Villette
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, à ce qu’on dit. Mrs.
Cholmondeley considers him extremely clever: she says he will push his
way by his talents; all I know is, that he does little more than sigh
in my presence, and that I can wind him round my little finger.”
Wishing to get a more definite idea of this love-stricken M. Isidore;
whose position seemed to me of the least secure, I requested her to
favour me with a personal description; but she could not describe: she
had neither words nor the power of putting them together so as to make
graphic phrases. She even seemed not properly to have noticed him:
nothing of his looks, of the changes in his countenance, had touched
her heart or dwelt in her memory—that he was “beau, mais plutôt bel
homme que joli garçon,” was all she could assert. My patience would
often have failed, and my interest flagged, in listening to her, but
for one thing. All the hints she dropped, all the details she gave,
went unconsciously to prove, to my thinking, that M. Isidore’s homage
was offered with great delicacy and respect. I informed her very
plainly that I believed him much too good for her, and intimated with
equal plainness my impression that she was but a vain coquette. She
laughed, shook her curls from her eyes, and danced away as if I had
paid her a compliment.
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 là 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, chère grogneuse! I will
tell you all how and about it; and you will then see, not only how
right the whole thing is, but how cleverly managed. In the first place,
I _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 début 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