“Robert says eating too many peaches will give me a stomachache, but it doesn't,” she said proudly. “I'm going to visit the farm later,” she said, like a young queen planning to visit her subjects. Marie-Ange had never met anyone she didn't like, nor anyone who found her less than enchanting. She was the proverbial golden child, and Robert especially loved her. Because of the seven-year gap in their age, there had never been any jealousy between them.
“You're going to have to go back to school soon,” her father reminded her. “The vacation is almost over.” But the reminder made Marie-Ange frown. She knew that it meant Robert would be leaving, and when the time came, they all knew it would be hard for her, and for him as well, although he was excited by the adventure of living in Paris.
They had found him a small apartment on the Left Bank, and his mother was going to settle him in before they left him to his studies. She had already sent several pieces of furniture and trunks ahead, all of which were waiting for him in Paris.
When the big day finally came for Robert to leave, Marie-Ange got out of bed at dawn and was hiding in the orchard when Robert came looking for her before breakfast.
“Aren't you going to have breakfast with me before I go?” he asked. She looked at him solemnly and shook her head. He could see easily that she'd been crying.
“I don't want to.”
“You can't sit out here all day, come and have some café au lait with me.” It was forbidden to her, but he always let her take a long sip of his, and what she liked best were the canards he let her make, dipping rough lumps of sugar in his coffee until they were soaked through with it. She would pop them into her mouth with a look of ecstasy before Sophie saw her.
“I don't want you to go to Paris,” Marie-Ange said with tears filling her eyes again, as he took her gently by the hand, and led her back to the chateau, where their parents were waiting for them.
“I won't be gone long. I'll come home for a long weekend on All Saint's Day.” It was the first holiday he had on the schedule the Sorbonne had sent him, and it was only two months away, but it seemed an eternity to his little sister. “You won't even miss me. You'll be much too busy torturing Sophie and Papa and Maman, and you'll have all your friends at school to play with.”
“Why do you have to go to the stupid Sorbonne anyway?” she complained, wiping her eyes with hands that were still covered with dust from the orchard, and he laughed when he looked at her. Her face was so dirty she looked like an urchin. She was so pampered and so loved and so protected. She really was their baby.
“I have to go to get an education, so I can help Papa run his business. And one of these days you'll go too, unless you plan to climb trees forever. I suppose you'd like that.” She smiled at him through her tears, and sat down next to him at the breakfast table.
Frangoise was dressed in a chic navy blue suit she had bought in Paris the year before, and their father was wearing gray slacks and a blazer, and a dark blue Hermes tie that Frangoise had bought him. They made a striking couple. She was thirty-eight years old, and looked a good ten years younger, with a girlish figure, and a lovely, un-lined face, and the same delicate features John remembered from the first day he met her. And he was as handsome and blond as he had been when he parachuted over her parents' farmhouse.
“You have to promise you'll listen to Sophie while I'm gone,” Frangoise admonished Marie-Ange, as Robert slipped her a dripping canard of coffee under the table, and she popped it into her mouth with a grateful look at him. “Don't go roaming around where she can't find you.” She was starting school herself in two days, and her mother hoped it would keep her mind off her brother. “Papa and I will be home on the weekend.” But without Robert. It seemed like a tragedy to his little sister.
“I'll call you from Paris,” he promised.
“Every day?” Marie-Ange asked him with the huge blue eyes that were so like his and their father's.
“As often as I can. I'll be pretty busy with my classes, but I'll call you.”
He gave her a huge hug and squeeze and kissed her on both cheeks when he left, and got into the car with his parents. They each had a small overnight case in the trunk, and just before he shut the door, Robert pressed a little package into her hand, and told her to wear it. She was still holding it as the car drove away, and she and Sophie stood side by side, crying and waving. And as soon as she walked back into the kitchen, Marie-Ange opened the gift, and found a tiny gold locket, with a picture of him in it. He was smiling, and she remembered the photograph from the previous Christmas. And in the other half of the locket, he had put a tiny photograph from the same day, of their parents. It was very pretty, and Sophie helped her put it on, and fastened the clasp on the thin gold chain it hung on.
“What a nice present for Robert to give you!” Sophie said, dabbing at her eyes, and clearing the dishes off the breakfast table, as Marie-Ange went to admire the locket in the hall mirror. It made her smile to look at it, and she felt a pang of loneliness again as she looked at her brother's face in the picture, and another as she looked at the photograph of her father and mother. Her mother had given her two big kisses before she left, and her father had hugged her and ruffled her curls as he always did, and promised to pick her up at school at noon on Saturday, when they got back from Paris. But the house seemed empty now without them. She drifted up to Robert's room on the way to her own, and sat on her bed for a while, thinking about him.
She was still sitting there, looking lost, when Sophie came upstairs half an hour later to find her.
“Do you want to come to the farm with me? I have to get some eggs, and I promised to bring some biscuits to Madame Fournier.” But Marie-Ange only shook her head sadly. Even the delights of the farm held no lure for her this morning. She was already missing her brother. It was going to be a long, lonely winter at Mar-mouton without him. And Sophie resigned herself to going to the farm alone. “I'll be back in time for lunch, Marie-Ange. Stay in the garden, I don't want to have to look all over the woods to find you. Do you promise?”
“Out, Sophie,” she said diligently. She didn't feel like going anywhere, but once Sophie was gone, she wandered out into the garden, and found nothing to do there. And then she decided to go down to the orchards after all, and pick some apples. She knew Sophie would make a tarte tatin with them, if she brought back enough of them in her apron.
But even Sophie was out of sorts when she came back at noon, and made some soup and a Croque Madame for Marie-Ange. It was normally her favorite lunch, but today she only picked at it. Neither of them was in great spirits. And Marie-Ange went back out to the orchard to play afterward, and for a while, she just lay nearby, in the grass, looking up at the sky, as she always did, and thinking of her brother. She lay there for a long time, and it was late in the afternoon when she wandered back to the house, barefoot as usual, and looking as disheveled as she always did by that hour. And she noticed that the car of the local gendarmerie was parked in the courtyard. Even that didn't excite her. The local police stopped by occasionally to say hello, or have tea with Sophie and check on them. She wondered if they knew her parents had gone to Paris. And as she walked into the kitchen, she saw a policeman sitting with Sophie, and noticed that Sophie was crying. Marie-Ange assumed she was telling the officer that Robert had gone to Paris. Just thinking of it made Marie-Ange touch her locket. She had felt for it all afternoon, and wanted to make sure she hadn't lost it in the orchard. And as she walked farther into the room, both the officer and Sophie stopped talking. The old woman looked at her with such desolation in her eyes, that Marie-Ange looked at her, and wondered what had happened. It was more than just Robert, she could sense that. She wondered suddenly if something had happened to Sophie's daughter. But neither adult spoke a word, they just stared at the child, as Marie-Ange felt an odd ripple of fear run through her.