VILLETTE by Charlotte Brontë - FULL Audiobook dramatic reading (Chapter 41)

CHAPTER XLI. Must I, ere I close, render some account of that freedom and renovation which I won on the Fete night? Must I tell how I and the two stalwart companions I brought home from the illuminated park bore the test of intimate acquaintance? I tried them the very next day. They had boasted their strength loudly when they reclaimed me from love and its bondage, but upon my demanding deeds, not words, some evidence of better comfort, some experience of a relieved life. Freedom excused herself, as for the present impoverished and disabled to assist, and renovation never spoke. He had died in the night suddenly. I had nothing left for it then but to trust secretly that conjecture might have hurried me too fast and too far, to sustain the oppressive hour by reminders of the distorting and discolouring magic of jealousy. After a short and vain struggle, I found myself brought back captive to the old rack of suspense, tied down and strained anew. Shall I yet see him before he goes? Will he bear me in mind? Does he purpose to come? Will this day, will the next hour bring him? Or must I again assay that corroding pain of long attent, that rude agony of rupture at the close, that mute mortal wrench, which in at once uprooting hope and doubt shakes life, while the hand that does the violence cannot be caressed to pity, because absence interposes her barrier? It was the feast of the assumption. No school was held. The boarders and teachers, after attending mass in the morning, were gone a long walk into the country to take their goûter, or afternoon meal, at some farmhouse. I did not go with them, for now but two days remained ere the Paul et Virginie must sail, and I was clinging to my last chance, as the living waif of a wreck clings to his last raft or cable. There were some joiners' work to do in the first class, some bench or desk to repair. Days were often turned to account for the performance of these operations, which could not be executed when the rooms were filled with pupils. As I sat solitary, purposing to adjoin to the garden and leave the coast clear, but too listless to fulfil my own intent, I heard the workmen coming. Foreign artisans and servants do everything by couples. I believe it would take two Le Barsacurian carpenters to drive a nail. While tying on my bonnet, which had hitherto hung by its ribbons from my idle hand, I vaguely and momentarily wondered to hear the step of but one ouvrier. I noted, too, as captives in dungeons find sometimes dreary leisure to note the merest trifles, that this man wore shoes and not sabots. I concluded that it must be the master carpenter, coming to inspect before he sent his journeyman. I threw round me my scarf. He advanced. He opened the door. My back was towards it. I felt a little thrill, a curious sensation, too quick and transient to be analysed. I turned. I stood in the supposed master artisan's presence. Looking towards the doorway, I saw it filled with a figure, and my eyes printed upon my brain the picture of Monsieur Paul. Words of the prayers with which we weary heaven bring to the suppliant no fulfilment. Once happily in life, one golden gift falls prone in the lap, one boon, full and bright, perfect from fruition's mint. Monsieur Emmanuel wore the dress in which he probably purposed to travel, a surtout guarded with velvet. I thought him prepared for instant departure, and yet I had understood that two days were yet to run before the ship sailed. He looked well and cheerful. He looked kind and benign. He came in with eagerness. He was close to me in one second. He was all amity. It might be his bridegroom mood which thus brightened him. Whatever the cause, I could not meet his sunshine with cloud. If this were my last moment with him, I would not waste it in forced, unnatural distance. I loved him too well—too well not to smite out of my path even jealousy herself when she would have obstructed a kind farewell. A cordial word from his lips, or a gentle look from his eyes, would do me good for all the span of life that remained to me. It would be comfort in the last strait of loneliness. I would take it. I would taste the elixir, and pride should not spill the cup. The interview would be short, of course. He would say to me just what he had said to each of the assembled pupils. He would take and hold my hand two minutes. He would touch my cheek with his lips for the first—last—only time. And then—no more. Then indeed the final parting. Then the wide separation—the great gulf I could not pass to go to him—across which—happily he would not glance to remember me. He took my hand in one of his. With the other one he put back my bonnet. He looked into my face. His luminous smile went out. His lips expressed something almost like the wordless language of a mother who finds a child greatly and unexpectedly changed, broken with illness, or worn out by want. A check supervened. "'Paul! Paul!' said