The Champagne Queen (The Century Trilogy Book 2)

by Petra Durst-Benning

  Lethargic as an old woman, Isabelle unlocked her front door. Micheline, just then stepping out of her house next door, waved, but Isabelle pretended she did not see her elderly friend. Don’t speak. Not with anyone. Be alone. Die, or act as if you had.

  Inside, it smelled as it always did. Of the work boots in the closet, to which a little soil always seemed to cling. Of the preserved sauerkraut, apples, and old potatoes in the pantry. From the kitchen came the smell of coffee and baked white bread. The plate and cup from her breakfast still stood on the table, unwashed. Everything was as it always was. And nothing would ever be the same again.

  Isabelle put her bag down in the hall and hung her coat on one of the coat hooks. It was Daniel’s day off, which was good, because it meant she could open the door to the cellar unnoticed and descend the narrow stairs. She didn’t want champagne, not then and perhaps never again. As if in a trance, she went to a wooden cupboard where Jacques kept his wine collection. Without looking at the label, she grabbed the closest bottle. Red wine. Then she took a second. Back in the kitchen, she found a corkscrew and a glass. She had not eaten anything the entire day. Her stomach was filled with sorrow and fear.

  With the bottles jammed under her arm, she climbed the stairs to the second floor. In her bedroom, she unlaced her boots and tossed them across the room. Then she lay back against the pillows.

  The wine tasted sour and bitter. She emptied the first glass in a single draught, then poured herself a second and stared off into space.

  “A typical characteristic of children suffering from Down syndrome.”

  “If you doubt my diagnosis, you are naturally welcome to seek out another specialist. I recommend Charles Fraudand in Paris.”

  “There is something not right about your daughter. You should take her to a doctor as soon as you can.”

  “When God created the grapevines, he didn’t make them all the same. Each one, in its own way, is unique and beautiful.”

  Everybody had known it. Micheline, with her tormented eyes every time she looked at Marguerite. Daniel, with his comparison to the vines. And probably Ghislaine and Claude, too. Clara had simply been the first to call it by name.

  Only she, the mother, had been blind.

  Down syndrome. A name for something she did not understand, could not understand, did not want to understand.

  “Isabelle, please don’t think ill of me, but I can’t take your child. I would do any other favor for you, but bringing that child to me, of all people . . . no, I’m sorry.” In one of their first conversations, Micheline had told her about the misfortune that her brother and his wife had suffered.

  Isabelle simply had not been listening closely enough. Too many new impressions had been raining down on her. A disabled child; she did not doubt that it was a sad affair. But that had all happened so many years earlier, long before she had met Marie. What did it matter to her? she thought, but realized she was being unfair.

  Without warning, she felt nauseous, so nauseous that she thought she would throw up. She put the wine glass down and forced herself to swallow; too much spittle was in her mouth. She felt dizzy. She leaned back on the pillows, then raised the glass to her lips and drank again. The nausea gave way to a burning sensation in her gullet.

  “On top of the mental difficulties they face, there are also health problems . . . respiratory infections, for example, and leukemia.”

  A choking sob escaped Isabelle’s throat. Would her child ever even be able to speak? Tears flowed down her face but she made no effort to wipe them away. Nothing mattered anymore.

  “There are now exceptionally good curative establishments for serious cases . . .”

  Isabelle’s heart felt clenched. Never, never, would she give Marguerite up. It would be like cutting off her right arm. Or her leg. Or as if someone tried to cut Leon out of her heart. Marguerite was his bequest to her, just as the estate itself was.

  The estate. Everything had been going so well. She had found new hope. Things were looking up! And now . . .

  Another struggle.

  And, once again, she was alone. Would she have the strength to get through everything still ahead?

  Dear God above, please make it all just a bad dream. Why are you doing this to me? Why me? What law did I break to make you punish me so severely? What law did Marguerite break? She’s still so small, an angel.

