The Secret Diaries of Charlotte Brontë (23 page)

“Even if we are parted, Mademoiselle, we can still communicate with each other.”

“How, Monsieur? A letter can be a most precious thing; I often re-read the letters from my friends and family, and they mean everything to me. Yet even if I wrote to you every single day, and you replied as often, it would not afford one thousandth the pleasure of a face-to-face conversation.”

“It is fortunate, then, that we are not obliged to rely on letters and the post to stay in frequent touch, is it not?”

The open affection in his eyes disarmed me. “What do you mean, Monsieur?”

“Another form of contact can exist between two people who
are separated, but who are really fond of one another—an instantaneous means of communication between distant hearts.” He touched his chest, then reached out and gently placed his fingers against my own chest. “It is a form of communion that does not require paper, or pen, or spoken words, or messenger.”

His intimate touch exhilarated me. I could barely think. “What is this magical means of communication, Monsieur?” asked I, my voice now but a whisper.

He took his hand away. “It is not extraordinary. You yourself have experienced it a hundred times, but perhaps you did not realise. You have only to take a private, quiet moment, and sit down and close your eyes; then think of that other person. He will appear in your mind, just as you know him to be. You will hear his voice, and you may talk with him, to your heart’s content.”

“Such silent musings may have to do, Monsieur; but they will never be sufficient to content my heart.”

“Remembrance can be a fine thing. It can make those distant seem even better than they are.” He raised his hand to my cheek now, where it wiped away my tears, and then came to rest with the gentle softness of a caress. “If the sea should come between us, this is what I shall do: at the end of the day, when my duties are over, when the light fades, I shall sit down in my library and close my eyes. I shall evoke your image, and you will come to me—even if you do not wish it so. It will be as if you are here before me; and we shall meet again, in thought.”

The deep timbre of his voice seemed to ring through me; my pulse hammered in my ears; I could not speak. The moon was full, and he was not blind; surely he could read in full the depth of feeling that my countenance could not hide.

And then it happened: his hand tilted my face up to his, he bent his head to mine, and he tenderly kissed first one cheek, and then the other, in the custom of the French. Then I felt the soft brush of his lips against my own. His kiss was brief and gentle, yet its touch sent a jolt racing through my body, electrifying me to the innermost core of my being.

He drew back slightly, his hand still at my chin, his face mere
inches away, his eyes boring into mine. I was suffused with heat; I felt as if I might melt into the earth itself; I could not breathe; I tore my gaze away. My eye was caught by a tiny, distant gleam emanating from the glass door of the Pensionnat. A candle shone in the window. Monsieur Héger, who had his back to the building, could not see it. Was some one watching us? If so, who? Now I felt a sudden chill, and trembled.

“You are cold, Mademoiselle. You have been too long in the night air. You must go in.”

Unable to speak, I nodded my assent and fled back to the building, my cheeks still burning. When I pushed open the door and entered the back hall, there was no person, no candle to be seen.

Till morning dawned, I lay awake, tossed on a buoyant but un-quiet sea. I replayed the scene in the garden over and over in my mind, recalling every word that Monsieur had spoken, the way he had looked at me, and the way his lips had felt against mine. I struggled to reassure myself that I had done nothing wrong, and neither had he. Monsieur was a man of spotless fame, of great integrity and principle. He was also a boisterous, affectionate man; I had seen him kiss other friends and pupils in a similar manner, and had thought nothing of it; it was the French way. His kiss had only been a sign of his regard: benign and insignificant. By now, he would have forgotten it—and so must I. Everything would go on as before; we would be friends, as before; as if it had never happened.

The next morning, however, a note was delivered to me from Madame:

I was shocked and upset. Was this really to be—this abrupt cessation of the English lessons which had proved so delightful and satisfactory on both sides? I could not believe this was Monsieur’s wish; after all he had said and done last night, why would he choose this hour to abandon our private study? Surely it was Madame’s doing; she must have been at the window, observing us. Perhaps she had sensed, even before I did, the truth of my feelings for her husband; perhaps she was jealous. Jealous, of
me
! It was ridiculous!

