A Bordeaux Dynasty: A Novel

by Françoise Bourdin

  “No,” Jules said quietly. “You know how they are, drowning in details but ignoring the essentials. They’re ten years behind and then they feel sorry for themselves. I hate wasting my time. I have so little of it. … Jesus, why did you open a bottle of Lascombes?”

  She became confused, always a little girl when she felt like he was berating her.

  “It’s my …” she muttered. “Well … if you forgot about it …”

  He stood up, feeling bad, and he put a hand on one of hers.

  “It’s your birthday? I’m so sorry.”

  He raised his glass, giving the Margaux’s distinctive color the look of a connoisseur.

  “This was a great choice,” he said. “The Lascombes is so … feminine! To you, my love. …”

  He took a sip, squinted, and let the wine’s flavor invade him.

  “Marvelous,” he said in an undertone. “That perfect violet taste, exactly as it should be. …”

  He set down his glass and looked at Laurène. She wore a white T-shirt and a short skirt. She was so beautiful, he kicked himself for the umpteenth time for not giving her what she wanted most. He was going to talk to her when Fernande came in, proudly carrying a dish of sea lamprey.

  “A birthday meal,” Laurène said. “Fernande, you’re spoiling us.”

  Jules gave the old lady a smile of gratitude.

  “And I want you to eat for once,” Fernande told Jules. “Not just picking at your food!”

  Jules realized that he was famished all of a sudden, and decided that he was going to take the time to savor this meal. Knowing how attentive Fernande always was to life’s little details, he figured she’d baked a cake and decorated it with twenty-three candles. Jules looked at Laurène again. She was eating with great appetite, enthusiastic and youthful. He regretted having only two hours to spare. She made him happy and he would’ve loved to take her upstairs, but Lucas was already down in the cellar and there was a lot to do, as there was every afternoon.

  “I’m taking you to dinner tonight,” he said to Laurène.

  She chuckled, amused by this impromptu invitation.

  “Where?” she asked. “The Chapon Fin? The Relais Margaux? But, my love, where could we ever go that the food would be better than here?”

  “All right,” Jules said. “Then I want some champagne, foie gras and hot bread on a platter, and we’re going to eat at the foot of our bed! What do you think?”

  He knew that Laurène liked his plan from her happy expression. He knew that life could be monotonous in this austere, albeit grandiose, environment. She must tire sometimes of the chandeliers and woodwork, the double doors that were always open and offered no privacy, all the luxury that was wasted on just the two of them. He glanced at the engagement ring she’d been wearing the past few months. Why wasn’t he able to give up his freedom to be with her once and for all? Why was he always putting off marrying her?

  “What would you like for your birthday?” he asked. “I could take care of that tomorrow afternoon. I have to go to Bordeaux.”

  “A surprise,” she said, looking straight at him. “And no need to go to Bordeaux for that.”

  He didn’t lower his eyes. It was she who finally looked aside. No one could force Jules to change his mind, she knew that perfectly well firsthand. Not wanting to ruin the lunch, she talked about something else.

  Alexandre woke up from his nap with a pasty mouth. He’d had too much to drink at lunch, as always. There was a lot of wine drinking at the Billots’. They didn’t open prestigious vintages like at Fonteyne, but they treated themselves to a variety of delicious wines, without counting the bottles. Dominique was gone, picking up the twins from school. Alexandre shut his eyes. Why bother getting up? He had nothing special to do and no one would get on his case if he remained in bed. Antoine also napped every afternoon, while Marie quietly puttered around downstairs. Alexandre looked around the bedroom. It was small, but bright and cheerful. Nothing about it reminded him of the house he’d lived in back at Fonteyne. Thank God! He’d made sure, when moving, not to take with him anything that belonged to the family. He’d limited himself to his personal belongings and whatever he and Dominique had bought through the years. He’d left the Little House exactly as it had been when his father lent it to him ten years earlier.

  “Hey Alex!” Laurène said as she barged into the room like a tornado. “You were sleeping? I came up to say hi for a second. It’s my birthday!”

