“I fear your Papa and Mamma will be very anxious,” commented Reverend Mother a little drily, for it struck her that this little girl was giving excessive consideration to her surroundings and none at all to the no doubt lacerated feelings of her unfortunate parents.
Marguerite withdrew her eyes from the room and fixed them upon Reverend Mother’s face. “Yes,” she said. “I’m afraid they will. But it won’t last long now. They’ll soon have me back. But I’m sorry they’ve had to be frightened. It was wrong of me to go to La Baie des Petits Fleurs, and I won’t do it again.”
Reverend Mother smiled, pleased by this matter-of-fact statement of the case. No, not a heartless child, but one of those sensible people who do not agitate themselves when agitation can serve no useful purpose. Her whole heart had gone out to this child. She liked her courage, her honesty, her good sense, and some quality that she felt was best described by the word clarity. The sensitive nun felt this quality as the child’s particular atmosphere. It seemed to beautify what she looked on not merely for herself but for others. Because of the presence of the child Reverend Mother found herself delighting afresh in the orange glow of firelight upon her austere white walls, and noting as though she had not seen it before the beauty of the old Spanish crucifix that had companioned her through all her years of prayer. Such a gift of kindling awareness in others spoke of a spiritual strength unusual in so young a child. And she was so simple, so happy. “Une vraie religieuse,” said Reverend Mother to herself, and then, aloud, “Are you a Catholic, my child?”
“No,” said Marguerite decidedly.
The answer was so uncompromising that Reverend Mother found herself unable to pursue the subject.
“But I like it here,” added Marguerite courteously, conscious that her monosyllable had been perhaps a little abrupt. “It is like La Baie des Petits Fleurs.”
“And what is that like?” asked Reverend Mother, who could see no connection whatever between the two.
“It’s difficult to explain,” said Marguerite. “There are fairies and things there that you don’t see, the things you don’t understand, but yet being alive there is not so confusing as being alive at home.”
“. . . As being alive in the world,” corrected Reverend Mother. “You don’t mean ‘at home.’ Our home, our special country, is for all of us the place where we find liberation; a very difficult word, child, that tries to describe something that can’t be described but is the only thing worth having.”
“I’ve finished my milk,” said Marguerite. “Where shall I put the glass down?” The conversation had shot abruptly to a point far above her head, and she saw no use in wasting her time trying to get to a place that she was not tall enough to reach.
“On my writing table,” said Reverend Mother.
“You’ve been writing letters,” said Marguerite in surprise, as she obeyed. “I thought you only prayed.”
“Even in a convent there is always a certain amount of business to be seen to,” said Reverend Mother. “It was because of a problem in one of my letters that I went down to the chapel to pray, and so found you.”
“Could I help you with it?” asked Marguerite sweetly.
“Not just now, I think,” smiled Reverend Mother.
“But perhaps I shall never see you again,” said Marguerite.
“I should be sorry not to see you again,” said Reverend Mother, and she got up and came to stand beside the child at her desk. She opened a drawer and took out a little book of devotions that she had had in her youth, and gave it to Marguerite. “Your mother, if she is Island born, will not object to my giving it to you,” she said. “The Island born are all Catholic at heart.”
“No, Mamma will not mind,” said Marguerite. “Thank you.”
There was a discreet knocking at the door.
“Don’t forget me,” said Reverend Mother. “For I am your friend. And don’t forget Notre Dame du Castel, or where it is that we find our special country.”
“No, I won’t forget,” said Marguerite, and she stood with her head lifted, her hands behind her back, looking up into the face of the tall nun. They did not kiss each other, for Reverend Mother had no use for kisses, but their eyes met with the unflinching look of those who face a parting with full determination to meet again if possible.
Then Reverend Mother withdrew her keen glance. “Entrez,” she said, and Mère Madeleine came in with Sœur Cécile carrying the now dry blue frock, and the information that the Papa of the little cabbage—much agitated—was already at the convent door.
“Good-by, my child,” said Reverend Mother. “Kiss Mère Madeleine, put on your dress, and go with Sœur Cécile.”
Marguerite did as she was told, and Reverend Mother was left alone with Mère Madeleine rocking herself upon the stool in a sudden tempest of sobs.
“It is for the love of God that we deny ourselves children and grandchildren, ma Mère,” she sobbed. “It is for the love of God that we take the holy habit of religion. . . . For the love of God. . . . For the love of God.”
Reverend Mother, who disliked tears, swung abruptly away from them and looked out of the window at the shrouded sea. “Or man,” she muttered.
Part 3 William
O my Luve’s like a red, red rose
That’s newly sprung in June;
O my Luve’s like the melodie
That’s sweetly played in tune!
As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in luve am I:
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till a’ the seas gang dry:
Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi’ the sun;
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
While the sands o’ life shall run.
And fare thee weel, my only Luve,
And fare thee weel a while!
