Old Bones

FOUR

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.

"I want to apologize for my cousin’s behavior," he said.

"Oh, no," Claire said, and looked at him. A tear broke loose and ran cleanly down her cheek; she wore no makeup. "It’s I who should apologize. My parents…It’s only when my father drinks that-that…"

"There’s no need for you to apologize, mademoiselle." He smiled at her, rather smoothly, he thought. "Since we’ve already been introduced, and we’re relatives, after all, perhaps we might call each other by our first names? I’m Raymond."

"Claire," she said softly.

"Do you live near here, Claire?" he asked.

"I live in Rennes, with my parents."

"Ah. Well, that’s not far."

She looked briefly at him again. Far from what, he was afraid she was going to say. He was struck by how very clear and calm her eyes were. Beautiful, really; melancholy and intelligent.

"No," she said, "not far. Rennes is very nice."

"I’m sure it is."

They sat stiffly while he searched for something to talk about. Perhaps he ought to go; she was merely being polite to him, when it was he who had meant to offer politeness. But he continued to sit. Why, he wasn’t sure.

"And you?" she said.

"Pardon?"

"Where do you live?"

"Oh, in California; a city called San Mateo. You’ve probably never heard of it?"

"Ah…no."

"No, of course not. Well." He sipped suavely from a water glass, noticing too late the smudge of Madame Fougeray’s rich, plum-colored lipstick on the rim. "Yes," he said, "San Mateo. I’m a professor there. Uh, Claire, do you speak English? My French isn’t very good. That is," he added with uncharacteristic vanity, "my spoken French."

"Yes, I speak it," she said in delightfully Gallic English, "but your French is excellent."

"No, my accent is excellent. Which is a mixed blessing. Everyone thinks I understand much more than I do, and they speak so fast I can’t follow them."

She smiled for the first time. "I have the opposite problem. I understand English very well, but my accent is so terrible people think I understand nothing, and shout at me and use sign language."

No, he almost told her, your accent is beautiful, charming; it’s like music. His face grew warm. What a thing to say. Where were these ideas coming from?

"You speak English extremely well," he said. "Where did you learn?"

The conversation continued in this painful vein for another five minutes, then petered desolately out altogether. She had just told him that she was an accountant in her father’s sausage factory, and he simply couldn’t think of anything to reply.

"Well…" he said, pushing back his chair.

"You said you were a professor?" she said.

He felt a swelling in his chest. She didn’t want him to go. "Yes, of European and American literature."

Her eyes widened. "Truly? But I’m a graduate in literature myself. Of the University of Rennes."

"You are? But you said you’re an accountant."

"Well, yes, my father wants me to work in the factory, but my first love is literature. One day I will teach it too."

"Really? That’s wonderful! I’m somewhat of a specialist in French literature myself," he proclaimed immodestly, "especially the nineteenth century. I have a Flaubert novel with me, as a matter of fact. In my opinion he’s the finest of them all. Well," he emended judiciously, "of the early nineteenth-century French novelists, that is. And of course with the exclusion of the romanticists."

She laughed. "And I’ve brought a Balzac. I’ve been reading it for two days."

"Which one?"

"Les Illusions Perdues."

"Ah."

She tilted her head and looked at him, something like a sparkle in her pale eyes. "Oh? Don’t you like it? It seems to me a marvelous work, full of the most keen observation."

"Of course it is, but an author isn’t a sociologist. I don’t believe he should be judged on ability to observe, but on the power of his literary style. Balzac’s is rudimentary at best, and he’s far too melodramatic for my taste, and too moralistic as well."

"But isn’t Flaubert moralistic and melodramatic?"

"Well, no, I don’t think I’d say that; at least, not as much. But it doesn’t matter; it’s the care he takes with each sentence that’s so wonderful-with settling for nothing less than the one wholly appropriate word. No one’s ever been a more scrupulous writer than Flaubert."

Ray knew his own eyes were sparkling. He was enjoying himself, something he hadn’t expected to do until he was safely back in the library stacks at Northern Cal.

"But," she said, "what has scrupulosity-" She giggled delightfully. "Is that a word? What has it to do with literature? A great book is defined by its power to move, not by how carefully the author peers through his Roget in search of le mot juste. Of course Madame Bovary is a great novel, but it’s because Flaubert had something great to tell us, not because he worried every line to get the words exactly right."

Ray grinned happily. "No, I disagree…"

They talked long past the dinner hour, remaining after the others had left and not getting up until the grumbling Madame Lupis began pointedly sweeping up almost under their feet. Ray had one more surprise in store for himself, and that was when he asked Claire if she’d like to walk to Ploujean with him the following morning for a cup of coffee in one of the cafes. If, of course, the weather was fine.

"Tomorrow? But tomorrow is Cousin Guillaume’s funeral. It wouldn’t be-"

"The next day then?" The boldly inspired Raymond Alphonse Schaefer was not to be so easily put aside.

Claire lowered her eyes. "You’ll still be here?"

"Of course," Ray said, deciding then and there.

Claire hesitated, then accepted his invitation with graceful thanks.

Later that evening, when she came to the salon with her set-faced, close-mouthed parents for ten o’clock coffee, she had added a small gold choker to her plain wool outfit of navy blue and appeared to have put a touch of color on her lips and cheeks. There was even, it seemed to Ray, the hint of a delicate, delicious floral scent when she passed him. She provided little competition to Leona’s chic plumage, but the change was noticeable. Ray spoke to her only in passing-earning a suspicious and belligerent look from Claude-but he had no doubt that she had made the effort for him, and the thought made him giddy with pleasure.

He had no illusions about his own attractiveness. He knew very well that he was one of those gray, quiet men who fail to impress themselves on the consciousness of others. People never remembered whether or not he’d been at a particular meeting or cocktail party, and students who had been at one of his seminars in the morning walked by him in the afternoon without recognizing him.

If you asked the people who knew him whether he smoked a pipe (he didn’t) or wore a bowtie (he did), nine out of ten would have no idea. Most would have said he wore glasses, although in fact he only looked as if he ought to. A few years before, in a wild fit of self-assertion, he’d grown a beard, which came in a startling, curly red. But except for a single acerbic remark from the dean of humanities when it was at the scruffy stage, no one commented. And when he shaved it off two years later, no one noticed at all.

So when an intelligent, attractive woman made herself prettier for his sake, well, that was something to think about.

When he got up to go to his room she was reading Balzac. He stopped at her chair.

"I’ll see you Friday morning," he said gallantly, not caring who heard him say it.

He went humming to bed, taking the stone steps two at a time. He had not bothered to apologize to Jules.

Guillaume du Rocher’s funeral went smoothly, conducted with fitting sobriety and according to meticulous instructions left by the deceased. Afterwards, family and servants gathered in the library upstairs, where Monsieur Bonfante, Guillaume’s attorney of more than forty years, was to read the will.

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.