Will You Love Me in September

Aimee and I rode a good deal and she undertook to show me the countryside. Uncle Paul insisted that we take a groom with us when we rode out. These were troublous times, he said. But Aimee usually contrived to arrange it so that we rode ahead of the groom and she tried to lose him. I refused to do this, as the groom would be reprimanded if he did not keep guard over us, but I did all I could to keep a distance between us so that we could indulge freely in one of those conversations which were so fascinating to me.

They took place partly in French, partly in English, and they taught me a great deal about life in Paris and quite a bit about the household in which I had lived in those early years.

She reawakened memories in me. I could almost smell the Paris streets. "Hot bread," she said. "It is one of the most delicious smells on earth.

It filled the streets when the bakers came in from Gonesse with their baskets full of hot bread. Then there were the peasants with their farm products ... chickens, eggs, fruit and flowers.”

I remembered then the barbers, covered from head to foot with flour, with wigs and tongs in their hands ... and the stalls of fish and apples in the marketplace.

"I would go into Les Halles with my basket on my arm," said Aimee. "Maman said I could drive a better bargain than she could herself. I was quick ... I was ...

how you say... ?”

"Ruthless?" I suggested.

"Ruthless," she repeated. "I was the one to get the price less and come home with the bon marche.”

"I can well imagine it.”

"So you think I am ... adroite, little sister?”

"I not only think. I know!”

"Why do you say that?" she asked rather sharply.

"It is just something of which I have become aware.”

She was ready to take offense over some matters. I think it was because she was not quite at home in the English idiom. I had thought she would be pleased because I had noticed her cleverness.

"We were poor," she said defensively. "We had to watch every sou. When our father died it made a difference.”

"It did to all of us," I reminded her. I knew something of poverty in the streets of Paris.

I told her about the cellar, and the horror of it all came flooding back as I talked.

"But you had the good Aunt Damaris to rescue you.”

"You had your mother.”

"But we lived through the hard times. Is it not comforting to live in a rich household when you have been so poor as to wonder where your next meal will come from? If you have been poor like that once ... you never forget it.”

"You are right," I answered.

"You appreciate... . You find it good. Money brings comfort. You would do a great deal to get it-and keep it.”

"I should be terrified to go back and live as I did in the cellar.”

"It has taught you what poverty 'is ... and that is the good lesson. It will make you understand those others who have suffered it.”

"Oh, yes, I agree. Tell me about my father. Did you often see him?”

"Yes. He came to us often.”

"My mother did not know ...”

"My dear sister, a man does not tell one mistress when he is visiting another.”

"I am sure my mother had no idea.”

"No. But we knew he was living with her. We could not help knowing. She was the maltresse en titre. You see, Hessenfield was like a king. He could do these things as he willed.”

I tried to remember my mother, and even though the pictures were hazy, I could not believe she would ever have knowingly accepted such a situation.

Aimee seemed to think it was something of a joke.

"I am four years older than you," she said. "There is much I can remember. He used to look a little ... how you say it? ... out of place ... in our rooms in the Rue St. Jacques. We live there many years over the shop of a bookseller." She wrinkled her nose. "I can still smell the books. Some of them not very nice ... not savory.

He filled our little room when he was there. He looked so grand, he used to make us feel shabby ... but he did not seem to notice. He was so happy to see us. He used to take me on his knee and say I was a little beauty. It was so desole when he die.

Those were the unhappy years. We were poor then. The bookseller was good to us, though.

My mother worked in his shop and I helped. We could have sold the watch and the ring, but my mother said no. Never. She say, 'One day you go to England. When war is over ...' Then she marry and I come to England. She did not want me when she married.

She have the new family. Well, I found mine, did I not? Uncle Paul is good to me.

If I was not his niece I would marry him. Then I have found my little sister.”

She liked to shock me. She was constantly reminding me that I was a bastard; so was she, for that matter.

"Love children are the children of love," she said once. "That sounds romantic, does it not? I do not mind at all being a love child-as long as I am cared for by my family.”