الفصل الفصل 10 · 第10章

Madame Beck was a most consistent character; forbearing with all the

world, and tender to no part of it. Her own children drew her into no

deviation from the even tenor of her stoic calm. She was solicitous

about her family, vigilant for their interests and physical well-being;

but she never seemed to know the wish to take her little children upon

her lap, to press their rosy lips with her own, to gather them in a

genial embrace, to shower on them softly the benignant caress, the

loving word.

I have watched her sometimes sitting in the garden, viewing the little

bees afar off, as they walked in a distant alley with Trinette, their

_bonne_; in her mien spoke care and prudence. I know she often pondered

anxiously what she called “leur avenir;” but if the youngest, a puny

and delicate but engaging child, chancing to spy her, broke from its

nurse, and toddling down the walk, came all eager and laughing and

panting to clasp her knee, Madame would just calmly put out one hand,

so as to prevent inconvenient concussion from the child’s sudden onset:

“Prends garde, mon enfant!” she would say unmoved, patiently permit it

to stand near her a few moments, and then, without smile or kiss, or

endearing syllable, rise and lead it back to Trinette.

Her demeanour to the eldest girl was equally characteristic in another

way. This was a vicious child. “Quelle peste que cette Désirée! Quel

poison que cet enfant là!” were the expressions dedicated to her, alike

in kitchen and in schoolroom. Amongst her other endowments she boasted

an exquisite skill in the art, of provocation, sometimes driving her

_bonne_ and the servants almost wild. She would steal to their attics,

open their drawers and boxes, wantonly tear their best caps and soil

their best shawls; she would watch her opportunity to get at the buffet

of the salle-à-manger, where she would smash articles of porcelain or

glass—or to the cupboard of the storeroom, where she would plunder the

preserves, drink the sweet wine, break jars and bottles, and so

contrive as to throw the onus of suspicion on the cook and the

kitchen-maid. All this when Madame saw, and of which when she received

report, her sole observation, uttered with matchless serenity, was:

“Désirée a besoin d’une surveillance toute particulière.” Accordingly

she kept this promising olive-branch a good deal at her side. Never

once, I believe, did she tell her faithfully of her faults, explain the

evil of such habits, and show the results which must thence ensue.

Surveillance must work the whole cure. It failed of course. Désirée was

kept in some measure from the servants, but she teased and pillaged her

mamma instead. Whatever belonging to Madame’s work-table or toilet she

could lay her hands on, she stole and hid. Madame saw all this, but she

still pretended not to see: she had not rectitude of soul to confront

the child with her vices. When an article disappeared whose value

rendered restitution necessary, she would profess to think that Désirée

had taken it away in play, and beg her to restore it. Désirée was not

to be so cheated: she had learned to bring falsehood to the aid of

theft, and would deny having touched the brooch, ring, or scissors.

Carrying on the hollow system, the mother would calmly assume an air of

belief, and afterwards ceaselessly watch and dog the child till she

tracked her: to her hiding-places—some hole in the garden-wall—some

chink or cranny in garret or out-house. This done, Madame would send

Désirée out for a walk with her _bonne_, and profit by her absence to

rob the robber. Désirée proved herself the true daughter of her astute

parent, by never suffering either her countenance or manner to betray

the least sign of mortification on discovering the loss.

The second child, Fifine, was said to be like its dead father.

Certainly, though the mother had given it her healthy frame, her blue

eye and ruddy cheek, not from her was derived its moral being. It was

an honest, gleeful little soul: a passionate, warm-tempered, bustling

creature it was too, and of the sort likely to blunder often into

perils and difficulties. One day it bethought itself to fall from top

to bottom of a steep flight of stone steps; and when Madame, hearing

the noise (she always heard every noise), issued from the

salle-à-manger and picked it up, she said quietly,—“Cet enfant a un os

de cassé.”

At first we hoped this was not the case. It was, however, but too true:

one little plump arm hung powerless.

“Let Meess” (meaning me) “take her,” said Madame; “et qu’on aille tout

de suite chercher un fiacre.”

In a _fiacre_ she promptly, but with admirable coolness and

self-possession, departed to fetch a surgeon.

It appeared she did not find the family-surgeon at home; but that

mattered not: she sought until she laid her hand on a substitute to her

mind, and brought him back with her. Meantime I had cut the child’s

sleeve from its arm, undressed and put it to bed.

