Laurent pointed to the map in her lap. “We have a turn coming up, oui?”
A quarter of an hour later, they saw the sign announcing St-Buvard. Perched in three tiers on a bosky hilltop, the village was a series of compact, rose-colored buildings protected in its spiraled setting against the fierce mistral.
As they drove closer, Maggie realized how tightly spaced the little village was. Its narrow, rock and pebble streets looked more like alleyways than main avenues. And the stone apartments and shops tucked into the dark, looming buildings were perched on the roads without buffer or curb.
A crumbling Roman aqueduct ran at the base of the hill that supported St-Buvard―looking to Maggie like some ancient train trestle leading nowhere. Laurent drove through the village, his face flushed with excitement.
“Voici, St-Buvard!” he said. “There is the boulangerie, and the charcuterie, oh, and the post office...”
As quaint little Provençal villages go, Maggie had to admit, St-Buvard was classic. Blue and green shuttered windows winked out over the gaily-striped awnings of the village shops and narrow cobblestone avenues shot out from the main road.
“Ah, the village café!” Laurent said as they drove past an outdoor terrace of small tables which backed up to the dark cavern of a restaurant. “We will be spending much time there, I think.”
Maggie smiled. St-Buvard was charming. It was old-fashioned and cobblestoned with window boxes of geraniums. She half expected to see a horse-drawn cart meet them around the next corner. Within minutes they were through the little village and onto a gravel road that led off into the horizon.
“This can’t be right,” Maggie said, squinting at the map.
“Monsieur Alexandre’s vineyard is less than a mile from here,” Laurent said.
“He’s got a vineyard too?” Maggie looked into the surrounding fields and pastures and wondered if one of them could be a part of Laurent’s property.
“Yes, yes,” Laurent said. “But which way?”
“Well, there’s only to the left or to the right. Why don’t we drive a half a mile up each way and see what we find?”
Laurent rolled his eyes, then pointed to an old man shuffling along the road a hundred yards in front of him.
“This old fellow’s bound to know,” he said, driving the car abreast with the man. “Excusez-moi,” Laurent called to him.
The old man turned. Laurent spoke quickly to him in French and the man peered into the car at Maggie.
“He thinks we’re tourists,” Maggie said, smiling broadly at the man. “Tell him we’re his new neighbors.” She spoke loudly to the man as if he were hard of hearing: “Nous nous neighbors à Domaine St-Buvard? Oui? Comprenez-vous?”
Laurent grimaced.
“Is there a reason why you are speaking bad French to the poor man, when I am sitting right here?”
The look of horror that swiped the old gentleman’s face was vivid for several seconds before he turned and jogged away. Maggie and Laurent watched him disappear behind an ancient stonewall.
Maggie spoke first. “Did you see that?”
“Incredible, the effect your French has on the natives.”
“He was afraid of us.”
“C’est ridicule. We French are not as open as Americans.”
“Come on, Laurent. I didn’t ask him if he liked it with the woman on top. I just said we were his new neighbors.”
“For a Frenchman, it is often the same thing,” Laurent said, smiling,
“Oh, very funny. Hey, look! Is that a driveway?”
Laurent slowed for a copse of trees that hid a sharp turn in the road as well as a gently sloping driveway. An old sign, the faded letters of which were nearly obscured by time and the crowding olive trees, read Domaine Alexandre. Maggie felt a chill run through her as Laurent turned down the tree-lined drive.
It looked like an entranceway to a grand country estate. When the house finally appeared from over a slight rise in the road, it was no massive château. The dramatic entranceway led to a simple farmhouse, a mas, of rough fieldstone and wood, draped in verdant cascades of ivy.
Large black poodles ran out from under the bushes near the house and bounded up to the car, barking loudly. Laurent drove to the front door—the only massive thing about the otherwise unimpressive little house—and shut off the engine. Within moments, the dogs were herded off by a slight man wielding a tremendous stick.
“Allez! Allez!” he yelled, waving his stick precariously close to their windshield. He turned abruptly and examined the car and its passengers.
His face was weatherworn and reddened from years in the Provençal sun. He wore clean, dark trousers, a white shirt, a dark blue tie and a cloth cap on the back of his head. He held the remainder of a cheroot clamped between a set of crooked, yellow teeth. Maggie guessed his age at about sixty. His face looked older, but his lithe, spare body moved with the ease of a younger man.
