On the morrow, we woke up to the delivery of two letters, one addressed to me and one to my mother.
I was much surprised that anybody would write to me, so I sat at the table and ran the bodkin along the seam of the envelope with some trepidation.
As I did this, my mother sat on the sofa to read her letter. My brothers sat despondently on chairs, looking at us with a morose look on their faces.
The letter I held in my hand was written in an uncertain but neat hand. It showed little confidence, but much pride, in the writer's ability to hold the pen and put thoughts to paper.
I quickly scanned the letter and immediately ran to the end of the sheet of paper, where I saw Margot's name.
How the sight of this name made me rejoice! It reminded me of the life I used to lead at my ancestral home, which now seemed so alien to me, even though it had not passed more than a few weeks from the day my family and I buried our father and had to leave the comfort of our home.
The letter read thusly:
My dear Miss Eloise,
I wish this letter reaches you and finds you in good health. I have now written a few of these in the hope to get news from you, but, so far, I believe I have not had any luck in achieving this.
I have taken residence in ***, not too far from your old house. Mr Clement has kindly been hosting me.
He is now a schoolmaster in a local public school, and he has offered to educate me, using those methods and those incentives you have heard of, so that, in due time, I could also become a teacher.
I am glad to inform you that I am putting my brains to the test during these lessons, as well as my bottom. Both seem at times to be unequal to the task, but, with good practice, I confide that I will be able to master whatever content is put into me by my instructor, from whichever entry way.
I regret to inform you that your old house has been boarded up since the bank has taken possession of it. All the servants have left, gone who knows where, and no new tenants have moved in. The bank seems to have forgotten it. Mr Clement believes that this is but one of many many entries in the bank's register, and, as nobody is really too sure what's in them, and, as the bank is truly made of nothing but its thousand salaried employees who only care about following orders and drawing their income, nobody truly cares about them.
Only yesterday, Mr Clement told me:
'You see, Margot, these people are not mean. They're just stupid and follow a mean rule.'
And I do believe that the world is run in such silly fashion, and we're all a victim to this system!
The only people happy with this situation are the tenants, who firmly maintain they will not need to pay a cent for their rent. I am not so sure that this entry too will be forgotten, but we shall wait to see.
I have made frequent enquiries about your whereabouts, Miss Eloise, and I wonder what has happened to my dear mistress, her mother, and her brothers. I have now been informed by one of the tenants that he had driven you to the address I am now writing to, and I hope you receive this letter. If you do, please do write back.
Yours truly, etc.
Margot
I was eager to reply to this letter, giving Margot news of my situation, when I was interrupted by a loud cry from my mother.
I quickly ran to her, enquiring what the matter was.
She had thrown the letter she had been holding in her hand to the floor.
'All lost… All is lost…' my mother was saying.
I asked my brothers to bring her her salts, as she appeared to having received a great shock. I picked up the letter and read it.
This was of a much different tone to the one I had just read:
Dear Madame,
Seeing that the Saint Mary has now been confirmed as sunken, we see you will have no means to repay the loan that had been agreed upon and therefore are in no position to pay you such sum with the confidence it will be returned.
We however decided to pay you for the services you have rendered us, according to market value.
The letter was signed by those Mr de La Tour and Mr Gramont I had heard of, who had promised to advance a large sum to my father in exchange for a night with my mother.
As the sum was not paid and my father had not been in a position to pay for the most immediate debts, we had lost every possibility of rescuing ourselves, and my father had preferred to kill himself instead of seeing his family plundered into poverty.
In a word, these two men were the cause of our present misfortune.
I therefore hugged Mother.
She, at first, recoiled from my embrace. I believe she didn't know who I was, such was her state. Then, although I very much doubt she recognised me yet, she allowed me to comfort her.
My brothers produced the salts, but they had no effect on our mother. She then screamed again a much desperate cry and fainted.
As she did, two small, much faded, and brown coins fell from her hand onto the floor. That was the payment for the service she had rendered. That was her market value.
We helped Mother to bed.
My brothers too read the missive from Mr de La Tour and Mr Gramont.
'Do you know anything about what service they are referring to?' Armand asked me.
I denied any intelligence of this, although this knowledge weighed heavily on me.
'All is lost then,' Blaise said.
'Indeed, we are, brother,' Armand said.
I then realised that everyone had been labouring under the hope that the Saint Mary would eventually arrive, and our fortunes would be restored.
After these words were spoken, we all sat in silence around our mother's bed. She lay as dead for an hour, then she seemed to recover and was able to sit up.
As she came to, she looked at us, our lost faces. She saw we looked up to her, as our parent and guide, for a solution to our problems. Then, she began to cry:
'My children, I am so sorry: I don't know how we have ended here, and I don't know how we can save ourselves.'
My brother Armand was biting his lip, as he looked upon her with a hard and resentful look. I could tell he had a harsh message to convey to her, but he could not bring himself to speak to her, seeing she was filled with so much despair.
After some time, she appeared calmer. She asked us to leave her, so that she could get her thoughts in order.
My brothers and I walked into our drawing room, where Armand and Blaise resumed their original position, looking even more upset that before, as if they had been the victims of a great injustice. And I do believe they then thought, as if they were still young children, that it was their parents' duty to look after them and to ensure their safety.
