CHAPTER XXXIX.
OLD AND NEW ACQUAINTANCE.
Fascinated as by a basilisk with three heads, I could not leave thisclique; the ground near them seemed to hold my feet. The canopy ofentwined trees held out shadow, the night whispered a pledge ofprotection, and an officious lamp flashed just one beam to show me anobscure, safe seat, and then vanished. Let me now briefly tell thereader all that, during the past dark fortnight, I have been silentlygathering from Rumour, respecting the origin and the object of M.Emanuel's departure. The tale is short, and not new: its alpha isMammon, and its omega Interest.
If Madame Walravens was hideous as a Hindoo idol, she seemed also topossess, in the estimation of these her votaries, an idol'sconsequence. The fact was, she had been rich--very rich; and though,for the present, without the command of money, she was likely one dayto be rich again. At Basseterre, in Guadaloupe, she possessed a largeestate, received in dowry on her marriage sixty years ago, sequesteredsince her husband's failure; but now, it was supposed, cleared ofclaim, and, if duly looked after by a competent agent of integrity,considered capable of being made, in a few years, largely productive.
Pere Silas took an interest in this prospective improvement for thesake of religion and the church, whereof Magliore Walravens was adevout daughter. Madame Beck, distantly related to the hunchback andknowing her to be without family of her own, had long brooded overcontingencies with a mother's calculating forethought, and, harshlytreated as she was by Madame Walravens, never ceased to court her forinterest's sake. Madame Beck and the priest were thus, for moneyreasons, equally and sincerely interested in the nursing of the WestIndian estate.
But the distance was great, and the climate hazardous. The competentand upright agent wanted, must be a devoted man. Just such a man hadMadame Walravens retained for twenty years in her service, blightinghis life, and then living on him, like an old fungus; such a man hadPere Silas trained, taught, and bound to him by the ties of gratitude,habit, and belief. Such a man Madame Beck knew, and could in somemeasure influence. My pupil, said Pere Silas, if he remains inEurope, runs risk of apostacy, for he has become entangled with aheretic. Madame Beck made also her private comment, and preferred inher own breast her secret reason for desiring expatriation. The thingshe could not obtain, she desired not another to win: rather would shedestroy it. As to Madame Walravens, she wanted her money and her land,and knew Paul, if he liked, could make the best and faithfulleststeward: so the three self-seekers banded and beset the one unselfish.They reasoned, they appealed, they implored; on his mercy they castthemselves, into his hands they confidingly thrust their interests.They asked but two or three years of devotion--after that, he shouldlive for himself: one of the number, perhaps, wished that in themeantime he might die.
No living being ever humbly laid his advantage at M. Emanuel's feet, orconfidingly put it into his hands, that he spurned the trust orrepulsed the repository. What might be his private pain or inwardreluctance to leave Europe--what his calculations for his ownfuture--none asked, or knew, or reported. All this was a blank to me.His conferences with his confessor I might guess; the part duty andreligion were made to play in the persuasions used, I might conjecture.He was gone, and had made no sign. There my knowledge closed.
* * * * *
With my head bent, and my forehead resting on my hands, I sat amidstgrouped tree-stems and branching brushwood. Whatever talk passedamongst my neighbours, I might hear, if I would; I was near enough; butfor some time, there was scarce motive to attend. They gossiped aboutthe dresses, the music, the illuminations, the fine night. I listenedto hear them say, It is calm weather for _his_ voyage; the _Antigua_(his ship) will sail prosperously. No such remark fell; neither the_Antigua_, nor her course, nor her passenger were named.
Perhaps the light chat scarcely interested old Madame Walravens morethan it did me; she appeared restless, turning her head now to thisside, now that, looking through the trees, and among the crowd, as ifexpectant of an arrival and impatient of delay. Ou sont-ils? Pourquoine viennent-ils? I heard her mutter more than once; and at last, as ifdetermined to have an answer to her question--which hitherto noneseemed to mind, she spoke aloud this phrase--a phrase brief enough,simple enough, but it sent a shock through me--Messieurs et mesdames,said she, ou donc est Justine Marie?
Justine Marie! What was this? Justine Marie--the dead nun--where wasshe? Why, in her grave, Madame Walravens--what can you want with her?You shall go to her, but she shall not come to you.
