Charlie Tindal was dumbfounded when he reached Bella’s house in France. The drive from Seer Green was no problem, Bella’s van ran like a dream. They packed the Explorer in the afternoon and slept through the evening, every sensible policecar driver was safely tucked up in bed and fast asleep, and the van cruised through the night to Dover averaging a hundred on the clock. Then they both slept again on the ferry, before taking turns at driving south, an hour at a time, heading for Paris and then along l’Aquitaine, the motorway to the south-west, sharing a light lunch at a French motorway service area, and reached Mondain just before teatime. Charlie had been dozing, and woke, and found the Explorer parked on a neatly gravelled drive outside a large mansion, almost a small chateau.
Bella leaned acrossed to kiss him. ‘We’ve arrived.’
He stared at the house in awe. Bella had never spoken about her French home, but Charlie had always thought of it as little more than a place for a holiday, something really quite small. Perhaps a cottage, or a small house in a village, possibly even a farmhouse. But this house was big, and with style.
The front door opened, and an elderly couple came out. Bella waved at them cheerily, and the man bowed. He was dressed as a butler, in a black jacket and striped trousers, whilst the woman at his side was also in black, with a high white apron. The woman curtseyed, and Charlie was speechless.
Bella got out of the Explorer to come round to him. ‘Monsieur and Madame Bonnefoie look after the house for me.’ She spoke in a low voice, just between the two of them. ‘Do be nice to them, they tend to be a bit old-fashioned.’
Charlie approached the couple with trepidation, and was formally presented as Bella’s friend. The Bonnefoies looked him up and down, and lowered their eyes in respect. He had a distinct impression that they would wait and see what kind of man he proved himself.
Bella’s butler eyed her without looking at Charlie again. ‘Monsieur counts on passing a few days?’ It was both question and statement.
Bella beamed, and took Charlie’s hand. ‘I hope it with all my heart.’
The man in black inclined his head gravely. ‘One dines at eight?’
‘Of course.’
‘Madame Bonnefoie has proposed a halibut mousse and I thought of serving it with a 1985 Sancerre, and she thinks you might like duck with an orange sauce to follow, garnished with rice and salsify, and I would suggest a ’78 Gevrey-Chambertin.’
‘It’s perfect.’
The butler nodded, and it was an affirmation.
Charlie made as though to walk to the back of the Explorer, because he thought he should show willing by being helpful, but Bella held him back.
‘Don’t.’ She paused. ‘Charles, Monsieur Bonnefoie, will do everything that needs to be done, and he will not welcome your help.’ Another pause. ‘And do call them Monsieur and Madame Bonnefoie, at least at the start. Alan started calling them Charles and Sophie, and they were rather offended, especially as he only spoke very broken French.’
‘Alan?’ It was the first time that Bella had mentioned her husband since leaving Seer Green.
She nodded, but she did not answer, and Charlie sensed that her husband was not a subject to pursue.
They stood together for a moment in silence, and then Bella smiled wryly. ‘We must think about the future, not about the past. I think the past had died.’ She tugged him towards the house. ‘Come and have a look at your new home.’
The house was impressive. The front door opened into a large hall with a marble floor, hung with a couple of portraits of fierce gentlemen on horseback whom Bella dismissed airily as ‘ancestors from the past’. A gilded door on the left opened into a large diningroom with a well-polished table laid for two, and walls hung with more ancestors, a matching door facing it acrossed the hall opened into a comfortable drawingroom furnished in the English manner. Bella led Charlie acrossed the room to a library with booklined walls.
‘This will be your study.’
Charlie surveyed the room thoughtfully. It was a serious room, wholly devoted to research and learning, and almost severe. But he would have room on the desk for a computer terminal, and a comfortable chair, and plenty of room to spread out.
‘You look as though you’d like to work in here.’ Bella’s voice was teasing.
‘Will you come in and make love to me on the carpet?’
‘Never.’ She pretended to be shocked. ‘Monsieur Bonnefoie would not approve at all.’
‘No love?’
Bella relented. She stood close to Charlie, folding her arms around his neck, and pulled his head down to kiss him. ‘I will love you forever.’
They stood embracing, warm lips on warm lips, kissing gently, and time stood still around them. But time also moved on. They peeped into the kitchen, which was large and spotless, but Bella stopped Charlie from crossing the threshold. ‘This is forbidden ground’, she warned. ‘Madame Bonnefoie rules here on her own, and nobody else may interfere’.
‘Does she clean the house as well?’
Bella looked astonished. ‘Sophie Bonnefoie clean the house? Never. A woman comes up from the village, and we have equipped her with all the latest things. She will iron your shirts as well.’ She tugged at Charlie’s hand. ‘Now I must show you upstairs.’
