It began in Vauxhall Gardens Read online

  Melisande smoothed down her own black garments with distaste. They were too big for her. "Leave room for growing," said old Therese. "It is better to have your gown too big than too small. It is better to have too much than too little of the good things of life." Melisande had answered: "But it is better to have a little of the bad things of life than too much, and perhaps this black gown is not one of the good things but one of the bad." Sister Therese had clicked her tongue at that. "Ungrateful child!" she had cried. "Why?" Melisande had asked, for she could never, as Sister Emilie had pointed out, leave well alone. "The stuff of my gown is rough. It scratches me. Should I be grateful for a hair-shirt. . . which is what my gown resembles?"

  Her clothes were ugly and she longed to wear clothes made of beautiful cloth such as those worn by the Englishman. He had smiled and seemed pleased because she had dropped her sabot. His eyes were of a grey-brown shade as the river was after a great deal of rain when parts of the banks had been washed away; he looked as though he rarely smiled; yet he had smiled for her. She would remember that when she was being punished.

  They had turned in through the gates and were crossing the path between the well-kept lawns. How cold it was inside the Convent! The bell was ringing. It was time for dejeuner. Melisande's heart beat very fast, for it had occurred to her that the punishment might result in her missing dejeuner, and she was very hungry. She was often hungry, but hungrier at this time of day than at any other. Petit dejeuner —bitter coffee and a twist of bread—was scarcely adequate, and it seemed hours since she had had it. But whatever the

  punishment is, she told herself, I shall think of the way he smiled at me and that he does not smile for everyone. She wondered what the young nun had thought when she was in the darkness with wall all about her—her cold dark tomb.

  Sister Eugenie was beside her. "After dejeuner you will go to the sewing room and there Sister Emilie will tell you what your punishment will be."

  After dejeuner I Melisande was almost rapturously happy. There was plenty of time before she need think of punishment; now she could remember the smile of the Englishman while she drank her cabbage soup and ate her piece of bread. She stood at the table, palms pressed together while Sister Therese said grace, and her eyes and thoughts were now on the steaming bowl before her. As they all took their seats she glanced quickly at Sister Therese at the top of the table and Sister Eugenie at the foot, and quickly looked away for fear they should see the triumph in her flashing green eyes.

  The meal was over all too soon. Dumplings, which she loved, followed the cabbage soup; and it was only when she was eating her last mouthful that her fears returned.

  Sister Therese was watching her. "Do not forget. To the sewing room."

  She hated the sewing room and, as she went, she thought of the tedious hours, of fingers sore through sewing rough garments for children like herself, and shirts to be sold in the market square. On a dais was a large table where was laid out that altar cloth on which only the best needlewomen were allowed to work. It was an honour to sit at the table and work in gold and scarlet thread, instead of at the benches stitching ugly garments.

  Sister Emilie said that to work on the dais was to work for God and the saints, but to work at the table was to work for mankind.

  Melisande had shocked her once by saying that she would rather work for neither; although she loved the bright colours on the altar cloth she would like to wear dresses embroidered with them rather than have to sew for God and the saints.

  "Sometimes," Sister Emilie had said, "I think you must be a very foolish or a very wicked girl."

  "Perhaps I am both," was Melisande's ready answer, "for la Mere says that we are all wicked and all foolish ... all miserable sinners . . . even the sisters and la Mere herself. ..."

  Sister Emilie had been at a loss for words, as her fellow sisters often were with Melisande. "Don't you want to sit on the dais and work on the beautiful altar cloth?" she had asked.

  "The needles prick my fingers just the same," Melisande had replied.

  But now there would be no question of working on the altar cloth.

  There would be some hideous task; and she would have to sit at the table and work and work until her back ached and her fingers were sore, to make up for breaking away from the crocodile and speaking to the Englishman.

  "Come here," said Sister Emilie.

  Melisande obeyed. Her eyes were lowered. It was no use smiling at Sister Emilie.

