A Spell in Provence

by Marie Laval

  He gestured towards the window. ‘Are you feeling up to braving the cold? There is something else I would like to show you.’

  They went back to the study for her coat then walked out onto the terrace which overlooked a formal parterre of topiary and a vast expanse of lawn. Further down, a gravel path wound its way to a fountain at the edge of the cedar forest.

  ‘It looks ancient,’ she said, lifting her hand to touch the thick carpet of moss that partly covered three lion heads spurting out water into a rectangular basin.

  ‘It is very old indeed, one of the oldest fountains in the whole of Provence, I believe. But what makes it special is the water. This is our own spring – Manoir Coste and Bellefontaine’s – flowing all the way from the top of the hill under the forest, my estate and your garden, then down into the valley.’

  He dipped his fingers into the basin where the water reflected the grey clouds above and the dark green cedar trees swaying in the wind.

  ‘The estate agent, Monsieur Chevalier, never mentioned a spring. He did tell me a horrible story about a goddess who was once worshipped near here. He said she is still supposed to haunt the forest, snatching unsuspecting travellers and butchering them. He even told me about the rather decadent carryings-on of her followers.’

  She blushed again, in a way he found surprisingly attractive, but her words made his heartbeat quicken.

  What did she know? Had she found anything in the old house already?

  ‘I’m afraid these stories are part of the local folklore,’ he said, forcing a note of indifference into his voice. ‘And so is the legend of the treasure buried near the goddess’ lost temple.’

  ‘Treasure? Monsieur Chevalier didn’t say anything about that either.’

  ‘The Romans are said to have hidden a vast treasure before fleeing in front of advancing barbarian hordes,’ he explained. ‘Many looked for it over the centuries, of course, but nobody ever found it. Ghostly stories or not, there are many people who wouldn’t have contemplated buying a ruin like Bellefontaine. Especially when there are so many bastides for sale in the area which needed a lot less work. I only hope you don’t regret buying it.’

  Her blue eyes were serious when she looked up.

  ‘How funny, that’s almost word-for-word what your cousin said last night … By the way, isn’t it him walking across the lawn over there?’

  She pointed to the figure strolling towards them, a rake on his shoulder and a large bin bag in his hand.

  Fabien masked his annoyance under a frozen smile and nodded. ‘It’s him all right.’

  ‘Chère Mademoiselle Carter, how enchanting to see you again,’ Fred said as he came nearer.

  He bowed to Fabien with mock deference.

  ‘Your lordship. Any new orders for your humble servant this morning?’

  Fabien’s eyes narrowed. He clenched his fists by his sides.

  ‘Yes, actually. Mademoiselle Carter will be attending the ball on Saturday. You will pick her up from Bellefontaine at eight. Please don’t forget.’

  ‘How could I forget such a lovely assignment?’ Fred exclaimed in a loud, cheerful voice.

  Fabien frowned again. Surely his cousin wasn’t drunk already, not at this time in the morning.

  ‘I shall look forward to dancing with you,’ Fred added, ‘that is if I have any free time. No doubt I’ll be running errands all night. For now, I’d better rake the lawn or I’ll get in trouble with my lord and master.’

  Fabien noticed the pitying smile on the young woman’s face as Fred strode away and the coldness in her eyes when she turned to look at him. She didn’t need to say anything, it was obvious she felt sorry for his cousin and found the way he treated him despicable.

  ‘Shall we finish the tour?’ he asked in a voice slightly sharper than he’d intended.

  They made a detour to the tennis courts and the outdoor swimming pool – covered at this time of year – and visited the spa located in a wing of the chateau. By the time they made their way back to the study, Amy was even more impressed by Manoir Coste and the sleek, efficient way Fabien ran the place. He was attentive to every detail. He knew the names of all his staff and exchanged good-natured banter with every single one of them – all except his cousin, that is.

  When they went back to the study, she was surprised to see a beautiful young woman dressed in a cherry red trouser suit, her black hair tied into a tight chignon, sitting on a sofa and flicking through a magazine with a bored expression on her face. On the coffee table was a laptop and a thick, glossy black file. The woman lifted her eyes from the magazine, gave Amy an appraising glance, and flung the magazine on the table.

