The Outlandish Ladies

== THE OUTLANDISH LADIES ==
=== By Arthur T. Quiller-Couch ===
A melodramatic story of exiles in a far country. From “ Noughts and Crosses " 1893
A mile beyond the fishing village, as you
follow the road that climbs inland towards Tregarrick, the two tall hills to right
and left of the coombe diverge to make room for a third, set like a wedge in
the throat of the vale. Here the road branches into two, with a sign-post at
the angle ; and between the sign-post and the gray scarp of the hill there lies
an acre of waste ground that the streams have turned into a marsh. This is
Loose-heels. Long before I learnt the name's meaning, in the days when I trod
the lower road with slate and satchel, this spot was a favorite of mine — ^but
chiefly in July, when the monkey-flower was out, and the marsh aflame with it. 
There was a spell in that yellow blossom
with the wicked blood-red spots, that held me its mere slave. Also the finest
grew in desperate places. So that, day after day, when July came round, my
mother would cry shame on my small-clothes, and my father take exercise upon
them; and all the month I went tingling. They were pledged to "break me of
it'* ; but they never did. Now they are dead, and the flowers — the flowers
last always, as Victor Hugo says. When, after many years, I revisited the
valley, the stream had carried the seeds half a mile below Loose-heels, and
painted its banks with monkey-blossoms all the way. But the finest, I was glad
to see, still inhabited the marsh. 
Now, it is rare to find this plant growing wild;
for, in fact, it is a garden flower. And its history here is connected with a
bit of mud wall, ruined and covered with mosses and ragwort, that still pushed
up from the swampy ground when I knew it, and had once been a part of a
cottage. How a cottage came here, and how its inhabitants entered and went out,
are questions past guessing; for the marsh hemmed it in on three sides, and the
fourth is a slope of hill fit to break your neck. But there was the wall, and
here is the story. 
One morning, near the close of the last
century, a small child came running down to the village with news that the
cottage, which for ten years had stood empty, was let ; there was smoke coming
out at the chimney, and an outlandish lady walking in the garden. Being catechised,
he added that the lady wore bassomy bows in her cap, and had accosted him in a
heathen tongue that caused him to fiee, fearing worse things. This being told,
two women, rulers of their homes, sent their husbands up the valley to spy, who
found the boy had spoken truth. 
Smoke was curling from the chimney, and in
the garden the lady was still moving about — a small yellow creature, with a
wrinkled but pleasant face, white curls, aftd piercing black eyes. She wore a
black gown, cut low in the neck, a white kerchief, and bassomy ( or purplish )
bows in her cap as the child had stated. Just at present she was busy with a
spade, and showed an ankle passing neat for her age, as she turned up the
neglected mold. When the men plucked up gallantry enough to offer their
services, she smiled and thanked them in broken English, but said that her
small forces would serve. 
So they went back to their wives; and their
wives, recollecting that the cottage formed part of the glebe, went off to
inquire of Parson Morth, “than whom," as the tablet to his memory relates,
“none was better to castigate the manners of the age. " He was a burly,
hard-riding ruffian, and the tale of his great fight with Gipsy Ben in
Launceston streets is yet told on the countryside. 
Parson Morth wanted to know if he couldn't
let his cottage, to an invalid lady and her sister without consulting every
wash-mouth in the parish. 
“Aw, so there's two!" said one of
them, nodding her head. “ But tell us. Parson dear, ef 'tes fitty for two
unmated women to come trapesing down in a po'shay at dead o* night, when all
modest flesh be in their bed-gowns?" 
Upon this the parson's language became
grossly indelicate, after the fashion of those days. He closed his peroration
by slamming the front door on his visitors; and they went down the hill “
blushing" (as they said) "all over, at his intimate words." 
So nothing more was known of the strangers.
But it was noticed that Parson Morth, when he passed the cottage on his way to
meet or market, would pull up his mare, and, if the outlandish lady were
working in the garden, would doff his hat respectfully. 
“ Bonjour,
Mamzelle Henriette” — this was all the French the parson knew. And the lady
would smile back and answer in English : 
" Good-morning, Parson Morth." 
“And Mamzelle Lucille?" 
