Time for Silence (9 page)

“Making the right sort of marriage. They are thinking about marriage for me. After all, I am getting old.”

“Sixteen?”

“Another year.”

“How would it spoil your chances?”

“Oh, nothing…forget it.”

But I refused to. “How?” I persisted.

“Well, the grand sort of family that Grandpère wants me to marry into think all the time of children…carrying on the family name and all that. They want their heirs to be strong. They would be wary of a wife who had…had what I’ve had.”

“What did you have? It’s all been rather mysterious. Was it consumption? If so, why not say so?”

“Grandpère says we should forget it and never mention it.”

“I see. People think that once you’ve had that, you might pass it on to your children.”

“Yes. That’s the idea. So not a word.”

“And they cured you here!”

“Well, not here. I had to go away. I haven’t been at the château all the time.”

“I gathered that.”

“I told you it was all rather secret. Grandpère’s idea. He arranged it all.”

“I remember I did get a letter from you with the postmark Bergerac.”

“Bergerac! I never want to go there again.”

“Isn’t it somewhere near here?”

“Well, some miles. I must have posted the letter when we were passing through.”

“Passing through…to where?”

“Oh, I don’t remember. I was rather ill at the time.”

“Why don’t you want to see Bergerac again?”

“Well, I want to forget that time…and your mentioning the place reminded me. All those places round about do. I had this terrible thing, you see.”

“It
was
consumption, wasn’t it?”

She nodded…and then shook her head. “I don’t want to say exactly…but…promise you won’t tell anyone I told you.”

“I promise. Was it Switzerland? That’s where people go. Up in the mountains.”

She nodded again.

“And they cured you?” I said.

“Completely. All I have to do in the future is…be careful. Grandpère says this is a warning. Once you’ve had this sort of thing…people are suspicious.”

“They think it can be passed on.”

“Grandpère thinks it could spoil my chances for the sort of marriage he wants for me.”

“What was it like in the sanatorium?”

“Oh, they were very strict. You had to do what you were told.”

“It sounds like
La Pinière
.”

She laughed. “But it’s all over and I want to forget it ever happened. I’m well now. I am going to be all right. I’m looking forward to going to London.”

“I expect your family will want you to be in the country with them.”

“Oh, Mama will want to be in London, I expect. As for my father and dear brother Robert, they’ve got their beloved estate to think about. They won’t worry about me.”

“I missed you, Annabelinda.”

“Don’t you think I missed you?”

“It must have been awful, so far away from everyone. I suppose your grandfather and the
Princesse
visited you during the time you were there?”

“Of course. They were marvelous to me. But I don’t want to talk about it. Please, Lucinda.”

“All right. Not another word.”

“And don’t forget. Don’t tell anyone about Switzerland. I shouldn’t have mentioned it to you, but you wormed it out of me.”

“I’ll be silent.”

“Good old Lucinda.”

A week passed. We rode a good deal, usually in the company of Jean Pascal. Visitors came to the château and there were one or two dinner parties.

I was longing to go home, but I found a great pleasure in walking in the grounds of the château. I liked to be alone there. I used to sit by the lake, watching the swans and the little brown duck who came waddling by. I would take a few crumbs for him and was amused by the way he would come to the edge of the lake and wait patiently for the offering.

Sometimes as I sat there I would think how strange life was, and would imagine my mother as a young girl, not much older than I was now, sitting on this very seat. There had been a black swan then. She often talked of it and how it defended its territory with venom.

How peaceful it was now, with the beautiful docile swans in place of the black one. And yet there were mysterious undercurrents…things seeming not quite what they were represented to be.

One early afternoon when I had been sitting by the lake and was returning to the château, I met the postman in the grounds. He was coming to the house with some mail.

He called a greeting. He knew who I was, for I had collected the mail from him before.

“Ah,” he said, “once more, mademoiselle, you have saved my legs. I am running a little late. Would you take this one for Monsieur Bourdon?”

I said I would and took the letter. It was a foolscap envelope with Jean Pascal’s name written on it in bold black capitals.

The postman thanked me and went on his way.

