Strictly Books: Villette and Essay on Nature by R Jefferies

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Villette by Charlotte Bronte Chapter 7 Villette I woke next morning with courage revived and spirits refreshed. Physical debility no longer enervated my judgment. My mind felt prompt and clear. Just as I finished dressing a tap came to the door. I said Come in, expecting the chambermaid, whereas a rough man walked in and said Give me your keys, Miss Why? I asked. Give, he said impatiently, and as he half snatched them away from my hand, he added All right, have your trunk soon. Fortunately it did turn out all right. He was from the custom house. Where to go to get some breakfast I could not tell, but I proceeded, not without hesitation, to descend. I now observed what I had not noticed in my extreme weariness last night, viz. that this inn was in fact a large hotel, and as I slowly descended the broad staircase, halting on each step, for I was in wonderfully little haste to get down, I gazed at the high ceiling above me, at the painted walls around, at the wide windows which filled the house with light, at the veined marble I trode, for the steps were all of marbles, though uncarpeted and not very clean, and contrasting all this with the dimensions of the closet assigned to me as a chamber with the extreme modesty of its appointments, I fell into a philosophizing mood. Much I marvelled at the sagacity evinced by waiters and chambermaids in proportioning the accommodation to the guest. How could inservants and ship stewardesses everywhere tell at a glance that I, for instance, was an individual of no social significance and little burdened by cash. They did know it, evidently. I saw quite well that they all, in a moment's calculation, estimated me at about the same fractional value. The fact seemed to me curious and pregnant. I would not disguise from myself what it indicated, yet managed to keep up my spirits pretty well, under its pressure. Having at last landed in a great hall full of skylight glare, I made my way somehow to what proved to be the coffee room. It cannot be denied that on entering this room I trembled somewhat, felt uncertain, solitary, wretched, wish to heaven I knew whether I was doing right or wrong, felt convinced it was the last, but could not help myself. Acting in the spirit and with the calm of a fatalist, I sat down at a small table to which a waiter presently brought me some breakfast, and I partook of that meal in a frame of mind not greatly calculated to favour digestion. There were many other people breakfasting at other tables in the room. I should have felt rather more happy if amongst them all I could have seen any women, however there was not one. All present were men, but nobody seemed to think I was doing anything strange. One or two gentlemen glanced at me occasionally, but none stared obtrusively. I suppose if there was anything eccentric in the business, they accounted for it by this word Longlaise. Breakfast over, I must again move. In what direction? Go to Villette, said an inward voice, prompted doubtless, by the recollection of this slight sentence uttered carelessly and at random by Miss Fanshaw as she bid me goodbye. I wish you would come to Madame Beck's. She has some marmots, which you might look after. She wants an English gouvernant, or was wanting one two months ago. Who was Madame Beck? And where did she live? I knew not. I had asked, but the question passed unheard. Miss Fanshaw, hurried away by her friends, left it unanswered. I presumed Villette to be her residence. To Villette I would go. The distance was forty miles. I knew I was catching at straws, but in the wide and weltering deep where I found myself, I would have caught at Cobwebs. Having inquired about the means of travelling to Villette and secured a seat in the diligence, I departed on the strength of this outline, this shadow of a project, before you pronounce on the rashness of the preceding reader, look back to the point whence I started, consider the desert I had left, note how little I periled. Mine was the game where the player cannot lose and may win. Of an artistic temperament I deny that I am, yet I must possess something of the artist's faculty of making the most of present pleasure, that is to say, when it is of the kind to my taste. I enjoyed that day, though we travelled slowly, though it was cold, though it rained. Somewhat bare, flat, and treeless was the route along which our journey lay, and slimy canals crept like half torpid green snakes beside the road, and formal pollard willows edged level fields, tilled like kitchen garden beds. The sky too was monotonously grey, the atmosphere was stagnant and humid, yet amidst all these deadening influences, my fancy budded fresh and my heart basked in sunshine. These feelings, however, were well kept in check by the secret but ceaseless consciousness of anxiety, lying in wait on enjoyment, like tiger crouched in a jungle. The breathing of that beast of prey was in my ear always, his fierce heart panted close against mine. He never stirred in his lair, but I