Part 8

Madame Beck possessed high administrative powers. She ruled a hundred and twenty pupils, four teachers, eight masters, six servants and three children, and managed the pupils' parents and friends to perfection, without apparent effort. "Surveillance," "espionage"--these were the watchwords of her system. She knew what honesty was, and liked it--when it did not obtrude its clumsy scruples in the way of her will and interest. Wise, firm, faithless, secret, crafty, passionless, watchful and inscrutable--withal perfectly decorous--what more could be desired?

Not a soul in all Madame Beck's house, from the scullion to the directress herself, but was above being ashamed of a lie; they thought nothing of it.

Here Miss Ginevra Fanshawe was a thriving pupil. She had a considerable range of acquaintances outside the school, for Mrs. Cholmondeley, her chaperon, a gay, fashionable lady, took her to evening parties at the houses of her acquaintances. Soon I discovered by hints that ardent admiration, perhaps genuine love, was at the command of this pretty and charming, but by no means refined, girl. She called her suitor "Isidore," and bragged about the vehemence of his attachment. I asked her if she loved him in return.

"He is handsome; he loves me to distraction; and so I am amused," was the reply.

"But if he loves you, and it comes to nothing in the end, he will be miserable."

"Of course he will break his heart. I should be disappointed if he didn't."

"Do try to get a clear idea of the state of your own mind," I said, "for to me it really seems as chaotic as a rag-bag."

"It is something in this fashion. He thinks far more of me than I find it convenient to be, while I am more at ease with you, you old cross- patch, you who know me to be coquettish and ignorant and fickle."

"You love M. Isidore far more than you think or will avow."

"No. I danced with a young officer the other night whom I love a thousand times more than he. Colonel Alfred de Hamal suits me far better. _Vive les joies et les plaisirs_!"

It was as English teacher that I was engaged at Madame Beck's school, but the annual fête brought me into prominence in another capacity. The programme included a dramatic performance, with pupils and teachers for actors, and this was given under the superintendence of M. Paul Emanuel. I was dressed a couple of hours before anyone else, and reading in my classroom, the door was flung open, and in came M. Paul with a burst of execrable jargon: "Mees, play you must; I am planted here."

"What can I do for you?" I inquired.

"Play you must. I will not have you shrink, or frown, or make the prude. Let us thrust to the wall all reluctance."

What did the little man mean?

"Listen!" he said. "The case shall be stated, and you shall answer me 'Yes' or 'No.' Louise Vanderkelkov has fallen ill--at least, so her ridiculous mother asserts. She is charged with a rôle; without that rôle the play stopped. Englishwomen are either the best or the worst of their sex. I apply to an Englishwoman to save me. What is her answer--'Yes,' or 'No'?"

Seeing in his vexed, fiery and searching eye an appeal behind its menace, my lips dropped the word "Oui."

His rigid countenance relaxed with a quiver of content; then he went on:

"Here is the book. Here is your rôle. You must withdraw." He conveyed me to the attic, locked me in, and took away the key.

What I felt that successful night, and what I did, I no more expected to feel and do than to be lifted in a trance to the seventh heaven. A keen relish for dramatic expression revealed itself as part of my nature. But the strength of longing must be put by; and I put it by, and fastened it in with the lock of a resolution which neither time nor temptation has since picked.

It was at this school fête that I discovered the identity of Miss Fanshawe's M. Isidore. She whispered to me, after the play: "Isidore and Alfred de Hamal are both here!" The latter I found was a straight-nosed, correct-featured little dandy, nicely dressed, curled, booted, and gloved; and Isidore was the manly English Dr. John, who attended the pupils of the school, and was none other than the gentleman whose directions to an hotel I had failed to follow on the night of my arrival in Villette. And the puppet, the manikin--a mere lackey for Dr. John, his valet, his foot-boy, was the favoured admirer of Ginevra Fanshawe!

_III.--Old Friends are Best_

During the long vacation I stayed at the school, and, in the absence of companionship and the sedative of work, suffered such agonising depression as led to physical illness, until one evening, after wandering aimlessly in the city, I fell fainting as I tried to reach the porch of a great church. When I recovered consciousness, I found myself in a room that smiled "Auld lang syne" out of every nook.

Where was I? The furniture was that with which I had been so intimate in the drawing-room of my godmother's house at Bretton. Nay, there, on the linen of my bed, were my godmothers initials "L.L.B."; and there was the portrait that used to hang over the mantelpiece in the breakfast-room in the old house at Bretton. I audibly pronounced the name--"Graham!"

"Graham!" echoed a sudden voice at my bedside. "Do you want Graham?"

She was little changed; something sterner, something more robust, but it was my godmother, Mrs. Bretton.

"How was I found, madam?"

"My son shall tell you by and by," said she. "I am told you are an English teacher in a foreign school here."

