The Secret Diaries of Charlotte Brontë (20 page)

“I will try, Monsieur.” There was something in that man’s anger—a vehement passion of emotion—that tended to draw
tears. I was not unhappy, nor much afraid, yet I could not help myself: I wept.

Emily said sternly: “Monsieur, you go too far. My sister and I both work very hard. It is unkind to make her cry.”

Monsieur Héger looked at me, apparently saw the sharp pain inflicted, and let out a long sigh. “Allons, allons,” said he presently, his voice now softly humbled. “Decidedly I am a monster and a ruffian. Please, accept my apologies, and take my pocket-handkerchief.” He withdrew the article from the pocket of his paletôt and extended it towards me; I received it with decorum, and wiped therewith my eyes.

“I have a solution to this conundrum, I think,” mused he. He scanned the titles in his bookcase, a massive collection which filled his library shelves from floor to ceiling. “You are both capable of more than these dull translations and word studies. Let us try some more advanced work.” He chose a volume. “I will read aloud to you, each week, a selected passage from the best of French literature. We will analyse each piece together; you will then be required to produce an original essay of your own, in a similar writing style.”

Emily frowned. “Where is the benefit in that, Monsieur? If we copy from others, we will lose all originality of thought and expression.”

“I did not say ‘copy’!” countered Monsieur Héger heatedly. “I said you must write in a similar style, but on an entirely different subject, and of a sufficiently different character, so as to render unintelligent imitation impossible. In so doing you will, at length, develop a style of your own. I have tried this method before, I assure you, with my most advanced and able pupils, and always it produces an excellent result.”

“On what subject would we write, Monsieur?” I asked.

“On a topic of your own choosing. It is necessary, before sitting down to write on a subject, to have thoughts and feelings about it. I cannot tell on what subject your hearts and minds have been excited. I must leave that to you.”

I spent a great deal of time on that first composition, and turned it in with pride, believing that my true skill lay in prose, and hoping that such an effort—even if expressed in imperfect French—would, at last, earn praise from Monsieur Héger. To my dismay, my work produced the opposite effect.

“What is this vapid piece of nonsense you call an essay?” growled Monsieur Héger one afternoon after Writing class, as he dropped the offending article on my desk. “Such a river of sentiment! Such a barrage of unnecessary metaphors and adjectives! You have allowed your imagination to run away with you, Mademoiselle, as if the goal in writing was the accumulation of the greatest number of words.”

My cheeks flamed at his harsh critique, my humiliation all the more complete by the amused tittering it had occasioned in the few other girls who had yet to vacate the room. “I am sorry you find my work so tedious and offensive, Monsieur. I only try my best.”

“This is not your best.” He faced me over my desk, the tassel of his bonnet-grec sternly shadowing his left temple. “I see that you have a great imagination, Mademoiselle Charlotte. You have vision! You have talent! But you also have a total disregard for style. This, we will have to work on, and most assiduously.”

“I am eager to improve, Monsieur. Only tell me: what do you wish me to do?”

“Read my comments, Mademoiselle. Take them to heart.” With that, he left the room.

I opened my note-book to my most recent effort, to see what comments Monsieur Héger had written in the margin. My poor little essay looked as if it had been attacked! Monsieur had offered more than mere comments, and corrected more than technical errors. Improper words were ferociously underlined, with the critique, “Ne soyez pas paresseux! Trouvez le mot juste!”
³⁶
Sentences were ruthlessly tightened. “You are babbling!” he wrote here, and, “Why this expression?” there. Where I had
strayed from my topic to indulge in an elaborate metaphor, he cut the passage and wrote: “you are into the subject, go straight to the end.”

At first I was mortified; but when I stopped to consider how much time he had taken over my little exercise, my heart swelled with gratitude. No one had ever critiqued my writing in this manner before. Under Monsieur Héger’s tutelage, I realised, I would be subjected to an entirely new and harsh—but not unwelcome—discipline.