felt him. I knew he waited only for sundown to bound ravenous from his ambush. I had hoped we might reach Villette ere night set in, and that thus I might escape to the deeper embarrassment which obscurity seems to throw around a first arrival at an unknown born, but what with our slow progress and long stoppages, what with a thick fog and small, dense rain, darkness that might almost be felt had settled on the city by the time we gained its suburbs. I know we passed through a gate where soldiers were stationed. So much I could see by lamplight, then, having left behind us the miry chauss, we rattled over a pavement of strangely rough and flinty surface. At a bureau the diligence stopped and the passengers alighted. My first business was to get my trunk, a small matter enough, but important to me, understanding that it was best not to be importunate or over eager about luggage, but to wait and watch quietly the delivery of other boxes till I saw my own, and then promptly came and secure it, I stood apart, my eye fixed on that part of the vehicle in which I had seen my little portmanteau safely stowed, and upon which piles of additional bags and boxes were now heaped. One by one I saw these removed, lowered, and seized on. I was sure mine ought to be by this time visible. It was not. I had tied on the direction card with a piece of green ribbon that I might know it at a glance. Not a fringe or fragment of green was perceptible. Every package was removed, every tin case and brown paper parcel, the oil cloth cover was lifted. I saw with distinct vision that not an umbrella, cloak, cane, hat box or band box remained, and my portmanteau with my few clothes and the little pocket book enclasping the remnant of my fifteen pounds. Where were they? I asked this question now, but I could not ask it then. I could say nothing whatever, not possessing a phrase of speaking French, and it was French and French only the whole world seemed now gabbling round me. What should I do? Approaching the conductor I just laid my hand on his arm, pointed to a trunk, then to the diligence roof, and tried to express a question with my eyes. He misunderstood me, seized the trunk indicated, and was about to hoist it on the vehicle. Let that alone, will you? said a voice in good English, then in correction Quescuvou feton set ma letemoi but I had heard the fatherland accents. They rejoiced my heart, and I turned. Sir, said I, appealing to the stranger, without in my distress noticing what he was like, I cannot speak French. May I entreat you to ask this man what he has done with my trunk? Without discriminating for the moment what sort of face it was to which my eyes were raised, and on which they were fixed, I felt in its expression, half surprise at my appeal and half doubt of the wisdom of interference. Do ask him, I would do as much for you, said I. I don't know whether he smiled, but he said, in a gentlemanly tone, that is to say a tone not hard, nor terrifying. What sort of trunk was yours? I described it, including in my description the green ribbon, and forthwith he took the conductor under hand, and I felt through all the storm of French which followed, that he raked him fore and aft. Presently he returned to me. The fellow averse he was overloaded and confesses that he removed your trunk after you saw it put on and has left it behind at Bumerin with the other parcels. He has promised, however, to forward it tomorrow, the day after, therefore you will find it safe at this bureau. Thank you, said I, but my heart sank. Meantime, what should I do? Perhaps this English gentleman saw the failure of courage in my face. He inquired kindly have you any friends in this city? No, and I don't know where to go. There was a little pause, in the course of which, as he turned more fully to the light of a lamp above him, I saw that he was a young, distinguished and handsome man. He might be a lord for anything I knew. Nature had made him good enough for a prince, I thought. His face was very pleasant. He looked high but not arrogant, manly but not overbearing. I was turning away in the deep consciousness of all absence of claim to look further for help from such a one as he. Was all your money in the trunk? he asked, stopping me. How thankful was I to be able to answer with truth. No, I have enough in my purse, for I had near twenty francs, to keep me at a quiet inn till the day after tomorrow, but I am quite a stranger in Villette and don't know the streets and the inns. I can give you the address of such an inn as you want, said he, and it is not far off. With my direction you will easily find it. He tore a leaf from his pocket book, wrote a few words and gave it to me. I did think him kind, and as to distrusting him or his advice or his address, I should almost as soon have thought of distrusting the Bible. There was goodness in his countenance and honour in his bright eyes. Your shortest way will be to follow the boulevard and across the park, he continued, but it is too late and too dark for a woman to go through the park alone. I will step with you thus far. He moved on and