CHAPTER XII.
THE CASKET.
Behind the house at the Rue Fossette there was a garden--large,considering that it lay in the heart of a city, and to my recollectionat this day it seems pleasant: but time, like distance, lends tocertain scenes an influence so softening; and where all is stonearound, blank wall and hot pavement, how precious seems one shrub, howlovely an enclosed and planted spot of ground!
There went a tradition that Madame Beck's house had in old days been aconvent. That in years gone by--how long gone by I cannot tell, but Ithink some centuries--before the city had over-spread this quarter, andwhen it was tilled ground and avenue, and such deep and leafy seclusionas ought to embosom a religious house--that something had happened onthis site which, rousing fear and inflicting horror, had left to theplace the inheritance of a ghost-story. A vague tale went of a blackand white nun, sometimes, on some night or nights of the year, seen insome part of this vicinage. The ghost must have been built out someages ago, for there were houses all round now; but certainconvent-relics, in the shape of old and huge fruit-trees, yetconsecrated the spot; and, at the foot of one--a Methuselah of apear-tree, dead, all but a few boughs which still faithfully renewedtheir perfumed snow in spring, and their honey-sweet pendants inautumn--you saw, in scraping away the mossy earth between thehalf-bared roots, a glimpse of slab, smooth, hard, and black. Thelegend went, unconfirmed and unaccredited, but still propagated, thatthis was the portal of a vault, imprisoning deep beneath that ground,on whose surface grass grew and flowers bloomed, the bones of a girlwhom a monkish conclave of the drear middle ages had here buried alivefor some sin against her vow. Her shadow it was that tremblers hadfeared, through long generations after her poor frame was dust; herblack robe and white veil that, for timid eyes, moonlight and shade hadmocked, as they fluctuated in the night-wind through the garden-thicket.
Independently of romantic rubbish, however, that old garden had itscharms. On summer mornings I used to rise early, to enjoy them alone;on summer evenings, to linger solitary, to keep tryste with the risingmoon, or taste one kiss of the evening breeze, or fancy rather thanfeel the freshness of dew descending. The turf was verdant, thegravelled walks were white; sun-bright nasturtiums clustered beautifulabout the roots of the doddered orchard giants. There was a largeberceau, above which spread the shade of an acacia; there was asmaller, more sequestered bower, nestled in the vines which ran allalong a high and grey wall, and gathered their tendrils in a knot ofbeauty, and hung their clusters in loving profusion about the favouredspot where jasmine and ivy met and married them.
Doubtless at high noon, in the broad, vulgar middle of the day, whenMadame Beck's large school turned out rampant, and externes andpensionnaires were spread abroad, vying with the denizens of the boys'college close at hand, in the brazen exercise of their lungs andlimbs--doubtless _then_ the garden was a trite, trodden-down placeenough. But at sunset or the hour of _salut_, when the externes weregone home, and the boarders quiet at their studies; pleasant was itthen to stray down the peaceful alleys, and hear the bells of St. JeanBaptiste peal out with their sweet, soft, exalted sound.
I was walking thus one evening, and had been detained farther withinthe verge of twilight than usual, by the still-deepening calm, themellow coolness, the fragrant breathing with which flowers no sunshinecould win now answered the persuasion of the dew. I saw by a light inthe oratory window that the Catholic household were then gathered toevening prayer--a rite, from attendance on which, I now and then, as aProtestant, exempted myself.
"One moment longer," whispered solitude and the summer moon, "stay withus: all is truly quiet now; for another quarter of an hour yourpresence will not be missed: the day's heat and bustle have tired you;enjoy these precious minutes."
