Louis-Marie met Robert for the first time since the summer. With Pauline’s blessing, he’d invited his brother to dinner so they could talk about Alexandre’s letter.
With her usual cheerful disposition, Pauline came and went through the living room. Since their return from Fonteyne, they hadn’t talked about anything. Resigned, Louis-Marie concluded that he would never be able to stop Pauline from flirting with Robert, and he liked to think that his wife’s act ended there.
“We don’t see each other often enough!” Pauline said as she handed Robert a glass of whisky. “Those people at the hospital, they never give you a break?”
Robert gave her an icy stare. She hadn’t phoned him a single time in two months, and he hadn’t been able to keep himself from waiting for the call every single day.
“Let me get right to the heart of the matter,” Louis-Marie said. “We can chat about other stuff afterward. I received a letter from Alex, and I desperately wanted you to read it. …”
He handed Robert two sheets of paper.
“Lousy handwriting. …” Robert grumbled as he began to read.
The apartment was fun and original, Pauline having put ornaments and knick-knacks all over the place. Louis-Marie always let her, incapable of going against her will.
Robert tossed Alexandre’s letter on the coffee table in front of him and said, “What does Jules think of this?”
“Jules won’t be back from England for another month. That’s why Alex is so upset, I suppose. You know them. Jules gets on his nerves, but he can’t do anything without him. And I can’t picture him confronting Dad by himself.”
They looked at each other. They were taking their brother’s letter very seriously. At the sight of their sour expressions, Pauline burst out laughing.
“Your father has a lover? Big deal! He’s always had women in his life.”
“Yes,” Louis-Marie said, “but he never took them in the house.”
Robert was as floored as his brother by what he’d just learned.
“This Frédérique,” he asked, “she’s a friend of Jules’s right?”
“A friend … ? More like a woman he picked up in a nightclub once. … Very pretty, as we all saw, and horribly young. …”
Pauline was smiling, amused to see them so concerned. She thought it was great that her father-in-law flaunted his relationship, imagining with glee the scandal that his behavior was causing among the bourgeoisie over there. She’d laughed while reading Alex’s letter.
“You think he’s getting senile?” Louis-Marie asked.
Robert raised his shoulders, annoyed at Pauline’s cheery mood and his brother’s conclusions.
“At his age? Are you kidding me? He’s more lucid than you and me. I bet that it’s all premeditated. …”
Robert kept quiet for a moment, and Louis-Marie tapped him on the knee to bring him back to reality.
“Maybe Dad is afraid that Laurène will want to take over the house after she marries Jules? And he decided to have his lover move in with him to quash his future daughter-in-law’s plans?”
Robert set down his glass of whisky with a sudden movement.
“What are you talking about?” he said. “Don’t you know Dad? He’s not scared of anyone, let alone a woman. Just think of Dominique’s situation there. …”
Pauline was watching Robert as he spoke, finding him as attractive as ever. Just to be on the safe side, she hadn’t gone to see him at the hospital, hadn’t even called him since the harvest. Not out of love for Louis-Marie, but because she was weary of her brother-in-law’s charms.
Robert was troubled by the way Pauline was gazing at him.
“Did Alex tell Jules?” he asked his brother.
“No, he didn’t want to add fuel to the fire. Jules is going to be furious when he gets back and finds out about that woman, and he won’t be shy about it. He’ll be the only one with the nerve to say anything.”
“Good!” Robert said.
Pauline, once again, laughed. “What’s he going to say? That Aurélien is having some sort of midlife crisis and that Fonteyne is now at the mercy of a woman? What drama that’s going to be!”
“There will be less drama if Jules knows in advance,” said Louis-Marie. “I think I’m going to go to London to talk to him.”
Pauline grabbed Robert’s arm and guided him to the kitchen.
“Let’s have dinner,” she said, “while the food’s still fit to eat.”
Robert sat where Pauline told him to. He felt uncomfortable whenever he was near her, and there really wasn’t anything he could do about it. Louis-Marie didn’t seem to notice his brother’s embarrassment.
“I have an idea!” Pauline blurted out. “Why don’t we all go to Fonteyne for Christmas?”
Robert gave her a bewildered look.
“Are you kidding?”
“Just a few days,” she said. “I’m sure that hospital of yours can survive without Dr. Laverzac for forty-eight hours. No one is irreplaceable, you know.”
Her enthusiasm was telling. She continued, “We’d be able to assess the situation there for ourselves and be a buffer between Jules and your father at the same time. And we’d spend Christmas as one big family!”
Delighted with her own idea, she looked at both Robert and Louis-Marie.
“Say yes!” she said. “Esther would be so happy, and her cousins, too.”
Louis-Marie could never resist his wife for very long.
“I could pick up Jules and Laurène in London and take them to Fonteyne. We’d surprise Dad, like the good sons that we are, and so he wouldn’t be able to say no. … And we’ll spend Christmas Eve all together, something that hasn’t happened in ten years.”
Robert hesitated, tempted in spite of himself, knowing that Pauline’s presence would kill him, but thinking that anything was better than not seeing her, not knowing what she was doing.
“When could you free yourself, Bob?”
“At the earliest … the twenty-third, I think. That’s next Tuesday.”
“Perfect! So I’ll head for England this weekend. That’ll give Jules time to rearrange his schedule. When you leave Paris on Tuesday, can you pick up Pauline and Esther?”
Robert managed to put on an air of indifference as he acquiesced.
Pauline, delighted, leaned toward him and said, “You’re not going to drive like a madman in that sports car of yours, right? Promise?”
He had the feeling that Pauline was mocking him. Louis-Marie’s presence prevented him from saying anything back and he just nodded. He’d completely forgotten the reason for this meal and, at that very moment, he would’ve been incapable of remembering who Frédérique was. He took the dish that Pauline was handing him. He was already feeling miserable.
Aurélien stepped away from the fireplace as the flames suddenly whooshed. He loved this hour of quiet, early in the morning, after Fernande had just set the breakfast tray on the corner of his desk.
In the heart of winter, Fonteyne didn’t require as much attention. Snow, which had fallen overnight, was covering the entire vineyard. Aurélien glanced at his watch. Alexandre would come over only later, no doubt busy drinking his coffee and chatting with his sons back at his house. And Frédérique was probably still sleeping.
Aurélien thought that he liked them all, his sons, daughters-in-law, grandchildren, but that Jules’s absence really weighed on him. Not being able to simply enjoy the sight of the snowy vines in the company of his adopted son saddened him. He asked himself for the hundredth time why he’d sent him over to England.
So he’d be away from Laurène. … That was some plan! They’re on a honeymoon before they’re even married. …
Jules’s phone calls, laconic but friendly, only added to his distress.
You talk to me about merchants, about markets shares … I miss you, you little jerk. …
He smiled, exasperated. Sometimes he felt like his adopted son was his only son. Why did their relationship always have to have an element of rivalry?
He sleeps with Laurène, makes love to her. … I hope I never start hating him. …
He gazed at the flames once again, and as the thought of Frédérique came to him, he produced a satisfied smile. She was young, beautiful and, above all, she’d become his lover.
As soon as Louis-Marie uttered Aurélien’s name and explained to his brother what was going on at Fonteyne, Jules started preparing to leave England.
Until then, Laurène had adored their trip. Jules had been considerate and charming, as only he could be. But it had been business first, and she was getting tired of the never-ending discussions she had to listen to. Wanting to maximize his stay in England, Jules had booked meeting after meeting without granting them a day off. He’d stuck to a very tight schedule and had met a large number of merchants. From hotel to hotel, Laurène had packed and unpacked their suitcases twenty times.
Of course, after Louis-Marie’s unannounced visit, Laurène understood that their trip was over. Aurélien, Fonteyne—those were magical words, and Jules was obviously happy to put those shackles back on. He canceled his meetings and reservations, and decided to leave with his brother right away. Laurène had to pack up their things one more time in a hurry, and they managed to catch the last ferry from Portsmouth to Saint-Malo.
“And, of course,” Louis-Marie said, “she’s now his lover. …”
There was a trace of reproach in his voice, and Jules defended Aurélien right away.
“So what? There have always been women in Aurélien’s life. You know that. Not in the house, that’s true, and Alex is right to worry. But don’t criticize me for having introduced her to him. …”
“I’m not criticizing you about anything.”
Laurène was sleeping in the back of the car, and Louis-Marie had let Jules drive. They were speaking in low voices, happy to be heading together for Fonteyne, in spite of the worry they felt.
“Maybe Dad figured that after you marry Laurène, you wouldn’t be his protégé anymore, and you won’t be at his disposal all the time, and you won’t be at his beck and call twenty-four seven. …”
They laughed, that same quick and light laugh they both shared.
“No matter his reasons,” Jules said, “if he decided to do what he did, he’s going to stick to it. But he’s never going to give control of Fonteyne to that woman, you know that as well as I do. He’s not senile, far from it. Only Alex believes that junk.”
“I don’t know, Jules. … Just for the sake of being defiant, he might let the game go too far and get played himself. After all, she’s very pretty and very young, and he must feel quite … flattered.”
Jules, not altogether convinced by Louis-Marie’s arguments, shook his head. He knew Aurélien better than anyone, of that he was certain.
After the town of Saintes, he headed for Royan to take the Pointe de Grave ferry. He wanted to drive the length of the Médoc region, all the way down to Fonteyne. He took in the landscape avidly. Louis-Marie threw glances at him and smiled, though he felt a bit ill at ease. Jules had Fonteyne and, deep down, he didn’t care what people around him did. Nothing really troubled him as long as he could count on Fonteyne—the land, the vineyards. As for Louis-Marie, all he had was Pauline. Pauline, who must be on her way to Fonteyne with Robert and Esther. What role was she playing, right now, with her bewitched brother-in-law? That of perfect mother? Woman-child? Faithful wife?
Louis-Marie felt Jules’s hand on his arm.
“What’s bugging you? Is something wrong?”
Jules’s soft voice soothed Louis-Marie.
“No,” he said. “I just hope that Bob is driving carefully.”
Jules turned his head back for a second to look at Laurène, still stretched across the backseat, sleeping. He loved her and all was well. He thought of his father and Frédérique, trying to remember her as well as possible, and the hotel room in Bordeaux where they’d spent a night together. Not even one night, just a few hours. Jules remembered that Frédérique was smiling during their lovemaking. Was she smiling when she was with Aurélien as well? To imagine Aurélien in bed was difficult.
“All this snow is amazing,” Louis-Marie said, gesturing at the white fields.
Rows and rows of vines were buried under the sheet of snow. Jules gave his brother a radiant smile. No matter if the vines were hidden, he was happy to find them once again.
Aurélien greeted his sons without showing surprise or annoyance. He blankly stated that he liked the idea of a family Christmas, and then he took Jules to his office. There, he asked for a precise and detailed report of Jules’s stay in England. He made no comment about the trip’s sudden interruption and the cancellation of the last few meetings. But his abrupt way of asking questions and interrupting the answers irritated Jules. Being treated like an employee had always infuriated him. Aurélien was, it went without saying, well aware of that.
“Tell me you took the time to go to Berry Brothers & Rudd. …” he said.
Jules talked about the shop, very Old England, the mecca of wine traders and connoisseurs, located at 3 James Street since 1698. He described the shop in detail, before telling his father about the new British trends and preferences. They continued talking for a long while, Aurélien keeping that same stern expression in spite of Jules’s attempts at humor.
“What about your wedding?” Aurélien finally asked. “What have you decided?”
“We were thinking June. If that’s okay with you. …”
He’d just changed their plans, trying to buy time without even knowing why.
“Whatever date is convenient for you is okay with me,” Aurélien said.
Aurélien’s tone was pleasant. His son’s return made him happy beyond anything else. He was back and life would return to normal. Fonteyne without Jules wasn’t really Fonteyne anymore.
“Is it okay if we live together till then?”
The question surprised Aurélien, and it also reassured him. Jules, though in love, knew very well the narrow-minded world they belonged to.
“If Antoine agrees, his daughter can live under my roof. The world has changed. …”
He was smiling, amused at being able to sound more liberal than his son.
“You can pretend like you each have your own room, for the sake of Clothilde and the staff … but ask for Antoine’s okay first.”
They looked at each other, communicating a thousand things without opening their mouths.
“I need to talk to you about … But why don’t you sit down, cowboy? You’re making me tired staying on your feet like that.”
Aurélien only used that nickname when he was in good spirits, and so Jules obliged him by sitting in an armchair.
“There will be decisions to be made about your marriage,” Aurélien said. “Things I’d like to talk to you about now, son.”
Jules leaned forward, attentive but not worried.
“You can fix your floor any way you want. There’s enough room. Laurène can have whatever she wants, as long as you guys don’t touch Robert and Louis-Marie’s rooms. The rest, I don’t care. Knock down some walls if you’d like, if you feel like having some sort of … apartment?”
He’d put too much sarcasm into his words to sound truly indifferent.
“Any renovations you guys want to make are on me, it goes without saying. It’s my house, no matter what. … But, you know, I’d like things to remain the same in here. Fernande takes care of the house with the help of Clothilde. Laurène can continue handling the bills and expenses, if she feels like it, just like she did when she worked for me. She knows how to do it. As long as you don’t have any kids. …”
Without enthusiasm, Jules brought himself to ask the question that Aurélien had been waiting for.
“What about Frédérique? You’re going to let her go?”
Aurélien looked his son squarely in the face.
“No. She knows what I have in mind.”
A painful moment of silence followed.
“You care a lot for her?” Jules finally asked, in spite of himself.
“Of course! Alex must’ve told you. Frédérique and I are together.”
Jules’s breath was taken away by the simplicity and bluntness of that last sentence.
“And so,” Aurélien continued, “she does whatever she wants in this house. It’s her home.”
“Really?” Jules stared at his father, and then added, “You’re not going to marry her, are you?”
The question startled Aurélien. He hadn’t expected such a direct hit.
“What business is it of yours, Jules?” he asked.
Both hesitated to say anything else, knowing they were heading for a fight. After a moment, Aurélien made the effort to say, “It bothers you that much? I didn’t mess things up for you, and you have Laurène. … I never do anything to hurt you, you know that. …”
Jules got up, shoved his hands in his pockets, and fumbled for the right words to say.
“You do whatever you want, but I wouldn’t want you …”
He stopped talking and Aurélien straightened in his chair.
“To make a fool of myself? You’re afraid to say it?”
“That’s not what I meant to say.”
“Good!”
Aurélien was still in his seat, glaring at Jules.
“That’ll be all for the moment,” he said, sharply.
Jules managed to leave the room without slamming the door shut. The first person he saw in the hallway was Frédérique. She was coming from outside, her cheeks rosy, and she seemed delighted to see Jules. With a big smile on her face, she walked briskly toward him but stopped in her tracks when she realized that she wouldn’t be greeted warmly.
“How are you?” she asked, with the softest of voices.
She was looking at him as if dazzled. She was as attracted to him as she had been three months earlier, and even though she was daunted by him, she’d been prepared to confront him.
“And your trip?” she asked.
“Educational. I just told Aurélien about it and I think he’s satisfied.”
Jules was staring at her, a grin on his face.
“I asked Fernande to prepare something nice for us, and we’re going to eat soon. …”
Jules offered a light laugh, which she considered horribly insulting.
“You’re not going to start using that stepmother tone with me, are you?”
Then out of the blue, he grabbed her by the waist and pulled her against himself. He whispered in her ear, “He’s good in the sack, I hope.”
She didn’t have time to say anything. Jules let go of her just as Robert and Pauline were walking into the house, Esther on their heels.
“What a ride!” Pauline said as she went over to Jules. “Snow, black ice, and Siberia-cold. What about you? Was the ride from London okay? Where’s my husband?”
Adorable, cheerful, Pauline grabbed Jules’s arm and dragged him to the main living room without having even glanced at Frédérique.
“You’re still just as handsome and attractive, dear brother-in-law,” she said.
She was laughing, unbuttoning her fur coat with one hand.
“This is going to be a fantastic Christmas,” she said. “You’ll see. I’m going to organize everything. Come Esther, come near the fireplace. Your uncle is going to light a nice fire. It’s freezing in this castle, as always in the winter. …”
In the hallway, Robert had stopped to take off his coat and he greeted Frédérique.
“Hello Robert,” she answered with a disarming smile.
He was surprised that she remembered his name but didn’t say anything about it. The thought of his father sleeping with such a young and beautiful woman made him smile.
She walked ahead of him to the living room, where Aurélien was already chatting with Pauline, and she sat down, a bit to the side. Dominique and Alexandre’s animosity toward her since the harvest had weighed on her, and the idea of spending Christmas with the entire family scared her. She could easily imagine the attitude Aurélien’s sons were going to have toward her. She’d vaguely hoped that Jules would be more indulgent, and she felt sad.
The way the conversation went, led by a merry Pauline, gave no one the chance to start an argument. Jules and Aurélien were keeping an eye on each other, ready to respond to any sign of aggression.
“And,” Pauline said suddenly, “I’ll ask you all to let Dominique and me organize the Christmas Eve festivities. It’s going to be a surprise! This is the first time we’re all together for Christmas, it’s quite an event!”
Charming, playful, she knew how to entertain Aurélien and speak to his love for women. He smiled, noticed Frédérique’s tight smile and Laurène’s inscrutable face, and said with calm, “It’s a deal, sweetheart. You have carte blanche. …”
Louis-Marie and Jules looked at each other. Peace, for now. …
Jules woke up and looked at the ceiling for a moment before recognizing it. He’d slept in Laurène’s room, which had been, many years ago, Alexandre’s. His eyes wandered toward the trompe l’oeil, the plaster cherubs, the decorative woodwork, and finally, the young woman sleeping curled up next to him. He grazed her shoulder with his fingertip. He was just as much in love with her as on the night he’d kicked her door open.
He quietly slipped out of bed and gathered his things. He walked naked to the bathroom down the hallway, knowing he wasn’t going to run into anyone at this hour.
In the shower—cold—he thought back on the conversation he’d had with Aurélien the previous day. “You can fix your floor any way you want,” his father had said. Fix what? What for? Jules’s room was gigantic, and Laurène could set it up anyway she wanted. And the room she was now occupying would be perfect for the babies they would have. Later. …
Jules sighed. Later was too far away for him. Not for one second could he imagine Laurène wanting to live anywhere but at Fonteyne. He wasn’t selfish, but he couldn’t even begin to conceive that his life would one day take him away from this paradise. Besides, he would eventually own Fonteyne, as per Aurélien’s will—the vines, the land, the castle, and the debts. But that seemed to him too far in the future to even think about. The future he cared about was the next harvest. To support Aurélien in his difficult moments was a ridiculously low price to pay. And, deep down, Jules liked his father’s tyrannical ways. He felt he was too young to live without them. Aurélien was his safeguard.
He went to his bedroom, where he’d dropped his luggage the day before. He went through one of his suitcases looking for the cashmere scarf he’d purchased for Fernande and realized that he’d brought nothing back for his father—no present, no souvenir, nothing. True, his trip had been shortened, but he still felt guilty. All the cases of wine he’d shipped to Fonteyne came with a fond note to Aurélien. However, those deliveries were all about business. Jules sighed, knowing that even with more time, he wouldn’t have dared bring his father anything back. Aurélien wasn’t some little kid you could amuse with some trinket from another country.
Jules had just put on his jeans and boots when Fernande softly knocked on his door. She kissed him lovingly on both cheeks, as she always did when they were alone.
“I figured you’d be up already. I’m going to put away your things. …”
He set the suitcases on the bed so she wouldn’t have to pick them up herself, and he gave her the scarf. But he didn’t listen to the old woman’s emotional thanks, as he was looking out the window at Fonteyne.
“Are you happy to be back, kiddo?” Fernande asked.
Still taking in the landscape, he took a few seconds to reply.
“It’s so beautiful,” he said simply. “I’m going to marry Laurène soon, you know.”
He turned to Fernande and said, “She’s not going to take your place here.”
“No, not Laurène. I know her. But there’s the other. …”
Jules, suddenly attentive, asked.
“She’s bothering you?”
“It’s not so much that. … It’s an odd situation. To think that your father brought a woman here. And such a young woman, too. If you only knew what people are saying, in Margaux and everywhere else. … You won’t let things get too far, will you?”
“That’s why I came back, Fernande. But you know him as well as I do. You can’t force him to do what he doesn’t want to do. If he wants a woman in his life, he’s the only one to decide. But that one … no. I know what she is. I’m the one who suggested Aurélien hire her. I was wrong. Maybe I overestimated Aurélien’s intelligence. …”
“No,” Fernande said. “You know very well that he’s not being fooled. Actually, you should hear the way he speaks to her at times. But, other times, he looks at her the way a dog looks at a bone.”
Jules felt like laughing but refrained out of respect for his father.
“He’s far from senile,” Fernande continued, “but he seems set on pestering everybody, and he’s found the right way to do it.”
One after the other, she hung Jules’s clothes. She didn’t like to talk about Aurélien this way, but only Jules could bring peace back to Fonteyne. And she wanted peace above everything else because she knew she’d be unable to accept, after forty years of service, this young woman as the head of the household.