I followed him through the darkness and the small, soaking rain. The boulevard was all deserted, its path miry, the water dripping from its trees. The park was black as midnight. In the double gloom of trees and fog I could not see my guide, I could only follow his tread. Not the least fear had I believed I would have followed that frank tread through continual night to the world's end. Now, said he, when the park was traversed, you will go along this broad street until you come to some steps. Two lamps will show you where they are. These steps you will descend. A narrower street lies below that. Following that at the bottom you will find your inn. They speak English there, so your difficulties are now pretty well over. Good night. Good night, sir, said I, accept my sincerest thanks. And we parted. The remembrance of his countenance, which I am sure wore a light not unbenignant to the friendless, the sound in my ear of his voice which spoke a nature chivalric to the needy and feeble, as well as the youthful and fair, were a sort of cordial to me long after. He was a true young English gentleman. On I went, hurrying fast through a magnificent street and square, with the grandest houses round, and amidst them the huge outline. Of more than one overbearing pile, which might be palace or church, I could not tell. Just as I passed a portico, two mustachioed men came suddenly from behind the pillars. They were smoking cigars, their dress implied pretensions to the rank of gentlemen, but poor things, they were very plebeian in soul. They spoke with insolence and fast as I walked, they kept pace with me a long way. At last I met a sort of patrol and my dreaded hunters were turned from their pursuit, but they had driven me beyond my reckoning. When I could collect my faculties I no longer knew where I was. The staircase I must long since have passed. Puzzled, out of breath, all my pulses throbbing in inevitable agitation, I knew not where to turn. It was terrible to think of again encountering those bearded, sneering simpletons, yet the ground must be retraced and the steps sought out. I came at last to an old and worn flight and taking it for granted that this must be the one indicated, I descended them. The street into which they led was indeed narrow, but it contained no inn. On I wandered. In a very quiet and comparatively clean and well paved street, I saw a light burning over the door of a very large house, loftier by a story than those around it. This might be the inn at last. I hastened on, my knees now trembled under me. I was getting quite exhausted. No inn was this. A brass plate embellished the great port cocher, pensionat de demoiselle was the inscription, and beneath a name Madame Beck. I started. About a hundred thoughts volleyed through my mind in a moment, yet I planned nothing and considered nothing. I had not time. Providence said stop here, this is your inn. Fate took me in her strong hand, mastered my will, directed my actions. I rang the doorbell. While I waited I would not reflect. I fixedly looked at the street stones where the door lamp shone, and counted them and noted their shape, and the glitter of wet on their angles. I rang again. They opened at last. A bon in a smart cap stood before me. May I see Madame Beck? I inquired. I believe if I had spoken French she would not have admitted me, but as I spoke English she concluded I was a foreign teacher come on business. Connected with the pensionat, and even at that late hour, she let me in without a word of reluctance or a moment of hesitation. The next moment I sat in a cold, glittering salon, with porcelain stove unlit and gilded ornaments and polished floor. A pondule on the mantelpiece struck nine o'clock. A quarter of an hour passed. How fast beat every pulse in my frame, how I turned cold and hot by turns. I sat with my eyes fixed on the door, a great white folding door with gilt mouldings. I watched to see a leaf move and open. All had been quiet, not a mouse had stirred. The white doors were closed and motionless. You are English, said a voice at my elbow. I almost bounded, so unexpected was the sound, so certain had I been of solitude. No ghost stood beside me nor anything of spectral aspect, merely a motherly, dumpy little woman in a large shawl, a wrapping gown and a clean, trim nightcap. I said I was English, and immediately, without further prelude, we fell to a most remarkable conversation. Madame Beck, for Madame Beck it was, she had entered by a little door behind me, and, being shod with the shoes of silence, I had heard neither her entrance nor approach. Madame Beck had exhausted her command of insula speak when she said You are English, and now she proceeded to work away voluably, in her own tongue. I answered in mine. She partly understood me, but as I did not at all understand her, though we made together an awful clamour, anything like Madame's gift of utterance I had not hitherto heard or imagined, we achieved little progress. She rang ere long for aid, which arrived in the shape of a maitres, who had been partly educated in an Irish convent and was