The Wine Widow

by Tessa Barclay

  ‘She’s telling you the truth, madame,’ Jean-Baptiste put in. ‘The firm of Ruinart Père et Fils have just such a series of caves near Rheims. They were dug out by the Romans to build the original city of Rheims ‒ I forget what it was called ‒’

  ‘Durocortorum,’ supplied Nicole.

  ‘Durocortorum? Where do you get that name? How do you come to know such things, child?’ cried Madame de Tramont, baffled and impressed despite herself.

  ‘My family took in a monk from Hautvilliers at the time of the Terror, madame,’ Nicole explained. ‘He was interested in such things. It was he who found this cellar, and the others that open from it.’ She directed her lantern towards the wall at the left. ‘There is a passage there which goes into another cavern ‒ I haven’t been in there, I wasn’t brave enough for that, the only time I came down here.’

  ‘But at the time of the Terror? The good man has been dead these many years ‒ how did you know of it?’

  ‘Brother Joseph kept a sort of journal. We still have it, also the books he brought with him from the abbey and his rosary.’

  ‘And you could read it, this journal?’

  ‘Yes, madame, and my father and grandfather too. I went back to it to re-read the information about this set of caves. Brother Joseph says they are all shaped like a pyramid with the summit of the pyramid at the surface where the stone is set. This is because, if it gets wet, clay cracks and dissolves. So the openings were made very small and rectangular, and then the slaves who quarried it worked outwards while hanging from some kind of chair, I believe.’

  ‘Slaves!’ cried Philippe in horror.

  ‘Yes, Philippe, it must have been very dreadful, to work in such conditions. But you see, it was work well done ‒ the clay was removed, and the stone cover was put back each day ‒ I suppose they had pulleys stationed at the top of each opening in those days. Then when the space below ground became big enough, they cut a staircase.’

  ‘Incredible!’

  ‘No madame, I have been in those taken over as cellars by the Ruinarts, and I assure you that fundamentally their cellars are just like this,’ Jean-Baptiste said. ‘They of course spent money to make them suitable ‒ each clay-pit has been levelled and the walls made smooth to the height where the bottles lie. They have put in lighting brackets and proper staircases and so forth, but the effect is the same ‒ the Ruinart champagne is cellared in the steady, constant temperature of a succession of clay-pits.’

  ‘By heaven, if it’s good enough for the Ruinarts, it ought to be good enough for us!’ Philippe exclaimed.

  ‘Very impressive. I…Imust admit you have surprised me, Mademoiselle Berthois. And now, if you don’t mind, I should like to go above ground again. I find … I find I am not comfortable in this underground chasm. I find it oppressive.’

  ‘I understand, madame,’ Nicole said sympathetically. ‘My father always said he didn’t like it either.’

  It took much longer to get up the staircase than down. Madame de Tramont had to pause several times to rest, and be almost carried up the last few steps by her son. Once in the open air, she sat down on the flat stone to regain her breath and her composure.

  Nicole emerged last, having put out the candles and restored them to the spot where her father had left them on his last visit so long ago. Without being asked, Jean-Baptiste at once set to work to lever the cover back into position, a task in which he was joined by Philippe.

  ‘And now tell me, mademoiselle,’ said Clothilde, ‘why have you done nothing with these cellars up to now?’

  ‘What should we have done?’ Nicole replied. ‘We didn’t know they were here until Brother Joseph worked out that they existed, from some old books he had consulted. Even then, times were bad ‒ it didn’t do for a villager to begin showing himself too clever, too ambitious. That way, enemies could report you to the Tribune and you ended up in prison. And then, later, when Brother Joseph had died, my grandfather didn’t exactly know how to use the pits. We don’t make enough wine ourselves for it to be worth our while remodelling the pits and besides ‒ it will cost money, not as much as digging anew but still, it would have cost more than my grandfather had.’

  ‘Does anyone else know of them?’

  ‘No, madame. We’ve never spoken of it. My father came to ensure that all was well, perhaps once every five years or so. I think the last time was about two years ago, when my brother Robert was still alive.’

  ‘Well,’ said Clothilde. ‘This requires some thought.’

