At the Edge of Summer

The next morning, my growling stomach woke me up. Sunlight pushed against the corners of the bed curtains. France was still as bright as yesterday. I sat up. My dress was wrinkled and spotted with crumbs from last night’s almost-meal. My impolite stomach informed me that it hadn’t been enough.

I washed up and waited, but no one came to dress me or do my hair. No one brought a fresh tray. Maybe I was meant to dress myself and go down to the dining room. Did the French eat porridge for breakfast? I didn’t know. They probably ate strange things like I’d been given last night. My stomach growled again.

Somewhere outside my window there was a rhythmic thumping. I pictured woodsmen with axes, like in fairy tales, I pictured giants with butter churns, I pictured marching soldiers. I leaned out over the windowsill and looked for the sound, but all I could see was green lawn, tangled roses, and the mossy slate of the château’s roof.

I took off my crumpled dress and all of my underthings. My trunk had been halfway unpacked at some point while I napped yesterday, maybe by whoever had brought my supper tray. I had to search through the trunk for fresh combinations and petticoats, for new stockings and garters, but those hateful black dresses of mine hung in a row in the crooked wardrobe.

I’d had six weeks of black. I’d had a lifetime of gray. In France, the palette was much bigger than that. The colors I’d seen since arriving, they were ones I’d only ever read on the unused tubes in Mother’s paint box. Maybe that’s why they overwhelmed me. I’d never even seen them splashed across a canvas. But to see the ultramarines and viridians and carmines painted across a country, across a house, across people, I wondered. Did people feel the same when their lives were as bright as a painting? Could they mourn and wish and hate and dream when their days glowed with color? I thought again of the gramophone music drifting up through my window last night, those exuberant trips and trills of the piano. Here, so far from Scotland, so far from the life I’d always had, could I be different, too? I shut the wardrobe and opened my valise.

The dress in there wasn’t black and it wasn’t new. It was an old dress of Mother’s, a tea dress already five years out of fashion when she left it behind at Fairbridge. It had a pouty bodice, a froth of a skirt, and sleeves ending at my elbows in tiny pearl buttons. It was utterly romantic and as green as the Scottish hills in springtime. I’d cut it down and basted it with my embroidery needles when Miss May wasn’t looking. It wasn’t stiff crepe, it wasn’t mourning black, it wasn’t sedate as schoolrooms. It was just the different I needed.

I slipped into the green dress. It felt faintly rebellious, to be putting on a color only six weeks into mourning. Miss May, that old Victorian relic, would faint at the thought. But she wasn’t here. Madame Crépet, with her honeycomb yellow dress, Monsieur with his paint-spattered coat, and Mille Mots, so white and green and twined with flowers, they were here, and I meant to be part of them. I sent a quick, guilty prayer up to Father, hoping he’d forgive me.

I finger-combed my hair back and regarded myself in the mirror. I wondered if I looked older. I wondered if I looked like a little girl playing dress-up. I supposed there was only one way to find out.

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?”

“Well, I did say France was dangerous.” The steam in the kitchen made his hair curl against the tops of his ears. “But you are safe in Marthe’s kitchen.” He patted a tall stool. “You are safe with me.”

Though the kitchen was full of unfamiliar smells, I was reassured to see loaves of rising bread dough, peeled white onions, potatoes. On the stove, Marthe’s pan popped. I inhaled butter and onions and warmth. “I believe you.” I smoothed my green dress and sat.

Luc grinned, quick and sudden. He swept a striped towel off Marthe’s shoulder, leaving a kiss on her reddened cheek in exchange. “When I’m not sketching pictures of Parisian tourists, I’m a waiter.” He draped the towel over one arm and held a finger above his lip as a mustache. “Mademoiselle,” he said, with an exaggerated whine, “I am at your service. What will you be dining on today?”

I almost smiled. Almost. “You’ve said no to toast, but what about bread? I had some on my tray last night.”

He snapped his fingers. “But it is not just bread.” He brought a loaf, long and thin, and broke off a piece from the end. “Ficelle.”

The crust was warm and crackled between my teeth. It was marvelous.

“Do you like it?” he asked. “Here, try it with a bit of lavender honey.”

“We have lavender growing in the garden at Fairbridge.” The honey dripped from the bread onto my palm. It tasted like flowers and summertime.

Luc brought me a checked napkin, thin and soft from many washings. As I wiped my mouth, he lined the edge of the table with small jars and spoons. From her place by the stove, Marthe nodded approvingly.

“You really are an excellent waiter,” I said as I accepted a spoonful of translucent gold.

“Pear jelly,” he said. “Didn’t you believe me when I said I was one?”

The jelly was sweet and smooth. I ran my tongue over my teeth. “Why would anyone go to Paris to be a waiter?”

“And an erstwhile artist, remember.” He passed another spoonful, this one sun-yellow slivers suspended in preserve.

“Marmalade?” I guessed.

“Preserved ginger. Bite and then hold it on your tongue for a moment.”

It made my mouth tingle. “This is nothing like gingerbread.”

“The Romans ate ginger for digestion; the Greeks, for love.”

