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Page 9
For himself it would appear that M. H�ger has less cause for resentment,
for, although in "Villette" he (or his double) is pictured as "a waspish
little despot," as fiery and unreasonable, as "detestably ugly" in his
anger, closely resembling "a black and sallow tiger," as having an
"overmastering love of authority and public display," as basely playing
the spy and reading purloined letters, and in the Bront� epistles
Charlotte declares he is choleric and irritable, compels her to make her
French translations without a dictionary or grammar, and then has "his
eyes almost plucked out of his head" by the occasional English word she
is obliged to introduce, etc., yet all this is partially atoned for by
the warm praise she subsequently accords him for his goodness to her and
his "disinterested friendship," by the poignant regret she expresses at
parting with him,--perhaps wholly expiated by the high compliment she
pays him of making her heroine, Lucy, fall in love with him, or the
higher compliment it is suspected she paid him of falling in love with
him herself. One who reads the strange history of passion in "Villette,"
in conjunction with her letters, "will know more of the truth of her
stay in Brussels than if a dozen biographers had undertaken to tell the
whole tale."
Still, M. H�ger can scarcely be pleased by the ludicrous figure he is
so often made to cut in the novels by having members of his school set
forth as stupid, animal, and inferior, "their principles rotten to the
core, steeped in systematic sensuality," by having his religion styled
"besotted papistry, a piece of childish humbug," and the like.
Something of the displeasure of the family was revealed in the course of
our conversation with Mademoiselle H�ger, but the specific causes were
but cursorily touched upon. She could have no personal recollection of
the Bront�s; her knowledge of them is derived from her parents and the
teachers,--presumably the "repulsive old maids" of Charlotte's letters.
One of the present teachers in the _pensionnat_ had been a classmate of
Charlotte's here. The Bront�s had not been popular with the school.
Their "heretical" religion had something to do with this; but their
manifest avoidance of the other pupils during hours of recreation,
Mademoiselle thought, had been a more potent cause,--Emily, in
particular, not speaking with her school-mates or teachers except when
obliged to do so. The other pupils thought them of outlandish accent and
manners and ridiculously old to be at school at all,--being twenty-four
and twenty-six, and seeming even older. Their sombre and
grotesquely-ugly costumes were fruitful causes of mirth to the gay
young Belgian misses. The Bront�s were not especially brilliant
students, and none of their companions had ever suspected that they were
geniuses. Of the two, Emily was considered to be, in most respects, the
more talented, but she was obstinate and opinionated. Some of the pupils
had been inclined to resist having Charlotte placed over them as
teacher, and may have been mutinous. After her return from Haworth she
taught English to M. H�ger and his brother-in-law. M. H�ger gave the
sisters private lessons in French without charge, and for some time
preserved their compositions, which Mrs. Gaskell copied. Mrs. Gaskell
visited the _pensionnat_ in quest of material for her biography of
Charlotte, and received all the aid M. H�ger could afford: the
information thus obtained has, for the most part, we were told, been
fairly used. Miss Bront�'s letters from Brussels, so freely quoted in
Mrs. Gaskell's "Life," were addressed to Miss Ellen Nussy, a familiar
friend of Charlotte's, whose signature we saw in the register at Haworth
Church as witness to Miss Bront�'s marriage. The H�gers had no suspicion
that she had been so unhappy with them as these letters indicate, and
she had assigned a totally different reason for her sudden return to
England. She had been introduced to Madame H�ger by Mrs. Jenkins, wife
of the then chaplain of the British Embassy at the Court of Belgium; she
had frequently visited that lady and other friends in Brussels,--among
them Mary and Martha Taylor and their relatives, and the family of a
Dr. ---- (_not_ Dr. John),--and therefore her life here need not
have been so lonely and desolate as it has been made to appear.
The H�gers usually have a few English pupils in the school, but have
never had an American.
