The Secret of the Chateau

by Kathleen McGurl

  ‘We’ll have a late lunch, then let’s go up to the château. Gray’s got the keys and has checked it’s still standing,’ Steve said.

  ‘Did you sleep there last night?’ Phil wanted to know.

  Gray nodded. ‘Yes. In my sleeping bag on the floor. It was dark by the time I arrived and there was no one to help empty the van.’

  ‘Oh, you poor thing. On your own in a château all night? Weren’t you scared?’ Manda teased.

  Gray was about to answer when the bistro propriétaire arrived to take our order. He was a portly man with an impressive moustache, and must have overheard part of our conversation. Despite our attempts to order in French, he answered us in good English.

  ‘You are the English who ’ave bought the château, yes?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, we are moving in today,’ Steve answered. He introduced each of us, and we all shook hands.

  The man nodded. ‘My name is Paul Christophe. I am pleased to meet you. I ’ope you will be vairy ’appy living ’ere.’

  I adored his accent. There’s something about a Frenchman speaking English – I could listen to him all day. ‘Thank you. We’re very excited to be here, and I expect we’ll be regular visitors in your bistro.’

  He laughed. ‘But you ’ave not yet eaten my food. You will be ’ere every day when you ’ave tried it.’ He went off to pass our order to the kitchen, but was back a moment later with the tallest liqueur bottle I have ever seen – it must have been about three feet high, tapering from a six-inch base. ‘Pastis, on the ’ouse, to celebrate your arrival,’ he said, pouring us each a shot.

  What a welcome! We laughed, clinked glasses, downed the shots (or in the case of Steve and Phil – who both still needed to drive a short way – sipped it) and toasted our new life in France. Monsieur Christophe joined us.

  ‘I am glad the château is occupied again,’ he said. ‘It should not be empty. I think the ghost does not like to be alone.’ He winked as he said this, but I felt a shiver down my spine.

  ‘Is it haunted? Did you meet the ghost last night?’ I asked Gray.

  ‘Well, I heard a few odd noises,’ he said with a laugh. ‘Bound to be some, in an old property.’

  Noises, or ghosts? Ghosts wouldn’t be good for Phil’s heart condition. I wasn’t sure what Monsieur Christophe meant and was about to ask, when he spoke again.

  ‘You must go to say ’ello to Madame la Maire. Do not wait for ’er to come to you. She likes to meet all the people of the village.’

  ‘Madame la Maire?’ Manda said. ‘Where does she live?’

  ‘Do not go to ’er ’ouse. The mairie is in the village, behind the church. You must go this week.’

  ‘We spotted the mairie when we drove through,’ Phil said. ‘OK, we’ll go soon.’

  Monsieur Christophe nodded, and left us to our meals. It was a joyous occasion with lots of laughter, but we didn’t linger as we were all desperate to arrive at Château d’Aubert and get started with our new life.

  It was a short drive from the village to the château. Gray had walked down, so he took a lift with Phil and me. We drove out of the village, along a quiet lane running beside the river along the bottom of the valley, past rich pastures. There were lofty peaks on both sides of the valley, their slopes mostly covered with coniferous forest, giving way to deciduous trees on the lower levels. Numerous streams cascaded down the mountain sides feeding the main river – I imagined that in early spring when the winter snows were melting they’d be torrents rather than trickles.

  We rounded a corner and then there were the tiny gatehouse and gravel track I’d seen on Google Street View, leading off to the left. A hand-painted wooden sign pointed the way to Château d’Aubert. Our château. My heart beat faster as Phil turned off the lane. The sun had come out as though to welcome us to our new home, and I craned my neck for every glimpse of it through the trees as Phil navigated the winding track. And then suddenly, there it was in front of us, yellow stone looking warm and welcoming, ivy climbing up one wall, glass in the tower windows glinting in the sunshine. Shutters painted in a faded, peeling blue paint at every window. It took my breath away. I couldn’t believe this was to be our home.