And I will come again, my Luve,
Tho’ it were ten thousand mile.
ROBERT BURNS.
Chapter I
1
There were few things that seventeen-year-old Marguerite enjoyed more than waking up in the mornings in the fourposter bed with the blue curtains that she still shared with Marianne. Life was so wonderful a thing to her that the return to it was sheer joy.
And this morning she knew she had some extra reason for being even happier than usual. Two extra reasons. Three. Four. A whole host of reasons. It was Midsummer Day and there was to be a Review of the Militia, and she had a new dress for the Review, white muslin with blue gauze ribbons. It was Midsummer Day and several battleships of the Fleet were visiting the islands. The Orion was among them, and William was on board. She was seventeen and William was nineteen and they loved each other. William did not know it yet, but she knew it. She believed she had known it ever since that day six years ago when the little girl that she had been then had stood on Le Petit Aiguillon and held out her arms, and William had gone into them. She had known then that William’s being was her natural refuge, and her being his, but she had been too little to think more about it, and William, if he also had understood, had soon forgotten. But deep within her she had not forgotten, and for six years she had gradually become increasingly aware that there was a bond between her and William that could never be broken. Whenever she saw William now, she felt that bond tighten and hold. There was no need to strain or worry. If William was not aware of it yet, he soon would be. This oneness with each other seemed to her such a vital thing that she could not think of anything in heaven or earth that could possibly come between them.
It was still very early, and Marianne was not awake yet. Gently, so as not to disturb her, Marguerite turned over on her back, stretching her long limbs luxuriously beneath the bedclothes, delighting in the strength and youth of her body, and let her thoughts slip back over the past six happy years in which her love for Willia
m had grown, and put forth shoots, and strengthened itself in the sun and air of their health and happiness, until at last it had reached this perfect flowering that was surely the loveliest thing that would ever happen to her.
What fun it had been getting William into the Navy! The struggle to make a success of the indolent William had fused both households, the Doctor’s in Green Dolphin Street and theirs in Le Paradis, into one ardent whole. They had all become one family, focused upon William, all doing their part to stir up his laziness and fire his ambition. And how hard they had worked! Skillfully handled by Marianne, Octavius had put hand to pocket again and again to pay for William’s training and outfit, and had thought from start to finish that he did so of his own volition. And Dr. Ozanne, goaded by Marianne, had entered into a heated but successful correspondence with his wife’s relations which had led to wires being pulled on William’s behalf and the attention of exalted naval personages being favorably directed to his person. And for six years Sophie had never failed to react as desired to Marianne’s suggestions about the dispatch of new linen to William, and books, and tuckboxes full of the kind of delicacies that make a boy popular with his associates. Marianne had been magnificent. If it had not been for her, William might never have passed a single examination or acquired any knowledge whatsoever. Any subject that he had had to study she had studied first, and mastered from A to Z. Then, she had coached him in it, brilliantly, remorselessly, standing no nonsense, making such use of her sarcastic tongue when he was slack or stupid that he had sweated like a nigger lest worse befall. She had driven him so hard that it was a wonder to Marguerite that he had not come to hate her. But he never had. He admired her energy and her competence more than words could say, and he never forgot all that he owed to her. He might be indolent, and easygoing to the point of weakness, but he was just enough to acknowledge gratitude where it was due and big enough not to dislike his benefactors. There was no hatred in William as yet. Lovingkindness to every human creature filled his nature to the brim.
And Marguerite, what had she done for William all these years? Not very much, she said to herself. She wrote to him when he was away but she was not very good at letter writing, she did not know how to express herself with a pen in her hand, her letters were stilted and dull, not like Marianne’s brilliant and sparkling epistles. And when he was at home she helped her mother with his darning, though she was not very good at needlework either. Apart from that, she thought, she had done nothing but love him. Once she had said to him laughingly, “What have I done, William?” and he had replied with answering laughter, “You’ve just been Marguerite.”
And neither of them had known what he meant by that. They had not known that by being Marguerite she had satisfied in turn each craving of his developing nature so easily and unconsciously that neither of them had been aware either of the need or its satisfaction. At first she had been the little sister who comforted his boyish sorrows and told him the Island fairy tales that both of them loved. Then a little later she had been the confidante to whom he told the stories of his prowess. Her admiration had been the mirror in which he saw his own strength and comeliness, and gained a needed self-confidence that Marianne’s sarcasm might have kept him from acquiring. But she had been more than this. It was because of her clear truthfulness that he loved things that were simple and clean, because of her delicate kindness and courtesy that his own kindness and good will were now very little tainted by his father’s vulgarity. She was his criterion in all things. All that he met in daily life he unconsciously measured against the fact of her and found it desirable or found it odious according as it stood the test.
