Gamache didn't mind. Looking around he realised how much he liked this place and these people. Too bad one of them was a murderer.
TEN
The memorial service for Jane Neal was short and sweet, and had it been plump it would have been an exact replica of the woman. The service was really nothing more than Jane's friends getting up one after the other and talking about her, in French and English. The service was simple, and the message was clear. Her death was just one instant in a full and lovely life. She'd been with them for as long as she was meant to be. Not a minute longer, not a moment less. Jane Neal had known that when her time came God wouldn't ask how many committees she'd sat on, or how much money she'd made, or what prizes she'd won. No. He'd ask how many fellow creatures she'd helped. And Jane Neal would have had an answer.
At the end of the service Ruth stood at her seat and sang, in a thin, unsure, alto, 'What Do You Do With a Drunken Sailor?' She sang the unlikely sea shanty at a quarter speed, like a dirge, then slowly picked up speed. Gabri joined in, as did Ben and in the end the whole church was alive with people clapping and swinging their hips and asking the musical question, 'What do you do with a drunken sailor, err-lie in the morning?'
In the basement after the service the Anglican Church Women served up homemade casseroles and fresh apple and pumpkin pies, accompanied by the thin hum of the sea shanty heard here and there.
'Why "Drunken Sailor"?' Approaching the buffet, Armand Gamache found himself standing next to Ruth.
'It was one of Jane's favorite songs,' said Ruth. 'She was always singing it.'
'You were humming it that day in the woods,' Gamache said to Clara.
'Wards off bears. Didn't Jane learn it in school?' Clara asked Ruth.
Olivier jumped in. 'She told me she learned it for school. To teach, right, Ruth?'
'She was expected to teach every subject, but since she couldn't sing or play piano she didn't know what to do about the music course for her students. This was when she first started, back fifty years ago. So I taught her the song,' said Ruth.
'Can't say I'm surprised,' mumbled Myrna.
'It was the only song her students ever learned,' said Ben.
'Your Christmas pageants must have been something,' said Gamache, imagining the Virgin Mary, Joseph, the baby Jesus and three drunken sailors.
'They were,' laughed Ben, remembering. 'We sang all the carols, but they were all to the tune of "Drunken Sailor". The looks on the parents' faces at the Christmas concert when Miss Neal would introduce, "Silent Night", and we'd sing!' Ben started singing, 'Silent Night, holy night, all is calm, all is bright', but to the tune of the shanty. Others in the room laughed and joined in.
'I still find it really hard to sing the carols correctly,' said Ben.
Clara spotted Nellie and Wayne and waved at them. Nellie left Wayne and made a bee-line for Ben, beginning to talk before she was halfway across the room.
'Ah, Mr Hadley, I was hoping to find you here. I'm going to be over to do your place next week. How's Tuesday?' Then she turned to Clara and said confidentially, as though passing a State secret, 'I haven't cleaned since before Miss Neal died, Wayne's had me that worried.'
'How is he now?' asked Clara, remembering Wayne's hacking and coughing during the public meeting a few days earlier.
'Now he's complaining, so there's nothing much wrong. Well, Mr Hadley? Haven't got all day, ya know.'
'Tuesday's fine.' He turned to Clara once Nellie had gone back to her pressing job, which seemed to be eating the entire buffet. 'The place is filthy. You won't believe the mess an old bachelor and his dog can create.'
As the line crawled forward, Gamache spoke to Ruth. 'When I was in the notary's office asking about Miss Neal's will, he mentioned your name. When he said, "nee Kemp", something twigged, but I couldn't figure it out.'
'How did you finally get it?' Ruth asked.
'Clara Morrow told me.'
'Ah, clever lad. And from that you deduced who I was.'
'Well, it took a while after that, but eventually I got it,' Gamache smiled. 'I do love your poetry.' Gamache was just about to quote from one of his favorites, feeling himself a pimply youth in front of a matinee idol. Ruth was backing up, trying to get out of the way of her own beautiful words coming toward her.
'Sorry to interrupt,' said Clara, to two people apparently maniacally happy to see her. 'But did you say, "he"?'
'He?' repeated Gamache.
'He? The notary.'
'Yes. Maitre Stickley in Williamsburg. He was Miss Neal's notary.'
'Are you sure? I thought she saw that notary who just had a baby. Solange someone-or-other.'
'Solange Frenette? From exercise class?' Myrna asked.
'That's her. Jane said he and Timmer were off to see her about wills.
Gamache stood very still, staring at Clara.
'Are you sure?'
'Frankly? No. I seem to remember her saying that because I asked Jane how Solange was feeling. Solange would have been in her first trimester. Morning sickness. She just had her baby, so she's on maternity leave.'
'I suggest one of you get in touch with Maitre Frenette as soon as possible.'
'I'll do it,' said Clara, suddenly wanting to drop everything and hurry home to call. But there was something that had to be done first.
The ritual was simple and time-worn. Myrna led it, having grounded herself with a full lunch of casseroles and bread. Very important, she explained to Clara, to feel grounded before a ritual. Looking at her plate Clara thought there wasn't much chance she'd fly away. Clara examined the twenty or so faces gathered in a cluster on the village green, many of them apprehensive. The farm women stood in a loose semi-circle of woolen sweaters and mitts and toques, staring at this huge black woman in a bright green cape. The Jolly Green Druid.
Clara felt perfectly relaxed and at home. Standing in the group she closed her eyes, took a few deep breaths and prayed for the grace to let go of the anger and fear that hung around her, like black funeral crepe. This ritual was designed to end that, to turn the dark into light, to banish the hate and fear and invite the trust and warmth back.
'This is a ritual of celebration and cleansing,' Myrna was explaining to the gathering. 'Its roots go back many thousands of years, but its branches reach out and touch us today, and embrace anyone who wants to be included. If you have any questions, just ask.' Myrna paused but no one spoke up. She had a few things in a bag and now she fished into it and brought out a stick. Actually, it looked more like a thick, straight branch, stripped of its bark and whittled to a sharp point at one end.
'This is a prayer stick. It might look familiar to some of you,' she waited and heard a small laugh.
'Isn't that a beaver stick?' Hanna Parra asked.
'That's exactly what it is,' laughed Myrna. She passed it around and the ice was broken. The women who'd been apprehensive, even a little frightened at what they thought might be witchcraft, thawed, and realised there was nothing to be afraid of here. 'I found it by the mill pond last year. You can see where the beaver gnawed it.'
Eager hands reached out to touch the stick and see the teeth marks and see where the beaver had eaten away the end until it was sharp.
Clara had gone home briefly to get Lucy, now standing quietly on her leash. When the prayer stick got back to Myrna she offered it to the Golden Retriever. For the first time in a week, since Jane had died, Clara saw Lucy's tail wag. Once. She gently took the stick in her teeth. And held it there. Her tail gave another tentative wag.
Gamache sat on the bench on the green. He'd come to think of it as 'his' bench, since that morning when they'd greeted the dawn together. Now he and the bench were in the sunshine, which was a few precious degrees warmer than the shade. Still, his breath was coming out in puffs. As he sat quietly he watched the women gather, form a line, and with Myrna in front and Clara behind with Lucy they walked around the green.