Before evening I was downstairs, and seated in a corner, when Graham arrived home, and entered with the question: "How is your patient, mamma?"

At Mrs. Bretton's invitation, I came forward to speak for myself where he stood at the hearth, a figure justifying his mother's pride.

"Much better," I said calmly; "much better, I thank you Dr. John."

For this tall young man, this host of mine, was Dr. John, and I had been aware of his identity for some time.

Ere we had sat ten minutes, I caught the eye of Mrs. Bretton fixed steadily on me, and at last she asked, "Tell me, Graham, of whom does this young lady remind you."

"Dr. John has had so much to do and think of," said I, seeing how it must end, "that it never occurred to me as possible that he should recognise Lucy Snowe."

"Lucy Snowe! I thought so! I knew it!" cried Mrs. Bretton, as she stepped across the hearth and kissed me. And I wondered if Mrs. Bretton knew at whose feet her idolised son had laid his homage.

_IV.--A Cure for First Love_

The Brettons, who had regained some of their fortune, lived in a château outside Villette, a course further warranted by Dr. John's professional success. In the months, that followed I heard much of Ginevra. He thought her so fair, so good, so innocent, and yet, though love is blind, I saw sometimes a subtle ray sped sideways from his eye that half led me to think his professed persuasion of Miss Fanshawe's naïveté was in part assumed.

One morning my godmother decreed that we should go with Graham to a concert that night, at which the most advanced pupils of the conservatoire were to perform. There, in the suite of the British embassy, was Ginevra Fanshawe, seated by the daughter of an English peer. I noticed that she looked quite steadily at Dr. John, and then raised a glass to examine his mother, and a minute or two afterwards laughingly whispered to her neighbour.

"Miss Fanshawe is here," I whispered. "Have you noticed her?"

"Oh yes," was the reply; "and I happen to know her companion, who is a proud girl, but not in the least insolent; and I doubt whether Ginevra will have gained ground in her estimation by making a butt of her neighbours."

"What neighbours?"

"Myself and my mother. As for me, it is very natural; but my mother! I never saw her ridiculed before. Through me she could not in ten years have done what in a moment she has done through my mother."

Never before had I seen so much fire and so little sunshine in Dr. John's blue eyes.

"My mother shall not be ridiculed with my consent, or without my scorn," he added. "Mother," said he to her later, "You are better to me than ten wives." And when we were out in the keen night air, he said to himself: "Thank you, Miss Fanshawe. I am glad you laughed at my mother. That sneer did me a world of good."

_V.--Reunion Completed_

One evening in December Dr. Bretton called to take me to the theatre in place of his mother, who had been prevented by an arrival. In the course of the performance a cry of "Fire!" rang out, and a panic ensued. Graham remained quite cool until he saw a young girl struck from her protector's arms and hurled under the feet of the crowd. Then he rushed forward, thrust back the throng with the assistance of the gentleman--a powerful man, though grey-haired--and bore the girl into the fresh night, I following him closely.

"She is very light," he said; "like a child."

"I am not a child! I am a person of seventeen!" responded his burden, demurely.

Her father's carriage drove up, and Graham, having introduced himself as an English doctor, we drove to the hotel where father and daughter were staying in handsome apartments. The injuries were not dangerous, and the father, after earnestly expressing his obligations to Graham, asked him to call the next day.

When next I visited the Bretton's château I found an intruder in the room I had occupied during my illness.

"Miss de Bassompièrre, I pronounced, recognising the rescued lady, whose name I had heard on the night of the accident.

"No," was the reply. "Not Miss de Bassompièrre to you." Then, as I seemed at fault, she added: "You have forgotten, then, that I have sat on your knee, been lifted in your arms, even shared your pillow. I am Paulina Mary Home de Bassompièrre."

I often visited Mary de Bassompièrre with pleasure. That young lady had different moods for different people. With her father she was even now a child. With me she was serious and womanly. With Mrs. Bretton she was docile and reliant. With Graham she was shy--very shy. At moments she tried to be cold, and, on occasion, she endeavoured to shun him. Even her father noticed this demeanour in her, and asked her what her old friend had done.

"Nothing," she replied; "but we are grown strange to each other."

I became apprised of the return of M. de Bassompièrre and Paulina, after a few weeks' absence in Paris, by seeing them riding before me in a quiet boulevard with Dr. Bretton. How animated was Graham's face! How true, yet how retiring the joy it expressed! They parted. He passed me at speed, hardly feeling the earth he skimmed, and seeing nothing on either hand.

It was after this that she made me her confession of love, and of fear lest her father should be grieved.

"I wish papa knew! I do wish papa knew!" began now to be her anxious murmur; but it was M. de Bassompièrre who first broached the subject of his daughter's affections, and it was to me that he introduced it. She came into the room while we talked and Graham followed.

