The Complete Novels of Charlotte Brontë

by Charlotte Bronte

  “But I never was at school, monsieur — “

  “Indeed! What then were your friends — what was your aunt about? She is very much to blame.”

  “No monsieur, no — my aunt is good — she is not to blame — she does what she can; she lodges and nourishes me” (I report Mdlle. Henri’s phrases literally, and it was thus she translated from the French). “She is not rich; she has only an annuity of twelve hundred francs, and it would be impossible for her to send me to school.”

  “Rather,” thought I to myself on hearing this, but I continued, in the dogmatical tone I had adopted: —

  “It is sad, however, that you should be brought up in ignorance of the most ordinary branches of education; had you known something of history and grammar you might, by degrees, have relinquished your lace-mending drudgery, and risen in the world.”

  “It is what I mean to do.”

  “How? By a knowledge of English alone? That will not suffice; no respectable family will receive a governess whose whole stock of knowledge consists in a familiarity with one foreign language.”

  “Monsieur, I know other things.”

  “Yes, yes, you can work with Berlin wools, and embroider handkerchiefs and collars — that will do little for you.”

  Mdlle. Henri’s lips were unclosed to answer, but she checked herself, as thinking the discussion had been sufficiently pursued, and remained silent.

  “Speak,” I continued, impatiently; “I never like the appearance of acquiescence when the reality is not there; and you had a contradiction at your tongue’s end.”

  “Monsieur, I have had many lessons both in grammar, history, geography, and arithmetic. I have gone through a course of each study.”

  “Bravo! but how did you manage it, since your aunt could not afford lo send you to school?”

  “By lace-mending; by the thing monsieur despises so much.”

  “Truly! And now, mademoiselle, it will be a good exercise for you to explain to me in English how such a result was produced by such means.”

  “Monsieur, I begged my aunt to have me taught lace-mending soon after we came to Brussels, because I knew it was a METIER, a trade which was easily learnt, and by which I could earn some money very soon. I learnt it in a few days, and I quickly got work, for all the Brussels ladies have old lace — very precious — which must be mended all the times it is washed. I earned money a little, and this money I grave for lessons in the studies I have mentioned; some of it I spent in buying books, English books especially; soon I shall try to find a place of governess, or school-teacher, when I can write and speak English well; but it will be difficult, because those who know I have been a lace-mender will despise me, as the pupils here despise me. Pourtant j’ai mon projet,” she added in a lower tone.

  “What is it?”

  “I will go and live in England; I will teach French there.”

  The words were pronounced emphatically. She said “England” as you might suppose an Israelite of Moses’ days would have said Canaan.

  “Have you a wish to see England?”

  “Yes, and an intention.”

  And here a voice, the voice of the directress, interposed:

  “Mademoiselle Henri, je crois qu’il va pleuvoir; vous feriez bien, ma bonne amie, de retourner chez vous tout de suite.”

  In silence, without a word of thanks for this officious warning, Mdlle. Henri collected her books; she moved to me respectfully, endeavoured to move to her superior, though the endeavour was almost a failure, for her head seemed as if it would not bend, and thus departed.

  Where there is one grain of perseverance or wilfulness in the composition, trifling obstacles are ever known rather to stimulate than discourage. Mdlle. Reuter might as well have spared herself the trouble of giving that intimation about the weather (by-the-by her prediction was falsified by the event — it did not rain that evening). At the close of the next lesson I was again at Mdlle. Henri’s desk. Thus did I accost her: —

  “What is your idea of England, mademoiselle? Why do you wish to go there?”

  Accustomed by this time to the calculated abruptness of my manner, it no longer discomposed or surprised her, and she answered with only so much of hesitation as was rendered inevitable by the difficulty she experienced in improvising the translation of her thoughts from French to English.

  “England is something unique, as I have heard and read; my idea of it is vague, and I want to go there to render my idea clear, definite.”

  “Hum! How much of England do you suppose you could see if you went there in the capacity of a teacher? A strange notion you must have of getting a clear and definite idea of a country! All you could see of Great Britain would be the interior of a school, or at most of one or two private dwellings.”

  “It would be an English school; they would be English dwellings.”

  “Indisputably; but what then? What would be the value of observations made on a scale so narrow?”

  “Monsieur, might not one learn something by analogy? An-echantillon — a — a sample often serves to give an idea of the whole; besides, narrow and wide are words comparative, are they not? All my life would perhaps seem narrow in your eyes — all the life of a — that little animal subterranean — une taupe — comment dit-on?”

  “Mole.”

  “Yes — a mole, which lives underground would seem narrow even to me.”

  “Well, mademoiselle — what then? Proceed.”

  “Mais, monsieur, vous me comprenez.”

  “Not in the least; have the goodness to explain.”

