“It doesn’t,” Captain Hardy lied.
But then Daniel saw Mr. Delacorte.
He’d stared at him at length, with rapt, open-mouthed fascination, eyes alight with glee.
Such that Mr. Delacorte could not resist shooting a slightly smug look at the other men.
He’d bent to Daniel’s height. “How do you do, young man?” he said cheerily. “I’m Mr. Delacorte!”
Daniel thrust out his belly, crossed his eyes, and bellowed, “?’OW do you do! I’m Mr. Dewwacorte!”
Then he’d laughed uproariously.
Mr. Delacorte had staggered backward.
It was admittedly very funny the first four or five times Daniel did it, for Mr. Delacorte’s expression alone.
“Isn’t it fascinating?” Mrs. Pariseau said brightly, after Daniel had been taken off to bed that first night. “It’s how children that age learn language, I suppose. Through repetition!”
But Daniel seemed to eke as much joy from it the forty-seventh time he said it as the first. It was apparently the very height of four-year-old comedy. Mr. Delacorte was obviously the funniest thing he’d ever seen in his life.
Everyone soon learned that this was not, alas, his only favorite thing to say.
Since that first night, all of his visits to the sitting room had been brief and harrowing as squalls.
Mrs. Peck released her son’s hand and settled into a chair near Dot and Mrs. Pariseau.
Daniel immediately strutted across the room. “?’ow do you do! I’m Mr. Dewwacorte!” He beat his puffed-out belly like a drum.
Mr. Delacorte regarded Daniel with a fixed, thoughtful expression that suggested he was imagining the child turning on a spit.
“Daniel, Mr. Delacorte doesn’t like that,” his mother said absently. She had settled in with an embroidery hoop.
The implication that Mr. Delacorte was the only one who didn’t “like that” was almost funny.
“I want blancmange,” Daniel replied to his mother in an exaggerated French accent:Blahhhmajjjj.
A slight rustling meant all the adults in the room were tensing for what they knew came next.
“The tart with dinner was nice, wasn’t it, Daniel?” The Peck family had taken their meals in their suite this evening. “Helga is such a wonderful cook.” Mrs. Peck said this warmly to Mrs. Durand and Mrs. Hardy, who offered her strained smiles.
“Blaaaaaahmaaaaaaaaaj,” Daniel replied, his mouth open as wide as he could stretch it. “Blahmaaaaaaaaaj,” he bleated like a sheep. “Blah ma ahahahahaj.” He giggled.
He’d clearly heard the word somewhere and cherished it.
Daniel’s “blancmange” record was thirteen times in one evening. Mrs. Pariseau had counted them to keep from going mad. A bit like a prisoner scratching the days off on a cell wall.
His mother seemed remarkably deaf to his foibles, in the way of all people accustomed to living with a ceaseless ambient sound, such as the distant gunfire of a constant battle.
Whispered conversations among Delilah and Angelique and their husbands had taken place about whether they ought to have a word about all of this with his mother. But he was a child; surely certain indulgences ought to be made? A new baby had disrupted Daniel’s life. He was probably just bored. The discussions had been inconclusive, as of yet.
An anticipatory hush fell when Daniel meandered over to Mr. Marchand.
At whom he stared unabashedly.
Mr. Marchand finally put his book down and returned the child’s unblinking regard.
Ginny held her breath. Surely Daniel would be devastated by Mr. Marchand’s burning gaze. She braced herself for the child’s roars of dismay.