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

were too wide for one of her hands, and she had to use both in wielding them; the weight of the silver cream-ewer, the bread-and-butter plates, the very cup and saucer, tasked her insufficient strength and dexterity; but she would lift this, hand that, and luckily contrived through it all to break nothing. Candidly speaking, I thought her a little busybody; but her father, blind like other parents, seemed perfectly content to let her wait on him, and even wonderfully soothed by her offices.

“She is my comfort!” he could not help saying to Mrs. Bretton. That lady had her own “comfort” and nonpareil on a much larger scale, and, for the moment, absent; so she sympathised with his foible.

This second “comfort” came on the stage in the course of the evening. I knew this day had been fixed for his return, and was aware that Mrs. Bretton had been expecting him through all its hours. We were seated round the fire, after tea, when Graham joined our circle: I should rather say, broke it up⁠—for, of course, his arrival made a bustle; and then, as Mr. Graham was fasting, there was refreshment to be provided. He and Mr. Home met as old acquaintance; of the little girl he took no notice for a time.

His meal over, and numerous questions from his mother answered, he turned from the table to the hearth. Opposite where he had placed himself was seated Mr. Home, and at his elbow, the child. When I say “child” I use an inappropriate and undescriptive term⁠—a term suggesting any picture rather than that of the demure little person in a mourning frock and white chemisette, that might just have fitted a good-sized doll⁠—perched now on a high chair beside a stand, whereon was her toy work-box of white varnished wood, and holding in her hands a shred of a handkerchief, which she was professing to hem, and at which she bored perseveringly with a needle, that in her fingers seemed almost a skewer, pricking herself ever and anon, marking the cambric with a track of minute red dots; occasionally starting when the perverse weapon⁠—swerving from her control⁠—inflicted a deeper stab than usual; but still silent, diligent, absorbed, womanly.

Graham was at that time a handsome, faithless-looking youth of sixteen. I say faithless-looking, not because he was really of a very perfidious disposition, but because the epithet strikes me as proper to describe the fair, Celtic (not Saxon) character of his good looks; his waved light auburn hair, his supple symmetry, his smile frequent, and destitute neither of fascination nor of subtlety (in no bad sense). A spoiled, whimsical boy he was in those days.

“Mother,” he said, after eyeing the little figure before him in silence for some time, and when the temporary absence of Mr. Home from the room relieved him from the half-laughing bashfulness, which was all he knew of timidity⁠—“Mother, I see a young lady in the present society to whom I have not been introduced.”

“Mr. Home’s little girl, I suppose you mean,” said his mother.

“Indeed, ma’am,” replied her son, “I consider your expression of the least ceremonious: Miss Home I should certainly have said, in venturing to speak of the gentlewoman to whom I allude.”

“Now, Graham, I will not have that child teased. Don’t flatter yourself that I shall suffer you to make her your butt.”

“Miss Home,” pursued Graham, undeterred by his mother’s remonstrance, “might I have the honour to introduce myself, since no one else seems willing to render you and me that service? Your slave, John Graham Bretton.”

She looked at him; he rose and bowed quite gravely. She deliberately put down thimble, scissors, work; descended with precaution from her perch, and curtsying with unspeakable seriousness, said, “How do you do?”

“I have the honour to be in fair health, only in some measure fatigued with a hurried journey. I hope, ma’am, I see you well?”

“Tor-rer-ably well,” was the ambitious reply of the little woman and she now essayed to regain her former elevation, but finding this could not be done without some climbing and straining⁠—a sacrifice of decorum not to be thought of⁠—and being utterly disdainful of aid in the presence of a strange young gentleman, she relinquished the high chair for a low stool: towards that low stool Graham drew in his chair.

“I hope, ma’am, the present residence, my mother’s house, appears to you a convenient place of abode?”

“Not par-tic-er-er-ly; I want to go home.”

“A natural and laudable desire, ma’am; but one which, notwithstanding, I shall do my best to oppose. I reckon on being able to get out of you a little of that precious commodity called amusement, which mamma and Mistress Snowe there fail to yield me.”

“I shall have to go with papa soon: I shall not stay long at your mother’s.”

“Yes, yes; you will stay with me, I am sure. I have a pony on which you shall ride, and no end of books with pictures to show you.”

“Are you going to live here now?”

“I am. Does that please you? Do you like me?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“I think you queer.”

“My face, ma’am?”

“Your face and all about you: You have long red hair.”

“Auburn hair, if you please: mamma, calls it auburn, or golden, and so do all her friends. But even with my ‘long red hair,’ ” (and he waved his mane with a sort of triumph⁠—tawny he himself well knew that it was, and he was proud of the leonine hue), “I cannot possibly be queerer than is your ladyship.”

“You call me queer?”

“Certainly.”

(After a pause), “I think I shall go to bed.”

“A little thing like you ought to have been in bed many hours since; but you probably sat up in the expectation of seeing me?”

“No, indeed.”

“You certainly wished to enjoy the pleasure of my society. You knew I was coming home, and would wait to have a look at me.”

“I sat up for papa, and not for you.”

“Very good, Miss Home. I am going to be a favourite: preferred before papa soon, I daresay.”

She wished Mrs. Bretton and myself good night; she