esteemed a perfect adept in the English language. A bluff little personage this Matres was La Basqueenne from top to toe, and how did she slaughter the speech of Albion? However I told her a plain tale which she translated. I told her how I had left my own country intent on extending my knowledge and gaining my bread, how I was ready to turn my hand to any useful thing provided it was not wrong or degrading, how I would be a child's nurse or a lady's maid, and would not refuse even housework adapted to my strength. Madame heard this and, questioning her countenance, I almost thought the tale won her ear. Ilniacules Anglais pour seur dont de price, said she. Sontel donc entrepide sifemer. She asked my name, my age, and she sat and looked at me, not pityingly nor with interest, never a gleam of sympathy or a shade of compassion crossed her countenance during the interview. I felt she was not one to be led an inch by her feelings. Grave and considerate she gazed, consulting her judgment and studying my narrative. A bell rang. Voila pour La Prier Du Sois, said she, and rose. Through her interpreter she desired me to depart now and come back on the morrow, but this did not suit me, I could not bear to return to the perils of darkness and the street. With energy, yet with a collected and controlled manner, I said, addressing herself personally and not the Metres, be assured, Madame, that by instantly securing my services, your interests will be served and not injured. You will find me one who will wish to give, in her labour, a full equivalent for her wages, and if you hire me it will be better that I should stay here this night, having no acquaintance in Villette, and not possessing the language of the country, how could I secure a lodging? It is true, said she, but at least you could give a reference. None. She inquired after my luggage. I told her when it would arrive. She mused. At that moment a man's step was heard in the vestibule, hastily proceeding to the outer door. I shall go on with this part of my tale, as if I had understood all that had passed, for though it was then scarce intelligible to me, I heard it translated afterwards. Who goes out now? demanded Madame Beck, listening to the tread. Monsieur Poul, replied the teacher. He came this evening to give a reading to the first class. The very man I should at this moment most wish to see. Call him. The teacher ran to the salon door. Monsieur Paul. Paul was summoned. He entered a small, dark and spare man in spectacles. Moncasin, began Madame, I want your opinion. We know your skill in physiognomy and use it now. Read that countenance. The little man fixed on me his spectacles. A resolute compression of the lips and gathering of the brow seemed to say that he meant to see through me, and that a veil would be no veil for him. I read it, he pronounced. Econ dit fuien des choses was the oracular version. Bad or good. Of each kind, without doubt, pursued the diviner. May one trust her word? Are you negotiating a matter of importance? She wished to engage her as bon or gouvernant and tells a tale full of integrity, but gives no reference. She is a stranger, an English woman, as one may see. She speaks French? Not a word. She understands it? No. One may then speak plainly in her presence, doubtless. He gazed steadily. Do you need her services? I could do with them. You know I am disgusted with Madame Svini. Still he scrutinized. The judgment when it came at last was an in was as indefinite as what had gone before it. Engage her. If good predominates in that nature, the action will bring its own reward. If evil Eben Ma Cousine, Susura toujour unbon evre. And with a bow and a bonsoir, this vague arbiter of my destiny vanished, and Madame did engage me that very night. By God's blessing I was spared the necessity of passing forth again into the lonesome, dreary, hostile street. And now the hours of spring by Richard Jeffreys. It is sweet on awakening in the early morn to listen to the small bird singing on the tree. No sound of voice or flute is like to the bird's song. There is something in its distinct and separate from all other notes. The throat of woman gives forth a more perfect music and the organ is the glory of man's soul. The bird upon the tree utters the meaning of the wind, a voice of the grass and the wild flower, words on the green leaf, they speak through that slender tone, sweetness of dew and rifts of sunshine, the dark hawthorn touched with breaths of open bud, the odour of the air, the colour of the daffodil, all that is delicious and beloved of the springtime are expressed in his song. Genius is nature, and his lay, like the sap in the bough from which he sings, rises without thought. Nor it is necessary that it should be a song, a few short notes in the sharp spring morning are sufficient to stir the heart, but yesterday the least of them all came to a bow by my window, and in his call I heard the sweet briar wind rushing over the young grass. Refulgent full the golden rays of the sun, a minute only, the clouds cover him and the hedge is dark. The bloom of the gorse is shut