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VILLETTE.
BY
CHARLOTTE BRONTE.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. BRETTON
II. PAULINA
III. THE PLAYMATES
IV. MISS MARCHMONT
V. TURNING A NEW LEAF
VI. LONDON
VII. VILLETTE
VIII. MADAME BECK
IX. ISIDORE
X. DR. JOHN
XI. THE PORTRESS'S CABINET
XII. THE CASKET
XIII. A SNEEZE OUT OF SEASON
XIV. THE FETE
XV. THE LONG VACATION
XVI. AULD LANG SYNE
XVII. LA TERRASSE
XVIII. WE QUARREL
XIX. THE CLEOPATRA
XX. THE CONCERT
XXI. REACTION
XXII. THE LETTER
XXIII. VASHTI
XXIV. M. DE BASSOMPIERRE
XXV. THE LITTLE COUNTESS
XXVI. A BURIAL
XXVII. THE HOTEL CRECY
XXVIII. THE WATCHGUARD
XXIX. MONSIEUR'S FETE
XXX. M. PAUL
XXXI. THE DRYAD
XXXII. THE FIRST LETTER
XXXIII. M. PAUL KEEPS HIS PROMISE
XXXIV. MALEVOLA
XXXV. FRATERNITY
XXXVI. THE APPLE OF DISCORD
XXXVII. SUNSHINE
XXXVIII. CLOUD
XXXIX. OLD AND NEW ACQUAINTANCE
XL. THE HAPPY PAIR
XLI. FAUBOURG CLOTILDE
XLII. FINIS
VILLETTE.
CHAPTER I.
BRETTON.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
"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."
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 _is_ 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."
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 _de_ before his name, and called
himself noble.
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.
"Poor child!" said Mrs. Bretton from time to time. "What weather for
her journey! I wish she were safe here."
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.
"Is that the child?" I asked.
"Yes, miss."
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.
"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.
"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."
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.
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?"
"Missy."
"But besides Missy?"
"Polly, papa calls her."
"Will Polly be content to live with me?"
"Not _always_; but till papa comes home. Papa is gone away." She
shook her head expressively.
"He will return to Polly, or send for her."
"Will he, ma'am? Do you know he will?"
"I think so."
"But Harriet thinks not: at least not for a long while. He is ill."
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."
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!"
I rang; the nurse was summoned and came.
"Harriet, I must be put to bed," said her little mistress. "You must
ask where my bed is."
Harriet signified that she had already made that inquiry.
"Ask if you sleep with me, Harriet."
"No, Missy," said the nurse: "you are to share this young lady's
room," designating me.
Missy did not leave her seat, but I saw her eyes seek me. After some
minutes' silent scrutiny, she emerged from her corner.
"I wish you, ma'am, good night," said she to Mrs. Bretton; but she
passed me mute.
"Good-night, Polly," I said.
"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.
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.
"By and by," was the answer.
"But you will take cold, Missy."
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.
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.
Her nurse tapped at the door. She started up.
"I am dressed, Harriet," said she; "I have dressed myself, but I do
not feel neat. Make me neat!"
"Why did you dress yourself, Missy?"
"Hush! speak low, Harriet, for fear of waking _the girl_"
(meaning me, who now lay with my eyes shut). "I dressed myself to
learn, against the time you leave me."
"Do you want me to go?"
"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."
"Your sash is straight enough. What a particular little body you are!"
"It must be tied again. Please to tie it."
"There, then. When I am gone you must get that young lady to dress
you."
"On no account."
"Why? She is a very nice young lady. I hope you mean to behave
prettily to her, Missy, and not show your airs."
"She shall dress me on no account."
"Comical little thing!"
"You are not passing the comb straight through my hair, Harriet; the
line will be crooked."
"Ay, you are ill to please. Does that suit?"
"Pretty well. Where should I go now that I am dressed?"
"I will take you into the breakfast-room."
"Come, then."
They proceeded to the door. She stopped.
"Oh! Harriet, I wish this was papa's house! I don't know these
people."
"Be a good child, Missy."
"I am good, but I ache here;" putting her hand to her heart, and
moaning while she reiterated, "Papa! papa!"
I roused myself and started up, to check this scene while it was yet
within bounds.
"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.
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.
"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."
I expressed my confidence in the effects of time and kindness.
"If she were to take a fancy to anybody in the house, she would soon
settle; but not till then," replied Mrs. Bretton.
CHAPTER II.
PAULINA.
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.
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.
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.
What might have been the end of this fretting, had it continued
unchecked, can only be conjectured: it received, however, a sudden
turn.
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--_sensitive_ 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 _is_!" were her words.
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.
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.
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."
"But you will unsettle her."
"I hope not. And how is papa's little Polly?"
This question he addressed to Paulina, as he sat down and placed her
gently on the ground before him.
"How is Polly's papa?" was the reply, as she leaned on his knee, and
gazed up into his face.
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.
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."
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--_all_ 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.
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."
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.
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.
"Put papa's chair here, and mine near it, between papa and Mrs.
Bretton: _I_ must hand his tea."
She took her own seat, and beckoned with her hand to her father.
"Be near me, as if we were at home, papa."
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."
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.
"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.
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.
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
_child_ 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.
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.
"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."
"Mr. Home's little girl, I suppose you mean," said his mother.
"Indeed, ma'am," replied her son, "I consider your expression of the
least ceremonious: Miss Home _I_ should certainly have said, in
venturing to speak of the gentlewoman to whom I allude."
"Now, Graham, I will not have that child teased. Don't flatter
yourself that I shall suffer you to make her your butt."
"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."
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?"
"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?"
"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.
"I hope, ma'am, the present residence, my mother's house, appears to
you a convenient place of abode?"
"Not par-tic-er-er-ly; I want to go home."
"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."
"I shall have to go with papa soon: I shall not stay long at your
mother's."
"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."
"Are _you_ going to live here now?"
"I am. Does that please you? Do you like me?"
"No."
"Why?"
"I think you queer."
"My face, ma'am?"
"Your face and all about you: You have long red hair."
"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."
"You call me queer?"
"Certainly."
(After a pause), "I think I shall go to bed."
"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?"
"No, indeed."
"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."
"I sat up for papa, and not for you."
"Very good, Miss Home. I am going to be a favourite: preferred before
papa soon, I daresay."
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.
"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."
So saying, she departed.
CHAPTER III.
THE PLAYMATES.
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.
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."
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.
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.
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 _what_ things:
"Business."
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.
"Pretty little dog!" said she, delighted.
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.
"Nice picture!" was her favourable criticism.
"Well--you may have it," said Graham.
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.
"You won't have it, then, Polly?"
"I would rather not, thank you."
"Shall I tell you what I will do with the picture if you refuse it?"
She half turned to listen.
"Cut it into strips for lighting the taper."
"No!"
"But I shall."
"Please--don't."
Graham waxed inexorable on hearing the pleading tone; he took the
scissors from his mother's work-basket.
"Here goes!" said he, making a menacing flourish. "Right through
Fido's head, and splitting little Harry's nose."
"No! _No!_ NO!"
"Then come to me. Come quickly, or it is done."
She hesitated, lingered, but complied.
"Now, will you have it?" he asked, as she stood before him.
"Please."
"But I shall want payment."
"How much?"
"A kiss."
"Give the picture first into my hand."
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.
"Papa--papa--send him away!"
"I'll not be sent away," said Graham.
With face still averted, she held out her hand to keep him off
"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.
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.
"Papa, what is the matter?" she whispered.
"You had better ask him, Polly."
"Is he hurt?" (groan second.)
"He makes a noise as if he were," said Mr. Home.
