The Wine Widow

by Tessa Barclay

Nicole picked up a basket-work protector for her face. Shards of glass travelled with the speed of a bullet and could do great harm to unprotected flesh. Many a champagne-worker had lost an eye as a result of accidents with the second fermentation.

  Jean-Baptiste had come down behind them. ‘From the way the wind’s set,’ he remarked, ‘it looks like we’ll have two more days of this.’

  ‘How are other people getting on? Could we buy in enough champagne to blend a decent vintage?’

  ‘So far, I hear there’s been a lot of trouble. At Ambonnay they took dire measures and they’ve chilled the wine out of “working”.’

  ‘This is bad, Jean-Baptiste.’ She turned the basket-work visor in her hands.

  ‘You don’t need to tell ‒’

  His words were cut off by the sound of three or four explosions like pistol shots. A fountain of champagne went shooting out across the floor from a pile nearby. Philippe, his trouser legs soaked in the wine, gave a cry of fury.

  ‘Everything is broken, everything’s in a mess! Good God, is it a conspiracy? Go on, break ‒ damn you, break!’ He flailed at the pile of bottles with his cane. ‘Break, why don’t you break? Ruin us completely, break, break, curse you!’ Nicole rushed to catch his arm. The thought of losing even one bottle due to the crashing blows of that cane was anathema.

  Just as she reached him, the heap of bottles on the edge of the aisle on her side exploded. Ten out of twelve bottles on the top row broke asunder.

  ‘Madame!’ shouted Jean-Baptiste, leaping to protect her.

  Too late.

  The flying glass had nowhere else to go but out towards the aisle. It embedded itself in Nicole’s head and shoulders like knives.

  She screamed in agony. The pain was unbearable. She felt the blood gushing out over her cheeks, over her neck, and lost consciousness.

  Chapter 8

  Philippe de Tramont couldn’t believe it was happening. He threw himself on his knees beside his wife, to gather her into his arms.

  ‘No, Monsieur Philippe, don’t!’ cried Jean-Baptiste, grabbing his shoulder. ‘Don’t touch her ‒’

  ‘But I must ‒’

  ‘There’s glass embedded ‒ every movement drives it further in ‒’

  ‘Oh, my God!’ He drew back. Jean-Baptiste knelt beside him, gently gathering together the gauze shawl from Nicole’s shoulders to drape it over her face.

  ‘No!’ cried Philippe in horror. ‘She’s not dead ‒!’

  ‘It’s to protect, sir, that’s all. And to staunch the blood. Everybody ‒ when I say lift, we pick her up.’

  The other men had come rushing to help. The youngest portering boy had already gone scuttling up the cellar steps to run to the house, borrow a horse, and ride bare-back for the doctor.

  To Philippe’s grief-crazed mind, it was like a funeral party slowly mounting the staircase ‒ six men as if they were carrying a coffin. But they knew what they were about. They had seen other accidents in the vaults, they knew how much care was needed.

  At the door to the house they relinquished the body to Philippe and Jean-Baptiste. With infinite gentleness they carried her up to the bedroom, where they laid her on the canopied bed. Her maid, white-faced and shuddering at the bloodstained gauze, had already whipped off the tapestry cover.

  Dr Jussot had spent all his adult life in Champagne. He had arrived as a young surgeon with his degree in medicine. Then the workers of the district had taught him what they had learned over the years, about the treatment of the injuries they could receive in the course of their labours.

  The first thing was to irrigate the many cuts to ensure that all the glass was removed. This wasn’t easy, as some of the fragments were like grains of sand. Indeed, many a man of the area had scars in which tiny grains were embedded in the skin. In time, the little fragments might work their way out, but if not, they remained, in the weal of skin which could not soften and disappear.

  Dr Jussot was used to dealing with the distracted relatives of injured men. Generally it was a wife, in despair that her man might die or be crippled and unable to earn the bread for himself and his family. It was the first time he had had to soothe and reassure a rich young man that his pretty young wife would live.

  ‘None of the glass reached any vital organ, thank God. She has many cuts in the scalp, shoulders, neck and face ‒ we were lucky indeed that the great artery of the neck wasn’t severed.’

  ‘She’ll be all right?’ begged Philippe.

