A Fluttered Dovecote

And now I began to pay more attention to the lessons: singing with the Signor or the Fraülein, who had one of the most croaky voices I ever heard, though she was certainly a most brilliant pianiste. Her name was Gretchen, but we used to call her Clarionette, for that seemed to suit best with her horrid, reedy, croaky voice. Then, too, I used to practise hard with my instrumental music; but such a jangly piano we had for practice, though there was a splendid Collard in the drawing-room that it was quite a treat to touch. But only fancy working up Brinley Richards, or Vincent Wallace, or Czerny upon a horrible skeleton-keyed piano that would rattle like old bones, while it was always out of tune, had a dumb note somewhere, and was not even of full compass. Then I tried hard to take to the dancing, and to poor little Monsieur de Kittville – droll little man! – who always seemed to have two more arms than belonged to him; and there they were, tight in his coat sleeves, and hung out, one on each side, as if he did not know where to put them; and he a master of deportment!

I had quite taken the turn now, and was trying to bear it all, and put up with everything as well as I could, even with the horribly regular meals which we used to sit down to at a table where all the knives and forks were cripples – some loose in their handles, some were cracked, some were bent, and others looked over their shoulders. One horrid thing came out one day, and peppered my dinner with rosiny dust; and there it was – a fork – sticking upright in a piece of tough stewed steak, although two of the prongs were bent; and when some of the girls tittered, Miss Furness said that I ought to have known better, and that such behaviour was most unladylike and unbecoming.

But there, she was naturally an unpleasant, crabby old thing, and never hardly opened her lips to speak without saying words that were all crooked and full of corners. She once told Celia Blang – the pupil she petted, and who used to tell her tales – that she had been considered very handsome, and was called the “flower of the village;” but if she was, they must have meant the flower of the vinegar plant – for it is impossible to conceive a more acid old creature. In church, too, it was enough to make one turn round and slap her; for if she did not copy from the vicar, and take to repeating the responses out quite terribly loud, and before the officiating priest, so as to make believe how devout she was, when it really seemed to me that it was only to make herself conspicuous. And then, to see the way in which the vain old thing used to dress her thin, straggley hair! I do not laugh at people because their hair is not luxuriant or is turning grey, but at their vanity, which I am sure deserves it; and anybody is welcome to laugh at mine.

As for Miss Furness’s hair, there was a bit of false here and another bit there, and so different in shade and texture to her own that it was quite shocking to see how artificial she looked; while, to make matters ten times worse, she could not wear her hair plain, but in that old-fashioned Eugenie style, stretching the skin of her face out so tightly that her red nose shone, and she was continually on the grin. And yet I’ve caught her standing before the glass in the drawing-room, to simper and smile at herself, as if she were a goddess of beauty.

After a time the Eugenie style was dismissed to make way for a great pad; when, very soon, her light silk dress was all over pomatumy marks between the shoulders, though she rubbed it well with bread-crumbs every night. I was so annoyed that I curled my hair all round, and next day wore it hanging in ringlets; and this was the day upon which I received the prescription written in French, which did me so much good. It was French lesson day, and while my exercise was being corrected and I was trying to translate, I felt something pressed into my hand; and somehow or another – though I knew how horribly wicked it was – I had not the heart to refuse it, but blushed, and trembled, and stood there with my face suffused, blundering through the translation, until the lesson was ended, and without daring to look at the giver, I rushed away upstairs and devoured those two or three lines hastily scribbled upon a piece of exercise paper.

No! never, never, never will I divulge what they were! Enough that I say how they made my cheeks burn, my heart throb, and the whole place turn into an abode of bliss. Why, I could have kissed Mrs Blunt and all the teachers that evening; and when, at tea-time, as I sat thoughtful and almost happy – I think that I was quite happy for a little while – Miss Furness said something spiteful and cross, I really don’t think I minded it a bit.

