A Bordeaux Dynasty: A Novel

by Françoise Bourdin

  Stunned, Pauline looked at her husband.

  “Which camp are you in?” she asked.

  He shrugged, vaguely amused by his wife’s attitude.

  “I’m in my camp,” he said. “We’re rich, you know. …”

  They arrived at Fonteyne and joined the others in the library. Jules waited for everyone to have a seat, and he went over to his spot on the ladder.

  “Did Aurélien’s will shock you?” he began, without looking at anyone in particular.

  Rays of sun were pouring in through the French doors. It was a gorgeous April morning. Outside, rows and rows of vines spread out across Fonteyne.

  “Alex?” Jules said in a calm tone of voice.

  But Alexandre kept his head low and didn’t respond.

  “Since I’m marrying Laurène,” Jules continued with the same level-headedness, “I’ll manage your part of the vineyards here, and you can take care of mine in Mazion. No doubt Antoine is going to be happy to have you there. …”

  Alexandre raised his eyes to his brother and said, “But—”

  Jules didn’t let him speak.

  “And I don’t want to see you here anymore. As you said yourself, you’re of no use at Fonteyne. I have Lucas. And I don’t intend on robbing you. I’m not going to rob anybody of anything. Our financial adviser is going to give you an array of options.”

  Both Dominique and Laurène were red in the face, extremely uncomfortable, but Jules was unflinching.

  He continued, “There’s a certain amount of assets that I have access to, and there will be some delays concerning inheritance rights. As you know, the castle was integrated into the company. … I’m thinking of setting up a wine sale, so we can have a bit of capital leeway. At the same time, Aurélien was far-sighted about these things, so we’re going to be fine. … Also, I’ll go ahead and call in experts to appraise what’s in the house, if you’d like me to. The house is not a museum, and if there are things that—”

  “Just stop it!” Robert shouted. “Alex might’ve said things you didn’t like, big surprise. But get off your high horse, little brother, for crying out loud! Nobody is saying anything against you, nobody is accusing you of anything. We don’t think that you’re trying to ‘rob’ us. Jesus! I think we’re all in agreement on that!”

  Robert really was angry, and Louis-Marie chimed in.

  “Bob is right. You can be such a pain in the neck, Jules.”

  “Me?” Jules said, stunned.

  “Yes, you!” Robert said, getting to his feet. “A big freakin’ drag. Can we get something to drink up here? Let’s ask Lucas to bring up one of those exceptional bottles from the cellar.”

  “Or two bottles,” Louis-Marie added.

  Alex got up, produced his first smile in weeks, and said he’d take care of it.

  Jules watched him leave the room and turned to Dominique.

  “Your husband is right,” he said. “He really does need to go to your father’s, or one of these days I’m going to kick his ass. …”

  He said it jokingly, with warmth.

  Robert came over to Jules.

  “I’m leaving tomorrow morning. I’m going to have a boatload of work to do when I’m back at the hospital. I’ve stayed here too long.”

  He gave his brother a friendly shove and asked, his voice low, “Did you find that Delgas fellow?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did he tell you things?”

  “Yes. He knew pretty much everything. …”

  Robert remained silent, waiting for more.

  “You want to know the story?” Jules finally asked.

  “No … I mean, are you okay?”

  “Yes.”

  They looked at each other for a long while, and Jules said, “You know, Bob, there’s even a chance that we might be a little bit related.”

  “A little bit?”

  Robert burst out laughing.

  “You have a way with words, you idiot. Say, what if we had ourselves one of those good dinners tonight? A big-time meal like before.”

  Intrigued, Jules gave his brother a sideways glance.

  “Of course,” he said. “If you feel like it … I’ll tell Fernande. …”

  He was about to head for the kitchen when Robert grabbed him by the arm.

  “Preserve this,” he whispered.

  Jules looked him straight in the eye and said, “Come hell or high water, I’ll take care of Fonteyne. I’m keeping it. I’m keeping it for all of us.”

