Vintner's Daughter

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Vintner's Daughter Page 4

by Kristen Harnisch


  “But surely they won’t be allowed to do that.”

  “There is no one to stop them. The winemakers will agree to it because they need the money.”

  “What will you do?”

  “I won’t accept it. We will contract with another broker.”

  Sara was shocked. It was highly unusual to go outside of the village to secure a buyer.

  Papa looked up, aware of her silence. “We will go to Tours and sell it barrel by barrel on the rue Nationale, if we must. I’ll be damned if I’ll be forced into accepting such an insulting offer.”

  Damned indeed, Sara thought, dispirited. If they couldn’t sell their barrels at a minimum of fifty francs each, and in time to make their loan payment, they would be ruined.

  Fog thickened the air on the last morning of November. Papa and Jacques hitched the horses and loaded up their wagons with four barrels of wine, a sampling for several negotiants in Tours with whom they were hoping to transact the bulk of their business. Papa had insisted that they bring the barrels themselves rather than hiring a wagon and driver to transport them. One could not take the chance, Papa explained, that a thirsty wine-runner would knock back the contents of his cargo, replace the wine with river water and deliver the breached barrels before the unsuspecting broker was any wiser.

  From the scullery, Sara heard the horses start. She ran down the dirt road, a sail of long chestnut hair flying behind her. She waved frantically, but fearing they wouldn’t see her in the fog, shouted, “Papa! Papa!” She was clutching a small bag and running in her field clogs, taking care not to stumble.

  Papa signaled to Jacques to hold up. As Sara caught up to him, he leaned down to touch the crown of his daughter’s head. “What is it, love?”

  Sara was breathless, her eyes bright with excitement. “Papa, please let me come with you, I want to learn everything. I promise I’ll be as quiet as a church mouse. I have my things right here.” She held up her satchel.

  “My dear, I would love for you to come, and one day you will make a fine vigneron, but we’re expecting heavy rain and I don’t think it would be wise. Besides, I need you here, to run the vineyard while I’m gone.”

  “Yes, Papa.” Sara hung her head for just a moment. Then, lifting her bright eyes, she hoisted herself up and kissed her father on both cheeks. “Au revoir, Papa!” she said sweetly. She jumped back down and waved once more, watching as the wagons lurched forward. “Bonne chance!”

  DECEMBER 2, 1895, SAINT MARTIN, VOUVRAY

  Sara was the first to see the single wagon winding down the road toward the manor house. Her heart leapt when she thought it might be her father, and she strained to identify the driver at such a distance. It was Jacques alone, and the wagon was empty, save for a long wooden box.

  Sara stood in the gated garden. The horses’ hooves sucked and plopped down the muddy road toward her. The boards of the wagons rattled. It was a hollow, desperate sound. Drops of perspiration fell down Sara’s forehead and over her lips. She did not wipe them away before they fell. She could not move, could not speak.

  “Sara! Who—?” Maman’s question hung in the air, but then drifted away. Sara recognized the scent of her mother’s lavender perfume. Maman stood next to her, gripping her hand. Sara wrapped her arm tightly around her mother’s waist.

  “Maman,” Sara said weakly as she watched her mother’s delicate face twist from disbelief to horror and then to blankness.

  After Lydia and Jacques carried Maman into the house, Sara watched the field hands lower Papa from the wagon. She followed the cortege in through the scullery door. The men laid the box on the floor and cleared off the long walnut table where Marcheline and Maman would wipe the mud from Papa’s eyes and mouth and hair and nails, and gently rub the cleansing spirits all over his body. Then they would dress him in his black wedding coat and breeches from the cupboard upstairs.

  Sara stared at the box on the scullery floor and wondered if Papa were hot and scared. She wanted to rest her head on his warm chest, feel his sharp whiskers and brush her lips across his weathered cheek. Marcheline began to boil herbs at the cookstove and the aroma of rosemary and sage broke Sara out of her trance. The herbs would hide the stink of death. Sara could not bear to watch. Papa would not want it.

  When Marcheline looked at her, Sara could not stand the maid’s pity-filled eyes upon her. She ran outside and down the length of the path, away from the box, away from the stares, away from death.

