Later that day, once work was ended and the winery was cleaner than it had ever been, or at least Fen thought so, she started working out how she should act towards James. No one else at the château had seen her talking to him after the funeral, so it was left up to her to play her role as she wished. Should she be icily cold or Britishly chummy? The thought only occurred to her as she was leaving the fields that the family themselves might be wondering how to react to him, too. Word had swept around the town, or so she had heard from some of the other vineyard workers, of James’s innocence and that Clément had made it clear that he was still welcome to live and work there.
As it happened, the atmosphere in the kitchen that evening was somewhat leaden. Fen walked in to see Sophie standing by the stove, leaning on a cane as she stirred a pot, while Clément and the two young boys played dominoes at the table. The heavy tread of boots on the stone steps announced the arrival of James and Hubert into the kitchen and Fen noticed that Sophie’s back stiffened while she stirred.
‘Evening all,’ James greeted the room and accepted a warm handshake from Clément as he sat at the table.
‘It’s good to have you back,’ the old man let his hand go, but before he turned his attention back to his grandsons, he added, ‘I was sure it wasn’t you.’
Fen looked at Sophie, who seemed to be glaring at the casserole in front of her as if it had personally insulted her. She turned and caught Fen looking at her.
‘What was I supposed to think?’ the Frenchwoman muttered, directing her question to Fen, who couldn’t do much more than shrug. ‘I found his capsule, broken and used!’ She passed a pewter dish of cabbage and ham to Fen to place on the table.
‘You could have given me a chance to explain,’ James spoke up from where he was sitting. ‘If you’d asked, I could have told you that it had been sto—’
Sophie raised her hand to silence him. Fen looked from one to the other and wondered if any sort of apology or truce would be forthcoming. Before either James or Sophie could say another word though, there was a clattering in the hallway and moments later Estelle walked in.
‘Where have you been?’ a fractious Sophie asked, leaning heavily on her walking stick as she stirred the pot of beans and mutton with the other hand. ‘I had to get the dinner on myself!’
‘I’m sorry, madame, I was waylaid.’
‘By that pharmacist?’
‘Madame, do not be cross with me. It is your fault I am late. I had to wait while he wrote this note to you.’
‘To me?’ Sophie’s interest was obviously piqued, so much so that she ignored Estelle’s rudeness towards her, and Fen watched as she took the proffered note from the maid’s outstretched hand.
Estelle bustled around thereafter, putting her pinny on and rubbing the cheeks of the little boys, who were already stuffing their faces with bread crusts.
‘Just a bill.’ Sophie needlessly declared to the room, as no one present, excepting the naturally curious Fen, could care less about the note between the pharmacist and his client. Fen tried to concentrate on laying the table but saw how Sophie slipped the note into her apron. Bills, like death and taxes, seemed to stop for no man, or war, or period of mourning, and despite her frosty countenance towards James, Fen felt sorry for the widow, who now had the world, or at least the running of the estate, resting squarely on her shoulders.
‘I think we need something to cheer us up,’ Sophie announced later that evening as she pulled a thick thread through the toe of a sock. The early-evening meal was over and Clément, James and Hubert had decided to go and visit Hubert’s house in the town to see if it was in need of any repairs since the Weinführer had left. Fen wondered if that was only a pretext to escape the obvious atmosphere in the kitchen that had built up over the meal, but, whatever the reason, the ladies were left to amuse themselves in the château. Estelle was back downstairs, having put the quarrelsome pair of boys to bed, and was now washing up the supper dishes in the old ceramic sink, stalwartly ignoring the obvious yelps and shouts coming from the boys’ bedroom, the noise echoing down the spiral stone stairs of the tower.
‘Good idea, madame,’ Estelle was the first to go along with Sophie’s suggestion, wiping her hands dry on her apron as she turned to face her mistress properly.
‘What do you propose?’ Fen was tending to the stove, using a cast-iron riddler to help the ashes fall down to the collecting pan that sat at the bottom.
