The Wine Widow

by Tessa Barclay

  ‘Have I your permission to join her?’

  Nicole hesitated. ‘I have no wish to forbid it. But, lieutenant …’

  ‘Yes, madame?’

  ‘My daughter has strong patriotic feelings.’

  ‘I should think the less of her if she hadn’t,’ he said, saluted, and went out.

  Poor boy, thought Nicole. So young and decent, and about to fall in love with a totally unreceptive girl …

  Chapter 23

  If there had ever been the slightest chance that a friendship might develop between Lieutenant Lenhardt von Kravensfeldt and Delphine de Tramont, it was done away with by news that began to filter through in the middle of January. Count von Moltke, weary of waiting for the Parisians to surrender through hunger, began the bombardment of the city.

  Many country-dwellers refused to believe it when they heard the news. ‘Bombard Paris? No one would do that!’ There was much talk of the ‘sacred soil of France’ and the ‘holy home of Notre Dame’ ‒ but, Nicole asked herself, why is the soil of France sacred and Paris untouchable when we were proposing to march straight through Germany to Berlin?

  Her daughter wouldn’t even listen to thoughts such as those. Her stifled anger against the occupation force grew.

  An attempt was made to break out of Paris on the 19th January, but it was a shameful failure. The Parisians held out for another week while their city was methodically destroyed by the long-range German siege guns. Then Jules Favre went to Versailles to arrange the longed-for armistice. Though it was granted, there were still problems ‒ Favre and his colleagues represented only the city of Paris, there was no government of France proper.

  So during the three-week armistice a National Assembly was set up at Bordeaux. Meanwhile, the citizens of Paris were allowed some freedom of movement: transport began to function in and out of the city, food supplies were taken in and news came out.

  Edmond Fournier wrote giving sad news. Old Madame had succumbed to the rigours of the siege in the week after he had written his last letter. ‘She didn’t seem to want to live. If the royalists had seized power in Paris she might have felt some hope ‒ she’d have wanted to live to see a Bourbon on the throne again. But when Favre and his group got control, she just lost interest in life.’

  He told them he himself wasn’t unwell physically, but the news he’d received in a long letter from his mother ‒ his brother’s injuries and imprisonment, the total loss of their home in Strasbourg, the occupation troops in control of the lands of Tramont ‒ had had a bad effect on even his cheerful disposition.

  He had no money and couldn’t get transport to bring him home. He ended by sending his love to all but felt he might not see them for months yet because the German army were being very difficult about allowing men of military age to move about.

  ‘You see?’ cried Delphine in angry resentment. ‘Nothing can ever be right, nothing, while these people hold sway over our lives! Oh, how I loathe them!’

  ‘Delphie, can’t you just take them as you find them? The men we meet are decent enough. And Lenhardt ‒’

  ‘Lenhardt! You mean Lieutenant von Kravensfeldt, I take it ‒ one of our conquerors?’

  ‘He’s a nice enough lad ‒’

  ‘He’s a Prussian!’

  ‘Never mind,’ sighed Nicole, ‘they’ll be gone soon now that the peace negotiations have begun.’

  She was quite wrong. The hasty French elections returned a body of representatives from whom they wanted a peace settlement at almost any cost. Had Old Madame lived, she would have seen an Orleanist, a supporter of the monarchist cause, at the head of government. Adolfe Thiers undertook the negotiations with Germany, which was now no longer a union of separate German states but an empire with William of Prussia as Emperor. His Chancellor, Bismarck, had no intention of making a gentle peace settlement.

  Newspapers were now in production again, so the information about the agreement reached at Versailles on the 26th February was quickly known. A gasp of horror went up at the terms. It must be a mistake. France couldn’t be humiliated like this.

  Yet it seemed it must be true because, in protest against the terms, the citizens of Paris rebelled. They set up a commune declaring independence from the government which had given in to Bismarck’s demands. By the end of March, Paris was once again a besieged city.

