Villette
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-à-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 “fraîchë,” “brisë,” and “Venisë.” 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 sucrée_. 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