One Night at the Château

Chapter 7

7

Lismay

1985

On the last day of September, Lismay and Piers got ready to set off from Fulham. Lismay’s Mini Metro was packed so full she could hardly see out of the back window. Piers was following in the MG, for he would be heading back again in two weeks. A removal van was taking the furniture, though most of it would be lost inside their new abode. Small though it might be by chateau standards, it was cavernous compared to their little terraced house.

‘I might as well keep my desk here until I quit work,’ Piers said while they were packing. ‘And our dining table is way too small, though it might do in the kitchen.’

In the end, they took their spare bed, a couple of sofas, several armchairs and Lismay’s dressing table.

‘It hardly seems worth the cost of the van,’ said Lismay. ‘But it will be nice to bring a bit of England with us.’

She tried to swallow down the panic she was feeling at leaving the place they’d called home for over ten years. It had been the scene of so many jolly evenings: summer barbecues with Piers scorching sausages in the garden; Christmas drinks when the whole house filled with the scent of cloves and cinnamon from the mulled wine steaming on the stove. And Lismay loved her kitchen, which was more than just a place to cook. She’d sit at the table writing letters, or curl up in the armchair while she was on the phone. Would the chateau ever be as cosy and comforting?

It would be different, she told herself. And they weren’t abandoning the house altogether. Piers would still be here half the time, and Lismay had suggested a lodger, to give them a bit of extra cash towards the mortgage which they’d extended to cover the renovations, meaning they could do everything that needed doing straight away instead of waiting until they could afford it.

‘You have to borrow money to make money,’ Piers said when Lismay panicked at the thought of how much debt they would be in. ‘We’ll soon be able to pay it off.’

He’d found a young lad at work who had just started as an office junior and was looking for digs. He would keep an eye on the house while they were away, and he seemed reasonably sensible, even if Piers had kept him up drinking the first night he’d arrived and Lismay had found them making bacon sandwiches at two o’clock in the morning.

It was time to leave for the ferry. Just as she was about to clamber into the car, a Volvo came around the corner, pulled into the kerb, and out jumped Jeanne and Dougie, Connie and Archie, all still in their night things.

‘We couldn’t not see you off!’ laughed Jeanne, throwing herself into Lismay’s arms.

‘This is true friendship.’ Lismay hugged Jeanne tight. ‘I wouldn’t get up this early for anyone.’

She was trying not to cry. What was she doing, leaving her home and her friends behind? And her god-daughter. She looked at Connie, in her pink gingham pyjamas and a pair of red wellies, prancing about on the pavement in excitement. She scooped her up in her arms, realising she was almost too big to pick up these days. She gazed into the little girl’s grey eyes and her heart swelled with love.

‘You’ll come and see me at the chateau?’

‘Is it like a proper castle?’

‘It’s got turrets. Like pepper pots. Which means the rooms are round. A bit like Rapunzel’s.’

‘Can I sleep in one of them?’

‘You definitely can.’ She kissed her on the top of her head, breathing in Johnson’s Baby Shampoo and Marmite and Persil, wondering if that flicker of regret would ever not be present when she held someone else’s child. She popped her down, blinking back a tear.

This was it. This was the moment when she turned away from what might have been and committed herself to their new life. She was saying goodbye not just to their house, but to any chance she had of being a mother. Jeanne looked at her. Her friend knew exactly what she was thinking. She knew her so well.

‘We’ll see you at Christmas,’ said Jeanne brightly. ‘It’s not all that far away. You’ll probably see more of us there than you do here.’

Lismay knew that was unlikely. Here, they saw each other three or four times a week, but she appreciated Jeanne’s attempts to reassure her. They’d had endless conversations about the wisdom of buying the chateau over the past few months. At first, Jeanne had worried it was reckless, and that it was Piers’s fantasy, not Lismay’s, especially as she would be the one doing all the hard work.

‘I know how carried away Piers gets, and how persuasive he can be.’