"Take her, John Bretton," he said, "and may God deal with you as you deal with her!"

_VI.--A Professor's Love-Story_

The pupils from the schools of the city were assembled for the yearly prize distribution--a ceremony followed by an oration from one of the professors. I think I was glad when M. Paul appeared behind the crimson desk, fierce and frank, dark and candid, testy and fearless, for then I knew that neither formalism nor flattery would be the doom of the audience.

On Monsieur's birthday it was the habit of the scholars to present him with flowers, and I had worked a beaded watch-chain, and enclosed it in a sparkling shell-box, with his initials graved on the lid. He entered that day in a mood that made him as good as a sunbeam, and each pupil presented her bouquet, till he was hidden at his desk behind a pile of flowers. I waited. Then he demanded thrice, in tragic tones: "Is that all?" The effect was ludicrous, and the time for my presentation had passed. Thereupon he fell, with furious abuse, upon the English, and

## particularly English women. But I presented the chain to him later, and

that day closed for us both with a wordless content, so full was he of friendliness.

The professor's care for me took curious forms. He haunted my desk with unseen gift-bringing--the newest books, the correction of exercises, the concealment of bonbons, of which he was fond.

One day he asked me whether, if I were his sister, I should always be content to stay with a brother such as he. I said I believed I should. He continued: "If I were to go beyond seas for two or three years, should you welcome me on my return?"

"Monsieur, how could I live in the interval?" was my reply.

The explanation of that question soon came. He had, it seemed, to sail to Basseterre, in Guadeloupe, to attend to a friend's business interests. For what I felt there was no help, and how could I help feeling?

Of late he had spent hours with me, with temper soothed, with eye content, with manner home-like and mild. The mutual understanding was settling and fixing. And when the time came for him to say good-bye, we rambled forth into the city. He talked of his voyage. What did I propose to do in his absence? He did not like leaving me at Madame Beck's--I should be so desolate.

We were now returning from our walk, when, passing a small but pleasant and neat abode in a clean _faubourg_, he took a key from his pocket, opened, and entered. "_Voici!_" he cried, and put a prospectus in my hand. "Externat de demoiselles. Numéro 7, Faubourg Clotilde. Directrice, Mademoiselle Lucy Snowe."

"Now," said he, "you shall live here and have a school. You shall employ yourself while I am away; you shall think of me; you shall mind your health and happiness for my sake, and when I come back----"

I touched his hand with my lips. Royal to me had been its bounty.

And now three years are past. M. Emanuel's return is fixed. He is to be with me ere the mists of November come. My school flourishes; my house is ready.

But the skies hang full and dark--a wrack sails from the west. Peace, peace, Banshee--"keening" at every window. The storm did not cease till the Atlantic was strewn with wrecks. Peace, be still! Oh, a thousand weepers, praying in agony on waiting shores, listened for that voice; but when the sun returned, his light was night to some!

Here pause. Enough is said. Trouble no kind heart. Leave sunny imaginations hope. Let them picture union and a happy life.

* * * * *

EMILY BRONTË

Wuthering Heights

"That chainless soul," Emily Jane Brontë, was born at Thornton, Yorkshire, England, on August 30, 1818, and died at Haworth on December 19, 1848. She will always have a place in English literature by reason of her one weird, powerful, strained novel, "Wuthering Heights," and a few poems. Emily Brontë, like her sister Charlotte, was educated at Cowan School and at Brussels. For a time she became a governess, but it seemed impossible for her to live away from the fascination of the Yorkshire moors, and she went home to keep house at the Haworth Parsonage, while her sisters taught. Two months after the publication of "Jane Eyre" by Charlotte, that is, in December, 1847, "Wuthering Heights," by Emily, and "Agnes Grey," by Anne, the third sister in this remarkable trio, were issued in one volume. The critics, who did not discover these books were by women, suggested persistently that "Wuthering Heights" must be an immature work by Currer Bell (Charlotte). A year after the publication of her novel Emily died, unaware of her success in achieving a lasting, if restricted, fame. She was extraordinarily reserved, sensitive, and wayward, and lived in an imagined world of her own, morbidly influenced, no doubt, by the vagaries of her worthless brother Branwell. That she had true genius, allied with fine strength of intellect and character, is the unanimous verdict of competent criticism, while it grieves over unfulfilled possibilities.

_I.--A Surly Brood_

"Mr. Heathcliff?"

A nod was the answer.

"Mr. Lockwood, your new tenant at Thrushcross Grange, sir."

"Walk in." But the invitation, uttered with closed teeth, expressed the sentiment "Go to the deuce!" And it was not till my horse's breast fairly pushed the barrier that he put out his hand to unchain it. I felt interested in a man who seemed more exaggeratedly reserved than myself as he preceded me up the causeway, calling, "Joseph, take Mr. Lockwood's horse; and bring up some wine."

