CHAPTER XVI.

AULD¹ LANG SYNE².

Where my soul went during that swoon I cannot tell. Whatever she saw, or wherever she travelled in her trance on that strange night she kept her own secret; never whispering a word to Memory, and baffling imagination by an indissoluble silence. She may have gone upward, and come in sight of her eternal home, hoping for leave to rest now, and deeming that her painful union with matter was at last dissolved. While she so deemed, an angel may have warned her away from heaven’s threshold, and, guiding her weeping down, have bound her, once more, all shuddering³ and unwilling⁴, to that poor frame, cold and wasted, of whose companionship she was grown more than weary.

I know she re-entered her prison with pain, with reluctance⁵, with a moan and a long shiver. The divorced mates, Spirit and Substance, were hard to re-unite: they greeted each other, not in an embrace, but a racking sort of struggle. The returning sense of sight came upon me, red, as if it swam in blood; suspended hearing rushed back loud, like thunder; consciousness revived in fear: I sat up appalled⁷, wondering into what region, amongst what strange beings I was waking. At first I knew nothing I looked on: a wall was not a wall—a lamp not a lamp. I should have understood what we call a ghost, as well as I did the commonest object: which is another way of intimating that all my eye rested on struck it as spectral⁸. But the faculties⁹ soon settled each in his place; the life-machine presently resumed its wonted and regular working.

Still, I knew not where I was; only in time I saw I had been removed from the spot where I fell: I lay on no portico-step; night and tempest were excluded by walls, windows, and ceiling. Into some house I had been carried—but what house?

I could only think of the pensionnat in the Rue¹¹ Fossette. Still half-dreaming, I tried hard to discover in what room they had put me; whether the great dormitory, or one of the little dormitories. I was puzzled, because I could not make the glimpses of furniture I saw accord with my knowledge of any of these apartments. The empty white beds were wanting, and the long line of large windows. “Surely,” thought I, “it is not to Madame Beck’s own chamber¹² they have carried me!” And here my eye fell on an easy-chair covered with blue damask. Other seats, cushioned to match, dawned on me by degrees; and at last I took in the complete fact of a pleasant parlour, with a wood fire on a clear-shining hearth¹⁴, a carpet where arabesques¹⁵ of bright blue relieved a ground of shaded fawn¹⁶; pale walls over which a slight but endless garland of azure¹⁷ forget-me-nots ran mazed¹⁸ and bewildered amongst myriad¹⁹ gold leaves and tendrils. A gilded²⁰ mirror filled up the space between two windows, curtained amply with blue damask. In this mirror I saw myself laid, not in bed, but on a sofa. I looked spectral; my eyes larger and more hollow, my hair darker than was natural, by contrast with my thin and ashen²¹ face. It was obvious, not only from the furniture, but from the position of windows, doors, and fireplace, that this was an unknown room in an unknown house.

Hardly less plain was it that my brain was not yet settled; for, as I gazed at the blue arm-chair, it appeared to grow familiar; so did a certain scroll-couch, and not less so the round centre-table, with a blue-covering, bordered with autumn-tinted foliage²²; and, above all, two little footstools with worked covers, and a small ebony-framed chair, of which the seat and back were also worked with groups of brilliant flowers on a dark ground.

Struck with these things, I explored further. Strange to say, old acquaintance were all about me, and “auld lang syne” smiled out of every nook. There were two oval miniatures over the mantel-piece, of which I knew by heart the pearls about the high and powdered “heads;” the velvets circling the white throats; the swell²³ of the full muslin kerchiefs: the pattern of the lace sleeve-ruffles. Upon the mantel-shelf there were two china vases, some relics²⁴ of a diminutive²⁵ tea-service, as smooth as enamel²⁶ and as thin as egg-shell, and a white centre ornament²⁷, a classic group in alabaster²⁸, preserved under glass. Of all these things I could have told the peculiarities²⁹, numbered the flaws or cracks, like any clairvoyante. Above all, there was a pair of handscreens, with elaborate pencil-drawings finished like line engravings; these, my very eyes ached at beholding³² again, recalling hours when they had followed, stroke by stroke and touch by touch, a tedious, feeble, finical, school-girl pencil held in these fingers, now so skeleton-like.

Where was I? Not only in what spot of the world, but in what year of our Lord? For all these objects were of past days, and of a distant country. Ten years ago I bade them good-by; since my fourteenth year they and I had never met. I gasped³³ audibly, “Where am I?”

