Headpiece, THE MIRACLE OF LITTLE NOËL
Headpiece, THE MIRACLE OF LITTLE NOËL
BY VIRGINIA YEAMAN REMNITZ]
Drawn by Joseph Clement Coll
LIZETTE AMBOISE sat beside the window making lace. The lovely line of her profile caught the light; the clear white of cap and kerchief enriched the olive of her skin. Seen thus from within the room, she was so beautiful that the old eyes of Pierre’s mother brightened as they looked at her.
Pierre himself was working in the woolen mills at Lisieux. Soon after he went his house had caught fire, and Lizette, rushing through the flames, had led his mother out to safety. Since then the old woman had remembered only in flashes.
So there she sat in Lizette’s cottage, her eyes brightening as they rested on the girl. But all at once they clouded; she had remembered.
“If it was as it used to be,” she broke out in a quavering voice, “you might be restored for Pierre’s coming home.”
At the words Lizette turned, and the old woman began to cry.
“For him to come back at Christmas,” she wailed, “to see that!”
The girl looked quickly away. The rich olive of her cheek had faded to a dead pallor; her hands lay idle in her lap. “For him to come back to see that!” She used to rejoice in Pierre’s love of beauty. He was different from the other young men of the village, who cared more for a woman’s strength than for her face, and who looked always at the earth they tilled and never at the sky. Pierre could be keen and shrewd as any other Norman peasant; but Lizette knew his dreams, his delight in beauty, the thoughts he hid from his neighbors.
Once Lizette had said to him:
“Perhaps I can serve you as well making my lace as though I were strong to work in the fields.”
And Pierre, his dark eyes glowing, had answered:
“It is not your service I want, my Lizette. I want only to have you near me, to be able to look into your face.”
The words had pleased her when he spoke them; now they stabbed her to the heart. And so did these lines of the letter Pierre had written after he heard from the curé about the burning of his house, and how Lizette had saved his mother: “My beautiful, brave Lizette! How shall I wait to see you! Your face is always before me.”
“Mère Bernay,”—Lizette had turned again to the old woman,—“listen to me, Mère Bernay. What did you mean when you said I could be restored for Pierre’s return if it was as it used to be?”
“By a miracle of Little Noël. You would make the nine-days’ prayer before Christmas mass. Many are the cures were made so at our church in the old days. But that was long ago; they are made no more.”
The miracles of Little Noël! Lizette had heard of them ever since she was a child, but they had seemed merely a tradition. Suppose—her eyes widened and she drew her breath in quickly.
If the miracles had ceased, it must be because the faith of the people had died. Had not the curé often bewailed the worldliness of the times, the love of pleasure that had replaced piety? If she had faith, if she prayed with her whole heart,it might be that a miracle of Little Noël would be wrought even now for her!
Drawn by W. T. Benda.Half-tone plate engraved by C. W. Chadwick“THE STARRY EYES, UPRAISED, OVERFLOWED WITH TEARS; THE LIPS QUIVERED IN THEIR SUPPLICATIONS: ‘GRANT TO ME FAITH, THAT A MIRACLE OF LITTLE NOËL MAY BE WROUGHT UPON ME’”⇒LARGER IMAGE
Drawn by W. T. Benda.
Half-tone plate engraved by C. W. Chadwick
“THE STARRY EYES, UPRAISED, OVERFLOWED WITH TEARS; THE LIPS QUIVERED IN THEIR SUPPLICATIONS: ‘GRANT TO ME FAITH, THAT A MIRACLE OF LITTLE NOËL MAY BE WROUGHT UPON ME’”
⇒LARGER IMAGE
It was only two weeks before Christmas. Soon she could begin the nine days of special fasting and prayer; and there was time before that for preparation. Lizette rose, took down her long cloak, bent over Pierre’s mother, kissed her withered cheeks, and then went out into the golden light of the sunset.
She pulled the hood of her cloak far over her face, and walked rapidly. She saw no one until Mère Fouchard came to her door, calling shrilly to the little Henri. Mère Fouchard stopped shrilling when she saw Lizette.
“How the girl keeps the hood over her face!” she said to herself. And then, “Does she think she can hide it thus from Pierre Bernay when he comes back!”
She called a greeting, hoping Lizette would turn; but she was disappointed. The girl answered without looking around.
The church was in the middle of the wood in which the village was built. In Normandy these little villages try to hide themselves among the trees; but the gleam of their white-walled cottages betrays them.
