Chapter: CHAPTER XXIII.

VASHTI.


To wonder sadly, did I say? No: a new influence began to act upon my
life, and sadness, for a certain space, was held at bay. Conceive a
dell, deep-hollowed in forest secresy; it lies in dimness and mist: its
turf is dank, its herbage pale and humid. A storm or an axe makes a
wide gap amongst the oak-trees; the breeze sweeps in; the sun looks
down; the sad, cold dell becomes a deep cup of lustre; high summer
pours her blue glory and her golden light out of that beauteous sky,
which till now the starved hollow never saw.

A new creed became mine--a belief in happiness.

It was three weeks since the adventure of the garret, and I possessed
in that case, box, drawer up-stairs, casketed with that first letter,
four companions like to it, traced by the same firm pen, sealed with
the same clear seal, full of the same vital comfort. Vital comfort it
seemed to me then: I read them in after years; they were kind letters
enough--pleasing letters, because composed by one well pleased; in the
two last there were three or four closing lines half-gay, half-tender,
"by _feeling_ touched, but not subdued." Time, dear reader, mellowed
them to a beverage of this mild quality; but when I first tasted their
elixir, fresh from the fount so honoured, it seemed juice of a divine
vintage: a draught which Hebe might fill, and the very gods approve.

Does the reader, remembering what was said some pages back, care to ask
how I answered these letters: whether under the dry, stinting check of
Reason, or according to the full, liberal impulse of Feeling?

To speak truth, I compromised matters; I served two masters: I bowed
down in the houses of Rimmon, and lifted the heart at another shrine. I
wrote to these letters two answers--one for my own relief, the other
for Graham's perusal.

To begin with: Feeling and I turned Reason out of doors, drew against
her bar and bolt, then we sat down, spread our paper, dipped in the ink
an eager pen, and, with deep enjoyment, poured out our sincere heart.
When we had done--when two sheets were covered with the language of a
strongly-adherent affection, a rooted and active gratitude--(once, for
all, in this parenthesis, I disclaim, with the utmost scorn, every
sneaking suspicion of what are called "warmer feelings:" women do not
entertain these "warmer feelings" where, from the commencement, through
the whole progress of an acquaintance, they have never once been
cheated of the conviction that, to do so would be to commit a mortal
absurdity: nobody ever launches into Love unless he has seen or dreamed
the rising of Hope's star over Love's troubled waters)--when, then, I
had given expression to a closely-clinging and deeply-honouring
attachment--an attachment that wanted to attract to itself and take to
its own lot all that was painful in the destiny of its object; that
would, if it could, have absorbed and conducted away all storms and
lightnings from an existence viewed with a passion of solicitude--then,
just at that moment, the doors of my heart would shake, bolt and bar
would yield, Reason would leap in vigorous and revengeful, snatch the
full sheets, read, sneer, erase, tear up, re-write, fold, seal, direct,
and send a terse, curt missive of a page. She did right.

I did not live on letters only: I was visited, I was looked after; once
a week I was taken out to La Terrasse; always I was made much of. Dr.
Bretton failed not to tell me _why_ he was so kind: "To keep away the
nun," he said; "he was determined to dispute with her her prey. He had
taken," he declared, "a thorough dislike to her, chiefly on account of
that white face-cloth, and those cold grey eyes: the moment he heard of
those odious particulars," he affirmed, "consummate disgust had incited
him to oppose her; he was determined to try whether he or she was the
cleverest, and he only wished she would once more look in upon me when
he was present:" but _that_ she never did. In short, he regarded me
scientifically in the light of a patient, and at once exercised his
professional skill, and gratified his natural benevolence, by a course
of cordial and attentive treatment.

One evening, the first in December, I was walking by myself in the
carre; it was six o'clock; the classe-doors were closed; but within,
the pupils, rampant in the licence of evening recreation, were
counterfeiting a miniature chaos. The carre was quite dark, except a
red light shining under and about the stove; the wide glass-doors and
the long windows were frosted over; a crystal sparkle of starlight,
here and there spangling this blanched winter veil, and breaking with
scattered brilliance the paleness of its embroidery, proved it a clear
night, though moonless. That I should dare to remain thus alone in
darkness, showed that my nerves were regaining a healthy tone: I
thought of the nun, but hardly feared her; though the staircase was
behind me, leading up, through blind, black night, from landing to
landing, to the haunted grenier. Yet I own my heart quaked, my pulse
leaped, when I suddenly heard breathing and rustling, and turning, saw
in the deep shadow of the steps a deeper shadow still--a shape that
moved and descended. It paused a while at the classe-door, and then it
glided before me. Simultaneously came a clangor of the distant
door-bell. Life-like sounds bring life-like feelings: this shape was
too round and low for my gaunt nun: it was only Madame Beck on duty.

"Mademoiselle Lucy!" cried Rosine, bursting in, lamp in hand, from the
corridor, "on est la pour vous au salon."

Madame saw me, I saw Madame, Rosine saw us both: there was no mutual
recognition. I made straight for the salon. There I found what I own I
anticipated I should find--Dr. Bretton; but he was in evening-dress.

"The carriage is at the door," said he; "my mother has sent it to take
you to the theatre; she was going herself, but an arrival has prevented
her: she immediately said, 'Take Lucy in my place.' Will you go?"

"Just now? I am not dressed," cried I, glancing despairingly at my dark
merino.

"You have half an hour to dress. I should have given you notice, but I
only determined on going since five o'clock, when I heard there was to
be a genuine regale in the presence of a great actress."

And he mentioned a name that thrilled me--a name that, in those days,
could thrill Europe. It is hushed now: its once restless echoes are all
still; she who bore it went years ago to her rest: night and oblivion
long since closed above her; but _then_ her day--a day of Sirius--stood
at its full height, light and fervour.

"I'll go; I will be ready in ten minutes," I vowed. And away I flew,
never once checked, reader, by the thought which perhaps at this moment
checks you: namely, that to go anywhere with Graham and without Mrs.
Bretton could be objectionable. I could not have conceived, much less
have expressed to Graham, such thought--such scruple--without risk of
exciting a tyrannous self-contempt: of kindling an inward fire of shame
so quenchless, and so devouring, that I think it would soon have licked
up the very life in my veins. Besides, my godmother, knowing her son,
and knowing me, would as soon have thought of chaperoning a sister with
a brother, as of keeping anxious guard over our incomings and outgoings.

The present was no occasion for showy array; my dun mist crape would
suffice, and I sought the same in the great oak-wardrobe in the
dormitory, where hung no less than forty dresses. But there had been
changes and reforms, and some innovating hand had pruned this same
crowded wardrobe, and carried divers garments to the grenier--my crape
amongst the rest. I must fetch it. I got the key, and went aloft
fearless, almost thoughtless. I unlocked the door, I plunged in. The
reader may believe it or not, but when I thus suddenly entered, that
garret was not wholly dark as it should have been: from one point there
shone a solemn light, like a star, but broader. So plainly it shone,
that it revealed the deep alcove with a portion of the tarnished
scarlet curtain drawn over it. Instantly, silently, before my eyes, it
vanished; so did the curtain and alcove: all that end of the garret
became black as night. I ventured no research; I had not time nor will;
snatching my dress, which hung on the wall, happily near the door, I
rushed out, relocked the door with convulsed haste, and darted
downwards to the dormitory.

But I trembled too much to dress myself: impossible to arrange hair or
fasten hooks-and-eyes with such fingers, so I called Rosine and bribed
her to help me. Rosine liked a bribe, so she did her best, smoothed and
plaited my hair as well as a coiffeur would have done, placed the lace
collar mathematically straight, tied the neck-ribbon accurately--in
short, did her work like the neat-handed Phillis she could be when she
chose. Having given me my handkerchief and gloves, she took the candle
and lighted me down-stairs. After all, I had forgotten my shawl; she
ran back to fetch it; and I stood with Dr. John in the vestibule,
waiting.

"What is this, Lucy?" said he, looking down at me narrowly. "Here is
the old excitement. Ha! the nun again?"

But I utterly denied the charge: I was vexed to be suspected of a
second illusion. He was sceptical.

"She has been, as sure as I live," said he; "her figure crossing your
eyes leaves on them a peculiar gleam and expression not to be mistaken."

"She has _not_ been," I persisted: for, indeed, I could deny her
apparition with truth.

"The old symptoms are there," he affirmed: "a particular pale, and what
the Scotch call a 'raised' look."

He was so obstinate, I thought it better to tell him what I really
_had_ seen. Of course with him it was held to be another effect of the
same cause: it was all optical illusion--nervous malady, and so on. Not
one bit did I believe him; but I dared not contradict: doctors are so
self-opinionated, so immovable in their dry, materialist views.

Rosine brought the shawl, and I was bundled into the carriage.

       *       *       *       *       *

The theatre was full--crammed to its roof: royal and noble were there:
palace and hotel had emptied their inmates into those tiers so thronged
and so hushed. Deeply did I feel myself privileged in having a place
before that stage; I longed to see a being of whose powers I had heard
reports which made me conceive peculiar anticipations. I wondered if
she would justify her renown: with strange curiosity, with feelings
severe and austere, yet of riveted interest, I waited. She was a study
of such nature as had not encountered my eyes yet: a great and new
planet she was: but in what shape? I waited her rising.

She rose at nine that December night: above the horizon I saw her come.
She could shine yet with pale grandeur and steady might; but that star
verged already on its judgment-day. Seen near, it was a chaos--hollow,
half-consumed: an orb perished or perishing--half lava, half glow.

I had heard this woman termed "plain," and I expected bony harshness
and grimness--something large, angular, sallow. What I saw was the
shadow of a royal Vashti: a queen, fair as the day once, turned pale
now like twilight, and wasted like wax in flame.

For awhile--a long while--I thought it was only a woman, though an
unique woman, who moved in might and grace before this multitude.
By-and-by I recognised my mistake. Behold! I found upon her something
neither of woman nor of man: in each of her eyes sat a devil. These
evil forces bore her through the tragedy, kept up her feeble
strength--for she was but a frail creature; and as the action rose and
the stir deepened, how wildly they shook her with their passions of the
pit! They wrote HELL on her straight, haughty brow. They tuned her
voice to the note of torment. They writhed her regal face to a demoniac
mask. Hate and Murder and Madness incarnate she stood.