  ‘Oh, God,’ moaned Paulette, ‘and Edmond is still there …’

  ‘Be thankful at least that someone has some pride!’ cried Delphine. ‘Oh, Mama, if only I were there! I’d fight like a man ‒’

  ‘Delphine, stop talking nonsense,’ her mother said, her voice very sharp, and with a glance of pity at Paulette. ‘If you insist on hating the Germans, I can’t stop you. But if you really believe that Paris can impose its mad ideas on the rest of France, you’re out of your mind! What this country needs is peace so that ‒’

  ‘So that we can export wine ‒ oh yes, I quite understand! I’m sorry I got my priorities wrong. I should have known that trade comes before honour!’

  ‘God help me!’ exclaimed Nicole. ‘Daughter, you may be a grown-up young lady, but if I hear one more word from you about patriotism and honour, I declare I’ll slap you!’

  ‘Mama!’

  ‘Oh yes ‒ look shocked because I lose my temper! What do you think I feel when I hear you getting angry about the “invaders”? We were ready enough to invade their country, weren’t we? “To the Rhine”, everyone was crying last year. Well, we’ve had the tables turned on us with a vengeance and it seems to me …’ Her anger gave place to regret. ‘It seems to me, dear, we ought to learn from that. War is wrong, hatred is wrong. I want to live in peace with the Germans.’

  Delphine didn’t reply, as she might have done a moment ago, that her mother only wanted friendship with the Germans for reasons of commerce. But she couldn’t resist saying, ‘I don’t think it’s as easy as you imagine, Mama. Turning the other cheek only invites another blow.’

  It proved she was right, for the treaty eventually imposed at Frankfurt could hardly have been more insulting. France was forced to sign away all rights to the provinces of Alsace and Lorraine, which were to become part of Germany. The great fortresses of Metz and Sedan were to be given up. An indemnity of five milliards of francs ‒ a sum impossible to visualise ‒ was to be paid by the French nation to Germany.

  Worst of all: until this sum was fully paid, German troops were to remain in occupation of northern France.

  Delphine said, with a grim triumph Nicole couldn’t gainsay: ‘So much for turning the other cheek.’

  ‘Delphie, France will gather the money. It will soon be done and the troops will go.’

  ‘The sooner the better! I can’t bear to see them swaggering about ‒’

  ‘They don’t swagger, Delphie! Try to see them honestly!’

  But for some weeks the easy relationship that had grown up between the people of Champagne and their conquerors received a decided check.

  Now that the war was won, the German Kaiser had no particular wish to make enemies. He sent instructions that his commanders should make themselves agreeable to the local populations. So a programme of band performances, displays of horsemanship, choral concerts and balls was set in train.

  The mayor of Calmady came to see Nicole. ‘Madame, I need your help. The local commander, Colonel von Jarburg, is pressing me to get influential people to support his efforts of friendship.’

  ‘You wish me to help in that?’

  ‘Madame, I am approaching everyone of standing.’ He didn’t add that he’d been told to do so in no uncertain terms.

  ‘Monsieur Le Maire, you are an optimist! I had one nephew wounded and taken prisoner into Germany. I have another cooped up in Paris. My mother-in-law died there of privation. And you ask me to support you?’

  ‘We can all tell tales of that sort,’ Loudandet said dolefully. ‘It makes no difference to the fact that the indemnity may take years to collect ‒ and during that time we have to live wi
th these people.’

  ‘I don’t see why we can’t just go on as we have before ‒ they in their world, we in ours.’

  ‘Madame, it’s because the occupation troops need our friendship. They’re lonely …’ He sighed. He had a son interned in Switzerland, part of that last despairing French army which had refused to surrender to the Germans but had chosen internment in a neutral country instead. He couldn’t help picturing that son, lonely in a foreign land.

  ‘Besides,’ he added more practically, ‘if we don’t help them to amuse themselves, they’ll get up to mischief. You know what young men are like, madame ‒ they’ll drink too much and gamble and start fights and get angry with the women when they keep saying no. It will only end in a state of continual unrest. It’s really better if we collaborate with them, madame. It really is.’

  Nicole wasn’t sure if it was true. She promised to think it over.

