by Louise Penny
Not everyone was made for this work.
Elliot wasn’t.
‘I was just having some fun.’
Elliot said it as though it was reasonable to stand in the middle of the crowded, busy kitchen mocking the guests, and the maître d’ was the unreasonable one. Pierre could feel his rage rising. He looked around.
The large old kitchen was the natural gathering place for the staff. Even the gardeners were there, eating cakes and drinking tea and coffee. And watching his humiliation at the hands of a nineteen year old. He’s young, Pierre said to himself. He’s young. But he’d said it so often it had become meaningless.
He knew he should let it go.
‘You were making fun of the guests.’
‘Only one. Oh, come on, she’s ridiculous. Excusez-moi, but I think he got more coffee than I did. Excusez-moi, but is this the best seat? I asked for the best seat. Excusez-moi, I don’t mean to be difficult, but I did order before they did. Where’s my celery stick?’
Titters, quickly stifled, filled the warm kitchen.
It was a good imitation. Even in his anger the maître d’ recognized Sandra’s smooth, cool whine. Always asking for a little bit more. Elliot might not be a natural waiter, but he had an uncanny ability to see people’s faults. And magnify them. And mock them. It was a gift not everyone would find attractive.
‘Look who I found,’ said Julia cheerfully as they stepped into the Great Room.
Reine-Marie smiled and rose to kiss her husband, holding out a bulbous cognac glass. The rest looked up, smiled, and returned to what they were doing. Julia stood uncertain on the threshold, then picked up a magazine and sat in a wing chair.
‘Feeling better?’ Reine-Marie whispered.
‘Much,’ Gamache said and meant it, taking the glass warmed by her hands and following her to a sofa.
‘Bridge later?’ Thomas stopped playing the piano and wandered over to the Gamaches.
‘Merveilleux. Bonne idée,’ said Reine-Marie. They’d played bridge most nights with Thomas and his wife Sandra. It was a pleasant way to end the day.
‘Find any roses?’ Thomas asked Julia as he walked back to his wife. There was a rat-tat-tat of laughter from Sandra as though he’d said something witty and brilliant.
‘Some Eleanor roses, you mean?’ Mariana asked from the window seat beside Bean, a look of great amusement on her face. ‘They are your favourites, aren’t they, Julia?’
‘I thought they were more along your line,’ Julia smiled. Mariana smiled back and imagined one of the wooden beams falling and crushing her older sister. It wasn’t as much fun having her back as Mariana had hoped. In fact, quite the opposite.
‘Time for bed, old Bean,’ said Mariana and put her heavy arm round the studious child. Gamache had never known a ten year old so quiet. Still, the child seemed content. As they walked by he caught Bean’s bright blue eyes.
‘What’re you reading?’ he asked.
Bean stopped and looked at the large stranger. Though they’d been together in the Manoir for three days they hadn’t really spoken, until now.
‘Nothing.’
Gamache noticed the small hands close more tightly over the hardcover book, and the loose shirt fold as the book was pressed closer to the childish body. Through the small, tanned fingers Gamache could read only one word.
Myths.
‘Come on, slowpoke. Bed. Mommy needs to get drunk and can’t before you’re in bed, now you know that.’
Bean, still looking at Gamache, suddenly smiled. ‘May I have a martooni tonight, please,’ Bean said, leaving the room.
‘You know you’re not allowed until you’re twelve. It’ll be Scotch or nothing,’ they heard Mariana say, then footsteps on the stairs.
‘I’m not completely convinced she’s kidding,’ said Madame Finney.
Gamache smiled over to her but his smile faded as he saw the stern look on her face.
‘Why do you let him get to you, Pierre?’
Chef Véronique was putting hand-made truffles and chocolate-dipped candied fruit on small plates. Her sausage fingers instinctively placed the confections in an artistic pattern. She took a sprig of mint from the glass, shook the water from it and clipped a few leaves with her nails. Absently she chose some edible flowers from her vase and before long a few chocolates had become a lovely design on the white plate. Straightening up, she looked at the man opposite her.
They’d worked together for years. Decades, come to think of it. She found it odd to think she was almost sixty and knew she looked it, though happily in the wilderness it didn’t seem to matter.