It was a marvellous sight: a mighty revelation.

It was a spectacle low, horrible, immoral.

Swordsmen thrust through, and dying in their blood on the arena sand;
bulls goring horses disembowelled, made a meeker vision for the
public--a milder condiment for a people's palate--than Vashti torn by
seven devils: devils which cried sore and rent the tenement they
haunted, but still refused to be exorcised.

Suffering had struck that stage empress; and she stood before her
audience neither yielding to, nor enduring, nor, in finite measure,
resenting it: she stood locked in struggle, rigid in resistance. She
stood, not dressed, but draped in pale antique folds, long and regular
like sculpture. A background and entourage and flooring of deepest
crimson threw her out, white like alabaster--like silver: rather, be it
said, like Death.

Where was the artist of the Cleopatra? Let him come and sit down and
study this different vision. Let him seek here the mighty brawn, the
muscle, the abounding blood, the full-fed flesh he worshipped: let all
materialists draw nigh and look on.

I have said that she does not _resent_ her grief. No; the weakness of
that word would make it a lie. To her, what hurts becomes immediately
embodied: she looks on it as a thing that can be attacked, worried
down, torn in shreds. Scarcely a substance herself, she grapples to
conflict with abstractions. Before calamity she is a tigress; she rends
her woes, shivers them in convulsed abhorrence. Pain, for her, has no
result in good: tears water no harvest of wisdom: on sickness, on death
itself, she looks with the eye of a rebel. Wicked, perhaps, she is, but
also she is strong; and her strength has conquered Beauty, has overcome
Grace, and bound both at her side, captives peerlessly fair, and docile
as fair. Even in the uttermost frenzy of energy is each maenad movement
royally, imperially, incedingly upborne. Her hair, flying loose in
revel or war, is still an angel's hair, and glorious under a halo.
Fallen, insurgent, banished, she remembers the heaven where she
rebelled. Heaven's light, following her exile, pierces its confines,
and discloses their forlorn remoteness.

Place now the Cleopatra, or any other slug, before her as an obstacle,
and see her cut through the pulpy mass as the scimitar of Saladin clove
the down cushion. Let Paul Peter Rubens wake from the dead, let him
rise out of his cerements, and bring into this presence all the army of
his fat women; the magian power or prophet-virtue gifting that slight
rod of Moses, could, at one waft, release and re-mingle a sea
spell-parted, whelming the heavy host with the down-rush of overthrown
sea-ramparts.

Vashti was not good, I was told; and I have said she did not look good:
though a spirit, she was a spirit out of Tophet. Well, if so much of
unholy force can arise from below, may not an equal efflux of sacred
essence descend one day from above?

What thought Dr. Graham of this being?

For long intervals I forgot to look how he demeaned himself, or to
question what he thought. The strong magnetism of genius drew my heart
out of its wonted orbit; the sunflower turned from the south to a
fierce light, not solar--a rushing, red, cometary light--hot on vision
and to sensation. I had seen acting before, but never anything like
this: never anything which astonished Hope and hushed Desire; which
outstripped Impulse and paled Conception; which, instead of merely
irritating imagination with the thought of what _might_ be done, at the
same time fevering the nerves because it was _not_ done, disclosed
power like a deep, swollen winter river, thundering in cataract, and
bearing the soul, like a leaf, on the steep and steelly sweep of its
descent.

Miss Fanshawe, with her usual ripeness of judgment, pronounced Dr.
Bretton a serious, impassioned man, too grave and too impressible. Not
in such light did I ever see him: no such faults could I lay to his
charge. His natural attitude was not the meditative, nor his natural
mood the sentimental; _impressionable_ he was as dimpling water, but,
almost as water, _unimpressible:_ the breeze, the sun, moved him--metal
could not grave, nor fire brand.

Dr. John _could_ think and think well, but he was rather a man of
action than of thought; he _could_ feel, and feel vividly in his way,
but his heart had no chord for enthusiasm: to bright, soft, sweet
influences his eyes and lips gave bright, soft, sweet welcome,
beautiful to see as dyes of rose and silver, pearl and purple, imbuing
summer clouds; for what belonged to storm, what was wild and intense,
dangerous, sudden, and flaming, he had no sympathy, and held with it no
communion. When I took time and regained inclination to glance at him,
it amused and enlightened me to discover that he was watching that
sinister and sovereign Vashti, not with wonder, nor worship, nor yet
dismay, but simply with intense curiosity. Her agony did not pain him,
her wild moan--worse than a shriek--did not much move him; her fury
revolted him somewhat, but not to the point of horror. Cool young
Briton! The pale cliffs of his own England do not look down on the
tides of the Channel more calmly than he watched the Pythian
inspiration of that night.

Looking at his face, I longed to know his exact opinions, and at last I
put a question tending to elicit them. At the sound of my voice he
awoke as if out of a dream; for he had been thinking, and very intently
thinking, his own thoughts, after his own manner. "How did he like
Vashti?" I wished to know.

"Hm-m-m," was the first scarce articulate but expressive answer; and
then such a strange smile went wandering round his lips, a smile so
critical, so almost callous! I suppose that for natures of that order
his sympathies _were_ callous. In a few terse phrases he told me his
opinion of, and feeling towards, the actress: he judged her as a woman,
not an artist: it was a branding judgment.

That night was already marked in my book of life, not with white, but
with a deep-red cross. But I had not done with it yet; and other
memoranda were destined to be set down in characters of tint indelible.

Towards midnight, when the deepening tragedy blackened to the
death-scene, and all held their breath, and even Graham bit his
under-lip, and knit his brow, and sat still and struck--when the whole
theatre was hushed, when the vision of all eyes centred in one point,
when all ears listened towards one quarter--nothing being seen but the
white form sunk on a seat, quivering in conflict with her last, her
worst-hated, her visibly-conquering foe--nothing heard but her throes,
her gaspings, breathing yet of mutiny, panting still defiance; when, as
it seemed, an inordinate will, convulsing a perishing mortal frame,
bent it to battle with doom and death, fought every inch of ground,
sold every drop of blood, resisted to the latest the rape of every
faculty, _would_ see, _would_ hear, _would_ breathe, _would_ live, up
to, within, well-nigh _beyond_ the moment when death says to all sense
and all being--"Thus far and no farther!"--

Just then a stir, pregnant with omen, rustled behind the scenes--feet
ran, voices spoke. What was it? demanded the whole house. A flame, a
smell of smoke replied.

"Fire!" rang through the gallery. "Fire!" was repeated, re-echoed,
yelled forth: and then, and faster than pen can set it down, came
panic, rushing, crushing--a blind, selfish, cruel chaos.

And Dr. John? Reader, I see him yet, with his look of comely courage
and cordial calm.

"Lucy will sit still, I know," said he, glancing down at me with the
same serene goodness, the same repose of firmness that I have seen in
him when sitting at his side amid the secure peace of his mother's
hearth. Yes, thus adjured, I think I would have sat still under a
rocking crag: but, indeed, to sit still in actual circumstances was my
instinct; and at the price of my very life, I would not have moved to
give him trouble, thwart his will, or make demands on his attention. We
were in the stalls, and for a few minutes there was a most terrible,
ruthless pressure about us.

"How terrified are the women!" said he; "but if the men were not almost
equally so, order might be maintained. This is a sorry scene: I see
fifty selfish brutes at this moment, each of whom, if I were near, I
could conscientiously knock down. I see some women braver than some
men. There is one yonder--Good God!"

While Graham was speaking, a young girl who had been very quietly and
steadily clinging to a gentleman before us, was suddenly struck from
her protector's arms by a big, butcherly intruder, and hurled under the
feet of the crowd. Scarce two seconds lasted her disappearance. Graham
rushed forwards; he and the gentleman, a powerful man though
grey-haired, united their strength to thrust back the throng; her head
and long hair fell back over his shoulder: she seemed unconscious.

"Trust her with me; I am a medical man," said Dr. John.

"If you have no lady with you, be it so," was the answer. "Hold her,
and I will force a passage: we must get her to the air."

"I have a lady," said Graham; "but she will be neither hindrance nor
incumbrance."

He summoned me with his eye: we were separated. Resolute, however, to
rejoin him, I penetrated the living barrier, creeping under where I
could not get between or over.

"Fasten on me, and don't leave go," he said; and I obeyed him.

Our pioneer proved strong and adroit; he opened the dense mass like a
wedge; with patience and toil he at last bored through the
flesh-and-blood rock--so solid, hot, and suffocating--and brought us to
the fresh, freezing night.

"You are an Englishman!" said he, turning shortly on Dr. Bretton, when
we got into the street.

"An Englishman. And I speak to a countryman?" was the reply.

"Right. Be good enough to stand here two minutes, whilst I find my
carriage."

"Papa, I am not hurt," said a girlish voice; "am I with papa?"

"You are with a friend, and your father is close at hand."

"Tell him I am not hurt, except just in my shoulder. Oh, my shoulder!
They trod just here."

"Dislocation, perhaps!" muttered the Doctor: "let us hope there is no
worse injury done. Lucy, lend a hand one instant."

And I assisted while he made some arrangement of drapery and position
for the ease of his suffering burden. She suppressed a moan, and lay in
his arms quietly and patiently.

"She is very light," said Graham, "like a child!" and he asked in my
ear, "Is she a child, Lucy? Did you notice her age?"

"I am not a child--I am a person of seventeen," responded the patient,
demurely and with dignity. Then, directly after: "Tell papa to come; I
get anxious."

The carriage drove up; her father relieved Graham; but in the exchange
from one bearer to another she was hurt, and moaned again.

"My darling!" said the father, tenderly; then turning to Graham, "You
said, sir, you are a medical man?"

"I am: Dr. Bretton, of La Terrasse."

"Good. Will you step into my carriage?"

