The Key to the Bronte Works Part 13

She read:--

"THE NECESSITY OF HUMBLE SUBMISSION.

"Let your conscience be pure, and surely G.o.d will know how to defend you.... Learn to suffer in silence, without repining, and you will ... receive a.s.sistance from Him."

"What a truthful, becalming lesson!" observed Alphonsine; "you will read to me every evening some pa.s.sage of your _Imitation_, will you not? English sounds so sweetly to my ear when spoken by you. We will begin to-morrow evening, n'est ce pas?"

Surely this is M. Heger and his sympathetic, depressed English teacher.

There is in the opening chapter of _Miss Mary_ a long conversation regarding the departed governess Lagrange, and Madame de Morville (Madame Heger) avows she had been jealous of her, and that her harshness towards the governess had resulted in her abruptly leaving on a false plea of ill-health. Thus she says to M. de Morville:--

"I am speaking seriously to you of my foolish but most acute sufferings ... tandis que tu restais seul ici avec tes livres. You never suspected them;... I endeavoured to suppress them, to suffer no part of what I felt to transpire; for I must confess poor Lagrange was quite the lamb du bon Dieu, yet in spite of myself I sometimes broke out into fits of petulance and absurd irony, which wounded her. I saw it did by the sudden dejection of that excellent young person. But even this was not all."

"Louise! is it you who speaks thus? You whose kind, benevolent heart I have so often admired."

"Would you that I should avow something worse to you? What made me tolerate that poor Lagrange is that she was as ugly as the seven cardinal sins.... In fine, I cannot conceal from myself that the result of all this was that Mdlle. Lagrange gave up her situation on the plea of ill-health. ["Ah! she was not dismissed," said Mdlle. Reuter (Madame Heger) in _The Professor_, Chapter XVIII., when the Professor asked whether Mdlle. Frances Henri[65] (Miss Bronte) had left voluntarily. "... No need to have recourse to such extreme measures, I a.s.sure you."] Enfin, it faut bien me l'avouer, le resultat de tout ceci a ete que Mademoiselle Lagrange a demande a quitter la maison, sous pretexte de sante; veritable pretexte. For the rest I will do myself this justice, I would have suffered even to the end rather than have sent back that excellent girl."

The Hegers were surprised at Miss Bronte's sudden resolution to leave them, but she is said to have had her father's failing eyesight as a reason. "I suffered much before I left Brussels," wrote Charlotte, and this was in mind, not body.

"I have long concealed the greater part of these resentful sentiments from you," continues Madame de Morville, "notwithstanding the implicit trust reposed in you. I wish I alone had suffered by them. But no, poor Lagrange doubtless could not endure the thousand vexations and spites ('taquineries sournoises') to which she was subjected, and was thereby driven from our house."

All this should be read as in connection with the departure of Miss Mary, the other phase of Miss Bronte, towards the end of the book. "I think, however long I live I shall not forget what the parting with M.

Heger cost me," said Charlotte Bronte.[66]

Here is M. Sue's version:--

M. de Morville started, then regarding the governess with stupor, for he could not believe what he heard, he cried:--

"Quoi! Miss Mary, vous dites?"

"I say, monsieur, that I return to England, where I am recalled by my family."

The real reason why Miss Bronte left is given in the Lagrange pa.s.sages to which I have alluded.

"Partir! but that is impossible! A departure so brusque, si peu attendu!"

"Pray do not perceive, monsieur," says the Irish governess, "in this unlooked for departure any want of regard for you; ... il a fallu des raisons graves, very grave, to compel me to such a resolution."

"Partir!" wailed M. de Morville. "What! that this should be the last time that I should see you, that I should speak to you! But this is not possible! They do not kill a man thus by a single blow! For you well know that you kill me! You well know that I love you! Oh! do not say you were unaware of my unhappy love," he continues, "you know well enough what an irresistible charm has drawn me towards you, what happiness I have had to tell you my life, my secret thoughts, my wrongs even! A timid reserve followed the first entrancement, but it was the struggle of respect, of honour against a fatal pa.s.sion. Ah! the traces of that struggle, should they not have been too evident to your eyes! What! have not you divined the cause of that sombre discouragement which made me seek solitude where I isolated myself from all interests, from all affection? And those nights without sleep pa.s.sed in consuming my tears, exaggerating more the consequences of that fatal pa.s.sion!... What! you have divined nothing, read nothing of mes traits, in my eyes red with tears and sleeplessness? Mon Dieu! mon Dieu! to have suffered so much ... suffered so much, and not to have even the consolation of saying: She knows that I have suffered."

The reader of _Miss Mary_ will perceive throughout this scene in the extant and apparently re-written French volume that M. de Morville's unhappy love was that of an honourable and a loyal-hearted man, while the governess was also without reproach. (These extracts do not occur in the _feuilleton_ as published in English.) As he asks:--

"Is it my fault if in the monotony of my existence est tout a coup apparue a person whose talents, education, and character have been appreciated by all and by me.... Have I attempted to pervert your mind, to seduce your heart? No, no! I have suffered, suffered in silence [see my reference to the _Imitation of Christ_], suffered alone, suffered always. And my crime, what is it?... It is to make to you the avowal of suffering on the day when you go to leave me for ever a prey to incurable despair!"

