A tenant of the building she’d seen several times—a man of about seventy—gave her a severe look and sneered as he swiped his key and stepped over her detritus. He stopped, pushed on the wooden frame and held the door open for Pip. It turned out he was a gentleman after all! Pip quickly stuffed her belongings into her backpack and nodded as she walked across the marble-tiled floor of the foyer to the wide staircase with wrought-iron balustrade weaving its way up the spine of the building. She jogged up the stairs to the fourth floor. All those mornings doing the Sacré-Coeur were starting to kick in. She fumbled for her keys—how could she have lost them again?
Once inside, she studied the old oak parquetry floors, floor-to-ceiling bay windows with wooden shutters and the way the foyer opened onto the dining area and sitting room. No corridor wastage. It was one of the grander Haussmann-style apartments and it had been thoughtfully renovated and furnished. Each room must have been over seven metres long; in the centre of the dining space was a ten-seater polished cherrywood table on zinc legs—very cool. She dropped into a black Thonet chair, its feet dipped in fluorescent green, to catch her breath.
She wished that she could show Jack this place. He’d love the way the old building had been given a slick contemporary feel. She’d seen all the sketches he’d been doing for a new addition to Ashfield House when she was in Tuscany. She wondered whether he’d managed to sort the paperwork with his parents. Or if he was planning to go straight home after the gala dinner? The last email she’d had from him was all about trialling a new site with some sangiovese vines in Tasmania. Was he doing this with Valentina?
Flushing, she pulled her laptop out of her bag and checked her emails. Nothing.
To take her mind off Jack, Pip decided to see if there was any information she could find on Château de Boschaud. She’d spoken to Madame Boschaud and invited herself to stay for this weekend. She wanted to ask Madame about those old letters and recipes. Her mum had also mentioned during a Skype call last week that the château had been trialled on Airbnb. She opened TripAdvisor and hit Google Translate. Even though Pip wasn’t a going as a paying guest, the results weren’t promising:
We get a yellow card reminder on email, but when we arrived there was no booking. We are taken into a small room, and there was no heating on top of the tower. It was cold and shutters throughout the night with a bang. When we complained, the owner said there was nothing to be done about it as if it were a ghost. Crazy place. Do not visit.
And:
We evacuated the castle without seeing anyone. The rooms are cold, the home has not been done, the food remained in the cabinet has happened since 2011. The beds were not soft. This place is not worth a visit, closed limit for negligence. NOT ADVISE!!! AND ESPECIALLY NOT TO SLEEP!!!!
It was going to be an interesting weekend.
Chapter 31
Château de Boschaud, March 2015
Pip sat in the back of a smart white Peugeot taxi she’d hailed outside Châlus bus stop. She was glued to the window, watching the cinematic cliché pan out before her: soft rolling green hills, clusters of stone buildings with charming wooden doors and fields filled with pretty brown Limousin cattle. It was all so green, the yellows so extreme. The Australian landscape seemed faded by comparison. Faded, prickly and scratchy. But she missed the burning smell of eucalyptus in dry air, blades of native grass cutting her skin as she bush-bashed to the waterfront. The squelch of fine silty sediment through her toes as she walked across the vast mudflats of North West Bay. Hell, she even missed the dull drone of flies in her ears as she collected samples.
Most of all, she missed Jack.
The taxi slowed and pulled off the road, passing through a pair of crumbling pillars. They crunched over white gravel, past a derelict barn on their left. Pip gazed at the old barn with square turrets either side and mentally moved in. She could see the huge wooden rafters through the open double doorway and mentally arranged a mezzanine, gravel courtyard and vertical green garden with automatic watering system. They were everywhere in Paris.
Château de Boschaud sat tall, square and proud in the middle of a wide, flat green park dotted with towering ancient oaks, lindens, pines and chestnuts. The taxi drew to a stop, and Pip got out, paid the driver and took her bags.
A stocky lady wearing a brown skirt, white shirt, brown cardigan and headscarf came out to greet her.
‘Philippa Arnet, I presume. It is a pleasure to see you again. You were a just a little girl when you last came here with your family, so you probably don’t remember.’
‘I wish I did,’ Pip smiled. ‘Lovely to meet you again, Madame Boschaud,’ Pip said, extending her hand.
