A Crossworder's Gift (5 page)

“Perfect,” Belle sighed.

“Except for the cold,” Rosco rejoined.

“Which is precisely why we're going inside.”

As they entered, the antique wood floorboards creaked in sudden discord and a bell jangled loudly, announcing the arrival of new guests, while a compact young woman appeared, hurrying down the two steps that led to the foyer. As she walked, she rubbed her hands on an apron dusted with flour. “Tomorrow morning's bread—I hope … Welcome, or as we say in
Montréal's Vieux Port
—
Bienvenue
. I'm Helene Armée. I'm your host.” She gave a laugh that was as brisk and energetic as she. Like her gestures and her gait, her congenial air had a pragmatic efficiency. Helene was clearly not a person to waste time. “No, I didn't invent the name to suit my career.”

In response to Rosco and Belle's perplexed glances, she added a pleasant:
“Armée
in French means a military army—or a crowd, a host of people. I am the other kind of host.” Helene glanced at a guest register lying open on a writing desk at the foot of the stairs. “And you must be Belle Graham and Rosco Polycrates … I am pronouncing the name ‘Polycrates' correctly?” Helene gave the surname its appropriate four syllables. “Greek, I think, yes?”

“Greek-American,” Rosco answered.

“You are a mixture—like me. Like many of us here in Canada. Like our language here in the city. French and English on our street signs, in all our shops and restaurants. You can order in both languages; the waiters and waitresses respond in kind.” Supporting that statement, Helene's accent commingled France and Great Britain; her clothes also reflected a dual heritage: a chic French skirt, a cableknit cardigan in Scottish heather tones, dark brown hair cut in feathery, Parisian bangs. “I've put you on the third floor in the front if that's acceptable. From your windows you have a view of the harbor. It's very pretty at night, especially now with the Festival of Lights on exhibit, and spotlights on the waterfront.”

“Festival of Lights?” Rosco asked.

“Festival Montréal en Lumiere
… It's quite a show, or shows, I should say. There are venues all over the city, though the principal attractions are at the
Place des Arts
—that's where our performing arts center is located.”

Helene Armée led the way upstairs. The steps seemed to grumble with each footfall.
“Une vieille maison,”
she explained in French. “An old house. It was unoccupied for many years. I think it resents the return of human habitation.” She made a face of mock indignation. “I do daily battle with the building.”

“You bought the property in order to turn it into a B and B?” Rosco queried. He was a person keen on asking questions—a useful attribute for an ex-cop turned private investigator, or a curse, depending on how one might view it.

“No,” Helene replied with some asperity. “Wordsworth House originally belonged to my great-great-grandfather. It was my grandfather who supplied the name.”

“Then your ancestors were English?” Belle asked as they climbed a second set of stairs.

“Not that branch of the family, no.”

In the softly lit corridor, Belle smiled. “Your grandfather must have been a lover of poetry. William Wordsworth was a romantic—”

“The name is a play on words. The surname ‘Verbeux' would be translated as
verbose
in English. As to his fondness of
poésie
—poems, I'm afraid I have no answer.” With that, Helene opened a guest room door. “Here you are. Please do not hesitate to ask if there is anything you need … And now I will leave you.
A tout à l'heure.
” The door shut decisively behind her.

“W
HAT
do you think
that
was all about?” Belle turned to face Rosco, her bag in her hand, her coat and hat still on.

Rosco took the suitcase from her, but she didn't seem to notice. “You mean the fact that our hostess is busy and didn't choose to stay and gab about her forebear's taste in reading material?”

“No, Rosco, the fact that she obviously doesn't like her granddad—”

“Whoa … whoa … Hold on there, ‘Miss Jump-to-Outrageous-Conclusions.' I didn't hear anything about liking or disliking.” Rosco pulled off his coat and walked toward the armoire. “I guess you haven't warmed up yet, huh?”

“What do you mean?”

“You've still got your hat and coat on.”

Belle sighed with the impatient sound of someone who has weightier issues at hand, then yanked off her outer garments, creating a field of static electricity that caused her fine, blond hair to rise straight up in the air. “Helene's tone positively reverberated with anger.”

