Page 65 of The Splendour Falls
“No.”
“People, then. You must believe in people.”
“People aren’t permanent,” I answered drily, and he raised his eyebrows in surprise, a slow smile forming at the corners of his mouth.
“You are indeed a skeptic, as you say. Tell me, did you always think this? As a child?”
“Good heavens, no.” I grinned. “I was the most believing child that ever lived. I wished on stars and everything.”
“So what has happened?”
“Life.” I gave the answer with a shrug. My last mussel had grown cold in its shell, and I pushed it away with my fork. How had we got on to this subject from Didier, I wondered? The conversation wanted steering back to more productive ground. “And Martine’s husband? What did he believe in?”
“Money,” came the answer, then he tempered his quick judgment with an even-minded shrug. “That is not fair, perhaps, because I do not know what it is like to be coming from nothing, as Didier did. He had, I think, an ugly childhood. Martine had money, so he married her.”
I found it rather difficult to imagine any man marrying Martine Muret simply for her money, but Armand assured me this was so. “It is the thinking of most people, of Martine herself. But then,” he admitted, “most people, they think this is also why I married my wife.”
“You?” I stared, surprised. “But you’re…”
“Rich? Yes, now, but when I married things were not so well for the Clos des Cloches. I managed badly in the early years, the harvests were not good, and everybody knew this. I’m not surprised that people think I chose Brigitte for money.”
“And did you?” It was too late to withdraw the question, however much I kicked myself for asking it. Already Armand was leaning back, head tilted, considering his answer.
“In part.” He smiled without apology. “This was no burning passion, between Brigitte and myself. It was more business, an exchange. She wanted a nice house, where she could play the hostess, hold her parties. And me, I wanted a beautiful wife of good family. That she had money was one more attraction. At that moment, we suited one another, but later… I was sorry for her death, but I did not suffer with it.” His smile softened. “Do I shock you? I should keep to the politics in conversation, or you will not come to lunch with me again.”
But he didn’t keep to politics. Instead he asked about my family and my childhood, so I favored him with a few of the better anecdotes I’d gathered growing up a Braden. I finished with the one about the day Harry tried to burn me at the stake. We’d been playing in the garden—Joan of Arc, as I recall—with me strapped to the rose trellis for an added touch of authenticity. The blaze had been spectacular, and for a few long moments, while Harry was off looking for my father’s garden hosepipe, I had felt uncomfortably close to poor St. Joan.
Most people laughed when I told them that story, but Armand looked rather shocked. “He is alive still, this cousin of yours? Your father did not kill him?”
“No, he survived. He lectures in history, on and off, in London.”
“I see.” He smiled then, and leaning back he felt for his cigarettes. “Then I am glad you did not bring him with you. The history of my family, that is one thing, but the wars, the kings and queens…” His shrug dismissed such trivialities. “I find them always boring.”
Here was my opportunity, I thought, to swing the conversation round again. “Your brother-in-law was quite the historian, though, from what I hear.”
“Didier?” The cigarette lighter clicked shut. Leaning back, Armand narrowed his eyes as the smoke curled upwards. “A historian? Who has told you this?”
“I don’t remember,” I hedged, keeping my voice light. “Someone at the hotel, I imagine. I thought they said he had a love of history.”
He lifted the cigarette and inhaled smoothly, but I saw the line of his jaw tighten. “You have been misinformed, I think. My brother-in-law loved nothing but himself. And money. Always money.” His voice sounded hard. Didier Muret, I was learning, had that effect on people. “He couldn’t keep a job, because he stole. Brigitte, my wife, she once found him work with her own lawyer, for Martine’s sake, but it was no good. The money went missing there, too. Martine left him after that. She let him stay in the house, but he got no more money from her.”
Well done, Martine, I thought. “Actually,” I went on, trying to make the white lie sound convincing, “I think it was young Simon who told me your brother-in-law liked history. They’d met each other once, I think.”
“Simon?” Armand looked skeptical. “The boy with the long hair, who came to tour my vineyard? But he does not speak French, not like his brother. And Didier, he spoke no English. They might have met, but they could not have talked to one another.”
“I must have got it wrong, then,” I said brightly. Three people had now told me the same story, and three people, I thought, couldn’t be mistaken. Which meant that Didier Muret could not have read my cousin’s article, would not have had a reason to contact him, had probably never met him. What had Armand said that morning, about his daughter? Lucie, she sometimes gets her story wrong. And a duck named “Ar-ree” was hardly the best evidence, I reminded myself with a wry smile. “It must have been some other Didier he was talking about. Simon’s less than clear in conversation, sometimes.”
Not that I was very much better. I really must go easy on the wine while trying to i
nvestigate, I thought. It took all my effort, as we left the restaurant, just to walk a straight line without tripping over cobblestones.
I don’t think Armand noticed. He strolled easily beside me, along the half-deserted rue Voltaire. I smiled when I saw he walked with one hand in his pocket, his cigarette held loosely in the other. Most French men walked like that. It was a sort of national identity badge, a wholly unconscious habit they acquired at some early age and carried till they died. In my younger days in Paris I’d often passed a lazy hour at the Luxembourg gardens, spotting the français among the tourists by the way they walked.
“I have enjoyed this,” Armand said, when we came out into the fountain square. “I enjoy your company. We should have dinner one night before you leave.”
It was a noncommittal sort of invitation, and I responded in kind. “I’d like that.”
The light good-bye kiss caught me slightly off guard, I must admit. Things naturally progressed this way, of course, among the French: from smiles and nods to handshakes to la bise, the friendly double kiss, but they didn’t usually progress this quickly. Armand Valcourt, I thought, worked fast.