Aaron Elkins: Old Bones

"Aahh," she said, "dear Raymond," and laughed, and patted him lightly on the shoulders, and kissed the air by the side of his freckled cheek.

"What a nice boy he’s turned out to be," she said to Ben as Ray headed down the alley between the rows of bare plane trees, "but I do worry about him."

"What’s there to worry about? He seems fine to me."

"But he’s so-well, he’s like an old maid, and he’s not even thirty-five. I don’t suppose he’ll ever get married now. I don’t know if he even likes women. I’m not sure he knows about women."

"Maybe not, but hell, he’s happier with those dusty old books than most men ever are with wives, and that’s what counts, isn’t it?"

"Yes, of course," she said, unconvinced. "Still-";

"Sophie, don’t worry about him." He pulled open the door for her. "You know, ol’ Ray reminds me of what my Uncle Bobby Will used to say about p’fessers…"

When Ray joined them almost an hour later there had still been no word from their host, and Sophie was beginning to worry. "It’s not like Guillaume-No, thank you, Marcel."

Ray and Ben also turned down the coffee being wheeled around on a tray by the quiet, dark servant. As he had moved on to the Fougerays, whom Leona had icily rejoined but not yet favored with speech, the telephone on a side table near the door chirred softly. The servant stopped, bowed gravely to Claude, who was ignoring him, and went into the study to pick up an extension telephone.

In a few moments he emerged, his demeanor for once shaken, his olive face gray. Something in the air made everyone stop talking and look at him. Marcel licked his lips and glanced uneasily around the room.

"Well, what is it, for heaven’s sake?" Mathilde demanded.

Marcel seemed grateful for the prompt. "It’s the police, madame. There seems to have been an accident at Mont St. Michel. Monsieur du Rocher has been, ah, drowned."

Ray steeled himself for a violent outburst of emotion at this news, but the reaction around the room was one of quiet disbelief. It was as if word had come of the death of a distant, godlike figure whose mortality was not heretofore assured. And so, he supposed, it had.

Claude, as the nearest living relative, was asked by the police to go that afternoon to the mortuary at Pontorson, the little town separated by a mile-long causeway from Mont St. Michel, to identify the body. When it came out, however, that he had not seen Guillaume in over forty years, he and Rene went together, driven by a mournfully respectful gardien de la paix who called for them at the manoir.

Everyone would stay on for a few days to attend the funeral. This caused some more-than-customary grumbling on the part of Beatrice Lupis, Marcel’s wife, a large woman with swollen ankles, who wore tent-like, dun-brown housedresses and was easily aggrieved. Her dissatisfaction over cooking and cleaning for the nine family members for several additional days contributed to an unpleasant scene with Claude Fougeray, whose muttered demand for un pichet of wine was met with a muttered response to the effect that he would just have to wait until she was good and ready, and that he had already had more wine than was good for him.

Unfortunately for her, Madame Lupis’ penchant for instant irritation, impressive though it was, was no match for Claude’s, and his sudden explosion rattled the leaded windows of the salon. An imminent physical confrontation was headed off by Ben Butts, whose retelling of what his Uncle Willie Joe used to say about drinking wine ("Makes you feel fit as a fiddle when you’re tight as a drum"), while rendered senseless by translation, managed to muddle the situation long enough for Marcel to appear with the requested carafe.

"I will see to it, monsieur," he said, his face as usual expressionless, "that there is a full pichet on the sideboard at all times for your pleasure."

"And a glass," Claude said sullenly.

"Of course. Monsieur enjoys red wine?"

"Monsieur enjoys Chateau Haut-Brion," muttered Claude.

"I’m sorry, monsieur-"

"I know, Guillaume was too cheap to stock anything but crap." He snatched the carafe and retreated to his room, talking to himself as he climbed the stone steps.

At dinner the same day, Claude was involved in another unpleasant scene, this one having unexpected consequences for Ray. As usual the Buttses and du Rochers- and Ray-were at one end of the long dining room table, the Fougerays clustered at a smaller table as far away as possible. Claude and Leona were quarreling again, their sharp whispers increasing in volume through crudites, potage au cresson, and loup de mer until, just after the meat course had been set down, Leona leaped up, her eyes blazing. She leaned forward and slapped her husband’s face with a resounding smack.

"Pig!" she spat.

Claude’s eyes bulged wildly. "Sit-!"

With a grand and graceful swoop of her slender, Hanae Morae-clad arm she flung her napkin into his face, then spun dramatically about and clicked out of the room on wobbly spike heels. Ray began to wonder if they did this every day.

"Ah," murmured Jules du Rocher drolly, "the evening’s entertainment begins." But he was careful this time to keep his voice within the hearing of his table companions only.

Claude tore the napkin from his purpling face and began to shout something after her, but Claire laid her hand on his.

"Father…" she murmured.

He brushed her away and stood up, looking after Leona, his head lowered menacingly. Claire rose anxiously with him.

"Oh, leave me alone, for Christ’s sake!" Claude snapped. "Stay where you are!" He glared at her until she sank miserably back into her chair, then clumped off after his wife, staring pugnaciously at the assembled Buttses and du Rochers in passing.

Jules waited until he was in the stairwell, safely out of hearing, then patted the corners of his plump mouth with the folded edge of his napkin and looked slyly around the table to indicate that a witticism was on the way.

"I must remember to compliment Madame Fougeray on her aim," he said. He spoke in a cool, conversational voice, willing to brave the umbrage of Claire Fougeray, if not her father. "I thought that Cousin Claude looked quite fetching with a serviette -"

"Why the hell don’t you shut up?" Ray said in English.

He saw Sophie and Ben glance at each other with surprise, but they couldn’t have been more startled than he was.

Jules stared open-mouthed at him. "What?" He spoke French.

Every one of Ray’s many inhibitions called on him to mumble an apology. Instead, he translated his remark for Jules’ benefit, although everyone at the table spoke fluent English.

"Fermez," he said with his most precise accent, "ta bouche."

Then, in the stupefied silence that followed, he did something even more amazing. He stood up, tossed his napkin onto the table, and strode-not walked, strode- across the room to where Claire Fougeray sat alone, staring dolefully at her untouched and congealing entrecote chasseur.

"May I sit down, mademoiselle?"

She lifted her head briefly, but not so briefly that he failed to see the glimmer of tears.

"Of course, monsieur."

He sat, and the astonishing confidence that had swelled his chest and straightened his back suddenly wasn’t there anymore. What was he doing? What was he supposed to say now? Had he made things worse for the wan, wretched woman across from him by calling attention to her? And what about the attention he had called to himself? The back of his neck burned; were they all still staring mutely at him?

How would he explain to them that he’d merely surrendered to an irrational and momentary urge, that he hadn’t intended by any means to…Or had he? There was a strange tug at the corners of his mouth. A guilty grin? Jules had had it coming, and it had felt remarkably good to deliver it. It had felt splendid, in fact. No wonder so many people seemed to enjoy being rude. There was definitely something in it.