Céleste followed the woman insideher home. “How can I make myself useful?” she asked.
“You’ll think me rude for saying so,” the woman said, “but I think what you’d best do is sit down for a minute.” That was an unexpected observation. “You look like you’re ready to topple over.”
Céleste glanced in Adèle’s direction. The girl was walking slowly around the room, studying everything she saw. It was a humble house but had a number of items on shelves and stacked on the floor. There was plenty enough to keep Adèle’s attention. It wasn’t an overly conspicuous thing for her to be doing and wouldn’t offer any hints that they were pretending to be people they weren’t.
“I’ve seen disruptions at a few of the inns the last couple nights,” Céleste said. “Perhaps all of those difficulties have arisen out of Paris.”
If she could keep the woman talking on a subject she felt passionate about, there would be far less scrutiny or attention paid to any little incongruities Adèle or Céleste herself might inadvertently reveal.
“It’s likely,” the woman said, pulling a large bowl from a high shelf. “We have a friend who was in Paris only a few days ago. He left in quite a hurry.”
“Did he say why?”
The woman nodded. “A few days back, a mob arose and began tearing Paris to pieces.”
Had this man left the capital city before or after they did? “How recently was he in Paris?”
“Only left two days ago.” The woman pulled over a basket of vegetables.
“How is it he reached here so quickly?”
“The river’s faster than the roads.”
The river. She couldn’t have meant the Seine; it didn’t run through this area. There was a different river, then, that was navigable, at least in some places.
“He must be relieved to be away from the capital,” Céleste said.
The woman nodded. “The first night of trouble, the cavalry charged on the people. The people plundered every store of weapons they could find. The people were fired on at the Bastille. The violence grew; the fightingintensified. Our friend fled Paris as a call for ceasefire was being ignored and a slaughter grew terrifyingly possible.”
Céleste did her best to keep her breathing even. The people had been attacked.A slaughter.And Henri and Nicolette were there still. She glanced quickly at Adèle, grateful to discover the little girl was thoroughly distracted.
The woman handed her a basket of vegetables. “As the troublemakers in Paris fan out to the cities and villages around, they’re spreading the anger.”
“Little wonder you are particularly wary of Parisians passing through, then.”
The woman shook her head firmly. “I know why the people are angry. We’ve plenty of reasons in the countryside to be so. But I’m not looking to die over it.”
Die.People weredying. She’d known that; Nicolette had said it had already begun before they’d left Paris. But she’d tried so hard these past days to tell herself that the situation wasn’t that dangerous. She had to believe it wasn’t, or her worries for her brother and her dearest friend would overwhelm her.
“If you’ll wash those up for me, I’d appreciate it.”
Céleste nodded, grateful to have been given something she could easily do.
“If you’d like, you could sit outside and see to it,” the woman suggested. “That’d let your little girl there run about.”
“She would greatly appreciate that. A child of five is not a good fit for long hours in a wagon.”
“And looks like we’ll have rain before the night falls. Wherever it is you lay your heads tonight, she’ll be trapped indoors again.”
Céleste turned to Adèle. “Ma poupette, I’m going to step outside. This kind woman has said you can run about in the grass.”
“I like to run,” Adèle said.
Céleste nodded. “And you can have your fill of it.”
It took very little to see them situated on the side of the house. The woman set a chair out for Céleste and moved over a small rough-hewn table. On it she placed a bucket with a bit of water and a scrub brush.
While the woman tended to some laundry on the line, Céleste worked in quiet, glancing up repeatedly to check on Adèle as she ran and spun and jumped and giggled. Even in the midst of all their difficulties, in anunfamiliar place, having been confined to a wagon for days, Adèle was happier than she ever was at home.
