The Beekeeper's Promise (Page 8)
She set down her handbag and stood for a moment, breathing deep the air of home, taking it all in: the soft rush of the river turning the millwheel; the willow tree trailing its leaves into the pool below the weir; the chickens pecking busily in the dust; the nanny goat and her kid grazing in the pasture beyond the orchard; and, from within, the familiar smells of woodsmoke and something good simmering on the range; the faint under-notes of the herbs and medicinal plants that were hanging to dry beside the chimney breast for her mother to use; and, most of all, the embrace of her father, mother, sister and brother: her family.
‘Look at this chic bag,’ Lisette exclaimed. ‘And your jacket!’
‘Ooh, fancy,’ Yves mocked, picking up the bag and mincing about the kitchen with it over his arm. ‘Mademoiselle Mireille Martin is far too fine for the Moulin de Coulliac these days!’
‘Not so fine that I can’t still beat up my cheeky little brother.’ Mireille pounced on him and pretended to twist his arm behind his back until he surrendered her bag. ‘In fact I can’t wait to change into my comfortable clothes and sabots again.’
Gustave brought in her luggage. ‘I’ll take this straight up to your room, shall I?’
‘Come, Eliane.’ Mireille linked arms with her sister. ‘Help me unpack. I’ve got some presents for you.’
The bedroom the sisters shared was tucked under the eaves of the mill, its windows looking out across the weir to the fields beyond. Gustave had set the bags down next to one of the single beds and Mireille flung herself on to its sprigged cotton quilt. The room smelled faintly of beeswax and the lavender bags that scented the chest of drawers and the tall walnut-wood armoire in the corner. ‘It’s so good to be home,’ she sighed.
Eliane had arranged a posy of autumn berries in a little porcelain vase at her sister’s bedside and they now glowed carmine in the pool of sunshine that filtered through the window panes.
‘Come,’ said Mireille, patting the coverlet. ‘Sit down and tell me the news. What’s it like working at the château? Have you tamed that dragon Madame Boin yet? And how is Monsieur le Comte’s health these days?’
Eliane settled herself on the bed beside her sister, tucking her legs up beneath her. ‘It’s good. I like the work. They let me do quite a bit in the kitchen garden, so I’m not always indoors, and I have my bees up there now. Nine hives! And there’ll be more next summer if they swarm. Madame Boin is alright – her bark is worse than her bite. We get on okay now. And Monsieur le Comte is in better health. The ulcer on his leg is healing well, thanks to Maman’s herbs and regular honey poultices. He’s a kind boss, a real gentleman as always.
‘But tell me all about Paris,’ she continued. ‘Have you dressed any film stars yet? How do you survive in all that noise and bustle? Among such crowds of people? I can’t imagine it.’
Eliane listened, wide-eyed, as Mireille described the basement lodgings that she shared with two of the other seamstresses, her journey to work on a careering, clanging tram, and the demanding Parisiennes who came to the sâlon for fittings of their expensive new outfits. Mireille rummaged in one of her bags. ‘Here, I’ve brought these patterns for you and Maman. I thought you might like to make some of them – they’re very à la mode.’
Yves stuck his head round the door of the girls’ room. ‘Look at you two, gossiping away there. Has Eliane told you about her boyfriend yet?’
He grinned as his sister blushed.
‘He’s not my boyfriend; he’s just a friend. And anyway, he spends more time going fishing with you than he does with me. He’s just as much your friend as mine.’
‘Ha!’ Yves exclaimed. ‘If you say so, but he and I don’t spend hours sitting under the willow tree together, holding hands and gazing into each other’s eyes.’
‘I see,’ said Mireille, the laughter in her dark eyes belying her serious tone of voice. ‘And what is “his” name, may I enquire?’
‘Mathieu Dubosq,’ Yves cut in eagerly. ‘He’s a great fisherman, always knows where the big ones are lurking. Knows all about hunting too. And he’s almost as much of an expert on mushrooms as Eliane is. He’s also coming to have lunch with us in a few minutes.’
‘Well, I’m looking forward to meeting him.’ Mireille diverted her brother by passing him a small package wrapped in brown paper and tied with rough twine.
