Chapter Two
1
“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-speaking 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.
“Well, I really must be heading off,” Maggie said, smiling too broadly at the entire store.
Madame Dulcie quickly turned back to Maggie. “Madame Renoir believes, stupidly, that you are guests of Monsieur Alexandre’s. Is this true?”
Maggie looked at Madame Renoir who looked, it seemed to her, hopefully back at her. “Well, no,” she said. “We...my husband, that is, inherited some property...”
“You are not visiting?” Madame Dulcie thumped her purchases down on the counter and turned to translate Maggie’s words to the assembled crowd of women.
“Well, yes, we are visiting,” Maggie said. “We are here temporarily. Visiting. Absolutely.”
“Where are you staying, Madame?” Madame Dulcie folded her arms across her chest and looked at Maggie with tolerance and kindness.
“Well, we live at Domaine St-Buvard,” Maggie said, now thoroughly irritated with Laurent that she had to go through this alone. “So I guess we’ll harvest the grapes like they’ve always...you know...I mean, whatever’s planted...we’ll pick it.”
Maggie turned to Madame Renoir who stood staring at her with her mouth open.
“It’s red grapes, right?” Maggie said. “I don’t think we have any white grapes.”
When Maggie turned back to Madame Dulcie and the crowd of women, the store was empty.
Gathering her bag of croissants, Maggie hurried out the door, and to the car parked down the street. Laurent lounged inside reading Le Provençal. She tossed the croissants onto his lap and climbed in the car.
“Why didn’t you find me in the boulangerie?” she demanded. “I was trapped by women wanting to know when we’re picking our damn grapes.” Maggie reached again for the nonexistent seat belt before remembering there wasn’t one. “They wanted to know if we were going to pick them ourselves. Can you imagine? And then they all just left. The French are so weird. No offense.”
Laurent didn’t respond but folded up his newspaper. He handed Maggie a large cup of coffee from the dashboard and started the car.
“We are going to have to do something,” he said as he pulled out onto the main street. “The grapes are ready now, Jean-Luc says.”
“Does Jean-Luc say how we are to get the grapes from where they are now―hundreds of zillions of teensy little grapes spread over forty hectares―into nice shiny bottles sitting in a French version of the A&P? Laurent, I am not picking the grapes.”
“Pshtt!” Laurent rolled his eyes.
“Is that ‘pshtt’ as in ‘of course not’, or ‘pshtt’ as in ‘you are so lazy, Maggeee?’“
Laurent cocked his head at her and gave her a dry look but a smile tugged at his lips.
“Eyes on the road, please,” she said, relieved that he didn’t seem to be asking her to tie a bandanna around her head and strap a basket to her back.
“I spoke with some men in the café.” Laurent accelerated once they were out of the village. “They will spread word that Domaine St-Buvard needs pickers.”
“Are you making friends as easily as I seem to be?”
“The French are not like Americans.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. The French are different.” She ran her fingers through her hair. “Will these pickers be expensive?”
“Maggie, the grapes cannot stay on the vine.”
“That means yes.”
“It means what it means,” he said.
She took a sip of coffee. It was rich and sweet, too strong, as always, but it tasted just right this morning. The expense didn’t matter, she told herself. The money they got for the wine would pay off the peasants―or who ever it was that came out and picked the grapes―and there would still be enough left over for them to live on for the year. And if n
ot, they had a little sum they’d brought with them. Plus, there was no rent to pay and, with the exception of food (which, admittedly, could run to gastronomical expenses) there didn’t seem to be a whole lot of things upon which to spend money in St-Buvard.
As they approached the property, Maggie watched as a murder of crows flew in lazy arcs in the air over the fields and dive-bombed the grapes.
2
Connor MacKenzie turned over in the large feather bed and pulled the less-than-clean sheet across his thighs. He glanced at the woman asleep beside him and felt a vague sadness descend upon him. He shook his head―like one of his father’s retrievers emerging from the lake back home―to send the feeling scurrying.
Morning had been and gone, he realized, as he climbed out of bed and pulled on his jeans. When was the last time these were washed? He looked in the chipped mirror of the hotel room and cupped a palm to his unshaven face. Whatever look he was trying to achieve, this wasn’t it, he thought with a rueful grin. But shaving probably wouldn’t make it any better.
