Delphi Complete Works of the Brontes Charlotte, Emily, Anne Brontë (Illustrated) (228 page)

“Oh, don’t mention it, monsieur; you only touched my hair with your elbow; it is no worse, only a little dishevelled.” She shook it back, and passing her fingers through her curls, loosened them into more numerous and flowing ringlets. Then she went on with vivacity:

“Rosalie, I was coming to tell you to go instantly and close the windows of the salon; the wind is rising, and the muslin curtains will be covered with dust.”

Rosalie departed. “Now,” thought I, “this will not do; Mdlle. Reuter thinks her meanness in eaves-dropping is screened by her art in devising a pretext, whereas the muslin curtains she speaks of are not more transparent than this same pretext.” An impulse came over me to thrust the flimsy screen aside, and confront her craft boldly with a word or two of plain truth. “The rough-shod foot treads most firmly on slippery ground,” thought I; so I began:

“Mademoiselle Henri has left your establishment — been dismissed, I presume?”

“Ah, I wished to have a little conversation with you, monsieur,” replied the directress with the most natural and affable air in the world; “but we cannot talk quietly here; will Monsieur step into the garden a minute?” And she preceded me, stepping out through the glass-door I have before mentioned.

“There,” said she, when we had reached the centre of the middle alley, and when the foliage of shrubs and trees, now in their summer pride, closing behind end around us, shut out the view of the house, and thus imparted a sense of seclusion even to this little plot of ground in the very core of a capital.

“There, one feels quiet and free when there are only pear-trees and rose-bushes about one; I dare say you, like me, monsieur, are sometimes tired of being eternally in the midst of life; of having human faces always round you, human eyes always upon you, human voices always in your ear. I am sure I often wish intensely for liberty to spend a whole month in the country at some little farm-house, bien gentille, bien propre, tout entouree de champs et de bois; quelle vie charmante que la vie champetre! N’est-ce pas, monsieur?”

“Cela depend, mademoiselle.”

“Que le vent est bon et frais!” continued the directress; and she was right there, for it was a south wind, soft and sweet. I carried my hat in my hand, and this gentle breeze, passing through my hair, soothed my temples like balm. Its refreshing effect, however, penetrated no deeper than the mere surface of the frame; for as I walked by the side of Mdlle. Reuter, my heart was still hot within me, and while I was musing the fire burned; then spake I with my tongue: —

“I understand Mdlle. Henri is gone from hence, and will not return?”

“Ah, true! I meant to have named the subject to you some days ago, but my time is so completely taken up, I cannot do half the things I wish: have you never experienced what it is, monsieur, to find the day too short by twelve hours for your numerous duties?”

“Not often. Mdlle. Henri’s departure was not voluntary, I presume? If it had been, she would certainly have given me some intimation of it, being my pupil.”

“Oh, did she not tell you? that was strange; for my part, I never thought of adverting to the subject; when one has so many things to attend to, one is apt to forget little incidents that are not of primary importance.”

“You consider Mdlle. Henri’s dismission, then, as a very insignificant event?”

“Dismission? Ah! she was not dismissed; I can say with truth, monsieur, that since I became the head of this establishment no master or teacher has ever been dismissed from it.”

“Yet some have left it, mademoiselle?”

“Many; I have found it necessary to change frequently — a change of instructors is often beneficial to the interests of a school; it gives life and variety to the proceedings; it amuses the pupils, and suggests to the parents the idea of exertion and progress.”

“Yet when you are tired of a professor or maitresse, you scruple to dismiss them?”

“No need to have recourse to such extreme measures, I assure you.
Allons, monsieur le professeur — asseyons-nous; je vais vous donner une petite lecon dans votre etat d’instituteur.”
(I wish I might write all she said to me in French — it loses sadly by being translated into English.) We had now reached THE garden-chair; the directress sat down, and signed to me to sit by her, but I only rested my knee on the seat, and stood leaning my head and arm against the embowering branch of a huge laburnum, whose golden flowers, blent with the dusky green leaves of a lilac-bush, formed a mixed arch of shade and sunshine over the retreat. Mdlle. Reuter sat silent a moment; some novel movements were evidently working in her mind, and they showed their nature on her astute brow; she was meditating some CHEF D’OEUVRE of policy. Convinced by several months’ experience that the affectation of virtues she did not possess was unavailing to ensnare me — aware that I had read her real nature, and would believe nothing of the character she gave out as being hers — she had determined, at last, to try a new key, and see if the lock of my heart would yield to that; a little audacity, a word of truth, a glimpse of the real. “Yes, I will try,” was her inward resolve; and then her blue eye glittered upon me — it did not flash — nothing of flame ever kindled in its temperate gleam.

