Days of the Dead.pdf - Upgrade Systems

much longer is my daughter to wait for her cocoa, while you stand gossiping with this ... this upstart
negro, eh?" She barely threw January a glance. "You think because Don Prospero is a gourmand who
fancies he's too good to live like other peo­ple on tortillas and beans that you can dictate to the
mem­bers of his household?"
"And are you, Madame, accustomed to living upon tortillas and beans?" inquired the cook haughtily,
switching to the Spanish in which she had addressed him. "I had no Idea."
Señora Lorcha’s face turned bright red, as well it might, thought January. He'd watched the mother of
the lovely Natividad scrupulously minding her manners at table last night and guessed by the obvious care
she was taking, and by the way she watched her daughter's every move, that her claims to gentility-and
to more than one or two rather distant Spanish ancestors-were as false as the paste dia­monds in her
hair. "You are insolent, Señor!"
"I am also busy." Guillenormand set his spoon down in the cocoa-pot. "But I am at your service,
Madame, for however long you wish to prolong this conversation instead of permitting me to finish your
precious daughter's refresh­ment."
Señora Lorcha hissed, "Poisoner!" and turned on her heel. January's eyes cut sideways, fast, to the
cook's face, in time to see it blanch and freeze. The next second Guillenormand forced a manufactured
chuckle and a rather stiff gesture of scorn, and January asked, "Ponzoñero?" He deliberately
mispronounced the Spanish word, as if it were unfamiliar to him.
"Oh." Guillenormand cleared his throat and chuckled again. "Merely a spiteful word the lower classes
have for Frenchmen, M'sieu."
"What was that all about?"
"The lovely Natividad's breakfast cocoa." He resumed stirring, and January wondered whether the
man's self­consequence would run to leaving a piece of skin on the top of the cocoa when it was finally
sent in, or whether his pride in perfection would not permit such a lapse even to vex his enemy. "A hag,"
the cook added, shaking his head. "A veritable entremettreuse-you saw the girl at dinner last night! It
would have served the old cow right if her daughter had married Franz-pardon, Don Fernando...." He
put an ironic twist on the Spanish name. "He would have sent her packing in quick order, back to the
slums from which they both come."
"But would he actually have married the... the young lady?" January asked. "Somehow she does not
seem to me... but then, I know nothing of the family, nothing of the custom of the country. . . ."
"M'sieu," said Guillenormand solemnly, raising his la­dle, "I swear by the Blessed Name of Liberty-the
only true Deity of the Universe-that I have never seen such a household as this one. But as for young
Franz, once his elder brother was dead and he understood that the inheri­tance of lands wider than many
German principalities lay within his grasp, he would have wed anyone his father or­dered him to wed in
spite of all the glares and puffing and comments of that pretty valet of his. Santa Anna's generals are all
borrowing money-some of them at forty-eight per­cent!-to outfit their men for the march to Texas. Don
Fernando would not have been the first man in history," he added, "to marry a midden that he might have
the muck."
"You must have been very shocked at his death."
"M'sieu, after eighteen years in this household, noth­ing can shock me. Name of God," he exclaimed as
yet another form darkened the kitchen door, "what must a man do to ... ? Ah." His voice softened as he