"Mother," suggested Graham, feebly, "I think you had better send for
the doctor. Oh my eye!" (renewed silence, broken only by sighs from
Graham.)
"If I were to become blind----?" suggested this last.
His chastiser could not bear the suggestion. She was beside him
directly.
"Let me see your eye: I did not mean to touch it, only your mouth; and
I did not think I hit so _very_ hard."
Silence answered her. Her features worked,--"I am sorry; I am sorry!"
Then succeeded emotion, faltering; weeping.
"Have done trying that child, Graham," said Mrs. Bretton.
"It is all nonsense, my pet," cried Mr. Home.
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."
* * * * *
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.
"Couldn't I pack my box and go with you, papa?" she whispered
earnestly.
He shook his head.
"Should I be a trouble to you?"
"Yes, Polly."
"Because I am little?"
"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."
"Indeed, indeed, I am not sad, scarcely at all."
"Polly would be sorry to give papa pain; would she not?"
"Sorrier than sorry."
"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?"
"She will try."
"I see she will. Farewell, then. It is time to go."
"_Now_?--just _now_?
"Just now."
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.
When the street-door closed, she dropped on her knees at a chair with
a cry--"Papa!"
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.
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.
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?"
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.
"What are you doing?" she asked, pausing on the threshold.
"Writing," said Graham.
"Why don't you come to take breakfast with your mamma?"
"Too busy."
"Do you want any breakfast?"
"Of course."
"There, then."
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.
"What will you have besides tea--what to eat?"
"Anything good. Bring me something particularly nice; that's a kind
little woman."
She came back to Mrs. Bretton.
"Please, ma'am, send your boy something good."
"You shall choose for him, Polly; what shall my boy have?"
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 _tete-a-tete_--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.
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.
"You have not wiped your shoes properly on the mat. I shall tell your
mamma."
"Little busybody! Are you there?"
"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).
"Polly!"
"My dear boy!" (such was one of her terms for him, adopted in
imitation of his mother.)
"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."
"Ah! you're cunning!"
"Not at all, Polly--it is positive fact. I'm as weak as a rush. Come
down."
"Your eyes are quiet like the cat's, but you'll spring."
"Spring? Nothing of the kind: it isn't in me. Come down."
"Perhaps I may--if you'll promise not to touch--not to snatch me up,
and not to whirl me round."
"I? I couldn't do it!" (sinking into a chair.)
"Then put the books down on the first step, and go three yards off"
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."
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 _he_ would like it."
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.
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.
The pair seldom quarrelled; yet once a rupture occurred, in which her
feelings received a severe shock.
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.
"What are you thinking about, Polly?"
"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."
"What hinders you from going?"
"I feel afraid: but may I try, do you think? May I knock at the door,
and ask to be let in?"
I thought perhaps they might not object to have her as a playmate, and
therefore encouraged the attempt.
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.
"What do you want, you little monkey?"
"To come to you."
"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.
"Why does he speak so? He never spoke so before," she said in
consternation. "What have I done?"
"Nothing, Polly; but Graham is busy with his school-friends."
"And he likes them better than me! He turns me away now they are
here!"
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.
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.
"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."
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.
"Come, Polly, will you have a canter?" asked Graham, half carelessly.
I suppose she thought he was _too_ careless.
"No, thank you," said she, turning away with the utmost coolness.
"You'd better," pursued he. "You will like it, I am sure."
"Don't think I should care a fig about it," was the response.
"That is not true. You told Lucy Snowe you longed to have a ride."
"Lucy Snowe is a _tatter_-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.
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."
* * * * *
"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?"
"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?"
"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, _so_ kind."
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.
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.
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.
"Have you learned any hymns this week, Polly?"
"I have learned a very pretty one, four verses long. Shall I say it?"
"Speak nicely, then: don't be in a hurry."
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.
"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."
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."
"Oh! I _do_ like you," said she; "I _do_ like you very
much."
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.
"I wonder how she will take this news?" said Mrs. Bretton, when she
had read the letter. _I_ wondered, too, and I took upon myself to
communicate it.
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.
"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, _good_ 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."
Thus she rambled on.
"Polly," I interrupted, "should you like to travel?"
"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."
"But how would you like to travel now, if your papa was with you?"
Her reply--not given till after a pause--evinced one of those
unexpected turns of temper peculiar to her.
"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!"
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.
She made no answer. She dropped her book and ceased to rock her doll;
she gazed at me with gravity and earnestness.
"Shall not you like to go to papa?"
"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.
"Tell him by-and-by," she whispered; "tell him I am going."
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.
"Polly going? What a pity! Dear little Mousie, I shall be sorry to
lose her: she must come to us again, mamma."
And hastily swallowing his tea, he took a candle and a small table to
himself and his books, and was soon buried in study.
"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.
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 tome with these words:--"I cannot--_cannot_
sleep; and in this way I cannot--_cannot_ live!"
I asked what ailed her.
"Dedful miz-er-y!" said she, with her piteous lisp.
"Shall I call Mrs. Bretton?"
"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.
"Would you like to bid Graham good-night again?" I asked. "He is not
gone to his room yet."
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.
"She cannot sleep without seeing and speaking to you once more," I
said. "She does not like the thought of leaving you."
"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--"
"I _do_ care for you, but you care nothing for me," was her
whisper.
She was assured to the contrary, again kissed, restored to me, and I
carried her away; but, alas! not soothed.
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."
Her lifted and questioning eyes asked why.
"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."
"But I love him so much; he _should_ love me a little."
"He does. He is fond of you. You are his favourite."
"Am I Graham's favourite?"
"Yes, more than any little child I know."
The assurance soothed her; she smiled in her anguish.
"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."
"All over!" she echoed softly; "then I'll be good. I'll try to be
good, Lucy Snowe."
I put her to bed.
"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.
"There is no future," said she: "I am going. Shall I ever--ever--see
him again, after I leave England?"
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?"
"Like him! Yes, a little."
"Only a little! Do you like him as I do?"
"I think not. No: not as you do."
"Do you like him much?"
"I told you I liked him a little. Where is the use of caring for him
so very much: he is full of faults."
"Is he?"
"All boys are."
"More than girls?"
"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."
"Are you a wise person?"
"I mean to try to be so. Go to sleep."
"I _cannot_ go to sleep. Have you no pain just here" (laying her
elfish hand on her elfish breast,) "when you think _you_ shall
have to leave Graham; for _your_ home is not here?"
"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?"
Dead silence succeeded this question.
"Child, lie down and sleep," I urged.
"My bed is cold," said she. "I can't warm it."
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.
"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?"
She departed the next day; trembling like a leaf when she took leave,
but exercising self-command.
CHAPTER IV.
MISS MARCHMONT.
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?
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.
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.
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.
"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."
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 _realise_ evils, I think I was too prosaic to _idealise_,
and consequently to exaggerate them.
"My doubt is whether I should have strength for the undertaking," I
observed.
"That is my own scruple," said she; "for you look a worn-out
creature."
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.
"What else have you in view--anything?"
"Nothing clear as yet: but I may find something."
"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."
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.
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.
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.
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.
"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."
I listened and trembled; Miss Marchmont slept.
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.
Turning away, the object that met my eyes was Miss Marchmont awake,
lifting her head from the pillow, and regarding me with unusual
earnestness.
"Is it a fine night?" she asked.
I replied in the affirmative.
"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!"
"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."
"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 _good_ 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?
"I do not know," she continued after a pause: "I cannot--_cannot_
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."
"He is dead, then?" I inquired in a low voice.
"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.
"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 _my_ 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.
_Was_ 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?
"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.
"'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 ms. 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.
"'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.
"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."
"You have done much good," I said; for she was noted for her liberal
almsgiving.
"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."
