The Champagne Queen (The Century Trilogy Book 2)

by Petra Durst-Benning

  It was already late in the evening when they arrived in Hautvillers. While she did not know exactly what Daniel Lambert had told the Americans before she entered the room, he had clearly laid the ground for her success. It had been too easy! Should she seek him out in Hautvillers and ask him? Isabelle had kept her eyes open for him at the station in Troyes and on the train, but she hadn’t seen him. She at least had to thank him.

  They were all tired from the journey and the excitement of the day, but none of them even considered going to bed. After the oppressive humidity in Troyes, it was surprisingly chilly inside the house, and Josephine lit a fire in the open fireplace. Clara went to the kitchen to make some sandwiches—they had brought back two large hunks of cheese with them from Troyes—while Isabelle went down to the cellar and returned with three bottles of champagne in a basket.

  Josephine looked at her doubtfully. “Can you spare them?” she asked.

  “A normal bottle of wine or a nip of liqueur would be more than enough,” said Clara, setting the plate of sandwiches on the table.

  Isabelle fetched glasses from a cupboard and said, “Don’t worry. My cellars are so full that I could have sold the Americans twenty thousand bottles. Who knows, perhaps they’ll order more?” As she spoke, she opened one of the bottles.

  Since her arrival in Champagne, Isabelle had taken part in various tastings, not only with Raymond in Reims, but also with Micheline and other vignerons. And every time, she had been fascinated by the almost sacred ritual of opening the bottle. Now it was she who removed the cork so carefully that no more than a light hiss escaped, without the slightest trace of a pop. “Like an angel’s fart,” Micheline had described it once.

  “Anyway, these three bottles are not from Feininger at all. They were a gift from my friend Raymond Dupont. He’s a champagne dealer in Reims. The first time I tasted champagne properly was in his shop, and he actually said I have a good palate, if you can imagine that.”

  Both Clara and Josephine nodded, impressed.

  “A man gives you champagne? Isn’t that a bit like taking coals to Newcastle?”

  Isabelle laughed. “If only it were! Raymond only ever sends me his most carefully chosen wines. Feininger champagne, I’m sorry to say, is far from that class.” She held the bottle so that Josephine and Clara could see the label.

  “Millésime Bollinger . . . all right,” said Josephine, not sure what she was looking at.

  Isabelle laughed mysteriously. “Tonight you will taste the very best that Champagne has to offer!”

  “Can you smell the vanilla? And that touch of linden blooms?” Luxuriating in her senses, Isabelle kept her nose over the glass for a few more seconds, then drank a mouthful of the delicious Bollinger. “And the flavor of a freshly baked brioche . . .” She sighed almost rapturously.

  “Now that you mention it, the champagne really does taste a little like pastries,” said Clara in surprise. “But how is that possible?”

  “It comes from the yeast during the fermentation. It leaves traces in the taste, sometimes stronger, sometimes weaker,” Isabelle explained. She closed her eyes and let another mouthful of the cool golden liquid flow down her throat. It was simply delicious!

  “Every champagne is made of the same ingredients. There are three kinds of grapes—Chardonnay, Pinot Meunier, and Pinot Noir—and a bit of sugar, but really not much. So you’d think that every champagne would taste the same, right?”

  Josephine, who had so far said nothing, nodded.

  Isabelle smiled. It felt good to share her knowledge with her friends. “The fact that they don’t taste the same comes down to the art of the cellar master. He decides on the proportions of the three grapes, how long the first and second fermentations last, and how much yeast is added for the second fermentation. The cellar master also decides how many different years he’ll use for a cuvée. Sometimes he’ll mix together as many as fifty different wines. Can you imagine?”

  Clara looked almost reverently at the glass in her hand, and she and Josephine shook their heads.

  “The only condition for a cuvée is that all the wines have to come from the Champagne region,” Isabelle continued. “Some people call blending the wine ‘marrying,’ which I think is a much better expression.”

