Chapter: CHAPTER X.

DR JOHN.


Madame Beck was a most consistent character; forbearing with all the
world, and tender to no part of it. Her own children drew her into no
deviation from the even tenor of her stoic calm. She was solicitous
about her family, vigilant for their interests and physical well-being;
but she never seemed to know the wish to take her little children upon
her lap, to press their rosy lips with her own, to gather them in a
genial embrace, to shower on them softly the benignant caress, the
loving word.

I have watched her sometimes sitting in the garden, viewing the little
bees afar off, as they walked in a distant alley with Trinette, their
_bonne_; in her mien spoke care and prudence. I know she often pondered
anxiously what she called "leur avenir;" but if the youngest, a puny
and delicate but engaging child, chancing to spy her, broke from its
nurse, and toddling down the walk, came all eager and laughing and
panting to clasp her knee, Madame would just calmly put out one hand,
so as to prevent inconvenient concussion from the child's sudden onset:
"Prends garde, mon enfant!" she would say unmoved, patiently permit it
to stand near her a few moments, and then, without smile or kiss, or
endearing syllable, rise and lead it back to Trinette.

Her demeanour to the eldest girl was equally characteristic in another
way. This was a vicious child. "Quelle peste que cette Desiree! Quel
poison que cet enfant la!" were the expressions dedicated to her, alike
in kitchen and in schoolroom. Amongst her other endowments she boasted
an exquisite skill in the art, of provocation, sometimes driving her
_bonne_ and the servants almost wild. She would steal to their attics,
open their drawers and boxes, wantonly tear their best caps and soil
their best shawls; she would watch her opportunity to get at the buffet
of the salle-a-manger, where she would smash articles of porcelain or
glass--or to the cupboard of the storeroom, where she would plunder the
preserves, drink the sweet wine, break jars and bottles, and so
contrive as to throw the onus of suspicion on the cook and the
kitchen-maid. All this when Madame saw, and of which when she received
report, her sole observation, uttered with matchless serenity, was:

"Desiree a besoin d'une surveillance toute particuliere." Accordingly
she kept this promising olive-branch a good deal at her side. Never
once, I believe, did she tell her faithfully of her faults, explain the
evil of such habits, and show the results which must thence ensue.
Surveillance must work the whole cure. It failed of course. Desiree was
kept in some measure from the servants, but she teased and pillaged her
mamma instead. Whatever belonging to Madame's work-table or toilet she
could lay her hands on, she stole and hid. Madame saw all this, but she
still pretended not to see: she had not rectitude of soul to confront
the child with her vices. When an article disappeared whose value
rendered restitution necessary, she would profess to think that Desiree
had taken it away in play, and beg her to restore it. Desiree was not
to be so cheated: she had learned to bring falsehood to the aid of
theft, and would deny having touched the brooch, ring, or scissors.
Carrying on the hollow system, the mother would calmly assume an air of
belief, and afterwards ceaselessly watch and dog the child till she
tracked her: to her hiding-places--some hole in the garden-wall--some
chink or cranny in garret or out-house. This done, Madame would send
Desiree out for a walk with her _bonne_, and profit by her absence to
rob the robber. Desiree proved herself the true daughter of her astute
parent, by never suffering either her countenance or manner to betray
the least sign of mortification on discovering the loss.

The second child, Fifine, was said to be like its dead father.
Certainly, though the mother had given it her healthy frame, her blue
eye and ruddy cheek, not from her was derived its moral being. It was
an honest, gleeful little soul: a passionate, warm-tempered, bustling
creature it was too, and of the sort likely to blunder often into
perils and difficulties. One day it bethought itself to fall from top
to bottom of a steep flight of stone steps; and when Madame, hearing
the noise (she always heard every noise), issued from the
salle-a-manger and picked it up, she said quietly,--"Cet enfant a un os
casse."

At first we hoped this was not the case. It was, however, but too true:
one little plump arm hung powerless.

"Let Meess" (meaning me) "take her," said Madame; "et qu'on aille tout
de suite chercher un fiacre."

In a _fiacre_ she promptly, but with admirable coolness and
self-possession, departed to fetch a surgeon.

It appeared she did not find the family-surgeon at home; but that
mattered not: she sought until she laid her hand on a substitute to her
mind, and brought him back with her. Meantime I had cut the child's
sleeve from its arm, undressed and put it to bed.

We none of us, I suppose (by _we_ I mean the bonne, the cook, the
portress, and myself, all which personages were now gathered in the
small and heated chamber), looked very scrutinizingly at the new doctor
when he came into the room. I, at least, was taken up with endeavouring
to soothe Fifine; whose cries (for she had good lungs) were appalling
to hear. These cries redoubled in intensity as the stranger approached
her bed; when he took her up, "Let alone!" she cried passionately, in
her broken English (for she spoke English as did the other children).
"I will not you: I will Dr. Pillule!"

"And Dr. Pillule is my very good friend," was the answer, in perfect
English; "but he is busy at a place three leagues off, and I am come in
his stead. So now, when we get a little calmer, we must commence
business; and we will soon have that unlucky little arm bandaged and in
right order."

Hereupon he called for a glass of _eau sucree_, fed her with some
teaspoonfuls of the sweet liquid (Fifine was a frank gourmande; anybody
could win her heart through her palate), promised her more when the
operation should be over, and promptly went to work. Some assistance
being needed, he demanded it of the cook, a robust, strong-armed woman;
but she, the portress, and the nurse instantly fled. I did not like to
touch that small, tortured limb, but thinking there was no alternative,
my hand was already extended to do what was requisite. I was
anticipated; Madame Beck had put out her own hand: hers was steady
while mine trembled.

"Ca vaudra mieux," said the doctor, turning from me to her.

He showed wisdom in his choice. Mine would have been feigned stoicism,
forced fortitude. Hers was neither forced nor feigned.

"Merci, Madame; tres bien, fort bien!" said the operator when he had
finished. "Voila un sang-froid bien opportun, et qui vaut mille elans
de sensibilite deplacee."

He was pleased with her firmness, she with his compliment. It was
likely, too, that his whole general appearance, his voice, mien, and
manner, wrought impressions in his favour. Indeed, when you looked well
at him, and when a lamp was brought in--for it was evening and now
waxing dusk--you saw that, unless Madame Beck had been less than woman,
it could not well be otherwise. This young doctor (he _was_ young) had
no common aspect. His stature looked imposingly tall in that little
chamber, and amidst that group of Dutch-made women; his profile was
clear, fine and expressive: perhaps his eye glanced from face to face
rather too vividly, too quickly, and too often; but it had a most
pleasant character, and so had his mouth; his chin was full, cleft,
Grecian, and perfect. As to his smile, one could not in a hurry make up
one's mind as to the descriptive epithet it merited; there was
something in it that pleased, but something too that brought surging up
into the mind all one's foibles and weak points: all that could lay one
open to a laugh. Yet Fifine liked this doubtful smile, and thought the
owner genial: much as he had hurt her, she held out her hand to bid him
a friendly good-night. He patted the little hand kindly, and then he
and Madame went down-stairs together; she talking in her highest tide
of spirits and volubility, he listening with an air of good-natured
amenity, dashed with that unconscious roguish archness I find it
difficult to describe.

I noticed that though he spoke French well, he spoke English better; he
had, too, an English complexion, eyes, and form. I noticed more. As he
passed me in leaving the room, turning his face in my direction one
moment--not to address me, but to speak to Madame, yet so standing,
that I almost necessarily looked up at him--a recollection which had
been struggling to form in my memory, since the first moment I heard
his voice, started up perfected. This was the very gentleman to whom I
had spoken at the bureau; who had helped me in the matter of the trunk;
who had been my guide through the dark, wet park. Listening, as he
passed down the long vestibule out into the street, I recognised his
very tread: it was the same firm and equal stride I had followed under
the dripping trees.

       *       *       *       *       *

It was, to be concluded that this young surgeon-physician's first visit
to the Rue Fossette would be the last. The respectable Dr. Pillule
being expected home the next day, there appeared no reason why his
temporary substitute should again represent him; but the Fates had
written their decree to the contrary.

Dr. Pillule had been summoned to see a rich old hypochondriac at the
antique university town of Bouquin-Moisi, and upon his prescribing
change of air and travel as remedies, he was retained to accompany the
timid patient on a tour of some weeks; it but remained, therefore, for
the new doctor to continue his attendance at the Rue Fossette.

I often saw him when he came; for Madame would not trust the little
invalid to Trinette, but required me to spend much of my time in the
nursery. I think he was skilful. Fifine recovered rapidly under his
care, yet even her convalescence did not hasten his dismissal. Destiny
and Madame Beck seemed in league, and both had ruled that he should
make deliberate acquaintance with the vestibule, the private staircase
and upper chambers of the Rue Fossette.