a woman's hurried voice behind. "'Paul! come into the salon. I have yet a great many things to say to you—conversation for the whole day. And so has Victor. And Joseph is here. Come, Paul! Come to your friends.' Madame Beck, brought to the spot by vigilance or an inscrutable instinct, pressed so near she almost thrust herself between me and M. Emanuel. "'Come, Paul,' she reiterated, her eye grazing me with its hard ray like a steel stylet. She pushed against her kinsman. I thought he receded. I thought he would go. Pierced deeper than I could endure, made now to feel what defied suppression, I cried, "'My heart will break!' What I felt seemed literal heartbreak. But the seal of another fountain yielded under the strain. One breath from M. Paul, the whisper, "'Trust me,' lifted a load, opened an outlet. With many a deep sob, with thrilling, with icy shiver, with strong trembling, and yet with relief, I wept, "'Leave her to me. It is a crisis. I will give her a cordial, and it will pass,' said the calm Madame Beck. To be left to her and her cordial seemed to me something like being left to the poisoner and her bowl. When M. Paul answered deeply, harshly, and briefly, "'Laissez-moi,' in the grim sound I felt a music strange, strong, but life-giving. "'Laissez-moi,' he repeated, his nostrils opening and his facial muscles all quivering as he spoke. "'But this will never do,' said Madame with sternness. More sternly rejoined her kinsman, "'Sortez d'ici. I will send for Persilla. On the spot I will send for him.' She threatened pertinaciously. "'Femme!' cried the Professor, not now in his deep tones, but in his highest and most excited key. "'Femme, sortez un instant!' he was roused, and I loved him in his wrath with a passion beyond what I had yet felt. "'What you do is wrong,' pursued Madame. "'It is an act characteristic of men of your unreliable imaginative temperament, a step impulsive, injudicious, inconsistent, a proceeding vexatious, and not estimable in the view of persons of steadier and more resolute character.' "'You know not what I have of steady and resolute in me,' said he. "'But you shall see, the even shall teach you.' He continued less fiercely, "'Be gentle, be pitying, be a woman, look at this poor face, and relent. You know I am your friend, and the friend of your friends, in spite of your taunts. You well and deeply know I may be trusted. Of sacrificing myself, I made no difficulty, but my heart is pained by what I see. It must have, and give solace, leave me.' This time, in the leave me, there was an intonation so bitter and so imperative, I wondered that even Madame Beck herself could for one moment delay obedience. But she stood firm. She gazed upon him dauntless. She met his eye, forbidding and fixed as stone. She was opening her lips to retort. I saw all over Monsieur Paul's face a quick rising light and fire. I can hardly tell how he managed the movement. It did not seem violent. It kept the form of courtesy. He gave his hand. It scarce touched her, I thought. She ran. She whirled from the room. She was gone, and the door shut in one second. The flash of passion was all over very soon. He smiled as he told me to wipe my eyes. He waited quietly till I was calm, dropping from time to time a stilling, solacing word. Ere long I sat beside him once more myself, reassured, not desperate nor yet desolate, not friendless, not hopeless, not sick of life and seeking death. "'It made you very sad, then, to lose your friend,' said he. "'It kills me to be forgotten, monsieur,' I said. "'All these weary days I have not heard from you one word, and I was crushed with the possibility, rowing to certainty, that you would depart without saying farewell.' "'Must I tell you what I told Modeste Beck? That you do not know me? Must I show and teach you my character? You will have proof that I can be a firm friend. Without clear proof, this hand will not lie still in mine. It will not rest my shoulder. As a safe stay, good. The proof is ready. I come to justify myself.' "'Say anything. Teach anything. Prove anything, monsieur. I can listen now.' "'Then, in the first place, you must go out with me a good distance into the town. I came on purpose to fetch you.' Without questioning his meaning, or sounding his plan, or offering the semblance of an objection, I retied my bonnet. I was ready. The route he took was by the boulevards. He several times made me sit down on the seats stationed under the lime-trees. He did not ask if I was tired, but looked and drew his own conclusions. "'All these ready days,' said he, repeating my words, with a gentle, kindly mimicry of my voice and foreign accent, not new from his lips, and of which the playful banter never wounded, not even when coupled, as it often was, with the assertion that however I might write his language, I spoke, and always should speak it, imperfectly and hesitatingly, "'All these ready days I have not for one hour forgotten you, faithful woman, ere in this, that