‘If I get us some blackberries and apples, we can have a proper pudding tomorrow night. Maybe Fen can make us an English-style, what do you all them? A croo… a crube…’
‘A strüdel?’ Estelle ventured.
‘No.’ Sophie gave her an odd look. ‘It’s an English dessert… croom…’
‘A crumble?’ Fen guessed it. ‘Yes, of course.’
‘That’s it! I’ll find the ingredients tomorrow. I think we could all do with a treat.’
‘How will you manage, madame?’ Estelle pointed towards Sophie’s foot, which was hoiked up on a stool, alongside several pairs of socks waiting their turn to be darned.
‘Eh la, you are right, Estelle. I forget that I am completely useless now.’ Sophie emphatically put her darning down into her lap, as if to show how stapled to the spot she was. Then she started sniffling. ‘It’s just that, since Pierre died, I have only been out of the house to go to his funeral and I feel so stifled here.’
Fen started to feel a bit awkward, never one for being the best at comforting people, especially crying women. Still, she decided a mere twisted ankle shouldn’t stop Sophie from getting some fresh air. ‘I’ll help you. I mean, tomorrow, you can lean on me and we’ll go together?’
Sophie looked up at Fen and smiled beatifically. Estelle, on the other hand, had a face like thunder and Fen realised that the other woman had wished she’d had the idea first and had won herself a morning away from her chores. Fen thought it suited no one for the atmosphere to remain so strained, so suggested a quick game of cards before bed. She hadn’t banked on the two French ladies being so keen on some very competitive whist and soon Fen was twenty matchsticks down and staring down the barrel of the second consecutive rubber with no tricks to her name at all.
‘I fold. Honestly, you two are card sharks!’
‘What does that mean?’ Sophie asked, while not taking her eyes off the cards in her hand.
‘It’s an American saying. It means that you’re very good at this game. Here, you two fight it out and I’ll feed the stove, see if I can’t get this kitchen nice and toasty.’
Fen left the two Frenchwomen bidding against each other and stoked the stove. She noticed a dead bee on the floor and deftly flicked it into the flames, though it gave her no pleasure to do so. A sure sign of the end of summer. Then she wandered around the kitchen for a bit as the ladies fiercely collected tricks of cards and defiantly trumped each other again and again. Fen paused in front of one of the large kitchen dressers and pulled down from one of the shelves, which was mostly full of copper jelly moulds and Danish blue and white china, a ledger of sorts.
‘What have you found there, Fenella?’ Sophie’s voice came across the kitchen from the table.
‘Oh, I’m sorry, I really shouldn’t have been so nosy.’
‘No, you shouldn’t.’ Estelle seemed almost gleeful in her chance to chastise Fen. ‘I’ve told her so many times, madame, that she should be less nosy.’
Fen started to slide the ledger back into the shelf when Sophie stopped her.
‘No, bring it here, I will show you.’
Fen carried it carefully, its battered hardback cover not doing much of a job to contain the sometimes loose pages that were contained within. She placed it on the table and Sophie put her playing cards face down next to it. Estelle followed suit.
Sophie picked up the book and held it tenderly. ‘This is our ledger of how much wine we managed to hide from the Germans.’
Fen waited for the traditional spit on the floor, but it didn’t come from t
hese women.
‘You mean the Weinführer?’
‘Heinrich Spatz,’ Sophie clarified.
‘He was meant to live here, wasn’t he?’ Fen asked.
‘Meant to?’ Estelle looked indignant on the château’s behalf. ‘He wasn’t even meant to be in our country!’
‘Calm down, Estelle, it’s all over now,’ Sophie soothed her. ‘Heinrich Spatz decided, with my help, that it would be better for him to lodge in the town. He stayed at Hubert’s house – it’s not so bad, you know? He has a nice house, a large one in the centre of town. I told Spatz he would be better able to liaise with all the local vineyards from there and he believed me.’
‘And Pierre’s boot in his arse had something to do with it too!’ cackled Estelle.
