“Poor Marie." Faith sighed. "She'd be alive if I hadn't come here."
“For a year or two, maybe. It was a question of what would get her first, the drugs, SIDA. I don't mean to sound cruel, Faith. Marie had no chance," Michel said.
Faith disagreed but thought he was probably trying to make her feel better, so kept quiet. Yet she knew what she felt and it would be with her forever.
“I remember now one time when the one with the dog came in for some scraps and Madame Joliet was there. The girl turned as pale as a ghost and left. Later, she returned and I asked her what was wrong and she said she had felt a bit ill. There was no one else in the shop except Delphine, and she does not have this effect on people," Clement related.
“We have strayed away from the story. You know all the rest. Marie was murdered at the hotel de ville to prevent her meeting with Faith. Valentina was adept at getting information and no doubt knew all about the warnings. We do not know how she learned about Faith's calls to the police, but we are turning everything upside down to find out." Michel sounded grim.
Paul Leblanc spoke pensively. "We never could figure out why she married Georges. Georges, of course, was crazy for her—that long hair, those eyes. I'm sure she was the first woman he did not have to pay for and he was very proud of her gallery. But why did she want him? A respectable cover?"
“Perhaps she didn't mind being adored." Ghislaine smiled. "Few women do.”
Paul grabbed his wife and gave her a lingering kiss that fully illustrated the technique made famous by the French. She emerged blushing furiously.
Michel gave them a long look. "If I may continue? Bon. Well, I always thought Valentina was overly ambitious and overly sexed. A good combination if you stay on the side of the law, but for her it wasn't as much fun and I suspect she enjoyed having so much power over others."
“What will Georges Joliet do now?" Delphine asked. "He seems to be trying to conduct his life as usual. He came into the store several times this week for some steak hache. Perhaps hamburgers are all he knows how to cook."
“He has been at work since Wednesday and we spoke briefly. He doesn't know what to say to Tom and Faith. I think he is writing a letter. I urged him to take a leave, go away for a bit. It hasn't simply been the shock of Valen-tina's illegal activities, enormous as it is, but that she was sleeping with the boy down the hall—and no doubt others.”
Faith had a brilliant idea. "I have the perfect place for him to go. A political retreat to nature—Clotilde's and Frederic's in the Cevennes! Clotilde will feed him wonderful meals and they can all sit around reminiscing about the glorious past. He can help them with their work and feel useful.”
Tom laughed. "Then settle there himself, become the next mayor of the nearest village, marry one of the local farmers' daughters, have ten children, and live happily ever after."
“You've got it," she declared.
“Faith would be very useful here in France," Michel remarked.
“But you mention children and now Adele will discover how many she will have with Jean-Jacques. Look at the head table; they are about to begin," Delphine said.
France and the French were associated with I'amour and romance, yet Faith had found what characterized the country best was pragmatism—a basic sensibility, besides that sensitivity. So, an eminently practical custom such as whatever she was about to observe did not surprise her.
A large stew pot was placed in front of the young couple and they dipped their forks in. "It's the salmis de pintades, the next course," Delphine explained. "They feed each other tidbits and we count the number of bites. That will be the number of babies."
“So simple," Tom murmured to Faith, and counted out loud with the rest of the room as the couple consumed the morsels of guinea hen in the rich sauce. "Huit, eight. Quite a family." He beamed.
“I know what you're thinking, Thomas Fairchild, and even if we'd had this at our nuptials, there is such a thing as shutting one's mouth." Tom was of the "more children the merrier" school and Faith of the "merry for whom" one.
Delphine had been listening to their conversation. "I don't think they plan to have eight, although who knows? They are making a joke that they have to stop, because the book you get from the priest when you marry only has a place to list eight and they would run out of room.”
After this, courses kept arriving—platters of vegetables with a filet of Charolais beef, those pretty white animals that looked so perfect against the various shades of green and yellow in the French countryside—a Barbizon painting come to life.
The dancing became even more energetic, the music faster, the hall warmer. Couples continued to whirl below them, with the exception of the bride's mother, who danced the same slow, stately waltz step to everything, no matter who the partner or what the tempo. Her bright blue silk dress remained unwrinkled, not a drop of sweat on her brow. Between dances, she was everywhere—in and out of the kitchen, overseeing the preparations, and up and down the aisles between the tables, a smiling martinet making sure the troops were having a good time. And they were.
Faith couldn't eat another thing, but the next course, "Le delice de I'escorgot," the snail's delight, was intriguing. She turned to Michel Ravier. "Have you ever had this before?" She'd never seen it on any menu or in any of her cookbooks.
“Many times and so have you; however, only at functions like these do we find it done so well.”
It was salad—of course.
Meanwhile, the entire party prepared to take a walk. They piled into any car available, drove to a nearby lake, strolled around the circumference, and returned for cheese, more wine, more dancing, and eventually the pieces montees displayed in all their glory on a table outside the kitchen. These were mountains of tiny cream puffs, stuck together with caramelized sugar, graced on each summit with sugared almonds and a tiny bride and groom—vintage 1940, by the style of dress.
The evening was wonderful. Tom made a lovely sentimental toast to the newlyweds, and almost everyone and everything else in France. Faith danced with her husband, her son, the bride's mother, and finally shared a tango with the good inspector that left her more than a little breathless. She was going to miss that man.
At two o'clock in the morning, just before the onion soup was served to tide the guests over to breakfast, Faith turned to Tom and said, "Let's go to bed."
“Great idea, but I may be too tired." He sighed.
The farewells took a long time and their cheeks were rosy from being kissed so heartily. They collected Ben from the pile of coats where he had been sleeping for some time under the watchful eyes of four very old ladies who had been supervising the dancing, tapping their toes in time to the beat of the music and their own conversation, which had continued without pause all evening.
To the Fairchilds' surprise, the car was not blocked in by others and they set out for the auberge a few miles away where they'd arranged to stay. It was a beautiful night, or rather, morning. The sky was clear and filled with stars.