Turning quick upon me, a large eye, under long lashes, flashed over me, the intruder: the lashes were as dark as long, and they softened with their pencilling the orb they guarded.
‘Ah! you are come!’ she breathed out, in a soft, quiet voice, and she smiled slowly, and gazed intently.
I knew her now. Having only once seen that sort of face, with that cast of fine and delicate featuring, I could not but know her.
‘Miss de Bassompierre,’ I pronounced.
‘No,’ was the reply, ‘not Miss de Bassompierre for you.’ I did not inquire who then she might be, but waited voluntary information.
‘You are changed, but still you are yourself,’ she said, approaching nearer. ‘I remember you well—your countenance, the colour of your hair, the outline of your face ...’
I had moved to the fire, and she stood opposite, and gazed into me; and as she gazed, her face became gradually more and more expressive of thought and feeling, till at last a dimness quenched her clear vision.
‘It makes me almost cry to look so far back,’ said she; ‘but as to being sorry, or sentimental, don’t think it: on the contrary, I am quite pleased and glad.’
Interested, yet altogether at fault, I knew not what to say. At last I stammered, ‘I think I never met you till that night, some weeks ago, when you were hurt ... ?’
She smiled. ‘You have forgotten then that I have sat on your knee, been lifted in your arms, even shared your pillow? You no longer remember the night when I came crying, like a naughty little child as I was, to your bedside, and you took me in? You have no memory for the comfort and protection by which you soothed an acute distress? Go back to Bretton. Remember Mr. Home.’
At last I saw it all. ‘And you are little Polly?’
‘I am Paulina Mary Home de Bassompierre.’
How time can change! Little Polly wore in her pale, small features, her fairy symmetry, her varying expression, a certain promise of interest and grace; but Paulina Mary was become beautiful—not with the beauty that strikes the eye like a rose—orbed, ruddy, and replete; not with the plump, and pink, and flaxen attributes of her blond cousin Ginevra; but her seventeen years had brought her a refined and tender charm which did not lie in complexion, though hers was fair and clear; nor in outline, though her features were sweet, and her limbs perfectly turned; but, I think, rather in a subdued glow from the soul outward. This was not an opaque vase, of material however costly, but a lamp chastely lucent, guarding from extinction, yet not hiding from worship, a flame vital and vestal. In speaking of her attractions, I would not exaggerate language; but, indeed, they seemed to me very real and engaging. What though all was on a small scale, it was the perfume which gave this white violet distinction, and made it superior to the broadest camelia—the fullest dahlia that ever bloomed.
‘Ah! and you remember the old time at Bretton?’
‘Better,’ said she, ‘better, perhaps, than you. I remember it with minute distinctness: not only the time, but the days of the time, and the hours of the days.’
‘You must have forgotten some things?’
‘Very little, I imagine.’
‘You were then a little creature of quick feelings: you must, long ere this, have outgrown the impressions with which joy and grief, affection and bereavement, stamped your mind ten years ago?’
‘You think I have forgotten whom I liked, and in what degree I liked them when a child?’
‘The sharpness must be gone—the point, the poignancy—the deep imprint must be softened away and effaced?’
‘I have a good memory for those days.’
She looked as if she had. Her eyes were the eyes of one who can remember; one whose childhood does not fade like a dream, nor whose youth vanish like a sunbeam. She would not take life, loosely and incoherently, in parts, and let one season slip as she entered on another: she would retain and add; often review from the commencement, and so grow in harmony and consistency as she grew in years. Still I could not quite admit the conviction that all the pictures which now crowded upon me were vivid and visible to her. Her fond attachments, her sports and contests with a well-loved playmate, the patient, true devotion of her child’s heart, her fears, her delicate reserves, her little trials, the last piercing pain of separation, ... I retraced these things, and shook my head incredulous. She persisted. ‘The child of seven years lives in the girl of seventeen,’ said she.
‘You used to be excessively fond of Mrs. Bretton,’ I remarked, intending to test her. She set me right at once.