  All the hard work last fall! Isabelle put down her glass on the marble top of the nightstand so hard that a small piece of glass splintered off the base.

  Her big belly had gotten in her way the entire time, and she still remembered the sharp, stabbing pains in her back. But she had gritted her teeth and gone on with the work. Everyone had told her to take better care of herself. But she didn’t want to hear a word of it. Let them give their good advice to someone else—the business came first!

  And now? What would become of the business now? Would she have any time left at all for anything that didn’t have to do with looking after Marguerite?

  Maybe if someone had done something earlier? Shortly after the birth? What was the name of that specialist in Paris? Fraudand. She had to visit him. The doctors in Reims and Épernay were useless.

  Isabelle’s nose was running, and she could hardly breathe. She wiped her nose with her sleeve. Drank another mouthful as the last of the daylight vanished.

  Maybe everything wasn’t as bad as they said. And the doctors, those know-it-alls, had just put a fright into her.

  Please, dear God . . .

  The birth. Here, in this very room. Isabelle could still smell the blood and other fluids. And all the hours she had tried in vain to press the child out. Was that when Marguerite had been damaged? The doctor in Reims had said that wasn’t possible and had talked about it being hereditary.

  Isabelle pressed her eyes closed so hard that it hurt. And what if it was really her fault? Why hadn’t she gone into the hospital in Épernay much earlier? Why had she taken such a risk? The midwife had calculated that Marguerite was only due on the fifth of January, and no one expected it all to happen on Christmas Eve.

  So many mistakes. How could one woman make so many mistakes? Please, dear God, if you exist, then punish me. But leave the child alone.

  At some point, Isabelle fell asleep. It was a restless sleep, and after twelve hours she woke up feeling as if she’d been through a wringer. Her head hurt, her shoulders were tense, and her chest was tight. She still had not opened her eyes completely when the ghosts of the night before returned. She looked at the two empty bottles and the red rings they had left on the white marble of the nightstand.

  She had wanted to get drunk, had hoped that by doing so she could flee the truth. Don’t think. Don’t feel. Act like everything is as it was before. Another one of her stupid ideas. If anything mattered now, it was to keep a clear head and not waste her strength. With little more than a trace of her former energy, she got out of bed.

  Marguerite needed her.

  Daniel looked with pride at the enormous tanks on the second level of the cellars. The tanks were all filled with a rosé-colored liquid. The air was filled with its delicate aroma.

  He had done it. He’d created the perfect cuvée, a rosé champagne that was light and sparkly. Now he had to hope that the color did not change during the next steps in the manufacturing process. By his reckoning, they would be able to fill around twenty thousand bottles, which would bring in a healthy sum for Isabelle in the next two years, money that the estate urgently needed for investments in the years ahead.

  This champagne would catapult the Feininger estate back into the first ranks, Daniel exulted. Back where it belonged. Back where it had once been in the days when his father had run the place and the Lambert name still graced the labels. Names—for Daniel, they meant little. What mattered much more was what was inside the bottles—and what the people who bought it experienced when they drank it.

  His life had changed so much since coming to work at the Feininger estate. It was th
e place he had spent his childhood, the same farm that his father had lost in a game of cards to Jacques Feininger, and he knew every stone in the cellar walls. He knew every vineyard, every vine. The feeling that he had come home only grew stronger with all the hours he worked in the cellars.

  And then there was Isabelle. Whenever he went out walking among the vineyards, whenever he crossed the yard, he kept an eye out in the hope of seeing her. When he saw her, his heart jumped. You’re as besotted as a kid, he mocked himself silently. But at the same time, he knew that his feelings for Isabelle Feininger went far deeper, that it was love.

  He was about to climb the steps out of the cellar when he saw a light appear above. A moment later, Isabelle was standing in front of him, pale and bleary-eyed and with a hard look to her that he had not seen before.

