Villette

II.
FINIS.

Man cannot prophesy. Love is no oracle. Fear sometimes imagines a vain
thing. Those years of absence! How had I sickened over their
anticipation! The woe they must bring seemed certain as death. I knew
the nature of their course: I never had doubt how it would harrow as it
went. The juggernaut on his car towered there a grim load. Seeing him
draw nigh, burying his broad wheels in the oppressed soil—I, the
prostrate votary—felt beforehand the annihilating craunch.

Strange to say—strange, yet true, and owning many parallels in life’s
experience—that anticipatory craunch proved all—yes—nearly all the
torture. The great Juggernaut, in his great chariot, drew on lofty,
loud, and sullen. He passed quietly, like a shadow sweeping the sky, at
noon. Nothing but a chilling dimness was seen or felt. I looked up.
Chariot and demon charioteer were gone by; the votary still lived.

M. Emanuel was away three years. Reader, they were the three happiest
years of my life. Do you scout the paradox? Listen. I commenced my
school; I worked—I worked hard. I deemed myself the steward of his
property, and determined, God willing, to render a good account. Pupils
came—burghers at first—a higher class ere long. About the middle of the
second year an unexpected chance threw into my hands an additional
hundred pounds: one day I received from England a letter containing
that sum. It came from Mr. Marchmont, the cousin and heir of my dear
and dead mistress. He was just recovering from a dangerous illness; the
money was a peace-offering to his conscience, reproaching him in the
matter of, I know not what, papers or memoranda found after his
kinswoman’s death—naming or recommending Lucy Snowe. Mrs. Barrett had
given him my address. How far his conscience had been sinned against, I
never inquired. I asked no questions, but took the cash and made it
useful.

With this hundred pounds I ventured to take the house adjoining mine. I
would not leave that which M. Paul had chosen, in which he had left,
and where he expected again to find me. My externat became a
pensionnat; that also prospered.

The secret of my success did not lie so much in myself, in any
endowment, any power of mine, as in a new state of circumstances, a
wonderfully changed life, a relieved heart. The spring which moved my
energies lay far away beyond seas, in an Indian isle. At parting, I had
been left a legacy; such a thought for the present, such a hope for the
future, such a motive for a persevering, a laborious, an enterprising,
a patient and a brave course—I could not flag. Few things shook me
now; few things had importance to vex, intimidate, or depress me: most
things pleased—mere trifles had a charm.

Do not think that this genial flame sustained itself, or lived wholly
on a bequeathed hope or a parting promise. A generous provider supplied
bounteous fuel. I was spared all chill, all stint; I was not suffered
to fear penury; I was not tried with suspense. By every vessel he
wrote; he wrote as he gave and as he loved, in full-handed,
full-hearted plenitude. He wrote because he liked to write; he did not
abridge, because he cared not to abridge. He sat down, he took pen and
paper, because he loved Lucy and had much to say to her; because he was
faithful and thoughtful, because he was tender and true. There was no
sham and no cheat, and no hollow unreal in him. Apology never dropped
her slippery oil on his lips—never proffered, by his pen, her coward
feints and paltry nullities: he would give neither a stone, nor an
excuse—neither a scorpion; nor a disappointment; his letters were real
food that nourished, living water that refreshed.

And was I grateful? God knows! I believe that scarce a living being so
remembered, so sustained, dealt with in kind so constant, honourable
and noble, could be otherwise than grateful to the death.

Adherent to his own religion (in him was not the stuff of which is made
the facile apostate), he freely left me my pure faith. He did not tease
nor tempt. He said:—

“Remain a Protestant. My little English Puritan, I love Protestantism
in you. I own its severe charm. There is something in its ritual I
cannot receive myself, but it is the sole creed for ‘Lucy.’”

All Rome could not put into him bigotry, nor the Propaganda itself make
him a real Jesuit. He was born honest, and not false—artless, and not
cunning—a freeman, and not a slave. His tenderness had rendered him
ductile in a priest’s hands, his affection, his devotedness, his
sincere pious enthusiasm blinded his kind eyes sometimes, made him
abandon justice to himself to do the work of craft, and serve the ends
of selfishness; but these are faults so rare to find, so costly to
their owner to indulge, we scarce know whether they will not one day be
reckoned amongst the jewels.

And now the three years are past: M. Emanuel’s return is fixed. It is
Autumn; he is to be with me ere the mists of November come. My school
flourishes, my house is ready: I have made him a little library, filled
its shelves with the books he left in my care: I have cultivated out of
love for him (I was naturally no florist) the plants he preferred, and
some of them are yet in bloom. I thought I loved him when he went away;
I love him now in another degree: he is more my own.

The sun passes the equinox; the days shorten, the leaves grow sere;
but—he is coming.

Frosts appear at night; November has sent his fogs in advance; the wind
takes its autumn moan; but—he is coming.

The skies hang full and dark—a wrack sails from the west; the clouds
cast themselves into strange forms—arches and broad radiations; there
rise resplendent mornings—glorious, royal, purple as monarch in his
state; the heavens are one flame; so wild are they, they rival battle
at its thickest—so bloody, they shame Victory in her pride. I know some
signs of the sky; I have noted them ever since childhood. God watch
that sail! Oh! guard it!

The wind shifts to the west. Peace, peace, Banshee—“keening” at every
window! It will rise—it will swell—it shrieks out long: wander as I may
through the house this night, I cannot lull the blast. The advancing
hours make it strong: by midnight, all sleepless watchers hear and fear
a wild south-west storm. That storm roared frenzied, for seven days. It
did not cease till the Atlantic was strewn with wrecks: it did not lull
till the deeps had gorged their full of sustenance. Not till the
destroying angel of tempest had achieved his perfect work, would he
fold the wings whose waft was thunder—the tremor of whose plumes was
storm.

Peace, be still! Oh! a thousand weepers, praying in agony on waiting
shores, listened for that voice, but it was not uttered—not uttered
till; when the hush came, some could not feel it: till, when the sun
returned, his light was night to some!

Here pause: pause at once. There is enough said. Trouble no quiet, kind
heart; leave sunny imaginations hope. Let it be theirs to conceive the
delight of joy born again fresh out of great terror, the rapture of
rescue from peril, the wondrous reprieve from dread, the fruition of
return. Let them picture union and a happy succeeding life.

Madame Beck prospered all the days of her life; so did Père Silas;
Madame Walravens fulfilled her ninetieth year before she died.
Farewell.

THE END.

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