Besides … Did she really want to be so much in love with Jean-Baptiste? The chief place in her heart still belonged to Philippe and always would ‒ and if she cared to take a lover from time to time no one would make too much of it so long as she was discreet.
But with Jean-Baptiste she was allowing herself to be overwhelmed by a delight in physical pleasure. It wasn’t that she loved Jean-Baptiste himself, she feared ‒ she loved what he brought her, the inestimable gift of passion fulfilled. When she was with him, when she felt his strength come into her and float her away to the realms of paradise, nothing else mattered.
But if she looked at life with sober, realistic vision she could see that many other things mattered.
So she mused, and convinced herself she ought to be wary. That wariness was swept away a few hours later when they made love, but it so happened that he couldn’t come to meet her for the next few nights. One of his children was ill, his wife was up and awake often into the small hours, he couldn’t get away unseen and besides it would be unfair to leave her at a time of anxiety.
Just so. Each of them had other responsibilities. Nicole made herself examine the situation in a level-headed way and this was her decision: she must put a stop to the affair at once before it became too serious.
There was an escape route. She would go to England to look at this new glass Madame de Tramont had discovered.
When she told Jean-Baptiste of her decision, he understood at once without further explanation. ‘Perhaps it’s best,’ he said. ‘Short and sweet, eh? And no hard feelings on either side once it’s over.’
She hadn’t expected him to be quite so matter-of-fact about it. She hid her hurt feelings, however, and said in businesslike tones, ‘I shall be gone about a month. I’m inviting Paulette to come for Christmas with Edmond and to stay on until the end of January, so the children will have someone to look to other than Nanny. As to the business side, now that we’ve decided on the blend, I know I can leave the fining and bottling to you.’
‘Yes, I believe I can take care of all that.’
‘It’s best, Jean-Baptiste.’
‘Of course.’
Clothilde de Tramont was surprised ‒ and surprisingly pleased ‒ to get the letter announcing her daughter-in-law’s proposed visit to London. Clothilde herself was then on her travels in Scotland, that region made fashionable by the works of Sir Walter Scott. It might well be that the country was as romantic as the portrayal in Redgauntlet or Rob Roy, but the comforts were few, the weather was even more uncertain than the Champagne area, and the food was abysmal.
Moreover, in this poverty stricken country, few had heard much of Champagne Tramont, so she was no kind of a celebrity here. She was glad enough to hurry south on the admittedly efficient railway to meet her daughter-in-law in London.
‘Well, my dear, it’s very flattering that you took my information so seriously.’
‘Madame, I’m extremely grateful that you gave such a thing your attention. I’m hoping you will introduce me to your friends the Davenants who will then take me to the glassworks.’
‘Of course, of course, nothing simpler. But wasn’t it extremely inconvenient to leave Calmady when the bottling was about to take place?’
Nicole gave a little shake of the head. ‘I believe it is important for the head of a firm like Champagne Tramont to be able to delegate.’
‘Delegate? To whom?’
‘To Jean-Baptiste Labaud, of course.’
‘But … is he sufficiently educated to be left in charge, my dear? He is, after all, a peasant.’
Nicole looked at her. Clothilde coloured faintly. And then, with a burst of laughter, she said, ‘But of course, so are you! Nicole, I’d quite forgotten that! How strange. It used to seem so important.’
Nicole took her hand in its black lace mitten. ‘Madame, we’ve been through a lot together, haven’t we? There are things to be forgotten and things to remember ‒’
‘Yes, chiefly that we are after all still mourning Philippe.’
It was Nicole’s turn to colour up. Yet it was true ‒ despite the passionate interlude with Jean- Baptiste, in her deepest heart she still grieved for her dear, gentle Philippe.
The visit to the glassmaker was easily arranged, Mr Davenant rather flattered that this young lady from abroad should be even interested. There were problems: her knowledge of English was scanty indeed, seemingly based on Shakespeare and other English poets. This being so, it was agreed that she should stay in the background, rely on Madame de Tramont to translate for her, and say very little.