On the compositions of others, I came to notice, he might only make a comment here or a correction there, and perhaps add a sage remark or two; but from me, he would suffer no omission or defect. “As you unfold your subject, you must sacrifice without pity everything that does not contribute to clarity and verisimilitude,” he said. “This is what gives style to prose—just as it gives to painting unity, perspective, and effect.” His words were, to me, like priceless pearls of wisdom, and equally profound; I drank them in, always craving more.

One evening in mid-July, I was reading on a bench in the back garden. This delightful retreat was a long strip of cultured ground, immediately behind the school building, and completely enclosed. There was a sort of lawn, a parterre of well-trimmed rose trees and flower-borders in full bloom, and an alley bordered by enormous old fruit-trees down the middle. It was bordered on one side by a thickly planted copse of lilacs, laburnums, and acacias; on the other side, a wall and shrubbery divided the establishment from the Royal Athénée. Because a solitary window high up in the Athénée’s dormitory overlooked the garden, the tree-shaded walkway beneath it was declared “out of bounds” for the female pupils: “l’allée défendue.”
³⁷

The garden—perhaps rare for a school in the centre of a
city—proved to be a haven from the noisy flurry of school life. It was a pleasant spot to spend an hour or two, particularly on a summer evening as lovely as this one. I was engrossed in a book, when I detected the aroma of a cigar, and a deep voice intoned over my shoulder: “What do you read, Mademoiselle?”

I showed Monsieur Héger my book: it was one of my French school texts.

“An excellent work, but not terribly riveting. Perhaps you would like to borrow this?” From beneath the folds of his paletôt, he produced a book and handed it to me. It was a handsome volume, mellow and sweet with age:
Génie du Christianisme
, by Chateaubriand.

“Monsieur! Thank you so much.”

“The young Victor Hugo once said, ‘To be Chateaubriand, or nothing.’ Have you read any of his works?”

“Never, Monsieur. But I saw this book in your library. The title intrigued me.”

“I think you will find the work intriguing, as well. Chateaubriand wrote it in an attempt to understand the causes of the French Revolution, and as a defence of the wisdom and beauty of the Christian religion.”

“I shall look forward to reading it.”

“When you are finished, we will discuss it, yes?”

“Yes.”

He sat down beside me on the bench. His very nearness caused my heart to flutter; I moved aside to make room for him. “Do you recoil from me, Mademoiselle?” said he, offended.

“No, Monsieur. I merely wished to give you space.”

“Space? I do not call this space. You have left between us a gulf, an ocean. You treat me like a pariah.”

“I do no such thing, Monsieur. I moved aside but a foot or two. I thought my previous position too central. I feared you might think I occupied more than my fair share of the bench.”

“Ah. You argue, then, that your motive was my comfort, rather than some aversion you have to sharing the bench with me?”

“Precisely, Monsieur.”

“Well, then, I accept this motive, although I do not sanction it. I was quite comfortable before. I am a small man, you are a small woman, and it is a large bench. In the future, there is no need for you to move.”

“I shall try to remember that, Monsieur.”

He fell silent, puffing on his cigar, his attention fixed on a bird hopping about on the branch of a nearby pear tree. He then said: “I find I must congratulate you, Mademoiselle.”

“Congratulate me? For what, Monsieur?”

“Your writing shows great improvement. You have, I think, some potential after all.”

His tone was sincere, but the twinkle in his blue eyes intended to humble; its effect was felt. Joy spread through me; I bowed my head to hide my smile. “Thank you, Monsieur.”

“You have, I think, great ambition for your writing, no? You wish some day to be known? To be published?”

“Oh, no, Monsieur! What ever gave you such an impression?”

“I see it in your words, on the page. I see it in your eyes, when we discuss the works of others: a passionate fire, which burns with felicity, or ire, or envy, depending on the quality of the work, and your mood.”

I felt a heat rise to my face; I felt naked; as if he had seen emotions that I had never meant to display. “I do love to write, Monsieur. I always have, since I was a child. But I intend to commence a school. That is why I am here: to educate myself, in order that I might become a better and more-highly-valued teacher.”

“A worthy goal. But teaching does not preclude writing.”

