Murder in Lascaux (30 page)

I
N THE HOURS BEFORE DAWN
, I brooded over Jenny Marie's sufferings, the fate of her friend's grandson, and the unselfish death of Antoine. I wondered if the family had ever acknowledged his sacrifice. I wondered how he was remembered by his grandson, Charles, who was now the old baron. I wondered what other secrets about this family had yet to be revealed.

I also worried about the coming day. In the afternoon, our group was scheduled to visit the cave of Rouffignac, but I was reluctant to go. Although not as famous as Lascaux, Rouffignac is known for its prehistoric paintings, and the trip into its interior by electric train makes it a popular attraction. Back in California, when we first read Marianne's program brochure, I'd checked that box on the itinerary as a plus. I thought it would be fun to compare Rouffignac to Lascaux and exciting to ride the train. But that was then. By now I had no further need of underground excitement. Finally, I gave up on further sleep, got dressed in the dark, and sat for what seemed a long time, until my glow-in-the-dark alarm clock said six o'clock. Then I thought it was decent to go to the kitchen and cadge one of those emergency coffees from Madame Martin.

This time she wasn't surprised to see me and in fact gave a welcome. “Ah, Madame Nora! You and I are the only ones in the house who enjoy being up before light. I'll be glad to have your company. Will you join me in a café au lait?”

That was just what I wanted. “Yes, with pleasure. But then you'll have to let me repay the favor by helping you prepare breakfast.”

“No, no, no!” she protested. “There's hardly any preparation this morning. We're serving on the terrace, just a bare continental breakfast. If I'd been cooking something interesting, I'd be happy to let you help me. In fact, why don't we do that tomorrow morning? Get up early, and I'll show you how I make baked eggs. I do it my mother's way, without a water bath. We call that
oeufs sur le plat.
”

“I'd like that very much, thank you.” I let her serve me a wonderful bowl full of milk-laced coffee, and we chatted about her life in the kitchen when her mother was its queen. I couldn't resist an opening to ask her something I'd been wondering about.

“Madame Martin, do you remember Jenny Marie's brother, Antoine, at all?”

“Only vaguely; I was so little then. But
Maman
thought very highly of him. He was brave, she said.”

“I've been reading Jenny Marie's notebooks in the library, and she mentioned it was Antoine who invited her back to the château after the man she loved was killed in the Great War.”

“Yes, that's right. Antoine had been a widower for a long time, and he was lonely. By then, his father, who disapproved of Jenny Marie's life in Paris, had also died. With the baron gone, Antoine had the right to invite Jenny Marie back, and they had always been close. I'm sure it was a comfort to him to have her with him again at Cazelle.”

“She speaks lovingly of her brother in the notebooks.”

“They were a devoted pair. The time between the wars was a good time for this house.”

“But then war came again.”

Madame Martin winced. “Those were terrible years.”

“I'm sure they were. I have another question, though. It's about the year Jenny Marie died. Out at the chapel, there's a little plaque that was put up in 1944, and it reads ‘Deliver us from evil.' I've been wondering whether it was Jenny Marie herself who put up that plaque.”

“Oh, no.” Madame Martin shook her head. “It was my mother who installed that offering plaque, in Jenny Marie's memory.”

“Do you know why she chose those particular words?”

“Well, yes, because, according to
Maman
, those were Jenny Marie's last words.” She paused, as if thinking of something for the first time. “I suppose
Maman
must have been surprised that Jenny Marie would repeat the Lord's Prayer at the end. Jenny Marie was never religious, you know.”

“Your mother never wrote any of this down, did she? I'm asking because I'd like to use some of this information in my article.”

“My mother was a simple cook. She never wrote anything but recipes, grocery lists, and letters when our men went to war.”

“Then I'd need to attribute the information you just gave me to my conversation with you.”

This suggestion changed Madame Martin entirely. She stood, looked uncomfortable, and turned away, saying indistinctly, “I can't say. The family might not like it. You don't really need to write all this down, do you? I just thought we were talking entre nous. I should have remembered you are here to uncover stories about the family.”

