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CHAPTER XL - THE HAPPY PAIR
The day succeeding this remarkable Midsummer night, proved no common
day. I do not mean that it brought signs in heaven above, or portents
on the earth beneath; nor do I allude to meteorological phenomena, to
storm, flood, or whirlwind. On the contrary: the sun rose jocund, with
a July face. Morning decked her beauty with rubies, and so filled her
lap with roses, that they fell from her in showers, making her path
blush: the Hours woke fresh as nymphs, and emptying on the early hills
their dew-vials, they stepped out dismantled of vapour: shadowless,
azure, and glorious, they led the sun's steeds on a burning and
unclouded course.
In short, it was as fine a day as the finest summer could boast; but I
doubt whether I was not the sole inhabitant of the Rue Fossette, who
cared or remembered to note this pleasant fact. Another thought busied
all other heads; a thought, indeed, which had its share in my
meditations; but this master consideration, not possessing for me so
entire a novelty, so overwhelming a suddenness, especially so dense a
mystery, as it offered to the majority of my co-speculators thereon,
left me somewhat more open than the rest to any collateral observation
or impression.
Still, while walking in the garden, feeling the sunshine, and marking
the blooming and growing plants, I pondered the same subject the whole
house discussed.
What subject?
Merely this. When matins came to be said, there was a place vacant in
the first rank of boarders. When breakfast was served, there remained
a coffee-cup unclaimed. When the housemaid made the beds, she found in
one, a bolster laid lengthwise, clad in a cap and night-gown; and when
Ginevra Fanshawe's music-mistress came early, as usual, to give the
morning lesson, that accomplished and promising young person, her
pupil, failed utterly to be forthcoming.
High and low was Miss Fanshawe sought; through length and breadth was
the house ransacked; vainly; not a trace, not an indication, not so
much as a scrap of a billet rewarded the search; the nymph was
vanished, engulfed in the past night, like a shooting star swallowed
up by darkness.
Deep was the dismay of surveillante teachers, deeper the horror of the
defaulting directress. Never had I seen Madame Beck so pale or so
appalled. Here was a blow struck at her tender part, her weak side;
here was damage done to her interest. How, too, had the untoward event
happened? By what outlet had the fugitive taken wing? Not a casement
was found unfastened, not a pane of glass broken; all the doors were
bolted secure. Never to this day has Madame Beck obtained satisfaction
on this point, nor indeed has anybody else concerned, save and
excepting one, Lucy Snowe, who could not forget how, to facilitate a
certain enterprise, a certain great door had been drawn softly to its
lintel, closed, indeed, but neither bolted nor secure. The thundering
carriage-and-pair encountered were now likewise recalled, as well as
that puzzling signal, the waved handkerchief.
From these premises, and one or two others, inaccessible to any but
myself, I could draw but one inference. It was a case of elopement.
Morally certain on this head, and seeing Madame Beck's profound
embarrassment, I at last communicated my conviction. Having alluded to
M. de Hamal's suit, I found, as I expected, that Madame Beck was
perfectly au fait to that affair. She had long since discussed it with
Mrs. Cholmondeley, and laid her own responsibility in the business on
that lady's shoulders. To Mrs. Cholmondeley and M. de Bassompierre she
now had recourse.
We found that the Hotel Crecy was already alive to what had happened.
Ginevra had written to her cousin Paulina, vaguely signifying hymeneal
intentions; communications had been received from the family of de
Hamal; M. de Bassompierre was on the track of the fugitives. He
overtook them too late.
In the course of the week, the post brought me a note. I may as well
transcribe it; it contains explanation on more than one point:--
'DEAR OLD TIM "(short for Timon),--" I am off you see--gone like a
shot. Alfred and I intended to be married in this way almost from the
first; we never meant to be spliced in the humdrum way of other
people; Alfred has too much spirit for that, and so have I--Dieu
merci! Do you know, Alfred, who used to call you 'the dragon,' has
seen so much of you during the last few months, that he begins to feel
quite friendly towards you. He hopes you won't miss him now that he
has gone; he begs to apologize for any little trouble he may have
given you. He is afraid he rather inconvenienced you once when he came
upon you in the grenier, just as you were reading a letter seemingly
of the most special interest; but he could not resist the temptation
to give you a start, you appeared so wonderfully taken up with your
correspondent. En revanche, he says you once frightened him by rushing
in for a dress or a shawl, or some other chiffon, at the moment when
he had struck a light, and was going to take a quiet whiff of his
cigar, while waiting for me.
