means as proficient as you should be.’
Maria opened her mouth to protest and then, glancing up at the strange dim picture over the hearth, shut it again. Patience. Patience. The little white horse and the tawny animal, galloping together along that forest glade, seemed in no hurry to arrive. They had perhaps been galloping for years, yet the happiness that breathed from the picture was untarnished by the least shadow of impatience. One did not hurry in the country. She got up, fetched the poetry books from the pile that had been stacked in the corner of the window-seat, and spread them out on the rosewood table.
First she read aloud from a little book with a worn olive-green cover, a volume of French poetry that belonged to Miss Heliotrope. It had been given to her in her youth, she had told Maria, by a French refugee who had fled to England to escape one of the revolutions France was always having, and had taken rooms in the Cornish village of which Miss Heliotrope’s father had at that time been rector.
Miss Heliotrope had taught him English and had given him a book of English poetry, and he in return had taught her French and given her this French poetry book. Her name, Jane Heliotrope, was written on the flyleaf in most beautiful handwriting, and beneath it he had put his own name, Louis de Fontenelle. Today it occurred to Maria to ask Miss Heliotrope what he had been like.
‘He was a very handsome young man, tall and dark,’ Miss Heliotrope said, ‘and very aristocratic — a marquis. Very gifted also, a skilled linguist and musician,a scholar and scientist. And he was a man of action too — in his early youth he had been a cavalry officer. But, alas, like so many Frenchmen, he was that terrible thing, an atheist, a man who did not believe in God. When my father found that out, he would not permit him to come to the Rectory again.’
‘What happened to him?’ Maria asked.
‘He just went away,’ Miss Heliotrope replied with a gentle sigh and, though burning to ask a thousand questions, Maria held her tongue between her teeth and said no more, for there was a finality about Miss Heliotrope’s sigh that forbade them.
Usually Miss Heliotrope listened intently while her pupil read aloud and corrected her mistakes very severely indeed, but this morning she seemed a little inattentive, as though the revival of old memories had made her want to go away and be by herself.
‘That will be enough reading for today, my dear,’ she said when Maria reached the end of a poem. ‘Now I should like you to compose a little poem yourself. Meanwhile, dear, I’ll just slip upstairs and mend the curtains of that four-poster of mine. As we noticed upon the evening of our arrival, no one ever seems to do any patching or darning in this house.’
‘I know what I’d like to write,’ said Maria. ‘There’s a tune that I played the other morning. It came out of the harpsichord when I opened it. May I write words for it?’
‘You may, dear,’ said Miss Heliotrope. ‘I can, I know, trust you not to idle, but to remain in that chair in a decorous ladylike position, feet together, back straight, until your composition is completed to the best of your ability.’
Then, picking up her skirts upon either side, she disappeared through the little door to the turret staircase.
Maria fetched pen and paper and settled herself once more in her chair before the fire. But though obedient up to a point, she was perhaps not altogether obedient,her position being hardly decorous. For though she kept her back straight she swung her feet angrily, making a swishing sound among her petticoats. She disliked being thwarted in this way. She had wanted to see the kitchen, the cat, and the sea before breakfast, and she hadn’t been allowed to see any of them. And now she wasn’t allowed to lift the lid of the workbox. It was too bad of Moonacre.
‘Song’ she wrote at the top of her paper, the ink spluttering from her angry
Maria opened her mouth to protest and then, glancing up at the strange dim picture over the hearth, shut it again. Patience. Patience. The little white horse and the tawny animal, galloping together along that forest glade, seemed in no hurry to arrive. They had perhaps been galloping for years, yet the happiness that breathed from the picture was untarnished by the least shadow of impatience. One did not hurry in the country. She got up, fetched the poetry books from the pile that had been stacked in the corner of the window-seat, and spread them out on the rosewood table.
First she read aloud from a little book with a worn olive-green cover, a volume of French poetry that belonged to Miss Heliotrope. It had been given to her in her youth, she had told Maria, by a French refugee who had fled to England to escape one of the revolutions France was always having, and had taken rooms in the Cornish village of which Miss Heliotrope’s father had at that time been rector.
Miss Heliotrope had taught him English and had given him a book of English poetry, and he in return had taught her French and given her this French poetry book. Her name, Jane Heliotrope, was written on the flyleaf in most beautiful handwriting, and beneath it he had put his own name, Louis de Fontenelle. Today it occurred to Maria to ask Miss Heliotrope what he had been like.
‘He was a very handsome young man, tall and dark,’ Miss Heliotrope said, ‘and very aristocratic — a marquis. Very gifted also, a skilled linguist and musician,a scholar and scientist. And he was a man of action too — in his early youth he had been a cavalry officer. But, alas, like so many Frenchmen, he was that terrible thing, an atheist, a man who did not believe in God. When my father found that out, he would not permit him to come to the Rectory again.’
‘What happened to him?’ Maria asked.
‘He just went away,’ Miss Heliotrope replied with a gentle sigh and, though burning to ask a thousand questions, Maria held her tongue between her teeth and said no more, for there was a finality about Miss Heliotrope’s sigh that forbade them.
Usually Miss Heliotrope listened intently while her pupil read aloud and corrected her mistakes very severely indeed, but this morning she seemed a little inattentive, as though the revival of old memories had made her want to go away and be by herself.
‘That will be enough reading for today, my dear,’ she said when Maria reached the end of a poem. ‘Now I should like you to compose a little poem yourself. Meanwhile, dear, I’ll just slip upstairs and mend the curtains of that four-poster of mine. As we noticed upon the evening of our arrival, no one ever seems to do any patching or darning in this house.’
‘I know what I’d like to write,’ said Maria. ‘There’s a tune that I played the other morning. It came out of the harpsichord when I opened it. May I write words for it?’
‘You may, dear,’ said Miss Heliotrope. ‘I can, I know, trust you not to idle, but to remain in that chair in a decorous ladylike position, feet together, back straight, until your composition is completed to the best of your ability.’
Then, picking up her skirts upon either side, she disappeared through the little door to the turret staircase.
Maria fetched pen and paper and settled herself once more in her chair before the fire. But though obedient up to a point, she was perhaps not altogether obedient,her position being hardly decorous. For though she kept her back straight she swung her feet angrily, making a swishing sound among her petticoats. She disliked being thwarted in this way. She had wanted to see the kitchen, the cat, and the sea before breakfast, and she hadn’t been allowed to see any of them. And now she wasn’t allowed to lift the lid of the workbox. It was too bad of Moonacre.
‘Song’ she wrote at the top of her paper, the ink spluttering from her angry
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