The Beekeeper's Promise (Page 11)
‘This sounds like quite a straightforward one then?’ I say hopefully as I pick up my bucket.
Karen grins, picking up her bucket. ‘Abi, as you’re about to find out, when it comes to weddings there’s no such thing as straightforward!’
Château Bellevue is built on the site of an ancient hill fort, Sara explains as we tuck in sheets and shake out pillows, throwing open shutters and windows to air the rooms as we go. The main building houses a dozen bedrooms on its two upper floors; and on the ground floor there’s the kitchen as well as several reception rooms, which range in size and feel from cosy and secluded to large and elegant. The main sitting room has tall French windows that open on to a stone-slabbed terrace shaded by a wisteria-draped pergola. Beyond the terrace, a walkway leads to a vast marquee (luckily staked down a lot more securely against the storm than my tent had been), where the wedding receptions are held. And next door to the marquee is a lofty stone barn with a glitter-ball hanging from a central beam, a complicated-looking sound system and a bar stretching along one wall: ‘Party Central’, as Sara calls it. ‘Thomas doubles as the resident DJ and Karen’s husband, Didier, is the barman,’ she explains. ‘We might ask you to help behind the bar occasionally if there’s a particularly big crowd.’
She also shows me the walled garden where she grows flowers, vegetables and herbs; the swimming pool; a small cottage where she and Thomas live in the summer months while the main building is full of wedding guests; and a lean-to apartment at the back of the barn where the gardener-cum-groundsman stays. ‘His name’s Jean-Marc. Our first year, we had several students working for us, but they’ve mostly moved on now. Jean-Marc’s been with us for the last two years. He can turn his hand to anything. Thomas and I couldn’t do without him. And here,’ Sara continues, ‘is the chapel.’
A carved stone cross sits on the gable roof above an ancient wooden door. We push it open and step out of the midday glare into a peaceful hush, where the simple stone walls seem to embrace us. ‘It’s de-consecrated these days, but we can offer the option of holding services of blessing here if the bride and groom don’t want an outdoor ceremony.’
I walk up the aisle between the pews and stop to read a memorial plaque set into the wall on one side of the dais at the front.
Charles Montfort, Comte de Bellevue
18 novembre 1877–6 juin 1944
Amor Vincit Omnia
‘He was the owner of the château in the war years,’ says Sara. ‘A brave man, and much respected in the area.’
‘What do those words in Latin mean?’ I point to the inscription beneath the dates.
‘Love conquers all,’ Sara translates. ‘Very appropriate for a chapel that is used solely for the blessing of marriages nowadays.’
‘There’s so much history in this place,’ I remark, as we emerge into the courtyard around which the buildings are clustered. ‘If only the stones could talk.’
Sara nods. ‘You’re more likely to get the stones to talk than to hear the history from the people about these parts. The war years are still pretty recent for many of them, just one generation back. People tend not to want to dwell on those memories – they’re still too painful. Perhaps some things are best left to heal until it’s safe to bring them into the light of day.’
I remember Thomas’ comments from the previous evening, about the Nazi occupation and the wounds being still there, just below the surface. And then I recall what he’d said about asking Sara to tell me the tale of the family in the mill house. ‘Do you know the story of this place from those years?’
‘Well, I don’t know the whole story of the house, but I do know one person’s story from the war. She grew up in the mill house and worked up here at the château for the Comte de Bellevue. She’d kept it to herself for decades, but I think perhaps she felt it was time, now, for her story to be told.’
Sara pauses, considering, smoothing the embroidered linen cloth that covers a small altar just beneath the plaque. And then she says, ‘Her name was Eliane Martin.’
Eliane: 1939
In the walled garden, Eliane had been able to add three new hives to her thriving apiary as a result of early-summer swarms. As the summer wore on, she made extra space in each of the hives by adding empty frames above the brood boxes so that the busy community of worker bees would fill these with honey. They could then be collected without disturbing the queens and drones, whose sole preoccupation was to ensure the continuity of the colony.
