He looked at the elderly woman now, stern, unbending, demanding an answer.
“Get away from Bean,” she commanded, but Gamache stayed kneeling, ignoring her.
“What happened?” he quietly asked the child.
“It wasn’t my fault,” he heard behind him and turned to see the young gardener standing there.
“That normally means it was,” said Mrs. Finney.
“Irene, let the girl speak. What’s your name?” Bert Finney spoke softly.
“Colleen,” said the gardener, edging away from the wild-looking old man. “It was wasps.”
“It was bees,” snuffled Bean. “I was riding round Olympus when they got me.”
“Olympus?” snapped Mrs. Finney.
“The marble block,” said Colleen. “And it was wasps, not bees. The kid doesn’t know the difference.”
Gamache knelt down and held out his large hand. Bean hesitated, and while the family argued over the difference between bees and wasps he examined the three welts. They were red and warm to the touch. Peering closer he could see the stingers stuck under the skin, with small poison sacs attached.
“Can you get some calamine lotion?” he asked a member of the staff, who sprinted back up the lawn.
Holding Bean’s arm firmly he quickly removed all the stingers and sacs, then watched for an allergic reaction, ready to scoop the child up and race for his car and the Sherbrooke Hospital. He looked over at Reine-Marie, who was obviously watching for the same thing.
Once a parent.
The arm remained angry but not lethal.
Reine-Marie took the bottle of peach-colored liquid and kissing the welts first she dabbed the lotion on, then straightened up. All around them the family was now arguing over whether calamine lotion really worked.
“The excitement’s over,” declared Mrs. Finney. Looking around she noticed the rowboat and walked toward the dock. “Now, who’ll sit where?”
After much discussion Peter and Thomas started hauling Morrows into the verchère. Peter stood in the boat and Thomas stood on the dock and between them they sat Mrs. Finney, Marianna and Julia. Bean crawled carefully into the boat without help.
“My turn,” said Sandra, putting her arm out. Thomas handed her to Peter.
Clara stepped forward and reached for Peter, who hesitated.
“Excuse me,” said Thomas, and stepped beside Clara, then into the verchère. Thomas sat and the entire boat stared at Peter, standing in front of the only seat left.
“Sit down before you tip us all,” said Mrs. Finney.
Peter sat.
Clara lowered her arms. In the reflection of the water she saw the ugliest man alive standing beside her.
“Not everyone makes the boat,” said Bert Finney as the verchère left the dock.
SEVEN
“I didn’t really want to go, you know,” said Clara, not looking at Reine-Marie. “But I said I would because it seemed important to Peter. This is probably better.”
“Will you join us, sir?” Gamache walked up to Bert Finney, also looking out at the lake. Finney turned and stared at Gamache. It was a disconcerting look, not only because of his forbidding face and odd eyes but because people so rarely stared that openly for that long. Gamache held the stare and finally Finney’s lips parted and his disarray of yellow teeth showed in what might have been a smile.
“No, merci. I believe I’ll stay here.” He walked to the end of the dock. “Seven mad Morrows in a verchère. What could possibly go wrong?”
Gamache took his floppy hat off and felt the full force of the sun. He couldn’t remember a hotter day. It was stifling now. There was no breeze, nothing stirred, and the sun beat down on them relentlessly, bouncing off and magnified by the lake. Perspiration had plastered his fresh shirt to his skin. He offered the hat to the old man.
Very slowly Bert Finney turned round as though he was afraid of capsizing. Then an old hand, like twigs stripped of bark, reached out and held the gaily patterned sun hat.
“It’s your sun bonnet. You need it.”
“I prefer to think of it as my helmet,” said Gamache, letting go of the hat. “And you need it more.”
Finney chuckled and held the hat, his fingers stroking it slightly. “A sun helmet. I wonder who the enemy is?”
“The sun?”
“That would be it, I suppose.” But he seemed unconvinced and nodding to Gamache he put the hat on his satellite head and turned back to the lake.
An hour later Peter joined them in the garden, his face red from sunburn, Clara was pleased to see. She’d decided to play it cool. Not show how she felt.