Читать книгу Her Mother's Daughter - Nalbro Bartley - Страница 3

Table of Contents

AT the mountain’s edge, a vivid blue sky seeming close to her dusty self, Min Beaumont decided to steal the clapper of the pension bell.

To her rebellious mind this challenged the bell’s unfair directing of her life. For the moment she forgot that the bell directed the lives of the Beaumont family, the pension guests. It was a raucous sounding affair—clang, clang—grrr, as if grinding its teeth between strokes. At dawn it summoned the farm hands, Aunt Marguerite ringing it relentlessly. Then it called the family to their tasks. There was Aunt Louise, who cared for the blind grandmother in a neglected outbuilding. Aunt Julie, who acted as pension housekeeper—Aunt Julie with snow white hair and snapping, black eyes, who had been seven years in England as maid to the Countess of Haddonfield and who despised all that was English, including Min’s dead mother. There was Aunt Marguerite, Uncle Gabriel’s wife, tall and always smiling, her thin, blue lips scarcely moving as she spoke. Aunt Marguerite’s fanatical interpretation of religion led her to adopt Olga Bialias, a Jewish refugee as well as to beat her half-English niece, Min Beaumont, with a thick whip for no greater offense than picking flowers in the pension garden. Then there was Uncle Gabriel, a slight, kindly little man completely under his wife’s supervision. There were the cousins, sons of Uncle Gabriel and Aunt Marguerite—Henri, Gabriel, Victor, Amie, thin, dark, meek-spirited lads who obeyed their mother and hoodwinked their father. Min felt herself disliked by all but Amie. Amie had been rather nice in the matter of sharing jam. But when Olga, the Jewish orphan, came to live with them, Amie had lost no time in transferring his favors. Olga was golden haired and blue eyed, with telltale scars on her arms and neck where she had been punished by burns. To look at Olga was to become sympathetic. Min had been sympathetic, too. More than ever Min hated her own thickset, healthy body, her round, red face with its small gray eyes, the mop of auburn hair which Aunt Julie braided so tightly that it “ached at the roots.” Nothing about Min inspired sympathy.

“What a great, healthy child it is,” the neighbors commented. “Truly her Devonshire mother must have lived off clotted cream.”

Aunt Marguerite’s shoulders would shrug pettishly. “You should see this one eat. But she shall learn to work, too.”

Min’s thoughts had strayed from her original intention: to steal the bell clapper. She was drowsy as she lay on the mountain’s edge staring down at terraces of sunbaked grapes. Pink, lavender and yellow blossoms grew everywhere, wild roses jutted from rocks and crevices. Jasmine, heliotrope and larkspur streaked the green meadows down, down, down almost to shining Lake Leman with the French coast rising on the other side, its barish, blue mountains glittering in the sun. Fishing boats with terra cotta sails swept up and down, so did tourist steamers. There was music on the steamers—faintly the snatch of a popular waltz floated up the mountain. Directly below her, still closed for the season, was Château Blonay. Its feudal towers fascinated the child. She longed to explore its corridors, even the dungeon and torture chambers.

... but she must steal the clapper of that growling bell. No one suspected that Min had nerves. That this absurd idea had obsessed her until she could no longer control herself. Or that she was shy and sensitive—and stubborn. No one cared enough to wonder whether she knew that her father was Madame Beaumont’s youngest brother. That Beaumont was so common a name in that part of the Alps that it had been her aunt’s maiden name as well.

But Min did know. She knew that her father while chef in a London hotel had married a despised English maid, a fresh, rosy cheeked girl from Torquay. That a year at the Beaumont pension had faded the roses from her cheeks and the romance in her heart. That she had taken Min, a little, new thing, and gone home to die. For four happy but vague years, Min lived with her “grammer,” an apple-cheeked person who owned a cottage with live oak trees about the door. After a time, her grammer had died and her father arrived from Paris. He had remarried and was working in a hotel frequented by extravagant Americans. He lost no time in taking Min to Tusinge in Switzerland. Here, she was given over to his sisters and forbidden to speak English. She was punished upon every possible occasion and ignored upon the remaining ones—and cried over by the blind grandmother who had been exiled in the forlorn outbuilding. It was then the terrible, growling bell began to order her life: go here—grrr—go there—grrr—get up—grrr—go to sleep—grrrr!