“ Ah, just the same, my God ! All the day
stare — stare. If you had known her before ! — so be-eautiful, so gifted, si
bien/lev/el It is an affliction; but I think she. loves the flowers. " 
And the parson rode on with a lump in his
throat. 
So two years passed, during which
Mademoiselle Henri ette* tilled her garden and turned it into a paradise. There
were white roses on the south wall, and in the beds mignonette and boy's-love,
pansies, carnations, gillyflowers, sweet-williams, and flaming great
hollyhocks; above all, the yellow monkey-blossoms that throve so well in the
marshy soil. And all that while no one had caught so much as a glimpse of her
sister, Lucille. Also how they lived was a marvel. The outlandish lady bought
neither fish, nor butcher's meat, nor bread. To be sure, the parson sent down a
pint of milk every morning from his dairy; the can was left at the garden-gate
and fetched at , when
it was always found neatly scrubbed, with the price of the milk inside.
Besides, there was a plenty of vegetables in the garden. 
But this was not enough to avert the
whisper of witchcraft. And one day, when Parson Morth had ridden off to the
wrestling matches at ,
the blow fell. 
Farmer Anthony of Carne — great-grandfather
of the present farmer — had been losing sheep. Now, not a man in the
neighborhood would own to having stolen them; so what so easy to suspect as
witchcraft? Who so fatally open to suspicion as the two outlandish sisters?
Men, wives, and children formed a procession. 
The month was July; and Mademoiselle
Henriette was out in the garden, a bunch of monkey-flowers in her hand, when
they arrived. She turned all white, and began to tremble like a leaf. But when
the spokesman stated the charge, there was another tale. 
“ It was an infamy. Steal! She would have
them know that she and her sister were of good West Indian family — the
Henileveis” Then followed a torrent of epithets. They were Idches—poltrons, Why
were they not fighting Bonaparte, instead of sending their wives up to the
cliffs, dressed in red cloaks, to scare him away, while they bullied weak
women? 
They pushed past her. The cottageheld two
rooms on the ground floor. In the kitchen, which they searched first, they
found only some garden-stuff and a few snails salted in a pan. There was a door
leading to the inner room, and the foremost had his hand on it, when
Mademoiselle Henriette rushed before him, and flung herself at his feet. The
yellow monkey-blossoms were scattered and •trampled on the floor. 
« Ah — notty notty
messieurs! Je vous prie — Elle est si — si horrible! '^
They flung her down, and pushed on. 
The invalid sister lay in an arm-chair with
her back to the doorway, a bunch of monkey-flowers beside her. As they burst
in, she started, laid both hands on the arms of her chair, and turned her face
slowly upon them. 
She was a leper! 
They gave one look at that featureless
face, with the white scales shining upon it, and ran back with their arms
lifted before their eyes. One woman screamed. Then a dead stillness fell on the
place, and the cottage was empty. 
On the following Saturday Parson Morth
walked down to the inn, just ten minutes after stalling his mare. He strode
into the tap-room in his muddy boots, took two men by the neck, knocked their
skulls together, and then demanded to hear the truth. 
' “Very well," he said, on hearing the
tale; "to-morrow I march every man Jack of you up to the valley, if it's
by the scruff of your necks, and in the presence of both of those ladies — of
bothy mark you — you shall kneel down and ask them to come to church. I don't
care if I empty the building. Your fathers (who were men, not curs) built the
south transept for those same poor souls, and cut a slice in the chancel arch
through which they might see the Host lifted. That's where you sit, Jim
Trestrail, churchwarden ; and by the Lord Harry, they shall have your pew.” 
He marched them up the very next morning.
He knocked, but no one answered. After waiting a while, he put his shoulder
against the door, and forced it in. 
There was no one in the kitchen. In the
inner room one sister sat in the arm-chair. It was Mademoiselle Henriette, cold
and stiff. Her dead hands were stained with earth. 
At the back of the cottage they came on a
freshly-formed mound, and stuck on the top of it a piece of slate, such as
children erect over a thrush's grave. On it was scratched — 
Ci-git
Lucille,
Jadis si Belle;
Dont dix-neuf Jeunes Hommes 
Planteurs deSaint Domingue,
ont demandé la Main,
Mais La Petite ne Voulait Pas.
R. I. P.
This is the story of Loose-heels, otherwise
Lucille's.
Category:Quiller-Couch
Category:Nought & Crosses