The Champagne Queen (The Century Trilogy Book 2)

by Petra Durst-Benning

  “Madame Feininger, come and sit with me!” Carla Chapron cried when she saw Isabelle. “We can use all the hands we can get.”

  One of the older women poured her a glass of rosé. “At least let the poor girl have something to drink; it makes the work go so much easier.”

  “I doubt it. I’ve never done anything like this. I’ll probably be all thumbs!” With a laugh, Isabelle threw her hands in the air.

  The old woman who had poured the wine grasped Isabelle’s right hand and scrutinized it. A little embarrassed, Isabelle wanted to pull back her callused hand with its broken fingernails, but the old woman held on to it tightly and said, with admiration, “It looks to me like you can do quite a lot! With hands like that, you’ve no need to be ashamed of the things you can’t do. Come, I’ll show you how to tie a garland.”

  The women’s conversation was lively and funny—a bit of gossip, a bit of scandal—and all of them enjoyed the work they shared, the art of which came to Isabelle with astonishing ease. The grape-leaf garlands, into which she weaved colorful flowers, grew slowly but steadily. After an hour, Micheline opened the first bottle of champagne. The women had just toasted each other when they saw Daniel Lambert appear in the square, not far from their table.

  “What’s Daniel doing here, I wonder? None of the other men are around just now,” said Carla.

  “Good that they’re not. They’d just disturb our work,” one of the older women added.

  Yvette and the other young girl giggled.

  “He might just be going to see his sister?” said Therese Jolivet, who owned the bakery.

  “Ghislaine? But she’s not even there,” Carla replied. “I heard she’d gone away on a trip somewhere.”

  Isabelle looked over toward Le Grand Cerf; from its open windows came the sound of women laughing and the clattering of pots. “Then who’s in the kitchen?”

  “Ghislaine’s kitchen hands and a few extras,” said Carla. “Someone has to prepare all the food.”

  “But where would Ghislaine have gone? And during the spring festival?” Therese asked. “Maybe Daniel knows more. Look, he’s coming this way.”

  “Madame Feininger”—Daniel stopped in front of Isabelle, a grim expression on his face—“something terrible has happened. Your husband . . .”

  All Leon could hear was the beating of his own heart. The silence made him afraid. As did the darkness. He couldn’t see anything. But he smelled something pungent, sharp. Floor cleaner, like the kind his mother used. Strong enough to get off whatever muck clung to them from the farm. The Palatinate . . . but he wasn’t in the Palatinate, was he? Where was he? His head ached so hellishly that he could barely string together a coherent thought.

  He’d been cycling, that much he remembered. A road. Milan. He’d been on his way to Milan. But what had happened then?

  He tried to open his eyes, but he couldn’t. He felt as if he were inside a cocoon, unmoving, helpless. Unmoving? A new, terrifying thought sent a shiver through him. Was he paralyzed? Just the year before, that had happened to a fellow rider who took a bad fall. He tried to wriggle his toes. When he managed to do it, he felt such a sense of joy that tears came to his eyes. He sobbed aloud.

  “Leon.”

  Isabelle! His wife was there, at his side. Relief flooded through him. He wanted to say her name, but his throat was so dry that it felt like every sound was being dragged over sandpaper. “I . . . sa . . .” Moving his lips instantly made his headache worse.

  “Shh, don’t speak, don’t move. Everything will be all right.”

  He felt her hand stroking his left arm. Her touch was good—feeling it was good. He wanted to sit up, but the slightest movement sent a shrieking pain through him. He clenched his teeth to stop himself from screaming.

  “What . . . happened?”

  “You had an accident just before Épernay.”

  An accident. Two dogs. He remembered two dogs. And grass that wasn’t grass, but cobblestones. He had hit one of them with his head.

  “Where am I?” he croaked. He reached up with his right hand and touched his forehead cautiously, wanting to be rid of the pain. He ran his fingers over the tightly wound bandage; it covered his entire head and even came down over his eyes. That’s why he couldn’t see anything. He tugged the bandage upward. The light that struck his eyes was bright and triggered another shooting pain in his head.

