“Most of these are normal-sized bottles,” Jean-Luc said with a gesture, understanding their awed silence. “Over there are the Magnums, the Jeroboams, the Rehoboams and the Methuselahs, although the demand for the bigger sizes isn’t what it used to be, I regret to say. The storage conditions are perfect, but nevertheless I remove the vintage bottles every twelve years and put them on the market, since even the best champagne is usually undrinkable by the time it is twenty years old. I make it an unbreakable rule to replace them as soon as there’s another vintage year, no matter how that affects the profit of our house. When the harvest isn’t good enough to be vintage, I replace the bottles from that year every four years. But this cellar is always full. Always. Even if we should have a disaster, a year in which the wine is undrinkable, I will never touch them—no, not even if several bad years come in a row—for it is the strength of the House of Lancel. This is our treasure. We call it Le Trésor.”
“What’s the point of a huge cellar full of champagne you only sell and replace, sell and replace? What good does it do to hoard it?” Bruno asked, puzzled.
Jean-Luc de Lancel smiled at his grandson and put an arm around his shoulders. All this, after all, was for the family and he delighted in explanation.
“In 1918, Bruno, when the war ended, I came back to my home and discovered that the Italian general and his staff, who had used the château as their headquarters, had consumed all the stock of champagne in the cellars. Perhaps they had bathed in it, for every last bottle, of hundreds of thousands, was gone. The same thing has happened here before, in my grandfather’s time, in 1870, when Valmont was occupied by German troops during the Franco-Prussian War. In 1918 our vineyards were in a pitiful state—many of them had been bombed to shreds during the last months of the trench fighting. It took three and a half years of unrelenting work and care, Bruno, and much of the family fortune, before we harvested our next full crop of grapes. We have, to a large extent, recovered, but now that our bank balance is healthy, many of our vines, alas, are middle-aged.”
“Oh?” Bruno asked, not understanding as well as Paul and Guillaume what that meant.
“By the time a vine is ten years old, it is at its prime,” Jean-Luc continued. “At fifteen years it is middle-aged. No vine is very useful after twenty years. Soon you must dig it up and replant it. Those vines planted in 1919 are at their best right now, but they have only a maximum of eight, perhaps ten more years of useful life.”
“I still don’t know why you keep these bottles here,” Bruno interrupted impatiently, eager to leave the cold cellar. His grandfather continued, speaking with deliberation.
“Who knows what the future will bring? Who knows how easy it will be to replant as necessary? Who knows—and this is where I am most uneasy—what will happen if there should be another war? Germany is rearming. The first place the Germans march toward in France is Champagne—it has always been thus. We are blessed by our soil, and we are cursed by its location. I have no doubt that Monsieur Hitler already has plans for our heritage. So I have done all that I can do. I have kept back a large percentage of the best wine every year and stored it for as long as it was useful to do so. Should there be another war, after it is over, a Lancel will come back to Valmont and find a treasure that no one else knows about except for the Martins, three cellarmen—three cousins whom I would trust with my life. They brought these bottles here so that if necessary we will be able to rebuild, to replant, to restore the vineyards, by selling this champagne. There I have no fear—there will always be a market for champagne as long as civilization endures.”
“Does Mother know?” Paul asked.
“Of course. Women have run vineyards as well as—sometimes better than men. Look back at the Veuve Clicquot and at the irresistible Madame Pommery. Today there is Madame Bollinger and the Marquise de Suarez d’Aulan at Piper-Heidsieck. Yes, your mother knows, and perhaps one day you will want to tell Eve. But the girls are too young to be bothered with my gloomy view of the future. Now, before we leave, let us drink a glass together—it will be quite cold enough without chilling.”