"My own carriage is here: I will seek it, and accompany you."

"Be pleased, then, to follow us." And he named his address: "The Hotel
Crecy, in the Rue Crecy."

We followed; the carriage drove fast; myself and Graham were silent.
This seemed like an adventure.

Some little time being lost in seeking our own equipage, we reached the
hotel perhaps about ten minutes after these strangers. It was an hotel
in the foreign sense: a collection of dwelling-houses, not an inn--a
vast, lofty pile, with a huge arch to its street-door, leading through
a vaulted covered way, into a square all built round.

We alighted, passed up a wide, handsome public staircase, and stopped
at Numero 2 on the second landing; the first floor comprising the abode
of I know not what "prince Russe," as Graham informed me. On ringing
the bell at a second great door, we were admitted to a suite of very
handsome apartments. Announced by a servant in livery, we entered a
drawing-room whose hearth glowed with an English fire, and whose walls
gleamed with foreign mirrors. Near the hearth appeared a little group:
a slight form sunk in a deep arm-chair, one or two women busy about it,
the iron-grey gentleman anxiously looking on.

"Where is Harriet? I wish Harriet would come to me," said the girlish
voice, faintly.

"Where is Mrs. Hurst?" demanded the gentleman impatiently and somewhat
sternly of the man-servant who had admitted us.

"I am sorry to say she is gone out of town, sir; my young lady gave her
leave till to-morrow."

"Yes--I did--I did. She is gone to see her sister; I said she might go:
I remember now," interposed the young lady; "but I am so sorry, for
Manon and Louison cannot understand a word I say, and they hurt me
without meaning to do so."

Dr. John and the gentleman now interchanged greetings; and while they
passed a few minutes in consultation, I approached the easy-chair, and
seeing what the faint and sinking girl wished to have done, I did it
for her.

I was still occupied in the arrangement, when Graham drew near; he was
no less skilled in surgery than medicine, and, on examination, found
that no further advice than his own was necessary to the treatment of
the present case. He ordered her to be carried to her chamber, and
whispered to me:--"Go with the women, Lucy; they seem but dull; you can
at least direct their movements, and thus spare her some pain. She must
be touched very tenderly."

The chamber was a room shadowy with pale-blue hangings, vaporous with
curtainings and veilings of muslin; the bed seemed to me like
snow-drift and mist--spotless, soft, and gauzy. Making the women stand
apart, I undressed their mistress, without their well-meaning but
clumsy aid. I was not in a sufficiently collected mood to note with
separate distinctness every detail of the attire I removed, but I
received a general impression of refinement, delicacy, and perfect
personal cultivation; which, in a period of after-thought, offered in
my reflections a singular contrast to notes retained of Miss Ginevra
Fanshawe's appointments.

The girl was herself a small, delicate creature, but made like a model.
As I folded back her plentiful yet fine hair, so shining and soft, and
so exquisitely tended, I had under my observation a young, pale, weary,
but high-bred face. The brow was smooth and clear; the eyebrows were
distinct, but soft, and melting to a mere trace at the temples; the
eyes were a rich gift of nature--fine and full, large, deep, seeming to
hold dominion over the slighter subordinate features--capable,
probably, of much significance at another hour and under other
circumstances than the present, but now languid and suffering. Her skin
was perfectly fair, the neck and hands veined finely like the petals of
a flower; a thin glazing of the ice of pride polished this delicate
exterior, and her lip wore a curl--I doubt not inherent and
unconscious, but which, if I had seen it first with the accompaniments
of health and state, would have struck me as unwarranted, and proving
in the little lady a quite mistaken view of life and her own
consequence.

Her demeanour under the Doctor's hands at first excited a smile; it was
not puerile--rather, on the whole, patient and firm--but yet, once or
twice she addressed him with suddenness and sharpness, saying that he
hurt her, and must contrive to give her less pain; I saw her large
eyes, too, settle on his face like the solemn eyes of some pretty,
wondering child. I know not whether Graham felt this examination: if he
did, he was cautious not to check or discomfort it by any retaliatory
look. I think he performed his work with extreme care and gentleness,
sparing her what pain he could; and she acknowledged as much, when he
had done, by the words:--"Thank you, Doctor, and good-night," very
gratefully pronounced as she uttered them, however, it was with a
repetition of the serious, direct gaze, I thought, peculiar in its
gravity and intentness.

The injuries, it seems, were not dangerous: an assurance which her
father received with a smile that almost made one his friend--it was so
glad and gratified. He now expressed his obligations to Graham with as
much earnestness as was befitting an Englishman addressing one who has
served him, but is yet a stranger; he also begged him to call the next
day.

"Papa," said a voice from the veiled couch, "thank the lady, too; is
she there?"

I opened the curtain with a smile, and looked in at her. She lay now at
comparative ease; she looked pretty, though pale; her face was
delicately designed, and if at first sight it appeared proud, I believe
custom might prove it to be soft.

"I thank the lady very sincerely," said her father: "I fancy she has
been very good to my child. I think we scarcely dare tell Mrs. Hurst
who has been her substitute and done her work; she will feel at once
ashamed and jealous."

And thus, in the most friendly spirit, parting greetings were
interchanged; and refreshment having been hospitably offered, but by
us, as it was late, refused, we withdrew from the Hotel Crecy.

On our way back we repassed the theatre. All was silence and darkness:
the roaring, rushing crowd all vanished and gone--the damps, as well as
the incipient fire, extinct and forgotten. Next morning's papers
explained that it was but some loose drapery on which a spark had
fallen, and which had blazed up and been quenched in a moment.





CHAPTER XXIV.

M. DE BASSOMPIERRE.


Those who live in retirement, whose lives have fallen amid the
seclusion of schools or of other walled-in and guarded dwellings, are
liable to be suddenly and for a long while dropped out of the memory of
their friends, the denizens of a freer world. Unaccountably, perhaps,
and close upon some space of unusually frequent intercourse--some
congeries of rather exciting little circumstances, whose natural sequel
would rather seem to be the quickening than the suspension of
communication--there falls a stilly pause, a wordless silence, a long
blank of oblivion. Unbroken always is this blank; alike entire and
unexplained. The letter, the message once frequent, are cut off; the
visit, formerly periodical, ceases to occur; the book, paper, or other
token that indicated remembrance, comes no more.

Always there are excellent reasons for these lapses, if the hermit but
knew them. Though he is stagnant in his cell, his connections without
are whirling in the very vortex of life. That void interval which
passes for him so slowly that the very clocks seem at a stand, and the
wingless hours plod by in the likeness of tired tramps prone to rest at
milestones--that same interval, perhaps, teems with events, and pants
with hurry for his friends.

The hermit--if he be a sensible hermit--will swallow his own thoughts,
and lock up his own emotions during these weeks of inward winter. He
will know that Destiny designed him to imitate, on occasion, the
dormouse, and he will be conformable: make a tidy ball of himself,
creep into a hole of life's wall, and submit decently to the drift
which blows in and soon blocks him up, preserving him in ice for the
season.

Let him say, "It is quite right: it ought to be so, since so it is."
And, perhaps, one day his snow-sepulchre will open, spring's softness
will return, the sun and south-wind will reach him; the budding of
hedges, and carolling of birds, and singing of liberated streams, will
call him to kindly resurrection. _Perhaps_ this may be the case,
perhaps not: the frost may get into his heart and never thaw more; when
spring comes, a crow or a pie may pick out of the wall only his
dormouse-bones. Well, even in that case, all will be right: it is to be
supposed he knew from the first he was mortal, and must one day go the
way of all flesh, "As well soon as syne."

Following that eventful evening at the theatre, came for me seven weeks
as bare as seven sheets of blank paper: no word was written on one of
them; not a visit, not a token.

About the middle of that time I entertained fancies that something had
happened to my friends at La Terrasse. The mid-blank is always a
beclouded point for the solitary: his nerves ache with the strain of
long expectancy; the doubts hitherto repelled gather now to a mass
and--strong in accumulation--roll back upon him with a force which
savours of vindictiveness. Night, too, becomes an unkindly time, and
sleep and his nature cannot agree: strange starts and struggles harass
his couch: the sinister band of bad dreams, with horror of calamity,
and sick dread of entire desertion at their head, join the league
against him. Poor wretch! He does his best to bear up, but he is a
poor, pallid, wasting wretch, despite that best.

Towards the last of these long seven weeks I admitted, what through the
other six I had jealously excluded--the conviction that these blanks
were inevitable: the result of circumstances, the fiat of fate, a part
of my life's lot and--above all--a matter about whose origin no
question must ever be asked, for whose painful sequence no murmur ever
uttered. Of course I did not blame myself for suffering: I thank God I
had a truer sense of justice than to fall into any imbecile
extravagance of self-accusation; and as to blaming others for silence,
in my reason I well knew them blameless, and in my heart acknowledged
them so: but it was a rough and heavy road to travel, and I longed for
better days.

I tried different expedients to sustain and fill existence: I commenced
an elaborate piece of lace-work, I studied German pretty hard, I
undertook a course of regular reading of the driest and thickest books
in the library; in all my efforts I was as orthodox as I knew how to
be. Was there error somewhere? Very likely. I only know the result was
as if I had gnawed a file to satisfy hunger, or drank brine to quench
thirst.

My hour of torment was the post-hour. Unfortunately, I knew it too
well, and tried as vainly as assiduously to cheat myself of that
knowledge; dreading the rack of expectation, and the sick collapse of
disappointment which daily preceded and followed upon that
well-recognised ring.

I suppose animals kept in cages, and so scantily fed as to be always
upon the verge of famine, await their food as I awaited a letter.
Oh!--to speak truth, and drop that tone of a false calm which long to
sustain, outwears nature's endurance--I underwent in those seven weeks
bitter fears and pains, strange inward trials, miserable defections of
hope, intolerable encroachments of despair. This last came so near me
sometimes that her breath went right through me. I used to feel it like
a baleful air or sigh, penetrate deep, and make motion pause at my
heart, or proceed only under unspeakable oppression. The letter--the
well-beloved letter--would not come; and it was all of sweetness in
life I had to look for.