That had been five years ago, as nearly as Min could gather. She spoke French poorly and remembered bits of English. Whenever the pension had English guests, she talked with them—Aunt Marguerite listening with smiling disapproval. They were poorish guests since the smart tourist seldom heard of the Pension Beaumont. But they were her mother’s people and she grieved whenever they went away. There was an old English woman, Miss Brown, who lived on the top floor of the pension almost the entire season. She was given reduced rates due to the stairs and agreeing to no lights until eight forty-five. Miss Brown taught Min to read English. From this meager summer home Miss Brown went to a meager winter one in Italy, taking with her a curious portmanteau, a caned foot stool and a shabby music roll. She was at least a hundred years old, Min told Olga. Yet she lived in hopes of a legacy from some cousins, enough to allow her a summer at home.

There was so little to look forward to at the pension, Min thought, as she buried her bare, brown toes into the grass. Always hard, stupid, often ill-smelling work. Olga was permitted to pick flowers and prepare vegetables, go to market with Uncle Gabriel. Min had little school and a surplus of hypocritical religion. She wore her aunt’s remade and sour-smelling clothes. She was fed thick, tasteless soups and goat steak, remnants of sticky puddings. What she craved was silk stockings and curly hair and white bread and butter three times a day. She wanted to escape from being harnessed to a two-wheeled cart with Victor or young Gabriel and sent down to Vevey while Amie and Olga scooped up the street manure and passing tourists threw coins and murmured “how picturesque!” All the while the anger in her heart made her face redder and fatter than ever and her strong, squarish body squirmed rebelliously as she tugged at her side of the cart. Her grammer would not have permitted this! She was not of these people, despite her father.

Once, toiling back up the mountain, they had stopped at Monsieur Terriet’s and he treated them to cakes and sweetened water. Min never forgot that day. Monsieur Terriet tutored occasional English boys but a fierce black cat was his boon companion. He lived in a rather shut-up villa, its neglected terrace cluttered with ragged rose vines. There was a painted wooden sign all about “les leçons dans philosophie et mathematiques et histoire et musique” but no one paid any attention to it. Even in worn gray flannel, a disfigured eye due to a student duel, Monsieur was a personage to be remembered. Inside, the house felt damp and ancient. The walls were pale blue plaster with countless sheets of pressed butterflies framed and hung in rows.

The boys answered Monsieur’s questions readily and he patted Olga’s scars with a tenderness which caused Min’s plump chin to quiver with envy. He merely smiled at Min and murmured something about “ze roas’ bif of ol’ England——”

All the rest of the way to the pension, Min longed to break out of the cart harness, to throw herself before the tiny funicular and let the car wheels crush her “roas’ bif” self into oblivion. What she wanted was to be beautiful and good—and happy. To escape from these scolding hypocrites who told her at least once a day that they cared for her out of charity, that she must work hard to repay them, that she was stupid, fat, uninteresting—English!

She turned her sunbaked head and looked at the bell clapper. There it hung beside the front door. Some of the guests were walking by—the sort of guests the Beaumonts encouraged as summer residents. Stiff, elderly women who drank half a glass of wine for both lunch and dinner and carried measuring tape in their petticoat pockets to see if the waitress had treated herself to a sip. On Sundays their relatives visited them—then they drank a glass of wine. They carried white cotton umbrellas and tied blue handkerchiefs over their hair on week days and soft lace ones on Sundays. They, too, called Min fat and stupid and questioned Madame Beaumont as to whether or not she earned her board.

Two deaconesses in black uniforms, who were spending their vacation at the pension, had just paused beside the bell. Min disliked their staring faces, the solemn way they played a game of croquet in the morning and a game in the evening—as if it were compulsory. The rest of the time they took walks or sat on their tiny balcony staring at Lake Leman or reading Bibles.

Min staggered to her feet. It was a protest against her environment—that running to the bell porch and clambering up the sides, snatching the thick clapper and running back to the mountain’s edge to toss it away before she realized what she had dared to accomplish. Her next reaction was one of fear. Perhaps she would do well to toss herself over—no, her thick self might stick on the edge. Then realization replaced the fleeting triumph.

This was July ninth, 1882. Since June first, 1843, that bell had done service for Grandfather Beaumont and his pension. Now the clapper, growl, snarl and clang alike, was tumbling down the mountain. If it struck someone, they might be killed. She would be a murderess. Confession was her next impulse. She glanced down at the Château Blonay. The courtyard became prominent because of its historical gibbet which stuck out like a witch’s black forefinger.

The whistle from a chocolate factory and the toot of the approaching funicular roused her. It was time for Aunt Marguerite to ring for tea. The stiff, elderly guests and the sombre deaconesses would come into the garden to be served ... but the bell clapper was gone. Triumph still caused her to smile. She pictured her aunt’s toiling at the bell rope and the mocking silence that would follow. She, squat-shaped, red-faced, English Minnie had stilled the tyrant’s voice.