She led the way up a broad flight of stairs to a landing with more pictures on the walls and into a large bedroom with a big double bed, and big high windows curtained and shuttered against the sun. Charlie eyed the bed hopefully, but Bella steered him on into a small adjoining dressingroom, about the size of an average English bedroom, and then there were four more bedrooms and another bathroom, all trim and neat in pale pinks and primroses and shades of green, and she was like a small girl displaying a series of treasures.
‘My father came back after the war and furnished it all in the English manner, to make my mother feel at home.’ She led Charlie back to the main bedroom. ‘She died ten years ago, and he lived on for five more, but her death broke his heart. I kept the house because I spent such a happy childhood here, and I thought at one time I might persuade Alan to retire here.’
She had a note of sadness in her voice, and Charlie sensed her past peering over her shoulder again.
He walked to the tall windows. He had a feeling that only sunlight could break this spell. ‘What’s outside?’
Bella shivered a little, as though pulling herself together. ‘Out there?’ She tugged at a curtain. ‘The parterres are out there, and the park.’
The shutter was stiff, but after some tugging they combined to pull it open. The windows opened onto a balcony, set above a kind of gravelled terrace bounded by a stone balustrade, with a drop of perhaps a metre or so to a formal garden set out as a series of rose parterres bounded by small box hedges. Charlie could see a large oval ornamental pond beyond the garden, and a park in the English manner beyond that. It was all peaceful, and sublime, and as pretty as a picture. It was a dream, and they stood together, hand in hand for a moment, and it was a promise.
Then they returned to the ground floor. Monsieur Bonnefoie now had a second man with him, and the two had nearly finished unloading the Explorer. Bella introduced the second man as Monsieur Dutoit, the gardener, and Charlie decided to show that he spoke reasonable French.
‘I have been admiring the garden and the park. It is really very beautiful.’
The two men looked at him thoughtfully, and the gardener nodded. ‘The design was the work of a master.’ Charlie had a feeling that Monsieur Bonnefoie’s chill gravity might have melted a fraction.
‘You?’ It was a bold compliment.
‘No, monsieur.’ The gardener shook his head emphatically. ‘I am not at that level. But I look after it to my best.’
They were silent. It was plain that whilst they were plainly most curious about Charlie they would not question him, because it was not their place, and the silence was a little awkward. Bella freed them by smiling at the butler.
‘Perhaps we could have something to drink, a glass to celebrate our arrival.’
Monsieur Bonnefoie was formal again. ‘What desires Madame La Baronne?’ He spoke without looking at Charlie, but the title was carefully placed.
Charlie twitched. Surprises had begun to pile on surprises, and he struggled to maintain his composure, like a swimmer out of his depth clutching at floating driftwood.
‘We shall have a glass of dry sherry.’ Bella spoke decisively. She was not going to have her butler outmanoeuvering her new man. ‘Ask Madame Bonnefoie to join us. I have come home, and it is an occasion for celebration.’
Monsieur Bonnefoie went off, and they went back into the house. Bella beckoned to the gardener. ‘Come, come. We shall all celebrate together.’
Charlie was respectful. ‘I never knew you had a title.’
Bella took his hand. ‘My great-great-grandfather was ennobled by Napoleon the Third during the Second Empire for winning a battle in Algeria. He made us noblesse de l’epee, but people with pre-Revolutionary titles still tend to look down on us.’
‘I’m no hero.’
‘You don’t have to be.’ Bella squeezes his hand. ‘You just have to love me.’ She pulled away as the drawingroom door opens. The Bonnefoies entered, first Madame, her face set formally, then her husband, carrying a silver salver set with a bottle and five small crystal sherry glasses. Charlie noticed that he had put on white gloves for the occasion. He filled the glasses, and Bella called the toast.
‘We drink to happiness.’ Five glasses rose for polite sips, and the three servants eyed Charlie. This would be a decisive moment in a progression of decisive moments, because a response can be as important as an invitation. He raised his glass again. ‘May happiness surround us all.’
The other four glasses rose again, but Charlie realised that Monsieur Bonnefoie drank very little. Then the butler and his wife and the gardener and the tray and the glasses were all gone.
Bella put her arms around his neck. ‘You have done well.’ She spoke softly in French. ‘Charles does not like dry sherry, it was a way of putting him in his place. Your compliment was pretty. They will remember that.’
‘But they will think I’m your pet.’
Bella stood back, and now she spoke crisply in English. ‘No, Charlie, no pet. You will do me good, and you will work. You will be an investment expert, and you will look after money, and I will believe in you.’ She paused. ‘You know, I have seen your house, and Fulmer is worth much more money than here. We will be people from a good background, and we will have friends, and you will have a door opening through your computer onto the world, and you will be a master.’