  Robert let go of Jules, who left the library. Fernande wasn’t in the kitchen, and he decided to wait for her in the hallway. It would soon be summertime. He’d have to take care of the grapes. Work would start again—exhausting, fascinating. Jules saw Fernande come up the alley outside, holding a wicker basket. He stepped closer to the window and thought he’d love for this old woman to take care of his children one day. The thought made him wonder what kind of father he would be. And, thus, he managed to think about Aurélien without feeling too torn up.

  PART THREE

  Jules gave Bingo a vigorous rubdown and then put a blanket on his back. The horse flinched a bit, but his master’s voice had a calming effect. They’d toured the estate before daybreak. The ritual inspection took them across the vineyards, from lot to lot, along narrow roads they knew by heart.

  Jules left the stable in a hurry, already preoccupied with the morning’s heavy workload. But some fifty yards away, he came to a sudden stop in front of the white house that had once been Alexandre’s. Though he’d avoided it for weeks, he now felt like going inside.

  There was something unusual about the silence and semidarkness of the Little House, something depressing. He remained inside only a moment before closing the door. His brother hadn’t forgotten anything, and no personal item remained that would be a reminder of his presence, or that of Dominique or the twins. Jules was already missing the boys.

  He headed for the castle with the long and flowing stride that enabled him to march up and down the vineyards all day when he wasn’t riding his horse or driving his Jeep. He came to a stop to observe Fonteyne’s façade, its elegant windows with small panes, its slate roofs, its horseshoe staircase, its stone terrace. An unpleasant feeling invaded Jules. Obviously, Fonteyne had been much more alive six months earlier, before Aurélien’s death and his brothers’ departure. This place was made for a large family and holiday meals, for children horsing around, and employees buzzing between the different buildings. Not for a dead silence like today’s.

  He sighed and went for the pack of Gitanes in his jeans. Replacing Aurélien had turned out to be difficult. His wish to leave Fonteyne to Jules had provoked one breakup in the family, with perhaps others on the horizon.

  The young man lifted his coat collar. April mornings were quite cool, sometimes downright frigid. Even when getting started at dawn, he was overwhelmed by the enormity of his workload. But he refused to hire extra help until he’d established the year’s balance sheet. He had to administer the estate carefully in order to provide his brothers with the appropriate financial compensation. Louis-Marie and Robert weren’t asking him for anything, he knew, but Alexandre would take advantage of the situation, of that he was equally certain.

  Jules turned his back on the castle and took solace in admiring the vineyards spreading far out. He was set on not making any mistakes, but he wasn’t God and couldn’t control the weather—hail and frost and the like. …

  Laurène had observed Jules for a few minutes before stepping toward the window. Every morning, she listened for the sound of the Jeep or Bingo’s light gallop. She crossed the office and went back to the small adjacent room where she worked each day. Fernande must’ve been busy in the kitchen, though no noise could be heard. Clothilde usually arrived at ten, on her moped, to attack her housecleaning duties. Dominique was no longer there to oversee all of it and, undoubtedly, Laurène didn’t have her sister’s talent for housekeeping.

  She turned on the computer, opened the acc
ounting software, and barely glanced at the columns of numbers on the screen.

  “Are you daydreaming, honey? You’re lucky to have time for that!”

  Jules’s hand had just landed on her shoulders. She leaned back against him, closing her eyes. He made her deeply happy.

  “I’m going to have to go to Bordeaux late this morning,” he said. “Tell Fernande not to have lunch ready until one thirty, okay?”

  He was already off to his office, and she was disappointed he hadn’t stuck around a bit longer. The same lingering question was burning on her lips, but she didn’t dare ask it. When would Jules finally come up with a wedding date? Aurélien’s death was no doubt too recent to broach the topic, though Jules didn’t mind ignoring conventions when it suited him.

  Laurène stood up, went to Jules’s office, and decided to walk in. As she hadn’t knocked, Jules lifted his head, looking annoyed.

  “Am I disturbing you?” she asked.

  His forced smile made her uncomfortable. Sitting in the chair his father had occupied for forty years, Jules waited for her to speak up.