“Monsieur fears to sit by me?” she inquired playfully.

“I have no wish to usurp Pelet’s place,” I answered, for I had got the habit of speaking to her bluntly — a habit begun in anger, but continued because I saw that, instead of offending, it fascinated her. She cast down her eyes, and drooped her eyelids; she sighed uneasily; she turned with an anxious gesture, as if she would give me the idea of a bird that flutters in its cage, and would fain fly from its jail and jailer, and seek its natural mate and pleasant nest.

“Well — and your lesson?” I demanded briefly.

“Ah!” she exclaimed, recovering herself, “you are so young, so frank and fearless, so talented, so impatient of imbecility, so disdainful of vulgarity, you need a lesson; here it is then: far more is to be done in this world by dexterity than by strength; but, perhaps, you knew that before, for there is delicacy as well as power in your character — policy, as well as pride?”

“Go on,” said I; and I could hardly help smiling, the flattery was so piquant, so finely seasoned. She caught the prohibited smile, though I passed my hand over my month to conceal it; and again she made room for me to sit beside her. I shook my head, though temptation penetrated to my senses at the moment, and once more I told her to go on.

“Well, then, if ever you are at the head of a large establishment, dismiss nobody. To speak truth, monsieur (and to you I will speak truth), I despise people who are always making rows, blustering, sending off one to the right, and another to the left, urging and hurrying circumstances. I’ll tell you what I like best to do, monsieur, shall I?” She looked up again; she had compounded her glance well this time — much archness, more deference, a spicy dash of coquetry, an unveiled consciousness of capacity. I nodded; she treated me like the great Mogul; so I became the great Mogul as far as she was concerned.

“I like, monsieur, to take my knitting in my hands, and to sit quietly down in my chair; circumstances defile past me; I watch their march; so long as they follow the course I wish, I say nothing, and do nothing; I don’t clap my hands, and cry out ‘Bravo! How lucky I am!’ to attract the attention and envy of my neighbours — I am merely passive; but when events fall out ill — when circumstances become adverse — I watch very vigilantly; I knit on still, and still I hold my tongue; but every now and then, monsieur, I just put my toe out — so — and give the rebellious circumstance a little secret push, without noise, which sends it the way I wish, and I am successful after all, and nobody has seen my expedient. So, when teachers or masters become troublesome and inefficient — when, in short, the interests of the school would suffer from their retaining their places — I mind my knitting, events progress, circumstances glide past; I see one which, if pushed ever so little awry, will render untenable the post I wish to have vacated — the deed is done — the stumbling-block removed — and no one saw me: I have not made an enemy, I am rid of an incumbrance.”

A moment since, and I thought her alluring; this speech concluded, I looked on her with distaste. “Just like you,” was my cold answer. “And in this way you have ousted Mdlle. Henri? You wanted her office, therefore you rendered it intolerable to her?”

“Not at all, monsieur, I was merely anxious about Mdlle. Henri’s health; no, your moral sight is clear and piercing, but there you have failed to discover the truth. I took — I have always taken a real interest in Mdlle. Henri’s welfare; I did not like her going out in all weathers; I thought it would be more advantageous for her to obtain a permanent situation; besides, I considered her now qualified to do something more than teach sewing. I reasoned with her; left the decision to herself; she saw the correctness of my views, and adopted them.”

“Excellent! and now, mademoiselle, you will have the goodness to give me her address.”

“Her address!” and a sombre and stony change came over the mien of the directress. “Her address? Ah? — well — I wish I could oblige you, monsieur, but I cannot, and I will tell you why; whenever I myself asked her for her address, she always evaded the inquiry. I thought — I may be wrong — but I THOUGHT her motive for doing so, was a natural, though mistaken reluctance to introduce me to some, probably, very poor abode; her means were narrow, her origin obscure; she lives somewhere, doubtless, in the ‘basse ville.’”

