Villette by Charlotte Brontë (free e reader .TXT) 📕

thus view me; but you know and shall learn to acknowledge that I am verging on my nineteenth year.”

“No matter if it were your twenty-ninth; we will anticipate no feelings by discussion and conversation; we will not talk about love.”

“Indeed, indeed!” said she⁠—all in hurry and heat⁠—“you may think to check and hold me in, as much as you please; but I have talked about it, and heard about it too; and a great deal and lately, and disagreeably and detrimentally: and in a way you wouldn’t approve.”

And the vexed, triumphant, pretty, naughty being laughed. I could not discern what she meant, and I would not ask her: I was nonplussed. Seeing, however, the utmost innocence in her countenance⁠—combined with some transient perverseness and petulance⁠—I said at last⁠—

“Who talks to you disagreeably and detrimentally on such matters? Who that has near access to you would dare to do it?”

“Lucy,” replied she more softly, “it is a person who makes me miserable sometimes; and I wish she would keep away⁠—I don’t want her.”

“But who, Paulina, can it be? You puzzle me much.”

“It is⁠—it is my cousin Ginevra. Every time she has leave to visit Mrs. Cholmondeley she calls here, and whenever she finds me alone she begins to talk about her admirers. Love, indeed! You should hear all she has to say about love.”

“Oh, I have heard it,” said I, quite coolly; “and on the whole, perhaps it is as well you should have heard it too: it is not to be regretted, it is all right. Yet, surely, Ginevra’s mind cannot influence yours. You can look over both her head and her heart.”

“She does influence me very much. She has the art of disturbing my happiness and unsettling my opinions. She hurts me through the feelings and people dearest to me.”

“What does she say, Paulina? Give me some idea. There may be counteraction of the damage done.”

“The people I have longest and most esteemed are degraded by her. She does not spare Mrs. Bretton⁠—she does not spare⁠ ⁠… Graham.”

“No, I daresay: and how does she mix up these with her sentiment and her⁠ ⁠… love? She does mix them, I suppose?”

“Lucy, she is insolent; and, I believe, false. You know Dr. Bretton. We both know him. He may be careless and proud; but when was he ever mean or slavish? Day after day she shows him to me kneeling at her feet, pursuing her like her shadow. She⁠—repulsing him with insult, and he imploring her with infatuation. Lucy, is it true? Is any of it true?”

“It may be true that he once thought her handsome: does she give him out as still her suitor?”

“She says she might marry him any day: he only waits her consent.”

“It is these tales which have caused that reserve in your manner towards Graham which your father noticed.”

“They have certainly made me all doubtful about his character. As Ginevra speaks, they do not carry with them the sound of unmixed truth: I believe she exaggerates⁠—perhaps invents⁠—but I want to know how far.”

“Suppose we bring Miss Fanshawe to some proof. Give her an opportunity of displaying the power she boasts.”

“I could do that tomorrow. Papa has asked some gentlemen to dinner, all savants. Graham, who, papa is beginning to discover, is a savant, too⁠—skilled, they say, in more than one branch of science⁠—is among the number. Now I should be miserable to sit at table unsupported, amidst such a party. I could not talk to Messieurs A⁠⸺ and Z⁠⸺, the Parisian Academicians: all my new credit for manner would be put in peril. You and Mrs. Bretton must come for my sake; Ginevra, at a word, will join you.”

“Yes; then I will carry a message of invitation, and she shall have the chance of justifying her character for veracity.”

XXVII The Hôtel Crécy

The morrow turned out a more lively and busy day than we⁠—or than I, at least⁠—had anticipated. It seems it was the birthday of one of the young princes of Labassecour⁠—the eldest, I think, the Duc de Dindonneau, and a general holiday was given in his honour at the schools, and especially at the principal Athénée, or college. The youth of that institution had also concocted, and were to present a loyal address; for which purpose they were to be assembled in the public building where the yearly examinations were conducted, and the prizes distributed. After the ceremony of presentation, an oration, or discours, was to follow from one of the professors.

Several of M. de Bassompierre’s friends⁠—the savants⁠—being more or less connected with the Athénée, they were expected to attend on this occasion; together with the worshipful municipality of Villette, M. le Chevalier Staas, the burgomaster, and the parents and kinsfolk of the Athenians in general. M. de Bassompierre was engaged by his friends to accompany them; his fair daughter would, of course, be of the party, and she wrote a little note to Ginevra and myself, bidding us come early that we might join her.

As Miss Fanshawe and I were dressing in the dormitory of the Rue Fossette, she (Miss F.) suddenly burst into a laugh.

“What now?” I asked; for she had suspended the operation of arranging her attire, and was gazing at me.

“It seems so odd,” she replied, with her usual half-honest half-insolent unreserve, “that you and I should now be so much on a level, visiting in the same sphere; having the same connections.”

“Why, yes,” said I; “I had not much respect for the connections you chiefly frequented awhile ago: Mrs. Cholmondeley and Co. would never have suited me at all.”

“Who are you, Miss Snowe?” she inquired, in a tone of such undisguised and unsophisticated curiosity, as made me laugh in my turn.

“You used to call yourself a nursery governess; when you first came here you really had the care of the children in this house: I have seen you carry little Georgette in your arms, like a bonne⁠—few governesses would have condescended so far⁠—and now