  “I wanted to ask you,” she began to say, in a tiny little voice, “about us. … Have you given any thought to …”

  Jules straightened in his chair in a nearly imperceptible fashion. He didn’t try to dodge the question, staring at Laurène and finding her lovely, endearing, and desirable. He didn’t know himself what kept him from picking a wedding date once and for all. He only had to say the word and she’d be ecstatic. He sincerely wanted Laurène to be his wife, but something that resembled apprehension was holding him back. And yet Laurène had resolved to make herself scarce at times, consenting to remain in the background during the harvest, coming to terms with the fact that Fonteyne would always come first. She also recognized that Jules was an independent man who cherished his freedom. But she needed to know.

  “So,” Laurène said as she walked toward him. She kissed him and whispered, “When are we going to get married, Jules?”

  She’d at last found the courage to ask the question, but she couldn’t avoid blushing as she did so. Jules started to laugh, his usual quick and light laughter. She frowned, insulted.

  “No, no,” Jules said. “I’m not laughing at what you said. It was your look. … Like a little girl. … Listen …”

  He desperately tried to find something to say. The matter of the wedding date was really upsetting him.

  “How about in the fall?” he finally blurted out. “After harvest, things are going to be calmer. What do you think?”

  Jules saw the strain on her face. He could tell she was trying to hide her disappointment.

  “That’s a long ways away,” she said.

  “No, it’s tomorrow,” Jules joked. Then he got serious again. “Right now, I’m up to my eyeballs with work. … Besides, don’t you think that people would think that our wedding would be a bit … hasty if we didn’t let a few months go by after Aurélien’s death?”

  He gave her his adorable, usually irresistible smile, but she decided to insist.

  “Don’t tell me you care what people think. I know you.”

  She took a couple of steps back, sulking, but he didn’t try to keep her near him. Before leaving, she glanced back to see that he’d returned to his paperwork.

  Dominique resigned herself to letting her mother take care of the mushrooms. Sharing the kitchen with her had always been impossible. When they were kids, Dominique and Laurène always dreaded their mother’s snide remarks and, whenever they blundered, her mean laughter.

  Pressing her forehead against the windowpane, she looked at the courtyard outside. The bliss she’d experienced during her first days back at Mazion was now gone. Coming back to her childhood house had been a mistake. She was used to life at Fonteyne and she missed the castle, even though she tried hard not to think about it. Since her marriage, she’d identified with Alexandre’s family; she’d become a Laverzac. The years spent at Fonteyne, under Aurélien’s authority, had been marvelous, and she now fully realized that. She missed Fernande, she missed the huge kitchen and the meals she prepared there, she missed the sumptuous receptions, she missed Jules and Lucas barging in at any time of day for coffee or something quick to eat. Here, at her parents, nothing was going on. And even Alexandre—who’d so wanted to leave Fonteyne to come to Mazion—didn’t really fit in. He’d fled what he called his brother’s tyranny to confront a father-in-law who was not only morose, but had little inclination to pass the torch to him. As relieved as he’d been by his son-in-law’s arrival, he wasn’t ready to retire yet. Though he’d truly appreciated Alexandre’s help while he was in the hospital, Antoine was now healthy and had no intention of playing the role of recovering old man on his own land. And so Alex had to accept his position as second fiddle at Mazion, just as he had back home.

  “I’m adding a bit more salt, if that’s okay with you,” Marie said.

  Dominique turned to her mother and gave her a purely polite smile. The mushrooms would be perfect, as always. She took a pile of plates from the cupboard and carried them to the tiny adjacent dining room. The house was bright, modern, pleasant. But how could she live here after experiencing the ancient opulence of Fonteyne for a decade? She hated being ungrateful, but here she felt terrible all the time.

  I never thought I’d miss Jules, she thought, bitterly.

  Yes, she missed her brother-in-law’s demands, bursts of laughter, his self-confidence and, above all, how rigorous he was when it came to work. For a second, Dominique envied Laurène, but then she wondered why Jules still hadn’t set a wedding date. She’d have to talk to her sister about it, push her to get a clear response from Jules. Dominique made a quick calculation—two months now since Aurélien had died.

