Violette by Charlotte Bronte Red by Stephanie Poppins Music by John Myles Carter Chapter 4 Miss Marchmont On quitting Breton,
Which I did a few weeks after Pauline's departure,
Little thinking then I was never again to visit it,
Never more to tread its calm old streets,
I betook myself home,
Having been absent six months.
It will be conjectured I was of course glad to return to the bosom of my kindred,
Well,
The amiable conjecture does no harm,
And may therefore be safely left uncontradicted.
Far from saying nay indeed,
I will permit the reader to picture me for the next eight years as a bark slumbering through halcyon weather.
In a harbour,
Still as glass,
The seersman stretched on the little deck,
His face up to heaven,
His eyes closed,
Buried,
If you will,
In a long prayer.
A great many women and girls are supposed to pass their lives something in that fashion,
Why not I with the rest?
Picture me then idle,
Basking,
Plump and happy,
Stretched on a cushioned deck,
Warmed with constant sunshine,
Rocked by breezes indolently soft.
However,
It cannot be concealed that in that case I must somehow have fallen overboard,
Or that there must have been a wreck at last.
I too well remember a time,
A long time,
Of cold,
Of danger,
Of contention.
To this hour,
When I have the nightmare,
It repeats the Russian saltness of briny waves in my throat and their icy pressure on my lungs.
I even know there was a storm,
And that not of one hour nor of one day.
For many days and nights neither the sun nor stars appeared.
We cast with our own hands the tackling out of the ship.
A heavy tempest lay upon us.
All hope that we should be saved was taken away.
In fine the ship was lost.
The crew perished.
As far as I recollect,
I complained to no one about these troubles.
Indeed,
To whom could I complain?
Of Mrs.
Breton I had long lost sight.
Impediments raised by others had years ago come in the way of our intercourse and cut it off.
Besides,
Time had brought changes for her too.
The handsome property of which she was left guardian for her son and which had been chiefly invested in some joint stock undertaking had melted,
It was said,
To a fraction of its original amount.
Grim,
I learned from incidental rumours,
Had adopted a profession.
Both he and his mother were gone from Breton and were understood to be now in London.
Thus there remained no possibility of dependence on others.
To myself alone could I look.
I know not that I was of self-reliant or active nature but self-reliance and exertion were forced upon me by circumstances as they are upon thousands besides.
And when Miss Marchmont,
A maid and lady of our neighbourhood,
Sent for me I obeyed her behest in the hope she might assign me some task I could undertake.
Miss Marchmont was a woman of fortune and lived in a handsome residence but she was a romantic cripple,
Impotent foot and hand and had been so for twenty years.
She always sat upstairs,
Her drawing room adjoined her bedroom.
I had often heard of Miss Marchmont and of her peculiarities.
She had the character of being very eccentric but till now I had never seen her.
I found her a furrowed,
Grey-haired woman,
Grave with solitude stern with long affliction,
Irritable also and perhaps exacting.
It seemed that a maid or rather companion who had waited on her for some years was about to be married and she,
Hearing of my bereaved lot,
Had sent for me with the idea I might supply this person's place.
She made the proposal to me after tea as she and I sat alone by her fireside.
It will not be an easy life,
Said she candidly for I require a good deal of attention and you'll be much confined yet besides,
Contrasted with the existence you have lately it may appear tolerable.
I reflected.
Of course it ought to appear tolerable,
I argued inwardly but somehow by some strange fatality it would not.
To live here in this close room,
The watcher of suffering sometimes perhaps the butt of temper through all that was to come of my youth while all that was gone had passed,
To say the least,
Not blissfully My heart sunk one moment,
Then it revived for though I forced myself to realise evils I think I was too prosaic to idealise and consequently to exaggerate them.
My doubt is whether I should have strength for the undertaking,
I observed.
That is my own scruple,
Said she,
For you look a worn out creature.
So I did.
I saw myself in the glass in my morning dress a faded hollow eyed vision yet I thought little of the worn spectacle the blight I believed was cheerfully external I still felt life at life's sources.
What else have you in view,
Anything?
Nothing clear as yet,
But I may find something.
So you imagine.
Perhaps you're right.
Try your own method then,
And if it does not succeed,
Test mine.
The chance I've offered shall be left open to you for three months.
This was kind,
And I told her so.
While I was speaking,
A paroxysm of pain came on.
I ministered to her,
Made the necessary applications according to her directions and by the time she was relieved a sort of intimacy was already formed between us.
I,
For my part,
Had learned from the manner in which she bore this attack she was a firm,
Patient woman and she,
From the goodwill with which I secured her discovered she could influence my sympathies.
Closer acquaintance,
While it developed both thoughts and eccentricities opened at the same time a view of a character I could respect.
Stern and even morose as she sometimes was I could wait on her and sit beside her with that calm which always blesses us when we are sensible that our manners presence,
Contact,
Please and soothe the persons we serve.
Even when she scolded me,
Which she did now and then it was in such a way as did not humiliate and left no sting.
It was rather like an irascible mother rating her daughter than a harsh mistress lecturing the dependent.
Moreover,
A vein of reason never ran through her passion she was logical even when fierce.
Earlong a growing sense of attachment began to present the thought of staying with her as a companion in quite a new light.
In another week I had agreed to remain.
Two hot close rooms thus became my world and a crippled old woman my mistress,
My friend,
My all.