“Connor? Où vas tu, chéri?” The girl in bed moved, then sat up, a disheveled, lovely apparition of curly brown hair and big, pouty lips.
“Nowhere, ma petite,” he said, still staring at his own reflection. “I have an idea for dinner tonight, though.” He turned from the mirror and pulled on a navy blue cotton Polo shirt. “Those people we met a few nights ago in Aix? Remember? When you did your graceful splat-fall at Les Deux Garçons?”
“We didn’t go to Les Deux that night.”
“Well, wherever it―”
“Le Mien.” The girl yawned dramatically and rubbed her eyes. “We ate at Le Mien. That’s where―”
“Right, anyway,” Connor scooped up his sneakers and his car keys and stood next to the bed. “I thought we’d hook up with them again.”
The girl was wide awake now. “Why?” she asked.
“Why? They’re American, that’s why.” He pulled on his shoes and then stood. “And I’m homesick.”
“C’est une connerie,” she said, not moving out of bed.
“Such lovely language so early in the morning.” He poised at the door, his hand on the handle. “At any rate, I’m going to ask them. Maybe Grace and Windsor too. Haven’t seen them in weeks now. Do you want to come or not?”
“I am busy.”
“I’d like it if you came, Lydie,” he said.
“No, thank you.” The girl turned and threw herself back into her pillow.
Connor sighed and rubbed his head. God, his father would shit if he could see him now. In this broken-down hovel of a hotel―pinball machines and a blaring TV set into the lobby―and this saucy, stupid piece in his bed. Connor smiled to himself. But, then again, he thought, that’s probably the point, isn’t it?
“Lydie,” he said. “Please come, chérie. It’ll be fun. I promise.” He leaned over the bed and kissed her gently on the back of the neck. She turned slowly and looked up at him. Without smiling, she snaked a slim white arm around his neck and pulled him down to her.
“Too many people,” she said petulantly. “There are always too many people around you.”
He kissed her and laughed.
3
A motley assortment of twenty solemn peasants stood grimly at her front door, shifting from foot to foot, flicking the butts of numerous Gitanes into her would-be flower beds, and rearranging their big, baggy trousers. A young hatchet-faced man glowered at the stone façade of the farmhouse as if he had a personal vendetta to settle with the structure. He smoked angrily, it seemed to Maggie, one cigarette after another. He lifted and jerked the cigarettes to and from his face in abrupt, staccato movements. His hair was blue-black and fell to his collar.
She sat on a packing crate, mindful of splinters, and watched the men through the panes of the large mullioned window of her living room. On the small terrace off the French doors that faced the fields, she listened to Laurent and Eduard Marceau speaking in thick, gurgling French. She felt a special prick of pleasure when she listened to Laurent speak French. That he could speak this magical, difficult language, when it was so much gobbledy-gook to her, increased, tenfold, his mystery quota with her. She listened to his erupting Gallic exclamations that sounded as if Marceau had just insulted his mother but she knew could mean anything from “what a good idea” to “you have asparagus on your tooth.” Funny, she thought, Laurent never made those odd, guttural noises when he spoke English.
A half an hour later, the negotiations were completed. Both men entered the house looking pleased with themselves. Maggie tried to remember the last time she had seen Laurent so animated. She had to admit, he seemed happy here.
“All settled?” she asked brightly as she watched Laurent pour two glasses of marc, the heady local liqueur, for himself and Marceau. He knew better than to offer her one. The stuff gave her a violent headache that all the powers of aspirin and codeine could do nothing to abate.
“Ah, bien,” Marceau drank down his marc quickly and clapped Laurent on the shoulder. “Your husband will have his grapes ready for his contract by the end of next week. No problem at all. Pas de tout.”
Laurent’s uncle had a contract with a large wine producing company to buy the bulk of the grapes at Domaine St-Buvard. It was for this reason that the old vigneron had never joined the local cooperative to which both the Marceaus and Jean-Luc and, indeed, most of the area’s other winemakers belonged. It was a stroke of luck for Laurent, for it meant that he now had most of his crop paid for in advance. All he had to do was deliver the grapes before they oxidized or rotted on the vine.
