No answer. Miss Thorne was writhing under an onslaught of memories. Audrey and Raymond were the only people alive who knew that she had once, briefly, been Yvonne Rosel. They were the only French people she’d kept in touch with, and only because Audrey had sought her out and kept a correspondence going. How had they traced her here?
They’d been so young when she met them in 1943. Shy sweethearts, hiding their devotion because Audrey came from respectable farming stock while the Chaumiers, Raymond’s folk, were labourers. The two of them had been children really, thrust by war and the realities of rural life into premature adulthood. Audrey Valle, her black curls flattened under a headscarf, playmate and surrogate mother to Henri’s children. Raymond, just thirteen, doing a man’s work in the vineyard and around the stables. Rounding up those bloody geese every night before settling down in his nook among the birds. A boy of varied talents, he’d cooked dinner for them all on that last night, rustling up rabbit in red wine.
How frustrated with life she’d been that day! Confined to her room again, fed up with reading. Unable even to get up and exercise unless she covered the windows. Envying Henri and his children riding in the sunshine.
The appearance of Albert at her door that afternoon hardly improved her spirits. She’d rather have had a visit from one of the ganders. He’d brought a note from Henri, formally inviting her to dine, though not until nine o’clock. By nine, the sun would be setting and it would be safe then for her and Jean-Claude to slip between the buildings. When she realised that Albert carried a wind-up gramophone, and watched him set it down on the floor, her spirits leapt. Finally, she could expel the deadly silence. ‘Modern or classical?’ she asked as he placed a pile of records on the wash stand. Without answering, he came further into the room. From inside a jacket made from some kind of rough sailcloth, he produced a posy of summer blooms. ‘For you.’
‘How kind.’ She put them to her nose. ‘Are these Bourbon roses? Aren’t they exquisite? An old-fashioned rose shows all nature’s imperfections, yet keeps its beauty.’ A pretentious comment that was lost on Albert. His face fell.
‘I knocked off all the bugs.’
‘Good for you. I’ll wear this one in my button-hole tonight.’ She selected a rose whose white petals were streaked with dark pink. ‘Thank your brother for the gramophone. Music in the afternoon, what a treat.’ She meant – please go now. Albert’s expression, poised somewhere between lustful intensity and hang-dog reproach, made her as queasy as ever. He didn’t scare her. She was trained to defend herself. ‘I’m sure you have a busy afternoon…’
He seemed to be staring at the bed. He pointed. ‘What’s that?’
Before she could react, he’d swooped on an object on the floor. A moment later, he was thrusting one of Henri’s cufflinks towards her. ‘What’s this doing here?’ he demanded.
‘Clearly, not its designated job of holding shirt cuffs together. Give it to your brother, won’t you? He’s likely missing it.’
‘You fornicate with my brother. I know what you are. I’ve seen you.’
She flushed. ‘Because you pry at windows and slide about in the shadows! Has nobody told you, nothing is as detestable as a voyeur?’
‘I know what you are.’ His voice took on its habitual, angry whine. ‘You fornicate.’
‘Say that again, and—’ She broke off as he lunged for her. ‘How dare you!’ No ambiguity about which part of her anatomy he was aiming for. A moment later, he was face down on the floorboards, one arm twisted behind his back, Yvonne’s knee on his lumbar.
‘Bitch!’ he shrieked.
‘Get up and get out. From now on, don’t even look at me.’
‘I could have you arrested!’
‘That would make you a traitor, a coward and a collaborator.’ She released him, standing back as he struggled upright.
At the door, bravado deserted him and he dipped his head sideways. ‘Will you tell Henri?’
She weighed up her choices. Albert was now a threat, and really she should break his neck. Had he not been Henri’s brother, she’d have done it. But her sense of fair play argued that he was just a boy, his mental age closer to fifteen than the eighteen that he apparently was. All that sneering was surely just self-loathing, a groping for love. A literal groping, in this case. Henri had told her that Albert had been rejected for war service and passed over for forced labour. Some would call that a stroke of luck, but it was hardly an endorsement to raise a boy’s confidence. ‘Be ruthless,’ Henri had urged her. But surely he hadn’t meant her to eliminate his brother? The last born, his parents’ final throw of the dice? Pity propelled her answer – ‘I won’t tell him this time.’
