Thirty-one
I n common with many other Parisians, neither Daniel nor Arielle owned a car. It wasn’t a problem as you couldn’t drive into much of central Paris anyway, and the public transport was excellent. But outside of Paris it was a different story and there were lots of places you couldn’t get to without a car. The bee farm was one of them.
After work, they’d taken a train to a station on the outskirts of Paris where Daniel had arranged for a hire car. Now, as they left the last reminders of the city behind, driving deeper into the countryside, it felt to Arielle as though they were entering another world. The Chevreuse Valley might be close to Paris but it was encompassed by a large national park that had helped protect it from the encroachment of modern suburbia.
Unlike Daniel, Arielle had never been to the region before and was absolutely enchanted as they left the main road and drove slowly along green lanes, past tranquil meadows where cows grazed, detouring to look at charming villages that time appeared to have forgotten, and seeing the occasional castle appear on the brow of a hill. She couldn’t stop exclaiming about it all, snapping photos through the open window. Daniel smiled at her enthusiasm. ‘It looks so quiet now,’ he said, ‘but back in the Middle Ages, it would have hummed and bustled with people.’ He gestured towards a field they were passing, where a tractor was working. ‘Today you need hardly any people to work the land, but back then pretty much everyone depended on it. It’s fertile ground and had to be protected from raiding parties. But people still found the time to make gardens—not only to eat out of or make medicine from, but also for the sheer pleasure of it.’
Arielle could vividly imagine it: men and women working in the field, sowing, planting; travellers on horseback bringing news of distant events; the bustle of castle keeps and kitchens, the peaceful beauty of their walled gardens; the monasteries and convents where the work of prayer and devotion continued alongside the production of exquisite manuscripts, as well as liqueurs, honey and healing tonics and ointments.
She usually didn’t have time to sit back like this, relaxing, and it felt like she was on holiday. Glancing at Daniel as he drove steadily, telling stories, she thought with an inward smile that he actually looked like he was on holiday, in that unexpected shirt. And then she thought of what it would be like tonight, when they were alone in their hotel room, and another kind of feeling took hold of her. She had to look out of the window before she did something to distract him from the road.
They arrived at the turn to the bee farm, and bumped down a long dirt track, on either side of which was a lush meadow where about a dozen cows grazed. Daniel told her that Franck leased that part of the property to a local farmer because grazing encouraged clover to grow in the pasture, and bees loved clover flowers. He’d kept a few acres behind the house specifically for the hives and planted that with other kinds of flowers and grasses.
They arrived at the farmhouse, an attractive long low building with cream stone walls and pale blue shutters, and walked around the side to where a smaller outbuilding stood, overlooking a large sweep of lovely meadow, its rich green starred with yellow, blue and white wildflowers. At one end of the meadow were a couple of merisiers , or wild cherry trees, and just in front of the trees was a cluster of tall wooden beehives. In the peace and soft light of the early evening, with no sound of cars or machines, only birdsong, the faint buzzing of bees, the occasional rooster call and the lowing of cows, it felt to Arielle as if they’d stepped into one of those illuminated manuscript pages and that at any moment someone in medieval dress might appear.
But it was a short, stocky man in modern black jeans and a khaki shirt who came out of the building and approached them. Despite the flecks of premature grey at his temples, his face looked young and Arielle guessed he was in his early thirties. ‘Hello, Daniel,’ he said, holding out a hand. ‘Sorry, I didn’t hear you coming,’ he added as his glance flicked over Arielle.
‘We’re a bit early,’ Daniel said. ‘This is my friend Arielle, who knows a good deal more about flowers than I do.’
‘Don’t you believe that,’ she said to Franck as they shook hands.
He laughed. ‘Clearly you are well matched as neither of you sing your own praises!’ Gesturing towards the meadow he went on, ‘So, what do you think?’
‘It’s absolutely amazing,’ Daniel said. ‘The meadow is glorious. And those hives look medieval but I’m sure they’ve been adapted for modern beekeeping.’
Franck beamed. ‘The ones in the manuscripts you showed me would have been too impractical, so we worked on a different design. These are made of beech wood like back then, but all the working parts inside follow modern practice. I bought the frames from an apiary supplier, but a local guy made the hive bodies for me. He works as a guide in the national park, but he’s also a brilliant woodworker. And he’s married to Marie-Madeleine Perrin, you remember her?’
