That evening I went to M. Vandenhuten’s; but I had bent the bow and adjusted the shaft in vain; the string broke. I rang the bell at the great door (it was a large, handsome house in an expensive part of the town); a manservant opened; I asked for M. Vandenhuten; M. Vandenhuten and family were all out of town — gone to Ostend — did not know when they would be back. I left my card, and retraced my steps.
CHAPTER XXII
Table of Contents
A WEEK is gone; LE JOUR DES NOCES arrived; the marriage was solemnized at St. Jacques; Mdlle. Zoraide became Madame Pelet, NEE Reuter; and, in about an hour after this transformation, “the happy pair,” as newspapers phrase it, were on their way to Paris; where, according to previous arrangement, the honeymoon was to be spent. The next day I quitted the pensionnat. Myself and my chattels (some books and clothes) were soon transferred to a modest lodging I had hired in a street not far off. In half an hour my clothes were arranged in a commode, my books on a shelf, and the “flitting” was effected. I should not have been unhappy that day had not one pang tortured me — a longing to go to the Rue Notre Dame aux Neiges, resisted, yet irritated by an inward resolve to avoid that street till such time as the mist of doubt should clear from my prospects.
It was a sweet September evening — very mild, very still; I had nothing to do; at that hour I knew Frances would be equally released from occupation; I thought she might possibly be wishing for her master, I knew I wished for my pupil. Imagination began with her low whispers, infusing into my soul the soft tale of pleasures that might be.
“You will find her reading or writing,” said she; “you can take your seat at her side; you need not startle her peace by undue excitement; you need not embarrass her manner by unusual action or language. Be as you always are; look over what she has written; listen while she reads; chide her, or quietly approve; you know the effect of either system; you know her smile when pleased, you know the play of her looks when roused; you have the secret of awakening that expression you will, and you can choose amongst that pleasant variety. With you she will sit silent as long as it suits you to talk alone; you can hold her under a potent spell: intelligent as she is, eloquent as she can be, you can seal her lips, and veil her bright countenance with diffidence; yet, you know, she is not all monotonous mildness; you have seen, with a sort of strange pleasure, revolt, scorn, austerity, bitterness, lay energetic claim to a place in her feelings and physiognomy; you know that few could rule her as you do; you know she might break, but never bend under the hand of Tyranny and Injustice, but Reason and Affection can guide her by a sign. Try their influence now. Go — they are not passions; you may handle them safely.”
“I will NOT go was my answer to the sweet temptress. A man is master of himself to a certain point, but not beyond it. Could I seek Frances tonight, could I sit with her alone in a quiet room, and address her only in the language of Reason and Affection?”
“No,” was the brief, fervent reply of that Love which had conquered and now controlled me.
Time seemed to stagnate; the sun would not go down; my watch ticked, but I thought the hands were paralyzed.
“What a hot evening!” I cried, throwing open the lattice; for, indeed, I had seldom felt so feverish. Hearing a step ascending the common stair, I wondered whether the “locataire,” now mounting to his apartments, were as unsettled in mind and condition as I was, or whether he lived in the calm of certain resources, and in the freedom of unfettered feelings. What! was he coming in person to solve the problem hardly proposed in inaudible thought? He had actually knocked at the door — at MY door; a smart, prompt rap; and, almost before I could invite him in, he was over the threshold, and had closed the door behind him.
“And how are you?” asked an indifferent, quiet voice, in the English language; while my visitor, without any sort of bustle or introduction, put his hat on the table, and his gloves into his hat, and drawing the only armchair the room afforded a little forward, seated himself tranquilly therein.
“Can’t you speak?” he inquired in a few moments, in a tone whose nonchalance seemed to intimate that it was much the same thing whether I answered or not. The fact is, I found it desirable to have recourse to my good friends “les besicles;” not exactly to ascertain the identity of my visitor — for I already knew him, confound his impudence! but to see how he looked — to get a clear notion of his mien and countenance. I wiped the glasses very deliberately, and put them on quite as deliberately; adjusting them so as not to hurt the bridge of my nose or get entangled in my short tufts of dun hair. I was sitting in the window-seat, with my back to the light, and I had him VIS-A-VIS; a position he would much rather have had reversed; for, at any time, he preferred scrutinizing to being scrutinized. Yes, it was HE, and no mistake, with his six feet of length arranged in a sitting attitude; with his dark travelling surtout with its velvet collar, his gray pantaloons, his black stock, and his face, the most original one Nature ever modelled, yet the least obtrusively so; not one feature that could be termed marked or odd, yet the effect of the whole unique. There is no use in attempting to describe what is indescribable. Being in no hurry to address him, I sat and stared at my ease.
“Oh, that’s your game — is it?” said he at last. “Well, we’ll see which is soonest tired.” And he slowly drew out a fine cigar-case, picked one to his taste, lit it, took a book from the shelf convenient to his hand, then leaning back, proceeded to smoke and read as tranquilly as if he had been in his own room, in Grove-street, X — -shire, England. I knew he was capable of continuing in that attitude till midnight, if he conceived the whim, so I rose, and taking the book from his hand, I said, —
“You did not ask for it, and you shall not have it.”
