The Rich Are with You Always Read Free Page B

no!" Madame Rodet laughed. "It's a copy. Of course. From the moyen age. The middle times." She pierced the twist of silk on to the edge of the design with the needle and put the frame aside. "Are they still killing the fox?" she asked, inclining her head back toward the drawing room.
      Nora smiled. "Better each time. Each telling."
      Madame Rodet looked sharply at her. "Strange isn't it, this word 'telling.' It was your name of— demoiselle. Your…"
      "My maiden name," Nora said, surprised.
      "Oh!" Madame Rodet was relieved. "You understand French!"
      "No." Nora laughed. "But I do remember my maiden name. I was born Nora Telling. How did you know, Madame?"
      "Mr. Stevenson, he told us. Racontant— oh, it's such a funnay name. For us it's quite strange. But for you not? Racontant. We cannot imagine it, you know."
      "I wouldn't say it's very common."
      "We have some neighbour, Tallien. He has much country. Oh, many farms. And when Mr. Stevenson was by us at Trouville, he heard this man, and the name Tallien, and it reminds him of you, Mrs. Stevenson. Tallien…Telling. You see."
      "That's how you knew," Nora said. She grew dizzy trying to think back over the chain of nonsensicals that had led to this most trivial conclusion.
      Madame Rodet was looking happily at the fire. "He has told you of La Gracieuse, M'sieu Jean?" she asked. Then, seeing Nora's bewilderment, she laughed, clutched at Nora's arm, and added: "Oh, I must tell you. We call him M'sieu Jean in Normandie. All his men, they call him Lord John. But he's not a lord. That's funnay. Did he tell you of La Gracieuse?"
      "Your house in Normandy!" Nora said, understanding at last.
      Madame Rodet looked at her uncertainly. "Our home," she corrected. "You say house? We have a house at St. Cloud, but La Gracieuse is our home."
      "He said it was very beautiful."
      They both looked at the fire for a while; Madame Rodet still clutched Nora's arm in her dry, cool fingers. "And very welcoming," Nora added. "I know he enjoyed his stay with you."
      "You shall see," she said, as if to herself. Then she turned and added urgently, "Soon."
      Nora did not know what to make of it. Madame Rodet's intonation was so un-English as to turn perfectly ordinary remarks into oracular pronouncements. "He's often spoken of France," she said. "Now we've got the Rouen–Havre contract, he'll be going back there quite often."
      "You will come too this time. You will stay at La Gracieuse and you will see Normandie. La Basse Normandie—the Pays d'Auge, you know, it's very typical for us. And you can even speak a little French perhaps. Peut-être. You will see. Peut-être."
      Five years of careful observation and tireless rehearsal had left Nora able to cope with every social occasion she was likely to meet. But this casual invitation, delivered in the manner of a fortune teller, was beyond that competence. In her bewilderment, all she could do was to ask a question that had occurred to her earlier when she had mentioned the Rouen–Havre contract: "Are you
    supplying the rail? For this new work?"
      But Madame Rodet seemed not to hear. Eagerly she searched Nora's eyes for an acceptance. "Oh, it will be such fun!" she said. "Spring in Normandie, you know, is very beautiful. I don't know about the rail; that's Rodet's affairs. Also, you can invite your brother, M'sieu Samuel."
      At once Nora was alert and attentive. Sam was supposed to be a secret. "You know of Sam, Madame?"
      For a moment only, Madame Rodet looked uncomfortable. "Oh, it's so funnay. For us. So English."
      "You know that Sam is in service?"
      "In France it does not matter. We have égalité. All are égales. I call my cook 'Madame.' In England it is so…you are all…" She craned her neck like a giraffe and waved her hands dismissively at the world beneath her chin: "'Oh, don't show me all that. Pfff! I don't wish to see.' That's English."
      Her enthusiasm to make