Chapter 4

iv

I will give you peace and quietness

Genesis 21:22

I feel as though I have not seen daylight in months. So standing here in the humble grounds of my family home my eyes scream at me and burn in the unforgiving sun. It is late summer. I still see the same bright blue sky, the same patterns in the clouds but it also seems to me that the days of all my childish dreaming are well and truly over. I sit quietly in the kissing chair in front of the parlour window and extend my hands so that they are level with my eyes. I stare at my hands. So much change in so little time. My small child like hands are both red raw, chapped and covered in calluses of hard skin produced of course by hard endeavour. I haven't even had the courage to look at myself in a mirror. I know that I will have dark circles and pits underneath my eyes and that I will look years older than my few years. I close my eyes a second and the heat of the day makes me drift a little.
It is two months now since Francoise joined us here. Since he was adopted by my father as his ward.I must admit I was more than taken with him that day of his arrival. I drift further back thinking of that day...It was early morning at the beginning of July, warm with a light breeze rolling in off the sea. I remember smelling the saline in the air that morning whilst collecting lavender from the garden. The dew was still on the floor and I had just rejoined my father in the laboratory. A small plain black cab had rolled up onto our drive and stopped outside the door. Sylvie burst into papa's laboratory like a woman possessed and announced the arrival of the cab to my father who seemed to know automatically who it was. Papa and I had been hard at work since the break of dawn: we were still making the magic sanitising powder. I looked to Papa his face is virtually aglow with excitement, it is all that he can do to politely push Sylvie to one side and dash up the old stairs. I still have a cold marble pestle and mortar in my hands. I lay these down on the workbench before me, tying the golden headscarf that I have holding my hair out of my eyes tightly against my forehead and tiding any loose strands of hair I have hanging over my shoulders. I brush myself down hurriedly with my raw hands and try to make myself look more like a young lady than a servant. I wash my hands hurriedly and dip them in the rosewater bowl inhaling sharply as the sting burns through my skin. I follow my father up the stairs followed hotly on the heels by Sylvie who is dying to see who the 'visitor' is. I remember at the very top step that my work apron is still tied around my waste, so I fumble with the knot around the back and hand it to Sylvie who makes a small ball of it and places it in her huge apron pocket.It must have been very daunting for him to see us all there lined up in the doorway waiting to greet him. If he was nervous then he did not show it at all. He walked silently towards my father who kissed him on each cheek as was the custom and gave him the warmest of hugs. I studied his features; perhaps a little too hard, as he came closer. He gave me a shy smile from underneath his long dark eyelashes. He was built very slim, but muscular; slightly taller than I. He was perhaps fifteen or sixteen. His eyes are what caught me, deep brown, drawing a person into them, hypnotising you. It was obvious to anyone at that point that he had been quite seriously ill as his skin had the pale slightly translucent edge to it. My breath caught somewhere in between my lungs and my throat, I was taken from the first moment that I saw him. I felt the familiar faint blush rising upwards from my chest up my neck and creeping into my cheeks. I tried to maintain dignity by thinking that it was preparation time for us all, inclusive of Francoise. He was here to be studied, anatomically and physically.
Papa extended his arm around Francoise guiding him Masterfully down the line introducing him to mama, and then the house staff finally reaching me at the very end of the line. I felt the blush deepen as he once again gave me the same awkward smile. I noticed a sincerity about him, a serenity and kindness. I curtsied appropriately and laid my hand out before him, suddenly jerking my arm to a stop remembering the state of my nails and rough appearance of my fingers and hands. He read my reactions perfectly, taking my hand gently but firmly in his and bringing it up to his soft full lips. My heart beating wildly in my chest, trying to escape, beating so loud I'm sure all in line could hear it. I was getting more and more crimson.
'Hannah, meet Francoise, who has kindly offered to be an aid in these dark times. Francoise this is my daughter Hannah' we stared at each other a little too long. Eyes locked together, reading each other. Father turned on his heel almost dragging Francoise away with him forcing him to let go of my hand. Papa of course excited to get his work underway and study his newest subject, noticing nothing of what had passed in unspoken words underneath his nose.That was our first meeting. Francoise and I have only had a few stolen moments since that first meeting.The last outbreak of the death was only but five miles away. We expect Marseilles to be inflicted any day now.
I am brought back to reality by my father calling my name I stand up rubbing the slumber from my eyes. I shake off the warmth of the day and run down to the cool laboratory flushed. I resume position by the worktable. We have done as much as we can in the past months in the way of preparation, hundreds of pomanders, even handed small favours, or packets of the lilac powder for sanitation, to the local people, so that they can wash their floors and their linen. I have never been more exhausted. I stifle a yawn as I prepare yet more of the linen squares. Francoise stands the other side of the worktable from me. We are now having to use twine instead of ribbon and muslin. On the heavy workbench before me everything is laid out. I reach out lazily for a square of material, and feel the warmth of a hand there. I stop in my tracks. I feel some strange energy emanating from his fingers as I look down and skirt the outline of his fingers and ruffled shirt hungrily with my eyes. Following the line of his arm up to his neck, his jawbone and finally lingering on his eyes. I do not blush, but give him a small knowing smile which his lips reciprocates; neither of us pulling our hands away until papa walks towards the bench startling us back into action.I'm stuck in the daydream again and I think back to the day I spent looking and watching the clouds go by. It seems so far away. In the last few weeks I have mostly felt apprehensive. Dark times lay ahead for us, like a dark wave creeping it's way along the outskirts of mt home. I am scared out of my whits. I know that we all may die. I will certainly loose people that I love. But those eyes, those eyes with that light within them drives me on.Foolishness perhaps, that he gives me some hope.