considering smile. “Perhaps I should have offered whiskey, not champagne,” she said. “That is what people drink at an Irish wake, yes?”
“And stout, you forgot the stout, and bottles of black porter, and crubeens in a bucket.”
“Crubeens?”
“Pigs’ trotters— pieds de porc. ”
She laughed softly, ducking her head. “I’m afraid I am a very poor hostess. They will say terrible things about me, afterwards.”
“Even crubeens wouldn’t stop them saying terrible things. This is Dublin.”
“You are very”—she searched for the word—“ cynique, Dr. Quirke.” She was smiling.
“Cynical? I hope not. Realistic, I’d rather say.”
“No, I know the word for you: disenchanted. A beautiful word, but sad.”
He conceded, and inclined his head in a little bow—he was quite getting the hang of the Gallic bow—and stopped a passing waiter and exchanged his empty glass for a full one. Two must be the limit, he told himself; he was already feeling sufficiently dérangé in the presence of this intoxicating woman.
“Do eat something, Dr. Quirke,” she said. “I’m sure you will not miss the feet of the pig. Now I must—what do you say?—circulate.” She began to turn away, and paused, and laid two fingers flat on his wrist. “Don’t leave before we speak again, yes?”
She walked off in that rapidly stepping way that she did, her head bowed and the champagne glass clutched to her breast in both hands. Beside him a ginkgo tree, no taller than he was, hardly more than a slender shoot, trembled and trembled in all its leaves.
* * *
Over the following half hour he conversed with various people; a minimum of socializing was unavoidable, although he would have avoided it if he could. He wanted to be alone to play over again in his mind, without distraction, those moments he and Françoise d’Aubigny had shared beside the trestle table with its coy little bowls of glistening savories and its shameless salmon. There was an ancient judge who had known his adoptive father, whom he had to stop and listen to for a painful five minutes—the old boy was deaf, and spoke in bellowing tones as if everyone else shared his disability—and an Abbey actress who gave him a playfully reproving eye and inquired in a voice dripping with saccharine sweetness why Isabel Galloway was not with him. Now and then, when a gap opened among the gabbling heads, he had a tantalizing glimpse of Françoise—in his mind he had at last been able to drop the formality of the surname—but maneuver his way as he might through the crowd, he somehow could not manage to put himself directly in her vicinity. He drank a third glass of champagne, and then took a fourth, and stepped through the french windows with it and wandered into the house.
He entered a big modern kitchen, where he was ignored by the hired-in catering staff, busy at their work, and then a long passageway that in stages, through two successive green baize doors, widened to become the front hall. This part of the house seemed deserted. He noted paintings—a couple of insipid Paul Henrys and a dubious oil portrait of a prissy fellow in a periwig—and an antique oak side table with, over it, a big gilt-framed mirror that leaned out at an angle from the wall and gave an impression of vigilance and faint menace. To right and left two tall white doors faced each other. The one on the right, to his vague surprise, was locked. The other opened onto a square high-ceilinged drawing room ablaze with early evening sunlight. He stepped inside.
Here two enormous windows looked across the road to the Green and its trees, and the light pouring in through them had a leafy verdant tinge. A big old grandfather clock with a ponderous and hesitant tick stood against one wall. On a sideboard there rested a bowl of glowing yellow roses. He went and stood at one of the windows; lifting his face, he bathed in the sky’s calm soft radiance. The champagne had set up a
“And stout, you forgot the stout, and bottles of black porter, and crubeens in a bucket.”
“Crubeens?”
“Pigs’ trotters— pieds de porc. ”
She laughed softly, ducking her head. “I’m afraid I am a very poor hostess. They will say terrible things about me, afterwards.”
“Even crubeens wouldn’t stop them saying terrible things. This is Dublin.”
“You are very”—she searched for the word—“ cynique, Dr. Quirke.” She was smiling.
“Cynical? I hope not. Realistic, I’d rather say.”
“No, I know the word for you: disenchanted. A beautiful word, but sad.”
He conceded, and inclined his head in a little bow—he was quite getting the hang of the Gallic bow—and stopped a passing waiter and exchanged his empty glass for a full one. Two must be the limit, he told himself; he was already feeling sufficiently dérangé in the presence of this intoxicating woman.
“Do eat something, Dr. Quirke,” she said. “I’m sure you will not miss the feet of the pig. Now I must—what do you say?—circulate.” She began to turn away, and paused, and laid two fingers flat on his wrist. “Don’t leave before we speak again, yes?”
She walked off in that rapidly stepping way that she did, her head bowed and the champagne glass clutched to her breast in both hands. Beside him a ginkgo tree, no taller than he was, hardly more than a slender shoot, trembled and trembled in all its leaves.
* * *
Over the following half hour he conversed with various people; a minimum of socializing was unavoidable, although he would have avoided it if he could. He wanted to be alone to play over again in his mind, without distraction, those moments he and Françoise d’Aubigny had shared beside the trestle table with its coy little bowls of glistening savories and its shameless salmon. There was an ancient judge who had known his adoptive father, whom he had to stop and listen to for a painful five minutes—the old boy was deaf, and spoke in bellowing tones as if everyone else shared his disability—and an Abbey actress who gave him a playfully reproving eye and inquired in a voice dripping with saccharine sweetness why Isabel Galloway was not with him. Now and then, when a gap opened among the gabbling heads, he had a tantalizing glimpse of Françoise—in his mind he had at last been able to drop the formality of the surname—but maneuver his way as he might through the crowd, he somehow could not manage to put himself directly in her vicinity. He drank a third glass of champagne, and then took a fourth, and stepped through the french windows with it and wandered into the house.
He entered a big modern kitchen, where he was ignored by the hired-in catering staff, busy at their work, and then a long passageway that in stages, through two successive green baize doors, widened to become the front hall. This part of the house seemed deserted. He noted paintings—a couple of insipid Paul Henrys and a dubious oil portrait of a prissy fellow in a periwig—and an antique oak side table with, over it, a big gilt-framed mirror that leaned out at an angle from the wall and gave an impression of vigilance and faint menace. To right and left two tall white doors faced each other. The one on the right, to his vague surprise, was locked. The other opened onto a square high-ceilinged drawing room ablaze with early evening sunlight. He stepped inside.
Here two enormous windows looked across the road to the Green and its trees, and the light pouring in through them had a leafy verdant tinge. A big old grandfather clock with a ponderous and hesitant tick stood against one wall. On a sideboard there rested a bowl of glowing yellow roses. He went and stood at one of the windows; lifting his face, he bathed in the sky’s calm soft radiance. The champagne had set up a
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