Confession (9 page)

‘I must seem dull in comparison – ’

‘
Dull
?’ I said. ‘Dull is sitting day after day in a classroom with nothing more than a child for company whose presence is a constant reminder that ones time is not ones own. A private governess has no life, Monsieur, no existence beyond the walls of the house within which she is employed. Worse, her employers treat her as if she were an imbecile. They don’t care to walk with her of an evening, to discuss matters of literature with her or the Imagination versus Truth. They don’t leave books of poetry in her desk or ask her opinion concerning Chateaubriand’s latest novel or engage with that part of herself that no one else sees or is
willing to see… That is dull Monsieur’, I stuttered, ‘that is a true description of dullness. ’

Did I imagine a slight flush of colour rising in my teacher’s cheeks as I spoke? It was hard to tell for while we had been talking, the evening shadows had lengthened. Dusk was approaching.

‘We should go in,’ he said, hastily throwing his cigar to the ground in a gesture I could only describe as one made in a desperate bid to escape.

‘Your gift was greatly appreciated. I shall treasure it.’

‘I like to give all my pupils books – ’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘ And this pupil would like to say thank you.
Thank You
.’

‘We should return inside.’

I shook my head. ‘I wish to stay here a while longer.’

‘As you like.’

The smell of cigar smoke lingered long after Monsieur Heger had left. I breathed in the scent both bitter and sweet and watched while the world darkened around me feeling as if I were the only object still glowing with light.

‘What were you talking about with Monsieur?’ Vertue descended upon me as soon as I entered the classroom.

‘Literature,’ I said truthfully although quite well aware that someone like Vertue could twist the truth to suit her own purposes.

‘You gave him something.’

‘His handkerchief. He dropped it yesterday in the corridor and I was handing it back to him.’

‘Yesterday?’

‘Yes,’ I lied.

‘I have never seen Monsieur in the garden before – ’

‘Perhaps it is just that you have not observed him?’ I said noting how keenly Vertue now observed
me
. ‘After all this is his house – ’

‘No,’ she said continuing to stare at me so that I blushed, ‘he prefers to walk in the city or in the countryside outside the city.’

‘This was an exception then,’ I replied refusing to give any ground. ‘Perhaps next time he will persuade Madame to accompany him. It is growing warmer after all. Have you seen how the bluebells are starting up under the apple trees?’

Vertue shrugged. The flowering habits of bluebells were of no interest to her. ‘In England we have something called pink Campion’ continued I, ‘It flowers just after the bluebells, the woodlands fill up with it. And red and white Campion too –’ I said prattling on until her eyes – which saw so much yet understood so little – glazed over allowing me, much as Monsieur had done only minutes before, to make my escape.

IX

Apart from my brief visit to the Jenkins’ house during Mrs Jenkins’ illness and two further occasions when we took tea with the family, soon the Jenkins’ invitations dried up which was a relief as Emily found the family’s company a strain on her nerves while I found the Revd Jenkins boastful and the two sons nothing but vapid.

In marked contrast at the beginning of May, Emily and I escaped the Pensionat Heger to visit Mary and Martha Taylor – two girls whom we had known since we were at school together in England.

Mary and Martha were studying in Koekelberg, which was a distance of a few miles from us consequently Madame Heger gave us her permission to take time away from the school to visit our friends.

The day was bright. Emily strode along the streets of Brussels and out through the Porte de Flandre, a one-woman army while I followed a little behind trying to be at one with the landscape, soaking out into its beauty.

Fields tinted with the first green shoots of the year stretched far and wide. The Chausée de Gand, along which we walked, was flanked on either side by lime trees the leaves of which danced in the sunlight.

Skylarks flickered over the fields.

‘It is quite beautiful, is it not?’ I said as Emily picked up a long stick from the roadside and began thrashing at the grasses and weeds. I stretched out my arms in the sunlight, ‘Is it not?’ I said again.

‘No,’ came back the terse reply. ‘There is no music to this landscape. It is like one of Mrs Jenkins’ dinner plates with those dainty little flowers painted upon it.’

‘I think it tranquil,’ I said. ‘Look – there is the river.’ A wide ribbon of water stretched off to our right, segments of which we could see through the limes. ‘We have time, why don’t we sit down nearby for a few minutes?’

