Villette
and fit to defy all the nuns and flirts in Christendom? I would give
gold on the spot just to see you snap your fingers. Try the manœuvre.”
“If I were to bring Miss Fanshawe into your presence just now?”
“I vow, Lucy, she should not move me: or, she should move me but by one
thing—true, yes, and passionate love. I would accord forgiveness at no
less a price.”
“Indeed! a smile of hers would have been a fortune to you a while
since.”
“Transformed, Lucy: transformed! Remember, you once called me a slave!
but I am a free man now!”
He stood up: in the port of his head, the carriage of his figure, in
his beaming eye and mien, there revealed itself a liberty which was
more than ease—a mood which was disdain of his past bondage.
“Miss Fanshawe,” he pursued, “has led me through a phase of feeling
which is over: I have entered another condition, and am now much
disposed to exact love for love—passion for passion—and good measure of
it, too.”
“Ah, Doctor! Doctor! you said it was your nature to pursue Love under
difficulties—to be charmed by a proud insensibility!”.
He laughed, and answered, “My nature varies: the mood of one hour is
sometimes the mockery of the next. Well, Lucy” (drawing on his gloves),
“will the Nun come again to-night, think you?”
“I don’t think she will.”
“Give her my compliments, if she does—Dr. John’s compliments—and
entreat her to have the goodness to wait a visit from him. Lucy, was
she a pretty nun? Had she a pretty face? You have not told me that yet;
and _that_ is the really important point.”
“She had a white cloth over her face,” said I, “but her eyes
glittered.”
“Confusion to her goblin trappings!” cried he, irreverently: “but at
least she had handsome eyes—bright and soft.”
“Cold and fixed,” was the reply.
“No, no, we’ll none of her: she shall not haunt you, Lucy. Give her
that shake of the hand, if she comes again. Will she stand _that_, do
you think?”
I thought it too kind and cordial for a ghost to stand: and so was the
smile which matched it, and accompanied his “Good-night.”
And had there been anything in the garret? What did they discover? I
believe, on the closest examination, their discoveries amounted to very
little. They talked, at first, of the cloaks being disturbed; but
Madame Beck told me afterwards she thought they hung much as usual: and
as for the broken pane in the skylight, she affirmed that aperture was
rarely without one or more panes broken or cracked: and besides, a
heavy hail-storm had fallen a few days ago. Madame questioned me very
closely as to what I had seen, but I only described an obscure figure
clothed in black: I took care not to breathe the word “nun,” certain
that this word would at once suggest to her mind an idea of romance and
unreality. She charged me to say nothing on the subject to any servant,
pupil, or teacher, and highly commended my discretion in coming to her
private salle-à-manger, instead of carrying the tale of horror to the
school refectory. Thus the subject dropped. I was left secretly and
sadly to wonder, in my own mind, whether that strange thing was of this
world, or of a realm beyond the grave; or whether indeed it was only
the child of malady, and I of that malady the prey.
CHAPTER XXIII.
VASHTI.
To wonder sadly, did I say? No: a new influence began to act upon my
life, and sadness, for a certain space, was held at bay. Conceive a
dell, deep-hollowed in forest secresy; it lies in dimness and mist: its
turf is dank, its herbage pale and humid. A storm or an axe makes a
wide gap amongst the oak-trees; the breeze sweeps in; the sun looks
down; the sad, cold dell becomes a deep cup of lustre; high summer
pours her blue glory and her golden light out of that beauteous sky,
which till now the starved hollow never saw.
A new creed became mine—a belief in happiness.
It was three weeks since the adventure of the garret, and I possessed
in that case, box, drawer up-stairs, casketed with that first letter,
four companions like to it, traced by the same firm pen, sealed with
the same clear seal, full of the same vital comfort. Vital comfort it
seemed to me then: I read them in after years; they were kind letters
enough—pleasing letters, because composed by one well pleased; in the
two last there were three or four closing lines half-gay, half-tender,
“by _feeling_ touched, but not subdued.” Time, dear reader, mellowed
them to a beverage of this mild quality; but when I first tasted their
elixir, fresh from the fount so honoured, it seemed juice of a divine
vintage: a draught which Hebe might fill, and the very gods approve.
Does the reader, remembering what was said some pages back, care to ask
how I answered these letters: whether under the dry, stinting check of
Reason, or according to the full, liberal impulse of Feeling?
To speak truth, I compromised matters; I served two masters: I bowed
down in the houses of Rimmon, and lifted the heart at another shrine. I
wrote to these letters two answers—one for my own relief, the other for
Graham’s perusal.
To begin with: Feeling and I turned Reason out of doors, drew against
her bar and bolt, then we sat down, spread our paper, dipped in the ink
an eager pen, and, with deep enjoyment, poured out our sincere heart.
