Confession (12 page)

I trudged back along the road I had come this time finding the way even darker.

Two weeks later, on 2
^nd
November, a letter arrived from our father. This time the news concerned Aunt B whom, we were informed, lay seriously ill and was not expected to last the week.

Tears filled Emily’s eyes. Martha’s death had come as a terrible shock to both of us, but
Aunt’s illness meant Emily’s whole world was disintegrating.

‘We have to go home,’ she said, her voice subdued but brooking no argument.

‘I will go and inform Madame Heger.’

By the end of the day everything had been arranged. Our trunks had been packed, letters had been sent to the shipping company to secure us berths on the boat from Antwerp. All that was left was to say our goodbyes. Not that Emily managed this. She came down with a headache brought on no doubt by the stress of the day and went up to the dormitory to lie down while I sat in the schoolroom where some of the girls gathered around to bid me farewell.

It was kind of them, kinder than I had expected given we were still very much strangers.

Only Vertue Basompierre spoilt the moment.

‘I cannot say I shall be sad to see you go,’ she lisped sidling up to me.

‘Fortunately not everyone is as mean-spirited as you, Mademoiselle,’ I replied nodding at some of the others as they departed the room.

‘We could have been good friends if you had tried.’

‘I believe I was very trying,’ I said opening my desk so that I could hide my smile behind the lid.

‘As you like,’ she sniffed. ‘Some people never learn good manners. It is not their fault; it is all to do with their upbringing. You are to be pitied, that is what
I
think. You can study all you like but you will never escape who you are – ’

‘Unlike yourself who will never
know
who you are – ’

‘And who are
you
?’ she said. ‘A clergyman’s daughter. A spinster. I know that behind my back you mock me but which of the two of us will amount to more? That is what I ask?’

‘Vertue,’ I replied. ‘What is it you see when you look in the mirror? What will you ever see
but airy nothings, Ribbons & Lace? Because that is all there is and when they fade, what then?’

‘Where is it you live in England again?’

‘North Yorkshire.’

‘Then bon voyage,’ Vertue said as she turned and left the room. ‘Do say hello to the mines & mills for me – ’

Left alone I breathed in the silence. The swiftness of our preparations for departure had left no time to consider what it was I was losing by returning to England – my studies, the exercising of
all
my faculties, my freedom …. I sat in the schoolroom and a heaviness descended upon my spirit. My recently unfettered wings were about to be clipped. How should I proceed to face the full truth of returning home without experiencing disappointment?

The door to the schoolroom opened behind me and with the thought that Vertue Basompierre had returned to taunt me further uppermost in my mind I swung around to challenge the little vixen, only to find Monsieur Heger standing next to the lecturn. It had troubled me that in the rush to organize our departure I had not seen my teacher for I did not wish to leave without one final interview. During our midday meal I had watched for his arrival and at our evening meal also. That he had remained unseen spoke volumes – or so I had reasoned – for Madame Heger had surely told him we were on the point of departure. My thoughts flew this way and that whilst a sickening sense of disappointment flooded my body.

What could I do? What was my resource?

‘Nothing’ came the resounding reply.

All I had was loneliness & my pen. These were my sole consolations as I sat in the schoolroom, a hundred thousand thoughts burning a trail of destruction through my mind.

‘You are angry?’ Monsieur Heger said reading the face I had prepared for Mademoiselle Basompierre. ‘I wanted to bid you and your sister a safe journey, but perhaps I have chosen a bad moment?’

With relief I allowed myself to smile. ‘I thought you were somebody else,’ I stuttered.

‘The young lady who left earlier? Mademoiselle Basompierre?’

I nodded.

‘Madame Heger tells me that your aunt is very ill?’

‘The doctors believe there is little that can be done – ’

Monsieur Heger acknowledged this information. ‘I shall miss our discussions,’ he said. ‘I would like to thank you Mademoiselle for sharing your thoughts with your teacher.’

‘You trusted me with your honest opinions for which
I
am the one who is grateful, Monsieur.’

‘You shall be missed.’

