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

her watch; then, in another minute, a lifting of her eyes from the page, and a slight inclination of her head towards the door, denoted that she heard some sound. Presently her brow cleared; and then even my ear, less practised, caught the iron clash of a gate swung to, steps on gravel, lastly the doorbell. He was come. His mother filled the teapot from the urn, she drew nearer the hearth the stuffed and cushioned blue chair⁠—her own chair by right, but I saw there was one who might with impunity usurp it. And when that one came up the stairs⁠—which he soon did, after, I suppose, some such attention to the toilet as the wild and wet night rendered necessary, and strode straight in⁠—

“Is it you, Graham?” said his mother, hiding a glad smile and speaking curtly.

“Who else should it be, mamma?” demanded the Unpunctual, possessing himself irreverently of the abdicated throne.

“Don’t you deserve cold tea, for being late?”

“I shall not get my deserts, for the urn sings cheerily.”

“Wheel yourself to the table, lazy boy: no seat will serve you but mine; if you had one spark of a sense of propriety, you would always leave that chair for the Old Lady.”

“So I should; only the dear Old Lady persists in leaving it for me. How is your patient, mamma?”

“Will she come forward and speak for herself?” said Mrs. Bretton, turning to my corner; and at this invitation, forward I came. Graham courteously rose up to greet me. He stood tall on the hearth, a figure justifying his mother’s unconcealed pride.

“So you are come down,” said he; “you must be better then⁠—much better. I scarcely expected we should meet thus, or here. I was alarmed last night, and if I had not been forced to hurry away to a dying patient, I certainly would not have left you; but my mother herself is something of a doctress, and Martha an excellent nurse. I saw the case was a fainting-fit, not necessarily dangerous. What brought it on, I have yet to learn, and all particulars; meantime, I trust you really do feel better?”

“Much better,” I said calmly. “Much better, I thank you, Dr. John.”

For, reader, this tall young man⁠—this darling son⁠—this host of mine⁠—this Graham Bretton, was Dr. John: he, and no other; and, what is more, I ascertained this identity scarcely with surprise. What is more, when I heard Graham’s step on the stairs, I knew what manner of figure would enter, and for whose aspect to prepare my eyes. The discovery was not of today, its dawn had penetrated my perceptions long since. Of course I remembered young Bretton well; and though ten years (from sixteen to twenty-six) may greatly change the boy as they mature him to the man, yet they could bring no such utter difference as would suffice wholly to blind my eyes, or baffle my memory. Dr. John Graham Bretton retained still an affinity to the youth of sixteen: he had his eyes; he had some of his features; to wit, all the excellently-moulded lower half of the face; I found him out soon. I first recognised him on that occasion, noted several chapters back, when my unguardedly-fixed attention had drawn on me the mortification of an implied rebuke. Subsequent observation confirmed, in every point, that early surmise. I traced in the gesture, the port, and the habits of his manhood, all his boy’s promise. I heard in his now deep tones the accent of former days. Certain turns of phrase, peculiar to him of old, were peculiar to him still; and so was many a trick of eye and lip, many a smile, many a sudden ray levelled from the irid, under his well-charactered brow.

To say anything on the subject, to hint at my discovery, had not suited my habits of thought, or assimilated with my system of feeling. On the contrary, I had preferred to keep the matter to myself. I liked entering his presence covered with a cloud he had not seen through, while he stood before me under a ray of special illumination which shone all partial over his head, trembled about his feet, and cast light no farther.

Well I knew that to him it could make little difference, were I to come forward and announce, “This is Lucy Snowe!” So I kept back in my teacher’s place; and as he never asked my name, so I never gave it. He heard me called “Miss,” and “Miss Lucy;” he never heard the surname, “Snowe.” As to spontaneous recognition⁠—though I, perhaps, was still less changed than he⁠—the idea never approached his mind, and why should I suggest it?

During tea, Dr. John was kind, as it was his nature to be; that meal over, and the tray carried out, he made a cosy arrangement of the cushions in a corner of the sofa, and obliged me to settle amongst them. He and his mother also drew to the fire, and ere we had sat ten minutes, I caught the eye of the latter fastened steadily upon me. Women are certainly quicker in some things than men.

“Well,” she exclaimed, presently, “I have seldom seen a stronger likeness! Graham, have you observed it?”

“Observed what? What ails the Old Lady now? How you stare, mamma! One would think you had an attack of second sight.”

“Tell me, Graham, of whom does that young lady remind you?” pointing to me.

“Mamma, you put her out of countenance. I often tell you abruptness is your fault; remember, too, that to you she is a stranger, and does not know your ways.”

“Now, when she looks down; now, when she turns sideways, who is she like, Graham?”

“Indeed, mamma, since you propound the riddle, I think you ought to solve it!”

“And you have known her some time, you say⁠—ever since you first began to attend the school in the Rue Fossette;⁠—yet you never mentioned to me that singular resemblance!”

“I could not mention a thing of which I never thought, and which I do not now acknowledge.