The Guest of Quesnay. Booth Tarkington
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name is known. Who is the other?”
“A friend of his. I do not know. All the upper floor of the east wing they have taken—the Grande Suite—those two and their valet-de-chambre. That is truly the way in modern times—the philosophers are rich men.”
“Yes,” I sighed. “Only the painters are poor nowadays.”
“Ha, ha, monsieur!” Amedee laughed cunningly.
“It was always easy to see that monsieur only amuses himself with his painting.”
“Thank you, Amedee,” I responded. “I have amused other people with it too, I fear.”
“Oh, without doubt!” he agreed graciously, as he folded the cloth. I have always tried to believe that it was not so much my pictures as the fact that I paid my bills the day they were presented which convinced everybody about Les Trois Pigeons that I was an amateur. But I never became happily enough settled in this opinion to risk pressing an investigation; and it was a relief that Amedee changed the subject.
“Monsieur remembers the Chateau de Quesnay—at the crest of the hill on the road north of Dives?”
“I remember.”
“It is occupied this season by some rich Americans.”
“How do you know they are rich?”
“Dieu de Dieu!” The old fellow appealed to heaven. “But they are Americans!”
“And therefore millionaires. Perfectly, Amedee.”
“Perfectly, monsieur. Perhaps monsieur knows them.”
“Yes, I know them.”
“Truly!” He affected dejection. “And poor Madame Brossard thought monsieur had returned to our old hotel because he liked it, and remembered our wine of Beaune and the good beds and old Gaston’s cooking!”
“Do not weep, Amedee,” I said. “I have come to paint; not because I know the people who have taken Quesnay.” And I added: “I may not see them at all.”
In truth I thought that very probable. Miss Elizabeth had mentioned in one of her notes that Ward had leased Quesnay, but I had not sought quarters at Les Trois Pigeons because it stood within walking distance of the chateau. In my industrious frame of mind that circumstance seemed almost a drawback. Miss Elizabeth, ever hospitable to those whom she noticed at all, would be doubly so in the country, as people always are; and I wanted all my time to myself—no very selfish wish since my time was not conceivably of value to any one else. I thought it wise to leave any encounter with the lady to chance, and as the by-paths of the country-side were many and intricate, I intended, without ungallantry, to render the chance remote. George himself had just sailed on a business trip to America, as I knew from her last missive; and until his return, I should put in all my time at painting and nothing else, though I liked his sister, as I have said, and thought of her—often.
Amedee doubted my sincerity, however, for he laughed incredulously.
“Eh, well, monsieur enjoys saying it!”
“Certainly. It is a pleasure to say what one means.”
“But monsieur could not mean it. Monsieur will call at the chateau in the morning”—the complacent varlet prophesied—“as early as it will be polite. I am sure of that. Monsieur is not at all an old man; no, not yet! Even if he were, aha! no one could possess the friendship of that wonderful Madame d’Armand and remain away from the chateau.”
“Madame d’Armand?” I said. “That is not the name. You mean Mademoiselle Ward.”
“No, no!” He shook his head and his fat cheeks bulged with a smile which I believe he intended to express a respectful roguishness. “Mademoiselle Ward” (he pronounced it “Ware”) “is magnificent; every one must fly to obey when she opens her mouth. If she did not like the ocean there below the chateau, the ocean would have to move! It needs only a glance to perceive that Mademoiselle Ward is a great lady—but MADAME D’ARMAND! AHA!” He rolled his round eyes to an effect of unspeakable admiration, and with a gesture indicated that he would have kissed his hand to the stars, had that been properly reverential to Madame d’Armand. “But monsieur knows very well for himself!”
“Monsieur knows that you are very confusing—even for a maitre d’hotel. We were speaking of the present chatelaine of Quesnay, Mademoiselle Ward. I have never heard of Madame d’Armand.”
“Monsieur is serious?”
“Truly!” I answered, making bold to quote his shibboleth.
“Then monsieur has truly much to live for. Truly!” he chuckled openly, convinced that he had obtained a marked advantage in a conflict of wits, shaking his big head from side to side with an exasperating air of knowingness. “Ah, truly! When that lady drives by, some day, in the carriage from the chateau—eh? Then monsieur will see how much he has to live for. Truly, truly, truly!”
He had cleared the table, and now, with a final explosion of the word which gave him such immoderate satisfaction, he lifted the tray and made one of his precipitate departures.
“Amedee,” I said, as he slackened down to his sidelong leisure.
“Monsieur?”
“Who is Madame d’Armand?”
“A guest of Mademoiselle Ward at Quesnay. In fact, she is in charge of the chateau, since Mademoiselle Ward is, for the time, away.”
“Is she a Frenchwoman?”
“It seems not. In fact, she is an American, though she dresses with so much of taste. Ah, Madame Brossard admits it, and Madame Brossard knows the art of dressing, for she spends a week of every winter in Rouen—and besides there is Trouville itself only some kilometres distant. Madame Brossard says that Mademoiselle Ward dresses with richness and splendour and Madame d’Armand with economy, but beauty. Those were the words used by Madame Brossard. Truly.”
“Madame d’Armand’s name is French,” I observed.
“Yes, that is true,” said Amedee thoughtfully. “No one can deny it; it is a French name.” He rested the tray upon a stump near by and scratched his head. “I do not understand how that can be,” he continued slowly. “Jean Ferret, who is chief gardener at the chateau, is an acquaintance of mine. We sometimes have a cup of cider at Pere Baudry’s, a kilometre down the road from here; and Jean Ferret has told me that she is an American. And yet, as you say, monsieur, the name is French. Perhaps she is French after all.”
“I believe,” said I, “that if I struggled a few days over this puzzle, I might come to the conclusion that Madame d’Armand is an American lady who has married a Frenchman.”
The old man uttered an exclamation of triumph.
“Ha! without doubt! Truly she must be an American lady who has married a Frenchman. Monsieur has already solved the puzzle. Truly, truly!” And he trulied himself across the darkness, to emerge in the light of the open door of the kitchen with the word still rumbling in his throat.
Now for a time there came the clinking of dishes, sounds as of pans and kettles being scoured, the rolling gutturals of old Gaston, the cook, and the treble pipings of young “Glouglou,” his grandchild and scullion. After a while the oblong of light from the kitchen door disappeared; the voices departed; the stillness of the dark descended, and with it that unreasonable sense of pathos which night in the country brings to the heart of a wanderer. Then, out of the lonely silence, there issued a strange, incongruous sound as an execrable voice essayed to produce the semblance of an air odiously familiar about the streets of Paris some three years past, and I became aware of a smell of some dreadful thing burning. Beneath the arbour I perceived a glowing spark which seemed to bear a certain relation to an oval whitish patch suggesting the front of a shirt. It was Amedee, at ease, smoking his cigarette after the day’s work