Gentle Bonus Episode pour Vous: Pepys, Saints and Charlotte Brontë

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SAMUL PEEPS' Diary, fourth of January, 1664. Up betimes, and my wife being ready, and her maid Bess and the girl, I carried them by coach, and set them all down in Covent Garden, and there left them, and I to my lord's sandwiches lodging, but he not being up, I to the Duke's chamber, and there by and by to his closet, where, since his lady was ill, a little red bed of velvet is brought for him to lie alone, which is a very pretty one. After doing business here, I to my lord's again, and there spoke with him, and he seems now almost friends again, as he used to be. Here meeting Mr Pierce, the surgeon, he told me, among other court news, how the queen is very well again, and the king lay with her on Saturday night last, and that she speaks now very pretty English, and makes her sense out now and then with pretty phrases, as among others this is mightily cried up. That means to say that she did not like such a horse so well as the rest, he being too prancing and full of tricks, she said he did make too much vanity. Thence to the tennis court, after I had spent a little time in Westminster Hall, thinking to have met with Mrs. Lane, but I could not, and am glad of it, and there saw the king play at tennis and others. But to see how the king's play was extolled without any cause at all, was a loathsome sight, though sometimes indeed he did play very well and deserved to be commended, but such open flattery is beastly. Afterward to Saint James's Park, being unwilling to go and spend money at the ordinary, and there spent an hour or two, it being a pleasant day seeing people play at Pell Mell, where it pleased me mightily to hear a gallant, lately come from France, swear at one of his companions for suffering his man, a spruce blade, to be so saucy as to strike a ball while his master was playing on the mall, home and at my office till twelve at night, making my solemn vows for the next year, which I trust in the Lord I shall keep, but I fear I have a little too severely bound myself in some things and in too many, for I fear I may forget some, but however I know the worst and shall by the blessing of God observe to perform or pay my forfeits punctually, so home and to bed, with my mind at rest. Sixth of January, twelfth day, up unto my office, where very busy all the morning, being indeed overloaded with it through my own desire of doing all I can, at noon to the change, but did little and so home to dinner with my poor wife, and after dinner read a lecture to her in geography, which she takes very preciously and with great pleasure to her and to me to teach her, and so to the office again, where as busy as ever in my life, one thing after another, and answering people's business, particularly drawing up things about Mr Wood's masts, which I expect to have a quarrel about with Sir William Baton before it be ended, but I care not. At night home to my wife to supper, discourse, prayers, and so to bed. This morning I began a practice which I find by the ease I do it with, that I shall continue its saving me money and time, that is, to trim myself with a razor, which pleases me mightily. And now we celebrate the life of William of Rochester, or William of Perth, who died in twelve oh one. A native of Perth and a fisherman by trade, he experienced a conversion as a young man, and devoted himself to the care of orphans and the poor, once saving from certain death an infant left at the door of the church. In accordance with a vow he set off on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in twelve oh one. He took with him but one companion, a young man, who after they reached Rochester, diverted him on a supposed shortcut and murdered him for his few possessions. Oh that's awful. His body was found by a mad woman who garlanded it with honeysuckle and was cured of her madness through it. Other miracles were soon claimed. William was buried in Rochester Cathedral, first in the crypt and then in the northeast transept, where offerings at his shrine contributed towards the rebuilding work of the cathedral. In twelve fifty six Lawrence, Bishop of Rochester, seems to have obtained some kind of papal approval of the cult. Recorded offerings at the shrine by King Edward I in thirteen hundred and Queen Philippa in thirteen fifty two attest royal interest, while bequeaths of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries are evidence for its continued local popularity. Sir William's hospital on the road to Maidstone marks the place of his death. Very sad. And now, my friend, we finish this sort of bonus episode with chapter 17 of Villette La Terras, and I'm sitting in the garden, the blackbird's on the chimney pot, and all's not quite well with the world, and my daughter's not in a good place, so that makes me really sad, and that's occupying my main my thoughts at the moment and my time. But there goes Sherborne Bell saying it's quarter past nine and let's read. But it's it's a really important thing, isn't it? Because you you think when you've got a problem you can't change anything, or you think, you know, for example, like the death of your mother, or you know, that sort of thing. I'm just giving obviously my own examples, but I know that changing how I feel, either by sleeping or resting or reading, enables me to cope better, and it makes it makes one feel less trapped and claustrophobic. And you know, my my daughter's not okay at the moment. Girls can be so hard on each other, and she's got