The Secret of the Chateau

by Kathleen McGurl

  ‘I didn’t give orders for the work to be stopped, no. But I suppose Valet assumed that after Louis’s death the farm would not be needed. I shall send word to him to return and complete the work. Do not worry yourself, my sweet. It will be finished, and it will be ready for use long before we have another child.’

  Catherine smiled. ‘Then I shall call the dressmaker and have her make me a shepherdess gown. Remember the beautiful one I had at Versailles? Perhaps I shall have another, just like it. What do you think, dearest?’

  ‘Whatever you want,’ replied Pierre, smiling. ‘I want only for you to be happy.’

  The following day, Pierre informed her that work had resumed on the farm. Catherine decided to go and see for herself – alone this time, for Claudette was busy with other chores. She put on a lightweight shawl and set off walking the high path up to the site of the farm.

  As she approached she saw that Pierre was right – work had resumed. And Jacques Valet was there, shirtless, swinging a scythe at the overgrown vegetation. She stopped short of the site and watched for a while, finding herself guiltily enjoying the spectacle of a well-toned, young, muscular male body. So unlike Pierre, who with lack of exercise after his heart problems was running to fat.

  After a moment he stopped, put down his scythe and mopped his brow. As he did so he caught her eye, and she blushed at having been caught watching him. He shifted position to stand square on to her, as though wanting to show her his body in all its glory.

  ‘I-I came to check on progress,’ she called, as she took a few steps forward. ‘When I came before, work had stopped, and it made me angry.’

  He smirked. ‘You, angry? That would be a fine sight. With your child dead I assumed this place was not needed. There was other work more important. Shepherds’ huts up in the mountain need repairing. Walls around the low pastures. My own cottage roof. All more important than your plaything.’

  ‘We are paying you well to build this.’

  ‘You could pay me better. Not just in money.’ He held her gaze, defiantly but with a challenge in his eyes. She understood immediately what he was suggesting. For a fleeting moment she wondered what it would be like, with such a man? What would it feel like, to run her hands over that fine, muscular body, his hands pulling at her clothes, his mouth upon her neck. And then she remembered her place – she was a married woman, the Comtesse, and his employer. While at Versailles the ladies of the Court had frequently taken lovers, it was not with men as lowly and coarse as this one. She raised her chin and stared back at him, keeping her expression as haughty and aloof as possible, until at last the man looked away and returned to his work.

  She’d won this little battle. But there was something about him that unnerved her.

  Chapter 17

  Lu

  As agreed, Gray and I went the next day to the mairie, where Madame la Maire was waiting for us. I gave up the front seat of the car so she could sit beside Gray who was driving, on the journey to the mayor’s home to collect Felix. I felt like a kid in the back seat, especially as I was watching for signs of what I was sure was a growing attraction between Gray and Madame la Maire. He kept glancing over at her as he drove, so much so that I feared we’d end up in the ditch on the twisting lanes. As for her, she laughed at his jokes, made teasing remarks of her own, and altogether simply flirted with him the whole way. I sat back and watched, amused but also very happy for my friend. He deserved a chance of happiness in his love life.

  Madame la Maire lived in a glorious large house, down the valley from the village. It was set back from the road, with a curving driveway, immaculate lawns and a swimming pool. A verandah ran round two sides, and it was there that Felix lay, on an old blanket in the shade, tethered on a long leash with a bowl of water within his reach. He raised his head as we approached, and thumped his tail against the decking in greeting. He had the look of a collie, but a little larger, coloured brown, black and white, with intelligent-looking brown eyes and a happy expression as he let his tongue loll out, panting.

  ‘Hello, Felix,’ I said, putting out a hand for him to sniff, which he did and immediately followed it with a lick. I scratched his head and then crouched down to his level and fussed him a little, eliciting more vigorous thumping of his tail on the deck.

  ‘He likes you,’ said the mayor.

  ‘I like him, a lot,’ I said. ‘Well then, old boy, fancy coming to live with me for a while then?’

