The Chateau by the River

by Chloé Duval

  Seriously? What entitled this man to judge this castle uninteresting? It might be a small one, but it had its own history, it held memories, some people had lived through its highs and lows! He couldn’t just wave all of that away and shrug, saying, “Who cares? There are a lot more just like this one.”

  “Of course it’s infuriating, but it’s not your problem. Don’t get worked up over it. How’s your ankle?” he asked abruptly.

  “It’s fine,” I sighed, tamping down my frustration. “I’ll live.”

  “I don’t doubt it for a second. You would survive the world ending if only it would allow you to get your own way.”

  I wasn’t entirely sure how to interpret that.

  “I’m going to take that as a compliment,” I finally decided.

  He shrugged and didn’t reply, his gaze fixed on the road. The only sound in the car was the jazz music on the radio.

  “You didn’t have to come with me, you know,” I told him quietly.

  “I can’t let you drive with a sprained ankle. You’d be a danger to yourself and to others.”

  “I meant I could have taken the train.”

  My remark seemed to unbalance him, and he kept quiet for a few seconds, seemingly determined to not look away from the road stretching ahead.

  “Yeah, you could have.”

  And that was all.

  It looked like I would never understand that man.

  * * * *

  We drove the rest of the way in near silence. I talked, but true to form, Éric kept his replies monosyllabic. It really was more of a monologue than a dialogue. An hour later, he parked in front of a small shop on a street lined with cobblestones at the heart of Angers.

  “We’re here,” he announced as he cut off the ignition.

  A wave of excitement broke over me.

  At last! I thought.

  I mentally ran over the speech I had prepared for Mr. Bourgeois one more time. I hoped he would be easier to convince than Éric. While he waited for a break in traffic to exit the car on the driver’s side, I hauled myself gingerly out of my seat, desperately trying not to trip over my crutches and end up on my derriere for the umpteenth time. Once I had managed this demanding task with no damage to either myself or the car, I took a few moments to admire the shop in front of me.

  It was an adorable little bookstore, quaint and old fashioned. The shop window was framed in black, with hand-painted gold letters on the glass that read Les livres d’Héloïse. I could see shelves groaning under a heavy load of books, bright colors both warm and cozy, with antique furniture that gave the impression you were about to step through a window to another world, another time.

  “Are you coming or are you just going to stare?” Éric grumbled with his usual tact and delicacy. “I sure didn’t come all this way to stand outside all day.”

  “You know, it wouldn’t kill you to be pleasant once in a while,” I complained as I followed him inside.

  The bookstore might have looked cramped from the outside, but stepping inside definitely gave the lie to that idea.

  “It’s the best!” I gasped in delight as Éric closed the door behind us. “It’s much bigger on the inside too!”

  “I have no idea what you’re going on about,” he muttered.

  “Forget it. Doesn’t matter. I love this place!”

  I stared around in wonder, utterly starstruck. I took in every detail: the ancient shelves that ran from one side to another, the paintings on the walls, most of them old book covers, the beanbags scattered in the corners and at the ends of the aisles, beckoning readers to sit and leaf through their selections. A tantalizing aroma of coffee and freshly baked pastries mingled with the incomparable smell of leather-bound books. I searched for the source and discovered a little 1900s-style café corner, adorned with brown oak tables, matching chairs and high shelves filled with old leather-bound red and brown books. A golden-red chandelier dangled from the ceiling and bathed the room in soft light.

  Completely charmed, I limped up to the counter at the back of the bookstore, trailing Éric. The man behind it was paging through a catalog.

  He looked up as he heard us approaching and smiled politely. He must have been in his early forties.

  “Good morning, how may I help you?”

  A glance from Éric let me know that this was all up to me.

  “Hello!” I offered my sweetest smile. “I would like to speak to Mr. Xavier Bourgeois. I called on Saturday,” I added as though it would magically smooth the way.

  “I am Xavier Bourgeois. What can I do for you?”

  Instantly, the speech I had rehearsed flew straight out of my mind and I let my excitement take over.

  “Pleased to meet you. I’m Alexandra Dawson. You’re going to think this is totally insane, but here it is. I’m descended from the man who built this bookstore, and I recently found out that you might have some documents dating back to the creation of the store. Including some personal papers belonging to the Villeneuve family.”

  I paused, slightly short of breath, and waited, heart hammering. I felt Éric draw closer behind me and I wondered if, in spite of the aloofness he pretended, he was interested in the content of the diary after all. Who knew what it could hold if it did exist? We might even find something that could help save the castle.

  I hoped so at least. I really did.

  Across the counter, Xavier Bourgeois looked at the both of us.

  “I do. It’s a funny coincidence; you’re not the first to ask me that. A while ago a man called me, asking to see these documents. I never heard back from him, though. He must have changed his mind.”

  “Was it Marc Lagnel, by any chance?” Éric queried.

  “I think that was his name. Do you know him?”

  “He was my father.”

  “Was?”

  “He died six months ago.”

  His voice was toneless, but I could feel the same pain, the same heartbreak as I had in the graveyard the previous day, and my own heart wept for him. I almost wanted to reach out and squeeze his hand, just to show him he wasn’t alone.

