The Wine Widow

by Tessa Barclay

  All the ladies were very fashionable. The elder Madame de Tramont wore deep violet silk trimmed in self-coloured braid and a matching hat smothered in violets. Madame Fournier was in beige corded grosgrain with brown and pink fringing, worn with a small bonnet of cream velvet.

  Out on the lawn the young people wore less formal clothes. Alys was in a flounced dress of fine muslin, blue sprigged with tiny pink roses. Delphine had chosen a gown in which the bodice and skirt were of two different fabrics so that she appeared to be in a sailor-like outfit of white and dark blue. The boys, of course, wore beige trousers of thick cotton and short dark jackets, suitable attire for country pursuits. Even so their cravats were carefully tied and they were hatted against the dangers of the June sun.

  ‘A fine family,’ remarked Patterton, watching them as they moved eagerly after the croquet balls. ‘How pretty the girls are.’

  ‘Demmed pretty,’ agreed Sir Arthur. ‘Let me see now ‒ the girls are yours, eh, what? And the boys are Madame Fournier’s.’

  ‘Quite correct.’

  ‘I dessay you hope for a match between a pair of ’em, eh? Need a man to carry on the business.’

  Nicole gave him a cold glance which she managed to change to a smile only just in time. Patterton said, laughing, ‘That’s not a very suitable remark to make to The Widow Tramont, old boy.’

  ‘Eh? What? Oh, see what you mean! Demmed silly of me. All the same, I s’pose it would be an advantage if you could marry off one of your girls to a relation. Keep it all in the family.’

  ‘I don’t approve of marriage between cousins,’ Nicole said, with more terseness than she intended.

  Soon it was time for the morning visit to end. Nicole walked with them to their carriages. ‘You can rely on a large order for the Baptiste vintage from our firm,’ said Patterton before stepping in. ‘And by the way … Lord Grassington particularly asked me to give you his respects.’

  She smiled and nodded as she held out her hand in farewell. It was always pleasant to have messages by word of mouth from Gerrard, although he was a regular correspondent.

  Nicole had a wide circle of friends and acquaintances. She was much courted, both by those who admired her for herself and those who had an eye on her business. She had said many times that she would never re-marry. The only man who had tempted her to change her mind was Gerrard.

  As the rest of the world saw her, she was an attractive woman who could easily have found herself another husband, to help her run the business and the vineyard. It was whispered jokingly in her circle that it was because she wanted to keep the de Tramont name on her champagne that she shied away from marriage.

  The truth was that, alas, Gerrard was already married. More than that, he was important in political circles.

  They had known each other for quite a long time before they exchanged so much as a kiss. On her quite frequent visits to London Nicole had met the Earl of Grassington in connection with a campaign to change the tax laws on wine. Naturally it was to the advantage of wine producers and importers if the British Parliament could be persuaded to reduce the very heavy import duties, but it wasn’t until 1861 that the campaigners succeeded.

  The unofficial committee which had concerned itself with persuading the government consisted of some ten or fifteen members, some able to be present in London at all times and some, like Nicole, only occasional visitors. Those who were present on the happy day decided to have a dinner in celebration.

  Naturally they drank champagne. To Nicole’s consternation, it was the product of a rival house. ‘We apologise,’ Gerrard laughed. ‘Unfortunately this establishment only stocks Möet!’

  ‘After today’s victory, I can submit to this lesser defeat,’ said Nicole. She sipped. ‘I will even admit that this is quite a good champagne.’

  ‘Such magnanimity!’ Gerrard kissed her hand in salutation.

  She was the only woman present in a gathering with ten men. She was flattered and courted all evening, but fate had placed Gerrard by her side at the table. They had always liked each other, but in the warmth and gaiety of that occasion they seemed somehow to be drawn to each other.

  It wasn’t that he was handsome, or especially witty, or outstandingly talented. He had a good business head, a desire to do some good to his country by playing his part in the work of the House of Lords ‒ but other than that he was relatively unremarkable. Some bond of understanding seemed to grow between them nevertheless, spun out of a shared interest in wine and the fact that they were lonely.

