Villette (53 page)

‘The people I have longest and most esteemed are degraded by her. She does not spare Mrs. Bretton—she does not spare ... Graham.’

‘No, I dare say: and how does she mix up these with her sentiment and her ...
love?
She does mix them, I suppose?’

‘Lucy, she is insolent; and I believe, false. You know Dr. Bretton. We both know him. He may be careless and proud; but when was he ever mean or slavish? Day after day she shows him to me kneeling at her feet, pursuing her like her shadow. She—repulsing him with insult, and he imploring her with infatuation. Lucy, is it true? Is any of it true?’

‘It may be true that he once thought her handsome: does she give him out as still her suitor?’

‘She says she might marry him any day: he only waits her consent.’

‘It is these tales which have caused that reserve in your manner towards Graham which your father noticed.’

‘They have certainly made me all doubtful about his character. As Ginevra speaks, they do not carry with them the sound of unmixed truth: I believe she exaggerates—perhaps invents—but I want to know how far.’

‘Suppose we bring Miss Fanshawe to some proof. Give her an opportunity of displaying the power she boasts.’

‘I could do that to-morrow. Papa has asked some gentlemen to dinner, all savants. Graham who, papa is beginning to discover, is a savant, too—skilled, they say, in more than one branch of science-is among the number. Now I should be miserable to sit at table unsupported, amidst such a party. I could not talk to Messieurs A—and Z—, the Parisian academicians: all my new credit for manner would be put in peril. You and Mrs. Bretton must come for my sake; Ginevra, at a word, will join you.’

‘Yes; then I will carry a message of invitation, and she shall have the chance of justifying her character for veracity.’

T
he 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 Dindonneaux—and a general holiday was given in his honour at the schools, and especially at the principal ‘Athénée,’ 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 Athénée, 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 lap-dog 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 Crécy. ‘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 our 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 Crécy; 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 Athénée 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 school-boys, 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?
^fi
—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 Crécy. He declined dinner, for he was a man always somewhat shy in 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.