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

I sought it; his hand, as quick, had snatched it up. He had hidden it in his waistcoat pocket. If my trouble had wrought with a whit less stress and reality, I doubt whether he would ever have acknowledged or restored it. Tears of temperature one degree cooler than those I shed would only have amused Dr. John.

Pleasure at regaining made me forget merited reproach for the teasing torment; my joy was great; it could not be concealed; yet I think it broke out more in countenance than language. I said little.

“Are you satisfied now?” asked Dr. John.

I replied that I was⁠—satisfied and happy.

“Well then,” he proceeded, “how do you feel physically? Are you growing calmer? Not much; for you tremble like a leaf still.”

It seemed to me, however, that I was sufficiently calm, at least I felt no longer terrified. I expressed myself composed.

“You are able, consequently, to tell me what you saw? Your account was quite vague, do you know? You looked white as the wall; but you only spoke of ‘something,’ not defining what. Was it a man? Was it an animal? What was it?”

“I never will tell exactly what I saw,” said I, “unless some one else sees it too, and then I will give corroborative testimony; but otherwise, I shall be discredited and accused of dreaming.”

“Tell me,” said Dr. Bretton; “I will hear it in my professional character: I look on you now from a professional point of view, and I read, perhaps, all you would conceal⁠—in your eye, which is curiously vivid and restless; in your cheek, which the blood has forsaken; in your hand, which you cannot steady. Come, Lucy, speak and tell me.”

“You would laugh⁠—?”

“If you don’t tell me you shall have no more letters.”

“You are laughing now.”

“I will again take away that single epistle; being mine, I think I have a right to reclaim it.”

I felt raillery in his words: it made me grave and quiet; but I folded up the letter and covered it from sight.

“You may hide it, but I can possess it any moment I choose. You don’t know my skill in sleight of hand; I might practise as a conjuror if I liked. Mamma says sometimes, too, that I have a harmonizing property of tongue and eye; but you never saw that in me⁠—did you, Lucy?”

“Indeed⁠—indeed⁠—when you were a mere boy I used to see both, far more then than now⁠—for now you are strong, and strength dispenses with subtlety. But still⁠—Dr. John, you have what they call in this country un air fin, that nobody can, mistake. Madame Beck saw it, and⁠—”

“And liked it,” said he, laughing, “because she has it herself. But, Lucy, give me that letter⁠—you don’t really care for it.”

To this provocative speech I made no answer. Graham in mirthful mood must not be humoured too far. Just now there was a new sort of smile playing about his lips⁠—very sweet, but it grieved me somehow⁠—a new sort of light sparkling in his eyes, not hostile, but not reassuring. I rose to go⁠—I bid him good night a little sadly.

His sensitiveness⁠—that peculiar, apprehensive, detective faculty of his⁠—felt in a moment the unspoken complaint⁠—the scarce-thought reproach. He asked quietly if I was offended. I shook my head as implying a negative.

“Permit me, then, to speak a little seriously to you before you go. You are in a highly nervous state. I feel sure from what is apparent in your look and manner, however well controlled, that whilst alone this evening in that dismal, perishing sepulchral garret⁠—that dungeon under the leads, smelling of damp and mould, rank with phthisis and catarrh⁠—a place you never ought to enter⁠—that you saw, or thought you saw, some appearance peculiarly calculated to impress the imagination. I know that you are not, nor ever were, subject to material terrors, fears of robbers, etc.⁠—I am not so sure that a visitation, bearing a spectral character, would not shake your very mind. Be calm now. This is all a matter of the nerves, I see; but just specify the vision.”

“You will tell nobody?”

“Nobody⁠—most certainly. You may trust me as implicitly as you did Père Silas. Indeed, the doctor is perhaps the safer confessor of the two, though he has not grey hair.”

“You will not laugh?”

“Perhaps I may, to do you good, but not in scorn. Lucy, I feel as a friend towards you, though your timid nature is slow to trust.”

He now looked like a friend: that indescribable smile and sparkle were gone; those formidable arched curves of lip, nostril, eyebrow, were depressed; repose marked his attitude⁠—attention sobered his aspect. Won to confidence, I told him exactly what I had seen: ere now I had narrated to him the legend of the house⁠—whiling away with that narrative an hour of a certain mild October afternoon, when he and I rode through Bois l’Etang.

He sat and thought, and while he thought, we heard them all coming downstairs.

“Are they going to interrupt?” said he, glancing at the door with an annoyed expression.

“They will not come here,” I answered; for we were in the little salon where Madame never sat in the evening, and where it was by mere chance that heat was still lingering in the stove. They passed the door and went on to the salle-à-manger.

“Now,” he pursued, “they will talk about thieves, burglars, and so on: let them do so⁠—mind you say nothing, and keep your resolution of describing your nun to nobody. She may appear to you again: don’t start.”

“You think then,” I said, with secret horror, “she came out of my brain, and is now gone in there, and may glide out again at an hour and a day when I look not for her?”

“I think it a case of spectral illusion; I fear, following on and resulting from long-continued mental conflict.”

“Oh, Doctor John⁠—I shudder at the thought of being liable to such an illusion! It seemed so real. Is there no cure?⁠—no preventive?”

“Happiness is the cure⁠—a cheerful mind the preventive⁠—cultivate both.”

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