“I see. That somewhat mitigates your thoughtlessness. Well, now, understanding that your mother is not in terror that you two may have come to an evil end, how was it that you managed to convince this young man that he should aid you in leaving your dear mother on such an exploit?”
“I – I told him I would let him kiss me when we got to Calais, mon Pere,” Louisette faltered.
“And did you keep that promise, my daughter?”
“Y-yes, mon Pere. Not once, but several times. But I let him, you see, because he is very handsome and yet he blushes like a girl whenever he is in the presence of one. I wanted to let him feel like a man, so I gave him more than was in the bargain.”
“Well, although that was a slight sin, it surely did not have evil as its motivation, but rather compassion. I will remember that when it comes time to give you your penance, my daughter. Go on.”
“But – but there's nothing more to tell, mon Pere. He bade us a fortunate journey and told me to bring his best wishes to Jean when we saw him. And then he drove back to Beaulieu.”
“Had you ever before that time let Guillaume kiss you, my daughter?”
What a court prosecutor the good Father Lawrence would have made had he turned his talents of rhetoric and persuasiveness to that profession! But I could see his tact. Gently and yet cunningly, like a guide who takes you by the sleeve in an unknown city and leads you where he will without your once being aware that he has his reasons for the route he takes, Father Lawrence was determining the extent of Louisette's maidenliness… or lack of it, to be sure!
“N – not really, mon Pere,” Louisette faltered.
“My child,” he said gravely, “you see me now in my black cassock and hat of Mother Church. You as penitent are come to the confessional, and it lies heavily upon your immortal soul to speak the truth, without shame – for there is shame in deception and concealment, since expiation is granted those who have sinned and yet have heart to avow it – and so you must not dissemble with me. Was that the first time you and he had kissed, my daughter?”
There was a slight pause, and then in a voice so faint I could scarcely make it out, Louisette breathed a calm, “No, mon Pere.”
“Ah, that is better, my daughter. You have already taken the first step away from perdition. So how long had you and this rascal of a Guillaume exchanged sweet busses and clippings and sighings, like two doves who play at mating though they are not yet ready for it?”
“For – for about a year, mon Pere. But it was not in sin, mon Pere, because I had hoped that he would become my betrothed. I wished to wed with him perhaps in another year. And though he is shy, mon Pere, I like this because he does not make eyes at other girls or try to pinch them the way Michel Devrier, who is fat and stupid and smells bad always from the stable, always tries to do.”
“I admire your frankness, my daughter. But had you gone farther than the chaste kiss in all this while?”
“I – I am still a maiden, mon Pere.”
“That was not what I asked you, my dear child,” Father Lawrence said reprovingly. “Remember, the confession is not yet over. The truth, my daughter!”
And at that moment, I believed he might have been the reincarnation of the famous Torquemada, that baleful familiar of the Holy Inquisition, before whose terrible powers of denunciation and persuasion no heretic dared stand. His voice had taken on a timbre of grandiloquence, and Louisette must have been properly impressed, for her next answer came in a kind of little gasp: “I swear we didn't play at husband and wife, mon Pere!”
“Then you are truly virgin?”
“Oh yes, mon Pere!”
“And if you have just now told me the truth, Louisette, it can do no harm to tell me the rest of it. What playful games did you and Guillaume indulge in during this past year of your understanding shall we say?”
“Why, mon Pere, he – he sometimes would kiss my neck and my bare arm, and sometimes, when I got him to be very bold, and to give up his blushing, he would put his hand on my knee.”
“Under your kirtle or outside it, my daughter?”
There was a short pause, and then a stammered little gasp: “U – under it, mon Pere, but only for a little time and not as high as my culottes,” (This, dear reader, meant that Guillaume's hand had not quite reached her pussy, which the dear child kept shielded in her virgin estate with a pair of drawers doubtless made of some cheap cotton, since only fine ladies and not farmers' offspring have the wherewithal to purchase undergarments of silk.)
“I applaud your candor, my daughter. And now let me speak even more frankly, and you must do the same. Have you or Guillaume ever watched the mating of the beasts in the field?”
“Oh, yes, mon Pere, many times. His father owns a bull that is named Hercule and my Maman has Daisy, which is our only cow. And Guillaume's father last November brought Hercule to Daisy's stall. He and Maman did not see me, so I was able to watch all that took place. C'etait epatant!”
“Oh, my daughter, what you have just said makes me shudder that you have discovered prurience at so tender an age!” he said in a grave voice. “Now tell me – and you must answer truthfully – when you saw this act of mating, can you say in all honesty that you did not desire Guillaume to attempt the same act with you? Do you know how it is that the husband and wife come together in sacred matrimony, my daughter?”
“But of a certainty, mon Pere,” now the dear child spoke with almost wonder, as if considering it incredible that the English ecclesiastic did not deem her mature and wise enough to comprehend what fucking was.
“And you give me your solemn word of honor that you and Guillaume have never acted out the play between Hercule and Daisy?” he relentlessly pursued.
“Oh, never, mon Pere!” the charming Louisette gasped.
“I am inclined to take your word, my daughter. But I would have more proof. Do you see, the Seminary at St. Thaddeus is staffed” (I very nearly burst into fleaish laughter, for the good Father had unwittingly used a word which in its utter and lascivious sense precisely designates the principle pursuit at the Seminary, namely, staff and pussy, the one into the other) “by diligent holy men who are not likely to be so indulgent with a minx as I am with you, Louisette.”
“What proof do you wish, mon Pere?”
“Why, to begin with, you will pretend that I am this Guillaume, and you will show me just how far you permitted him to let his sin-intending hand to ascend on your fair limbs. To give this greater verisimilitude, I shall take off my cassock and hat, so that I will look more like a man such as Guillaume himself is, though admittedly I am far older. There, I am ready. Now, so that we may have the exact duplication of the scene which the two of you played, tell me this: were the two of you sitting or lying upon the ground or in a bed of straw in the barn?”
“Why, Father, sometimes both.”
“Oh, my child, then this has happened more than once?”
“Of course, mon Pere. After all, Guillaume was to be my betrothed. And in Beaulieu there are other very pretty girls who would steal him away from me if they could and who would have given him even more than I did, so I did not think it was wrong to hold him to me by such innocent little devices.”
I perceived here that the charming Louisette was in her own way as purposeful and guileful as good Father Lawrence, and I silently applauded her. At least this discussion served to take my mind from the insurmountable fact of my imprisonment, and acted thus as a mental stimulant for which I was most grateful. “Well, then, my child, we shall take one or the other of these locales in our enactment of your naughtiness. Let us, for the sake of comfort, use this good bed, which is sturdy and wide, to approximate the bed of straw in the barn. Do get upon it and lie as you did when Guillaume made his advances.”
Another moment or two followed and I heard the creaking of the bed, as the charming creature ascended it and took her place. Then I heard her call, “This is how I was on the day before Shrove Tuesday, mon Pere.”