The Professor (21 page)

"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.

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 I 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."