what enchanting contrast do my wind-sore eyes behold in you. You, Denise, with wheat-colored hair that falls to your waist and whose fringe of curls form a Gothic arch over your pristine and lovely forehead, with the pale pink skin which is so appetizingly fresh. And your sister Louisette, whose hair is the color of copper and falls even longer, nearly to her graciously rounded hips, yet of slimmer waist and longer legs though my vision is impaired. And her skin is the hue of rich, thickly curdled cream. But what was this man to you, my daughters? You may confide in me as you would to your own spiritual pere.”
“You are an English priest? Oh, how good it is to come upon a man of righteousness in a wicked city like Calais,” the husky-voiced Denise, exclaimed. “The man, who told us that his name was Edouard Daradier, saw us talking with the old sailor who had been with poor Jean. He offered us lodging and food and drink until we could find some charitable sea captain to take us on to Gibraltar, where we could make communication with one of the Bey's agents and implore an audience with that despotic lord.”
“He has not yet put you to any employment, my daughters?”
“He did say,” Louisette, who had been quite silent up to now, piped up, “that we had already cost him ten francs for our keep in these past three days, and that this night he would require us to earn our keep and to recompense him for what he has already spent. He wishes to bring men here to caress and fondle us.”
“Oh, oh the wicked, shameless rogue!” Father Lawrence thundered, sounding like an avenging angel. “It is well that I dismissed him, for were he in my presence now, I should smite him as David smote Goliath and let him totter from his false pedestal of charity and mercy which he professed to me not a few moments ago. Oh, my daughters, it is providence that brings me to you. Will you not accompany me and my ward Marisia to England so that you may take shelter and refuge in the holy seminary where I shall labor to save souls? There, I am certain that the Father Superior, when he hears of your misfortunes, will find some way to restore your brother Jean to you.”
“Oh, that would be so wonderful, and we should be so grateful, mon pere!” cried husky-voiced Denise.
“Then come, my daughters. We will go back to the inn where I am lodging and will further discuss your new life. Have no fear of this man who sought to earn money from your lovely flesh. He will be eternally damned. Now come.”
Without any demurral, the young sisters followed Father Lawrence downstairs. Outside the door, he was momentarily halted by the French pimp – for I mistake not that this man was precisely that – but Father Lawrence thundered forth so vitriolic a sermon on the veniality of sinful man (adding that he would call the gendarmes) that the man ran off rather than stand up to this stout-hearted English ecclesiastic.
“Each of you take an arm of mine, my children,” Father Lawrence said benevolently, “and we shall walk down the streets of Calais with smiles upon our faces, and with joy and humility in my heart that I have brought two more souls to the fold of righteousness.”
CHAPTER SIX
If this were a political treatise instead of an autobiography of a humble insect who has accumulated powers of perceptions and imagination far beyond his nominal rank in the animal kingdom, I might declare at this point that Father Lawrence's acquisition of the two charming sisters was little short of a coup d'etat.
But actually the worthy English ecclesiastic had, within the short space of a few hours since setting foot for the first time in Calais, ensured a tumultuous welcome from, and acceptance by, his future colleagues of the cloth at St. Thaddeus. No mater what the rules of seniority or, for that matter, noblesse oblige, there could be no doubt whatsoever that when he presented himself at the doors of the Seminary at London, benevolently ushering in three such mouth-watering morsels as Marisia, Denise, and Louisette, even the most dour and hostile priest of that establishment could not but beam upon him for his good works in procuring as adornments within their cloistered walls such tasty tidbits of virginal femininity.
And for me, though the possibility was only hypothetical (for if I did not find some way of egress out of that accursed locket, I should inevitably perish), this latest accomplishment of the good Fathers would compel me to ponder before deciding in whose virtuous behalf to exercise my wits, my guile, and my own little arsenal of salvationary tricks. Since I was destined to return to St. Thaddeus unless some minor miracle should occur (such as the unforeseen opening of Laurette's locket), I must contrive some means to justify my existence in that all too familiar haven of holiness, even though I had once fled its boundaries and believed I should never again behold it.
Since it was plain that I needed distraction during the time it would take the good Father to journey from Calais to London, I decided to soliloquize over the future which awaited these three young graces. Since I was so entranced with France where the language is still of infinite nuances and adroit shades of meaning, I amused myself for a few moments by remarking these three graces would undoubtedly be in no position to beg grace when His Grace decided that his carnal appetites brought him to the time of saying grace before feasting on all three. In a word, dear reader, that little play on words translated simply down to the premise that these three virgins could not long expect to retain their virginity once Father Lawrence had them safely cloistered at St. Thaddeus.
Once again, the problem was theoretical, to be sure. I was aware that Marisia was a wise virgin, which is to say that while she had played lascivious little games with her dear Tante Laurette for the purpose of thwarting the lustful yearnings of old Monsieur Villiers in his aim of plucking Laurette's cherry, her dainty cunny had not yet been visited to the hilt by a male prick, and thus her maidenhead was still intact. She was virgin Prima fasciae.
However, neither I nor Father Lawrence could yet be quite certain that his two latest acquisitions (who were to find themselves diverted from their intended journeying to Algiers to discover that in being reunited with their abducted brother, Jean, they would have to go by way of St. Thaddeus and many a bedding) were actually untouched maidens. And after I had concluded all this, I further amused myself by conjecturing just how long it would take the good Father to determine their state of purification or lack of it.
It was far sooner than I had expected.
One must remember that it was still early on the final day of Father Lawrence's sojourn in la belle France. And having observed him – as well as heard him now when I could not see him – at his diligences, I could no longer be thunderstruck at any of his lay achievements. I had yet, it was true, to hear him preach a sermon from the pulpit. On the other hand, I was well-acquainted with his homilies when the pulpit was a cot or trundle-bed occupied by a flirtatious minx.
At any rate, with a girl clinging to each arm, he made his way back down the street to the inn whose owner's daughter had already heard at least one of these intimate sermons. On the way, he soothingly quieted their timorous doubts concerning whether by striking out across the Channel they were not geographically going farther away from their kidnapped brother than if they had managed to stow away on a ship bound for Gibraltar. “My daughters,” he assured them, “what I said to that villainous fellow just now was gospel truth. We at St. Thaddeus – and I say 'we' solely because, although I am but newly assigned to that order, I have already heard the most glowing reports of their righteous works – have as our motto that what is worth achieving is worth sacrificing for.”
“Oh, mon Pere,” Louisette replied in a clear sweet voice, “my sister and I are ready to make any sacrifice whatsoever if only we may find our dear brother once more and go back with him to our little farm in Beaulieu.”
“C'est bien vrai,” Denise agreed in her provocatively husky voice, “there is nothing Louisette and I wouldn't do if only to see Jean once more.”
If I had been gifted with the powers of ventriloquism, I might have, irreverently, at this point, interjected the cynical comment that it was very likely that they would be called upon to sacrifice everything they had, once inside the walls of St. Thaddeus, then it would be required of them to have the patience and fortitude of veritable young saints if they expected that through graciously obliging fucking they would see the face of their lost brother. Quite conversely, they were most likely to see the faces of a dozen or more lubricious and sturdy priests intent upon comforting their sisterly sorrow by offering the view of a turgidly veined and throbbing prick by way of proxy for the visage of their adored brother.
“Only a man of stone,” Father Lawrence observed, “could turn a deaf ear to such fervent applications. But