“You know, you and Laurène … Your father took it hard.”
Jules understood what she was talking about, and she didn’t have to go on about it. If Aurélien had been passionate about someone these past few years, it was Laurène. Frédérique was but a substitution. Worse, a form of vengeance.
“Your father …” Fernande added. “He adores you, but … you take the spotlight away from him quite a bit.”
Frédérique had also woken up early. She adored her room, with its rounded, blonde wood window frames and the large French doors that opened onto a gallery. With its vestibule and adjacent bathroom, the room was completely independent from the rest of the castle. Aurélien had settled her there on the very first day she arrived, saying that this way she’d be freer. Freer! The word had amused her. Since she lived at Fonteyne, she’d had just one thing in mind: Jules. It was because of him that she’d accepted the secretary position, and Jules’s sudden departure to England with Laurène had left her dejected. But in his absence, she’d taken the opportunity to settle in and come up with a plan. Of course, she’d had to accept Aurélien. Accept? No, he hadn’t forced her to do anything. She’d had an opportunity one evening, a moment to seize. She didn’t regret it, though she knew it wasn’t necessarily the best way to get to Jules. But she’d had no other choice. Jules was abroad with a woman he loved and that he meant to marry upon his return, so Frédérique had given in to Aurélien’s advances without thinking. And the experience had turned out neither sordid nor boring. Aurélien always behaved with plenty of tact and kindness. Whenever they were together in bed, he never made an inappropriate gesture or said anything improper. He often talked about Jules, as though he knew she was interested in him. He gave her a lot of tasks to perform in her role as secretary, and had increased her monthly paycheck very nicely. Things were simple, easy. Aurélien loved women, no doubt, but he was no fool. And in spite of his age, he was Aurélien Laverzac, and all that it represented.
Frédérique got out of bed. She was cold and so she hurried to put on a bathrobe. Jules was back. He was in the house, probably up already. As soon as she was ready, she ran downstairs to the kitchen, where Fernande made breakfast for her, without a word as usual. Frédérique could feel the animosity of Aurélien’s entourage toward her beyond any doubt. This was generally unpleasant for her, but today Jules would be here. Even with two other brothers to deal with, Frédérique felt strong. Never before had she wanted something with such intensity as she did Jules. She didn’t have to close her eyes to remember him in that Bordeaux hotel back in October. Ah yes, he’d conquered her! In her mind’s eye she could see him with his jacket thrown over his shoulder, his sad eyes, his lovely smile. And his intensity during lovemaking, his courtesy afterwards, neither distant nor affected. And when he’d taken her home, the way he was driving with one hand, lighting a cigarette with the other. She’d loved everything about him with a passion.
Frédérique watched Fernande prepare a breakfast tray with a great deal of care.
“Mr. Aurélien is up?” she asked.
“It’s for Mr. Jules,” Fernande grumbled back.
Remembering, a bit disappointed, that Jules always had breakfast in his father’s office, Frédérique got to her feet.
“It’s okay,” she said, “I’ll take it to him.”
Ignoring Fernande, she grabbed the tray and forcefully left the kitchen. She went the length of the castle and walked into Aurélien’s office without knocking.
Jules didn’t seem at all surprised to see her, as though he was expecting her.
“Are you in a better mood this morning?” she asked with a wide smile.
“I didn’t know you were the one serving breakfast now. If that’s the case, why don’t you take a tray up to Laurène, too?”
She turned pale, but didn’t stop smiling.
“Why are you so hostile? Do I scare you?”
“Of course you don’t scare me,” he said.
In a swift movement, she sat on a corner of the desk, right in front of him.
“We weren’t at war when you left for London. … What’s changed? Is it because of your father?”
She truly was trying to be nice to Jules, but what she got in return was an expression filled with contempt. She resorted to humor.
“But, Jules, everybody knows that you like to share your girlfriends with him. That’s what people say anyway. … Is it not true?”
Taken aback by the attack, Jules jumped to his feet.
“Don’t wear yourself out,” he said, slowly. “I had you hired at Fonteyne because we needed a secretary. You remember that, I hope? There’s no other position to occupy. If you had something specific in mind, we can talk about it now.”
“With you? Why? Aurélien is the one in charge around here, at least as far as I can tell.”
She was rebelling against Jules’s harsh tone.
Exasperated, he said, “Yes. He’s the one who’s going to decide if things last between you two. He also decides how much to spend for his enjoyment. He decides whether you leave or stay. But he’s never going to decide to marry you, that’s certain. What are you expecting out of this relationship anyway? To put some money aside? And then what? A car? A pearl necklace? And how long are you willing to wait to get all of this?”
Jules was angry but, in spite of the way he was talking to her, she couldn’t help but find him attractive.
“Is it so terrible that your father has a lover?” she asked in a small voice.
“No. Only that she settled in my home.”
Their night in the Bordeaux hotel was decidedly a long time ago. Trying to put on a brave face, she took out a cigarette. Jules struck a match for her.
“Listen, Frédérique …” he said, “you don’t know anything about us and about Fonteyne. And even less about Aurélien. I’m warning you, I won’t let you manipulate him. Ahead of you here is Dominique, Laurène, Fernande, and even Clothilde. There’s nothing I can do about you being in my father’s bed, but everywhere else, you’re going to find me in your way. …”
Frédérique had no doubt he meant every word he said. She left the corner of the desk where she’d been perched throughout their conversation. She stood right in front of Jules and put a hand on his shoulder.
“You have extraordinary eyes,” she whispered. “I’m crazy about them.”
She gave him an enigmatic smile and stepped out of the room, leaving Jules completely aghast.
One hour later, the kitchen had turned into a happy dining hall. Louis-Marie, Pauline and Esther, all draped in thick bathrobes, were joined by Alex, Dominique, and the twins for breakfast. The three kids, with incessant questions about Santa Claus, harassed a half-awake Robert. Laurène was telling Dominique all about her trip to England, and Pauline was engaged in a lively conversation with Fernande about the Christmas Eve meal.
As soon as Jules walked into the room, he was comforted by the loud and warm atmosphere that prevailed there. Fonteyne needed the shouts and bursts of laughter of children to cheer it up in the middle of winter. Even Clothilde, for once, didn’t look morose or absorbed in her tasks. She leaned against her broom, with a silly grin on her face.
Jules untied Fernande’s apron as he walked behind her, the same practical joke he used to play on her when he was a teen.
“If you guys want to go to Bordeaux to buy stuff today, take the Mercedes. I just put some winter tires on it.”
Pauline, who was having a grand time, turned to her brother-in-law and said, “You already changed four tires and it’s not even nine o’clock yet! I’m so impressed!”
Jules chuckled.
“Yes” he said, “and I brought up tons of wine for tonight. And champagne, too.”
“Without knowing what we were going to eat?”
“I think I covered all the bases.”
“And I bet you went through all the vineyards as well?” Robert said, laughing.
“Of course,” Jules said, as he pointed at his wet boots.
They all smiled and laughed, genuinely happy to be together. Fernande thought, reassured by everyone’s presence, that Frédérique wouldn’t have much weight around here.
“Laurène and I are going to town,” Pauline said. “You have your list, Dominique?”
At that very moment, Frédérique walked into the kitchen, and all the conversations immediately died down. The young woman went over to the counter and set down her tray. She felt uncomfortable and unhappy. She took a deep breath and turned to the others.
“Are you all staying until New Year’s Eve?”
Seemingly harmless, the question implied that she considered herself to be the head of the household and that she wanted to know what to expect.
Pauline was first to react. With a disarming smile she said, “But of course! Don’t you worry, though. I’ll take care of everything. …”
Louis-Marie and Robert both gave Pauline a look of surprise. There had been no talk of staying the entire week.
“I always say that nothing is more important than family,” Pauline added, with an air of perfect innocence.
She took Laurène by the arm, snatched the list that Dominique was still holding, and left the kitchen. Without waiting for the door to shut, Jules broke into laughter.
Frédérique shot a hard look his way, then said, “I’m going to Bordeaux. Aurélien asked me to buy presents for the children.”
She was taunting him, determined to not lose face.
“With what car?” Jules asked, slowly. “Not with the Jeep. I actually need it.”
A moment of silence followed, uncomfortable for Robert and Louis-Marie who couldn’t decide whether they should offer Frédérique a ride.
“I’m going to catch up to Pauline,” she blurted out, and ran out of the room.
Jules turned to his brothers and said, “You guys are so mean. Now the girls are stuck with her. … That was a nasty thing for you to do.”
They burst out laughing, along with Fernande.
Aurélien, in his office, had made a pile of urgent files for Jules to look at. With the castle’s new heating system, the fireplaces weren’t supposed to be needed, but the size of almost every room made them ice-cold, and Jules could satisfy his love of fires just about everywhere in the house. From November on, starting a fire was the first thing he did after walking into his father’s office. How many times, for so many years, had Aurélien found his son kneeling before the fireplace, tongs in hand?
He does everything well, everything quickly, everything with passion. …
Aurélien’s gaze fell on the photo of his wife, which hadn’t left his desk in forty years. Lucie hadn’t had time to be a good mother, as she’d died too early. She probably would’ve ended up loving Jules as much as the other three. Aurélien had forced him on her without her knowing about it in advance, but she’d done her duty without complaining. What would she be thinking now, up there, if she saw Frédérique settled at Fonteyne? She’d probably get a good laugh out of it. …
Aurélien was surprised to find himself thinking about Lucie. It almost never happened. He concentrated on Jules instead. Their meeting yesterday had been a bit painful. Though it wasn’t as if Aurélien had never spent the night with a woman much too young for him. It was like a game between the two of them, when they were alone on those long winter nights. Then, both the father and the son looked at each other, decided who the winner was without saying a word, and the other left the room quietly.
In the case of Frédérique, Aurélien had changed the usual rules of the game, without informing Jules. Just like Jules had gotten away from tradition by deciding to marry Laurène without telling him. Fair enough. …
The two soft knocks on the door forced Aurélien away from his thoughts.
“Come in,” he said.
Jules slipped into the office, walked to the fireplace, and looked at the embers, proof of his presence in the room earlier that day. He put in another couple of logs and got the fire going again.
“Never mind that,” Aurélien said, “and come over here. There’s lots of work to do, you know. You’re not too absorbed by Laurène, son?”
Jules smiled and asked, “Have I ever disappointed you?”
He took hold of the manila folders his father handed him, and he started to flip through them. After a few moments, his eyes left the documents and landed on his father.
“You waited for me for this?” he asked. “There are all kinds of things in here that you or Alex could’ve …” He hesitated and then added, without smiling this time, “Maybe you’re the one who’s too absorbed?”
“I’m not going to take that from you,” Aurélien barked. “I’m just asking for your advice, as usual. But I can live without it, you know.”
Jules put the stack of folders down on Aurélien’s desk.
“Concerning lot thirty-two,” he said without losing his cool, “I think we have to decide right away. And I’d like for Alex to go to Bordeaux about the barrels and—”
“Not Alex. I don’t trust him.”
“Okay,” Jules said, calmly. “I’ll go myself. The Marteau brothers are difficult to handle, but with this fixed price, we’d be losing out, and that’s not acceptable. Lucas did some very good work while I was away, but I don’t completely agree with the way he reorganized the cellar. I’m also going to have a lot of letters to dictate this afternoon. Do you want me to ask Frédérique or Laurène?
Aurélien raised his head at his son’s question.
“Whoever you want,” he said. “I don’t care. Decide for yourself, but just make sure you don’t mess everything up for once!”
Taken aback by his father’s tone, Jules shook his head.
“We’re going to have to divide the work between them, Aurélien. … If it’s okay with you, let’s let Laurène handle the bookkeeping and give Frédérique the secretarial tasks.”
Jules waited in vain for some sort of response. He got to his feet and walked over to the French doors. He couldn’t get enough of Fonteyne’s landscape since his return.
“What a great place, Aurélien,” he said in a soft voice.
Aurélien looked at the silhouette of his adopted son against the daylight. He waited for Jules to say something else.
“I don’t want to … butt heads with Frédérique,” he finally said. “I can’t treat your lover as an employee, and I don’t know what to do. …”
Aurélien waited for his son to say more, but he was done.
“Do you think I’m an idiot? You always know what to do, even when you’re wrong. Right now, you’ve got these thoughts in your head about Frédérique, but you don’t dare tell me about them. You’re a child, Jules.”
Jules turned to face his father.
“A child!” Aurélien repeated. “So you’re going to have to deal with all these women. Big deal. Dominique does a fine job taking care of the house. Same with Fernande. And you’ll see that Frédérique is a good secretary. What’s bothering you? Even Pauline finds her place among the others when she’s here. But for you, everything is a drama. I’m just going to ask that you be polite with Frédérique.”
Jules kept quiet and Aurélien motioned for him to come over.
“You think I’m old, Jules? Over the hill?”
“No.”
With a harsher tone, Aurélien continued, “You think that a woman her age could only want to take advantage of me?”
“I don’t know. …”
“What do you want from me, Jules? Are you jealous of me?”
“No!”
Aurélien felt bad, all of a sudden, about pushing his son this way, though Jules was extremely strong.
“If something bothers you, son, tell me about it right now. And then we’re not going to talk about it anymore. Fonteyne is still my home.”
Extremely uncomfortable, Jules took a deep breath and said, “What do you want from me, Aurélien?”
His father sighed. Jules was out of reach, seemingly tamed, but always defiant. Deep down, he was as pitiless as Aurélien. They were rivals, and yet united by the same battles and challenges, the same passions. They were so much alike that they could only love or hate each other.
“I don’t want anything,” he said. “You’re back and that’s great. You’re home. You’re in charge of this operation, and it’s a lot of work. And you’re going to get married, don’t forget. You and I will have to go to Mazion. …”
Relieved, Jules acquiesced.
“And take a look at lot thirty-two, will you? Alex’s opinions are pretty much useless, and I don’t know what to decide.”
Jules gave his father a smile and headed for the exit. Aurélien watched him step out of the room and leaned back in his armchair.
With all that snow, he won’t be able to see much of anything in that lot. … God, he can be difficult when he wants to be. … He always was. … But I did hit the bull’s eye with Frédérique. It really does seem to bother him. …
Aurélien suddenly felt exhausted. He expected the heavy pain that sometimes irradiated from his shoulder to appear, but all he experienced was immense fatigue, bordering on nausea. He got up with difficulty and went over to the French doors. He saw Jules’s Jeep driving away and felt as though he was the last man on earth, in his oversized castle.
Though Fernande was busy preparing the truffle stuffing for the Christmas turkey, she chatted happily with Dominique. Among other things, she liked the young woman for the way she managed the household. Dominique had never tried to completely take over Fonteyne, always listening to Fernande’s advice. Warned by her mother, Dominique had been conscious, from the very beginning, that she’d joined a very important family, a place where traditions played a pivotal role. She’d been up to the task of being in charge of the house, without taking herself seriously. With her, everything was perfectly organized, verified, planned. The purchase list she’d handed Pauline one hour before was a model of precision. Aurélien was going to be satisfied with the Christmas meal, and Fernande knew how much he wanted everything to run smoothly, for customs to be observed closely.
As she added some cognac to the stuffing, Fernande said that Jules’s return was a blessing. Christmas without him would’ve been joyless. And snow would stop falling eventually, and there would be a thousand things to do in the vineyard, which only Jules could supervise. Even Lucas, Fernande added, had missed Jules’s presence at work. Dominique was listening, resigned to the fact that Alex wouldn’t be included in this speech. It was always the same; he didn’t have a defined place in Fonteyne. And yet, he’d done a fine job with the harvest at the Billots’, and Antoine owed his crop to him. Dominique had been under the impression that he’d enjoyed himself in Mazion and that, even though he was a Laverzac, he hadn’t been humiliated at all by taking care of white wine. Once again, Dominique began to hope that sooner rather than later, Alex would start to assert himself a bit.
They were cutting the truffles into strips when Jules and Alex stormed into the kitchen.
“We need some coffee,” Alex said. “We’re freezing!” And he put his icy hands on his wife’s neck.
Dominique laughed and teetered away from him. Then she poured them some coffee.
The two men were wearing heavy coats and hats but, though they were dressed the same, they didn’t look anything alike.
Jules leaned above the stove and whispered, very seriously, “This smells amazing. … Fernande, you’re outdoing yourself!”
“You stop that,” the old lady said, blushing. “You say that because you must’ve eaten badly these past few weeks.”
“The Brits can’t cook,” Jules said, “but they sure can drink.”
He turned to Alexandre and said, “Why did you guys wait for me? We’re going to have to break the earth into clumps in that stupid lot.”
“Because nothing gets done without you around here, my friend. Nothing at all. …”
There was a trace of hostility in Alex’s voice, and Jules immediately changed the topic.
“I’m going to get my horse out of the field and into the stable. He gets cold out there after a while.”
Alex raised his shoulders with indifference. Like everybody else in the house, he’d looked forward to Jules’s return, but now his presence made him feel a bit uneasy.
“Did you see the shape of the stone fences on the hillside? If Aurélien goes down there and sees that, he’s going to have a fit…”
Alex gave him a smile of resignation and said, “Omnipresent, as always. … Barely back and already on all fronts. …”
Jules was going to reply, but Clothilde charged into the kitchen. Panic-stricken, she said that Aurélien needed to see his sons immediately.
They left the kitchen under Dominique’s sardonic eye. “Don Corleone has called for his men,” she muttered.
When Jules and Alex arrived in the office, Aurélien was pacing.
“Finally!” he said. “How many breakfasts do you guys eat? Lucas, go back down there right now. There’s a problem, and one hell of a big one!”
Addressing only Jules, he added, “Go with him! Two of the barrels are leaking. We’ll settle our scores later.”
Jules asked for no explanation and ran out of the room. Aurélien took his anger out on Alexandre.
“Jules is the one making sure everything’s running smoothly around here, right? I’d better not find out that this was negligence or he’s going to get an earful. I’m going to get dressed and check this out myself. As for you, I’m not going to even ask if you have any idea what’s going on.”
Alexandre opened his mouth, but no words came out. He left his father’s house and angrily put his coat and gloves back on. He made his way to the cellar, where Lucas and Jules were engaged in a heated conversation. Employees were already in the process of decanting the wine. Jules’s voice was bouncing off the cellar’s walls. Alex forgot about his gripes and felt completely supportive of his brother. He went over to him and grabbed his arm.
“The big boss is on his way,” he said. “And put something on. You’re crazy to be in here in just a shirt. You’re going to freeze to death.”
Jules jerked his arm free.
“Those barrels are brand-new,” he said. “There’s nothing I could’ve done. …”
“Fine,” Alex said. “But first, go get your coat.”
Jules was freezing and he reluctantly walked away. He came out of the cellar into the bitter December air and ran to the castle. Aurélien was waiting for him on the terrace.
“So, is it serious?”
“Not really, but the barrels are leaking. The guys are decanting right now, but I can’t say it’s a good thing.”
“And how old are those barrels?”
Surprised at the veiled accusation, Jules looked his father right in the eyes.
“They’re brand-new,” he said.
“You have the purchase bill?”
There was so much derision in Aurélien’s voice that Jules glared at him.
“The barrels are new, Aurélien.”
Then he added, calmly, “Let me go, I’m freezing. I can’t be held responsible for everything, from hail to cracking wood.”
The wind had risen and some ice was forming on the snow covering the steps.
“You said earlier that you wanted to settle our scores,” Jules said. “Why? We have scores to settle?”
Jules was shivering and Aurélien stepped aside to let him into the house, saying, “Get me that bill. It’s the supplier I’m accusing, not you.”
“The Marceau brothers? They’re going to laugh in your face.”
“Really? You think so?”
They were still glaring at each other. Jules shoved his hands in his pockets and Aurélien realized that his teeth were clattering.
“Go inside, you dope. You’re going to catch your death!”
“Be careful,” Jules said before walking inside. “It’s slippery.”
“If somebody doesn’t clear those stairs within an hour, there’s going to be hell to pay!” Aurélien shouted.
Louis-Marie and Robert had just finished the chess game that had kept them battling it out for hours. When Louis-Marie won, Robert toppled the board’s pieces with the back of his hand. In any event, he’d mostly thought about Pauline during the game, rather than coming up with a winning strategy. Ah, Pauline … Would he ever free himself from her? All she had to do was show up and he was mesmerized again, wanting only one thing, and that was to take her to bed. He was afraid this hell would never end. Louis-Marie probably suspected Robert’s passion, but as long as he believed that his wife was faithful …
“Can you stay until January first?” Louis-Marie asked.
Disturbed from his reverie, Robert shrugged.
“I’m not sure how I could get the hospital to swallow that,” he lied.
As long as Pauline was at Fonteyne, he’d find a way to stay.
“Try,” Louis-Marie insisted. “I’m sure you’re going to be able to get a few more days off. Better Fonteyne than some crowded mountain resort, right? And since Alex and Jules don’t have as much work as in the summertime, it’s much more relaxed around here.”
