Villette (62 page)

‘Discoveries made by stealth seem to me dishonourable discoveries.’

‘Puritaine! I doubt it not. Yet see how my Jesuit’s system works. You know the St. Pierre?’

‘Partially.’

He laughed. ‘You say right—‘
partially
;’ whereas,
I
know her
thoroughly;
there is the difference. She played before me the amiable; offered me patte de velours;
^hg
caressed, flattered, fawned on me. Now, I am accessible to a woman’s flattery—accessible against my reason. Though never pretty, she was—when I first knew her—young, or knew how to look young. Like all her countrywomen, she had the art of dressing—she had a certain, cool, easy, social assurance, which spared me the pain of embarrassment—’

‘Monsieur, that must have been unnecessary. I never saw you embarrassed in my life.’

‘Mademoiselle, you know little of me; I can be embarrassed as a petite pensionnaire; there is a fund of modesty and diffidence in my nature—’

‘Monsieur, I never saw it.’

‘Mademoiselle, it is there. You ought to have seen it.’

‘Monsieur, I have observed you in public—on platforms, in tribunes, before titles and crowned heads—and you were as easy as you are in the third division.’

‘Mademoiselle, neither titles nor crowned heads excite my modesty; and publicity is very much my element. I like it well, and breathe in it quite freely; but—but—in short, here is the sentiment brought into action, at this very moment; however, I disdain to be worsted by it. If, mademoiselle, I were a marrying man (which I am not; and you may spare yourself the trouble of any sneer you may be contemplating at the thought), and found it necessary to ask a lady whether she could look upon me in the light of a future husband, then would it be proved that I am as I say—modest.’

I quite believed him now; and, in believing, I honoured him with a sincerity of esteem which made my heart ache.

‘As to the St. Pierre,’ he went on, recovering himself, for his voice had altered a little, ‘she once intended to be Madame Emanuel; and I don’t know whither I might have been led, but for yonder little lattice with the light. Ah, magic lattice! what miracles of discovery hast thou wrought! Yes,’ he pursued, ‘I have seen her rancours, her vanities, her levities—not only here, but elsewhere: I have witnessed what bucklers me against all her arts: I am safe from poor Zélie.’

‘And my pupils,’ he presently recommenced, ‘those blondes jeunes filles—so mild and meek—I have seen the most reserved—romp like boys, the demurest—snatch grapes from the walls, shake pears from the trees. When the English teacher came, I saw her, marked her early preference for this alley, noted her taste for seclusion, watched her well, long before she and I came to speaking terms; do you recollect my once coming silently and offering you a little knot of white violets when we were strangers?’

‘I recollect it. I dried the violets, kept them, and have them still.’

‘It pleased me when you took them peacefully and promptly, without prudery—that sentiment which I ever dread to excite, and which, when it is revealed in eye or gesture, I vindictively detest. To return. Not only did
I
watch you, but often—especially at eventide—another guardian angel was noiselessly hovering near: night after night my cousin Beck has stolen down yonder steps, and glidingly pursued your movements when you did not see her.’

‘But, Monsieur, you could not from the distance of that window see what passed in this garden at night?’

‘By moonlight. I possibly might with a glass—I use a glass—but the garden itself is open to me. In the shed, at the bottom, there is a door leading into a court, which communicates with the college; of that door I possess the key, and thus come and go at pleasure. This afternoon I came through it, and found you asleep in class; again this evening, I have availed myself of the same entrance.’

I could not help saying, ‘If you were a wicked, designing man, how terrible would all this be!’

His attention seemed incapable of being arrested by this view of the subject: he lit his cigar, and while he puffed it, leaning against a tree, and looking at me in a cool, amused way he had when his humour was tranquil, I thought proper to go on sermonizing him: he often lectured me by the hour together—I did not see why I should not speak my mind for once. So I told him my impressions concerning his Jesuit-system.

‘The knowledge it brings you is bought too dear, monsieur; this coming and going by stealth degrades your own dignity.’