“He is a canny negociateur, non?” Marceau said, smiling at Maggie.
“The pickers will be happy?” she asked hopefully, scanning Laurent’s face for a reaction.
Marceau shrugged and wagged his hand back and forth as if to say that, if not dancing in the streets of downtown St-Buvard, they would still accept the terms readily enough.
“They need the money. October is very important to their livelihood.”
“Did they pick your field too?” Maggie asked. She noticed that Laurent looked over at Marceau as if interested in the answer himself.
“Bien sûr. I have no sons, no daughters...”
Maggie felt he was looking directly at her abdomen when he spoke. Had Madame Marceau not held up her end of the bargain by supplying him with a few live-in grape-pickers, she wondered?
Marceau and Laurent shook hands again and then Marceau left to inform the village men of the terms of their employment. The men would begin picking the grapes immediately.
Laurent turned to Maggie. “Where is the video camera?” he asked.
“You’re not serious.”
“In the upstairs bedroom, no?”
“You’re going to video-tape those poor slobs picking your grapes?” Maggie gaped at him, her hands on her hips. “Like some kind of Old South plantation owner or something?”
“Don’t be ridicule,” he said as he bounded up the marble stairs. “Old South plantation owners did not have video cameras.”
“Please don’t do this, Laurent!” she called up the stairs to him. “This will embarrass these...these poor workmen...it will...it’s...”
“Not to worry,” he said as he returned, walking slowly down the stairs, the video camera in hand. “They do not come from the tribe that thinks a picture will steal their souls.” He smirked at his own joke.
“It will embarrass me,” she said.
“Go shopping in town.”
“I will not go shopping in town. What shopping? Why do you want to do this?”
Laurent put the camera down and drew Maggie into his arms. “Maggie, “ he said, smoothing her hair over her brow. “A year from now we will be back in Atlanta, n’est-ce pas? I will be...? What? Working again as a personal chef, I think, yes?”
“You said you liked the work. You love cooking...”
“It is what I like to do, yes. I will return to it next year and be so
happy!” He smiled broadly. “Eh? Laurent will be so happy?”
“Yes, yes,” she moved impatiently in his arms. “And? You will be so happy... And?”
“And I will be wanting to remember that I once owned a vineyard in France. A vineyard so big and so worthy that the people from the village had to come to harvest my grapes. Comprends-tu?”
Maggie looked at him. She put her arms around him and hugged him. “Take the pictures. I’ll be glad you took them too, I know. The men probably won’t mind.”
“Bon.” Laurent returned her hug and gave her a quick kiss on the mouth. “It will be interesting to watch, eh? Next winter when we are home in Georgia, again?”
Maggie smiled and allowed herself to be released by him. She watched him join the men as they moved into the purple fields, and was surprised to realize that a part of her didn’t believe a word of what she had just heard. Already, she knew she would have to fight him every step of the way to get him back to Atlanta next year.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the sharp jangle of the ancient rotary telephone that sat on yet another packing crate.
“Allo?” she said into the receiver, sorry that Laurent wasn’t here to handle the caller.
“Maggie? Is this the girl at Le Mien last Wednesday?”
Surprised by the English instead of the expected French, Maggie said nothing.
“Hello, hello? Is American spoken here? Connor MacKenzie, remember? We met―”
“Yes, yes, how are you?” Maggie realized she was pleased to hear his voice again. “How did you find us? Are you nearby?”
“Yes, I guess so!” He laughed. “I live right outside of St-Buvard. Surprised, huh?”
“You do?” Maggie tried to think of anything outside of St-Buvard that didn’t look like a vineyard or a sheep yard.
“Yeah, in a little mas walking distance from town. Not that I ever walk it, though.”
“That’s terrific.” Maggie felt her mood elevate. An American-speaking friend practically in the same village?
“...if you and your boyfriend wanted to meet us for dinner at the café. Nothing fancy, but the food is typical of the area. You know, delicious, stupendous―all those boring things you’ve come to expect from French country cooking.”
“I...when? Tonight did you say?”
“If that’s cool with you. Don’t have any opera tickets you’re stuck with, do you?”
