Villette
meritorious: perceiving well that, as far as my own mind was concerned,
God had limited its powers and, its action—thankful, I trust, for the
gift bestowed, but unambitious of higher endowments, not restlessly
eager after higher culture.
The polite pupil was scarcely gone, when, unceremoniously, without tap,
in burst a second intruder. Had I been blind I should have known who
this was. A constitutional reserve of manner had by this time told with
wholesome and, for me, commodious effect, on the manners of my
co-inmates; rarely did I now suffer from rude or intrusive treatment.
When I first came, it would happen once and again that a blunt German
would clap me on the shoulder, and ask me to run a race; or a riotous
Labassecourienne seize me by the arm and drag me towards the
playground: urgent proposals to take a swing at the “Pas de Géant,” or
to join in a certain romping hide-and-seek game called “Un, deux,
trois,” were formerly also of hourly occurrence; but all these little
attentions had ceased some time ago—ceased, too, without my finding it
necessary to be at the trouble of point-blank cutting them short. I had
now no familiar demonstration to dread or endure, save from one
quarter; and as that was English I could bear it. Ginevra Fanshawe made
no scruple of—at times—catching me as I was crossing the carré,
whirling me round in a compulsory waltz, and heartily enjoying the
mental and physical discomfiture her proceeding induced. Ginevra
Fanshawe it was who now broke in upon “my learned leisure.” She carried
a huge music-book under her arm.
“Go to your practising,” said I to her at once: “away with you to the
little salon!”
“Not till I have had a talk with you, chère amie. I know where you have
been spending your vacation, and how you have commenced sacrificing to
the graces, and enjoying life like any other belle. I saw you at the
concert the other night, dressed, actually, like anybody else. Who is
your tailleuse?”
“Tittle-tattle: how prettily it begins! My tailleuse!—a fiddlestick!
Come, sheer off, Ginevra. I really don’t want your company.”
“But when I want yours so much, ange farouche, what does a little
reluctance on your part signify? Dieu merci! we know how to manœuvre
with our gifted compatriote—the learned ‘ourse Britannique.’ And so,
Ourson, you know Isidore?”
“I know John Bretton.”
“Oh, hush!” (putting her fingers in her ears) “you crack my tympanums
with your rude Anglicisms. But, how is our well-beloved John? Do tell
me about him. The poor man must be in a sad way. What did he say to my
behaviour the other night? Wasn’t I cruel?”
“Do you think I noticed you?”
“It was a delightful evening. Oh, that divine de Hamal! And then to
watch the other sulking and dying in the distance; and the old lady—my
future mamma-in-law! But I am afraid I and Lady Sara were a little rude
in quizzing her.”
“Lady Sara never quizzed her at all; and for what _you_ did, don’t make
yourself in the least uneasy: Mrs. Bretton will survive _your_ sneer.”
“She may: old ladies are tough; but that poor son of hers! Do tell me
what he said: I saw he was terribly cut up.”
“He said you looked as if at heart you were already Madame de Hamal.”
“Did he?” she cried with delight. “He noticed that? How charming! I
thought he would be mad with jealousy.”
“Ginevra, have you seriously done with Dr. Bretton? Do you want him to
give you up?”
“Oh! you know he _can’t_ do that: but wasn’t he mad?”
“Quite mad,” I assented; “as mad as a March hare.”
“Well, and how _ever_ did you get him home?”
“How _ever_, indeed! Have you no pity on his poor mother and me? Fancy
us holding him tight down in the carriage, and he raving between us,
fit to drive everybody delirious. The very coachman went wrong,
somehow, and we lost our way.”
“You don’t say so? You are laughing at me. Now, Lucy Snowe—”
“I assure you it is fact—and fact, also, that Dr. Bretton would _not_
stay in the carriage: he broke from us, and _would_ ride outside.”
“And afterwards?”
“Afterwards—when he _did_ reach home—the scene transcends description.”
“Oh, but describe it—you know it is such fun!”
“Fun for _you_, Miss Fanshawe? but” (with stern gravity) “you know the
proverb—‘What is sport to one may be death to another.’”
“Go on, there’s a darling Timon.”
“Conscientiously, I cannot, unless you assure me you have some heart.”
“I have—such an immensity, you don’t know!”
“Good! In that case, you will be able to conceive Dr. Graham Bretton
rejecting his supper in the first instance—the chicken, the sweetbread
prepared for his refreshment, left on the table untouched. Then——but it
is of no use dwelling at length on the harrowing details. Suffice it to
say, that never, in the most stormy fits and moments of his infancy,
had his mother such work to tuck the sheets about him as she had that
night.”
“He wouldn’t lie still?”
“He wouldn’t lie still: there it was. The sheets might be tucked in,
but the thing was to keep them tucked in.”
“And what did he say?”
“Say! Can’t you imagine him demanding his divine Ginevra,
anathematizing that demon, de Hamal—raving about golden locks, blue
eyes, white arms, glittering bracelets?”
“No, did he? He saw the bracelet?”
“Saw the bracelet? Yes, as plain as I saw it: and, perhaps, for the
first time, he saw also the brand-mark with which its pressure has
encircled your arm. Ginevra” (rising, and changing my tone), “come, we
will have an end of this. Go away to your practising.”
And I opened the door.
“But you have not told me all.”
“You had better not wait until I _do_ tell you all. Such extra
communicativeness could give you no pleasure. March!”
