Keys to the Castle (6 page)

“Oh . . .” replied Sara, trying not to show her surprise as she climbed into the backseat and settled down into the cushiony folds of buff leather. “Yes, umm . . . Thank you.”

“Well, well,” she murmured to herself when he closed the door. “This is what I call service.”

She started to search her purse for her cell phone to call Dixie, but was distracted by what appeared to be a small refrigerator built into the seat in front of her. As promised, there was a china platter of cheese and fruit with flat crackers and squares of dark chocolate. There was a silver bucket padded with shredded raffia in which nestled a bottle of red wine and a crystal glass. She wondered how much the lawyers would pad her bill for these amenities, but then she tasted the Montrachet and she didn't care.

There was a privacy panel between the front seat and the back, soft classical music floating over hidden speakers, and her own temperature controls. The driver negotiated with expert skill the busy roads of the largest city in France, and the luxury car was so smooth and silent that Sara hardly noticed when they left the busy highways behind for the more leisurely pace of the secondary roads that led east, toward the valley of the Loire River.

Sara sat back, sipped wine, nibbled on cheese, fruit, and exquisite morsels of chocolate, and actually started to enjoy the trip as the French countryside rolled by. The only traveling Sara had done in her life was circumscribed by hotel rooms and boardrooms; the concept of a vacation was alien to her. But for the first time it occurred to her that Dixie might be right . . . simply getting away could be good for her. There was something a little exotic about the smell and feel and look of a foreign country, and it made her feel exotic, too. She felt different in these surroundings, as though the pain and discontent that weighed her down throughout the winter was still trying to catch up with this time zone. It was an odd feeling, and not entirely unwelcome.

The swatches of blue and green outside the window were like a gently undulating quilt whose symmetry was broken occasionally by the spire of a village church or the arches of a stone bridge. Rich, dark fields were turned in long, curving rows, and she turned to gaze wide-eyed at the almost military precision with which the carefully pruned and tied vines of the famous wine country were lined up along the hillside. It looked like a video from the Travel Channel.

She was starting on her second glass of wine—and third or fourth square of chocolate—when the car turned gently off of the paved road and onto a narrow lane lined with those tall, cone-shaped trees she had seen in Renaissance paintings. In fact the entire vista looked a lot like a painting—the deep green trees silhouetted against a pale sky, the glint of a deep crystal blue lake in the distance that was spanned by a charming wide planked bridge, and beyond that bridge, half obscured by a dip in the road, she got a glimpse of the tall towers and chimneys of what looked very much like one of the oft-photographed châteaux of France. It was then that she remembered, with chagrin, the camera Dixie had stuffed into her purse at the last minute. She had promised the boys—well, mostly Dixie—a full photographic essay, and she hadn't taken a picture of a single vineyard. Hopefully, a picture of a castle would make up for it.

To Sara's amazement and delight, the car crossed the bridge, and at the height of it the full château—or at least as much as the eye could see—came into view. The structure seemed to have been built around a pointed-roofed tower on the west side, so that it was as much round as square in appearance. It was constructed of a pale, rough gray stone, three stories high, with a darker stone accenting each of the multiple arched windows in an uneven, charmingly hand-hewn fan shape. There was a deep, shadowed entryway slightly asymmetrical to center with an arched portico that reached to the second story, and Sara counted six chimneys on the front side of the house alone. The sun, now long past its zenith, was aligned behind the ancient fortress in such a way that the entire structure seemed to glow with a silvery luminescence. It was everything she had ever expected from a fairy-tale castle, and more.

She stretched from window to window to try to take it all in at once—the glittering water, the sweep of emerald lawn that surrounded the castle, the wavy leaded glass windows, the small dark rectangles in the tower that Sara believed had once been used as battle stations in the time of bows and arrows. She snapped a dozen pictures through the windows, and the driver, who must have noticed her efforts, was kind enough to pull the car around the circular drive and stop in front of the castle. He got out and came around to open her door.

“Oh, thank you so much!” Sara exclaimed, climbing out. “Do you think it's okay if I take pictures? I mean, will anyone mind?”

