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

another one.”
    “What of?”
    “I could draw the bird as we saw it, by the yellow leaves. Will Grandpère die, Aunt Annette?”
    “He is already gone.” It was not easy to say it. I really did not believe it.
    “I knew it.” She paused, and we sipped our cool water. “Aunt Annette, is death when you can’t see the person anymore?”
    I nodded.
    “Then it’s like the fog covering the river.”
    I nodded again.
    My own words coming back to me shocked me. Her interpretation of my simple lesson about the senses was so much more clear and to the point than any theological dogma I could use to comfort her or myself. It comprised all the loss and all the certainty of a life continuing completely out of our realm.
    “Thank you,” I said. “You are very wise. Now you must comfort your mother, just as she has comforted you many times.”
    Marie nodded.
    “And now I need to rest, myself,” I said.
    I held her hand and went back to the drawing room. Marguerite held her arms out to her daughter, who let go of my hand and ran to her mother. I brought a cushioned chair over for Marie to sit on, beside the chaise longue. Françoise, keeping an eye on her mistress, was knitting by the fire and didn’t look up, as if it were rude to intrude.
    I handed my sister a glass of the cool water. “Thank you,” she said.
    “You take care of both of us. How are you?”
    “Marie took care of me. You have a wise daughter.” Of my own feelings, I didn’t care to speak. The only one who understood me had crossed the river that morning in the fog. I will go to the old Bishop’s Palace later today, I thought, and wash his wounds.
    I pressed my sister’s hand and left mother and daughter and slowly climbed the curving staircase to my room. It seemed to take a long time to reach the top, and I had to stop more than once and hold on to the walnut banister. I forced myself to take one step after the other up the steep stairs and then down the long hall to my room and flung myself on the bed and wept. I could hold myself together in front of Marguerite and Marie, but now the loss flooded in.
    The room around me seemed to have such a passing existence as to be entirely illusory. I clutched the bed curtains to feel that they were real. What was the purpose of anything? I thought. Papa’s death had revealed how thin the fabric of life is. Everything seemed trivial and absurd. Why teach a child dance steps, or even logic or art? And for me, the foundation of my world, the source of understanding and love, had just been reft from me like a cold wind whipping through fog, and I was left alone in an emptiness that knew no end. That wind was blowing everywhere through the universe, revealing our shadow world for what it was: the field of death. I should have been there to help him, I thought. Then the vanity of my thoughts seemed as absurd and trivial as everything else.
    Suddenly I saw my father on the morning of a hunt, alive and loving life; defending Marie’s decision to draw on the floor by the fire because that inspired her; smiling at me the night I had shot the boar. And that day in front of the stable when he had given me La Rouge, when he never said a thing about my disgrace with Monsieur Leforges, and I knew he had forgiven me.
    I wiped away my tears and put on my riding habit and boots, and without seeing anyone walked down to the stables, saddled La Rouge, and was soon riding in the mist on the chalk cliffs above the river, feeling the cold wind snatch away my tears, the thundering life smoothly moving below me, and the gray river glinting through spaces in the fog.
    Etienne returned for the mass said for Papa at Saint-Louis Cathedral. He was strange and full of his new burdens of head of the household. At the mass he took our younger sister Angelique’s arm; Marguerite was on Paul’s, and my mother leaned on the arm of the count. She was stoic, but we embraced. I noticed the count’s eyes bright with unshed tears. I had no one