  “You really know a lot about this,” said Josephine and gave Isabelle a little shove.

  “You’ve become a real expert; well done!” said Clara, with admiration in her voice. “And you haven’t even been here a year.”

  Isabelle shrugged. “I just find champagne interesting. So I try to learn as much as I can about how it’s made.” Her words sounded hollow in her own ears. What she truly felt, deep down, about the making of champagne was far more passionate, more all-encompassing, but she could not find the words to capture those feelings.

  A silence fell over the three friends for a long moment.

  “What now?” Josephine asked after a while, looking at Isabelle. “Where do things go from here?”

  Isabelle put her empty glass down noisily on the table. Then she started to open the second bottle from Raymond Dupont’s gift basket. She needed to send him a thank-you card for all his attentions over the last few months. How impolite of her to have neglected that.

  Thinking about the champagne dealer, she recalled the sense of being protected that she had always felt when she was around him. Raymond Dupont knew so much, and he was so experienced, moved in the best circles—perhaps he would be a good adviser for her when it came to deciding about her future?

  “Well, first of all, I have to get the Americans’ order done. After that, there’s the harvest to take care of and buyers to find for my grapes.”

  Just a few weeks earlier, she had been overwhelmed by panic just thinking about the future, let alone actually speaking about it as if it were a real thing. And now here she was, making concrete plans, she realized in amazement.

  “And what about that woman that Micheline told us about, Madame Trubert? She wants to buy your place come hell or high water, apparently,” said Josephine, and pulled her legs in comfortably underneath her.

  “She’ll be waiting a long time!” Isabelle let out a harsh laugh. “I admit that when I was at my lowest point, I thought about selling and not just once. If Henriette had not been so horribly greedy, I might have actually signed in a weak moment. She certainly held her contract under my nose often enough. But she’s like a shark, eating everything that crosses her path. Sometimes, when she was sitting on my bed and pretending to be sympathetic, I was waiting for a shark fin to push out through her tight-fitting dress and reveal her true character!”

  All three of them giggled at the notion, then Clara said, “You’re finally starting to sound like the Isabelle we used to know,” and she raised her newly filled glass. “To you and your glorious future without Madame Shark!”

  With a crystalline clinking of glasses, Isabelle and Josephine joined her in her toast. Isabelle took a swig of the Ruinart champagne, an outstanding drop, then she looked at Clara and Josephine seriously.

  “I never would have made it without you.” Tears of gratitude and hope brimmed in her eyes.

  Clara just shrugged, and Josephine raised her free hand, dismissing the thought. “Oh, don’t go getting all sentimental,” she said, feigning imperiousness, but her own eyes were shining traitorously. “I’d much rather talk about the future of your winery. What’s next on the list once the Americans’ order is on its way?”

  Isabelle sighed. “Then I have to see to the vineyards urgently. We should have been trimming leaves around the bunches of grapes to let more sunshine reach the fruit, but it’s incredibly time-consuming work and too much for Claude to manage alone. And until now, I haven’t had the money to take on any helpers.” But it wasn’t only the money; it was also the state she’d been in! How many times had Micheline begged her to do more about her business in the last few months? she berated herself.

  “You don’t sound particularly happy about it,” Clara murm
ured.

  “Does that surprise you?” Isabelle said. “When I first came here, I would never have dreamed that one day I’d be forced to sell the grapes. I wanted to make champagne, really good Feininger champagne! One with character, like this Ruinart.” She held up her glass. In the flickering light of the fire, its contents shone golden. “That’s why I read all the books in Jacques’s library; that’s why I was out in the vineyards from dawn to dusk: to see and smell and learn.” With a steady hand, she refilled all three of their glasses.

  “It’s like liquid gold,” said Clara admiringly. “I can understand very well how a drink like this could fascinate you so much.”

  “Champagne . . . just the word is enough to make you smile,” said Josephine with a grin.

