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CHAPTER XXVII - THE HOTEL CRECY
The morrow turned out a more lively and busy day than we--or than I,
at least-had anticipated. It seems it was the birthday of one of the
young princes of Labassecour-the eldest, I think, the Duc de
Dindonneau, and a general holiday was given in his honour at the
schools, and especially at the principal "Athenee," or college. The
youth of that institution had also concocted, and were to present a
loyal address; for which purpose they were to be assembled in the
public building where the yearly examinations were conducted, and the
prizes distributed. After the ceremony of presentation, an oration, or
"discours," was to follow from one of the professors.
Several of M. de Bassompierre's friends-the savants-being more or less
connected with the Athenee, they were expected to attend on this
occasion; together with the worshipful municipality of Villette, M. le
Chevalier Staas, the burgomaster, and the parents and kinsfolk of the
Athenians in general. M. de Bassompierre was engaged by his friends to
accompany them; his fair daughter would, of course, be of the party,
and she wrote a little note to Ginevra and myself, bidding us come
early that we might join her.
As Miss Fanshawe and I were dressing in the dormitory of the Rue
Fossette, she (Miss F.) suddenly burst into a laugh.
"What now?" I asked; for she had suspended the operation of arranging
her attire, and was gazing at me.
"It seems so odd," she replied, with her usual half-honest half-
insolent unreserve, "that you and I should now be so much on a level,
visiting in the same sphere; having the same connections."
"Why, yes," said I; "I had not much respect for the connections you
chiefly frequented awhile ago: Mrs. Cholmondeley and Co. would never
have suited me at all."
"Who _are_ you, Miss Snowe?" she inquired, in a tone of such
undisguised and unsophisticated curiosity, as made me laugh in my
turn.
"You used to call yourself a nursery governess; when you first came
here you really had the care of the children in this house: I have
seen you carry little Georgette in your arms, like a bonne--few
governesses would have condescended so far--and now Madame Beck treats
you with more courtesy than she treats the Parisienne, St. Pierre; and
that proud chit, my cousin, makes you her bosom friend!"
"Wonderful!" I agreed, much amused at her mystification. "Who am I
indeed? Perhaps a personage in disguise. Pity I don't look the
character."
"I wonder you are not more flattered by all this," she went on; "you
take it with strange composure. If you really are the nobody I once
thought you, you must be a cool hand."
"The nobody you once thought me!" I repeated, and my face grew a
little hot; but I would not be angry: of what importance was a school-
girl's crude use of the terms nobody and somebody? I confined myself,
therefore, to the remark that I had merely met with civility; and
asked "what she saw in civility to throw the recipient into a fever of
confusion?"
"One can't help wondering at some things," she persisted.
"Wondering at marvels of your own manufacture. Are you ready at last?"
"Yes; let me take your arm."
"I would rather not: we will walk side by side."
When she took my arm, she always leaned upon me her whole weight; and,
as I was not a gentleman, or her lover, I did not like it.
"There, again!" she cried. "I thought, by offering to take your arm, to
intimate approbation of your dress and general appearance: I meant it
as a compliment."
"You did? You meant, in short, to express that you are not ashamed to
be seen in the street with me? That if Mrs. Cholmondeley should be
fondling her lapdog at some window, or Colonel de Hamal picking his
teeth in a balcony, and should catch a glimpse of us, you would not
quite blush for your companion?"
"Yes," said she, with that directness which was her best point--which
gave an honest plainness to her very fibs when she told them--which
was, in short, the salt, the sole preservative ingredient of a
character otherwise not formed to keep.
I delegated the trouble of commenting on this "yes" to my countenance;
or rather, my under-lip voluntarily anticipated my tongue of course,
reverence and solemnity were not the feelings expressed in the look I
gave her.
"Scornful, sneering creature!" she went on, as we crossed a great
square, and entered the quiet, pleasant park, our nearest way to the
Rue Crecy. "Nobody in this world was ever such a Turk to me as you
are!"
