HOW I BEARDED LIONS IN THEIR DENS
That first night in Peter Port, when my grandfather had wrung my hand for
the last time, looking at me with prayers in his eyes, and bidding me do my
duty and keep clean, and had put off for home in his boat, and work was
over for the day and I my own master, I decided on making a call which was
much in my heart, and to which I had been looking forward for days past.
I cleaned myself up, and made myself as smart as possible, and set off for
the Miss Maugers' school in George Road.
It was not until I saw the house that doubts began to trouble me as to the
fitness of my intention. It was a much larger house than any I had ever
been in, and there was a straightness and primness about it which somehow
did not suggest any very warm welcome to a young sailorman, whose pride in
his first appointment and in the spreading of his wings for his first
flight underwent sudden shrinkage.
It took me a good half-hour's tramping to and fro, past the house and back
again, eyeing it carefully each time as though I was trying to discover the
best way to break into it, to screw my courage up to the point. There were
two windows on each side of the door and two rows of five above, fourteen
in all, and every window had its little curtains rigged up exactly alike
to a hair's-breadth. If any one of them had been an inch awry I should have
known it, and would have felt less of an intruder.
I had not seen Carette for over six months, and the last time she was home
most of my time, when we met, had been spent in discovering and puzzling
over the changes that had come over her. These ran chiefly towards a
sobriety of behaviour which was not natural to her, and which seemed to me
assumed for my special benefit and tantalisation, and I was expecting every
minute to see the sober cloak cast aside and the laughing Carette of
earlier days dance out into the sunshine of our old camaraderie.
Aunt Jeanne Falla's twinkling eyes furthered the hope. But it was not
realised. Carette unbent, indeed, and we were good friends as ever, but
there was always about her that new cloak of staidness and ladylike polish
which became her prettily enough indeed, but which I could very well have
done without. For, you see, in all our doings hitherto, she had always
looked up to me as leader, even when she twirled my boyish strength about
her finger and made me do her will. And now, though I was bigger and
stronger than ever, she had, in some ways, gone beyond me. She was, in
fact, seeing the world, such as it was in Guernsey in those days, and it
made me feel more than ever how small a place Sercq was, and more than ever
determined to see the world also.
I warped myself up to Miss Mauger's green front door at last and gave a
valiant rap of the knocker, and hung on to it by sheer force of will to
keep myself from running away when I had done it. And when a maid in a prim
white cap opened the door, I had lost my tongue, and stood staring at her
till she smiled encouragingly, as though she thought I might have come to
ask her out for a walk.
"I've come to see Carette--Ma'm'zelle Le Marchant, I mean," I stammered,
very red and awkward.
"If you'll come in, I'll tell Miss Mauger," she smiled; and I stepped
inside, and was shown into one of the front rooms with the very straight
curtains. The room inside was very stiff and straight also. It occurred to
me that if all the other rooms were like it Carette must have found them a
very great change from Brecqhou. Perhaps it was living among these things
that had such an effect upon her that she could not shake it off when she
came home for the holidays. The stiff, straight chairs offered me no
invitation to be seated, and I stood waiting in the middle of the room.
Then the door opened, and a little elderly lady came in, and saluted me
very formally with a curtsey bow which rather upset me, for no one had ever
done such a thing to me before. It made me feel awkward and ill at ease.
Miss Mauger seemed to me very like her drawing-room, straight and precise
and stiff. Her face reminded me somewhat of Aunt Jeanne Falla's, but lacked
the kindly twinkle of the eyes which redeemed Aunt Jeanne's shrewdest and
sharpest speeches. She had little fiat rows of grey curls, tight to her
head, on each side of her face, for all the world like little ormer shells
sticking to a stone.
"Monsieur Le Marchant?" she asked.
"No, madame--ma'm'zelle. I am Phil Carré."
"Oh!... You are not then one of Mademoiselle Le Marchant's brothers?"
"No, ma'm'zelle."
"Oh!"
"We have always been friends since we were children," I explained
stumblingly, for her bright little eyes were fixed on me, through her
gold-rimmed spectacles, like little gimlets, and made me feel as if I was
doing something quite wrong in being there.
"Ah!" which seemed to imply that she had suspected something of the kind,
and it was a good thing for Carette that she was safely removed from such
companionship in the future.
"And I am going off on my first voyage to the West Indies--"
"Ah!" in a tone that seemed to say that as far as she and her house were
concerned it was to be hoped I would stop there.
"And I thought I would like to see Carette again before I went--"
"Ah!... And may I ask if you have sought permission from Mademoiselle Le
Marchant's relatives before making this call?"
"Permission?--To see Carette? No, madame--ma'm'zelle. I never dreamt of
such a thing. Permission to see Carette! Ma fé!"
"Ah!" ... ("What a strangely innocent young man!--or is it impudent
boldness?"--That was what was going on in her mind, I think, as she bored
at me with the little gimlets. But she said--) "We make it an inflexible
rule not to allow our young ladies to see any but their own relations,
except, of course, with the special permission of their relatives or
guardians."
"If I had known, I would have got a letter from Aunt Jeanne Falla, but such
a thing never entered into my head for a moment."
"You know Madame Le Marchant--Miss Jeanne Falla that was?"
"Know Aunt Jeanne?--Well, I should--I mean, yes, madame,--I mean
ma'm'zelle. She has known me from the day I was born."
"Ah!... And you think she would have accorded you permission to see
mademoiselle?"
"Why, of course she would. She would never dream of me being in Peter Port
without calling to see Carette."
