Confession (8 page)

Eventually I said, ‘Is that it?’ and Emily nodded. ‘But what does it mean?’ I said suddenly yearning for Tabby’s old-fashioned nonsense.

‘It’s what I see. I can’t explain it.’

‘My dress in a glass cabinet?’

‘Yes,’ she said. I’m going indoors now, it’s cold.’

‘Wait.’

‘I can’t tell you anything else – ’

I watched as Emily rose and walked slowly down the path back towards the schoolroom. I couldn’t make sense of what she had said, I could not see it and yet for something to be true does it always need to be visible?

Three days later on 28
^th
March Madame gave birth to her fourth child, a boy named Prospère Èdouard Augustin. Mademoiselle Blanche made the announcement over breakfast although I was not present on that occasion because I had left the Pensionnat earlier that morning in order to pay a visit to Mrs Jenkins whom we had been informed was ill and in need of companionship.

On arrival at the Jenkins’s house, I was ushered in to see the patient who, given that she was supposedly on her deathbed, looked in remarkably good spirits. She greeted me heartily and asked that I sit down on a stool next to the bed whilst she took her medicines and talked about the Revd Jenkins’s plans for a trip back to England that summer.

‘Do you and Emily have a leaving date yet?’ she enquired between sips of a syrupy-looking brown liquid. I told her nothing had been decided upon but that we were hoping to stay on until the Autumn.

As soon as I could I made my excuses and left, but not before Mrs Jenkins insisted I be accompanied back to the Pensionnat by her son John.

We walked awkwardly together. John Jenkins had little to say save for the occasional comment about the buildings we passed or how pleasant he found it being outside in the sunshine. At one point I recall he put his hand out to stop me from walking into the road just as a carriage was rattling past. I turned to thank him and he smiled down at me – only then did I catch sight of Monsieur Heger standing on the far side of the street. He was talking to an elderly gentleman but he was watching us and I knew he had seen John Jenkins touching my arm and smiling at me, that much was certain.

Monsieur’s eyes settled on me as if I were an errant child caught mid crime.

I did not like it one bit, this unwarranted accusation yet what could I do? Nothing and so I
continued to walk back to the Pensionnat in silence, Monsieur Heger’s disapprobation a more powerful presence than that of John Jenkins.

Three days later Emily and I were seated in Monsieur’s study being taken to task over our devoirs.

‘Why is it,’ Monsieur had written in the margin of my work, ‘that your compositions are always better than your translations? I do not understand how this can be, surely translation is the easier of the two exercises?’

‘Monsieur,’ I said pointing to what he had written. ‘You forbade us to use a dictionary. I
had
to use some English words because I had no idea what the equivalent words are in French.’

‘
Had to?
What you mean to say is that you were too lazy to think of the correct words. That is what you mean, is it not? Too lazy or too busy with other more important matters – ’

Tears sprang to my eyes. I had wanted, in a private moment, perhaps at the end of our lesson, to congratulate Monsieur on the birth of his new son and also to thank him for the poems he had given me, but now all I could think was that my teacher regretted his decision to give his pupil so generous a gift.

When his back was turned Emily put her arm around my shoulder while I tried to wipe my eyes without causing a fuss, but to no avail.

‘What is this?’ Monsieur Heger asked when he turned around. He looked genuinely puzzled. ‘Not tears I hope?’

I apologized but emotion chocked my voice.

‘There is no need to cry, ’ he said drawing a handkerchief out of his top pocket and handing it me. ‘My shouting is in direct proportion to the esteem in which I hold you…in which I hold both of you. The louder I shout, the higher the esteem.’

‘Do you ever whisper?’

A smile broke out over Monsieur’s face.

‘Frequently,’ he said.

I wiped my eyes wondering as I did so whether he whispered or shouted at Madame. Naturally they were close, they had been married for a great many years and she had just given birth to their fourth child, but it did not follow that they discussed Literature at any great length or Music or Art when they were alone in their private apartments. It did not follow that he pressed her to tell him what she thought about a particular writer, how he shaped a sentence or turned a phrase. Occasionally I would see Monsieur Heger smile at his wife across the table in the refectory or catch them discussing some matter or other pertaining to the school but on the whole I preferred to think of him here in his study, either alone or with Emily and myself sitting at our desks listening to him read.