She’d rarely seen Pierre so upset by one of the young workers. She herself liked Elliot. Everyone did, as far as she could tell. Was that why the maître d’ was so upset? Was he jealous?
She watched him for a moment, his slim fingers arranging the tray.
No, she thought. It wasn’t jealousy. It was something else.
‘He just doesn’t listen,’ said Pierre, setting the tray aside and sitting across from her. They were alone in the kitchen now. The washing up was done, the dishes away, the surfaces scrubbed. It smelled of espresso and mint and fruit. ‘He came here to learn, and he won’t listen. I just don’t understand.’ He uncorked the cognac and poured.
‘He’s young. It’s his first time away from home. And you’ll only make it worse by pushing. Let it go.’
Pierre sipped, and nodded. It was relaxing being around Chef Véronique, though he knew she scared the crap out of the new employees. She was huge and beefy, her face like a pumpkin and her voice like a root vegetable. And she had knives. Lots of them. And cleavers and cast-iron pans.
Seeing her for the first time new employees could be excused for thinking they’d taken a wrong turn on the dirt road into the woods, and ended up at a lumber camp instead of the refined Manoir Bellechasse. Chef Véronique looked like a short-order cook in a cantine.
‘He needs to know who’s in charge,’ said Pierre firmly.
‘He does know. He just doesn’t like it.’
The maître d’ had had a hard day, she could see. She took the largest truffle from the tray and handed it to him. He ate it absently.
‘I learned French late in life,’ Mrs Finney said, examining her son’s cards.
They’d switched to the library and to French and now the elderly woman was slowly circling the card table, peering into each hand. Occasionally she’d reach out a gnarled finger and tap a certain card. At first she’d limited her help to her son and his wife, but tonight she’d included the Gamaches in her rounds. It was a friendly game, and no one seemed to mind, certainly not Armand Gamache, who could use the help.
The room was lined with books, broken only by the huge river-rock fireplace and the wall of French doors, looking into the darkness. They were open, to catch what little breeze the hot Quebec evening had to offer, which wasn’t much. What it did offer was a constant trill of calls from the wild.
Worn oriental carpets were scattered about the old pine floor and comfortable chairs and sofas were grouped together for intimate conversations or a private read. Arrangements of fresh flowers were placed here and there. The Manoir Bellechasse managed to be both rustic and refined. Roughhewn logs on the outside and fine crystal within.
‘You live in Quebec?’ Reine-Marie spoke slowly and distinctly.
‘I was born in Montreal but now live in Toronto. Closer to my friends. Most left Quebec years ago, but I stayed. Back then we didn’t need French. Just enough to speak to our maids.’
Mrs Finney’s French was good, but heavily accented.
‘Mother.’ Thomas reddened.
‘I remember those days,’ said Reine-Marie. ‘My mother cleaned houses.’
Mrs Finney and Reine-Marie chatted about hard work and raising families, about the Quiet Revolution in the 1960s, when the Québécois finally became ‘maîtres chez nous’. Masters in their own house.
‘Though my mother still cleaned the houses of the Englis
h in Westmount,’ said Reine-Marie, organizing her cards. ‘One no trump.’
Madame Finney beetled over to look, nodding approval. ‘I hope her employers were kinder to her. I’m ashamed to say I had to learn that too. It was almost as hard as the subjunctive.’
‘It was a remarkable time,’ said Gamache. ‘Thrilling for most French Canadians, but I know it came at a terrible price for the English.’
‘We lost our children,’ said Mrs Finney, moving round the table to peer into his hand. ‘They went away to find jobs in a language they could speak. You might have become masters, but we became foreigners, unwelcome in our own home. You’re right. It was terrible.’
She tapped the ten of clubs in his hand, his highest card. Her voice was without sentiment or self-pity. But with, perhaps, a bit of reproach.
‘Pass,’ said Gamache. He was partnered with Sandra, and Reine-Marie was playing with Thomas.
‘I leave Quebec,’ said Thomas, who seemed to understand French better than he spoke it, which was certainly better than the other way round. ‘Went far to university and settle on Toronto. Quebec hard.’
