Bennett Sisters Mysteries Volume 5 & 6

by Lise McClendon

  The man sitting opposite Merle at the next table kept looking at them, making her uncomfortable. Was he suspicious of English-speakers? Although he didn’t look particularly old and had all his hair, his face was hard. On one cheek a scar ran from just below his eye to his jawline. Merle’s imagination went into overdrive: how had it happened? A knife fight? A war wound? Why hadn’t he had some cosmetic work done? Was it a badge of honor?

  Pascal reached for her hand under the table. He squeezed it as if saying: Come back. Had she been staring? Oh, dear. It was hard to take your eyes off that horrible scar.

  Tristan was still talking. Albert looked off over the hills, twirling the stem of his wine glass philosophically. Was something on his mind? He seemed different this year. He was older of course, his white hair thinner. He always seemed so vibrant and engaged in life. It worried Merle seeing him like this. It was like when he got bashed on the head by burglars. He seemed back to normal last summer.

  Tristan asked him about the fencing club. It took him a minute to respond, still daydreaming, staring into space. “Albert?” Tristan asked again.

  “Ah, oui, it goes well. This summer not so many boys but we always have our ups and our downs.”

  “Any girls?” Tristan asked.

  Albert turned toward him then. “Eh?”

  “Any girls in the club this summer?”

  “Les jeunes filles, yes! There are three sisters, little stair-steps. Also from Paris, like Valerie.” He mimed their heights. “Seven, ten, and thirteen. Not very good but oh well.” Albert squinted at Tristan. “You will come, yes? Maybe help me this year with the little ones?”

  “Oh, I— “ Tristan looked surprised.

  “He’d love to help, Albert,” Merle said. “He doesn’t have too much time but I’m sure he can squeeze in an hour or two.”

  Albert slapped Tris on the back. “Parfait!”

  Tristan shot his mother a look then smiled at the old man. Merle knew she’d hear about this later. The three men at the next table declined dessert and left. They must not know about Les Saveurs’ amazing pastries. The man with the scar looked at her with his flinty eyes as he rose to leave. Was she staring again? Blast.

  Pascal eyed the dessert menu. “Who will share something chocolat with me?”

  They all walked Albert home, down the next street over from Rue de Poitiers. The evening was warm, the stars bright. Merle wanted to ask him if he knew who the man with the scar was but it didn’t seem like the time. Albert was tired. Why it seemed urgent to her was confusing. Until she dreamed about Odette again that night.

  She’d been writing notes in her journal, scribbles really. Nothing more. She could see the beginning of the story in a vague, misty-mind way. Was that enough to start? She had no idea. She hadn’t even read a book about writing a novel. It was dumb, she knew, but she hadn’t had the time. She took out her phone and searched online for something appropriate. Tristan and Pascal were outside, rebuilding the pear tree lattice and trimming dead branches in the dark.

  This man with the scar— could he be in the story? He was memorable. She couldn’t keep her eyes off his deformity, which was embarrassing. But it was more than that. Something else.

  Pascal came inside and dragged her upstairs to bed. It was late, after midnight, but as they made love she felt energized and alive, the way he always made her feel. Loved and even adored.

  And yet her mind drifted back to the Revolution, to Odette, her little goat-herder.

  Odette and the Great Fear

  part one

  As they rounded the hillside, the fifteen goats in their patchy black and white coats, their bells jingling around their necks, Odette felt her stomach clench and she doubled over in pain. She had been hungry so long. Her insides had shrunk to nothing and her clothes hung on her like sacks.

  Now she had food. Bread even, a miracle. She patted the parcel slung across her shoulders, the hunk of hard bread, the bruised apple, the bit of cheese. It was a miracle, this food, but one her stomach wasn’t prepared for. Her body had prepared for the end, for starvation, for no more sustenance. Shutting down the juices, she called it. When food came again, so unexpectedly, her body didn’t know what to do.

  Her mind did. Drink some water from the goatskin. She obeyed her mind, hoping the pains would go away soon. She’d been in the southwest now for two months, after the long and dangerous journey from Paris. Along the way she’d seen so much deprivation: dead children, wandering women out of their minds, men in fancy silks chased by peasants with pitchforks. She tried not to think of it. Instead she concentrated on the kindness of the family who had taken her in, given her work. They gave her food and a reason to keep living.

  The autumn was coming but slowly. She wished she knew how to find the famed truffles under the ground, or had a pig to do the digging. She poked her staff into the dirt under the oak tree. How did the pigs smell through all that dirt? It was a mystery.

  Not much sustenance in a stinky truffle but some cash perhaps. She had exactly two sous to her name, sewn into her skirt hem. Once, with her family in Paris, there had been plenty of food and even money for sweets. Her father knew a sugar importer but the man had disappeared, arrested and sent to prison by the revolutionaries. Her father was also a merchant, had been forced to house so many rebels in their modest townhouse that the brigands stole or broke everything of value. He and Odette’s mother had fled to the north, to the coast, where it was said one could subsist on fish and pears.