The Vicomte turned to a table near the door to the secret cave, on which tulip-shaped glasses were standing upside-down, covered from any dust by a linen cloth. He pulled out a bottle of rare pink champagne, the most difficult of all to make, from the lath on which it rested, not disturbing any other in the pile, and, using the blunt-edged tweezers designed for the purpose, uncorked it gently. A spiral of smoke, as frail as a sigh, appeared and disappeared. Only then did he pour two inches of the champagne into his glass, twirling it to rouse it from its rest. Guillaume, Paul and Jean-Luc all looked approvingly at the snow-white, quickly vanishing froth on top of the wine. As the Vicomte held it up to the light they admired the incomparable pale pink tint of the liquid, and bent forward to inspect the many bubbles forming at the stem and jumping to the surface with an animation and a uniformity of shape that told them how good the wine promised to be. Only the Vicomte sniffed the wine, but he passed the glass to Bruno, and told him to listen to the bubbles, saying softly, “There are those who do not know that it speaks.” Then he filled all their glasses, twirled his own glass, and finally tasted the champagne.
“To the future!” he said, and they all drank. As Bruno finished his glass, his grandfather asked, “Did you notice that the champagne tastes one way in your mouth and another way at the back of your throat after you swallow it?”
“No, to tell you the truth, I didn’t.”
“Ah, then you must pay closer attention next time, my boy. It is a glow, perhaps, rather than a definite taste, and only a perfect champagne has it. It is called the Farewell.”
A few days later, on a misty afternoon in Paris, Vicomte Bruno de Saint-Fraycourt de Lancel, as his visiting cards introduced him, although he had not been baptised with the name of his mother’s family, threw his cards down on the table in his club’s card room and said to the friends with whom he’d been playing, “Gentlemen, that’s it for today.”
“Leaving us so soon, Bruno?” asked Claude de Koville, his close friend.
“My grandmother asked me to be home early for tea—she expects guests.”
“The perfect grandson,” Claude said mockingly, “and just when your luck was in. Too bad, Bruno. Maybe with you gone I can win a hand for a change.”
“I wish you the luck of the draw,” Bruno said, getting up and taking his leave. When he left his club he took a taxi directly to the Rue de Lille. Since his encounter with Eve he had found himself tense and irritable, and he refused to permit himself such emotions without relieving them.
“Good day, Jean,” Bruno said to the butler who opened the door of the great house. “Is Monsieur Claude at home?”
“No, Monsieur Bruno, he’s out for the afternoon,” the man answered. He had been in the service of the Kovilles all his life, and he had chased both Bruno and Claude out of his pantry on so many occasions in years past that he spoke to eighteen-year-old Bruno as if he were still the schoolboy he had always known.
“That’s a pity. I was hoping for a cup of tea.”
“Madame la Comtesse is having tea now. She’s alone this evening. Shall I inform her that you’re here?”
“Oh, don’t bother—on second thought, yes. Do that, Jean. I’m dying of thirst.”
A few minutes later the butler led Bruno into the small second-floor salon where Sabine de Koville was sitting on a sofa in front of a tea tray. Her long legs were crossed under the skirt of her flowing, draped Vionett afternoon dress made of almond green silk crepe. Its cross-cut bodice fell away from her white neck and at her hip one fastening caught the dress to the side in a graceful, Grecian line.
Sabine de Koville was an elegant creature of thirty-eight, with a sleek helmet of dark, straight hair that turned under below her ears, and thin, curling lips painted bright red. Her eyes were long and lazy, with mockery in their corners, yet her low voice was characteristically impatient and restless, no matter to whom she wa
s talking. She always dressed in the seductively feminine clothes of Vionett, for her firm flesh was just a bit too abundant to look well in the boyish Chanel styles and she judged that Schiaparelli was too easily copiable by the ready-to-wear, and perhaps too amusing to be worn by anyone seriously dedicated to the couture.
The Comtesse de Koville was considered one of the most intelligent women in Paris, in spite of the fact that she never made intimate women friends, or perhaps because of it. No one had ever been known to refuse an invitation to one of her parties, but she often took tea alone.
