Becoming Jane Eyre (6 page)

In his near blindness he has become more conscious of sounds: the drip of the candle wax at his head and the hard drumming of his own heart, as though he were young again and racing across a field. Less reassuring are the smells, those of this nurse, with her soap, carbolic acid, garlic breath, and disturbing perfume. At the same time he smells this daughter, whom he holds close beside him now. He detects a scent that reveals an emotion: the faint, slightly stale smell of sadness, something dragged from her pores by anguish. He presumes she will never marry, will never bear children, will remain dutifully at his side through his life, a comfort to him. He senses his daughter has not had a joyful moment since her return from the school in Brussels. He hears her sob softly, smells her perfume of sandalwood and regret. He lifts his hand and gropes to find her hand, feel her face, wipe a tear from her cheek.

He wonders now what happened to her at that school. What took her back to it on her own? Could it have been some deception of the heart? What happened with her French Master, who had written to him so kindly about both his girls, asking them to remain as teachers at the school where they had been pupils? Should he have allowed her to go? Could this good girl have sinned in some way? He knows he has done so himself. His were sins of pride, of intolerance and anger. Is he being punished for his sins?
God forgive me, please! We acknowledge and bewail our manifold sins and wickedness.
He remembers his fury at the bell ringers who had dared to practice their craft on the Sabbath; how he had charged at them waving his
shillelagh
in the air over his head, shouting about the Sabbath. But hers?

What is she writing? A letter to her sisters? A poem? Some melodramatic tale? At this hour of the night? What could she have to say? What does she know about the world?

The words of the Scriptures come to him:
Regard the lilies of the fields they sew not neither do they spin, yet, I say unto you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed in such glory as these.

He asks her, “Do you remember how fiercely you and Branwell would quarrel over Wellington’s and Buonaparte’s relative merits?”

She says nothing, and the sound of her scribbling continues anew and gratingly.

“Do you ever hear from your professor, your French Master?” he whispers into the dark. She answers not at all, and continues her scribbling.

“What is it, dear?” he asks. “Is there something amiss?” But still she does not respond. He feels her move away.

He would like so much to say something to comfort her, lift this burden of sadness from her shoulders, as he would have liked to help his dying wife. The truth is, he realizes, he still doesn’t know the right words.

He shifts his weight on the bed. He says, “At least I gave you that time in Brussels, first with Emily and then alone.”

Does he know what he is saying? she wonders. Does he remember how they paid for the journey themselves with their aunt’s gift? She knows how difficult it has always been for him to let them go.

CHAPTER SEVEN

A
letter arrived at the school in Brussels one afternoon after tea, telling of her aunt’s illness. She and Emily would have to return to Haworth immediately. She had no choice. She would have to leave her Master.

They arrived at the parsonage only to find her aunt already dead. She remembers the dull days that followed, her beloved home now a desert to her, and her longing to return to Brussels. Then her Master’s kind letter arrived, summoning them back, offering employment as teachers. She remembers her elation on her return to the school, alone, leaving Emily behind with her father.

She had given her Master English lessons. She had become his
maître
or rather his
maîtresse
in the schoolroom. She had scolded him! How she had laughed at his accent! What pleasure she had in being in charge of him, in the reversal of roles, just as she enjoys it now in this dark room with her helpless father.

Suddenly, he had broken off the English lessons. “I have too much to do,” he had said, not looking her in the eye. “We cannot be selfish. You must devote your time to others, not to me. You are too exclusive. Make friends with some of the other teachers, or even the girls. It would be good for them and for you,” and he hurried from the room.

How could he expect her to make friends with the other teachers—all silly, superficial women without gifts! Surely he knew that. They had often laughed together over them. As for the students, they were unworthy of her interest, stolid and vain. In each of them she saw nothing but false sentiment, stupidity. How could he suddenly expect her to take an interest in them? She was furious. Yet she could not stop watching him.

At moments he looked so young in a belted blouse and cheerful hat, surrounded by his gaggle of girls. Was his colorless face, the massive brow and dark eyebrows, without charm? Did she stare at him and take pleasure in the staring? Was it such a pleasure as a thirsty man feels at drinking a glass of fresh water in a desert? Did he still seem ugly to her? No, no, reader, he did not, he did not at all, just as her father lying beside her still impresses her with his white hair, his dignity, and courage. She breathes softly on his forehead, flutters his hair, and he mutters her name.

But her black swan hardly seemed to notice her, though she had come back from Haworth because of him, with the hope of sharing her work with him. She had brought her writing with her, her precious Angrian chronicles, which she had dared to show him.

Often now he ignored her or even berated her. He would scowl and stamp his small, booted foot. “How could you write something of the sort!” He accused her of melodrama, of a ridiculous romanticism. “What about the three unities?” he asked her. “What about understatement? What about control!”