It thus came about that Henry Woodpath had no idea he was showing his works to the head of the great champagne house of Tramont. Perhaps he would have been less forthcoming if he had known. But he had two foreign ladies, both in demure black, to entertain, so he put himself out to be interesting and informative.
When, prompted by Nicole, Clothilde inquired about the formula for his new glass, he was surprised but took it to be naivety ‒ after all, what could women understand of such matters? Expansive, rather lordly in his dark brown worsted tailcoat and checked trousers, he waved his top-hat at the laboratory where his chemists kept check on the product.
‘Let us go this way. Careful of these steps, ladies ‒ prinny guard, mesdames.’
Nicole smiled at him in admiration.’ You spik excellent French, m’sieu,’ she lied.
By now Woodpath was so enchanted that he would have sold her every secret in his works for sixpence. He had his chief chemist show her samples of glass and test them in clamps to breaking point. When at last they came to the special glass used to make test tubes for Mr Davenant, he had no hesitation in commanding the chemist to recite the formula.
‘Carbonate of soda, 15%, Carbonate of lime 7%, Manganese 2%,’ the chemist began. The list contained six ingredients. ‘Plus 70% sand to make 100%, and of course to that you can add as much cullet as you wish.’
‘What is “cullet”?’ Nicole inquired of her mother-in-law, for the other names she had taken the trouble to look up in a dictionary before leaving France: she had learned the English words for all the chemicals generally in use in glassmaking.
‘De la verre brizzy, madame,’ said Woodpath.
‘Brizzy? Oh, broken glass. Ah yes, I understand.’
‘You may think it strange that we add old glass to new,’ Woodpath expatiated, ‘but we find it gives toughness and though of course the exact chemical components of old glass are unknown, we find that there is little danger of harmful elements …’ And so on, delighted to have an audience for his lecture.
When Nicole returned to France she visited Argonne, where the works that supplied her with bottles was situated. There she had an acrimonious conversation with the owner, who in the first place didn’t wish to be told what to do by a woman and in the second certainly wasn’t going to use any information from an English manufacturer.
‘What, do you think we should fall in behind the English, then?’
‘I think we should at least walk a few steps in their path, m’sieu, if it means making better bottles.’
‘I greatly doubt it. What do the English know about putting wine in bottles?’
‘Very little, perhaps, but they put gases in bottles when they do scientific experiments and champagne after all contains a gas ‒ carbonic acid.’
He frowned. He disapproved of women repeating, parrot fashion, some few facts they had learned.
‘Then, to be more mundane, the English put beer in bottles.’
‘Beer!’ said the glassmaker, in tones that expressed what he thought of beer, and English beer at that.
‘Despise it as much as you wish, m’sieu, but I want you to make some bottles according to this formula, and if you refuse, I can easily go elsewhere.’
‘Ah, madame!’ That was different. He didn’t want to lose the custom of a prestigious house like Tramont. ‘Very well,’ he said, in a manner that implied, I’ll humour your womanish whim.
He wa
s greatly astonished when the glass proved to be fine and smooth and strong. He subjected it to every test, but it withstood almost every pressure. He was much more subdued when young Madame de Tramont came back to view the results.
‘Of course, we don’t know what effect it might have on the champagne,’ he mused.
‘No, and that is why we will have only a trial batch for this year. Tell me, m’sieu, is it possible to have a colour other than brown?’
‘Other than brown?’ He was surprised yet again at this strange little creature, so pretty and self-assured despite her widow’s weeds. ‘I suppose so. But wine bottles are always brown.’
‘I think,’ Nicole said, rising, ‘I should like the new bottles you make for me from this glass to be green.’
‘Green!’
‘I think so. I considered blue, but blue is connected so strongly with poison phials. And dark red … No, green seems to me the best colour.’
‘Green! Madame, why should you do such a bizarre thing? It will set you out as different from among the champagne makers.’
