Villette
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-même,” 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