Armand Gamache stared down at the short, wizened woman with her hand on her husband. Then he stared out to the gleaming lake. Down the lawn there was movement and he noticed Irene Finney walking slowly across it, Bert by her side. And behind her walked Thomas, Marianna and finally Peter.
“Charles Morrow was a wonderful pianist, you know,” said Madame Dubois. “Not just a technician, but he played with great spirit. We’d sit for hours on a rainy afternoon and listen to him. He always said Irene was like a major chord, and his children were the harmonics.”
Gamache watched them fan out behind their mother. He wondered whether the mother chord was maybe a little off, and the harmonics only magnified that.
Then another figure appeared briefly and disappeared into the forest. A huge, hulking thing in overalls, gloves, boots and a hood. It looked like Frankenstein’s monster, flat-headed and hulking.
“Speak of the devil,” said Madame Dubois, and Gamache felt goosebumps spring up on his arms.
“Pardon?”
“Over there, that thing disappearing into the woods.”
“The devil?”
Madame Dubois seemed to find this extremely amusing. “I like that, but no. Quite the opposite, really. That was Chef Véronique.”
“Hell of a sunscreen.”
“Bee screen. She’s our bee-keeper. Off to get honey for tea.”
“And beeswax for the furniture,” said Gamache with a smile.
That was why the Manoir Bellechasse smelled of decades of old books and woodsmoke, and honeysuckle.
TWENTY-FIVE
Marianna Morrow plunked at the piano keys in the Great Room, glad of the peace.
Rich, she was going to be rich one day. As long as Mommy didn’t leave everything to that Finney, and he didn’t leave everything to some cats’ home. Well, she’d done the best she could. She at least had produced a child. She looked over at Bean.
She regretted naming the child Bean, now. What had she been thinking? River would have been better. Or Salmon. Or Salmon River. No, too normal.
Bean had definitely been a mistake. Marianna’s mother had been appalled at first, her only grandchild named after a vegetable. The only reason Marianna had had Bean baptized was to force her mother to listen to the minister declare, in front of the entire congregation, not to mention God, the name of Bean Morrow.
A glorious moment.
But her mother had proved more resilient than Marianna had thought, like a new strain of superbug. She’d become immune to the name.
Aorta, maybe. Aorta Morrow. Or Burp.