Villette

BURIAL.

From this date my life did not want variety; I went out a good deal,
with the entire consent of Madame Beck, who perfectly approved the
grade of my acquaintance. That worthy directress had never from the
first treated me otherwise than with respect; and when she found that I
was liable to frequent invitations from a château and a great hotel,
respect improved into distinction.

Not that she was fulsome about it: Madame, in all things worldly, was
in nothing weak; there was measure and sense in her hottest pursuit of
self-interest, calm and considerateness in her closest clutch of gain;
without, then, laying herself open to my contempt as a time-server and
a toadie, she marked with tact that she was pleased people connected
with her establishment should frequent such associates as must
cultivate and elevate, rather than those who might deteriorate and
depress. She never praised either me or my friends; only once when she
was sitting in the sun in the garden, a cup of coffee at her elbow and
the Gazette in her hand, looking very comfortable, and I came up and
asked leave of absence for the evening, she delivered herself in this
gracious sort:—

“Oui, oui, ma bonne amie: je vous donne la permission de cœur et de
gré. Votre travail dans ma maison a toujours été admirable, rempli de
zèle et de discrétion: vous avez bien le droit de vous amuser. Sortez
donc tant que vous voudrez. Quant à votre choix de connaissances, j’en
suis contente; c’est sage, digne, laudable.”

She closed her lips and resumed the Gazette.

The reader will not too gravely regard the little circumstance that
about this time the triply-enclosed packet of five letters temporarily
disappeared from my bureau. Blank dismay was naturally my first
sensation on making the discovery; but in a moment I took heart of
grace.

“Patience!” whispered I to myself. “Let me say nothing, but wait
peaceably; they will come back again.”

And they did come back: they had only been on a short visit to Madame’s
chamber; having passed their examination, they came back duly and
truly: I found them all right the next day.

I wonder what she thought of my correspondence? What estimate did she
form of Dr. John Bretton’s epistolary powers? In what light did the
often very pithy thoughts, the generally sound, and sometimes original
opinions, set, without pretension, in an easily-flowing, spirited
style, appear to her? How did she like that genial, half humorous vein,
which to me gave such delight? What did she think of the few kind words
scattered here and there—not thickly, as the diamonds were scattered in
the valley of Sindbad, but sparely, as those gems lie in unfabled beds?
Oh, Madame Beck! how seemed these things to you?

I think in Madame Beck’s eyes the five letters found a certain favour.
One day after she had borrowed them of me (in speaking of so suave a
little woman, one ought to use suave terms), I caught her examining me
with a steady contemplative gaze, a little puzzled, but not at all
malevolent. It was during that brief space between lessons, when the
pupils turned out into the court for a quarter of an hour’s recreation;
she and I remained in the first classe alone: when I met her eye, her
thoughts forced themselves partially through her lips.

“Il y a,” said she, “quelquechose de bien remarquable dans le caractère
Anglais.”

“How, Madame?”

She gave a little laugh, repeating the word “how” in English.

“Je ne saurais vous dire ‘how;’ mais, enfin, les Anglais ont des idées
à eux, en amitié, en amour, en tout. Mais au moins il n’est pas besoin
de les surveiller,” she added, getting up and trotting away like the
compact little pony she was.

“Then I hope,” murmured I to myself, “you will graciously let alone my
letters for the future.”

Alas! something came rushing into my eyes, dimming utterly their
vision, blotting from sight the schoolroom, the garden, the bright
winter sun, as I remembered that never more would letters, such as she
had read, come to me. I had seen the last of them. That goodly river on
whose banks I had sojourned, of whose waves a few reviving drops had
trickled to my lips, was bending to another course: it was leaving my
little hut and field forlorn and sand-dry, pouring its wealth of waters
far away. The change was right, just, natural; not a word could be
said: but I loved my Rhine, my Nile; I had almost worshipped my Ganges,
and I grieved that the grand tide should roll estranged, should vanish
like a false mirage. Though stoical, I was not quite a stoic; drops
streamed fast on my hands, on my desk: I wept one sultry shower, heavy
and brief.

