star verged +already on its judgment-day. Seen near, it was a chaos—hollow, half-consumed: +an orb perished or perishing—half lava, half glow. +</p> + +<p> +I had heard this woman termed “plain,” and I expected bony harshness and +grimness—something large, angular, sallow. What I saw was the shadow of a royal +Vashti: a queen, fair as the day once, turned pale now like twilight, and +wasted like wax in flame. +</p> + +<p> +For a while—a long while—I thought it was only a woman, though an unique woman, +who moved in might and grace before this multitude. By-and-by I recognised my +mistake. Behold! I found upon her something neither of woman nor of man: in +each of her eyes sat a devil. These evil forces bore her through the tragedy, +kept up her feeble strength—for she was but a frail creature; and as the action +rose and the stir deepened, how wildly they shook her with their passions of +the pit! They wrote <small>HELL</small> on her straight, haughty brow. They +tuned her voice to the note of torment. They writhed her regal face to a +demoniac mask. Hate and Murder and Madness incarnate she stood. +</p> + +<p> +It was a marvellous sight: a mighty revelation. +</p> + +<p> +It was a spectacle low, horrible, immoral. +</p> + +<p> +Swordsmen thrust through, and dying in their blood on the arena sand; bulls +goring horses disembowelled, made a meeker vision for the public—a milder +condiment for a people’s palate—than Vashti torn by seven devils: devils which +cried sore and rent the tenement they haunted, but still refused to be +exorcised. +</p> + +<p> +Suffering had struck that stage empress; and she stood before her audience +neither yielding to, nor enduring, nor, in finite measure, resenting it: she +stood locked in struggle, rigid in resistance. She stood, not dressed, but +draped in pale antique folds, long and regular like sculpture. A background and +entourage and flooring of deepest crimson threw her out, white like +alabaster—like silver: rather, be it said, like Death. +</p> + +<p> +Where was the artist of the Cleopatra? Let him come and sit down and study this +different vision. Let him seek here the mighty brawn, the muscle, the abounding +blood, the full-fed flesh he worshipped: let all materialists draw nigh and +look on. +</p> + +<p> +I have said that she does not <i>resent</i> her grief. No; the weakness of that +word would make it a lie. To her, what hurts becomes immediately embodied: she +looks on it as a thing that can be attacked, worried down, torn in shreds. +Scarcely a substance herself, she grapples to conflict with abstractions. +Before calamity she is a tigress; she rends her woes, shivers them in convulsed +abhorrence. Pain, for her, has no result in good: tears water no harvest of +wisdom: on sickness, on death itself, she looks with the eye of a rebel. +Wicked, perhaps, she is, but also she is strong; and her strength has conquered +Beauty, has overcome Grace, and bound both at her side, captives peerlessly +fair, and docile as fair. Even in the uttermost frenzy of energy is each maenad +movement royally, imperially, incedingly upborne. Her hair, flying loose in +revel or war, is still an angel’s hair, and glorious under a halo. Fallen, +insurgent, banished, she remembers the heaven where she rebelled. Heaven’s +light, following her exile, pierces its confines, and discloses their forlorn +remoteness. +</p> + +<p> +Place now the Cleopatra, or any other slug, before her as an obstacle, and see +her cut through the pulpy mass as the scimitar of Saladin clove the down +cushion. Let Paul Peter Rubens wake from the dead, let him rise out of his +cerements, and bring into this presence all the army of his fat women; the +magian power or prophet-virtue gifting that slight rod of Moses, could, at one +waft, release and re-mingle a sea spell-parted, whelming the heavy host with +the down-rush of overthrown sea-ramparts. +</p> + +<p> +Vashti was not good, I was told; and I have said she did not look good: though +a spirit, she was a spirit out of Tophet. Well, if so much of unholy force can +arise from below, may not an equal efflux of sacred essence descend one day +from above? +</p> + +<p> +What thought Dr. Graham of this being? +</p> + +<p> +For long intervals I forgot to look how he demeaned himself, or to question +what he thought. The strong magnetism of genius drew my heart out of its wonted +orbit; the sunflower turned from the south to a fierce light, not solar—a +rushing, red, cometary light—hot on vision and to sensation. I had seen acting +before, but never anything like this: never anything which astonished Hope and +hushed Desire; which outstripped Impulse and paled Conception; which, instead +of merely irritating imagination with the thought of what <i>might</i> be done, +at the same time fevering the nerves because it was <i>not</i> done, disclosed +power like a deep, swollen winter river, thundering in cataract, and bearing +the soul, like a leaf, on the steep and steelly sweep of its descent. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Fanshawe, with her usual ripeness of judgment, pronounced Dr. Bretton a +serious, impassioned man, too grave and too impressible. Not in such light did +I ever see him: no such faults could I lay to his charge. His natural attitude +was not the meditative, nor his natural mood the sentimental; +<i>impressionable</i> he was as dimpling water, but, almost as water, +<i>unimpressible:</i> the breeze, the sun, moved him—metal could not grave, nor +fire brand. +</p> + +<p> +Dr. John <i>could</i> think and think well, but he was rather a man of action +than of thought; he <i>could</i> feel, and feel vividly in his way, but his +heart had no chord for enthusiasm: to bright, soft, sweet influences his eyes +and lips gave bright, soft, sweet welcome, beautiful to see as dyes of rose and +silver, pearl and purple, imbuing summer clouds; for what belonged to storm, +what was wild and intense, dangerous, sudden, and flaming, he had no sympathy, +and held with it no communion. When I took time and regained inclination to +glance at him, it amused and enlightened me to discover that he was watching +that sinister and sovereign Vashti, not with wonder, nor worship, nor yet +dismay, but simply with intense curiosity. Her agony did not pain him, her wild +moan—worse than a shriek—did not much move him; her fury revolted him somewhat, +but not to the point of horror. Cool young Briton! The pale cliffs of his own +England do not look down on the tides of the Channel more calmly than he +watched the Pythian inspiration of that night. +</p> + +<p> +Looking at his face, I longed to know his exact opinions, and at last I put a +question tending to elicit them. At the sound of my voice he awoke as if out of +a dream; for he had been thinking, and very intently thinking, his own +thoughts, after his own manner. “How did he like Vashti?” I wished to know. +</p> + +<p> +“Hm-m-m,” was the first scarce articulate but expressive answer; and then such +a strange smile went wandering round his lips, a smile so critical, so almost +callous! I suppose that for natures of that order his sympathies <i>were</i> +callous. In a few terse phrases he told me his opinion of, and feeling towards, +the actress: he judged her as a woman, not an artist: it was a branding +judgment. +</p> + +<p> +That night was already marked in my book of life, not with white, but with a +deep-red cross. But I had not done with it yet; and other memoranda were +destined to be set down in characters of tint indelible. +</p> + +<p> +Towards midnight, when the deepening tragedy blackened to the death-scene, and +all held their breath, and even Graham bit his under-lip, and knit his brow, +and sat still and struck—when the whole theatre was hushed, when the vision of +all eyes centred in one point, when all ears listened towards one +quarter—nothing being seen but the white form sunk on a seat, quivering in +conflict with her last, her worst-hated, her visibly-conquering foe—nothing +heard but her throes, her gaspings, breathing yet of mutiny, panting still +defiance; when, as it seemed, an inordinate will, convulsing a perishing mortal +frame, bent it to battle with doom and death, fought every inch of ground, sold +every drop of blood, resisted to the latest the rape of every faculty, +<i>would</i> see, <i>would</i> hear, <i>would</i> breathe, <i>would</i> live, +up to, within, well-nigh <i>beyond</i> the moment when death says to all sense +and all being—“Thus far and no farther!”— +</p> + +<p> +Just then a stir, pregnant with omen, rustled behind the scenes—feet ran, +voices spoke. What was it? demanded the whole house. A flame, a smell of smoke +replied. +</p> + +<p> +“Fire!” rang through the gallery. “Fire!” was repeated, re-echoed, yelled +forth: and then, and faster than pen can set it down, came panic, rushing, +crushing—a blind, selfish, cruel chaos. +</p> + +<p> +And Dr. John? Reader, I see him yet, with his look of comely courage and +cordial calm. +</p> + +<p> +“Lucy will sit still, I know,” said he, glancing down at me with the same +serene goodness, the same repose of firmness that I have seen in him when +sitting at his side amid the secure peace of his mother’s hearth. Yes, thus +adjured, I think I would have sat still under a rocking crag: but, indeed, to +sit still in actual circumstances was my instinct; and at the price of my very +life, I would not have moved to give him trouble, thwart his will, or make +demands on his attention. We were in the stalls, and for a few minutes there +was a most terrible, ruthless pressure about us. +</p> + +<p> +“How terrified are the women!” said he; “but if the men were not almost equally +so, order might be maintained. This is a sorry scene: I see fifty selfish +brutes at this moment, each of whom, if I were near, I could conscientiously +knock down. I see some women braver than some men. There is one yonder—Good +God!” +</p> + +<p> +While Graham was speaking, a young girl who had been very quietly and steadily +clinging to a gentleman before us, was suddenly struck from her protector’s +arms by a big, butcherly intruder, and hurled under the feet of the crowd. +Scarce two seconds lasted her disappearance. Graham rushed forwards; he and the +gentleman, a powerful man though grey-haired, united their strength to thrust +back the throng; her head and long hair fell back over his shoulder: she seemed +unconscious. +</p> + +<p> +“Trust her with me; I am a medical man,” said Dr. John. +</p> + +<p> +“If you have no lady with you, be it so,” was the answer. “Hold her, and I will +force a passage: we must get her to the air.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have a lady,” said Graham; “but she will be neither hindrance nor +incumbrance.” +</p> + +<p> +He summoned me with his eye: we were separated. Resolute, however, to rejoin +him, I penetrated the living barrier, creeping under where I could not get +between or over. +</p> + +<p> +“Fasten on me, and don’t leave go,” he said; and I obeyed him. +</p> + +<p> +Our pioneer proved strong and adroit; he opened the dense mass like a wedge; +with patience and toil he at last bored through the flesh-and-blood rock—so +solid, hot, and suffocating—and brought us to the fresh, freezing night. +</p> + +<p> +“You are an Englishman!” said he, turning shortly on Dr. Bretton, when we got +into the street. +</p> + +<p> +“An Englishman. And I speak to a countryman?” was the reply. +</p> + +<p> +“Right. Be good enough to stand here two minutes, whilst I find my carriage.” +</p> + +<p> +“Papa, I am not hurt,” said a girlish voice; “am I with papa?” +</p> + +<p> +“You are with a friend, and your father is close at hand.” +</p> + +<p> +“Tell him I am not hurt, except just in my shoulder. Oh, my shoulder! They trod +just here.” +</p> + +<p> +“Dislocation, perhaps!” muttered the Doctor: “let us hope there is no worse +injury done. Lucy, lend a hand one instant.” +</p> + +<p> +And I assisted while he made some arrangement of drapery and position for the +ease of his suffering burden. She suppressed a moan, and lay in his arms +quietly and patiently. +</p> + +<p> +“She is very light,” said Graham, “like a child!” and he asked in my ear, “Is +she a child, Lucy? Did you notice her age?” +</p> + +<p> +“I am not a child—I am a person of seventeen,” responded the patient, demurely +and with dignity. Then, directly after: “Tell papa to come; I get anxious.” +</p> + +<p> +The carriage drove up; her father relieved Graham; but in the exchange from one +bearer to another she was hurt, and moaned again. +</p> + +<p> +“My darling!” said the father, tenderly; then turning to Graham, “You said, +sir, you are a medical man?” +</p> + +<p> +“I am: Dr. Bretton, of La Terrasse.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good. Will you step into my carriage?” +</p> + +<p> +“My own carriage is here: I will seek it, and accompany you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Be pleased, then, to follow us.” And he named his address: “The Hôtel Crécy, +in the Rue Crécy.” +</p> + +<p> +We followed; the carriage drove fast; myself and Graham were silent. This +seemed like an adventure. +</p> + +<p> +Some little time being lost in seeking our own equipage, we reached the hotel +perhaps about ten minutes after these strangers. It was an hotel in the foreign +sense: a collection of dwelling-houses, not an inn—a vast, lofty pile, with a +huge arch to its street-door, leading through a vaulted covered way, into a +square all built round. +</p> + +<p> +We alighted, passed up a wide, handsome public staircase, and stopped at Numéro +2 on the second landing; the first floor comprising the abode of I know not +what “prince Russe,” as Graham informed me. On ringing the bell at a second +great door, we were admitted to a suite of very handsome apartments. Announced +by a servant in livery, we entered a drawing-room whose hearth glowed with an +English fire, and whose walls gleamed with foreign mirrors. Near the hearth +appeared a little group: a slight form sunk in a deep arm-chair, one or two +women busy about it, the iron-grey gentleman anxiously looking on. +</p> + +<p> +“Where is Harriet? I wish Harriet would come to me,” said the girlish voice, +faintly. +</p> + +<p> +“Where is Mrs. Hurst?” demanded the gentleman impatiently and somewhat sternly +of the man-servant who had admitted us. +</p> + +<p> +“I am sorry to say she is gone out of town, sir; my young lady gave her leave +till to-morrow.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes—I did—I did. She is gone to see her sister; I said she might go: I +remember now,” interposed the young lady; “but I am so sorry, for Manon and +Louison cannot understand a word I say, and they hurt me without meaning to do +so.” +</p> + +<p> +Dr. John and the gentleman now interchanged greetings; and while they passed a +few minutes in consultation, I approached the easy-chair, and seeing what the +faint and sinking girl wished to have done, I did it for her. +</p> + +<p> +I was still occupied in the arrangement, when Graham drew near; he was no less +skilled in surgery than medicine, and, on examination, found that no further +advice than his own was necessary to the treatment of the present case. He +ordered her to be carried to her chamber, and whispered to me:—“Go with the +women, Lucy; they seem but dull; you can at least direct their movements, and +thus spare her some pain. She must be touched very tenderly.” +</p> + +<p> +The chamber was a room shadowy with pale-blue hangings, vaporous with +curtainings and veilings of muslin; the bed seemed to me like snow-drift and +mist—spotless, soft, and gauzy. Making the women stand apart, I undressed their +mistress, without their well-meaning but clumsy aid. I was not in a +sufficiently collected mood to note with separate distinctness every detail of +the attire I removed, but I received a general impression of refinement, +delicacy, and perfect personal cultivation; which, in a period of +after-thought, offered in my reflections a singular contrast to notes retained +of Miss Ginevra Fanshawe’s appointments. +</p> + +<p> +The girl was herself a small, delicate creature, but made like a model. As I +folded back her plentiful yet fine hair, so shining and soft, and so +exquisitely tended, I had under my observation a young, pale, weary, but +high-bred face. The brow was smooth and clear; the eyebrows were distinct, but +soft, and melting to a mere trace at the temples; the eyes were a rich gift of +nature—fine and full, large, deep, seeming to hold dominion over the slighter +subordinate features—capable, probably, of much significance at another hour +and under other circumstances than the present, but now languid and suffering. +Her skin was perfectly fair, the neck and hands veined finely like the petals +of a flower; a thin glazing of the ice of pride polished this delicate +exterior, and her lip wore a curl—I doubt not inherent and unconscious, but +which, if I had seen it first with the accompaniments of health and state, +would have struck me as unwarranted, and proving in the little lady a quite +mistaken view of life and her own consequence. +</p> + +<p> +Her demeanour under the Doctor’s hands at first excited a smile; it was not +puerile—rather, on the whole, patient and firm—but yet, once or twice she +addressed him with suddenness and sharpness, saying that he hurt her, and must +contrive to give her less pain; I saw her large eyes, too, settle on his face +like the solemn eyes of some pretty, wondering child. I know not whether Graham +felt this examination: if he did, he was cautious not to check or discomfort it +by any retaliatory look. I think he performed his work with extreme care and +gentleness, sparing her what pain he could; and she acknowledged as much, when +he had done, by the words:—“Thank you, Doctor, and good-night,” very gratefully +pronounced as she uttered them, however, it was with a repetition of the +serious, direct gaze, I thought, peculiar in its gravity and intentness. +</p> + +<p> +The injuries, it seems, were not dangerous: an assurance which her father +received with a smile that almost made one his friend—it was so glad and +gratified. He now expressed his obligations to Graham with as much earnestness +as was befitting an Englishman addressing one who has served him, but is yet a +stranger; he also begged him to call the next day. +</p> + +<p> +“Papa,” said a voice from the veiled couch, “thank the lady, too; is she +there?” +</p> + +<p> +I opened the curtain with a smile, and looked in at her. She lay now at +comparative ease; she looked pretty, though pale; her face was delicately +designed, and if at first sight it appeared proud, I believe custom might prove +it to be soft. +</p> + +<p> +“I thank the lady very sincerely,” said her father: “I fancy she has been very +good to my child. I think we scarcely dare tell Mrs. Hurst who has been her +substitute and done her work; she will feel at once ashamed and jealous.” +</p> + +<p> +And thus, in the most friendly spirit, parting greetings were interchanged; and +refreshment having been hospitably offered, but by us, as it was late, refused, +we withdrew from the Hôtel Crécy. +</p> + +<p> +On our way back we repassed the theatre. All was silence and darkness: the +roaring, rushing crowd all vanished and gone—the damps, as well as the +incipient fire, extinct and forgotten. Next morning’s papers explained that it +was but some loose drapery on which a spark had fallen, and which had blazed up +and been quenched in a moment. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap24"></a>CHAPTER XXIV.<br/> +M. DE BASSOMPIERRE.</h2> + +<p> +Those who live in retirement, whose lives have fallen amid the seclusion of +schools or of other walled-in and guarded dwellings, are liable to be suddenly +and for a long while dropped out of the memory of their friends, the denizens +of a freer world. Unaccountably, perhaps, and close upon some space of +unusually frequent intercourse—some congeries of rather exciting little +circumstances, whose natural sequel would rather seem to be the quickening than +the suspension of communication—there falls a stilly pause, a wordless silence, +a long blank of oblivion. Unbroken always is this blank; alike entire and +unexplained. The letter, the message once frequent, are cut off; the visit, +formerly periodical, ceases to occur; the book, paper, or other token that +indicated remembrance, comes no more. +</p> + +<p> +Always there are excellent reasons for these lapses, if the hermit but knew +them. Though he is stagnant in his cell, his connections without are whirling +in the very vortex of life. That void interval which passes for him so slowly +that the very clocks seem at a stand, and the wingless hours plod by in the +likeness of tired tramps prone to rest at milestones—that same interval, +perhaps, teems with events, and pants with hurry for his friends. +</p> + +<p> +The hermit—if he be a sensible hermit—will swallow his own thoughts, and lock +up his own emotions during these weeks of inward winter. He will know that +Destiny designed him to imitate, on occasion, the dormouse, and he will be +conformable: make a tidy ball of himself, creep into a hole of life’s wall, and +submit decently to the drift which blows in and soon blocks him up, preserving +him in ice for the season. +</p> + +<p> +Let him say, “It is quite right: it ought to be so, since so it is.” And, +perhaps, one day his snow-sepulchre will open, spring’s softness will return, +the sun and south-wind will reach him; the budding of hedges, and carolling of +birds, and singing of liberated streams, will call him to kindly resurrection. +<i>Perhaps</i> this may be the case, perhaps not: the frost may get into his +heart and never thaw more; when spring comes, a crow or a pie may pick out of +the wall only his dormouse-bones. Well, even in that case, all will be right: +it is to be supposed he knew from the first he was mortal, and must one day go +the way of all flesh, “As well soon as syne.” +</p> + +<p> +Following that eventful evening at the theatre, came for me seven weeks as bare +as seven sheets of blank paper: no word was written on one of them; not a +visit, not a token. +</p> + +<p> +About the middle of that time I entertained fancies that something had happened +to my friends at La Terrasse. The mid-blank is always a beclouded point for the +solitary: his nerves ache with the strain of long expectancy; the doubts +hitherto repelled gather now to a mass and—strong in accumulation—roll back +upon him with a force which savours of vindictiveness. Night, too, becomes an +unkindly time, and sleep and his nature cannot agree: strange starts and +struggles harass his couch: the sinister band of bad dreams, with horror of +calamity, and sick dread of entire desertion at their head, join the league +against him. Poor wretch! He does his best to bear up, but he is a poor, +pallid, wasting wretch, despite that best. +</p> + +<p> +Towards the last of these long seven weeks I admitted, what through the other +six I had jealously excluded—the conviction that these blanks were inevitable: +the result of circumstances, the fiat of fate, a part of my life’s lot +and—above all—a matter about whose origin no question must ever be asked, for +whose painful sequence no murmur ever uttered. Of course I did not blame myself +for suffering: I thank God I had a truer sense of justice than to fall into any +imbecile extravagance of self-accusation; and as to blaming others for silence, +in my reason I well knew them blameless, and in my heart acknowledged them so: +but it was a rough and heavy road to travel, and I longed for better days. +</p> + +<p> +I tried different expedients to sustain and fill existence: I commenced an +elaborate piece of lace-work, I studied German pretty hard, I undertook a +course of regular reading of the driest and thickest books in the library; in +all my efforts I was as orthodox as I knew how to be. Was there error +somewhere? Very likely. I only know the result was as if I had gnawed a file to +satisfy hunger, or drank brine to quench thirst. +</p> + +<p> +My hour of torment was the post-hour. Unfortunately, I knew it too well, and +tried as vainly as assiduously to cheat myself of that knowledge; dreading the +rack of expectation, and the sick collapse of disappointment which daily +preceded and followed upon that well-recognised ring. +</p> + +<p> +I suppose animals kept in cages, and so scantily fed as to be always upon the +verge of famine, await their food as I awaited a letter. Oh!—to speak truth, +and drop that tone of a false calm which long to sustain, outwears nature’s +endurance—I underwent in those seven weeks bitter fears and pains, strange +inward trials, miserable defections of hope, intolerable encroachments of +despair. This last came so near me sometimes that her breath went right through +me. I used to feel it like a baleful air or sigh, penetrate deep, and make +motion pause at my heart, or proceed only under unspeakable oppression. The +letter—the well-beloved letter—would not come; and it was all of sweetness in +life I had to look for. +</p> + +<p> +In the very extremity of want, I had recourse again, and yet again, to the +little packet in the case—the five letters. How splendid that month seemed +whose skies had beheld the rising of these five stars! It was always at night I +visited them, and not daring to ask every evening for a candle in the kitchen, +I bought a wax taper and matches to light it, and at the study-hour stole up to +the dormitory and feasted on my crust from the Barmecide’s loaf. It did not +nourish me: I pined on it, and got as thin as a shadow: otherwise I was not +ill. +</p> + +<p> +Reading there somewhat late one evening, and feeling that the power to read was +leaving me—for the letters from incessant perusal were losing all sap and +significance: my gold was withering to leaves before my eyes, and I was +sorrowing over the disillusion—suddenly a quick tripping foot ran up the +stairs. I knew Ginevra Fanshawe’s step: she had dined in town that afternoon; +she was now returned, and would come here to replace her shawl, &c. in the +wardrobe. +</p> + +<p> +Yes: in she came, dressed in bright silk, with her shawl falling from her +shoulders, and her curls, half-uncurled in the damp of night, drooping careless +and heavy upon her neck. I had hardly time to recasket my treasures and lock +them up when she was at my side her humour seemed none of the best. +</p> + +<p> +“It has been a stupid evening: they are stupid people,” she began. +</p> + +<p> +“Who? Mrs. Cholmondeley? I thought you always found her house charming?” +</p> + +<p> +“I have not been to Mrs. Cholmondeley’s.” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed! Have you made new acquaintance?” +</p> + +<p> +“My uncle de Bassompierre is come.” +</p> + +<p> +“Your uncle de Bassompierre! Are you not glad?—I thought he was a favourite.” +</p> + +<p> +“You thought wrong: the man is odious; I hate him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Because he is a foreigner? or for what other reason of equal weight?” +</p> + +<p> +“He is not a foreigner. The man is English enough, goodness knows; and had an +English name till three or four years ago; but his mother was a foreigner, a de +Bassompierre, and some of her family are dead and have left him estates, a +title, and this name: he is quite a great man now.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you hate him for that reason?” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t I know what mamma says about him? He is not my own uncle, but married +mamma’s sister. Mamma detests him; she says he killed aunt Ginevra with +unkindness: he looks like a bear. Such a dismal evening!” she went on. “I’ll go +no more to his big hotel. Fancy me walking into a room alone, and a great man +fifty years old coming forwards, and after a few minutes’ conversation actually +turning his back upon me, and then abruptly going out of the room. Such odd +ways! I daresay his conscience smote him, for they all say at home I am the +picture of aunt Ginevra. Mamma often declares the likeness is quite +ridiculous.” +</p> + +<p> +“Were you the only visitor?” +</p> + +<p> +“The only visitor? Yes; then there was missy, my cousin: little spoiled, +pampered thing.” +</p> + +<p> +“M. de Bassompierre has a daughter?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, yes: don’t tease one with questions. Oh, dear! I am so tired.” +</p> + +<p> +She yawned. Throwing herself without ceremony on my bed she added, “It seems +Mademoiselle was nearly crushed to a jelly in a hubbub at the theatre some +weeks ago.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah! indeed. And they live at a large hotel in the Rue Crécy?” +</p> + +<p> +“Justement. How do <i>you</i> know?” +</p> + +<p> +“I have been there.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, you have? Really! You go everywhere in these days. I suppose Mother +Bretton took you. She and Esculapius have the <i>entrée</i> of the de +Bassompierre apartments: it seems ‘my son John’ attended missy on the occasion +of her accident—Accident? Bah! All affectation! I don’t think she was squeezed +more than she richly deserves for her airs. And now there is quite an intimacy +struck up: I heard something about ‘auld lang syne,’ and what not. Oh, how +stupid they all were!” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>All!</i> You said you were the only visitor.” +</p> + +<p> +“Did I? You see one forgets to particularize an old woman and her boy.” +</p> + +<p> +“Dr. and Mrs. Bretton were at M. de Bassompierre’s this evening?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, ay! as large as life; and missy played the hostess. What a conceited doll +it is!” +</p> + +<p> +Soured and listless, Miss Fanshawe was beginning to disclose the causes of her +prostrate condition. There had been a retrenchment of incense, a diversion or a +total withholding of homage and attention coquetry had failed of effect, vanity +had undergone mortification. She lay fuming in the vapours. +</p> + +<p> +“Is Miss de Bassompierre quite well now?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“As well as you or I, no doubt; but she is an affected little thing, and gave +herself invalid airs to attract medical notice. And to see the old dowager +making her recline on a couch, and ‘my son John’ prohibiting excitement, +etcetera—faugh! the scene was quite sickening.” +</p> + +<p> +“It would not have been so if the object of attention had been changed: if you +had taken Miss de Bassompierre’s place.” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed! I hate ‘my son John!’” +</p> + +<p> +“‘My son John!’—whom do you indicate by that name? Dr. Bretton’s mother never +calls him so.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then she ought. A clownish, bearish John he is.” +</p> + +<p> +“You violate the truth in saying so; and as the whole of my patience is now +spun off the distaff, I peremptorily desire you to rise from that bed, and +vacate this room.” +</p> + +<p> +“Passionate thing! Your face is the colour of a coquelicot. I wonder what +always makes you so mighty testy à l’endroit du gros Jean? ‘John Anderson, my +Joe, John!’ Oh, the distinguished name!” +</p> + +<p> +Thrilling with exasperation, to which it would have been sheer folly to have +given vent—for there was no contending with that unsubstantial feather, that +mealy-winged moth—I extinguished my taper, locked my bureau, and left her, +since she would not leave me. Small-beer as she was, she had turned +insufferably acid. +</p> + +<p> +The morrow was Thursday and a half-holiday. Breakfast was over; I had withdrawn +to the first classe. The dreaded hour, the post-hour, was nearing, and I sat +waiting it, much as a ghost-seer might wait his spectre. Less than ever was a +letter probable; still, strive as I would, I could not forget that it was +possible. As the moments lessened, a restlessness and fear almost beyond the +average assailed me. It was a day of winter east wind, and I had now for some +time entered into that dreary fellowship with the winds and their changes, so +little known, so incomprehensible to the healthy. The north and east owned a +terrific influence, making all pain more poignant, all sorrow sadder. The south +could calm, the west sometimes cheer: unless, indeed, they brought on their +wings the burden of thunder-clouds, under the weight and warmth of which all +energy died. +</p> + +<p> +Bitter and dark as was this January day, I remember leaving the classe, and +running down without bonnet to the bottom of the long garden, and then +lingering amongst the stripped shrubs, in the forlorn hope that the postman’s +ring might occur while I was out of hearing, and I might thus be spared the +thrill which some particular nerve or nerves, almost gnawed through with the +unremitting tooth of a fixed idea, were becoming wholly unfit to support. I +lingered as long as I dared without fear of attracting attention by my absence. +I muffled my head in my apron, and stopped my ears in terror of the torturing +clang, sure to be followed by such blank silence, such barren vacuum for me. At +last I ventured to re-enter the first classe, where, as it was not yet nine +o’clock, no pupils had been admitted. The first thing seen was a white object +on my black desk, a white, flat object. The post had, indeed, arrived; by me +unheard. Rosine had visited my cell, and, like some angel, had left behind her +a bright token of her presence. That shining thing on the desk was indeed a +letter, a real letter; I saw so much at the distance of three yards, and as I +had but one correspondent on earth, from that one it must come. He remembered +me yet. How deep a pulse of gratitude sent new life through my heart. +</p> + +<p> +Drawing near, bending and looking on the letter, in trembling but almost +certain hope of seeing a known hand, it was my lot to find, on the contrary, an +autograph for the moment deemed unknown—a pale female scrawl, instead of a +firm, masculine character. I then thought fate was <i>too</i> hard for me, and +I said, audibly, “This is cruel.” +</p> + +<p> +But I got over that pain also. Life is still life, whatever its pangs: our eyes +and ears and their use remain with us, though the prospect of what pleases be +wholly withdrawn, and the sound of what consoles be quite silenced. +</p> + +<p> +I opened the billet: by this time I had recognised its handwriting as perfectly +familiar. It was dated “La Terrasse,” and it ran thus:— +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +“DEAR LUCY,—It occurs to me to inquire what you have been doing with yourself +for the last month or two? Not that I suspect you would have the least +difficulty in giving an account of your proceedings. I daresay you have been +just as busy and as happy as ourselves at La Terrasse. As to Graham, his +professional connection extends daily: he is so much sought after, so much +engaged, that I tell him he will grow quite conceited. Like a right good +mother, as I am, I do my best to keep him down: no flattery does he get from +me, as you know. And yet, Lucy, he is a fine fellow: his mother’s heart dances +at the sight of him. After being hurried here and there the whole day, and +passing the ordeal of fifty sorts of tempers, and combating a hundred caprices, +and sometimes witnessing cruel sufferings—perhaps, occasionally, as I tell him, +inflicting them—at night he still comes home to me in such kindly, pleasant +mood, that really, I seem to live in a sort of moral antipodes, and on these +January evenings my day rises when other people’s night sets in.<br/> + “Still he needs keeping in order, and correcting, and repressing, and I do +him that good service; but the boy is so elastic there is no such thing as +vexing him thoroughly. When I think I have at last driven him to the sullens, +he turns on me with jokes for retaliation: but you know him and all his +iniquities, and I am but an elderly simpleton to make him the subject of this +epistle.<br/> + “As for me, I have had my old Bretton agent here on a visit, and have been +plunged overhead and ears in business matters. I do so wish to regain for +Graham at least some part of what his father left him. He laughs to scorn my +anxiety on this point, bidding me look and see how he can provide for himself +and me too, and asking what the old lady can possibly want that she has not; +hinting about sky-blue turbans; accusing me of an ambition to wear diamonds, +keep livery servants, have an hotel, and lead the fashion amongst the English +clan in Villette.<br/> + “Talking of sky-blue turbans, I wish you had been with us the other +evening. He had come in really tired, and after I had given him his tea, he +threw himself into my chair with his customary presumption. To my great +delight, he dropped asleep. (You know how he teases me about being drowsy; I, +who never, by any chance, close an eye by daylight.) While he slept, I thought +he looked very bonny, Lucy: fool as I am to be so proud of him; but who can +help it? Show me his peer. Look where I will, I see nothing like him in +Villette. Well, I took it into my head to play him a trick: so I brought out +the sky-blue turban, and handling it with gingerly precaution, I managed to +invest his brows with this grand adornment. I assure you it did not at all +misbecome him; he looked quite Eastern, except that he is so fair. Nobody, +however, can accuse him of having red hair <i>now</i>—it is genuine chestnut—a +dark, glossy chestnut; and when I put my large cashmere about him, there was as +fine a young bey, dey, or pacha improvised as you would wish to see.<br/> + “It was good entertainment; but only half-enjoyed, since I was alone: you +should have been there.<br/> + “In due time my lord awoke: the looking-glass above the fireplace soon +intimated to him his plight: as you may imagine, I now live under threat and +dread of vengeance.<br/> + “But to come to the gist of my letter. I know Thursday is a half-holiday in +the Rue Fossette: be ready, then, by five in the afternoon, at which hour I +will send the carriage to take you out to La Terrasse. Be sure to come: you may +meet some old acquaintance. Good-by, my wise, dear, grave little +god-daughter.—Very truly yours, +</p> + +<p class="right"> +“LOUISA BRETTON.” +</p> + +<p> +Now, a letter like that sets one to rights! I might still be sad after reading +that letter, but I was more composed; not exactly cheered, perhaps, but +relieved. My friends, at least, were well and happy: no accident had occurred +to Graham; no illness had seized his mother—calamities that had so long been my +dream and thought. Their feelings for me too were—as they had been. Yet, how +strange it was to look on Mrs. Bretton’s seven weeks and contrast them with my +seven weeks! Also, how very wise it is in people placed in an exceptional +position to hold their tongues and not rashly declare how such position galls +them! The world can understand well enough the process of perishing for want of +food: perhaps few persons can enter into or follow out that of going mad from +solitary confinement. They see the long-buried prisoner disinterred, a maniac +or an idiot!—how his senses left him—how his nerves, first inflamed, underwent +nameless agony, and then sunk to palsy—is a subject too intricate for +examination, too abstract for popular comprehension. Speak of it! you might +almost as well stand up in an European market-place, and propound dark sayings +in that language and mood wherein Nebuchadnezzar, the imperial hypochondriac, +communed with his baffled Chaldeans. And long, long may the minds to whom such +themes are no mystery—by whom their bearings are sympathetically seized—be few +in number, and rare of rencounter. Long may it be generally thought that +physical privations alone merit compassion, and that the rest is a figment. +When the world was younger and haler than now, moral trials were a deeper +mystery still: perhaps in all the land of Israel there was but one +Saul—certainly but one David to soothe or comprehend him. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +The keen, still cold of the morning was succeeded, later in the day, by a sharp +breathing from Russian wastes: the cold zone sighed over the temperate zone, +and froze it fast. A heavy firmament, dull, and thick with snow, sailed up from +the north, and settled over expectant Europe. Towards afternoon began the +descent. I feared no carriage would come, the white tempest raged so dense and +wild. But trust my godmother! Once having asked, she would have her guest. +About six o’clock I was lifted from the carriage over the already blocked-up +front steps of the château, and put in at the door of La Terrasse. +</p> + +<p> +Running through the vestibule, and up-stairs to the drawing-room, there I found +Mrs. Bretton—a summer-day in her own person. Had I been twice as cold as I was, +her kind kiss and cordial clasp would have warmed me. Inured now for so long a +time to rooms with bare boards, black benches, desks, and stoves, the blue +saloon seemed to me gorgeous. In its Christmas-like fire alone there was a +clear and crimson splendour which quite dazzled me. +</p> + +<p> +When my godmother had held my hand for a little while, and chatted with me, and +scolded me for having become thinner than when she last saw me, she professed +to discover that the snow-wind had disordered my hair, and sent me up-stairs to +make it neat and remove my shawl. +</p> + +<p> +Repairing to my own little sea-green room, there also I found a bright fire, +and candles too were lit: a tall waxlight stood on each side the great +looking-glass; but between the candles, and before the glass, appeared +something dressing itself—an airy, fairy thing—small, slight, white—a winter +spirit. +</p> + +<p> +I declare, for one moment I thought of Graham and his spectral illusions. With +distrustful eye I noted the details of this new vision. It wore white, +sprinkled slightly with drops of scarlet; its girdle was red; it had something +in its hair leafy, yet shining—a little wreath with an evergreen gloss. +Spectral or not, here truly was nothing frightful, and I advanced. +</p> + +<p> +Turning quick upon me, a large eye, under long lashes, flashed over me, the +intruder: the lashes were as dark as long, and they softened with their +pencilling the orb they guarded. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah! you are come!” she breathed out, in a soft, quiet voice, and she smiled +slowly, and gazed intently. +</p> + +<p> +I knew her now. Having only once seen that sort of face, with that cast of fine +and delicate featuring, I could not but know her. +</p> + +<p> +“Miss de Bassompierre,” I pronounced. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” was the reply, “not Miss de Bassompierre for <i>you!</i>” I did not +inquire who then she might be, but waited voluntary information. +</p> + +<p> +“You are changed, but still you are yourself,” she said, approaching nearer. “I +remember you well—your countenance, the colour of your hair, the outline of +your face….” +</p> + +<p> +I had moved to the fire, and she stood opposite, and gazed into me; and as she +gazed, her face became gradually more and more expressive of thought and +feeling, till at last a dimness quenched her clear vision. +</p> + +<p> +“It makes me almost cry to look so far back,” said she: “but as to being sorry, +or sentimental, don’t think it: on the contrary, I am quite pleased and glad.” +</p> + +<p> +Interested, yet altogether at fault, I knew not what to say. At last I +stammered, “I think I never met you till that night, some weeks ago, when you +were hurt…?” +</p> + +<p> +She smiled. “You have forgotten then that I have sat on your knee, been lifted +in your arms, even shared your pillow? You no longer remember the night when I +came crying, like a naughty little child as I was, to your bedside, and you +took me in. You have no memory for the comfort and protection by which you +soothed an acute distress? Go back to Bretton. Remember Mr. Home.” +</p> + +<p> +At last I saw it all. “And you are little Polly?” +</p> + +<p> +“I am Paulina Mary Home de Bassompierre.” +</p> + +<p> +How time can change! Little Polly wore in her pale, small features, her fairy +symmetry, her varying expression, a certain promise of interest and grace; but +Paulina Mary was become beautiful—not with the beauty that strikes the eye like +a rose—orbed, ruddy, and replete; not with the plump, and pink, and flaxen +attributes of her blond cousin Ginevra; but her seventeen years had brought her +a refined and tender charm which did not lie in complexion, though hers was +fair and clear; nor in outline, though her features were sweet, and her limbs +perfectly turned; but, I think, rather in a subdued glow from the soul outward. +This was not an opaque vase, of material however costly, but a lamp chastely +lucent, guarding from extinction, yet not hiding from worship, a flame vital +and vestal. In speaking of her attractions, I would not exaggerate language; +but, indeed, they seemed to me very real and engaging. What though all was on a +small scale, it was the perfume which gave this white violet distinction, and +made it superior to the broadest camelia—the fullest dahlia that ever bloomed. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah! and you remember the old time at Bretton?” +</p> + +<p> +“Better,” said she, “better, perhaps, than you. I remember it with minute +distinctness: not only the time, but the days of the time, and the hours of the +days.” +</p> + +<p> +“You must have forgotten some things?” +</p> + +<p> +“Very little, I imagine.” +</p> + +<p> +“You were then a little creature of quick feelings: you must, long ere this, +have outgrown the impressions with which joy and grief, affection and +bereavement, stamped your mind ten years ago.” +</p> + +<p> +“You think I have forgotten whom I liked, and in what degree I liked them when +a child?” +</p> + +<p> +“The sharpness must be gone—the point, the poignancy—the deep imprint must be +softened away and effaced?” +</p> + +<p> +“I have a good memory for those days.” +</p> + +<p> +She looked as if she had. Her eyes were the eyes of one who can remember; one +whose childhood does not fade like a dream, nor whose youth vanish like a +sunbeam. She would not take life, loosely and incoherently, in parts, and let +one season slip as she entered on another: she would retain and add; often +review from the commencement, and so grow in harmony and consistency as she +grew in years. Still I could not quite admit the conviction that <i>all</i> the +pictures which now crowded upon me were vivid and visible to her. Her fond +attachments, her sports and contests with a well-loved playmate, the patient, +true devotion of her child’s heart, her fears, her delicate reserves, her +little trials, the last piercing pain of separation…. I retraced these things, +and shook my head incredulous. She persisted. “The child of seven years lives +yet in the girl of seventeen,” said she. +</p> + +<p> +“You used to be excessively fond of Mrs. Bretton,” I remarked, intending to +test her. She set me right at once. +</p> + +<p> +“Not <i>excessively</i> fond,” said she; “I liked her: I respected her as I +should do now: she seems to me very little altered.” +</p> + +<p> +“She is not much changed,” I assented. +</p> + +<p> +We were silent a few minutes. Glancing round the room she said, “There are +several things here that used to be at Bretton! I remember that pincushion and +that looking-glass.” +</p> + +<p> +Evidently she was not deceived in her estimate of her own memory; not, at +least, so far. +</p> + +<p> +“You think, then, you would have known Mrs. Bretton?” I went on. +</p> + +<p> +“I perfectly remembered her; the turn of her features, her olive complexion, +and black hair, her height, her walk, her voice.” +</p> + +<p> +“Dr. Bretton, of course,” I pursued, “would be out of the question: and, +indeed, as I saw your first interview with him, I am aware that he appeared to +you as a stranger.” +</p> + +<p> +“That first night I was puzzled,” she answered. +</p> + +<p> +“How did the recognition between him and your father come about?” +</p> + +<p> +“They exchanged cards. The names Graham Bretton and Home de Bassompierre gave +rise to questions and explanations. That was on the second day; but before then +I was beginning to know something.” +</p> + +<p> +“How—know something?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why,” she said, “how strange it is that most people seem so slow to feel the +truth—not to see, but <i>feel</i>! When Dr. Bretton had visited me a few times, +and sat near and talked to me; when I had observed the look in his eyes, the +expression about his mouth, the form of his chin, the carriage of his head, and +all that we <i>do</i> observe in persons who approach us—how could I avoid +being led by association to think of Graham Bretton? Graham was slighter than +he, and not grown so tall, and had a smoother face, and longer and lighter +hair, and spoke—not so deeply—more like a girl; but yet <i>he</i> is Graham, +just as <i>I</i> am little Polly, or you are Lucy Snowe.” +</p> + +<p> +I thought the same, but I wondered to find my thoughts hers: there are certain +things in which we so rarely meet with our double that it seems a miracle when +that chance befalls. +</p> + +<p> +“You and Graham were once playmates.” +</p> + +<p> +“And do you remember that?” she questioned in her turn. +</p> + +<p> +“No doubt he will remember it also,” said I. +</p> + +<p> +“I have not asked him: few things would surprise me so much as to find that he +did. I suppose his disposition is still gay and careless?” +</p> + +<p> +“Was it so formerly? Did it so strike you? Do you thus remember him?” +</p> + +<p> +“I scarcely remember him in any other light. Sometimes he was studious; +sometimes he was merry: but whether busy with his books or disposed for play, +it was chiefly the books or game he thought of; not much heeding those with +whom he read or amused himself.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yet to you he was partial.” +</p> + +<p> +“Partial to me? Oh, no! he had other playmates—his school-fellows; I was of +little consequence to him, except on Sundays: yes, he was kind on Sundays. I +remember walking with him hand-in-hand to St. Mary’s, and his finding the +places in my prayer-book; and how good and still he was on Sunday evenings! So +mild for such a proud, lively boy; so patient with all my blunders in reading; +and so wonderfully to be depended on, for he never spent those evenings from +home: I had a constant fear that he would accept some invitation and forsake +us; but he never did, nor seemed ever to wish to do it. Thus, of course, it can +be no more. I suppose Sunday will now be Dr. Bretton’s dining-out day….?” +</p> + +<p> +“Children, come down!” here called Mrs. Bretton from below. Paulina would still +have lingered, but I inclined to descend: we went down. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap25"></a>CHAPTER XXV.<br/> +THE LITTLE COUNTESS.</h2> + +<p> +Cheerful as my godmother naturally was, and entertaining as, for our sakes, she +made a point of being, there was no true enjoyment that evening at La Terrasse, +till, through the wild howl of the winter-night, were heard the signal sounds +of arrival. How often, while women and girls sit warm at snug fire-sides, their +hearts and imaginations are doomed to divorce from the comfort surrounding +their persons, forced out by night to wander through dark ways, to dare stress +of weather, to contend with the snow-blast, to wait at lonely gates and stiles +in wildest storms, watching and listening to see and hear the father, the son, +the husband coming home. +</p> + +<p> +Father and son came at last to the château: for the Count de Bassompierre that +night accompanied Dr. Bretton. I know not which of our trio heard the horses +first; the asperity, the violence of the weather warranted our running down +into the hall to meet and greet the two riders as they came in; but they warned +us to keep our distance: both were white—two mountains of snow; and indeed Mrs. +Bretton, seeing their condition, ordered them instantly to the kitchen; +prohibiting them, at their peril, from setting foot on her carpeted staircase +till they had severally put off that mask of Old Christmas they now affected. +Into the kitchen, however, we could not help following them: it was a large old +Dutch kitchen, picturesque and pleasant. The little white Countess danced in a +circle about her equally white sire, clapping her hands and crying, “Papa, +papa, you look like an enormous Polar bear.” +</p> + +<p> +The bear shook himself, and the little sprite fled far from the frozen shower. +Back she came, however, laughing, and eager to aid in removing the arctic +disguise. The Count, at last issuing from his dreadnought, threatened to +overwhelm her with it as with an avalanche. +</p> + +<p> +“Come, then,” said she, bending to invite the fall, and when it was playfully +advanced above her head, bounding out of reach like some little chamois. +</p> + +<p> +Her movements had the supple softness, the velvet grace of a kitten; her laugh +was clearer than the ring of silver and crystal; as she took her sire’s cold +hands and rubbed them, and stood on tiptoe to reach his lips for a kiss, there +seemed to shine round her a halo of loving delight. The grave and reverend +seignor looked down on her as men <i>do</i> look on what is the apple of their +eye. +</p> + +<p> +“Mrs. Bretton,” said he: “what am I to do with this daughter or daughterling of +mine? She neither grows in wisdom nor in stature. Don’t you find her pretty +nearly as much the child as she was ten years ago?” +</p> + +<p> +“She cannot be more the child than this great boy of mine,” said Mrs. Bretton, +who was in conflict with her son about some change of dress she deemed +advisable, and which he resisted. He stood leaning against the Dutch dresser, +laughing and keeping her at arm’s length. +</p> + +<p> +“Come, mamma,” said he, “by way of compromise, and to secure for us inward as +well as outward warmth, let us have a Christmas wassail-cup, and toast Old +England here, on the hearth.” +</p> + +<p> +So, while the Count stood by the fire, and Paulina Mary still danced to and +fro—happy in the liberty of the wide hall-like kitchen—Mrs. Bretton herself +instructed Martha to spice and heat the wassail-bowl, and, pouring the draught +into a Bretton flagon, it was served round, reaming hot, by means of a small +silver vessel, which I recognised as Graham’s christening-cup. +</p> + +<p> +“Here’s to Auld Lang Syne!” said the Count; holding the glancing cup on high. +Then, looking at Mrs. Bretton.— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + “We twa ha’ paidlet i’ the burn<br/> + Fra morning sun till dine,<br/> + But seas between us braid ha’ roared<br/> + Sin’ auld lang syne.<br/> +<br/> + “And surely ye’ll be your pint-stoup,<br/> + And surely I’ll be mine;<br/> + And we’ll taste a cup o’ kindness yet<br/> + For auld lang syne.” +</p> + +<p> +“Scotch! Scotch!” cried Paulina; “papa is talking Scotch; and Scotch he is, +partly. We are Home and de Bassompierre, Caledonian and Gallic.” +</p> + +<p> +“And is that a Scotch reel you are dancing, you Highland fairy?” asked her +father. “Mrs. Bretton, there will be a green ring growing up in the middle of +your kitchen shortly. I would not answer for her being quite cannie: she is a +strange little mortal.” +</p> + +<p> +“Tell Lucy to dance with me, papa; there is Lucy Snowe.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Home (there was still quite as much about him of plain Mr. Home as of proud +Count de Bassompierre) held his hand out to me, saying kindly, “he remembered +me well; and, even had his own memory been less trustworthy, my name was so +often on his daughter’s lips, and he had listened to so many long tales about +me, I should seem like an old acquaintance.” +</p> + +<p> +Every one now had tasted the wassail-cup except Paulina, whose pas de fée, ou +de fantaisie, nobody thought of interrupting to offer so profanatory a draught; +but she was not to be overlooked, nor baulked of her mortal privileges. +</p> + +<p> +“Let me taste,” said she to Graham, as he was putting the cup on the shelf of +the dresser out of her reach. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Bretton and Mr. Home were now engaged in conversation. Dr. John had not +been unobservant of the fairy’s dance; he had watched it, and he had liked it. +To say nothing of the softness and beauty of the movements, eminently grateful +to his grace-loving eye, that ease in his mother’s house charmed him, for it +set <i>him</i> at ease: again she seemed a child for him—again, almost his +playmate. I wondered how he would speak to her; I had not yet seen him address +her; his first words proved that the old days of “little Polly” had been +recalled to his mind by this evening’s child-like light-heartedness. +</p> + +<p> +“Your ladyship wishes for the tankard?” +</p> + +<p> +“I think I said so. I think I intimated as much.” +</p> + +<p> +“Couldn’t consent to a step of the kind on any account. Sorry for it, but +couldn’t do it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why? I am quite well now: it can’t break my collar-bone again, or dislocate my +shoulder. Is it wine?” +</p> + +<p> +“No; nor dew.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t want dew; I don’t like dew: but what is it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ale—strong ale—old October; brewed, perhaps, when I was born.” +</p> + +<p> +“It must be curious: is it good?” +</p> + +<p> +“Excessively good.” +</p> + +<p> +And he took it down, administered to himself a second dose of this mighty +elixir, expressed in his mischievous eyes extreme contentment with the same, +and solemnly replaced the cup on the shelf. +</p> + +<p> +“I should like a little,” said Paulina, looking up; “I never had any ‘old +October:’ is it sweet?” +</p> + +<p> +“Perilously sweet,” said Graham. +</p> + +<p> +She continued to look up exactly with the countenance of a child that longs for +some prohibited dainty. At last the Doctor relented, took it down, and indulged +himself in the gratification of letting her taste from his hand; his eyes, +always expressive in the revelation of pleasurable feelings, luminously and +smilingly avowed that it <i>was</i> a gratification; and he prolonged it by so +regulating the position of the cup that only a drop at a time could reach the +rosy, sipping lips by which its brim was courted. +</p> + +<p> +“A little more—a little more,” said she, petulantly touching his hand with the +forefinger, to make him incline the cup more generously and yieldingly. “It +smells of spice and sugar, but I can’t taste it; your wrist is so stiff, and +you are so stingy.” +</p> + +<p> +He indulged her, whispering, however, with gravity: “Don’t tell my mother or +Lucy; they wouldn’t approve.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nor do I,” said she, passing into another tone and manner as soon as she had +fairly assayed the beverage, just as if it had acted upon her like some +disenchanting draught, undoing the work of a wizard: “I find it anything but +sweet; it is bitter and hot, and takes away my breath. Your old October was +only desirable while forbidden. Thank you, no more.” +</p> + +<p> +And, with a slight bend—careless, but as graceful as her dance—she glided from +him and rejoined her father. +</p> + +<p> +I think she had spoken truth: the child of seven was in the girl of seventeen. +</p> + +<p> +Graham looked after her a little baffled, a little puzzled; his eye was on her +a good deal during the rest of the evening, but she did not seem to notice him. +</p> + +<p> +As we ascended to the drawing-room for tea, she took her father’s arm: her +natural place seemed to be at his side; her eyes and her ears were dedicated to +him. He and Mrs. Bretton were the chief talkers of our little party, and +Paulina was their best listener, attending closely to all that was said, +prompting the repetition of this or that trait or adventure. +</p> + +<p> +“And where were you at such a time, papa? And what did you say then? And tell +Mrs. Bretton what happened on that occasion.” Thus she drew him out. +</p> + +<p> +She did not again yield to any effervescence of glee; the infantine sparkle was +exhaled for the night: she was soft, thoughtful, and docile. It was pretty to +see her bid good-night; her manner to Graham was touched with dignity: in her +very slight smile and quiet bow spoke the Countess, and Graham could not but +look grave, and bend responsive. I saw he hardly knew how to blend together in +his ideas the dancing fairy and delicate dame. +</p> + +<p> +Next day, when we were all assembled round the breakfast-table, shivering and +fresh from the morning’s chill ablutions, Mrs. Bretton pronounced a decree that +nobody, who was not forced by dire necessity, should quit her house that day. +</p> + +<p> +Indeed, egress seemed next to impossible; the drift darkened the lower panes of +the casement, and, on looking out, one saw the sky and air vexed and dim, the +wind and snow in angry conflict. There was no fall now, but what had already +descended was torn up from the earth, whirled round by brief shrieking gusts, +and cast into a hundred fantastic forms. +</p> + +<p> +The Countess seconded Mrs. Bretton. +</p> + +<p> +“Papa shall not go out,” said she, placing a seat for herself beside her +father’s arm-chair. “I will look after him. You won’t go into town, will you, +papa?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, and No,” was the answer. “If you and Mrs. Bretton are <i>very</i> good to +me, Polly—kind, you know, and attentive; if you pet me in a very nice manner, +and make much of me, I may possibly be induced to wait an hour after breakfast +and see whether this razor-edged wind settles. But, you see, you give me no +breakfast; you offer me nothing: you let me starve.” +</p> + +<p> +“Quick! please, Mrs. Bretton, and pour out the coffee,” entreated Paulina, +“whilst I take care of the Count de Bassompierre in other respects: since he +grew into a Count, he has needed <i>so</i> much attention.” +</p> + +<p> +She separated and prepared a roll. +</p> + +<p> +“There, papa, are your ‘pistolets’ charged,” said she. “And there is some +marmalade, just the same sort of marmalade we used to have at Bretton, and +which you said was as good as if it had been conserved in Scotland—” +</p> + +<p> +“And which your little ladyship used to beg for my boy—do you remember that?” +interposed Mrs. Bretton. “Have you forgotten how you would come to my elbow and +touch my sleeve with the whisper, ‘Please, ma’am, something good for Graham—a +little marmalade, or honey, or jam?’” +</p> + +<p> +“No, mamma,” broke in Dr. John, laughing, yet reddening; “it surely was not so: +I could not have cared for these things.” +</p> + +<p> +“Did he or did he not, Paulina?” +</p> + +<p> +“He liked them,” asserted Paulina. +</p> + +<p> +“Never blush for it, John,” said Mr. Home, encouragingly. “I like them myself +yet, and always did. And Polly showed her sense in catering for a friend’s +material comforts: it was I who put her into the way of such good manners—nor +do I let her forget them. Polly, offer me a small slice of that tongue.” +</p> + +<p> +“There, papa: but remember you are only waited upon with this assiduity; on +condition of being persuadable, and reconciling yourself to La Terrasse for the +day.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mrs. Bretton,” said the Count, “I want to get rid of my daughter—to send her +to school. Do you know of any good school?” +</p> + +<p> +“There is Lucy’s place—Madame Beck’s.” +</p> + +<p> +“Miss Snowe is in a school?” +</p> + +<p> +“I am a teacher,” I said, and was rather glad of the opportunity of saying +this. For a little while I had been feeling as if placed in a false position. +Mrs. Bretton and son knew my circumstances; but the Count and his daughter did +not. They might choose to vary by some shades their hitherto cordial manner +towards me, when aware of my grade in society. I spoke then readily: but a +swarm of thoughts I had not anticipated nor invoked, rose dim at the words, +making me sigh involuntarily. Mr. Home did not lift his eyes from his +breakfast-plate for about two minutes, nor did he speak; perhaps he had not +caught the words—perhaps he thought that on a confession of that nature, +politeness would interdict comment: the Scotch are proverbially proud; and +homely as was Mr. Home in look, simple in habits and tastes, I have all along +intimated that he was not without his share of the national quality. Was his a +pseudo pride? was it real dignity? I leave the question undecided in its wide +sense. Where it concerned me individually I can only answer: then, and always, +he showed himself a true-hearted gentleman. +</p> + +<p> +By nature he was a feeler and a thinker; over his emotions and his reflections +spread a mellowing of melancholy; more than a mellowing: in trouble and +bereavement it became a cloud. He did not know much about Lucy Snowe; what he +knew, he did not very accurately comprehend: indeed his misconceptions of my +character often made me smile; but he saw my walk in life lay rather on the +shady side of the hill: he gave me credit for doing my endeavour to keep the +course honestly straight; he would have helped me if he could: having no +opportunity of helping, he still wished me well. When he did look at me, his +eye was kind; when he did speak, his voice was benevolent. +</p> + +<p> +“Yours,” said he, “is an arduous calling. I wish you health and strength to win +in it—success.” +</p> + +<p> +His fair little daughter did not take the information quite so composedly: she +fixed on me a pair of eyes wide with wonder—almost with dismay. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you a teacher?” cried she. Then, having paused on the unpalatable idea, +“Well, I never knew what you were, nor ever thought of asking: for me, you were +always Lucy Snowe.” +</p> + +<p> +“And what am I now?” I could not forbear inquiring. +</p> + +<p> +“Yourself, of course. But do you really teach here, in Villette?” +</p> + +<p> +“I really do.” +</p> + +<p> +“And do you like it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not always.” +</p> + +<p> +“And why do you go on with it?” +</p> + +<p> +Her father looked at, and, I feared, was going to check her; but he only said, +“Proceed, Polly, proceed with that catechism—prove yourself the little wiseacre +you are. If Miss Snowe were to blush and look confused, I should have to bid +you hold your tongue; and you and I would sit out the present meal in some +disgrace; but she only smiles, so push her hard, multiply the cross-questions. +Well, Miss Snowe, why do you go on with it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Chiefly, I fear, for the sake of the money I get.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not then from motives of pure philanthropy? Polly and I were clinging to that +hypothesis as the most lenient way of accounting for your eccentricity.” +</p> + +<p> +“No—no, sir. Rather for the roof of shelter I am thus enabled to keep over my +head; and for the comfort of mind it gives me to think that while I can work +for myself, I am spared the pain of being a burden to anybody.” +</p> + +<p> +“Papa, say what you will, I pity Lucy.” +</p> + +<p> +“Take up that pity, Miss de Bassompierre; take it up in both hands, as you +might a little callow gosling squattering out of bounds without leave; put it +back in the warm nest of a heart whence it issued, and receive in your ear this +whisper. If my Polly ever came to know by experience the uncertain nature of +this world’s goods, I should like her to act as Lucy acts: to work for herself, +that she might burden neither kith nor kin.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, papa,” said she, pensively and tractably. “But poor Lucy! I thought she +was a rich lady, and had rich friends.” +</p> + +<p> +“You thought like a little simpleton. <i>I</i> never thought so. When I had +time to consider Lucy’s manner and aspect, which was not often, I saw she was +one who had to guard and not be guarded; to act and not be served: and this lot +has, I imagine, helped her to an experience for which, if she live long enough +to realize its full benefit, she may yet bless Providence. But this school,” he +pursued, changing his tone from grave to gay: “would Madame Beck admit my +Polly, do you think, Miss Lucy?” +</p> + +<p> +I said, there needed but to try Madame; it would soon be seen: she was fond of +English pupils. “If you, sir,” I added, “will but take Miss de Bassompierre in +your carriage this very afternoon, I think I can answer for it that Rosine, the +portress, will not be very slow in answering your ring; and Madame, I am sure, +will put on her best pair of gloves to come into the salon to receive you.” +</p> + +<p> +“In that case,” responded Mr. Home, “I see no sort of necessity there is for +delay. Mrs. Hurst can send what she calls her young lady’s ‘things’ after her; +Polly can settle down to her horn-book before night; and you, Miss Lucy, I +trust, will not disdain to cast an occasional eye upon her, and let me know, +from time to time, how she gets on. I hope you approve of the arrangement, +Countess de Bassompierre?” +</p> + +<p> +The Countess hemmed and hesitated. “I thought,” said she, “I thought I had +finished my education—” +</p> + +<p> +“That only proves how much we may be mistaken in our thoughts. I hold a far +different opinion, as most of these will who have been auditors of your +profound knowledge of life this morning. Ah, my little girl, thou hast much to +learn; and papa ought to have taught thee more than he has done! Come, there is +nothing for it but to try Madame Beck; and the weather seems settling, and I +have finished my breakfast—” +</p> + +<p> +“But, papa!” +</p> + +<p> +“Well?” +</p> + +<p> +“I see an obstacle.