But he did not know this, for the things that he owed to her were not so obvious as the things that he owed to Marianne. He took her as much for granted as the sunshine and the flowers. Just as it takes death to awaken us to the full stature of someone loved, so it took the deep cleavage between his life and hers that waited in the future to awaken William Ozanne to the knowledge that though he might owe all his material possessions to Marianne, he owed the spiritual ones to Marguerite.
The sunlight of a perfect summer’s day was growing beyond the blue curtains of the bed, and Marguerite pushed them aside and slipped out, for it was not possible to lie any longer in idleness; especially on this day of all days.
For the day on which the Lieutenant Governor reviewed the Militia was one of the great days on the Island. The Islanders were enormously proud of their Militia. It had been formed on the pattern of the Garde nationale of France and had been in existence for generations. Every able-bodied man on the Island between the ages of sixteen and sixty, gentleman or peasant, was in the Militia, and knew how to fire a heavy musket and wear his shako with an air. For situated as they were between those old enemies England and France, the islands had had a stormy history. In the old days pirates or invasion had always been upon the doorstep, and they had had to know how to protect themselves.
But now were the days of peace, and the Review had become not so much a rehearsal for war as a great social occasion and a whole holiday. It was over by noon and the rest of the day was given over to merrymaking, with bunting hung in the streets and flowery garlands decorating the houses, and, when night fell, illuminations in the harbor and bonfires and fireworks upon the hilltops.
Marguerite, as she slipped out of bed, heard her parents’ door open and her father’s feet on the stairs. He was a Colonel of Militia, and on Review day he had to get up early. She flung her pale blue wrapper round her and ran to the window that looked out on the street, and saw him come out of the front door in his brilliant scarlet uniform with the gold braid, his shako with the cock’s feathers set at an angle upon his handsome head. Pierre, their coachman, was holding his black horse Trumpeter, and he mounted and sat waiting to be joined by his neighbors, Trumpeter pawing the ground in his impatience.
Down in the town the bells were pealing, and from far away came the thunder of guns as the Fleet greeted the great day with a salvo. William on board the Orion must even now be getting into his uniform, for the officers of the Fleet would be the guests of the Lieutenant Governor today and appear at the Review in all their glory. Marguerite leaned as far out of the window as she could get, her nightcap falling back from her golden head and her blue wrapper with its white lace frills fluttering in the breeze, and called to her father and blew a kiss to him, and another to Monsieur Sebillot, just issuing from the front door of No. 5, and another to Monsieur Corbet, who was coming out of No. 10 across the way.
“Marguerite! Marguerite!” Marianne had awakened, and her shocked voice drew Marguerite back into the room. “What in the world are you doing?”
“Waving to the Militia,” said Marguerite.
“With nothing on!” said Marianne in horror.
“I’ve heaps on,” said Marguerite. “There’s yards of material in my nightgown and even more yards in my wrapper, and they are both of them much higher in the neck than any of my day dresses. I’m as respectable as a woman can be.” And she swung round to look at herself in the long mirror.
It always gave her quite a shock to see herself in the glass nowadays, for during the last year she had grown quite suddenly to look a woman. Gone now was the round, fat little Marguerite of the past. She had grown tall and slender, one of those naturally graceful women whose every movement cannot help being one of beauty. Her small head was proudly poised on her long neck, her clear skin flushed with health and tanned by the sun, her hair a riotous mop of natural curls, her eyes even bluer than they had been in her childhood. Her complete naturalness and her un-self-conscious delight in life shone from her like sunshine. “Why!” she ejaculated in astonishment, “I do believe I’m beautiful!”
“Very conceited of you to say so,” said Marianne tartly, thrusting a dainty little foot out of bed.
“Why?” asked Marguerite. “It’s not to my credit if I’m beautiful. The credit is God’s, and I like to give c
redit where it is due.”
“Now you’re being irreverent,” said Marianne, feeling for her bedroom slippers.
“Not at all,” said Marguerite. “I’m being grateful. Thank you, God, for making me beautiful. I give a lot of pleasure.” And she pirouetted round the room, a whirling pillar of blue and white and gold.
Marianne stood up and looked at her. Yes, she did give a lot of pleasure. She had had three proposals of marriage already from charming and impecunious young men, though she was only seventeen, while Marianne at twenty-two had had only one offer: from a widower. “For goodness sake stop whirling about like that!” she cried in exasperation. “How can I attend to my toilette with you behaving like a lunatic?”
Marguerite seized her festival clothes, already laid ready over a chair, and her brush and comb from the dressing table, and whirled from the room. With a sigh of relief Marianne shut and locked the door behind her. Marguerite’s toilette required no concentration, for every garment she put on fell into graceful folds about her long limbs, and hair like hers did itself, but Marianne’s needed a great deal. And not only concentration; it needed time and brains and money and artifice if Marianne Le Patourel were to keep up her reputation for being the best-dressed woman on the Island.
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