But soon I said to myself, “The Hope I am bemoaning suffered and made
me suffer much: it did not die till it was full time: following an
agony so lingering, death ought to be welcome.”

Welcome I endeavoured to make it. Indeed, long pain had made patience a
habit. In the end I closed the eyes of my dead, covered its face, and
composed its limbs with great calm.

The letters, however, must be put away, out of sight: people who have
undergone bereavement always jealously gather together and lock away
mementos: it is not supportable to be stabbed to the heart each moment
by sharp revival of regret.

One vacant holiday afternoon (the Thursday) going to my treasure, with
intent to consider its final disposal, I perceived—and this time with a
strong impulse of displeasure—that it had been again tampered with: the
packet was there, indeed, but the ribbon which secured it had been
untied and retied; and by other symptoms I knew that my drawer had been
visited.

This was a little too much. Madame Beck herself was the soul of
discretion, besides having as strong a brain and sound a judgment as
ever furnished a human head; that she should know the contents of my
casket, was not pleasant, but might be borne. Little Jesuit
inquisitress as she was, she could see things in a true light, and
understand them in an unperverted sense; but the idea that she had
ventured to communicate information, thus gained, to others; that she
had, perhaps, amused herself with a companion over documents, in my
eyes most sacred, shocked me cruelly. Yet, that such was the case I now
saw reason to fear; I even guessed her confidant. Her kinsman, M. Paul
Emanuel, had spent yesterday evening with her: she was much in the
habit of consulting him, and of discussing with him matters she
broached to no one else. This very morning, in class, that gentleman
had favoured me with a glance which he seemed to have borrowed from
Vashti, the actress; I had not at the moment comprehended that blue,
yet lurid, flash out of his angry eye; but I read its meaning now.
He, I believed, was not apt to regard what concerned me from a fair
point of view, nor to judge me with tolerance and candour: I had always
found him severe and suspicious: the thought that these letters, mere
friendly letters as they were, had fallen once, and might fall again,
into his hands, jarred my very soul.

What should I do to prevent this? In what corner of this strange house
was it possible to find security or secresy? Where could a key be a
safeguard, or a padlock a barrier?

In the grenier? No, I did not like the grenier. Besides, most of the
boxes and drawers there were mouldering, and did not lock. Rats, too,
gnawed their way through the decayed wood; and mice made nests amongst
the litter of their contents: my dear letters (most dear still, though
Ichabod was written on their covers) might be consumed by vermin;
certainly the writing would soon become obliterated by damp. No; the
grenier would not do—but where then?

While pondering this problem, I sat in the dormitory window-seat. It
was a fine frosty afternoon; the winter sun, already setting, gleamed
pale on the tops of the garden-shrubs in the “allée défendue.” One
great old pear-tree—the nun’s pear-tree—stood up a tall dryad skeleton,
grey, gaunt, and stripped. A thought struck me—one of those queer
fantastic thoughts that will sometimes strike solitary people. I put on
my bonnet, cloak, and furs, and went out into the city.

Bending my steps to the old historical quarter of the town, whose hoar
and overshadowed precincts I always sought by instinct in melancholy
moods, I wandered on from street to street, till, having crossed a half
deserted “place” or square, I found myself before a sort of broker’s
shop; an ancient place, full of ancient things. What I wanted was a
metal box which might be soldered, or a thick glass jar or bottle which
might be stoppered or sealed hermetically. Amongst miscellaneous heaps,
I found and purchased the latter article.