Then a noise, a swish of the tall grasses told her that Olga Bialias was coming toward her. She would have known Olga’s swift, precise footsteps anywhere. No one was ever quite like Olga with her tow-colored hair and pale blue eyes, that drawn, appealing face that quivered if one spoke harshly. There was something uncertain about Olga, something which caused her to hedge, to pretend, to dissemble. A zealous missionary had found this starving little creature in a Polish orphanage and had brought her to share a vacation at the pension. She intended to send the child to a home in Geneva. But her tragic story, those reddish scars on her arms and back, her terrified whispers had caused Madame Beaumont to offer adoption. Madame Beaumont herself hardly knew why—she had many mouths to feed, her blind mother might live for years. Besides, there was Min, that stubborn, stubby-fingered child whom she hated no matter how often she included her in her prayers. Still, she took Olga. She had always wanted a daughter. Olga was fair and appealing, moreover, she was a Jewess and to make a convert was to win another star in Madame Beaumont’s heavenly crown. Olga was tractable; she could wait table in due time. She was everything Min was not. It would curb Min’s vanity to have to give way to this little refugee. Madame Beaumont’s thin lips had smiled at the thought of this new thorn in Min’s abundance of flesh.

Although only seven, Olga had learned how to flatter, she became Madame Beaumont’s pet, she stirred the guests to pity—and the gift of a few francs. At night, she told Min her thoughts. Strangely, no rivalry existed between them. Min accepted this fair-haired starveling just as the boys accepted her. Olga “clung” to Min. Min was so stolid, so real. It was a relief to whisper the tales of cruelty in the Warsaw asylum, being locked in the morgue for overnight, being told that she was to be carried down into hell for breaking some petty rule, being crowded, halfway smothered into a bucket-like arrangement and taken down steep stairs until the roaring open fires of the institution kitchen were reached. This was hell—these were the flames everlasting. Exhausted, sometimes fainting, she would be carried back to the nursery of terror-stricken children ... the branding on the arms ... here and here ... so and so.... No, Min never hated Olga.

“Tante Marguerite is ringing for tea,” Olga said in her whispering voice, sliding down on the grass beside Min. “The guests are waiting. Amie has sold his goat. He is to have half the money for himself. He will buy me new ribbons. Tante Louise let me see the grandmother again. She is all wrinkles and crumbs ... she smells like the black coat Tante Marguerite had in the chest. It is not nice to be blind and old and to live with a manure pile against the window. See, Tante Julie gave me this cake,” her small fingers broke it in half. For once Min was not hungry.

“The bell does not ring,” she confided suddenly, her stubby fingers clutching Olga’s arm. “I—I threw the clapper down there——”

“You have a fever,” said Olga instantly, her voice more whispery than ever. “The sun has hurt your brain——”

“I have thrown the clapper away. I hate it. I have always hated it. I’ll be beaten but I don’t care——”

“What did a bell matter?” Olga whispered. “What could any bell matter?”

Min glanced at Olga’s scars. Vaguely she realized that everything in life was relative—pain, joy—even bell clappers!

“I hate it here. I hate myself—and her,” she continued wildly. She was watching the confusion about the bell porch.

Aunt Marguerite had reported the theft. Uncle Gabriel had climbed up to verify it. Aunt Julie scolded shrilly while the guests flocked about. Who had dared to steal the bell clapper?

“The loafers who tramped by yesterday. I refused them water,” suggested Aunt Julie.

“No, they were in Vevey. We saw them at the market,” Uncle Gabriel corrected.

“It is ill luck,” said Aunt Louise.

“It is robbery,” answered her sister Marguerite.

Min clutched Olga’s hands. “I’ll find it,” she said in sudden terror. “They won’t beat me quite so hard if—if—I find it——” pointing at the steep decline. The harsh bell tongue suddenly seemed a good friend; at least, it had done nothing more than snarl at her.

“Lie about it,” urged Olga, “no one may have seen.” Her thin face shone with a sweet smile. It was this in Olga which baffled Min.

“They’ll know when they look at me. You—you tell them I’m looking for it. I won’t come back unless I find it,” Min scrambled to her feet.

Aunt Marguerite was walking toward them. In one hand was a scrap of Min’s hair ribbon. Like a startled animal, she fled down the mountain side. She could starve to death if she failed in her search. Down—down she plunged wildly, madly, her bare legs bleeding from the brambles. Once she fell on her face. When she picked herself up the blood from a cut cheek stained her fingers. But she must not come back unless she found the clapper. Even so——What had made her do it? What did it mean? What was it that she had been trying to express? What use was there in trying to express anything?