“Huh. I thought the way she said ‘
A tout à l'heure
' was kinda cute. Belle, I'll bet our hostess simply has a lot on her plate … As she indicated, this is a new establishment …” Rosco looked at his wife, unmoving in the middle of the room. Except for the strands of hair that continued pointing ceilingward, her entire being was obviously focused on a single thought. He shook his head and smiled.

“I take it your determined brain has already begun inventing family tragedies our host is unwilling to address … grandfather disappearing up in the Alaskan oilfields or down the darkest Amazon … alligators, headhunters—”

“Are there headhunters in the Amazon basin? I didn't think of that!” Belle's eyes were thoughtful.

“I take it that means you're buying the ‘lost in the jungle' scenario? As opposed to the ‘ravenous polar bears in the Arctic' possibility.” Rosco laughed, and began unpacking. “Which side of the bed do you want?”

“Rosco! Aren't you even curious?”

“My middle name.”

“Well?”

“I didn't come up here with my all-time favorite woman to start creating mysteries where none exist.”

Belle, in true form, wasn't listening; instead, she was walking toward the window to gaze at the street below. “But you could tell Helene was upset, couldn't you? Old gramps was not a person she wanted to discuss.”

“I don't want to discuss him, either—”

“Must have been another woman in his life—”

“Belle!”

But Belle Graham, on a roll, wasn't easily dissuaded. “Although, that's strange in itself … Two generations removed, and the anger and hurt remain palpable … You would think … hmmm …”

“What do you see out there?”

Belle turned back to Rosco. “What do—?”

“You see through the window? I.e.: How's the view?”

“The view?”

Rosco sighed. The sound was indulgent. “The view for our romantic weekend.”

“Oh!” Belle spun around. “Very nice … Antique buildings with peaked slate roofs, icicles, smoke from chimneys … lots and lots of snow … the river completely frozen—at least the section we can see.”

Rosco moved close to her and wrapped her in his arms. “A nice afternoon to stay indoors—”

Belle leaned her head against her husband's shoulder. “I can't help but wonder who he was.”

“Who?”

“Helene's grandfather. Mr. Verbose.”

“Did anyone ever tell you you've got a one-track mind?”

“It takes one to know one—watch where you put those mitts of yours, buddy, they're like ice.”

“M
AXIME
Verbeux died when Helene and I were little. We never met him, however.” It was Helene's first cousin, Pamela Gravers, who answered Belle's question as the three sat sipping hot cocoa near the fireplace in Wordsworth House's sitting room. Where Helene was short and precise, a devotee to detail, Pamela was lanky and tall, given to large and often incomplete gestures, and quirky, homemade garb. She was a conceptual artist based in Toronto; her visit to her cousin's B and B coincided with the
Festival Montréal en Lumiere
, where she was displaying her newest work:
Letters From Our Past
—a celebration of the city's bilingual heritage.

As she spoke, Pamela munched distractedly on a super-chunk chocolate cookie, crumbs spilling down a handknit citron yellow pullover decorated with vivid geometrical designs in turquoise and flamingo pink. “Oops,” she said, spotting the crumbs. She brushed them to the floor, then immediately regretted the action. “I keep forgetting I'm not at home. Helene's going to have my hide. She's a ferocious neatnik.” A salt-stained, booted toe scuffed at the crumbs, brushing them under the chair's skirt, then she glanced at Belle and Rosco in guilty appeal. “Don't tell …”

“How does your installation work?” Rosco asked in a change of subject.
“Letters From Our Past?”

“Oh! But you have to go see it!” Pamela's hand made a wide arc in the air, nearly decapitating a table lamp. The shade rocked ominously; the base teetered. Rosco reached out steadying fingers while Pamela grimaced:

“I'm going to break something, for sure. I just know it! My studio in Toronto is designed for work—not show.” She grabbed another cookie, and her sweater's voluminous sleeve snagged against the plate. This time it was Belle who saved the day, retrieving sweets and china before they crashed to the floor.

