The Champagne Girls

by Tessa Barclay

  ‘Not Auduron. As far as we can piece it together ‒ and you can understand that no one can just go and ask the German police what’s been going on ‒ it looks as if some fellow from Strasbourg who knew the Blekers turned up in Rethel and decided to look up his old pal. And Auduron … well, he …’

  ‘He killed him.’

  ‘Yes. As I see it, he had no choice. It looks as if he invited him down to the cellar, perhaps to find the real Bleker, and then bashed him on the skull and took off.’

  ‘Where has he gone?’

  ‘That we don’t know,’ Garouche said, shaking his head. ‘But we haven’t heard of any arrest or anything ‒ at least so far. So he’s hiding somewhere, and by and by he’ll make contact with one of the underground groups so we’ll hear something eventually.’

  ‘Dear heaven,’ Gaby said under her breath. ‘Oh, why did I leave him?’

  ‘It’s better, mademoiselle. Don’t you see? He’s got a far better chance of surviving on his own.’ He smiled at her. ‘Oh, don’t worry, Auduron’s been on the run before. He’ll be all right. We’ll get word in the end.’

  She tried to think of places he might go, friends he’d mentioned. But nothing seemed of any help.

  Garouche said: ‘You see it would be of no use to send you back. You’d be arrested the minute anyone in Rethel saw you. And as for sending you elsewhere ‒ well, to tell the truth. Mademoiselle Tramont, I think you’re more use to us in your old role of organiser here in Rheims.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘And in any case I hear your father …?’

  ‘Yes, he needs me,’ she agreed. ‘Yes, it’s true. I ought to stay here.’ But oh, how she wished she had never left Marc …

  From then events in the greater world moved with extraordinary speed. The Russian Revolution, of which they’d heard not a murmur under German censorship in Rethel, gathered pace. The new Soviet Congress asked for an armistice: Russia would be out of the war. The dismay engendered by the news was offset by the fact that the French forces had a great victory on the Oise-Aisne Canal, and then in November the Canadians and British captured the ridge at Passchendaele for which so many lives had been lost in August.

  Just before Christmas, Robert Tramont died. It was mid-afternoon and the chief of cellar had come to discuss the blending of the new vintage which would start soon. He found the head of the firm in his chair behind his desk, one hand on the papers he had been reading, his glasses in the other. He had paused in the midst of studying a stock-taking list. It was the way he would have wanted to go ‒ in harness.

  That New Year was celebrated by the Germans outside Rheims with a particularly heavy and long bombardment. Nevertheless, people came from miles around to attend the funeral. Even Lieutenant Stanner, in polished Sam Browne belt and leggings, hesitant and wary, appeared.

  ‘I only learned who you really were a few days ago, mademoiselle, when I saw your photograph in the newspaper. I hope you don’t mind my coming …?’

  ‘Of course not. You’re very kind.’

  ‘I owe you such a lot.’

  She shook her head. ‘We achieved nothing, I’m afraid.’

  ‘That wasn’t our fault.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I’ve thought about it since. That man we left in Rethel ‒ you were worried about him. That was it, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Is everything all right there?’

  ‘Quite all right, thank you, lieutenant.’ She excused herself to receive the condolences of other attenders. Lieutenant Stanner looked after her with regret. He hadn’t understood enough. He’d thought her sullen and bad-mannered. And now here she was, with all these important people about her, and through the politeness and the dignity he sensed something verging on despair.

  The months dragged on. The vintage was made ‒ because the wine cannot wait even if men die. The vines were pruned in March, the stakes and supports were renewed by work-people who crept among the rows at dawn and dusk and sometimes even with shaded lanterns at night.

  And all for nothing because, on March 25th, 1918, all civilians were ordered by the military authorities to leave Rheims.

  Gaby, along with many others, protested. ‘Leave the vines? Are you mad?’

  No, the authorities weren’t mad. Less than a tenth of the population remained, the city would be better as a garrisoned fortress.

  The citizens raged, but in the end they had to comply. By mid-April they trekked out, with the spring air full of the scent of the young vine leaves. Gaby, riding in one of the estate’s carts, looking back to watch the towers of the cathedral disappear. We’ll be back, she vowed, we’ll be back.

