Villette (14 page)

And my portmanteau, with my few clothes and little pocket-book enclasping the remnant of my fifteen pounds, where were they?

I ask this question now, but I could not ask it then. I could say nothing whatever; not possessing a phrase of
speaking
French: and it was French, and French only, the whole world seemed now gabbling round me.
What
should I do? Approaching the conductor, I just laid my hand on his arm, pointed to a trunk, then to the diligence-roof, and tried to express a question with my eyes. He misunderstood me, seized the trunk indicated, and was about to hoist it on the vehicle.

‘Let that alone—will you?’ said a voice in good English; then, in correction, ‘Qu’est ce que vous faîtes done? Cette malle est à moi.’
^t

But I had heard the Fatherland accents; they rejoiced my heart; I turned:

‘Sir,’ said I, appealing to the stranger, without in my distress noticing what he was like, ‘I cannot speak French. May I entreat you to ask this man what he has done with my trunk?’

Without discriminating, for the moment, what sort of face it was to which my eyes were raised and on which they were fixed, I felt in its expression half-surprise at my appeal and half-doubt of the wisdom of interference.

‘Do ask him; I would do as much for you,’ said I.

I don’t know whether he smiled, but he said in a gentlemanly tone; that is to say, a tone not hard nor terrifying,—

‘What sort of trunk was yours?’

I described it, including in my description the green ribbon. And forthwith he took the conductor under hand, and I felt, through all the storm of French which followed, that he raked him fore and aft. Presently he returned to me.

‘The fellow avers he was overloaded, and confesses that he removed your trunk after you saw it put on, and has left it behind at Boue-Marine with other parcels; he has promised, however, to forward it to-morrow; the day after, therefore, you will find it safe at this bureau.’

‘Thank you,’ said I: but my heart sank.

Meantime what should I do? Perhaps this English gentleman saw the failure of courage in my face; he inquired kindly,

‘Have you any friends in this city?’

‘No, and I don’t know where to go.’

There was a little pause, in the course of which, as he turned more fully to the light of a lamp above him, I saw that he was a young, distinguished, and handsome man; he might be a lord, for anything I knew: nature had made him good enough for a prince, I thought. His face was very pleasant; he looked high but not arrogant, manly but not overbearing. I was turning away, in the deep consciousness of all absence of claim to look for further help from such a one as he.

‘Was all your money in your trunk?’ he asked, stopping me.

How thankful was I to be able to answer with truth,—

‘No. I have enough in my purse’ (for I had near twenty francs) ‘to keep me at a quiet inn till the day after to-morrow; but I am quite a stranger in Villette, and don’t know the streets and the inns.’

‘I can give you the address of such an inn as you want,’ said he; ‘and it is not far off: with my direction you will easily find it.’

He tore a leaf from his pocket-book, wrote a few words and gave it to me. I
did
think him kind; and as to distrusting him, or his advice, or his address, I should almost as soon have thought of distrusting the Bible. There was goodness in his countenance and honour in his bright eyes.

‘Your shortest way will be to follow the boulevard, and cross the park,’ he continued; ‘but it is too late and too dark for a woman to go through the park alone; I will step with you thus far.’

He moved on, and I followed him, through the darkness and the small soaking rain. The Boulevard was all deserted, its path miry, the water dripping from its trees; the park was black as midnight. In the double gloom of trees and fog, I could not see my guide; I could only follow his tread. Not the least fear had I: I believe I would have followed that frank tread, through continual night, to the world’s end.

‘Now,’ said he, when the park was traversed, ‘you will go along this broad street till you come to steps; two lamps will show you where they are: these steps you will descend: a narrower street lies below; following that, at the bottom you will find your inn. They speak English there, so your difficulties are now pretty well over. Good-night.’

‘Good-night, sir,’ said I: ‘accept my sincerest thanks.’ And we parted.

The remembrance of his countenance, which I am sure wore a light not unbenignant to the friendless—the sound in my ear of his voice, which spoke a nature chivalric to the needy and feeble, as well as the youthful and fair—were a sort of cordial to me long after. He was a true young English gentleman.