No sooner did Fifine emerge from his hands than Desiree declared
herself ill. That possessed child had a genius for simulation, and
captivated by the attentions and indulgences of a sick-room, she came
to the conclusion that an illness would perfectly accommodate her
tastes, and took her bed accordingly. She acted well, and her mother
still better; for while the whole case was transparent to Madame Beck
as the day, she treated it with an astonishingly well-assured air of
gravity and good faith.

What surprised me was, that Dr. John (so the young Englishman had
taught Fifine to call him, and we all took from her the habit of
addressing him by this name, till it became an established custom, and
he was known by no other in the Rue Fossette)--that Dr. John consented
tacitly to adopt Madame's tactics, and to fall in with her manoeuvres.
He betrayed, indeed, a period of comic doubt, cast one or two rapid
glances from the child to the mother, indulged in an interval of
self-consultation, but finally resigned himself with a good grace to
play his part in the farce. Desiree eat like a raven, gambolled day and
night in her bed, pitched tents with the sheets and blankets, lounged
like a Turk amidst pillows and bolsters, diverted herself with throwing
her shoes at her bonne and grimacing at her sisters--over-flowed, in
short, with unmerited health and evil spirits; only languishing when
her mamma and the physician paid their diurnal visit. Madame Beck, I
knew, was glad, at any price, to have her daughter in bed out of the
way of mischief; but I wondered that Dr. John did not tire of the
business.

Every day, on this mere pretext of a motive, he gave punctual
attendance; Madame always received him with the same empressement, the
same sunshine for himself, the same admirably counterfeited air of
concern for her child. Dr. John wrote harmless prescriptions for the
patient, and viewed her mother with a shrewdly sparkling eye. Madame
caught his rallying looks without resenting them--she had too much good
sense for that. Supple as the young doctor seemed, one could not
despise him--this pliant part was evidently not adopted in the design
to curry favour with his employer: while he liked his office at the
pensionnat, and lingered strangely about the Rue Fossette, he was
independent, almost careless in his carriage there; and yet, too, he
was often thoughtful and preoccupied.

It was not perhaps my business to observe the mystery of his bearing,
or search out its origin or aim; but, placed as I was, I could hardly
help it. He laid himself open to my observation, according to my
presence in the room just that degree of notice and consequence a
person of my exterior habitually expects: that is to say, about what is
given to unobtrusive articles of furniture, chairs of ordinary joiner's
work, and carpets of no striking pattern. Often, while waiting for
Madame, he would muse, smile, watch, or listen like a man who thinks
himself alone. I, meantime, was free to puzzle over his countenance and
movements, and wonder what could be the meaning of that peculiar
interest and attachment--all mixed up with doubt and strangeness, and
inexplicably ruled by some presiding spell--which wedded him to this
demi-convent, secluded in the built-up core of a capital. He, I
believe, never remembered that I had eyes in my head, much less a brain
behind them.

Nor would he ever have found this out, but that one day, while he sat
in the sunshine and I was observing the colouring of his hair,
whiskers, and complexion--the whole being of such a tone as a strong
light brings out with somewhat perilous force (indeed I recollect I was
driven to compare his beamy head in my thoughts to that of the "golden
image" which Nebuchadnezzar the king had set up), an idea new, sudden,
and startling, riveted my attention with an over-mastering strength and
power of attraction. I know not to this day how I looked at him: the
force of surprise, and also of conviction, made me forget myself; and I
only recovered wonted consciousness when I saw that his notice was
arrested, and that it had caught my movement in a clear little oval
mirror fixed in the side of the window recess--by the aid of which
reflector Madame often secretly spied persons walking in the garden
below. Though of so gay and sanguine a temperament, he was not without
a certain nervous sensitiveness which made him ill at ease under a
direct, inquiring gaze. On surprising me thus, he turned and said, in a
tone which, though courteous, had just so much dryness in it as to mark
a shade of annoyance, as well as to give to what was said the character
of rebuke, "Mademoiselle does not spare me: I am not vain enough to
fancy that it is my merits which attract her attention; it must then be
some defect. Dare I ask--what?"

I was confounded, as the reader may suppose, yet not with an
irrecoverable confusion; being conscious that it was from no emotion of
incautious admiration, nor yet in a spirit of unjustifiable
inquisitiveness, that I had incurred this reproof. I might have cleared
myself on the spot, but would not. I did not speak. I was not in the
habit of speaking to him. Suffering him, then, to think what he chose
and accuse me of what he would, I resumed some work I had dropped, and
kept my head bent over it during the remainder of his stay. There is a
perverse mood of the mind which is rather soothed than irritated by
misconstruction; and in quarters where we can never be rightly known,
we take pleasure, I think, in being consummately ignored. What honest
man, on being casually taken for a housebreaker, does not feel rather
tickled than vexed at the mistake?





CHAPTER XI.

THE PORTRESS'S CABINET.


It was summer and very hot. Georgette, the youngest of Madame Beck's
children, took a fever. Desiree, suddenly cured of her ailments, was,
together with Fifine, packed off to Bonne-Maman, in the country, by way
of precaution against infection. Medical aid was now really needed, and
Madame, choosing to ignore the return of Dr. Pillule, who had been at
home a week, conjured his English rival to continue his visits. One or
two of the pensionnaires complained of headache, and in other respects
seemed slightly to participate in Georgette's ailment. "Now, at last,"
I thought, "Dr. Pillule must be recalled: the prudent directress will
never venture to permit the attendance of so young a man on the pupils."

The directress was very prudent, but she could also be intrepidly
venturous. She actually introduced Dr. John to the school-division of
the premises, and established him in attendance on the proud and
handsome Blanche de Melcy, and the vain, flirting Angelique, her
friend. Dr. John, I thought, testified a certain gratification at this
mark of confidence; and if discretion of bearing could have justified
the step, it would by him have been amply justified. Here, however, in
this land of convents and confessionals, such a presence as his was not
to be suffered with impunity in a "pensionnat de demoiselles." The
school gossiped, the kitchen whispered, the town caught the rumour,
parents wrote letters and paid visits of remonstrance. Madame, had she
been weak, would now have been lost: a dozen rival educational houses
were ready to improve this false step--if false step it were--to her
ruin; but Madame was not weak, and little Jesuit though she might be,
yet I clapped the hands of my heart, and with its voice cried "brava!"
as I watched her able bearing, her skilled management, her temper and
her firmness on this occasion.

She met the alarmed parents with a good-humoured, easy grace for nobody
matched her in, I know not whether to say the possession or the
assumption of a certain "rondeur et franchise de bonne femme;" which on
various occasions gained the point aimed at with instant and complete
success, where severe gravity and serious reasoning would probably have
failed.

"Ce pauvre Docteur Jean!" she would say, chuckling and rubbing joyously
her fat little white hands; "ce cher jeune homme! le meilleur creature
du monde!" and go on to explain how she happened to be employing him
for her own children, who were so fond of him they would scream
themselves into fits at the thought of another doctor; how, where she
had confidence for her own, she thought it natural to repose trust for
others, and au reste, it was only the most temporary expedient in the
world; Blanche and Angelique had the migraine; Dr. John had written a
prescription; voila tout!

The parents' mouths were closed. Blanche and Angelique saved her all
remaining trouble by chanting loud duets in their physician's praise;
the other pupils echoed them, unanimously declaring that when they were
ill they would have Dr. John and nobody else; and Madame laughed, and
the parents laughed too. The Labassecouriens must have a large organ of
philoprogenitiveness: at least the indulgence of offspring is carried
by them to excessive lengths; the law of most households being the
children's will. Madame now got credit for having acted on this
occasion in a spirit of motherly partiality: she came off with flying
colours; people liked her as a directress better than ever.

To this day I never fully understood why she thus risked her interest
for the sake of Dr. John. What people said, of course I know well: the
whole house--pupils, teachers, servants included--affirmed that she was
going to marry him. So they had settled it; difference of age seemed to
make no obstacle in their eyes: it was to be so.

It must be admitted that appearances did not wholly discountenance this
idea; Madame seemed so bent on retaining his services, so oblivious of
her former protege, Pillule. She made, too, such a point of personally
receiving his visits, and was so unfailingly cheerful, blithe, and
benignant in her manner to him. Moreover, she paid, about this time,
marked attention to dress: the morning dishabille, the nightcap and
shawl, were discarded; Dr. John's early visits always found her with
auburn braids all nicely arranged, silk dress trimly fitted on, neat
laced brodequins in lieu of slippers: in short the whole toilette
complete as a model, and fresh as a flower. I scarcely think, however,
that her intention in this went further than just to show a very
handsome man that she was not quite a plain woman; and plain she was
not. Without beauty of feature or elegance of form, she pleased.
Without youth and its gay graces, she cheered. One never tired of
seeing her: she was never monotonous, or insipid, or colourless, or
flat. Her unfaded hair, her eye with its temperate blue light, her
cheek with its wholesome fruit-like bloom--these things pleased in
moderation, but with constancy.