  She tapped the upturned tails of the goats, moving them around the hill. Why had she not gone with them? She missed her parents but it was time. She was grown now. Everything was changing in Paris. Life would never be the same. She begged to stay behind and then that decision turned against her.

  Below the hill were vineyards already yellowing with autumn. The harvest was poor, she’d been told. The weather had been odd since the mountain had blown up in Iceland, a volcano sending ash and clouds to cover the usual sunshine. Although years had passed, the countryside had still not recovered. The weather had changed. Wheat had withered and died. Odette had heard of people eating potatoes but the thought of it was repugnant. Bread was the engine that ran France. For bread, wheat was necessary.

  Then came the Great Fear. The people of Paris became hungry then alarmed. The nobles were trying to starve them out, hoarding wheat or burning it so that the paysans, the common man, would die. Would not have the strength to rise up in anger. Was it true? She didn’t know but it didn’t matter. The panic seized them all.

  Odette had marched with the other women to Versailles, to tell the King to stop the nobles’ evil plan. It took them two long days to walk from Paris in the crowd. At first, they had been full of indignation and fury. Then they were hungry and their feet were bleeding. After arriving at the magnificent palace they still had to walk home.

  She looked down at her feet now, in the yellow grass of the hillside. Her shoes had worn through four times as she walked south. She lined them with paper, strapped them with twine. Finally, they fell completely apart. These boots were a gift from the family who had rescued her. They were too small and pinched her toes but she didn’t complain.

  Paris seemed so far away. Occasionally a tax collector would come by the village and give them news of events there. But mostly they lived out their country lives like they had for generations here, raising chickens, picking fruit, milking goats. It was both a blessing and a curse to be so far from Paris. Country people could be so insular, so ignorant of events that would overtake them if they weren’t careful.

  She looked at the sky. It was later than she thought, she must have been daydreaming again. A dark cloud was headed for her hill, and it wasn’t far away. A gust of wind smelled like rain. The goats jerked their heads up in alarm. Two suddenly bolted down the hill, causing the others to panic and follow. Odette swore, calling to them to stop as she ran after them.

  Goats did not like to follow orders. This was something she’d learned
in the last two months. Through the vineyard rows she ran after them. They split up, going in several directions, bleating loudly. The hill flattened out for awhile then she realized it dipped down again. The goats disappeared over the edge, kicking up their heels in the chase.

  The heavens opened, a hard, cold rain falling. Bits of ice mixed with raindrops. They pelted her arms, her head. Odette had never heard of ice falling from clouds before. Damn Iceland! She felt sure it was the end of the world.

  Through the rain she saw the old chateau ahead. It was rumored to be vacant, that le comte or his son or someone had gone to Paris for the revolution and never returned. The peasants wanted his property, that was evident. They wanted him to be sent to the gallows or whatever new death sentence the rebels dreamed up. The guillotine, that was it. They hoped he was now headless and they could take his land. It wasn’t an original idea.

  She ran under an arch, a carriage porte of some sort, huge stone thing. She had to huddle against the main wall of the chateau, in the door frame, to get out of the rain. It slanted in with such velocity, kicking up pebbles and ice. She was drenched to the skin, shivering.

  And the goats were lost.

  Oh, mon Dieu, how would she explain this? She had to find the goats. But in this rain? This strange icy storm of autumn?

  She took strong breaths to calm herself. The shivering continued. She wrung out her skirt hem and her cuffs. Then, without warning, the door she was leaning against opened, sending her tumbling backwards into the chateau.

  Six

  Malcouziac

  Merle put the cap back on her pen. The rock she was sitting on at the chateau was hard and she couldn’t write any longer. She stood up, stretched, and took another look around the old walls. The roof had fallen in ages ago but the rough outlines of the original building remained. If only they could talk. She wandered through the empty spaces, the grass growing up through cracks in the stone floors. Why had it been abandoned? So many grand houses had been restored, or made into museums. Chateau Biron, not far from here, was a grand old place, fit for a lord, or a romantic poet. But not this one.

  She closed her eyes and tried to imagine what Odette might have found here in 1793. Scenes swirled in her head, from old movies, from photographs, from somewhere inside her head. She was lost for a moment in her dreams then jerked awake. She looked at her watch, time for the insurance adjustor. She had just enough time to walk home, if she hurried.

  She looked at the sky, cloudless and blue, the picture of summer.

  No ice from the sky today, Odette.

  The insurance adjustor was not pleased.

  Her name was Madame Vaux. She carried a large black handbag and had the look of the permanently displeased: a flushed face with loose jowls, lank hair dyed almost purple but not quite, and small, hard eyes. When Merle arrived she was standing in front of the house, glaring at Tristan. He had a bucket of water and a rag in his hands. He’d been washing the windows on the front door, his shorts sudsy and damp.

  “What’s she saying?” he asked Merle when Madame Vaux barked at him.

  “Something about waiting until she’d seen the damage.”

  M. Vaux turned to stare at Merle then. “You are American?”

  “Oui, madame.” Merle smiled. “You speak English. Thank you. My French is not the best.”

  “Still, you have a house in France. You need to be learning the language.”

  “Yes. Oui.” French lessons were on her list.

  “Is this the damage then? This— paint?”