Raymond’s rabbit casserole was superb, thick with swede, garlic and herbs, with chunks of unbleached bread to soak up the sauce. As promised, Audrey brought the children to the table. They’d slept through the early part of the evening and were now wide awake, the little boy Pierre-Gaston chuckling and singing delightfully. Isabelle, who slithered onto the seat next to her father, greeted Yvonne politely, though she spent most of the meal gazing at her papa. Henri conversed with Jean-Claude.
Yvonne directed her attention towards Audrey Valle, ignoring Albert and tossing only a few polite comments in Henri’s direction. They’d be together later and it was rather fun, pretending to be stand-offish. In fact, the whole evening was jolly. Jean-Claude regaled them with stories about his work for a leading British newspaper in Paris. He’d been a news photographer for Calford Press, and his impressions of the choleric, violently unreasonable Lord Calford had them in stitches. It wasn’t until the meal’s end that Yvonne remembered that this would not be home much longer. Soon, she would be a stranger somewhere else. A stranger with a short life-expectancy.
At the end of the meal, Henri raised his wine glass to Raymond, saying, ‘Thank you to the excellent chef.’
Albert joined the toast, adding, ‘You’ll make someone a damn good wife one day, Raymond.’
‘Mockery is the last resort of the stupid,’ Henri snapped. ‘If you cannot be generous, at least fight clean.’
Oh, the venom in Albert’s eyes! It crystallised around them like spun sugar in ice-cold air. ‘I am not allowed to fight, as you well know,’ Albert snarled. ‘Medically unfit.’
‘There is another fight and you are free to be part of it.’
‘The Resistance?’ Albert turned up his lip. ‘A bunch of big-heads who can’t keep their gobs shut. Obviously, or she wouldn’t be here.’ Albert jabbed at Yvonne.
Raising his glass, swallowing wine without showing the emotion Yvonne knew was rippling through him, Henri replied, ‘I sometimes wonder, Albert, if you will ever grow into a man.’
‘Oh? You think you are the lord and master here, brother, but even you have your weaknesses. You will fail in the end.’
‘Albert was a nasty little shit,’ Miss Thorne said loudly, using up her strength so she had none with which to sit up for her tea. ‘A groping little shit.’
Joelle, stirring sugar into a mug, replied calmly, ‘I’ve met a few of those in my time.’
‘No doubt you have,’ Miss Thorne agreed. But she hadn’t been referring to your average bloke with wandering hands. ‘This one had something of Satan about him. I should have taken him down but I wasn’t sufficiently cold-blooded. My failure.’ Henri’s failure had been to assume that, beneath the craven exterior, Albert was just like him, loyal to family and country. But then, neither she nor Henri had possessed the modern insight into criminality. Darling Henri had never encountered the word ‘sociopath’ and neither had she. Not until many years too late. A psychologist would no doubt fit a label to Albert. To her, he was still the little shit who had betrayed his brother and got away with it for sixty years.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Amber beads sprayed with atomised honey was how Shauna described the bloom on the Semillon grapes. They were reaching the end of the second day’s picking, and that would complete the main white grape harvest
. A half-hectare would be left to succumb to ‘noble rot’, a strain of botrytis mould essential to the production of sweet Monbazillac wine. What was needed, according to Laurent, was a humid spell followed by drying winds. Without the dryness, they’d get rotten grapes, good for nobody.
True to their agreement, they’d not spoken of Yvonne or Henri since their night in the tower room. Laurent needed every grain of energy for the chai. Loaded trailers left the vineyards in relay, the crushers and presses roaring and grinding the day long. The vats were filling.
‘You’ve missed a cluster.’
Shauna tensed. Even if she hadn’t recognised the walking stick and round-toed boots planted on the ground beside her, she’d have known that critical tone. Without looking up from the vine she was denuding, she said, ‘I’ve seen it, Monsieur. Thank you.’
‘You missed another one further back.’
‘Because some of the grapes looked rotten. But feel free to check.’ The boots did not move.
‘I know what you are,’ Albert de Chemignac said, not seeming to care who heard.