  ‘Fabien chéri, where have you been? It’s not like you to miss a meeting.’

  Fabien Coste’s eyebrows drew in an almost imperceptible frown.

  ‘I wasn’t aware we had a meeting this morning.’

  Turning to Amy, he added, ‘This is Claudine Loubier, my PR. Claudine, meet Mademoiselle Carter, our new neighbour.’

  ‘You are the new owner of Bellefontaine? How … nice.’

  Somehow the surprise in Claudine’s voice sounded forced, almost as forced as the smile that stretched her lips but didn’t reach her dark brown eyes.

  ‘I hope old Rosalie Bruni’s ghost didn’t tickle your feet during the night,’ she said.

  ‘A ghost? No, of course not.’

  Amy shook her head and pulled the sleeve of her coat up to glance at her watch. ‘I’m afraid I must leave. I have an appointment at the Tourist Office in Bonnieux.’

  ‘Then I’ll see you out.’ Fabien Coste turned to Claudine and added, ‘Wait here. I’ll be straight back.’

  Dismissing Amy with a curt nod, the woman flipped open her laptop and started typing, her long red-painted nails making a clicking sound on the keyboard.

  ‘Please don’t hesitate to get in touch if you need anything,’ Fabien offered once they stood on the Manoir’s front porch.

  There he was again, volunteering his help like a chivalrous knight to a … what had Frédéric called her? A damsel in distress. For a second she was tempted to take him up on his offer and tell him about the lights in the garden and the dead rabbit nailed to the door in the middle of the night.

  The dead, pale grey rabbit.

  An image of the rabbits Fabien Coste had in his hunting bag the day before flickered into her mind, filling her with unease. She drew in a breath and looked at the man standing in front of her, so businesslike and composed in his navy suit, his magnificent chateau behind him. Surely Fabien Coste wouldn’t go nailing dead rabbits to her door in the middle of the night! The very thought was ridiculous. She was tired, silly and fanciful. Still, she resolved to sort out her own problems – whatever they turned out to be.

  ‘I’ll be fine, thank you.’

  ‘Then I’ll see you on Saturday.’

  Even on a dull February day, Bonnieux looked stunning with its honey-coloured walls, rambling stone houses and narrow alleyways that climbed to the top of the hill. Amy parked and walked up a street leading to the main square. Lined with lime trees the square featured a large fountain with stone dolphins at its centre.

  Fountains were the heart of every village here in Provence. Didn’t an old local saying declare that ‘Eici, l’aigo es d’or ’ – ‘Here water is gold’? And now it seemed Manoir Coste and Bellefontaine had their very own fountains too, even if Bellefontaine’s was lost somewhere in the forest, next to a mystical old temple.

  She walked across the square and pushed open the door to the Tourist Office. Monsieur Verdier, the director, was expecting her. Her point of contact during the long process of applying for a ‘étoile’ grading for Bellefontaine, he had helped her navigate the minefield of French bureaucracy.

  The young man reading his newspaper behind the counter glanced up, let out a grunt, and carried on reading.

  ‘Good morning,’ Amy said, resisting the urge to pull the paper down. If Monsieur Verdier was helpful, the same wasn’t t
rue of Jacques, his part-time assistant.

  ‘It looks like you’ve been redecorating,’ she remarked, pointing at the bright red walls and a couple of battered paint tins pushed into a corner of the office.

  He didn’t answer, nor did he lift his eyes from his paper. He did however point his thumb towards a door at the back of the office.

  ‘The boss is expecting you. He said you could go straight in.’

  Amy bit her tongue. Jacques was the most unpleasant person she’d encountered so far – with the exception of Fabien Coste’s beautiful PR, perhaps. Luckily, Monsieur Verdier’s friendly manners more than made up for his assistant’s rudeness.

  ‘Mademoiselle Carter, quel plaisir!’ Monsieur Verdier stood up from behind his desk and gave her a handshake so firm her fingers felt numb for a few seconds afterwards.

  ‘I just sent your dossier to our Paris office,’ he said after spending a few minutes enquiring about her health and her move to Bellefontaine. ‘I must apologise to have left it so late but several documents essential to your application went astray and I had to rewrite everything.’