In the very extremity of want, I had recourse again, and yet again, to
the little packet in the case--the five letters. How splendid that
month seemed whose skies had beheld the rising of these five stars! It
was always at night I visited them, and not daring to ask every evening
for a candle in the kitchen, I bought a wax taper and matches to light
it, and at the study-hour stole up to the dormitory and feasted on my
crust from the Barmecide's loaf. It did not nourish me: I pined on it,
and got as thin as a shadow: otherwise I was not ill.

Reading there somewhat late one evening, and feeling that the power to
read was leaving me--for the letters from incessant perusal were losing
all sap and significance: my gold was withering to leaves before my
eyes, and I was sorrowing over the disillusion--suddenly a quick
tripping foot ran up the stairs. I knew Ginevra Fanshawe's step: she
had dined in town that afternoon; she was now returned, and would come
here to replace her shawl, &c. in the wardrobe.

Yes: in she came, dressed in bright silk, with her shawl falling from
her shoulders, and her curls, half-uncurled in the damp of night,
drooping careless and heavy upon her neck. I had hardly time to
recasket my treasures and lock them up when she was at my side her
humour seemed none of the best.

"It has been a stupid evening: they are stupid people," she began.

"Who? Mrs. Cholmondeley? I thought you always found her house charming?"

"I have not been to Mrs. Cholmondeley's."

"Indeed! Have you made new acquaintance?"

"My uncle de Bassompierre is come."

"Your uncle de Bassompierre! Are you not glad?--I thought he was a
favourite."

"You thought wrong: the man is odious; I hate him."

"Because he is a foreigner? or for what other reason of equal weight?"

"He is not a foreigner. The man is English enough, goodness knows; and
had an English name till three or four years ago; but his mother was a
foreigner, a de Bassompierre, and some of her family are dead and have
left him estates, a title, and this name: he is quite a great man now."

"Do you hate him for that reason?"

"Don't I know what mamma says about him? He is not my own uncle, but
married mamma's sister. Mamma detests him; she says he killed aunt
Ginevra with unkindness: he looks like a bear. Such a dismal evening!"
she went on. "I'll go no more to his big hotel. Fancy me walking into a
room alone, and a great man fifty years old coming forwards, and after
a few minutes' conversation actually turning his back upon me, and then
abruptly going out of the room. Such odd ways! I daresay his conscience
smote him, for they all say at home I am the picture of aunt Ginevra.
Mamma often declares the likeness is quite ridiculous."

"Were you the only visitor?"

"The only visitor? Yes; then there was missy, my cousin: little
spoiled, pampered thing."

"M. de Bassompierre has a daughter?"

"Yes, yes: don't tease one with questions. Oh, dear! I am so tired."

She yawned. Throwing herself without ceremony on my bed she added, "It
seems Mademoiselle was nearly crushed to a jelly in a hubbub at the
theatre some weeks ago."

"Ah! indeed. And they live at a large hotel in the Rue Crecy?"

"Justement. How do _you_ know?"

"I have been there."

"Oh, you have? Really! You go everywhere in these days. I suppose
Mother Bretton took you. She and Esculapius have the _entree_ of the de
Bassompierre apartments: it seems 'my son John' attended missy on the
occasion of her accident--Accident? Bah! All affectation! I don't think
she was squeezed more than she richly deserves for her airs. And now
there is quite an intimacy struck up: I heard something about 'auld
lang syne,' and what not. Oh, how stupid they all were!"

"_All!_ You said you were the only visitor."

"Did I? You see one forgets to particularize an old woman and her boy."

"Dr. and Mrs. Bretton were at M. de Bassompierre's this evening?"

"Ay, ay! as large as life; and missy played the hostess. What a
conceited doll it is!"

Soured and listless, Miss Fanshawe was beginning to disclose the causes
of her prostrate condition. There had been a retrenchment of incense, a
diversion or a total withholding of homage and attention coquetry had
failed of effect, vanity had undergone mortification. She lay fuming in
the vapours.

"Is Miss de Bassompierre quite well now?" I asked.

"As well as you or I, no doubt; but she is an affected little thing,
and gave herself invalid airs to attract medical notice. And to see the
old dowager making her recline on a couch, and 'my son John'
prohibiting excitement, etcetera--faugh! the scene was quite sickening."

"It would not have been so if the object of attention had been changed:
if you had taken Miss de Bassompierre's place."

"Indeed! I hate 'my son John!'"

"'My son John!'--whom do you indicate by that name? Dr. Bretton's
mother never calls him so."

"Then she ought. A clownish, bearish John he is."

"You violate the truth in saying so; and as the whole of my patience is
now spun off the distaff, I peremptorily desire you to rise from that
bed, and vacate this room."

"Passionate thing! Your face is the colour of a coquelicot. I wonder
what always makes you so mighty testy a l'endroit du gros Jean? 'John
Anderson, my Joe, John!' Oh, the distinguished name!"

Thrilling with exasperation, to which it would have been sheer folly to
have given vent--for there was no contending with that unsubstantial
feather, that mealy-winged moth--I extinguished my taper, locked my
bureau, and left her, since she would not leave me. Small-beer as she
was, she had turned insufferably acid.

The morrow was Thursday and a half-holiday. Breakfast was over; I had
withdrawn to the first classe. The dreaded hour, the post-hour, was
nearing, and I sat waiting it, much as a ghost-seer might wait his
spectre. Less than ever was a letter probable; still, strive as I
would, I could not forget that it was possible. As the moments
lessened, a restlessness and fear almost beyond the average assailed
me. It was a day of winter east wind, and I had now for some time
entered into that dreary fellowship with the winds and their changes,
so little known, so incomprehensible to the healthy. The north and east
owned a terrific influence, making all pain more poignant, all sorrow
sadder. The south could calm, the west sometimes cheer: unless, indeed,
they brought on their wings the burden of thunder-clouds, under the
weight and warmth of which all energy died.

Bitter and dark as was this January day, I remember leaving the classe,
and running down without bonnet to the bottom of the long garden, and
then lingering amongst the stripped shrubs, in the forlorn hope that
the postman's ring might occur while I was out of hearing, and I might
thus be spared the thrill which some particular nerve or nerves, almost
gnawed through with the unremitting tooth of a fixed idea, were
becoming wholly unfit to support. I lingered as long as I dared without
fear of attracting attention by my absence. I muffled my head in my
apron, and stopped my ears in terror of the torturing clang, sure to be
followed by such blank silence, such barren vacuum for me. At last I
ventured to re-enter the first classe, where, as it was not yet nine
o'clock, no pupils had been admitted. The first thing seen was a white
object on my black desk, a white, flat object. The post had, indeed,
arrived; by me unheard. Rosine had visited my cell, and, like some
angel, had left behind her a bright token of her presence. That shining
thing on the desk was indeed a letter, a real letter; I saw so much at
the distance of three yards, and as I had but one correspondent on
earth, from that one it must come. He remembered me yet. How deep a
pulse of gratitude sent new life through my heart.

Drawing near, bending and looking on the letter, in trembling but
almost certain hope of seeing a known hand, it was my lot to find, on
the contrary, an autograph for the moment deemed unknown--a pale female
scrawl, instead of a firm, masculine character. I then thought fate was
_too_ hard for me, and I said, audibly, "This is cruel."

But I got over that pain also. Life is still life, whatever its pangs:
our eyes and ears and their use remain with us, though the prospect of
what pleases be wholly withdrawn, and the sound of what consoles be
quite silenced.

I opened the billet: by this time I had recognised its handwriting as
perfectly familiar. It was dated "La Terrasse," and it ran thus:--

"DEAR LUCY,--It occurs to me to inquire what you have been doing with
yourself for the last month or two? Not that I suspect you would have
the least difficulty in giving an account of your proceedings. I
daresay you have been just as busy and as happy as ourselves at La
Terrasse. As to Graham, his professional connection extends daily: he
is so much sought after, so much engaged, that I tell him he will grow
quite conceited. Like a right good mother, as I am, I do my best to
keep him down: no flattery does he get from me, as you know. And yet,
Lucy, he is a fine fellow: his mother's heart dances at the sight of
him. After being hurried here and there the whole day, and passing the
ordeal of fifty sorts of tempers, and combating a hundred caprices, and
sometimes witnessing cruel sufferings--perhaps, occasionally, as I tell
him, inflicting them--at night he still comes home to me in such
kindly, pleasant mood, that really, I seem to live in a sort of moral
antipodes, and on these January evenings my day rises when other
people's night sets in.

"Still he needs keeping in order, and correcting, and repressing, and I
do him that good service; but the boy is so elastic there is no such
thing as vexing him thoroughly. When I think I have at last driven him
to the sullens, he turns on me with jokes for retaliation: but you know
him and all his iniquities, and I am but an elderly simpleton to make
him the subject of this epistle.

"As for me, I have had my old Bretton agent here on a visit, and have
been plunged overhead and ears in business matters. I do so wish to
regain for Graham at least some part of what his father left him. He
laughs to scorn my anxiety on this point, bidding me look and see how
he can provide for himself and me too, and asking what the old lady can
possibly want that she has not; hinting about sky-blue turbans;
accusing me of an ambition to wear diamonds, keep livery servants, have
an hotel, and lead the fashion amongst the English clan in Villette.

"Talking of sky-blue turbans, I wish you had been with us the other
evening. He had come in really tired, and after I had given him his
tea, he threw himself into my chair with his customary presumption. To
my great delight, he dropped asleep. (You know how he teases me about
being drowsy; I, who never, by any chance, close an eye by daylight.)
While he slept, I thought he looked very bonny, Lucy: fool as I am to
be so proud of him; but who can help it? Show me his peer. Look where I
will, I see nothing like him in Villette. Well, I took it into my head
to play him a trick: so I brought out the sky-blue turban, and handling
it with gingerly precaution, I managed to invest his brows with this
grand adornment. I assure you it did not at all misbecome him; he
looked quite Eastern, except that he is so fair. Nobody, however, can
accuse him of having red hair _now_--it is genuine chestnut--a dark,
glossy chestnut; and when I put my large cashmere about him, there was
as fine a young bey, dey, or pacha improvised as you would wish to see.

