Villette

Still at the festival, Lucy continues to watch Madame Beck, Madame Walravens, and the priest talk. She overhears that M. Paul is sailing to the West Indies to care for a plantation that Madame Walravens owns. M. Paul will run the plantation, which Madame Beck hopes to inherit it one day. After a few years, M. Paul may return and start his own life. The group does not care what dangers he might encounter on the assignment. Madame Walravens calls out for Justine Marie—not the dead nun, but M. Paul’s 18-year-old ward, who was named after her aunt. M. Paul, who Lucy believed had already departed, also joins the group. Lucy infers from their interaction that M. Paul intends to marry this Justine Marie when he returns. She also learns that M. Paul has delayed his departure two weeks to handle some personal business, which he asks Justine Marie to help him with.

On her way home, Lucy is passed by a carriage, a white handkerchief waving from the window. Lucy returns to Rue Fossette and notices that she left the door unlocked. She finds an effigy of the nun in her bed. It is just empty clothing, but it bears a note: “The nun of the attic bequeaths to