“The Salon des Refusés,” said Olivier.
Clara nodded. “A show for the rejected. It was modeled on a famous exhibition in Paris back in 1863, when a Manet painting was refused entry in the official Paris Salon. A Salon des Refusés was set up, and the rejected artists showed there. And not just Manet, but Whistler’s Symphony in White ended up in the Salon des Refusés.” She shook her head. “One of the great works of art.”
“You know a lot about it, ma belle,” said Gabri.
“I should. My works were front and center in the college’s Salon des Refusés. First I knew that they’d been rejected by the jury. There they were, in the parallel exhibition.”
“And Peter’s?” asked Gamache.
“Front and center in the legitimate show,” said Clara. “He’d done some spectacular paintings. My works were not exactly spectacular, I guess. I was experimenting.”
“Not yet rescued?” said Gabri.
“Beyond saving.”
“Avant-garde,” said Ruth. “Isn’t that the term? Ahead of your time. The rest just needed to catch up. You didn’t need rescuing. You weren’t lost. You were exploring. There’s a difference.”
Clara looked at Ruth’s rheumy, tired eyes. “Thank you. But still, it was humiliating. They fired the professor who set it up. He had strange ideas about art. Didn’t fit in. An odd duck.” She turned to Rosa. “Sorry.”
“What’d she say?” asked Ruth.
“She said you’re an old fuck,” said Gabri loudly.
Ruth gave a low, rumbling laugh. “She isn’t wrong there.” She turned to Clara and Clara leaned away from her. “But you’re wrong about the Salon. That’s where real artists want to be. With the rejects. You shouldn’t have been upset.”
“Tell that to my twenty-year-old self.”
“What would you rather be?” Ruth asked. “Successful in your twenties and forgotten in your fifties? Or the other way around?”
Like Peter, everyone thought. Including Clara.
“As we were leaving, Professor Massey mentioned Francis Bacon,” said Clara.
“The writer?” asked Reine-Marie.
“The painter,” Clara clarified. She explained the reference.
“Seems a cruel thing to say,” said Olivier.
“I don’t think he meant it that way,” said Clara. “Do you?”
Myrna shook her head. “He seems to care about Peter. I think he just wanted to prepare Clara…”
“For what, that Peter killed himself?” Ruth asked with a guffaw, then she looked around. “You don’t all think that, do you? That’s ridiculous. He has too high an opinion of himself. Loves himself too much. No, Peter might kill someone else, but never himself. In fact, I take that back. He’s much more likely to be the victim than the killer.”
“Ruth!” said Olivier.
“What? You all think it too. Who here hasn’t wanted to kill him, at least once? And we’re his friends.”
They protested perhaps a shade too passionately. Each outraged defense fueled by the memory of how good it would have felt to hit Peter with a frying pan. He could be so smug, so self-satisfied, so entitled, and yet so oblivious.
But he could also be loyal, and funny, and generous. And kind.
Which made his absence and silence so disconcerting.
“Look,” said Ruth. “It’s natural. I want to kill most of you most of the time.”
“You want to kill us?” asked Gabri, barely able to breathe for the unfairness of it. “You? Us?”
“Do you think he’s alive?” asked Clara, not able to word the question the other way.
Ruth stared at her, and they held their breaths.
“I think if I can win the Governor General’s award for poetry, and you can become a world-famous painter, and these two bumbling idiots can make a success of a bistro, and you”—her gesture took in Reine-Marie—“can love this lump of a man”—she turned to Gamache—“then miracles can happen.”
“But you think it would be a miracle?” asked Clara.
“I think you should leave well enough alone, child,” said Ruth quietly. “I’ve given you the best answer I can.”
They all knew the worst answer. And they all knew the most likely answer. That perhaps Three Pines had had more than its share of miracles.
Armand Gamache looked down at his plate. Empty. All the wonderful food gone. He was sure it must have been delicious, but he couldn’t remember eating a single bite.
After a dessert of raspberry and chocolate mousse they went home. Myrna up to her loft above the bookstore. Clara to her cottage. Gabri and Olivier checked that all was in order in the kitchen, then headed to their B and B. Beauvoir walked Ruth and Rosa home and then returned to the Gamaches’ house. They’d left the porch light on for him, and a light in the living room. But the rest of the home was dark and silent and peaceful.