We none of us, I suppose (by _we_ I mean the bonne, the cook, the

portress, and myself, all which personages were now gathered in the

small and heated chamber), looked very scrutinizingly at the new doctor

when he came into the room. I, at least, was taken up with endeavouring

to soothe Fifine; whose cries (for she had good lungs) were appalling

to hear. These cries redoubled in intensity as the stranger approached

her bed; when he took her up, “Let alone!” she cried passionately, in

her broken English (for she spoke English as did the other children).

“I will not you: I will Dr. Pillule!”

“And Dr. Pillule is my very good friend,” was the answer, in perfect

English; “but he is busy at a place three leagues off, and I am come in

his stead. So now, when we get a little calmer, we must commence

business; and we will soon have that unlucky little arm bandaged and in

right order.”

Hereupon he called for a glass of _eau sucrée_, fed her with some

teaspoonfuls of the sweet liquid (Fifine was a frank gourmande; anybody

could win her heart through her palate), promised her more when the

operation should be over, and promptly went to work. Some assistance

being needed, he demanded it of the cook, a robust, strong-armed woman;

but she, the portress, and the nurse instantly fled. I did not like to

touch that small, tortured limb, but thinking there was no alternative,

my hand was already extended to do what was requisite. I was

anticipated; Madame Beck had put out her own hand: hers was steady

while mine trembled.

“Ca vaudra mieux,” said the doctor, turning from me to her.

He showed wisdom in his choice. Mine would have been feigned stoicism,

forced fortitude. Hers was neither forced nor feigned.

“Merci, Madame; très bien, fort bien!” said the operator when he had

finished. “Voilà un sang-froid bien opportun, et qui vaut mille élans

de sensibilité déplacée.”

He was pleased with her firmness, she with his compliment. It was

likely, too, that his whole general appearance, his voice, mien, and

manner, wrought impressions in his favour. Indeed, when you looked well

at him, and when a lamp was brought in—for it was evening and now

waxing dusk—you saw that, unless Madame Beck had been less than woman,

it could not well be otherwise. This young doctor (he _was_ young) had

no common aspect. His stature looked imposingly tall in that little

chamber, and amidst that group of Dutch-made women; his profile was

clear, fine and expressive: perhaps his eye glanced from face to face

rather too vividly, too quickly, and too often; but it had a most

pleasant character, and so had his mouth; his chin was full, cleft,

Grecian, and perfect. As to his smile, one could not in a hurry make up

one’s mind as to the descriptive epithet it merited; there was

something in it that pleased, but something too that brought surging up

into the mind all one’s foibles and weak points: all that could lay one

open to a laugh. Yet Fifine liked this doubtful smile, and thought the

owner genial: much as he had hurt her, she held out her hand to bid him

a friendly good-night. He patted the little hand kindly, and then he

and Madame went down-stairs together; she talking in her highest tide

of spirits and volubility, he listening with an air of good-natured

amenity, dashed with that unconscious roguish archness I find it

difficult to describe.

I noticed that though he spoke French well, he spoke English better; he

had, too, an English complexion, eyes, and form. I noticed more. As he

passed me in leaving the room, turning his face in my direction one

moment—not to address me, but to speak to Madame, yet so standing, that

I almost necessarily looked up at him—a recollection which had been

struggling to form in my memory, since the first moment I heard his

voice, started up perfected. This was the very gentleman to whom I had

spoken at the bureau; who had helped me in the matter of the trunk; who

had been my guide through the dark, wet park. Listening, as he passed

down the long vestibule out into the street, I recognised his very

tread: it was the same firm and equal stride I had followed under the

dripping trees.

It was to be concluded that this young surgeon-physician’s first visit

to the Rue Fossette would be the last. The respectable Dr. Pillule

being expected home the next day, there appeared no reason why his

temporary substitute should again represent him; but the Fates had

written their decree to the contrary.

Dr. Pillule had been summoned to see a rich old hypochondriac at the

antique university town of Bouquin-Moisi, and upon his prescribing

change of air and travel as remedies, he was retained to accompany the

timid patient on a tour of some weeks; it but remained, therefore, for

the new doctor to continue his attendance at the Rue Fossette.

I often saw him when he came; for Madame would not trust the little

invalid to Trinette, but required me to spend much of my time in the

nursery. I think he was skilful. Fifine recovered rapidly under his

care, yet even her convalescence did not hasten his dismissal. Destiny

and Madame Beck seemed in league, and both had ruled that he should

make deliberate acquaintance with the vestibule, the private staircase

and upper chambers of the Rue Fossette.

No sooner did Fifine emerge from his hands than Désirée declared

herself ill. That possessed child had a genius for simulation, and

captivated by the attentions and indulgences of a sick-room, she came

to the conclusion that an illness would perfectly accommodate her

tastes, and took her bed accordingly. She acted well, and her mother

still better; for while the whole case was transparent to Madame Beck

as the day, she treated it with an astonishingly well-assured air of

gravity and good faith.