The windowless backs of houses built in this garden, and in particularthe whole of one side, was skirted by the rear of a long line ofpremises--being the boarding-houses of the neighbouring college. Thisrear, however, was all blank stone, with the exception of certain atticloopholes high up, opening from the sleeping-rooms of thewomen-servants, and also one casement in a lower story said to mark thechamber or study of a master. But, though thus secure, an alley, whichran parallel with the very high wall on that side the garden, wasforbidden to be entered by the pupils. It was called indeed "l'alleedefendue," and any girl setting foot there would have rendered herselfliable to as severe a penalty as the mild rules of Madame Beck'sestablishment permitted. Teachers might indeed go there with impunity;but as the walk was narrow, and the neglected shrubs were grown verythick and close on each side, weaving overhead a roof of branch andleaf which the sun's rays penetrated but in rare chequers, this alleywas seldom entered even during day, and after dusk was carefullyshunned.
From the first I was tempted to make an exception to this rule ofavoidance: the seclusion, the very gloom of the walk attracted me. Fora long time the fear of seeming singular scared me away; but bydegrees, as people became accustomed to me and my habits, and to suchshades of peculiarity as were engrained in my nature--shades, certainlynot striking enough to interest, and perhaps not prominent enough tooffend, but born in and with me, and no more to be parted with than myidentity--by slow degrees I became a frequenter of this strait andnarrow path. I made myself gardener of some tintless flowers that grewbetween its closely-ranked shrubs; I cleared away the relics of pastautumns, choking up a rustic seat at the far end. Borrowing of Goton,the cuisiniere, a pail of water and a scrubbing-brush, I made this seatclean. Madame saw me at work and smiled approbation: whether sincerelyor not I don't know; but she _seemed_ sincere.
"Voyez-vous," cried she, "comme elle est propre, cette demoiselleLucie? Vous aimez done cette allee, Meess?" "Yes," I said, "it is quietand shady."
"C'est juste," cried she with an air of bonte; and she kindlyrecommended me to confine myself to it as much as I chose, saying, thatas I was not charged with the surveillance, I need not trouble myselfto walk with the pupils: only I might permit her children to comethere, to talk English with me.
On the night in question, I was sitting on the hidden seat reclaimedfrom fungi and mould, listening to what seemed the far-off sounds ofthe city. Far off, in truth, they were not: this school was in thecity's centre; hence, it was but five minutes' walk to the park, scarceten to buildings of palatial splendour. Quite near were wide streetsbrightly lit, teeming at this moment with life: carriages were rollingthrough them to balls or to the opera. The same hour which tolledcurfew for our convent, which extinguished each lamp, and dropped thecurtain round each couch, rang for the gay city about us the summons tofestal enjoyment. Of this contrast I thought not, however: gayinstincts my nature had few; ball or opera I had never seen; and thoughoften I had heard them described, and even wished to see them, it wasnot the wish of one who hopes to partake a pleasure if she could onlyreach it--who feels fitted to shine in some bright distant sphere,could she but thither win her way; it was no yearning to attain, nohunger to taste; only the calm desire to look on a new thing.
A moon was in the sky, not a full moon, but a young crescent. I saw herthrough a space in the boughs overhead. She and the stars, visiblebeside her, were no strangers where all else was strange: my childhoodknew them. I had seen that golden sign with the dark globe in its curveleaning back on azure, beside an old thorn at the top of an old field,in Old England, in long past days, just as it now leaned back beside astately spire in this continental capital.
Oh, my childhood! I had feelings: passive as I lived, little as Ispoke, cold as I looked, when I thought of past days, I _could_ feel.About the present, it was better to be stoical; about the future--sucha future as mine--to be dead. And in catalepsy and a dead trance, Istudiously held the quick of my nature.
At that time, I well remember whatever could excite--certain accidentsof the weather, for instance, were almost dreaded by me, because theywoke the being I was always lulling, and stirred up a craving cry Icould not satisfy. One night a thunder-storm broke; a sort of hurricaneshook us in our bed
s: the Catholics rose in panic and prayed to theirsaints. As for me, the tempest took hold of me with tyranny: I wasroughly roused and obliged to live. I got up and dressed myself, andcreeping outside the casement close by my bed, sat on its ledge, withmy feet on the roof of a lower adjoining building. It was wet, it waswild, it was pitch-dark. Within the dormitory they gathered round thenight-lamp in consternation, praying loud. I could not go in: tooresistless was the delight of staying with the wild hour, black andfull of thunder, pealing out such an ode as language never delivered toman--too terribly glorious, the spectacle of clouds, split and piercedby white and blinding bolts.
