The Matchmaker of Perigord

by Julia Stuart

  When the baker had left, Guillaume Ladoucette remained sitting on the swivel chair, staring at a maize stalk hanging from the guttering of Gilbert Dubuisson’s house. Just as he was wondering whether he should search the fields again, the door opened. It was Pierre Rouzeau. The matchmaker immediately got up to greet him and, as they held each other, the retired barber said how relieved he had been to hear that his apprentice had survived. Guillaume Ladoucette then swiftly returned to the desk with the ink stain to hide his bitten fingernails. After he sat down, the old man smoothed down the back of his hair, an abundant January frosting, and placed a small, slim box on the desk.

  The matchmaker didn’t need to ask how it had gone at the Félibrée with Madame Serre because Pierre Rouzeau couldn’t wait to tell him. He told him about the charming drive they had had, and how ravishing the place had looked decorated with millions of paper flowers. He told him about the splendid traditional costumes people had worn and the magnificent dancing they had enjoyed watching together. He told him about the fascinating ancient skills, which had reminded them of their childhoods. And he told him about the wondrous Madame Serre, who had been the most divine company and the perfect lady throughout. And when Guillaume Ladoucette asked whether he would like him to arrange another date with her, the retired barber said he would indeed and that he knew of the most delightful picnic spot along the Dronne where he would take her.

  Pierre Rouzeau then pushed the small, slim box towards the matchmaker with the words: ‘These are for you.’

  Wondering what it could be, Guillaume Ladoucette picked up the box and slowly opened it. Instantly, he recognized his former boss’s barbering scissors.

  ‘They have brought me so much pleasure over the years, I wanted you to have them to thank you for the joy you have just given me,’ he explained. The matchmaker replied that he couldn’t possibly accept them, but Pierre Rouzeau was insistent. The retired barber then left, and as he passed the window of Heart’s Desire he gave the matchmaker a jaunty wave with his arthritic fingers.

  Guillaume Ladoucette was still marvelling at the unexpected gift, which had been used to win the short-back-and-sides category of the World Barbering Championships, when the door opened. It was Yves Lévèque with his arm in plaster. The matchmaker immediately put down the scissors, crawled his hairy toes back into his supermarket leather sandals and got up to help him with the door. The dentist thanked him, walked to the cushion with the hand-embroidered radish and sat down.

  As Yves Lévèque started to recount how he hadn’t enjoyed his time at the Truffle Museum, Guillaume Ladoucette, who felt he had exhausted his cassoulet simile, immediately started searching for other culinary words of wisdom. But it hadn’t mattered, the dentist continued, because they had had such a rapturous time at the Auberge de la Truffe that it had more than made up for it. Denise Vigier had been the most sublime company, he said, adding that he felt such a fool for not having recognized her countless virtues before. And when the matchmaker asked whether he wanted him to arrange another date with her, the dentist replied that he did indeed, and the sooner the better. It was then that Yves Lévèque reached his long, pale instruments of torture inside his sling, drew out a gold nugget and placed it on the desk in front of the matchmaker with the words: ‘I’d like you to have it.’ Guillaume Ladoucette replied that he couldn’t possibly, but the dentist, who had clutched it throughout the night of the mini-tornado praying to St Anthony that the grocer would survive, was insistent.

  Stéphane Jollis kept his word. As soon as he saw that the matchmaker hadn’t turned up to the fête to celebrate Patrice Baudin’s recovery from vegetarianism, he went in search of him. Finding Heart’s Desire empty, he went to Guillaume Ladoucette’s home and discovered him in the back garden inspecting his potatoes for Colorado beetle. It wasn’t until the baker threatened to sit on the crop if he didn’t come with him that the matchmaker reluctantly followed.