they think themselves the sole faithful of God's creatures. On a very fervent and living truth to myself, I, too, till lately scarce dare count, from any carter, but—look at me!' I lifted my happy eyes. They were happy now, or they would have been no interpreters of my heart. "'Well,' said he, after some second scrutiny—'there is no denying that signature. Constancy wrote it. Her pen is of iron. Was your record painful?' "'Severely painful,' I said, with truth. "'Withdraw her hand, monsieur. I can bear its inscribing force no more.' "'Elle est toute pâle,' said he, speaking to himself. "'Cette figure-là me fait mal.' "'Ah! I am not pleasant to look at. I could not help saying this. The words came unbidden. I never remember the time when I had not a haunting dread of what might be the degree of my outward deficiency. This dread pressed me at the moment with special force. A great softness passed upon his countenance. His violet eyes grew suffused and glistening under their deep Spanish lashes. He started up. "'Let us walk on.' "'Do I displease your eyes much?' I took courage to urge. The point had its vital import for me. He stopped, and gave me a short, strong answer—an answer which silenced, subdued, yet profoundly satisfied. Ever after that I knew what I was for him, and what I might be for the rest of the world I ceased painfully to care. Was it weak to lay so much stress on an opinion about appearance? I fear it might be. I fear it was. But in that case I must avow no light share of weakness. I must own great fear of displeasing—a strong wish moderately to please Monsieur Paul. Whither we rambled I scarce knew. Our walk was long, yet seemed short. The path was pleasant, the day lovely. Monsieur Emmanuel talked of his voyage. He thought of staying away three years. On his return from Guadalupe he looked forward to release from liabilities and a clear course. And—' "'What did I propose doing in the interval of his absence?' he asked. "'I had talked once—' he reminded me—'of trying to be independent, and keeping a little school of my own. Had I dropped the idea?' "'Indeed, I had not. I was doing my best to save what would enable me to put it in practice.' "'He did not like leaving me in the rue Faucette. He feared I should miss him there too much. I should feel desolate. I should grow sad.' "'This was certain. But I promised to do my best to endure.' "'Still,' said he, speaking low, "'there is another objection to your present residence. I should wish to write to you sometimes. It would not be well to have any uncertainty about the safe transmission of letters, and, in the rue Faucette, in short, our Catholic discipline in certain matters, though justifiable and expedient, might, possibly, under peculiar circumstances, become liable to misapplication, perhaps abuse.' "'But if you write,' said I, "'I must have your letters. And I will have them. Ten directors, twenty directresses, shall not keep them from me. I am a Protestant. I will not bear that kind of discipline, monsieur. I will not—' "'Doucement, doucement,' rejoined he. 'We will contrive a plan. We have our resources. Soyez tranquille.' So speaking, he paused. We were now returning from the long walk. We had reached the middle of a clean faux-bore, where the houses were small, but looked pleasant. It was before the white doorstep of a very neat abode that monsieur Paul had halted. "'I go here,' said he. He did not knock, but taking from his pocket a key, he opened and entered at once. Ushering me in, he shut the door behind us. No servant appeared. The vestibule was small, like the house, but freshly and tastefully painted. Its vista closed in a French window, with vines trained about the panes, tendrils and green leaves kissing the glass. Silence reigned in this dwelling. Opening an inner door, monsieur Paul disclosed a parlour, or salon, very tiny, but, I thought, very pretty. Its delicate walls were tinged like a blush. Its floor was waxed, a square of brilliant carpet covered its centre. Its small round table shone like the mirror over its hearth. There was a little couch, a little chiffonniere, the half-open crimson silk door of which showed porcelain on the shelves. There was a French clock, a lamp, there were ornaments and biscuit china. The recess of the single ample window was filled with a green stand, bearing three green flower pots, each filled with a fine plant growing in bloom. In one corner appeared a guéridon, with a marble top, and upon it a workbox, and a glass filled with violets in water. The lattice of this room was open. The outer air breathing through, gave freshness, the sweet violets lent fragrance. "'Pretty, pretty place,' said I. Monsieur Paul smiled to see me so pleased. "'Must we sit down here and wait?' I asked in a whisper, half awed by the deep, pervading hush. "'We will first peep into one or two other nooks of this nutshell,' he replied. "'Dare you take the freedom of going all over the house?' I inquired. "'Yes, I dare,' said