Had she, indeed, floating visions of adopting Dr. John as a husband,
taking him to her well-furnished home, endowing him with her savings,
which were said to amount to a moderate competency, and making him
comfortable for the rest of his life? Did Dr. John suspect her of such
visions? I have met him coming out of her presence with a mischievous
half-smile about his lips, and in his eyes a look as of masculine
vanity elate and tickled. With all his good looks and good-nature, he
was not perfect; he must have been very imperfect if he roguishly
encouraged aims he never intended to be successful. But did he not
intend them to be successful? People said he had no money, that he was
wholly dependent upon his profession. Madame--though perhaps some
fourteen years his senior--was yet the sort of woman never to grow old,
never to wither, never to break down. They certainly were on good
terms. _He_ perhaps was not in love; but how many people ever _do_
love, or at least marry for love, in this world. We waited the end.

For what _he_ waited, I do not know, nor for what he watched; but the
peculiarity of his manner, his expectant, vigilant, absorbed, eager
look, never wore off: it rather intensified. He had never been quite
within the compass of my penetration, and I think he ranged farther and
farther beyond it.

One morning little Georgette had been more feverish and consequently
more peevish; she was crying, and would not be pacified. I thought a
particular draught ordered, disagreed with her, and I doubted whether
it ought to be continued; I waited impatiently for the doctor's coming
in order to consult him.

The door-bell rang, he was admitted; I felt sure of this, for I heard
his voice addressing the portress. It was his custom to mount straight
to the nursery, taking about three degrees of the staircase at once,
and coming upon us like a cheerful surprise. Five minutes
elapsed--ten--and I saw and heard nothing of him. What could he be
doing? Possibly waiting in the corridor below. Little Georgette still
piped her plaintive wail, appealing to me by her familiar term,
"Minnie, Minnie, me very poorly!" till my heart ached. I descended to
ascertain why he did not come. The corridor was empty. Whither was he
vanished? Was he with Madame in the _salle-a-manger?_ Impossible: I had
left her but a short time since, dressing in her own chamber. I
listened. Three pupils were just then hard at work practising in three
proximate rooms--the dining-room and the greater and lesser
drawing-rooms, between which and the corridor there was but the
portress's cabinet communicating with the salons, and intended
originally for a boudoir. Farther off, at a fourth instrument in the
oratory, a whole class of a dozen or more were taking a singing lesson,
and just then joining in a "barcarole" (I think they called it),
whereof I yet remember these words "fraiche," "brise," and "Venise."
Under these circumstances, what could I hear? A great deal, certainly;
had it only been to the purpose.

Yes; I heard a giddy treble laugh in the above-mentioned little
cabinet, close by the door of which I stood--that door half-unclosed; a
man's voice in a soft, deep, pleading tone, uttered some, words,
whereof I only caught the adjuration, "For God's sake!" Then, after a
second's pause, forth issued Dr. John, his eye full shining, but not
with either joy or triumph; his fair English cheek high-coloured; a
baffled, tortured, anxious, and yet a tender meaning on his brow.

The open door served me as a screen; but had I been full in his way, I
believe he would have passed without seeing me. Some mortification,
some strong vexation had hold of his soul: or rather, to write my
impressions now as I received them at the time I should say some
sorrow, some sense of injustice. I did not so much think his pride was
hurt, as that his affections had been wounded--cruelly wounded, it
seemed to me. But who was the torturer? What being in that house had
him so much in her power? Madame I believed to be in her chamber; the
room whence he had stepped was dedicated to the portress's sole use;
and she, Rosine Matou, an unprincipled though pretty little French
grisette, airy, fickle, dressy, vain, and mercenary--it was not,
surely, to _her_ hand he owed the ordeal through which he seemed to
have passed?

But while I pondered, her voice, clear, though somewhat sharp, broke
out in a lightsome French song, trilling through the door still ajar: I
glanced in, doubting my senses. There at the table she sat in a smart
dress of "jaconas rose," trimming a tiny blond cap: not a living thing
save herself was in the room, except indeed some gold fish in a glass
globe, some flowers in pots, and a broad July sunbeam.

Here was a problem: but I must go up-stairs to ask about the medicine.

Dr. John sat in a chair at Georgette's bedside; Madame stood before
him; the little patient had been examined and soothed, and now lay
composed in her crib. Madame Beck, as I entered, was discussing the
physician's own health, remarking on some real or fancied change in his
looks, charging him with over-work, and recommending rest and change of
air. He listened good-naturedly, but with laughing indifference,
telling her that she was "trop bonne," and that he felt perfectly well.
Madame appealed to me--Dr. John following her movement with a slow
glance which seemed to express languid surprise at reference being made
to a quarter so insignificant.

"What do you think, Miss Lucie?" asked Madame. "Is he not paler and
thinner?"

It was very seldom that I uttered more than monosyllables in Dr. John's
presence; he was the kind of person with whom I was likely ever to
remain the neutral, passive thing he thought me. Now, however, I took
licence to answer in a phrase: and a phrase I purposely made quite
significant.

"He looks ill at this moment; but perhaps it is owing to some temporary
cause: Dr. John may have been vexed or harassed." I cannot tell how he
took this speech, as I never sought his face for information. Georgette
here began to ask me in her broken English if she might have a glass of
_eau sucree_. I answered her in English. For the first time, I fancy,
he noticed that I spoke his language; hitherto he had always taken me
for a foreigner, addressing me as "Mademoiselle," and giving in French
the requisite directions about the children's treatment. He seemed on
the point of making a remark; but thinking better of it, held his
tongue.

Madame recommenced advising him; he shook his head, laughing, rose and
bid her good-morning, with courtesy, but still with the regardless air
of one whom too much unsolicited attention was surfeiting and spoiling.

When he was gone, Madame dropped into the chair he had just left; she
rested her chin in her hand; all that was animated and amiable vanished
from her face: she looked stony and stern, almost mortified and morose.
She sighed; a single, but a deep sigh. A loud bell rang for
morning-school. She got up; as she passed a dressing-table with a glass
upon it, she looked at her reflected image. One single white hair
streaked her nut-brown tresses; she plucked it out with a shudder. In
the full summer daylight, her face, though it still had the colour,
could plainly be seen to have lost the texture of youth; and then,
where were youth's contours? Ah, Madame! wise as you were, even _you_
knew weakness. Never had I pitied Madame before, but my heart softened
towards her, when she turned darkly from the glass. A calamity had come
upon her. That hag Disappointment was greeting her with a grisly
"All-hail," and her soul rejected the intimacy.

But Rosine! My bewilderment there surpasses description. I embraced
five opportunities of passing her cabinet that day, with a view to
contemplating her charms, and finding out the secret of their
influence. She was pretty, young, and wore a well-made dress. All very
good points, and, I suppose, amply sufficient to account, in any
philosophic mind, for any amount of agony and distraction in a young
man, like Dr. John. Still, I could not help forming half a wish that
the said doctor were my brother; or at least that he had a sister or a
mother who would kindly sermonize him. I say _half_ a wish; I broke it,
and flung it away before it became a whole one, discovering in good
time its exquisite folly. "Somebody," I argued, "might as well
sermonize Madame about her young physician: and what good would that
do?"

I believe Madame sermonized herself. She did not behave weakly, or make
herself in any shape ridiculous. It is true she had neither strong
feelings to overcome, nor tender feelings by which to be miserably
pained. It is true likewise that she had an important avocation, a real
business to fill her time, divert her thoughts, and divide her
interest. It is especially true that she possessed a genuine good sense
which is not given to all women nor to all men; and by dint of these
combined advantages she behaved wisely--she behaved well. Brava! once
more, Madame Beck. I saw you matched against an Apollyon of a
predilection; you fought a good fight, and you overcame!





CHAPTER XII.

THE CASKET.


Behind the house at the Rue Fossette there was a garden--large,
considering that it lay in the heart of a city, and to my recollection
at this day it seems pleasant: but time, like distance, lends to
certain scenes an influence so softening; and where all is stone
around, blank wall and hot pavement, how precious seems one shrub, how
lovely an enclosed and planted spot of ground!

There went a tradition that Madame Beck's house had in old days been a
convent. That in years gone by--how long gone by I cannot tell, but I
think some centuries--before the city had over-spread this quarter, and
when it was tilled ground and avenue, and such deep and leafy seclusion
as ought to embosom a religious house--that something had happened on
this site which, rousing fear and inflicting horror, had left to the
place the inheritance of a ghost-story. A vague tale went of a black
and white nun, sometimes, on some night or nights of the year, seen in
some part of this vicinage. The ghost must have been built out some
ages ago, for there were houses all round now; but certain
convent-relics, in the shape of old and huge fruit-trees, yet
consecrated the spot; and, at the foot of one--a Methuselah of a
pear-tree, dead, all but a few boughs which still faithfully renewed
their perfumed snow in spring, and their honey-sweet pendants in
autumn--you saw, in scraping away the mossy earth between the
half-bared roots, a glimpse of slab, smooth, hard, and black. The
legend went, unconfirmed and unaccredited, but still propagated, that
this was the portal of a vault, imprisoning deep beneath that ground,
on whose surface grass grew and flowers bloomed, the bones of a girl
whom a monkish conclave of the drear middle ages had here buried alive
for some sin against her vow. Her shadow it was that tremblers had
feared, through long generations after her poor frame was dust; her
black robe and white veil that, for timid eyes, moonlight and shade had
mocked, as they fluctuated in the night-wind through the garden-thicket.