This question I could not answer: I had no words. It seemed as if she
thought I _had_ answered it.
"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."
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.
CHAPTER V.
TURNING A NEW LEAF.
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.
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.
"Leave this wilderness," it was said to me, "and go out hence."
"Where?" was the query.
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.
The next day I returned to the hall, and asking once more to see the
housekeeper, I communicated to her my plan.
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.
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.
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.
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."
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
"Well, it can't be helped," I thought, "and then the scene is new, and
the circumstances; I shall gain good."
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.
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?
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
_could_ 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."
CHAPTER VI.
LONDON.
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.
"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?"
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
"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 _savoir-faire_--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.
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.
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.
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.
"THE VIVID" started out, white and glaring, from the black night at
last.--"Here you are!" said the waterman, and instantly demanded six
shillings.
"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."
"They've cheated you!" said the steward exultingly when I got on
board. I answered phlegmatically that "I knew it," and went below.
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!
"Now that I am on board, I shall certainly stay here," was my answer.
"I will trouble you to show me my berth."
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.
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.
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."
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?
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.
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 _then_ 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.
"Are you fond of a sea-voyage?" was her question.
I explained that my _fondness_ for a sea-voyage had yet to
undergo the test of experience; I had never made one.
"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 _blasee_ about the sea and all
that."
I could not help smiling.
"Why do you laugh at me?" she inquired, with a frank testiness that
pleased me better than her other talk.
"Because you are so young to be _blasee_ about anything."
"I am seventeen" (a little piqued).
"You hardly look sixteen. Do you like travelling alone?"
"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."
"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).
"Not of those odious men and women," said she: "such people should be
steerage passengers. Are you going to school?"
"No."
"Where are you going?"
"I have not the least idea--beyond, at least, the port of Boue-
Marine."
She stared, then carelessly ran on:
"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:
'Schoenes Maedchen,' we used to hear them say. I was excessively happy
at Bonn!"
"And where are you now?" I inquired.
"Oh! at--_chose_," said she.
Now, Miss Ginevra Fanshawe (such was this young person's name) only
substituted this word "_chose_" in temporary oblivion of the real
name. It was a habit she had: "_chose_" 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.
"_Chose_," however, I found in this instance, stood for Villette--the
great capital of the great kingdom of Labassecour.
"Do you like Villette?" I asked.
"Pretty well. The natives, you know, are intensely stupid and vulgar;
but there are some nice English families."
"Are you in a school?"
"Yes."
"A good one?"
"Oh, no! horrid: but I go out every Sunday, and care nothing about the
_maitresses_ or the _professeurs_, or the _eleves_, and send lessons
_au diable_ (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?"
"No--I am only smiling at my own thoughts."
"What are they?" (Without waiting for an answer)--"Now, _do_ tell
me where you are going."
"Where Fate may lead me. My business is to earn a living where I can
find it."
"To earn!" (in consternation) "are you poor, then?"
"As poor as Job."
(After a pause)--"Bah! how unpleasant! But _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?"
"No--not at all."
"You can play, sing, speak three or four languages?"
"By no means."
"Still I think you are clever" (a pause and a yawn).
"Shall you be sea-sick?"
"Shall you?"
"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."
Down she went.
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--
Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars--a cage,
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.
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.
Cancel the whole of that, if you please, reader--or rather let it
stand, and draw thence a moral--an alliterative, text-hand copy--
Day-dreams are delusions of the demon.
Becoming excessively sick, I faltered down into the cabin.
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.
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.
"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.
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.
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."
She not only gave me the required direction, but called a
commissionaire, and bid him take charge of me, and--_not_ my
trunk, for that was gone to the custom-house.
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.
CHAPTER VII.
VILLETTE.
I awoke next morning with courage revived and spirits refreshed:
physical debility no longer enervated my judgment; my mind felt prompt
and clear.
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,--
"Gif me your keys, Meess."
"Why?" I asked.
"Gif!" said he impatiently; and as he half-snatched them from my hand,
he added, "All right! haf your tronc soon."
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.
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.
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 _did_ 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.
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!"
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."
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.
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.
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.
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
Chaussee, 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.
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.
And my portmanteau, with my few clothes and little pocket-book
enclasping the remnant of my fifteen pounds, where were they?
I ask this question now, but I could not ask it then. I could say nothing
whatever; not possessing a phrase of _speaking_ French: and it was
French, and French only, the whole world seemed now gabbling around
me. _What_ 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.
"Let that alone--will you?" said a voice in good English; then, in
correction, "Qu'est-ce que vous faites donc? Cette malle est a moi."
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?"
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.
"_Do_ ask him; I would do as much for you," said I.
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?"
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.
"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."
"Thank you," said I: but my heart sank.
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?"
"No, and I don't know where to go."
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.
"Was all your money in your trunk?" he asked, stopping me.
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."
"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."
He tore a leaf from his pocket-book, wrote a few words and gave it to
me. I _did_ 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.
"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."
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.
"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."
"Good-night, sir," said I: "accept my sincerest thanks." And we
parted.
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.
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.
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. _This_ might be the inn
at last. I hastened on: my knees now trembled under me: I was getting
quite exhausted.
No inn was this. A brass-plate embellished the great porte-cochere:
"Pensionnat de Demoiselles" was the inscription; and beneath, a name,
"Madame Beck."
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 _your_ inn." Fate took me in
her strong hand; mastered my will; directed my actions: I rang the
door-bell.
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.
"May I see Madame Beck?" I inquired.
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.
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.
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.
"You ayre Engliss?" said a voice at my elbow. I almost bounded, so
unexpected was the sound; so certain had I been of solitude.
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.
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 "maitresse," who
had been partly educated in an Irish convent, and was esteemed a
perfect adept in the English language. A bluff little personage this
maitresse 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:
"Il n'y a que les Anglaises pour ces sortes d'entreprises," said she:
"sont-elles donc intrepides ces femmes la!"
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.
"Voila pour la priere 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 maitresse: "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?"
"It is true," said she; "but at least you can give a reference?"
"None."
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).
"Who goes out now?" demanded Madame Beck, listening to the tread.
"M. Paul," replied the teacher. "He came this evening to give a
reading to the first class."
"The very man I should at this moment most wish to see. Call him."
The teacher ran to the salon door. M. Paul was summoned. He entered: a
small, dark and spare man, in spectacles.
"Mon cousin," began Madame, "I want your opinion. We know your skill
in physiognomy; use it now. Read that countenance."
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.
"I read it," he pronounced.
"Et qu'en dites vous?"
"Mais--bien des choses," was the oracular answer.
"Bad or good?"
"Of each kind, without doubt," pursued the diviner.
"May one trust her word?"
"Are you negotiating a matter of importance?"
"She wishes me to engage her as bonne or gouvernante; tells a tale
full of integrity, but gives no reference."
"She is a stranger?"
"An Englishwoman, as one may see."
"She speaks French?"
"Not a word."
"She understands it?"
"No."
"One may then speak plainly in her presence?"
"Doubtless."
He gazed steadily. "Do you need her services?"
"I could do with them. You know I am disgusted with Madame Svini."
Still he scrutinized. The judgment, when it at last came, was as
indefinite as what had gone before it.
"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 oeuvre." And with a bow and a "bon soir," this vague arbiter
of my destiny vanished.
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.
CHAPTER VIII.
MADAME BECK.
Being delivered into the charge of the maitresse, 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.
After the "priere 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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, Anglice or Hibernice, 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.
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 _wore_ the folds of that majestic
drapery, even influencing Madame herself--_a real Indian shawl_--
"un veritable 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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
In the long run, I found she was something else in petticoats too. Her
name was Modeste Maria Beck, nee 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 _feelings_
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 _the poor man_, 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.