“I’ll not lose sight of my best pupil yet,” said I, “though she were born of beggars and lodged in a cellar; for the rest, it is absurd to make a bugbear of her origin to me — I happen to know that she was a Swiss pastor’s daughter, neither more nor less; and, as to her narrow means, I care nothing for the poverty of her purse so long as her heart overflows with affluence.”

“Your sentiments are perfectly noble, monsieur,” said the directress, affecting to suppress a yawn; her sprightliness was now extinct, her temporary candour shut up; the little, red-coloured, piratical-looking pennon of audacity she had allowed to float a minute in the air, was furled, and the broad, sober-hued flag of dissimulation again hung low over the citadel. I did not like her thus, so I cut short the TETE-A-TETE and departed.

CHAPTER XIX.

NOVELISTS should never allow themselves to weary of the study of real life. If they observed this duty conscientiously, they would give us fewer pictures chequered with vivid contrasts of light and shade; they would seldom elevate their heroes and heroines to the heights of rapture — still seldomer sink them to the depths of despair; for if we rarely taste the fulness of joy in this life, we yet more rarely savour the acrid bitterness of hopeless anguish; unless, indeed, we have plunged like beasts into sensual indulgence, abused, strained, stimulated, again overstrained, and, at last, destroyed our faculties for enjoyment; then, truly, we may find ourselves without support, robbed of hope. Our agony is great, and how can it end? We have broken the spring of our powers; life must be all suffering — too feeble to conceive faith — death must be darkness — God, spirits, religion can have no place in our collapsed minds, where linger only hideous and polluting recollections of vice; and time brings us on to the brink of the grave, and dissolution flings us in — a rag eaten through and through with disease, wrung together with pain, stamped into the churchyard sod by the inexorable heel of despair.

But the man of regular life and rational mind never despairs. He loses his property — it is a blow — he staggers a moment; then, his energies, roused by the smart, are at work to seek a remedy; activity soon mitigates regret. Sickness affects him; he takes patience — endures what he cannot cure. Acute pain racks him; his writhing limbs know not where to find rest; he leans on Hope’s anchors. Death takes from him what he loves; roots up, and tears violently away the stem round which his affections were twined — a dark, dismal time, a frightful wrench — but some morning Religion looks into his desolate house with sunrise, and says, that in another world, another life, he shall meet his kindred again. She speaks of that world as a place unsullied by sin — of that life, as an era unembittered by suffering; she mightily strengthens her consolation by connecting with it two ideas — which mortals cannot comprehend, but on which they love to repose — Eternity, Immortality; and the mind of the mourner, being filled with an image, faint yet glorious, of heavenly hills all light and peace — of a spirit resting there in bliss — of a day when his spirit shall also alight there, free and disembodied — of a reunion perfected by love, purified from fear — he takes courage — goes out to encounter the necessities and discharge the duties of life; and, though sadness may never lift her burden from his mind, Hope will enable him to support it.

Well — and what suggested all this? and what is the inference to be drawn therefrom? What suggested it, is the circumstance of my best pupil — my treasure — being snatched from my hands, and put away out of my reach; the inference to be drawn from it is — that, being a steady, reasonable man, I did not allow the resentment, disappointment, and grief, engendered in my mind by this evil chance, to grow there to any monstrous size; nor did I allow them to monopolize the whole space of my heart; I pent them, on the contrary, in one strait and secret nook. In the daytime, too, when I was about my duties, I put them on the silent system; and it was only after I had closed the door of my chamber at night that I somewhat relaxed my severity towards these morose nurslings, and allowed vent to their language of murmurs; then, in revenge, they sat on my pillow, haunted my bed, and kept me awake with their long, midnight cry.

A week passed. I had said nothing more to Mdlle. Reuter. I had been calm in my demeanour to her, though stony cold and hard. When I looked at her, it was with the glance fitting to be bestowed on one who I knew had consulted jealousy as an adviser, and employed treachery as an instrument — the glance of quiet disdain and rooted distrust. On Saturday evening, ere I left the house, I stept into the SALLE-A-MANGER, where she was sitting alone, and, placing myself before her, I asked, with the same tranquil tone and manner that I should have used had I put the question for the first time —

“Mademoiselle, will you have the goodness to give me the address of Frances Evans Henri?”