“Monsieur Alexandre?” Laurent began to open his car door.
“Bien sûr!” the older man called. He jerked open the door to the back seat and settled himself inside.
“Drive on,” he said to Laurent.
Jean-Luc Alexandre directed them to a small country restaurant about three miles from his farm. Maggie saw her chance for a better breakfast and even Laurent, for all his impatience, seemed not to mind too much.
Inside, Jean-Luc led them to a table in the back. The restaurant’s owners regarded them suspiciously but warmed up when Jean-Luc ordered four bottles of wine―two whites, a red and a rosé. Maggie noticed that the wine labels were hand-written and difficult to read.
Jean-Luc poured their glasses and held his own up as if to indicate he would make a toast. He did not. They drank their wine and then Jean-Luc and Laurent began to talk in fast, low-rumbling French. Their words were unintelligible to Maggie.
Jean-Luc gestured with much animation as he spoke, his sentences punctuated often with “Zut!” and “Ach!” and once even a soft “putain,” before looking in Maggie’s direction and smiling apologetically.
A large crock of pâté was deposited in front of Maggie, followed by a steaming loaf of bread, a couple of spit-roasted pheasants (golden-brown and fragrant with rosemary), a chafing dish with white fish, redolent in the garlicky aîoli sauce of the area.
There followed a puffball of pastry, braided and baked to perfection, a large salad of greens glistening with olive oil and liberally sprinkled with basil, parsley, tarragon, oregano, chives and wild thyme, and, finally, little raviolis stuffed with a creamy, sharp cheese. It wasn’t yet ten-thirty in the morning.
Maggie watched as Laurent finished off his third glass of rosé and allowed his new friend to pour him a glass of the headier red. Before she had time to give him a nudge under the table, they were joined by a couple whom Jean-Luc introduced as Eduard and Danielle Marceau.
The Marceaus were also Laurent’s neighbors and winegrowers as well. Madame Marceau was a youthful fifty-something with severely coifed blonde hair that was obviously created from a bottle purchased at the village pharmacie. Her face must have been pretty once, but was now harshly lined from too much wind and southern sun. She smiled at Maggie and Laurent through razor-thin lips.
Eduard Marceau was as pale and flabby as Jean-Luc was ruddy and firm. Maggie marveled at the contrast in the two men: one of them obviously didn’t have to go out and pick his own grapes.
Eduard extended a pudgy hand to Maggie and Laurent.
“Bienvenue!” he said cheerfully. His wife nodded in agreement. “We are happy to be meeting you at long last. Oui, Danielle?” He patted his wife’s hand, then turned to Maggie.
“You are to forgive Jean-Luc for talking away with your husband not in English. He is a rough country character with no manners.” He smiled broadly at Jean-Luc, who poured Maggie a large glass of the strong red wine as if to compensate for his supposed rudeness.
“I am très sorry, Madame,” Jean-Luc said to her, smiling through the picket fence of his teeth. “I a
m so desiring to talk business with your husband.”
“Eh? What’s this?” Eduard boomed out a little too heartily. “Talking business already? They have just arrived!”
“They haven’t even seen the house, Jean-Luc,” Danielle said meekly.
“What’s the house look like?” Maggie turned to the older woman and took a large sip of her wine. She noticed the old girl wasn’t drinking.
“Of course, you see?” Eduard shook his head at Jean-Luc. “They haven’t even seen the property yet and you are working your wiles, you old devil! Let the man eat his lunch!”
“What sort of business, exactement,” Laurent said pleasantly, sniffing the bouquet of his wine, “are you referring to, Monsieur Marceau?”
“Call me Eduard, please,” Marceau said, tearing a piece of bread apart.
“Eduard.”
Marceau smiled and reached for his own glass of wine. “There is so much time for all of that, Monsieur Dernier...Laurent, that I think we will not bore the women, eh? First, let us enjoy a good meal and become a little of what we were to your uncle. Good neighbors.”
“Friends,” added Madame Marceau.
“You knew my uncle well?” Laurent asked, spooning into the huge spinach pastry, its steamy, fragrant contents spilling across the stark whiteness of his plate.
