Treasure Box Page 0,37

a place at her side."

"Oh, Mrs. Fears, you're always such a lark!" cried Jude. He was a bushy-eyebrowed old codger, even taller apparently than Uncle Stephen, but stooped so far that his head was rather near his plate, and he had to lift his head to bring the goblet to his lips. "Howdy, Mr. Fears. We're glad Madeleine - Mrs. Fears - found her a fine young man like you. Welcome and glad, we are to know you. Are you really richer than God?"

"Now, Cousin Jude," said Madeleine, "you know that God's millions are counted in a more dependable currency than American dollars. There's no comparing."

Cousin Jude thought this was the funniest joke. As the old man laughed, Quentin's eyes wandered to the head of the table, where he was startled to see that Grandmother's eyes were wide open, staring at him like headlights on bright.

Quentin turned to Madeleine and spoke softly. "Your grandmother..."

"Yes, Tin?"

But glancing back at the old lady, he was chagrined to see that her eyes were closed again.

"I thought she was awake."

"Oh, she's hearing everything, be sure of that. In and out of sleep, but aware all the time. And she has the hearing of a bat, so she's listening to our little whispers right now. Aren't you, Grandmother."

But Grandmother's eyes remained closed, her face slack with sleep.

At her right hand, Uncle Paul leaned forward with a grin. "Going to introduce me again, darling? I can change my name if you'd like."

"No need, Uncle Paul," said Madeleine. "Shall I ring for breakfast?"

"Please," said Uncle Stephen. "Some of us need to take nourishment at regular intervals."

"It's your bell, dear," said Aunt Athena.

Madeleine reached out and rang a small bell that sat beside her place at the table. It occurred to Quentin that hers was the place where Uncle Paul had been sitting. So he really had been an interloper there.

As soon as the bell rang, the same quiet servant from the day before opened the door from the butler's pantry, and two footmen came in with steaming plates, one of biscuits and one of scrambled eggs and bacon. Both began serving with Madeleine, and worked their way down the two sides of the table, crossing behind Grandmother and working up the other way. But no food was put on Grandmother's plate.

The collection of people around the table was odd, Quentin supposed, and there were certainly family tensions, but he couldn't help noticing that it was Madeleine who seemed to rule here, not Grandmother. It wasn't an idea he liked much, that Madeleine herself was the main source of family tension. And it wasn't fair, either. He had no idea of what had actually gone before. All the hostility might well have been earned. What did he know of these people? Uncle Paul, with his smarmy smile and ingratiating manner, was only fifteen years older than Madeleine but looked her age. For all Quentin knew, Paul might have molested Madeleine when she was a girl, or tried to; he might richly deserve Madeleine's goading. Not that Quentin took such speculation seriously, but after all, Madeleine had recoiled from his first attempt at any kind of serious physical intimacy with her. Wasn't it possible that Paul - or someone - had done something which made even a husband's caress at first repellent to her?

No, no, it wasn't right to start assigning unspeakable crimes to strangers. If Madeleine hadn't accused them, why should he?

The eggs were hot, the bacon cooked perfectly. The biscuits were steaming, freshly sliced, the butter still melting inside them. Whatever other failings this house might have, the cuisine had the simple perfection that approached the platonic ideal. Not scrambled eggs, but the scrambled eggs that all other scrambled eggs were imitating. The bacon of bacon, the biscuit of biscuits.

"Delicious," said Quentin to Madeleine.

She smiled, then leaned close to him and whispered, "Tin, in the upper classes one doesn't compliment the food. It's assumed that the food will always be perfect, and it isn't to be discussed."

He started to laugh, but caught himself when he realized she wasn't joking. All he could do was look at her oddly for a moment and then dig in to eat more. This was the food she was used to; he cringed to think of where he had taken her, what he had cooked for her. He had never wanted to live rich, but when they built a house, it would have to have a kitchen where a first-class chef would