Disclaimer: No, these series aren't mine, and in truth, this was meant to be a part of the last chapter, but writing is a struggle, so it got broken into two. And then, you know, I went and wrote a 125,000 word story inbetween the last chapter and this one. That won't cause any problems, right?
"The only outcome that matters is that we come to Him. If death is the outcome, we still get to come to Him. If pain, or shame, or flames, or chains, or graves are the outcome, we still get to come to Him"
~ Ann Voskamp
"Marguerite Blakeney suffered terribly at times — at others she was overwhelmingly happy — the measure of her life was made up of the bitter dregs of sorrow and the sparkling wine of joy! No! she was not altogether unhappy: and gradually that enthusiasm which irradiated from the whole personality of the valiant Scarlet Pimpernel, which dominated his every action, entered into Marguerite Blakeney's blood too. His vitality was so compelling, those impulses which carried him headlong into unknown dangers were so generous and were actuated by such pure selflessness, that the noble-hearted woman [...] allowed herself to ride by his side on the buoyant waves of his enthusiasm and of his desires: she smothered every expression of anxiety, she swallowed her tears, she learned to say the word 'Good-bye' and forgot the word 'Stay!'"
~ Baroness Orczy, Lord Tony's Wife
"Frank, no, no! Her stomach, it is upset, is it not?" Marguerite asked as she surveyed the three-course meal before turning to Susan. "And this English food, it is so heavy. Sandwiches in the garden. Let us have lunch like that. Come, little bird—for you are shorter than me, but little, no, your grief is too important for you to be little—my lady bird. There, that is English that fits in my mouth. Come to the gardens."
Susan followed her out, suddenly tired. Marguerite's grief, rising and falling like sudden tides, was not English.
Difficult people, the Doorkeeper had said. And, while Susan might be able to accept legs like a goat's or women with pointed ears—
Lucy would laugh, that it was harder to accept a Frenchwoman than a Dryad. Sitting on a white stone bench under a huge oak, Susan ate cucumber sandwiches in silence.
"There, I have eaten a whole plate! Frank will be pleased." Brushing the crumbs off her skirt, Marguerite set the plate aside, and Susan looked at it.
A servant would come and get it. At the parties men would fetch glasses of punch, take used plates with a bow, but it was always a service that expected a reward. It was a thing, compared with Frank's loyalty, with the cook's willingness to set aside an entire dinner and make light cucumber sandwiches.
"Lady bird, you are quiet." Susan looked up to see Marguerite smiling, fingering some of the red rose petals on a nearby bush. "Perhaps I should take you to see Suzanne? She is gentle, and enthusiastic, and there is much to lift the spirits. She is also in love, and also—before, she has missed her husband."
"Where was he?"
"With my husband."
There was clear bitterness in her voice, and Susan paused. Nancy had some of that, and Susan had felt the sick biting edge of it when she screamed her objections, but this woman had more to deal with. Susan was not sure what to say.
"We wait," Marguerite said, turning away and looking once more into the distance. "We wait and wait and wait, and sometimes we get letters. Sometimes a kiss! But pardieu! How do we live, only waiting for more memories?"
"How does Suzanne?"
"She is proud of her husband. But she—Andrew listens to her. No more France! He saw her cry, and stayed. Percy—did not."
Susan stayed on the bench, watching. Waiting. Marguerite was not a woman to stay quiet.
"I am not English, to wait and wait and sit and be silent; I cry, I wait, and I can do nothing!"
"Nothing?" Susan heard an echo of an old thought of hers, and knew how to reject that, at least. "Is there really nothing you can do?"
"What would you do?" Marguerite asked, turning and giving Susan her full attention. "How would you make him stay?"
Susan felt bitterness curve her own mouth. "I have never been able to change my brothers' minds." Not when they made them up; not after she became an English belle. War fronts or speaking the truth—they had always gone their own way.
And wasn't that for the best?
They could have lived, came the traitorous thought, and Susan shoved it away for later. Marguerite was still waiting.
"If you can do nothing about your husband, do something else."
"How English! But I will listen, lady bird. What do you say a French actress may do?"