“You think? Do you see them just hanging out? Dad’s probably making them clean up the attic as we speak.”
The two chuckled, imagining the scene. They heard the children shouting outside and glanced out the window. On the lawn, the twins were trying to make a snowman for their cousin Esther.
“Who’s supposed to be watching them?”
“We are, I think. And we’re supposed to help the girls unload the car when they come back from shopping.”
Robert got up and lit a cigarette.
“Let’s go outside,” he said to Louis-Marie. “Do you feel like walking around Fonteyne a bit?”
He didn’t know how to rid himself from his obsession and he hated that he felt so weak, but he knew that nothing would make him snap out of his morose mood until Pauline was back from Bordeaux.
In the hallway, they ran into Jules as he was putting on his coat.
“You look upset,” Robert said. “What’s up?”
“Some crisis down in the cellar, and Aurélien is on the war path!”
Jules was smiling at them as he slipped on his gloves.
“After lunch, I’m going to cut down the tree I spotted this morning. You guys coming with me?”
They went out to the terrace, shoving and pushing each other like kids, happy to be together.
Annoyed, Pauline started the Mercedes’ engine.
“How long are we going to have to wait for that nitwit?”
They’d left Frédérique two hours earlier, saying they were going to pick her back up at noon in front of the toy store. Pauline turned up the collar of her fox coat and cranked the heat. She glanced at Laurène and thought she looked a bit different. More mature. Being loved by Jules had transformed her.
“Is Jules a good lover?” she asked with her usual candor.
Laurène blushed and Pauline burst out laughing.
“My question embarrasses you? I take it back, then. I was just curious. I always wondered how he was in bed. His gypsy side, you know, arrogant, animal. How is he when he’s naked?”
“He’s a very good lover,” Laurène finally said. “At least, to me he is.”
Through the fogged up windshield, Pauline saw Frédérique coming their way, staggering under the weight of shopping bags.
“Shouldn’t we give her a hand?” Laurène suggested.
“Certainly not! The trunk is open. …”
Pauline waited for Frédérique to get in the car, then she sped off.
“We’re going to be late for lunch,” she said, accelerating.
“I went as fast as I could, but Aurélien gave me such a long list of things to buy. …”
Pauline, her eyes on the road, didn’t bother responding. Frédérique tried to keep the conversation going.
“I have to go back this afternoon. I still need one or two things. … And my dress won’t be ready until four. … Alterations, you know. …”
Pauline finally decided to pay her a bit of attention. She turned her way, just long enough to say, “It’s not easy buying clothes off the rack, is it?”
Frédérique ignored the jab and simply gave a smile of innocence. She was set on keeping her calm and triumphing over the entire family.
Pauline frowned and concentrated on the road.
“I’ll gladly give you the keys to this tank when we arrive. Even with the new tires it’s slippery, especially on the curves.”
Pauline had to slow down and they returned to Fonteyne late. Louis-Marie and Robert were waiting for them outside, along with the children. Jules and Alex came out to give them a hand with the bags, in a flurry of happy chaos. From his office, Aurélien couldn’t resist their cheerfulness, so he also stepped outside. The idea of this family Christmas started appealing to him, and his foul mood was evaporating. He went as far as gently taking Frédérique’s arm, an unusual move.
“I need to speak with you. Let’s go to your room for a minute.”
He’d uttered those words in an undertone, quite naturally, but silence suddenly fell around the car. Jules, who was holding a basket of oysters, was first to react by heading toward the stairs as though he hadn’t heard anything.
Aurélien didn’t even glance at his sons as he guided the young woman toward the castle. He had a sudden, wild, happy urge to make love before lunch. Frédérique realized as much as soon as they walked into her room. This timing was out of the ordinary for him but, after the hostility that was in the air, Frédérique liked it.
“Can I?” he simply asked, as he began to undress her. He never did that, either, as he usually slipped into her bed late at night when she was already under the covers.
He didn’t even bother shutting the drapes. He was sixty and he didn’t care. Sixty, yes—a bit more actually. But Frédérique still found him attractive. He took his time making love to her and she enjoyed being with him, without shutting her eyes, without thinking about Jules.
When they were done, she remained in bed, delighted. The sun had finally come out, its rays hitting frost in the windows, giving the warm room a strange luminosity.
Aurélien covered her body with a quilt and said, “We have to go downstairs for lunch, sweetheart.”
He was also lying still on the bed.
“They all know what we’ve done and they’re going to be obnoxious,” he said with a smile of delight.
They must think they’re the only ones with sexual impulses, he thought, and the only ones who can satisfy them.
He thought of his sons in terms of rivalry, as usual. Frédérique put a hand on his shoulder.
“You’re in a good mood today.”
“You think?”
He smiled at her, got up, and began to get dressed.
“Don’t let them get to you,” he said. “Jules is intent on making life hard for you here. Same with his brothers, no doubt. You still like it at Fonteyne?”
She also got out of bed and went over to him, naked, gorgeous.
“I’m very comfortable here.”
He’d just put on his turtleneck and he watched her closely.
“Seems to me like something has changed. …”
He grabbed her by the shoulders and drew her to him. He kissed her hair and pressed his body against hers. When he felt her beginning to yield, he burst out laughing.
“No,” he said. “I’m not my sons’ age, you know. …”
She laughed along, genuinely happy to share the moment with him.
He softly pushed her away from him and said, “I’m losing out if I don’t keep you at bay. …”
But he wasn’t talking about the present moment, and both of them realized that.
Out of breath, Jules let go of the two-man saw for a moment. Louis-Marie and Robert had taken turns at the other end.
“We’re almost there,” Jules finally said. “Let’s go, Bob. One more shot!”
They continued sawing for a minute or two, and then Jules gestured at his brother to stop.
“If Aurélien knew that we’re doing this without using a rope …”
Robert rubbed his aching hands together.
“If you ask me,” he said, “I don’t think he’d care a whole lot today. Don’t you think?”
Jules smiled and said, “You’re right. She won’t kill him in bed, you know.”
“I’m not so sure,” Robert said.
“Well, in the meantime, get out of the way or that tree is going to fall on your head.”
Jules pushed against the trunk, and the tree toppled in a great whistling of branches exactly where Jules wanted it.
“It’s much too big,” Louis-Marie said. “We’re never going to be able to take it home.”
“Of course we will. We’re going to use the Jeep’s hoist.”
They did manage to get the tree all the way to the foot of the castle. Alex came to help them set it up in the main living room. Then they left it for Dominique to decorate, as the children were jumping up and down with joy. Jules headed for Aurélien’s office, but at the last moment decided to go to Frédérique’s instead. The small room, which had been Laurène’s, was still filled with cabinets and computers. Pensively, Jules looked around and wondered how Frédérique behaved when she was alone with Aurélien. Then he sat in front of one the computers, turned it on, and opened the management program. Frédérique obviously liked computers, as all the folders were updated and she’d modified some of the settings to make access to data easier.
Jules sighed and turned the computer off.
“You daydreaming?”
Aurélien, quietly entering the room, had put a hand on Jules’s shoulder. “I have a favor to ask,” he said.
Jules turned to his father and smiled, waiting for the rest.
“It’s going to be nighttime in two hours and Pauline is right, the roads are dangerous. …Would you drive Frédérique to Bordeaux? She has an errand or two to run there, but she’s afraid to drive in these conditions.”
Puzzled, Jules stared at his father.
“And she’ll be happy to spend some time with you,” Aurélien continued.
“As you wish,” Jules muttered as he stood up.
He had a hard time understanding why in God’s name his father was trying to push this time together on them, but he had no desire to ask. He flashed another smile and went looking for Frédérique, who was in the kitchen. Things were festive in the room, but the young woman seemed excluded from it all. As though they’d planned it beforehand, the other women weren’t even looking her way. Jules showed her to the garage and got the car out with obvious irritation. As soon as they hit the road, Jules opened his window.
“Are you nuts?” Frédérique said. “It’s freezing out!”
“When I need your comments …” Jules muttered.
The fact was that he was hot and tired.
Frédérique gestured angrily and asked, “Are you going to be obnoxious every time we’re together?”
“Yes. That way you won’t try to hang out with me. I would’ve been just fine without this little ride. Was it your idea? You’re trying to use me to make him jealous?”
Taken aback, Frédérique eyed Jules.
“You’re really a pain, you know that. As for your father …”
“Don’t talk to me about him!”
“You’re the one who brought him up. If you have something to tell me, just come out and say it!”
Jules raised his shoulders. He hesitated and then chose to be direct. “Does he love you?”
The question took Frédérique by surprise. She wondered suddenly whether she’d made a mistake by becoming Aurélien’s lover.
“I’m not in his head,” she answered prudently. “What about you? Were you in love when you took me to that hotel room?”
“No. I was attracted to you. I hope it’s the same for Aurélien. At his age, falling in love is serious. …”
They kept quiet for a moment. There were a lot of people on the streets of Bordeaux, folks wearing heavy coats and in a hurry to be done with their last-minute Christmas shopping.
“Can we coexist in peace, you and I?” Frédérique said suddenly.
Looking truly sorry, Jules said, “I don’t think it’s possible.”
“Why not?”
He waited until they arrived at the store she wanted to go to before saying, “Because I can’t stand the idea that you’re taking advantage of him.”
He leaned over her to open her door.
“Stop trying to protect him, Jules. He really doesn’t need it.”
As he was getting dressed, Jules suddenly felt dizzy. He leaned against the wall. In the mirror in front of him he saw the image of a young man looking tired in his white shirt, too thin and pale. He recalled that evening he’d spent with Frédérique. That was a long time ago, it seemed. He did remember quite well the disco where he’d met her, the group of friends she’d been hanging out with. And also that she’d left with him almost immediately.
“Something wrong?”
Laurène was watching him closely.
“The way you look … You’re not feeling well?”
“I’m cold.”
He put on his jacket and wondered if the house’s heating system was working properly.
“You must’ve caught a bug or …”
He took her in his arms and said, softly, “Or what? What do you think I’ve got?”
She was in her underwear, and he caressed her skin.
Seeing that she was closing her eyes, he whispered, “You better get dressed. …”
He felt exhausted and gave Laurène a sad smile. Then he left the room and went down to the kitchen, where he asked Fernande for a mug of hot milk. She made it for him immediately, without a word. She handed him a bottle of aspirin.
“Take a couple of these, too. You don’t look so good. Some of the guests are here already, in the living room with your father. You should go over. …”
Jules sighed, drank the hot milk, and decided to try to forget about his fatigue. He was greeted by Aurélien’s reproachful look. Antoine and Marie had arrived early, as usual, and Jules knew that Aurélien didn’t enjoy being alone with them. Since their quarrel the previous fall, their relationship had changed quite a bit. They no longer laughed at each other’s old, tired jokes, and there was always some amount of resentment or hostility in each of their quips. It had taken Aurélien fifty years to admit his contempt for Antoine’s vineyards, and nothing now could ever erase what he’d said in anger. For the sake of Jules and Laurène—the fact that they were going to get married—Antoine and Aurélien had decided to make up, but they’d done it reluctantly. And Alexandre’s habit of going over to Mazion every day only intensified Aurélien’s simmering anger.
Jules leaned in to kiss Marie. He wanted no part in this latent animosity. He was naturally on Aurélien’s side, no matter what, even if Aurélien was in the wrong, but Laurène was going to be his wife. …
“England didn’t do you a lot of good,” Marie said with a maternal smile. “You don’t look well, you know.”
Jules sat next to Marie and began telling her about his trip. But he could only talk to her briefly as he had to get up and greet other guests arriving.
Laurène had just walked into the room, discreet and timid, and Aurélien had been first to spot her. She was gorgeous in her very short, pale blue crepe dress. She looked so young and small that Jules crossed the living room to take her by the shoulders. She knew almost all the people who’d been invited that evening, but she noticed a difference in their attitude toward her. In the hierarchy of the wine producers gathered here, to be the future wife of Jules Laverzac was not the same as being only Antoine Billot’s daughter. She realized that with some resentment, though she couldn’t help feeling flattered.
Antoine, for his part, pouted while waiting for Alexandre to show up. He saw in him an ally. Now that he knew that Jules was going to be his second son-in-law, it was vital to him that Alex decide to settle in Mazion. His heart attack and hospitalization had left him embittered. The fact that both Laurène and Dominique lived under Aurélien’s roof, among Aurélien’s family, while no one seemed to care about his vineyards, made Antoine quite resentful. The very enviable social position of his daughters was, paradoxically, precipitating him toward ruin and solitude. Alexandre truly was his last hope, and he was ready to do anything to make his vision come to life. Perhaps by forcing Alex to open his eyes to the unpromising future he had at Fonteyne, what little consideration he’d always receive there …
In the kitchen, the children were screaming with joy as Clothilde, all dressed up, was serving a meal prepared just for them. After they were done, Dominique and Pauline said that whoever wanted Santa to bring them presents should go to bed now. Jules offered to accompany Clothilde and the children to the Little House, and he helped them put on their anoraks and hats. Laurène just had time to throw a coat over his shoulders before he left the house for the bitter cold of the night, holding Esther in his arms while the twins clung to his tux.
Fonteyne always shone in a very particular manner on party nights. Aurélien, having been without a wife for so long, was used to supervising everything and was a great host. And Pauline scrupulously respected the traditions so dear to her father-in-law. Under the sublime walnut coffered ceiling, the table was superb. In such a male house that usually had little use for whimsy, the atmosphere was at times heavy, stuffy. But on Christmas Eve, Pauline, Dominique, and Laurène had done everything they could to make the ambiance cheerful. Aurélien got a kick out of finding the flowers and candles decorated with glittering stars set on the table. By doing so, Pauline made Frédérique understand that only the women of the family could sometimes go against Fonteyne’s established order, if only in a small way.
Since the fall, Jules had presided at one end of the table, facing Aurélien. The other guests were seated according to a strict hierarchy. Jules, well aware of those conventions, appreciated his father’s setup. While absentmindedly fiddling with a fork, he noticed the pearl necklace—a single strand but exquisite—that Frédérique was wearing. His first reaction was to chuckle, thinking that there was the proof of her ambitions, just as he’d predicted. But then he was intrigued, realizing that the necklace’s clasp seemed old, almost antique, looking more like a family heirloom. He gestured at Alex, who was sitting right next to Frédérique, and saw his brother looking at the necklace then frowning with anger. Jules turned his attention to Aurélien, who was cheerfully chatting with a guest. He felt guilty and unhappy to be judging him.
“Very nice jewelry,” he said to Frédérique, almost in spite of himself. “Christmas present?”
She gave him an amused and direct look, ignoring the two guests sitting between them.
Jules leaned forward before adding, “Some sort of antique, isn’t it?”
“No doubt. …”
She was mocking him and he was exasperated.
“Aurélien always treated his lovers very well,” he said. “A very generous man, he is. I wonder where he found that wonderful necklace.”
Frédérique was no longer smiling.
“No idea,” she said. “I didn’t ask for the name of the jeweler or to see the bill.”
They glared at each other, but then Jules got ahold of himself.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “It looks very nice on you.”
He marveled once more at her superb gray eyes and wondered what he would have done if he’d been meeting her for the first time this evening. But the woman sitting to his left was talking to him, and he had to turn to her.
“How does it make you feel knowing that you’ll soon be married, Jules? That’s all people talk about. You, the region’s idol, the number one catch, the region’s most independent bachelor …”
He mumbled some platitude, while vaguely smiling. He was suddenly very hot, and he leaned back in his chair.
“Are you okay?”
Robert looked his way and found that he was very pale.
“To your health,” Jules said, raising his glass in his brother’s direction.
But alcohol was doing him no good. He drank because he was thirsty and felt annoyed. He finally got to his feet, muttered an apology, and left the dining room. He made his way to the kitchen, where Fernande looked at him in amazement.
“Are you crazy? What are you doing here?”
“I came to ask you a question,” Jules said in a muffled voice. “Answer me frankly: Have you ever seen the necklace Frédérique is wearing tonight?”
Embarrassed, Fernande turned around.
“You left your guests to ask me that question?” she said.
He went over to her, took her by the arm.
“Fernande …”
She had never been able to resist him.
“Yes, maybe … I think I might have seen it, yes …”
“Where? Who was wearing it?”
“Don’t start anything on Christmas Eve, Jules. I don’t approve of your father’s behavior, but leave him alone. He’s watching you, you know. … You’re like cats and dogs.”
He was still holding the old woman’s arm, and he squeezed it.
“That necklace belonged to Lucie, right?”
“Yes. … It belonged to her when she was a girl. Nothing special. …”
Jules’s expression left no doubt that he was furious. It was now Fernande’s turn to clutch his arm.
“Go back to the table and don’t make a scene, I beg you! That’s all he’s hoping for. And don’t tell your brothers, Jules. …”
He gave her a gentle hug.
“Go back to the table,” she repeated in a soft voice.
Back in the dining room, he sat back down and looked at his father. Then he started to drink again, without eating. After the foie gras had come, the oysters arrived, and then the turkey with chestnut stuffing. Robert was eyeing Jules, a bit worried. He thought he looked grim, not well at all. And he noticed the glares that Jules kept shooting at Aurélien.
He looks like he hates him tonight, he thought. This doesn’t bode well. …
“You’re drinking too much,” Frédérique told Jules.
He burst out laughing, interrupting the conversations around him.
“Stepmom! You’re keeping an eye on me?”
At the other end of the table, Aurélien straightened in his chair. There was a moment of awkward silence, and then Louis-Marie began chatting with Robert as though nothing had happened. Fernande brought the yule log, which distracted everyone. Pauline was giving Jules amused looks, knowing that he really shouldn’t be provoking his father this way.
Aurélien rushed through dessert, and he and the guests headed for the main living room, where coffee was being served. At midnight, everyone kissed and wished each other a merry Christmas. Aurélien and Jules gave each other a cold embrace, purely formal. When he got to Frédérique, Jules gave her a light kiss on the right cheek, but then took her by the waist and kissed her on the mouth. He’d done it quickly, but not so quickly that Aurélien, who was standing next to them, didn’t notice. Taking advantage of the overall brouhaha, Aurélien pushed Jules to the entrance hall.
“Something wrong tonight, son?” he asked.
Face-to-face, both of them furious, they stood at equal height.
“You’re giving away the family jewels, Aurélien?” Jules asked. “Do my brothers know that this necklace belonged to their mother?”
“Their mother? You don’t consider her your mother as well?”
Aurélien’s surprise was sincere, but Jules responded harshly.
“You’ve never said anything to me about my real mother.”
Aurélien figured that Jules must’ve been drunk to bring up the topic. It was the first time in thirty years. He took two steps toward his son, menacingly enough to make him back up against the wall.
“How dare you use that tone with me, Jules?” he said.
Jules was staggering a little—fatigued, angry, feverish.
“You’ve had too much to drink? Well it’s no excuse.”
But Aurélien didn’t seem to notice that Jules was pale and sweating.
“You want war? Is that really what you want? I will not let you judge or question me. You hear me?”
“You must really be in love. …” Jules said softly to his father.
Aurélien couldn’t believe what Jules had just said. He raised his hand and slapped him violently. Jules hit the wall behind him. All the anger poured out of him, but he remained stunned, unable to make a move. Robert suddenly appeared behind them.
“Come on,” he said quietly to his father. “Leave him alone. …”
“I’m not scared of him,” Aurélien said, without looking at Robert. “Fifteen or thirty years old, he’s not going to be the king in my house. I’m not some old fool! I’m in charge around here!”
Robert forced his father to take a step backward. But Aurélien was still beside himself. Hitting Jules hadn’t made him feel better, on the contrary.
“Can’t you see he’s sick?” Robert pleaded.
“It’s a ruse,” Aurélien said. “He’s disrespecting me!”
“No. …” Jules muttered.
Robert stepped between the two of them.
“Leave him alone,” he told Aurélien again. “Go back to the living room. Our guests are waiting for you there.”
Aurélien made an effort to gather himself. He glared at Jules one last time, then decided to leave the entrance hall.
Robert took his brother by the wrist.
“You have a bad fever, you know. …”
They went up the stairs side by side.
“How can you stand that man?” Robert asked him.
The slap in the face that Jules had received reminded Robert of his childhood and adolescence.
“I pushed him to his limit,” Jules said, his voice weary.
“He behaves like a tyrant. He lives in another time, in another world. It’s like you guys are on a different planet here. …”
Jules shrugged, knowing he’d be wasting his time trying to explain things that Robert couldn’t understand. He sat on his bed and sighed. He was completely spent. He knew that Aurélien would have a hard time forgiving him for bringing up his origins, his birth. He’d broken their tacit pact of silence about that taboo subject.
Robert sat next to Jules and said, “It’s the same as before. You always find a way to make him go nuts. … Lie down, I’m going to take a look at you. I wouldn’t be surprised if you had bronchitis. … You’re so much alike, both of you! Why did he get so mad just now? Did it have to do with that girlfriend of his?”
Jules produced a bitter laugh.
“In a way. … The necklace he gave her used to belong to Mom. I think it’s unacceptable to see that pearl necklace on Frédérique.”