Yves whistled through his teeth as he unwrapped a horn-handled penknife. ‘Just look how sharp that blade is. Fantastic. Thanks, Mireille.’
‘And now . . .’ Mireille got to her feet and gathered up an armful of similarly wrapped parcels. ‘Let’s go and give these to Maman and Papa and help set the table for lunch.’
As they scraped their plates to collect the last crumbs of succulent frangipane and sweet pastry, Eliane surveyed her family gathered around the kitchen table. She’d been concerned that this first meal at the moulin might be an ordeal for Mathieu, but he displayed none of his shyness as he answered Gustave’s questions about this year’s wine harvest and Lisette’s questions about his home in Tulle. Eliane had already told her parents that Mathieu’s mother had died of a severe haemorrhage – every midwife’s dread fear – after giving birth to his younger brother, Luc.
‘I’m taking the train home tomorrow to be back for la Toussaint. We always put flowers on my mother’s grave. I haven’t seen my father and brother since the wine harvest began, so it’ll be good to catch up. They work on a farm just outside the town – beef cattle and feed crops mostly.’
Gustave set his fork down finally, reluctantly accepting that his plate was empty now. ‘And will you go back to cattle farming when you’ve finished your stage at Château de la Chapelle, do you think?’
Unable to help himself, Mathieu glanced across the table at Eliane and a pink glow suffused his deeply sun-browned features. ‘I’m not sure. My father wanted me to try the experience of wine farming and I’ve found it very interesting. I like this part of the world too, so I may stay on with the Cortinis for a while longer. They’ve already asked me to, so I’ll tell my father tomorrow. After all, Coulliac isn’t too far from Tulle . . .’ He trailed off, suddenly conscious that he may have given too much away.
Eliane smiled at him. The most like Lisette of the three Martin children, she had inherited her mother’s intuition and her uncanny ability to see beneath the surface, reading people’s innermost thoughts and feelings. She understood Mathieu’s unspoken hope that their future would be a shared one. The first tentative flickers of mutual attraction were blossoming into something far deeper than just a friendship and were binding them together more strongly every day.
She stood up from the table to collect the empty plates and, when Mathieu handed her his, her fingertips touched his hand for a fleeting moment, a touch as gentle as the brush of a butterfly’s wing and as strong as a promise that had no need of words. He would go home to place his remembrance offering of flowers on his mother’s grave, just as the Martins would visit the little churchyard of Coulliac to pay their respects to their forebears, and when la Toussaint was over and November well and truly begun, he would return so that they could be together again.
Eliane and Mireille rested their elbows on the stable door and watched the pig as it buried its snout in the trough, snuffling contentedly as it rooted out some turnip tops from among the potato peelings.
Eliane scratched behind the animal’s ears with a stick. ‘You see, she’s forgiven us already.’
It had taken them the best part of an hour to find the pig in the forest, where she’d been turned out to enjoy an autumn feast of acorns, and then to persuade her to return to her sty with the help of a tempting bucket of swill. Perhaps she suspected the fate that was in store for her once the winter weather arrived in earnest. But until that day arrived, she would be well fed and well cared-for.
The sty was more of a small cave, really, hollowed into the wall of limestone through which the river had etched its course for thousands of years. The rock rose abruptly behind the mill house and soared upwards to form the buttress upon which the Château de Bellevue perched, high above them. Ancient underground streams – most long-since disappeared – had carved a network of tunnels through the porous rock across the whole of this region, and one of these tunnels formed an invisible link between the moulin and the château. According to Monsieur le Comte, it had been a vital lifeline when the château was besieged in the Middle Ages. The invading army couldn’t work out how the Comte’s forebears trapped within were able to survive for so many weeks without access to food and water, and eventually they’d got bored and left.
The tunnel had been blocked up at both ends for years, although Gustave had removed the rocks and rubble that had plugged the entrance at the back of the pigsty in order to use a few feet of the tunnel to store wine. This natural larder would also be used when butchering time came, as the cool, dry darkness provided the perfect conditions for curing hams and saucissons, as well as preserving the jars of pâté that Lisette would prepare to see them through the winter. An old door, overlaid with several sheets of corrugated tin, concealed the tunnel’s opening and made the outer part of the cave into a snug home for the pig, who had now settled down for a nap on her comfortable bed of straw.