Love Letters

by Madeleine L'engle

  “Oh, come anyhow, please do come,” Mariana cried. “I’m here only for tonight. I have to take Peregrina home.”

  “Take her home? Isn’t this home?”

  “Oh, Baltazar, it doesn’t matter, they both are. Do let’s go somewhere where I can see you and talk to you!”

  “We’ll go to the library,” Baltazar said, “and I’ll bring you some wine.” His arm around her, he led her up the rosy marble staircase to a large room over the ballroom; music and laughter rose to them undiminished. He led her to a chair upholstered in gold damask and seated her, saying, “There. If I can’t get you out of that dark habit I can at least put you against a less somber background. Now wait right here, my sweetest sister, don’t move, and I’ll be right back.”

  He bounded out, pulling the door to behind him. Mariana, feeling suddenly weak, leaned back in the chair. As the door was pushed open she jumped, but it was only Pinto, Francisco Alcoforado’s pet monkey. He came gibbering across the carpet, leaped up into Mariana’s lap, and flung his skinny, hairy arms about her neck in a stranglehold. Mariana laughed, scolding him and loosening his grip. He plunged his pink leathery fingers into the pocket of her habit, looking for tidbits.

  “I don’t know why you’re so skinny,” she told him. “You’re the greediest little thing I’ve ever seen in my life. Even greedier than the children.”

  “Even greedier than I am?”

  Mariana looked up as Peregrina came into the library and stood in the center of the rug, twirling around slowly.

  “Maria Peregrina Alcoforado!” Mariana exclaimed.

  “Yes, it is I.” Peregrina curtsied solemnly. “Do you like it? Of course it’s Ana’s, and we had to take it in in one or two places, but it’s a proper dress for a dance, not the convent uniform or the baby clothes papa’s been keeping me in when I come home. Do you like it?”

  “I don’t know,” Mariana said helplessly. “I wasn’t prepared. I wasn’t ready to have you be grown up. No, I don’t think I do like it. I’ll be glad to see you back in your convent clothes and looking your own age again.”

  “I’m fourteen years old,” Peregrina said, “almost fifteen. I’m a woman and I’m tired of being treated like a child.” She sat down and complacently stroked her own bare shoulders. “Rui de Melo said he ought to have waited for me, and Ana was furious. She’s got a jealous streak as wide as the Tagus, that girl. And she looks older than you do, for all she’s two years younger. Dom Alipio said I have beautiful shoulders and Sister Joaquina’s are scrawny. It’s really unfair to poor Sister for me to know her father. Your shoulders aren’t scrawny, are they, Mariana?”

  “Stop it, Peregrina,” Mariana said, moving restlessly on the gold damask of her chair.

  Peregrina stopped stroking her shoulders, still rounded with baby fat. “Mariana, did you ever have a ball gown?”

  “No,” Mariana said quietly. “Why should I?”

  Peregrina twirled again. “For the same reasons that I should. And I should. My life would be blighted if I should have to become a nun and I’d never, ever had a ball gown.”

  Mariana smiled. “Do you think my life has been blighted?”

  Peregrina stared at her, squinting, as though threading a needle. “If I think about it, then I’d have to say yes. But when I’m with you, and feel about it, then I’d say no. You certainly don’t strike any of us as being blighted. You’re the one who’s always singing and laughing and being happy and getting scolded by Sister Maria da Assunção. That makes you popular, I can tell you. I suppose if one really has a vocation then not having a ball gown wouldn’t be an utter blight—”

  Mariana’s laugh pealed out. “You’re absolutely impossible. And you’re still an infant, ball gown or no.”

  The door was pushed open and Baltazar came in, carrying two glasses of wine.

  “Wine!” Peregrina cried.

  “For Mariana and me, not for you. You’ve had enough. And don’t shout at me like that. You made me spill.”

  “Mariana’s a nun. She oughtn’t to drink wine. It’s sinful.”

  “Nonsense,” Baltazar said. “It is nonsense, isn’t it, Mariana? It’s not a sin?”

  Mariana took the wine and smiled at him over the rim of the glass. “Not when it’s to welcome your brother home from the wars. Oh, Baltazar, I’m glad to see you, I’m glad to see you!” They raised their glasses, and drank.