Independently of romantic rubbish, however, that old garden had its
charms. On summer mornings I used to rise early, to enjoy them alone;
on summer evenings, to linger solitary, to keep tryste with the rising
moon, or taste one kiss of the evening breeze, or fancy rather than
feel the freshness of dew descending. The turf was verdant, the
gravelled walks were white; sun-bright nasturtiums clustered beautiful
about the roots of the doddered orchard giants. There was a large
berceau, above which spread the shade of an acacia; there was a
smaller, more sequestered bower, nestled in the vines which ran all
along a high and grey wall, and gathered their tendrils in a knot of
beauty, and hung their clusters in loving profusion about the favoured
spot where jasmine and ivy met and married them.

Doubtless at high noon, in the broad, vulgar middle of the day, when
Madame Beck's large school turned out rampant, and externes and
pensionnaires were spread abroad, vying with the denizens of the boys'
college close at hand, in the brazen exercise of their lungs and
limbs--doubtless _then_ the garden was a trite, trodden-down place
enough. But at sunset or the hour of _salut_, when the externes were
gone home, and the boarders quiet at their studies; pleasant was it
then to stray down the peaceful alleys, and hear the bells of St. Jean
Baptiste peal out with their sweet, soft, exalted sound.

I was walking thus one evening, and had been detained farther within
the verge of twilight than usual, by the still-deepening calm, the
mellow coolness, the fragrant breathing with which flowers no sunshine
could win now answered the persuasion of the dew. I saw by a light in
the oratory window that the Catholic household were then gathered to
evening prayer--a rite, from attendance on which, I now and then, as a
Protestant, exempted myself.

"One moment longer," whispered solitude and the summer moon, "stay with
us: all is truly quiet now; for another quarter of an hour your
presence will not be missed: the day's heat and bustle have tired you;
enjoy these precious minutes."

The windowless backs of houses built in this garden, and in particular
the whole of one side, was skirted by the rear of a long line of
premises--being the boarding-houses of the neighbouring college. This
rear, however, was all blank stone, with the exception of certain attic
loopholes high up, opening from the sleeping-rooms of the
women-servants, and also one casement in a lower story said to mark the
chamber or study of a master. But, though thus secure, an alley, which
ran parallel with the very high wall on that side the garden, was
forbidden to be entered by the pupils. It was called indeed "l'allee
defendue," and any girl setting foot there would have rendered herself
liable to as severe a penalty as the mild rules of Madame Beck's
establishment permitted. Teachers might indeed go there with impunity;
but as the walk was narrow, and the neglected shrubs were grown very
thick and close on each side, weaving overhead a roof of branch and
leaf which the sun's rays penetrated but in rare chequers, this alley
was seldom entered even during day, and after dusk was carefully
shunned.

From the first I was tempted to make an exception to this rule of
avoidance: the seclusion, the very gloom of the walk attracted me. For
a long time the fear of seeming singular scared me away; but by
degrees, as people became accustomed to me and my habits, and to such
shades of peculiarity as were engrained in my nature--shades, certainly
not striking enough to interest, and perhaps not prominent enough to
offend, but born in and with me, and no more to be parted with than my
identity--by slow degrees I became a frequenter of this strait and
narrow path. I made myself gardener of some tintless flowers that grew
between its closely-ranked shrubs; I cleared away the relics of past
autumns, choking up a rustic seat at the far end. Borrowing of Goton,
the cuisiniere, a pail of water and a scrubbing-brush, I made this seat
clean. Madame saw me at work and smiled approbation: whether sincerely
or not I don't know; but she _seemed_ sincere.

"Voyez-vous," cried she, "comme elle est propre, cette demoiselle
Lucie? Vous aimez done cette allee, Meess?" "Yes," I said, "it is quiet
and shady."

"C'est juste," cried she with an air of bonte; and she kindly
recommended me to confine myself to it as much as I chose, saying, that
as I was not charged with the surveillance, I need not trouble myself
to walk with the pupils: only I might permit her children to come
there, to talk English with me.

On the night in question, I was sitting on the hidden seat reclaimed
from fungi and mould, listening to what seemed the far-off sounds of
the city. Far off, in truth, they were not: this school was in the
city's centre; hence, it was but five minutes' walk to the park, scarce
ten to buildings of palatial splendour. Quite near were wide streets
brightly lit, teeming at this moment with life: carriages were rolling
through them to balls or to the opera. The same hour which tolled
curfew for our convent, which extinguished each lamp, and dropped the
curtain round each couch, rang for the gay city about us the summons to
festal enjoyment. Of this contrast I thought not, however: gay
instincts my nature had few; ball or opera I had never seen; and though
often I had heard them described, and even wished to see them, it was
not the wish of one who hopes to partake a pleasure if she could only
reach it--who feels fitted to shine in some bright distant sphere,
could she but thither win her way; it was no yearning to attain, no
hunger to taste; only the calm desire to look on a new thing.

A moon was in the sky, not a full moon, but a young crescent. I saw her
through a space in the boughs overhead. She and the stars, visible
beside her, were no strangers where all else was strange: my childhood
knew them. I had seen that golden sign with the dark globe in its curve
leaning back on azure, beside an old thorn at the top of an old field,
in Old England, in long past days, just as it now leaned back beside a
stately spire in this continental capital.

Oh, my childhood! I had feelings: passive as I lived, little as I
spoke, cold as I looked, when I thought of past days, I _could_ feel.
About the present, it was better to be stoical; about the future--such
a future as mine--to be dead. And in catalepsy and a dead trance, I
studiously held the quick of my nature.

At that time, I well remember whatever could excite--certain accidents
of the weather, for instance, were almost dreaded by me, because they
woke the being I was always lulling, and stirred up a craving cry I
could not satisfy. One night a thunder-storm broke; a sort of hurricane
shook us in our beds: the Catholics rose in panic and prayed to their
saints. As for me, the tempest took hold of me with tyranny: I was
roughly roused and obliged to live. I got up and dressed myself, and
creeping outside the casement close by my bed, sat on its ledge, with
my feet on the roof of a lower adjoining building. It was wet, it was
wild, it was pitch-dark. Within the dormitory they gathered round the
night-lamp in consternation, praying loud. I could not go in: too
resistless was the delight of staying with the wild hour, black and
full of thunder, pealing out such an ode as language never delivered to
man--too terribly glorious, the spectacle of clouds, split and pierced
by white and blinding bolts.

I did long, achingly, then and for four and twenty hours afterwards,
for something to fetch me out of my present existence, and lead me
upwards and onwards. This longing, and all of a similar kind, it was
necessary to knock on the head; which I did, figuratively, after the
manner of Jael to Sisera, driving a nail through their temples. Unlike
Sisera, they did not die: they were but transiently stunned, and at
intervals would turn on the nail with a rebellious wrench: then did the
temples bleed, and the brain thrill to its core.

To-night, I was not so mutinous, nor so miserable. My Sisera lay quiet
in the tent, slumbering; and if his pain ached through his slumbers,
something like an angel--the ideal--knelt near, dropping balm on the
soothed temples, holding before the sealed eyes a magic glass, of which
the sweet, solemn visions were repeated in dreams, and shedding a
reflex from her moonlight wings and robe over the transfixed sleeper,
over the tent threshold, over all the landscape lying without. Jael,
the stern woman; sat apart, relenting somewhat over her captive; but
more prone to dwell on the faithful expectation of Heber coming home.
By which words I mean that the cool peace and dewy sweetness of the
night filled me with a mood of hope: not hope on any definite point,
but a general sense of encouragement and heart-ease.

Should not such a mood, so sweet, so tranquil, so unwonted, have been
the harbinger of good? Alas, no good came of it! I Presently the rude
Real burst coarsely in--all evil grovelling and repellent as she too
often is.

Amid the intense stillness of that pile of stone overlooking the walk,
the trees, the high wall, I heard a sound; a casement [all the windows
here are casements, opening on hinges] creaked. Ere I had time to look
up and mark where, in which story, or by whom unclosed, a tree overhead
shook, as if struck by a missile; some object dropped prone at my feet.