‘Not excessively fond,’ said she; ‘I liked her: I respected her, as I should now: she seems to me very little altered.’
‘She is not much changed,’ I assented.
We were silent a few minutes. Glancing round the room, she said—
‘There are several things here that used to be at Bretton. I remember that pincushion and that looking-glass.’
Evidently she was not deceived in her estimate of her own memory; not, at least, so far.
‘You think, then, you would have known Mrs. Bretton?’ I went on.
‘I perfectly remembered her; the turn of her features, her olive complexion, and black hair, her height, her walk, her voice.’
‘Dr. Bretton, of course,’ I pursued, ‘would be out of the question: and, indeed, as I saw your first interview with him, I am aware that he appeared to you as a stranger.’
‘That first night I was puzzled,’ she answered.
‘How did the recognition between him and your father come about?’
‘They exchanged cards. The names Graham Bretton and Home de Bassompierre give rise to questions and explanations. That was on the second day; but before then I was beginning to know something.’
‘How—know something?’
‘Why,’ she said, ‘how strange it is that most people seem so slow to feel the truth—not to see, but feel! When Dr. Bretton had visited me a few times, and sat near and talked to me; when I had observed the look in his eyes, the expression about his mouth, the form of his chin, the carriage of his head, and all that we do observe in persons who approach us—how could I avoid being led by association to think of Graham Bretton? Graham was slighter than he, and not grown so tall, and had a smoother face, and longer and lighter hair, and spoke—not so deeply—more like a girl; but yet he is Graham, just as I am little Polly, or you are Lucy Snowe.’
I thought the same, but I wondered to find my thoughts hers: there are certain things in which we so rarely meet with our double that it seems a miracle when that chance befalls.
‘You and Graham were once playmates.’
‘And do you remember that?’ she questioned in her turn.
‘No doubt he will remember it also,’ said I.
‘I have not asked him: few things would surprise me so much as to find that he did. I suppose his disposition is still gay and careless?’
‘Was it so formerly? Did it so strike you? Do you thus remember him?’
‘I scarcely remember him in any other light. Sometimes he was studious; sometimes he was merry: but whether busy with his books or disposed for play, it was chiefly the books or game he thought of; not much heeding those with whom he read or amused himself.’
‘Yet to you he was partial.’
‘Partial to me? Oh, no! he had other playmates—his school-fellows; I was of little consequence to him, except on Sundays: yes, he was kind on Sundays. I remember walking with him hand in hand to St. Mary’s, and his finding the places in my prayer-book; and how good and still he was on Sunday evenings! So mild for such a proud, lively boy; so patient with all my blunders in reading; and so wonderfully to be depended on, for he never spent those evenings from home: I had a constant fear that he would accept some invitation and forsake us; but he never did, nor seemed ever to wish to do it. Thus, of course, it can be no more. I suppose Sunday will now be Dr. Bretton’s dining-out day ... ?’
‘Children, come down!’ here called Mrs. Bretton from below. Paulina would still ha
ve lingered, but I inclined to descend: we went down.
CHAPTER 25
The Little Countess
Cheerful as my godmother naturally was, and entertaining as, for our sakes, she made a point of being, there was no true enjoyment that evening at La Terrasse, till, through the wild howl of the winter-night, were heard the signal sounds of arrival. How often, while women and girls sit warm at snug firesides, their hearts and imaginations are doomed to divorce from the comfort surrounding their persons, forced out by night to wander through dark ways, to dare stress of weather, to contend with the snow-blast, to wait at lonely gates and stiles in wildest storms, watching and listening to see and hear the father, the son, the husband coming home.
Father and son came at last to the chateau: for the Count de Bassompierre that night accompanied Dr. Bretton. I know not which of our trio heard the horses first; the asperity, the violence of the weather warranted our running down into the hall to meet and greet the two riders as they came in; but they warned us to keep our distance: both were white—two mountains of snow; and indeed Mrs. Bretton, seeing their condition, ordered them instantly to the kitchen; prohibiting them, at their peril, from setting foot on her carpeted staircase till they had severally put off that mask of Old Christmas they now affected. Into the kitchen, however, we could not help following them: it was a large old Dutch kitchen, picturesque and pleasant. The little white Countess danced in a circle about her equally white sire, clapping her hands and crying,—
‘Papa, papa, you look like an enormous Polar bear.’
