DOI Artikel:
D'Arcy, Ella: White magic
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.27812#0067
By Ella D'Arcy 63
building, or rather portion of a building, for more modern houses
have been built over the greater portion of the site, and now press
upon it from either hand, once belonged to one of the finest man-
sions in the islands, but through a curse and a crime has been
brought down to its present condition ; while the Brancourt
family have long since been utterly extinct. But all this isn't the
story of Elsie Mahy, which turned out to be the name of my little
customer.
"The Mahys are of the Vauvert parish, and Pierre Jean, the
father of this girl, began life as a day-labourer, took to tomato-
growing on borrowed capital, and now owns a dozen glass-houses
of his own. Mrs. Mahy does some dairy-farming on a minute
scale, the profits of which she and Miss Elsie share as pin-money.
The young man who is courting Elsie is a son of Toumes the
builder. He probably had something to do with the putting up of
Mahy's greenhouses, but anyhow, he has been constantly over at
Vauvert during the last six months, superintending the alterations
at de Caterelle's place.
" Toumes, it would seem, is a devoted but imperious lover, and
the Persian and Median laws are as butter compared with the
inflexibility of his decisions. The little rift within the lute, which
has lately turned all the music to discord, occurred last Monday
week—bank-holiday, as you may remember. The Sunday school
to which Elsie belongs—and it's a strange anomaly, isn't it, that
a girl going to Sunday school should still have a rooted belief in
white magic ?—the school was to go for an outing to Prawn Bay,
and Toumes had arranged to join his sweetheart at the starting-
point. But he had made her promise that if by any chance he
should be delayed, she would not go with the others, but would
wait until he came to fetch her.
" Of course, it so happened that he was detained, and, equally of
course,
building, or rather portion of a building, for more modern houses
have been built over the greater portion of the site, and now press
upon it from either hand, once belonged to one of the finest man-
sions in the islands, but through a curse and a crime has been
brought down to its present condition ; while the Brancourt
family have long since been utterly extinct. But all this isn't the
story of Elsie Mahy, which turned out to be the name of my little
customer.
"The Mahys are of the Vauvert parish, and Pierre Jean, the
father of this girl, began life as a day-labourer, took to tomato-
growing on borrowed capital, and now owns a dozen glass-houses
of his own. Mrs. Mahy does some dairy-farming on a minute
scale, the profits of which she and Miss Elsie share as pin-money.
The young man who is courting Elsie is a son of Toumes the
builder. He probably had something to do with the putting up of
Mahy's greenhouses, but anyhow, he has been constantly over at
Vauvert during the last six months, superintending the alterations
at de Caterelle's place.
" Toumes, it would seem, is a devoted but imperious lover, and
the Persian and Median laws are as butter compared with the
inflexibility of his decisions. The little rift within the lute, which
has lately turned all the music to discord, occurred last Monday
week—bank-holiday, as you may remember. The Sunday school
to which Elsie belongs—and it's a strange anomaly, isn't it, that
a girl going to Sunday school should still have a rooted belief in
white magic ?—the school was to go for an outing to Prawn Bay,
and Toumes had arranged to join his sweetheart at the starting-
point. But he had made her promise that if by any chance he
should be delayed, she would not go with the others, but would
wait until he came to fetch her.
" Of course, it so happened that he was detained, and, equally of
course,