On I went, hurrying fast through a magnificent street and square, with the grandest houses round, and amidst them the huge outline of more than one overbearing pile; which might be palace, or church—I could not tell. Just as I passed a portico, two moustachioed men came suddenly from behind the pillars; they were smoking cigars, their dress implied pretensions to the rank of gentlemen, but, poor things! they were very plebeian in soul. They spoke with insolence, and, fast as I walked, they kept pace with me a long way. At last I met a sort of patrol, and my dreaded hunters were turned from the pursuit; but they had driven me beyond my reckoning: when I could collect my faculties, I no longer knew where I was; the staircase I must long since have passed; puzzled, out of breath, all my pulses throbbing in inevitable agitation, I knew not where to turn. It was terrible to think of again encountering those bearded, sneering simpletons; yet the ground must be retraced, and the steps sought out.

I came at last to an old and worn flight, and, taking it for granted that this must be the one indicated, I descended them. The street into which they led was indeed narrow, but it contained no inn. On I wandered. In a very quiet and comparatively clean and well-paved street, I saw a light burning over the door of a rather large house, loftier by a storey than those round it.
This
might be the inn at last. I hastened on: my knees now trembled under me: I was getting quite exhausted.

No inn was this. A brass-plate embellished the great Porte-cochere: ‘Pensionnat de Demoiselles’
^u
was the inscription; and beneath, a name, ‘Madame Beck.’

I started. About a hundred thoughts volleyed through my mind in a moment. Yet I planned nothing, and considered nothing: I had not time. Providence said, ‘Stop here; this is
your
inn.
’
Fate took me in her strong hand; mastered my will; directed my actions: I rung the door-bell.

While I waited, I would not reflect. I fixedly looked at the street-stones, where the door-lamp shone, and counted them, and noted their shapes, and the glitter of wet on their angles. I rang again. They opened at last. A bonne in a smart cap stood before me.

‘May I see Madame Beck?’ I inquired.

I believe if I had spoken French she would not have admitted me; but, as I spoke English, she concluded I was a foreign teacher come on business connected with the Pensionnat, and, even at that late hour, she let me in, without a word of reluctance or a moment of hesitation.

The next moment I sat in a cold, glittering salon, with porcelain stove unlit, and gilded ornaments, and polished floor. A pendule on the mantel-piece struck nine o’clock.

A quarter of an hour passed. How fast beat every pulse in my frame! How I turned cold and hot by turns! I sat with my eyes fixed on the door—a great white folding-door, with gilt mouldings: I watched to see a leaf move and open. All had been quiet: not a mouse had stirred; the white doors were closed and motionless.

‘You ayre Engliss?’ said a voice at my elbow. I almost bounded, so unexpected was the sound; so certain had I been of solitude.

No ghost stood beside me, nor anything of spectral aspect; merely a motherly, dumpy little woman, in a large shawl, a wrapping-gown, and a clean, trim night-cap.

I said I was English, and immediately, without further prelude, we fell to a most remarkable conversation. Madame Beck (for Madame Beck it was—she had entered by a little door behind me, and, being shod with the shoes of silence, I had heard neither her entrance nor approach)—Madame Beck had exhausted her command of insular speech when she said, ‘You ayre Engliss,’ and she now proceeded to work away volubly in her own tongue. I answered in mine. She partly understood me, but as I did not at all understand her—though we made together an awful clamour (anything like madame’s gift of utterance I had not hitherto heard or imagined)—we achieved little progress. She rang, ere long, for aid; which arrived in the shape of a ‘maîtresse,’ who had been partly educated in an Irish convent, and was esteemed a perfect adept in the English language. A bluff little personage this maîtresse was—Labassecourienne from top to toe: and how she did slaughter the speech of Albion! However, I told her a plain tale, which she translated. I told her how I had left my own country, intent on extending my knowledge, and gaining my bread; how I was ready to turn my hand to any useful thing, provided it was not wrong or degrading: how I would be a child‘s-nurse or a lady’s-maid, and would not refuse even housework adapted to my strength. Madame heard this; and, questioning her countenance, I almost thought the tale won her ear:

’ll n‘y a que les Anglaises pour ces sortes d’entreprises,’ said she: ‘sont-elles done intrépides ces femmes là!’
^v

She asked my name, my age; she sat and looked at me—not pityingly, not with interest: never a gleam of sympathy, or a shade of compassion, crossed her countenance during the interview. I felt she was not one to be led an inch by her feelings: grave and considerate, she gazed, consulting her judgment and studying my narrative. A bell rang.