friendship group issues and other problems, but you know, she's 17 and these things will come and at 17 they they just look enormous. It's like you feel you're faced with this. You know how like if you've got a torch in front of I don't know, something in the in the woods, or uh y and suddenly you've got this huge spider in front of you, because it's magnified by the torch, and and it's like that. Everything is magnified. Nothing feels in its right proportion, and and at 17 you haven't learnt how to make things smaller or indeed to do what I've just said, which is to remember that you can change how you feel about something by by certain things like going for a run or talking to someone who cares about you, writing something in your diary, listening to music. But, you know, she does actually listen to music, but the thing is she takes herself off and listens to music on walks, and I I know that's probably good for her, but at the same time it it's more there's more of a sense of her being isolated. As I look up, it's a I don't know what they call this, I think is it a quarter crescent, or it's a waxing crescent anyway, but it's it's nearly half. And it annoys me the sound of all these mopeds sipping around. They're so popular all over the world, aren't they? Wherever you go there are scooters and mopeds. I want to pass the law and ban the more horrible noisy things. Well, unless you've got one and you're using it nicely, in which case I'll let you. How about that? Right. Come on then, Gretel, let's get on with it. These struggles with the natural character, the strong native bent of the heart may seem futile and fruitless, but in the end they do good. They tend, however slightly, to give the actions, the conduct, that turn which reason approves and which feeling perhaps too often opposes, they certainly make a difference in the general tenor of a life and enable it to be better regulated, more equable, quieter on the surface, and it is on the surface only the common gaze will fall, as to what lies below, leave that with God. Man your equal, weak as you, and not fit to be your judge, may be shut out thence. Take it to your maker, show him the secrets of the spirit he gave, ask him how you are to bear the pains he has appointed, kneel in his presence and pray with faith, for light in darkness, for strength in piteous weakness, for patience in extreme need. Certainly at some hour, though perhaps not your hour, the waiting waters will stir in some shape, though perhaps not the shape you dreamed, which your heart loved, and for which it bled, the healing herald will descend. The cripple and the blind and the dumb and the possessed will be led to bathe. Herald come quickly. Thousands lie round the pool, weeping and despairing to see it through slow years stagnant. Long at the times of heaven, the orbits of angel messengers seem wide to mortal vision, they may unring ages, the cycle of one departure and return, may clasp unnumbered generations, and dust kindling to brief suffering life, and through pain passing back to dust, may meanwhile perish out of memory again, and yet again, to how many maimed and mourning millions is the first and sole angel visitant, him Easton's called Azrael. I tried to get up next morning, but while I was dressing, and at intervals drinking cold water from the carf on the washstand, with design to brace up that trembling weakness which made dressing so difficult, in came Mrs. Breton. Here is an absurdity was her morning accost. Not so, she added, and dealing with me at once in her own brisk, energetic fashion, that fashion which I used formerly, to enjoy. Seeing applied to her son, and by him vigorously resisted, in two minutes she consigned me captive to the French bed. There you lie till afternoon, said she. My boy left orders before he went out that such should be the case, and I can assure you my son is master, and must be obeyed. Come on, Mr Cat. Presently you shall have breakfast. Come on, darling. Presently she brought that meal, brought it with her own active hands, not leaving me to servants. She seated herself on the bed while I ate. Now it is not everybody, even amongst our respected friends and esteemed acquaintance, whom we like to have near us, whom we like to watch us, to wait on us, to approach us, with the proximity of a nurse to a patient. It is not every friend whose eye is a light in a sick room, this is so true, so wise, whose presence is there a solace. But all this was Mrs. Breton to me, all this she had ever been. Food or drink never pleased me so well as when it came through her hands. I do not remember the occasion when her entrance into a room had not made that room cheerier. Our nature's own predilections and antipathies alike strange. There are people from whom we secretly shrink, whom we would personally avoid, though reason confesses that they are good people. There are others with faults of temper, etc, evident enough beside whom we live content, as if the air about them did us good. My godmother's lively black eye and clear brunette cheek, her warm, prompt hand, her self reliant mood, her decided bearing were all beneficial to me as the atmosphere of some salubrious climate. Her son used to call her the old lady. It filled me with pleasant wonder to note how the alacrity and power of five and twenty still breathed from her and around her. I would bring my work here, she said, as she took me the emptied teacup, and sit with you the whole day if that overbearing John Graham had not put his veto upon such a proceeding. Now, mamma, said he, when he went out, take