  “When did you have wine last?” Peregrina asked her curiously.

  “Oh, Peregrina, I don’t know, I don’t remember, what does it matter?”

  “You sound cross,” Peregrina said, surprised. “All right, I’ll propose a toast, even if I don’t have anything to drink it with. To our brother, Baltazar, and all the Spaniards he killed.”

  Mariana raised her glass again, “To Baltazar.”

  Baltazar raised his. “To the Spaniards: better dead than alive. Now go, little one.”

  “I want to stay with you.”

  “You’ve been with me. Mariana’s only here overnight.”

  Peregrina rose reluctantly. “All right. Though somehow I can never feel sorry for Mariana. She’s just not someone you go around being sorry for, like Sister Joaquina. But it’s true, she never gets home, and I come whenever papa gets bored and needs someone to amuse him. If he weren’t always dashing off to court, I’d probably be here as much as I am at the convent.”

  Pinto left Mariana’s lap, ran across the floor on all fours and bowed at the open door, as though inviting Peregrina to leave. They all laughed.

  “Go find Rollo and Mathieu,” Baltazar said to Peregrina, “there’s a good girl.”

  “What about Noël?”

  “He’s not here tonight. Other fish to fry.”

  Peregrina explained. “He’s the one on the black charger, who was with Baltazar. He’s absolutely marvelous, Mariana, and he saved Bal’s life. A horrible Spaniard jumped him from behind when he was already fighting someone else, and Noël came leaping in and killed the Spaniard, and the Spaniard cut him across the cheek, you can see the scar, and if it hadn’t been for Noël, Baltazar wouldn’t be here at all, and we’d be singing horrible requiem masses for his soul. Of course Noël says Bal saved his life. I wish I were a boy. Then I wouldn’t have to worry about being a nun.”

  “You could be a monk,” Baltazar said. “Stop talking and go.”

  —So his name is Noël, then. Noël.

  As Peregrina left, Mariana asked, “You were nearly killed?”

  “Darling girl, I’m a soldier. Who knows, really, how nearly nearly is? But yes, there was at least one time when Noël did save me from what would have been certain death. And I knew nothing about it until afterwards. As Peregrina said, the Spaniard was coming at me from behind—as death usually does, I suppose. Even if one is lying in bed waiting for it, I imagine at the last minute it takes one unaware. More wine?”

  “No, thank you.”

  “Think it’s wrong?”

  “No, I don’t. But one glass is quite enough. I’m glad he saved your life. Am I to meet him?”

  “Yes. I’ve promised to bring him to the convent. God knows why he wants to come, but he asked me. Something about needing a change and peace and quiet. It will be a change for him, all right. Sure you don’t want more wine?”

  “Quite sure.”

  “Would you like to meet anybody? I have another French friend here tonight, Mathieu de Berenger, and a thoroughly mad Englishman—”

  She shook her head. “No. Please. I only came to fetch Peregrina. And to see you.”

  “You think our esteemed aunt would be annoyed? That you would be corrupted by such company?”

  “No. It’s not that. I would just prefer not to. We have to be up early and I still have my night offices to say so if you’ll excuse me I’ll go to bed.” She twined her fingers nervously.

  “Rules even on vacation?”

  “This isn’t a vacation. Good night, Baltazar. You will come?”

  “I said I would.”
r />   “But—soon?”

  “Very soon.”

  “Say good night to papa for me. And tell him I’ll see him in the morning.”

  Her bedroom had the musty smell of a room seldom used. At least it was still considered her room, even if months or sometimes years passed without her crossing the threshold. Her bed had been turned down, the linen sheets sprinkled with herbs so that they smelled fresh and clean in contrast to the dark red velvet bed hangings which were seldom if ever aired and dusted.

  The monkey followed Mariana in and clambered up one of the carved posts of the bed and sat grinning at her from the foot of the canopy. She reached up to take him down, and he twined his arms about her like one of the smaller children at the convent, but she put him out the door and shut it, then pulled the velvet drapes over the windows, cutting out the slight breeze that had been drifting in. She undressed quickly in the luxurious and unusual light of a candle, put on her nightdress and pulled the cowl up over her head before pulling back the drapes and opening the door. Between the windows hung a crucifix, and below this a prie-dieu, and she knelt to say her prayers.

