Eclipse

Abstract

On the first day of autumn, in the rear courtyard of the Léger estate, Yvette Mongrain was scrubbing down the glass tables and wrought iron chairs that had been trucked in from Paris the morning before and arranged across the flagstones. Already the wind was on the rise, whirling through the vine-strangled trellis above Yvette's head, sketching waves on the koi pond, as it prepared its assault on the mustached men and sparkling-necked women who, in just seven hours, would mill about the courtyard, shaking and kissing each others' hands. By the time the foie gras and oysters had been served and the wild boar rolled out from the house on its bed of braised endive, the women's shoulders would have erupted in goose bumps above their silk bodices and their husband's noses gone pink at the ends. Yet none of them, Yvette thought as she laid aside her rag to scrape off a belligerent splotch of magpie dung, would request the wraps and overcoats hanging inside the house. The rich never admitted to growing hungry or lonely or cold.