  ‘Of course, madame. And now if you have recovered, please come to the house where my mother would like to offer refreshments.’

  Clothilde would have given an automatic refusal, but she needed something to help get her home. She was unused to physical exertion: the climb up from the caves had exhausted her. Besides, she had had a shock.

  She had half expected to be shown some neglected building in which she would have shown some interest, but afterwards would have made her own arrangements about leasing or buying. What she had seen was something quite different, something that couldn’t be touched without the help of Nicole Berthois.

  When they reached the house, Madame Berthois was waiting for them. Knowing no better, she invited them all in. And Jean-Baptiste decided not to be delicate about it and linger outside to admire the view. He had a natural curiosity to know all that was going on, so he went in with his employer to be a guest at this very awkward party.

  Marie hobbled about with her stick, offering chairs to the guests. A bottle of wine in a pail of cool water stood on the table, which was covered with the special-occasion cloth of white linen edged with deep rough lace. There were also little cakes, made mainly of honey and hazelnuts, a speciality which Marie used to make for the birthdays of her children.

  ‘This is a very good wine, madame,’ Jean-Baptiste said after a sip. It was a fine, rather sharp, still champagne.

  ‘Thank you, Jean-Baptiste, you know it’s our own. But we don’t make much, how can we, now there’s only Nicole to attend to the vintage.’

  ‘No, of course you sell almost all your grapes to us. But I compliment you. This wine has been well produced.’

  ‘And the little cakes are delicious,’ Philippe added, hoping to warm the glacial silence of his mother. ‘When you come to live at the manor house, you must teach our cook how to make them.’

  ‘Oh, no, m’sieu! Oh, don’t suggest such things!’

  ‘But why not? I agree Madame Grelliot is a bit of an ogre but she would be glad to have the recipe for ‒’

  ‘Oh, I didn’t mean that, m’sieu. I meant, don’t speak of living at the manor! I couldn’t do it, really I couldn’t ‒’

  ‘But of course you can! In fact, it must ‒’

  ‘No, really, Monsieur Philippe, I know you mean well, but truly I couldn’t ever think of living in a house like that. Nicole tells me the rooms are so big that practically the whole of our house would go into one, and then there are servants ‒ I know you have six or seven, and I shouldn’t know what to say to them ‒’

  ‘But all that would become natural ‒’

  ‘No, it wouldn’t, you don’t understand, Monsieur Philippe! I’ve lived in this house since I was married, and I just shouldn’t be comfortable anywhere else. Besides, I hear there are many staircases at the manor house. I can’t go up and down staircases. And carpets ‒ I’d trip over carpets. No, I must insist, m’sieu, you must realise I shall stay here even if you and Nicole marry.’

  Clothilde was vexed to have the marriage even mentioned in front of Labaud. Yet she found herself thinking: Now there speaks a woman of sense ‒ without even realising that in this thought she admitted the possibility of the marriage taking place. She said, speaking for the first time, ‘I will have a little more wine, if it is not too much trouble.’

  ‘Oh, certainly, madame. Nicole, pray refill madame’s glass. And offer her another cake.’

  ‘Thank you, no cake, I find them a little too sweet with the wi
ne. So, madame, I hear your family had a priest living with them in days gone by.’

  ‘Yes, so I’ve been told. I of course only know of it by hearsay. Very awkward it must have been, don’t you think so, madame? A priest, you know … The menfolk must have had to curb their tongues sometimes, I imagine.’

  Philippe laughed, Jean-Baptiste grinned quietly to himself and sipped his champagne. Nicole began to relax a little.

  All day she had been strung up like a violin. She had scarcely slept all night, had risen long before daylight to get rid of the farm chores so as to have the morning free for the visit to the chalkpit.

  She had been worried, too, about the chalkpit. Years had gone by since she last saw it. Although in his notes Brother Joseph remarked that the place remained dry and secure at all times, she had been afraid she would find a wet, mouldering grotto with slippery steps down which Madame de Tramont would refuse to go.

  The place had lived up to Brother Joseph’s description. She now had full confidence that there were, as he noted, at least four other pits opening off the one to which they knew the upper entrance. The fact that Jean-Baptiste had been able to support her information from his own knowledge had cheered her enormously.

