She recognized the trait in herself. As a photographer it wasn’t, ultimately, the perfect picture she was after, but the approbation that came with it. Had photography failed to fill that need, she’d have developed another skill – an emotional commodity – that would have.
None of which helped explain Mr. Piper.
Least explicable of all was his relationship with his Czech traveling companion, Miss Tichyara, a somber young blind woman, as silent as he was loquacious, and probably – behind the small, black sunglasses she wore at all times – possessed of a brooding beauty that was not much diminished by the long scar on her throat. A scar she made no effort to conceal. She wasn’t his wife. Nor did the young woman, who called him ‘Mr. Piper’, seem related in any other capacity that Caitlin could fathom – and she’d devoted some time to the question. She certainly wasn’t his mistress, at least not in the conventional sense. They kept separate, nonadjoining rooms, maintained an easy propriety – as opposed to the forced propriety that is so much in evidence between elicit lovers, and he seemed always genuinely solicitous of her comfort and well-being.
“Damn thing’s going straight to the factory once I get back home,” said Piper, as Caitlin dislodged herself from him with flustered apology. He was looking disapprovingly at his expensive new camera, one Caitlin would have given her lower lip for.
“What’s wrong with it?” she said, taking it from him lest, in his wrath, he should smash it against the little carved granite lions that guarded the bridge.
“Damn thing’s broke!” he said, his frustration rising. “You’re the one who said I should get it. You tell me. Damn thing’s got more buttons than the space shuttle. What I want is my damn Polaroid.”
Caitlin, considering it part of the service to absorb the frustration of her students, patiently inspected the camera. “Now that’s not fair, Mr. Piper. I didn’t tell you to buy it, did I? You asked me what was the best camera in the world, and I gave you my opinion. Then you went out and bought it.”
“Same damn thing,” said Piper, a little sheepishly. As a result of a promise he’d made to God some thirty years ago when beseeching the Deity to preserve him from the consequences of a bad investment – to which request the Lord inclined His ear – he restricted himself to the one expletive, and he realized he’d pretty much used up his days ration. “Sorry,” he said, revealing his softer side. Maybe that would entitle him to another “damn” later on in the day. “I just can’t get the . . . blasted thing to do what I want it to. You know what I told the gardener when he couldn’t give me roses when I wanted ‘em? ‘You’re fired!’”
He tapped the camera that Caitlin now held up to her eyes. The little jolts of indignation traveled through her head. None of the indicators in the viewfinder were on. She flicked a switch, and the camera sprang to life. “Someone forgot to turn it on, Mr. Piper.” She handed it back to him. He lowered a glare at the instrument, as if it had embarrassed him on purpose and, mumbling that he’d never heard anything so foolish as a camera that you had to turn on, toddled off to photograph a tree.
“He’s got more balls than a bull moose.” The speaker, who had appeared silently at her elbow, was Jeremy Farthing – the dissolute littérateur of the group. “Someone should make a bolo of them and hang him with it.”
“And good morning to you, Mr. Farthing,” said Caitlin, with emphasized cheerfulness, which she knew would annoy him. In their brief acquaintance, she had inclined to the notion that he wouldn’t allow himself to be cheerful, except in a caustic, mocking way, for fear his muse would desert him for darker dwellings.
It was certainly a dark muse. And angry. He had poured forth some of its vitriol their first night out.
In the course of dinner at her favorite local eatery she had “gone ‘round the table” as she called it, asking each of the students to tell a little about themselves. It was a good icebreaker. When she discovered Farthing was a writer, unpublished as of even date, she coaxed him to read something from the notebook he always carried.
Unfortunately, he complied.
His command of the language was beyond debate. But something about the anarchic force of his narrative clawed at the hasps of the emotional baggage carried by each of his hearers, threatening, at every moment, to scatter the contents boldly before the face of God and man. His words were the scratches of dirty nails at raw wounds, ones it seemed he was determined to reopen.