A shape hitherto unnoticed, stirred, rose, came forward: a shape inharmonious with the environment, serving only to complicate³⁴ the riddle³⁵ further. This was no more than a sort of native bonne, in a common-place bonne’s cap and print-dress. She spoke³⁶ neither French nor English, and I could get no intelligence from her, not understanding her phrases of dialect. But she bathed my temples and forehead with some cool and perfumed water, and then she heightened the cushion on which I reclined, made signs that I was not to speak, and resumed her post at the foot of the sofa.

She was busy knitting; her eyes thus drawn³⁸ from me, I could gaze on her without interruption. I did mightily³⁹ wonder how she came there, or what she could have to do among the scenes, or with the days of my girlhood. Still more I marvelled⁴⁰ what those scenes and days could now have to do with me.

Too weak to scrutinize⁴¹ thoroughly⁴² the mystery, I tried to settle it by saying it was a mistake, a dream, a fever-fit; and yet I knew there could be no mistake, and that I was not sleeping, and I believed I was sane⁴³. I wished the room had not been so well lighted, that I might not so clearly have seen the little pictures, the ornaments⁴⁴, the screens, the worked chair. All these objects, as well as the blue-damask furniture, were, in fact, precisely⁴⁵ the same, in every minutest detail, with those I so well remembered, and with which I had been so thoroughly intimate, in the drawing-room of my godmother’s house at Bretton. Methought the apartment only was changed, being of different proportions and dimensions.

I thought of Bedreddin Hassan, transported in his sleep from Cairo to the gates of Damascus. Had a Genius stooped his dark wing down the storm to whose stress I had succumbed⁴⁶, and gathering⁴⁷ me from the church-steps, and “rising high into the air,” as the eastern tale said, had he borne me over land and ocean, and laid me quietly down beside a hearth of Old England? But no; I knew the fire of that hearth burned before its Lares no more—it went out long ago, and the household gods had been carried elsewhere.

The bonne turned again to survey me, and seeing my eyes wide open, and, I suppose, deeming their expression perturbed⁴⁸ and excited, she put down her knitting. I saw her busied for a moment at a little stand; she poured out water, and measured drops from a phial: glass in hand, she approached me. What dark-tinged draught⁴⁹ might she now be offering? what Genii-elixir or Magi-distillation?

It was too late to inquire—I had swallowed it passively, and at once. A tide of quiet thought now came gently caressing⁵⁰ my brain; softer and softer rose the flow, with tepid⁵¹ undulations smoother than balm. The pain of weakness left my limbs, my muscles slept. I lost power to move; but, losing at the same time wish, it was no privation. That kind bonne placed a screen between me and the lamp; I saw her rise to do this, but do not remember seeing her resume her place: in the interval⁵² between the two acts, I “fell on sleep.”

At waking, lo! all was again changed. The light of high day surrounded me; not, indeed, a warm, summer light, but the leaden gloom of raw and blustering⁵³ autumn. I felt sure now that I was in the pensionnat—sure by the beating rain on the casement⁵⁴; sure by the “wuther” of wind amongst trees, denoting a garden outside; sure by the chill, the whiteness, the solitude⁵⁵, amidst which I lay. I say whiteness—for the dimity curtains, dropped before a French bed, bounded my view.

I lifted them; I looked out. My eye, prepared to take in the range of a long, large, and whitewashed⁵⁶ chamber, blinked baffled, on encountering the limited area of a small cabinet—a cabinet with sea-green walls; also, instead of five wide and naked windows, there was one high lattice, shaded with muslin festoons: instead of two dozen little stands of painted wood, each holding a basin and an ewer⁵⁷, there was a toilette-table dressed, like a lady for a ball, in a white robe over a pink skirt; a polished and large glass crowned, and a pretty pin-cushion frilled with lace, adorned⁵⁸ it. This toilette, together with a small, low, green and white chintz arm-chair, a washstand topped with a marble slab⁶⁰, and supplied with utensils⁶¹ of pale-green ware⁶², sufficiently⁶³ furnished the tiny chamber.