Charlie thought to himself that Bella’s house in Seer Green had also been worth much more than Fulmer. But he said nothing.
Dinner was another adventure. Charlie and Bella were talking in the drawingroom when the door opened and Monsieur Bonnefoie stood majestic. ‘Madame La Baronne, dinner is served.’
Bella squeezed Charlie’s arm. ‘Now we have another test.’ She giggled. ‘Dinner in the diningroom will be formal, perhaps a little on the disapproving side. The terrace will be intimate.’
The butler stalked ahead of them through the diningroom. The table was laid, but he ignored it, leading them out through a french window onto the terrace, where a small wrought iron table had been laid for two, lit by a candle in a protective glass holder. Charlie felt a foot nuzzle against his calf as Monsieur Bonnefoie opened a bottle. He poured a little into a glass and held it out to him. Charlie gestured towards Bella.
‘I would never think of going before my hostess.’
Monsieur Bonnefoie inclined his head gravely, and Charlie had a distinct impression that Bella’s husband must sometimes have paid scant attention to the niceties of French manners.
The halibut mousse was a reward, so light and delicate that it melted on Charlie’s tongue. He played the part of the good guest as he ate, encouraging Bella to talk, and she told him of the neighbourhood and local affairs, of callers who would come to inspect him, and warned of some who might prove less than kind. The duck that followed was equally sublime: Charlie liked duck very dearly, especially with the fatty side lightly charred and as crisp as biscuit and the centre still blood red, and the rice was fluffy and dry, and the salsify swam in a delicate butter and lemon sauce. The wine was a song of accompaniment, and he purred with contentment.
Then they paused, to gaze out over the park, and their talking was more subdued, because they were now on their way to being replete. But there was more to come, because Madame Bonnefoie had prepared small pancakes for a dessert, and her husband doused them lightly with brandy in a small pan over a spirit lamp before applying a light, so that blue flames danced in weaving patterns over the pan, and he served small glasses of a golden Sauterne, and it was a magic ending to a sublime meal.
Bella got to her feet, and held out her hands. ‘Let’s walk in the park for a moment.’
They walked hand-in-hand, and she was silent as they passed through the parterres to the pond beyond. Then she stopped, putting up her face to be kissed, and folded her arms around Charlie’s neck. ‘You’re doing well.’ Her voice was little more than a whisper. ‘Charles and Sophie must approve of you, because they are pulling out all the stops.’
Charlie felt distinctly tight around his waistline. ‘It was bliss.’
‘But rather fattening?’
He rolled his eyes. ‘I couldn’t do it every night.’
Bella laughed, and it was a silvery sound. ‘Wait until you meet Maurice Delacroix.’ Now she was speaking in French again. ‘He knows everything about everybody, and he is the arbiter of public opinion in the commune. He will examine you very closely, and form an opinion on you, and his opinion will spread at great speed. If he finds you a good thing he will invite you for a horse walk, and those sort of things.’ She paused, and her eyes clouded. ‘Can you ride?’
Charlie made a face. ‘I was quite small.’
‘But you know which side to mount?’
‘On the left?’
‘Ok.’ She laughed again, and he heard the relief in her voice. ‘Then he will test you. If he doesn’t think much of you he will put you on something quite fierce. He didn’t like Alan very much, and put him on a spirited horse. The horse threw Alan into a heap of shit.’
‘I will try to keep my English cool.’
‘You are a nice man, aren’t you?’ This time she spoke in English, and touched the side of his face with the palm of her hand, stroking it over his mouth. ‘I think they’ll like you.’
The light began to fade, and they walked back towards the house, hand-in-hand. Charlie thought that he had never been so happy in his whole life.
His bliss continued as they lay together in Bella’s big double bed. This time their lovemaking was leisurely, a matter of gentle kisses and caresses, a progression of explorations and comforts. They fulfilled each other, and then slept, until Bella woke in the night to scratch gently along the line of Charlie’s spine and he woke with a small grunt, and they made love to each other again, and again when they woke in the morning.
Monsieur Bonnefoie sat waiting for them in the hall, reading a paper. He nodded approvingly as Bella said they would eat a French breakfast of fresh bread and conserves and coffee, and served it on the terrace again, but this time there were two small pink roses in a little crystal vase.
Bella clapped her hands. ‘Bravo, Charles.’ She looked at the butler out of the corner of her eye. ‘I would never have thought you a romantic soul.’
Monsieur Bonnefoie looked almost as though he might blush. ‘I thought it might please you, madame.’
This time there was no title, and the butler’s smile briefly took in Charlie as well.
She smiled up at him. ‘Both of us, I hope?’
He considered the question gravely, before assenting. ‘Madame, you have come back to France.’