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?
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.
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 _not_ make them--just as inclination
prompted; secure that, in case of neglect, they could copy the notes
of their companions. Besides the regular monthly _jours de
sortie_, the Catholic fete-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 _gaufres_ and _vin blanc_, or new milk
and _pain bis_, or _pistolets au beurre_ (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.
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.
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. Desiree, 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.
Presently, without preface or prelude, she said, almost in the tone of
one making an accusation, "Meess, in England you were a governess?"
"No, Madame," said I smiling, "you are mistaken."
"Is this your first essay at teaching--this attempt with my children?"
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.
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?
"In classe, Madame?" I asked.
"Yes, in classe: in the second division."
"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.
"Come," said Madame, as I stooped more busily than ever over the
cutting-out of a child's pinafore, "leave that work."
"But Fifine wants it, Madame."
"Fifine must want it, then, for I want _you_."
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, _she_ did not lack resolution and practical activity,
whether _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 carre, 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.
"Dites donc," said Madame sternly, "vous sentez vous reellement trop
faible?"
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.
"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.
"En avant," I said.
"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?"
She sneered slightly in saying this: nervous excitability was not much
to Madame's taste.
"I am no more excited than this stone," I said, tapping the flag with
my toe: "or than you," I added, returning her look.
"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."
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."
"They always throw over timid teachers," said she.
"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.
"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."
I made no reply, but advanced to the closed schoolroom door.
"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."
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.
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 estrade (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.
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.
It seems that three titled belles in the first row had sat down
predetermined that a _bonne d'enfants_ 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.
Mesdemoiselles Blanche, Virginie, and Angelique 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.
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.
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.
Advancing up the room, looking as cool and careless as I possibly
could, in short, _ayant l'air de rien_, 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.
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.
"C'est bien," said Madame Beck, when I came out of class, hot and a
little exhausted. "Ca ira."
She had been listening and peeping through a spy-hole the whole time.
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.
CHAPTER IX.
ISIDORE.
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.
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.
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.
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."
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 _sour_,
but _hearty_, 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.
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.
The opinion of my Catholic acquaintance concerning my spiritual
prospects was somewhat naively 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!"
"Why, Isabelle?"
"Parceque, quand vous serez morte--vous brulerez tout de suite dans
l'Enfer."
"Croyez-vous?"
"Certainement que j'y crois: tout le monde le sait; et d'ailleurs le
pretre me l'a dit."
Isabelle was an odd, blunt little creature. She added, _sotto
voce_: "Pour assurer votre salut la-haut, on ferait bien de vous
bruler toute vive ici-bas."
I laughed, as, indeed, it was impossible to do otherwise.
* * * * *
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
_nonchalante_ 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.
She was not proud; and--_bonne d'enfants_ 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.
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.
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.
"Comme cela," said she: "he is handsome, and he loves me to
distraction, so that I am well amused. Ca suffit."
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.
"Do you encourage him?" I asked.
"Furieusement sometimes," said she.
"Without being certain that you will be permitted to marry him?"
"Oh, how dowdyish you are! I don't want to be married. I am too
young."
"But if he loves you as much as you say, and yet it comes to nothing
in the end, he will be made miserable."
"Of course he will break his heart. I should be shocked and,
disappointed if he didn't."
"I wonder whether this M. Isidore is a fool?" said I.
"He is, about me; but he is wise in other things, a 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."
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 plutot bel
homme que joli garcon," 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.
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
_chaperon_--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.
She begged boldly of Mrs. Cholmondeley--boldly, I say: not with an air
of reluctant shame, but in this strain:--
"My darling Mrs. C., I have nothing in the world fit to wear for your
party next week; you _must_ give me a book-muslin dress, and then
a _ceinture bleu celeste_: _do_--there's an angel! will you?"
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 _etcetera_--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.
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.
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.
"Shall I do?" was her question.
"Do?" said I. "There are different ways of doing; and, by my word, I
don't understand yours."
"But how do I look?"
"You look well dressed."
She thought the praise not warm enough, and proceeded to direct
attention to the various decorative points of her attire. "Look at
this _parure_," said she. "The brooch, the ear-rings, the
bracelets: no one in the school has such a set--not Madame herself"
"I see them all." (Pause.) "Did M. de Bassompierre give you those
jewels?"
"My uncle knows nothing about them."
"Were they presents from Mrs. Cholmondeley?"
"Not they, indeed. Mrs. Cholmondeley is a mean, stingy creature; she
never gives me anything now."
I did not choose to ask any further questions, but turned abruptly
away.
"Now, old Crusty--old Diogenes" (these were her familiar terms for me
when we disagreed), "what is the matter now?"
"Take yourself away. I have no pleasure in looking at you or your
_parure_."
For an instant, she seemed taken by surprise.
"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."
"Will you go? I want to shut the door.... Ginevra, people may tell you
you are very handsome in that ball-attire; but, in _my_ 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."
"Other people have not your puritanical tastes," was her angry reply.
"And, besides, I see no right you have to sermonize me."
"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 _parure_:
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."
"On est la pour Mademoiselle Fanshawe!" was announced by the portress,
and away she tripped.
This semi-mystery of the _parure_ was not solved till two or
three days afterwards, when she came to make a voluntary confession.
"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."
"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."
"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, chere 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 _must_ 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 debut in England. Well, then, if I go
out, I _must_ dress. Mrs. Cholmondeley is turned shabby, and will
give nothing more; it would be too hard upon uncle to make him pay for
_all_ the things I need: _that_ you can't deny--_that_ 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--_somebody_, 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 _blanc-bec_ he looked when he first
spoke of it: how he hesitated and blushed, and positively trembled
from fear of a repulse."
"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 _parure_; that he supplies your bouquets and your gloves?"
"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."
"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?"
"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."
"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."
"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...."
And she seemed to make an effort to reflect. In this I encouraged her.
"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."
"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."
"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."
"Indeed, I won't," said she, stoutly.
"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..."
"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."
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:
"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 passionnes ne
sont pas a mon gout. 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 severes vertus!"
She looked for an answer to this tirade. I gave none.
"J'aime mon beau Colonel," she went on: "je n'aimerai jamais son
rival. Je ne serai jamais femme de bourgeois, moi!"
I now signified that it was imperatively necessary my apartment should
be relieved of the honour of her presence: she went away laughing.
CHAPTER X.
DR JOHN.
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.
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
_bonne_; 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.
Her demeanour to the eldest girl was equally characteristic in another
way. This was a vicious child. "Quelle peste que cette Desiree! Quel
poison que cet enfant la!" 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 _bonne_ 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-a-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:
"Desiree a besoin d'une surveillance toute particuliere." 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. Desiree
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 Desiree had taken it away in play, and beg her to restore it.
Desiree 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 Desiree out for a walk with her _bonne_, and
profit by her absence to rob the robber. Desiree 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.
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-a-
manger and picked it up, she said quietly,--"Cet enfant a un os
casse."
At first we hoped this was not the case. It was, however, but too
true: one little plump arm hung powerless.
"Let Meess" (meaning me) "take her," said Madame; "et qu'on aille tout
de suite chercher un fiacre."
In a _fiacre_ she promptly, but with admirable coolness and self-
possession, departed to fetch a surgeon.
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.
We none of us, I suppose (by _we_ 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!"
"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."
Hereupon he called for a glass of _eau sucree_, 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.
"Ca vaudra mieux," said the doctor, turning from me to her.
He showed wisdom in his choice. Mine would have been feigned stoicism,
forced fortitude. Hers was neither forced nor feigned.
"Merci, Madame; tres bien, fort bien!" said the operator when he had
finished. "Voila un sang-froid bien opportun, et qui vaut mille elans
de sensibilite deplacee."
