Myriam!
Mrs. Cornavin's shrill voice startled the girl. She whisked off under a pile of linen the exciting novel she was reading, «Love's Cinderella», and tried her best to look indifferent and wholly absorbed in her embroidering.
The door flew open and Mrs. Cornavin popped in, not unlike a wicked Jack-in-the-box.
A most unprepossessing female she was… Tall, raw boned, lanky as a stale kipper. With her spectacled, sharp-edged, inquisitive nose, her small restless eyes, her wrinkled old skin and flaccid dewlaps, her shabby grey hair drawn back tight into a horse tail, Myriam thought her the very picture of a witch.
She snapped tartly:
«Well! Myriam, would you mind answering when I call you?»
Myriam looked up, wondering. She looked up as a squirrel peeps over a nut, and there was a twinkle in her golden eyes.
«Did you call my aunt?»
«Yes indeed, and you heard it. But you were daydreaming as usual. For Heaven's sake when will you stop thinking the whole world is at your knees? Don't keep forgetting you owe your relations everything you have. I picked you, a charity girl, and brought you up as my own girls and there's your thanks for it, without me you'd be in the gutter as… as…»
She sought long for the appropriate word. «As a woman of the streets». And there's your thanks for it, you should be grateful to me.
«But my aunt, she feebly protested…
«Stop it, I'm talking… First of all, have you done with your work?»
Yes my aunt, I've finished all the embroideries… How lovely, aren't they? She was showing the dainty lawns and laces, the night gowns, the flimsy petticoats, the minute pants festooned and inlaid with lace heaped in front of her.
«Yes, but that's too good for you my girl. You're not the young lady in the manor house over there, and you'll wear these some day when pigs will fly.
«Who knows? whispered Myriam.
«You conceited fool, echoed Mrs. Corn»-vin's shrill voice. Pack all these things and take them up to the manor house. Mademoiselle Ghislaine expects her father to-night and she wants to look pretty.
«She doesn't need all this to look lovely!
«Nobody asked for your opinion on this point, hurry up! said the aunt in that peevish voice she always had when addressing her ward».
Myriam laid her embroidering aside in a box and prepared to go. As she was going to the manor house she wanted to change her clothes, but her aunt stopped her:
«It's no use! Nobody will look at you poor fool. You'll take the short cut through the woods.
Myriam swallowed back her tears. She knew her aunt hated her, she knew she was her daughters' drudge, yet she couldn't get used to the humiliations she must put up with. «Some day, she would say, I'll make her rue for it, I'll pay them in their own coin, the mean cats!»
Soothed by this hope of revenge she went out under Mrs. Cornavin's wicked scowl, and made for the manor house.
— Myriam's was a strange story. Mrs. Cornavin was no more her aunt or relation than you and I.
Mrs. Cornavin, long ago widowed of an English teacher had never forgiven the deceased spouse who left her penniless.
In the end she had managed to become Lord Disney's house-keeper, picking up genteel ways that flattered her snobbishness. As many of his country men Lord Disney had bought a manor house in Burgundy, where he loved to come and stay. Mrs. Cornavin followed him every where.
In this very manor house, called «Le Chateau Vert» because of its green tiles, an event had taken place which was to turn Myriam into another Cinderella. On a fine morning Mrs. Cornavin found on the front flight of steps a wicker basket with a baby in it. There was nothing to identify it by, except a medallion engraved with unknown arms and the monogram M.
Milord when he was told this (may be he knew the clue to the riddle) desired Mrs. Cornavin would look after the child — this in a peremptory tone — and bring it up together with her two years' old twins; for which office he would grant her a handsome allowance. Sensing some mystery and a goodly income, Mrs. Cornavin obeyed Milord's wish.
Everything went on fine for some years, Myriam was on the same footing with the old house keeper's daughters, and, besides, she grew into a lovely child.
She was twelve when Milord broke his neck in a fox hunt. Contrary to Mrs. Cornavin's expectations, Myriam was left unprovided for. As he was a widower and left no issue. Lord Disney's earthly possessions were sequestered, till further enquiries should be made.