“We were neighbors,” Jean-Luc said, helping himself to one of the pheasants. “Not really friends, but you get to know your neighbor. We helped each other when there was a call for it.”
“For nearly ten years,” Eduard said.
“So your property connects with Laurent’s?” Maggie asked, swallowing a mouthful of cod soaked in aïoli.
“Both of our properties touch yours,” Jean-Luc said to Laurent. “I am placed on the east, yes?” He positioned a chunk of bread next to Laurent’s wine glass to indicate where his house was located, and then moved the pâté below it. “And Eduard is just to the south, comme ça.”
“Neighbors,” Laurent said.
“Comme il faut,” Danielle said, then smiled at Maggie. “My English is not being too good.”
“That’s okay,” Maggie said. “My French sucks. Can you tell me about the house? Can we live in it or is it falling down?”
“Live in it?” Jean-Luc looked questioningly at Laurent. “The agent said you were interested in selling Domaine St-Buvard.”
“I totally the love name.” Maggie grinned and looked at Laurent. “I’ve got to get stationery printed up. Seriously.”
“We are interested in selling it,” Laurent said, refilling his wine glass. “Just not immediately.”
“Ah,” Eduard said and glanced briefly at Jean-Luc. “Well, you will be anxious to see it, I’m sure. And yes, Madame―”
“Maggie,” Maggie said happily, deciding she quite liked this old gentleman winemaker and his wife.
“Bon, Maggie. The house is not falling down.” Eduard said. “It is not a château, you understand? But it is a good house. Don’t you agree, chérie?” He turned to his wife, who nodded in agreement.
“We would love to accompany you on your visit,” he added, “bien sûr, but Danielle and I have business in Aix this afternoon. Tant pis.” He shrugged, then reached over and took the last roasted pheasant.
*****
The house was a good house.
Maggie stood in the front drive while Laurent and Jean-Luc toured the vineyard. A large stone terrace splayed out from the front door in three tiers to the curving gravel drive. Oleander and ivy clustered against the fieldstone walls of the farmhouse in thick tangles of dark green. A black wrought-iron railing framed a second-story balcony that jutted out over the front door. The three bedroom windows upstairs were tall and mullioned with bright blue shutters.
The house looked sturdy. Towering Italian cypress and Tatarian dogwood flanked the front door. Hollyhocks pushed out of the tangle of bushes lining the driveway. A stone lion stood guard at the edge of the terrace, his head bowed, one ear mauled.
Laurent was so eager to see the vineyard, she thought with amazement, that he didn’t even stop to see where we would be living. She pushed open the heavy, wooden door of the house and stepped into a large foyer flooded with light on a floor of pale, yellowing stone tiles. A large marble staircase emptied into the foyer.
The downstairs comprised of only two rooms. The living room covered almost the entire ground level. It was forty feet square anchored by a massive fireplace on one wall, and French doors on the opposite wall that led to the garden. The other room downstairs was the kitchen. Not terribly modern, Maggie noted, when she found no dishwasher or disposal, but the sink didn’t appear as if it had seen any world wars and the cooking stove was large and capable-looking.
Leave it to the French to have a stove as large as a minibus but no automatic dishwasher.
Behind what Maggie initially thought was the door of a broom closet was a steep staircase that led to the basement. Maggie peered down the stairs into the dark and could make out three odd-shaped pieces of machinery. They stood in the corners like hulking spaceships. Old, stained oaken barrels lined the basement’s limestone walls. Each of the three bedrooms upstairs was large, airy and, of course, had no closets. As Maggie stood at one of the upstairs windows, as far as she could see, there were grapevines. Row upon row of grapevines.
My God, is all this Laurent’s?
From this height she could easily see Laurent and Jean-Luc as they walked back to the house through the vineyard.
She knew Jean-Luc and the Marceaus thought of them as visitors, foreigners―even Laurent, in a way. She tried to imagine what it felt like to be a visitor in your own country, to see it in all its beauty and familiarity and to know you would leave it to go back to someone else’s country.
She scanned the horizon—studded with clumps of rusty brown that she guessed were more grapevines. She wondered whose fields those were.