By the time he folded the handwritten pages into his notebook, Caitlin felt as if she’d been filleted. Judging by the protracted, unsettling silence that followed, she was not alone. Farthing sat back and sipped his wine, defying the world to defend itself.
Piper had been the first to speak. “That kind of drivel goes over well with the critics. But it’ll never sell.”
It had been the opening salvo in a battle of wits for which only one combatant was armed. However Farthing’s sarcasm was utterly wasted on Piper, who seemed either not to comprehend the repeated broadsides or pretended not to hear. Which only stirred Farthing to less subtle bursts of verbal energy, like this most recent.
‘Make a bolo of them and hang him with it.’ Caitlin wondered how long he’d been working on that one. It wasn’t a spontaneous comment. She was determined not to give him the satisfaction of the anticipated response, especially at the expense of another paying customer.
“Haven’t had our coffee yet, have we?”
Farthing’s scowl was common amongst generals about to open up war on another front, but he thought better of it. “Do you think Christ is coming back?” he said, with his hands thrust defiantly in the pockets of his khaki shorts. The twenty year-old Nikon swung neglected from his neck on its rawhide string, like the pendulum on a flea market clock.
Caitlin didn’t take the time to gather her wits before she responded. “What do you mean?” As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she realized she’d risen to the bait.
“Christ,” said Farthing, turning his red-rimmed eyes to her. “You know. Jesus? Surely you’ve heard of Him. Didn’t you seeThe Passion?”
Caitlin smiled as if she were amused. She wasn’t, and he knew it. “I read the book.”
Farthing ignored the riposte. “They say He’s coming back to take his people to heaven.”
“So they do,” said Caitlin, noncommittally. Farthing wandered off amidst a little cloud of self-satisfaction. “Nice day for it,” he called over his shoulder. “Though, if I were Him, I wouldn’t bother.”
It wasn’t six o’clock yet, and Caitlin was drained.
Four more days.
Chapter Two–Kindling and Matches
By four o’clock that afternoon it had begun to rain; that meant the photography class would be back early. It was now six and would be dark soon. Jill Webster shooed the Prime Minister and Robespierre from the dining hall, together with a third, nameless cat, by whom she had only recently been adopted. She got a bottle of the local burgundy from the wine closet and put it on the sideboard, together with a baguette, warm from the oven, somepate de fois gras she had made herself (tomorrow one or more of the guests was sure to wonder aloud “weren’t there more geese here yesterday? I counted six, now there are only five. Where do you s’pose the other one got to?”), as well as generous slices of ham and local cheese and a bowl of grapes from the vineyard. That should hold them ‘til dinner.
Early on, when she and her husband had spent another long, lonely winter’s day in the empty hulk of the chateau, defending their dreams against the relentless onslaught of reality with trowels, paintbrushes, saws, hammers, and whatever other implements fell to hand, they would spread their sleeping bags on the hearth of the massive fireplace and imagine warmth from the coals as the heat rose up the chimney to the chuckling approval of the pigeons who made their home in the rafters. Joe, his perverse sense of humor undimmed by the rigors of the day, had taken to calling the walnut logs “village maidens” and would grin maniacally as he carefully selected one from among its sisters in t
he bin and laid it gently on the fire.
Now he was back in England, minding the pub – the business that supported their dream. But they’d be together again in seven days. Two weeks on, two weeks off. It was easy once, even fun. Every first night together had been like a honeymoon. Now it was a litany of chores that needed to be done, arrangements that had to be made. And the money. Always the money. The five hundred year-old chateau was all belly, and never satisfied.
It wasn’t fun anymore.
She tossed another log onto the coals and watched the blue ghost -arms of smoke bear the sacrifice aloft. The gods had ceased to care.
The grandfather clock against the opposite wall reminded her that two of her guests, young women traveling unaccompanied, hadn’t returned from their afternoon bicycle trip “in a couple of hours” as they’d said they would. Normally she wouldn’t have given it a thought, but given what happened in Breteneau last night . . . only four kilometers away. Fortunately, people on vacation are very rarely interested in local news. She shuddered.
