Confession (18 page)

Mademoiselle Blanche refused, stating she had a previous engagement without the school besides which
she
, Mademoiselle Blanche, was not at Mademoiselle Haussé’s beck and call whenever the latter imagined a headache.

‘
Imagined
!’ honked Mademoiselle Haussé sounding like a farmyard goose, ‘How dare Mademoiselle Blanche suggest that the pain she suffered was
imaginary
!’

In reply Mademoiselle Blanche cited five separate occasions where her colleague’s headaches had occasioned someone else to take over her classes. When the last one occurred
Madame Heger herself had been of the opinion that Mademoiselle Haussé’s turns were unacceptable.

Silence from Mademoiselle Haussé.

Momentary
silence.

Then a honking the like of which any goose would have been proud. ‘How dare Mademoiselle Blanche impugn the good name of a woman such as Mademoiselle Haussé! She had never been so insulted and by such a creature as Mademoiselle Blanche whom everyone knew served no one’s interests but her own. And as for Madame Heger commenting negatively upon her illness, only the other day the directrice had commended Mademoiselle Haussé on her commitment to the pensionat. Mademoiselle Blanche was nothing but a liar!

Mary Dixon laughed as I described these shenanigans, her hand moving rapidly across the paper, her eyes meeting mine then returning to her sketchbook then back again. Finally she announced the sketch complete.

‘I have not done you justice,’ she sighed as I rose from my chair and crossed the room to appraise it.

‘I fear you have made me out to be far prettier than I am – ’

‘Untrue! Quite the contrary – ’

‘There is a touch of Madame Heger about the eyes – have you met her?’

Mary Dixon shook her head. ‘Not that I am aware of, is she pretty? Do you like her?’

I paused to consider. Only a few days previously I had accidentally come across Madame Heger in the main classroom. Not that she had noticed me entering the room for she was far too busy rifling through the contents of each of the students’ desks to notice me standing
there.

She walked up and down the aisles, lifting each lid by turn, taking out exercise books, leafing through pages, lifting out private letters, carefully opening the envelopes so that she might read the contents before carefully putting everything back in its place.

When she stopped at Vertue Basompierre’s desk she withdrew what looked to me like a locket hanging from a long silver chain. For a moment Madame peered at it closely, examining the fretwork of pink and blue enamel flowers that decorated its surface before releasing the clasp. The locket flew open and something – a scrap of paper – fell to the floor. Madame Heger picked this up and unfolded it.

If I had not seen her with my own eyes, I would not have believed she could act in such an extraordinary manner. I knew that on occasion she spied on the teaching staff, myself included, watching us from the sidelines to monitor our progress. I knew also that Mademoiselle Blanche acted as her spy reporting back to her anything she deemed necessary, but still I had held Madame in some regard, most particularly because she was Monsieur’s wife and more generally because she ran her school well. The majority of her students were happy and learnt something whilst they studied at the pensionat. But this behaviour, rifling through a student’s personal belongings, this seemed an invasion of an altogether different nature.

Madame Heger read the note then refolded it and put it back inside the locket before placing the locket back in the desk. No one would ever have guessed she had been there.

‘She runs her school very efficiently,’ I said to Mary and then – because my interrogator found my answer inadequate – I went on to describe how Madame liked to wear her hair, what type of clothes she preferred, the names of each of her children and other particulars
until finally Mary declared herself satisfied.

‘I am so very bored!’ mewed Vertue Basompierre on my return to the classroom later that afternoon. I was fetching some books for Monsieur Heger and Monsieur Chapelle to read during their lesson that evening. Outside it had started to rain, consequently all the girls had gathered indoors and were either sewing or writing letters home to their loved ones; all except Vertue for whom any distraction came as a blessing.

The other girls smiled appreciatively at this impromptu performance. She however did not smile but in her usual manner sidled up to me to ask where I had been.

‘Nowhere,’ I said not wishing to sully the intimacy of my afternoon visit by elaborating further.

‘Nowhere? How can you have been nowhere? No-one goes
nowhere
!’

The onlookers giggled.