  She was deep in concentration when she felt the bottom of one foot being tickled and turned around in exasperation. Pinto sat back on his haunches and whickered wickedly. “I suppose I can call you a bodily mortification,” she told him, and turned back to her prayers. Pinto continued to tickle her feet; she shuddered, but managed not to pull them away or to move, and slowly her concentration returned. Pinto, disappointed at the lack of response, gave up and clambered up onto the canopy again and sat looking down at her.

  She was almost through when she felt the hood being pulled from her head, and then lips brushed the back of her neck. “Pinto!” she said without looking around.

  Her neck was kissed again, moistly, and she turned. “Papa.”

  His breath was heavy with wine. “You went to bed without coming to tell me good night.”

  “I asked Baltazar—”

  “You do not say good night to your father by proxy.”

  “I’m sorry, papa.”

  “And I hear that you are planning to leave tomorrow morning, and with Peregrina.”

  “Yes, papa. That is what the Most Reverend Mother Brites has asked me to do.”

  “She’s not your mother. She’s your aunt. My holy, horrible, hell-stinking sister.”

  “Please, papa.” She pulled the cowl to her gown back up over her head, and he jerked it down.

  “You don’t need to hide yourself when you’re around me. Pretty girl, my little Mariana. Damn shame. Hard choice to make, you or Ana. Brites was pretty girl, once. What I could tell you about that holy, reverend, so-called-mother of yours.”

  Mariana did not say anything. If she spoke he would undoubtedly tell her whatever came into his head about his sister, whether it was true or not. But her submissive silence did not stop him.

  “Lovers,” he said. “Can’t even count her lovers. Can you?”

  “Yes,” Mariana said clearly. “Because there haven’t been any.”

  “How do you know, hah? All nuns have lovers. All decent nuns, at any rate. How do you suppose she got where she is? How do you suppose she’s built the convent up? How do you suppose she winds the bishop around her little finger? Or gets boarding students from the best families in Portugal. By being pure and holy?”

  “Precisely,” Mariana said, her lips cold.

  “Maybe now. Maybe she’s pure and holy now. Getting old. Older than I am. Don’t think I don’t know about the bishop. Don’t think I don’t know about that priest, what’s his name, Duarte.”

  “You’re disgusting,” Mariana said, angrily. “The church isn’t like court. It’s a different world. It’s a world you don’t know anything about, and you can’t take your world and put it over the church and make it fit.”

  “Pretty when you lose your temper. Give Francisco a kiss.” He reached out to her and she pulled away.

  “You’re papa,” she said, “not Francisco. Not to me. Remember that.”

  “Very pretty with anger flushing those cool white cheeks.” He grabbed at her, pressing his lips against her chin. She twisted around, away from his tender pink mouth, his mouth shockingly like the abbess’s, and shoved at him. He was so drunk that he staggered away.

  “Papa. Go to bed.”

  “A pleasure, my angel, a pleasure.” He leaned against one of the bedposts and the monkey dropped down and sat on his head so that Dom Francisco let out a yelp of surprise.

  “Papa, go to bed,” Mariana repeated. “Do you want me to help you?”

  “Papa’s little girl will help him to bed.” Dom Francisco’s knees began to sag and Mariana was afraid that he would slide to the floor. She took him under the arms and pulled him upright.

  “Come on, papa, I’ll help you to your room.” He let her lead him down the hall, down the stairs to his bedroom. His manservant, waiting outside, gave Mariana an odd look that was close to insolence, and took his master.

  “Good night, papa,” Mariana said. “Perhaps I’ll see you in the morning before Peregrina and I leave.”

  Once back in her room which held the reek of his wine and tobacco, she flung open the windows, then moved blindly to the prie-dieu. She dropped to her knees and the familiar posture itself gave her a small sense of reassurance although she could not find any words of prayer. Her mind groped wildly but she could hear only her father’s drunken voice. Then the cowl was pulled from her head again. She whirled around in fury and anguish, but it was only Pinto, shut out from his master’s room. He looked up at Mariana, shook his head forlornly, and wrinkled his wizened little face as though he were about to burst into tears. She picked him up and held him against her breast, rocking him slowly, trying to pray.

