A Masquerade in the Moonlight(3)
The small rodent, seeing itself under attack, belatedly attempted to engineer its own escape, its small, sharp front paws digging furiously at the powdered curls, until it had pulled itself free. It then scampered hotfoot down the woman’s withered, faintly dirty throat and into the bodice of her low-cut gown—Marguerite’s eager hands almost immediately following where the mouse had led.
In an instant all was bedlam.
The old woman screeched worse than the wheezing pipe organ as she catapulted from the pew to claw at the front of her gown as if she had gone into a fit and was attempting to strip herself bare in the middle of services. Marguerite screamed straight back at her, telling her not to be such a queer goose and hurt the little mouse who, after all, hadn’t done anything all that terrible.
As the mouse burrowed its way back up through the narrow valley between the woman’s mountainous cleavage to stare her straight in the face, its small pink nose and whiskers twitching furiously, the woman shrieked once more, then fell sideways in a dead faint, all but toppling the elderly gentleman next to her out into the aisle.
Marguerite saw her chance and took it. Her waist-length carroty curls flying every which way and her undergarments very much in evidence, she hiked up her skirts once more, agilely hopped over the back of the pew, scooped up the mouse as he sat perched on the seat and, happy to have effected the rescue, then proudly held it up for all the churchgoers to see.
This action quite naturally resulted almost immediately in the swooning of a half dozen fainthearted ladies in the nearby pews, a near stampede of gentlemen volunteering to remove the pesky scrap of vermin (eager as they most probably were for any interruption that might save them from the remainder of the vicar’s sermon), and, lastly, the loud guffaws of her grandfather, who had awakened just in time to witness the undeniably hilarious sport of the thing.
Even Marguerite’s mama—who had earlier confided in her daughter her secret hope that today, for just this one, single day, Marguerite would go through the hours without causing a catastrophe—only smiled with vague benevolence while discreetly tugging the child’s skirts back down over her exposed rump.
Within the hour Marguerite had been released from her too-tight shoes, her lovely but uncomfortable palest pink merveilleuse frock, and all constraints as to the behavior expected of grown-up young ladies of four, and was on her way to the stream, eager to regale her beloved papa with the story of her glorious rescue of one badly misplaced country mouse.
Geoffrey Balfour greeted her with a smile and with a pole of her own as his private birthday present to her, so that she could catch herself a fish or two Cook might then poach and garnish with fresh lemon for her dinner in the nursery. Then, later, her papa took her into the fields to meet with the Gypsies that camped there every spring, and she danced with them around the fire.
All in all, Marguerite would always remember, it was one of the most excruciatingly wonderful birthdays she’d ever had.
“Papa? Is it true there’s a man who lives in the moon? I know I can see a man’s features if I scrunch up my face and look very, very hard—two eyes, a mouth, even a nose—but where does he keep the rest of his body?”
Marguerite turned her head to the side to see her father, who was lying next to her on the soft ground, for the two of them had been gazing up into the starlit sky. Both of them had their arms crossed behind their heads, and their knees were bent in order to brace themselves better against the hillside, just the way they had been accustomed to lying there during every full moon for at least one night of every pleasant month this past year or more.
During that time Marguerite had been taught the names of all the constellations and had learned much about her father as well, for Geoffrey Balfour had spoken freely during these intimate interludes in the dark, sharing much of his unique philosophy of life with his only child now that she had reached the ripe age of ten.
“Papa?”
“Hush, kitten, I’m thinking about your question. If there truly is a man in the moon, and you can see his face, wherever does the gentleman keep his body? Ah, but Marguerite, dearest child—why do you suppose he even possesses a body? Are the grand doings of the moon and the stars to be measured by the paltry yardstick of the earthbound?”
“But, Papa, it is only to be expected. If the man in the moon has a head, he has to have a body.”
“Is that so? Only consider this, kitten, on a more worldly level: because a man possesses a purse, does that mean he must necessarily have money? Possibly. But not necessarily. In short, Marguerite, do not presuppose everything or even everyone in this universe is as you expect from your own experience. Look at each creature you meet, every situation that presents itself to you, and see its individuality, its variables, its strengths, and even its weaknesses.”