  ‘Lonely?’ Nicole said when he mentioned the word. ‘How can that be? You are here in your homeland, surrounded by people you know …’

  ‘Yes of course. I don’t know what made me say it. It’s more true of yourself ‒ you are far from home, madame.’

  ‘Yes indeed. And tonight, oddly enough, I feel it. I should so much like to have someone here from the House of Tramont, who would understand what a great thing we’ve accomplished.’ She shook herself out of her momentary wistfulness. ‘Come, sir! Explain how it can be that you feel lonely?’

  His fresh-skinned face coloured up. He couldn’t tell her that he was often lonely, even in his marriage. His wife was a good soul, but she had been chosen for him in his teens. She was a great huntswoman, took a keen interest in farming his lands ‒ London she hated, so that when he came to Town for the Parliamentary sessions he was always solitary. So matters would remain until his only daughter was presented at court, after which it would be necessary to have at least one London season to find her a good husband.

  But a gentleman never speaks critically of his wife so he turned the subject. However it became clear from his description of his life in London that he was almost always apart from Lady Grassington, and the rest was easy to gather by anyone with as keen an instinct as Nicole.

  It was Gerrard who saw her to her lodgings shortly after midnight. She had rooms in a pleasant house in Mayfair. She invited him in to finish an interesting discussion they had begun in the hansom, concerning the possibility of growing good wine in the New World.

  ‘No wine worthy of the name will ever be made anywhere else but Europe,’ she insisted.

  ‘Come now! The Chinese make wine. And it’s always been made in the Middle East ‒ it’s mentioned in the Bible.’

  ‘My dear Lord Grassington, you will remember that it’s never mentioned as being any good!’

  He laughed. ‘You are an extraordinary woman,’ he said. ‘It’s been a great pleasure to have so much of your company this evening.’

  ‘Let us celebrate properly, milord. Let us open a bottle of my own champagne for a toast to our achievement.’

  The sleepy manservant summoned from the basement brought up champagne from the cellar and ice from the icehouse in the garden. When he had gone, Gerrard expertly opened the bottle then poured the wine. He raised his glass. ‘To our victory!’

  ‘Our victory.’ She sipped. Then she looked up, smiling. ‘Now, milord, admit that this is better than the wine we had at supper.’

  ‘Certainly. Anything would taste like nectar, drunk in such circumstances.’

  She raised her eyebrows in query.

  ‘I mean, drinking it here with you, alone, at dead of night.’ He emptied his glass and set it by. ‘I must go, I suppose,’ he said with a sigh. ‘The poor hansom-driver is waiting.’

  ‘Alas,’ she said.

  He picked up his hat and gloves, went to the door, then turned. ‘Of course,’ he said, ‘I could always go down and tell him he’s not needed.’ He waited. She could turn it off with a laugh, pretending it was mere gallantry, and that would be the end of it.

  A silence fraught with suspense grew in the room. Suddenly he came back and took her hand. ‘Don’t send me away,’ he begged.

  She had an inward picture of her own room once he had gone ‒ herself slowly undressing, trying to unwind after the excitement of the day, trying to relax enough to rest. She thought of many other such nights in lodgings in foreign c
ities, the long loneliness of her life since Jean-Baptiste went away.

  ‘Stay,’ she whispered, leaning her head against Gerrard’s shoulder. ‘Please stay.’

  They had had a long and faithful love affair ‒ made more precious by distance and the infrequency with which they could see each other. It had gone on now for nine years and, as Nicole often told herself consolingly, looked like going on for another fifty.

  In a way, it suited her. She didn’t think she would like to be married now, to have to defer to a husband, to have to share her business decisions. She had been head of Champagne Tramont for so long now that the habit of easy command was firm in her. Gerrard, too, was accustomed to power. They might have quarrelled if they had been man and wife. But as lovers, they were tolerant and considerate because their time together was so precious.

  Thus deep in thought, Nicole came back into the salon to give a glance at the clearing-up. Maids were hurrying about, removing glasses and little tables, putting empty bottles in rubbish baskets.