  “Why, monsieur, it is just so. In Switzerland I have done but little, learnt but little, and seen but little; my life there was in a circle; I walked the same round every day; I could not get out of it; had I rested — remained there even till my death, I should never have enlarged it, because I am poor and not skilful, I have not great acquirements; when I was quite tired of this round, I begged my aunt to go to Brussels; my existence is no larger here, because I am no richer or higher; I walk in as narrow a limit, but the scene is changed; it would change again if I went to England. I knew something of the bourgeois of Geneva, now I know something of the bourgeois of Brussels; if I went to London, I would know something of the bourgeois of London. Can you make any sense out of what I say, monsieur, or is it all obscure?”

  “I see, I see — now let us advert to another subject; you propose to devote your life to teaching, and you are a most unsuccessful teacher; you cannot keep your pupils in order.”

  A flush of painful confusion was the result of this harsh remark; she bent her head to the desk, but soon raising it replied —

  “Monsieur, I am not a skilful teacher, it is true, but practice improves; besides, I work under difficulties; here I only teach sewing, I can show no power in sewing, no superiority — it is a subordinate art; then I have no associates in this house, I am isolated; I am too a heretic, which deprives me of influence.”

  “And in England you would be a foreigner; that too would deprive you of influence, and would effectually separate you from all round you; in England you would have as few connections, as little importance as you have here.”

  “But I should be learning something; for the rest, there are probably difficulties for such as I everywhere, and if I must contend, and perhaps: be conquered, I would rather submit to English pride than to Flemish coarseness; besides, monsieur — “

  She stopped — not evidently from any difficulty in finding words to express herself, but because discretion seemed to say, “You have said enough.”

  “Finish your phrase,” I urged.

  “Besides, monsieur, I long to live once more among Protestants; they are more honest than Catholics; a Romish school is a building with porous walls, a hollow floor, a false ceiling; every room in this house, monsieur, has eyeholes and ear-holes, and what the house is, the inhabitants are, very treacherous; they all think it lawful to tell lies; they all call it politeness to profess friendship where they feel
hatred.”

  “All?” said I; “you mean the pupils — the mere children — inexperienced, giddy things, who have not learnt to distinguish the difference between right and wrong?”

  “On the contrary, monsieur — the children are the most sincere; they have not yet had time to become accomplished in duplicity; they will tell lies, but they do it inartificially, and you know they are lying; but the grown-up people are very false; they deceive strangers, they deceive each other — “

  A servant here entered: —

  “Mdlle. Henri — Mdlle. Reuter vous prie de vouloir bien conduire la petite de Dorlodot chez elle, elle vous attend dans le cabinet de Rosalie la portiere — c’est que sa bonne n’est pas venue la chercher — voyez-vous.”

  “Eh bien! est-ce que je suis sa bonne — moi?” demanded Mdlle. Henri; then smiling, with that same bitter, derisive smile I had seen on her lips once before, she hastily rose and made her exit.

  CHAPTER XVIII.

  Table of Contents

  THE young Anglo-Swiss evidently derived both pleasure and profit from the study of her mother-tongue. In teaching her I did not, of course, confine myself to the ordinary school routine; I made instruction in English a channel for instruction in literature. I prescribed to her a course of reading; she had a little selection of English classics, a few of which had been left her by her mother, and the others she had purchased with her own penny-fee. I lent her some more modern works; all these she read with avidity, giving me, in writing, a clear summary of each work when she had perused it. Composition, too, she delighted in. Such occupation seemed the very breath of her nostrils, and soon her improved productions wrung from me the avowal that those qualities in her I had termed taste and fancy ought rather to have been denominated judgment and imagination. When I intimated so much, which I did as usual in dry and stinted phrase, I looked for the radiant and exulting smile my one word of eulogy had elicited before; but Frances coloured. If she did smile, it was very softly and shyly; and instead of looking up to me with a conquering glance, her eyes rested on my hand, which, stretched over her shoulder, was writing some directions with a pencil on the margin of her book.

  “Well, are you pleased that I am satisfied with your progress?” I asked.

  “Yes,” said she slowly, gently, the blush that had half subsided returning.

  “But I do not say enough, I suppose?” I continued. “My praises are too cool?”

  She made no answer, and, I thought, looked a little sad. I divined her thoughts, and should much have liked to have responded to them, had it been expedient so to do. She was not now very ambitious of my admiration — not eagerly desirous of dazzling me; a little affection — ever so little — pleased her better than all the panegyrics in the world. Feeling this, I stood a good while behind her, writing on the margin of her book. I could hardly quit my station or relinquish my occupation; something retained me bending there, my head very near hers, and my hand near hers too; but the margin of a copy-book is not an illimitable space — so, doubtless, the directress thought; and she took occasion to walk past in order to ascertain by what art I prolonged so disproportionately the period necessary for filling it. I was obliged to go. Distasteful effort — to leave what we most prefer!

