Welcome to part 21!
Just a little reminder that it is still only two days since Linda Stone's accident. We are in the Salon during the interval between the two parts of the Prefects' Evening. Hilda has been asleep........Inspired by the loveliness outside and by that gentle dream of Nell, words of hope sprang to Hilda's lips:
Why should I despair while your presence between these walls still falls on me gently as moonlight on a seat beside the window? (Rilke)
Rilke’s words, spoken so softly, seemed to find an echo in the sounds that came to her distantly from the hall and enriched the silence of the room. The moon’s radiance beamed in on her with comical comfort and she blinked away the tears.
Taking a deep breath, she drew the curtains, blotting out the bright beauty of the eternal snows. She switched on the lights and walked through to her bedroom, where she removed her costume from the wardrobe and laid it on the bed. She then bent down to the bottom of the wardrobe and drew out a long sword with a carved handle, which she placed beside the costume. She looked down and considered them awhile before shrugging and turning away. Swiftly undressing, she went into the bathroom, locking both doors securely. She turned on the bath taps and, while the bath filled up, splashed her face vigorously with cold water to waken herself up. She sank into the gently-steaming water, lay back and allowed the tensions of the past few days to fade.
Eventually, fearing she might fall asleep again, she dragged her reluctant body from the seductive warmth, wrapped herself in her dressing gown and returned to her room. She was standing at her mirror removing the pins from her hair when she became aware of unexpected noises in the Salon. Peering round the door, she beheld Ellie and a tray.
“Don’t tell me, chérie! Matron sent it along.”
“D’accord. I won’t tell you.”
“Don’t be impertinent to your Headmistress, petite friponne!”
Ellie grinned endearingly. “But you told me not to tell you, Madame! Pah! You English, you say what you don’t mean and don’t say what you do mean!”
Hilda moved into the room and leaned against the back of the couch. “You think you have trouble, child. What about poor Alice: ‘You should say what you mean,’ the March Hare went on. ‘I do,’ Alice hastily replied; ‘or at least – at least, I mean what I say – that’s the same thing, you know.’ ‘Not the same thing a bit!’ said the Hatter. ‘Why, you might just as well say that I see what I eat is the same thing as I eat what I see.' ” (Lewis Carroll)”
Ellie giggled. “Or there’s the person who tells me to hurry up when I’m coming down the stairs. They’re contradicting themselves. I will never get it right,” she sighed. “The French language is much more concise and to the point. 'When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in a rather scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.' (Lewis Carroll)"
She glared across at Hilda but then caught the gleam of battle in her guardian’s eye and held out her hand. “No more, please. You seem to remember everything you read, Madame, and you have read so many things. It is so unfair.”
“There have to be some advantages to growing old, child. And when I do read, 'I pick up favourite quotations, and store them in my mind as ready armour, offensive or defensive, amid the struggles of this turbulent existence.' (Robert Burns)”
Hilda’s wicked smile teased Ellie, who glared back at her, hands on hips. “My own countryman Pascal shall have the last word, Madame: Continual eloquence is tedious.”
Hilda burst out laughing. Ellie always made her feel so much more energised. “In that case, child, in the words of the bard himself: The rest is silence.”
“Is that how you give your poor ward the last word? You are unkind, Madame,” Ellie replied frostily, but then gave the game away and giggled again. “Alors, to return to the poor coffee and biscuits - of course it was Matron Lloyd who sent it, and me, along. En plus, I am to make certain that you eat it. C’est bien, non?”
“Depends what you mean by ‘well’, child. Well that we can have a few moments together or well that you and she plot together to make me do as she wants. Oh, pour the coffee and stop grinning like the Cheshire Cat. You know what happened to him, don’t you?”
“Mais oui, Madame, though please do not ask me to quote the words. But I am not to pour the coffee until you have eaten at least three bread twists or biscuits.” Ellie’s eyes sparkled with mischief and Hilda’s glimmered in response. She really couldn’t resist Ellie in this mood. Who could?
She sank into the chair she had so recently vacated and wagged a finger at her ward. “Between the pair of you, I’ll get fat and then how do I get into my costume?”
Ellie handed her a well-filled plate. “I would have to use your shoe-horn to help you into it, Madame. Now eat what you see!”
“You have an answer for everything, minx,” Hilda grumbled as she took a small bite out of a bread twist. Her eyes narrowed. “You know, I think I’ll revoke my guardianship.”
The smile fell from Ellie’s lovely face and she sat up straight. “Madame?” she gasped.
“I’ll tell the solicitor that I’m not wise enough to be a guardian when I quite clearly have need of guardians of my own to tell me when to breathe or eat or sleep.”
Ellie’s face relaxed. She set down her plate, moved to sit on the arm of Hilda’s chair and put her lips close to Hilda’s ear. “It is Mère who is really your guardian, tu sais. She gives to us our orders and we pass them on to you. So you have not the reason to not be my guardian.”
Hilda drew her head away and frowned at her ward. “I think we need to pay more attention to your English, wee flipperling. That last sentence was just horrible.”
Ignoring Ellie’s squawk she then put her lips very close to her ward’s ear and whispered, “Tu veux savoir quelque chose, vilaine? It is I who am the Abbess around here and there is no authority higher than mine. Perhaps I should punish the members of AMAS for outright rebellion, non? Burning at the stake might be too good for them.”
Ellie squealed. “Ouch! That tickles!” She rubbed her ear and then put an arm round Hilda and hugged her. “When you tease me, Madame, I know I belong because that’s what families do to each other, non?”
Hilda turned her head and kissed Ellie. “Yes, child. Family and friends tease each other as a way of showing their love. You do belong, Ellie, because I love you.”
Ellie rubbed her nose against Hilda’s. “And I love you, Madame,” she whispered. “All the members of AMAS love you. So I think our so big love for you makes it that our authority is higher even than yours, n’est-ce pas? Love is the highest authority of all.”
Hilda scrutinised the mischievous face of her ward. “I think there’s a slight flaw in your logic somewhere, vilaine, which makes me wonder where you learned to be so wily.”
“Why, from you, Madame. Where else?” Ellie stared at her, all wide-eyed wonder.
Hilda snorted. “More likely from our sainted Matron! She’s wiliness personified.”
“Maybe!” Ellie shrugged and kissed her guardian. “Eat, Madame. Your coffee is getting cold and we both need to change.”
“Well, stop distracting me, minx, and I will.”
Ellie gaped at the injustice of it and then giggled at the face Hilda was pulling at her. She returned to her own seat and they finished their coffee and biscuits in an amicable truce....
- they just so fit the bill! Finally, underlying it all, the loving care of Matey, who insists on that little meal for the two of them and of Mother Abbess, who, as Ellie so rightly points out, is truly Hilda's guardian now. 
still, knowing how bad her head feels at present perhaps she would be glad to get rid of
(the only cake I could find in the "smiles", I wanted one without a candle).