  “You’re in the hospital in Épernay. The doctors say that you were very lucky. Concussion. Some bad bruising on your chest and back and some grazing. It’s a miracle you didn’t break your neck. A few days of rest and you’ll be your old self again, the doctor said a few minutes ago. Oh, Leon, I was scared to death!” Crying, Isabelle kissed him on his chest, arms, hands, fingers. She laughed and cried at the same time.

  Leon closed his eyes again.

  A miracle. He’d been given a miracle.

  At some point, Isabelle’s exhaustion caught up with her and she fell asleep. She jumped when she felt a hand shaking her shoulder.

  Two young nurses were standing beside Leon’s bed. While one of them changed Leon’s bandages, the other said, “Madame, we’re going to move your husband into the big ward. I’m sorry, but you have to leave.”

  Isabelle looked beseechingly at the nurse. “And if he wakes up and calls for me?”

  The nurse shrugged.

  Downcast, Isabelle stepped out of the room. In the corridor, she encountered the doctor with whom she had only spoken briefly.

  “It is truly a miracle that it wasn’t any worse,” he said. “When your husband was brought in, he was covered in blood. The gash on his head and all the grazing on his body—he looked very bad. But when the nurses washed him clean, we saw that it wasn’t as bad as we’d feared. Your husband had more than one guardian angel watching over him.”

  Still, it made Isabelle shudder to think what had happened. She didn’t want to know everything in detail. She looked yearningly in the direction of the ward where the nurses were rolling Leon’s bed.

  The doctor spoke gently. “Go home, madame. Go home and try to get over the shock. If you don’t want to drive home, there’s a nice little pension just around the corner. You can’t do anything for your husband here. We’ve given him something to help with the pain; he’ll sleep soundly now for at least ten hours. Sleep is sometimes the best medicine. More than anything, he will need peace and quiet for the next few days.”

  Isabelle had almost reached the entrance when she heard someone weeping softly, the sound coming from a room on her left. More like a lament, she thought. It was a woman, and there was so much sorrow and loneliness in the sound that it almost broke Isabelle’s heart. She hesitated for a moment, then walked on. She had worries of her own; someone else could console the crying woman.

  But she stopped just outside at the entrance and turned back. If she didn’t look in on the woman now, she would spend half the night reproaching herself.

  Two gas lamps cast a dingy light over the large ward and exuded a sweet odor. Ten beds were lined up along the walls to the left and right of the door, but only three of them were occupied. The sound of weeping was coming from the last bed, beside the window. Cautiously, Isabelle approached the bed. She had no idea what she was supposed to do to console the woman. After the shock she herself had suffered, and from which she had not yet recovered, she really had no head for charitable acts. She hadn’t been able to walk away, but when she reached the bed, she wished she had done just that. “You?”

  Ghislaine’s beautiful face was swollen, her eyes red with tears, her normally magnificent hair dull. When she saw Isabelle, she didn’t turn away; Isabelle momentarily hoped that she would, because then she would have turned away and left. But instead, Ghislaine’s tears only intensified.

  “Mademoiselle Lambert, Ghislaine . . .” Isabelle said gently, fighting against the lump in her throat. Don’t you start crying too, she commanded herself. That won’t help the woman at all. But how could she help? If it had been J
osephine, Clara, or even Micheline lying there, Isabelle would not have hesitated to throw her arms around her friend and rock her back and forth until the crying stopped. But with Ghislaine, such an embrace would have felt out of place; it would have suggested an intimacy they did not have. Instead, Isabelle pulled up a chair—the least she could do was give her a little company. Perhaps she would soon fall asleep, and then Isabelle could leave.

  Ghislaine Lambert. Daniel’s sister. That’s why he had been in the hospital. That’s why he had heard that Leon had been brought in, badly hurt.

  The longer Isabelle sat there, the more she felt how tired and worn out she was. She moved her aching shoulders and concealed a yawn behind her hand. She thought of Leon, lying just a few doors away. Was he sleeping? She hoped his headaches would ease soon.

  “The child . . .” Two words, whispered.

  Isabelle started. For a moment, she had forgotten Ghislaine was there. Instinctively, she laid both hands on her own belly. “Which child?”