Susan looked down at her hands, willing herself not to twist them. To speak the hard truth, because it might help. "I have—nothing to look forward to. No—moments, as you call them."
"Nothing?" Susan hears rich cloth rustling, and Marguerite's white skirt settles beside her. "There was no Frenchman who won your heart, in my country? You are pretty. I know they would see it."
"No—there's no one. And no family—" her voice chokes, and she steadies it. "I have not had to wait, because I had nothing to wait for. Not till—recently."
"Someone caught your eye?"
How French. "No, no, not like that. But I made a friend." She takes a deep breath. "Someone I went on a walk with. Someone who needed help, and who knew about being restless, and lonely, and having no more dreams left. Her name is Nancy. And walking with her helped. Helped with the waiting." Susan felt herself fumbling towards a little bit of an answer, an answer for both of them. "If your husband isn't here, are there others? Other French people, perhaps, who are also waiting, though perhaps they don't know for what. If you cannot love him, in this present moment, if you have to wait for him—can you give a little of that love, or no, I can hear my sister—can you give other love to the people around you? Because the hard part about waiting is that there's nothing in the present moment," she rushed to explain. "Or—nothing you want to do, nothing you want to look forward to. But if you had other people—"
Marguerite moved, stood again, and Susan cut herself off. She's not quite like Tom, speaking things that hurt, but she also knew she's not wise enough to have all of this answer.
And, she realised, Marguerite would need to arrive at the answer herself. Some answers cannot be given.
Just like her siblings could never give her the answer she sought in England. They had it; they could not pass it to her.
Marguerite paced, white skirts sweeping the soft green lawn as she paces around the rose bushes and the oak tree. She stopped in front of Susan.
"You give me an answer like Percy," she said simply. "He is over there—always over there!—But he loves them. He says it is sport, but he is just English. He sees the tears in their angry cries. If he can do that, over there, then I can do it in his home. Yes, with my people, and with others!" She held her hand out to Susan and pulled the Queen to her feet. "It will be something to do, while waiting. And I am an actress. I can read them. I can draw out their words! And when Percy comes home, I can—I can be a little less worried."
The lady turned to walk out of the garden, drawing Susan's arm through her own. Breathing a little more easily, Susan let her, matching the long strides. But when they turn away from the house, she slowed a little. "Where are we going?"
"To begin! Oh!" and Marguerite began laughing. "Your face! Mon Deiu! Oh, it is exquise, I must remember. Me, I am not English, I do not sit and wait and plan and talk, when a thing must be done. Juliet, I will begin with Juliet. She is tired, for the baby is quite big. To go see her will be better than waiting. And she will know more, for her husband knows many who need help. So, so, I am doing as you said. And you will come too?"
"I will come," agreed Susan.
And so they go. It is not as much fun as riding in the morning had been, but the shy, heavily pregnant woman they visit is someone Susan would have loved in Narnia. Their hostess is resolute when needed, but quiet and shy when not. And very, very beautiful, in a pale and shadowed way. Marguerite is a flame next to an alabaster pillar, but somehow it makes Juliet warm. Her husband came after they had been there an hour, and in response to Marguerite's question—or demand, Susan was not quite sure, for the lady spoke in French and is answered in the same language, and Susan can only guess from the tone—they soon have a list of people who could be visited and helped. Not with money, for Lord Percy's people see to that quite well, but with company.
And with beauty.
Marguerite has enough beauty to make herself be listened to, enough worldly wisdom from her former life to make use of it, and enough of bitterness in her own cup to know how to comfort.
Still, Susan remembered Frank's approving look at lunch, and suggested they go home and visit these people tomorrow, after dinner. Marguerite apologised and hastened home, muttering about how Susan must be hungry.
It felt a little bit easier. Being around her, dealing with her emotions, and helping her came a little bit more easily; that usually happened in Narnia, too, after she had worked with someone. A common goal often created a friendship.
And Frank was pleased.
Dinner was sumptuous, though Susan had little appetite for it. She excused herself after the second course and went to bed. Louise helped her undress—and with Marguerite's borrowed dinner gown, she needed the help—then Susan crawled into the bed.
And laid awake, staring at the still, white curtains.
