The Wine Widow

by Tessa Barclay

  Mother and daughter stood for a moment staring at each other. They had not met for three years. Alys saw a still slender, vigorous figure clad entirely in black, with scarcely a thread of grey in the brown hair held in check by the black silk cap. Nicole saw a dark-eyed young woman in a dark grey travelling costume, her skin lightly tanned, her lips parted with a greeting yet unspoken.

  ‘Mama …?’

  ‘Oh, darling! Darling Alys! Oh, my angel, my dove ‒ how I’ve missed you!’

  They were engulfed in each other’s embrace. Gavin Hopetown found his sleeve being wept over by a lady who bore a distinct resemblance to his mother-in-law. The toddler staggered over to a gentleman in a chair that moved and gravely leaned against his knees.

  ‘Gramma’s house,’ she told him.

  ‘That’s right. You’re home in Grandmama’s house.’

  So it proved. After a chaotic half hour, in which everyone talked at once in loud voices over the baby’s crying, Nicole heard their explanation.

  ‘There’s a big English community in Portugal,’ Gavin told her. ‘We got the London papers regularly. As soon as we saw the report of Delphine’s death …’ He hesitated, but his mother-in-law seemed able to stand mention of the name. ‘Alys said at once that we must go to you. I immediately started trying to get permission. It’s been hell! ‒ beg pardon,’ he added apologetically.

  ‘You’ve no idea, Mama,’ Alys put in, dangling the toddler on her knee. ‘German bureaucracy and French bureaucracy! At first I was going to write to say we were coming, but it kept looking less and less likely that we’d get permission. Then all of a sudden, they said yes.’

  ‘So I handed in my resignation ‒’

  ‘You’ve given up your job?’ Nicole cried.

  ‘Oh yes, of course, Mama! I knew you’d need us. Of course I didn’t know about you, Robert ‒’ Her little gesture took in his invalid chair.

  ‘This is only temporary,’ he replied.

  ‘Good for you,’ Gavin said. ‘Well, at any rate, here we are. We weren’t sure of our welcome but as Alys said, if you turned us away we could always go on to London. I have an offer of a post there now ‒ a couple of steps up the ladder.’

  ‘Do you wish to take it?’ asked Nicole, feeling a trembling of the heart at the thought of losing them again just as she’d had them given back.

  ‘No, no, darling Mama, how can you be so silly!’ Alys cried. ‘That’s only what we’d have done if you’d closed the door on us. I wasn’t sure if you’d forgiven me for being disobedient.’

  A sudden silence fell. Gavin drew in a breath. ‘Madame, I never asked for your permission to marry your daughter. It would ease my conscience if you’d give us your blessing now.’

  Nicole, smiling, said nothing. Words weren’t needed.

  ‘The next point is, can you use my services?’ It was a relief to turn from emotional matters to practical points. ‘I’ve no experience of making champagne, of course, but I know the business side of import-export, and I’ve had three years helping to run a sherry vineyard.’

  ‘Sherry,’ Nicole said with a shudder.

  ‘Well, everyone to his taste, of course. I won’t talk about sherry if you’d rather not. I’ll soon learn how to talk about champagne. I wondered if you could use me on the estate? If you’d let me be assistant to the present chief of vineyard ‒?’

  ‘You’re a godsend,’ Nicole told him. ‘Leboilean is so old and such a curmudgeon! He’s got rid of two likely young men I brought in, but he can hardly get rid of the owner’s son-in-law, can he? And you can learn from him ‒ he knows all there is to know about Pinot grapes.’

  ‘It would be an honour.’ He hesitated. ‘Robert … am I treading on your toes here?’

  ‘Not at all. I hope to take over some of the business side during the coming months ‒ I believe I can see how to improve the movement of the wine from cellar to market.’ He gave a little sound, half laugh, half sigh. ‘Once, in what seems another life, I wanted to study architecture. It’s something of an architectural problem, this business of getting the right warehouses and freight depots for wine. I’ve already got some ideas ‒ but they’ll take money.’

  ‘Which we haven’t got. Well, never mind. So long as we have a roof over our heads, bread to eat, and grapes to grow, we have something to work for.’

