Children and war -- Juvenile fiction; France -- History -- Revolution, 1789-1799 -- Juvenile fiction
Rosanne colored with pleasure. She would never have dreamed six months
before that she would be dancing with Lisle Saint Frère. She thought of
the August night when she and Marie Josephine had watched him from the
balcony as he danced with her cousin Cécile. What would Lisle think if
he knew what a very naughty thing they had done? Sometime it would be
fun to tell him!
As he danced, Lisle thought of something else his mother had said: “I
would have so little fear if I were leaving you with Neville. We can
trust him always, but we do not know, even though he has seemed
faithful, whether or not we can always trust Henri.” Lisle had said
nothing then to his mother. Much as he would have liked to have
reassured her, he did not trust Henri and never could pretend that he
did.
There was yet another thing that Lisle was thinking about. It made him
say to himself sternly: “You should be ashamed to let yourself fancy
such things. It is not fit that one who soon will go out to fight for
the king and queen should have silly fancies.” This is what Lisle called
his fancy. He had gone several times to the bakery where he had seen
Humphrey Trail, and twice of late he thought that on his return he was
being followed! He liked going to the bakery. He would sit at one of the
glass tables enjoying his eau sucré and a méringue and watching the
well-to-do merchants’ wives, who for the time being had nothing to fear,
come and go. No one had seemed to notice him particularly. The bakery
woman had looked at him a little curiously as she did up her crisp cakes
in neat boxes. He always wore the shabby old groom’s suit and he never
spoke, except to give his order and to buy the cakes for Rosanne.
Lisle had thought often of Humphrey Trail since the night that the
farmer had given him the Saint Antoine address. The man had meant well.
Of that Lisle was sure. There was comfort also in the thought that he
could find Humphrey if he should need him. Nevertheless, he had not
heeded Humphrey’s warning. He had continued to go to the bakery. It had
been one of his few pleasures during those strange weeks so suddenly
different from anything he had ever known. Never before had he eaten in
a cake shop or bought things for himself. Everything was changing. Six
months more and there would be no shop. The shoppers themselves would be
hiding for their lives.
“Henri will be back soon with the meat, and then let us have supper in
here by the fire,” suggested Rosanne as they stopped to rest from their
dancing.
The fire had died down, and Lisle saw that there was no wood left in the
wood box of hammered silver on the stone hearth. It was very cold and he
noticed, now that they had ceased dancing, that Rosanne was shivering.
Where was Henri? Why was he not taking care of them?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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