The Champagne Girls

by Tessa Barclay

  She too was out of bed, scrambling into a dressing-gown while her husband pulled on trousers and slippers.

  He was gone as she ran for the nursery. Flori was sound asleep, snoring. She kicked the nurse’s bed as she ran past, snatching up her little girl. She pulled a cover from the bed to wrap round the child. ‘Flori, Flori, wake up, wake up ‒ there’s a fire!’

  The old nurse awoke in a daze. ‘Eh, what? Is she crying? It’s her teeth ‒’

  ‘Something’s burning, Flori! Monsieur’s gone to telephone the fire brigade.’

  Frederic was downstairs in the office, surrounded by smoke and fumes, jiggling the receiver uselessly. Either the line was down or had been cut. He could smell burning wood but the room in which he was standing was as yet untouched. He threw down the instrument, ran into the hall, shouting: ‘Fire! Fire!’

  Robert appeared at the top of the staircase. ‘Where is it?’ he called, dragging on a dressing-gown.

  ‘Haven’t found out yet ‒ the smoke’s blowing through from the back, from the terrace room.’

  ‘I’ll phone the ‒’

  ‘Don’t bother, the damn thing doesn’t work.’

  He found flames issuing from the big room they called the ballroom. Someone had got in through the terrace windows and set the place alight. The smell of kerosene was strong on the air, mingled with the smoke.

  In the hall, flames were beginning to lick the oak panelling of the walls. Netta was there with the baby, Alys and Gavin came downstairs with an arm about each other. Flori was on the landing, foolishly gathering up things she thought she would save from the furnishings.

  Frederic reviewed the inmates of the house. David was in Paris in the Rue Lelong, Pierre was at boarding school. The reduced staff of house servants was upstairs, furthest from the fire. Now they appeared, one by one the butler in an unexpectedly fine silk dressing-gown, the cook in shawl and curlers.

  ‘Where are the maids? Where’s Patti and ‒ what’s her name?’

  ‘Suzanne? Yes, where’s Suzanne?’

  The groom appeared from outside. ‘Sir, sir ‒ Oh, you’re all up ‒’

  ‘How does it look from outside, Lenard?’

  ‘The back of the ground floor is ablaze, sir, and someone’s put a torch to the offices.’

  ‘Get those damned women downstairs,’ shouted Frederic to the butler in his officer’s voice. ‘Come on, the rest of you ‒ this fire’s going to burn right through the ground floor if we don’t do something to stop it. Lenard, get the gardener and any other men you can find, organise a bucket squad ‒ try to get the fire extinguishers from the loading bays ‒ quick, don’t hang about.’

  Flori, hearing the order from Monsieur in his ‘impatient’ voice, began to clamber upstairs to the attic floor to fetch the maids. ‘Not you, Flori ‒ stop!’

  ‘It’s all right, monsieur, I don’t mind.’ Up she went, Frederic shepherded everyone else outside.

  ‘Gavin, Robert, see those men get to work. Where’s Chausse?’

  The gardener pushed forward. ‘Here, sir.’

  ‘Send your lad down to the village on the bay mare, she’s reliable. Get some men to help here.’

  ‘The fire brigade, sir?’

  ‘I can’t get through from here. Tell your boy to ask the mayor to telephone to Rheims for them.’

  ‘Yessir.’

  A sudden gust of wind rushed through the house. A sheet of flame seemed to spring up. It was greeted by a cheer from somewhere at the back.

  ‘My God!’ cried Robert. ‘They’re there ‒ madmen!’

  He went off at a limping run to see what was happening. He found a crowd of men, standing a few yards off among the shrubs, laughing drunkenly and clapping each other on the back.

  ‘You fools,’ he shouted. ‘There are people in there!’

  ‘Toadies to the rich! Let ’em burn!’

  Some of the men from Calmady arrived, panting, having started to run as soon as they glimpsed the flames. Buckets were filled at the taps in the bottle-washing shed, but a milling crowd of intruders prevented them from getting to the fire.

  ‘What about those women upstairs?’ called Frederic.

  To his dismay the butler replied from almost at his elbow. ‘I couldn’t get up, sir ‒ the flames have taken the staircase.’