‘My dignity!’ he cried, laughing; ‘when did you ever see me trouble my head about my dignity? It is you, Miss Lucy, who are “digne.” How often, in your high insular presence, have I taken a pleasure in trampling upon, what you are pleased to call my dignity; tearing it, scattering it to the winds, in those mad transports you witness with such hauteur, and which I know you think very like the ravings of a third-rate London actor.’

‘Monsieur, I tell you every glance you cast from that lattice is a wrong done to the best part of your own nature. To study the human heart thus, is to banquet secretly and sacrilegiously on Eve’s apples. I wish you were a Protestant.’

Indifferent to the wish, he smoked on. After a space of smiling yet thoughtful silence, he said, rather suddenly—

‘I have seen other things.’

‘What other things?’

Taking the weed from his lips, he threw the remnant amongst the shrubs, where, for a moment, it lay glowing in the gloom.

‘Look at it,’ said he: ‘is not that spark like an eye watching you and me.’

He took a turn down the walk; presently returning, he went on:

‘I have seen, Miss Lucy, things to me unaccountable, that have made me watch all night for a solution, and I have not yet found it.’

The tone was peculiar; my veins thrilled; he saw me shiver. ‘Are you afraid? Whether is it of my words or that red jealous eye just winking itself out?’

‘I am cold; the night grows dark and late, and the air is changed; it is time to go in.’

‘It is little past eight, but you shall go in soon. Answer me only this question.’

Yet he paused ere he put it. The garden was truly growing dark; dusk had come on with clouds, and drops of rain began to patter through the trees. I hoped he would feel this, but, for the moment, he seemed too much absorbed to be sensible of the change.

‘Mademoiselle, do you Protestants believe in the supernatural?’

‘There is a difference of theory and belief on this point amongst Protestants, as amongst other sects,’ I answered. ‘Why, monsieur, do you ask such a question?’

‘Why do you shrink and speak so faintly? Are you superstitious?’

‘I am constitutionally nervous. I dislike the discussion of such subjects. I dislike it the more because—’

‘You believe?’

‘No: but it has happened to me to experience impressions—’

‘Since you came here?’

‘Yes: not many months ago.’

‘Here?—in this house?’

‘Yes.’

‘Bon! I am glad of it. I knew it somehow before you told me. I was conscious of rapport between you and myself. You are patient, and I am choleric; you are quiet and pale, and I am tanned and fiery; you are a strict Protestant, and I am a sort of lay Jesuit: but we are alike—there is affinity. Do you see it, mademoiselle, when you look in the glass? Do you observe that your forehead is shaped like mine—that your eyes are cut like mine? Do you hear that you have some of my tones of voice? Do you know that you have many of my looks? I perceive all this, and believe that you were born under my star. Yes, you were born under my star! Tremble! for where that is the case with mortals, the threads of their destinies are difficult to disentangle; knottings and catchings occur—sudden breaks leave damage in the web. But these “impressions,” as you say, with English caution. I, too, have had my “impressions.” ’

‘Monsieur, tell me them.’

‘I desire no better, and intend no less. You know the legend of this house and garden?’

‘I know it. Yes. They say that hundreds of years ago a nun was buried alive at the foot of this very tree, beneath the ground which now bears us.’

‘And that in former days a nun’s ghost used to come and go here.’

‘Monsieur, what if it comes and goes here still?’

‘Something comes and goes here: there is a shape frequenting this house by night, different to any forms that show themselves by day. I have indisputably seen a something, more than once; and to me its conventual weeds were a strange sight, saying more than they can do to any other living being. A nun!’

‘Monsieur, I, too, have seen it.’