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t at all.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is enormous, papa; it can never be got over; it is as large as you in your +greatcoat, and the snowdrift on the top.” +</p> + +<p> +“And, like that snowdrift, capable of melting?” +</p> + +<p> +“No! it is of too—too solid flesh: it is just your own self. Miss Lucy, warn +Madame Beck not to listen to any overtures about taking me, because, in the +end, it would turn out that she would have to take papa too: as he is so +teasing, I will just tell tales about him. Mrs. Bretton and all of you listen: +About five years ago, when I was twelve years old, he took it into his head +that he was spoiling me; that I was growing unfitted for the world, and I don’t +know what, and nothing would serve or satisfy him, but I must go to school. I +cried, and so on; but M. de Bassompierre proved hard-hearted, quite firm and +flinty, and to school I went. What was the result? In the most admirable +manner, papa came to school likewise: every other day he called to see me. +Madame Aigredoux grumbled, but it was of no use; and so, at last, papa and I +were both, in a manner, expelled. Lucy can just tell Madame Beck this little +trait: it is only fair to let her know what she has to expect.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Bretton asked Mr. Home what he had to say in answer to this statement. As +he made no defence, judgment was given against him, and Paulina triumphed. +</p> + +<p> +But she had other moods besides the arch and naïve. After breakfast; when the +two elders withdrew—I suppose to talk over certain of Mrs. Bretton’s business +matters—and the Countess, Dr. Bretton, and I, were for a short time alone +together—all the child left her; with us, more nearly her companions in age, +she rose at once to the little lady: her very face seemed to alter; that play +of feature, and candour of look, which, when she spoke to her father, made it +quite dimpled and round, yielded to an aspect more thoughtful, and lines +distincter and less <i>mobile</i>. +</p> + +<p> +No doubt Graham noted the change as well as I. He stood for some minutes near +the window, looking out at the snow; presently he approached the hearth, and +entered into conversation, but not quite with his usual ease: fit topics did +not seem to rise to his lips; he chose them fastidiously, hesitatingly, and +consequently infelicitously: he spoke vaguely of Villette—its inhabitants, its +notable sights and buildings. He was answered by Miss de Bassompierre in quite +womanly sort; with intelligence, with a manner not indeed wholly +disindividualized: a tone, a glance, a gesture, here and there, rather animated +and quick than measured and stately, still recalled little Polly; but yet there +was so fine and even a polish, so calm and courteous a grace, gilding and +sustaining these peculiarities, that a less sensitive man than Graham would not +have ventured to seize upon them as vantage points, leading to franker +intimacy. +</p> + +<p> +Yet while Dr. Bretton continued subdued, and, for him, sedate, he was still +observant. Not one of those petty impulses and natural breaks escaped him. He +did not miss one characteristic movement, one hesitation in language, or one +lisp in utterance. At times, in speaking fast, she still lisped; but coloured +whenever such lapse occurred, and in a painstaking, conscientious manner, quite +as amusing as the slight error, repeated the word more distinctly. +</p> + +<p> +Whenever she did this, Dr. Bretton smiled. Gradually, as they conversed, the +restraint on each side slackened: might the conference have but been prolonged, +I believe it would soon have become genial: already to Paulina’s lip and cheek +returned the wreathing, dimpling smile; she lisped once, and forgot to correct +herself. And Dr. John, I know not how <i>he</i> changed, but change he did. He +did not grow gayer—no raillery, no levity sparkled across his aspect—but his +position seemed to become one of more pleasure to himself, and he spoke his +augmented comfort in readier language, in tones more suave. Ten years ago this +pair had always found abundance to say to each other; the intervening decade +had not narrowed the experience or impoverished the intelligence of either: +besides, there are certain natures of which the mutual influence is such, that +the more they say, the more they have to say. For these out of association +grows adhesion, and out of adhesion, amalgamation. +</p> + +<p> +Graham, however, must go: his was a profession whose claims are neither to be +ignored nor deferred. He left the room; but before he could leave the house +there was a return. I am sure he came back—not for the paper, or card in his +desk, which formed his ostensible errand—but to assure himself, by one more +glance, that Paulina’s aspect was really such as memory was bearing away: that +he had not been viewing her somehow by a partial, artificial light, and making +a fond mistake. No! he found the impression true—rather, indeed, he gained than +lost by this return: he took away with him a parting look—shy, but very soft—as +beautiful, as innocent, as any little fawn could lift out of its cover of fern, +or any lamb from its meadow-bed. +</p> + +<p> +Being left alone, Paulina and I kept silence for some time: we both took out +some work, and plied a mute and diligent task. The white-wood workbox of old +days was now replaced by one inlaid with precious mosaic, and furnished with +implements of gold; the tiny and trembling fingers that could scarce guide the +needle, though tiny still, were now swift and skilful: but there was the same +busy knitting of the brow, the same little dainty mannerisms, the same quick +turns and movements—now to replace a stray tress, and anon to shake from the +silken skirt some imaginary atom of dust—some clinging fibre of thread. +</p> + +<p> +That morning I was disposed for silence: the austere fury of the winter-day had +on me an awing, hushing influence. That passion of January, so white and so +bloodless, was not yet spent: the storm had raved itself hoarse, but seemed no +nearer exhaustion. Had Ginevra Fanshawe been my companion in that drawing-room, +she would not have suffered me to muse and listen undisturbed. The presence +just gone from us would have been her theme; and how she would have rung the +changes on one topic! how she would have pursued and pestered me with questions +and surmises—worried and oppressed me with comments and confidences I did not +want, and longed to avoid. +</p> + +<p> +Paulina Mary cast once or twice towards me a quiet but penetrating glance of +her dark, full eye; her lips half opened, as if to the impulse of coming +utterance: but she saw and delicately respected my inclination for silence. +</p> + +<p> +“This will not hold long,” I thought to myself; for I was not accustomed to +find in women or girls any power of self-control, or strength of self-denial. +As far as I knew them, the chance of a gossip about their usually trivial +secrets, their often very washy and paltry feelings, was a treat not to be +readily foregone. +</p> + +<p> +The little Countess promised an exception: she sewed till she was tired of +sewing, and then she took a book. +</p> + +<p> +As chance would have it, she had sought it in Dr. Bretton’s own compartment of +the bookcase; and it proved to be an old Bretton book—some illustrated work of +natural history. Often had I seen her standing at Graham’s side, resting that +volume on his knee, and reading to his tuition; and, when the lesson was over, +begging, as a treat, that he would tell her all about the pictures. I watched +her keenly: here was a true test of that memory she had boasted; would her +recollections now be faithful? +</p> + +<p> +Faithful? It could not be doubted. As she turned the leaves, over her face +passed gleam after gleam of expression, the least intelligent of which was a +full greeting to the Past. And then she turned to the title-page, and looked at +the name written in the schoolboy hand. She looked at it long; nor was she +satisfied with merely looking: she gently passed over the characters the tips +of her fingers, accompanying the action with an unconscious but tender smile, +which converted the touch into a caress. Paulina loved the Past; but the +peculiarity of this little scene was, that she <i>said</i> nothing: she could +feel without pouring out her feelings in a flux of words. +</p> + +<p> +She now occupied herself at the bookcase for nearly an hour; taking down volume +after volume, and renewing her acquaintance with each. This done, she seated +herself on a low stool, rested her cheek on her hand, and thought, and still +was mute. +</p> + +<p> +The sound of the front door opened below, a rush of cold wind, and her father’s +voice speaking to Mrs. Bretton in the hall, startled her at last. She sprang +up: she was down-stairs in one second. +</p> + +<p> +“Papa! papa! you are not going out?” +</p> + +<p> +“My pet, I must go into town.” +</p> + +<p> +“But it is too—<i>too</i> cold, papa.” +</p> + +<p> +And then I heard M. de Bassompierre showing to her how he was well provided +against the weather; and how he was going to have the carriage, and to be quite +snugly sheltered; and, in short, proving that she need not fear for his +comfort. +</p> + +<p> +“But you will promise to come back here this evening, before it is quite +dark;—you and Dr. Bretton, both, in the carriage? It is not fit to ride.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, if I see the Doctor, I will tell him a lady has laid on him her commands +to take care of his precious health and come home early under my escort.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, you must say a lady; and he will think it is his mother, and be obedient. +And, papa, mind to come soon, for I <i>shall</i> watch and listen.” +</p> + +<p> +The door closed, and the carriage rolled softly through the snow; and back +returned the Countess, pensive and anxious. +</p> + +<p> +She <i>did</i> listen, and watch, when evening closed; but it was in stillest +sort: walking the drawing-room with quite noiseless step. She checked at +intervals her velvet march; inclined her ear, and consulted the night sounds: I +should rather say, the night silence; for now, at last, the wind was fallen. +The sky, relieved of its avalanche, lay naked and pale: through the barren +boughs of the avenue we could see it well, and note also the polar splendour of +the new-year moon—an orb white as a world of ice. Nor was it late when we saw +also the return of the carriage. +</p> + +<p> +Paulina had no dance of welcome for this evening. It was with a sort of gravity +that she took immediate possession of her father, as he entered the room; but +she at once made him her entire property, led him to the seat of her choice, +and, while softly showering round him honeyed words of commendation for being +so good and coming home so soon, you would have thought it was entirely by the +power of her little hands he was put into his chair, and settled and arranged; +for the strong man seemed to take pleasure in wholly yielding himself to this +dominion-potent only by love. +</p> + +<p> +Graham did not appear till some minutes after the Count. Paulina half turned +when his step was heard: they spoke, but only a word or two; their fingers met +a moment, but obviously with slight contact. Paulina remained beside her +father; Graham threw himself into a seat on the other side of the room. +</p> + +<p> +It was well that Mrs. Bretton and Mr. Home had a great deal to say to each +other—almost an inexhaustible fund of discourse in old recollections; +otherwise, I think, our party would have been but a still one that evening. +</p> + +<p> +After tea, Paulina’s quick needle and pretty golden thimble were busily plied +by the lamp-light, but her tongue rested, and her eyes seemed reluctant to +raise often their lids, so smooth and so full-fringed. Graham, too, must have +been tired with his day’s work: he listened dutifully to his elders and +betters, said very little himself, and followed with his eye the gilded glance +of Paulina’s thimble; as if it had been some bright moth on the wing, or the +golden head of some darting little yellow serpent. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap26"></a>CHAPTER XXVI.<br/> +A BURIAL.</h2> + +<p> +From this date my life did not want variety; I went out a good deal, with the +entire consent of Madame Beck, who perfectly approved the grade of my +acquaintance. That worthy directress had never from the first treated me +otherwise than with respect; and when she found that I was liable to frequent +invitations from a château and a great hotel, respect improved into +distinction. +</p> + +<p> +Not that she was fulsome about it: Madame, in all things worldly, was in +nothing weak; there was measure and sense in her hottest pursuit of +self-interest, calm and considerateness in her closest clutch of gain; without, +then, laying herself open to my contempt as a time-server and a toadie, she +marked with tact that she was pleased people connected with her establishment +should frequent such associates as must cultivate and elevate, rather than +those who might deteriorate and depress. She never praised either me or my +friends; only once when she was sitting in the sun in the garden, a cup of +coffee at her elbow and the Gazette in her hand, looking very comfortable, and +I came up and asked leave of absence for the evening, she delivered herself in +this gracious sort:— +</p> + +<p> +“Oui, oui, ma bonne amie: je vous donne la permission de cœur et de gré. Votre +travail dans ma maison a toujours été admirable, rempli de zèle et de +discrétion: vous avez bien le droit de vous amuser. Sortez donc tant que vous +voudrez. Quant à votre choix de connaissances, j’en suis contente; c’est sage, +digne, laudable.” +</p> + +<p> +She closed her lips and resumed the Gazette. +</p> + +<p> +The reader will not too gravely regard the little circumstance that about this +time the triply-enclosed packet of five letters temporarily disappeared from my +bureau. Blank dismay was naturally my first sensation on making the discovery; +but in a moment I took heart of grace. +</p> + +<p> +“Patience!” whispered I to myself. “Let me say nothing, but wait peaceably; +they will come back again.” +</p> + +<p> +And they did come back: they had only been on a short visit to Madame’s +chamber; having passed their examination, they came back duly and truly: I +found them all right the next day. +</p> + +<p> +I wonder what she thought of my correspondence? What estimate did she form of +Dr. John Bretton’s epistolary powers? In what light did the often very pithy +thoughts, the generally sound, and sometimes original opinions, set, without +pretension, in an easily-flowing, spirited style, appear to her? How did she +like that genial, half humorous vein, which to me gave such delight? What did +she think of the few kind words scattered here and there—not thickly, as the +diamonds were scattered in the valley of Sindbad, but sparely, as those gems +lie in unfabled beds? Oh, Madame Beck! how seemed these things to you? +</p> + +<p> +I think in Madame Beck’s eyes the five letters found a certain favour. One day +after she had <i>borrowed</i> them of me (in speaking of so suave a little +woman, one ought to use suave terms), I caught her examining me with a steady +contemplative gaze, a little puzzled, but not at all malevolent. It was during +that brief space between lessons, when the pupils turned out into the court for +a quarter of an hour’s recreation; she and I remained in the first classe +alone: when I met her eye, her thoughts forced themselves partially through her +lips. +</p> + +<p> +“Il y a,” said she, “quelquechose de bien remarquable dans le caractère +Anglais.” +</p> + +<p> +“How, Madame?” +</p> + +<p> +She gave a little laugh, repeating the word “how” in English. +</p> + +<p> +“Je ne saurais vous dire ‘how;’ mais, enfin, les Anglais ont des idées à eux, +en amitié, en amour, en tout. Mais au moins il n’est pas besoin de les +surveiller,” she added, getting up and trotting away like the compact little +pony she was. +</p> + +<p> +“Then I hope,” murmured I to myself, “you will graciously let alone my letters +for the future.” +</p> + +<p> +Alas! something came rushing into my eyes, dimming utterly their vision, +blotting from sight the schoolroom, the garden, the bright winter sun, as I +remembered that never more would letters, such as she had read, come to me. I +had seen the last of them. That goodly river on whose banks I had sojourned, of +whose waves a few reviving drops had trickled to my lips, was bending to +another course: it was leaving my little hut and field forlorn and sand-dry, +pouring its wealth of waters far away. The change was right, just, natural; not +a word could be said: but I loved my Rhine, my Nile; I had almost worshipped my +Ganges, and I grieved that the grand tide should roll estranged, should vanish +like a false mirage. Though stoical, I was not quite a stoic; drops streamed +fast on my hands, on my desk: I wept one sultry shower, heavy and brief. +</p> + +<p> +But soon I said to myself, “The Hope I am bemoaning suffered and made me suffer +much: it did not die till it was full time: following an agony so lingering, +death ought to be welcome.” +</p> + +<p> +Welcome I endeavoured to make it. Indeed, long pain had made patience a habit. +In the end I closed the eyes of my dead, covered its face, and composed its +limbs with great calm. +</p> + +<p> +The letters, however, must be put away, out of sight: people who have undergone +bereavement always jealously gather together and lock away mementos: it is not +supportable to be stabbed to the heart each moment by sharp revival of regret. +</p> + +<p> +One vacant holiday afternoon (the Thursday) going to my treasure, with intent +to consider its final disposal, I perceived—and this time with a strong impulse +of displeasure—that it had been again tampered with: the packet was there, +indeed, but the ribbon which secured it had been untied and retied; and by +other symptoms I knew that my drawer had been visited. +</p> + +<p> +This was a little too much. Madame Beck herself was the soul of discretion, +besides having as strong a brain and sound a judgment as ever furnished a human +head; that she should know the contents of my casket, was not pleasant, but +might be borne. Little Jesuit inquisitress as she was, she could see things in +a true light, and understand them in an unperverted sense; but the idea that +she had ventured to communicate information, thus gained, to others; that she +had, perhaps, amused herself with a companion over documents, in my eyes most +sacred, shocked me cruelly. Yet, that such was the case I now saw reason to +fear; I even guessed her confidant. Her kinsman, M. Paul Emanuel, had spent +yesterday evening with her: she was much in the habit of consulting him, and of +discussing with him matters she broached to no one else. This very morning, in +class, that gentleman had favoured me with a glance which he seemed to have +borrowed from Vashti, the actress; I had not at the moment comprehended that +blue, yet lurid, flash out of his angry eye; but I read its meaning now. +<i>He</i>, I believed, was not apt to regard what concerned me from a fair +point of view, nor to judge me with tolerance and candour: I had always found +him severe and suspicious: the thought that these letters, mere friendly +letters as they were, had fallen once, and might fall again, into his hands, +jarred my very soul. +</p> + +<p> +What should I do to prevent this? In what corner of this strange house was it +possible to find security or secresy? Where could a key be a safeguard, or a +padlock a barrier? +</p> + +<p> +In the grenier? No, I did not like the grenier. Besides, most of the boxes and +drawers there were mouldering, and did not lock. Rats, too, gnawed their way +through the decayed wood; and mice made nests amongst the litter of their +contents: my dear letters (most dear still, though Ichabod was written on their +covers) might be consumed by vermin; certainly the writing would soon become +obliterated by damp. No; the grenier would not do—but where then? +</p> + +<p> +While pondering this problem, I sat in the dormitory window-seat. It was a fine +frosty afternoon; the winter sun, already setting, gleamed pale on the tops of +the garden-shrubs in the “allée défendue.” One great old pear-tree—the nun’s +pear-tree—stood up a tall dryad skeleton, grey, gaunt, and stripped. A thought +struck me—one of those queer fantastic thoughts that will sometimes strike +solitary people. I put on my bonnet, cloak, and furs, and went out into the +city. +</p> + +<p> +Bending my steps to the old historical quarter of the town, whose hoar and +overshadowed precincts I always sought by instinct in melancholy moods, I +wandered on from street to street, till, having crossed a half deserted “place” +or square, I found myself before a sort of broker’s shop; an ancient place, +full of ancient things. What I wanted was a metal box which might be soldered, +or a thick glass jar or bottle which might be stoppered or sealed hermetically. +Amongst miscellaneous heaps, I found and purchased the latter article. +</p> + +<p> +I then made a little roll of my letters, wrapped them in oiled silk, bound them +with twine, and, having put them in the bottle, got the old Jew broker to +stopper, seal, and make it air-tight. While obeying my directions, he glanced +at me now and then suspiciously from under his frost-white eyelashes. I believe +he thought there was some evil deed on hand. In all this I had a dreary +something—not pleasure—but a sad, lonely satisfaction. The impulse under which +I acted, the mood controlling me, were similar to the impulse and the mood +which had induced me to visit the confessional. With quick walking I regained +the pensionnat just at dark, and in time for dinner. +</p> + +<p> +At seven o’clock the moon rose. At half-past seven, when the pupils and +teachers were at study, and Madame Beck was with her mother and children in the +salle-à-manger, when the half-boarders were all gone home, and Rosine had left +the vestibule, and all was still—I shawled myself, and, taking the sealed jar, +stole out through the first-classe door, into the berceau and thence into the +“allée défendue.” +</p> + +<p> +Methusaleh, the pear-tree, stood at the further end of this walk, near my seat: +he rose up, dim and gray, above the lower shrubs round him. Now Methusaleh, +though so very old, was of sound timber still; only there was a hole, or rather +a deep hollow, near his root. I knew there was such a hollow, hidden partly by +ivy and creepers growing thick round; and there I meditated hiding my treasure. +But I was not only going to hide a treasure—I meant also to bury a grief. That +grief over which I had lately been weeping, as I wrapped it in its +winding-sheet, must be interred. +</p> + +<p> +Well, I cleared away the ivy, and found the hole; it was large enough to +receive the jar, and I thrust it deep in. In a tool-shed at the bottom of the +garden, lay the relics of building-materials, left by masons lately employed to +repair a part of the premises. I fetched thence a slate and some mortar, put +the slate on the hollow, secured it with cement, covered the hole with black +mould, and, finally, replaced the ivy. This done, I rested, leaning against the +tree; lingering, like any other mourner, beside a newly-sodded grave. +</p> + +<p> +The air of the night was very still, but dim with a peculiar mist, which +changed the moonlight into a luminous haze. In this air, or this mist, there +was some quality—electrical, perhaps—which acted in strange sort upon me. I +felt then as I had felt a year ago in England—on a night when the aurora +borealis was streaming and sweeping round heaven, when, belated in lonely +fields, I had paused to watch that mustering of an army with banners—that +quivering of serried lances—that swift ascent of messengers from below the +north star to the dark, high keystone of heaven’s arch. I felt, not happy, far +otherwise, but strong with reinforced strength. +</p> + +<p> +If life be a war, it seemed my destiny to conduct it single-handed. I pondered +now how to break up my winter-quarters—to leave an encampment where food and +forage failed. Perhaps, to effect this change, another pitched battle must be +fought with fortune; if so, I had a mind to the encounter: too poor to lose, +God might destine me to gain. But what road was open?—what plan available? +</p> + +<p> +On this question I was still pausing, when the moon, so dim hitherto, seemed to +shine out somewhat brighter: a ray gleamed even white before me, and a shadow +became distinct and marked. I looked more narrowly, to make out the cause of +this well-defined contrast appearing a little suddenly in the obscure alley: +whiter and blacker it grew on my eye: it took shape with instantaneous +transformation. I stood about three yards from a tall, sable-robed, +snowy-veiled woman. +</p> + +<p> +Five minutes passed. I neither fled nor shrieked. She was there still. I spoke. +</p> + +<p> +“Who are you? and why do you come to me?” +</p> + +<p> +She stood mute. She had no face—no features: all below her brow was masked with +a white cloth; but she had eyes, and they viewed me. +</p> + +<p> +I felt, if not brave, yet a little desperate; and desperation will often +suffice to fill the post and do the work of courage. I advanced one step. I +stretched out my hand, for I meant to touch her. She seemed to recede. I drew +nearer: her recession, still silent, became swift. A mass of shrubs, +full-leaved evergreens, laurel and dense yew, intervened between me and what I +followed. Having passed that obstacle, I looked and saw nothing. I waited. I +said,—“If you have any errand to men, come back and deliver it.” Nothing spoke +or re-appeared. +</p> + +<p> +This time there was no Dr. John to whom to have recourse: there was no one to +whom I dared whisper the words, “I have again seen the nun.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Paulina Mary sought my frequent presence in the Rue Crécy. In the old Bretton +days, though she had never professed herself fond of me, my society had soon +become to her a sort of unconscious necessary. I used to notice that if I +withdrew to my room, she would speedily come trotting after me, and opening the +door and peeping in, say, with her little peremptory accent,—“Come down. Why do +you sit here by yourself? You must come into the parlour.” +</p> + +<p> +In the same spirit she urged me now—“Leave the Rue Fossette,” she said, “and +come and live with us. Papa would give you far more than Madame Beck gives +you.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Home himself offered me a handsome sum—thrice my present salary—if I would +accept the office of companion to his daughter. I declined. I think I should +have declined had I been poorer than I was, and with scantier fund of resource, +more stinted narrowness of future prospect. I had not that vocation. I could +teach; I could give lessons; but to be either a private governess or a +companion was unnatural to me. Rather than fill the former post in any great +house, I would deliberately have taken a housemaid’s place, bought a strong +pair of gloves, swept bedrooms and staircases, and cleaned stoves and locks, in +peace and independence. Rather than be a companion, I would have made shirts +and starved. +</p> + +<p> +I was no bright lady’s shadow—not Miss de Bassompierre’s. Overcast enough it +was my nature often to be; of a subdued habit I was: but the dimness and +depression must both be voluntary—such as kept me docile at my desk, in the +midst of my now well-accustomed pupils in Madame Beck’s first classe; or alone, +at my own bedside, in her dormitory, or in the alley and seat which were called +mine, in her garden: my qualifications were not convertible, nor adaptable; +they could not be made the foil of any gem, the adjunct of any beauty, the +appendage of any greatness in Christendom. Madame Beck and I, without +assimilating, understood each other well. I was not <i>her</i> companion, nor +her children’s governess; she left me free: she tied me to nothing—not to +herself—not even to her interests: once, when she had for a fortnight been +called from home by a near relation’s illness, and on her return, all anxious +and full of care about her establishment, lest something in her absence should +have gone wrong finding that matters had proceeded much as usual, and that +there was no evidence of glaring neglect—she made each of the teachers a +present, in acknowledgment of steadiness. To my bedside she came at twelve +o’clock at night, and told me she had no present for me: “I must make fidelity +advantageous to the St. Pierre,” said she; “if I attempt to make it +advantageous to you, there will arise misunderstanding between us—perhaps +separation. One thing, however, I <i>can</i> do to please you—leave you alone +with your liberty: c’est-ce que je ferai.” She kept her word. Every slight +shackle she had ever laid on me, she, from that time, with quiet hand removed. +Thus I had pleasure in voluntarily respecting her rules: gratification in +devoting double time, in taking double pains with the pupils she committed to +my charge. +</p> + +<p> +As to Mary de Bassompierre, I visited her with pleasure, though I would not +live with her. My visits soon taught me that it was unlikely even my occasional +and voluntary society would long be indispensable to her. M. de Bassompierre, +for his part, seemed impervious to this conjecture, blind to this possibility; +unconscious as any child to the signs, the likelihoods, the fitful beginnings +of what, when it drew to an end, he might not approve. +</p> + +<p> +Whether or not he would cordially approve, I used to speculate. Difficult to +say. He was much taken up with scientific interests; keen, intent, and somewhat +oppugnant in what concerned his favourite pursuits, but unsuspicious and +trustful in the ordinary affairs of life. From all I could gather, he seemed to +regard his “daughterling” as still but a child, and probably had not yet +admitted the notion that others might look on her in a different light: he +would speak of what should be done when “Polly” was a woman, when she should be +grown up; and “Polly,” standing beside his chair, would sometimes smile and +take his honoured head between her little hands, and kiss his iron-grey locks; +and, at other times, she would pout and toss her curls: but she never said, +“Papa, I <i>am</i> grown up.” +</p> + +<p> +She had different moods for different people. With her father she really was +still a child, or child-like, affectionate, merry, and playful. With me she was +serious, and as womanly as thought and feeling could make her. With Mrs. +Bretton she was docile and reliant, but not expansive. With Graham she was shy, +at present very shy; at moments she tried to be cold; on occasion she +endeavoured to shun him. His step made her start; his entrance hushed her; when +he spoke, her answers failed of fluency; when he took leave, she remained +self-vexed and disconcerted. Even her father noticed this demeanour in her. +</p> + +<p> +“My little Polly,” he said once, “you live too retired a life; if you grow to +be a woman with these shy manners, you will hardly be fitted for society. You +really make quite a stranger of Dr. Bretton: how is this? Don’t you remember +that, as a little girl, you used to be rather partial to him?” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Rather</i>, papa,” echoed she, with her slightly dry, yet gentle and simple +tone. +</p> + +<p> +“And you don’t like him now? What has he done?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing. Y—e—s, I like him a little; but we are grown strange to each other.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then rub it off, Polly; rub the rust and the strangeness off. Talk away when +he is here, and have no fear of him?” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>He</i> does not talk much. Is he afraid of me, do you think, papa?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, to be sure, what man would not be afraid of such a little silent lady?” +</p> + +<p> +“Then tell him some day not to mind my being silent. Say that it is my way, and +that I have no unfriendly intention.” +</p> + +<p> +“Your way, you little chatter-box? So far from being your way, it is only your +whim!” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I’ll improve, papa.” +</p> + +<p> +And very pretty was the grace with which, the next day, she tried to keep her +word. I saw her make the effort to converse affably with Dr. John on general +topics. The attention called into her guest’s face a pleasurable glow; he met +her with caution, and replied to her in his softest tones, as if there was a +kind of gossamer happiness hanging in the air which he feared to disturb by +drawing too deep a breath. Certainly, in her timid yet earnest advance to +friendship, it could not be denied that there was a most exquisite and fairy +charm. +</p> + +<p> +When the Doctor was gone, she approached her father’s chair. +</p> + +<p> +“Did I keep my word, papa? Did I behave better?” +</p> + +<p> +“My Polly behaved like a queen. I shall become quite proud of her if this +improvement continues. By-and-by we shall see her receiving my guests with +quite a calm, grand manner. Miss Lucy and I will have to look about us, and +polish up all our best airs and graces lest we should be thrown into the shade. +Still, Polly, there is a little flutter, a little tendency to stammer now and +then, and even, to lisp as you lisped when you were six years old.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, papa,” interrupted she indignantly, “that can’t be true.” +</p> + +<p> +“I appeal to Miss Lucy. Did she not, in answering Dr. Bretton’s question as to +whether she had ever seen the palace of the Prince of Bois l’Etang, say, +‘yeth,’ she had been there ‘theveral’ times?” +</p> + +<p> +“Papa, you are satirical, you are méchant! I can pronounce all the letters of +the alphabet as clearly as you can. But tell me this you are very particular in +making me be civil to Dr. Bretton, do you like him yourself?” +</p> + +<p> +“To be sure: for old acquaintance sake I like him: then he is a very good son +to his mother; besides being a kind-hearted fellow and clever in his +profession: yes, the callant is well enough.” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Callant</i>! Ah, Scotchman! Papa, is it the Edinburgh or the Aberdeen +accent you have?” +</p> + +<p> +“Both, my pet, both: and doubtless the Glaswegian into the bargain. It is that +which enables me to speak French so well: a gude Scots tongue always succeeds +well at the French.” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>The</i> French! Scotch again: incorrigible papa. You, too, need schooling.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, Polly, you must persuade Miss Snowe to undertake both you and me; to +make you steady and womanly, and me refined and classical.” +</p> + +<p> +The light in which M. de Bassompierre evidently regarded “Miss Snowe,” used to +occasion me much inward edification. What contradictory attributes of character +we sometimes find ascribed to us, according to the eye with which we are +viewed! Madame Beck esteemed me learned and blue; Miss Fanshawe, caustic, +ironic, and cynical; Mr. Home, a model teacher, the essence of the sedate and +discreet: somewhat conventional, perhaps, too strict, limited, and scrupulous, +but still the pink and pattern of governess-correctness; whilst another person, +Professor Paul Emanuel, to wit, never lost an opportunity of intimating his +opinion that mine was rather a fiery and rash nature—adventurous, indocile, and +audacious. I smiled at them all. If any one knew me it was little Paulina Mary. +</p> + +<p> +As I would not be Paulina’s nominal and paid companion, genial and harmonious +as I began to find her intercourse, she persuaded me to join her in some study, +as a regular and settled means of sustaining communication: she proposed the +German language, which, like myself, she found difficult of mastery. We agreed +to take our lessons in the Rue Crécy of the same mistress; this arrangement +threw us together for some hours of every week. M. de Bassompierre seemed quite +pleased: it perfectly met his approbation, that Madame Minerva Gravity should +associate a portion of her leisure with that of his fair and dear child. +</p> + +<p> +That other self-elected judge of mine, the professor in the Rue Fossette, +discovering by some surreptitious spying means, that I was no longer so +stationary as hitherto, but went out regularly at certain hours of certain +days, took it upon himself to place me under surveillance. People said M. +Emanuel had been brought up amongst Jesuits. I should more readily have +accredited this report had his manœuvres been better masked. As it was, I +doubted it. Never was a more undisguised schemer, a franker, looser intriguer. +He would analyze his own machinations: elaborately contrive plots, and +forthwith indulge in explanatory boasts of their skill. I know not whether I +was more amused or provoked, by his stepping up to me one morning and +whispering solemnly that he “had his eye on me: <i>he</i> at least would +discharge the duty of a friend, and not leave me entirely to my own devices. My +proceedings seemed at present very unsettled: he did not know what to make of +them: he thought his cousin Beck very much to blame in suffering this sort of +fluttering inconsistency in a teacher attached to her house. What had a person +devoted to a serious calling, that of education, to do with Counts and +Countesses, hotels and châteaux? To him, I seemed altogether ‘en l’air.’ On his +faith, he believed I went out six days in the seven.” +</p> + +<p> +I said, “Monsieur exaggerated. I certainly had enjoyed the advantage of a +little change lately, but not before it had become necessary; and the privilege +was by no means exercised in excess.” +</p> + +<p> +“Necessary! How was it necessary? I was well enough, he supposed? Change +necessary! He would recommend me to look at the Catholic ‘religieuses,’ and +study <i>their</i> lives. <i>They</i> asked no change.” +</p> + +<p> +I am no judge of what expression crossed my face when he thus spoke, but it was +one which provoked him: he accused me of being reckless, worldly, and +epicurean; ambitious of greatness, and feverishly athirst for the pomps and +vanities of life. It seems I had no “dévouement,” no “récueillement” in my +character; no spirit of grace, faith, sacrifice, or self-abasement. Feeling the +inutility of answering these charges, I mutely continued the correction of a +pile of English exercises. +</p> + +<p> +“He could see in me nothing Christian: like many other Protestants, I revelled +in the pride and self-will of paganism.” +</p> + +<p> +I slightly turned from him, nestling still closer under the wing of silence. +</p> + +<p> +A vague sound grumbled between his teeth; it could not surely be a “juron:” he +was too religious for that; but I am certain I heard the word <i>sacré</i>. +Grievous to relate, the same word was repeated, with the unequivocal addition +of <i>mille</i> something, when I passed him about two hours afterwards in the +corridor, prepared to go and take my German lesson in the Rue Crécy. Never was +a better little man, in some points, than M. Paul: never, in others, a more +waspish little despot. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Our German mistress, Fräulein Anna Braun, was a worthy, hearty woman, of about +forty-five; she ought, perhaps, to have lived in the days of Queen Elizabeth, +as she habitually consumed, for her first and second breakfasts, beer and beef: +also, her direct and downright Deutsch nature seemed to suffer a sensation of +cruel restraint from what she called our English reserve; though we thought we +were very cordial with her: but we did not slap her on the shoulder, and if we +consented to kiss her cheek, it was done quietly, and without any explosive +smack. These omissions oppressed and depressed her considerably; still, on the +whole, we got on very well. Accustomed to instruct foreign girls, who hardly +ever will think and study for themselves—who have no idea of grappling with a +difficulty, and overcoming it by dint of reflection or application—our +progress, which in truth was very leisurely, seemed to astound her. In her +eyes, we were a pair of glacial prodigies, cold, proud, and preternatural. +</p> + +<p> +The young Countess <i>was</i> a little proud, a little fastidious: and perhaps, +with her native delicacy and beauty, she had a right to these feelings; but I +think it was a total mistake to ascribe them to me. I never evaded the morning +salute, which Paulina would slip when she could; nor was a certain little +manner of still disdain a weapon known in my armoury of defence; whereas, +Paulina always kept it clear, fine, and bright, and any rough German sally +called forth at once its steelly glisten. +</p> + +<p> +Honest Anna Braun, in some measure, felt this difference; and while she +half-feared, half-worshipped Paulina, as a sort of dainty nymph—an Undine—she +took refuge with me, as a being all mortal, and of easier mood. +</p> + +<p> +A book we liked well to read and translate was Schiller’s Ballads; Paulina soon +learned to read them beautifully; the Fräulein would listen to her with a broad +smile of pleasure, and say her voice sounded like music. She translated them, +too, with a facile flow of language, and in a strain of kindred and poetic +fervour: her cheek would flush, her lips tremblingly smile, her beauteous eyes +kindle or melt as she went on. She learnt the best by heart, and would often +recite them when we were alone together. One she liked well was “Des Mädchens +Klage:” that is, she liked well to repeat the words, she found plaintive melody +in the sound; the sense she would criticise. She murmured, as we sat over the +fire one evening:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Du Heilige, rufe dein Kind zurück,<br/> +Ich habe genossen das irdische Glück,<br/> + Ich habe gelebt und geliebet! +</p> + +<p> +“Lived and loved!” said she, “is that the summit of earthly happiness, the end +of life—to love? I don’t think it is. It may be the extreme of mortal misery, +it may be sheer waste of time, and fruitless torture of feeling. If Schiller +had said to <i>be</i> loved, he might have come nearer the truth. Is not that +another thing, Lucy, to be loved?” +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose it may be: but why consider the subject? What is love to you? What +do you know about it?” +</p> + +<p> +She crimsoned, half in irritation, half in shame. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, Lucy,” she said, “I won’t take that from you. It may be well for papa to +look on me as a baby: I rather prefer that he should thus view me; but +<i>you</i> know and shall learn to acknowledge that I am verging on my +nineteenth year.” +</p> + +<p> +“No matter if it were your twenty-ninth; we will anticipate no feelings by +discussion and conversation; we will not talk about love.” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed, indeed!” said she—all in hurry and heat—“you may think to check and +hold me in, as much as you please; but I <i>have</i> talked about it, and heard +about it too; and a great deal and lately, and disagreeably and detrimentally: +and in a way you wouldn’t approve.” +</p> + +<p> +And the vexed, triumphant, pretty, naughty being laughed. I could not discern +what she meant, and I would not ask her: I was nonplussed. Seeing, however, the +utmost innocence in her countenance—combined with some transient perverseness +and petulance—I said at last,— +</p> + +<p> +“Who talks to you disagreeably and detrimentally on such matters? Who that has +near access to you would dare to do it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Lucy,” replied she more softly, “it is a person who makes me miserable +sometimes; and I wish she would keep away—I don’t want her.” +</p> + +<p> +“But who, Paulina, can it be? You puzzle me much.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is—it is my cousin Ginevra. Every time she has leave to visit Mrs. +Cholmondeley she calls here, and whenever she finds me alone she begins to talk +about her admirers. Love, indeed! You should hear all she has to say about +love.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I have heard it,” said I, quite coolly; “and on the whole, perhaps it is +as well you should have heard it too: it is not to be regretted, it is all +right. Yet, surely, Ginevra’s mind cannot influence yours. You can look over +both her head and her heart.” +</p> + +<p> +“She does influence me very much. She has the art of disturbing my happiness +and unsettling my opinions. She hurts me through the feelings and people +dearest to me.” +</p> + +<p> +“What does she say, Paulina? Give me some idea. There may be counteraction of +the damage done.” +</p> + +<p> +“The people I have longest and most esteemed are degraded by her. She does not +spare Mrs. Bretton—she does not spare…. Graham.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, I daresay: and how does she mix up these with her sentiment and +her….<i>love</i>? She does mix them, I suppose?” +</p> + +<p> +“Lucy, she is insolent; and, I believe, false. You know Dr. Bretton. We both +know him. He may be careless and proud; but when was he ever mean or slavish? +Day after day she shows him to me kneeling at her feet, pursuing her like her +shadow. She—repulsing him with insult, and he imploring her with infatuation. +Lucy, is it true? Is any of it true?” +</p> + +<p> +“It may be true that he once thought her handsome: does she give him out as +still her suitor?” +</p> + +<p> +“She says she might marry him any day: he only waits her consent.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is these tales which have caused that reserve in your manner towards Graham +which your father noticed.” +</p> + +<p> +“They have certainly made me all doubtful about his character. As Ginevra +speaks, they do not carry with them the sound of unmixed truth: I believe she +exaggerates—perhaps invents—but I want to know how far.” +</p> + +<p> +“Suppose we bring Miss Fanshawe to some proof. Give her an opportunity of +displaying the power she boasts.” +</p> + +<p> +“I could do that to-morrow. Papa has asked some gentlemen to dinner, all +savants. Graham, who, papa is beginning to discover, is a savant, too—skilled, +they say, in more than one branch of science—is among the number. Now I should +be miserable to sit at table unsupported, amidst such a party. I could not talk +to Messieurs A—— and Z——, the Parisian Academicians: all my new credit for +manner would be put in peril. You and Mrs. Bretton must come for my sake; +Ginevra, at a word, will join you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; then I will carry a message of invitation, and she shall have the chance +of justifying her character for veracity.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap27"></a>CHAPTER XXVII.<br/> +THE HÔTEL CRÉCY.</h2> + +<p> +The morrow turned out a more lively and busy day than we—or than I, at +least—had anticipated. It seems it was the birthday of one of the young princes +of Labassecour—the eldest, I think, the Duc de Dindonneau, and a general +holiday was given in his honour at the schools, and especially at the principal +“Athénée,” or college. The youth of that institution had also concocted, and +were to present a loyal address; for which purpose they were to be assembled in +the public building where the yearly examinations were conducted, and the +prizes distributed. After the ceremony of presentation, an oration, or +“discours,” was to follow from one of the professors. +</p> + +<p> +Several of M. de Bassompierre’s friends—the savants—being more or less +connected with the Athénée, they were expected to attend on this occasion; +together with the worshipful municipality of Villette, M. le Chevalier Staas, +the burgomaster, and the parents and kinsfolk of the Athenians in general. M. +de Bassompierre was engaged by his friends to accompany them; his fair daughter +would, of course, be of the party, and she wrote a little note to Ginevra and +myself, bidding us come early that we might join her. +</p> + +<p> +As Miss Fanshawe and I were dressing in the dormitory of the Rue Fossette, she +(Miss F.) suddenly burst into a laugh. +</p> + +<p> +“What now?” I asked; for she had suspended the operation of arranging her +attire, and was gazing at me. +</p> + +<p> +“It seems so odd,” she replied, with her usual half-honest half-insolent +unreserve, “that you and I should now be so much on a level, visiting in the +same sphere; having the same connections.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, yes,” said I; “I had not much respect for the connections you chiefly +frequented awhile ago: Mrs. Cholmondeley and Co. would never have suited me at +all.” +</p> + +<p> +“Who <i>are</i> you, Miss Snowe?” she inquired, in a tone of such undisguised +and unsophisticated curiosity, as made me laugh in my turn. +</p> + +<p> +“You used to call yourself a nursery governess; when you first came here you +really had the care of the children in this house: I have seen you carry little +Georgette in your arms, like a bonne—few governesses would have condescended so +far—and now Madame Beck treats you with more courtesy than she treats the +Parisienne, St. Pierre; and that proud chit, my cousin, makes you her bosom +friend!” +</p> + +<p> +“Wonderful!” I agreed, much amused at her mystification. “Who am I indeed? +Perhaps a personage in disguise. Pity I don’t look the character.” +</p> + +<p> +“I wonder you are not more flattered by all this,” she went on; “you take it +with strange composure. If you really are the nobody I once thought you, you +must be a cool hand.” +</p> + +<p> +“The nobody you once thought me!” I repeated, and my face grew a little hot; +but I would not be angry: of what importance was a school-girl’s crude use of +the terms nobody and somebody? I confined myself, therefore, to the remark that +I had merely met with civility; and asked “what she saw in civility to throw +the recipient into a fever of confusion?” +</p> + +<p> +“One can’t help wondering at some things,” she persisted. +</p> + +<p> +“Wondering at marvels of your own manufacture. Are you ready at last?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; let me take your arm.” +</p> + +<p> +“I would rather not: we will walk side by side.” +</p> + +<p> +When she took my arm, she always leaned upon me her whole weight; and, as I was +not a gentleman, or her lover, I did not like it. +</p> + +<p> +“There, again!” she cried. “I thought, by offering to take your arm, to +intimate approbation of your dress and general appearance: I meant it as a +compliment.” +</p> + +<p> +“You did? You meant, in short, to express that you are not ashamed to be seen +in the street with me? That if Mrs. Cholmondeley should be fondling her lapdog +at some window, or Colonel de Hamal picking his teeth in a balcony, and should +catch a glimpse of us, you would not quite blush for your companion?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said she, with that directness which was her best point—which gave an +honest plainness to her very fibs when she told them—which was, in short, the +salt, the sole preservative ingredient of a character otherwise not formed to +keep. +</p> + +<p> +I delegated the trouble of commenting on this “yes” to my countenance; or +rather, my under-lip voluntarily anticipated my tongue of course, reverence and +solemnity were not the feelings expressed in the look I gave her. +</p> + +<p> +“Scornful, sneering creature!” she went on, as we crossed a great square, and +entered the quiet, pleasant park, our nearest way to the Rue Crécy. “Nobody in +this world was ever such a Turk to me as you are!” +</p> + +<p> +“You bring it on yourself: let me alone: have the sense to be quiet: I will let +you alone.” +</p> + +<p> +“As if one <i>could</i> let you alone, when you are so peculiar and so +mysterious!” +</p> + +<p> +“The mystery and peculiarity being entirely the conception of your own +brain—maggots—neither more nor less, be so good as to keep them out of my +sight.” +</p> + +<p> +“But <i>are</i> you anybody?” persevered she, pushing her hand, in spite of me, +under my arm; and that arm pressed itself with inhospitable closeness against +my side, by way of keeping out the intruder. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” I said, “I am a rising character: once an old lady’s companion, then a +nursery-governess, now a school-teacher.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do—<i>do</i> tell me who you are? I’ll not repeat it,” she urged, adhering +with ludicrous tenacity to the wise notion of an incognito she had got hold of; +and she squeezed the arm of which she had now obtained full possession, and +coaxed and conjured till I was obliged to pause in the park to laugh. +Throughout our walk she rang the most fanciful changes on this theme; proving, +by her obstinate credulity, or incredulity, her incapacity to conceive how any +person not bolstered up by birth or wealth, not supported by some consciousness +of name or connection, could maintain an attitude of reasonable integrity. As +for me, it quite sufficed to my mental tranquillity that I was known where it +imported that known I should be; the rest sat on me easily: pedigree, social +position, and recondite intellectual acquisition, occupied about the same space +and place in my interests and thoughts; they were my third-class lodgers—to +whom could be assigned only the small sitting-room and the little back bedroom: +even if the dining and drawing-rooms stood empty, I never confessed it to them, +as thinking minor accommodations better suited to their circumstances. The +world, I soon learned, held a different estimate: and I make no doubt, the +world is very right in its view, yet believe also that I am not quite wrong in +mine. +</p> + +<p> +There are people whom a lowered position degrades morally, to whom loss of +connection costs loss of self-respect: are not these justified in placing the +highest value on that station and association which is their safeguard from +debasement? If a man feels that he would become contemptible in his own eyes +were it generally known that his ancestry were simple and not gentle, poor and +not rich, workers and not capitalists, would it be right severely to blame him +for keeping these fatal facts out of sight—for starting, trembling, quailing at +the chance which threatens exposure? The longer we live, the more our +experience widens; the less prone are we to judge our neighbour’s conduct, to +question the world’s wisdom: wherever an accumulation of small defences is +found, whether surrounding the prude’s virtue or the man of the world’s +respectability, there, be sure, it is needed. +</p> + +<p> +We reached the Hôtel Crécy; Paulina was ready; Mrs. Bretton was with her; and, +under her escort and that of M. de Bassompierre, we were soon conducted to the +place of assembly, and seated in good seats, at a convenient distance from the +Tribune. The youth of the Athénée were marshalled before us, the municipality +and their bourgmestre were in places of honour, the young princes, with their +tutors, occupied a conspicuous position, and the body of the building was +crowded with the aristocracy and first burghers of the town. +</p> + +<p> +Concerning the identity of the professor by whom the “discours” was to be +delivered, I had as yet entertained neither care nor question. Some vague +expectation I had that a savant would stand up and deliver a formal speech, +half dogmatism to the Athenians, half flattery to the princes. +</p> + +<p> +The Tribune was yet empty when we entered, but in ten minutes after it was +filled; suddenly, in a second of time, a head, chest, and arms grew above the +crimson desk. This head I knew: its colour, shape, port, expression, were +familiar both to me and Miss Fanshawe; the blackness and closeness of cranium, +the amplitude and paleness of brow, the blueness and fire of glance, were +details so domesticated in the memory, and so knit with many a whimsical +association, as almost by this their sudden apparition, to tickle fancy to a +laugh. Indeed, I confess, for my part, I did laugh till I was warm; but then I +bent my head, and made my handkerchief and a lowered veil the sole confidants +of my mirth. +</p> + +<p> +I think I was glad to see M. Paul; I think it was rather pleasant than +otherwise, to behold him set up there, fierce and frank, dark and candid, testy +and fearless, as when regnant on his estrade in class. His presence was such a +surprise: I had not once thought of expecting him, though I knew he filled the +chair of Belles Lettres in the college. With <i>him</i> in that Tribune, I felt +sure that neither formalism nor flattery would be our doom; but for what was +vouchsafed us, for what was poured suddenly, rapidly, continuously, on our +heads—I own I was not prepared. +</p> + +<p> +He spoke to the princes, the nobles, the magistrates, and the burghers, with +just the same ease, with almost the same pointed, choleric earnestness, with +which he was wont to harangue the three divisions of the Rue Fossette. The +collegians he addressed, not as schoolboys, but as future citizens and embryo +patriots. The times which have since come on Europe had not been foretold yet, +and M. Emanuel’s spirit seemed new to me. Who would have thought the flat and +fat soil of Labassecour could yield political convictions and national +feelings, such as were now strongly expressed? Of the bearing of his opinions I +need here give no special indication; yet it may be permitted me to say that I +believed the little man not more earnest than right in what he said: with all +his fire he was severe and sensible; he trampled Utopian theories under his +heel; he rejected wild dreams with scorn;—but when he looked in the face of +tyranny—oh, then there opened a light in his eye worth seeing; and when he +spoke of injustice, his voice gave no uncertain sound, but reminded me rather +of the band-trumpet, ringing at twilight from the park. +</p> + +<p> +I do not think his audience were generally susceptible of sharing his flame in +its purity; but some of the college youth caught fire as he eloquently told +them what should be their path and endeavour in their country’s and in Europe’s +future. They gave him a long, loud, ringing cheer, as he concluded: with all +his fierceness, he was their favourite professor. +</p> + +<p> +As our party left the Hall, he stood at the entrance; he saw and knew me, and +lifted his hat; he offered his hand in passing, and uttered the words “Qu’en +dites vous?”—question eminently characteristic, and reminding me, even in this +his moment of triumph, of that inquisitive restlessness, that absence of what I +considered desirable self-control, which were amongst his faults. He should not +have cared just then to ask what I thought, or what anybody thought, but he +<i>did</i> care, and he was too natural to conceal, too impulsive to repress +his wish. Well! if I blamed his over-eagerness, I liked his <i>naiveté</i>. I +would have praised him: I had plenty of praise in my heart; but, alas! no words +on my lips. Who <i>has</i> words at the right moment? I stammered some lame +expressions; but was truly glad when other people, coming up with profuse +congratulations, covered my deficiency by their redundancy. +</p> + +<p> +A gentleman introduced him to M. de Bassompierre; and the Count, who had +likewise been highly gratified, asked him to join his friends (for the most +part M. Emanuel’s likewise), and to dine with them at the Hôtel Crécy. He +declined dinner, for he was a man always somewhat shy at meeting the advances +of the wealthy: there was a strength of sturdy independence in the stringing of +his sinews—not obtrusive, but pleasant enough to discover as one advanced in +knowledge of his character; he promised, however, to step in with his friend, +M. A——, a French Academician, in the course of the evening. +</p> + +<p> +At dinner that day, Ginevra and Paulina each looked, in her own way, very +beautiful; the former, perhaps, boasted the advantage in material charms, but +the latter shone pre-eminent for attractions more subtle and spiritual: for +light and eloquence of eye, for grace of mien, for winning variety of +expression. Ginevra’s dress of deep crimson relieved well her light curls, and +harmonized with her rose-like bloom. Paulina’s attire—in fashion close, though +faultlessly neat, but in texture clear and white—made the eye grateful for the +delicate life of her complexion, for the soft animation of her countenance, for +the tender depth of her eyes, for the brown shadow and bounteous flow of her +hair—darker than that of her Saxon cousin, as were also her eyebrows, her +eyelashes, her full irids, and large mobile pupils. Nature having traced all +these details slightly, and with a careless hand, in Miss Fanshawe’s case; and +in Miss de Bassompierre’s, wrought them to a high and delicate finish. +</p> + +<p> +Paulina was awed by the savants, but not quite to mutism: she conversed +modestly, diffidently; not without effort, but with so true a sweetness, so +fine and penetrating a sense, that her father more than once suspended his own +discourse to listen, and fixed on her an eye of proud delight. It was a polite +Frenchman, M. Z——, a very learned, but quite a courtly man, who had drawn her +into discourse. I was charmed with her French; it was faultless—the structure +correct, the idioms true, the accent pure; Ginevra, who had lived half her life +on the Continent, could do nothing like it not that words ever failed Miss +Fanshawe, but real accuracy and purity she neither possessed, nor in any number +of years would acquire. Here, too, M. de Bassompierre was gratified; for, on +the point of language, he was critical. +</p> + +<p> +Another listener and observer there was; one who, detained by some exigency of +his profession, had come in late to dinner. Both ladies were quietly scanned by +Dr. Bretton, at the moment of taking his seat at the table; and that guarded +survey was more than once renewed. His arrival roused Miss Fanshawe, who had +hitherto appeared listless: she now became smiling and complacent, +talked—though what she said was rarely to the purpose—or rather, was of a +purpose somewhat mortifyingly below the standard of the occasion. Her light, +disconnected prattle might have gratified Graham once; perhaps it pleased him +still: perhaps it was only fancy which suggested the thought that, while his +eye was filled and his ear fed, his taste, his keen zest, his lively +intelligence, were not equally consulted and regaled. It is certain that, +restless and exacting as seemed the demand on his attention, he yielded +courteously all that was required: his manner showed neither pique nor +coolness: Ginevra was his neighbour, and to her, during dinner, he almost +exclusively confined his notice. She appeared satisfied, and passed to the +drawing-room in very good spirits. +</p> + +<p> +Yet, no sooner had we reached that place of refuge, than she again became flat +and listless: throwing herself on a couch, she denounced both the “discours” +and the dinner as stupid affairs, and inquired of her cousin how she could hear +such a set of prosaic “gros-bonnets” as her father gathered about him. The +moment the gentlemen were heard to move, her railings ceased: she started up, +flew to the piano, and dashed at it with spirit. Dr. Bretton entering, one of +the first, took up his station beside her. I thought he would not long maintain +that post: there was a position near the hearth to which I expected to see him +attracted: this position he only scanned with his eye; while <i>he</i> looked, +others drew in. The grace and mind of Paulina charmed these thoughtful +Frenchmen: the fineness of her beauty, the soft courtesy of her manner, her +immature, but real and inbred tact, pleased their national taste; they +clustered about her, not indeed to talk science; which would have rendered her +dumb, but to touch on many subjects in letters, in arts, in actual life, on +which it soon appeared that she had both read and reflected. I listened. I am +sure that though Graham stood aloof, he listened too: his hearing as well as +his vision was very fine, quick, discriminating. I knew he gathered the +conversation; I felt that the mode in which it was sustained suited him +exquisitely—pleased him almost to pain. +</p> + +<p> +In Paulina there was more force, both of feeling and character; than most +people thought—than Graham himself imagined—than she would ever show to those +who did not wish to see it. To speak truth, reader, there is no excellent +beauty, no accomplished grace, no reliable refinement, without strength as +excellent, as complete, as trustworthy. As well might you look for good fruit +and blossom on a rootless and sapless tree, as for charms that will endure in a +feeble and relaxed nature. For a little while, the blooming semblance of beauty +may flourish round weakness; but it cannot bear a blast: it soon fades, even in +serenest sunshine. Graham would have started had any suggestive spirit +whispered of the sinew and the stamina sustaining that delicate nature; but I +who had known her as a child, knew or guessed by what a good and strong root +her graces held to the firm soil of reality. +</p> + +<p> +While Dr. Bretton listened, and waited an opening in the magic circle, his +glance restlessly sweeping the room at intervals, lighted by chance on me, +where I sat in a quiet nook not far from my godmother and M. de Bassompierre, +who, as usual, were engaged in what Mr. Home called “a two-handed crack:” what +the Count would have interpreted as a tête-à-tête. Graham smiled recognition, +crossed the room, asked me how I was, told me I looked pale. I also had my own +smile at my own thought: it was now about three months since Dr. John had +spoken to me—a lapse of which he was not even conscious. He sat down, and +became silent. His wish was rather to look than converse. Ginevra and Paulina +were now opposite to him: he could gaze his fill: he surveyed both +forms—studied both faces. +</p> + +<p> +Several new guests, ladies as well as gentlemen, had entered the room since +dinner, dropping in for the evening conversation; and amongst the gentlemen, I +may incidentally observe, I had already noticed by glimpses, a severe, dark, +professorial outline, hovering aloof in an inner saloon, seen only in vista. M. +Emanuel knew many of the gentlemen present, but I think was a stranger to most +of the ladies, excepting myself; in looking towards the hearth, he could not +but see me, and naturally made a movement to approach; seeing, however, Dr. +Bretton also, he changed his mind and held back. If that had been all, there +would have been no cause for quarrel; but not satisfied with holding back, he +puckered up his eyebrows, protruded his lip, and looked so ugly that I averted +my eyes from the displeasing spectacle. M. Joseph Emanuel had arrived, as well +as his austere brother, and at this very moment was relieving Ginevra at the +piano. What a master-touch succeeded her school-girl jingle! In what grand, +grateful tones the instrument acknowledged the hand of the true artist! +</p> + +<p> +“Lucy,” began Dr. Bretton, breaking silence and smiling, as Ginevra glided +before him, casting a glance as she passed by, “Miss Fanshawe is certainly a +fine girl.” +</p> + +<p> +Of course I assented. +</p> + +<p> +“Is there,” he pursued, “another in the room as lovely?” +</p> + +<p> +“I think there is not another as handsome.” +</p> + +<p> +“I agree with you, Lucy: you and I do often agree in opinion, in taste, I +think; or at least in judgment.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do we?” I said, somewhat doubtfully. +</p> + +<p> +“I believe if you had been a boy, Lucy, instead of a girl—my mother’s god-son +instead of her god-daughter, we should have been good friends: our opinions +would have melted into each other.” +</p> + +<p> +He had assumed a bantering air: a light, half-caressing, half-ironic, shone +aslant in his eye. Ah, Graham! I have given more than one solitary moment to +thoughts and calculations of your estimate of Lucy Snowe: was it always kind or +just? Had Lucy been intrinsically the same but possessing the additional +advantages of wealth and station, would your manner to her, your value for her, +have been quite what they actually were? And yet by these questions I would not +seriously infer blame. No; you might sadden and trouble me sometimes; but then +mine was a soon-depressed, an easily-deranged temperament—it fell if a cloud +crossed the sun. Perhaps before the eye of severe equity I should stand more at +fault than you. +</p> + +<p> +Trying, then, to keep down the unreasonable pain which thrilled my heart, on +thus being made to feel that while Graham could devote to others the most grave +and earnest, the manliest interest, he had no more than light raillery for +Lucy, the friend of lang syne, I inquired calmly,—“On what points are we so +closely in accordance?” +</p> + +<p> +“We each have an observant faculty. You, perhaps, don’t give me credit for the +possession; yet I have it.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you were speaking of tastes: we may see the same objects, yet estimate +them differently?” +</p> + +<p> +“Let us bring it to the test. Of course, you cannot but render homage to the +merits of Miss Fanshawe: now, what do you think of others in the room?