I did long, achingly, then and for four and twenty hours afterwards,for something to fetch me out of my present existence, and lead meupwards and onwards. This longing, and all of a similar kind, it wasnecessary to knock on the head; which I did, figuratively, after themanner of Jael to Sisera, driving a nail through their temples. UnlikeSisera, they did not die: they were but transiently stunned, and atintervals would turn on the nail with a rebellious wrench: then did thetemples bleed, and the brain thrill to its core.
To-night, I was not so mutinous, nor so miserable. My Sisera lay quietin the tent, slumbering; and if his pain ached through his slumbers,something like an angel--the ideal--knelt near, dropping balm on thesoothed temples, holding before the sealed eyes a magic glass, of whichthe sweet, solemn visions were repeated in dreams, and shedding areflex from her moonlight wings and robe over the transfixed sleeper,over the tent threshold, over all the landscape lying without. Jael,the stern woman; sat apart, relenting somewhat over her captive; butmore prone to dwell on the faithful expectation of Heber coming home.By which words I mean that the cool peace and dewy sweetness of thenight filled me with a mood of hope: not hope on any definite point,but a general sense of encouragement and heart-ease.
Should not such a mood, so sweet, so tranquil, so unwonted, have beenthe harbinger of good? Alas, no good came of it! I Presently the rudeReal burst coarsely in--all evil grovelling and repellent as she toooften is.
Amid the intense stillness of that pile of stone overlooking the walk,the trees, the high wall, I heard a sound; a casement [all the windowshere are casements, opening on hinges] creaked. Ere I had time to lookup and mark where, in which story, or by whom unclosed, a tree overheadshook, as if struck by a missile; some object dropped prone at my feet.
Nine was striking by St. Jean Baptiste's clock; day was fading, but itwas not dark: the crescent moon aided little, but the deep gilding ofthat point in heaven where the sun beamed last, and the crystallineclearness of a wide space above, sustained the summer twilight; even inmy dark walk I could, by approaching an opening, have managed to readprint of a small type. Easy was it to see then that the missile was abox, a small box of white and coloured ivory; its loose lid opened inmy hand; violets lay within, violets smothering a closely folded bit ofpink paper, a note, superscribed, "Pour la robe grise." I wore indeed adress of French grey.
Good. Was this a billet-doux? A thing I had heard of, but hitherto hadnot had the honour of seeing or handling. Was it this sort of commodityI held between my finger and thumb at this moment?
Scarcely: I did not dream it for a moment. Suitor or admirer my verythoughts had not conceived. All the teachers had dreams of some lover;one (but she was naturally of a credulous turn) believed in a futurehusband. All the pupils above fourteen knew of some prospectivebridegroom; two or three were already affianced by their parents, andhad been so from childhood: but into the realm of feelings and hopeswhich such prospects open, my speculations, far less my presumptions,had never once had warrant to intrude. If the other teachers went intotown, or took a walk on the boulevards, or only attended mass, theywere very certain (according to the accounts brought back) to meet withsome individual of the "opposite sex," whose rapt, earnest gaze assuredthem of their power to strike and to attract. I can't say that myexperience tallied with theirs, in this respect. I went to church and Itook walks, and am very well convinced that nobody minded me. There wasnot a girl or woman in the Rue Fossette who could not, and did nottestify to having received an admiring beam from our young doctor'sblue eyes at one time or other. I am obliged, however humbling it maysound, to except myself: as far as I was concerned, those blue eyeswere guiltless, and calm as the sky, to whose tint theirs seemed akin.So it came to pass that I heard the others talk, wondered often attheir gaiety, security, and self-satisfaction, but did not troublemyself to look up and gaze along the path they seemed so certain oftreading. This then was no billet-doux; and it was in settledconviction to the contrary that I quietly opened it. Thus it ran--Itranslate:--