  "You have misbehaved once more, I am sad to hear," she said. "Now you will sit at that table. Take the top shirt from the pile. You will remain there till you have finished it."

  Melisande took the shirt. It was of the stiff stuff that she hated. She sat sewing; her stitches were big and uneven. There was blood on the shirt, for she had, of course, pricked her fingers. She carried out her plan and went over the delicious episode again and again.

  Soon she was speaking her thoughts aloud. "At least it is not as bad as being walled up in the chapel."

  "What was that?" asked Sister Emilie.

  "I am sorry, ma soeur. I was thinking of the nun who had a lover and was walled up in the chapel."

  Emilie was disturbed.

  She said: "That is not the way to show your penitence. You must not speak of such things here ... in a holy convent."

  "No, ma sceur"

  There was silence. Melisande went on stitching, still thinking of the nun and her lover. It was worth while to stitch this hateful shirt for the sake of the day's adventure. Perhaps having a lover—since it must not be spoken of, and it was the exciting things of life which were forbidden—was so much more wonderful that it was even worth while being walled up in a chapel afterwards in the cold and dark, there to stay through the centuries.

  In the cold bare room The>ese and Eugenie stood before the table at which sat the Mother.

  The Mother's hands were folded on her breast. It was a characteristic attitude when disturbed. She was sixty-three but she looked older; her face was wrinkled and almost colourless; her serenity was not easily disturbed over any matter other than that which concerned those whom she called her children ... the little ones who had been given into her care.

  Eugenie spoke. She said: "Afa Mere, it is most alarming. The child purposefully did this thing. To take off her sabots —that was wickedness to start with, but to let one fall at the feet of this man . . . deliberately! We do not know how to deal with such a matter."

  "He is staying at the inn," said the Mother, shaking her head. "It is unwise."

  "Mother, you think it is he?"

  "I think, Sister Therese, it must be."

  "But it was the child who made the encounter possible."

  "Yes, yes, but he must have shown his interest in her in some way."

  "There is something about the child," said Therese. "Yes, there is something."

  "A wantonness," put in Eugenie.

  "She is essentially of the world," said the Mother, and although she was silent for a while, her lips moved. She was talking to saints, the sisters knew; she would be seen gliding about the Convent, while her lips moved thus. All knew that she was praying to the saints. To whom did she pray now? wondered Therese. To Saint Christopher? Like the Christ-bearer, the Mother was seeking to carry a child across the bridgeless river, and like the saint she was finding the burden too much for her.

  She looked up suddenly and said: "Be seated."

  The Sisters sat and there was again silence, while all three continued to think of Melisande. She was thirteen. An impressionable age, thought Sister Therese, looking back over her life, an age when it was possible for the feet to be led along those paths which opened out to voluptuousness, to revelry and sin, winding on and on away from virtue and piety. Sister Eugenie, who had lived all her life in the Convent, was thinking that the simple solution was to whip the child and put her into solitary confinement until the Englishman left the town.

  Thirteen! thought the Mother. I was thirteen fifty years ag
o. Then there had seemed to be security and peace. She saw herself in her parents' mansion near St. Germain; she saw the schoolroom and the governess; she saw the servants when they had begun to show fear in their eyes. They had locked up the house with great care at night. They had whispered together. "Did you hear shouting last night? What if they should come. . . . Hush, the little one listens." She recalled the gardens—the trees in bloom, the fountains playing; she remembered the day when her father and mother had come riding there in great haste. "Jeanne . . . upstairs . . . get your cloak. . . . There is no time to lose." The whispering of the servants, the anxious looks, the haste of her parents . . . they were all like the ominous beating of drums that warned of death and danger. She had not understood then; she had run upstairs knowing only that

  that which they feared was about to come to pass. We are going to run away from it, she thought. We shall be safe now. But she was wrong. They did not run away. Before she was able to return to them there were shouts in the hall and those whom she thought of for years afterwards as the 'ugly people' were in the hall. She had peered through the banisters and had seen them take her father and mother; they were all over the house; nowhere was safe; nowhere was sacred. She heard the smashing of glass, the shouts, the screams, the drunken voices singing the song which she would never forget.