Thus _I_ should have answered, had the response lain with me, butnobody seemed to be of my mind; nobody seemed surprised, startled, orat a loss. The quietest commonplace answer met the strange, thedead-disturbing, the Witch-of-Endor query of the hunchback.
Justine Marie, said one, is coming; she is in the kiosk; she will behere presently.
Out of this question and reply sprang a change in the chat--chat itstill remained, easy, desultory, familiar gossip. Hint, allusion,comment, went round the circle, but all so broken, so dependent onreferences to persons not named, or circumstances not defined, thatlisten as intently as I would--and I _did_ listen _now_ with a fatedinterest--I could make out no more than that some scheme was on foot,in which this ghostly Justine Marie--dead or alive--was concerned. Thisfamily-junta seemed grasping at her somehow, for some reason; thereseemed question of a marriage, of a fortune--for whom I could not quitemake out--perhaps for Victor Kint, perhaps for Josef Emanuel--both werebachelors. Once I thought the hints and jests rained upon a youngfair-haired foreigner of the party, whom they called Heinrich Muehler.Amidst all the badinage, Madame Walravens still obtruded from time totime, hoarse, cross-grained speeches; her impatience being divertedonly by an implacable surveillance of Desiree, who could not stir butthe old woman menaced her with her staff.
La voila! suddenly cried one of the gentlemen, voila Justine Mariequi arrive!
This moment was for me peculiar. I called up to memory the pictured nunon the panel; present to my mind was the sad love-story; I saw inthought the vision of the garret, the apparition of the alley, thestrange birth of the berceau; I underwent a presentiment of discovery,a strong conviction of coming disclosure. Ah! when imagination onceruns riot where do we stop? What winter tree so bare andbranchless--what way-side, hedge-munching animal so humble, that Fancy,a passing cloud, and a struggling moonbeam, will not clothe it inspirituality, and make of it a phantom?
With solemn force pressed on my heart, the expectation of mysterybreaking up: hitherto I had seen this spectre only through a glassdarkly; now was I to behold it face to face. I leaned forward; I looked.
She comes! cried Josef Emanuel.
The circle opened as if opening to admit a new and welcome member. Atthis instant a torch chanced to be carried past; its blaze aided thepale moon in doing justice to the crisis, in lighting to perfection thedenouement pressing on. Surely those near me must have felt some littleof the anxiety I felt, in degree so unmeted. Of that group the coolestmust have held his breath for a time! As for me, my life stood still.
It is over. The moment and the nun are come. The crisis and therevelation are passed by.
The flambeau glares still within a yard, held up in a park-keeper'shand; its long eager tongue of flame almost licks the figure of theExpected--there--where she stands full in my sight. What is she like?What does she wear? How does she look? Who is she?
There are many masks in the park to-night, and as the hour wears late,so strange a feeling of revelry and mystery begins to spread abroad,that scarce would you discredit me, reader, were I to say that she islike the nun of the attic, that she wears black skirts and whitehead-clothes, that she looks the resurrection of the flesh, and thatshe is a risen ghost.
All falsities--all figments! We will not deal in this gear. Let us behonest, and cut, as heretofore, from the homely web of truth.
_Homely_, though, is an ill-chosen word. What I see is not preciselyhomely. A girl of Villette stands there--a girl fresh from herpensionnat. She is very comely, with the beauty indigenous to thiscountry. She looks well-nourished, fair, and fat of flesh. Her cheeksare round, her eyes good; her hair is abundant. She is handsomelydressed. She is not alone; her escort consists of three persons--twobeing elderly; these she addresses as Mon Oncle and Ma Tante. Shelaughs, she chats; good-humoured, buxom, and blooming, she looks, atall points, the bourgeoise belle.
So much for Justine Marie; so much for ghosts and mystery: not thatthis last was solved--this girl certainly is not my nun: what I saw inthe garret and garden must have been taller by a span.