What surprised me was, that Dr. John (so the young Englishman had

taught Fifine to call him, and we all took from her the habit of

addressing him by this name, till it became an established custom, and

he was known by no other in the Rue Fossette)—that Dr. John consented

tacitly to adopt Madame’s tactics, and to fall in with her manœuvres.

He betrayed, indeed, a period of comic doubt, cast one or two rapid

glances from the child to the mother, indulged in an interval of

self-consultation, but finally resigned himself with a good grace to

play his part in the farce. Désirée eat like a raven, gambolled day and

night in her bed, pitched tents with the sheets and blankets, lounged

like a Turk amidst pillows and bolsters, diverted herself with throwing

her shoes at her bonne and grimacing at her sisters—over-flowed, in

short, with unmerited health and evil spirits; only languishing when

her mamma and the physician paid their diurnal visit. Madame Beck, I

knew, was glad, at any price, to have her daughter in bed out of the

way of mischief; but I wondered that Dr. John did not tire of the

business.

Every day, on this mere pretext of a motive, he gave punctual

attendance; Madame always received him with the same empressement, the

same sunshine for himself, the same admirably counterfeited air of

concern for her child. Dr. John wrote harmless prescriptions for the

patient, and viewed her mother with a shrewdly sparkling eye. Madame

caught his rallying looks without resenting them—she had too much good

sense for that. Supple as the young doctor seemed, one could not

despise him—this pliant part was evidently not adopted in the design to

curry favour with his employer: while he liked his office at the

pensionnat, and lingered strangely about the Rue Fossette, he was

independent, almost careless in his carriage there; and yet, too, he

was often thoughtful and preoccupied.

It was not perhaps my business to observe the mystery of his bearing,

or search out its origin or aim; but, placed as I was, I could hardly

help it. He laid himself open to my observation, according to my

presence in the room just that degree of notice and consequence a

person of my exterior habitually expects: that is to say, about what is

given to unobtrusive articles of furniture, chairs of ordinary joiner’s

work, and carpets of no striking pattern. Often, while waiting for

Madame, he would muse, smile, watch, or listen like a man who thinks

himself alone. I, meantime, was free to puzzle over his countenance and

movements, and wonder what could be the meaning of that peculiar

interest and attachment—all mixed up with doubt and strangeness, and

inexplicably ruled by some presiding spell—which wedded him to this

demi-convent, secluded in the built-up core of a capital. He, I

believe, never remembered that I had eyes in my head, much less a brain

behind them.

Nor would he ever have found this out, but that one day, while he sat

in the sunshine and I was observing the colouring of his hair,

whiskers, and complexion—the whole being of such a tone as a strong

light brings out with somewhat perilous force (indeed I recollect I was

driven to compare his beamy head in my thoughts to that of the “golden

image” which Nebuchadnezzar the king had set up), an idea new, sudden,

and startling, riveted my attention with an over-mastering strength and

power of attraction. I know not to this day how I looked at him: the

force of surprise, and also of conviction, made me forget myself; and I

only recovered wonted consciousness when I saw that his notice was

arrested, and that it had caught my movement in a clear little oval

mirror fixed in the side of the window recess—by the aid of which

reflector Madame often secretly spied persons walking in the garden

below. Though of so gay and sanguine a temperament, he was not without

a certain nervous sensitiveness which made him ill at ease under a

direct, inquiring gaze. On surprising me thus, he turned and said, in a

tone which, though courteous, had just so much dryness in it as to mark

a shade of annoyance, as well as to give to what was said the character

of rebuke, “Mademoiselle does not spare me: I am not vain enough to

fancy that it is my merits which attract her attention; it must then be

some defect. Dare I ask—what?”

I was confounded, as the reader may suppose, yet not with an

irrecoverable confusion; being conscious that it was from no emotion of

incautious admiration, nor yet in a spirit of unjustifiable

inquisitiveness, that I had incurred this reproof. I might have cleared

myself on the spot, but would not. I did not speak. I was not in the

habit of speaking to him. Suffering him, then, to think what he chose

and accuse me of what he would, I resumed some work I had dropped, and

kept my head bent over it during the remainder of his stay. There is a

perverse mood of the mind which is rather soothed than irritated by

misconstruction; and in quarters where we can never be rightly known,

we take pleasure, I think, in being consummately ignored. What honest

man, on being casually taken for a housebreaker, does not feel rather

tickled than vexed at the mistake?

CHAPTER 11