“Yeah, right,” Maggie relaxed against the wall of the living room and watched the village men in their uniform blue combinaisons bend and move through the fields. Her eye caught Laurent at the perimeter of the field videotaping the men at work. “What do people do around here for fun, anyway?” she asked.
“Well, there’s mostly eating,” he said and they both laughed. “Seriously, you go out and you eat a lot and drink a lot and try to weave your way home without ending up in a country ditch somewhere and...oh, yes, sex is very important out here.”
“It is?”
“You mean you haven’t found that out yet?”
She laughed again.
“I mean, what else is there to do?” he said. “You gotta hook up with someone for those cold winter nights. Wait’ll you get a load of the mistral.”
“I’ve heard it’s awful.”
“But since you already have someone to keep you warm at night, I guess you’ll be wanting to concentrate on food.”
“Sounds good to me.”
“Say, nine o’clock? Believe it or not that’s early for Aix standards, but things get a little sleepy the further into the burgs you go.”
“Nine sounds great.”
“No problems committing for the big guy?”
“As you say, what else is there to do?”
Connor laughed. “Now you got it. See you tonight.”
Maggie hung up the phone and smiled. Before the phone rang she’d planned to work in the kitchen, at least to take a look at the shiny plate of aubergines intended for tonight’s dinner. Instead, she turned and went upstairs. There was a delicious, crisp bite to the air as she flung open the windows in the large bathroom. She glanced at the digital clock in the bath. It was three o’clock. With no dinner to think about making and a whole lovely afternoon to herself, it was definitely a moment to break out the bath crystals.
Careful not to prance nude in front of the open bath window, Maggie shed her clothes and slipped into the hot tub of foamy, fragrant water. Now then, she thought, as she eased back inside the large, claw-footed ceramic tub and closed her eyes, maybe things were starting to happen for them here. She could hear the subdued murmurings of the men as they worked, like the gentle rumblings of a distant radio program.
4
Laurent stood waiting for her by the hood of the car. He had showered, dressed in clean, if wrinkled, cotton trousers and a heavy cotton pullover and brushed his thick, still-damp hair behind his ears.
It was a fine mas, he knew. His uncle had lived well for many years. Uncle Nicolas had never married but there was plenty of room for a large family at Domaine St-Buvard. Tant pis, Laurent thought, surveying the broad flagstone steps that led to the large wooden front door. It is a good house for children.
“I’m here, I’m here.” Maggie stepped out the front door, a scarf entangled more than tied around her neck. She was dressed in an ankle-length, black jersey knit skirt and black sweater. Laurent smiled appreciatively. She looked very French, he thought, with her dark swinging hair and pale skin and dark clothes. But she was wonderfully American with her noise and her ideas. He smiled even more broadly.
And her lovemaking.
“What are you grinning at?” She squinted at him as she approached. “The buttons are supposed to be in the back. Is that why you’re smiling?”
“I’m smiling, chérie,” he said, gallantly swinging open the car door for her, “because I am thinking what a lucky man I am.”
Maggie grinned. “Really?”
“Bien vrai. Get in.”
She scooted across the seat to the passenger side and arranged her skirts around her. “I’m starving,” she said. “I can’t get used to eating at bedtime, you know?”
“You need to do as we French do,” Laurent said, getting in beside her.
“Yeah, I know. Eat bigger lunches, right?”
“Something like that.”
“And you’re sure you’re okay with this? I know you weren’t too impressed with Connor last time we―”
“It is fine, mon ange,” he said, as the little rented car roared to life. “It will be an interesting night, je suis sûr.”
“Well, it’s better than staying home and wishing we had cable.”
Laurent smiled again. Everything in his world was in the right place, going at the right speed.
“Did the grape picking go okay?” She scanned the darkened scenery outside the car as they drove the two miles to the village.
“It went well. Perhaps, it will take only a few more days.”
“Who was the one weird guy? You know, the one with the ferocious black hair who smoked like a fiend?”
Laurent shrugged. “They called him Gaston. That’s all I know.”
“Will he be back? To pick the field?”
Laurent looked at her. “Why?”