I then made a little roll of my letters, wrapped them in oiled silk,
bound them with twine, and, having put them in the bottle, got the old
Jew broker to stopper, seal, and make it air-tight. While obeying my
directions, he glanced at me now and then suspiciously from under his
frost-white eyelashes. I believe he thought there was some evil deed on
hand. In all this I had a dreary something—not pleasure—but a sad,
lonely satisfaction. The impulse under which I acted, the mood
controlling me, were similar to the impulse and the mood which had
induced me to visit the confessional. With quick walking I regained the
pensionnat just at dark, and in time for dinner.

At seven o’clock the moon rose. At half-past seven, when the pupils and
teachers were at study, and Madame Beck was with her mother and
children in the salle-à-manger, when the half-boarders were all gone
home, and Rosine had left the vestibule, and all was still—I shawled
myself, and, taking the sealed jar, stole out through the first-classe
door, into the berceau and thence into the “allée défendue.”

Methusaleh, the pear-tree, stood at the further end of this walk, near
my seat: he rose up, dim and gray, above the lower shrubs round him.
Now Methusaleh, though so very old, was of sound timber still; only
there was a hole, or rather a deep hollow, near his root. I knew there
was such a hollow, hidden partly by ivy and creepers growing thick
round; and there I meditated hiding my treasure. But I was not only
going to hide a treasure—I meant also to bury a grief. That grief over
which I had lately been weeping, as I wrapped it in its winding-sheet,
must be interred.

Well, I cleared away the ivy, and found the hole; it was large enough
to receive the jar, and I thrust it deep in. In a tool-shed at the
bottom of the garden, lay the relics of building-materials, left by
masons lately employed to repair a part of the premises. I fetched
thence a slate and some mortar, put the slate on the hollow, secured it
with cement, covered the hole with black mould, and, finally, replaced
the ivy. This done, I rested, leaning against the tree; lingering, like
any other mourner, beside a newly-sodded grave.

The air of the night was very still, but dim with a peculiar mist,
which changed the moonlight into a luminous haze. In this air, or this
mist, there was some quality—electrical, perhaps—which acted in strange
sort upon me. I felt then as I had felt a year ago in England—on a
night when the aurora borealis was streaming and sweeping round heaven,
when, belated in lonely fields, I had paused to watch that mustering of
an army with banners—that quivering of serried lances—that swift ascent
of messengers from below the north star to the dark, high keystone of
heaven’s arch. I felt, not happy, far otherwise, but strong with
reinforced strength.

If life be a war, it seemed my destiny to conduct it single-handed. I
pondered now how to break up my winter-quarters—to leave an encampment
where food and forage failed. Perhaps, to effect this change, another
pitched battle must be fought with fortune; if so, I had a mind to the
encounter: too poor to lose, God might destine me to gain. But what
road was open?—what plan available?

On this question I was still pausing, when the moon, so dim hitherto,
seemed to shine out somewhat brighter: a ray gleamed even white before
me, and a shadow became distinct and marked. I looked more narrowly, to
make out the cause of this well-defined contrast appearing a little
suddenly in the obscure alley: whiter and blacker it grew on my eye: it
took shape with instantaneous transformation. I stood about three yards
from a tall, sable-robed, snowy-veiled woman.

Five minutes passed. I neither fled nor shrieked. She was there still.
I spoke.

“Who are you? and why do you come to me?”

She stood mute. She had no face—no features: all below her brow was
masked with a white cloth; but she had eyes, and they viewed me.

I felt, if not brave, yet a little desperate; and desperation will
often suffice to fill the post and do the work of courage. I advanced
one step. I stretched out my hand, for I meant to touch her. She seemed
to recede. I drew nearer: her recession, still silent, became swift. A
mass of shrubs, full-leaved evergreens, laurel and dense yew,
intervened between me and what I followed. Having passed that obstacle,
I looked and saw nothing. I waited. I said,—“If you have any errand to
men, come back and deliver it.” Nothing spoke or re-appeared.

This time there was no Dr. John to whom to have recourse: there was no
one to whom I dared whisper the words, “I have again seen the nun.”