It was remarkable, thought Gamache, listening to Thomas. If you didn’t speak French you’d swear he was bilingual, so perfect was his accent. But the content lacked a certain je ne sais quoi.
‘Three no trump,’ said Thomas.
His mother shook her head and tsked gently.
Thomas laughed. ‘Ah, my mother’s tongue.’ Gamache smiled. He liked the man and suspected most people would.
‘Did any of your children stay here?’ Reine-Marie asked Madame Finney. The Gamaches at least had Annie living in Montreal, but she missed Daniel every day, and wondered how this woman, and so many others, had done it. No wonder they weren’t always comfortable with the Québécois. If they felt they lost their children for the sake of a language. And without thanks. In fact, often just the opposite. There remained a lingering suspicion among the Québécois that the English were simply biding their time, waiting to enslave them again.
‘One stayed. My other son.’
‘Spot. He and his wife Claire are coming tomorrow,’ said Thomas, switching to English. Gamache looked up from his hand, which held nothing of interest anyway, and stared at the man beside him.
Like his sister Julia’s earlier in the evening, Thomas’s tone had been light and breezy when speaking of the missing brother. But something was drifting about beneath.
He felt a slight stirring in the part of his brain he’d come to the Manoir to turn off.
It was Sandra’s turn to bid. Gamache stared across the table at his partner.
Pass, pass, he willed. I have nothing. We’ll be slaughtered.
He knew bridge was both a card game and an exercise in telepathy.
‘Spot,’ huffed Sandra. ‘Typical. Comes at the last minute. Does only the minimum, never more. Four no trumps.’
Reine-Marie doubled.
‘Sandra,’ said Thomas with a laugh barely hiding the rebuke.
‘What? Everyone else comes days ago to honour your father, and he shows up at the last minute. Horrible man.’
There was silence. Sandra’s eyes darted from her hand to the plate of chocolates the maître d’ had placed on their table.
Gamache glanced at Madame Finney, but she seemed oblivious of this conversation, though he suspected she missed nothing.
His gaze shifted to Monsieur Finney, sitting on a sofa. Finney’s wild eye roamed the room and his hair stuck out at odd angles so that his head looked like a damaged sputnik, fallen too fast and too hard to earth. For a man being honoured he was strangely alone. Finney’s eye came to rest on a huge original Krieghoff painting of a rustic scene hanging over the fireplace. Québécois peasants were loading a cart and at one of the cottages a robust woman was laughing and carrying a basket of food to the men.
It was a warm and inviting scene of family and village life hundreds of years earlier. And Finney seemed to prefer it to his family in the here and now.
Mariana got up and walked over to the group.
Thomas and Sandra pressed their cards to their chests. She picked up a Châtelaine magazine. ‘According to a survey,’ she read, ‘most Canadians think bananas are the best fruit for chocolate fondue.’
There was silence again.
Mariana imagined her mother choking on the chocolate truffle she’d picked up.
‘But that’s ridiculous,’ said Sandra, also watching Madame Finney eat. ‘Strawberries are the best.’
‘I’ve always liked pears and chocolate. Unusual, but a great combination, don’t you think?’ Thomas asked Reine-Marie, who said nothing.
‘So this is where you got to. No one told me.’ Julia stepped lightly through the French doors from the garden. ‘What’re you talking about?’
For some reason she looked at Gamache.
‘Pass,’ he said. He didn’t really know what they were talking about any more.
‘Magilla here thinks bananas are best with melted chocolate.’ Thomas nodded to Mariana. This brought much hilarity and the Gamaches exchanged amused but befuddled looks.
‘Don’t the monks make blueberries in chocolate?’ asked Julia. ‘I’ll have to get some before we leave.’
For the next few minutes the game was forgotten while they debated fruit and chocolate. Eventually both Julia and Mariana retired to their corners.
‘Pass,’ Thomas declared, his mind back on the game.
Let it go. Gamache stared across at Sandra and sent the message. Please, pass.
‘I redouble.’ Sandra glared at Thomas.
What we’ve got here, thought Gamache, is a failure to communicate.
‘Really, what were you thinking?’ Sandra asked, her plump lips pursing as she saw the cards Gamache laid down.