If she had persuaded her brothers to stop mentioning Narnia, if she had been strong enough to do that—what would have happened?
What would have happened, child? No one is ever told that. The golden Voice echoed in her mind, another memory from there. How close it seemed tonight, in this large bed, with maids who could be called, and the dinners, and, oh, everything!
But Aslan didn't seem close. Not with this question weighing on her mind.
"I was not able to change their minds," Susan whispered. "But—if I had—"
Could she speak the words? To say them out loud was to make them real, to make the question something that had to be answered, something that could no longer be shoved away.
"Was there any way I could have saved them? Did I not do something I should have? Oh, Aslan, I know persuading them to believe the truth was a lie would never—never lead to anything good. But…"
But was there anything she could have done? Had there been any way to save them? What if she had persuaded them—
An image of Edmund flashed in her mind, much younger, much more hateful, a sneer twisting his young face. She didn't have to ask what he would be like without the truth. She knew.
She turned onto her side, closing her eyes, and felt tears begin to fall. If her brothers believed in the truth, they'd follow it all the way to the train station—and further, into wherever it led. If they didn't, it would be a worse death, a death of all that was good in them.
Susan pulled the covers over her head, breath coming harder. Because if she followed that thought, she had to acknowledge that she had already experienced that worse death. She'd lost her soul. Her tears came harder, choking her breath with gasps. She'd lost her family, lost the truth, lost her soul. Marguerite had something to wait for, but Susan didn't. Susan waited for the next adventure, the next person to help, but in every one of these, something cut and burned, some truth burned itself into her like a brand.
"I'm helping people," she whispered. "I'm helping Marguerite help others."
Even that was not enough to still the ache in her. With all that she had lost—was a person with a lost soul worth loving?
Beneath the covers the air stirred, as if a deep breath exhaled beneath them, and with it came a wild, sweet scent. "I am the finder of lost souls," whispered a voice, and this voice, Susan would know it anywhere. She sat up, pushing the covers down and glancing around, every corner of the room—
It was empty.
"The finder of lost souls," she whispered into the waiting darkness, gulping some air. Her tears came more slowly; she ran her fingers over the soft blankets, trying to anchor herself. "If He has my soul—"
It is worth loving, answered Lucy's voice in her head.
Susan woke early the next morning and went for another ride. A slow one this time, noticing flowers, bushes, beauty. She felt tired after her tears the night before, but this gentle garden beauty, flowers still spots of colour along the white-stoned paths, rested her soul.
A much needed rest, as it turned out, for Marguerite threw herself into her new project with all the headlong passion of her race. Susan, who had expected coaxing, quietly showing, and often explaining her own struggles, found herself swept along as her hostess visited family after family. Some were quite content in England, while others longed for the land they left, even as they shivered at the memories of their narrow escapes. Marguerite, talking with one particular woman, began to talk of making a festival celebrating the things of France. Susan watched her—watched the colour return to her cheeks, watched her eyes begin to flash in time to the torrent of words that often switched to French, and realised Marguerite was already learning.
They walked out of the last house before supper and into the waiting carriage. Seating herself—and this felt quite odd, for Narnia had not had many carriages—she wondered if she should speak, or let Marguerite learn this lesson herself.
Perhaps she could ask a question and see how long or short the lady's answer was. It would be best, though, to pick a question Marguerite would be interested in answering. Hmmm. "Did your husband save all of them?"
"Certainement, but yes! He does not invite all here, but some—" She stopped.
"Yes?" Susan asked, after a few moments passed and the carriage rocked back and forth.
"It is almost like they are a part of him, a smile he left behind" Marguerite said slowly. "When I help them, I am—I am doing what he is. It is a way to be closer to him, when he is miles and miles away."
"And to be closer to the home you also left."
"Yes, there is that! And—it is less lonely. I still wait; oh, I hear them speak French and think, Percy! But the loneliness is little, when I am doing something. Yes, it is good to do this. Thank you, my pretty lady bird. I wish your family would come back, too." She leaned forward and patted Susan's knee. "But I will be family to you. You must meet Percy again! Till then we will have good English food and rest, so Frank will not tattle like a little chicken when his master comes home. Yes?"