  Sara eased open the oak door to the cellar, just to the point before she knew it would creak, and slipped inside. She squeezed between the jagged tufa wall and the nearest barrel. Alone in the dark, she clutched her knees to her chest. Sara had found this hiding place when she was five. It had always been her refuge from the sun-scorched fields and her carping mother. The damp seeped in from the cave floor through her dress and cooled her skin. Her nose filled with the heavy scent of oak. Sara sat for what must have been an hour or more. Eventually, the door she had left ajar creaked open. She saw Jacques’s clogs, caked with dried grass stuck to wet dirt.

  “Your mother needs you.”

  Sara could not see his face. “She has Lydie.”

  “Ah.” Sara saw that Jacques’s nails were brown with dirt, or maybe blood. He pushed his hands into his pockets.

  Sara knew that if she asked him, it would ruin this special place forever. But she had to know. And Jacques had to be the one to tell her. She sat quietly for a few moments, summoning her courage.

  “Tell me,” she commanded.

  Jacques remained close to the door. Sara heard him breathe in and gulp down a sob. She rested her forehead on her crossed arms, looked into the dark folds of her lap, and listened.

  “It was at the Touraine ford. The rain hadn’t let up all day, but your papa drove on, not wanting to waste any time. He went down the bank, about two men steep, while I waited above for him to cross the river. The horses, they bucked at it, and they slid a bit on the way down, but they held … they held all the way down to the river. But we didn’t know how loose the ground was.”

  Jacques’s voice began to shake. “Before he even started to cross, the rain just cleaved off a section of the ledge right in front of me—and it came down on top of your papa. It just swallowed him up. I jumped down into the river and clawed through the mud, but couldn’t see him, I couldn’t find him … then I saw his hand and I reached for him, but my damned feet stuck. The current pounded against us and it pulled your papa right downstream with it. I couldn’t get to him, Sara. I couldn’t … reach him.”

  Sara looked up and saw Jacques’s shoulders quake. She waited for his silent sobs to end before she braved her next question.

  “Did he fight?” she whispered.

  “What?”

  “Did he fight?” she demanded.

  Jacques knelt down and looked Sara in the eye. She met his gaze, her eyes shining with tears.

  “He fought like the devil, ma p’tite. Like the devil.”

  Sara laid her head back down. So, it was the river, she thought. It wound its way like a snake through every town in the Loire, with its promise of refreshment, of life itself, but this time it had brought only ruination and death.

  Later that afternoon, Sara found her sister, who was staring out the hallway window, watching Jacques lead the horses to the stables. She came up behind Lydia, resting her chin upon her shoulder and wrapping her arms around her waist.

  “How is Maman?” Sara asked.

  “She hasn’t spoken yet. She just sobbed until she couldn’t any longer and then slept. Now she’s locked herself in the parlor with Papa. Marcheline had to send for the neighbors to help her … you know … prepare him.”

  “Lydie, dear, this is a terrible blow for Maman.”

  “But she needs to have her wits about her for the wake and the funeral. She must be able to greet the mourners and do … what … Papa … would want.” Lydie broke into a torrent of tears.

  Sara held her sister as she shook uncontrol
lably. When she could cry no more, Lydia slumped in Sara’s arms. “Why don’t you sleep a spell before dinner,” Sara suggested.

  Lydia nodded, wiping her eyes. “You’ll look in on Maman?”

  “Of course,” Sara promised.

  Sara pressed her ear against the parlor door, but she could no longer hear her mother’s sobbing. It was almost nightfall and Maman needed her rest for tomorrow. Sara’s breath caught in her throat as she entered the room.

  Papa’s casket had been laid across four large picking baskets and it shone like gold in the candlelight. Sara peered in to observe her father more closely. Shadows flickered over his face, bringing a sort of unsettling movement to his ashen features. His pale fingers clutched the crucifix Maman had given him on their wedding day. The broken capillaries on his nose and cheeks had been skillfully concealed by Marcheline’s paste of crushed buttercups and powder. What saddened Sara to her heart’s core was the fact that she could never beckon Papa to open his soft brown eyes and look upon her again. The life within his battered frame had vanished. The figure before her bore no resemblance to her father.

