The Wolf Gift Read Online Free PDF Page A

swimming pool, actually dripping purple petals into the water, just a whole sweep of purple petals on the water, and I thought it was the loveliest thing.”
    “You should have a house like this, you know,” she said. A shadow darkened her face, but only for a second. Then she smiled again and squeezed his hand.
    They only glanced into the white-paneled music room. The floor there was white-painted wood, and the grand piano, Marchent said, had been long ago ruined by the damp and taken away. “These painted walls in here, all this came right out of some house in France.”
    “I can believe it,” he said admiring the deeply carved borders andfaded floral decorations. Now, this was something Celeste would approve of, because Celeste loved music, and often played the piano when she was alone. She didn’t attach much importance to her own playing, but now and then Reuben had awakened to hear her playing the small spinet in her apartment. Yes, this she would like.
    The great shadowy dining room was a surprise.
    “This isn’t a dining room,” he declared. “It’s a banquet room, a mead hall, to say the very least.”
    “Oh, indeed, it used to be a ballroom in the old days,” Marchent said. “The whole country round came to the balls here. There was a ball even when I was a child.”
    The dark paneling prevailed here as in the great room, as lustrous and beautiful under a high-coffered ceiling of myriad plaster squares scoring a ceiling painted dark blue with bright stars. It was a bold decoration. And it worked.
    His heart was beating.
    They made their way to the table. It was easily twenty feet long and yet it seemed small in this great space, floating on the dark polished floor.
    They sat down opposite each other in red velvet high-backed chairs.
    Two massive black wooden hunters’ boards stood against the wall behind Marchent, both identically carved with rich Renaissance figures, hunters with their retinue, and piled with heavy silver platters and goblets and stacks of what appeared to be yellow linen, napkins perhaps.
    Other imposing pieces loomed in the shadow, what seemed an immense armoire, and a number of old chests.
    The fireplace was huge and Gothic, of black marble and replete with solemn-faced helmeted medieval knights. The hearth was high with a medieval battle scene carved in its base. Now surely Reuben would get a well-illuminated photograph of that.
    Two baroque candelabra provided the only light, other than the crackling fire.
    “You look like a prince at this table,” Marchent said with a light laugh. “You look as if you belong.”
    “You have to be teasing me,” he said, “and you look like the grand duchess in this candlelight. I think we are in a Viennese hunting lodge here, not in California at all.”
    “You’ve been to Vienna?”
    “Many times,” he said. He thought of Phil leading him throughMaria Theresa’s palace there, discoursing on everything from the painted walls to the great ornate enameled stoves. Yes, Phil would love this place. Phil would understand.
    They dined on old lavishly painted china, some of it chipped, but still incomparable. And the silver was the heaviest he’d ever used.
    Felice, a small shrunken woman with white hair and very dark skin, came and went without a word. “The girl” from the village—Nina—was a robust brown-haired little person who seemed a bit in awe of Marchent, the dining room, and every plate she brought to the table on a silver charger. Amid nervous giggles and sighs, she grinned at Reuben as she hurried out of the room.
    “You have a fan,” Marchent whispered.
    The filet roast was perfect, the vegetables extraordinarily fresh and crisp, and the salad perfectly done with light oil and herbs.
    Reuben drank a little more of the red wine than he planned to drink, but it was so smooth, and had that dark smoky taste he associated entirely with the best vintages. He really didn’t know wine.
    He was eating like a pig. That’s what he