From that day on, I rarely, if ever, encountered Monsieur Héger alone again. If, at the end of class, I heard his approaching footstep in the corridor, and would hurry out to greet him, he would have magically disappeared, as if in a puff of cigar smoke; while strolling in the garden, if I caught a whiff of that pungent perfume, and tried to find its source, it would again vanish into thin air; if he strode into the dining-room at study hour, and I glanced up in expectation,
she
would always appear, two steps behind him, and spirit him away.

Banished from his society, any glimpse of him became all the more precious to me. Yet my only contact now with Monsieur Héger were the corrected essays I found in my desk, and the books he still kindly left for me in the night—but now with nary a note attached. These books provided the only pleasure or amusement I had. I never again saw the watch-guard, which I had taken such pains to make. The shell-box I gave him was
gone, too; when he passed out candies amongst his pupils, they were in his bonbonnière of old.

Once, when Monsieur Héger did chance upon me in the schoolroom alone, he frowned and said, in great annoyance beneath his bristling dark brows, “I see you keep very much to yourself, Mademoiselle. Madame thinks you ought to make friends with the other teachers. A little universal benevolence and goodwill on your part could be of great benefit, I think.” With that, he left.

I had no wish to befriend the other teachers. I had tried, and failed. Monsieur’s irritable behaviour did nothing to shed light on my situation. When he kissed me in the garden, he had been expressing affection for me—I felt it! I saw it!—even if it was only meant in a friendly way. Where then had that affection fled? Was Monsieur angry—and avoiding me—out of guilt, because he had kissed me? Did he fear that, with one brief kiss, he had overstepped his bounds, or had given me the wrong impression as to his feelings? Did he perceive
my
feelings, and fear they would only be fanned into greater flame by the slightest contact with him? Or was he merely obeying some command of his wife’s to have nothing more to do with me?

Madame doubled my assignments, giving me charge of all the English classes at the school, for which I was given a small increase in salary; it also left me little time for anything else. I was condemned to breathe the stifling air of the schoolroom all day long, where I spent myself drilling into the minds of Belgian girls the precepts of the English language; in the evening, I was buried beneath the weight of papers to read and correct.

Was this increase in responsibility a “reward,” as Madame claimed—or a punishment? By report, I knew that Madame highly praised my work to others. She continued to be civil to me, but I often caught her staring at me in the corridor, or across the table in the refectory, with an expression in her shaded blue eyes that chilled my blood, as if she were silently attempting to read my soul. When she was not present, I fancied that I
was an object of scrutiny by Mademoiselle Blanche, who seemed to be closely observing my every move.

One afternoon, when, owing to a headache, I excused my class early and returned to the dormitory to rest, I glimpsed a shadow beyond the curtains screening off my private quarters. The sound of a drawer being cautiously slid out struck my ear. Alarmed, I approached on silent feet; standing to one side, I was able to peer through a gap in the curtains.

I saw that the visitant—or should I say, the
spy
—was Madame Héger. She was standing before my small chest of drawers, coolly and meticulously examining the contents of my top drawer and work-box. I stood spellbound and aghast, as each succeeding drawer was opened in turn. She glanced at the fly leaves of every book; she unlidded every little box; she paid particular attention to each note and letter, which she carefully re-folded and returned to its place. Indignation and fury washed over me; yet I dared not reveal my presence. There would have been nothing in it but a scene, a sudden, violent clash, in which I would say things I would come to regret, and which would only have ended with my dismissal from my post.

Her next act truly stunned me: she pulled a set of keys from her pocket, and proceeded to unlock the long wardrobe drawer beneath my bed! She pulled from it a dress, and went through its pocket, fairly turning it inside out. Comprehension dawned: some night when I had been sleeping, Madame must have stolen in and borrowed my own keys to make a wax impression. How long, I wondered, had this surveillance been going on?

