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

there is also bad. Louis has been arrested as a spy. The jails in St Petersburg are no more salubrious than the ones in Paris and, as you know, I am very familiar with their filth and cold. I bribed my way in with the handsome young jailer in the only way I know how (a little light relief in the darkness. You are welcome). Louis told me to ask you to forgive him. How foolishly romantic! He said he would escape to make your name. Don’t cry. You give him hope and that is what he needs in dark days.

I will do what I can when I have escaped this precarious situation where all French citizens, even me, are accused as spies.

Your Thérésa

Nicole let the letter fall. Louis could be dead by now. And all because of her relentless obsession with Veuve Clicquot et Compagnie.

Chapter 15

Camouflage

March 1810

Louis didn’t come home. That year, or the next. Four years limped by. Nicole anxiously kept track of Napoléon’s advance across Europe, and prayed to God that Louis was still alive. When the news came that Napoléon had taken Berlin, then large parts of Prussia in the autumn of 1806, Nicole was laying down the blends and planning her next shipment for Louis, still optimistic she would have news of him. In 1808, a late frost ruined that year’s harvest and Napoléon crowned his brother King of Spain. Rumblings of discontent abounded amongst even the most fervent of Napoléon’s supporters and the grip of poverty closed tighter around France, thanks to endless wars and lack of European trade. As Nicole saved what she could of her blighted vines, she looked for Louis, half expecting him to appear with miraculous orders secured for better years, but there was no news.

Even Thérésa was unable to work her magic; incarcerated French weren’t considered important enough to keep proper records of. There were times when news of his death would have been better than the dull ache of hope. Now, in 1810, Napoléon had divorced Thérésa’s oldest friend, Joséphine, formed an alliance with Austria through his new wife, Marie-Louise, and continued his warmongering unabated.

Not a day passed when she didn’t imagine Louis appearing on the horizon, a skeleton in a wolfskin coat and a warm brandy smile, with a million stories to tell. Perhaps what the town said was right, that she was bad luck, that her arrogance had killed two men.

She snapped awake. Still dark, the cathedral clock tolling 5 a.m. Lighting a candle, she pulled on her morning gown, crept into the basement and checked on her experiment. Useless. A quarter of the bottles ruined and cloudy, no better than the quota in any cellar across Reims. Why did she think she could find a solution that no one in the entire history of winemaking had ever managed?

In her study, she creaked open the account ledger. The figures looked no different from 5 a.m. yesterday, or the day before, or in fact every early morning for the last four years. There had been some sales – she took the time to ensure the highest quality in every bottle that left the cellars, and a few buyers still had enough money to pay for luxuries, but in general, sales were down for everything. She’d just about managed to keep the vineyards and press going over these hard times, through economies and favours. But her business didn’t have the cash reserves of some of the longer-standing operations, and now there was barely enough to pay the wages.

Two of the few black entries in the ledger were from selling her sapphire ring, and the other from the sale of François’ gold-plated cutlery canteen. No need for fancy dinner parties any more. Thank goodness for her parents – at least she and Mentine wouldn’t starve, but that money wouldn’t help the business.

She fingered the yellow diamond firefly François gave her the night he died. That alone was sacrosanct. Every last cushion and chair would be sacrificed to the business if she needed it, but not the firefly. The stark figures in black and red were unyielding. Can’t they lie, just this once? She made minute adjustments until her eyes stung, trying to do something useful until the sky turned a shade paler and she could race to the vineyards.

On her way out, she stared at herself in the hall mirror. A pinched face stared back. You’ll ruin your looks with all this work, Thérésa had warned. Nicole pulled on her riding gloves. I’m living for two, for me and François, and I’ll live twice as hard.

The spring sun was warm on her shoulders as she rode out into the vineyards. The land didn’t judge and it yielded to her touch. Her field hands were already out digging trenches and they stopped and waved as she passed. A band of renegades, like her. None of the regular field workers would agree to work for a woman, even in these hard times. Her workers were dropouts, outcasts and rejects. Emile’s mother, Marie, had been a notorious whore, but her digging was quicker and more efficient than any man’s. She smiled a gap-toothed salute as she passed. Christophe-Baptiste’s one leg had left him begging on the streets when he came back from Napoléon’s war. No longer. He still had two hands, and they were proficient at banging in the stakes needed to tie the vines.

The orphanage kids were Xavier’s idea. A ragbag of undernourished, foul-mouthed, twitching, snivelling lads. At fourteen they were big enough to be useful and if he taught them well, they would always have a job in Champagne.

‘You’re not shovelling cow shit, you’re digging trenches.’ He held up a stick. ‘This wide, even, all the way along or I’ll send you back to the holes you crawled out of.’

‘The only hole round here is yours and it smells like shit!’

Xavier gave the boy a good clip, grinning with pride, crow’s feet radiating. They were all getting older.