Madame Guilhem, who’d specially requested another stint as Shauna’s picking partner, paused, scissors aloft. ‘Don’t fight with him,’ she advised in a low voice.
But Shauna had waited a long time for this moment. She got to her feet. ‘Did you know, Monsieur Albert, there are as many redheaded people in my home county of Yorkshire as there are in Ireland? We have a reputation for being fiery tempered, but it’s not strictly true.’ She breathed down her rising emotion, reminding herself that whatever else he was, Albert was an old man. He was looking all at once wary, or perhaps he was trying to follow what she was saying. So she explained. ‘You say you know what I am. But what is that, exactly? It’s convenient to stereotype people, particularly if you’re out for a scapegoat – “Oh, it was that rouquine, the redheaded one. The foreigner. Put the blame on her, since she’s not around to argue back.” I’ve discovered something extraordinary, Monsieur.’ Shauna lifted her hair at the roots and let it fall. It had grown out of its bob in the weeks she’d been here and the highlights were fading to reveal her natural colour. ‘She is here. Yvonne is here, looking out through my eyes. When the harvest is done, you, me, Laurent and Yvonne are going to talk. Maybe even Henri too. We’re going to reminisce about old times. Talk about the war years. What would you think of that?’
Albert did not reply, but made his escape as fast as his painful joints allowed him.
Pipes everywhere, the elephant-roar of the crusher… The chai was still going full blast when Shauna joined Laurent there, bringing another of Audrey’s packed suppers with her. No competition from Rachel this time. Shauna had come from the kitchen by way of the stable yard, and had seen her rival leading horses out to the fields, Adão alongside. You fry your fish, I’ll fry mine.
Armand, who had just delivered a final tractor-load, gave her the thumbs-up when he saw her, and nodded appreciatively at her overalls. Taking the basket, he said, ‘You are the cavalry! Raymond’s back has gone again.’ He nodded towards his colleague, who looked sick with pain. ‘Laurent wants him to go home, but he won’t. Now we can say you’re here to relieve him.’
Laurent turned off the crusher and silence rocked the air. ‘This lot into the press, then we’ll put that lot –’ he indicated the trailer that had been backed into the chai, the half-barrels on its back overflowing with white grapes – ‘into the crusher. Then the Semillon is finished!’ He was shouting, but everyone did that here until they adjusted to the machines being off. A few minutes later, the place was shuddering again as the press got to work on the de-stalked white grapes, sending juice up through a pipe into a stainless steel vat. Laurent climbed a step-ladder at its side.
‘He’s ensuring the pipe is securely connected,’ Armand roared at her. Shauna was helping him decant grapes from the crusher into the press. ‘If it comes away, a geyser of juice paints the ceiling. It happened to him in his first season here, when Albert was watching. Ha! You can imagine.’
As Shauna emptied the last bucket into the press, Laurent raised his hand. ‘OK, we’re full. Switch off.’ He asked for a jug, which he dunked into the vat. Armand brought four glasses.
They let Laurent taste first. ‘Mmm-hmm.’
Raymond and Armand echoed his opinion, though Armand added, ‘Oui, très jolie.’ Lovely.
Shauna gulped the cool, smooth liquid, hit first by its sweetness, then its complex fruitiness.
‘What do you taste?’ Raymond asked her.
‘Honey…’ Her appreciation of a good wine had developed apace since her first days here, but these men had spent their adult lives tasting. She didn’t want to come across as pretentious or ignorant. ‘And grape of course.’
‘What does your palate tell you?’ Laurent had his nose over the rim of his glass. Unlike her, he’d taken only a sip or two.
This time, she let the liquid stay in her mouth for a few seconds. ‘Citrus. Lime, I think. Yes, lime, not lemon. Passionfruit sorbet. And – ’ she might as well give them a laugh – ‘buttered toast and the leaves of Ribes, a garden shrub we call “Flowering Currant” in England. I suppose that comes from the volatile compounds—’
Armand waved away the science, saying to Laurent, ‘She has a good palate, this one. You should send her to Bordeaux to a wine master’s course.’
‘What wouldn’t I give to keep her.’ Laurent downed his juice and started shovelling grapes from the trailer into the crusher.