"You bring it on yourself: let me alone: have the sense to be quiet: I
will let you alone."
"As if one _could_ let you alone, when you are so peculiar and so
mysterious!"
"The mystery and peculiarity being entirely the conception of your own
brain--maggots--neither more nor less, be so good as to keep them out
of my sight."
"But _are_ you anybody?" persevered she, pushing her hand, in
spite of me, under my arm; and that arm pressed itself with
inhospitable closeness against my side, by way of keeping out the
intruder.
"Yes," I said, "I am a rising character: once an old lady's companion,
then a nursery-governess, now a school-teacher."
"Do--_do_ tell me who you are? I'll not repeat it," she urged,
adhering with ludicrous tenacity to the wise notion of an incognito
she had got hold of; and she squeezed the arm of which she had now
obtained full possession, and coaxed and conjured till I was obliged
to pause in the park to laugh. Throughout our walk she rang the most
fanciful changes on this theme; proving, by her obstinate credulity,
or incredulity, her incapacity to conceive how any person not
bolstered up by birth or wealth, not supported by some consciousness
of name or connection, could maintain an attitude of reasonable
integrity. As for me, it quite sufficed to my mental tranquillity that
I was known where it imported that known I should be; the rest sat on
me easily: pedigree, social position, and recondite intellectual
acquisition, occupied about the same space and place in my interests
and thoughts; they were my third-class lodgers--to whom could be
assigned only the small sitting-room and the little back bedroom: even
if the dining and drawing-rooms stood empty, I never confessed it to
them, as thinking minor accommodations better suited to their
circumstances. The world, I soon learned, held a different estimate:
and I make no doubt, the world is very right in its view, yet believe
also that I am not quite wrong in mine.
There are people whom a lowered position degrades morally, to whom
loss of connection costs loss of self-respect: are not these justified
in placing the highest value on that station and association which is
their safeguard from debasement? If a man feels that he would become
contemptible in his own eyes were it generally known that his ancestry
were simple and not gentle, poor and not rich, workers and not
capitalists, would it be right severely to blame him for keeping these
fatal facts out of sight--for starting, trembling, quailing at the
chance which threatens exposure? The longer we live, the more out
experience widens; the less prone are we to judge our neighbour's
conduct, to question the world's wisdom: wherever an accumulation of
small defences is found, whether surrounding the prude's virtue or the
man of the world's respectability, there, be sure, it is needed.
We reached the Hotel Crecy; Paulina was ready; Mrs. Bretton was with
her; and, under her escort and that of M. de Bassompierre, we were
soon conducted to the place of assembly, and seated in good seats, at
a convenient distance from the Tribune. The youth of the Athenee were
marshalled before us, the municipality and their bourgmestre were in
places of honour, the young princes, with their tutors, occupied a
conspicuous position, and the body of the building was crowded with
the aristocracy and first burghers of the town.
Concerning the identity of the professor by whom the "discours" was to
be delivered, I had as yet entertained neither care nor question. Some
vague expectation I had that a savant would stand up and deliver a
formal speech, half dogmatism to the Athenians, half flattery to the
princes.
The Tribune was yet empty when we entered, but in ten minutes after it
was filled; suddenly, in a second of time, a head, chest, and arms
grew above the crimson desk. This head I knew: its colour, shape,
port, expression, were familiar both to me and Miss Fanshawe; the
blackness and closeness of cranium, the amplitude and paleness of
brow, the blueness and fire of glance, were details so domesticated in
the memory, and so knit with many a whimsical association, as almost
by this their sudden apparition, to tickle fancy to a laugh. Indeed, I
confess, for my part, I did laugh till I was warm; but then I bent my
head, and made my handkerchief and a lowered veil the sole confidants
of my mirth.
I think I was glad to see M. Paul; I think it was rather pleasant than
otherwise, to behold him set up there, fierce and frank, dark and
candid, testy and fearless, as when regnant on his estrade in class.