It did not last long – that very bright rose-colour medium; but there was something of it henceforth to make lessons easy, and the time to pass less dolefully. I did not answer the first note, nor the second, nor yet the third; but I suppose he must have seen that I was not displeased, or he would not have written so many times; but at last I did dare to give him a look, which brought note after note for me to devour again and again in solitude. I quite tremble now I write, when I think of the daring I displayed in receiving them; but I was brave then, and exultant over my conquest in holding for slave that noble-looking French refugee, whose private history must, I felt, be such a romance, that I quite felt as if I grew taller with importance.

Every note I received was written in his own sweet, sparkling, champagne-like language; and, oh! what progress I made in the tongue, though I am afraid I did not deserve all the praise he bestowed upon me.

Times and times he used to pray for an interview, that I would meet him somewhere – anywhere; but of course I could not yield to any such request, but told him to be content with the replies I gave him to his notes. But still, plan after plan would he propose, and all of them so dreadfully imprudent, and wild, and chivalrous, that nothing could be like it. I know that he would have been a knight or a cavalier had he lived earlier; while as to his looks! – ah, me! I fear that there must be truth in mesmerism, for I felt from the first that he had some terrible power over me, and could – what shall I say? – there, I cannot think of a better simile – turn me, as it were, round his finger; and that is really not an elegant expression. But then, he was so calm, so pensive-looking, and noble, that he might have been taken for one of Byron’s heroes – Lara, or Manfred, or the Giaour. Either or all of these must have been exactly like him; while to find out that I, Laura Bozerne, was the sole object of his worship – Oh! it was thrilling.

I do not know how the time went then, for to me there seemed to be only one measurement, and that was the space between Monsieur Achille’s lessons. As to the scoldings that I was constantly receiving, I did not heed them now in the least; for my being was filled by one sole thought, while the shadowy, reproachful face of Theodore Saint Purre grew more faint day by day. It must have been weeks – I cannot tell; months, perhaps – after my entrance as pupil at the Cedars that I retired on some excuse one afternoon to my dormitory, with a little, sharp, three-cornered note, and tremblingly anxious I tore it open, and read its contents.

And those contents? I would not even hint at them, if it were not that they are so necessary to the progress of my confessions.

He said that he had implored me again and again to meet him, and yet I was relentless and cruel; and now he had come to the determination to wait night by night under the great elm-trees by the side wall, when, even if I would not meet him, he would still have the satisfaction of stilling the beatings of his aching heart by folding his arms about it, leaning against some solitary, rugged trunk, and gazing upon the casket which contained his treasure. I might join him, or I might leave him to his bitter solitude; but there he would be, night after night, as a guardian to watch over my safety.

It was a beautiful note, and no amount of translating could do it justice; for after the glowing French in which it was written, our language seems cold and blank.

What could I do? I could not go, and yet it was impossible to resist the appeal. How could I rest upon my pillow, knowing him to be alone in the garden watching, with weary, waiting eyes, for my coming? – for him to be there hour after hour, till the cold dawn was breaking, and then to turn away, with Tennyson, slightly altered, upon his lips, —

“She cometh not, he said.”

It was too much! I fought as I had fought before, over and over again, thinking of how it would be wicked, wrong, imprudent, unmaidenly. Oh, what dozens of adjectives I did slap my poor face with that afternoon, vowing again and again that I would not heed his note. But it was unbearable; and at last, with flushed cheeks and throbbing pulses, I plunged the note beneath the front of my dress, exclaiming, —

“Come what may, I will be there!”

Chapter Eight.

Memory the Eighth – One of my Sins

A day had passed – a long, long, dreary day, and a weary, weary night – during which I kept on starting up from sleep to think that I heard a voice whispering the word “Come!”

Come, come, come – ah! the number of times I seemed to hear that word, and sat up in bed, pressing my hair from my ears to listen, to lie down again with a sigh – for it was only fancy. How could I go? What could I do? I dare not try to meet him, even though I had vowed that I would. I kept calling myself coward, but that was of no use, for I only owned to it and made no reply; though towards morning, after I had been picturing to myself his weary form leaning watchingly against a tree for hours, and then seemed to see him slowly going disappointed away, I made another vow that, come another night, spite of cowardice and anything else, I would go.

And then, while I lay thinking of how shocking it would be, and all that sort of thing, I dropped off asleep to be awakened by a curious buzzing noise, which was Patty Smith humming a tune – like some horrible great bluebottle – as she was dressing, for the bell had rung some time before.

