Villette
your last speech, and exclaim, ‘Mother, ten wives could hardly be worse
to me than you are!’”
The concert over, the Lottery “au bénéfice des pauvres” came next: the
interval between was one of general relaxation, and the pleasantest
imaginable stir and commotion. The white flock was cleared from the
platform; a busy throng of gentlemen crowded it instead, making
arrangements for the drawing; and amongst these—the busiest of
all—re-appeared that certain well-known form, not tall but active,
alive with the energy and movement of three tall men. How M. Paul did
work! How he issued directions, and, at the same time, set his own
shoulder to the wheel! Half-a-dozen assistants were at his beck to
remove the pianos, &c.; no matter, he must add to their strength his
own. The redundancy of his alertness was half-vexing, half-ludicrous:
in my mind I both disapproved and derided most of this fuss. Yet, in
the midst of prejudice and annoyance, I could not, while watching,
avoid perceiving a certain not disagreeable naïveté in all he did and
said; nor could I be blind to certain vigorous characteristics of his
physiognomy, rendered conspicuous now by the contrast with a throng of
tamer faces: the deep, intent keenness of his eye, the power of his
forehead, pale, broad, and full—the mobility of his most flexible
mouth. He lacked the calm of force, but its movement and its fire he
signally possessed.
Meantime the whole hall was in a stir; most people rose and remained
standing, for a change; some walked about, all talked and laughed. The
crimson compartment presented a peculiarly animated scene. The long
cloud of gentlemen, breaking into fragments, mixed with the rainbow
line of ladies; two or three officer-like men approached the King and
conversed with him. The Queen, leaving her chair, glided along the rank
of young ladies, who all stood up as she passed; and to each in turn I
saw her vouchsafe some token of kindness—a gracious word, look or
smile. To the two pretty English girls, Lady Sara and Ginevra Fanshawe,
she addressed several sentences; as she left them, both, and especially
the latter, seemed to glow all over with gratification. They were
afterwards accosted by several ladies, and a little circle of gentlemen
gathered round them; amongst these—the nearest to Ginevra—stood the
Count de Hamal.
“This room is stiflingly hot,” said Dr. Bretton, rising with sudden
impatience. “Lucy—mother—will you come a moment to the fresh air?”
“Go with him, Lucy,” said Mrs. Bretton. “I would rather keep my seat.”
Willingly would I have kept mine also, but Graham’s desire must take
precedence of my own; I accompanied him.
We found the night-air keen; or at least I did: he did not seem to feel
it; but it was very still, and the star-sown sky spread cloudless. I
was wrapped in a fur shawl. We took some turns on the pavement; in
passing under a lamp, Graham encountered my eye.
“You look pensive, Lucy: is it on my account?”
“I was only fearing that you were grieved.”
“Not at all: so be of good cheer—as I am. Whenever I die, Lucy, my
persuasion is that it will not be of heart-complaint. I may be stung, I
may seem to droop for a time, but no pain or malady of sentiment has
yet gone through my whole system. You have always seen me cheerful at
home?”
“Generally.”
“I am glad she laughed at my mother. I would not give the old lady for
a dozen beauties. That sneer did me all the good in the world. Thank
you, Miss Fanshawe!” And he lifted his hat from his waved locks, and
made a mock reverence.
“Yes,” he said, “I thank her. She has made me feel that nine parts in
ten of my heart have always been sound as a bell, and the tenth bled
from a mere puncture: a lancet-prick that will heal in a trice.”
“You are angry just now, heated and indignant; you will think and feel
differently to-morrow.”
“_I_ heated and indignant! You don’t know me. On the contrary, the heat
is gone: I am as cool as the night—which, by the way, may be too cool
for you. We will go back.”
“Dr. John, this is a sudden change.”
“Not it: or if it be, there are good reasons for it—two good reasons: I
have told you one. But now let us re-enter.”
We did not easily regain our seats; the lottery was begun, and all was
excited confusion; crowds blocked the sort of corridor along which we
had to pass: it was necessary to pause for a time. Happening to glance
round—indeed I half fancied I heard my name pronounced—I saw quite
near, the ubiquitous, the inevitable M. Paul. He was looking at me
gravely and intently: at me, or rather at my pink dress—sardonic
comment on which gleamed in his eye. Now it was his habit to indulge in
strictures on the dress, both of the teachers and pupils, at Madame
Beck’s—a habit which the former, at least, held to be an offensive
impertinence: as yet I had not suffered from it—my sombre daily attire
not being calculated to attract notice. I was in no mood to permit any
new encroachment to-night: rather than accept his banter, I would
ignore his presence, and accordingly steadily turned my face to the
sleeve of Dr. John’s coat; finding in that same black sleeve a prospect
more redolent of pleasure and comfort, more genial, more friendly, I
thought, than was offered by the dark little Professor’s unlovely
visage. Dr. John seemed unconsciously to sanction the preference by
looking down and saying in his kind voice, “Ay, keep close to my side,
Lucy: these crowding burghers are no respecters of persons.”
I could not, however, be true to myself. Yielding to some influence,
mesmeric or otherwise—an influence unwelcome, displeasing, but
effective—I again glanced round to see if M. Paul was gone. No, there
he stood on the same spot, looking still, but with a changed eye; he
had penetrated my thought, and read my wish to shun him. The mocking
but not ill-humoured gaze was turned to a swarthy frown, and when I
bowed, with a view to conciliation, I got only the stiffest and
sternest of nods in return.