But Lismay was adamant they were doing the right thing, and that she hadn’t been forced into it.

‘I can’t wait to bring it back to life. It’s going to be like having the most enormous doll’s house to play with.’

‘It’s my idea of hell, wrangling with French builders.’ Jeanne had had enough experience over the past few years, doing up her mother’s house. ‘But you’ll have them eating out of your hand in no time, I’m sure.’ She gave Lismay a list of the tradesmen she’d used, and pointed out all their shortcomings. Which ones vanished in the middle of a job, which ones drank on the job, which ones tried to diddle you on price. ‘Whatever you want doing, they’ll all know someone who can help, but they’re all on the take, so watch out and negotiate hard. And always drop Madame Quelle Horreur’s name. She’s related to everyone and they’re all terrified of her. She’ll be your biggest ally.’

They had mostly discussed practicalities. But underlying their conversations was the unspoken truth. The chateau was going to be filling a very big void in Lismay’s life. Would it be enough?

‘Darling, we need to get a move on or we’ll miss the ferry.’

Piers nodded his head towards her car. Lismay jumped behind the wheel. It was the first time she had driven through France by herself, but Piers would be behind her. The map was spread out on the front seat, but she thought she could remember the route. As she started the engine, she thought that although life had dealt them a bad hand, they were going to put two fingers up to the fates and turn their luck around.

Less than twenty-four hours later, she turned into the gateway of the chateau and felt her hands sweating slightly on the wheel. What if she rounded the corner and felt her heart sink? What if it was nothing like she remembered? What if it was forbidding? Unwelcoming? Damp and gloomy? What if they’d been so thrown by Piers’s diagnosis that they’d completely missed some obvious reason for the chateau being such a bargain? Had they, the foolish English couple, bought a pig in a poke which they’d be saddled with for ever, because no one would be mad enough to buy it off them?

But as soon as she saw it, her heart lifted. If anything, it was more beautiful in the September sun than it had been in spring. Everything seemed to be turning to gold – the honeyed stone of the facade and the light pouring onto the glittering glass of the windows. It was twenty-four-carat perfection, and she gave a sigh as soft as the wind tousling the tops of the trees.

She pulled up outside the front door, and heard Piers frantically tooting his horn in excitement behind her. She jumped out of the car, grabbing the heavy bunch of keys they’d picked up from Yvette on their way through Barles. Piers jumped out too and ran to her side, and together they climbed the left-hand set of stone steps onto the balustrade and stood in front of the vast oak door, with its lion’s head for a knocker.

‘What if there’s bats?’ whispered Lismay. ‘Or squatters?’ She suddenly imagined a band of drunken tramps bundled up by the fire in the drawing room, burning the shutters.

‘Then we get rid of them. Go on, open it.’

She slid the huge wrought-iron key into the lock, turned it and pushed the door open.

Their footsteps rang out on the tiled floor as they walked in. It was as if every room had been waiting for their arrival. There seemed to be a whispering in the air, but it was just the autumn breeze ushering in a handful of dead leaves behind them. How many people had walked over this threshold before them? How many people had made their way down the sweeping stairs, to welcome a guest, to join a throng of partygoers, to seek out a servant to do their bidding?

Lismay thought of Pauline, Napoleon’s sister, rumoured to have had this as a retreat, and wondered if the rumours were true, or if every other chateau in France made this claim, rather like King Charles II taking refuge in every grand house in England. She felt a lump in her throat as she walked over and put her hand on the newel post at the bottom of the stairs. This was hers. Theirs. She looked up at the window at the top of the stairs, to the pale blue sky, a special blue with a depth you never got in London. Celestial blue, she thought, and imagined velvet curtains that colour hanging at the window of the master bedroom.

She jumped as Piers gave a roar of joy, grabbing her and waltzing her around and around until she felt dizzy.

‘It’s ours. We own a chateau, Lismay. Look at it. It’s been waiting for us.’

