Chapter Chapter 11 · The Portress’S Cabinet

ss’S Cabinet

THE PORTRESS’S CABINET.

It was summer and very hot. Georgette, the youngest of Madame Beck’s

children, took a fever. Désirée, suddenly cured of her ailments, was,

together with Fifine, packed off to Bonne-Maman, in the country, by way

of precaution against infection. Medical aid was now really needed, and

Madame, choosing to ignore the return of Dr. Pillule, who had been at

home a week, conjured his English rival to continue his visits. One or

two of the pensionnaires complained of headache, and in other respects

seemed slightly to participate in Georgette’s ailment. “Now, at last,”

I thought, “Dr. Pillule must be recalled: the prudent directress will

never venture to permit the attendance of so young a man on the

pupils.”

The directress was very prudent, but she could also be intrepidly

venturous. She actually introduced Dr. John to the school-division of

the premises, and established him in attendance on the proud and

handsome Blanche de Melcy, and the vain, flirting Angélique, her

friend. Dr. John, I thought, testified a certain gratification at this

mark of confidence; and if discretion of bearing could have justified

the step, it would by him have been amply justified. Here, however, in

this land of convents and confessionals, such a presence as his was not

to be suffered with impunity in a “pensionnat de demoiselles.” The

school gossiped, the kitchen whispered, the town caught the rumour,

parents wrote letters and paid visits of remonstrance. Madame, had she

been weak, would now have been lost: a dozen rival educational houses

were ready to improve this false step—if false step it were—to her

ruin; but Madame was not weak, and little Jesuit though she might be,

yet I clapped the hands of my heart, and with its voice cried “brava!”

as I watched her able bearing, her skilled management, her temper and

her firmness on this occasion.

She met the alarmed parents with a good-humoured, easy grace for nobody

matched her in, I know not whether to say the possession or the

assumption of a certain “rondeur et franchise de bonne femme;” which on

various occasions gained the point aimed at with instant and complete

success, where severe gravity and serious reasoning would probably have

failed.

“Ce pauvre Docteur Jean!” she would say, chuckling and rubbing joyously

her fat little white hands; “ce cher jeune homme! le meilleur créature

du monde!” and go on to explain how she happened to be employing him

for her own children, who were so fond of him they would scream

themselves into fits at the thought of another doctor; how, where she

had confidence for her own, she thought it natural to repose trust for

others, and au reste, it was only the most temporary expedient in the

world; Blanche and Angélique had the migraine; Dr. John had written a

prescription; voilà tout!

The parents’ mouths were closed. Blanche and Angélique saved her all

remaining trouble by chanting loud duets in their physician’s praise;

the other pupils echoed them, unanimously declaring that when they were

ill they would have Dr. John and nobody else; and Madame laughed, and

the parents laughed too. The Labassecouriens must have a large organ of

philoprogenitiveness: at least the indulgence of offspring is carried

by them to excessive lengths; the law of most households being the

children’s will. Madame now got credit for having acted on this

occasion in a spirit of motherly partiality: she came off with flying

colours; people liked her as a directress better than ever.

To this day I never fully understood why she thus risked her interest

for the sake of Dr. John. What people said, of course I know well: the

whole house—pupils, teachers, servants included—affirmed that she was

going to marry him. So they had settled it; difference of age seemed to

make no obstacle in their eyes: it was to be so.

It must be admitted that appearances did not wholly discountenance this

idea; Madame seemed so bent on retaining his services, so oblivious of

her former protégé, Pillule. She made, too, such a point of personally

receiving his visits, and was so unfailingly cheerful, blithe, and

benignant in her manner to him. Moreover, she paid, about this time,

marked attention to dress: the morning dishabille, the nightcap and

shawl, were discarded; Dr. John’s early visits always found her with

auburn braids all nicely arranged, silk dress trimly fitted on, neat

laced brodequins in lieu of slippers: in short the whole toilette

complete as a model, and fresh as a flower. I scarcely think, however,

that her intention in this went further than just to show a very

handsome man that she was not quite a plain woman; and plain she was

not. Without beauty of feature or elegance of form, she pleased.

