Come The Vintage. Anne Mather

with her? If she had known her father would die of a heart attack within four days of her arrival in France, would she then have come? Would she have risked so much for four short days?

      She did not know. Meeting her father again after all the years had been a bitter-sweet experience. He had seemed so much older than she had expected, thin and grey-cheeked, nothing like the dark-haired man she could vaguely remember. But of course, she had been unaware of his illness …

      His delight in seeing her had dispelled a little of the grief she had felt at the death of her aunt. Although there were things between them which could never be erased, they had both felt an immediate affinity which time and experience would have strengthened. It was eight years since her mother had divorced her French husband, but he had not married again. Ryan was his only offspring. But she had had no idea of his intentions …

      She raised her eyes now and looked across the yawning chasm of the grave to the man standing alone at the opposite side. Alain de Beaunes – her father’s partner, though she had been unaware he had a partner until she met the man.

      As his curious tawny eyes lifted to meet hers, she quickly looked away. There were things which had been said between them that morning which she did not want to have to remember until she was forced to do so. Even so, that did not prevent her from shivering at the recollection of the scene which had taken place.

      The priest was sprinkling soil down on to the coffin. It echoed hollowly as it fell on the hard surface, and Ryan wondered morbidly how long it would take to rot in this damp ground. Not long. She took an involuntary step backward. For a moment she felt dizzy, probably because she had had nothing to eat since morning, and she had a horror of pitching forward into the grave.

      The short service appeared to be over. The priest had moved from his position and was now talking in undertones to Alain de Beaunes. Ryan couldn’t help looking at them wondering what they were discussing so earnestly. Was it to do with her? Her gaze flickered over the surplice-clad figure of Abbé Maurice. Thin and slight, the frailty of his appearance was accentuated by the tall powerful frame of the man standing beside him, his head stooped to listen to what the priest was saying. Alain de Beaunes was a big man. He in no way resembled the man who had been his partner, Ryan’s father. Ryan had felt an aversion to him on sight, due no doubt to the bluntness of his manner, the lack of common politeness in his treatment of her. Looking at him now, noting the strong, Slavic features, the thick neck and square powerful shoulders, the long, muscular legs moulded against his trousers by the pressure of the wind, she felt totally incapable of facing what was to come. She didn’t know why he intimidated her so, but he did, and she turned her attention to his shabby overcoat and carelessly blown hair in an attempt to disparage her fears. He was not a handsome man, nor yet a particularly young one. She guessed him to be in his early forties, and although some women might find his harshly carved features and heavy-lidded eyes attractive, she was repelled by him. His hair had a generous sprinkling of grey, she noticed with satisfaction, but as it had once been very fair it had now acquired the ash-blond appearance much sought after by women in expensive hair salons. Nevertheless, she regarded him as a peasant, and found no pleasure in his company. She had resented her father’s obvious dependence on him, the way he had deferred to the younger man in all things, and now that her father was dead she resented his authority over her.

      But what authority was it? She scuffed her boot impatiently against the stony earth. None that she could actually lay her finger on, and yet he controlled her future as surely as if her father had left her in his care. Why had her father done such a thing? Why had he made the situation so impossible? Was it a final gesture against his dead wife? She didn’t know. All she knew was that she was in the most ignominious position of her life.

      Abbé Maurice was approaching her now, shaking his grey head at the leaden skies. ‘The day is weeping, Ryan,’ he said in his own language. ‘Come – let us get back to the warmth of our firesides.’

      Ryan forced a smile and allowed him to take her arm and lead her away from the graveside. She was conscious of Alain de Beaunes following them, and behind him the few villagers who had turned out to see her father laid to rest. A dusty black station wagon waited on the gravelled track which wound through the cemetery, and as they neared it Alain de Beaunes went ahead to open the doors. His shabby overcoat flapped in the wind and his dark suit had seen better days, and yet he had an arrogance which defied anyone to underestimate him.

      Avoiding his eyes, Ryan climbed into the back of the station wagon. Abbé Maurice sat in the front and de Beaunes took his place behind the wheel. The black-clad villagers would make their own way to their homes and Ryan looked back only once as the vehicle bumped away down the track. Already the grave-digger was filling in the space above the coffin and she turned back quickly, her throat tightening in the way it had done so many times these last days.

      The Abbé and de Beaunes were talking together and she tried to interpret what they were saying. But they spoke swiftly and in undertones and she gave up after a while and allowed her own thoughts to fill her head.

      What was she going to do? Her whole being shrank away from the future her father had mapped out for her, and yet she was honest enough to know that it had to be considered in all its aspects. That was the French half of her, she supposed, the practical working of a French mind which far from being governed by emotion as was sometimes supposed could take a situation and analyse it objectively, realistically.

      They were coming down the valley and she stared broodingly out of the windows. It looked a barren place, a remote area where the people depended so much upon one another for their livelihood. The broad flatness at the base of the terraces where the vines grew was threaded by the swift flowing waters of the Bajou, and tall poplars lined the river bank. The village with its grey-spired church and slate-grey roofs had only one narrow street, cobbled, and uninspiring in the rain. There were cottages lining the street, a stores, a garage, and the school, and beyond the village the road wound up again towards the weathered walls of her father’s house, a rambling old building whose stone-flagged floors struck chill against bare feet. And yet it was an attractive house, a house with character, and when her father was alive, filled with warmth, too. But to consider returning there alone with the thin-lipped stranger who occupied the seat beside the Abbé filled her with dismay.

      Alain de Beaunes stopped the station wagon at the small gate to the priest’s house, and the Abbé turned to speak to her.

      ‘Do not look so alarmed, my child,’ he said gently. ‘God works in curious ways. I will come and see you tomorrow when you have had a little time to assuage your grief. Be thankful you had these days with your father. He might have died without ever knowing what a beautiful young woman you have grown into.’

      ‘Thank you.’ Ryan managed a lifting of the corners of her mouth, but it was difficult. Her face felt stiff, the muscles taut, unyielding.

      ‘God go with you, my child, and with you, Alain.’ The Abbé made the sign of the cross and climbed out of the vehicle. The station wagon was put into motion again and the priest soon became a shadowy figure disappearing into the gloom of the afternoon.

      Ryan pressed her shoulders back against the leather of the seat. She was trying hard not to give in to the shivering which trickled up and down her spine. Somehow she had to gather her strength to face what was to come and remember that her destiny was in her own hands. But she felt more alone now than she had done at the time of her aunt’s death.

      Dusk was gathering as the station wagon turned between the wooden gateposts which gave on to the cobbled yard at the back of the house. The hens which scratched a living amongst the grains of animal foodstuffs scattered near the barn had long since sought the warmth and dryness of their coops, and the sound of the rain dripping from overflowing pipes added to the melancholy air of the place. No lights gleamed from the windows of the house, there was no smell of cooking to tantalize the nostrils, it looked desolate; as desolate, Ryan thought, as she felt.

      Alain de Beaunes parked the station wagon beneath the bare branches of an elm tree where in summer one could sit on the circular wooden bench which surrounded it. Ryan wondered how often her father had sat beneath this tree, smoking his pipe, and perhaps wondering about his estranged wife