The Secret Adventures of Charlotte Bronte

25

I stood transfixed while my lips formed soundless words. I felt faint and dizzy; a violent trembling seized me.

“Is this how you greet your old teacher?” M. Heger snapped. His face took on the same fierce scowl as when he’d discovered mistakes in my essays long ago. “Shameful! Deplorable!”

Composure failed me: I burst into hysterical weeping. M. Heger’s expression softened, the way it always had after his savage criticism wounded me. He tenderly dried my tears with his handkerchief.

“Ah, petite cherie, do not cry,” he said. “The shock, it was too much for you. I should not have arrived without warning. My sincerest apologies.”

While M. Heger patted my shoulder and murmured endearments, I cried for anguish remembered; I cried for joy. And when it ended, I was calm as the sea after a storm.

“How did you know to find me here?” I asked. “Why have you come?”

“It is a strange story,” he said with a characteristic shrug. “This morning I received a letter from someone who did not sign his name. This letter said that my old pupil Charlotte Bronte was at the Hotel Central, and would I kindly deliver to her the enclosed message.”

M. Heger gave me a small white envelope. So dazed I was that I didn’t think to wonder at the meaning of this happenstance. I simply put the envelope in my pocket.

“I must admit that this errand for a mysterious stranger was just a-how do you say it?-a pretext for coming,” M. Heger said. “I wished to see Miss Charlotte, to know how the years have treated her.”

His penetrating gaze examined my face. I worried that I must seem aged and ugly to him. Concern, sympathy, and sadness played across his Gallic features. “Life has brought you suffering, oui?” he said. Then he smiled. “But the impassioned spirit still burns bright within you.”

His perception had always rendered me transparent. Now I felt a tinge of anger that he should treat me with such familiarity. “If you wanted to know of me, then why did you break off all communication between us? Why did you not answer my letters?”

Sorrow and guilt clouded M. Heger’s face. “How I treated you has long disturbed my conscience. I will explain, if you will grant me the honor of listening. Shall we walk together?”

M. Heger drew my arm through his, and we strolled the paths. It was as if some magic spell had transported us back in time to the garden behind the Pensionnat. The smoke from his cigar and the scent of the roses completed the illusion.

“Let us imagine that there was once a man who lived in this very city,” said M. Heger. “He was respectably married to a woman of impeccable character. He was a teacher, she the directrice of a school for young ladies. A fitting match, non?”

I nodded as I understood that M. Heger was telling his own story.

“Perhaps their marriage had been arranged for convenience,” M. Heger went on, in the same dispassionate voice. “Perhaps their souls spoke different languages. But they had four beautiful children, the esteem of their acquaintances, a modest fortune, and a comfortable place in the world. The man had his profession. He thought himself happy. Then one day the man met a new pupil at his wife’s school,” M. Heger said as we circled the gazebo. “This pupil was une demoiselle anglaise. She was little, poor, and plain, but such a rare, wonderful intellect she had!”

Awe inflected M. Heger’s tone, and I grew hot with embarrassment at my entry into the story.

“Such a thrill it was for the man to instruct la demoiselle anglaise,” said M. Heger. “She responded to his teaching as no other pupil ever had. She read, she wrote, she studied with a passion that matched his own. At first he thought his interest in her to be purely professional. When he noticed her growing attachment to him, he told himself it would benefit her education.” Self-mockery tinged M. Heger’s smile. “But alas, things are never so simple between male and female, are they?”

My heart began to pound in anticipation.

“The man believed he was only flattered by his pupil’s affection. He believed that the new meaning he had found in life was due to his success in teaching her. When they walked and talked together in the evenings, he convinced himself that he regarded her only as his star pupil. He did not notice that all his attention was for her, until his wife confronted him. ‘You have fallen in love with la demoiselle anglaise,’ she said.” Exhaling deeply, M. Heger shook his head. “And the man realized it to be true.”

M. Heger was confessing that he had loved me! This was shock upon shock, and my legs buckled. M. Heger hastened me into the gazebo and seated us on a bench.

“Why didn’t you tell me then?” I cried. “Why did you let me think you cared nothing about me and withdraw your friendship from me?”

“Ah, petite cherie, what else could I have done?” M. Heger’s voice was rueful. “To have revealed my feelings for you would have encouraged yours for me, non? Together we must surely have succumbed to temptation. I had no choice but to cast you off. And although I treasured every letter from Miss Charlotte, I could not reply, lest our correspondence provoke me to rush across the sea towards her.”

His revelation was balm to my hurt pride. A peaceful quiet enveloped us as the sunlight faded to a coppery glow and cool shadows gathered in the garden. “Time quenches desire and transforms love into affection,” M. Heger said, voicing my own thoughts. “Can we put the ills of the past behind us and remember its good? Can you forgive me?”

“Gladly,” I said with all my heart.

A look of worry persisted on M. Heger’s face. He said, “Yet I wish I had given you more than pain.”

I felt like a fairy tale princess awakened by the shattering of a spell. I thought of the stories I’d penned before we met-those pointless, rambling, overwrought tales that are fit only for scrap paper. I recalled the days of writing Jane Eyre and hearing M. Heger’s voice inside my head: Clumsy expression! Unnecessary verbiage! You must sacrifice, without pity, everything that does not contribute to clarity, verisimilitude, and effect! The suffering I endured as a result of my love for him now seemed worth the book which was as much a product of his teaching as of my own creation.

“You gave me something more valuable than you ever thought,” I said.

I told M. Heger about my literary success, and he was deeply gratified. When I told him of my business in Belgium, he expressed surprise, wished me good fortune, and clasped my hands. He espied that I wore no wedding ring.