Thus have we real insight into the state of affairs at Brussels when Miss Bronte left. We see the divining, jealous Madame de Morville--Madame Heger, of course--subjecting her to the "taquineries sournoises"; we hear Madame saying of her: "Ce que me faisait tolerer cette pauvre Mdlle. Lagrange, c'est qu'elle etait laide comme les sept peches mortels," and sneering at the excuse she made to leave the establishment, calling it a "veritable pretexte" when the real reason was Madame's jealousy and its causes. Oh, the bitterness of it! And now in this light read the carefully worded representation of Mrs Gaskell that:--

Towards the end of 1843 various reasons conspired ... to make her [Charlotte Bronte] feel that her presence was absolutely and imperatively required at home, while she was ... no longer regarded with the former kindliness of feeling by Madame Heger. In consequence of this state of things working down with a sharp edge into a sensitive mind, she suddenly announced to that lady her immediate intention of returning to England.

Something of the foregoing I gave in my article "The Lifting of the Bronte Veil" in _The Fortnightly Review_, and I have to thank the press generally for their kind acknowledgment of my important discovery. _The Spectator_, in consonance with others, says:--"Mr. Malham-Dembleby has found a _feuilleton_ by Eugene Sue which is curious, as it certainly indicates a knowledge of Charlotte Bronte and of Monsieur and Madame Heger at Brussels."

In the extant French copy Eugene Sue has given a dramatic version of the parting scene between "Miss Mary" and "Madame de Morville"--Charlotte Bronte and Madame Heger. The latter had surprised her husband and the Irish governess, _tete-a-tete_ in the lonely pavilion, late in the evening. Monsieur protests:--

"Madame," he cries, "... I will not permit you, in my presence, to dare to calumniate and outrage Mademoiselle Lawson."

Miss Mary asks him not to defend her, as she does not wish to be a cause of irritating discussion between them.

"That is charming!" cried Madame de Morville, with a burst of sardonic laughter--"Grace au bon accord du menage, mademoiselle would desire to continue in perfect tranquillity the undignified role she has played at my house!"

Her husband protests that she outrages one of the purest characters in the world, but the governess interrupts by addressing the wife:--

"Madam, suspicions so odious, so senseless, are unable to wound an honourable soul.... I reply nothing to these words, which you will soon regret. The two years that I have been here [Charlotte Bronte was two years with the Hegers] I have learned to know you, madam; and if sometimes I have without complaint [see the Lagrange pa.s.sages] suffered from the vivacite de vos premiers mouvements, I have also often been able to appreciate your goodness of heart."

"Enough, mademoiselle, enough! Believe you that you can dupe me by your hypocrisies and base flatteries? Do you think you can impose my silence by that pretended resignation?"

So the scene continues until Madame de Morville accuses the other of wis.h.i.+ng to take the affections of her husband. To this, the governess retorts:--

"You accuse me, madam, of wis.h.i.+ng to win the affections of M. de Morville, and of desiring to dominate at your house? Here is my reply."

And her reply is that she is returning to England.

"You go away!" cried Madame de Morville.... "No, no, that is a lie or a trick!"... Madame ... fut completement deroutee par l'annonce du depart de Miss Mary.

The latter says she profoundly regrets if she had caused "malheurs," for she had been the involuntary cause.

"Involuntary or not," cried Madame de Morville, "you are un _porte-malheur_, and thus have been two years, since your arrival here. I have said it to M. de Morville, who, par prevision without doubt, took at once your part against me.... And on whom, then, will that responsibility fall!... We were all happy and peaceful before your advent here, and to-day, when you go you leave us dans le chagrin."

To which Miss Mary retorts:--

"Ah! madame, le jour le plus malheureux de ma vie serait celui ou je quitterais votre famille avec la douloureuse conviction que mon nom y serait maudit."

There were, we see, conflicting views in Brussels social and literary circles, in the eighteen-forties, as to the degree of intimacy to which Charlotte Bronte and M. Heger attained. It is when we perceive the ambiguity of the relations existing between Miss Bronte and the professor that we recognize the fidelity of Eugene Sue's portrayal of Currer Bell's Brussels life. Even Charlotte Bronte herself, in _Villette_, published after M. Sue's story, relates that M. Paul Emanuel (M. Heger) said to her:--"I call myself your brother. I hardly know what I am--brother--friend--I cannot tell. I know I think of you--I feel I wish you well--but I must check myself; you are to be feared. My best friends point out danger and whisper caution." In Mdlle. Lagrange and Catherine Bell, Charlotte Bronte figures as represented by those who said ill of her; as Miss Mary Lawson, the Irish governess, she has "beauty, youth, and grace," which charms, Jane tells us, she possessed in Rochester's eyes. Of her, in the phase of Catherine Bell, we have many insinuations of a detractive character, the keynote to which is found in the fortune-telling incident, wherein Catherine is foretold she will be "married and not married"; while in Miss Mary Lawson we have a portrayal of _un bon ange_[67] of whom Madame de Morville is jealous, not without reason, though, to use Miss Mary's own words, she had been "la cause involontaire."