His presence was such a surprise: I had not once thought of expecting
him, though I knew he filled the chair of Belles Lettres in the
college. With _him_ in that Tribune, I felt sure that neither
formalism nor flattery would be our doom; but for what was vouchsafed
us, for what was poured suddenly, rapidly, continuously, on our heads
--I own I was not prepared.
He spoke to the princes, the nobles, the magistrates, and the
burghers, with just the same ease, with almost the same pointed,
choleric earnestness, with which he was wont to harangue the three
divisions of the Rue Fossette. The collegians he addressed, not as
schoolboys, but as future citizens and embryo patriots. The times
which have since come on Europe had not been foretold yet, and M.
Emanuel's spirit seemed new to me. Who would have thought the flat and
fat soil of Labassecour could yield political convictions and national
feelings, such as were now strongly expressed? Of the bearing of his
opinions I need here give no special indication; yet it may be
permitted me to say that I believed the little man not more earnest
than right in what he said: with all his fire he was severe and
sensible; he trampled Utopian theories under his heel; he rejected
wild dreams with scorn;--but when he looked in the face of tyranny--
oh, then there opened a light in his eye worth seeing; and when he
spoke of injustice, his voice gave no uncertain sound, but reminded me
rather of the band-trumpet, ringing at twilight from the park.
I do not think his audience were generally susceptible of sharing
his flame in its purity; but some of the college youth caught fire as
he eloquently told them what should be their path and endeavour in
their country's and in Europe's future. They gave him a long, loud,
ringing cheer, as he concluded: with all his fierceness, he was their
favourite professor.
As our party left the Hall, he stood at the entrance; he saw and knew
me, and lifted his hat; he offered his hand in passing, and uttered
the words "Qu'en dites vous?"--question eminently characteristic, and
reminding me, even in this his moment of triumph, of that inquisitive
restlessness, that absence of what I considered desirable self-
control, which were amongst his faults. He should not have cared just
then to ask what I thought, or what anybody thought, but he _did_
care, and he was too natural to conceal, too impulsive to repress his
wish. Well! if I blamed his over-eagerness, I liked his
_naivete_. I would have praised him: I had plenty of praise in my
heart; but, alas! no words on my lips. Who _has_ words at the
right moment? I stammered some lame expressions; but was truly glad
when other people, coming up with profuse congratulations, covered my
deficiency by their redundancy.
A gentleman introduced him to M. de Bassompierre; and the Count, who
had likewise been highly gratified, asked him to join his friends (for
the most part M. Emanuel's likewise), and to dine with them at the
Hotel Crecy. He declined dinner, for he was a man always somewhat shy
at meeting the advances of the wealthy: there was a strength of sturdy
independence in the stringing of his sinews--not obtrusive, but
pleasant enough to discover as one advanced in knowledge of his
character; he promised, however, to step in with his friend, M. A----,
a French Academician, in the course of the evening.
At dinner that day, Ginevra and Paulina each looked, in her own way,
very beautiful; the former, perhaps, boasted the advantage in material
charms, but the latter shone pre-eminent for attractions more subtle
and spiritual: for light and eloquence of eye, for grace of mien, for
winning variety of expression. Ginevra's dress of deep crimson
relieved well her light curls, and harmonized with her rose-like
bloom. Paulina's attire--in fashion close, though faultlessly neat,
but in texture clear and white--made the eye grateful for the delicate
life of her complexion, for the soft animation of her countenance, for
the tender depth of her eyes, for the brown shadow and bounteous flow
of her hair--darker than that of her Saxon cousin, as were also her
eyebrows, her eyelashes, her full irids, and large mobile pupils.
Nature having traced all these details slightly, and with a careless
hand, in Miss Fanshawe's case; and in Miss de Bassompierre's, wrought
them to a high and delicate finish.