A little surprised, but not disconcerted, she smilingly disclaimed any knowledge of that address, adding, “Monsieur has perhaps forgotten that I explained all about that circumstance before — a week ago?”

“Mademoiselle,” I continued, “you would greatly oblige me by directing me to that young person’s abode.”

She seemed somewhat puzzled; and, at last, looking up with an admirably counterfeited air of naivete, she demanded, “Does Monsieur think I am telling an untruth?”

Still avoiding to give her a direct answer, I said, “It is not then your intention, mademoiselle, to oblige me in this particular?”

“But, monsieur, how can I tell you what I do not know?”

“Very well; I understand you perfectly, mademoiselle, and now I have only two or three words to say. This is the last week in July; in another month the vacation will commence, have the goodness to avail yourself of the leisure it will afford you to look out for another English master — at the close of August, I shall be under the necessity of resigning my post in your establishment.”

I did not wait for her comments on this announcement, but bowed and immediately withdrew.

That same evening, soon after dinner, a servant brought me a small packet; it was directed in a hand I knew, but had not hoped so soon to see again; being in my own apartment and alone, there was nothing to prevent my immediately opening it; it contained four five-franc pieces, and a note in English.

“MONSIEUR,

“I came to Mdlle. Reuter’s house yesterday, at the time when I knew you would be just about finishing your lesson, and I asked if I might go into the schoolroom and speak to you. Mdlle. Reuter came out and said you were already gone; it had not yet struck four, so I thought she must be mistaken, but concluded it would be vain to call another day on the same errand. In one sense a note will do as well — it will wrap up the 20 francs, the price of the lessons I have received from you; and if it will not fully express the thanks I owe you in addition — if it will not bid you good-bye as I could wish to have done — if it will not tell you, as I long to do, how sorry I am that I shall probably never see you more — why, spoken words would hardly be more adequate to the task. Had I seen you, I should probably have stammered out something feeble and unsatisfactory — something belying my feelings rather than explaining them; so it is perhaps as well that I was denied admission to your presence. You often remarked, monsieur, that my devoirs dwelt a great deal on fortitude in bearing grief — you said I introduced that theme too often: I find indeed that it is much easier to write about a severe duty than to perform it, for I am oppressed when I see and feel to what a reverse fate has condemned me; you were kind to me, monsieur — very kind; I am afflicted — I am heart-broken to be quite separated from you; soon I shall have no friend on earth. But it is useless troubling you with my distresses. What claim have I on your sympathy? None; I will then say no more.

“Farewell, Monsieur.

“F. E. HENRI.”

I put up the note in my pocket-book. I slipped the five-franc pieces into my purse — then I took a turn through my narrow chamber.

“Mdlle. Reuter talked about her poverty,” said I, “and she is poor; yet she pays her debts and more. I have not yet given her a quarter’s lessons, and she has sent me a quarter’s due. I wonder of what she deprived herself to scrape together the twenty francs — I wonder what sort of a place she has to live in, and what sort of a woman her aunt is, and whether she is likely to get employment to supply the place she has lost. No doubt she will have to trudge about long enough from school to school, to inquire here, and apply there — be rejected in this place, disappointed in that. Many an evening she’ll go to her bed tired and unsuccessful. And the directress would not let her in to bid me good-bye? I might not have the chance of standing with her for a few minutes at a window in the schoolroom and exchanging some half-dozen of sentences — getting to know where she lived — putting matters in train for having all things arranged to my mind? No address on the note” — I continued, drawing it again from the pocket-book and examining it on each side of the two leaves: “women are women, that is certain, and always do business like women; men mechanically put a date and address to their communications. And these five-franc pieces?” — (I hauled them forth from my purse) — “if she had offered me them herself instead of tying them up with a thread of green silk in a kind of Lilliputian packet, I could have thrust them back into her little hand, and shut up the small, taper fingers over them — so — and compelled her shame, her pride, her shyness, all to yield to a little bit of determined Will — now where is she? How can I get at her?”

Opening my chamber door I walked down into the kitchen.

“Who brought the packet?” I asked of the servant who had delivered it to me.

“Un petit commissionaire, monsieur.”

“Did he say anything?”

“Rien.”

And I wended my way up the back-stairs, wondrously the wiser for my inquiries.

“No matter,” said I to myself, as I again closed the door. “No matter — I’ll seek her through Brussels.”