  She gave him a peck on the cheek. Her cheerful mood was catching.

  “Your mother fills us like geese,” he joked. “Makes me sleepy. How are you?”

  “Good,” she said. “But bored. We miss you guys.”

  “You miss us, maybe. I’d be surprised if the same were true of Jules.”

  He said that with such hostility that she didn’t insist. She knew all about Alex’s bitterness and the years of submission that had caused it.

  “Still no wedding date?” he asked meanly. “If you don’t shake him up a bit, you’ll never see the inside of that church!”

  Alexandre chuckled, but Laurène shook her head, annoyed. She left the room and went downstairs to chat with her mother while waiting for Dominique’s return. She often came by in the afternoon, to talk freely with her mother and sister. At Fonteyne, Fernande was so busy she only half-listened, and then asked Laurène questions she wasn’t able to answer, about menus, beddings, tablecloths, kitchen supplies, flowers, household tasks. Laurène was completely overwhelmed by such matters.

  “When I imagine the two of you alone over there,” Marie said, as she made a fresh pot of coffee, “it seems odd.”

  “The mornings are the worst,” Laurène said. “Jules gets up before dawn and he checks out the vineyards or the cellar. You know how he is. And Fernande doesn’t arrive until seven. And so for a while, I’m the only one in that castle. It’s kind of spooky.”

  Marie began to laugh. She lovingly caressed her daughter’s hair.

  “You hide under the blankets?” she asked.

  “No, I tell Botty to jump on the bed and keep me company!”

  Laurène giggled like a little girl.

  For years, Jules’s dog had slept on the floor and, of course, he was only too happy to join Laurène on the bed, when she called him up. Becoming serious again, Marie set a cup down in front of Laurène, frowning. Her youngest daughter was as fragile as ever, as naïve as she’d been as a teenager. When looking at her, it was unthinkable that she could be responsible for the Fonteyne household. She sat down and poured some coffee for the two of them. No need to pester Laurène about the wedding. If a date had been determined, Laurène would’ve announced it right away. Jules’s hesitations worried Marie, but she thought it best not to talk about now. She did know that Laurène would do anything to keep Jules, as she’d struggled so much to win him over in the first place.

  “You love him, don’t you?” Marie asked softly.

  Laurène looked at her mother with glistening eyes.

  “Like crazy,” she sighed.

  Jules was everything to her, he always had been. Marie remembered Laurène’s fits of anger, her despair, everything she’d done to win him over. This great childhood love of hers was the only struggle she’d ever had to face, the only future she’d ever wanted.

  “We’re going to marry after the harvest,” the young woman suddenly blurted out.

  Marie immediately understood that Laurène had felt the need to tell her about this setback. And she needed advice and encouragement from her mother.

  “It’s a little … late,” she said softly. “You guys should hurry up and start a family and fill that old castle with kids!”

  She smiled lovingly at Laurène, trying to convey something to her.

  She added, “I think that Jules is going to be a marvelous father. You know how much the twins adore him. He must be dying to be a dad. Jules received a lot from Aurélien. … He’s got to have a lot to give. …”

  Laurène held her mot
her’s gaze for a few moments. The message was clear. She was about to say something when Dominique appeared in the kitchen. The two sisters hugged each other.

  “You guys are drinking coffee?” Dominique asked, indignant. “But it’s my little sister’s birthday, if I remember correctly! How about we open a bottle of champagne so we can toast her, just us girls?”

  Laurène gave her a grateful smile. Dominique always knew what to do, under any circumstances. And that meant, in this instance, not inviting Alex to join them. She’d already made a few comments about her husband drinking a bit too much since they’d moved to Mazion.

  “How’s Jules doing?” Dominique asked, in a neutral voice.

  She wished she could get the two brothers to make up but had no idea how to go about it.

  “Jules is still doing great, thank God! Except that he’s more and more swamped with work, and he’s worried about reestablishing the estate’s financial balance, and …”

  Embarrassed, Laurène interrupted herself, thinking of the situation—the complicated inheritance issues, the three other brothers’ rights, Jules being the sole master of Fonteyne, and Alex being exiled here.

