“Merci. It would not be right to introduce scandal into my grandmother’s life after all these years, even if there is truth in it.”
But how would I break the news to Osmond that it seemed unlikely he was a father? And even if he were, the Spenards didn’t want to hear about it.
“You will be able to walk back to the boat without your umbrella,” said Madeleine as she nodded toward the street. “You see? The sun is coming out.” She marked the time. “And I must be leaving. I promised to bring Grandmama a decadent confection from Les Larmes de Joan d’Arc, so she’ll be wondering where I am.”
“Is she feeling better? I’m sorry Mr. Jolly upset her so much the other day. Apparently, a funeral director can’t always gauge how someone’s going to react to his marketing pitch, but when the potential customer starts screaming, you’d think he’d know enough to stop. Poor Mr. Jolly is proving to have something of a tin ear.”
“Grandmama refused to tell me what provoked her outburst, but for the past two nights, she has wanted to sleep with the light on. Pourquoi? I do not know. All she will say is that she no longer has the energy to poke the hornet’s nest.”
“What does that mean?”
Madeleine shrugged. “Perhaps she mistook him for someone, yes? Someone she once knew? Someone she feared? You heard her. ‘C’est toi, c’est toi. It’s you, it’s you.’ And then the anger and tears. But to me, she will say nothing.”
Which, in a roundabout way, reminded me of another enigma. “Out of curiosity, could you tell me the significance of the framed embroidery piece that sits on your sideboard? The one with the chopped-off petal on the fleur-de-lis? I didn’t notice it initially, but it got included in one of the thousands of photos Bernice Zwerg strong-armed you into taking of her when we visited your house.”
She frowned Etretat as if trying to recall the thing. “Grandmama brought so many pictures with her when she moved in with us. They’ve become invisible to me. But I know the piece you describe. Grandmama embroidered it when she was a new bride. It’s so old, I fear the pressure of the frame may be the only thing holding the threads together.”
“Is there a story attached to it? I mean, do you know why Solange embroidered a fleur-de-lis with a broken petal?”
“Mais oui. Grandmama’s village boasted a metalsmith who created the broken-petaled fleur-de-lis as his trademark. He made lovely jewelry—broaches, pendants, bracelets. But since Grandmama could afford to buy none of it, she embroidered the design instead. She was known to boast it was a fair likeness to the original trademark, and it cost her far fewer francs. The only problem was, she couldn’t wear it.”
“Did the metalsmith ever design a line of rings?”
“There was only one ring. He never made another.”
A chill feathered up my spin. “Do you know why?”
“He apparently complained that rings were too complicated and too heavy on a man’s finger, so he was going to stop at one. Perhaps if he’d chosen another precious metal for his designs, he would have made more. But he worked exclusively in brass.”
The chill crawled down my arms and spread to my fingertips. “Do you know if he ever sold the ring?”
“He wore it himself, and the only reason I know that is because when he visited my grandmother after grandpapa was imprisoned, he cracked her best china with that ring, so she was always short one teacup. She still curses his name every time we set the table with her china. ‘Damn Pierre Lefevre.’” She regarded me oddly. “You look so shocked. The elderly in America do not curse?”
“What would you say if I told you that Woody Jolly is wearing a brass ring designed with a broken-petaled fleur-de-lis that looks exactly like Solange’s embroidery?”