IT was two o’clock when I returned to my lodgings; my dinner, just
brought in from a neighbouring hotel, smoked on the table; I sat down
thinking to eat--had the plate been heaped with potsherds and broken
glass, instead of boiled beef and haricots, I could not have made a more
signal failure: appetite had forsaken me. Impatient of seeing food
which I could not taste, I put it all aside into a cupboard, and then
demanded, “What shall I do till evening?” for before six P.M. it would
be vain to seek the Rue Notre Dame aux Neiges; its inhabitant (for me
it had but one) was detained by her vocation elsewhere. I walked in the
streets of Brussels, and I walked in my own room from two o’clock
till six; never once in that space of time did I sit down. I was in my
chamber when the last-named hour struck; I had just bathed my face and
feverish hands, and was standing near the glass; my cheek was crimson,
my eye was flame, still all my features looked quite settled and
calm. Descending swiftly the stair and stepping out, I was glad to see
Twilight drawing on in clouds; such shade was to me like a grateful
screen, and the chill of latter Autumn, breathing in a fitful wind from
the north-west, met me as a refreshing coolness. Still I saw it was cold
to others, for the women I passed were wrapped in shawls, and the men
had their coats buttoned close.
When are we quite happy? Was I so then? No; an urgent and growing dread
worried my nerves, and had worried them since the first moment good
tidings had reached me. How was Frances? It was ten weeks since I had
seen her, six since I had heard from her, or of her. I had answered
her letter by a brief note, friendly but calm, in which no mention of
continued correspondence or further visits was made. At that hour my
bark hung on the topmost curl of a wave of fate, and I knew not on what
shoal the onward rush of the billow might hurl it; I would not then
attach her destiny to mine by the slightest thread; if doomed to split
on the rock, or run aground on the sand-bank, I was resolved no other
vessel should share my disaster: but six weeks was a long time; and
could it be that she was still well and doing well? Were not all sages
agreed in declaring that happiness finds no climax on earth? Dared
I think that but half a street now divided me from the full cup of
contentment--the draught drawn from waters said to flow only in heaven?
I was at the door; I entered the quiet house; I mounted the stairs; the
lobby was void and still, all the doors closed; I looked for the neat
green mat; it lay duly in its place.
“Signal of hope!” I said, and advanced. “But I will be a little calmer;
I am not going to rush in, and get up a scene directly.” Forcibly
staying my eager step, I paused on the mat.
“What an absolute hush! Is she in? Is anybody in?” I demanded to
myself. A little tinkle, as of cinders falling from a grate, replied;
a movement--a fire was gently stirred; and the slight rustle of life
continuing, a step paced equably backwards and forwards, backwards and
forwards, in the apartment. Fascinated, I stood, more fixedly fascinated
when a voice rewarded the attention of my strained ear--so low, so
self-addressed, I never fancied the speaker otherwise than alone;
solitude might speak thus in a desert, or in the hall of a forsaken
house.
“‘And ne’er but once, my son,’ he said,
‘Was yon dark cavern trod;
In persecution’s iron days,
When the land was left by God.
From Bewley’s bog, with slaughter red,
A wanderer hither drew;
And oft he stopp’d and turn’d his head,
As by fits the night-winds blew.
For trampling round by Cheviot-edge
Were heard the troopers keen;
And frequent from the Whitelaw ridge
The death-shot flash’d between.’” etc. etc.
The old Scotch ballad was partly recited, then dropt; a pause ensued;
then another strain followed, in French, of which the purport,
translated, ran as follows:--
I gave, at first, attention close;
Then interest warm ensued;
From interest, as improvement rose,
Succeeded gratitude.
Obedience was no effort soon,
And labour was no pain;
If tired, a word, a glance alone
Would give me strength again.
From others of the studious band,
Ere long he singled me;
But only by more close demand,
And sterner urgency.
The task he from another took,
From me he did reject;
He would no slight omission brook,
And suffer no defect.
