Come The Vintage. Anne Mather

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      But a shock awaited her when she returned to the kitchen. The huge tabby was licking her paws on the draining board, and the plate on which she had laid the steaks was empty.

      Ryan was horrified. ‘Oh, cat!’ she exclaimed angrily, lifting the creature and dropping her unceremoniously on to the floor. ‘Oh, what am I going to do now?’

      Knowing she had no time to ponder, she went back into the storeroom and took three more steaks from the freezer. Their coldness clung to her fingers and without stopping to consider the advisability of such a course, she plunged them into hot water, thawing them quickly. By the time the Abbé Maurice came tapping his walking stick at the kitchen door, the meat was under the grill and potatoes were frying appetizingly in the pan.

      The old priest came in smiling warmly, obviously impressed by her activity. ‘I see you are going to make a good housekeeper, my child,’ he pronounced, sniffing the air appreciatively. ‘Alain has invited me for lunch. I trust that will not inconvenience you.’

      ‘Oh, no!’ Ryan’s cheeks were flushed from the heat of the stove, but she felt rather sick inside. She had still had nothing to eat, and her exertions were beginning to tell. ‘Won’t you sit down, Father? Can I offer you something? Some coffee – or tea?’

      The old priest was breathing rather heavily, and he sat down with obvious relief. ‘No, nothing just now, child,’ he refused politely, taking off his hat. ‘My, my,’ he patted his chest, ‘that walk up from the village gets steeper, I think.’

      ‘You’ve walked?’ Ryan was astonished. She hadn’t heard a car, but she had just assumed he had used one.

      ‘But of course. The exercise does me good. I must say, though, that after one of Berthe’s good lunches, I could not always walk back, even though it is downhill,’ he chuckled.

      Ryan turned back to the stove. His words were rather unfortunate in the circumstances, but he was not to know that. And after all, steak and tomatoes and chips, followed by apricots and icecream, was not such a frugal repast. Perhaps she should have opened a tin of soup. She shrugged. Another day. Alain could think himself lucky he was getting any meal at all.

      The station wagon roared into the yard about five minutes later, and Alain came in bringing a breath of cold frosty air with him. In his absence she had forgotten the overwhelming domination of his presence, and the penetration of those tawny cat’s eyes. He greeted the priest warmly, exchanged a glance with Ryan, and then bent to the cat who had leapt from her perch to rub herself lovingly against his booted legs.

      ‘Hey, Tabithe!’ he chided gently, his deep voice acquiring a disturbing tenderness Ryan had never heard before. ‘So you came back, did you? Have you been keeping our mistress company?’

      Ryan lifted the potatoes into a serving dish, her hands trembling slightly. She was tempted to tell him exactly what kind of company the beastly creature had provided, but to do so would embarrass the Abbé, and she had no quarrel with him. All the same, she felt a faint resentment that her overtures towards the animal had been ignored, while Alain had only to appear for her to be caressing his legs with her sinuous body. But of course, she thought impatiently, the cat was a female, and had all the usual attraction towards the male. Obviously the creature did not regard the Abbé Maurice in his flowing robes in quite the same light.

      The steak looked reassuringly good when it was served with sprigs of parsley, and Alain, who had been down to the cellar below the storeroom to fetch a bottle of wine for their delectation, stopped what he was doing to compliment her on its presentation. After a moment’s hesitation, she had decided to serve the meal in the kitchen, and obviously she had done the right thing. Had she not felt so unwell, she would have been almost satisfied with her morning’s work. However, the wine which Alain had uncorked and poured into her glass served to revive her.

      ‘Ah, but this is good,’ essayed the priest, nodding as he inhaled its bouquet. ‘What is it, Alain? Not the ‘68 or the ‘69? It cannot be the ‘66. No, I think perhaps it is a Beaujolais …’

      Alain smiled, taking his seat at the head of the table, his fingers hiding the label on the bottle in his hand. ‘How astute, Father,’ he murmured humorously. He partially withdrew his fingers. ‘See – I will not tease you. It is from the Vosne-Romanée. But can you guess which it is?’

      Abbé Maurice picked up the glass and inhaled again, his brows drawing together in perplexity. ‘You know I am no expert, Alain. A Burgundy is a Burgundy. I know what I like, and that is about all.’

      Alain set the bottle down. ‘It is the Richebourg, see? The ‘61. A very special case which Ryan’s father had laid down for very special occasions.’

      The priest surveyed them both expectantly. ‘And this is such an occasion, Alain?’

      Alain’s eyes sought Ryan’s, but she looked away, unable to contemplate what he was about to say. ‘It is a special occasion, Father,’ he agreed. ‘Ryan and I are to be married, as soon as it can be arranged. Is that not so, Ryan?’

      He was challenging her now. It was the moment of truth, and she was not prepared for it. ‘I – yes. Yes, I suppose so.’

      The old Abbé beamed. ‘I could not be more pleased.’ He pushed back his chair and rose to his feet. ‘This calls for a toast, in this most excellent wine of the Côte de Nuits. I wish you every happiness, my children, and I drink to your future together.’

      The priest insisted that they join in the toast, and he patted Alain on the shoulder and told Ryan that her father would have been so happy had he been alive to see this day. Alain had been like a son to him, he said, and it was always her father’s dearest wish that his two loved ones should meet.

      Ryan couldn’t help thinking that had her father still been alive, this day would not have occurred. She wondered how much the priest had known of her father’s affairs, of the terms of his will, and decided he had probably been a witness to it. He obviously shared her father’s and Alain’s belief that marriage should first and foremost be treated as a business arrangement, but the cold-bloodedness of it, the calculating method of its inception, filled Ryan with despair.

      Custom satisfied, they turned to the meal. Alain served the priest first, then Ryan, and finally himself. If he was surprised that Ryan would accept nothing more than a small steak and half a tomato, he made no comment, and for this she was thankful. But when she cut into the meat she found to her horror that although the outer casing was brown and smelt appetizing, inside the core was still hard and frozen.

      She looked up aghast to find Alain and the priest eating silently, apparently unperturbed at the rawness of the meat, but her stomach revolted. What must they be thinking of her? she thought desperately. Were neither of them going to say anything? They must know she had not thawed it before cooking. They would think her an absolute idiot!

      She pushed her plate aside, and waited for one of them to speak. But they said nothing, and she suddenly felt furiously angry. She didn’t want their pity, she didn’t want them to pretend to enjoy something so as not to hurt her feelings. It was too galling to contemplate!

      Taking a deep breath, she burst out: ‘Don’t eat it! It’s horrible! It’s raw! The cat ate the meat I thawed, and I didn’t have time to thaw any more.’

      Abbé Maurice lifted his head in an embarrassed way, and Alain regarded her steadily. ‘Don’t be silly, Ryan. I prefer my steak rare.’

      ‘There’s СКАЧАТЬ