"It was good entertainment; but only half-enjoyed, since I was alone:
you should have been there.

"In due time my lord awoke: the looking-glass above the fireplace soon
intimated to him his plight: as you may imagine, I now live under
threat and dread of vengeance.

"But to come to the gist of my letter. I know Thursday is a
half-holiday in the Rue Fossette: be ready, then, by five in the
afternoon, at which hour I will send the carriage to take you out to La
Terrasse. Be sure to come: you may meet some old acquaintance. Good-by,
my wise, dear, grave little god-daughter.--Very truly yours,

"LOUISA BRETTON."

Now, a letter like that sets one to rights! I might still be sad after
reading that letter, but I was more composed; not exactly cheered,
perhaps, but relieved. My friends, at least, were well and happy: no
accident had occurred to Graham; no illness had seized his
mother--calamities that had so long been my dream and thought. Their
feelings for me too were--as they had been. Yet, how strange it was to
look on Mrs. Bretton's seven weeks and contrast them with my seven
weeks! Also, how very wise it is in people placed in an exceptional
position to hold their tongues and not rashly declare how such position
galls them! The world can understand well enough the process of
perishing for want of food: perhaps few persons can enter into or
follow out that of going mad from solitary confinement. They see the
long-buried prisoner disinterred, a maniac or an idiot!--how his senses
left him--how his nerves, first inflamed, underwent nameless agony, and
then sunk to palsy--is a subject too intricate for examination, too
abstract for popular comprehension. Speak of it! you might almost as
well stand up in an European market-place, and propound dark sayings in
that language and mood wherein Nebuchadnezzar, the imperial
hypochondriac, communed with his baffled Chaldeans. And long, long may
the minds to whom such themes are no mystery--by whom their bearings
are sympathetically seized--be few in number, and rare of rencounter.
Long may it be generally thought that physical privations alone merit
compassion, and that the rest is a figment. When the world was younger
and haler than now, moral trials were a deeper mystery still: perhaps
in all the land of Israel there was but one Saul--certainly but one
David to soothe or comprehend him.

The keen, still cold of the morning was succeeded, later in the day, by
a sharp breathing from Russian wastes: the cold zone sighed over the
temperate zone, and froze it fast. A heavy firmament, dull, and thick
with snow, sailed up from the north, and settled over expectant Europe.
Towards afternoon began the descent. I feared no carriage would come,
the white tempest raged so dense and wild. But trust my godmother! Once
having asked, she would have her guest. About six o'clock I was lifted
from the carriage over the already blocked-up front steps of the
chateau, and put in at the door of La Terrasse.

Running through the vestibule, and up-stairs to the drawing-room, there
I found Mrs. Bretton--a summer-day in her own person. Had I been twice
as cold as I was, her kind kiss and cordial clasp would have warmed me.
Inured now for so long a time to rooms with bare boards, black benches,
desks, and stoves, the blue saloon seemed to me gorgeous. In its
Christmas-like fire alone there was a clear and crimson splendour which
quite dazzled me.

When my godmother had held my hand for a little while, and chatted with
me, and scolded me for having become thinner than when she last saw me,
she professed to discover that the snow-wind had disordered my hair,
and sent me up-stairs to make it neat and remove my shawl.

Repairing to my own little sea-green room, there also I found a bright
fire, and candles too were lit: a tall waxlight stood on each side the
great looking glass; but between the candles, and before the glass,
appeared something dressing itself--an airy, fairy thing--small,
slight, white--a winter spirit.

I declare, for one moment I thought of Graham and his spectral
illusions. With distrustful eye I noted the details of this new vision.
It wore white, sprinkled slightly with drops of scarlet; its girdle was
red; it had something in its hair leafy, yet shining--a little wreath
with an evergreen gloss. Spectral or not, here truly was nothing
frightful, and I advanced.

Turning quick upon me, a large eye, under long lashes, flashed over me,
the intruder: the lashes were as dark as long, and they softened with
their pencilling the orb they guarded.

"Ah! you are come!" she breathed out, in a soft, quiet voice, and she
smiled slowly, and gazed intently.

I knew her now. Having only once seen that sort of face, with that cast
of fine and delicate featuring, I could not but know her.

"Miss de Bassompierre," I pronounced.

"No," was the reply, "not Miss de Bassompierre for _you!_" I did not
inquire who then she might be, but waited voluntary information.

"You are changed, but still you are yourself," she said, approaching
nearer. "I remember you well--your countenance, the colour of your
hair, the outline of your face...."

I had moved to the fire, and she stood opposite, and gazed into me; and
as she gazed, her face became gradually more and more expressive of
thought and feeling, till at last a dimness quenched her clear vision.

"It makes me almost cry to look so far back," said she: "but as to
being sorry, or sentimental, don't think it: on the contrary, I am
quite pleased and glad."

Interested, yet altogether at fault, I knew not what to say. At last I
stammered, "I think I never met you till that night, some weeks ago,
when you were hurt...?"

She smiled. "You have forgotten then that I have sat on your knee, been
lifted in your arms, even shared your pillow? You no longer remember
the night when I came crying, like a naughty little child as I was, to
your bedside, and you took me in. You have no memory for the comfort
and protection by which you soothed an acute distress? Go back to
Bretton. Remember Mr. Home."

At last I saw it all. "And you are little Polly?"

"I am Paulina Mary Home de Bassompierre."

How time can change! Little Polly wore in her pale, small features, her
fairy symmetry, her varying expression, a certain promise of interest
and grace; but Paulina Mary was become beautiful--not with the beauty
that strikes the eye like a rose--orbed, ruddy, and replete; not with
the plump, and pink, and flaxen attributes of her blond cousin Ginevra;
but her seventeen years had brought her a refined and tender charm
which did not lie in complexion, though hers was fair and clear; nor in
outline, though her features were sweet, and her limbs perfectly
turned; but, I think, rather in a subdued glow from the soul outward.
This was not an opaque vase, of material however costly, but a lamp
chastely lucent, guarding from extinction, yet not hiding from worship,
a flame vital and vestal. In speaking of her attractions, I would not
exaggerate language; but, indeed, they seemed to me very real and
engaging. What though all was on a small scale, it was the perfume
which gave this white violet distinction, and made it superior to the
broadest camelia--the fullest dahlia that ever bloomed.

"Ah! and you remember the old time at Bretton?"

"Better," said she, "better, perhaps, than you. I remember it with
minute distinctness: not only the time, but the days of the time, and
the hours of the days."

"You must have forgotten some things?"

"Very little, I imagine."

"You were then a little creature of quick feelings: you must, long ere
this, have outgrown the impressions with which joy and grief, affection
and bereavement, stamped your mind ten years ago."

"You think I have forgotten whom I liked, and in what degree I liked
them when a child?"

"The sharpness must be gone--the point, the poignancy--the deep imprint
must be softened away and effaced?"

"I have a good memory for those days."

She looked as if she had. Her eyes were the eyes of one who can
remember; one whose childhood does not fade like a dream, nor whose
youth vanish like a sunbeam. She would not take life, loosely and
incoherently, in parts, and let one season slip as she entered on
another: she would retain and add; often review from the commencement,
and so grow in harmony and consistency as she grew in years. Still I
could not quite admit the conviction that _all_ the pictures which now
crowded upon me were vivid and visible to her. Her fond attachments,
her sports and contests with a well-loved playmate, the patient, true
devotion of her child's heart, her fears, her delicate reserves, her
little trials, the last piercing pain of separation.... I retraced
these things, and shook my head incredulous. She persisted. "The child
of seven years lives yet in the girl of seventeen," said she.

"You used to be excessively fond of Mrs. Bretton," I remarked,
intending to test her. She set me right at once.

"Not _excessively_ fond," said she; "I liked her: I respected her as I
should do now: she seems to me very little altered."

"She is not much changed," I assented.

We were silent a few minutes. Glancing round the room she said, "There
are several things here that used to be at Bretton! I remember that
pincushion and that looking-glass."

Evidently she was not deceived in her estimate of her own memory; not,
at least, so far.

"You think, then, you would have known Mrs. Bretton?" I went on.

"I perfectly remembered her; the turn of her features, her olive
complexion, and black hair, her height, her walk, her voice."

"Dr. Bretton, of course," I pursued, "would be out of the question:
and, indeed, as I saw your first interview with him, I am aware that he
appeared to you as a stranger."

"That first night I was puzzled," she answered.

"How did the recognition between him and your father come about?"

"They exchanged cards. The names Graham Bretton and Home de
Bassompierre gave rise to questions and explanations. That was on the
second day; but before then I was beginning to know something."

"How--know something?"

"Why," she said, "how strange it is that most people seem so slow to
feel the truth--not to see, but _feel_! When Dr. Bretton had visited me
a few times, and sat near and talked to me; when I had observed the
look in his eyes, the expression about his mouth, the form of his chin,
the carriage of his head, and all that we _do_ observe in persons who
approach us--how could I avoid being led by association to think of
Graham Bretton? Graham was slighter than he, and not grown so tall, and
had a smoother face, and longer and lighter hair, and spoke--not so
deeply--more like a girl; but yet _he_ is Graham, just as _I_ am little
Polly, or you are Lucy Snowe."

I thought the same, but I wondered to find my thoughts hers: there are
certain things in which we so rarely meet with our double that it seems
a miracle when that chance befalls.

"You and Graham were once playmates."

"And do you remember that?" she questioned in her turn.

"No doubt he will remember it also," said I.

"I have not asked him: few things would surprise me so much as to find
that he did. I suppose his disposition is still gay and careless?"

"Was it so formerly? Did it so strike you? Do you thus remember him?"

"I scarcely remember him in any other light. Sometimes he was studious;
sometimes he was merry: but whether busy with his books or disposed for
play, it was chiefly the books or game he thought of; not much heeding
those with whom he read or amused himself."

"Yet to you he was partial."