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
_was_ 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.
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.
* * * * *
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.
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.
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.
No sooner did Fifine emerge from his hands than Desiree 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.
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 manoeuvres.
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. Desiree 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.
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.
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.
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?"
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?
CHAPTER XI.
THE PORTRESS'S CABINET.
It was summer and very hot. Georgette, the youngest of Madame Beck's
children, took a fever. Desiree, 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."
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 Angelique, 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.
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.
"Ce pauvre Docteur Jean!" she would say, chuckling and rubbing
joyously her fat little white hands; "ce cher jeune homme! le meilleur
creature 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 Angelique had the migraine; Dr.
John had written a prescription; voila tout!
The parents' mouths were closed. Blanche and Angelique 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.
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.
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 protege, 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.
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. _He_ perhaps was not in love; but how many people ever
_do_ love, or at least marry for love, in this world. We waited
the end.
For what _he_ 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.
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.
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 _salle-a-manger?_ 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 "fraiche," "brise," and "Venise." Under these
circumstances, what could I hear? A great deal, certainly; had it only
been to the purpose.
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.
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 _her_ hand he owed the ordeal through which he seemed
to have passed?
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.
Here was a problem: but I must go up-stairs to ask about the medicine.
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.
"What do you think, Miss Lucie?" asked Madame. "Is he not paler and
thinner?"
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.
"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 _eau sucree_. 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.
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.
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 _you_ 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.
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 _half_ 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?"
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!
CHAPTER XII.
THE CASKET.
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!
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.
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.
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 _then_ the garden was a trite, trodden-down
place enough. But at sunset or the hour of _salut_, 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.
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.
"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."
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'allee
defendue," 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.
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 cuisiniere, 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
_seemed_ sincere.
"Voyez-vous," cried she, "comme elle est propre, cette demoiselle
Lucie? Vous aimez done cette allee, Meess?" "Yes," I said, "it is
quiet and shady."
"C'est juste," cried she with an air of bonte; 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.
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.
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.
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 _could_
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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:--
"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 veritable begueule Britannique a ce que vous dites--
espece de monstre, brusque et rude comme un vieux caporal de
grenadiers, et reveche 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!"
"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 fiance 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.
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.
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.
"Quel conte!" she cried, with a coquettish laugh. "Personne n'y a
ete."
"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.
"Dr. John! it is found."
He did not ask by whom, for with his quick eye he perceived that I
held it in my hand.
"Do not betray her," he said, looking at me as if I were indeed a
dragon.
"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."
"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.
"This is indeed too much: this is cruel, this is humiliating," were
the words that fell from him.
I thought it _was_ 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.
"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?"
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.
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."
"Look there!" he whispered suddenly, as his hand closed on what I
offered, and at the same time he pointed through the boughs.
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 _she_ were like a
cat, however, _he_, 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.
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."
"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!"
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.
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. _What_ 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?
CHAPTER XIII.
A SNEEZE OUT OF SEASON.
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.
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.
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.
The book brought out (it was never changed, but when finished,
recommenced) was a venerable volume, old as the hills--grey as the
Hotel de Ville.
I would have given two francs for the chance of getting that book once
into my bands, 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.
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.
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.
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 _saw_, I _felt_ 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.
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_ 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.
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.
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.
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?"
* * * * *
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 _was_ 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?"
And so long as Dr. John was absent, I really believed I had courage to
test him with such a question.
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.
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
fievre." 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
dernierement? Non, n'est-ce pas?"
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; _you_ will receive him--for my part, I shall be from
home."
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."
She departed, attired very smartly, in a shawl of price, and a certain
_chapeau vert tendre_--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.
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 _shall_ sleep," thought I, "malgre maman and
medecin, if they are not here in ten minutes."
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.
"Le marmot n'a rien, nest-ce pas?" said she, indicating Georgette with
a jerk of her chin.
"Pas beaucoup," was the answer, as the doctor hastily scribbled with
his pencil some harmless prescription.
"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."
"I found it: yes."
"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!
"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.
"Mais enfin," continued she, nothing abashed, "monsieur knew it was
thrown, since be came to seek it--how did he know?"
"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."
How simple the whole explanation! The note had alluded to a physician
as then examining "Gustave."
"Ah ca!" pursued Rosine; "il n'y a donc rien la-dessous: pas de
mystere, pas d'amourette, par exemple?"
"Pas plus que sur ma main," responded the doctor, showing his palm.
"Quel dommage!" responded the grisette: "et moi--a qui tout cela
commencait a donner des idees."
"Vraiment! vous en etes pour vos frais," was the doctor's cool
rejoinder.
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.
"How many times have you opened the door for me within this last
month?" he asked.
"Monsieur ought to have kept count of that," said Rosine, quite
readily.
"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.
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.
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!
"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.
"There!" I ejaculated involuntarily.
"Where?", asked Dr. John with energy, making direct for the window.
"What, is it?"
"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.
"Go, at once; pick it up and bring it here," was his prompt direction;
adding, "Nobody will take notice of _you: I_ should be seen."
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.
He instantly tore the billet into small pieces, without reading it.
"It is not in the least _her_ fault, you must remember," he said,
looking at me.
"_Whose_ fault?" I asked. "_Who_ is it?"
"You don't yet know, then?"
"Not in the least."
"Have you no guess?"
"None."
"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."
"As a duenna?" I asked.
"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 _him_ a good turn: if I _could_ 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.".
"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.
"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. "_She_ only, amongst us all, has
the art even to _seem_ 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.
"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.
"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."
"But you _must_ 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--"
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
"enrhumee," and then proceeded volubly to recount her "courses en
fiacre." The prayer-bell rang, and I left her with the doctor.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE FETE.
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.
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.
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.
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-etre, de moeurs," admitted Madame frankly; but
added with philosophy, "son maintien en classe est toujours convenable
et rempli meme d'une certaine dignite: c'est tout ce qu'il faut. Ni
les eleves ni les parents ne regardent plus loin; ni, par consequent,
moi non plus."
* * * * *
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!"
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 fete of Madame--awaited celebration.
The conduct of this fete 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.
"What will you have this year?" was asked by her Parisian lieutenant.
"Oh, no matter! Let it alone. Let the poor children keep their
francs," And Madame looked benign and modest.
The St. Pierre would here protrude her chin; she knew Madame by heart;
she always called her airs of "bonte"--"des grimaces." She never even
professed to respect them one instant.
"Vite!" she would say coldly. "Name the article. Shall it be jewellery
or porcelain, haberdashery or silver?"
"Eh bien! Deux ou trois cuillers, et autant de fourchettes en argent."
And the result was a handsome case, containing 300 francs worth of
plate.
The programme of the fete-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. Zelie St. Pierre
understood these things and managed them ably.
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 _carre_ (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.
"Vous n'etes donc que des poupees," 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 ame!"
Vain resolve! And when he at last found it _was_ 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.
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.
The day preceding Madame's fete was as much a holiday as the fete
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.
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 delices" 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 _benitier_, 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.
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.
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 _tailleuse_ 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.
We become oblivious of these deficiencies in the uniform routine of
daily drudgery, but they _will_ force upon us their unwelcome
blank on those bright occasions when beauty should shine.
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," "decemment," and la
Convenance et la Decence 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 mures
'to dress themselves like girls of fifteen'--quant a la. St. Pierre,
elle a l'air d'une vieille coquette qui fait l'ingenue."
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.
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.
Now the bell had been ringing all the morning, as workmen, or
servants, or _coiffeurs_, or _tailleuses_, 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.