If my companions went astray,
He scarce their wanderings blam’d;
If I but falter’d in the way,
His anger fiercely flam’d.
Something stirred in an adjoining chamber; it would not do to be
surprised eaves-dropping; I tapped hastily, and as hastily entered.
Frances was just before me; she had been walking slowly in her room,
and her step was checked by my advent: Twilight only was with her, and
tranquil, ruddy Firelight; to these sisters, the Bright and the Dark,
she had been speaking, ere I entered, in poetry. Sir Walter Scott’s
voice, to her a foreign, far-off sound, a mountain echo, had uttered
itself in the first stanzas; the second, I thought, from the style and
the substance, was the language of her own heart. Her face was grave,
its expression concentrated; she bent on me an unsmiling eye--an eye
just returning from abstraction, just awaking from dreams: well-arranged
was her simple attire, smooth her dark hair, orderly her tranquil room;
but what--with her thoughtful look, her serious self-reliance, her
bent to meditation and haply inspiration--what had she to do with love?
“Nothing,” was the answer of her own sad, though gentle countenance; it
seemed to say, “I must cultivate fortitude and cling to poetry; one is
to be my support and the other my solace through life. Human affections
do not bloom, nor do human passions glow for me.” Other women have such
thoughts. Frances, had she been as desolate as she deemed, would not
have been worse off than thousands of her sex. Look at the rigid and
formal race of old maids--the race whom all despise; they have fed
themselves, from youth upwards, on maxims of resignation and endurance.
Many of them get ossified with the dry diet; self-control is so
continually their thought, so perpetually their object, that at last
it absorbs the softer and more agreeable qualities of their nature; and
they die mere models of austerity, fashioned out of a little parchment
and much bone. Anatomists will tell you that there is a heart in the
withered old maid’s carcass--the same as in that of any cherished wife
or proud mother in the land. Can this be so? I really don’t know; but
feel inclined to doubt it.
I came forward, bade Frances “good evening,” and took my seat. The chair
I had chosen was one she had probably just left; it stood by a little
table where were her open desk and papers. I know not whether she had
fully recognized me at first, but she did so now; and in a voice, soft
but quiet, she returned my greeting. I had shown no eagerness; she took
her cue from me, and evinced no surprise. We met as we had always met,
as master and pupil--nothing more. I proceeded to handle the papers;
Frances, observant and serviceable, stepped into an inner room, brought
a candle, lit it, placed it by me; then drew the curtain over the
lattice, and having added a little fresh fuel to the already bright
fire, she drew a second chair to the table and sat down at my right
hand, a little removed. The paper on the top was a translation of
some grave French author into English, but underneath lay a sheet with
stanzas; on this I laid hands. Frances half rose, made a movement to
recover the captured spoil, saying, that was nothing--a mere copy of
verses. I put by resistance with the decision I knew she never long
opposed; but on this occasion her fingers had fastened on the paper. I
had quietly to unloose them; their hold dissolved to my touch; her hand
shrunk away; my own would fain have followed it, but for the present I
forbade such impulse. The first page of the sheet was occupied with
the lines I had overheard; the sequel was not exactly the writer’s own
experience, but a composition by portions of that experience suggested.
Thus while egotism was avoided, the fancy was exercised, and the heart
satisfied. I translate as before, and my translation is nearly literal;
it continued thus:--
When sickness stay’d awhile my course,
He seem’d impatient still,
Because his pupil’s flagging force
Could not obey his will.
One day when summoned to the bed
Where pain and I did strive,
I heard him, as he bent his head,
Say, “God, she must revive!”
I felt his hand, with gentle stress,
A moment laid on mine,
And wished to mark my consciousness
By some responsive sign.
But pow’rless then to speak or move,
I only felt, within,
The sense of Hope, the strength of Love,
Their healing work begin.
And as he from the room withdrew,
My heart his steps pursued;
I long’d to prove, by efforts new;
My speechless gratitude.
When once again I took my place,
Long vacant, in the class,
Th’ unfrequent smile across his face
Did for one moment pass.