Paulina Mary sought my frequent presence in the Rue Crécy. In the old
Bretton days, though she had never professed herself fond of me, my
society had soon become to her a sort of unconscious necessary. I used
to notice that if I withdrew to my room, she would speedily come
trotting after me, and opening the door and peeping in, say, with her
little peremptory accent,—“Come down. Why do you sit here by yourself?
You must come into the parlour.”

In the same spirit she urged me now—“Leave the Rue Fossette,” she said,
“and come and live with us. Papa would give you far more than Madame
Beck gives you.”

Mr. Home himself offered me a handsome sum—thrice my present salary—if
I would accept the office of companion to his daughter. I declined. I
think I should have declined had I been poorer than I was, and with
scantier fund of resource, more stinted narrowness of future prospect.
I had not that vocation. I could teach; I could give lessons; but to be
either a private governess or a companion was unnatural to me. Rather
than fill the former post in any great house, I would deliberately have
taken a housemaid’s place, bought a strong pair of gloves, swept
bedrooms and staircases, and cleaned stoves and locks, in peace and
independence. Rather than be a companion, I would have made shirts and
starved.

I was no bright lady’s shadow—not Miss de Bassompierre’s. Overcast
enough it was my nature often to be; of a subdued habit I was: but the
dimness and depression must both be voluntary—such as kept me docile at
my desk, in the midst of my now well-accustomed pupils in Madame Beck’s
first classe; or alone, at my own bedside, in her dormitory, or in the
alley and seat which were called mine, in her garden: my qualifications
were not convertible, nor adaptable; they could not be made the foil of
any gem, the adjunct of any beauty, the appendage of any greatness in
Christendom. Madame Beck and I, without assimilating, understood each
other well. I was not her companion, nor her children’s governess;
she left me free: she tied me to nothing—not to herself—not even to her
interests: once, when she had for a fortnight been called from home by
a near relation’s illness, and on her return, all anxious and full of
care about her establishment, lest something in her absence should have
gone wrong finding that matters had proceeded much as usual, and that
there was no evidence of glaring neglect—she made each of the teachers
a present, in acknowledgment of steadiness. To my bedside she came at
twelve o’clock at night, and told me she had no present for me: “I must
make fidelity advantageous to the St. Pierre,” said she; “if I attempt
to make it advantageous to you, there will arise misunderstanding
between us—perhaps separation. One thing, however, I can do to please
you—leave you alone with your liberty: c’est-ce que je ferai.” She kept
her word. Every slight shackle she had ever laid on me, she, from that
time, with quiet hand removed. Thus I had pleasure in voluntarily
respecting her rules: gratification in devoting double time, in taking
double pains with the pupils she committed to my charge.

As to Mary de Bassompierre, I visited her with pleasure, though I would
not live with her. My visits soon taught me that it was unlikely even
my occasional and voluntary society would long be indispensable to her.
M. de Bassompierre, for his part, seemed impervious to this conjecture,
blind to this possibility; unconscious as any child to the signs, the
likelihoods, the fitful beginnings of what, when it drew to an end, he
might not approve.

Whether or not he would cordially approve, I used to speculate.
Difficult to say. He was much taken up with scientific interests; keen,
intent, and somewhat oppugnant in what concerned his favourite
pursuits, but unsuspicious and trustful in the ordinary affairs of
life. From all I could gather, he seemed to regard his “daughterling”
as still but a child, and probably had not yet admitted the notion that
others might look on her in a different light: he would speak of what
should be done when “Polly” was a woman, when she should be grown up;
and “Polly,” standing beside his chair, would sometimes smile and take
his honoured head between her little hands, and kiss his iron-grey
locks; and, at other times, she would pout and toss her curls: but she
never said, “Papa, I am grown up.”