And now the next night had come. It was so hot that I could scarcely breathe, and the tiresome moon would shine so dreadfully bright that it was like a great, round eye peering between the edge of the blind and the window-frame to watch my proceedings. Clara was soon in bed, and breathing hard; while as for Patty Smith, she snored to that degree that I quite shivered. It must have been her snoring that made me shiver, for as to what I was about to venture, now that I could feel my mind fully made up, I was quite bold, though my heart would beat so loudly that it went “thump, thump,” under the heavy clothes. I had hurried upstairs first, and was lying in bed quite dressed, though I lay wondering whether those two would notice that my clothes were not there by the bedside. I thought it would never be twelve o’clock, and I tried to think what Achille would be doing. It was so romantic, now that I had passed the first feeling of dread, and seemed so much nicer than sitting up in bed in the dark to have a supper of cakes, sweets, and apples, as we used to at the old school when I was young. Ah, yes, when I was young! – for I felt old now. In another hour I should be down in the side walk, where the wall skirted the road. But suppose I were heard upon the stairs, or opening the side door, or Clara should wake, or —

“Oh, you goose!” I exclaimed at last; “pray don’t go if you are so much afraid.”

But really it was enough to make any maiden’s heart beat.

I had changed his note about from place to place, for I could not part with it, and I sighed at the very idea of locking it up in my box with the others; but I had it now, and I could feel the sharp corner prick every time I moved. I knew it every word by heart, down even to where it said, “Thine for ever;” and as I whispered it over to myself, I grew more and more excited, and longed for the time to slip by faster.

At last, when it seemed as though it would never come, I heard the church clock faintly striking twelve; and then I shivered again horribly with that dreadful Patty’s snoring, for it was not likely I should have any foolish fancies about witching hours of midnight, or anything of that kind; and then I softly glided out of bed, and stood quite still for nearly five minutes, when, all remaining quiet, and the breathing of Clara and Patty sounding regular, I stepped on one side of the bright pathway made by the moonbeams, made my way to the door, and gently turned the handle.

I never knew that door to be so noisy before, and I now really trembled; for, as the tiresome thing creaked, I could hear either Clara or Patty turn in bed, and I stopped quite short, expecting every moment to hear my name pronounced. But no – all was silence and snore. I gently closed the door after me, and stood in the dark passage, with my heart almost failing; for I hardly dared stir a step farther, knowing, as I did, that in the next room slept the Fraülein, while the other two Graces were only a few steps farther down the passage. Somebody was breathing so hard that it was almost a snore, and it was not Patty Smith now; and more than once I was for going back, but I stole on at last, and reached the great staircase, where the moon was shining right through the skylight, and making queer shadows upon the wall. But I glided down, and was nearly at the bottom, when, looking up, I felt almost ready to sink – for, in the full glare of the moonlight, there stood a tall figure gazing down at me.

I did not shriek, nor turn to run away, for I had self-command enough to govern the emotions struggling for exit; though I wonder that I did not go mad with fear from the terror which came upon me, as I saw the tall, white figure come slowly gliding down – nearer, nearer, nearer; now in the moonlight, now in the deep shade. Oh, it was fearful! And, after all, to be candid, I believe the reason I did not scream out was because I could not; for my mouth felt hot and parched, and at times my head seemed quite to swim.

As I stood on one of the landings, and backed away from the coming figure, I felt the door of the little room where we hung our garden hats and mantles give way behind me, when I backed slowly in, pushed the door softly to, and then crept tremblingly into a corner, drawing a large shawl before me, but not without knocking down a hat from one of the pegs, to fall with, oh! such a noise, seeing that it was only straw. There I stood, almost without breathing, hoping that I had not been seen, and that the figure, whatever it was, would go by.

Every second seemed turned into a minute, and at last I began to revive; for I felt that, whatever the figure was, it had passed on; and I drew a long breath of relief, thinking now that I must gain my own room at any cost, and the sooner the better, for of course any meeting was quite impossible. I was just going to sigh deeply for poor Achille, when I felt, as it were, frozen again; for the door began to glide slowly open, rustling softly over the carpet – for everything sounded so horribly distinct – and there at last stood the tall white figure, while, as I felt ready to die, I heard my name pronounced, in a low whisper, twice, —

“Laura! Laura!”