  ‘Well, it will take time, of course. And you must understand that when she is conscious she’ll be in great pain. So I leave with you an opiate, which must be administered every four hours, to give her plenty of rest so that she has the strength for the healing process.’

  ‘All the cuts will heal? She’ll have no scars?’

  ‘Hm … I … er … We shall have to wait and see, Monsieur de Tramont.’

  ‘Oh, God,’ Philippe groaned.

  Jean-Baptiste had waited in the hall until the surgeon finished his first examination. Satisfied that Nicole wasn’t going to die, he’d gone back to his work. But later, after the long process of dressing the wounds had been done, he returned to inquire. He met Dr Jussot coming out of the front door.

  ‘Well, then, doctor? What’s your opinion?’

  ‘She’s young and strong ‒ she’ll survive, although the shock has been tremendous.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I know that. I’m talking about that piece of glass that went in by her temple.’

  ‘Ah. You saw that, did you, Labaud?’

  ‘Is she going to lose her sight?’

  Dr Jussot stroked his moustache. He knew Labaud of old. No use trying to put him off. One could give soothing-syrup to the young milord, who had probably never seen a wine-cellar accident in his life before, but Labaud was different.

  ‘We’ll hope for the best, Labaud. The gash is certainly deep, but the bone seems to be only slightly parted and as far as I can see protected the eye. No bone fragments went into it nor, one hopes, any shreds of glass. But we can only know that for certain when she recovers full consciousness and tells us whether she can see properly or not.’

  ‘That young idiot,’ snorted Labaud.

  ‘Who? Madame? Oh, come, Labaud. She’s been about in the cellars all her life ‒’

  ‘I meant that husband of hers. Hitting the bottles with his cane! All right, he’d had a big disappointment the night before, but that’s no reason for donkey nonsense in the cellars. You know how touchy the wine is ‒’

  ‘Come, come, Labaud. You can’t expect a man of Monsieur Philippe’s station to understand about the wine. Hitting the bottles with his cane?’ repeated Jussot, having just understood what Labaud said. ‘Why on earth was he doing that?’

  ‘That’s a good question.’ Jean-Baptiste frowned, his dark, sallow face fierce with resentment. ‘It’s all his fault!’

  ‘Are you saying he caused the explosion in which she was hurt?’

  ‘No, but he was striking at a pile with his stick and she came running to stop him. And the pile she was passing just went up …’

  ‘Now, there ‒ you see ‒ it was an accident. He couldn’t possibly have known that would happen.’

  ‘He should have known better than to behave like that in the cellars. People’s lives depend on good safety precautions in the cellars.’

  ‘Yes, yes … I well remember hearing the famous Monsieur Dumas say, on a visit to the wine vaults at Rheims, that it was wise to have his famous iron mask when among the champagne bottles.’

  ‘Well then …’ Labaud was thinking ahead. ‘Are you coming back today?’

  ‘This evening. I’ll drop by your house to let you know how she is, Labaud.’ As he mounted his horse and rode off, the doctor was musing that Labaud seemed more concerned about the lady than was strictly proper in an employee. Ah, well … A pretty girl, Madame de Tramont.

  Yes, pretty … until now. Who could tell how she would look when the wounds healed?

  Clo
thilde de Tramont received the news next day by special post messenger. Horrified, she set out at once for Calmady. She was surprised at how much concern she felt. The poor child ‒ so pretty and lively. But then, she shouldn’t have concerned herself so closely with the wine trade. If she had been more lady-like, she wouldn’t have been in the cellars in the first place.

  When Clothilde was shown into the bedroom, Nicole was asleep, under the influence of the laudanum drops left by Dr Jussot. Her mother-in-law crept close, moving quietly so as not to rouse her. She stood by the bed gazing down, pity and anxiety rising in her at the sight of the bandaged head and shoulders.

  Then she gave a startled exclamation. ‘Good God! What is that?’

  ‘What, madame?’ cried Lucie, Nicole’s maid, who was acting nurse.

  ‘That grey stuff ‒ peeping out between the bandages!’

  ‘That, madame? Why, it’s cobweb.’

  ‘Cobweb?’

  ‘Why, yes, madame.’ Lucie was a local girl, well accustomed to the traditions of the wine district. ‘It helps the blood to clean itself.’