‘Raymond has been chewing pain killers all day,’ Laurent confided to Shauna once the two of them were finally alone in the silent chai. ‘I said that if he didn’t rest, he’d not be fit to help with the red grapes. He’s not missed a harvest here in over thirty years.’
‘Who brought in the 1943 harvest, after your grandfather —’
‘Albert and the village women.’ Laurent laid a finger against her lips. ‘Not them, not now. You and I are going to spend the next few hours cleaning this place until every microbe and every mould-spore is vanquished. Never say I don’t show you a good time.’
Together, they sluiced out the crusher and the press using hosepipes and brushes. Every time Shauna thought they’d cleaned the steel components, more grape residue splurged out. ‘It’s like squashed slugs and beetle wings,’ she said.
‘That is the most romantic thing a girl has ever said to me.’
She sprayed him with the hose. He got it off her and squirted her. Soon, they were both soaked, spattered with grape grunge. Declaring a moment’s recess, Laurent turned off the water and took a bottle of four-year-old dry Semillon from the fridge in the corner and poured them a glass. He showed her the label with its ‘Clos de Chemignac’ coat of arms. ‘This one ages well and I love it, though most growers blend Semillon with other whites.’
‘But you do things differently.’ They clinked glasses. She drank. ‘Mm, I like it. It’s… Grown up.’
He laughed in pleasure. ‘I’ll put that on the back of the bottle. “A grown-up wine, ideal for drinking with sensible seafood and highly-responsible meat.”’
After that, a dozen more things had to be hosed down and re-sterilised. The sun was sinking as they closed the chai behind them. They stood, hand in hand, not speaking. Shauna thought – he does this every day, for weeks.
A breeze took some of the moisture out of their overalls. Tomorrow, they’d be picking the Cabernet Sauvignon vines, two days’ labour topped off by the fête de vendange. Audrey had promised that it would be a feast to remember, telling her, ‘The women in the village consider it an act of friendship to help this year, for Isabelle’s sake and for yours, because now you are one of us. You have proved yourself. Voilà!’ Stepping back, Audrey had cupped Shauna’s face and stroked her red hair as tears welled in her eyes. ‘You and Yvonne must have been kin,’ she murmured.
‘Yvonne – a relation? Audrey, what do you know of her?’
But Audrey had turned away and Shauna had to be satisfied with the very real comp
liment that had been paid her. Being accepted by Chemignac’s wives and mothers was the finest accolade she could ever hope for.
Now, she bent to rub her aching knees. ‘I can see why a lifetime here leaves you all limping and crippled,’ she remarked to Laurent.
‘Let’s walk it off.’
They crossed the meadows. Evening mist rose from the shorn grass, icy on the toes. The air’s perfume was of resin and roses. ‘I love this place,’ she said. ‘I don’t ever want to leave.’
‘What Armand said about you doing a wine master’s course… You could study viticulture and oenology, all the wine sciences. My own oenologue. My own genius. There’d be no stopping us, though all the other growers would want to kidnap you!’
‘Lock me up in the turret then!’ she joked, unsure if he was proposing or offering a job. ‘But surely you’d let me out every September?’
‘September and October.’
Before they reached the woods, they turned back to look at the château. The tower loomed milky-grey and Laurent stifled a shudder. He said, ‘Soon, we’ll take a few days to ourselves. Go away maybe? I want to ask you…’ He broke off. A window shone bright at the top of the tower. A window where there ought to be solid stone – stones they’d both seen and touched. They stared at panes of glass throwing back the sunset. A figure stood behind the glass. Female, undoubtedly.
‘That’s what I saw!’ Shauna gripped Laurent’s hand. ‘I didn’t want to believe it.’
He squeezed her hand in return and she felt his rising excitement, and his fear too. He said, ‘I saw the window and the girl years ago, when I was just a bit older than Nico. It scared the hell out of me and everybody I spoke to about it shook their heads and turned away. When you related the same experience, I couldn’t quite cope with it. Who is she? What is she?’
‘If we close our eyes and count to ten, she’ll be gone.’
A Gown of Thorns: A Gripping Novel of Romance, Intrigue and the Secrets of a Vintage Parisian Dress Page 23