“Cross thing!” said she; but she obeyed: and, indeed, the first classe
was my territory, and she could not there legally resist a notice of
quittance from me.
Yet, to speak the truth, never had I been less dissatisfied with her
than I was then. There was pleasure in thinking of the contrast between
the reality and my description—to remember Dr. John enjoying the drive
home, eating his supper with relish, and retiring to rest with
Christian composure. It was only when I saw him really unhappy that I
felt really vexed with the fair, frail cause of his suffering.
A fortnight passed; I was getting once more inured to the harness of
school, and lapsing from the passionate pain of change to the palsy of
custom. One afternoon, in crossing the carré, on my way to the first
classe, where I was expected to assist at a lesson of “style and
literature,” I saw, standing by one of the long and large windows,
Rosine, the portress. Her attitude, as usual, was quite nonchalante.
She always “stood at ease;” one of her hands rested in her
apron-pocket, the other at this moment held to her eyes a letter,
whereof Mademoiselle coolly perused the address, and deliberately
studied the seal.
A letter! The shape of a letter similar to that had haunted my brain in
its very core for seven days past. I had dreamed of a letter last
night. Strong magnetism drew me to that letter now; yet, whether I
should have ventured to demand of Rosine so much as a glance at that
white envelope, with the spot of red wax in the middle, I know not. No;
I think I should have sneaked past in terror of a rebuff from
Disappointment: my heart throbbed now as if I already heard the tramp
of her approach. Nervous mistake! It was the rapid step of the
Professor of Literature measuring the corridor. I fled before him.
Could I but be seated quietly at my desk before his arrival, with the
class under my orders all in disciplined readiness, he would, perhaps,
exempt me from notice; but, if caught lingering in the carré, I should
be sure to come in for a special harangue. I had time to get seated, to
enforce perfect silence, to take out my work, and to commence it amidst
the profoundest and best trained hush, ere M. Emanuel entered with his
vehement burst of latch and panel, and his deep, redundant bow,
prophetic of choler.
As usual he broke upon us like a clap of thunder; but instead of
flashing lightning-wise from the door to the estrade, his career halted
midway at my desk. Setting his face towards me and the window, his back
to the pupils and the room, he gave me a look—such a look as might have
licensed me to stand straight up and demand what he meant—a look of
scowling distrust.
“Voilà! pour vous,” said he, drawing his hand from his waist-coat, and
placing on my desk a letter—the very letter I had seen in Rosine’s
hand—the letter whose face of enamelled white and single Cyclop’s-eye
of vermilion-red had printed themselves so clear and perfect on the
retina of an inward vision. I knew it, I felt it to be the letter of my
hope, the fruition of my wish, the release from my doubt, the ransom
from my terror. This letter M. Paul, with his unwarrantably interfering
habits, had taken from the portress, and now delivered it himself.
I might have been angry, but had not a second for the sensation. Yes: I
held in my hand not a slight note, but an envelope, which must, at
least, contain a sheet: it felt not flimsy, but firm, substantial,
satisfying. And here was the direction, “Miss Lucy Snowe,” in a clean,
clear, equal, decided hand; and here was the seal, round, full, deftly
dropped by untremulous fingers, stamped with the well-cut impress of
initials, “J. G. B.” I experienced a happy feeling—a glad emotion which
went warm to my heart, and ran lively through all my veins. For once a
hope was realized. I held in my hand a morsel of real solid joy: not a
dream, not an image of the brain, not one of those shadowy chances
imagination pictures, and on which humanity starves but cannot live;
not a mess of that manna I drearily eulogized awhile ago—which, indeed,
at first melts on the lips with an unspeakable and preternatural
sweetness, but which, in the end, our souls full surely loathe; longing
deliriously for natural and earth-grown food, wildly praying Heaven’s
Spirits to reclaim their own spirit-dew and essence—an aliment divine,
but for mortals deadly. It was neither sweet hail nor small
coriander-seed—neither slight wafer, nor luscious honey, I had lighted
on; it was the wild, savoury mess of the hunter, nourishing and
salubrious meat, forest-fed or desert-reared, fresh, healthful, and
life-sustaining. It was what the old dying patriarch demanded of his
son Esau, promising in requital the blessing of his last breath. It was
a godsend; and I inwardly thanked the God who had vouchsafed it.
Outwardly I only thanked man, crying, “Thank you, thank you, Monsieur!”
Monsieur curled his lip, gave me a vicious glance of the eye, and
strode to his estrade. M. Paul was not at all a good little man, though
he had good points.
Did I read my letter there and then? Did I consume the venison at once
and with haste, as if Esau’s shaft flew every day?
I knew better. The cover with its address—the seal, with its three
clear letters—was bounty and abundance for the present. I stole from
the room, I procured the key of the great dormitory, which was kept
locked by day. I went to my bureau; with a sort of haste and trembling
lest Madame should creep up-stairs and spy me, I opened a drawer,
unlocked a box, and took out a case, and—having feasted my eyes with
one more look, and approached the seal with a mixture of awe and shame
and delight, to my lips—I folded the untasted treasure, yet all fair
and inviolate, in silver paper, committed it to the case, shut up box
and drawer, reclosed, relocked the dormitory, and returned to class,
feeling as if fairy tales were true, and fairy gifts no dream. Strange,
sweet insanity! And this letter, the source of my joy, I had not yet
read: did not yet know the number of its lines.
When I re-entered the schoolroom, behold M. Paul raging like a