  “I lost it. Early this morning. The doctor said that with work as hard as mine, it can happen.” Ghislaine’s eyes were bloodshot, and her arms lay on the rough, white bedcover like the limp limbs of a marionette.

  Isabelle nodded, and as she did, she felt unspeakably stupid. Why did she nod? Was it because there were no words of solace that she could possibly say?

  Ghislaine did not seem to notice. Instead, she whispered, “I finally had something from him that was only for me.” Her voice was choked with tears.

  “I’m so sorry,” Isabelle said softly. So it was Alphonse Trubert’s child. And Ghislaine had lost it.

  Ghislaine looked at Isabelle with a strange expression, as if she only then recognized her.

  Isabelle slid back and forth uncomfortably on the chair. “Can I do anything for you? Or . . . I should go.”

  Ghislaine closed her eyes, just as Leon had earlier. Relieved, Isabelle stood up. She turned to leave when she heard a soft voice from the bed. “Look after yourself, Isabelle. Yourself and the child, so that you don’t go through what I am.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Isabelle heeded the doctor’s advice and took a room in the pension. The next morning, Micheline and an extremely hungover-looking Claude appeared in the small breakfast room.

  “How did you know I was here?” Isabelle exclaimed when she saw them.

  “Where else were you supposed to be?” her neighbor said, and crushed Isabelle to her chest. She had brought along a bag of toiletries and fresh underwear.

  They ate croissants and coffee together, and Isabelle reported what she knew of Leon’s accident and condition. Everything was going to be all right. Micheline and Claude sighed with relief.

  Together, they went to the hospital.

  Leon was sleeping. Isabelle persuaded Claude and Micheline to go home again. The spring festival had carried on into the early hours of the morning, and a few hours of rest before the start of a new work week would do both of them good. It took some convincing, but they let Isabelle accompany them to the hospital entrance, where Daniel Lambert was just then approaching.

  “Is your husband all right?” he asked immediately.

  “He’s asleep,” Isabelle said. “He has a concussion, but he’s doing well otherwise.”

  “When I saw him yesterday, covered with blood, I feared worse,” said Daniel.

  “Thank you for coming to tell me right away.” Isabelle clasped his hands in hers. “If you hadn’t, then who knows when I would have heard about the accident?” She waved in the direction of Ghislaine’s room. “You’ve come to see your sister?”

  Daniel looked at her in surprise, then nodded curtly.

  “Ghislaine’s in the hospital, too?” Micheline asked as soon as Daniel was gone. “Is she sick? What’s wrong with her?”

  Isabelle only shrugged.

  Whenever Isabelle visited Leon, he was asleep. The doctors and nurses said this was normal, that a damaged body healed best when asleep. Hour after hour, she sat by his bed and held his hand. His bandages no longer covered his eyes, and she observed how his left eyelid twitched as he slept and how his cheeks flushed or paled.

  Now and then, he woke up but only briefly. As soon as he realized she was there, a smile spread across his face, and he squeezed Isabelle’s hand. There was so much intimacy when his eyes met hers that it sent a tremor through her. If it had been up to her, she would have sat by his bed around the clock. But the nurses kept sending her away. Couldn’t she see that she was hampering their work?

  A few days later, Claude and Micheline returned to the hospital to check on Leon and Isabelle. Micheline brought Isabelle a hunk of bread with cheese and a bowl of apple compote, which Isabelle ate hungrily. Apart from breakfast at the pension, she hadn’t eaten anything for days. She was just finishing the last bit of food when the doctor came by.

  “Madame Feininger, here again, I see. Or should I say, still here?” He shook his head. “If you don’t go home voluntarily, then I’ll have to ban you!”

  “But I—”

  “No buts, madame!” the doctor cut her off. “If you come back tomorrow or the day after, your husband may be able to leave the hospital. To do that, he will need fresh clothes. Or do you want to put him back in his torn cycling gear?”

  “If I may say so, Madame Feininger,” said Claude, “you do look very tired. Let us take you home. I’ll be happy to drive you back again tomorrow.”

