Kingdom of the Blind (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #14) - Louise Penny Page 0,34
his brother and sister. Separated from them. Just a little. Close enough to see their closeness but far enough away not to be included.
“Can we continue?” asked Lucien, who’d refused all offer of refreshments.
“I think we need to back up a bit, now that Armand is here,” said Myrna. “He didn’t hear what Caroline said just before he arrived.”
“It’s not pertinent,” said Lucien. “We’re here to read the will and that’s all.”
“You were telling us why your mother liked to be called Baroness,” Myrna prompted Caroline.
“Liked?” Anthony threw another log on the fire. “She didn’t ‘like’ to be called Baroness, she insisted.”
He settled back into his chair.
Caroline turned to face their guests, tucking her skirt in. Her knees together, her ankles crossed. The doyenne entertaining.
“Our mother called herself Baroness because she was one.”
Armand stared at her, then at the others. His mouth didn’t exactly drop open, but his eyes certainly widened.
Myrna turned to him. She was beaming. If she could have combusted with pleasure, she would have. What had started as a chore, accepting to be the liquidator of a stranger’s will, was quickly becoming not just entertaining but kind of wonderful.
A baroness, her glowing eyes said. A noble cleaning woman. Does it get better than this?
Across from them the Baumgartner siblings had their own reactions. Anthony seemed to share the joke and had raised his brows in a Parents. What can you do? expression.
Caroline was composed, but her complexion betrayed her. Little pink patches had appeared on her cheeks.
And Hugo—
“She might be,” he said. “We don’t know.”
“I think we do,” said Anthony. “Some things just have to be faced, Hug. No matter how unpleasant.”
He pronounced it as “Oog” and was staring at his brother.
“I’ve never met a real baroness,” said Benedict. “This’s kinda cool.”
“And you still haven’t,” Myrna pointed out.
“Why would she think she’s a baroness?” asked Armand.
“Well, among other things, there’s the family name,” said Anthony.
“Baumgartner?” asked Benedict.
“No,” said Caroline. “That was our father’s name. Her maiden name was Bauer. But her grandfather, our great-grandfather, was a Kinderoth.”
She looked at them intently, apparently expecting something.
“Kinderoth,” Hugo repeated.
“We heard,” Myrna said. “Is there something you’re trying to say?”
Benedict’s eyes were narrowed, and his lips moved as he lifted his fingers. Obviously trying to work out the relationship.
“Kinderoth,” he finally said. “Child roth.”
“Child roth,” Armand repeated, then paused. “Roth child? Rothschild?”
Hugo nodded.
“That’s ludicrous,” said Lucien with a snort. Then he looked at the Baumgartner siblings. “You’re not saying that Bertha Baumgartner was a Rothschild?”
Anthony leaned back in his chair, apparently distancing himself from the claim.
Caroline looked politely defiant, as though daring them to challenge it. And Hugo looked triumphant.
“Yes.”
“The Rothschilds?” asked Myrna. “The banking family? Worth billions?”
“Well, a branch of the family,” said Caroline. “The one that came to Canada in the 1920s and decided to invest everything in the stock market.”
“They were the lucky ones,” said Anthony. “They at least got out.”
“And there was no ‘everything,’” said Hugo. “They came here because it’d all been stolen from them. Us.”
“Enough,” said Anthony, lifting his hand. “We’ve been through this all our lives. It hounded our parents, our grandparents. It drove them near mad with resentment. Let’s just stop.”
“Anthony’s right,” said Caroline. “Even if it’s true, there’s nothing we can do about it.”
“Maman said—” Hugo began.
“Maman was an embittered old woman who made things up to make her feel better about cleaning other people’s toilets,” she said. “She raised us with love and bile and made us promise to continue the fight. But we were children when we made that promise.”
“Kinder,” said Benedict.
Caroline looked at him with some annoyance.
“How do you know that word?” asked Myrna.
“Kinder?” said Benedict. “My girlfriend’s family is German. Besides, I went to kindergarten. Didn’t everyone?”
Kindergarten, thought Gamache, and glanced over at the bookshelf where the tarnished frame sat. The photo of children in a deadly garden.
“We’re not German,” said Hugo. “Austrian.”
“Ahh,” said Benedict, then he lowered his voice. “Were they convicts?”
“Of course not,” said Caroline.
They stared at him for a moment before Myrna got it.
“Not Australian. Austrian. Like the von Trapp family.” When he looked blank, she went on. “The Sound of Music? ‘The hills are alive’? Help me, Armand.”
“Oh, I think you’re doing just fine.”
From off to his left, he heard the thin strains of a voice singing, “‘Edelweiss, Edelweiss…’” before it petered out.
They looked over, and Hugo dropped his head, apparently studying his hands.
“Maman used to sing it to us,” Anthony explained. “We must have watched that movie a hundred times.”