  Of course, I did no such thing. I wanted to leave the store in one piece.

  “My sincere condolences,” Mr. Bourgeois told him compassionately.

  “Thank you.”

  He turned to me.

  “Mr. Lagnel didn’t tell me his daughter-in-law was a descendant of Maurice Villeneuve.”

  My eyes went wide in amazement as I understood what he meant, and I immediately blushed scarlet, hastening to set him straight. At the same moment, Éric protested.

  “Oh no! No, no, no! Mr. Lagnel wasn’t my father-in-law.”

  “We’re not married!”

  “He can barely stand me!”

  “I’ve only known her two days!”

  “I’m sorry,” Xavier Bourgeois apologized. “I thought—”

  “You were mistaken,” Éric said harshly.

  “Really, I’m sorry.” The poor owner seemed embarrassed. “I didn’t mean to offend.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” I glared at Éric. “Would you be willing to let me look at those documents? I’m doing some genealogy research and I might find some useful information.”

  “Of course, it’s no bother at all. I’m happy to help. Follow me!”

  I thanked him with my widest smile.

  * * * *

  Mr. Bourgeois led us to a small office off the bookstore’s main room. Darker and simpler than the rest of the store, it held a desk, a chair and a few cabinets. We patiently—more or less—waited for him to rummage through one of these. A few moments later, he pulled out a large file box and set it on the desk.

  My excitement level skyrocketed.

  This was it.

  “Everything is in here,” Mr. Bourgeois told us. “Maurice Vi
lleneuve’s correspondence, both personal and professional, and everything I could find and preserve when I bought the store ten years ago. A number of documents were unfortunately lost over time, so this is all I have. I hope you find something helpful.”

  “It’s very kind of you, thank you,” I assured him.

  Just then, the bell over the door rang out.

  “Please excuse me, duty calls. I’ll be right next door if you need anything.”

  “Thank you.”

  He left the room, leaving us alone with the past.

  “How do you want to proceed?” Éric asked.

  “I’m not sure. I didn’t plan this far ahead. I think I’ll just look through the contents and see what’s relevant for me.”

  “What about me?”

  “You? What do you mean?”

  “How can I help?”

  I raised an eyebrow, surprised. “You want to help? I thought you weren’t interested in the past?”

  He shrugged. “Since I’m here, I may as well be useful.”

  “Admit it, you’re just curious to know what I’m going to find out,” I teased.

  “What of it?” he parried defensively.

  “I’d like that. I was thinking earlier that if we’re lucky, we might find something that could help save the castle.”

  “That’s not very likely.”

  “But not impossible.”

  “But not impossible,” he conceded, before adding, “Don’t get your hopes up, though. Nothing is ever that easy in life.”

  I heaved an exasperated sigh.

  “Do you ever see the glass half-full?”

  “It’s not a question of a glass half-full or half-empty. I’m a realist, that’s all.”

  “Yeah, well, if you ask me, your realism looks dangerously like pessimism,” I fired back as I cautiously opened the file box.

  Mr. Bourgeois was as orderly as Éric’s father had been. Loose sheets of paper had been placed in thematically and chronologically organized binders. I examined the first one. A label on the front read “Professional correspondence, 1880–1942.” I set it aside for later. I pulled out a second, much lighter one, entitled “Personal correspondence.” I flipped it open and began to page through it while across from me, Éric picked up another document.

  The first letters, I quickly realized, did not seem relevant to what I was looking for. I thumbed through the pages until a name at the top of one letter caught my eye. “Chandeniers.”

  Heart beating impossibly fast, I bent lower to decipher the content. No easy task, since the writer’s cursive was near as illegible as Marc Lagnel’s.

  My dear Gabrielle,

  I have reached the castle of Ferté-Chandeniers. My journey here was uneventful—as arranged with Mr. D’Arcy, Guillaume was waiting for me in Saumur. You will have guessed already that I asked to see the library immediately upon arriving, in order to weigh the task I had been entrusted with. Gabrielle, if only you could see it. It is unimaginable! Books by the thousand, everywhere, piling two stories high, from ground to ceiling and on every wall! If she were still with us, your mother would have leapt for joy.

  I stopped reading the instant I understood what I was holding.

  Wow! Had there really been that many books in the castle? I had known that the fire had destroyed many valuable works of art, but I’d had no idea of the scale of the loss. Scanning the rest of the letter, I realized that Gabrielle’s father had described everything he had seen of the castle since his arrival, and I unthinkingly called out to Éric.

  “Éric, come see, I think I found something you’re going to be interested in!”

  He rose and came up behind me, one hand on the desk and the other on the back of my chair, his face exactly two inches from mine, and the fragrance of his skin suddenly enveloped me.

  All at once, butterflies began to flutter in my stomach even as a strange sensation of pins and needles crept over my body. The feeling disturbed me so much that I lost my train of thought. Strangely, it was the sound of his voice near my ear that helped me gather my thoughts after a few moments of blankness.

  “What is it?”

