Violette by Charlotte Bronte Red by Stephanie Poppins Music by John Myles Carter Chapter 11 The Portress's Cabinet It was summer and very hot.
Georgette,
The younger of Madame Beck's children,
Took a fever.
Désirée,
Suddenly cured of her ailments,
Was together with Fifine packed off to Bon Mamon in the country by way of precaution against infection.
Medical aid was now really needed and Madame,
Choosing to ignore the return of Dr.
Pellioul,
Who had been at home a week,
Conjured his English rival to continue his visits.
One or two of the pensioner heirs complained of a headache and in other respects seemed slightly to participate in Georgette's ailment.
Now at last,
I thought,
Dr.
Pellioul must be recalled.
The prudent directoress would never venture to permit the attendance of so young a man on the pupils.
The directoress was very prudent but she could also be intrepidly adventurous.
She actually introduced Dr.
John to the school division of the premises and established him in attendance on the proud and handsome Blanche de Melchie and the vain flirting Angélique,
Her friend.
Dr.
John,
I thought,
Testified a certain gratification at this mark of confidence and if discretion of bearing could have justified the step,
It would by him have been amply justified.
Here,
However,
In this land of conference and confessionals,
Such a presence as his was not to be suffered with impunity in a pensionette de demoiselle.
The school gossiped,
The kitchen whispered,
The town caught the rumour,
Parents wrote letters and paid visits of remonstrance.
Madame,
Had she been weak,
Would now have been lost.
A dozen rival educational houses were ready to improve this false step to her ruin.
But Madame was not weak and little Jesuit,
Though she might be,
Yet I clapped the hands of my heart and with its voice cried bravá as I watched her able bearing,
Her skilled management,
Her temper and her firmness on this occasion.
She met the alarmed parents with a good-humoured easy grace.
C'est pauvre Dr.
John,
She would say,
Chuckling,
Rubbing joylessly her fat little hands,
And she would go on to explain how she happened to be employing him for her own children,
Who were so fond of him they would screen themselves into fit at the thought of another doctor.
The parents' mouths were closed.
To this day I never fully understood why Madame risked her interest for the sake of St.
John.
What people said,
Of course I know well,
The whole house,
Pupils,
Teachers,
Servants included,
Affirmed she was going to marry him.
Differences of age seemed to make no obstacle in their eyes.
It must be admitted,
Appearances did not wholly discountenance this idea.
Madame seemed so bent on retaining his services,
So oblivious of her former protégé,
Dr.
Belleau.
She also made such a point of personally receiving his visits.
She was so unfailingly cheerful,
Blithe and benign in her manner to him.
Moreover,
She paid about this time marked attention to dress.
The morning disappear,
The night cap and shawl were discarded.
Dr.
John's early visits always found her with auburn braids nicely arranged,
Silk dress trimly fitted on,
Neat-laced broderkins in lieu of slippers.
In short,
The whole toilette complete as a model and fresh as a flower.
I scarcely think,
However,
Her intention in this went further than just to show a very handsome man she was not quite a plain woman.
And plain Madame was not.
Without beauty of feature or elegance of form,
She pleased.
Without use of its gay graces,
She cheered.
One never tired of seeing her.
She was never monotonous or insipid or colourless or flat.
Had she,
Indeed,
Floating visions of adopting Dr.
John as her husband,
Taking him to her well-furnished home,
Endowing him with her savings,
Which were said to amount to a moderate competency,
And making him comfortable for the rest of his life?
Did Dr.
John suspect her of such visions?
I have met him coming out of her presence with a mischievous half-smile about his lips,
And in his eyes a look as of masculine vanity,
Elate and tickled.
With all his good looks and good nature,
Dr.
John was not perfect.
People said he had no money,
That he was wholly dependent upon his profession.
Madame,
Though perhaps some fourteen years his senior,
Was yet the sort of woman never to grow old,
Never to wither and never to break down.
They certainly were on good terms.
He,
Perhaps,
Was not in love.
But how many people ever do love,
Or at least marry for love,
In this world?
One morning little Georgette had been more feverish than usual.
She was crying and would not be pacified.
I thought a particular draft order disagreed with her,
And I doubted whether it ought to be continued.
I waited impatiently for the doctors coming in,
To consult him.
The doorbell rang.
He was admitted.
