VILLETTE by Charlotte Brontë - FULL Audiobook dramatic reading (Chapter 40)

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 Fawcett, 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 nightgown. And when Genevra Farnshaw'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 Farnshaw's sort. 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 surveillant 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 any body else concerned, save an accepting one, Lucy Snow, who could not forget how, to facilitate a certain enterprise, a 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 Monsieur 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 Monsieur de Bassampierre she now had recourse. We found that the Hôtel Cressy was already alive to what had happened. Genevra had written to her cousin, Paulina, vaguely signifying hymeneal intentions. Communications had been received from the family of de Hamal. Monsieur de Bassampierre 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 Tymon, "'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 apologise 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, or was going to take a quiet whiff of his cigar while waiting for me. Do you begin to comprehend by this time that M. Lecomte d'Armal 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 entrée of the athénée, where two or three of his nephews, the sons of his eldest sister, Madame de Merci, are students. You know the court of the athénée is on the other side of the high wall bounding your walk, the Allée défendue. 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-Borceau, and resting some of its boughs on the roof of the lower buildings of our premises. He managed to scale the first class 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 Becque and Monsieur Emmanuel, he thinks, walking in the alley. From the grand salle the ascent is not difficult to the highest block of the 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, Monsieur Paul. He thinks you both capital gossiers, and very brave. What I wonder at is, rather your secretiveness than your courage, how could you endure the visitation to 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 bedfellow? 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 runaway 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. Monsieur de Bassampierre was at first in a strange fume with Alfred. He threatened a prosecution for détournement du 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 Monsieur de Bassampierre 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 Hamel 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 Saint-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 spirit, GENEVRA LAURA DE HAMEL, NÉE FANCHON. P.S. Remember, I am a countess now. Papa, Mama, and the girls at home will be delighted to hear that. My daughter the countess! My sister the countess! Sounds rather better than Mrs. John Breton, hm?" In winding up Mistress Fanchon'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 father 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. Genevra ever stuck to the substantial. I always thought there was a good trading element in her composition, much as she scorned the bourgeoisie. "'And Uncle de Bassompierre's quite reconciled. I don't mind his calling Alfred an Incompoop. That's only his core Scottish 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 a hotel. And, oh, I must introduce you to Montmarie. 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, etc., 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 Hummel, 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 impassable and prosaic my mien, the more merrily she laughed. Soon after his marriage, Monsieur de Hummel was persuaded to leave the army as the surest way of weaning him from certain unprofitable associates and habits. A post of attaché 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 into the background. Herself and a certain newcomer prevailed, when Alfred Fanchot de Bassompierre de Hummel began to reign in his father's stead. There were great boastings about this personage—extravagant amplifications upon miracles of precocity, mixed with vehement abjurations 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, whooping-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 I. Monsieur de Bassonpierre had to be appealed to, debts had to be paid, some of them of that dismal and dingy order called debts of honour. Ignoble plates and difficulties became frequent. Under every cloud, no matter what its nature, Genevra 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.