  It was as if, by losing her citizens, Rheims had lost her heart’s blood. A month later, the German troops were in Rheims once more. Gaby read the news in Paris, where she had gone to take up residence at the Tramont offices. She crumpled up the newspaper and threw it on the floor. ‘Is this what we fought so long for? To be forced by our own people to leave?’

  ‘Never mind, mademoiselle,’ said Monsieur Clochinou, though his own eyes were filled with tears. ‘They won’t be there long!’ Although at the time Gaby didn’t believe him, it began to seem in July that he might be right. A great counter-attack was launched, taking the Allies back across the River Marne. Soon, very soon, Gaby Tramont might be able to return to her shattered home.

  But first she ought to go and see her little Cousin Elinore. The child was nine years old, left for far too long in the care of an elderly relative although it had been meant for her own good. Gaby wrote to Cousin Cecile to say she was coming on a visit, and set about clearing paperwork from her desk so as to be able to give her time with a free mind.

  It was a warm grey-blue evening at the beginning of August. She had worked hard all day and felt heartened, for great news had been announced ‒ Soissons had been recaptured, any moment now the word would come that Rheims was free. She sat back, closed the last file, and rose from her desk. The long casement windows were open to the chestnut trees on the Rue Lelong. There was enough light to see a young soldier walk by with his arm about a girl in a light dress.

  Passing them there came a tall man in a wide-brimmed hat. Something about him held her attention. Her heart gave a heavy beat.

  Could it be?

  She knew. She knew. She flew from the room and down the stone staircase, almost colliding with the concierge in her mad race. A man was coming up the shallow steps of the outer entry. She flung herself upon him.

  ‘Marc!’

  He tottered on the steps, they swayed to and fro for a moment, then he regained his balance and swung her round, off her feet, the world wheeling.

  ‘Darling! How on earth did you know?’

  ‘From the window ‒ I saw you ‒ I knew you ‒’

  ‘But Gaby, it’s almost dark!’

  ‘I knew it was you! I just knew!’

  They kissed with a passion of greeting and welcome that made the whole world erupt in a blaze of glory. When at last they stepped apart, all she could do was laugh and cry.

  ‘That hat! That absurd hat! Where did you get it?’

  ‘In Switzerland, from an artist who befriended me. Don’t you like it? I think it’s rather dashing!’

  ‘Marc, how did you get here? Where have you been? All these months ‒ I’ve been nearly out of my mind!’

  ‘I’m sorry. I couldn’t get any word to you. I wanted to ‒ can we go inside? Can we talk?’

  ‘Oh, yes, come along, come in, my apartment is upstairs, the one David used to have. Oh, Marc, my darling, if you only knew …’

  ‘I do know, Gaby. I do.’ With his arm firmly round her waist, he went indoors with her. She called in at her office door that she had finished work for the day and was going up to her flat. The office staff were looking at each other in bewilderment to see the usually self-controlled Mademoiselle Tramont laughing and chattering like a girl. But they smiled. Happiness was so rare these days. How lovely to see someone inc
andescent with happiness.

  In her apartment Gaby drew the blinds and switched on the light. ‘Let me look at you,’ she said. She took the wide-brimmed hat and threw it on a table. They were devouring each other with their eyes. ‘Tell me what happened,’ she demanded.

  But the need for words had left him. He picked her up in his arms and carried her into the little bedroom. They undressed each other urgently, and made love with all the pent-up longing of a year of parting. Then they lay murmuring to each other, not really talking, merely comforting and soothing with gentle sounds, until they were ready to turn to each other once more.

  Midnight had come when at last they sat up together, drinking weak coffee and making long explanations.

  Marc had had to stay under cover for weeks. The German counter-espionage machine had been out looking for him in earnest. Finally, luck ‒ if it could be called that brought him to the scene of an accident ‒ runaway horses had dragged a cart over a cliff onto the road below, smashing the cart, killing the driver.

  ‘I changed clothes with him and took his papers. I became Lucien Despaz. I reported the accident in the next town, Dieuze, giving the impression that the load on the cart was urgently needed in Strasbourg ‒ so I got official help to commandeer another cart and horses, which got me to Strasbourg. I just kept working my way towards the Swiss frontier. Getting across was more difficult ‒ that took me two weeks, but I fetched up in Delemont.’