'You heard her?' Armand asked Blaise.
The younger brother scoffed and said with an air of scorn:
'She's sorry.'
Armand too was full of vinegar:
'Isn't it easy to ask for forgiveness after the way she has dragged us into this abyss?'
Like them, I had been raised without a care and without any knowledge that it was my duty to carve my position in the world, as everything was provided for me, and nothing that I desired was ever out of reach, but I somehow couldn't help but feel that the time had come for all of us to forge our own destinies, and, as scared as I was to face the uncertainty that lay before us, I believed this step had to be taken and there was no point in blaming anyone else for something that was indeed very natural.
I kept my council and said nothing, but my presence seemed to vex Armand and Blaise who now and then glanced at me unsure whether I was to pity or I too was to blame for their misfortune.
'Get us some lunch, will you?' Armand asked me quite rudely.
I was only glad to leave them and to meet Maurice.
I had grown so attached to him and often thought about him. The short moments I had with him were so filled with bliss, and, for the rest of the day, I thought about them tried to relive those feelings.
As I said, I had learned some of the facts of his life in the short periods of time we were allowed to be together, and I had grown very fond of him. I also hoped that, although he was very much in love with Louise, he could slowly forget her and learn to feel some of those tender feelings for me. In fact, I much hoped, even though I knew it to be wrong, that he didn't succeed in acquiring the wealth he strived for, that he wouldn't be able to persuade Louise to marry him, and that, poor as I was soon to become, he would marry me.
Such was the ardour I felt for Maurice that drove me to invent these impractical and unrealistic dreams for me and him!
I walked into the little shop. The old owner, whom I now knew to be Maurice's aunt and uncle, gave me a wink and called Maurice, who was in the back working on one of the recipes to be sold to customers during the day.
'We're ruined, Maurice!' I said, laughing as if mad. 'Is that wonderful?'
Tears were collecting in my eyes.
Maurice looked at me with some alarm.
He begged me to tell him all that had passed, but I kissed him on the mouth and demanded that he walked downstairs at once.
'We have no time to lose, my little candy,' I said. 'You will learn it all in due time. I have no desire to tell again the sad story I just had to take in. I desire to be happy!'
We walked to the little room that he had now furnished with a little bed, a little table, and some other items. To my eyes, he had turned this dark and damp dungeon into a palace to make our sojourns pleasant, and these little gestures of his, so simple and so little because his means were in fact very little, are to this day the greatest example of generosity I can call to mind.
We were quickly naked, and I told him to lie on the bed, as I had a burning desire that needed satisfying.
He did as I bid, and, in the dim light of the candles, I stared at his body that still had the darkness of somebody used to the harsher sunlight of the South. I found him very inviting. His eyes were full of wonder and sweetness, but I craved a stronger passion than the gentle caresses he imparted on me. I smiled to myself that, notwithstanding my little experience in such matters, I was ready to take charge and show him what my body desired.
I knelt beside him and observed his dick for a moment, lying limp on his thigh.
'Look at this little bird. It will need a little kiss to fly,' I said.
So, I gave it a little kiss. Lingering with my lips on its skin, I felt a little jolt. I kissed it again. Then, I took it in my mouth, and sucked gently, moving my tongue around it. Soon, I could feel it inflating and getting harder and more substantial. I enjoyed the feeling of this soft organ getting harder and ready for pleasure under my strokes.
Maurice all the while said nothing. He just allowed me to do as I wished.
I was so impatient to get stimulated that I now climbed on top of him to rest my pussy on his mouth. I was now on top of him, sucking his dick which was now hard and had gain in both length and girth, and letting myself be licked in turn.
I was filled with a sort of mania, moving my pelvis back and forth, so that Maurice could easily run his tongue on the full length of my vagina, from my clitoris to the beginning of my anus. I wasn't ready to allow passage into this latter part yet, but I was now becoming quite curious about the pleasant sensation that I felt every time Maurice's tongue would touch its edges.
I now regarded his cock, took it in my hand and yanked it back and forth with some vigour, then said:
'I'm going to make you come so hard! Look at you, so hard and warm in my hand…'
Maurice, timid at first, was now kissing and sucking my most tender parts with such passion and enthusiasm that I was filled with a great desire.
I could feel his tongue part the two halves of my vulva, running along the valley that lies between them, and then reach the opening of my vagina. It licked its edges and then pressed in to enter into that canal. When he grew tired of this, he moved to my clit, hidden among the thick fur, and he sucked it and licked it so that I would scream with pleasure. Oh, what joy this activity gave me!
'Maurice, don't stop! I will now come…'
'What's this madness?' said a very agitated voice from the door.
I couldn't immediately see who had spoken: my eyes were closed, and I was trembling all over, as I was being taken by the great orgasm Maurice had engineered. My thighs shook, opening and closing around Maurice's face.
Maurice must have heard these words, as I could feel him getting restless under me, but, as he was doing so, I could also feel his warm sperm slowly cover my fingers, as he was now ejaculating under my strokes.
I now turned towards the source of this voice, still holding my breath while my orgasm was subsiding and struggling to focus my gaze.
Then, the heat that I had been filled with disappeared, and I became like ice for I saw my mother standing near the door.
In the light of the candles, her face looked even more terrible.