XIII

Meanwhile, Catherine was settled in her room, where Mr. Planchet had been instructed to set up a small table so that the governess could eat.

The cook showed him where the napkins and silverware were kept.

Fortunately for Mr. Planchet, the cook was a taciturn woman who, after disappointments, marital or otherwise, had resolved to live alone with her thoughts.

She helped the new valet prepare the governess’s meal basket, with table linen, cutlery, and several covered plates: one containing eggs, another a slice of ham and red-bean salad, and another a piece of Gruyère and a piece of fruit, all accompanied by a bottle of white wine and a glass.

Estelle (the cook) was kind enough to add that, with the previous governess, one bottle was supposed to last for two meals.

She did not deign to mention, however, that the dismissed woman made up for this rationing by making furtive visits to the cellar.

Laden with provisions, Planchet went up the stairs with great care.

Naturally, Catherine helped him set her table, if one can call it “helping” when you do the entire job while the person you are lending a hand to sits comfortably in an armchair and watches you work with sympathetic rapture.

Planchet had to accept an egg and a small piece of ham, although he protested and insisted that his own turn to eat would soon come in the servants’ pantry.

The servants’ meal brought together five diners that day: the cook already mentioned, a short, plump kitchen maid who was the most freckled girl in the entire département.

Adèle, the chambermaid, was a brunette with no personality.

The fifth diner was a gardener covered in earth. No one could blame him for his black fingernails, given his hard work, though everyone would gladly have spared him the futile effort of scraping them clean with the point of his knife.

The conversation was not lively.

Mr. Planchet was eating, which made it easier for him to maintain a prudent silence.

The cook merely mentioned that evening’s dinner: they were expecting about ten guests.

“Of all days to have a new servant, this really was poor timing.”

Mr. Planchet was of the same opinion, though he kept it entirely to himself.

The afternoon, with the employers away, was fairly peaceful; Mr. Planchet, on a ladder, cleaned the dining-room windowpanes, discreetly guided in his work by the new French tutor.

Around five o’clock, the car brought back the employers and the little girl.

Since she had not had enough exercise, Olga was sent for a walk through the green countryside with Catherine, who gave her a very good lesson in practical botany along the way, teaching her the common names of a number of plants.

Planchet had withdrawn to his attic room.

He stretched out on his bed: this was his usual posture for meditation.

Rarely did this meditation fail to bring some passing relief from the troubles of the moment by sending the meditator into the forgiving land of dreams…

At six o’clock, he was awakened by the chambermaid, who handed him the formal outfit he was to wear while serving dinner, none other than the master’s wedding tailcoat, splendid thirty-five years earlier.