by Klein, S. G.
Finally the scene was set and Madame Heger appeared and took her seat at the front of the room next to Mademoiselle Blanche who looked at the girls seated around her as if to say, ‘Look! See whom your Directrice has chosen to take a seat next to! Not that ridiculous woman Mademoiselle Haussé or that hideous German creature Madame Muhl,’ so proud and conceited was her demeanour.
‘Your sister is frowning!’ Vertue Bassompiere exclaimed as she seated herself next to me. Emily was on my far side, I knew she had heard the comment but she did not react. ‘Why is she frowning?’
‘I do not believe that she is,’ I said.
‘I think she studies too much. It is not good to read so many books. When you frown it affects the skin – you get lines on the forehead which are unsightly. I try not to frown – do you see?’ she said pointing to her own un-furrowed brow. ‘You would be happier I think.’
‘I am quite happy as I am.’
‘But who are you? None of the students here thinks you are anyone special – ’
For a moment Vertue’s impertinence shocked me – who was I indeed! The question threw me into a quiet distemper until I realized that Vertue had meant something quite other.
‘You have not even dressed up!’ she said. ‘How can anyone tell what you are supposed to be if you have not even bothered to put on a pretty costume or dress?’
I pointed to the sash around my waist.
‘Is that all?’
‘It suffices.’
‘There are plenty of costumes upstairs you could choose from. Beautiful costumes. If you hurry you could – ’
I shook my head. I tried not to sound ungrateful. ‘It is very kind of you but we are happy as we are. Besides you are dressed up enough for all of us. Look at your pretty ribbons and bows.’
‘They are pretty aren’t they?’ Vertue said tossing her head so that her beribboned ringlets fluttered like butterfiles. ‘Shall I tell you a secret? What do you imagine Lizabeth said to me this morning?’
Fearing the worst I shook my head.
‘She said she wanted to be me! Imagine! Isn’t it the queerest thing you have ever heard?Would you like to be me? I suppose a lot of people would,’ she added before I could answer and then continuing – ‘So I asked Lizabeth if she could be anyone in the world past or present, would she still want to be me and do you know what she said? She said, “Yes”!!! Out of everyone living or dead.’
‘Extraordinary,’ I said in the flattest, most un-impressed voice I could muster. ‘But in answer to your question, no I would not. I would not care to be you one jot.’
The girl on the stage finished her recital and everyone began to clap before the next student took her place.
‘Why not?’ Vertue Basompierre whispered. ‘You are nothing but a plain English girl. You barely smile, you prefer damp, muddy gardens to the company of your fellow students – you do not think that I see you walking outside at all hours, but I do. You and your sister are nothing but lonely spinsters, witches if you will, unnatural & miserable. You have few prospects, no gentlemen friends, you – ’
I put up my hand to stop her mid flow. ‘Why don’t I want to be you?’ I said in a voice, my own and yet not my own. ‘To begin with, you do not study, you do not apply yourself to anything serious and in my world that makes you dull. You lay enormous emphasis on telling everyone the first thing that comes into your head. For you silence is an abomination, being private a sin. Why inflict on others what they do not need to hear? You are the froth that rides upon the waves, totally inconsequential.’ I said touching the edge of her snowy lace dress. ‘It is what lies beneath that counts, the contemplative reaches of the soul. For you life is nothing unless you are shopping for the latest fashion accessory, purchasing the latest style in hats. Hats!’ I repeated for greater effect for by this time I had warmed to my theme. ‘When you dream, you no doubt dream of ermine and Valenciennes lace though I doubt you can spell such a word. You put no emphasis on education, indeed you actively despise anyone who professes an interest in learning. And finally,’ I said, concluding my outburst just as the girl on stage – Marie Lescelles– finished her piano recital, ‘and finally you are just like everyone else, yes you are pretty but so are thousands of other girls, there is nothing that sets you apart.’