“Here we are, love!” sang Caitlin, as she ushered the soggy mass of humanity through the little side door nearest the fireplace. She glanced at the sideboard and winked appreciatively. “I see you’re expecting us.”
“Yes. Well, once I saw the rain wasn’t going to let up . . . you want good light for Rocamador, don’t you? Oh, don’t worry about that.” This last she addressed to Frances Griffeth, who was fretting about dripping on the floor. “A little water won’t hurt it.”
“You’re sure?” said Frances, doubtfully.
“Positive. It’ll come right up. Only thing that bothers me is it’ll show up how dirty the rest of the floor is.”
Frances looked at the rest of the floor, which countless generations of footsteps had polished to a deep sheen. Like everything else at the chateau, it was spotless.
“Well, if you don’t mind,” Frances replied doubtfully. She shook her slicker with gusto, creating a microcosmic storm front from which she seemed to derive a guilty pleasure.
Jill glanced at the clock again. The girls were two hours late. It was dark and raining, two conditions that precluded any other activity but bar-hopping. The motherly instincts nature had denied her to lavish on children of her own were often exercised on her guests. Doubly so with Heather and Delilah, a couple of twenty-somethings who had showed up on the doorstep the previous evening, without a reservation, and begged accommodation. Fortunately, one of Caitlin’s students had dropped out at the last minute, so there was room to accommodate them.
They had slept in late and missed breakfast, which neither seemed to mind. They sipped orange juice and chatted amiably while Jill cleared the table, and she joined them over coffee. At their request, she recited the history of the Chateau D’Arnac, trying to make it sound fresh and interesting, as if they were the first to inquire.
The Chateau had been built in the 16th Century. Its subsequent history had been unmarred by events of any consequence, though it had been visited by Michael Lay, Napoleon’s Secretary of State, in the early 1800’s, and during World War II had served as both de facto headquarters for the Resistance and upon their forced departure, a command post for the local Vichy constabulary.
Yes, they had found secret tunnels, all of which, as the natural abode of vermin, had been blocked off, but no dungeons, or if there were, they were so secret she and her husband hadn’t found them in the course of extensive renovations. There were no ghosts, per se, though there were lots of odd noises. And yes, it was very difficult to live and work without Joe two weeks of every month.
“Heather’s desperate for her boyfriend,” Delilah volunteered mockingly. “And we’ve only been gone a week.”
For their part, the girls, both pretty and robust in a fresh-faced, North American way, were crowning their academic careers with a one-month tour of Europe, devouring it whole as she had done her first time on the Continent, rather than in leisurely bites. She imagined that one day they would return with their husbands to see all they had missed.
Jill recalled the delicious pain of her early separations from Joe, and the ravenous joy of their reunions. She hadn’t realized it was gone until that moment.
“What about you?” she said, shaking off thoughts with which she didn’t wish to contend at the moment. “You must have left any number of broken hearts behind.”
Delilah’s laugh was loud and musical. “Me? As far as boys are concerned, I’m like the Black Plague.”
Jill wasn’t sure whether or not the reference was to Delilah’s skin color, and was fumbling for a diplomatic response when Heather interjected. “They can’t stand the competition. She’s too good.”
Jill’s eyes begged clarification. “I’m a little competitive.”
“She’s a jock!” said Heather, throwing an arm around her companion’s neck and hugging her quickly. “She out-boys the boys.”
“So do you, Madam Butterfly!”
“I’m not sure I follow,” said Jill, a redundant comment given the expression on her face.
“Heather’s queen of the butterfly stroke at school. They call her Madame Butterfly.”
“Yes, but she is the one who got a full ride in track and field and golf,” said Heather, slapping Delilah on the back.
“Call me Tigerette Woods,” Delilah said with a glowing smile.
“Full ride?”
