At the Edge of Summer

“Can it be the petite princesse? I remember you, only as high as my knee and charming us all with your smile.” He spoke English casually, Glaswegian vowels slipping in and out of his French accent. “Do you not remember me?”

It was an unfair question. Knee-high, I hadn’t noticed much beyond the nursery. I stepped down from the automobile and regarded the man beneath the brim of my boater. He had a soft brown beard curling over his cravat and eyes dark as currants. Maybe I did remember him.

“Monsieur Crépet, is it?”

His grin broadened. “Oui!” He took both of my hands in his. “Mademoiselle, welcome to my Picardy.” He leaned forward and deposited a tickly kiss on each of my cheeks. Father always smelt of Rowland’s Macassar Oil and the faint wood of pencil shavings, but as Monsieur Crépet leaned close, I smelt coffee and garlic, turpentine and tobacco. His cravat was spattered with green and yellow paint.

“Your Picardy?” I asked.

Madame Crépet linked her arm through her husband’s. “Cher Claude, he’d lay claim to all the most beautiful parts of France if he could.”

“Only long enough to paint them,” he said with a kiss to the back of her hand, one that sent her blushing like a schoolgirl.

“And you’ll meet the last of our family tomorrow,” Madame said. “Our petit Luc, he’ll be home from school. You probably don’t remember him either.”

Madame came to visit us in Perthshire each spring, staying for two weeks at Fairbridge, in the rose moiré guest suite. Only once do I remember her bringing her family along. I’d forgotten that she had a son.

A mottled cat streaked out from the open front door, followed closely by a dog. The pair darted between legs before tearing off across the lawn. A maid yelped and jumped aside, Madame laughed, and the butler dropped his spectacles with what I was sure was a French curse.

Suddenly I was exhausted. Everything here was too bright, too loud, too different. I pressed my hands against the scratchy crepe of my skirt. In front of this aching white château, I was the only spot of black.

—

The bedroom was a quiet, faded blue.

The room was perched up at the top of a tower. Round stone walls were hung over with drooping tapestries that looked as though they’d been there since Louis XVI; dusty, pastoral scenes of sheep and boys and overdressed shepherdesses. In the center of the room was an ancient bed, a heavy four-posted affair draped all around with curtains. It sagged in the middle and was piled with azure and lace and far too many pillows, but it was clean. I dropped my valise onto the bed and wished I was alone.

But the Crépets lingered, Madame fussing with the towel on the mismatched washstand and Monsieur adjusting the most crooked of the tapestries.

“I’ll send Yvette up to unpack your trunk,” she said.

Monsieur Crépet let go of the tapestry. “Rowena, I’m sure the child wishes to rest.”

“Of course, of course.” She rubbed her hands together. “And supper…should I send up a tray?”

I nodded. “Thank you.”

As they left the room, Madame paused in the doorway. “I hope you will regard Mille Mots as your home as long as you need to, my child. Your parents were dear friends and we mourn with you.”

“Thank you, but I’ll only be staying until you can find my mother.”

Madame and Monsieur exchanged glances, the same kind that grown-ups had been exchanging over my head for the past six weeks.

“Father always said she’d return for me.” There was that lump again in my throat, one I’d been carrying around since the night he died.

Madame hesitated, so it was Monsieur who finally said, “I’m sure she will.”

When the door closed behind them, I fell onto the bed and wept.

Later that night, I woke grainy-eyed. A candle burnt low on the dressing table, next to a supper tray. I rubbed at my eyes with a wrinkled sleeve and pulled myself up from the bed. The tray held some slices of cold roasted duck, flecked with herbs and black pepper, a crusty chunk of bread, and some kind of soft, pungent cheese. Miss May, my governess, always said that pepper excessively aroused the constitution. I ate the bread in small torn bites and left the rest.

As I chewed, I went to the window and pushed it open. I wondered how late it was. Stars sprinkled across a sky as black as the one I’d known in Scotland. Maybe France wasn’t so different after all. In the dark, it didn’t look as intimidating.

After Mother left, I used to slip from my bedroom onto the roof of Fairbridge, to look off across the night sky and wonder where she was. One night, I found my father while I was out on the roof.

He was in a rumpled cardigan and slippers, his hair uncombed. He leaned out of his own window, eyes fixed on the dark sky, the way mine were every night. I thought to creep back into my room, but without turning his head, he said, “Do you know the constellations?”

I stayed where I was, knees drawn up under my nightgown. “No, sir.”