“No reason,” she said. “I just like to know when I’ve got Richard Speck picking grapes in my fields, that’s all.”
“Richard...?”
“Never mind, darling. He was just a little spooky. No big deal. Don’t worry about it.”
Le Café Canard was a brightly-lit terrace full of café tables and chairs roped off by three lines of outdoor lights. Maggie thought for a moment that the restaurant looked like one of the marquees for a big film premiere in West Hollywood. The café was a single oasis of light and laughter in the dark hole that had become the village of St-Buvard after sundown.
As they stood on the terrace of the café, Connor hopped up and gestured to them from a large table in the middle of the patio.
“Great! You’re here.” He swung his attention to the patiently attendant waiter. “Two more bottles of Moët, s’il vous plaît and merci.” He sat down in his seat with a thud. “Welcome to our fold, newcomers.”
Laurent appeared to regard the scene with his usual look of benign amusement. With Connor at the table sat the girl they had met in Aix scowling in front of a full ashtray and a small saucer of olives. To her left was a man and woman. The man made no immediate impression on Maggie, but the woman with him was fair and exquisitely beautiful in any language. She smiled at Maggie as she and Laurent joined the group.
Connor made the introductions while the waiter poured the extra champagne glasses. “You have met my belle Lydie, I believe,” he said cheerfully. “Oh, she of the nose-dive á la Les Deux―”
“Le Mien,” Lydie said crossly. “It was―”
“Oh, whatever. And this bright couple to your right is― yes, you guessed it, more Americans! Gracie and Windsor Van Sant―”
“Only Gracie doesn’t like to be called ‘Gracie,’” the beautiful blonde woman said to Maggie. “Hi, I’m Grace. I can’t believe more Americans have moved to St-Buvard. We’ll outnumber the French soon!”
“Maggie Newberry,” Maggie said, returning her smile.
“My husband, Windsor.”
Windsor Van Sant was a handsome, short man with dark hair and icy, blue eyes.
“Laurent Dernier,” Laurent said as he shook hands with the couple.
“That’s right. You two aren’t married, is that right?” Grace leaned back into her chair with a cracker loaded with the tapenade. “Connor said you were pretty wicked. Moving into a small, old-fashioned village―”
“Roman Catholic village,” interjected Connor giving the cold Lydie a playful squeeze on her bare shoulder.
“Really?” Maggie looked at Laurent. “Is that a problem? If people knew we weren’t married? I didn’t think they’d care.”
Laurent said nothing but helped himself to the tapenade.
“The debauched French, right?” Grace smiled at her. “That may be true in Paris or Nice, but it gets downright hairy in these adorable little backwaters. Isn’t that true, Lydie?”
Lydie ignored the question and took another sip of her champagne.
“Oh, well.” Maggie looked again at Laurent. Visions of what the French did to World War II collaborators came vividly to mind in the form of shorn heads and lots of gooey black tar. “Oh, well,” she repeated.
“Any plans to change your situation for the more socially accepted kind?” Connor said with a smile.
Maggie reached for her own champagne. “At least not until I start to show,” she said impulsively.
Instantly the table became quiet. Even Laurent looked at her with a sideways glance.
“You’re pregnant?” Connor looked surprised. She noticed that all eyes were on her.
“It’s a joke,” she said, feeling her face flush with embarrassment. Obviously, a really, really bad joke.
“You don’t know ostracism until you try being pregnant here without a wedding band, is all,” Grace said, her face momentarily drained of its color.
What is going on? She looked at Laurent who appeared to be trying to memorize the menu.
“Well, being a small town and all...I guess it’s understandable,” Maggie mumbled.
“Do you plan on making St-Buvard your home?” Windsor Van Sant refilled everyone’s champagne glass and smiled at her as if he were being forced to make conversation.
“Well, for a year or so we do,” Maggie said.
“And then?” Grace asked.
“Well, we’ve both got jobs...and lives, back in Atlanta.”
“Really?” Connor scooted his chair closer to the table. “You work for a living?”
“Yes, Connor,” Maggie said, remembering her pleasant bantering with him on the phone. “It’s that dreaded word again. Laurent works as an assistant chef in a very posh country club in Atlanta and I work in an advertising agency.” She was immediately pelted with groans and laughter.