“If you’re looking for my son, Claude, Bruno, I can’t help you … he never tells me where he’s going or when he’ll be back,” Madame de Koville said, as Jean left the room. Bruno approached the couch and stopped two feet away from her, his eyes respectfully lowered
“I knew he wasn’t at home before I came,” Bruno said. “I left him at the club. I don’t think he’ll be back for hours.” There was a pause as she inspected him, standing as if he awaited her orders. She raised one of her large, rather square hands to her lower lip and tapped it lightly, thoughtfully, as if she were trying to come to a decision. She uncrossed her legs, put down the cup of tea she was holding, and tilted her eyes up at Bruno as if he had just told her a particularly subtle joke. Her voice, when she spoke again, was as if the short exchange on the subject of her son had never taken place.
“So, it is like that, is it, Charles?” The question was asked brusquely.
“Yes, Madame,” Bruno answered in a subdued tone, his head inclined in a manner that was utterly respectful.
“Did you put the car away, Charles?” she demanded.
“Yes, Madame.” His voice was subservient, docile, and his dark eyebrows knit together in concern.
“Has it been washed and polished?”
“Yes, Madame, exactly as Madame ordered.”
“Did you bring up all the packages I sent you for, Charles?”
“I have them right here. Where would Madame like them?” Bruno asked, his deeply indented upper lip more prominent than ever in his submissive face.
Sabine de Koville rose, in a swaying slither of silk, without a word or a smile, and led the way from the small salon to her dim bedroom, where her maid had already drawn the draperies. “You may put them down here, Charles,” she said, and the restlessness in her voice deepened.
Bruno turned around and locked the door to the bedroom. “Does Madame need me any further?”
“No, Charles. You may go.” Bruno took her hand, as if he intended to kiss it. Instead, he turned it over and pressed his lips to her palm, sucking the soft skin up into his plump mouth so that she felt his teeth and his warm breath. He held her hand prisoner and raised his head. Her eyes narrowed in sudden, almost unwilling pleasure. “You may go, Charles,” Sabine de Koville insisted imperiously.
“I think not, Madame,” Bruno said, and still grasping her hand, he pulled it forward and downward so that it rested on his crotch, where his penis was thrusting forward under his trousers. “Stop that, Charles,” the Comtesse said, trying to pull away, but he held her hand mercilessly so that it was forced to cup him. She lowered her eyelids and held as still as if she were listening for some tiny, imperceptible sound while she felt Bruno twitch and harden, again and again, against her palm and long fingers, until he had grown enormous. Her thin lips parted involuntarily, she drew in her breath sharply, and an expression of gourmandise appeared on her severely sophisticated face.
“Madame must stand absolutely still. Madame must do whatever I tell her and nothing else,” Bruno said harshly. “Does Madame understand?” She nodded gravely, feeling the hot, heavy congestion grow between her thighs as she looked at the boys suddenly fierce features. A vein jumped in his temple, and his sulky-sweet mouth looked ugly in a way that made her long to kiss it, but she made no gesture in his direction.
“Madame must stand against the wall,” he muttered. “Madame will not remove her shoes.” She complied, her back straight and her breasts proudly high. He stood over her, only inches away, his hands roughly weighing her heavy breasts while his thumbs and forefingers sought her nipples under the thin folds of silk. He found them and pinched them, knowingly and repeatedly, with stern fingers that came perilously close to causing pain. Her hardened nipples sought the touch of his mouth that did not come. In spite of her resolution she pressed her body away from the wall, toward his, but he pushed her shoulders back. “I told Madame not to move,” he commanded in an implacable voice, and with one hand he continued to tease one of her nipples while, with the other, he moved with a scornful slowness down over the silk that covered her full, taut body until it reached the mound he sought. He stopped there and rubbed the firm protrusion with probing, adamant fingers. Again she tried to arch so that her pelvis could come into contact with the jutting ridge of his crotch, but Bruno forced her to stay immobile while his fingers gradually molded the silk until it slipped between her legs, stroking and pulling on her with a maddening touch, now light, now ferocious, now withdrawing, now venturing boldly. Her breathing became shallow as she waited, her head thrown back in absolute abandonment. The silk had grown wet. “Madame may kneel on the chair by the bed,” Bruno ordered.
“I …”
“Madame will do as I tell her.”
