Villette
my desk, in the midst of my now well-accustomed pupils in Madame Beck’s
first classe; or alone, at my own bedside, in her dormitory, or in the
alley and seat which were called mine, in her garden: my qualifications
were not convertible, nor adaptable; they could not be made the foil of
any gem, the adjunct of any beauty, the appendage of any greatness in
Christendom. Madame Beck and I, without assimilating, understood each
other well. I was not _her_ companion, nor her children’s governess;
she left me free: she tied me to nothing—not to herself—not even to her
interests: once, when she had for a fortnight been called from home by
a near relation’s illness, and on her return, all anxious and full of
care about her establishment, lest something in her absence should have
gone wrong finding that matters had proceeded much as usual, and that
there was no evidence of glaring neglect—she made each of the teachers
a present, in acknowledgment of steadiness. To my bedside she came at
twelve o’clock at night, and told me she had no present for me: “I must
make fidelity advantageous to the St. Pierre,” said she; “if I attempt
to make it advantageous to you, there will arise misunderstanding
between us—perhaps separation. One thing, however, I _can_ do to please
you—leave you alone with your liberty: c’est-ce que je ferai.” She kept
her word. Every slight shackle she had ever laid on me, she, from that
time, with quiet hand removed. Thus I had pleasure in voluntarily
respecting her rules: gratification in devoting double time, in taking
double pains with the pupils she committed to my charge.
As to Mary de Bassompierre, I visited her with pleasure, though I would
not live with her. My visits soon taught me that it was unlikely even
my occasional and voluntary society would long be indispensable to her.
M. de Bassompierre, for his part, seemed impervious to this conjecture,
blind to this possibility; unconscious as any child to the signs, the
likelihoods, the fitful beginnings of what, when it drew to an end, he
might not approve.
Whether or not he would cordially approve, I used to speculate.
Difficult to say. He was much taken up with scientific interests; keen,
intent, and somewhat oppugnant in what concerned his favourite
pursuits, but unsuspicious and trustful in the ordinary affairs of
life. From all I could gather, he seemed to regard his “daughterling”
as still but a child, and probably had not yet admitted the notion that
others might look on her in a different light: he would speak of what
should be done when “Polly” was a woman, when she should be grown up;
and “Polly,” standing beside his chair, would sometimes smile and take
his honoured head between her little hands, and kiss his iron-grey
locks; and, at other times, she would pout and toss her curls: but she
never said, “Papa, I _am_ grown up.”
She had different moods for different people. With her father she
really was still a child, or child-like, affectionate, merry, and
playful. With me she was serious, and as womanly as thought and feeling
could make her. With Mrs. Bretton she was docile and reliant, but not
expansive. With Graham she was shy, at present very shy; at moments she
tried to be cold; on occasion she endeavoured to shun him. His step
made her start; his entrance hushed her; when he spoke, her answers
failed of fluency; when he took leave, she remained self-vexed and
disconcerted. Even her father noticed this demeanour in her.
“My little Polly,” he said once, “you live too retired a life; if you
grow to be a woman with these shy manners, you will hardly be fitted
for society. You really make quite a stranger of Dr. Bretton: how is
this? Don’t you remember that, as a little girl, you used to be rather
partial to him?”
“_Rather_, papa,” echoed she, with her slightly dry, yet gentle and
simple tone.
“And you don’t like him now? What has he done?”
“Nothing. Y—e—s, I like him a little; but we are grown strange to each
other.”
“Then rub it off, Polly; rub the rust and the strangeness off. Talk
away when he is here, and have no fear of him?”
“_He_ does not talk much. Is he afraid of me, do you think, papa?”
“Oh, to be sure, what man would not be afraid of such a little silent
lady?”
“Then tell him some day not to mind my being silent. Say that it is my
way, and that I have no unfriendly intention.”
“Your way, you little chatter-box? So far from being your way, it is
only your whim!”
“Well, I’ll improve, papa.”
And very pretty was the grace with which, the next day, she tried to
keep her word. I saw her make the effort to converse affably with Dr.
John on general topics. The attention called into her guest’s face a
pleasurable glow; he met her with caution, and replied to her in his
softest tones, as if there was a kind of gossamer happiness hanging in
the air which he feared to disturb by drawing too deep a breath.
Certainly, in her timid yet earnest advance to friendship, it could not
be denied that there was a most exquisite and fairy charm.
When the Doctor was gone, she approached her father’s chair.
“Did I keep my word, papa? Did I behave better?”
“My Polly behaved like a queen. I shall become quite proud of her if
this improvement continues. By-and-by we shall see her receiving my
guests with quite a calm, grand manner. Miss Lucy and I will have to
look about us, and polish up all our best airs and graces lest we
should be thrown into the shade. Still, Polly, there is a little
flutter, a little tendency to stammer now and then, and even, to lisp
as you lisped when you were six years old.”
“No, papa,” interrupted she indignantly, “that can’t be true.”
“I appeal to Miss Lucy. Did she not, in answering Dr. Bretton’s
question as to whether she had ever seen the palace of the Prince of
Bois l’Etang, say, ‘yeth,’ she had been there ‘theveral’ times?”