Reader; I felt alarmed! Why? you will ask. What was there in this simple and somewhat pretty sleeping-closet to startle the most timid? Merely this—These articles of furniture could not be real, solid arm-chairs, looking-glasses, and washstands—they must be the ghosts of such articles; or, if this were denied as too wild an hypothesis—and, confounded as I was, I did deny it—there remained but to conclude that I had myself passed into an abnormal state of mind; in short, that I was very ill and delirious⁶⁵: and even then, mine was the strangest figment with which delirium⁶⁶ had ever harassed⁶⁷ a victim.

I knew—I was obliged to know—the green chintz of that little chair; the little snug⁶⁸ chair itself, the carved, shining-black, foliated frame of that glass; the smooth, milky-green of the china vessels⁶⁹ on the stand; the very stand too, with its top of grey marble, splintered at one corner;—all these I was compelled to recognise and to hail, as last night I had, perforce, recognised and hailed the rosewood, the drapery, the porcelain⁷⁰, of the drawing-room.

Bretton! Bretton! and ten years ago shone reflected in that mirror. And why did Bretton and my fourteenth year haunt me thus? Why, if they came at all, did they not return complete? Why hovered⁷¹ before my distempered vision the mere⁶⁴ furniture, while the rooms and the locality were gone? As to that pincushion made of crimson⁷² satin, ornamented⁷³ with gold beads⁷⁴ and frilled with thread-lace, I had the same right to know it as to know the screens—I had made it myself. Rising with a start from the bed, I took the cushion in my hand and examined it. There was the cipher⁷⁵ “L. L. B.” formed in gold beds, and surrounded with an oval wreath embroidered⁷⁶ in white silk. These were the initials of my godmother’s name—Louisa Lucy Bretton.

“Am I in England? Am I at Bretton?” I muttered; and hastily pulling up the blind with which the lattice was shrouded⁷⁷, I looked out to try and discover where I was; half-prepared to meet the calm, old, handsome buildings and clean grey pavement of St. Ann’s Street, and to see at the end the towers of the minster: or, if otherwise, fully expectant of a town view somewhere, a rue in Villette, if not a street in a pleasant and ancient English city.

I looked, on the contrary, through a frame of leafage, clustering round the high lattice, and forth⁷⁸ thence to a grassy⁷⁹ mead-like level, a lawn-terrace with trees rising from the lower ground beyond—high forest-trees, such as I had not seen for many a day. They were now groaning⁸⁰ under the gale⁸¹ of October, and between their trunks I traced the line of an avenue, where yellow leaves lay in heaps and drifts, or were whirled singly before the sweeping⁸² west wind. Whatever landscape might lie further must have been flat, and these tall beeches⁸³ shut it out. The place seemed secluded⁸⁴, and was to me quite strange: I did not know it at all.

Once more I lay down. My bed stood in a little alcove⁸⁵; on turning my face to the wall, the room with its bewildering accompaniments became excluded. Excluded? No! For as I arranged my position in this hope, behold³¹, on the green space between the divided and looped-up curtains, hung a broad, gilded picture-frame enclosing a portrait. It was drawn—well drawn, though but a sketch—in water-colours; a head, a boy’s head, fresh, life-like, speaking, and animated⁸⁶. It seemed a youth of sixteen, fair-complexioned, with sanguine⁸⁷ health in his cheek; hair long, not dark, and with a sunny sheen; penetrating⁸⁸ eyes, an arch mouth, and a gay smile. On the whole a most pleasant face to look at, especially for those claiming a right to that youth’s affections—parents, for instance, or sisters. Any romantic little school-girl might almost have loved it in its frame. Those eyes looked as if when somewhat older they would flash a lightning-response to love: I cannot tell whether they kept in store the steady-beaming shine of faith. For whatever sentiment met him in form too facile, his lips menaced, beautifully but surely, caprice and light esteem⁸⁹.

Striving to take each new discovery as quietly as I could, I whispered to myself—

“Ah! that portrait used to hang in the breakfast-room, over the mantel-piece: somewhat too high, as I thought. I well remember how I used to mount a music-stool for the purpose of unhooking it, holding it in my hand, and searching into those bonny wells of eyes, whose glance under their hazel lashes⁹⁰ seemed like a pencilled laugh; and well I liked to note the colouring of the cheek, and the expression of the mouth.” I hardly believed fancy could improve on the curve of that mouth, or of the chin; even my ignorance knew that both were beautiful, and pondered perplexed⁹¹ over this doubt: “How it was that what charmed so much, could at the same time so keenly pain?” Once, by way of test, I took little Missy Home, and, lifting her in my arms, told her to look at the picture.