"Do you begin to comprehend by this time that M. le Comte de Hamal was
the nun of the attic, and that he came to see your humble servant? I
will tell you how he managed it. You know he has the entree of the
Athenee, where two or three of his nephews, the sons of his eldest
sister, Madame de Melcy, are students. You know the court of the
Athenee is on the other side of the high wall bounding your walk, the
allee defendue. Alfred can climb as well as he can dance or fence: his
amusement was to make the escalade of our pensionnat by mounting,
first the wall; then--by the aid of that high tree overspreading the
grand berceau, and resting some of its boughs on the roof of the lower
buildings of our premises--he managed to scale the first classe and
the grand salle. One night, by the way, he fell out of this tree, tore
down some of the branches, nearly broke his own neck, and after all,
in running away, got a terrible fright, and was nearly caught by two
people, Madame Beck and M. Emanuel, he thinks, walking in the alley.
From the grande salle the ascent is not difficult to the highest block
of building, finishing in the great garret. The skylight, you know,
is, day and night, left half open for air; by the skylight he entered.
Nearly a year ago I chanced to tell him our legend of the nun; that
suggested his romantic idea of the spectral disguise, which I think
you must allow he has very cleverly carried out.
"But for the nun's black gown and white veil, he would have been
caught again and again both by you and that tiger-Jesuit, M. Paul. He
thinks you both capital ghost-seers, and very brave. What I wonder at
is, rather your secretiveness than your courage. How could you endure
the visitations of that long spectre, time after time, without crying
out, telling everybody, and rousing the whole house and neighbourhood?
"Oh, and how did you like the nun as a bed-fellow? _I_ dressed
her up: didn't I do it well? Did you shriek when you saw her: I should
have gone mad; but then you have such nerves!--real iron and bend-
leather! I believe you feel nothing. You haven't the same
sensitiveness that a person of my constitution has. You seem to me
insensible both to pain and fear and grief. You are a real old
Diogenes.
"Well, dear grandmother! and are you not mightily angry at my
moonlight flitting and run away match? I assure you it is excellent
fun, and I did it partly to spite that minx, Paulina, and that bear,
Dr. John: to show them that, with all their airs, I could get married
as well as they. M. de Bassompierre was at first in a strange fume
with Alfred; he threatened a prosecution for 'detournement de mineur,'
and I know not what; he was so abominably in earnest, that I found
myself forced to do a little bit of the melodramatic--go down on my
knees, sob, cry, drench three pocket-handkerchiefs. Of course, 'mon
oncle' soon gave in; indeed, where was the use of making a fuss? I am
married, and that's all about it. He still says our marriage is not
legal, because I am not of age, forsooth! As if that made any
difference! I am just as much married as if I were a hundred. However,
we are to be married again, and I am to have a trousseau, and Mrs.
Cholmondeley is going to superintend it; and there are some hopes that
M. de Bassompierre will give me a decent portion, which will be very
convenient, as dear Alfred has nothing but his nobility, native and
hereditary, and his pay. I only wish uncle would do things
unconditionally, in a generous, gentleman-like fashion; he is so
disagreeable as to make the dowry depend on Alfred's giving his
written promise that he will never touch cards or dice from the day it
is paid down. They accuse my angel of a tendency to play: I don't know
anything about that, but I _do_ know he is a dear, adorable
creature.
"I cannot sufficiently extol the genius with which de Hamal managed
our flight. How clever in him to select the night of the fete, when
Madame (for he knows her habits), as he said, would infallibly be
absent at the concert in the park. I suppose _you_ must have gone
with her. I watched you rise and leave the dormitory about eleven
o'clock. How you returned alone, and on foot, I cannot conjecture.
That surely was _you_ we met in the narrow old Rue St. Jean? Did
you see me wave my handkerchief from the carriage window?
"Adieu! Rejoice in my good luck: congratulate me on my supreme
happiness, and believe me, dear cynic and misanthrope, yours, in the
best of health and spirits,
GINEVRA LAURA DE HAMAL, nee FANSHAWE.
