Page 9 of A French Inheritance
Walking back to the cottage after saying goodbye to Lucy and Adam, Jeannie suggested they drove to the nearest supermarché and stocked up on some food.
‘Good idea,’ Briony said. ‘I’ll drive this time, shall I? We should also think about charging the car. Hopefully the supermarché will have a charging station.’
Driving into the supermarché car park, Briony spotted the electric charging section with several vacant spaces. Once they’d figured out how to do it and plugged the car in, they grabbed a trolley and went shopping.
Half an hour later as they joined the queue at the checkout, Jeannie laughed as she looked at the contents of their trolley, which included a bottle of champagne and several bottles of rosé and red wine, as well as essential food items. ‘You don’t think we’ve overdone the wine?’
‘Definitely not,’ Briony said. ‘We’re on holiday.’
Back at the cottage putting the shopping away, Jeannie said. ‘I know we’ve now stocked up with food, but I quite fancy lunch in the village today.’ She glanced at her watch, before looking at Briony hopefully. ‘One thirty. I think we’ve still got time before they close.’
Briony shrugged. ‘Just so long as you’re ready for the locals descending on us.’
‘The villagers are old friends and have always welcomed us,’ Jeannie said. ‘Giselle was very popular.’
‘Come on then. A quick walk will do us good.’
* * *
There was one pavement table available when they arrived at the village restaurant with its striped canopy pulled out over the table and chairs. Briony and Jeannie went to sit there but stopped, seeing the ‘réservé’ sign.
‘Maybe there’s a free table inside,’ Briony said.
‘Jeannie, asseyez-vous , the table is for you and your daughter.’ Odette, the patron of the café, bustled over as they hesitated.
‘We saw you coming on the road. Welcome back.’ She kissed Jeannie on both cheeks, muttering condolences in her ear over the loss of Giselle, before turning to Briony and kissing her.
‘ Merci ,’ Jeannie smiled.
‘We talk later. For now, I fetch your plat de jour – beef en daube Provencal .’
Jeannie pulled out a chair and sat down with a happy sigh.
‘It’s good to be back, despite Giselle no longer being here.
’ A quick look around at the other customers to see if she knew any of them, and there he was, sitting alone at a table on the far side of the restaurant.
Her heart skipped a beat. It had been so long since she’d last seen him in the flesh so to speak, she’d almost forgotten how handsome he was.
She hoped he would come over when he realized they were there.
Odette’s teenage granddaughter appeared with a basket of sliced baguette, two glasses and a carafe of red wine.
‘ Merci ,’ Briony said.
While they waited for their meal, a constant stream of people approached the table, offering their sympathy over Giselle and welcoming them back to the village. Once their daube arrived, people politely left them to eat in peace.
‘Mum, there’s a man over on the far end of the terrace who I feel I know, but I can’t place him.’
Jeannie knew who Briony meant instantly but gave a quick glance, smiled and waved her hand in acknowledgement. ‘Yes, that’s Yannick.’
‘Uncle Yannick? Dad’s old friend and my godfather? Gosh, he used to be such a bear of a man.’
‘Evette, his wife, died some months ago; she was a great cook. I suspect he’s missing all the patisseries she used to bake. I’ll go over and see him once I’ve finished lunch,’ Jeannie said.
But Yannick came over to them as they finished dessert – a delicious tarte tatin – and Jeannie stood up to greet him, smiling and holding out her hands, which he took and held before kissing her on both cheeks.
‘Yannick, fancy seeing you here.’
‘Where else can I eat my lunch?’ he said, returning her smile. ‘It’s lovely to see you here again, even though Giselle is no longer with us. Losing someone you love leaves a huge gap.’
Jeannie squeezed his hands. ‘It does.’
Yannick turned to Briony. ‘You look a lot like your grandmère , who was a lovely woman. She’s missed. It’s lovely to see you too back in the village. Bon. We’ll talk another day,’ he said, looking at Jeannie.
‘Come for lunch at Owls Nest tomorrow,’ Jeannie said.
‘ Merci , but non désolé . I go tomorrow to Paris to visit Pauline, my daughter, for a day or two. You remember Pauline?’ he asked Briony. ‘The two of you had fun when you were small.’