notice you are not to knock up your goddaughter with gossip, and he particularly desired me to keep close to my own quarters and spare you my fine company. He says Lucy, he thinks you have had a nervous fever, judging from your look. Is that so? I replied that I did not quite know what my ailment had been, but that I had certainly suffered a good deal, especially in mind. Further, on the subject, I did not consider it advisable to dwell, for the details of what I had undergone belonged to a portion of my existence in which I never expected my godmother to take a share. Into what new region would such a confidence have led that hail, serene nature? The difference between her and me might be figured by that between the stately ship cruising safe on smooth seas with its full complement of crew, a captain gay and brave, and venturous and provident, and the lifeboat, which most days of the year lies dry and solitary in an old dark boat house, only putting to sea when the billows run high in rough weather, when cloud encounters water, when danger and death divide between them the rule of the great deep. No, the Louisa Breton never was out of harbour on such a night and in such a scene. Her crew could not conceive it, so the half drowned lifeboat man keeps his own counsel and spins no yarns. She left me and I lay in bed content. It was good of Graham to remember me before he went out. My day was lonely, but the prospect of coming evening abridged and cheered it. Then too, I all the birds are having such a lovely time. Can you hear them? I hope you can. Then too I felt weak and rest seemed welcome. And after the morning hours were gone by, those hours which always bring, even to the necessarily unoccupied, a sense of business to be done, of tasks waiting fulfilment, a vague impression of obligation to be employed, when this stirring time was past, and a silent descent of afternoon hushed housemaid steps on the stairs and in the chambers, I then passed into a dreamy mood not unpleasant. My calm little room seemed somehow like a cave in the sea. There was no colour about it except that white and pale green, suggestive of foam and deep water. The blanched cornice was adorned with shell shaped ornaments, and there were white mouldings like dolphins in the ceiling angles. Even that one touch of colour visible in the red satin pincushion bore affinity to coral. Even that dark shining glass might have mirrored a mermaid. When I closed my eyes, I heard a gale subsiding at last, bearing upon the house front, like a settling swell upon a rock base. I heard it drawn and withdrawn, far, far off. Like a tide returning retiring from a shore of the upper world, a world so high above that the rush of its largest waves, the dash of its fiercest breakers, could sound down in this submarine home only like murmurs and a lullaby. Amidst these dreams came evening and then Martha brought a light. With her aid I was quickly dressed, and stronger now than in the morning, I made my way down to the blue saloon unassisted. Dr. John, it appears, had concluded his round of professional calls earlier than usual. His form was the first object that met my eyes as I entered the parlour. He stood in that window recess opposite the door, reading the close type of a newspaper, by such dull light as closing day yet gave. The fire shone clear, but the lamp stood on the table unlit, and tea was not yet brought up. As to Mrs. Breton, my active godmother, who I afterwards found, had been out in the open air all day, lay half reclined in her deep cushioned chair, actually lost in a nap. Her son seeing me came forward. I noticed that he trod carefully not to wake the sleeper. He also spoke low. His mellow voice never had any sharpness in it. Modulated as at present, it was calculated rather to soothe than startle slumber. This is a quiet little chateau, he observed, after inviting me to sit near the casement. I don't know whether you may have noticed it in your walks, though indeed, from the Chaus it is not visible. Just a mile beyond the Port de Crescy, you turn down a lane which soon becomes an avenue, and that leads you on through meadow and shade to the very door of this house. It is not a modern place, but built somewhat in the old style of the Basqueville, is rather a manor, a manoir than a chateau, and they call it La Terras, because its front rises from a broad, turfed walk, whence steps lead down a grassy slope to the avenue. See yonder, the moon rises, she looks well through the tree bowls. Where indeed does the moon not look well? What is the scene confined or expansive, which her orb does not hallow? Rosy or fiery she mounted now above a not distant bank, even while we watched her flushed ascent, she cleared to gold and in a very brief space floated up stainless into a now calm sky. Did moonlight soften or sadden Dr. Breton? Did it touch him with romance? I think it did. Albeit of no sighing mood, he sighed in watching it, sighed to himself quietly. No need to ponder the cause or the course of that sigh. I knew it was wakened by beauty. I knew it pursued Ginevre. Knowing this the idea pressed upon me that it was in some sort my duty to speak the name he meditated. Of course he was ready for the subject. I saw in his countenance a teeming plenitude of comments, question and interest, a pressure of language and sentiment, only checked, I thought, by sense of embarrassment how to begin. To spare him this embarrassment was my best, indeed my sole use. I had but to utter the idol's name and love's tender litany would flow out. I had just formed a fitting phrase