‘Not by everyone, I can assure you of that – ’

A long silence ensued or so it seemed to me then as Monsieur Heger and I stood and stared at each other like two foxes testing the air for clues as to the other one’s thoughts.

Finally I asked whether he had discovered the small book of poetry I had left in his study. ‘Have you had a chance to read any of it yet perhaps?’

‘Some, but not all – my English needs improvement – ’

‘You should have attended some of my classes, Monsieur. The poet is a favourite of mine. I read a book about him a few years ago – ’

‘And what did you learn of him there?’

‘That often the life of a man can be traced in the body of his work or in his journals or letters, but that there will always be something adrift, something missing – ’

‘People’s lives are complicated – ’ Monsieur Heger said walking towards the windows as if he were about to step outside. ‘What will you do when you get back to England? Will you start teaching straight away?’

‘We have no pupils. We will need to organize ourselves first, assemble a schoolroom – ’

‘Your sister will be happy to go home. I can see it in her face, in everything she does, how she hates being here. But with you it is different – ’

I closed the lid of my desk and went to stand by his side. The garden was dark except for a small pool of warm yellow light thrown by one of the lamps.

‘Look at this moth,’ he said pointing to a dusty little fellow who kept banging up against the glass. ‘Do you see how small he is? He cannot leave the light alone.’

‘He will have to when the lamps are turned out.’

‘I suppose he will,’ Monsieur Heger sighed putting his hand up to where the moth kept battering itself against the glass.

‘The moon is coming out,’ I observed.

Up above us a large silver disk peeked out from behind a rack of dark clouds sending dusty rays across the pathways and flowerbeds turning the whole garden to ash.

Part Two

ENGLAND 1842

I

Martha placed a bowl on the kitchen table. For a girl of twelve she was strong and willing. She busied herself fetching ingredients from the shelves whilst Emily measured out a quantity of flour then proceeded to pour it from the scales into the bowl. Cubed pieces of butter floated like small yellow boats on a sea of iced water in a jug next to the bowl. These were drained then added to the flour.

‘Now Martha,’ instructed Emily, ‘Rub the fat in so that it makes large breadcrumbs please – ’

Obligingly Martha rolled up her sleeves and set to her task whilst Emily untied a block of yeast from its paper.

I was sitting in the corner reading although, every now and then, as the clock chimed in the hallway upstairs my eyes wandered around the room.

Nothing had changed. Not the table nor the hearth, nor the white kitchen dresser with its wide in-built shelves and stack of six drawers underneath. On the top shelf stood a selection of bottles and jars; vinegar, cooking oil, mustard, jellies and jams most likely made by Aunt before she fell ill.

Aunt B had died before we left Brussels. A letter had arrived the morning of our departure with the announcement. Consequently Emily and I had reached home only to find the house in deep mourning, our black dresses laid out on our beds like two shadows.

Now Emily stood by the stove warming a pan of fresh milk, skimming the thick skin off the surface. Her face was flushed from the heat.

‘After we have made bread, we shall make a start on a lunch cake for Father,’ she said glancing over at me. ‘Are you going to help?’

‘It is far too small in here for the three of us baking – ’

‘It is far too small with one of us reading,’ replied she tersely. ‘You are very irritable this morning.’

‘Am I? – ’

Martha, perhaps fearing an argument, scuttled through to the back kitchen and began banging pots.

‘Are you are ill?’ Emily said. ‘You might have caught a chill yesterday? It is damp out – ’

‘I am perfectly fine,’ I replied but even as I spoke the same heaviness descended upon me that I had experienced during the last few days at the Pensionat. It was not that I did not want to be back in Yorkshire. All had been calm and orderly on our return and Emily & I were received with a great deal of affection by both Anne and my father. To be surrounded by the people one loves is a blessing. To walk through rooms familiar to one since childhood, to
touch the furniture and listen to the sounds of the house. But soon these things dissipated and I began to feel anxious and claustrophobic for it was as if I was being re-absorbed back into the building, into its very fabric, the bricks and mortar, the floorboards and walls, the clock ticking in the hallway and the endless rounds of domestic duties which were all pulling me inwards until I found it hard to breathe. One day I thought; I will wake to find my skin grafting itself to the wallpaper, my hair growing through the linen sheets, rooting itself to the building’s very foundations.