“Do you like it, Polly?” I asked. She never answered, but gazed long, and at last a darkness went trembling through her sensitive eye, as she said, “Put me down.” So I put her down, saying to myself. “The child feels it too.”

All these things do I now think over, adding, “He had his faults, yet scarce ever was a finer nature; liberal, suave⁹², impressible.” My reflections closed in an audibly pronounced word, “Graham!”

“Graham!” echoed a sudden voice at the bedside. “Do you want Graham?”

I looked. The plot was but thickening; the wonder but culminating. If it was strange to see that well-remembered pictured form on the wall, still stranger was it to turn and behold the equally well-remembered living form opposite—a woman, a lady, most real and substantial, tall, well-attired, wearing widow’s silk, and such a cap as best became her matron and motherly braids of hair. Hers, too, was a good face; too marked, perhaps, now for beauty, but not for sense or character. She was little changed; something sterner, something more robust—but she was my godmother: still the distinct vision of Mrs. Bretton.

I kept quiet, yet internally I was much agitated⁹³: my pulse fluttered, and the blood left my cheek, which turned cold.

“Madam, where am I?” I inquired.

“In a very safe asylum⁹⁴; well protected for the present; make your mind quite easy till you get a little better; you look ill this morning.”

“I am so entirely⁹⁵ bewildered, I do not know whether I can trust my senses at all, or whether they are misleading me in every particular: but you speak English, do you not, madam?”

“I should think you might hear that: it would puzzle me to hold a long discourse⁹⁷ in French.”

“You do not come from England?”

“I am lately arrived thence. Have you been long in this country? You seem to know my son?”

“Do, I, madam? Perhaps I do. Your son—the picture there?”

“That is his portrait as a youth. While looking at it, you pronounced his name.”

“Graham Bretton?”

She nodded.

“I speak to Mrs. Bretton, formerly⁹⁸ of Bretton, ——shire?”

“Quite right; and you, I am told, are an English teacher in a foreign school here: my son recognised you as such.”

“How was I found, madam, and by whom?”

“My son shall tell you that by-and-by,” said she; “but at present you are too confused and weak for conversation: try to eat some breakfast, and then sleep.”

Notwithstanding all I had undergone—the bodily fatigue⁹⁹, the perturbation of spirits, the exposure to weather—it seemed that I was better: the fever, the real malady¹⁰⁰ which had oppressed my frame, was abating¹⁰¹; for, whereas during the last nine days I had taken no solid food, and suffered from continual thirst, this morning, on breakfast being offered, I experienced a craving¹⁰² for nourishment¹⁰³: an inward faintness which caused me eagerly to taste the tea this lady offered, and to eat the morsel¹⁰⁴ of dry toast she allowed in accompaniment. It was only a morsel, but it sufficed; keeping up my strength till some two or three hours afterwards, when the bonne brought me a little cup of broth¹⁰⁵ and a biscuit.

As evening began to darken, and the ceaseless blast still blew wild and cold, and the rain streamed on, deluge-like, I grew weary—very weary of my bed. The room, though pretty, was small: I felt it confining: I longed for a change. The increasing chill and gathering gloom, too, depressed¹⁰⁶ me; I wanted to see—to feel firelight. Besides, I kept thinking of the son of that tall matron: when should I see him? Certainly not till I left my room.

At last the bonne came to make my bed for the night. She prepared to wrap me in a blanket and place me in the little chintz chair; but, declining these attentions, I proceeded to dress myself:

The business was just achieved, and I was sitting down to take breath, when Mrs. Bretton once more appeared.

“Dressed!” she exclaimed, smiling with that smile I so well knew—a pleasant smile, though not soft. “You are quite better then? Quite strong—eh?”

She spoke to me so much as of old she used to speak that I almost fancied she was beginning to know me. There was the same sort of patronage¹⁰⁷ in her voice and manner that, as a girl, I had always experienced from her—a patronage I yielded to and even liked; it was not founded on conventional grounds of superior wealth or station (in the last particular there had never been any inequality; her degree was mine); but on natural reasons of physical advantage: it was the shelter the tree gives the herb. I put a request without further ceremony.

“Do let me go down-stairs, madam; I am so cold and dull here.”

