The Champagne Queen (The Century Trilogy Book 2)

by Petra Durst-Benning

  “Merciful God, protect our grapes from rain and hail, protect our vines from the phylloxera . . .”

  That was the very least that God could do, in Isabelle’s opinion. One row in front of her sat Therese Jolivet from the bakery and Carla Chapron and her husband Ignaz. Ghislaine and Daniel were also there, and next to Daniel sat Blanche Thevenin, the seamstress. Was she mistaken, or was Blanche unnecessarily close to Daniel?

  “Merciful God, we beseech thee, hold thy sheltering hand over our vines. Give us the strength to overcome the strenuous weeks ahead . . .”

  The Trubert family sat—where else?—in the front most row on the right of the aisle. The first row of pews on the left was occupied by the Moët and Chandon families, the biggest champagne producers of them all. They owned an unbelievable eight hundred and forty acres of land. True, their vineyards spread throughout all of Champagne, but the owners traditionally visited the harvest service in Hautvillers.

  “Merciful God, release us from our cares, give unto us the gift of thy mercy, so that with thy blessing we may bring this year to a good and proper close. Fill our presses with grapes and fill our barrels with wine—for these things we beseech thee, O Lord. Be merciful unto us. Amen!”

  “Amen!” repeated the churchgoers.

  The pastor made the sign of the cross with his right hand.

  “Go ye forth and praise our Father at a plentiful table!” Accompanied by the sound of bells, a buzz of voices rose as the congregation slowly filed out of the rows of pews.

  “Amen,” said Isabelle, too. But instead of standing up with all the others, she stayed in her seat. For the first time that day, she raised her eyes to the large crucifix.

  “You sacrificed your son, and my husband. Enough sacrifices have been made. Now help me, please, to come through the harvest well, because I won’t be able to do it by myself. Amen,” she murmured quietly, then she crossed herself a final time.

  Claude, who was still standing in the aisle, looked back at her in surprise. “Did you say something, madame?”

  Isabelle smiled and shook her head, then she stood up, too. “It’s strange. Church services always make me hungry, but I’m probably not the only one,” she said with a nod toward the people streaming toward the exit.

  Micheline, ahead of her, laughed. “That’s a good thing, because the tables are going to be bending under all the good food. The harvest really takes it out of us in the next few weeks, so it doesn’t hurt to build up some strength in advance, right, Marie?” she said, turning to her sister-in-law.

  Marie Guenin nodded. “In Hautvillers, this meal we share before the harvest is taken very seriously. Every house contributes something. And we vignerons provide the champagne. Who knows if the harvest will be a good one, or if we’ll have any reason to celebrate afterward? All the more reason to lift our glasses now!”

  The evening before, the residents of the surrounding houses had carried their front doors into the village square and set them up on wooden trestles as tables. Before the church service, the women from the houses had covered the tables with white cloths and decorated them with woven garlands. In this way, they had created a single long table at which more and more people now found a place to sit. Greetings were exchanged, conversations were kindled, and the September sun, which washed everything in golden light, was praised.

  Young and old, poor and rich—in the coming weeks, all of these people would work day and night, snipping off bunches of grapes hour after hour, lugging them in heavy baskets to the waiting wagons where they would be unloaded, then hauled away to the presses. They would defy the wind and weather and ignore the injured hands and aching shoulders. The grape harvest meant their income for the year ahead, and during it, everything else took second place. But they had this final day of exhilaration and freedom: the villagers were filled with the zest of life, and good cheer overflowed like the champagne that the vignerons had provided for the gathering.

  Isabelle felt a lightness that had long been missing from her life. Arm in arm with Micheline, she walked toward the long table, where Ghislaine was putting final touches on the food platters. Today, everything had to taste wonderful and look perfect!

  Morels in champagne sauce, salmon poached in champagne, snails cooked in champagne and garlic, calf cheeks, various spicy tarts—Isabelle could only stand and marvel at the dishes lined up side by side along the length of the table.

  “Who made all this?”

  “Well, who do you think?” said Ghislaine, grinning. She patted the seat next to her, inviting Isabelle to sit. “My cooks and I, and some of the winemakers’ wives helped, too. How would it be if you helped out next year? Andouillette, perhaps. I know how much you like it.”