The bear shook himself, and the little sprite fled far from the frozen shower. Back she came, however, laughing, and eager to aid in removing the arctic disguise. The Count, at last issuing from his dreadnought, threatened to overwhelm her with it as with an avalanche.
‘Come, then,’ said she, bending to invite the fall, and when it was playfully advanced above her head, bounding out of reach like some little chamois.
Her movements had the supple softness, the velvet grace of a kitten; her laugh was clearer than the ring of silver and crystal: as she took her sire’s cold hands and rubbed them, and stood on tiptoe to reach his lips for a kiss, there seemed to shine round her a halo of loving delight. The grave and reverend signior looked down on her as men do look on what is the apple of their eye.
‘Mrs. Bretton,’ said he; ‘what am I to do with this daughter or daughterling of mine? She neither grows in wisdom nor in stature. Don’t you find her pretty nearly as much the child as she was ten years ago?’
‘She cannot be more the child than this great boy of mine,’ said Mrs. Bretton, who was in conflict with her son about some change of dress she deemed advisable, and which he resisted. He stood leaning against the Dutch dresser, laughing and keeping her at arm’s length.
‘Come, mama,’ said he, ‘by way of compromise, and to secure for us inward as well as outward warmth, let us have a Christmas wassail-cup, and toast Old England here, on the hearth.’
So, while the Count stood by the fire, and Paulina Mary still danced to and fro—happy in the liberty of the wide hall-like kitchen—Mrs. Bretton herself instructed Martha to spice and heat the wassail-bowl, and, pouring the draught into a Bretton flagon, it was served round, reaming hot, by means of a small silver vessel, which I recognised as Graham’s christening-cup.
‘Here’s to Auld Lang Syne!’ said the Count; holding the glancing cup on high. Then, looking at Mrs. Bretton:—
‘We twa ha’ paidlet i’ the burn
Fra morning sun till dine,
But seas between us braid ha’ roared
Sin’ auld lang syne.
‘And surely ye’ll be your pint-stoup,
As surely I’ll be mine;
And we’ll taste a cup o’ kindness yet
For auld lang syne. ’
‘Scotch! Scotch!’ cried Paulina; ‘papa is talking Scotch: and Scotch he is, partly. We are Home and De Bassompierre, Caledonian and Gallic.’
‘And is that a Scotch reel you are dancing, you Highland fairy?’ asked her father. ‘Mrs. Bretton, there will be a green ring growing up in the middle of your kitchen shortly. I would not answer for her being quite cannie: she is a strange little mortal.’
‘Tell Lucy to dance with me, papa: there is Lucy Snowe.’
Mr. Home (there was still quite as much about him of plain Mr. Home as of proud Count de Bassompierre) held his hand out to me, saying kindly, ‘he remembered me well; and, even had his own memory been less trustworthy, my name was so often on his daughter’s lips, and he had listened to so many long tales about me, I should seem like an old acquaintance.’
Every one now had tasted the wassail-cup except Paulina, whose pas de fée, ou de fantaisie, nobody thought of interrupting to offer so profanatory a draught; but she was not to be overlooked, nor baulked of her mortal privileges.
‘Let me taste,’ said she to Graham, as he was putting the cup on the shelf of the dresser out of her reach.
Mrs. Bretton and Mr. Home were now engaged in conversation. Dr.John had not been unobservant of the fairy’s dance; he had watched it, and he had liked it. To say nothing of the softness and beauty of the movements, eminently grateful to his grace-loving eye, that ease in his mother’s house charmed him, for it set him at ease: again she seemed a child for him—again, almost his playmate. I wondered how he would speak to her; I had not yet seen him address her; his first words proved that the old days of ‘little Polly’ had been recalled to his mind by this evening’s child-like light-heartedness.
