The Professor (30 page)

"Were you not happy in my care?
Did I not faithful prove?
Will others to my darling bear
As true, as deep a love?

"O God, watch o'er my foster child!
O guard her gentle head!
When minds are high and tempests wild
Protection round her spread!

"They call again; leave then my breast;
Quit thy true shelter, Jane;
But when deceived, repulsed, opprest,
Come home to me again! "

I read—then dreamily made marks on the margin with my pencil;
thinking all the while of other things; thinking that "Jane" was
now at my side; no child, but a girl of nineteen; and she might
be mine, so my heart affirmed; Poverty's curse was taken off me;
Envy and Jealousy were far away, and unapprized of this our quiet
meeting; the frost of the Master's manner might melt; I felt the
thaw coming fast, whether I would or not; no further need for the
eye to practise a hard look, for the brow to compress its expense
into a stern fold: it was now permitted to suffer the outward
revelation of the inward glow—to seek, demand, elicit an
answering ardour. While musing thus, I thought that the grass on
Hermon never drank the fresh dews of sunset more gratefully than
my feelings drank the bliss of this hour.

Frances rose, as if restless; she passed before me to stir the
fire, which did not want stirring; she lifted and put down the
little ornaments on the mantelpiece; her dress waved within a
yard of me; slight, straight, and elegant;, she stood erect on
the hearth.

There are impulses we can control; but there are others which
control us, because they attain us with a tiger-leap, and are our
masters ere we have seen them. Perhaps, though, such impulses
are seldom altogether bad; perhaps Reason, by a process as brief
as quiet, a process that is finished ere felt, has ascertained
the sanity of the deed Instinct meditates, and feels justified in
remaining passive while it is performed. I know I did not
reason, I did not plan or intend, yet, whereas one moment I was
sitting solus on the chair near the table, the next, I held
Frances on my knee, placed there with sharpness and decision, and
retained with exceeding tenacity.

"Monsieur!" cried Frances, and was still: not another word
escaped her lips; sorely confounded she seemed during the lapse
of the first few moments; but the amazement soon subsided; terror
did not succeed, nor fury: after all, she was only a little
nearer than she had ever been before, to one she habitually
respected and trusted; embarrassment might have impelled her to
contend, but self-respect checked resistance where resistance was
useless.

"Frances, how much regard have you for me?" was my demand. No
answer; the situation was yet too new and surprising to permit
speech. On this consideration, I compelled myself for some
seconds to tolerate her silence, though impatient of it:
presently, I repeated the same question—probably, not in the
calmest of tones; she looked at me; my face, doubtless, was no
model of composure, my eyes no still wells of tranquillity.

"Do speak," I urged; and a very low, hurried, yet still arch
voice said—

"Monsieur, vous me faites mal; de grace lachez un peu ma main
droite."

In truth I became aware that I was holding the said "main droite"
in a somewhat ruthless grasp: I did as desired; and, for the
third time, asked more gently—

"Frances, how much regard have you for me?"

"Mon maitre, j'en ai beaucoup," was the truthful rejoinder.

"Frances, have you enough to give yourself to me as my wife?—to
accept me as your husband?"

I felt the agitation of the heart, I saw "the purple light of
love" cast its glowing reflection on cheeks, temples, neck; I
desired to consult the eye, but sheltering lash and lid forbade.

"Monsieur," said the soft voice at last,—"Monsieur desire savoir
si je consens—si—enfin, si je veux me marier avec lui?"

"Justement."

"Monsieur sera-t-il aussi bon mari qu'il a ete bon maitre?"

"I will try, Frances."

A pause; then with a new, yet still subdued inflexion of the
voice—an inflexion which provoked while it pleased me
—accompanied, too, by a "sourire a la fois fin et timide" in
perfect harmony with the tone:—

"C'est a dire, monsieur sera toujours un peu entete exigeant,
volontaire—?"

"Have I been so, Frances?"

"Mais oui; vous le savez bien."

"Have I been nothing else?"

"Mais oui; vons avez ete mon meilleur ami."

"And what, Frances, are you to me?"

"Votre devouee eleve, qui vous aime de tout son coeur."