‘Come. It is wonderful to have you here. And family too! What a treat. I’m so thrilled you made contact,’ She smiled at Pip. ‘Bring your bags. You will have the maiden’s room. I insist.’
Madame Boschaud stepped through an arched doorway into a small foyer with parquetry floors and then continued walking through another stone arch on her left. Pip followed with her bags until they reached a turret with a winding staircase. The centre of each wide granite step was worn down with use and Pip wondered how many people had walked them.
When they reached the top Madame Boschaud panted: ‘Quite a climb, eh? But I hope you find this room special. Not many people stay up here. It is said this is where the young brides slept before their wedding nights. Others say this is where the lords’ mistresses were kept.
‘One story says the ghost of a woman who is buried in our graveyard over the hill there still haunts the tower.’ She chortled and gave a nonchalant shrug. ‘Probably a bit of truth in all of them.’
She pointed at the iron radiator fixed to the wall and looked apologetic. ‘It doesn’t work, I’m afraid. It is too expensive to heat all the rooms. Only the living rooms are warm. There are no bags of gold coins to run this place. No staff. So we try this new “Air” accommodation.’ She shrugged again. ‘It is very difficult—’ she pulled her cardigan around her ‘—but we make do.’
Pip looked around the tiny room with walls of whitewashed stone and ancient beams the size of tree trunks overhead. The room had a simple wrought-iron double bed with a navy ticking duvet, a round wooden side table and a small cut-glass vase of erlicheer and jonquils, bringing a burst of colour to the room. The only light streamed in through a window, leaving a bright square the size of Pip’s backpack on the opposite wall. The effect was enchanting and haunting in equal parts.
Pip walked over to the window and peered out into the fading light. A garden stretched out from the turret for several acres, enclosed by the thickest stone wall she had ever seen—it was at least as thick as the length of her arm. Directly below she could make out half a dozen cane beds where the shrubs were trained and tied to ornate bamboo scaffolding. In the far corner were the familiar gnarled shapes of apple and pear trees dotted in a grid, and there seemed to be some kind of maze of tall dark hedges spiralling around a circular fountain in the centre. Madame watched Pip studying the garden.
‘Yes, that is our walled garden. Very productive. The monks established it and tended it during the medieval times. They lived on the other side of the garden—see the cloister over by the wall?’
Pip examined the long narrow rooms built into the garden wall. Along one side was an avenue of crumbling stone columns. There was a strip of apple-green lawn bordering the cloister, and then a series of raised garden beds—each at least two metres wide—arranged in neat squares. She quickly counted twenty. Each bed looked as if it were edged with wicker baskets—she’d never seen woven wood used as a garden border before.
Her parents would love this garden. She wondered why they hadn’t made more mention of it when she told them she was visiting. Even Megs would find it hard not to be charmed by this place, Pip chuckled to herself.
Madame Boschaud came to stand beside Pip and followed her gaze. ‘Ah. The physic garden.’ Pip must have looked confused because she added: ‘Medicine plants.’
She continued: ‘Over in the far corner, in the shade, we grow the sweet woodruff, and then in the middle beds there we have savoury, fenugreek, rosemary, rue, iris, sage, bergamot.’ She ticked them off on her fingers. ‘Lots of mints and the peppermint, lovage and fennel. There are so many, Philippa. You must come see for yourself tomorrow. We will walk the garden together.
‘The gardens within these walls had been neglected for so long; overgrown with blackberries and the wretched hornbeam gone mad.’ Madame Boschaud tore her gaze from the window and made eye contact with Pip. ‘When I came to live here again—almost twenty-five years ago now …’
She paused and took a deep breath. Her hunched shoulders dropped a little lower—or was Pip imagining it?
‘I decided to restore the garden.’ Madame’s bottom lip trembled a fraction. A deep sadness passed across her face. ‘My legacy, if you like.’
Pip realised with a sudden churning in her gut that she had seen this exact expression on Megs’s face several times before she left Tasmania. She hadn’t heard from Megs in the past two weeks. Well, not more than a text or two. Hardly anything. She was probably reading too much into it—but her mum sounded worried. Her sister’s heavy workload combined with the demands of a baby were taking their toll.
