“By burning twenty-euro bills,” came a voice from the doorway. Sophie Bellegarde greeted both women with kisses, although Pippa, who had never gotten used to the traditional gesture, bobbed the wrong way and barely avoided knocking heads. The woman who smiled at her guests was so different from the timid creature of six months ago that Katherine was still getting used to her. As the successor to her late father’s Paris firm, and with his instinct for deal making, she radiated confidence. And as the fiancée of Yves, she had found her proper place in Reigny-sur-Canne at last. Even Madame Pomfort, the stern arbiter of Reigny’s social order, approved. Sophie had put on weight, Katherine noticed, which was a good thing, since she had been unappealingly waiflike before, and she now sported a sophisticated haircut and bright lipstick.
“The guests are freshening up and Madame Caron is giving them espresso and madeleines in the kitchen. After that, they’ll be ready to go into Avallon. I can’t thank you enough, Katherine, for helping out.” Sophie always spoke English to Katherine, and her language skills were impeccable. “Next spring, I shall have figured out a permanent solution, but you are an angel.”
“It will be pleasant to meet some Americans. Not that I’m not happy in Reigny,” Katherine added quickly.
“I understand,” Sophie said. “If I had moved to Cleveland, let’s say, I’m sure I’d be lonesome for a bit of Burgundy.”
Cleveland, Katherine thought. Yves must have been complaining about his former girlfriend’s habit of comparing all things French against the high standards of her own American hometown.
“How is Adele?” she said. “I see her so rarely in this cold weather. She isn’t walking, or at least not when I’m being dragged around by my two unruly beasts.”
“She doesn’t get out much, I’m afraid. Without my father’s dog to make walks necessary, she stays in her sitting room a lot. Come over and visit, please.” Sophie undoubtedly felt pulled in several directions now that she was effectively the head of the household, the owner of her late father’s Paris business, and the fiancée of a man who needed a great deal of attention.
The medieval hall began to echo with excited voices and Sophie handed over the car keys before heading out, with Katherine and Pippa in her wake. She clapped her hands to get the attention of a small group of older people who were milling around putting on coats and hats and winding long scarves around their necks. In excellent English, she introduced Katherine as a prominent American artist who would be giving them a personal introduction to the lovely town of Avallon. “You are fortunate, ladies and gentlemen. Not only is Katherine well known as a painter”—Katherine thought that was a wildly overstated description of her situation after one exhibition in Burgundy—“but her husband is a famous rock-and-roll musician currently on tour in the United States.” Another gross overstatement, Katherine observed silently, and one she’d probably have to back away from before this day was over. For now, she smiled modestly at the little cries of enthusiasm and jingled the car keys in the air. “And now,” Sophie finished, “the van is ready. I hope you enjoy the balance of your visit to Burgundy. Au revoir and bon voyage.”
In the courtyard, Katherine asked them to introduce themselves as they boarded. Mr. and Mrs. Harris from Pittsburgh, Ronnie and Marge from Houston, Della from “just about everywhere, I was in the army,” and Catheryn from California.
“Lovely, another Katherine,” Pippa said as she climbed into the front passenger seat and took her camera strap from around her neck.
“Spelled strangely, though. Call me Cat,” the sixtyish woman said. “Everyone does.”
“I’m Pippa Hathaway. I’m a Brit.” She thrust a long arm back between the front seats to shake hands. “I’m currently writing a book about a murder in Reigny-sur-Canne.”
Instantly, she had everyone’s attention. “There was a murder here? Was it recent?” someone said. Katherine shot Pippa a look and the young writer hesitated.
“Well, yes and no, I mean, what I’m writing is fiction, you know? I’m a mystery writer.” Her pleasure was slightly diminished when she had to admit to her audience that she wasn’t quite published, so, no, they probably hadn’t heard of her, well, undoubtedly hadn’t. Yet.
The spotlight dimmed and Cat, the single woman traveler who had been to France before, stepped into the silence. “What’s on the schedule for our visit to Avallon? Is it quiet in the winter, unlike Paris?”