Paulina was awed by the savants, but not quite to mutism: she
conversed modestly, diffidently; not without effort, but with so true
a sweetness, so fine and penetrating a sense, that her father more
than once suspended his own discourse to listen, and fixed on her an
eye of proud delight. It was a polite Frenchman, M. Z----, a very
learned, but quite a courtly man, who had drawn her into discourse. I
was charmed with her French; it was faultless--the structure correct,
the idioms true, the accent pure; Ginevra, who had lived half her life
on the Continent, could do nothing like it not that words ever failed
Miss Fanshawe, but real accuracy and purity she neither possessed, nor
in any number of years would acquire. Here, too, M. de Bassompierre
was gratified; for, on the point of language, he was critical.
Another listener and observer there was; one who, detained by some
exigency of his profession, had come in late to dinner. Both ladies
were quietly scanned by Dr. Bretton, at the moment of taking his seat
at the table; and that guarded survey was more than once renewed. His
arrival roused Miss Fanshawe, who had hitherto appeared listless: she
now became smiling and complacent, talked--though what she said was
rarely to the purpose--or rather, was of a purpose somewhat
mortifyingly below the standard of the occasion. Her light,
disconnected prattle might have gratified Graham once; perhaps it
pleased him still: perhaps it was only fancy which suggested the
thought that, while his eye was filled and his ear fed, his taste, his
keen zest, his lively intelligence, were not equally consulted and
regaled. It is certain that, restless and exacting as seemed the
demand on his attention, he yielded courteously all that was required:
his manner showed neither pique nor coolness: Ginevra was his
neighbour, and to her, during dinner, he almost exclusively confined
his notice. She appeared satisfied, and passed to the drawing-room in
very good spirits.
Yet, no sooner had we reached that place of refuge, than she again
became flat and listless: throwing herself on a couch, she denounced
both the "discours" and the dinner as stupid affairs, and inquired of
her cousin how she could hear such a set of prosaic "gros-bonnets" as
her father gathered about him. The moment the gentlemen were heard to
move, her railings ceased: she started up, flew to the piano, and
dashed at it with spirit. Dr. Bretton entering, one of the first, took
up his station beside her. I thought he would not long maintain that
post: there was a position near the hearth to which I expected to see
him attracted: this position he only scanned with his eye; while
_he_ looked, others drew in. The grace and mind of Paulina
charmed these thoughtful Frenchmen: the fineness of her beauty, the
soft courtesy of her manner, her immature, but real and inbred tact,
pleased their national taste; they clustered about her, not indeed to
talk science; which would have rendered her dumb, but to touch on many
subjects in letters, in arts, in actual life, on which it soon
appeared that she had both read and reflected. I listened. I am sure
that though Graham stood aloof, he listened too: his hearing as well
as his vision was very fine, quick, discriminating. I knew he gathered
the conversation; I felt that the mode in which it was sustained
suited him exquisitely--pleased him almost to pain.
In Paulina there was more force, both of feeling and character; than
most people thought--than Graham himself imagined--than she would ever
show to those who did not wish to see it. To speak truth, reader,
there is no excellent beauty, no accomplished grace, no reliable
refinement, without strength as excellent, as complete, as
trustworthy. As well might you look for good fruit and blossom on a
rootless and sapless tree, as for charms that will endure in a feeble
and relaxed nature. For a little while, the blooming semblance of
beauty may flourish round weakness; but it cannot bear a blast: it
soon fades, even in serenest sunshine. Graham would have started had
any suggestive spirit whispered of the sinew and the stamina
sustaining that delicate nature; but I who had known her as a child,
knew or guessed by what a good and strong root her graces held to the
firm soil of reality.
While Dr. Bretton listened, and waited an opening in the magic circle,
his glance restlessly sweeping the room at intervals, lighted by
chance on me, where I sat in a quiet nook not far from my godmother
and M. de Bassompierre, who, as usual, were engaged in what Mr. Home
called "a two-handed crack:" what the Count would have interpreted as
a tete-a-tete. Graham smiled recognition, crossed the room, asked me
how I was, told me I looked pale. I also had my own smile at my own
thought: it was now about three months since Dr. John had spoken to
me-a lapse of which he was not even conscious. He sat down, and became
silent. His wish was rather to look than converse. Ginevra and Paulina
were now opposite to him: he could gaze his fill: he surveyed both
forms--studied both faces.