"Angel of my dreams! A thousand, thousand thanks for the promise kept:scarcely did I venture to hope its fulfilment. I believed you, indeed,to be half in jest; and then you seemed to think the enterprise besetwith such danger--the hour so untimely, the alley so strictlysecluded--often, you said, haunted by that dragon, the Englishteacher--une veritable begueule Britannique a ce que vous dites--especede monstre, brusque et rude comme un vieux caporal de grenadiers, etreveche comme une religieuse" (the reader will excuse my modesty inallowing this flattering sketch of my amiable self to retain the slightveil of the original tongue). "You are aware," went on this preciouseffusion, "that little Gustave, on account of his illness, has beenremoved to a master's chamber--that favoured chamber, whose latticeoverlooks your prison-ground. There, I, the best uncle in the world, amadmitted to visit him. How tremblingly I approached the window andglanced into your Eden--an Eden for me, though a desert for you!--how Ifeared to behold vacancy, or the dragon aforesaid! How my heartpalpitated with delight when, through apertures in the envious boughs,I at once caught the gleam of your graceful straw-hat, and the wavingof your grey dress--dress that I should recognise amongst a thousand.But why, my angel, will you not look up? Cruel, to deny me one ray ofthose adorable eyes!--how a single glance would have revived me! Iwrite this in fiery haste; while the physician examines Gustave, Isnatch an opportunity to enclose it in a small casket, together with abouquet of flowers, the sweetest that blow--yet less sweet than thee,my Peri--my all-charming! ever thine-thou well knowest whom!"
"I wish I did know whom," was my comment; and the wish bore even closerreference to the person addressed in this choice document, than to thewriter thereof. Perhaps it was from the fiance of one of the engagedpupils; and, in that case, there was no great harm done orintended--only a small irregularity. Several of the girls, themajority, indeed, had brothers or cousins at the neighbouring college.But "la robe grise, le chapeau de paille," here surely was a clue--avery confusing one. The straw-hat was an ordinary garden head-screen,common to a score besides myself. The grey dress hardly gave moredefinite indication. Madame Beck herself ordinarily wore a grey dressjust now; another teacher, and three of the pensionnaires, had had greydresses purchased of the same shade and fabric as mine: it was a sortof every-day wear which happened at that time to be in vogue.
Meanwhile, as I pondered, I knew I must go in. Lights, moving in thedormitory, announced that prayers were over, and the pupils going tobed. Another half-hour and all doors would be locked--all lightsextinguished. The front door yet stood open, to admit into the heatedhouse the coolness of the summer night; from the portress's cabinetclose by shone a lamp, showing the long vestibule with the two-leaveddrawing-room doors on one side, the great street-door closing the vista.
All at once, quick rang the bell--quick, but not loud--a cautioustinkle--a sort of warning metal whisper. Rosine darted from her cabinetand ran to open. The person she admitted stood with her two minutes inparley: there seemed a demur, a delay. Rosine came to the garden door,lamp in hand; she stood on the steps, lifting her lamp, looking roundvaguely.
"Quel conte!" she cried, with a coquettish laugh. "Personne n'y a ete."
"Let me pass," pleaded a voice I knew: "I ask but five minutes;" and afamiliar shape, tall and grand (as we of the Rue Fossette all thoughtit), issued from the house, and strode down amongst the beds and walks.It
was sacrilege--the intrusion of a man into that spot, at that hour;but he knew himself privileged, and perhaps he trusted to the friendlynight. He wandered down the alleys, looking on this side and onthat--he was lost in the shrubs, trampling flowers and breakingbranches in his search--he penetrated at last the "forbidden walk."There I met him, like some ghost, I suppose.
"Dr. John! it is found."
He did not ask by whom, for with his quick eye he perceived that I heldit in my hand.
"Do not betray her," he said, looking at me as if I were indeed adragon.
"Were I ever so disposed to treachery, I cannot betray what I do notknow," was my answer. "Read the note, and you will see how little itreveals."
