The French House

by Helen Fripp

  ‘Goodbye, mon grand,’ Nicole whispered to herself, a farewell to the broken horse, but she was glad about the smashed-up king. The Comte deserved to be smashed up, too – vive la révolution!

  She jumped up to run home through the chaos.

  ‘Watching the poor suffer for fun, rich girl?’ One of Xavier’s friends blocked her way.

  ‘No! The baker was my friend.’

  ‘The Comte spared his own though, didn’t he? No bullet in the belly for you. You’re one of them, a rich, spoilt little aristocrate who’d kill us for a rabbit.’ He slapped her face.

  She spat in his eye and ran, cut down the snicket, his footsteps close behind. She darted sideways down allée Libergier, then swerved along rue du Cloître towards the convent. A spooked horse reared, towering over her. She detoured left, past the silversmith’s broken windows, dodging a mother dragging her wailing toddlers and then – bang! A body encircled her. A greasy waistcoat and grubby britches. She kicked hard.

  ‘Ai! Putain, you can pack a punch for a squirt!’ He dragged her through a doorway. She struggled and scratched like a cat. The door slammed shut. ‘It’s me for fuck’s sake!’

  ‘Xavier!’

  Nicole fell to the ground and sobbed.

  ‘Daniel’s dead.’

  ‘I saw everything. I hope that fucker the Comte burns in hell. Follow me before you get yourself into more trouble – the whole town has gone mad, including you. You could’ve been killed,’ he said proudly. ‘I know a place to hide you away.’

  They ran down a back alley and slipped through a hole in the fence into a yard full of wine barrels. Xavier heaved aside a stack of hay bales and lifted a cellar door.

  ‘Vas-y.’ Xavier gestured to dark steps. ‘Get in, and stay there. I’ll find your papa and tell him where you are.’ He thrust a lantern into her hands. ‘Don’t light this ’til you’ve bolted the door behind you. And don’t look like such a sissy, I thought you told me you weren’t afraid of anything. Go right down inside, we’ll come back and find you when it’s safe.’

  Xavier winked, but he looked afraid, too.

  She hesitated. ‘What about you?’

  ‘I’m not a little rich girl, I’m one of them, which works in my favour for once. Go on then, close the fucking door so I can get the hell out of here,’ he said.

  Nicole plunged into the darkness and bolted the trapdoor behind her. Her hands were slick with sweat and her stomach pitched as she fumbled to light the lamp. The flame jumped and lit the steep cellar steps, but she couldn’t see to the bottom and it was dark and silent as a tomb. She held her breath. Xavier had never let her down. There was the time she got stuck in the apple tree trying to prove she could climb higher than any boy and he helped her down. And the incident with the farmer where she had to hide for hours when she got caught driving his horse cart round the orchard. Xavier had returned, as promised, to tell her when the coast was clear.

  She held the lantern higher and struck out down the stone steps. At the bottom was a long corridor. She waited, alert for footsteps. Nothing but muffled silence. She pressed on down another corridor, and turned again, further into the labyrinth, feeling safer with each turn. It was surprisingly warm and the walls were chalk white. She touched them. Damp, like sponge. Lamps lined the walls and she tore her dress to make a spill to light two of them.

  The space filled with light and she saw that she was in a wine cellar. It was beautiful here, with rows and rows of neatly stacked bottles, straight passageways and lofty vaulted ceilings. Light funnelled underground through tall chimneys and the wine bottles gleamed, green as the River Vesle. This was a fairy grotto after the horror of the streets, a place of safety, order and alchemy.

  Nicole sat on a barrel and closed her eyes, suddenly exhausted. It was only now she thought of the terror and injustice she had witnessed. Daniel was dead, murdered like an animal. She belonged to the workers in the square now, and shared their rage, grief and desperation. She spat on her palm, like she’d seen Xavier do to seal a bet, and made a pact with herself, there and then, for Daniel. She would work to build her own wealth, her own power, and she would use it for good, for her own revolution.

