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The two finished breakfast, and Gabi left to tend to her goat and garden. Julia remained to clean the dishes. While she worked, the tight feeling remained in her stomach. She must apologize to M. Paquet for her discourteous words this morning and thank him for his kindness. Helping plant the seedlings might just be the way to clear the air between them.
The sounds of Gabi yelling startled her, and Julia almost dropped the plate she was drying. She set it down and rushed outside to see what was wrong.
She found Gabi pulling a rope with a protesting goat at the other end toward a short, squat woman on the far side of her property. Julia wasn’t certain whether Gabi was yelling at the woman or the goat, and as she got closer, she realized it was both.
“. . . again in my garden,” Gabi was saying. “I shall have no mint left, and she trampled down an entire row of rosemary.”
“Fleur is a clever goat,” the woman replied, arms folded. “She can escape her pen as well as give the sweetest milk.”
“It is my garden that makes the winning chèvre so sweet,” Gabi said. “Yet you take home the prize every year.”
“Jealousy does not look good on you, Gabrielle.” The woman folded her arms.
“A stained apron does not look good on you, Alice, but I am too polite to mention it.” Gabi glared at her.
Alice looked down at her apron, which was indeed stained, and frowned at Gabi. When she saw Julia approach, she raised a brow and looked back at Gabi with a questioning expression.
“Alice, this is my guest, Juliette Weston from Paris.”
“A guest?” Alice said. “When have you ever had a guest? And how do you know someone from Paris?” She looked Julia up and down. “She doesn’t dress like she’s from Paris.”
Gabi ignored the woman’s commentary. “Juliette, this is Alice Laurent, my neighbor.” She spoke the last two words with a sigh, as if having a neighbor were a burden she endured stoically. She motioned with her chin toward the house close to hers.
“Bonjour, Madame Laurent,” Julia said.
Alice continued to study her. “Is she Luc’s friend? I’ll wager she is Luc’s friend. It’s about time he brought a young lady around.” She spoke as if Julia were not present or as though she could not hear. And since the woman’s questions apparently didn’t require answers, Julia didn’t offer any.
A man’s voice called out a greeting, and the three women looked toward the Laurents’ house.
“Mathieu Laurent,” Gabi told Julia as the man approached. “Alice’s husband.”
The man was short and wide like his wife. He walked toward them slowly, limping as he leaned on a cane. A little dog followed at his heels. “How pleasant to look through my window this morning and see three beautiful women.” In spite of how painful his movements appeared, he spoke with twinkling eyes.
Alice huffed through her nose.
“Good morning, Mathieu,” Gabi said. “This is my dear friend Juliette Weston.”
“A tremendous pleasure, mademoiselle.” Monsieur Laurent swept up Julia’s hand and kissed it. “We receive few visitors here in Riv, and each one is a gift.”
Alice rolled her eyes and let out another huff.
“Un plaisir, Monsieur Laurent,” Julia said, remembering she’d seen his name at the train station. “You are the stationmaster?”
“Eh, oui.” He shrugged.
From his tone, Julia didn’t think he took his position very seriously.
“I found Fleur in my garden again.” Gabi pulled on the rope, tugging the dark-brown goat away from the patch of grass the animal was eating.
“Encore?” Mathieu groaned, shaking his head. “This goat! She is such trouble. She has learned to unknot her rope.”
“We cannot blame the goat for being too clever to remain in her pen, Mathieu,” Alice said. She took the rope from Gabi and scratched Fleur beneath her chin.
“Wecanblame her for ruining my garden,” Gabi retorted. “My Coquette, she is so well-behaved.” Gabi pointed toward her own goat pen, where a light-brown goat with white spots munched on a wad of something.
“Your garden will recover,” Alice replied. “It always does. And if anyone is to complain, it is myself. I know my hens have been laying in your garden, and you’ve kept the eggs.”
“If the eggs are in my garden, they are my eggs,” Gabi said. “How am I to know which chicken laid which? Ask them?”