We have looked at the city belle; we have cursorily glanced at therespectable old uncle and aunt. Have we a stray glance to give to thethird member of this company? Can we spare him a moment's notice? Weought to distinguish him so far, reader; he has claims on us; we do notnow meet him for the first time. I clasped my hands very hard, and Idrew my breath very deep: I held in the cry, I devoured theejaculation, I forbade the start, I spoke and I stirred no more than astone; but I knew what I looked on; through the dimness left in my eyesby many nights' weeping, I knew him. They said he was to sail by the_Antigua_. Madame Beck said so. She lied, or she had uttered what wasonce truth, and failed to contradict it when it became false. The_Antigua_ was gone, and there stood Paul Emanuel.
Was I glad? A huge load left me. Was it a fact to warrant joy? I knownot. Ask first what were the circumstances attendant on this respite?How far did this delay concern _me?_ Were there not those whom it mighttouch more nearly?
After all, who may this young girl, this Justine Marie, be? Not astranger, reader; she is known to me by sight; she visits at the RueFossette: she is often of Madame Beck's Sunday parties. She is arelation of both the Becks and Walravens; she derives her baptismalname from the sainted nun who would have been her aunt had she lived;her patronymic is Sauveur; she is an heiress and an orphan, and M.Emanuel is her guardian; some say her godfather.
The family junta wish this heiress to be married to one of theirband--which is it? Vital question--which is it?
I felt very glad now, that the drug administered in the sweet draughthad filled me with a possession which made bed and chamber intolerable.I always, through my whole life, liked to penetrate to the real truth;I like seeking the goddess in her temple, and handling the veil, anddaring the dread glance. O Titaness among deities! the covered outlineof thine aspect sickens often through its uncertainty, but define to usone trait, show us one lineament, clear in awful sincerity; we may gaspin untold terror, but with that gasp we drink in a breath of thydivinity; our heart shakes, and its currents sway like rivers lifted byearthquake, but we have swallowed strength. To see and know the worstis to take from Fear her main advantage.
The Walravens' party, augmented in numbers, now became very gay. Thegentlemen fetched refreshments from the kiosk, all sat down on the turfunder the trees; they drank healths and sentiments; they laughed, theyjested. M. Emanuel underwent some raillery, half good-humoured, half, Ithought, malicious, especially on Madame Beck's part. I soon gatheredthat his voyage had been temporarily deferred of his own will, withoutthe concurrence, even against the advice, of his friends; he had letthe _Antigua_ go, and had taken his berth in the _Paul et Virginie_,appointed to sail a fortnight later. It was his reason for this resolvewhich they teased him to assign, and which he would only vaguelyindicate as the settlement of a little piece of business which he hadset his heart upon. What _was_ this business? Nobody knew. Yes, therewas one who seemed partly, at least, in his confidence; a meaning lookpassed between him and Justine Marie. La petite va m'aider--n'est-cepas? said he. The answer was prompt enough, God knows?
Mais oui, je vous aiderai de tout mon coeur. Vous ferez de moi tout ceque vous voudrez, mon parrain.
And this dear parrain took her hand and lifted it to his gratefullips. Upon which demonstration, I saw the light-complexioned youngTeuton, Heinrich Muehler, grow restless, as if he did not like it. Heeven grumbled a few words, whereat M. Emanuel actually laughed in hisface, and with the ruthless triumph of the assured conqueror, he drewhis ward nearer to him.
M. Emanuel was indeed very joyous that night. He seemed not one whitsubdued by the change of scene and action impending. He was the truelife of the party; a little despotic, perhaps, determined to be chiefin mirth, as well as in labour, yet from moment to moment provingindisputably his right of leadership. His was the wittiest word, thepleasantest anecdote, the frankest laugh. Restlessly active, after hismanner, he multiplied himself to wait on all; but oh! I saw which washis favourite. I saw at whose feet he lay on the turf, I saw whom hefolded carefully from the night air, whom he tended, watched, andcherished as the apple of his eye.
Still, hint and raillery flew thick, and still I gathered that while M.Paul should be absent, working for others, these others, not quiteungrateful, would guard for him the treasure he left in Europe. Let himbring them an Indian fortune: they would give him in return a youngbride and a rich inheritance. As for the saintly consecration, the vowof constancy, that was forgotten: the blooming and charming Presentprevailed over the Past; and, at length, his nun was indeed buried.
Thus it must be. The revelation was indeed come. Presentiment had notbeen mistaken in her impulse: there is a kind of presentiment whichnever _is_ mistaken; it was I who had for a moment miscalculated; notseeing the true bearing of the oracle, I had thought she muttered ofvision when, in truth, her prediction touched reality.
