The World's Greatest Books - Volume 2 Part 15

Villette

Villette is Brussels, and the experiences of the heroine, Lucy Snowe, in travelling thither and teaching there are based on the journeys and the life of Charlotte Bronte when she was a teacher in the Pensionnat Heger. The princ.i.p.al characters in the story have been identified, more or less completely, with people whom the writer knew. Paul Emanuel resembles M. Heger in many ways, and Madame Beck is a severe portrait of Madame Heger. Dr. John Graham Bretton is a reflection of George Smith, Charlotte Bronte's friendly publisher; and Mrs. Bretton is Mr. Smith's mother. Lucy Snowe is Jane Eyre, otherwise Charlotte Bronte, placed amidst different surroundings; and Ginevra Fanshawe was sketched from one of the pupils in Heger's school. The materials used in "Villette" were taken, in part, from an earlier work, "The Professor," which suffered rejection nine times at the hands of publishers. Though there was similarity of scene, and in some degree of subject, the two books are in no way identical. "Villette" was published on January 24, 1853, and achieved an immediate success. It was felt to have more movement and force than "Shirley," and less of the crudeness that accompanied the strength of "Jane Eyre."

_I.--Little Miss Caprice_

My G.o.dmother lived in a handsome house in the ancient town of Bretton-- the widow of Bretton--and there I, Lucy Snowe, visited her about twice a year, and liked the visit well, for time flowed smoothly for me at her side, like the gliding of a full river through a verdant plain.

During one of my visits I was told that the little daughter of a distant relation of my G.o.dmother was coming to be my companion, and well do I remember the rainy night when, outside the opened door, we saw the servant Waren with a shawled bundle in his arms and a nurse-girl by his side.

"Put me down, please," said a small voice. "Take off the shawl; give it to Harriet, and she can put it away."

The child who gave these orders was a tiny, neat little figure, delicate as wax, and like a mere doll, though she was six years of age.

Mrs. Bretton drew the little stranger to her when they had entered the drawing-room, kissed her, and asked: "What is my little one's name?"

"Polly, papa calls her," was the reply.

"And will Polly be content to live with me?"

"Not always; but till papa comes home." Her eyes filled with tears, and, drawing away from Mrs. Bretton, she added: "I can sit on a stool."

Her emotion at finding herself among strangers was, however, only expressed by the tiniest occasional sniff, and presently the managing little body remarked:

"Harriet, I must be put to bed. Ask if you sleep with me."

"No, missy," said the nurse; "you are to share this young lady's room"--designating me.

"I wish you, ma'am, good-night," said the little creature to Mrs.

Bretton; but she pa.s.sed me mute.

"Good-night, Polly," I said.

"No need to say good-night, since we sleep in the same chamber," was the reply.

Paulina Home's father was obliged to travel to recruit his health, and her mother being dead, Mrs. Bretton had offered to take temporary charge of the child.

During the two months Paulina stayed with us, the one member of the household who reconciled her to absence from her father was John Graham Bretton, Mrs. Bretton's only child, a handsome, whimsical youth of sixteen. He began by treating her with mock seriousness as a person of consideration, and before long was more than the Grand Turk in her estimation; indeed, when a letter came from her father on the Continent, asking that his little girl might join him there, we wondered how she would take the news. I found her in the drawing-room engaged with a picture-book.

"Miss Snowe," said she, "this is a wonderful book. It was given me by Graham. It tells of distant countries."

"Polly," I interrupted, "should you like to travel?"

"Not just yet," was the prudent answer; "but perhaps when I am grown a woman I may travel with Graham."

"But would you like to travel now if your papa was with you?"

"What is the good of talking in that silly way?" said she. "What is papa to you? I was just beginning to be happy."

Then I told her of the letter, and the tidings kept her serious the whole day. When Graham came home in the evening, she whispered, as she heard him in the hall: "Tell him by-and-by; tell him I am going."

But Graham, who was preoccupied about some school prize, had to be told twice before the news took proper hold of his attention. "Polly going?"

he said. "What a pity! Dear little Mouse, I shall be sorry to lose her; she must come to us again."

On going to bed, I found the child wide awake, and in what she called "dreadful misery!"

"Paulina," I said, "you should not grieve that Graham does not care for you so much as you care for him. It must be so."

Her questioning eyes asked why.

"Because he is a boy and you are a girl; he is sixteen and you are only six; his nature is strong and gay, and yours is otherwise."

"But I love him so much. He should love me a little."

"He does. He is fond of you; you are his favourite."

"Am I Graham's favourite?"

"Yes, more than any little child I know."

The a.s.surance soothed her, and she smiled in her anguish. As I warmed the shivering, capricious little creature in my arms I wondered how she would battle with life, and bear its shocks, repulses, and humiliations.

_II.--Madame Beck's School_

The next eight years of my life brought changes. My own household and that of the Brettons suffered wreck. My friends went abroad and were lost sight of, and I, after a period of companionship with a woman of fortune, found myself, at her death, with fifteen pounds in my pocket looking for a new place. Then it was that I saw mentally within reach what I had never yet beheld with my bodily eyes--I saw London.

When I awoke there next morning, my spirit shook its always fettered wings half loose. I had a feeling as if I were at last about to taste life. In that morning my soul grew as fast as Jonah's gourd. I wandered whither chance might lead in a still ecstasy of freedom and enjoyment.

That evening I formed a project of crossing to a continental port, and finding a vessel was about to start, I joined her at once in the river.

When the packet sailed at sunrise, I found the only pa.s.senger on board to whom I cared to speak--and who, indeed, insisted on speaking to me--was a girl of seventeen on her way to school in the city of Villette. Miss Ginevra Fanshawe carelessly ran on with a full account of herself, her school at Madame Beck's, her poverty at home, her education by her G.o.dfather, De Ba.s.sompierre, who lived in France, her want of accomplishments--except that she could talk, play, and dance--and the need for her to marry a rather elderly gentleman with cash.

It was this irresponsible talk, no doubt, that led me, in the absence of any other leading, to make Villette my destination. On my arrival there, an English gentleman, young, distinguished, and handsome, observing my inability to make myself understood at the bureau where the diligence stopped, inquired kindly if I had any friends in the city, and on my replying that I had not, gave me the address of such an inn as I wanted, and personally directed me part of the way. Even then, however, I failed in the gloom to find the inn, and was becoming quite exhausted, when over the door of a house, loftier by a storey than those around it, I saw a bra.s.s plate with the inscription, "Pensionnat de Demoiselles,"

and, beneath, the name, "Madame Beck." Providence said: "Stop here; this is your inn." I rang the door-bell.

"May I see Madame Beck?" I inquired of the servant who opened the door.

As I spoke in English I was admitted without a moment's hesitation.

I sat, turning hot and cold, in a glittering salon for a quarter of an hour, and then a voice said: "You ayre Engliss?"

The question came from a motherly, dumpy little woman in a large shawl, a wrapping gown, a clean, trim nightcap, and shod with the shoes of silence.