For a moment or two I could not reply, when the call was repeated; and, irresistibly attracted, I went slowly forward from my hiding-place, to feel myself caught by the arm by Clara, who had been watching me.

“You cruel, wicked girl!” I exclaimed in a whisper. “How could you frighten me so?”

“Serve you right, too, you wicked, deceitful thing,” she said. “Why could you not trust me? But I don’t care. I know. I can see through you. I know where you are going.”

“That you do not,” I said, boldly; for I felt cross now the fright was over, and I could have boxed the tiresome creature’s ears.

“You’d better not talk so loudly,” she said with a sneer; “that is, if you do not want Lady Blunt to hear your voice.”

“There,” I said, spitefully, “I thought you did not know.”

“Under the tall elms by the garden wall,” whispered Clara, laughing, and translating one of the sentences in the very note I had in my breast; and then I remembered that I had left it for about a quarter of an hour in my morning-dress pocket, before I ran up after changing and fetched it down; though I never should have thought she would have been so treacherous as to read it. But there, she had me in her power, and however much I might have felt disposed to resent her conduct, I could do nothing then, so —

“Hush!” I said, imploringly. “Pray, do not tell, dear!”

“Ah,” said the nasty, treacherous thing, “then you ought to have told me, and trusted me with your secret. But did you think that I was blind, Laura Bozerne, and couldn’t see what was going on? And you never to respond to my confidence, when I always trusted you from the very first. I did think that we were friends.”

“Oh, pray don’t talk so,” I exclaimed; “nor make so much noise, or we shall be heard.” For it was not I who spoke loudly now.

“Well, and suppose we are,” she said, coolly. “I can give a good account of my conduct, I think, Miss Bozerne.”

“Oh, pray don’t talk like that, dear,” I said – “pray, don’t.” And then, feeling that all dissimulation was quite useless, I cast off the reserve, and exclaimed, catching her by both hands – “Oh, do help me, there’s a darling; for he has been waiting for two nights.”

“Yes, I dare say he has,” said the deceitful creature; “but I don’t mean to be mixed up with such goings on.”

A nasty thing! – when I found out afterwards that she had more than once been guilty of the same trick; and all the while professing to have placed such confidence in me. If I had been free to act, I should have boxed the odious thing’s ears; but what could I do then, but crave and pray and promise, and beg of her to be my friend, till she said she would, and forgave me, as she called it; and then I watched her go slowly upstairs till she was out of sight; for whatever she might do in the future, she declared that she would not help me that night.

And there I stood, in a state of trembling indecision, not knowing what to do – whether to go after her, or steal down to the side door; and at last I did the latter, if only out of pure pity for poor Achille, and began slowly to unfasten the bolts.

The nasty things went so hard that I broke my nails over them, while I turned all hot and damp in the face when the cross bar slipped from my fingers, and made such a bang that I felt sure it must have been heard upstairs. And there I stood listening and trembling, and expecting every moment to hear a door open and the sound of voices. It was only the romantic excitement, or else sheer pity, which kept me from hurrying back to my own room, to bury my sorrows in my soft pillow.

I waited quite five minutes, and then tied my handkerchief over my hat, and raised the latch. The next moment I stood outside in the deep shadow, with the water-butt on my right and the wash-house door on my left; and then, with beating heart, I glided from shrub to shrub, till I reached the wall, beneath whose shadow I made my way to the path that runs under the tall elms, where the wall was covered with ivy.

In spite of my fluttering heart, and the knowledge I possessed of how I was committing myself, I could not help noticing how truly beautiful everything looked – the silvery sweet light, glancing through the trees; the deep shadows; and, again, the bright spots where the moon shone through the openings. And timid though I was, I could not help recalling Romeo and Juliet, thinking what a time this was for a love-tale, and regretting that there were no balconies at the Cedars. Then I paused, in the shade of one of the deepest trees, holding my hand to my side to restrain the beating of my heart, as I listened for his footstep.