‘You must be pleased to have a son,’ I said when our lesson was finished and Emily had gone on ahead to the music room.

‘God bestows on us what he thinks fit. But yes, I am pleased. He is a strong, healthy boy.’

‘And how does Marie Pauline take to her little brother?’

‘Very well, I believe she thinks he is a doll. Louise Florence however is less impressed. ’

‘And Madame?’ I said for want of anything better to ask. ‘Is she well?’

‘Madame Heger is tired but she will be back on her feet running the school very soon.’

‘Madame is always very busy.’

‘My wife has many remarkable qualities, she is a remarkable woman– ’ here Monsieur Heger hesitated as though he wanted to say more. He was looking at me in a way I had not encountered before. His eyes were suddenly serious.

‘Go on,’ I said.

‘It is nothing,’ he whispered. ‘I am so happy to have been blessed with a son. It is quite overwhelming – ’

‘ “This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased”,’ – I said and then seeing my opportunity– ‘Our friends, the Revd and Mrs Jenkins have two sons – I think you saw me walking with their eldest, John Jenkins, a few days ago?’

‘I don’t recall – ’

‘Mrs Jenkins has been unwell. She asked that I visit and insisted he accompany me home.’

‘I believe I have heard of the Revd Jenkins, yes – ’

‘He is a dull man, as is John Jenkins although well-meaning enough – ’

‘Is he?’

‘Dull?’ I said. ‘Yes.’

Monsieur Heger nodded slowly. I judged by his countenance that he was experiencing a certain relief.

‘You still attend the Chapelle Royale?’

‘That is my church, Sir, yes.’

As a true son of Rome it was clearly painful for him to see one such as me turn her back on that which he held so dear. He was a good man, certainly better than many Protestants I knew– an honourable man, decent and with exceptional talents.

‘Madame Heger has not suggested you attend Mass perhaps?’

‘She has not.’

‘To you that would be equal to suggesting one walk into a Babylonish furnace?’

I acknowledged it would.

‘And what would you say if I asked you and your sister to accompany us into said fire?’ What would I say, Monsieur? What would I say?

‘I would say that – ’ but here our conversation was curtailed by one of the first-year pupils – Gabrielle Babineaux –running up to us with a note in her hand from Mademoiselle Blanche requesting Monsieur Heger’s immediate presence in the main classroom.

Taking Gabrielle’s hand in his, my teacher strode off down the corridor.

‘Monsieur!’ I called after him for I was still holding his handkerchief– but either he did not hear me or cared not to do so. By this time I had no idea where the truth lay.

I did not tell Emily what Monsieur Heger had suggested regarding our attending High Mass. It did not seem important she know. But I did return Monsieur’s handkerchief to him the following week while I was walking in the garden after supper. I had taken myself outside for some fresh air in order that I could think more clearly about how, when this period of study in Brussels drew to a close, how Emily and I should begin making a living of our own back home.

Much talk had been made about our opening a school in the parsonage. Plans had to be formulated, pupils found, funds secured. These thoughts and others filled my mind as I walked under the trees. All of a sudden something small and hard hit my head. A cobnut had been deliberately aimed at me, rapidly followed by another and another, a shower of cobnuts!

‘Monsieur, what are you doing up there?’ I demanded as first Monsieur Heger’s legs appeared quickly followed by the rest of his body as he leapt from the tree onto the pathway in front of me.

‘Did I startle you?’ he asked brushing himself down.

‘You did not startle me, Monsieur,’ I replied, ‘but I did imagine a better creature than you was sitting up there in that tree trying to catch my attention.’

‘A better creature? An angel perhaps? Do you see angels, Mademoiselle?’

‘I was thinking of more earthly creatures. Squirrels, pigeons – ’

‘I am lowlier, in your opinion, than a pigeon?’

‘All creatures are equal in the eyes of God – ’

‘But not apparently in your eyes – ’

‘I think you are wilfully misconstruing what I have said. You are a very fine creature,Monsieur, just not one that I expected to find throwing nuts at me from a tree.’

Monsieur Heger smiled.