Applause rose around us. Everyone was clapping and it was all I could do not to stand up and take a bow so triumphant did I feel. Instead I turned to see if Emily had appreciated my performance but to my astonishment Emily’s seat was empty.
My little sister had vanished.
‘I always knew you were cut from plain cloth,’ Vertue retaliated. ‘But I had no idea how coarse a creature you actually were. You are,’ and here she lowered her voice to a hiss, ‘you are just like your sister.’
‘And now Mesdemoiselles,’ the clapping died down and Mademoiselle Blanche began introducing the next student, ‘One of our girls has asked if she might give palm readings. I am told she is blessed with a gift in this area and Madame Heger has given her permission to see a number of chosen students if they so wish. The student in question will give the readings in the small classroom. She has requested the following girls attend.’
Three names were read out after which three girls immediately rushed from the room in search of my beloved sister for the palm reader to whom Mademoiselle Blanche had referred was none other than Emily, witch, wanderer and now purveyor of unknown truths.
As children our cook Tabby used to read palms although we kept this a secret from Aunt who disdained what she called Tabitha’s crafts. We would visit the kitchen when Aunt wasn’t looking and beg Tabby for a plate of walnuts or a current bun and rather as not she would set down her baking tray or gravy spoon and take our small hands in her large rough ones.
What did she see in them?
Happiness and disaster by turns.
‘You’re all in all to each other’, she’d mutter - remarking on how similar the lines of mine and Emily’s palms were. ‘You’ll ’un be buried by books,’ she’d say to me while to Emily – she had no doubt my sister would ‘see angels bearing down from above’.
Once, when she reached for my hand she said I’d pelt the world with words like the storm clouds up over Brow Moor pelted the ground with hailstones.
‘So what did you tell them?’ I asked Emily when we were sitting in the garden together later that evening.
‘Nothing worth tuppance,’ she laughed. ‘I made everything up.’
‘The girls were talking about it.’
‘I told Cecilia that when she married she was going to have a little boy and that she would call the child Pontus,’ said Emily a half-smile playing over her lips.
‘You need to be careful, Cecilia is an unpleasant girl.’
‘I could bite her head off in a second,’ replied Emily baring her teeth.
‘And Virginie? What did you tell her?’
‘Much the same, I said she would travel and find a husband abroad. He would be a Duke or perhaps a Count – he might die young but she would live until she was an old woman. She had a very long lifeline,’ Emily added looking across the lawn to where some of the other students were flitting through the trees.
‘Read my palm?’ I said suddenly sticking my hand out but Emily shook her head.
‘Why not?’
‘Have you faith in it?’
‘I have faith in you.’
‘That is not the same thing. Besides I cannot make things up where you are concerned, itwouldn’t be right.’
‘Nor would I want you to –’
‘If I do it,’ she said, her voice suddenly serious, ‘you have to keep quiet while I am speaking.’
‘I can be as quiet as you.’
‘Absolute silence,’ Emily said gently taking my right hand in hers.
Above us starlings began to stir. The sun was going down and the light was supernaturally gold.
‘I see your bedroom at home,’ Emily began. ‘In the centre of the room is a glass case a
nd inside the glass case hangs one of your dresses.’ I glanced down at my skirt uncomprehendingly. ‘There are a lot of people in the room, mainly women but they are wearing trousers, blue trousers and a few of them have short hair like men. No one is talking, they are just staring at the dress and then leaving the room quietly. They walk through the house, pausing every now and then to read little notes that have been placed on the walls. We are not there. The house is empty save for these strangers.’
Emily stopped. I dared not break the silence but nor did I know whether the reading had finished. All around us the trees shook as a gold wind blew through their branches and the starlings started to scream.
Eventually I said, ‘Is that it?’ and Emily nodded. ‘But what does it mean?’ I said suddenly yearning for Tabby’s old-fashioned nonsense.
‘It’s what I see. I can’t explain it.’
‘My dress in a glass cabinet?’
‘Yes,’ she said. I’m going indoors now, it’s cold.’
‘Wait.’
