At the Edge of Summer

The rest of Mille Mots was as shabby as my bedroom. The hallways were lined with peeling wallpaper and mismatched furniture. Here and there, on scuffed tables, perched sculptures, some grotesque in their subjects, some heartrendingly beautiful. I found a staircase carpeted in a faded green runner that led down to the front hall I remembered from yesterday, all pale stone and dark wood and a cacophony of paintings. I hadn’t been given a proper tour. I wasn’t sure which way to the breakfast room.

As I was standing in the hall, contemplating four equally quiet doorways leading to places unknown, the front opened with a bang. A boy entered, whistling and swinging a tennis racket. It barely missed me.

I ducked. “Blast, but France is a dangerous place!”

The boy broke off with his whistling and stared.

He wasn’t exactly a boy, I realized upon second glance. He was fully a head taller than me. Fresh from his exercise—his dark hair damp and curling, his shirt spotted with sweat, his face pink from exertion—he looked a man.

“Pardon,” I said, and stepped back against the wall.

He tilted his head. I didn’t know who he was to stare. He wasn’t dressed like a gentleman at sport. Father always wore a jacket, even when playing croquet. I felt a pang thinking of Father, always respectable. But this man wore neither jacket nor vest. Just a white shirt, open at the neck, tucked into loose trousers. Like a pirate, he’d tied a crimson scarf around his waist.

My face burned under his scrutiny and I looked down at the toes of my boots.

“But you’re right, of course. France is a dangerous place.” I looked up to see his eyes twinkling. He brandished his racket like a fencing sword. “It is a country of the three musketeers, of the guillotine, of opera ghosts. But it’s also a place of art and of love.”

“We have art in Scotland,” I said, a trifle defensively.

“Ah, are you an artist, mademoiselle?”

“I’m only fifteen.”

“And I’m nineteen, but what does that matter?”

Maybe he’d understand about the scores of sketchbooks in my valise. “Are you then?”

“I sketch Paris for tourists. Amongst other things.”

Paris! “And yet you’re here, in the country, playing tennis?”

“I have to visit my maman occasionally.” He gave an elaborate bow. The red scarf at his waist swept the tops of his plimsolls. “Luc René Rieulle Crépet.”

He certainly wasn’t the “petit Luc” Madame Crépet had promised. “Clare Ross. Just Clare Ross.”

“Clare Ross.” He tried it. From his tongue, the familiar sounds that made up my name suddenly sounded exotic and magical. I wished he’d say it again. “But surely you weren’t wandering Mille Mots in hopes of meeting me.”

My traitorous stomach answered for me.

“Ah, but you’ve missed breakfast, haven’t you?” He poked his tennis racket into a nearby umbrella stand. “We should go to the kitchen to find you something.”

“To the kitchen?” The kitchen at Fairbridge was presided over by Mrs. Gowrlay, a humorless woman with hairs on her chin. I thought it not impossible that she was an ogress disguised as Scottish cook. “You can meander down to the kitchen whenever you want?”

“I spent most of my time there as a boy. Marthe has five sons and a collection of parakeets. She never minded, as long as I stayed away from the stove.” He stepped towards a doorway. “Come on.”

I took a step towards him. “If you think she wouldn’t mind.”

“She takes pity on anyone who comes to the kitchen hungry.” He said it with a wink. “There’s sure to be a loaf of ficelle, some Maroilles cheese, some garlic sausage. Maybe even almond chouquettes.”

I didn’t know what half of those things were. “Really, a bit of tea and toast is fine.”

“Nonsense. You are in France, mademoiselle. In our kitchens, there is so much more.” He pushed open a door, leading to a set of hidden stairs. “Unless you are afraid.”

An adventure, I told myself. “I’m never afraid.”

—

Marthe was a tall, rangy woman with pink cheeks and a mane of hair caught up under a knotted scarf. She kept a pocketful of seed for the half-dozen parakeets in cages along a kitchen shelf. When she caught sight of me, she clucked her tongue and declared that I needed feeding, as I was as skinny as a ghost. Luc looked halfway embarrassed as he translated that last bit.

“She said the British don’t know how to eat properly,” Luc translated, looking down to my wrists, thin beneath my pearl-buttoned sleeves. I stuck my hands behind my back. “All boiled meats and overcooked vegetables. You need salt and herbs and rich cheese. She hasn’t been to market, but if she had the president’s kitchen at this moment, she’d make you something warm and sticking. An aligot or a garbure with wine.”

“Really, just some toast.” I was almost desperate for something plain. “Porridge?”

Marthe clucked her tongue again, but Luc waved away her protests. He looked me straight in the eye and said, “Mademoiselle, do you trust me?”

It was a funny question from a boy I’d only just met. “I suppose so. You’re not planning to poison me, are you?”