Page 16 of The Mistletoe Bride and Other Haunting Tales

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.

‘I am so very sorry,’ she said. ‘But we will work something out in the end, I’m sure of it.’

‘Yes.’

‘Yes,’ she echoed. ‘Well, until Monday.’

Régis’s horse was in the stable yard at the back of the tiny school. They hitched the trap, said goodbye to the caretaker and set out along the rough path back to the farm.

They didn’t say much. Régis was clearly tongue-tied, not sure what to say, and besides his cold was worse. It suited Gaston. In truth, he was numb. The news hadn’t really sunk in. Or perhaps it had, but he couldn’t really believe it. He hadn’t cried. He didn’t know if he was sad or just frightened about what was going to happen to him. As the cart bumped along, Gaston thought about all the times he’d sat on the smooth stone at the end of the path to his house, waiting for his parents to come home. Sometimes he sat out in the rain, craning for a glimpse of them on the narrow road, not knowing if they would come at all and dreading the smell of the bar on their breath and clothes, but hoping all the same.

Régis stopped the trap, pulling gently back on the reins. A sheep had strayed onto the path.

‘Could you get that animal out of the way? I’m not feeling very well.’

Gaston bit his lip. ‘Do you remember when I was the smallest boy in class?’

Régis rubbed his nose on his sleeve. ‘What?’

‘Even the girls were taller than me. They called me Little Gaston. Remember?’