Confession (3 page)

I shuddered.

‘Consider it forgotten,’ I answered at which point the girl skipped over to where I was standing and gave me a hug.

‘So you see, we shall be friends after all, shall we not? All is forgotten. You will not say anything will you?’

Oh, how easily history can be manipulated! The little vixen could twist anything any which way it suited her. To be in possession of a gift such as that; to be so cavalier with the truth. Nothing I said or did to Vertue Basompierre would have any lasting impression - one could just as easily have drawn a finger across water.

‘You will not say anything will you?’ Vertue repeated, the effervescence of her youth bubbling up.

I did not reply, instead I walked swiftly from the room only to feel myself immediately bowled over by something small and child-shaped hurtling along the corridor at far too great a speed.

‘Marie Pauline!’ a male voice pursued this diminutive cannonball down the corridor after which the man himself charged into view. ‘Marie Pauline! You little scoundrel!’ he exclaimed loudly without any acknowledgement of my presence.

The little girl giggled and hid her face in my skirts.

‘An escaped prisoner?’ I enquired of the gentleman.

‘Quite correct,’ he said looking me up and down and then, glancing at the child as if to say ‘now look what you have done, I am being made to speak to a foreigner.’ He turned back to face me. ‘You would be one of the English pupils? There are two of you, are there not?’

‘Yes,’ I said slowly for I was wondering who on earth this interloper might be, a relative of the Hegers perhaps or a teacher I had not yet come across.

‘Your accent is passable I suppose – ’

‘You are very gracious, Sir, I am sure,’ I said, not meaning to sound impudent, but none the less sufficiently ruffled to query his presence. ‘And who are you?’

‘That is papa,’ Marie Pauline piped up sticking her head out from behind my skirts.

‘
Papa
?’

‘Constantin Heger,’ Monsieur Heger said.

I blushed. I did not know where to look. ‘But…I thought – I was under the impression that you were – ’

He cocked his head to one side, waiting, eyeing me up as a farmer might a bullock to see how much meat was on its bones. In Monsieur’s case I was hoping ‘meat’ might translate to ‘intellect’ but seeing I had been struck dumb, it was a vain hope. I smoothed down my skirts feeling more than a little rumpled under such intense scrutiny. Not that Monsieur stood the test of careful inspection himself. He was a thin, wiry man, with dark unruly hair, a swarthy complexion, dressed soberly but with oh!…what blue, confrontational eyes.

His eyes were the same colour as Marie-Pauline’s.

‘You arrived…when exactly did you arrive?’

‘Two-and-half-weeks ago, Monsieur.’

‘And what are you reading?’

‘Reading Monsieur?’ I repeated sounding more like the aforementioned bullock than I cared to admit.

‘
Les livres
,’ Marie Pauline lisped up at me.

‘Yes, books. Literature? What are you currently reading?’ repeated Monsieur Heger tugging Marie Pauline’s hair gently.

Again my mind went a blank as if I had never picked up a book in my life. Did I even know what one looked like? Then I heard my voice stutter, ‘Byron? Wordsworth? Southey? Milton of course and Shakespeare.’

‘Poetry then rather than history?’

‘I read history too. Hume, Rollin’s
Histoire Ancienne
.’

‘Biographies perhaps?’

‘Yes,’ I said feeling astonished that a man such as this was interested in what I might read. ‘Thomas Moore’s life of Byron and his work on Sheridan are two such that I admire – ’

‘And in your lessons, what are you studying there, please?’

I mentioned the name of the small French grammar both Emily and I had been given on our arrival but on hearing its title Monsieur Heger let out a grunt of horror and threw up his hands in such a fashion, he looked quite absurd.

‘From tomorrow you and your sister begin lessons with me. French is not a language to be strangled at birth’ (I think I understood this phrase correctly). ‘You will come to my study at 10am. We will work very hard.’ He spat this last sentence out as if it were a challenge. Then, just as a storm raddled sea is able to transform itself into something placid and calm, he asked
in a much,
much
gentler voice, ‘Are you content here? Is there anything you need or are lacking?’

I paused.

Monsieur waited.

‘The moon,’ I said. ‘I have not seen it since our first night here. I would like to see the moon.’

‘The moon?’ he repeated.