I might have paused longer upon what I saw; I might have deliberatedere I drew inferences. Some, perhaps, would have held the premisesdoubtful, the proofs insufficient; some slow sceptics would haveincredulously examined ere they conclusively accepted the project of amarriage between a poor and unselfish man of forty, and his wealthyward of eighteen; but far from me such shifts and palliatives, far fromme such temporary evasion of the actual, such coward fleeing from thedread, the swift-footed, the all-overtaking Fact, such feeble suspenseof submission to her the sole sovereign, such paltering and falteringresistance to the Power whose errand is to march conquering and toconquer, such traitor defection from the TRUTH.
No. I hastened to accept the whole plan. I extended my grasp and tookit all in. I gathered it to me with a sort of rage of haste, and foldedit round me, as the soldier struck on the field folds his colours abouthis breast. I invoked Conviction to nail upon me the certainty,abhorred while embraced, to fix it with the strongest spikes herstrongest strokes could drive; and when the iron had entered well mysoul, I stood up, as I thought, renovated.
In my infatuation, I said, Truth, you are a good mistress to yourfaithful servants! While a Lie pressed me, how I suffered! Even whenthe Falsehood was still sweet, still flattering to the fancy, and warmto the feelings, it wasted me with hourly torment. The persuasion thataffection was won could not be divorced from the dread that, by anotherturn of the wheel, it might be lost. Truth stripped away Falsehood, andFlattery, and Expectancy, and here I stand--free!
Nothing remained now but to take my freedom to my chamber, to carry itwith me to my bed and see what I could make of it. The play was notyet, indeed, quite played out. I might have waited and watched longerthat love-scene under the trees, that sylvan courtship. Had there beennothing of love in the demonstration, my Fancy in this hour was sogenerous, so creative, she could have modelled for it the most salientlineaments, and given it the deepest life and highest colour ofpassion. But I _would_ not look; I had fixed my resolve, but I wouldnot violate my nature. And then--something tore me so cruelly under myshawl, something so dug into my side, a vulture so strong in beak andtalon, I must be alone to grapple with it. I think I never feltjealousy till now. This was not like enduring the endearments of Dr.John and Paulina, against which while I sealed my eyes and my ears,while I withdrew thence my thoughts, my sense of harmony stillacknowledged in it a charm. This was an outrage. The love born ofbeauty was not mine; I had nothing in common with it: I could not dareto meddle with it, but another love, venturing diffidently into lifeafter long acquaintance, furnace-tried by pain, stamped by constancy,consolidated by affection's pure and durable alloy, submitted byintellect to intellect's own tests, and finally wrought up, by his ownprocess, to his own unflawed completeness, this Love that laughed atPassion, his fast frenzies and his hot and hurried extinction, in_this_ Love I had a vested interest; and whatever tended either to itsculture or its destruction, I could not view impassibly.
I turned from the group of trees and the merrie companie in itsshade. Midnight was long past; the concert was over, the crowds werethinning. I followed the ebb. Leaving the radiant park and well-litHaute-Ville (still well lit, this it seems was to be a nuit blanchein Villette), I sought the dim lower quarter.
Dim I should not say, for the beauty of moonlight--forgotten in thepark--here once more flowed in upon perception. High she rode, and calmand stainlessly she shone. The music and the mirth of the fete, thefire and bright hues of those lamps had out-done and out-shone her foran hour, but now, again, her glory and her silence triumphed. The rivallamps were dying: she held her course like a white fate. Drum, trumpet,bugle, had uttered their clangour, and were forgotten; with pencil-rayshe wrote on heaven and on earth records for archives everlasting. Sheand those stars seemed to me at once the types and witnesses of truthall regnant. The night-sky lit her reign: like its slow-wheelingprogress, advanced her victory--that onward movement which has been,and is, and will be from eternity to eternity.
These oil-twinkling streets are very still: I like them for theirlowliness and peace. Homeward-bound burghers pass me now and then, butthese companies are pedestrians, make little noise, and are soon gone.So well do I love Villette under her present aspect, not willinglywould I re-enter under a roof, but that I am bent on pursuing mystrange adventure to a successful close, and quietly regaining my bedin the great dormitory, before Madame Beck comes home.