"Partial to me? Oh, no! he had other playmates--his school-fellows; I
was of little consequence to him, except on Sundays: yes, he was kind
on Sundays. I remember walking with him hand-in-hand to St. Mary's, and
his finding the places in my prayer-book; and how good and still he was
on Sunday evenings! So mild for such a proud, lively boy; so patient
with all my blunders in reading; and so wonderfully to be depended on,
for he never spent those evenings from home: I had a constant fear that
he would accept some invitation and forsake us; but he never did, nor
seemed ever to wish to do it. Thus, of course, it can be no more. I
suppose Sunday will now be Dr. Bretton's dining-out day....?"

"Children, come down!" here called Mrs. Bretton from below. Paulina
would still have lingered, but I inclined to descend: we went down.





CHAPTER XXV.

THE LITTLE COUNTESS.


Cheerful as my godmother naturally was, and entertaining as, for our
sakes, she made a point of being, there was no true enjoyment that
evening at La Terrasse, till, through the wild howl of the
winter-night, were heard the signal sounds of arrival. How often, while
women and girls sit warm at snug fire-sides, their hearts and
imaginations are doomed to divorce from the comfort surrounding their
persons, forced out by night to wander through dark ways, to dare
stress of weather, to contend with the snow-blast, to wait at lonely
gates and stiles in wildest storms, watching and listening to see and
hear the father, the son, the husband coming home.

Father and son came at last to the chateau: for the Count de
Bassompierre that night accompanied Dr. Bretton. I know not which of
our trio heard the horses first; the asperity, the violence of the
weather warranted our running down into the hall to meet and greet the
two riders as they came in; but they warned us to keep our distance:
both were white--two mountains of snow; and indeed Mrs. Bretton, seeing
their condition, ordered them instantly to the kitchen; prohibiting
them, at their peril, from setting foot on her carpeted staircase till
they had severally put off that mask of Old Christmas they now
affected. Into the kitchen, however, we could not help following them:
it was a large old Dutch kitchen, picturesque and pleasant. The little
white Countess danced in a circle about her equally white sire,
clapping her hands and crying, "Papa, papa, you look like an enormous
Polar bear."

The bear shook himself, and the little sprite fled far from the frozen
shower. Back she came, however, laughing, and eager to aid in removing
the arctic disguise. The Count, at last issuing from his dreadnought,
threatened to overwhelm her with it as with an avalanche.

"Come, then," said she, bending to invite the fall, and when it was
playfully advanced above her head, bounding out of reach like some
little chamois.

Her movements had the supple softness, the velvet grace of a kitten;
her laugh was clearer than the ring of silver and crystal; as she took
her sire's cold hands and rubbed them, and stood on tiptoe to reach his
lips for a kiss, there seemed to shine round her a halo of loving
delight. The grave and reverend seignor looked down on her as men _do_
look on what is the apple of their eye.

"Mrs. Bretton," said he: "what am I to do with this daughter or
daughterling of mine? She neither grows in wisdom nor in stature. Don't
you find her pretty nearly as much the child as she was ten years ago?"

"She cannot be more the child than this great boy of mine," said Mrs.
Bretton, who was in conflict with her son about some change of dress
she deemed advisable, and which he resisted. He stood leaning against
the Dutch dresser, laughing and keeping her at arm's length.

"Come, mamma," said he, "by way of compromise, and to secure for us
inward as well as outward warmth, let us have a Christmas wassail-cup,
and toast Old England here, on the hearth."

So, while the Count stood by the fire, and Paulina Mary still danced to
and fro--happy in the liberty of the wide hall-like kitchen--Mrs.
Bretton herself instructed Martha to spice and heat the wassail-bowl,
and, pouring the draught into a Bretton flagon, it was served round,
reaming hot, by means of a small silver vessel, which I recognised as
Graham's christening-cup.

"Here's to Auld Lang Syne!" said the Count; holding the glancing cup on
high. Then, looking at Mrs. Bretton.--

  "We twa ha' paidlet i' the burn
      Fra morning sun till dine,
  But seas between us braid ha' roared
      Sin' auld lane syne.

  "And surely ye'll be your pint-stoup,
      And surely I'll be mine;
  And we'll taste a cup o' kindness yet
      For auld lang syne."

"Scotch! Scotch!" cried Paulina; "papa is talking Scotch; and Scotch he
is, partly. We are Home and de Bassompierre, Caledonian and Gallic."

"And is that a Scotch reel you are dancing, you Highland fairy?" asked
her father. "Mrs. Bretton, there will be a green ring growing up in the
middle of your kitchen shortly. I would not answer for her being quite
cannie: she is a strange little mortal."

"Tell Lucy to dance with me, papa; there is Lucy Snowe."

Mr. Home (there was still quite as much about him of plain Mr. Home as
of proud Count de Bassompierre) held his hand out to me, saying kindly,
"he remembered me well; and, even had his own memory been less
trustworthy, my name was so often on his daughter's lips, and he had
listened to so many long tales about me, I should seem like an old
acquaintance."

Every one now had tasted the wassail-cup except Paulina, whose pas de
fee, ou de fantaisie, nobody thought of interrupting to offer so
profanatory a draught; but she was not to be overlooked, nor baulked of
her mortal privileges.

"Let me taste," said she to Graham, as he was putting the cup on the
shelf of the dresser out of her reach.

Mrs. Bretton and Mr. Home were now engaged in conversation. Dr. John
had not been unobservant of the fairy's dance; he had watched it, and
he had liked it. To say nothing of the softness and beauty of the
movements, eminently grateful to his grace-loving eye, that ease in his
mother's house charmed him, for it set _him_ at ease: again she seemed
a child for him--again, almost his playmate. I wondered how he would
speak to her; I had not yet seen him address her; his first words
proved that the old days of "little Polly" had been recalled to his
mind by this evening's child-like light-heartedness.

"Your ladyship wishes for the tankard?"

"I think I said so. I think I intimated as much."

"Couldn't consent to a step of the kind on any account. Sorry for it,
but couldn't do it."

"Why? I am quite well now: it can't break my collar-bone again, or
dislocate my shoulder. Is it wine?"

"No; nor dew."

"I don't want dew; I don't like dew: but what is it?"

"Ale--strong ale--old October; brewed, perhaps, when I was born."

"It must be curious: is it good?"

"Excessively good."

And he took it down, administered to himself a second dose of this
mighty elixir, expressed in his mischievous eyes extreme contentment
with the same, and solemnly replaced the cup on the shelf.

"I should like a little," said Paulina, looking up; "I never had any
'old October:' is it sweet?"

"Perilously sweet," said Graham.

She continued to look up exactly with the countenance of a child that
longs for some prohibited dainty. At last the Doctor relented, took it
down, and indulged himself in the gratification of letting her taste
from his hand; his eyes, always expressive in the revelation of
pleasurable feelings, luminously and smilingly avowed that it _was_ a
gratification; and he prolonged it by so regulating the position of the
cup that only a drop at a time could reach the rosy, sipping lips by
which its brim was courted.

"A little more--a little more," said she, petulantly touching his hand
with the forefinger, to make him incline the cup more generously and
yieldingly. "It smells of spice and sugar, but I can't taste it; your
wrist is so stiff, and you are so stingy."

He indulged her, whispering, however, with gravity: "Don't tell my
mother or Lucy; they wouldn't approve."

"Nor do I," said she, passing into another tone and manner as soon as
she had fairly assayed the beverage, just as if it had acted upon her
like some disenchanting draught, undoing the work of a wizard: "I find
it anything but sweet; it is bitter and hot, and takes away my breath.
Your old October was only desirable while forbidden. Thank you, no
more."

And, with a slight bend--careless, but as graceful as her dance--she
glided from him and rejoined her father.

I think she had spoken truth: the child of seven was in the girl of
seventeen.

Graham looked after her a little baffled, a little puzzled; his eye was
on her a good deal during the rest of the evening, but she did not seem
to notice him.

As we ascended to the drawing-room for tea, she took her father's arm:
her natural place seemed to be at his side; her eyes and her ears were
dedicated to him. He and Mrs. Bretton were the chief talkers of our
little party, and Paulina was their best listener, attending closely to
all that was said, prompting the repetition of this or that trait or
adventure.

"And where were you at such a time, papa? And what did you say then?
And tell Mrs. Bretton what happened on that occasion." Thus she drew
him out.

She did not again yield to any effervescence of glee; the infantine
sparkle was exhaled for the night: she was soft, thoughtful, and
docile. It was pretty to see her bid good-night; her manner to Graham
was touched with dignity: in her very slight smile and quiet bow spoke
the Countess, and Graham could not but look grave, and bend responsive.
I saw he hardly knew how to blend together in his ideas the dancing
fairy and delicate dame.

Next day, when we were all assembled round the breakfast-table,
shivering and fresh from the morning's chill ablutions, Mrs. Bretton
pronounced a decree that nobody, who was not forced by dire necessity,
should quit her house that day.

Indeed, egress seemed next to impossible; the drift darkened the lower
panes of the casement, and, on looking out, one saw the sky and air
vexed and dim, the wind and snow in angry conflict. There was no fall
now, but what had already descended was torn up from the earth, whirled
round by brief shrieking gusts, and cast into a hundred fantastic forms.

The Countess seconded Mrs. Bretton.

"Papa shall not go out," said she, placing a seat for herself beside
her father's arm-chair. "I will look after him. You won't go into town,
will you, papa?"

"Ay, and No," was the answer. "If you and Mrs. Bretton are _very_ good
to me, Polly--kind, you know, and attentive; if you pet me in a very
nice manner, and make much of me, I may possibly be induced to wait an
hour after breakfast and see whether this razor-edged wind settles.
But, you see, you give me no breakfast; you offer me nothing: you let
me starve."

"Quick! please, Mrs. Bretton, and pour out the coffee," entreated
Paulina, "whilst I take care of the Count de Bassompierre in other
respects: since he grew into a Count, he has needed _so_ much
attention."

She separated and prepared a roll.