“An advertising agency?” Connor nearly choked on his wine. “You mean, like selling widgets and gee-gaws to the gullible consumer?”
“Yes, that’s right,” Maggie said sweetly. “That’s exactly what I do.”
“And you want to go back to doing it? Like, on purpose?”
“Come on, Connor,” Grace said. “We can’t all have a lovely big trust fund to roll around on and make ourselves comfy, now, can we? Forget him, Maggie,” she said with a wink. “His idea of work involves buttoning up his own shirt fronts.”
Connor plucked at his knit shirt and mouthed to Maggie behind Grace’s back: Pull-overs. No buttons.
Maggie laughed. She liked him. She liked them all, with the possible exception of Mademoiselle Lydie.
Throughout the rest of the evening, Laurent and Maggie learned that the little group had known each other for about six months. Windsor had created and written the software for a popular computer word processing program. He’d promptly sold his product while retaining a percentage of the profits. He and Grace and their four year-old daughter, Taylor, had come to St-Buvard a year ago and now lived in a château on the other side of town. Taylor attended school in Aix and, her parents boasted, was fluent in both French and English.
Maggie had intended to keep her volume of food consumption to smaller portions tonight, but she still found herself wiping up smears of savory sauce with crust after crust of French bread, while her plate was filled and refilled as the hours brought the evening slowly to a close. At one point, she looked around the little bistro and realized that their table was the only one still occupied.
Connor poured himself a large cognac from the bottle on the table and leaned back in his chair. His eyes glittered.
“Speaking of the St-Buvardians...” he said.
“Were we?” Grace addressed Connor but gave Maggie a playful wink.
Connor ignored her.
“They’re worst than hillbillies, you know?” he said to the satisfying giggle of Grace Van Sant. “The in-breeding, I suppose.”
“Oh, Connor, shut up,” Grace said, still laughing. “That’s disgusting.”
“The truth often is,” Windsor offered, hoping for his share of the laughter.
Connor nodded earnestly. “You see?” he said. “It’s true. Everybody in this town is related to everybody else.”
“Like who and who?” Maggie asked, reaching for another scoop of Daube à l’avignonnaise.
“Well,” Connor leaned back and looked at Lydie―who refused to look back. “Well, like your neighbor, ol’ Jean-Luc?” He smiled when he saw that he’d caught Laurent’s interest. “And old Mademoiselle Renoir?”
“The boulangerie woman?” Maggie looked at Laurent and then again at Connor. “You mean Madame Renoir?”
“Madame, mademoiselle―she’s big and fat and bakes buns, right?”
Maggie nodded
“She’s his niece.”
“Really?”
“And the woman at the pharmacie? “ Connor continued. “Have you met her yet?”
Maggie and Laurent both shook their heads.
“She’s, like, married to her own half-son.”
“Step-son, Connor,” Grace corrected, rolling her eyes, a laugh bubbling to her lips.
“Half-son, step-son―it’s still incest, n’est-ce pas?” Connor tore off a piece of bread and popped it into his mouth.
“What about the beautiful young Babette, eh, Mister Funny?” It was the first sentence Lydie had spoken all evening and Maggie found herself reacting as sharply as if a ventriloquist’s dummy had jumped up and demanded the floor.
“Babette?” Laurent said politely, since no one else seemed willing to take up the issue.
“Oui, the little cochon who is working at the boulangerie?”
Connor waved his hand and swallowed his bread as if it had become extremely dry. “That’s not interesting,” he said, coughing. “
She’s somebody’s third-cousin or something. Big deal. We’re talking about people marrying or having babies by people they―”
“I am talking about people screwing people. It is the same thing!” Lydie’s face was flushed from the numerous glasses of champagne she’d consumed without the buffering of food.
“Lydie―” Connor seemed unperturbed in the face of Lydie’s obvious distress, more annoyed, almost, at having the pace of his running gag interrupted.
“She is the niece of Madame and Monsieur Marceau,” Lydie said sternly, looking at Connor.