‘I know.’ She was half laughing, half crying with the madness of it.

‘Wait there.’ He ran outside, then rushed back in again holding a bottle of champagne and two glasses. ‘We need a toast,’ he said, twisting off the wire cap, then easing out the cork. Lismay held the glasses with trembling hands as he filled them with bubbles then passed her one. ‘To you, my chatelaine. You are going to make this a wonderful place to be. I know it.’

‘Chatelaine.’ She smiled at the word. It had a beautiful rhythm to it. For a moment she thought about all the other women who had been in charge here. What were their stories? she wondered. Who had they entertained? What plans had been made under this roof? Had there been assignations? Introductions? A house like this held power within its walls. And no doubt it had been the women who had taken control, just as she was now, pulling Piers towards her by the lapel of his jacket and putting her champagne-soaked lips on his.

They kissed for a moment, in the middle of the hall, and Lismay shut her eyes, swept away by the thrill of it all. Then Piers broke away, disentangling himself from her embrace.

‘Better get everything in before it gets dark,’ he said, and she frowned. But she didn’t say anything. Just watched as he headed for the door and disappeared through it. She felt the temperature in the hallway drop a little, and shivered. She took a sip of champagne but it tasted bitter. She set it down on the stone of the staircase, sighed, and followed him outside.

It didn’t take long to empty the cars. Lismay unwrapped their crockery and laid it out on the shelves in the kitchen while Piers carried their suitcases upstairs. As the day faded into dusk, she switched on the lights in the hall and the kitchen, but half of the bulbs were dead, so they crept about in the shadows, their footsteps echoing in the emptiness. It felt a little bit spooky. They had a long way to go to make this place welcoming. But there were so many wonderful things to build on. The grandeur of the staircase. The magnificent stone fireplace in the drawing room. The ornate moulding on the panels in the bedrooms. Already she could imagine pale cream paint and swags of chintz everywhere. Her fingers began to itch with excitement. She began to scribble in the notebook she’d bought specially from WHSmith. It was already half filled with lists.

By eight o’clock, the removal van hadn’t arrived. As the telephone wasn’t connected yet, there was no way for Ray the driver to get in contact with them.

‘Maybe he’s broken down,’ said Piers. ‘Or decided to stop for another night. Those vans are pretty slow.’

‘But where are we going to sleep? He’s got the bed.’

‘We’ll just have to camp in the living room. We’ll light a fire.’

Lismay had packed a small box of provisions to tide them over, but when she went to heat up some soup she couldn’t work out how to light the cooker. It was enormous, a big black Lacanche range with brass knobs, a wonderful feat of engineering – if only you knew how to coax it into life. It stood obstinately in the old fireplace, not giving anything away as she lifted up lids and opened doors looking for clues.

‘There’ll be a man,’ Piers reassured her. ‘We’ll ask Madame Quelle Horreur tomorrow.’

They had to make do with cheese sandwiches, Jaffa cakes and satsumas for supper. Then Lismay made them a nest from the bedding she’d brought in the car, hoping the cold wouldn’t seep up through the duvet they were using for a mattress. Piers found some logs outside the back door, and soon they were crackling away in the grate. Lismay lit some candles and they sat in the middle of a pile of eiderdowns and poured the rest of the champagne.

‘It’s too cold to get undressed,’ Piers shivered, burrowing under the blankets.

‘It’s so romantic though,’ sighed Lismay, and she slid in after him, huddling up to him for warmth.

Outside the French windows, the sky was dark blue velvet scattered with bright yellow diamonds.

‘It reminds me of that painting,’ said Lismay. ‘The one by Van Gogh. Maybe those are the very same stars he saw?’

‘They must be,’ said Piers. ‘He lived not so far from here. St Rémy.’

‘ Starry Night ,’ remembered Lismay. ‘It’s called Starry Night . Like the song.’

