CHAPTER XXXI.
THE DRYAD.
The spring was advancing, and the weather had turned suddenly warm.This change of temperature brought with it for me, as probably for manyothers, temporary decrease of strength. Slight exertion at this timeleft me overcome with fatigue--sleepless nights entailed languid days.
One Sunday afternoon, having walked the distance of half a league tothe Protestant church, I came back weary and exhausted; and takingrefuge in my solitary sanctuary, the first classe, I was glad to sitdown, and to make of my desk a pillow for my arms and head.
Awhile I listened to the lullaby of bees humming in the berceau, andwatched, through the glass door and the tender, lightly-strewn springfoliage, Madame Beck and a gay party of friends, whom she hadentertained that day at dinner after morning mass, walking in thecentre-alley under orchard boughs dressed at this season in blossom,and wearing a colouring as pure and warm as mountain-snow at sun-rise.
My principal attraction towards this group of guests lay, I remember,in one figure--that of a handsome young girl whom I had seen before asa visitor at Madame Beck's, and of whom I had been vaguely told thatshe was a "filleule," or god-daughter, of M. Emanuel's, and thatbetween her mother, or aunt, or some other female relation of hers, andthe Professor, had existed of old a special friendship. M. Paul was notof the holiday band to-day, but I had seen this young girl with him erenow, and as far as distant observation could enable me to judge, sheseemed to enjoy him with the frank ease of a ward with an indulgentguardian. I had seen her run up to him, put her arm through his, andhang upon him. Once, when she did so, a curious sensation had struckthrough me--a disagreeable anticipatory sensation--one of the family ofpresentiments, I suppose--but I refused to analyze or dwell upon it.While watching this girl, Mademoiselle Sauveur by name, and followingthe gleam of her bright silk robe (she was always richly dressed, forshe was said to be wealthy) through the flowers and the glancing leavesof tender emerald, my eyes became dazzled--they closed; my lassitude,the warmth of the day, the hum of bees and birds, all lulled me, and atlast I slept.
Two hours stole over me. Ere I woke, the sun had declined out of sightbehind the towering houses, the garden and the room were grey, bees hadgone homeward, and the flowers were closing; the party of guests, too,had vanished; each alley was void.
On waking, I felt much at ease--not chill, as I ought to have beenafter sitting so still for at least two hours; my cheek and arms werenot benumbed by pressure against the hard desk. No wonder. Instead ofthe bare wood on which I had laid them, I found a thick shawl,carefully folded, substituted for support, and another shawl (bothtaken from the corridor where such things hung) wrapped warmly round me.
Who had done this? Who was my friend? Which of the teachers? Which ofthe pupils? None, except St. Pierre, was inimical to me; but which ofthem had the art, the thought, the habit, of benefiting thus tenderly?Which of them had a step so quiet, a hand so gentle, but I should haveheard or felt her, if she had approached or touched me in a day-sleep?
As to Ginevra Fanshawe, that bright young creature was not gentle atall, and would certainly have pulled me out of my chair, if she hadmeddled in the matter. I said at last: "It is Madame Beck's doing; shehas come in, seen me asleep, and thought I might take cold. Sheconsiders me a useful machine, answering well the purpose for which itwas hired; so would not have me needlessly injured. And now,"methought, "I'll take a walk; the evening is fresh, and not very chill."
So I opened the glass door and stepped into the berceau.
I went to my own alley: had it been dark, or even dusk, I should havehardly ventured there, for I had not yet forgotten the curious illusionof vision (if illusion it were) experienced in that place some monthsago. But a ray of the setting sun burnished still the grey crown ofJean Baptiste; nor had all the birds of the garden yet vanished intotheir nests amongst the tufted shrubs and thick wall-ivy. I paced upand down, thinking almost the same thoughts I had pondered that nightwhen I buried my glass jar--how I should make some advance in life,take another step towards an independent position; for this train ofreflection, though not lately pursued, had never by me been whollyabandoned; and whenever a certain eye was averted from me, and acertain countenance grew dark with unkindness and injustice, into thattrack of speculation did I at once strike; so that, little by little, Ihad laid half a plan.
"Living costs little," said I to myself, "in this economical town ofVillette, where people are more sensible than I understand they are indear old England--infinitely less worried about appearance, and lessemulous of display--where nobody is in the least ashamed to be quite ashomely and saving as he finds convenient. House-rent, in a prudentlychosen situation, need not be high. When I shall have saved onethousand francs, I will take a tenement with one large room, and two orthree smaller ones, furnish the first with a few benches and desks, ablack tableau, an estrade for myself; upon it a chair and table, with asponge and some white chalks; begin with taking day-pupils, and so workmy way upwards. Madame Beck's commencement was--as I have often heardher say--from no higher starting-point, and where is she now? All thesepremises and this garden are hers, bought with her money; she has acompetency already secured for old age, and a flourishing establishmentunder her direction, which will furnish a career for her children.
