Confession

by Klein, S. G.

  Alas! Even this small hope was taken from me for when I drew back the curtain that separated my end of the room from the main sleeping arena I found Marianne Wilke sitting on my bed.

  Ever since that first evening when I had returned to the school from England and had spoken to Marianne in the main classroom, she had fashioned herself into my shadow as if she detected a similarity between us, something that linked us both physically and spiritually. I would take a walk in the garden and think myself alone only to turn around and find her standing a short distance away. Or I would take a seat at the long table in the refectory and seconds later – of all the girls in the school – Marianne would be the one to sit opposite, staring across at me as if she were my reflection.

  ‘Mademoiselle, what are you doing here?’ I said, slowly enunciating each word for by this time I had come to know that Marinne Wilke was unlike the rest of us, being slower of wit and generally unable to comprehend even the simplest of queries.

  Marianne blinked.

  ‘Doing?’ she echoed.

  ‘You are sitting on my bed,’ I said. ‘Should you not be downstairs at this hour, with the others at study hour?’

  The girl pulled a face, clown-like in its clumsy expression of sadness. I did not blame her for I had seen how the other girls treated Marianne when they thought no one else watching.

  They taunted her much like small children taunt animals, baiting their prey to rise up and react.

  ‘You must have homework to complete?’ I said but still no answer was forthcoming: instead I was treated to a beatific smile the like of which I had rarely seen in recent months.

  Still I was annoyed that Marianne had seen fit to use the small quarter of the dormitory I called my own as if it were hers.

  ‘You will have to go downstairs,’ I said removing my cloak and laying it on the bed brusquely. ‘Go. Now!’

  But instead of moving, the girl began to hum and gently rock backwards and forwards all the time looking up at me, still with that smile written across her broad, moon-like face. What must it be like, I wondered, to be locked in a mind such as hers? What thoughts must this creature entertain? Was there something deep within her soul that knew there to be a more dynamic world around her, a faster, brighter place, but one which it was impossible for her to reach out and touch?

  ‘Marianne?’ I said holding out my hands whilst her own lay limply in her lap. ‘Come.

  Come – ’

  Gently I pulled her up, the full weight of her body causing me to struggle a little, but once she was on her feet she seemed more willing to move and in this way I led her down the length of the dormitory to the main staircase and from there directed her to proceed to the classrooms.

  V

  I used to think that visiting people, in particular distant relations and casual acquaintances, an unpleasant task but on first visiting Mary Dixon on the Rue de la Régence, my opinion changed.

  Hers was a warm, unassuming family who welcomed me into their home with genuine affection. Mary and I – because of our shared love for Mary Taylor –immediately found each other’s company endearing. No sooner had I arrived then we were swapping impressions of Brussels and its inhabitants as well as catching up on news of our friend. A letter had recently arrived from Germany where she was now teaching in a boys’ school, but her words did not strike me as happy. She sounded weary, isolated, she certainly was not enjoying as close a friendship to her employer as I was to Monsieur Heger. Only the previous evening when I had gone downstairs to check that Marianne Wilke was not being set upon by her fellow students I had found yet another small gift from my teacher, tucked away in my desk.

  The tell-tale smell of cigar smoke was the first clue to its presence for even before I had lifted the lid I could detect the sweet, smoky perfume. This time Monsieur had given me a slim volume not of verse, but of prose, which I slipped into my pocket. But poor Mary Taylor had no such gifts, no such friendships to buoy her up. Instead she was adrift amidst a sea of foreigners and as I chatted to Mary Dixon this image floated like driftwood in front of my eyes.

  Mary Dixon and I chatted merrily for over an hour, quickly establishing a common disdain not merely for the Belgians and their peculiar ways but also for their dismal religion and all that accompanied it. Mary laughed when I described the full horror of the lecture pieuse although I was at pains to point out that on occasion there was one person who conducted the lecture with great skill.

  Later, after we had taken tea with her father and youngest brother, Miss Dixon asked if I would sit for her as she wanted to send my portrait to Mary Taylor as a gift.