  She could see that Madame de Tramont was impressed. It now remained to turn that advantage into practical terms for the marriage.

  Clothilde had bestirred herself enough to say to Marie: ‘And these cellars, madame ‒ have you seen them?’

  ‘What, me, madame? Nothing would induce me to go near them. I’ll tell you what, madame ‒ if they had not been found by a monk, I’d say they were works of the devil! But then …’ She recalled that her daughter had begged her to take care what she said, that the caves were important in bargaining for the marriage between herself and Philippe. ‘What I always say, madame, is handsome is as handsome does, and if the caves are used for a good purpose, then that’s all right.’

  It was time to go. Clothilde felt up to the walk to her carriage, and she needed to get home to think over what she’d seen. ‘Thank you for the hospitality, madame,’ she said, but without offering her hand as she left.

  ‘A pleasure, madame,’ said Marie, holding on to the door jamb so that she could curtsey. ‘What an amiable lady,’ she whispered to her daughter as Clothilde went down the path.

  ‘Oh, very,’ said Nicole in dry tones as she followed her.

  At the carriage Clothilde was handed in. When Jean-Baptiste stood back to let the young master climb in, Philippe shook his head. ‘I’ll stay on a while, Mama. See you later.’

  Jean-Baptiste, with some dismay, got in. He sat opposite his employer. The fact that he had put on his best suit for the carriage ride didn’t help him feel at ease in this tête-à-tête.

  The coachman, who had spent an interesting hour or so standing on top of the coach watching the group move about the hillside and then enter the farmhouse, took off the brake and set the big horses in motion. When they had made a lumbering turn on to the main road, Madame de Tramont said: ‘You thought well of the cellarage, Labaud?’

  ‘Oh, I did, madame! You wouldn’t find its equal for miles in any direction.’

  ‘But money would have to be spent ‒ they couldn’t be used as they are.’

  ‘No, we should have to dress the walls and floor to make them even and easier to clean. And we should have to put up barns or sheds at the opening to hold gantries and so forth. It would cost something. But there would be no difficulty to raising the money, madame. The bank would be only too glad to advance it against security of that kind.’

  ‘You think so?’

  ‘You’d naturally consult Monsieur Pourdume. But I think he would agree.’

  Now she found it an advantage that Labaud had heard the marriage spoken of. ‘The condition, of course, is that I allow my son to take Nicole as his wife.’

  ‘Indeed, madame?’

  ‘I don’t believe I can do that.’

  ‘Ahem … Well, then, madame … Your son could fare further and do worse. Nicole Berthois is a good, clever girl, from a family that has always been respected in Calmady.’

  ‘Respected?’ She raised her eyebrows.

  ‘Oh yes, madame. In a way, they’re part of the village aristocracy. They’re having hard times now, I agree, losing all their menfolk in the typhoid last year. And the land that was ceded to them in the re-shuffle after the Revolution isn’t of the best. Yet they don’t go begging for help, they stand on their own feet.’

  ‘The girl certainly has character …’

  ‘Yes, clever and independent ‒’

  She gave a great sigh. ‘Independence is not what one seeks in a daughter-in-law, Labaud.’

  ‘What then, madame? Money, good looks? Nicole’s a pretty girl, and if she now exploits those chalkpits she’ll have money enough to find herself an excellent match.’

  ‘Not enough to entitle her to marry into the de Tramont family, Labaud!’

  Jean-Baptiste hesitated. He chose his words carefully. ‘That of course is a family matter, Madame de Tramont, on which I have no right to express an opinion. But I can speak with authority about the cellarage. Not even Mademoiselle Darlannier could bring a dowry like that!’

  Mademoiselle Darlannier was the last in the line of young ladies found by Monsieur Pourdume as a possible match for Philippe. Normally it would have made Clothilde indignant to think that Jean- Baptiste knew so much about the family’s private affairs, but other things held her attention at present.

  ‘Mademoiselle Darlannier at least has some breeding!’

  ‘Do you think so, madame?’ Jean-Baptiste said with an air of surprise. ‘Her father was a waggoner at Veuvillot. He used to drink in the Market Tavern in Rheims with mine, before he began to make his fortune as a haulage contractor. Her mother, if I remember aright, is Josephine Reboul as was ‒ well thought of for her butter-making.’