‘Estelle, you are too coarse at times, you know?’ Sophie’s ticking off made Estelle bristle and she picked up her cards and sucked her teeth in. Sophie continued, ‘And having him lodged in the town meant that Pierre and his father, and the other men here, Hubert and so on,’ she paused and briefly touched Fen’s hand, ‘well, they decided to hide what they could from the Germans. So that this château, this business, would still have stock to trade once the war was over, they logged each wine that they hid, or that they siphoned off into different bottles, you know the sort of thing. They were up late at night in this kitchen, sometimes until dawn, changing labels and faking bottles.’
‘All to fool the Weinführer?’
‘Yes, of course. But also the Gestapo and the ordinary soldiers, all the Germans. They were looters, thieves. They would crawl all over this house and never find what they wanted! They must have thought we were the least profitable vineyard in the whole of Burgundy!’
Fen let Sophie laugh to herself and thought back to the fragment of letter she had in her pocket and doubted that the S in question could be this patriotic mother and thorn in the side of the German high command. She glanced down at the ledger again, but Sophie quickly closed it.
‘Here, be a dear and put it back where you found it. Clément would not like us to be looking through it and laughing, not on a day like today.’
‘Of course, madame.’ Fen begrudgingly did as she was told.
‘And now, Estelle, you can finish taking me for all the matchsticks in the house!’ Sophie eased a smirk from the other Frenchwoman and the game continued until the rattle of the outer door announced the men were home from the town and bedtime was decided upon all round.
Nineteen
‘Hubert, you can do without her, for a little while at least.’ Sophie was filling in the winery manager with her plan to collect fruit that morning, with Fen’s help. She’d prepared herself for her first day out since Pierre died by teaming her widow’s weeds with a headscarf, albeit the pattern on it was a sombre purple one. Her ankle was tightly bandaged, but Fen noticed the swelling still bulging from the top of it.
‘We’re in the middle of harvest, Sophie, and down a pair of—’
‘You don’t need to remind me,’ Sophie snapped, and Fen wondered if she might start crying again right here at the kitchen table.
‘Of course, madame, I understand.’ Hubert bowed his head at her, his cap grasped between his hands, and then he was off and out of the kitchen, but not before giving Fen what she thought was a pretty snide look.
Sophie must have noticed as she turned to look at Fen. ‘You mustn’t pay him much attention, Fenella. He’s a man’s man, you know? I think he always felt that this vineyard should by rights be his, not the Bernards’, you see.’
‘Why’s that?’ Fen was genuinely interested.
Sophie waved her hand in the air as she explained. ‘Oh, generations ago, Clément’s father’s side of the family, I think. Yes, that’s right. The Bernards have always been here, but Clément’s father was a nephew rather than a direct descendent – the Bernards at the time had only had girls. One of whom married another winemaker from a local family near here, the Ponsardines, and Hubert is their descendent. It’s why he has such a nice house in the town, he’s not a bad catch, you know. But a bit… what’s that word the British use… chippy?’
Fen smiled, pleased that she wasn’t the only one who found Hubert tough-going, and she was intrigued by this new information about the grumpy winemaker.
‘Ooh ouch.’ Sophie winced with pain as she hobbled to the door of the kitchen.
‘Here, let me help.’ Fen went to Sophie’s aid. She caught up with her employer by the door and helped her stagger through it, then through the small hallway and out into the autumnal morning. The poor woman looked wracked with pain, even though she was trying to mask it. ‘Gosh, look, Sophie, I don’t want you doing yourself in just to get us some fruit. Let me go instead.’
‘No, Fen, Hubert is right really, you are needed in the vines as soon as you’ve seen me to the village. Harvesting really is something I cannot manage at the moment, but slowly and carefully, I can get to the square and, from there, cousin Sybille will meet me and take me to her farm for the fruit. It will keep me occupied, you know. I cannot stay in this house, thinking about…’
‘I know… I mean, I understand. Here, let me take your basket for you.’
