The Lily of the Isles
First featured in Agora, the literary magazine of Belmont Abbey College.
Silently, Isabelle slipped out from under the embroidered
covers. She hesitated for a moment,
standing beside the huge, canopied bed.
Beside her, in a similar four-poster of down and gilded wood, little Jeanne
lay still. The girl’s small, tired
limbs hung limp among the silken sheets and over the side. Isabelle crept past her sister and past
the open window, feeling the light summer breeze swish the curtains and skirt
of her nightdress. The moon shone
down, soft but bright, dancing on her dark curls. She cracked the door open – it creaked ever so slightly – and
stepped into the hall. Little Jeanne
did not stir. Slowly, very slowly,
Isabelle came out onto the landing.
With baited breath she tiptoed to the banister, her bare feet making
scarcely any sound on the rich carpeting.
At first, all seemed dark about her. She waited for her eyes to adjust to the lack of light, then
descended the high, curving staircase until she could just see the full length
of the hall beneath. Sitting down on
the steps, Isabelle drew close to the twisting, carved bars of the railing and
pressed her face between them. The
moon, now a bit higher in the sky, spilled its light in through a high window. Plus
belle que les diamants, as Madame Durand would say: more beautiful than diamonds.
Isabelle cringed mentally at the thought. How she despised learning French! Though not yet twelve, the raven-haired child had already
forgotten the dulcet tones of her mother’s native tongue, spoken, as though
from far away, over her cradle.
Isabelle shivered as she saw the vast emptiness of the
tall stone foyer. She felt now,
though not for the first time, how alone she really was. But it was not being alone that
bothered her – not tonight, at least.
No, Isabelle knew – vaguely, and for reasons she could not explain – what
troubled her was that someone might come along and then she would not be alone. And yet – Isabelle grasped at straws as she sat there in the
night, looking down at the velvet-covered walls, now deep purple in the dark,
and the shadow-wreathed paintings of noble men and important ladies. What
am I looking for? Isabelle asked herself, sighing. She was restless tonight. Why could she not feel well, even when
she was with little Jeanne? Jeanne,
the only thing she had left in her desolation. Good, beautiful, tiny Jeanne! Little Jeanne, who ought to be a queen or a princess or a
duchess at the least – but not here.
Not here. The fair child’s
heart was too noble, too pure, to live in such a place. Surely little Jeanne, of all people,
had not deserved this? Isabelle
sat unmoving upon the stair, unable – or unwilling – to shake off these
thoughts which now hurried unbidden to her mind. Why had the two of them been sent here? Why must they, out of all the happy girls
in Britain, be stripped of home and what bit family they had left – Papa – to
inherit some dusty titles and a hollow mansion in a foreign land? Yes, they were better dressed, and
better fed, than they ever had been before. But that was beside the point. The grounds and gardens and bright, dignified halls, so
exquisite, so lovely, by day, were revealed in the night. They were cold, unloving, unfeeling.
Staring straight ahead, Isabelle made out a large mass
in the dim hall. There, she knew,
was the magnificent chandelier. Made
of gold and polished mahogany, it hung between this staircase and the one
opposite. Once a thing of splendor,
the silent night watches saw it transform into a grasping black hand. Isabelle looked around and felt that
everything about the high manor house and the long, sprawling grounds had transformed
this way. She was alone, but alone
with the darkness. She was alone,
but the mute presence of the splendid, yet soulless, objects pressed in on her
mind. These things were of a time
gone by, the bones of a family history that was almost dead. Almost. It had, it seemed, just enough life left to choke an
uprooted flower. Isabelle thrust
her head into her lap and covered it with her hands, but even there she could
not escape. Warring within her,
sometimes so fiercely she thought it would drive her mad, the young girl now perceived
the clashing of her own blood – that of the Isles with that of Gaul. Inside her it was Britain against
France; the stout-hearted Saxons once again standing ground, facing the Norman
invaders. Would the conflict never
end?
At the little house at Eventide they had been poorer,
Isabelle reflected, but even the walls there had a friendly feeling. The very earth had seemed warm and
sweet, as if the world itself had its hands in that place, as Papa said; hands
that curled up to enfold even the lowliest lily, no matter how far from its
native soil it grew. And now all
that was gone – at least, for now.
The lily was torn from its bed.
But little Jeanne, precious little Jeanne, Isabelle thought. Here was her last bit of hearth and
home, the last thread that could hold her wavering hope. She did not deserve the small girl’s
sweetness, and yet she could not live without it.
Isabelle
started as something touched her shoulder. She looked around quickly, then put a hand on her heart and
exhaled gratefully. It was only
little Jeanne. The diminutive girl
stood a step above, one fragile hand rubbing the sleep from her eye as she
yawned. Her wispy brown hair,
tumbled about from the bed, reached down so that it just brushed her delicate
shoulders.
“Come back to bed, Is’bell,” she whispered, tugging the
older girl’s sleeve. Isabelle
rose, took the child by the hand, and led her upstairs. As she went, Isabelle gave the desolate
hall a last glance, and turned away.
However these next few weeks played out, she sensed she must pass a
test: either she would remain here and become a great, but empty, lady, or she
would return whole – someway, somehow – to humble Eventide. She kissed little Jeanne, tucked her
in, and stood one last time before the moon-bathed window. Below her stretched the wide expanse of
grey that was the nocturnal world – forests, fields, cultivated gardens. And there, so distant that it hovered
on the edge of her sight, a faint glitter rose from the water of the
Channel. Isabelle stared and
scarcely breathed. There, so remote
yet so maddeningly close, was England.
There was Papa. Far below
in the forbidding hall, the long, somber tones of the grandfather clock
pronounced the hour. The time had
come; Isabelle knew she must decide.
The lily, left unplanted, would surely die. One moment passed.
Then two. Then, just as the
last deep note faded on the air, she chose.
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