When Lizette reached the church, twilight was gathering, and the branches of the trees wove delicate traceries against a sky of pale amethyst and rose. The old stone church, with its square tower, made a picture amid that setting which Lizette was quick to note. Pierre had taught her to see such things.
But she noted also, and with a sorrow she had never felt before, the dilapidated condition of the church. In the days when the miracles of Little Noël made the village famous, it had been different. Then, as Lizette knew, not a crumbling bit of mortar had gone untended or a candlestick unpolished. And the women of the village had woven finest cloth for the altars, and bordered them with lace of their own making. Lizette resolved that she would begin such an altar-cloth on the morrow.
Now she pushed the door open and looked shrinkingly about. There was only stillness and peace within, and the Virgin with the Child in her arms. It seemed she was waiting for Lizette. With a little sob, swept by a wave of emotion that laid bare all her heart, the girl went forward and fell on her knees, throwing back the hood from her head.
Her face was now revealed, as though for the pitiful eyes of the Virgin to see. On one side it was the beautiful face Pierre Bernay hungered for day and night: on the other it was furrowed across by the crimson scars the fire had made.
The starry eyes, upraised, overflowed with tears; the lips quivered in their supplications: “Grant to me faith, that a miracle of Little Noël may be wrought upon me! Have pity upon me and restore me for Pierre’s return!”
How often she had pictured that return—the leap of her lover’s eyes to her face, their horrified turning away; for she had begged the curé to write no hint of her disfigurement. She would have no pretense, she who had throbbed and glowed under the long caress of Pierre’s gaze. If he could not bear to look upon her, she must know it. It would be better than finding out little by little. If it should be as she feared, she would go away. She had a cousin who worked on a farm in the rich country to the east. Perhaps she could find the place; it did not much matter.
Suddenly Lizette realized that these thoughts were intruding themselves upon her devotions; that fear and foreboding were driving out the faith she longed for. She began to pray again, and little by little her heart grew still within her. It was as though a light broke softly and grew; there was no room left for fear.
In the church, meantime, the dusk had been gathering. Lizette, when she rose to her feet, could just see the face of the Child. It was in honor of his birthday the cures had been made; for the sake of the little Jesus, who had come to heal the sicknesses and sorrows of all the world.
For some minutes Lizette stood there. Then she remembered the Mère Bernay, sitting all alone, with the fire dying on the hearth; and she hurried away. But the crushing weight was gone from her heart. She walked with light steps, and looked up at the stars, which were beginning to come out in the sky.
Every day now Lizette prayed in the church, but no one who saw her pass guessed at what was in her heart. It may be, however, that Pierre’s mother knew;she knew many things that no one ever told her. Sometimes when Lizette came in with that light on her face the old woman would look at her with eyes which seemed to understand.
When the time came for her to make the nine-days’ prayer, Lizette went to her devotions both morning and evening, and so absorbed was she that the fire often died on the hearth, and Pierre’s mother shivered as she sat beside it. But it was on the last day of her waiting that the girl knelt longest in the little church. When she came again it would be for the midnight mass; she hardly dared to think further than that. The old fear seemed to be hovering near, threatening to seize her. She sought shelter from it in her prayers: she even tried to forget a certain resolve she had made, lest it argue lack of faith. This resolve was that Pierre’s eyes should be the first to rest upon her after the midnight mass. She would neither look in her glass nor touch her face with her fingers. His eyes, and his alone, should tell her whether the miracle had been performed.
Pierre had written again, saying that he would come early on Christmas morning. In a few hours he would be on his way, walking from Lisieux to a little inn where he slept. But long before dawn he would start again, and be with her soon after the sun was up. She was glad that Mère Bernay lay in bed until late. She wished to watch for Pierre alone.
That evening she told the old woman that they would eat the réveillon before mass. “You would be too weary if you waited for my return,” she said; but the true reason lay in her resolve that Pierre should be the first to see her face after the midnight mass.
The réveillon may be spread either before or after that mass. Lizette brought out the roasted chestnuts soaked in wine and the little cakes. Her heart was suddenly light and gay. She made Mère Bernay put her shoes on the hearth, ready for gifts; then Lizette put one of her own beside them, and next to that she put the other of the pair for her lover.
The gifts were in readiness; the cottage wore a festive air. Branches of laurel and pine were fastened over the fireplace, and the vessels of copper and brass twinkled in the light of the yule log. Père Fouchard had brought the log in that morning. He was as kind as his wife was shrewish.