Several new guests, ladies as well as gentlemen, had entered the room
since dinner, dropping in for the evening conversation; and amongst
the gentlemen, I may incidentally observe, I had already noticed by
glimpses, a severe, dark, professorial outline, hovering aloof in an
inner saloon, seen only in vista. M. Emanuel knew many of the
gentlemen present, but I think was a stranger to most of the ladies,
excepting myself; in looking towards the hearth, he could not but see
me, and naturally made a movement to approach; seeing, however, Dr.
Bretton also, he changed his mind and held back. If that had been all,
there would have been no cause for quarrel; but not satisfied with
holding back, he puckered up his eyebrows, protruded his lip, and
looked so ugly that I averted my eyes from the displeasing spectacle.
M. Joseph Emanuel had arrived, as well as his austere brother, and at
this very moment was relieving Ginevra at the piano. What a master-
touch succeeded her school-girl jingle! In what grand, grateful tones
the instrument acknowledged the hand of the true artist!
"Lucy," began Dr. Bretton, breaking silence and smiling, as Ginevra
glided before him, casting a glance as she passed by, "Miss Fanshawe
is certainly a fine girl."
Of course I assented.
"Is there," he pursued, "another in the room as lovely?"
"I think there is not another as handsome."
"I agree with you, Lucy: you and I do often agree in opinion, in
taste, I think; or at least in judgment."
"Do we?" I said, somewhat doubtfully.
"I believe if you had been a boy, Lucy, instead of a girl--my mother's
god-son instead of her god-daughter, we should have been good friends:
our opinions would have melted into each other."
He had assumed a bantering air: a light, half-caressing, half-ironic,
shone aslant in his eye. Ah, Graham! I have given more than one
solitary moment to thoughts and calculations of your estimate of Lucy
Snowe: was it always kind or just? Had Lucy been intrinsically the
same but possessing the additional advantages of wealth and station,
would your manner to her, your value for her, have been quite what
they actually were? And yet by these questions I would not seriously
infer blame. No; you might sadden and trouble me sometimes; but then
mine was a soon-depressed, an easily-deranged temperament--it fell if
a cloud crossed the sun. Perhaps before the eye of severe equity I
should stand more at fault than you.
Trying, then, to keep down the unreasonable pain which thrilled my
heart, on thus being made to feel that while Graham could devote to
others the most grave and earnest, the manliest interest, he had no
more than light raillery for Lucy, the friend of lang syne, I inquired
calmly,--"On what points are we so closely in accordance?"
"We each have an observant faculty. You, perhaps, don't give me credit
for the possession; yet I have it."
"But you were speaking of tastes: we may see the same objects, yet
estimate them differently?"
"Let us bring it to the test. Of course, you cannot but render homage
to the merits of Miss Fanshawe: now, what do you think of others in
the room?--my mother, for instance; or the lions yonder, Messieurs
A---- and Z----; or, let us say, that pale little lady, Miss de
Bassompierre?"
"You know what I think of your mother. I have not thought of Messieurs
A---- and Z----."
"And the other?"
"I think she is, as you say, a pale little lady--pale, certainly, just
now, when she is fatigued with over-excitement."
"You don't remember her as a child?"
"I wonder, sometimes, whether you do."
"I had forgotten her; but it is noticeable, that circumstances,
persons, even words and looks, that had slipped your memory, may,
under certain conditions, certain aspects of your own or another's
mind, revive."
"That is possible enough."
"Yet," he continued, "the revival is imperfect--needs confirmation,
partakes so much of the dim character of a dream, or of the airy one
of a fancy, that the testimony of a witness becomes necessary for
corroboration. Were you not a guest at Bretton ten years ago, when Mr.
Home brought his little girl, whom we then called 'little Polly,' to
stay with mamma?"
"I was there the night she came, and also the morning she went away."
