some almost overgrown, through copses and between fields of still-furled sunflowers and drying hay. Then the path plunged into thick woodland, emerging on to a bare hillside scattered with moon daisies. From here there was a wide view across a river valley to blue hills beyond; in the garden of a villa slightly below and to the left, children played around a bright cobalt swimming pool. The path led away from them; according to the map, La Jaubertie should be quite near, on the next ridge.
By now it was getting on for five o’clock. The hillside was almost colourless in the heat, and by the time I reached the valley floor, my nose was dripping with sweat. But the path up the opposite slope led through a pinewood, scented and shady, and when I reached the crest of the ridge a breeze had begun to blow. La Jaubertie ought to be directly ahead, on the other side of a stand of tall lime trees. I thought I could just make out the pointed top of a conical roof.
I plunged into the shade of the limes, then out into a clearing with a small building. It looked like a private chapel, not particularly graceful – built perhaps in the nine-teenth century – and now in a state of some disrepair. A gravestone could just be made out half-buried in the long grass beside it. I pulled the grass away and read: Robert de Beaupré, 1915–1937, fils bien-aimé d’Etienne et Véronique. RIP .
So this was where he’d ended up. Back in the ancestral home. There must be a family vault somewhere – all families of this sort had one, a house of the dead where they awaited eternity stacked up in stone drawers – but if he’d committed suicide they wouldn’t have been able to bury him in consecrated ground.
I continued walking, and emerged on to a long lawn. There, before me, stood La Jaubertie: a fantastical, four-square castle in pale limestone with a round tower at each corner. I’d arrived by a back route, and the two towers nearest me were comparatively small, but the two furthest away, flanking the building’s front façade, were massive. All had steep conical roofs, their fairytale quality intensifying my recurrent sense, on this hot July day, of having moved temporarily into some parallel life.
Keeping just inside the covering woods, I skirted around the back of the château. Beneath its main roof – the most enormous roof I had ever seen, tall, red and steeply pitched – ran a corbelled walkway, lit by widely spaced small openings half-hidden beneath deep eaves. About two-thirds of the way along, the façade was pierced by a low, half-open round-arched door.
By now I was level with one of the big main towers. Here, in front of the house, the gardens, hitherto little more than grass surrounded by woodland, became more formal. A carved stone fountain played in the centre of a mown lawn; on one side a sunken avenue, culminating in a statue, was lined by a double row of box bushes carved, as they receded, into ever-smaller lozenges to create a three-dimensional trompe l’oeil . A gravelled drive, emerging from the surrounding woods, skirted the lawn on the side furthest from where I stood, terminating in a sweep in front of the far tower, where a red BMW and a shabby blue Renault 4 stood parked. On the side nearest me two figures sat at a wrought-iron table beneath a cedar tree, while a dog – it looked like an alsatian – lay torpidly in the shade nearby.
The sight of the dog sent me back hurriedly into the shelter of the trees. My walk had been punctuated by frenzied barking every time I passed within sight of a farmhouse, and I had no wish to be found out ignominiously spying. It would hardly be the best of introductions. Fortunately, however, the dog seemed not to have noticed me. Perhaps it was asleep.
One of the figures rose, a man, tall and unnaturally thin. Manu! Why had I not anticipated that he might be here? Somehow all my imaginings had pictured a one-to-one conversation between myself and the old woman. But that, of
By now it was getting on for five o’clock. The hillside was almost colourless in the heat, and by the time I reached the valley floor, my nose was dripping with sweat. But the path up the opposite slope led through a pinewood, scented and shady, and when I reached the crest of the ridge a breeze had begun to blow. La Jaubertie ought to be directly ahead, on the other side of a stand of tall lime trees. I thought I could just make out the pointed top of a conical roof.
I plunged into the shade of the limes, then out into a clearing with a small building. It looked like a private chapel, not particularly graceful – built perhaps in the nine-teenth century – and now in a state of some disrepair. A gravestone could just be made out half-buried in the long grass beside it. I pulled the grass away and read: Robert de Beaupré, 1915–1937, fils bien-aimé d’Etienne et Véronique. RIP .
So this was where he’d ended up. Back in the ancestral home. There must be a family vault somewhere – all families of this sort had one, a house of the dead where they awaited eternity stacked up in stone drawers – but if he’d committed suicide they wouldn’t have been able to bury him in consecrated ground.
I continued walking, and emerged on to a long lawn. There, before me, stood La Jaubertie: a fantastical, four-square castle in pale limestone with a round tower at each corner. I’d arrived by a back route, and the two towers nearest me were comparatively small, but the two furthest away, flanking the building’s front façade, were massive. All had steep conical roofs, their fairytale quality intensifying my recurrent sense, on this hot July day, of having moved temporarily into some parallel life.
Keeping just inside the covering woods, I skirted around the back of the château. Beneath its main roof – the most enormous roof I had ever seen, tall, red and steeply pitched – ran a corbelled walkway, lit by widely spaced small openings half-hidden beneath deep eaves. About two-thirds of the way along, the façade was pierced by a low, half-open round-arched door.
By now I was level with one of the big main towers. Here, in front of the house, the gardens, hitherto little more than grass surrounded by woodland, became more formal. A carved stone fountain played in the centre of a mown lawn; on one side a sunken avenue, culminating in a statue, was lined by a double row of box bushes carved, as they receded, into ever-smaller lozenges to create a three-dimensional trompe l’oeil . A gravelled drive, emerging from the surrounding woods, skirted the lawn on the side furthest from where I stood, terminating in a sweep in front of the far tower, where a red BMW and a shabby blue Renault 4 stood parked. On the side nearest me two figures sat at a wrought-iron table beneath a cedar tree, while a dog – it looked like an alsatian – lay torpidly in the shade nearby.
The sight of the dog sent me back hurriedly into the shelter of the trees. My walk had been punctuated by frenzied barking every time I passed within sight of a farmhouse, and I had no wish to be found out ignominiously spying. It would hardly be the best of introductions. Fortunately, however, the dog seemed not to have noticed me. Perhaps it was asleep.
One of the figures rose, a man, tall and unnaturally thin. Manu! Why had I not anticipated that he might be here? Somehow all my imaginings had pictured a one-to-one conversation between myself and the old woman. But that, of
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