"Till I must leave," Susan agreed, smiling. And, to offer comfort back, she asked, "When do you think you'll hold the French festival?"
By the time they left the carriage Marguerite spoke swiftly and cheerfully again, though sadness still lingered in her eyes. Dinner was sumptuous, and they spent the evening with musical instruments. It was another callback to Narnia, and the joys Susan had there. Only here, in this place and time, it felt a little bit like home. Like a reminder of the Lion.
The next morning Frank informed Susan that he strongly urged them to stay home that day, and would she be kind enough to bring her not-inconsiderable influence to make Lady Blakeney stay?
Susan did not see the point, but she'd listened to the advice of good servants before, and seldom regretted it. So she asked Marguerite for a day of rest, and the Lady instantly apologised for making Susan do so much after travelling. They walked in the garden, and if there were many moments where Marguerite looked into the distance with pain painted all over her face, there were also many she spent planning the future. Suzanne joined them for supper, and though both kept themselves speaking English for the sake of their third guest, Susan smiled to see Marguerite having such a good friend. The lady had much more than she knew.
Suzanne left as the sun set, and Marguerite stayed on the top of the steps, looking out over the gardens. Susan slipped up beside her. "Shall we go for a walk?"
An impatient sigh fell from Marguerite's lips, but she took a step down from the terrace. "I do not know why, my lady bird, but tonight—tonight my arms and legs want to hop like the little grasshopper. Something keeps me restless, and I do not want to do anything."
"A walk might help," Susan offered as they reached the bottom of the steps. Marguerite drew Susan's arm through her own again and set off for the river.
The darkness grew deeper and deeper, and the fireflies came dancing through the air. The sound of rushing water grew a little louder, and Marguerite's steps grew slower, her breathing more even. She headed for a white bench set beneath an oak tree, but Susan paused before sitting.
"What is it, cheri?"
"I think—I felt something. Stay here, please," Susan was quick to add as Marguerite began to rise. "And Marguerite—I think I might be going home tonight. If I am, then thank you—thank you for all this time."
Marguerite fell back onto the bench, staring up at Susan. "So you will leave me too." Her tone was quiet but bitter, and Susan instantly turned, wrapping her arms around this lonely woman.
"I have to go home sometime. I'm sorry," she added, because she remembered how much she had wanted Hester to stay. "But Percy will come back sometime. And you have something to do now, while you wait. You will not be alone."
"But they will not be so quiet nor so pretty," Marguerite complained, though her voice teased, and Susan laughed.
"But they will still have that shadow of your husband's smile."
"Go. Go, cheri! I do not know how you will reach home from our gardens, nor that you had a home, but if your Percy is calling, go!"
Susan hesitated. "You will be all right?"
"I will sit here and breathe for a while, and then go in. Be off! I know how to wait."
The feeling of something opening, of a wind from another world, grew stronger, so Susan withdrew her arms from the hug and turned towards the dark between two large trees. She reached them—and the feeling ceased.
She stopped in the dark, unsure what to do.
Footsteps behind her made her whirl, and she saw a very tall man slipping through the trees, towards the bench. She moved behind him, stooping to pick up a rock, just in case—only to hear Marguerite exclaim "Percy!" and freeze.
"Frank said you went to walk in the gardens," a deep voice answered, and Susan saw Marguerite's arms wrap around Percy's shoulders. He bent them, leaning down, and kissed his wife—a long, deep kiss, like coming home, and the door behind Susan opened in the tree closest to her. She paused, just for a moment, to see that Marguerite wasn't alone, her waiting—for now—over. Then Susan left.
She stepped through the cold and into sunlight, into—a street in London, near her house, and a familiar lecturing voice already speaking.
"I really must have another way to get your attention, to get you out of the way before he got back was hard enough, but to connect a window and a door, to the same place, and a one-way window at that! Your house has no room for—you're not saying anything. Did something hurt you again?"
Susan tried to blink away that picture, of Percy bent to embrace his wife, of the burning love as warm as the sun—of why Marguerite found it so hard to wait, to live without that.
Standing in a London street, years later—Susan had never felt more alone.