  There was no farewell to Dom Francisco in the morning, or to Baltazar. The great house was sleeping as Mariana and Peregrina climbed into the carriage.

  As they drove off, Peregrina looked at Mariana and said, “Well?”

  “Well, what?”

  Peregrina sighed heavily, looking for a moment as ancient as Pinto. “Oh, I don’t know. Well anything. So I’m back in my convent uniform. Like it better?”

  “Yes.”

  “I look more like your sister now, and less like Ana’s.”

  “Probably.”

  “Ana was mama’s favorite, wasn’t she?”

  “I suppose so. In a way.”

  “Didn’t you—resent it? I would have.”

  “No,” Mariana said. “I don’t think I did. I loved our aunt as though she were my mother. So calling her Mother has been very simple for me. And Ana was at home and I was at the convent. We never saw much of each other.”

  “I wonder what would have happened if mama hadn’t died when I was born?” Peregrina asked. “I wonder where I’d be now?”

  “Probably right here, on your way back to the convent,” Mariana said firmly.

  Peregrina swiveled around in the carriage to scowl at her. “It’s a pity you have to wear that stupid old habit all the time. You’d look ravishing in one of Ana’s ball gowns.”

  “That’s enough about ball gowns.”

  “I don’t think I shall ever have enough of ball gowns. Or wine. Rollo—he’s one of the English soldiers—gave me some. I had three glasses.”

  “Very wicked,” Mariana said absently.

  “Aren’t you going to scold me?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  Mariana said, slowly, “If I can’t manage to understand two worlds at once, how can I possibly expect you to?”

  Peregrina looked again at her sister as though seeing her for the first time. “You’ll have to, if you’re going to be the next abbess.”

  “I wish people would stop all this talk about my being abbess.” Mariana tried to keep the trouble out of her voice. “And you, of all people.”

  “But it’s obvious. That’s why her Reverence—fancy calling you your Reverence, Mariana!—has her claw
s into you all the time, never letting you go home, calling you into her study, jumping on you. I gather you came home this time only to fetch me. She probably didn’t dare expose anybody else to papa and Rui. She hardly ever let you come home, even before you were professed, even when you were just a pupil at the school, but she doesn’t care what I do.”

  “We’re two different people, you and I.”

  “But that’s not the reason, and you know it. Sister Beatriz is allowed to go home.”

  “And we’re two different people, too,” Mariana said.

  “You’ve always been best friends. You’re more like sisters than you and Ana, or even you and I, because you’re the same age, and you’ve grown up together.”

  “That still doesn’t make us alike.”

  “Well, you’re both beautiful, but it’s different. Sister Beatriz’s like marble in moonlight, and you’re like a fountain in the sun. And where does all this leave me? Ana got the husband and you to the church and what’s left for me?” Without pausing for a reply she shrugged and said, “Don’t you want to come home?”

  “Not very much. Nossa Senhora da Conceição is home to me. Much more home than our father’s villa.”

  Peregrina looked at her sharply. “It always upsets you to come home, doesn’t it? Papa upsets you, and Rui and Ana.” As Mariana did not answer, “Don’t they?”

  “Perhaps. In a way.”

  “Why?”

  “You don’t have any right to question me this way.”

  “Please, Mariana—Sister. Please answer me. Why?”

  “What I said. The difference between the two worlds.”

  “It doesn’t bother me. I bounce from one to the other like a rubber ball. Why doesn’t it bother me?”

  “Maybe,” Mariana said slowly, “it’s because you haven’t had to choose one or the other yet.”

  “But you didn’t choose. And I won’t be able to, either. Papa and aunt will do the choosing for us. Did anybody ask you if you wanted to be a nun? Papa decided. He paid out a big dowry for Ana, and he didn’t want Baltazar to lose any more of his inheritance or to split up his property, so you didn’t have any choice. No dowry, no husband. So they put you in a postulant’s habit. Nobody asked you.”