“I don’t want more,” said Bean.
“You will.” And Finney raised the cartoons.
“Armand.” Reine-Marie laid a soft hand on his arm. She lowered her voice to a barely audible whisper. “Is Bean a boy or girl?”
Gamache, who’d been mildly wondering the same thing, looked again. The child wore what looked like drugstore glasses and had shoulder-length blond hair around a lovely tanned face.
He shook his head.
“Reminds me of Florence,” he said. “I took her up and down boulevard Laurier last time they visited and almost everyone commented on our handsome grandson.”
“Was she wearing her sun bonnet?”
“She was.”
“And did they comment on the resemblance?”
“They did, as a matter of fact.” Gamache looked at her as though she was a genius, his brown eyes wide with admiration.
“Imagine that,” she said. “But Florence is just over a year. How old would you say Bean is?”
“Hard to say. Nine, ten? Any child reading the obituaries looks older.”
“Obituaries are aging. I’ll have to remember that.”
“More jam?” Pierre replaced their near empty containers with fresh jars of home-made wild strawberry, raspberry and blueberry confitures. “Can I get you anything?” he asked.
“Well, I do have a question,” said Gamache and tilted his croissant toward the corner of the Manoir. “There’s a block of marble over there, Pierre. What’s it for?”
“Ah, you noticed.”
“Astronauts would notice.”
Pierre nodded. “Madame Dubois didn’t say anything when you checked in?”
Reine-Marie and Gamache exchanged glances and shook their heads.
“Oh well.” The maître d’ looked a little embarrassed. “I’m afraid you’ll have to ask her. It’s a surprise.”
“A nice surprise?” asked Reine-Marie.
Pierre thought about it. “We’re not really sure. But we’ll know soon.”
FIVE
After breakfast Gamache placed a call to his son in Paris and left a message with the number for the Manoir. Cell phones didn’t work this deep into the woods.
The day meandered along pleasantly, the temperature slowly and inexorably climbing until before they realized it it was very hot indeed. Workers dragged Adirondack chairs and chaises longues about the lawns and gardens, seeking shade for their baking guests.
“Spot!”
The shout cut through the humid noon hour and into Armand Gamache’s repose.
“Spot!”
“Strange,” said Reine-Marie, taking off her sunglasses to look at her husband, “it’s said with the same inflection you’d yell ‘Fire!’”
Gamache stuck his finger in his book and looked in the direction of the shout. He was curious to see what a “Spot” looked like. Did he have floppy ears? Was he actually spotted?
Thomas was calling “Spot!” and walking swiftly across the lawn toward a well-dressed tall man with gray hair. Gamache took his sunglasses off and stared more closely.
“This is the end of our peace and quiet, I imagine,” said Reine-Marie, with regret. “The odious Spot and his even more wretched wife Claire have materialized.”
Gamache put his glasses back on and squinted through them, not really believing what he was seeing.
“What is it?” Reine-Marie asked.
“You’ll never guess.”
Two tall figures were converging on the lawn of the Manoir Bellechasse. Distinguished Thomas and his younger brother Spot.
Reine-Marie looked over. “But that’s—”
“I think it is,” he said.
“So where’s—” Reine-Marie was flabbergasted.
“I don’t know. Oh, there she comes.”
A rumpled figure appeared round the corner of the Manoir, a sun hat imperfectly screwed to her flyaway hair.
“Clara?” whispered Reine-Marie to Gamache. “My God, Armand, Spot and Claire Finney are Peter and Clara Morrow. It’s like a miracle.” She was delighted. The blight that had appeared imminent and unstoppable had turned into their friends.
Now Sandra was greeting Peter and Thomas embraced Clara. She was tiny in his arms and almost disappeared and when she pulled back she was even more dishevelled.
“You look wonderful,” Sandra said, eyeing Clara and happy to see she’d put on weight around her hips and thighs. And was wearing unbecoming striped shorts with a polka-dotted top. And she calls herself an artist, thought Sandra, feeling much better.