  He stood and pressed himself sideways against my leg as though in response. Madame la Maire had gone inside the house to fetch his belongings, and Gray had followed her in. I untied Felix’s leash and took him on an experimental lap of the garden. He sniffed at everything, cocked his leg on a lupin, but behaved impeccably. ‘Oh yes, I think you and I are going to get along very well indeed,’ I told him.

  Aimée came out of the house with a bag of dog biscuits, and Felix’s ears pricked up and he gave a quiet woof, as though to say, ‘please may I have one?’. She laughed and passed me the bag, so I could be the one to treat him. Without being told, he sat in front of me waiting for his treat. I was pleased he was clearly so well trained, but realised I’d probably need to use the French words for commands such as ‘sit’ and ‘stay’. Or maybe he’d learn some English and become a bi-lingual dog.

  He took a bit of persuasion to get into our car, but with Aimée encouraging him and me enticing him with dog biscuits he finally clambered into the back seat, and I got in beside him. Then he lay down in the footwell, with a dejected expression on his face.

  ‘Aw, poor boy, won’t be a long journey, honest,’ I said, as I fondled his ears.

  ‘Probably thinks he’s going to the vet’s.’ Gray climbed into the driver’s seat after putting the dog gear in the boot.

  ‘It has all been very strange for him.’ Aimée had locked her house and climbed in; we gave her a lift back to the mairie before going straight home to the château with Felix to introduce him to everyone.

  As we entered the sitting room, I caught hold of Felix’s collar. The kittens were on the sofa with Steve, who was working on a spreadsheet of renovation costs.

  ‘Whoa, careful, mind the cats,’ Steve said.

  I let Felix inch forward, until he was nose to nose with Flip, or was it Flop, on Steve’s lap, but kept a tight hold of him. He sniffed and then to our delight the kitten stuck out a paw and cuffed him on the nose. Felix flinched, then gave the kitten a gentle lick, before lying down and rolling over submissively.

  ‘I think that means he’s accepted who’s in charge,’ I said, with a laugh. I released his collar, and Steve and Gray let the kittens down on the floor. We watched closely as they made friends. Felix was delightfully gentle with them the whole time.

  ‘Aimée said he’d be fine,’ Gray said. ‘Monsieur Baudin always kept cats. They’ve been rehomed with his neighbour.’

  Manda was grinning. ‘So, Phil’s got his goat, Lu’s got a dog, Steve’s got cats – so now can I have a pony?’ She took on the whine of a spoiled child as she said the last words, and we all laughed.

  ‘A pet for everyone. Just me without one now,’ Gray said, sticking out his bottom lip in a mock pout. ‘What shall I have?’

  ‘A lady mayor?’ I said quietly, eliciting a roar of laughter that even Felix joined in with. The kittens seemed not to mind his barking.

  Felix was an instant hit with everyone, and excitedly went from person to person sniffing, licking their hands, thumping his tail against their legs. Phil laughed. ‘He’s going to be a great addition to our family, isn’t he?’

  ‘I certainly hope so,’ I said, smiling.

  ‘Do you think the pets will help keep us young?’ Gray said, as he began a game of tug with Felix, using an old tea-towel.

  ‘Definitely! How could they not?’

  Maybe it was because Gray was a single bloke, but of all of us, he was the one who seemed to hate the ageing process the most. You might think it’d be Phil – after all he was the one who’d had the w
orst health scare. Or me – when caring for Mum I was closest to seeing just what age could do to a person.

  But it was Gray who was upset at his greying hair and the way he couldn’t cycle as far or as fast as he once could. It was Gray who’d peer in the mirror, wondering whether his wrinkles were deeper than the day before. Gray who spent more than any of the rest of us (including Manda and me!) on facial creams and hair serums to prevent hair loss. Actually he was lucky in that regard – although it was beginning to thin, he still had a full head of hair – unlike Steve who was completely bald but didn’t care in the slightest.