—my +mother, for instance; or the lions yonder, Messieurs A—— and Z——; or, let us +say, that pale little lady, Miss de Bassompierre?” +</p> + +<p> +“You know what I think of your mother. I have not thought of Messieurs A—— and +Z——.” +</p> + +<p> +“And the other?” +</p> + +<p> +“I think she is, as you say, a pale little lady—pale, certainly, just now, when +she is fatigued with over-excitement.” +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t remember her as a child?” +</p> + +<p> +“I wonder, sometimes, whether you do.” +</p> + +<p> +“I had forgotten her; but it is noticeable, that circumstances, persons, even +words and looks, that had slipped your memory, may, under certain conditions, +certain aspects of your own or another’s mind, revive.” +</p> + +<p> +“That is possible enough.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yet,” he continued, “the revival is imperfect—needs confirmation, partakes so +much of the dim character of a dream, or of the airy one of a fancy, that the +testimony of a witness becomes necessary for corroboration. Were you not a +guest at Bretton ten years ago, when Mr. Home brought his little girl, whom we +then called ‘little Polly,’ to stay with mamma?” +</p> + +<p> +“I was there the night she came, and also the morning she went away.” +</p> + +<p> +“Rather a peculiar child, was she not? I wonder how I treated her. Was I fond +of children in those days? Was there anything gracious or kindly about +me—great, reckless, schoolboy as I was? But you don’t recollect me, of course?” +</p> + +<p> +“You have seen your own picture at La Terrasse. It is like you personally. In +manner, you were almost the same yesterday as to-day.” +</p> + +<p> +“But, Lucy, how is that? Such an oracle really whets my curiosity. What am I +to-day? What was I the yesterday of ten years back?” +</p> + +<p> +“Gracious to whatever pleased you—unkindly or cruel to nothing.” +</p> + +<p> +“There you are wrong; I think I was almost a brute to <i>you</i>, for +instance.” +</p> + +<p> +“A brute! No, Graham: I should never have patiently endured brutality.” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>This</i>, however, I <i>do</i> remember: quiet Lucy Snowe tasted nothing of +my grace.” +</p> + +<p> +“As little of your cruelty.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, had I been Nero himself, I could not have tormented a being inoffensive +as a shadow.” +</p> + +<p> +I smiled; but I also hushed a groan. Oh!—I just wished he would let me +alone—cease allusion to me. These epithets—these attributes I put from me. His +“quiet Lucy Snowe,” his “inoffensive shadow,” I gave him back; not with scorn, +but with extreme weariness: theirs was the coldness and the pressure of lead; +let him whelm me with no such weight. Happily, he was soon on another theme. +</p> + +<p> +“On what terms were ‘little Polly’ and I? Unless my recollections deceive me, +we were not foes—” +</p> + +<p> +“You speak very vaguely. Do you think little Polly’s memory, not more +definite?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! we don’t talk of ‘little Polly’ <i>now</i>. Pray say, Miss de +Bassompierre; and, of course, such a stately personage remembers nothing of +Bretton. Look at her large eyes, Lucy; can they read a word in the page of +memory? Are they the same which I used to direct to a horn-book? She does not +know that I partly taught her to read.” +</p> + +<p> +“In the Bible on Sunday nights?” +</p> + +<p> +“She has a calm, delicate, rather fine profile now: once what a little +restless, anxious countenance was hers! What a thing is a child’s +preference—what a bubble! Would you believe it? that lady was fond of me!” +</p> + +<p> +“I think she was in some measure fond of you,” said I, moderately. +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t remember then? <i>I</i> had forgotten; but I remember <i>now</i>. +She liked me the best of whatever there was at Bretton.” +</p> + +<p> +“You thought so.” +</p> + +<p> +“I quite well recall it. I wish I could tell her all I recall; or rather, I +wish some one, you for instance, would go behind and whisper it all in her ear, +and I could have the delight—here, as I sit—of watching her look under the +intelligence. Could you manage that, think you, Lucy, and make me ever +grateful?” +</p> + +<p> +“Could I manage to make you ever grateful?” said I. “No, <i>I could not</i>.” +And I felt my fingers work and my hands interlock: I felt, too, an inward +courage, warm and resistant. In this matter I was not disposed to gratify Dr. +John: not at all. With now welcome force, I realized his entire misapprehension +of my character and nature. He wanted always to give me a role not mine. Nature +and I opposed him. He did not at all guess what I felt: he did not read my +eyes, or face, or gestures; though, I doubt not, all spoke. Leaning towards me +coaxingly, he said, softly, “<i>Do</i> content me, Lucy.” +</p> + +<p> +And I would have contented, or, at least, I would clearly have enlightened him, +and taught him well never again to expect of me the part of officious soubrette +in a love drama; when, following his, soft, eager, murmur, meeting almost his +pleading, mellow—“<i>Do</i> content me, Lucy!” a sharp hiss pierced my ear on +the other side. +</p> + +<p> +“Petite chatte, doucerette, coquette!” sibillated the sudden boa-constrictor; +“vous avez l’air bien triste, soumis, rêveur, mais vous ne l’êtes pas; c’est +moi qui vous le dis: Sauvage! la flamme à l’âme, l’éclair aux yeux!” +</p> + +<p> +“Oui; j’ai la flamme à l’âme, et je dois l’avoir!” retorted I, turning in just +wrath: but Professor Emanuel had hissed his insult and was gone. +</p> + +<p> +The worst of the matter was, that Dr. Bretton, whose ears, as I have said, were +quick and fine, caught every word of this apostrophe; he put his handkerchief +to his face, and laughed till he shook. +</p> + +<p> +“Well done, Lucy,” cried he; “capital! petite chatte, petite coquette! Oh, I +must tell my mother! Is it true, Lucy, or half-true? I believe it is: you +redden to the colour of Miss Fanshawe’s gown. And really, by my word, now I +examine him, that is the same little man who was so savage with you at the +concert: the very same, and in his soul he is frantic at this moment because he +sees me laughing. Oh! I must tease him.” +</p> + +<p> +And Graham, yielding to his bent for mischief, laughed, jested, and whispered +on till I could bear no more, and my eyes filled. +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly he was sobered: a vacant space appeared near Miss de Bassompierre; the +circle surrounding her seemed about to dissolve. This movement was instantly +caught by Graham’s eye—ever-vigilant, even while laughing; he rose, took his +courage in both hands, crossed the room, and made the advantage his own. Dr. +John, throughout his whole life, was a man of luck—a man of success. And why? +Because he had the eye to see his opportunity, the heart to prompt to +well-timed action, the nerve to consummate a perfect work. And no +tyrant-passion dragged him back; no enthusiasms, no foibles encumbered his way. +How well he looked at this very moment! When Paulina looked up as he reached +her side, her glance mingled at once with an encountering glance, animated, yet +modest; his colour, as he spoke to her, became half a blush, half a glow. He +stood in her presence brave and bashful: subdued and unobtrusive, yet decided +in his purpose and devoted in his ardour. I gathered all this by one view. I +did not prolong my observation—time failed me, had inclination served: the +night wore late; Ginevra and I ought already to have been in the Rue Fossette. +I rose, and bade good-night to my godmother and M. de Bassompierre. +</p> + +<p> +I know not whether Professor Emanuel had noticed my reluctant acceptance of Dr. +Bretton’s badinage, or whether he perceived that I was pained, and that, on the +whole, the evening had not been one flow of exultant enjoyment for the +volatile, pleasure-loving Mademoiselle Lucie; but, as I was leaving the room, +he stepped up and inquired whether I had any one to attend me to the Rue +Fossette. The professor <i>now</i> spoke politely, and even deferentially, and +he looked apologetic and repentant; but I could not recognise his civility at a +word, nor meet his contrition with crude, premature oblivion. Never hitherto +had I felt seriously disposed to resent his brusqueries, or freeze before his +fierceness; what he had said to-night, however, I considered unwarranted: my +extreme disapprobation of the proceeding must be marked, however slightly. I +merely said:—“I am provided with attendance.” +</p> + +<p> +Which was true, as Ginevra and I were to be sent home in the carriage; and I +passed him with the sliding obeisance with which he was wont to be saluted in +classe by pupils crossing his estrade. +</p> + +<p> +Having sought my shawl, I returned to the vestibule. M. Emanuel stood there as +if waiting. He observed that the night was fine. +</p> + +<p> +“Is it?” I said, with a tone and manner whose consummate chariness and +frostiness I could not but applaud. It was so seldom I could properly act out +my own resolution to be reserved and cool where I had been grieved or hurt, +that I felt almost proud of this one successful effort. That “Is it?” sounded +just like the manner of other people. I had heard hundreds of such little +minced, docked, dry phrases, from the pursed-up coral lips of a score of +self-possessed, self-sufficing misses and mesdemoiselles. That M. Paul would +not stand any prolonged experience of this sort of dialogue I knew; but he +certainly merited a sample of the curt and arid. I believe he thought so +himself, for he took the dose quietly. He looked at my shawl and objected to +its lightness. I decidedly told him it was as heavy as I wished. Receding +aloof, and standing apart, I leaned on the banister of the stairs, folded my +shawl about me, and fixed my eyes on a dreary religious painting darkening the +wall. +</p> + +<p> +Ginevra was long in coming: tedious seemed her loitering. M. Paul was still +there; my ear expected from his lips an angry tone. He came nearer. “Now for +another hiss!” thought I: had not the action been too uncivil I could have +stopped my ears with my fingers in terror of the thrill. Nothing happens as we +expect: listen for a coo or a murmur; it is then you will hear a cry of prey or +pain. Await a piercing shriek, an angry threat, and welcome an amicable +greeting, a low kind whisper. M. Paul spoke gently:—“Friends,” said he, “do not +quarrel for a word. Tell me, was it I or ce grand fat d’Anglais” (so he +profanely denominated Dr. Bretton), “who made your eyes so humid, and your +cheeks so hot as they are even now?” +</p> + +<p> +“I am not conscious of you, monsieur, or of any other having excited such +emotion as you indicate,” was my answer; and in giving it, I again surpassed my +usual self, and achieved a neat, frosty falsehood. +</p> + +<p> +“But what did I say?” he pursued; “tell me: I was angry: I have forgotten my +words; what were they?” +</p> + +<p> +“Such as it is best to forget!” said I, still quite calm and chill. +</p> + +<p> +“Then it was <i>my</i> words which wounded you? Consider them unsaid: permit my +retractation; accord my pardon.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am not angry, Monsieur.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then you are worse than angry—grieved. Forgive me, Miss Lucy.” +</p> + +<p> +“M. Emanuel, I <i>do</i> forgive you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Let me hear you say, in the voice natural to you, and not in that alien tone, +‘Mon ami, je vous pardonne.’” +</p> + +<p> +He made me smile. Who could help smiling at his wistfulness, his simplicity, +his earnestness? +</p> + +<p> +“Bon!” he cried. “Voilà que le jour va poindre! Dites donc, mon ami.” +</p> + +<p> +“Monsieur Paul, je vous pardonne.” +</p> + +<p> +“I will have no monsieur: speak the other word, or I shall not believe you +sincere: another effort—<i>mon ami</i>, or else in English,—my friend!” +</p> + +<p> +Now, “my friend” had rather another sound and significancy than “<i>mon +ami</i>;” it did not breathe the same sense of domestic and intimate affection; +“<i>mon ami</i>” I could <i>not</i> say to M. Paul; “my friend,” I could, and +did say without difficulty. This distinction existed not for him, however, and +he was quite satisfied with the English phrase. He smiled. You should have seen +him smile, reader; and you should have marked the difference between his +countenance now, and that he wore half an hour ago. I cannot affirm that I had +ever witnessed the smile of pleasure, or content, or kindness round M. Paul’s +lips, or in his eyes before. The ironic, the sarcastic, the disdainful, the +passionately exultant, I had hundreds of times seen him express by what he +called a smile, but any illuminated sign of milder or warmer feelings struck me +as wholly new in his visage. It changed it as from a mask to a face: the deep +lines left his features; the very complexion seemed clearer and fresher; that +swart, sallow, southern darkness which spoke his Spanish blood, became +displaced by a lighter hue. I know not that I have ever seen in any other human +face an equal metamorphosis from a similar cause. He now took me to the +carriage: at the same moment M. de Bassompierre came out with his niece. +</p> + +<p> +In a pretty humour was Mistress Fanshawe; she had found the evening a grand +failure: completely upset as to temper, she gave way to the most uncontrolled +moroseness as soon as we were seated, and the carriage-door closed. Her +invectives against Dr. Bretton had something venomous in them. Having found +herself impotent either to charm or sting him, hatred was her only resource; +and this hatred she expressed in terms so unmeasured and proportion so +monstrous, that, after listening for a while with assumed stoicism, my outraged +sense of justice at last and suddenly caught fire. An explosion ensued: for I +could be passionate, too; especially with my present fair but faulty associate, +who never failed to stir the worst dregs of me. It was well that the +carriage-wheels made a tremendous rattle over the flinty Choseville pavement, +for I can assure the reader there was neither dead silence nor calm discussion +within the vehicle. Half in earnest, half in seeming, I made it my business to +storm down Ginevra. She had set out rampant from the Rue Crécy; it was +necessary to tame her before we reached the Rue Fossette: to this end it was +indispensable to show up her sterling value and high deserts; and this must be +done in language of which the fidelity and homeliness might challenge +comparison with the compliments of a John Knox to a Mary Stuart. This was the +right discipline for Ginevra; it suited her. I am quite sure she went to bed +that night all the better and more settled in mind and mood, and slept all the +more sweetly for having undergone a sound moral drubbing. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap28"></a>CHAPTER XXVIII.<br/> +THE WATCHGUARD.</h2> + +<p> +M. Paul Emanuel owned an acute sensitiveness to the annoyance of interruption, +from whatsoever cause occurring, during his lessons: to pass through the classe +under such circumstances was considered by the teachers and pupils of the +school, individually and collectively, to be as much as a woman’s or girl’s +life was worth. +</p> + +<p> +Madame Beck herself, if forced to the enterprise, would “skurry” through, +retrenching her skirts, and carefully coasting the formidable estrade, like a +ship dreading breakers. As to Rosine, the portress—on whom, every half-hour, +devolved the fearful duty of fetching pupils out of the very heart of one or +other of the divisions to take their music-lessons in the oratory, the great or +little saloon, the salle-à-manger, or some other piano-station—she would, upon +her second or third attempt, frequently become almost tongue-tied from excess +of consternation—a sentiment inspired by the unspeakable looks levelled at her +through a pair of dart-dealing spectacles. +</p> + +<p> +One morning I was sitting in the carré, at work upon a piece of embroidery +which one of the pupils had commenced but delayed to finish, and while my +fingers wrought at the frame, my ears regaled themselves with listening to the +crescendos and cadences of a voice haranguing in the neighbouring classe, in +tones that waxed momentarily more unquiet, more ominously varied. There was a +good strong partition-wall between me and the gathering storm, as well as a +facile means of flight through the glass-door to the court, in case it swept +this way; so I am afraid I derived more amusement than alarm from these +thickening symptoms. Poor Rosine was not safe: four times that blessed morning +had she made the passage of peril; and now, for the fifth time, it became her +dangerous duty to snatch, as it were, a brand from the burning—a pupil from +under M. Paul’s nose. +</p> + +<p> +“Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu!” cried she. “Que vais-je devenir? Monsieur va me tuer, je +suis sûre; car il est d’une colère!” +</p> + +<p> +Nerved by the courage of desperation, she opened the door. +</p> + +<p> +“Mademoiselle La Malle au piano!” was her cry. +</p> + +<p> +Ere she could make good her retreat, or quite close the door, this voice +uttered itself:— +</p> + +<p> +“Dès ce moment!—la classe est défendue. La première qui ouvrira cette porte, ou +passera par cette division, sera pendue—fut-ce Madame Beck elle-même!” +</p> + +<p> +Ten minutes had not succeeded the promulgation of this decree when Rosine’s +French pantoufles were again heard shuffling along the corridor. +</p> + +<p> +“Mademoiselle,” said she, “I would not for a five-franc piece go into that +classe again just now: Monsieur’s lunettes are really terrible; and here is a +commissionaire come with a message from the Athénée. I have told Madame Beck I +dare not deliver it, and she says I am to charge you with it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Me? No, that is rather too bad! It is not in my line of duty. Come, come, +Rosine! bear your own burden. Be brave—charge once more!” +</p> + +<p> +“I, Mademoiselle?—impossible! Five times I have crossed him this day. Madame +must really hire a gendarme for this service. Ouf! Je n’en puis plus!” +</p> + +<p> +“Bah! you are only a coward. What is the message?” +</p> + +<p> +“Precisely of the kind with which Monsieur least likes to be pestered: an +urgent summons to go directly to the Athénée, as there is an official +visitor—inspector—I know not what—arrived, and Monsieur <i>must</i> meet him: +you know how he hates a <i>must</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +Yes, I knew well enough. The restive little man detested spur or curb: against +whatever was urgent or obligatory, he was sure to revolt. However, I accepted +the responsibility—not, certainly, without fear, but fear blent with other +sentiments, curiosity, amongst them. I opened the door, I entered, I closed it +behind me as quickly and quietly as a rather unsteady hand would permit; for to +be slow or bustling, to rattle a latch, or leave a door gaping wide, were +aggravations of crime often more disastrous in result than the main crime +itself. There I stood then, and there he sat; his humour was visibly bad—almost +at its worst; he had been giving a lesson in arithmetic—for he gave lessons on +any and every subject that struck his fancy—and arithmetic being a dry subject, +invariably disagreed with him: not a pupil but trembled when he spoke of +figures. He sat, bent above his desk: to look up at the sound of an entrance, +at the occurrence of a direct breach of his will and law, was an effort he +could not for the moment bring himself to make. It was quite as well: I thus +gained time to walk up the long classe; and it suited my idiosyncracy far +better to encounter the near burst of anger like his, than to bear its menace +at a distance. +</p> + +<p> +At his estrade I paused, just in front; of course I was not worthy of immediate +attention: he proceeded with his lesson. Disdain would not do: he must hear and +he must answer my message. +</p> + +<p> +Not being quite tall enough to lift my head over his desk, elevated upon the +estrade, and thus suffering eclipse in my present position, I ventured to peep +round, with the design, at first, of merely getting a better view of his face, +which had struck me when I entered as bearing a close and picturesque +resemblance to that of a black and sallow tiger. Twice did I enjoy this +side-view with impunity, advancing and receding unseen; the third time my eye +had scarce dawned beyond the obscuration of the desk, when it was caught and +transfixed through its very pupil—transfixed by the “lunettes.” Rosine was +right; these utensils had in them a blank and immutable terror, beyond the +mobile wrath of the wearer’s own unglazed eyes. +</p> + +<p> +I now found the advantage of proximity: these short-sighted “lunettes” were +useless for the inspection of a criminal under Monsieur’s nose; accordingly, he +doffed them, and he and I stood on more equal terms. +</p> + +<p> +I am glad I was not really much afraid of him—that, indeed, close in his +presence, I felt no terror at all; for upon his demanding cord and gibbet to +execute the sentence recently pronounced, I was able to furnish him with a +needleful of embroidering thread with such accommodating civility as could not +but allay some portion at least of his surplus irritation. Of course I did not +parade this courtesy before public view: I merely handed the thread round the +angle of the desk, and attached it, ready noosed, to the barred back of the +Professor’s chair. +</p> + +<p> +“Que me voulez-vous?” said he in a growl of which the music was wholly confined +to his chest and throat, for he kept his teeth clenched; and seemed registering +to himself an inward vow that nothing earthly should wring from him a smile. +</p> + +<p> +My answer commenced uncompromisingly: “Monsieur,” I said, “je veux +l’impossible, des choses inouïes;” and thinking it best not to mince matters, +but to administer the “douche” with decision, in a low but quick voice, I +delivered the Athenian message, floridly exaggerating its urgency. +</p> + +<p> +Of course, he would not hear a word of it. “He would not go; he would not leave +his present class, let all the officials of Villette send for him. He would not +put himself an inch out of his way at the bidding of king, cabinet, and +chambers together.” +</p> + +<p> +I knew, however, that he <i>must</i> go; that, talk as he would, both his duty +and interest commanded an immediate and literal compliance with the summons: I +stood, therefore, waiting in silence, as if he had not yet spoken. He asked +what more I wanted. +</p> + +<p> +“Only Monsieur’s answer to deliver to the commissionaire.” +</p> + +<p> +He waved an impatient negative. +</p> + +<p> +I ventured to stretch my hand to the bonnet-grec which lay in grim repose on +the window-sill. He followed this daring movement with his eye, no doubt in +mixed pity and amazement at its presumption. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah!” he muttered, “if it came to that—if Miss Lucy meddled with his +bonnet-grec—she might just put it on herself, turn garçon for the occasion, and +benevolently go to the Athénée in his stead.” +</p> + +<p> +With great respect, I laid the bonnet on the desk, where its tassel seemed to +give me an awful nod. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll write a note of apology—that will do!” said he, still bent on evasion. +</p> + +<p> +Knowing well it would <i>not</i> do, I gently pushed the bonnet towards his +hand. Thus impelled, it slid down the polished slope of the varnished and +unbaized desk, carried before it the light steel-framed “lunettes,” and, +fearful to relate, they fell to the estrade. A score of times ere now had I +seen them fall and receive no damage—<i>this</i> time, as Lucy Snowe’s hapless +luck would have it, they so fell that each clear pebble became a shivered and +shapeless star. +</p> + +<p> +Now, indeed, dismay seized me—dismay and regret. I knew the value of these +“lunettes”: M. Paul’s sight was peculiar, not easily fitted, and these glasses +suited him. I had heard him call them his treasures: as I picked them up, +cracked and worthless, my hand trembled. Frightened through all my nerves I was +to see the mischief I had done, but I think I was even more sorry than afraid. +For some seconds I dared not look the bereaved Professor in the face; he was +the first to speak. +</p> + +<p> +“Là!” said he: “me voilà veuf de mes lunettes! I think Mademoiselle Lucy will +now confess that the cord and gallows are amply earned; she trembles in +anticipation of her doom. Ah, traitress! traitress! You are resolved to have me +quite blind and helpless in your hands!” +</p> + +<p> +I lifted my eyes: his face, instead of being irate, lowering, and furrowed, was +overflowing with the smile, coloured with the bloom I had seen brightening it +that evening at the Hotel Crécy. He was not angry—not even grieved. For the +real injury he showed himself full of clemency; under the real provocation, +patient as a saint. This event, which seemed so untoward—which I thought had +ruined at once my chance of successful persuasion—proved my best help. +Difficult of management so long as I had done him no harm, he became graciously +pliant as soon as I stood in his presence a conscious and contrite offender. +</p> + +<p> +Still gently railing at me as “une forte femme—une Anglaise terrible—une petite +casse-tout”—he declared that he dared not but obey one who had given such an +instance of her dangerous prowess; it was absolutely like the “grand Empereur +smashing the vase to inspire dismay.” So, at last, crowning himself with his +bonnet-grec, and taking his ruined “lunettes” from my hand with a clasp of kind +pardon and encouragement, he made his bow, and went off to the Athénée in +first-rate humour and spirits. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +After all this amiability, the reader will be sorry for my sake to hear that I +was quarrelling with M. Paul again before night; yet so it was, and I could not +help it. +</p> + +<p> +It was his occasional custom—and a very laudable, acceptable custom, too—to +arrive of an evening, always à l’improviste, unannounced, burst in on the +silent hour of study, establish a sudden despotism over us and our occupations, +cause books to be put away, work-bags to be brought out, and, drawing forth a +single thick volume, or a handful of pamphlets, substitute for the besotted +“lecture pieuse,” drawled by a sleepy pupil, some tragedy made grand by grand +reading, ardent by fiery action—some drama, whereof, for my part, I rarely +studied the intrinsic merit; for M. Emanuel made it a vessel for an outpouring, +and filled it with his native verve and passion like a cup with a vital +brewage. Or else he would flash through our conventual darkness a reflex of a +brighter world, show us a glimpse of the current literature of the day, read us +passages from some enchanting tale, or the last witty feuilleton which had +awakened laughter in the saloons of Paris; taking care always to expunge, with +the severest hand, whether from tragedy, melodrama, tale, or essay, whatever +passage, phrase, or word, could be deemed unsuited to an audience of “jeunes +filles.” I noticed more than once, that where retrenchment without substitute +would have left unmeaning vacancy, or introduced weakness, he could, and did, +improvise whole paragraphs, no less vigorous than irreproachable; the +dialogue—the description—he engrafted was often far better than that he pruned +away. +</p> + +<p> +Well, on the evening in question, we were sitting silent as nuns in a +“retreat,” the pupils studying, the teachers working. I remember my work; it +was a slight matter of fancy, and it rather interested me; it had a purpose; I +was not doing it merely to kill time; I meant it when finished as a gift; and +the occasion of presentation being near, haste was requisite, and my fingers +were busy. +</p> + +<p> +We heard the sharp bell-peal which we all knew; then the rapid step familiar to +each ear: the words “Voilà Monsieur!” had scarcely broken simultaneously from +every lip, when the two-leaved door split (as split it always did for his +admission—such a slow word as “open” is inefficient to describe his movements), +and he stood in the midst of us. +</p> + +<p> +There were two study tables, both long and flanked with benches; over the +centre of each hung a lamp; beneath this lamp, on either side the table, sat a +teacher; the girls were arranged to the right hand and the left; the eldest and +most studious nearest the lamps or tropics; the idlers and little ones towards +the north and south poles. Monsieur’s habit was politely to hand a chair to +some teacher, generally Zélie St. Pierre, the senior mistress; then to take her +vacated seat; and thus avail himself of the full beam of Cancer or Capricorn, +which, owing to his near sight, he needed. +</p> + +<p> +As usual, Zélie rose with alacrity, smiling to the whole extent of her mouth, +and the full display of her upper and under rows of teeth—that strange smile +which passes from ear to ear, and is marked only by a sharp thin curve, which +fails to spread over the countenance, and neither dimples the cheek nor lights +the eye. I suppose Monsieur did not see her, or he had taken a whim that he +would not notice her, for he was as capricious as women are said to be; then +his “lunettes” (he had got another pair) served him as an excuse for all sorts +of little oversights and shortcomings. Whatever might be his reason, he passed +by Zélie, came to the other side of the table, and before I could start up to +clear the way, whispered, “Ne bougez pas,” and established himself between me +and Miss Fanshawe, who always would be my neighbour, and have her elbow in my +side, however often I declared to her, “Ginevra, I wish you were at Jericho.” +</p> + +<p> +It was easy to say, “Ne bougez pas;” but how could I help it? I must make him +room, and I must request the pupils to recede that <i>I</i> might recede. It +was very well for Ginevra to be gummed to me, “keeping herself warm,” as she +said, on the winter evenings, and harassing my very heart with her fidgetings +and pokings, obliging me, indeed, sometimes to put an artful pin in my girdle +by way of protection against her elbow; but I suppose M. Emanuel was not to be +subjected to the same kind of treatment, so I swept away my working materials, +to clear space for his book, and withdrew myself to make room for his person; +not, however, leaving more than a yard of interval, just what any reasonable +man would have regarded as a convenient, respectful allowance of bench. But M. +Emanuel never <i>was</i> reasonable; flint and tinder that he was! he struck +and took fire directly. +</p> + +<p> +“Vous ne voulez pas de moi pour voisin,” he growled: “vous vous donnez des airs +de caste; vous me traitez en paria;” he scowled. “Soit! je vais arranger la +chose!” And he set to work. +</p> + +<p> +“Levez vous toutes, Mesdemoiselles!” cried he. +</p> + +<p> +The girls rose. He made them all file off to the other table. He then placed me +at one extremity of the long bench, and having duly and carefully brought me my +work-basket, silk, scissors, all my implements, he fixed himself quite at the +other end. +</p> + +<p> +At this arrangement, highly absurd as it was, not a soul in the room dared to +laugh; luckless for the giggler would have been the giggle. As for me, I took +it with entire coolness. There I sat, isolated and cut off from human +intercourse; I sat and minded my work, and was quiet, and not at all unhappy. +</p> + +<p> +“Est ce assez de distance?” he demanded. +</p> + +<p> +“Monsieur en est l’arbitre,” said I. +</p> + +<p> +“Vous savez bien que non. C’est vous qui avez crée ce vide immense: moi je n’y +ai pas mis la main.” +</p> + +<p> +And with this assertion he commenced the reading. +</p> + +<p> +For his misfortune he had chosen a French translation of what he called “un +drame de Williams Shackspire; le faux dieu,” he further announced, “de ces sots +païens, les Anglais.” How far otherwise he would have characterized him had his +temper not been upset, I scarcely need intimate. +</p> + +<p> +Of course, the translation being French, was very inefficient; nor did I make +any particular effort to conceal the contempt which some of its forlorn lapses +were calculated to excite. Not that it behoved or beseemed me to say anything: +but one can occasionally <i>look</i> the opinion it is forbidden to embody in +words. Monsieur’s lunettes being on the alert, he gleaned up every stray look; +I don’t think he lost one: the consequence was, his eyes soon discarded a +screen, that their blaze might sparkle free, and he waxed hotter at the north +pole to which he had voluntarily exiled himself, than, considering the general +temperature of the room, it would have been reasonable to become under the +vertical ray of Cancer itself. +</p> + +<p> +The reading over, it appeared problematic whether he would depart with his +anger unexpressed, or whether he would give it vent. Suppression was not much +in his habits; but still, what had been done to him definite enough to afford +matter for overt reproof? I had not uttered a sound, and could not justly be +deemed amenable to reprimand or penalty for having permitted a slightly freer +action than usual to the muscles about my eyes and mouth. +</p> + +<p> +The supper, consisting of bread, and milk diluted with tepid water, was brought +in. In respectful consideration of the Professor’s presence, the rolls and +glasses were allowed to stand instead of being immediately handed round. +</p> + +<p> +“Take your supper, ladies,” said he, seeming to be occupied in making marginal +notes to his “Williams Shackspire.” They took it. I also accepted a roll and +glass, but being now more than ever interested in my work, I kept my seat of +punishment, and wrought while I munched my bread and sipped my beverage, the +whole with easy <i>sang-froid</i>; with a certain snugness of composure, +indeed, scarcely in my habits, and pleasantly novel to my feelings. It seemed +as if the presence of a nature so restless, chafing, thorny as that of M. Paul +absorbed all feverish and unsettling influences like a magnet, and left me none +but such as were placid and harmonious. +</p> + +<p> +He rose. “Will he go away without saying another word?” Yes; he turned to the +door. +</p> + +<p> +No: he <i>re</i>-turned on his steps; but only, perhaps, to take his +pencil-case, which had been left on the table. +</p> + +<p> +He took it—shut the pencil in and out, broke its point against the wood, re-cut +and pocketed it, and . . . walked promptly up to me. +</p> + +<p> +The girls and teachers, gathered round the other table, were talking pretty +freely: they always talked at meals; and, from the constant habit of speaking +fast and loud at such times, did not now subdue their voices much. +</p> + +<p> +M. Paul came and stood behind me. He asked at what I was working; and I said I +was making a watchguard. +</p> + +<p> +He asked, “For whom?” And I answered, “For a gentleman—one of my friends.” +</p> + +<p> +M. Paul stooped down and proceeded—as novel-writers say, and, as was literally +true in his case—to “hiss” into my ear some poignant words. +</p> + +<p> +He said that, of all the women he knew, I was the one who could make herself +the most consummately unpleasant: I was she with whom it was least possible to +live on friendly terms. I had a “caractère intraitable,” and perverse to a +miracle. How I managed it, or what possessed me, he, for his part, did not +know; but with whatever pacific and amicable intentions a person accosted +me—crac! I turned concord to discord, good-will to enmity. He was sure, he—M. +Paul—wished me well enough; he had never done me any harm that he knew of; he +might, at least, he supposed, claim a right to be regarded as a neutral +acquaintance, guiltless of hostile sentiments: yet, how I behaved to him! With +what pungent vivacities—what an impetus of mutiny—what a “fougue” of injustice! +</p> + +<p> +Here I could not avoid opening my eyes somewhat wide, and even slipping in a +slight interjectional observation: “Vivacities? Impetus? Fougue? I didn’t +know….” +</p> + +<p> +“Chut! à l’instant! There! there I went—vive comme la poudre!” He was sorry—he +was very sorry: for my sake he grieved over the hapless peculiarity. This +“emportement,” this “chaleur”—generous, perhaps, but excessive—would yet, he +feared, do me a mischief. It was a pity: I was not—he believed, in his +soul—wholly without good qualities: and would I but hear reason, and be more +sedate, more sober, less “en l’air,” less “coquette,” less taken by show, less +prone to set an undue value on outside excellence—to make much of the +attentions of people remarkable chiefly for so many feet of stature, “des +couleurs de poupée,” “un nez plus ou moins bien fait,” and an enormous amount +of fatuity—I might yet prove an useful, perhaps an exemplary character. But, as +it was—And here, the little man’s voice was for a minute choked. +</p> + +<p> +I would have looked up at him, or held out my hand, or said a soothing word; +but I was afraid, if I stirred, I should either laugh or cry; so odd, in all +this, was the mixture of the touching and the absurd. +</p> + +<p> +I thought he had nearly done: but no; he sat down that he might go on at his +ease. +</p> + +<p> +“While he, M. Paul, was on these painful topics, he would dare my anger for the +sake of my good, and would venture to refer to a change he had noticed in my +dress. He was free to confess that when he first knew me—or, rather, was in the +habit of catching a passing glimpse of me from time to time—I satisfied him on +this point: the gravity, the austere simplicity, obvious in this particular, +were such as to inspire the highest hopes for my best interests. What fatal +influence had impelled me lately to introduce flowers under the brim of my +bonnet, to wear ‘des cols brodés,’ and even to appear on one occasion in a +<i>scarlet gown</i>—he might indeed conjecture, but, for the present, would not +openly declare.” +</p> + +<p> +Again I interrupted, and this time not without an accent at once indignant and +horror-struck. +</p> + +<p> +“Scarlet, Monsieur Paul? It was not scarlet! It was pink, and pale pink too, +and further subdued by black lace.” +</p> + +<p> +“Pink or scarlet, yellow or crimson, pea-green or sky-blue, it was all one: +these were all flaunting, giddy colours; and as to the lace I talked of, +<i>that</i> was but a ‘colifichet de plus.’” And he sighed over my degeneracy. +“He could not, he was sorry to say, be so particular on this theme as he could +wish: not possessing the exact names of these ‘babioles,’ he might run into +small verbal errors which would not fail to lay him open to my sarcasm, and +excite my unhappily sudden and passionate disposition. He would merely say, in +general terms—and in these general terms he knew he was correct—that my costume +had of late assumed ‘des façons mondaines,’ which it wounded him to see.” +</p> + +<p> +What “façons mondaines” he discovered in my present winter merino and plain +white collar, I own it puzzled me to guess: and when I asked him, he said it +was all made with too much attention to effect—and besides, “had I not a bow of +ribbon at my neck?” +</p> + +<p> +“And if you condemn a bow of ribbon for a lady, Monsieur, you would necessarily +disapprove of a thing like this for a gentleman?”—holding up my bright little +chainlet of silk and gold. His sole reply was a groan—I suppose over my levity. +</p> + +<p> +After sitting some minutes in silence, and watching the progress of the chain, +at which I now wrought more assiduously than ever, he inquired: “Whether what +he had just said would have the effect of making me entirely detest him?” +</p> + +<p> +I hardly remember what answer I made, or how it came about; I don’t think I +spoke at all, but I know we managed to bid good-night on friendly terms: and, +even after M. Paul had reached the door, he turned back just to explain, “that +he would not be understood to speak in entire condemnation of the scarlet +dress” (“Pink! pink!” I threw in); “that he had no intention to deny it the +merit of <i>looking</i> rather well” (the fact was, M. Emanuel’s taste in +colours decidedly leaned to the brilliant); “only he wished to counsel me, +whenever I wore it, to do so in the same spirit as if its material were +‘bure,’ and its hue ‘gris de poussière.’” +</p> + +<p> +“And the flowers under my bonnet, Monsieur?” I asked. “They are very little +ones—?” +</p> + +<p> +“Keep them little, then,” said he. “Permit them not to become full-blown.” +</p> + +<p> +“And the bow, Monsieur—the bit of ribbon?” +</p> + +<p> +“Va pour le ruban!” was the propitious answer. +</p> + +<p> +And so we settled it. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +“Well done, Lucy Snowe!” cried I to myself; “you have come in for a pretty +lecture—brought on yourself a ‘rude savant,’ and all through your wicked +fondness for worldly vanities! Who would have thought it? You deemed yourself a +melancholy sober-sides enough! Miss Fanshawe there regards you as a second +Diogenes. M. de Bassompierre, the other day, politely turned the conversation +when it ran on the wild gifts of the actress Vashti, because, as he kindly +said, ‘Miss Snowe looked uncomfortable.’ Dr. John Bretton knows you only as +‘quiet Lucy’—‘a creature inoffensive as a shadow;’ he has said, and you have +heard him say it: ‘Lucy’s disadvantages spring from over-gravity in tastes and +manner—want of colour in character and costume.’ Such are your own and your +friends’ impressions; and behold! there starts up a little man, differing +diametrically from all these, roundly charging you with being too airy and +cheery—too volatile and versatile—too flowery and coloury. This harsh little +man—this pitiless censor—gathers up all your poor scattered sins of vanity, +your luckless chiffon of rose-colour, your small fringe of a wreath, your small +scrap of ribbon, your silly bit of lace, and calls you to account for the lot, +and for each item. You are well habituated to be passed by as a shadow in +Life’s sunshine: it is a new thing to see one testily lifting his hand to +screen his eyes, because you tease him with an obtrusive ray.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap29"></a>CHAPTER XXIX.<br/> +MONSIEUR’S FÊTE.</h2> + +<p> +I was up the next morning an hour before daybreak, and finished my guard, +kneeling on the dormitory floor beside the centre stand, for the benefit of +such expiring glimmer as the night-lamp afforded in its last watch. +</p> + +<p> +All my materials—my whole stock of beads and silk—were used up before the chain +assumed the length and richness I wished; I had wrought it double, as I knew, +by the rule of contraries, that to, suit the particular taste whose +gratification was in view, an effective appearance was quite indispensable. As +a finish to the ornament, a little gold clasp was needed; fortunately I +possessed it in the fastening of my sole necklace; I duly detached and +re-attached it, then coiled compactly the completed guard; and enclosed it in a +small box I had bought for its brilliancy, made of some tropic shell of the +colour called “nacarat,” and decked with a little coronal of sparkling blue +stones. Within the lid of the box, I carefully graved with my scissors’ point +certain initials. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +The reader will, perhaps, remember the description of Madame Beck’s fête; nor +will he have forgotten that at each anniversary, a handsome present was +subscribed for and offered by the school. The observance of this day was a +distinction accorded to none but Madame, and, in a modified form, to her +kinsman and counsellor, M. Emanuel. In the latter case it was an honour +spontaneously awarded, not plotted and contrived beforehand, and offered an +additional proof, amongst many others, of the estimation in which—despite his +partialities, prejudices, and irritabilities—the professor of literature was +held by his pupils. No article of value was offered to him: he distinctly gave +it to be understood, that he would accept neither plate nor jewellery. Yet he +liked a slight tribute; the cost, the money-value, did not touch him: a diamond +ring, a gold snuff-box, presented, with pomp, would have pleased him less than +a flower, or a drawing, offered simply and with sincere feelings. Such was his +nature. He was a man, not wise in his generation, yet could he claim a filial +sympathy with “the dayspring on high.” +</p> + +<p> +M. Paul’s fête fell on the first of March and a Thursday. It proved a fine +sunny day; and being likewise the morning on which it was customary to attend +mass; being also otherwise distinguished by the half-holiday which permitted +the privilege of walking out, shopping, or paying visits in the afternoon: +these combined considerations induced a general smartness and freshness of +dress. Clean collars were in vogue; the ordinary dingy woollen classe-dress was +exchanged for something lighter and clearer. Mademoiselle Zélie St. Pierre, on +this particular Thursday, even assumed a “robe de soie,” deemed in economical +Labassecour an article of hazardous splendour and luxury; nay, it was remarked +that she sent for a “coiffeur” to dress her hair that morning; there were +pupils acute enough to discover that she had bedewed her handkerchief and her +hands with a new and fashionable perfume. Poor Zélie! It was much her wont to +declare about this time, that she was tired to death of a life of seclusion and +labour; that she longed to have the means and leisure for relaxation; to have +some one to work for her—a husband who would pay her debts (she was woefully +encumbered with debt), supply her wardrobe, and leave her at liberty, as she +said, to “goûter un peu les plaisirs.” It had long been rumoured, that her eye +was upon M. Emanuel. Monsieur Emanuel’s eye was certainly often upon her. He +would sit and watch her perseveringly for minutes together. I have seen him +give her a quarter-of-an-hour’s gaze, while the class was silently composing, +and he sat throned on his estrade, unoccupied. Conscious always of this +basilisk attention, she would writhe under it, half-flattered, half-puzzled, +and Monsieur would follow her sensations, sometimes looking appallingly acute; +for in some cases, he had the terrible unerring penetration of instinct, and +pierced in its hiding-place the last lurking thought of the heart, and +discerned under florid veilings the bare; barren places of the spirit: yes, and +its perverted tendencies, and its hidden false curves—all that men and women +would not have known—the twisted spine, the malformed limb that was born with +them, and far worse, the stain or disfigurement they have perhaps brought on +themselves. No calamity so accursed but M. Emanuel could pity and forgive, if +it were acknowledged candidly; but where his questioning eyes met dishonest +denial—where his ruthless researches found deceitful concealment—oh, then, he +could be cruel, and I thought wicked! he would exultantly snatch the screen +from poor shrinking wretches, passionately hurry them to the summit of the +mount of exposure, and there show them all naked, all false—poor living +lies—the spawn of that horrid Truth which cannot be looked on unveiled. He +thought he did justice; for my part I doubt whether man has a right to do such +justice on man: more than once in these his visitations, I have felt compelled +to give tears to his victims, and not spared ire and keen reproach to himself. +He deserved it; but it was difficult to shake him in his firm conviction that +the work was righteous and needed. +</p> + +<p> +Breakfast being over and mass attended, the school-bell rang and the rooms +filled: a very pretty spectacle was presented in classe. Pupils and teachers +sat neatly arrayed, orderly and expectant, each bearing in her hand the bouquet +of felicitation—the prettiest spring-flowers all fresh, and filling the air +with their fragrance: I only had no bouquet. I like to see flowers growing, but +when they are gathered, they cease to please. I look on them as things rootless +and perishable; their likeness to life makes me sad. I never offer flowers to +those I love; I never wish to receive them from hands dear to me. Mademoiselle +St. Pierre marked my empty hands—she could not believe I had been so remiss; +with avidity her eye roved over and round me: surely I must have some solitary +symbolic flower somewhere: some small knot of violets, something to win myself +praise for taste, commendation for ingenuity. The unimaginative “Anglaise” +proved better than the Parisienne’s fears: she sat literally unprovided, as +bare of bloom or leaf as the winter tree. This ascertained, Zélie smiled, well +pleased. +</p> + +<p> +“How wisely you have acted to keep your money, Miss Lucie,” she said: “silly I +have gone and thrown away two francs on a bouquet of hot-house flowers!” +</p> + +<p> +And she showed with pride her splendid nosegay. +</p> + +<p> +But hush! a step: <i>the</i> step. It came prompt, as usual, but with a +promptitude, we felt disposed to flatter ourselves, inspired by other feelings +than mere excitability of nerve and vehemence of intent. We thought our +Professor’s “foot-fall” (to speak romantically) had in it a friendly promise +this morning; and so it had. +</p> + +<p> +He entered in a mood which made him as good as a new sunbeam to the already +well-lit first classe. The morning light playing amongst our plants and +laughing on our walls, caught an added lustre from M. Paul’s all-benignant +salute. Like a true Frenchman (though I don’t know why I should say so, for he +was of strain neither French nor Labassecourien), he had dressed for the +“situation” and the occasion. Not by the vague folds, sinister and +conspirator-like, of his soot-dark paletôt were the outlines of his person +obscured; on the contrary, his figure (such as it was, I don’t boast of it) was +well set off by a civilized coat and a silken vest quite pretty to behold. The +defiant and pagan bonnet-grec had vanished: bare-headed, he came upon us, +carrying a Christian hat in his gloved hand. The little man looked well, very +well; there was a clearness of amity in his blue eye, and a glow of good +feeling on his dark complexion, which passed perfectly in the place of beauty: +one really did not care to observe that his nose, though far from small, was of +no particular shape, his cheek thin, his brow marked and square, his mouth no +rose-bud: one accepted him as he was, and felt his presence the reverse of +damping or insignificant. +</p> + +<p> +He passed to his desk; he placed on the same his hat and gloves. “Bon jour, mes +amies,” said he, in a tone that somehow made amends to some amongst us for many +a sharp snap and savage snarl: not a jocund, good-fellow tone, still less an +unctuous priestly, accent, but a voice he had belonging to himself—a voice used +when his heart passed the words to his lips. That same heart did speak +sometimes; though an irritable, it was not an ossified organ: in its core was a +place, tender beyond a man’s tenderness; a place that humbled him to little +children, that bound him to girls and women to whom, rebel as he would, he +could not disown his affinity, nor quite deny that, on the whole, he was better +with them than with his own sex. +</p> + +<p> +“We all wish Monsieur a good day, and present to him our congratulations on the +anniversary of his fête,” said Mademoiselle Zélie, constituting herself +spokeswoman of the assembly; and advancing with no more twists of affectation +than were with her indispensable to the achievement of motion, she laid her +costly bouquet before him. He bowed over it. +</p> + +<p> +The long train of offerings followed: all the pupils, sweeping past with the +gliding step foreigners practise, left their tributes as they went by. Each +girl so dexterously adjusted her separate gift, that when the last bouquet was +laid on the desk, it formed the apex to a blooming pyramid—a pyramid blooming, +spreading, and towering with such exuberance as, in the end, to eclipse the +hero behind it. This ceremony over, seats were resumed, and we sat in dead +silence, expectant of a speech. +</p> + +<p> +I suppose five minutes might have elapsed, and the hush remained unbroken; +ten—and there was no sound. +</p> + +<p> +Many present began, doubtless, to wonder for what Monsieur waited; as well they +might. Voiceless and viewless, stirless and wordless, he kept his station +behind the pile of flowers. +</p> + +<p> +At last there issued forth a voice, rather deep, as if it spoke out of a +hollow:— +</p> + +<p> +“Est-ce là tout?” +</p> + +<p> +Mademoiselle Zélie looked round. +</p> + +<p> +“You have all presented your bouquets?” inquired she of the pupils. +</p> + +<p> +Yes; they had all given their nosegays, from the eldest to the youngest, from +the tallest to the most diminutive. The senior mistress signified as much. +</p> + +<p> +“Est-ce là tout?” was reiterated in an intonation which, deep before, had now +descended some notes lower. +</p> + +<p> +“Monsieur,” said Mademoiselle St. Pierre, rising, and this time speaking with +her own sweet smile, “I have the honour to tell you that, with a single +exception, every person in classe has offered her bouquet. For Meess Lucie, +Monsieur will kindly make allowance; as a foreigner she probably did not know +our customs, or did not appreciate their significance. Meess Lucie has regarded +this ceremony as too frivolous to be honoured by her observance.” +</p> + +<p> +“Famous!” I muttered between my teeth: “you are no bad speaker, Zélie, when you +begin.” +</p> + +<p> +The answer vouchsafed to Mademoiselle St Pierre from the estrade was given in +the gesticulation of a hand from behind the pyramid. This manual action seemed +to deprecate words, to enjoin silence. +</p> + +<p> +A form, ere long, followed the hand. Monsieur emerged from his eclipse; and +producing himself on the front of his estrade, and gazing straight and fixedly +before him at a vast “mappe-monde” covering the wall opposite, he demanded a +third time, and now in really tragic tones— +</p> + +<p> +“Est-ce là tout?” +</p> + +<p> +I might yet have made all right, by stepping forwards and slipping into his +hand the ruddy little shell-box I at that moment held tight in my own. It was +what I had fully purposed to do; but, first, the comic side of Monsieur’s +behaviour had tempted me to delay, and now, Mademoiselle St. Pierre’s affected +interference provoked contumacity. The reader not having hitherto had any cause +to ascribe to Miss Snowe’s character the most distant pretensions to +perfection, will be scarcely surprised to learn that she felt too perverse to +defend herself from any imputation the Parisienne might choose to insinuate and +besides, M. Paul was so tragic, and took my defection so seriously, he deserved +to be vexed. I kept, then, both my box and my countenance, and sat insensate as +any stone. +</p> + +<p> +“It is well!” dropped at length from the lips of M. Paul; and having uttered +this phrase, the shadow of some great paroxysm—the swell of wrath, scorn, +resolve—passed over his brow, rippled his lips, and lined his cheeks. Gulping +down all further comment, he launched into his customary “discours.” +</p> + +<p> +I can’t at all remember what this “discours” was; I did not listen to it: the +gulping-down process, the abrupt dismissal of his mortification or vexation, +had given me a sensation which half-counteracted the ludicrous effect of the +reiterated “Est-ce là tout?” +</p> + +<p> +Towards the close of the speech there came a pleasing diversion my attention +was again amusingly arrested. +</p> + +<p> +Owing to some little accidental movement—I think I dropped my thimble on the +floor, and in stooping to regain it, hit the crown of my head against the sharp +corner of my desk; which casualties (exasperating to me, by rights, if to +anybody) naturally made a slight bustle—M. Paul became irritated, and +dismissing his forced equanimity, and casting to the winds that dignity and +self-control with which he never cared long to encumber himself, he broke forth +into the strain best calculated to give him ease. +</p> + +<p> +I don’t know how, in the progress of his “discours”, he had contrived to cross +the Channel and land on British ground; but there I found him when I began to +listen. +</p> + +<p> +Casting a quick, cynical glance round the room—a glance which scathed, or was +intended to scathe, as it crossed me—he fell with fury upon “les Anglaises.” +</p> + +<p> +Never have I heard English women handled as M. Paul that morning handled them: +he spared nothing—neither their minds, morals, manners, nor personal +appearance. I specially remember his abuse of their tall stature, their long +necks, their thin arms, their slovenly dress, their pedantic education, their +impious scepticism(!), their insufferable pride, their pretentious virtue: over +which he ground his teeth malignantly, and looked as if, had he dared, he would +have said singular things. Oh! he was spiteful, acrid, savage; and, as a +natural consequence, detestably ugly. +</p> + +<p> +“Little wicked venomous man!” thought I; “am I going to harass myself with +fears of displeasing you, or hurting your feelings? No, indeed; you shall be +indifferent to me, as the shabbiest bouquet in your pyramid.” +</p> + +<p> +I grieve to say I could not quite carry out this resolution. For some time the +abuse of England and the English found and left me stolid: I bore it some +fifteen minutes stoically enough; but this hissing cockatrice was determined to +sting, and he said such things at last—fastening not only upon our women, but +upon our greatest names and best men; sullying, the shield of Britannia, and +dabbling the union jack in mud—that I was stung. With vicious relish he brought +up the most spicy current continental historical falsehoods—than which nothing +can be conceived more offensive. Zélie, and the whole class, became one grin of +vindictive delight; for it is curious to discover how these clowns of +Labassecour secretly hate England. At last, I struck a sharp stroke on my desk, +opened my lips, and let loose this cry:— +</p> + +<p> +“Vive l’Angleterre, l’Histoire et les Héros! A bas la France, la Fiction et les +Faquins!” +</p> + +<p> +The class was struck of a heap. I suppose they thought me mad. The Professor +put up his handkerchief, and fiendishly smiled into its folds. Little monster +of malice! He now thought he had got the victory, since he had made me angry. +In a second he became good-humoured. With great blandness he resumed the +subject of his flowers; talked poetically and symbolically of their sweetness, +perfume, purity, etcetera; made Frenchified comparisons between the “jeunes +filles” and the sweet blossoms before him; paid Mademoiselle St. Pierre a very +full-blown compliment on the superiority of her bouquet; and ended by +announcing that the first really fine, mild, and balmy morning in spring, he +intended to take the whole class out to breakfast in the country. “Such of the +class, at least,” he added, with emphasis, “as he could count amongst the +number of his friends.” +</p> + +<p> +“Donc je n’y serai pas,” declared I, involuntarily. +</p> + +<p> +“Soit!” was his response; and, gathering his flowers in his arms, he flashed +out of classe; while I, consigning my work, scissors, thimble, and the +neglected little box, to my desk, swept up-stairs. I don’t know whether +<i>he</i> felt hot and angry, but I am free to confess that <i>I</i> did. +</p> + +<p> +Yet with a strange evanescent anger, I had not sat an hour on the edge of my +bed, picturing and repicturing his look, manner, words ere I smiled at the +whole scene. A little pang of regret I underwent that the box had not been +offered. I had meant to gratify him. Fate would not have it so. +</p> + +<p> +In the course of the afternoon, remembering that desks in classe were by no +means inviolate repositories, and thinking that it was as well to secure the +box, on account of the initials in the lid, P. C. D. E., for Paul Carl (or +Carlos) David Emanuel—such was his full name—these foreigners must always have +a string of baptismals—I descended to the schoolroom. +</p> + +<p> +It slept in holiday repose. The day pupils were all gone home, the boarders +were out walking, the teachers, except the surveillante of the week, were in +town, visiting or shopping; the suite of divisions was vacant; so was the +grande salle, with its huge solemn globe hanging in the midst, its pair of +many-branched chandeliers, and its horizontal grand piano closed, silent, +enjoying its mid-week Sabbath. I rather wondered to find the first classe door +ajar; this room being usually locked when empty, and being then inaccessible to +any save Madame Beck and myself, who possessed a duplicate key. I wondered +still more, on approaching, to hear a vague movement as of life—a step, a chair +stirred, a sound like the opening of a desk. +</p> + +<p> +“It is only Madame Beck doing inspection duty,” was the conclusion following a +moment’s reflection. The partially-opened door gave opportunity for assurance +on this point. I looked. Behold! not the inspecting garb of Madame Beck—the +shawl and the clean cap—but the coat, and the close-shorn, dark head of a man. +This person occupied my chair; his olive hand held my desk open, his nose was +lost to view amongst my papers. His back was towards me, but there could not be +a moment’s question about identity. Already was the attire of ceremony +discarded: the cherished and ink-stained paletôt was resumed; the perverse +bonnet-grec lay on the floor, as if just dropped from the hand, culpably busy. +</p> + +<p> +Now I knew, and I had long known, that that hand of M. Emanuel’s was on the +most intimate terms with my desk; that it raised and lowered the lid, ransacked +and arranged the contents, almost as familiarly as my own. The fact was not +dubious, nor did he wish it to be so: he left signs of each visit palpable and +unmistakable; hitherto, however, I had never caught him in the act: watch as I +would, I could not detect the hours and moments of his coming. I saw the +brownie’s work in exercises left overnight full of faults, and found next +morning carefully corrected: I profited by his capricious good-will in loans +full welcome and refreshing. Between a sallow dictionary and worn-out grammar +would magically grow a fresh interesting new work, or a classic, mellow and +sweet in its ripe age. Out of my work-basket would laughingly peep a romance, +under it would lurk the pamphlet, the magazine, whence last evening’s reading +had been extracted. Impossible to doubt the source whence these treasures +flowed: had there been no other indication, one condemning and traitor +peculiarity, common to them all, settled the question—<i>they smelt of +cigars</i>. This was very shocking, of course: <i>I</i> thought so at first, +and used to open the window with some bustle, to air my desk, and with +fastidious finger and thumb, to hold the peccant brochures forth to the +purifying breeze. I was cured of that formality suddenly. Monsieur caught me at +it one day, understood the inference, instantly relieved my hand of its burden, +and, in another moment, would have thrust the same into the glowing stove. It +chanced to be a book, on the perusal of which I was bent; so for once I proved +as decided and quicker than himself; recaptured the spoil, and—having saved +this volume—never hazarded a second. With all this, I had never yet been able +to arrest in his visits the freakish, friendly, cigar-loving phantom. +</p> + +<p> +But now at last I had him: there he was—the very brownie himself; and there, +curling from his lips, was the pale blue breath of his Indian darling: he was +smoking into my desk: it might well betray him. Provoked at this particular, +and yet pleased to surprise him—pleased, that is, with the mixed feeling of the +housewife who discovers at last her strange elfin ally busy in the dairy at the +untimely churn—I softly stole forward, stood behind him, bent with precaution +over his shoulder. +</p> + +<p> +My heart smote me to see that—after this morning’s hostility, after my seeming +remissness, after the puncture experienced by his feelings, and the ruffling +undergone by his temper—he, all willing to forget and forgive, had brought me a +couple of handsome volumes, of which the title and authorship were guarantees +for interest. Now, as he sat bending above the desk, he was stirring up its +contents; but with gentle and careful hand; disarranging indeed, but not +harming. My heart smote me: as I bent over him, as he sat unconscious, doing me +what good he could, and I daresay not feeling towards me unkindly, my morning’s +anger quite melted: I did not dislike Professor Emanuel. +</p> + +<p> +I think he heard me breathe. He turned suddenly: his temperament was nervous, +yet he never started, and seldom changed colour: there was something hardy +about him. +</p> + +<p> +“I thought you were gone into town with the other teachers,” said he, taking a +grim gripe of his self-possession, which half-escaped him—“It is as well you +are not. Do you think I care for being caught? Not I. I often visit your desk.” +</p> + +<p> +“Monsieur, I know it.” +</p> + +<p> +“You find a brochure or tome now and then; but you don’t read them, because +they have passed under this?”—touching his cigar. +</p> + +<p> +“They have, and are no better for the process; but I read them.” +</p> + +<p> +“Without pleasure?” +</p> + +<p> +“Monsieur must not be contradicted.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you like them, or any of them?—are they acceptable?” “Monsieur has seen me +reading them a hundred times, and knows I have not so many recreations as to +undervalue those he provides.” +</p> + +<p> +“I mean well; and, if you see that I mean well, and derive some little +amusement from my efforts, why can we not be friends?” +</p> + +<p> +“A fatalist would say—because we cannot.” +</p> + +<p> +“This morning,” he continued, “I awoke in a bright mood, and came into classe +happy; you spoiled my day.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, Monsieur, only an hour or two of it, and that unintentionally.” +</p> + +<p> +“Unintentionally! No. It was my fête-day; everybody wished me happiness but +you. The little children of the third division gave each her knot of violets, +lisped each her congratulation:—you—nothing. Not a bud, leaf, whisper—not a +glance. Was this unintentional?” +</p> + +<p> +“I meant no harm.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then you really did not know our custom? You were unprepared? You would +willingly have laid out a few centimes on a flower to give me pleasure, had you +been aware that it was expected? Say so, and all is forgotten, and the pain +soothed.” +</p> + +<p> +“I did know that it was expected: I <i>was</i> prepared; yet I laid out no +centimes on flowers.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is well—you do right to be honest. I should almost have hated you had you +flattered and lied. Better declare at once ‘Paul Carl Emanuel—je te déteste, +mon garçon!’—than smile an interest, look an affection, and be false and cold +at heart. False and cold I don’t think you are; but you have made a great +mistake in life, that I believe; I think your judgment is warped—that you are +indifferent where you ought to be grateful—and perhaps devoted and infatuated, +where you ought to be cool as your name. Don’t suppose that I wish you to have +a passion for me, Mademoiselle; Dieu vous en garde! What do you start for? +Because I said passion? Well, I say it again. There is such a word, and there +is such a thing—though not within these walls, thank heaven! You are no child +that one should not speak of what exists; but I only uttered the word—the +thing, I assure you, is alien to my whole life and views. It died in the +past—in the present it lies buried—its grave is deep-dug, well-heaped, and many +winters old: in the future there will be a resurrection, as I believe to my +souls consolation; but all will then be changed—form and feeling: the mortal +will have put on immortality—it will rise, not for earth, but heaven. All I say +to <i>you</i>, Miss Lucy Snowe, is—that you ought to treat Professor Paul +Emanuel decently.” +</p> + +<p> +I could not, and did not contradict such a sentiment. +</p> + +<p> +“Tell me,” he pursued, “when it is <i>your</i> fête-day, and I will not grudge +a few centimes for a small offering.” +</p> + +<p> +“You will be like me, Monsieur: this cost more than a few centimes, and I did +not grudge its price.” +</p> + +<p> +And taking from the open desk the little box, I put it into his hand. +</p> + +<p> +“It lay ready in my lap this morning,” I continued; “and if Monsieur had been +rather more patient, and Mademoiselle St. Pierre less interfering—perhaps I +should say, too, if <i>I</i> had been calmer and wiser—I should have given it +then.” +</p> + +<p> +He looked at the box: I saw its clear warm tint and bright azure circlet +pleased his eyes. I told him to open it. +</p> + +<p> +“My initials!” said he, indicating the letters in the lid. “Who told you I was +called Carl David?” +</p> + +<p> +“A little bird, Monsieur.” +</p> + +<p> +“Does it fly from me to you? Then one can tie a message under its wing when +needful.” +</p> + +<p> +He took out the chain—a trifle indeed as to value, but glossy with silk and +sparkling with beads. He liked that too—admired it artlessly, like a child. +</p> + +<p> +“For me?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, for you.” +</p> + +<p> +“This is the thing you were working at last night?” +</p> + +<p> +“The same.” +</p> + +<p> +“You finished it this morning?” +</p> + +<p> +“I did.” +</p> + +<p> +“You commenced it with the intention that it should be mine?” +</p> + +<p> +“Undoubtedly.” +</p> + +<p> +“And offered on my fête-day?