  “There is a little more in the back,” Merle said. She led the woman back through the house. Her high heels clacked on the floors. Madame Vaux’s age was a mystery, somewhere between 35 and 70.

  When they reached the garden, Merle explained that her table and two chairs, plus two lounge chairs, had been stolen. She opened her list on her phone of the broken items, dead plants, and general trash. The adjustor looked around the yard, walking carefully in her stilettos, and turned suddenly when Merle finished.

  “That is all?” she asked sharply.

  “Also, the gate, madame. It was forced open. It needs repair and will require a new lock.”

  Madame didn’t bother to look where Merle pointed. She had a small notebook out and scribbled in it with a yellow pencil, pausing to lick the point now and then. Merle was quiet, letting her work. Finally, Madame Vaux lowered her hands and grimaced.

  “Madame Bennett, you have a policy which does not cover outdoor furniture at all. You left your belongings in the yard all year, yes? Without covering or protection?”

  “The gate was protection.”

  “But not much, eh? The jumping over the wall takes a moment. However, the cleaning of the front of the house will require professional work. Not a boy with a bucket.”

  “I understand.”

  Madame Vaux stepped closer to Merle. “This will not please you, nor does it please me. But, what can I say? It is business. The professional cleaning will be close to seven-thousand euros. The workers bring a— what do you call it? The shooting of the sand against the rock. It is expensive. But you have a ten-thousand euro franchise, ah, how do you say? Deductible on your policy, madame.”

  Merle squinted at the woman. “So, nothing?”

  “Rien. Dommage.” The woman sighed dramatically, as if she was so very sorry when obviously she was just saving the company a lot of money. “If you had called me first, madame, and told me the items of destruction you were claiming, I could have avoided making the trip from Bergerac. In the heat of the day.” She threw her notebook in her handbag and snapped it shut. “Now, is there somewhere pleasant for a woman to eat in this village? Do you eat French food? I suppose you would like a McDo, wouldn’t you? All those greasy hamburgers—“ she shuddered, repulsed— “are not for the French.”

  Merle opened the garden gate and told her about a fictional place in the center of the village. She closed the gate with a bang as Madame Vaux wobbled down the alley in her heels. Merle leaned against the wooden gate and closed her eyes. Maybe she’d never understand the French. Maybe they were just as annoying and diverse as Americans. Maybe there was no ‘bonne civilisation’ or whatever they prided themselves on as French culture.

  Tristan’s voice came from the house. “Can I keep going now? Is she gone?”

  “Yes,” Merle called back. “Carry on.”

  She sat on the wall under the acacia tree. She knew exactly how much money was in her savings account. Not enough to cover a professional sand-blasting clean-up. There had to be another way. Ladders? Scrub brushes? Chemicals? She shuddered at the thought.

  Odette’s adventures bounced around her mind, keeping her from caring much about house cleaning. France was a royal mess back in the revolutionary days. It almost ceased to exist. Except for some fancy-pants intellectuals it probably would have fallen apart. Napoleon wasn’t much help either. For a merchant’s daughter with no means of support, no friends in the countryside, it must have been horrifying.

  Merle couldn’t wait to get back to her story. She considered running away again but this house needed her. Tristan needed her guidance. He had only a couple days left before they took him to Paris. And from there, home. These last days had been bittersweet, dinners with Pascal and Tristan, walks in the countryside, wine, plus chores of course. Tristan wouldn’t miss her massive to-do lists in college.

  The old stone pissoir, an outhouse with a sordid past, stood squat and solid, ready for a new future. It would make the cutest laundry room if she could figure out how to get water and sewer and electricity to it. No small feat and sure to be expensive. Everything on her list had a price bigger than she imagined. The gutters were a mess. The window frames were splintering. The door shutters were toast.

  She eyed the huge old water cistern. Should she take it down? And how? It was enormous, standing on ten-foot legs, reaching up to the second floor eaves. She stood to go examine it just as Pascal stuck his head out the kitchen door, waving a b
aguette.

  “Good news, chérie! I am chef tonight.”

  Seven

  Paris

  On the train to Paris a few days later, students and tourists chattered, exclaiming about the countryside or staring at their phones. Merle sat across from Pascal, their knees touching. He had surprised them by coming along on these last three days for Tristan in France. Tris was over the moon, talking animatedly with the Frenchman, waving his hands around like a real European. It made Merle smile to see them together.

  Pascal had been busy somewhere most of the time they’d been in Malcouziac. She never asked him about his work, most of it was undercover and he couldn’t talk about it. She wondered, of course, who he was when he was on the job, what lies he had to tell, what roles he had to play. He’d played a roofer very well in the past, she knew that personally. What other professions did he know? Who did he charm?

  Merle smiled at herself. Her imagination was running wild. This writing thing had made her suspect everyone and their motives. Bad Merle. She didn’t like to live her life that way, especially with Pascal.

  Before they left she had tried to contact Josephine, the elderly woman who had tended her garden for the last two winters. She had lived in Merle’s house once upon a time, before the war. If nothing else, Merle needed to get the key to the garden gate as hers was now AWOL with the vandals.