At the Edge of Summer is a work of historical fiction. Apart from the well-known actual people, events, and locales that figure in the narrative, all names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to current events or locales, or to living persons, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2016 by Jessica Brockmole
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.
BALLANTINE and the HOUSE colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Brockmole, Jessica.
At the edge of summer : a novel / Jessica Brockmole.
pages ; cm
ISBN 978-0-345-54789-7 (hardcover : acid-free paper) ISBN 978-0-345-54790-3 (eBook)
1. Man-woman relationships—Fiction. 2. World War, 1914–1918—Fiction. 3. First loves—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3602.R6324A95 2016
813'.6—dc23
2015028301
ebook ISBN 9780345547903
Book design by Dana Leigh Blanchette, adapted for eBook
Title-page and part-title images: © iStockphoto.com
Cover design: Marietta Anastassatos
Cover image: Richard Tuschman
v4.1
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Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Part 1: The Summer
Chapter 1: Clare
Chapter 2: Clare
Chapter 3: Luc
Chapter 4: Luc
Chapter 5: Luc
Chapter 6: Luc
Chapter 7: Clare
Chapter 8: Clare
Chapter 9: Clare
Chapter 10: Clare
Chapter 11: Luc
Part 2: The Letters
Part 3: The War
Chapter 12: Luc
Chapter 13: Luc
Chapter 14: Luc
Chapter 15: Clare
Chapter 16: Luc
Chapter 17: Clare
Chapter 18: Luc
Chapter 19: Clare
Chapter 20: Luc
Chapter 21: Clare
Part 4: The Studio
Chapter 22: Clare
Chapter 23: Luc
Chapter 24: Clare
Chapter 25: Clare
Chapter 26: Luc
Part 5: The Mask
Chapter 27: Clare
Chapter 28: Luc
Chapter 29: Clare
Chapter 30: Luc
Chapter 31: Clare
Chapter 32: Luc
Chapter 33: Clare
Chapter 34: Luc
Chapter 35: Clare
Epilogue
Author’s Note
Dedication
By Jessica Brockmole
About the Author
The colors in France were all wrong.
I was used to the grays of Scotland. The granite blocks of Fairbridge, the leaden sky, the misty rain, the straight stone walls bisecting fields. Even the steel of Father’s eyes.
Scotland wasn’t all gray, of course. In summer, the hills of Perthshire were muted green, in the spring flecked with the yellow-brown of gorse, and in the autumn, brown. But washed over all of it, gray. It was the color I knew best.
Lately, though, I saw more black than anything. It was draped on our front doorknob, it edged my handkerchiefs, it hung in my wardrobe in a modest row of new dresses. Six weeks of mourning black. Six weeks of sympathetic looks, of waxy pale lilies, of whispered conversations about what was to be done with me. But then Madame Crépet swept into the house, smelling of violets in a dress the color of honeycomb, and set about straightening things. The household was too happy to leave me in her hands. They didn’t know what to do with me anyway. As soon as Madame had my new black dresses packed up, we left for France.
Right away, France was too bright. From the blue-green of the Channel lapping the edges of Calais, past orange-roofed houses and yellow rapeseed fields, all the way to a château rising up white in a jewel green lawn. An automobile brought us down a slash of a burnt sienna drive, past golden-blossomed lindens and sprinkles of violets. Madame Crépet leaned over to me and said, “Welcome to Mille Mots, Clare.”
The people waiting in front were no different. Two young girls were introduced as maids, though they wore green flowered dresses instead of dark broadcloth. The butler had a great drooping orange mustache. The cook had her hair tied up in a paisley scarf. I heard the whispered buzz of French and was suddenly afraid to step from the car.
But then Madame Crépet took my hand. “It’s your home for as long as you need, ma chère.” Her words brought a lump to my throat and I swallowed it down. She slid off the lap shawl. “Are you ready?”
Was I? I didn’t know. A week ago I’d been back at Fairbridge, in the same square parcel of Scotland I’d spent the past fifteen years. I left with Madame Crépet, thinking I was setting off on an adventure. I forgot that polite, well-bred girls weren’t supposed to have adventures.
My head ached with the color and the light and the unfamiliar words my ears strained to catch. The air smelt like roses—heady, drowsy roses. Wasn’t it too early for them to be in bloom? A man approached the car, in a waistcoat speckled blue like a raven’s egg. He smiled widely and held out both hands.
“Can it be the petite princesse? I remember you, only as high as my knee and charming us all with your smile.” He spoke English casually, Glaswegian vowels slipping in and out of his French accent. “Do you not remember me?”
It was an unfair question. Knee-high, I hadn’t noticed much beyond the nursery. I stepped down from the automobile and regarded the man beneath the brim of my boater. He had a soft brown beard curling over his cravat and eyes dark as currants. Maybe I did remember him.
“Monsieur Crépet, is it?”
His grin broadened. “Oui!” He took both of my hands in his. “Mademoiselle, welcome to my Picardy.” He leaned forward and deposited a tickly kiss on each of my cheeks. Father always smelt of Rowland’s Macassar Oil and the faint wood of pencil shavings, but as Monsieur Crépet leaned close, I smelt coffee and garlic, turpentine and tobacco. His cravat was spattered with green and yellow paint.
“Your Picardy?” I asked.
Madame Crépet linked her arm through her husband’s. “Cher Claude, he’d lay claim to all the most beautiful parts of France if he could.”
“Only long enough to paint them,” he said with a kiss to the back of her hand, one that sent her blushing like a schoolgirl.
“And you’ll meet the last of our family tomorrow,” Madame said. “Our petit Luc, he’ll be home from school. You probably don’t remember him either.”
Madame came to visit us in Perthshire each spring, staying for two weeks at Fairbridge, in the rose moiré guest suite. Only once do I remember her bringing her family along. I’d forgotten that she had a son.
A mottled cat streaked out from the open front door, followed closely by a dog. The pair darted between legs before tearing off across the lawn. A maid yelped and jumped aside, Madame laughed, and the butler dropped his spectacles with what I was sure was a French curse.
Suddenly I was exhausted. Everything here was too bright, too loud, too different. I pressed my hands against the scratchy crepe of my skirt. In front of this aching white château, I was the only spot of black.