  “A letter,” I replied, relieved to hear my voice did not quaver. “From Maurice Villeneuve to Gabrielle. He describes the castle the way it was in…” I checked the date at the top of the letter. “November 1899. Listen to this.”

  I read the rest of the letter out loud, Éric helping me sound out the words I had trouble with. We discovered the castle as it was just before the fire: a library to rival the one in Alexandria, paintings of great masters, precious tapestries. A magnificent collection of jade statuettes. Egyptian statues, Japanese armors, Turkish scimitars. A gallery lined with mirrors and another populated with medieval armor.

  A few names were repeated throughout the letter: Hélène, Guillaume, Agnès…the castle staff, apparently.

  The binder held several other letters in the same vein, Maurice describing castle life to his daughter. From what I could tell, he had been hired to inventory and sell the contents of the library. It seemed the castle was to be sold following the death of Victor Leroy de Saint-Armand.

  I remained speechless upon reading this.

  “But why? Why would Thomas want to sell the family castle? It makes no sense!”

  “It might seem hard to believe,” Éric drawled, “but not everyone has the means or the desire to live in a castle, even if it belonged to their ancestors.”

  “Okay, but why would he want to sell everything? Maybe he was already planning to leave for America.…”

  “Or his father was too deep in debt, and the only way to pay off the creditors was to sell the castle.”

  “I think I like your theory even less than mine.”

  “It’s not a question of liking, but of seeing whether it proves true. You might not like what you find out.”

  I sighed wearily.

  “I know…I know. But something isn’t right. If Maurice was the one to go to Chandeniers while Gabrielle stayed behind in the bookstore, how come I have a photo of her in the library? Why did she go there?”

  “There are no other letters?”

  I flipped a few pages over, but none of the other letters mentioned Chandeniers or Gabrielle.

  “Doesn’t look like it,” I said, disappointed.

  “There might be some information in here, then,” Éric hinted, holding out the thick red leather-bound notebook he had been leafing through. “I found something too, and I think you’re going to like it.” He laid it on the desk in front of me.

  My heart leapt.

  “Is that what I think it is?”

  “I think so.”

  “Why didn’t you say anything?” I cried, seizing it at once.

  I opened it feverishly, flipping through the pages. The yellowing pages were covered in narrow, feminine handwriting, a little untidy in places, as though the writer’s thoughts had occasionally wandered away from her. And among those lines, names jumped out at me: Papa, Hélène, Agnès, Guillaume…and Thomas.

  Heart thumping in my chest, I returned to the first page. The diary seemed to begin sometime in 1898. The flyleaf and the first few entries confirmed what I already instinctively knew.

  It was Gabrielle’s diary. It was real.

  I raised my eyes to meet Éric’s. He was so close to me I could see the tiny gleam that seemed to shine just for me.

  “This is it,” I whispered.

  “This is it,” he agreed.

  I lowered my gaze back to the diary, and for a few moments I simply stroked the cover lovingly.

  “You’re going to make fun of me,” I admitted softly, “but part of me thought this was going to be a false trail and that I shouldn’t build too much hope on this diary. I think you might be rubbing off on me!”

  “You haven’t read it yet
, you have no idea what’s inside,” he remarked.

  “You’ve seen it too—it mentions the same names as in the letters, and the castle, as well as Thomas. I’m positive it has the answers I’m looking for.”

  “And what are you looking for? Apart from your roots?”

  I smiled and looked guilelessly up at him.

  “A beautiful love story.”

  I giggled when he rolled his eyes, visibly appalled.

  * * * *

  An hour later, when Xavier Bourgeois looked in on us, I still hadn’t uncovered the love story I had hoped for. But then again, Éric and I had only skimmed the first pages of the diary, relating the months prior to Gabrielle and Thomas meeting. From a purely historical and cultural point of view, my ancestor’s diary was a treasure trove of information of the society and way of life of the time, a historian’s dream.

  Not so much on the romantic and glamorous aspect, though, I thought.

  I was going to have to be patient. I didn’t know when exactly Gabrielle and Thomas had first crossed paths, but I had reached October 1899. I knew my ancestors had been married in July 1900. Any moment now I would turn a page and read about the day of their first meeting and uncover why she had journeyed to the castle, I was sure of it.

  If I could be left alone to read in peace.

  “Did you find anything interesting?” Mr. Bourgeois asked.

  “I did! Exactly what I was looking for—my ancestor’s diary!”

  “Good for you! Can I offer you a coffee or something to eat?”

  I was about to refuse when Éric straightened and massaged his neck.

  “I would love a coffee, if you don’t mind.”

  “Come, I’ll brew some.”

  “Go ahead.” I gestured at the door. “I’m going to keep reading.”

  “Are you sure?” Mr. Bourgeois insisted.

  “Yes, thank you!”

  “The diary’s not going to vanish, Alexandra,” Éric interrupted. “And I need a coffee.”

  “Go and get one, then.”

  “So do you.”

  “No, I’m fine. And I don’t care for coffee, anyway.”

  “I have tea too,” Mr. Bourgeois offered.

  God, couldn’t they leave me alone? I just wanted to read!