  Nicolette, the toddler, had been given soup and a crust of bread to stay hunger pangs after her long journey. Now she had fallen asleep on her mother’s lap. ‘I had better put her to bed for her afternoon nap,’ said Alys. ‘Which room should I take, Mama?’

  ‘Your old room, of course. And you could have Delphine’s room …’ her voice trembled but she went on … ‘Delphine’s room next door as a nursery.’

  ‘Yes, thank you, that will be lovely. Come, my precious … it’s time you were snuggling down.’

  The house began to organise itself after the furore of their arrival. Lunch, which had been interrupted, was resumed with a larger table. Afterwards, while Alys with Paulette’s help set about unpacking, Nicole showed Gavin Hopetown round the estate.

  There was little to be seen, indeed. The vines were dormant, scarcely more than little pieces of crooked stick in the wet Champagne clay. The sky was dreary with misty clouds. Rain had fallen, more threatened. Their breath made steam before them as they walked. She glanced at her son-in-law anxiously. How would he see this, accustomed as he was to the sunshine of Portugal?

  ‘I hope I shan’t have to do any of the actual digging,’ he said teasingly as he kicked at a ridge of unrelenting clay. ‘It’s terrible stuff, isn’t it? Who would ever believe it produces such wonderful wine?’

  ‘It’s a mystery, Gavin. That’s why I feel it’s such a … a responsibility, an honour.’ She fell silent, embarrassed. She seldom spoke of her feeling for the land which had given her her wine.

  But he understood. ‘I thank you for allowing me to take part in it,’ he said. ‘I’ll try never to let you down in any way.’

  ‘I know that, Gavin.’

  As they were trudging back to the house, Robert came out to meet them, walking in his strange stork-like fashion with Darchier on one side and a walking stick the other. ‘One-man-one stick!’ he called as they approached. ‘Two sticks by Christmas!’

  Nicole ran to give him a kiss of congratulation. ‘It’s wonderful, Robert. Who would ever have thought, when you arrived in July …’

  They fell silent at the mention of that month, that awful time.

  Then from the house came the faint wail of the baby, Philippe, waking up hungry for his evening feed.

  ‘Your grandson is calling for attention, madame,’ Robert teased.

  Nicole ran indoors. She wanted to get to know the baby. She wanted to knit up the old relationship with Alys.

  Oh, there was so much she still wanted to do.

  ***

  The story continues in The Champagne Girls. To read a preview and to buy The Champagne Girls, read on …

  The Champagne Girls by Tessa Barclay

  Enjoy this preview chapter of the continuing story of Nicole de Tramont and her family, in The Champagne Girls.

  When the wedding gown was delivered by a little pony-drawn dressmaker’s van bearing the magical name of Maison Worth in gold lettering and attended by two anxious assistants, everyone in the Tramont household stopped whatever they were doing. The kitchen-maids stole up to the back landing so as to watch it pass, in a deep rectangular box tied with gold ribbons. The butler stood to attention as it was taken upstairs.

  Madame de Tramont’s maid Estelle allowed Mademoiselle Netta to watch the unveiling. Layers of tissue paper were removed. The bed, specially spread with a fine cotton cloth which would later enfold the gown, received it as it was gently lifted out by its shoulders.

  ‘Oh, good heavens,’ groaned Netta. ‘It’s lavender!’

  ‘And why should you complain, young lady, if it is?’ Estelle demanded. She was allowed to scold the granddaughter of the house: she w
as a servant of many years’ standing.

  ‘But lavender is such an old colour!’

  ‘Old? Not at all! It’s charming and very suitable,’ twittered the chief vendeuse, alarmed in case something went wrong at the last moment with this prestigious order.

  ‘Suitable for a wedding? It’s a widow’s colour!’

  ‘But your Grandmama is a widow, my love ‒’

  ‘She’s a bride, isn’t she? Isn’t that what all the fuss is about? She’s getting married …’ At last, she ended to herself. And perhaps it was too late, really. Fifty-six … Could an old lady of fifty-six really want to get married? From her viewpoint of nineteen years, fifty-six seemed the end of the road to Mademoiselle Nicolette Hopetown-Tramont. And Lord Grassington, although of course a darling, seemed so … so ordinary. If Grandma must marry, why couldn’t she choose some handsome, intelligent Frenchman instead of this grey-haired foreigner?