  ‘I parked just round the side, in front of the old stables,’ Gray said, pointing to the left. Phil drove round and parked our car next to Gray’s hired van. There were a few outbuildings there, and also some ruins – something the others had mentioned seeing when they viewed the château but which I’d not seen on the property details. It looked as though the château had once been much larger, and only a part of it was still standing. I wondered what had happened to it.

  There was a side door into the château but Gray led us back around to the front, and the main door. ‘You should enter in style,’ he said, as Steve and Manda’s car appeared around the corner and parked next to ours. Gray pulled out a huge old-fashioned iron key and unlocked the studded oak door. It looked to be original – probably several hundred years old. How many different people had passed through it, through the centuries? Who were they, and what were their lives like? I may have stopped teaching history some years earlier but I was still a historian at heart, always wanting to know what and who had come before.

  ‘This is it!’ said Manda, hooking her arm through mine as Gray pushed open the door. It gave a gentle creak but swung easily, and we crossed the threshold into a cool stone-flagged hallway with wood-panelled walls, lit by a full-length leaded window at the far end, which looked out onto a courtyard garden.

  ‘Oh my goodness,’ I said, but my words seemed totally inadequate to convey my feelings on setting foot in this amazing new home. I glanced at Phil, who was standing with his mouth open, looking around in wonder. I’d been mad to worry it might not live up to expectations. It was simply gorgeous.

  ‘Like it?’ said Manda with a grin.

  ‘Impressive!’ I opened the nearest door – it led to a large kitchen with dated but usable fixtures. One end of the kitchen had a curved wall – the base of the tower that rose up in one corner of the château. There was a change in level, with the tower part being a few steps above the main part of the kitchen. Below, in the base of the tower was a cellar, that would be perfect as a wine store. The next door off the hallway opened into a huge room with a massive fireplace. At the far end, patio doors opened onto the garden.

  ‘Living room. Probably also dining room,’ Manda said. She’d followed me in, while the fellas had gone straight into the kitchen to put on the kettle.

  A third door from the hallway led to a short corridor with more doors off. ‘Various small rooms – utility room, boot room, pantry, whatever,’ said Manda. ‘But come upstairs now.’

  The stairs led up from the hallway. They were carpeted in a worn red-patterned carpet, and had dark wood banisters. On the first floor were four bedrooms, each with an en-suite bathroom. ‘The advantages of it having once been a hotel,’ Manda said. The bathrooms were in need of updating but usable. One bedroom also incorporated the tower, so had a curved end wall and again, a difference in floor level. On the second floor were four more bedrooms, and at the end of a passage a narrow spiral staircase led to a small circular room that was wholly within the tower, above the curved corners of the kitchen and bedrooms. I went in, picking my way through rubbish left here by the previous owners, and peered out of its small grubby window which looked out of the front of the château. You could clearly see the entrance track and the gatehouse from here, and the lane to the village. It was a good lookout post – if you were waiting for someone to arrive, you’d catch glimpses of them from here long before they reached the château.

  But it was the view over the mountains on the other side of the valley that really excited me. It was April, and there was still a bit of snow on the distant peaks, contrasting against the deep blue sky and the vibrant green of foliage on the woodlands of the lower slopes.

  ‘I know, right?’ said Manda, who’d come to stand beside me. ‘I can’t wait to be on a horse, hacking up
those hills.’

  ‘I’ll be on foot,’ I laughed. The possibilities for hill-walking were, to my mind, one of the best things about this move.

  ‘Steve’s already planned a fell-running route, and Gray said he’ll be out cycling tomorrow. We just need Phil to take up some kind of exercise beyond skiing.’

  I nodded. ‘Something gentle for him.’ He needed to build up a bit of fitness, for the sake of his health, and to reduce the chances of another heart attack. But he’d need to be careful. I was glad the château was at the bottom of a valley, and that the walk to the village was more-or-less flat.

  ‘Lu? Come and choose a bedroom!’ Phil was yelling up the spiral stairs. I turned away from that incredible view and went down to help pick which of the eight main bedrooms would be ours.

