Villette
sunshine. Graham would have started had any suggestive spirit whispered
of the sinew and the stamina sustaining that delicate nature; but I who
had known her as a child, knew or guessed by what a good and strong
root her graces held to the firm soil of reality.
While Dr. Bretton listened, and waited an opening in the magic circle,
his glance restlessly sweeping the room at intervals, lighted by chance
on me, where I sat in a quiet nook not far from my godmother and M. de
Bassompierre, who, as usual, were engaged in what Mr. Home called “a
two-handed crack:” what the Count would have interpreted as a
tête-à-tête. Graham smiled recognition, crossed the room, asked me how
I was, told me I looked pale. I also had my own smile at my own
thought: it was now about three months since Dr. John had spoken to
me—a lapse of which he was not even conscious. He sat down, and became
silent. His wish was rather to look than converse. Ginevra and Paulina
were now opposite to him: he could gaze his fill: he surveyed both
forms—studied both faces.
Several new guests, ladies as well as gentlemen, had entered the room
since dinner, dropping in for the evening conversation; and amongst the
gentlemen, I may incidentally observe, I had already noticed by
glimpses, a severe, dark, professorial outline, hovering aloof in an
inner saloon, seen only in vista. M. Emanuel knew many of the gentlemen
present, but I think was a stranger to most of the ladies, excepting
myself; in looking towards the hearth, he could not but see me, and
naturally made a movement to approach; seeing, however, Dr. Bretton
also, he changed his mind and held back. If that had been all, there
would have been no cause for quarrel; but not satisfied with holding
back, he puckered up his eyebrows, protruded his lip, and looked so
ugly that I averted my eyes from the displeasing spectacle. M. Joseph
Emanuel had arrived, as well as his austere brother, and at this very
moment was relieving Ginevra at the piano. What a master-touch
succeeded her school-girl jingle! In what grand, grateful tones the
instrument acknowledged the hand of the true artist!
“Lucy,” began Dr. Bretton, breaking silence and smiling, as Ginevra
glided before him, casting a glance as she passed by, “Miss Fanshawe is
certainly a fine girl.”
Of course I assented.
“Is there,” he pursued, “another in the room as lovely?”
“I think there is not another as handsome.”
“I agree with you, Lucy: you and I do often agree in opinion, in taste,
I think; or at least in judgment.”
“Do we?” I said, somewhat doubtfully.
“I believe if you had been a boy, Lucy, instead of a girl—my mother’s
god-son instead of her god-daughter, we should have been good friends:
our opinions would have melted into each other.”
He had assumed a bantering air: a light, half-caressing, half-ironic,
shone aslant in his eye. Ah, Graham! I have given more than one
solitary moment to thoughts and calculations of your estimate of Lucy
Snowe: was it always kind or just? Had Lucy been intrinsically the same
but possessing the additional advantages of wealth and station, would
your manner to her, your value for her, have been quite what they
actually were? And yet by these questions I would not seriously infer
blame. No; you might sadden and trouble me sometimes; but then mine was
a soon-depressed, an easily-deranged temperament—it fell if a cloud
crossed the sun. Perhaps before the eye of severe equity I should stand
more at fault than you.
Trying, then, to keep down the unreasonable pain which thrilled my
heart, on thus being made to feel that while Graham could devote to
others the most grave and earnest, the manliest interest, he had no
more than light raillery for Lucy, the friend of lang syne, I inquired
calmly,—“On what points are we so closely in accordance?”
“We each have an observant faculty. You, perhaps, don’t give me credit
for the possession; yet I have it.”
“But you were speaking of tastes: we may see the same objects, yet
estimate them differently?”
“Let us bring it to the test. Of course, you cannot but render homage
to the merits of Miss Fanshawe: now, what do you think of others in the
room?—my mother, for instance; or the lions yonder, Messieurs A—— and
Z——; or, let us say, that pale little lady, Miss de Bassompierre?”
“You know what I think of your mother. I have not thought of Messieurs
A—— and Z——.”
“And the other?”
“I think she is, as you say, a pale little lady—pale, certainly, just
now, when she is fatigued with over-excitement.”
“You don’t remember her as a child?”
“I wonder, sometimes, whether you do.”
“I had forgotten her; but it is noticeable, that circumstances,
persons, even words and looks, that had slipped your memory, may, under
certain conditions, certain aspects of your own or another’s mind,
revive.”
“That is possible enough.”
“Yet,” he continued, “the revival is imperfect—needs confirmation,
partakes so much of the dim character of a dream, or of the airy one of
a fancy, that the testimony of a witness becomes necessary for
corroboration. Were you not a guest at Bretton ten years ago, when Mr.
Home brought his little girl, whom we then called ‘little Polly,’ to
stay with mamma?”
“I was there the night she came, and also the morning she went away.”
“Rather a peculiar child, was she not? I wonder how I treated her. Was
I fond of children in those days? Was there anything gracious or kindly
about me—great, reckless, schoolboy as I was? But you don’t recollect
me, of course?”
“You have seen your own picture at La Terrasse. It is like you
personally. In manner, you were almost the same yesterday as to-day.”
“But, Lucy, how is that? Such an oracle really whets my curiosity. What
am I to-day? What was I the yesterday of ten years back?”
“Gracious to whatever pleased you—unkindly or cruel to nothing.”
“There you are wrong; I think I was almost a brute to _you_, for
instance.”
“A brute! No, Graham: I should never have patiently endured brutality.”