Nine was striking by St. Jean Baptiste's clock; day was fading, but it
was not dark: the crescent moon aided little, but the deep gilding of
that point in heaven where the sun beamed last, and the crystalline
clearness of a wide space above, sustained the summer twilight; even in
my dark walk I could, by approaching an opening, have managed to read
print of a small type. Easy was it to see then that the missile was a
box, a small box of white and coloured ivory; its loose lid opened in
my hand; violets lay within, violets smothering a closely folded bit of
pink paper, a note, superscribed, "Pour la robe grise." I wore indeed a
dress of French grey.

Good. Was this a billet-doux? A thing I had heard of, but hitherto had
not had the honour of seeing or handling. Was it this sort of commodity
I held between my finger and thumb at this moment?

Scarcely: I did not dream it for a moment. Suitor or admirer my very
thoughts had not conceived. All the teachers had dreams of some lover;
one (but she was naturally of a credulous turn) believed in a future
husband. All the pupils above fourteen knew of some prospective
bridegroom; two or three were already affianced by their parents, and
had been so from childhood: but into the realm of feelings and hopes
which such prospects open, my speculations, far less my presumptions,
had never once had warrant to intrude. If the other teachers went into
town, or took a walk on the boulevards, or only attended mass, they
were very certain (according to the accounts brought back) to meet with
some individual of the "opposite sex," whose rapt, earnest gaze assured
them of their power to strike and to attract. I can't say that my
experience tallied with theirs, in this respect. I went to church and I
took walks, and am very well convinced that nobody minded me. There was
not a girl or woman in the Rue Fossette who could not, and did not
testify to having received an admiring beam from our young doctor's
blue eyes at one time or other. I am obliged, however humbling it may
sound, to except myself: as far as I was concerned, those blue eyes
were guiltless, and calm as the sky, to whose tint theirs seemed akin.
So it came to pass that I heard the others talk, wondered often at
their gaiety, security, and self-satisfaction, but did not trouble
myself to look up and gaze along the path they seemed so certain of
treading. This then was no billet-doux; and it was in settled
conviction to the contrary that I quietly opened it. Thus it ran--I
translate:--

"Angel of my dreams! A thousand, thousand thanks for the promise kept:
scarcely did I venture to hope its fulfilment. I believed you, indeed,
to be half in jest; and then you seemed to think the enterprise beset
with such danger--the hour so untimely, the alley so strictly
secluded--often, you said, haunted by that dragon, the English
teacher--une veritable begueule Britannique a ce que vous dites--espece
de monstre, brusque et rude comme un vieux caporal de grenadiers, et
reveche comme une religieuse" (the reader will excuse my modesty in
allowing this flattering sketch of my amiable self to retain the slight
veil of the original tongue). "You are aware," went on this precious
effusion, "that little Gustave, on account of his illness, has been
removed to a master's chamber--that favoured chamber, whose lattice
overlooks your prison-ground. There, I, the best uncle in the world, am
admitted to visit him. How tremblingly I approached the window and
glanced into your Eden--an Eden for me, though a desert for you!--how I
feared to behold vacancy, or the dragon aforesaid! How my heart
palpitated with delight when, through apertures in the envious boughs,
I at once caught the gleam of your graceful straw-hat, and the waving
of your grey dress--dress that I should recognise amongst a thousand.
But why, my angel, will you not look up? Cruel, to deny me one ray of
those adorable eyes!--how a single glance would have revived me! I
write this in fiery haste; while the physician examines Gustave, I
snatch an opportunity to enclose it in a small casket, together with a
bouquet of flowers, the sweetest that blow--yet less sweet than thee,
my Peri--my all-charming! ever thine-thou well knowest whom!"

"I wish I did know whom," was my comment; and the wish bore even closer
reference to the person addressed in this choice document, than to the
writer thereof. Perhaps it was from the fiance of one of the engaged
pupils; and, in that case, there was no great harm done or
intended--only a small irregularity. Several of the girls, the
majority, indeed, had brothers or cousins at the neighbouring college.
But "la robe grise, le chapeau de paille," here surely was a clue--a
very confusing one. The straw-hat was an ordinary garden head-screen,
common to a score besides myself. The grey dress hardly gave more
definite indication. Madame Beck herself ordinarily wore a grey dress
just now; another teacher, and three of the pensionnaires, had had grey
dresses purchased of the same shade and fabric as mine: it was a sort
of every-day wear which happened at that time to be in vogue.

Meanwhile, as I pondered, I knew I must go in. Lights, moving in the
dormitory, announced that prayers were over, and the pupils going to
bed. Another half-hour and all doors would be locked--all lights
extinguished. The front door yet stood open, to admit into the heated
house the coolness of the summer night; from the portress's cabinet
close by shone a lamp, showing the long vestibule with the two-leaved
drawing-room doors on one side, the great street-door closing the vista.

All at once, quick rang the bell--quick, but not loud--a cautious
tinkle--a sort of warning metal whisper. Rosine darted from her cabinet
and ran to open. The person she admitted stood with her two minutes in
parley: there seemed a demur, a delay. Rosine came to the garden door,
lamp in hand; she stood on the steps, lifting her lamp, looking round
vaguely.

"Quel conte!" she cried, with a coquettish laugh. "Personne n'y a ete."

"Let me pass," pleaded a voice I knew: "I ask but five minutes;" and a
familiar shape, tall and grand (as we of the Rue Fossette all thought
it), issued from the house, and strode down amongst the beds and walks.
It was sacrilege--the intrusion of a man into that spot, at that hour;
but he knew himself privileged, and perhaps he trusted to the friendly
night. He wandered down the alleys, looking on this side and on
that--he was lost in the shrubs, trampling flowers and breaking
branches in his search--he penetrated at last the "forbidden walk."
There I met him, like some ghost, I suppose.

"Dr. John! it is found."

He did not ask by whom, for with his quick eye he perceived that I held
it in my hand.

"Do not betray her," he said, looking at me as if I were indeed a
dragon.

"Were I ever so disposed to treachery, I cannot betray what I do not
know," was my answer. "Read the note, and you will see how little it
reveals."

"Perhaps you have read it," I thought to myself; and yet I could not
believe he wrote it: that could hardly be his style: besides, I was
fool enough to think there would be a degree of hardship in his calling
me such names. His own look vindicated him; he grew hot, and coloured
as he read.

"This is indeed too much: this is cruel, this is humiliating," were the
words that fell from him.

I thought it _was_ cruel, when I saw his countenance so moved. No
matter whether he was to blame or not; somebody, it seemed to me, must
be more to blame.

"What shall you do about it?" he inquired of me. "Shall you tell Madame
Beck what you have found, and cause a stir--an esclandre?"

I thought I ought to tell, and said so; adding that I did not believe
there would be either stir or esclandre: Madame was much too prudent to
make a noise about an affair of that sort connected with her
establishment.

He stood looking down and meditating. He was both too proud and too
honourable to entreat my secresy on a point which duty evidently
commanded me to communicate. I wished to do right, yet loathed to
grieve or injure him. Just then Rosine glanced out through the open
door; she could not see us, though between the trees I could plainly
see her: her dress was grey, like mine. This circumstance, taken in
connection with prior transactions, suggested to me that perhaps the
case, however deplorable, was one in which I was under no obligation
whatever to concern myself. Accordingly, I said,--"If you can assure me
that none of Madame Beck's pupils are implicated in this business, I
shall be very happy to stand aloof from all interference. Take the
casket, the bouquet, and the billet; for my part, I gladly forget the
whole affair."

"Look there!" he whispered suddenly, as his hand closed on what I
offered, and at the same time he pointed through the boughs.

I looked. Behold Madame, in shawl, wrapping-gown, and slippers, softly
descending the steps, and stealing like a cat round the garden: in two
minutes she would have been upon Dr. John. If _she_ were like a cat,
however, _he_, quite as much, resembled a leopard: nothing could be
lighter than his tread when he chose. He watched, and as she turned a
corner, he took the garden at two noiseless bounds. She reappeared, and
he was gone. Rosine helped him, instantly interposing the door between
him and his huntress. I, too, might have got, away, but I preferred to
meet Madame openly.

Though it was my frequent and well-known custom to spend twilight in
the garden, yet, never till now, had I remained so late. Full sure was
I that Madame had missed--was come in search of me, and designed now to
pounce on the defaulter unawares. I expected a reprimand. No. Madame
was all goodness. She tendered not even a remonstrance; she testified
no shade of surprise. With that consummate tact of hers, in which I
believe she was never surpassed by living thing, she even professed
merely to have issued forth to taste "la brise du soir."

"Quelle belle nuit!" cried she, looking up at the stars--the moon was
now gone down behind the broad tower of Jean Baptiste. "Qu'il fait bon?
que l'air est frais!"

And, instead of sending me in, she detained me to take a few turns with
her down the principal alley. When at last we both re-entered, she
leaned affably on my shoulder by way of support in mounting the
front-door steps; at parting, her cheek was presented to my lips, and
"Bon soir, my bonne amie; dormez bien!" was her kindly adieu for the
night.