The lessons done; the signal made
Of glad release and play,
He, as he passed, an instant stay’d,
One kindly word to say.
“Jane, till to-morrow you are free
From tedious task and rule;
This afternoon I must not see
That yet pale face in school.
“Seek in the garden-shades a seat,
Far from the play-ground din;
The sun is warm, the air is sweet:
Stay till I call you in.”
A long and pleasant afternoon
I passed in those green bowers;
All silent, tranquil, and alone
With birds, and bees, and flowers.
Yet, when my master’s voice I heard
Call, from the window, “Jane!”
I entered, joyful, at the word,
The busy house again.
He, in the hall, paced up and down;
He paused as I passed by;
His forehead stern relaxed its frown:
He raised his deep-set eye.
“Not quite so pale,” he murmured low.
“Now Jane, go rest awhile.”
And as I smiled, his smoothened brow
Returned as glad a smile.
My perfect health restored, he took
His mien austere again;
And, as before, he would not brook
The slightest fault from Jane.
The longest task, the hardest theme
Fell to my share as erst,
And still I toiled to place my name
In every study first.
He yet begrudged and stinted praise,
But I had learnt to read
The secret meaning of his face,
And that was my best meed.
Even when his hasty temper spoke
In tones that sorrow stirred,
My grief was lulled as soon as woke
By some relenting word.
And when he lent some precious book,
Or gave some fragrant flower,
I did not quail to Envy’s look,
Upheld by Pleasure’s power.
At last our school ranks took their ground,
The hard-fought field I won;
The prize, a laurel-wreath, was bound
My throbbing forehead on.
Low at my master’s knee I bent,
The offered crown to meet;
Its green leaves through my temples sent
A thrill as wild as sweet.
The strong pulse of Ambition struck
In every vein I owned;
At the same instant, bleeding broke
A secret, inward wound.
The hour of triumph was to me
The hour of sorrow sore;
A day hence I must cross the sea,
Ne’er to recross it more.
An hour hence, in my master’s room
I with him sat alone,
And told him what a dreary gloom
O’er joy had parting thrown.
He little said; the time was brief,
The ship was soon to sail,
And while I sobbed in bitter grief,
My master but looked pale.
They called in haste; he bade me go,
Then snatched me back again;
He held me fast and murmured low,
“Why will they part us, Jane?”
“Were you not happy in my care?
Did I not faithful prove?
Will others to my darling bear
As true, as deep a love?
“O God, watch o’er my foster child!
O guard her gentle head!
When minds are high and tempests wild
Protection round her spread!
“They call again; leave then my breast;
Quit thy true shelter, Jane;
But when deceived, repulsed, opprest,
Come home to me again!”
I read--then dreamily made marks on the margin with my pencil; thinking
all the while of other things; thinking that “Jane” was now at my side;
no child, but a girl of nineteen; and she might be mine, so my heart
affirmed; Poverty’s curse was taken off me; Envy and Jealousy were
far away, and unapprized of this our quiet meeting; the frost of the
Master’s manner might melt; I felt the thaw coming fast, whether I would
or not; no further need for the eye to practise a hard look, for the
brow to compress its expanse into a stern fold: it was now permitted
to suffer the outward revelation of the inward glow--to seek, demand,
elicit an answering ardour. While musing thus, I thought that the grass
on Hermon never drank the fresh dews of sunset more gratefully than my
feelings drank the bliss of this hour.
Frances rose, as if restless; she passed before me to stir the fire,
which did not want stirring; she lifted and put down the little
ornaments on the mantelpiece; her dress waved within a yard of me;
slight, straight, and elegant, she stood erect on the hearth.
There are impulses we can control; but there are others which control
us, because they attain us with a tiger-leap, and are our masters ere
we have seen them. Perhaps, though, such impulses are seldom altogether
bad; perhaps Reason, by a process as brief as quiet, a process that
is finished ere felt, has ascertained the sanity of the deed. Instinct
meditates, and feels justified in remaining passive while it is
performed. I know I did not reason, I did not plan or intend, yet,
whereas one moment I was sitting solus on the chair near the table,
the next, I held Frances on my knee, placed there with sharpness and
decision, and retained with exceeding tenacity.