  His heart was spilling over with love, but he forced himself to give her no more than a noncommittal smile as he said, “I was about to come and get you. The assemblage is finished; tomorrow, I’ll start with the filling. Would you like to try a glass?” He swept one hand out grandly, taking in all the tanks.

  “Maybe later. I have to talk to you. Can you come up?”

  “I don’t know how to tell you this,” Isabelle began slowly, when they were sitting together in the kitchen a little later. A strand of hair came loose from her carelessly woven braid and fell across her face. The redness of her hair against her almost translucent skin only served to highlight her pallor. Daniel could not remember seeing a more beautiful woman, despite Isabelle’s obvious distress.

  “Why don’t you simply say what it is? You know you can always rely on me.”

  “But you can’t rely on me!” she blurted. “Nothing in my life is simple. Every time I think things are starting to get better, fate comes along and slaps me in the face, and I’m back on the ground again.” Tears came to her eyes, and she wiped them away furiously. In a voice heavy with emotion, she said, “Marguerite is sick. Very sick. She . . .”

  Daniel listened in silence as she described her visits to the doctors. Down syndrome—he had never heard of it before.

  “From now on, I have to be there for Marguerite, and that’s all. Do you understand?” She looked pleadingly at him, her eyes wide. “I know it’s the last thing you want to hear from me, and I feel terrible about doing this to you. You gave up your job in Épernay to help me, and we wanted to whip this place into shape together, but the way things look now, it’s impossible. How can I think about going on a business trip through Europe with a sick child? How am I supposed to find the peace of mind I need to sit for hours—or days!—for a painter to paint my portrait for a new label for the bottles? It’s madness!” She threw her hands in the air in despair. “How am I supposed to think competently about anything that isn’t connected to Marguerite? From now on, my daughter needs all my attention. I have to look for a specialist who can help her, for a school where she can get the support she’ll need later, for . . . oh, I don’t know what else . . .” She slumped in her chair. “All I know is that, yet again, all my plans have come to nothing. The most important thing is that I have to be there for my child. I’ll do anything for her, anything!”

  There was an unshakeable conviction in her eyes. Isabelle the brave.

  The old kitchen clock above the sink caught her eye. “I have to go soon. Marguerite is at Ghislaine’s house. I won’t entrust her to a stranger ever again. I was just so terribly . . . exhausted, yesterday.”

  “Ghislaine’s a stranger?” Daniel raised his eyebrows.

  “That’s not what I meant,” Isabelle said hurriedly. “But I can’t ask someone else to look after Marguerite! What if something happened, some kind of emergency? No, I have to take care of her myself. Besides, Ghislaine will soon have more than enough to do with her own child.”

  Isabelle looked like a desperate lioness—one that someone was trying to separate from her young.

  “What is it? Why don’t you say anything?” she asked after a long moment of silence. “Don’t you think my plans make sense?”

  Daniel looked across the table at her. A brave woman. A fighter. One who did not accept help easily. Her world had collapsed around her, and she created another one. And now she needed to do that again. He could understand her so well, and yet . . .

  He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes for a moment, then began to talk. “I was eight years old when my father died. Ghislaine was ten. Our father killed himself, but you knew that. And we had lost our mother a few years earlier. Becoming orphans in such a tragic way, well, the people in the village were overflowing with pity for us. Nobody dared to speak loudly or laugh when we were around, and no one even thought about making a silly joke! Everyone looked at us with such somber expressions, all the time. The poor little orphans—that’s who we were. Nobody invited us to other children’s birthday parties or asked us to go on any adventures. When the other kids went out stealing apples, they didn’t want us there, even though I had always been the one who climbed the tallest trees. But everybody seemed to think that everyday life wasn’t appropriate to our mourning. And so they tiptoed around us, all the time.”