  He tapped his index finger against his forehead and added with a smile, ‘I must be getting forgetful in my old age. Anyway, the next step now is the visit from an inspector who will assess your guesthouse some time in the next few weeks. Don’t worry, he will write to give me the dates of his visit, and I will give you plenty of notice.’

  He went on to explain about advertising in local and national hotel guides, offered to book a stall for her at a couple of forthcoming tourist fairs, and listed the steps she still had to take to make sure she complied with stringent health and safety regulations.

  Her head fuzzy with administrative details, Amy left Bonnieux just before lunchtime. She was expected at Paul and Adèle Michon’s house on the outskirts of the village.

  Over the six months it had taken for Paul and his workmen to renovate Bellefontaine, he and his wife Adèle had become her friends, and Amy always looked forward to seeing them and their teenage son Stéphane. Today was no exception. Paul poured the drinks – a pastis for himself and two glasses of fragrant blackcurrant wine for Amy and Adèle.

  ‘So, what do you think of Bellefontaine?’ he asked as he gulped down his aperitif.

  ‘I think that you’ve worked wonders,’ Amy replied with enthusiasm. ‘I’m so glad Monsieur Chevalier recommended you. He was right, no one else could have done a better job.’

  Paul’s hand shook and a little of his drink spilled onto the tiled floor.

  ‘Marc recommended you? You never said.’ Adèle glanced at her husband.

  Paul coughed to clear his throat. ‘I must have forgotten to mention it, don’t make a big fuss about it.’

  Turning to Amy, he asked in a brisk voice. ‘What do you want to do with the garden?’

  ‘There is no way I can deal with it on my own. I need a professional to make it presentable before the opening. By the way, what do you know about a lost fountain and treasure in the forest?’

  Adèle tightened her mouth. ‘The fountain, the temple … and the tragic love story between Philippe Coste and Rosalie Bruni. These old stories keep coming back, time and time again.’

  ‘Rosalie Bruni? Wasn’t she Bellefontaine’s previous owner?’

  Adèle nodded. ‘She had a torrid and scandalous affair with Philippe Coste – Fabien’s grandfather, which only ended when he died in a tragic accident.’

  Paul interrupted her by slamming his empty glass down on the coffee table.

  ‘That’s all very well, ladies, but I have a business to run and no time to waste on idle gossip, especially when it concerns people who’ve been dead for decades.’

  During lunch they chatted about her plans for the garden, then Paul left for his office in the village and Adèle and Amy sat in the living room to enjoy a cup of coffee.

  Amy sank into the sofa and yawned.

  ‘I do hope I can sleep tonight.’

  She told her friend about the dead rabbit nailed to her door as a macabre joke.

  ‘This is awful. I hope you reported it to the gendarmes.’

  ‘No, I didn’t want to make a fuss when I’ve only just arrived.’

  ‘There are poachers in the forest, you know.’

  ‘Poachers? So they must be who the people who were hanging about at the bottom of the garden last night. I saw their lights in the dark – even though they looked more like candles than electric torches.’

  Adèle arched her eyebrows. ‘You saw lights in the forest? My Auntie Lily would say they were spirits sent by La Bonne Dame.’

  ‘La Bonne Dame … who supposedly haunts the forest?’

  ‘It certainly is. Who told you about her? Paul and I agreed not to speak about it. We didn’t want to scare you.’

  ‘Marc Chevalier, the estate agent, wasn’t so thoughtful … He told me so many horror stories about Bellefontaine I even thought he was trying to put me off buying the house.’ She let out a chuckle. ‘Which was silly, because estate agents don’t frighten their customers off, do they?’

  She expected Adèle to smile, but her friend let out a deep sigh.

  ‘The thing is, I think you were right. Marc Chevalier didn’t want anybody to buy Bellefontaine. His wife Serena was Rosalie Bruni’s adoptive daughter. She grew up at Bellefontaine and always claimed the place was hers to inherit. She was furious when she lost her case to distant relatives of Rosalie’s who immediately put the house on the market. I believe you came by only a day or two later and made an offer.’

  ‘Why didn’t she or her husband buy the house if they wanted it so badly?’