After several days of coldness and unbearable silence, of scowls and scorn, she had seen him rushing down the pergola, which ran along the edge of the garden. It was an early spring morning. A breeze blew his cloak about his legs and the dust up in the air. She had caught up with him, clutched onto his arm, drawn him close, looked into his eyes. She had so much wanted to cry out, “I must talk to you. You cannot treat me thus—Do you think I don’t feel what other people do, that I don’t long for the same things as you! I cannot bear your silence, your coldness, your inhumanity! I cannot live without a kind word from you. Did you not say we would be friends, friends
pour toujours
! How can I forget what has happened between us? Is that too much to ask of you? A moment of friendship? A kind word?” But she knew they were words she would immediately regret, words a woman could not afford to use with a man, let alone a married one. She had just stood there wordlessly, biting her lip, tears in her downcast eyes.

Monsieur H. had drawn himself up and looked over his shoulders to see if anyone was nearby. There was a smell of dust, honeysuckle, and lilac in the air. “What is it?” he had hissed impatiently, freeing himself from her grasp, dusting himself off, as though she were dust, as though her grasp had soiled him.

“What is the matter with you?” he said, and when she could not speak, the tears falling silently down her cheeks, “For goodness’ sake, Mademoiselle, control yourself! Above all, self-control.”

What had hurt most was her sense that this scene, or some aspect of her behavior, had been reported to the wife. She had been discussed. Perhaps this was not the first time something of this kind had occurred with an overly enthusiastic student. She had imagined the couple lying quietly side by side that night in their bed, a splendid spring night, the windows open on the garden, all the night odors of sweetbriar and southernwood, of jasmine, and early-blooming roses in the air. She saw him lying with his wife’s hand on his arm, her warm, milk-full breasts half-exposed in her pink peignoir, her raven locks loose and glossy. She was nestling against his wide chest, while another new baby, a little girl this time—how rapidly and easily the woman produced them, an endless supply—slept sweetly in the cot at the foot of the bed. She could hear the little snuffling breath.

“I can see something is wrong. Something is bothering you. Is it some student? Some awkwardness with one of the girls?” Charlotte sees the wife push the thick hair back from his forehead, caress his square forehead and dark brows gently, letting her hand linger on his chest. She presses her breasts against his side, entwines her legs with his. She sighs and adds, “You know I can always help you when it is necessary, my darling,” and shifts her hips closer to his.

Then he sighs, closes his book with a snap, turns to her, and repeats that it is nothing really—
un rien du tout
. Though his voice wavers, and though he tells her otherwise, she has already won.

“Nothing at all? Are we so sure?” she says half-playfully, wagging a finger while she leans her warm body against him. And then he confesses. It all comes out confusedly. There is, indeed, a student who has some sort of silly crush on him, once again.

“Who is it, my dear?”

He hesitates an instant, but she looks at him inquiringly, and he admits, “One of the two English sisters, the elder one—a lonely, plain girl.”

“I suspected something of the sort,” she says. “That girl is too ambitious. I could see that. She needs to be put in her rightful place.”

“Why does this happen to me?” he asks in all innocence, shrugging and waving his hands in the air as he does in the classroom.

“It’s because you’re too good, Constantin, my dear, I keep telling you. You give too much of yourself in the classroom. You should never have consented to read that girl’s work, to encourage her. A mistake I warned you against, you will remember.” And Charlotte hears her add, in her practical Belgian way, “Don’t worry; I’ll take care of it. All you have to do is to promise me to ignore the girl completely.”

“How can I do that? She is my student, a paying student, after all.”

“Not paying that much at this point—we are paying her for her teaching. She gets her room and board free, after all. She only pays for her laundry. You can treat her with polite coldness—nothing more. Promise me, will you?” and she looks him in the eye.

“Of course, of course, my dear.”

He had kept his word.

After that, his wife took things into her capable Belgian hands. She watched Charlotte’s every movement, set her spy on her—the other young French teacher—a vain, superficial woman who was, no doubt, in her pay. She saw the two of them whispering together, sharing information about her, surely. Perhaps Madame H. spied herself, shuffling surreptitiously along the hallways like the ladies at the French court, in her soft, silent Belgian slippers, her dark clothes, appearing suddenly without warning, her face wreathed in false smiles, her mouth in caressing words.

Charlotte was certain someone had foraged in her intimate things, hunted through her underclothes, found the pressed flower he had given her between the leaves of her book and replaced it between other pages, even read her few precious letters from home. How dared she touch her most cherished letters! She could smell the wife’s, or perhaps it was the French teacher’s, cloying perfume in her things, while all the while the wife maintained a polite, even amiable front. How she came to hate her, her falseness, her hypocrisy, her
sournoiserie
. How could he have married her?

Now her teacher moved away whenever she came near, turned his back on her and rushed down the stairs, as though she had a contagious disease.

Madame H. had sought her out and attempted to extract a confession from her. “You seem a little sad, a little pale, my dear. I do hope nothing is wrong. Is there anything we can do? You must come and sit with me in the evening like this in our sitting room if you feel lonely. I know what loneliness is like, and homesickness, or a little trouble of the heart, perhaps?” She stroked the white sofa where she and Emily had sat with such delight that first evening at the school. Now she leaned so near that Charlotte could feel the soft contour of her breast brush against her and smell the cloying, nauseating perfume.