  Chapter 2

  The Crimson Grape

  Eight years later, September 1797

  Republican date: Fructidor, year V

  Everything changed, and nothing had changed. Europe was at war and all the talk was of a brilliant young general, Napoléon Bonaparte, who was advancing his battalions against Italy with great success. It was hard to imagine marauding armies in the Reims countryside, and apart from Monsieur Moët boasting about his schooldays with the great general, and heated exchanges of news in the bakery, it all seemed far away to Nicole. The Comte d’Etoges, who had shot Daniel dead almost in the spot she was standing, was dead himself, slaughtered at the guillotine. Nicole crossed herself at the thought. Xavier had been right about that gruesome invention. Many lives had been lost and turned upside down since the day, eight years ago, that the revolution had begun, and she had taken refuge in the cellars.

  The days and years had different and incomprehensible names now. The republican state had restarted the calendar to the beginning of the republic, and renamed everything so no royalist or religious references were made. There was no more October or November, but instead Latin or made-up names that reflected the weather of that particular month – Brumaire, ‘mist’, or Frimaire, ‘frost’. Everyone was in a muddle with it, never mind the illiterate workers who’d always learnt everything from previous generations. The old cathedral with its gargoyles and filigree stone was now the people’s Temple of Reason, but people still worshipped their old Christian God in secret.

  Nicole crossed the square, past the boys who were crowded around the new statue of the Goddess of Reason to smoke and make owl calls. The Goddess of Reason was really Saint Joan of Arc on her horse, but no one dared say it out loud. The boys stubbed out their cigarettes on the horse’s hooves and sauntered off to the waiting carts to join the rest of the town for the grape harvest and, in that, life in Reims continued as it always had.

  Not for her, though. Until recently, everyone had just accepted her as an anomaly, a rebellious child who loved being outdoors and doing everything at a million miles an hour, whether she was galloping a horse at breakneck speed, or pitting her wits with the boys in their games in the square. She wished she could join them now and ride out on the cart to the vineyards, but Nicole’s presence was required at home. Life at nineteen was a tedious parade of potential husbands, expectations of womanly submission and hand-wringing parents. Worse, her straight, slippery hair was pinned against its will into curls every day which took hours, and Maman insisted on a wardrobe of tight-fitting, stifling dresses. For someone who was always in a hurry, the dresses were like vices.

  Thankfully, Josette took pity on her and tied her corsets loose. And today, even Maman had to agree that her new empire-style dress made from light, loose cotton and silk suited her petite figure, so at least she could move. That was today’s victory, and no one could stop her stealing Papa’s wine manuals and reading them on the nights the moon was in her favour to teach herself, if no one else was going to. Every day, she found a way to contravene a rule without anyone noticing – it was the only thing that kept her sane until she could somehow escape the womanly constraints that had settled around her as she grew.

  When she reached the crossroads and was out of sight of anyone who might tell, she undid her bonnet where the ribbon chafed under her chin, shook her hair loose from its pins and faced the sun to just breathe.

  The cathedral clock struck the hour. She’d be missed if she didn’t hurry, but before turning the corner towards home, she paused at the crossroads to touch the horse’s nose, her talisman now that King Louis XVI’s statue was torn down. A champagne cork topped Joan of Arc’s sword and an empty bottle balanced in the crook of her arm. That much hadn’t changed.

  ‘A saint drunk in charge of a horse, tut-tut. Who
would do that?’

  She spun round and there was Xavier, short, stocky and suntanned, secateurs hanging from his belt for the harvest. He used the secateurs to sweep his thick black hair from his brow and stubbed his cigarette to join the others.

  Nicole jerked her chin at the statue. ‘What’s this?’

  ‘Art.’

  ‘You mean Etienne chucked you out early from his bar and you took the opportunity to taunt your boss?’

  ‘Talking of which, there he is, sliding your way as fast as shit off a shovel.’

  An imposing man advanced towards them, grey hair tamed into a wave from a strict side parting, strides oiled with the ease of the rich. Xavier made himself scarce, but it was too late for her to escape.

  Monsieur Moët bowed. ‘Your parents advised this horse was a favourite of yours.’

  ‘He brings me luck,’ Nicole replied.