“I desire nothing better, if you are strong enough to bear the change,” was her reply. “Come then; here is an arm.” And she offered me hers: I took it, and we descended¹⁰⁸ one flight of carpeted steps to a landing where a tall door, standing³⁷ open, gave admission into the blue-damask room. How pleasant it was in its air of perfect domestic comfort! How warm in its amber¹³ lamp-light and vermilion fire-flush! To render the picture perfect, tea stood ready on the table—an English tea, whereof the whole shining service glanced at me familiarly; from the solid silver urn⁶, of antique pattern, and the massive pot of the same metal, to the thin porcelain cups, dark with purple and gilding¹⁰⁹. I knew the very seed-cake of peculiar³⁰ form, baked in a peculiar mould, which always had a place on the tea-table at Bretton. Graham liked it, and there it was as of yore—set before Graham’s plate with the silver knife and fork beside it. Graham was then expected to tea: Graham was now, perhaps, in the house; ere many minutes I might see him.

“Sit down—sit down,” said my conductress, as my step faltered¹¹⁰ a little in passing to the hearth. She seated me on the sofa, but I soon passed behind it, saying the fire was too hot; in its shade I found another seat which suited me better. Mrs. Bretton was never wont¹⁰ to make a fuss about any person or anything; without remonstrance¹¹¹ she suffered me to have my own way. She made the tea, and she took up the newspaper. I liked to watch every action of my godmother; all her movements were so young: she must have been now above fifty, yet neither her sinews nor her spirit seemed yet touched by the rust⁹⁶ of age. Though portly, she was alert, and though serene¹¹², she was at times impetuous—good health and an excellent temperament¹¹³ kept her green as in her spring.

While she read, I perceived she listened—listened for her son. She was not the woman ever to confess herself uneasy, but there was yet no lull¹¹⁴ in the weather, and if Graham were out in that hoarse¹¹⁵ wind—roaring still unsatisfied—I well knew his mother’s heart would be out with him.

“Ten minutes behind his time,” said she, looking at her watch; then, in another minute, a lifting of her eyes from the page, and a slight inclination¹¹⁶ of her head towards the door, denoted that she heard some sound. Presently her brow cleared; and then even my ear, less practised, caught the iron clash of a gate swung to, steps on gravel¹¹⁸, lastly the door-bell. He was come. His mother filled the teapot from the urn, she drew nearer the hearth the stuffed and cushioned blue chair—her own chair by right, but I saw there was one who might with impunity¹¹⁹ usurp¹²⁰ it. And when that one came up the stairs—which he soon did, after, I suppose, some such attention to the toilet as the wild and wet night rendered necessary, and strode straight in—

“Is it you, Graham?” said his mother, hiding a glad smile and speaking curtly¹²¹.

“Who else should it be, mamma?” demanded the Unpunctual, possessing himself irreverently of the abdicated¹²² throne.

“Don’t you deserve cold tea, for being late?”

“I shall not get my deserts, for the urn sings cheerily.”

“Wheel yourself to the table, lazy boy: no seat will serve you but mine; if you had one spark of a sense of propriety¹²³, you would always leave that chair for the Old Lady.”

“So I should; only the dear Old Lady persists in leaving it for me. How is your patient, mamma?”

“Will she come forward and speak for herself?” said Mrs. Bretton, turning to my corner; and at this invitation, forward I came. Graham courteously¹²⁵ rose up to greet me. He stood tall on the hearth, a figure justifying¹²⁶ his mother’s unconcealed pride.

“So you are come down,” said he; “you must be better then—much better. I scarcely expected we should meet thus, or here. I was alarmed last night, and if I had not been forced to hurry away to a dying patient, I certainly would not have left you; but my mother herself is something of a doctress, and Martha an excellent nurse. I saw the case was a fainting-fit, not necessarily dangerous. What brought it on, I have yet to learn, and all particulars; meantime, I trust you really do feel better?”

“Much better,” I said calmly. “Much better, I thank you, Dr. John.”