Briony nodded. ‘It would be lovely to see her again.’
‘ Peut-être if you both visit one day at the same time, it will happen,’ Yannick said, turning to smile at Jeannie hopefully. ‘We have lunch another day?’
‘Definitely. We’re here for another five or six days. I’ll come and knock on your door before we leave,’ Jeannie said.
‘Please do that. Then we can have a proper catch-up.’
Watching Yannick walk away, Jeannie lamented the years he had been out of her life.
He and Jeromé had grown up together in the village and they’d stayed friends even though their life paths had gone in different directions.
But Jeromé moving to England permanently when he and she had married, followed by Yann marrying Evette, had meant that the close friendship between the men had changed and they had drifted apart.
Holidays visiting Giselle once or twice a year were the only occasions they’d met whilst their children were growing up.
In recent years, they’d barely seen each other at all.
And now both Jeromé and Evette were gone.
Jeannie gave herself a mental shake. At least in the past year she and Yann had rekindled their friendship, talking and comforting each other via WhatsApp and emails about the loss of Evette and Giselle. An old friendship springing back to life that Jeannie was beginning to value more and more.
* * *
Briony was glad when they got back to the cottage after lunch, although she knew that Jeannie was expecting her to discuss what she wanted to do about her inheritance.
Something she wasn’t ready to do yet. She needed some time to herself.
Besides, whilst on the surface everything appeared to be normal between herself and Jeannie, the last few hours had undeniably held an undercurrent of tension.
Which had strangely increased after Yannick had come across to speak to them.
‘It’s too nice an afternoon to spend indoors,’ Jeannie said. ‘I’m going to pull some weeds.’
‘I’m going to check on my emails,’ Briony said.
Normally, she would have offered to join her mother in the garden, but this was the perfect opportunity she desperately needed for some thinking time on her own.
And despite the weather being too nice to stay indoors, that was exactly what she planned to do.
She was going to have a wander around the cottage in the hope that what she should do about her unexpected inheritance would miraculously manifest itself into her brain.
It had been Giselle’s parents, who, in the years after the Second World War, had converted the two-hundred-year-old mas into the home it was today.
Briony wandered out of the kitchen into the sitting room that came into its own in autumn and winter when it was too cold and dark to be outside.
A low-ceilinged room with oak beams, a cream wood burner in the inglenook fireplace and two sets of double French doors set into the curved spaces of what had originally been high wooden doors for herding animals like goats and sheep in for shelter.
Two Chesterfield settees and three matching wingback chairs, lamps on several small tables and a writing bureau against the far wall by several shelves filled with books, framed photos and ornaments, gave the room an inviting feel.
Briony had always loved curling up in a chair in this room and losing herself in a book.
Looking around, she remembered several magical childhood Christmases spent here, the smell of the greenery – holly, mistletoe and pine Giselle had placed everywhere – filling the cottage with its outdoor scent.
They didn’t come every year for Christmas, but summer holidays here were the highlight of Briony’s school years until she finished college when the long summer holidays became a distant memory.
The dining room was smaller and had only one set of double French doors.
The polished round table was big enough to sit ten around – more when the extension was slotted into the middle.
The heavy wooden buffet contained all the crockery, including the fragile Limoges dinner service with its fine gold decoration that Giselle used at Christmas and on special days.
Sets of delicate wine and champagne glasses were neatly stacked on the shelves.
The floor in both rooms was tiled with traditional red hexagonal terracotta tommetes and covered with several scatter rugs.
One of Briony’s happiest memories was seeing the table extended and loaded with food and wine the last time she’d been here in the cottage.
She and Jeannie had come over for several days to help celebrate Giselle’s eighty-second birthday.
The cottage had been buzzing that weekend.
So many people dropping in with presents, cards, champagne and flowers.
Jeannie had decided that a full-on party would be too much for Giselle and had invited people for lunch aperitifs on the Saturday.
For two hours, there was never less than twenty people out on the terrace as friends came and went.
It was that weekend the decision had been made for Giselle to move to England to live with Jeannie. A sudden thought struck Briony. Why hadn’t Jeannie simply moved to France to look after her? Surely if Jeannie had always longed to live here, that would have suited them both better.