I caught myself smiling as I lay awake and thoughtful on my
couch--smiling at Madame. The unction, the suavity of her behaviour
offered, for one who knew her, a sure token that suspicion of some kind
was busy in her brain. From some aperture or summit of observation,
through parted bough or open window, she had doubtless caught a
glimpse, remote or near, deceptive or instructive, of that night's
transactions. Finely accomplished as she was in the art of
surveillance, it was next to impossible that a casket could be thrown
into her garden, or an interloper could cross her walks to seek it,
without that she, in shaken branch, passing shade, unwonted footfall,
or stilly murmur (and though Dr. John had spoken very low in the few
words he dropped me, yet the hum of his man's voice pervaded, I
thought, the whole conventual ground)--without, I say, that she should
have caught intimation of things extraordinary transpiring on her
premises. _What_ things, she might by no means see, or at that time be
able to discover; but a delicious little ravelled plot lay tempting her
to disentanglement; and in the midst, folded round and round in
cobwebs, had she not secured "Meess Lucie" clumsily involved, like the
foolish fly she was?





CHAPTER XIII.

A SNEEZE OUT OF SEASON.


I had occasion to smile--nay, to laugh, at Madame again, within the
space of four and twenty hours after the little scene treated of in the
last chapter.

Villette owns a climate as variable, though not so humid, as that of
any English town. A night of high wind followed upon that soft sunset,
and all the next day was one of dry storm--dark, beclouded, yet
rainless,--the streets were dim with sand and dust, whirled from the
boulevards. I know not that even lovely weather would have tempted me
to spend the evening-time of study and recreation where I had spent it
yesterday. My alley, and, indeed, all the walks and shrubs in the
garden, had acquired a new, but not a pleasant interest; their
seclusion was now become precarious; their calm--insecure. That
casement which rained billets, had vulgarized the once dear nook it
overlooked; and elsewhere, the eyes of the flowers had gained vision,
and the knots in the tree-boles listened like secret ears. Some plants
there were, indeed, trodden down by Dr. John in his search, and his
hasty and heedless progress, which I wished to prop up, water, and
revive; some footmarks, too, he had left on the beds: but these, in
spite of the strong wind, I found a moment's leisure to efface very
early in the morning, ere common eyes had discovered them. With a
pensive sort of content, I sat down to my desk and my German, while the
pupils settled to their evening lessons; and the other teachers took up
their needlework.

The scene of the "etude du soir" was always the refectory, a much
smaller apartment than any of the three classes or schoolrooms; for
here none, save the boarders, were ever admitted, and these numbered
only a score. Two lamps hung from the ceiling over the two tables;
these were lit at dusk, and their kindling was the signal for
school-books being set aside, a grave demeanour assumed, general
silence enforced, and then commenced "la lecture pieuse." This said
"lecture pieuse" was, I soon found, mainly designed as a wholesome
mortification of the Intellect, a useful humiliation of the Reason; and
such a dose for Common Sense as she might digest at her leisure, and
thrive on as she best could.

The book brought out (it was never changed, but when finished,
recommenced) was a venerable volume, old as the hills--grey as the
Hotel de Ville.

I would have given two francs for the chance of getting that book once
into my hands, turning over the sacred yellow leaves, ascertaining the
title, and perusing with my own eyes the enormous figments which, as an
unworthy heretic, it was only permitted me to drink in with my
bewildered ears. This book contained legends of the saints. Good God!
(I speak the words reverently) what legends they were. What gasconading
rascals those saints must have been, if they first boasted these
exploits or invented these miracles. These legends, however, were no
more than monkish extravagances, over which one laughed inwardly; there
were, besides, priestly matters, and the priestcraft of the book was
far worse than its monkery. The ears burned on each side of my head as
I listened, perforce, to tales of moral martyrdom inflicted by Rome;
the dread boasts of confessors, who had wickedly abused their office,
trampling to deep degradation high-born ladies, making of countesses
and princesses the most tormented slaves under the sun. Stories like
that of Conrad and Elizabeth of Hungary, recurred again and again, with
all its dreadful viciousness, sickening tyranny and black impiety:
tales that were nightmares of oppression, privation, and agony.

I sat out this "lecture pieuse" for some nights as well as I could, and
as quietly too; only once breaking off the points of my scissors by
involuntarily sticking them somewhat deep in the worm-eaten board of
the table before me. But, at last, it made me so burning hot, and my
temples, and my heart, and my wrist throbbed so fast, and my sleep
afterwards was so broken with excitement, that I could sit no longer.
Prudence recommended henceforward a swift clearance of my person from
the place, the moment that guilty old book was brought out. No Mause
Headrigg ever felt a stronger call to take up her testimony against
Sergeant Bothwell, than I--to speak my mind in this matter of the
popish "lecture pieuse." However, I did manage somehow to curb and rein
in; and though always, as soon as Rosine came to light the lamps, I
shot from the room quickly, yet also I did it quietly; seizing that
vantage moment given by the little bustle before the dead silence, and
vanishing whilst the boarders put their books away.

When I vanished--it was into darkness; candles were not allowed to be
carried about, and the teacher who forsook the refectory, had only the
unlit hall, schoolroom, or bedroom, as a refuge. In winter I sought the
long classes, and paced them fast to keep myself warm--fortunate if the
moon shone, and if there were only stars, soon reconciled to their dim
gleam, or even to the total eclipse of their absence. In summer it was
never quite dark, and then I went up-stairs to my own quarter of the
long dormitory, opened my own casement (that chamber was lit by five
casements large as great doors), and leaning out, looked forth upon the
city beyond the garden, and listened to band-music from the park or the
palace-square, thinking meantime my own thoughts, living my own life,
in my own still, shadow-world.

This evening, fugitive as usual before the Pope and his works, I
mounted the staircase, approached the dormitory, and quietly opened the
door, which was always kept carefully shut, and which, like every other
door in this house, revolved noiselessly on well-oiled hinges. Before I
_saw_, I _felt_ that life was in the great room, usually void: not that
there was either stir or breath, or rustle of sound, but Vacuum lacked,
Solitude was not at home. All the white beds--the "lits d'ange," as
they were poetically termed--lay visible at a glance; all were empty:
no sleeper reposed therein. The sound of a drawer cautiously slid out
struck my ear; stepping a little to one side, my vision took a free
range, unimpeded by falling curtains. I now commanded my own bed and my
own toilet, with a locked work-box upon it, and locked drawers
underneath.

Very good. A dumpy, motherly little body, in decent shawl and the
cleanest of possible nightcaps, stood before this toilet, hard at work
apparently doing me the kindness of "tidying out" the "meuble." Open
stood the lid of the work-box, open the top drawer; duly and
impartially was each succeeding drawer opened in turn: not an article
of their contents but was lifted and unfolded, not a paper but was
glanced over, not a little box but was unlidded; and beautiful was the
adroitness, exemplary the care with which the search was accomplished.
Madame wrought at it like a true star, "unhasting yet unresting." I
will not deny that it was with a secret glee I watched her. Had I been
a gentleman I believe Madame would have found favour in my eyes, she
was so handy, neat, thorough in all she did: some people's movements
provoke the soul by their loose awkwardness, hers--satisfied by their
trim compactness. I stood, in short, fascinated; but it was necessary
to make an effort to break this spell a retreat must be beaten. The
searcher might have turned and caught me; there would have been nothing
for it then but a scene, and she and I would have had to come all at
once, with a sudden clash, to a thorough knowledge of each other: down
would have gone conventionalities, away swept disguises, and _I_ should
have looked into her eyes, and she into mine--we should have known that
we could work together no more, and parted in this life for ever.

Where was the use of tempting such a catastrophe? I was not angry, and
had no wish in the world to leave her. I could hardly get another
employer whose yoke would be so light and so, easy of carriage; and
truly I liked Madame for her capital sense, whatever I might think of
her principles: as to her system, it did me no harm; she might work me
with it to her heart's content: nothing would come of the operation.
Loverless and inexpectant of love, I was as safe from spies in my
heart-poverty, as the beggar from thieves in his destitution of purse.
I turned, then, and fled; descending the stairs with progress as swift
and soundless as that of the spider, which at the same instant ran down
the bannister.

How I laughed when I reached the schoolroom. I knew now she had
certainly seen Dr. John in the garden; I knew what her thoughts were.
The spectacle of a suspicious nature so far misled by its own
inventions, tickled me much. Yet as the laugh died, a kind of wrath
smote me, and then bitterness followed: it was the rock struck, and
Meribah's waters gushing out. I never had felt so strange and
contradictory an inward tumult as I felt for an hour that evening:
soreness and laughter, and fire, and grief, shared my heart between
them. I cried hot tears: not because Madame mistrusted me--I did not
care twopence for her mistrust--but for other reasons. Complicated,
disquieting thoughts broke up the whole repose of my nature. However,
that turmoil subsided: next day I was again Lucy Snowe.