For, reader, this tall young man—this darling son—this host of mine—this Graham Bretton, was Dr. John: he, and no other; and, what is more, I ascertained¹²⁷ this identity scarcely with surprise. What is more, when I heard Graham’s step on the stairs, I knew what manner of figure would enter, and for whose aspect to prepare my eyes. The discovery was not of to-day, its dawn had penetrated¹²⁸ my perceptions long since. Of course I remembered young Bretton well; and though ten years (from sixteen to twenty-six) may greatly change the boy as they mature him to the man, yet they could bring no such utter difference as would suffice wholly to blind my eyes, or baffle my memory. Dr. John Graham Bretton retained still an affinity¹²⁹ to the youth of sixteen: he had his eyes; he had some of his features; to wit, all the excellently-moulded lower half of the face; I found him out soon. I first recognised him on that occasion, noted¹¹⁷ several chapters back, when my unguardedly-fixed attention had drawn on me the mortification¹³⁰ of an implied rebuke¹³¹. Subsequent observation confirmed, in every point, that early surmise¹³². I traced in the gesture, the port, and the habits of his manhood, all his boy’s promise. I heard in his now deep tones the accent of former days. Certain turns of phrase, peculiar to him of old, were peculiar to him still; and so was many a trick of eye and lip, many a smile, many a sudden ray levelled from the irid, under his well-charactered brow.

To say anything on the subject, to hint⁵⁹ at my discovery, had not suited my habits of thought, or assimilated with my system of feeling. On the contrary, I had preferred to keep the matter to myself. I liked entering his presence covered with a cloud he had not seen through, while he stood before me under a ray of special illumination which shone all partial over his head, trembled about his feet, and cast light no farther.

Well I knew that to him it could make little difference, were I to come forward and announce, “This is Lucy Snowe!” So I kept back in my teacher’s place; and as he never asked my name, so I never gave it. He heard me called “Miss,” and “Miss Lucy;” he never heard the surname, “Snowe.” As to spontaneous recognition—though I, perhaps, was still less changed than he—the idea never approached his mind, and why should I suggest it?

During tea, Dr. John was kind, as it was his nature to be; that meal over, and the tray carried out, he made a cosy arrangement of the cushions in a corner of the sofa, and obliged me to settle amongst them. He and his mother also drew to the fire, and ere we had sat ten minutes, I caught the eye of the latter fastened steadily¹³³ upon me. Women are certainly quicker in some things than men.

“Well,” she exclaimed, presently, “I have seldom seen a stronger likeness¹³⁴! Graham, have you observed it?”

“Observed what? What ails¹³⁵ the Old Lady now? How you stare, mamma! One would think you had an attack of second sight.”

“Tell me, Graham, of whom does that young lady remind you?” pointing to me.

“Mamma, you put her out of countenance¹³⁶. I often tell you abruptness¹³⁷ is your fault; remember, too, that to you she is a stranger, and does not know your ways.”

“Now, when she looks down; now, when she turns sideways, who is she like, Graham?”

“Indeed, mamma, since you propound¹³⁸ the riddle, I think you ought to solve it!”

“And you have known her some time, you say—ever since you first began to attend the school in the Rue Fossette:—yet you never mentioned to me that singular resemblance!”

“I could not mention a thing of which I never thought, and which I do not now acknowledge. What can you mean?”

“Stupid boy! look at her.”

Graham did look: but this was not to be endured; I saw how it must end, so I thought it best to anticipate.

“Dr. John,” I said, “has had so much to do and think of, since he and I shook hands at our last parting in St. Ann’s Street, that, while I readily found out Mr. Graham Bretton, some months ago, it never occurred to me as possible that he should recognise Lucy Snowe.”

“Lucy Snowe! I thought so! I knew it!” cried Mrs. Bretton. And she at once stepped across the hearth and kissed me. Some ladies would, perhaps, have made a great bustle¹³⁹ upon such a discovery without being particularly glad of it; but it was not my godmother’s habit to make a bustle, and she preferred all sentimental¹⁴⁰ demonstrations¹⁴¹ in bas-relief. So she and I got over the surprise with few words and a single salute¹⁴²; yet I daresay she was pleased, and I know I was. While we renewed old acquaintance, Graham, sitting opposite, silently disposed of his paroxysm of astonishment¹⁴³.

“Mamma calls me a stupid boy, and I think I am so,” at length he said; “for, upon my honour, often as I have seen you, I never once suspected this fact: and yet I perceive it all now. Lucy Snowe! To be sure! I recollect¹⁴⁴ her perfectly¹⁴⁵, and there she sits; not a doubt of it. But,” he added, “you surely have not known me as an old acquaintance all this time, and never mentioned it.”

“That I have,” was my answer.