“Wow, that’s really disgusting,” Connor said flatly, staring at her. “Their niece did you say? Makes my skin crawl to―”
“Always you are trying to be so funny!” Lydie tried to stand up but only succeeded in knocking over her glass. Connor pulled her gently back into her chair. “And you are the one who is screwing her! That is what is disgusting!”
Ah, so that’s what all this is about. Maggie took a slow drink of her wine. The girl with the broom at Madame Renoir’s bakery. Very interesting, dear Connor.
“My Gosh, Lydie, you certainly have a way with a story. Anyone ever told you that before?” Connor smiled thinly as he mopped up his date’s spilled champagne.
Instantly, the girl jumped up, clutching her mouth and, making gagging noises, ran into the recesses of the restaurant. Connor stood up as if to follow her but Grace motioned him to sit back down.
“Leave her alone, Connor. You’ll just make it worse,” she said, pointing at the bottle of Côtes-du-Rhône at his elbow.
He sighed and poured her a glass. It spilled out in a deep, dark red. “You’re undoubtedly right.”
“What’s her problem tonight, anyway?” Grace asked as she glanced in the direction Lydie had run.
“God, who knows,” Connor said.
“What’s her problem any night of the week?” Windsor asked, helping himself to a large chunk of fried bread soaked in hot garlic and olive oil. Maggie watched the greasy concoction as it traveled to his lips.
“Windsor!” Grace said.
“No, no,” Connor said, holding up his hands. “He’s right. She’s a pain all the time, it’s true.”
“I guess she gives good back rubs,” Maggie said, feeling more and more a part of this close group.
Everyone laughed heartily.
“That she does, me girl,” Connor said cheerfully. “That she does. But listen...” He cleared his plate to one side and pulled yet another bottle of wine in front of him. “Enough about our Provençal love problems. I want to know what Maggie and Laurent think about living at Domaine St-Buvard.”
Maggie didn’t answer as she reached for a large wedge of almond and cream gâteau. Doesn’t dessert signify that you’ve come to the end of eating?
“I love it so far,” she said. “It’s beautiful and big and―”
“No, no, no,” Connor said, pouring himself more wine. “I mean as far as ghosts in the old Fitzpatrick farmhouse? Seen any vaporous Englishmen wailing and flailing their breasts in the kitchen after midnight? Heard any children crying and pleading for their lives before dawn?”
Maggie looked at him, the fork of gâteau frozen halfway from plate to mouth. “Huh?” she said.
Connor looked up, his eyes flashing.
“Don’t tell me I’m going to be the first one to tell you about the Fitzpatrick family massacre?” He clapped his hands together with glee.
“The farmhouse used to belong to a family named Fitzpatrick?” Laurent asked. He poured himself a hefty portion of Calvados in a large, balloon wineglass and eyed Connor with interest.
“Before your uncle bought the place,” Grace said.
“I’m telling this,” Connor said, playfully slapping Grace’s hand as it cupped her wine glass.
“They were killed in our house?” Maggie set the untasted forkful of gâteau back onto her plate.
“I am not doing this in true-or-false question style,” Connor wagged a finger at both Maggie and Laurent. “So, you’ll just have to be patient. Man, this is great,” he said happily, sparing a glance over his shoulder in case the unfortunate Lydie might be returning. “Okay, it’s like this. About, what, fifty years ago?” He looked at Grace, who shrugged noncommittally and drank her wine. “Maybe forty-five, fifty years ago, an English family named Fitzpatrick owned your very―”
“Rented, I think, Connor,” Windsor said.
“Fine, Windsor,” Connor said. “Thank you for that real estate update. I’m sure it’ll make for a more complete story.”
“A more accurate one, anyway,” Windsor said under his breath to his wife.
“Okay, so they rented your farmhouse,” Connor continued. “A man, wife and two small sons. I don’t know how old they were, Windsor, and it doesn’t matter. Suffice to say, they were little kids. One night in December―that’s important because it was the middle of hunting season out here―the whole family was murdered―shot to death by a dove hunting rifle―killed in the front walkway of your very house.”
Maggie flashed a look at Laurent to see how this news was affecting him. He looked amused.
“One blast to the head of each member of the―”
“Did they ever find out who did it?” Maggie interrupted.
Connor, happy to be the authority on the village mystery, nodded solemnly.
