บทที่ บทที่ 2 · Paulina

(the child called herself Polly, but her

full name was Paulina Mary) seated at the breakfast-table, by Mrs.

Bretton’s side; a mug of milk stood before her, a morsel of bread

filled her hand, which lay passive on the table-cloth: she was not

eating.

“How we shall conciliate this little creature,” said Mrs. Bretton to

me, “I don’t know: she tastes nothing, and by her looks, she has not

slept.”

I expressed my confidence in the effects of time and kindness.

“If she were to take a fancy to anybody in the house, she would soon

settle; but not till then,” replied Mrs. Bretton.

CHAPTER 2. Paulina

PAULINA.

Some days elapsed, and it appeared she was not likely to take much of a

fancy to anybody in the house. She was not exactly naughty or wilful:

she was far from disobedient; but an object less conducive to

comfort—to tranquillity even—than she presented, it was scarcely

possible to have before one’s eyes. She moped: no grown person could

have performed that uncheering business better; no furrowed face of

adult exile, longing for Europe at Europe’s antipodes, ever bore more

legibly the signs of home sickness than did her infant visage. She

seemed growing old and unearthly. I, Lucy Snowe, plead guiltless of

that curse, an overheated and discursive imagination; but whenever,

opening a room-door, I found her seated in a corner alone, her head in

her pigmy hand, that room seemed to me not inhabited, but haunted.

And again, when of moonlight nights, on waking, I beheld her figure,

white and conspicuous in its night-dress, kneeling upright in bed, and

praying like some Catholic or Methodist enthusiast—some precocious

fanatic or untimely saint—I scarcely know what thoughts I had; but they

ran risk of being hardly more rational and healthy than that child’s

mind must have been.

I seldom caught a word of her prayers, for they were whispered low:

sometimes, indeed, they were not whispered at all, but put up

unuttered; such rare sentences as reached my ear still bore the burden,

“Papa; my dear papa!” This, I perceived, was a one-idea’d nature;

betraying that monomaniac tendency I have ever thought the most

unfortunate with which man or woman can be cursed.

What might have been the end of this fretting, had it continued

unchecked, can only be conjectured: it received, however, a sudden

turn.

One afternoon, Mrs. Bretton, coaxing her from her usual station in a

corner, had lifted her into the window-seat, and, by way of occupying

her attention, told her to watch the passengers and count how many

ladies should go down the street in a given time. She had sat

listlessly, hardly looking, and not counting, when—my eye being fixed

on hers—I witnessed in its iris and pupil a startling transfiguration.

These sudden, dangerous natures—_sensitive_ as they are called—offer

many a curious spectacle to those whom a cooler temperament has secured

from participation in their angular vagaries. The fixed and heavy gaze

swum, trembled, then glittered in fire; the small, overcast brow

cleared; the trivial and dejected features lit up; the sad countenance

vanished, and in its place appeared a sudden eagerness, an intense

expectancy. “It _is_!” were her words.

Like a bird or a shaft, or any other swift thing, she was gone from the

room. How she got the house-door open I cannot tell; probably it might

be ajar; perhaps Warren was in the way and obeyed her behest, which

would be impetuous enough. I—watching calmly from the window—saw her,

in her black frock and tiny braided apron (to pinafores she had an

antipathy), dart half the length of the street; and, as I was on the

point of turning, and quietly announcing to Mrs. Bretton that the child

was run out mad, and ought instantly to be pursued, I saw her caught

up, and rapt at once from my cool observation, and from the wondering

stare of the passengers. A gentleman had done this good turn, and now,

covering her with his cloak, advanced to restore her to the house

whence he had seen her issue.

I concluded he would leave her in a servant’s charge and withdraw; but

he entered: having tarried a little while below, he came up-stairs.

His reception immediately explained that he was known to Mrs. Bretton.

She recognised him; she greeted him, and yet she was fluttered,

surprised, taken unawares. Her look and manner were even expostulatory;

and in reply to these, rather than her words, he said,—“I could not

help it, madam: I found it impossible to leave the country without

seeing with my own eyes how she settled.”

“But you will unsettle her.”

“I hope not. And how is papa’s little Polly?”

This question he addressed to Paulina, as he sat down and placed her

gently on the ground before him.

“How is Polly’s papa?” was the reply, as she leaned on his knee, and

gazed up into his face.