“A full scholarship,” Heather explained. “Anyway, that’s why she doesn’t have boyfriends. She scares them. They’re intimidated.”
There was a touch of sadness in Delilah’s answering smile. “I guess.”
“Don’t you worry,” Jill said, with a sisterly pat on the hand.
“How many boys do you need?”
“Only one,” said Delilah quickly. She’d apparently asked herself that question before.
“Only one,” Jill echoed reassuringly. “And he’s out there. All that’s needed is for your paths to cross.”
“Then we’d better get going,” said Heather, jumping from the table and pulling Delilah to her feet in a single motion. “We don’t want to miss him! Let’s get our stuff!”
Giggles followed the girls from the room, and their sandals slapped loudly on the steps as they flew up the circular stairs in the southeast tower.
“It gets dark early!” Jill called after them. She could hear her mother’s voice ringing in her ears. “Can I expect you for dinner?”
“We’ll be back in a couple of hours!”
A few minutes later she heard the garden door slam behind them.
Now they were over three and a half hours late.
“Probably holed up in a bar somewhere, with this infernal rain,” Mr. Piper posited when Jill raised her concern over dessert.
“I’d thought our little party were your exclusive guests,” Farthing said for no particular reason. “Tell us about them.”
“Not much to tell, really,” said Jill. “Just a couple of very sweet, naïve young girls enjoying their freedom.”
“Perhaps they’re not as sweet and naïve as you imagine,” Farthing rejoined, lisping intentionally on the ‘sweet’. “My guess is they’re shacked up with a couple of Frogs, their nubile young bodies shuddering, even as we speak, with forbidden raptures of delight.”
Frances Griffeth fanned herself exaggeratedly. “Oh, really, Mr. Farthing! You’re a romantic.”
Seeing the biting brush of his words had painted pictures he hadn’t intended, Farthing eschewed subtlety. “Of course, they could be lying naked in a gully somewhere with their throats cut.”
Mrs. Capshaw started from the table with such force that her heavy oaken chair fell backward, slamming against the polished stone floor. For half a second she stood, trembling visibly like a bird struck by an arrow, then burst into tears.
Amber rose at her mother’s side and threw her arms around her. “Mr. Farthing! That was cruel!”
“What’s got into her?” said Farthing. “I just said what everyone was thinking. There
has been a murder in the area, you know.”
“Mr. Farthing,” Jill snapped, barely able to restrain her fury. “That’s enough!”
It wasn’t enough for Frances. “Murder?”
Mrs. Capshaw flew from the room, followed closely by her daughter.
“Amazing the effect of a few well-chosen words,” said Farthing, sipping his brandy contentedly. “It’s in all the papers. Don’t any of you read French? You do, Caitlin. Surely you knew.”
“You knew of a murder and didn’t tell us?” Mrs. Wagner said indignantly. “I should think. . .”
“And of course it comes as no surprise to our charming hostess,” said Farthing. The eyes he turned on Jill brimmed with gleeful malevolence. “Wouldn’t do to have the patrons all riled up, would it?”
“Mr. Farthing,” said Jill who, despite her apparent composure, had taken Caitlin’s hand and was squeezing the blood from it. “What happened in Breteneau has nothing to do with us. It was terrible. Horrendous. But I fail to see how knowledge of a local tragedy could possibly add to an enjoyable vacation for my guests. And that is what I am here to provide . . . an enjoyable vacation.”
“You don’t think your guests, especially the young ladies, deserve to know there’s a murderer roaming the countryside, so they might take appropriate precautions?” said Farthing. He calmly studied his hostess’s face through his snifter.
“You’re right, Mr. Farthing,” Caitlin interrupted gently, retrieving her hand from Jill’s and massaging the feeling back into her fingers. “I knew about the murder but, as I understand, it was the act of a jilted lover and therefore nothing likely to pose a threat to any of you. Of course I’m not going to advertise such a thing, any more than the New York Tourist Board advertises the murders that take place there.”
Dead and Breakfast Page 2