The Mistletoe Bride(16)

Gaston considered showing Régis the cave he’d discovered and the special things he had hidden there. Before he could suggest it, his friend was on his feet.

‘Come on,’ said Régis, ‘I’m cold. Let’s go back.’

Back in the farmhouse kitchen, the boys warmed themselves by the embers of the fire, eating bowls of rice pudding, then went to bed. When he slept, Gaston’s dreams were filled with creatures of the sea, blue and green and transparent white. The image of a single lamp fading beneath the waves.

Despite the awards ceremony the day before, there was school on Saturday morning as usual.

Régis seemed to have caught a chill. His face looked damp and slightly flushed. His mother kept rushing in and out, busy with the butter churns, and paid the boys little attention. Gaston felt uncomfortable, though. Monsieur Hélias hadn’t addressed a single word to him. He felt he was there on sufferance and when Monsieur Hélias did break his silence, it was to ask him whether his father was working today. Gaston felt even more certain he had outstayed his welcome.

The boys set off alone. Swaddled in rugs and scarves, Régis took the reins with a single horse harnessed in the trap. Once they were out of sight of the farmhouse, he threw off some of the woollens and drove on at a good lick. The trap clattered on the rutted path, bouncing and swinging towards the school.

From a distance, Gaston could see Mme Martin was standing at the gate and before they had even climbed down from the trap, she had beckoned for him to follow her.

He assumed it was something to do with the scholarship again, or more information about how it would be to be living away from home in a boarding school or about having to buy new books and pens, but she walked in silence down the corridor and her face was solemn.

She led him into an empty classroom and closed the door.

‘Sit down, Gaston,’ she said.

Quietly and gently, she told him that there had been an accident last night. His parents had both been killed outright. Their trap had come off the road and plunged down the bank into the old dew pond. Gaston knew neither of his parents could swim. No one knew why it had happened, she said, only that it had and he would have to be brave. There was nothing one can do except try to be strong and trust in providence. Could Gaston do that?

He heard the words, but could make no sense of them. He looked up into Mme Martin’s worried, sympathetic face, then asked her to say it again. She put her hand on his shoulder. Arrangements were being made, she reassured him. He wasn’t to worry about any of the practical things.

‘Would you like to be on your own?’ she asked. ‘The headmaster will allow you to sit in his office.’

Gaston shook his head. He would be all right.

‘I’m so sorry,’ she said. Mme Martin hesitated, then opened the door and he followed her back out into the corridor.

When he went into the playground, it was clear that the other children already knew. Régis was nowhere to be seen, so Gaston stood alone beneath the solitary pin parasol rolling a stone back and forth with his boot. When the bell rang and the school day began, he heard a girl in the class below talking about the accident and, unmistakably, the word ‘drunk’.

Everyone fell silent as he walked past.

Mme Martin was attentive. Watchful. He noticed she kept looking at him, during the lesson, to see if he was bearing up.

At the end of the morning, while the other children were filing out to go home, he stopped at her desk.

‘What should I do, Madame? Should I go home?’

Mme Martin shook her head. ‘I think the headmaster wants you to stay here until arrangements had been made. I’ll see if I can’t find out.’

Remembering the whispering of the girls, the way everyone stopped talking, he was grateful to be allowed to stay inside.

Gaston lost himself in an adventure story by Jules Verne. He was surprised when one of the little children came by to announce the end of school, clanging the big handbell clutched in two small fists.

As the other children picked up their coats and put on their outdoor shoes, Mme Martin gestured to Gaston to stay where he was. He stood by the window into the yard and watched the other children separating and heading home. Then the playground was empty and the caretaker appeared with his rake and his wheelbarrow to tidy up the fallen leaves.

‘This evening, Monsieur and Madame Hélias have very kindly said you may stay another night with them. On Sunday we will speak to the curate and he will organise something. I understand you have no other relations.’

‘No.’

Mme Martin sighed. She shook her head and, for a moment, Gaston thought she was going to say something else of importance, but she didn’t.