Villette - Charlotte Brontë (best fiction books of all time TXT) 📗

“Now,” said he, when the park was traversed, “you will go along this broad street till you come to steps; two lamps will show you where they are: these steps you will descend: a narrower street lies below; following that, at the bottom you will find your inn. They speak English there, so your difficulties are now pretty well over. Good night.”

“Good night, sir,” said I: “accept my sincerest thanks.” And we parted.

The remembrance of his countenance, which I am sure wore a light not unbenignant to the friendless⁠—the sound in my ear of his voice, which spoke a nature chivalric to the needy and feeble, as well as the youthful and fair⁠—were a sort of cordial to me long after. He was a true young English gentleman.

On I went, hurrying fast through a magnificent street and square, with the grandest houses round, and amidst them the huge outline of more than one overbearing pile; which might be palace or church⁠—I could not tell. Just as I passed a portico, two mustachioed men came suddenly from behind the pillars; they were smoking cigars: their dress implied pretensions to the rank of gentlemen, but, poor things! they were very plebeian in soul. They spoke with insolence, and, fast as I walked, they kept pace with me a long way. At last I met a sort of patrol, and my dreaded hunters were turned from the pursuit; but they had driven me beyond my reckoning: when I could collect my faculties, I no longer knew where I was; the staircase I must long since have passed. Puzzled, out of breath, all my pulses throbbing in inevitable agitation, I knew not where to turn. It was terrible to think of again encountering those bearded, sneering simpletons; yet the ground must be retraced, and the steps sought out.

I came at last to an old and worn flight, and, taking it for granted that this must be the one indicated, I descended them. The street into which they led was indeed narrow, but it contained no inn. On I wandered. In a very quiet and comparatively clean and well-paved street, I saw a light burning over the door of a rather large house, loftier by a story than those round it. 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.

A quarter of an hour passed. How fast beat every pulse in my frame! How I turned cold and hot by turns! I sat with my eyes fixed on the door⁠—a great white folding-door, with gilt mouldings: I watched to see a leaf move and open. All had been quiet: not a mouse had stirred; the white doors were closed and motionless.

“You ayre Engliss?” said a voice at my elbow. I almost bounded, so unexpected was the sound; so certain had I been of solitude.

No ghost stood beside me, nor anything of spectral aspect; merely a motherly, dumpy little woman, in a large shawl, a wrapping-gown, and a clean, trim nightcap.

I said I was English, and immediately, without further prelude, we fell to a most remarkable conversation. Madame Beck (for Madame Beck 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 maîtresse, who had been partly educated in an Irish convent, and was esteemed a perfect adept in the English language. A bluff little personage this maîtresse 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 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 intrépides ces femmes là!”

She asked my name, my age; she sat and looked at me⁠—not pityingly, not