like a book, but it is there, a few hours of warmth and the covers will fall open. The meadow is bare, but in a little while the heart shaped selandine leaves will come in their accustomed place. On the pollard willows the long ones are yellow ruddy in the passing gleam of sunshine. The first colour of spring appears in their bark. The delicious wind rushes among them, and they bow and rise. It touches the top of the dark pine that looks in the sun the same now as in summer. It lifts and swings the arching trail of bramble, it dries and crumbles the earth in its fingers, the hedge sparrow's feathers are fluttered as he sings on the bush. I wonder to myself how they can all get on without me, how they manage bird and flower, without me to keep the calendar for them, for I noted it so carefully and lovingly, day by day, the seed leaves on the mounds in the sheltered places that come so early, the pushing up of the young grass, the succulent dandelion, the colts foot on the heavy, thick clods, the trodden chickweed despised at the foot of the gatepost, so common and small, and yet so dear to me. Every blade of grass was mine, as though I had planted it separately. They were all my pets, as the roses the lover of his garden tends so faithfully. All the grasses of the meadow were my pets. I loved them all, and perhaps that is why I never had a pet, never cultivated a flower, never kept a caged bird or any creature. Why keep pets when every wild free hawk that passed overhead in the air was mine? I joyed in his swift, careless flight in the throw of his pinions, in the rush over the elms and miles of woodland. It was happiness to see his unchecked life. What more beautiful than the sweep and curve of his going through the azure sky? These were my pets and all the grass. Under the wind it seemed to dry and become grey, and the starlings running to and fro on the surface that did not sink now, stood high above it and were larger. The dust that drifted along blessed it, and it grew. Day by day a change, always a note to make. The moss drying on the tree trunks, dog's mercury stirring under the ash poles, birds claw buds of beech lengthening, books upon books to be filled with these things. I cannot think how they manage without me. Today through the window pane I see a lark high up against the grey cloud, and hear his song. I cannot walk about and arrange with the buds and gorse bloom. How does he know it is time for him to sing without my book and pencil and observing eye? How does he understand that the hour has come to sing high in the air, to chase his mate over the low stone wall of the ploughed field, to battle with his high crested rival, to balance himself on his trembling wings outspread a few yards above the earth, and utter that sweet little loving kiss as it were of song, oh happy, happy days, so beautiful to watch as if he were my own, and I felt it all. It is years since I went out amongst them in the old fields, and saw them in the green corn. They must be dead, dear little things by now, without me to tell him, how does this lark today that I hear through the window know it is his hour? The green hawthorn buds prophesy on the hedge, the reed pushes up in the moist earth like a spear thrust through a shield. The eggs of the starling are laid in the knothole of the pollard elm, common eggs, but within each a speck that is not to be found in the cut diamond of two hundred carats, the dot of protoplasm, the atom of life. There was one row of pollards where they always began laying first, with a big stick in his beak, the rook is blown aside, like a loose feather in the wind. He knows his building time from the father of his house, hereditary knowledge handed down, in settled course. But the stray things of the hedge, how do they know? The great blackbird has planted his nest by the ash stole, open to everyone's view, without a bow to conceal it, and not a leaf on the ash, nothing but the moss on the lower end of the branches. He does not seek cunningly for concealment. I think of the drift of time, and I see the apple bloom coming and the blue Veronica in the grass, a thousand thousand buds and leaves and flowers and blades of grass, things to note day by day, increasing so rapidly that no pencil can put them down, and no book can hold them, not even to number them, and how to write the thoughts they give, all these without me. How can they manage without me? For they were so much to me, I had come to feel that I was as much in return to them the old error. I love the earth, therefore the earth loves me. I am her child, I am man, the favoured of all creatures, I am the centre, and all for me was made. In time past, strong of foot, I walked gayly up the noble hill that leads leads to Beechy Head from Eastbourne, joying greatly in the sun and the wind. Every step crumbled up numbers of minute grey shells empty and dry, that crunched underfoot like hoar frost or fragile beads. They were very pretty, it was a shame to crush them, such vases as no king's pottery could make. They lay by millions in the depths of the sward, and I thought as I broke