  Isabelle was listening intently to his words, but he could not read from her face what she thought about his story. When she said nothing, he continued. “You don’t know how many times I wished that someone would simply act normal around us! That someone would give me a clip on the ear if I answered back or that the aunt that we grew up with would send me to my room for all my impudence. But it didn’t matter how unruly I was; I got away with it. I was the poor orphan, after all. Then I began to play tricks on the people around me, and the tricks got worse and worse. It got so bad that I burned down one of the protective huts in a vineyard—burned it to the ground. Everybody knew who was behind it, but nobody took me to task.” He shook his head. “When I think about it today, the never-ending pity was, for me, almost worse than anything else.”

  Isabelle’s expression was solemn. She sat there, listening, her head lowered.

  Daniel reached across the table and lifted her chin a little so that their eyes met. With great tenderness in his voice, he went on. “Do you want to turn your daughter into a cripple with excessive care? Do you want her to feel every day that she isn’t normal?” He shook his head adamantly. “If you really want to help Marguerite, then treat her as normally as possible. Let her be herself. If she needs help, you will be there, and the rest of us, too. Isabelle, you are not alone!” he said forcefully. “Ghislaine, Claude, and Micheline—we will be there for Marguerite and you, always.”

  “But—” Isabelle began.

  “No buts,” Daniel interrupted. “Here on the estate, Marguerite has the best possible surroundings to grow into a happy person. If you let her.”

  “But she is so helpless, I have to . . .”

  He stood up, moved around the table, and crouched beside Isabelle. With infinite gentleness, he wrapped his arms around her, and she did not resist.

  “Everything will work out. We simply take each day as it comes, all right? We make good champagnes, we laugh, and we cry. We live. We love.”

  Chapter Forty

  One suitcase and one travel bag—Isabelle wanted no more with her for her journey to Essoyes so she could manage her bags herself instead of hunting for a porter at every train station. She had stood in front of her wardrobe for a long time deciding on the perfect dress to wear for her portrait sitting with Pierre-Auguste Renoir. Something elegant, something extravagant? Or maybe something simple that would show her more as a person? Perhaps something light, more fitting for the warm sunshine of March? But something in a heavy velvet might be better—the champagne with the new label would be finding its way to customers’ tables in the coming fall and winter, after all. In the end, she settled on a sleeveless silk dress in an elegant aqua shade that was decorated with two silk roses on the generous neckline. Isabelle thought that the green shade showed her red hair to advantage; she hoped the painter would agree with her.
>
  When she set off for Essoyes, it would not have been true to say that she was at peace with the world or herself, but she was able to keep from sobbing as she said good-bye to Marguerite, who slept peacefully in the arms of her new nanny, Lucille. The friendly young woman was the daughter of Daniel’s previous employer in Épernay and a trained nurse who couldn’t pursue her profession in the hospital, because she was fiercely allergic to the disinfectants. Daniel had described Lucille as absolutely trustworthy and had recommended wholeheartedly that Isabelle take her on. After a few trial days to start, Isabelle realized how fortunate they were to have Lucille. The young woman fell in love with Marguerite at first sight, treated her with the greatest tenderness, and called her ma chouchoute—my beloved. She had also found a wet nurse for her daughter for the time she would be away. Lucille had to visit the woman twice a day with Marguerite, and the infant would also have reconstituted powdered milk. Isabelle had not known that powdered milk existed, but according to Lucille it had been available for years and was a blessing to mothers who, for whatever reason, were not able to breast-feed their children. Lucille knew everything there was to know about caring for infants, and Isabelle felt sure there couldn’t be a better nanny for Marguerite.

  Daniel and Micheline had come to the house to wish Isabelle bon voyage. Ghislaine had sent her best wishes for the journey as well; a few days earlier, she had given birth to a healthy baby boy, and she was still rather unsteady on her legs and preferred to stay home.

  Her friends now stood beside Lucille and Marguerite like the pillars of a fortress. Isabelle started to tear up, so she was glad to hear Claude Bertrand noisily clear his throat.

  “Madame . . .” He was going to drive her the short distance to Épernay, where she would take the mail coach south; a seat had already been reserved for her.