"Rather a peculiar child, was she not? I wonder how I treated her. Was
I fond of children in those days? Was there anything gracious or
kindly about me--great, reckless, schoolboy as I was? But you don't
recollect me, of course?"
"You have seen your own picture at La Terrasse. It is like you
personally. In manner, you were almost the same yesterday as to-day."
"But, Lucy, how is that? Such an oracle really whets my curiosity.
What am I to-day? What was I the yesterday of ten years back?"
"Gracious to whatever pleased you--unkindly or cruel to nothing."
"There you are wrong; I think I was almost a brute to _you_, for
instance."
"A brute! No, Graham: I should never have patiently endured
brutality."
"_This_, however, I _do_ remember: quiet Lucy Snowe tasted
nothing of my grace."
"As little of your cruelty."
"Why, had I been Nero himself, I could not have tormented a being
inoffensive as a shadow."
I smiled; but I also hushed a groan. Oh!--I just wished he would let
me alone--cease allusion to me. These epithets--these attributes I put
from me. His "quiet Lucy Snowe," his "inoffensive shadow," I gave him
back; not with scorn, but with extreme weariness: theirs was the
coldness and the pressure of lead; let him whelm me with no such
weight. Happily, he was soon on another theme.
"On what terms were 'little Polly' and I? Unless my recollections
deceive me, we were not foes--"
"You speak very vaguely. Do you think little Polly's memory, not more
definite?"
"Oh! we don't talk of 'little Polly' _now_. Pray say, Miss de
Bassompierre; and, of course, such a stately personage remembers
nothing of Bretton. Look at her large eyes, Lucy; can they read a word
in the page of memory? Are they the same which I used to direct to a
horn-book? She does not know that I partly taught her to read."
"In the Bible on Sunday nights?"
"She has a calm, delicate, rather fine profile now: once what a little
restless, anxious countenance was hers! What a thing is a child's
preference--what a bubble! Would you believe it? that lady was fond of
me!"
"I think she was in some measure fond of you," said I, moderately.
"You don't remember then? _I_ had forgotten; but I remember
_now_. She liked me the best of whatever there was at Bretton."
"You thought so."
"I quite well recall it. I wish I could tell her all I recall; or
rather, I wish some one, you for instance, would go behind and whisper
it all in her ear, and I could have the delight--here, as I sit--of
watching her look under the intelligence. Could you manage that, think
you, Lucy, and make me ever grateful?"
"Could I manage to make you ever grateful?" said I. "No, _I could
not_." And I felt my fingers work and my hands interlock: I felt,
too, an inward courage, warm and resistant. In this matter I was not
disposed to gratify Dr. John: not at all. With now welcome force, I
realized his entire misapprehension of my character and nature. He
wanted always to give me a role not mine. Nature and I opposed him. He
did not at all guess what I felt: he did not read my eyes, or face, or
gestures; though, I doubt not, all spoke. Leaning towards me
coaxingly, he said, softly, "_Do_ content me, Lucy."
And I would have contented, or, at least, I would clearly have
enlightened him, and taught him well never again to expect of me the
part of officious soubrette in a love drama; when, following his,
soft, eager, murmur, meeting almost his pleading, mellow--"_Do_
content me, Lucy!" a sharp hiss pierced my ear on the other side.
"Petite chatte, doucerette, coquette!" sibillated the sudden boa-
constrictor; "vous avez l'air bien triste, soumis, reveur, mais vous
ne l'etes pas: c'est moi qui vous le dis: Sauvage! la flamme a l'ame,
l'eclair aux yeux!"
"Oui; j'ai la flamme a l'ame, et je dois l'avoir!" retorted I, turning
in just wrath: but Professor Emanuel had hissed his insult and was
gone.
The worst of the matter was, that Dr. Bretton, whose ears, as I have
said, were quick and fine, caught every word of this apostrophe; he
put his handkerchief to his face, and laughed till he shook.
"Well done, Lucy," cried he; "capital! petite chatte, petite coquette!