“Monsieur!” cried Frances, and was still: not another word escaped her
lips; sorely confounded she seemed during the lapse of the first few
moments; but the amazement soon subsided; terror did not succeed, nor
fury: after all, she was only a little nearer than she had ever been
before, to one she habitually respected and trusted; embarrassment might
have impelled her to contend, but self-respect checked resistance where
resistance was useless.
“Frances, how much regard have you for me?” was my demand. No answer;
the situation was yet too new and surprising to permit speech. On this
consideration, I compelled myself for some seconds to tolerate her
silence, though impatient of it: presently, I repeated the same
question--probably, not in the calmest of tones; she looked at me; my
face, doubtless, was no model of composure, my eyes no still wells of
tranquillity.
“Do speak,” I urged; and a very low, hurried, yet still arch voice
said--
“Monsieur, vous me faites mal; de grace lachez un peu ma main droite.”
In truth I became aware that I was holding the said “main droite” in
a somewhat ruthless grasp: I did as desired; and, for the third time,
asked more gently--
“Frances, how much regard have you for me?”
“Mon maitre, j’en ai beaucoup,” was the truthful rejoinder.
“Frances, have you enough to give yourself to me as my wife?--to accept
me as your husband?”
I felt the agitation of the heart, I saw “the purple light of love” cast
its glowing reflection on cheeks, temples, neck; I desired to consult
the eye, but sheltering lash and lid forbade.
“Monsieur,” said the soft voice at last,--“Monsieur desire savoir si je
consens--si--enfin, si je veux me marier avec lui?”
“Justement.”
“Monsieur sera-t-il aussi bon mari qu’il a ete bon maitre?”
“I will try, Frances.”
A pause; then with a new, yet still subdued inflexion of the voice--an
inflexion which provoked while it pleased me--accompanied, too, by a
“sourire a la fois fin et timide” in perfect harmony with the tone:--
“C’est a dire, monsieur sera toujours un peu entete exigeant,
volontaire--?”
“Have I been so, Frances?”
“Mais oui; vous le savez bien.”
“Have I been nothing else?”
“Mais oui; vous avez ete mon meilleur ami.”
“And what, Frances, are you to me?”
“Votre devouee eleve, qui vous aime de tout son coeur.”
“Will my pupil consent to pass her life with me? Speak English now,
Frances.”
Some moments were taken for reflection; the answer, pronounced slowly,
ran thus:--
“You have always made me happy; I like to hear you speak; I like to
see you; I like to be near you; I believe you are very good, and very
superior; I know you are stern to those who are careless and idle, but
you are kind, very kind to the attentive and industrious, even if they
are not clever. Master, I should be GLAD to live with you always;”
and she made a sort of movement, as if she would have clung to me, but
restraining herself she only added with earnest emphasis--“Master, I
consent to pass my life with you.”
“Very well, Frances.”
I drew her a little nearer to my heart; I took a first kiss from her
lips, thereby sealing the compact, now framed between us; afterwards she
and I were silent, nor was our silence brief. Frances’ thoughts, during
this interval, I know not, nor did I attempt to guess them; I was not
occupied in searching her countenance, nor in otherwise troubling her
composure. The peace I felt, I wished her to feel; my arm, it is true,
still detained her; but with a restraint that was gentle enough, so long
as no opposition tightened it. My gaze was on the red fire; my heart was
measuring its own content; it sounded and sounded, and found the depth
fathomless.
“Monsieur,” at last said my quiet companion, as stirless in her
happiness as a mouse in its terror. Even now in speaking she scarcely
lifted her head.
“Well, Frances?” I like unexaggerated intercourse; it is not my way to
overpower with amorous epithets, any more than to worry with selfishly
importunate caresses.
“Monsieur est raisonnable, n’est-ce pas?”