“Certainly not, madame. As you wish.”

“It's gorgeous,” she said, backing up and checking her frame in the digital camera. “Just like Cinderella's castle, only older. And real,” she added, snapping the shutter.

The timeworn stones were mossy in places, and she could see white patches where the mortar had been repaired. She felt small, and overcome with awe, at the thought of the centuries this place had witnessed, the hands that had carved and stacked these stones so long ago, the feet that had trod its halls. Suddenly she was glad she had come to France. There was nothing like standing in the shadow of an edifice that had been erected by people who had lived and died centuries before you were born to put your own small life into perspective.

Maybe she would make time to visit a few churches and museums after all.

She had wandered a dozen or so steps from the car in her enthusiastic photo-taking, and now she turned back. “Thanks again for . . .”

But she stopped. The driver had removed her bags from the car and was standing beside them, waiting patiently for her. Sara hurried over to him.

“Excuse me,” she said, gesturing to her suitcases. “Is something wrong? Aren't you taking me to my hotel?”

He nodded. “
Oui
, madame. This is Château Rondelais.”

“But . . .” She scrambled in her purse for the folded paper on which she had printed all her travel instructions. “I'm staying at—at the Rosalie, in the village.”

“No, madame,” he explained patiently. “There has been a change in your accommodations. Mr. Lindeman himself instructed that I am to make certain you are settled in the château.”

“Oh,” she said, trying not to show her astonishment.
Lindeman
was definitely the name on the letterhead she had received from the British law firm. And this was definitely a castle.

“But . . .” She looked around helplessly, but he gave her a reassuring nod and gestured her to precede him up the path.

The flagstone walkway was cracked with age and showing a few weeds here and there, shadowed in places by the giant, rounded boxwoods that dotted the lawn. The château loomed huge and silent as she approached, with absolutely no sign of life within. She had heard, of course, that many of the châteaux in the Loire Valley had been transformed into B&Bs, but she had never expected to actually spend the night in one.

The massive oak front door swung open just as they gained the top step, and a plump, uniformed maid receded into the shadows. Sara glanced uncertainly at the chauffeur, who smiled and nodded and, with his arms occupied with her luggage, gestured her to precede him. Sara stepped inside.

There she was struck dumb and motionless. Why had she expected a cold, dark stone foyer lined with suits of chain mail and battle-axes? This was France, after all, the land of opulence and fairy tales. The enormous hall in which she was standing was clad in gleaming, pink-veined marble, floor to two-story ceiling. A banister curved upward alongside a marble staircase that was wide enough for a giant and a couple of his drinking buddies to climb side by side. Overhead was a chandelier that was as big as the bathroom in her Chicago apartment, and every prism of it sent shards of light cascading off the polished surfaces below.

In the center of the room was a table with delicately curved legs, on which rested an enormous vase of flowers—nasturtiums, lilies, saucer-sized dahlias, stately yellow and pink gladiolus, and deep purple iris. There were mirrors in baroque frames, and a painting of a boy in knee pants with a greyhound that was taller than she was. Far beyond the crystal chandelier, the domed ceiling was painted a Renaissance blue, its panels edged in gold. The white marble floor beneath her feet shone like glass.

Granted, the banister was dark with age and the steps were worn. The silver arms of the chandelier showed signs of tarnish and the blue ceiling was faded, the gold leaf blackened in places and flaking. But the sheer enormity of the room, the vast quantity of all that marble, the glitter and gleam of polished surfaces, swallowed up insignificant details.

Sara was aware that she was gaping like Alice in Wonderland, but she couldn't help it. The big oak door swung slowly shut on heavy hinges, and the driver began speaking in rapid French to a woman in a crisp gray maid's uniform. In a moment he turned to her. “Madame, it has been a pleasure serving you. Madame Touron will show you to your room.”

“Oh, uh, thank you.” Sara pulled herself out of the spell of wonder that had entrapped her the moment she entered the house, and fumbled in her purse for a tip. She had no idea how much would be appropriate. “You've been wonderful.”

