The Secret of the Chateau

by Kathleen McGurl

  ‘Well, the room’s out of bounds until we can get it treated for woodworm and the floor replaced. Possibly the joists, too,’ Steve said. ‘I’ll add that to the list of work we need to do.’

  ‘You hear that, Lu? Your window mystery will have to wait.’ Phil rubbed his forehead in a way I knew meant he was worried and stressed. ‘God, you might have gone right through the floor.’

  ‘I’d have ended up in bed,’ I said, with a feeble attempt at a laugh. Our room was the one directly below the tower room, that incorporated the curve of the lower part of the tower.

  ‘You’d have ended up with a broken neck, then where would we be? Anyway, let’s get that wrist seen to. Can you move it?’

  I could, although it hurt. We went downstairs, where Manda fussed over me, decided it probably wasn’t broken, and bound a bag of ice-cubes around it to help reduce the swelling. ‘I’ve got a wrist support somewhere, from when I fell off a pony and sprained my wrist,’ she said. ‘You can use that. And take some ibuprofen.’

  ‘Yes, nurse,’ I said. Phil was still glaring at me for hurting myself, then he shook himself, made us each a cup of tea, and put his arms around me.

  ‘Promise me, no more searching for ways into the top of the tower?’

  ‘Not until the floor’s fixed anyway,’ I said, squeezing his hand. Steve had come back down. ‘Steve, how long will it be?’

  ‘Don’t know. What’s the French for woodworm? I’ll need to research relevant tradespeople.’ There was a gleam in his eye. Another project for him.

  The next day, Felix’s second day with us, I took him for a walk along by the river, into the village. My bruised hip was stiff but I knew it would loosen up with a walk, and as long as I didn’t hold Felix’s lead in my left hand, the sprained wrist would not be a problem. I wanted to call in at the mairie and show Aimée how well Felix was doing. Setting off out of the front door of the château, I glanced back over my shoulder as I so often did, and up at that infamous window in the tower.

  This time, as I looked up, I had a shock. There, outlined in the glass of that top window, was a distinctive face. A white oval, pressed to the glass. A dark shape of a mouth, open as though crying for help. I’d thought I’d seen something on the day Tom first noticed the window, but had put it down to a trick of the light – the sun reflecting off the glass. That had to be the explanation. I stared up at it and had the distinct impression the face was staring down at me. Felix, at my feet, looked up and growled quietly, a deep rumble.

  ‘Ssh, boy, it’s all right,’ I told him, bending to stroke his head. I’d never heard him growl before. Maybe it comforted him for he stopped, whined a little and then began pulling on the leash as though to say, come on, let’s get going. I looked back up at the window. The face, if that’s what it was, had disappeared. The sun had also gone behind a small cloud.

  ‘Trick of the light, Lu,’ I told myself. ‘Nothing more.’ But why had Felix reacted to it? He was such a good-natured dog.

  We walked the riverside path into the village, and up to the mairie. Aimée was as delighted to see Felix as he was to see her. She even let him jump up, putting his paws on her silken blouse just above waist height. Thankfully he didn’t leave any muddy marks. Actually she’d encouraged him to jump up anyway, even though I’d been saying, ‘Down, Felix!’ Or rather, when I remembered, ‘Couche!’

  ‘So, all is going well?’ Aimée asked, and I nodded, giving her a quick resumé of all that Felix had been up to since I collected him, including meeting the kittens. ‘Ah, yes, Gray asked me how Felix would cope with les chats,’ she said, with a smile. ‘Oh, what have you done to your poor hand?’

  ‘A silly fall. It’s nothing.’ I didn’t want to tell her the exact circumstances, but I did tell her about the mysterious upper window in the tower.

  ‘A window?’

  ‘Yes, but one we can’t reach from inside. And it doesn’t show up in a painting I found in the museum.’

  ‘The tower was perhaps extended upwards after the painting was made?’

  I shook my head. The tower had not been made taller, but maybe an attic had had a window added. But still, how did you get into that attic?

  ‘And something more.’ I blushed, but I wanted to talk about that face. ‘I thought I saw a face at the window. Felix too – he growled.’