  As they arrived at the trestle tables decorated with sunflowers in the shade of the lime trees, an unsavoury argument about the seating arrangements was taking place. Gilbert Dubuisson was trying to encourage Sandrine Fournier to sit next to him, but the assistant ambulant fishmonger was refusing. Fabrice Ribou, who was sitting next to the postman, was trying to shut the man up, insisting that he couldn’t abide eating lunch in the vicinity of the woman he blamed for poisoning his father with a fatal mushroom. Modeste Simon, who hadn’t stopped talking since regaining her power of speech following the unexpected return of Patrice Baudin, was trying to persuade Lisette Robert to swap places with her so that she could sit next to the pharmacist. But the midwife was refusing to move because she was saving the place next to her for the man from the council. Madame Serre wouldn’t sit down because there was no room on her table for Pierre Rouzeau. Madame Moreau was demanding to be moved as Madame Ladoucette was directing eel impressions at her. Yves Lévèque was refusing to let Marcel Coussy sit down next to him and Denise Vigier, insisting that the stench from the farmer’s work slippers would put him off his food. And Didier Lapierre the carpenter didn’t want to sit next to Denise Vigier on account of what her grandmother had done during the war.

  Things swiftly got worse when Patrice Baudin, his malodorous beard resting on the table, asked whether anyone had found his glasses following the first mini-tornado. Sandrine Fournier, who had grown two dress sizes larger since starting her fruitless search for a love letter in Stéphane Jollis’s little cakes, replied that they were discovered hanging off the church guttering and that Modeste Simon had insisted on keeping them. ‘Apparently they’re in her bedside-table drawer,’ she added. Modeste Simon was so mortified by the public exposure of her secret infatuation that she fled from the field in tears. The villagers were suddenly distracted from their squabbles by the arrival of the man from the council, whose trousers now fitted. Not only did they fail to understand how he had been invited, but neither could they fathom how he managed to get a place sitting next to Lisette Robert. But what they were even more insistent upon knowing was when he was going to take away the municipal shower. Jean-François Lafforest, who was one of only a few people who hadn’t thrown up that morning, replied that the decision wasn’t up to him and they would probably have to wait until the end of the summer. He then added that any future enquiries would have to be taken up directly with the council as he had resigned that morning.

  Jean-François Lafforest was spared further questioning by the announcement that the food was ready. The villagers instantly forgot whom they were bickering with and sat down: Lisette Robert next to the man from the council; Yves Lévèque next to Denise Vigier; Stéphane Jollis next to Sylvette Beau; Modeste Simon–who had been urged to return–next to Patrice Baudin; Madame Serre next to Pierre Rouzeau; and Guillaume Ladoucette at the end of a bench next to the baker.

  Several sat silently praying for a mini-tornado every year as members of the committee placed on the tables platters of blushing beef; pork infused with white wine, garlic and thyme; spit-roasted ducks wrapped in bacon; whole golden plump chickens and chunks of mutton coated in garlic, rosemary and ginger mustard. As the villagers picked up their knives and forks and started to eat, a rare moment of tranquillity fluttered through Amour-sur-Belle.

  Guillaume Ladoucette, however, was far from at ease. As he sat with his bare feet cooling on the grass, he failed to enjoy the succulence of the pork. Nor did he take delight in the mustard crust on the mutton. He didn’t even ask for someone to pass him the Cabécou when the cheeses were served. Instead, he just thought of the châtelaine and the terrible death that had befallen her and how he was to blame for not having found her in time.

  It was after everyone had been served one of Stéphane Jollis’s puits d’amour, a choux pastry ‘love well’ engorged with rum-laced crème pâtissière, that the baker nudged Guillaume Ladoucette and said: ‘There she is.’

  The matchmaker turned round and saw to his astonishment Émilie Fraisse walking barefoot towards them in an antique emerald dress t
hat not only appeared to have been shorn off at the knees, but was ripped in several places. Her hair, which was usually pinned up with something that sparkled, trickled over her shoulders festooned with leaves. And her knees were no longer the colour of a raspberry stain, but smeared with mud that had been fermenting for decades.

