The French House by Helen Fripp (ebook reader with highlight function TXT) 📕

sent the majority of her stock, she unhooked the keys from her belt, wiggled the lock open and turned the handle, dreading what she would find. The warehouse smelt musty. Pallet upon pallet was stacked high to the ceiling. Her heart sank. It would take weeks to get through them all. She unbuttoned her sleeves and focused on the pallet in front of her, pulled out a bottle and held it up to the light. A fungal finger gloated at her from inside the wine. Ruined. She started a reject pile, ready for the cart to take them to the merchant who would pour her precious wine down the drain and reuse the bottles.

She worked through ten pallets, each one the same story. Ruined, ruined, ruined. Nearly fifty thousand bottles, the result of battling the elements, back-breaking harvest, press, fermenting and careful blending, to end up going nowhere, crammed into this grim shed next to a dull grey sea. Such bad luck was just unfair. A day earlier and these bottles would have made the ship to Russia. It would be so much easier to leave the whole bloody lot to its fate.

After another ten pallets, the sun was already high outside the window. Time was elastic in this place and hunger pangs reminded Nicole to unwrap the neatly folded greased-paper package her hotel had provided. The baguette was as good as Natasha’s, still fresh, and it smelt like home.

She remembered Natasha’s parting words, You make your own luck, and you are a lucky person.

She devoured the rest of the baguette and set back to work.

It took three weeks of working day and night, acting as judge and jury for every one of her precious bottles. Each night, she huddled back along the canals to her small hotel, then rose at the first light of dawn to resume her task, the kindly owner of the hotel pressing a food package into her hands as she left in case she forgot to eat.

She was determined that she would save every good bottle. If she could get even five thousand bottles to Louis, it would be something. At least he’d come home and be safe from the escalating situation in Russia.

Chatting to the wine helped with the loneliness. Each bottle had its own personality, its own life to live. ‘You,’ she told a salvageable red, ‘will wind up a track in the sunshine where the larks hover above the poppies, crimson against yellow grass, to a mellow country house. There’ll be a simple wedding, with wild flowers and fiddles. And you,’ (the bottle of Chardonnay felt dangerously warm to the touch), ‘may lie for years in a cellar, waiting for a longed-for baby to be born. I hope for their sake you are opened.’ She picked up a bottle of champagne. ‘And you, my beautiful friend, are for starlit lovers.’

At last a good batch! She kissed the pristine bottle. Crystal clear, a smart cordon of fizz, corks intact. She remembered her abandoned riddling experiment in the basement and resolved to try again. And keep trying. She’d be rich if she could guarantee this quality every time and François’ name, the name he had given her, would be famous down the generations. She’d be laughed out of town if anyone knew the extent of her ambition, but barely a day passed when she didn’t turn the problem over in her mind and try to find a solution.

Each good bottle received a kiss as she lined them up: enough to supply a whole palace! She remembered Louis’ news that the Tsarina Elizabeth was five months pregnant. It would be these bottles that would help celebrate the royal birth in December. It was possible to get it all overland to Louis by then. Surely Natasha could conjure up just a little bit of extra luck for the journey!

At last, when the task was nearly complete, she summoned Xavier’s driver from Reims. When he arrived, she was relieved to see that he had a kind, open face and she recognised him as one of the boys who was always in the square, now grown up, who she’d known forever, even if she didn’t know his name. Good, Xavier had chosen well. She needed all the friends she could get. She nodded a bright hello.

‘Pack these carefully. The roads will be rough. Make a nest of hay for each bottle and don’t spare it.’

She supervised until she was satisfied, then continued sorting, giving the driver the map Louis had sent her with the best and safest routes into Russia. She tucked a note on the final champagne bottle in the batch for Louis.

The minute this is sold, you are to come back immediately…

She pictured Louis touching the bottles she had kissed.

Come straight back, you are needed here. Your Nicole.

She thought better of the kiss and smudged it out.

Finally she was standing on the docks next to a glowering sea, surveying her work, the wind knifing at her hair. Most bottles were condemned to death and piled on wagons, ready to be poured away. The cheque in her hand was pathetic. The scrapped bottles yielded one hundredth of what they would have been worth had they survived.

But four thousand were piled up on her wagon bound for Louis, enough to prove once more the worth of her vineyards and blends. Enough to establish the name of Veuve Clicquot in the valuable Russian markets. Enough to get Louis out of there the moment his business was done.

‘Go!’ She dismissed the driver. ‘Make sure every single one of these bottles gets there. You will be rewarded for speed.’

As the wagon jolted away, she allowed herself to think of it. A year ago today, François died. She checked the position of the sun. François’ champagne was finally going to Russia. The wind was blowing in from the east, the direction her bottles were headed in. Natasha would say that was a good omen, and why not believe it?

When the wagon disappeared,