"Will my pupil consent to pass her life with me? Speak English
now, Frances."

Some moments were taken for reflection; the answer, pronounced
slowly, ran thus:—

"You have always made me happy; I like to hear you speak; I like
to see you; I like to be near you; I believe you are very good,
and very superior; I know you are stern to those who are careless
and idle, but you are kind, very kind to the attentive and
industrious, even if they are not clever. Master, I should be
GLAD to live with you always;" and she made a sort of movement,
as if she would have clung to me, but restraining herself she
only added with earnest emphasis—"Master, I consent to pass my
life with you."

"Very well, Frances."

I drew her a little nearer to my heart; I took a first kiss from
her lips, thereby sealing the compact, now framed between us;
afterwards she and I were silent, nor was our silence brief.
Frances' thoughts, during this interval, I know not, nor did I
attempt to guess them; I was not occupied in searching her
countenance, nor in otherwise troubling her composure. The peace
I felt, I wished her to feel; my arm, it is true, still detained
her; but with a restraint that was gentle enough, so long as no
opposition tightened it. My gaze was on the red fire; my heart
was measuring its own content; it sounded and sounded, and found
the depth fathomless.

"Monsieur," at last said my quiet companion, as stirless in her
happiness as a mouse in its terror. Even now in speaking she
scarcely lifted her head.

"Well, Frances?" I like unexaggerated intercourse; it is not my
way to overpower with amorous epithets, any more than to worry
with selfishly importunate caresses.

"Monsieur est raisonnable, n'eut-ce pas?"

"Yes; especially when I am requested to be so in English: but
why do you ask me? You see nothing vehement or obtrusive in my
manner; am I not tranquil enough?"

"Ce n'est pas cela—" began Frances.

"English!" I reminded her.

"Well, monsieur, I wished merely to say, that I should like, of
course, to retain my employment of teaching. You will teach
still, I suppose, monsieur?"

"Oh, yes! It is all I have to depend on."

"Bon!—I mean good. Thus we shall have both the same profession.
I like that; and my efforts to get on will be as unrestrained as
yours—will they not, monsieur?"

"You are laying plans to be independent of me," said I.

"Yes, monsieur; I must be no incumbrance to you—no burden in any
way."

"But, Frances, I have not yet told you what my prospects are. I
have left M. Pelet's; and after nearly a month's seeking, I have
got another place, with a salary of three thousand francs a year,
which I can easily double by a little additional exertion. Thus
you see it would be useless for you to fag yourself by going out
to give lessons; on six thousand francs you and I can live, and
live well."

Frances seemed to consider. There is something flattering to
man's strength, something consonant to his honourable pride, in
the idea of becoming the providence of what he loves—feeding and
clothing it, as God does the lilies of the field. So, to decide
her resolution, I went on:—

"Life has been painful and laborious enough to you so far,
Frances; you require complete rest; your twelve hundred francs
would not form a very important addition to our income, and what
sacrifice of comfort to earn it! Relinquish your labours: you
must be weary, and let me have the happiness of giving you rest."

I am not sure whether Frances had accorded due attention to my
harangue; instead of answering me with her usual respectful
promptitude, she only sighed and said,—

"How rich you are, monsieur!" and then she stirred uneasy in my
arms. "Three thousand francs!" she murmured, "While I get only
twelve hundred!" She went on faster. "However, it must be so for
the present; and, monsieur, were you not saying something about
my giving up my place? Oh no! I shall hold it fast;" and her
little fingers emphatically tightened on mine.

"Think of my marrying you to be kept by you, monsieur! I could
not do it; and how dull my days would be! You would be away
teaching in close, noisy school-rooms, from morning till evening,
and I should be lingering at home, unemployed and solitary; I
should get depressed and sullen, and you would soon tire of me."

"Frances, you could read and study—two things you
like so well."

"Monsieur, I could not; I like a contemplative life, but I like
an active life better; I must act in some way, and act with you.
I have taken notice, monsieur, that people who are only in each
other's company for amusement, never really like each other so
well, or esteem each other so highly, as those who work together,
and perhaps suffer together."

"You speak God's truth," said I at last, "and you shall have your
own way, for it is the best way. Now, as a reward for such ready
consent, give me a voluntary kiss."