  ‘I think I told you the old owners said the château was, what is the word? Hanté. Maybe it was le fantôme that you saw?’ She laughed. ‘But it is all just fairy tales, of course.’ She shook her head. ‘No. A tour de la lumière, it must have been. Not real.’ She smiled, and at that moment her phone rang, and with an apologetic shrug she turned away to answer it.

  Now, I wondered. Was there really a ghost in our château? One that messed with the electrics on occasion (still, even after having them all checked and some rewiring done since we moved in), one that banged on pipes and made odd noises at night (we were getting used to those) and that showed her face at the tower window on occasion? Her? Why had I thought ‘her face’? I couldn’t say. Just, somehow, I felt the face was female. If it was a face at all.

  Chapter 18

  Claudette, 1791

  It was early October, and the leaves on the trees were beginning to turn as the days cooled and the summer ended. There had been a good harvest and the barns were full. Claudette was pleased – the local people would not go hungry this winter, as long as Monsieur Aubert was generous with his stocks. He was a good man. She believed he genuinely had the welfare of the people at his heart. Even Madame was changing. She’d been selfish and naive when Claudette first worked for her, back in Versailles. But now she seemed to be growing up a little, learning to care about people other than herself, about issues of more consequence than what colour ribbons she should wear.

  The little farm, Madame’s plaything, had been completed. Over the summer Madame had walked up to it frequently, to check on progress. When it was finished she’d furnished the tiny house as a chicken coop and acquired some hens, and then went every day to collect the eggs. The farm was a frivolity, but at least it was now providing them with fresh eggs. Claudette had expected Madame to quickly bore of collecting the eggs, but she was showing no sign of doing so yet. But one day the priest had arrived just after Madame had left for her walk up to the farm, and Madame Bernard had dispatched Claudette after her. She’d hurried along the path, getting glimpses of Madame Aubert as she rounded each corner just ahead, but out of calling distance. Eventually she’d reached the farm, and realised Madame was not alone. There was a man with her – Claudette recognised him as Jacques Valet. Claudette stopped and hid in some bushes, watching as Madame approached the man and said something to him. Jacques bent over her – from Claudette’s vantage point it looked as though he was kissing her – and then they went inside the tiny farmhouse, with Jacques having to bend double to get through the little doorway.

  Claudette gasped, and hurried back to the château, telling Madame Bernard that she had not seen Madame Aubert. ‘She must have walked another way,’ she said. ‘I went all the way to her little farm but she was not there.’

  How long had this been going on, she wondered. Should she tell poor, kind Monsieur Aubert? She decided against it. He worshipped his young, pretty wife, and there was no reason to spoil that for him. Besides, for all she knew, Madame Aubert might have been just pointing out a defect in the structure to the workman. Maybe it was all innocent, after all.

  News had come from Paris that King Louis had accepted the new Constitution of France. It provided the principal topic of discussion for weeks – among the château’s staff, the villagers and between Monsieur and Madame Aubert. Claudette overheard them talk about it on several occasions. Predictably, Madame Aubert saw it as meaning they might yet return to the old ways.

  ‘We can all live happily again now, can’t we, Pierre? Now that he has accepted the changes that the Assembly wanted, they will surely set him free, and perhaps allow him to return to Versailles? And if he returns
, then so can we, and all the other noblemen and women? It’ll be just as it was.’ Monsieur and Madame Aubert were in their drawing room, sitting by the fireside.

  Claudette was busy tidying away some tea things they had used, and stoking up the fire. She hid a wry smile at Madame’s words. There was no going back – the King accepting the changes had been inevitable and was a step forward in this revolution. It seemed Monsieur Aubert agreed for he shook his head at his wife and smiled indulgently. ‘Ah, my sweet, how little you understand. It is good that he has ratified the Constitution, though to be honest he had little choice but to do so. But he won’t be allowed to return to Versailles. That place is too much a symbol of the ancien régime, and there would be a fear that if he lived there, he and the Queen would return to their old, profligate ways. Louis is bankrupt, my dear. He has been so for years, and now he can no longer borrow from the State to finance his whims. He may be a king but he lived beyond his means, and that is a large part of the reason why we got into this mess.’