I thought Jean Pascal might be in his study, so I took the letter up there. I knocked on the door. There was no answer, so I opened the door and went in. The window was open and as I entered, a gust of wind picked up the papers that were lying on the desk and scattered them over the floor.

I shut the door, hurried in, put the letter I had brought on the desk and stooped to pick up the papers.

As I did so, a phrase on one of them caught my eyes. It was
Jacques and Marguerite Plantain
—
10
,
000 francs
.

I stared at it. There was some writing in French which I could not entirely understand, and the address in the letterhead was that of solicitors in Bordeaux.

Understanding flashed into my mind. It was as though pieces of a puzzle had suddenly and miraculously fitted themselves together and presented me with a picture.

“Interesting?” said a voice behind me.

Jean Pascal had come into the room.

I felt myself blushing hotly as he took the paper from my hand.

Then he spoke in a cool voice that struck terror into me. “What are you doing with my papers, Lucinda?”

I heard myself stammering. “I…er…I…brought a letter. The postman gave it to me because I was on the grounds. I did knock. There was no answer, so I opened the door. The window was open, you see, and the draft…the papers fell on the floor. I was picking them up.”

“Of course.”

He picked up the rest of the papers and put them on the desk. He smiled at me. “It was very helpful of you, Lucinda. And how good of you to bring my mail.”

I escaped and went out of the château, letting the air cool my burning cheeks.

Ten thousand francs to Jacques and Marguerite Plantain. It was clear. It was for taking the baby. Why should Jean Pascal want them to take a baby?

I should have seen it before. Carl and Annabelinda had met…secretly…they had been lovers. The result of lovemaking was babies. And Carl had left her to face the consequences. No wonder she had changed. How could I not have guessed? She had fainted in class. Madame Rochère had sent for the doctor and immediately afterward Jean Pascal had come. In his suave, sophisticated manner, he had known exactly how to deal with such a situation.

She had not been to Switzerland. She had been to Bergerac, which the map showed me was near enough for convenience and far enough for anonymity. Annabelinda would agree with everything her grandfather suggested. She would realize the wisdom of his instructions about the need for secrecy.

She had had a baby and it was the one in the Plantains’ cottage. And because Marguerite had lost her baby, she was eager to have another. Moreover she had been paid handsomely to look after him and would be paid regularly throughout his life. The child would ease her pain over her own loss and give her and her husband security throughout their lives. Annabelinda’s misfortune was the Plantains’ blessing.

Now that I knew, I could think only of the baby, who would receive from Marguerite that love and care which his own mother could not give him.

I felt overburdened by this dark secret. I almost wished I had not discovered it. I myself had a secret now. I must never let anyone know that I was aware of what had happened.

As I sat looking at the swans I heard the sound of footsteps, and my heart started to pound in terror, for Jean Pascal was coming toward me.

He sat down beside me.

“I am glad I found you,” he said. “I think you and I have something to say to each other.”

“I assure you I only went into your study to take the letter. The papers blew to the floor, and naturally I thought I should pick them up.”

“But naturally. And what you saw on one, you found of great interest?”

“But I…”

“Please, Lucinda, let there be no subterfuge between us. Let me say at once that I believe what you tell me. But something did attract your attention….Well, it astonished you. It was on the paper you read.”

I was silent.

“Lucinda, my dear, you must be frank with me, as I shall be with you. What was on that paper?”

I took a deep breath. I did not know how to begin.

“It…it was the name of two people who live on the school estate, was it?” he urged.

“Yes,” I answered.

“You know these people?”

“Yes. At least, I know Madame Plantain. I talk to her when I walk past the cottage in the grounds. I knew she was going to have a baby.”

“Yes?”

“I knew the baby died and she adopted another.”

“You are a clever girl, Lucinda. You say to yourself, why should Jean Pascal Bourdon pay her money…as I have seen he has done by that paper.”