  Silence fell. The villagers put down their spoons and listened as the châtelaine explained herself. When the mini-tornado struck, she had been in the woods looking for summer truffles. As the trees let out their dreadful moans falling to their deaths, and the birds were too terrified to call, she became disorientated and was unable to find her way back to the château. Fearful that she may go the way of Patrice Baudin, she sought refuge under the still warm body of a wild boar that had died from shock. Upon waking the following morning, she returned home and was just crossing the courtyard when part of the crenellations plunged to the floor in front of her. Terrified, she fled back to the woods where she spent a second night, hiding underneath the door of the old hunters’ shack which had spiralled into the sky and dropped to the ground some distance away. She had only just summoned the courage to return to the château and, seeing how badly damaged the village was from her bedroom window, came at once to see whether anyone had survived.

  But the villagers had stopped listening by then. Their curiosity sated, their minds had turned to the tantalizing puits d’amour in front of them made by the award-winning fingers of Stéphane Jollis. As soon as the châtelaine drew breath again, they picked up their spoons and lowered their heads. Guillaume Ladoucette then gave the baker an elbow in his considerable flank. Instantly recognizing its meaning, Stéphane Jollis shuffled up and Émilie Fraisse sat down between them. The matchmaker pushed his puits d’amour with its caramelized top in front of her and passed her his spoon. Émilie Fraisse then turned towards Guillaume Ladoucette with eyes the colour of fresh sage and whispered: ‘Thank you for the letter.’ But the matchmaker was unable to reply.

  When everything had been eaten and Guillaume Ladoucette had recovered his power of speech, he offered to accompany Émilie Fraisse back to the château. As they left the field, the châtelaine noticed Fabrice Ribou walk past Sandrine Fournier who had tripped over one of the spits. His failure to help the assistant ambulant fishmonger confused Émilie Fraisse as the last time she had seen the pair together was when she had gone into the woods with her engraved musket and discovered them naked underneath the blanket in the old hunters’ shack. The other villagers who also noticed the bar owner ignore Sandrine Fournier as she lay sprawled on the ground naturally assumed that he couldn’t bear to touch her. In fact the pair had been running their hands all over each other since becoming lovers a year after he banned her from the bar.

  It was an arrangement that served them both. Fabrice Ribou thought their widely known animosity would serve as a perfect cover for an affair during his second marriage, which bored him as much as his first. Whenever he dwelt on his father’s death, and found himself filled with loathing for the mushroom poisoner again, he simply accepted it as after two miserable marriages he had come to view hatred as a natural ingredient in a relationship. The mushroom poisoner, who had never forgiven the bar owner for the slur on her character, the nickname it had provoked and the devastating effect the ban had had on her social life, lived in the hope that their energetic contortions underneath the stained blanket would one day induce in her lover a fatal heart attack.

  Once at the château, Émilie Fraisse and Guillaume Ladoucette stood on the drawbridge looking in despair at the courtyard pitted with enormous crenellation stones. The matchmaker, sensing the depth to which the châtelaine’s heart had spiralled at the sight of such devastation, immediately strode inside and announced that he would hoist them back up himself, and if the rope snapped he would simply try again. Worried about her heirloom vegetables, Émilie Fraisse then led him to the garden through the scattered bones of the chapel roof. Despite the volley of roof tiles that had landed amongst them, the ancient varieties were largely unscathed. Hoping to take her mind off her despair Émilie Fraisse picked up a couple of baskets that had been blown against the garden wall and handed one to Guillaume Ladoucette. As they picked some of the round black radish, Émilie Fraisse asked the matchmaker whether he remembered the summer when the château was between owners and a group of them slipped in, dressed up in the dented breastplates and ran round playing hide-and-seek amongst the antiques and junk-shop furniture. And Guillaume Ladoucette replied with a smile that he did. As they helped themselves to the square podded peas, the matchmaker asked whether she remembered how their gang, the Wet Rats, so called because they lived near the Belle, attacked the Bog Weeds every Thursday afternoon with catapults. And the châtelaine replied with a smile that she did. And, as they filled their baskets with strawberry spinach, Émilie Fraisse asked him whether he remembered when they baked stolen apples in the ashes of a fire outside the den they made in the woods. And Guillaume Ladoucette replied with a smile that he did.