  Sara felt as though she’d been punched in the gut, as if her heart had been ripped from her chest. She swallowed back the bitter-tasting bile in her throat and turned her attention to her mother.

  Cloaked in layers of black Saint-Cyr wool, Maman sat on the hard floor next to the casket. Her cheek, framed by the ruffles of her black bonnet, rested against the casket’s rough wood.

  “Maman?”

  “I will rest with him tonight.” She was adamant.

  “But Maman—”

  “I will not leave him alone.”

  Sara felt the hollow inside her deepen. She had not realized how lost her mother would be without him.

  The rooms that had recently hosted raucous revelers were now filled with somber mourners. Sara could not help but think it a disgusting tradition, to invite the neighbors to gawk at a man on his worst day.

  Maman stood in the foyer flanked by her daughters. The mourners shuffled by, stopping to offer their condolences. Sara noticed Lydia fussing with the waist of her dress. Then she looked up and saw the reason for Lydia’s sudden self-consciousness. Bastien Lemieux and his father approached with their hats in hand. As the two men sauntered toward them, Sara could feel anger pulsing through her veins and her heart pounding in double time. But Lydia seemed pleased to see them. After murmuring a few words in Lydia’s ear, Bastien stepped over to Sara.

  “Mademoiselle,” Bastien said somberly as he leaned in and took Sara’s hand in his, “please accept our condolences. I am so terribly sorry.” Sara retracted her hand and eyed him cynically.

  Jean Lemieux ran a hand over his slick, thinning hair and addressed Maman. “We are at your service, madame, to help in any way we can.”

  Sara interrupted before her mother could respond. “You’ll forgive me, messieurs, if I do not accept your condolences.”

  “Sara!” Lydia cried.

  “Sara is distraught, messieurs. You must forgive her.” Maman’s tone issued Sara a warning.

  “I am in full possession of my faculties, Maman, and I don’t need you to make excuses for me.”

  Jean Lemieux exchanged a knowing look with his son. Bastien addressed Sara. “I am sorry to hear you feel this way, mademoiselle. Madame Thibault, might I have the pleasure of speaking with your younger daughter for a moment—outside?”

  “I have nothing to say to you,” Sara said pointedly.

  “She’s a spirited child, isn’t she? A bit impetuous, like her father.” Jean Lemieux laughed mirthlessly.

  “We can spare you, Sara.” Her mother’s voice was stern. Noticing Lydia’s obvious distress, Sara realized it would be best to move away from the crowd. Now she was likely to say something that would render Lydia apoplectic. Bastien took Sara’s upper arm and guided her around the corner into the empty back hallway.

  “On the contrary, mademoiselle, I think you believe you have something very important to say. I must ask why you treat me and my father with such disdain within view of the entire town.” He gestured toward the front door, where a line of people waited to pay their respects.

  Sara glared at him. “You killed my father.”

  Bastien smirked. “You are overwrought.”

  Sara squared her shoulders and looked directly into his dark eyes. “I am nothing of the kind.”

  “This is quite a fantastical delusion you have. I’m intrigued. Do go on.”

  Sara knew she sounded every bit like a seventeen-year-old girl, and she hated herself in that moment for being too young and inexperienced to truly hurt him. The smug look on his face spoke volumes. He thought of her as a silly nuisance, a child, a fly to be flicked from the rim of his glass.

  “Do not mock me, monsieur. Everyone knows Jean Lemieux refused to offer my father an honest price. He did so at your bidding. I saw you steal into the caves that night—searching, I presume, for something that would justify lowering the price. Clearly, you found it. Your father cheated us because you told him to!”

  “I do not deny it. I found the sulfide you use to treat the vines, and I told my father the truth.”

  “Not the whole truth. You knew that the majority of our vines bore no signs of infestation. You knew that by offering only forty francs per barrel, you would force us into bankruptcy. My father was forced to seek another buyer in Tours. Had you had the slightest bit of conscience, you would have suggested some sort of gentlemanly compromise, some sort of—” Sara broke off. Tears threatened, and she would not give Bastien that satisfaction. She swallowed hard in an effort to compose herself.