“Yes; especially when I am requested to be so in English: but why do
you ask me? You see nothing vehement or obtrusive in my manner; am I not
tranquil enough?”
“Ce n’est pas cela--” began Frances.
“English!” I reminded her.
“Well, monsieur, I wished merely to say, that I should like, of course,
to retain my employment of teaching. You will teach still, I suppose,
monsieur?”
“Oh, yes! It is all I have to depend on.”
“Bon!--I mean good. Thus we shall have both the same profession. I like
that; and my efforts to get on will be as unrestrained as yours--will
they not, monsieur?”
“You are laying plans to be independent of me,” said I.
“Yes, monsieur; I must be no incumbrance to you--no burden in any way.”
“But, Frances, I have not yet told you what my prospects are. I have
left M. Pelet’s; and after nearly a month’s seeking, I have got another
place, with a salary of three thousand francs a year, which I can easily
double by a little additional exertion. Thus you see it would be useless
for you to fag yourself by going out to give lessons; on six thousand
francs you and I can live, and live well.”
Frances seemed to consider. There is something flattering to man’s
strength, something consonant to his honourable pride, in the idea of
becoming the providence of what he loves--feeding and clothing it, as
God does the lilies of the field. So, to decide her resolution, I went
on:--
“Life has been painful and laborious enough to you so far, Frances; you
require complete rest; your twelve hundred francs would not form a very
important addition to our income, and what sacrifice of comfort to earn
it! Relinquish your labours: you must be weary, and let me have the
happiness of giving you rest.”
I am not sure whether Frances had accorded due attention to my harangue;
instead of answering me with her usual respectful promptitude, she only
sighed and said,--
“How rich you are, monsieur!” and then she stirred uneasy in my
arms. “Three thousand francs!” she murmured, “While I get only twelve
hundred!” She went on faster. “However, it must be so for the present;
and, monsieur, were you not saying something about my giving up my
place? Oh no! I shall hold it fast;” and her little fingers emphatically
tightened on mine.
“Think of my marrying you to be kept by you, monsieur! I could not do
it; and how dull my days would be! You would be away teaching in close,
noisy school-rooms, from morning till evening, and I should be lingering
at home, unemployed and solitary; I should get depressed and sullen, and
you would soon tire of me.”
“Frances, you could read and study--two things you like so well.”
“Monsieur, I could not; I like a contemplative life, but I like an
active life better; I must act in some way, and act with you. I have
taken notice, monsieur, that people who are only in each other’s company
for amusement, never really like each other so well, or esteem each
other so highly, as those who work together, and perhaps suffer
together.”
“You speak God’s truth,” said I at last, “and you shall have your own
way, for it is the best way. Now, as a reward for such ready consent,
give me a voluntary kiss.”
After some hesitation, natural to a novice in the art of kissing, she
brought her lips into very shy and gentle contact with my forehead; I
took the small gift as a loan, and repaid it promptly, and with generous
interest.
I know not whether Frances was really much altered since the time
I first saw her; but, as I looked at her now, I felt that she was
singularly changed for me; the sad eye, the pale cheek, the dejected
and joyless countenance I remembered as her early attributes, were quite
gone, and now I saw a face dressed in graces; smile, dimple, and
rosy tint rounded its contours and brightened its hues. I had been
accustomed to nurse a flattering idea that my strong attachment to her
proved some particular perspicacity in my nature; she was not handsome,
she was not rich, she was not even accomplished, yet was she my life’s
treasure; I must then be a man of peculiar discernment. To-night my eyes
opened on the mistake I had made; I began to suspect that it was only my
tastes which were unique, not my power of discovering and appreciating
the superiority of moral worth over physical charms. For me Frances
had physical charms: in her there was no deformity to get over; none of
those prominent defects of eyes, teeth, complexion, shape, which hold at
bay the admiration of the boldest male champions of intellect (for
women can love a downright ugly man if he be but talented); had she been
either “edentee, myope, rugueuse, ou bossue,” my feelings towards
her might still have been kindly, but they could never have been
impassioned; I had affection for the poor little misshapen Sylvie, but
for her I could never have had love. It is true Frances’ mental points
had been the first to interest me, and they still retained the strongest
hold on my preference; but I liked the graces of her person too. I
derived a pleasure, purely material, from contemplating the clearness
of her brown eyes, the fairness of her fine skin, the purity of her
well-set teeth, the proportion of her delicate form; and that pleasure
I could ill have dispensed with. It appeared, then, that I too was a
sensualist, in my temperate and fastidious way.
