Aaron Elkins: Old Bones

Ray had been in the handsomely wainscoted library on earlier visits to the manoir, but he never felt free to explore it, sensing in Guillaume a jealous and forbidding possessiveness. Now, while people settled themselves on chairs and couches, he moved, open-mouthed with veneration, before the thirty-foot-long wall of old books, many of them bound in gilt-decorated leather. Rabelais, Ronsard, Montaigne- my God, the 1595 edition!-Racine, Corneille, de Sevigne…

"Isn’t it a pleasant room?" Sophie was standing alongside him, her plain, strong face dreamy and soft.

"Pleasant! Sophie, there’s a first edition of Montaigne’s collected-"

She seemed not to hear him. "When I was a little girl," she mused aloud, "and we’d come to visit the domaine, this was where I’d run to. I’d hide here all day if I could. The sun coming in the windows, the dusty smell of the books…I could hardly read yet, but there were pictures…and sometimes Alain would come and read to me for a while…la Fontaine, or Marie de France…and, oh, it was paradise…"

Ray smiled at her. Sophie was full of surprises. She wasn’t much of a reader, he knew, but then you didn’t have to be a reader to love books. "That’s nice, Sophie," he said gently.

"Of course," she said, "it usually didn’t last long. Guillaume didn’t approve of children in his library."

"Or of adults."

They were interrupted by the impatient throat-clearing of Monsieur Bonfante. The reading of the will was about to begin.

Georges Bonfante tapped his sterling silver pencil methodically on the surface of the table and waited with a forbearing smile for the last few to settle down. The milk-and-waterish young man with the awful pre-knotted bowtie-that would be the distant cousin from America. Monsieur Bonfante discreetly shielded the small smile he permitted himself. A bowtie, by the good Lord, a green, polka-dotted bowtie and a brown suit, factory-made and fifteen years out of style (if it ever had been in style). Yes, that was certainly the American. Well, if he hoped to emerge any the richer from this little session, he had a sad disappointment coming.

Monsieur Bonfante watched keenly as the young man chose his seat. Monsieur Bonfante was a student of human behavior, and he had already made his prediction. Yes, just as he expected; at the side of the thin, drab young woman who kept her hands in her lap and her eyes on her hands, the Fougeray girl. The observant Monsieur Bonfante had seen them come into the salon together earlier, and had not failed to notice the pathetically timid smiles they exchanged. Well, well, they would make a fine pair, like a couple from a children’s story book: Mr. and Mrs. Mouse. Perhaps they would live in a burrow somewhere and come out to eat Swiss cheese. And have many fine mouse-children.

He tapped his pencil a final time, smiled authoritatively at the faces turned attentively towards his own, opened his attache case, and removed the folder.

From an old-fashioned metal case covered with flocked black silk he removed his reading glasses. "What we have," he said, "is a holographic will of great simplicity, written and signed by Guillaume du Rocher in my presence on January 19, 1978." He cleared his throat and began to read aloud.

"‘This is my will, and I hereby revoke all prior wills. I direct that all my funeral expenses be paid out of my estate. To the University of Rennes I give my collection of mollusks and all materials pertaining to it. To Beatrice and Marcel Lupis I leave an annual allowance of twenty thousand francs for as long as either of them shall live.’ "

This allowance was not as munificent as it would have been in 1978. It would provide butter on the spinach; no more. For their spinach they would still have to work. Nevertheless, it was received with a grateful murmur from Marcel and a pro forma dab of Madame Lupis’ handkerchief to a rough and perfectly dry cheek.

Monsieur Bonfante smiled once more at his attentive audience. "‘To my cousin Rene du Rocher, or to his wife Mathilde in the event of his death, or to their descendants in the event of both their deaths, I leave the rest of my estate, except for the following stipulations.’ "

He looked up again to catch a relieved Mathilde preening herself. The will could hardly be a surprise to her, but until it is read one never knows. Now she was wondering what the estate was really worth, what it would mean to her. Well, he could tell her and no doubt would. It meant she and Rene were rich; they now had a handsome home, the means to maintain it, and a yearly income roughly fifteen times Rene’s comfortable pension besides.

"‘This bequest,’ "he continued," ‘is contingent on the stipulation that the beforementioned Marcel and Beatrice Lupis be allowed to continue in their positions for as long as they wish.’"

"Of course, of course," Rene murmured to them. "Be delighted to have you."

"‘In addition,’ " Monsieur Bonfante read on, "‘the following property is excepted: all of the contents of the room in the Manoir de Rochebonne known as the Library, including all books, furniture, ornaments, and carpets in it at the time of my death. These I bequeath to my well-loved niece Sophie Butts, nee du Rocher.’ "

At this there were gasps of surprise, among the most explosive of which came from Sophie herself, who followed it with a look of round-eyed astonishment at her husband.

Monsieur Bonfante smiled tolerantly. "I will be happy to answer privately any questions you may have about any of the terms that affect you individually. In the meantime, are there any general questions?"

His query went unanswered so long that he put the will into his attache case and prepared his face for the congratulations and smiles required of him. The beneficiaries rose and came to the table to thank him.

Claude Fougeray now made his first contribution: a long, gargling mutter. Head lowered and weaving ominously from side to side, he stared forward, pressed tensely into the tapestried cushion of his chair, like a jack-in-the-box jammed into place by its lid and about to burst the hook. "No," he said.

"Monsieur?" said the attorney with a smile. Mathilde had warned him about Fougeray.

Claude had placed himself apart from everyone, even his wife and daughter, up against the oaken wainscoting near the door, and one fist thumped rhythmically against the three-hundred-year-old linen-fold paneling behind him. His voice was strained, barely audible. "How do I know that’s really his will?"

Georges Bonfante had nothing against Claude. He was familiar with the old stories about him, although he himself had been a young man in Lyons at the time. He did not fault Claude for his behavior during the war; what choice did a sensible man have in those days? Nevertheless, he felt his temper begin to swell at the base of his throat. He was not of a retiring disposition, and he did not care to have his ethics impugned.

"It is a holographic will, monsieur," he said frostily. "Made in my presence."

"Holographic, holographic-"

"Made in his own handwriting," Leona Fougeray snapped from across the room.

"In my presence," Monsieur Bonfante repeated yet again, with admirable patience.

Claude shook his head stubbornly. "No, impossible. I know Guillaume; he told me long ago, before the war- The books would go to the Bibliotheque Nationale when he died." He panted twice, like a beast. "Besides, he hated America-ever since the First War, when they came over, so sure of themselves, with their piss-on-you American walk-"

"Piss-on-you American walk?" Ray was heard to murmur perplexedly.

"All this may be so," said Monsieur Bonfante sharply, "but you are speaking of Guillaume du Rocher as a young man, many decades ago. And I fail to see the relevance-"