  ‘Why didn’t you write to me then, Marc?’ she protested. ‘You could have written ‒’

  ‘No, because I was caught up in the organisation to get prisoners of war across the frontiers ‒ I spent some months helping them ‒ well, to cut a long story short, it wasn’t until ten days ago that I was given leave to go home.’

  ‘But of course it’s all under German occupation ‒’

  ‘So I headed straight for Paris, in hopes of finding you here.’

  ‘Thank God you came today and not tomorrow! I’m off to Tours tomorrow, to see Elinore. Oh, God, Marc ‒ just think if we’d missed each other by a few hours!’

  He put down his coffee cup and held her close. ‘I’d have followed,’ he said. ‘Nothing would have stopped me from finding you, once I knew you were alive and well.’

  They hardly slept, there was so much to tell and so many kisses to exchange. In the early hours they dressed, then breakfasted at the station while they waited for the train for Tours.

  The house in the village outside Tours was owned by Cecile de la Sebiq, a second cousin of Gaby’s Uncle Frederic, the father of Elinore. Cousin Cecile was a small, delicate woman with a face like a withered pink rose. Her maidservant was just such another ‒ two elderly ladies from a posy of dried flowers.

  ‘Cousin Cecile, I want to thank you with all the warmth at my command for taking in little Elinore.’

  ‘My dear girl, what could one do? There was no one else, you know, and all the money was gone ‒ I don’t speak ill of the dead, of course, but old Monsieur de la Sebiq mortgaged everything up to the hilt and it all went when he died. And then poor Frederic had gone before him ‒ poor dear boy, how like him to die trying to save somebody else …’ She sighed and wiped away a tear. ‘Well, now, as to the child … I’ve done my best … She’s a funny little thing, lives a life of her own, you know …’

  The maid had gone to summon Elinore. She came into the room a few minutes later, dressed in the obligatory school pinafore which she wore until it was time for the evening meal.

  ‘How do you do,’ she said, shaking hands and curtseying first to her cousin and then to the tall, tanned stranger.

  She was an odd little thing ‒ she had none of Netta’s fair-skinned good looks nor Frederic’s dramatic darkness. Instead she was mousey, thin, with bony wrists and ankles. Her only claim to beauty was her grey eyes, large, clear and strangely deep.

  Her appearance hadn’t been helped either by wartime stringency nor her elderly cousin’s notion of suitable garb. She had hand-knitted stockings, thick sensible shoes, a dark brown and white gingham dress still too big for her and clearly inherited from some other child. Her straight hair was worn in two wispy plaits coming down behind her ears.

  ‘Have you come to take me home?’ she asked Gaby.

  Gaby was about to say no. After all, what home was there to take the child to? Rheims was still a battlefield, the apartment in Paris was unsuitable for a little girl.

  But something about the desperate appeal in Elinore’s eyes made her change her mind. ‘Yes, of course,’ she said.

  ‘Cousin Gabrielle!’ cried Mademoiselle de la Sebiq in reproach. ‘Where could the child go? The war ‒’

  ‘The war will soon be over,’ Marc said, speaking for the first time since the little girl came into the room. ‘I know from what I heard in Switzerland ‒ the German government is tottering, there’s a secret peace offer and if it isn’t agreed to, there will be rebellion in Germany before the autumn. So of course Elinore must come home.’ He glanced at her. ‘It’s time, isn’t it, Elinore?’

  She nodded gravely. ‘I’ve quite liked being here,’ she said, with a little embarrassed smile towards Mademoiselle de la Sebiq, ‘but … you see … I’d like to have somewhere really of my own.’

  Gaby knelt to put an arm about her. ‘Tramont is yours,’ she said in a low voice. ‘You’re a champagne girl, and you belong in the champagne country.’

  ‘But the place is all in ruins!’ protested Mademoiselle de la Sebiq.

  Marc laughed. ‘That’s just the point, mademoiselle. We have to rebuild it. You can’t leave the world in ruins.’

