Villette (54 page)

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 than 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 eye-lashes, 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 af fairs, 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 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 tête-à-tête. 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 professoral 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 his eye-brows, 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 mama?’

‘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 wished he would just 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, soumise, rêveuse, mais vous ne l‘êtes pas; c’est moi qui vous le dis: Sauvage! la flamme à l‘âme, l’éclair aux yeux!’

‘Oui; j’ai la flamme à l‘âme, et je dois l’avoir!’
^fj
retorted I, turning in just wrath; but Professor Emanuel had hissed his insult and was gone.