  Clothilde was standing out on the terrace in the shade of the arbour vine, watching the youngsters at play. ‘Sir Arthur Mateman was right,’ she said. ‘They are a handsome group. And though you pooh-poohed the idea, my dear, I believe there may be a romance burgeoning between two of them.’

  ‘You think so?’ Nicole said, coming out to join her. ‘I don’t see any signs of it.’

  ‘But then, my dear, you’re so busy while they’re here.’

  The two girls of course lived permanently at Tramont, under the care of a succession of governesses and special tutors. Paulette’s boys came to join them at Christmas and for the summer, usually from June until the end of August, at which time the work on the estate speeded up so that Nicole had no time for visitors.

  Although the summer was regarded as holiday time, there were still lessons. At the moment there was a German governess, attempting to teach them her language and some mathematics. Alys, now almost eighteen, continually rebelled, as did her cousin Edmond, though for different reasons. Alys felt it was unnecessary for a young lady to know anything about trigonometry: Edmond simply felt it was a rotten thing to be cooped up indoors with a dull old lady when the weather outside was fine.

  Delphine never thought of rebelling. She was the steadying influence on her somewhat madcap elder sister. Besides, she felt it would be wrong to hurt poor Fräulein’s feelings by skipping her lessons.

  Only Robert, the youngest of the group, actually enjoyed the studies. He was a quiet boy, very tall for his age and very serious. Often by his conversation and attitude he could have been taken for the eldest of the quartet.

  Nicole loved him with a quiet yet passionate love. To her, he was Jean-Baptiste all over again ‒ less muscular as yet and with more brown than black in his hair, yet so like his father that she often wondered no one remarked on it.

  It was strange how easily he had been accepted as Paulette’s child. Years ago, when she left Tramont after her mother’s funeral, Paulette was known to be expecting a baby. Then there had been the terrible upset of her husband abandoning her, all of which had been taken care of by The Widow Tramont. After that, for reasons that seemed good to everyone, Madame had gone travelling. When she came back she was very busy, but yet, like a good sister, found time to visit Paulette in Strasbourg.

  When Paulette Fournier came again to make a long stay at the Villa Tramont, her two little boys were five and two. That was how it was ‒ Madame and her two little boys, the first called after her husband’s father, the second called after her own grandfather.

  Edmond was, surprisingly, a blithe and buoyant child. It was almost as if his mother’s nervousness and insecurity challenged him to be optimistic in the face of everything. Robert was cleverer and less talkative, but equally sure of himself in his quieter way.

  They were, as the saying goes, a credit to their mother. Edmond was due to go to Paris to enrol in the university very soon. Robert as yet had had no plans made for him.

  ‘There’s no romance among any of them,’ Paulette Fournier said with an emphatic shake of the head. ‘I don’t encourage that kind of thing.’

  Clothilde shrugged. She hadn’t the same strong feelings against marriages within the family as the other two women. To her, as an aristocrat, such things were commonplace. But if they had set their minds against it, that was that.

  After a long family lunch, Clothilde retired to her room for a nap. The young people rushed out to go boating. Nicole had work to do, but to her surprise her sister came to interrupt her about an hour later.

  ‘May I come in?’ She entered timidly as she spoke: she was never at ease in the office, which Nicole had furnished with fine mahogany pieces and a rather frowning exhibition cabinet of antique glass.

  ‘Of course. Can you sit quietly for a few minutes while I finish this? It’s the bill of lading for the American shipment.’

  Paulette took a chair, amusing herself by examining the old bottles in the cabinet. She couldn’t see anything attractive about them but everyone said they were very valuable.

  She looked at her sister’s bent head. How clever Nicole was! Would she be clever enough to deal with the dilemma that seemed to be looming?

  ‘Well, my love?’ Nicole said at last, having summoned a clerk to take away the bill of lading. ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘Nicole, you know what Old Madame was saying ‒ about a romance between ‒’

  ‘Oh, let’s have none of that nonsense,’ Nicole said, getting up with rather too much energy. ‘I tell you ‒ I see no signs of it ‒’

  ‘But I do, Nicci.’