Safely out of Reigny’s narrow streets, Katherine was able to turn her attention to the group and begin talking about the market town. “No quieter in December than any other time of year. Avallon was a medieval town, a busy place by the twelfth century, although there are hints of Roman occupiers long before that. The old church supposedly contains remnants of its eleventh-century beginnings. If the weather were more hospitable, you could prowl the streets and see the old fortifications. But today, I think, is an inside day.”
“You can say that again,” said Ronnie from Houston, a small man with a permanently sunburned face and impressively large dentures.
His wife giggled. “Ronnie’s always cold unless he’s on a fishing boat in the Gulf of Mexico.”
“I told her coming to France in the dead of winter didn’t make a bit of sense, but you know women. Always have the last word. Say, what’s this about your husband being a rocker?”
Katherine was torn. Michael was beginning a tour in a few months. Would he and Betty Lou be going to Houston? Should she try to promote ticket sales? Whatever she might have said was forgotten as the van left the cultivated fields behind and entered Avallon and her other passengers began to pepper her with questions. “Bellegarde’s not the only castle around here, right? I think I saw a bigger one in a travel book.”
“I think you might mean Chastellux,” Katherine said, slowing down as she neared the center of town where the traffic was dense. “It’s a gorgeous property and, like Bellegarde, the owner is dedicated to restoring it.” She didn’t add that Sophie had no intention of adding a rival castle to the tour schedule.
Her destination was a closed-in, cobbled street with stingy parking places carved out of the space between the narrow sidewalk and the road. Katherine explained that she would walk with them to a few shops, then they would all go to the Musée du Costume, the entrance to which was behind the courtyard wall next to them. Mr. Harris, an older man who hadn’t said a word during the trip, made a rumbling sound that might have been an objection to the museum visit, but Mrs. Harris was firm in her approval and said so. The other women were too, and Ronnie wasn’t about to swim against the tide. Instead he asked if they could visit a bakery, a patisserie, he corrected himself. He’d love a croissant.
“Definitely. And you may see some other pastries that tempt you beyond the basic croissant—perhaps a penguin.”
With that as a teaser, Katherine was able to get them moving, and, with umbrellas raised and sneakers squelching through what had become a steady downpour, Katherine led her troops onto the street of shops.
The chocolatier’s shop was a little jewel box and smelled wonderful. Katherine’s mouth watered. Next to her five o’clock glass of wine, there wasn’t anything she looked forward to as much as French chocolate. Many of the boxes were wrapped in shiny gold paper or deep blue paper with wide silver bows for Christmas giving. Clear plastic boxes held perfect little rows of chocolates shaped like snails, and hard candies were offered in sparkling transparent cellophane wrappers, decorated with silver and gold streamers.
The ceiling lights splayed cleverly on all this shiny material and on a three-foot pyramid of blue boxes on the countertop behind which the store’s owner stood, rubbing his hands together as the small crowd of tourists filed into his shop. It was a quiet day and his regular customers had not begun their own holiday shopping. The Bellegarde tour looked likely to fill a small hole in his retail budget, and he nodded his thanks to Katherine, whom he knew by sight if not by name. Katherine came in rarely, fancy chocolate being beyond her regular budget. But Michael had a weakness for the chocolate caramel molded snails, a specialty of this candy maker and, as she explained to her charges, a popular symbol of Burgundy.
“Oh, that’s it,” Mr. Harris said. “I told my wife I’d been seeing snails everywhere from the bakery to the cheese place. Remember, honey?”
His wife didn’t respond. She didn’t even appear to have heard him. Her attention was focused on a display of square chocolate tiles with what appeared to be minute paintings of flowers on their tops. “Stencils?” she said, squinting into the case.
“Ah, no, Madame,” the salesperson said. “These are so ingenious, non? Little sheets that I must lay delicately onto the chocolate when it is not so hot but not completely cooled. Très délicat, you understand?”
Twenty minutes later, the small group swept out of the shop, buzzing about their purchases and the people back home who would receive authentic French treats for Christmas.
