Charlotte leaves us with a storm at sea and uncertainty whether M Paul survives it. As the novel ends, he is about to return to Europe. As a final act of generosity, he presents Lucy with a school of her own. Paul announces that he must go to the West Indies for three years to take care of the family investment there. He angrily observes Lucy's affection for Bretton, but this is extinguished by the reappearance of Polly, whom the doctor rescues from a fire and recognises as his soul-mate. Meanwhile, unnoticed by Lucy (but obvious to the reader), M Emanuel is falling in love with her, rather against his will and much against the wishes of other acquaintances whose interest lies in keeping him heart-whole. Lucy recognises the school doctor, John Bretton, to be Graham, her childhood friend, and has to repress her feelings of attraction as she sees his infatuation with the flirtatious Ginevra. At the Pensionnat, she studies under and teaches alongside M Paul Emanuel, a waspish martinet with a heart of gold whom women love and fear, while he himself remains indifferent to them. Lucy takes a post at a girls' school, where one of the students is Ginevra Fanshawe, the niece (and spiritual heir) of Polly's mother. Villette - 'little town' - is a rather condescending description of Brussels, the city where Lucy Snowe and her creator, Charlotte Brontë, worked as school teachers and had deep emotional experiences.
Lucy first finds work as a lady's companion, and then travels to Villette to seek employment. Lucy Snowe, an orphan, stays as a child with Mrs Bretton, her godmother, Graham, the son of the house, and Polly, who has been left in Mrs Bretton's care by her father who is grieving over the death of a frivolous wife - Ginevra.
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