‘I can’t tell you anything else – ’
I watched as Emily rose and walked slowly down the path back towards the schoolroom. I couldn’t make sense of what she had said, I could not see it and yet for something to be true does it always need to be visible?
Three days later on 28th March Madame gave birth to her fourth child, a boy named Prospère Èdouard Augustin. Mademoiselle Blanche made the announcement over breakfast although I was not present on that occasion because I had left the Pensionnat earlier that morning in order to pay a visit to Mrs Jenkins whom we had been informed was ill and in need of companionship.
On arrival at the Jenkins’s house, I was ushered in to see the patient who, given that she was supposedly on her deathbed, looked in remarkably good spirits. She greeted me heartily and asked that I sit down on a stool next to the bed whilst she took her medicines and talked about the Revd Jenkins’s plans for a trip back to England that summer.
‘Do you and Emily have a leaving date yet?’ she enquired between sips of a syrupy-looking brown liquid. I told her nothing had been decided upon but that we were hoping to stay on until the Autumn.
As soon as I could I made my excuses and left, but not before Mrs Jenkins insisted I be accompanied back to the Pensionnat by her son John.
We walked awkwardly together. John Jenkins had little to say save for the occasional comment about the buildings we passed or how pleasant he found it being outside in the sunshine. At one point I recall he put his hand out to stop me from walking into the road just as a carriage was rattling past. I turned to thank him and he smiled down at me – only then did I catch sight of Monsieur Heger standing on the far side of the street. He was talking to an elderly gentleman but he was watching us and I knew he had seen John Jenkins touching my arm and smiling at me, that much was certain.
Monsieur’s eyes settled on me as if I were an errant child caught mid crime.
I did not like it one bit, this unwarranted accusation yet what could I do? Nothing and so I continued to walk back to the Pensionnat in silence, Monsieur Heger’s disapprobation a more powerful presence than that of John Jenkins.
Three days later Emily and I were seated in Monsieur’s study being taken to task over our devoirs.
‘Why is it,’ Monsieur had written in the margin of my work, ‘that your compositions are always better than your translations? I do not understand how this can be, surely translation is the easier of the two exercises?’
‘Monsieur,’ I said pointing to what he had written. ‘You forbade us to use a dictionary. I had to use some English words because I had no idea what the equivalent words are in French.’
‘Had to? What you mean to say is that you were too lazy to think of the correct words. That is what you mean, is it not? Too lazy or too busy with other more important matters – ’
Tears sprang to my eyes. I had wanted, in a private moment, perhaps at the end of our lesson, to congratulate Monsieur on the birth of his new son and also to thank him for the poems he had given me, but now all I could think was that my teacher regretted his decision to give his pupil so generous a gift.
When his back was turned Emily put her arm around my shoulder while I tried to wipe my eyes without causing a fuss, but to no avail.
‘What is this?’ Monsieur Heger asked when he turned around. He looked genuinely puzzled. ‘Not tears I hope?’
I apologized but emotion chocked my voice.
‘There is no need to cry, ’ he said drawing a handkerchief out of his top pocket and handing it me. ‘My shouting is in direct proportion to the esteem in which I hold you…in which I hold both of you. The louder I shout, the higher the esteem.’
‘Do you ever whisper?’
A smile broke out over Monsieur’s face.
‘Frequently,’ he said.
I wiped my eyes wondering as I did so whether he whispered or shouted at Madame. Naturally they were close, they had been married for a great many years and she had just given birth to their fourth child, but it did not follow that they discussed Literature at any great length or Music or Art when they were alone in their private apartments. It did not follow that he pressed her to tell him what she thought about a particular writer, how he shaped a sentence or turned a phrase. Occasionally I would see Monsieur Heger smile at his wife across the table in the refectory or catch them discussing some matter or other pertaining to the school but on the whole I preferred to think of him here in his study, either alone or with Emily and myself sitting at our desks listening to him read.
‘You must be pleased to have a son,’ I said when our lesson was finished and Emily had gone on ahead to the music room.