Joseph was an old man, very old, though hale and sinewy. "The Lord help us!" he soliloquised in an undertone as he relieved me of my horse.

Wuthering Heights, Mr. Heathcliff's dwelling, is a farmhouse on an exposed and stormy edge, its name being significant of atmospheric tumult. Its owner is a dark-skinned gipsy in aspect, in dress and manners a gentleman, with erect and handsome figure, but morose demeanour. One step from the outside brought us into the family living-room, the recesses of which were haunted by a huge liver-coloured bitch pointer, with a swarm of squealing puppies, and other dogs. As the bitch sneaked wolfishly to the back of my legs I attempted to caress her, an action that provoked a long, guttural growl.

"You'd better let the dog alone," growled Mr. Heathcliff in unison, as he checked her with a punch of his foot. "She's not accustomed to be spoiled."

As Joseph was mumbling indistinctly in the depths of the cellar, and gave no sign of ascending, his master dived down to him, leaving me _vis-à-vis_ with the ruffianly bitch and half a dozen four-footed fiends that suddenly broke into a fury, while I parried off the attack with a poker and called aloud for assistance.

"What the devil is the matter?" asked Heathcliff, as he returned.

"What the devil, indeed!" I muttered. "You might as well leave a stranger with a brood of tigers!"

"They won't meddle with persons who touch nothing," he remarked. "The dogs are right to be vigilant. Take a glass of wine."

Before I went home I determined to volunteer another visit to my sulky landlord, though evidently he wished for no repetition of my intrusion.

* * * * *

Yesterday I again visited Wuthering Heights, my nearest neighbours to Thrushcross Grange. On that bleak hill-top the earth was hard with a black frost, and the air made me shiver through every limb. As I knocked for admittance, till my knuckles tingled and the dogs howled, vinegar- faced Joseph projected his head from a round window of the barn, and shouted to me.

"What are ye for? T' maister's down i' t' fowld. There's nobbut t' missis. I'll hae no hend wi't," muttered the head, vanishing.

Then a young man, without coat and shouldering a pitchfork, hailed me to follow him, and showed me into the apartment where I had been formerly received with a gruff "Sit down; he'll be in soon."

In the room sat the "missis," motionless and mute. She was slender, scarcely past girlhood, with the most exquisite little face I have ever had the pleasure of beholding; and her eyes, had they been agreeable in expression, would have been irresistible. But the only sentiment they evinced hovered between scorn and a kind of desperation. As for the young man who had brought me in, he slung on his person a shabby jacket, and, erecting himself before the fire, gazed down on me from the corner of his eyes as if there was some mortal feud unavenged between us. The entrance of Heathcliff relieved me from an uncomfortable state.

I found in the course of the tea which followed that the lady was the widow of Heathcliff's son, and that the rustic youth who sat down to the meal with us was Hareton Earnshaw. Now, before passing the threshold, I had noticed over the principal door, among a wilderness of crumbling griffins and shameless little boys, the name "Hareton Earnshaw" and the date "1500." Evidently the place had a history.

The snow had fallen so deeply since I entered the house that return across the moor in the dusk was impossible.

Spending that night at Wuthering Heights on an old-fashioned couch that filled a recess, or closet, in a disused chamber, I found, scratched on the paint many times, the names "Catherine Earnshaw," "Catherine Heathcliff," and again "Catherine Linton." There were many books in the room in a dilapidated state, and, being unable to sleep, I examined them. Some of them bore the inscription "Catherine Earnshaw, her book"; and on the blank leaves and margins, scrawled in a childish hand, was a regular diary. I read: "Hindley is detestable. Heathcliff and I are going to rebel.... How little did I dream Hindley would ever make me cry so! Poor Heathcliff! Hindley calls him a vagabond, and won't let him sit or eat with us any more."

When I slept I was harrowed by nightmare, and next morning I gladly left the house; and, piloted by my landlord across the billowy white ocean of the moor, I reached the Grange benumbed with cold and as feeble as a kitten from fatigue.

When my housekeeper, Mrs. Nelly Dean, brought in my supper that night I asked her why Heathcliff let the Grange and preferred living in a residence so much inferior.

"He's rich enough to live in a finer house than this," said Mrs. Dean; "but he's very close-handed. Young Mrs. Heathcliff is my late master's daughter--Catherine Linton was her maiden name, and I nursed her, poor thing. Hareton Earnshaw is her cousin, and the last of an old family."

"The master, Heathcliff, must have had some ups and downs to make him such a churl. Do you know anything of his history?"

"It's a cuckoo's, sir. I know all about it, except where he was born, and who were his parents, and how he got his money. And Hareton Earnshaw has been cast out like an unfledged dunnock."

I asked Mrs. Dean to bring her sewing, and continue the story. This she did, evidently pleased to find me companionable.

_II.--The Story Runs Backward_