I nodded and if I am not mistaken I think I detected the hint of a smile at the very edge of his mouth.

‘Tell me again,’ said Emily when I returned to the dormitory. She was scrabbling under her bed.

‘What have you dropped?’

‘I’m putting something away.’

‘What?’ I asked although I knew she wouldn’t tell me because my sister was that rarest of creatures – a young woman fluent in the unspoken word.

‘Tell me what he said please.’

‘He said that we should begin lessons – ’

‘No, no, from the beginning, ’she insisted for in this respect my sister was like my father, always needing to have the whole story explained to her, never just one part of it, because parts only misled. ‘If one has never experienced the seasons,’ she explained ‘and was only told about Spring, Summer and Autumn, how would you know what to expect from Winter?’Winter was Emily’s favourite season. When the land was bare, when the trees and leaves
crackled. She liked the ice on our windows which we scratched off with our fingernails. Emily came alive in the winter. ‘It is the season when everything begins,’ she said. ‘People think that is in Spring, but it is not. Winter is when the resurrection begins.’

‘Monsieur Heger,’ I explained, ‘was not the man we saw in the refectory our first night here. The one who read the
Lecture Pieuse
?’

‘The dull man?’

‘Exactly. This Monsieur Heger is remarkably different. He is younger than his wife, of that I am certain. And darker of complexion. He asked what I liked to read and I told him Byron, Cowper, Wordsworth – then he asked if I liked to read history or philosophy and I said I enjoyed both.’ Emily nodded her approval. ‘He asked what we were being taught, what we were reading during our lessons, he looked unamused when I gave him the name of the grammar we are studying.’ I said warming to my theme. ‘In fact his face went quite red and that is when he insisted we study with
him
.’

‘Every day?’

‘I hope so, yes.’

‘And it is just to be us?’

‘We are extremely privileged, Emily. I have heard some of the girls talking about him. He is a brilliant man, a
famous
teacher,’ I added then, without meaning to, I laughed out loud.

‘Shhhh,’ Emily whispered pointing to the curtain - and then a little louder, ‘Why are you laughing?’

‘I am excited. Aren’t you excited? We have wings Emily. Real wings.’

‘Strange creature.’

I pulled a face.

‘Very strange creature – ’

‘He is…’ I searched for a good word to describe him but could only think of his voice. ‘Loud,’ I said. ‘And quite short and dresses in black.’

‘Like Celia Amelia?’ she snorted referring to one of father’s curates, Mr Weightman, whom she had given this nickname.

‘Nothing at all like Mr Weightman. Emily, my mind is so rusty I
need
this, I need something, some
one
who can fire me into thinking again.’ My head was clear as glass as I said this, each word sparkling.

‘You are happy,’ she said. ‘And I am happy for you.’

‘Yes,’ I murmured resting my head on my pillow and closing my eyes but I was too full of questions for sleep. Would it be different being taught by a man rather than a woman? Father had taught us but that was a long time ago and besides we were his daughters, his flesh and blood. On the other hand Monsieur Heger had trained as a teacher, no doubt spoke many languages, studied Latin and Greek, History, Literature, he was employed at the Athénée Royal. My mind darted from one subject to the next. I tried to calm down, to fall asleep but each time I closed my eyes I could feel the excitement rising inside me again. The drab woman who had once haunted my life had suddenly metamorphosed into a wondrous creature.

That night I dreamt this creature escaped. It….
she
was a mixture of light and dark, ambition and purpose.

When I caught sight of her I recognized her, she thrilled and repelled me, but the greatest of these was recognition.

III

Six o’clock the following morning. The moon was an icy blur in the sky, a halo of milky white light that heralded in dawn. Monsieur Heger had done as he had promised and summoned Diana up for me. I lay in bed and smiled inwardly as the birds began to stir in the trees.

Two hours later and Emily and I had risen from our beds, dressed ourselves quickly then after our breakfast, we had made our way along the long central corridor towards Monsieur Heger’s study.

Eyes have long been a fascination of mine. The quickest way to pin a character down is to describe the eyes – their colour, size, the way the pupils dance or appear dead like those of a fish. Neither of us had seen Madame Heger since our drawing class earlier in the week however that morning we both caught sight of her hovering outside the door that led to the back of the teacher’s lecturn in the main classroom. The door was slightly ajar and Madame was leaning towards it. She was listening to Mademoiselle Haussé teaching a history lesson – that much was certain and her eyes – which at this distance looked dark as grit – glittered brightly.