  ‘What?

  Frederic ran back to the house. The back stairs were well alight, but the great front staircase was still passable. He raced up them. He could hear the women weeping and calling out for help.

  They were in the passage outside their rooms, huddled together, two of them and Flori. They could hear the fire crackling and raging, they were engulfed in smoke that was drawn upwards as the old house burned.

  ‘Come on ‒ you can still get down the front stairs.’

  ‘No, sir ‒ you can’t see a thing in the smoke!’

  ‘Come on, you idiots ‒ you’ll be burned alive!’ He seized Patti by the shoulder and shoved her in front of him. Sobbing, coughing, she did as he urged. But as they moved along the passage, a tongue of flame came up to greet them.

  The front stairs were alight.

  ‘Damned idiots,’ muttered Frederic. ‘If they’d done as they were told they’d be safe by now.’

  ‘I can’t go down there, sir ‒ I’ll be burned.’

  ‘Go on, go on ‒ before the stairs fall in.’

  ‘No, sir, no!’

  But she went. The habit of obedience was strong. She ran down, fitfully lit up by the fire, holding her nightdress skirts close against her. But the moment she had passed, the stairs disappeared into the stair-well. Her weight had been just enough to break the burning planks.

  ‘Oh, sir! What shall we do now!’

  ‘We’ll get out through the windows and on to the roof of the morning room.’

  ‘Oh, no sir ‒’

  ‘Yes, come on, the men will bring ladders.’

  He ran into the room which had belonged to Gavin and Alys. It was full of smoke but as yet no burning had reached it. He threw up the big windows, but at once regretted it for the draught blew first in and then out, bringing a great rush of heat with it.

  ‘Come on,’ he urged the maids. ‘Quick, out of this window before the fire gets here!’

  ‘Oh, lord, I can’t, sir!’

  ‘Look, it’s quite safe.’ He got out on the sill to show how easy it was, then stepped along the coping to the ornamental stonework that ran down to the roof of the morning room.

  ‘Hi! Look at him! Mr High-and-Mighty Himself has come out to wave to us!’

  The crowd below him stared up, their attention drawn away from skirmishing with the fire-fighters.

  ‘Getting toasted, are you, milord?’ they mocked. ‘Not so haughty now, are you?’

  ‘Suzanne ‒ Flori ‒ quick, now ‒ all you have to do is climb out, and walk along the balustrade and ‒’

  ‘Get back in your fine house!’ roared a bull-like voice from below. A stone came hurtling up towards him.

  He heard it hit the roof, and automatically ducked. As he did so, his foot slipped, he went cascading down the sloping roof, and then off into the air.

  He didn’t feel the ground rush up to meet him.

  Gaby and Charles arrived to find the men from Calmady engaged in a sort of hand-to-hand battle with a band of drunken rioters.

  Only a few were able to do anything to fight the fire.

  Netta was sitting on an ornamental garden seat in the courtyard, cradling Elinore and trying not to weep.

  ‘Where’s Papa?’ Gaby asked. ‘And ‒ oh, there you are, Aunt Alys.’

  ‘The men were trying to organise a water-chain. There’s a fight going on ‒ I don’t know who they are, these people …’

  Charles left Gaby to comfort her cousin and her aunt. He ran to the back of the house. One glance told him the fire-fighters were losing ground against the intruders, who outnumbered them.

  He had taken to carrying a pistol in the car since the political troubles in the
countryside became more frequent. He had it with him now. He took it from his pocket, and fired two shots into the air.

  The effect was magical. The men stopped dead, drew back, gaped at him.

  ‘If anybody moves without my permission, he gets a shot in the leg. I can see quite well in the firelight, thank you. Who are the firefighters?’

  ‘We’re here, Charles!’

  ‘Oh, Monsieur Tramont ‒ right ‒ you and your helpers get on with it. The others, stand very still.’

  From the distance came the clanging of the fire engine’s bell. It was a horse-drawn vehicle, unlikely to make fast headway along the narrow lanes. But it distracted Charles enough so that he turned his head. The men he was trying to hold at gunpoint began to melt into the shadows.

  It was then that he saw the body.

