Becoming Jane Eyre Page 4

  She says nothing, and the sound of her scribbling continues anew and gratingly.

  “Do you ever hear from your professor, your French Master?” he whispers into the dark. She answers not at all, and continues her scribbling.

  “What is it, dear?” he asks. “Is there something amiss?” But still she does not respond. He feels her move away.

  He would like so much to say something to comfort her, lift this burden of sadness from her shoulders, as he would have liked to help his dying wife. The truth is, he realizes, he still doesn’t know the right words.

  He shifts his weight on the bed. He says, “At least I gave you that time in Brussels, first with Emily and then alone.”

  Does he know what he is saying? she wonders. Does he remember how they paid for the journey themselves with their aunt’s gift? She knows how difficult it has always been for him to let them go.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Jealousy

  A letter arrived at the school in Brussels one afternoon after tea, telling of her aunt’s illness. She and Emily would have to return to Haworth immediately. She had no choice. She would have to leave her Master.

  They arrived at the parsonage only to find her aunt already dead. She remembers the dull days that followed, her beloved home now a desert to her, and her longing to return to Brussels. Then her Master’s kind letter arrived, summoning them back, offering employment as teachers. She remembers her elation on her return to the school, alone, leaving Emily behind with her father.

  She had given her Master English lessons. She had become his maître or rather his maîtresse in the schoolroom. She had scolded him! How she had laughed at his accent! What pleasure she had in being in charge of him, in the reversal of roles, just as she enjoys it now in this dark room with her helpless father.

  Suddenly, he had broken off the English lessons. “I have too much to do,” he had said, not looking her in the eye. “We cannot be selfish. You must devote your time to others, not to me. You are too exclusive. Make friends with some of the other teachers, or even the girls. It would be good for them and for you,” and he hurried from the room.

  How could he expect her to make friends with the other teachers—all silly, superficial women without gifts! Surely he knew that. They had often laughed together over them. As for the students, they were unworthy of her interest, stolid and vain. In each of them she saw nothing but false sentiment, stupidity. How could he suddenly expect her to take an interest in them? She was furious. Yet she could not stop watching him.

  At moments he looked so young in a belted blouse and cheerful hat, surrounded by his gaggle of girls. Was his colorless face, the massive brow and dark eyebrows, without charm? Did she stare at him and take pleasure in the staring? Was it such a pleasure as a thirsty man feels at drinking a glass of fresh water in a desert? Did he still seem ugly to her? No, no, reader, he did not, he did not at all, just as her father lying beside her still impresses her with his white hair, his dignity, and courage. She breathes softly on his forehead, flutters his hair, and he mutters her name.

  But her black swan hardly seemed to notice her, though she had come back from Haworth because of him, with the hope of sharing her work with him. She had brought her writing with her, her precious Angrian chronicles, which she had dared to show him.

  Often now he ignored her or even berated her. He would scowl and stamp his small, booted foot. “How could you write something of the sort!” He accused her of melodrama, of a ridiculous romanticism. “What about the three unities?” he asked her. “What about understatement? What about control!”

  After several days of coldness and unbearable silence, of scowls and scorn, she had seen him rushing down the pergola, which ran along the edge of the garden. It was an early spring morning. A breeze blew his cloak about his legs and the dust up in the air. She had caught up with him, clutched onto his arm, drawn him close, looked into his eyes. She had so much wanted to cry out, “I must talk to you. You cannot treat me thus—Do you think I don’t feel what other people do, that I don’t long for the same things as you! I cannot bear your silence, your coldness, your inhumanity! I cannot live without a kind word from you. Did you not say we would be friends, friends pour toujours! How can I forget what has happened between us? Is that too much to ask of you? A moment of friendship? A kind word?” But she knew they were words she would immediately regret, words a woman could not afford to use with a man, let alone a married one. She had just stood there wordlessly, biting her lip, tears in her downcast eyes.

