‘The gentlemen, without doubt, make a pilgrimage to La Delivrande, half a league away up the country? At La Delivrande is the church and the altar where the miracles are wrought. There are the little ships of the sailors, the crutches left by the cripples who get back use of their legs. And for the ladies there are the stalls with the relics. Every one in the country,’ ran on the child, with voluble distinctness—Jean Jacques, a source of revenue to his parents, was trained to speak good French with the visitors—‘every one in the country who is sick gets cured. Every one who has a grand espoir goes to La Delivrande, and, if he has faith, attains it. Or so the curé says,’ added Jean Jacques, with a roll of his black eyes and a knowing shrug of the shoulders.
At seven years of age even sand-imps, in these advanced French days, like to show we are no longer bound by the priestly superstitions that were well enough for our grandmothers.
Lord Rex made a free paraphrase of the child’s narrative in English, and was witty thereupon. ‘Every one who is sick gets cured. Every one who has a grand espoir goes to La Delivrande, and, if he have faith, obtains it. Miss Verschoyle, what do you say? Have you a grand espoir? Have you faith? Shall we make our pilgrimage, confess our little peccadilloes, and get cured together?’
Miss Verschoyle rebuked his flippancy, but with lips less severe than her words. For Rosie’s mood was a lenient one. Had not Lord Rex throughout the day conducted himself as well, really, as though that poor Mrs. Arbuthnot were non-existent? It was decided that every one had unfulfilled hopes, that every one stood in need of cure, and that a general confession of peccadilloes would be the best possible employment of the afternoon! In another five minutes the pilgrims were on their road, ragged Jean Jacques leading the way, towards the distant white twin spires of La Delivrande.
The plage, I have said, was deserted; not so the lane, with quaint wooden houses on either side, which forms the High Street of Langrune. Here were bare-limbed, dark-faced fisher-lads, busily mending their nets; clear-starchers plying their delicate craft in the open air; housewives roasting coffee; pedlars chaffering over their outspread goods. Huge cats, with sleepy, watchful eyes, the sun shining comfortably on their ebon-barred coats, reposed on the window-sills. Lace-makers were at work, their headgear antiquated as their faces, their bobbins twirling in and out the pins, unerringly, as though they were the very threads of fate itself. Everywhere was the din of voices. Everywhere were open doors, open windows; and within, such plentitude of frugal cleanliness, such polished oak cupboards, such well-scoured cooking-pans, such snow-white bed draperies, such balsams and geraniums in brilliant scarlet pots, as might have put a Dutch village to shame.
Marjorie Bartrand and Dinah paused beside one of the lace-makers’ chairs, allowing the more ardent of the pilgrims to get on ahead. A distinct shade of constraint was holding Marjorie and Geff Arbuthnot aloof to-day. They had not met since yesterday’s friendly parting. No further misunderstanding in respect of Geff’s celibacy was possible between them. But a change had come across Marjorie’s manner towards her tutor. Geoffrey was sensible that she answered him with pungent and monosyllabic curtness during the whole of their outward voyage. And—seeing that among the knot of pretty Sarnian girls excellent temper reigned supreme, also that Geoffrey had joined the party for other motives than his own pleasure—one can scarcely wonder that this philosopher of four-and-twenty suffered himself, without over difficulty, to be consoled.
At the present moment, disappearing in the perspective of Langrune village, Geoffrey walked, to all outward seeming, well content, beside the prettiest and least wise of the three Miss de Carterets. Of which fact Marjorie took a brief and scornful note in her heart.
‘One can imagine a man’s becoming a senior wrangler.’ She made the remark to Dinah as they watched the everlasting bobbins whirl. ‘Yes, even I, with my halting Euclid and weak algebra (of which, no doubt, Mr. Geoffrey Arbuthnot has spoken), can imagine a man’s becoming a senior wrangler. I can no more conceive of bobbin-turning than I could of a world in which two and two shall make five.’
Dinah’s slower brain needed time for reflection. ‘There could not be a world where two and two make five,’ she observed with certainty. ‘And lace-making, once you have served your time, steadily, is easy enough. Two of my cousins, down Honiton way, are lace-makers, and I learned a little of it when I was a child. The number of threads looks hard to strangers, Miss Bartrand, but it just gets to one twirl of the bobbins in time. Many of the workers keep to the same pattern for life, when they know it well. After a bit, your fingers work without your eyes.’