  ‘She will not thank you for it!’ I said laughing out loud – ‘for when we were at school together as children, Polly was at great pains to point out I was hardly what one would call pretty.’

  ‘She could not have meant it!’ exclaimed Miss Dixon fetching a small sketchpad and pencils from a desk before ordering me to seat myself in a chair close-by the window. ‘Don’t move, that is right, if you could tilt your head a little to the left and then this way – ’

  ‘Do you like drawing?’ I enquired. ‘We visited the Salon de Brussels yesterday. There were some interesting pictures,’ I added although I did not mention how my pleasure had been rudely curtailed for I was still sore on that subject.

  Mary Dixon replied that she too was going to see the exhibition. ‘When Father has time to accompany me,’ she said. ‘I try to draw whenever I can but I find it frustrating. My pencil rarely describes what it is I am seeing. I am certain it is a matter of skill or in my case the lack of it but no matter how many times or in how many ways I try to draw something, those flowers on the table for instance, what appears on paper is so much less than the real thing and then I am left wondering what is the real thing? By describing something, we so rarely understand it –’

  ‘That is the same with any artistic pursuit,’ I declared. ‘I can describe the moon in a hundred different ways but it does not mean that I comprehend the moon.’

  Mary Dixon’s hand, which had been moving rapidly across the paper as it sketched my likeness, paused momentarily.

  ‘I had not thought of it quite like that,’ she said finally as her brow creased in concentration. ‘Do you describe the moon often?’

  ‘The moon, the stars, trees, people – ’

  ‘People?’

  ‘I use to sketch Emily when she was here – ’

  ‘Tilt your head a little more to the left. You must miss her very much I imagine?’

  I conceded it was different without Emily to talk to, particularly in the evenings which I found tedious with no one sympathetic at hand.

  ‘What about the other teachers? Surely they keep you company?’

  I smiled.

  ‘Mademoiselle Haussé is a peculiar sort,’ I said. ‘She is least likely to offend but is particularly small-minded on almost every subject and has no truck with anyone else’s opinions. Mademoiselle Sophie is weak, she cannot discipline her classes nor herself. She speaks sharply of almost everybody behind their backs yet to my knowledge rarely if ever questions her own shortcomings. But Mademoiselle Blanche out-wits both these women when it comes to contemptible behaviour. She hails from Paris and believes this fact alone blesses her with a superior sensibility. In fact it does nothing of the sort. She is all craft & concealment, pretending kindness when it is obvious she does not mean kindness. She and Mademoiselle Haussé do not speak to each other, they hiss.’

  Mary Dixon found this highly amusing, particularly when I described an incident that had occurred two days previously when Mademoiselle Haussé requested Mademoiselle Blanche take one of her classes as she was suffering from a headache – something that occurred all too frequently.

  Mademoiselle Blanche refused, stating she had a previous engagement without the school besides which she, Mademoiselle Blanche, was not at Mademoiselle Haussé’s beck and call whenever the latter imagined a headache.

  ‘Imagined!’ honked Mademoiselle
Haussé sounding like a farmyard goose, ‘How dare Mademoiselle Blanche suggest that the pain she suffered was imaginary!’

  In reply Mademoiselle Blanche cited five separate occasions where her colleague’s headaches had occasioned someone else to take over her classes. When the last one occurred Madame Heger herself had been of the opinion that Mademoiselle Haussé’s turns were unacceptable.

  Silence from Mademoiselle Haussé.

  Momentary silence.

  Then a honking the like of which any goose would have been proud. ‘How dare Mademoiselle Blanche impugn the good name of a woman such as Mademoiselle Haussé! She had never been so insulted and by such a creature as Mademoiselle Blanche whom everyone knew served no one’s interests but her own. And as for Madame Heger commenting negatively upon her illness, only the other day the directrice had commended Mademoiselle Haussé on her commitment to the pensionat. Mademoiselle Blanche was nothing but a liar!