Leaning a little less heavily on his stick these days – the ulcer on his leg had healed well – Monsieur le Comte watched from a safe distance just beyond the garden gate as Eliane, armed with a smoker and wearing a broad-brimmed hat draped with a veil, moved calmly from one hive to the next. She worked methodically, first puffing a little smoke in to calm the bees, then removing the wax-capped frames, which were heavy with honey, gently brushing off any bees from them and placing them carefully into tin buckets at her side. She replaced them with empty ones and closed the hives securely again, leaving the bees to set to work on the task of filling the new frames with the next cache of sweet nectar.
The kitchen was its own hive of activity. Francine had come to help prepare the honey harvest for their market stall. She held the frames as Eliane ran a broad-bladed knife over each to remove the wax capping, revealing the honeycomb whose hexagonal cells immediately began to ooze sticky liquid gold. Setting aside a little of the comb honey – le Comte de Bellevue was particularly partial to it on toasted brioche for his breakfast – Eliane slotted the rest of the frames into the drum of the extractor. Madame Boin then set to, cranking the handle with gusto to spin the precious liquid out of every individual cell, while Francine operated the tap at the base, collecting the honey in sterilised jars.
In the meantime, Eliane gathered up the shards of wax and put them into a squat iron cauldron sat just close enough to the range to allow the warmth to melt them. The girls would then strain this through a clean muslin cloth and pour it into more wide-mouthed jars. The smell of honey-scented beeswax began to fill the kitchen, perfuming their skin and hair until its sweetness seemed to have permeated the core of their very being.
Madame Boin hummed to herself as she cranked the handle of the extractor and the girls chatted and laughed as they worked, filling the château with life.
‘I hear Stéphanie’s been seen going for an awful lot of walks in the vines over at Château de la Chapelle lately,’ Francine remarked as she wrung out a damp cloth to wipe the stickiness off the mouths of the jars.
Madame Boin gave a derisory snort. ‘That girl, she’s always out hunting – and I don’t mean for rabbits, either!’
‘Well she needs to look for some other prey than Mathieu Dubosq. She’s wasting her time setting her sights on him. Everyone knows he only has eyes for Eliane.’
Madame Boin glanced across sharply to where Eliane continued transferring wax into the cauldron. ‘Perhaps he should speak to your father, Eliane, and make it official. Then maybe that Stéphanie would finally get the message and leave him alone.’
Eliane smiled and shook her head, placidly giving the pot a stir, and Francine nudged her with her hip. ‘What’s that starry-eyed look about then?’ she asked her friend.
Eliane pretended to concentrate hard on stirring the melting wax, but the flush on her cheeks gave her away. Francine nudged her again. ‘Well?’ she persisted.
Wiping her hands on the hem of her apron, Eliane turned to face her inquisitors. She shrugged, abandoning all pretence of trying to cover up her emotions, and her eyes shone like the opalescent sky of a summer’s dawn. ‘I love him, Francine. And I think he loves me too.’
Her friend laughed, and put an arm around Eliane, giving her a hug. ‘Well, that’s as plain to see as the nose on your face. Anyone with half a brain can see he adores you.’
Eliane’s cheeks flushed an even deeper pink, which had nothing to do with her proximity to the heat of the cast-iron range. She picked up a few more shards of wax and dropped them into the cauldron. Suddenly serious, she turned to Francine again. ‘You know, I’m not worried that Mathieu’s going to be stolen away by Stéphanie, or anyone else for that matter. I know we will be together. We’ve already talked about it. We just have to wait until he’s finished his apprenticeship and secured a winemaking position somewhere. He knows there won’t be a permanent job for him at Château de la Chapelle, unless Monsieur Cortini and Patrick were to expand the vineyard considerably. And that seems very unlikely in these uncertain times.’
Madame Boin shook her head and frowned, cranking the handle even more vigorously. ‘Those power-crazy Nazis must be stopped if you ask me. Monsieur le Comte is worried sick that we’re going to be dragged into another war, which is the last thing anyone wants. He spends far too much time sitting hunched over that blessed wireless, listening to the doom and gloom that gets broadcast day in, day out. We mustn’t let those bullies scare us.’
‘I agree. We can’t just ignore what’s going on,’ Francine chipped in. ‘I heard they’re deporting thousands of people. And the refugee situation is becoming a crisis in Paris. Bullies need to be stood up to, not just ignored in the hope they’ll go away. Otherwise we might find that we are their next target. What do you think, Eliane?’