If she didn’t hear back from Megs tomorrow she’d try Will. Megs would hate that, of course, but what else could she do? She just wanted to check in and hear Chloé’s delicious little gurgle. It was a pity she couldn’t squeeze those chubby legs through the phone. She was surprised at how much she ached to see her sister and little niece.
Madame Boschaud was still pointing out the window at the mysterious garden below. ‘We’ve tried to maintain the original shape, but it is difficult. Plants change and die, non?’ Madame Boschaud shook her head. ‘And we do not have the monks to tend it now, of course. I have some local gardeners maintain it. I do what I can.’ Madame gave an apologetic shrug. ‘I choose the gardeners over oil.’ She nodded at the radiators. ‘Far more important, I think.’
Looking at the abundant garden below, Pip agreed.
‘How long has your family lived here, madame?’ asked Pip.
‘Give or take a revolution, since 1104. Richard the Lionheart and his men stayed here. I have some books with a history of the château.’ She turned to face Pip. ‘I can show you the history of your relatives, if you like?’
‘That would be wonderful, merci. I also have some old documents—recipes and letters. I mentioned them to you on the phone. The originals are at the Herbier, but I have copies. I wondered if you would be able to tell me if they are from here?’
‘I’m not sure if I can help, but I will certainly try.’
‘Thanks again, madame. You are so kind, fitting me in at such late notice.’
‘It is no problem. And please, call me Gabrielle. We are family, after all. I’ll leave you to unpack and freshen up for dinner—the bathroom is one level downstairs. They did not plan for ensuites in the medieval times, non?’ She smiled. ‘Aperitifs will be in the library at six.’
Chapter 32
Château de Boschaud, March 2015
The first thing that struck Pip about the library was the smell. Orange zest. She glanced around the room and saw several thick candles burning on a long wooden table as well as in candelabras and sconces. The room was lined with floor-to-ceiling shelves of leather-bound books, thick oak ceiling beams and a carved granite fireplace you could park a car in. Leaning over it, Pip could make out a worn crest in the facing of the fireplace.
Ancient floorboards—oak, darkened with age—stretched the length of the room. The southern side of the floor was dotted with a series of squares thrown by the faintest trace of light streaming through the row of windows. The sprawling library could seat at least one hundred and fifty comfortably, she calculated. It would have made an impressive dining room. It still did. It would be the perfect place for a feast.
‘Ah, Philippa. What will you take to drink?’ Gabrielle had set out an old-style drinks tray with an ornate silver champagne bucket, ice, cut-crystal glasses, olives, lemon rinds and a collection of bottles Pip didn’t recognise.
‘I have some champagne here, brought up from the cellar.’ Pip recognised the hand-painted Art Deco botanical label of vintage Perrier-Jouët Belle Epoque. It was going to be a great night.
‘Or,’ continued Gabrielle, ‘some liqueur de châtaigne—chestnut liqueur. You can have it with ice, or in champagne like a Kir Royale. I have some special dry vermouth too—a blend from my friend down the road. It is our little secret.’ She leaned in and whispered conspiratorially: ‘He has the usual cloves, cinnamon, cardamom, orange peel, juniper, hyssop—but he also sneaks in extra wormwood.’
‘Artemisia,’ said Pip.
‘As I said, a secret blend of botanicals.’ Gabrielle paused. ‘Artemisia—the most bitter, but aromatic of all herbs.’
‘Mother of Herbs,’ Pip said quietly, repeating the phrase she’d learned from Pedro in the spice room at Azure.
‘Of course,’ agreed Gabrielle. ‘It’s said if you grind and burn marigold, thyme and a twig of Artemisia, make it into a poultice and rub your body with it on St Luke’s Day you’ll dream of your true love.’
Pip grimaced at Gabrielle. ‘I might have missed the boat on that one.’ Was Jack with Valentina now? she wondered.
Gabrielle raised an eyebrow but didn’t comment, saying only, ‘Now, Philippa—what can I get for you?’
‘I might try a bit of the vermouth. For research purposes, of course.’
‘Of course,’ said Gabrielle as she poured some vermouth into a wineglass with ice and a slice of orange.
‘What do you like to drink?’ asked Pip.
‘Champagne. I only drink vintage. At my age it’s worth enjoying every moment of the grand vin.’