I swallowed. “You know more than serving.”

“In my free time, I’m a university student.” He took a squat glass from a shelf and filled it with water.

I’d never seen a university, not in person. Mother used to keep a photograph hidden in the drawer of her dressing table, of her with a young and exuberant Madame Crépet, posed with sketchbooks in hand in front of a serious-looking building. Inked across the border was, Eena and Mudge, pens at the ready! “Are you studying art, like our mothers did?”

“Oh, even better.” He spooned out something thick and as brown as winter leaves. “The ancient world. Philosophy. Rhetoric.”

I tasted the jam with the tip of my tongue. “Apples?”

“Medlars. They’re best picked after the first frost.”

“So what will that make you in the end? Aside from Aristotle?”

“A teacher. The École Normale Supérieure, it puts out the best teachers in Europe.”

“Teaching?” I put the spoon in my mouth. “That’s so…”

“Bourgeois?” He raised his eyebrows. “I know.” He disappeared into the larder.

“It’s not what I expected from the son of artists.”

“Maman, she rebelled against her parents by running off to Picardy with a painter twice her age. I rebel by becoming respectable.”

“I don’t know if you could ever be respectable in that red sash.”

He returned to the table with cloth-wrapped bundles and covered plates, a knife between his teeth like a corsair. “Once a bohemian, always a bohemian, I suppose.”

“Did you grow up wanting to be a teacher?”

“Of course not. I wanted to be an expert swordsman, naturally. And an ornithologist. And, for one solid summer, a brilliant English detective, like Sherlock Holmes. Mostly, though, I wanted to be a tennis star.” He offered a paper-thin slice of ham on the tip of the knife.

It nearly melted on my tongue. “So sweet!”

“Bayonne ham. It’s cured in sea salt and air-dried on the ocean shore.”

I imagined I was tasting the sea. “Aren’t you already a tennis player?” I knew nothing about the sport, but he’d come in swinging his racket like an expert.

“Not just a player. A star. Like Paul Aymé or André Vacherot or Max Decugis.” He brushed back a dark curl from his forehead. “Playing in the Championnat de France, the French Covered Courts Championship, the Riviera Championship. They even have tennis in the Olympics now.”

I’d never heard of any of those men or any of those tournaments, but the way he said their names, the way his face glowed and his words slipped over one another in excitement, I leaned closer. “And will you? Will you be a star?”

He busied himself unwrapping a wedge of bright orange cheese. “There’s nothing all that practical about dreams like that.”

“Whoever said dreams had to be practical? If they were, we wouldn’t have to hide them in the middle of the night.” I didn’t wait for him, but broke off a crumbling bite of cheese myself.

He looked up under a fringe of lashes. “So what are yours?”

The cheese was sweet and nutty and utterly delicious. “My dreams?” I brushed crumbs of cheese from my lips. “Well, I’ve never told anybody. I’m sure you can guess.”

“Mimolette.”

“I’m sorry?”

“The cheese. It’s Papa’s favorite.” He cut me another piece, but held it just out of reach. “Confess all or the mimolette goes on the fire!”

“Of course it’s art.” I hopped down from my stool and snatched the slice of cheese. “The Glasgow School of Art, like our mothers. I want to learn to draw, to paint, to sculpt, to carve, to etch, to…arrange, to design. To learn anything they’ll teach me there.” I ate the cheese in a single bite. “And I won’t leave school, like my mother did. To give up on all of that, for marriage?”

“My maman left the School of Art to marry, too.”

“Was your father also a student there?”

“Worse. He was her instructor. It was quite the scandal.”

“Mother spoke fondly of your father. She omitted all the good details, it seems.”

“They were all friends, I think. Our mothers, our fathers.” He wiped the knife on his towel. “I’ve seen some of Papa’s studies from that time. Boisterous dinner parties, cafés, picnics, rowing on the Clyde.”

Mother always spoke of art school longingly, but never of her life in Glasgow. Had she once worn Gypsy earrings like Madame Crépet? Drunk black coffee and argued socialism in smoky cafés?

Father had been part of that life. For a brief time he’d stepped outside of his architecture apprenticeship long enough for night classes at the School of Art, long enough to fall for a redheaded art student named Maud. I’d always wondered what had brought them together. I wished I’d asked him about it when I had the chance. I wished I’d asked him about a lot of things.

“And then they married and left all that behind,” I said. “The rowing, the parties, the school.”

“They stayed friends, though. Even when my parents left Glasgow for France.” He uncovered a dish and, with a corner of bread, scooped something pale brown and creamy. “Here, this is garlic pâté.”

I took the bread but didn’t eat. “They couldn’t have been as close. They lived in different countries, they had different lives. They only saw each other once a year.” I ran a finger through the pâté and put it in my mouth. It tasted like garlic and herbs, like autumn in the woods.

“I suppose I’ve never had a friend to grow apart from,” he said.

Neither had I. After Mother left, Father kept me close. Maybe he was lonely. Maybe he was worried I’d disappear next. “One must always begin somewhere,” I said, the taste of pâté still on my tongue. For the first time in a long while, I let myself smile.