"There, papa, are your 'pistolets' charged," said she. "And there is
some marmalade, just the same sort of marmalade we used to have at
Bretton, and which you said was as good as if it had been conserved in
Scotland--"

"And which your little ladyship used to beg for my boy--do you remember
that?" interposed Mrs. Bretton. "Have you forgotten how you would come
to my elbow and touch my sleeve with the whisper, 'Please, ma'am,
something good for Graham--a little marmalade, or honey, or jam?"'

"No, mamma," broke in Dr. John, laughing, yet reddening; "it surely was
not so: I could not have cared for these things."

"Did he or did he not, Paulina?"

"He liked them," asserted Paulina.

"Never blush for it, John," said Mr. Home, encouragingly. "I like them
myself yet, and always did. And Polly showed her sense in catering for
a friend's material comforts: it was I who put her into the way of such
good manners--nor do I let her forget them. Polly, offer me a small
slice of that tongue."

"There, papa: but remember you are only waited upon with this
assiduity; on condition of being persuadable, and reconciling yourself
to La Terrasse for the day."

"Mrs. Bretton," said the Count, "I want to get rid of my daughter--to
send her to school. Do you know of any good school?"

"There is Lucy's place--Madame Beck's."

"Miss Snowe is in a school?"

"I am a teacher," I said, and was rather glad of the opportunity of
saying this. For a little while I had been feeling as if placed in a
false position. Mrs. Bretton and son knew my circumstances; but the
Count and his daughter did not. They might choose to vary by some
shades their hitherto cordial manner towards me, when aware of my grade
in society. I spoke then readily: but a swarm of thoughts I had not
anticipated nor invoked, rose dim at the words, making me sigh
involuntarily. Mr. Home did not lift his eyes from his breakfast-plate
for about two minutes, nor did he speak; perhaps he had not caught the
words--perhaps he thought that on a confession of that nature,
politeness would interdict comment: the Scotch are proverbially proud;
and homely as was Mr. Home in look, simple in habits and tastes, I have
all along intimated that he was not without his share of the national
quality. Was his a pseudo pride? was it real dignity? I leave the
question undecided in its wide sense. Where it concerned me
individually I can only answer: then, and always, he showed himself a
true-hearted gentleman.

By nature he was a feeler and a thinker; over his emotions and his
reflections spread a mellowing of melancholy; more than a mellowing: in
trouble and bereavement it became a cloud. He did not know much about
Lucy Snowe; what he knew, he did not very accurately comprehend: indeed
his misconceptions of my character often made me smile; but he saw my
walk in life lay rather on the shady side of the hill: he gave me
credit for doing my endeavour to keep the course honestly straight; he
would have helped me if he could: having no opportunity of helping, he
still wished me well. When he did look at me, his eye was kind; when he
did speak, his voice was benevolent.

"Yours," said he, "is an arduous calling. I wish you health and
strength to win in it--success."

His fair little daughter did not take the information quite so
composedly: she fixed on me a pair of eyes wide with wonder--almost
with dismay.

"Are you a teacher?" cried she. Then, having paused on the unpalatable
idea, "Well, I never knew what you were, nor ever thought of asking:
for me, you were always Lucy Snowe."

"And what am I now?" I could not forbear inquiring.

"Yourself, of course. But do you really teach here, in Villette?"

"I really do."

"And do you like it?"

"Not always."

"And why do you go on with it?"

Her father looked at, and, I feared, was going to check her; but he
only said, "Proceed, Polly, proceed with that catechism--prove yourself
the little wiseacre you are. If Miss Snowe were to blush and look
confused, I should have to bid you hold your tongue; and you and I
would sit out the present meal in some disgrace; but she only smiles,
so push her hard, multiply the cross-questions. Well, Miss Snowe, why
do you go on with it?"

"Chiefly, I fear, for the sake of the money I get."

"Not then from motives of pure philanthropy? Polly and I were clinging
to that hypothesis as the most lenient way of accounting for your
eccentricity."

"No--no, sir. Rather for the roof of shelter I am thus enabled to keep
over my head; and for the comfort of mind it gives me to think that
while I can work for myself, I am spared the pain of being a burden to
anybody."

"Papa, say what you will, I pity Lucy."

"Take up that pity, Miss de Bassompierre; take it up in both hands, as
you might a little callow gosling squattering out of bounds without
leave; put it back in the warm nest of a heart whence it issued, and
receive in your ear this whisper. If my Polly ever came to know by
experience the uncertain nature of this world's goods, I should like
her to act as Lucy acts: to work for herself, that she might burden
neither kith nor kin."

"Yes, papa," said she, pensively and tractably. "But poor Lucy! I
thought she was a rich lady, and had rich friends."

"You thought like a little simpleton. _I_ never thought so. When I had
time to consider Lucy's manner and aspect, which was not often, I saw
she was one who had to guard and not be guarded; to act and not be
served: and this lot has, I imagine, helped her to an experience for
which, if she live long enough to realize its full benefit, she may yet
bless Providence. But this school," he pursued, changing his tone from
grave to gay: "would Madame Beck admit my Polly, do you think, Miss
Lucy?"

I said, there needed but to try Madame; it would soon be seen: she was
fond of English pupils. "If you, sir," I added, "will but take Miss de
Bassompierre in your carriage this very afternoon, I think I can answer
for it that Rosine, the portress, will not be very slow in answering
your ring; and Madame, I am sure, will put on her best pair of gloves
to come into the salon to receive you."

"In that case," responded Mr. Home, "I see no sort of necessity there
is for delay. Mrs. Hurst can send what she calls her young lady's
'things' after her; Polly can settle down to her horn-book before
night; and you, Miss Lucy, I trust, will not disdain to cast an
occasional eye upon her, and let me know, from time to time, how she
gets on. I hope you approve of the arrangement, Countess de
Bassompierre?"

The Countess hemmed and hesitated. "I thought," said she, "I thought I
had finished my education--"

"That only proves how much we may be mistaken in our thoughts. I hold a
far different opinion, as most of these will who have been auditors of
your profound knowledge of life this morning. Ah, my little girl, thou
hast much to learn; and papa ought to have taught thee more than he has
done! Come, there is nothing for it but to try Madame Beck; and the
weather seems settling, and I have finished my breakfast--"

"But, papa!"

"Well?"

"I see an obstacle."

"I don't at all."

"It is enormous, papa; it can never be got over; it is as large as you
in your greatcoat, and the snowdrift on the top."

"And, like that snowdrift, capable of melting?"

"No! it is of too--too solid flesh: it is just your own self. Miss
Lucy, warn Madame Beck not to listen to any overtures about taking me,
because, in the end, it would turn out that she would have to take papa
too: as he is so teasing, I will just tell tales about him. Mrs.
Bretton and all of you listen: About five years ago, when I was twelve
years old, he took it into his head that he was spoiling me; that I was
growing unfitted for the world, and I don't know what, and nothing
would serve or satisfy him, but I must go to school. I cried, and so
on; but M. de Bassompierre proved hard-hearted, quite firm and flinty,
and to school I went. What was the result? In the most admirable
manner, papa came to school likewise: every other day he called to see
me. Madame Aigredoux grumbled, but it was of no use; and so, at last,
papa and I were both, in a manner, expelled. Lucy can just tell Madame
Beck this little trait: it is only fair to let her know what she has to
expect."

Mrs. Bretton asked Mr. Home what he had to say in answer to this
statement. As he made no defence, judgment was given against him, and
Paulina triumphed.

But she had other moods besides the arch and naive. After breakfast;
when the two elders withdrew--I suppose to talk over certain of Mrs.
Bretton's business matters--and the Countess, Dr. Bretton, and I, were
for a short time alone together--all the child left her; with us, more
nearly her companions in age, she rose at once to the little lady: her
very face seemed to alter; that play of feature, and candour of look,
which, when she spoke to her father, made it quite dimpled and round,
yielded to an aspect more thoughtful, and lines distincter and less
_mobile_.

No doubt Graham noted the change as well as I. He stood for some
minutes near the window, looking out at the snow; presently he,
approached the hearth, and entered into conversation, but not quite
with his usual ease: fit topics did not seem to rise to his lips; he
chose them fastidiously, hesitatingly, and consequently infelicitously:
he spoke vaguely of Villette--its inhabitants, its notable sights and
buildings. He was answered by Miss de Bassompierre in quite womanly
sort; with intelligence, with a manner not indeed wholly
disindividualized: a tone, a glance, a gesture, here and there, rather
animated and quick than measured and stately, still recalled little
Polly; but yet there was so fine and even a polish, so calm and
courteous a grace, gilding and sustaining these peculiarities, that a
less sensitive man than Graham would not have ventured to seize upon
them as vantage points, leading to franker intimacy.

Yet while Dr. Bretton continued subdued, and, for him, sedate, he was
still observant. Not one of those petty impulses and natural breaks
escaped him. He did not miss one characteristic movement, one
hesitation in language, or one lisp in utterance. At times, in speaking
fast, she still lisped; but coloured whenever such lapse occurred, and
in a painstaking, conscientious manner, quite as amusing as the slight
error, repeated the word more distinctly.

Whenever she did this, Dr. Bretton smiled. Gradually, as they
conversed, the restraint on each side slackened: might the conference
have but been prolonged, I believe it would soon have become genial:
already to Paulina's lip and cheek returned the wreathing, dimpling
smile; she lisped once, and forgot to correct herself. And Dr. John, I
know not how _he_ changed, but change he did. He did not grow gayer--no
raillery, no levity sparkled across his aspect--but his position seemed
to become one of more pleasure to himself, and he spoke his augmented
comfort in readier language, in tones more suave. Ten years ago this
pair had always found abundance to say to each other; the intervening
decade had not narrowed the experience or impoverished the intelligence
of either: besides, there are certain natures of which the mutual
influence is such, that the more they say, the more they have to say.
For these out of association grows adhesion, and out of adhesion,
amalgamation.