“Any ambitions I may have had for a writing career, I hold no longer.”

“And why is that?”

“I have been counselled on the subject by gentlemen whose opinion I admire.”

“Who are these gentlemen that you so admire, and whose counsel you so trust?”

“The first is my father.”

“Well, of course, you must accept the word of your father. Fathers
always
know what is best for their offspring, do they not?” The twitch of his lips, as he regarded me, belied his words.

“My father is a very good and wise man, and the others—they are great English writers and poets: Robert Southey and Hartley Coleridge.”

“I have heard of them. Do you know these gentlemen?”

“No. But I wrote to them. I sent them samples of my work. They both made the same reply: that although my work showed some skill and merit, they felt it was not worthy of publication; and in the case of Southey, to whom I revealed my gender, that writing was not a proper occupation for a woman, and I ought to give it up.”

He laughed. “I do not blame these gentlemen, if the work you sent them was written in a style as overblown, as execrable as that which you displayed in your first French compositions.”

Now I was annoyed. “You wound me, Monsieur. If you think my work so horrendous, why did you bother to congratulate me?”

“I congratulate you because you have improved! I saw, at the outset, that you had talent—great talent—which only needed direction and training. You have responded exactly as I hoped. You have grown. You write with more confidence. You have learned to impose discipline on your pen. Now, I am satisfied that you are on the proper path: the path to more spare and elegant prose.”

How quickly, I thought, he could veer from vicious critique, to restoring words of praise! My injured pride recovered just as quickly. “Have I truly improved so much, Monsieur?”

“You have. As for your Mr. Southey and Mr. Coleridge, I will tell you what I think. I think you should be very careful, where your writing is concerned, of taking advice from others, particularly men whom you have never even met. How can these strangers know what passions burn within you? What right do they have to quench that fire, with their advice from afar? Pay no heed to them, Mademoiselle—nor to me, for that
matter, if you strongly disagree with anything I say. I am only your professor; I can only instruct you in what I know. In the end, you must listen to the voice within you. That voice will be your strongest guide. It will help you grow far beyond anything I can teach.”

As July came to a close, the end of our projected six-month stay in Brussels was fast approaching. While Emily and I prepared for bed one evening, I said, “It would be a shame to leave this place, do not you think, when there is so much to learn?”

Emily glanced at me in surprise. “How could we afford to stay? Aunt Branwell’s loan has been used up. I would not like to ask for more.”

“Neither would I, but we might be able to
earn
our keep. We could teach English classes, and continue our studies in our spare time.”

“Teaching is not my strong suit,” replied Emily. Indeed, she had despised her brief, six-month tenure as a teacher at Law Hill school in Halifax. “But I admit, I would like to make more progress in French and German—and I suppose this chance might never come again.”

Excitement mounted in my breast. “Shall I ask the Hégers if we might stay until Christmas? If they say yes, would you be willing?”

“I suppose. But what would we do over ‘les grandes vacances?’”
³⁸

“I will think of something.” I smiled and hugged her.

I applied to Madame Héger, who spoke to her husband. I assured them that I had taught before for several years—although in truth, a schoolroom of forty girls was far more than I had ever been obliged to handle. At length, they agreed to my proposal. Madame dismissed her English master to the First Division, who had lately become unreliable, and took me in his stead. It was decided that Emily, who had been studying with the best
music teacher in Belgium, would teach piano to a certain number of pupils. For these services, we would be allowed to continue our devoirs in French and German, and to have free board. No salaries were offered; but we thought the arrangements were fair, and we accepted with alacrity.

On August 15th, the school closed for the summer vacation. The Hégers left for their annual sea-side retreat at Blankenberg, and all the teachers quitted the city. Nearly a dozen boarders, in addition to Emily and I, stayed at the Pensionnat. Over those glorious August and September days, we experienced, for the first time, how Asiatically hot a summer could be; and we had free time, at last, to explore Brussels in depth. I loved the pretty park, the vast, impressive Place Royale, and the clean, spacious streets. We toured the city’s art galleries, churches, and museums with delight.