“It is silly and dull,” he observed, “so I have not lost much;” then the spell being broken, he went on. “I thought you lived at Pelet’s; I went there this afternoon expecting to be starved to death by sitting in a boarding-school drawing-room, and they told me you were gone, had departed this morning; you had left your address behind you though, which I wondered at; it was a more practical and sensible precaution than I should have imagined you capable of. Why did you leave?”
“Because M. Pelet has just married the lady whom you and Mr. Brown assigned to me as my wife.”
“Oh, indeed!” replied Hunsden with a short laugh; “so you’ve lost both your wife and your place?”
“Precisely so.”
I saw him give a quick, covert glance all round my room; he marked its narrow limits, its scanty furniture: in an instant he had comprehended the state of matters — had absolved me from the crime of prosperity. A curious effect this discovery wrought in his strange mind; I am morally certain that if he had found me installed in a handsome parlour, lounging on a soft couch, with a pretty, wealthy wife at my side, he would have hated me; a brief, cold, haughty visit, would in such a case have been the extreme limit of his civilities, and never would he have come near me more, so long as the tide of fortune bore me smoothly on its surface; but the painted furniture, the bare walls, the cheerless solitude of my room relaxed his rigid pride, and I know not what softening change had taken place both in his voice and look ere he spoke again.
“You have got another place?”
“No.”
“You are in the way of getting one?”
“No.”
“That is bad; have you applied to Brown?”
“No, indeed.”
“You had better; he often has it in his power to give useful information in such matters.”
“He served me once very well; I have no claim on him, and am not in the humour to bother him again.”
“Oh, if you’re bashful, and dread being intrusive, you need only commission me. I shall see him tonight; I can put in a word.”
“I beg you will not, Mr. Hunsden; I am in your debt already; you did me an important service when I was at X — — ; got me out of a den where I was dying: that service I have never repaid, and at present I
decline positively adding another item to the account.”
“If the wind sits that way, I’m satisfied. I thought my unexampled generosity in turning you out of that accursed counting-house would be duly appreciated some day: ‘Cast your bread on the waters, and it shall be found after many days,’ say the Scriptures. Yes, that’s right, lad — make much of me — I’m a nonpareil: there’s nothing like me in the common herd. In the meantime, to put all humbug aside and talk sense for a few moments, you would be greatly the better of a situation, and what is more, you are a fool if you refuse to take one from any hand that offers it.”
“Very well, Mr. Hunsden; now you have settled that point, talk of something else. What news from X — — ?”
“I have not settled that point, or at least there is another to settle before we get to X — — . Is this Miss Zenobie” (Zoraide, interposed I) — “well, Zoraide — is she really married to Pelet?”
“I tell you yes — and if you don’t believe me, go and ask the cure of St. Jacques.”
“And your heart is broken?”
“I am not aware that it is; it feels all right — beats as usual.”
“Then your feelings are less superfine than I took them to be; you must be a coarse, callous character, to bear such a thwack without staggering under it.”
“Staggering under it? What the deuce is there to stagger under in the circumstance of a Belgian schoolmistress marrying a French schoolmaster? The progeny will doubtless be a strange hybrid race; but that’s their Look out — not mine.”
“He indulges in scurrilous jests, and the bride was his affianced one!”
“Who said so?”
“Brown.”
“I’ll tell you what, Hunsden — Brown is an old gossip.”
“He is; but in the meantime, if his gossip be founded on less than fact — if you took no particular interest in Miss Zoraide — why, O youthful pedagogue! did you leave your place in consequence of her becoming Madame Pelet?”
“Because — “ I felt my face grow a little hot; “because — in short, Mr. Hunsden, I decline answering any more questions,” and I plunged my hands deep in my breeches pocket.
Hunsden triumphed: his eyes — his laugh announced victory.
“What the deuce are you laughing at, Mr. Hunsden?”
“At your exemplary composure. Well, lad, I’ll not bore you; I see how it is: Zoraide has jilted you — married some one richer, as any sensible woman would have done if she had had the chance.”
I made no reply — I let him think so, not feeling inclined to enter into an explanation of the real state of things, and as little to forge a false account; but it was not easy to blind Hunsden; my very silence, instead of convincing him that he had hit the truth, seemed to render him doubtful about it; he went on: —
“I suppose the affair has been conducted as such affairs always are amongst rational people: you offered her your youth and your talents-such as they are — in exchange for her position and money: I don’t suppose you took appearance, or what is called LOVE, into the account — for I understand she is older than you, and Brown says, rather sensible-looking than beautiful. She, having then no chance of making a better bargain, was at first inclined to come to terms with you, but Pelet — the head of a flourishing school — stepped in with a higher bid; she accepted, and he has got her: a correct transaction — perfectly so — businesslike and legitimate. And now we’ll talk of something else.”