  ‘They couldn’t. A legal disposition forbids an estate agent or any of his relatives or associates to buy a property he is entrusted to sell for a whole two years. Marc probably planned to keep the house unsold for that length of time, then buy it for Serena. Your offer must have taken him by surprise.’

  ‘Now I understand why its photo was hidden in a corner of the agency’s window and why he took me to so many other properties “better suited to my needs”. It also explains why he tried to scare me with silly stories.’

  Amy drank the last of her black coffee and rose to her feet.

  ‘I really must go back. I have so much to do before the opening I almost wish the mysterious goddess could step out of her lost temple to give me a hand.’

  Adèle shook her head, and shuddered.

  ‘You definitely don’t want her around. Leave her in the forest where she belongs.’

  Chapter Three

  The rest of the week disappeared in a whirlwind of activity.

  Amy cleaned the house from top to bottom, polished the downstairs floor tiles, and varnished the skirting boards and some of the woodwork. She drove to nearby Apt to buy furnishings and stacks of crockery, and to Marseille for curtains, blinds and bedclothes in cheerful sunny Provençal prints and to stock up on toiletries for the guest rooms.

  Adèle gave her the address of a secondhand dealer where she acquired more furniture, including a desk, chair, laptop and printer for the study. At last, she thought, as she arranged her stationary and files in neat piles and connected the computer, she could print out the invitations to the open day and set up Bellefontaine’s website.

  She spent the evenings flicking through trade journals and gardening books or trying out new recipes, and collapsed into bed every night, her body exhausted but her mind filled with ideas, lists, and problems. However late it was, she always peered into the darkness from her bedroom window before closing the shutters and stumbling into bed. Fortunately, there had been no more lights flickering in the night and no more dead animals nailed to the door. At times she could almost believe that she had dreamt the whole incident.

  On Saturday morning, a cold Mistral wind blew the clouds away and the sky was a pure and brilliant blue. Amy tucked her jeans inside her boots, slipped a navy fleece and thick gloves on, and stepped into the outbuilding where Paul had left some tools and a collection of o
ld paint pots. She came out pushing a rusty old wheelbarrow inside which rattled a pair of shears, a hoe and a shovel, and she stomped through damp, knee-high grass to the bottom of the garden where overgrown laurels, rampant junipers and gorse bushes formed a thick, dark hedge.

  The lawn might be too overgrown for her to tackle on her own, but she would trim that hedge down before the day was over. She had enough of the place looking like Sleeping Beauty’s abandoned garden.

  By late afternoon, she had dropped her shears to the ground, taken her gloves off, and shaken her head in disgust. After hours cutting, snipping and hacking the thick bushes, the garden looked as wild as ever. She couldn’t remember a time when her back and arms hurt quite so much, and it had all been for nothing. As she ducked under the cedar trees to retrieve her shovel, she stubbed her toes on a stone sticking awkwardly out of the ground and cried out in pain.

  She knelt down on the fragrant carpet of pine needles, and brushed the dirt off the exposed stone.

  This was no ordinary rock, but a statue – or rather the head of a statue. She grabbed hold of the shovel and started digging around the stone, taking care not to chip it. She then heaved it off the ground and into the wheelbarrow to bring it back to the house.

  Soil and damp needles still clung to the head so she spread newspapers on the kitchen table before placing it carefully on top. She stepped back to look at it. Large, empty eyes stared back from under a crown of carved leaves and entwined snakes. The statue’s nose was missing but her mouth was fixed in an enigmatic smile. Apart from the hole where the nose should be, it was intact, and both beautiful and awe-inspiring.

  Who was the statue of, and what was it doing half-buried in Bellefontaine’s garden? Whatever it turned out to be, one thing was certain. It was very old and she had to report it to a museum. Shadows now filled the kitchen. She flicked the light on, glanced at the window, and saw a pale whisker of moon and twinkling stars in the darkening blue sky. It was time to get ready for the ball at Manoir Coste.

  Casting the statue a last look, she dragged her feet up the stairs. Every inch of her body ached, her toe throbbed where she’d stumbled on the stone. There was a line of dirt under her fingernails, her hair was a mess of tangles, and she didn’t seem to be able to stop yawning.