Villette
tired of useless journeys from the dwelling-house kitchen to the
school-dormitory, and only came once a day at noon to make my bed. I
believe, however, that she is a good-natured creature, and would have
been delighted to cook me côtelettes de mouton, if I could have eaten
them.”
“What did Madame Beck mean by leaving you alone?”
“Madame Beck could not foresee that I should fall ill.”
“Your nervous system bore a good share of the suffering?”
“I am not quite sure what my nervous system is, but I was dreadfully
low-spirited.”
“Which disables me from helping you by pill or potion. Medicine can
give nobody good spirits. My art halts at the threshold of
Hypochondria: she just looks in and sees a chamber of torture, but can
neither say nor do much. Cheerful society would be of use; you should
be as little alone as possible; you should take plenty of exercise.”
Acquiescence and a pause followed these remarks. They sounded all
right, I thought, and bore the safe sanction of custom, and the
well-worn stamp of use.
“Miss Snowe,” recommenced Dr. John—my health, nervous system included,
being now, somewhat to my relief, discussed and done with—“is it
permitted me to ask what your religion is? Are you a Catholic?”
I looked up in some surprise—“A Catholic? No! Why suggest such an
idea?”
“The manner in which you were consigned to me last night made me
doubt.”
“I consigned to you? But, indeed, I forget. It yet remains for me to
learn how I fell into your hands.”
“Why, under circumstances that puzzled me. I had been in attendance all
day yesterday on a case of singularly interesting and critical
character; the disease being rare, and its treatment doubtful: I saw a
similar and still finer case in a hospital in Paris; but that will not
interest you. At last a mitigation of the patient’s most urgent
symptoms (acute pain is one of its accompaniments) liberated me, and I
set out homeward. My shortest way lay through the Basse-Ville, and as
the night was excessively dark, wild, and wet, I took it. In riding
past an old church belonging to a community of Béguines, I saw by a
lamp burning over the porch or deep arch of the entrance, a priest
lifting some object in his arms. The lamp was bright enough to reveal
the priest’s features clearly, and I recognised him; he was a man I
have often met by the sick beds of both rich and poor: and chiefly the
latter. He is, I think, a good old man, far better than most of his
class in this country; superior, indeed, in every way, better informed,
as well as more devoted to duty. Our eyes met; he called on me to stop:
what he supported was a woman, fainting or dying. I alighted.
“‘This person is one of your countrywomen,’ he said: ‘save her, if she
is not dead.’
“My countrywoman, on examination, turned out to be the English teacher
at Madame Beck’s pensionnat. She was perfectly unconscious, perfectly
bloodless, and nearly cold.
“‘What does it all mean?’ was my inquiry.
“He communicated a curious account; that you had been to him that
evening at confessional; that your exhausted and suffering appearance,
coupled with some things you had said—”
“Things I had said? I wonder what things!”
“Awful crimes, no doubt; but he did not tell me what: there, you know,
the seal of the confessional checked his garrulity, and my curiosity.
Your confidences, however, had not made an enemy of the good father; it
seems he was so struck, and felt so sorry that you should be out on
such a night alone, that he had esteemed it a Christian duty to watch
you when you quitted the church, and so to manage as not to lose sight
of you, till you should have reached home. Perhaps the worthy man
might, half unconsciously, have blent in this proceeding some little of
the subtlety of his class: it might have been his resolve to learn the
locality of your home—did you impart that in your confession?”
“I did not: on the contrary, I carefully avoided the shadow of any
indication: and as to my confession, Dr. John, I suppose you will think
me mad for taking such a step, but I could not help it: I suppose it
was all the fault of what you call my ‘nervous system.’ I cannot put
the case into words, but my days and nights were grown intolerable: a
cruel sense of desolation pained my mind: a feeling that would make its
way, rush out, or kill me—like (and this you will understand, Dr. John)
the current which passes through the heart, and which, if aneurism or
any other morbid cause obstructs its natural channels, seeks abnormal
outlet. I wanted companionship, I wanted friendship, I wanted counsel.
I could find none of these in closet or chamber, so I went and sought
them in church and confessional. As to what I said, it was no
confidence, no narrative. I have done nothing wrong: my life has not
been active enough for any dark deed, either of romance or reality: all
I poured out was a dreary, desperate complaint.”
“Lucy, you ought to travel for about six months: why, your calm nature
is growing quite excitable! Confound Madame Beck! Has the little buxom
widow no bowels, to condemn her best teacher to solitary confinement?”
“It was not Madame Beck’s fault,” said I; “it is no living being’s
fault, and I won’t hear any one blamed.”
“Who is in the wrong, then, Lucy?”
“Me—Dr. John—me; and a great abstraction on whose wide shoulders I like
to lay the mountains of blame they were sculptured to bear: me and
Fate.”
“‘Me’ must take better care in future,” said Dr. John—smiling, I
suppose, at my bad grammar.
“Change of air—change of scene; those are my prescriptions,” pursued
the practical young doctor. “But to return to our muttons, Lucy. As
yet, Père Silas, with all his tact (they say he is a Jesuit), is no
wiser than you choose him to be; for, instead of returning to the Rue
Fossette, your fevered wanderings—there must have been high fever—”
“No, Dr. John: the fever took its turn that night—now, don’t make out
that I was delirious, for I know differently.”