  Monsieur H. had drawn himself up and looked over his shoulders to see if anyone was nearby. There was a smell of dust, honeysuckle, and lilac in the air. “What is it?” he had hissed impatiently, freeing himself from her grasp, dusting himself off, as though she were dust, as though her grasp had soiled him.

  “What is the matter with you?” he said, and when she could not speak, the tears falling silently down her cheeks, “For goodness’ sake, Mademoiselle, control yourself! Above all, self-control.”

  What had hurt most was her sense that this scene, or some aspect of her behavior, had been reported to the wife. She had been discussed. Perhaps this was not the first time something of this kind had occurred with an overly enthusiastic student. She had imagined the couple lying quietly side by side that night in their bed, a splendid spring night, the windows open on the garden, all the night odors of sweetbriar and southernwood, of jasmine, and early-blooming roses in the air. She saw him lying with his wife’s hand on his arm, her warm, milk-full breasts half-exposed in her pink peignoir, her raven locks loose and glossy. She was nestling against his wide chest, while another new baby, a little girl this time—how rapidly and easily the woman produced them, an endless supply—slept sweetly in the cot at the foot of the bed. She could hear the little snuffling breath.

  “I can see something is wrong. Something is bothering you. Is it some student? Some awkwardness with one of the girls?” Charlotte sees the wife push the thick hair back from his forehead, caress his square forehead and dark brows gently, letting her hand linger on his chest. She presses her breasts against his side, entwines her legs with his. She sighs and adds, “You know I can always help you when it is necessary, my darling,” and shifts her hips closer to his.

  Then he sighs, closes his book with a snap, turns to her, and repeats that it is nothing really—un rien du tout. Though his voice wavers, and though he tells her otherwise, she has already won.

  “Nothing at all? Are we so sure?” she says half-playfully, wagging a finger while she leans her warm body against him. And then he confesses. It all comes out confusedly. There is, indeed, a student who has some sort of silly crush on him, once again.

  “Who is it, my dear?”

  He hesitates an instant, but she looks at him inquiringly, and he admits, “One of the two English sisters, the elder one—a lonely, plain girl.”

  “I suspected something of the sort,” she says. “That girl is too ambitious. I could see that. She needs to be put in her rightful place.”

  “Why does this happen to me?” he asks in all innocence, shrugging and waving his hands in the air as he does in the classroom.

  “It’s because you’re too good, Constantin, my dear, I keep telling you. You give too much of yourself in the classroom. You should never have consented to read that girl’s work, to encourage her. A mistake I warned you against, you will remember.” And Charlotte hears her add, in her practical Belgian way, “Don’t worry; I’ll take care of it. All you have to do is to promise me to ignore the girl completely.”

  “How can I do that? She is my student, a paying student, after all.”

  “Not paying that much at this point—we are paying her for her teaching. She gets her room and board free, after all. She only pays for her laundry. You can treat her with polite coldness—nothing more. Promise me, will you?” and she looks him in the eye.

  “Of course, of course, my dear.”

  He had kept his word.

&nbs
p; After that, his wife took things into her capable Belgian hands. She watched Charlotte’s every movement, set her spy on her—the other young French teacher—a vain, superficial woman who was, no doubt, in her pay. She saw the two of them whispering together, sharing information about her, surely. Perhaps Madame H. spied herself, shuffling surreptitiously along the hallways like the ladies at the French court, in her soft, silent Belgian slippers, her dark clothes, appearing suddenly without warning, her face wreathed in false smiles, her mouth in caressing words.

  Charlotte was certain someone had foraged in her intimate things, hunted through her underclothes, found the pressed flower he had given her between the leaves of her book and replaced it between other pages, even read her few precious letters from home. How dared she touch her most cherished letters! She could smell the wife’s, or perhaps it was the French teacher’s, cloying perfume in her things, while all the while the wife maintained a polite, even amiable front. How she came to hate her, her falseness, her hypocrisy, her sournoiserie. How could he have married her?

  Now her teacher moved away whenever she came near, turned his back on her and rushed down the stairs, as though she had a contagious disease.

