5 Villette By Charlotte Brontë - Read By Stephanie Poppins

Villette is a 1853 novel written by English author Charlotte Brontë. After an unspecified family disaster, the protagonist Lucy Snowe travels from her native England to the fictional Continental city of Villette to teach at a girls' school, where she is drawn into adventure and romance.

In this new episode, Lucy Snowe travels to London and finds inspiration there.

Performed by Stephanie Poppins
Music by Jean-Miles Carter
Published by Neworld Books

Transcript

Violette by Charlotte Bronte Red by Stephanie Poppins Music by John Myles Carter Chapter 5 Turning a New Leaf My mistress being dead and I once more alone, I had to look out for a new place. About this time I might be a little shaken in nerves. I grant I was not looking well, But on the contrary thin, Haggard and hollow-eyed. Like a sitter up at night, Like an overwrought servant or a placeless person in debt. However in debt I was not, Not quite poor, For though Miss Marchmont had not had time to benefit me, As on that last night she said she intended, Yet after the funeral my wages were duly paid by her second cousin. The possessor then of fifteen pounds, Of health though worn, Not broken, And of a spirit in similar condition, I might still, In comparison with many people, Be regarded as occupying an enviable position. An embarrassing one it was, However, At the same time, As I felt with some acuteness on a certain day, Of which the corresponding one in the next week was to see my departure from my present abode, While with another I was not provided. In this dilemma I went as a last and sole resource to see and consult an old servant of our family. Once my nurse, Now housekeeper at a grand mansion not far from Miss Marchmont's. I spent some hours with her. She comforted, But knew not how to advise me. Still, At inward darkness I left her about twilight. A walk of two miles lay before me. It was a clear frosty night. In spite of my solitude, My poverty and perplexity, My heart, Nourished and nerved with the vigour of a youth that had not yet counted twenty-three summers, Beat light and knocked feebly. I should have quailed in absence of moonlight, For it was by the leading of stars only I traced the dim path. I should have quailed still more in the unwanted presence of that which to-night shone in the north, The aurora borealis. But this solemn stranger influenced me other than through my fears. I drew in energy with a keen low breeze that blew on its path. Leave this wilderness, It said to me, And go out hence. Where? Was the query. I must question this bold thought sent to my mind. But I had not very far to look. Gazing from this country parish in that flat, Rich middle of England, I mentally saw within reach what I had never yet beheld with my bodily eyes. London. The next day I returned to the hall and asking once more to see the housekeeper, I communicated to her my plan. Mrs Barrett was a grave judicious woman, Though she knew little more of the world than myself. But grave and judicious as she was, She did not charge me with being out of my senses, And indeed I had a staid manner of my own which ere now had been as good to me as a cloak and hood of hot and grey, Since under its favour I had been enabled to achieve with impunity and even approbation, Deeds that if attempted with an excited and unsettled air, Would in some minds have stumped me as a dreamer in Zeeland. The housekeeper was slowly propounding some difficulties while she prepared orange rind for marmalade, When a child ran past the window and came bounding into the room. It was a pretty child and it danced laughing up to me, For we were not strangers. I took it on my knee. Its mother indeed was not a stranger either. She was a young married daughter of the house. Different as were our social positions now, This child's mother and I had been schoolfellows when I was a girl of ten and she a young lady of sixteen. I remembered her good-looking but dull in a lower class than mine. I was admiring her son's young, Handsome eyes when her mother entered. What a beautiful and kind-looking woman she was, Good-natured and comely, Though unintellectual. Wifehood and maternity had changed her thus, As I have seen them change others even less promising than she. Me she had forgotten. I was changed too, Though not, I fear, For the better. I made no attempt to recall myself to her memory. Why should I? She came for her son to accompany her in a walk, And behind her followed a nurse carrying an infant. I only mention the incident because in addressing the nurse, Mrs. Lee spoke French. The little boy chatted volubly in French too. When the whole party was withdrawn, Mrs. Barrett remarked her young lady had brought that foreign nurse home two years ago on her return