Liberty means different things to different people. For Emily being allowed to return home meant freedom & independence. She could do as she pleased when she lived here, but for me the polar opposite was true. I was back where I had started, except now Aunt was dead.

‘She suffered,’ father said that first morning we arrived home. He was sat by the fire, gripping his walking stick, eyes to the flames. He had not asked how Emily or I had fared in Brussels. He had not asked about our journey back home. Not one enquiry. Emily had taken his hand to comfort him. ‘She was in agonies,’ he groaned.

‘We could not get here any faster father, but Anne says the Reverend Bradley made a good sermon?’

‘Did she?’ he had muttered. ‘Anne said that?’

‘And that she was buried close-by to mother,’ I added looking at Emily whose mane-like head rested on father’s shoulder. When our ship docked in London her mood had visibly brightened and with every jolt of our carriage it had brightened again.

‘I have a letter here father, from Monsieur Heger,’ I said thinking it might cheer him a little.

‘He wanted you to have it on our return.’

‘To what end?’

I shook my head.

‘Perhaps tomorrow – ’

‘Yes, perhaps tomorrow,’ echoed Emily. ‘This is not the time for letters,’ she added slowly rising from her knees to throw another log on the fire. ‘Leave it for now. There will be plenty of time later on - ’ Her voice was steady and I knew she was right, but how much later – a day, a week, a month?

Emily added butter and sugar to the hot milk, and the kitchen, which already smelt of yeast, now filled with a sweet, buttery smell.

‘That is a heavenly scent,’ I said.

‘Will you want the dried goods?’ asked Martha.

‘The fruit and a little salt. Fetch me a spoon while you are over there too, would you?’

‘There is not much left in the packet’ noted Martha placing the twist of dried fruit on the table. ‘ We will be needing more for next week – ’

Emily nodded. ‘Anne will fetch it with the rest on Friday if you tell her.’

‘Is that Aunt’s recipe? – ’ I asked and Emily nodded.

‘You should go upstairs,’ she said. ‘ You will be much more comfortable there – ’

‘I am in the way – ’

‘Yes. We’ll go out later if you would like? For a walk?’

‘It is too cold for walking – ’

‘Then go on upstairs,’ she repeated, not unkindly, but there was no denying it was an order.

It was barely four o’clock when I entered the parlour. A fire had been lit in the hearth but the
heat it threw out was pitiful. I paced up and down to keep myself warm, groping in the early afternoon darkness for images of myself back in Brussels, the girl bent over her books, the student standing by the window staring out over the garden or sat debating some subject or other with her teacher. I could dip my hand down into that time as if I were fishing for memories but what good were these to me now, stranded as I was like a fish on the banks of some desultory Lethe. Soon any recollection of what had passed would vanish forever. Then it seemed to me how vain was the work of the historian who ever supposed he or she could piece together something as fragmented as a human life.

Truth has no biographer. All historians can hope for is an approximation, the glimpse of a stone tossed into a river by a wilful young woman, but a glimpse only,
not
the whole,
never
the whole, rounded shape.

The light was unclear in Aunt’s bedroom. Tabby had stripped the mattress of its sheets but she had not drawn the drapes so everything swam in shadows. The room was as I recalled, large with a good-sized window overlooking the garden – as children we had sat in it on many an afternoon being taught by Aunt how to mend our clothes, hem calico for our nightdresses and occasionally embroider some oddment of cloth with coloured silk. None of us appreciated this instruction or were particularly skilled at it, much to Aunt’s disappointment.

Now her bed was stripped bare, a few ornaments sat on a chest of drawers next to a set of the
Methodist Magazine
. How in heaven, I thought, had she felt all those years previously when she first entered this room having left her own life in the West Country to come and look after her sister’s children? The sacrifices it must have meant. The end of one life, the start of
another filled with nothing but duty and obligation.

‘You always seem to know what you want to do next,’ Aunt had said to me once in a rare moment of intimacy.