  ‘Good God! Someone’s been injured.’ Robert limped up. He threw himself down beside the fallen figure. ‘Oh! Oh, no!’

  ‘What? Who is it?’

  ‘It’s ‒ Oh, God ‒ it’s Freddi!’

  And now, easier to distinguish since the bellowing and shouting of the drunks had ceased, they could hear the screams for help.

  Above, the window where the maids were calling out could be seen through the smoke. Then a great tongue of flame leapt out.

  After that, there was silence.

  Chapter 14

  The people of Épernay closed ranks to protect their menfolk. None of them, they insisted, would have been guilty of anything so wicked. The only name they were prepared to render up to the authorities was that of an interloper, a gipsy, a strange violent fellow liked by few and feared by most.

  For twenty-four hours after his arrest Louis Peresqueau maintained a sullen silence. Then, unexpectedly, he laughed and admitted to being of the party that set alight the Villa Tramont.

  The examining magistrate was surprised. The man was a small businessman, a haulier, not a vineyard worker.

  ‘Why did you take part, Peresqueau?’

  ‘Wanted to pay ’em out, didn’t I!’

  ‘You had a grudge against the family?’

  He shrugged muscular shoulders. ‘All of ’em. Wouldn’t give me work, chased me out of Calmady just to show how powerful they were.’

  ‘Chased you out? Who? When was this?’

  ‘Couple of years back. That toy soldier Frederic de la Sebiq … Who did he think he was, throwing money at me and giving me my marching orders?’

  That was all he was prepared to say about his reason. With a grin of hatred he confessed he had offered his wagon to convey the trouble-makers, had helped pour the kerosene.

  ‘And what’s more, when Mr High-and-Mighty came out on the roof, it was me who threw a stone at him and toppled him. Ha, toppled him, I did! Broke his stiff aristocratic neck, didn’t he!’

  He said he knew nothing about revolution or Reds plotting to overthrow the system. When the authorities offered a deal ‒ his life would be spared in exchange for names of trouble-makers ‒ he grimaced and shook his head. ‘Kill me off if you like. Nothing’s gone right for me since I took up with her.’

  ‘With whom? There’s a woman involved?’

  ‘Isn’t there always?’ But he wouldn’t name her. ‘She’ll know,’ he growled. ‘She’ll know, damn her.’

  And Gaby knew. Every time his name was mentioned, she shuddered in horror. If only she could go back in time, steer clear of that physical temptation which had led her temporarily into his power …

  At his execution there was a demonstration of protest outside the prison. But the police put it down with severity. And Gaby knew that Louis would have spat upon these political activists: he was a man out for himself all his life until the desire for revenge led him astray.

  The following year there was war in Europe. ‘Only in the Balkans,’ they told each other with a laugh, because everyone knew that those little Balkan states were always squabbling with each other.

  But it parted Gaby from Charles finally. He was to go to Servia to help them form an air corps. He and three other ‘mercenaries’ were to fly newly purchased machines to Mitrovitsa and there train twenty young volunteers.

  Their affair had been dying over the last twelve months, in any case. Charles didn’t say: ‘You should have sold up when you had the chance and invested the money with me.’ Or ‘You felt bound to those people, and look how they rewarded you!’ But it was in his manner often, in his eyes.

  She felt bound to defend herself against the unspoken criticism. She pointed out that the men of Calmady ‒ ‘our own people’ ‒ had rushed to help the minute they saw the fire. She told him that it was now known there had been political agitators at work, that the men had been drinking all day before they set the fire. She didn’t say that one of the ringleaders had been a former lover.

  The government sent in troops to quell the uproar. They stayed through the summer of 1911, but when it was time for the grapes to be harvested their quarters were needed for the transient pickers. With relief the Champenois saw them march out. And, oddly enough, it was a decent harvest: the mildew was being conquered.

  Odder yet, the Tramonts benefited financially by the insurance compensation. They had an unexpected sum of money in hand. But they decided not to rebuild for the present. Netta, particularly, was against it.

  ‘I never want to see the place again,’ she said, holding the toddler close in the curve of one arm, grasping her tall teenage son with the other.