  "Allons, en/ants de la patrie, Lejour de gloire est arrive. Contre nous, de la tyrannie Le couteau sanglant est leve. . . ."

  And they had taken her beloved parents away to the Place de Greve where many heads were falling to that couteau. She had escaped with her governess who had taken her across the gardens to the copse; and the ugly shrieking people had not come that way. Little Jeanne and her governess had ridden through the darkness to the Convent Notre Dame Marie; and there she had stayed and lived ever since, shut away from horror, shut away from fear. That had happened nearly fifty years ago; and at the time she had been the same age as the little Melisande.

  At such an age a child must be carefully protected. The Mother knew what it was even now to wake in the night and see the ugly faces, the blood on a beloved face, the tearing of a woman's silk dress, to hear the screams for mercy. Through her dreams—like drum beats—she heard the notes of the Marseillaise. She hated the world because she was afraid of the world; she wanted to take all little children and bring them into the security of the Convent; she wished their lives—as hers was—to be given to prayer and the service of others. She would like to gather them to her like a mother-angel protecting them from the dangers of the world outside.

  But she was wise enough to know that there were some who did not wish to be protected. Melisande was one of these, and she believed they needed special care.

  Therese was thinking of labouring in the fields, of the ripple of Jean-Pierre's muscles. He had shown her his arms and said: "See how strong I am, little Therese! I could lift you up. I could carry you off. . . and you'd not be able to stop me." She had been thirteen then. Life could be dangerous at thirteen.

  The Mother had come to a decision. "It must be explained to him," she said. "To-morrow ycu, Sister Therese and you, Sister Eugenie, shall go to the inn and ask to speak to him. You must

  speak to him with the utmost frankness. Ask him if he has any special interest in the child. If he is the man, he will know what we mean. Tell him that it is unwise of him to come here. The child is quickwitted. If he shows interest in her she may guess something near the truth. He must be asked not to come here, disturbing her, unless he has some proposition to lay before us."

  The Sisters bowed their heads.

  "It is to be hoped he has not," continued the Mother. "The child needs security, a life of serenity. I had hoped she might become one of us."

  Sister Eugenie looked dubious and Th6rese shook her head.

  "No, I fear not," went on the Mother. "But she must be guarded well until she is older. To put ideas into a head such as that one, might be to put sin there too."

  "You are as usual right, ma Mere" said TheYese.

  "So . . . see that she does not go out whilst he is here; and, to-morrow, go to him and say what I have told you. It is the best way."

  The Sisters went out, leaving the Mother to hear again the shouts of the revolutionaries with the strains of the Marseillaise coming back to her over the years.

  The clock ticked on. The seams were long. Melisande divided them up in her thoughts so that the material was the town and the needle herself walking through it. Here was the church, here the boat yard, here the baker's shop, the cottages, the inn, the river and the ruins of the chateau. She pictured the baker at the door as she passed. "A gateau for the little one?" It was delicious. She could taste the spices which the baker knew so well how to mingle in his delightful confections. Sister Therese and Sister Eugenie had not noticed. The baker winked. "We will deceive them," said that wink. "You shall have cakes because you are the prettiest* the most charming of the children, and it pleases me to give."

  She could laugh to herself; she was far away from the sewing room. She went on past the cottages to the auberge, where he sat, smiling at her, without waiting for her to drop her sabot. He said: "You speak English so beautifully. I should have thought you were English. You shall leave the convent and come away with me." Melisande was remembering that last year a woman had come to

  the Convent and taken Anne-Marie away; the children had watched her leave in a beautiful carriage. "That is her aunt," said the children. "She is going to live with her rich aunt and have a satin dress trimmed with fur." Ever since, Melisande had waited for a rich woman to come and take her away, but a man would do very well instead.