You know that Miss Fanshaw is gone on a tour with the Chumleys, and was opening my lips to speak it, when he scattered my plans by introducing another theme. The first thing this morning, said he, putting his sentiment in his pocket, turning from the moon and sitting down. I went to the Rue Forsette and told the cuisinier that you were safe and in good hands. Do you know I actually found that she had not yet discovered your absence from the house? She thought you safe in the great dormitory. With what care must you have been waited on? Oh that's very conceivable, said I. Goton would do nothing for me but bring a little tisan and a crust of bread, and I had rejected both so often during the past week that the good woman got tired of useless journeys from the dwelling house kitchen to the school dormitory, and came only once a day at noon to make my bed. Believe, however, that she is a good natured creature, and would have been delighted to cook me Colette du Mouton if I could have eaten them. What did Madame Beck mean by leaving you alone? And Madame Beck could not foresee that I should fall ill. Your nervous system bore a good share of the suffering. I'm not quite sure what my nervous system is, but I was dreadfully low spirited, which disables me from helping you by pill or potion. Medicine can give nobody good spirits. My aunt halts at the threshold of hypochondria. She just looks in and sees a chamber of torture, but can neither say nor do much. Cheerful society would be of use. You should be as little alone as possible. You should take plenty of exercise. Acquiescence and a pause followed these remarks. They sounded all right, I thought, and bore the safe sanction of custom and the well worn stamp of use. Miss Snow, recommends Dr. John, my health, nervous system included, being now somewhat to my relief, discussed and done with. Are you a Catholic? I looked up in some surprise. A Catholic no, why suggest such an idea? The manner in which you were consigned to me last night made me doubt. I consigned to you, but indeed I forget it remains yet for me to learn how I fell into your hands. Why, under circumstances that puzzled me. I had been in attendance all day yesterday on a case of singularly interesting and critical character, the disease being rare and its treatment doubtful. I saw a similar and still finer case in a hospital at Paris, but that will not interest you. At last a mitigation of the patient's most urgent symptoms, acute pain as one of the accompaniments, liberated me and I set out homeward. My shortest way led through the Basqueville, and as the night was extremely dark, wild and wet, I took it. In riding past an old church belonging to a community of Beguin, I saw by a lamp burning over the porch or deep arch of the entrance, a priest lifting some object in his arms. The lamp was bright enough to reveal the priest's features clearly, and I recognised him. He was a man I have often met by the sick beds of both rich and poor, and chiefly the latter. He is, I think, a good old man, far better than most of his class in the country, superior indeed in every way, better informed as well as more devoted to duty. Our eyes met and he called on me to stop. What he supported was a woman fainting or dying. I lighted. This person is one of your countrywomen, he said. Save her if she is not dead. My countrywoman on examination turned out to be the English teacher at Madame Beck's pension. She was perfectly unconscious, looking bloodless and nearly cold. What does it all mean? was my inquiry. He communicated a curious account that you had been to him that evening at confessional, that you, your exhausted and suffering appearance, coupled with some things you had said, things I had said. I wonder what things awful crimes, no doubt, but he did not tell me what there, you know, the seal of confessional checked his garulity and my cure curiosity. Your confidences, however, had not made an enemy of the good father. It seems he was so struck and felt so sorry that you should be out on such a night alone. He had esteemed it a Christian duty to watch you when you quitted the church and so to manage as to not lose sight of you till you should have reached home. Perhaps the worthy man might, half unconsciously, have blent in this proceeding, some little of the subtlety of his class. It might have been his resolve to learn the locality of your home. Did you impart that in your confession? I did not. On the contrary, I carefully avoided the shadow of indication, and as to my confession, Dr. John, I suppose you'll think me mad for taking such a step, but I could not help it. I suppose it was all the fault of what you may call my nervous system. I cannot put the case into words, but my days and nights were grown intolerable. A cruel sense of desolation pained my mind, a feeling that would make its way, rush out or kill me, like, and this you will understand, Dr. John, the current which passes through the heart, and which, if aneurysm or any other morbid cause obstructs its natural channels, impetuously seeks abnormal outlet. I wanted companionship, I wanted friendship, I wanted counsel. I could find none of these in closet or chamber, so I went and sought them in church and confessional. As to what I said it was no confidence, no narrative. I have done nothing wrong, my life has not been active enough for any dark deed, either of romance or reality. All I pulled out was a dreary, desperate complaint. Lucy, you ought to travel for about six months. Why your calm nature is growing quite excitable. Confound Madame Beck. Has