‘God bestows on us what he thinks fit. But yes, I am pleased. He is a strong, healthy boy.’
‘And how does Marie Pauline take to her little brother?’
‘Very well, I believe she thinks he is a doll. Louise Florence however is less impressed. ’
‘And Madame?’ I said for want of anything better to ask. ‘Is she well?’
‘Madame Heger is tired but she will be back on her feet running the school very soon.’
‘Madame is always very busy.’
‘My wife has many remarkable qualities, she is a remarkable woman– ’ here Monsieur Heger hesitated as though he wanted to say more. He was looking at me in a way I had not encountered before. His eyes were suddenly serious.
‘Go on,’ I said.
‘It is nothing,’ he whispered. ‘I am so happy to have been blessed with a son. It is quite overwhelming – ’
‘ “This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased”,’ – I said and then seeing my opportunity– ‘Our friends, the Revd and Mrs Jenkins have two sons – I think you saw me walking with their eldest, John Jenkins, a few days ago?’
‘I don’t recall – ’
‘Mrs Jenkins has been unwell. She asked that I visit and insisted he accompany me home.’
‘I believe I have heard of the Revd Jenkins, yes – ’
‘He is a dull man, as is John Jenkins although well-meaning enough – ’
‘Is he?’
‘Dull?’ I said. ‘Yes.’
Monsieur Heger nodded slowly. I judged by his countenance that he was experiencing a certain relief.
‘You still attend the Chapelle Royale?’
‘That is my church, Sir, yes.’
As a true son of Rome it was clearly painful for him to see one such as me turn her back on that which he held so dear. He was a good man, certainly better than many Protestants I knew– an honourable man, decent and with exceptional talents.
‘Madame Heger has not suggested you attend Mass perhaps?’
‘She has not.’
‘To you that would be equal to suggesting one walk into a Babylonish furnace?’
I acknowledged it would.
‘And what would you say if I asked you and your sister to accompany us into said fire?’ What would I say, Monsieur? What would I say?
�
�I would say that – ’ but here our conversation was curtailed by one of the first-year pupils – Gabrielle Babineaux –running up to us with a note in her hand from Mademoiselle Blanche requesting Monsieur Heger’s immediate presence in the main classroom.
Taking Gabrielle’s hand in his, my teacher strode off down the corridor.
‘Monsieur!’ I called after him for I was still holding his handkerchief– but either he did not hear me or cared not to do so. By this time I had no idea where the truth lay.
I did not tell Emily what Monsieur Heger had suggested regarding our attending High Mass. It did not seem important she know. But I did return Monsieur’s handkerchief to him the following week while I was walking in the garden after supper. I had taken myself outside for some fresh air in order that I could think more clearly about how, when this period of study in Brussels drew to a close, how Emily and I should begin making a living of our own back home.
Much talk had been made about our opening a school in the parsonage. Plans had to be formulated, pupils found, funds secured. These thoughts and others filled my mind as I walked under the trees. All of a sudden something small and hard hit my head. A cobnut had been deliberately aimed at me, rapidly followed by another and another, a shower of cobnuts!
‘Monsieur, what are you doing up there?’ I demanded as first Monsieur Heger’s legs appeared quickly followed by the rest of his body as he leapt from the tree onto the pathway in front of me.
‘Did I startle you?’ he asked brushing himself down.
‘You did not startle me, Monsieur,’ I replied, ‘but I did imagine a better creature than you was sitting up there in that tree trying to catch my attention.’
‘A better creature? An angel perhaps? Do you see angels, Mademoiselle?’
‘I was thinking of more earthly creatures. Squirrels, pigeons – ’
‘I am lowlier, in your opinion, than a pigeon?’
‘All creatures are equal in the eyes of God – ’
‘But not apparently in your eyes – ’
‘I think you are wilfully misconstruing what I have said. You are a very fine creature,Monsieur, just not one that I expected to find throwing nuts at me from a tree.’