From Hate to Love

Chapter One 1899-2

But now her father was not there and for the first time in her life she was really frightened about the future.

She had sat so long in thought at the kitchen table that she started when she heard the front door open and knew that it was Father Ignatius returning.

Quickly she jumped to her feet and put her plate in the sink, meaning to wash it up later, and went from the kitchen to speak to him.

A good-looking man of nearly sixty, with deep lines on his face and eyes tired from overwork, Atayla knew he found the sun too strong in the middle of the day, which was why he had returned to the Mission to rest in the small room he had fitted up as a study.

As Atayla appeared, he smiled, put down his flat clerical hat with its wide brim, and said,

“Ah, there you are, my child. I want to talk to you.”

“And I want to talk to you, Father, if you have the time.”

“Then let’s go into my study,” Father Ignatius suggested. “It will be cooler there.”

“Can I get you something to drink?” Atayla asked.

“A glass of water would be very refreshing.”

Atayla went into the kitchen and, having poured some water into a glass, found one withered lime in the wicker basket that should have contained fruit.

She sliced it and squeezed what little juice there was into the water, hoping that it would at least give it a pleasant taste.

She knew it was what her father would have wanted, but she had the feeling that Father Ignatius, deep in his thoughts and prayers, would hardly have noticed if she had poured him a glass of champagne!

She took the water to where he was already seated in one of the worn bamboo chairs that had seen better days and he took the glass from her absentmindedly and drank a little as she sat down beside him.

“You are too tired to talk now,” Atayla said. “I will let you rest and come back in an hour.”

“I think the person who should be resting is you,” Father Ignatius replied. “How do you feel?”

“Better,” Atayla answered, “and the wound on my shoulder has healed, although it does not look very pretty. But, as no one is likely to see it, it is of no particular importance.”

She spoke lightly, hoping that Father Ignatius would smile, but he was staring ahead of him. Then, as if he had not even heard what she said, he suggested,

“I have a proposition to put to you, Atayla, although I am not certain it is the right thing for me to do.”

Atayla was surprised by his tone of voice and she answered,

“If it is a proposition that I can make some money from, Father, you know it is something I have to consider. Everything Papa possessed was taken by the robbers and I can only be grateful that the manuscript of his last book was already on its way to England.”

“We should certainly thank God that it’s safe,” Father Ignatius replied, “and that you, my child, did not lose your life, which is a more precious possession than anything else.”

“I agree, Father,” Atayla answered. “At the same time, as you are well aware, I now have to keep myself or at least make enough money so that I can return to England and find Papa’s relatives, if they are still alive.”

There was a little silence.

Then Father Ignatius said,

“That is what I want to tell you about. God indeed often moves in mysterious ways.”

Atayla waited, her eyes on his face, knowing that he did not like to be hurried when he had something to relate.

“Today,” Father Ignatius began, “I received a request from a doctor to visit a lady, who is one of his patients and who is very ill.”

He spoke seriously and, as if he was choosing every word with care, he went on,

“She lives in one of the fine villas overlooking the bay and, when I saw her, she requested me to find her an Englishwoman who would take her child, a little girl, back to England.”

Atayla, who had been leaning back in the bamboo chair she had seated herself in, sat upright.

She could hardly believe that she had heard what the Priest was saying and it seemed already as if she saw a light at the end of a dark tunnel.

“This lady was very insistent,” Father Ignatius went on, “that the person who should escort her child should be an Englishwoman and, as I talked to her I thought of you, realising that this could be the answer to your problem. It would enable you to return to your own country without it costing you anything.”

Atayla drew in her breath.

“Father Ignatius, that is exactly what I want! How wonderful that you should have had such a request at this very moment!”

The Priest did not speak and after a moment Atayla asked,

“What is worrying you? Why are you not pleased by the idea?”

Again Father Ignatius seemed to be feeling for words.

Then he said,

“The lady in question calls herself the Comtesse de Soisson, but she was honest with me, although actually I was already aware of her circumstances. She is not, in fact, married to the Comte de Soisson, who she is living with.”

Atayla drew in her breath again.

She was aware that there were many people in Tangiers who were not accepted by the Spanish, who dominated the Social life of the town.

People of other nationalities for personal reasons made Tangiers their home because they found it convenient to live as they wished without incurring too much censure and condemnation.

There was a pause before she asked,

“Is the lady’s child, who is to return to England, English or French?”

“It is a little girl and she is English.”

“Then I shall be very willing to take her.”

“I thought that was what you would say,” Father Ignatius said. “At the same time it is not right that you should come in contact with a woman who in the eyes of God and His Church is living a life of sin.”

