Free Time for Silence by Philippa Carr

of work there.”
    “I suppose so.”
    She came toward me. She had a pleasant, happy face. I noticed that she was going to have a baby…and quite soon. She leaned her arms on the wall and surveyed me.
    “Have you been long at the school?” she asked.
    “I came last September.”
    “Where do you come from? England, I guess.”
    “How did you know?”
    “Well, you pick them out. It is the way you speak French perhaps.”
    “Is it as bad as that?”
    “Never mind,” she said. “And it is not bad at all. I know what you are saying.”
    “Oh, good. Did you know Carl who worked here for a time?”
    “Oh, yes. Not much of a gardener, my Jacques said. I knew him. Didn’t stay long.”
    “Why did he go away so soon?”
    “I don’t think he ever meant to stay. One of those here-today-and-gone-tomorrow types.”
    “Well, I’d better get back.”
    “Good-bye,” she said cheerfully.
    A week or so later I saw her again. She looked a little larger.
    “Hello. You again,” she said. “You seem to like this place.”
    “I like to get out at this time of the day, and it is pleasant in the gardens.”
    “Spring really is here.”
    “Yes. It’s lovely.”
    “It’s time for my rest. I have to rest now, you know.”
    I knew what she meant. “You’re…very pleased about it, aren’t you? I mean…the baby.”
    “So you’ve noticed.” She laughed loudly, indicating this was a joke, as her condition was so obvious.
    “Well…er…I did.”
    “A young girl like you!”
    “I’m not really so young.”
    “No. Of course you’re not. Young people know about such things nowadays. You’ve guessed right. I am pleased. We always wanted a child, Jacques and me. Thought we were never going to have one and then the good God saw fit to grant our wish.”
    “It must be wonderful for you.”
    She nodded, blissfully serene.
    I went away thinking about her.
    One day when Miss Carruthers took us on another tour of Mons, we had a chance to visit the shops again and I bought a baby’s jacket. I proposed to take it to the woman in the cottage. I had discovered her name. It was Marguerite Plantain. Jacques Plantain had been employed on the school estate for many years, and his father and grandfather had worked for the Rochères before there had been a school.
    Marguerite was delighted with the jacket. She told me how she enjoyed our little chats over the wall. I was invited into the cottage on that occasion. It was very small, with two rooms upstairs, two downstairs and a washhouse at the back.
    She took great pleasure in showing me the things she had prepared for the baby. I was very interested and told her that I hoped it would arrive before I left for the summer holidays.
    “School closes at the very end of July,” she said. “Leastways it always has. Well, the baby should be here a week or so before that.”
    “I shall want to know whether it’s a girl or boy. I’d like a little girl.”
    “ You would!” She laughed at me. “Well, it is for the good God to decide that. Jacques wants a boy, but I reckon he’ll be mightily pleased with whatever is sent us. All I want is to hold this little one in my arms.”
    Spring was passing. Summer had come. Only one more month before school finished. I was enjoying school more than ever. Caroline and I had become firm friends and I was quite fond of the other two.
    Country walks, paper chases, plenty of fresh air. That was the best medicine, said Miss Carruthers. There were complaints from Mademoiselle Artois because we left the dormitory untidy. Dancing lessons, piano lessons…through the long warm days. But I was always missing Annabelinda and waiting eagerly for some news of her.
    She did write now and then. She was getting better. She thought she would be really well by the time I joined her. It was very hot at Bourdon and they were all complaining about the effect the weather was having on the grapes.
    “I look forward to seeing you, Lucinda,” she wrote, “and hearing