She had different moods for different people. With her father she
really was still a child, or child-like, affectionate, merry, and
playful. With me she was serious, and as womanly as thought and feeling
could make her. With Mrs. Bretton she was docile and reliant, but not
expansive. With Graham she was shy, at present very shy; at moments she
tried to be cold; on occasion she endeavoured to shun him. His step
made her start; his entrance hushed her; when he spoke, her answers
failed of fluency; when he took leave, she remained self-vexed and
disconcerted. Even her father noticed this demeanour in her.

“My little Polly,” he said once, “you live too retired a life; if you
grow to be a woman with these shy manners, you will hardly be fitted
for society. You really make quite a stranger of Dr. Bretton: how is
this? Don’t you remember that, as a little girl, you used to be rather
partial to him?”

“Rather, papa,” echoed she, with her slightly dry, yet gentle and
simple tone.

“And you don’t like him now? What has he done?”

“Nothing. Y—e—s, I like him a little; but we are grown strange to each
other.”

“Then rub it off, Polly; rub the rust and the strangeness off. Talk
away when he is here, and have no fear of him?”

“He does not talk much. Is he afraid of me, do you think, papa?”

“Oh, to be sure, what man would not be afraid of such a little silent
lady?”

“Then tell him some day not to mind my being silent. Say that it is my
way, and that I have no unfriendly intention.”

“Your way, you little chatter-box? So far from being your way, it is
only your whim!”

“Well, I’ll improve, papa.”

And very pretty was the grace with which, the next day, she tried to
keep her word. I saw her make the effort to converse affably with Dr.
John on general topics. The attention called into her guest’s face a
pleasurable glow; he met her with caution, and replied to her in his
softest tones, as if there was a kind of gossamer happiness hanging in
the air which he feared to disturb by drawing too deep a breath.
Certainly, in her timid yet earnest advance to friendship, it could not
be denied that there was a most exquisite and fairy charm.

When the Doctor was gone, she approached her father’s chair.

“Did I keep my word, papa? Did I behave better?”

“My Polly behaved like a queen. I shall become quite proud of her if
this improvement continues. By-and-by we shall see her receiving my
guests with quite a calm, grand manner. Miss Lucy and I will have to
look about us, and polish up all our best airs and graces lest we
should be thrown into the shade. Still, Polly, there is a little
flutter, a little tendency to stammer now and then, and even, to lisp
as you lisped when you were six years old.”

“No, papa,” interrupted she indignantly, “that can’t be true.”

“I appeal to Miss Lucy. Did she not, in answering Dr. Bretton’s
question as to whether she had ever seen the palace of the Prince of
Bois l’Etang, say, ‘yeth,’ she had been there ‘theveral’ times?”

“Papa, you are satirical, you are méchant! I can pronounce all the
letters of the alphabet as clearly as you can. But tell me this you are
very particular in making me be civil to Dr. Bretton, do you like him
yourself?”

“To be sure: for old acquaintance sake I like him: then he is a very
good son to his mother; besides being a kind-hearted fellow and clever
in his profession: yes, the callant is well enough.”

“Callant! Ah, Scotchman! Papa, is it the Edinburgh or the Aberdeen
accent you have?”

“Both, my pet, both: and doubtless the Glaswegian into the bargain. It
is that which enables me to speak French so well: a gude Scots tongue
always succeeds well at the French.”

“The French! Scotch again: incorrigible papa. You, too, need
schooling.”

“Well, Polly, you must persuade Miss Snowe to undertake both you and
me; to make you steady and womanly, and me refined and classical.”

The light in which M. de Bassompierre evidently regarded “Miss Snowe,”
used to occasion me much inward edification. What contradictory
attributes of character we sometimes find ascribed to us, according to
the eye with which we are viewed! Madame Beck esteemed me learned and
blue; Miss Fanshawe, caustic, ironic, and cynical; Mr. Home, a model
teacher, the essence of the sedate and discreet: somewhat conventional,
perhaps, too strict, limited, and scrupulous, but still the pink and
pattern of governess-correctness; whilst another person, Professor Paul
Emanuel, to wit, never lost an opportunity of intimating his opinion
that mine was rather a fiery and rash nature—adventurous, indocile, and
audacious. I smiled at them all. If any one knew me it was little
Paulina Mary.

