Confession (26 page)

I laid my pen down on the desk and re-read the passage with quiet satisfaction. I will not lie to you, I was proud of what I had written, proud and excited to see what Monsieur Heger
would make of it for when I had first entered his study all those many months before I was concerned that my teacher would find both myself and my sister wanting, that his superior knowledge would daunt us. He had been forceful, demanding, tyrannical.

But so much had changed since then. Not on the surface, you understand - for in this respect everything remained the same, I was still Monsieur’s pupil, he was still my teacher. I sat at my desk, he sat at his, but underneath these appearances something had shifted. Time had passed and with its passage we had done and said things no one else would bear witness to so that if they peeked into the room at that very moment all they would see were two people engaged in the study of language, one with her head bent over her books, the other standing by his desk watching and waiting.

‘But you have barely corrected it,’ I said leafing through my essay in search of his comments.

‘You sound disappointed – ’

‘I am surprised, that is all. I cannot imagine it was without fault – ’

‘Without fault, no, but your language and grammar have improved – ’

‘And the content?’

‘The content was concise. The style was also good although it seems rather your own than an imitation. You have a definite way of putting things, a certain way of approaching a subject that is quite unique – ’

‘When I first arrived you would have condemned such a liberty – ’

‘I wanted you to learn from your peers, to see how they planned and constructed and worked at their art. Their craft has become your craft, that is pleasing – ’

‘I am flattered,’ I said although being in possession of a contrary nature, part of me missed my master’s corrections, the familiar mark of his pen scoring out unnecessary sentences,
adding vigour to my phrasing. ‘I still require tutoring. I still have much to learn from my teacher – ’

Monsieur Heger was leaning against his desk, arms folded, eyes resting directly on mine. ‘You are glad that you remained then?’

‘I am glad you appear calmer – ’

‘Calmer? You have a peculiar way of describing what is in front of you, Mademoiselle. I would not wonder if you were presented with a scene of mass carnage that you would describe how blue the sky looked or how frail the flowers in the hedgerows appeared.’

‘You find me so shallow? – ’

‘Do I?’ he said and then in a more forgiving tone, ‘Mademoiselle we shall continue to study together as always however I have much that is occupying me at the Athenée at present.

Madame Heger is also, as you know, close to her confinement – ’ these last words were spoken slowly, deliberately, yet he could not look at me as he spoke them.

‘Our time together is limited.’

‘You are very pragmatic – ’

I cleared my throat, ‘In that arena I am well rehearsed, yes. I expect very little – ’

‘You think your life impossible, don’t you? You think you inhabit harsh territory?

Inhospitable lands. Don’t deny it, I can see it in your eyes. But do you ever wonder what lands
I
inhabit? How hard it is to live in one place yet covet another?’

‘We are both conflicted, Sir – ’ I said standing up and crossing the room to the bookcase for I could not in all certainty continue to look at my teacher without betraying myself. ‘This room is all that stands between myself and the sea – ’

‘Then I shall shore it up. I shall build walls from these books, construct towers out of every
word at my disposal – ’

‘I can still hear the waves lapping – ’ I said for although his declarations made my skin burn and a thrill run along every nerve in my body suddenly I felt colder, paler, emptier than ever before.

Can a frost descend in mid-summer? Can snow fall upon roses? Encase bees in ice? Suddenly

I felt all these things to be true for every minute spent in my master’s presence I would be forced to suffer hours, days, weeks without exchanging one word with him. Not even the smallest bird could subsist on such meagre rations. The driest of deserts requires more than one droplet of rain if it is to thrive.

I tried to calm my breathing.

‘Turn around,’ he said, his voice filled with sadness.

I did not move.

‘Turn around,’ he said.

Still I kept my eyes to the bookcase until finally I felt his breath on my cheek, his arms wrapped around my waist.