‘Exactly. I want to be seen to be different. Thank you, Monsieur Parannet, I look forward to receiving this extra order of bottles when they are ready. And if they have no harmful effect on the wine, and answer well otherwise, you may look forward to larger orders.’
When she reached Rheims she sought out an artist whose work was well-known in the Champagne region. ‘I should like to have new labels designed,’ she told him. ‘It is for a champagne bottle, but the bottle itself will be green, not brown.’
‘Green!’
‘Good gracious, why is everyone so surprised? Glass can be any colour, and so long as it is dark enough to protect the wine, why should it not be green?’
‘No reason, I suppose, madame …’ said Pierre Crecy uncertainly.
‘Very well. I want a new label and cravate to go on a green bottle. The foil on the cork can be of any colour you choose but I feel the colour should be repeated somewhere in the two labels ‒ that’s to say, if the foil is golden, I should like gold in the labels, if the foil is purple I should like purple in the labels. I am aiming for a unified look, do you understand?’
‘Yes, madame.’
‘The main label should have the coat of arms of the de Tramonts, as hitherto. However …’
‘Yes, madame?’
‘I should like you to design the main label with a slightly different name.’
Crecy’s hands, already sketching with charcoal on a big sheet of paper, paused. ‘In what way, different? If you use the coat of arms you must use the name as always.’
‘Of course. But until now the name has always been that of my father-in-law.’
‘Yes?’
‘I should now like the label to read: The Widow de Tramont.’
‘What did you say?’ cried Crecy, breaking the charcoal stick in his thick fingers.
‘The Widow de Tramont.’
‘But … but …’
‘Have you any objection to designing a label with my name on it?’
‘But such a thing has never been done! To use your own name? It’s a break with tradition!’
‘My father-in-law used his.’
‘But he founded the firm, he owned it ‒’
‘And now I own it, and have enlarged it, and increased the business, and plan to do other things one day. So I think it would be a good thing to have my name on the bottle.’
‘But a widow? Will people like to associate wine with a widow?’
‘We shall see,’ Nicole said, rising from her chair and putting on her gloves. ‘It is for a small batch of wine which I intend to put into different bottles. It is a time, I think, for change. Let us try this new label ‒ if it is a failure, I will change back.’
He showed her out, shaking his head behind her back. Nicole, well aware of his disapproval, sighed inwardly. Why was it so heavy a task to have men accept her as a businesswoman? Why did they insist on treating her as some sort of idiot?
At the thought, her heart leaped towards the one man who treated her as a woman of importance in her own right.
Jean-Baptiste …
The moment she summoned him to her office on her homecoming, they went into each other’s arms. The parting had been in vain as far as it had been intended to put an end to their love affair. If anything, it had only made her long for Jean-Baptiste the more ‒ for his strength and sturdy good sense, his appreciation of her both as a lover and as a woman.
‘Welcome home,’ he said as he let her go.
She smiled. Home, indeed.
Chapter 12
During Nicole’s absence the work of the champagne house had gone as usual, except for one matter ‒ a visitor had arrived in hopes of conferring with her. His name was Franklin Uthers; his quest was to gain information on how to improve the sparkling wine he was producing in his Californian vineyard.
Finding Madame de Tramont away from home, he had put up at a hotel in Rheims to await her arrival. But she had scant time to give to him, for her mother was failing now quite seriously.
‘It’s lucky I was here,’ her sister Paulette said to her. ‘I’ve been to the farm every day for almost the whole month since Christmas. But though she rouses when I go in, she soon sinks back into a kind of sleep. I think it’s the end, Nicole.’
The sisters took it in turns to sit with their mother in the old bedroom of the farmhouse they knew so well. Every comfort that Marie Berthois would accept had been installed, but the contrast between this and the manor house never failed to strike Nicole when she entered.
‘Mama! Mama, it’s Nicci.’