Now, reader, during the last two pages I have been giving you honey
fresh from flowers, but you must not live entirely on food so luscious;
taste then a little gall--just a drop, by way of change.
At a somewhat late hour I returned to my lodgings: having temporarily
forgotten that man had any such coarse cares as those of eating and
drinking, I went to bed fasting. I had been excited and in action all
day, and had tasted no food since eight that morning; besides, for a
fortnight past, I had known no rest either of body or mind; the last few
hours had been a sweet delirium, it would not subside now, and till long
after midnight, broke with troubled ecstacy the rest I so much needed.
At last I dozed, but not for long; it was yet quite dark when I awoke,
and my waking was like that of Job when a spirit passed before his face,
and like him, “the hair of my flesh stood up.” I might continue the
parallel, for in truth, though I saw nothing, yet “a thing was secretly
brought unto me, and mine ear received a little thereof; there was
silence, and I heard a voice,” saying--“In the midst of life we are in
death.”
That sound, and the sensation of chill anguish accompanying it, many
would have regarded as supernatural; but I recognized it at once as the
effect of reaction. Man is ever clogged with his mortality, and it was
my mortal nature which now faltered and plained; my nerves, which jarred
and gave a false sound, because the soul, of late rushing headlong to an
aim, had overstrained the body’s comparative weakness. A horror of great
darkness fell upon me; I felt my chamber invaded by one I had known
formerly, but had thought for ever departed. I was temporarily a prey to
hypochondria.
She had been my acquaintance, nay, my guest, once before in boyhood; I
had entertained her at bed and board for a year; for that space of time
I had her to myself in secret; she lay with me, she ate with me, she
walked out with me, showing me nooks in woods, hollows in hills, where
we could sit together, and where she could drop her drear veil over me,
and so hide sky and sun, grass and green tree; taking me entirely to her
death-cold bosom, and holding me with arms of bone. What tales she would
tell me at such hours! What songs she would recite in my ears! How she
would discourse to me of her own country--the grave--and again and again
promise to conduct me there ere long; and, drawing me to the very brink
of a black, sullen river, show me, on the other side, shores unequal
with mound, monument, and tablet, standing up in a glimmer more hoary
than moonlight. “Necropolis!” she would whisper, pointing to the pale
piles, and add, “It contains a mansion prepared for you.”
But my boyhood was lonely, parentless; uncheered by brother or sister;
and there was no marvel that, just as I rose to youth, a sorceress,
finding me lost in vague mental wanderings, with many affections and few
objects, glowing aspirations and gloomy prospects, strong desires and
slender hopes, should lift up her illusive lamp to me in the distance,
and lure me to her vaulted home of horrors. No wonder her spells
THEN had power; but NOW, when my course was widening, my prospect
brightening; when my affections had found a rest; when my desires,
folding wings, weary with long flight, had just alighted on the very lap
of fruition, and nestled there warm, content, under the caress of a soft
hand--why did hypochondria accost me now?
I repulsed her as one would a dreaded and ghastly concubine coming to
embitter a husband’s heart toward his young bride; in vain; she kept her
sway over me for that night and the next day, and eight succeeding days.
Afterwards, my spirits began slowly to recover their tone; my appetite
returned, and in a fortnight I was well. I had gone about as usual all
the time, and had said nothing to anybody of what I felt; but I was glad
when the evil spirit departed from me, and I could again seek Frances,
and sit at her side, freed from the dreadful tyranny of my demon.