Villette
“Ay, flirtation! That might be an innocent girlish wile to lure on the
true lover; but what I refer to was not flirtation: it was a look
marking mutual and secret understanding—it was neither girlish nor
innocent. No woman, were she as beautiful as Aphrodite, who could give
or receive such a glance, shall ever be sought in marriage by me: I
would rather wed a paysanne in a short petticoat and high cap—and be
sure that she was honest.”
I could not help smiling. I felt sure he now exaggerated the case:
Ginevra, I was certain, was honest enough, with all her giddiness. I
told him so. He shook his head, and said he would not be the man to
trust her with his honour.
“The only thing,” said I, “with which you may safely trust her. She
would unscrupulously damage a husband’s purse and property, recklessly
try his patience and temper: I don’t think she would breathe, or let
another breathe, on his honour.”
“You are becoming her advocate,” said he. “Do you wish me to resume my
old chains?”
“No: I am glad to see you free, and trust that free you will long
remain. Yet be, at the same time, just.”
“I am so: just as Rhadamanthus, Lucy. When once I am thoroughly
estranged, I cannot help being severe. But look! the King and Queen are
rising. I like that Queen: she has a sweet countenance. Mamma, too, is
excessively tired; we shall never get the old lady home if we stay
longer.”
“I tired, John?” cried Mrs. Bretton, looking at least as animated and
as wide-awake as her son. “I would undertake to sit you out yet: leave
us both here till morning, and we should see which would look the most
jaded by sunrise.”
“I should not like to try the experiment; for, in truth, mamma, you are
the most unfading of evergreens and the freshest of matrons. It must
then be on the plea of your son’s delicate nerves and fragile
constitution that I found a petition for our speedy adjournment.”
“Indolent young man! You wish you were in bed, no doubt; and I suppose
you must be humoured. There is Lucy, too, looking quite done up. For
shame, Lucy! At your age, a week of evenings-out would not have made me
a shade paler. Come away, both of you; and you may laugh at the old
lady as much as you please, but, for my part, I shall take charge of
the bandbox and turban.”
Which she did accordingly. I offered to relieve her, but was shaken off
with kindly contempt: my godmother opined that I had enough to do to
take care of myself. Not standing on ceremony now, in the midst of the
gay “confusion worse confounded” succeeding to the King and Queen’s
departure, Mrs. Bretton preceded us, and promptly made us a lane
through the crowd. Graham followed, apostrophizing his mother as the
most flourishing grisette it had ever been his good fortune to see
charged with carriage of a bandbox; he also desired me to mark her
affection for the sky-blue turban, and announced his conviction that
she intended one day to wear it.
The night was now very cold and very dark, but with little delay we
found the carriage. Soon we were packed in it, as warm and as snug as
at a fire-side; and the drive home was, I think, still pleasanter than
the drive to the concert. Pleasant it was, even though the
coachman—having spent in the shop of a “marchand de vin” a portion of
the time we passed at the concert—drove us along the dark and solitary
chaussée far past the turn leading down to La Terrasse; we, who were
occupied in talking and laughing, not noticing the aberration till, at
last, Mrs. Bretton intimated that, though she had always thought the
château a retired spot, she did not know it was situated at the world’s
end, as she declared seemed now to be the case, for she believed we had
been an hour and a half en route, and had not yet taken the turn down
the avenue.
Then Graham looked out, and perceiving only dim-spread fields, with
unfamiliar rows of pollards and limes ranged along their else invisible
sunk-fences, began to conjecture how matters were, and calling a halt
and descending, he mounted the box and took the reins himself. Thanks
to him, we arrived safe at home about an hour and a half beyond our
time.
Martha had not forgotten us; a cheerful fire was burning, and a neat
supper spread in the dining-room: we were glad of both. The winter dawn
was actually breaking before we gained our chambers. I took off my pink
dress and lace mantle with happier feelings than I had experienced in
putting them on. Not all, perhaps, who had shone brightly arrayed at
that concert could say the same; for not all had been satisfied with
friendship—with its calm comfort and modest hope.
CHAPTER XXI.
REACTION.
Yet three days, and then I must go back to the _pensionnat_. I almost
numbered the moments of these days upon the clock; fain would I have
retarded their flight; but they glided by while I watched them: they
were already gone while I yet feared their departure.
“Lucy will not leave us to-day,” said Mrs. Bretton, coaxingly at
breakfast; “she knows we can procure a second respite.”
“I would not ask for one if I might have it for a word,” said I. “I
long to get the good-by over, and to be settled in the Rue Fossette
again. I must go this morning: I must go directly; my trunk is packed
and corded.”
It appeared; however, that my going depended upon Graham; he had said
he would accompany me, and it so fell out that he was engaged all day,
and only returned home at dusk. Then ensued a little combat of words.
Mrs. Bretton and her son pressed me to remain one night more. I could
have cried, so irritated and eager was I to be gone. I longed to leave
them as the criminal on the scaffold longs for the axe to descend: that
is, I wished the pang over. How much I wished it, they could not tell.
On these points, mine was a state of mind out of their experience.