Reluctantly Emily followed me down to the river’s broad banks where I perched on the fallen trunk of a tree while she stood by my side - a Roman centurion, chin jutting out, eyes staring off into the distance.

The water glistened, its wide transparent pools a deep, glassy green. The vegetation was cool and lush.

‘We are like Hopeful & Christian,’ I said, ‘when they stopped by the river. Do you remember? – “On either side of the river was also a meadow, curiously beautified with lilies,” I quoted. You cannot hate this.’

‘Well I cannot like it.’

‘Not even a tiny bit?’

‘Here,’ she said plunging her hand into her pocket and withdrawing the stone she had brought with her from Yorkshire. ‘Can you see?’ she said holding it up in the air so that its darkness glinted against the light.

‘Emily, what are you doing?’

My sister drew back her arm and before I could jump up to stop her, she had thrown the stone into the water. ‘There!’ she said. ‘I like that bit of the landscape but that is all.’

We both stared at the ripples as they spread out wider and wider then flattened and faded.

‘An old stone?’ I said. ‘That is all you can love in this entire landscape?’

‘A piece of Millstone grit off of Blackstone Edge. What of it?’ she said taking up her stick again and slashing at the grasses around us.

It was pointless contradicting my sister when she was in one of these moods, besides I didn’t share her contempt for what I recognized as a beautiful river and a pleasing environment in which to walk so as compensation for my sister’s bad mood I began picking a small bunch of wild flowers to give to the Taylors on our arrival.

Martha greeted us first, running across the courtyard like a puppy. Mary – or Polly as I called her – told us that Martha had been bobbing up and down at the window every five minutes so that she would not miss our arrival.

‘She has been talking about it for days now,’ came the big sister’s account. ‘You would think it her birthday or something – ’

‘You exaggerate, Mary,’ cried Martha taking Emily’s hand and dragging her towards the chateau. ‘Did you enjoy the walk? You are not too tired are you, it is such a beautiful day, you must be thirsty. Are you thirsty?’

We complimented the sisters on how well they both looked.

‘As do you,’ replied Polly gazing at me. ‘Actually you look quite different.’

‘It must be the fresh air,’ I said. ‘It has probably put some colour into my cheeks.’

‘No, not that, it must be – ’

‘She has bought a new dress,’ said my sister. ‘That is what you have noticed. My sister wants to look more up-to-date.’

I put my hand up to my collar feeling myself start to blush.

‘When we went to the dressmakers she was insistent,’ Emily continued, pointing out how I now seemed to prefer the neat waists and embroidered collars favoured by the Belgiums.

‘Did you not buy one too?’ cried Martha. ‘You would have looked splendid, wouldn’t she Mary? Something in green perhaps, or blue to match your eyes –’

‘I am as God made me – ’

‘Me too!’ cried Martha but even God’s creations need a helping hand sometimes.’

Emily laughed. ‘Not me,’ she remarked. ‘I’d rather be an animal than submit to looking like a box of French fancies.’

‘An
animal
,’ exclaimed Martha whose eyes seemed to grow as the idea of Emily metamorphosing into a four-legged beast gripped hold of her. ‘You’d be a lion,’ she declared, ‘With a lion’s mane and a lion’s heart. Whereas I’m more of a – ’

‘Monkey!’ we chorused.

‘What kind of heart does a monkey possess?’

‘A mischievous one – ’ Emily said ‘On the other hand my sister’s heart is so true and loyal she would be a lapdog.’

‘Thank you,’ I replied. ‘But I would rather not be compared to our canine companions.’

‘Nonsense!’ cried Martha, ‘Dogs are the truest-hearted of all creatures. You should be flattered. Besides we could tie a beautiful bow around your neck! ’

Mary nodded. ‘She is right you know, we had a spaniel when we were children and it was the most loyal little thing. Growled if anyone so much as went near Martha unless they were known to it – and it did have a bow – ’

‘I shall have to give in.’

‘Bravo! We win!’

By this time we had returned indoors where the two sisters showed us into a small drawing room where – for the duration of the ten-day Easter break – they had been given permission to entertain visitors. A fire had been lit and tea laid out for us to enjoy. Conversation continued. Mary asked after our father and Anne, whilst we enquired about Mary and Martha’s brother Joe who had already visited them more than once since their arrival.