“Well…”

“Oh, come, we have finished with innuendos. If we are to understand this little matter, we must be frank. You thought how strange it was that the grandfather of Annabelinda should be paying money to these people. You think, Annabelinda has been away for some months. She suffered from a mysterious illness, and then there is a baby. Well, I am sure the situation has become clear to clever little Lucinda, who, let us admit, was somewhat puzzled about the mysterious happenings before. And when she saw that paper with the names of people she knew…she began to understand. Is that so?”

“I began to think…yes.”

“Of course.” He slipped an arm through mine and pressed it against him.

“Lucinda,” he went on, “you and I are good friends, are we not? I have always had a softness in my heart for you. You are the daughter of my dear Lucie, whom I always adored. You have been the companion of my granddaughter. I regard you as my own family.”

“It is kind of you, and I am sorry I took the letter up to your study. I should have left it in the hall.”

“Well, no. Perhaps it is as well. Now we shall have this matter cleared up. You will share our secret, and I know I can trust you not to reveal it. You are fond of Annabelinda. She has committed an indiscretion. It is not the first time it has happened in my family…your family…
anybody’s
family. It is nature’s way. Deplorable…but it can be set right…and forgotten. It is always wise in life to forget that which is unpleasant. Remorse is very good for us, but it should be indulged in with caution and taken in small doses, and never enough to impair the zest for living. Do you agree?”

“I expect you are right.”

“But, of course, I am right. You suspect much. Suspicion is an ugly thing. Quite often it distorts the truth and makes it uglier than it is. You have guessed what Annabelinda’s illness was all about, that it was discovered by the doctor whom Madame Rochère called in, and you can imagine that good lady’s consternation when she learned what had befallen one of her pupils. But she is a wise woman. Annabelinda is my granddaughter, so she sent for me. She knew she could rely on me in this little contretemps.”

I nodded. It was all as I had imagined in that flash of understanding which came to me when I read the paper.

“Annabelinda had dallied with one of the gardeners,” he went on. “Madame Rochère was extremely shocked that it should be a gardener, but I pointed out to her that the outcome could have been the same whatever the rank of the man involved, and we must suppress our outrage with sound common sense. The first thing was to get Annabelinda out of school. We could not have let her stay much longer. There would be gossip. We could not let it be known throughout the neighborhood that my granddaughter had committed such an indiscretion. So she went away to a clinic where she would be taken care of.”

“In Bergerac,” I said.

For a moment he was astonished, then he said, “I see you are fully conversant with all this. How did you know?”

“It slipped out in conversation with Annabelinda that she had been there.”

“She should be more careful. It is a most reliable place. I know the lady who owns it. She will be the soul of discretion. So there went Annabelinda, and later of course there arose the problem of finding a home for the child.”

“It worked out very conveniently for you,” I said. “Of one thing I am sure. Madame Plantain will make a very good mother.”

“Madame Rochère assured me of that. You do not think I would put my great-grandchild with someone who would not be good to him.”

“And you were ready to put him out to be cared for?”

“I detect a note of criticism. Dear Lucinda, could I have him here? Adopt a child, at my age? Only for one reason. I have to think of Annabelinda. What would her future be if this were known? She would be classed as a fallen woman before she had a chance to stand up and show what she has to offer. She would never have married into appropriate circles.”

“She might have found someone to love her, and she could have her baby with her.”

He leaned toward me and kissed my hair lightly.

“Dear Lucinda, you see the world through the eyes of innocence. Charming…very charming. But life is not like that. I want what is best for Annabelinda. She is a very beautiful and attractive girl. I should hate to see her chances ruined at the start.”

“What of the child?” I asked.

“He will have the best of homes. You yourself have said so. But I confess I am a little uneasy that he should be so near the school.”

“You think Annabelinda will recognize her son?”

“All babies look alike. They change as they grow up, but in the first weeks they are different. They come into the world like wizened old men and in a few weeks they are plump and beautiful. But you see how careful we must be. You see how the odd coincidence can leap up to confound you. Your acquaintance with this good woman, your seeing that paper. Who would have thought that would have happened? And yet it is all so simple, so natural. Mind you, I did wonder at the wisdom of placing the child so near to the school. But Madame Rochère gave the woman such a good character reference, and she, of course, had no notion of where the child came from.”