‘Voilà pour la prière du soir!’
^w
said she, and rose. Through her interpreter, she desired me to depart now, and come back on the morrow; but this did not suit me: I could not bear to return to the perils of darkness and the street. With energy, yet with a collected and controlled manner, I said, addressing herself personally, and not the maîtresse:

‘Be assured, madame, that by instantly securing my services, your interests will be served and not injured: you will find me one who will wish to give, in her labour, a full equivalent for her wages; and if you hire me, it will be better that I should stay here this night: having no acquaintance in Villette, and not possessing the language of the country, how can I secure a lodging?’

‘It is true;’ said she, ‘but at least you can give me a reference?’

‘None.’

She inquired after my luggage: I told her when it would arrive. She mused. At that moment a man’s step was heard in the vestibule, hastily proceeding to the outer door. (I shall go on with this part of my tale as if I had understood all that passed; for though it was then scarce intelligible to me, I heard it translated afterwards).

‘Who goes out now?’ demanded Madame Beck, listening to the tread.

‘M. Paul,’ replied the teacher. He came this evening to give a reading to the first clas.’

‘The very man I should at this moment most wish to see. Call him.’

The teacher ran to the salon door. M. Paul was summoned. He entered: a small, dark and spare man, in spectacles.

‘Mon cousin,’ began madame, ‘I want your opinion. We know your skill in physiognomy; use it now. Read that countenance ’
₃

The little man fixed on me his spectacles. A resolute compression of the lips, and gathering of the brow, seemed to say that he meant to see through me, and that a veil would be no veil for him.

‘I read it,’ he pronounced.

‘Et qu’en dites vous?’

‘Mats—bien des choses,’
^x
was the oracular answer.

‘Bad or good?’

‘Of each kind, without doubt,’ pursued the diviner.

‘May one trust her word?’

‘Are you negotiating a matter of importance?’

‘She wishes me to engage her as bonne or gouvernante; tells a tale full of integrity, but gives no reference.’

‘She is a stranger?’

‘An Englishwoman, as one may see.’

‘She speaks French?’

‘Not a word.’

‘She understands it?’

‘No.’

‘One may then speak plainly in her presence?’

‘Doubtless.’

He gazed steadily. ‘Do you need her services?’

‘I could do with them. You know I am disgusted with Madame Svini.’

Still he scrutinized. The judgment, when it at last came, was as indefinite as what had gone before it.

‘Engage her. If good predominates in that nature, the action will bring its own reward; if evil—eh bien! ma cousine, ce sera toujours une bonne œuvre.’‘
^y
And with a bow and a ‘bon soir,’ this vague arbiter of my destiny vanished. And madame did engage me that very night—by God’s blessing I was spared the necessity of passing forth again into the lonesome, dreary, hostile street.

B
eing delivered into the charge of the maîtresse, I was led through a long, narrow passage into a foreign kitchen, very clean but very strange. It seemed to contain no means of cooking—neither fireplace nor oven; I did not understand that the great black furnace which filled one corner, was an efficient substitute for these. Surely pride was not already beginning its whispers in my heart; yet I felt a sense of relief when, instead of being left in the kitchen, as I half-anticipated, I was led forward to a small inner room termed a ‘cabinet.’ A cook in a jacket, a short petticoat and sabots, brought my supper: to wit,—some meat, nature unknown, served in an odd and acid, but pleasant sauce; some chopped potatoes, made savoury with, I know not what: vinegar and sugar, I think; a tartine, or slice of bread and butter, and a baked pear. Being hungry, I ate and was grateful.