The faded eyes opened. The hand twisted by rheumatism was painfully lifted to take hers. ‘Ah, Nicci, it’s good of you to come, with so much as you have to do … Dearest, when I’m gone, let Lucille stay on in the farmhouse, eh? She deserves to ‒ and it would be unseemly to turn her out without a home after she’s been so patient with me.’
‘Mama, don’t talk like that. You and Lucille will spend many another year ‒’
‘No, no, dear. I know that’s not true, and I’m quite glad, really. You know, I’ve been in pain so long … It will be nice to have peace.’
Peace came to her early in February. The funeral had all the ceremony of black-plumed horses and mass in the parish church, as the villagers expected. When Nicole turned to business again she found, somewhat to her relief, that the American visitor had left.
‘I don’t know what we could have told him,’ she said to Jean-Baptiste. ‘So much of the making of good champagne is to do with the soil here and the temperatures …’
‘He talked too much, listened too little, ‘Jean-Baptiste grunted.
Greatly to Nicole’s surprise, her mother-in-law had set off from London when she realised Marie Berthois was unlikely to last out the month of February. She had wished to show ‒ respect to her daughter-in-law’s family, somewhat belated but pleasing nevertheless.
‘My dear, my deepest condolences,’ Clothilde said in greeting. ‘I remember that when I left last year I said I would never be back … But you know, family ties are strong all the same. And you are all my family now.’
The two women kissed, with much less formality than on former occasions. It gave Nicole a pang of regret that they had not been so friendly while Philippe was alive.
For the first week or two Clothilde busied herself about the house, musing aloud that they ought to have new curtains for the dining-room and perhaps they should have gas lighting installed? It had just been beginning to be popular in London when she had lived there as a girl but now the Gas Light and Coke Company were extending the facility to even the humblest homes ‒ surely it was time for the manor of Tramont to have something more up to date than candles and oil lamps?
‘I have been thinking of that, madame,’ agreed Nicole, ‘but for the cellars rather than for the house.’
‘Nicole, what an expense!’
‘No, I believe not ‒ once the pipes are lai
d the expense isn’t great. My chief worry is the raising of temperatures in the cellars ‒ I notice that in Pourdume’s office in Rheims, the room becomes quite hot when his gasolier is lit.’
Clothilde had nothing to say on that score. She was quite taken aback at how far advanced Nicole was in her thinking. She turned her attention to her grandchildren for a while, who were grateful to be taken out for walks and read to, now that Aunt Paulette had gone home again.
It occurred to Clothilde that, despite the grief of her mother’s death, Nicole seemed strangely content. She went about her business with smiling briskness. Even though she was still clad in the formal black of mourning ‒ for her mother now ‒ she seemed to glow with some inner light that made even black crepe seem gentle.
Clothilde was a woman of the world. The answer to the mystery soon came to her. Her little widow of a daughter-in-law was in love. Well, so be it. She was too young to be a widow all her life. Who could it be? On whom would she bestow her hand?
A little quiet observation gave the answer: there was no young gentleman in their circle of acquaintance in whom Nicole de Tramont was showing the slightest interest.
Clothilde’s mood changed from tolerant understanding to alarm. If there was no one in the neighbourhood with whom Nicole was having an honourable courtship, did that mean …?
Unthinkable! Yet having once thought it, Clothilde couldn’t forget it. She would have despised herself if she had spied on her daughter-in-law, but she soon somehow became aware that Nicole let herself out several nights in the week by the side door near the firm’s office on the ground floor.
After a night of slight snow, Clothilde went out ‘for a walk’ before breakfast. Light footprints, made crisp by later frost, trod a path across the courtyard to the alley leading to the chief of cellar’s office. Other footprints had by now almost obliterated them, for the firm’s staff were early at work. Yet it was impossible for Clothilde not to know that Nicole had gone in the dead of night to Jean-Baptiste’s office.
A few more days of watchfulness convinced her she was right. Nicole hurried to any meeting with her chief of cellar, spent more time than was strictly necessary in his company. A shrewd observer could note occasional smiles that passed between them, unnecessary contacts.
The Wine Widow Page 16