Villette - The Original Classic Edition. Brontë Charlotte

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СКАЧАТЬ 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 insular speech when she said, "You ayre Engliss," and she now proceeded to work away volubly 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 "maitresse," who had been partly educated in an Irish convent, and was esteemed a perfect adept in the English language. A bluff little personage this maitresse was--Labassecourienne from top to toe: and how she did 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

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       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:

       "Il n'y a que les Anglaises pour ces sortes d'entreprises," said she: "sont-elles donc intrepides ces femmes la!"

       She asked my name, my age; she sat and looked at me--not pityingly, not 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 priere du soir!" said she, and rose. Through her interpreter, she desired me to depart now, and come back on the mor-row; 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 maitresse: "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 can I secure a lodging?"

       "It is true," said she; "but at least you can 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 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.

       "M. Paul," 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. M. Paul was summoned. He entered: a small, dark and spare man, in spectacles.

       "Mon cousin," began Madame, "I want your opinion. We know your skill in physiognomy; 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. "Et qu'en dites vous?"

       "Mais--bien des choses," was the oracular answer. "Bad or good?"

       "Of each kind, without doubt," pursued the diviner. "May one trust her word?"

       "Are you negotiating a matter of importance?"

       "She wishes me to engage her as bonne or gouvernante; tells a tale full of integrity, but gives no reference." "She is a stranger?"

       "An Englishwoman, as one may see."

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       "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 at last came, 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--eh bien! ma cousine, ce sera toujours une bonne oeuvre." And with a bow and a "bon soir," 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.

       CHAPTER VIII. MADAME BECK.

       Being delivered into the charge of the maitresse, I was led through a long narrow passage into a foreign kitchen, very clean but very strange. It seemed to contain no means of cooking--neither fireplace nor oven; I did not understand that the great black furnace which filled one corner, was an efficient substitute for these. Surely pride was not already beginning its whispers in my heart; yet I felt a sense of relief when, instead of being left in the kitchen, as I half anticipated, I was led forward to a small inner room termed a "cabinet." A cook in a jacket, a short petticoat and sabots, brought my supper: to wit--some meat, nature unknown, served in an odd and acid, but pleasant sauce; some chopped potatoes, made savoury with, I know not what: vinegar and sugar, I think: a tartine, or slice of bread and butter, and a baked pear. Being hungry, I ate and was grateful.

       After the "priere du soir," Madame herself came to have another look at me. She desired me to follow her upstairs. Through a series of the queerest little dormitories--which, I heard afterwards, had once been nuns' cells: for the premises were in part of ancient date--and through the oratory--a long, low, gloomy room, where a crucifix hung, pale, against the wall, and two tapers kept dim vig-ils--she conducted me to an apartment where three children were asleep in three tiny beds. A heated stove made the air of this room oppressive; and, to mend matters, it was scented with an odour rather strong than delicate: a perfume, indeed, altogether surprising and unexpected under the circumstances, being like the combination of smoke with some spirituous essence--a smell, in short, of whisky.

       Beside a table, on which flared the remnant of a candle guttering to waste in the socket, a coarse woman, heterogeneously clad in a broad striped showy silk dress, and a stuff apron, sat in a chair fast asleep. To complete the picture, and leave no doubt as to the state of matters, a bottle and an empty glass stood at the sleeping beauty's elbow.

       Madame contemplated this remarkable tableau with great calm; she neither smiled nor scowled; no impress of anger, disgust, or surprise, ruffled the equality of her grave aspect; she did not even wake the woman! Serenely pointing to a fourth bed, she intimated that it was to be mine; then, having extinguished the candle and substituted for it a night-lamp, she glided through an inner door, which she left ajar--the entrance to her own chamber, a large, well-furnished apartment; as was discernible through the aperture.

       My devotions that night were all thanksgiving. Strangely had I been led since morning--unexpectedly had I been provided for. Scarcely could I believe that not forty-eight hours had elapsed since I left London, under no other guardianship than that which protects the passenger-bird--with no prospect but the dubious cloud-tracery of hope.

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