by Helen Fripp
As she gazed at the spectacle, Nicole felt a strange flutter of recognition. The man to Alexander’s left flank was the Russian from the café! He didn’t see her as the battalions marched by in orderly ranks. Not far behind him was a gilt carriage, and inside a beautiful dark-haired woman, feathered headdress fluttering in the breeze. Of course, Thérésa wouldn’t miss this victory parade for the world and there she was, not far behind the Tsar himself.
Mentine broke away from her and skipped through the ranks, screaming at Thérésa. ‘It’s me, it’s me!’
Thérésa stopped the carriage, threw open the door and pulled her in. From inside, Mentine pointed and the carriage was manoeuvred to the edge. Nicole ran to it, desperate to get her daughter back.
Thérésa flung open the door once more for Nicole.
‘How could you think of making poor little Mentine stand in this crush? And you’re so tiny you’ll get trampled. Jump up, there’s plenty of room!’
Nicole shook her head. The days of allowing herself to be swept along in Thérésa’s treacherous wake were over.
‘I won’t let you go back through that crowd. There’s no telling when it might turn nasty. Get in, now.’
On the other hand, she was right, and why not take advantage of such a serendipitous encounter, as long as she went into it with her eyes open?
‘Please, Maman.’
Nicole jumped up reluctantly.
‘You quite stood out, this petite little figure with strawberry hair and a bright red dress. Very easy to spot and quite lovely! Where are you off to?’
‘We’re leaving Paris at midday from the Pont de Bercy. I have to get back to my cellars and I’ve booked a seat on the last cart out of here. In fact, we should get back to the hotel, I have a boy waiting with my luggage.’
‘I’ll take you to the Pont de Bercy for midday and send a soldier for your luggage. You can’t drag poor Mentine back through that lot! You’ll stay with me ’til then. I’ve missed you!’
Nicole glanced furtively at the bag in her lap.
‘Just as I saw you last time, clutching that leather bag, my dear. Where are you off to with it now?’
Nicole gripped it tighter. This time, the jewelled box had the necklace in it. Since her last encounter with Thérésa, she never travelled without it, a slightly superstitious precaution.
‘It’s not much use to blackmail me with now. You know I’m always on the winning side. This one just took a little longer than expected. The Tsar is quite the celebrity in Paris now, and the only person worth being connected with.’
Mentine was entranced by the crowd, waving and delighted to be part of the show.
Nicole dropped her voice to a whisper. ‘I have learned the hard way that none of your friendships are based on loyalty or love.’
‘That luxury belongs to the rich; you would do well to understand that. Fortunes change, darling, we all know that. I hear yours are waning with the war. That necklace is worth a small fortune. Keep it and invest it in your little vineyards. I don’t need Moët, or his friend Napoléon any more, they’re both finished. Now – don’t look at me like that. We are friends first, just a little business got in the way. All that’s behind us now. Show me some warmth in those flinty eyes. I know they can melt from winter to spring in seconds.’
‘Just business? I would struggle to treat my worst enemies the way you did me.’
‘Take the moral high ground as much as you like, but your business is placed above everything, even your own child.’
Both women watched as Mentine blew kisses out of the window.
I hardly know this young woman any more, thought Nicole with a stab of regret.
Thérésa continued in a whisper, ‘And as far as I can tell, poor Moët is your worst enemy and you have shown him very little mercy. Forgive me, please. I won’t pretend I didn’t know what I was doing, but I was desperate, and we’re both fine now, aren’t we?’
‘As much as can be expected in these strange times. You twist my words, but too much has gone between us to ever feel the same about you again.’
‘Oh stop sounding like a boring ex-lover! I will take whatever your big heart can give me and be satisfied with that. Tell me all the news since we last met, darling. I’ve missed all that charming country chat about vines and bottles and harvests and tasting the terroir.’
Despite everything, Nicole couldn’t stop. As the victory parade slowly ascended the Champs-Élysées, she told Thérésa about her fears for her Cuvée de la Comète, her commitment to her workers, the sheer loneliness of being a woman running a business in Reims. They didn’t discuss in front of Mentine quite why Moët was such a rival, or her bitterness at losing Louis to another woman, but she knew Thérésa understood and that was enough. How beautiful and beguiling this woman was in her victory. As strangely alluring as a cliff-edge.
When they got to the Arc de Triomphe, Thérésa gave instruction for their safe passage to meet their transport at the Pont de Bercy.
‘I know you too well to ask you to stay in Paris for the victory party. You’ll want to buzz around your vineyards, fighting off the Russians when they come trampling over everything in their big boots looking for the veuve’s vin mousseux they adore so much. Off you go and look after my little Mentine. She’s like one of my own!’
‘I know. Mentine told me how you’ve taken better care of her than I have and I’m grateful for it. In that sense, you have been more of a friend than I believed.’
‘Oh stop. It was all for my own benefit. I missed you and she was the closest I could get. Now, fly away and do battle in Reims. Try not to be too serious, my little firefly, but do what makes you happy.’
And she was gone, back into the midst of the parade, the straight ranks of soldiers losing formation momentarily to make way for her carriage, a beautiful kink in the natural order of things.