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“This purpose continued as you wove it?” +</p> + +<p> +Again I assented. +</p> + +<p> +“Then it is not necessary that I should cut out any portion—saying, this part +is not mine: it was plaited under the idea and for the adornment of another?” +</p> + +<p> +“By no means. It is neither necessary, nor would it be just.” +</p> + +<p> +“This object is <i>all</i> mine?” +</p> + +<p> +“That object is yours entirely.” +</p> + +<p> +Straightway Monsieur opened his paletôt, arranged the guard splendidly across +his chest, displaying as much and suppressing as little as he could: for he had +no notion of concealing what he admired and thought decorative. As to the box, +he pronounced it a superb bonbonnière—he was fond of bonbons, by the way—and as +he always liked to share with others what pleased himself, he would give his +“dragées” as freely as he lent his books. Amongst the kind brownie’s gifts left +in my desk, I forgot to enumerate many a paper of chocolate comfits. His tastes +in these matters were southern, and what we think infantine. His simple lunch +consisted frequently of a “brioche,” which, as often as not, he shared with +some child of the third division. +</p> + +<p> +“A présent c’est un fait accompli,” said he, re-adjusting his paletôt; and we +had no more words on the subject. After looking over the two volumes he had +brought, and cutting away some pages with his penknife (he generally pruned +before lending his books, especially if they were novels, and sometimes I was a +little provoked at the severity of his censorship, the retrenchments +interrupting the narrative), he rose, politely touched his bonnet-grec, and +bade me a civil good-day. +</p> + +<p> +“We are friends now,” thought I, “till the next time we quarrel.” +</p> + +<p> +We <i>might</i> have quarrelled again that very same evening, but, wonderful to +relate, failed, for once, to make the most of our opportunity. +</p> + +<p> +Contrary to all expectation, M. Paul arrived at the study-hour. Having seen so +much of him in the morning, we did not look for his presence at night. No +sooner were we seated at lessons, however, than he appeared. I own I was glad +to see him, so glad that I could not help greeting his arrival with a smile; +and when he made his way to the same seat about which so serious a +misunderstanding had formerly arisen, I took good care not to make too much +room for him; he watched with a jealous, side-long look, to see whether I +shrank away, but I did not, though the bench was a little crowded. I was losing +the early impulse to recoil from M. Paul. Habituated to the paletôt and +bonnet-grec, the neighbourhood of these garments seemed no longer uncomfortable +or very formidable. I did not now sit restrained, “asphyxiée” (as he used to +say) at his side; I stirred when I wished to stir, coughed when it was +necessary, even yawned when I was tired—did, in short, what I pleased, blindly +reliant upon his indulgence. Nor did my temerity, this evening at least, meet +the punishment it perhaps merited; he was both indulgent and good-natured; not +a cross glance shot from his eyes, not a hasty word left his lips. Till the +very close of the evening, he did not indeed address me at all, yet I felt, +somehow, that he was full of friendliness. Silence is of different kinds, and +breathes different meanings; no words could inspire a pleasanter content than +did M. Paul’s worldless presence. When the tray came in, and the bustle of +supper commenced, he just said, as he retired, that he wished me a good night +and sweet dreams; and a good night and sweet dreams I had. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap30"></a>CHAPTER XXX.<br/> +M. PAUL.</h2> + +<p> +Yet the reader is advised not to be in any hurry with his kindly conclusions, +or to suppose, with an over-hasty charity, that from that day M. Paul became a +changed character—easy to live with, and no longer apt to flash danger and +discomfort round him. +</p> + +<p> +No; he was naturally a little man of unreasonable moods. When over-wrought, +which he often was, he became acutely irritable; and, besides, his veins were +dark with a livid belladonna tincture, the essence of jealousy. I do not mean +merely the tender jealousy of the heart, but that sterner, narrower sentiment +whose seat is in the head. +</p> + +<p> +I used to think, as I sat looking at M. Paul, while he was knitting his brow or +protruding his lip over some exercise of mine, which had not as many faults as +he wished (for he liked me to commit faults: a knot of blunders was sweet to +him as a cluster of nuts), that he had points of resemblance to Napoleon +Bonaparte. I think so still. +</p> + +<p> +In a shameless disregard of magnanimity, he resembled the great Emperor. M. +Paul would have quarrelled with twenty learned women, would have unblushingly +carried on a system of petty bickering and recrimination with a whole capital +of coteries, never troubling himself about loss or lack of dignity. He would +have exiled fifty Madame de Staëls, if they had annoyed, offended, +outrivalled, or opposed him. +</p> + +<p> +I well remember a hot episode of his with a certain Madame Panache—a lady +temporarily employed by Madame Beck to give lessons in history. She was +clever—that is, she knew a good deal; and, besides, thoroughly possessed the +art of making the most of what she knew; of words and confidence she held +unlimited command. Her personal appearance was far from destitute of +advantages; I believe many people would have pronounced her “a fine woman;” and +yet there were points in her robust and ample attractions, as well as in her +bustling and demonstrative presence, which, it appeared, the nice and +capricious tastes of M. Paul could not away with. The sound of her voice, +echoing through the carré, would put him into a strange taking; her long free +step—almost stride—along the corridor, would often make him snatch up his +papers and decamp on the instant. +</p> + +<p> +With malicious intent he bethought himself, one day, to intrude on her class; +as quick as lightning he gathered her method of instruction; it differed from a +pet plan of his own. With little ceremony, and less courtesy, he pointed out +what he termed her errors. Whether he expected submission and attention, I know +not; he met an acrid opposition, accompanied by a round reprimand for his +certainly unjustifiable interference. +</p> + +<p> +Instead of withdrawing with dignity, as he might still have done, he threw down +the gauntlet of defiance. Madame Panache, bellicose as a Penthesilea, picked it +up in a minute. She snapped her fingers in the intermeddler’s face; she rushed +upon him with a storm of words. M. Emanuel was eloquent; but Madame Panache was +voluble. A system of fierce antagonism ensued. Instead of laughing in his +sleeve at his fair foe, with all her sore amour-propre and loud self-assertion, +M. Paul detested her with intense seriousness; he honoured her with his earnest +fury; he pursued her vindictively and implacably, refusing to rest peaceably in +his bed, to derive due benefit from his meals, or even serenely to relish his +cigar, till she was fairly rooted out of the establishment. The Professor +conquered, but I cannot say that the laurels of this victory shadowed +gracefully his temples. Once I ventured to hint as much. To my great surprise +he allowed that I might be right, but averred that when brought into contact +with either men or women of the coarse, self-complacent quality, whereof Madame +Panache was a specimen, he had no control over his own passions; an unspeakable +and active aversion impelled him to a war of extermination. +</p> + +<p> +Three months afterwards, hearing that his vanquished foe had met with reverses, +and was likely to be really distressed for want of employment, he forgot his +hatred, and alike active in good and evil, he moved heaven and earth till he +found her a place. Upon her coming to make up former differences, and thank him +for his recent kindness, the old voice—a little loud—the old manner—a little +forward—so acted upon him that in ten minutes he started up and bowed her, or +rather himself, out of the room, in a transport of nervous irritation. +</p> + +<p> +To pursue a somewhat audacious parallel, in a love of power, in an eager grasp +after supremacy, M. Emanuel was like Bonaparte. He was a man not always to be +submitted to. Sometimes it was needful to resist; it was right to stand still, +to look up into his eyes and tell him that his requirements went beyond +reason—that his absolutism verged on tyranny. +</p> + +<p> +The dawnings, the first developments of peculiar talent appearing within his +range, and under his rule, curiously excited, even disturbed him. He watched +its struggle into life with a scowl; he held back his hand—perhaps said, “Come +on if you have strength,” but would not aid the birth. +</p> + +<p> +When the pang and peril of the first conflict were over, when the breath of +life was drawn, when he saw the lungs expand and contract, when he felt the +heart beat and discovered life in the eye, he did not yet offer to foster. +</p> + +<p> +“Prove yourself true ere I cherish you,” was his ordinance; and how difficult +he made that proof! What thorns and briers, what flints, he strewed in the path +of feet not inured to rough travel! He watched tearlessly—ordeals that he +exacted should be passed through—fearlessly. He followed footprints that, as +they approached the bourne, were sometimes marked in blood—followed them +grimly, holding the austerest police-watch over the pain-pressed pilgrim. And +when at last he allowed a rest, before slumber might close the eyelids, he +opened those same lids wide, with pitiless finger and thumb, and gazed deep +through the pupil and the irids into the brain, into the heart, to search if +Vanity, or Pride, or Falsehood, in any of its subtlest forms, was discoverable +in the furthest recess of existence. If, at last, he let the neophyte sleep, it +was but a moment; he woke him suddenly up to apply new tests: he sent him on +irksome errands when he was staggering with weariness; he tried the temper, the +sense, and the health; and it was only when every severest test had been +applied and endured, when the most corrosive aquafortis had been used, and +failed to tarnish the ore, that he admitted it genuine, and, still in clouded +silence, stamped it with his deep brand of approval. +</p> + +<p> +I speak not ignorant of these evils. +</p> + +<p> +Till the date at which the last chapter closes, M. Paul had not been my +professor—he had not given me lessons, but about that time, accidentally +hearing me one day acknowledge an ignorance of some branch of education (I +think it was arithmetic), which would have disgraced a charity-school boy, as +he very truly remarked, he took me in hand, examined me first, found me, I need +not say, abundantly deficient, gave me some books and appointed me some tasks. +</p> + +<p> +He did this at first with pleasure, indeed with unconcealed exultation, +condescending to say that he believed I was “bonne et pas trop faible” (i.e. +well enough disposed, and not wholly destitute of parts), but, owing he +supposed to adverse circumstances, “as yet in a state of wretchedly imperfect +mental development.” +</p> + +<p> +The beginning of all effort has indeed with me been marked by a preternatural +imbecility. I never could, even in forming a common acquaintance, assert or +prove a claim to average quickness. A depressing and difficult passage has +prefaced every new page I have turned in life. +</p> + +<p> +So long as this passage lasted, M. Paul was very kind, very good, very +forbearing; he saw the sharp pain inflicted, and felt the weighty humiliation +imposed by my own sense of incapacity; and words can hardly do justice to his +tenderness and helpfulness. His own eyes would moisten, when tears of shame and +effort clouded mine; burdened as he was with work, he would steal half his +brief space of recreation to give to me. +</p> + +<p> +But, strange grief! when that heavy and overcast dawn began at last to yield to +day; when my faculties began to struggle themselves, free, and my time of +energy and fulfilment came; when I voluntarily doubled, trebled, quadrupled the +tasks he set, to please him as I thought, his kindness became sternness; the +light changed in his eyes from a beam to a spark; he fretted, he opposed, he +curbed me imperiously; the more I did, the harder I worked, the less he seemed +content. Sarcasms of which the severity amazed and puzzled me, harassed my +ears; then flowed out the bitterest inuendoes against the “pride of intellect.” +I was vaguely threatened with I know not what doom, if I ever trespassed the +limits proper to my sex, and conceived a contraband appetite for unfeminine +knowledge. Alas! I had no such appetite. What I loved, it joyed me by any +effort to content; but the noble hunger for science in the abstract—the godlike +thirst after discovery—these feelings were known to me but by briefest flashes. +</p> + +<p> +Yet, when M. Paul sneered at me, I wanted to possess them more fully; his +injustice stirred in me ambitious wishes—it imparted a strong stimulus—it gave +wings to aspiration. +</p> + +<p> +In the beginning, before I had penetrated to motives, that uncomprehended sneer +of his made my heart ache, but by-and-by it only warmed the blood in my veins, +and sent added action to my pulses. Whatever my powers—feminine or the +contrary—God had given them, and I felt resolute to be ashamed of no faculty of +his bestowal. +</p> + +<p> +The combat was very sharp for a time. I seemed to have lost M. Paul’s +affection; he treated me strangely. In his most unjust moments he would +insinuate that I had deceived him when I appeared, what he called “faible”—that +is incompetent; he said I had feigned a false incapacity. Again, he would turn +suddenly round and accuse me of the most far-fetched imitations and impossible +plagiarisms, asserting that I had extracted the pith out of books I had not so +much as heard of—and over the perusal of which I should infallibly have fallen +down in a sleep as deep as that of Eutychus. +</p> + +<p> +Once, upon his preferring such an accusation, I turned upon him—I rose against +him. Gathering an armful of his books out of my desk, I filled my apron and +poured them in a heap upon his estrade, at his feet. +</p> + +<p> +“Take them away, M. Paul,” I said, “and teach me no more. I never asked to be +made learned, and you compel me to feel very profoundly that learning is not +happiness.” +</p> + +<p> +And returning to my desk, I laid my head on my arms, nor would I speak to him +for two days afterwards. He pained and chagrined me. His affection had been +very sweet and dear—a pleasure new and incomparable: now that this seemed +withdrawn, I cared not for his lessons. +</p> + +<p> +The books, however, were not taken away; they were all restored with careful +hand to their places, and he came as usual to teach me. He made his peace +somehow—too readily, perhaps: I ought to have stood out longer, but when he +looked kind and good, and held out his hand with amity, memory refused to +reproduce with due force his oppressive moments. And then, reconcilement is +always sweet! +</p> + +<p> +On a certain morning a message came from my godmother, inviting me to attend +some notable lecture to be delivered in the same public rooms before described. +Dr. John had brought the message himself, and delivered it verbally to Rosine, +who had not scrupled to follow the steps of M. Emanuel, then passing to the +first classe, and, in his presence, stand “carrément” before my desk, hand in +apron-pocket, and rehearse the same, saucily and aloud, concluding with the +words, “Qu’il est vraiment beau, Mademoiselle, ce jeune docteur! Quels +yeux—quel regard! Tenez! J’en ai le cœur tout ému!” +</p> + +<p> +When she was gone, my professor demanded of me why I suffered “cette fille +effrontée, cette créature sans pudeur,” to address me in such terms. +</p> + +<p> +I had no pacifying answer to give. The terms were precisely such as Rosine—a +young lady in whose skull the organs of reverence and reserve were not largely +developed—was in the constant habit of using. Besides, what she said about the +young doctor was true enough. Graham <i>was</i> handsome; he had fine eyes and +a thrilling glance. An observation to that effect actually formed itself into +sound on my lips. +</p> + +<p> +“Elle ne dit que la vérité,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah! vous trouvez?” +</p> + +<p> +“Mais, sans doute.” +</p> + +<p> +The lesson to which we had that day to submit was such as to make us very glad +when it terminated. At its close, the released pupils rushed out, +half-trembling, half-exultant. I, too, was going. A mandate to remain arrested +me. I muttered that I wanted some fresh air sadly—the stove was in a glow, the +classe over-heated. An inexorable voice merely recommended silence; and this +salamander—for whom no room ever seemed too hot—sitting down between my desk +and the stove—a situation in which he ought to have felt broiled, but did +not—proceeded to confront me with—a Greek quotation! +</p> + +<p> +In M. Emanuel’s soul rankled a chronic suspicion that I knew both Greek and +Latin. As monkeys are said to have the power of speech if they would but use +it, and are reported to conceal this faculty in fear of its being turned to +their detriment, so to me was ascribed a fund of knowledge which I was supposed +criminally and craftily to conceal. The privileges of a “classical education,” +it was insinuated, had been mine; on flowers of Hymettus I had revelled; a +golden store, hived in memory, now silently sustained my efforts, and privily +nurtured my wits. +</p> + +<p> +A hundred expedients did M. Paul employ to surprise my secret—to wheedle, to +threaten, to startle it out of me. Sometimes he placed Greek and Latin books in +my way, and then watched me, as Joan of Arc’s jailors tempted her with the +warrior’s accoutrements, and lay in wait for the issue. Again he quoted I know +not what authors and passages, and while rolling out their sweet and sounding +lines (the classic tones fell musically from his lips—for he had a good +voice—remarkable for compass, modulation, and matchless expression), he would +fix on me a vigilant, piercing, and often malicious eye. It was evident he +sometimes expected great demonstrations; they never occurred, however; not +comprehending, of course I could neither be charmed nor annoyed. +</p> + +<p> +Baffled—almost angry—he still clung to his fixed idea; my susceptibilities were +pronounced marble—my face a mask. It appeared as if he could not be brought to +accept the homely truth, and take me for what I was: men, and women too, must +have delusion of some sort; if not made ready to their hand, they will invent +exaggeration for themselves. +</p> + +<p> +At moments I <i>did</i> wish that his suspicions had been better founded. There +were times when I would have given my right hand to possess the treasures he +ascribed to me. He deserved condign punishment for his testy crotchets. I could +have gloried in bringing home to him his worst apprehensions astoundingly +realized. I could have exulted to burst on his vision, confront and confound +his “lunettes,” one blaze of acquirements. Oh! why did nobody undertake to make +me clever while I was young enough to learn, that I might, by one grand, +sudden, inhuman revelation—one cold, cruel, overwhelming triumph—have for ever +crushed the mocking spirit out of Paul Carl David Emanuel! +</p> + +<p> +Alas! no such feat was in my power. To-day, as usual, his quotations fell +ineffectual: he soon shifted his ground. +</p> + +<p> +“Women of intellect” was his next theme: here he was at home. A “woman of +intellect,” it appeared, was a sort of “lusus naturae,” a luckless accident, a +thing for which there was neither place nor use in creation, wanted neither as +wife nor worker. Beauty anticipated her in the first office. He believed in his +soul that lovely, placid, and passive feminine mediocrity was the only pillow +on which manly thought and sense could find rest for its aching temples; and as +to work, male mind alone could work to any good practical result—hein? +</p> + +<p> +This “hein?” was a note of interrogation intended to draw from me contradiction +or objection. However, I only said—“Cela ne me regarde pas: je ne m’en soucie +pas;” and presently added—“May I go, Monsieur? They have rung the bell for the +second déjeuner” (<i>i.e.</i> luncheon). +</p> + +<p> +“What of that? You are not hungry?” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed I was,” I said; “I had had nothing since breakfast, at seven, and +should have nothing till dinner, at five, if I missed this bell.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, he was in the same plight, but I might share with him.” +</p> + +<p> +And he broke in two the “brioche” intended for his own refreshment, and gave me +half. Truly his bark was worse than his bite; but the really formidable attack +was yet to come. While eating his cake, I could not forbear expressing my +secret wish that I really knew all of which he accused me. +</p> + +<p> +“Did I sincerely feel myself to be an ignoramus?” he asked, in a softened tone. +</p> + +<p> +If I had replied meekly by an unqualified affirmative, I believe he would have +stretched out his hand, and we should have been friends on the spot, but I +answered— +</p> + +<p> +“Not exactly. I am ignorant, Monsieur, in the knowledge you ascribe to me, but +I <i>sometimes</i>, not <i>always</i>, feel a knowledge of my own.” +</p> + +<p> +“What did I mean?” he inquired, sharply. +</p> + +<p> +Unable to answer this question in a breath, I evaded it by change of subject. +He had now finished his half of the brioche: feeling sure that on so trifling a +fragment he could not have satisfied his appetite, as indeed I had not appeased +mine, and inhaling the fragrance of baked apples afar from the refectory, I +ventured to inquire whether he did not also perceive that agreeable odour. He +confessed that he did. I said if he would let me out by the garden-door, and +permit me just to run across the court, I would fetch him a plateful; and added +that I believed they were excellent, as Goton had a very good method of baking, +or rather stewing fruit, putting in a little spice, sugar, and a glass or two +of vin blanc—might I go? +</p> + +<p> +“Petite gourmande!” said he, smiling, “I have not forgotten how pleased you +were with the pâté â la crême I once gave you, and you know very well, at this +moment, that to fetch the apples for me will be the same as getting them for +yourself. Go, then, but come back quickly.” +</p> + +<p> +And at last he liberated me on parole. My own plan was to go and return with +speed and good faith, to put the plate in at the door, and then to vanish +incontinent, leaving all consequences for future settlement. +</p> + +<p> +That intolerably keen instinct of his seemed to have anticipated my scheme: he +met me at the threshold, hurried me into the room, and fixed me in a minute in +my former seat. Taking the plate of fruit from my hand, he divided the portion +intended only for himself, and ordered me to eat my share. I complied with no +good grace, and vexed, I suppose, by my reluctance, he opened a masked and +dangerous battery. All he had yet said, I could count as mere sound and fury, +signifying nothing: not so of the present attack. +</p> + +<p> +It consisted in an unreasonable proposition with which he had before afflicted +me: namely, that on the next public examination-day I should engage—foreigner +as I was—to take my place on the first form of first-class pupils, and with +them improvise a composition in French, on any subject any spectator might +dictate, without benefit of grammar or lexicon. +</p> + +<p> +I knew what the result of such an experiment would be. I, to whom nature had +denied the impromptu faculty; who, in public, was by nature a cypher; whose +time of mental activity, even when alone, was not under the meridian sun; who +needed the fresh silence of morning, or the recluse peace of evening, to win +from the Creative Impulse one evidence of his presence, one proof of his force; +I, with whom that Impulse was the most intractable, the most capricious, the +most maddening of masters (him before me always excepted)—a deity which +sometimes, under circumstances—apparently propitious, would not speak when +questioned, would not hear when appealed to, would not, when sought, be found; +but would stand, all cold, all indurated, all granite, a dark Baal with carven +lips and blank eye-balls, and breast like the stone face of a tomb; and again, +suddenly, at some turn, some sound, some long-trembling sob of the wind, at +some rushing past of an unseen stream of electricity, the irrational demon +would wake unsolicited, would stir strangely alive, would rush from its +pedestal like a perturbed Dagon, calling to its votary for a sacrifice, +whatever the hour—to its victim for some blood, or some breath, whatever the +circumstance or scene—rousing its priest, treacherously promising vaticination, +perhaps filling its temple with a strange hum of oracles, but sure to give half +the significance to fateful winds, and grudging to the desperate listener even +a miserable remnant—yielding it sordidly, as though each word had been a drop +of the deathless ichor of its own dark veins. And this tyrant I was to compel +into bondage, and make it improvise a theme, on a school estrade, between a +Mathilde and a Coralie, under the eye of a Madame Beck, for the pleasure, and +to the inspiration of a bourgeois of Labassecour! +</p> + +<p> +Upon this argument M. Paul and I did battle more than once—strong battle, with +confused noise of demand and rejection, exaction and repulse. +</p> + +<p> +On this particular day I was soundly rated. “The obstinacy of my whole sex,” it +seems, was concentrated in me; I had an “orgueil de diable.” I feared to fail, +forsooth! What did it matter whether I failed or not? Who was I that I should +not fail, like my betters? It would do me good to fail. He wanted to see me +worsted (I knew he did), and one minute he paused to take breath. +</p> + +<p> +“Would I speak now, and be tractable?” +</p> + +<p> +“Never would I be tractable in this matter. Law itself should not compel me. I +would pay a fine, or undergo an imprisonment, rather than write for a show and +to order, perched up on a platform.” +</p> + +<p> +“Could softer motives influence me? Would I yield for friendship’s sake?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not a whit, not a hair-breadth. No form of friendship under the sun had a +right to exact such a concession. No true friendship would harass me thus.” +</p> + +<p> +He supposed then (with a sneer—M. Paul could sneer supremely, curling his lip, +opening his nostrils, contracting his eyelids)—he supposed there was but one +form of appeal to which I would listen, and of that form it was not for him to +make use. +</p> + +<p> +“Under certain persuasions, from certain quarters, je vous vois d’ici,” said +he, “eagerly subscribing to the sacrifice, passionately arming for the effort.” +</p> + +<p> +“Making a simpleton, a warning, and an example of myself, before a hundred and +fifty of the ‘papas’ and ‘mammas’ of Villette.” +</p> + +<p> +And here, losing patience, I broke out afresh with a cry that I wanted to be +liberated—to get out into the air—I was almost in a fever. +</p> + +<p> +“Chut!” said the inexorable, “this was a mere pretext to run away; <i>he</i> +was not hot, with the stove close at his back; how could I suffer, thoroughly +screened by his person?” +</p> + +<p> +“I did not understand his constitution. I knew nothing of the natural history +of salamanders. For my own part, I was a phlegmatic islander, and sitting in an +oven did not agree with me; at least, might I step to the well, and get a glass +of water—the sweet apples had made me thirsty?” +</p> + +<p> +“If that was all, he would do my errand.” +</p> + +<p> +He went to fetch the water. Of course, with a door only on the latch behind me, +I lost not my opportunity. Ere his return, his half-worried prey had escaped. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap31"></a>CHAPTER XXXI.<br/> +THE DRYAD.</h2> + +<p> +The spring was advancing, and the weather had turned suddenly warm. This change +of temperature brought with it for me, as probably for many others, temporary +decrease of strength. Slight exertion at this time left me overcome with +fatigue—sleepless nights entailed languid days. +</p> + +<p> +One Sunday afternoon, having walked the distance of half a league to the +Protestant church, I came back weary and exhausted; and taking refuge in my +solitary sanctuary, the first classe, I was glad to sit down, and to make of my +desk a pillow for my arms and head. +</p> + +<p> +Awhile I listened to the lullaby of bees humming in the berceau, and watched, +through the glass door and the tender, lightly-strewn spring foliage, Madame +Beck and a gay party of friends, whom she had entertained that day at dinner +after morning mass, walking in the centre-alley under orchard boughs dressed at +this season in blossom, and wearing a colouring as pure and warm as +mountain-snow at sun-rise. +</p> + +<p> +My principal attraction towards this group of guests lay, I remember, in one +figure—that of a handsome young girl whom I had seen before as a visitor at +Madame Beck’s, and of whom I had been vaguely told that she was a “filleule,” +or god-daughter, of M. Emanuel’s, and that between her mother, or aunt, or some +other female relation of hers, and the Professor, had existed of old a special +friendship. M. Paul was not of the holiday band to-day, but I had seen this +young girl with him ere now, and as far as distant observation could enable me +to judge, she seemed to enjoy him with the frank ease of a ward with an +indulgent guardian. I had seen her run up to him, put her arm through his, and +hang upon him. Once, when she did so, a curious sensation had struck through +me—a disagreeable anticipatory sensation—one of the family of presentiments, I +suppose—but I refused to analyze or dwell upon it. While watching this girl, +Mademoiselle Sauveur by name, and following the gleam of her bright silk robe +(she was always richly dressed, for she was said to be wealthy) through the +flowers and the glancing leaves of tender emerald, my eyes became dazzled—they +closed; my lassitude, the warmth of the day, the hum of bees and birds, all +lulled me, and at last I slept. +</p> + +<p> +Two hours stole over me. Ere I woke, the sun had declined out of sight behind +the towering houses, the garden and the room were grey, bees had gone homeward, +and the flowers were closing; the party of guests, too, had vanished; each +alley was void. +</p> + +<p> +On waking, I felt much at ease—not chill, as I ought to have been after sitting +so still for at least two hours; my cheek and arms were not benumbed by +pressure against the hard desk. No wonder. Instead of the bare wood on which I +had laid them, I found a thick shawl, carefully folded, substituted for +support, and another shawl (both taken from the corridor where such things +hung) wrapped warmly round me. +</p> + +<p> +Who had done this? Who was my friend? Which of the teachers? Which of the +pupils? None, except St. Pierre, was inimical to me; but which of them had the +art, the thought, the habit, of benefiting thus tenderly? Which of them had a +step so quiet, a hand so gentle, but I should have heard or felt her, if she +had approached or touched me in a day-sleep? +</p> + +<p> +As to Ginevra Fanshawe, that bright young creature was not gentle at all, and +would certainly have pulled me out of my chair, if she had meddled in the +matter. I said at last: “It is Madame Beck’s doing; she has come in, seen me +asleep, and thought I might take cold. She considers me a useful machine, +answering well the purpose for which it was hired; so would not have me +needlessly injured. And now,” methought, “I’ll take a walk; the evening is +fresh, and not very chill.” +</p> + +<p> +So I opened the glass door and stepped into the berceau. +</p> + +<p> +I went to my own alley: had it been dark, or even dusk, I should have hardly +ventured there, for I had not yet forgotten the curious illusion of vision (if +illusion it were) experienced in that place some months ago. But a ray of the +setting sun burnished still the grey crown of Jean Baptiste; nor had all the +birds of the garden yet vanished into their nests amongst the tufted shrubs and +thick wall-ivy. I paced up and down, thinking almost the same thoughts I had +pondered that night when I buried my glass jar—how I should make some advance +in life, take another step towards an independent position; for this train of +reflection, though not lately pursued, had never by me been wholly abandoned; +and whenever a certain eye was averted from me, and a certain countenance grew +dark with unkindness and injustice, into that track of speculation did I at +once strike; so that, little by little, I had laid half a plan. +</p> + +<p> +“Living costs little,” said I to myself, “in this economical town of Villette, +where people are more sensible than I understand they are in dear old +England—infinitely less worried about appearance, and less emulous of +display—where nobody is in the least ashamed to be quite as homely and saving +as he finds convenient. House-rent, in a prudently chosen situation, need not +be high. When I shall have saved one thousand francs, I will take a tenement +with one large room, and two or three smaller ones, furnish the first with a +few benches and desks, a black tableau, an estrade for myself; upon it a chair +and table, with a sponge and some white chalks; begin with taking day-pupils, +and so work my way upwards. Madame Beck’s commencement was—as I have often +heard her say—from no higher starting-point, and where is she now? All these +premises and this garden are hers, bought with her money; she has a competency +already secured for old age, and a flourishing establishment under her +direction, which will furnish a career for her children. +</p> + +<p> +“Courage, Lucy Snowe! With self-denial and economy now, and steady exertion +by-and-by, an object in life need not fail you. Venture not to complain that +such an object is too selfish, too limited, and lacks interest; be content to +labour for independence until you have proved, by winning that prize, your +right to look higher. But afterwards, is there nothing more for me in life—no +true home—nothing to be dearer to me than myself, and by its paramount +preciousness, to draw from me better things than I care to culture for myself +only? Nothing, at whose feet I can willingly lay down the whole burden of human +egotism, and gloriously take up the nobler charge of labouring and living for +others? I suppose, Lucy Snowe, the orb of your life is not to be so rounded: +for you, the crescent-phase must suffice. Very good. I see a huge mass of my +fellow-creatures in no better circumstances. I see that a great many men, and +more women, hold their span of life on conditions of denial and privation. I +find no reason why I should be of the few favoured. I believe in some blending +of hope and sunshine sweetening the worst lots. I believe that this life is not +all; neither the beginning nor the end. I believe while I tremble; I trust +while I weep.” +</p> + +<p> +So this subject is done with. It is right to look our life-accounts bravely in +the face now and then, and settle them honestly. And he is a poor self-swindler +who lies to himself while he reckons the items, and sets down under the +head—happiness that which is misery. Call anguish—anguish, and despair—despair; +write both down in strong characters with a resolute pen: you will the better +pay your debt to Doom. Falsify: insert “privilege” where you should have +written “pain;” and see if your mighty creditor will allow the fraud to pass, +or accept the coin with which you would cheat him. Offer to the strongest—if +the darkest angel of God’s host—water, when he has asked blood—will he take it? +Not a whole pale sea for one red drop. I settled another account. +</p> + +<p> +Pausing before Methusaleh—the giant and patriarch of the garden—and leaning my +brow against his knotty trunk, my foot rested on the stone sealing the small +sepulchre at his root; and I recalled the passage of feeling therein buried; I +recalled Dr. John; my warm affection for him; my faith in his excellence; my +delight in his grace. What was become of that curious one-sided friendship +which was half marble and half life; only on one hand truth, and on the other +perhaps a jest? +</p> + +<p> +Was this feeling dead? I do not know, but it was buried. Sometimes I thought +the tomb unquiet, and dreamed strangely of disturbed earth, and of hair, still +golden, and living, obtruded through coffin-chinks. +</p> + +<p> +Had I been too hasty? I used to ask myself; and this question would occur with +a cruel sharpness after some brief chance interview with Dr. John. He had still +such kind looks, such a warm hand; his voice still kept so pleasant a tone for +my name; I never liked “Lucy” so well as when he uttered it. But I learned in +time that this benignity, this cordiality, this music, belonged in no shape to +me: it was a part of himself; it was the honey of his temper; it was the balm +of his mellow mood; he imparted it, as the ripe fruit rewards with sweetness +the rifling bee; he diffused it about him, as sweet plants shed their perfume. +Does the nectarine love either the bee or bird it feeds? Is the sweetbriar +enamoured of the air? +</p> + +<p> +“Good-night, Dr. John; you are good, you are beautiful; but you are not mine. +Good-night, and God bless you!” +</p> + +<p> +Thus I closed my musings. “Good-night” left my lips in sound; I heard the words +spoken, and then I heard an echo—quite close. +</p> + +<p> +“Good-night, Mademoiselle; or, rather, good-evening—the sun is scarce set; I +hope you slept well?” +</p> + +<p> +I started, but was only discomposed a moment; I knew the voice and speaker. +</p> + +<p> +“Slept, Monsieur! When? where?” +</p> + +<p> +“You may well inquire when—where. It seems you turn day into night, and choose +a desk for a pillow; rather hard lodging—?” +</p> + +<p> +“It was softened for me, Monsieur, while I slept. That unseen, gift-bringing +thing which haunts my desk, remembered me. No matter how I fell asleep; I awoke +pillowed and covered.” +</p> + +<p> +“Did the shawls keep you warm?” +</p> + +<p> +“Very warm. Do you ask thanks for them?” +</p> + +<p> +“No. You looked pale in your slumbers: are you home-sick?” +</p> + +<p> +“To be home-sick, one must have a home; which I have not.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then you have more need of a careful friend. I scarcely know any one, Miss +Lucy, who needs a friend more absolutely than you; your very faults +imperatively require it. You want so much checking, regulating, and keeping +down.” +</p> + +<p> +This idea of “keeping down” never left M. Paul’s head; the most habitual +subjugation would, in my case, have failed to relieve him of it. No matter; +what did it signify? I listened to him, and did not trouble myself to be too +submissive; his occupation would have been gone had I left him nothing to “keep +down.” +</p> + +<p> +“You need watching, and watching over,” he pursued; “and it is well for you +that I see this, and do my best to discharge both duties. I watch you and +others pretty closely, pretty constantly, nearer and oftener than you or they +think. Do you see that window with a light in it?” +</p> + +<p> +He pointed to a lattice in one of the college boarding-houses. +</p> + +<p> +“That,” said he, “is a room I have hired, nominally for a study—virtually for a +post of observation. There I sit and read for hours together: it is my way—my +taste. My book is this garden; its contents are human nature—female human +nature. I know you all by heart. Ah! I know you well—St. Pierre, the +Parisienne—cette maîtresse-femme, my cousin Beck herself.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is not right, Monsieur.” +</p> + +<p> +“Comment? it is not right? By whose creed? Does some dogma of Calvin or Luther +condemn it? What is that to me? I am no Protestant. My rich father (for, though +I have known poverty, and once starved for a year in a garret in Rome—starved +wretchedly, often on a meal a day, and sometimes not that—yet I was born to +wealth)—my rich father was a good Catholic; and he gave me a priest and a +Jesuit for a tutor. I retain his lessons; and to what discoveries, grand Dieu! +have they not aided me!” +</p> + +<p> +“Discoveries made by stealth seem to me dishonourable discoveries.” +</p> + +<p> +“Puritaine! I doubt it not. Yet see how my Jesuit’s system works. You know the +St. Pierre?” +</p> + +<p> +“Partially.” +</p> + +<p> +He laughed. “You say right—<i>‘partially’</i>; whereas <i>I</i> know her +<i>thoroughly</i>; there is the difference. She played before me the amiable; +offered me patte de velours; caressed, flattered, fawned on me. Now, I am +accessible to a woman’s flattery—accessible against my reason. Though never +pretty, she was—when I first knew her—young, or knew how to look young. Like +all her countrywomen, she had the art of dressing—she had a certain cool, easy, +social assurance, which spared me the pain of embarrassment—” +</p> + +<p> +“Monsieur, that must have been unnecessary. I never saw you embarrassed in my +life.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mademoiselle, you know little of me; I can be embarrassed as a petite +pensionnaire; there is a fund of modesty and diffidence in my nature—” +</p> + +<p> +“Monsieur, I never saw it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mademoiselle, it is there. You ought to have seen it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Monsieur, I have observed you in public—on platforms, in tribunes, before +titles and crowned heads—and you were as easy as you are in the third +division.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mademoiselle, neither titles nor crowned heads excite my modesty; and +publicity is very much my element. I like it well, and breathe in it quite +freely;—but—but, in short, here is the sentiment brought into action, at this +very moment; however, I disdain to be worsted by it. If, Mademoiselle, I were a +marrying man (which I am not; and you may spare yourself the trouble of any +sneer you may be contemplating at the thought), and found it necessary to ask a +lady whether she could look upon me in the light of a future husband, then +would it be proved that I am as I say—modest.” +</p> + +<p> +I quite believed him now; and, in believing, I honoured him with a sincerity of +esteem which made my heart ache. +</p> + +<p> +“As to the St. Pierre,” he went on, recovering himself, for his voice had +altered a little, “she once intended to be Madame Emanuel; and I don’t know +whither I might have been led, but for yonder little lattice with the light. +Ah, magic lattice! what miracles of discovery hast thou wrought! Yes,” he +pursued, “I have seen her rancours, her vanities, her levities—not only here, +but elsewhere: I have witnessed what bucklers me against all her arts: I am +safe from poor Zélie.” +</p> + +<p> +“And my pupils,” he presently recommenced, “those blondes jeunes filles—so mild +and meek—I have seen the most reserved—romp like boys, the demurest—snatch +grapes from the walls, shake pears from the trees. When the English teacher +came, I saw her, marked her early preference for this alley, noticed her taste +for seclusion, watched her well, long before she and I came to speaking terms; +do you recollect my once coming silently and offering you a little knot of +white violets when we were strangers?” +</p> + +<p> +“I recollect it. I dried the violets, kept them, and have them still.” +</p> + +<p> +“It pleased me when you took them peacefully and promptly, without prudery—that +sentiment which I ever dread to excite, and which, when it is revealed in eye +or gesture, I vindictively detest. To return. Not only did <i>I</i> watch you; +but often—especially at eventide—another guardian angel was noiselessly +hovering near: night after night my cousin Beck has stolen down yonder steps, +and glidingly pursued your movements when you did not see her.” +</p> + +<p> +“But, Monsieur, you could not from the distance of that window see what passed +in this garden at night?” +</p> + +<p> +“By moonlight I possibly might with a glass—I use a glass—but the garden itself +is open to me. In the shed, at the bottom, there is a door leading into a +court, which communicates with the college; of that door I possess the key, and +thus come and go at pleasure. This afternoon I came through it, and found you +asleep in classe; again this evening I have availed myself of the same +entrance.” +</p> + +<p> +I could not help saying, “If you were a wicked, designing man, how terrible +would all this be!” +</p> + +<p> +His attention seemed incapable of being arrested by this view of the subject: +he lit his cigar, and while he puffed it, leaning against a tree, and looking +at me in a cool, amused way he had when his humour was tranquil, I thought +proper to go on sermonizing him: he often lectured me by the hour together—I +did not see why I should not speak my mind for once. So I told him my +impressions concerning his Jesuit-system. +</p> + +<p> +“The knowledge it brings you is bought too dear, Monsieur; this coming and +going by stealth degrades your own dignity.” +</p> + +<p> +“My dignity!” he cried, laughing; “when did you ever see me trouble my head +about my dignity? It is you, Miss Lucy, who are ‘digne.’ How often, in your +high insular presence, have I taken a pleasure in trampling upon, what you are +pleased to call, my dignity; tearing it, scattering it to the winds, in those +mad transports you witness with such hauteur, and which I know you think very +like the ravings of a third-rate London actor.” +</p> + +<p> +“Monsieur, I tell you every glance you cast from that lattice is a wrong done +to the best part of your own nature. To study the human heart thus, is to +banquet secretly and sacrilegiously on Eve’s apples. I wish you were a +Protestant.” +</p> + +<p> +Indifferent to the wish, he smoked on. After a space of smiling yet thoughtful +silence, he said, rather suddenly—“I have seen other things.” +</p> + +<p> +“What other things?” +</p> + +<p> +Taking the weed from his lips, he threw the remnant amongst the shrubs, where, +for a moment, it lay glowing in the gloom. +</p> + +<p> +“Look, at it,” said he: “is not that spark like an eye watching you and me?” +</p> + +<p> +He took a turn down the walk; presently returning, he went on:—“I have seen, +Miss Lucy, things to me unaccountable, that have made me watch all night for a +solution, and I have not yet found it.” +</p> + +<p> +The tone was peculiar; my veins thrilled; he saw me shiver. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you afraid? Whether is it of my words or that red jealous eye just winking +itself out?” +</p> + +<p> +“I am cold; the night grows dark and late, and the air is changed; it is time +to go in.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is little past eight, but you shall go in soon. Answer me only this +question.” +</p> + +<p> +Yet he paused ere he put it. The garden was truly growing dark; dusk had come +on with clouds, and drops of rain began to patter through the trees. I hoped he +would feel this, but, for the moment, he seemed too much absorbed to be +sensible of the change. +</p> + +<p> +“Mademoiselle, do you Protestants believe in the supernatural?” +</p> + +<p> +“There is a difference of theory and belief on this point amongst Protestants +as amongst other sects,” I answered. “Why, Monsieur, do you ask such a +question?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why do you shrink and speak so faintly? Are you superstitious?” +</p> + +<p> +“I am constitutionally nervous. I dislike the discussion of such subjects. I +dislike it the more because—” +</p> + +<p> +“You believe?” +</p> + +<p> +“No: but it has happened to me to experience impressions—” +</p> + +<p> +“Since you came here?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; not many months ago.” +</p> + +<p> +“Here?—in this house?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Bon! I am glad of it. I knew it, somehow; before you told me. I was conscious +of rapport between you and myself. You are patient, and I am choleric; you are +quiet and pale, and I am tanned and fiery; you are a strict Protestant, and I +am a sort of lay Jesuit: but we are alike—there is affinity between us. Do you +see it, Mademoiselle, when you look in the glass? Do you observe that your +forehead is shaped like mine—that your eyes are cut like mine? Do you hear that +you have some of my tones of voice? Do you know that you have many of my looks? +I perceive all this, and believe that you were born under my star. Yes, you +were born under my star! Tremble! for where that is the case with mortals, the +threads of their destinies are difficult to disentangle; knottings and +catchings occur—sudden breaks leave damage in the web. But these ‘impressions,’ +as you say, with English caution. I, too, have had my ‘impressions.’” +</p> + +<p> +“Monsieur, tell me them.” +</p> + +<p> +“I desire no better, and intend no less. You know the legend of this house and +garden?” +</p> + +<p> +“I know it. Yes. They say that hundreds of years ago a nun was buried here +alive at the foot of this very tree, beneath the ground which now bears us.” +</p> + +<p> +“And that in former days a nun’s ghost used to come and go here.” +</p> + +<p> +“Monsieur, what if it comes and goes here still?” +</p> + +<p> +“Something comes and goes here: there is a shape frequenting this house by +night, different to any forms that show themselves by day. I have indisputably +seen a something, more than once; and to me its conventual weeds were a strange +sight, saying more than they can do to any other living being. A nun!” +</p> + +<p> +“Monsieur, I, too, have seen it.” +</p> + +<p> +“I anticipated that. Whether this nun be flesh and blood, or something that +remains when blood is dried, and flesh is wasted, her business is as much with +you as with me, probably. Well, I mean to make it out; it has baffled me so +far, but I mean to follow up the mystery. I mean—” +</p> + +<p> +Instead of telling what he meant, he raised his head suddenly; I made the same +movement in the same instant; we both looked to one point—the high tree +shadowing the great berceau, and resting some of its boughs on the roof of the +first classe. There had been a strange and inexplicable sound from that +quarter, as if the arms of that tree had swayed of their own motion, and its +weight of foliage had rushed and crushed against the massive trunk. Yes; there +scarce stirred a breeze, and that heavy tree was convulsed, whilst the feathery +shrubs stood still. For some minutes amongst the wood and leafage a rending and +heaving went on. Dark as it was, it seemed to me that something more solid than +either night-shadow, or branch-shadow, blackened out of the boles. At last the +struggle ceased. What birth succeeded this travail? What Dryad was born of +these throes? We watched fixedly. A sudden bell rang in the house—the +prayer-bell. Instantly into our alley there came, out of the berceau, an +apparition, all black and white. With a sort of angry rush-close, close past +our faces—swept swiftly the very NUN herself! Never had I seen her so clearly. +She looked tall of stature, and fierce of gesture. As she went, the wind rose +sobbing; the rain poured wild and cold; the whole night seemed to feel her. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap32"></a>CHAPTER XXXII.<br/> +THE FIRST LETTER.</h2> + +<p> +Where, it becomes time to inquire, was Paulina Mary? How fared my intercourse +with the sumptuous Hôtel Crécy? That intercourse had, for an interval, been +suspended by absence; M. and Miss de Bassompierre had been travelling, dividing +some weeks between the provinces and capital of France. Chance apprised me of +their return very shortly after it took place. +</p> + +<p> +I was walking one mild afternoon on a quiet boulevard, wandering slowly on, +enjoying the benign April sun, and some thoughts not unpleasing, when I saw +before me a group of riders, stopping as if they had just encountered, and +exchanging greetings in the midst of the broad, smooth, linden-bordered path; +on one side a middle-aged gentleman and young lady, on the other—a young and +handsome man. Very graceful was the lady’s mien, choice her appointments, +delicate and stately her whole aspect. Still, as I looked, I felt they were +known to me, and, drawing a little nearer, I fully recognised them all: the +Count Home de Bassompierre, his daughter, and Dr. Graham Bretton. +</p> + +<p> +How animated was Graham’s face! How true, how warm, yet how retiring the joy it +expressed! This was the state of things, this the combination of circumstances, +at once to attract and enchain, to subdue and excite Dr. John. The pearl he +admired was in itself of great price and truest purity, but he was not the man +who, in appreciating the gem, could forget its setting. Had he seen Paulina +with the same youth, beauty, and grace, but on foot, alone, unguarded, and in +simple attire, a dependent worker, a demi-grisette, he would have thought her a +pretty little creature, and would have loved with his eye her movements and her +mien, but it required other than this to conquer him as he was now vanquished, +to bring him safe under dominion as now, without loss, and even with gain to +his manly honour, one saw that he was reduced; there was about Dr. John all the +man of the world; to satisfy himself did not suffice; society must approve—the +world must admire what he did, or he counted his measures false and futile. In +his victrix he required all that was here visible—the imprint of high +cultivation, the consecration of a careful and authoritative protection, the +adjuncts that Fashion decrees, Wealth purchases, and Taste adjusts; for these +conditions his spirit stipulated ere it surrendered: they were here to the +utmost fulfilled; and now, proud, impassioned, yet fearing, he did homage to +Paulina as his sovereign. As for her, the smile of feeling, rather than of +conscious power, slept soft in her eyes. +</p> + +<p> +They parted. He passed me at speed, hardly feeling the earth he skimmed, and +seeing nothing on either hand. He looked very handsome; mettle and purpose were +roused in him fully. +</p> + +<p> +“Papa, there is Lucy!” cried a musical, friendly voice. “Lucy, dear +Lucy—<i>do</i> come here!” +</p> + +<p> +I hastened to her. She threw back her veil, and stooped from her saddle to kiss +me. +</p> + +<p> +“I was coming to see you to-morrow,” said she; “but now to-morrow you will come +and see me.” +</p> + +<p> +She named the hour, and I promised compliance. +</p> + +<p> +The morrow’s evening found me with her—she and I shut into her own room. I had +not seen her since that occasion when her claims were brought into comparison +with those of Ginevra Fanshawe, and had so signally prevailed; she had much to +tell me of her travels in the interval. A most animated, rapid speaker was she +in such a tête-à-tête, a most lively describer; yet with her artless diction +and clear soft voice, she never seemed to speak too fast or to say too much. My +own attention I think would not soon have flagged, but by-and-by, she herself +seemed to need some change of subject; she hastened to wind up her narrative +briefly. Yet why she terminated with so concise an abridgment did not +immediately appear; silence followed—a restless silence, not without symptoms +of abstraction. Then, turning to me, in a diffident, half-appealing +voice—“Lucy—” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I am at your side.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is my cousin Ginevra still at Madame Beck’s?” +</p> + +<p> +“Your cousin is still there; you must be longing to see her.” +</p> + +<p> +“No—not much.” +</p> + +<p> +“You want to invite her to spend another evening?” +</p> + +<p> +“No… I suppose she still talks about being married?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not to any one you care for.” +</p> + +<p> +“But of course she still thinks of Dr. Bretton? She cannot have changed her +mind on that point, because it was so fixed two months ago.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, you know, it does not matter. You saw the terms on which they stood.” +</p> + +<p> +“There was a little misunderstanding that evening, certainly; does she seem +unhappy?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not she. To change the subject. Have you heard or seen nothing of, or from, +Graham during your absence?” +</p> + +<p> +“Papa had letters from him once or twice about business, I think. He undertook +the management of some affair which required attention while we were away. Dr. +Bretton seems to respect papa, and to have pleasure in obliging him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes: you met him yesterday on the boulevard; you would be able to judge from +his aspect that his friends need not be painfully anxious about his health?” +</p> + +<p> +“Papa seems to have thought with you. I could not help smiling. He is not +particularly observant, you know, because he is often thinking of other things +than what pass before his eyes; but he said, as Dr. Bretton rode away, ‘Really +it does a man good to see the spirit and energy of that boy.’ He called Dr. +Bretton a boy; I believe he almost thinks him so, just as he thinks me a little +girl; he was not speaking to me, but dropped that remark to himself. Lucy….” +</p> + +<p> +Again fell the appealing accent, and at the same instant she left her chair, +and came and sat on the stool at my feet. +</p> + +<p> +I liked her. It is not a declaration I have often made concerning my +acquaintance, in the course of this book: the reader will bear with it for +once. Intimate intercourse, close inspection, disclosed in Paulina only what +was delicate, intelligent, and sincere; therefore my regard for her lay deep. +An admiration more superficial might have been more demonstrative; mine, +however, was quiet. +</p> + +<p> +“What have you to ask of Lucy?” said I; “be brave, and speak out.” +</p> + +<p> +But there was no courage in her eye; as it met mine, it fell; and there was no +coolness on her cheek—not a transient surface-blush, but a gathering inward +excitement raised its tint and its temperature. +</p> + +<p> +“Lucy, I <i>do</i> wish to know your thoughts of Dr. Bretton. Do, <i>do</i> +give me your real opinion of his character, his disposition.” +</p> + +<p> +“His character stands high, and deservedly high.” +</p> + +<p> +“And his disposition? Tell me about his disposition,” she urged; “you know him +well.” +</p> + +<p> +“I know him pretty well.” +</p> + +<p> +“You know his home-side. You have seen him with his mother; speak of him as a +son.” +</p> + +<p> +“He is a fine-hearted son; his mother’s comfort and hope, her pride and +pleasure.” +</p> + +<p> +She held my hand between hers, and at each favourable word gave it a little +caressing stroke. +</p> + +<p> +“In what other way is he good, Lucy?” +</p> + +<p> +“Dr. Bretton is benevolent—humanely disposed towards all his race, Dr. Bretton +would have benignity for the lowest savage, or the worst criminal.” +</p> + +<p> +“I heard some gentlemen, some of papa’s friends, who were talking about him, +say the same. They say many of the poor patients at the hospitals, who tremble +before some pitiless and selfish surgeons, welcome him.” +</p> + +<p> +“They are right; I have witnessed as much. He once took me over a hospital; I +saw how he was received: your father’s friends are right.” +</p> + +<p> +The softest gratitude animated her eye as she lifted it a moment. She had yet +more to say, but seemed hesitating about time and place. Dusk was beginning to +reign; her parlour fire already glowed with twilight ruddiness; but I thought +she wished the room dimmer, the hour later. +</p> + +<p> +“How quiet and secluded we feel here!” I remarked, to reassure her. +</p> + +<p> +“Do we? Yes; it is a still evening, and I shall not be called down to tea; papa +is dining out.” +</p> + +<p> +Still holding my hand, she played with the fingers unconsciously, dressed them, +now in her own rings, and now circled them with a twine of her beautiful hair; +she patted the palm against her hot cheek, and at last, having cleared a voice +that was naturally liquid as a lark’s, she said:— +</p> + +<p> +“You must think it rather strange that I should talk so much about Dr. Bretton, +ask so many questions, take such an interest, but—”. +</p> + +<p> +“Not at all strange; perfectly natural; you like him.” +</p> + +<p> +“And if I did,” said she, with slight quickness, “is that a reason why I should +talk? I suppose you think me weak, like my cousin Ginevra?” +</p> + +<p> +“If I thought you one whit like Madame Ginevra, I would not sit here waiting +for your communications. I would get up, walk at my ease about the room, and +anticipate all you had to say by a round lecture. Go on.” +</p> + +<p> +“I mean to go on,” retorted she; “what else do you suppose I mean to do?” +</p> + +<p> +And she looked and spoke—the little Polly of Bretton—petulant, sensitive. +</p> + +<p> +“If,” said she, emphatically, “if I liked Dr. John till I was fit to die for +liking him, that alone could not license me to be otherwise than dumb—dumb as +the grave—dumb as you, Lucy Snowe—you know it—and you know you would despise me +if I failed in self-control, and whined about some rickety liking that was all +on my side.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is true I little respect women or girls who are loquacious either in +boasting the triumphs, or bemoaning the mortifications, of feelings. But as to +you, Paulina, speak, for I earnestly wish to hear you. Tell me all it will give +you pleasure or relief to tell: I ask no more.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you care for me, Lucy?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I do, Paulina.” +</p> + +<p> +“And I love you. I had an odd content in being with you even when I was a +little, troublesome, disobedient girl; it was charming to me then to lavish on +you my naughtiness and whims. Now you are acceptable to me, and I like to talk +with and trust you. So listen, Lucy.” +</p> + +<p> +And she settled herself, resting against my arm—resting gently, not with honest +Mistress Fanshawe’s fatiguing and selfish weight. +</p> + +<p> +“A few minutes since you asked whether we had not heard from Graham during our +absence, and I said there were two letters for papa on business; this was true, +but I did not tell you all.” +</p> + +<p> +“You evaded?” +</p> + +<p> +“I shuffled and equivocated, you know. However, I am going to speak the truth +now; it is getting darker; one can talk at one’s ease. Papa often lets me open +the letter-bag and give him out the contents. One morning, about three weeks +ago, you don’t know how surprised I was to find, amongst a dozen letters for M. +de Bassompierre, a note addressed to Miss de Bassompierre. I spied it at once, +amidst all the rest; the handwriting was not strange; it attracted me directly. +I was going to say, ‘Papa, here is another letter from Dr. Bretton;’ but the +‘Miss’ struck me mute. I actually never received a letter from a gentleman +before. Ought I to have shown it to papa, and let him open it and read it +first? I could not for my life, Lucy. I know so well papa’s ideas about me: he +forgets my age; he thinks I am a mere school-girl; he is not aware that other +people see I am grown up as tall as I shall be; so, with a curious mixture of +feelings, some of them self-reproachful, and some so fluttering and strong, I +cannot describe them, I gave papa his twelve letters—his herd of +possessions—and kept back my one, my ewe-lamb. It lay in my lap during +breakfast, looking up at me with an inexplicable meaning, making me feel myself +a thing double-existent—a child to that dear papa, but no more a child to +myself. After breakfast I carried my letter up-stairs, and having secured +myself by turning the key in the door, I began to study the outside of my +treasure: it was some minutes before I could get over the direction and +penetrate the seal; one does not take a strong place of this kind by instant +storm—one sits down awhile before it, as beleaguers say. Graham’s hand is like +himself, Lucy, and so is his seal—all clear, firm, and rounded—no slovenly +splash of wax—a full, solid, steady drop—a distinct impress; no pointed turns +harshly pricking the optic nerve, but a clean, mellow, pleasant manuscript, +that soothes you as you read. It is like his face—just like the chiselling of +his features: do you know his autograph?” +</p> + +<p> +“I have seen it: go on.” +</p> + +<p> +“The seal was too beautiful to be broken, so I cut it round with my scissors. +On the point of reading the letter at last, I once more drew back voluntarily; +it was too soon yet to drink that draught—the sparkle in the cup was so +beautiful—I would watch it yet a minute. Then I remembered all at once that I +had not said my prayers that morning. Having heard papa go down to breakfast a +little earlier than usual, I had been afraid of keeping him waiting, and had +hastened to join him as soon as dressed, thinking no harm to put off prayers +till afterwards. Some people would say I ought to have served God first and +then man; but I don’t think heaven could be jealous of anything I might do for +papa. I believe I am superstitious. A voice seemed now to say that another +feeling than filial affection was in question—to urge me to pray before I dared +to read what I so longed to read—to deny myself yet a moment, and remember +first a great duty. I have had these impulses ever since I can remember. I put +the letter down and said my prayers, adding, at the end, a strong entreaty that +whatever happened, I might not be tempted or led to cause papa any sorrow, and +might never, in caring for others, neglect him. The very thought of such a +possibility, so pierced my heart that it made me cry. But still, Lucy, I felt +that in time papa would have to be taught the truth, managed, and induced to +hear reason. +</p> + +<p> +“I read the letter. Lucy, life is said to be all disappointment. <i>I</i> was +not disappointed. Ere I read, and while I read, my heart did more than throb—it +trembled fast—every quiver seemed like the pant of an animal athirst, laid down +at a well and drinking; and the well proved quite full, gloriously clear; it +rose up munificently of its own impulse; I saw the sun through its gush, and +not a mote, Lucy, no moss, no insect, no atom in the thrice-refined golden +gurgle. +</p> + +<p> +“Life,” she went on, “is said to be full of pain to some. I have read +biographies where the wayfarer seemed to journey on from suffering to +suffering; where Hope flew before him fast, never alighting so near, or +lingering so long, as to give his hand a chance of one realizing grasp. I have +read of those who sowed in tears, and whose harvest, so far from being reaped +in joy, perished by untimely blight, or was borne off by sudden whirlwind; and, +alas! some of these met the winter with empty garners, and died of utter want +in the darkest and coldest of the year.” +</p> + +<p> +“Was it their fault, Paulina, that they of whom you speak thus died?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not always their fault. Some of them were good endeavouring people. I am not +endeavouring, nor actively good, yet God has caused me to grow in sun, due +moisture, and safe protection, sheltered, fostered, taught, by my dear father; +and now—now—another comes. Graham loves me.” +</p> + +<p> +For some minutes we both paused on this climax. +</p> + +<p> +“Does your father know?” I inquired, in a low voice. +</p> + +<p> +“Graham spoke with deep respect of papa, but implied that he dared not approach +that quarter as yet; he must first prove his worth: he added that he must have +some light respecting myself and my own feelings ere he ventured to risk a step +in the matter elsewhere.” +</p> + +<p> +“How did you reply?” +</p> + +<p> +“I replied briefly, but I did not repulse him. Yet I almost trembled for fear +of making the answer too cordial: Graham’s tastes are so fastidious. I wrote it +three times—chastening and subduing the phrases at every rescript; at last, +having confected it till it seemed to me to resemble a morsel of ice flavoured +with ever so slight a zest of fruit or sugar, I ventured to seal and despatch +it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Excellent, Paulina! Your instinct is fine; you understand Dr. Bretton.” +</p> + +<p> +“But how must I manage about papa? There I am still in pain.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do not manage at all. Wait now. Only maintain no further correspondence till +your father knows all, and gives his sanction.” +</p> + +<p> +“Will he ever give it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Time will show. Wait.” +</p> + +<p> +“Dr. Bretton wrote one other letter, deeply grateful for my calm, brief note; +but I anticipated your advice, by saying, that while my sentiments continued +the same, I could not, without my father’s knowledge, write again.” +</p> + +<p> +“You acted as you ought to have done; so Dr. Bretton will feel: it will +increase his pride in you, his love for you, if either be capable of increase. +Paulina, that gentle hoar-frost of yours, surrounding so much pure, fine flame, +is a priceless privilege of nature.” +</p> + +<p> +“You see I feel Graham’s disposition,” said she. “I feel that no delicacy can +be too exquisite for his treatment.