They next ate fruit soaked with kirsch in a bowl and little crisp biscuits made in the village for them and drank some champagne. Everything seemed to be easy. Timothy looked around at the faces that lined the table: they leaned this way or that, they spoke effortlessly, and their eyes were candid. Even poor Lucy Pendleton seemed temporarily at peace.
He lifted his glass slightly at François and nodded—François knew what he meant.
Nan knew too. She saw him looking about himself, looking pleased. Then she watched the servant who stood gazing into the long mirror behind Timothy. She saw him glance at the fragile intensity of the begonias brooding there beneath the glass, the flowers that he had carried down from the village, and she felt that he saw them more clearly than he did the people reflected up above them. She lifted her wine to her lips and felt her hand as steady as stone again, stronger than ever before in her life.
François filled her glass. His nails were grimy against the folded napkin around the bottle.
Honor, as his head bent almost level with hers to pour wine, stopped breathing, so strongly did François smell of garlic. She hated that smell. It made her choke. She remembered sitting next to a little girl in grade school and smelling that hideous smell. Now she tried to never breathe when she was close to people for fear it might sweep around her. Even when Jacob kissed her she held her breath for fear . . .
Lucy looked up. François stood at her side again, the champagne bottle cocked. Suddenly, instead of feeling the exasperation that had flooded her at his earlier attempts to pour her wine, she was filled with warmth and love. Poor man, she thought impetuously. Yes, poor man! He may be only a servant but he does know decency when he sees it. He was a valet to a prince once. He is struggling against terrible odds. He is a man. And he sees my bosom and is tormented. I know. I suffer for him. He is utterly shattered.
She smiled at him, conscious of her great heavy breast pulling down and out from her shoulder bones.
François started. He moved quickly behind her, his face discreetly puzzled. He bent over Daniel’s shoulder. His hand trembled a little. Dan looked up at him as a little wine spilled.
“A light, please, François. But do forgive my asking Sara’s man to light my cigarette for me. It is good training for him. It makes him think of another happier incarnation when he was an eunuch.”
Susan laughed. She did not quite know what Daniel had said, nor why he’d said it, really, but felt it harmless and funny and silly. She watched François hold the candle closer to the tip of that boy’s cigarette, then felt the marrow of her shoulder bones shudder as Daniel leaned in close to her and said, “You are the loveliest most unbelievable creature anywhere in the world.”
His pupils were large and black. Susan looked straight into them and knew he was a little drunk and she wished she were too. She sipped at her cold wine and smiled at him. Tonight she would have fun. Tomorrow is time enough to say good-bye to all this and to Joe and to her own happiness.