them unwillingly, that each of these had once been a house of life, a living creature dwelt in each and felt the joy of existence, and was to itself all in all, as if the great sun over the hills shone for it, and the width of the earth under was for it, and the grass and plants put on purpose for it. They were dead, the whole race of them, and these their skeletons were as dust under my feet. Nature sets no value upon life, neither of minute hill snail, nor of human being. I thought myself so much to the earliest leaf and the first meadow orcus, so important that I should note the first z of the titlark, that I should pronounce it summer because now the oaks were green. I must not miss a day nor an hour in the fields, lest something should escape me. How beautiful the droop of the great brome grass by the wood, but today I have to listen to the lark's song, not out of doors with him but through the window pane, and the bullfinch carries the root lit fibre to his nest without me. They manage without me very well. They know their times and seasons, not only the civilized rooks with their libraries of knowledge in their old nests of reference, but the stray things of the hedge and the chifchaff from over the sea in the ashwood. They go on without me. Orchis flower and cow slip, I cannot number them all. I hear, as it were, the patter of their feet, flower and bud and the beautiful clouds that go over, with the sweet rush of rain and burst of sun glory among the leafy trees. They go on and I am no more than the least of the empty shells that strewed the suad of the hill. Nature sets no value upon life, neither of mine nor of the larks that sang years ago. The earth is all in all to me, but I am nothing to the earth. It is bitter to know this before you are dead. These delicious violets are sweet for themselves, they were not shaped and coloured and gifted with that exquisite proportion and adjustment of odour and hue for me. High up against the grey cloud, I hear the lark through the window singing, and each note falls into my heart like a knife. Now this to me speaks as the roll of thunder that cannot be denied. You must hear it, and how can you shut your ears to what this lark sings, this violet tells, this little grey shell writes in the curl of its spire, the bitter truth that human life is no more to the universe than that of the unnoticed hill snail in the grass should make us think more and more highly of ourselves, as human as men, living things that think. We must look to ourselves to help ourselves, we must think ourselves into an earthly immortality, by day and by night, by years and by centuries, still striving, studying, searching to find that which shall enable us to live a fuller life upon the earth, to have a wider grasp upon its violets and loveliness, a deeper draught of the sweet briar wind, because my heart beats feebly today, my trickling pulse scarcely notating the passing of time, so much the more do I hope that those to come in future years may see wider and enjoy fuller than I have done, and so much the more gladly would I do all that I could enlarge the life that shall be then. There is no hope on the old lines, they are dead, like the empty shells from the sweet, delicious violets think out fresh petals of thought and colours, as it were, of soul. Never was such a worshipper of earth. The commonest pebble, dusty and marked with the stain of the ground, seems to me so wonderful. My mind works round it till it becomes the sun and centre of a system of thought and feeling, sometimes moving aside the tufts of grass with careless fingers while resting on the sward, I found these little pebble stones loose in the crumbly earth among the rootlets. Then brought out from the shadow, the sunlight shone and glistened on the particles of sand that adhered to it. Particles adhered to my skin thousands of years between finger of thumb, these atoms and quartz. And sunlight shining all that time, and flowers blooming and life glowing in all, myriads of living things, from the cold still limpet on the rock to the burning, throbbing heart of man. Sometimes I found them among the sand of the heath, the sea of golden brown surging up yellow billows six feet high about me, where the dry lizard hid or basked, of kin too to old time, or the rush of the sea wave brought them to me wet and gleaming, up from the depths of what unknown past, where they nestled in the root crevices of trees forgotten before Egypt, the living mind opposite the dead pebble. Did you ever consider the strange and wonderful problem there? Only the thickness of the skin of the hand between them. The chief use of matter is to demonstrate to us the existence of the soul. The pebble stone tells me I am a soul because I am not that that touches the nerves of my hand. We are distinctly two utterly separate and shall never come together. The little pebble and the great sun overhead millions of miles away, yet is the great sun no more distinct and apart than this which I can touch. Dull surfaced matter like a polished mirror reflects back thought to thought's self within.