La Chapelle St.-Sépulcre is a tiny village about 80
kilometers south of Paris near Montargis in the Loiret. Montargis is known as the Venise du Gatinais
due to its many canals. But
unfortunately, la Chapelle had no
creek, no lake, no stream. This was the
main complaint of my brothers-in-law and sister-in-law. They claimed the village needed water to give
it charm. But in my memories it glows
idyllic.
As a young Mother I spent the month
of August at the family country home with my three children. The house and its
outbuildings were once the hunting lodge of my husband’s great
grandfather. The walls were two feet
thick and kept the house warm in winter and cool in summer. The main building was relatively near the
road, but was separated by a high iron fence and tall bushes. Behind the house, to the South was a large
meadow bordered by woods. At the time of the Allied Invasion this meadow had
been filled with the tents and fires of the American troops chasing down the
Nazis
Meandering
through the woods was a wide dirt path, l’allée
To the East were tennis courts with orchards beyond. To the West was the
“potager,” the vegetable garden. The
woods, the meadow, the garden, the orchard, all of it was surrounded by a
sturdy iron fence. This was the summer
wonderland of my children.
Each morning we would have big bowls
of café au lait flavored with chicory.
The bread basket was filled with slices of day-old baguette that had
been toasted on the woodstove. There
were jars of ruby-red plum jam and golden apricot preserves. On a blue and white oblong plate was a large
slab of sweet butter from a neighboring farm.
After breakfast the children would escape to the meadow until I had
finished my second cup of coffee and chatted about the day with my
Mother-in-law, Mère, and my sister-in-law, Laurence. As we were chatting, Yvonne would arrive from
the village. She would sing out,
“Bonjour Mesdames.” She was a, sturdy red-faced woman with a cheerful
disposition. She appeared in the morning
to do the previous evening’s supper dishes as well as the breakfast
dishes. Then she aired the beds, swept
the floor and prepared the vegetables for the evening soup.
Often before her arrival, Emil could
be found in the potager; weeding, watering and fussing with the vegetable
plants. He had a long white moustache
and sparkling eyes. He wore wooden
shoes, tattered woolen pants and a moth-eaten sweater. Emil had worked this
garden long before the war and felt a curious allegiance to my Father-in-law
and the family. Periodically, he would
stop to smoke his pipe, and growl at the children as they gamboled around the
garden. Each day, before leaving he
would pick the vegetables that were ready to be harvested and bring them in to
Yvonne.
After breakfast, I would harness the
children for their summer homework of reading and writing. Then, my three darlings and their cousins
would escape into the meadow and woods, safely protected by the surrounding
fence. Often they would not appear until
lunch having climbed trees, built forts and ridden bikes around the allée and on the tennis court. They seemed to be eternally entertained.
After a luncheon of perhaps, tomato salad,
veal scallops, sautéed potatoes, cheeses and peaches in red-wine, Mère and Père,
my mother and father-in-law, would rest and I would take the children off for
tennis lessons or a long walk in the woods or a trip to the swimming pool in
Montargis.
But the best moment of the day, was
tea time at 4:30 or 5:00. We would
prepare the tea tray with a cheerful rustic napkin. There would be slices of pain d’epice (spice
cake),” cake”, which in France is a fruit cake; pieces of dark chocolate, Petit
Beurre cookies and meringues. We would
fill the ancient pewter tea pot which was happily round and squat with an acorn
for a handle. It was accompanied by
matching sugar and creamer - two roly-poly dwarf pots topped with miniature
acorns.
Mère loved tea time. She loved sweets of all kinds and there was
always an over-abundance of cookies and cakes.
She spoiled the children. She
spoiled me and she spoiled herself. I
think her delight in pastries went back to the war when there was no sugar, no
cakes and little food of any kind…when a spoonful of green-tomato jam was a
special treat.
We would gather in the garden for
the daily ritual. There was a clearing
in the allée with a wrought-iron table and matching chairs… painted white. We would place the tea tray on the table and sink
in the chairs. The children would bounce
around or sit on laps and we would delight in our luxurious repast. Conversation flowed smoothly with gurgles of
happy laughter.
In my mind’s
eye, it was always sunny and happiness warmed our hearts and souls.