  The door opened and Sister Eugenie came in. She went to the table and whispered a few words to Sister Emilie. Then Sister Emilie went out and left Melisande with Sister Eugenie.

  Sister Eugenie looked at the shirt which Melisande had been stitching. She pointed with a thin finger to the stitches which were too long and too crooked.

  "Take this book and read it aloud," she said. "Give me the shirt. I will finish it whilst you read."

  Melisande took the book. It was the Pilgrim's Progress in English. She read slowly, enjoying the story of the man with his burden; but she would rather have heard the story of Melisande, of how she came to the Convent when she was a baby, and how a rich woman —or a man—came one day to take her away to a beautiful house where she spent the rest of her life eating sweetmeats and wearing a blue dress trimmed with fur.

  Madame Lefevre saw the two Sisters coming towards the auberge. She paused to look through the window. Armand, sitting at the table, rose to greet the Sisters. Madame heard his loud Bonjour and the quiet ones of the Sisters. Armand was flattering and gallant as he was to all women. "I am happy to see you here. Our little inn is at your service."

  Madame did not wait for their reply; she went downstairs to see them for herself. She greeted them with warmth as Armand had done.

  "They come to see the English gentleman," said Armand.

  "Alas!" said Madame.

  "I have told the Sisters that he left this morning."

  Madame nodded. It was sad indeed; she was filled with melancholy at the thought. "He decided last night," she explained. "He came to me and he said: 'Madame, I must depart to-morrow.' He went off early in the coach."

  The Sisters nodded. They were secretly pleased; that much was clear. They thanked the Lefevres and went slowly away.

  Armand lifted his shoulders; he was afraid to meet Madame's eyes, for he feared he was responsible for the Englishman's departure. He would not tell Madame of their little conversation.

  But he would be back, Armand soothed himself. He would sit here and watch the children, and his eyes would linger on the little Melisande. She was English; he was English; that was good enough for Armand.

  Madame stood for a while conjecturing why the nuns had called; then she turned and went into the inn, for she had her business to attend to.

  Armand returned to his seat and his wine. On
e of the stall-keepers on his way to the market came by with a basket of produce to sell in the square; he called Hold, to Armand and sat down for a while to drink a glass of wine.

  The Convent bell began to ring. It would soon be midday. He heard the children's sabots on the cobbles. Sister Therese came in sight with the crocodile. Therese peered about, calling a greeting. "Bonjour, Madame." "Bonjour, Monsieur." "Bonjour, mes enfants"

  The children wound their way along by the river, their feet noisy in protest because the day was hot, and perhaps some of them remembered that yesterday the little Melisande had taken off her sabots and walked barefoot.

  And there she was, eagerly looking towards the auberge. Looking for the bird who had flown, thought Armand. Ah, he has gone, my little one. You and I have driven him away.

  The children passed on. Armand talked with his companion of the affairs of the town.

  Life flowed on, as it had yesterday.

  TWO

  A,

  .s the coach trundled along to Paris, the Englishman was thinking the same uneasy thoughts which always disturbed him when he made this journey. Each time he made it, he assured himself it would be the last. Yet again and again he came. He was drawn there by the quaint figure of a girl in ill-fitting black clothes with marvellous green eyes which brought him memories.

  What use was there in making these journeys ? None. What did he get from them but the anguish of memories, the reminder of an episode which was best forgotten and which he could have shelved

  with an easy conscience? He was rich, and wise enough to know that the most reliable salve for an uneasy conscience which the world could provide was money. He need never have concerned himself with Melisande again. He should have resisted the impulse to see her in the first place. If he had, there would have been none of these pointless journeys. And he had betrayed himself. That was disquieting. An inquisitive old innkeeper, on whom he had looked as a useful source of information, had probed his secret; and it was not what a man did that could bring trouble; it was what others discovered of his doings which chilled the stomach.