“Papa, you are satirical, you are méchant! I can pronounce all the
letters of the alphabet as clearly as you can. But tell me this you are
very particular in making me be civil to Dr. Bretton, do you like him
yourself?”
“To be sure: for old acquaintance sake I like him: then he is a very
good son to his mother; besides being a kind-hearted fellow and clever
in his profession: yes, the callant is well enough.”
“_Callant_! Ah, Scotchman! Papa, is it the Edinburgh or the Aberdeen
accent you have?”
“Both, my pet, both: and doubtless the Glaswegian into the bargain. It
is that which enables me to speak French so well: a gude Scots tongue
always succeeds well at the French.”
“_The_ French! Scotch again: incorrigible papa. You, too, need
schooling.”
“Well, Polly, you must persuade Miss Snowe to undertake both you and
me; to make you steady and womanly, and me refined and classical.”
The light in which M. de Bassompierre evidently regarded “Miss Snowe,”
used to occasion me much inward edification. What contradictory
attributes of character we sometimes find ascribed to us, according to
the eye with which we are viewed! Madame Beck esteemed me learned and
blue; Miss Fanshawe, caustic, ironic, and cynical; Mr. Home, a model
teacher, the essence of the sedate and discreet: somewhat conventional,
perhaps, too strict, limited, and scrupulous, but still the pink and
pattern of governess-correctness; whilst another person, Professor Paul
Emanuel, to wit, never lost an opportunity of intimating his opinion
that mine was rather a fiery and rash nature—adventurous, indocile, and
audacious. I smiled at them all. If any one knew me it was little
Paulina Mary.
As I would not be Paulina’s nominal and paid companion, genial and
harmonious as I began to find her intercourse, she persuaded me to join
her in some study, as a regular and settled means of sustaining
communication: she proposed the German language, which, like myself,
she found difficult of mastery. We agreed to take our lessons in the
Rue Crécy of the same mistress; this arrangement threw us together for
some hours of every week. M. de Bassompierre seemed quite pleased: it
perfectly met his approbation, that Madame Minerva Gravity should
associate a portion of her leisure with that of his fair and dear
child.
That other self-elected judge of mine, the professor in the Rue
Fossette, discovering by some surreptitious spying means, that I was no
longer so stationary as hitherto, but went out regularly at certain
hours of certain days, took it upon himself to place me under
surveillance. People said M. Emanuel had been brought up amongst
Jesuits. I should more readily have accredited this report had his
manœuvres been better masked. As it was, I doubted it. Never was a
more undisguised schemer, a franker, looser intriguer. He would analyze
his own machinations: elaborately contrive plots, and forthwith indulge
in explanatory boasts of their skill. I know not whether I was more
amused or provoked, by his stepping up to me one morning and whispering
solemnly that he “had his eye on me: _he_ at least would discharge the
duty of a friend, and not leave me entirely to my own devices. My
proceedings seemed at present very unsettled: he did not know what to
make of them: he thought his cousin Beck very much to blame in
suffering this sort of fluttering inconsistency in a teacher attached
to her house. What had a person devoted to a serious calling, that of
education, to do with Counts and Countesses, hotels and châteaux? To
him, I seemed altogether ‘en l’air.’ On his faith, he believed I went
out six days in the seven.”
I said, “Monsieur exaggerated. I certainly had enjoyed the advantage of
a little change lately, but not before it had become necessary; and the
privilege was by no means exercised in excess.”
“Necessary! How was it necessary? I was well enough, he supposed?
Change necessary! He would recommend me to look at the Catholic
‘religieuses,’ and study _their_ lives. _They_ asked no change.”
I am no judge of what expression crossed my face when he thus spoke,
but it was one which provoked him: he accused me of being reckless,
worldly, and epicurean; ambitious of greatness, and feverishly athirst
for the pomps and vanities of life. It seems I had no “dévouement,” no
“récueillement” in my character; no spirit of grace, faith, sacrifice,
or self-abasement. Feeling the inutility of answering these charges, I
mutely continued the correction of a pile of English exercises.
“He could see in me nothing Christian: like many other Protestants, I
revelled in the pride and self-will of paganism.”
I slightly turned from him, nestling still closer under the wing of
silence.
A vague sound grumbled between his teeth; it could not surely be a
“juron:” he was too religious for that; but I am certain I heard the
word _sacré_. Grievous to relate, the same word was repeated, with the
unequivocal addition of _mille_ something, when I passed him about two
hours afterwards in the corridor, prepared to go and take my German
lesson in the Rue Crécy. Never was a better little man, in some points,
than M. Paul: never, in others, a more waspish little despot.
Our German mistress, Fräulein Anna Braun, was a worthy, hearty woman,
of about forty-five; she ought, perhaps, to have lived in the days of
Queen Elizabeth, as she habitually consumed, for her first and second
breakfasts, beer and beef: also, her direct and downright Deutsch
nature seemed to suffer a sensation of cruel restraint from what she
called our English reserve; though we thought we were very cordial with
her: but we did not slap her on the shoulder, and if we consented to
kiss her cheek, it was done quietly, and without any explosive smack.
These omissions oppressed and depressed her considerably; still, on the
whole, we got on very well. Accustomed to instruct foreign girls, who