  It was surreal, that first evening in the château. We unloaded the few things we’d brought with us in the car – clothes, sleeping bags, towels and toiletries – and put them in the room Phil and I had chosen, that had a view over the valley revealed after we flung open the shutters. Gray had bought some food and rustled us up a cold supper, and of course we’d all brought bottles of bubbly to celebrate moving in. Gray had to rummage through his still-unpacked hired van to find the box with glasses in. Phil wasn’t supposed to drink, but he poured himself a small glass. I kept a careful eye on him. We sat on the floor on our pillows, in what was to be our sitting room, and toasted each other.

  ‘Well, here we are!’ said Steve, raising his champagne glass high.

  ‘To our future! To us!’ I said, and everyone joined in. ‘To us!’

  It was at that precise moment, as we cheered and clinked glasses, that it happened. A knock, a creak and a momentary flicker of the electric lights.

  ‘What was that?’ Manda said.

  Gray looked thoughtful. ‘Same sort of thing occurred last night, when I was here on my own. Just an old building settling itself down for the night, I suppose. And elderly electrics.’

  ‘Or that ghost,’ Phil said, unhelpfully, ‘the one that Monsieur Christophe spoke about.’

  ‘Don’t be daft,’ I said, glaring at him to shut up. Manda, I knew, was nervous about the idea of anything supernatural. The last thing she wanted was to think that she’d just moved into a haunted house.

  She took a long sip of her fizz. ‘Let’s just hope if it’s a ghost, it’s a friendly one.’

  ‘How could it not be?’ said Steve, as he adjusted his position to put an arm around her. ‘This is the most beautiful place in the world. Any ghost living here would be a happy one.’

  ‘I wonder if anyone did die here,’ Gray said.

  ‘Almost certainly,’ I replied. ‘This place is what, three or four hundred years old? People are bound to have died here. Doesn’t mean there are any ghosts though. There’s no such thing.’ Even as I said it, I wondered if I believed it. Since Mum died I’d often felt her presence somehow, as though she was just behind me, watching what I was doing, smiling and lending a hand. If there was life beyond the grave, I liked to think Mum was happy, fit and able-bodied again, enjoying herself.

  Manda shuddered. ‘Well, if they died here, I just hope they didn’t decide to hang around. Hey, you ghosts – this place is ours now, all right?’

  ‘Ooh er, don’t antagonise them,’ Gray said, widening his eyes at her. ‘Or they’ll come and haunt your bedroom tonight. Wooo!’

  He got hit with Manda’s pillow for that, and before long we were all in a pillow fight, laughing and giggling as though we were twelve years old rather than almost sixty. Only one glass of champagne got spilt, which wasn’t too bad considering. And there were no more spooky noises. As Gray had said, it was probably just old-house noises and some dodgy wiring.

  That first night, we slept in sleeping bags we’d brought in the car, on the floor of our new bedroom, closing the shutters to block out the light. The château creaked a few more times as we got settled. I supposed we’d just have to get used to it.

  ‘Happy?’ I asked Phil, as we snuggled down together.

  ‘Very,’ he replied. ‘You?’

  ‘Mm-hmm,’ I said. Was I happy, now that we were here, and the château and its environs were all I’d hoped they’d be? I was excited, certainly, but those misgivings were still there. Would we fit in to the local community? Would this work as a long-term move?

  ‘Good. That’s good.’ Phil shifted position so that I could put my head on his shoulder, the way he knew I liked to sleep. It was a little uncomfortable lying on a hard floor, but I slept amazingly well, waking only when Manda tapped at the door and came in with a couple of cups of tea for us.

  ‘Morning. It’s a beautiful day!’

  ‘Thanks, Manda.’ I rolled over in my sleeping bag, sat up and took the tea from her. Phil was still snoring gently beside me. Manda smiled and crept out of the room, as I wriggled out of the sleeping bag, threw on some clothes and took my tea downstairs. The rest of the gang were outside, on a patio. They’d flung open the patio doors from the living room. There was an old wooden bench and table out there – tatty but serviceable – and the sun was already warming the patio flagstones. I sat down and gazed around at the garden.

  ‘Amazing, isn’t it?’ said Manda. ‘Gray’s inside cooking bacon and eggs.’

  ‘That’s even more amazing,’ quipped Steve and we laughed.