On revisiting my drawers, I found them all securely locked; the closest
subsequent examination could not discover change or apparent
disturbance in the position of one object. My few dresses were folded
as I had left them; a certain little bunch of white violets that had
once been silently presented to me by a stranger (a stranger to me, for
we had never exchanged words), and which I had dried and kept for its
sweet perfume between the folds of my best dress, lay there unstirred;
my black silk scarf, my lace chemisette and collars, were unrumpled.
Had she creased one solitary article, I own I should have felt much
greater difficulty in forgiving her; but finding all straight and
orderly, I said, "Let bygones be bygones. I am unharmed: why should I
bear malice?"

       *       *       *       *       *

A thing there was which puzzled myself, and I sought in my brain a key
to that riddle almost as sedulously as Madame had sought a guide to
useful knowledge in my toilet drawers. How was it that Dr. John, if he
had not been accessory to the dropping of that casket into the garden,
should have known that it _was_ dropped, and appeared so promptly on
the spot to seek it? So strong was the wish to clear up this point that
I began to entertain this daring suggestion: "Why may I not, in case I
should ever have the opportunity, ask Dr. John himself to explain this
coincidence?"

And so long as Dr. John was absent, I really believed I had courage to
test him with such a question.

Little Georgette was now convalescent; and her physician accordingly
made his visits very rare: indeed, he would have ceased them
altogether, had not Madame insisted on his giving an occasional call
till the child should be quite well.

She came into the nursery one evening just after I had listened to
Georgette's lisped and broken prayer, and had put her to bed. Taking
the little one's hand, she said, "Cette enfant a toujours un peu de
fievre." And presently afterwards, looking at me with a quicker glance
than was habitual to her quiet eye, "Le Docteur John l'a-t-il vue
dernierement? Non, n'est-ce pas?"

Of course she knew this better than any other person in the house.
"Well," she continued, "I am going out, pour faire quelques courses en
fiacre. I shall call on Dr. John, and send him to the child. I will
that he sees her this evening; her cheeks are flushed, her pulse is
quick; _you_ will receive him--for my part, I shall be from home."

Now the child was well enough, only warm with the warmth of July; it
was scarcely less needful to send for a priest to administer extreme
unction than for a doctor to prescribe a dose; also Madame rarely made
"courses," as she called them, in the evening: moreover, this was the
first time she had chosen to absent herself on the occasion of a visit
from Dr. John. The whole arrangement indicated some plan; this I saw,
but without the least anxiety. "Ha! ha! Madame," laughed Light-heart
the Beggar, "your crafty wits are on the wrong tack."

She departed, attired very smartly, in a shawl of price, and a certain
_chapeau vert tendre_--hazardous, as to its tint, for any complexion
less fresh than her own, but, to her, not unbecoming. I wondered what
she intended: whether she really would send Dr. John or not; or whether
indeed he would come: he might be engaged.

Madame had charged me not to let Georgette sleep till the doctor came;
I had therefore sufficient occupation in telling her nursery tales and
palavering the little language for her benefit. I affected Georgette;
she was a sensitive and a loving child: to hold her in my lap, or carry
her in my arms, was to me a treat. To-night she would have me lay my
head on the pillow of her crib; she even put her little arms round my
neck. Her clasp, and the nestling action with which she pressed her
cheek to mine, made me almost cry with a tender pain. Feeling of no
kind abounded in that house; this pure little drop from a pure little
source was too sweet: it penetrated deep, and subdued the heart, and
sent a gush to the eyes. Half an hour or an hour passed; Georgette
murmured in her soft lisp that she was growing sleepy. "And you _shall_
sleep," thought I, "malgre maman and medecin, if they are not here in
ten minutes."

Hark! There was the ring, and there the tread, astonishing the
staircase by the fleetness with which it left the steps behind. Rosine
introduced Dr. John, and, with a freedom of manner not altogether
peculiar to herself, but characteristic of the domestics of Villette
generally, she stayed to hear what he had to say. Madame's presence
would have awed her back to her own realm of the vestibule and the
cabinet--for mine, or that of any other teacher or pupil, she cared not
a jot. Smart, trim and pert, she stood, a hand in each pocket of her
gay grisette apron, eyeing Dr. John with no more fear or shyness than
if he had been a picture instead of a living gentleman.

"Le marmot n'a rien, nest-ce pas?" said she, indicating Georgette with
a jerk of her chin.

"Pas beaucoup," was the answer, as the doctor hastily scribbled with
his pencil some harmless prescription.

"Eh bien!" pursued Rosine, approaching him quite near, while he put up
his pencil. "And the box--did you get it? Monsieur went off like a
coup-de-vent the other night; I had not time to ask him."

"I found it: yes."

"And who threw it, then?" continued Rosine, speaking quite freely the
very words I should so much have wished to say, but had no address or
courage to bring it out: how short some people make the road to a point
which, for others, seems unattainable!

"That may be my secret," rejoined Dr. John briefly, but with no sort
of hauteur: he seemed quite to understand the Rosine or grisette
character.

"Mais enfin," continued she, nothing abashed, "monsieur knew it was
thrown, since he came to seek it--how did he know?"

"I was attending a little patient in the college near," said he, "and
saw it dropped out of his chamber window, and so came to pick it up."

How simple the whole explanation! The note had alluded to a physician
as then examining "Gustave."

"Ah ca!" pursued Rosine; "il n'y a donc rien la-dessous: pas de
mystere, pas d'amourette, par exemple?"

"Pas plus que sur ma main," responded the doctor, showing his palm.

"Quel dommage!" responded the grisette: "et moi--a qui tout cela
commencait a donner des idees."

"Vraiment! vous en etes pour vos frais," was the doctor's cool
rejoinder.

She pouted. The doctor could not help laughing at the sort of "moue"
she made: when he laughed, he had something peculiarly good-natured and
genial in his look. I saw his hand incline to his pocket.

"How many times have you opened the door for me within this last
month?" he asked.

"Monsieur ought to have kept count of that," said Rosine, quite readily.

"As if I had not something better to do!" rejoined he; but I saw him
give her a piece of gold, which she took unscrupulously, and then
danced off to answer the door-bell, ringing just now every five
minutes, as the various servants came to fetch the half-boarders.

The reader must not think too hardly of Rosine; on the whole, she was
not a bad sort of person, and had no idea there could be any disgrace
in grasping at whatever she could get, or any effrontery in chattering
like a pie to the best gentleman in Christendom.

I had learnt something from the above scene besides what concerned the
ivory box: viz., that not on the robe de jaconas, pink or grey, nor yet
on the frilled and pocketed apron, lay the blame of breaking Dr. John's
heart: these items of array were obviously guiltless as Georgette's
little blue tunic. So much the better. But who then was the culprit?
What was the ground--what the origin--what the perfect explanation of
the whole business? Some points had been cleared, but how many yet
remained obscure as night!

"However," I said to myself, "it is no affair of yours;" and turning
from the face on which I had been unconsciously dwelling with a
questioning gaze, I looked through the window which commanded the
garden below. Dr. John, meantime, standing by the bed-side, was slowly
drawing on his gloves and watching his little patient, as her eyes
closed and her rosy lips parted in coming sleep. I waited till he
should depart as usual, with a quick bow and scarce articulate
"good-night.". Just as he took his hat, my eyes, fixed on the tall
houses bounding the garden, saw the one lattice, already commemorated,
cautiously open; forth from the aperture projected a hand and a white
handkerchief; both waved. I know not whether the signal was answered
from some viewless quarter of our own dwelling; but immediately after
there fluttered from, the lattice a falling object, white and
light--billet the second, of course.

"There!" I ejaculated involuntarily.

"Where?", asked Dr. John with energy, making direct for the window.
"What, is it?"

"They have gone and done it again," was my reply. "A handkerchief waved
and something fell:" and I pointed to the lattice, now closed and
looking hypocritically blank.

"Go, at once; pick it up and bring it here," was his prompt direction;
adding, "Nobody will take notice of _you: I_ should be seen."

Straight I went. After some little search, I found a folded paper,
lodged on the lower branch of a shrub; I seized and brought it direct
to Dr. John. This time, I believe not even Rosine saw me.

He instantly tore the billet into small pieces, without reading it. "It
is not in the least _her_ fault, you must remember," he said, looking
at me.

"_Whose_ fault?" I asked. "_Who_ is it?"

"You don't yet know, then?"

"Not in the least."

"Have you no guess?"

"None."

"If I knew you better, I might be tempted to risk some confidence, and
thus secure you as guardian over a most innocent and excellent, but
somewhat inexperienced being."

"As a duenna?" I asked.

