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

me, had obtained a not inaccurate inkling of my real qualifications, and used to take quiet opportunities of chuckling in my ear his malign glee over their scant measure. For my part, I never troubled myself about this penury. I dearly like to think my own thoughts; I had great pleasure in reading a few books, but not many⁠—preferring always those on whose style or sentiment the writer’s individual nature was plainly stamped; flagging inevitably over characterless books, however clever and meritorious, perceiving well that, as far as my own mind was concerned, God had limited its powers and, its action⁠—thankful, I trust, for the gift bestowed, but unambitious of higher endowments, not restlessly eager after higher culture.

The polite pupil was scarcely gone, when, unceremoniously, without tap, in burst a second intruder. Had I been blind I should have known who this was. A constitutional reserve of manner had by this time told with wholesome and, for me, commodious effect, on the manners of my co-inmates; rarely did I now suffer from rude or intrusive treatment. When I first came, it would happen once and again that a blunt German would clap me on the shoulder, and ask me to run a race; or a riotous Labassecourienne seize me by the arm and drag me towards the playground; urgent proposals to take a swing at the Pas de Géant, or to join in a certain romping hide-and-seek game called Un, deux, trois, were formerly also of hourly occurrence; but all these little attentions had ceased some time ago⁠—ceased, too, without my finding it necessary to be at the trouble of point-blank cutting them short. I had now no familiar demonstration to dread or endure, save from one quarter; and as that was English I could bear it. Ginevra Fanshawe made no scruple of⁠—at times⁠—catching me as I was crossing the carré, whirling me round in a compulsory waltz, and heartily enjoying the mental and physical discomfiture her proceeding induced. Ginevra Fanshawe it was who now broke in upon “my learned leisure.” She carried a huge music-book under her arm.

“Go to your practising,” said I to her at once: “away with you to the little salon!”

“Not till I have had a talk with you, chère amie. I know where you have been spending your vacation, and how you have commenced sacrificing to the graces, and enjoying life like any other belle. I saw you at the concert the other night, dressed, actually, like anybody else. Who is your tailleuse?”

“Tittle-tattle; how prettily it begins! My tailleuse!⁠—a fiddlestick! Come, sheer off, Ginevra. I really don’t want your company.”

“But when I want yours so much, ange farouche, what does a little reluctance on your part signify? Dieu merci! we know how to manoeuvre with our gifted compatriote⁠—the learned ourse Britannique. And so, Ourson, you know Isidore?”

“I know John Bretton.”

“Oh, hush!” (putting her fingers in her ears) “you crack my tympanums with your rude Anglicisms. But, how is our well-beloved John? Do tell me about him. The poor man must be in a sad way. What did he say to my behaviour the other night? Wasn’t I cruel?”

“Do you think I noticed you?”

“It was a delightful evening. Oh, that divine de Hamal! And then to watch the other sulking and dying in the distance; and the old lady⁠—my future mamma-in-law! But I am afraid I and Lady Sara were a little rude in quizzing her.”

“Lady Sara never quizzed her at all; and for what you did, don’t make yourself in the least uneasy: Mrs. Bretton will survive your sneer.”

“She may; old ladies are tough; but that poor son of hers! Do tell me what he said; I saw he was terribly cut up.”

“He said you looked as if at heart you were already Madame de Hamal.”

“Did he?” she cried with delight. “He noticed that? How charming! I thought he would be mad with jealousy.

“Ginevra, have you seriously done with Dr. Bretton? Do you want him to give you up?”

“Oh! you know he can’t do that; but wasn’t he mad?”

“Quite mad,” I assented; “as mad as a March hare.”

“Well, and how ever did you get him home?”

“How ever, indeed! Have you no pity on his poor mother and me? Fancy us holding him tight down in the carriage, and he raving between us, fit to drive everybody delirious. The very coachman went wrong, somehow, and we lost our way.”

“You don’t say so? You are laughing at me. Now, Lucy Snowe⁠—”

“I assure you it is fact⁠—and fact, also, that Dr. Bretton would not stay in the carriage; he broke from us, and would ride outside.”

“And afterwards?”

“Afterwards⁠—when he did reach home⁠—the scene transcends description.”

“Oh, but describe it⁠—you know it is such fun!”

“Fun for you, Miss Fanshawe? but” (with stern gravity) “you know the proverb⁠—‘What is sport to one may be death to another.’ ”

“Go on, there’s a darling Timon.”

“Conscientiously, I cannot, unless you assure me you have some heart.”

“I have⁠—such an immensity, you don’t know!”

“Good! In that case, you will be able to conceive Dr. Graham Bretton rejecting his supper in the first instance⁠—the chicken, the sweetbread prepared for his refreshment, left on the table untouched. Then⁠—but it is of no use dwelling at length on the harrowing details. Suffice it to say, that never, in the most stormy fits and moments of his infancy, had his mother such work to tuck the sheets about him as she had that night.”

“He wouldn’t lie still?”

“He wouldn’t lie still: there it was. The sheets might be tucked in, but the thing was to keep them tucked in.”

“And what did he say?”

“Say! Can’t you imagine him demanding his divine Ginevra, anathematizing that demon, de Hamal⁠—raving about golden locks, blue eyes, white arms, glittering bracelets?”

“No, did he? He saw the bracelet?”

“Saw the bracelet? Yes, as plain as I saw it, and, perhaps, for the first time, he saw also the brand-mark with which its pressure has encircled your arm.