  Frances did not become pale or feeble in consequence of her sedentary employment; perhaps the stimulus it communicated to her mind counterbalanced the inaction it imposed on her body. She changed, indeed, changed obviously and rapidly; but it was for the better. When I first saw her, her countenance was sunless, her complexion colourless; she looked like one who had no source of enjoyment, no store of bliss anywhere in the world; now the cloud had passed from her mien, leaving space for the dawn of hope and interest, and those feelings rose like a clear morning, animating what had been depressed, tinting what had been pale. Her eyes, whose colour I had not at first known, so dim were they with repressed tears, so shadowed with ceaseless dejection, now, lit by a ray of the sunshine that cheered her heart, revealed irids of bright hazel — irids large and full, screened with long lashes; and pupils instinct with fire. That look of wan emaciation which anxiety or low spirits often communicates to a thoughtful, thin face, rather long than round, having vanished from hers; a clearness of skin almost bloom, and a plumpness almost embonpoint, softened the decided lines of her features. Her figure shared in this beneficial change; it became rounder, and as the harmony of her form was complete and her stature of the graceful middle height, one did not regret (or at least I did not regret) the absence of confirmed fulness, in contours, still slight, though compact, elegant, flexible — the exquisite turning of waist, wrist, hand, foot, and ankle satisfied completely my notions of symmetry, and allowed a lightness and freedom of movement which corresponded with my ideas of grace.

  Thus improved, thus wakened to life, Mdlle. Henri began to take a new footing in the school; her mental power, manifested gradually but steadily, ere long extorted recognition even from the envious; and when the young and healthy saw that she could smile brightly, converse gaily, move with vivacity and alertness, they acknowledged in her a sisterhood of youth and health, and tolerated her as of their kind accordingly.

  To speak truth, I watched this change much as a gardener watches the growth of a precious plant, and I contributed to it too, even as the said gardener contributes to the development of his favourite. To me it was not difficult to discover how I could best foster my pupil, cherish her starved feelings, and induce the outward manifestation of that inward vigour which sunless drought and blighting blast had hitherto forbidden to expand. Constancy of attention — a kindness as mute as watchful, always standing by her, cloaked in the rough garb of austerity, and making its real nature known only by a rare glance of interest, or a cordial and gentle word; real respect masked with seeming imperiousness, directing, urging her actions, yet helping her too, and that with devoted care: these were the means I used, for these means best suited Frances’ feelings, as susceptible as deep vibrating — her nature at once proud and shy.

  The benefits of my system became apparent also in her altered demeanour as a teacher; she now took her place amongst her pupils with an air of spirit and firmness which assured them at once that she meant to be obeyed — and obeyed she was. They felt they had lost their power over her. If any girl had rebelled, she would no longer have taken her rebellion to heart; she possessed a source of comfort they could not drain, a pillar of support they could not overthrow: formerly, when insulted, she wept; now, she smiled.

  The public reading of one of her devoirs achieved the revelation of her talents to all and sundry; I remember the subject — it was an emigrant’s letter to his friends at home. It opened with simplicity; some natural and graphic touches disclosed to the reader the scene of virgin forest and great, New-World river — barren of sail and flag — amidst which the epistle was supposed to be indited. The difficulties and dangers that attend a settler’s life, were hinted at; and in the few words said on that subject, Mdlle. Henri failed not to render audible the voice of resolve, patience, endeavour. The disasters which had driven him from his native country were alluded to; stainless honour, inflexible independence, indestructible self-respect there took the word. Past days were spoken of; the grief of parting, the regrets of absence, were touched upon; feeling, forcible and fine, breathed eloquent in every period. At the close, consolation was suggested; religious faith became there the speaker, and she spoke well.

  The devoir was powerfully written in language at once chaste and choice, in a style nerved with vigour and graced with harmony.

  Mdlle. Reuter was quite sufficiently acquainted with English to understand it when read or spoken in her presence, though she could neither speak nor write it herself. During the perusal of this devoir, she sat placidly busy, her eyes and fingers occupied with the formation of a “riviere” or open-work hem round a cambric handkerchief; she said nothing, and her face and forehead, clothed with a mask of purely negative expression, were as blank of comment as her lips.
As neither surprise, pleasure, approbation, nor interest were evinced in her countenance, so no more were disdain, envy, annoyance, weariness; if that inscrutable mien said anything, it was simply this —

  “The matter is too trite to excite an emotion, or call forth an opinion.”

  As soon as I had done, a hum rose; several of the pupils, pressing round Mdlle. Henri, began to beset her with compliments; the composed voice of the directress was now heard: —

  “Young ladies, such of you as have cloaks and umbrellas will hasten to return home before the shower becomes heavier” (it was raining a little), “the remainder will wait till their respective servants arrive to fetch them.” And the school dispersed, for it was four o’clock.

  “Monsieur, a word,” said Mdlle. Reuter, stepping on to the estrade, and signifying, by a movement of the hand, that she wished me to relinquish, for an instant, the castor I had clutched.

  “Mademoiselle, I am at your service.”