"Charming as ever, aren't you, darling?" said Paul. "Maddy was always my favorite niece, Mr. Fears. You can call me Paul, by the way. And don't go near the bluffs with Maddy. She's a pusher."
"Move," said Madeleine. "And try not to lick the forks before you do."
Paul got up and walked around the table to the other empty chair, at Grandmother's right hand. At the same time, Madeleine led Quentin around the table the other way, waiting for him to help her into the chair at the foot of the table. There really was a dictionary sitting there. She handed it to him. Heavy. After a moment's hesitation he set it on the buffet a few paces beyond the table. He rushed back to help Madeleine slide gracefully into her chair and push it up to the table. Not until he was seated himself, at her right hand, did he get a chance to look up to the head of the table and see the face of the fabled Grandmother.
She was asleep.
Madeleine continued the introductions. "To my immediate left is Simon. Simon is a friend of the family. He's been living here since... when was it, Simon? 1950? Was Truman still president?"
Simon looked bashful and confused. In his seventies, he had only the barest fringe of white hair. He ran one hand and then the other over his scalp. "The Cryers have always been extraordinarily generous to one who has nothing to offer but his meager friendship, which, despite its little value, is at least constant."
"I'm pleased to meet you," said Quentin, starting to rise from his seat.
"No don't!" cried Simon. "Don't get up! Not to me! Pretend I'm not here!" Then he hunched his head toward one shoulder and grinned as his body shook and his tongue darted in and out at the corner of his mouth. Apparently this was what passed for laughter in the obsequious Simon.
"Keeping Simon here is one of Grandmother's aesthetic statements," said Madeleine.
The comment stung Quentin with its vicious-ness. "Mad," he said softly.
She grinned and patted his hand. "He's deaf as a post, darling. And dumb as a stump."
Since Simon had just finished speaking, he could only assume that she meant "dumb" in the sense of "stupid."
"And last but not least," said Madeleine, "is my cousin Jude. I'm not sure where on the convoluted family tree he actually fits, but he's long been a favorite of Grandmother's and as long as she lives, he'll have a place at her side."
"Oh, Mrs. Fears, you're always such a lark!" cried Jude. He was a bushy-eyebrowed old codger, even taller apparently than Uncle Stephen, but stooped so far that his head was rather near his plate, and he had to lift his head to bring the goblet to his lips. "Howdy, Mr. Fears. We're glad Madeleine—Mrs. Fears—found her a fine young man like you. Welcome and glad, we are to know you. Are you really richer than God?"
"Now, Cousin Jude," said Madeleine, "you know that God's millions are counted in a more dependable currency than American dollars. There's no comparing."
Cousin Jude thought this was the funniest joke. As the old man laughed, Quentin's eyes wandered to the head of the table, where he was startled to see that Grandmother's eyes were wide open, staring at him like headlights on bright.
Quentin turned to Madeleine and spoke softly. "Your grandmother..."
"Yes, Tin?"
But glancing back at the old lady, he was chagrined to see that her eyes were closed again.
"I thought she was awake."
"Oh, she's hearing everything, be sure of that. In and out of sleep, but aware all the time. And she has the hearing of a bat, so she's listening to our little whispers right now. Aren't you, Grandmother."
But Grandmother's eyes remained closed, her face slack with sleep.
At her right hand, Uncle Paul leaned forward with a grin. "Going to introduce me again, darling? I can change my name if you'd like."
"No need, Uncle Paul," said Madeleine. "Shall I ring for breakfast?"
"Please," said Uncle Stephen. "Some of us need to take nourishment at regular intervals."
"It's your bell, dear," said Aunt Athena.
Madeleine reached out and rang a small bell that sat beside her place at the table. It occurred to Quentin that hers was the place where Uncle Paul had been sitting. So he really had been an interloper there.
As soon as the bell rang, the same quiet servant from the day before opened the door from the butler's pantry, and two footmen came in with steaming plates, one of biscuits and one of scrambled eggs and bacon. Both began serving with Madeleine, and worked their way down the two sides of the table, crossing behind Grandmother and working up the other way. But no food was put on Grandmother's plate.
The collection of people around the table was odd, Quentin supposed, and there were certainly family tensions, but he couldn't help noticing that it was Madeleine who seemed to rule here, not Grandmother. It wasn't an idea he liked much, that Madeleine herself was the main source of family tension. And it wasn't fair, either. He had no idea of what had actually gone before. All the hostility might well have been earned. What did he know of these people? Uncle Paul, with his smarmy smile and ingratiating manner, was only fifteen years older than Madeleine but looked her age. For all Quentin knew, Paul might have molested Madeleine when she was a girl, or tried to; he might richly deserve Madeleine's goading. Not that Quentin took such speculation seriously, but after all, Madeleine had recoiled from his first attempt at any kind of serious physical intimacy with her. Wasn't it possible that Paul—or someone—had done something which made even a husband's caress at first repellent to her?
No, no, it wasn't right to start assigning unspeakable crimes to strangers. If Madeleine hadn't accused them, why should he?
The eggs were hot, the bacon cooked perfectly. The biscuits were steaming, freshly sliced, the butter still melting inside them. Whatever other failings this house might have, the cuisine had the simple perfection that approached the platonic ideal. Not scrambled eggs, but the scrambled eggs that all other scrambled eggs were imitating. The bacon of bacon, the biscuit of biscuits.
"Delicious," said Quentin to Madeleine.
She smiled, then leaned close to him and whispered, "Tin, in the upper classes one doesn't compliment the food. It's assumed that the food will always be perfect, and it isn't to be discussed."
He started to laugh, but caught himself when he realized she wasn't joking. All he could do was look at her oddly for a moment and then dig in to eat more. This was the food she was used to; he cringed to think of where he had taken her, what he had cooked for her. He had never wanted to live rich, but when they built a house, it would have to have a kitchen where a first-class chef would be glad to cook; and the chef would have to have a budget that would allow the acquisition of such ingredients. He could do no less for Madeleine, even if she said she didn't need such things.
The footmen came back for a second pass, this time with fruit—slices of pear so ripe they dissolved sweetly in his mouth almost without chewing; chunks of fresh pineapple with not a trace of acid sting to them; raspberries so plump and tart that the flavor seemed to dart through his whole face the moment he bit down on one. He closed his eyes to enjoy the perfect flavor without distraction.
"He's asleep!" crowed Simon. "Put him right out!"
Quentin opened his eyes, startled.
Simon looked crestfallen. "Oh, shame! No nap after all! Poor boy! Newlyweds get no sleep at all, do they!"
Madeleine put her hand on Quentin's knee under the table, to still his response. "Now, Simon," she said loudly, presumably to pierce Simon's deafness. "Mr. Fears is still a young man. He doesn't think of a nap as recreation yet."
"Not recreation!" cried Simon. "A feat! The great Olympic monathlon! To sleep, perchance not to dream! To obliviate one's dire sins in the wine of night!"