‘Your ladyship wishes for the tankard?’
‘I think I said so. I think I intimated as much.’
‘Couldn’t consent to a step of the kind on any account. Sorry for it, but couldn’t do it.’
‘Why? I am quite well now: it can’t break my collar-bone again, or dislocate my shoulder. Is it wine?’
‘No; nor dew.’
‘I don’t want dew; I don’t like dew: but what is it?’
‘Ale—strong ale—old October; brewed, perhaps, when I was born.’
‘It must be curious: is it good?’
‘Excessively good.’
And he took it down, administered to himself a second dose of this mighty elixir, expressed in his mischievous eyes extreme contentment with the same, and solemnly replaced the cup on the shelf.
‘I should like a little,’ said Paulina, looking up; ‘I never had any “old October:” is it sweet?’
‘Perilously sweet,’ said Graham.
She continued to look up exactly with the countenance of a child that longs for some prohibited dainty. At last the Doctor relented, took it down, and indulged himself in the gratification of letting her taste from his hand; his eyes, always expressive in the revelation of pleasurable feelings, luminously and smilingly avowed that it was a gratification; and he prolonged it by so regulating the position of the cup that only a drop at a time could reach the rosy, sipping lips by which its brim was courted.
‘A little more—a little more,’ said she, petulantly touching his hand with her forefinger, to make him incline the cup more generously and yieldingly. ‘It smells of spice and sugar, but I can’t taste it; your wrist is so stiff, and you are so stingy.’
He indulged her, whispering, however, with gravity: ‘Don’t tell my mother or Lucy; they wouldn’t approve.’
‘Nor do I,’ said she, passing into another tone and manner as soon as she had fairly assayed the beverage, just as if it had acted upon her like some disenchanting draught, undoing the work of a wizard: ‘I find it anything but sweet; it is bitter and hot, and takes away my breath. Your old October was only desirable while forbidden. Thank you, no more.’
And, with a slight bend—careless, but as graceful as her dance—she glided from him and rejoined her father.
I think she had spoken truth: the child of seven, was in the girl of seventeen.
Graham looked after her a little baffled, a little puzzled; his eye was on her a good deal during the rest
of the evening, but she did not seem to notice him.
As we ascended to the drawing-room for tea, she took her father’s arm: her natural place seemed to be at his side; her eyes and her ears were dedicated to him. He and Mrs. Bretton were the chief talkers of our little party, and Paulina was their best listener, attending closely to all that was said, prompting the repetition of this or that trait or adventure.
‘And where were you at such a time, papa? And what did you say then? And tell Mrs. Bretton what happened on that occasion.’ Thus she drew him out.
She did not again yield to any effervescence of glee; the infantine sparkle was exhaled for the night: she was soft, thoughtful, and docile. It was pretty to see her bid good-night; her manner to Graham was touched with dignity: in her very slight smile and quiet bow spoke the Countess, and Graham could not but look grave, and bend responsive. I saw he hardly knew how to blend together in his ideas the dancing fairy and delicate dame.
Next day, when we were all assembled round the breakfast table, shivering and fresh from the morning’s chill ablutions, Mrs. Bretton pronounced a decree that nobody, who was not forced by dire necessity, should quit her house that day.
Indeed, egress seemed next to impossible; the drift darkened the lower panes of the casement, and, on looking out, one saw the sky and air vexed and dim, the wind and snow in angry conflict. There was no fall now, but what had already descended was torn up from the earth, whirled round by brief shrieking gusts, and cast into a hundred fantastic forms.
The Countess seconded Mrs. Bretton.
‘Papa shall not go out,’ said she, placing a seat for herself beside her father’s arm-chair. ‘I will look after him. You won’t go into town, will you, papa?’
‘Aye, and No,’ was the answer. ‘If you and Mrs. Bretton are very good to me, Polly—kind, you know, and attentive; if you pet me in a very nice manner, and make much of me, I may possibly be induced to wait an hour after breakfast and see whether this razor-edged wind settles. But, you see, you give me no breakfast; you offer me nothing: you let me starve.’
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