She began to sing, her head resting on Piers’s shoulder. By the time she got to the end of the first verse, he was fast asleep. She lay there for hours, counting the stars, hearing him breathe next to her. She was so lucky to have him. She was so lucky to be here, in Provence, with this wonderful new adventure. She was so lucky.

She was woken the next morning by the beep of the removal van. Ray had had a flat tyre the night before, only an hour away but it had been too late to find help to change it, so he’d slept in his cab. Lismay and Piers rolled out of their makeshift bed and went to help him unload.

‘Nice gaff,’ said Ray admiringly, and Lismay felt proud as his eyes raked over the front of the chateau.

‘Come and stay,’ said Piers generously. ‘You can have a night on us, any time to suit you. Bring the missus.’

‘I might just take you up on that. She loves France. And she’d love it down here. I’ve never been to Provence before. Little bit of paradise, I reckon.’

‘Well, we like it,’ said Piers.

‘Don’t start doing that,’ hissed Lismay, nudging Piers with her elbow as Ray lugged an armchair into the house. ‘We’ll never make a profit if you invite people to stay for nothing.’

‘It’s how you get word of mouth going,’ Piers defended himself. ‘Give him One Night at the Chateau to remember and he’ll tell every one of his clients.’ He clapped his hands. ‘Right, I’ll nip and get some breakfast things if you get the coffee on.’

‘The cooker’s not working, remember.’

‘We brought a kettle, didn’t we? And an adapter?’

‘It’ll be somewhere.’ Lismay eyed the back of the van.

By ten o’clock, the van was empty and they were sitting in the sunshine with a basket of pastries, a cafetière of coffee and a pot of tea for Ray.

‘I can’t do coffee if I’m driving back,’ said Ray. ‘I’ll be stopping every five minutes.’ He bit into a plump pain au chocolat . ‘Fancy sitting outside for breakfast at this time of year! I can see why you’ve made the move. Wouldn’t fancy your electric bills though. All those high ceilings.’

A car rattled up the drive, emerging from the morning mists, and came to a halt in front of them. Out jumped Madame Quelle Horreur in a tight red dress and high heels.

‘Blimey,’ said Ray.

‘ Bonjour! ’ cried Piers, standing up with open arms.

Thank goodness, thought Lismay. She already had a list of questions she was itching to ask. She knew from Jeanne that Madame QH, as she had shortened her to, was very excited they had taken over the chateau.

‘There’s nobody she doesn’t know,’ said Jeanne. ‘So use her as much as you can. But she can be quite forceful, so don’t let her talk you into anything you don’t want. She also reckons her family were diddled out of the chateau, many moons ago, so I suspect she thinks she’s the rightful owner. But everyone in Barles thinks that.’

By mid-afternoon, the insides of the cooker were spread out on a sheet in the kitchen. It was going to need full open-heart surgery and a lot of love from Yves, a renowned Lacanche expert, according to Madame QH. Somehow she had made him appear, as if by magic, for which Lismay was very grateful. She wouldn’t have had a clue where to start looking for help. She had no idea what the French equivalent of the Yellow Pages was, or what to look up.

Yves did a lot of shrugging and shaking of his head as he surveyed the innards rather gloomily and lit a cigarette, raking back his shaggy hair. In his skin-tight beige cords and brown leather jacket, he looked more like an art teacher than a heating engineer.

‘I think we should leave him to it,’ said Lismay to Piers. ‘Let’s do a walk-through and see what we’ve let ourselves in for.’

She was feeling a little overwhelmed. Although they had been planning for weeks, it had been from afar, and now they were here things looked very different.

In some ways, everything was even more charming than she remembered. It was like looking at someone very beautiful: the more you surveyed them, the more you realised how perfect they were, how every feature was in balance. The chateau had been planned so everything was in seamless juxtaposition. The softness of the stone floor contrasted with the warmth of the wood panelling which then set off the mellow plasterwork above. Chandeliers and wall sconces glittered and shone with authority, knowing they were in just the right place to illuminate the room they were in. Windows were positioned to give a view down an avenue of trees, or to look out on to the water in the lake. Nothing was an accident. Symmetry and perspective and proportion ruled supreme.