‘I’ve always enjoyed tree climbing,’ he said glancing around him, ‘ever since I was a boy. Is Mademoiselle Emily not with you?’

‘She’s studying indoors. I came outside for some fresh air.’

‘You enjoy your walks?’

‘I am afraid Madame Heger does not approve.’

‘My wife worries about her pupils catching a chill. It is not our way to take walks at night-time, the air can be bad for one.’

‘We find quite the contrary.’

‘So you do,’ Monsieur Heger replied. ‘And I am inclined to agree. It is a shame to sit indoors on so lovely an evening and fresh air is a great healer of the soul as well as the body.

‘Nature in all her finery – ’

‘Nature and Truth.’

At this point we had begun to wander down one of the paths. Now I stopped and touched the
trunk of an apple tree. ‘What is the truth of this tree?’ I said. ‘I cannot see it’s roots yet I can imagine them. I can hint at their invasiveness, the dark vaults of earth, the creatures that wriggle beneath – ’

‘Those pictures are based on fact,’ Monsieur Heger replied. ‘Someone has dug up those roots and studied that earth so that you may describe them – ’

‘But Imagination still plays her part,’ I insisted. ‘She is needed to make the picture truthful.’

‘Imagination has her place,’ here he stopped to light a cigar then leaning against the trunk of yet another tree, ‘but hers should never be the strongest voice. She is there to illuminate Truth, not to replace it. Never that. Imagination’s house should be built of materials that complement her surroundings, that enhance and highlight them – ’

‘Shall we never agree, Monsieur?’

‘We will,’ he said drawing deeply on his cigar, ‘but only when you realize I speak the truth!’

It is one of my faults that, whilst in the midst of an argument, I never know when best to admit defeat. Were I a tiger or she-wolf defending her young, I would fight tooth and claw until my opponent had either ripped out my heart or slit my throat rather than live one moment in the knowledge that I had been vanquished.

Arguments are there to be won.

But I had never before encountered an adversary quite like my teacher. It was second nature for him to debate all manner of subjects, nor did he follow Convention by moderating his arguments to suit a female opponent. He squared up to me as much as I squared up to him.

‘ – but only when you realize that I speak the truth!’ he said.

‘And
when
you speak the truth Monsieur, I am sure I shall listen, but until that time I am more than content to follow my path.’

‘Rightly said although wrongly applied.’

‘Sir?’

‘You are a strong defender of your own arguments, your arguments are indeed carved from flint. I defend your right to speak them, admire their adamantine nature but still have a duty to point out they are incorrect.’

‘Incorrect might be considered a flinty conclusion itself?
I
am not the one refusing to visit another point of view.’

‘Are you not?’ he said looking down at the ground and then swiftly back up at me with dark eyes blazing. ‘You don’t want to concede any ground whatsoever? Are you frightened of something?’

‘I am frightened of nothing, Sir – ’

‘Nothing - ’ he murmured.

‘The clock has struck seven – .’

‘Perhaps it is a matter of not wanting to lose control over your work? Your writing has always been a private activity until now, has it not?’

‘Am I to defend that as well?’

‘By listening to what I have to say your work will grow stronger. I am here to help not hinder you – we should work
together
as one – ’

‘Your handkerchief,’ I replied drawing the item from my pocket. ‘I have no need it of it now.’

‘I am glad to hear it; there is nothing more upsetting than seeing one of my students succumb to tears.’

‘Perhaps then you should be less choleric; your students might not succumb so readily to
tears if you shouted a little less?’

‘Choleric?’

I raised an eyebrow. ‘Sir, your totalitarionism verges on tyranny. Napoleon Bonaparte would feel overshadowed if he were to wander into your presence!’

‘If I say black, you and your sister say white. If I say the sun is high in the sky, you and your sister argue the opposite. Bonaparte or not, I am defeated every which way I turn.’

‘I speak not in ignorance.’

‘Again you challenge me!’

‘I am taking Bonaparte’s lead, Sir. He strews the path with flints and thorns, I walk across them, nursing my wounds, determined to march onwards.’

‘Do you disagree with your father as much as with me?’

‘Twice over.’

‘And your other siblings?’

‘All of us. Our brother is fiercely intelligent as is our sister Anne. We think for ourselves. To the profit of our imaginations,’ I added.