It was his custom to mount straight to the nursery,
Taking about three degrees of the staircase at once,
And coming upon us like a cheerful surprise.
But five minutes elapsed,
Then ten,
And I saw and heard nothing of him.
What could he be doing?
Was he with Madame in the salle à manger?
Impossible!
I'd left about a short time since,
Dressing in her own chamber.
I listened.
Three pupils were hard at work practising in three proximate rooms.
Further off,
At a fourth instrument in the oratory,
A whole class of a dozen or more were taking a singing lesson.
Under these circumstances,
What else could I hear?
I heard a giddy,
Trebled laugh,
In close proximity.
The door was half unclosed,
And a man's voice in a soft,
Deep,
Pleading tone uttered some words.
For God's sake,
It said.
Then,
After a second's pause,
Forth issued Dr John,
His eyes full shining,
But not with either joy or triumph.
His fair English cheek was high-coloured,
A baffled,
Tortured,
Anxious,
Yet tender meaning on his brow.
The open door served me as a screen,
But I had been fallen his way.
I believe he would have passed without seeing me.
But who was the torturer?
What being in that house had him so much in her power?
Madame,
I believe to be in her chamber,
The room whence he had stepped,
Was dedicated to the poor Tress's sole use,
And she,
Rosine,
An unprincipled,
Though pretty little French Crisette,
Fickle,
Dressy and vain,
It was not her,
Surely.
To her hand he owed the ordeal.
While I pondered her voice,
Clear though somewhat sharp,
Broke out in a lightsome French song,
I glanced around the door,
And there at the table sat Rosine in a smart dress,
Trimming a tiny blonde cap.
Not a living thing save herself was in the room,
Except some goldfish in a glass globe,
Some flowers in pots,
And a broad July sunbeam.
Now there was a problem.
I must go upstairs and ask about the medicine.
Dr.
John sat in a chair at Georgette's bedside,
And Madame stood before him.
The little patient had been examined and soothed,
And now lay composed in her crib.
Madame Beck,
As I entered,
Was discussing Dr.
John's own health,
Remarking on some fancy change in his looks,
Charging him with overwork,
And recommending rest and change of clothes.
He listened good-naturedly,
But with a laughing indifference.
He said he felt perfectly well.
Then Madame appealed to me,
Dr.
John,
Following her movement with a slow glance which seemed to express languid surprise at reference being made to a quarter so insignificant.
What do you think,
Miss Lucy?
She asked,
Is he not paler and thinner?
It was very seldom I uttered more than monosyllables in Dr.
John's presence.
He was the kind of person with whom I was likely ever to remain the neutral,
Passive thing he thought me.
Now,
However,
I took licence to answer in a phrase,
A phrase I purposely made quite significant.
He looks ill at this moment,
But perhaps it's owing to some temporary cause.
Dr.
John may have been vexed or harassed.
I cannot tell how he took this speech,
As I never sought his face for information.
And he seemed on the point of making a remark,
But thinking better of it,
Held his tongue.
When he was gone,
Madame dropped into the chair he'd just left,
Rested her chin on her hand.
All that was amiable vanished from her face.
She looked almost mortified.
But Rosine,
I considered.
I embraced five opportunities of passing her cabinet that day with a view to contemplating her charms and finding out the secret of their influence.
She was pretty,
Young,
And wore a well-made dress.
All very good points,
And I suppose amply sufficient to account in any philosophic mind for any amount of distraction in a young man like Dr.
John.
Still,
I could not help forming half a wish that said doctor were my brother,
Or at least he had a sister or a mother who would kindly sermonize him.
I say half a wish.
I broke it and flung it away before it became a whole one.
Discovering in good time its exquisite folly.
Somebody,
I argued,
Might as well sermonize Madame about her young physician.
What good would that do?
I believe Madame sermonized herself.
She did not behave weakly or make herself in any shape ridiculous.
It's true she had neither strong feelings to overcome nor tender feelings by which to be miserably pained.
It is true likewise she had an important avocation,
A real business to fill her time and divert her thoughts.
And it is especially true she possessed a genuine good sense which is not given to all women or to all men.
And by dint of these combined advantages she behaved wisely.
She behaved well.
Bravo once more Madame Beck.
I saw you matched against a Napoleon of a predilection who fought a good fight and you overcame.