Oh, I must tell my mother! Is it true, Lucy, or half-true? I believe
it is: you redden to the colour of Miss Fanshawe's gown. And really,
by my word, now I examine him, that is the same little man who was so
savage with you at the concert: the very same, and in his soul he is
frantic at this moment because he sees me laughing. Oh! I must tease
him."
And Graham, yielding to his bent for mischief, laughed, jested, and
whispered on till I could bear no more, and my eyes filled.
Suddenly he was sobered: a vacant space appeared near Miss de
Bassompierre; the circle surrounding her seemed about to dissolve.
This movement was instantly caught by Graham's eye--ever-vigilant,
even while laughing; he rose, took his courage in both hands, crossed
the room, and made the advantage his own. Dr. John, throughout his
whole life, was a man of luck--a man of success. And why? Because he
had the eye to see his opportunity, the heart to prompt to well-timed
action, the nerve to consummate a perfect work. And no tyrant-passion
dragged him back; no enthusiasms, no foibles encumbered his way. How
well he looked at this very moment! When Paulina looked up as he
reached her side, her glance mingled at once with an encountering
glance, animated, yet modest; his colour, as he spoke to her, became
half a blush, half a glow. He stood in her presence brave and bashful:
subdued and unobtrusive, yet decided in his purpose and devoted in his
ardour. I gathered all this by one view. I did not prolong my
observation--time failed me, had inclination served: the night wore
late; Ginevra and I ought already to have been in the Rue Fossette. I
rose, and bade good-night to my godmother and M. de Bassompierre.
I know not whether Professor Emanuel had noticed my reluctant
acceptance of Dr. Bretton's badinage, or whether he perceived that I
was pained, and that, on the whole, the evening had not been one flow
of exultant enjoyment for the volatile, pleasure-loving Mademoiselle
Lucie; but, as I was leaving the room, he stepped up and inquired
whether I had any one to attend me to the Rue Fossette. The professor
_now_ spoke politely, and even deferentially, and he looked
apologetic and repentant; but I could not recognise his civility at a
word, nor meet his contrition with crude, premature oblivion. Never
hitherto had I felt seriously disposed to resent his brusqueries, or
freeze before his fierceness; what he had said to-night, however, I
considered unwarranted: my extreme disapprobation of the proceeding
must be marked, however slightly. I merely said:--"I am provided with
attendance."
Which was true, as Ginevra and I were to be sent home in the carriage;
and I passed him with the sliding obeisance with which he was wont to
be saluted in classe by pupils crossing his estrade.
Having sought my shawl, I returned to the vestibule. M. Emanuel stood
there as if waiting. He observed that the night was fine.
"Is it?" I said, with a tone and manner whose consummate chariness and
frostiness I could not but applaud. It was so seldom I could properly
act out my own resolution to be reserved and cool where I had been
grieved or hurt, that I felt almost proud of this one successful
effort. That "Is it?" sounded just like the manner of other people. I
had heard hundreds of such little minced, docked, dry phrases, from
the pursed-up coral lips of a score of self-possessed, self-sufficing
misses and mesdemoiselles. That M. Paul would not stand any prolonged
experience of this sort of dialogue I knew; but he certainly merited a
sample of the curt and arid. I believe he thought so himself, for he
took the dose quietly. He looked at my shawl and objected to its
lightness. I decidedly told him it was as heavy as I wished. Receding
aloof, and standing apart, I leaned on the banister of the stairs,
folded my shawl about me, and fixed my eyes on a dreary religious
painting darkening the wall.
Ginevra was long in coming: tedious seemed her loitering. M. Paul was
still there; my ear expected from his lips an angry tone. He came
nearer. "Now for another hiss!" thought I: had not the action been too
uncivil I could have, stopped my ears with my fingers in terror of the
thrill. Nothing happens as we expect: listen for a coo or a murmur; it
is then you will hear a cry of prey or pain. Await a piercing shriek,
an angry threat, and welcome an amicable greeting, a low kind whisper.