For this year, she thought resolutely, Domaine St-Buvard is going to be ours. But for whatever reason, as she watched Jean-Luc walking with Laurent, she felt a vague cloud of doubt descend upon her.
Chapter Two
“Vous êtes Madame Dernier, n’est-ce pas? ”
The rotund woman beamed at Maggie as she scooped up the row of flaky croissants and placed them in a paper bag. Her hair fell in old-fashioned curls around her sweet, chubby face.
“Oui,” Maggie said, returning the smile. Well, close enough anyway. Her French certainly wasn’t up to explaining her living situation with Laurent. Besides, this was France. It was probably all the same to them anyway.
“Mais vous m’appellez Maggie, s’il vous plait,” Maggie said, taking the bag of rolls. Please call me Maggie. “Et vous êtes...? ”
“Madame Renoir.” The pudgy baker rubbed her flour-whitened hands together and gestured to her surroundings. “La boulangerie! ” she said with a big smile.
Maggie and Laurent had been in their farmhouse for two days, and what few contacts they had made in the village― the post office, the owners of the café, the gas station attendant―seemed to be pleasant enough.
Maggie was aware of stares from the two other customers in the bakery who were not so much waiting their turns as eavesdropping on her conversation with Madame Renoir. She smiled at them and dug in her purse for the coins for the croissants.
“Je ne parle pas bien votre langue,” she said to Madame Renoir. I don’t speak your language. “Mais je suis...working on it.” She shrugged and handed over the correct change to the plump baker.
One of the women behind her spoke up briskly in English, “You will learn.” She smiled at Maggie and then added, “if you stay.”
Maggie nodded to the woman―an elderly, rake-thin Frenchwoman with high cheekbones and an imperious tilt to her chin. Her harsh appearance seemed in conflict with her friendly manner, Maggie thought. The smile, though short, seemed genuine.
“I hope so, Madame,” Maggie said.
Clearly indignant at being one-upped by her English-spea
king countrywoman, Madame Renoir refused Maggie’s money. “Bienvenue,” she said. “You are understanding? Welcome to St-Buvard.”
Maggie was surprised. “Thank you,” she said. “Thank you very much.”
Behind the sturdy proprietress, Maggie caught a glimpse of a teenage girl with a sullen face. The baker’s daughter, she wondered? The girl, fair-haired and delicately pretty, manned her broom behind the counter as if she were being paid by the square inch swept.
The thin French woman beckoned Maggie aside, much to the annoyance of Madame Renoir who was forced to wait on the next customer. Her sharp little eyes gathered in Maggie’s sweat pants and Nikes but no disapproval showed on her face.
“I am Madame Dulcie,” she said. “The charcuterie, yes?” She pointed toward the window.
“Oh, you run the butcher shop?” Maggie clutched her bag of breakfast and wondered if Laurent had been shanghaied at the café where he was supposed to be ordering two large coffees to go.
“Monsieur Dulcie et moi,” the woman said, still obviously inspecting Maggie’s attire. “You are liking St-Buvard?”
Maggie nodded vigorously. “Oh, yes. Very much. We love it. We’re staying on a vineyard nearby.”
“You are picking the fields, yes?”
“Picking the fields?”
“The grapes, Madame.” Madame Dulcie spoke slowly, as if talking to a child. “You are picking the grapes? It is time, is it not?”
“I...I really don’t know,” Maggie said. “I don’t think we’re picking it ourselves, no.”
“It is harvest time in St-Buvard, Madame.”
“Well, I’m sure...if that’s what people do...” Maggie smiled nervously at the gathering customers in the store, hoping that none of them understood English. “...we’ll do something similar. In fact,” she brightened as she edged toward the door. “I believe my husband…” It was getting easier and easier to call him that “…will probably take the advice of Monsieur Alexandre on this matter.”
“Jean-Luc?” Madame Dulcie frowned. “Where did you say you were staying?”
At this point, Madame Renoir spoke sharply to Madame Dulcie. Madame Dulcie responded just as sharply. Maggie picked out a few “stupide’s” and one “idiot” and decided the two ladies were in disagreement about something. She was pretty sure that “something” was her.
Murder in the South of France: Book 1 of the Maggie Newberry Mysteries (The Maggie Newberry Mystery Series) Page 29