第94章

Talk French to me she would, and many a punishment she hashad for her wilfulness.I fear the choice of chastisement must havebeen injudicious, for instead of correcting the fault, it seemed to encourage its renewal.Our evenings were our own; that recreation was necessary to refresh our strength for the due discharge of our duties; sometimes we spent them all in conversation, and my young Genevese, now that she was thoroughly accustomed to her English professor, now that she loved him too absolutely to fear him much, reposed in him a confidence so unlimited that topics of conversation could no more be wanting with him than subjects for communion with her own heart.In those moments, happy as a bird with its mate, she would show me what she had of vivacity, of mirth, of originality in her well-dowered nature.She would show, too, some stores of raillery, of “malice,” and would vex, tease, pique me sometimes about what she called my “bizarreries anglaises,” my “caprices insulaires,” with a wild and witty wickedness that made a perfect white demon of her while it lasted.This was rare, however, and the elfish freak was always short: sometimes when driven a little hard in the war of words—for her tongue did ample justice to the pith, the point, the delicacy of her native French, in which language she always attacked me—I used to turn upon her with my old decision, and arrest bodily the sprite that teased me.Vain idea! no sooner had I grasped hand or arm than the elf was gone; the provocative smile quenched in the expressive brown eyes, and a ray of gentle homage shone under the lids in its place.I had seized a mere vexing fairy, and found a submissive and supplicating little mortal woman in my arms.Then I made her get a book, and read English to me for an hour by way of penance.I frequently dosed her with Wordsworth in this way, and Wordsworth steadied her soon; she had a difficulty in comprehending his deep, serene, and sobermind; his language, too, was not facile to her; she had to ask questions, to sue for explanations, to be like a child and a novice, and to acknowledge me as her senior and director.Her instinct instantly penetrated and possessed the meaning of more ardent and imaginative writers.Byron excited her; Scott she loved; Wordsworth only she puzzled at, wondered over, and hesitated to pronounce an opinion upon.

But whether she read to me, or talked with me; whether she teased me in French, or entreated me in English; whether she jested with wit, or inquired with deference; narrated with interest, or listened with attention; whether she smiled at me or on me, always at nine o’clock I was left abandoned.She would extricate herself from my arms, quit my side, take her lamp, and be gone.Her mission was upstairs; I have followed her sometimes and watched her.First she opened the door of the dortoir (the pupils’ chamber), noiselessly she glided up the long room between the two rows of white beds, surveyed all the sleepers; if any were wakeful, especially if any were sad, spoke to them and soothed them; stood some minutes to ascertain that all was safe and tranquil; trimmed the watch-light which burned in the apartment all night, then withdrew, closing the door behind her without sound.Thence she glided to our own chamber; it had a little cabinet within; this she sought; there, too, appeared a bed, but one, and that a very small one; her face (the night I followed and observed her) changed as she approached this tiny couch; from grave it warmed to earnest; she shaded with one hand the lamp she held in the other; she bent above the pillow and hung over a child asleep; its slumber (that evening at least, and usually, I believe) was sound and calm; no tear wet its dark eyelashes; nofever heated its round cheek; no ill dream discomposed its budding features.Frances gazed, she did not smile, and yet the deepest delight filled, flushed her face; feeling pleasurable, powerful, worked in her whole frame, which still was motionless.I saw, indeed, her heart heave, her lips were a little apart, her breathing grew somewhat hurried; the child smiled; then at last the mother smiled too, and said in low soliloquy, “God bless my little son!” She stooped closer over him, breathed the softest of kisses on his brow, covered his minute hand with hers, and at last started up and came away.I regained the parlour before her.Entering it two minutes later she said quietly as she put down her extinguished lamp—“Victor rests well: he smiled in his sleep; he has your smile,monsieur.”

The said Victor was of course her own boy, born in the third year of our marriage: his Christian name had been given him in honour of M.Vandenhuten, who continued always our trusty and well-beloved friend.

Frances was then a good and dear wife to me, because I was toher a good, just, and faithful husband.What she would have been had she married a harsh, envious, careless man—a profligate, a prodigal, a drunkard, or a tyrant—is another question, and one which I once propounded to her.Her answer, given after some reflection, was—“I should have tried to endure the evil or cure it for awhile; andwhen I found it intolerable and incurable, I should have left my torturer suddenly and silently.”

“And if law or might had forced you back again?”

“What, to a drunkard, a profligate, a selfish spendthrift, anunjust fool?” “Yes.”

“I would have gone back; again assured myself whether or not his vice and my misery were capable of remedy; and if not, have left him again.”

“And if again forced to return, and compelled to abide?”

“I don’t know,” she said, hastily.“Why do you ask me, monsieur?”

I would have an answer, because I saw a strange kind of spirit in her eye, whose voice I determined to waken.