The Mistletoe Bride(14)

The story was first published in an anthology called Little Black Dress edited by Susie Maguire.



THE DROWNED VILLAGE



The Quibéron Peninsula, Brittany

November 1912





The Drowned Village





The sea has many voices,

Many gods and many voices





from ‘The Dry Salvages’, Four Quartets

T. S. ELIOT

It was mid-November. Autumn was already stripping the trees, though winter had not taken a grip on the land. Farms and market gardens were still laden with fruit and vegetables. The seas were calm enough for even the most careful fisherman to put out on the tide.

In school it was the week allotted for the award of scholarships. Only once or twice in living memory had a child from the Three Villages gained a bursary to go and study at the secondary school in the city nearly twenty miles away.

Gaston made his way to the front of the hall. The teachers lined each wall, all eyes upon him, as he climbed the three steps onto the stage. Choked by nerves, he could barely raise his head.

The headteacher spoke. ‘This day, the twenty-second of November 1912, is a very proud day for the Three Villages and our school.’

There was an immediate round of applause. It was Mme Martin who began it, Gaston was sure. She was his favourite teacher, strict without being unkind, keen on nature and science though she taught literature, considered and fair.

The headteacher held up his hands for quiet.

‘Gaston, I believe you have something to say.’

Gaston looked round at the sea of faces. Children from the age of four up to his own classmates, eleven years old, at the top of the school. With the teachers, about sixty people waiting for him to say something important. He hesitated. All he could think about was his clothes – the shabby trousers with the let-down hems and his father’s patched summer jacket, far too big but the only garment his mother said would do for a day such as this.

Then, at the back of the hall, there was a commotion. All heads turned and, to his mortification, Gaston saw his mother and father tottering in and trying to slip into the back row of chairs. His mother was trying to put on powder even though she had her arm threaded through her husband’s, and her headscarf was crooked. They were both flushed, eyes a little too bright, in the way Gaston recognised and hated.

He could think of nothing to say.

Mme Martin firmly turned back to the stage and raised her hand. ‘We are all very proud of you, Gaston.’

Gaston gave a small smile. ‘Thank you,’ he whispered.

She quickly moved to help get Gaston’s parents seated. Silence surged through the hall. To Gaston each second lasted for ever, but though they fussed and were clumsy, finally they were seated and looking at the stage too.

‘Gaston,’ said the headteacher. ‘You have something to say?’

Gaston remembered the piece of paper – Mme Martin had suggested he should write something down rather than rely on memory – and quickly pulled it from the pocket of his hand-me-down trousers.

‘I am very grateful to everyone. My teachers helped me to study and, because of that, I was able to win this scholarship. I will do my best to make everyone in the Three Villages proud.’

He bit his bottom lip, folded the piece of paper and twisted it in his fingers.

‘Well done,’ said the headteacher, leading the round of applause.

Gaston returned to his seat, trying not to catch his mother’s eye. There were more prizes for each of the classes and a special gift for Mme Denis who was going to live with her sister in Quibéron.

When the ceremony was over, everyone lingered in the hall and Gaston had to endure the adults coming to congratulate him. He never knew what to say, so he smiled and nodded and mouthed thank you over and again. The men shook his hand or clapped him on the back. The women hugged him and said how he was growing.

Finally, he realised that the only people he hadn’t seen were his own parents.

‘They left,’ said Régis. ‘They asked Maman if you could come home with me. Said they’d fetch you later.’

‘Oh.’

Gaston wasn’t sure if he was disappointed or relieved. It was nothing new, but he thought today might be different.

‘Oh,’ he said again. ‘All right.’

The journey to Régis’s farm took a little over an hour in an old-fashioned trap pulled by two farm horses.

The boys sat on the second bench, behind Régis’s parents. Monsieur and Mme Hélias were talking in low voices and the hooves of the horses and the clinker rattled loud in the crisp November air. Even so, Gaston caught some of the conversation, fragments about a ceremony due to take place tomorrow in which Régis’s father, he gathered, had an important part to play.