“You said that to him? Good for you! Either he wants to piss us off or, contrary to what he thinks, he really is getting senile. Okay, cough. …”
Jules produced something like a grunt, and right away it turned into a terrible coughing fit.
“Oh yeah,” Robert said. “A nice case of bronchitis. I’ll get some antibiotics for you tomorrow. In the meantime, take a couple of aspirins and try to sleep.”
Jules nodded and settled under the covers. Robert turned off the light and left the room. Jules lay there. He was cold and wasn’t thinking about anything, too tired to try to make sense of things.
When he woke up, his bedside lamp was on and Aurélien, sitting next to the bed, was watching him. Jules tried to sit up.
“Take it easy,” his father said. “Want me to call Auber over?”
Jules closed his eyes, feeling dizzy. “No,” he said. “Bob is fine.”
Aurélien nodded. “Okay,” he said. “As you wish.”
Jules dared to look at his father. He hesitated and said, “I’m sorry Aurélien. I really am.”
An awkward silence followed, and Jules had to continue, “I really don’t know what else to say—”
Aurélien interrupted him, but without hostility. “About Lucie’s necklace, let me explain.”
“You do what you want to do,” Jules said, hastily. “I was wrong. It’s no business of mine. I don’t know what possessed me.”
Aurélien shrugged. His son had such a pathetic look about him. “Listen, Jules. Until now, women haven’t really counted, right? Now that you have Laurène and I have …”
He didn’t end his sentence, and there was another moment of silence. After a while, he added, “They’re changing us, looks like. … I just hope they don’t put a wedge between us. …”
His eyes wandered around the room. He didn’t come in here very often.
“There was something else you wanted to know about, correct?”
Jules shuddered. He knew that Aurélien was referring to his birth.
“Please …” he said.
“There are things you want to learn?”
“No. Never. …”
Aurélien got to his feet with a grunt.
“Because of you,” he said, “I feel old tonight.”
Jules grabbed his sleeve, just like he had when he was a child.
“Thanks for coming up,” he said. “I don’t know how I would’ve been able to face you in the morning.”
“I came up to apologize for hitting you. And also to ask you a question.”
Jules let go of his father, instinctively sensing a trap.
“Why did you kiss Frédérique?”
Aurélien was already heading for the door, as though he didn’t care about the answer.
“Because she’s beautiful,” Jules said behind him.
Robert waited for the following day to talk to his brothers. He went over to the Little House with Louis-Marie. Alex was by himself in the house, as the kids were at Fonteyne with their mother, playing with the Christmas presents they’d found under the tree. Robert told them about the previous night’s altercation and Louis-Marie, usually so calm and collected, was first to react.
“Unbelievable!” he said. “He’s really losing it. He gave his girlfriend one of Mom’s necklaces and he slapped Jules! He must think he’s still young and we’re all kids again. How did Jules react?”
“As you would imagine—half rage, half submission. I’m never going to figure out his relationship with Dad.”
Alexandre made a gesture of exasperation that surprised both his brothers.
“Jules and his ‘I’m so grateful’ bit. He made his adoption into some sort of life-long debt. He’s going to feel like he owes Aurélien till the end of time, and he forces himself to be perfect. It’s so damn tiresome!”
Alex slammed the coffee pot down on the table. Robert and Louis-Marie glanced at each other.
“Once in a while he gets in his face, he taunts him a bit, but he’d never really go too far. …”
Alex interrupted himself, suddenly realizing that his brothers were gawking at him. He gave them an apologetic smile.
“Sorry,” he said. “But there are days when Jules wears me out even more than Dad. The necklace story is awful, I agree, and Aurélien could’ve given her anything else. But it doesn’t mean that he’s going to marry her or anything like that. …”
Robert got up and patted Alex’s shoulder in a friendly way.
“I’m sure you’re right,” he said. “I’m going to Bordeaux. See you guys in a bit.”
Louis-Marie followed him outside. They walked in silence to the garage, then Louis-Marie decided to go into town with his brother. They said nothing, but both were thinking more about Alex’s bitterness than their father’s lover.
Christmas Day was uneventful. Jules didn’t come down for breakfast, and Aurélien tried to lighten the atmosphere by playing with the children. He managed to put up with toys being scattered all over the place and the kids’ shouts of joy for a good part of the afternoon, and then he took refuge in the library. In order to avoid Frédérique’s presence, the brothers hung out in Jules’s room. Jules kept coughing under the covers, and Fernande was bringing him a hot drink every half-hour.
On the morning of December 26, it was even colder outside. Laurène was first to wake up and, leaning on her elbow, she watched Jules sleep. She grazed his cheek and his hand, happy to see that his fever was gone. He’d tossed and turned a lot during the night. He was thirsty, and then he said he wanted to make love to her, then he coughed for a long time, then he asked for water again. They ended up turning off the lights, and after that, he fell into a deep and calm slumber.
Laurène looked at Jules’s shoulders, his curly brown hair, a bit too long, his olive skin. She wondered, for the thousandth time since first knowing him, who he was and where he came from, without asking, as she was well aware of Fonteyne’s rules.
She turned to the side and took in her surroundings. This room was much too big for a bedroom. Many times Fernande had told her that when Jules was little, he was afraid to sleep in this room and often ended up in one of his brother’s rooms. Laurène tried to picture Jules when he was a child. She could still see him, following Aurélien around like a pup, silent and serious. She remembered that, as a kid, she’d lost sight of him for a few years when he was in boarding school in Bordeaux. But in Laurène’s world, there had always been, in the background, the Laverzac family. They existed in the envy and admiration with which Antoine talked about Aurélien and his vineyards, about Fonteyne, about his four sons. When she was hired by Aurélien, it was a dream come true for Laurène.
Aurélien … That old charmer. Everybody was afraid of him, but Laurène liked him a lot. She didn’t approve of Frédérique, but couldn’t see her as anything more than a lost girl, a bit like she’d been herself some time ago. The happiness she experienced with Jules blinded her to the point of forgiveness.
She slipped out of bed, put on a bathrobe, and walked over to the window. Fonteyne was still shrouded in darkness, though there was a hint of light on the horizon, the early hours frigid, a bit oppressive.
She tiptoed out of the room and went down to the kitchen to make some coffee. Fernande was already there, sitting at the end of one of the long table’s benches. Right away she proposed to prepare a breakfast tray for Jules and asked how he was doing. He was so rarely sick that the old woman was terribly upset. Laurène tried to put her mind at ease and began to butter some pieces of toast. Frédérique’s unexpected arrival in the kitchen surprised her. The young woman looked annoyed to find people in the kitchen this early in the morning, and she sat at the other end of the table. In a low voice she said that Aurélien was in his office and wanted his tray, and Fernande got to work immediately. Used to the family’s hostility, Frédérique ate without saying a word, and it was Laurène who went over to her to engage in conversation. Fernande, who was observing her from the corner of her eye, raised her shoulders. Laurène’s naïveté was part of her charm, no doubt, but now she was betraying the others.
Fernande hurried over to Aurélien’s office. To her great surprise, she found Jules there, completely dressed and chatting with his father. She put the tray down and left discreetly.
Aurélien waited until she shut the door to say, “I saw Antoine yesterday. Of course, he agrees with everything.”
There was a minute trace of contempt in his voice.
“Springtime would be good for everybody,” he continued. “You and Laurène can pick the date. It goes without saying that the reception will be held here. I also insist that you guys sign a prenuptial agreement.”
Jules agreed with a nod of the head. No one, not even Laurène, could pretend to have any kind of claim to Fonteyne, not now, not ever.
“As for the Mazion vineyards … we’re going to have to come up with a compromise eventually. …”
Aurélien was speaking slowly, with caution.
“Your brother seems to be in a hurry to leave and take care of things over there … for good. … But Antoine doesn’t seem to be ready to retire yet, and I don’t want Alex to go play second fiddle to his father-in-law. His place is right here. …”
“I’m not so sure about that. …” Jules muttered.
Their eyes met and they understood each other without having to add anything.
“I took a gem out of the jewelry box, so you can have it mounted for Laurène’s ring. It’s the same as with Dominique and Pauline. Those were your mother’s pendants. There’s one left for when Robert decides to tie the knot.”
Jules was looking out the window. He didn’t feel like talking about his mother’s jewels.
“Are you listening to me, son?”
“Yes, Aurélien.”
Absentmindedly, he searched his pockets for cigarettes.
“You’re not going to smoke,” Aurélien said. “Can’t you hear yourself cough? Put that pack away, will you?”
Jules smiled. He was happy that nothing had changed between his father and him. They simply avoided talking about Frédérique.
“I took a look at your budget forecast. Seems good to me. Make an appointment with the accountant to finalize all of it.”
Pensive, Jules nodded.
“I’m going to have to check the stakes out there today,” he said.
“Oh no you won’t. If I let you out, that doctor brother of yours is going to be all over me. Rightfully so, too. There’s lots you can do from this office. Especially since I’m not going to be around for a while. I’m taking Frédérique to Bordeaux. You guys are so nasty toward her, she’s going to enjoy a little outing!”
He was taunting Jules, who remained calm and silent.
“Want me to make a reservation for two at the Chapon Fin?”
Aurélien smiled and asked, “My love life isn’t upsetting you too much, cowboy?”
Taken aback by such a direct question, Jules was unable to come up with an answer.
“Anyway,” Aurélien said, “do not set foot outside. You hear me?”
“Yes,” Jules answered in a soft voice.
“All right then, have a good day, son.”
“You too, Aurélien.”
As his father left, Jules’s dog slipped into the office.
Jules petted him and asked, “What are you doing here?”
Louis-Marie wasn’t able to resist Pauline’s barrage of questions, so he told her everything. Sitting on the bed as she put on her lined boots, Pauline exclaimed, “One of his wife’s necklaces? A piece of jewelry that she’d had since she was a girl? That’s crazy. … And you guys aren’t going to do anything about it? What’ll be next? The vineyards?”
Louis-Marie shrugged and said, “Come on, Pauline! One thing has nothing to do with the other. The vineyards, that’s sacred, but Dad doesn’t give a hoot about some old piece of jewelry.”
“But it was your mother’s jewelry! You have to tell him that what he did was vile!”
Louis-Marie gave his wife a smile.
“I just told you that Jules tried to tell him that and—”
“That’s right. I forgot about that! Getting slapped in the face at thirty, you think that’s normal? Go see your father and talk to him.”
“About what?”
Louis-Marie took Pauline in his arms. He thought she was adorable when angry.
“We came here to fix things and we’re not fixing anything. Jules went about it the wrong way. …”
“The wrong way! He’s the only one with any guts. He dared to speak his mind. He said what the four of you are thinking. And Aurélien treats him like a kid because he’s afraid.”
Pensive, Louis-Marie kissed Pauline’s neck, but she tore herself from him.
“Pauline … don’t turn this thing into high drama. They’ll wind up agreeing. As long as I can remember, whenever their disagreements are too hot to handle, they sweep them under the rug.”
Once again, she pushed him away. She knew exactly what he had in mind, but she didn’t feel like it.
“And the great mystery surrounding Jules’s adoption, are you sure you know nothing about it?”
Surprised, Louis-Marie burst out laughing.
“Oh yes! This was settled thirty years ago: Jules comes from nowhere. And no one questions that.”
“Not even Jules himself?”
“Especially him. His relationship with Dad is based on that silence, that ambiguity. It’s as though each of them wanted to punish the other for something. Or both are feeling guilty about something. …”
“But that’s so bourgeois! Everybody keeps things hidden, secret. Everybody acts as if everything were normal while there’s this huge scandal simmering underneath. I know the mentality. And then, how could he think he could get away with bringing Frédérique into such a self-righteous world?”
Louis-Marie felt vaguely hurt by Pauline’s obvious contempt for his family.
“You’re the one with the bourgeois ideas, my darling,” he said. “Dad has himself a young and pretty lover, and he should hide it from people? As with everything else, he’s making folks envious.”
She gave him a look of surprise.
“You Laverzacs are weird,” she said before marching toward the door.
“You’re going for a walk?”
“Of course. I’m not going to the kitchen dressed this way. You’re not going to give me a kiss?”
He went over to Pauline and took her in his arms. She rested her head against him. He was much taller than she was and she felt safe with him. She thought about Robert and felt like smiling. No man, even if he tried hard, could understand any woman, she was certain of that. She asked Louis-Marie for a cigarette, having decided to stay in the room a few more minutes.
“Tell me, Louis-Marie,” she said, “you and your brothers were never jealous of Jules?”
“Jealous? No. You can’t be jealous of what’s obvious. Besides, Dad’s excessive feelings for Jules didn’t seem very enviable to us. None of us would’ve had his patience, you know.”
“You need more than patience to put up with being slapped in the face at his age,” Pauline said.
“What did you want him to do? Hit the old man back?”
She laughed.
“It’s really the Middle Ages around here. I wonder why I love Fonteyne.”
“You love it?”
“Yes, obviously. I also love your brothers and even that tyrant Aurélien. And then, this castle …”
“Really?”
She snuggled against him.
“What about Robert?” Louis-Marie asked. “You love him, too?”
He’d managed to ask the question with a calm voice, but she still didn’t fall into his trap and said, “Of course! I like him a lot.”
Jules had remained standing for a long time, a pile of bills in hand. Among them, he’d found one sent from an unusual merchant. The letterhead had caught his attention: ‘Jewelry—Ancient, Original, Facsimile.’ It was obviously Frédérique’s pearl necklace. Jules could’ve kicked himself.
He never would’ve given his wife’s necklace to a lover! he thought. I’m such an idiot. … But did he buy this piece of jewelry to flatter Frédérique or to provoke us?
Slowly, he sat behind the desk, took out a checkbook from the top drawer, and began paying bills, including the one from the jeweler. Then he opened the trunk, for which he’d had the key for the past ten years. On the top shelf was a row of old boxes that contained all of Lucie’s jewelry. Jules hesitated. He’d never touched those dark-colored velour boxes. He changed his mind and shut the trunk.
Just then Laurène came into the office.
“How are you feeling?” she asked, lovingly. “You slept so little. … Here, why don’t you put this on?”
She handed him a sweater, which he slipped into.
“I chatted with Frédérique this morning,” she said. “I thought she was nice. … Pauline talks to her like she’s a dog, and Fernande ignores her. Even my sister doesn’t give her the time of day.”
Jules found it surprising that Laurène would sympathize with Frédérique, but he decided not to comment.
“There are a bunch of checks to mail out,” he said instead. “Can you take care of it?”
He picked the jeweler’s bill off the top of the desk and put it in his pocket.
“What about you?” he asked. “Do you find Aurélien attractive?”
The question, so abrupt, made Laurène blush. When she’d confided in Aurélien, a few years before, and rested her head against his shoulder to cry, she’d realized that there was comfort in seeking refuge with a man like him. In spite of his age, he appealed to a lot of women. This vague sensation had remained in Laurène’s memory. The consideration that Aurélien had always showed her, the banter they’d both kept up out of fun and habit, the particular way he looked at her, and the manner in which he protected her had made their relationship ambiguous.
Intrigued, Jules was waiting for Laurène’s response and was still looking at her.
“You think it’s a stupid question?”
“No. Not at all. … I was thinking about it. … He can be attractive, yes. …”
“Even to women your age?”
“I don’t know,” Laurène said, prudently. “Maybe Frédérique is not in love with him, but I’m sure she feels some attraction to him.”
“Some attraction,” Jules repeated. “And that’s enough for them!”
“Well, Jules,” Laurène said, softly. “You know your father. This is not the first time he’s had an affair with a woman that young.”
“An affair, yes. But never a real relationship. Never. I’d like to know what this girl has in mind, what she’s looking for.”
“Maybe she doesn’t know. She’s lost, she’s lonesome …”
Jules gave her an indecipherable smile.
“Lost? Her? I don’t think so.”
He looked at Laurène. She was pretty, naïve, pleasant. And he was going to marry her. He should have felt happy. And yet he didn’t.
The following day, the weather finally got better. The thermometer rose to right around freezing, snow started to fall, and the children could go play outside again. Jules was preoccupied wondering what the effect the cold had had on the vines, but spent long moments chatting with his brothers. Aurélien stayed off to the side most of the time but watched everybody with pleasure, not used to seeing Fonteyne invaded like this in the middle of winter.
December twenty-seventh and twenty-eighth were spent that way. Apart from Aurélien, Frédérique basically spoke only with Laurène.
On the twenty-nineth, Jules had to go to Bordeaux, and Pauline went along, looking for ideas for New Year’s Eve. They agreed to meet at a bar downtown at the end of the afternoon. Jules was first to arrive. He sat at a table and ordered hard liquor, something he didn’t do very often. The bartender recognized Jules and said his name as he put the glass in front of him. Almost immediately, a man in his thirties who was sitting not too far from him rose and came over to Jules’s table.
“Your name is Laverzac?” he asked in a voice that Jules found odd.
“Yes. …”
“You’re one of the four sons?”
“Yes.”
“And you live at Fonteyne, right?”
Jules, a bit on the defensive, didn’t answer that last question.
“You need to talk to me?” he asked, calmly.
He could sense the other man’s enmity. A second individual had approached the table and stood in the background, silent. Jules slowly got to his feet.
“There’s a girl living at your place,” the man said. “Frédérique. … She’s my sister.”
“Nice to meet you,” Jules said with a neutral voice.
They were eyeing each other, both conscious of the rising tension.
“What do you want, exactly?” Jules said.
“I’ve heard some very unpleasant things. That your father … is a pretty fresh old man, for example. …”
Jules glanced at the man in the background while saying, “Your sister works for us. With a very decent salary. She’s never talked to us about you, but it doesn’t matter.”
“A decent salary …”
The man, clearly hostile, was chuckling.
“How old is the geezer?”
Jules knew these two men were looking for a fight, but he couldn’t ignore the insult.
“You mean Aurélien Laverzac? You’re going to have to use different language when you talk about him. …”
“You’re a family of bastards!” the man shouted. “All of you! I’m going to set that damn castle of yours on fire when I go get my sister. Laverzac was showing her off in a restaurant the other day, and I won’t let him drag her all over town like some sort of trophy. Is that clear?”
He suddenly grabbed Jules by the coat.
“Do you hear what I’m saying?” he spewed.
Jules yanked himself free of the man’s grasp and hit him.
Pauline drove at breakneck speed as she returned to Fonteyne. She arrived completely frantic and told Aurélien what happened in one breath. Jules was at the police station. Part of the elegant bar had been trashed during the fighting. The bartender, who tried to interfere, was in the hospital.
“Everyone in Bordeaux must know about this by now!” she said.
Aurélien made no comment, took the keys of the Mercedes out of Pauline’s hand, and hurried outside, saying he didn’t need anyone.
He burst inside the central police station, set on taking full advantage of the notoriety of the Laverzac name. He knew the detective who greeted him, and he icily asked why his son was being held. Right away the cop understood that Aurélien was determined to be as hostile as he could. He didn’t wait to take Aurélien to Captain Vanier’s office. There, he wouldn’t shake the captain’s hand and wouldn’t sit down, in spite of the police officer’s conciliatory smile. He listened, stoned-face, to the explanations.
“Aggravated assault, disturbing the peace, material damages, bodily harm, resisting arrest … Fortunately, his alcohol level was fine. He seriously banged up one of his opponents. But he was provoked, some witnesses have said as much, including staff members. Things will be fine.”
Aurélien was looking out the window, seemingly indifferent.
“Your son often get into fights?” Captain Vanier asked.
“Once in a while. … But he rarely disturbs the peace, as you say. …”
“Now we’re going to have to wait and see if the two men file a complaint. It seems as though all of this was over a woman. …”
“We’re the ones filing the complaint, Captain,” Aurélien said. “If I understand correctly, my son was attacked.”
He was quite imposing, with his white hair and regal expression. Vanier knew full well who he was dealing with. Laverzac had friends and contacts everywhere, he was part of the region’s wine growers’ complicated hierarchy, and it was best not to confront such men.
“Now,” Aurélien said. “I’d like to see my son.”
“Of course,” Vanier said. “His deposition was taken. He’s free to go.”
The cop hesitated a second and then added, “I know who you are, Mr. Laverzac, and what you represent. But nobody wins in this sort of situation. Ever.”
Aurélien paid no attention to the comment and asked, blandly, “Where’s my son?”
The captain rose to his feet.
“I’ll take you to him,” he said.
They went down a long hallway, Aurélien following the cop until they reached a small office. Vanier opened the door and told the officer to leave. Jules was sitting on a bench, his back against the wall. He seemed to be okay, apart from gashes on his cheek and eyebrow. His coat was torn to shreds, and he looked worn out.
“I came to take you home,” Aurélien said, simply. “You okay?”
Jules nodded and got up. Vanier looked at them both. As no one was saying anything, he gestured for them to step out of the office.
“Good evening, Captain,” Aurélien said, shaking the cop’s hand.
He and Jules walked past him and crossed the hallway side by side to the exit. When they reached the Mercedes, Jules went to the driver’s side, out of habit. Aurélien gave him the keys.
