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things, and sympathised with the hunger for independence.
    It was for Jacques’ sake that she taught herself to read. And her own, of course. Huddled against the stable wall where no one could bother her. In winter the lanterns swung on iron brackets and the light danced over the puzzling printed letters, and in summer the sun’s rays warmed her face and made her sleepy. She learned quicker than Jacques who was too impatient to be a good pupil, and it was Marie-Victoire who guided his hand down the text, listened to his halting syllables and urged him to try just one more time. Jacques was better at arguing, though, which Marie-Victoire had to concede, if reluctantly. Once Jacques got hold of an idea – however wild – it got hold of him and talked nonstop, leaving her to despair of ever being able to make him understand her point of view. Baffled, she would throw a handful of hay over him, or chase him round the yard, which invariably ended with Marie-Victoire being caught and tickled.
    Strangely enough, Jacques was the only one who had understood what she had felt when Marie died. No one else at La Joyeuse had bothered much; they were too busy with their own concerns to waste time on the bereft girl. But Jacques, who had grown up without parents – his mother had died in childbirth and his father had been both indifferent and neglectful – had gone out of his way to let Marie-Victoire know that he mourned her too. For that she was grateful and she tried to remember it at all times, particularly as she was growing uneasy about Jacques.
    Lately, Jacques had changed. Always greedy for her time, he now demanded that she spend every free moment with him. He stared at her in a way that she didn’t understand and had come to hate. If she told him to stop his narrow shoulders hunched defensively. Sometimes he came so close that his breath played on her skin. His cunning, unshaven face began to invade her dreams, and she woke sweating and anxious.
    â€˜What were you thinking of?’ Jacques asked.
    â€˜Nothing much.’
    â€˜Liar,’ he said. ‘I can see it on your face. What was it? Tell me.’
    â€˜It was nothing,’ she said again.
    â€˜Tell me. I demand it.’
    Marie-Victoire sighed.
    â€˜Of Paris if you must know.’
    Jacques drew out the knife he always wore in his belt and began to whittle at a twig. The blade scraped against the green wood and he peeled back the bark to reveal the pulpy core that lay underneath. Marie-Victoire snatched the knife from him and pointed it playfully at his breast.
    â€˜Careful,’ he said. ‘You might injure me.’
    She gave it back.
    The twig had been laid bare ‘I don’t want you to go,’ he admitted.
    â€˜Don’t be silly, Jacques. I must go. I want to go. You should be pleased that I shall see more of the world. It’s what you always said I should do.’
    Jacques’ neck mottled a painful red. ‘Your place is with me.’
    Marie-Victoire looked up at him in genuine astonishment.
    Jacques’ stomach contracted at the sight of her heart-shaped face framed by light brown hair curling damply round her cap. Marie-Victoire was not beautiful and her small body would probably grow sturdy with age, but her gold-tipped eyelashes and bright cornflower eyes were lovely, and she exuded a freshness that stirred his pulses.
    â€˜I mean it,’ he said. He cleaned the knife blade on his sleeve. ‘I want you for myself. We could run away to Paris and live cheaply. I’ll find work.’
    He sensed rather than saw her recoil.
    â€˜I see,’ he said sullenly. ‘You don’t want me. You would rather spend your life with those
cochons,
running about emptying their slops from morning to night or darning their chemises or whatever you do. What will you have at the end of it? Nothing.’
    â€˜I will have my work and a place in the house for as long as I am useful. It counts for