“Whom have you made angry, Lucy?” whispered Dr. Bretton, smiling. “Who
is that savage-looking friend of yours?”
“One of the professors at Madame Beck’s: a very cross little man.”
“He looks mighty cross just now: what have you done to him? What is it
all about? Ah, Lucy, Lucy! tell me the meaning of this.”
“No mystery, I assure you. M. Emanuel is very exigeant, and because I
looked at your coat-sleeve, instead of curtseying and dipping to him,
he thinks I have failed in respect.”
“The little—” began Dr. John: I know not what more he would have added,
for at that moment I was nearly thrown down amongst the feet of the
crowd. M. Paul had rudely pushed past, and was elbowing his way with
such utter disregard to the convenience and security of all around,
that a very uncomfortable pressure was the consequence.
“I think he is what he himself would call ‘méchant,’” said Dr. Bretton.
I thought so, too.
Slowly and with difficulty we made our way along the passage, and at
last regained our seats. The drawing of the lottery lasted nearly an
hour; it was an animating and amusing scene; and as we each held
tickets, we shared in the alternations of hope and fear raised by each
turn of the wheel. Two little girls, of five and six years old, drew
the numbers: and the prizes were duly proclaimed from the platform.
These prizes were numerous, though of small value. It so fell out that
Dr. John and I each gained one: mine was a cigar-case, his a lady’s
head-dress—a most airy sort of blue and silver turban, with a streamer
of plumage on one side, like a snowy cloud. He was excessively anxious
to make an exchange; but I could not be brought to hear reason, and to
this day I keep my cigar-case: it serves, when I look at it, to remind
me of old times, and one happy evening.
Dr. John, for his part, held his turban at arm’s length between his
finger and thumb, and looked at it with a mixture of reverence and
embarrassment highly provocative of laughter. The contemplation over,
he was about coolly to deposit the delicate fabric on the ground
between his feet; he seemed to have no shadow of an idea of the
treatment or stowage it ought to receive: if his mother had not come to
the rescue, I think he would finally have crushed it under his arm like
an opera-hat; she restored it to the band-box whence it had issued.
Graham was quite cheerful all the evening, and his cheerfulness seemed
natural and unforced. His demeanour, his look, is not easily described;
there was something in it peculiar, and, in its way, original. I read
in it no common mastery of the passions, and a fund of deep and healthy
strength which, without any exhausting effort, bore down Disappointment
and extracted her fang. His manner, now, reminded me of qualities I had
noticed in him when professionally engaged amongst the poor, the
guilty, and the suffering, in the Basse-Ville: he looked at once
determined, enduring, and sweet-tempered. Who could help liking him?
_He_ betrayed no weakness which harassed all your feelings with
considerations as to how its faltering must be propped; from _him_
broke no irritability which startled calm and quenched mirth; _his_
lips let fall no caustic that burned to the bone; _his_ eye shot no
morose shafts that went cold, and rusty, and venomed through your
heart: beside him was rest and refuge—around him, fostering sunshine.
And yet he had neither forgiven nor forgotten Miss Fanshawe. Once
angered, I doubt if Dr. Bretton were to be soon propitiated—once
alienated, whether he were ever to be reclaimed. He looked at her more
than once; not stealthily or humbly, but with a movement of hardy, open
observation. De Hamal was now a fixture beside her; Mrs. Cholmondeley
sat near, and they and she were wholly absorbed in the discourse,
mirth, and excitement, with which the crimson seats were as much astir
as any plebeian part of the hall. In the course of some apparently
animated discussion, Ginevra once or twice lifted her hand and arm; a
handsome bracelet gleamed upon the latter. I saw that its gleam
flickered in Dr. John’s eye—quickening therein a derisive, ireful
sparkle; he laughed:——
“I think,” he said, “I will lay my turban on my wonted altar of
offerings; there, at any rate, it would be certain to find favour: no
grisette has a more facile faculty of acceptance. Strange! for after
all, I know she is a girl of family.”
“But you don’t know her education, Dr. John,” said I. “Tossed about all
her life from one foreign school to another, she may justly proffer the
plea of ignorance in extenuation of most of her faults. And then, from
what she says, I believe her father and mother were brought up much as
she has been brought up.”
“I always understood she had no fortune; and once I had pleasure in the
thought,” said he.
“She tells me,” I answered, “that they are poor at home; she always
speaks quite candidly on such points: you never find her lying, as
these foreigners will often lie. Her parents have a large family: they
occupy such a station and possess such connections as, in their
opinion, demand display; stringent necessity of circumstances and
inherent thoughtlessness of disposition combined, have engendered
reckless unscrupulousness as to how they obtain the means of sustaining
a good appearance. This is the state of things, and the only state of
things, she has seen from childhood upwards.”
“I believe it—and I thought to mould her to something better: but,
Lucy, to speak the plain truth, I have felt a new thing to-night, in
looking at her and de Hamal. I felt it before noticing the impertinence
directed at my mother. I saw a look interchanged between them
immediately after their entrance, which threw a most unwelcome light on
my mind.”
“How do you mean? You have been long aware of the flirtation they keep
up?”