‘Sure I do,’ Daniel said, ‘she owns the cows in your meadow and makes that amazing cheese you served me last time!’
Franck grinned. ‘That cheese is getting so popular! There was even a Parisian cheesemonger came up to check it out recently, Max I think his name was, he’s put in an order for his market stall.’
On and on he rambled, but Arielle’s attention wandered to the flowers she could see in the bee meadow: she could spot cornflowers, dandelions, mignonettes, daisies and clover, among others. They were all wildflowers known to attract bees, as were the wild cherry trees and the bushes of rosemary and thyme growing close to the building. She took out her phone and snapped some photos. When Franck finally paused to draw breath, she said, ‘I am sure your bees feel they are in paradise here!’
Franck looked pleased. ‘I like to think so,’ he said, as he led the way into the building. The first room was a small office, crammed with stuff: a desk on which reposed a closed laptop, a calculator, and an untidy pile of papers; a filing cabinet, a cork board covered in photographs, a shelf which contained a few books, as well as an unusual wooden sculpture of a dancer, which Franck said had also been made by the hive-man. Taking down a scrapbook, he began to show them photos of the farm as it came together, talking all the while.
‘This is when you came here the first time, Daniel—and there we are, with my neighbours, quite a few of them came to help—and here’s me and Perrin, with one of the first hives he built for me—and here’s when we put them in place—and oh yes, the drama of the bee moving—’ Franck went on in this vein for some time and Daniel asked a question or two when he could get a word in, while Arielle took pictures of everything to keep herself engaged.
Finally, Franck ran out of things to say and led them down to the hives, where the bees had already retired for the night. The hives were beautiful, made of pale wood decorated with an exquisitely carved tracery of bees and flowers. They looked stunning in the setting, framed under the cherry trees, in a sea of meadow grass and delicate wildflowers.
At last, Daniel managed to remind Franck that it was getting late and that they still had to check into their hotel. The beekeeper wasn’t quite ready to let them go, though, and insisted on taking them back to the house for a glass of the mead that he’d made from a previous batch of honey. So it was getting close to nine o’clock by the time they managed to make their escape, clutching two jars of clover honey as a last-minute gift.
As they drove away from the farm, Arielle exploded in giggles. ‘Oh my God, he is such a nice man and his place is so lovely, but I thought my ears were going to drop off!’
Daniel laughed and said he’d felt the same then he added, ‘That’s what too much solitude does to you, I guess. I talk too much about my own subject too.’
‘You don’t,’ Arielle reassured him, touching his knee.
His face was alight with an expression that made her pulse beat faster, and a tingle started under her skin. But she didn’t feel nervous at all.
The hotel kitchen was about to close when they finally arrived, but the cook kindly agreed to whip them up a quick chive and cheese omelette and a salad of lettuce, sorrel and mint, with a tangy vinaigrette, thick-cut slices of bread, a carafe of house white, and a bowl of deliciously sweet, juicy cherries to follow. It was exactly what they needed, and they ate it downstairs in the deserted hotel restaurant, unhurried yet full of anticipation.
After they finished they climbed the stairs to the bedrooms above, holding hands. Daniel unlocked the door and they stepped into a simple but appealing room, with a blue and yellow colour scheme, polished wooden floorboards and country-style furniture, including a wide and inviting-looking bed.
‘Will this do, Arielle?’ Daniel said happily. To answer, she put her arms around his neck and kissed him, long and deeply.
They took their time, undressing each other, tenderly tracing the contours of each other’s bodies, looking into each other’s eyes, kissing and stroking, in a beautiful slow build-up that made every cell in Arielle’s body ripple with longing before they were joined at last.
Afterwards, raising herself on one elbow, she looked at Daniel as he lay there smiling up at her, and felt her heart constrict. She wanted to say something but couldn’t find the words. He held out his arms to her and she slipped back into his embrace, the beat of his heart under her ear. And that’s when the tears started.
At first, he was troubled, asking what was wrong, thinking maybe that she regretted this. But she smiled through her tears and kissed him, saying that nothing was wrong, she was simply weeping from sheer gratitude that they had found each other.