She crossed the room, her eyes cast down to the carpet, too excited to allow the boy to see her expression. Her gown flowed sinuously around her full body as she knelt on the armchair, holding on to its back. Bruno knelt on the carpet behind her and raised her skirt to her waist. Her rounded, proffered bottom was naked, her legs, still in her high-heeled shoes, were only half covered in silk stockings, her full white thighs were cleft by a thin line of black hair. For a long minute he looked and savored her position of powerlessness, until he bent forward and pressed his mouth, a mouth that might have been that of a beautiful woman, deeply into the hair between her legs. She moaned. “If Madame makes any sound, I shall stop,” he threatened, and she nodded in absolute obedience, forcing herself to remain still, restraining herself from any response, so that all her senses were concentrated on the hot sword of his tongue, the biting, tormenting play of his lips and teeth, and the strength of his hands that held her apart so that he could use her freely.
She could hear Bruno opening his trousers with one hand, and she shuddered violently in abandoned anticipation. He pulled her to the edge of the chair so that her belly rested on its seat, with her knees on the carpet and her opening on a level with his straining, distended penis. She held her breath as she felt him mount her and plug its smooth, tightly engorged head into her hungry body. She knew enough not to try to push back on the length of him, but to wait motionlessly, her ferocity contained by her willpower, until he could endure his own torture no longer and jammed himself forward, filling her completely. His hands held her at her waist, pinning her to the chair so that she couldn’t move, while he pulled himself out almost entirely before he plunged into her again, as brutally, as heartlessly as any animal. He thrust into her wide-open sheath without thought or care, in a bestial, murderous frenzy, until, in a long, violent spasm, with his face contorted into a silent scream, Bruno found his long, terrible, drawn-out release. Only when he had satisfied himself completely did he drag her off the chair and throw her down onto the carpet, face up. Roughly he plunged his face between her legs, and as she felt his lips sucking, she began to quiver and buck into a monstrous climax. For a moment they both lay silently on the floor.
“Has Madame any further need of me?” His voice was yielding, that of a willing servant.
“No, Charles. Not tonight,” she said curtly. He got to his feet, buttoned his fly, and unlocked the door, leaving without another word. Sabine de Koville lay on the carpet without enough strength to get up, a smile on her long, curling lips, which Bruno had not once kissed. He knew better, she thought dreamily, far better than to try.
8
STRATOCUMULUS, Stratus, Cumulus, Cumulonimbus, Freddy said t
o herself, turning the words over lovingly in her mind, munching on them with a bone-deep pleasure she had never felt for any line of poetry. The meteorological terms for different types of low cloud formations were of absolutely no practical use to her. As a fifteen-year-old student pilot she would not be allowed to fly through anything but clear weather, but she hadn’t been able to resist searching for the cloud names in the school library since they weren’t in her basic ground-school textbook.
“Could you please give me that bag?” an irritated voice shrilled. Freddy whirled around apologetically, and handed over the half-pound of Woolworth’s jelly beans. She tasted more lovely words—Altocumulus, Altostratus, Nimbostratus, the cloud formations to be found above 6,500 feet—and wondered who had invented them, while she poured a pound of chocolate-covered marshmallows into another bag. She worked absently but quickly, for she was the only girl behind the candy counter, and customers were waiting impatiently.
As she worked through the morning, Freddy began to calculate the state of her finances. When she had reached fifteen, last January, her allowance had been raised from a quarter a week to thirty cents, largesse in these Depression years. It was now early November of 1935, and her allowance had amounted to thirteen dollars and fifty cents so far this year.
Freddy shook her head over the thought of one personal extravagance that she couldn’t resist, although it ate deeply into her allowance. She was a movie nut. She’d seen The Lost Squadron with Joel McCrea five times, and Central Airport and Ace of Aces six times each. She’d only been able to see The Eagle and the Hawk, with Fredric March and Cary Grant, four times because of exams, but she’d gone to Night Flight, with Clark Gable, nine times during a school vacation. Ceiling Zero and Devil Dogs of the Air were coming to the movie house in the next few weeks, she thought with a sinking heart caused by the knowledge that she shouldn’t, but would, spend the ten cents for each admission.
Judith Krantz Page 21