"Perhaps you have read it," I thought to myself; and yet I could notbelieve he wrote it: that could hardly be his style: besides, I wasfool enough to think there would be a degree of hardship in his callingme such names. His own look vindicated him; he grew hot, and colouredas he read.
"This is indeed too much: this is cruel, this is humiliating," were thewords that fell from him.
I thought it _was_ cruel, when I saw his countenance so moved. Nomatter whether he was to blame or not; somebody, it seemed to me, mustbe more to blame.
"What shall you do about it?" he inquired of me. "Shall you tell MadameBeck what you have found, and cause a stir--an esclandre?"
I thought I ought to tell, and said so; adding that I did not believethere would be either stir or esclandre: Madame was much too prudent tomake a noise about an affair of that sort connected with herestablishment.
He stood looking down and meditating. He was both too proud and toohonourable to entreat my secresy on a point which duty evidentlycommanded me to communicate. I wished to do right, yet loathed togrieve or injure him. Just then Rosine glanced out through the opendoor; she could not see us, though between the trees I could plainlysee her: her dress was grey, like mine. This circumstance, taken inconnection with prior transactions, suggested to me that perhaps thecase, however deplorable, was one in which I was under no obligationwhatever to concern myself. Accordingly, I said,--"If you can assure methat none of Madame Beck's pupils are implicated in this business, Ishall be very happy to stand aloof from all interference. Take thecasket, the bouquet, and the billet; for my part, I gladly forget thewhole affair."
"Look there!" he whispered suddenly, as his hand closed on what Ioffered, and at the same time he pointed through the boughs.
I looked. Behold Madame, in shawl, wrapping-gown, and slippers, softlydescending the steps, and stealing like a cat round the garden: in twominutes she would have been upon Dr. John. If _she_ were like a cat,however, _he_, quite as much, resembled a leopard: nothing could belighter than his tread when he chose. He watched, and as she turned acorner, he took the garden at two noiseless bounds. She reappeared, andhe was gone. Rosine helped him, instantly interposing the door betweenhim and his huntress. I, too, might have got, away, but I preferred tomeet Madame openly.
Though it was my frequent and well-known custom to spend twilight inthe garden, yet, never till now, had I remained so late. Full sure wasI that Madame had missed--was come in search of me, and designed now topounce on the defaulter unawares. I expected a reprimand. No. Madamewas all goodness. She tendered not even a remonstrance; she testifiedno shade of surprise. With that consummate tact of hers, in which Ibelieve she was never surpassed by living thing, she even professedmerely to have issued forth to taste "la brise du soir."
"Quelle belle nuit!" cried she, looking up at the stars--the moon wasnow gone down behind the broad tower of Jean Baptiste. "Qu'il fait bon?que l'air est frais!"
And, instead of sending me in, she detained me to take a few turns withher down the principal alley. When at last we both re-entered, sheleaned affably on my shoulder by way of support in mounting thefront-door steps; at parting, her cheek was presented to my lips, and"Bon soir, my bonne amie; dormez bien!" was her kindly adieu for thenight.
I caught myself smiling as I lay awake and thoughtful on mycouch--smiling at Madame. The unction, the suavity of her behaviouroffered, for one who knew her, a sure token that suspicion of some kindwas busy in her brain. From some aperture or summit of observation,through parted bough or open window, she had doubtless caught aglimpse, remote or near, deceptive or instructive, of that night'stransactions. Finely accomplished as she was in the art ofsurveillance, it was next to impossible that a casket could be throwninto her garden, or an interloper could cross her walks to seek it,without that she, in shaken branch, passing shade, unwonted footfall,or stilly murmur (and though Dr. John had spoken very low in the fewwords he dropped me, yet the hum of his man's voice pervaded, Ithought, the whole conventual ground)--without, I say, that she shouldhave caught intimation of things extraordinary transpiring on herpremises. _What_ things, she might by no means see, or at that time beable to discover; but a delicious little ravelled plot lay tempting herto disentanglement; and in the midst, folded round and round incobwebs, had she not secured "Meess Lucie" clumsily involved, like thefoolish fly she was?