Graham, however, must go: his was a profession whose claims are neither
to be ignored nor deferred. He left the room; but before he could leave
the house there was a return. I am sure he came back--not for the
paper, or card in his desk, which formed his ostensible errand--but to
assure himself, by one more glance, that Paulina's aspect was really
such as memory was bearing away: that he had not been viewing her
somehow by a partial, artificial light, and making a fond mistake. No!
he found the impression true--rather, indeed, he gained than lost by
this return: he took away with him a parting look--shy, but very
soft--as beautiful, as innocent, as any little fawn could lift out of
its cover of fern, or any lamb from its meadow-bed.

Being left alone, Paulina and I kept silence for some time: we both
took out some work, and plied a mute and diligent task. The white-wood
workbox of old days was now replaced by one inlaid with precious
mosaic, and furnished with implements of gold; the tiny and trembling
fingers that could scarce guide the needle, though tiny still, were now
swift and skilful: but there was the same busy knitting of the brow,
the same little dainty mannerisms, the same quick turns and
movements--now to replace a stray tress, and anon to shake from the
silken skirt some imaginary atom of dust--some clinging fibre of thread.

That morning I was disposed for silence: the austere fury of the
winter-day had on me an awing, hushing influence. That passion of
January, so white and so bloodless, was not yet spent: the storm had
raved itself hoarse, but seemed no nearer exhaustion. Had Ginevra
Fanshawe been my companion in that drawing-room, she would not have
suffered me to muse and listen undisturbed. The presence just gone from
us would have been her theme; and how she would have rung the changes
on one topic! how she would have pursued and pestered me with questions
and surmises--worried and oppressed me with comments and confidences I
did not want, and longed to avoid.

Paulina Mary cast once or twice towards me a quiet but penetrating
glance of her dark, full eye; her lips half opened, as if to the
impulse of coming utterance: but she saw and delicately respected my
inclination for silence.

"This will not hold long," I thought to myself; for I was not
accustomed to find in women or girls any power of self-control, or
strength of self-denial. As far as I knew them, the chance of a gossip
about their usually trivial secrets, their often very washy and paltry
feelings, was a treat not to be readily foregone.

The little Countess promised an exception: she sewed till she was tired
of sewing, and then she took a book.

As chance would have it, she had sought it in Dr. Bretton's own
compartment of the bookcase; and it proved to be an old Bretton
book--some illustrated work of natural history. Often had I seen her
standing at Graham's side, resting that volume on his knee, and reading
to his tuition; and, when the lesson was over, begging, as a treat,
that he would tell her all about the pictures. I watched her keenly:
here was a true test of that memory she had boasted; would her
recollections now be faithful?

Faithful? It could not be doubted. As she turned the leaves, over her
face passed gleam after gleam of expression, the least intelligent of
which was a full greeting to the Past. And then she turned to the
title-page, and looked at the name written in the schoolboy hand. She
looked at it long; nor was she satisfied with merely looking: she
gently passed over the characters the tips of her fingers, accompanying
the action with an unconscious but tender smile, which converted the
touch into a caress. Paulina loved the Past; but the peculiarity of
this little scene was, that she _said_ nothing: she could feel without
pouring out her feelings in a flux of words.

She now occupied herself at the bookcase for nearly an hour; taking
down volume after volume, and renewing her acquaintance with each. This
done, she seated herself on a low stool, rested her cheek on her hand,
and thought, and still was mute.

The sound of the front door opened below, a rush of cold wind, and her
father's voice speaking to Mrs. Bretton in the hall, startled her at
last. She sprang up: she was down-stairs in one second.

"Papa! papa! you are not going out?"

"My pet, I must go into town."

"But it is too--_too_ cold, papa."

And then I heard M. de Bassompierre showing to her how he was well
provided against the weather; and how he was going to have the
carriage, and to be quite snugly sheltered; and, in short, proving that
she need not fear for his comfort.

"But you will promise to come back here this evening, before it is
quite dark;--you and Dr. Bretton, both, in the carriage? It is not fit
to ride."

"Well, if I see the Doctor, I will tell him a lady has laid on him her
commands to take care of his precious health and come home early under
my escort."

"Yes, you must say a lady; and he will think it is his mother, and be
obedient. And, papa, mind to come soon, for I _shall_ watch and listen."

The door closed, and the carriage rolled softly through the snow; and
back returned the Countess, pensive and anxious.

She _did_ listen, and watch, when evening closed; but it was in
stillest sort: walking the drawing-room with quite noiseless step. She
checked at intervals her velvet march; inclined her ear, and consulted
the night sounds: I should rather say, the night silence; for now, at
last, the wind was fallen. The sky, relieved of its avalanche, lay
naked and pale: through the barren boughs of the avenue we could see it
well, and note also the polar splendour of the new-year moon--an orb
white as a world of ice. Nor was it late when we saw also the return of
the carriage.

Paulina had no dance of welcome for this evening. It was with a sort of
gravity that she took immediate possession of her father, as he entered
the room; but she at once made him her entire property, led him to the
seat of her choice, and, while softly showering round him honeyed words
of commendation for being so good and coming home so soon, you would
have thought it was entirely by the power of her little hands he was
put into his chair, and settled and arranged; for the strong man seemed
to take pleasure in wholly yielding himself to this dominion-potent
only by love.

Graham did not appear till some minutes after the Count. Paulina half
turned when his step was heard: they spoke, but only a word or two;
their fingers met a moment, but obviously with slight contact. Paulina
remained beside her father; Graham threw himself into a seat on the
other side of the room.

It was well that Mrs. Bretton and Mr. Home had a great deal to say to
each other--almost an inexhaustible fund of discourse in old
recollections; otherwise, I think, our party would have been but a
still one that evening.

After tea, Paulina's quick needle and pretty golden thimble were busily
plied by the lamp-light, but her tongue rested, and her eyes seemed
reluctant to raise often their lids, so smooth and so full-fringed.
Graham, too, must have been tired with his day's work: he listened
dutifully to his elders and betters, said very little himself, and
followed with his eye the gilded glance of Paulina's thimble; as if it
had been some bright moth on the wing, or the golden head of some
darting little yellow serpent.

 At the beginning of Volume Two, Lucy is taken to the theatre by Dr. John in the place of his mother, who has been detained at home by an arrival. When Lucy goes to find her dun-mist-colored dress in the wardrobe, she finds that someone has taken it out and moved it to the haunted attic. Her desire to go with Dr. John making her bold, she dashes up to the attic and snatches her dress off the hook near the door. Before she leaves, however, she sees a faint light and the suggestion of a curtained alcove, but the vision vanishes. Steeling herself, she runs away without hysteria, gets dressed, and goes down to the waiting Dr. John. He claims that the peculiar light in her eye means that she has seen the ghostly nun again, but Lucy staunchly denies it. They go to the theatre to see Vashti, the most famous and provocative actress in Europe. Lucy is captivated by Vashti's acting and find it very powerful indeed, but Lucy decides that Vashti must not be a good person because she is able to channel such powerfully evil emotions. When there is the scare of a fire in the theatre at the penultimate moment of the play, pandemonium ensues, but Dr. John charges Lucy not to move. Dr. John helps a young lady who was crushed by the crowd while clinging to her father, and the four people escape the building and get to their carriages. The young woman has a hurt shoulder, and Dr. John agrees to treat her. He takes Lucy with him to the others' elegant dwelling, where Lucy helps with ministering to the young woman's needs. Lucy thinks the young woman small and pretty--but with a proud mouth and perhaps an over-inflated idea of her importance. The father and daughter are very kind and grateful, however, and Lucy and Dr. John leave once the girl is comfortable. In Chapter XXIV, "M. de Bassompierre," Polly Home and her father return into the circle of Lucy and the Brettons. The girl and man to whom Dr. John and Lucy administered aid turn out to be Ginevra Fanshawe's first cousin and the de Bassompierre uncle who pays for her schooling. Lucy learns of this connection when Ginevra comes home from dining out, saying she had a boring time with her uncle and her affected little cousin. When Lucy, who has been pining for seven weeks for a letter, receives one unexpectedly from Mrs. Bretton inviting her to La Terrasse, she meets the same girl in her room at that house. Polly, of course, has been told of Lucy's existence by Mrs. Bretton, and Polly tells Lucy that she--Paulina Mary Home de Bassompierre--is the same little Missy Home of their childhood visits in Bretton. At first Lucy is taken aback, sure that Polly cannot possibly remember those days in the town of Bretton. But Polly remembers perfectly, especially her deep attachment for Dr. John. Polly has grown up to be a beautiful, slight, and not showy young woman, quite unlike her first cousin Ginevra. Lucy judges Polly to be more beautiful than Ginevra and of a higher quality of character, and it is clear that Lucy already fears that Dr. John will find Polly very attractive. In Chapter XXV, we learn that "The Little Countess" is Polly. Her father, having inherited the title of Count from his de Bassompierre relatives, passes the title of Countess to Polly while he is still living . In this chapter, Lucy watches while Dr. John becomes enamored of the Countess. Lucy, Polly, and Mrs. Bretton are next at La Terrasse, awaiting the return of Dr. Bretton and M. de Bassompierre. When they return, the entire company drinks a wassail bowl to the New Year and sing "Auld Lang Syne" . Polly, ever the child, dances about the kitchen like a fairy. She dotes on her father and acts childlike around him. Dr. John teases her with the wassail cup, holding it back from her. She tastes it and does not like it, and they banter while Lucy watches. The next day is still snowy, and Lucy and Polly are left together in a sitting room. After the original shock of recognition has faded, they have very little to say to each other. The subject of Lucy going to Madame Beck's school is brought up, and Lucy's status as a teacher is revealed to both of the de Bassompierres. Polly, with rather rude naivete, says that she thought Lucy was rich and she is thus sorry for her. Mr. Home, a kindly gentleman with more tact than his daughter, closes the subject and turns it back to the prospect of Lucy attending Madame Beck's. There are reasons against this, namely, that Mr. Home in the past visited his daughter incessantly at her school, disrupting her studies. Lucy is at least spared having to see the new object of Dr. John's affections on a daily basis. The chapter ends with a domestic scene of all the friends by the fireside. Lucy again notes that Dr. John watches Polly intently.