  Mary Dixon laughed as I described these shenanigans, her hand moving rapidly across the paper, her eyes meeting mine then returning to her sketchbook then back again. Finally she announced the sketch complete.

  ‘I have not done you justice,’ she sighed as I rose from my chair and crossed the room to appraise it.

  ‘I fear you have made me out to be far prettier than I am – ’

  ‘Untrue! Quite the contrary – ’

  ‘There is a touch of Madame Heger about the eyes – have you met her?’

  Mary Dixon shook her head. ‘Not that I am aware of, is she pretty? Do you like her?’

  I paused to consider. Only a few days previously I had accidentally come across Madame Heger in the main classroom. Not that she had noticed me entering the room for she was far too busy rifling through the contents of each of the students’ desks to notice me standing there.

  She walked up and down the aisles, lifting each lid by turn, taking out exercise books, leafing through pages, lifting out private letters, carefully opening the envelopes so that she might read the contents before carefully putting everything back in its place.

  When she stopped at Vertue Basompierre’s desk she withdrew what looked to me like a locket hanging from a long silver chain. For a moment Madame peered at it closely, examining the fretwork of pink and blue enamel flowers that decorated its surface before releasing the clasp. The locket flew open and something – a scrap of paper – fell to the floor. Madame Heger picked this up and unfolded it.

  If I had not seen her with my own eyes, I would not have believed she could act in such an extraordinary manner. I knew that on occasion she spied on the teaching staff, myself included, watching us from the sidelines to monitor our progress. I knew also that Mademoiselle Blanche acted as her spy reporting back to her anything she deemed necessary, but still I had held Madame in some regard, most particularly because she was Monsieur’s wife and more generally because she ran her school well. The majority of her students were happy and learnt something whilst they studied at the pensionat. But this behaviour, rifling through a student’s personal belongings, this seemed an invasion of an altogether different nature.

  Madame Heger read the note then refolded it and put it back inside the locket before placing the locket back in the desk. No one would ever have guessed she had been there.

  ‘She runs her school very efficiently,’ I said to Mary and then – because my interrogator found my answer inadequate – I went on to describe how Madame liked to wear her hair, what type of clothes she preferred, the names of each of her children and other particulars until finally Mary declared herself satisfied.

  ‘I am so very bored!’ mewed Vertue Basompierre on my return to the classroom later that afternoon. I was fetching some books for Monsieur Heger and Monsieur Chapelle to read during their lesson that evening. Outside it had started to rain, consequently all the girls had gathered indoors and were either sewing or writing letters home to their loved ones; all except Vertue for whom any distraction came as a blessing.

  The other girls smiled appreciatively at this impromptu performance. She however did not smile but in her usual manner sidled up to me to ask where I had been.

  ‘Nowhere,’ I said not wishing to sully the intimacy of my afternoon visit by elaborating further.

  ‘Nowhere? How can you have been nowhere? No-one goes nowhere!’

  The onlookers giggled.

  ‘Better to recognize oneself a no-one,’ I retaliated, although desperately weary of our continuous warfare, ‘than to be a someone who will wake one day to realize that her life has amounted to nothing. Better to recognize oneself a no-one than to drift through life never understanding the truth of what it is to be someone. I know which person I would rather be – ’

  The giggling stopped and, readying myself for the accustomed retaliation, I gripped my Shakespeare tighter. But nothing happened. Vertue Basompierre looked at me and for the first time in our acquaintanceship, I caught sight of a glimmer of acknowledgment that what I had said struck true.

  *

  ‘Monsieur Chappelle will be slightly later than usual this evening,’ apologized Monsieur Heger who was standing reading by the window in his study at the allotted time of our lesson. He removed his glasses then set down his book. ‘Shall we start without him perhaps?’

  ‘As you see fit – ’

  ‘Paul can catch us up when he arrives. What are we reading tonight, more of your Walter Scott is it?’

  I shook my head. ‘He is hardly mine, Monsieur, but no, I thought we might begin this evening with something a little different. Another poet, but this time an Englishman. He might be more to your liking?’