At dusk Min came into the pension parlor. For once its red plush furniture and apricot colored draperies, the jars of dried grasses and the closed upright piano failed to impress her. Her uncle led her in before the assembled family. But protecting strangers were with her. Smartly dressed Americans who had come upon her at the foot of the mountain and who had taken her into their carriage while she sobbed out her story, the bell clapper clutched in her tired arms. She had found the clapper halfway down the mountain side, stumbling upon it unexpectedly, her burning foot bruising itself against the metal edge. As she picked it up something tiny and shining caught her eye. It proved to be a ring set with a reddish stone, the most beautiful thing Min had ever seen. She wondered who had lost it and if she must give it back. Should she bury it and tell no one until she found the owner? On her stout thumb it was a trifle tight. She was tugging to remove it, the clapper under one arm, when the Americans had driven by below.

“She has found something,” called out the American lady. “Stop, driver. Little girl, little girl,” and she left the carriage and came running towards her, all creamy lace and blue parasol and smiles.

“It is my ring,” she called out again. “Jack, do you hear? Oh, you heavenly infant—I was heartbroken. There wasn’t a chance in a million—see, Jack—it’s the ring! What a tired looking chunk of a girl! Whereever have you been—and look—it’s a—a—what is it?” the tip of the blue parasol touching the bell clapper.

“The child is exhausted,” said the American gentleman. “Let us take her home. We must do something nice for her.”

Before Min realized she was leaning against the carriage cushions and crying—neither prettily nor appealingly as Olga would have cried but great, hoarse sobs, her dirty, stained fingers holding the bell clapper as she told her story.

They drove her to the pension and promised that she should be rewarded not punished. The ring was an heirloom and the stone a pigeon-blood ruby. The American lady had advertised for it all along the coast and had almost resigned herself to its being lost. Her fingers were thin from a fever and it must have slipped off when she had come here to pick narcissus. Why, there was nothing to be frightened about; surely her uncle and aunt would understand a prank like stealing a bell clapper. If she had not done so, the ring would have remained lost. So it was more than all right. Could she not stop those strange-sounding sniffs?

Snuggling among the cushions, Min caught the look of amused pity which passed between them. She was ridiculous even if she had found their treasure! Could she never do anything that was both appealing and graceful? Still, the worst fear had lessened ... she admired the lace on the American’s gown and the blue parasol.

The Beaumonts were awed by the tourists, rather impressed by the coincidence of Min’s wickedness and finding the ring. (Min was beginning to be impressed, too.) They were always impressed when there was the clink of gold—particularly Aunt Marguerite. And they kept their word once they gave it. They promised that the child should not be punished for her “prank” as the American lady called it. Conscientiously, they protested against taking any reward but, having been prevailed upon to accept it, agreed that half of it should be spent for Min’s needs.

By and by Uncle Gabriel restored the bell clapper and life at the pension was resumed as usual. Then Min found herself alone with Aunt Marguerite. She was in her nightgown after a hasty supper of bread and milk. It was good to go to bed. Her feet burned until she could have groaned. Aunt Marguerite had given her word—she dared not to break it. Stealing the clapper had accomplished something, at all events.

“I am wondering, bad little niece,” broke in her aunt’s voice, “whether you would have told of the jewel had the carriage not come by. When you pray to-night, pray that you would have done so.”

She left the room. Outraged yet triumphant, Min sprang out of bed and shook her fists at the closed door.

“I’ll pray for rings—and blue parasols,” she gasped.

Clang, clang—grrr went the bell—you didn’t get rid of me, English brat—clang, clang—grrr!

Sobbing, Min jumped into bed. One by one the children came in to sleep. She shared her bed with Olga but, to-night, they did not speak. Unsuspected, Min remained awake, her aching body throbbing rebelliously and her aching heart trying to decide what it was all about. What was it she wanted these days, that gnawed at her deep inside? Olga slept peacefully, her fair hair untumbled on the edge of the pillow. Olga, who had been burned and starved and cast out, smiled in her sleep while Min tossed and turned and fought the air with her fists ... it was something more than wanting to be rid of a bell clapper or to keep a ring or to have a blue parasol. But she did not know what it was. She knew that she had met with kindness but only for a moment; that the ugly and tyrannical had come back into her life while the beauty and kindness passed on. That would always happen to such as she. She buried her wide face in her share of the pillow so that no one would hear her sob.

Outside came the forlorn sound of a farm-hand’s horn; he was playing a hymn in faltering, wretched style. It made her teeth on edge and her forehead puckered as if in pain. The night wind brought the nauseating smell of the manure pile through the raised window. A pig grunted with sudden anger and a burst of drunken yodeling out on the road caused Olga to stir. Dreary rain began beating on the tin roof.

Min had said no prayers because she had answered none of her own questions. Nor did she suspect that during this childish crisis what she had wanted was God.