“Do,” said I, very glad to dismiss the topic, and especially glad to have baffled the sagacity of my cross-questioner — if, indeed, I had baffled it; for though his words now led away from the dangerous point, his eyes, keen and watchful, seemed still preoccupied with the former idea.
“You want to hear news from X — — ? And what interest can you have in X — — ? You left no friends there, for you made none. Nobody ever asks after you — neither man nor woman; and if I mention your name in company, the men look as if I had spoken of Prester John; and the women sneer covertly. Our X — — belles must have disliked you. How did you excite their displeasure?”
“I don’t know. I seldom spoke to them — they were nothing to me. I considered them only as something to be glanced at from a distance; their dresses and faces were often pleasing enough to the eye: but I could not understand their conversation, nor even read their countenances. When I caught snatches of what they said, I could never make much of it; and the play of their lips and eyes did not help me at all.”
“That was your fault, not theirs. There are sensible, as well as handsome women in X — — ; women it is worth any man’s while to talk to, and with whom I can talk with pleasure: but you had and have no pleasant address; there is nothing in you to induce a woman to be affable. I have remarked you sitting near the door in a room full of company, bent on hearing, not on speaking; on observing, not on entertaining; looking frigidly shy at the commencement of a party, confusingly vigilant about the middle, and insultingly weary towards the end. Is that the way, do you think, ever to communicate pleasure or excite interest? No; and if you are generally unpopular, it is because you deserve to be so.”
“Content!” I ejaculated.
“No, you are not content; you see beauty always turning its back on you; you are mortified and then you sneer. I verily believe all that is desirable on earth — wealth, reputation, love — will for ever to you be the ripe grapes on the high trellis: you’ll look up at them; they will tantalize in you the lust of the eye; but they are out of reach: you have not the address to fetch a ladder, and you’ll go away calling them sour.”
Cutting as these words might have been under some circumstances, they drew no blood now. My life was changed; my experience had been varied since I left X — — , but Hunsden could not know this; he had seen me only in the character of Mr. Crimsworth’s clerk — a dependant amongst wealthy strangers, meeting disdain with a hard front, conscious of an unsocial and unattractive exterior, refusing to sue for notice which I was sure would be withheld, declining to evince an admiration which I knew would be scorned as worthless. He could not be aware that since then youth and loveliness had been to me everyday objects; that I had studied them at leisure and closely, and had seen the plain texture of truth under the embroidery of appearance; nor could he, keen-sighted as he was, penetrate into my heart, search my brain, and read my peculiar sympathies and antipathies; he had not known me long enough, or well enough, to perceive how low my feelings would ebb under some influences, powerful over most minds; how high, how fast they would flow under other influences, that perhaps acted with the more intense force on me, because they acted on me alone. Neither could he suspect for an instant the history of my communications with Mdlle. Reuter; secret to him and to all others was the tale of her strange infatuation; her blandishments, her wiles had been seen but by me, and to me only were they known; but they had changed me, for they had proved that I COULD impress. A sweeter secret nestled deeper in my heart; one full of tenderness and as full of strength: it took the sting out of Hunsden’s sarcasm; it kept me unbent by shame, and unstirred by wrath. But of all this I could say nothing — nothing decisive at least; uncertainty sealed my lips, and during the interval of silence by which alone I replied to Mr. Hunsden, I made up my mind to be for the present wholly misjudged by him, and misjudged I was; he thought he had been rather too hard upon me, and that I was crushed by the weight of his upbraidings; so to reassure me he said, doubtless I should mend some day; I was only at the beginning of life yet; and since happily I was not quite without sense, every false step I made would be a good lesson.
Just then I turned my face a little to the light; the approach of twilight, and my position in the window-seat, had, for the last ten minutes, prevented him from studying my countenance; as I moved, however, he caught an expression which he thus interpreted: —
“Confound it! How doggedly self-approving the lad looks! I thought he was fit to die with shame, and there he sits grinning smiles, as good as to say, ‘Let th
e world wag as it will, I’ve the philosopher’s stone in my waistcoat pocket, and the elixir of life in my cupboard; I’m independent of both Fate and Fortune.’”
“Hunsden — you spoke of grapes; I was thinking of a fruit I like better than your X — — hothouse grapes — an unique fruit, growing wild, which I have marked as my own, and hope one day to gather and taste. It is of no use your offering me the draught of bitterness, or threatening me with death by thirst: I have the anticipation of sweetness on my palate; the hope of freshness on my lips; I can reject the unsavoury, and endure the exhausting.”
“For how long?”
“Till the next opportunity for effort; and as the prize of success will be a treasure after my own heart, I’ll bring a bull’s strength to the struggle.”
“Bad luck crushes bulls as easily as bullaces; and, I believe, the fury dogs you: you were born with a wooden spoon in your mouth, depend on it.”
The Complete Novels of Charlotte Brontë Page 212