‘Better to recognize oneself a no-one,’ I retaliated, although desperately weary of our continuous warfare, ‘than to be a someone who will wake one day to realize that her life has amounted to nothing. Better to recognize oneself a no-one than to drift through life never understanding the truth of what it is to be someone. I know which person I would rather be – ’

The giggling stopped and, readying myself for the accustomed retaliation, I gripped my Shakespeare tighter. But nothing happened. Vertue Basompierre looked at me and for the first time in our acquaintanceship, I caught sight of a glimmer of acknowledgment that what I had said struck true.

*

‘Monsieur Chappelle will be slightly later than usual this evening,’ apologized Monsieur Heger who was standing reading by the window in his study at the allotted time of our lesson. He removed his glasses then set down his book. ‘Shall we start without him perhaps?’

‘As you see fit – ’

‘Paul can catch us up when he arrives. What are we reading tonight, more of your Walter Scott is it?’

I shook my head. ‘He is hardly mine, Monsieur, but no, I thought we might begin this evening with something a little different. Another poet, but this time an Englishman. He might be more to your liking?’

‘Wordsworth?’ he said glancing down at the book that I now held in front of me. ‘Is that how you pronounce it?’

‘Wordsworth, yes’ I said. ‘“The Lyrical Ballads”. They are fine poems. You will enjoy them – ’

Soon the two of us, having seated ourselves at Monsieur’s desk, were relishing the broad sweep of Wordworth’s language, the realities of the sublime landscapes he conjured up in front of our eyes.

‘This is like your Yorkshire perhaps?’ Monsieur Heger enquired and I replied that, yes, the hills and moors described in the poems mirrored those I knew and loved back home.

‘Tell me about them – what do you see when you go out walking with your sisters?’

‘What do I see?’ I said suddenly feeling uncertain for it was a long time since anyone had asked me to describe something quite so intimate.

‘I would like to hear you describe it – ’ Monsieur Heger encouraged. ‘So that I might share in your vision?’

I closed my eyes – ‘I see a landscape I love,’ I began falteringly. ‘I see sweeping moors that are dark and limitless, yet also brilliant and bold. Hills that are as windblown as any ocean, heights that are as raddled as any sea yet flowers grow on their uppermost reaches, gorse and heather, ragwort and vetch. I grant you these are not delicate flowers, they are not the briar rose or buttercups found in the hedgerows and meadows. Ours is a wilder place, Monsieur. Rocks are its decoration, crags and stones its adornment. You can lie on your back on the moors, look up to the sky and know you could reach out and touch Heaven.’ All the time I was speaking I did not look at my teacher – only when I had finished did I turn to face him, blushing slightly because I rarely if ever talked quite so freely or with such animation but Monsieur Heger seemed as enthused as myself.

‘What a place! What a scene you describe! I would that I could visit your moors – they explain much about you, Mademoiselle – so much about how you are…’

‘How I am what, Monsieur –?
What
am I?’

‘Different,’ he said finally. ‘You and your sister are hewn from the same rock but I have not met any girl or for that matter woman who is such a combination of awkwardness yet unyielding intellect, boldness yet undeniable timidity – you are quite happy to stand in front of a painting such as the ‘Olympia’ yet barely able to stand in front of a roomful of insolent schoolgirls. You champion Byron of whom I have heard said, his philosophies are unsuitable yet I know you to be a deeply Christian woman, the daughter of a clergyman – ’

‘My father encouraged us to read widely,’ I whispered bowing my head. ‘He liked us to query the world. Perhaps if our mother had not died when we were so young – ’

‘You mistake my observations for criticisms, Mademoiselle. You are different. You own your own mind, which is refreshing. Who else can I discuss literature with? Who else can I
argue with sensibly about language and style and art …’

The correct answer was obvious yet neither of us spoke her name and in the next instant it was too late for there came a knock at the door.

‘My apologies, my apologies, Mademoiselle,’ panted Monsieur Chapelle as he burst into the room. ‘My business means I don’t keep very sociable hours – but I see you have started without me, that is good. What are we reading? What have I missed?’

‘I thought we might try a little Shakespeare,’ I said setting down the Wordsworth and picking up a second volume I had brought with me. ‘Perhaps you would like to start Monsieur Heger? The play is
Corialanus
.’

‘Corialanus?’ echoed Monsieur Chapelle, his tone unmistakably mocking.