Chapter 25
Loot
March 1814
The war had already reached as far as Champagne. As the cold, uncomfortable cart bounced over rutted roads, Mentine and Nicole clung to each other. A few miles outside of Reims, plumes of smoke rose amongst the trees and the army camps were visible from the road. It had been a squash at first with all the other passengers escaping the chaos of Paris, but now they were all gone and Nicole missed the comfort of the diverse crowd: a soldier returning home from Russia, two richly dressed silver merchants sitting on whatever they could stuff into a bag, and a pair of elderly sisters going to stay with family in the country. They’d all been dropped off one by one and now it was just the two of them and the driver.
‘Look forward and don’t catch anyone’s eye if they pass us on the road. We don’t know who’s on which side any more,’ Nicole whispered to Mentine.
The driver lashed the horses to speed up. She would use her own bare hands to kill anyone who even so much as looked at her daughter.
A small marching battalion of Prussians and Cossacks stopped to let them pass. Her heart stalled, but they saluted reluctantly under their sergeant’s orders. Sullen, desperate, boots cracked and broken, uniforms tattered, cheekbones protruding hungrily through scabbed faces, some with grimy bandages encrusted in blood. She wouldn’t like to meet them away from the command of their officer, and she feared for all her friends in Reims. Natasha’s bakery would be irresistible, the everyday prosperity and bustle of her town extreme temptation to these hungry and war-weary men – and everything there for the taking with so many men still away and displaced, despite yesterday’s surrender.
The lights at her parents’ home, the grand Hôtel Ponsardin, blazed through the windows as if the allied troops weren’t patrolling the streets outside at all. What was it about your childhood home, even when you were grown up, that always seemed safe?
Mentine was engulfed in her grandfather’s arms and ushered into the warmth. Her mother fussed over the dark circles under Nicole’s eyes.
‘Take your coat off and relax for once, you look as if you’re going so
mewhere,’ said her mother.
‘I am. I have to get to the cellars straight away to check them, Maman. Will you watch Mentine for me?’
‘I don’t need watching.’ Mentine scowled. ‘You promised you wouldn’t leave me!’
‘It’s just for an hour or so. I’ll come and say good night, I promise.’
‘No, you won’t, you’ll be there for hours. There’s always something going wrong and I’ve only just got home!’
Mentine clung to her, but she had to check on her stocks. Her father told her the Russian occupation was peaceful so far, but she knew there had been looting and everyone was on their guard. She prised Mentine’s fingers off her guiltily. She’d been away too long.
When she got to her cellars at the Place des Droits de l’Homme, Xavier was standing guard outside, holding a hammer, a rake propped up against the wall next to him. Two skinny lads from the orphanage accompanied him, clutching a mattock and a spade.
The door to her cellars had been bricked up as instructed, but a big hole was smashed through.
‘Xavier, I’m back! What happened?’
‘About bloody time. While you’ve been poncing around in Paris with fops and low-lifes and God knows who, we’ve been fighting off thieves with n’importe quoi. I’ll smash their heads in with a shovel if I have to.’
‘I’m grateful, Xavier. But you shouldn’t, it’s dangerous. A spade’s not much use against a musket.’
A half-scrubbed-off message was daubed in red paint by the cellar door. She squinted to make it out.
‘Wine… hel…’
‘Don’t worry about it,’ said Xavier.
‘What did it say?’
He shrugged. The lads looked sheepish.
She gave them a coin each. ‘You’re relieved. Go and get something to eat. God knows you look like you need it.’ She turned to Xavier when they’d left. ‘What did it say? You might as well tell me what was there, Xavier. You know I won’t give up.’
‘Wine whore. Help yourself. We tried to get rid of it, I didn’t want you to see…’
‘Who did this?’
‘The lads said they saw that dog-turd Fournier, Moët’s foreman, with red paint on his hands. Fucking idiot.’
‘Wait here.’
She squeezed through the bricked-up hole and ran down the cellar stairs, hundreds of them, kept going until she reached the cool crayeres. Her heart stilled. The cellars were always her refuge, but even down here she couldn’t get the word out of her mind. Whore.
It was completely dark, but she knew exactly where to find a lamp and she felt her way along the wall to the place, found the matches and lit it. The flame leapt. Her neat stacks were overturned, the racks plundered, her precious babies ravaged and looted. Vintage, young, white, red, rosé, it didn’t matter. Never mind the financial ruin, the thought of her vintages lining the stomach of some unthinking drunkard…
She snaked further into the cellars in eerie silence, not a single cellar worker to be seen. Just let a soldier dare jump out on her; she’d cut him with a broken bottle if she had to – she knew the place like the back of her hand and she could outrun any bunch of ragged mercenaries.
Finally, she arrived at the place where the 1811 vintage was stored and her heart sank. Empty, only the outlines of the bottles left, voids in the dust. They’d taken her starry comet wines, her best. They couldn’t have just happened upon them, not this deep in the cellars, and she suspected Moët’s red-handed Fournier had his part in this, too. She felt on her belt for the keys to the secret door concealed behind the racks and hesitated. Light seeped out through the keyhole and around the edges of the door. Someone was in there. A chair scraped.
