Madame Héger did indeed hate Charlotte Brontë in her later years. This is not unnatural when we remember how that unfortunate woman has been gibbeted for all time in the characters of Mlle. Zoraïde Reuter and Madame Beck. But in justice to the creator of these scathing portraits, it may be mentioned that Charlotte Brontë took every precaution to prevent Villette from obtaining currency in the city which inspired it. She told Miss Wheelwright, with whom naturally, on her visits to London, she often discussed the Brussels life, that she had received a promise that there should be no translation, and that the book would never appear in the French language. One cannot therefore fix upon Charlotte Brontë any responsibility for the circumstance that immediately after her death the novel appeared in the only tongue understood by Madame Héger.
Miss Wheelwright informs me that Charlotte Brontë did certainly admire M. Héger, as did all his pupils, very heartily. Charlotte’s first impression, indeed, was not flattering: ‘He is professor of rhetoric, a man of power as to mind, but
very choleric and irritable in temperament; a little black being, with a face that varies in expression. Sometimes he borrows the lineaments of an insane tom-cat, sometimes those of a delirious hyena; occasionally, but very seldom, he discards these perilous attractions and assumes an air not above 100 degrees removed from mild and gentleman-like.’ But he was particularly attentive to Charlotte; and as he was the first really intelligent man she had met, the first man, that is to say, with intellectual interests—for we know how much she despised the curates of her neighbourhood—she rejoiced at every opportunity of doing verbal battle with him, for Charlotte inherited, it may be said, the Irish love of debate. Some time after Charlotte had returned to England, and when in the height of her fame, she met her Brussels school-fellow in London. Miss Wheelwright asked her whether she still corresponded with M. Héger. Charlotte replied that she had discontinued to do so. M. Héger had mentioned in one letter that his wife did not like the correspondence, and he asked her therefore to address her letters to the Royal Athenée, where, as I have mentioned, he gave lessons to the boys. ‘I stopped writing at once,’ Charlotte told her friend. ‘I would not have dreamt of writing to him when I found it was disagreeable to his wife; certainly I would not write unknown to her.’ ‘She said this,’ Miss Wheelwright adds, ‘with the sincerity of manner which characterised her every utterance, and I would sooner have doubted myself than her.’ Let, then, this silly and offensive imputation be now and for ever dismissed from the minds of Charlotte Brontë’s admirers, if indeed it had ever lodged there. [110]
Charlotte had not visited the Wheelwrights in the Rue Royale during her first visit to Brussels. She had found the companionship of Emily all-sufficing, and Emily was not sufficiently popular with the Wheelwrights to have made her a welcome guest. They admitted her cleverness, but they considered her hard, unsympathetic, and abrupt in manner. We know that she was self-contained and homesick, pining for her native moors. This was not evident to a girl of ten, the youngest of the Wheelwright children, who was compelled to receive daily a music lesson from Emily in her play-hours. When, however, Charlotte came back to Brussels alone she was heartily welcomed into two or three English families, including those of Mr. Dixon, of the Rev. Mr. Jenkins, and of Dr. Wheelwright. With the Wheelwright children she sometimes spent the Sunday, and with them she occasionally visited the English Episcopal church which the Wheelwrights attended, and of which the clergyman was a Mr. Drury. When Dr. Wheelwright took his wife for a Rhine trip in May he left his four children—one little girl had died at Brussels, aged seven, in the preceding November—in the care of Madame Héger at the Pensionnat, and under the immediate supervision of Charlotte.
At this period there was plenty of cheerfulness in her life. She was learning German. She was giving English lessons to M. Héger and to his brother-in-law, M. Chappelle. She went to the Carnival, and described it ‘animating to see the immense crowds and the general gaiety.’
‘Whenever I turn back,’ she writes, ‘to compare what I am with what I was, my place here with my place at Mrs. Sidgwick’s or Mrs. White’s, I am thankful.’
In a letter to her brother, however, we find the darker side of the picture. It reveals many things apart from what is actually written down. In this, the only letter to Branwell that I have been able to discover, apart from one written in childhood, it appears that the brother and sister are upon very confidential terms. Up to this time, at any rate, Branwell’s conduct had not excited any apprehension as to his future, and the absence of any substantial place in his aunt’s will was clearly not due to misconduct. Branwell was now under the same roof as his sister Anne, having obtained an appointment as tutor to young Edmund Robinson at Thorp Green, near York, where Anne was governess. The letter is unsigned, concluding playfully with ‘yourn; and the initials follow a closing message to Anne on the same sheet of paper.
TO BRANWELL BRONTË
‘Brussels, May 1st, 1843.
‘Dear Branwell,—I hear you have written a letter to me. This letter, however, as usual, I have never received, which I am exceedingly sorry for, as I have wished very much to hear from you. Are you sure that you put the right address and that you paid the English postage, 1s. 6d.? Without that, letters are never forwarded. I heard from papa a day or two since. All appears to be going on reasonably well at home. I grieve only that Emily is so solitary; but, however, you and Anne will soon be returning for the holidays, which will cheer the house for a time. Are you in better health and spirits, and does Anne continue to be pretty well? I understand papa has been to see you. Did he seem cheerful and well? Mind when you write to me you answer these questions, as I wish to know. Also give me a detailed account as to how you get on with your pupil and the rest of the family. I have received a general assurance that you do well and are in good odour, but I want to know particulars.