  Dominique sat at the table and began serving the champagne.

  “If you ask me,” she said, “Jules really should tell Alex about his intentions. He’s been feeling rejected and disrespected for too long.”

  As Marie expected, Laurène immediately jumped to Jules’s defense.

  “It’s very complicated,” she blurted out. “Jules and his notary have endless conversations concerning the worth of the stock, the percentage of the shares, how the payments are going to be spread out, all that stuff. … You know full well that nobody is going to get screwed over!”

  “That’s not what I’m saying. I know Jules’s virtues as well as his faults. I’m not personally losing any sleep over this. And I know that Louis-Marie and Robert also trust him completely. But Alex … Let’s just say that he’d like to know what’s going on. He would’ve liked to have been a part of those meetings with the notary.”

  “Alex left slamming the door!” Laurène said. “Jules considered it treason. A sort of desertion.”

  “No,” Alex said, “it was liberation!”

  He was standing at the kitchen door, looking furious. He walked to the table and gestured at the champagne glasses.

  “You guys are drinking without me?”

  Resigned, Dominique poured him a glass.

  Alex turned to Laurène, towering over her.

  “That boyfriend of yours was only too happy to see us go. I have no illusions about that. …”

  The word boyfriend fluttered in the air between them for a moment. Alex’s hostility hurt Laurène.

  “That’s not true,” she said, vehemently. “He misses you. He can’t accomplish by himself what the three of you used to do.”

  “Still, that’s what he wanted, to have Fonteyne all to himself and not answer to anybody. When Dad was around, he was calm and respectful. He played the part of model son so that he’d eventually inherit the entire estate. Obviously, he got his wish!”

  “You have no right to say things like that,” Laurène said with anger.

  Alex took it badly. “No right?” he said.

  He downed his glass of champagne, sneezed because of the bubbles, and took a deep breath.

  “Jules was adopted. He’s the one with no rights. Fonteyne is ours, even though Louis-Marie and Robert are too stupid to care. The last few months of his life, Dad was sick and his mind wasn’t as sharp, and Jules took advantage of that. But I don’t have to accept it. There are laws, and they have to be respected. Varin isn’t a reliable notary. He’s always cowed to Jules. How do I know that all the clauses in the will are really ironclad?”

  A heavy silence fell on the kitchen. Dominique looked at her husband in disbelief. Some of the blood had drained from Marie’s face. What she’d always feared was happening. Alexandre had been looking for trouble since his father’s death. He never would’ve dared standing up to Aurélien, but now Aurélien was gone. Moreover, since he didn’t live under Jules’s roof anymore, he’d stopped fearing him. He now thought he could take on his brother. Marie knew that Alex wasn’t fond enough of vineyards to actually miss his. His frustration had nothing to do with the land, but rather a feeling of jealousy, the impression that he, as always, had been forced to shut up and bow his head when the will was read. It tortured him now. Thirty years earlier, before Jules’s adoption, Alexandre was the youngest, the baby. And then Aurélien had abruptly imposed that little brown-haired boy on his wife and sons. Alex suffered a great deal from being displaced. After that, he hadn’t been able to beat Jules’s know-how, his formidable knowledge of wine production, his infallible instincts when it came to the crops. Every day he’d witnessed the special bond between Jules and Aurélien, their constant complicity, their agreement on everything that had to do with Fonteyne. He knew they loved each other intensely, and that had made him immensely bitter. All the more since he didn’t feel like he had what it took to compete with Jules. And his adoptive brother’s occasional efforts to humor him had only added fuel to the fire.

  Marie stared at her son-in-law. Something in him had changed these past few weeks. He used to be a nice man, on the bland side. Now, he was overtaken by his rancor, to the point where he was almost scary. An open war between him and Jules would be the very worst thing that could happen to both families. Dominique and Laurène would inevitably bear the brunt of it.