  Madame H. had sought her out and attempted to extract a confession from her. “You seem a little sad, a little pale, my dear. I do hope nothing is wrong. Is there anything we can do? You must come and sit with me in the evening like this in our sitting room if you feel lonely. I know what loneliness is like, and homesickness, or a little trouble of the heart, perhaps?” She stroked the white sofa where she and Emily had sat with such delight that first evening at the school. Now she leaned so near that Charlotte could feel the soft contour of her breast brush against her and smell the cloying, nauseating perfume.

  Charlotte wondered what other functions she served in this woman’s marriage? She was tempted to speak her mind as she sat by the wife. She watched her sew in the sitting room, where she knew Monsieur H. had sat, where she could still smell the lingering odor of his cigar, where she might even still hope to catch a glimpse of him. She was tempted to unburden herself to this woman who was surely his confidante. She wanted to shout at her: I know you hate me, stop pretending! How can you be such a hypocrite? I know you are jealous of me, of your husband’s attention to me.You are jealous of my work, my writing, my gift, which he has recognized. I know you would like to keep me teaching forever, paying me a pittance for my hard work! But she knew to keep quiet, as now she denies any trouble to her father when he asks her, “Charlotte, dear, is anything troubling you?”

  “Just a headache, a little fatigue,” she says. She lies badly, as she did in Brussels, knowing she would suffer even more if she did speak, like a child drawn to a bakery window, standing outside and staring with longing at the sight of the plump, warm, and redolent bread.

  With the school emptied for the summer, the H.’s gone to the seaside, the empty halls and dormitories rang with the hollow sound of her steps. She sat through those long, bright, silent hours and felt she could not have been more desolate if she had been abandoned in the wastes of the Sahara without water or food. Sometimes she felt she would not be able to bear the solitude. Her busy brain worked restlessly, and her thoughts returned ceaselessly to him. Please, God, let him think of me. Let him come to me! She had so few things to think about, and he had so many! While she thought of him at every moment, she imagined him surrounded by his family, his wife, his friends, his mind on other things. Unfair! Unfair!

  Every detail of the old school is imprinted indelibly on her mind as she sits quietly beside her father’s bedside writing in the half dark about Jane. Charlotte sees the Madonna in the alcove, the flowers at her feet, where she found herself whispering desperate prayers; the white bed hangings that swayed in the sultry summer air; the garden above all in the moonlight as the honeydew fell and the gloaming gathered, with its flowering parterres and fruit trees and the smell of his cigar that lingered and which she breathed in rapturously.

  She was certain she smelled it one autumn morning when school had resumed. She lifted the lid of the desk, already scenting the precious odor. She imagined his hand lifting up the desk, rummaging freely yet gently, fingering her things. For there, among the books and pencils, her cahiers, she found the welcome traces of his presence, signs and stains he had left behind, the order of things altered, a nib dipped into ink, a pencil sharpened. There she found the book in German he had left her, signed for her on its flyleaf. He had thought of her. He had not forgotten her completely. He had dared to disobey his wife. How her heart lifted up with joy, the whole classroom, filled with the dull girls, suddenly bright and shining. She was obliged to step into the garden for a moment, to draw breath.

  She kept hoping he would come to her. She lingered there in the early mornings, staring at the leaves, the shrubs, the birds, or late at night, gazing up at the stars, longing to see something more, the dark shadow of a human figure of a certain mold and height. She could not bring herself to leave, to move on. She was stalled.

  All of this comes back to her in Manchester. This is the time in her life when she writes hour after hour, day after day. She realizes the working conditions are the most perfect she will ever find: silence in company, perpetual night. These rooms in this strange town allow her to write freely, but they will soon be lost to her. As soon as her father begins to recover, she will take him back to her sisters, her brother, Haworth. She must hurry.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Nurse

  What the nurse worries about, as she sits by the old man’s side with her sewing, is the provisions. She is feeling peckish but smells no reassuring morning aromas: no rashers or sausage frying. She could do with something substantial for her breakfast. She imagines a nice kipper, a soft poached egg, black pudding, or even a bit of bread, fried in the drippings, but is afraid there will be only Scottish oatmeal again, and that not in great quantity.