Only one street lies between me and the Rue Fossette; as I enter it,for the first time, the sound of a carriage tears up the deep peace ofthis quarter. It comes this way--comes very fast. How loud sounds itsrattle on the paved path! The street is narrow, and I keep carefully tothe causeway. The carriage thunders past, but what do I see, or fancy Isee, as it rushes by? Surely something white fluttered from thatwindow--surely a hand waved a handkerchief. Was that signal meant forme? Am I known? Who could recognise me? That is not M. deBassompierre's carriage, nor Mrs. Bretton's; and besides, neither theHotel Crecy nor the chateau of La Terrasse lies in that direction.Well, I have no time for conjecture; I must hurry home.
Gaining the Rue Fossette, reaching the pensionnat, all there was still;no fiacre had yet arrived with Madame and Desiree. I had left the greatdoor ajar; should I find it thus? Perhaps the wind or some otheraccident may have thrown it to with sufficient force to start thespring-bolt? In that case, hopeless became admission; my adventure mustissue in catastrophe. I lightly pushed the heavy leaf; would it yield?
Yes. As soundless, as unresisting, as if some propitious genius hadwaited on a sesame-charm, in the vestibule within. Entering with batedbreath, quietly making all fast, shoelessly mounting the staircase, Isought the dormitory, and reached my couch.
* * * * *
Ay! I reached it, and once more drew a free inspiration. The nextmoment, I almost shrieked--almost, but not quite, thank Heaven!
Throughout the dormitory, throughout the house, there reigned at thishour the stillness of death. All slept, and in such hush, it seemedthat none dreamed. Stretched on the nineteen beds lay nineteen forms,at full-length and motionless. On mine--the twentieth couch--nothing_ought_ to have lain: I had left it void, and void should have foundit. What, then; do I see between the half-drawn curtains? What dark,usurping shape, supine, long, and strange? Is it a robber who has madehis way through the open street-door, and lies there in wait? It looksvery black, I think it looks--not human. Can it be a wandering dog thathas come in from the street and crept and nestled hither? Will itspring, will it leap out if I approach? Approach I must. Courage! Onestep!--
My head reeled, for by the faint night-lamp, I saw stretched on my bedthe old phantom--the NUN.
A cry at this moment might have ruined me. Be the spectacle what itmight, I could afford neither consternation, scream, nor swoon.Besides, I was not overcome. Tempered by late incidents, my nervesdisdained hysteria. Warm from illuminations, and music, and throngingthousands, thoroughly lashed up by a new scourge, I defied spectra. Ina moment, without exclamation, I had rushed on the haunted couch;nothing leaped out, or sprung, or stirred; all the movement was mine,so was all the life, the reality, the substance, the force; as myinstinct felt. I tore her up--the incubus! I held her on high--thegoblin! I shook her loose--the mystery! And down she fell--down allaround me--down in shreds and fragments--and I trode upon her.
Here again--behold the branchless tree, the unstabled Rosinante; thefilm of cloud, the flicker of moonshine. The long nun proved a longbolster dressed in a long black stole, and artfully invested with awhite veil. The garments in very truth, strange as it may seem, weregenuine nun's garments, and by some hand they had been disposed with aview to illusion. Whence came these vestments? Who contrived thisartifice? These questions still remained. To the head-bandage waspinned a slip of paper: it bore in pencil these mocking words--
The nun of the attic bequeaths to Lucy Snowe her wardrobe. She will beseen in the Rue Fossette no more.
And what and who was she that had haunted me? She, I had actually seenthree times. Not a woman of my acquaintance had the stature of thatghost. She was not of a female height. Not to any man I knew could themachination, for a moment, be attributed.
Still mystified beyond expression, but as thoroughly, as suddenly,relieved from all sense of the spectral and unearthly; scorning also towear out my brain with the fret of a trivial though insoluble riddle, Ijust bundled together stole, veil, and bandages, thrust them beneath mypillow, lay down, listened till I heard the wheels of Madame'shome-returning fiacre, then turned, and worn out by many nights'vigils, conquered, too, perhaps, by the now reacting narcotic, I deeplyslept.