Invitation to Provence(18)
On cold, dark early-spring mornings she’d prowled the rows of vines with her father, drinking great gasps of air so cold and clean it was like the wine itself. The light of the moon illuminated the threads of a rare frost that her father told her could ruin the precious crop in mere hours, and she’d helped spray the young grapes to stop them from freezing.
It was Rafaella who had replanted the wild white roses that gave the chateau its name, at the end of each row of vines. The roses were important because they would be first to be attacked by pests, thus giving the Martens warning to protect the grapes. And she’d spent many long nights poring over orders and accounts with her father, who also taught her how to make a good deal with the bottlers, and had taken her with him to Portugal in search of a new source of cork.
Now, they said, there was nothing Rafaella Marten didn’t know about wine. Personally, she thought it was a good thing she still enjoyed drinking it because her apprenticeship had been long and hard. She was the only Marten heir, and when her father died, the full responsibility for the business—and its workers, who were the village people she had known all her life—had fallen on her shoulders.
Though on the surface she seemed frivolous and carefree, Rafaella ran her winery in a most professional and creative manner. She opened up new markets in Asia and the United States, finding acclaim for her “supple, sensual red wine with a hint of flowers in the bouquet and a velvet heft to it that tingles on the palette like the scent of fresh pine on a winter mountain day.” That’s the way the reviewer in the New York Times acclaimed it on its first launch. Not bad, Rafaella had thought with a satisfied smile, for what was essentially a jumped-up C?tes-du-Rh?ne. Admittedly, it was of the first order, but it was still no smart Bordeaux.
Rafaella also took good care of her workers and her village, always there in times of crisis and of celebration. As a girl, she had gone to school with the villagers’children and was known to them as Rafaella. She knew every family by name, always knew who was sick or who was leaving the village to work in the city and who had come back, tail between their legs, because after all, the allure of home was too strong.
In fact, it was the chateau and her love for it that had come between her and the man known to everyone as “the Lover.” Lucas Bronson was an arrogant, handsome nomad, a champion polo player, a world wanderer, always restless, eternally on the move in search of the next “main event” in life. Following the polo matches, Lucas switched countries and continents with as little thought as Rafaella put into planning a picnic. Of course she did not go with him because she had her work and her home to look after. Even love had not been able to tie down Lucas Bronson. And even after she left him, Rafaella believed—she still had to believe, otherwise she couldn’t bear it—that Lucas had really loved her.
Ten years ago Rafaella had officially “retired,” and Scott Harris had come to run her vineyards, though she still couldn’t resist keeping a finger in the pie, stirring the mix every now and again, just to see what would happen.
Scott was Australian. He’d grown up in the Barossa Valley and, like herself, he’d been in the wine business since he was a boy. Now she looked forward immensely to their weekly “business lunches” at the Café des Colombes. In fact, they were the highlight of her week—until the idea of the family reunion had taken over, that is. Now all she could think about, all she longed for, was that there might be a family again at the Chateau des Roses Sauvages. And that her sons would return to her.
12
JULIETTE LABOURDE had just spent an entirely satisfactory day shopping and lunching when she returned home to find the invitation in her mail.
Juliette lived alone on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, in a large, colorful apartment crammed with old family bibelots and a flurry of blond Pomeranians. She was the kind of large woman who was built to last, and though she was Rafaella’s age, time had not been so kind, although admittedly she had not started out gorgeous. But, oh, she’d been popular. All the men had adored her. Like Rafaella, she had that sparkle that brought life and excitement with her, and that she definitely had not lost. Her hair was still a flaming red, her eye shadow blue, and her mouth a glossy pink. With a flowery caftan hiding her bulk, she looked like a grandmother from hell en route to a Hawaiian vacation, but her smile and her warmth made you forget about all that in the space of a minute and just want to be with her.
When Juliette saw the large, square cream envelope with the French stamps and Rafaella’s familiar writing, she gave a little cry of recognition, dropped her bags, and ripped it open immediately. She scanned the invitation, her head to one side, one hand clutched excitedly to her throat. “Ma chère amie,” it began.
Too many years have passed since we saw each other, too many lifetimes have disappeared into the past, too much water has flowed under too many bridges. We, who were once so close, lost touch, I retreating to my solitude here at the chateau, and you flitting around the world with your darling army officer husband, God rest his soula more decent man never lived. (Of course I’m referring to Rufus, not to husband number one who, like my own, is better off nameless!)
You lived in so many places while I just stayed here, running my winery efficiently because, as you remember, it was always my passion (or one of them, the other being the Lover of course), and drowning my sorrows in a nightly glass of champagne with Haigh. (You’ll be glad, no doubt, to know he is still here, still interfering in my life, still my friendperhaps my only friend now unless I can still count you in that number? Ah, but I forget, there are two others. You remember Jake, the Lover’s son? He spent a year here at the chateau in happier times. I love him stillcertainly more than I do my own two sons who departed years ago. You will recall that story of coursehow could you forget? Felix under a cloud of suspicion for murder, and Alain after having been caught robbing the winery until he almost bankrupted us. Just so you know, I have never heard from either one since Felix walked out and Alain was thrown out. I often wonder, Juliette, Was I wrong in the way I brought them up? Too indulgent? Too loving? Was I wrong not to believe either of themthough I tried hardwhen they pleaded innocent? Perhaps I will never know the answer to that. Or maybe I will, since I am asking them to put the past behind us and inviting them here to the reunion in the hope that we can forgive each other and begin all over again.