  Isabelle nodded fiercely. “That’s exactly it! But to manufacture a perfect champagne, it takes more—a first-class cellar master, for one thing, and that is something I lack, I’m afraid.” She sniffed. “Right now, I don’t even have a second-class one, because Monsieur One-Eye still hasn’t reappeared. I’m slowly starting to fear that he won’t be coming back at all.” She shrugged. “But in any case, Gustave Grosse is not the man for what I have in mind. Nobody wants the kind of sweet champagne I have in my cellars. The Feininger champagne I want to make should ring in the new century in its own way: untroubled and as light as a feather!”

  Her friends nodded, but Isabelle was not sure whether they had really understood. Am I talking nonsense? she wondered. “Without the right cellar master, I might as well forget about it. Do you see now why I have no other choice? Why a ‘grape farmer’ is all I can ever be?” She could not keep the disgust she felt out of her voice.

  “I’ve got an idea,” said Clara, breaking the uncomfortable silence that had momentarily settled.

  Isabelle and Josephine turned to her immediately.

  “You could open a guesthouse!”

  “A guesthouse?” said Isabelle and Josephine together.

  Clara seemed to relish the puzzled looks on her friends’ faces. “Yes, think about it—Isabelle, this house is so beautiful, and I’m sure there are many travelers who would love to stay here. On the train here, we met an actress who spent a few months down by Lake Constance to regather her strength for her work. You could rent out rooms to people like her. You could introduce your guests to the delicious cuisine of this region, you could take them strolling through the vineyards, offer champagne tastings . . .”

  “A place of calmness, a place to relax and recuperate,” Josephine murmured, more to herself, then she looked up. “I’m sure you could earn good money like that. Clara and I could advertise for you in Berlin.”

  “Please don’t!” said Isabelle, horrified at the thought. “No disrespect to your idea, Clara, but a guesthouse like that is something you would really need to have a passion for, and I just don’t have that. I cherish my privacy far too much to even consider it.” She sighed with regret when she saw the disappointment in her friends’ eyes.

  “A country hotel like that would be more something for you, Clara, but for Isabelle, it’s probably not right,” Josephine agreed. She turned to Isabelle. “Just now, you were talking so ardently, so urgently, about making champagne that it gave me goose bumps. If making an excellent champagne is truly your great dream, then do it!”

  It isn’t as simple as that, Isabelle was about to reply, but the words stuck in her throat. Suddenly, she was sick to death of her weakness, her angst, and her internal discord. She wanted to be like she once was—audacious, brash, brave. She wanted to be like Josephine, who talked about passion and about turning dreams into reality and who did just that. And she wanted to be like Clara, who could transform herself from Miss Mousy to Lady Lioness when it really mattered, when she had to tell Isabelle how she really felt. Her magnificent friends.

  She felt tears coming to her eyes and fought them back.

  “Me, a champagne maker—that would truly be the greatest adventure of my life,” she said, her voice raw.

  “I’ve got another idea!” Clara cried out, and both Isabelle and Josephine turned and looked at her expectantly.

  Clara took a deep breath. “If Isabelle actually manages to make her once-in-a-century champagne, then we absolutely have to try to meet again next year on New Year’s Eve.”

  Isabelle was taken aback for a moment, but then she laughed and said, “It’s a deal! But only if I can offer you a bottle of the best Feininger champagne of all time.”

  They took each other’s hands, as they had when they were younger. Isabelle expected them to renew their old “to the turn-of-the-century wind!” covenant.

  But both Josephine and Clara seemed to hesitate.

  “Before we make any promises, perhaps we should talk about something else,” said Clara slowly. “Something we really haven’t talked about much at all.” She looked at Isabelle intently. “You’re going to be a mother, Isabelle. And it’s time you started to think about that. Those two things at the same time, ringing in a new century with a glorious champagne and a wonderful child—isn’t that something?”

