Chapter Text
April 10th, 1898
Marguerite held onto Matron's fleshy hand as she and fifteen other girls hurried through the old church, finding their seats in the pews in the front.
It was Easter Sunday, and the air smelt of spring flowers and incense. The church was almost full, the warm weather had brought nearly the entire village to mass this morning. The students of Saint Mary's School for Girls had to huddle closer together on the hard benches, none of them daring to make a sound under the stern gaze of Matron and the nuns.
Marguerite was itching in her woollen stockings, and already felt irritated at the prospect of another endless sermon by Father Brennan.
At age eleven, she had been enrolled at Saint Mary’s, a charitable convent school, for over six years now. Together with cottagers’ daughters and the children of families that were only slightly better off, she received as good an education as she could hope for.
Father Brennan climbed his pulpit and started chanting the familiar verses Marguerite heard every day of her life, and twice on Sundays. Saint Mary’s provided students with room and board, and in turn required devotion to religious practice.
By now, Marguerite was able to completely drown out the man’s nasal voice. She could have repeated the phrases in her sleep.
In almost perfect synchronicity with the other girls, she knelt down on the hard wooden plank in front of her. In their grey smocks and white aprons, they all were practically indistinguishable, one impoverished child to the next.
But Marguerite knew she was different from the other girls without ever needing to be told. While it was not uncommon for girls at Saint Mary's to lack parents – mothers all seemed to die in childbirth, fathers all seemed away at sea – Marguerite was the only one who could not put a name to at least one relative, living or dead. Nor did she ever receive visitors, or gifts, or had a place to return to during the summer holidays.
And neither the other girls nor the nuns would ever miss an opportunity to let Marguerite forget that.
She could barely remember her old home, the face of the woman who had nursed her, the man who had sent her to attend the convent school.
There had been talk of putting her into an orphanage, in the earliest years of her life, but somehow she had been spared that fate. The convent had taken down Smith for a family name – generic enough to fit an orphaned girl – and had let her stay, as long as the charity would pay for her keep.
She was lucky, that much she knew.
Marguerite shifted slightly on the uncomfortable church pew. Her knees were pounding in time with Father Brennan’s monotone speech rhythm. How long would the sermon drag on? She thought about the bun and the pint of milk that had been promised to each of them, on this feast day, and her belly cramped up.
Church on an empty stomach was the worst kind of punishment.
It wasn’t that Saint Mary’s was a bad place, exactly. She did have food and a roof over her head, was taught arithmetic, and had lessons in French and German. No one wasted breath by chastising her overly much with the rod after she misbehaved or broke yet another one of the convents many rules.
When her teacher, Monsieur Perrault, had become aware of her confusing talent for languages, he had even insisted on giving her lectures in Greek and Latin.
How perplexed he had been when phrases in an ancient language she had no way of knowing simply tumbled out of her mouth! He had advised her to keep her abilities hidden after that.
Saint Mary’s was as good a place as any other, so why did it feel like a prison? Loneliness gnawed away at her, and every day, the convent walls seemed to become a little higher.
The special treatment she received from Monsieur Perrault had not helped her standing with her class mates, and even Matron had voiced concerns about bestowing too much attention on a girl with no family connections and a violent temper – prone to fits of rage, as Matron called it – but the older man had argued that wasting talents such as Marguerite’s would simply be irresponsible.
Besides, a classic education, even if it was only a limited one, could only help to calm the unruly child.
A feather bobbed in the gallery overhead, catching Marguerite's attention.
The feather was perched precariously on the stylish hat of a young girl. Perhaps fourteen years of age, Marguerite guessed. She wore a dress of pale silk.
Unquestionably of upper class origin, the girl was uncommonly pretty. Her skin was milky, her hair a coppery blond. Her face held the expression of a bored angel. No doubt, she would grow up to be the kind of English rose only old money could bring forth.
Marguerite frowned. The world was vastly unjust, she knew that much. While the poor were born to kneel in grey sack linen on hard benches, the rich were born to idleness and silk. It did not matter how many times Father Brennan stressed that the meek would inherit the earth – Marguerite knew the meek inherited bugger all.
Next to the girl up in the gallery sat two young men, one with thick blond strands and a dark-haired one, both several years older than her and looking comfortable in fine suit jackets. A woman behind them fanned herself calmly. She was as fair as the blond boy, and had a warm expression. She seemed to be taking in every word the priest was saying.
Then it dawned on Marguerite. Of course, it was Lady Roxton and her sons! Their family home was nearby in Avebury, and every once in a while, they would attend church in the village.
Lady Roxton had no daughter, Marguerite knew, so she guessed the girl could be a relative, a family friend, or even a future wife for one of the young men…
The dark haired son Marguerite could only see in profile. He seemed younger than his brother – the heir and the spare, she had heard that expression before – and did not resemble his mother very much, though they did seem to share the same calm manner.
Involuntarily, the girl smiled. Despite his youth, he already had broad shoulders and a strong chin. He looked tall, and his skin was tanned, telling of many days spent outside under the sun.
He seemed familiar somehow. Had she seen him somewhere before?
Suddenly, as if he had heard her thoughts, or sensed that she had been studying him, he turned his head and looked straight at her.
His directness startled Marguerite, causing her to almost gasp, but she held his gaze. How had he even spotted her? His eyes were dark, but in the sunlight that fell through the stained glass windows they looked green to her.
A slow smile appeared on his face. After a moment of hesitation, she returned it. Strangely, her heart started beating faster.
“Marguerite!” Matron’s voice was a low but sharp hiss. The woman’s hard eyes bore into her. Marguerite flinched, and lowered her gaze. It was hard to hide her smile though.
She could almost hear Matron furiously grinding her teeth. The patience she had for Marguerite, or in fact, for any of the girls, was wearing thin these days. Best to play along for a moment and to keep her face expressionless.
So Marguerite studied her hands, trying to calm her heartbeat. Recently, her fingers had started to stretch, like the rest of her body that was about to change. “Seamstresses hands”, Matron had called them. And indeed, cloth seemed to obey Marguerite, she was the most accomplished with the needle at school.
“A girl with a needle in her sleeve will never starve”, Matron had said. The words had tasted sour in Marguerite’s mouth.
Was that what her future was to be? To be a seamstress, hemming for the rest of her life until she was blind?
Carefully, she raised her gaze again, to take another look at the handsome young man in the gallery above, only to find his eyes still fixed on her. They seemed to be dancing with laughter.
Embarrassed, Marguerite looked down again. What was so amusing to him? Had he noticed Matron scolding her?
She looked up again, more discreetly through her lashes this time. His smile was still there, but his expression had softened.
She felt her cheeks reddening, and suddenly a surge of heat. What was he laughing at, anyways? And why would that swaddled princess up there be allowed to sit next to him, while she was down here with her knees almost bleeding?
She decided to ignore him, and fixed her attention on Father Brennan, or rather, the window above the priests head. What lay out there, beyond the green hills and forests of Wiltshire?
The world had to be a vast place, where a girl with a bit of wit could make something of herself. A bit of loveliness, a bit of luck...anything was possible.
That was the other thing that distinguished her from the other girls at Saint Mary’s. Curiosity and ambition were like two stones in her shoe.
She dug her fingernails into her palm. One day, as soon as she could, she would leave this place behind. There had to be more to life than this.
One day, she would know what it felt like to wear silk and to be treated like a queen.
She could still feel his eyes on her.