  Elinore studied him over Gaby’s shoulder. ‘Are you Cousin Gaby’s husband?’

  ‘Not yet. Ask me again in a week or two.’

  ‘Will that make you my cousin?’

  ‘Of course.’

  The little girl turned to the old lady. ‘I think it’s time I went to proper cousins,’ she said in a quaintly polite tone. ‘Thank you for having me all this time, but I really must go home.’

  Mademoiselle de la Sebiq gave a helpless little laugh. ‘I see it’s settled.’

  Gaby straightened. ‘Yes, I believe it is. With your agreement, Cousin Cecile, we’ll take Elinore with us when we leave ‒ let’s say in two days time?’

  There was no question of permission. And truth to tell, the old lady was glad to think she would be relieved of the responsibility, glad to get back to her own world of tisanes and quiet games of euchre with friends as quiet and timid as herself.

  A strange excitement took over her little house as, for the next two days, they packed Elinore’s belongings. They all went into one medium-sized trunk: it contrasted strangely with the pile of toys and clothes Gaby used to take with her when she went to the seaside at the same age.

  On the train, the child sat between the two grown-ups. She watched the countryside as it fled by. After a long silence she said: ‘Is it pretty, the Champagne region?’

  Gaby was seized with doubt. What was she doing, proposing to take this little girl to Paris, and there to wait for nothing better than a wrecked house and a ruined land?

  But Marc reached across Elinore to take Gaby’s hand. ‘It’s all right,’ he reassured her. ‘It may not be as pretty as Touraine, but it’s where she belongs.’

  One day the war would end. One day they would begin again, thought Gaby.

  And so the train sped on, taking them towards their future.

  ***

  The story concludes in The Last Heiress, which is available as an ebook and paperback from Amazon. Read the first chapter of The Last Heiress …

  The Last Heiress

  Enjoy this preview chapter of the conclusion to the story of the de Tramont family, in The Last Heiress.

  There wasn’t the slightest doubt, something was dreadfully wrong. Madame Presle didn’t even bother to say ‘Good morning’ before she was urging Nora to drink up her coffee like a good girl and be ready to start for school.

  ‘But I’m not late
, Madame Presle ‒’

  ‘I know that, but just be quick about breakfast. Jacques is waiting to drive you at once. I’ll pack a few things while you eat.’

  ‘Pack? What for?’

  The housekeeper hesitated at the door of the breakfast room. She’d expected Monsieur Auduron-Tramont to be here to explain to the child. But of course, he’d wanted to stay at the hospital. It was only natural, while Madame was in such danger.

  She looked back at the thin, pale face peering at her over the porcelain coffee-cup. Best to make light of it, pretend the whole thing was a treat. ‘You’re going to board at school for a day or two ‒ isn’t that nice?’ she coaxed in her light, Parisian voice.

  ‘Board? But Cousin Gaby always says no when I suggest ‒’

  ‘Well, things are different for the moment, dear. Quick now, eat up your roll, put plenty of honey on it, honey is good for you. I’ll bring down your overnight bag ‒’

  ‘I need my gym shoes today,’ Nora put in, her eleven-year-old brain ticking over with the precision of a watch. Staying overnight at school … And Cousin Gaby not down to breakfast, and not even Cousin Marc to explain what it all meant. ‘Madame Presle!’

  The housekeeper intended to hurry on through the hall, but there was enough command in that young voice ‒ the voice of the future mistress of the estates ‒ to bring her reluctantly back. ‘Yes, Mademoiselle?’

  ‘What’s the matter? Where are my relatives?’

  The term was the one they had decided they must use of themselves, her two grown-up cousins who were all she had in the world by way of family. It saved trouble when explaining themselves to new acquaintances: ‘Monsieur and Madame Auduron-Tramont are relatives of the late Madame de la Sebiq-Tramont, Nora’s mother.’ They were her guardians, her friends, her only bulwark against the great loneliness that sometimes threatened to engulf her.

  Everyone else had gone in the War. Mama … She could scarcely remember her now, lost somewhere on the road from Épernay in the first big push of the German invasion of 1914. Lost … Yes, lost for ever. One moment with her, the next vanished in a maelstrom of movement and smoke and noise and terror.