  But everyone knew those two old fogies had been in love for years. And now poor Lady Grassington had died of the bronchitis brought on by those terrible damp acres she insisted in living upon, and so at last Grandpapa Grigri and Grandmama could get married.

  The gown had been spread on the bed. Layer after layer of frilled silk and lace made the skirt, lavender and cream in alternating rows. There were bows of moire to define the front panel at the hem. The narrow-boned waist and one had to admit, Grandmama still had a girl’s waist ‒ was edged with velvet where it fitted into the skirt. The front bodice consisted of ruched silk muslin edged with folded ribbons, among which space had been left for the corsage of violets Grandmama would wear to the ceremony.

  Netta was interested to note that the skirt had no bustle. Well done Grandmama, she thought ‒ always abreast of the fashion. The bustle had come in with a great wave of ebullience but had gone out again last year, much to Netta’s relief. Energetic and active, she’d found it a great nuisance, although the mode at the moment insisted on skirts so tightly wrapped with frills and narrow flounces that it was like having your knees tied together. One must of course obey the dictates of fashion, but Netta couldn’t help longing for the day when designers would decree loose, easy-fitting skirts.

  The chief vendeuse waved at her assistant. The assistant brought forward a flat box, which she proceeded to open.

  ‘Oh, not another lace cap!’ protested Netta.

  ‘Now, Miss, enough of this silly criticism! You know your Grandma always wears a cap ‒ it’s part of her stock in trade.’

  ‘You’d think that at her own wedding she’d forget the business of promoting Champagne Tramont and the Widow’s Vintage ‒ Oh!’

  She broke off, entranced. From the box had emerged a little flat oval disc of some stiff fabric covered in moire and edged with tulle and Parma violets. ‘Oh, but that’s pretty ‒ that’s really pretty!’

  ‘And chic, too, don’t you agree. Mademoiselle?’ said the chief vendeuse, looking with approval at this eager girl whose voice chimed liked the song of a happy angel, and who might yet become a great leader in Paris society and style.

  Netta was worth looking at. She was perhaps too slender for current fashion as yet, but the boning and corseting thought necessary for every lady had given her line and the right curves of hip and bosom. Even in her tailored morning dress of dark grey velvet, she sparkled ‒ grey-green eyes alight, russet hair gleaming with health, cheeks aglow from a brisk early-morning walk.

  ‘Try it on,’ suggested Estelle, holding the hat out to Netta.

  She drew back. ‘Oh no. No one else but Grandmama must wear it. It’s special, isn’t it? In place of a wedding veil …’

  Wedding veils were popular this season in Paris. Specially made by the great fashion houses, or pieced together from heirlooms of Mechlin and Chantilly, they flowed down from elegantly dressed coiffures sparkling with diamante and white blossom. But, from what she’d heard from both Mama and Grandmama, neither of them had ever worn one.

  Grandmama, according to the legend, had been too poor to afford a proper wedding gown. She’d been married to Grandpapa ages and ages ago in a grey cotton dress ‒ how odd it sounded! And yet romantic, because she and Grandpapa had had a dreadful time persuading the Tramonts to let the marriage take place.

  Mama’s wedding had been even more romantic. She’d run away ‒ actually run away to Gretna Green, the place where the blacksmith married you over the anvil according to Scottish law. Well … not quite, perhaps. Every time this tale was told, Mama would laugh and say she was married in a respectable church in Perth with a priest and two witnesses, but she had to agree she’d had no wedding gown and no veil. ‘Flowers I had,’ she would add, with a glance at her husband Gavin. The ‘flowers’ were pressed still in her prayerbook ‒ a sprig of heather he had brought her from the moors around the town.

  How strange it all seemed if you thought about it. Mama at odds with Grandmama, running off to get married without permission, almost banished to Portugal with Papa until the aftermath of the terrible war of 1870 brought them back to the wine estate at Calmady.

  Everyone kept on saying what hard times those had been. German troops riding the country, a huge sum of money to be collected by the French as an indemnity before they could have their lands to themselves again, vineyards devastated by gunfire and the manoeuvring of cavalry …

  Well, twenty years later there was no sign of it, Netta said to herself as she smoothed the folds of the rich wedding gown so that it could be wrapped and hung up for this afternoon’s ceremony. Nor had there been throughout her life, so far as she could remember. Quite the reverse. Money seemed to flow into the Tramont family just as the famous wine flowed into the casks at vintage time.