  ‘So we have to stay here in the south?’ Madame Aubert sounded like a petulant child, annoyed at not getting her own way. Claudette bit her lip to stop herself responding.

  ‘Yes, my dear, for now we must stay. Things are perhaps better than they were, but we are by no means out of danger. Think for a moment about poor Père Debroux. He is practically in hiding. He dare not hold a public Mass. And yet it is his vocation – his reason for being!’ Monsieur Aubert shook his head sadly. ‘We can but hope that Louis’s acceptance of the Constitution is the beginning of the end of this terrible period.’

  Madame Aubert smiled at her husband. ‘I hope you are right. You must be. All will be well in the end, I suppose.’

  Claudette, having finished her chores in the room, dipped a small curtsy as she left to take the tea tray back to the kitchen. It was interesting, listening to the Auberts’ conversation. She did not entirely share their hope that this was the beginning of the end. For so many people, life had not yet changed for the better. The promised equality and liberty had not fully materialised. She suspected there was some way to go before the end of this period of upheaval, and where would they all be by then?

  A few weeks later Claudette was helping Madame get dressed one morning when Catherine winced at the tightness of her bodice.

  ‘I am sorry, Madame, I shall let it out,’ Claudette said, although she had laced it to the same tightness as usual. She realised Madame’s breasts were fuller than usual. Could she be pregnant again? And if so, was the baby her husband’s? Or if Claudette’s suspicions about Madame and the man Jacques Valet were correct, then might he be the father?

  It appeared that Madame Aubert at least believed the child to be her husband’s for soon she had told him her news, and Monsieur Aubert was walking around the château with a broad smile on his face, clearly delighted with the prospect of becoming a father again. Claudette entered the breakfast room one morning, thinking they had finished, interrupting him congratulating his wife.

  ‘… something to focus your attention on. I am so pleased for you, for us both …’ He broke off, realising Claudette had entered.

  ‘I am sorry, Madame, I thought you had finished.’ Claudette began to back out of the room but Madame Aubert gestured to her to come in.

  ‘It’s all right. I have just been able to tell my husband some wonderful news. And you will need to know in time, so I shall tell you now. I am expecting another baby. Isn’t that marvellous? You shall be nursemaid again!’

  ‘Oh, Madame!’ Claudette smiled. She’d already known, of course, but it was good to be told officially. ‘That is wonderful news! I am very pleased for you both.’

  Pierre stood up. ‘Well, I will leave you ladies to discuss babies, then.’ He kissed Catherine and strode out of the room.

  Catherine poured herself another cup of coffee. ‘It is exciting, isn’t it? How I miss little Louis. I hope this one will be another boy, but perhaps it’ll be a girl.’

  ‘Madame, I will be very happy to work as nursemaid again. I love children. I loved little Louis so very much. I am so very glad you are to have another child. I always thought …’ Claudette broke off, blushing. She’d been about to speak her mind, but perhaps it was not the right time.

  ‘You always thought what, Claudette? Pray tell me. I want to know.’ Catherine smiled.

  Claudette took a chance. ‘I thought, excuse me Madame, but I thought that perhaps you would want another chance at being a mother. Perhaps you regretted not spending as much time with Louis as you might have, and with another child you could do things differently …’

  ‘But I spent a lot of time with Louis! Far more, girl, than the ladies of the court of Versailles ever spent with their offspring! Ladies of the court who were mothers, would only see their children for a few minutes each day. I spent much more time than that with Louis.’

  ‘But still less than an hour each day, Madame. A common mother from the village would be with her baby almost all the time.’ Claudette began stacking plates and clearing the table. She’d said her piece and was not going to say anything more. Let Madame think about what she’d said.

  Catherine picked up her coffee cup and flounced out of the room. Good. Claudette’s words had hit home. Maybe this next child would get to know his or her mother a bit better than the last had. Motherhood was not about building miniature farms for babies, but about spending time with them, giving them love and attention. While Claudette looked forward to acting as nursemaid again, she believed that children should be with their own mothers as much as possible.