XIII

Madame Heger gave birth to her fifth child, Julie Marie Victorine, on the 15th November 1843. According to the children’s nursery maid it was a difficult birth owing to Madame’s age. Consequently she was confined to her bed-chamber for several weeks afterwards leaving the day-to-day running of the pensionat to Mademoiselle Blanche, not an unhappy turn of events as it meant Mademoiselle Blanche was too preoccupied with her new duties to be of much consequence to either myself or any other of the unfortunate creatures whom she so
enjoyed torturing. For his part Monsieur Heger kept an eye on Mademoiselle Blanche, ensuring his wife was kept abreast of events but aside from that, his days were spent either at the Athenée or in his study.

That I spent time with him in that room went unnoticed for being without friends in that establishment, I was not missed.

None of the staff were interested in how I spent my days, besides which everyone was already use to me slipping off to sit by myself in the refectory or upstairs in the dormitory when I was not teaching in the classrooms.

For what seemed like hours Monsieur Heger and I would read to each other, discuss poetry, Scott & Byron for the most part. Or he would recite passages from Pascal and Chateaubriand. It was a happy interval. Monsieur Heger’s mind was my library, mine his refuge. We spoke about religion; Monsieur teased me that I was Protestantism’s foot soldier, I that only his Catholicism could forgive him that slander whilst in quieter moments we tended to reflect upon nature – the changing of the seasons, the falling of the leaves and on clear afternoons the passage of the moon which traversed the sky like a ghost.

Occasionally Monsieur Heger would grow distracted. He would glance upwards to the apartments above, perhaps at the sound of a child crying or the murmur of voices, the creaking of floorboards or a raised, angry voice. I would not comment upon it. The shadow that hung over us was dark enough.

My other duties continued. Every day I taught my classes, ate my meals, occasionally took a walk out into the countryside, but all these things I did, not from the heart, but because they were there to be done. It was as if I were sleepwalking, my pupils talked to me but their
voices were disembodied.

Even Vertue Basompierre noticed my distraction.

‘You do one thing,’ she said in a moment of uncharacteristic acuity, ‘yet for certain your mind is occupied in doing something quite other.’

‘Is that right?’ I replied vigorously rubbing my hands together – for at the time we were standing by the stove in the main classroom, our breath misting out in front of us in small frosted clouds.

‘It is not only right, it is true,’ she said. ‘If I did not know better I would say you were in – ’ but here she stopped mid sentence. ‘You need not look so disagreeable, Mademoiselle. You forget, in this arena I am an expert. Look at this letter from Monsieur de la Ville,’ Vertue said producing an envelope from her skirt pocket as evidence. ‘Read it.’

I protested. ‘It is not mine to read,’ I said, ‘put it away please.’

‘But I give you permission,’ she said placing the letter once again into my hands.

‘Dearest One,’ it began – ‘It seems like days since I last heard from you, yet it is only twenty-four hours! I cannot settle to anything, my mind wanders from subject to subject, I find myself listening to my father prate on over dinner about all manner of things and yet when it comes to knowing what he has said, I cannot remember one word. Can it be that I will not see you again for a full month and a half? Every day I am separated from you is like a small death. I want to know how you spend each hour of every day, each minute of every hour. Do not miss out a single moment! – ’

This missive was indeed saturated with unadulterated devotion, adoration, call it what you will. It was all there in black ink, each and every word testifying to that one, irrefutable fact. ‘So’ said my young interrogator ‘if you are not in… whatever it is…then what is it that
occupies you? It cannot be your lessons for you could give those standing on your head. And it cannot be your family for only yesterday you received a letter from England and it concerned you not in the slightest.’

‘How would you know whether my letter concerned me or not?’

Vertue shrugged. ‘It was a guess,’ she said, her insolence returning once more.

‘Then your guess was incorrect. My letter did contain some unfortunate news,’ I lied. ‘My father, he has not been in the best of health recently, added to which I am missing my family.’ This last was not a lie. I
was
still missing home, its comforts and easy familiarity.

Often of late I would sit and think about Emily walking out on the moors and wonder if she missed her big sister as much as I missed her. I had said as much in a letter, talked about how I wanted to be back in our kitchen cutting up hash with Tabby next to us blowing the fire and boiling the vegetables to a fine glue.