Jules turned on the engine and said, “Pauline shouldn’t have told you about this. I’m sorry.”
“You’re upset because your father came to get you?”
“Oh, no!” Jules said, laughing. “I’m rather flattered. You came to get me twice in high school, remember?”
“Yes. Once in the principal’s office. That time, too, it was because of a fight. … You always were a bit of a mad dog.”
Aurélien chuckled, and then grazed his son’s cheek.
“Does it hurt?”
“Nah.”
“You got them good, I hope?”
“Absolutely!”
“And … what was the fight about? What started it?”
Jules stopped the car at a red light. He turned to his father and said, “One of the guys is Frédérique’s brother.”
A short silence followed, and then Aurélien simply said, “I see. …”
They were now in the outskirts of Bordeaux.
“People are starting to talk,” Jules muttered.
“You have a pretty violent way of making them shut up, don’t you think?”
But Jules didn’t smile.
“I had to, Aurélien. I don’t care if your private life doesn’t win the approval of some losers, but I’m not going to let anyone insult me. Or you.”
Aurélien thought about what Jules had just said.
“You’re not scared of anything, are you?” he finally asked, his voice strange.
“I don’t think so.”
“I used to be like that.”
“And now?”
“Now … getting old and dying scare me.”
Jules was accelerating without realizing it.
“Slow down a bit, will you? Alex will be sorry he didn’t participate in that western-style fight of yours. He loves that kind of stuff, too.”
“Oh, Alex … These days …”
Aurélien glanced at Jules’s profile and said, “You’re not connecting with your brother these days, are you? Me neither. … And what about Frédérique’s brother? What is he like?”
“Nothing. A jerk. The sister is much better! I think he was drunk.”
There was another stretch of silence between them, quite a long one, before Jules said, “Don’t try to meet him, Aurélien. What would you say to him, anyway? Frédérique is an adult, she works for you, and you pay her. There’s nothing more to add.”
Aurélien put a hand on his son’s shoulder.
“You worry too much about me, cowboy. It makes you nervous. You’ll know what you’re doing when you’re my age, okay? Never worry about me. You just don’t need to.”
He looked at Jules with insistence, making sure his message had been conveyed.
“You’ve turned into a fine man, son,” he said.
Dominique was laughing hard and couldn’t get up, and Louis-Marie came over to give her a hand. They’d put on cross-country skis found in the attic. The skis fit them more or less. Pauline, hanging onto Robert, couldn’t finish the climb. Out of breath, her hair in a mess, she was still having plenty of fun.
“How many guests are we having for New Year’s Eve?” asked Robert. He kept Pauline pinned against him, pretending to help her.
“The usual suspects are going to be there,” she said. “Dr. Auber, the notary, Antoine and Marie …”
“And Jules and Laurène’s wedding will be announced!” Dominique added.
Pauline was now leaning against a tree and began to applaud.
“Hey Laurène!” she said. “Are you sure you want to be married to a criminal?”
“That’s right,” Louis-Marie added. “My little brother is one violent dude!”
Robert, who was standing next to Jules, said, “A bout with bronchitis, a slap in the face, a bar fight, a stay at the police station, and all that in one week. That must be a record or something!”
Jules shrugged and gestured at everybody to get going.
“There’s a great view up there, just a bit farther,” he said.
“Up there?” Pauline said. “I can’t climb anymore. …”
Robert proposed to go back down with her, while Louis-Marie, happy and carefree, hit the trail with the others. Robert watched the struggle as they went up the steep hill.
“We can never enjoy our time with family too much. …” he said, in a bizarre tone of voice.
Then he turned to Pauline and stared at her. He adored what he saw: the smile, the eyes, the blonde curls escaping the wool hat.
“You are truly beautiful. …”
This was the first time they’d been alone. Only Jules’s dog, Botty, tired from struggling in the soft snow, had remained with them. Robert petted him absentmindedly, his eyes still on Pauline.
“We’ll tell them that we got lost in the woods for an hour?”
He smiled at his own bitter joke, but Pauline replied, “Even in the woods, Jules would find us. As you know, he has a knack for running into people who are trying to hide. Remember your exploits with Laurène in the stable?”
Annoyed, Robert raised his shoulders.
“Pauline … you have scruples now?”
She gave him a tender smile and said, “It’s not that. But each time we see each other, you have this expression … You’re torn between your guilt and your impulses, and you’re not much fun. …”
“When you’re not around,” Robert said, “I manage to forget about you a bit. … And then I see you and I’m back at it, like some sort of addict. And you married Louis-Marie, and so it’s going to be like this every summer, every Christmas, forever. … Unless I completely stay away from my family. You understand?”
She turned to the side muttering, “You’re overreacting.”
“I’m not! And if I try to keep my distance, you flirt with me. Why? All this is so hard for me, Pauline. …”
He took her by the shoulders, gently, and she looked him right in the eyes.
“You’re handsome,” she said, “I’m attracted to you, but things will never go further between the two of us. I can’t do anything about it. Come on, now. Let’s go back. Anyway, it’s much too cold out to make love.”
She kissed him softly on the mouth, then started down the trail toward Fonteyne.
* * *
Toward the end of the day, Jules went down to the cellar to fetch the bottles that Aurélien had selected for New Year’s Eve. He was very surprised to find Frédérique walking along the wine racks, hands buried in her pockets. He’d completely forgotten about her, as no one had invited her to come along on their cross-country skiing outing.
“Are you in the middle of inventory?” he asked, cheerfully.
“I just like hanging out in the cellar,” she said. “Don’t worry about your inheritance.”
He shrugged and spun on his heels.
“Jules,” she said, “what did my brother say to you, exactly?”
“Stupid stuff,” Jules said. “I didn’t even listen to it all. He thinks that you’re Aurélien’s lover and he doesn’t like it. I understand. … But one day he’s going to get drunk and come over here to cause trouble. I don’t really care, but you …”
He stopped speaking. Frédérique’s eyes were glistening, and a tear was streaming down her cheek. A bit embarrassed, he hesitated.
“Something the matter?” he asked.
In spite of everything, he felt sympathetic toward her.
“Frédérique …”
She was crying even more now, standing in front of Jules, feeling helpless. She pushed the strands of hair back from her face. Fully erect, she didn’t try to hide her pain.
“What kind of relationship do you have with your brother?” he asked, softly.
“A pretty good one. He drinks too much, but he has his reasons. … I don’t see him often.”
Frédérique’s voice was unsteady from sobbing. Without thinking, Jules took her in his arms. She abandoned herself there for a moment, her head against Jules’s jacket. Then she stepped away from him.
“I’m not scared of anything, you know,” she said. “I’m not afraid of any of you, or my brother, or Aurélien. The only thing I’m afraid of is the passage of time.”
Aurélien is right, Jules thought. She really is beautiful. …
Jules had always been sensitive to the sight of a sad woman. But it was hard for him to console Frédérique after having shown her so much hostility. Watching her now, he remembered why he’d been attracted to her a few months before. Beautiful, yes, both timid and determined, but also perhaps a bit fragile.
“Would you like me to call Aurélien?” he asked.
“No! Leave him alone! And leave me alone, too!”
She turned around and walked away. Perplexed and feeling very ill at ease, Jules went back to Fonteyne. The cheerful raucous in the main living room startled him. Laurène came to him and took him lovingly by the arm. Jules felt bad, as he suddenly found her a bit dull. He heard the front door closing. When Frédérique walked into the living room, no one could’ve guessed she’d been crying. She looked very calm, if just a little sad. She headed for Aurélien and sat next to him, as though needing to take refuge. Pensive, Jules’s eyes didn’t leave her the entire time.
“My dear brother-in-law,” Pauline whispered. “You’re an interesting man to spy on. …”
Surprised, Jules broke into his short and light laughter.
“We always have to be on our guard around you, Pauline, don’t we?” he asked between his teeth.
They didn’t need to add anything, as Pauline always understood what he meant. Isolated from the general conversation, they looked at each other, smiling.
“We were all wrong about her,” Pauline said. “We won’t be able to get rid of Frédérique easily. She has one hell of a personality.”
Now serious, Jules nodded.
“We’re going to have to be careful,” he said.
“Especially you, my dear brother-in-law. …”
Pauline walked away, an amused look on her face, and Jules suddenly felt all alone. He saw that his father had put an arm around Frédérique’s shoulder, as she sat on the chesterfield. He forced himself to smile and went over to pour them something to drink. Laurène sat on the other side of Aurélien.
“This past year was fabulous,” Aurélien said, setting down his glass of wine.
He looked at his son with obvious tenderness.
“And a new year is just about to start,” he continued. “Another great year for our wines, right, son?”
Jules smiled at him, a bit disoriented. Then he went over to the fireplace, where his brothers were chatting. He didn’t feel like thinking about the future.
“Remember the year you worked as Santa Claus in that store in Bordeaux?” Alex asked him, giggling.
“Oh yes!” Jules said. “What a story!”
The memory of that episode from his adolescence made Jules laugh.
“And when Dad learned about it,” Louis-Marie said for Pauline’s sake, “he had a cow. And then he gave us a bigger allowance!”
“Careful over there,” Aurélien said from across the room, “I can hear you! You guys were impossible when you were young!”
“Same as you,” Louis-Marie grumbled between clenched teeth, and only his brothers heard him.
They all burst out laughing and took a look at their father. Surrounded by Frédérique and Laurène, he seemed just as cheerful as they were.
“Tell me, Jules …”
Alex pulled his brother aside. He was smiling, but Jules could tell it wasn’t sincere.
“When are you going to play Santa Claus with me?” he asked.
Intrigued, Jules stared at his brother.
Alex was making an obvious effort to speak his mind.
“Free me from this place,” he said. “I don’t think I can last another year.”
Though Alex had been clumsy with his words, Jules knew exactly what he’d meant to say.
“I know you want to leave Fonteyne, Alex, but I’m not the one who can authorize it. You have to speak to Aurélien.”
“You know very well what he’s going to say.”
“Yes. … You really want to go play second fiddle at your father-in-law’s?”
“Better that than fifth wheel here!”
He’d raised his voice, and Aurélien glanced at them.
Jules carefully looked at his brothers, who ended up lowering their eyes.
“Mazion’s vines … Come on, Alex! You can’t be serious. You’re here at Fonteyne, in the Margaux region, and you’re a Laverzac! You can try to ignore that, but you can’t ask me to do the same.”
Jules spoke in a low voice but weighed every word. Alex, embarrassed, put a hand on Jules’s arm, but he jerked it free. After one last glare, Jules turned away and said, “You’re pathetic.”
He didn’t see the hateful expression that, furtively, appeared on his brother’s face.
The next morning, Frédérique couldn’t bring herself to get out of her warm bed. She simply lay there, letting her mind wander. The previous night, Aurélien had come over to spend a moment with her. He hadn’t talked about the Bordeaux incident, hadn’t mentioned that brother of hers that had materialized out of thin air. He’d simply asked her if she still liked it here at Fonteyne. He was so kind and caring that Frédérique was beginning to feel real tenderness for him.
She stretched, yawned, then thought of Jules and Laurène’s engagement, which would be announced that evening. She had no way of preventing it. After that, in the summertime, with Jules being married …
She got out of bed suddenly. Jules … His gypsy looks, his swagger, his timid and charming smiles … Aurélien, he was Jules in twenty or thirty years. …
There was a knock on the door.
“Come in!”
“We’re going to Bordeaux at ten,” Laurène said. “Want to come along?”
Frédérique, not without some bitterness, realized that the only person that actually behaved half-decently toward her was her rival.
“No thanks. That’s very nice of you …”
Laurène sat on the side of the bed and smiled at Frédérique, who was getting dressed.
“They’re not very nice to you, are they?”
Frédérique feigned indifference.
“You have to understand where they’re coming from,” Laurène pleaded. “It’s their father. … And they adore him so much! Especially Jules. …”
Frédérique turned to Laurène sharply. “But I’ve done nothing to hurt Aurélien! All they care about is their inheritance!”
Since Laurène hadn’t shut the door, they heard Aurélien coming their way. Caught off guard, Laurène stood up and left the bedroom. She ran right into Aurélien in the hallway. If he was surprised to see her come out of Frédérique’s room, he didn’t let it show. However, he started to walk with her.
“How’s my future daughter-in-law doing?” he asked.
“I’m great! I love Jules, I love Fonteyne, and I love you, too!”
“My, what a declaration!” Aurélien said, laughing. “That makes me happy. You know you’ve always had a special place in my heart.”
He took her arm and she felt uncomfortable.
“You have Frédérique now,” she said, “and …”
Aurélien stopped walking, and Laurène understood that she’d put her foot in her mouth. He hated people snooping in his private life, and for a moment she’d forgotten.
“I mean,” she mumbled, “that I’m happy she’s here, for you. …”
“Well, you’re the only one,” he said, harshly.
They wound up in the vast entrance hall and were blinded by the morning sun. Aurélien, not bothering to say anything else to Laurène, hurried over to his office.
Late afternoon, Jules came back from Bordeaux, where he’d bought Laurène a dress. In a certain way, he felt guilty. He made love to her with the same enthusiasm, he was very attentive to her needs, but he wasn’t passionately in love with her, and he knew it. Wholeheartedly set on keeping his promise and unable to even conceive of doing otherwise, he was almost relieved at the idea that he was getting engaged that very evening.
She seemed delighted at what he’d bought her. The dress looked great on her. Jules, just like Aurélien, instinctively knew what to buy women. He got ready quickly and went downstairs ahead of almost everybody else. Unlike most of the time, he was elegantly dressed and had even gotten a haircut.
“Who are you trying to impress?” Robert asked Jules when he saw him enter the main living room.
Jules smiled and said, “You don’t look so bad yourself, Doc. And I know who you’re trying to impress.”
The joke didn’t make Robert laugh. He was about to say something, but was interrupted when Frédérique walked into the room. She wore a black shirt with a plunging neckline embroidered with silver silk, and a short black satin skirt. The only jewelry she wore was the pearl necklace Aurélien had given her. She was so beautiful, so sensual, that Jules and Robert couldn’t take their eyes off her.
Laurène and Dominique’s arrival didn’t eclipse Frédérique’s presence. Not even Pauline, though she was beautiful in her white satin draped gown. Aurélien also seemed struck by the young woman’s irresistible appearance.
The guests finally began to arrive, following a sort of natural order. Laurène’s grandmother, old Mrs. Billot, was very imposing in her large wheelchair. She was, as on every visit to Fonteyne, dumbfounded to be treated as a friend in the Laverzac household. Well aware of the region’s traditions and codes, she knew that the two families were not on the same social level. The fact that her two granddaughters were going to be married to Laverzac boys was incredible to her. Jules and Alexandre, with everything their names and Fonteyne represented! She actually thought that Antoine was insane to have almost burned his bridges with Aurélien the previous fall.
All the while, Mr. Varin reunited with Frédérique with great joy. He missed her company and her competence as a secretary.
Aurélien leaned toward Jules and whispered the table plan he had in mind, “Laurène will sit beside you, of course, and we’ll put Varin and Pauline side by side …”
They chuckled.
“And look at Auber,” Aurélien said, “the way he’s eyeing Frédérique. Good thing I have them sitting next to each other. He’s going to have a nice evening. What about you, son? Do you think you’re going to have a nice evening?”
Intrigued by his father’s question, Jules only gave a nod.
“You’re certain? I don’t want you to have any regrets, someday. …”
“Regrets?”
“We’re going to talk about your wedding tonight, you know.”
“Yes. And that’s fine.”
Ill at ease, Jules avoided Aurélien’s gaze.
“You’re not telling me much, son, and so I’m trying to read into things. …”
“Aurélien …”
“What? You think I’m a fool? An old fool?”
“Aurélien!”
“Stop saying my name like that. You can’t expect me to be an emergency escape in this story.”
“What story?”
“This story,” Aurélien said, gesturing at the entire living room. “Women …”
He looked at Jules, waiting for a response.
“Everything is fine, Aurélien,” Jules muttered.
“Okay. I wanted to give you a way out, cowboy. You want me to be more explicit? To call a spade a spade? You and me, we often played around with women … but you do realize that this is for life, right? And so … And so, if it’s my lover you want, instead of your fiancée …”
Aurélien’s tone was harsh, but his voice low. He put a hand on Jules’s shoulder, as though he wanted him to stay put.
“No!”
Jules answered too quickly. They shot each other angry looks. Then Jules lowered his head, fumbling for something to say. His father paralyzed him as much as the question he’d asked.
Aurélien sighed, and then said, “You’re not sure, I can tell.”
He was friendly again, and Jules relaxed.
“Anyway, Aurélien …” he started, but didn’t finish his sentence.
“Anyway, yes, as you say. Now that we’ve reached this point, we have to go ahead. … Well, you do. …”
Smiling in spite of everything, Jules whispered, “I’d like you to come with me to Bordeaux, before my wedding, for my bachelor party.”
Aurélien burst into such a loud laugh that everyone in the room turned his way.
“Good idea, son! You bet I’ll be there!”
A bit later, when everybody was at the table, the conversation became very animated. Sitting beside Pauline, Mr. Varin was quite talkative and gallant. Since he was not too far from Aurélien, he tried to engage in a conversation with him as well. As he was privy to information regarding the new status of the Laverzac estate and the details of Aurélien’s will, he couldn’t help paying obvious attention to Jules, seeing him as not only Fonteyne’s successor, but its real head.
“I had lunch with Captain Vanier the day before yesterday,” he told Jules, “and I can tell you he’s still preoccupied with that incident, you know …”
“I’m sure he is,” Jules said with indifference.
“You see,” the notary continued, “I think it’s a shame for Frédérique’s brother. Those young people, when you think about the way they were raised.”
“What way?” Pauline asked, always on the lookout for gossip.
“Well … in all that luxury. You don’t know the story? Auber didn’t tell you? Their father was a surgeon, in Lyon. A man of great renown, from an old medical dynasty. But he gambled. … Lost all his money. It was a real vice. And his wife committed suicide. When I learned that Frédérique was looking for work, I hired her. I’d been their notary and they had to sell everything—almost everything—to pay for the old man’s debts. A terrible situation. …”
“What about the father, the surgeon?” Pauline asked, her eyes glittering with excitement. “What happened to him?”
“He moved to Australia. He didn’t get along with his children after his wife’s death. Frédérique is fine, very courageous, but her brother started to drink and hang out with the wrong crowd. … The kid never told you about any of this?”
Jules, who’d taken all of this in, answered, slowly, “No, she didn’t say. … It’s her right. …”
“Of course,” Varin said. “But it does look like she’s enjoying herself here at Fonteyne. You can’t blame her. This house is sublime. …”
He glanced around the room, in awe, and then added, “Of course, people say stupid things. You can never escape gossip. When Frédérique worked for me, it was the same. There’s nothing you can do about it, and that’s what I told your father. …”
Jules and Pauline glanced at each other. Annoyed by what he’d just heard, he made an effort to change the topic.
Vodka was served, to go along with the smoked salmon. Aurélien stood and gestured at his guests. Silence fell in the room.
“I have great news, everybody,” Aurélien said with a benevolent smile. “We will have the great joy of witnessing Jules and Laurène’s wedding in the spring. This decision brings our families even closer. Let’s drink to their health.”
Jules took the engagement ring out of his breast pocket and offered it to Laurène. He kissed her and raised his glass to Marie and Aurélien. He felt happy, though not as happy as he would’ve expected a few months earlier. His gaze met Frédérique’s. Her beautiful eyes were filled with sadness. He thought of the Bordeaux hotel room where they’d spent the night together. Not even a night, just a few hours. He wondered if she was also thinking about it.
Robert was observing his brother.
All this will end badly, he thought. No one around this table is happy about their fate, deep down. Alex is upset, and Jules isn’t sure he’s doing the right thing because he knows full well that he might’ve mistaken passion for love, jealousy for desire … If I hadn’t had that fling with Laurène … And the way he looks at Frédérique …
“Hey Doc, you daydreaming?”
Louis-Marie, across the table from him, was smiling.
“You’re going to be the family’s last bachelor. Is that what you were thinking about?”
“No,” Robert said. “I was thinking of Jules’s effect on women. They all adore him. He’s going to have a hard time choosing one. …”
“But he already chose someone!” Louis-Marie said, looking horrified.
Robert gave him an indecipherable look. He felt old, bitter, almost out of place. Jules, seemingly okay now, cheerfully chatted with the person sitting next to him. Antoine didn’t drink much, his heart condition in mind. Fernande and Clothilde were outstanding, as usual. As for Frédérique, her eyes never left Jules.
Come midnight, everybody kissed and wished each other a happy New Year. Then all the guests went over to the living room for some champagne. Jules sat next to Frédérique on a sofa.
Not sure how to broach the topic, Jules said, “Mr. Varin was talking about you earlier …”
Frédérique was on the defensive immediately.
“He shouldn’t have. It’s ancient history. …”
“You never felt like telling us about it?”
“Why? Does it bother you that I belong to the same social level as you, Jules?”