“I’ll only stay with him one minute,” I said to myself, “and then run in again, like the wind.”

A minute passed: no footstep. Two minutes, five, ten; and then I stole to the end of the walk. But there was no one; and I began to tremble with fear first, and then with excitement, and lastly with indignation; for it seemed to me that I was deceived.

“The poor fellow must have gone back in despair, believing that I should not come. Ah! he does not know me,” I muttered at last.

“Perhaps I am too soon,” I thought a few minutes later, “and he may yet come.”

For I would not let the horrible feeling of disappointment get the upper hand. And then I crept closer to the wall, and waited, looking out from an opening between the trees at the moonlit house, and wondering whether Clara was yet awake.

All was still as possible. Not a sigh of the night wind, nor a footstep, nor even the rustle of a leaf; when all at once I nearly screamed, for there was a sharp cough just above my head. And as my heart began to beat more and more tumultously than ever, there was a rustling in the ivy on the top of the wall, and a dark figure leaped to the ground, where I should have fallen had it not caught me in its arms.

I shut my eyes, as I shivered, half in fear and half with pleasure; and then I let my forehead rest upon my hands against his manly breast – for even in those moments of bliss the big buttons on his coat hurt my nose. And thus we stood for some few moments, each waiting for the other to speak; when he said, in a whisper, – “Better now?”

“Oh, yes,” I replied; “but I must leave thee now. Achille, à demain.”

“Eh?” he said, with a huskiness of tone which I attributed to emotion.

“I must leave thee now,” I said. “How did you get out?” he whispered. “By the side door,” I said, trembling; for an undefined feeling of dread was creeping over me.

“Any chance of a taste of anything?” he whispered.

“Good heavens!” I ejaculated, opening my eyes to their widest extent, “who are you?”

And I should have turned and fled, but that he held me tightly by the wrist.

“Well, perhaps, it don’t matter who I am, and never mind about my number,” said the wretch. “I’m a pleeceman, that’s what I am, county constabulary. Will that soot yer?”

“Oh, pray release me!” I said, “oh, let me go!” I gasped; for I thought he might not understand the first, these low men are so ignorant. “Pray go to Monsieur de Tiraille, and he will reward you.”

“That’s him as I ketched atop of the wall, I suppose,” said the creature. “My, how he did cut when I showed him the bull’s-eye! Thought it was a cracking case, my dear; but I’m up to a thing or two, and won’t split. But I say, my dear, how’s Ann? And so you took me for him, did you? Well, I ain’t surprised.”

And then if the wretch didn’t try to draw me nearer to him: but I started back, horrified.

“Well, just as you like, you know,” exclaimed the ruffian. “But, I say, you’ll let me drink your health, you know, won’t you?”

“Oh, yes,” I exclaimed, interpreting his speech into meaning “Give me a shilling,” which I did, and he loosed my arm.

“That’s right,” he said. “I thought you were a good sort. Feel better, don’t you?”

“Oh, yes,” I exclaimed. “Please let me go now.”

“Let you go,” he said; “to be sure. I was just going to offer you my advice, that you’d better step in before the old gal misses you. He won’t come again to-night now, I scared him too much; so ta-ta, my dear – I won’t spoil sport next time.”

And then, almost before the wretch’s words had left his lips, I fled, nor ceased running until I reached the side door, which I entered, closed, and fastened again; and then glided upstairs to my room, where Patty still snored and Clara watched; but my acts seemed all mechanical, and I can only well recollect one, and that was my throwing myself upon her breast, and bursting into tears.

At last I was once more in bed, my heart still beating tumultuously; and directly after Clara crept in to my side, when it was of no use, I could not keep it in, for it did seem so kind and sympathising of her, though I believe it was only to satisfy her curiosity. So I had a thorough good cry in her arms, and told her of all the terrors of that dreadful night; when instead of, as I expected, trying to console me, the nasty thing had the heart to say, —

“Well, dear, it’s all very fine; but I should not like to be you!”

Chapter Nine.

Memory the Ninth – A Guilty Conscience