With December came the first fall of snow. White flakes fell from the sky silent as starlight. From the window I watched as the garden paths disappeared, trees and shrubs changed shape and the few birds that remained flittered and foraged for food through the continuing fall.

Early one morning while sitting at my desk on the teacher’s dais I heard laughter coming from the direction of the garden and telling my students to remain seated, I crossed to the window.

Outside Monsieur Heger was playing with his two eldest children, Marie Pauline and Louise Florence. They were running in circles around each other throwing snowballs, Louise Florence giggling uncontrollably while soon enough Monsieur and Marie Pauline fell to the ground in a heap of arms and legs and laughter. It was the most joyful of pictures and it made
me smile to see my teacher so happy, so independent of worldly concerns.

The children continued to shriek and laugh and suddenly I was filled with an overwhelming desire to join them, to be of their company.

Monsieur stood up and brushed his coat free of snow. His cheeks were glowing, he looked happier and healthier than I had seen him months.

I put my hand up to the glass at the exact same moment that he glanced back at the house. He raised his head and for a brief second I thought he had seen me but then it became clear he wasn’t looking at me, his eyes were directed at something quite other, to the window above.

Monsieur raised his hand and waved and smiled and the children waved and smiled also.

‘What are you looking at, Mademoiselle?’ Vertue Basompierre’s voice brought me back to the room but I did not answer. Instead I turned around and resumed my seat on the dais at the same time as instructing my pupils to continue their work for I would not tolerate being interrupted again.

A few days later, on 10 December I was sent a note by Mrs Jenkins asking me – in the unforeseen absence of the Revd Jenkins – to accompany her to a concert at the recently opened Salle de la Grande Harmonie. The concert, wrote Mrs Jenkins, was to be attended by the King and Queen of the Belgiums alongside their young son the Duc de Brabant and afterwards there was to be a lottery in aid of the poor.

‘Show me what you will wear?’ cried Vertue clapping her hands together on hearing of my good fortune. I unfolded my Sunday best dress, which caused much amusement. ‘You shall have to borrow one of mine,’ declared she leading me by the hand to her trunk from which she pulled several extraordinary garments. ‘You shall have to alter one to fit you, but you are so good with the needle – ’

‘Thankfully there is no time, besides I shall be quite happy wearing my own garment. No one shall be looking at me.’

‘Not if you wear that!’ declared the little minx but in the event I was more than comfortable in my grey velvet.

I had been in Brussels two years’ now, but this was the first time I had left the pensionat to spend the evening amongst high society. To me, the whole world seemed gathered in that one golden building. Outside snow glittered on every surface, inside every surface glittered like snow. A huge chandelier hung under the central gold & white dome comprised of a million droplets of crystal each of which shone like starlight. Clusters of emeralds, rubies and sapphires dripped from the necks of every woman present. Diamonds adorned every ear. The very light of the building was pearled, matched only by the music that drifted through the outer rooms in sweet anticipation of the concert to come.

Mrs Jenkins and I took our seats in the main auditorium, the tiers of which rose steeply from the small platform at the bottom upwards as if in an attempt to reach heaven so many layers were there to this intricate structure. It made me feel quite dizzy looking at all the ladies and gentlemen’s faces gathered around us. Indeed it was almost too much to take in, but take it in I did. I drank in the atmosphere as one might imbibe an ambrosial mixture of velvet and silk. The stir & commotion of the crowd was also was quite overwhelming, a crescendo of voices all laughing and chattering and murmuring like a vast parliament of birds, each one perched in his or her tree until suddenly a hush fell over the whole.

Every eye turned towards the royal box.

My first impressions of the couple were not revolutionary. Aside from the splendour of their costumes, the magnificence of her jewels and the impressive collection of medals pinned to
his chest the overwhelming feeling was of a quiet, dignified pair although as I studied them further I could not help but notice a certain melancholy bearing of the King’s, a particular sadness in his demeanour which did not go unnoticed by his wife who seemed to mirror, if not recognize each and every shadow that passed across her husband’s face.