‘I anticipated that. Whether this nun be flesh and blood, or something that remains when blood is dried and flesh wasted, her business is as much with you as with me, probably. Well, I mean to make it out: it has baffled me so far, but I mean to follow up the mystery. I mean—’

Instead of telling what he meant, he raised his head suddenly; I made the same movement in the same instant; we both looked to one point—the high tree shadowing the great berceau, and resting some of its boughs on the roof of the first classe. There had been a strange and inexplicable sound from that quarter, as if the arms of that tree had swayed of their own motion, and its weight of foliage had rushed and crushed against the massive trunk. Yes; there scarce stirred a breeze, and that heavy tree was convulsed, whilst the feathery shrubs stood still. For some minutes amongst the wood and leafage a rending and heaving went on. Dark as it was, it seemed to me that something more solid than either night-shadow, or branch-shadow, blackened out of the boles. At last the struggle ceased. What birth succeded this travail? What Dryad was born of these throes? We watched fixedly. A sudden bell rang in the house—the prayer-bell. Instantly into our alley there came out of the bureau, an apparition, all black and white. With a sort of angry rush—close, close past our faces—swept swiftly the very NUN herself! Never had I seen her so clearly. She looked tall of stature, and fierce of gesture. As she went, the wind rose sobbing; the rain poured wild and cold; the whole night seemed to feel her.

W
ere, it becomes time to inquire, was Paulina Mary? How fared my intercourse with the sumptuous Hotel Crécy? That intercourse had, for an interval, been suspended by absence; M. and Miss de Bassompierre had been travelling, dividing some weeks between the provinces and the capital of France. Chance apprised me of their return very shortly after it took place.

I was walking one mild afternoon on a quiet boulevard, wandering slowly on, enjoying the benign April sun, and some thoughts not unpleasing, when I saw before me a group of riders, stopping as if they had just encountered, and exchanging greetings in the midst of the broad, smooth, linden-bordered path; on one side a middle-aged gentleman and young lady, on the other—a young and handsome man. Very graceful was the lady’s mien, choice her appointments, delicate and stately her whole aspect. Still, as I looked, I felt they were known to me, and, drawing a little nearer, I fully recognized them all; the Count Home de Bassompierre, his daughter, and Dr. Graham Bretton.

How animated was Graham’s face! How true, how warm, yet how retiring the joy it expressed! This was the state of things, this the combination of circumstances, at once to attract and enchain, to subdue and excite Dr. John. The pearl he admired was in itself of great price and truest purity, but he was not the man who, in appreciating the gem, could forget its setting. Had he seen Paulina with the same youth, beauty, and grace, but on foot, alone, unguarded, and in simple attire, a dependent worker, a demi-grisette, he would have thought her a pretty little creature, and would have loved with his eye her movements and her mien, but it required other than this to conquer him as he was now vanquished, to bring him safe under dominion as now, without loss, and even with gain to his manly honour—one saw that he was reduced; there was about Dr. John all the man of the world; to satisfy himself did not suffice; society must approve—the world must admire what he did, or he counted his measures false and futile. In his victrix he required all that was here visible—the imprint of high cultivation, the consecration of a careful and authoritative protection, the adjuncts that Fashion decrees, Wealth purchases, and Taste adjusts; for these conditions his spirit stipulated ere it surrendered: they were here to the utmost fulfilled; and now, proud, impassioned, yet fearing, he did homage to Paulina as his sovereign. As for her, the smile of feeling, rather than of conscious power, slept soft in her eyes.

They parted. He passed me at speed, hardly feeling the earth he skimmed, and seeing nothing on either hand. He looked very handsome; mettle and purpose were roused in him fully.

‘Papa, there is Lucy!’ cried a musical, friendly voice, ‘Lucy, dear Lucy—
do
come here!’

I hastened to her. She threw back her veil, and stooped from her saddle to kiss me.

‘I was coming to see you to-morrow,’ said she; ‘but now, tomorrow you will come and see me.’

She named the hour, and I promised compliance.

The morrow’s evening found me with her—she and I shut into her own room. I had not seen her since that occasion when her claims were brought into comparison with those of Ginevra Fanshawe, and had so signally prevailed; she had much to tell me of her travels in the interval. A most animated, rapid speaker was she in such
tête-à-tête,
a most lively describer; yet with her artless diction and clear, soft voice, she never seemed to speak too fast or say too much. My own attention I think would not soon have flagged, but by-and-by, she herself seemed to need some change of subject; she hastened to wind up her narrative briefly. Yet why she terminated with so concise an abridgment did not immediately appear; silence followed—a restless silence, not without symptoms of abstraction. Then, turning to me, in a diffident, half-appealing voice,—