Leap of Faith (2 page)

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 cafe 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 château, 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.

Françoise 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 Françoise 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, unlined 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,” Françoise 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 Marmouton 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?”

“Oui, 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.

There was an endless pause, as Sophie looked at the gendarme and then the child, and held out her arms to her. “Come and sit down, my love.” She patted her lap, which she hadn’t done in a long time, because Marie-Ange was nearly as big as she now. And as soon as Marie-Ange sat down on her, she felt the frail old arms go around her. There was no way Sophie could say the words, to tell Marie-Ange what she had just heard, and the gendarme could see that he was going to have to be the one to tell her.

“Marie-Ange,” he said solemnly, and she could feel Sophie shaking behind her. Suddenly all she wanted to do was put her hands over her ears and run away. She didn’t want to hear anything he was going to tell her. But she couldn’t stop him. “There has been an accident, on the road to Paris.” She could hear her own breath catch, and feel her heart racing. What accident? There couldn’t have been. But someone must have been hurt for him to come here, and all she could do was pray it wasn’t Robert. “A terrible accident,” he went on deliberately, as Marie-Ange felt terror rise in her like a tidal wave. “Your parents, and your brother—” he began as Marie-Ange leaped off Sophie’s lap and tried to bolt out of the kitchen, but he caught her and held her fast by one arm. As much as he didn’t want to, he knew he had to tell her. “They were all three killed an hour ago. Their car collided with a truck that spun off the road, and they were killed instantly. The highway police just called us.” His words ended as suddenly as they had begun, and Marie-Ange stood frozen, feeling her heart pound, and listening to the clock tick in the silence of the kitchen. She stared at him in fury.

“That’s not true!” she shouted at him then. “It’s a lie! My parents and Robert did not die in an accident! They’re in Paris.”

“They never got there,” he said mournfully, as a sob escaped Sophie, and at the same moment, Marie-Ange began to cry frantically and wrestle with the powerful hand that held her. Not knowing what else to do, nor wanting to hurt her, he released her, and like a torpedo she flew out of the door and raced in the direction of the orchard. He wasn’t sure what to do, and turned to Sophie for direction. He had no children of his own, and this wasn’t a task he relished. “Should I go after her?” But Sophie only shook her head and wiped her eyes on her apron.

“Let her be for now. I will go after her in a little while. She needs some time to absorb this.” But all Sophie could do was cry as she mourned them, and wonder what would happen to her and Marie-Ange now. It was so unthinkable, unbearable, those three lovely people dead in an instant. The scene of carnage the gendarme had described was so terrible, Sophie could barely listen to him. And all Sophie could hope was that it had been painless. All she could do now was worry about Marie-Ange, and what would become of her without her parents. The gendarme had no idea when she asked him that, and said that he was sure an attorney for the family would be contacting them about the arrangements. He could not answer Sophie’s questions.

It was dusk when she went out to find Marie-Ange after he left, but it did not take her long to find her. The child was sitting next to a tree, with her face on her knees, like a small anguished ball, and she was sobbing. Sophie said nothing to her, but let herself down on the ground, to sit beside her.

“It is God’s will, Marie-Ange. He has taken them to Heaven,” she said through her own tears.

“No, He hasn’t,” she insisted. “And if He has, I hate Him.”

“Don’t say that. We must pray for them.” As she said it, she took Marie-Ange in her arms, and they sat there for a long time, crying together as Sophie rocked her gently back and forth and held her. It was dark when they went back finally, and Sophie had an arm around her. Marie-Ange looked dazed as she stumbled toward the château, and then looked up at Sophie in terror as they reached the courtyard.

“What will happen to us now?” she asked in a whisper, as her eyes met the old woman’s. “Will we stay here?”

“I hope so, my love. I don’t know,” she said honestly. She didn’t want to make promises to her she couldn’t keep, and she had no idea what would happen. She knew there were no grandparents, no relatives, no one who ever visited from America. As far as she knew, there were no relatives on either side, and Sophie believed, and Marie-Ange felt, that she was alone in the world now. And as she contemplated a future without her parents or Robert, Marie-Ange felt a wave of terror wash over her, and she felt as though she were drowning. Worse than that, she would never see her parents or brother again, and the safe, protected, loving life she had known had ended as abruptly as if she had died with them.

Leap of Faith

Chapter 2

The funeral was held in the chapel on the property at Marmouton, and throngs of people came from the neighboring farms, and village. Her parents’ and Robert’s friends were there, his entire class from school, those who had not already left for university elsewhere, and her father’s business associates and employees. People had prepared a meal at the château, and everyone came to eat or drink or talk afterward, but there was no one to console except the child they had left, and the housekeeper who loved her.

And on the day after the funeral, her father’s attorney came to explain the situation to them. Marie-Ange had only one living relative, her father’s aunt, Carole Collins, in a place called Iowa. Marie-Ange could only recall hearing about her once or twice, and remembered that her father hadn’t liked her. She had never come to France, they had never visited or corresponded with her, and Marie-Ange knew nothing more about her.

The lawyer told them that he had called her, and she was willing to have Marie-Ange come and live with her. The lawyer would take care of “disposing” of the château and her father’s business, he said, which meant nothing to Marie-Ange, at eleven. He said there were some “debts,” which was also a mysterious term to her, and he talked about her parents’ “estate,” as Marie-Ange stared at him numbly.

“Can she not continue to live here, Monsieur?” Sophie asked him through her tears, and he shook his head. He could not leave a child so young alone in a château, with only a frail old servant to care for her. There would have to be decisions made, about her education, her life, and Sophie could not be expected to shoulder those burdens. He had already been told by people at John’s office that the elderly housekeeper was in poor health, and it seemed best to him to send the child to live with relatives who would care for her, and make the right decisions, however good Sophie’s intentions. He said that he would be able to offer Sophie a pension, and was touched to see that it was of no importance to her. She was only concerned about what would happen to Marie-Ange, being sent away to strangers. Sophie was desperately worried about her. The child had barely eaten since the day her parents died, and she had been inconsolable. All she did was lie in the tall grass near the orchard, her eyes staring skyward.

“I’m sure that your aunt is a very nice woman,” he said directly to Marie-Ange, to reassure her. And she only continued to stare at him, unable to say that her father had said his aunt was “mean-spirited and small-minded.” She didn’t sound “very nice” to Marie-Ange.