Without youth and its gay graces, she cheered. One never tired of

seeing her: she was never monotonous, or insipid, or colourless, or

flat. Her unfaded hair, her eye with its temperate blue light, her

cheek with its wholesome fruit-like bloom—these things pleased in

moderation, but with constancy.

Had she, indeed, floating visions of adopting Dr. John as a husband,

taking him to her well-furnished home, endowing him with her savings,

which were said to amount to a moderate competency, and making him

comfortable for the rest of his life? Did Dr. John suspect her of such

visions? I have met him coming out of her presence with a mischievous

half-smile about his lips, and in his eyes a look as of masculine

vanity elate and tickled. With all his good looks and good-nature, he

was not perfect; he must have been very imperfect if he roguishly

encouraged aims he never intended to be successful. But did he not

intend them to be successful? People said he had no money, that he was

wholly dependent upon his profession. Madame—though perhaps some

fourteen years his senior—was yet the sort of woman never to grow old,

never to wither, never to break down. They certainly were on good

terms. _He_ perhaps was not in love; but how many people ever _do_

love, or at least marry for love, in this world. We waited the end.

For what _he_ waited, I do not know, nor for what he watched; but the

peculiarity of his manner, his expectant, vigilant, absorbed, eager

look, never wore off: it rather intensified. He had never been quite

within the compass of my penetration, and I think he ranged farther and

farther beyond it.

One morning little Georgette had been more feverish and consequently

more peevish; she was crying, and would not be pacified. I thought a

particular draught ordered, disagreed with her, and I doubted whether

it ought to be continued; I waited impatiently for the doctor’s coming

in order to consult him.

The door-bell rang, he was admitted; I felt sure of this, for I heard

his voice addressing the portress. It was his custom to mount straight

to the nursery, taking about three degrees of the staircase at once,

and coming upon us like a cheerful surprise. Five minutes

elapsed—ten—and I saw and heard nothing of him. What could he be doing?

Possibly waiting in the corridor below. Little Georgette still piped

her plaintive wail, appealing to me by her familiar term, “Minnie,

Minnie, me very poorly!” till my heart ached. I descended to ascertain

why he did not come. The corridor was empty. Whither was he vanished?

Was he with Madame in the _salle-à-manger?_ Impossible: I had left her

but a short time since, dressing in her own chamber. I listened. Three

pupils were just then hard at work practising in three proximate

rooms—the dining-room and the greater and lesser drawing-rooms, between

which and the corridor there was but the portress’s cabinet

communicating with the salons, and intended originally for a boudoir.

Farther off, at a fourth instrument in the oratory, a whole class of a

dozen or more were taking a singing lesson, and just then joining in a

“barcarole” (I think they called it), whereof I yet remember these

words “fraîchë,” “brisë,” and “Venisë.” Under these circumstances, what

could I hear? A great deal, certainly; had it only been to the purpose.

Yes; I heard a giddy treble laugh in the above-mentioned little

cabinet, close by the door of which I stood—that door half-unclosed; a

man’s voice in a soft, deep, pleading tone, uttered some words,

whereof I only caught the adjuration, “For God’s sake!” Then, after a

second’s pause, forth issued Dr. John, his eye full shining, but not

with either joy or triumph; his fair English cheek high-coloured; a

baffled, tortured, anxious, and yet a tender meaning on his brow.

The open door served me as a screen; but had I been full in his way, I

believe he would have passed without seeing me. Some mortification,

some strong vexation had hold of his soul: or rather, to write my

impressions now as I received them at the time I should say some

sorrow, some sense of injustice. I did not so much think his pride was

hurt, as that his affections had been wounded—cruelly wounded, it

seemed to me. But who was the torturer? What being in that house had

him so much in her power? Madame I believed to be in her chamber; the

room whence he had stepped was dedicated to the portress’s sole use;

and she, Rosine Matou, an unprincipled though pretty little French

grisette, airy, fickle, dressy, vain, and mercenary—it was not, surely,

to _her_ hand he owed the ordeal through which he seemed to have

passed?