“_This_, however, I _do_ remember: quiet Lucy Snowe tasted nothing of
my grace.”
“As little of your cruelty.”
“Why, had I been Nero himself, I could not have tormented a being
inoffensive as a shadow.”
I smiled; but I also hushed a groan. Oh!—I just wished he would let me
alone—cease allusion to me. These epithets—these attributes I put from
me. His “quiet Lucy Snowe,” his “inoffensive shadow,” I gave him back;
not with scorn, but with extreme weariness: theirs was the coldness and
the pressure of lead; let him whelm me with no such weight. Happily, he
was soon on another theme.
“On what terms were ‘little Polly’ and I? Unless my recollections
deceive me, we were not foes—”
“You speak very vaguely. Do you think little Polly’s memory, not more
definite?”
“Oh! we don’t talk of ‘little Polly’ _now_. Pray say, Miss de
Bassompierre; and, of course, such a stately personage remembers
nothing of Bretton. Look at her large eyes, Lucy; can they read a word
in the page of memory? Are they the same which I used to direct to a
horn-book? She does not know that I partly taught her to read.”
“In the Bible on Sunday nights?”
“She has a calm, delicate, rather fine profile now: once what a little
restless, anxious countenance was hers! What a thing is a child’s
preference—what a bubble! Would you believe it? that lady was fond of
me!”
“I think she was in some measure fond of you,” said I, moderately.
“You don’t remember then? _I_ had forgotten; but I remember _now_. She
liked me the best of whatever there was at Bretton.”
“You thought so.”
“I quite well recall it. I wish I could tell her all I recall; or
rather, I wish some one, you for instance, would go behind and whisper
it all in her ear, and I could have the delight—here, as I sit—of
watching her look under the intelligence. Could you manage that, think
you, Lucy, and make me ever grateful?”
“Could I manage to make you ever grateful?” said I. “No, _I could
not_.” And I felt my fingers work and my hands interlock: I felt, too,
an inward courage, warm and resistant. In this matter I was not
disposed to gratify Dr. John: not at all. With now welcome force, I
realized his entire misapprehension of my character and nature. He
wanted always to give me a role not mine. Nature and I opposed him. He
did not at all guess what I felt: he did not read my eyes, or face, or
gestures; though, I doubt not, all spoke. Leaning towards me coaxingly,
he said, softly, “_Do_ content me, Lucy.”
And I would have contented, or, at least, I would clearly have
enlightened him, and taught him well never again to expect of me the
part of officious soubrette in a love drama; when, following his, soft,
eager, murmur, meeting almost his pleading, mellow—“_Do_ content me,
Lucy!” a sharp hiss pierced my ear on the other side.
“Petite chatte, doucerette, coquette!” sibillated the sudden
boa-constrictor; “vous avez l’air bien triste, soumis, rêveur, mais
vous ne l’êtes pas; c’est moi qui vous le dis: Sauvage! la flamme à
l’âme, l’éclair aux yeux!”
“Oui; j’ai la flamme à l’âme, et je dois l’avoir!” retorted I, turning
in just wrath: but Professor Emanuel had hissed his insult and was
gone.
The worst of the matter was, that Dr. Bretton, whose ears, as I have
said, were quick and fine, caught every word of this apostrophe; he put
his handkerchief to his face, and laughed till he shook.
“Well done, Lucy,” cried he; “capital! petite chatte, petite coquette!
Oh, I must tell my mother! Is it true, Lucy, or half-true? I believe it
is: you redden to the colour of Miss Fanshawe’s gown. And really, by my
word, now I examine him, that is the same little man who was so savage
with you at the concert: the very same, and in his soul he is frantic
at this moment because he sees me laughing. Oh! I must tease him.”
And Graham, yielding to his bent for mischief, laughed, jested, and
whispered on till I could bear no more, and my eyes filled.
Suddenly he was sobered: a vacant space appeared near Miss de
Bassompierre; the circle surrounding her seemed about to dissolve. This
movement was instantly caught by Graham’s eye—ever-vigilant, even while
laughing; he rose, took his courage in both hands, crossed the room,
and made the advantage his own. Dr. John, throughout his whole life,
was a man of luck—a man of success. And why? Because he had the eye to
see his opportunity, the heart to prompt to well-timed action, the
nerve to consummate a perfect work. And no tyrant-passion dragged him
back; no enthusiasms, no foibles encumbered his way. How well he looked
at this very moment! When Paulina looked up as he reached her side, her
glance mingled at once with an encountering glance, animated, yet
modest; his colour, as he spoke to her, became half a blush, half a
glow. He stood in her presence brave and bashful: subdued and
unobtrusive, yet decided in his purpose and devoted in his ardour. I
gathered all this by one view. I did not prolong my observation—time
failed me, had inclination served: the night wore late; Ginevra and I
ought already to have been in the Rue Fossette. I rose, and bade
good-night to my godmother and M. de Bassompierre.
I know not whether Professor Emanuel had noticed my reluctant
acceptance of Dr. Bretton’s badinage, or whether he perceived that I
was pained, and that, on the whole, the evening had not been one flow
of exultant enjoyment for the volatile, pleasure-loving Mademoiselle
Lucie; but, as I was leaving the room, he stepped up and inquired
whether I had any one to attend me to the Rue Fossette. The professor
_now_ spoke politely, and even deferentially, and he looked apologetic
and repentant; but I could not recognise his civility at a word, nor
meet his contrition with crude, premature oblivion. Never hitherto had