  Netta had grown accustomed to being talked of as an heiress. She and the other young ladies of the great wine families were watched and commented upon as they threaded their way through the season in Paris and London. The Champagne Girls, the inheritors of the fortunes earned by the great wine of celebration ‒ life for them could only be full of splendour and enjoyment.

  ‘It’ll be your turn soon, I shouldn’t wonder,’ Estelle remarked as they stood back to look at the swathed gown on its stand. ‘Only you’ll have white, of course.’

  Netta said nothing. She didn’t like to think about it. Of course she’d have to marry one day, and probably soon, as Estelle suggested ‒ after all she was nineteen and it would be a strange thing if she wasn’t a bride by twenty. It was expected, and she would be glad to fulfil her family’s expectations of a brilliant match.

  And yet … And yet … Freedom was delightful! Since her debut two years ago she’d had such a good time, flirting and playing with handsome young men, always avoiding any serious relationship. As she danced like a butterfly in the sunshine of the Belle Epoque, everything was fun, everything was modern and exciting. Engineers erected a great column of metal in the heart of Paris and called it the Eiffel Tower. In London the great American circus Barnum & Bailey put whooping Red Indians and performing elephants on show at Olympia. A Republican government might rule in France, but it did nothing to limit the gaiety and extravagance of the populace, and particularly of the rich.

  Netta considered it one of the most rewarding times to be alive ‒ comparable only with the Renaissance in Italy or the days of Classical Greece. Not that she’d have liked to be a Greek, no, no ‒ not for her the almost oriental seclusion of the Athenian ladies.

  Mama might shake her head and sigh that she was flighty. Papa might frown a little and remark that she had exceeded her allowance by an even greater margin this month. None of it really mattered ‒ she knew they loved and admired her, not only because she was a pretty, intelligent girl but because she had something precious ‒ a talent.

  Already young intellectuals had written poems about her voice. It was tremendously flattering … Yet it was unsettling too. What was the use of having a ‘golden gift’, as her teacher called it, if she was destined only to use it in stuffy drawing rooms after dinner? Because that of cour
se was all that could come of it, especially once she was married. Husbands, she suspected, didn’t like their wives to be seriously interested in music.

  ‘Have you let Grandmama know the gown’s here?’ she asked as they came out of the great bedroom in a group.

  ‘Oh, my goodness, Madame de Tramont prefers to treat the whole thing as run-of-the-mill,’ said Estelle with a shake of her grey head. ‘I really believe, mademoiselle, that she’s less excited than any of the rest of us!’

  The two vendeuses made complimentary remarks on Madame’s self-control, wished everyone luck on the occasion of the marriage, and were shown out of the handsome back door with tips equally handsome in their reticules. Netta, after glancing into the drawing room and the morning room and finding them both empty, went to survey the gown she herself would wear that afternoon.

  Monsieur Worth had almost begged to be allowed to produce what he called ‘a unity’ for the ceremony ‒ the bride in a gown which would supply a theme for all the other ladies. But Grandmama had quashed that idea on the first visit. ‘Monsieur, don’t be absurd! An old woman like me, made the centrepiece of a pretty tableau for the photographers? Certainly not!’

  Mama had therefore been left to supervise the dresses of the other female members of the Tramont household. Netta would be in pale blue mousseline de soie with cream flowers and a cream and blue bonnet, while her nine-year-old cousin Gabrielle ‒ whom Mama insisted on calling ‘the bridesmaid’ ‒ was to wear a concoction of voile and taffeta in the same shades.

  This had deeply offended young Gaby, who already had a decided view of herself as a person. ‘But I’ll look like a doll!’ she protested. ‘Please, Aunt Alys, don’t make me wear this dress!’

  ‘My darling, just this once … To please me … I want everything to be perfect for Grandmama’s wedding.’

  ‘Other people’s grandmothers don’t have weddings!’ cried Gaby. ‘I don’t see why we should have one who does!’

  ‘Now, Gaby, your great-aunt is entitled to a lovely happy day on the day she marries Grandpapa Gri-gri ‒ you wouldn’t want to spoil everything?’