Villette
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 n’est 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 he 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 ça!” pursued Rosine; “il n’y a donc rien là-dessous: pas de
mystère, pas d’amourette, par exemple?”
“Pas plus que sur ma main,” responded the doctor, showing his palm.
“Quel dommage!” responded the grisette: “et moi—à qui tout cela
commençait à donner des idées.”
“Vraiment! vous en êtes 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 “enrhumée,” and
then proceeded volubly to recount her “courses en fiacre.” The
prayer-bell rang, and I left her with the doctor.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE FÊTE.
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.