But age and neglect had both taken their toll. There were cracks in the plaster, chips in the stone, rot in the woodwork. Mould crept around the rooms and left its mark wherever it fancied; damp spread its stain with disregard, and as they worked their way up the house, the damage grew worse. The previous owner had ended up living on the ground floor and abandoning the rest.

‘Oh God,’ said Lismay, wrinkling her nose at the musty smell.

‘It’s superficial,’ said Piers. ‘We know from the survey there’s nothing structural. The heating system works. It just needs to be turned on. And the electricity is sound. It’s just cosmetic.’

‘Just …?’ Lismay gazed at the faded wallpaper in the master bedroom. She reached out a hand and pulled off a lengthy strip. It came away easily. ‘And what are we supposed to do with all this awful furniture? They’ve left behind everything they don’t want and we won’t get a penny for any of it.’

Piers waved an airy hand. ‘We’ll get a man with a van to take it all away. It’ll look much better when it’s empty.’

The challenge was going to be making the chateau feel less formal, so guests weren’t intimidated or made to feel out of place, while somehow keeping its impact. That’s how they’d put One Night at the Chateau on the map.

‘Glamorously comfortable,’ said Lismay. ‘That’s how I want it to be. Not all stiff and upright. I want people to relax when they come in. To kick off their shoes and flop onto the sofa and have a glass of wine. Yet at the same time, I want them to feel as if they are in a film. I want it to be romantic. I want them to feel as if anything could happen. As if they could become whoever they wanted.’

Piers laughed. ‘Good grub and loads of vino. That’s all people want.’

‘It’s what men want,’ agreed Lismay. ‘But women want something more. They want to live the dream. They want to feel part of the chateau’s very bones. They want to be Pauline, waiting for a secret lover.’

‘They do?’ Piers looked mildly alarmed. ‘Well, I suppose I could dress up.’

Lismay couldn’t help giggling at the thought.

‘Not literally. It’s all in the mind. We’ve got to create a fantasy. We mustn’t let real life creep in. We’re wrapping them up in a story. They’re in a chateau, deep in the Luberon, hidden away from the world, all of their needs tended to by a hidden team of servants who know instinctively what they want, even before they do …’

‘Bloody hell.’ Piers looked impressed. ‘Shall I write that down? That’s perfect for the brochure.’

Lismay handed him her notebook and he began to scribble down her words.

‘Pale colours,’ she went on. ‘Cream and primrose-yellow and dusty blue. I think that should be our palette. But with touches of gold, to give lustre. So everything feels light and airy, but there’s a richness underpinning it. And texture. A gilded curtain pole with linen curtains billowing onto the floor. Velvet sofas and armchairs. Tapestries and life-size portraits and huge vases of flowers. And books. Carved wooden tables with lots and lots of books about art and food and wine …’ She realised Piers was staring at her, as if seeing her for the first time. ‘What?’

‘It sounds wonderful, Lis. It’s entirely possible that you’re a genius.’

She shrugged. ‘It’s easy to talk the talk. And I’m worried it’s not going to come cheap.’

‘We don’t have to do it all at once. If we can get the ground floor and the first-floor bedrooms up and running then we can start to get an income stream.’

‘The bathrooms,’ said Lismay with a shudder. ‘We need to sort them out. They’re medieval. That pink one! Why would you choose regurgitated shrimp as a colour? They’ve all got to come out.’

Piers pulled a face as he looked at the projected figures. ‘It’s going to be some time before our own quarters get a look in. The ultimate Family Hold Back.’ They planned to use one of the turrets for themselves: a small private living room, a bedroom and a bathroom.

‘I don’t mind. We’ll manage.’