  Meanwhile she had many other matters to occupy her mind. There was news yet again of the movement of the phylloxera insect: it had been noted on the banks of the Rhone in the previous year but because of the upsets of war, the information hadn’t become generally known. Nicole had her own vines carefully examined but so far they seemed safe enough.

  Nevertheless, the vines weren’t doing well. There had been a sharp frost in May just as the blossom was setting. She walked the vine rows with Rodrigue, trying not to listen to his sighs of anguish. She rode in her little phaeton to visit other vineyards, black bonnet tied firmly under her chin against the breeze of her own passing.

  Sometimes, such were the vagaries of frost, other districts might have good blossom safely opening. She might be able to buy good grapes from someone else. But no ‒ everyone told the same sad tale. There would be a small grape crop this year.

  On the 23rd May came a terrible shock. The Paris Commune had been defeated two days earlier after a series of battles between the citizen-army and the troops of their own country. The whole of France was divided on the subject: some said it served the bastards right, mad revolutionaries as they were. Others said it was a stain on the honour of France that French troops should attack their own people.

  Yet the Communards seemed to have behaved with horrific callousness. In their retreat before the forces of the government they set fire to the Tuileries, the Palais Royal, the Town Hall, the Law Courts, and many churches.

  That was how Edmond was killed. He was burned to death while seeking shelter in a church.

  Paulette took the news with dull stolidity. ‘I prayed too much for Robert,’ she told Nicole, dry-eyed. ‘I should have asked Him to protect Edmond ‒ I could easily have offered my jewellery as well for the re-building of the cathedral ‒’

  ‘Dearest, you can’t make bargains with God,’ Nicole protested, holding her close and rocking her.

  ‘No, you’re wrong. You see it worked for Robert. I still have Robert.’

  Delphine was too shocked to be able to say comforting words to her aunt. Like Paulette, she’d thought only of Robert. Edmond ‒ carefree, sunny Edmond ‒ had seemed the kind of man who would always survive and do well.

  She repented bitterly of her thoughtlessness. But she couldn’t help thinking that it was all because of the war. If the Germans hadn’t driven like a sabre-thrust into her country and besieged Paris, the Commune would never have arisen. There would have been no wild resistance-fighters to set Paris alight.

  Nicole’s lack of enthusiasm for the programme of Franco-Prussian friendship hadn’t gone unnoticed. To help matters along, Colonel von Jarburg from his headquarters in Calmady’s Town Hall decided to billet some of his officers on her house.

  ‘My dear Kravensfeldt, you’ve built up some relationship with the family, I believe?’

  ‘Yes, colonel. I’ve visited several times.’

  ‘And been well received?’

  ‘We-ell …’ Lenhardt couldn’t complain of Nicole’s attitude. She was always polite, sometimes positively friendly. The aunt, Paulette, seemed somewhat scared of him. The daughter, Mademoiselle Delphine, said little. When he sought her out she let him talk though he always felt she tried to put an end to any tête-à-tête as quickly as possible.

  But that was what any well-bred young lady would do.

  ‘I think they’re disposed to be friendly, sir.’

  ‘Very well, you shall be billeted there. You’ll be a damn sight more comfortable than in these poky little cottages in the village. I’ll send you, with Rheinmann and Krum ‒’

  ‘Oh, colonel ‒ do you think Krum?’

  ‘He’s a good enough fellow. Just keep him sober at mealtimes, that’s all.’

  ‘I think it’s indelicate to send him to a household of women, sir.’

  ‘You do, eh? All right then, I’ll send Palbech. You’re the senior lieutenant, I leave it to you to see they behave well. We pay, of course, for everything we eat, and for any extras we commandeer. Improve on what you have already, von Kravensfeldt. I need these people to like us if we’re to stay here two or three years.’

  ‘Very good, sir!’ With a smart salute and a singing heart, Lenhardt went out to tell his batman to pack his traps.

  The household at the Villa Tramont were divided in their reception of their guests. Nicole took it philosophically: she felt she’d brought in on herself by not being active in the friendship programmes. Paulette scarcely noticed: she’d withdrawn into a temporary religious fervour, having masses said every day for the soul of her dead son.