‘Oui, Armand.’ Reine-Marie smiled. ‘Six no trumps with that hand? What were you thinking?’
Gamache rose and bowed slightly. ‘My fault entirely.’ He caught his wife’s eye, his own deep brown eyes full of amusement.
Being dummy had its advantages. He stretched his legs, sipped his cognac and walked the room. It was growing hotter. Generally a Quebec evening cooled off, but not this night. He could feel the humidity closing in, and loosened his collar and tie.
‘Very bold,’ said Julia, coming up beside him as he stared again at the Krieghoff. ‘Are you disrobing?’
‘I’m afraid I’ve humiliated myself enough for one evening.’ He nodded to the table where the three bridge players were engrossed.
He leaned in and sniffed the roses on the mantelpiece.
‘Lovely, aren’t they? Everything here is.’ She sounded wistful, as though she was missing it already. Then he remembered Spot and thought maybe for the Finneys this was their last pleasant evening.
‘Paradise lost,’ he murmured.
‘Pardon?’
‘Nothing, just a thought.’
‘You were wondering whether it’s better to reign in hell than serve in heaven?’ Julia asked, smiling. He laughed. Like her mother, she didn’t miss much. ‘Because, you know, I have the answer to that. This is the Eleanor rose,’ she said with surprise, pointing to a bright pink bloom in the bouquet. ‘Imagine that.’
‘Someone mentioned it earlier this evening,’ Gamache remembered.
‘Thomas.’
‘That’s right. He wanted to know if you’d found one in the garden.’
‘It’s our little joke. It’s named after Eleanor Roosevelt, you know.’
‘I didn’t.’
‘Hmm,’ said Julia, contemplating the rose and nodding. ‘She said she’d been flattered at first until she’d read the description in the catalogue. Eleanor Roosevelt rose: no good in a bed, but fine up against a wall.’
They laughed and Gamache admired the rose and the quote, though he wondered why it was a family joke directed at Julia.
‘More coffee?’
Julia startled.
Pierre stood at the door with a silver coffee pot. His questi
on was said to the room in general, but he was looking at Julia and blushing slightly. Across the room Mariana mumbled, ‘Here we go.’ Every time the maître d’ was in the same room as Julia he blushed. She knew the signs. She’d lived with them her whole life. Mariana was the fun girl-next-door. The one to grope and kiss in the car. But Julia was the one they all wanted to marry, even the maître d’.
Now Mariana watched her sister and felt blood rushing to her face, but for a whole different reason. She watched Pierre pour the coffee and imagined the huge, framed Krieghoff sliding off the wall and smashing Julia in the head.
‘Look what you’ve done to me, partner,’ moaned Sandra, as Thomas took trick after trick. Finally they pushed back from the table and Thomas joined Gamache, who was looking at the other paintings in the room.
‘That’s a Brigite Normandin, isn’t it?’ Thomas asked.
‘It is. Fantastic. Very bold, very modern. Complements the Molinari and the Riopelle. And yet they all work with the traditional Krieghoff.’
‘You know your art,’ said Thomas, slightly surprised.
‘I love Quebec history,’ said Gamache, nodding to the old scene.
‘But that doesn’t explain the others, does it?’
‘Are you testing me, monsieur?’ Gamache decided to push a little.
‘Perhaps,’ Thomas admitted. ‘It’s rare to find an autodidact.’
‘In captivity, anyway,’ said Gamache and Thomas laughed. The painting they were staring at was muted, with lines of delicately shaded beiges.
‘Feels like a desert,’ said Gamache. ‘Desolate.’
‘Ah, but that’s a misconception,’ said Thomas.
‘Here he goes,’ said Mariana.
‘Not that plant story,’ said Julia, turning to Sandra. ‘Is he still telling that?’
‘Once a day, like Old Faithful. Stand back.’
‘Well, time for bed,’ said Madame Finney. Her husband unfolded himself from the sofa and the elderly couple left.
‘Things aren’t as they seem,’ said Thomas, and Gamache looked at him, surprised. ‘In the desert, I mean. It looks desolate but it’s actually teeming with life. You just don’t see it. It hides, for fear of being eaten. There’s one plant in the South African desert called a stone plant. Can you guess how it survives?’