Sophie tried to argue, but Fen had it from her so she could use her stick with one hand and lean on Fen with the other.
‘Gosh, feels like you’ve already got half a pound of apples in here!’ Fen wasn’t as rude to look under the gingham cloth that was draped over the wicker basket, but she could feel that it wasn’t empty.
‘Just a dish of leftover casserole for Sybille,’ Sophie replied.
Fen nodded and then slowly helped Sophie across the courtyard and terrace and then over the old lawns to the fruit trees.
‘I could as easily make a plum crumble out of these,’ Fen offered, seeing the pain Sophie was in with every step.
‘No, no. I spoke to Sybille at the funeral yesterday and she was keen to see me today. She’ll meet me in the square and take me to her orchard. It will be better for your English crumble, yes? Blackberry and apple?’
‘Delicious, yes,’ Fen agreed but was unsure of this whole plan and the strain it was putting on Sophie’s injury.
They made idle small talk as they walked and although Fen thought it a little strange that two such recently bereaved woman should avoid the topic altogether, she knew grief was a curious thing. She would have loved to have spoken about Arthur and heard what Sophie might have to say about him, but she heeded James’s request and kept quiet. Sophie was obviously coping with her own grief by dealing in pleasantries and Fen let her chatter away about the town and its surrounds.
‘You must visit Clos de Vougeot while you are here.’ Sophie was telling her about the local monastery that had been making wine for hundreds of years. ‘I’m sure you will find all sorts of interesting local history there. Perfect for your article. How are you doing with that by the way?’
‘So-so,’ Fen couldn’t bring herself to lie, so changed the subject. ‘Are they a vineyard too?’
‘Yes, a very good one. Our German friends were so impressed at the wine there that they took the lot!’
‘Oh,’ Fen wasn’t sure if Sophie was joking. Fluent in French she might be, but not for the first time Fen felt rather less fluent in being French.
An agonising – for Sophie at least – twenty minutes or so later, both ladies and the basket were in the Place de l’Église.
‘Here, let me sit for a while.’ Sophie was almost panting as she heaved herself down onto a stone bench. ‘You can go now, Fen, if you need to, I mean, thank you so much for helping me, but Sybille will be here soon.’
The bell in the ancient tower of the church struck nine and Fen smiled at Sophie, who pointed up at the sound of the bell, indicating that it was when she was due to be picked up.
‘If you’re sure, madame?’
‘Quite sure, Fen. You’ve been most kind.’ Sophie placed her hands either side of her on the bench and closed her eyes, her face pointing up towards the sky.
Fen took this as her cue to leave and headed through the grounds of the church and the fruit trees, across the old lawns and bypassed the château itself to get to the vineyard and start her day’s work.
When Fen found Hubert, he was up a ladder, scratching his head and leaning over one of the old basket-style grape presses. The presses were all full of grapes now, and more were coming in all the time from the harvested vines.
Hubert looked up when Fen entered the winery and rolled his eyes, mumbling something about England always showing up too late.
‘What’s the matter, Hubert?’ Fen asked, pretending she hadn’t understood or heard his slight.
This time, Hubert didn’t look up from the old press, and Fen stood a moment watching the Frenchman lean over the edge of the vast basket, which was full of red grapes. He shifted his weight on the ladder and scratched his backside.
Fen looked away and whistled a few notes, not wanting to interrupt him but keen to know what her morning’s duties would be. She was just about to go and find something to do for herself when he started muttering again.
‘It’s jammed, it’s stuck.’
‘I’m sorry, what is?’
‘The plate, it won’t screw down.’
‘Can I have a look?’
‘What can you do? Some expert?’ He looked crossly at her and Fen wondered what she’d ever done, except not fall into a ditch fast enough, to inspire such grouchiness from him.
‘I’m rather a dab hand at engines and the like,’ she thought back to her impish scheme to sabotage his old truck. ‘I might be able to fathom out what’s—’
A Dangerous Goodbye: An absolutely gripping historical mystery (A Fen Churche Mystery Book 1) Page 16