As I would not be Paulina’s nominal and paid companion, genial and
harmonious as I began to find her intercourse, she persuaded me to join
her in some study, as a regular and settled means of sustaining
communication: she proposed the German language, which, like myself,
she found difficult of mastery. We agreed to take our lessons in the
Rue Crécy of the same mistress; this arrangement threw us together for
some hours of every week. M. de Bassompierre seemed quite pleased: it
perfectly met his approbation, that Madame Minerva Gravity should
associate a portion of her leisure with that of his fair and dear
child.

That other self-elected judge of mine, the professor in the Rue
Fossette, discovering by some surreptitious spying means, that I was no
longer so stationary as hitherto, but went out regularly at certain
hours of certain days, took it upon himself to place me under
surveillance. People said M. Emanuel had been brought up amongst
Jesuits. I should more readily have accredited this report had his
manœuvres been better masked. As it was, I doubted it. Never was a
more undisguised schemer, a franker, looser intriguer. He would analyze
his own machinations: elaborately contrive plots, and forthwith indulge
in explanatory boasts of their skill. I know not whether I was more
amused or provoked, by his stepping up to me one morning and whispering
solemnly that he “had his eye on me: he at least would discharge the
duty of a friend, and not leave me entirely to my own devices. My
proceedings seemed at present very unsettled: he did not know what to
make of them: he thought his cousin Beck very much to blame in
suffering this sort of fluttering inconsistency in a teacher attached
to her house. What had a person devoted to a serious calling, that of
education, to do with Counts and Countesses, hotels and châteaux? To
him, I seemed altogether ‘en l’air.’ On his faith, he believed I went
out six days in the seven.”

I said, “Monsieur exaggerated. I certainly had enjoyed the advantage of
a little change lately, but not before it had become necessary; and the
privilege was by no means exercised in excess.”

“Necessary! How was it necessary? I was well enough, he supposed?
Change necessary! He would recommend me to look at the Catholic
‘religieuses,’ and study their lives. They asked no change.”

I am no judge of what expression crossed my face when he thus spoke,
but it was one which provoked him: he accused me of being reckless,
worldly, and epicurean; ambitious of greatness, and feverishly athirst
for the pomps and vanities of life. It seems I had no “dévouement,” no
“récueillement” in my character; no spirit of grace, faith, sacrifice,
or self-abasement. Feeling the inutility of answering these charges, I
mutely continued the correction of a pile of English exercises.

“He could see in me nothing Christian: like many other Protestants, I
revelled in the pride and self-will of paganism.”

I slightly turned from him, nestling still closer under the wing of
silence.

A vague sound grumbled between his teeth; it could not surely be a
“juron:” he was too religious for that; but I am certain I heard the
word sacré. Grievous to relate, the same word was repeated, with the
unequivocal addition of mille something, when I passed him about two
hours afterwards in the corridor, prepared to go and take my German
lesson in the Rue Crécy. Never was a better little man, in some points,
than M. Paul: never, in others, a more waspish little despot.

Our German mistress, Fräulein Anna Braun, was a worthy, hearty woman,
of about forty-five; she ought, perhaps, to have lived in the days of
Queen Elizabeth, as she habitually consumed, for her first and second
breakfasts, beer and beef: also, her direct and downright Deutsch
nature seemed to suffer a sensation of cruel restraint from what she
called our English reserve; though we thought we were very cordial with
her: but we did not slap her on the shoulder, and if we consented to
kiss her cheek, it was done quietly, and without any explosive smack.
These omissions oppressed and depressed her considerably; still, on the
whole, we got on very well. Accustomed to instruct foreign girls, who
hardly ever will think and study for themselves—who have no idea of
grappling with a difficulty, and overcoming it by dint of reflection or
application—our progress, which in truth was very leisurely, seemed to
astound her. In her eyes, we were a pair of glacial prodigies, cold,
proud, and preternatural.