  Isabelle groaned. “Don’t remind me.” She looked into one of the pots suspiciously, where several sausages were floating in some kind of stock. “This isn’t them, is it?”

  “Who knows? Maybe I really should try serving it to you again.” Ghislaine grinned even more widely. “What a shame that your friends had to leave. I think they would have really enjoyed this meal.”

  They would have, thought Isabelle. And Leon, too. In her mind’s eye, she saw him sitting beside her, chatting away. Her Leon—with his charm and humor, he had always been a welcome guest at parties.

  Before she had time to get melancholic, Micheline, sitting opposite, tapped her hand. She pointed to a plate of sliced cold meats garnished with poached artichokes. “That’s from me. Want to try it?”

  “I’d love to,” Isabelle replied. Next to her, she felt Ghislaine move over, and Daniel sat down between them. Blanche, the seamstress, was nowhere in sight, which Isabelle was grateful for. She could finally thank Daniel for whatever he had done for her in Troyes. Then she saw that he was not alone—he had Raymond Dupont with him.

  Isabelle smiled shyly at the champagne dealer from Reims. She owed him her gratitude, too, for all the encouraging notes he had sent her over the last few months, all of which, until recently, she had utterly ignored. And for the champagne he had sent, of course.

  “You, too, Daniel?” asked Micheline, reaching across the table with her plate of sliced meat.

  With her hands trembling slightly, Isabelle took the plate from Micheline and held it in front of Daniel. “May I offer you some of this, Monsieur Lambert?”

  “Are you two still so formal?” Ghislaine cried in exaggerated horror. “High time we did something about that. Daniel, I’d like to introduce my friend, Isabelle. Isabelle, may I introduce my brother, Daniel? There, done!” she said, underlining her words with lively gestures.

  “Fine with me. I’m Isabelle!” She reached out one hand to Daniel.

  “And with me, as long as you don’t accuse me of being a saboteur again. Daniel.”

  Isabelle rolled her eyes. “First it was Ghislaine with her andouillette, and now you. Is everyone today going to remind me of the sins of my past?”

  The pressure of his hand was firm and the smile he gave her warm. Would he kiss her hand? She held her breath for a heartbeat. How can you think that? she admonished herself.

  “Daniel, what do you think? Are we going to have a marvelous year, like we did in 1889?” said Micheline, changing the subject. “Or is it going to be an ordinary harvest, like last year?” Everyone sitting within earshot turned and looked at Daniel.

  “I fear the latter,” he said. He raised his hand regretfully. “The grapes certainly haven’t turned out bad, but June was rainy and July not as sunny as I would have liked, and the grapes are not that sweet. I’m estimating that we’ll get ten percent alcohol, no more, with the sugar in them.”

  Why is everyone hanging on every word he says? Isabelle wondered. And what was he saying about a rainy June? Or about grapes that were not ideal? She had heard none of that before, she had to admit. None of that and none of many other things, she realized when she noticed Ghislaine’s belly. Was her friend pregnant again? The morsel of meat in her mouth became drier and drier, and it was difficult
for her to swallow.

  “It makes me happy to see you here, Madame Feininger,” said Raymond Dupont, dragging her back from her thoughts.

  “The pleasure is mine, although I really have to get used to being around so many people again,” she replied, looking around. “I’ve been something of a hermit these last few months.”

  “Come and visit me again in Reims! We could have dinner together or visit the opera or—”

  “After today, no one in Hautvillers will have time for things like that,” Daniel interrupted the champagne merchant, and his tone was unusually harsh. “We have the harvest to manage. Right, Isabelle?”

  Was she mistaken, or was he deliberately emphasizing her first name? And didn’t she hear some irritation, too, as he chided Dupont for making such an untimely suggestion? Isabelle looked from one to the other.

  “Oh, when I think of what we managed back in 1874—remember? The first dry champagne, a fine effervescence without being fizzy, with finesse but without any of that sugary sweetness. Louise Pommery harvested later than she ever had before. The rest of us couldn’t believe it! We were completely flummoxed and didn’t know if we should do the same or not.” Marie Guenin’s gray eyes sparkled at the memory.