‘As for me, I am very well and wag on as usual. I perceive, however, that I grow exceedingly misanthropic and sour. You will say that this is no news, and that you never knew me possessed of the contrary qualities—philanthropy and sugariness. Das ist wahr (which being translated means, that is true); but the fact is, the people here are no go whatsoever. Amongst 120 persons which compose the daily population of this house, I can discern only one or two who deserve anything like regard. This is not owing to foolish fastidiousness on my part, but to the absence of decent qualities on theirs. They have not intellect or politeness or good-nature or good-feeling. They are nothing. I don’t hate them—hatred would be too warm a feeling. They have no sensations themselves and they excite none. But one wearies from day to day of caring nothing, fearing nothing, liking nothing, hating nothing, being nothing, doing nothing—yes, I teach and sometimes get red in the face with impatience at their stupidity. But don’t think I ever scold or fly into a passion. If I spoke warmly, as warmly as I sometimes used to do at Roe-Head, they would think me mad. Nobody ever gets into a passion here. Such a thing is not known. The phlegm that thickens their blood is too gluey to boil. They are very false in their relations with each other, but they rarely quarrel, and friendship is a folly they are unacquainted with. The black Swan, M. Héger, is the only sole veritable exception to this rule (for Madame, always cool and always reasoning, is not quite an exception). But I rarely speak to Monsieur now, for not being a pupil I have little or nothing to do with him. From time to time he shows his kind-heartedness by loading me with books, so that I am still indebted to him for all the pleasure or amusement I have. Except for the total want of companionship I have nothing to complain of. I have not too much to do, sufficient liberty, and I am rarely interfered with. I lead an easeful, stagnant, silent life, for which, when I think of Mrs. Sidgwick, I ought to be very thankful. Be sure you write to me soon, and beg of Anne to inclose a small billet in the same letter; it will be a real charity to do me this kindness. Tell me everything you can think of.
‘It is a curious metaphysical fact that always in the evening when I am in the great dormitory alone, having no other company than a number of beds with white curtains, I always recur as fanatically as ever to the old ideas, the old faces, and the old scenes in the world below.
‘Give my love to Anne.—And believe me, yourn
‘Dear Anne,—Write to me.—Your affectionate Schwester,
‘C. B.
‘Mr. Héger has just been in and given me a little German Testament as a present. I was surprised, for since a good many days he has hardly spoken to me.’
A little later she writes to Emily in similar strain.
TO MISS EMILY J. BRONTË
‘Brussels, May 29th, 1843.
‘Dear E. J.,—The reason of the unconscionable demand for money is explained in my letter to papa. Would you believe it, Mdlle. Mühl demands as much for one pupil as for two, namely, 10 francs per month. This, with the 5 francs per month to the Blanchisseuse, makes havoc in £16 per annum. You will perceive I have begun again to take German lessons. Things wag on much as usual here. Only Mdlle. Blanche and Mdlle. Haussé are at present on a system of war without quarter. They hate each other like two cats. Mdlle. Blanche frightens Mdlle. Haussé by her white passions (for they quarrel venomously). Mdlle. Haussé complains that when Mdlle. Blanche is in fury, “elle n’a pas de levres.” I find also that Mdlle. Sophie dislikes Mdlle. Blanche extremely. She says she is heartless, insincere, and vindictive, which epithets, I assure you, are richly deserved. Also I find she is the regular spy of Mme. Héger, to whom she reports everything. Also she invents—which I should not have thought. I have now the entire charge of the English lessons. I have given two lessons to the first class. Hortense Jannoy was a picture on these occasions, her face was black as a “blue-piled thunder-loft,” and her two ears were red as raw beef. To all questions asked her reply was, “je ne sais pas.” It is a pity but her friends could meet with a person qualified to cast out a devil. I am richly off for companionship in these parts. Of late days, M. and Mde. Héger rarely speak to me, and I really don’t pretend to care a fig for any body else in the establishment. You are not to suppose by that expression that I am under the influence of warm affection for Mde. Héger. I am convinced she does not like me—why, I can’t tell, nor do I think she herself has any definite reason for the aversion; but for one thing, she cannot comprehend why I do not make intimate friends of Mesdames Blanche, Sophie, and Haussé. M. Héger is wonderously influenced by Madame, and I should not wonder if he disapproves very much of my unamiable want of sociability. He has already given me a brief lecture on universal bienveillance, and, perceiving that I don’t improve in consequence, I fancy he has taken to considering me as a person to be let alone—left to the error of her ways; and consequently he has in a great measure withdrawn the light of his countenance, and I get on from day to day in a Robinson-Crusoe-like condition—very lonely. That does not signify. In other respects I have nothing substantial to complain of, nor is even this a cause for complaint. Except the loss of M. Héger’s goodwill (if I have lost it) I care for none of ’em. I hope you are well and hearty. Walk out often on the moors. Sorry am I to hear that Hannah is gone, and that she has left you burdened with the charge of the little girl, her sister. I hope Tabby will continue to stay with you—give my love to her. Regards to the fighting gentry, and to old asthma.—Your
‘C. B.
‘I have written to Branwell, though I never got a letter from him.’