Presently Mrs. Cornavin found herself alone in the wide world, with one more child, about whom she knew nothing.
She was for crossing over to England when the manor house became the property of a stranger, whose fortune and occupations were only to be surmised at. The new owner asked her to stay, not as his own house-keeper but as a kind of overseer in charge of all hands on his estate. She was to live in a hunting box on the grounds.
Mrs. Cornavin was only too glad to accept the arrangement, she liked the place and could live honourably there with her daughters.
But Myriam ceased to be the beloved and spoiled child of a devoted house-keeper. Now she considered her a foundling, Mrs. Cornavin used to vent on Myriam every one of her numerous fits of temper. The twins, Katy and Helen had made her into a perfect little drudge, and whereas they were taught in a private institution Myriam's lot consisted of every availing unpleasantness. She was the maid of all work, an intruder, the butt of numberless sarcasms and mean jokes.
Mrs. Cornavin couldn't forgive her stealing into the family, yet she had never told her the truth on the matter. Myriam believed herself to be some of niece picked up out of kindness. She dared not ask any questions, well aware nobody would answer her. She was content with calling her aunt no end of unseemly names under her breath, «old hag» being a favourite of hers, and entertained private and strongly original views on the world in general and her surroundings in particular.
— The hunting-box was a good mile and a half from the manor-house, but Myriam knew the short cuts; the main one by the lake shortened the way a good deal.
It was by a bright June afternoon, sunbeams played through the branches. The woods were fragrant with the scent of flowers and the strong, rich smell of sap and earth. The birds called from tree to tree, and Myriam in spite of all felt happy.
She picked some flowers in the moss and pinned the bunch to her blouse, She saw daisies in the grass, laughed, plucked one and pulled out its petals slowly: He loves me, he loves me not… The conclusion was «he loves me».
I wonder who could love me, I don't know anybody-She was seventeen and knew nothing about love except what she had read in books and that wasn't much. Her innate inquisitiveness, as well as her warm young blood led her to imagine what might be the union of two beings; the images conjured up were too childish yet to touch her. Desire was to her a vague, mysterious, call of the senses and she knew not how much good or evil its fulfillment might force upon her. The words she had read: desire, possession, volupty, were linked with dim imaginings. She knew a girl was desired when she was pretty — she knew she was pretty, much prettier than Katy and Helen. Nearly as pretty as the manor house owner's daughter.
— She looked like a lovely doll with her long fair hair hanging on her back. Her skin under her tan was tenderly flushed. Her winsome, arch, squirrel face invincibly caught the eyes, and when she smiled, she showed a row of delicate pearly teeth with the tip of a rosy tongue.
The finishing touch was given by her green golden eyes, impish and innocent at once in a face that would have delighted any lover of womankind.
And, if any such man could have caught a glimpse of what was hidden under the light blouse, could have felt the firm bare breasts, the slim waist, the charming curves under the skirt. If a glance had been stolen along the shapely legs, up the rounded thighs, how he would have yearned to know her… to meet her, may be… in a quiet fragrant wood.
Myriam's one thought though was to take advantage of this radiant afternoon to play truant. She had reached the lake by now, the lake closely hemmed round with ageless woods. Myriam often came there. She loved this forlorn, deserted, spot, the calm waters, the trees and sky mirrored in their depths, the loving stillness of nature.
She paused on the bank, played ducks and drakes, then was seized by a mad longing to bathe. The sun was still high in the sky, she'd soon be dry.
Without more ado, well aware nobody ever came there, she laid her box down, and began to undress. She had quickly done. She had nothing on but her skirt, her blouse, and diminutive pants like a small girl.
She hesitated a second before stripping completely, but the temptation was too strong. The last rampart was of in a jiffy and she stood naked as the loveliest nymph.
So happy was she to be freed of all civilized attire, that she rolled about in the moss, in the grass as a young wild animal who has just broken free, then, she splashed into the cool waters with a child's delight.
— Myriam thought she was alone. Yet a man was there too, lying on the moss close by hidden by a clump of sedges. The man was the owner of the Chateau Vert, Ghislaine's father.