‘But I’ll feel bad, leaving you in a hovel while I go back to Fulham.’

She twinkled at him. ‘You’ll have to find a way to make it up to me.’

Piers looked startled, then smiled. ‘I’ll bring you KitKats.’

Lismay didn’t reply. That wasn’t what she had meant and he knew it.

In an attic room, they found a cot. A beautiful cot made of wrought iron, with brass balls on the end of each post. A cot fit for a dauphin. They stood in the doorway staring at it.

Piers swallowed. ‘I think we could get quite a bit for that if we sold it.’

Lismay shook her head. ‘We should do it up. We could get a mattress made to fit and keep it for visiting children.’

‘Visiting children?’ He said it as if she’d said ‘visiting elephants’.

‘We are going to allow children, aren’t we?’

‘I don’t know. I mean, do people staying at a chateau want to bring children?’

‘They might.’

‘I don’t think it’s a good idea. They might annoy the other guests …’ Piers trailed off, knowing as he spoke that he was saying the wrong thing.

Lismay felt herself snap. ‘So that’s it? We don’t have children in our lives from now on? Are we going to be like the Baron and Baroness from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang ?’ Lismay threw up her hands. ‘Ugh! Children! Get them away!’

‘No, no, no – that’s not what I meant. That’s not why. It’s just … oh God.’ Piers slumped, looking miserable. ‘I’m sorry. Of course we can have children to stay.’

Lismay put her hands over her face. ‘No, I’m sorry. I’m just feeling …’

What? She didn’t want to say. But she felt frozen out. As if Piers was keeping her at arm’s length. It was almost as if they were business partners, not husband and wife. It’s not that he wasn’t kind to her, or affectionate verbally. Something was missing, and she didn’t know how to explain. She was terrified of upsetting him, because it was obvious why he was behaving the way he was.

Ever since that awful afternoon, he hadn’t wanted to get close to her.

She had to pull herself together. Things would sort themselves out eventually, she was sure of it. It was early days. He needed time to come to terms with everything. And her getting hysterical about whether or not they would allow children at the chateau wasn’t going to help him get over it. They didn’t have to decide now, for a start.

‘I’m so sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m being silly. I think I’m very tired. It was such a long drive and I didn’t sleep all that well.’

Piers’s face softened. ‘We’ve got a proper bed for tonight.’

Bed was where she felt loneliest. But now was not the time to discuss it.

‘Yes. Let’s head back down and see how Yves is getting on.’

In the kitchen, the Lacanche was all fired up, everything back in its place, and Yves had polished it till it gleamed.

‘She is beautiful,’ he said, stroking the black enamel in admiration.

‘She is,’ said Lismay. ‘And thank you so much.’

Piers blanched slightly at the number of ten-franc notes he had to peel off.

‘I’m going to retrain as a bloody heating engineer,’ he muttered sotto voce as Yves stuffed the cash into the back pocket of his cords.

‘It was worth every penny,’ said Lismay.

The kitchen that had felt a little forbidding and utilitarian now had a warm glow, and she heated up the tins of Heinz tomato soup she’d brought with them. There was nothing more comforting, and they dunked the remains of that morning’s baguette into the orange depths.

‘A veritable entente cordiale ,’ said Piers. ‘The best of both worlds.’

For the next two weeks, they worked solidly from dawn until dusk, stripping wallpaper, pulling up old carpet, ripping out bathrooms and kitchen units, chucking away all the vestiges of the previous owners until they were left with a blank canvas. Someone came with a flatbed truck to take away the detritus. A stream of tradesmen arrived to give their verdict on plumbing, carpentry, new drainpipes, broken windowpanes, the restoration of the gates, with Madame QH on hand to help negotiate.

Piers was obsessed with getting the fountain up and running.

‘It’s the first thing people will see. You have to create an impression. You need a spectacle.’