“They did. Turns out one of the leaders of the village―a Patrick Alexandre―a Resistance fighter if you can stand it, a real out and out hero―was having an affair with Mrs. Fitzpatrick...”
“So he shot her?” Maggie screwed up her face and looked to Grace for confirmation.
“She was rejecting him, I guess,” Connor responded. “She was found, all bloody and untidy, clutching this note that her lover had given to her just before he offed her and it was all about how he was sorry it had to come to this and how he forgave her and stuff―”
“That still doesn’t explain why he―”
“The family was leaving to go back to England.”
“Oh.”
“And he was all cross and bothered that she was, you know, rejecting him by leaving.”
“I see.”
“And so he killed the whole family,” Windsor said. “Even the little boys. They were five and seven years old.”
“How awful,” Maggie said, reaching for her gâteau again.
“Yeah, not everybody believes that the famous and decorated hero―by Charles DeGaulle himself, they’re quick to point out―”
“Believes what?” Laurent asked impatiently, his interest in the story evident for the first time.
“Well, not everybody believes that he did it,” Connor said. “I mean, he confessed and all, and the note was in his handwriting, but he was the village favorite son, you know? St-Buvard didn’t want to believe it.”
“But he confessed?” Maggie asked. She accepted a cup of cappuccino from the waiter although she knew it meant little sleep for her that night.
Connor nodded, his mouth full of cake.
“You didn’t tell the best part, Connor.” Grace said. She took a dainty sip from her own tiny cup of espresso. Her lips left pink tattoos against the white ceramic. “Monsieur Alexandre was sent to prison―”
“Alexandre?” Laurent lit a cigarette. His first of the night, Maggie noticed with amazement. He really was trying to cut down.
“As in Jean-Luc Alexandre?” Laurent asked.
Grace nodded. “He was Jean-Luc’s half-brother.”
“See what we mean about everyone being related?” Connor said.
“But that’s not the best part,” Grace repeated.
“Isn’t Jean-Luc, like, hideously embarrassed to be related to this mass murderer?” Maggie was fascinated with the story. “I mean, this must have been a big deal to this little village, having a family of four―”
“It is, it was,” Grace said. “But Jean-Luc hardly knew his brother. They had different mothers and Jean-Luc was just a boy when Patrick was sent t
o prison for the murders.”
“Where he died,” Windsor said with some satisfaction.
“Yes,” Grace said, a little vexed. “But that’s still not the best―”
“Oh, out with it, Grace!” Connor clapped her on the back. “What is the best part?”
“The best part is the gypsy, Connor, whom you completely forgot to tell―”
“Oh, yeah! The gypsy―”
“Forget it, buster. I’m telling this part.” Grace smiled at Connor who leaned back in his chair with mock resignation.
“What gypsy?” Maggie asked, forcing her hands to stay in her lap and not pull that last créme de coca thing over to her barren plate.
“Before Patrick confessed, the villagers found a passing gypsy. A classic case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“Oh, no,” Maggie said, cutting the chocolate rectangle with the side of her fork.
“They hung the poor man―in your vineyards―for the family’s murder.”
Again, the forkful stopped before it reached Maggie’s mouth. “Our vineyards?”
“There used to be this great cypress tree on the property,” Grace said. “Your uncle, Laurent, had it taken down. He said it was because it took up precious planting space in the field, but it’s understood he did it because of the group guilt St-Buvard felt about stringing up the wrong cow-poke.”
“God,” Maggie said, looking at Laurent. “This all happened at our cozy little bungalow of a home, dearest.”
Laurent gave her a don’t-be-ridiculous look and finished off his Calvados. “Perhaps,” he said to Connor, “you would be a welcome sight to Lydie, about now.”
“God, I forgot all about her,” Connor said, jumping up.
Grace and Windsor shared a bemused look and touched hands on top of the table. Then Grace Van Sant leaned over the clutter of glasses, bread crusts and ruined dishes and smiled at Maggie.
“Let’s get together tomorrow for...I don’t know, how about...?”
Maggie laughed and finished for her, “...anything but lunch.”
Murder in the South of France, Book 1 of the Maggie Newberry Mysteries Page 65