Time for Silence

“It must be wonderful for you.”

She nodded, blissfully serene.

I went away thinking about her.

One day when Miss Carruthers took us on another tour of Mons, we had a chance to visit the shops again and I bought a baby’s jacket. I proposed to take it to the woman in the cottage. I had discovered her name. It was Marguerite Plantain. Jacques Plantain had been employed on the school estate for many years, and his father and grandfather had worked for the Rochères before there had been a school.

Marguerite was delighted with the jacket. She told me how she enjoyed our little chats over the wall. I was invited into the cottage on that occasion. It was very small, with two rooms upstairs, two downstairs and a washhouse at the back.

She took great pleasure in showing me the things she had prepared for the baby. I was very interested and told her that I hoped it would arrive before I left for the summer holidays.

“School closes at the very end of July,” she said. “Leastways it always has. Well, the baby should be here a week or so before that.”

“I shall want to know whether it’s a girl or boy. I’d like a little girl.”

“You would!” She laughed at me. “Well, it is for the good God to decide that. Jacques wants a boy, but I reckon he’ll be mightily pleased with whatever is sent us. All I want is to hold this little one in my arms.”

Spring was passing. Summer had come. Only one more month before school finished. I was enjoying school more than ever. Caroline and I had become firm friends and I was quite fond of the other two.

Country walks, paper chases, plenty of fresh air. That was the best medicine, said Miss Carruthers. There were complaints from Mademoiselle Artois because we left the dormitory untidy. Dancing lessons, piano lessons…through the long warm days. But I was always missing Annabelinda and waiting eagerly for some news of her.

She did write now and then. She was getting better. She thought she would be really well by the time I joined her. It was very hot at Bourdon and they were all complaining about the effect the weather was having on the grapes.

“I look forward to seeing you, Lucinda,” she wrote, “and hearing about all that’s been going on in that old school.”

And I was certainly looking forward to seeing her.

In the middle of July, Marguerite gave birth to a stillborn son. I felt very unhappy because I could not bear to think of her suffering. I knew how desperately she wanted that child, and now, poor Marguerite, all her plans and hopes had been in vain.

The blinds were drawn at the cottage. I could not bring myself to call. I feared she would remember our conversations about the baby and that would make her more unhappy.

I did not go near the cottage for two weeks, but I continued to think about her. Then one day, when I did walk that way, I went to the back of the cottage and looked over the wall. In the garden, in a perambulator, lay a baby.

I could not contain my curiosity. The next day I went there again. The perambulator and the baby were in the garden. I went around to the front of the cottage and knocked on the door.

Marguerite opened it and looked at me. I felt the tears in my eyes. She saw them and turned her head away for a second or two.

Then she said, “My dear, it was good of you to come.”

“I didn’t like to before…but I thought of you.”

She laid a hand on my arm. “Come inside,” she said.

I did so. “I was so very sorry…” I began.

“It was a bitter blow. I just wanted to die. All our hopes…all our plans…and then to end like that. Sit down. I am glad you came. I’ll not forget. The little coat you bought…it will be used.”

“It seems so cruel…”

She nodded. “I was wicked. I cursed the good God. Jacques did, too. We were beside ourselves with grief. It was our dream, you see…both of us. We waited so long, and then…it ended like that. It was more than we could endure. And I cursed the good God. I said how could He do this? What have we done to deserve it? But God is good. He had His reasons. And now He has given me this little one to care for. It is one of His miracles. It eases the pain and I love him already. It is not like my own…but they say it will come to be like that…and it seems so…a little more every day.”

“So you have a baby after all?”

“Yes. He is mine now…mine forever. He needs me and I need him. Poor mite. He has no mother, no one to care for him. So I am going to give him that loving care I would have given my own.”

“Where did he come from?”

“It was Madame Rochère. She heard of this little one. She said, how would it be if I took him in place of the one I had lost? I didn’t say yes then. I didn’t feel there was anything that could replace my own. Then she said this little one needed me…and although I might not realize it, I needed him. It wasn’t the money, of course.”

“The money?”

“Oh, yes. He’s being paid for. He’s got no mother, but there are relations who will pay to have him cared for. Jacques and I…we shall be richer than we ever dreamed. But it is not the money….”

“I am sure it isn’t.”