Villette
“This splendid Graham is a young scamp, Polly—that is my present notion
of him: it will surprise you to hear that, for my part, I do not love
him one whit. Ah! years ago I saw something in that lad’s eye I never
quite fathomed—something his mother has not—a depth which warned a man
not to wade into that stream too far; now, suddenly, I find myself
taken over the crown of the head.”
“Papa, you don’t—you have not fallen in; you are safe on the bank; you
can do as you please; your power is despotic; you can shut me up in a
convent, and break Graham’s heart to-morrow, if you choose to be so
cruel. Now, autocrat, now czar, will you do this?”
“Off with him to Siberia, red whiskers and all; I say, I don’t like
him, Polly, and I wonder that you should.”
“Papa,” said she, “do you know you are very naughty? I never saw you
look so disagreeable, so unjust, so almost vindictive before. There is
an expression in your face which does not belong to you.”
“Off with him!” pursued Mr. Home, who certainly did look sorely crossed
and annoyed—even a little bitter; “but, I suppose, if he went, Polly
would pack a bundle and run after him; her heart is fairly won—won, and
weaned from her old father.”
“Papa, I say it is naughty, it is decidedly wrong, to talk in that way.
I am _not_ weaned from you, and no human being and no mortal influence
_can_ wean me.”
“Be married, Polly! Espouse the red whiskers. Cease to be a daughter;
go and be a wife!”
“Red whiskers! I wonder what you mean, papa. You should take care of
prejudice. You sometimes say to me that all the Scotch, your
countrymen, are the victims of prejudice. It is proved now, I think,
when no distinction is to be made between red and deep nut-brown.”
“Leave the prejudiced old Scotchman; go away.”
She stood looking at him a minute. She wanted to show firmness,
superiority to taunts; knowing her father’s character, guessing his few
foibles, she had expected the sort of scene which was now transpiring;
it did not take her by surprise, and she desired to let it pass with
dignity, reliant upon reaction. Her dignity stood her in no stead.
Suddenly her soul melted in her eyes; she fell on his neck:—“I won’t
leave you, papa; I’ll never leave you. I won’t pain you! I’ll never
pain you!” was her cry.
“My lamb! my treasure!” murmured the loving though rugged sire. He said
no more for the moment; indeed, those two words were hoarse.
The room was now darkening. I heard a movement, a step without.
Thinking it might be a servant coming with candles, I gently opened, to
prevent intrusion. In the ante-room stood no servant: a tall gentleman
was placing his hat on the table, drawing off his gloves
slowly—lingering, waiting, it seemed to me. He called me neither by
sign nor word; yet his eye said:—“Lucy, come here.” And I went.
Over his face a smile flowed, while he looked down on me: no temper,
save his own, would have expressed by a smile the sort of agitation
which now fevered him.
“M. de Bassompierre is there—is he not?” he inquired, pointing to the
library.
“Yes.”
“He noticed me at dinner? He understood me?”
“Yes, Graham.”
“I am brought up for judgment, then, and so is _she_?”
“Mr. Home” (we now and always continued to term him Mr. Home at times)
“is talking to his daughter.”
“Ha! These are sharp moments, Lucy!”
He was quite stirred up; his young hand trembled; a vital (I was going
to write _mortal_, but such words ill apply to one all living like
him)—a vital suspense now held, now hurried, his breath: in all this
trouble his smile never faded.
“Is he _very_ angry, Lucy?”
“_She_ is very faithful, Graham.”
“What will be done unto me?”
“Graham, your star must be fortunate.”
“Must it? Kind prophet! So cheered, I should be a faint heart indeed to
quail. I think I find all women faithful, Lucy. I ought to love them,
and I do. My mother is good; _she_ is divine; and _you_ are true as
steel. Are you not?”
“Yes, Graham.”
“Then give me thy hand, my little god-sister: it is a friendly little
hand to me, and always has been. And now for the great venture. God be
with the right. Lucy, say Amen!”
He turned, and waited till I said “Amen!”—which I did to please him:
the old charm, in doing as he bid me, came back. I wished him success;
and successful I knew he would be. He was born victor, as some are born
vanquished.
“Follow me!” he said; and I followed him into Mr. Home’s presence.
“Sir,” he asked, “what is my sentence?”
The father looked at him: the daughter kept her face hid.
“Well, Bretton,” said Mr. Home, “you have given me the usual reward of
hospitality. I entertained you; you have taken my best. I was always
glad to see you; you were glad to see the one precious thing I had. You
spoke me fair; and, meantime, I will not say you _robbed_ me, but I am
bereaved, and what I have lost, _you_, it seems, have won.”
“Sir, I cannot repent.”
“Repent! Not you! You triumph, no doubt: John Graham, you descended
partly from a Highlander and a chief, and there is a trace of the Celt
in all you look, speak, and think. You have his cunning and his charm.
The red—(Well then, Polly, the _fair_) hair, the tongue of guile, and
brain of wile, are all come down by inheritance.”
“Sir, I _feel_ honest enough,” said Graham; and a genuine English blush
covered his face with its warm witness of sincerity. “And yet,” he
added, “I won’t deny that in some respects you accuse me justly. In
your presence I have always had a thought which I dared not show you. I
did truly regard you as the possessor of the most valuable thing the
world owns for me. I wished for it: I tried for it. Sir, I ask for it
now.”
“John, you ask much.”
“Very much, sir. It must come from your generosity, as a gift; from
your justice, as a reward. I can never earn it.”