But while I pondered, her voice, clear, though somewhat sharp, broke

out in a lightsome French song, trilling through the door still ajar: I

glanced in, doubting my senses. There at the table she sat in a smart

dress of “jaconas rose,” trimming a tiny blond cap: not a living thing

save herself was in the room, except indeed some gold fish in a glass

globe, some flowers in pots, and a broad July sunbeam.

Here was a problem: but I must go up-stairs to ask about the medicine.

Dr. John sat in a chair at Georgette’s bedside; Madame stood before

him; the little patient had been examined and soothed, and now lay

composed in her crib. Madame Beck, as I entered, was discussing the

physician’s own health, remarking on some real or fancied change in his

looks, charging him with over-work, and recommending rest and change of

air. He listened good-naturedly, but with laughing indifference,

telling her that she was “trop bonne,” and that he felt perfectly well.

Madame appealed to me—Dr. John following her movement with a slow

glance which seemed to express languid surprise at reference being made

to a quarter so insignificant.

“What do you think, Miss Lucie?” asked Madame. “Is he not paler and

thinner?”

It was very seldom that I uttered more than monosyllables in Dr. John’s

presence; he was the kind of person with whom I was likely ever to

remain the neutral, passive thing he thought me. Now, however, I took

licence to answer in a phrase: and a phrase I purposely made quite

significant.

“He looks ill at this moment; but perhaps it is owing to some temporary

cause: Dr. John may have been vexed or harassed.” I cannot tell how he

took this speech, as I never sought his face for information. Georgette

here began to ask me in her broken English if she might have a glass of

_eau sucrée_. I answered her in English. For the first time, I fancy,

he noticed that I spoke his language; hitherto he had always taken me

for a foreigner, addressing me as “Mademoiselle,” and giving in French

the requisite directions about the children’s treatment. He seemed on

the point of making a remark; but thinking better of it, held his

tongue.

Madame recommenced advising him; he shook his head, laughing, rose and

bid her good-morning, with courtesy, but still with the regardless air

of one whom too much unsolicited attention was surfeiting and spoiling.

When he was gone, Madame dropped into the chair he had just left; she

rested her chin in her hand; all that was animated and amiable vanished

from her face: she looked stony and stern, almost mortified and morose.

She sighed; a single, but a deep sigh. A loud bell rang for

morning-school. She got up; as she passed a dressing-table with a glass

upon it, she looked at her reflected image. One single white hair

streaked her nut-brown tresses; she plucked it out with a shudder. In

the full summer daylight, her face, though it still had the colour,

could plainly be seen to have lost the texture of youth; and then,

where were youth’s contours? Ah, Madame! wise as you were, even _you_

knew weakness. Never had I pitied Madame before, but my heart softened

towards her, when she turned darkly from the glass. A calamity had come

upon her. That hag Disappointment was greeting her with a grisly

“All-hail,” and her soul rejected the intimacy.

But Rosine! My bewilderment there surpasses description. I embraced

five opportunities of passing her cabinet that day, with a view to

contemplating her charms, and finding out the secret of their

influence. She was pretty, young, and wore a well-made dress. All very

good points, and, I suppose, amply sufficient to account, in any

philosophic mind, for any amount of agony and distraction in a young

man, like Dr. John. Still, I could not help forming half a wish that

the said doctor were my brother; or at least that he had a sister or a

mother who would kindly sermonize him. I say _half_ a wish; I broke it,

and flung it away before it became a whole one, discovering in good

time its exquisite folly. “Somebody,” I argued, “might as well

sermonize Madame about her young physician: and what good would that

do?”

I believe Madame sermonized herself. She did not behave weakly, or make

herself in any shape ridiculous. It is true she had neither strong

feelings to overcome, nor tender feelings by which to be miserably

pained. It is true likewise that she had an important avocation, a real

business to fill her time, divert her thoughts, and divide her

interest. It is especially true that she possessed a genuine good sense

which is not given to all women nor to all men; and by dint of these

combined advantages she behaved wisely—she behaved well. Brava! once

more, Madame Beck. I saw you matched against an Apollyon of a

predilection; you fought a good fight, and you overcame!

CHAPTER 12