“That's not my purpose, Madame Martin. I only want to understand Jenny Marie.”

“You have your work to do, and I have mine. Excuse me while I get the breakfast ready. I need to work alone now, if you don't mind.”

She had spoken to me so freely up until this point that I regretted her change of tone and felt a twinge of guilt that I had been its cause. But now I knew who had discovered Jenny Marie's notebook after her death and who had placed it behind the offering plaque in the chapel.

When Toby and I arrived on the terrace an hour and a half later, the ambiance was elegant, with white linen cloths on little round tables placed just in front of the rose garden. The breakfast tables were set for three, a clever way to mix up the group. David and Lily were already seated with Patrick. Roz and Dotty arrived with us. We hesitated a moment, and Marianne, acting as hostess at the French doors to the terrace, directed us where to sit. I was sent to start a table with Roz. Toby and Dotty were told to join Guillaume, who was seated at the farthest table, poring over a copy of
Le Figaro
.

I was still disturbed about the tense end to my conversation with Madame Martin and so was grateful to be seated with Roz. I'd always found her good company. It would be soothing to have a quiet breakfast with her on the terrace.

Each place was set with an empty coffee cup, a small glass of apple juice, and a lunch plate filled with four square toasts, a pat of butter, and three strawberries. Shallow bowls were brimming with jams in three colors: red, orange, and brown. Marianne came to our table and clinked her glass for silence.

“The breakfast is a bit Spartan today, because our class is going to follow immediately, and we're preparing brunch. But it might interest you to know those dry toasts on your plate are the commonest breakfast food in France. We call them
biscottes
. The British call them rusks. And you Americans call them melba toast. Your coffee is coming round. After breakfast, please join me in the dining room. We need to start promptly, so we can have a good class and you can get to your afternoon outing on time. Your appointment at Rouffignac is at two o'clock.”

“Won't you be coming, too?” asked Dotty.

“I have marketing to do for tomorrow,” Marianne explained. She reached into her apron pocket. “We already have your tickets.” She handed them around. “I'll meet you there when the tour is over to take you to the old walnut mill in St. Nathalène, where they'll show us how the walnut oil is pressed. Now, please, don't wait for me: enjoy your breakfast.” She signaled us to dig in.

Roz and I sampled all three jam bowls, discovering that the brown stuff was sweetened walnut paste, the red glob was currant jelly (too sour for me), and what looked like orange marmalade was apricot jam with lemon zest. The toasts were pretty tasteless, but the jams filled the lack.

When Marianne finished helping Fernando supply us all with coffee and hot milk, she sat down at our table. We hadn't said a word to Fernando since Toby had apologized for the incident at the dovecote, and that seemed all right with him.

I felt uneasy facing Marianne, since I knew I had an issue about whether to use family secrets in my article. The chat with Madame Martin had just turned the knife in a wound that was already there. Over the last few days, I'd learned a number of things about the Cazelle family that Marianne and Guillaume might not want publicized. I was going to have to decide whether to regard that information as fair game. If I thought I needed permissions beyond those Marianne had implicitly given, we would need to have a serious talk, and that prospect made me nervous. Now, though, to my relief, Marianne smiled in greeting, looking happier than I'd left her yesterday. She was her best self, and most content, when she was talking about food.

We complimented her on the jams, found out her source for the walnut spread (better than she was able to make at home, she said), and agreed that yesterday's outing to the Félibrée was a success. “I hope,” said Roz to Marianne, in a lowered voice, “that the little tiff Dotty and I had didn't spoil the outing for the rest of you. I didn't expect Dotty to get so miffed.” Apparently Toby and I had missed a family drama.

“Not in the least,” said Marianne. “Don't you think my brother and I have a quarrel every now and then? Tensions are a part of family life— that's all there is to it.”

“Yes, well. It's not my habit to air tensions in public. I always told our boys they could quarrel all they wanted within the walls of our house, but outside there were to be no fights. I'm not a very good illustration of my own rule.”