"Courage, Lucy Snowe! With self-denial and economy now, and steadyexertion by-and-by, an object in life need not fail you. Venture not tocomplain that such an object is too selfish, too limited, and lacksinterest; be content to labour for independence until you have proved,by winning that prize, your right to look higher. But afterwards, isthere nothing more for me in life--no true home--nothing to be dearerto me than myself, and by its paramount preciousness, to draw from mebetter things than I care to culture for myself only? Nothing, at whosefeet I can willingly lay down the whole burden of human egotism, andgloriously take up the nobler charge of labouring and living forothers? I suppose, Lucy Snowe, the orb of your life is not to be sorounded: for you, the crescent-phase must suffice. Very good. I see ahuge mass of my fellow-creatures in no better circumstances. I see thata great many men, and more women, hold their span of life on conditionsof denial and privation. I find no reason why I should be of the fewfavoured. I believe in some blending of hope and sunshine sweeteningthe worst lots. I believe that this life is not all; neither thebeginning nor the end. I believe while I tremble; I trust while I weep."
So this subject is done with. It is right to look our life-accountsbravely in the face now and then, and settle them honestly. And he is apoor self-swindler who lies to himself while he reckons the items, andsets down under the head--happiness that which is misery. Callanguish--anguish, and despair--despair; write both down in strongcharacters with a resolute pen: you will the better pay your debt toDoom. Falsify: insert "privilege" where you should have written "pain;"and see if your mighty creditor will allow the fraud to pass, or acceptthe coin with which you would cheat him. Offer to the strongest--if thedarkest angel of God's host--water, when he has asked blood--will hetake it? Not a whole pale sea for one red drop. I settled anotheraccount.
Pausing before Methusaleh--the giant and patriarch of the garden--andleaning my brow against his knotty trunk, my foot rested on the stonesealing the small sepulchre at his root; and I recalled the passage offeeling therein buried; I recalled Dr. John; my warm affection for him;my faith in his excellence; my delight in his grace. What was become ofthat curious one-sided friendship which was half marble and half life;only on one hand truth, and on the other perhaps a jest?
Was this feeling dead? I do not know, but it was buried. Sometimes Ithought the tomb unquiet, and dreamed strangely of disturbed earth, andof hair, still golden, and living, obtruded through coffin-chinks.
Had I been too hasty? I used to ask myself; and this question wouldoccur with a cruel sharpness after some brief chance interview with Dr.John. He had still such kind looks, such a warm hand; his voice stillkept so pleasant a tone for my name; I never liked "Lucy" so well aswhen he utt
ered it. But I learned in time that this benignity, thiscordiality, this music, belonged in no shape to me: it was a part ofhimself; it was the honey of his temper; it was the balm of his mellowmood; he imparted it, as the ripe fruit rewards with sweetness therifling bee; he diffused it about him, as sweet plants shed theirperfume. Does the nectarine love either the bee or bird it feeds? Isthe sweetbriar enamoured of the air?
"Good-night, Dr. John; you are good, you are beautiful; but you are notmine. Good-night, and God bless you!"
Thus I closed my musings. "Good-night" left my lips in sound; I heardthe words spoken, and then I heard an echo--quite close.
"Good-night, Mademoiselle; or, rather, good-evening--the sun is scarceset; I hope you slept well?"
I started, but was only discomposed a moment; I knew the voice andspeaker.
"Slept, Monsieur! When? where?"
"You may well inquire when--where. It seems you turn day into night,and choose a desk for a pillow; rather hard lodging--?"
"It was softened for me, Monsieur, while I slept. That unseen,gift-bringing thing which haunts my desk, remembered me. No matter howI fell asleep; I awoke pillowed and covered."
"Did the shawls keep you warm?"
"Very warm. Do you ask thanks for them?"
"No. You looked pale in your slumbers: are you home-sick?"
"To be home-sick, one must have a home; which I have not."
"Then you have more need of a careful friend. I scarcely know any one,Miss Lucy, who needs a friend more absolutely than you; your veryfaults imperatively require it. You want so much checking, regulating,and keeping down."
This idea of "keeping down" never left M. Paul's head; the mosthabitual subjugation would, in my case, have failed to relieve him ofit. No matter; what did it signify? I listened to him, and did nottrouble myself to be too submissive; his occupation would have beengone had I left him nothing to "keep down."
"You need watching, and watching over," he pursued; "and it is well foryou that I see this, and do my best to discharge both duties. I watchyou and others pretty closely, pretty constantly, nearer and oftenerthan you or they think. Do you see that window with a light in it?"
He pointed to a lattice in one of the college boarding-houses.
