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SINCE HUMAN BEHAVIOR hasn’t surprised me since Viet Nam, there was no shock or ghoulish curiosity on my face for Tom’s wife to discover. She glanced at her husband then at her plate as if resigning herself to trust Tom’s judgment.
"Forgive me, Richard," she said generously. "I'm sure you will be...tactful. If you could really make people want to come here, it would be–merveilleux!"
"Suicide?" Under the circumstances, I felt I was entitled to know what I was supposed to leave out of the article.
"Yes," Tom said softly. "You should hear the story from us. You'd find out anyway. Sorry, Dear." He spoke over the top of Marie's head as if to spare her feelings. Then without meeting my eye, he began. “The truth, Richie–Hugh Marsford was nuts. No getting around it. He planned his suicide years in advance."
Marie unconsciously tapped her dinner plate with a fork. "I don't think he intended to go through with it, Tommy," she interrupted, her lower lip quivering. "It was when his second wife died that he...he decided to, to carry out his plan. If Claudine had lived, Lily said he never would have done it."
"But he did it, Marie. Don’t you see? Just like he said he would–overdosed on drugs and died in the bed where he’d been born."
My lamb chop had turned to sawdust, so I washed it down with a gulp of wine. "Marsford planned to commit suicide!” I waved my arm to encompass the whole chateau. “Why?"
Tom rocked his hand to indicate the reason was a bit fishy. "Marsford had weird opinions on everything–politics, literature, horticulture, women. He got away with his eccentricities because he was financially independent. Money buys acceptance, Richie. You can think anything, say anything, do almost anything if you’re wealthy enough.
"Hugh's first wife, Ellen, died young from a disease that aged her before his eyes, a terrifying experience that left Hugh deeply scarred. Already neurotic, he became a hypochondriac. I personally think that’s when he first considered ending his life at sixty.”
Marie rolled her eyes.
“I know, I know.” He patted her hand. “At fifty-one he did remarry, a woman twenty-three years younger than himself–much to his children’s dismay.”
“Children?” I prompted.
“Yes. Silas and Anne had followed their father’s self-indulgent example from birth, and after he married Claudine, they feared for their financial future. Marsford and his son had a terrible row about it, which ended with Marsford kicking Silas out. It probably made the young man, who was twenty at the time, but it tore the family apart. A year later Anne married and moved to America."
Tom paused to drain his wineglass. "Later when they heard of the suicide plan, both Silas and Anne pressed Hugh to consider his grandchildren. There were three by then who were quite small. To end the emotional blackmail, and hopefully the bickering, Marsford read his will to them on his fifty-fifth birthday.
"I think he was fair, considering. He set up a foundation to insure the chateau would remain as a monument to his life’s work. Any excess profit from his wealth would provide a permanent allowance for each relative."
Tom paused for a small laugh. "Typical of Hugh, he put a poem at the end of his will suggesting his real legacy was the aesthetic value of his art work. The guy may have been a neurotic eccentric, but he was also an artistic genius."
"Can’t quarrel with that,” I agreed, glancing again at the row of black marble silhouettes. I couldn’t wait to learn more about Marsford’s strange ideas and even stranger life. "Are there any books or pamphlets on him I can read?"
"Of course,” Tom assured me. “I'll show you what there is tomorrow."
Just then the back door unlatched loudly, and we all turned to watch Pascaline usher a French policeman into the dining hall.
Self-important and crisply dressed, the officer lifted his chin and told Tom, "Monsieur. We have caught a boy throwing paint at the gate of the chateau.”