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is perfectly proved that you comprehend him, and then—whatever Dr. +Bretton’s disposition, were he one who expected to be more nearly met—you would +still act truthfully, openly, tenderly, with your father.” +</p> + +<p> +“Lucy, I trust I shall thus act always. Oh, it will be pain to wake papa from +his dream, and tell him I am no more a little girl!” +</p> + +<p> +“Be in no hurry to do so, Paulina. Leave the revelation to Time and your kind +Fate. I also have noticed the gentleness of her cares for you: doubt not she +will benignantly order the circumstances, and fitly appoint the hour. Yes: I +have thought over your life just as you have yourself thought it over; I have +made comparisons like those to which you adverted. We know not the future, but +the past has been propitious. +</p> + +<p> +“As a child I feared for you; nothing that has life was ever more susceptible +than your nature in infancy: under harshness or neglect, neither your outward +nor your inward self would have ripened to what they now are. Much pain, much +fear, much struggle, would have troubled the very lines of your features, +broken their regularity, would have harassed your nerves into the fever of +habitual irritation; you would have lost in health and cheerfulness, in grace +and sweetness. Providence has protected and cultured you, not only for your own +sake, but I believe for Graham’s. His star, too, was fortunate: to develop +fully the best of his nature, a companion like you was needed: there you are, +ready. You must be united. I knew it the first day I saw you together at La +Terrasse. In all that mutually concerns you and Graham there seems to me +promise, plan, harmony. I do not think the sunny youth of either will prove the +forerunner of stormy age. I think it is deemed good that you two should live in +peace and be happy—not as angels, but as few are happy amongst mortals. Some +lives <i>are</i> thus blessed: it is God’s will: it is the attesting trace and +lingering evidence of Eden. Other lives run from the first another course. +Other travellers encounter weather fitful and gusty, wild and variable—breast +adverse winds, are belated and overtaken by the early closing winter night. +Neither can this happen without the sanction of God; and I know that, amidst +His boundless works, is somewhere stored the secret of this last fate’s +justice: I know that His treasures contain the proof as the promise of its +mercy.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap33"></a>CHAPTER XXXIII.<br/> +M. PAUL KEEPS HIS PROMISE.</h2> + +<p> +On the first of May, we had all—i.e. the twenty boarders and the four +teachers—notice to rise at five o’clock of the morning, to be dressed and ready +by six, to put ourselves under the command of M. le Professeur Emanuel, who was +to head our march forth from Villette, for it was on this day he proposed to +fulfil his promise of taking us to breakfast in the country. I, indeed, as the +reader may perhaps remember, had not had the honour of an invitation when this +excursion was first projected—rather the contrary; but on my now making +allusion to this fact, and wishing to know how it was to be, my ear received a +pull, of which I did not venture to challenge the repetition by raising, +further difficulties. +</p> + +<p> +“Je vous conseille de vous faire prier,” said M. Emanuel, imperially menacing +the other ear. One Napoleonic compliment, however, was enough, so I made up my +mind to be of the party. +</p> + +<p> +The morning broke calm as summer, with singing of birds in the garden, and a +light dew-mist that promised heat. We all said it would be warm, and we all +felt pleasure in folding away heavy garments, and in assuming the attire +suiting a sunny season. The clean fresh print dress, and the light straw +bonnet, each made and trimmed as the French workwoman alone can make and trim, +so as to unite the utterly unpretending with the perfectly becoming, was the +rule of costume. Nobody flaunted in faded silk; nobody wore a second-hand best +article. +</p> + +<p> +At six the bell rang merrily, and we poured down the staircase, through the +carré, along the corridor, into the vestibule. There stood our Professor, +wearing, not his savage-looking paletôt and severe bonnet-grec, but a +young-looking belted blouse and cheerful straw hat. He had for us all the +kindest good-morrow, and most of us for him had a thanksgiving smile. We were +marshalled in order and soon started. +</p> + +<p> +The streets were yet quiet, and the boulevards were fresh and peaceful as +fields. I believe we were very happy as we walked along. This chief of ours had +the secret of giving a certain impetus to happiness when he would; just as, in +an opposite mood, he could give a thrill to fear. +</p> + +<p> +He did not lead nor follow us, but walked along the line, giving a word to +every one, talking much to his favourites, and not wholly neglecting even those +he disliked. It was rather my wish, for a reason I had, to keep slightly aloof +from notice, and being paired with Ginevra Fanshawe, bearing on my arm the dear +pressure of that angel’s not unsubstantial limb—(she continued in excellent +case, and I can assure the reader it was no trifling business to bear the +burden of her loveliness; many a time in the course of that warm day I wished +to goodness there had been less of the charming commodity)—however, having her, +as I said, I tried to make her useful by interposing her always between myself +and M. Paul, shifting my place, according as I heard him coming up to the right +hand or the left. My private motive for this manœuvre might be traced to the +circumstance of the new print dress I wore, being pink in colour—a fact which, +under our present convoy, made me feel something as I have felt, when, clad in +a shawl with a red border, necessitated to traverse a meadow where pastured a +bull. +</p> + +<p> +For awhile, the shifting system, together with some modifications in the +arrangement of a black silk scarf, answered my purpose; but, by-and-by, he +found out, that whether he came to this side or to that, Miss Fanshawe was +still his neighbour. The course of acquaintance between Ginevra and him had +never run so smooth that his temper did not undergo a certain crisping process +whenever he heard her English accent: nothing in their dispositions fitted; +they jarred if they came in contact; he held her empty and affected; she deemed +him bearish, meddling, repellent. +</p> + +<p> +At last, when he had changed his place for about the sixth time, finding still +the same untoward result to the experiment—he thrust his head forward, settled +his eyes on mine, and demanded with impatience, “Qu’est-ce que c’est? Vous me +jouez des tours?” +</p> + +<p> +The words were hardly out of his mouth, however, ere, with his customary +quickness, he seized the root of this proceeding: in vain I shook out the long +fringe, and spread forth the broad end of my scarf. “A-h-h! c’est la robe +rose!” broke from his lips, affecting me very much like the sudden and irate +low of some lord of the meadow. +</p> + +<p> +“It is only cotton,” I alleged, hurriedly; “and cheaper, and washes better than +any other colour.” +</p> + +<p> +“Et Mademoiselle Lucy est coquette comme dix Parisiennes,” he answered. “A-t-on +jamais vu une Anglaise pareille. Regardez plutôt son chapeau, et ses gants, et +ses brodequins!” These articles of dress were just like what my companions +wore; certainly not one whit smarter—perhaps rather plainer than most—but +Monsieur had now got hold of his text, and I began to chafe under the expected +sermon. It went off, however, as mildly as the menace of a storm sometimes +passes on a summer day. I got but one flash of sheet lightning in the shape of +a single bantering smile from his eyes; and then he said, “Courage!—à vrai dire +je ne suis pas fâché, peut-être même suis je content qu’on s’est fait si belle +pour ma petite fête.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mais ma robe n’est pas belle, Monsieur—elle n’est que propre.” +</p> + +<p> +“J’aime la propreté,” said he. In short, he was not to be dissatisfied; the sun +of good humour was to triumph on this auspicious morning; it consumed scudding +clouds ere they sullied its disk. +</p> + +<p> +And now we were in the country, amongst what they called “les bois et les +petits sentiers.” These woods and lanes a month later would offer but a dusty +and doubtful seclusion: now, however, in their May greenness and morning +repose, they looked very pleasant. +</p> + +<p> +We reached a certain well, planted round, in the taste of Labassecour, with an +orderly circle of lime-trees: here a halt was called; on the green swell of +ground surrounding this well, we were ordered to be seated, Monsieur taking his +place in our midst, and suffering us to gather in a knot round him. Those who +liked him more than they feared, came close, and these were chiefly little +ones; those who feared more than they liked, kept somewhat aloof; those in whom +much affection had given, even to what remained of fear, a pleasurable zest, +observed the greatest distance. +</p> + +<p> +He began to tell us a story. Well could he narrate: in such a diction as +children love, and learned men emulate; a diction simple in its strength, and +strong in its simplicity. There were beautiful touches in that little tale; +sweet glimpses of feeling and hues of description that, while I listened, sunk +into my mind, and since have never faded. He tinted a twilight scene—I hold it +in memory still—such a picture I have never looked on from artist’s pencil. +</p> + +<p> +I have said, that, for myself, I had no impromptu faculty; and perhaps that +very deficiency made me marvel the more at one who possessed it in perfection. +M. Emanuel was not a man to write books; but I have heard him lavish, with +careless, unconscious prodigality, such mental wealth as books seldom boast; +his mind was indeed my library, and whenever it was opened to me, I entered +bliss. Intellectually imperfect as I was, I could read little; there were few +bound and printed volumes that did not weary me—whose perusal did not fag and +blind—but his tomes of thought were collyrium to the spirit’s eyes; over their +contents, inward sight grew clear and strong. I used to think what a delight it +would be for one who loved him better than he loved himself, to gather and +store up those handfuls of gold-dust, so recklessly flung to heaven’s reckless +winds. +</p> + +<p> +His story done, he approached the little knoll where I and Ginevra sat apart. +In his usual mode of demanding an opinion (he had not reticence to wait till it +was voluntarily offered) he asked, “Were you interested?” +</p> + +<p> +According to my wonted undemonstrative fashion, I simply answered—“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Was it good?” +</p> + +<p> +“Very good.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yet I could not write that down,” said he. +</p> + +<p> +“Why not, Monsieur?” +</p> + +<p> +“I hate the mechanical labour; I hate to stoop and sit still. I could dictate +it, though, with pleasure, to an amanuensis who suited me. Would Mademoiselle +Lucy write for me if I asked her?” +</p> + +<p> +“Monsieur would be too quick; he would urge me, and be angry if my pen did not +keep pace with his lips.” +</p> + +<p> +“Try some day; let us see the monster I can make of myself under the +circumstances. But just now, there is no question of dictation; I mean to make +you useful in another office. Do you see yonder farm-house?” +</p> + +<p> +“Surrounded with trees? Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“There we are to breakfast; and while the good fermière makes the café au lait +in a caldron, you and five others, whom I shall select, will spread with butter +half a hundred rolls.” +</p> + +<p> +Having formed his troop into line once more, he marched us straight on the +farm, which, on seeing our force, surrendered without capitulation. +</p> + +<p> +Clean knives and plates, and fresh butter being provided, half-a-dozen of us, +chosen by our Professor, set to work under his directions, to prepare for +breakfast a huge basket of rolls, with which the baker had been ordered to +provision the farm, in anticipation of our coming. Coffee and chocolate were +already made hot; cream and new-laid eggs were added to the treat, and M. +Emanuel, always generous, would have given a large order for “jambon” and +“confitures” in addition, but that some of us, who presumed perhaps upon our +influence, insisted that it would be a most reckless waste of victual. He +railed at us for our pains, terming us “des ménagères avares;” but we let him +talk, and managed the economy of the repast our own way. +</p> + +<p> +With what a pleasant countenance he stood on the farm-kitchen hearth looking +on! He was a man whom it made happy to see others happy; he liked to have +movement, animation, abundance and enjoyment round him. We asked where he would +sit. He told us, we knew well he was our slave, and we his tyrants, and that he +dared not so much as choose a chair without our leave; so we set him the +farmer’s great chair at the head of the long table, and put him into it. +</p> + +<p> +Well might we like him, with all his passions and hurricanes, when he could be +so benignant and docile at times, as he was just now. Indeed, at the worst, it +was only his nerves that were irritable, not his temper that was radically bad; +soothe, comprehend, comfort him, and he was a lamb; he would not harm a fly. +Only to the very stupid, perverse, or unsympathizing, was he in the slightest +degree dangerous. +</p> + +<p> +Mindful always of his religion, he made the youngest of the party say a little +prayer before we began breakfast, crossing himself as devotedly as a woman. I +had never seen him pray before, or make that pious sign; he did it so simply, +with such child-like faith, I could not help smiling pleasurably as I watched; +his eyes met my smile; he just stretched out his kind hand, saying, “Donnez-moi +la main! I see we worship the same God, in the same spirit, though by different +rites.” +</p> + +<p> +Most of M. Emanuel’s brother Professors were emancipated free-thinkers, +infidels, atheists; and many of them men whose lives would not bear scrutiny; +he was more like a knight of old, religious in his way, and of spotless fame. +Innocent childhood, beautiful youth were safe at his side. He had vivid +passions, keen feelings, but his pure honour and his artless piety were the +strong charm that kept the lions couchant. +</p> + +<p> +That breakfast was a merry meal, and the merriment was not mere vacant clatter: +M. Paul originated, led, controlled and heightened it; his social, lively +temper played unfettered and unclouded; surrounded only by women and children +there was nothing to cross and thwart him; he had his own way, and a pleasant +way it was. +</p> + +<p> +The meal over, the party were free to run and play in the meadows; a few stayed +to help the farmer’s wife to put away her earthenware. M. Paul called me from +among these to come out and sit near him under a tree—whence he could view the +troop gambolling, over a wide pasture—and read to him whilst he took his cigar. +He sat on a rustic bench, and I at the tree-root. While I read (a +pocket-classic—a Corneille—I did not like it, but he did, finding therein +beauties I never could be brought to perceive), he listened with a sweetness of +calm the more impressive from the impetuosity of his general nature; the +deepest happiness filled his blue eye and smoothed his broad forehead. I, too, +was happy—happy with the bright day, happier with his presence, happiest with +his kindness. +</p> + +<p> +He asked, by-and-by, if I would not rather run to my companions than sit there? +I said, no; I felt content to be where he was. He asked whether, if I were his +sister, I should always be content to stay with a brother such as he. I said, I +believed I should; and I felt it. Again, he inquired whether, if he were to +leave Villette, and go far away, I should be sorry; and I dropped Corneille, +and made no reply. +</p> + +<p> +“Petite sœur,” said he; “how long could you remember me if we were separated?” +</p> + +<p> +“That, Monsieur, I can never tell, because I do not know how long it will be +before I shall cease to remember everything earthly.” +</p> + +<p> +“If I were to go beyond seas for two—three—five years, should you welcome me on +my return?” +</p> + +<p> +“Monsieur, how could I live in the interval?” +</p> + +<p> +“Pourtant j’ai été pour vous bien dur, bien exigeant.” +</p> + +<p> +I hid my face with the book, for it was covered with tears. I asked him why he +talked so; and he said he would talk so no more, and cheered me again with the +kindest encouragement. Still, the gentleness with which he treated me during +the rest of the day, went somehow to my heart. It was too tender. It was +mournful. I would rather he had been abrupt, whimsical, and irate as was his +wont. +</p> + +<p> +When hot noon arrived—for the day turned out as we had anticipated, glowing as +June—our shepherd collected his sheep from the pasture, and proceeded to lead +us all softly home. But we had a whole league to walk, thus far from Villette +was the farm where he had breakfasted; the children, especially, were tired +with their play; the spirits of most flagged at the prospect of this mid-day +walk over chaussées flinty, glaring, and dusty. This state of things had been +foreseen and provided for. Just beyond the boundary of the farm we met two +spacious vehicles coming to fetch us—such conveyances as are hired out +purposely for the accommodation of school-parties; here, with good management, +room was found for all, and in another hour M. Paul made safe consignment of +his charge at the Rue Fossette. It had been a pleasant day: it would have been +perfect, but for the breathing of melancholy which had dimmed its sunshine a +moment. +</p> + +<p> +That tarnish was renewed the same evening. +</p> + +<p> +Just about sunset, I saw M. Emanuel come out of the front-door, accompanied by +Madame Beck. They paced the centre-alley for nearly an hour, talking earnestly: +he—looking grave, yet restless; she—wearing an amazed, expostulatory, +dissuasive air. +</p> + +<p> +I wondered what was under discussion; and when Madame Beck re-entered the house +as it darkened, leaving her kinsman Paul yet lingering in the garden, I said to +myself—“He called me ‘petite sœur’ this morning. If he were really my brother, +how I should like to go to him just now, and ask what it is that presses on his +mind. See how he leans against that tree, with his arms crossed and his brow +bent. He wants consolation, I know: Madame does not console: she only +remonstrates. What now——?” +</p> + +<p> +Starting from quiescence to action, M. Paul came striding erect and quick down +the garden. The carré doors were yet open: I thought he was probably going to +water the orange-trees in the tubs, after his occasional custom; on reaching +the court, however, he took an abrupt turn and made for the berceau and the +first-classe glass door. There, in that first classe I was, thence I had been +watching him; but there I could not find courage to await his approach. He had +turned so suddenly, he strode so fast, he looked so strange; the coward within +me grew pale, shrank and—not waiting to listen to reason, and hearing the +shrubs crush and the gravel crunch to his advance—she was gone on the wings of +panic. +</p> + +<p> +Nor did I pause till I had taken sanctuary in the oratory, now empty. Listening +there with beating pulses, and an unaccountable, undefined apprehension, I +heard him pass through all the schoolrooms, clashing the doors impatiently as +he went; I heard him invade the refectory which the “lecture pieuse” was now +holding under hallowed constraint; I heard him pronounce these words—“Où est +Mademoiselle Lucie?” +</p> + +<p> +And just as, summoning my courage, I was preparing to go down and do what, +after all, I most wished to do in the world—viz., meet him—the wiry voice of +St. Pierre replied glibly and falsely, “Elle est au lit.” And he passed, with +the stamp of vexation, into the corridor. There Madame Beck met, captured, +chid, convoyed to the street-door, and finally dismissed him. +</p> + +<p> +As that street-door closed, a sudden amazement at my own perverse proceeding +struck like a blow upon me. I felt from the first it was me he wanted—me he was +seeking—and had not I wanted him too? What, then, had carried me away? What had +rapt me beyond his reach? He had something to tell: he was going to tell me +that something: my ear strained its nerve to hear it, and I had made the +confidence impossible. Yearning to listen and console, while I thought audience +and solace beyond hope’s reach—no sooner did opportunity suddenly and fully +arrive, than I evaded it as I would have evaded the levelled shaft of +mortality. +</p> + +<p> +Well, my insane inconsistency had its reward. Instead of the comfort, the +certain satisfaction, I might have won—could I but have put choking panic down, +and stood firm two minutes—here was dead blank, dark doubt, and drear suspense. +</p> + +<p> +I took my wages to my pillow, and passed the night counting them. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap34"></a>CHAPTER XXXIV.<br/> +MALEVOLA.</h2> + +<p> +Madame Beck called me on Thursday afternoon, and asked whether I had any +occupation to hinder me from going into town and executing some little +commissions for her at the shops. +</p> + +<p> +Being disengaged, and placing myself at her service, I was presently furnished +with a list of the wools, silks, embroidering thread, etcetera, wanted in the +pupils’ work, and having equipped myself in a manner suiting the threatening +aspect of a cloudy and sultry day, I was just drawing the spring-bolt of the +street-door, in act to issue forth, when Madame’s voice again summoned me to +the salle-à-manger. +</p> + +<p> +“Pardon, Meess Lucie!” cried she, in the seeming haste of an impromptu thought, +“I have just recollected one more errand for you, if your good-nature will not +deem itself over-burdened?” +</p> + +<p> +Of course I “confounded myself” in asseverations to the contrary; and Madame, +running into the little salon, brought thence a pretty basket, filled with fine +hothouse fruit, rosy, perfect, and tempting, reposing amongst the dark green, +wax-like leaves, and pale yellow stars of, I know not what, exotic plant. +</p> + +<p> +“There,” she said, “it is not heavy, and will not shame your neat toilette, as +if it were a household, servant-like detail. Do me the favour to leave this +little basket at the house of Madame Walravens, with my felicitations on her +fête. She lives down in the old town, Numéro 3, Rue des Mages. I fear you will +find the walk rather long, but you have the whole afternoon before you, and do +not hurry; if you are not back in time for dinner, I will order a portion to be +saved, or Goton, with whom you are a favourite, will have pleasure in tossing +up some trifle, for your especial benefit. You shall not be forgotten, ma bonne +Meess. And oh! please!” (calling me back once more) “be sure to insist on +seeing Madame Walravens herself, and giving the basket into her own hands, in +order that there may be no mistake, for she is rather a punctilious personage. +Adieu! Au revoir!” +</p> + +<p> +And at last I got away. The shop commissions took some time to execute, that +choosing and matching of silks and wools being always a tedious business, but +at last I got through my list. The patterns for the slippers, the bell-ropes, +the cabas were selected—the slides and tassels for the purses chosen—the whole +“tripotage,” in short, was off my mind; nothing but the fruit and the +felicitations remained to be attended to. +</p> + +<p> +I rather liked the prospect of a long walk, deep into the old and grim +Basse-Ville; and I liked it no worse because the evening sky, over the city, +was settling into a mass of black-blue metal, heated at the rim, and inflaming +slowly to a heavy red. +</p> + +<p> +I fear a high wind, because storm demands that exertion of strength and use of +action I always yield with pain; but the sullen down-fall, the thick +snow-descent, or dark rush of rain, ask only resignation—the quiet abandonment +of garments and person to be drenched. In return, it sweeps a great capital +clean before you; it makes you a quiet path through broad, grand streets; it +petrifies a living city as if by eastern enchantment; it transforms a Villette +into a Tadmor. Let, then, the rains fall, and the floods descend—only I must +first get rid of this basket of fruit. +</p> + +<p> +An unknown clock from an unknown tower (Jean Baptiste’s voice was now too +distant to be audible) was tolling the third quarter past five, when I reached +that street and house whereof Madame Beck had given me the address. It was no +street at all; it seemed rather to be part of a square: it was quiet, grass +grew between the broad grey flags, the houses were large and looked very +old—behind them rose the appearance of trees, indicating gardens at the back. +Antiquity brooded above this region, business was banished thence. Rich men had +once possessed this quarter, and once grandeur had made her seat here. That +church, whose dark, half-ruinous turrets overlooked the square, was the +venerable and formerly opulent shrine of the Magi. But wealth and greatness had +long since stretched their gilded pinions and fled hence, leaving these their +ancient nests, perhaps to house Penury for a time, or perhaps to stand cold and +empty, mouldering untenanted in the course of winters. +</p> + +<p> +As I crossed this deserted “place,” on whose pavement drops almost as large as +a five-franc piece were now slowly darkening, I saw, in its whole expanse, no +symptom or evidence of life, except what was given in the figure of an infirm +old priest, who went past, bending and propped on a staff—the type of eld and +decay. +</p> + +<p> +He had issued from the very house to which I was directed; and when I paused +before the door just closed after him, and rang the bell, he turned to look at +me. Nor did he soon avert his gaze; perhaps he thought me, with my basket of +summer fruit, and my lack of the dignity age confers, an incongruous figure in +such a scene. I know, had a young ruddy-faced bonne opened the door to admit +me, I should have thought such a one little in harmony with her dwelling; but, +when I found myself confronted by a very old woman, wearing a very antique +peasant costume, a cap alike hideous and costly, with long flaps of native +lace, a petticoat and jacket of cloth, and sabots more like little boats than +shoes, it seemed all right, and soothingly in character. +</p> + +<p> +The expression of her face was not quite so soothing as the cut of her costume; +anything more cantankerous I have seldom seen; she would scarcely reply to my +inquiry after Madame Walravens; I believe she would have snatched the basket of +fruit from my hand, had not the old priest, hobbling up, checked her, and +himself lent an ear to the message with which I was charged. +</p> + +<p> +His apparent deafness rendered it a little difficult to make him fully +understand that I must see Madame Walravens, and consign the fruit into her own +hands. At last, however, he comprehended the fact that such were my orders, and +that duty enjoined their literal fulfilment. Addressing the aged bonne, not in +French, but in the aboriginal tongue of Labassecour, he persuaded her, at last, +to let me cross the inhospitable threshold, and himself escorting me up-stairs, +I was ushered into a sort of salon, and there left. +</p> + +<p> +The room was large, and had a fine old ceiling, and almost church-like windows +of coloured-glass; but it was desolate, and in the shadow of a coming storm, +looked strangely lowering. Within—opened a smaller room; there, however, the +blind of the single casement was closed; through the deep gloom few details of +furniture were apparent. These few I amused myself by puzzling to make out; +and, in particular, I was attracted by the outline of a picture on the wall. +</p> + +<p> +By-and-by the picture seemed to give way: to my bewilderment, it shook, it +sunk, it rolled back into nothing; its vanishing left an opening arched, +leading into an arched passage, with a mystic winding stair; both passage and +stair were of cold stone, uncarpeted and unpainted. Down this donjon stair +descended a tap, tap, like a stick; soon there fell on the steps a shadow, and +last of all, I was aware of a substance. +</p> + +<p> +Yet, was it actual substance, this appearance approaching me? this obstruction, +partially darkening the arch? +</p> + +<p> +It drew near, and I saw it well. I began to comprehend where I was. Well might +this old square be named quarter of the Magi—well might the three towers, +overlooking it, own for godfathers three mystic sages of a dead and dark art. +Hoar enchantment here prevailed; a spell had opened for me elf-land—that +cell-like room, that vanishing picture, that arch and passage, and stair of +stone, were all parts of a fairy tale. Distincter even than these scenic +details stood the chief figure—Cunegonde, the sorceress! Malevola, the evil +fairy. How was she? +</p> + +<p> +She might be three feet high, but she had no shape; her skinny hands rested +upon each other, and pressed the gold knob of a wand-like ivory staff. Her face +was large, set, not upon her shoulders, but before her breast; she seemed to +have no neck; I should have said there were a hundred years in her features, +and more perhaps in her eyes—her malign, unfriendly eyes, with thick grey brows +above, and livid lids all round. How severely they viewed me, with a sort of +dull displeasure! +</p> + +<p> +This being wore a gown of brocade, dyed bright blue, full-tinted as the +gentianella flower, and covered with satin foliage in a large pattern; over the +gown a costly shawl, gorgeously bordered, and so large for her, that its +many-coloured fringe swept the floor. But her chief points were her jewels: she +had long, clear earrings, blazing with a lustre which could not be borrowed or +false; she had rings on her skeleton hands, with thick gold hoops, and +stones—purple, green, and blood-red. Hunchbacked, dwarfish, and doting, she was +adorned like a barbarian queen. +</p> + +<p> +“Que me voulez-vous?” said she, hoarsely, with the voice rather of male than of +female old age; and, indeed, a silver beard bristled her chin. +</p> + +<p> +I delivered my basket and my message. +</p> + +<p> +“Is that all?” she demanded. +</p> + +<p> +“It is all,” said I. +</p> + +<p> +“Truly, it was well worth while,” she answered. “Return to Madame Beck, and +tell her I can buy fruit when I want it, et quant à ses félicitations, je m’en +moque!” And this courteous dame turned her back. +</p> + +<p> +Just as she turned, a peal of thunder broke, and a flash of lightning blazed +broad over salon and boudoir. The tale of magic seemed to proceed with due +accompaniment of the elements. The wanderer, decoyed into the enchanted castle, +heard rising, outside, the spell-wakened tempest. +</p> + +<p> +What, in all this, was I to think of Madame Beck? She owned strange +acquaintance; she offered messages and gifts at an unique shrine, and +inauspicious seemed the bearing of the uncouth thing she worshipped. There went +that sullen Sidonia, tottering and trembling like palsy incarnate, tapping her +ivory staff on the mosaic parquet, and muttering venomously as she vanished. +</p> + +<p> +Down washed the rain, deep lowered the welkin; the clouds, ruddy a while ago, +had now, through all their blackness, turned deadly pale, as if in terror. +Notwithstanding my late boast about not fearing a shower, I hardly liked to go +out under this waterspout. Then the gleams of lightning were very fierce, the +thunder crashed very near; this storm had gathered immediately above Villette; +it seemed to have burst at the zenith; it rushed down prone; the forked, slant +bolts pierced athwart vertical torrents; red zigzags interlaced a descent +blanched as white metal: and all broke from a sky heavily black in its swollen +abundance. +</p> + +<p> +Leaving Madame Walravens’ inhospitable salon, I betook myself to her cold +staircase; there was a seat on the landing—there I waited. Somebody came +gliding along the gallery just above; it was the old priest. +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed Mademoiselle shall not sit there,” said he. “It would displeasure our +benefactor if he knew a stranger was so treated in this house.” +</p> + +<p> +And he begged me so earnestly to return to the salon, that, without +discourtesy, I could not but comply. The smaller room was better furnished and +more habitable than the larger; thither he introduced me. Partially withdrawing +the blind, he disclosed what seemed more like an oratory than a boudoir, a very +solemn little chamber, looking as if it were a place rather dedicated to relics +and remembrance, than designed for present use and comfort. +</p> + +<p> +The good father sat down, as if to keep me company; but instead of conversing, +he took out a book, fastened on the page his eyes, and employed his lips in +whispering—what sounded like a prayer or litany. A yellow electric light from +the sky gilded his bald head; his figure remained in shade—deep and purple; he +sat still as sculpture; he seemed to forget me for his prayers; he only looked +up when a fiercer bolt, or a harsher, closer rattle told of nearing danger; +even then, it was not in fear, but in seeming awe, he raised his eyes. I too +was awe-struck; being, however, under no pressure of slavish terror, my +thoughts and observations were free. +</p> + +<p> +To speak truth, I was beginning to fancy that the old priest resembled that +Père Silas, before whom I had kneeled in the church of the Béguinage. The idea +was vague, for I had seen my confessor only in dusk and in profile, yet still I +seemed to trace a likeness: I thought also I recognized the voice. While I +watched him, he betrayed, by one lifted look, that he felt my scrutiny; I +turned to note the room; that too had its half mystic interest. +</p> + +<p> +Beside a cross of curiously carved old ivory, yellow with time, and sloped +above a dark-red <i>prie-dieu</i>, furnished duly, with rich missal and ebon +rosary—hung the picture whose dim outline had drawn my eyes before—the picture +which moved, fell away with the wall and let in phantoms. Imperfectly seen, I +had taken it for a Madonna; revealed by clearer light, it proved to be a +woman’s portrait in a nun’s dress. The face, though not beautiful, was +pleasing; pale, young, and shaded with the dejection of grief or ill health. I +say again it was not beautiful; it was not even intellectual; its very +amiability was the amiability of a weak frame, inactive passions, acquiescent +habits: yet I looked long at that picture, and could not choose but look. +</p> + +<p> +The old priest, who at first had seemed to me so deaf and infirm, must yet have +retained his faculties in tolerable preservation; absorbed in his book as he +appeared, without once lifting his head, or, as far as I knew, turning his +eyes, he perceived the point towards which my attention was drawn, and, in a +slow distinct voice, dropped, concerning it, these four observations:— +</p> + +<p> +“She was much beloved. +</p> + +<p> +“She gave herself to God. +</p> + +<p> +“She died young. +</p> + +<p> +“She is still remembered, still wept.” +</p> + +<p> +“By that aged lady, Madame Walravens?” I inquired, fancying that I had +discovered in the incurable grief of bereavement, a key to that same aged +lady’s desperate ill-humour. +</p> + +<p> +The father shook his head with half a smile. +</p> + +<p> +“No, no,” said he; “a grand-dame’s affection for her children’s children may be +great, and her sorrow for their loss, lively; but it is only the affianced +lover, to whom Fate, Faith, and Death have trebly denied the bliss of union, +who mourns what he has lost, as Justine Marie is still mourned.” +</p> + +<p> +I thought the father rather wished to be questioned, and therefore I inquired +who had lost and who still mourned “Justine Marie.” I got, in reply, quite a +little romantic narrative, told not unimpressively, with the accompaniment of +the now subsiding storm. I am bound to say it might have been made much more +truly impressive, if there had been less French, Rousseau-like sentimentalizing +and wire-drawing; and rather more healthful carelessness of effect. But the +worthy father was obviously a Frenchman born and bred (I became more and more +persuaded of his resemblance to my confessor)—he was a true son of Rome; when +he did lift his eyes, he looked at me out of their corners, with more and +sharper subtlety than, one would have thought, could survive the wear and tear +of seventy years. Yet, I believe, he was a good old man. +</p> + +<p> +The hero of his tale was some former pupil of his, whom he now called his +benefactor, and who, it appears, had loved this pale Justine Marie, the +daughter of rich parents, at a time when his own worldly prospects were such as +to justify his aspiring to a well-dowered hand. The pupil’s father—once a rich +banker—had failed, died, and left behind him only debts and destitution. The +son was then forbidden to think of Marie; especially that old witch of a +grand-dame I had seen, Madame Walravens, opposed the match with all the +violence of a temper which deformity made sometimes demoniac. The mild Marie +had neither the treachery to be false, nor the force to be quite staunch to her +lover; she gave up her first suitor, but, refusing to accept a second with a +heavier purse, withdrew to a convent, and there died in her noviciate. +</p> + +<p> +Lasting anguish, it seems, had taken possession of the faithful heart which +worshipped her, and the truth of that love and grief had been shown in a manner +which touched even me, as I listened. +</p> + +<p> +Some years after Justine Marie’s death, ruin had come on her house too: her +father, by nominal calling a jeweller, but who also dealt a good deal on the +Bourse, had been concerned in some financial transactions which entailed +exposure and ruinous fines. He died of grief for the loss, and shame for the +infamy. His old hunchbacked mother and his bereaved wife were left penniless, +and might have died too of want; but their lost daughter’s once-despised, yet +most true-hearted suitor, hearing of the condition of these ladies, came with +singular devotedness to the rescue. He took on their insolent pride the revenge +of the purest charity—housing, caring for, befriending them, so as no son could +have done it more tenderly and efficiently. The mother—on the whole a good +woman—died blessing him; the strange, godless, loveless, misanthrope +grandmother lived still, entirely supported by this self-sacrificing man. Her, +who had been the bane of his life, blighting his hope, and awarding him, for +love and domestic happiness, long mourning and cheerless solitude, he treated +with the respect a good son might offer a kind mother. He had brought her to +this house, “and,” continued the priest, while genuine tears rose to his eyes, +“here, too, he shelters me, his old tutor, and Agnes, a superannuated servant +of his father’s family. To our sustenance, and to other charities, I know he +devotes three-parts of his income, keeping only the fourth to provide himself +with bread and the most modest accommodations. By this arrangement he has +rendered it impossible to himself ever to marry: he has given himself to God +and to his angel-bride as much as if he were a priest, like me.” +</p> + +<p> +The father had wiped away his tears before he uttered these last words, and in +pronouncing them, he for one instant raised his eyes to mine. I caught this +glance, despite its veiled character; the momentary gleam shot a meaning which +struck me. +</p> + +<p> +These Romanists are strange beings. Such a one among them—whom you know no more +than the last Inca of Peru, or the first Emperor of China—knows you and all +your concerns; and has his reasons for saying to you so and so, when you simply +thought the communication sprang impromptu from the instant’s impulse: his plan +in bringing it about that you shall come on such a day, to such a place, under +such and such circumstances, when the whole arrangement seems to your crude +apprehension the ordinance of chance, or the sequel of exigency. Madame Beck’s +suddenly-recollected message and present, my artless embassy to the Place of +the Magi, the old priest accidentally descending the steps and crossing the +square, his interposition on my behalf with the bonne who would have sent me +away, his reappearance on the staircase, my introduction to this room, the +portrait, the narrative so affably volunteered—all these little incidents, +taken as they fell out, seemed each independent of its successor; a handful of +loose beads: but threaded through by that quick-shot and crafty glance of a +Jesuit-eye, they dropped pendent in a long string, like that rosary on the +prie-dieu. Where lay the link of junction, where the little clasp of this +monastic necklace? I saw or felt union, but could not yet find the spot, or +detect the means of connection. +</p> + +<p> +Perhaps the musing-fit into which I had by this time fallen, appeared somewhat +suspicious in its abstraction; he gently interrupted: “Mademoiselle,” said he, +“I trust you have not far to go through these inundated streets?” +</p> + +<p> +“More than half a league.” +</p> + +<p> +“You live——?” +</p> + +<p> +“In the Rue Fossette.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not” (with animation), “not at the pensionnat of Madame Beck?” +</p> + +<p> +“The same.” +</p> + +<p> +“Donc” (clapping his hands), “donc, vous devez connaître mon noble élève, mon +Paul?” +</p> + +<p> +“Monsieur Paul Emanuel, Professor of Literature?” +</p> + +<p> +“He and none other.” +</p> + +<p> +A brief silence fell. The spring of junction seemed suddenly to have become +palpable; I felt it yield to pressure. +</p> + +<p> +“Was it of M. Paul you have been speaking?” I presently inquired. “Was he your +pupil and the benefactor of Madame Walravens?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, and of Agnes, the old servant: and moreover, (with a certain emphasis), +he was and <i>is</i> the lover, true, constant and eternal, of that saint in +heaven—Justine Marie.” +</p> + +<p> +“And who, father, are <i>you?</i>” I continued; and though I accentuated the +question, its utterance was well nigh superfluous; I was ere this quite +prepared for the answer which actually came. +</p> + +<p> +“I, daughter, am Père Silas; that unworthy son of Holy Church whom you once +honoured with a noble and touching confidence, showing me the core of a heart, +and the inner shrine of a mind whereof, in solemn truth, I coveted the +direction, in behalf of the only true faith. Nor have I for a day lost sight of +you, nor for an hour failed to take in you a rooted interest. Passed under the +discipline of Rome, moulded by her high training, inoculated with her salutary +doctrines, inspired by the zeal she alone gives—I realize what then might be +your spiritual rank, your practical value; and I envy Heresy her prey.” +</p> + +<p> +This struck me as a special state of things—I half-realized myself in that +condition also; passed under discipline, moulded, trained, inoculated, and so +on. “Not so,” thought I, but I restrained deprecation, and sat quietly enough. +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose M. Paul does not live here?” I resumed, pursuing a theme which I +thought more to the purpose than any wild renegade dreams. +</p> + +<p> +“No; he only comes occasionally to worship his beloved saint, to make his +confession to me, and to pay his respects to her he calls his mother. His own +lodging consists but of two rooms: he has no servant, and yet he will not +suffer Madame Walravens to dispose of those splendid jewels with which you see +her adorned, and in which she takes a puerile pride as the ornaments of her +youth, and the last relics of her son the jeweller’s wealth.” +</p> + +<p> +“How often,” murmured I to myself, “has this man, this M. Emanuel, seemed to me +to lack magnanimity in trifles, yet how great he is in great things!” +</p> + +<p> +I own I did not reckon amongst the proofs of his greatness, either the act of +confession, or the saint-worship. +</p> + +<p> +“How long is it since that lady died?” I inquired, looking at Justine Marie. +</p> + +<p> +“Twenty years. She was somewhat older than M. Emanuel; he was then very young, +for he is not much beyond forty.” +</p> + +<p> +“Does he yet weep her?” +</p> + +<p> +“His heart will weep her always: the essence of Emanuel’s nature is—constancy.” +</p> + +<p> +This was said with marked emphasis. +</p> + +<p> +And now the sun broke out pallid and waterish; the rain yet fell, but there was +no more tempest: that hot firmament had cloven and poured out its lightnings. A +longer delay would scarce leave daylight for my return, so I rose, thanked the +father for his hospitality and his tale, was benignantly answered by a “pax +vobiscum,” which I made kindly welcome, because it seemed uttered with a true +benevolence; but I liked less the mystic phrase accompanying it. +</p> + +<p> +“Daughter, you <i>shall</i> be what you <i>shall</i> be!” an oracle that made +me shrug my shoulders as soon as I had got outside the door. Few of us know +what we are to come to certainly, but for all that had happened yet, I had good +hopes of living and dying a sober-minded Protestant: there was a hollowness +within, and a flourish around “Holy Church” which tempted me but moderately. I +went on my way pondering many things. Whatever Romanism may be, there are good +Romanists: this man, Emanuel, seemed of the best; touched with superstition, +influenced by priestcraft, yet wondrous for fond faith, for pious devotion, for +sacrifice of self, for charity unbounded. It remained to see how Rome, by her +agents, handled such qualities; whether she cherished them for their own sake +and for God’s, or put them out to usury and made booty of the interest. +</p> + +<p> +By the time I reached home, it was sundown. Goton had kindly saved me a portion +of dinner, which indeed I needed. She called me into the little cabinet to +partake of it, and there Madame Beck soon made her appearance, bringing me a +glass of wine. +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” began she, chuckling, “and what sort of a reception did Madame +Walravens give you? Elle est drôle, n’est-ce pas?” +</p> + +<p> +I told her what had passed, delivering verbatim the courteous message with +which I had been charged. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh la singulière petite bossue!” laughed she. “Et figurez-vous qu’elle me +déteste, parcequ’elle me croit amoureuse de mon cousin Paul; ce petit dévot qui +n’ose pas bouger, à moins que son confesseur ne lui donne la permission! Au +reste” (she went on), “if he wanted to marry ever so much—soit moi, soit une +autre—he could not do it; he has too large a family already on his hands: Mère +Walravens, Père Silas, Dame Agnes, and a whole troop of nameless paupers. There +never was a man like him for laying on himself burdens greater than he can +bear, voluntarily incurring needless responsibilities. Besides, he harbours a +romantic idea about some pale-faced Marie Justine—personnage assez niaise à ce +que je pense” (such was Madame’s irreverent remark), “who has been an angel in +heaven, or elsewhere, this score of years, and to whom he means to go, free +from all earthly ties, pure comme un lis, à ce qu’il dit. Oh, you would laugh +could you but know half M. Emanuel’s crotchets and eccentricities! But I hinder +you from taking refreshment, ma bonne Meess, which you must need; eat your +supper, drink your wine, oubliez les anges, les bossues, et surtout, les +Professeurs—et bon soir!” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap35"></a>CHAPTER XXXV.<br/> +FRATERNITY.</h2> + +<p> +“Oubliez les Professeurs.” So said Madame Beck. Madame Beck was a wise woman, +but she should not have uttered those words. To do so was a mistake. That night +she should have left me calm—not excited, indifferent, not interested, isolated +in my own estimation and that of others—not connected, even in idea, with this +second person whom I was to forget. +</p> + +<p> +Forget him? Ah! they took a sage plan to make me forget him—the wiseheads! They +showed me how good he was; they made of my dear little man a stainless little +hero. And then they had prated about his manner of loving. What means had I, +before this day, of being certain whether he could love at all or not? +</p> + +<p> +I had known him jealous, suspicious; I had seen about him certain tendernesses, +fitfulnesses—a softness which came like a warm air, and a ruth which passed +like early dew, dried in the heat of his irritabilities: <i>this</i> was all I +had seen. And they, Père Silas and Modeste Maria Beck (that these two wrought +in concert I could not doubt) opened up the adytum of his heart—showed me one +grand love, the child of this southern nature’s youth, born so strong and +perfect, that it had laughed at Death himself, despised his mean rape of +matter, clung to immortal spirit, and in victory and faith, had watched beside +a tomb twenty years. +</p> + +<p> +This had been done—not idly: this was not a mere hollow indulgence of +sentiment; he had proven his fidelity by the consecration of his best energies +to an unselfish purpose, and attested it by limitless personal sacrifices: for +those once dear to her he prized—he had laid down vengeance, and taken up a +cross. +</p> + +<p> +Now, as for Justine Marie, I knew what she was as well as if I had seen her. I +knew she was well enough; there were girls like her in Madame Beck’s +school—phlegmatics—pale, slow, inert, but kind-natured, neutral of evil, +undistinguished for good. +</p> + +<p> +If she wore angels’ wings, I knew whose poet-fancy conferred them. If her +forehead shone luminous with the reflex of a halo, I knew in the fire of whose +irids that circlet of holy flame had generation. +</p> + +<p> +Was I, then, to be frightened by Justine Marie? Was the picture of a pale dead +nun to rise, an eternal barrier? And what of the charities which absorbed his +worldly goods? What of his heart sworn to virginity? +</p> + +<p> +Madame Beck—Père Silas—you should not have suggested these questions. They were +at once the deepest puzzle, the strongest obstruction, and the keenest +stimulus, I had ever felt. For a week of nights and days I fell asleep—I +dreamt, and I woke upon these two questions. In the whole world there was no +answer to them, except where one dark little man stood, sat, walked, lectured, +under the head-piece of a bandit bonnet-grec, and within the girth of a sorry +paletôt, much be-inked, and no little adust. +</p> + +<p> +After that visit to the Rue des Mages, I <i>did</i> want to see him again. I +felt as if—knowing what I now knew—his countenance would offer a page more +lucid, more interesting than ever; I felt a longing to trace in it the imprint +of that primitive devotedness, the signs of that half-knightly, half-saintly +chivalry which the priest’s narrative imputed to his nature. He had become my +Christian hero: under that character I wanted to view him. +</p> + +<p> +Nor was opportunity slow to favour; my new impressions underwent her test the +next day. Yes: I was granted an interview with my “Christian hero”—an interview +not very heroic, or sentimental, or biblical, but lively enough in its way. +</p> + +<p> +About three o’clock of the afternoon, the peace of the first classe—safely +established, as it seemed, under the serene sway of Madame Beck, who, <i>in +propria persona</i>, was giving one of her orderly and useful lessons—this +peace, I say, suffered a sudden fracture by the wild inburst of a paletôt. +</p> + +<p> +Nobody at the moment was quieter than myself. Eased of responsibility by Madame +Beck’s presence, soothed by her uniform tones, pleased and edified with her +clear exposition of the subject in hand (for she taught well), I sat bent over +my desk, drawing—that is, copying an elaborate line engraving, tediously +working up my copy to the finish of the original, for that was my practical +notion of art; and, strange to say, I took extreme pleasure in the labour, and +could even produce curiously finical Chinese facsimiles of steel or mezzotint +plates—things about as valuable as so many achievements in worsted-work, but I +thought pretty well of them in those days. +</p> + +<p> +What was the matter? My drawing, my pencils, my precious copy, gathered into +one crushed-up handful, perished from before my sight; I myself appeared to be +shaken or emptied out of my chair, as a solitary and withered nutmeg might be +emptied out of a spice-box by an excited cook. That chair and my desk, seized +by the wild paletôt, one under each sleeve, were borne afar; in a second, I +followed the furniture; in two minutes they and I were fixed in the centre of +the grand salle—a vast adjoining room, seldom used save for dancing and choral +singing-lessons—fixed with an emphasis which seemed to prohibit the remotest +hope of our ever being permitted to stir thence again. +</p> + +<p> +Having partially collected my scared wits, I found myself in the presence of +two men, gentlemen, I suppose I should say—one dark, the other light—one having +a stiff, half-military air, and wearing a braided surtout; the other partaking, +in garb and bearing, more of the careless aspect of the student or artist +class: both flourishing in full magnificence of moustaches, whiskers, and +imperial. M. Emanuel stood a little apart from these; his countenance and eyes +expressed strong choler; he held forth his hand with his tribune gesture. +</p> + +<p> +“Mademoiselle,” said he, “your business is to prove to these gentlemen that I +am no liar. You will answer, to the best of your ability, such questions as +they shall put. You will also write on such theme as they shall select. In +their eyes, it appears, I hold the position of an unprincipled impostor. I +write essays; and, with deliberate forgery, sign to them my pupils’ names, and +boast of them as their work. You will disprove this charge.” +</p> + +<p> +Grand ciel! Here was the show-trial, so long evaded, come on me like a +thunder-clap. These two fine, braided, mustachioed, sneering personages, were +none other than dandy professors of the college—Messieurs Boissec and +Rochemorte—a pair of cold-blooded fops and pedants, sceptics, and scoffers. It +seems that M. Paul had been rashly exhibiting something I had +written—something, he had never once praised, or even mentioned, in my hearing, +and which I deemed forgotten. The essay was not remarkable at all; it only +<i>seemed</i> remarkable, compared with the average productions of foreign +school-girls; in an English establishment it would have passed scarce noticed. +Messieurs Boissec and Rochemorte had thought proper to question its +genuineness, and insinuate a cheat; I was now to bear my testimony to the +truth, and to be put to the torture of their examination. +</p> + +<p> +A memorable scene ensued. +</p> + +<p> +They began with classics. A dead blank. They went on to French history. I +hardly knew Mérovée from Pharamond. They tried me in various ’ologies, and +still only got a shake of the head, and an unchanging “Je n’en sais rien.” +</p> + +<p> +After an expressive pause, they proceeded to matters of general information, +broaching one or two subjects which I knew pretty well, and on which I had +often reflected. M. Emanuel, who had hitherto stood looking on, dark as the +winter-solstice, brightened up somewhat; he thought I should now show myself at +least no fool. +</p> + +<p> +He learned his error. Though answers to the questions surged up fast, my mind +filling like a rising well, ideas were there, but not words. I either +<i>could</i> not, or <i>would</i> not speak—I am not sure which: partly, I +think, my nerves had got wrong, and partly my humour was crossed. +</p> + +<p> +I heard one of my examiners—he of the braided surtout—whisper to his +co-professor, “Est-elle donc idiote?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” I thought, “an idiot she is, and always will be, for such as you.” +</p> + +<p> +But I suffered—suffered cruelly; I saw the damps gather on M. Paul’s brow, and +his eye spoke a passionate yet sad reproach. He would not believe in my total +lack of popular cleverness; he thought I <i>could</i> be prompt if I +<i>would</i>. +</p> + +<p> +At last, to relieve him, the professors, and myself, I stammered out: +</p> + +<p> +“Gentlemen, you had better let me go; you will get no good of me; as you say, I +am an idiot.” +</p> + +<p> +I wish I could have spoken with calm and dignity, or I wish my sense had +sufficed to make me hold my tongue; that traitor tongue tripped, faltered. +Beholding the judges cast on M. Emanuel a hard look of triumph, and hearing the +distressed tremor of my own voice, out I burst in a fit of choking tears. The +emotion was far more of anger than grief; had I been a man and strong, I could +have challenged that pair on the spot—but it <i>was</i> emotion, and I would +rather have been scourged than betrayed it. +</p> + +<p> +The incapables! Could they not see at once the crude hand of a novice in that +composition they called a forgery? The subject was classical. When M. Paul +dictated the trait on which the essay was to turn, I heard it for the first +time; the matter was new to me, and I had no material for its treatment. But I +got books, read up the facts, laboriously constructed a skeleton out of the dry +bones of the real, and then clothed them, and tried to breathe into them life, +and in this last aim I had pleasure. With me it was a difficult and anxious +time till my facts were found, selected, and properly jointed; nor could I rest +from research and effort till I was satisfied of correct anatomy; the strength +of my inward repugnance to the idea of flaw or falsity sometimes enabled me to +shun egregious blunders; but the knowledge was not there in my head, ready and +mellow; it had not been sown in Spring, grown in Summer, harvested in Autumn, +and garnered through Winter; whatever I wanted I must go out and gather fresh; +glean of wild herbs my lapful, and shred them green into the pot. Messieurs +Boissec and Rochemorte did not perceive this. They mistook my work for the work +of a ripe scholar. +</p> + +<p> +They would not yet let me go: I must sit down and write before them. As I +dipped my pen in the ink with a shaking hand, and surveyed the white paper with +eyes half-blinded and overflowing, one of my judges began mincingly to +apologize for the pain he caused. +</p> + +<p> +“Nous agissons dans l’intérêt de la vérité. Nous ne voulons pas vous blesser,” +said he. +</p> + +<p> +Scorn gave me nerve. I only answered,— +</p> + +<p> +“Dictate, Monsieur.” +</p> + +<p> +Rochemorte named this theme: “Human Justice.” +</p> + +<p> +Human Justice! What was I to make of it? Blank, cold abstraction, unsuggestive +to me of one inspiring idea; and there stood M. Emanuel, sad as Saul, and stern +as Joab, and there triumphed his accusers. +</p> + +<p> +At these two I looked. I was gathering my courage to tell them that I would +neither write nor speak another word for their satisfaction, that their theme +did not suit, nor their presence inspire me, and that, notwithstanding, whoever +threw the shadow of a doubt on M. Emanuel’s honour, outraged that truth of +which they had announced themselves the—champions: I <i>meant</i> to utter all +this, I say, when suddenly, a light darted on memory. +</p> + +<p> +Those two faces looking out of the forest of long hair, moustache, and +whisker—those two cold yet bold, trustless yet presumptuous visages—were the +same faces, the very same that, projected in full gaslight from behind the +pillars of a portico, had half frightened me to death on the night of my +desolate arrival in Villette. These, I felt morally certain, were the very +heroes who had driven a friendless foreigner beyond her reckoning and her +strength, chased her breathless over a whole quarter of the town. +</p> + +<p> +“Pious mentors!” thought I. “Pure guides for youth! If ‘Human Justice’ were +what she ought to be, you two would scarce hold your present post, or enjoy +your present credit.” +</p> + +<p> +An idea once seized, I fell to work. “Human Justice” rushed before me in novel +guise, a red, random beldame, with arms akimbo. I saw her in her house, the den +of confusion: servants called to her for orders or help which she did not give; +beggars stood at her door waiting and starving unnoticed; a swarm of children, +sick and quarrelsome, crawled round her feet, and yelled in her ears appeals +for notice, sympathy, cure, redress. The honest woman cared for none of these +things. She had a warm seat of her own by the fire, she had her own solace in a +short black pipe, and a bottle of Mrs. Sweeny’s soothing syrup; she smoked and +she sipped, and she enjoyed her paradise; and whenever a cry of the suffering +souls about her pierced her ears too keenly—my jolly dame seized the poker or +the hearth-brush: if the offender was weak, wronged, and sickly, she +effectually settled him: if he was strong, lively, and violent, she only +menaced, then plunged her hand in her deep pouch, and flung a liberal shower of +sugar-plums. +</p> + +<p> +Such was the sketch of “Human Justice,” scratched hurriedly on paper, and +placed at the service of Messrs. Boissec and Rochemorte. M. Emanuel read it +over my shoulder. Waiting no comment, I curtsied to the trio, and withdrew. +</p> + +<p> +After school that day, M. Paul and I again met. Of course the meeting did not +at first run smooth; there was a crow to pluck with him; that forced +examination could not be immediately digested. A crabbed dialogue terminated in +my being called “une petite moqueuse et sans-cœur,” and in Monsieur’s +temporary departure. +</p> + +<p> +Not wishing him to go quite away, only desiring he should feel that such a +transport as he had that day given way to, could not be indulged with perfect +impunity, I was not sorry to see him, soon after, gardening in the berceau. He +approached the glass door; I drew near also. We spoke of some flowers growing +round it. By-and-by Monsieur laid down his spade; by-and-by he recommenced +conversation, passed to other subjects, and at last touched a point of +interest. +</p> + +<p> +Conscious that his proceeding of that day was specially open to a charge of +extravagance, M. Paul half apologized; he half regretted, too, the fitfulness +of his moods at all times, yet he hinted that some allowance ought to be made +for him. “But,” said he, “I can hardly expect it at your hands, Miss Lucy; you +know neither me, nor my position, nor my history.” +</p> + +<p> +His history. I took up the word at once; I pursued the idea. +</p> + +<p> +“No, Monsieur,” I rejoined. “Of course, as you say, I know neither your +history, nor your position, nor your sacrifices, nor any of your sorrows, or +trials, or affections, or fidelities. Oh, no! I know nothing about you; you are +for me altogether a stranger.” +</p> + +<p> +“Hein?” he murmured, arching his brows in surprise. +</p> + +<p> +“You know, Monsieur, I only see you in classe—stern, dogmatic, hasty, +imperious. I only hear of you in town as active and wilful, quick to originate, +hasty to lead, but slow to persuade, and hard to bend. A man like you, without +ties, can have no attachments; without dependants, no duties. All we, with whom +you come in contact, are machines, which you thrust here and there, +inconsiderate of their feelings. You seek your recreations in public, by the +light of the evening chandelier: this school and yonder college are your +workshops, where you fabricate the ware called pupils. I don’t so much as know +where you live; it is natural to take it for granted that you have no home, and +need none.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am judged,” said he. “Your opinion of me is just what I thought it was. For +you I am neither a man nor a Christian. You see me void of affection and +religion, unattached by friend or family, unpiloted by principle or faith. It +is well, Mademoiselle; such is our reward in this life.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are a philosopher, Monsieur; a cynic philosopher” (and I looked at his +paletôt, of which he straightway brushed the dim sleeve with his hand), +“despising the foibles of humanity—above its luxuries—independent of its +comforts.” +</p> + +<p> +“Et vous, Mademoiselle? vous êtes proprette et douillette, et affreusement +insensible, par-dessus le marché.” +</p> + +<p> +“But, in short, Monsieur, now I think of it, you <i>must</i> live somewhere? Do +tell me where; and what establishment of servants do you keep?” +</p> + +<p> +With a fearful projection of the under-lip, implying an impetus of scorn the +most decided, he broke out— +</p> + +<p> +“Je vis dans un trou! I inhabit a den, Miss—a cavern, where you would not put +your dainty nose. Once, with base shame of speaking the whole truth, I talked +about my ‘study’ in that college: know now that this ‘study’ is my whole abode; +my chamber is there and my drawing-room. As for my ‘establishment of servants’” +(mimicking my voice) “they number ten; les voilà.” +</p> + +<p> +And he grimly spread, close under my eyes, his ten fingers. +</p> + +<p> +“I black my boots,” pursued he savagely. “I brush my paletôt.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, Monsieur, it is too plain; you never do that,” was my parenthesis. +</p> + +<p> +“Je fais mon lit et mon ménage; I seek my dinner in a restaurant; my supper +takes care, of itself; I pass days laborious and loveless; nights long and +lonely; I am ferocious, and bearded and monkish; and nothing now living in this +world loves me, except some old hearts worn like my own, and some few beings, +impoverished, suffering, poor in purse and in spirit, whom the kingdoms of this +world own not, but to whom a will and testament not to be disputed has +bequeathed the kingdom of heaven.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, Monsieur; but I know!” +</p> + +<p> +“What do you know? many things, I verily believe; yet not me, Lucy!” +</p> + +<p> +“I know that you have a pleasant old house in a pleasant old square of the +Basse-Ville—why don’t you go and live there?” +</p> + +<p> +“Hein?” muttered he again. +</p> + +<p> +“I liked it much, Monsieur; with the steps ascending to the door, the grey +flags in front, the nodding trees behind—real trees, not shrubs—trees dark, +high, and of old growth. And the boudoir-oratoire—you should make that room +your study; it is so quiet and solemn.” +</p> + +<p> +He eyed me closely; he half-smiled, half-coloured. “Where did you pick up all +that? Who told you?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Nobody told me. Did I dream it, Monsieur, do you think?” +</p> + +<p> +“Can I enter into your visions? Can I guess a woman’s waking thoughts, much +less her sleeping fantasies?” +</p> + +<p> +“If I dreamt it, I saw in my dream human beings as well as a house. I saw a +priest, old, bent, and grey, and a domestic—old, too, and picturesque; and a +lady, splendid but strange; her head would scarce reach to my elbow—her +magnificence might ransom a duke. She wore a gown bright as lapis-lazuli—a +shawl worth a thousand francs: she was decked with ornaments so brilliant, I +never saw any with such a beautiful sparkle; but her figure looked as if it had +been broken in two and bent double; she seemed also to have outlived the common +years of humanity, and to have attained those which are only labour and sorrow. +She was become morose—almost malevolent; yet <i>somebody</i>, it appears, cared +for her in her infirmities—somebody forgave her trespasses, hoping to have his +trespasses forgiven. They lived together, these three people—the mistress, the +chaplain, the servant—all old, all feeble, all sheltered under one kind wing.” +</p> + +<p> +He covered with his hand the upper part of his face, but did not conceal his +mouth, where I saw hovering an expression I liked. +</p> + +<p> +“I see you have entered into my secrets,” said he, “but how was it done?” +</p> + +<p> +So I told him how—the commission on which I had been sent, the storm which had +detained me, the abruptness of the lady, the kindness of the priest. +</p> + +<p> +“As I sat waiting for the rain to cease, Père Silas whiled away the time with a +story,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +“A story! What story? Père Silas is no romancist.” +</p> + +<p> +“Shall I tell Monsieur the tale?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes: begin at the beginning. Let me hear some of Miss Lucy’s French—her best +or her worst—I don’t much care which: let us have a good poignée of barbarisms, +and a bounteous dose of the insular accent.” +</p> + +<p> +“Monsieur is not going to be gratified by a tale of ambitious proportions, and +the spectacle of the narrator sticking fast in the midst. But I will tell him +the title—the ‘Priest’s Pupil.’” +</p> + +<p> +“Bah!” said he, the swarthy flush again dyeing his dark cheek. “The good old +father could not have chosen a worse subject; it is his weak point. But what of +the ‘Priest’s Pupil?’” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! many things.” +</p> + +<p> +“You may as well define <i>what</i> things. I mean to know.” +</p> + +<p> +“There was the pupil’s youth, the pupil’s manhood;—his avarice, his +ingratitude, his implacability, his inconstancy. Such a bad pupil, Monsieur!