We must, therefore, set it to the credit of Eugene Sue that he placed two versions in the balance; and his evidence for ever sweeps away the illogical and unfair contention of some writers on the Brontes, that Charlotte Bronte may have cared for M. Heger, but that he, in his turn, had been only "intellectually" interested in her. M. Sue shows the att.i.tude of M. Heger was ever unequivocal as regards Charlotte Bronte; whether in her phase as "Lagrange," as "Catherine Bell," or as "Miss Mary Lawson"--she was loved by him. We now see Morton of _Jane Eyre_ was Haworth to Charlotte Bronte, and Thornfield, the home of Mr. Rochester, the Pensionnat Heger. And the flight from temptation at Thornfield and seeking refuge with the Rivers family were really representative of her leaving Brussels and returning home to her father and sisters. Obviously M. Sue wrote his _feuilleton_ to aid, maliciously or not, in breaking the dangerous friends.h.i.+p between M. Heger and Miss Bronte. Charlotte Bronte's works are testimony it was not only Madame Heger's harsh jealousy that led her to leave Brussels. In Chapter XX. of _The Professor_, published years after M. Sue's work, but written before it, she gives us the reason for this determination. By her Method I., Interchange of the s.e.xes of characters portrayed from life, Professor Crimsworth, who is alternately Charlotte Bronte and M. Heger, in this instance is Charlotte Bronte, while Mdlle. Reuter is M. Heger.

Crimsworth [Miss Bronte] says:--

I could not conceal ... that it would not do for me to remain....

Her [his] present demeanour towards me was deficient neither in dignity nor propriety; but I knew her [his] former feeling was unchanged. Decorum now repressed, and Policy masked it, but Opportunity would be too strong for either of these--Temptation would s.h.i.+ver their restraints. I was no pope, ... in short, if I stayed, the probability was that, in three months' time, a practical modern French novel would be in full process of concoction.... From all this resulted the conclusion that I must leave, ... and that instantly.... The Spirit of Evil ... sought to lead me astray.[68] Rough and steep was the path indicated by divine suggestion; mossy and declining the green way along which Temptation strewed flowers.

And thus at last do we understand why Charlotte Bronte asks herself as Jane Eyre when at home with the Rivers family--with her father, her sisters, and Tabby at Haworth:--

Which is better? To have surrendered to temptation; listened to pa.s.sion; made no painful effort--no struggle; but to have sunk down in the silken snare; fallen asleep on the flowers covering it ... to have been now living in France, Mr. Rochester's mistress ... I shall never more know the sweet homage given to beauty, youth, and grace--for never to any one else shall I seem to possess these charms.... Whether is it better, I ask, to be a slave in a fool's paradise at Ma.r.s.eilles--fevered with delusive bliss one hour--suffocating with the bitterest tears of remorse and shame the next--or to be a village schoolmistress [The Bronte school project was under contemplation in 1844], free and honest, in a breezy mountain nook in the healthy heart of England? Yes, I feel now that I was right when I adhered to principle and law, and crushed the insane promptings of a frenzied moment. G.o.d directed me to a correct choice: I thank His providence for the guidance.

And her fervent grat.i.tude is as sincere when in the same connection she says in _Villette_ of her confessor--her Fenelon[69]:--"He was kind when I needed kindness; he did me good. May Heaven bless him!" But we now see Charlotte Bronte did not suffer alone. Eugene Sue has given us an insight into the bitterness of M. de Morville's (M. Heger's) life, which resulted from their unhappy love, and doubtless those words of Heathcliffe to Catherine in _Wuthering Heights_ were uttered or written by M. Heger in reproach to Charlotte Bronte:--

"_Why_ did you despise me? _Why_ did you betray your own heart, Cathy?... You loved me--then what _right_ had you to leave me?...

Because misery and degradation and death, and nothing that G.o.d or Satan could inflict would have parted us, _you_, of your own will did it. I have not broken your heart--_you_ have broken it; and in breaking it, you have broken mine. So much the worse for me that I am strong."

Charlotte Bronte tells us in _Jane Eyre_ she loved to imagine she and Mr. Rochester had met under happier conditions; and if the meeting of the runaway lovers Charlotte Bronte repeats so faithfully in _Wuthering Heights_ and _Jane Eyre_ did not refer to a private meeting subsequent to the beginning of 1844, between her and M. Heger, or to their meeting again when she returned to Brussels the second time, then have we evidence of the fact that she at one time perhaps believed _Wuthering Heights_ would be never published. a.s.suredly nothing was sweeter to Currer Bell's fancy than a dream of the happiness that might have been hers, and well may she have written in the last sentences of _Villette_:--