  It was her own daughter that Nicole was worried about. She summoned Delphine to her boudoir after a week of having the officers in the house, and gave her an outright warning. ‘I know how you feel about the occupation troops, Delphie. Don’t think I’m without sympathy. But I forbid you ‒ do you understand? ‒ I forbid you to antagonise these officers. You mustn’t think only of your own feelings. There’s a whole household of servants and estate workers to consider. You mustn’t bring down the anger of the German commander upon them. Have I your promise to be polite to them?’

  ‘I’ll be polite.’

  ‘Delphine! Being polite means not sitting in complete silence when they speak. It means acknowledging their acts of good manners. It means not reading a magazine when one of them gives us the pleasure of his talents on the piano.’

  ‘I hear you, Mama.’ She shrugged. ‘Don’t ask me to simper at them, that’s all.’

  ‘I only ask ordinary decent manners. You promise that? Very well. You may go.’

  News had come from the Red Cross that parcels and letters could now be received for transmission to the wounded prisoners of war in Germany. The able-bodied had started to come home by now. It hurt Delphine to see young men she knew, safely home and about their business, whereas Robert was still lost to them in a land of strangers.

  Nicole began negotiations to have Robert brought to Paris. Her plan was that Paulette should go there to live for the present while Robert would be in a civilian hospital. It was difficult to get information about his condition: red tape seemed to tie up the reports they needed.

  Meanwhile, the Prussian officers weren’t difficult to live with: they had military duties that took them on horseback to Calmady most days, and often they dined in mess, which was in the assembly hall at the maire.

  All the same, it was uncomfortable. Certain topics had to be avoided. The youngest of their guests, Ernst Palbech, was as good and friendly as a puppy, but utterly without tact. He would describe battles in which he’d made ‘a good tally’, meaning a large number of Frenchmen put out of action by his sword or pistol.

  But always Lenhardt von Kravensfeldt could be relied on to smoothe everything over. Nicole began to feel a genuine affection for the young man. Lenhardt, who wasn’t without perception, was encouraged by it. He felt a lady who liked him was more likely to further his ambitions concerning her daughter.

  He was by now head over heels in love with Delphine. The strange thing was, he had never known the real Delphine, the gentle, laughing girl o
f two years ago. He loved this slender, silent maiden with the soft light hair. He loved her serious gaze, her young dignity. He even loved the way her glance would grow absent, travelling past him to some scene he couldn’t envisage.

  With a little string-pulling and some help via Lord Grassington in London, Robert Paul Fournier was at length released from the hospital at Elberfeld into the care of his mother. She went with a Red Cross Ambulance Corps officer to collect him, then travelled with him in a specially-hired train compartment to Paris. There he was taken into the Hospital of the Hotel Dieu.

  ‘Let me go to stay with Aunt Paulette in Paris,’ Delphine pleaded. ‘I could be a great help to her.’

  Nicole shook her head. What good could possibly come of it? She doubted whether her daughter would be able to resist the temptation of visiting Robert in hospital. And that would only harm both of them.

  Paulette wrote regularly. The need to be active had summoned her back from her religious enthusiasms. But the news she sent wasn’t optimistic. Robert was in a wheelchair now, and the surgeons were conducting various tests and trying various treatments. The fact seemed to be that they didn’t really know whether he would walk again.

  Robert wrote also, short duty-letters to Nicole. He expressed his grief for the death of old Madame de Tramont, sent his sympathy over the occupation of the house by the Prussian officers and the district by German troops. He ended usually with: ‘My regards to Cousin Delphine.’

  Another Christmas came ‒ another Christmas with Badish infantrymen in the stables and outbuildings. This time the season was more festive: there were parties given by the troops for the local children. Food was more plentiful.

  The months rolled on. The year changed its name to 1872. Money piled up for the indemnity to the German government, yet it still wasn’t enough to make up five milliards.

  The regime of the vines and the wine-making went on. New earth was laid on the roots of the vines. In the cellars the blending of last year’s wines into the cuvée took place. A poor wine… In March the vines were pruned. In April the stakes were renewed and the growing branches were tied in. There was a shortage of bottles that year but it didn’t matter, the bottling could be delayed because the cuvée was small in any case.