Dr. John commented not. I supposed he regarded my silence as eccentric, but he was indulgent in refraining from censure¹⁴⁶. I daresay, too, he would have deemed it impertinent to have interrogated¹⁴⁷ me very closely, to have asked me the why and wherefore of my reserve; and, though he might feel a little curious, the importance of the case was by no means such as to tempt¹⁴⁸ curiosity to infringe¹⁴⁹ on discretion¹⁵⁰.

For my part, I just ventured to inquire whether he remembered the circumstance of my once looking at him very fixedly¹⁵¹; for the slight annoyance¹⁵² he had betrayed on that occasion still lingered sore on my mind.

“I think I do!” said he: “I think I was even cross with you.”

“You considered me a little bold; perhaps?” I inquired.

“Not at all. Only, shy and retiring as your general manner was, I wondered what personal or facial enormity in me proved so magnetic to your usually averted¹⁵³ eyes.”

“You see how it was now?”

“Perfectly.”

And here Mrs. Bretton broke in with many, many questions about past times; and for her satisfaction I had to recur¹⁵⁴ to gone-by troubles, to explain causes of seeming estrangement¹⁵⁵, to touch on single-handed conflict with Life, with Death, with Grief, with Fate. Dr. John listened, saying little. He and she then told me of changes they had known: even with them all had not gone smoothly¹⁵⁶, and fortune had retrenched¹⁵⁷ her once abundant gifts. But so courageous¹⁵⁸ a mother, with such a champion in her son, was well fitted to fight a good fight with the world, and to prevail ultimately. Dr. John himself was one of those on whose birth benign¹⁵⁹ planets have certainly smiled. Adversity might set against him her most sullen¹⁶⁰ front: he was the man to beat her down with smiles. Strong and cheerful, and firm and courteous¹²⁴; not rash, yet valiant¹⁶¹; he was the aspirant¹⁶² to woo Destiny herself, and to win from her stone eyeballs a beam almost loving.

In the profession he had adopted, his success was now quite decided¹⁶³. Within the last three months he had taken this house (a small château¹⁶⁴, they told me, about half a league without the Porte de Crécy); this country site being chosen for the sake of his mother’s health, with which town air did not now agree. Hither he had invited Mrs. Bretton, and she, on leaving England, had brought with her such residue¹⁶⁵ furniture of the former St. Ann’s Street mansion¹⁶⁶ as she had thought fit to keep unsold. Hence my bewilderment at the phantoms¹⁶⁷ of chairs, and the wraiths¹⁶⁸ of looking-glasses, tea-urns, and teacups.

As the clock struck eleven, Dr. John stopped his mother.

“Miss Snowe must retire now,” he said; “she is beginning to look very pale. To-morrow I will venture to put some questions respecting the cause of her loss of health. She is much changed, indeed, since last July, when I saw her enact¹⁶⁹ with no little spirit the part of a very killing¹⁷⁰ fine gentleman. As to last night’s catastrophe¹⁷¹, I am sure thereby¹⁷² hangs a tale, but we will inquire no further this evening. Good-night, Miss Lucy.”

And so he kindly¹⁷³ led me to the door, and holding a wax-candle, lighted me up the one flight of stairs.

When I had said my prayers, and when I was undressed and laid down, I felt that I still had friends. Friends, not professing¹⁷⁴ vehement¹⁷⁵ attachment¹⁷⁶, not offering the tender solace¹⁷⁷ of well-matched and congenial relationship; on whom, therefore, but moderate demand of affection was to be made, of whom but moderate expectation formed; but towards whom my heart softened¹⁷⁸ instinctively¹⁷⁹, and yearned¹⁸⁰ with an importunate¹⁸¹ gratitude¹⁸², which I entreated¹⁸³ Reason betimes to check.

“Do not let me think of them too often, too much, too fondly,” I implored¹⁸⁴: “let me be content with a temperate¹⁸⁵ draught of this living stream: let me not run athirst, and apply passionately¹⁸⁶ to its welcome waters: let me not imagine in them a sweeter taste than earth’s fountains know. Oh! would to God I may be enabled to feel enough sustained by an occasional, amicable¹⁸⁷ intercourse¹⁸⁸, rare, brief, unengrossing and tranquil¹⁸⁹: quite tranquil!”

Still repeating this word, I turned to my pillow; and still repeating it, I steeped that pillow with tears.