The young Countess was a little proud, a little fastidious: and
perhaps, with her native delicacy and beauty, she had a right to these
feelings; but I think it was a total mistake to ascribe them to me. I
never evaded the morning salute, which Paulina would slip when she
could; nor was a certain little manner of still disdain a weapon known
in my armoury of defence; whereas, Paulina always kept it clear, fine,
and bright, and any rough German sally called forth at once its steelly
glisten.

Honest Anna Braun, in some measure, felt this difference; and while she
half-feared, half-worshipped Paulina, as a sort of dainty nymph—an
Undine—she took refuge with me, as a being all mortal, and of easier
mood.

A book we liked well to read and translate was Schiller’s Ballads;
Paulina soon learned to read them beautifully; the Fräulein would
listen to her with a broad smile of pleasure, and say her voice sounded
like music. She translated them, too, with a facile flow of language,
and in a strain of kindred and poetic fervour: her cheek would flush,
her lips tremblingly smile, her beauteous eyes kindle or melt as she
went on. She learnt the best by heart, and would often recite them when
we were alone together. One she liked well was “Des Mädchens Klage:”
that is, she liked well to repeat the words, she found plaintive melody
in the sound; the sense she would criticise. She murmured, as we sat
over the fire one evening:—

Du Heilige, rufe dein Kind zurück,
Ich habe genossen das irdische Glück,
Ich habe gelebt und geliebet!

“Lived and loved!” said she, “is that the summit of earthly happiness,
the end of life—to love? I don’t think it is. It may be the extreme of
mortal misery, it may be sheer waste of time, and fruitless torture of
feeling. If Schiller had said to be loved, he might have come nearer
the truth. Is not that another thing, Lucy, to be loved?”

“I suppose it may be: but why consider the subject? What is love to
you? What do you know about it?”

She crimsoned, half in irritation, half in shame.

“Now, Lucy,” she said, “I won’t take that from you. It may be well for
papa to look on me as a baby: I rather prefer that he should thus view
me; but you know and shall learn to acknowledge that I am verging on
my nineteenth year.”

“No matter if it were your twenty-ninth; we will anticipate no feelings
by discussion and conversation; we will not talk about love.”

“Indeed, indeed!” said she—all in hurry and heat—“you may think to
check and hold me in, as much as you please; but I have talked about
it, and heard about it too; and a great deal and lately, and
disagreeably and detrimentally: and in a way you wouldn’t approve.”

And the vexed, triumphant, pretty, naughty being laughed. I could not
discern what she meant, and I would not ask her: I was nonplussed.
Seeing, however, the utmost innocence in her countenance—combined with
some transient perverseness and petulance—I said at last,—

“Who talks to you disagreeably and detrimentally on such matters? Who
that has near access to you would dare to do it?”

“Lucy,” replied she more softly, “it is a person who makes me miserable
sometimes; and I wish she would keep away—I don’t want her.”

“But who, Paulina, can it be? You puzzle me much.”

“It is—it is my cousin Ginevra. Every time she has leave to visit Mrs.
Cholmondeley she calls here, and whenever she finds me alone she begins
to talk about her admirers. Love, indeed! You should hear all she has
to say about love.”

“Oh, I have heard it,” said I, quite coolly; “and on the whole, perhaps
it is as well you should have heard it too: it is not to be regretted,
it is all right. Yet, surely, Ginevra’s mind cannot influence yours.
You can look over both her head and her heart.”

“She does influence me very much. She has the art of disturbing my
happiness and unsettling my opinions. She hurts me through the feelings
and people dearest to me.”

“What does she say, Paulina? Give me some idea. There may be
counteraction of the damage done.”

“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 daresay: 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.”