And I did. I sought her day by day whenever I had a moment’s leisure, for four weeks; I sought her on Sundays all day long; I sought her on the Boulevards, in the Allee Verte, in the Park; I sought her in Ste. Gudule and St. Jacques; I sought her in the two Protestant chapels; I attended these latter at the German, French, and English services, not doubting that I should meet her at one of them. All my researches were absolutely fruitless; my security on the last point was proved by the event to be equally groundless with my other calculations. I stood at the door of each chapel after the service, and waited till every individual had come out, scrutinizing every gown draping a slender form, peering under every bonnet covering a young head. In vain; I saw girlish figures pass me, drawing their black scarfs over their sloping shoulders, but none of them had the exact turn and air of Mdlle. Henri’s; I saw pale and thoughtful faces “encadrees” in bands of brown hair, but I never found her forehead, her eyes, her eyebrows. All the features of all the faces I met seemed frittered away, because my eye failed to recognize the peculiarities it was bent upon; an ample space of brow and a large, dark, and serious eye, with a fine but decided line of eyebrow traced above.

“She has probably left Brussels — perhaps is gone to England, as she said she would,” muttered I inwardly, as on the afternoon of the fourth Sunday, I turned from the door of the chapel-royal which the door-keeper had just closed and locked, and followed in the wake of the last of the congregation, now dispersed and dispersing over the square. I had soon outwalked the couples of English gentlemen and ladies. (Gracious goodness! why don’t they dress better? My eye is yet filled with visions of the high-flounced, slovenly, and tumbled dresses in costly silk and satin, of the large unbecoming collars in expensive lace; of the ill-cut coats and strangely fashioned pantaloons which every Sunday, at the English service, filled the choirs of the chapel-royal, and after it, issuing forth into the square, came into disadvantageous contrast with freshly and trimly attired foreign figures, hastening to attend salut at the church of Coburg.) I had passed these pairs of Britons, and the groups of pretty British children, and the British footmen and waiting-maids; I had crossed the Place Royale, and got into the Rue Royale, thence I had diverged into the Rue de Louvain — an old and quiet street. I remember that, feeling a little hungry, and not desiring to go back and take my share of the “gouter,” now on the refectory-table at Pelet’s — to wit, pistolets and water — I stepped into a baker’s and refreshed myself on a COUC(?) — it is a Flemish word, I don’t know how to spell it — A CORINTHE-ANGLICE, a currant bun — and a cup of coffee; and then I strolled on towards the Porte de Louvain. Very soon I was out of the city, and slowly mounting the hill, which ascends from the gate, I took my time; for the afternoon, though cloudy, was very sultry, and not a breeze stirred to refresh the atmosphere. No inhabitant of Brussels need wander far to search for solitude; let him but move half a league from his own city and he will find her brooding still and blank over the wide fields, so drear though so fertile, spread out treeless and trackless round the capital of Brabant. Having gained the summit of the hill, and having stood and looked long over the cultured but lifeless campaign, I felt a wish to quit the high road, which I had hitherto followed, and get in among those tilled grounds — fertile as the beds of a Brobdignagian kitchen-garden — spreading far and wide even to the boundaries of the horizon, where, from a dusk green, distance changed them to a sullen blue, and confused their tints with those of the livid and thunderous-looking sky. Accordingly I turned up a by-path to the right; I had not followed it far ere it brought me, as I expected, into the fields, amidst which, just before me, stretched a long and lofty white wall enclosing, as it seemed from the foliage showing above, some thickly planted nursery of yew and cypress, for of that species were the branches resting on the pale parapets, and crowding gloomily about a massive cross, planted doubtless on a central eminence and extending its arms, which seemed of black marble, over the summits of those sinister trees. I approached, wondering to what house this well-protected garden appertained; I turned the angle of the wall, thinking to see some stately residence; I was close upon great iron gates; there was a hut serving for a lodge near, but I had no occasion to apply for the key — the gates were open; I pushed one leaf back — rain had rusted its hinges, for it groaned dolefully as they revolved. Thick planting embowered the entrance. Passing up the avenue, I saw objects on each hand which, in their own mute language of inscription and sign, explained clearly to what abode I had made my way. This was the house appointed for all living; crosses, monuments, and garlands of everlastings announced, “The Protestant Cemetery, outside the gate of Louvain.”