When the feast was eaten and Pierre’s mother was in bed, Lizette made herself ready to go to the church. With greater care than ever she hid her face in the hood of her cloak; then she lighted her lantern and stepped out into a white mist, which seemed to open to receive her. The frosty road crackled beneath her feet, and the branches of the trees waved ghostly arms on each side.
The mist was like a delicate veil, entwining everything. Lizette knew that the little procession of village folk had already passed on its way to the church. She had heard them singing a few minutes before as they went; but she had not wished to join them.
Now that she was on her way, she realized that her gaiety had deserted her, that she felt frightened. But she must not be frightened; she must have faith. It was faith that would make the miracle possible.
So Lizette came to the church after the others, and slipped into a dim corner. Nevertheless, several saw her and peered curiously. Among these was Mère Fouchard. Like all the rest, she had heard that Pierre Bernay returned on the morrow.
Lizette scarcely heard the hymns or the sermon. She sat like one tranced, waiting. Her rosary slipped through her fingers, and her pale lips moved. She tried to think of the words of the prayers, and she tried not to see Pierre’s eyes as they leaped to her face. Beyond her meeting with Pierre everything was a blank.
The mass was over, and Lizette was on her way home. The others had lingered to sing the Christmas carols and to exchange greetings; but Lizette had slipped out quickly, and went alone through the fog. She held her cloak tight about her with both hands. At first it had been all she could do not to touch her face, but that temptation had passed. She did not even think of it; she knew she would wait for Pierre’s coming.
But the reaction after the long strain had set in. She felt a great weariness; she would have liked to creep away into the wood and cry like a little child. But she stumbled on through the fog, came to the cottage, and lay down on her bed.
Then it was morning, and the mist was lifting and drifting away. It drifted away in trailing veils, clinging to everything it passed. But Lizette looked at the mist only a few moments; she had to make herself ready for Pierre’s coming.
She watched for him from the window where she sat when she made her lace, and the mist rose as though to let her see as far down the road as possible. She could not have said whether she believed herself healed. There was a sort of blankness in her head. Yet she knew she was suffering supreme suspense. Now and again the anguish of it pierced through the blankness; but it was only for a moment, or she could not have borne it.
Then a figure came into sight at the farthest point of the road she could see. She rose instantly; she knew it was Pierre. His tall figure, his eager gait—how often she had seen him coming thus to the cottage! But now her heart seemed to stop, and she felt she would never get to the door; never put on her cloak, and pull her hood over her head. She held the hood tight about her face as she went.
When Pierre saw her coming he stood perfectly still, his head lifted up. It was as though his very longing, the piercing delight of her nearness, had fixed him there. And Lizette, her knees trembling beneath her, went on toward him. Then stopping suddenly, she lifted her hands and threw back the hood from her face.
Ah, the leap of Pierre’s eyes! But before Lizette’s there came a swimming blackness; the earth seemed to rise up and the trees to rush past her. She tried to speak, she tried to see; then the deadly struggling ceased.
She found herself in Pierre’s arms. His eyes were on her face. Their love enveloped her and drew her close—closer than ever before. It was like something in which she lost herself. She lay still, looking up at him.
“Lizette,” he whispered brokenly. He put his face down against hers. “My brave, beautiful Lizette!”
Tears sprang to her eyes; an incredible happiness flooded her being.
“It is the miracle of Little Noël,” she whispered.
Pierre paid no heed. He seemed not to care about her meaning; he cared only for her. Raising her to her feet, he supported her with his arm. He gazed in her face as though his hunger for it could never be appeased; and at last he put one hand beneath her chin and turned her head gently to one side.
“This is the Lizette I left,” he said—“the Lizette whose beautiful face made me forget her soul. I loved her as a man loves a woman when both are young.”
He stopped, and then he turned Lizette’s face so that his eyes rested upon the side which had been burned.
“And this—” He broke off; when he could speak again, his voice had a hushed, exquisite note—“and this,” he said, “is the Lizette I never knew. It is the wonderful, beautiful soul of Lizette. When we are old and our bodies have changed, still I shall always see your brave, tender, beautiful soul.”
But Lizette, with a low cry, had pushed him from her. She put a hand to her face.
“The burns!” she gasped. “I feel the burns!”
Pierre seized her hands in his. He drew her to him, kissing the scars again and again.
“My Lizette,” he whispered, “I did not know before what love was—this love of soul and body!”
And Lizette, raising her head, clasped her hands together.
“It is the miracle of Little Noël,” she said.
Tailpiece, The Miracle of Little Noël