  The patio looked out onto a sweep of lawn that fell away down to the right towards a copse of trees. The grass was a little overgrown now that the new growing season had begun. There were shrubs along the edges, and an old stone wall on the left side, with a peeling painted gate set into it.

  ‘What’s through there?’ I pointed.

  ‘It goes through to the courtyard,’ Steve said. ‘And the ruins.’

  ‘Ruins?’ I recalled I’d seen something of them the day before.

  ‘Apparently the château was once much bigger. There was a fire, a couple of hundred years ago, that consumed a lot of it, leaving only this wing.’

  ‘Ooh. Wonder what caused the fire?’

  Steve shrugged. ‘The estate agent said it was something to do with the French Revolution but knew nothing more. Also he said there’s some mystery about a woman – a member of the aristocracy – who lived here and vanished. You’re the historian, Lu. Maybe you could research, and find out for us?’

  I smiled and shrugged. Ruins, a fire, a ghost, a woman who’d disappeared. What other mysteries were associated with this château?

  ‘Breakfast is served, ladies and gents,’ announced Gray. He was carrying a tray, which he put down on the table. ‘We’ll have to eat it out here as it’s the only table, until we unload my van and the other furniture arrives.’

  ‘Frankly I’d like to eat out here every morning,’ I said. It was all simply perfect.

  Phil turned up, still in his pyjamas and with his hair flattened on one side, sticking up on the other. ‘Did someone say breakfast?’

  ‘Yep,’ said Gray. ‘Your turn to cook tomorrow, mate.’

  We’d need to agree some rules, I realised, to make sure everyone did their fair share of jobs. And we needed some financial arrangements for buying food or shared items for the château. We were here, we owned the building, but we were a long way yet from getting our new life properly organised. But there was plenty of time. For now, I wanted to simply sit here, enjoy the sunshine, bacon and eggs, and the company of my favourite people. It had felt like a long time since I’d been able to fully relax and take time for me. The move had of course taken a lot of time and energy, and before that had been Phil’s heart attack, and before that I’d spent most of my time looking after Mum up until her death.

  Mum had always been so fit and active and independent that when she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis – the primary progressive form of the disease – and told she should no longer drive, it was a shock. Dad had died of cancer a few years earlier so Mum was on her own, although she lived just an hour’s journey from Phil and me.

  Soon after her d
iagnosis she became unable to climb the stairs in her home. I’d been doing her shopping for her at weekends, and then I helped move a bed downstairs for her. Before too long she began needing help with basic things such as getting undressed and into bed, and it was then that I had a serious chat with Phil.

  ‘I don’t want carers for her, Phil. She’s my mum. I want to be her carer.’ It felt right. She’d done so much for me throughout my life – here was my chance to give something back. And I knew she’d much rather have me tend to her needs than a stranger.

  ‘But Lu, she lives too far away for you to go to her every day. You have a full-time job.’ Phil looked worried.

  I paused, weighing up my words. I’d thought about this hard during several sleepless nights before I’d come to my decision. ‘I think I should give up work, Phil. To free up time to care for her. I also would like her to move here. We can put a bed for her in the dining room – we never use it.’ We had a downstairs loo and shower room that would be suitable for her to use – it’d be perfect.

  ‘You stop work? Move her here?’ Phil repeated, with a frown. I nodded but said nothing more, just gave him time to process what I was suggesting. It was a big change – my salary from teaching was nothing compared to his so financially we’d be all right, but moving his disabled mother-in-law in was a big step.

  At last he smiled and put out a hand to me. ‘If it’s what you think is best, and you are sure you can cope with it all, then I’ll support you.’

  ‘Thanks, darling,’ I replied. I’d expected him to say this – after so many years together I was pretty certain he’d be supportive. But it was good to get confirmation that he was as lovely a son-in-law and husband as he could possibly be.

  Within a week, I had handed in my notice and was due to leave at the end of term. We’d rearranged the house to make space for Mum, squashing the dining-room table into one end of the sitting room and putting bedroom furniture into the dining room. She was overwhelmed but delighted when I’d suggested the move to her.