"That," said he, "is a room I have hired, nominally for astudy--virtually for a post of observation. There I sit and read forhours together: it is my way--my taste. My book is this garden; itscontents are human nature--female human nature. I know you all byheart. Ah! I know you well--St. Pierre, the Parisienne--cettemaitresse-femme, my cousin Beck herself."
"It is not right, Monsieur."
"Comment? it is not right? By whose creed? Does some dogma of Calvin orLuther condemn it? What is that to me? I am no Protestant. My richfather (for, though I have known poverty, and once starved for a yearin a garret in Rome--starved wretchedly, often on a meal a day, andsometimes not that--yet I was born to wealth)--my rich father was agood Catholic; and he gave me a priest and a Jesuit for a tutor. Iretain his lessons; and to what discoveries, grand Dieu! have they notaided me!"
"Discoveries made by stealth seem to me dishonourable discoveries."
"Puritaine! I doubt it not. Yet see how my Jesuit's system works. Youknow the St. Pierre?"
"Partially."
He laughed. "You say right--_'partially'_; whereas _I_ know her_thoroughly_; there is the difference. She played before me theamiable; offered me patte de velours; caressed, flattered, fawned onme. Now, I am accessible to a woman's flattery--accessible against myreason. Though never pretty, she was--when I first knew her--young, orknew how to look young. Like all her countrywomen, she had the art ofdressing--she had a certain cool, easy, social assurance, which sparedme the pain of embarrassment--"
"Monsieur, that must have been unnecessary. I never saw you embarrassedin my life."
"Mademoiselle, you know little of me; I can be embarrassed as a petitepensionnaire; there is a fund of modesty and diffidence in my nature--"
"Monsieur, I never saw it."
"Mademoiselle, it is there. You ought to have seen it."
"Monsieur, I have observed you in public--on platforms, in tribunes,before titles and crowned heads--and you were as easy as you are in thethird division."
"Mademoiselle, neither titles nor crowned heads excite my modesty; andpublicity is very much my element. I like it well, and breathe in itquite freely;--but--but, in short, here is the sentiment brought intoaction, at this very moment; however, I disdain to be worsted by it.If, Mademoiselle, I were a marrying man (which I am not; and you mayspare yourself the trouble of any sneer you may be contemplating at thethought), and found it necessary to ask a lady whether she could lookupon me in the light of a future husband, then would it be proved thatI am as I say--modest."
I quite believed him now; and, in believing, I honoured him with asincerity of esteem which made my heart ache.
"As to the St. Pierre," he went on, recovering himself, for his voicehad altered a little, "she once intended to be Madame Emanuel; and Idon't know whither I might have been led, but for yonder little latticewith the light. Ah, magic lattice! what miracles of discovery hast thouwrought! Yes," he pursued, "I have seen her rancours, her vanities, herlevities--not only here, but elsewhere: I have witnessed what bucklersme against all her arts: I am safe from poor Zelie."
"And my pupils," he presently recommenced, "those blondes jeunesfilles--so mild and meek--I have seen the most reserved--romp likeboys, the demurest--snatch grapes from the walls, shake pears from thetrees. When the English teacher came, I saw her, marked her earlypreference for this alley, noticed her taste for seclusion, watched herwell, long before she and I came to speaking terms; do you recollect myonce coming silently and offering you a little knot of white violetswhen we were strangers?"
"I recollect it. I dried the violets, kept them, and have them still."
"It pleased me when you took them peacefully and promptly, withoutprudery--that sentiment which I ever dread to excite, and which, whenit is revealed in eye or gesture, I vindictively detest. To return. Notonly did _I_ watch you; but often--especially at eventide--anotherguardian angel was noiselessly hovering near: night after night mycousin Beck has stolen down yonder steps, and glidingly pursued yourmovements when you did not see her."
"But, Monsieur, you could not from the distance of that window see whatpassed in this garden at night?"
"By moonlight I possibly might with a glass--I use a glass--but thegarden itself is open to me. In the shed, at the bottom, there is adoor leading into a court, which communicates with the college; of thatdoor I possess the key, and thus come and go at pleasure. Thisafternoon I came through it, and found you asleep in classe; again thisevening I have availed myself of the same entrance."
I could not help saying, "If you were a wicked, designing man, howterrible would all this be!"
His attention seemed incapable of being arrested by this view of thesubject: he lit his cigar, and while he puffed it, leaning against atree, and looking at me in a cool, amused way he had when his humourwas tranquil, I thought proper to go on sermonizing him: he oftenlectured me by the hour together--I did not see why I should not speakmy mind for once. So I told him my impressions concerning hisJesuit-system.
"The knowledge it brings you is bought too dear, Monsieur; this comingand going by stealth degrades your own dignity."
