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Read Ebook: Odette: A Fairy Tale for Weary People by Firbank Ronald Buhrer Albert Illustrator
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Ebook has 97 lines and 6716 words, and 2 pages
Then she went down the broad staircase between the pale armour, beneath the brooding flags, and so to the glass door that led to the garden.
The door was locked, and oh! the dreadful creak it gave as Odette turned the key! and a pair of little exploring mice rushed helter-skelter, tumbling about on the slippery floor.
Odette tremulously turned the handle, and suddenly she found herself alone after midnight in the garden.
Her heart beat so that she thought she was going to die. But oh! how beautiful the garden looked beneath the moon! The roses seemed to look more mysterious by moon-shine. Their perfume seemed more pure. Odette bent down and kissed a heavy crimson rose all illumined with silver dew, and then quickly she picked a great bouquet of flowers to offer to the Virgin. Some of the flowers were sleeping as she picked them, and Odette thought, with a little thrill of delight, at their joy on awakening and finding themselves on the Holy Mother's breast.
Then, her arms full of flowers, Odette went and knelt down by the low marble seat, where so often Monsieur le Cur? had spoken to her of the Saint Mary and of Jesus, her Son. And there, with her eyes fixed upon the stars, she waited....
In the trees a nightingale sang so beautifully that Odette felt the tears come into her eyes, and then far away another bird sang back ... and then both together, in an ecstasy, mixed their voices in one, and the garden seemed to Odette as if it were paradise.
Suddenly a low moan, like the sound of a breaking heart, made Odette start to her feet.
Could it be that the Holy Mother was in pain? She looked about her.
Yes, there it was again ... a long, low cry ... it came from the other side of the wall, it came from the road.
Odette hastily collected the flowers in her hands, and ran swiftly down the avenue of lime trees, her untied hair drifting aerially behind her as she ran.
Then once upon the white road, she looked about her expectantly, but there was no one to be seen. The river ran the other side of the road like a silver chain, and far away in the town of Tours a few lights burnt like candles in the dark. She stood still, listening intently; yes, there again, quite, quite close, was the long, sad cry.
Odette ran forward to the river bank from where the sound seemed to come, and there, her face buried in her hands--a woman lay.
"Oh! Oh!" cried the little Odette, the tears rolling down her cheeks, "the Holy Mother is in pain," and stooping down, she timidly kissed the sobbing woman at her feet.
Then as the woman uncovered her face with her hands, Odette sprang back with a startled scream. There, on the grass, amongst the pale-hued daisies, lay a woman with painted cheeks and flaming hair; a terrible expression was in her eyes.
"Who are you? What do you want?" she asked Odette brutally; and Odette, afraid and trembling, began to sob, hiding her face in her hands so as not to see the dreadful eyes of the woman at her feet.
She felt the woman staring at her, though she did not dare look, then suddenly she heard a laugh, a laugh that froze her blood.
"Why, you have no shoes or stockings," said the woman, in a frenzy of mad laughter. "What are you doing here in your nightgown on the high roads? You've begun early, my dear!" And she rocked herself to and fro, laughing, laughing, laughing, and then suddenly her laughter turned to tears. All her poor thin body shook with terrible sobs; it seemed as if her very heart was breaking.
Odette uncovered her eyes and looked at this shattered wreck of a human soul, and an immense unaccountable pity seized her, for suddenly she bent down and kissed the woman on her burning lips.
The woman's sobs grew quieter, as she felt Odette's pure cool mouth upon her fevered face. "Who are you?" she kept asking her, "Who are you?"
And Odette in her baby voice whispered back, "The Holy Virgin has sent me, in order to make you well!"
Presently the woman calmed herself, and sat staring at the shining river, as though she had quite forgotten that Odette was beside her.
"Tell me what is the matter," Odette said at length, "and I will try to help you."
The woman looked at her kindly: "How should you understand what is the matter?" she said, "You, who have lived always with good people, far away from the temptations of the world, what have you to do with the likes of us?"
"I do not understand," said Odette, looking at the woman with great questioning eyes.
"And may you never understand, little one," said the woman, kissing her. "When I was but a wee mite I heard the preaching folk tell of God and the Angels. You must be one of them, I think?"
"Oh! no, Oh! no," said Odette, "I am not an angel, but I have been sent by the Queen of Heaven to save you here to-night."
The woman looked at her curiously. "You came only just in time," she said, and again her eyes strayed towards the river.
"Let me give you this silver cross," Odette said, changing it from her own neck to the woman's. "Keep it always, for it is holy, and is a sign that Jesus came into the world to die for us."
The woman took the cross into her hands, and seemed to weigh it. "Is it really silver?" she asked.
Odette smiled at her. "Yes, and is it not beautiful? It was given to me by my mother before she went away to India; I do not remember her giving it me, for I was then only a tiny creature. But Aunt Valerie has often told me that when mamma hung it around my neck, she cried, and kissed me, and told me to love the Holy Virgin, for that faith, and love, were the only things that were beautiful in life."
The woman looked at her sadly. "I will keep it in memory of you, little one," she said, "It may bring me luck," and she got up as if to go.
"Will you promise never to do things that the Holy Mary would not approve of?" asked Odette, taking the woman's hand, and gazing earnestly into her eyes.
"I will try, little one," the woman said, and she stooped and kissed Odette passionately; the warm tears falling from her eyes upon Odette's upturned face.
Far away in the East, the day began to Dawn. A flush of yellow like ripe fruit spread slowly across the sky. The birds in the trees piped drowsily to one another, and the bent cyclamens by the river-side lifted their fragrant hearts in rapture to the rising sun.
The woman and Odette stood side by side watching the breaking day, then, as a clock struck away across the meadows from some church tower, the woman shivered, and looked down the long white road that followed the river bank.
"I must go," she said.
Odette looked at her. "Where to?" she asked.
"I don't know," answered the woman. "I am going to try to find work--honest work," and taking Odette in her arms she kissed her again and again. "Good-bye, little one," she said, "And since you pray to the Holy Mother, perhaps sometimes you will pray for me."
And then, with a tired, sad step, the woman walked slowly away down the long white road, her shadow falling beside her as though it were her soul.
"Oh, Holy Virgin, Mother of Our Lord Seigneur Christ, I thank Thee for having brought me here this night," prayed the little Odette. "Take into Thy protection, dear Mother, this poor woman who has need of Thee, and bring her safely to Thy beautiful Kingdom in Heaven, for the sake of our Lord Jesus. Amen."
Then little Odette returned thoughtfully to the great grey chateau. And as she passed down the avenue of over-arching limes a thousand thrushes sang deliriously amidst the branches.
But Odette felt somehow changed since last she passed the castle gates. She felt older. For suddenly she realized that Life was not a dream; she realized for the first time that Life was cruel, that Life was sad, that beyond the beautiful garden in which she dwelt, many millions of people were struggling to live, and sometimes in the struggle for life one failed--like the poor woman by the river bank.
And Odette turned as she walked, and looked behind her, to where, by the roadside, and dying beneath the golden sun, the red roses that she had gathered for the Holy Mother, shone in the morning light like drops of crimson blood.
GARDEN CITY PRESS LTD., :: PRINTERS, :: LETCHWORTH.
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES:
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
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