—so +thankless, cold-hearted, unchivalrous, unforgiving!” +</p> + +<p> +“Et puis?” said he, taking a cigar. +</p> + +<p> +“Et puis,” I pursued, “he underwent calamities which one did not pity—bore them +in a spirit one did not admire—endured wrongs for which one felt no sympathy; +finally took the unchristian revenge of heaping coals of fire on his +adversary’s head.” +</p> + +<p> +“You have not told me all,” said he. +</p> + +<p> +“Nearly all, I think: I have indicated the heads of Père Silas’s chapters.” +</p> + +<p> +“You have forgotten one—that which touched on the pupil’s lack of affection—on +his hard, cold, monkish heart.” +</p> + +<p> +“True; I remember now. Père Silas <i>did</i> say that his vocation was almost +that of a priest—that his life was considered consecrated.” +</p> + +<p> +“By what bonds or duties?” +</p> + +<p> +“By the ties of the past and the charities of the present.” +</p> + +<p> +“You have, then, the whole situation?” +</p> + +<p> +“I have now told Monsieur all that was told me.” +</p> + +<p> +Some meditative minutes passed. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, Mademoiselle Lucy, look at me, and with that truth which I believe you +never knowingly violate, answer me one question. Raise your eyes; rest them on +mine; have no hesitation; fear not to trust me—I am a man to be trusted.” +</p> + +<p> +I raised my eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“Knowing me thoroughly now—all my antecedents, all my responsibilities—having +long known my faults, can you and I still be friends?” +</p> + +<p> +“If Monsieur wants a friend in me, I shall be glad to have a friend in him.” +</p> + +<p> +“But a close friend I mean—intimate and real—kindred in all but blood. Will +Miss Lucy be the sister of a very poor, fettered, burdened, encumbered man?” +</p> + +<p> +I could not answer him in words, yet I suppose I <i>did</i> answer him; he took +my hand, which found comfort, in the shelter of his. <i>His</i> friendship was +not a doubtful, wavering benefit—a cold, distant hope—a sentiment so brittle as +not to bear the weight of a finger: I at once felt (or <i>thought</i> I felt) +its support like that of some rock. +</p> + +<p> +“When I talk of friendship, I mean <i>true</i> friendship,” he repeated +emphatically; and I could hardly believe that words so earnest had blessed my +ear; I hardly could credit the reality of that kind, anxious look he gave. If +he <i>really</i> wished for my confidence and regard, and <i>really</i> would +give me his—why, it seemed to me that life could offer nothing more or better. +In that case, I was become strong and rich: in a moment I was made +substantially happy. To ascertain the fact, to fix and seal it, I asked— +</p> + +<p> +“Is Monsieur quite serious? Does he really think he needs me, and can take an +interest in me as a sister?” +</p> + +<p> +“Surely, surely,” said he; “a lonely man like me, who has no sister, must be +but too glad to find in some woman’s heart a sister’s pure affection.” +</p> + +<p> +“And dare I rely on Monsieur’s regard? Dare I speak to him when I am so +inclined?” +</p> + +<p> +“My little sister must make her own experiments,” said he; “I will give no +promises. She must tease and try her wayward brother till she has drilled him +into what she wishes. After all, he is no inductile material in some hands.” +</p> + +<p> +While he spoke, the tone of his voice, the light of his now affectionate eye, +gave me such a pleasure as, certainly, I had never felt. I envied no girl her +lover, no bride her bridegroom, no wife her husband; I was content with this my +voluntary, self-offering friend. If he would but prove reliable, and he +<i>looked</i> reliable, what, beyond his friendship, could I ever covet? But, +if all melted like a dream, as once before had happened—? +</p> + +<p> +“Qu’est-ce donc? What is it?” said he, as this thought threw its weight on my +heart, its shadow on my countenance. I told him; and after a moment’s pause, +and a thoughtful smile, he showed me how an equal fear—lest I should weary of +him, a man of moods so difficult and fitful—had haunted his mind for more than +one day, or one month. +</p> + +<p> +On hearing this, a quiet courage cheered me. I ventured a word of re-assurance. +That word was not only tolerated; its repetition was courted. I grew quite +happy—strangely happy—in making him secure, content, tranquil. Yesterday, I +could not have believed that earth held, or life afforded, moments like the few +I was now passing. Countless times it had been my lot to watch apprehended +sorrow close darkly in; but to see unhoped-for happiness take form, find place, +and grow more real as the seconds sped, was indeed a new experience. +</p> + +<p> +“Lucy,” said M. Paul, speaking low, and still holding my hand, “did you see a +picture in the boudoir of the old house?” +</p> + +<p> +“I did; a picture painted on a panel.” +</p> + +<p> +“The portrait of a nun?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“You heard her history?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“You remember what we saw that night in the berceau?” +</p> + +<p> +“I shall never forget it.” +</p> + +<p> +“You did not connect the two ideas; that would be folly?” +</p> + +<p> +“I thought of the apparition when I saw the portrait,” said I; which was true +enough. +</p> + +<p> +“You did not, nor will you fancy,” pursued he, “that a saint in heaven perturbs +herself with rivalries of earth? Protestants are rarely superstitious; these +morbid fancies will not beset <i>you?</i>” +</p> + +<p> +“I know not what to think of this matter; but I believe a perfectly natural +solution of this seeming mystery will one day be arrived at.” +</p> + +<p> +“Doubtless, doubtless. Besides, no good-living woman—much less a pure, happy +spirit—would trouble amity like ours—n’est-il pas vrai?” +</p> + +<p> +Ere I could answer, Fifine Beck burst in, rosy and abrupt, calling out that I +was wanted. Her mother was going into town to call on some English family, who +had applied for a prospectus: my services were needed as interpreter. The +interruption was not unseasonable: sufficient for the day is always the evil; +for this hour, its good sufficed. Yet I should have liked to ask M. Paul +whether the “morbid fancies,” against which he warned me, wrought in his own +brain. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap36"></a>CHAPTER XXXVI.<br/> +THE APPLE OF DISCORD.</h2> + +<p> +Besides Fifine Beck’s mother, another power had a word to say to M. Paul and +me, before that covenant of friendship could be ratified. We were under the +surveillance of a sleepless eye: Rome watched jealously her son through that +mystic lattice at which I had knelt once, and to which M. Emanuel drew nigh +month by month—the sliding panel of the confessional. +</p> + +<p> +“Why were you so glad to be friends with M. Paul?” asks the reader. “Had he not +long been a friend to you? Had he not given proof on proof of a certain +partiality in his feelings?” +</p> + +<p> +Yes, he had; but still I liked to hear him say so earnestly—that he was my +close, true friend; I liked his modest doubts, his tender deference—that trust +which longed to rest, and was grateful when taught how. He had called me +“sister.” It was well. Yes; he might call me what he pleased, so long as he +confided in me. I was willing to be his sister, on condition that he did not +invite me to fill that relation to some future wife of his; and tacitly vowed +as he was to celibacy, of this dilemma there seemed little danger. +</p> + +<p> +Through most of the succeeding night I pondered that evening’s interview. I +wanted much the morning to break, and then listened for the bell to ring; and, +after rising and dressing, I deemed prayers and breakfast slow, and all the +hours lingering, till that arrived at last which brought me the lesson of +literature. My wish was to get a more thorough comprehension of this fraternal +alliance: to note with how much of the brother he would demean himself when we +met again; to prove how much of the sister was in my own feelings; to discover +whether I could summon a sister’s courage, and he a brother’s frankness. +</p> + +<p> +He came. Life is so constructed, that the event does not, cannot, will not, +match the expectation. That whole day he never accosted me. His lesson was +given rather more quietly than usual, more mildly, and also more gravely. He +was fatherly to his pupils, but he was not brotherly to me. Ere he left the +classe, I expected a smile, if not a word; I got neither: to my portion fell +one nod—hurried, shy. +</p> + +<p> +This distance, I argued, is accidental—it is involuntary; patience, and it will +vanish. It vanished not; it continued for days; it increased. I suppressed my +surprise, and swallowed whatever other feelings began to surge. +</p> + +<p> +Well might I ask when he offered fraternity—“Dare I rely on you?” Well might +he, doubtless knowing himself, withhold all pledge. True, he had bid me make my +own experiments—tease and try him. Vain injunction! Privilege nominal and +unavailable! Some women might use it! Nothing in my powers or instinct placed +me amongst this brave band. Left alone, I was passive; repulsed, I withdrew; +forgotten—my lips would not utter, nor my eyes dart a reminder. It seemed there +had been an error somewhere in my calculations, and I wanted for time to +disclose it. +</p> + +<p> +But the day came when, as usual, he was to give me a lesson. One evening in +seven he had long generously bestowed on me, devoting it to the examination of +what had been done in various studies during the past week, and to the +preparation of work for the week in prospect. On these occasions my schoolroom +was anywhere, wherever the pupils and the other teachers happened to be, or in +their close vicinage, very often in the large second division, where it was +easy to choose a quiet nook when the crowding day pupils were absent, and the +few boarders gathered in a knot about the surveillante’s estrade. +</p> + +<p> +On the customary evening, hearing the customary hour strike, I collected my +books and papers, my pen and ink, and sought the large division. +</p> + +<p> +In classe there was no one, and it lay all in cool deep shadow; but through the +open double doors was seen the carré, filled with pupils and with light; over +hall and figures blushed the westering sun. It blushed so ruddily and vividly, +that the hues of the walls and the variegated tints of the dresses seemed all +fused in one warm glow. The girls were seated, working or studying; in the +midst of their circle stood M. Emanuel, speaking good-humouredly to a teacher. +His dark paletôt, his jetty hair, were tinged with many a reflex of crimson; +his Spanish face, when he turned it momentarily, answered the sun’s animated +kiss with an animated smile. I took my place at a desk. +</p> + +<p> +The orange-trees, and several plants, full and bright with bloom, basked also +in the sun’s laughing bounty; they had partaken it the whole day, and now asked +water. M. Emanuel had a taste for gardening; he liked to tend and foster +plants. I used to think that working amongst shrubs with a spade or a +watering-pot soothed his nerves; it was a recreation to which he often had +recourse; and now he looked to the orange-trees, the geraniums, the gorgeous +cactuses, and revived them all with the refreshment their drought needed. His +lips meantime sustained his precious cigar, that (for him) first necessary and +prime luxury of life; its blue wreaths curled prettily enough amongst the +flowers, and in the evening light. He spoke no more to the pupils, nor to the +mistresses, but gave many an endearing word to a small spanieless (if one may +coin a word), that nominally belonged to the house, but virtually owned him as +master, being fonder of him than any inmate. A delicate, silky, loving, and +lovable little doggie she was, trotting at his side, looking with expressive, +attached eyes into his face; and whenever he dropped his bonnet-grec or his +handkerchief, which he occasionally did in play, crouching beside it with the +air of a miniature lion guarding a kingdom’s flag. +</p> + +<p> +There were many plants, and as the amateur gardener fetched all the water from +the well in the court, with his own active hands, his work spun on to some +length. The great school-clock ticked on. Another hour struck. The carré and +the youthful group lost the illusion of sunset. Day was drooping. My lesson, I +perceived, must to-night be very short; but the orange-trees, the cacti, the +camelias were all served now. Was it my turn? +</p> + +<p> +Alas! in the garden were more plants to be looked after,—favourite rose-bushes, +certain choice flowers; little Sylvie’s glad bark and whine followed the +receding paletôt down the alleys. I put up some of my books; I should not want +them all; I sat and thought; and waited, involuntarily deprecating the creeping +invasion of twilight. +</p> + +<p> +Sylvie, gaily frisking, emerged into view once more, heralding the returning +paletôt; the watering-pot was deposited beside the well; it had fulfilled its +office; how glad I was! Monsieur washed his hands in a little stone bowl. There +was no longer time for a lesson now; ere long the prayer-bell must ring; but +still we should meet; he would speak; a chance would be offered of reading in +his eyes the riddle of his shyness. His ablutions over, he stood, slowly +re-arranging his cuffs, looking at the horn of a young moon, set pale in the +opal sky, and glimmering faint on the oriel of Jean Baptiste. Sylvie watched +the mood contemplative; its stillness irked her; she whined and jumped to break +it. He looked down. +</p> + +<p> +“Petite exigeante,” said he; “you must not be forgotten one moment, it seems.” +</p> + +<p> +He stopped, lifted her in his arms, sauntered across the court, within a yard +of the line of windows near one of which I sat: he sauntered lingeringly, +fondling the spaniel in his bosom, calling her tender names in a tender voice. +On the front-door steps he turned; once again he looked at the moon, at the +grey cathedral, over the remoter spires and house-roofs fading into a blue sea +of night-mist; he tasted the sweet breath of dusk, and noted the folded bloom +of the garden; he suddenly looked round; a keen beam out of his eye rased the +white façade of the classes, swept the long line of croisées. I think he bowed; +if he did, I had no time to return the courtesy. In a moment he was gone; the +moonlit threshold lay pale and shadowless before the closed front door. +</p> + +<p> +Gathering in my arms all that was spread on the desk before me, I carried back +the unused heap to its place in the third classe. The prayer-bell rang; I +obeyed its summons. +</p> + +<p> +The morrow would not restore him to the Rue Fossette, that day being devoted +entirely to his college. I got through my teaching; I got over the intermediate +hours; I saw evening approaching, and armed myself for its heavy ennuis. +Whether it was worse to stay with my co-inmates, or to sit alone, I had not +considered; I naturally took up the latter alternative; if there was a hope of +comfort for any moment, the heart or head of no human being in this house could +yield it; only under the lid of my desk could it harbour, nestling between the +leaves of some book, gilding a pencil-point, the nib of a pen, or tinging the +black fluid in that ink-glass. With a heavy heart I opened my desk-lid; with a +weary hand I turned up its contents. +</p> + +<p> +One by one, well-accustomed books, volumes sewn in familiar covers, were taken +out and put back hopeless: they had no charm; they could not comfort. Is this +something new, this pamphlet in lilac? I had not seen it before, and I +re-arranged my desk this very day—this very afternoon; the tract must have been +introduced within the last hour, while we were at dinner. +</p> + +<p> +I opened it. What was it? What would it say to me? +</p> + +<p> +It was neither tale nor poem, neither essay nor history; it neither sung, nor +related, not discussed. It was a theological work; it preached and it +persuaded. +</p> + +<p> +I lent to it my ear very willingly, for, small as it was, it possessed its own +spell, and bound my attention at once. It preached Romanism; it persuaded to +conversion. The voice of that sly little book was a honeyed voice; its accents +were all unction and balm. Here roared no utterance of Rome’s thunders, no +blasting of the breath of her displeasure. The Protestant was to turn Papist, +not so much in fear of the heretic’s hell, as on account of the comfort, the +indulgence, the tenderness Holy Church offered: far be it from her to threaten +or to coerce; her wish was to guide and win. <i>She</i> persecute? Oh dear no! +not on any account! +</p> + +<p> +This meek volume was not addressed to the hardened and worldly; it was not even +strong meat for the strong: it was milk for babes: the mild effluence of a +mother’s love towards her tenderest and her youngest; intended wholly and +solely for those whose head is to be reached through the heart. Its appeal was +not to intellect; it sought to win the affectionate through their affections, +the sympathizing through their sympathies: St. Vincent de Paul, gathering his +orphans about him, never spoke more sweetly. +</p> + +<p> +I remember one capital inducement to apostacy was held out in the fact that the +Catholic who had lost dear friends by death could enjoy the unspeakable solace +of praying them out of purgatory. The writer did not touch on the firmer peace +of those whose belief dispenses with purgatory altogether: but I thought of +this; and, on the whole, preferred the latter doctrine as the most consolatory. +The little book amused, and did not painfully displease me. It was a canting, +sentimental, shallow little book, yet something about it cheered my gloom and +made me smile; I was amused with the gambols of this unlicked wolf-cub muffled +in the fleece, and mimicking the bleat of a guileless lamb. Portions of it +reminded me of certain Wesleyan Methodist tracts I had once read when a child; +they were flavoured with about the same seasoning of excitation to fanaticism. +He that had written it was no bad man, and while perpetually betraying the +trained cunning—the cloven hoof of his system—I should pause before accusing +himself of insincerity. His judgment, however, wanted surgical props; it was +rickety. +</p> + +<p> +I smiled then over this dose of maternal tenderness, coming from the ruddy old +lady of the Seven Hills; smiled, too, at my own disinclination, not to say +disability, to meet these melting favours. Glancing at the title-page, I found +the name of “Père Silas.” A fly-leaf bore in small, but clear and well-known +pencil characters: “From P. C. D. E. to L—y.” And when I saw this I laughed: +but not in my former spirit. I was revived. +</p> + +<p> +A mortal bewilderment cleared suddenly from my head and vision; the solution of +the Sphinx-riddle was won; the conjunction of those two names, Père Silas and +Paul Emanuel, gave the key to all. The penitent had been with his director; +permitted to withhold nothing; suffered to keep no corner of his heart sacred +to God and to himself; the whole narrative of our late interview had been drawn +from him; he had avowed the covenant of fraternity, and spoken of his adopted +sister. How could such a covenant, such adoption, be sanctioned by the Church? +Fraternal communion with a heretic! I seemed to hear Père Silas annulling the +unholy pact; warning his penitent of its perils; entreating, enjoining reserve, +nay, by the authority of his office, and in the name, and by the memory of all +M. Emanuel held most dear and sacred, commanding the enforcement of that new +system whose frost had pierced to the marrow of my bones. +</p> + +<p> +These may not seem pleasant hypotheses; yet, by comparison, they were welcome. +The vision of a ghostly troubler hovering in the background, was as nothing, +matched with the fear of spontaneous change arising in M. Paul himself. +</p> + +<p> +At this distance of time, I cannot be sure how far the above conjectures were +self-suggested: or in what measure they owed their origin and confirmation to +another quarter. Help was not wanting. +</p> + +<p> +This evening there was no bright sunset: west and east were one cloud; no +summer night-mist, blue, yet rose-tinged, softened the distance; a clammy fog +from the marshes crept grey round Villette. To-night the watering-pot might +rest in its niche by the well: a small rain had been drizzling all the +afternoon, and still it fell fast and quietly. This was no weather for rambling +in the wet alleys, under the dripping trees; and I started to hear Sylvie’s +sudden bark in the garden—her bark of welcome. Surely she was not accompanied +and yet this glad, quick bark was never uttered, save in homage to one +presence. +</p> + +<p> +Through the glass door and the arching berceau, I commanded the deep vista of +the allée défendue: thither rushed Sylvie, glistening through its gloom like a +white guelder-rose. She ran to and fro, whining, springing, harassing little +birds amongst the bushes. I watched five minutes; no fulfilment followed the +omen. I returned to my books; Sylvie’s sharp bark suddenly ceased. Again I +looked up. She was standing not many yards distant, wagging her white feathery +tail as fast as the muscle would work, and intently watching the operations of +a spade, plied fast by an indefatigable hand. There was M. Emanuel, bent over +the soil, digging in the wet mould amongst the rain-laden and streaming shrubs, +working as hard as if his day’s pittance were yet to earn by the literal sweat +of his brow. +</p> + +<p> +In this sign I read a ruffled mood. He would dig thus in frozen snow on the +coldest winter day, when urged inwardly by painful emotion, whether of nervous +excitation, or, sad thoughts of self-reproach. He would dig by the hour, with +knit brow and set teeth, nor once lift his head, or open his lips. +</p> + +<p> +Sylvie watched till she was tired. Again scampering devious, bounding here, +rushing there, snuffing and sniffing everywhere; she at last discovered me in +classe. Instantly she flew barking at the panes, as if to urge me forth to +share her pleasure or her master’s toil; she had seen me occasionally walking +in that alley with M. Paul; and I doubt not, considered it my duty to join him +now, wet as it was. +</p> + +<p> +She made such a bustle that M. Paul at last looked up, and of course perceived +why, and at whom she barked. He whistled to call her off; she only barked the +louder. She seemed quite bent upon having the glass door opened. Tired, I +suppose, with her importunity, he threw down his spade, approached, and pushed +the door ajar. Sylvie burst in all impetuous, sprang to my lap, and with her +paws at my neck, and her little nose and tongue somewhat overpoweringly busy +about my face, mouth, and eyes, flourished her bushy tail over the desk, and +scattered books and papers far and wide. +</p> + +<p> +M. Emanuel advanced to still the clamour and repair the disarrangement. Having +gathered up the books, he captured Sylvie, and stowed her away under his +paletôt, where she nestled as quiet as a mouse, her head just peeping forth. +She was very tiny, and had the prettiest little innocent face, the silkiest +long ears, the finest dark eyes in the world. I never saw her, but I thought of +Paulina de Bassompierre: forgive the association, reader, it <i>would</i> +occur. +</p> + +<p> +M. Paul petted and patted her; the endearments she received were not to be +wondered at; she invited affection by her beauty and her vivacious life. +</p> + +<p> +While caressing the spaniel, his eye roved over the papers and books just +replaced; it settled on the religious tract. His lips moved; he half checked +the impulse to speak. What! had he promised never to address me more? If so, +his better nature pronounced the vow “more honoured in the breach than in the +observance,” for with a second effort, he spoke.—“You have not yet read the +brochure, I presume? It is not sufficiently inviting?” +</p> + +<p> +I replied that I had read it. +</p> + +<p> +He waited, as if wishing me to give an opinion upon it unasked. Unasked, +however, I was in no mood to do or say anything. If any concessions were to be +made—if any advances were demanded—that was the affair of the very docile pupil +of Père Silas, not mine. His eye settled upon me gently: there was mildness at +the moment in its blue ray—there was solicitude—a shade of pathos; there were +meanings composite and contrasted—reproach melting into remorse. At the moment +probably, he would have been glad to see something emotional in me. I could not +show it. In another minute, however, I should have betrayed confusion, had I +not bethought myself to take some quill-pens from my desk, and begin soberly to +mend them. +</p> + +<p> +I knew that action would give a turn to his mood. He never liked to see me mend +pens; my knife was always dull-edged—my hand, too, was unskilful; I hacked and +chipped. On this occasion I cut my own finger—half on purpose. I wanted to +restore him to his natural state, to set him at his ease, to get him to chide. +</p> + +<p> +“Maladroit!” he cried at last, “she will make mincemeat of her hands.” +</p> + +<p> +He put Sylvie down, making her lie quiet beside his bonnet-grec, and, depriving +me of the pens and penknife, proceeded to slice, nib, and point with the +accuracy and celerity of a machine. +</p> + +<p> +“Did I like the little book?” he now inquired. +</p> + +<p> +Suppressing a yawn, I said I hardly knew. +</p> + +<p> +“Had it moved me?” +</p> + +<p> +“I thought it had made me a little sleepy.” +</p> + +<p> +(After a pause) “Allons donc! It was of no use taking that tone with him. Bad +as I was—and he should be sorry to have to name all my faults at a breath—God +and nature had given me ‘trop de sensibilité et de sympathie’ not to be +profoundly affected by an appeal so touching.” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed!” I responded, rousing myself quickly, “I was not affected at all—not a +whit.” +</p> + +<p> +And in proof, I drew from my pocket a perfectly dry handkerchief, still clean +and in its folds. +</p> + +<p> +Hereupon I was made the object of a string of strictures rather piquant than +polite. I listened with zest. After those two days of unnatural silence, it was +better than music to hear M. Paul haranguing again just in his old fashion. I +listened, and meantime solaced myself and Sylvie with the contents of a +bonbonnière, which M. Emanuel’s gifts kept well supplied with chocolate +comfits: It pleased him to see even a small matter from his hand duly +appreciated. He looked at me and the spaniel while we shared the spoil; he put +up his penknife. Touching my hand with the bundle of new-cut quills, he +said:—“Dites donc, petite sœur—speak frankly—what have you thought of me +during the last two days?” +</p> + +<p> +But of this question I would take no manner of notice; its purport made my eyes +fill. I caressed Sylvie assiduously. M. Paul, leaning—over the desk, bent +towards me:—“I called myself your brother,” he said: “I hardly know what I +am—brother—friend—I cannot tell. I know I think of you—I feel I wish, you +well—but I must check myself; you are to be feared. My best friends point out +danger, and whisper caution.” +</p> + +<p> +“You do right to listen to your friends. By all means be cautious.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is your religion—your strange, self-reliant, invulnerable creed, whose +influence seems to clothe you in, I know not what, unblessed panoply. You are +good—Père Silas calls you good, and loves you—but your terrible, proud, earnest +Protestantism, there is the danger. It expresses itself by your eye at times; +and again, it gives you certain tones and certain gestures that make my flesh +creep. You are not demonstrative, and yet, just now—when you handled that +tract—my God! I thought Lucifer smiled.” +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly I don’t respect that tract—what then?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not respect that tract? But it is the pure essence of faith, love, charity! I +thought it would touch you: in its gentleness, I trusted that it could not +fail. I laid it in your desk with a prayer: I must indeed be a sinner: Heaven +will not hear the petitions that come warmest from my heart. You scorn my +little offering. Oh, cela me fait mal!” +</p> + +<p> +“Monsieur, I don’t scorn it—at least, not as your gift. Monsieur, sit down; +listen to me. I am not a heathen, I am not hard-hearted, I am not unchristian, +I am not dangerous, as they tell you; I would not trouble your faith; you +believe in God and Christ and the Bible, and so do I.” +</p> + +<p> +“But <i>do</i> you believe in the Bible? Do you receive Revelation? What limits +are there to the wild, careless daring of your country and sect. Père Silas +dropped dark hints.” +</p> + +<p> +By dint of persuasion, I made him half-define these hints; they amounted to +crafty Jesuit-slanders. That night M. Paul and I talked seriously and closely. +He pleaded, he argued. <i>I</i> could not argue—a fortunate incapacity; it +needed but triumphant, logical opposition to effect all the director wished to +be effected; but I could talk in my own way—the way M. Paul was used to—and of +which he could follow the meanderings and fill the hiatus, and pardon the +strange stammerings, strange to him no longer. At ease with him, I could defend +my creed and faith in my own fashion; in some degree I could lull his +prejudices. He was not satisfied when he went away, hardly was he appeased; but +he was made thoroughly to feel that Protestants were not necessarily the +irreverent Pagans his director had insinuated; he was made to comprehend +something of their mode of honouring the Light, the Life, the Word; he was +enabled partly to perceive that, while their veneration for things venerable +was not quite like that cultivated in his Church, it had its own, perhaps, +deeper power—its own more solemn awe. +</p> + +<p> +I found that Père Silas (himself, I must repeat, not a bad man, though the +advocate of a bad cause) had darkly stigmatized Protestants in general, and +myself by inference, with strange names, had ascribed to us strange “isms;” +Monsieur Emanuel revealed all this in his frank fashion, which knew not +secretiveness, looking at me as he spoke with a kind, earnest fear, almost +trembling lest there should be truth in the charges. Père Silas, it seems, had +closely watched me, had ascertained that I went by turns, and indiscriminately, +to the three Protestant Chapels of Villette—the French, German, and +English—<i>id est</i>, the Presbyterian, Lutheran, Episcopalian. Such +liberality argued in the father’s eyes profound indifference—who tolerates all, +he reasoned, can be attached to none. Now, it happened that I had often +secretly wondered at the minute and unimportant character of the differences +between these three sects—at the unity and identity of their vital doctrines: I +saw nothing to hinder them from being one day fused into one grand Holy +Alliance, and I respected them all, though I thought that in each there were +faults of form, incumbrances, and trivialities. Just what I thought, that did I +tell M. Emanuel, and explained to him that my own last appeal, the guide to +which I looked, and the teacher which I owned, must always be the Bible itself, +rather than any sect, of whatever name or nation. +</p> + +<p> +He left me soothed, yet full of solicitude, breathing a wish, as strong as a +prayer, that if I were wrong, Heaven would lead me right. I heard, poured forth +on the threshold, some fervid murmurings to “Marie, Reine du Ciel,” some deep +aspiration that <i>his</i> hope might yet be <i>mine</i>. +</p> + +<p> +Strange! I had no such feverish wish to turn him from the faith of his fathers. +I thought Romanism wrong, a great mixed image of gold and clay; but it seemed +to me that <i>this</i> Romanist held the purer elements of his creed with an +innocency of heart which God must love. +</p> + +<p> +The preceding conversation passed between eight and nine o’clock of the +evening, in a schoolroom of the quiet Rue Fossette, opening on a sequestered +garden. Probably about the same, or a somewhat later hour of the succeeding +evening, its echoes, collected by holy obedience, were breathed verbatim in an +attent ear, at the panel of a confessional, in the hoary church of the Magi. It +ensued that Père Silas paid a visit to Madame Beck, and stirred by I know not +what mixture of motives, persuaded her to let him undertake for a time the +Englishwoman’s spiritual direction. +</p> + +<p> +Hereupon I was put through a course of reading—that is, I just glanced at the +books lent me; they were too little in my way to be thoroughly read, marked, +learned, or inwardly digested. And besides, I had a book up-stairs, under my +pillow, whereof certain chapters satisfied my needs in the article of spiritual +lore, furnishing such precept and example as, to my heart’s core, I was +convinced could not be improved on. +</p> + +<p> +Then Père Silas showed me the fair side of Rome, her good works; and bade me +judge the tree by its fruits. +</p> + +<p> +In answer, I felt and I avowed that these works were <i>not</i> the fruits of +Rome; they were but her abundant blossoming, but the fair promise she showed +the world, that bloom when set, savoured not of charity; the apple full formed +was ignorance, abasement, and bigotry. Out of men’s afflictions and affections +were forged the rivets of their servitude. Poverty was fed and clothed, and +sheltered, to bind it by obligation to “the Church;” orphanage was reared and +educated that it might grow up in the fold of “the Church;” sickness was tended +that it might die after the formula and in the ordinance of “the Church;” and +men were overwrought, and women most murderously sacrificed, and all laid down +a world God made pleasant for his creatures’ good, and took up a cross, +monstrous in its galling weight, that they might serve Rome, prove her +sanctity, confirm her power, and spread the reign of her tyrant “Church.” +</p> + +<p> +For man’s good was little done; for God’s glory, less. A thousand ways were +opened with pain, with blood-sweats, with lavishing of life; mountains were +cloven through their breasts, and rocks were split to their base; and all for +what? That a Priesthood might march straight on and straight upward to an +all-dominating eminence, whence they might at last stretch the sceptre of their +Moloch “Church.” +</p> + +<p> +It will not be. God is not with Rome, and, were human sorrows still for the Son +of God, would he not mourn over her cruelties and ambitions, as once he mourned +over the crimes and woes of doomed Jerusalem! +</p> + +<p> +Oh, lovers of power! Oh, mitred aspirants for this world’s kingdoms! an hour +will come, even to you, when it will be well for your hearts—pausing faint at +each broken beat—that there is a Mercy beyond human compassions, a Love, +stronger than this strong death which even you must face, and before it, fall; +a Charity more potent than any sin, even yours; a Pity which redeems +worlds—nay, absolves Priests. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +My third temptation was held out in the pomp of Rome—the glory of her kingdom. +I was taken to the churches on solemn occasions—days of fête and state; I was +shown the Papal ritual and ceremonial. I looked at it. +</p> + +<p> +Many people—men and women—no doubt far my superiors in a thousand ways, have +felt this display impressive, have declared that though their Reason protested, +their Imagination was subjugated. I cannot say the same. Neither full +procession, nor high mass, nor swarming tapers, nor swinging censers, nor +ecclesiastical millinery, nor celestial jewellery, touched my imagination a +whit. What I saw struck me as tawdry, not grand; as grossly material, not +poetically spiritual. +</p> + +<p> +This I did not tell Père Silas; he was old, he looked venerable: through every +abortive experiment, under every repeated disappointment, he remained +personally kind to me, and I felt tender of hurting his feelings. But on the +evening of a certain day when, from the balcony of a great house, I had been +made to witness a huge mingled procession of the church and the army—priests +with relics, and soldiers with weapons, an obese and aged archbishop, habited +in cambric and lace, looking strangely like a grey daw in bird-of-paradise +plumage, and a band of young girls fantastically robed and +garlanded—<i>then</i> I spoke my mind to M. Paul. +</p> + +<p> +“I did not like it,” I told him; “I did not respect such ceremonies; I wished +to see no more.” +</p> + +<p> +And having relieved my conscience by this declaration, I was able to go on, +and, speaking more currently and clearly than my wont, to show him that I had a +mind to keep to my reformed creed; the more I saw of Popery the closer I clung +to Protestantism; doubtless there were errors in every church, but I now +perceived by contrast how severely pure was my own, compared with her whose +painted and meretricious face had been unveiled for my admiration. I told him +how we kept fewer forms between us and God; retaining, indeed, no more than, +perhaps, the nature of mankind in the mass rendered necessary for due +observance. I told him I could not look on flowers and tinsel, on wax-lights +and embroidery, at such times and under such circumstances as should be devoted +to lifting the secret vision to Him whose home is Infinity, and His +being—Eternity. That when I thought of sin and sorrow, of earthly corruption, +mortal depravity, weighty temporal woe—I could not care for chanting priests or +mumming officials; that when the pains of existence and the terrors of +dissolution pressed before me—when the mighty hope and measureless doubt of the +future arose in view—<i>then</i>, even the scientific strain, or the prayer in +a language learned and dead, harassed: with hindrance a heart which only longed +to cry—“God be merciful to me, a sinner!” +</p> + +<p> +When I had so spoken, so declared my faith, and so widely severed myself, from +him I addressed—then, at last, came a tone accordant, an echo responsive, one +sweet chord of harmony in two conflicting spirits. +</p> + +<p> +“Whatever say priests or controversialists,” murmured M. Emanuel, “God is good, +and loves all the sincere. Believe, then, what you can; believe it as you can; +one prayer, at least, we have in common; I also cry—‘O Dieu, sois appaisé +envers moi qui suis pécheur!’” +</p> + +<p> +He leaned on the back of my chair. After some thought he again spoke: +</p> + +<p> +“How seem in the eyes of that God who made all firmaments, from whose nostrils +issued whatever of life is here, or in the stars shining yonder—how seem the +differences of man? But as Time is not for God, nor Space, so neither is +Measure, nor Comparison. We abase ourselves in our littleness, and we do right; +yet it may be that the constancy of one heart, the truth and faith of one mind +according to the light He has appointed, import as much to Him as the just +motion of satellites about their planets, of planets about their suns, of suns +around that mighty unseen centre incomprehensible, irrealizable, with strange +mental effort only divined. +</p> + +<p> +“God guide us all! God bless you, Lucy!” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap37"></a>CHAPTER XXXVII.<br/> +SUNSHINE.</h2> + +<p> +It was very well for Paulina to decline further correspondence with Graham till +her father had sanctioned the intercourse. But Dr. Bretton could not live +within a league of the Hôtel Crécy, and not contrive to visit there often. Both +lovers meant at first, I believe, to be distant; they kept their intention so +far as demonstrative courtship went, but in feeling they soon drew very near. +</p> + +<p> +All that was best in Graham sought Paulina; whatever in him was noble, awoke, +and grew in her presence. With his past admiration of Miss Fanshawe, I suppose +his intellect had little to do, but his whole intellect, and his highest +tastes, came in question now. These, like all his faculties, were active, eager +for nutriment, and alive to gratification when it came. +</p> + +<p> +I cannot say that Paulina designedly led him to talk of books, or formally +proposed to herself for a moment the task of winning him to reflection, or +planned the improvement of his mind, or so much as fancied his mind could in +any one respect be improved. She thought him very perfect; it was Graham +himself, who, at first by the merest chance, mentioned some book he had been +reading, and when in her response sounded a welcome harmony of sympathies, +something, pleasant to his soul, he talked on, more and better perhaps than he +had ever talked before on such subjects. She listened with delight, and +answered with animation. In each successive answer, Graham heard a music waxing +finer and finer to his sense; in each he found a suggestive, persuasive, magic +accent that opened a scarce-known treasure-house within, showed him unsuspected +power in his own mind, and what was better, latent goodness in his heart. Each +liked the way in which the other talked; the voice, the diction, the expression +pleased; each keenly relished the flavour of the other’s wit; they met each +other’s meaning with strange quickness, their thoughts often matched like +carefully-chosen pearls. Graham had wealth of mirth by nature; Paulina +possessed no such inherent flow of animal spirits—unstimulated, she inclined to +be thoughtful and pensive—but now she seemed merry as a lark; in her lover’s +genial presence, she glanced like some soft glad light. How beautiful she grew +in her happiness, I can hardly express, but I wondered to see her. As to that +gentle ice of hers—that reserve on which she had depended; where was it now? +Ah! Graham would not long bear it; he brought with him a generous influence +that soon thawed the timid, self-imposed restriction. +</p> + +<p> +Now were the old Bretton days talked over; perhaps brokenly at first, with a +sort of smiling diffidence, then with opening candour and still growing +confidence. Graham had made for himself a better opportunity than that he had +wished me to give; he had earned independence of the collateral help that +disobliging Lucy had refused; all his reminiscences of “little Polly” found +their proper expression in his own pleasant tones, by his own kind and handsome +lips; how much better than if suggested by me. +</p> + +<p> +More than once when we were alone, Paulina would tell me how wonderful and +curious it was to discover the richness and accuracy of his memory in this +matter. How, while he was looking at her, recollections would seem to be +suddenly quickened in his mind. He reminded her that she had once gathered his +head in her arms, caressed his leonine graces, and cried out, “Graham, I +<i>do</i> like you!” He told her how she would set a footstool beside him, and +climb by its aid to his knee. At this day he said he could recall the sensation +of her little hands smoothing his cheek, or burying themselves in his thick +mane. He remembered the touch of her small forefinger, placed half tremblingly, +half curiously, in the cleft in his chin, the lisp, the look with which she +would name it “a pretty dimple,” then seek his eyes and question why they +pierced so, telling him he had a “nice, strange face; far nicer, far stranger, +than either his mamma or Lucy Snowe.” +</p> + +<p> +“Child as I was,” remarked Paulina, “I wonder how I dared be so venturous. To +me he seems now all sacred, his locks are inaccessible, and, Lucy, I feel a +sort of fear, when I look at his firm, marble chin, at his straight Greek +features. Women are called beautiful, Lucy; he is not like a woman, therefore I +suppose he is not beautiful, but what is he, then? Do other people see him with +my eyes? Do <i>you</i> admire him?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll tell you what I do, Paulina,” was once my answer to her many questions. +“<i>I never see him</i>. I looked at him twice or thrice about a year ago, +before he recognised me, and then I shut my eyes; and if he were to cross their +balls twelve times between each day’s sunset and sunrise, except from memory, I +should hardly know what shape had gone by.” +</p> + +<p> +“Lucy, what do you mean?” said she, under her breath. +</p> + +<p> +“I mean that I value vision, and dread being struck stone blind.” +</p> + +<p> +It was best to answer her strongly at once, and to silence for ever the tender, +passionate confidences which left her lips sweet honey, and sometimes dropped +in my ear—molten lead. To me, she commented no more on her lover’s beauty. +</p> + +<p> +Yet speak of him she would; sometimes shyly, in quiet, brief phrases; sometimes +with a tenderness of cadence, and music of voice exquisite in itself; but which +chafed me at times miserably; and then, I know, I gave her stern looks and +words; but cloudless happiness had dazzled her native clear sight, and she only +thought Lucy—fitful. +</p> + +<p> +“Spartan girl! Proud Lucy!” she would say, smiling at me. “Graham says you are +the most peculiar, capricious little woman he knows; but yet you are excellent; +we both think so.” +</p> + +<p> +“You both think you know not what,” said I. “Have the goodness to make me as +little the subject of your mutual talk and thoughts as possible. I have my sort +of life apart from yours.” +</p> + +<p> +“But ours, Lucy, is a beautiful life, or it will be; and you shall share it.” +</p> + +<p> +“I shall share no man’s or woman’s life in this world, as you understand +sharing. I think I have one friend of my own, but am not sure; and till I +<i>am</i> sure, I live solitary.” +</p> + +<p> +“But solitude is sadness.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; it is sadness. Life, however; has worse than that. Deeper than +melancholy, lies heart-break.” +</p> + +<p> +“Lucy, I wonder if anybody will ever comprehend you altogether.” +</p> + +<p> +There is, in lovers, a certain infatuation of egotism; they will have a witness +of their happiness, cost that witness what it may. Paulina had forbidden +letters, yet Dr. Bretton wrote; she had resolved against correspondence, yet +she answered, were it only to chide. She showed me these letters; with +something of the spoiled child’s wilfulness, and of the heiress’s +imperiousness, she <i>made</i> me read them. As I read Graham’s, I scarce +wondered at her exaction, and understood her pride: they were fine +letters—manly and fond—modest and gallant. Hers must have appeared to him +beautiful. They had not been written to show her talents; still less, I think, +to express her love. On the contrary, it appeared that she had proposed to +herself the task of hiding that feeling, and bridling her lover’s ardour. But +how could such letters serve such a purpose? Graham was become dear as her +life; he drew her like a powerful magnet. For her there was influence +unspeakable in all he uttered, wrote, thought, or looked. With this unconfessed +confession, her letters glowed; it kindled them, from greeting to adieu. +</p> + +<p> +“I wish papa knew; I <i>do</i> wish papa knew!” began now to be her anxious +murmur. “I wish, and yet I fear. I can hardly keep Graham back from telling +him. There is nothing I long for more than to have this affair settled—to speak +out candidly; and yet I dread the crisis. I know, I am certain, papa will be +angry at the first; I fear he will dislike me almost; it will seem to him an +untoward business; it will be a surprise, a shock: I can hardly foresee its +whole effect on him.” +</p> + +<p> +The fact was—her father, long calm, was beginning to be a little stirred: long +blind on one point, an importunate light was beginning to trespass on his eye. +</p> + +<p> +To <i>her</i>, he said nothing; but when she was not looking at, or perhaps +thinking of him, I saw him gaze and meditate on her. +</p> + +<p> +One evening—Paulina was in her dressing-room, writing, I believe, to Graham; +she had left me in the library, reading—M. de Bassompierre came in; he sat +down: I was about to withdraw; he requested me to remain—gently, yet in a +manner which showed he wished compliance. He had taken his seat near the +window, at a distance from me; he opened a desk; he took from it what looked +like a memorandum-book; of this book he studied a certain entry for several +minutes. +</p> + +<p> +“Miss Snowe,” said he, laying it down, “do you know my little girl’s age?” +</p> + +<p> +“About eighteen, is it not, sir?” +</p> + +<p> +“It seems so. This old pocket-book tells me she was born on the 5th of May, in +the year 18—, eighteen years ago. It is strange; I had lost the just reckoning +of her age. I thought of her as twelve—fourteen—an indefinite date; but she +seemed a child.” +</p> + +<p> +“She is about eighteen,” I repeated. “She is grown up; she will be no taller.” +</p> + +<p> +“My little jewel!” said M. de Bassompierre, in a tone which penetrated like +some of his daughter’s accents. +</p> + +<p> +He sat very thoughtful. +</p> + +<p> +“Sir, don’t grieve,” I said; for I knew his feelings, utterly unspoken as they +were. +</p> + +<p> +“She is the only pearl I have,” he said; “and now others will find out that she +is pure and of price: they will covet her.” +</p> + +<p> +I made no answer. Graham Bretton had dined with us that day; he had shone both +in converse and looks: I know not what pride of bloom embellished his aspect +and mellowed his intercourse. Under the stimulus of a high hope, something had +unfolded in his whole manner which compelled attention. I think he had purposed +on that day to indicate the origin of his endeavours, and the aim of his +ambition. M. de Bassompierre had found himself forced, in a manner, to descry +the direction and catch the character of his homage. Slow in remarking, he was +logical in reasoning: having once seized the thread, it had guided him through +a long labyrinth. +</p> + +<p> +“Where is she?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“She is up-stairs.” +</p> + +<p> +“What is she doing?” +</p> + +<p> +“She is writing.” +</p> + +<p> +“She writes, does she? Does she receive letters?” +</p> + +<p> +“None but such as she can show me. And—sir—she—<i>they</i> have long wanted to +consult you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Pshaw! They don’t think of me—an old father! I am in the way.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, M. de Bassompierre—not so—that can’t be! But Paulina must speak for +herself: and Dr. Bretton, too, must be his own advocate.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is a little late. Matters are advanced, it seems.” +</p> + +<p> +“Sir, till you approve, nothing is done—only they love each other.” +</p> + +<p> +“Only!” he echoed. +</p> + +<p> +Invested by fate with the part of confidante and mediator, I was obliged to go +on: “Hundreds of times has Dr. Bretton been on the point of appealing to you, +sir; but, with all his high courage, he fears you mortally.” +</p> + +<p> +“He may well—he may well fear me. He has touched the best thing I have. Had he +but let her alone, she would have remained a child for years yet. So. Are they +engaged?” +</p> + +<p> +“They could not become engaged without your permission.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is well for you, Miss Snowe, to talk and think with that propriety which +always characterizes you; but this matter is a grief to me; my little girl was +all I had: I have no more daughters and no son; Bretton might as well have +looked elsewhere; there are scores of rich and pretty women who would not, I +daresay, dislike him: he has looks, and conduct, and connection. Would nothing +serve him but my Polly?” +</p> + +<p> +“If he had never seen your ‘Polly,’ others might and would have pleased +him—your niece, Miss Fanshawe, for instance.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah! I would have given him Ginevra with all my heart; but Polly!—I can’t let +him have her. No—I can’t. He is not her equal,” he affirmed, rather gruffly. +“In what particular is he her match? They talk of fortune! I am not an +avaricious or interested man, but the world thinks of these things—and Polly +will be rich.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, that is known,” said I: “all Villette knows her as an heiress.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do they talk of my little girl in that light?” +</p> + +<p> +“They do, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +He fell into deep thought. I ventured to say, “Would you, sir, think any one +Paulina’s match? Would you prefer any other to Dr. Bretton? Do you think higher +rank or more wealth would make much difference in your feelings towards a +future son-in-law?” +</p> + +<p> +“You touch me there,” said he. +</p> + +<p> +“Look at the aristocracy of Villette—you would not like them, sir?” +</p> + +<p> +“I should not—never a duc, baron, or vicomte of the lot.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am told many of these persons think about her, sir,” I went on, gaining +courage on finding that I met attention rather than repulse. “Other suitors +will come, therefore, if Dr. Bretton is refused. Wherever you go, I suppose, +aspirants will not be wanting. Independent of heiress-ship, it appears to me +that Paulina charms most of those who see her.” +</p> + +<p> +“Does she? How? My little girl is not thought a beauty.” +</p> + +<p> +“Sir, Miss de Bassompierre is very beautiful.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nonsense!—begging your pardon, Miss Snowe, but I think you are too partial. I +like Polly: I like all her ways and all her looks—but then I am her father; and +even I never thought about beauty. She is amusing, fairy-like, interesting to +me;—you must be mistaken in supposing her handsome?” +</p> + +<p> +“She attracts, sir: she would attract without the advantages of your wealth and +position.” +</p> + +<p> +“My wealth and position! Are these any bait to Graham? If I thought so——” +</p> + +<p> +“Dr. Bretton knows these points perfectly, as you may be sure, M. de +Bassompierre, and values them as any gentleman would—as <i>you</i> would +yourself, under the same circumstances—but they are not his baits. He loves +your daughter very much; he feels her finest qualities, and they influence him +worthily.” +</p> + +<p> +“What! has my little pet ‘fine qualities?’” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, sir! did you observe her that evening when so many men of eminence and +learning dined here?” +</p> + +<p> +“I certainly was rather struck and surprised with her manner that day; its +womanliness made me smile.” +</p> + +<p> +“And did you see those accomplished Frenchmen gather round her in the +drawing-room?” +</p> + +<p> +“I did; but I thought it was by way of relaxation—as one might amuse one’s self +with a pretty infant.” +</p> + +<p> +“Sir, she demeaned herself with distinction; and I heard the French gentlemen +say she was ‘pétrie d’esprit et de graces.’ Dr. Bretton thought the same.” +</p> + +<p> +“She is a good, dear child, that is certain; and I <i>do</i> believe she has +some character. When I think of it, I was once ill; Polly nursed me; they +thought I should die; she, I recollect, grew at once stronger and tenderer as I +grew worse in health. And as I recovered, what a sunbeam she was in my +sick-room! Yes; she played about my chair as noiselessly and as cheerful as +light. And now she is sought in marriage! I don’t want to part with her,” said +he, and he groaned. +</p> + +<p> +“You have known Dr. and Mrs. Bretton so long,” I suggested, “it would be less +like separation to give her to him than to another.” +</p> + +<p> +He reflected rather gloomily. +</p> + +<p> +“True. I have long known Louisa Bretton,” he murmured. “She and I are indeed +old, old friends; a sweet, kind girl she was when she was young. You talk of +beauty, Miss Snowe! <i>she</i> was handsome, if you will—tall, straight, and +blooming—not the mere child or elf my Polly seems to me: at eighteen, Louisa +had a carriage and stature fit for a princess. She is a comely and a good woman +now. The lad is like her; I have always thought so, and favoured and wished him +well. Now he repays me by this robbery! My little treasure used to love her old +father dearly and truly. It is all over now, doubtless—I am an incumbrance.” +</p> + +<p> +The door opened—his “little treasure” came in. She was dressed, so to speak, in +evening beauty; that animation which sometimes comes with the close of day, +warmed her eye and cheek; a tinge of summer crimson heightened her complexion; +her curls fell full and long on her lily neck; her white dress suited the heat +of June. Thinking me alone, she had brought in her hand the letter just +written—brought it folded but unsealed. I was to read it. When she saw her +father, her tripping step faltered a little, paused a moment—the colour in her +cheek flowed rosy over her whole face. +</p> + +<p> +“Polly,” said M. de Bassompierre, in a low voice, with a grave smile, “do you +blush at seeing papa? That is something new.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t blush—I never <i>do</i> blush,” affirmed she, while another eddy from +the heart sent up its scarlet. “But I thought you were in the dining-room, and +I wanted Lucy.” +</p> + +<p> +“You thought I was with John Graham Bretton, I suppose? But he has just been +called out: he will be back soon, Polly. He can post your letter for you; it +will save Matthieu a ‘course,’ as he calls it.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t post letters,” said she, rather pettishly. +</p> + +<p> +“What do you do with them, then?—come here and tell me.” +</p> + +<p> +Both her mind and gesture seemed to hesitate a second—to say “Shall I +come?”—but she approached. +</p> + +<p> +“How long is it since you became a letter-writer, Polly? It only seems +yesterday when you were at your pot-hooks, labouring away absolutely with both +hands at the pen.” +</p> + +<p> +“Papa, they are not letters to send to the post in your letter-bag; they are +only notes, which I give now and then into the person’s hands, just to +satisfy.” +</p> + +<p> +“The person! That means Miss Snowe, I suppose?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, papa—not Lucy.” +</p> + +<p> +“Who then? Perhaps Mrs. Bretton?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, papa—not Mrs. Bretton.” +</p> + +<p> +“Who, then, my little daughter? Tell papa the truth.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, papa!” she cried with earnestness, “I will—I <i>will</i> tell you the +truth—all the truth; I am glad to tell you—glad, though I tremble.” +</p> + +<p> +She <i>did</i> tremble: growing excitement, kindling feeling, and also +gathering courage, shook her. +</p> + +<p> +“I hate to hide my actions from you, papa. I fear you and love you above +everything but God. Read the letter; look at the address.” +</p> + +<p> +She laid it on his knee. He took it up and read it through; his hand shaking, +his eyes glistening meantime. +</p> + +<p> +He re-folded it, and viewed the writer with a strange, tender, mournful amaze. +</p> + +<p> +“Can <i>she</i> write so—the little thing that stood at my knee but yesterday? +Can she feel so?” +</p> + +<p> +“Papa, is it wrong? Does it pain you?” +</p> + +<p> +“There is nothing wrong in it, my innocent little Mary; but it pains me.” +</p> + +<p> +“But, papa, listen! You shall not be pained by me. I would give up +everything—almost” (correcting herself); “I would die rather than make you +unhappy; that would be too wicked!” +</p> + +<p> +She shuddered. +</p> + +<p> +“Does the letter not please you? Must it not go? Must it be torn? It shall, for +your sake, if you order it.” +</p> + +<p> +“I order nothing.” +</p> + +<p> +“Order something, papa; express your wish; only don’t hurt, don’t grieve +Graham. I cannot, <i>cannot</i> bear that. I love you, papa; but I love Graham +too—because—because—it is impossible to help it.” +</p> + +<p> +“This splendid Graham is a young scamp, Polly—that is my present notion of him: +it will surprise you to hear that, for my part, I do not love him one whit. Ah! +years ago I saw something in that lad’s eye I never quite fathomed—something +his mother has not—a depth which warned a man not to wade into that stream too +far; now, suddenly, I find myself taken over the crown of the head.” +</p> + +<p> +“Papa, you don’t—you have not fallen in; you are safe on the bank; you can do +as you please; your power is despotic; you can shut me up in a convent, and +break Graham’s heart to-morrow, if you choose to be so cruel. Now, autocrat, +now czar, will you do this?” +</p> + +<p> +“Off with him to Siberia, red whiskers and all; I say, I don’t like him, Polly, +and I wonder that you should.” +</p> + +<p> +“Papa,” said she, “do you know you are very naughty? I never saw you look so +disagreeable, so unjust, so almost vindictive before. There is an expression in +your face which does not belong to you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Off with him!” pursued Mr. Home, who certainly did look sorely crossed and +annoyed—even a little bitter; “but, I suppose, if he went, Polly would pack a +bundle and run after him; her heart is fairly won—won, and weaned from her old +father.” +</p> + +<p> +“Papa, I say it is naughty, it is decidedly wrong, to talk in that way. I am +<i>not</i> weaned from you, and no human being and no mortal influence +<i>can</i> wean me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Be married, Polly! Espouse the red whiskers. Cease to be a daughter; go and be +a wife!” +</p> + +<p> +“Red whiskers! I wonder what you mean, papa. You should take care of prejudice. +You sometimes say to me that all the Scotch, your countrymen, are the victims +of prejudice. It is proved now, I think, when no distinction is to be made +between red and deep nut-brown.” +</p> + +<p> +“Leave the prejudiced old Scotchman; go away.” +</p> + +<p> +She stood looking at him a minute. She wanted to show firmness, superiority to +taunts; knowing her father’s character, guessing his few foibles, she had +expected the sort of scene which was now transpiring; it did not take her by +surprise, and she desired to let it pass with dignity, reliant upon reaction. +Her dignity stood her in no stead. Suddenly her soul melted in her eyes; she +fell on his neck:—“I won’t leave you, papa; I’ll never leave you. I won’t pain +you! I’ll never pain you!” was her cry. +</p> + +<p> +“My lamb! my treasure!” murmured the loving though rugged sire. He said no more +for the moment; indeed, those two words were hoarse. +</p> + +<p> +The room was now darkening. I heard a movement, a step without. Thinking it +might be a servant coming with candles, I gently opened, to prevent intrusion. +In the ante-room stood no servant: a tall gentleman was placing his hat on the +table, drawing off his gloves slowly—lingering, waiting, it seemed to me. He +called me neither by sign nor word; yet his eye said:—“Lucy, come here.” And I +went. +</p> + +<p> +Over his face a smile flowed, while he looked down on me: no temper, save his +own, would have expressed by a smile the sort of agitation which now fevered +him. +</p> + +<p> +“M. de Bassompierre is there—is he not?” he inquired, pointing to the library. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“He noticed me at dinner? He understood me?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, Graham.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am brought up for judgment, then, and so is <i>she</i>?” +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Home” (we now and always continued to term him Mr. Home at times) “is +talking to his daughter.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ha! These are sharp moments, Lucy!” +</p> + +<p> +He was quite stirred up; his young hand trembled; a vital (I was going to write +<i>mortal</i>, but such words ill apply to one all living like him)—a vital +suspense now held, now hurried, his breath: in all this trouble his smile never +faded. +</p> + +<p> +“Is he <i>very</i> angry, Lucy?” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>She</i> is very faithful, Graham.” +</p> + +<p> +“What will be done unto me?” +</p> + +<p> +“Graham, your star must be fortunate.” +</p> + +<p> +“Must it? Kind prophet! So cheered, I should be a faint heart indeed to quail. +I think I find all women faithful, Lucy. I ought to love them, and I do. My +mother is good; <i>she</i> is divine; and <i>you</i> are true as steel. Are you +not?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, Graham.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then give me thy hand, my little god-sister: it is a friendly little hand to +me, and always has been. And now for the great venture. God be with the right. +Lucy, say Amen!” +</p> + +<p> +He turned, and waited till I said “Amen!”—which I did to please him: the old +charm, in doing as he bid me, came back. I wished him success; and successful I +knew he would be. He was born victor, as some are born vanquished. +</p> + +<p> +“Follow me!” he said; and I followed him into Mr. Home’s presence. +</p> + +<p> +“Sir,” he asked, “what is my sentence?” +</p> + +<p> +The father looked at him: the daughter kept her face hid. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, Bretton,” said Mr. Home, “you have given me the usual reward of +hospitality. I entertained you; you have taken my best. I was always glad to +see you; you were glad to see the one precious thing I had. You spoke me fair; +and, meantime, I will not say you <i>robbed</i> me, but I am bereaved, and what +I have lost, <i>you</i>, it seems, have won.” +</p> + +<p> +“Sir, I cannot repent.” +</p> + +<p> +“Repent! Not you! You triumph, no doubt: John Graham, you descended partly from +a Highlander and a chief, and there is a trace of the Celt in all you look, +speak, and think. You have his cunning and his charm. The red—(Well then, +Polly, the <i>fair</i>) hair, the tongue of guile, and brain of wile, are all +come down by inheritance.” +</p> + +<p> +“Sir, I <i>feel</i> honest enough,” said Graham; and a genuine English blush +covered his face with its warm witness of sincerity. “And yet,” he added, “I +won’t deny that in some respects you accuse me justly. In your presence I have +always had a thought which I dared not show you. I did truly regard you as the +possessor of the most valuable thing the world owns for me. I wished for it: I +tried for it. Sir, I ask for it now.” +</p> + +<p> +“John, you ask much.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very much, sir. It must come from your generosity, as a gift; from your +justice, as a reward. I can never earn it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay! Listen to the Highland tongue!” said Mr. Home. “Look up, Polly! Answer +this ‘braw wooer;’ send him away!” +</p> + +<p> +She looked up. She shyly glanced at her eager, handsome suitor. She gazed +tenderly on her furrowed sire. +</p> + +<p> +“Papa, I love you both,” said she; “I can take care of you both. I need not +send Graham away—he can live here; he will be no inconvenience,” she alleged +with that simplicity of phraseology which at times was wont to make both her +father and Graham smile. They smiled now. +</p> + +<p> +“He will be a prodigious inconvenience to me,” still persisted Mr. Home. “I +don’t want him, Polly, he is too tall; he is in my way. Tell him to march.” +</p> + +<p> +“You will get used to him, papa. He seemed exceedingly tall to me at first—like +a tower when I looked up at him; but, on the whole, I would rather not have him +otherwise.” +</p> + +<p> +“I object to him altogether, Polly; I can do without a son-in-law. I should +never have requested the best man in the land to stand to me in that relation. +Dismiss this gentleman.” +</p> + +<p> +“But he has known you so long, papa, and suits you so well.” +</p> + +<p> +“Suits <i>me</i>, forsooth! Yes; he has pretended to make my opinions and +tastes his own. He has humoured me for good reasons. I think, Polly, you and I +will bid him good-by.” +</p> + +<p> +“Till to-morrow only. Shake hands with Graham, papa.” +</p> + +<p> +“No: I think not: I am not friends with him. Don’t think to coax me between +you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed, indeed, you <i>are</i> friends. Graham, stretch out your right hand. +Papa, put out yours. Now, let them touch. Papa, don’t be stiff; close your +fingers; be pliant—there! But that is not a clasp—it is a grasp? Papa, you +grasp like a vice. You crush Graham’s hand to the bone; you hurt him!” +</p> + +<p> +He must have hurt him; for he wore a massive ring, set round with brilliants, +of which the sharp facets cut into Graham’s flesh and drew blood: but pain only +made Dr. John laugh, as anxiety had made him smile. +</p> + +<p> +“Come with me into my study,” at last said Mr. Home to the doctor. They went. +Their intercourse was not long, but I suppose it was conclusive. The suitor had +to undergo an interrogatory and a scrutiny on many things. Whether Dr. Bretton +was at times guileful in look and language or not, there was a sound foundation +below. His answers, I understood afterwards, evinced both wisdom and integrity. +He had managed his affairs well. He had struggled through entanglements; his +fortunes were in the way of retrieval; he proved himself in a position to +marry. +</p> + +<p> +Once more the father and lover appeared in the library. M. de Bassompierre shut +the door; he pointed to his daughter. +</p> + +<p> +“Take her,” he said. “Take her, John Bretton: and may God deal with you as you +deal with her!” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Not long after, perhaps a fortnight, I saw three persons, Count de +Bassompierre, his daughter, and Dr. Graham Bretton, sitting on one seat, under +a low-spreading and umbrageous tree, in the grounds of the palace at Bois +l’Etang. They had come thither to enjoy a summer evening: outside the +magnificent gates their carriage waited to take them home; the green sweeps of +turf spread round them quiet and dim; the palace rose at a distance, white as a +crag on Pentelicus; the evening star shone above it; a forest of flowering +shrubs embalmed the climate of this spot; the hour was still and sweet; the +scene, but for this group, was solitary. +</p> + +<p> +Paulina sat between the two gentlemen: while they conversed, her little hands +were busy at some work; I thought at first she was binding a nosegay. No; with +the tiny pair of scissors, glittering in her lap, she had severed spoils from +each manly head beside her, and was now occupied in plaiting together the grey +lock and the golden wave. The plait woven—no silk-thread being at hand to bind +it—a tress of her own hair was made to serve that purpose; she tied it like a +knot, prisoned it in a locket, and laid it on her heart. +</p> + +<p> +“Now,” said she, “there is an amulet made, which has virtue to keep you two +always friends. You can never quarrel so long as I wear this.” +</p> + +<p> +An amulet was indeed made, a spell framed which rendered enmity impossible. She +was become a bond to both, an influence over each, a mutual concord. From them +she drew her happiness, and what she borrowed, she, with interest, gave back. +</p> + +<p> +“Is there, indeed, such happiness on earth?” I asked, as I watched the father, +the daughter, the future husband, now united—all blessed and blessing. +</p> + +<p> +Yes; it is so. Without any colouring of romance, or any exaggeration of fancy, +it is so. Some real lives do—for some certain days or years—actually anticipate +the happiness of Heaven; and, I believe, if such perfect happiness is once felt +by good people (to the wicked it never comes), its sweet effect is never wholly +lost. Whatever trials follow, whatever pains of sickness or shades of death, +the glory precedent still shines through, cheering the keen anguish, and +tinging the deep cloud. +</p> + +<p> +I will go farther. I <i>do</i> believe there are some human beings so born, so +reared, so guided from a soft cradle to a calm and late grave, that no +excessive suffering penetrates their lot, and no tempestuous blackness +overcasts their journey. And often, these are not pampered, selfish beings, but +Nature’s elect, harmonious and benign; men and women mild with charity, kind +agents of God’s kind attributes. +</p> + +<p> +Let me not delay the happy truth. Graham Bretton and Paulina de Bassompierre +were married, and such an agent did Dr. Bretton prove. He did not with time +degenerate; his faults decayed, his virtues ripened; he rose in intellectual +refinement, he won in moral profit: all dregs filtered away, the clear wine +settled bright and tranquil. Bright, too, was the destiny of his sweet wife. +She kept her husband’s love, she aided in his progress—of his happiness she was +the corner stone. +</p> + +<p> +This pair was blessed indeed, for years brought them, with great prosperity, +great goodness: they imparted with open hand, yet wisely. Doubtless they knew +crosses, disappointments, difficulties; but these were well borne. More than +once, too, they had to look on Him whose face flesh scarce can see and live: +they had to pay their tribute to the King of Terrors. In the fulness of years, +M. de Bassompierre was taken: in ripe old age departed Louisa Bretton. Once +even there rose a cry in their halls, of Rachel weeping for her children; but +others sprang healthy and blooming to replace the lost: Dr. Bretton saw himself +live again in a son who inherited his looks and his disposition; he had stately +daughters, too, like himself: these children he reared with a suave, yet a firm +hand; they grew up according to inheritance and nurture. +</p> + +<p> +In short, I do but speak the truth when I say that these two lives of Graham +and Paulina were blessed, like that of Jacob’s favoured son, with “blessings of +Heaven above, blessings of the deep that lies under.” It was so, for God saw +that it was good. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap38"></a>CHAPTER XXXVIII.<br/> +CLOUD.</h2> + +<p> +But it is not so for all. What then? His will be done, as done it surely will +be, whether we humble ourselves to resignation or not. The impulse of creation +forwards it; the strength of powers, seen and unseen, has its fulfilment in +charge. Proof of a life to come must be given. In fire and in blood, if +needful, must that proof be written. In fire and in blood do we trace the +record throughout nature. In fire and in blood does it cross our own +experience. Sufferer, faint not through terror of this burning evidence. Tired +wayfarer, gird up thy loins; look upward, march onward. Pilgrims and brother +mourners, join in friendly company. Dark through the wilderness of this world +stretches the way for most of us: equal and steady be our tread; be our cross +our banner. For staff we have His promise, whose “word is tried, whose way +perfect:” for present hope His providence, “who gives the shield of salvation, +whose gentleness makes great;” for final home His bosom, who “dwells in the +height of Heaven;” for crowning prize a glory, exceeding and eternal. Let us so +run that we may obtain: let us endure hardness as good soldiers; let us finish +our course, and keep the faith, reliant in the issue to come off more than +conquerors: “Art thou not from everlasting mine Holy One? WE SHALL NOT DIE!” +</p> + +<p> +On a Thursday morning we were all assembled in classe, waiting for the lesson +of literature. The hour was come; we expected the master. +</p> + +<p> +The pupils of the first classe sat very still; the cleanly-written compositions +prepared since the last lesson lay ready before them, neatly tied with ribbon, +waiting to be gathered by the hand of the Professor as he made his rapid round +of the desks. The month was July, the morning fine, the glass-door stood ajar, +through it played a fresh breeze, and plants, growing at the lintel, waved, +bent, looked in, seeming to whisper tidings. +</p> + +<p> +M. Emanuel was not always quite punctual; we scarcely wondered at his being a +little late, but we wondered when the door at last opened and, instead of him +with his swiftness and his fire, there came quietly upon us the cautious Madame +Beck. +</p> + +<p> +She approached M. Paul’s desk; she stood before it; she drew round her the +light shawl covering her shoulders; beginning to speak in low, yet firm tones, +and with a fixed gaze, she said, “This morning there will be no lesson of +literature.” +</p> + +<p> +The second paragraph of her address followed, after about two minutes’ pause. +</p> + +<p> +“It is probable the lessons will be suspended for a week. I shall require at +least that space of time to find an efficient substitute for M. Emanuel. +Meanwhile, it shall be our study to fill the blanks usefully. +</p> + +<p> +“Your Professor, ladies,” she went on, “intends, if possible, duly to take +leave of you. At the present moment he has not leisure for that ceremony. He is +preparing for a long voyage. A very sudden and urgent summons of duty calls him +to a great distance. He has decided to leave Europe for an indefinite time. +Perhaps he may tell you more himself. Ladies, instead of the usual lesson with +M. Emanuel, you will, this morning, read English with Mademoiselle Lucy.” +</p> + +<p> +She bent her head courteously, drew closer the folds of her shawl, and passed +from the classe. +</p> + +<p> +A great silence fell: then a murmur went round the room: I believe some pupils +wept. +</p> + +<p> +Some time elapsed. The noise, the whispering, the occasional sobbing increased. +I became conscious of a relaxation of discipline, a sort of growing disorder, +as if my girls felt that vigilance was withdrawn, and that surveillance had +virtually left the classe. Habit and the sense of duty enabled me to rally +quickly, to rise in my usual way, to speak in my usual tone, to enjoin, and +finally to establish quiet. I made the English reading long and close. I kept +them at it the whole morning. I remember feeling a sentiment of impatience +towards the pupils who sobbed. Indeed, their emotion was not of much value: it +was only an hysteric agitation. I told them so unsparingly. I half ridiculed +them. I was severe. The truth was, I could not do with their tears, or that +gasping sound; I could not bear it. A rather weak-minded, low-spirited pupil +kept it up when the others had done; relentless necessity obliged and assisted +me so to accost her, that she dared not carry on the demonstration, that she +was forced to conquer the convulsion. +</p> + +<p> +That girl would have had a right to hate me, except that, when school was over +and her companions departing, I ordered her to stay, and when they were gone, I +did what I had never done to one among them before—pressed her to my heart and +kissed her cheek. But, this impulse yielded to, I speedily put her out of the +classe, for, upon that poignant strain, she wept more bitterly than ever. +</p> + +<p> +I filled with occupation every minute of that day, and should have liked to sit +up all night if I might have kept a candle burning; the night, however, proved +a bad time, and left bad effects, preparing me ill for the next day’s ordeal of +insufferable gossip. Of course this news fell under general discussion. Some +little reserve had accompanied the first surprise: that soon wore off; every +mouth opened; every tongue wagged; teachers, pupils, the very servants, mouthed +the name of “Emanuel.” He, whose connection with the school was contemporary +with its commencement, thus suddenly to withdraw! All felt it strange. +</p> + +<p> +They talked so much, so long, so often, that, out of the very multitude of +their words and rumours, grew at last some intelligence. About the third day I +heard it said that he was to sail in a week; then—that he was bound for the +West Indies. I looked at Madame Beck’s face, and into her eyes, for disproof or +confirmation of this report; I perused her all over for information, but no +part of her disclosed more than what was unperturbed and commonplace. +</p> + +<p> +“This secession was an immense loss to her,” she alleged. “She did not know how +she should fill up the vacancy. She was so used to her kinsman, he had become +her right hand; what should she do without him? She had opposed the step, but +M. Paul had convinced her it was his duty.” +</p> + +<p> +She said all this in public, in classe, at the dinner-table, speaking audibly +to Zélie St. Pierre. +</p> + +<p> +“Why was it his duty?” I could have asked her that. I had impulses to take hold +of her suddenly, as she calmly passed me in classe, to stretch out my hand and +grasp her fast, and say, “Stop. Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter. +<i>Why</i> is it his duty to go into banishment?” But Madame always addressed +some other teacher, and never looked at me, never seemed conscious I could have +a care in the question. +</p> + +<p> +The week wore on. Nothing more was said about M. Emanuel coming to bid us +good-by; and none seemed anxious for his coming; none questioned whether or not +he would come; none betrayed torment lest he should depart silent and unseen; +incessantly did they talk, and never, in all their talk, touched on this vital +point. As to Madame, she of course could see him, and say to him as much as she +pleased. What should <i>she</i> care whether or not he appeared in the +schoolroom? +</p> + +<p> +The week consumed. We were told that he was going on such a day, that his +destination was “Basseterre in Guadaloupe:” the business which called him +abroad related to a friend’s interests, not his own: I thought as much. +</p> + +<p> +“Basseterre in Guadaloupe.” I had little sleep about this time, but whenever I +<i>did</i> slumber, it followed infallibly that I was quickly roused with a +start, while the words “Basseterre,” “Guadaloupe,” seemed pronounced over my +pillow, or ran athwart the darkness round and before me, in zigzag characters +of red or violet light. +</p> + +<p> +For what I felt there was no help, and how could I help feeling? M. Emanuel had +been very kind to me of late days; he had been growing hourly better and +kinder. It was now a month since we had settled the theological difference, and +in all that time there had been no quarrel. Nor had our peace been the cold +daughter of divorce; we had not lived aloof; he had come oftener, he had talked +with me more than before; he had spent hours with me, with temper soothed, with +eye content, with manner home-like and mild. Kind subjects of conversation had +grown between us; he had inquired into my plans of life, and I had communicated +them; the school project pleased him; he made me repeat it more than once, +though he called it an Alnaschar dream. The jar was over; the mutual +understanding was settling and fixing; feelings of union and hope made +themselves profoundly felt in the heart; affection and deep esteem and dawning +trust had each fastened its bond. +</p> + +<p> +What quiet lessons I had about this time! No more taunts on my “intellect,” no +more menaces of grating public shows! How sweetly, for the jealous gibe, and +the more jealous, half-passionate eulogy, were substituted a mute, indulgent +help, a fond guidance, and a tender forbearance which forgave but never +praised. There were times when he would sit for many minutes and not speak at +all; and when dusk or duty brought separation, he would leave with words like +these, “Il est doux, le repos! Il est précieux le calme bonheur!” +</p> + +<p> +One evening, not ten short days since, he joined me whilst walking in my alley. +He took my hand. I looked up in his face. I thought he meant to arrest my +attention. +</p> + +<p> +“Bonne petite amie!” said he, softly; “douce consolatrice!” But through his +touch, and with his words, a new feeling and a strange thought found a course. +Could it be that he was becoming more than friend or brother? Did his look +speak a kindness beyond fraternity or amity? +</p> + +<p> +His eloquent look had more to say, his hand drew me forward, his interpreting +lips stirred. No. Not now. Here into the twilight alley broke an interruption: +it came dual and ominous: we faced two bodeful forms—a woman’s and a +priest’s—Madame Beck and Père Silas. +</p> + +<p> +The aspect of the latter I shall never forget. On the first impulse it +expressed a Jean-Jacques sensibility, stirred by the signs of affection just +surprised; then, immediately, darkened over it the jaundice of ecclesiastical +jealousy. He spoke to <i>me</i> with unction. He looked on his pupil with +sternness. As to Madame Beck, she, of course, saw nothing—nothing; though her +kinsman retained in her presence the hand of the heretic foreigner, not +suffering withdrawal, but clasping it close and fast. +</p> + +<p> +Following these incidents, that sudden announcement of departure had struck me +at first as incredible. Indeed, it was only frequent repetition, and the +credence of the hundred and fifty minds round me, which forced on me its full +acceptance. As to that week of suspense, with its blank, yet burning days, +which brought from him no word of explanation—I remember, but I cannot describe +its passage. +</p> + +<p> +The last day broke. Now would he visit us. Now he would come and speak his +farewell, or he would vanish mute, and be seen by us nevermore. +</p> + +<p> +This alternative seemed to be present in the mind of not a living creature in +that school. All rose at the usual hour; all breakfasted as usual; all, without +reference to, or apparent thought of their late Professor, betook themselves +with wonted phlegm to their ordinary duties. +</p> + +<p> +So oblivious was the house, so tame, so trained its proceedings, so inexpectant +its aspect—I scarce knew how to breathe in an atmosphere thus stagnant, thus +smothering. Would no one lend me a voice? Had no one a wish, no one a word, no +one a prayer to which I could say—Amen? +</p> + +<p> +I had seen them unanimous in demand for the merest trifle—a treat, a holiday, a +lesson’s remission; they could not, they <i>would</i> not now band to besiege +Madame Beck, and insist on a last interview with a Master who had certainly +been loved, at least by some—loved as <i>they</i> could love—but, oh! what +<i>is</i> the love of the multitude? +</p> + +<p> +I knew where he lived: I knew where he was to be heard of, or communicated +with; the distance was scarce a stone’s-throw: had it been in the next +room—unsummoned, I could make no use of my knowledge. To follow, to seek out, +to remind, to recall—for these things I had no faculty. +</p> + +<p> +M. Emanuel might have passed within reach of my arm: had he passed silent and +unnoticing, silent and stirless should I have suffered him to go by. +</p> + +<p> +Morning wasted. Afternoon came, and I thought all was over. My heart trembled +in its place. My blood was troubled in its current. I was quite sick, and +hardly knew how to keep at my post—or do my work. Yet the little world round me +plodded on indifferent; all seemed jocund, free of care, or fear, or thought: +the very pupils who, seven days since, had wept hysterically at a startling +piece of news, appeared quite to have forgotten the news, its import, and their +emotion. +</p> + +<p> +A little before five o’clock, the hour of dismissal, Madame Beck sent for me to +her chamber, to read over and translate some English letter she had received, +and to write for her the answer. Before settling to this work, I observed that +she softly closed the two doors of her chamber; she even shut and fastened the +casement, though it was a hot day, and free circulation of air was usually +regarded by her as indispensable. Why this precaution? A keen suspicion, an +almost fierce distrust, suggested such question. Did she want to exclude sound? +what sound? +</p> + +<p> +I listened as I had never listened before; I listened like the evening and +winter-wolf, snuffing the snow, scenting prey, and hearing far off the +traveller’s tramp. Yet I could both listen and write. About the middle of the +letter I heard—what checked my pen—a tread in the vestibule. No door-bell had +rung; Rosine—acting doubtless by orders—had anticipated such réveillée. Madame +saw me halt. She coughed, made a bustle, spoke louder. The tread had passed on +to the classes. +</p> + +<p> +“Proceed,” said Madame; but my hand was fettered, my ear enchained, my thoughts +were carried off captive. +</p> + +<p> +The classes formed another building; the hall parted them from the +dwelling-house: despite distance and partition, I heard the sudden stir of +numbers, a whole division rising at once. +</p> + +<p> +“They are putting away work,” said Madame. +</p> + +<p> +It was indeed the hour to put away work, but why that sudden hush—that instant +quell of the tumult? +</p> + +<p> +“Wait, Madame—I will see what it is.” +</p> + +<p> +And I put down my pen and left her. Left her? No: she would not be left: +powerless to detain me, she rose and followed, close as my shadow. I turned on +the last step of the stair. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you coming, too?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said she; meeting my glance with a peculiar aspect—a look, clouded, yet +resolute. +</p> + +<p> +We proceeded then, not together, but she walked in my steps. +</p> + +<p> +He was come. Entering the first classe, I saw him. There, once more appeared +the form most familiar. I doubt not they had tried to keep him away, but he was +come. +</p> + +<p> +The girls stood in a semicircle; he was passing round, giving his farewells, +pressing each hand, touching with his lips each cheek. This last ceremony, +foreign custom permitted at such a parting—so solemn, to last so long. +</p> + +<p> +I felt it hard that Madame Beck should dog me thus; following and watching me +close; my neck and shoulder shrunk in fever under her breath; I became terribly +goaded. +</p> + +<p> +He was approaching; the semicircle was almost travelled round; he came to the +last pupil; he turned. But Madame was before me; she had stepped out suddenly; +she seemed to magnify her proportions and amplify her drapery; she eclipsed me; +I was hid. She knew my weakness and deficiency; she could calculate the degree +of moral paralysis—the total default of self-assertion—with which, in a crisis, +I could be struck. She hastened to her kinsman, she broke upon him volubly, she +mastered his attention, she hurried him to the door—the glass-door opening on +the garden. I think he looked round; could I but have caught his eye, courage, +I think, would have rushed in to aid feeling, and there would have been a +charge, and, perhaps, a rescue; but already the room was all confusion, the +semicircle broken into groups, my figure was lost among thirty more +conspicuous. Madame had her will; yes, she got him away, and he had not seen +me; he thought me absent. Five o’clock struck, the loud dismissal-bell rang, +the school separated, the room emptied. +</p> + +<p> +There seems, to my memory, an entire darkness and distraction in some certain +minutes I then passed alone—a grief inexpressible over a loss unendurable. +<i>What</i> should I do; oh! <i>what</i> should I do; when all my life’s hope +was thus torn by the roots out of my riven, outraged heart? +</p> + +<p> +What I <i>should</i> have done, I know not, when a little child—the least child +in the school—broke with its simplicity and its unconsciousness into the raging +yet silent centre of that inward conflict. +</p> + +<p> +“Mademoiselle,” lisped the treble voice, “I am to give you that. M. Paul said I +was to seek you all over the house, from the grenier to the cellar, and when I +found you, to give you that.” +</p> + +<p> +And the child delivered a note; the little dove dropped on my knee, its olive +leaf plucked off. I found neither address nor name, only these words:— +</p> + +<p> +“It was not my intention to take leave of you when I said good-by to the rest, +but I hoped to see you in classe. I was disappointed. The interview is +deferred. Be ready for me. Ere I sail, I must see you at leisure, and speak +with you at length. Be ready; my moments are numbered, and, just now, +monopolized; besides, I have a private business on hand which I will not share +with any, nor communicate—even to you.—PAUL.” +</p> + +<p> +“Be ready?” Then it must be this evening: was he not to go on the morrow? Yes; +of that point I was certain. I had seen the date of his vessel’s departure +advertised. Oh! <i>I</i> would be ready, but could that longed-for meeting +really be achieved? the time was so short, the schemers seemed so watchful, so +active, so hostile; the way of access appeared strait as a gully, deep as a +chasm—Apollyon straddled across it, breathing flames. Could my Greatheart +overcome? Could my guide reach me? +</p> + +<p> +Who might tell? Yet I began to take some courage, some comfort; it seemed to me +that I felt a pulse of his heart beating yet true to the whole throb of mine. +</p> + +<p> +I waited my champion. Apollyon came trailing his Hell behind him. I think if +Eternity held torment, its form would not be fiery rack, nor its nature +despair. I think that on a certain day amongst those days which never dawned, +and will not set, an angel entered Hades—stood, shone, smiled, delivered a +prophecy of conditional pardon, kindled a doubtful hope of bliss to come, not +now, but at a day and hour unlooked for, revealed in his own glory and grandeur +the height and compass of his promise: spoke thus—then towering, became a star, +and vanished into his own Heaven. His legacy was suspense—a worse boon than +despair. +</p> + +<p> +All that evening I waited, trusting in the dove-sent olive-leaf, yet in the +midst of my trust, terribly fearing. My fear pressed heavy. Cold and peculiar, +I knew it for the partner of a rarely-belied presentiment. The first hours +seemed long and slow; in spirit I clung to the flying skirts of the last. They +passed like drift cloud—like the wrack scudding before a storm. +</p> + +<p> +They passed. All the long, hot summer day burned away like a Yule-log; the +crimson of its close perished; I was left bent among the cool blue shades, over +the pale and ashen gleams of its night. +</p> + +<p> +Prayers were over; it was bed-time; my co-inmates were all retired. I still +remained in the gloomy first classe, forgetting, or at least disregarding, +rules I had never forgotten or disregarded before. +</p> + +<p> +How long I paced that classe I cannot tell; I must have been afoot many hours; +mechanically had I moved aside benches and desks, and had made for myself a +path down its length. There I walked, and there, when certain that the whole +household were abed, and quite out of hearing—there, I at last wept. Reliant on +Night, confiding in Solitude, I kept my tears sealed, my sobs chained, no +longer; they heaved my heart; they tore their way. In this house, what grief +could be sacred? +</p> + +<p> +Soon after eleven o’clock—a very late hour in the Rue Fossette—the door +unclosed, quietly but not stealthily; a lamp’s flame invaded the moonlight; +Madame Beck entered, with the same composed air, as if coming on an ordinary +occasion, at an ordinary season. Instead of at once addressing me, she went to +her desk, took her keys, and seemed to seek something: she loitered over this +feigned search long, too long. She was calm, too calm; my mood scarce endured +the pretence; driven beyond common range, two hours since I had left behind me +wonted respects and fears. Led by a touch, and ruled by a word, under usual +circumstances, no yoke could now be borne—no curb obeyed. +</p> + +<p> +“It is more than time for retirement,” said Madame; “the rule of the house has +already been transgressed too long.” +</p> + +<p> +Madame met no answer: I did not check my walk; when she came in my way, I put +her out of it. +</p> + +<p> +“Let me persuade you to calm, Meess; let me lead you to your chamber,” said +she, trying to speak softly. +</p> + +<p> +“No!” I said; “neither you nor another shall persuade or lead me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Your bed shall be warmed. Goton is sitting up still. She shall make you +comfortable: she shall give you a sedative.” +</p> + +<p> +“Madame,” I broke out, “you are a sensualist. Under all your serenity, your +peace, and your decorum, you are an undenied sensualist. Make your own bed warm +and soft; take sedatives and meats, and drinks spiced and sweet, as much as you +will. If you have any sorrow or disappointment—and, perhaps, you have—nay, I +<i>know</i> you have—seek your own palliatives, in your own chosen resources. +Leave me, however. <i>Leave me</i>, I say!” +</p> + +<p> +“I must send another to watch you, Meess: I must send Goton.” +</p> + +<p> +“I forbid it. Let me alone. Keep your hand off me, and my life, and my +troubles. Oh, Madame! in <i>your</i> hand there is both chill and poison. You +envenom and you paralyze.” +</p> + +<p> +“What have I done, Meess? You must not marry Paul. He cannot marry.” +</p> + +<p> +“Dog in the manger!” I said: for I knew she secretly wanted him, and had always +wanted him. She called him “insupportable:” she railed at him for a “dévot:” +she did not love, but she wanted to marry, that she might bind him to her +interest. Deep into some of Madame’s secrets I had entered—I know not how: by +an intuition or an inspiration which came to me—I know not whence. In the +course of living with her too, I had slowly learned, that, unless with an +inferior, she must ever be a rival. She was <i>my</i> rival, heart and soul, +though secretly, under the smoothest bearing, and utterly unknown to all save +her and myself. +</p> + +<p> +Two minutes I stood over Madame, feeling that the whole woman was in my power, +because in some moods, such as the present—in some stimulated states of +perception, like that of this instant—her habitual disguise, her mask and her +domino, were to me a mere network reticulated with holes; and I saw underneath +a being heartless, self-indulgent, and ignoble. She quietly retreated from me: +meek and self-possessed, though very uneasy, she said, “If I would not be +persuaded to take rest, she must reluctantly leave me.” Which she did +incontinent, perhaps even more glad to get away, than I was to see her vanish. +</p> + +<p> +This was the sole flash-eliciting, truth-extorting, rencontre which ever +occurred between me and Madame Beck: this short night-scene was never repeated. +It did not one whit change her manner to me. I do not know that she revenged +it. I do not know that she hated me the worse for my fell candour. I think she +bucklered herself with the secret philosophy of her strong mind, and resolved +to forget what it irked her to remember. I know that to the end of our mutual +lives there occurred no repetition of, no allusion to, that fiery passage. +</p> + +<p> +That night passed: all nights—even the starless night before dissolution—must +wear away. About six o’clock, the hour which called up the household, I went +out to the court, and washed my face in its cold, fresh well-water. Entering by +the carré, a piece of mirror-glass, set in an oaken cabinet, repeated my image. +It said I was changed: my cheeks and lips were sodden white, my eyes were +glassy, and my eyelids swollen and purple. +</p> + +<p> +On rejoining my companions, I knew they all looked at me—my heart seemed +discovered to them: I believed myself self-betrayed. Hideously certain did it +seem that the very youngest of the school must guess why and for whom I +despaired. +</p> + +<p> +“Isabelle,” the child whom I had once nursed in sickness, approached me. Would +she, too, mock me! +</p> + +<p> +“Que vous êtes pâle! Vous êtes donc bien malade, Mademoiselle!” said she, +putting her finger in her mouth, and staring with a wistful stupidity which at +the moment seemed to me more beautiful than the keenest intelligence. +</p> + +<p> +Isabelle did not long stand alone in the recommendation of ignorance: before +the day was over, I gathered cause of gratitude towards the whole blind +household. The multitude have something else to do than to read hearts and +interpret dark sayings. Who wills, may keep his own counsel—be his own secret’s +sovereign. In the course of that day, proof met me on proof, not only that the +cause of my present sorrow was unguessed, but that my whole inner life for the +last six months, was still mine only. It was not known—it had not been +noted—that I held in peculiar value one life among all lives. Gossip had passed +me by; curiosity had looked me over; both subtle influences, hovering always +round, had never become centred upon me. A given organization may live in a +full fever-hospital, and escape typhus. M. Emanuel had come and gone: I had +been taught and sought; in season and out of season he had called me, and I had +obeyed him: “M. Paul wants Miss Lucy”—“Miss Lucy is with M. Paul”—such had been +the perpetual bulletin; and nobody commented, far less condemned. Nobody +hinted, nobody jested. Madame Beck read the riddle: none else resolved it. What +I now suffered was called illness—a headache: I accepted the baptism. +</p> + +<p> +But what bodily illness was ever like this pain? This certainty that he was +gone without a farewell—this cruel conviction that fate and pursuing furies—a +woman’s envy and a priest’s bigotry—would suffer me to see him no more? What +wonder that the second evening found me like the first—untamed, tortured, again +pacing a solitary room in an unalterable passion of silent desolation? +</p> + +<p> +Madame Beck did not herself summon me to bed that night—she did not come near +me: she sent Ginevra Fanshawe—a more efficient agent for the purpose she could +not have employed. Ginevra’s first words—“Is your headache very bad to-night?” +(for Ginevra, like the rest, thought I had a headache—an intolerable headache +which made me frightfully white in the face, and insanely restless in the +foot)—her first words, I say, inspired the impulse to flee anywhere, so that it +were only out of reach. And soon, what followed—plaints about her own +headaches—completed the business. +</p> + +<p> +I went up-stairs. Presently I was in my bed—my miserable bed—haunted with quick +scorpions. I had not been laid down five minutes, when another emissary +arrived: Goton came, bringing me something to drink. I was consumed with +thirst—I drank eagerly; the beverage was sweet, but I tasted a drug. +</p> + +<p> +“Madame says it will make you sleep, chou-chou,” said Goton, as she received +back the emptied cup. +</p> + +<p> +Ah! the sedative had been administered. In fact, they had given me a strong +opiate. I was to be held quiet for one night. +</p> + +<p> +The household came to bed, the night-light was lit, the dormitory hushed. Sleep +soon reigned: over those pillows, sleep won an easy supremacy: contented +sovereign over heads and hearts which did not ache—he passed by the unquiet. +</p> + +<p> +The drug wrought. I know not whether Madame had overcharged or under-charged +the dose; its result was not that she intended. Instead of stupor, came +excitement. I became alive to new thought—to reverie peculiar in colouring. A +gathering call ran among the faculties, their bugles sang, their trumpets rang +an untimely summons. Imagination was roused from her rest, and she came forth +impetuous and venturous. With scorn she looked on Matter, her mate—“Rise!” she +said. “Sluggard! this night I will have <i>my</i> will; nor shalt thou +prevail.” +</p> + +<p> +“Look forth and view the night!” was her cry; and when I lifted the heavy blind +from the casement close at hand—with her own royal gesture, she showed me a +moon supreme, in an element deep and splendid. +</p> + +<p> +To my gasping senses she made the glimmering gloom, the narrow limits, the +oppressive heat of the dormitory, intolerable. She lured me to leave this den +and follow her forth into dew, coolness, and glory. +</p> + +<p> +She brought upon me a strange vision of Villette at midnight. Especially she +showed the park, the summer-park, with its long alleys all silent, lone and +safe; among these lay a huge stone basin—that basin I knew, and beside which I +had often stood—deep-set in the tree-shadows, brimming with cool water, clear, +with a green, leafy, rushy bed. What of all this? The park-gates were shut up, +locked, sentinelled: the place could not be entered. +</p> + +<p> +Could it not? A point worth considering; and while revolving it, I mechanically +dressed. Utterly incapable of sleeping or lying still—excited from head to +foot—what could I do better than dress? +</p> + +<p> +The gates were locked, soldiers set before them: was there, then, no admission +to the park? +</p> + +<p> +The other day, in walking past, I had seen, without then attending to the +circumstance, a gap in the paling—one stake broken down: I now saw this gap +again in recollection—saw it very plainly—the narrow, irregular aperture +visible between the stems of the lindens, planted orderly as a colonnade. A man +could not have made his way through that aperture, nor could a stout woman, +perhaps not Madame Beck; but I thought I might: I fancied I should like to try, +and once within, at this hour the whole park would be mine—the moonlight, +midnight park! +</p> + +<p> +How soundly the dormitory slept! What deep slumbers! What quiet breathing! How +very still the whole large house! What was the time? I felt restless to know. +There stood a clock in the classe below: what hindered me from venturing down +to consult it? By such a moon, its large white face and jet black figures must +be vividly distinct. +</p> + +<p> +As for hindrance to this step, there offered not so much as a creaking hinge or +a clicking latch. On these hot July nights, close air could not be tolerated, +and the chamber-door stood wide open. Will the dormitory-planks sustain my +tread untraitorous? Yes. I know wherever a board is loose, and will avoid it. +The oak staircase creaks somewhat as I descend, but not much:—I am in the +carré. +</p> + +<p> +The great classe-doors are close shut: they are bolted. On the other hand, the +entrance to the corridor stands open. The classes seem to my thought, great +dreary jails, buried far back beyond thoroughfares, and for me, filled with +spectral and intolerable Memories, laid miserable amongst their straw and their +manacles. The corridor offers a cheerful vista, leading to the high vestibule +which opens direct upon the street. +</p> + +<p> +Hush!—the clock strikes. Ghostly deep as is the stillness of this convent, it +is only eleven. While my ear follows to silence the hum of the last stroke, I +catch faintly from the built-out capital, a sound like bells or like a band—a +sound where sweetness, where victory, where mourning blend. Oh, to approach +this music nearer, to listen to it alone by the rushy basin! Let me go—oh, let +me go! What hinders, what does not aid freedom? +</p> + +<p> +There, in the corridor, hangs my garden-costume, my large hat, my shawl. There +is no lock on the huge, heavy, porte-cochère; there is no key to seek: it +fastens with a sort of spring-bolt, not to be opened from the outside, but +which, from within, may be noiselessly withdrawn. Can I manage it? It yields to +my hand, yields with propitious facility. I wonder as that portal seems almost +spontaneously to unclose—I wonder as I cross the threshold and step on the +paved street, wonder at the strange ease with which this prison has been +forced. It seems as if I had been pioneered invisibly, as if some dissolving +force had gone before me: for myself, I have scarce made an effort. +</p> + +<p> +Quiet Rue Fossette! I find on this pavement that wanderer-wooing summer night +of which I mused; I see its moon over me; I feel its dew in the air. But here I +cannot stay; I am still too near old haunts: so close under the dungeon, I can +hear the prisoners moan. This solemn peace is not what I seek, it is not what I +can bear: to me the face of that sky bears the aspect of a world’s death. The +park also will be calm—I know, a mortal serenity prevails everywhere—yet let me +seek the park. +</p> + +<p> +I took a route well known, and went up towards the palatial and royal +Haute-Ville; thence the music I had heard certainly floated; it was hushed now, +but it might re-waken. I went on: neither band nor bell music came to meet me; +another sound replaced it, a sound like a strong tide, a great flow, deepening +as I proceeded. Light broke, movement gathered, chimes pealed—to what was I +coming? Entering on the level of a Grande Place, I found myself, with the +suddenness of magic, plunged amidst a gay, living, joyous crowd. +</p> + +<p> +Villette is one blaze, one broad illumination; the whole world seems abroad; +moonlight and heaven are banished: the town, by her own flambeaux, beholds her +own splendour—gay dresses, grand equipages, fine horses and gallant riders +throng the bright streets. I see even scores of masks. It is a strange scene, +stranger than dreams. But where is the park?—I ought to be near it. In the +midst of this glare the park must be shadowy and calm—<i>there</i>, at least, +are neither torches, lamps, nor crowd? +</p> + +<p> +I was asking this question when an open carriage passed me filled with known +faces. Through the deep throng it could pass but slowly; the spirited horses +fretted in their curbed ardour. I saw the occupants of that carriage well: me +they could not see, or, at least, not know, folded close in my large shawl, +screened with my straw hat (in that motley crowd no dress was noticeably +strange). I saw the Count de Bassompierre; I saw my godmother, handsomely +apparelled, comely and cheerful; I saw, too, Paulina Mary, compassed with the +triple halo of her beauty, her youth, and her happiness. In looking on her +countenance of joy, and eyes of festal light, one scarce remembered to note the +gala elegance of what she wore; I know only that the drapery floating about her +was all white and light and bridal; seated opposite to her I saw Graham +Bretton; it was in looking up at him her aspect had caught its lustre—the light +repeated in <i>her</i> eyes beamed first out of his. +</p> + +<p> +It gave me strange pleasure to follow these friends viewlessly, and I +<i>did</i> follow them, as I thought, to the park. I watched them alight +(carriages were inadmissible) amidst new and unanticipated splendours. Lo! the +iron gateway, between the stone columns, was spanned by a flaming arch built of +massed stars; and, following them cautiously beneath that arch, where were +they, and where was I? +</p> + +<p> +In a land of enchantment, a garden most gorgeous, a plain sprinkled with +coloured meteors, a forest with sparks of purple and ruby and golden fire +gemming the foliage; a region, not of trees and shadow, but of strangest +architectural wealth—of altar and of temple, of pyramid, obelisk, and sphinx: +incredible to say, the wonders and the symbols of Egypt teemed throughout the +park of Villette. +</p> + +<p> +No matter that in five minutes the secret was mine—the key of the mystery +picked up, and its illusion unveiled—no matter that I quickly recognised the +material of these solemn fragments—the timber, the paint, and the +pasteboard—these inevitable discoveries failed to quite destroy the charm, or +undermine the marvel of that night. No matter that I now seized the explanation +of the whole great fête—a fête of which the conventual Rue Fossette had not +tasted, though it had opened at dawn that morning, and was still in full vigour +near midnight. +</p> + +<p> +In past days there had been, said history, an awful crisis in the fate of +Labassecour, involving I know not what peril to the rights and liberties of her +gallant citizens. Rumours of wars there had been, if not wars themselves; a +kind of struggling in the streets—a bustle—a running to and fro, some rearing +of barricades, some burgher-rioting, some calling out of troops, much +interchange of brickbats, and even a little of shot. Tradition held that +patriots had fallen: in the old Basse-Ville was shown an enclosure, solemnly +built in and set apart, holding, it was said, the sacred bones of martyrs. Be +this as it may, a certain day in the year was still kept as a festival in +honour of the said patriots and martyrs of somewhat apocryphal memory—the +morning being given to a solemn Te Deum in St. Jean Baptiste, the evening +devoted to spectacles, decorations, and illuminations, such as these I now saw. +</p> + +<p> +While looking up at the image of a white ibis, fixed on a column—while +fathoming the deep, torch-lit perspective of an avenue, at the close of which +was couched a sphinx—I lost sight of the party which, from the middle of the +great square, I had followed—or, rather, they vanished like a group of +apparitions. On this whole scene was impressed a dream-like character: every +shape was wavering, every movement floating, every voice +echo-like—half-mocking, half-uncertain. Paulina and her friends being gone, I +scarce could avouch that I had really seen them; nor did I miss them as guides +through the chaos, far less regret them as protectors amidst the night. +</p> + +<p> +That festal night would have been safe for a very child. Half the peasantry had +come in from the outlying environs of Villette, and the decent burghers were +all abroad and around, dressed in their best. My straw-hat passed amidst cap +and jacket, short petticoat, and long calico mantle, without, perhaps, +attracting a glance; I only took the precaution to bind down the broad leaf +gipsy-wise, with a supplementary ribbon—and then I felt safe as if masked. +</p> + +<p> +Safe I passed down the avenues—safe I mixed with the crowd where it was +deepest. To be still was not in my power, nor quietly to observe. I took a +revel of the scene; I drank the elastic night-air—the swell of sound, the +dubious light, now flashing, now fading. As to Happiness or Hope, they and I +had shaken hands, but just now—I scorned Despair. +</p> + +<p> +My vague aim, as I went, was to find the stone-basin, with its clear depth and +green lining: of that coolness and verdure I thought, with the passionate +thirst of unconscious fever. Amidst the glare, and hurry, and throng, and +noise, I still secretly and chiefly longed to come on that circular mirror of +crystal, and surprise the moon glassing therein her pearly front. +</p> + +<p> +I knew my route, yet it seemed as if I was hindered from pursuing it direct: +now a sight, and now a sound, called me aside, luring me down this alley and +down that. Already I saw the thick-planted trees which framed this tremulous +and rippled glass, when, choiring out of a glade to the right, broke such a +sound as I thought might be heard if Heaven were to open—such a sound, perhaps, +as <i>was</i> heard above the plain of Bethlehem, on the night of glad tidings. +</p> + +<p> +The song, the sweet music, rose afar, but rushing swiftly on fast-strengthening +pinions—there swept through these shades so full a storm of harmonies that, had +no tree been near against which to lean, I think I must have dropped. Voices +were there, it seemed to me, unnumbered; instruments varied and +countless—bugle, horn, and trumpet I knew. The effect was as a sea breaking +into song with all its waves. +</p> + +<p> +The swaying tide swept this way, and then it fell back, and I followed its +retreat. It led me towards a Byzantine building—a sort of kiosk near the park’s +centre. Round about stood crowded thousands, gathered to a grand concert in the +open air. What I had heard was, I think, a wild Jäger chorus; the night, the +space, the scene, and my own mood, had but enhanced the sounds and their +impression. +</p> + +<p> +Here were assembled ladies, looking by this light most beautiful: some of their +dresses were gauzy, and some had the sheen of satin, the flowers and the blond +trembled, and the veils waved about their decorated bonnets, as that host-like +chorus, with its greatly-gathering sound, sundered the air above them. Most of +these ladies occupied the little light park-chairs, and behind and beside them +stood guardian gentlemen. The outer ranks of the crowd were made up of +citizens, plebeians and police. +</p> + +<p> +In this outer rank I took my place. I rather liked to find myself the silent, +unknown, consequently unaccosted neighbour of the short petticoat and the +sabot; and only the distant gazer at the silk robe, the velvet mantle, and the +plumed chapeau. Amidst so much life and joy, too, it suited me to be +alone—quite alone. Having neither wish nor power to force my way through a mass +so close-packed, my station was on the farthest confines, where, indeed, I +might hear, but could see little. +</p> + +<p> +“Mademoiselle is not well placed,” said a voice at my elbow. Who dared accost +<i>me</i>, a being in a mood so little social? I turned, rather to repel than +to reply. I saw a man—a burgher—an entire stranger, as I deemed him for one +moment, but the next, recognised in him a certain tradesman—a bookseller, whose +shop furnished the Rue Fossette with its books and stationery; a man notorious +in our pensionnat for the excessive brittleness of his temper, and frequent +snappishness of his manner, even to us, his principal customers: but whom, for +my solitary self, I had ever been disposed to like, and had always found civil, +sometimes kind; once, in aiding me about some troublesome little exchange of +foreign money, he had done me a service. He was an intelligent man; under his +asperity, he was a good-hearted man; the thought had sometimes crossed me, that +a part of his nature bore affinity to a part of M. Emanuel’s (whom he knew +well, and whom I had often seen sitting on Miret’s counter, turning over the +current month’s publications); and it was in this affinity I read the +explanation of that conciliatory feeling with which I instinctively regarded +him. +</p> + +<p> +Strange to say, this man knew me under my straw-hat and closely-folded shawl; +and, though I deprecated the effort, he insisted on making a way for me through +the crowd, and finding me a better situation. He carried his disinterested +civility further; and, from some quarter, procured me a chair. Once and again, +I have found that the most cross-grained are by no means the worst of mankind; +nor the humblest in station, the least polished in feeling. This man, in his +courtesy, seemed to find nothing strange in my being here alone; only a reason +for extending to me, as far as he could, a retiring, yet efficient attention. +Having secured me a place and a seat, he withdrew without asking a question, +without obtruding a remark, without adding a superfluous word. No wonder that +Professor Emanuel liked to take his cigar and his lounge, and to read his +feuilleton in M. Miret’s shop—the two must have suited. +</p> + +<p> +I had not been seated five minutes, ere I became aware that chance and my +worthy burgher friend had brought me once more within view of a familiar and +domestic group. Right before me sat the Brettons and de Bassompierres. Within +reach of my hand—had I chosen to extend it—sat a figure like a fairy-queen, +whose array, lilies and their leaves seemed to have suggested; whatever was not +spotless white, being forest-green. My godmother, too, sat so near, that, had I +leaned forward, my breath might have stirred the ribbon of her bonnet. They +were too near; having been just recognised by a comparative stranger, I felt +uneasy at this close vicinage of intimate acquaintance. +</p> + +<p> +It made me quite start when Mrs. Bretton, turning to Mr. Home, and speaking out +of a kind impulse of memory, said,—“I wonder what my steady little Lucy would +say to all this if she were here? I wish we had brought her, she would have +enjoyed it much.” +</p> + +<p> +“So she would, so she would, in her grave sensible fashion; it is a pity but we +had asked her,” rejoined the kind gentleman; and added, “I like to see her so +quietly pleased; so little moved, yet so content.” +</p> + +<p> +Dear were they both to me, dear are they to this day in their remembered +benevolence. Little knew they the rack of pain which had driven Lucy almost +into fever, and brought her out, guideless and reckless, urged and drugged to +the brink of frenzy. I had half a mind to bend over the elders’ shoulders, and +answer their goodness with the thanks of my eyes. M. de Bassompierre did not +well know <i>me</i>, but I knew <i>him</i>, and honoured and admired his +nature, with all its plain sincerity, its warm affection, and unconscious +enthusiasm. Possibly I might have spoken, but just then Graham turned; he +turned with one of his stately firm movements, so different from those, of a +sharp-tempered under-sized man: there was behind him a throng, a hundred ranks +deep; there were thousands to meet his eye and divide its scrutiny—why then did +he concentrate all on me—oppressing me with the whole force of that full, blue, +steadfast orb? Why, if he <i>would</i> look, did not one glance satisfy him? +why did he turn on his chair, rest his elbow on its back, and study me +leisurely? He could not see my face, I held it down; surely, he <i>could</i> +not recognise me: I stooped, I turned, I <i>would</i> not be known. He rose, by +some means he contrived to approach, in two minutes he would have had my +secret: my identity would have been grasped between his, never tyrannous, but +always powerful hands. There was but one way to evade or to check him. I +implied, by a sort of supplicatory gesture, that it was my prayer to be let +alone; after that, had he persisted, he would perhaps have seen the spectacle +of Lucy incensed: not all that was grand, or good, or kind in him (and Lucy +felt the full amount) should have kept her quite tame, or absolutely +inoffensive and shadowlike. He looked, but he desisted. He shook his handsome +head, but he was mute. He resumed his seat, nor did he again turn or disturb me +by a glance, except indeed for one single instant, when a look, rather +solicitous than curious, stole my way—speaking what somehow stilled my heart +like “the south-wind quieting the earth.” Graham’s thoughts of me were not +entirely those of a frozen indifference, after all. I believe in that goodly +mansion, his heart, he kept one little place under the sky-lights where Lucy +might have entertainment, if she chose to call. It was not so handsome as the +chambers where he lodged his male friends; it was not like the hall where he +accommodated his philanthropy, or the library where he treasured his science, +still less did it resemble the pavilion where his marriage feast was splendidly +spread; yet, gradually, by long and equal kindness, he proved to me that he +kept one little closet, over the door of which was written “Lucy’s Room.” I +kept a place for him, too—a place of which I never took the measure, either by +rule or compass: I think it was like the tent of Peri-Banou. All my life long I +carried it folded in the hollow of my hand yet, released from that hold and +constriction, I know not but its innate capacity for expanse might have +magnified it into a tabernacle for a host. +</p> + +<p> +Forbearing as he was to-night, I could not stay in this proximity; this +dangerous place and seat must be given up: I watched my opportunity, rose, and +stole away. He might think, he might even believe that Lucy was contained +within that shawl, and sheltered under that hat; he never could be certain, for +he did not see my face. +</p> + +<p> +Surely the spirit of restlessness was by this time appeased? Had I not had +enough of adventure? Did I not begin to flag, quail, and wish for safety under +a roof? Not so. I still loathed my bed in the school dormitory more than words +can express: I clung to whatever could distract thought. Somehow I felt, too, +that the night’s drama was but begun, that the prologue was scarce spoken: +throughout this woody and turfy theatre reigned a shadow of mystery; actors and +incidents unlooked-for, waited behind the scenes: I thought so foreboding told +me as much. +</p> + +<p> +Straying at random, obeying the push of every chance elbow, I was brought to a +quarter where trees planted in clusters, or towering singly, broke up somewhat +the dense packing of the crowd, and gave it a more scattered character. These +confines were far from the music, and somewhat aloof even from the lamps, but +there was sound enough to soothe, and with that full, high moon, lamps were +scarce needed. Here had chiefly settled family-groups, burgher-parents; some of +them, late as was the hour, actually surrounded by their children, with whom it +had not been thought advisable to venture into the closer throng. +</p> + +<p> +Three fine tall trees growing close, almost twined stem within stem, lifted a +thick canopy of shade above a green knoll, crowned with a seat—a seat which +might have held several, yet it seemed abandoned to one, the remaining members +of the fortunate party in possession of this site standing dutifully round; +yet, amongst this reverend circle was a lady, holding by the hand a little +girl. +</p> + +<p> +When I caught sight of this little girl, she was twisting herself round on her +heel, swinging from her conductress’s hand, flinging herself from side to side +with wanton and fantastic gyrations. These perverse movements arrested my +attention, they struck me as of a character fearfully familiar. On close +inspection, no less so appeared the child’s equipment; the lilac silk pelisse, +the small swansdown boa, the white bonnet—the whole holiday toilette, in short, +was the gala garb of a cherub but too well known, of that tadpole, Désirée +Beck—and Désirée Beck it was—she, or an imp in her likeness. +</p> + +<p> +I might have taken this discovery as a thunder-clap, but such hyperbole would +have been premature; discovery was destined to rise more than one degree, ere +it reached its climax. +</p> + +<p> +On whose hand could the amiable Désirée swing thus selfishly, whose glove could +she tear thus recklessly, whose arm thus strain with impunity, or on the +borders of whose dress thus turn and trample insolently, if not the hand, +glove, arm, and robe of her lady-mother? And there, in an Indian shawl and a +pale-green crape bonnet—there, fresh, portly, blithe, and pleasant—there stood +Madame Beck. +</p> + +<p> +Curious! I had certainly deemed Madame in her bed, and Désirée in her crib, at +this blessed minute, sleeping, both of them, the sleep of the just, within the +sacred walls, amidst the profound seclusion of the Rue Fossette. Most certainly +also they did not picture “Meess Lucie” otherwise engaged; and here we all +three were taking our “ébats” in the fête-blazing park at midnight! +</p> + +<p> +The fact was, Madame was only acting according to her quite justifiable wont. I +remembered now I had heard it said among the teachers—though without at the +time particularly noticing the gossip—that often, when we thought Madame in her +chamber, sleeping, she was gone, full-dressed, to take her pleasure at operas, +or plays, or balls. Madame had no sort of taste for a monastic life, and took +care—largely, though discreetly—to season her existence with a relish of the +world. +</p> + +<p> +Half a dozen gentlemen of her friends stood about her. Amongst these, I was not +slow to recognise two or three. There was her brother, M. Victor Kint; there +was another person, moustached and with long hair—a calm, taciturn man, but +whose traits bore a stamp and a semblance I could not mark unmoved. Amidst +reserve and phlegm, amidst contrasts of character and of countenance, something +there still was which recalled a face—mobile, fervent, feeling—a face +changeable, now clouded, and now alight—a face from my world taken away, for my +eyes lost, but where my best spring-hours of life had alternated in shadow and +in glow; that face, where I had often seen movements so near the signs of +genius—that why there did not shine fully out the undoubted fire, the thing, +the spirit, and the secret itself—I could never tell. Yes—this Josef +Emanuel—this man of peace—reminded me of his ardent brother. +</p> + +<p> +Besides Messieurs Victor and Josef, I knew another of this party. This third +person stood behind and in the shade, his attitude too was stooping, yet his +dress and bald white head made him the most conspicuous figure of the group. He +was an ecclesiastic: he was Père Silas. Do not fancy, reader, that there was +any inconsistency in the priest’s presence at this fête. This was not +considered a show of Vanity Fair, but a commemoration of patriotic sacrifice. +The Church patronised it, even with ostentation. There were troops of priests +in the park that night. +</p> + +<p> +Père Silas stooped over the seat with its single occupant, the rustic bench and +that which sat upon it: a strange mass it was—bearing no shape, yet +magnificent. You saw, indeed, the outline of a face, and features, but these +were so cadaverous and so strangely placed, you could almost have fancied a +head severed from its trunk, and flung at random on a pile of rich merchandise. +The distant lamp-rays glanced on clear pendants, on broad rings; neither the +chasteness of moonlight, nor the distance of the torches, could quite subdue +the gorgeous dyes of the drapery. Hail, Madame Walravens! I think you looked +more witch-like than ever. And presently the good lady proved that she was +indeed no corpse or ghost, but a harsh and hardy old woman; for, upon some +aggravation in the clamorous petition of Désirée Beck to her mother, to go to +the kiosk and take sweetmeats, the hunchback suddenly fetched her a resounding +rap with her gold-knobbed cane. +</p> + +<p> +There, then, were Madame Walravens, Madame Beck, Père Silas—the whole +conjuration, the secret junta. The sight of them thus assembled did me good. I +cannot say that I felt weak before them, or abashed, or dismayed. They +outnumbered me, and I was worsted and under their feet; but, as yet, I was not +dead. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap39"></a>CHAPTER XXXIX.<br/> +OLD AND NEW ACQUAINTANCE.</h2> + +<p> +Fascinated as by a basilisk with three heads, I could not leave this clique; +the ground near them seemed to hold my feet. The canopy of entwined trees held +out shadow, the night whispered a pledge of protection, and an officious lamp +flashed just one beam to show me an obscure, safe seat, and then vanished. Let +me now briefly tell the reader all that, during the past dark fortnight, I have +been silently gathering from Rumour, respecting the origin and the object of M. +Emanuel’s departure. The tale is short, and not new: its alpha is Mammon, and +its omega Interest. +</p> + +<p> +If Madame Walravens was hideous as a Hindoo idol, she seemed also to possess, +in the estimation of these her votaries, an idol’s consequence. The fact was, +she had been rich—very rich; and though, for the present, without the command +of money, she was likely one day to be rich again. At Basseterre, in +Guadaloupe, she possessed a large estate, received in dowry on her marriage +sixty years ago, sequestered since her husband’s failure; but now, it was +supposed, cleared of claim, and, if duly looked after by a competent agent of +integrity, considered capable of being made, in a few years, largely +productive. +</p> + +<p> +Père Silas took an interest in this prospective improvement for the sake of +religion and the church, whereof Magliore Walravens was a devout daughter. +Madame Beck, distantly related to the hunchback and knowing her to be without +family of her own, had long brooded over contingencies with a mother’s +calculating forethought, and, harshly treated as she was by Madame Walravens, +never ceased to court her for interest’s sake. Madame Beck and the priest were +thus, for money reasons, equally and sincerely interested in the nursing of the +West Indian estate. +</p> + +<p> +But the distance was great, and the climate hazardous. The competent and +upright agent wanted, must be a devoted man. Just such a man had Madame +Walravens retained for twenty years in her service, blighting his life, and +then living on him, like an old fungus; such a man had Père Silas trained, +taught, and bound to him by the ties of gratitude, habit, and belief. Such a +man Madame Beck knew, and could in some measure influence. “My pupil,” said +Père Silas, “if he remains in Europe, runs risk of apostacy, for he has become +entangled with a heretic.” Madame Beck made also her private comment, and +preferred in her own breast her secret reason for desiring expatriation. The +thing she could not obtain, she desired not another to win: rather would she +destroy it. As to Madame Walravens, she wanted her money and her land, and knew +Paul, if he liked, could make the best and faithfullest steward: so the three +self-seekers banded and beset the one unselfish. They reasoned, they appealed, +they implored; on his mercy they cast themselves, into his hands they +confidingly thrust their interests. They asked but two or three years of +devotion—after that, he should live for himself: one of the number, perhaps, +wished that in the meantime he might die. +</p> + +<p> +No living being ever humbly laid his advantage at M. Emanuel’s feet, or +confidingly put it into his hands, that he spurned the trust or repulsed the +repository. What might be his private pain or inward reluctance to leave +Europe—what his calculations for his own future—none asked, or knew, or +reported. All this was a blank to me. His conferences with his confessor I +might guess; the part duty and religion were made to play in the persuasions +used, I might conjecture. He was gone, and had made no sign. There my knowledge +closed. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +With my head bent, and my forehead resting on my hands, I sat amidst grouped +tree-stems and branching brushwood. Whatever talk passed amongst my neighbours, +I might hear, if I would; I was near enough; but for some time, there was +scarce motive to attend. They gossiped about the dresses, the music, the +illuminations, the fine night. I listened to hear them say, “It is calm weather +for <i>his</i> voyage; the <i>Antigua</i>” (his ship) “will sail prosperously.” +No such remark fell; neither the <i>Antigua</i>, nor her course, nor her +passenger were named. +</p> + +<p> +Perhaps the light chat scarcely interested old Madame Walravens more than it +did me; she appeared restless, turning her head now to this side, now that, +looking through the trees, and among the crowd, as if expectant of an arrival +and impatient of delay. “Où sont-ils? Pourquoi ne viennent-ils?” I heard her +mutter more than once; and at last, as if determined to have an answer to her +question—which hitherto none seemed to mind, she spoke aloud this phrase—a +phrase brief enough, simple enough, but it sent a shock through me—“Messieurs +et mesdames,” said she, “où donc est Justine Marie?” +</p> + +<p> +“Justine Marie!” What was this? Justine Marie—the dead nun—where was she? Why, +in her grave, Madame Walravens—what can you want with her? You shall go to her, +but she shall not come to you. +</p> + +<p> +Thus <i>I</i> should have answered, had the response lain with me, but nobody +seemed to be of my mind; nobody seemed surprised, startled, or at a loss. The +quietest commonplace answer met the strange, the dead-disturbing, the +Witch-of-Endor query of the hunchback. +</p> + +<p> +“Justine Marie,” said one, “is coming; she is in the kiosk; she will be here +presently.” +</p> + +<p> +Out of this question and reply sprang a change in the chat—chat it still +remained, easy, desultory, familiar gossip. Hint, allusion, comment, went round +the circle, but all so broken, so dependent on references to persons not named, +or circumstances not defined, that listen as intently as I would—and I +<i>did</i> listen <i>now</i> with a fated interest—I could make out no more +than that some scheme was on foot, in which this ghostly Justine Marie—dead or +alive—was concerned. This family-junta seemed grasping at her somehow, for some +reason; there seemed question of a marriage, of a fortune—for whom I could not +quite make out—perhaps for Victor Kint, perhaps for Josef Emanuel—both were +bachelors. Once I thought the hints and jests rained upon a young fair-haired +foreigner of the party, whom they called Heinrich Mühler. Amidst all the +badinage, Madame Walravens still obtruded from time to time, hoarse, +cross-grained speeches; her impatience being diverted only by an implacable +surveillance of Désirée, who could not stir but the old woman menaced her with +her staff. +</p> + +<p> +“La voilà!” suddenly cried one of the gentlemen, “voilà Justine Marie qui +arrive!” +</p> + +<p> +This moment was for me peculiar. I called up to memory the pictured nun on the +panel; present to my mind was the sad love-story; I saw in thought the vision +of the garret, the apparition of the alley, the strange birth of the berceau; I +underwent a presentiment of discovery, a strong conviction of coming +disclosure. Ah! when imagination once runs riot where do we stop? What winter +tree so bare and branchless—what way-side, hedge-munching animal so humble, +that Fancy, a passing cloud, and a struggling moonbeam, will not clothe it in +spirituality, and make of it a phantom? +</p> + +<p> +With solemn force pressed on my heart, the expectation of mystery breaking up: +hitherto I had seen this spectre only through a glass darkly; now was I to +behold it face to face. I leaned forward; I looked. +</p> + +<p> +“She comes!” cried Josef Emanuel. +</p> + +<p> +The circle opened as if opening to admit a new and welcome member. At this +instant a torch chanced to be carried past; its blaze aided the pale moon in +doing justice to the crisis, in lighting to perfection the dénouement pressing +on. Surely those near me must have felt some little of the anxiety I felt, in +degree so unmeted. Of that group the coolest must have “held his breath for a +time!” As for me, my life stood still. +</p> + +<p> +It is over. The moment and the nun are come. The crisis and the revelation are +passed by. +</p> + +<p> +The flambeau glares still within a yard, held up in a park-keeper’s hand; its +long eager tongue of flame almost licks the figure of the Expected—there—where +she stands full in my sight. What is she like? What does she wear? How does she +look? Who is she? +</p> + +<p> +There are many masks in the park to-night, and as the hour wears late, so +strange a feeling of revelry and mystery begins to spread abroad, that scarce +would you discredit me, reader, were I to say that she is like the nun of the +attic, that she wears black skirts and white head-clothes, that she looks the +resurrection of the flesh, and that she is a risen ghost. +</p> + +<p> +All falsities—all figments! We will not deal in this gear. Let us be honest, +and cut, as heretofore, from the homely web of truth. +</p> + +<p> +<i>Homely</i>, though, is an ill-chosen word. What I see is not precisely +homely. A girl of Villette stands there—a girl fresh from her pensionnat. She +is very comely, with the beauty indigenous to this country. She looks +well-nourished, fair, and fat of flesh. Her cheeks are round, her eyes good; +her hair is abundant. She is handsomely dressed. She is not alone; her escort +consists of three persons—two being elderly; these she addresses as “Mon Oncle” +and “Ma Tante.” She laughs, she chats; good-humoured, buxom, and blooming, she +looks, at all points, the bourgeoise belle. +</p> + +<p> +“So much for Justine Marie;” so much for ghosts and mystery: not that this last +was solved—this girl certainly is not my nun: what I saw in the garret and +garden must have been taller by a span. +</p> + +<p> +We have looked at the city belle; we have cursorily glanced at the respectable +old uncle and aunt. Have we a stray glance to give to the third member of this +company? Can we spare him a moment’s notice? We ought to distinguish him so +far, reader; he has claims on us; we do not now meet him for the first time. I +clasped my hands very hard, and I drew my breath very deep: I held in the cry, +I devoured the ejaculation, I forbade the start, I spoke and I stirred no more +than a stone; but I knew what I looked on; through the dimness left in my eyes +by many nights’ weeping, I knew him. They said he was to sail by the +<i>Antigua</i>. Madame Beck said so. She lied, or she had uttered what was once +truth, and failed to contradict it when it became false. The <i>Antigua</i> was +gone, and there stood Paul Emanuel. +</p> + +<p> +Was I glad? A huge load left me. Was it a fact to warrant joy? I know not. Ask +first what were the circumstances attendant on this respite? How far did this +delay concern <i>me?