‘Please do not scoff at this treasure of our national language, Monsieur, or I shall be forced to take the book from both of you and insist you spend the rest of the lesson on grammar.’

‘Oh, such a gentle face!’ exclaimed he.

‘I told you she was a tyrant, Paul. They call her the Napoleon of the classrooms, I believe.’

‘Napoleon?’ I mocked. ‘Wellington if you please! Not Napoleon. Never Napoleon – ’

‘You see, Paul? You see what I have to suffer?’

‘Read gentlemen, please.’

Both men smiled then obediently bent their heads to the book as Monsieur Heger began his recital, his voice sonorous, resonant, feeling.

‘“What would you have, you curs,”’ boomed he,

‘“That like not peace or war? The one affrights you,

The other makes you proud. He that trusts to you,

Where he should find you lions, finds you hares;

Where foxes, geese: You are no surer, no,

Than is the coal of fire upon the ice

Or ’ailstone in the sun…” That is a particularly graceful comparison,’ said Monsieur Heger breaking off mid-speech. ‘ The ’ailstones are little balls of ice, are they not? It is a very visual phrase – ’

‘The word is “Hailstone”, Monsieur but please do continue – ’

‘“Than is the coal of fire upon the ice

Or ’ailsone in the sun, ”’ continued he whilst occasionally I tried to correct his pronunciation although for the most part I gave him full reign so that both men might savour the broad smack of the words, relish the full rush of emotions, until it was evident that Monsieur Heger and Monsieur Chapelle were as transfixed by the reality of the language as any previous students for when Monsieur Heger came to the end of the reading he looked up at me with the most singular smile.

‘Bravo!’ Monsieur Chapelle and I both cried. ‘Bravo!’

Monsieur Heger took a low bow.

We clapped our hands.

‘I do believe you have pleased our teacher, Constantin,’ cried Monsieur Chapelle beaming generously at his friend.

‘Monsieur is indeed very talented,’ I said.

‘A good teacher is as noteworthy as a good student.’

‘And good writing?’

‘Shikspire is worthy of great note – he knows the truth, speaks the truth, shuns what is false – ’

‘You admire the truth Monsieur Chapelle?’

‘No writer is worthy of that name without it… Your Monsieur Shikspire – ’

‘Shakespeare.’

‘Certainly, your Monsieur Shikspeere – ’

‘Shakespeare. Again please – ’ I said unable to keep a broad smile from playing across my lips.

‘You are laughing at us again!’ cried Monsieur Heger.

‘Laughing? No!’

‘I do not laugh when you pronounce Chateaubriand incorrectly? Or when you persist in calling les ouefs, les ooffs?’

‘Yes you do!’ I laughed. ‘You most certainly do!’

‘Perhaps a little,’ he conceded. ‘But really you are the most impossible woman – ’

‘We have feelings, you know,’ added Monsieur Chapelle continuing the charade. ‘We are not made of iron. We are not men of steel. Here,’ he said taking hold of my hand then placing it over his heart. ‘You see!’ he exclaimed, ‘not steel, but real flesh and blood!’

‘It is still pronounced Shakespeare, Monsieur,’ I said demurely – or as demurely as it was possible whilst standing with my hand pressed against his chest.

‘Mademoiselle mocks me again?’

‘Yes, Mademoiselle does! Now if you are ready – shall we continue our studies? ’

*

Dear Nell

Whether you received my last billet or not I do not know, but as an opportunity offers of dispatching to you another I will avail myself of it – I am settled by this time of course – I am
not too overloaded with occupation and besides teaching English I have time to improve myself in German. I ought to consider myself well off and to be thankful for my good fortune – I hope I am thankful – and if I could always keep up my spirits – and never feel lonely or long for companionship or friendship or whatever they call it, I should do very well – As I told you before Monsieur and Mde Heger are the only two persons in the house for whom I really experience regard and esteem and of course I cannot always be with them nor even often – They told me when I first returned that I was to consider their sitting-room my sitting-room – this however I cannot do – in the day-time it is a public room- where the music masters and mistresses are constantly passing in and out and in the evening I will not and ought not to intrude on Mr & Mde Heger & their children – thus I am a good deal by myself out of school-hours – but that does not signify –