he, quietly. He led the way. I was shown a little kitchen with a little stove and oven, with few but bright brasses, two chairs, and a table. A small cupboard held a diminutive but commodious set of earthenware. "'There is a coffee service of China in the salon,' said Monsieur Paul, as I looked at the six green and white dinner-plates, the four dishes, the cups and jugs, to match. Conducted up the narrow but clean staircase, I was permitted a glimpse of two pretty cabinets of sleeping-rooms. Finally, I was once more led below, and we halted with a certain ceremony before a larger door than had yet been opened. Producing a second key, Monsieur Emmanuel adjusted it to the lock of this door. He opened, put me in before him. "'Voici!' he cried. I found myself in a good-sized apartment, scrupulously clean, though bare, compared with those I had hitherto seen. The well-scoured boards were carpetless. It contained two rows of green benches and desks, with an alley down the centre, terminating in an estrade, a teacher's chair and table, behind them a tableau. On the walls hung two maps, in the windows flowered a few hardy plants. In short, here was a miniature class, complete, neat, pleasant. "'It is a school, then,' said I. "'Who keeps it? I never heard of an establishment in this faubourg.' "'Will you have the goodness to accept a few prospectuses for distribution in behalf of a friend of mine?' asked he, taking from his Surtout pocket some quires of these documents, and putting them into my hand. I looked. I read, printed in fair characters. "'Externat de damoiselles, Numéro 7, Faubourg Clotilde, Directrice, Mademoiselle Lucy Snow, and what did I say to Monsieur Paul Emmanuel? Certain junctures of our lives must always be difficult of recall to memory. Certain points, crises, certain feelings, joys, griefs, and amazements, when reviewed, must strike us as things wielded and whirling, dim as a wheel fast spun. I can no more remember the thoughts or the words of the ten minutes succeeding this disclosure than I can retrace the experience of my earliest year of life, and yet the first thing distinct to me is the consciousness that I was speaking very fast, repeating over and over again. "'Did you do this, Monsieur Paul? Is this your house? Did you furnish it? Did you get these papers printed? Do you mean me? Am I the directress? Is there another Lucy Snow? Tell me! Say something!' But he would not speak. His pleased silence, his laughing down look, his attitude, are visible to me now. "'How is it? I must know all—all!' I cried. The packet of papers fell on the floor. He had extended his hand, and I had fastened their on, oblivious of all else. "'Ah! You said I had forgotten you all these weary days,' said he, poor old Emmanuel. These are the thanks he gets for trudging about three mortal weeks from house-painter to upholsterer, from cabinet-maker to charwoman—Lucy and Lucy Scott, the sole thoughts in his head. "'I hardly knew what to do. I first caressed the soft velvet on his cuff, and then I stroked the hand it surrounded. It was his foresight, his goodness, his silent, strong, effective goodness, that overpowered me by their proved reality. It was the assurance of his sleepless interest, which broke on me like a light from heaven. It was his—I will dare to say it—his fond, tender look, which now shook me indescribably. In the midst of all, I forced myself to look at the practical. "'The trouble!' I cried. "'And the cost! Had you money, Monsieur Paul?' "'Plenty of money,' said he, heartily. The disposal of my large teaching-connection put me in possession of a handsome sum, which part of it I determined to give myself the richest treat that I have known or shall know. I like this. I have reckoned on this hour, day and night, lately. I would not come near you, because I would not forestall it. Reserve is neither my virtue nor my vice. If I had put myself into your power, and you had begun with questions of look and lip—'Where have you been, Monsieur Paul? What have you been doing? What is your mystery?' My solitary first and last secret would presently have unravelled itself in your lap. Now,' he pursued, ''you shall live here, and have a school. You shall employ yourself while I am away. You shall think of me sometimes. You shall mind your health and happiness for my sake, and, when I come back—' There he left a blank. I promised to do all he told me. I promised to work hard and willingly. "'I will be your faithful steward,' I said. "'I trust at your coming the account will be ready. Monsieur! You are too good! In such inadequate language my feelings struggled for expression. They could not get it. Speech, brittle and unmalleable, and cold as ice, dissolved or shivered in the effort. He watched me still. He gently raised his hand to stroke my hair. It touched my lips in passing. I pressed it close. I paid it tribute. He was my king. Royal for me had been that hand's bounty. To offer homage was both a joy and a duty. The afternoon