It began innocently enough. At age twenty-five I was older than my classmates at the Pensionnat Heger, a Protestant among Catholics, a shy Englishwoman surrounded by gregarious, French-speaking Belgians. The only person who paid me any particular attention was Monsieur Heger, husband of the school’s mistress, a professor who instructed his wife’s pupils. His ruthless criticism of my essays made me cry; his praise thrilled me. He was a small, black-haired, black-bearded man of ugly face and irritable temper, but his keen intellect stimulated my mind. Soon my heart beat fast at the sight of him. In the evenings I chanced to meet him in the garden, where he smoked his cigars and we debated the merits of various authors. I thought of us as master and pupil, nothing more. Not until Emily and I returned home did I realize that I had deeper feelings for M. Heger.
My second voyage across the Channel occurred in 1843. I returned alone to Brussels, eager to take up a position as an English teacher at the school. But Madame Heger began watching me and behaving coldly towards me. I never saw M. Heger except from a distance. Our lessons and talks ceased. Madame had discovered I was in love with her husband, and she had separated us. I stayed in Belgium until my health and spirits failed, and I at last recognized the sin and futility of loving a married man. I returned home, broken and grieving. My punishment was years of writing to M. Heger, begging him for letters that never came. That I loved him, and he cared naught for me, still hurts me. I am still plagued by a sense of unfinished business.
Yet now, by a strange fortune, I found myself again bound for Brussels. I felt a familiar jumble of excitement, fear, and hope. I traveled as if upon a dark, turbulent sea of memory.
Mr. Slade joined me at the railing. His folded arms rested close beside mine; the wind ruffled his black hair. My heartbeat quickened for him as it once had for M. Heger.
“The sea refreshes even the most aggrieved mind,” Mr. Slade said in a quiet, musing tone.
I had discovered this to be true, and I wondered what experience had inspired Mr. Slade’s remark. “Whenever I am near the sea, I feel such awe, exhilaration, and freedom.” Those emotions surged through me now. “Its magnificence elevates me above my petty concerns.”
Mr. Slade gave me a sidelong look. “Such magnificence dwarfs mankind and shows us how weak we are compared to the forces of nature.”
“Indeed,” I said, “but for me, the ocean inspires a glorious sense that anything is possible. I feel myself to be in the presence of God.”
Mr. Slade’s expression turned remote. “I wish I could share your delight in His presence,” he said. “There was a time when I renounced God for His cruelty.”
His harsh words shocked and appalled me.
“There was a time when I wished never to cross this sea again because I couldn’t bear to face the past,” he said.
I saw that Mr. Slade was reflecting upon memories which were no less bitter than mine. The sea had worked some enchantment on us, bringing our deepest secrets close to the surface. Launched free from land and ordinary restraints, we could talk frankly.
“Did something go wrong in your work as a spy?” I asked.
A humorless laugh gusted from Mr. Slade. “Had I concentrated solely on spying, misfortune would have spared me.” Silence ensued while he contemplated the distant shore. Then he began to speak in a voice drained of emotion: “One of the men I spied upon was a French professor at the Sorbonne in Paris. He led a secret society that aimed to overthrow King Louis Philippe. I posed as an aspiring radical French journalist and was admitted to the society. The professor had a daughter named Mireille. She kept house for him and wrote political tracts about corruption in the court. She was the most beautiful, enchanting woman I had ever met.”
A note of yearning nostalgia crept into Mr. Slade’s voice. Much as I wanted to hear his story, I did not like to listen to him praise another woman for traits I clearly lacked.
“Mireille was a Catholic and a fiery, passionate Frenchwoman,” Mr. Slade continued, “while I was a serious Briton and ordained clergyman of the Church of England. She was a rebel, and I the agent bound to destroy her and her comrades. In spite of our differences, we fell in love.”
Though my spirit recoiled from hearing of his love for another woman, I felt a poignant kinship with Mr. Slade: We both had loved unwisely. I recalled his sister Kate’s allusion to a broken heart and presumed that this affair had not ended well.
“Mireille and I married,” said Mr. Slade. “We were very poor and lived in a garret, but we were happy together. Soon she was expecting our child. She didn’t know that I wasn’t what I seemed-until one night shortly before the child was due to be born. A man in the society had learned my true identity. He told her I was a British spy. That night she confronted me with her knowledge. She was enraged, hysterical. She accused me of betraying her and her cause. I tried to calm her and apologize for lying to her. I said that since we’d met I had grown sympathetic to the rebels, which I truly had. I swore that I’d never reported on her or her comrades to my superiors, as indeed I had not. I had betrayed my own cause for love of her. But Mireille refused to believe me. She called me a filthy scoundrel, then ran out of the house.”
Mr. Slade stood motionless, his hands steady on the railing, his manner stoic. “I let Mireille go because I was too proud to follow. I thought she would soon return and we would make peace. But the next night, the police raided the professor’s house during a meeting of the secret society. They arrested all the members. Mireille was among them. The police took everyone to prison. The professor was executed for treason. And Mireille-”
The muscles of Mr. Slade’s throat contracted. “She gave birth to our son in prison that night. He was stillborn. She died some hours afterward, hating me.” Mr. Slade paused and, with a visible struggle, regained his composure. “Never have I spoken of this to anyone.”
What shock, horror, and compassion I felt! “I am so sorry,” I murmured, inadequate to comfort him, yet glad he’d confided in me.
His gaze was fixed on some inner horizon. “Seven years have passed since Mireille’s death. Seven years during which I threw myself into my work because I had nothing else, though I’d come to doubt the morality of what I did. Mireille taught me to see the rebels as people oppressed by their rulers, the allies of my superiors. I closed my mind to those thoughts, and closed myself to anybody who might gain my affection and cause me more pain. But now I see the sun rising after a night I expected to last forever. I begin to think that God is benevolent as well as cruel; He compensates for what he takes away.”
Bemusement inflected Mr. Slade’s quiet voice. He glanced at me, but I instinctively averted my eyes so that I missed the look in his. He spoke in words almost inaudible: “I begin to find happiness and meaning in life again.”
My hands tightened on the rail. I wanted to believe that our companionship was the cause of his renaissance; yet I knew that his beautiful, beloved wife was my rival, even though she was dead. Now I faced a dismal fact: I was as much in love with Mr. Slade as I had been with M. Heger, in spite of there being as little prospect for requital. Perhaps the search for Isabel White’s master was what had diverted Mr. Slade from his grief; perhaps he endured my company only because he wanted me to draw the criminal out of hiding.
As with my previous journeys, what happened in Brussels was something I could never have anticipated.
We disembarked at Ostend, where we caught a train for Brussels. As we traveled across the flat, bare Belgian countryside, I gazed out the window. The sky was a leaden, uniform grey; the air was warm, stagnant, and humid. Pollarded willow trees edged fields tilled in a patchwork of green hues; torpid canals lined the roadsides. Painted cottages added specks of color to the serene landscape which gave no hint of the many wars fought here. First conquered by Julius Caesar, Belgium was later ruled by the Franks, by the Dukes of Burgundy, and then the Hapsburgs; these were followed by the Holy Roman Emperors of Austria and Spain, by France under Napoleon, and by Holland under the Prince of Orange. Belgium finally won independence in 1831, and it kept peace during the revolutions this year. Here I, too, had won a battle-to tear myself away from M. Heger before my love for him destroyed me.