Fixing it would mean digging up the drive to mend the pipes. Lismay’s heart sank. It was going to be an expensive mess. They hadn’t even begun to address the grounds: the trees needed cutting back, the lake needed dredging and she didn’t have the first clue about what to plant, or indeed what was already there, hidden in the earth. What would they run out of first, money or enthusiasm? She was exhausted, her hands red raw, her skin grey with the grime that didn’t seem to come out, her teeth gritty with dust.

But underlying the exhaustion was an exhilaration and sense of purpose she had never felt before. She’d completely fallen under the chateau’s spell, and took delight in uncovering all its secrets – the blocked-up fireplaces, the papered-over panelling, the herringbone parquet under the carpets – and talking to the tradesmen about how best to restore them to their former glory. Her French was improving day by day as her vocabulary expanded – quincaillerie , tuyau de vidange , thibaude . The words tripped off her tongue, and she found that far from wanting to bamboozle her, everyone was kind and patient and eager to give advice. She felt as if they all cared about the chateau as much as she did, and were taking pride in breathing new life into its walls. She saw how much they appreciated the care she was taking too, as she painstakingly scraped layers of paint off the stone mouldings facing the staircase and scrubbed at the marble tiles in the entrance hall.

Piers kept everyone’s spirits high by playing Huey Lewis and the News full blast on his cassette player, and soon the whole team were roaring the lyrics to ‘The Power of Love’ as they worked. Lismay made everyone stop at elevenses and tea-time, and introduced them to ‘builder’s tea’, where once they would have wanted dark, bitter black coffee. She made endless Victoria sponges, bringing them out into the garden on a china plate. She loved watching Gérard the portly plumber manhandle a dainty slice of cake with his huge hands, cramming it into his mouth and kissing his thumb and forefinger.

‘ Magnifique. ’

‘They’re all falling in love with you,’ said Piers. ‘I’m not sure it’s safe to leave you.’

Lismay laughed. Madame QH was cross because she was spoiling them all. She thought that if you gave workmen an inch they took a yard, but Lismay knew she had them exactly where she wanted them, and they would go the extra mile for her.

After two weeks, it was time for Piers to head back to Fulham. He had managed to negotiate three weeks on, one week off with the firm he worked for, and they’d been so terrified of losing him they’d agreed. He was driving the MG back this time, but from now on he would fly out to Nice airport, where Lismay would collect him on a Saturday and deliver him back the following Sunday.

‘I’ll phone every night,’ he told her.

‘You don’t need to. It’ll cost a fortune. Call me on a Sunday. It’ll give me something to look forward to.’

Even a week ago, Lismay would have found staying on her own at the chateau a daunting prospect, but just as she had got under its skin, it had got under hers. She felt as if the chateau was looking after her in return for all the love and care she was lavishing on it. As if it was very much hers, and the chateau trusted her to do what was right. She felt at home, after just two weeks. She woke every day in the round tower bedroom she and Piers had chosen for themselves, on the top floor, filled with anticipation and ready to take on whatever challenges the day had in store. She had also come to love the night-time, the soft black sky that wrapped itself around the walls, the delicious smell of burning chestnut logs, the distant hoot of owls in the nearby woods.

So she only felt the slightest glimmer of uncertainty as Piers drove off down the drive, roof down, waving madly until he disappeared out of the gates. After all, she hadn’t spent a night without him since they’d been married. But as she turned and headed back up the steps and in through the front door, Gérard ran down the stairs in excitement.

‘ Venez! ’ he said, urging her to come and look at his handiwork.

A new suite with a roll-top bath had been installed next to the main bedroom. The plaster on the walls was a fresh, glowing pink. The glue from the carpet that had covered up the original floor tiles had been lifted off. It was a million miles from the shabby, poky bathroom that had been there before.

The time without Piers was going to fly by. She had so much to do, and he would be back before she knew it. She was determined that when he returned, in three weeks’ time, the chateau would be almost unrecognisable.