Villette
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 véritable bégueule Britannique à ce que vous dites—espèce
de monstre, brusque et rude comme un vieux caporal de grenadiers, et
revêche comme une religieuse” (the reader will excuse my modesty in
allowing this flattering sketch of my amiable self to retain the slight
veil of the original tongue). “You are aware,” went on this precious
effusion, “that little Gustave, on account of his illness, has been
removed to a master’s chamber—that favoured chamber, whose lattice
overlooks your prison-ground. There, I, the best uncle in the world, am
admitted to visit him. How tremblingly I approached the window and
glanced into your Eden—an Eden for me, though a desert for you!—how I
feared to behold vacancy, or the dragon aforesaid! How my heart
palpitated with delight when, through apertures in the envious boughs,
I at once caught the gleam of your graceful straw-hat, and the waving
of your grey dress—dress that I should recognise amongst a thousand.
But why, my angel, will you not look up? Cruel, to deny me one ray of
those adorable eyes!—how a single glance would have revived me! I write
this in fiery haste; while the physician examines Gustave, I snatch an
opportunity to enclose it in a small casket, together with a bouquet of
flowers, the sweetest that blow—yet less sweet than thee, my Peri—my
all-charming! ever thine-thou well knowest whom!”
“I wish I did know whom,” was my comment; and the wish bore even closer
reference to the person addressed in this choice document, than to the
writer thereof. Perhaps it was from the fiancé of one of the engaged
pupils; and, in that case, there was no great harm done or
intended—only a small irregularity. Several of the girls, the majority,
indeed, had brothers or cousins at the neighbouring college. But “la
robe grise, le chapeau de paille,” here surely was a clue—a very
confusing one. The straw-hat was an ordinary garden head-screen, common
to a score besides myself. The grey dress hardly gave more definite
indication. Madame Beck herself ordinarily wore a grey dress just now;
another teacher, and three of the pensionnaires, had had grey dresses
purchased of the same shade and fabric as mine: it was a sort of
every-day wear which happened at that time to be in vogue.
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 été.”
“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