After sniffing the chocolate atmosphere, Katherine wasn’t in the mood for sausages or pâté or the ham that the charcuterie case at the butcher shop displayed, but she ushered the Americans into the small store because she had a feeling they would be tongue-tied without a translator. They had been fine in the chocolatier’s, mostly because he spoke charmingly accented English, but partly because the displays made it easy to point to little boxes while waving their credit cards and smiling.
Monsieur Sabine was not happy to see the small crowd of foreigners, doubtless understanding that the most they’d purchase would be bits they could snack on later since they didn’t, presumably, have kitchens at their disposal with which to cook his stuffed pork roasts and elegant cuts of beef. His customary smile was forced and he merely nodded at Katherine as he said, “Bonjour, Madame” and wiped his hands on his spotless apron. Perhaps he had a cold. He didn’t look well, pale with rheumy eyes.
The tourists had questions and asked Katherine to explain everything from the contents of the sausages to the origins of the ham. They wanted to know what was special and when Katherine translated, the butcher pointed to a delicate pink, rolled roast that had pride of place in the glass case and pronounced it “feuilleté au lapin et piece de bœuf.”
“I think that means rabbit rolled inside beef,” Katherine said, laughing. “It sounds more elegant in French, but I assure you it will be fantastic if it comes from Monsieur’s charcuterie.”
For a few minutes, Katherine indulged them. But when a stout woman carrying a woven basket entered and signaled her impatience, and the shop owner began looking nervously from the real shopper to Katherine and back, she suggested they head back to the museum. One of the men insisted on buying some ham slices and the woman with the same name as Katherine’s pointed at a luscious pâté and ordered “cent grams” before Katherine could ask if she really meant to buy such a large slab. The store owner wrapped up the purchases hurriedly, gave them to the buyers without a smile, and seemed relieved when the last of the group passed through the narrow door and onto the street.
“He didn’t seem happy for the business,” Cat said to Katherine, tucking her package into the tote bag she had slung over her shoulder.
“I noticed his wife wasn’t there. He was probably feeling overwhelmed. When the two of them are in the shop, it’s a friendly place. He teases her and she laughs and shakes her head as she measures out the meats.”
“The pâté looked and smelled too good to pass up. I expect I’ll gorge myself on it in my hotel room tonight, assuming the traffic into Paris isn’t too bad. I’ve tried my hand at making it but mine tastes alarmingly like meatloaf.” Cat laughed.
Nibbling cone-shaped “penguin” cakes covered with black and white icing that suggested their name, the tourists made their way back to the van, all except Cat, who had promised to be right along. Her French was better than the others’ and she was determined to find out how real pâtés were made. “I’m sure I can get tips from the butcher, even if he is a little snappish.”
“I think it’s his wife who makes it, but go ahead and ask. He’ll be flattered,” Katherine said.
The rain had tapered off and Katherine instructed everyone to leave their wet umbrellas in the van. “I won’t spoil the surprise of this hidden gem. The curator speaks not a word of English, so I’ll translate what you don’t understand. But it’s really the objects themselves that are the story, that and the fact that Madame Roussel is at least ninety years old and has collected and maintained this treasure trove with the help of her daughters for decades. Wait ’til you see what she has to show us.”
Katherine rang the bell. The visitors heard the sound of locks being undone, one after the other, and then the tall wooden door swung open and a woman barely five feet tall stood beaming at them, her white hair gathered loosely into a bun that made her seem at least an inch taller than she was.
“Entrez, entrez, mesdames et monsieurs,” she called cheerfully in a thin, sweet voice, bobbing her head and gesturing with one arm. The hall they crowded into was so small that the visitors hardly had room to turn around. The miniscule floor space was hemmed in by chunky nineteenth-century chairs, and the curator, with repeated cries of “Excusez-moi, s’il vous plaît,” darted around the space, squeezing herself behind a rickety table where she dispensed hand-stamped tickets in return for a few euros each. Having accomplished that, she set about fixing all the locks again.