  When Gray began experiencing knee pain the doctor sent him for an X-ray. The verdict was a bit of age-related wear and tear; in other words, osteo-arthritis. We all have a touch of that. But for Gray, you’d have thought it was a death sentence. He was depressed for weeks. It was Steve who made him snap out of it, urging him to keep his weight down to lessen the load on his knees, eat oily fish, use knee supports for more strenuous activities and apply ibuprofen gel whenever his knees were particularly sore. ‘It’s about managing it, mate,’ Steve had told Gray. ‘What we need to do is deal with the bodies we have now, not the ones we used to have. We’re all ageing. And that’s a good thing.’

  ‘Good? How can ageing be good?’ Gray asked, frowning.

  ‘Good when you look at the alternative,’ Steve said with a chuckle. ‘You either get old or you die.’

  I wasn’t sure that comment had actually helped Gray much. We were there for him. But, frankly, he had to deal with this himself.

  On Felix’s first day with us, we kept him in the château and allowed him a few turns about the garden on a leash. He met Clarabel, tried to encourage her to play with him, but she just ignored him and carried on munching her way through the pile of vegetable peelings Phil had put in her bucket.

  ‘Ah well. Maybe she’ll pay him more attention when she’s finished eating,’ Phil said, giving Clarabel a scratch on the head.

  The next day I decided to try taking Felix for a walk. Monsieur Baudin had told us he liked long walks, and so did I. We could be a match made in heaven. I put him on the lead, not yet trusting him to come back to me when I called. I needed to find out whether he was the sort of dog who’d chase after rabbits. Or marmots, common in the higher mountains around here. I’d decided to follow the high path towards the village – the old path that was marked on the maps I’d seen in the library. That marking showing ‘la petite ferme’ was still intriguing me. I’d cleared a bit more of the path and it was passable for quite a way now.

  Felix seemed to think that was a great idea too, and was eager to get going, pulling slightly on the lead as we headed out of the garden, up the winding path I’d already cleared, and onto the higher track that contoured around the hill down the valley, towards the village. ‘Oy. Heel!’ I called, but he ignored me. Pulling out my phone and doing a quick Google of French dog commands, I came up with ‘Au pied,’ and was delighted to find that worked. He stopped pulling and trotted neatly by my side, earning himself a dog biscuit from a bagful I had in my pocket. ‘Good boy,’ I told him, scratching his head. He could learn the English for that, I decided.

  It was about fifteen minutes from the village, into the parts of the track that were still overgrown, that we came across a little bridge over a stream. It was made of stone, wide enough for two people to walk side by side on, and over-engineered for such an infrequently used path. Maybe in early spring the snow melt-waters made such a bridge necessary, but normally on a path such as this one there’d be just a few stepping stones in the stream, or perhaps a couple of wooden planks balanced across. It was as I crossed it that I remembered the old map marked a bridge, and I pulled out my phone again. I’d taken a few snaps of the map, and opened those up, zooming in on the area. Yes, a bridge over a stream was shown, near to the petite ferme.

  ‘We’re not far away, Felix!’ He gave a little woof as though picking up on my excitement.

  And then, just another hundred metres or so along the path, Felix, no longer walking to heel, pulled me to one side as he sniffed around the hip-high undergrowth. The vegetation here was a mix of broom, bracken, small shrubs and ash and oak saplings. I looked to see what had caught his attention and realised there was some stonework there – in among the shrubs, almost completely hidden.

  ‘Felix, good boy! I believe you’ve found it!’ I said, and began pushing the vegetation out of the way. There was definitely a wall there, about waist-high. Thankfully none of the vegetation around it was prickly, and I was able to push through, and put my hands on the stonework. Peering over, I could see this wall was one of four, that made a small square. Inside, if you could call it inside, there being no roof at all, the vegetation was just as dense as outside. But I could make out a couple of small openings, perhaps intended as a door and a window. They were tiny. If this was indeed the little farm, it looked as though it had been built for midgets. ‘Or children!’ I said, out loud, earning myself a quizzical look from Felix, who was enjoying himself sniffing around this odd structure.

  ‘Think we’ll need to come back with the secateurs,’ I said. It would be the only way to work out what this place was, and how much of it remained. But I was certain this was it – the petite ferme marked on that eighteenth-century map. Who had built it, and why?