He ignored her futile search for euros and instead gave her a small bow. “Good day, madame. Enjoy your stay at Rondelais.”

As he departed by the front door, the maid gestured toward the staircase in invitation. “Madame?”

Sara felt like royalty as she followed the woman up the broad, sweeping stairs, her soft-soled shoes squeaking against the polished marble. The stairway was lined with portraits of people in costumes from various centuries, some in stiff Elizabethan collars, some in floaty empire gowns, some in Victorian ballroom attire. The only thing that prevented Sara from grabbing her camera and snapping photos at every step was that she didn't want to seem like a typical American tourist to the maid. But she vowed to sneak down later and get some photographs—for Dixie, of course.

They reached the second floor, and turned down a wide hallway with a high medallioned ceiling and a faded, rather threadbare blue tapestry carpet that ran the length of the gleaming marble floor. It was a hallway in the sense that it was a corridor flanked on either side by rooms, but it was unlike any hall Sara had ever seen in America. It easily could have accommodated several apartments, complete with furniture, in its breadth and depth, and even though their footsteps were muffled by the carpet, every movement echoed. There were deep alcoves and high windows, elaborately carved wood moldings and panels, but almost no furnishings, which Sara thought was odd for a place as luxurious—and large—as this. At the far end, the corridor branched right and left, presumably leading to the separate wings, but before they got that far the maid stopped, and opened a door. Sara followed her inside.

“Oh . . . my . . . goodness,” she said softly.

It was like a picture out of a coffee-table book entitled
World's Most Luxurious Suites
. The most prominent feature was the bed, raised on a dais and adorned with a puffy white silk comforter, blue silk pillows trimmed in gold fringe, and gold silk curtains, lined in blue, that dropped from a ceiling coronet and were pulled back in graceful drapes on either side of the tall, slim headposts. There was a marble fireplace with elaborately carved flowers, butterflies, and scrollwork, and a fire burned cheerily in the grate.

A blue velvet settee and matching Queen Anne chair were drawn up before the fire, and between them was a small, elegant table, on which was arranged a tiered dish of chocolate-dipped fruit. Beside the settee was a silver ice bucket on a stand, which held a bottle of champagne and a flute glass. In the center of the room a marble-topped table sported another enormous vase of flowers, this time lilacs and white roses. The room was filled with their fragrance.

She hardly knew where to look, it was all so overwhelming. Surely this was not all meant for her. How much must a room like this cost per night, anyway?

“Um . . .” She turned to the maid, who had already made it clear she did not speak English, but Sara wasn't sure what she would have said even if she could have made herself understood.
Do you have a smaller castle? Maybe there's a more affordable room in the gardener's shed?

The maid opened a door and stood aside, her smile inviting Sara to look inside. Almost tiptoeing, Sara ventured to the door. She caught her breath at what she saw.

The bathroom was approximately the size of her bedroom in Dixie's basement. The ceiling was frescoed with cherubs and clouds, and trimmed with intricately carved moldings that were painted white and brushed with gold leaf. The room had its own fireplace, in which another fire danced and sparked. A plush white robe was draped over a velvet-cushioned stool, and an elaborately scrolled dressing table was topped by a baroque gold-framed mirror. A careful arrangement of lotions, oils, and toiletries was displayed in cut-glass bottles atop the table. But the centerpiece was a sunken marble bathtub as big as a child's swimming pool. A teardrop chandelier was centered over it, reflecting prisms of light off the aqua water that filled it and the gleaming marble steps that led into it. As Sara watched, slack-jawed, the maid opened one of the jars on the dressing table, and sprinkled a handful of red rose petals over the steaming water.

Sara pulled the French phrase book from her purse, frantically flipped a few pages, and finally came up with the words she wanted.
“Pour moi?”
She pointed at her chest. For me?

“
Oui
, madame.” The maid proceeded to rattle off a litany of French, to which Sara merely smiled and nodded dumbly, feeling as dazed as she no doubt looked. Finally, with something that must have been her closing statement—Sara hoped it wasn't anything important—the woman gave a small bow of her head and left the room.