"P.S.--Remember, I am a countess now. Papa, mamma, and the girls at
home, will be delighted to hear that. 'My daughter the Countess!' 'My
sister the Countess!' Bravo! Sounds rather better than Mrs. John
Bretton, hein?"
* * * * *
In winding up Mistress Fanshawe's memoirs, the reader will no doubt
expect to hear that she came finally to bitter expiation of her
youthful levities. Of course, a large share of suffering lies in
reserve for her future.
A few words will embody my farther knowledge respecting her.
I saw her towards the close of her honeymoon. She called on Madame
Beck, and sent for me into the salon. She rushed into my arms
laughing. She looked very blooming and beautiful: her curls were
longer, her cheeks rosier than ever: her white bonnet and her Flanders
veil, her orange-flowers and her bride's dress, became her mightily.
"I have got my portion!" she cried at once; (Ginevra ever stuck to the
substantial; I always thought there was a good trading element in her
composition, much as she scorned the "bourgeoise;") "and uncle de
Bassompierre is quite reconciled. I don't mind his calling Alfred a
'nincompoop'--that's only his coarse Scotch breeding; and I believe
Paulina envies me, and Dr. John is wild with jealousy--fit to blow his
brains out--and I'm so happy! I really think I've hardly anything left
to wish for--unless it be a carriage and an hotel, and, oh! I--must
introduce you to 'mon mari.' Alfred, come here!"
And Alfred appeared from the inner salon, where he was talking to
Madame Beck, receiving the blended felicitations and reprimands of
that lady. I was presented under my various names: the Dragon,
Diogenes, and Timon. The young Colonel was very polite. He made me a
prettily-turned, neatly-worded apology, about the ghost-visits, &c.;,
concluding with saying that "the best excuse for all his iniquities
stood there!" pointing to his bride.
And then the bride sent him back to Madame Beck, and she took me to
herself, and proceeded literally to suffocate me with her unrestrained
spirits, her girlish, giddy, wild nonsense. She showed her ring
exultingly; she called herself Madame la Comtesse de Hamal, and asked
how it sounded, a score of times. I said very little. I gave her only
the crust and rind of my nature. No matter she expected of me nothing
better--she knew me too well to look for compliments--my dry gibes
pleased her well enough and the more impassible and prosaic my mien,
the more merrily she laughed.
Soon after his marriage, M. de Hamal was persuaded to leave the army
as the surest way of weaning him from certain unprofitable associates
and habits; a post of attache was procured for him, and he and his
young wife went abroad. I thought she would forget me now, but she did
not. For many years, she kept up a capricious, fitful sort of
correspondence. During the first year or two, it was only of herself
and Alfred she wrote; then, Alfred faded in the background; herself
and a certain, new comer prevailed; one Alfred Fanshawe de
Bassompierre de Hamal began to reign in his father's stead. There were
great boastings about this personage, extravagant amplifications upon
miracles of precocity, mixed with vehement objurgations against the
phlegmatic incredulity with which I received them. I didn't know "what
it was to be a mother;" "unfeeling thing that I was, the sensibilities
of the maternal heart were Greek and Hebrew to me," and so on. In due
course of nature this young gentleman took his degrees in teething,
measles, hooping-cough: that was a terrible time for me--the mamma's
letters became a perfect shout of affliction; never woman was so put
upon by calamity: never human being stood in such need of sympathy. I
was frightened at first, and wrote back pathetically; but I soon found
out there was more cry than wool in the business, and relapsed into my
natural cruel insensibility. As to the youthful sufferer, he weathered
each storm like a hero. Five times was that youth "in articulo
mortis," and five times did he miraculously revive.
In the course of years there arose ominous murmurings against Alfred
the First; M. de Bassompierre had to be appealed to, debts had to be
paid, some of them of that dismal and dingy order called "debts of
honour;" ignoble plaints and difficulties became frequent. Under every
cloud, no matter what its nature, Ginevra, as of old, called out
lustily for sympathy and aid. She had no notion of meeting any
distress single-handed. In some shape, from some quarter or other, she
was pretty sure to obtain her will, and so she got on--fighting the
battle of life by proxy, and, on the whole, suffering as little as any
human being I have ever known.
Content of CHAPTER XL - THE HAPPY PAIR [Charlotte Bronte's novel: Villette]
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