“You are not married,” he said regretfully. Then a mischievous twinkle lit his eyes. “But perhaps your state may change.” He cocked his head towards the hotel. “Who is that gentleman over there who has been watching us?”

To my surprise, I saw Mr. Slade standing not far away. I had all but forgotten our plan for him to protect me and trap the criminal. He had apparently deduced that I was in no danger. I was mortified that Mr. Slade had witnessed my display of emotion, yet amused by his obvious perplexity.

“He regards you with a possessive interest.” M. Heger asked slyly, “Is he your suitor?”

“No,” I said, abashed.

M. Heger smiled in a manner that said he, with his worldly Gallic wisdom, knew better than I. “I wish happiness to you both,” he said.

We bade each other an affectionate farewell. M. Heger kissed my hand; then I stood in the gazebo and watched him walk briskly away. He paused to give Mr. Slade a formal bow. Then M. Heger was gone.

Mr. Slade hurried to me. “Who the devil was that?”

I felt as though I had journeyed into another sphere and abruptly returned, with an enormous weight lifted off my shoulders. “An old friend. His name is Constantin Heger.”

“How did he find you here?”

I explained. Now that my shock at seeing M. Heger had abated, the circumstances that brought about our reunion seemed more and more implausible.

“For your friend to be mysteriously sent to you can be no harmless coincidence,” Mr. Slade said. “Where is the letter he brought?”

“Here,” I said, producing it from my pocket. Mr. Slade sat on the bench beside me as I opened the envelope and removed two sheets of white paper exuding an unfamiliar sweet, exotic fragrance. They were covered with elegant handwriting in black ink. I read aloud:

My dear Miss Bronte,

Please forgive me for addressing you before we have established a formal acquaintance. Although we have yet to be introduced, you certainly know of me. Indeed, you ventured to Bradford, and to the Reverend Grimshaw’s Charity School, in search of information regarding myself. Perhaps our mutual friend Isabel White mentioned me when you traveled to London together, or in the book she gave you. Therefore, you cannot regard me as a stranger. And I, who have closely studied you in recent weeks, have learned much about you.

I know that your father is vicar of St. Michael’s Church in Haworth and that he was widowed upon the death of your mother in 1821. Your brother is the village wastrel. You were educated at the Clergy Daughters’ School in Cowan Bridge, Miss Wooler’s School in Roe Head, and the Pensionnat Heger in Brussels. You and your sisters have eked out a meager living as governesses.

I am intrigued that you, with your humble history and impoverished circumstances, should involve yourself in world affairs far beyond the realm of your existence. That you have followed my trail, and come so close to me, indicates that you are a woman of rare character. My interest in you, and yours in me, have induced me to take the liberty of sending you this message by way of M. Heger, the Belgian gentleman to whom you once sent many letters.

It is with regret that I confess to a previous attempt at contacting you. That was, as you might surmise, the incident at Leeds Station. My two colleagues disobeyed my orders to treat you with proper courtesy. Please accept my apologies for their rudeness. Now let us make our acquaintance under more civilized conditions.

Will you do me the honor of dining with me tomorrow evening? I wish to discuss with you a proposal to serve our common interests. I will send a carriage to your hotel at six o’clock. Should you decide to accept my invitation, all you need do is enter the carriage, and you shall be brought to me.

Much as I would like to include your cousin who is traveling with you, I must ask that you come alone.

I hope that tomorrow will mark the onset of a mutually rewarding association.

“There’s no signature,” I told Mr. Slade. “But can there be any question about who wrote this letter?” Horror filled me. “It was Isabel White’s master!”

“How extraordinary that he should communicate with you, just when we thought we would never find him,” Mr. Slade said.

I hurled away the letter as though it carried the plague. “He knows so much about me. Your true identity seems one of the few things he hasn’t learned from spies he sent to loiter in Haworth and question the villagers.”

He must have heard from the gossipy postmistress about my letters to M. Heger. My revulsion immediately turned to terror. “He’s been following me all along, waiting for his moment to approach me,” I cried. “He knows where I am. He’s here in Brussels.” I jumped up, and my frantic gaze roamed the garden, the roofs of the buildings surrounding the hotel, and the darkening sky.

“If he wanted to attack you, he would have done so already,” Mr. Slade said. “He means to lure you with this.” Mr. Slade retrieved the letter, which had fallen to the ground.

“I can’t go,” I said, aghast at the thought of delivering myself to the man whose minions had murdered Isabel White and Isaiah Fearon and who had almost killed my brother.

“And you won’t,” declared Mr. Slade. He examined the letter and envelope. “These give no clue to who or where the criminal is, but when the carriage comes for you tomorrow, the police and I shall follow it.”

“Will the carriage go to him even if I’m not inside?” I said doubtfully.

“If it doesn’t, we’ll arrest the driver and force him to reveal who his master is.”

I hated to find fault with Mr. Slade’s plan, but I said, “The criminal keeps his identity a secret even from his henchmen. What if the driver knows as little about him as M. LeDuc did?”

“He should at least know where he was ordered to take you,” Mr. Slade said.

“By the time you find out, the criminal might have already vanished,” I said. “We’ll have lost what may be our only chance to catch him. He’ll realize that I have tried to trap him, and he’ll go to ground.” Another possibility frightened me: “He may retaliate against me by attacking my family again.”

Mr. Slade regarded me with exasperation. “Then tell me what you think we should do.”

Despite my terror, I didn’t wanted to go home empty-handed, to face my family’s disappointment and admit that I was neither as brave nor capable as I had purported to be. I confess that I hoped to impress Mr. Slade, for what else did I have to offer him beyond my willingness to risk my life in his service?

“I must accept the invitation,” I said. Mr. Slade exclaimed in protest, but I told him, “When the carriage arrives, I will go where it takes me. You and the police can follow. I will lead you to the criminal.”