  Sensing that Marie’s eyes were fixed on him, he turned to her. Though Marie’s gentle demeanor was disarming, Alexandre kept his hard expression.

  In a soft voice, Marie said, “One must always respect the wishes of the dead.”

  Alex shrugged. Even in this kitchen, in Mazion, he was in the minority, he was being judged.

  “I’m sick of all of you!”

  He got up and left the room, leaving the three women extremely worried.

  Jules watched the automobile take off. He turned to Lucas.

  “I’ll never get used to it,” he said with anger. “Some people’s nerve is just unbelievable!”

  He did not tolerate intrusions on his property, and he had no intention of changing his attitude about it. Many trespassers simply ignored the “Private Property” signs, and Jules was always ready to get in their way himself, physically.

  “We’re going to have to put up with that for the next six months,” Lucas said, with a sigh.

  The flood of tourists, more and more prevalent with each passing year, was becoming a plague for wine producers. Some of the tourists even seemed to think that a free sample was a given at every estate. Their ignorance and arrogance made Jules’s blood boil.

  “I think that we have the right height. …” he said, his gaze sweeping across the seemingly endless fields.

  He’d already forgotten about the car and the German couple. He began to walk down a row, inspecting one vine stock after another. He’d spent so much time trimming them with Lucas, as they did each spring, that he was almost surprised that they were done with the long task.

  “I wanted to tell you …” Lucas began to say, from behind him.

  Jules stopped in his tracks, surprised by his cellar master’s hesitant tone. He took out his pack of cigarettes, waiting for Lucas to go on.

  “There’s been an awful lot of work to do around here since Alex left … and your father’s passing …”

  It was a beautiful day, the air crisp. Ideal weather for April. Jules took a drag off his cigarette.

  “I’m listening,” he said, to make Lucas understand that beating around the bush wasn’t necessary.

  “I’d like a raise,” Lucas blurted out. Relieved at having spoken out, he looked at Jules.

  “You think that the timing is right?”

  Lucas frowned. “As a matter of fact,” he said, “I think this would be the time to hire another guy. But I know you can’t do that right now.”

  “You’
re right about that. There’s Aurélien’s will and … my brothers. I can’t increase costs at the moment. I’ve got huge expenses to deal with because of the modernization that I wanted, that you wanted, and that Aurélien had consented to. … Someone else to assist us would be ideal, but I can’t. As for you … Your salary, it’s not enough?”

  Lucas had always been paid very handsomely. Jules was also a salaried employee, as the estate director, as prearranged by Aurélien.

  “You don’t have to pay Alexandre anymore,” Lucas said. “And though he wasn’t exactly a wizard, I still miss him. We’re splitting his workload, you and I. You know what they say: Hard work deserves a reward. I’m not twenty anymore.”

  “You can’t wait just a little while?” Jules asked, calmly.

  “No.”

  Stubborn, Lucas didn’t lower his eyes. He felt he was in the right on this. Jules meticulously put out his cigarette on the sole of his boot. He knew he had no choice. Lucas hadn’t received a raise in a long time and he was a terrific cellar master.

  “You got it,” Jules said.

  Then he turned around and started to walk again. Lucas, puzzled, let him take a few steps before reacting. He’d expected a difficult discussion, possibly a heated argument, since it was well known that Jules hated to give in, and rarely did.

  “Wait!” he shouted.

  He caught up with Jules, a bit winded, and walked with him.

  “It’s not that I want to break the bank,” he muttered, “but look around you. You’re not exactly poor.”

  Jules broke into his signature laughter.

  “You neither,” he said. “I’m going to give you a raise, but don’t think you can play that game again anytime soon.”

  Not able to hold it back, Lucas asked, “If it’s impossible, why did you agree?”

  Jules stopped and turned to Lucas. Both were now face-to-face. Any trace of cheerfulness was gone from Jules’s face.

  “I agreed because I really can’t get by without you, and you know it. I agreed because it’s true that a little more, a little less, we’re not going go under because of that. And I agreed because I’m alone, Lucas. All alone.”