hours were over, and the stiller time of evening shaded the quiet faubourg. Monsieur Paul claimed my hospitality. Occupied and afoot since morning, he needed refreshment. He said—' "'I should offer him chocolate, in my pretty gold and white china service.' He went out and ordered what was needful from the restaurant. He placed the small gare d'hommes and two chairs in the balcony outside the French window under the screening vines. With what shy joy I accepted my part as hostess, arranged the salver, served the benefactor guest. This balcony was in the rear of the house. The gardens of the faubourg were round us, fields extended beyond. The air was still, mild, and fresh. Above the poplars, the laurels, the cypresses, and the roses, looked up a moon so lovely and so halcyon, the heart trembled under her smile. A star shone subject beside her, with the unemulous ray of pure love. In a large garden near us a jet rose from a well, and a pale statue leaned over the play of waters. Monsieur Paul talked to me. His voice was so modulated that it mixed harmonious with the silver whisper, the gush, the musical sigh, in which light breeze, fountain, and foliage intoned their lulling vesper. Happy hour! Stay one moment! Droop those plumes, rest those wings, incline to mine that brow of heaven. White angel, let thy light linger, leave its reflection on succeeding clouds, bequeath its cheer to that time which needs a ray in retrospect. Our meal was simple. The chocolate, the rolls, the plate of fresh summer fruit, cherries and strawberries bedded in green leaves, formed the whole, but it was what we both liked better than a feast, and I took a delight inexpressible in tending Monsieur Paul. I asked him whether his friends, Pear Silas and Madame Beck, knew what he had done, whether they had seen my house. Mon ami, said he, no one knows what I have done, save you and myself. The pleasure is consecrated to us two, unshared and unprofaned, to speak truth. There has been to me in this matter a refinement of enjoyment. I would not make vulgar by communication. Besides, smiling, I wanted to prove to Miss Lucy that I could keep a secret. How often has she taunted me with lack of dignified reserve, of needful caution? How many times has she so silly insinuated that all my affairs are the secret of Polychinelle? This was true enough. I had not spared him on this point, nor, perhaps, on any other that was assailable. Magnificent-minded, grand-hearted, dear, faulty little man! You deserved candour, and from me always had it. Continuing my queries, I asked to whom the house belonged, who was my landlord, the amount of my rent. He instantly gave me these particulars in writing. He had foreseen and prepared all things. The house was not Monsieur Paul's, that I guessed. He was hardly the man to become a proprietor. I more than suspected in him a lamentable absence of the saving faculty. He could get, but not keep. He needed a treasurer. The tenement, then, belonged to a citizen in the Basse-Ville. A man of substance, Monsieur Paul said. He startled me by adding, A friend of yours, Miss Lucy, a person who has the most respectful regard for you. And to my pleasant surprise, I found the landlord was none other than Monsieur Muray, the short-tempered and kind-hearted book-seller, who had so kindly found me a seat that eventful night in the park. It seems Monsieur Muray was, in his station, rich as well as much respected, and possessed several houses in this faux bourg. The rent was moderate, scarce half of what it would have been for a house of equal size nearer the centre of the Lette. And then, observed Monsieur Paul, should fortune not favour you, though I think she will, I have the satisfaction to think you are in good hands. Monsieur Muray will not be extortionate. The first year's rent you have already in your savings. Afterwards, Miss Lucy, must trust God and herself. But now, what will you do for pupils? I must distribute my prospectuses. Right. By way of losing no time, I gave one to Monsieur Muray yesterday. Should you object to beginning with three petites bourgeoises, the Demoiselles Muray, they are at your service. Monsieur, you forget nothing. You are wonderful. Object? It would become me indeed to object. I suppose I hardly expect at the outset to number aristocrats in my little day-school. I care not if they never come. I shall be proud to receive Monsieur Muray's daughters. Besides these, pursued he, another pupil of hers, who will come daily to take lessons in English, and she is rich. She will pay handsomely. I mean my god-daughter and ward, Justine Marisauveur. What is in a name? What in three words? Till this moment I had listened with living joy. I had answered with gleeful quickness. A name froze me. Three words struck me mute. The effect could not be hidden, and indeed I scarce tried to hide it. What now? said Monsieur Paul. Nothing. Nothing? Your countenance change, your colour and your very eyes fade. Nothing? You must be ill. You