The School in the Faubourg — Villette

The Freedom and Renovation Lucy brought home from the fête fail the next day. They had boasted when they reclaimed her from love. Asked for deeds, Freedom excuses himself as too poor to help, and Renovation has died in the night. She is back on the rack of suspense. Only two days remain before the Paul et Virginie must sail. It is the Feast of the Assumption. No school is held. Boarders and teachers have gone into the country for their afternoon meal. Lucy stays, clinging to the last chance like a waif to a raft. Joiners are expected in the first class. She hears one step, in shoes rather than sabots, and turns from tying her bonnet to find the doorway filled by Paul.

He wears a travelling surtout guarded with velvet. He looks well, cheerful, and kind. She thinks this may be a bridegroom mood, and still she will not waste a last moment on jealousy. She expects the farewell he gave the pupils: her hand for two minutes, her cheek touched once, then the gulf. He takes her hand, puts back her bonnet, and looks into her face. The luminous smile goes out. He looks like a mother finding a child broken by illness or want. Then Madame Beck is behind them, brought by vigilance or instinct. Victor has much to say, and Josef is here. She pushes so near she almost thrusts herself between them. Lucy cries that her heart will break. One whisper, Trust me, opens the tears. Madame offers a cordial. To be left to it feels like being left to a poisoner. Paul tells her to leave them, then to look at the poor face and relent. She stands firm. He gives his hand, scarcely touching her, and she runs. The door shuts in one second.

The flash passes. He tells Lucy to wipe her eyes and waits until she is calm. It kills her, she says, to be forgotten. All these weary days she has not heard one word, and she was crushed by the growing certainty that he would leave without a farewell. He says she does not know him, and that the proof is ready. He came to fetch her a good distance into the town. She re-ties her bonnet without objection. On the boulevards he makes her sit under the lime trees. He repeats her phrase with a kindly mimicry of her accent and says he has not forgotten her for one hour. Faithful women err, he says, when they think themselves the only faithful creatures. He tells her to look at him. Constancy has written her face with an iron pen. She asks him to withdraw that hand. She cannot help asking if she displeases his eyes. The old dread of her own outward deficiency presses hard. He stops and gives a short, strong answer that silences her, subdues her, and profoundly satisfies her. After that she knows what she is for him, and she ceases to care painfully what she might be for the rest of the world.

Their walk is long and seems short. He talks of the voyage. He thinks of staying away three years. On his return from Guadaloupe he looks to be clear of liabilities. He asks what she purposes in the interval, and reminds her of the little school of her own. She has not dropped it. She is saving what she can. He does not like leaving her in the Rue Fossette. She would miss him, feel desolate, grow sad. There is another objection. He wishes to write, and he will not have the letters uncertain. Catholic discipline, he says, though justifiable, might under peculiar circumstances be misapplied, perhaps abused. She answers that if he writes she must have the letters. Ten directors and twenty directresses shall not keep them from her. She is a Protestant and will not bear that kind of discipline. He tells her to be quiet. They will contrive a plan.

They have come back into a clean faubourg of small pleasant houses. He stops at a white doorstep, takes a key from his pocket, and enters without knocking. No servant appears. The little vestibule is freshly painted, and its vista ends in a French window trained with vines. The parlour is tiny, the walls tinged like a blush, the floor waxed, a brilliant carpet at the centre, a round table, a little couch, a chiffonier with porcelain, a French clock, a lamp, biscuit-china ornaments, three flowering plants, and a glass of violets. He shows her a little kitchen, bright brasses, a diminutive set of earthenware, and mentions a china coffee service in the salon. Upstairs she glimpses two pretty sleeping cabinets. Then, with a second key and a certain ceremony, he opens a larger room: scoured boards, two rows of green benches and desks, an alley, an estrade, a teacher's chair and table, a tableau, two maps, a few hardy plants. It is a miniature class, complete. She asks who keeps a school in this faubourg. She has never heard of one. He puts prospectuses into her hand, printed in fair characters: Externat de demoiselles, Numéro 7, Faubourg Clotilde, Directrice, Mademoiselle Lucy Snowe.

She cannot remember the next ten minutes. The first distinct thing is that she is speaking very fast: did he do this, is it his house, does he mean her? He will not speak. His pleased silence stays with her. The packet falls. She has fastened on his hand. He says these are the thanks poor old Emanuel gets for trudging three mortal weeks from house-painter to upholsterer, from cabinet-maker to charwoman, with Lucy and Lucy's cot the sole thoughts in his head. The disposal of his large teaching connection put a handsome sum in his possession, and he determined to give himself this treat. He would not come near her, because reserve is neither his virtue nor his vice, and her questions would have unravelled his one secret in her lap. Now she shall live here and have a school. She shall employ herself while he is away, think of him sometimes, and mind her health and happiness for his sake. When he comes back, he leaves a blank. She promises to work and to be his faithful steward. Speech fails her. He strokes her hair. His hand touches her lips in passing, and she pays it tribute.

Evening shades the quiet faubourg. He has been afoot since morning and claims her hospitality: chocolate in her gold and white china, ordered from a restaurant, served on the balcony under the vines, with rolls, cherries, and strawberries. She asks whether Père Silas and Madame Beck know, and whether they have seen the house. Nobody knows, he says, except the two of them. He wanted to prove to Miss Lucy that he could keep a secret. She has often taunted him that all his affairs are the secret of Polichinelle. The house is not his. He startles her by naming the landlord: a friend of hers, with a most respectful regard. It is Miret, the short-tempered, kind bookseller who found her a seat in the park. He owns several houses in the faubourg. The rent is moderate, scarce half what a house of equal size would cost nearer the centre. The first year she already has in her savings. After that she must trust God and herself. For pupils, he has already given a prospectus to Miret. The Demoiselles Miret, three petite bourgeoises, are at her service. She will be proud to receive them. Then he adds another pupil, who will come daily for English and, being rich, will pay handsomely: his god-daughter and ward, Justine Marie Sauveur.

Until that name she has answered with gleeful quickness. Three words strike her mute. Her colour and her eyes fade. She says the girl must not come. He does not grow vexed. He draws nearer, waits, and says Justine Marie is good, docile, amiable, not quick, and Lucy will like her. The name, pronounced again, recalls the hour in the park and many days and nights of heart-sickness. Lucy says she wants to tell him all. He tells her to speak. The tale streams: the medicated draught, the goading effect, the midnight park, the crowd, the masks, the music, the lamps, how she watched him and what she conjectured. He does not check her. He holds both her hands. She forbids Justine Marie her door and roof. He smiles, betraying delight, and gathers her near his heart. At the moment of utmost mutiny he says: Lucy, take my love. One day share my life. Be my dearest, first on earth.

They walk back to the Rue Fossette by moonlight. On the way he tells her that Justine Marie Sauveur has always been regarded with a daughter's affection, and that with his consent she has been affianced for months to Heinrich Mühler, a wealthy young German merchant, and is to be married within a year. Some of his relations would have liked him to marry the girl and keep the fortune in the family. To him the scheme was repugnant and inadmissible. At Madame Beck's door, Jean Baptiste's clock tolls nine. Eighteen months since, at that hour in that house, he bent before Lucy and arbitered her destiny. This evening he has stooped, gazed, and decreed again, and the fate is otherwise. He gives her his pledge, and then his farewell. The next day he sails.