Collecting Thoughts Read online

  Chapter four

  “Ugh, Aargh,”… Darcy strained in a futile attempt to lift the heavy steel-barred gate. It wasn’t budging. Not only was it hanging badly on hinges stiff with rust but the end she was currently wrestling with was firmly wedged in an overgrown hawthorn hedge.… “Oomph,” this last was uttered involuntarily as her cold fingers slid off a rail that was slippery with dew.

  Losing her grip, the upwards force she’d been exerting had to go somewhere and she stumbled backwards, stopping abruptly and with enough impact to expel all the air from her lungs as her rump hit the driveway. Gasping, she hurriedly got back to her feet, surreptitiously rubbing the part of her posterior that had met the ground and darting a quick glance behind her to make sure no one had noticed her fall.

  Unfortunately, the big green rental car, parked behind her in the entranceway had done absolutely nothing to shield her from anyone’s view.

  “Bugger”, she swore, sotto voce, using another of Patrick’s expansive vocabulary of swear-words. Not just one but several heads had turned in her direction from across the road where a small knot of parents had been standing chatting outside the school fence after dropping their children off for class. She had seen them arriving as she’d pulled into the gateway with the intention of slipping unnoticed into the chateau grounds.

  So much for not attracting attention.

  Abso-bleedin’-lutely fabulous beginning she thought in the words of her favourite BBC sitcom, just Ab Fab.

  What’s more, several of the children inside the yard had stopped playing and were now hanging over the low schoolyard fence, keenly watching her as well. Added to all that, Connor was hanging out the car window, giving her a double thumbs up and a cheery “not very Ninja, Mom!”

  Darcy made a face at Connor before turning her back on them all, pulling up her sleeves in preparation for another go at the recalcitrant gate.

  The sound of footsteps crunching on the gravelled ground behind her alerted her to someone approaching. She turned, not wanting to start a conversation but determined to be polite and make nice. It wouldn’t do to rub the locals up the wrong way so early in their stay.

  “Bonjour Madame”, it was one of the men from the group who’d been chatting over the road. The “bonjour” was spoken so quickly that to Darcy’s ears it sounded more like “b’jr”. The man, who was stockily built and not much taller than Darcy’s own five feet five inches, was smiling broadly in that way that men do when they’re about to offer assistance to a maiden in distress. He extended a large callused hand in greeting. Darcy smiled back, proffered her own hand and shook. Ow ...it felt like shaking hands with a meat-grinder. She hastily put her hand back down by her side, experimentally wiggling her fingers a little to check that none of the more delicate bones had been broken by the handshake –just as well he hadn’t hugged and kissed her as she’d seen some of them doing earlier, or she’d be in intensive care.

  The man spoke again, Darcy struggling to follow his rapid-fire French. “Je suis Bertrand Martin. Est-ce que je peux vous aider?”

  Wow, she had understood that phrase, even hearing it said at about fifty times the speed she’d ever remembered it uttered in her school French classes. She thought about her answer, marshalling the words in her head before replying.

  “Ah. Oui, merci,” not exactly the sparking conversational French she’d like to be able to produce, but it would have to do for now. She pointed at her chest, “Je suis Darcy O’Donn... ah non, Darcy Thomas.” She would have to get used to saying her maiden name, which she’d gone back to using, post-Patrick. She wanted to add that the gate was stuck , but since she didn’t have the foggiest what the word for “gate” was let alone “stuck”, she tried it in English, now pointing to the gate and miming “stuck” while pulling unsuccessfully at the gate rails. Marcel Marceau would be rolling summersaults in his grave by now if he’d seen her pathetic attempt, she thought, but the man smiled, well, it was more a half-grin than a smile really, as he raised his eyebrows and nodded knowingly.

  “Oui. J’ai vu”. In fact they’d all been watching her efforts to move the gate with avid interest while gossiping about the recent sale of the chateau and speculating what it might mean for the community, and had seen her flying backwards and hitting the dirt. “Peut-être, vous allez besoin de la glace, plus tard, pour le bleu.” He pointed towards his own rear end, precisely pin pointing the place where Darcy had contacted the ground. He was quite openly broadly grinning now.

  Yup, he’d seen, which most likely meant they’d all seen. Great start, thought Darcy. She’d already given the locals something to laugh about. Way to go girl.

  Bertrand had the entrance clear in moments, chatting to her in non-stop rapid-fire French as if she understood everything he was saying while he used his solidly workboot-clad foot to break off a couple of low branches that had been protruding from the hedge and blocking the gate from moving. In her rush to get the thing open Darcy hadn’t noticed those minor details.

  Duh, she thought self-deprecatingly, not so clever.

  Listening carefully, she was managing to translate about one word in ten, which made the conversation very one-sided. This didn’t seem to be bothering Bertrand. He gave one last almighty heave and the heavy gate was free of the hedge, the grass and entwining weeds that had been wrapped around the lower rungs. He wrapped a large hand around the metal rung and with an ear-splitting screech of protest from the hinges, opened it far enough to allow Darcy to drive her car through, standing back and holding the gate while she drove past then closing it behind and wandering in after the car.

  Darcy stopped on the lane that ran in front of the stables. As she got out, grabbing the cottage keys from the dashboard where she had left them Connor and Rosie clambered out of the back seat where they had been sitting waiting for her to get the gate open.

  Her new friend walked over to Connor and Rosie and shook their hands, repeating his “good morning” in French to each of them. Darcy could see that the children were trying to be polite although they looked rather taken aback at being greeted in such an adult fashion.

  Darcy heard Bertrand complimenting Rosie on her pretty name which he pronounced with that French trill that Darcy knew she’d never be able to emulate, putting the emphasis on the last syllable instead of the first as most English speakers would have done.

  At Connor’s name, he raised his eyebrows and looked nonplussed until Connor was forced to spell it out in French. Bertrand nodded in understanding, but when he said Connor it came out more “Kon-nour”. Well, thought Darcy, listening to them as she searched through the keys to find one that fitted the door, at least Connor knew his alphabet in French. Maybe all that extra French tuition at his prohibitively expensive London school hadn’t been a complete and utter waste of time and money after all.

  Now Darcy was battling with the unyielding lock on the stable cottage door.

  Was nothing going to be easy this morning? She thought crossly.

  It was one of those half-and-half stable doors which Darcy thought added a kind of appropriately rustic appeal to the cottage but although she eventually forced the key to turn, the door wouldn’t move an inch. The lack of a porch over the doorway had resulted in the wood becoming soaked in last week’s rain and the water-swollen timbers didn’t want to budge.

  She felt Bertrand’s hand on her arm, gently indicating that she should move to one side. Darcy gave way, deciding that it was not the time or the place to stand upon her feminist principles if they wanted to get inside the cottage any time this morning. Bertrand put his shoulder to the top half of the door and shoved. With a loud rending sound the top portion reluctantly opened. Bertrand leant over the lower door to release the internal sliding bolt lock that was holding it closed then pushed it open as well, motioning them inside.

  He looked over at Darcy and shrugged as if to say “easy if you know how.”

  As Darcy and the children walked inside, it seemed inevitable that he would follow th
em indoors.