  ‘Wordsworth?’ he said glancing down at the book that I now held in front of me. ‘Is that how you pronounce it?’

  ‘Wordsworth, yes’ I said. ‘“The Lyrical Ballads”. They are fine poems. You will enjoy them – ’

  Soon the two of us, having seated ourselves at Monsieur’s desk, were relishing the broad sweep of Wordworth’s language, the realities of the sublime landscapes he conjured up in front of our eyes.

  ‘This is like your Yorkshire perhaps?’ Monsieur Heger enquired and I replied that, yes, the hills and moors described in the poems mirrored those I knew and loved back home.

  ‘Tell me about them – what do you see when you go out walking with your sisters?’

  ‘What do I see?’ I said suddenly feeling uncertain for it was a long time since anyone had asked me to describe something quite so intimate.

  ‘I would like to hear you describe it – ’ Monsieur Heger encouraged. ‘So that I might share in your vision?’

  I closed my eyes – ‘I see a landscape I love,’ I began falteringly. ‘I see sweeping moors that are dark and limitless, yet also brilliant and bold. Hills that are as windblown as any ocean, heights that are as raddled as any sea yet flowers grow on their uppermost reaches, gorse and heather, ragwort and vetch. I grant you these are not delicate flowers, they are not the briar rose or buttercups found in the hedgerows and meadows. Ours is a wilder place, Monsieur. Rocks are its decoration, crags and stones its adornment. You can lie on your back on the moors, look up to the sky and know you could reach out and touch Heaven.’ All the time I was speaking I did not look at my teacher – only when I had finished did I turn to face him, blushing slightly because I rarely if ever talked quite so freely or with such animation but Monsieur Heger seemed as enthused as myself.

  ‘What a place! What a scene you describe! I would that I could visit your moors – they explain much about you, Mademoiselle – so much about how you are…’

  ‘How I am what, Monsieur –? What am I?’

  ‘Different,’ he said finally. ‘You and your sister are hewn from the same rock but I have not met any girl or for that matter woman who is such a combination of awkwardness yet unyielding intellect, boldness yet undeniable timidity – you are quite happy to stand in front of a painting such as the ‘Olympia’ yet barely able to stand in front of a roomful of insolent schoolgirls. You champion Byron of
whom I have heard said, his philosophies are unsuitable yet I know you to be a deeply Christian woman, the daughter of a clergyman – ’

  ‘My father encouraged us to read widely,’ I whispered bowing my head. ‘He liked us to query the world. Perhaps if our mother had not died when we were so young – ’

  ‘You mistake my observations for criticisms, Mademoiselle. You are different. You own your own mind, which is refreshing. Who else can I discuss literature with? Who else can I argue with sensibly about language and style and art …’

  The correct answer was obvious yet neither of us spoke her name and in the next instant it was too late for there came a knock at the door.

  ‘My apologies, my apologies, Mademoiselle,’ panted Monsieur Chapelle as he burst into the room. ‘My business means I don’t keep very sociable hours – but I see you have started without me, that is good. What are we reading? What have I missed?’

  ‘I thought we might try a little Shakespeare,’ I said setting down the Wordsworth and picking up a second volume I had brought with me. ‘Perhaps you would like to start Monsieur Heger? The play is Corialanus.’

  ‘Corialanus?’ echoed Monsieur Chapelle, his tone unmistakably mocking.

  ‘Please do not scoff at this treasure of our national language, Monsieur, or I shall be forced to take the book from both of you and insist you spend the rest of the lesson on grammar.’

  ‘Oh, such a gentle face!’ exclaimed he.

  ‘I told you she was a tyrant, Paul. They call her the Napoleon of the classrooms, I believe.’

  ‘Napoleon?’ I mocked. ‘Wellington if you please! Not Napoleon. Never Napoleon – ’

  ‘You see, Paul? You see what I have to suffer?’

  ‘Read gentlemen, please.’