Villette

My godmother lived in a handsome house in the clean and ancient town of Bretton. Her husband’s family had been residents there for generations, and bore, indeed, the name of their birthplace⁠—Bretton of Bretton: whether by coincidence, or because some remote ancestor had been a personage of sufficient importance to leave his name to his neighbourhood, I know not.

When I was a girl I went to Bretton about twice a year, and well I liked the visit. The house and its inmates specially suited me. The large peaceful rooms, the well-arranged furniture, the clear wide windows, the balcony outside, looking down on a fine antique street, where Sundays and holidays seemed always to abide⁠—so quiet was its atmosphere, so clean its pavement⁠—these things pleased me well.

One child in a household of grown people is usually made very much of, and in a quiet way I was a good deal taken notice of by Mrs. Bretton, who had been left a widow, with one son, before I knew her; her husband, a physician, having died while she was yet a young and handsome woman.

A little before ten the doorbell announced Warren’s return. No sooner was the door opened than I ran down into the hall; there lay a trunk and some bandboxes, beside them stood a person like a nurse-girl, and at the foot of the staircase was Warren with a shawled bundle in his arms.

“Is that the child?” I asked.

“Yes, miss.”

I would have opened the shawl, and tried to get a peep at the face, but it was hastily turned from me to Warren’s shoulder.

“Put me down, please,” said a small voice when Warren opened the drawing-room door, “and take off this shawl,” continued the speaker, extracting with its minute hand the pin, and with a sort of fastidious haste doffing the clumsy wrapping. The creature which now appeared made a deft attempt to fold the shawl; but the drapery was much too heavy and large to be sustained or wielded by those hands and arms. “Give it to Harriet, please,” was then the direction, “and she can put it away.” This said, it turned and fixed its eyes on Mrs. Bretton.

“Come here, little dear,” said that lady. “Come and let me see if you are cold and damp: come and let me warm you at the fire.”

The child advanced promptly. Relieved of her wrapping, she appeared exceedingly tiny; but was a neat, completely-fashioned little figure, light, slight, and straight.

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 porte-cochère: “Pensionnat de Demoiselles” 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 shapes, and the glitter of wet on their angles. I rang again. They opened at last. A bonne 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 Pensionnat, 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 pendule on the mantelpiece struck nine o’clock.

“Will you,” she said, “go backward or forward?” indicating with her hand, first, the small door of communication with the dwelling-house, and then the great double portals of the classes or schoolrooms.

“En avant,” I said.

“But,” pursued she, cooling as I warmed, and continuing the hard look, from very antipathy to which I drew strength and determination, “can you face the classes, or are you overexcited?”

She sneered slightly in saying this⁠—nervous excitability was not much to Madame’s taste.

“I am no more excited than this stone,” I said, tapping the flag with my toe: “or than you,” I added, returning her look.

“Bon! But let me tell you these are not quiet, decorous, English girls you are going to encounter. Ce sont des Labassecouriennes, rondes, franches, brusques, et tant soit peu rebelles.”

I said: “I know; and I know, too, that though I have studied French hard since I came here, yet I still speak it with far too much hesitation⁠—too little accuracy to be able to command their respect: I shall make blunders that will lay me open to the scorn of the most ignorant. Still I mean to give the lesson.”

“They always throw over timid teachers,” said she.

“I know that too, Madame; I have heard how they rebelled against and persecuted Miss Turner”⁠—a poor friendless English teacher, whom Madame had employed, and lightly discarded; and to whose piteous history I was no stranger.

“C’est vrai,” said she, coolly. “Miss Turner had no more command over them than a servant from the kitchen would have had.

Are there wicked things, not human, which envy human bliss? Are there evil influences haunting the air, and poisoning it for man? What was near me?

Something in that vast solitary garret sounded strangely. Most surely and certainly I heard, as it seemed, a stealthy foot on that floor, a sort of gliding out from the direction of the black recess haunted by the malefactor cloaks. I turned: my light was dim; the room was long⁠—but as I live! I saw in the middle of that ghostly chamber a figure all black and white; the skirts straight, narrow, black; the head bandaged, veiled, white.

Say what you will, reader⁠—tell me I was nervous or mad; affirm that I was unsettled by the excitement of that letter; declare that I dreamed; this I vow⁠—I saw there⁠—in that room⁠—on that night⁠—an image like⁠—a nun.

I cried out; I sickened. Had the shape approached me I might have swooned. It receded; I made for the door. How I descended all the stairs I know not. By instinct I shunned the refectory, and shaped my course to Madame’s sitting-room: I burst in. I said⁠—

“There is something in the grenier; I have been there: I saw something. Go and look at it, all of you!”