She looked me through and through again, and said at last--
"If you will excuse me for a moment, I will consult with my sisters. It is
a matter which concerns them also, and I should wish them to share the
responsibility," and she dropped me another frigid little salute and backed
out of the door.
And I felt very sorry for Carette, and did not wonder so much now at the
little stiffnesses of manner I had noticed in her the last time we met.
And presently the door opened, and the little lady stole in again with the
same little formal greeting, and, after looking at me till I felt cold
about the neck, said, "You wish to see Mademoiselle Le Marchant?" And then
I noticed that the little ormer shell curls about this little lady's face
were not all gray, but mixed gray and brown, and that this little face was,
if anything, still more frigidly ungracious than the last, a regular little
martinet of a face, and I knew that it must be another of the Miss Maugers.
"Yes, ma'm'zelle, with your permission."
"My sister states that you are acquainted with Madame Le Marchant, of
Beaumanoir, whom we used to know intimately--"
"I have known Aunt Jeanne from the day I was born," I said, perhaps a
trifle vehemently, for the absurdity of all these precautions between
myself and Carette began to ruffle me. In fact, I began to feel almost as
though there must be some grounds for their doubts about me which I had
never hitherto recognised in myself, and it made me more decided than ever
to have my own way in the matter.
"My grandfather is Philip Carré, of Belfontaine," I said, with a touch of
the ruffle in my voice, "and he is a great friend of Mr. Claude Gray--"
"The Quaker," she said, with a pinch of the thin little lips.
And then the door opened, and, with the usual curtsey, still another Miss
Mauger joined us, and her little ormer shells were all brown, and she wore
no spectacles, and the corners of her mouth were on a level with the
centre, and looked as if they might on occasion even go up instead of down.
She looked at me half mistrustfully, like a bird which doubts one's
intentions towards its bit of plunder, and then, just like the bird, seemed
to gauge my innocence of evil, and bent and whispered into her sister's
gray and brown ormer shells.
"My sister informs me that Mademoiselle Le Marchant has been apprised of
your visit and has expressed a desire to see you, and so--"
"Under the circumstances," said the other.
"Under the circumstances, we will make an exception from our invariable
rule and permit this interview."
"On the understanding--" began the other.
"On the understanding that it is not to form a precedent--"
"And also," said the younger sister hastily, "that one of us is present."
"Certainly, that one of us is present," said the elder.
"By all means," I said, "and I am very much obliged to you. I really do not
mean to eat Carette, nor even to run away with her."
"We should certainly prevent any attempt of the kind," said the elder
sister severely.
They whispered together for a moment, then she shook out her prim skirts
and dropped me a curtsey, and went away to fetch Carette.
"You see we have to be very strict in such matters," said the younger Miss
Mauger, settling herself very gracefully on a chair so that her skirts
disposed themselves in nice straight lines. "With forty young ladies under
one's charge one cannot be too careful."
"I am quite sure you are very careful of them, ma'm'zelle," I said, at
which she actually smiled a very little bird-like smile. "I will tell Aunt
Jeanne how very careful you are next time I see her, and she will laugh and
say, 'Young maids and young calves thrive best under the eyes of their
mistress.'"
"I do not know much about calves"--and then the door opened and Carette
came in.
She ran up to me with both hands outstretched.
"Oh, Phil, I was so afraid I was not to see you! And you are going away?
How big you're getting! How long will you be away?"
This was very delightful, for I had been fearing that the little touch of
stiffness, which I had experienced the last time I saw her, and which I now
quite understood, might have grown out of knowledge.
"We are going first to the West Indies and then on to Canada. It may be a
long time before I'm back, and I did want to see you once more before I
went. I began to fear I was not going to."
"'Oh, we're very strict here, you know, and we have rules. Oh, heaps of
rules! But I knew dear Miss Maddy would manage it when she knew how I
wanted to see you;" and she ran up to Miss Maddy and kissed the little
brown ormer shells over her ears, and Miss Maddy patted them hastily lest
the tiny kiss should have set them awry.
"And how did you leave them all in Sercq? And when did you see Aunt Jeanne
last? And who's taking care of my boat? And--"
"Wait!" I laughed, "or I shall forget some of them. I saw Aunt Jeanne this
morning just before I left. She thought we sailed at once. She would have
sent you her love, and maybe some gâche, if she had known--"
"Ah, ma fé! How I wish she had known!" sighed Carette longingly, for Aunt
Jeanne Falla's gâche had a name all over Sercq.
"And everybody is well except old Père Guérin, and he is cutting a new
tooth, they say, and it makes him sour in the temper."
"Why, he's over ninety!" exclaimed Carette.
"Ninety-two next January. That's why he's so annoyed about it. And your
boat is safe in the top nook of Port du Moulin, all covered over with
sailcloth and gorse. Krok and I did it, and he will soak it for ten days
before you come home, and have it all ready for you."
"The dear old Krok!"
"Oh, we have taken very great care of it, I assure you. But maybe you will
be too grown-up to care for it by the time you get back."
"Perhaps!" And oddly enough--though indeed it may have been only my own
thought, and without reasonable foundation--thereupon there seemed to fall
between us a slight veil of distance. So that, though we talked of Sercq
and of our friends there, it seemed to me that we were not quite as we had
been, and I could not for the life of me tell why, nor, indeed, for certain
if it were so or not.
When I was leaving, however, Carette put both her hands in mine and gave me
Godspeed as heartily as I could wish, and I made my best bow to Miss Maddy,
and went back to the _Hirondelle_ well pleased at having seen Carette and
at her hearty greeting and farewell, but with a little wonder and doubt at
my heart as to what the final effect of all this schooling might be.