  The next morning, Isabelle woke with the first light of dawn. After a quick bath, she crept quietly out of the house. The others could sleep awhile longer—what she was planning to do, she had to do alone.

  The cemetery of Hautvillers was surrounded by a ramshackle knee-high wall and covered by the shade of a huge weeping willow. Leon’s grave was in the last row. It was the first time since the funeral that she had visited it. Extraordinary fear had prevented her from taking this step before that day. Fear of the irrevocable certainty it would bring? Of the knowledge that it really wasn’t a bad dream? Isabelle’s sigh was picked up by the soft rustling of the weeping willow in the morning breeze and carried away.

  There was no gravestone yet, only a wooden cross marking who lay beneath. Leon Feininger, the great love of her life. The father of her child. Instinctively, she stroked her belly with her right hand. Beyond the low cemetery wall, she realized she could see the Feininger vineyards; the sight of the vines gave her some solace, and she was glad she’d come. For a long time, she stood still and quiet, while deep inside she untied one knot after another. Leon was dead. He had taken his dreams with him to the grave. But her life went on. She would dream for two—or rather three. She smiled at the thought, her hands resting on her belly.

  Earth sprinkled with white beads of chalk covered the grave. There were a few stalks of grass coming through, as well as thistles, dandelions, and other weeds. She had not thought to bring a shovel or hoe, so Isabelle began to pull the weeds out of the earth with her bare hands. In a vase in front of the cross was a single withered pink rose. Had Micheline brought it when she came to visit her brother Albert, who lay at the other side of the cemetery? She had not thanked Micheline even once for all she had done. Isabelle replaced the faded rose with three lilies she had cut in her garden. From now on, she would take care of the flowers herself. Her handled trembled a little as she stroked the chalky earth.

  “Hello, Leon. It’s me. I’ve got quite a lot to tell you.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  “Heavenly Father, Creator and Lord over the earth, we are gathered together today to praise thee and to commend thee for everything thou hast done for us. We thank thee for the blessings thou hast bestowed upon us. And we ask thee to let everything that grows ripen unto the day of harvest.”

  Isabelle swallowed the bitter taste that had entered her mouth as the pastor spoke. Praising God for all the good He had done? That was not something she had been capable of for a very long time. But even so, there she was, in the Hautvillers church, where every seat was taken and more people stood in the rear. She still found it difficult to be around people, but she couldn’t stay away from the harvest service—for the Champenois it was at least as important as the Christmas or Easter service.

  Strange, she thought, as the congregation began a hymn, how every church in the world has the same smell. In Berlin, in the Palatinate, here�
��they all smelled of myrrh and mothballs, of poorly aired clothes, sweat, and sins. Isabelle did not know the words, so she just moved her lips and pretended she did. She looked around the church, noticing how the altar was decorated with a cornucopia of vines and grapes.

  It was the first time since Josephine and Clara’s tearful departure three days earlier that Isabelle had left the house. Her fear that she would again feel as alone and abandoned as she had in the months before their arrival had quickly proved unfounded. So close to the harvest, the most important season in Champagne, the people of the region closed ranks even more than usual: Claude, Micheline, and Marie had insisted that she walk to church with them, and now they were sitting together in one of the middle rows.

  And beside them sat none other than Gustave Grosse, who had returned a week earlier. “I told you I’d be back in time for the harvest,” he had said with a shrug.

  Isabelle hadn’t known whether she should hug him or slap his face. She had immediately told him that his habits would have to change, that they had a lot to do that autumn, and that they all had to pull together to make it work. Grosse listened to every word, then asked for an advance on his salary.

  Josephine and Clara had listened to their exchange in silence. “Am I mistaken, or did your cellar master reek of alcohol earlier? I must say, he doesn’t seem the most trustworthy type,” Josephine remarked later. “If I were in your shoes, I’d start looking around for a good cellar master as soon as I could.”

  Isabelle had sighed and nodded. She was happy to at least not have to deal with the approaching harvest alone. After that . . . well, she would see.