I was stooping to pick up this last, when--firm, fast, straight--right
on through vestibule--along corridor, across carre, 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 paletot and a bonnet grec filled the
void; also two eyes first vaguely struck upon, and then hungrily dived
into me.
"C'est cela!" said a voice. "Je la connais: c'est l'Anglaise. Tant
pis. Toute Anglaise, et, par consequent, toute begueule qu'elle soit--
elle fera mon affaire, ou je saurai pourquoi."
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."
"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.
"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."
"But how, M. Paul? What do you mean?"
"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."
"In the vaudeville?"
"In the vaudeville. You have said it."
I gasped, horror-struck. _What_ did the little man mean?
"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."
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.
"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 _role_, as you know, or do _not_ know--it is
equal: without that _role_ 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 _amour-propre_--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 deteste comme
la peste, ordinairement" (this between his recreant teeth). "I apply to
an Englishwoman to rescue me. What is her answer--Yes, or No?"
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,--
"Vite a l'ouvrage! Here is the book; here is your _role_: 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.
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."
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.
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.
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.
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 _pates a la creme_, than which
nothing in the whole range of cookery seemed to me better). A
_pate_, or a square of cake, it seemed to me would come very
_apropos;_ 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 _was_ 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.
"Brava!" cried he, holding the door open and remaining at the
threshold. "J'ai tout entendu. C'est assez bien. Encore!"
A moment I hesitated.
"Encore!" said he sternly. "Et point de grimaces! A bas la timidite!"
Again I went through the part, but not half so well as I had spoken it
alone.
"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.
"Monsieur," I called out, taking courage.
"Eh bien! Qu'est-ce que c'est, Mademoiselle?"
"J'ai bien faim."
"Comment, vous avez faim! Et la collation?"
"I know nothing about it. I have not seen it, shut up here."
"Ah! C'est vrai," cried he.
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
_petit pate a la creme_ I cannot tell; but he went out and
procured me one from some quarter. With considerable willingness I ate
and drank, keeping the _petit pate_ till the last, as a _bonne
bouche_. M. Paul superintended my repast, and almost forced upon me
more than I could swallow.
"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?"
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.
"Come then," said he, offering his hand.
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 carre 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.
"Nest-ce pas que c'est beau?" demanded my companion.
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.
"I will do my best, but I wish it was over," said I; then I asked:
"Are we to walk through that crowd?"
"By no means: I manage matters better: we pass through the garden--
here."
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.
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.
"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 _vaudeville_. 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.
Having surveyed and criticized the whole troop, he turned to me.
"You, too, must be dressed for your part."
"Dressed--dressed like a man!" exclaimed Zelie St. Pierre, darting
forwards; adding with officiousness, "I will dress her myself."
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--_halte
la!_ 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.
He did not immediately storm or rage, as I fully thought he would he
stood silent. But Zelie again interposed.
"She will make a capital _petit-maitre_. Here are the garments,
all--all complete: somewhat too large, but--I will arrange all that.
Come, chere amie--belle Anglaise!"
And she sneered, for I was not "belle." She seized my hand, she was
drawing me away. M. Paul stood impassable--neutral.
"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 _amour-propre_. This would
be too bad--monsieur will never permit this?"
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.
"You do not like these clothes?" he asked, pointing to the masculine
vestments.
"I don't object to some of them, but I won't have them all."
"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
_vaudeville de pensionnat;_ certain modifications I might
sanction, yet something you must have to announce you as of the nobler
sex."
"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."
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 paletot 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."
St. Pierre sneered again, in her cold snaky manner.
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.
"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."
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.
"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."
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.
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
_at_ 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.
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 per formed; 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 _he_ was
outcast _I_ could please. Now I know acted as if wishful and
resolute to win and conquer. Ginevra seconded me; between us we half-
changed the nature of the _role_, 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-etre plus beau que votre modele," 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.e._, Dr.
John. Ginevra was tender; how could I be otherwise than chivalric?
Retaining the letter, I recklessly altered the spirit of the
_role_. 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.
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.
No sooner was the play over, and _well_ 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 paletot 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.
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.
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 carre, 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.
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.
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 carre--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."
"Taisez-vous!" Madame would reply, heroically and inexorably. "Vous ne
passerez pas a 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.
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.
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 _surveillante_. 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 fete annually ensured a success
unknown to the fete of any other directress in the land.
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.
"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 carre: let me place you amongst my
collection."
"But first suffer me to have one dance with one pupil of my choice."
"Have you the face to ask such a thing? It is madness: it is impiety.
Sortez, sortez, au plus vite."
She drove him before her, and soon had him enclosed within the cordon.
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.
"Lucy Snowe! Lucy Snowe!" she cried in a somewhat sobbing voice, half
hysterical.
"What in the world is the matter?" I drily said.
"How do I look--how do I look to-night?" she demanded.
"As usual," said I; "preposterously vain."
"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?"
"I will, Miss Fanshawe: you shall be humoured even to the top of your
bent."
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.
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."
The remark was too _naive_ to rouse anger; I merely said: "Very
good."
"And what would _you_ give to be ME?" she inquired.
"Not a bad sixpence--strange as it may sound," I replied. "You are but
a poor creature."
"You don't think so in your heart."
"No; for in my heart you have not the outline of a place: I only
occasionally turn you over in my brain."
"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."
"Go on; I listen."
"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 _am_ pretty; _you_ 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 _me_--happy ME; now for _you_,
poor soul!
"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?"
"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, Zelie 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."
"Just because I am not clever, and that is all _you_ think of.
Nobody in the world but you cares for cleverness."
"On the contrary, I consider you _are_ 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?"
She approached her lips to my ear--"Isidore and Alfred de Hamal are
both here?" she whispered.
"Oh! they are? I should like to see them."
"There's a dear creature! your curiosity is roused at last. Follow me,
I will point them out."
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."
For once, I did not mind. Through the garden we went--penetrated into
the corridor by a quiet private entrance, and approaching the
_carre_, yet keeping in the corridor shade, commanded a near view
of the band of "jeunes gens."
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 _little_ 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.
"And if he were your lover?" suggested the cruelly exultant Ginevra.
"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."
"You like him, then?"
"As I like sweets, and jams, and comfits, and conservatory flowers."
Ginevra admired my taste, for all these things were her adoration; she
could then readily credit that they were mine too.
"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.
"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."
"But that other--where is he? Show me Isidore."
"I don't like."
"Why not?"
"I am ashamed of him."
"For what reason?"
"Because--because" (in a whisper) "he has such--such whiskers, orange
--red--there now!"
"The murder is out," I subjoined. "Never mind, show him all the same;
I engage not to faint."
She looked round. Just then an English voice spoke behind her and me.
"You are both standing in a draught; you must leave this corridor."
"There is no draught, Dr. John," said I, turning.
"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."
"Permit me to judge for myself," said Miss Fanshawe, with hauteur. "I
want no shawl."
"Your dress is thin, you have been dancing, you are heated."
"Always preaching," retorted she; "always coddling and admonishing."
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.
"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.
She pushed up her lip, smiled, and nodded.
"Is _that_ Isidore?" I repeated, giving her a shake: I could have
given her a dozen.
"C'est lui-meme," said she. "How coarse he is, compared with the
Colonel-Count! And then--oh ciel!--the whiskers!"
Dr. John now passed on.
"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?"
"Bah! How you run on! I don't understand half you have said."
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.
"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."
I slackened my grasp, and she darted off. I did not care to pursue
her.
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. _His_ 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 _he_ could not be slighted.
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.
"You know Miss Fanshawe? I have often wished to ask whether you knew
her," said he.
"Yes: I know her."
"Intimately?"
"Quite as intimately as I wish."
"What have you done with her now?"
"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."
"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?"
"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."