  ‘What?’ Clothilde said faintly.

  ‘You see, Madame de Tramont ‒ Mademoiselle Darlannier is only one generation away from what Nicole is.’

  ‘Monsieur Pourdume said nothing to me of all that!’

  ‘He would have, no doubt,’ soothed Jean-Baptiste, ‘had the match looked like going forward.’ He broke off there. It was well-known on the estate that Jacques Darlannier had refused the match in blunt fashion. He’d declared that for his money he expected to get more than the non-existent title of a ci-devant marquis and a champagne firm that was only just making its way.

  There was a pause while the imposing travelling carriage swayed on its way along the dusty road. ‘But it would cause so much talk, a marriage like that.’

  There was no use denying that. ‘Well, then … They’re going to get married whether or not you agree,’ he said, abandoning diplomacy. ‘Monsieur Philippe is of age, and once Nicole begins to offer the chalkpits to other firms they’ll have money enough to set them up on their own. It’s true, isn’t it, madame ‒ none of the other matches came to anything? From now on, would he look at anyone else?’

  ‘Oh, dear God …’

  ‘Isn’t it best to resign yourself, madame? Make the best of a bad job?’

  ‘If my poor husband were alive, he would know how to deal with this!’

  Jean-Baptiste greatly doubted that, but he kept the thought hidden behind his dark, angular features. ‘The first thing to do is talk it over with Monsieur Pourdume. I am almost sure he’ll recommend the marriage. Madame, I assure you ‒ the girl is going to make the fortune of the de Tramonts!’

  As he finished speaking, he felt a little like a knight who had been sent to joust for his lady and had carried off the guerdon. But, in less fanciful terms, he had done his best for pretty, bright little Nicole Berthois, of whom he’d always been fond and whom he’d come to admire since she entered womanhood.

  Madame de Tramont made the journey to Rheims next day to take the advice of Monsieur Pourdume. That gentleman was astounded at what he heard, but quickly took in all the facts. After a very short time his
anxiety, which he hid from Madame, was that by her antagonism she would drive this prize of a girl away from the de Tramonts. With property like that at her command, Nicole Berthois could get a handsome husband anywhere, together with a mother-in-law who’d be much more agreeable to her than Madame de Tramont.

  At the end of the week Clothilde de Tramont sent for Nicole. Nicole put on her new gown, her bonnet, her gloves and her leather shoes. When she was ushered into the drawing-room, Clothilde inclined her head. Philippe, standing by his mother’s armchair, went at once to place a chair for his fiancée. At that moment Nicole knew they had won: she would have been made to remain standing if it was a rejection.

  Clothilde said without preliminaries, ‘I have consulted my lawyer and the papers can be drawn up as soon as you care to go with us to the office in Rheims. Do you have title deeds to the chalkpits?’

  ‘No, madame. But of course I can prevent anyone from entering them if they have to cross Berthois land, so that gives me tenure.’

  Clothilde swallowed. Had this child been reading a law book?

  ‘You are not the owner, of course. The owner is your mother.’

  ‘My mother gives me full title to do what I choose.’

  ‘Oh, she does. Then … I believe there are no obstacles.’

  ‘You have won, Nicole,’ Philippe said with admiration. He was standing by her chair. He stooped to pick up her gloved hand and implant a kiss on it. ‘Mama, will you give us your blessing?’

  Nicole smiled. ‘Perhaps that will come later, Philippe. I ask less than that, madame. I ask only that you give us your permission.’

  Clothilde eyed her. No denying the quality in the girl. Where did it come from? Could there possibly be some aristocratic love-child back in the family somewhere? Looked at objectively, Nicole Berthois at this moment seemed a very suitable candidate to be the young Madame de Tramont. All the same, Clothilde had difficulty saying the words.

  ‘I give my permission for the marriage.’

  Chapter 6

  The wedding ceremonies, both civil and religious, were quiet. Nicole wore her new gown of pale grey dimity striped with soft rose, her new bonnet and gloves and good shoes. To these she added, for the day, a shawl of fine lace that was a family heirloom.