A hand wrapped around her arm, and she turned to see the Doorkeeper surveying her with a worried look, checking her from head to toe. She pulled her arm away.
"I made it through the door without harm."
"Did something happen?"
"No. Yes. Marguerite learned a bit about waiting."
"And you?"
Susan hesitated, looking up and down the familiar street. She had neighbours who walked this way all the time. "Can we speak somewhere else?"
"Well, I can either walk you to your home, or we can go back to my home. But I'm not sure what time I'd get you back, so perhaps we'd better just walk. Here, I'll take your arm. That's it, quite good; now. What about you?"
"I realised how little I have to wait for." Susan spoke quietly, but the words felt bloody and black as they left her mouth.
"Ah."
Susan began to walk faster, her steps punctuating her words. "She—she has servants, and people to serve, and this husband who loves her. She has a calling and gifts to be good at it and she's—she's loved!" Susan slowed, hearing her own words, and realising the truth of it. "She's loved—and I'm not. I'm not jealous," she added quickly. "And I—I don't want the love I used to crave, the attention, and compliments, and laughter at my remarks—it feels so false. But I—there's no one here who loves me."
"Not even those friends you called?"
No, sprang to her mind, because that wasn't the kind of love she meant. But they did, and so Susan said instead, "Not like family would." She closed her eyes, stopping, trying to get a hold on her emotions. "I feel utterly alone."
"I am sorry," the Doorkeeper said gravely. "Most Walkers do."
"Is it sorrow that cuts us off?"
"No. Sorrow may sometimes be shared. As long as people's way of grieving don't grate on each other. After all, doesn't the best book say, weep with those who weep? No, Walkers are often alone because of other reasons. Hester, because of the guilt of her actions. Tom, because he is not what he once was." He raised an eyebrow at Susan.
"And I," Susan answered it, "because I left everyone behind."
"Yes."
Susan's bitterness curved her lips in a mockery of a smile. "You are no Walker."
"No, I am a fussy old truth-teller. But I'm sorry, my dear."
Susan did not want to discuss her own loss any longer. "Is that why Queen Arwen is not a Walker? Because she chooses to be alone?"
"That, and because she chooses the past over the future."
"I see."
"This is your gate, Aslan's Queen. I'll leave you here." He gave her a formal bow—somewhat reminiscent of Frank, Susan thought with a start—stepped sideways and vanished again.
Susan felt lonelier than ever. That kiss of homecoming played in her mind again, that love. She looked over the gate to the house, and suddenly felt revulsion. It was empty, sometimes even empty of ghosts; she would not, would not go back there tonight!
Where could she go?
Nancy's, Donna's, other friends—but she did not want to be comforted. Not by people who didn't understand.
She turned and with quick steps walked all the way to the graveyard. Night had fallen by then, and the iron gate was closed but not locked. Slipping inside it and reclosing it, she turned—and began running.
Her family wasn't here, she knew that, she recited it to herself even while tears fell and her footsteps pounded. But it was the closest she could get to them.
She found their graves easily, even in the dark, and crumpled against Peter's to cry till the tears slowed. The stone was cold, and so was the grass, and he wasn't here—but it felt like a part of his spirit might be. Might be standing guard over her.
It might be her imagination. But it was the only way she wouldn't be alone.
When she finished crying her nose was running and her throat ached. She wiped her face with her handkerchief, and looked over at Peter's grave. She patted it, the only thanks she could offer, and went to go sit with Lucy.
It was normal for Lucy to be quiet when she was thinking deeply, and Susan pretended that was the case now, that Lucy too was sitting in the dark on the grass. They'd finished walking, like that darkest night they spent in Narnia. They'd wept till their tears were gone.
Why are we weeping this time, Susan?
"I think I'm jealous," Susan whispered. The words rustled through the silence like a breeze that moves and ceases. "Not because they're in love. But because she's not alone." Susan brought her knees near and buried her head in them. "Lucy—I don't think I can do this. I don't think I can take being alone."
Aslan is with you. She could hear Lucy say it, the tone of wonder and faith.
"I'm not strong enough for that to be a consolation yet." A few more tears slipped down her cheeks, cold in the dark. "Lucy—I really need someone here."