have some suffering. Tell me what. I had nothing to tell. He drew his chair nearer. He did not grow vexed, though I continued silent and icy. He tried to win a word. He entreated with perseverance. He waited with patience. Justine Marie is a good girl, said he, docile and amiable, not quick, but you will like her. I think not. I think she must not come here. Such was my speech. Do you wish to puzzle me? Do you know her? But in truth there is something. Again you are pale as a statue. Rely on Paul Carlos. Tell him the grief. His chair touched mine. His hand, quietly advanced, turned me towards him. Do you know Marie Justine? said he again. The name, repronounced by his lips, overcame me unaccountably. It did not prostrate. No, it stirred me up, running with haste and heat through my veins, recalling an hour of quick pain, many days and nights of heart-sickness. Near me as he now sat, strongly and closely as he had long twined his life and mine, far as had progressed and near as was achieved our minds and affections' assimilation, the very suggestion of interference, of heart-separation, could be heard only with a fermenting excitement. An impetuous throw, a disdainful resolve, an ire, a resistance of which no human eye or cheek could hide the flame, nor any truth-accustomed human tongue curb the cry. I want to tell you something, I said. I want to tell you all. Speak, Lucie. Come near. Speak. Who prizes you? If I do not, who is your friend, if not Emmanuel? Speak. I spoke, all escaped from my lips. I lacked not words now. Fast I narrated, fluent I towed my tail. It streamed on my tongue. I went back to the night in the park. I mentioned the medicated draught, why it was given, its goading effect, how it had torn rest from under my head, shaken me from my couch, carried me abroad with the lure of a vivid yet solemn fancy, a summer night's solitude on turf under trees, near a deep cool lake-lit. I told the scene realized, the crowd, the masks, the music, the lamps, the splendours, the guns booming afar, the bells sounding on high. All I had encountered I detailed, all I had recognized, heard, and seen, how I had beheld and watched himself, how I listened, how much heard, what conjectured. The whole history, in brief, summoned to his confidence, rushed thither, truthful, literal, ardent, bitter. Still as I narrated, instead of checking, he incited me to proceed. He spurred me by the gesture, the smile, the half-word. Before I had half done, he held both my hands. He consulted my eyes with a most piercing glance. There was something in his face which tended neither to calm nor to put me down. He forgot his own doctrine, he forsook his own system of repression, when I most challenged its exercise. I think I deserved strong reproof, but when have we our deserts? I merited severity, he looked indulgence. To my very self I seemed imperious and unreasonable, for I forbade Justine Marie my door and roof. He smiled, betraying delight. Warm, jealous, and haughty, I knew not till now that my nature had such a mood. He gathered me near his heart. I was full of faults. He took them and me all home. For the moment of utmost mutiny, he reserved the one deep spell of peace. These words caressed my ear. Lucy, take my love, one day share my life, be my dearest first on earth. We walked back to the Rue Faucette by moonlight. Such moonlight as fell on Eden, shining through the shades of the great garden, and happily gilding a path glorious for a step-divine, a presence nameless. Once in their lives some men and women go back to these first fresh days of our great sire and mother, taste that grand morning's dew, bathe in its sunrise. In the course of the walk I was told how Justine Marie Sauveur had always been regarded with the affection proper to a daughter, how, with M. Paul's consent, she had been affianced for months to one Heinrich Muller, a wealthy young German merchant, and was to be married in the course of a year. Some of M. Emmanuel's relations and connections would, indeed, it seems, have liked him to marry her, with a view to securing her fortune in the family. But to himself the scheme was repugnant, and the idea totally inadmissible. We reached Madame Beck's door. Jean-Baptiste's clock told nine. At this hour in this house, eighteen months since, had this man at my side bent before me, looked into my face and eyes, and arbitered my destiny. This very evening he had again stooped, gazed, and decreed. How different the look! How far otherwise the fate! He deemed me born under his star. He seemed to have spread over me its beam like a banner. Distant, unknown, and unloved, I held him harsh and strange. The low stature, the wiry make, the angles, the darkness, the manner displeased me. Now penetrated with his influence, and living by his affection, having his worth by intellect and his goodness by heart, I preferred him before all humanity. We parted. He gave me his pledge, and then his farewell. We parted. The next day he sailed.