  As they walked back to the château, Émilie Fraisse fell silent and when the matchmaker asked her what was wrong, she admitted that she was still too frightened to stay there. Guillaume Ladoucette then said that she was welcome as his guest while it was being made safe, and she dashed in to collect a couple of antique dresses which had been shorn off at the knees.

  When they arrived at the matchmaker’s home, he put the bag of heirloom vegetables on the kitchen table and carried her case up to one of the spare bedrooms. As she was washing her hands and knees in the bathroom, he went outside and picked a white dahlia from the edge of his potager which he put in a vase by her bed. When he came back down, Émilie Fraisse was looking at the handbell which Madame Ladoucette rang in the street during the war whenever De Gaulle had been on the radio from London in order to irritate her neighbours, who were Pétainists. She then turned her gaze to his father’s shotgun mounted on the chimneybreast which had claimed three wild boars, and the clock on the mantelpiece below it which had driven a relative to suicide. ‘The house is just as I remember it,’ she said. The matchmaker then took out the old Vittel bottle filled with homemade pineau and a couple of glasses, and they spent the rest of the evening at the kitchen table recounting the years they had lost. When, in the early hours, they both started to feel hungry again, Guillaume Ladoucette served them both a bowl of cassoulet. And it was then that Émilie Fraisse found her little green button.

  Both too weary to stay up any longer, Guillaume Ladoucette decided to risk the wrath of the council and ran Émilie Fraisse a bath, leaving out for her the most exquisite bar of soap from the bottom shelf. Once she had finished, and disappeared into her room in her white cotton dressing gown with the dark-blue flowers, the matchmaker ran another for himself and experienced the unparalleled joy that he had been denied for too long. Again he saw the wondrous sight of his knees rising like islands out of the water and his hairy toes lined up underneath the taps. And he stayed lapped by the sweet-smelling water until he found himself falling asleep, his moustache afloat.

  Quietly shutting his door so as not to disturb his guest, he then got into bed, pulled the sheet over him and turned out the light. As the perpetual breeze fluttered in from the window, he relived the moment when he turned round at the fête and saw Émilie Fraisse in her torn emerald antique dress. Again, he saw her mudstained knees, her hair festooned with leaves and the scratches on her arms. Just as he was wondering what delectable delight he would make her for breakfast, the door opened. He then heard the sound of a pair of small bare feet crossing the wooden floor, and felt the châtelaine, who was unable to bear being apart from him any longer, slip in next to him, her quicksilver hair caressing his arm as it fell. Pulling Émilie Fraisse towards him, Guillaume Ladoucette told her everything he had written in the letter, and when he had finished his outpouring of love, he started again. And by the time he had got to the bit about always loving her, he heard the rhythmic rise and fall of her sleeping. He then turned on his back into his usual posit
ion, his arms down the sides of his body as if already dead in his coffin. As he wondered what he would do if he ever lost her again, a tear suddenly ran down the side of his face into his ear. Promising himself that he would never let her go, he turned on to his side and tucked into the warm contours of her body. Sheltered in the harbour of Émilie Fraisse, he fell asleep and was lost in the production of his monstrous snores. And it was only Émilie Fraisse, woken by the uproar, who heard the sound of a freshly laid egg rolling across the landing.

  Acknowledgements

  With grateful thanks to the people of Périgord Vert, in particular my kind and generous hosts. Thanks also to my agent Gráinne Fox, all at Transworld, my sister and brother, and, of course, Digby the Brave.

  About the Author

  JULIA STUART is an award-winning journalist and lives in Bahrain. This is her first novel.

  Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.

  Credits

  Cover design by Mary Schuck

  Cover illustration by Helen Chapman

  Copyright

  THE MATCHMAKER OF PÉRIGORD. Copyright © 2008 by Julia Stuart. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  EPub Edition © JUNE 2008 ISBN: 9780061877575