‘Why not?’ Pip laughed as Gabrielle poured herself some bubbles. Pip had to stop herself sculling the vermouth. ‘Gabrielle, can we go and visit the person who made this so I can see how they did it?’
‘Bien sûr,’ said Gabrielle. ‘It is just across the garden in the old monastery. The monks used to make absinthe and other drinks too, of course.’
Pip shuddered, remembering her last encounter with absinthe.
‘Like with this vermouth, they used the local plants grown in the garden, and botanicals like juniper and sloe they foraged from the woods. They would have ordered the spices in from the merchants though. There are no cloves or cinnamon in this climate.’ She laughed and pulled her grey cardigan across her ample bosom. ‘That’s why I burn these candles. They smell like warm places.’
‘It smells lovely in here,’ agreed Pip, nodding as she had another sip of vermouth.
‘Down in the cellar and in the garden we have some of the old clay pots in which they stored the spices—or so the conservators say. Some are in pieces, but others, they will store the spices like the day they were made to carry them. I’ll show you tomorrow. They are a distinctive shape.’
Gabrielle outlined the shape of the pots in the air with her free hand.
‘Apparently, Château de Boschaud was supplied by one family of spice traders for one hundred and fifty years—and they weren’t even French but Genoans, would you believe? According to the monks’ ledger, the last abbot who lived here stopped the supply almost overnight in 1487 and the merchants were banished. No reason was recorded. No more beau pots.’ She smiled wryly. ‘A pity.’
Above the stone mantelpiece was a tapestry of rosebuds and on the far wall was an enormous tapestry of some nudes dancing around a fire. The candles flickered and picked up the gold thread and dewy skin of the dancers. If Pip hadn’t been standing in a musty old room, she’d have sworn they were teenagers at a full moon party.
Gabrielle followed Pip’s gaze. ‘C’est magnifique, non?’
‘It’s beautiful. Very, ah …’
‘Sensual? Sexy?’ Gabrielle wore a wicked smile as she examined the tapestry. ‘The government conservateurs uncove
red this about a decade ago. It was wrapped in leather over in the monastery. It is thought the last abbot kept it in his room. This would have been in the late 1400s. An unusual choice for a monk, non?’
‘Very.’ Pip nodded and took a sip of her vermouth.
‘Indeed, we are lucky to have it. The château’s inventory records show it was a wedding gift. There was a grand banquet here in 1487—a wedding banquet for Lord Boschaud held at the midsummer solstice. By all accounts, it was incredible.’
Pip’s brain whirred. 1487. She wondered if the fate of the spice deliveries and the mysterious tapestry were somehow linked to this banquet.
Gabrielle walked across to one of the bookshelves. ‘We have a manuscript. A record of the menu. And now I think of it, we have recipes, drawings and herbals. They think it was written by an abbot.’ She took another sip on her champagne as she walked along the bookshelves, scanning for the manuscript.
‘I’d love to have a look at that manuscript, Gabrielle. But before we do, may please I show you these old letters and recipes? My friend has magnified them for me, so we can make out some text. I just wondered if you would recognise them. They came in some old copper pots that my mother gave me, which were a gift from my father’s great-aunt but no-one really knows where Aunt Margot got them. No-one thought to ask, I guess.’ She reached into her backpack for the recipes and fished them out of the bag in their neat plastic folders and handed them to Gabrielle.
‘Ah,’ said Gabrielle, nodding. ‘Were there some copper pots this big, with handles?’ She held her arms out from her body making a circle. ‘And so deep?’ She indicated with her hands.
Pip nodded. ‘And some cast-iron saucepans, and a few skillets. The letters were in a medium-sized copper pot.’
‘So you now have the pots that were sent to Margot. Your great-aunt used to holiday here in the summer with my husband’s papa when they were children. He spoke of them often. Then the northern cousins were all sent here during the war.’ She smiled. ‘Margot’s family went to Australia in the 1920s, after the war. Their home was bombed.’ Gabrielle sighed. ‘I am just trying to think how she got the pots.’ She rubbed her chin. ‘I think perhaps they were a gift from my husband’s grandparents. They felt sorry for the family. They had nothing of home to take across the world for a new start. Their farmhouse in Douaumont was occupied by the Germans, then destroyed.’
The Midsummer Garden Page 22