  ‘You’ll need it, mixing with those peasant boys, and you know you shouldn’t be out without a chaperone. It’s a good thing I’m here, n’est-ce pas? Our little secret.’

  ‘I don’t need to keep any secrets with you, Monsieur Moët. My parents are happy to let me walk to the square on my own,’ Nicole lied. She gave him a tight, unfriendly smile and turned to leave, but he wouldn’t go away.

  ‘Your eyes are better than mine, Mademoiselle Ponsardin. Is that one of my corks?’ asked Monsieur Moët, straining to see the top of the sword.

  ‘I’m afraid it does say Moët,’ replied Nicole, just able to see make out the capital ‘M’ from where she stood.

  ‘I’ll see they are punished. Was that Xavier Jumel I saw you talking to? People like him are not our kind and shouldn’t be encouraged, Mademoiselle. I’m sure you mean well, but it’s just not the order of things. They can get the wrong idea and then where would we be? Come,’ he commanded, ‘I happen to know, contrary to your suggestion, that your parents would rather you weren’t wandering around alone. It was them who sent me to get you.’

  He tugged his shirtsleeve free of his jacket, twisted his crested cufflink and held his arm out for her to take.

  She politely refused. This was his third visit in a week and an afternoon of endless stories about his esteemed friend and associate Napoléon stretched out ahead like a dusty journey on a featureless road.

  For a man usually in a hurry, he walked painfully slowly back to the house, pointing out the property and businesses he owned along the way, as if she ought to be interested. She tore a bunch of lavender from a hedge. Bees scattered lazily.

  Monsieur Moët stiffly picked a rose and gave it to her, most of the petals dropping from the plucking. She reluctantly added it to her lavender bunch, hoping no one would see.

  ‘You shouldn’t be fraternising with servants. What will people think? Especially now you’re of marriageable age…’

  A trap she couldn’t quite name closed around her.

  ‘You want that, don’t you?’ he pressed.

  ‘I’d rather be fraternising, quite frankly, Monsieur Moët.’

  ‘You will change your mind.’ He fixed her with his uneven gaze, one eye assessing, the other issuing a warning. ‘You can’t stay single forever and I would hate to see you in a match that wasn’t worthy, or worse, ruin your reputation by talking to street boys. I would protect you, fund any dresses you desire, as long as they’re properly feminine. Your papa has let you run wild; however, even he agrees it’s time you joined society. I could teach you, help smooth some of those harsh edges, charming as they are. I must say, you do have some advantages. Your eyes are wide and strangely pale and so full of life. And the way the sun catches that red tinge in your fair hair makes it shine like a… a…’ He was clearly struggling, so she jammed her hat back on and tucked her hair up to save him the effort, mortified by his botched compliments. How to be kind but unencouraging?

  ‘I’m determined to keep my sharp edges, Monsieur Moët. I like this dress, it’s light and easy and I can run in it. And I should tell you, I really am unteachable – the nuns at the convent tried valiantly, but to no avail, I’m afraid.’

  From his smug look, she was clearly meant to be grateful for his veiled proposal. Maman and Papa must have given him permission, without a word to her.

  ‘Of course, you need time to think, as tradition dictates,’ Monsieur Moët said confidently.

  They walked in awkward silence to the house. Thank God Xavier hadn’t witnessed her humiliation; she’d never live it down.

  ‘I won’t marry him. He just wants your vineyards.’

  Her mother huffed. ‘You’re too much like your father. Too much like a man, with all your talk of independence. So brutal in your assessment of what most young girls would leap at.’

  ‘He’s twenty years older than me. He wants to lock me up in that big house of his and keep me there to order his servants around and dress up to entertain his military friends and try to impress Napoléon.’

  ‘Too many opinions! People get killed for them, shouting them in the street, murdering, denouncing the church. My advice to you, Barbe-Nicole, which I know you won’t take, is to keep your opinions to yourself.’

  Nicole rolled her eyes. Nobody ever used her full name, Barbe-Nicole, other than her mother, and even then only when she was truly angry. Her older sister Clémentine giggled.

  ‘I think he’s handsome, even if he does have grey hair,’ said Clémentine shyly.

