Villette (Barnes & Noble Classics) - Charlotte Bronte [132]
‘I think,’ he said, ‘I will lay my turban on my wonted altar of offerings; there, at any rate, it would be certain to find favour: no grisette has a more facile faculty of acceptance. Strange! for after all, I know she is a girl of family.’
‘But you don’t know her education, Dr. John,’ said I. ‘Tossed about all her life from one foreign school to another, she may justly proffer the plea of ignorance in extenuation of most of her faults. And then, from what she says, I believe her father and mother were brought up much as she has been brought up.’
‘I always understood she had no fortune; and once I had pleasure in the thought,’ said he.
‘She tells me,’ I answered, ‘that they are poor at home; she always speaks quite candidly on such points: you never find her lying, as these foreigners will often lie. Her parents have a large family: they occupy such a station and possess such connections as, in their opinion, demand display; stringent necessity of circumstances and inherent thoughtlessness of disposition combined, have engendered reckless unscrupulousness as to how they obtain the means of sustaining a good appearance. This is the state of things, and the only state of things she has seen from childhood upwards.’
‘I believe it—and I thought to mould her to something better: but, Lucy, to speak the plain truth, I have felt a new thing tonight, in looking at her and De Hamal. I felt it before noticing the impertinence directed at my mother. I saw a look interchanged between them immediately after their entrance, which threw a most unwelcome light on my mind.’
‘How do you mean? You have long been aware of the flirtation they keep up?’
‘Ay, flirtation! That might be an innocent girlish wile to lure on the true lover; but what I refer to was not flirtation: it was a look marking mutual and secret understanding—it was neither girlish nor innocent. No woman, were she as beautiful as Aphrodite, who could give or receive such a glance, shall ever be sought in marriage by me: I would rather wed a paysanne in a short petticoat and high cap—and be sure that she was honest.’
I could not help smiling. I felt sure he now exaggerated the case: Ginevra, I was certain, was honest enough, with all her giddiness. I told him so. He shook his head, and said he would not be the man to trust her with his honour.
‘The only thing,’ said I, ‘with which you may safely trust her. She would unscrupulously damage a husband’s purse and property, recklessly try his patience and temper: I don’t think she would breathe, or let another breathe, on his honour.’
‘You are becoming her advocate,’ said he. ‘Do you wish me to resume my old chains?’
‘No: I am glad to see you free, and trust that free you will long remain. Yet be, at the same time, just.’
‘I am so: just as Rhadamanthus,ee Lucy. When once I am thoroughly estranged, I cannot help being severe. But look! the King and Queen are rising. I like that Queen: she has a sweet countenance. Mama, too, is excessively tired; we shall never get the old lady home if we stay longer.’
‘I tired, John?’ cried Mrs. Bretton, looking at least as animated and as wide-awake as her son, ‘I would undertake to sit you out yet: leave us both here till morning, and we should see which would look the most jaded by sunrise.’
‘I should not like to try the experiment; for, in truth, mama, you are the most unfading of evergreens, and the freshest of matrons. It must then be on the plea of your son’s delicate nerves and fragile constitution that I found a petition for our speedy adjournment.’
‘Indolent young man! You wish you were in bed, no doubt; and I suppose you must be humoured. There is Lucy, too,