"She is so young, so thoroughly artless," said he.
"To me she is an enigma," I responded.
"Is she?" he asked--much interested. "How?"
"It would be difficult to say how--difficult, at least, to tell
_you_ how."
"And why me?"
"I wonder she is not better pleased that you are so much her friend."
"But she has not the slightest idea how much I _am_ her friend.
That is precisely the point I cannot teach her. May I inquire did she
ever speak of me to you?"
"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."
"You know all?"
"I know so much."
"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."
"Oh, she varies: she shifts and changes like the wind."
"Still, you can gather some general idea--?"
"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."
"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."
"Do you doubt yourself? Do you consider yourself the inferior of
Colonel de Hamal?"
"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."
"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."
"Are you not a little severe?"
"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."
"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.
"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."
"De Hamal is an unutterable puppy, besides being a very white-livered
hero."
"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."
"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."
"The sweet seraph!" said I. "What a cruel idea! Are you not a little
severe, Dr. John?"
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.
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, _he_ 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."
"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
_must_ feel devotion in return. Be cheerful, be hopeful, Dr.
John. Who should hope, if not you?"
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 fete 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.
CHAPTER XV.
THE LONG VACATION.
Following Madame Beck's fete, 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 "annee 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.
I scarcely noted how the other teachers went to work; I had my own
business to mind; and _my_ 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.
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 naive jealousy.
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.
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 "allee defendue;" his cigar was at his lips; his
paletot--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.
"Ainsi," he began, abruptly fronting and arresting me, "vous allez
troner comme une reine; demain--troner a mes cotes? Sans doute vous
savourez d'avance les delices de l'autorite. Je crois voir en je ne
sais quoi de rayonnante, petite ambitieuse!"
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. _He_ cared for them perhaps too much; _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 beautes"). 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?
"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."
"Que vous etes dur, Monsieur!" I said, affecting dejection.
"One ought to be 'dur' with you. You are one of those beings who must
be _kept down_. 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."
"You are satisfied that you understand me?"
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."
"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?"
"Shall I take it out of your hands?"
"With all my heart; if you do not fear failure."
"But I should fail. I only know three phrases of English, and a few
words: par exemple, de sonn, de mone, de stares--est-ce bien dit? My
opinion is that it would be better to give up the thing altogether: to
have no English examination, eh?"
"If Madame consents, I consent."
"Heartily?"
"Very heartily."
He smoked his cigar in silence. He turned suddenly.
"Donnez-moi la main," said he, and the spite and jealousy melted out
of his face, and a generous kindliness shone there instead.
"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?"
"Out of my heart, Monsieur. I am glad of a friend. I like that better
than a triumph."
"Pauvrette?" said he, and turned away and left the alley.
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.
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 cretin, whom her stepmother in a distant
province would not allow to return home.
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.
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.
The cretin 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.
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.
It was some relief when an aunt of the cretin, 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 cretin 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.
The cretin 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 chaussees, 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.
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. Zelie
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.
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?"
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!
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 _me_ 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."
Most true was it.
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.
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 _salut_, 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.
Few worshippers were assembled, and, the _salut_ 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."
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.
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 pere, je suis Protestante."
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?
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.
"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.
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."
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.
"Must I go, father?" I asked of him as he sat silent.
"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."
I rose and thanked him. I was withdrawing when he signed me to return.
"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."
In reply to this appointment, I only bowed; and pulling down my veil,
and gathering round me my cloak, I glided away.
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 Crecy, in Villette. There was
something of Fenelon 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!
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.
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.
CHAPTER XVI.
AULD LANG SYNE.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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 _clairvoyante_. 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.
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?"
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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."
* * * * *
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 _whiteness_--
for the dimity curtains, dropped before a French bed, bounded my view.
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
seagreen 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 greenware, sufficiently furnished the tiny chamber.
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 _did_ 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.
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.
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--Lonisa Lucy Bretton.
"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 _where_ 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.
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.
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.
Striving to take each new discovery as quietly as I could, I whispered
to myself--
"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 _my_ 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.
"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."
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!"
"Graham!" echoed a sudden voice at the bedside. "Do you want Graham?"
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.
I kept quiet, yet internally _I_ was much agitated: my pulse
fluttered, and the blood left my cheek, which turned cold.
"Madam, where am I?" I inquired.
"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."
"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?"
"I should think you might hear that: it would puzzle me to hold a long
discourse in French."
"You do not come from England?"
"I am lately arrived thence. Have you been long in this country? You
seem to know my son?"
"Do, I, madam? Perhaps I do. Your son--the picture there?"
"That is his portrait as a youth. While looking at it, you pronounced
his name."
"Graham Bretton?"
She nodded.
"I speak to Mrs. Bretton, formerly of Bretton, ----shire?"
"Quite right; and you, I am told, are an English teacher in a foreign
school here: my son recognised you as such."
"How was I found, madam, and by whom?"
"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."
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.
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.
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:
The business was just achieved, and I was sitting down to take breath,
when Mrs. Bretton once more appeared.
"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?"
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.
"Do let me go down-stairs, madam; I am so cold and dull here."
"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.
"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.
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.
"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 _one_ 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--
"Is it you, Graham?" said his mother, hiding a glad smile and speaking
curtly.
"Who else should it be, mamma?" demanded the Unpunctual, possessing
himself irreverently of the abdicated throne.
"Don't you deserve cold tea, for being late?"
"I shall not get my deserts, for the urn sings cheerily."
"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."
"So I should; only the dear Old Lady persists in leaving it for me.
How is your patient, mamma?"
"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.
"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?"
"Much better," I said calmly. "Much better, I thank you, Dr. John."
For, reader, this tall young man--this darling son--this host of mine
--this Graham Bretton, _was_ 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.
To _say_ anything on the subject, to _hint_ 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.
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?
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.
"Well," she exclaimed, presently, "I have seldom seen a stronger
likeness! Graham, have you observed it?"
"Observed what? What ails the Old Lady now? How you stare, mamma! One
would think you had an attack of second sight."
"Tell me, Graham, of whom does that young lady remind you?" pointing
to me.
"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."
"Now, when she looks down; now, when she turns sideways, who is she
like, Graham?"
"Indeed, mamma, since you propound the riddle, I think you ought to
solve it!"
"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!"
"I could not mention a thing of which I never thought, and which I do
not now acknowledge. What _can_ you mean?"
"Stupid boy! look at her."
Graham did look: but this was not to be endured; I saw how it must
end, so I thought it best to anticipate.
"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."
"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.
"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."
"That I have," was my answer.
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.
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.
"I think I do!" said he: "I think I was even cross with you."
"You considered me a little bold; perhaps?" I inquired.
"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."
"You see how it was now?"
"Perfectly."
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.
In the profession he had adopted, his success was now quite decided.
Within the last three months he had taken this house (a small chateau,
they told me, about half a league without the Porte de Crecy); 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.
As the clock struck eleven, Dr. John stopped his mother.
"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."
And so he kindly led me to the door, and holding a wax-candle, lighted
me up the one flight of stairs.
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.
"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!"
Still repeating this word, I turned to my pillow; and _still_
repeating it, I steeped that pillow with tears.
CHAPTER XVII.
LA TERRASSE.
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 _your_ hour, the waiting waters will stir; in
_some_ 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!
I tried to get up next morning, but while I was dressing, and at
intervals drinking cold water from the _carafe_ on my washstand,
with design to brace up that trembling weakness which made dressing so
difficult, in came Mrs. Bretton.
"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.
"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."
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.
"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?"
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.
She left me, and I lay in bed content: it was good of Graham to
remember me before he went out.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
"This is a quiet little chateau," 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 chaussee it is not visible;
just a mile beyond the Porte de Crecy, 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 chateau; 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."