"Yes," said he abstractedly. "What snares are round her!" he added,
musingly: and now, certainly for the first time, he examined my face,
anxious, doubtless, to see if any kindly expression there, would
warrant him in recommending to my care and indulgence some ethereal
creature, against whom powers of darkness were plotting. I felt no
particular vocation to undertake the surveillance of ethereal
creatures; but recalling the scene at the bureau, it seemed to me that
I owed _him_ a good turn: if I _could_ help him then I would, and it
lay not with me to decide how. With as little reluctance as might be, I
intimated that "I was willing to do what I could towards taking care of
any person in whom he might be interested.".

"I am no farther interested than as a spectator," said he, with a
modesty, admirable, as I thought, to witness. "I happen to be
acquainted with the rather worthless character of the person, who, from
the house opposite, has now twice invaded the sanctity of this place; I
have also met in society the object at whom these vulgar attempts are
aimed. Her exquisite superiority and innate refinement ought, one would
think, to scare impertinence from her very idea. It is not so, however;
and innocent, unsuspicious as she is, I would guard her from evil if I
could. In person, however, I can do nothing I cannot come near her"--he
paused.

"Well, I am willing to help you," said I, "only tell me how." And
busily, in my own mind, I ran over the list of our inmates, seeking
this paragon, this pearl of great price, this gem without flaw. "It
must be Madame," I concluded. "_She_ only, amongst us all, has the art
even to _seem_ superior: but as to being unsuspicious, inexperienced,
&c., Dr. John need not distract himself about that. However, this is
just his whim, and I will not contradict him; he shall be humoured: his
angel shall be an angel.

"Just notify the quarter to which my care is to be directed," I
continued gravely: chuckling, however, to myself over the thought of
being set to chaperon Madame Beck or any of her pupils. Now Dr. John
had a fine set of nerves, and he at once felt by instinct, what no more
coarsely constituted mind would have detected; namely, that I was a
little amused at him. The colour rose to his cheek; with half a smile
he turned and took his hat--he was going. My heart smote me.

"I will--I will help you," said I eagerly. "I will do what you wish. I
will watch over your angel; I will take care of her, only tell me who
she is."

"But you _must_ know," said he then with earnestness, yet speaking very
low. "So spotless, so good, so unspeakably beautiful! impossible that
one house should contain two like her. I allude, of course--"

Here the latch of Madame Beck's chamber-door (opening into the nursery)
gave a sudden click, as if the hand holding it had been slightly
convulsed; there was the suppressed explosion of an irrepressible
sneeze. These little accidents will happen to the best of us.
Madame--excellent woman! was then on duty. She had come home quietly,
stolen up-stairs on tip-toe; she was in her chamber. If she had not
sneezed, she would have heard all, and so should I; but that unlucky
sternutation routed Dr. John. While he stood aghast, she came forward
alert, composed, in the best yet most tranquil spirits: no novice to
her habits but would have thought she had just come in, and scouted the
idea of her ear having been glued to the key-hole for at least ten
minutes. She affected to sneeze again, declared she was "enrhumee," and
then proceeded volubly to recount her "courses en fiacre." The
prayer-bell rang, and I left her with the doctor.

 The tenth chapter, "Dr. John," begins with a discussion of Madame Beck's character. She is described by Lucy as passionless and particularly without a love for her own children. She is kind and looks out for their welfare, but she seems to have no personal attachment to them. She does not give them the kind of attention and affection that Lucy feels that children need. The two eldest children, Desiree and Fifine, are introduced. Desiree, the eldest, is cruel, vindictive, and destructive. She is spied on relentlessly by Madame Beck, which is the only way Madame has of controlling her. Madame does not reprimand Desiree or or correct her faults; she merely says that Desiree needs particularly strict watching. Fifine, on the other hand, is said to resemble her dead father. She is healthy, active, and of a sweet and honest disposition. Lucy naturally finds this child charming. The youngest child is only described as "puny and delicate." One day Fifine falls and breaks her arm. The doctor is called, but Dr. Pillule is unable to come, and a young Dr. John is sent instead. He sets Fifine's arm and makes a good impression on Madame Beck. It appears that Madame is setting her cap for Dr. John. Fifine rapidly heals under the doctor's daily visits, and Desiree, who decides that it would be fun to be sick, pretends to have an illness so that he must continue to return to the Rue Fossette each day. The young doctor is English, and Lucy eventually recalls that it was he who helped her at the station when her luggage was lost. He is tall and fair, and Lucy describes him in such terms that lead the reader to believe that she finds him handsome. She is not impressed with him entirely, however, for she notes his perhaps too-eager desire to please and impress people. He is cold to Lucy and takes no more notice of her than of a piece of furniture. One day he finds her watching him and rebukes her with a veiled insult. Lucy does not give him the satisfaction of explaining herself, and she makes it a point never to speak to him. The perpetually misunderstood and neglected outsider, Lucy takes a perverse pleasure in not giving those who consider themselves her "betters" any explanation or defense of herself or her motives. Chapter XI opens with Madame Beck's youngest child, Georgette, contracting a fever. The two elder girls, Desiree and Fifine, are then sent away to their grandmother in the country in order to avoid infection. Georgette's illness necessitates even more visits from Dr. John. There is some talk among the servants that Madame will marry Dr. John. Lucy is convinced that, as far as the heartless Madame Beck can have affection for anyone, she has it for Dr. John. While this may be due to no more than social climbing and personal vanity rather than actual love on Madame's part, when it becomes clear to Madame that Dr. John does not love her, she is quite obviously wounded. She realizes that she is older than Dr. John-near forty, perhaps--and while handsome she is certainly not sufficiently young, beautiful, or socially prominent enough for Dr. John. The truth hurts her, but she continues on as if nothing has occurred. One day Dr. John arrives at the door of Rue Fossette. Lucy waits a long time and, curious, she descends and finds that he is in the small room kept for the use of the female door-keeper . Lucy spies him from behind the door and overhears a conversation that is heated and passionate. Dr. John leaves the room without seeing Lucy but looking upset. The next chapter, "The Casket," opens with a reference to a horrible medieval legend of a nun shut up alive in an underground vault in the garden when Madame Beck's house was a convent. Lucy, hardly a believer in supernatural tales, thinks she can detect the smooth stone under an old tree that is said to cover this grave. Lucy goes along well enough in her job as English teacher, but she is occasionally gripped by the fierce desire to be free of all the strictures on her life. One night during a fearful storm, all the Catholic girls lie awake praying, but Lucy climbs out onto a windowsill to enjoy the wet and wind of the tempest. She endeavors in her daily life, however, to keep hopes for the future at bay; for she believes that they will only lead to disappointment. In the evenings Lucy walks in the garden, especially down one secluded alley that she has cleaned up and called her own. One night she intercepts a small ivory box flung from a window onto the ground. It is addressed to someone with a "grey dress"--which Lucy coincidentally is wearing at that moment. But Lucy is not expecting a love letter. The ivory casket contains violets and a love letter, but Lucy cannot determine to whom it is addressed or who the writer is. At that moment Dr. John inexplicably arrives and is let in by Rosine the portresse. Lucy notes, too, that Rosine wears a grey dress. Dr. John surreptitiously runs into the garden and looks around for the casket. He turns into the alley and finds Lucy holding out the casket. She gives it to him, and he inquires if she will tell Madame about it. Lucy says she does not know whom it is for or from, but if Dr. John can assure her that it has nothing to do any of Madame's students then she will keep the secret. Madame Beck spies on Dr. John and Lucy during this conversation. In Chapter XIII, "A Sneeze out of Season," Lucy has cause to learn more about Madame Beck's spying. In the evenings, the teachers and the few boarding students gather in the refectory for "lecture pieuse," or religious instruction. Lucy, the staunch English Protestant, dislikes listening to this instruction, so she wanders in the dark schoolrooms or goes to bed. One evening, Lucy cannot bear to stay in the refectory with the girls and teachers, so she goes up to the dormitory where her curtained sleeping area is. She spies Madame Beck carefully going through her things. Madame is obviously suspicious of Lucy for something, and Lucy infers that Madame saw Dr. John that night in the garden. Later, Madame invents a fever in Georgette , which requires her to send for Dr. John. Madame tells Lucy to stay with Georgette until he comes. Dr. John duly comes and writes out a cursory prescription for little Georgette. As he is about to leave, Lucy sees another missive fall from the same window-from the building of the boys' college bordering the garden-while she and Dr. John are standing looking out the window. He bids her to retrieve it, for he cannot do it or he will be seen. Swiftly Lucy gets the letter and brings it back up to Dr. John. He immediately tears it up unread. Lucy asks him what is going on, for she now realizes that Dr. John wrote neither of these letters. He explains that he is protecting someone-which Lucy mistakes to be Madame Beck-from the unwanted advances of some suitor, which would cause damage to the reputation of some female at the school. Some boy in the boys' college bordering the garden is sending these letters. Dr. John is at the point of telling Lucy who the person is, as well as asking her to help him protect her, when there is a sneeze at the door leading to Madame Beck's apartment. She has returned back from her "errands" surreptitiously and has been listening at the door.