When we had done—when two sheets were covered with the language of a
strongly-adherent affection, a rooted and active gratitude—(once, for
all, in this parenthesis, I disclaim, with the utmost scorn, every
sneaking suspicion of what are called “warmer feelings:” women do not
entertain these “warmer feelings” where, from the commencement, through
the whole progress of an acquaintance, they have never once been
cheated of the conviction that, to do so would be to commit a mortal
absurdity: nobody ever launches into Love unless he has seen or dreamed
the rising of Hope’s star over Love’s troubled waters)—when, then, I
had given expression to a closely-clinging and deeply-honouring
attachment—an attachment that wanted to attract to itself and take to
its own lot all that was painful in the destiny of its object; that
would, if it could, have absorbed and conducted away all storms and
lightnings from an existence viewed with a passion of solicitude—then,
just at that moment, the doors of my heart would shake, bolt and bar
would yield, Reason would leap in vigorous and revengeful, snatch the
full sheets, read, sneer, erase, tear up, re-write, fold, seal, direct,
and send a terse, curt missive of a page. She did right.
I did not live on letters only: I was visited, I was looked after; once
a week I was taken out to La Terrasse; always I was made much of. Dr.
Bretton failed not to tell me _why_ he was so kind: “To keep away the
nun,” he said; “he was determined to dispute with her her prey. He had
taken,” he declared, “a thorough dislike to her, chiefly on account of
that white face-cloth, and those cold grey eyes: the moment he heard of
those odious particulars,” he affirmed, “consummate disgust had incited
him to oppose her; he was determined to try whether he or she was the
cleverest, and he only wished she would once more look in upon me when
he was present:” but _that_ she never did. In short, he regarded me
scientifically in the light of a patient, and at once exercised his
professional skill, and gratified his natural benevolence, by a course
of cordial and attentive treatment.
One evening, the first in December, I was walking by myself in the
carré; it was six o’clock; the classe-doors were closed; but within,
the pupils, rampant in the licence of evening recreation, were
counterfeiting a miniature chaos. The carré was quite dark, except a
red light shining under and about the stove; the wide glass-doors and
the long windows were frosted over; a crystal sparkle of starlight,
here and there spangling this blanched winter veil, and breaking with
scattered brilliance the paleness of its embroidery, proved it a clear
night, though moonless. That I should dare to remain thus alone in
darkness, showed that my nerves were regaining a healthy tone: I
thought of the nun, but hardly feared her; though the staircase was
behind me, leading up, through blind, black night, from landing to
landing, to the haunted grenier. Yet I own my heart quaked, my pulse
leaped, when I suddenly heard breathing and rustling, and turning, saw
in the deep shadow of the steps a deeper shadow still—a shape that
moved and descended. It paused a while at the classe-door, and then it
glided before me. Simultaneously came a clangor of the distant
door-bell. Life-like sounds bring life-like feelings: this shape was
too round and low for my gaunt nun: it was only Madame Beck on duty.
“Mademoiselle Lucy!” cried Rosine, bursting in, lamp in hand, from the
corridor, “on est là pour vous au salon.”
Madame saw me, I saw Madame, Rosine saw us both: there was no mutual
recognition. I made straight for the salon. There I found what I own I
anticipated I should find—Dr. Bretton; but he was in evening-dress.
“The carriage is at the door,” said he; “my mother has sent it to take
you to the theatre; she was going herself, but an arrival has prevented
her: she immediately said, ‘Take Lucy in my place.’ Will you go?”
“Just now? I am not dressed,” cried I, glancing despairingly at my dark
merino.
“You have half an hour to dress. I should have given you notice, but I
only determined on going since five o’clock, when I heard there was to
be a genuine regale in the presence of a great actress.”
And he mentioned a name that thrilled me—a name that, in those days,
could thrill Europe. It is hushed now: its once restless echoes are all
still; she who bore it went years ago to her rest: night and oblivion
long since closed above her; but _then_ her day—a day of Sirius—stood
at its full height, light and fervour.
“I’ll go; I will be ready in ten minutes,” I vowed. And away I flew,
never once checked, reader, by the thought which perhaps at this moment
checks you: namely, that to go anywhere with Graham and without Mrs.
Bretton could be objectionable. I could not have conceived, much less
have expressed to Graham, such thought—such scruple—without risk of
exciting a tyrannous self-contempt: of kindling an inward fire of shame
so quenchless, and so devouring, that I think it would soon have licked
up the very life in my veins. Besides, my godmother, knowing her son,
and knowing me, would as soon have thought of chaperoning a sister with
a brother, as of keeping anxious guard over our incomings and
outgoings.
The present was no occasion for showy array; my dun mist crape would
suffice, and I sought the same in the great oak-wardrobe in the
dormitory, where hung no less than forty dresses. But there had been
changes and reforms, and some innovating hand had pruned this same
crowded wardrobe, and carried divers garments to the grenier—my crape
amongst the rest. I must fetch it. I got the key, and went aloft
fearless, almost thoughtless. I unlocked the door, I plunged in. The
reader may believe it or not, but when I thus suddenly entered, that
garret was not wholly dark as it should have been: from one point there
shone a solemn light, like a star, but broader. So plainly it shone,
that it revealed the deep alcove with a portion of the tarnished
scarlet curtain drawn over it. Instantly, silently, before my eyes, it
vanished; so did the curtain and alcove: all that end of the garret
became black as night. I ventured no research; I had not time nor will;
snatching my dress, which hung on the wall, happily near the door, I
rushed out, relocked the door with convulsed haste, and darted
downwards to the dormitory.
But I trembled too much to dress myself: impossible to arrange hair or
fasten hooks-and-eyes with such fingers, so I called Rosine and bribed