“You were only trying to get Dotty to rejoin the group. I was grateful, in fact. Fernando had been waiting a long time for us, and I knew he had to be up early to take his wife to work. Speaking of which, I should go help him now.”

“You're very gracious, Marianne. I'll take it my apology is accepted.”

Marianne took her leave, and that left me wondering whether to ask Roz about the tiff or let it go. Lately my questions had been ruffling feathers. So I kept silent.

Roz turned to me with a rueful grin. “I'm not the best sister-in-law,” she confessed.

“I'm sure that's not true. Anybody'd be lucky to have you as family.”

“I don't know about that. I've been thinking about what it means to be a good in-law. For one thing, it involves accepting that when a newcomer to the family has different habits, or different opinions, or different values, they aren't necessarily wrong. They're just different. I know that's easy enough to say, but it's hard to live by. It's not natural for family members to see an outsider who really
is
different as truly acceptable, never mind lovable.” She sighed, as if tired of her struggle with the problem.

“That's always the case, Roz,” I offered, trying to be comforting. “Anyone can see how different you and Dotty are. It's just that you're a— well, a Renoir earth mother—and she's a Toulouse-Lautrec Follies girl.”

Roz laughed, sputtering her coffee. “Well, I guess you can be smart-mouthed when you want to be! As a matter of fact, the tiff we had
was
about Dotty's dancing.”

“Oh?”

“Yes, she danced the night away at Domme, which was of course what we were there for. But the problem was Dotty took it to heart that a girl might find her future husband at a Félibrée ball.”

“Yes, she mentioned that yesterday.”

“Nora, I can't tell you how mortified I was. She found Marc Gounot early in the evening, and after dancing a few with him, she got him to be her personal dating service. She had him going up to perfect strangers and asking if they were married and would they like to dance with a lovely American widow. It was just shameless. But Dotty wasn't the least bit shy about it, and Marc seemed to find it a big joke. I think they'd both had more than their share of wine punch.”

“Did you know he's seeing someone? A woman from Castelnaud who works in the library.”

“Really?”

“That's right. We saw the two of them together at the Castelnaud beach. Did you happen to notice if he was with her at the dance?”

“I wouldn't know who she was, but now that you mention it, there was a young woman there who seemed to have a claim on him. She wasn't best pleased about the time he spent with Dotty. And that just added to my embarrassment.”

“Maybe nobody noticed but you, Roz.”

“I only wish. I did keep telling myself it was none of my business how she carried on, and I kept my mouth shut. But when she wouldn't listen to Marianne's call for us to leave, I just couldn't help myself, and I made a few sharp comments as she was dancing by. At first she pretended not to hear. But then, when she and her dance partner came back to where I was standing, she said some nasty things to me. Marianne heard, I'm sure.”

“That's too bad. I wouldn't expect Dotty to get mean.”

“Oh, yes, Dotty is lots of fun, till she gets crossed. And I suppose that disagreement I told you about, over the center and my brother's will, has her feeling crossed—by me.”

“I can imagine. She must realize it makes her look selfish not to honor her husband's wishes, and she resents you for wanting the money. But she resents you even more for making her look bad for withholding it. So she's touchy if you try to tell her what to do.”

“That's about right. I try to avoid bossing her around, but she just keeps doing the most childish things.”

“Roz, you know what I think you need? A little time away from your sister-in-law. Why don't you stick with me today, and we'll let others deal with Dotty.” We shook on it, and Roz's face relaxed. With that, we were off to cooking class.

M
arianne had decided to pair us again, so Roz and I went into our own little corner, playing with flour and eggs and powdered sugar. The subject of the class was
gaufres
, the wafer-light confections that Lily and I had loved at Domme. But we learned the
gaufres
in our area were an exception to the rule. Everywhere else in France, they are made thick, like waffles. In Périgord they are made thin and crisp, like cookies, and draped over a rolling pin, to curl them.