from a continental excursion. She was treated almost as well as a governess, She said, And had nothing to do but walk out with a baby and chat of French with Master Charles. She says there are many Englishwomen in foreign families as well-placed as she, Added Mrs. Barrett. I stored up this piece of casual information as careful housewives store seemingly worthless shreds and fragments for which their prescient minds anticipate a possible use some day. And before I left my old friend, She gave me the address of a respectable old-fashioned inn in the city, Which she said my uncles used to frequent in former days. In going to London, I ran less risk and evinced less enterprise than the reader may think. In fact, The distance was only five miles. My means would suffice both to take me there, Keep me a few days, And bring me back if I found no inducement to stay. I regarded it as a brief holiday, Permitted for once to work weary faculties rather than as an adventure of life and death. There is nothing like taking all you do at a moderate estimate. It keeps mind and body tranquil, Whereas grandiloquent notions are apt to hurry both into fever. Fifty miles were then a day's journey. I speak of a time gone by. My hair, Which till a late period withstood the frost of time, Lies now at last white under a white cap, Like snow beneath snow. About nine o'clock of a wet February night, I reached London. My reader, I know, Is one who would not thank me for an elaborate reproduction of poetic first impressions, And it is as well, Insomuch as I had neither time nor mood to cherish such, Arriving as I did late on a dark, Raw and rainy evening. When I left the coach, The strange speech of the cabman and others waiting round seemed to me odd as a foreign tongue. I had never before heard the English language chopped up in that way. However, I managed to understand and be understood, So far as to get myself and Trunks safely conveyed to the old inn whereof I had the address. How difficult, How oppressive, How puzzling seemed my flight. In London for the first time, At an inn for the first time, Tired with travelling, Confused with darkness, Pulsed with cold, Unfurnished with either experience or advice to tell me how to act, And yet to act obliged. Into the hands of common sense I confided the matter. Common sense, However, Was as chilled and bewildered as all my other faculties, And it was only under the spur of an inexorable necessity that she spasmodically executed her trust. She paid the porter. Considering the crisis, I did not blame her too much, She was hugely cheated. She asked the waiter for a room. She timorously called for the chambermaid. What is far more, She bore, Without being wholly overcome, A highly supercilious style of demeanour from that young lady when she appeared. I recollect this sane chambermaid was a pattern of town prettiness and smartness, So trim her waist, Her cap, Her dress. I wondered how they'd all been manufactured. Her speech had an accent which, In its mincing glibness, Seemed to rebuke mine as by authority. Her spruce attire flaunted an easy scorn to my plain country garb. Well, It can't be helped, I thought. And maintaining a very quiet manner towards this arrogant little maid, And subsequently observing the sane towards the parsonic-looking black-coated white neckcloth waiter, I got civility from them earlong. I believe at first they thought I was a servant, But in a little while they changed their minds and hovered in a doubtful state between patronage and politeness. I kept up well till I'd betaken of some refreshment, Warmed myself by a fire and was fairly shut into my own room. But as I sat down by the bed and rested my head and arms on the pillow, A terrible oppression overcame me. All at once my position rose on me like a ghost. Anomalous, Desolate, Almost blank of hope it stood. What was I doing here alone in Great London? What should I do on the morrow? What prospects had I in life? What friends had I on earth? Whence did I come? Whither should I go? What should I do? I wet the pillow, My arms and my hair with rushing tears. A dark interval of most bitter thought followed this burst, But I did not regret the step taken nor wish to retract it. A strong persuasion that it was better to go forward than backward, And that I could go forward, That a way, However narrow and difficult, Would come in time, Predominated over other feelings. Its influence hushed them so far that I at last became sufficiently tranquil to be able to say my prayers and seek my couch. I had just extinguished my candle and lain down, When a deep, Low, Mighty tone swung through the night. At first I knew it not, But it was uttered twelve times, And at the twelfth colossal hum and trembling knell I said to myself, I lie in the shadow of St Paul's.