  Micheline nodded. “Most of us harvested earlier. We were all terrified that the weather would change, but we Guenins decided to take the risk and leave the grapes on the vine for another two weeks,” she said. “But should we do it this year?” she asked, deliberately slowly and looking expectantly at Daniel.

  Again, all eyes were on the cellar master. But he only smiled.

  How strange. Why is Micheline probing Daniel like that? And why doesn’t he simply answer her questions? The Champenois were really a very mysterious bunch sometimes, Isabelle thought. Then she took a peach from one of the fruit platters; it smelled of sunshine, flowers, and a hint of perfume.

  “Our dear Louise, God rest her soul,” Marie added, and Micheline sighed. “Without her and her courage to try something new, we’d probably all still be making sugar-sweet champagnes instead of our wonderful bruts.”

  “What’s wrong with a sweet champagne, madame?” asked Gustave Grosse, who was sitting beside Claude.

  Isabelle noted with disgust that she had lost count of how many times her own cellar master had refilled his glass with champagne. Nothing had changed there, certainly.

  “Wrong, for example, is the way it sat like lead in my cellar—and still would be sitting if a sign from heaven hadn’t led me to the Americans in Troyes,” Isabelle said.

  Everyone at the table laughed—all except Gustave Grosse.

  Turning to Daniel, she said quietly, “Of course, I don’t know what you said to the Americans that had them eating out of my hand like that, but it helped. Thank you for that.”

  Daniel gestured dismissively.

  “I think we could use a sign from heaven, too,” said Micheline, looking intently at Daniel again.

  “Have I missed something?” asked Isabelle, smiling. “Have you turned into some sort of oracle for a good or bad harvest?”

  Daniel grinned and was about to answer when he suddenly stopped.

  Isabelle followed his gaze and saw Henriette Trubert, dressed in a thundercloud of purple lace, approaching where they sat. There was no sign of her husband, Alphonse.

  “Raymond . . . didn’t you want to join us at our table?” she said, fixing the merchant with a frown.

  Raymond Dupont smiled. “Henriette, ma chérie! You know what they say: settle where the people sing! I am so extraordinarily happy that our beautiful widow Feininger is in fine form again. And a little bird has whispered in my ear that she is ready to do great things—my congratulations, madame!” He raised his glass in a toast to Isabelle.

  Isabelle smiled, but she wondered how he had heard about her plans. She hadn’t said anything, and she was sure that neither Josephine nor Clara had. Had he simply given voice to a hunch to annoy Henriette?

  Henriette looked at him disparagingly, then she turned to Isabelle. “So Madame Feininger is in the mood to celebrate? But that should be no surprise. That was quite a trick, selling your sweet concoction to the Americans. Much better than pouring it all down the drain, wasn’t it? Oh, here is where I find my dear cellar master. Daniel, don’t you think you should be gracing our table with your presence?” The expression through her heavy makeup was not happy. Daniel merely raised his glass as if proposing a toast to his employer.

  With a little sniff, Henriette swung around to where Gustave Grosse was sitting; he nodded almost imperceptibly to her.

  “The Americans were very happy about my champagne,” Isabelle replied, wondering at the same time whether she had just imagined the look that had passed between Henriette and Grosse. “But you are right, Madame Trubert, sweet champagne is truly a relic of the past. As Monsieur Dupont has already said, I have very different plans for the future.” She looked to Raymond, and they shared a conspiratorial smile.

  Henriette raised her eyebrows in mock surprise. “As I hear it, you don’t even have a buyer for your grapes yet, and you’re talking about plans? Or”—a flash of hope kindled in Henriette’s eyes—“do you mean you want to accept my offer to buy your place after all?”

  “I think you must have misunderstood me,” said Isabelle. With satisfaction, she watched Henriette’s expression darken again immediately, and she realized that everyone at their part of the table was listening to the exchange.

  Henriette narrowed her eyes at Isabelle. “You’ll regret it,” she said so quietly that only those sitting very close could hear.