After some hesitation, natural to a novice in the art of kissing,
she brought her lips into very shy and gentle contact with my
forehead; I took the small gift as a loan, and repaid it
promptly, and with generous interest.

I know not whether Frances was really much altered since the time
I first saw her; but, as I looked at her now, I felt that she was
singularly changed for me; the sad eye, the pale cheek, the
dejected and joyless countenance I remembered as her early
attributes, were quite gone, and now I saw a face dressed in
graces; smile, dimple, and rosy tint, rounded its contours and
brightened its hues. I had been accustomed to nurse a flattering
idea that my strong attachment to her proved some particular
perspicacity in my nature; she was not handsome, she was not
rich, she was not even accomplished, yet was she my life's
treasure; I must then be a man of peculiar discernment. To-night
my eyes opened on the mistake I had made; I began to suspect that
it was only my tastes which were unique, not my power of
discovering and appreciating the superiority of moral worth over
physical charms. For me Frances had physical charms: in her
there was no deformity to get over; none of those prominent
defects of eyes, teeth, complexion, shape, which hold at bay the
admiration of the boldest male champions of intellect (for women
can love a downright ugly man if he be but talented); had she
been either "edentee, myope, rugueuse, ou bossue," my feelings
towards her might still have been kindly, but they could never
have been impassioned; I had affection for the poor little
misshapen Sylvie, but for her I could never have had love. It is
true Frances' mental points had been the first to interest me,
and they still retained the strongest hold on my preference; but
I liked the graces of her person too. I derived a pleasure,
purely material, from contemplating the clearness of her brown
eyes, the fairness of her fine skin, the purity of her well-set
teeth, the proportion of her delicate form; and that pleasure I
could ill have dispensed with. It appeared, then, that I too was
a sensualist, in my temperate and fastidious way.

Now, reader, during the last two pages I have been giving you
honey fresh from flowers, but you must not live entirely on food
so luscious; taste then a little gall—just a drop, by way of
change.

At a somewhat late hour I returned to my lodgings: having
temporarily forgotten that man had any such coarse cares as those
of eating and drinking, I went to bed fasting. I had been excited
and in action all day, and had tasted no food since eight that
morning; besides, for a fortnight past, I had known no rest
either of body or mind; the last few hours had been a sweet
delirium, it would not subside now, and till long after midnight,
broke with troubled ecstacy the rest I so much needed. At last I
dozed, but not for long; it was yet quite dark when I awoke, and
my waking was like that of Job when a spirit passed before his
face, and like him, "the hair of my flesh stood up." I might
continue the parallel, for in truth, though I saw nothing, yet "a
thing was secretly brought unto me, and mine ear received a
little thereof; there was silence, and I heard a voice," saying
—"In the midst of life we are in death."

That sound, and the sensation of chill anguish accompanying it,
many would have regarded as supernatural; but I recognized it at
once as the effect of reaction. Man is ever clogged with his
mortality, and it was my mortal nature which now faltered and
plained; my nerves, which jarred and gave a false sound, because
the soul, of late rushing headlong to an aim, had overstrained
the body's comparative weakness. A horror of great darkness fell
upon me; I felt my chamber invaded by one I had known formerly,
but had thought for ever departed. I was temporarily a prey to
hypochondria.

She had been my acquaintance, nay, my guest, once before in
boyhood; I had entertained her at bed and board for a year; for
that space of time I had her to myself in secret; she lay with
me, she ate with me, she walked out with me, showing me nooks in
woods, hollows in hills, where we could sit together, and where
she could drop her drear veil over me, and so hide sky and sun,
grass and green tree; taking me entirely to her death-cold bosom,
and holding me with arms of bone. What tales she would tell me
at such hours! What songs she would recite in my ears! How she
would discourse to me of her own country—the grave—and again
and again promise to conduct me there ere long; and, drawing me
to the very brink of a black, sullen river, show me, on the other
side, shores unequal with mound, monument, and tablet, standing
up in a glimmer more hoary than moonlight. "Necropolis!" she
would whisper, pointing to the pale piles, and add, "It contains
a mansion prepared for you."