  She and her parents removed to a rented house in Épernay. Robert chose to live in an apartment in the smoke-blackened manor houses. Gaby insisted in moving in with him. She was worried about him these days. He seemed so much older all of a sudden. He was fighting back against adversity, but stubbornly, dourly ‒ not with the old enthusiasm and fire.

  ‘I’ve decided,’ her brother said to Gaby, ‘I’m going to throw up the law and devote myself to the business entirely. You can see Uncle Gavin and Aunt Alys are giving most of their attention to Netta ‒’

  ‘That’s only natural, David.’

  ‘I didn’t say it wasn’t. But the emotional shock has changed Uncle and Aunt. Papa can’t do everything.’

  ‘Please don’t forget that I play a part, little brother!’

  ‘No, no, of course not. But if you continue to travel abroad, it really needs at least one other member of the family here to be a support to Papa. I don’t think he can expect much from Uncle Gavin for a while.’

  It was true. And there was really nothing against David’s plan. He had concentrated almost entirely on law concerning the wine industry, in any case. The laws regulating the champagne area had been passed and, as might be expected, had pleased almost no one ‒ appeals and objections were being heard, and it needed a legal training to sort out which firms could go on selling wine to the Tramonts and which could not.

  Gaby spent the night with Charles before he was due to fly his plane to Mitrovitsa. She wanted to find again the physical joy they had once known, to remember their affair as something grand and climatic. But in the end they were lying in each other’s arms talking in soft tones, more like old friends than lovers. She kissed him farewell next day, listening to his promises to write often and knowing he would soon forget.

  She plunged into the wine business. And strange to say, things began to go well. The mildew was conquered. They had two good grape harvests, two very passable vintages. Their new labels, with the government seal of approval incorporated, looked handsome. Prices went up, sales improved.

  It really looked as if, by 1915, the bankers’ plan would be fulfilled and the House of Tramont would be restored to its former glory.

  But people began to read the newspapers with closer attention. ‘It’s not what’s happening in the Balkans we should be worrying about,’ they said. ‘Look what Germany’s up to.’

  The newspapers reported that the Reichstag had passed a bill to increase the already large German army. What could they want it for? European governments began to get worried ‒ or
perhaps had always been worried but now began to show it.

  A few months later, France brought in a law that every young male must do three years’ military service.

  ‘No!’ cried Netta. ‘They can’t take my son away from me!’

  ‘Don’t get in a state, Mama,’ young Pierre said impatiently. ‘It’s not going to happen tomorrow!’

  ‘Besides,’ his grandfather put in, tugging at his grey beard, ‘you’ll get an exemption ‒ an only son.’

  Pierre nodded and said nothing. But Netta, watching the flash of his dark eyes, knew that he wanted to go. His father had been a soldier. It was a lot more impressive than going into the wine trade!

  It seemed that war was expected. Yet why? What was there to fight about? Trade was good, science was providing new processes for the production of metals, manufacture was increasing, railways were spreading. And then came the information that young men attending university would not be called up until after they had gained their degree. Pierre, no scholar, was told he would be going to the Sorbonne.

  ‘Utter nonsense!’ he cried. ‘They’ll throw me out.’

  ‘You’ll do as you are told,’ growled his grandfather. ‘Your mother certainly doesn’t want you called up.’

  ‘But what difference does it make? If I go to university I’m parted from her anyway.’

  ‘University is a lot safer than military service.’

  ‘Oh, what rubbish. Grandfather! There isn’t going to be a war.’

  Why, then, was there all this frenzied diplomatic activity? Statesmen took trains hither and thither, French diplomats crossed the Channel to confer with their British counterparts.

  It happened that Gaby was in London on business. Friends of her grandmother’s late husband. Lord Grassington, were giving a small evening party for her when the startling news came.

  The Archduke Ferdinand and his wife had been assassinated in Sarajevo …

  Those present weren’t the kind to say naively, ‘Where’s Sarajevo? What does it matter to us?’

  ‘It’s just the opportunity Russia’s been waiting for,’ said Newell Barr-Lavington of the Foreign Office. ‘You can bet she’ll start trouble if the Austrians take punitive action against the Serbs.’