  “Put some flowers on the table,” Marie said as she walked into the dining room. “It’ll make things more cheerful!”

  She threw a discreet glance at Dominique, who seemed anxious, beat-down, listless. Marie sighed and went back to the kitchen. She understood what her daughter was going through, but there was nothing she could do about it.

  Alexandre carefully examined the row’s last graft and, satisfied, straightened up. He lit a cigarette and went over to his father-in-law, kneeling between two vines a hundred yards away. Antoine was checking the plants for parasites.

  “A little pick-me-up?” Alexandre offered as he opened the silver flask he carried everywhere with him.

  Antoine grabbed the flask, took a couple of swallows, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Alexandre liked his father-in-law; he was easy to get along with. And Alexandre wasn’t completely unhappy in Mazion. When thinking about his youngest brother, the word that kept popping into his mind was bastard. He still hadn’t gotten over the flagrant injustice of Aurélien’s will. He’d never thought that Aurélien would so blatantly favor Jules by naming him manager of Fonteyne for life, bending the laws with the cunning of an old fox. Alex had never been preoccupied by what was going to happen once their father passed away. It seemed like something that would happen far down the line, since Aurélien was such a dynamo. And so Alexandre had endured Aurélien’s preferential treatment of Jules as some sort of inevitable situation that would eventually change. He’d accepted his father’s scandalous favoritism and his brother’s dictatorship as he waited for better days. Something that would never happen, now that Jules officially ruled over Fonteyne.

  As he walked, he shrugged without even realizing it. To think of Fonteyne irritated him. He hadn’t forgotten Jules’s contempt every time the topic of him leaving for Mazion was brought up. “You’re going to go make white wine on somebody else’s land?” Jules would say. “You? A Laverzac?” Alexandre hated his brother’s attitude. Mentally, he said the word bastard in order to lessen his anger. A bastard, yes, this Gypsy that Aurélien had imposed on Fonteyne, before completely falling for him. Bastard—that womanizer, brawler, loner. That wild man that only Aurélien could ever tame.

  Life can’t be much
of a picnic for Laurène, he thought, without real compassion.

  He didn’t really care about his sister-in-law’s fate, but he had to listen to Dominique’s concerns about it all the time. Thinking about his wife made him walk faster. Marie and Dominique didn’t complain when he was late, and he and Antoine took advantage of that. At Fonteyne, Aurélien never tolerated anyone being late for meals. No doubt Jules had the same narrow-minded attitude.

  But it’s only the two of them now, the idiots!

  “Why are you laughing?” Antoine asked him.

  “Nothing. The nice weather makes me happy.”

  “You’re right. A good spring has a lot to do with the vines’ fate. …”

  They arrived at the house and Alexandre let Antoine go in first.

  Jules climbed back into the Mercedes and started the engine. He had to zigzag his way through the streets to escape downtown’s heavy traffic. The meeting he’d just attended had been both stormy and mind numbing. The wine producers association wasted a lot of time debating unimportant issues, but it was necessary for Jules to make his presence felt.

  Leaving Bordeaux, he took the road to Margaux. It was after one and he accelerated. Every day, Fernande took great care preparing him fine meals that he didn’t even have time to enjoy. Aurélien’s absence was still unbearable for him. Even if he hoped to get over it with time, for now it remained an open wound. He had nobody else to listen to, to admire, to respect. Nobody to stand up to.

  Jules drove up the driveway, noticed that some of the slates on the castle’s west side had come undone, and made a mental note to call the roofer. For fun, he came to a screeching halt at the foot of the terrace. He ran up the stairs, all the way to the dining room, where Laurène was waiting for him. She seemed lost sitting at the end of the long table. As soon as he walked in, she got up, glad to finally have something to do. She rang Fernande, served the wine, and put an ashtray in front of Jules. He was smoking more and more, even while eating.

  “Lucas says that he’s going to be down in the cellar from two on,” Laurène said. “Did you have a good morning?”