“Good! you were as collected as myself at this moment, no doubt. Your
wanderings had taken an opposite direction to the pensionnat. Near the
Béguinage, amidst the stress of flood and gust, and in the perplexity
of darkness, you had swooned and fallen. The priest came to your
succour, and the physician, as we have seen, supervened. Between us we
procured a fiacre and brought you here. Père Silas, old as he is, would
carry you up-stairs, and lay you on that couch himself. He would
certainly have remained with you till suspended animation had been
restored: and so should I, but, at that juncture, a hurried messenger
arrived from the dying patient I had scarcely left—the last duties were
called for—the physician’s last visit and the priest’s last rite;
extreme unction could not be deferred. Père Silas and myself departed
together, my mother was spending the evening abroad; we gave you in
charge to Martha, leaving directions, which it seems she followed
successfully. Now, are you a Catholic?”
“Not yet,” said I, with a smile. “And never let Père Silas know where I
live, or he will try to convert me; but give him my best and truest
thanks when you see him, and if ever I get rich I will send him money
for his charities. See, Dr. John, your mother wakes; you ought to ring
for tea.”
Which he did; and, as Mrs. Bretton sat up—astonished and indignant at
herself for the indulgence to which she had succumbed, and fully
prepared to deny that she had slept at all—her son came gaily to the
attack.
“Hushaby, mamma! Sleep again. You look the picture of innocence in your
slumbers.”
“My slumbers, John Graham! What are you talking about? You know I never
_do_ sleep by day: it was the slightest doze possible.”
“Exactly! a seraph’s gentle lapse—a fairy’s dream. Mamma, under such
circumstances, you always remind me of Titania.”
“That is because you, yourself, are so like Bottom.”
“Miss Snowe—did you ever hear anything like mamma’s wit? She is a most
sprightly woman of her size and age.”
“Keep your compliments to yourself, sir, and do not neglect your own
size: which seems to me a good deal on the increase. Lucy, has he not
rather the air of an incipient John Bull? He used to be slender as an
eel, and now I fancy in him a sort of heavy dragoon bent—a beef-eater
tendency. Graham, take notice! If you grow fat I disown you.”
“As if you could not sooner disown your own personality! I am
indispensable to the old lady’s happiness, Lucy. She would pine away in
green and yellow melancholy if she had not my six feet of iniquity to
scold. It keeps her lively—it maintains the wholesome ferment of her
spirits.”
The two were now standing opposite to each other, one on each side the
fire-place; their words were not very fond, but their mutual looks
atoned for verbal deficiencies. At least, the best treasure of Mrs.
Bretton’s life was certainly casketed in her son’s bosom; her dearest
pulse throbbed in his heart. As to him, of course another love shared
his feelings with filial love, and, no doubt, as the new passion was
the latest born, so he assigned it in his emotions Benjamin’s portion.
Ginevra! Ginevra! Did Mrs. Bretton yet know at whose feet her own young
idol had laid his homage? Would she approve that choice? I could not
tell; but I could well guess that if she knew Miss Fanshawe’s conduct
towards Graham: her alternations between coldness and coaxing, and
repulse and allurement; if she could at all suspect the pain with which
she had tried him; if she could have seen, as I had seen, his fine
spirits subdued and harassed, his inferior preferred before him, his
subordinate made the instrument of his humiliation—_then_ Mrs. Bretton
would have pronounced Ginevra imbecile, or perverted, or both. Well—I
thought so too.
That second evening passed as sweetly as the first—_more_ sweetly
indeed: we enjoyed a smoother interchange of thought; old troubles were
not reverted to, acquaintance was better cemented; I felt happier,
easier, more at home. That night—instead of crying myself asleep—I went
down to dreamland by a pathway bordered with pleasant thoughts.
CHAPTER XVIII.
WE QUARREL.
During the first days of my stay at the Terrace, Graham never took a
seat near me, or in his frequent pacing of the room approached the
quarter where I sat, or looked pre-occupied, or more grave than usual,
but I thought of Miss Fanshawe and expected her name to leap from his
lips. I kept my ear and mind in perpetual readiness for the tender
theme; my patience was ordered to be permanently under arms, and my
sympathy desired to keep its cornucopia replenished and ready for
outpouring. At last, and after a little inward struggle, which I saw
and respected, he one day launched into the topic. It was introduced
delicately; anonymously as it were.
“Your friend is spending her vacation in travelling, I hear?”
“Friend, forsooth!” thought I to myself: but it would not do to
contradict; he must have his own way; I must own the soft impeachment:
friend let it be. Still, by way of experiment, I could not help asking
whom he meant?
He had taken a seat at my work-table; he now laid hands on a reel of
thread which he proceeded recklessly to unwind.
“Ginevra—Miss Fanshawe, has accompanied the Cholmondeleys on a tour
through the south of France?”
“She has.”
“Do you and she correspond?”
“It will astonish you to hear that I never once thought of making
application for that privilege.”
“You have seen letters of her writing?”
“Yes; several to her uncle.”
“They will not be deficient in wit and _naïveté_; there is so much
sparkle, and so little art in her soul?”
“She writes comprehensively enough when she writes to M. de
Bassompierre: he who runs may read.” (In fact, Ginevra’s epistles to