"My dignity!" he cried, laughing; "when did you ever see me trouble myhead about my dignity? It is you, Miss Lucy, who are 'digne.' Howoften, in your high insular presence, have I taken a pleasure intrampling upon, what you are pleased to call, my dignity; tearing it,scattering it to the winds, in those mad transports you witness withsuch hauteur, and which I know you think very like the ravings of athird-rate London actor."
"Monsieur, I tell you every glance you cast from that lattice is awrong done to the best part of your own nature. To study the humanheart thus, is to banquet secretly and sacrilegiously on Eve's apples.I wish you were a Protestant."
Indif
ferent to the wish, he smoked on. After a space of smiling yetthoughtful silence, he said, rather suddenly--"I have seen otherthings."
"What other things?"
Taking the weed from his lips, he threw the remnant amongst the shrubs,where, for a moment, it lay glowing in the gloom.
"Look, at it," said he: "is not that spark like an eye watching you andme?"
He took a turn down the walk; presently returning, he went on:--"I haveseen, Miss Lucy, things to me unaccountable, that have made me watchall night for a solution, and I have not yet found it."
The tone was peculiar; my veins thrilled; he saw me shiver.
"Are you afraid? Whether is it of my words or that red jealous eye justwinking itself out?"
"I am cold; the night grows dark and late, and the air is changed; itis time to go in."
"It is little past eight, but you shall go in soon. Answer me only thisquestion."
Yet he paused ere he put it. The garden was truly growing dark; duskhad come on with clouds, and drops of rain began to patter through thetrees. I hoped he would feel this, but, for the moment, he seemed toomuch absorbed to be sensible of the change.
"Mademoiselle, do you Protestants believe in the supernatural?"
"There is a difference of theory and belief on this point amongstProtestants as amongst other sects," I answered. "Why, Monsieur, do youask such a question?"
"Why do you shrink and speak so faintly? Are you superstitious?"
"I am constitutionally nervous. I dislike the discussion of suchsubjects. I dislike it the more because--"
"You believe?"
"No: but it has happened to me to experience impressions--"
"Since you came here?"
"Yes; not many months ago."
"Here?--in this house?"
"Yes."
"Bon! I am glad of it. I knew it, somehow; before you told me. I wasconscious of rapport between you and myself. You are patient, and I amcholeric; you are quiet and pale, and I am tanned and fiery; you are astrict Protestant, and I am a sort of lay Jesuit: but we arealike--there is affinity between us. Do you see it, Mademoiselle, whenyou look in the glass? Do you observe that your forehead is shaped likemine--that your eyes are cut like mine? Do you hear that you have someof my tones of voice? Do you know that you have many of my looks? Iperceive all this, and believe that you were born under my star. Yes,you were born under my star! Tremble! for where that is the case withmortals, the threads of their destinies are difficult to disentangle;knottings and catchings occur--sudden breaks leave damage in the web.But these 'impressions,' as you say, with English caution. I, too, havehad my 'impressions.'"
"Monsieur, tell me them."
"I desire no better, and intend no less. You know the legend of thishouse and garden?"
"I know it. Yes. They say that hundreds of years ago a nun was buriedhere alive at the foot of this very tree, beneath the ground which nowbears us."
"And that in former days a nun's ghost used to come and go here."
"Monsieur, what if it comes and goes here still?"
"Something comes and goes here: there is a shape frequenting this houseby night, different to any forms that show themselves by day. I haveindisputably seen a something, more than once; and to me its conventualweeds were a strange sight, saying more than they can do to any otherliving being. A nun!"
"Monsieur, I, too, have seen it."
"I anticipated that. Whether this nun be flesh and blood, or somethingthat remains when blood is dried, and flesh is wasted, her business isas much with you as with me, probably. Well, I mean to make it out; ithas baffled me so far, but I mean to follow up the mystery. I mean--"
Instead of telling what he meant, he raised his head suddenly; I madethe same movement in the same instant; we both looked to one point--thehigh tree shadowing the great berceau, and resting some of its boughson the roof of the first classe. There had been a strange andinexplicable sound from that quarter, as if the arms of that tree hadswayed of their own motion, and its weight of foliage had rushed andcrushed against the massive trunk. Yes; there scarce stirred a breeze,and that heavy tree was convulsed, whilst the feathery shrubs stoodstill. For some minutes amongst the wood and leafage a rending andheaving went on. Dark as it was, it seemed to me that something moresolid than either night-shadow, or branch-shadow, blackened out of theboles. At last the struggle ceased. What birth succeeded this travail?What Dryad was born of these throes? We watched fixedly. A sudden bellrang in the house--the prayer-bell. Instantly into our alley therecame, out of the berceau, an apparition, all black and white. With asort of angry rush-close, close past our faces--swept swiftly the veryNUN herself! Never had I seen her so clearly. She looked tall ofstature, and fierce of gesture. As she went, the wind rose sobbing; therain poured wild and cold; the whole night seemed to feel her.