  ‘Cobweb? Cobweb cleans the blood? Are you mad?’

  Her raised voice caused Nicole to stir in her sleep. ‘Shh, madame,’ warned Lucie.

  Clothilde glared at her. She would not be shushed by a maidservant. ‘At whose instructions was this disgusting stuff put on my daughter-in-law’s wounds?’

  ‘Dr Jussot’s, of course, madame.’

  ‘Preposterous!’ cried Clothilde, and stormed out.

  Philippe, waiting out on the landing, had heard her exclamations. He had half-opened the door to inquire the trouble, and was almost brushed backwards by her eruption from the room.

  ‘Who is this Dr Jussot?’ his mother demanded.

  ‘The local doctor, Mama ‒’

  ‘You have a local man dealing with your wife? What are you thinking of, Philippe? You will send at once for a proper doctor! I never heard the like ‒ some village bungler dealing with the injuries of my daughter-in-law. Philippe, who knows what harm may already have been done? I am ashamed of you ‒ this isn’t the care I expect you to take of your wife!’

  Philippe, sleepless for three days now and hollow-eyed with fatigue and grief, was in no state to argue. ‘I’ll see to it at once, Mama ‒’

  ‘And meanwhile I will take proper steps to look after her. Girl!’

  Lucie hurried out of the sickroom.

  ‘Go at once, fetch me a bowl of warm water and some towels. I must get rid of that dirty mess that’s been plastered on the poor girl’s wounds.’

  Lucie did as she was told. The housekeeper was the only person who dared to argue. ‘Do you think you should, madame? Dr Jussot is very experienced ‒’

  ‘Dr Jussot is obviously a fool and an ignoramus! Cobweb? Which has been hanging in dirty cellars ‒’

  ‘Excuse me, madame, the cobweb is from the wine vaults ‒ and they are very clean, you know ‒’

  ‘I think I know best about such things,’ Clothilde cut in in a tone that brooked no further argument.

  Philippe had gone downstairs. To his valet he said, ‘Order the curricle out, and fetch my driving coat ‒’

  ‘You’re going out, m’sieu?’ Jacquot was surprised. Since the accident, his master had stayed within ten yards of the mistress, even if often it meant sitting outside the door of the sickroom.

  ‘I’m going to Paris, to fetch a proper doctor.’

  ‘I see, m’sieu. Shouldn’t you wait until the morning? The light’s going and there’s rain coming ‒’

  ‘Do as I tell you!’ To tell the truth, Philippe was glad of the excuse to be doing something. Three days of guilt and self-reproach had worn him down to the point where he could scarcely bear to draw breath.

  He knew it was his fault that Nicole had been hurt. If he hadn’t been acting the fool in the wine vaults, it could never have happened. True, that pile of bottles might still have exploded, but ten to one Nicole would have been nowhere near them. It was because she was rushing across to stop him that she had been in the line of the out-rushing glass.

  Dr Jussot had been gentle and soothing, yet Philippe had a feeling he wasn’t being told everything. And it was so awful, not being able to speak to Nicole. She was always under sedation. Of course, that was best, otherwise the pain would be unbearable. But just to have been able to exchange a word ‒ to hear her say, ‘I forgive you, Philippe …’

  The curricle was ready at the front door within ten minutes. His mother, busy upstairs unwrapping the bandages on her unconscious daughter-in-law, heard the carriage drive off. ‘What is that?’ she said to Lucie.

  ‘I don’t know, madame.’ Lucie went to the window. In the fading evening light she saw the curricle going down the drive at a fast pace. ‘It’s Monsieur Philippe, madame ‒ driving off in his fast carriage.’

  ‘Ah, I understand ‒ he has presumably decided to go to Rheims to send a telegraphic message for a doctor.’ Clothilde nodded in satisfaction.

  She had not given a thought to Philippe’s exhaustion. Surprisingly, all her attention had been centred on Nicole. She had scarcely taken in the whiteness of her son’s face, the trembling of his hands.

  Philippe knew he was in no fit condition to handle two lively thoroughbreds. He should have sent one of the servants with a letter to go by express postchaise. Yet it was such a boon to be doing something, to feel he was contributing something to Nicole’s recovery. Even the coolness of the evening air was helpful: for three days he had never left the house.