  She wonders if they have ordered sufficient amounts. She doubts the old servant provided by the doctor will serve up enough food. Last night’s dinner was a disaster: some sort of cod served almost cold in a watery, white sauce and sprinkled with a few capers. Do these people realize how much food will be necessary for their sojourn together over several weeks? she thinks, watching the daughter enter the room and take up her seat in the alcove with her notebook.

  The daughter seems inexperienced, or certainly betrays a lamentable disinterest in the managing of household matters, things that any woman should surely be familiar with. When she attempted to give her certain excellent recipes, she had been ignored. Yet she is no slip of a girl. What is wrong with her? She spends her whole day with her nose in that notebook. There are three of them, after all—four, counting Biddy, the servant—and they have not ordered much meat or poultry. She does not relish the thought of eating potatoes and porridge for the next five weeks. She has a hearty appetite and as well as her kipper for breakfast or even a bit of steak and kidney pie, she likes a juicy mutton chop with a mushroom for her dinner and a pint of porter to accompany it. She considers a certain amount of meat and poultry necessary for the work she has to accomplish. In the daughter’s place she would have lain on a loin of lamb, cooked in advance, a couple of pig’s trotters, and a few mince pies in the larder.

  She lifts a cup of tea to her patient’s dry lips, and he sips it. She says, “A little broth, perhaps?” and spoons some of the tasteless stuff between her poor patient’s lips. The nurse wishes she could leave this small, shabby house, these silent people, and go to her three little girls. She would like to hug them, swing them around in the air, hear them laugh. She thinks of her husband, a bricklayer, who was killed in a fall from a stepladder two years before. She remembers the sweet taste of his mouth.

  Her patient nibbles at the piece of bread and butter she offers up to him, but after the first taste refuses the sliver of cold mutton. Almost gagging, he pushes away the offered food impatiently. She rebukes him for his recalcitrance.

  �
��But you must keep up your strength, Reverend.”

  She slips the pan beneath the blanket, where his skinny, old-man shanks lie. She waits by the door, turning her gaze away. No doubt he feels her presence, waiting, but now, apparently, the urge has disappeared. Nothing seems to be happening. She is used to this. She remains where she is while he strains to produce a small offering for her, to take advantage of this opportunity she has given him. She hears a slight rustle and drop. She goes over to the bed, catching a glimpse of his body as she lifts the blanket to reclaim the pan. He lies stiffly on the enamel, shivering, his worm of a member drooping between his legs. She wipes him clean and removes the pan.

  Will she be exposed to such helpless humiliation in her old age? Will she, too, be deprived of the most elemental dignity, like this old man? It reminds her of her early dreams of nakedness, of being stripped of her clothes in a public place. The thought is horrifying now, but perhaps she will not mind by then. She remembers how she felt when her babies were born. She did not care who saw her naked or even what happened at that moment to the baby, the little tadpole swimming its way into life.

  There are these narrow stairs she must negotiate. Up and down, up and down, several times a day, bedpan in hand, she risks breaking her neck. Her boots pummel the floor-boards. She presumes they will need her to stay for the five or six weeks the old man will have to lie here, flat on his back. Or so Dr. Wilson has told her.

  The nurse is not sure how long she will want to stay on here, whether or not the food is sufficient. She walks across the small back garden, a few zinnias strangled in their dry beds, a dusty chestnut tree, thin cypresses against a wall. She looks up into the leaves. The edges are brown. She feels a shift in the weather, the sun obscured by cloud. Trapped heat rises from the earth. The privy is at some distance from the main building, at the back of the narrow house. The nurse empties the pan and then relieves herself while she is at it, sitting for a moment despite the strong smell and contemplating her solid black boots, listening to the buzzing of a trapped fly, a moment of repose.