Pamela produced a self-deprecating sigh, leaned forward, and continued with an impassioned and excited: “There are some wonderful installations this year … a modified wind tunnel with voices whose speech is tantalizingly unintelligible and enigmatic … a mirror-like facade that projects your image—vastly distorted—across the snow as if you'd turned into a weird extraterrestrial shadow—”

“And they're all outside?” Belle began.

“Of course! It's a matter of space, of playing with and utilizing space, of light and darkness; of experimentation—”

“But it's cold,” Belle murmured.

Pamela looked at her quizzically.

“We've been discussing the ‘winter in Canada' weather phenomenon,” Rosco chortled.

“‘Phenomenon'?” was Pamela's perplexed response.

“The fact that it's colder up here than down near Boston, or Newcastle, which is where we live.”

Pamela stared at Rosco and then at Belle. A frown of confusion crossed her brow; and Rosco realized how similar these two women were in their complete concentration on a single topic. “Unusual atmospheric conditions would be balmy breezes coming off the Saint Lawrence … but then the ice-skaters down at the pavilion, the
Pavillon
, would sink.”

Belle shivered; Pamela Gravers laughed, then reached for another chocolate-chunk cookie. “If you're worried about being chilly, you won't be. There are bonfires to stand near, food stalls either within tents or under the stars,
en plein air
, as they say … and jugglers, mimes, stilt walkers … marshmallows to roast—”

“Marshmallows?” Belle said, perking up.

“You think summer picnics in the States can lay exclusive claim to marshmallows? Anyway, I'd really like you to see my installation … As a person whose career involves letters—”

“You haven't created a crossword puzzle in the snow, have you?” Belle asked.

Pamela's expression was difficult to interpret. For a moment, it seemed as though she were trying to invent a lie in response to Belle's innocent query. Then the worried behavior vanished, and her hands began moving the air as though recreating her artwork in space. “I've buried battery-powered theatre-type lamps in the snow … well, not completely buried, but enough so that only the round lamp face shows. And they're designed to burn cool, or else the snow would melt too quickly … Anyway, each face reveals the mark of a letter: a black ‘A' formed by the white light around it, and so forth … With the help of my wizard techno-advisor and aide, Jean-Claude, I'm able to change letters continually, so my ‘message,' if you will, is constantly being altered and amended—”

“Illuminated words,” Belle interjected as Helene marched with customary alacrity into the room.

“What are you three talking about?” Her brow was creased in a peculiarly cross and anxious line.

“My installation piece. That's the only thing we were discussing.” In a defensive gesture, Pamela Gravers slumped slightly in her chair.

“Ah, I see … I thought … Never mind.”

A silence ensued. Belle could sense tension between the cousins. It was broken—or rather, avoided—when Pamela gulped an apologetic:

“I'm afraid I dropped some cookie crumbs … If you've got a whisk broom—”

“What are a few crumbs here and there?” Helene's tone was harsh. In an atypical gesture, the hostess of Wordsworth House sighed while her shoulders sagged. “Let the mice eat them.”

“Helene! You'd have a fit if a mouse even ventured inside this establishment.”

Helene shrugged.
“N'import.”

“I'll clean up—”

“It's not important, I tell you!”

The phone rang at that moment, interrupting the awkward exchange. As their hostess hurried away, Belle and Rosco glanced at each other while Pamela stared glumly at the floor. “It's not easy, this hotelier business,” she said. “As financially risky as being an artist. Maybe more so. At least, I don't have the kind of mortgage Helene has—or her overhead.”

“But if this was your grandfather's home, didn't Helene inherit it?” Belle began.

“Is that what she told you?” Pamela's wary frown now mirrored that of her cousin.

“Well, no, I just assumed … your grandfather's house … ‘And his grandfather's before him.' Those were Helene's words.”

Pamela folded her arms across her chest. “Inherit …” she finally muttered, then sat straighter in her chair as her voice grew in strength and resolution. “I don't think a meaner individual than Maxime Verbeux ever existed! His two daughters—our moms—still haven't gotten over his unkindness … betrayal, really. Yes, they inherited this building, or rather, all four of us did. But that was the extent of his largesse. And he was a wealthy man. A very wealthy man.”