It was not a noisy, not a wordy scene: for that I was thankful; but it

was a scene of feeling too brimful, and which, because the cup did not

foam up high or furiously overflow, only oppressed one the more. On all

occasions of vehement, unrestrained expansion, a sense of disdain or

ridicule comes to the weary spectator’s relief; whereas I have ever

felt most burdensome that sort of sensibility which bends of its own

will, a giant slave under the sway of good sense.

Mr. Home was a stern-featured—perhaps I should rather say, a

hard-featured man: his forehead was knotty, and his cheekbones were

marked and prominent. The character of his face was quite Scotch; but

there was feeling in his eye, and emotion in his now agitated

countenance. His northern accent in speaking harmonised with his

physiognomy. He was at once proud-looking and homely-looking. He laid

his hand on the child’s uplifted head. She said—“Kiss Polly.”

He kissed her. I wished she would utter some hysterical cry, so that I

might get relief and be at ease. She made wonderfully little noise: she

seemed to have got what she wanted—_all_ she wanted, and to be in a

trance of content. Neither in mien nor in features was this creature

like her sire, and yet she was of his strain: her mind had been filled

from his, as the cup from the flagon.

Indisputably, Mr. Home owned manly self-control, however he might

secretly feel on some matters. “Polly,” he said, looking down on his

little girl, “go into the hall; you will see papa’s great-coat lying on

a chair; put your hand into the pockets, you will find a

pocket-handkerchief there; bring it to me.”

She obeyed; went and returned deftly and nimbly. He was talking to Mrs.

Bretton when she came back, and she waited with the handkerchief in her

hand. It was a picture, in its way, to see her, with her tiny stature,

and trim, neat shape, standing at his knee. Seeing that he continued to

talk, apparently unconscious of her return, she took his hand, opened

the unresisting fingers, insinuated into them the handkerchief, and

closed them upon it one by one. He still seemed not to see or to feel

her; but by-and-by, he lifted her to his knee; she nestled against him,

and though neither looked at nor spoke to the other for an hour

following, I suppose both were satisfied.

During tea, the minute thing’s movements and behaviour gave, as usual,

full occupation to the eye. First she directed Warren, as he placed the

chairs.

“Put papa’s chair here, and mine near it, between papa and Mrs.

Bretton: _I_ must hand his tea.”

She took her own seat, and beckoned with her hand to her father.

“Be near me, as if we were at home, papa.”

And again, as she intercepted his cup in passing, and would stir the

sugar, and put in the cream herself, “I always did it for you at home;

papa: nobody could do it as well, not even your own self.”

Throughout the meal she continued her attentions: rather absurd they

were. The sugar-tongs were too wide for one of her hands, and she had

to use both in wielding them; the weight of the silver cream-ewer, the

bread-and-butter plates, the very cup and saucer, tasked her

insufficient strength and dexterity; but she would lift this, hand

that, and luckily contrived through it all to break nothing. Candidly

speaking, I thought her a little busy-body; but her father, blind like

other parents, seemed perfectly content to let her wait on him, and

even wonderfully soothed by her offices.

“She is my comfort!” he could not help saying to Mrs. Bretton. That

lady had her own “comfort” and nonpareil on a much larger scale, and,

for the moment, absent; so she sympathised with his foible.

This second “comfort” came on the stage in the course of the evening. I

knew this day had been fixed for his return, and was aware that Mrs.

Bretton had been expecting him through all its hours. We were seated

round the fire, after tea, when Graham joined our circle: I should

rather say, broke it up—for, of course, his arrival made a bustle; and

then, as Mr. Graham was fasting, there was refreshment to be provided.

He and Mr. Home met as old acquaintance; of the little girl he took no

notice for a time.

His meal over, and numerous questions from his mother answered, he

turned from the table to the hearth. Opposite where he had placed

himself was seated Mr. Home, and at his elbow, the child. When I say

_child_ I use an inappropriate and undescriptive term—a term suggesting

any picture rather than that of the demure little person in a mourning

frock and white chemisette, that might just have fitted a good-sized

doll—perched now on a high chair beside a stand, whereon was her toy

work-box of white varnished wood, and holding in her hands a shred of a

handkerchief, which she was professing to hem, and at which she bored

perseveringly with a needle, that in her fingers seemed almost a

skewer, pricking herself ever and anon, marking the cambric with a

track of minute red dots; occasionally starting when the perverse

weapon—swerving from her control—inflicted a deeper stab than usual;

but still silent, diligent, absorbed, womanly.