</i> Were there not those whom it might touch more nearly? +</p> + +<p> +After all, who may this young girl, this Justine Marie, be? Not a stranger, +reader; she is known to me by sight; she visits at the Rue Fossette: she is +often of Madame Beck’s Sunday parties. She is a relation of both the Becks and +Walravens; she derives her baptismal name from the sainted nun who would have +been her aunt had she lived; her patronymic is Sauveur; she is an heiress and +an orphan, and M. Emanuel is her guardian; some say her godfather. +</p> + +<p> +The family junta wish this heiress to be married to one of their band—which is +it? Vital question—which is it? +</p> + +<p> +I felt very glad now, that the drug administered in the sweet draught had +filled me with a possession which made bed and chamber intolerable. I always, +through my whole life, liked to penetrate to the real truth; I like seeking the +goddess in her temple, and handling the veil, and daring the dread glance. O +Titaness among deities! the covered outline of thine aspect sickens often +through its uncertainty, but define to us one trait, show us one lineament, +clear in awful sincerity; we may gasp in untold terror, but with that gasp we +drink in a breath of thy divinity; our heart shakes, and its currents sway like +rivers lifted by earthquake, but we have swallowed strength. To see and know +the worst is to take from Fear her main advantage. +</p> + +<p> +The Walravens’ party, augmented in numbers, now became very gay. The gentlemen +fetched refreshments from the kiosk, all sat down on the turf under the trees; +they drank healths and sentiments; they laughed, they jested. M. Emanuel +underwent some raillery, half good-humoured, half, I thought, malicious, +especially on Madame Beck’s part. I soon gathered that his voyage had been +temporarily deferred of his own will, without the concurrence, even against the +advice, of his friends; he had let the <i>Antigua</i> go, and had taken his +berth in the <i>Paul et Virginie</i>, appointed to sail a fortnight later. It +was his reason for this resolve which they teased him to assign, and which he +would only vaguely indicate as “the settlement of a little piece of business +which he had set his heart upon.” What <i>was</i> this business? Nobody knew. +Yes, there was one who seemed partly, at least, in his confidence; a meaning +look passed between him and Justine Marie. “La petite va m’aider—n’est-ce pas?” +said he. The answer was prompt enough, God knows! +</p> + +<p> +“Mais oui, je vous aiderai de tout mon cœur. Vous ferez de moi tout ce que +vous voudrez, mon parrain.” +</p> + +<p> +And this dear “parrain” took her hand and lifted it to his grateful lips. Upon +which demonstration, I saw the light-complexioned young Teuton, Heinrich +Mühler, grow restless, as if he did not like it. He even grumbled a few words, +whereat M. Emanuel actually laughed in his face, and with the ruthless triumph +of the assured conqueror, he drew his ward nearer to him. +</p> + +<p> +M. Emanuel was indeed very joyous that night. He seemed not one whit subdued by +the change of scene and action impending. He was the true life of the party; a +little despotic, perhaps, determined to be chief in mirth, as well as in +labour, yet from moment to moment proving indisputably his right of leadership. +His was the wittiest word, the pleasantest anecdote, the frankest laugh. +Restlessly active, after his manner, he multiplied himself to wait on all; but +oh! I saw which was his favourite. I saw at whose feet he lay on the turf, I +saw whom he folded carefully from the night air, whom he tended, watched, and +cherished as the apple of his eye. +</p> + +<p> +Still, hint and raillery flew thick, and still I gathered that while M. Paul +should be absent, working for others, these others, not quite ungrateful, would +guard for him the treasure he left in Europe. Let him bring them an Indian +fortune: they would give him in return a young bride and a rich inheritance. As +for the saintly consecration, the vow of constancy, that was forgotten: the +blooming and charming Present prevailed over the Past; and, at length, his nun +was indeed buried. +</p> + +<p> +Thus it must be. The revelation was indeed come. Presentiment had not been +mistaken in her impulse: there is a kind of presentiment which never <i>is</i> +mistaken; it was I who had for a moment miscalculated; not seeing the true +bearing of the oracle, I had thought she muttered of vision when, in truth, her +prediction touched reality. +</p> + +<p> +I might have paused longer upon what I saw; I might have deliberated ere I drew +inferences. Some, perhaps, would have held the premises doubtful, the proofs +insufficient; some slow sceptics would have incredulously examined ere they +conclusively accepted the project of a marriage between a poor and unselfish +man of forty, and his wealthy ward of eighteen; but far from me such shifts and +palliatives, far from me such temporary evasion of the actual, such coward +fleeing from the dread, the swift-footed, the all-overtaking Fact, such feeble +suspense of submission to her the sole sovereign, such paltering and faltering +resistance to the Power whose errand is to march conquering and to conquer, +such traitor defection from the TRUTH. +</p> + +<p> +No. I hastened to accept the whole plan. I extended my grasp and took it all +in. I gathered it to me with a sort of rage of haste, and folded it round me, +as the soldier struck on the field folds his colours about his breast. I +invoked Conviction to nail upon me the certainty, abhorred while embraced, to +fix it with the strongest spikes her strongest strokes could drive; and when +the iron had entered well my soul, I stood up, as I thought, renovated. +</p> + +<p> +In my infatuation, I said, “Truth, you are a good mistress to your faithful +servants! While a Lie pressed me, how I suffered! Even when the Falsehood was +still sweet, still flattering to the fancy, and warm to the feelings, it wasted +me with hourly torment. The persuasion that affection was won could not be +divorced from the dread that, by another turn of the wheel, it might be lost. +Truth stripped away Falsehood, and Flattery, and Expectancy, and here I +stand—free!” +</p> + +<p> +Nothing remained now but to take my freedom to my chamber, to carry it with me +to my bed and see what I could make of it. The play was not yet, indeed, quite +played out. I might have waited and watched longer that love-scene under the +trees, that sylvan courtship. Had there been nothing of love in the +demonstration, my Fancy in this hour was so generous, so creative, she could +have modelled for it the most salient lineaments, and given it the deepest life +and highest colour of passion. But I <i>would</i> not look; I had fixed my +resolve, but I would not violate my nature. And then—something tore me so +cruelly under my shawl, something so dug into my side, a vulture so strong in +beak and talon, I must be alone to grapple with it. I think I never felt +jealousy till now. This was not like enduring the endearments of Dr. John and +Paulina, against which while I sealed my eyes and my ears, while I withdrew +thence my thoughts, my sense of harmony still acknowledged in it a charm. This +was an outrage. The love born of beauty was not mine; I had nothing in common +with it: I could not dare to meddle with it, but another love, venturing +diffidently into life after long acquaintance, furnace-tried by pain, stamped +by constancy, consolidated by affection’s pure and durable alloy, submitted by +intellect to intellect’s own tests, and finally wrought up, by his own process, +to his own unflawed completeness, this Love that laughed at Passion, his fast +frenzies and his hot and hurried extinction, in <i>this</i> Love I had a vested +interest; and whatever tended either to its culture or its destruction, I could +not view impassibly. +</p> + +<p> +I turned from the group of trees and the “merrie companie” in its shade. +Midnight was long past; the concert was over, the crowds were thinning. I +followed the ebb. Leaving the radiant park and well-lit Haute-Ville (still well +lit, this it seems was to be a “nuit blanche” in Villette), I sought the dim +lower quarter. +</p> + +<p> +Dim I should not say, for the beauty of moonlight—forgotten in the park—here +once more flowed in upon perception. High she rode, and calm and stainlessly +she shone. The music and the mirth of the fête, the fire and bright hues of +those lamps had out-done and out-shone her for an hour, but now, again, her +glory and her silence triumphed. The rival lamps were dying: she held her +course like a white fate. Drum, trumpet, bugle, had uttered their clangour, and +were forgotten; with pencil-ray she wrote on heaven and on earth records for +archives everlasting. She and those stars seemed to me at once the types and +witnesses of truth all regnant. The night-sky lit her reign: like its +slow-wheeling progress, advanced her victory—that onward movement which has +been, and is, and will be from eternity to eternity. +</p> + +<p> +These oil-twinkling streets are very still: I like them for their lowliness and +peace. Homeward-bound burghers pass me now and then, but these companies are +pedestrians, make little noise, and are soon gone. So well do I love Villette +under her present aspect, not willingly would I re-enter under a roof, but that +I am bent on pursuing my strange adventure to a successful close, and quietly +regaining my bed in the great dormitory, before Madame Beck comes home. +</p> + +<p> +Only one street lies between me and the Rue Fossette; as I enter it, for the +first time, the sound of a carriage tears up the deep peace of this quarter. It +comes this way—comes very fast. How loud sounds its rattle on the paved path! +The street is narrow, and I keep carefully to the causeway. The carriage +thunders past, but what do I see, or fancy I see, as it rushes by? Surely +something white fluttered from that window—surely a hand waved a handkerchief. +Was that signal meant for me? Am I known? Who could recognise me? That is not +M. de Bassompierre’s carriage, nor Mrs. Bretton’s; and besides, neither the +Hôtel Crécy nor the château of La Terrasse lies in that direction. Well, I have +no time for conjecture; I must hurry home. +</p> + +<p> +Gaining the Rue Fossette, reaching the pensionnat, all there was still; no +fiacre had yet arrived with Madame and Désirée. I had left the great door ajar; +should I find it thus? Perhaps the wind or some other accident may have thrown +it to with sufficient force to start the spring-bolt? In that case, hopeless +became admission; my adventure must issue in catastrophe. I lightly pushed the +heavy leaf; would it yield? +</p> + +<p> +Yes. As soundless, as unresisting, as if some propitious genius had waited on a +sesame-charm, in the vestibule within. Entering with bated breath, quietly +making all fast, shoelessly mounting the staircase, I sought the dormitory, and +reached my couch. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Ay! I reached it, and once more drew a free inspiration. The next moment, I +almost shrieked—almost, but not quite, thank Heaven! +</p> + +<p> +Throughout the dormitory, throughout the house, there reigned at this hour the +stillness of death. All slept, and in such hush, it seemed that none dreamed. +Stretched on the nineteen beds lay nineteen forms, at full-length and +motionless. On mine—the twentieth couch—nothing <i>ought</i> to have lain: I +had left it void, and void should have found it. What, then; do I see between +the half-drawn curtains? What dark, usurping shape, supine, long, and strange? +Is it a robber who has made his way through the open street-door, and lies +there in wait? It looks very black, I think it looks—not human. Can it be a +wandering dog that has come in from the street and crept and nestled hither? +Will it spring, will it leap out if I approach? Approach I must. Courage! One +step!— +</p> + +<p> +My head reeled, for by the faint night-lamp, I saw stretched on my bed the old +phantom—the NUN. +</p> + +<p> +A cry at this moment might have ruined me. Be the spectacle what it might, I +could afford neither consternation, scream, nor swoon. Besides, I was not +overcome. Tempered by late incidents, my nerves disdained hysteria. Warm from +illuminations, and music, and thronging thousands, thoroughly lashed up by a +new scourge, I defied spectra. In a moment, without exclamation, I had rushed +on the haunted couch; nothing leaped out, or sprung, or stirred; all the +movement was mine, so was all the life, the reality, the substance, the force; +as my instinct felt. I tore her up—the incubus! I held her on high—the goblin! +I shook her loose—the mystery! And down she fell—down all around me—down in +shreds and fragments—and I trode upon her. +</p> + +<p> +Here again—behold the branchless tree, the unstabled Rosinante; the film of +cloud, the flicker of moonshine. The long nun proved a long bolster dressed in +a long black stole, and artfully invested with a white veil. The garments in +very truth, strange as it may seem, were genuine nun’s garments, and by some +hand they had been disposed with a view to illusion. Whence came these +vestments? Who contrived this artifice? These questions still remained. To the +head-bandage was pinned a slip of paper: it bore in pencil these mocking words— +</p> + +<p> +“The nun of the attic bequeaths to Lucy Snowe her wardrobe. She will be seen in +the Rue Fossette no more.” +</p> + +<p> +And what and who was she that had haunted me? She, I had actually seen three +times. Not a woman of my acquaintance had the stature of that ghost. She was +not of a female height. Not to any man I knew could the machination, for a +moment, be attributed. +</p> + +<p> +Still mystified beyond expression, but as thoroughly, as suddenly, relieved +from all sense of the spectral and unearthly; scorning also to wear out my +brain with the fret of a trivial though insoluble riddle, I just bundled +together stole, veil, and bandages, thrust them beneath my pillow, lay down, +listened till I heard the wheels of Madame’s home-returning fiacre, then +turned, and worn out by many nights’ vigils, conquered, too, perhaps, by the +now reacting narcotic, I deeply slept. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap40"></a>CHAPTER XL.<br/> +THE HAPPY PAIR.</h2> + +<p> +The day succeeding this remarkable Midsummer night, proved no common day. I do +not mean that it brought signs in heaven above, or portents on the earth +beneath; nor do I allude to meteorological phenomena, to storm, flood, or +whirlwind. On the contrary: the sun rose jocund, with a July face. Morning +decked her beauty with rubies, and so filled her lap with roses, that they fell +from her in showers, making her path blush: the Hours woke fresh as nymphs, and +emptying on the early hills their dew-vials, they stepped out dismantled of +vapour: shadowless, azure, and glorious, they led the sun’s steeds on a burning +and unclouded course. +</p> + +<p> +In short, it was as fine a day as the finest summer could boast; but I doubt +whether I was not the sole inhabitant of the Rue Fossette, who cared or +remembered to note this pleasant fact. Another thought busied all other heads; +a thought, indeed, which had its share in my meditations; but this master +consideration, not possessing for me so entire a novelty, so overwhelming a +suddenness, especially so dense a mystery, as it offered to the majority of my +co-speculators thereon, left me somewhat more open than the rest to any +collateral observation or impression. +</p> + +<p> +Still, while walking in the garden, feeling the sunshine, and marking the +blooming and growing plants, I pondered the same subject the whole house +discussed. +</p> + +<p> +What subject? +</p> + +<p> +Merely this. When matins came to be said, there was a place vacant in the first +rank of boarders. When breakfast was served, there remained a coffee-cup +unclaimed. When the housemaid made the beds, she found in one, a bolster laid +lengthwise, clad in a cap and night-gown; and when Ginevra Fanshawe’s +music-mistress came early, as usual, to give the morning lesson, that +accomplished and promising young person, her pupil, failed utterly to be +forthcoming. +</p> + +<p> +High and low was Miss Fanshawe sought; through length and breadth was the house +ransacked; vainly; not a trace, not an indication, not so much as a scrap of a +billet rewarded the search; the nymph was vanished, engulfed in the past night, +like a shooting star swallowed up by darkness. +</p> + +<p> +Deep was the dismay of surveillante teachers, deeper the horror of the +defaulting directress. Never had I seen Madame Beck so pale or so appalled. +Here was a blow struck at her tender part, her weak side; here was damage done +to her interest. How, too, had the untoward event happened? By what outlet had +the fugitive taken wing? Not a casement was found unfastened, not a pane of +glass broken; all the doors were bolted secure. Never to this day has Madame +Beck obtained satisfaction on this point, nor indeed has anybody else +concerned, save and excepting one, Lucy Snowe, who could not forget how, to +facilitate a certain enterprise, a certain great door had been drawn softly to +its lintel, closed, indeed, but neither bolted nor secure. The thundering +carriage-and-pair encountered were now likewise recalled, as well as that +puzzling signal, the waved handkerchief. +</p> + +<p> +From these premises, and one or two others, inaccessible to any but myself, I +could draw but one inference. It was a case of elopement. Morally certain on +this head, and seeing Madame Beck’s profound embarrassment, I at last +communicated my conviction. Having alluded to M. de Hamal’s suit, I found, as I +expected, that Madame Beck was perfectly au fait to that affair. She had long +since discussed it with Mrs. Cholmondeley, and laid her own responsibility in +the business on that lady’s shoulders. To Mrs. Cholmondeley and M. de +Bassompierre she now had recourse. +</p> + +<p> +We found that the Hôtel Crécy was already alive to what had happened. Ginevra +had written to her cousin Paulina, vaguely signifying hymeneal intentions; +communications had been received from the family of de Hamal; M. de +Bassompierre was on the track of the fugitives. He overtook them too late. +</p> + +<p> +In the course of the week, the post brought me a note. I may as well transcribe +it; it contains explanation on more than one point:— +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +‘DEAR OLD TIM “(short for Timon),—” I am off you see—gone like a shot. Alfred +and I intended to be married in this way almost from the first; we never meant +to be spliced in the humdrum way of other people; Alfred has too much spirit +for that, and so have I—Dieu merci! Do you know, Alfred, who used to call you +‘the dragon,’ has seen so much of you during the last few months, that he +begins to feel quite friendly towards you. He hopes you won’t miss him now that +he has gone; he begs to apologize for any little trouble he may have given you. +He is afraid he rather inconvenienced you once when he came upon you in the +grenier, just as you were reading a letter seemingly of the most special +interest; but he could not resist the temptation to give you a start, you +appeared so wonderfully taken up with your correspondent. En revanche, he says +you once frightened him by rushing in for a dress or a shawl, or some other +chiffon, at the moment when he had struck a light, and was going to take a +quiet whiff of his cigar, while waiting for me. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you begin to comprehend by this time that M. le Comte de Hamal was the nun +of the attic, and that he came to see your humble servant? I will tell you how +he managed it. You know he has the entrée of the Athénée, where two or three of +his nephews, the sons of his eldest sister, Madame de Melcy, are students. You +know the court of the Athénée is on the other side of the high wall bounding +your walk, the allée défendue. Alfred can climb as well as he can dance or +fence: his amusement was to make the escalade of our pensionnat by mounting, +first the wall; then—by the aid of that high tree overspreading the grand +berceau, and resting some of its boughs on the roof of the lower buildings of +our premises—he managed to scale the first classe and the grand salle. One +night, by the way, he fell out of this tree, tore down some of the branches, +nearly broke his own neck, and after all, in running away, got a terrible +fright, and was nearly caught by two people, Madame Beck and M. Emanuel, he +thinks, walking in the alley. From the grande salle the ascent is not difficult +to the highest block of building, finishing in the great garret. The skylight, +you know, is, day and night, left half open for air; by the skylight he +entered. Nearly a year ago I chanced to tell him our legend of the nun; that +suggested his romantic idea of the spectral disguise, which I think you must +allow he has very cleverly carried out. +</p> + +<p> +“But for the nun’s black gown and white veil, he would have been caught again +and again both by you and that tiger-Jesuit, M. Paul. He thinks you both +capital ghost-seers, and very brave. What I wonder at is, rather your +secretiveness than your courage. How could you endure the visitations of that +long spectre, time after time, without crying out, telling everybody, and +rousing the whole house and neighbourhood? +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, and how did you like the nun as a bed-fellow? <i>I</i> dressed her up: +didn’t I do it well? Did you shriek when you saw her: I should have gone mad; +but then you have such nerves!—real iron and bend-leather! I believe you feel +nothing. You haven’t the same sensitiveness that a person of my constitution +has. You seem to me insensible both to pain and fear and grief. You are a real +old Diogenes. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, dear grandmother! and are you not mightily angry at my moonlight +flitting and run away match? I assure you it is excellent fun, and I did it +partly to spite that minx, Paulina, and that bear, Dr. John: to show them that, +with all their airs, I could get married as well as they. M. de Bassompierre +was at first in a strange fume with Alfred; he threatened a prosecution for +‘détournement de mineur,’ and I know not what; he was so abominably in earnest, +that I found myself forced to do a little bit of the melodramatic—go down on my +knees, sob, cry, drench three pocket-handkerchiefs. Of course, ‘mon oncle’ soon +gave in; indeed, where was the use of making a fuss? I am married, and that’s +all about it. He still says our marriage is not legal, because I am not of age, +forsooth! As if that made any difference! I am just as much married as if I +were a hundred. However, we are to be married again, and I am to have a +trousseau, and Mrs. Cholmondeley is going to superintend it; and there are some +hopes that M. de Bassompierre will give me a decent portion, which will be very +convenient, as dear Alfred has nothing but his nobility, native and hereditary, +and his pay. I only wish uncle would do things unconditionally, in a generous, +gentleman-like fashion; he is so disagreeable as to make the dowry depend on +Alfred’s giving his written promise that he will never touch cards or dice from +the day it is paid down. They accuse my angel of a tendency to play: I don’t +know anything about that, but I <i>do</i> know he is a dear, adorable creature. +</p> + +<p> +“I cannot sufficiently extol the genius with which de Hamal managed our flight. +How clever in him to select the night of the fête, when Madame (for he knows +her habits), as he said, would infallibly be absent at the concert in the park. +I suppose <i>you</i> must have gone with her. I watched you rise and leave the +dormitory about eleven o’clock. How you returned alone, and on foot, I cannot +conjecture. That surely was <i>you</i> we met in the narrow old Rue St. Jean? +Did you see me wave my handkerchief from the carriage window? +</p> + +<p> +“Adieu! Rejoice in my good luck: congratulate me on my supreme happiness, and +believe me, dear cynic and misanthrope, yours, in the best of health and +spirits, +</p> + +<p class="right"> +GINEVRA LAURA DE HAMAL,<br/> +née FANSHAWE. +</p> + +<p> +“P.S.—Remember, I am a countess now. Papa, mamma, and the girls at home, will +be delighted to hear that. ‘My daughter the Countess!’ ‘My sister the +Countess!’ Bravo! Sounds rather better than Mrs. John Bretton, hein?” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +In winding up Mistress Fanshawe’s memoirs, the reader will no doubt expect to +hear that she came finally to bitter expiation of her youthful levities. Of +course, a large share of suffering lies in reserve for her future. +</p> + +<p> +A few words will embody my farther knowledge respecting her. +</p> + +<p> +I saw her towards the close of her honeymoon. She called on Madame Beck, and +sent for me into the salon. She rushed into my arms laughing. She looked very +blooming and beautiful: her curls were longer, her cheeks rosier than ever: her +white bonnet and her Flanders veil, her orange-flowers and her bride’s dress, +became her mightily. +</p> + +<p> +“I have got my portion!” she cried at once; (Ginevra ever stuck to the +substantial; I always thought there was a good trading element in her +composition, much as she scorned the “bourgeoise;”) “and uncle de Bassompierre +is quite reconciled. I don’t mind his calling Alfred a ‘nincompoop’—that’s only +his coarse Scotch breeding; and I believe Paulina envies me, and Dr. John is +wild with jealousy—fit to blow his brains out—and I’m so happy! I really think +I’ve hardly anything left to wish for—unless it be a carriage and an hotel, +and, oh! I—must introduce you to ‘mon mari.’ Alfred, come here!” +</p> + +<p> +And Alfred appeared from the inner salon, where he was talking to Madame Beck, +receiving the blended felicitations and reprimands of that lady. I was +presented under my various names: the Dragon, Diogenes, and Timon. The young +Colonel was very polite. He made me a prettily-turned, neatly-worded apology, +about the ghost-visits, &c., concluding with saying that “the best excuse +for all his iniquities stood there!” pointing to his bride. +</p> + +<p> +And then the bride sent him back to Madame Beck, and she took me to herself, +and proceeded literally to suffocate me with her unrestrained spirits, her +girlish, giddy, wild nonsense. She showed her ring exultingly; she called +herself Madame la Comtesse de Hamal, and asked how it sounded, a score of +times. I said very little. I gave her only the crust and rind of my nature. No +matter she expected of me nothing better—she knew me too well to look for +compliments—my dry gibes pleased her well enough and the more impassible and +prosaic my mien, the more merrily she laughed. +</p> + +<p> +Soon after his marriage, M. de Hamal was persuaded to leave the army as the +surest way of weaning him from certain unprofitable associates and habits; a +post of attaché was procured for him, and he and his young wife went abroad. I +thought she would forget me now, but she did not. For many years, she kept up a +capricious, fitful sort of correspondence. During the first year or two, it was +only of herself and Alfred she wrote; then, Alfred faded in the background; +herself and a certain, new comer prevailed; one Alfred Fanshawe de Bassompierre +de Hamal began to reign in his father’s stead. There were great boastings about +this personage, extravagant amplifications upon miracles of precocity, mixed +with vehement objurgations against the phlegmatic incredulity with which I +received them. I didn’t know “what it was to be a mother;” “unfeeling thing +that I was, the sensibilities of the maternal heart were Greek and Hebrew to +me,” and so on. In due course of nature this young gentleman took his degrees +in teething, measles, hooping-cough: that was a terrible time for me—the +mamma’s letters became a perfect shout of affliction; never woman was so put +upon by calamity: never human being stood in such need of sympathy. I was +frightened at first, and wrote back pathetically; but I soon found out there +was more cry than wool in the business, and relapsed into my natural cruel +insensibility. As to the youthful sufferer, he weathered each storm like a +hero. Five times was that youth “in articulo mortis,” and five times did he +miraculously revive. +</p> + +<p> +In the course of years there arose ominous murmurings against Alfred the First; +M. de Bassompierre had to be appealed to, debts had to be paid, some of them of +that dismal and dingy order called “debts of honour;” ignoble plaints and +difficulties became frequent. Under every cloud, no matter what its nature, +Ginevra, as of old, called out lustily for sympathy and aid. She had no notion +of meeting any distress single-handed. In some shape, from some quarter or +other, she was pretty sure to obtain her will, and so she got on—fighting the +battle of life by proxy, and, on the whole, suffering as little as any human +being I have ever known. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap41"></a>CHAPTER XLI.<br/> +FAUBOURG CLOTILDE.</h2> + +<p> +Must I, ere I close, render some account of that Freedom and Renovation which I +won on the fête-night? Must I tell how I and the two stalwart companions I +brought home from the illuminated park bore the test of intimate acquaintance? +</p> + +<p> +I tried them the very next day. They had boasted their strength loudly when +they reclaimed me from love and its bondage, but upon my demanding deeds, not +words, some evidence of better comfort, some experience of a relieved +life—Freedom excused himself, as for the present impoverished and disabled to +assist; and Renovation never spoke; he had died in the night suddenly. +</p> + +<p> +I had nothing left for it then but to trust secretly that conjecture might have +hurried me too fast and too far, to sustain the oppressive hour by reminders of +the distorting and discolouring magic of jealousy. After a short and vain +struggle, I found myself brought back captive to the old rack of suspense, tied +down and strained anew. +</p> + +<p> +Shall I yet see him before he goes? Will he bear me in mind? Does he purpose to +come? Will this day—will the next hour bring him? or must I again assay that +corroding pain of long attent—that rude agony of rupture at the close, that +mute, mortal wrench, which, in at once uprooting hope and doubt, shakes life; +while the hand that does the violence cannot be caressed to pity, because +absence interposes her barrier! +</p> + +<p> +It was the Feast of the Assumption; no school was held. The boarders and +teachers, after attending mass in the morning, were gone a long walk into the +country to take their goûter, or afternoon meal, at some farm-house. I did not +go with them, for now but two days remained ere the <i>Paul et Virginie</i> +must sail, and I was clinging to my last chance, as the living waif of a wreck +clings to his last raft or cable. +</p> + +<p> +There was some joiners’ work to do in the first classe, some bench or desk to +repair; holidays were often turned to account for the performance of these +operations, which could not be executed when the rooms were filled with pupils. +As I sat solitary, purposing to adjourn to the garden and leave the coast +clear, but too listless to fulfil my own intent, I heard the workmen coming. +</p> + +<p> +Foreign artisans and servants do everything by couples: I believe it would take +two Labassecourien carpenters to drive a nail. While tying on my bonnet, which +had hitherto hung by its ribbons from my idle hand, I vaguely and momentarily +wondered to hear the step of but one “ouvrier.” I noted, too—as captives in +dungeons find sometimes dreary leisure to note the merest trifles—that this man +wore shoes, and not sabots: I concluded that it must be the master-carpenter, +coming to inspect before he sent his journeymen. I threw round me my scarf. He +advanced; he opened the door; my back was towards it; I felt a little thrill—a +curious sensation, too quick and transient to be analyzed. I turned, I stood in +the supposed master-artisan’s presence: looking towards the door-way, I saw it +filled with a figure, and my eyes printed upon my brain the picture of M. Paul. +</p> + +<p> +Hundreds of the prayers with which we weary Heaven bring to the suppliant no +fulfilment. Once haply in life, one golden gift falls prone in the lap—one boon +full and bright, perfect from Fruition’s mint. +</p> + +<p> +M. Emanuel wore the dress in which he probably purposed to travel—a surtout, +guarded with velvet; I thought him prepared for instant departure, and yet I +had understood that two days were yet to run before the ship sailed. He looked +well and cheerful. He looked kind and benign: he came in with eagerness; he was +close to me in one second; he was all amity. It might be his bridegroom mood +which thus brightened him. Whatever the cause, I could not meet his sunshine +with cloud. If this were my last moment with him, I would not waste it in +forced, unnatural distance. I loved him well—too well not to smite out of my +path even Jealousy herself, when she would have obstructed a kind farewell. A +cordial word from his lips, or a gentle look from his eyes, would do me good, +for all the span of life that remained to me; it would be comfort in the last +strait of loneliness; I would take it—I would taste the elixir, and pride +should not spill the cup. +</p> + +<p> +The interview would be short, of course: he would say to me just what he had +said to each of the assembled pupils; he would take and hold my hand two +minutes; he would touch my cheek with his lips for the first, last, only +time—and then—no more. Then, indeed, the final parting, then the wide +separation, the great gulf I could not pass to go to him—across which, haply, +he would not glance, to remember me. +</p> + +<p> +He took my hand in one of his, with the other he put back my bonnet; he looked +into my face, his luminous smile went out, his lips expressed something almost +like the wordless language of a mother who finds a child greatly and +unexpectedly changed, broken with illness, or worn out by want. A check +supervened. +</p> + +<p> +“Paul, Paul!” said a woman’s hurried voice behind, “Paul, come into the salon; +I have yet a great many things to say to you—conversation for the whole day—and +so has Victor; and Josef is here. Come Paul, come to your friends.” +</p> + +<p> +Madame Beck, brought to the spot by vigilance or an inscrutable instinct, +pressed so near, she almost thrust herself between me and M. Emanuel. +</p> + +<p> +“Come, Paul!” she reiterated, her eye grazing me with its hard ray like a steel +stylet. She pushed against her kinsman. I thought he receded; I thought he +would go. Pierced deeper than I could endure, made now to feel what defied +suppression, I cried— +</p> + +<p> +“My heart will break!” +</p> + +<p> +What I felt seemed literal heart-break; but the seal of another fountain +yielded under the strain: one breath from M. Paul, the whisper, “Trust me!” +lifted a load, opened an outlet. With many a deep sob, with thrilling, with icy +shiver, with strong trembling, and yet with relief—I wept. +</p> + +<p> +“Leave her to me; it is a crisis: I will give her a cordial, and it will pass,” +said the calm Madame Beck. +</p> + +<p> +To be left to her and her cordial seemed to me something like being left to the +poisoner and her bowl. When M. Paul answered deeply, harshly, and +briefly— +</p> + +<p> +“Laissez-moi!” in the grim sound I felt a music strange, strong, but +life-giving. +</p> + +<p> +“Laissez-moi!” he repeated, his nostrils opening, and his facial muscles all +quivering as he spoke. +</p> + +<p> +“But this will never do,” said Madame, with sternness. More sternly rejoined +her kinsman— +</p> + +<p> +“Sortez d’ici!” +</p> + +<p> +“I will send for Père Silas: on the spot I will send for him,” she threatened +pertinaciously. +</p> + +<p> +“Femme!” cried the Professor, not now in his deep tones, but in his highest and +most excited key, “Femme! sortez à l’instant!” +</p> + +<p> +He was roused, and I loved him in his wrath with a passion beyond what I had +yet felt. +</p> + +<p> +“What you do is wrong,” pursued Madame; “it is an act characteristic of men of +your unreliable, imaginative temperament; a step impulsive, injudicious, +inconsistent—a proceeding vexatious, and not estimable in the view of persons +of steadier and more resolute character.” +</p> + +<p> +“You know not what I have of steady and resolute in me,” said he, “but you +shall see; the event shall teach you. Modeste,” he continued less fiercely, “be +gentle, be pitying, be a woman; look at this poor face, and relent. You know I +am your friend, and the friend of your friends; in spite of your taunts, you +well and deeply know I may be trusted. Of sacrificing myself I made no +difficulty but my heart is pained by what I see; it <i>must</i> have and give +solace. <i>Leave me!</i>” +</p> + +<p> +This time, in the “<i>leave me</i>” there was an intonation so bitter and so +imperative, I wondered that even Madame Beck herself could for one moment delay +obedience; but she stood firm; she gazed upon him dauntless; she met his eye, +forbidding and fixed as stone. She was opening her lips to retort; I saw over +all M. Paul’s face a quick rising light and fire; I can hardly tell how he +managed the movement; it did not seem violent; it kept the form of courtesy; he +gave his hand; it scarce touched her I thought; she ran, she whirled from the +room; she was gone, and the door shut, in one second. +</p> + +<p> +The flash of passion was all over very soon. He smiled as he told me to wipe my +eyes; he waited quietly till I was calm, dropping from time to time a stilling, +solacing word. Ere long I sat beside him once more myself—re-assured, not +desperate, nor yet desolate; not friendless, not hopeless, not sick of life, +and seeking death. +</p> + +<p> +“It made you very sad then to lose your friend?” said he. +</p> + +<p> +“It kills me to be forgotten, Monsieur,” I said. “All these weary days I have +not heard from you one word, and I was crushed with the possibility, growing to +certainty, that you would depart without saying farewell!” +</p> + +<p> +“Must I tell you what I told Modeste Beck—that you do not know me? Must I show +and teach you my character? You <i>will</i> have proof that I can be a firm +friend? Without clear proof this hand will not lie still in mine, it will not +trust my shoulder as a safe stay? Good. The proof is ready. I come to justify +myself.” +</p> + +<p> +“Say anything, teach anything, prove anything, Monsieur; I can listen now.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then, in the first place, you must go out with me a good distance into the +town. I came on purpose to fetch you.” +</p> + +<p> +Without questioning his meaning, or sounding his plan, or offering the +semblance of an objection, I re-tied my bonnet: I was ready. +</p> + +<p> +The route he took was by the boulevards: he several times made me sit down on +the seats stationed under the lime-trees; he did not ask if I was tired, but +looked, and drew his own conclusions. +</p> + +<p> +“All these weary days,” said he, repeating my words, with a gentle, kindly +mimicry of my voice and foreign accent, not new from his lips, and of which the +playful banter never wounded, not even when coupled, as it often was, with the +assertion, that however I might <i>write</i> his language, I <i>spoke</i> and +always should speak it imperfectly and hesitatingly. “‘All these weary days’ I +have not for one hour forgotten you. Faithful women err in this, that they +think themselves the sole faithful of God’s creatures. On a very fervent and +living truth to myself, I, too, till lately scarce dared count, from any +quarter; but——look at me.” +</p> + +<p> +I lifted my happy eyes: they <i>were</i> happy now, or they would have been no +interpreters of my heart. +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said he, after some seconds’ scrutiny, “there is no denying that +signature: Constancy wrote it: her pen is of iron. Was the record painful?” +</p> + +<p> +“Severely painful,” I said, with truth. “Withdraw her hand, Monsieur; I can +bear its inscribing force no more.” +</p> + +<p> +“Elle est toute pâle,” said he, speaking to himself; “cette figure-là me fait +mal.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah! I am not pleasant to look at——?” +</p> + +<p> +I could not help saying this; the words came unbidden: I never remember the +time when I had not a haunting dread of what might be the degree of my outward +deficiency; this dread pressed me at the moment with special force. +</p> + +<p> +A great softness passed upon his countenance; his violet eyes grew suffused and +glistening under their deep Spanish lashes: he started up; “Let us walk on.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do I displease your eyes <i>much</i>?” I took courage to urge: the point had +its vital import for me. +</p> + +<p> +He stopped, and gave me a short, strong answer; an answer which silenced, +subdued, yet profoundly satisfied. Ever after that I knew what I was for +<i>him</i>; and what I might be for the rest of the world, I ceased painfully +to care. Was it weak to lay so much stress on an opinion about appearance? I +fear it might be; I fear it was; but in that case I must avow no light share of +weakness. I must own great fear of displeasing—a strong wish moderately to +please M. Paul. +</p> + +<p> +Whither we rambled, I scarce knew. Our walk was long, yet seemed short; the +path was pleasant, the day lovely. M. Emanuel talked of his voyage—he thought +of staying away three years. On his return from Guadaloupe, he looked forward +to release from liabilities and a clear course; and what did I purpose doing in +the interval of his absence? he asked. I had talked once, he reminded me, of +trying to be independent and keeping a little school of my own: had I dropped +the idea? +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed, I had not: I was doing my best to save what would enable me to put it +in practice.” +</p> + +<p> +“He did not like leaving me in the Rue Fossette; he feared I should miss him +there too much—I should feel desolate—I should grow sad—?” +</p> + +<p> +This was certain; but I promised to do my best to endure. +</p> + +<p> +“Still,” said he, speaking low, “there is another objection to your present +residence. I should wish to write to you sometimes: it would not be well to +have any uncertainty about the safe transmission of letters; and in the Rue +Fossette—in short, our Catholic discipline in certain matters—though +justifiable and expedient—might possibly, under peculiar circumstances, become +liable to misapplication—perhaps abuse.” +</p> + +<p> +“But if you write,” said I, “I <i>must</i> have your letters; and I <i>will</i> +have them: ten directors, twenty directresses, shall not keep them from me. I +am a Protestant: I will not bear that kind of discipline: Monsieur, I <i>will +not</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +“Doucement—doucement,” rejoined he; “we will contrive a plan; we have our +resources: soyez tranquille.” +</p> + +<p> +So speaking, he paused. +</p> + +<p> +We were now returning from the long walk. We had reached the middle of a clean +Faubourg, where the houses were small, but looked pleasant. It was before the +white door-step of a very neat abode that M. Paul had halted. +</p> + +<p> +“I call here,” said he. +</p> + +<p> +He did not knock, but taking from his pocket a key, he opened and entered at +once. Ushering me in, he shut the door behind us. No servant appeared. The +vestibule was small, like the house, but freshly and tastefully painted; its +vista closed in a French window with vines trained about the panes, tendrils, +and green leaves kissing the glass. Silence reigned in this dwelling. +</p> + +<p> +Opening an inner door, M. Paul disclosed a parlour, or salon—very tiny, but I +thought, very pretty. Its delicate walls were tinged like a blush; its floor +was waxed; a square of brilliant carpet covered its centre; its small round +table shone like the mirror over its hearth; there was a little couch, a little +chiffonnière, the half-open, crimson-silk door of which, showed porcelain on +the shelves; there was a French clock, a lamp; there were ornaments in biscuit +china; the recess of the single ample window was filled with a green stand, +bearing three green flower-pots, each filled with a fine plant glowing in +bloom; in one corner appeared a guéridon with a marble top, and upon it a +work-box, and a glass filled with violets in water. The lattice of this room +was open; the outer air breathing through, gave freshness, the sweet violets +lent fragrance. +</p> + +<p> +“Pretty, pretty place!” said I. M. Paul smiled to see me so pleased. +</p> + +<p> +“Must we sit down here and wait?” I asked in a whisper, half awed by the deep +pervading hush. +</p> + +<p> +“We will first peep into one or two other nooks of this nutshell,” he replied. +</p> + +<p> +“Dare you take the freedom of going all over the house?” I inquired. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I dare,” said he, quietly. +</p> + +<p> +He led the way. I was shown a little kitchen with a little stove and oven, with +few but bright brasses, two chairs and a table. A small cupboard held a +diminutive but commodious set of earthenware. +</p> + +<p> +“There is a coffee service of china in the salon,” said M. Paul, as I looked at +the six green and white dinner-plates; the four dishes, the cups and jugs to +match. +</p> + +<p> +Conducted up the narrow but clean staircase, I was permitted a glimpse of two +pretty cabinets of sleeping-rooms; finally, I was once more led below, and we +halted with a certain ceremony before a larger door than had yet been opened. +</p> + +<p> +Producing a second key, M. Emanuel adjusted it to the lock of this door. He +opened, put me in before him. +</p> + +<p> +“Voici!” he cried. +</p> + +<p> +I found myself in a good-sized apartment, scrupulously clean, though bare, +compared with those I had hitherto seen. The well-scoured boards were +carpetless; it contained two rows of green benches and desks, with an alley +down the centre, terminating in an estrade, a teacher’s chair and table; behind +them a tableau. On the walls hung two maps; in the windows flowered a few hardy +plants; in short, here was a miniature classe—complete, neat, pleasant. +</p> + +<p> +“It is a school then?” said I. “Who keeps it? I never heard of an establishment +in this faubourg.” +</p> + +<p> +“Will you have the goodness to accept of a few prospectuses for distribution in +behalf of a friend of mine?” asked he, taking from his surtout-pocket some +quires of these documents, and putting them into my hand. I looked, I +read—printed in fair characters:— +</p> + +<p> +“Externat de demoiselles. Numéro 7, Faubourg Clotilde, Directrice, Mademoiselle +Lucy Snowe.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +And what did I say to M. Paul Emanuel? +</p> + +<p> +Certain junctures of our lives must always be difficult of recall to memory. +Certain points, crises, certain feelings, joys, griefs, and amazements, when +reviewed, must strike us as things wildered and whirling, dim as a wheel fast +spun. +</p> + +<p> +I can no more remember the thoughts or the words of the ten minutes succeeding +this disclosure, than I can retrace the experience of my earliest year of life: +and yet the first thing distinct to me is the consciousness that I was speaking +very fast, repeating over and over again:— +</p> + +<p> +“Did you do this, M. Paul? Is this your house? Did you furnish it? Did you get +these papers printed? Do you mean me? Am I the directress? Is there another +Lucy Snowe? Tell me: say something.” +</p> + +<p> +But he would not speak. His pleased silence, his laughing down-look, his +attitude, are visible to me now. +</p> + +<p> +“How is it? I must know all—<i>all</i>,” I cried. +</p> + +<p> +The packet of papers fell on the floor. He had extended his hand, and I had +fastened thereon, oblivious of all else. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah! you said I had forgotten you all these weary days,” said he. “Poor old +Emanuel! These are the thanks he gets for trudging about three mortal weeks +from house-painter to upholsterer, from cabinet-maker to charwoman. Lucy and +Lucy’s cot, the sole thoughts in his head!” +</p> + +<p> +I hardly knew what to do. I first caressed the soft velvet on his cuff, and +then. I stroked the hand it surrounded. It was his foresight, his goodness, his +silent, strong, effective goodness, that overpowered me by their proved +reality. It was the assurance of his sleepless interest which broke on me like +a light from heaven; it was his—I will dare to say it—his fond, tender look, +which now shook me indescribably. In the midst of all I forced myself to look +at the practical. +</p> + +<p> +“The trouble!” I cried, “and the cost! Had you money, M. Paul?” +</p> + +<p> +“Plenty of money!” said he heartily. “The disposal of my large teaching +connection put me in possession of a handsome sum with part of it I determined +to give myself the richest treat that I <i>have</i> known or <i>shall</i> know. +I like this. I have reckoned on this hour day and night lately. I would not +come near you, because I would not forestall it. Reserve is neither my virtue +nor my vice. If I had put myself into your power, and you had begun with your +questions of look and lip—Where have you been, M. Paul? What have you been +doing? What is your mystery?—my solitary first and last secret would presently +have unravelled itself in your lap. Now,” he pursued, “you shall live here and +have a school; you shall employ yourself while I am away; you shall think of me +sometimes; you shall mind your health and happiness for my sake, and when I +come back—” +</p> + +<p> +There he left a blank. +</p> + +<p> +I promised to do all he told me. I promised to work hard and willingly. “I will +be your faithful steward,” I said; “I trust at your coming the account will be +ready. Monsieur, monsieur, you are <i>too</i> good!” +</p> + +<p> +In such inadequate language my feelings struggled for expression: they could +not get it; speech, brittle and unmalleable, and cold as ice, dissolved or +shivered in the effort. He watched me, still; he gently raised his hand to +stroke my hair; it touched my lips in passing; I pressed it close, I paid it +tribute. He was my king; royal for me had been that hand’s bounty; to offer +homage was both a joy and a duty. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +The afternoon hours were over, and the stiller time of evening shaded the quiet +faubourg. M. Paul claimed my hospitality; occupied and afoot since morning, he +needed refreshment; he said I should offer him chocolate in my pretty gold and +white china service. He went out and ordered what was needful from the +restaurant; he placed the small guéridon and two chairs in the balcony outside +the French window under the screening vines. With what shy joy I accepted my +part as hostess, arranged the salver, served the benefactor-guest. +</p> + +<p> +This balcony was in the rear of the house, the gardens of the faubourg were +round us, fields extended beyond. The air was still, mild, and fresh. Above the +poplars, the laurels, the cypresses, and the roses, looked up a moon so lovely +and so halcyon, the heart trembled under her smile; a star shone subject beside +her, with the unemulous ray of pure love. In a large garden near us, a jet rose +from a well, and a pale statue leaned over the play of waters. +</p> + +<p> +M. Paul talked to me. His voice was so modulated that it mixed harmonious with +the silver whisper, the gush, the musical sigh, in which light breeze, fountain +and foliage intoned their lulling vesper: +</p> + +<p> +Happy hour—stay one moment! droop those plumes, rest those wings; incline to +mine that brow of Heaven! White Angel! let thy light linger; leave its +reflection on succeeding clouds; bequeath its cheer to that time which needs a +ray in retrospect! +</p> + +<p> +Our meal was simple: the chocolate, the rolls, the plate of fresh summer fruit, +cherries and strawberries bedded in green leaves formed the whole: but it was +what we both liked better than a feast, and I took a delight inexpressible in +tending M. Paul. I asked him whether his friends, Père Silas and Madame Beck, +knew what he had done—whether they had seen my house? +</p> + +<p> +“Mon amie,” said he, “none knows what I have done save you and myself: the +pleasure is consecrated to us two, unshared and unprofaned. To speak truth, +there has been to me in this matter a refinement of enjoyment I would not make +vulgar by communication. Besides” (smiling) “I wanted to prove to Miss Lucy +that I <i>could</i> keep a secret. How often has she taunted me with lack of +dignified reserve and needful caution! How many times has she saucily +insinuated that all my affairs are the secret of Polichinelle!” +</p> + +<p> +This was true enough: I had not spared him on this point, nor perhaps on any +other that was assailable. Magnificent-minded, grand-hearted, dear, faulty +little man! You deserved candour, and from me always had it. +</p> + +<p> +Continuing my queries, I asked to whom the house belonged, who was my landlord, +the amount of my rent. He instantly gave me these particulars in writing; he +had foreseen and prepared all things. +</p> + +<p> +The house was not M. Paul’s—that I guessed: he was hardly the man to become a +proprietor; I more than suspected in him a lamentable absence of the saving +faculty; he could get, but not keep; he needed a treasurer. The tenement, then, +belonged to a citizen in the Basse-Ville—a man of substance, M. Paul said; he +startled me by adding: “a friend of yours, Miss Lucy, a person who has a most +respectful regard for you.” And, to my pleasant surprise, I found the landlord +was none other than M. Miret, the short-tempered and kind-hearted bookseller, +who had so kindly found me a seat that eventful night in the park. It seems M. +Miret was, in his station, rich, as well as much respected, and possessed +several houses in this faubourg; the rent was moderate, scarce half of what it +would have been for a house of equal size nearer the centre of Villette. +</p> + +<p> +“And then,” observed M. Paul, “should fortune not favour you, though I think +she will, I have the satisfaction to think you are in good hands; M. Miret will +not be extortionate: the first year’s rent you have already in your savings; +afterwards Miss Lucy must trust God, and herself. But now, what will you do for +pupils?” +</p> + +<p> +“I must distribute my prospectuses.” +</p> + +<p> +“Right! By way of losing no time, I gave one to M. Miret yesterday. Should you +object to beginning with three petite bourgeoises, the Demoiselles Miret? They +are at your service.” +</p> + +<p> +“Monsieur, you forget nothing; you are wonderful. Object? It would become me +indeed to object! I suppose I hardly expect at the outset to number aristocrats +in my little day-school; I care not if they never come. I shall be proud to +receive M. Miret’s daughters.” +</p> + +<p> +“Besides these,” pursued he, “another pupil offers, who will come daily to take +lessons in English; and as she is rich, she will pay handsomely. I mean my +god-daughter and ward, Justine Marie Sauveur.” +</p> + +<p> +What is in a name?—what in three words? Till this moment I had listened with +living joy—I had answered with gleeful quickness; a name froze me; three words +struck me mute. The effect could not be hidden, and indeed I scarce tried to +hide it. +</p> + +<p> +“What now?” said M. Paul. +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing! Your countenance changes: your colour and your very eyes fade. +Nothing! You must be ill; you have some suffering; tell me what.” +</p> + +<p> +I had nothing to tell. +</p> + +<p> +He drew his chair nearer. He did not grow vexed, though I continued silent and +icy. He tried to win a word; he entreated with perseverance, he waited with +patience. +</p> + +<p> +“Justine Marie is a good girl,” said he, “docile and amiable; not quick—but you +will like her.” +</p> + +<p> +“I think not. I think she must not come here.” +</p> + +<p> +Such was my speech. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you wish to puzzle me? Do you know her? But, in truth, there <i>is</i> +something. Again you are pale as that statue. Rely on Paul Carlos; tell him the +grief.” +</p> + +<p> +His chair touched mine; his hand, quietly advanced, turned me towards him. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you know Marie Justine?” said he again. +</p> + +<p> +The name re-pronounced by his lips overcame me unaccountably. It did not +prostrate—no, it stirred me up, running with haste and heat through my +veins—recalling an hour of quick pain, many days and nights of heart-sickness. +Near me as he now sat, strongly and closely as he had long twined his life in +mine—far as had progressed, and near as was achieved our minds’ and affections’ +assimilation—the very suggestion of interference, of heart-separation, could be +heard only with a fermenting excitement, an impetuous throe, a disdainful +resolve, an ire, a resistance of which no human eye or cheek could hide the +flame, nor any truth-accustomed human tongue curb the cry. +</p> + +<p> +“I want to tell you something,” I said: “I want to tell you all.” +</p> + +<p> +“Speak, Lucy; come near; speak. Who prizes you, if I do not? Who is your +friend, if not Emanuel? Speak!” +</p> + +<p> +I spoke. All escaped from my lips. I lacked not words now; fast I narrated; +fluent I told my tale; it streamed on my tongue. I went back to the night in +the park; I mentioned the medicated draught—why it was given—its goading +effect—how it had torn rest from under my head, shaken me from my couch, +carried me abroad with the lure of a vivid yet solemn fancy—a summer-night +solitude on turf, under trees, near a deep, cool lakelet. I told the scene +realized; the crowd, the masques, the music, the lamps, the splendours, the +guns booming afar, the bells sounding on high. All I had encountered I +detailed, all I had recognised, heard, and seen; how I had beheld and watched +himself: how I listened, how much heard, what conjectured; the whole history, +in brief, summoned to his confidence, rushed thither, truthful, literal, +ardent, bitter. +</p> + +<p> +Still as I narrated, instead of checking, he incited me to proceed, he spurred +me by the gesture, the smile, the half-word. Before I had half done, he held +both my hands, he consulted my eyes with a most piercing glance: there was +something in his face which tended neither to calm nor to put me down; he +forgot his own doctrine, he forsook his own system of repression when I most +challenged its exercise. I think I deserved strong reproof; but when have we +our deserts? I merited severity; he looked indulgence. To my very self I seemed +imperious and unreasonable, for I forbade Justine Marie my door and roof; he +smiled, betraying delight. Warm, jealous, and haughty, I knew not till now that +my nature had such a mood: he gathered me near his heart. I was full of faults; +he took them and me all home. For the moment of utmost mutiny, he reserved the +one deep spell of peace. These words caressed my ear:— +</p> + +<p> +“Lucy, take my love. One day share my life. Be my dearest, first on earth.” +</p> + +<p> +We walked back to the Rue Fossette by moonlight—such moonlight as fell on +Eden—shining through the shades of the Great Garden, and haply gilding a path +glorious for a step divine—a Presence nameless. Once in their lives some men +and women go back to these first fresh days of our great Sire and Mother—taste +that grand morning’s dew—bathe in its sunrise. +</p> + +<p> +In the course of the walk I was told how Justine Marie Sauveur had always been +regarded with the affection proper to a daughter—how, with M. Paul’s consent, +she had been affianced for months to one Heinrich Mühler, a wealthy young +German merchant, and was to be married in the course of a year. Some of M. +Emanuel’s relations and connections would, indeed, it seems, have liked him to +marry her, with a view to securing her fortune in the family; but to himself +the scheme was repugnant, and the idea totally inadmissible. +</p> + +<p> +We reached Madame Beck’s door. Jean Baptiste’s clock tolled nine. At this hour, +in this house, eighteen months since, had this man at my side bent before me, +looked into my face and eyes, and arbitered my destiny. This very evening he +had again stooped, gazed, and decreed. How different the look—how far otherwise +the fate! +</p> + +<p> +He deemed me born under his star: he seemed to have spread over me its beam +like a banner. Once—unknown, and unloved, I held him harsh and strange; the low +stature, the wiry make, the angles, the darkness, the manner, displeased me. +Now, penetrated with his influence, and living by his affection, having his +worth by intellect, and his goodness by heart—I preferred him before all +humanity. +</p> + +<p> +We parted: he gave me his pledge, and then his farewell. We parted: the next +day—he sailed. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap42"></a>CHAPTER XLII.<br/> +FINIS.</h2> + +<p> +Man cannot prophesy. Love is no oracle. Fear sometimes imagines a vain thing. +Those years of absence! How had I sickened over their anticipation! The woe +they must bring seemed certain as death. I knew the nature of their course: I +never had doubt how it would harrow as it went. The juggernaut on his car +towered there a grim load. Seeing him draw nigh, burying his broad wheels in +the oppressed soil—I, the prostrate votary—felt beforehand the annihilating +craunch. +</p> + +<p> +Strange to say—strange, yet true, and owning many parallels in life’s +experience—that anticipatory craunch proved all—yes—nearly <i>all</i> the +torture. The great Juggernaut, in his great chariot, drew on lofty, loud, and +sullen. He passed quietly, like a shadow sweeping the sky, at noon. Nothing but +a chilling dimness was seen or felt. I looked up. Chariot and demon charioteer +were gone by; the votary still lived. +</p> + +<p> +M. Emanuel was away three years. Reader, they were the three happiest years of +my life. Do you scout the paradox? Listen. I commenced my school; I worked—I +worked hard. I deemed myself the steward of his property, and determined, God +willing, to render a good account. Pupils came—burghers at first—a higher class +ere long. About the middle of the second year an unexpected chance threw into +my hands an additional hundred pounds: one day I received from England a letter +containing that sum. It came from Mr. Marchmont, the cousin and heir of my dear +and dead mistress. He was just recovering from a dangerous illness; the money +was a peace-offering to his conscience, reproaching him in the matter of, I +know not what, papers or memoranda found after his kinswoman’s death—naming or +recommending Lucy Snowe. Mrs. Barrett had given him my address. How far his +conscience had been sinned against, I never inquired. I asked no questions, but +took the cash and made it useful. +</p> + +<p> +With this hundred pounds I ventured to take the house adjoining mine. I would +not leave that which M. Paul had chosen, in which he had left, and where he +expected again to find me. My externat became a pensionnat; that also +prospered. +</p> + +<p> +The secret of my success did not lie so much in myself, in any endowment, any +power of mine, as in a new state of circumstances, a wonderfully changed life, +a relieved heart. The spring which moved my energies lay far away beyond seas, +in an Indian isle. At parting, I had been left a legacy; such a thought for the +present, such a hope for the future, such a motive for a persevering, a +laborious, an enterprising, a patient and a brave course—I <i>could</i> not +flag. Few things shook me now; few things had importance to vex, intimidate, or +depress me: most things pleased—mere trifles had a charm. +</p> + +<p> +Do not think that this genial flame sustained itself, or lived wholly on a +bequeathed hope or a parting promise. A generous provider supplied bounteous +fuel. I was spared all chill, all stint; I was not suffered to fear penury; I +was not tried with suspense. By every vessel he wrote; he wrote as he gave and +as he loved, in full-handed, full-hearted plenitude. He wrote because he liked +to write; he did not abridge, because he cared not to abridge. He sat down, he +took pen and paper, because he loved Lucy and had much to say to her; because +he was faithful and thoughtful, because he was tender and true. There was no +sham and no cheat, and no hollow unreal in him. Apology never dropped her +slippery oil on his lips—never proffered, by his pen, her coward feints and +paltry nullities: he would give neither a stone, nor an excuse—neither a +scorpion; nor a disappointment; his letters were real food that nourished, +living water that refreshed. +</p> + +<p> +And was I grateful? God knows! I believe that scarce a living being so +remembered, so sustained, dealt with in kind so constant, honourable and noble, +could be otherwise than grateful to the death. +</p> + +<p> +Adherent to his own religion (in him was not the stuff of which is made the +facile apostate), he freely left me my pure faith. He did not tease nor tempt. +He said:— +</p> + +<p> +“Remain a Protestant. My little English Puritan, I love Protestantism in you. I +own its severe charm. There is something in its ritual I cannot receive myself, +but it is the sole creed for ‘Lucy.’” +</p> + +<p> +All Rome could not put into him bigotry, nor the Propaganda itself make him a +real Jesuit. He was born honest, and not false—artless, and not cunning—a +freeman, and not a slave. His tenderness had rendered him ductile in a priest’s +hands, his affection, his devotedness, his sincere pious enthusiasm blinded his +kind eyes sometimes, made him abandon justice to himself to do the work of +craft, and serve the ends of selfishness; but these are faults so rare to find, +so costly to their owner to indulge, we scarce know whether they will not one +day be reckoned amongst the jewels. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +And now the three years are past: M. Emanuel’s return is fixed. It is Autumn; +he is to be with me ere the mists of November come. My school flourishes, my +house is ready: I have made him a little library, filled its shelves with the +books he left in my care: I have cultivated out of love for him (I was +naturally no florist) the plants he preferred, and some of them are yet in +bloom. I thought I loved him when he went away; I love him now in another +degree: he is more my own. +</p> + +<p> +The sun passes the equinox; the days shorten, the leaves grow sere; but—he is +coming. +</p> + +<p> +Frosts appear at night; November has sent his fogs in advance; the wind takes +its autumn moan; but—he is coming. +</p> + +<p> +The skies hang full and dark—a wrack sails from the west; the clouds cast +themselves into strange forms—arches and broad radiations; there rise +resplendent mornings—glorious, royal, purple as monarch in his state; the +heavens are one flame; so wild are they, they rival battle at its thickest—so +bloody, they shame Victory in her pride. I know some signs of the sky; I have +noted them ever since childhood. God watch that sail! Oh! guard it! +</p> + +<p> +The wind shifts to the west. Peace, peace, Banshee—“keening” at every window! +It will rise—it will swell—it shrieks out long: wander as I may through the +house this night, I cannot lull the blast. The advancing hours make it strong: +by midnight, all sleepless watchers hear and fear a wild south-west storm. That +storm roared frenzied, for seven days. It did not cease till the Atlantic was +strewn with wrecks: it did not lull till the deeps had gorged their full of +sustenance. Not till the destroying angel of tempest had achieved his perfect +work, would he fold the wings whose waft was thunder—the tremor of whose plumes +was storm. +</p> + +<p> +Peace, be still! Oh! a thousand weepers, praying in agony on waiting shores, +listened for that voice, but it was not uttered—not uttered till; when the hush +came, some could not feel it: till, when the sun returned, his light was night +to some! +</p> + +<p> +Here pause: pause at once. There is enough said. Trouble no quiet, kind heart; +leave sunny imaginations hope. Let it be theirs to conceive the delight of joy +born again fresh out of great terror, the rapture of rescue from peril, the +wondrous reprieve from dread, the fruition of return. Let them picture union +and a happy succeeding life. +</p> + +<p> +Madame Beck prospered all the days of her life; so did Père Silas; Madame +Walravens fulfilled her ninetieth year before she died. Farewell. +</p> + +<h5>THE END.</h5> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VILLETTE ***</div> +<div style='text-align:left'> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will +be renamed. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part +of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project +Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™ +concept and trademark. 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