She put back the dress and began to glance through my other clothes. Her fingers seized the handkerchief which Monsieur Héger had once given me, a treasure which I had carefully pressed and folded. It was too much! I must put an end to this! I cleared my throat; I gave her an instant to collect herself, then pulled aside the curtain. Incredible woman! The drawer was shut; the work-box closed and in its place; Madame greeted me with a cool and tranquil nod.

“I have replaced your ewer and basin, Mademoiselle, with a new set. I saw that they were chipped. Good-afternoon.” With that, she swept past me and out of the room.

Diary: when I wrote to Ellen and my family, I hinted at my sufferings and isolation, and admitted that Madame did not seem to like me any more. I said that I could not imagine why I had, unaccountably, lost the good opinion of the woman who had, with such kind affection, invited me to return to Brussels. What else could I say? Surely I could not admit to
them
the true reason for Madame’s change in demeanour; just as surely, however, I could not hide it from myself. I knew.
I knew!
My employer suspected me, and perhaps her husband, of acts and feelings, the very nature of which were perfidious, depraved, and soul-polluting—suspicions that were entirely unfounded.

I
did
love Monsieur Héger; I could not deny it. However, I had no designs upon him; I did not wish him for myself. I only wished for a renewed enjoyment of the connection between our minds. My regard for him, simple and undemanding as it was, could do Madame no harm! Surely, I thought, if I could only wait a little longer, if I could prove to her that I posed no threat, she would come to see that she had been wrong, and things would return happily to what they once were.

Time wore on, however, with no improvement. August arrived. Exams were held; prizes distributed; by the 17th, the school broke up, the pupils went home, and the long vacation began.

On the eve of their departure, Monsieur Héger (I suppose without the knowledge or approval of his wife) presented me with a gift of another book, a two-volume edition of the works of Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, which he hoped “would help to occupy the lonely days ahead.” With what gratitude I accepted this rare gift; but what a prophecy was in those words!

Oh! How I tremble when I recall that terrible, long vacation!

No students remained that year; the school building was empty, except for the cook and me. I wanted desperately to go home, but it was impractical to make such a long and expensive
voyage for such a short visit. Five weeks, however, had never seemed such an eternity to me.

That summer was so different from the one the year before, when Emily and I had enjoyed every moment of our free time together. This time, the halls of the school building echoed, silent and desolate; the two rows of shrouded white beds in the dormitory mocked me in their hollowness, like taunting ghosts. My spirits, which had gradually been sinking ever since April, now plummeted. With all employment and company withdrawn, my heart seemed to almost die within me. I ate alone. I tried to read or write, but found the solitude too oppressive. When I visited the museums, the pictures held no interest for me.

The first weeks were hot and dry; then the atmosphere changed. An equinoctial storm raged for a week. I was imprisoned in that huge, empty house as the windows rattled and the tempest roared. Late one night, when I could bear the furious sounds no longer, I flung open the casement window beside my bed and crawled out onto the roof. From there, drenched and wind-blown, I felt and watched the spectacle in all its glory. The heavens were black and wild and full of thunder, and pierced intermittently by white and blinding bolts.

As I watched, I prayed to God to deliver me from my present misery and isolation; or if not, to at least send me direction; to show me His will. But nothing happened. No giant hand of God came down; no precious guiding word was whispered in my ear. I climbed back into my chamber, wet and shivering, and took to bed. When at last I slept, I dreamt.

In my dream, I was held captive by a cruel and scheming witch in a high castle tower. A storm raged without. Within I languished, starved and forgotten, waiting for my love to save me. My strength was nearly gone. Surely he still cared; surely he would come, before it was too late! A rap sounded at the window; I rushed thereto, and threw it open. A dark and dashing figure, richly clothed, leapt in through the gap, took me in his embrace, and kissed me soundly. It was he! It was my beloved Duke of Zamorna! But as he drew back, and gifted me with his
adoring gaze, I gasped in dismay. It was not the Duke.
It was Monsieur Héger.