M. Paul spoke gently:--"Friends," said he, "do not quarrel for a word.
Tell me, was it I or ce grand fat d'Anglais" (so he profanely
denominated Dr. Bretton), "who made your eyes so humid, and your
cheeks so hot as they are even now?"
"I am not conscious of you, monsieur, or of any other having excited
such emotion as you indicate," was my answer; and in giving it, I
again surpassed my usual self, and achieved a neat, frosty falsehood.
"But what did I say?" he pursued; "tell me: I was angry: I have
forgotten my words; what were they?"
"Such as it is best to forget!" said I, still quite calm and chill.
"Then it was _my_ words which wounded you? Consider them unsaid:
permit my retractation; accord my pardon."
"I am not angry, Monsieur."
"Then you are worse than angry--grieved. Forgive me, Miss Lucy."
"M. Emanuel, I _do_ forgive you."
"Let me hear you say, in the voice natural to you, and not in that
alien tone, 'Mon ami, je vous pardonne.'"
He made me smile. Who could help smiling at his wistfulness, his
simplicity, his earnestness?
"Bon!" he cried. "Voila que le jour va poindre! Dites donc, mon ami."
"Monsieur Paul, je vous pardonne."
"I will have no monsieur: speak the other word, or I shall not believe
you sincere: another effort--_mon ami_, or else in English,--my
friend!"
Now, "my friend" had rather another sound and significancy
than "_mon ami_;" it did not breathe the same sense of domestic
and intimate affection; "_mon ami_" I could _not_ say to M.
Paul; "my friend," I could, and did say without difficulty. This
distinction existed not for him, however, and he was quite satisfied
with the English phrase. He smiled. You should have seen him smile,
reader; and you should have marked the difference between his
countenance now, and that he wore half an hour ago. I cannot affirm
that I had ever witnessed the smile of pleasure, or content, or
kindness round M. Paul's lips, or in his eyes before. The ironic, the
sarcastic, the disdainful, the passionately exultant, I had hundreds
of times seen him express by what he called a smile, but any
illuminated sign of milder or warmer feelings struck me as wholly new
in his visage. It changed it as from a mask to a face: the deep lines
left his features; the very complexion seemed clearer and fresher;
that swart, sallow, southern darkness which spoke his Spanish blood,
became displaced by a lighter hue. I know not that I have ever seen in
any other human face an equal metamorphosis from a similar cause. He
now took me to the carriage: at the same moment M. de Bassompierre
came out with his niece.
In a pretty humour was Mistress Fanshawe; she had found the evening a
grand failure: completely upset as to temper, she gave way to the most
uncontrolled moroseness as soon as we were seated, and the carriage-
door closed. Her invectives against Dr. Bretton had something venomous
in them. Having found herself impotent either to charm or sting him,
hatred was her only resource; and this hatred she expressed in terms
so unmeasured and proportion so monstrous, that, after listening for a
while with assumed stoicism, my outraged sense of justice at last and
suddenly caught fire. An explosion ensued: for I could be passionate,
too; especially with my present fair but faulty associate, who never
failed to stir the worst dregs of me. It was well that the carriage-
wheels made a tremendous rattle over the flinty Choseville pavement,
for I can assure the reader there was neither dead silence nor calm
discussion within the vehicle. Half in earnest, half in seeming, I
made it my business to storm down Ginevra. She had set out rampant
from the Rue Crecy; it was necessary to tame her before we reached the
Rue Fossette: to this end it was indispensable to show up her sterling
value and high deserts; and this must be done in language of which the
fidelity and homeliness might challenge comparison with the
compliments of a John Knox to a Mary Stuart. This was the right
discipline for Ginevra; it suited her. I am quite sure she went to bed
that night all the better and more settled in mind and mood, and slept
all the more sweetly for having undergone a sound moral drubbing.
Content of CHAPTER XXVII - THE HOTEL CRECY [Charlotte Bronte's novel: Villette]
_
Read next: CHAPTER XXVIII -THE WATCHGUARD
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