It was dark when Dr. John handed me from the carriage at Madame Beck’s
door. The lamp above was lit; it rained a November drizzle, as it had
rained all day: the lamplight gleamed on the wet pavement. Just such a
night was it as that on which, not a year ago, I had first stopped at
this very threshold; just similar was the scene. I remembered the very
shapes of the paving-stones which I had noted with idle eye, while,
with a thick-beating heart, I waited the unclosing of that door at
which I stood—a solitary and a suppliant. On that night, too, I had
briefly met him who now stood with me. Had I ever reminded him of that
rencontre, or explained it? I had not, nor ever felt the inclination to
do so: it was a pleasant thought, laid by in my own mind, and best kept
there.
Graham rung the bell. The door was instantly opened, for it was just
that period of the evening when the half-boarders took their
departure—consequently, Rosine was on the alert.
“Don’t come in,” said I to him; but he stepped a moment into the
well-lighted vestibule. I had not wished him to see that “the water
stood in my eyes,” for his was too kind a nature ever to be needlessly
shown such signs of sorrow. He always wished to heal—to relieve—when,
physician as he was, neither cure nor alleviation were, perhaps, in his
power.
“Keep up your courage, Lucy. Think of my mother and myself as true
friends. We will not forget you.”
“Nor will I forget you, Dr. John.”
My trunk was now brought in. We had shaken hands; he had turned to go,
but he was not satisfied: he had not done or said enough to content his
generous impulses.
“Lucy,”—stepping after me—“shall you feel very solitary here?”
“At first I shall.”
“Well, my mother will soon call to see you; and, meantime, I’ll tell
you what I’ll do. I’ll write—just any cheerful nonsense that comes into
my head—shall I?”
“Good, gallant heart!” thought I to myself; but I shook my head,
smiling, and said, “Never think of it: impose on yourself no such task.
_You_ write to _me_!—you’ll not have time.”
“Oh! I will find or make time. Good-by!”
He was gone. The heavy door crashed to: the axe had fallen—the pang was
experienced.
Allowing myself no time to think or feel—swallowing tears as if they
had been wine—I passed to Madame’s sitting-room to pay the necessary
visit of ceremony and respect. She received me with perfectly
well-acted cordiality—was even demonstrative, though brief, in her
welcome. In ten minutes I was dismissed. From the salle-à-manger I
proceeded to the refectory, where pupils and teachers were now
assembled for evening study: again I had a welcome, and one not, I
think, quite hollow. That over, I was free to repair to the dormitory.
“And will Graham really write?” I questioned, as I sank tired on the
edge of the bed.
Reason, coming stealthily up to me through the twilight of that long,
dim chamber, whispered sedately—“He may write once. So kind is his
nature, it may stimulate him for once to make the effort. But it
_cannot_ be continued—it _may_ not be repeated. Great were that folly
which should build on such a promise—insane that credulity which should
mistake the transitory rain-pool, holding in its hollow one draught,
for the perennial spring yielding the supply of seasons.”
I bent my head: I sat thinking an hour longer. Reason still whispered
me, laying on my shoulder a withered hand, and frostily touching my ear
with the chill blue lips of eld.
“If,” muttered she, “if he _should_ write, what then? Do you meditate
pleasure in replying? Ah, fool! I warn you! Brief be your answer. Hope
no delight of heart—no indulgence of intellect: grant no expansion to
feeling—give holiday to no single faculty: dally with no friendly
exchange: foster no genial intercommunion….”
“But I have talked to Graham and you did not chide,” I pleaded.
“No,” said she, “I needed not. Talk for you is good discipline. You
converse imperfectly. While you speak, there can be no oblivion of
inferiority—no encouragement to delusion: pain, privation, penury stamp
your language….”
“But,” I again broke in, “where the bodily presence is weak and the
speech contemptible, surely there cannot be error in making written
language the medium of better utterance than faltering lips can
achieve?”
Reason only answered, “At your peril you cherish that idea, or suffer
its influence to animate any writing of yours!”
“But if I feel, may I _never_ express?”
“_Never!_” declared Reason.
I groaned under her bitter sternness. Never—never—oh, hard word! This
hag, this Reason, would not let me look up, or smile, or hope: she
could not rest unless I were altogether crushed, cowed, broken-in, and
broken-down. According to her, I was born only to work for a piece of
bread, to await the pains of death, and steadily through all life to
despond. Reason might be right; yet no wonder we are glad at times to
defy her, to rush from under her rod and give a truant hour to
Imagination—_her_ soft, bright foe, _our_ sweet Help, our divine Hope.
We shall and must break bounds at intervals, despite the terrible
revenge that awaits our return. Reason is vindictive as a devil: for me
she was always envenomed as a step-mother. If I have obeyed her it has
chiefly been with the obedience of fear, not of love. Long ago I should
have died of her ill-usage her stint, her chill, her barren board, her
icy bed, her savage, ceaseless blows; but for that kinder Power who
holds my secret and sworn allegiance. Often has Reason turned me out by
night, in mid-winter, on cold snow, flinging for sustenance the gnawed
bone dogs had forsaken: sternly has she vowed her stores held nothing
more for me—harshly denied my right to ask better things…. Then,
looking up, have I seen in the sky a head amidst circling stars, of
which the midmost and the brightest lent a ray sympathetic and attent.
A spirit, softer and better than Human Reason, has descended with quiet