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.
"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 cuisiniere 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!"
"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 cotelettes de mouton, if I could have eaten
them."
"What did Madame Beck mean by leaving you alone?"
"Madame Beck could not foresee that I should fall ill."
"Your nervous system bore a good share of the suffering?"
"I am not quite sure what my nervous system is, but I was dreadfully
low-spirited."
"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."
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.
"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?"
I looked up in some surprise--"A Catholic? No! Why suggest such an
idea?"
"The manner in which you were consigned to me last night made me
doubt."
"I consigned to you? But, indeed, I forget. It yet remains for me to
learn how I fell into your hands."
"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 Beguines, 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.
"'This person is one of your countrywomen,' he said: 'save her, if she
is not dead.'
"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.
"'What does it all mean?' was my inquiry.
"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--"
"Things I had said? I wonder what things!"
"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 he 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?"
"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."
"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?"
"It was not Madame Beck's fault," said I; "it is no living being's
fault, and I won't hear any one blamed."
"Who is in the wrong, then, Lucy?"
"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."
"'Me' must take better care in future," said Dr. John--smiling, I
suppose, at my bad grammar.
"Change of air--change of scene; those are my prescriptions," pursued
the practical young doctor. "But to return to our muttons, Lucy. As
yet, Pere 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--"
"No, Dr. John: the fever took its turn that night--now, don't make out
that I was delirious, for I know differently."
"Good! you were as collected as myself at this moment, no doubt. Your
wanderings had taken an opposite direction to the pensionnat. Near the
Beguinage, 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. Pere 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. Pere 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?"
"Not yet," said I, with a smile. "And never let Pere 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."
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.
"Hushaby, mamma! Sleep again. You look the picture of innocence in
your slumbers."
"My slumbers, John Graham! What are you talking about? You know I
never _do_ sleep by day: it was the slightest doze possible."
"Exactly! a seraph's gentle lapse--a fairy's dream. Mamma, under such
circumstances, you always remind me of Titania."
"That is because you, yourself, are so like Bottom."
"Miss Snowe--did you ever hear anything like mamma's wit? She is a
most sprightly woman of her size and age."
"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."
"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."
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--_then_
Mrs. Bretton would have pronounced Ginevra imbecile, or perverted, or
both. Well--I thought so too.
That second evening passed as sweetly as the first--_more_
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.
CHAPTER XVIII.
WE QUARREL.
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.
"Your friend is spending her vacation in travelling, I hear?"
"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?
He had taken a seat at my work-table; he now laid hands on a reel of
thread which he proceeded recklessly to unwind.
"Ginevra--Miss Fanshawe, has accompanied the Cholmondeleys on a tour
through the south of France?"
"She has."
"Do you and she correspond?"
"It will astonish you to hear that I never once thought of making
application for that privilege."
"You have seen letters of her writing?"
"Yes; several to her uncle."
"They will not be deficient in wit and _naivete_; there is so
much sparkle, and so little art in her soul?"
"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.)
"And her handwriting? It must be pretty, light, ladylike, I should
think?"
It was, and I said so.
"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?"
"She does several things very well." ("Flirtation amongst the rest,"
subjoined I, in thought.)
"When do you suppose she will return to town?" he soon inquired.
"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."
He actually thought I was stung with a kind of jealous pain similar to
his own!
"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."
"You are very kind," I said briefly.
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.
"Yet, you see," continued Graham, "while I comfort _you_, 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!"
My patience really gave way, and without notice: all at once. I
suppose illness and weakness had worn it and made it brittle.
"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."
I got up, and left the room very much excited.
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.
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.
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."
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.
"Dr. Bretton, forgive my hasty words: _do, do_ forgive them."
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."
"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?"
"Can I think too much of Ginevra?"
"_I_ believe you may; _you_ believe you can't. Let us agree
to differ. Let me be pardoned; that is what I ask."
"Do you think I cherish ill-will for one warm word?"
"I see you do not and cannot; but just say, 'Lucy, I forgive you!' Say
that, to ease me of the heart-ache."
"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."
"I _am_ your sincere well-wisher: you are right."
Thus our quarrel ended.
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.
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."
"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
everyone 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 _must_ intend
eventually to accept him.
"Positive! It was easy to say so, but had I any grounds for such
assurance?"
"The best grounds."
"Now, Lucy, _do_ tell me what!"
"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."
"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."
"You shall, Dr. John. In some cases, you are a lavish, generous man:
you are a worshipper ever ready with the votive offering should Pere
Silas ever convert _you_, 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--"
"Hush!" said he, "don't go on."
"Hush, I will _not_: and go on I _will_: 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."
The modesty Ginevra herself had never evinced in this matter, now
flushed all over the face of her admirer.
"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."
"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."
"But you don't understand her; she is far too disinterested to care
for my gifts, and too simple-minded to know their value."
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.
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 _me_ pretty, and what of course was not
valueless), the glitter never dazzled her bright eyes: she would
hardly cast one look on my gift"
"Then, of course, not valuing it, she would unloose, and return it to
you?"
"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."
"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 _naivete_
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.
CHAPTER XIX.
THE CLEOPATRA.
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.
That lady--one fine day--actually came out in a fiacre as far as the
chateau. 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 piece 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 "chateau,"--
"madame sa mere, la digne chatelaine:" 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!
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.
* * * * *
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.
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 communicates.
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.
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.
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, anymore 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 _chef-d'oeuvres_ 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.
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.
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."
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 woodnests, casketing eggs that looked like pearls seen
through clear green sea-water; all hung modestly beneath that coarse
and preposterous canvas.
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.
"Que faites-vous ici?" said a voice.
"Mais, Monsieur, je m'amuse."
"Vous vous amusez! et a quoi, s'il vous plait? Mais d'abord, faites-
moi le plaisir de vous lever; prenez mon bras, et allons de l'autre
cote."
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.
"Permit me to conduct you to your party," said he, as we crossed the
room.
"I have no party."
"You are not alone?"
"Yes, Monsieur."
"Did you come here unaccompanied?"
"No, Monsieur. Dr. Bretton brought me here."
"Dr. Bretton and Madame his mother, of course?"
"No; only Dr. Bretton."
"And he told you to look at _that_ picture?"
"By no means; I found it out for myself."
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.
"Astounding insular audacity!" cried the Professor. "Singulieres
femmes que ces Anglaises!"
"What is the matter, Monsieur?"
"Matter! How dare you, a young person, sit coolly down, with the self-
possession of a garcon, and look at _that_ picture?"
"It is a very ugly picture, but I cannot at all see why I should not
look at it"
"Bon! bon! Speak no more of it. But you ought not to be here alone."
'If, however, I have no society--no _party_, as you say? And
then, what does it signify whether I am alone, or accompanied? nobody
meddles with me."
"Taisez-vous, et asseyez-vous la--la!"--setting down a chair with
emphasis in a particularly dull corner, before a series of most
specially dreary "cadres."
"Mais, Monsieur?"
"Mais, Mademoiselle, asseyez-vous, et ne bougez pas--entendez-vous?--
jusqu'a ce qu'on vienne vous chercher, ou que je vous donne la
permission."
"Quel triste coin!" cried I, "et quelles laids tableaux!"
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 "Mariee," 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 Mere," 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 Pere 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.
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.
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.
"Had I not been ill?" he wished to know: "he understood I had."
"Yes, but I was now quite well."
"Where had I spent the vacation?"
"Chiefly in the Rue Fossette; partly with Madame Bretton."
"He had heard that I was left alone in the Rue Fossette; was that so?"
"Not quite alone: Marie Broc" (the cretin) "was with me."
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 w |
