Annette Vallon: A Novel of the French Revolution by James Tipton Read Free Book Online

had been beaten by the bargemen. Your father was on his way to attend to a patient...”
    He trailed off, and it seemed silent for a long time.
    When I was younger, I had accompanied Papa on some of his rounds, and he had sent a note yesterday to chez Vincent, asking me to join him this morning. I had not seen him for a month, since Etienne left for Paris. “Papa asked me if I wanted to come today,” I said to my sister, “and I said I was busy tutoring Marie—Marguerite, perhaps I could have—”
    “Annette, you just would have been harmed too—”
    The messenger stood there watching us.
    “I’m sorry,” I said to him. “Please go on.”
    Marguerite sank now to a carved settee in the vestibule. It took all my effort to stand there and listen to the boy tell me something that I could not, in reality, acknowledge.
    “Monsieur Vallon had stopped to attend to their wounds—”
    “Whose wounds?” I said.
    “The rioters hurt by the bargemen. Those bargemen are big. It’s just that there were so many of the rioters. Monsieur Vallon was kneeling by one of them when the mob rushed again on the barge. It is thought that because of his dress he was taken for an aristocrat.”
    “How was he—”
    “Monsieur Vallon was struck on the head, and the crowd—”
    “How do you know this?”
    “A bargeman, Mademoiselle, escaped.”
    “Where is...Papa?”
    “At the Bishop’s Palace—pardon me, it’s the Town Hall now.
    They burned the barge; the captain might survive.”
    “My mother?”
    “She has already been notified, as has Monsieur Vincent.”
    “Then you are free to go. Here, for your pains.” I rummaged in the purse in the pocket of my skirt. “This can’t have been pleasant news for you to relate, either.”
    “Thank you, Mademoiselle.”
    I shut the door and turned to my sister. She looked strange, crumpled on the bench where people sat in their finery, waiting for a footman to bring around a carriage. Marie was now by her side. “What’s wrong, Maman? What’s wrong, Maman?” she said, her voice rising as she repeated it, but Marguerite could not answer the child.
    I sat now with my arms around her on the couch. She could not lift hers. I felt the sobs rack her body now, and I also saw Marie, distressed, beside me. I would hold my tears until I was alone.
    “Come to the fire, ma pauvre . Grandpère’s been hurt,” I said to Marie. “Please help me get your mother to the drawing room. She can rest better there.”
    “Come, Maman, come and rest,” Marie said, and lifted her mother’s arm.
    At the touch of her child, Marguerite seemed to become suddenly conscious of us around her, and said, “I’m sorry,” and we led her into the room with Marie’s drawing material still on the floor by the fire, with the bird’s wings spread out against a blue sky, and I lay my sister down on a chaise longue there and took Marie back into the dining room. I hoped Marguerite’s scream had not waked Gérard from his nap.
    We sat silently, not touching the plum tart that still sat before us.
    The fog had cleared now, and an autumn wind ripped more leaves from the chestnut tree. You could hear the wind in the eaves of the house, like a low moan. The room was cold.
    “Would you like some water?” I said to Marie. She nodded.
    Every one of my movements, even the slightest, now required a great effort. I wanted to curl into a ball in my bed for months, for years. Someone though, for now, needed to sit with Marie. I could hibernate later.
    I poured Marie, then myself, some water from the porcelain jug. I stared at the Chinese-style drawing of plum blossoms, poised forever against a blue sky on the jug, as I lifted it. I felt the coolness of the water through the fine porcelain of the handle, the sound, as of snowmelt racing down a hill, filling first Marie’s glass, then my own.
    “You could continue your drawing,” I said, my voice sounding strange. “It’s a good drawing.”
    “You think so? I could do