Читать книгу Awake and Rehearse - Louis Bromfield - Страница 9

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Miss Wannop kindly invited me on two other occasions to an “unusually brilliant dinner” at the Ritz, but I did not accept. Nevertheless I suffered, for my name appeared as usual in the columns of the Herald as one of Miss Wannop’s guests. It then occurred to me that some mysterious agency supplied the Herald columns with its list of guests and sometimes supplied it too well in advance.

The porcelaine was packed and sent to storage. I discovered that Vestiglione had tried to sell the collection to her at a price far above that named by the expert, and after a row I rid myself of him forever. And with the business completed, I drew a veil over my “friendship” with Miss Wannop, unaware that I was doing what hundreds of others had done before me. I did not like her, and she was a bore. And she still seemed to me, for no reason which I could name, the most vulgar person I had ever known.

But the affair was not over. One day three months later Henri, my maître d’hôtel, came to me to announce that he planned to be married. Would I have any objections?

“No,” I said, none whatever so long as it did not interfere with his work. I congratulated him. Who was the lady?

Henri shifted uneasily for a moment. “Her name is Amélie. Perhaps you remember her, sir? The maid who came to lunch with the old lady from the Ritz.”

“Of course. But she seems quite a handful. I suppose she’ll be staying on with Miss Wannop?”

Again Henri shifted his feet. “Why, no, sir. That was just it. I wondered if you couldn’t find her a place here in the house?”

I thought for a moment. “I suppose I could find her a place. But you see, Henri, I don’t want to feel that I’m stealing Miss Wannop’s maid from her.”

“You wouldn’t be, sir. Amélie plans to leave, anyway.”

“But she’s been with Miss Wannop a long time.”

“Seven years. And she still gives satisfaction, sir. It’s Amélie who is breaking off. She says she’s spent as much of her life as she means to with a ... a ... monster was the word Amélie used, sir.”

“Miss Wannop a monster! Why, she’s a very nice old lady.”

“Sometimes, sir, people seem different to their servants ... more real, I mean. Amélie says she’d go mad if she stayed any longer with Miss Wannop.”

“Why has she stayed so long?”

“Well, you see, sir, it’s a good place, as money goes. Amélie gets three times the wages of a lady’s maid, just to stay with Miss Wannop. It seems she can’t get a servant to stay otherwise. She must be a pretty terrible old lady for Amélie to give up all that money.” A shadow of humor colored his voice. “Amélie’s an Auvergnat, too, and you know how they feel about money.”

“And what does Miss Wannop do that makes Amélie want to leave her?”

“I can’t quite make out, sir. It’s just that she is ... well, Amélie says she’s not a human being.”

The answer did not make sense, but there seemed to be nothing to be gained by questioning.

“I’ll think it over. Perhaps I can make a place for Amélie.”

Two days later, before I had given Henri an answer, Amélie herself called me by telephone. She was, she explained in a shaken voice, sorry to trouble me, but Miss Wannop had died suddenly during the night and she did not know what to do. She had called Miss Wannop’s friends, but to no good.

“What friends?” I asked.

The voice of the big Auvergnat came back to me, a voice rich with scorn. “Madame la Duchesse, Monsieur le Marquis, Monsieur le Prince.” Neither the Duchess nor Vestiglione would come, and the Prince Puriatine was too drunk to make sense. Surely, I argued, there must be other friends who knew Miss Wannop better than I did.

“No,” said Amélie. “She had no other friends.”

So I agreed to come at once.