  The two women regarded each other. They were so alike, and yet so different. Both had brown hair elegantly dressed, both had brown eyes in a clear-skinned complexion. But Paulette’s mouth lacked the firmness of Nicole: the angle of her chin was never as determined as her sister’s.

  Nevertheless, at this moment she was showing a good deal of firmness.

  ‘Very well, very well,’ Nicole murmured, smoothing down the front of the looped skirt. ‘Tell me about it.’

  ‘Robert has a photograph of Delphine. He carries it in the inner pocket of his jacket in a little leather case.’

  ‘A photograph? Where did he get that?’

  ‘He cut it out of the Journal de la Marne ‒ it’s the one you had taken when she received an award at the horse-show.’

  ‘Well,’ said Nicole, with an elaborate shrug, ‘what of it? He admires his cousin ‒ that’s not uncommon.’

  ‘She’s not his cousin and that’s what makes it uncommon! Come now, Nicci ‒ stop trying to make nothing of it! I’m very worried.’

  ‘But about what, for God’s sake? The boy’s scarcely fifteen ‒’

  ‘I know his age, thank you,’ Paulette replied with what, for her, was great tartness. She’d been about to add, After all, I am his mother ‒ but she bit her tongue on the words. After a hesitation she went on: ‘Robert has always been old for his age ‒ you know that as well as I do ‒’

  ‘But at fifteen boys get romantic notions ‒ they idolise actresses and opera singers ‒’

  ‘Oh, indeed? Then why has Robert chosen Delphine when he could have had a picture of Jenny Lind?’

  Nicole went slowly to the exhibition cabinet to stare absently at the ancient bottles caught in the brightness glinting in at the side of the sunblinds. ‘You cannot possibly think it’s serious,’ she said.

  ‘I think it may well become serious.’

  ‘But Delphine shows no signs of being attracted to him.’

  ‘She prefers his company to Edmond,’ said Paulette, who had watched with a terrible fascination as the relationship developed.

  ‘But that’s because they have more in common ‒’

  ‘Nicole, I think we’ve made a big mistake in how we’ve handled this. If we had brought them up, all together, like a family of brothers and sisters, it could never have come about. But throwing them together at intervals for fairly long periods �
��’

  ‘I often thought about having you here to live. I longed for it, Paulie … To see him every day, it would have been such a happiness to me …’

  Paulette got up. She came to her sister’s side, put an arm about her shoulders. They looked at their reflection in the glass doors of the cabinet. ‘I’m sorry, Nicci. I know how you must feel.’

  ‘I was afraid of giving it all away if he lived here,’ Nicole said. She shrugged off Paulette’s embrace and whirled to look at her. ‘Well, what are we going to do? Are we going to take your fears seriously?’

  ‘Better safe than sorry.’

  ‘But surely … It’s just a phase … He’ll find someone else …’

  ‘Robert doesn’t change with every wind that blows, my dear.’

  So like his father … Jean-Baptiste had been another who knew his own mind.

  ‘Let me think about it,’ Nicole said. ‘The best thing is to get them apart instead of letting them play together all summer as usual. Let me work something out.’

  ‘Do it soon, Nicole.’

  ‘I promise.’

  When Paulette had gone Nicole sat down to think. Separation … That was the key. But it had become such a tradition for the family to spend the summer together, a whole three months of picnics and outings and simple pleasures.

  In the autumn Edmond would enter the Sorbonne; Robert would return to Strasbourg to finish his studies at the Lycée. He wanted to go on to the École Centrale des Arts et Manufactures with a view to becoming an architect. He had shown some interest in the building business of his supposed father, Auguste Fournier, even cajoling Paulette into taking him to Rethel to talk to the manager now in charge.

  That in itself was typical. Edmond, three years his senior, had no idea what he wanted to do with his life. Robert already had plans.

  The problem was that to get rid of the two boys would seem inhospitable. Some convincing explanation would have to be given. Nicole racked her brains, but nothing came.