Emily and I stopped in our tracks. Surely we had not just witnessed our directrice in the ungenerous act of spying on one of her teachers. The indignity! The shame of it! Not only to be doing such a thing, but to be
caught
in the act, yet Madame Heger, when she finally noticed us watching her, instead of blushing or seeming flustered, momentarily skewered us with the blackest of looks then swiftly turned this darkness into a smile.

‘Good-morning Mademoiselles,’ she said as she swept past so defiantly I felt almost
jealous
.
The keys at her waist jangled as Emily and I stood and stared at each another.

‘She had to make certain the lesson ran smoothly,’ I whispered.

‘She was spying on Mademoiselle Haussé!’

‘You cannot know that,’ I replied although at the same time thinking that – were I in Madame Heger’s position – I would do much the same for Mademoiselle Haussé was hardly the most gifted of teachers. She taught in a similar fashion to the way in which she dressed for despite being a tall, handsome woman she never chose clothes that conveyed discipline of character, instead preferring an odd mis-match of styles.

The girls constantly giggled behind her back – her feet were too big they said, her petticoats too short and her ankles – which were permanently on display due to the sorry state of her petticoats – were thick and red as bacon.

‘What else could she have been doing?’ Emily hissed.

I hesitated, momentarily at a loss for words. ‘Spying is too harsh a description,’ I said acutely aware that this time it was Emily’s gentle, yet perceptive eyes that were upon me. ‘She was assessing the situation.’

Emily looked at me curiously. ‘We should go in,’ she said nodding towards the door at the far end of the corridor. ‘We do not want to keep Monsieur waiting.’

Monsieur Heger’s study was an untidy, poorly maintained room - yet civilized. Two desks were placed in the centre whilst at the far end Monsieur Heger’s own table stood piled high with leather-bound volumes together with sheathes of vellum and blotting paper and countless bottles of ink. One side of the room was dominated by bookshelves. I had always thought Father’s study held the most books, now I was disillusioned of that fact. Row upon
row of titles were stacked one after the other on the shelves, their titles glittering me towards them enticingly.

By the window stood a glass cabinet displaying a collection of birds’ eggs laid out in order of size on what appeared to be a thick layer of wool.

Everything was exactly as I had imagined the study of a serious man of letters to be, all except the sweet scent of cigar smoke that lingered in the air.

‘Welcome!’ Monsieur Heger said jumping up from his desk and showing us to our seats. ‘You have settled in well I hope, Mademoiselle?’ he said turning to Emily who responded with a nod of the head but not, much to my embarrassment, anything more civil. ‘
Bien
!’ he declared. ‘
Ca c’est tres bien
! Now would you please repeat Monsieur Heger’s [here he spoke of himself in the third person which made both Emily and I smile] recipe for success!

Spirit of Wisdom, guide us: - he boomed.

Spirit of Wisdom, guide us – we repeated:

Spirit of Truthfulness, teach us:

Spirit of Charity, invigorate us:

Spirit of Prudence, preserve us:

Spirit of Strength, defend us:

Spirit of Justice, enlighten us:

Comforting spirit, soothe us.
¹

Emily looked bewildered, as did I, but we did as we were bid and repeated the phrases to the best of our abilities after which Monsieur proceeded to outline how our lessons with him would be conducted.

He was dispensing with grammar, he said, with a keen flourish. Firstly we were going to
listen to him reading passages from the French classics so that we could acclimatize to the feeling and rhythm of well-written French. We would also begin, he hoped, to discern the motives behind each author’s work and their different styles. Yes! This was Monsieur Heger’s approach to the French language, a tried and tested method which had never failed him. We would afterwards critique what he had read out aloud and finally we would attempt to key into what the author had written as a piano tuner might attempt to tune his instrument by imitating the writer as closely as possible in subjects of our own choosing.

‘This is the only way to learn a language. From the heart,’ he said, dramatically thumping his chest. ‘I want you to find the
truth
,’ he added emphasizing ‘truth’ as if life itself depended upon it. ‘Spirit of Truth; teach us!’