Her service was my duty,
Her pain my suffering her relief my hope,
Her anger my punishment her regard my reward.
I forgot there were fields,
Woods,
Rivers,
Seas an ever-changing sky outside the steam dimmed lattice of this sick chamber.
I was almost content to forget it.
All within me became narrowed to my lot.
I demanded no walks in the fresh air my appetites needed no more than the tiny messes served for the invalid.
In addition she gave me the originality of her character to study the steadiness of her virtues.
I will add the power of her passions to admire the truth of her feelings to trust.
All these things she had and for all these things I clung to her.
For these things I would have crawled on with her for twenty years if for twenty years longer her life had been protracted.
But another decree was written.
It seemed I must be stimulated into action I must be goaded,
Driven,
Stung,
Forced to energy.
My little morsel of human affection which I prize as if it were a solid pearl must melt in my fingers and slip thence like a dissolving hailstone.
My small adopted duty must be snatched from my easily contented conscience.
I had wanted to compromise with fate to escape occasional great agonies by submitting to a whole life of probation and small pains.
Fate would not be so pacified nor would Providence sanction this shrinking sloth and cowardly indolence.
One February night,
I remember it well there came a voice near Miss Marchant's house heard by every inmate,
But translated perhaps only by one.
I had just put her to bed.
I sat at the fireside sewing.
After a calm winter,
Storms were ushering in the spring the wind was wailing at the windows it had wailed all day but as night deepened it took a new tone an accent keen,
Piercing,
Almost articulate to the ear a plate piteous and disconsolate to the nerves trilled in every gust.
Oh,
Hush,
Hush,
I said in my disturbed mind,
Dropping my work I had heard that very voice hear this a subtle searching cry.
Three times in the course of my life events had taught me these strange accents in the storm this restless,
Hopeless cry denoted a coming state of the atmosphere unpropitious to life.
Epidemic diseases,
I believe,
Were often heralded by a gasping,
Sobbing,
Tormented,
Long lamenting east wind hence I inferred arose the legend of the banshee.
I fancied too I had noticed,
But was not philosopher enough to know whether there was any connection between the circumstances that we often at the same time hear of disturbed volcanic action in distant parts of the world a river suddenly rushing above their banks and of strange high tides flowing furiously in on low sea coasts.
Our globe,
I said to myself,
Seems at such periods torn and disordered the feeble amongst us wither in her distempered breath rushing hot from steaming volcanoes.
I listened and trembled.
Miss Marchand slept.
About midnight the storm in one half hour fell to a dead calm the fire which had been burning dead glowed up vividly I remember the air change and become keen raising blinding curtain I looked out and saw in the stars the keen sparkle of a sharp frost turning away the object that met my eyes was Miss Marchmont awake is it a fine night?
She asked I replied in the affirmative I thought so,
She said,
I feel so strong,
So well raise me,
I feel young tonight,
She continued what if my complaint be about to take a turn and I'm yet destined to enjoy health it would be a miracle and these are not the days of miracles,
I thought to myself and wondered to hear her talk so she went on directing her conversation to the past and seeming to recall its incidents,
Scenes and personages with singular vividness I love memory tonight,
She said,
I prize her as my best friend she is just now giving me a deep delight bringing back to my heart in warm and beautiful life realities not mere empty ideas but what were once realities that I long have thought decayed,
Dissolved,
Mixed in with grave mould I possess just now the hours,
The thoughts,
The hopes of my youth I renew the love of my life almost its only affection for I am not a particularly good woman I am not amiable yet I have had my feelings strong and concentrated and these feelings have their object which in its single self was dear to me as to the majority of men and women while I loved and while I was loved what an existence I enjoyed what a glorious year I can recall how bright it comes back to me what a living spring what a warm glad summer what soft moonlight silvering the autumn evenings what strength of hope under the ice-bound waters and frost-bore fields of that year's winter through that year my heart lived with Frank's heart oh my noble Frank my faithful Frank my good Frank so much better than myself his standard in all things so much higher let me now ask just at this moment when my mind is so strangely clear let me reflect why it was taken from me for what crime was I condemned after twelve months of bliss to undergo thirty years of sorrow I do not know she continued after a pause I cannot see the reason yet in this hour I can say with sincerity what I never tried to say before inscrutable God thy will be done and at this moment I can believe that death will restore me to Frank I never believed it until now he is dead then I inquired in a low voice I said she happened thirty years ago and I have suffered since I doubt if I had made the best use of all my calamities soft amiable natures they would have refined to saintliness of strong evil spirits they would have made demons as for me I have only been a woe-struck and selfish woman you have done much good I said for she was noted for her liberal almsgiving I have not withheld money you mean where it could assuage affliction what of that?
Cost me no effort or pang to give I think from this day I am about to enter a better frame of mind to prepare myself for reunion with Frank you see I still think of him more than of God and unless it can be counted that in thus loving the creature so much so long and so exclusively I have not at least blasphemed the creator small is my chance of salvation what do you think Lucy of these things?
Be my chaplain and tell me this question I could not answer I had no words it seemed as if she thought I had answered it then she composed herself as if to slumber and I too retired to my crib in a closet within her room the night passed in quietness quietly her doom must have at last come peacefully and painlessly for in the morning she was found without life nearly cold but all calm and undisturbed The End