“Ay! Listen to the Highland tongue!” said Mr. Home. “Look up, Polly!
Answer this ‘braw wooer;’ send him away!”
She looked up. She shyly glanced at her eager, handsome suitor. She
gazed tenderly on her furrowed sire.
“Papa, I love you both,” said she; “I can take care of you both. I need
not send Graham away—he can live here; he will be no inconvenience,”
she alleged with that simplicity of phraseology which at times was wont
to make both her father and Graham smile. They smiled now.
“He will be a prodigious inconvenience to me,” still persisted Mr.
Home. “I don’t want him, Polly, he is too tall; he is in my way. Tell
him to march.”
“You will get used to him, papa. He seemed exceedingly tall to me at
first—like a tower when I looked up at him; but, on the whole, I would
rather not have him otherwise.”
“I object to him altogether, Polly; I can do without a son-in-law. I
should never have requested the best man in the land to stand to me in
that relation. Dismiss this gentleman.”
“But he has known you so long, papa, and suits you so well.”
“Suits _me_, forsooth! Yes; he has pretended to make my opinions and
tastes his own. He has humoured me for good reasons. I think, Polly,
you and I will bid him good-by.”
“Till to-morrow only. Shake hands with Graham, papa.”
“No: I think not: I am not friends with him. Don’t think to coax me
between you.”
“Indeed, indeed, you _are_ friends. Graham, stretch out your right
hand. Papa, put out yours. Now, let them touch. Papa, don’t be stiff;
close your fingers; be pliant—there! But that is not a clasp—it is a
grasp? Papa, you grasp like a vice. You crush Graham’s hand to the
bone; you hurt him!”
He must have hurt him; for he wore a massive ring, set round with
brilliants, of which the sharp facets cut into Graham’s flesh and drew
blood: but pain only made Dr. John laugh, as anxiety had made him
smile.
“Come with me into my study,” at last said Mr. Home to the doctor. They
went. Their intercourse was not long, but I suppose it was conclusive.
The suitor had to undergo an interrogatory and a scrutiny on many
things. Whether Dr. Bretton was at times guileful in look and language
or not, there was a sound foundation below. His answers, I understood
afterwards, evinced both wisdom and integrity. He had managed his
affairs well. He had struggled through entanglements; his fortunes were
in the way of retrieval; he proved himself in a position to marry.
Once more the father and lover appeared in the library. M. de
Bassompierre shut the door; he pointed to his daughter.
“Take her,” he said. “Take her, John Bretton: and may God deal with you
as you deal with her!”
Not long after, perhaps a fortnight, I saw three persons, Count de
Bassompierre, his daughter, and Dr. Graham Bretton, sitting on one
seat, under a low-spreading and umbrageous tree, in the grounds of the
palace at Bois l’Etang. They had come thither to enjoy a summer
evening: outside the magnificent gates their carriage waited to take
them home; the green sweeps of turf spread round them quiet and dim;
the palace rose at a distance, white as a crag on Pentelicus; the
evening star shone above it; a forest of flowering shrubs embalmed the
climate of this spot; the hour was still and sweet; the scene, but for
this group, was solitary.
Paulina sat between the two gentlemen: while they conversed, her little
hands were busy at some work; I thought at first she was binding a
nosegay. No; with the tiny pair of scissors, glittering in her lap, she
had severed spoils from each manly head beside her, and was now
occupied in plaiting together the grey lock and the golden wave. The
plait woven—no silk-thread being at hand to bind it—a tress of her own
hair was made to serve that purpose; she tied it like a knot, prisoned
it in a locket, and laid it on her heart.
“Now,” said she, “there is an amulet made, which has virtue to keep you
two always friends. You can never quarrel so long as I wear this.”
An amulet was indeed made, a spell framed which rendered enmity
impossible. She was become a bond to both, an influence over each, a
mutual concord. From them she drew her happiness, and what she
borrowed, she, with interest, gave back.
“Is there, indeed, such happiness on earth?” I asked, as I watched the
father, the daughter, the future husband, now united—all blessed and
blessing.
Yes; it is so. Without any colouring of romance, or any exaggeration of
fancy, it is so. Some real lives do—for some certain days or
years—actually anticipate the happiness of Heaven; and, I believe, if
such perfect happiness is once felt by good people (to the wicked it
never comes), its sweet effect is never wholly lost. Whatever trials
follow, whatever pains of sickness or shades of death, the glory
precedent still shines through, cheering the keen anguish, and tinging
the deep cloud.
I will go farther. I _do_ believe there are some human beings so born,
so reared, so guided from a soft cradle to a calm and late grave, that
no excessive suffering penetrates their lot, and no tempestuous
blackness overcasts their journey. And often, these are not pampered,
selfish beings, but Nature’s elect, harmonious and benign; men and
women mild with charity, kind agents of God’s kind attributes.
Let me not delay the happy truth. Graham Bretton and Paulina de
Bassompierre were married, and such an agent did Dr. Bretton prove. He
did not with time degenerate; his faults decayed, his virtues ripened;
he rose in intellectual refinement, he won in moral profit: all dregs
filtered away, the clear wine settled bright and tranquil. Bright, too,
was the destiny of his sweet wife. She kept her husband’s love, she
aided in his progress—of his happiness she was the corner stone.
This pair was blessed indeed, for years brought them, with great
prosperity, great goodness: they imparted with open hand, yet wisely.
Doubtless they knew crosses, disappointments, difficulties; but these