the little buxom widow no bowels to condemn her best teacher to solitary confinement? It was not Madame Beck's fault, said I. Who is in the wrong then, Lucy? Me, Dr. John, me and a great abstraction, on whose wide shoulders I like to lay the mountain of blame that they were sculptured to bear, me and fate. Me must take better care in future, said Dr. John, smiling, I suppose, at my bad grammar. Change of air, change of scene, those are my prescriptions, pursued the practical young doctor. But to return to our muttons, Lucy, as yet Per Silas, with all his tact, they say he is a Jesuit, is no wiser than you choose him to be, for instead of returning to the Rue Fosette, your fevered wanderings there must have been high fever. No, doctor John, the fever took its turn that night. Now don't make out that I was delirious, for I know differently. Good, you were as collected as myself at this moment, no doubt. Your wanderings had taken an opposite direction to the pension. Near the Beguinage amid the stress of flood and gust, and in the perplexity of darkness you had swooned and fallen. The priest came to your succour, and the physician, as we have seen, supervened. Between us we procured a fiacre and brought you here. Per Silas, old as he is, would carry you upstairs and lay you on that couch himself. He certainly would have remained with you till suspended animation had been restored, and so should I, but at that juncture, a hurried messenger arrived from the dying patient I'd scarcely left. The last duties were called for, the physician's last visit and the priest's last rite. Extreme unction could not be deferred. Per Silas and myself departed together. My mother was spending the evening abroad, so he gave you in charge to Martha, leaving directions which it seems she followed successfully. Now, are you a Catholic? Not yet, said I with a smile, and never let Per Silas know where I live, or he'll try to convert me, but give him my best and truest thanks when you see him, and if ever I get rich I will send him money for his charities. See, Dr. John, your mother wakes. You ought to ring for tea. Which she did, and as Mrs Breshon sat up, astonished and indignant with herself for the indulgence to which she had succumbed, and fully prepared to deny that she had slept at all, her son came gayly to the attack. Hushaby, mamma, sleep again. You look the picture of innocence in your slumbers. My slumbers, John Graham, what are you talking about? You know I never do sleep by day. It puppy That was a very naughty puppy jumping on my lap. You want some attention, don't you? She's now chewing my hand. You mustn't do that. Do you want to talk to your friends listening to you? I'll put her near Well no, that's just silly, isn't it? Because then she'll want to run off with it. No, no, no. I need to finish this chapter, puppy. I know. You suddenly get energy last thing. It reminds me so much of you know when you've got little children and you think they're starting to get tired and you think oh that's good, we're gonna have a good night's sleep, and then last thing they suddenly go crazy. Off off off. Come on. Right, let's carry on. Apologies for that. You know I never sleep by day it was the slightest dose possible. Exactly a seraph's gentle lapse. A fairy's dream, mamma. Under such circumstances you always remind me of Titania. That is because you yourself are so like bottom. Miss Snow, did you ever hear anything like mamma's wit? She is a most sprightly woman of her size and age. Keep your compliments to yourself, sir, and do not neglect your own size, which seems to me a good deal on the increase. Lucy, has he not rather the air of an incipient John Bull? He used to be slender as an eel, and now I fancy him in a sort of heavy dragoon bent, a beef eater tendency. Graham, take notice, if you grow fat, I disown you. As if you could not sooner disown your own personality. I am indispensable to the old lady's happiness, Lucy. She would pine away in green and yellow melancholy if she had not my six feet of iniquity to scold. It keeps her lively. It maintains the wholesome ferment of her spirits. The two were now standing opposite each other, one on each side of the fireplace. Their words were not very fond, but their mutual looks atoned for verbal deficiencies. At least the best treasure of Mrs. Breton's life was certainly casketed in her son's bosom, her dearest pulse throbbed in his heart. As to him, of course another love shared his feelings with filial love, and no doubt, as the new passion was the latest born, so he assigned it in his emotions Benjamin Portion. Ginevre, Ginevre did Mrs. Breton yet know at whose feet her own young idol had laid his homage? Would she approve that choice? I could not tell, but I could well guess that if she knew Miss Fanshaw's conduct towards Graham, her alternations between coldness and coaxing, and repulse and allurement, if she could at all suspect the pain in which she had tried him, if she could have seen as I had seen his fine spirits subdued and harassed, his inferior preferred before him, his subordinate made the instrument of his humiliation. Then Mrs. Breton would have pronounced Ginevre imbecile or perverted or both. Well, I thought so too. That second evening passed as sweetly as the first, more sweetly indeed. We enjoyed a smoother interchange of thoughts. Old troubles were not reverted to, acquaintance was better cemented. I felt happier, easier, more at home. That night, instead of crying myself asleep, I went down to Dreamland by a pathway bordered with pleasant thoughts. Good night.