“Come on, Frédérique, nobody here judged you because they thought you weren’t in the same class.”
“So why did you want to talk to me about it? What does Varin’s ‘revelation’ change? It explains my taste for luxury? My attraction to this house? It means that I’m actually looking for some sort of replacement for my father? That kind of junk?”
Her bitterness was spewing out, taking Jules by surprise.
“May I?” Aurélien asked. He was standing in front of them.
Right away, Jules wanted to get up, but Aurélien said, “Stay right there, son.”
Aurélien sat between the two of them and put his arm around Frédérique, a gesture that was becoming a habit.
“Laurène is beaming,” he said with mischief.
He was nagging Jules. He knew him well enough to know that things weren’t perfect for his son on his engagement night.
As he got up, Jules let his eyes fall on Frédérique’s cleavage and saw that she wasn’t wearing a bra. Her skin was lovely, and he assumed that Aurélien was going to spend the night with her. He went over to Laurène and smiled at her, though without real joy.
Marie took Jules’s spot next to Aurélien and gestured at the young couple.
“Laurène is so happy,” she whispered.
Aurélien gave her a friendly look. Antoine was getting on his nerves, but he liked Marie.
“You know,” he said, “she’s going to have to stand up to him a bit. … To be Jules’s wife won’t be a piece of cake all the time. Tell her that. You have to have a strong personality to compete with Fonteyne. He’s crazy about the land and the vines.”
The way Aurélien looked at Jules told of the pride he felt for his son. Marie, a bit surprised by what Aurélien had just said to her, promised herself to pass it on to her daughter.
Aurélien’s guests finally began to leave Fonteyne, reluctantly. It was very late when everyone went to bed. On the upstairs landing, Robert wished Louis-Marie and Pauline a good night. He watched them walk into their room and felt lonely. He was leaving the following morning. He’d be glad to get back to the hospital—just to be left alone.
Jules and Laurène arrived on the landing and bumped into Robert, laughing.
“Are you leaving us early tomorrow morning?”
“Very early.”
Robert took Jules by the neck and said, “Have a good winter, little bro.”
“You, too, Bob.”
They looked at each other, and then Jules guided Laurène toward his bedroom. As soon as the door was shut, he took her in his arms and carried her to the bed.
“Wait!” Laurène said, giggling. “My dress!”
Jules undressed her quickly, impatient to make love to her. He had things to settle with himself. Or something to prove. He needed to find something he’d lost. He made love to Laurène with wild abandon.
Aurélien was smiling, fulfilled. Frédérique was smoking a cigarette, sitting up in bed, still naked, whereas he’d put his clothes back on. She turned him on more and more, and he had no difficulty satisfying her, which flattered his ego.
Still smiling, he said, “You and I need to chat a little, with this new year starting …”
“Chat about what?”
“Your future. How do you picture it?”
She turned her head to see him better, thinking that he was looking his age suddenly. She felt comfortable with him, didn’t feel threatened by his authority.
“I don’t know. …”
“Too bad. … If you knew, I could help you out.”
“In what way?”
“Whatever way you want.”
He kept quiet for a moment, and then she began to laugh.
“Say, Aurélien, you want me to set up house here?”
“No, honey. That’s not what I’m saying. I’m not that naïve.”
Frédérique said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything by that. I have a lot of respect for you. You really are a good man. But I’m not sure I understand your question.”
He reached over and caressed her shoulder, then one of her breasts.
“Surely you don’t want to be my secretary all your life? You want to get married? I have a great network of people in the region. You’d like to open a business to be independent? I can hook you up with the business community, find some start-up capital for you. … Anyway, think about it.”
Frédérique had had a lot to drink, but she wasn’t drunk. Just mellow enough to feel like saying, “What I want is Jules.” But she didn’t dare.
“You can stay at Fonteyne as long as you want and that would be fine by me. But don’t feel like you’re stuck here. If you’d rather go, because of your brother, I’ll understand. You’re so young. If you want my help in exchange for what you give me, I don’t have a problem with that. Were you ever in love?”
She stared at Aurélien, not knowing what answer to give him.
“Come on, be honest,” he said, laughing.
“Yes.”
“Well, I hope it happens to you again.”
At a loss, she shook her head and said, “You’re weird. Sometimes I have the impression you’d prefer it if I left.”
“No! I just don’t want you to stick around here because you don’t have anywhere else to go, no other options.”
Frédérique hesitated, then put a hand on Aurélien’s.
“Things are good between you and me, if that’s what you mean. But I’m not thinking too much ahead.”
“That’s fine. Now, let’s go to sleep.”
As he leaned toward Frédérique for a kiss, he realized that she wanted to make love again. He didn’t have time to wonder if he was going to be able to before he began to undress.
Robert had left, followed by Louis-Marie and Pauline. Aurélien and Jules were back to work pruning the vines, along with Lucas. Alexandre was becoming more withdrawn, performing his tasks on the estate with little enthusiasm.
Jules spent most of the month of January trying to buy a perfectly situated small plot near Margaux. And so life had taken its normal course again. Dominique ran the household with Fernande, as usual, but she seemed to have been overtaken by her husband’s gloom. Laurène and Frédérique shared the administrative responsibilities without butting heads.
For Frédérique, time was running out. She observed Jules and Laurène, suffering quietly. She imagined that nothing would make Jules change his mind now that he was officially engaged. The dreaded wedding was going to take place in June, as planned. She saw no way to avoid it. As for planning her future and leaving Fonteyne, following Aurélien’s advice, she didn’t even think about it.
Aurélien, ever vigilant, kept an eye on his adopted son. He noticed the looks that Jules gave Frédérique, and they sometimes amused him, sometimes made him furious. But he said nothing, preferring to adopt a wait-and-see approach. Just as he waited for Alex to have the courage to talk to him about Mazion.
Jules wasn’t unhappy, in spite of his attraction to Frédérique, which he resisted by thinking about as little as possible. His love for Laurène was very real, simple and quiet, comfortable in other words, and it no longer distracted him from Fonteyne. Still, at times, Aurélien’s affectionate gestures toward Frédérique infuriated him. But his father remained sacred to him, and Jules diverted his energies by making love to Laurène every night.
Aurélien was expecting his son to stumble, and Jules knew it. Finally, Frédérique made her move.
That night, Aurélien had gone to bed early, saying he was tired. As for Laurène, she’d called from Mazion, where she’d gone for dinner at her parents’, to tell of her decision to stay there overnight, given the icy road conditions.
Frédérique stayed a long time, lying in her bed, lost in her thoughts, and decided to go down to the kitchen to make herself a cup of tea. Then she headed for the library with her teapot. She didn’t have anything specific in mind and wouldn’t have found the courage to go up to Jules’s room, but she was thinking about him. Fortuitously—or perhaps because their encounter was inevitable—Jules appeared in the room fifteen minutes later. He didn’t really look surprised to find her there. He was holding a glass and a bottle of cognac.
“No one is sleeping tonight, it looks like,” he said, his smile a bit tight.
“Except for Aurélien!”
Frédérique’s response had shot right out of her, thoughtlessly.
Jules sat across the coffee table from her.
“You still like it here?” he asked.
He wasn’t hostile. He added, “What was it like at your parents’ house?”
“Very different from here. It was a city house … filled with knickknacks that my mother put in every single room. A woman’s décor, less austere than this house, but much more suffocating. You wouldn’t have liked it there. …”
He was warming his glass in his hand, taking pleasure in listening to the young woman.
“I can’t believe how beautiful your eyes are,” she said, slowly.
“What are you trying to do exactly?” he asked.
He was trying to remain distant, but his voice was cracking.
“I’m attracted to you, Jules,” she said.
“More than Aurélien?”
She didn’t let the words get to her.
“I like Aurélien, yes. In a certain way. But he’s not as careful as you are. Or as fierce. … But you’re going to be just like him, one day.”
She got up, went around the coffee table and sat next to him. Immediately she rested her head on him.
“I’ve been dreaming of this,” she whispered.
Unable to react, Jules remained still. After a good while, because of her perfume perhaps, he put a hand on Frédérique’s hair, in spite of himself. Then he kissed her. She could tell he was nervous, tense, mad with desire.
“Jules …”
He got up, wanting to get away from her, but she was quicker and jumped to her feet. She flung her nightgown open. Jules, hypnotized, stayed put and couldn’t refrain from watching her. She took him by the waist.
“Aurélien is sleeping, Jules,” she said, “let go of your morals. …”
Hearing his father’s name would’ve been enough to make Jules flee, but she put her fingers on his jeans’ zipper. He shivered as soon as she touched him.
They made love quietly, without speaking, but with a kind of wild desperation. The night in the Bordeaux hotel had been a long time ago. It was four o’clock or so when Jules got dressed. He was exhausted, haggard, and still excited. He gave her a look of genuine anguish and, as there was really nothing to say, he left the room.
From then on, Jules’s life began to be difficult. He had no choice but to look his father in the eyes, as well as Laurène, without seeing Frédérique and without thinking about what happened. Jules had thought of himself as being honest and upright, and he liked that his life was uncomplicated. But for the first time, he experienced that awful feeling of having betrayed people he loved, of lying, of being in the wrong. And he had a very hard time dealing with it. In order to take his mind off it all, he lost himself in his work. When it came to Fonteyne, everything was simple and clear, but the rest was weighing on him and would end up suffocating him. And so, in addition to his daily tasks on the estate, Jules attended every wine producer meeting in the region and found any reason to go to Margaux or Bordeaux. He looked for every opportunity to leave Fonteyne, went all over the place to participate in wine competitions, spent hours negotiating every single detail of agreements with merchants and distributors, planned the racking process, undertook the plowing of some plots, and practically tortured the accountant.
Laurène could tell that something was pushing Jules away from the house. She was afraid it might be the idea of their marriage, so she decided not to say anything and let him be. Perplexed, Aurélien continued to observe his son. Winter unfolded slowly.
Jules made sure not to find himself alone with Frédérique. Forlorn, silent, almost morose, he was dying to talk to Aurélien but couldn’t bring himself to do so. What would he say to him? Why would he tell him what happened? For the thrill of confessing, of destroying? For the relief of being absolved? Jules tried not to wonder just how far he could push his father, and he didn’t feel like finding out. He also didn’t want to know how much Aurélien cared for Frédérique. With all his heart, Jules wished that she would leave of her own free will. But then the thought of her being away from Fonteyne made him miserable. He’d never felt such inner turmoil. He was telling himself that he didn’t love Frédérique, but she was in his head nonstop. And he didn’t want to make Laurène suffer just for some temporary madness.
The unexpected visit from Louis-Marie and Pauline on a February weekend made Jules very happy. The couple explained that they were on a ski trip, and that the temptation to make a pit stop at Fonteyne had been too strong to resist. The pretext was laughable, but Jules knew that Louis-Marie was worried about his father and the liaison with Frédérique that continued.
Jules took Pauline’s suitcases to Louis-Marie’s bedroom.
As soon as he set them down, his sister-in-law came out and said, “You don’t look well at all, Jules. And we haven’t heard from you in over a month.”
“There’s nothing new. …”
Pauline opened a travel bag and took out a wine thermometer.
“It’s for Aurélien,” she said. “What do you think?”
Jules examined the object, magnificently presented in a mahogany box, and he burst out laughing.
“Pauline,” he said. “You’re not seriously going to give that to Aurélien! Did you show this to Louis-Marie?”
Taken aback, Pauline looked at Jules and then started to laugh, too.
“No, I didn’t. I thought … Bad idea, huh? Okay, I’ll give it to someone else, in Paris. … Why don’t you tell me about your father and Frédérique. How are things between them?”
She’d guided Jules to one of the windows to get away from the opened door.
“I don’t know what to tell you,” Jules said, shaking his head. “Aurélien seems very … reasonable. And Laurène and Frédérique get along pretty well. …”
He was obviously embarrassed, and Pauline watched him closely.
“You’re being very … careful,” Pauline said. “I don’t know what happened but … you don’t seem to be as upset with this woman as you were. Am I right?”
Pauline’s sly tone made Jules sigh. He turned to the window and took in the nearby vines.
“I’m not sure what she wants out of this, Pauline. … But I don’t think that between Aurélien and her …”
He took a step away from the window and turned to his sister-in-law.
“Besides, she cheated on him the first chance she had. With me.”
He didn’t know why he told Pauline that.
“Your father doesn’t know about it?”
“No. It takes two to tango, but I’m the one responsible for what happened.”
Jules sounded like he was confessing some crime, and Pauline sensed how much he—normally so discreet—needed to talk.
“Relax, Jules,” she said. “It’s not like I’m floored. Do you realize what you represent for a girl her age? Obviously, she’s in love with you. You should be on your guard with her. I’m certain she’d do anything to make you forget about Laurène. But if you think this is a way to separate her from Aurélien … Without having to confront him, I mean. …”
He went pale, and in an unpredictable move, she kissed him just above the fold of his turtleneck.
“I like you a lot, my dear brother-in-law, and you really look miserable!”
He grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her gently.
“You’re hilarious Pauline, you know that?”
“Aurélien is trying to trap you. Don’t fall for it. Now, you being passionately in love with Laurène, I don’t understand. She’s a bit of a lightweight. I’ve always thought that.”
She gave Jules a mischievous look.
“You hate it when people talk to you that way,” she said. “Don’t you?”
“I do hate it,” he admitted. “But for once you’re right.”
They looked at each other one more time, before Jules quietly left the room.
Laurène was watching her sister with admiration. Dominique had always had a gift for cooking. Behind them, Fernande was busy with her tasks.
“Those mushrooms are from Labarde?” Laurène asked.
“Of course!” Dominique said, adding garlic and parsley to the frying pan. “It’s the best vegetable market around here. …”
At that moment, Jules appeared in the kitchen. He went over to the stove, looked at what was simmering, and couldn’t help tasting it.
“You’re going to burn yourself,” Laurène warned.
He gave her a distracted smile, congratulated Dominique, and walked out of the room. Dominique turned to make sure he was really gone.
“Laurène,” she said in a low voice, “are you keeping an eye on Jules?”
Laurène frowned and asked, “Why?”
Dominique hesitated for a second and then said, softly, “Well, he seems … It’s the way he’s looking at Frédérique! You didn’t notice?”
Laurène opened her mouth, but no words came out.
“Maybe I’m just imagining things,” Dominique conceded. “But be careful. You’re behaving with Jules as though you guys had been married for ten years. Flirt with him, be more loving, I don’t know …”
“Jesus,” Laurène shouted, “you sound like Pauline!”
Dominique unhurriedly stirred the mushrooms in the pan, waiting for Laurène to calm down. “You know how much it takes to turn Jules’s attention away from Fonteyne,” she said. “And I think that Frédérique is doing everything she can to make him notice her, while you’re just enjoying the ride. You should—”
Outraged, Laurène interrupted, “But, Dominique, you and Alex are doing fine, right? You don’t have any problems. …”
“You think?” Dominique blurted out, anger in her eyes.
Laurène fumbled for something to say and, coming up with nothing, she stormed out of the kitchen. She crossed the hallway, straight to the library, where Louis-Marie and Jules were sitting at the chess table. She stood behind Jules for a long while. When she finally leaned on his shoulder, he didn’t seem to notice. Dominique’s warning hadn’t surprised her as much as she’d let on. For a while, she had noticed Jules’s glances at Frédérique, as well as the odd expression he had when in her presence.
She tried to stifle a sigh. Nobody had any idea what she was capable of to keep Jules. She also understood that she would have to do more to be a good lover.
Jules turned to her.
“Are you bored watching us play? I can hear you sigh. …”
He was laughing. He took her fingers and squeezed them lovingly. Then Aurélien came into the room carrying two bottles.
“We can enjoy this until dinner,” he said. “It’s going to be a bit later than usual tonight, since Fernande and Dominique have decided to go for something fancy for the Parisians. …”
Jules read the labels and whistled between his teeth.
“Prieuré-Lichine 1983?” he said. “My, you’re going all out. …”
As Frédérique was discreetly walking into the library, Aurélien turned to her and said, “You will drink some exceptional wine today!”
Aurélien noticed the quick look Jules gave Frédérique. He walked over to his sons.
“Are you winning, cowboy?” he asked.
“Not yet,” Jules said. “That eldest son of yours is pretty good.”
Aurélien put a hand on Jules’s arm and said, “But in the end you will win, since you always wind up winning. Right?”
Jules kept his eyes riveted on the chessboard.
Any trace of affection in his voice suddenly gone, Aurélien insisted, “Right?”
They finally looked at each other.
“I don’t always win, Aurélien,” Jules said. “Not necessarily. …”
Louis-Marie watched them both, expecting a fight to break out. At that point Alexandre walked to the chess table and ran the back of his hand across it, toppling every single piece.
“This way,” he said, “we’ll never know who would’ve won.”
Stunned, Aurélien, Jules, and Louis-Marie gaped at him. Before anyone had time to say anything, Alexandre walked out of the library in long strides.
They did indeed have a late dinner. Though Aurélien said nothing about Alexandre’s attitude, he was determined to have a serious talk with him in the morning.
Most of the conversation was about Fonteyne, as usual. Laurène explained to Pauline what modifications she planned for the upstairs, after the wedding. Frédérique said little and drank a lot. She was running out of time, she knew. She couldn’t get close to Jules, who systematically avoided her, even though he was looking at her with despair. The sight of Laurène chatting, enjoying her happiness, made Frédérique bitter. This reunion of brothers and sisters-in-law exasperated her. Too much strength was needed to take on this family.
Watching Laurène attentively, Frédérique wondered if that harmless-looking nitwit wasn’t actually hiding her cards. Maybe she was more determined than she let on. Maybe she was fighting with all her might to keep Jules.
And Jules! she thought. Jules who’s all nice and courteous with her! To make up for the crimes he committed with me, no doubt.
“You look sad, honey. Are you bored?”
Aurélien’s voice pulled her out of her reverie.
“No, not at all,” Frédérique said. “You have a nice family. …”
He chortled, before saying, “Nice? I don’t know about that. …”
He was thinking about Alexandre with a sort of worry he’d never felt for him before.
“Let’s toast,” he suddenly said to everyone around the table. “To the Laverzacs!”
They’d all had quite a bit to drink already but raised their glasses enthusiastically. When dinner was over and they headed for the main living room, Frédérique found a way to be the last to leave the room with Laurène.
“Nice evening, wasn’t it?” Frédérique asked with a slightly hesitant voice.
Laurène stopped in front of her and, in the blink of the eye, understood that a confrontation between the two was inevitable.
“Very. …”
They were waiting, gauging each other, neither knowing exactly what the other one was thinking. No matter that Laurène had tried to be friendly with Frédérique, that she’d been patient with her, she now felt that she had to deal with her head on.
“Honestly, Frédérique,” she said. “Do you find Jules attractive?”
“Very.”
The straightforwardness of the answer unsettled Laurène.
“More than you think, as a matter of fact,” Frédérique continued. “But I wasn’t the one who made the move on him, the first time.”
Laurène, dumbstruck, straightened.
“The first time?” she blurted out.
Frédérique, a bit tipsy, shrugged.
“Six months ago, he was looking for solace in nightclubs because you were pushing him away. But now, he’s looking for solace because of, what do you think?”
Laurène was looking at Frédérique, shocked.
“Now …”
“Are you blind or what? Or do you just refuse to see what’s there? He exists, you know. He exists outside of you!”
Frédérique was shouting and Laurène took a step back.
“What a naïve idiot, you are! Jules isn’t some nice boy! He’s so much more than your preconceived ideas about relationships. You have no clue. You’re going to marry him, all blissful, and think you’re going to be able to keep him home with nice drapes in the bedroom windows?”
“I won’t let you …”
“You won’t let me what? I’m at Aurélien’s here, not your house! And God knows that naïveté aggravates Aurélien! Jules is just like him. Your goody-goody attitude must drive him nuts at times! But he promised. … His sense of duty, that’s his weakness! So have a bunch of babies and you’ll be all set.”
Laurène couldn’t breathe. Frédérique’s words were making her dizzy.
“Jules is …” she said.
“You don’t know who Jules is!” Frédérique screamed, losing all control. “He’s much too good for you!”
Livid, Laurène leaned against a sideboard. Feeling panicky, she muttered, “What are you doing in Aurélien’s bed if you’re so crazy about Jules?”
“I was biding my time,” Frédérique said in a harsh voice. “Until now, I was comfortable in there. Aurélien is a good man. You don’t get that, either. You’re the type that gets everything wrong. Why do you think that Jules looks at me the way a dog looks at a bone? This castle is big enough, you can make love on every floor!”
Laurène pushed herself off the sideboard and rushed at Frédérique.
“Are you done spewing your venom? You think I’m stupid enough to jump at whatever you say and break up with Jules? You might sleep with both the father and the son all over the damn place—I find that despicable—but it’s not going to make me lose what I have. Jules is marrying me!”
Screaming at each other this way, they didn’t hear Aurélien come into the room. They noticed him at the same time.
“Are you girls all done?”
He was pale as a ghost and had difficulty speaking.