Graham was at that time a handsome, faithless-looking youth of sixteen.

I say faithless-looking, not because he was really of a very perfidious

disposition, but because the epithet strikes me as proper to describe

the fair, Celtic (not Saxon) character of his good looks; his waved

light auburn hair, his supple symmetry, his smile frequent, and

destitute neither of fascination nor of subtlety (in no bad sense). A

spoiled, whimsical boy he was in those days.

“Mother,” he said, after eyeing the little figure before him in silence

for some time, and when the temporary absence of Mr. Home from the room

relieved him from the half-laughing bashfulness, which was all he knew

of timidity—-“Mother, I see a young lady in the present society to whom

I have not been introduced.”

“Mr. Home’s little girl, I suppose you mean,” said his mother.

“Indeed, ma’am,” replied her son, “I consider your expression of the

least ceremonious: Miss Home _I_ should certainly have said, in

venturing to speak of the gentlewoman to whom I allude.”

“Now, Graham, I will not have that child teased. Don’t flatter yourself

that I shall suffer you to make her your butt.”

“Miss Home,” pursued Graham, undeterred by his mother’s remonstrance,

“might I have the honour to introduce myself, since no one else seems

willing to render you and me that service? Your slave, John Graham

Bretton.”

She looked at him; he rose and bowed quite gravely. She deliberately

put down thimble, scissors, work; descended with precaution from her

perch, and curtsying with unspeakable seriousness, said, “How do you

do?”

“I have the honour to be in fair health, only in some measure fatigued

with a hurried journey. I hope, ma’am, I see you well?”

“Tor-rer-ably well,” was the ambitious reply of the little woman and

she now essayed to regain her former elevation, but finding this could

not be done without some climbing and straining—a sacrifice of decorum

not to be thought of—and being utterly disdainful of aid in the

presence of a strange young gentleman, she relinquished the high chair

for a low stool: towards that low stool Graham drew in his chair.

“I hope, ma’am, the present residence, my mother’s house, appears to

you a convenient place of abode?”

“Not par-tic-er-er-ly; I want to go home.”

“A natural and laudable desire, ma’am; but one which, notwithstanding,

I shall do my best to oppose. I reckon on being able to get out of you

a little of that precious commodity called amusement, which mamma and

Mistress Snowe there fail to yield me.”

“I shall have to go with papa soon: I shall not stay long at your

mother’s.”

“Yes, yes; you will stay with me, I am sure. I have a pony on which you

shall ride, and no end of books with pictures to show you.”

“Are _you_ going to live here now?”

“I am. Does that please you? Do you like me?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“I think you queer.”

“My face, ma’am?”

“Your face and all about you: You have long red hair.”

“Auburn hair, if you please: mamma calls it auburn, or golden, and so

do all her friends. But even with my ‘long red hair’” (and he waved his

mane with a sort of triumph—tawny he himself well knew that it was, and

he was proud of the leonine hue), “I cannot possibly be queerer than is

your ladyship.”

“You call me queer?”

“Certainly.”

(After a pause) “I think I shall go to bed.”

“A little thing like you ought to have been in bed many hours since;

but you probably sat up in the expectation of seeing me?”

“No, indeed.”

“You certainly wished to enjoy the pleasure of my society. You knew I

was coming home, and would wait to have a look at me.”

“I sat up for papa, and not for you.”

“Very good, Miss Home. I am going to be a favourite: preferred before

papa soon, I daresay.”

She wished Mrs. Bretton and myself good-night; she seemed hesitating

whether Graham’s deserts entitled him to the same attention, when he

caught her up with one hand, and with that one hand held her poised

aloft above his head. She saw herself thus lifted up on high, in the

glass over the fireplace. The suddenness, the freedom, the disrespect

of the action were too much.

“For shame, Mr. Graham!” was her indignant cry, “put me down!”—and when

again on her feet, “I wonder what you would think of me if I were to

treat you in that way, lifting you with my hand“ (raising that mighty

member) “as Warren lifts the little cat.”

So saying, she departed.