  It was good to be home again. She had not washed properly since Leon’s accident, and now she warmed water and poured herself a hot bath. Lying in the enamel tub, she looked out the window into the green foliage of the pear tree and thought of everything that she wanted to prepare for Leon’s homecoming.

  She would need to have a delicious meal on the table, for one thing—something to give him back his strength. She wanted to change the bedding, too, so the bed would be fresh for him. An hour later, with wrinkled fingers and toes and feeling much more cheerful, Isabelle climbed out of the tub. She had a lot to do!

  She returned to the hospital the following day. A squeal of joy escaped her when she saw that Leon was awake and dipping a croissant into a cup of milky coffee.

  “If I’d known you had your appetite back, I’d have brought you some of the stew I’ve made for when you come home,” she said gaily. Maybe she would finally be able to tell him the good news today?

  They kissed long and affectionately, then Leon said, “I’m feeling much better. The headaches have finally stopped, at least, but I fear your stew will still have to wait awhile.” He grimaced. “The doctors still want me to stay a day or two longer because of the concussion. They asked me to walk down the corridor this morning, and I felt dizzy; apparently I was swaying from side to side. I still need peace and quiet, they say, and medical supervision.”

  Peace and quiet? She couldn’t help her disappointment.

  “What’s another day or two if it gets you back to your old self again?” she said as encouragingly as she could. “Perhaps I can speed up your recuperation with a little good news.” She paused for a moment before she went on. “Claude will be shearing the sheep this morning, and he already has a buyer lined up for the wool. That will bring some money in.”

  Leon smiled. “Didn’t I tell you it was a good idea to hang on to the sheep?” The next moment, his left eyelid began to twitch uncontrollably, and he lifted his hand to his temple.

  “Leon, what is it?” Isabelle quickly took his hand and squeezed it. From the corner of her eye, she saw one of the nurses approaching.

  “Nothing,” he whispered hoarsely. “The pain will go away in just a moment.”

  “Madame! The patient needs rest! How many times do we have to tell you?”

  Isabelle went to the hospital again the next morning, and when she saw who was sitting by his bed, she was speechless for a long moment. What did she want?

  “A little sausage, some cheese, a bottle of good red wine . . .” Henriette Trubert was unpacking a basket
of groceries on Leon’s bed as if it were the most normal thing in the world. “And chocolate, perfect for getting one’s strength back, by the way.”

  The eyes of the man in the next bed grew wider and wider, but Henriette just gave him an unfriendly look. Then she noticed Isabelle.

  “Ah, Madame Feininger, I’m sure you have nothing against my dropping by for a quick visit with your husband,” she said with a sugary smile. “When I heard about the accident, I thought to myself, how can a sportsman possibly recover on the food they serve in hospitals? I happened to be in town, so I brought a few things for him. We have to get him back on his feet, after all, don’t we?”

  “The doctors and I are taking care of that,” said Isabelle with undisguised displeasure. She set down her own basket, also filled with fruit, sausage, and cheese, beside Leon’s bed. Then she leaned over to Leon and kissed him.

  “How are you feeling, darling?” she asked him gently.

  “With two beautiful women here to look after me, I can only be getting better. I’m allowed to go home tomorrow morning. The doctors said so earlier.”

  Isabelle heaved a sigh of relief. Thank you, God.

  “I like your fighting spirit, Monsieur Feininger. Nothing seems to keep you down for long.” Henriette Trubert packed the things she’d brought back into the basket and put it on a chair beside her. “I don’t want to disturb you any longer. However, I would like to repeat my offer to purchase your estate. You’ve just seen how quickly things can change—and painfully, too. It would be good to know that one had made some provisions for the future, wouldn’t it? Two million francs would see you through to the end of your days and beyond, and you’d never have to lift a finger again.”

  Isabelle could not believe what she was hearing. “You’ve got some nerve, exploiting my husband’s condition to—” she began, but Leon interrupted her.

  “It’s all right,” he said gently. “Madame Trubert is right. The accident has truly changed my view of things. This was no simple fall. I could easily have been killed. The more I think about it, the clearer I see just how lucky I’ve been. God has given me a second chance.” His eyes were gleaming, and for a second he looked as if he might begin to weep.