Some American tourists had before called to look at the garden, but the
family are not pleased by the notoriety with which Miss Bront� has
invested it. However, Mademoiselle H�ger kindly offered to conduct us
over any portion of the establishment we might care to see, and led the
way along the corridor, past the class-rooms and the _r�fectoire_ on the
right, to the narrow, high-walled garden. We found it smaller than in
the time when Miss Bront� loitered here in weariness and solitude.
Mademoiselle H�ger explained that, while the width remains the same, the
erection of class-rooms for the day-pupils has diminished the length by
some yards. Tall houses surround and shut it in on either side, making
it close and sombre, and the noises of the great city all about it
penetrate here only as a far-away murmur. There is a plat of verdant
turf in the centre, bordered by scant flowers and damp gravelled walks,
along which shrubs of evergreen and laurel are irregularly disposed. A
few seats are placed here and there within the shade, where, as in Miss
Bront�'s time, the _externals_ eat the luncheon brought with them to the
school; and overlooking it all stand the great old pear-trees, whose
gnarled and deformed trunks are relics of the time of the hospital and
convent. Beyond these and along the gray wall which bounds the farther
side of the enclosure is the sheltered walk which was Miss Bront�'s
favorite retreat,--the "_all�e d�fendue_" of her novels. It is screened
by shrubs and perfumed by flowers, and, being secure from the intrusion
of pupils, we could well believe that Charlotte and her heroine found
here restful seclusion. The coolness and quiet and--more than all--the
throng of vivid associations which fill the place tempted us to linger.
The garden is not a spacious nor even a pretty one, and yet it seemed to
us singularly pleasing and familiar,--as if we were revisiting it after
an absence. Seated upon a rustic bench close at hand, possibly the very
one which Lucy Snowe had cleansed and "reclaimed from fungi and mould,"
how the memories came surging up into our minds! How often in the summer
twilight poor Charlotte had lingered here in restful solitude after the
day's burdens and trials with "stupid and impertinent" pupils! How
often, with weary feet and a dreary heart, she had paced this secluded
walk and thought, with longing almost insupportable, of the dear ones in
far-away Haworth parsonage! In this sheltered corner her other
self--Lucy Snowe--sat and listened to the distant chimes and thought
forbidden thoughts and cherished impossible hopes. Here she met and
talked with Dr. John. Deep beneath this "Methuselah of a pear-tree," the
one nearest the end of the alley, lies the imprisoned dust of the poor
young nun who was buried alive ages ago for some sin against her vow,
and whose perambulating ghost so disquieted poor Lucy. At the root of
this same tree one miserable night Lucy buried her precious letters, and
"meant also to bury a grief" and her great affection for Dr. John. Here
she had leant her brow against Methuselah's knotty trunk and uttered to
herself those brave words of renunciation which must have wrung her
heart: "Good-night, Dr. John; you are good, you are beautiful, _but you
are not mine_. Good-night, and God bless you!" Here she held pleasant
converse with M. Paul, and with him, spell-bound, saw the ghost of the
nun descend from the leafy shadows overhead and, sweeping close past
their wondering faces, disappear behind yonder screen of shrubbery into
the darkness of the summer night. By that tall tree next the class-rooms
the ghost was wont to ascend to meet its material sweetheart, Fanshawe,
in the great garret beneath yonder skylight,--the garret where Lucy
retired to read Dr. John's letter, and wherein M. Paul confined her to
learn her part in the vaudeville for Madame Beck's _f�te_-day. In this
nook where we sat, Crimsworth, "The Professor," had walked and talked
with and almost made love to Mademoiselle Reuter, and from yonder window
overlooking the alley had seen that perfidious fair one in dalliance
with his employer, M. Pelet, beneath these pear-trees. From that window
M. Paul watched Lucy as she sat or walked in the _all�e d�fendue_,
dogged by Madame Beck; from the same window were thrown the love-letters
which fell at Lucy's feet sitting here.
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