“We can hear you clear across the house,” he continued. “Laurène, go into my office, please.”
Laurène took a step, but Jules also walked into the dining room. Aurélien looked at his son and, suddenly, leaned on the back of a chair, clutching his throat.
“Jules,” he moaned.
Jules ran to Aurélien just as the older man was crashing to the floor.
Jules hung up the phone. He’d called Dr. Auber, rang for an ambulance, and told Robert, who decided to leave Paris right away.
He turned to look at his father. He seemed unconscious, and yet his eyes remained open. Jules and Louis-Marie had carried him to his bed. Ever so carefully, Jules had undone Aurélien’s collar, then his belt. He felt cold, disconnected from everything else. Louis-Marie, scared by his brother’s expression, had forced him to sit down. On the side of the bed, legs crossed, Jules could do nothing but wait. He hadn’t heard anything of the conversation among Laurène, Frédérique, and Aurélien. Besides, he wasn’t thinking about that. He wasn’t thinking about anything.
“Jules?” Louis-Marie whispered. “He’s going to be okay.”
Jules wasn’t looking at his brother. He wasn’t even looking at Aurélien now. He was contemplating emptiness. Louis-Marie went over to him and shook him lightly.
“Auber is going to be here any minute. … He didn’t say anything on the phone?”
Jules raised his shoulders and forced a smile.
“He’s not old,” Louis-Marie said, “and there’s never been anything wrong with him.”
A voice came from the staircase, and a great weight came off his shoulders.
Dr. Auber gave Aurélien an injection, took his pulse and his blood pressure, and asked what exactly had happened. Louis-Marie told him what he knew. He could see Jules keeping his teeth clenched. Auber finally told them to step out of the room for a moment.
In the hallway, Louis-Marie cleared his throat before asking, “What are we going to do with Frédérique?”
Jules finally reacted. “I’ll take care of it,” he said, his voice dead.
In front of Frédérique’s door, he didn’t bother knocking and went right in. She was sitting on the side of the bed, still dressed.
“So?”
Ignoring the question, Jules looked at her for a few moments.
“I think it would be best if you left, Frédérique,” he finally said. “Whenever you can. … Tomorrow. … He’s going to be taken to the hospital in Bordeaux. If you want to see him or know how he’s doing, you can call Auber. …”
He hates me, she thought, and she was dying to go to him.
He was still looking at her, without seeing her. She realized that and simply nodded. He said nothing else and walked out of the bedroom. He found Louis-Marie still in the hallway, next to the doctor. Alex was also there, but Jules paid him no attention at all. He fiddled with his empty pack of cigarettes until the ambulance arrived.
The sun was slowly rising on Fonteyne, as though with difficulty. Fernande was silently taking slices of toast and coffee to the library, where it had been a long night. Arriving at the Bordeaux hospital at four in the morning, Robert was able to see Aurélien. Paralyzed on one side, he’d regained consciousness but was unable to utter a single word. Robert was pessimistic. The brothers had returned to Fonteyne at seven, and no one had been able to sleep, except for Pauline. Dominique had waited until sunrise to take Frédérique to a Bordeaux hotel. The young woman had only one piece of luggage and said nothing for the entire drive.
Jules, leaning on the sliding ladder, seemed to have regained a bit of calm. Knowing that he was in a state of shock, Robert had been particularly attentive toward his brother.
There was nothing particular to be done. Transporting Aurélien to Paris wouldn’t help his case. Partial and progressive improvement might come as time passed, if he made it at all. But Robert was clear about the fact that Aurélien would remain physically diminished. As for Fonteyne, Jules had full power and could easily take care of things without his father.
And so they were all together in the library, staggering with fatigue, the windows letting in the weak early morning sun.
“I’m going to my bedroom,” Robert finally said. “I think you should all try and get some rest, too.”
He went over to Jules and asked him if he’d like a sleeping pill. Jules shook his head with impatience, saying that a sleepless night wasn’t going to kill him and that he had tons to do. But he accompanied Robert to the foot of the staircase, waiting for more information or, against his better judgment, a glimmer of hope.
Robert, who understood his distress, put a hand on the railing, and said, “I’ll free myself up for a few days so I can stay. But I want you to wrap your brain around one thing, Jules. … Whether I’m here or not won’t change anything. If he does make it, Dad will be in a bad way for a long time. …”
Jules seemed to have a hard time accepting this. He swallowed his saliva a few times, saying nothing.
“When he comes back home,” Robert continued, “if he ever comes back, he’s going to need a live-in nurse. … We’ll talk about it then. …”
Robert sighed, sadder about his brother than his father. He knew that Aurélien was the very heart of Jules’s existence.
“Are you scared?” he asked Jules with affection.
“Very. …”
Jules’s very real suffering went beyond anything Robert could say. He squeezed his brother’s shoulder and went up the stairs.
Jules tried to smile. He’d been sitting at Aurélien’s side for more than an hour. His father’s eyes seemed to be filled with the words he couldn’t speak. Jules grabbed the inert hand on the sheet, caressed it, and then gently set it back down. The inarticulate sound coming out of Aurélien’s mouth startled Jules. Aurélien raised his head and was desperately trying to say something to his son.
“Don’t try to move,” Jules said. “You’re going to be okay, you know. …”
Aurélien let his head fall back down on the pillow and averted his eyes. All that he’d kept quiet for thirty years, he now wasn’t able to utter.
“Please, Mr. Laverzac. You have to let your father rest.”
A nurse was gently shaking Jules’s shoulder. He regretfully got to his feet and left the room. In the hospital’s parking lot, he ran into Pauline.
“I was waiting for you,” she said. “Bob dropped me off on his way back to Paris. I brought a radio for Aurélien. Do you think that … No, of course not. Oh well. …”
She climbed into the car with Jules.
“The truth is,” she said, “Bob doesn’t want you to be alone too much. … According to him, you shouldn’t be coming here every free second you have. That on top of everything at Fonteyne …”
That Pauline would try to tell him what to do made Jules smile.
“You’re funny, Pauline,” he said.
“I know,” she said. “You’ve told me that a hundred times before.”
She was laughing, beautiful and carefree as always.
“I could use Louis-Marie’s help,” he said. “How long can you guys stick around Fonteyne?”
“For as long as you need us to stay,” she said, suddenly serious.
As soon as they arrived at Fonteyne, Jules headed for Aurélien’s office. He asked Fernande for coffee and a steak, then sat at his father’s desk and began working. Laurène soon joined him to take a look at the paperwork Frédérique hadn’t had time to handle. A few times she put a document under Jules’s nose, but he remained absorbed in his thoughts.
She was getting distressed at him being so distant and silent, and then he suddenly raised his head and asked, “What happened in that dining room before I got there?”
The allusion to the horrible scene froze Laurène for a second, and then she said, “Nothing special. We’d had too much to drink, all of us. Aurélien, he’s always drinking an awful lot …”
Jules was staring at her, waiting for more.
“Jules,” Laurène said, slowly, “were you attracted to that girl?”
“Why?”
“Answer me.”
“I was attracted to her, yes.”
“And you love me?”
He got up and went over to her. Her eyes were filled with tears.
“I know it’s not the ideal time to talk about all of this,” she managed to say.
He took her in his arms lovingly.
“Yes,” he said. “I do love you.”
He seemed sincere, desperate.
“Did you sleep with her this winter?”
“Yes.”
“Often?”
“Once.”
He squeezed her, aware that he was causing her pain.
“Listen, Laurène … I have an awful lot of worries right now, but I understand yours. If that changed something for you, if it’s too much too take …”
She said nothing, and he gathered the courage to continue, “Do you want to leave me, Laurène?”
She was now sobbing. She freed herself from his embrace, took two steps back, and looked him right in the eyes.
“Never,” she said. “I’ll never leave you.”
He had the strange feeling that she’d just found him guilty and forgiven him at the same time. A soft knock on the door interrupted them.
“We’re here to listen to whatever you’ve democratically decided for us to do!” Alex said as he walked into the room.
Jules was in no mood for that kind of humor, and he shot his brother a murderous look. Louis-Marie sat on an armchair.
“Very funny,” Jules muttered.
As Fernande was coming in at that moment, with the meal he’d ordered half an hour earlier, he asked her to tell Lucas to come over right away. Then he began eating, all the while explaining what he’d planned for the next few days. Louis-Marie listened intently, both amused and captivated by his brother’s authority, as Alex sulked. Jules’s decisions and arguments, which he presented one after the other, seemed irrefutable to the others. When it came to Fonteyne, Jules was always on top of his game.
Night had fallen. Jules didn’t take Aurélien’s seat at the dinner table. The family was rallying around him, except for Alexandre. Jules decided not to let things fester, and he took his brother aside after dinner. He explained to him that this was hardly a good time to sulk and pout, and that he was expecting everybody to be as efficient as possible in Aurélien’s absence. In the middle of Jules’s speech, Alexandre had a fit of anger, saying he’d had it up to here being treated like an employee at Fonteyne.
“I’ve had enough of you and Dad’s attitude,” he said. “If you want to know the truth, this entire place is making me sick to my stomach!”
Stunned, Jules took a couple of seconds to reply.
“Are you out of your mind, Alex?” he said. “Do you realize what you’re saying?”
“Yes, I do! What I’m saying is that I’m tired of it all and I’m out of here. You have no need for me, just like you don’t need anybody. And I need some fresh air!”
“You can have some fresh air later. There’s no way you’re leaving. You stay here and calm down, and then you do your work and leave me the hell alone!”
Jules was going too far—he realized that—but he was set on controlling Alexandre. That his brother would choose his father’s hospitalization as the time to shun his responsibilities and try to leave Fonteyne enraged Jules. He was now expressing the contempt he’d had for Alex for a long time. But he was absorbed too much in his own anger, and Alex’s reply completely took him by surprise.
“Either you leave me alone here, Jules, or you can go to hell at the next board meeting. Aurélien won’t be able to vote, and I’m going to vote against you. He shamelessly favored you, but contrary to what you might think, this is not a bad time for me to get out of here.”
Jules had the strong feeling that something irreparable had happened for the second time in a couple of days.
“I understand if you don’t love me,” he admitted with stunning humility, “but how can you not love Fonteyne?”
He was so sincere he was bordering on naïve.
“Fonteyne!” Alex said. “It’s your Fonteyne, yours and Dad’s, not mine. It’s your pride and joy, your El Dorado. It’s the treasure you’ve been enjoying without me for years! You’ve kept me on the sidelines too long, Jules. … Frankly, I don’t give a damn about that right now. This time, for once in your life, you’re the one who’s going to have to back off, or I’m going to make it extremely difficult for you.”
Alexandre’s voice was tired but filled with determination. Unexpectedly, he grazed his brother’s shoulder with his hand before stepping out of the room. Jules watched him go, without a word. Five minutes passed before he decided to move. He went up to his bedroom, where Laurène was waiting. She was still dressed, and she gave him an engaging and enigmatic smile. He sat next to her, trying to make sense of what had just happened downstairs. She didn’t realize to what extent he was distraught and, set on trying to seduce him, she began to slowly take off her blouse. She remained topless for a few moments, feeling awkward and embarrassed. He was watching her, bewildered, thinking how bizarre and awful a turn the evening had taken.
“What does she have that I don’t?” Laurène asked. “She’s a better lover? What do I have to do for you to forget about her?”
It took Jules a little while to realize that she was talking about Frédérique.
“I wasn’t thinking about her,” he said.
But, unfazed, she continued, “I have to shock you? Come up with something different every night?”
As she reached out for him, he snatched her wrist.
“Stop it, Laurène.”
“I don’t know what to do, Jules. It’s always a struggle with you. …”
He was in no mood for another scene. He got up, took her by the waist, lifted her, and dropped her on the bed.
“I hate what you’re doing,” he said between clenched teeth. “I cheated on you, I lied to you, it’s true. Yell at me if you want to, leave me if you need to, but do not behave like that.”
He quickly got undressed, and she tried to take refuge under the blankets. But she didn’t have time, as Jules grabbed the entire bedding and tossed it to the floor.
“You wanted to make love, right?”
“Not this way,” she said, rolling into a ball.
“Not this way?” he said. “It’s the way I want it to be, Laurène. Exactly how I want it.”
When Robert arrived at Fonteyne two days later, he found the house calm and well organized. As soon as he got there, Pauline latched onto him. She was a bit bored, while Louis-Marie was busy with the tasks that Jules was giving him. Dominique had interviewed several nurses before hiring one, a middle-aged woman that she’d seen in town a few times. A small room that no one ever used, contiguous to the library, was set up for the nurse. Aurélien’s bed was brought up to the library.
Jules oversaw the various preparations without intervening. When a wheelchair and other essentials for Aurélien were shipped to the house, Jules was present and looked even more discouraged. He wasn’t speaking to Alexandre anymore, waiting for a departure that wasn’t coming.
In the hospital, Aurélien refused to try to communicate with anyone, even with gestures. But when Robert mentioned the option of rehab in a specialized institution, he received a negative reaction right away. It was a first step. Aurélien was still completely lucid, which made his condition even more difficult to bear. Every day, Jules spent at least one hour at his bedside, alone. Both looked at each other, certain that they knew what the other felt and thought, no matter what. Louis-Marie and Robert never interrupted those moments.
But it was with Robert that Aurélien first tried to speak. He wanted to say something and Robert tried to question him, but he only managed to irritate Aurélien.
“Is it about Fonteyne? The family? You want the notary to come over?”
Robert felt horrible treating his father like a child or like some handicapped old man, which—alas!—is what he’d become. Part of him was evaluating, professionally, Aurélien Laverzac’s condition, his chances of survival still uncertain, without hope of full recovery. But on the other hand, Robert was looking at his father, a man he’d always respected enormously, and whose humiliation stung like a burn.
“Is it about one of us?” Robert asked.
And all of a sudden, Robert understood. He sighed and whispered, “It’s about Jules, of course. …”
Aurélien shut his eyes, satisfied, and Robert felt relieved.
“You’d like to talk about his adoption, is that it?” he said. “With him? With me? But you’re in no condition to tell a story. … Is there anyone who knows the truth about it?”
Robert was treading on thin ice—he knew that—but there was no time to waste.
“I’m going to try to help you, Dad. … No, you wouldn’t be able to write. …”
Aurélien had lifted his left hand, which Robert set back on the blanket.
“I assure you. …”
Moved, he thought of another way.
“Let’s try this,” he said. “I’m going to go through your address book and read the names out loud, okay? And you let me know if I get to the right name. …”
Robert was thinking as he spoke. If Aurélien had decided to shed light on this, he must think that he was nearing the end. The topic had remained taboo for thirty years, and now he felt the need to tell his adopted son the truth before it was too late. Robert thought that his father might die overnight, without being able to tell Jules the secret of his birth. Though uncomfortable, he felt the urge to press the issue.
“There must be some record of this somewhere. … City hall? Some church? The Margaux police department?”
Aurélien blinked many times and his hand fidgeted, and Robert had a flash.
“You were very good friends with the police chief, Officer Delgas back then. …”
His father’s grimace, which was no doubt a smile, indicated to Robert that he had hit the nail.
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll tell Jules to go see Delgas.”
Aurélien relaxed and shut his eyes. After a moment, Robert got up and silently walked out of the room. He felt as though he’d been given an overpowering responsibility. He left the hospital and arrived back at Fonteyne quite late, completely unsure as to what to do next.
Pauline was the first one he ran into.
“So, how is he?” she asked.
“Not better,” he snapped back. “As though you really cared.”
Insulted, Pauline grabbed him by the arm.
“Hey, not you too! Everybody is being so grim around here.”
She smiled and added, “You’re handsome tonight. I always was attracted to you. And you’re aging so well. …”
He looked at her, horrified.
“How can you say things like that, Pauline?”
“Why not? Because Aurélien is in the hospital? Because Louis-Marie is around here somewhere? Chill, Bob. …”
Robert was exhausted, but still he wanted her.
“Pauline,” he whispered, “I wish you didn’t exist.”
“You’d die of boredom!” she said, cheerfully.
He asked himself sincerely whether he hated her.
He left Pauline alone in the entrance hall and went looking for Jules. He found him in the library, sitting at his favorite spot, the ladder’s rung.
“Dad is going to be here tomorrow or the day after,” Robert said. “Are you happy?”
Jules produced an uncharacteristically bitter smile.
“Happy?” he asked. “I’m happy he’s alive, yes. Even in his condition. …”
Robert let his gaze wander across the bookshelves, over the leather spines.
Then he turned to Jules and said, “I had a sort of … not conversation, but exchange with him, just now at the hospital. … He’s afraid he might die, and he’s right. …”
Jules gave his brother an incredulous look. “He’s right?”
“Yes. Listen to me, little bro …”
Robert’s voice was filled with affection.
“I know what he means to you,” he continued. “Much more than to any of us, no doubt. … And so you have to wrap your brain around that, Jules. He’s probably not going to live much longer. He’s at the mercy of too many different things, and his body is worn-out. It’s no use expecting any improvement. As a physician, I hope he goes quickly. …”
Jules, unable to speak, seemed to be drowning in his brother’s words.
“You know him just as well as I do,” Robert continued. “Better than I do, as a matter of fact. … Take him down from his pedestal for one second, and you’ll agree with me that he’s always been authoritarian, demanding, tyrannical … He never showed anyone any pity, including himself. Do you think that such a man can live his life in a wheelchair, being pushed around for little rides on the front lawn? Not being able to speak, drooling … You think he could put up with that?”
Jules, his eyes glued to the floor, shook his head.
“I love and respect him, but he’s always been too demanding. How could he ever accept this humiliation? He can’t even eat by himself! And he’s suffering from incontinence. …”
Jules shivered as he listened to his brother.
“The Aurélien Laverzac we knew just a few days ago, with his lovers, his fits of anger, his great meals, is never going to exist again. All that is a thing of the past. But there’s one thing, one last thing that he still cares about deeply. …”
“Stop that,” Jules urged Robert.
“No. This is really important to him. It’s weighing on him a lot. When the time comes, I’ll tell you who to go see. …”
Robert saw the tears in Jules’s eyes and he was moved.
“Jesus,” he said. “It’s good to see you cry. I always thought you didn’t know how to. …”
He went over to Jules and grabbed him by the shoulders in a clumsy way. Jules’s despair was so real and deep that Robert hugged him.
“Don’t feel alone,” he said. “We’re here for you. As for Fonteyne, you’ve been running things for a long time, right? Everything is going to be okay.”
Jules wiped his nose with his sleeve and Robert smiled. He let go of his brother and quietly left the library. Now by himself, Jules calmed down little by little. Having cried made him feel a bit better. He thought about what Robert said. No, running Fonteyne didn’t scare him, though he felt as if it was a great weight on his shoulders at the moment. On the other hand, he shivered at the thought of learning who his real parents were, even though he’d always been dying to know.
“Aurélien …” he whispered.
He’d loved him so much these past thirty years, devotedly and passionately, that the very idea of his death was unbearable.
He made himself look at the bed, the wheelchair, the bedpan, the blankets, and the bathrobe Fernande had brought up from his room. All of a sudden he missed his childhood in a painful, atrocious way. He’d always needed his father more than he would’ve liked. For many years, he would’ve been lost without Aurélien’s grip on him. He’d always been extremely proud to be his son. Aurélien had been right to force him to bow to his authority at times, as it made him into a man. When Jules balked at the idea of doing his military service in order to remain at Fonteyne, Aurélien had harshly set him straight. He’d adopted the same approach when it came to Jules’s education and then, later, the administration of the estate. Aurélien pushed him to work hard and never lie. He instilled his set of values in him, a high respect for the name Laverzac, enormous ambition when it came to their wine, and an inflexible will to succeed. Jules could stand on his own two feet, Fonteyne had nothing to fear.
The young man left his ladder, at peace with himself. He then thought about Laurène and told himself he’d like to have kids of his own.
Despite Fernande’s protests, they’d all decided not to have dinner in the dining room. They’d come, one by one, to take refuge in the kitchen. Then they’d asked for potato omelets, there, right away. They were like kids, and Fernande had to give in. She improvised a dinner, adding to the omelet some mesclun, as well as foie gras.
Since Robert had warned his brothers that it’d be best to leave Jules alone when he came out of the library, no one said anything to him. Laurène and Pauline made him sit between them.
Without Aurélien, without Frédérique, they felt comfortable together and began to chat freely. Even Alexandre, distant and morose and sitting at the far end of the table, began to relax and participate in the conversation, though he made sure that he never spoke directly to Jules.
“Fernande,” Pauline said. “Did the Laverzac boys eat in the kitchen when they were little?”
That made everyone burst out laughing.
“Of course,” Fernande said, now serious. “Except on Sundays, and on holidays and birthdays. …”
Louis-Marie, amused by those childhood memories, added, “There was Fernande and Clothilde with us, plus a nanny to take care of the little ones. They were never around for very long, though.”
“That’s because Dad kept flirting with them,” Robert said.
“Flirting with them?” Louis-Marie scoffed. “He was trying to get them to sleep with him!”
Jules was chuckling along with his brothers.