  “If there’s anything I regret, it’s the fact that I let life frighten me after Leon died,” Isabelle retorted. “But that is behind me now. I will not let myself be intimidated again, not by God, not by the devil—and certainly not by you.” She held Henriette’s glare steadily. “And I’m not selling my grapes, either. Instead, I’m going to roll up my sleeves and make the best Feininger champagne there has ever been. Vive la Champagne!” she said, raising her voice and her glass for her last words.

  “Vive la Champagne!” cried everyone at the table.

  Henriette snorted and swept away in a rustle of purple lace.

  Chapter Thirty

  The next day, a wave of unrest rolled through the village. Wine lovers had traveled from around the world to savor the very special atmosphere that only the grape harvest in Champagne had to offer. Suddenly, there were unfamiliar faces everywhere: casually dressed journalists there to report about the annual hustle and bustle, elegant wine experts, enraptured actors, and wealthy businesspeople. Everyone wanted to watch as the grapes were harvested, so later, with a glass of champagne in their hand, they would be able to say, “I was there when this was born!” In Le Grand Cerf and other restaurants and hotels, the finest dishes of the region were served, and wine knowledge was passed around at the tables. Every bed in every guesthouse was booked solid, and the hoteliers rubbed their hands together at the idea of the profits.

  The majority of newcomers, though, did not need hotel rooms and could not afford fine meals in the restaurants. They traveled on foot or in rickety horse-drawn caravans and built their camps on every available patch of meadow and every open backyard. These were the people who’d come to help with the harvest; they had traveled from various European lands, and some from poorer areas of France, to earn a few francs picking the Champagne grapes.

  When Isabelle looked out her window one morning, she saw three of these caravans on the meadow at the back of her garden. An hour later, there were ten of them. The weathered, windowless carts and the horses that pulled them all looked as if they had seen better days. Isabelle was astonished to see a small group of women lighting a fire in the center of their camp, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. The wood for the fire came from a stack that Claude, whenever he had a little time, added to, with an eye on the approaching winter. Children and a pack of dogs ran around, shrieking and barking. And if Isabelle’s eyes we
ren’t deceiving her, a few of the children were helping themselves to her blackberries. What did they think they were doing?

  She was on her way outside to stop them when she ran into Claude Bertrand.

  “Don’t go trying to read them the riot act,” he warned. “Every year, more than ten thousand itinerant pickers come to the region, and they have to set up their camps somewhere. Without them, we would not manage to get the harvest in at all, so be glad that they have showed up! And one more piece of advice: if a few tomatoes or eggs disappear in the next few days, or perhaps even a chicken, turn a blind eye. If they go too far, then of course you have to step in, but as a rule they know they have to behave.”

  “Then it would be for the best if I went and said hello?” said Isabelle meekly as she watched the women setting up clotheslines across the meadow.

  Claude shook his head. “It isn’t necessary. All of these extended families have a leader, and usually one leader speaks for several clans. He will come to you and agree to the conditions for this year’s harvest with you or with Gustave. That’s the tradition, and it’s best to hold to it.”

  “Conditions?” Isabelle asked with a frown. “He should know how many pickers I need and what they get paid for their work, shouldn’t he?”

  “It’s not as simple as that, I’m afraid,” Claude replied with a laugh. “These people work hard, and in the evening they want a little more in their hands than a crust of dry bread. But you will find all of that out in the next few days.” He patted Isabelle on her arm and strolled away, whistling, his dog at his side as always.

  Quite apart from the unrest that the influx of travelers brought with it, something else was in the air. Something invisible but so intense that Isabelle felt she could grasp it. Every morning, when she went out to inspect her vines—something she had started doing again after Clara and Josephine left—she saw the older and more experienced men out prowling through the vineyards, each with a retinue of younger followers. The plump bunches hanging from the shoots were so densely packed that it was impossible to push a finger between the grapes. The older men plucked off the outer grapes and crushed and rubbed them between their fingers, feeling the grapes and their juices. Some of them relied on their tongues, too, to judge the sugar content of the grapes. One might taste the grapes with eyes closed, while another might look up to the heavens as if God owed him an answer. Now? Tomorrow? The men were watched breathlessly by their entourages. And whenever Daniel appeared somewhere, the tension went up another notch. How would he assess the grapes? When would he begin to pick? Isabelle had come to understand that Henriette’s chef de cave was considered the master of his trade.