Villette (Barnes & Noble Classics) - Charlotte Bronte [75]
Half an hour or an hour passed; Georgette murmured in her soft lisp that she was growing sleepy. ‘And you shall sleep,’ thought I, ‘malgré maman and médecin, if they are not here in ten minutes.’
Hark! There was the ring, and there the tread, astonishing the staircase by the fleetness with which it left the steps behind. Rosine introduced Dr. John, and, with a freedom of manner not altogether peculiar to herself, but characteristic of the domestics of Villette generally, she stayed to hear what he had to say. Madame’s presence would have awed her back to her own realm of the vestibule and the cabinet—for mine, or that of any other teacher or pupil, she cared not a jot. Smart, trim and pert, she stood, a hand in each pocket of her gay grisette apron, eyeing Dr. John with no more fear or shyness than if he had been a picture instead of a living gentleman.
‘Le marmot n’a rien n‘est ce pas?’ she said, indicating Georgette with a jerk of her chin.
‘Pas beaucoup,’cf was the answer, as the doctor hastily scribbled with his pencil some harmless prescription.
‘Eh bien!’ pursued Rosine, approaching him quite near, while he put up his pencil. ‘And the box—did you get it? Monsieur went off like a coup de vent the other night; I had not time to ask him.’
‘I found it: yes.’
‘And who threw it then?’ continued Rosine, speaking quite freely the very words I should so much have wished to say, but had no address or courage to bring it out: how short some people make the road to a point which, for others, seems unattainable !
‘That may be my secret,’ rejoined Dr. John briefly, but with no sort of hauteur: he seemed quite to understand the Rosine or grisette character.
‘Mais enfin,’ continued she, nothing abashed, ‘monsieur knew it was thrown, since he came to seek it—how did he know?’
‘I was attending a little patient in the college near,’ said he, ‘and saw it dropped out of his chamber window, and so came to pick it up.’
How simple the whole explanation! The note had alluded to a physician as then examining ‘Gustave.’
‘Ah ça!’ pursued Rosine, ‘Il n’y a donc rien là-dessous: pas de mystère, pas d‘amourette, par exemple?’
‘Pas plus que sur ma main,’ responded the doctor, showing his palm.
‘Quel dommage!’ responded the grisette: ‘et moi—à qui tout cela commencait à donner des idées.’
‘Vraiment! vous en êtes pour vos frais,’cg was the doctor’s cool rejoinder.
She pouted. The doctor could not help laughing at the sort of ‘moue’ she made: when he laughed, he had something peculiarly good-natured and genial in his look. I saw his hand incline to his pocket.
‘How many times have you opened the door for me within this last month?’ he asked.
‘Monsieur ought to have kept count of that,’ said Rosine, quite readily.
‘As if I had not something better to do!’ rejoined he; but I saw him give her a piece of gold, which she took unscrupulously, and then danced off to answer the door-bell, ringing just now every five minutes, as the various servants came to fetch the half-boarders.
The reader must not think too hardly of Rosine; on the whole, she was not a bad sort of person, and had no idea there could be any disgrace in grasping at whatever she could get, or any effrontery in chattering like a pie to the best gentleman in Christendom.
I had learnt something from the above scene besides what concerned the ivory box: viz., that not on the robe de jaconas, pink or gray, nor yet on the frilled and pocketed apron, lay the blame of breaking Dr. John’s heart: these items of array were obviously guiltless as Georgette’s little blue tunic.