  He turned on to the country road as the rain, promising all day, began to fall; large, heavy drops, precursors of a thunderstorm. The clouds had been piling up for hours, the atmosphere had been heavy with impending thunder. He urged the horses forward, not wanting to have to stop and put up the hood. The rain began to lash into his face. He wiped it away with his sleeve, twisting the reins round one wrist to do so.

  The horses, brought out from a quiet stall into this sudden downpour, were edgy and had to be held close in hand. But it was the road itself that caused the accident.

  The dreadful surface had had no attention for the whole winter. Its ruts and stones averted the wheels from their proper direction. As the horses surged forward in answer to the touch of Philippe’s whip, the offside wheel skipped and skimmed against a long rut of heavy clay that was beginning to disintegrate in the rain.

  The wheel ceased to turn momentarily. The nearside wheel took all the strain, cracked, hit a stone, and buckled. The horses, feeling the sudden drag at the nearside, pulled harder to correct it. Philippe felt only the extra tug on the reins, drew in hard. The nearside horse reared, and the curricle ‒ always an unsteady vehicle on its two slender wheels ‒ went over.

  Philippe felt himself go over in a great arc. It seemed to be happening slowly, as if he was flying. His hat went one way, he another. He hit the ground with his left shoulder, heard a bone snap.

  All might yet have been well. But the curricle came down on top of him. The horses, still held by the reins he had twisted round his wrists, leaped and plunged to escape its falling weight on their haunches. They hauled forward. With them went the curricle and, entangled in its side spring, Philippe de Tramont.

  There was one moment as he was dragged along that he knew he was going to die. He said half-aloud: ‘Nicole … Nicole!’

  After that came everlasting darkness.

  Chapter 9

  Nicole vaguely understood that she was very ill, because once when she returned to consciousness she saw her mother sitting by the bedside, weeping quietly. She knew that her mother would have to be helped or carried up the long staircase to her bedroom, and no one would bother over a thing like that without good reason …

  Another time, Paulette was there. She was attempting to brush those locks of hair that were to be seen among the bandages. Nicole tried to say her name. But all that came out was a vague sound, which Paulette took to be a protest. She gave up her brushing, but sat down, taking her si
ster’s hand in both of hers.

  ‘Oh, Nicci darling …’

  Nicole tried to say: ‘Where’s Philippe?’ but only a sigh emerged. She fell asleep again.

  Dr Jussot was surprisingly pleased when Pauline reported this episode. ‘It means she is improving, thank God. I began to be alarmed, you know. Eight days in a fever … It’s very weakening.’

  The events of the past eight days had been so strange that he could hardly understand whether he had been lucky or unlucky. He had arrived at the house for his daily visit on the Tuesday morning, to find that Madame de Tramont had come from Paris the previous afternoon. She had taken it upon herself to interfere with the dressings on the wounds, with the result that blood poisoning had set in overnight.

  When he expressed alarm Madame had brushed it away. ‘Naturally she has a slight temperature ‒’

  ‘It’s not slight. It’s higher than it ever has been hitherto ‒ and let me tell you, in case you didn’t know it, madame, that in such cases the temperature is lower during the night. We shall see it climb during the day, I fear.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ she responded. She was sure he was a silly country bumpkin.

  But he was proved right. By midday Nicole was in a bath of sweat. But by midday that didn’t matter to Madame de Tramont, for her son’s broken body was brought home at that hour.

  He had been found in a tangle of wreckage by a passing waggoner around dawn. As bad luck would have it, the driver didn’t know the de Tramont curricle nor its owner. He examined the young man, realised he was dead, and travelled on to the next village where he reported the death. Unfortunately he was travelling away from Calmady, not towards it.

  By the time a team of men had reached the scene of the accident and lifted the body on to a decently covered flatbed cart, it was mid-morning. The mayor of Calmady was sent for, to accompany the cortege to the manor house.

  No one thought of sending a messenger ahead to warn the family. They knew Nicole was very ill but were unaware that Madame de Tramont had come from Paris during the previous day.

  The shock to Clothilde was overwhelming. Before anyone could prevent her she turned back the canvas which covered her son. She gave a great cry and fell to the ground.