The Secret of Toni

by Molly Elliot Seawell

“I don’t know how I ever shall,” he said. “I never had a girl speak to me before, and I never played with a girl—I don’t think it’s proper. And the English governess was so cross to Lucie—for so she called her. But I shall walk every day in the park, and perhaps I shall see her again.”

Paul was as good as his word and the very next afternoon walked in the park by himself. He was a neat boy always, but that day his face shone with scrubbing, and he had on his best sailor suit of white linen, and his little cane in his hand. It was about four o’clock in the afternoon, and even the shady paths of the park glowed with a beautiful, mysterious, green light. As Paul walked along, he heard a whisper in his ear. It was Toni, who had crept up from behind a clump of shrubbery and said to him:

“There she is, just down that path, sitting with Captain and Madame Ravenel and holding Madame Ravenel’s hand.”

Paul, following the path, came at once on the bench where sat his divinity, as Toni had described. He doubted if he would have had the courage to bow to her, but Lucie called out:

“Oh, that is the nice little boy who was reading the English book yesterday.”

Paul, blushing up to the roots of his reddish hair, made three bows, one to Madame Ravenel, one to Lucie, and one to Captain Ravenel. Madame Ravenel returned his bow, as did the captain, with much gravity, and Paul passed on, his heart beating with rapture. He had quite often seen the Ravenels and knew them by name. They were apparently the only sad-looking persons in all Bienville. They lived in a small, high, gloomy, old house with a garden at the back, just around the corner from the little street in which Madame Marcel had her shop. Captain Ravenel was a retired officer, but no one ever saw him talking with any of the officers of the garrison, nor was he ever known either to enter any of their houses or to welcome any officers to his house.

Madame Ravenel was the most beautiful woman in Bienville. She was about thirty, but so sad-looking that she seemed much older. She always wore black—not widow’s black or mourning, but black gowns which, although very simple, had an air of elegance that set off her rare beauty wonderfully. Paul had seen her nearly every day since the Ravenels first came to Bienville three years before, but he did not remember ever having seen Lucie until that glorious hour when she burst on his dazzled vision and took his book away from him. From the time he could first remember seeing Madame Ravenel he had never passed her without a feeling coming into his boyish soul like that when he saw the moon looking down on the dark water under the bridge, or heard the melancholy song of the nightingale in the evening. He had confided this feeling to Toni, who answered that both he and Jacques felt the same way when they saw Madame Ravenel. There was something sad, beautiful, touching and interesting about her. Paul could not put it into words, but he felt it, as did many other people.

Madame Ravenel went to church every morning, and when Paul was dressing himself in his little bedroom, off from his father’s and mother’s room, he could always see her returning from church. And what was most remarkable to Paul, Captain Ravenel was always either with Madame Ravenel or not far behind her. He did not go into the church, but, with a book or a newspaper in his hand, walked up and down outside until Madame Ravenel appeared, when he would escort her home. And so it was almost always the case, when Madame Ravenel appeared on the street that Captain Ravenel was not far away. It would seem as if he kept within protecting distance. He was a soldierly-appearing man, serious-looking, his hair and mustache slightly gray.

Madame Ravenel was always beautiful, always sad, always gentle, and always in black. Paul had noticed, in passing the church sometimes, that Madame Ravenel never went beyond the entrance and never sat down, even on Sundays. She only went a few steps inside the church door, and Paul asked his mother why this was. Madame Verney shut him up shortly with that well-known maxim that little boys should not ask questions. Sometime after that, Paul, still wondering about Madame Ravenel, asked his father why she looked so sad, and why Captain Ravenel never stopped and laughed and talked with the officers walking the streets, or dining at the cafés, or strolling in the park, and Monsieur Verney gave him the same reply as Madame Verney, which was most discouraging.