  “Sara, you are but a child, and you think like a child. My father may have, as you say, refused your father the price he expected. However, that makes him a shrewd businessman, not a murderer.” His voice was gentle, but his eyes menacing.

  “I know the truth. I will see to it that everyone else knows, too.”

  Bastien tightened his grip on Sara’s arm. “The truth? Let’s examine the truth. Your sister and I will soon be married, Sara.” Bastien’s eyes drifted from Sara’s face and lingered on her bosom. Lowering his face to hers, he whispered, “You are a fetching young girl, but a girl without protection now that your father has passed. I would hate to see you taken advantage of.”

  “My mother will never allow you to marry Lydia after she learns what you’ve done. Your entire family is a disgrace! First the scandal with your brother, and then you and your father, in all your deceit, force us into bankruptcy. And you, sir! You claim a deep affection for my sister, but I have observed you most closely, and it is a lie. All you desire is a pretty girl on your arm and the comfort of a liaison with some land attached to it. You’re nothing more than a faithless rogue.”

  Bastien’s eyes hardened. “You and I both know that only my family can offer you continued financial support and a proper dowry for your marriage, once it is arranged. Think carefully before you impugn my character further.”

  Bastien’s grip was so tight, Sara pressed her lips together to keep from wincing. “Take your hand from me.” She ripped her arm from his grasp and, steadying her shaking limbs, marched back into the mourning hall with her head held high.

  Later that afternoon, Luc Thibault was placed with care in the family’s plot at the edge of the oak forest that stood on the western boundary of his much-loved Clos de Saint Martin. The church bells tolled forty-nine times, once for each year of his life.

  CHAPTER 4

  Despair

  The December winds blew in from the west and snatched the last of the leaves from their stems. The nutting season in Vouvray had just come to its end, and Madame Laroche, the miller’s wife, had called this morning with bags of chestnuts and walnuts for the Thibaults. She came most mornings to sit with Maman for an hour or so, sometimes in silence, often to pray the rosary, always to offer the news from town. The slight crook of her nose and her dark currant eyes belied her jovial nature. When Sara and Lydia thanked
her for her kindness to Maman, she waved them away, saying cheerfully, “Of course, I’m quite a nuisance, but Marguerite must be reminded that there is life all around her, and it needs tending to.”

  Sara witnessed no improvement in Maman’s spirits, but she was relieved to have a respite from worrying about her. She took her winter cloak from the hook near the scullery door, plunged her hands into one of the bags Madame Laroche had brought and pulled up two fistfuls of walnuts. She shoved them in her pockets and started out on her errands without a word to anyone.

  She walked half a mile down the road to the cluster of houses near the Église de Tous les Saints. She held a sack to her chest. She would begin by visiting Monsieur Manon to see if he had baked any pain au chocolat, which perhaps would tempt her mother out of her isolation, if only temporarily. Then she would pay Monsieur du Fresne the funds owed to him for the ten new barrels he had delivered to Saint Martin this past summer. She was saving her visit to Monsieur Pepin for last. She didn’t know if she had the heart for it.

  Papa had been dead for three weeks now, and yet, Sara could see as she walked toward the village, the river still ran and the ships still sailed. Most of the remaining wine had been sold, the empty barrels stacked, the press cleaned and the nuts harvested. The pickers had all left for the north. Christmas was only a few days away.

  As Sara waited at the baker’s to place her order, Madame Beaulieu, the herring-seller’s wife, chattered about village goings-on and made what she clearly thought was a grand pronouncement: “September de noix, hiver froid!” The chestnuts had ripened early, which she took as a sign that the winter months would bring only gloom. The baker shook his head. Gloom, indeed, thought Sara. Would the sun ever shine again? She thought not. Papa had vanished from their lives. Sara knew his spirit lived on, but his warmth had abandoned them.

  She walked from the baker’s to the cooperage, a short journey that nonetheless required numerous responses to sympathetic inquiries about her mother, her sister and the farm. Sara had perfected her pleasantries and assertions that all would be well in time, God willing. Small talk required less effort than telling her neighbors that she wandered without aim through the days, that Maman wasn’t eating her meals, and that Lydia spent all day fussing over silly things like darning their wool stockings for winter.

 

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