Fernande was breaking eggs in a salad bowl. “Girls,” she said with a little laugh, “he did like them. …”
“The worst wasn’t the nannies coming and going,” Robert said. “It was getting home from school with our report cards. …”
Once more the brothers burst out laughing.
“Were you happy,” Pauline asked, “with such a father?”
“Happy enough,” Louis-Marie said. “He wasn’t particularly affectionate, but he was there for us. When it came to important things, he knew how to cut us some slack. And he was always in our corner. I still remember that dentist who wouldn’t anesthetize Jules. Aurélien made quite a scene before we left the office!”
“So,” Pauline said with a crooked smile, “he wanted to be the only one making your lives miserable?”
That made Fernande chuckle.
“He scared the daylights out of us,” Dominique said. “Each time he came over to visit Daddy, we didn’t dare say a word, Laurène and me. Back then, I never would’ve been able to imagine that one day I’d be at the head of his house. …”
Alexandre shot his wife an irritated look but said nothing.
“You guys were like heroes,” Laurène added, “for daring to stand up to him, if only once in a while. …”
Fernande sighed and said, “Still, having to raise four boys by yourself, that’s pretty hard, you know. … And every day you came up with stupid things to bug him about. Especially you, Jules. …”
Those comments were followed by a brief moment of silence, broken by Robert.
“When he said ‘my sons,’ he was really proud. He came to Paris, after I graduated from med school, and he took me to the Tour d’argent, no less. He was proud of me, and of himself.”
Getting more and more nostalgic, they were looking at each other, trying to come up with memories to share.
Without addressing anyone in particular, Alexandre suddenly said, “I remember this kid that Jules liked a lot. A complete failure in school, and from this terrible family to boot! When Dad learned about it …”
“What did he do?” Pauline interrupted, driven by her usual curiosity.
“He pulled Jules out of the school and put him in another!”
“What a monster,” Pauline muttered.
“No, he wasn’t,” Jules said, in a quiet voice. “You’re wrong. He couldn’t stand impressionable people, and friendships between boys exasperated him. He saw it as an excuse for laziness and daydreaming.”
“And for him,” Alexandre said, “daydreaming equaled a loss of money!”
Jules glared at him.
“Me?” Pauline said, “I would’ve run away if I’d been stuck in a family like that.”
“Run away?” Louis-Marie said. “So you’d have the cops on your trail? You’ve got to be kidding.”
Jules turned to Pauline with a grave look.
“You can’t understand,” he said. “Médoc is an impenetrable and incomprehensible world if you weren’t born into it. Having the name Laverzac justified a lot of things that you would consider abusive. What’s certain is that we owe Aurélien for everything we have today, and for who we are. …”
As he said those last words, he stared at Alexandre, who lowered his eyes.
“What’s also certain,” Pauline said to Jules, “is that he made you in his own image.”
Louis-Marie agreed, saying that Jules and Aurélien were exactly alike, with the same qualities and flaws. “And besides that, they had a taste for the same things and the same people.”
“Especially the same women,” Robert blurted out, carelessly. “As soon as you were old enough to care about women, you started to go after the same ones he did. Between the two of you, this region must be filled with …”
He stopped himself, horrified by what he’d been about to say.
Jules smiled and ended the sentence himself, “… filled with bastards?”
A heavy silence followed. But Jules leaned over and tapped his brother’s shoulder.
“Everything’s fine, Doctor,” he said.
There was real affection in Jules’s eyes, and Robert felt closer to his brother than he ever had.
They spent nearly half the night chatting, bringing up memories, trying to bring back the image of a father who’d had such an impact on them and who, everybody knew, they were going to miss.
Aurélien’s arrival at Fonteyne was painful. The nurse, who’d gotten there early that morning, seemed lost in the castle and wasn’t sure who she should take directions from. Aurélien was in a bad way. He looked at no one as he was settled into his bed, making it clear that he wanted to be alone. Laurène kept answering the phone, everyone calling to politely ask how Aurélien was doing.
Jules, shooed away from the library like everybody else, fled to the vineyards, where there were always a thousand things to do. He waited until the end of the afternoon to visit his father. He sat silently at his bedside and remained silent for a while.
Then he said, “You’ve lost some weight. … Everything is going fine around here. Lucas is being efficient. …We’re going to push back the wedding date, of course, to give you time to get better. …”
Aurélien got agitated, and Jules shut his mouth, discouraged. It was so hard for him to talk to his father like this. What he wanted was to hear Aurélien say to him, “Listen, cowboy, I’m the one making decisions around here!” But that would never happen again. And all of Jules’s acts of kindness would be perceived as pity. He was sentenced, just like his father, to immobility and silence.
Lifting his head, the young man’s gaze met his father’s. He saw there, he knew it without a doubt, the immense love Aurélien felt for him. But he didn’t realize that Aurélien was suffocating within himself.
All that I’d like to convey to him right now, the tired old man thought. And there’s nothing I can do about my condition. …
He wanted to remain alive, a while longer at least. Though he knew he wouldn’t be able to control when he’d die. And so he scrutinized Jules as though to engrave him in his mind.
Fonteyne is going to be fine with him at the helm. He’s become stronger than anyone else. Stronger than me, even before I wound up glued to this bed. But he’s still not convinced of that himself. He’s going to have to learn that he can do without anyone else. … He loved it when I was there because he could fool around, knowing I’d pick up the slack if need be. … Not anymore. …
Jules was still holding his father’s calm gaze.
I protected him against himself. Soon he’s going to discover who he is and where he came from. I don’t know if he’s going to be able to forgive me. I made him unyielding by being so tough on him. … He’s also going to understand why I pushed him so hard. I wouldn’t have been able to stand him had he been like his mother. I would’ve preferred to make him unhappy. But he never was unhappy. I had such a huge mission to accomplish with him. I couldn’t accept him lying to me because his mother had lied so many times! I had to fight against his heredity nonstop and it was no easy task. …
Exhausted, Aurélien shut his eyes a moment. Then he opened them again, to see Jules, who seemed to wait, peaceful.
And those eyes of his! God, he’s as beautiful as his mother was. … At first, it was nothing but a good deed, a way to atone for what I’d done. … Later, his curiosity, the way he followed me around everywhere … He was my audience, my pupil. … And today he’s my memory. He was always intent on proving that he could be as good as I was. I was his yardstick of sorts. And then he surpassed me, and now he’s so much better than I ever was. I’d rather not see what’s going to happen next. How much more time before I start hating him? Oh, Jules … you’re watching me. You feel sorry for me. Poor Jules, you’ll find life gloomy when I’m no longer around and you’re stuck with the others by yourself. I’m leaving Fonteyne to you. You have the tools, you have the means to be all that you can be. Fonteyne will exist through you and only you, and that’s why I gave it to you. … Yes, this must be the right time. Now is the time to let go of your hand, just before it crushes me. …
Aurélien, overwhelmed by sadness he thought was silly, wanted to cry. But he was worn out, and he slowly fell asleep. Jules got up quietly, without attempting to imagine his father’s thoughts. He took another glance at him before stepping out of the room.
Aurélien had another attack, as Robert had predicted. One morning, Jules walked into the library to find his father dead. The nurse was sleeping in the adjacent room. She’d left her door open, and Jules could hear her loud breathing. The library’s shutters were closed. It looked like Aurélien had tried to sit up straight and then fallen across his pillows. Hopefully he hadn’t suffered.
Though Jules had been preparing himself for Aurélien’s death for a few days, it took a moment for him to fully comprehend the situation. He finally approached the bed, leaned over his father, grazed his forehead lovingly, then closed his father’ eyes. He didn’t dare walk away, realizing that soon Aurélien would be gone from Fonteyne for good. He took a few deep breaths to hold back his tears. His grief would remain with him for the rest of his life, no need to try to squelch it all at once by crying. As he left the room, he felt the same intolerable pain he’d have experienced watching Fonteyne burn to the ground.
As soon as he crossed the hallway, he felt a little bit better. He then saw Fernande coming out of the kitchen, a breakfast tray in hands. She stopped in her tracks when she saw him, no need for questions. She looked at Jules for a couple of seconds, completely still, then turned on her heels and returned to the kitchen.
Jules didn’t know quite what to do. He went up the stairs slowly and knocked on Robert’s door. He walked in, went straight to the windows to open the shutters. When he turned around, Robert was sitting up in his bed.
“Is it over?” he asked.
“Yes.”
After a brief moment of silence, Robert got up.
“Okay,” he said. “When?”
“I don’t know exactly,” Jules aid. “I just found him. … Want to tell Louis-Marie? I’ll go over to Alex’s house.”
As he headed for the door, Robert said to him, calmly, “You should go see a certain Delgas.”
“Who?”
“Delgas. He used to be the chief of police around here. He lives in a bungalow somewhere on Labarde Road. He should know all about your birth and adoption. …”
Jules nodded, looking tired.
“Yeah … I’ll go see him.”
First he went by Alex and Dominique’s. He gave them the news bluntly. Alex started to say something, but Jules left without listening to him. As far as he was concerned, Alexandre no longer existed.
He struggled to find Delgas’s exact address and then stopped into a phone booth to let him know he was coming over. He finally did come across the small, nondescript bungalow the ex-cop had retired to. Jules couldn’t help hating narrow spaces, and he felt uncomfortable as he stood in front of the house’s ancient gates and rang the bell. Almost immediately, an old man stepped out of the garage next to the house. He came over to open the gates himself, eyed Jules, and shook his hand. Jules figured he was nearly eighty years old.
“You’re Jules Laverzac?” he asked, his voice still strong.
“Yes. …” Jules muttered.
“Come with me.”
Delgas walked into the bungalow, followed by Jules. He must’ve been living alone, as the furniture was sparse. There was a feeling of loneliness in the house.
“Please, sit down,” Delgas said. “Something to drink?”
“No, thank you.”
Jules was sitting there, pale, silent, and so old Delgas decided to speak.
“Why did you want to see me?” he asked.
“Aurélien Laverzac died last night.”
“No!”
The word burst out of Delgas’s mouth.
“My condolences. … Your father was highly respected. He was one hell of a guy. He did a lot for the region. You weren’t around during the heroic era, young man. …”
The old man shook his head, morose all of a sudden. Jules had no idea what he was talking about.
“They’re almost all gone now,” Delgas said. “So sad …”
After a moment lost in his thoughts, the old man looked at Jules again.
“I still don’t know exactly why you came to see me,” he said.
“You must know that Aurélien was my adoptive father?”
Delgas nodded, encouraging Jules to go on talking.
“Concerning the adoption, it seemed as though my father was trying to say that you’d be able to tell me about certain things. He was paralyzed and couldn’t speak. He was able to give me your name, and that was it.”
Delgas was gazing at Jules intently and then said, “Why do you want to know that old story?”
Jules answered without hesitation.
“It’s my right. And Aurélien is the one who made the decision, since he’s the one who sent me to you. And so I want to know.”
Delgas sat back in his armchair and began to roll a cigarette.
“It’s not easy, after all these years …” he began. “He never said a word to you about it? Well, I suppose that’s not important anymore. It’s just that for you … You must be … wait, let me count … about thirty years old, right?”
Delgas stopped speaking and gave the young man sitting in front of him a melancholy look. Then he frowned, as though he’d just thought of something meaningful. Again he studied Jules’s face, before lowering his eyes.
He went back to rolling his cigarette and, reluctantly, continued, “Why is it up to me to tell you about all this? It’s not as though I was really friends with your father. We knew each other well, since I was in charge of the Margaux police department for a while. Okay … Even back then, Aurélien hired a lot of laborers for the harvest. They came from everywhere. You know that. … They were mostly foreigners, not students like nowadays. One year, there was a girl that … We knew her by the name of Agnès. Yes, Agnès …”
He lit his cigarette and took a long drag. Jules was completely still.
“As a matter of fact,” Delgas continued, “she was Hungarian. With a name much too complicated for folks around here to pronounce. You won’t have any trouble finding it.”
Jules shuddered, but the old man paid no attention.
“If memory serves, this woman was extremely beautiful. Impossible to resist. Being beautiful was actually all she had going for her, and she knew that full well. She was cheerful, sly as a fox, and all the men fell for her. She laughed all the time. Not the sharpest tool in the shed, but carefree, provocative, haunting … Aurélien Laverzac was like everybody else—he fell in love with her. At that time, Mrs. Laverzac was still alive. She was a stickler for principles, and your father had to be careful. He had a bit of a reputation for liking women, but he was head over heels in love with that girl. He saw Agnès here and there, as much as he could … But he wasn’t the only one! You know how things are during the harvest. …”
With that recollection, Delgas stopped talking. The trace of a smile appeared on his lips. He looked at Jules and, suddenly in a hurry to finish his story, began to speak faster, letting his cigarette go out.
“At the end of the fall, she left. Everybody sighed with relief, as she’d made so many men crazy, and there had been all kinds of fights and hairy situations. … It was the year after that things turned tragic. Agnès came back in September, and she had a baby with her! Yes, a newborn that she showed everybody, laughing …”
Jules became deathly pale, but Delgas was no longer looking at him.
“That kid, she was always carrying him on her back, in a shawl that she tied around her neck. Women around here don’t do that. … And so for a lot of men, seeing that little baby dangling from that piece of cloth made them very nervous and guilty. …”
Delgas stopped and asked, “Should I go on?”
“Please,” Jules said.
“Your father may have been one heck of a ladies’ man, but he was also a good man, a man of integrity. … But that Agnès, she really was going too far. Who knew who the baby’s father was? Not even Agnès probably. Only, she wanted to find a father, at any cost. She decided to go after the biggest fish in the pond and tried to make Aurélien assume responsibility for her baby. Just like that! He hesitated, and he was right. … He was troubled by the whole thing, and he didn’t trust her. … And while he was mulling things over, trying to come up with a solution that would be acceptable to everyone involved, that nutcase was trying to make other men accept paternity. Just in case. … She wanted her boy to have a bright future, and she was ready to do anything for someone to take him. Since everyone knows about everything in the region, Aurélien eventually learned that she was trying to pawn the kid off on anyone who would take him, and that she was telling all the men the same story. He got extremely angry and kicked her off his property right away.”
Delgas stopped himself once again as he thought how the young man sitting in his living room had been that baby, offered here and there by a mother who didn’t want him, rejected by a bunch of men who may or may not have been his father. …
“I’m listening, Mr. Delgas,” Jules said.
Delgas was impressed by Jules’s fortitude, and so he decided to tell him everything.
“Yes,” he said, “you want to know the rest. I understand. … Unfortunately, the rest is even worse. But it will make clear to you how come I know so much about this story. Agnès … Well, one day Agnès was found dead.”
Jules bit his lower lip but didn’t say anything.
The old man continued, “No one ever figured out what exactly happened. Nor why nor how. Did she try to blackmail someone and he decided to kill her? Did one of her lovers get scared? Murder? Suicide? Who knows … maybe just some stupid accident. That was the conclusion that the authorities came to, anyway.”
“What did she die of?”
“She fell in the shack she was squatting in and cracked her head on a stone bench. The case was quickly closed. There no were clues, no witnesses, and way too many possible suspects! The investigation was over in no time. She was just some poor foreigner … but the baby had to be dealt with. He was found howling, starving, next to his mother’s body. …”
Jules felt as though he was going to vomit but managed to control himself.
“And Aurélien Laverzac decided to adopt the child,” the old cop said. “At all levels the paperwork was expedited. Your father knew people in high places, and everybody appreciated his gesture. The death had happened on his land, he took on the responsibility without admitting to anything. As for the girl, Agnès, she had no family, no links to anyone, and it was like she had no past, either. The usual investigation came up empty. Her documents were in order, but they only gave us her marital status. No one ever heard from the Hungarian authorities about her case. She was buried in Bordeaux, as Margaux was too close. … You’ll be able to find her grave there. … You now know as much as I do. …”
Jules swallowed hard and took out his pack of cigarettes. But all he did was fiddle with it, nervously.
“The entire Médoc region must’ve heard about the scandal, right?” he muttered.
Weary, Delgas shook his head.
“Your father did everything he could to prevent that. There was no scandal per se. A bit of gossip, of course. Your father was a powerful man and he knew what he wanted. The entire affair was completely hushed up. Besides, what was it, really? An accident and an orphan, that’s it. Most people probably assumed that this woman simply went back to where she came from, along with her child. Just some foreigner we’d never see again around here. Again, there was some gossip about it all, but then people got tired of that story and found something else to talk about. As for the child … I mean, you! Well, you arrived at Fonteyne after a few weeks, after the adoption was made legal. Those who put two and two together mostly kept it to themselves. This is the first time anyone’s talked to me about it in thirty years. And, of course, no one ever dared to bring up the topic in Aurélien Laverzac’s presence! Not even his wife. And, with time, people forgot all about it. …”
Tired from having talked so much, Delgas let out a long sigh.
“Things are different in your case,” he said, “it goes without saying. … And so I’m going to tell you something else. … As far as I can remember, you look a lot like she did.”
Jules took a deep breath and asked, “In your opinion, Mr. Delgas, was it an accident or a murder?”
The ex-cop looked Jules straight in the eyes and said, “The case was closed, young man. It was an accident. Ac-ci-dent.”
He slowly got to his feet and stared at Jules long and hard.
“You now know the truth,” he said. “You’re handling it well. I don’t feel sorry for you because your mother got what she wanted: a good future for her son. Focus on that and don’t go unearthing old stories. You wouldn’t gain anything by it. Nothing. You understand what I’m saying to you? You’re part of their world.”
Everything had obviously been said, and Jules remained quiet. He held Delgas’s gaze for a moment and then stood up. He gave the old cop a nod filled with gratitude, then he left the house without turning back. He climbed into the Mercedes, drove a few miles, and then stopped on the side of a small road he knew well. He got out of the car and started to walk, briskly, hands in pockets. He almost felt relieved, in spite of Delgas’s painful revelation.
Jules didn’t really care what Aurélien had done; what he’d most feared was learning that he was someone else’s son. Since there was a chance, if only small, that Aurélien was his father, Jules could breathe more easily. He finally came to a stop, leaned against a tree, and lit a cigarette.
What saddened him was the fact that it was impossible for him to now go to Fonteyne, knock on the office door, walk in without waiting for an answer, and sit in front of Aurélien to thank him. From now on, he’d sit in the boss’s chair for good. He smiled at the idea. Then he slowly walked back to the car. Aurélien was dead. He was going to have to deal with the formalities, the burial, people, work. He was going to get rid of that pathetic Alex. He was going to have children with Laurène. … And there was no room in Jules Laverzac’s life to think about this Agnès.
Mr. Varin was done reading. Absentmindedly, he ran a hand on top of the pile of documents in front of him.
“Any questions, gentlemen?” he asked.
He looked at them all, one after the other. Jules remained attentive but hadn’t seemed surprised, as he knew full well that Fonteyne was his.
Robert and Louis-Marie had politely listened to the notary and showed no trace of surprise, either.
Alexandre, looking grim, had had his eyes riveted on Jules the entire time. He finally turned to the notary and, in a dull voice, asked, “And I suppose that this will is indisputable?”
“Of course. I wrote it myself with your father last year. It’s been duly registered. And everything has been ratified by the tribunal, according to custom and the law.”
Silence fell on the room once again. Pauline gave Alexandre a stunned look. Dominique, a bit embarrassed, put a hand on her husband’s arm.
“Any more questions?” Mr. Varin asked.
The question was followed by another moment of silence, and then Louis-Marie got up and everybody else followed suit. They left the notary’s office and went to their respective cars in the parking lot. They drove away, one after the other, in the direction of Fonteyne.
As soon as she was in the car, Pauline started to pounce on Louis-Marie.
“If I understand correctly,” she said, “he basically left him everything? The castle, the vineyards, the installations, everything!”
“Of course he did,” Louis-Marie said, calmly. “You don’t split up an agricultural operation that size. And the only one that can administer Fonteyne and make it prosper is Jules!”
“So,” insisted an outraged-looking Pauline, “Jules is Fonteyne and that’s that?”
“Yes! I mean, it’s still our home. Nothing much has changed. Before, when we went to Fonteyne, we were at Dad’s. Now it’s Jules in charge there. You do need someone to own the place, to run it. But Fonteyne equals Laverzac, and we’re Laverzacs too, you know. …”
“And so,” Pauline said, “Aurélien disowned his real sons for the sake of his bastard.”
Louis-Marie slammed on the brakes, which sent Pauline against the dashboard.
“Don’t you ever say that again!” he screamed.
He got ahold of himself quickly and put the car back in gear.
“And put on your seat belt. … Dad didn’t disown us at all. He couldn’t have. But he went around the law as much as he could, the old fox that he was. Jules has all the power and all the rights, but he has to pay us dividends and we have stocks in the company. I have complete confidence in Jules. He’s never going to sell anything and, frankly, God knows what the rest of us would do if we were in charge of the estate. … Did you see Alex’s reaction? If what he wants is to go to Mazion, he’s going to wind up there so fast his head is going to spin if he keeps this up with Jules.”
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.