“Thank you,” Marie-Ange whispered, tears bulging in her eyes, but the older woman appeared not to see them. She turned and wheeled away then, as Marie-Ange closed the door to her room, sat down on the bed, and began to cry. She got up finally and made the bed, and then dug into her suitcases until she found her nightgowns, perfectly folded by Sophie. They had little embroideries on them that Sophie had done with her gnarled old hands, and they were of the finest cotton, and like everything else she owned, they were from Paris. Somehow Marie-Ange knew that Carole Collins had never seen anything like them, nor would she ever care to.
Marie-Ange went to bed and lay in the dark for a long time that night, wondering what she had done to have this terrible fate befall her. Robert and her parents were gone, and Sophie along with them, and she was left now with this terrifying old woman in this dismal place, and all she wished as she lay in her bed that night, listening to the unfamiliar sounds outside, was that her parents had taken her with them when they left for Paris with Robert.
Chapter 3
It was still dark the next morning when Marie-Ange's Aunt Carole came to get her. She sat in her wheelchair in the doorway of the room, told her to get up, and then abruptly turned her wheelchair around and rolled herself into the kitchen. And five minutes later, with tousled hair and sleepy eyes, Marie-Ange joined her. It was five-thirty in the morning.
“We get up early on the farm, Marie,” she said, dropping off the second half of her name with studied determination, and after a minute Marie-Ange looked at her and spoke up clearly.
“My name is Marie-Ange,” the child said with a wistful look, in an accent others would have found charming, but Carole Collins didn't. To her, it was only a reminder of how foolish her nephew had been, and she thought the double name sounded pretentious.
“Marie will do fine for you here,” she said to the child, setting a bottle of milk, a loaf of bread, and ajar of jam on the table. That was breakfast. ‘You can make toast, if you want,” she said, pointing at an ancient, rusting chrome toaster on the counter. Marie-Ange quietly put two slices of bread in it, wishing there were eggs and ham, like Sophie used to make, or peaches from the orchard. And when the toast was done, Carole helped herself to a slice and put jam on it sparingly, left the other piece of toast for Marie-Ange, and put the bread away. It was obvious that her morning meal was a small one, and Marie-Ange was starving.
“I'll have Tom show you around today, and tell you what chores to do. From now on, when you get up, you make your bed, you come in here and make breakfast for both of us, like I just showed you, and you get to your chores before you go to school. We all work here, and you will too. If you don't,” she looked at her ominously, “there's no reason for you to be here, and you can live at the state institution for orphans. There's one in Fort Dodge. You'll be a lot better off here, so don't think you can get out of your chores, or working for me. You can't, if you want to stay here.”
Marie-Ange nodded numbly, knowing as never before what it meant to be an orphan.
“You start school in two days, on Monday. And tomorrow we'll go to church together. Tom will drive us.” She had never bought a specially fitted car that she could drive. Although she could have afforded it, she didn't want to spend the money. “We'll go into town today, after you do your chores, and get you some decent clothes to work in. I don't suppose you brought anything useful with you.”
“I don't know, Madame … Aunt… Mrs….” Marie-Ange groped for her words as her aunt watched her, and all she could think of was the gnawing emptiness in her stomach. She had barely eaten on the plane, and nothing at all the night before, and her stomach was aching, she was so hungry. “Sophie packed my bags,” she explained, without saying who Sophie was, and Aunt Carole didn't ask her. “I have some dresses I used to play in,” but all the torn ones she had worn to play in the fields had been left in Marmouton, because Sophie had said her aunt would think them disgraceful.
“We'll take a look at what you brought after breakfast,” her great-aunt said without smiling at her. “And you'd better be prepared to work here. Having you here is going to cost me a pretty penny. You can't expect room and board for free out of me, and not do anything to pay for it.”
“Yes, Madame,” Marie-Ange nodded solemnly, and the old woman in the wheelchair glared at her as the child tried not to tremble.
“You may call me Aunt Carole. Now you can wash up the dishes,” which Marie-Ange did quickly. They had only used a single plate each for their toast, and a cup for Carole's coffee. She went back to her room afterward, not sure what else to do, and was sitting on her bed staring at the photographs she had put on the dresser, of her parents and her brother. And her hand was touching her locket.
She gave a start when she heard her great-aunt wheel herself into the doorway. “I want to see what you brought with you in those three ridiculous suitcases. No child should have that many clothes, Marie, it's sinful.” Marie-Ange hopped off the bed and dutifully unzipped her cases, pulling out one smocked dress after another, the embroidered nightgowns, and several little coats that her mother had bought for her in Paris and London. She wore them when she went to school, and for church on Sunday, and to Paris when she went with her parents. Carole stared at them in grim disapproval. ‘You don't need things like that here.” She wheeled herself closer to where Marie-Ange stood, and dug into the suitcases herself, and then began making a small pile on the bed of sweaters and pants, a skirt or two. Marie-Ange knew those things weren't beautiful, but Sophie had said they would be useful for school, and Marie-Ange thought now that Carole had put them aside because they were ugly. Without saying a word to the child, she zipped the suitcases up again, and told her to put the things on the bed in the narrow closet. Marie-Ange was confused by what she was doing, and then her Aunt Carole told her to go outside and find Tom so she could learn her chores from him, and then she disappeared to her own bedroom far down the dark hallway.
The foreman was waiting for her outside, and he took her to the barn, and showed her how to milk a cow, and the other minor tasks that were expected of her. They didn't seem too hard to Marie-Ange, although there were a lot of things her great-aunt wanted her to do, and Tom said that if she couldn't finish in the morning before she went to school, she could do some of the cleaning up in the late afternoon before dinner. It was a full two hours before he returned her to her Aunt Carole.
Marie-Ange was surprised to see her dressed and sitting on the porch in her wheelchair, waiting for them. She spoke to Tom, and not the child, and told him to get Marie-Ange's bags, and drive them into town, as the child looked at her in terror. All she could think of was that she was being dropped off after all at the state institution. And as she followed them to the pickup truck she'd ridden in the night before, she saw the foreman throw her bags behind them into the truck. Marie-Ange said nothing and asked no questions. Her life now was one long, endless terror. There were tears bulging in her eyes as they drove into town, and Carole told the foreman to stop at the Goodwill store. He set up her wheelchair for her, and helped her into it, and then she told him to take the suitcases inside, as Marie-Ange continued to wonder what would happen to her. She had no idea where they were, where they were going, or why they had come here with her suitcases, and her aunt had offered no explanation to reassure her.