“Ladies and gentlemen, please meet Madame Roussel. Madame, we expect one more person, who should be coming in a moment,” Katherine said. Laughing gaily, the woman undid her work at the door, clapped her hands together, and began her explanation of the collection in rapid-fire French that Katherine tried gamely to keep up with. Fifty years of collecting, mostly French but all European, silks and brocades not made anymore, don’t overlook the furniture, and the objects in the glass cases.…
She paused for breath and looked her question at Katherine, who said, “I don’t know what has kept our other guest. Perhaps you could take these people up to the next floor and I’ll keep watch at the door?”
“Pas possible, Madame,” the curator said, shrugging her shoulders. She couldn’t leave the front door unlocked, she never did that.
Just then, there was a knock, and to Katherine’s relief, Cat entered, shaking her umbrella off in the doorway without seeing Madame’s distressed expression at the puddle it threatened in her hallway. Order finally restored, the curator tended to her locks, waved her arms over her head like a soldier leading a charge, and headed up steep stairs at the end of the dark hallway, pointing out objects on the walls and in the cases at every step.
“Did you say she collected all this herself?” Mrs. Harris said. “It’s unbelievable. Look—an ebony fan, and those blue kidskin gloves, and look at that silk mask. I wonder what it was for?”
Katherine was already stammering as she tried to translate the women’s questions and Madame’s answers, which were far too detailed for her to follow exactly. When the group reached the first room on the premier étage, which in France meant the second floor, there were gasps of delight. A salon, its tall windows covered in heavy red velvet drapes, lit with a chandelier that dripped crystals, and decorated with ornate furniture, was the backdrop for seven or eight mannequins posed languidly on chairs, leaning against the mantel, and standing with arms delicately raised to show off their evening wear. “The time between the world wars,” Madame explained in French. Twinkling at the group and standing on tiptoe, she sang out, “Vive les américains,” and clasped her hands over her heart before turning to Katherine and beginning a rapid-fire explanation of why Americans would always be heroes to her after the Second World War. The tour group caught on and accepted the compliments as their due, Mr. Harris even bowing slightly.
GI’s with their chocolate bars and chewing gum probably had no idea of the impact they were making in 1945, Katherine thought, but the unadulterated happiness on Mme Roussel’s face was genuine, and touching. Vive les GI’s, Katherine thought.
Checking her watch, she realized this museum visit was going to take longer than Sophie’s schedule allowed. It would be straight to the train station for most of them, although Cat would be transported back to Bellegarde, where she had left her car.
The men in the group brought up the rear as the tour progressed and spent their time in murmured conversation about the American stock market. The women were completely taken by the silver-backed hairbrushes and spider-seamed stockings, the silhouette cutouts of hoop-skirted dancers, and the tableaus in each room.
Katherine had stopped to look at a delicate pair of earrings in a case opposite the final tableau in a room on the museum’s top floor and didn’t hear the first sounds that signaled something out of place. It sounded like more exclamations of pleasure. But when Madame began screaming in her high-pitched voice, and Mrs. Harris started saying, “Oh lord, oh lord, oh lord,” Katherine spun around and pushed to the velvet rope that cordoned off the display.
Madame was holding on to the rope’s stanchion, and turned to give Katherine a wild stare. Her face was a pale greenish gray and she looked like she was going to faint, so Katherine grabbed her in a hug. The woman turned and buried herself in Katherine’s arms, beginning to sob.
Mr. Harris and Ronnie had both caught up, the stock market forgotten as their wives kept moaning.
“What the hell?” Ronnie said, trying to see what was causing the upset.
“Probably a rat,” Mr. Harris whispered in Katherine’s ear as he moved up next to her at the entrance to the room.
But it wasn’t. By this time, Katherine had picked out the reason for the women’s horror. Draped along the chaise longue at the center of the room, one arm over the back of the sofa and another resting on the floor, was a woman in costume. The costume, Katherine noted with one part of her brain, wasn’t fitting her as well as their outfits did the rest of the mannequins. And no wonder. It was no blandly smiling figurine that looked glassily out at the visitors. It was a middle-aged woman and she was very, very dead.