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Page 10
Leaves from the overhanging boughs were plucked for us as souvenirs of
the place; then, reverently traversing once more the narrow alley so
often traced in weariness by Charlotte Bront�, we turned away. From the
garden we entered the long and spacious class-room of the first and
second divisions. A movable partition divides it across the middle when
the classes are in session; the floor is of bare boards cleanly scoured.
There are long ranges of desks and benches upon either side, and a lane
through the middle leads up to a raised platform at the end of the room,
where the instructor's chair and desk are placed.
How quickly our fancy peopled the place! On these front seats sat the
gay and indocile Belgian girls. There, "in the last row, in the
quietest corner, sat Emily and Charlotte side by side, so absorbed in
their studies as to be insensible to anything about them;" and at the
same desk, "in the farthest seat of the farthest row," sat Mademoiselle
Henri during Crimsworth's English lessons. Here Lucy's desk was rummaged
by M. Paul and the tell-tale odor of cigars left behind. Here, after
school-hours, Miss Bront� taught M. H�ger English, he taught her French,
and M. Paul taught Lucy arithmetic and (incidentally) love. This was the
scene of their _t�te-�-t�tes_, of his earnest efforts to persuade her
into his faith in the Church of Rome, of their ludicrous supper of
biscuit and baked apples, and of his final violent outbreak with Madame
Beck, when she literally thrust herself between him and his love. From
this platform Crimsworth and Lucy Snowe and Charlotte Bront� herself had
given instruction to pupils whose insubordination had first to be
confronted and overcome. Here M. Paul and M. H�ger gave lectures upon
literature, and Paul delivered his spiteful tirade against the English
on the morning of his _f�te_-day. Upon this desk were heaped his
bouquets that morning; from its smooth surface poor Lucy dislodged and
fractured his cherished spectacles; and here, _now_, seated in Paul's
chair, at Paul's desk, we saw and were presented to Paul Emanuel
himself,--M. H�ger.
It was something more than curiosity which made us alert to note the
appearance and manner of this man, who has been so nearly associated
with Miss Bront� in an intercourse which colored her whole subsequent
life and determined her life work, who has been made the hero of her
best novels and has even been deemed the hero of her own heart's
romance; and yet we _were_ curious to know "what manner of man it is"
who has been so much as suspected of being honored with the love and
preference of the dainty Charlotte Bront�. During a short conversation
with him we had opportunity to observe that in person this "wise, good,
and religious" man must, at the time Miss Bront� knew him, have more
closely resembled M. Pelet of "The Professor" than any other of her
pen-portraits: indeed, after the lapse of more than forty years that
delineation still, for the most part, aptly applies to him. He is of
middle age, of rather spare habit of body; his face is fair and the
features pleasing and regular, the cheeks are thin and the mouth
flexible, the eyes--somewhat sunken--are of mild blue and of singularly
pleasant expression. We found him elderly, but not infirm; his
finely-shaped head is now fringed with white hair, and partial baldness
contributes an impressive reverence to his presence and tends to enhance
the intellectual effect of his wide brow. In repose his countenance
shows a hint of melancholy: as Miss Bront� has said, "his physiognomy is
_fine et spirituelle_;" one would hardly imagine it could ever resemble
the "visage of a black and sallow tiger." His voice is low and soft, his
bow still "very polite, not theatrical, scarcely French," his manner
_suave_ and courteous, his dress scrupulously neat. He accosted us in
the language Miss Bront� taught him forty years ago, and his accent and
diction do honor to her instruction. He was, at this time, engaged with
some patrons of the school, and, as his daughter had hinted that he was
averse to speaking of Miss Bront�, we soon took leave of him and were
shown through other parts of the school. The other class-rooms, used for
less advanced pupils, are smaller. In one of them, the third, Miss
Bront� had ruled as monitress after her return from Haworth. The large
dormitory of the _pensionnat_ was above the long class-room, and in the
time of the Bront�s most of the boarders--about twenty in number--slept
here. Their cots were arranged along either side, and the position of
those occupied by the Bront�s was pointed out to us at the extreme end
of the long room. It was here that Lucy suffered the horrors of
hypochondria, so graphically portrayed in "Villette," and found the
discarded costume of the spectral nun lying upon her bed, and here Miss
Bront� passed those nights of "dreary, wakeful misery" which Mrs.
Gaskell describes.
A long and rather narrow room in front of the class-rooms was shown us
as the _r�fectoire_, where the Bront�s, with the other boarders, took
their meals, presided over by M. and Madame H�ger, and where, during the
evenings, the lessons for the ensuing days were prepared. Here were held
the evening prayers, which Charlotte used to avoid by escaping into the
garden. This, too, was the scene of M. Paul's whilom readings to
teachers and pupils, and of some of his spasms of petulance, which
readers of "Villette" will remember. From the _r�fectoire_ we passed
again into the corridor, where we made our adieus to our affable
conductress. She gave us her card, and explained that, whereas this
establishment had formerly been both a _pensionnat_ and an _externat_,
having about seventy day-pupils and twenty boarders when Miss Bront� was
here, it is now, since the death of Madame H�ger, used as a day-school
only,--the _pensionnat_ being at some little distance, in the Avenue
Louise, where Mademoiselle is a co-directress.
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