  Chapter 19

  Lu

  It was my turn to shop at the village market, which was once a week on a Thursday morning. We were producing a fair bit of veg and salad and fruit from the garden now, not to mention the first cheeses from Clarabel, of which Phil was rightly proud. But I still had a list as long as my arm – from selections of olives that we seemed to eat by the bucketful, to saucisson which we were all rather too fond of although Phil had to take it easy. I decided to drive – it was a hot day and there’d be too much to comfortably carry back on my own with only one fully functional arm. So to Felix’s utter disgust I picked up the car keys rather than his lead, and headed off with a couple of baskets to carry the purchases.

  It was at the olive stall that I met Monsieur Christophe. Usually we only saw him in the bistro on our weekly visit there, and he’d be too busy to stop and chat. But today he greeted me like an old friend and gestured to me to sit down on a nearby bench which was thankfully under the shade of a spreading plane tree.

  ‘You like the market?’ he asked.

  ‘I love it. Markets in England are not nearly as good.’

  He smiled. ‘Ah we French know ’ow to grow the best produce, and ’ow to sell it the best way.’

  ‘You certainly do.’

  ‘You ’ave settled in OK?’ He asked this every time he saw any of us, and we always answered the same.

  ‘Yes, we are very happy here.’

  ‘A shame the auberge closed down. They ’ad problems.’

  I frowned a little. ‘What problems?’ Was there some difficulty with the plumbing that we’d only discover in the depths of winter or something?

  He waved a hand vaguely in the air. ‘Noises. The lights going off.’

  ‘Oh, those.’ I smiled. ‘We’ve had those too.’ Should I tell him about the face at the window as well? I decided against it.

  ‘’Ave you ’eard,’ he said, conspiratorially, ‘about the family Aubert, who lived in the château during the Revolution? They say’– and here he leaned closer – ‘that Pierre Aubert ’aunts the château still.’

  ‘Haunts?’ I remembered Aimée’s use of the French word. ‘You mean il hante le château?’

  ‘Oui.’ He looked pleased with himself. ‘It was ’is ’ome. He died in the time of le terroir. Those noises are made by ’im, trying to get back inside. Maybe looking for ’is wife.’

  ‘What happened to his w
ife?’

  Monsieur Christophe gave a huge expressive Gallic shrug. ‘No one knows. She vanish. Pouf! Like that.’

  I recalled what Steve reported the estate agent had said about a woman who’d disappeared. That must have been Pierre Aubert’s wife. ‘What was her name?’

  ‘I do not know. This is all I know. Pierre Aubert ’aunts the château, and ’is wife disparu.’

  ‘During the Terror?’

  Again that shrug. ‘She disappear then. Or she escape. Many escape to Italy to avoid Monsieur Guillotine.’

  I shuddered. I knew about the Terror of course – the period in 1793–94 after the Revolution, when the original idealistic aims became smothered by a desire to root out all those who’d supported the King and Queen, all ex-nobility, and anyone who had hidden or aided them in any way. Anyone considered to be anti-revolutionary. It had begun in Paris but spread to other towns and the country. Mobs had rampaged through, rounding up anyone they had any suspicions about, subjecting them to summary trials and then executing them by guillotine. It had happened everywhere. But for some reason I hadn’t imagined it had happened here, in our quiet little village high in the Alpine foothills. Perhaps it had – the village central square was named Place de la Révolution, after all. Had a guillotine once been erected there?

  ‘Monsieur Christophe, do you know if anyone was ever, you know, guillotined here in Saint Michel-sur-Verais? Is that why the square is called Place de la Révolution?’

  He laughed and shook his head. ‘No, I do not think there was a guillotine ’ere. Every single town in France ’as a Place de la Révolution. And a Place de la Résistance. As if those are the only two things that ever ’appened in France.’

  I laughed too.

  Monsieur Christophe stood, to continue his shopping. I glanced at my watch – we’d sat there long enough and some stalls were already beginning to pack up. I’d barely started. I bade the bistro owner goodbye and rushed round the stalls, thankfully managing to buy everything even though half my attention was once again on Pierre Aubert and the events in the château around the time of the Revolution and the Terror. Always more to research. Well, I’d taken a history degree then taught the subject for over thirty years. It should be right up my street. If this was England, I’d go to the nearest large library, and take out as many local history books as I could find. But here – the books would be in French and reading them would be a struggle. But perhaps still worth doing. And it’d be good for my French skills, too.