  Maman’s eyes lit up at her elder daughter’s attractive acquiescence. ‘Exactly the kind of opinion it is suitable for a girl to express. Nicolas, will you talk some sense into the girl?’

  Her father took the cue (which Nicole was sure had been pre-arranged) and cleared his throat. ‘Babouchette, you can’t stay here forever and you crave freedom. You’re nineteen years old. A woman must marry to gain her freedom. His money would provide anything your heart desired.’

  ‘And a gilded cage to enjoy it in? I just can’t throw my life away on a man who wants a poupée, a doll, for his drawing room,’ said Nicole.

  Her father suppressed a smile.

  ‘Nicolas! You’re encouraging her.’

  Nicolas Ponsardin was a big, gruff bear, a self-made captain of industry who’d built a fortune for his family through his woollen mills and vineyards. He took his daughter’s hands. ‘You owe it to him to consider his offer, seriously and with clarity, as only you can. You would lead a comfortable life with him. He’s a good man and it’s a good match. You might not believe it, but he is also very fond of you. In fact, you might even call it love. Be practical. But in the end, your choice…’

  ‘She’ll always take the contrary position. She takes pleasure in it,’ Maman protested.

  ‘She’s a thinker, that’s all. She needs to assess the options for herself. Let her,’ said Papa.

  Nicole took the opportunity to escape. What a mess. What if this was the only serious proposal of marriage she ever received? In all the books she’d read, the beauty accepts the beast or kisses the frog and is rewarded. What nonsense.

  The Ponsardin family home was one of the grandest in town, with rooms no one ever went into and light pooling through a wall of French windows which spilled onto the vast gardens, but Nicole felt stifled in here. She paced across the polished chequered hall until she reached the heavy front door. Josette opened it for her, winking conspiratorially.

  Out, out, out into the morning air, down the rue de la Vache back to the square. She respected her papa, but it wasn’t right. Was it possible to marry and still follow your dreams, make your own money? She’d never seen it. Husbands owned their spouses and wives had to beg or scheme for what they wanted. A visit to Antoine and Claudine, faithful old friends of the family – her mother’s dressmaker, and her father’s cellarman – would help her get her head straight. It always did.

  She stopped at the boulangerie. Natasha ran it alone now. She had aged more than she deserved to since that horrible day eight years ago. Her mouth was pinched, her dark skin sallow at the cheeks, grey strands peppered h
er black hair and her kindness had dissolved into a weary determination.

  Nevertheless, Nicole regarded Natasha with envy, mistress of all she surveyed – the highly polished counter showing off her neat trays of shiny fruit tartes, glossy religieuses, pastel-coloured macaroons, a wholesome wall of ficelles, baguettes and pains de campagne stacked in baskets, lined up smart as soldiers, ready to sell. To be doing something. Something with purpose and satisfaction.

  ‘Bonjour.’

  ‘Nicole.’ Natasha’s tired face creased into a smile. ‘You have that fire in your eyes today. Planning your own revolution?’

  ‘Just visiting Claudine and Antoine.’

  ‘Ah, bon.’

  Natasha immediately picked out three plump religieuses. She knew their favourites.

  ‘I make these for him,’ said Natasha. Nicole knew who she meant without asking. ‘The first thing my husband taught me when I arrived from St Petersburg.’ She scattered a pinch of salt on the floor, muttered a Russian oath and looked up to the heavens.

  Nicole nodded in sympathy. No need for words, but Natasha picked up on what she had hoped was her supportive, empathetic expression.

  ‘I take pleasure in small things. Don’t you worry about me.’

  Natasha wasn’t the only one. The revolution had made widows of too many women in this town, both rich and poor. Even now, Napoléon was at war with Austria and had an insatiable appetite for despatching the souls of young men from the battlefield to heaven – or hell. Without a husband, you were a second-class citizen if you were lucky enough not to be on the streets. Not Natasha, though. She had her bakery, and hardly a day went by when Nicole didn’t drop by for a patisserie, or to pass the time of day.

  She took the string handle of the neat waxed paper package: a small piece of perfection repeated a hundred times a day.