Paris: The Novel

couple of times, but there was no reply. She turned to go back down the narrow stairs. But just before he followed her, out of curiosity, Thomas opened the nearest door.
    The room was almost bare. The window, which had surely not been cleaned that year, lacked any curtains. In several places, the walls were stained with damp. In the middle of the floor was an iron bedstead, painted black, covered with a red blanket under which, like a discarded garden rake, lay a bony old woman, whose gray hair hung in thin strands over the side of the horsehair mattress. She was very still. If she breathed, she made no sound. There was dust on the floor, but not a crumb to tempt a mouse. One thing, however, caught his eye. On the wall opposite the bed, in a thin metal frame, hung a cheap print of a Virgin and Child behind glass that had been polished till it gleamed.
    “Thomas,” Édith called, “what are you doing?”
    “Nothing,” he said, and closed the door. “Who’s that in there?”
    “Mademoiselle Bac. She’s very poor. Come.”
    By the time they got back to Aunt Adeline’s quarters, the lady in question had arrived there. She gave Thomas a brief look and having, he suspected, seen everything she needed to know, asked him to sit down.
    She went to the sideboard and picked up the bottle of cider.
    “Will you take a little
cidre doux
?” she asked him.
    “Perhaps the young man would prefer a cognac,” Édith’s mother suggested hopefully.
    “Non,”
said Aunt Adeline firmly.
“Cidre doux.”
    “Yes, thank you,” said Thomas.
    Aunt Adeline poured cider into small glasses for them all. She wore a starched white shirt and a long navy blue dress. Her dark hair was pulled back severely into a bun. Her eyebrows were thick, and her large dark eyes watchful.
    “Where do you live, young man?” she asked.
    “I lodge in the rue de la Pompe, madame. But my parents live in Montmartre.”
    “Not in the Maquis, I hope.”
    “In the Maquis, madame. But they are quite respectable,” he added. “They sent me to school and made me take up a skilled trade.”
    “I am glad to hear it.”
    “You have run this home for Monsieur Ney for many years, madame?”
    “I have. It’s a great responsibility.”
    “That’s for sure,” chimed in Édith’s mother, though Aunt Adeline tried to ignore her. “He started with a much smaller place, you know. He was a lawyer in the backstreets of Belleville then. Just two rooms in a tenement. One for Mademoiselle Bac, and the other for a widow whose husband left her quite a good little business. An ironmonger’s. But she couldn’t run it. No idea. He did everything for her. Ran the business, looked after her. And when she died, she left it all to him. That was the start of his fortune. Then he moved to a bigger place, near the Gare du Nord. And now this.” She nodded. “But he is very loyal. He always took poor Mademoiselle Bac with him. She started in a tenement in Belleville, and now she lives in a big house near the Arc de Triomphe!”
    “That’s enough,” said her sister-in-law.
    “He’s got brains, Monsieur Ney,” continued Édith’s mother, feeling rather pleased with herself. “I asked him once, ‘What’s the secret of the ironmongery business, Monsieur Ney?’ And do you know what he replied? ‘It turns out,’ he said, ‘that it’s nails.’ Think of that. Just nails.”
    She seemed finally to have exhausted her store of information. Aunt Adeline looked relieved. Thomas didn’t mind. He thought it was rather interesting.
    “Shall I tell you something about Monsieur Ney?” said Édith. “You’ve heard of the great Ney, who was one of Napoléon’s marshals?”
    “Of course.”
    “Monsieur Ney and he are related. Isn’t that right, Aunt Adeline?”
    “I believe it may be so. Monsieur Ney is too discreet to say it.”
    “And he runs a good business here,” said Thomas.
    Aunt Adeline gave him a sharp look.
    “Monsieur Ney is wonderfully kind,” she said with a hint of reproof. “No one who has the good fortune to come here need ever worry again.”
    “He’s an angel,” cried Édith’s mother, taking her cue at last. “An angel.”
    “And he has a daughter?”
    “That is correct,” said Aunt Adeline. “Mademoiselle Hortense is a charming young lady.”
    “She will inherit a fortune, and make a fine marriage,” said Édith’s mother.
    “No doubt,” said Aunt Adeline.
    Thomas wondered if any food was to be forthcoming. It didn’t look