it doesn’t suit …’
‘No,’ he said. She noticed with astonishment that his eyes were crinkled with amusement. He went on in English. ‘Bell it shall be. I am just plain Charles.’ The way he pronounced it, with the soft ch and the rolling r, it sounded anything but plain to Bell. She laughed back at him and held out her hand. He shook it gravely, then seemed to remember something and withdrew his hand.
‘Won’t you come this way? In my study we won’t be disturbed.’ He led the way to the little, untidy room and closed the oak door firmly behind them.
It wasn’t exactly an easy interview.
Charles de Gillesmont answered her questions about grape varieties, hectares and mechanization punctiliously. He could quote the recent figures fluently and he was careful to explain to her the particular problems and advantages he faced at Reynard.
It was all information that she could have found herself in the reference books. Most of it was in her notes already.
He definitely did not want to talk about the glamorous aspect of being a French baron and owning one of the most famous wines in the world.
Bell had a sudden mental picture of Henry Stobbs swivelling round in his editorial armchair to give her one of his famous beady stares. He would tap her neatly-typed copy and say, ‘Dull. Bloody dull. We didn’t send you out there to get five pages of figures, sweetheart. Where’s the story? Where’s the juice?’ Henry believed that his readers were ‘people people’.
Bell gritted her teeth. Somehow she would have to break through this man’s polished reserve and winkle out what Henry called the human interest angle. She leaned forward slightly to adjust the position of the mike on the table between them, and gave the baron a disarming smile.
‘There have been de Gillesmonts at Château Reynard for centuries, I know …’
‘Four hundred years.’
‘Thank you, yes. What about the continuing tradition? Do you and your wife want your children to carry on as you are doing?’
She was certain that he was married, she had checked on that, but the blue eyes snapped at her, icy cold and offended.
‘Forgive me, I thought you were a wine writer? That is what your editor told me when he wrote to ask if you could come here.’
‘My editor wrote?’ Light was dawning. She hadn’t been given her exclusive invitation to Reynard because Charles had seen and admired her work. Silly of her to imagine that she had. It was just one of Henry’s schemes.
‘Of course. I would normally have refused but he happened to enclose some of your cuttings. I was impressed by your unusually sensible approach to the subject.’ Well, that was something. ‘Which is why I am surprised to hear you asking questions like a gossip columnist. How many of your readers could possibly be interested in my wife? And children?’
Bell went scarlet. She was stung by his tone into a quick retort.
‘Of course I’m a wine writer. I’m a good one because I know what people want to read. In this case, that means you, not just the wine. I have to do my job as well as I can, otherwise I’ll find myself without it. And what you’ve given me there,’ she pointed at the cassette in the recorder, ‘doesn’t exactly sizzle.’ She looked up at him, ready to go on defending herself, but she was amazed to see that he was laughing.
It transformed his face, rubbing out the severe lines and making him look almost boyish.
He’s got a very sensuous mouth, Bell thought irrelevantly, feeling a tiny constriction in her throat.
‘Must it sizzle?’ Charles was asking her.
‘Yes,’ she said, defiantly.
He bent forward to the low table and pressed the ‘off’ button on the machine.
‘You care about it, this job, don’t you?’ He was looking at her differently. As if she was a person and not a prying journalist.
‘Yes,’ she answered, and then, to her surprise, ‘it’s all I’ve got to care about, now.’
Why on earth had she said that, to a frosty, upper-class stranger? Something about him had caught her unawares. His stare was serious now, with a distinct edge of sympathy. He glanced at the recorder as if to make sure that it was really switched off, then said softly, ‘We have that in common, then.’
He stood up and rummaged in a cupboard, then produced a pair of champagne flutes. As he put them on the table he added, ‘My wife and I are separated.’ It would have sounded like a casual afterthought if Bell hadn’t seen the pain and bitterness in his face. The disdainful self-assurance had gone. For that brief instant, he was just an unhappy man. ‘Excuse me.’ He walked out of the room, but Bell barely had time to gather her thoughts after the bewildering change in his manner before he was back, carrying a bottle. It was Krug, connoisseur’s champagne, 1964.
He opened the bottle deftly and let the wine foam into the thin glasses. He handed one to Bell and then raised his own.
‘To you, Bell. And to the success of your assignment.’
They drank, and for the moment Bell forgot everything but the reviving fizz of the wonderful wine in her mouth. When she looked back at him Charles was watching her with clear approval in his face.
‘Thank you,’ she said, meaning for his good wishes as well as the champagne. He made a tiny, mock-formal bow and leant back against the mantelpiece. The room was very quiet, and warm with the early evening sunlight.
‘Yes,’ Charles said almost to himself. ‘My wife and I are separated. Divorce is not a possibility, so …’
Bell frowned and then remembered. Of course, the aristocratic de Gillesmonts would be devout Catholics.
‘… you see, I can’t predict for you or for your readers what will happen here in the future. That will depend on who takes over after I am gone. Whoever it is, it will not now be a child of mine.’ Charles had gone very pale, and his voice was so low that Bell had to strain to catch the words. She didn’t know what to say, and after a moment he collected himself and went on.
‘All I can tell you is that so long as I am breathing, it will stay exactly as it always has been. In that, at least, there is some permanence. Not very fashionable, I know, when everyone else is rushing headlong to get rid of the old ways. You are welcome to write that about me, if you think anyone would be interested. More champagne?’ A little of the suave gloss was beginning to creep back. Bell held out her glass as she answered.
‘I’m sorry, I had no intention of prying. Put it down to vulgar journalistic curiosity.’
He was watching her speculatively. ‘I don’t think, somehow, that vulgarity is one of your faults. I was watching your face when we had our disagreement a moment ago. It upset you. That sort of sensitivity can’t be a very helpful trait, for a journalist.’
‘This is all wrong.’ Bell tried to laugh, casually. ‘I’m supposed to be interviewing you.’
‘Well, perhaps it would be more amusing to turn the tables. I could try my hand at a profile of you, and risk a few personal questions. Let me see … perhaps you are suffering
