Page 37 of Mrs. Endicott's Splendid Adventure
“Who owns it, then?” Ellie asked.
“I believe it was a famous opera singer. She was the mistress of a Parisian duke, who gave her the villa as a present. But she lost interest in coming here, or she lost the duke as a patron. Anyway, she stopped coming, and then we heard that she had died. So presumably she has a next of kin somewhere who still owns it but doesn’t want to live in it. It’s in bad shape, anyway. The locals think it’s haunted.”
“How interesting,” Ellie said. “I’d love to see it. Who would know how we’d get in touch with the current owners?”
“I believe Monsieur Danton, the local notaire, keeps an eye on it, pays the taxes and things like that. He’d know, anyway. But I think it would be quite sad. We saw it once, long ago. Already falling into ruin then, unlike the other villa nearby,” Tommy said.
“Other villa?”
“Very grand. Alas, not for rent,” Clive said. “Owned by a reclusive viscount. He spends half his year in Paris, then retreats here when it gets too hot or too cold. Not exactly the most friendly of chaps, or so we’ve found. Très snobbish.”
“But his villa is magnificent,” Tommy added. “More like a château. Perfectly manicured grounds, a swimming pool. Just divine.” He got up again. “Would you like coffee? And macarons?”
“Oh yes, please,” Dora said before Ellie could answer.
Clive cleared plates away while Tommy brewed coffee. The macarons were heavenly, so light they melted in the mouth.
“Did you bake these?” Ellie asked.
“I’m afraid I can’t take credit.” He gave an embarrassed little shrug. “Madame Blanchet at the boulangerie bakes them. She has a great flair for pastries, so her shop is really a pâtisserie, too.”
“We did see pastries in the window when we went to buy bread yesterday,” Ellie said. “That’s good to know. I’m afraid I have a sweet tooth.”
“So what exactly do you do here?” Dora asked with her usual forthrightness. “Do you have a job?”
“This and that,” Tommy said. “I help out teaching at the school. I help Henri at the bar when it gets really busy. Clive paints.”
“Then how do you survive?” she asked. “You must have private money, one supposes.”
“I wish that were true,” Tommy said. “Actually Clive’s paintings are quite popular. Whenever we need a little extra, he sells another painting. And we are practically self-sufficient here with our goats and chickens. Our needs are few, apart from the occasional trip to Marseille and a shopping spree.”
Ellie felt they were becoming too intrusive. “I think we should be going,” she said. “We don’t want to outstay our welcome.”
“You’d always be welcome here,” Tommy said. “As I said, we get few English guests, and one does miss the homeland in certain ways. Next time you can tell us all about what life is like there now. What is in the shops on Oxford Street.”
“I’m afraid none of us is actually a woman about town with the latest wardrobe,” Dora said. “Like you, we manage to get by.”
“Before you go, would you like to see our goats?” Clive asked, standing up. They followed him out of a back door. On a small flat patch against the hillside there was a pen with the goats in it, a chicken run beside it and a raised vegetable garden. The last tomatoes were turning red on dying plants.
“Oh blimey. Aren’t they big and fierce-looking?” Mavis exclaimed. “Look at them horns. Do you really milk them?”
“We do,” Clive said. “Of course I have to sing to them while I do the milking. They like the sound of my voice.” He grinned. Ellie couldn’t tell if he was pulling their legs. He seemed to enjoy a good joke.
“One thing we would like is actually more land,” Tommy said, “but we do love this little house, and there is nowhere else to expand our garden.”
The guests were escorted round to the front of the house. The cat appeared, sensing they were leaving and probably glad that her masters’ attention could now be fully on her again.
“Come and see us any time,” Tommy said. “We love unexpected visitors.”
“What interesting men,” Dora commented as they made their way down the hill. “And how sensible of them to live here. Can you imagine what a scandal there would have been if they’d lived in our village? Gossip all the time. And I did like his paintings.”
Ellie studied Dora as she went ahead, holding on to Mavis’s arm. It was as if Dora had already shed the strict and haughty exterior of her previous life. Maybe it had been a shield, Ellie thought.Maybe we all build up walls around us as a defense, so we can’t be hurt.
Chapter 14
As they reached the harbourside, they noticed that the Bentley was no longer there.
“Let’s hope that Louis has had it towed away,” Ellie said. “Otherwise someone has made off with it and all our belongings.”