I also quizzed Mary as to their studies.

‘They are tedious,’ sighed Martha who was always ready to express her feelings no matter that no one had asked to hear them. ‘The teachers do go on so, we never get a chance to do anything remotely amusing. At least you two are in the city whereas we are stuck out here in the middle of nowhere. It is not funny – ’ Martha said turning to Emily who had begun to laugh again. ‘I can feel my life slipping away – Mary can too although she will never admit
to it.’

‘Our lessons are in German,’ said Mary.

‘Her nose is never out of the dictionary. One day it will attach itself to her face and then we will have to send for a doctor to have it removed.’

‘Ours are in French,’ I said. ‘I think we have improved since we arrived. Madame Heger’s husband, Monsieur Heger teaches us, but he is a hard task-master. He’s made me cry more than once.’

‘Not me,’ said Emily proudly.

‘But you are enjoying Brussels?’

‘We have less than eight weeks to go now so every day that passes is better than the one before.’

‘Change does not agree with you, does it?’

‘The changing of the seasons does,’ Emily protested. ‘The changing of night to day, warmth to cold – ’

‘She is like a plant,’ cried Martha picking up a cake and stuffing it into her mouth before her sister could remonstrate. ‘Emily hates being uprooted. Spiritually speaking she withers and if she is not re-planted in the exact same soil from which she came eventually she will – ’

‘Martha! Stop it!’ hissed Mary.

‘I was only saying that – ’

‘Well desist. Besides, it cannot be so bad, surely?’ This last question was directed at me but for a few moments I had stopped listening.

How could we have
less
than eight weeks left at the Pensionnat? It was impossible. Yet here was a fact I could not escape and with that thought racing through my head, everything –
Emily, Martha, Mary, the Chateau itself –
everything
disappeared whilst at the same moment my true heart sank.

Since the day Madame Heger gave birth to Prospére, our Directrice had hardly been seen in the classrooms, confining herself to the nursery from where on occasion we heard the newest addition to the family mewing and crying. Sometimes these cries reached us as far away as Monsieur’s study, occasionally I heard them while I sat in the garden often accompanied by the laughter and shouts of Marie Pauline and her sisters. Now Claire Zoe was no longer the youngest member of the family, her nursemaid paid less attention to her and on more than one occasion I came across the toddler running down a corridor or charging out into the garden.

Such was the case a few days after the Easter holidays had ended only this time Claire Zoe was accompanied by her mother whom I found standing outside the refectory, the Lecture Pieuse having finished only minutes before.

‘Madame?’

She turned around and greeted me warmly.

‘Mademoiselle? You were listening to the lecture perhaps?’

‘I have been studying in the classrooms. How is Prospére? Doing well I hope?’

Madame Heger smiled and nodded acknowledgement.

‘And the girls?’ I asked stretching out to touch Claire Zoe’s chubby fist with my hand. ‘Have they taken to their little brother?’

‘They find him a curiosity,’ Madame replied, ‘but no doubt that will wear off soon enough.

You did not attend the
lecture,
what a pity!’

I acknowledged once again that, no, I had not attended. Only days before I had had to suffer the ordeal of listening to the
lecture
being read by one of the students – a silly tragedy made all the sillier by the grand words this girl used to convey its desultory message. The story was both tragic in content and tragic in delivery and though it pained me for I knew how much store Monsieur Heger set by his faith, I had vowed never to suffer any further examples of this Romish idiocy.

I cleared my throat. ‘Madame, as you know, my sister & I are due to leave at the end of July – ’

‘You will be sorely missed, Mademoiselle. I am well informed you have made great progress in your studies – ’

‘Monsieur Heger is a fine teacher, we could not have wished for a better one which is why – ’ here I paused for a few seconds because I knew what came next was not entirely truthful – ‘which is why we had thought perhaps to stay on a while longer – ’

‘You would be very welcome– naturally.’

‘Thank you, Madame. But there is one problem, we cannot afford the fees however it has occurred to me that both Emily and myself are competent teachers – we could take English classes in the school, Emily can teach music as well – a little piano perhaps – ’