— Nicolas Kozincko would say he was Hungarian, may be it was true, for he did look Slav. Yet he might have been Roumanian, Polish or Russian for all one knew. Still handsome though he was on the shady side of forty, with something of the look of a bird of prey in his cold eyes, brutal, sharp and sensual at once. You could plainly read on his clean shaven face the dispassionate will of a man used to rule everything and everybody, the bitter stigmas of pent up passions, of desire and vice too.
Nobody could exactly say who was Nicolas Kozincko. He was Rich. That was enough. He had many acquaintances, entertained many friends at the Chateau Vert, many friends as strange as he, and herds of pretty girls with them. Nobody knew what passed during the numerous parties he gave. His servants he brought with him from Paris, they couldn't speak a word of French. None of his worthy neighbours where ever invited together with these people, and when they were there was nothing they could learn. They thought Kozincko was a business man. He was rich, hence he was honourable.
Such a man might be cruel and depraved in the eyes of some, yet he became a thoroughly different being as soon as he was with his daughter.
Ghislaine was his only daughter. He never spoke of her mother, his love for his child was violent and exclusive. He shut her from the world and its taints. Ghislaine was a recluse. She lived all the year round at the Chateau Vert. One wing was her own. She had her own servant who couldn't speak French, and a governess was in charge of her education.
When Nicolas Kozincko entertained his friends, that wing of the manor was locked up, and even the servants were left out of what went on, whatever it was. As long as his daughter had been a small girl Nicolas had found the arrangement satisfactory. Now she was seventeen he realized he couldn't keep her there without danger.
This was the reason why he had come back, meaning to take her with him in Paris where he had bought her a jewel of a mansion.
This would enable him to keep the Chateau Vert to himself and his guests. To day he had got there earlier than he expected, and was having a look at the grounds; he had strayed away to the lake and waking up from his reveries had seen Myriam coming; as he had an inkling of what was to follow, instead of revealing his presence he had hidden himself, delighted at this godsend.
Nicolas Kozincko was a great lover of women. As a matter of fact that love was his «raison d'etre». Anything was game for him: ladies, artists, typists, shop assistants, he saw nothing but their bodies and the intense pleasure he could get from them.
The sight of a fine girl was a torture to him and the thought he couldn't get her was rack and torment to him.
He had some difficulty in mastering his desire when he saw Myriam stepping innocently out of her clothes, almost within arm's reach, when he saw her high pointed breasts, her slender waist, her long thighs, and the shy, fair down shadowing her sex. Her fawnlike grace when she frisked about in the moss revealing the secrets of her most intimate treasures, ripe enough it seemed, was almost too much for him. A loathsome desire had swept over him, and he saw himself rushing on the frail helpless child, violently quartering her as a faun ravishing a nymph. This swift possession would have given him an intense pleasure, yet he had still enough sense left to foresee what the consequences of a rape might be even if the girl kept her mouth shut. No! Kozincko had another plan, the girl was too lovely indeed. He would have her, later, at his mercy.
Who was she? he wondered.
One of that old crazy English woman's daughters. If such was the case the matter would be easy to settle.
He knew money can buy everything, especially virtue… It wouldn't take him long to prevail upon the mother to send the child to the Chateau. He would keep her as her daughter's lady's maid. Yes, the idea was a good one, he would do that. He kept his eyes on Myriam splashing about, and his desire grew immodestly strong…
Myriam scrambled out of the water and shook her wet hair. She played about as a happy young puppy.
Kozincko's eyes were riveted to that body which every movement revealed more intimately. The wet skin glistened as a polished metal. The breasts hardened by the cool waters' caresses were darted impudently skywards, like two tiny shields. The softly rounded buttocks reminded him of a firm peach and sometimes he caught a maddening glimpse of a shadowy virginal sex.
He closed his eyes. He mustn't reveal his presence, nor obey his male instincts however excruciating the restraint might be. He waited patiently while Myriam was putting on her babyish pants, her skirt, her blouse, wondering all the while what she would look like with lace underwear, nylons, and all these airy nothings cunningly designed to let you know the secret charms of a lovely woman.
Myriam took up her box and went her way humming a little song while Kozincko hurried to reach the manor house before our Cinderella.