“Is this lady a Catholic?”

Father Ignatius shook his head.

“No, but the Comte is and he has left his wife and family in France.”

The way the Priest spoke told Atayla how deeply he deprecated such behaviour, but she could not help feeling that from her own point of view this was unimportant.

All that mattered was that she could take the lady’s daughter back to England, which at least would be the first step in planning to fend for herself.

Because she thought that the Priest was hesitating as to whether he would allow her to do such a thing, she bent forward to say eagerly,

“Please, Father, you must realise what this opportunity will mean to me. I have no other way of returning to England, unless I can find work of some sort in Tangiers. Even then it would take me a very long time to save up enough money for my fare and I have nowhere to stay while I am working.”

She saw the Priest’s lips move to say that she could stay here with him, but it was quite unnecessary for either of them to say aloud what opposition there would be to this from Mrs. Mansur.

Father Ignatius was too astute and too used to dealing with every type and condition of person not to realise how deeply his housekeeper resented Atayla being in the Mission.

Her antagonism seemed to vibrate through the small rooms, making not only Atayla but Father Ignatius himself feel that every word Mrs. Mansur uttered was like an unsheathed sword.

“Please, Father,” Atayla pleaded. “Let me go and see this lady and tell her that I am willing to do what she wishes.”

The Priest’s lips tightened and then he replied,

“I have prayed, Atayla. I have prayed all the time I was returning home that I should do the right thing. You are too young to come in contact with such wickedness and yet what is the alternative?”

“I promise you, Father, that this wickedness, as you call it, will not affect me. I shall be concerned only with the child and, when she and I leave Tangiers, she will be free of any bad influence her mother might have over her.”

As she spoke, Atayla thought that the worry in the Priest’s eyes cleared a little.

Then he said,

“Now that your father and mother are with God, I feel that the responsibility for what you should do rests with me. That is why I am afraid for you and yet I am aware that we are all in the hands of a Power greater than ourselves.”

“I believe that too,” Atayla said. “But you must be aware, Father, that because Papa and I went to such very strange places and met tribes with many strange customs, I am not ignorant of life and people as I would be if I had just been brought up quietly in England.”

This time the Priest smiled.

“I suppose that is true and, as you say, the customs of some of the tribes would certainly shock many English people if they became aware of them.”

“Therefore, Father,” Atayla said quickly, “perhaps it is God’s will that I should have this chance to go to England and I am sure that the child’s relatives, who will welcome her back, live exemplary lives!”

The Priest sighed.

Then, as if he was aware of Atayla’s eagerness and there seemed to be no alternative, he suggested,

“Go and rest, my child, and when it is cooler I will take you to meet this lady. It is quite a walk and you must not overtire yourself after being so ill.”

Atayla knew that she had won and her eyes lit up as she answered him,

“Thank you, thank you, Father! I feel sure you will never regret allowing me to do this and I am more grateful than I can say that in this way I can reach England without worrying about how I can find the money.”

The Priest did not speak and Atayla sensed that he was praying that he had made the right decision.

She left the room, closing the door quietly behind her, and went up to her small bedroom, which was very hot at this time of the day.

She lay down on her bed, thinking that once again, as her father would have said, something had ‘turned up’.

That there were difficulties and everything was not plain sailing was unimportant beside the fact that this was the means for her to travel to England.

She hoped that wherever she had to take the child, it would be somewhere in the North, from where she would have a shorter journey to Baronswell, where her father’s family house was situated.

Because he had been so obsessed by his work in Africa, her father had very seldom talked of his life as a boy or of his family.

It was her mother who had described to Atayla the large grey brick house standing in its own grounds where her father had been born and where she had been taken when they became engaged to meet his father and mother.

“They were rather awe-inspiring,” her mother had said, “and Papa’s brother disapproved of the marriage because he insisted that we could not afford it.”

Her mother had laughed as she had added,

“I think they were very surprised that I had agreed to marry your father and my own family were furious, having expected me to make a very much more advantageous match from a Social point of view.”

“Is that because you were so pretty, Mama?” Atayla had asked.

“Your father thought I was beautiful,” her mother replied. “My father, who was a Baronet, was very proud of his family tree and, as I was his only child and he was bitterly disappointed not to have a son, he expected great things of me.”

“He did not approve of Papa?”

“He thought him delightful – how could he fail to do that?” her mother replied loyally. “But he had no money and was determined to go to Africa and I was equally determined to travel with him.”

Her mother laughed as she added,

“I might as well have suggested flying to the moon or setting off for the North Pole. They all talked about Africa as if they were not certain such a place even existed!”