  Felix and I headed back to the château after finding the farm, but then went up a different path – one I knew was clear and easy to walk, and which led to the top of the hill behind the château, and where I could give the dog a decent walk. He deserved it. From the summit was my favourite view – of the entire valley, the château, the village down below, the hills across the valley, and to my right, just visible, the glint of light on the horizon that I knew was a glimpse of the Mediterranean. As always, I relished the fact that we were among mountains yet so near the sea. Overhead an eagle soared, and I stood to watch it for a while, until it was out of sight. Felix was sniffing at a marmot burrow, but if its occupant had any sense it’d stay deep inside.

  The dog came to sit at my side, panting still from the climb, and apparently enjoying the view as much as I was. Or just too tired to go sniffing and exploring. ‘You’re going to like living with us, aren’t you, boy?’ I said, and he licked my hand in response.

  But lunchtime was approaching, my stomach was rumbling and it was hot. I’d come out without so much as a bottle of water. Time to head back down. Felix would be thirsty too. I must remember, I realised, to always bring water, for both of us, on any long hikes over the summer.

  I went upstairs to shower and change after my walk, and while in the shower found myself thinking once more about that mysterious window. It was time I investigated further. As soon as I was dressed again I found a stool of a suitable height and carried it up the spiral stairs. Time to inspect the ceiling. Felix followed me up the stairs but refused to come into the little room. Instead he lay down at the top of the spiral stairs, just outside, whining a little. I looked up at the ceiling of the little room. There were numerous cracks in the plaster – was there a hatch that had been plastered over? If I could get up close to it, I reckoned I’d be able to tell.

  I placed the stool near the door first, climbed up and ran my fingers along each crack, prodding at it, trying to see if it covered a wooden hatch that might give a little when I pushed at it. Plaster dust rained down on me, getting in my eyes and coating my hair.

  ‘Should have done this before showering, silly woman,’ I told myself, but the damage was done and I might as well continue.

  I moved the stool along a little, methodically covering the whole ceiling. The blow-up bed and rug we’d put down for Tom’s visit were still in place. I bundled the bedding out of the way so that it wouldn’t also get covered in plaster dust, moved the stool onto the rug, and climbed back onto it.

  Just then, one leg of the stool gave way, tilting over and sending me flying. I landed half on, half off the blow-up mattress, sprawled across the floor with the stoo
l on top of me. Felix gave a little bark, but still didn’t come into the room.

  ‘Ouch,’ I said, inspecting my left wrist which had taken the brunt of the impact. That and my left hip. Both were sore.

  The stool was intact – it wasn’t its leg that had broken as I initially thought. Too late I remembered Tom’s warning about the sagging floor. There was a deep dip in the floor under the rug. I pushed the stool away with my right hand, keeping my injured left wrist close to my body, then pulled back the rug. The floorboards beneath had given way, broken and crumbling. As I shifted position, I felt more give way under me. The whole floor was unsound. I crawled, commando-style, back to the door, reaching it just as Steve and Phil appeared, having heard the crash and my scream as I fell.

  ‘Lu, what happened?’ Phil made to rush into the room, but I stopped him.

  ‘Don’t come in – floor’s not safe.’ Felix obviously had more sense than I had, in keeping out.

  Phil reached down and helped me to my feet at the top of the stone-built stairs. It felt good to be back on a solid surface. I rubbed my sore hip.

  ‘Are you hurt?’ he asked.

  ‘A little. Bruised hip and my wrist hurts a little.’ I held it up to show him.

  ‘Jesus, Lu, what were you doing?’ Phil began leading me down the spiral stairs, going ahead of me backwards, one hand reached out to steady me in case I stumbled. Not so very long ago it was me helping him navigate stairs. Now I was the invalid. I suppressed a wry smile.

  Steve was kneeling by the door, looking closely at the floor. ‘Riddled with woodworm. The whole floor’s unsafe. God knows how it lasted when Tom was sleeping in here.’ Behind us he closed the door firmly then followed us down.

  ‘I was looking for evidence of a hatch in the ceiling,’ I said, once we’d reached the bottom of the stairs. ‘There must have been some way of getting into the room above.’