She picked up a magnum of burgundy and shrank against the wall, holding her breath. Think. If she turned the handle and it was locked, the person inside had a key and she probably knew them. She forced herself to grasp the handle, then turned. Locked. She used her own key to open it and came face to face with a gun. The bottle exploded as she dropped it, scattering wine and glass everywhere.
‘Jesus, sauvage! Don’t creep up on me like that!’
‘Louis! What the hell are you doing here?’
‘What the hell are you doing down here on your own? The place is infested!’
‘There’s no one here. And let them try. My comet wines, all gone!’
He pulled her roughly to him. ‘Christ, I could have shot you.’
‘Did they get in here?’
‘No, they’re safe,’ he said, gesturing to the riddling tables stretching off into the distance as far as the lamp could illuminate.
Honey-coloured Cuvée de la Comète champagnes, neat row upon neat row. A fortune in golden heaven, the entire stock she had laid down, all intact.
‘Crystal-clear as a mountain stream.’ Louis smiled. ‘Your invention is still genius.’
‘Thank God. If they want this, they can pay me what it’s worth.’
‘Then you’re a better salesman than I. All I’ve been able to do is stop them from stealing it, so far.’
‘I’ll find a way. Have you and Xavier single-handedly saved what’s left down here?’
‘Every field hand and anyone who’s ever worked for you has defended this place. Madame Olivier is running intelligence for us. It could have been a lot worse. Other cellars have suffered more than these and it’s bad enough here. The men are coming back in the morning to brick the door back up. Xavier insisted on keeping guard and it was my intention to sleep with these beauties all night.’
‘You love them as much as I do.’
‘I was prepared to die for them in Russia. Go and get some sleep and leave this to me. You’ve just come from Paris with Mentine? You must have been travelling for hours.’
‘Thank you, my faithful Louis. I’ll be back first thing in the morning, with breakfast. I’ll bring my mother’s apricot jam. You try to get some rest, too.’
Back outside, the night had turned chilly and damp. Xavier was standing sentry, rigid in his post.
‘I’ll get some of the lads to replace you. You look exhausted.’
‘No one’s stepping foot inside on my watch. I’m staying put until every brick is replaced and they need a cannon to blast it open again.’
A man appeared out of the dark, bringing with him the stink of a soldier who’d been camping out for months.
‘That’s a promise you’re not going to keep, peasant. Stand aside.’
Xavier and Nicole both blocked the entrance. More joined him. Cossacks, judging by the uniform, at least ten. But the uniform couldn’t disguise the thugs that they were.
‘We’re not open,’ said Nicole.
‘There’s a nice big hole behind you, milochka. Looks open to me.’ He lifted the butt of his rifle. ‘Stand aside if you don’t want this in your face.’
A scar oozed on his forehead. Menace spread across the men’s faces, one by one, as if someone had lit a fire.
‘Fuck off, the lot of you!’ roared Xavier, stepping in front of her.
The rifle butt smashed into Xavier’s face. His nose exploded with blood and he fell, curled into a foetal shape, arms up to protect his head. They took turns to stamp on him.
‘You’re coming with me,’ the scar-face growled as he dragged her to the cellar door. She bit him; he jumped back, clutching his hand. ‘Bitch!’
‘You will not take anything from me!’
He shoved her against the bricks and she smacked her head. The pain was sickening. His filthy hand fumbled under her dress. Her heel found his crotch and she kicked as hard as she could.
A gunshot cracked through the chaos and the men scattered like cockroaches. Xavier staggered to his feet.
‘Bring me the woman. Help that man.’ Two Russian soldiers caught Xavier before he could fall and gently sat him on the ground. ‘And you! You’re not soldiers, you’re thieves! Get out of my sight before I court-martial you. This is a peaceful occupation. A liberation, not a backstreet brawl. If you want a drink, you bu
y. Go, now. I will bring liquor back to the camp for anyone who wasn’t involved in this.’
A French accent, perfect, almost.
‘Madame, I am so, so sorry for this. Are you all right?’
Her head hurt; no words came.
He gave instructions to two of his men to get Xavier home and stay with him until the doctor arrived, then carried a table and two chairs from the café opposite and set them up outside the cellar door. He took her arm and she flinched away, afraid.
‘Please, you are hurt. Those men will be locked up; let me help. Sit.’
‘I can’t leave until it’s bricked up,’ she slurred.
‘Understandable – of course not. Sit.’
She slumped onto the chair, cradled her head on the table and tried to gather her thoughts. Perfect French, almost. The man from the café in Paris, the Russian officer. The third time he had appeared.
‘Don’t you dare go a step further. Everything I’ve ever worked for is in there.’
‘I have no intention of doing so. I’m just going to sit here with you until you’re well enough to move. May I?’
He parted her hair and touched where it hurt; she winced. His fingers came away covered in blood.
‘Let’s get you home.’
‘I can’t. I have to stay.’
‘Shh, you’ll make it worse. Alright. We’ll sit here for a while.’
He gave her his handkerchief.
‘Press, hard.’
She sat up woozily and did as she was told. He put his jacket around her shoulders. It smelt of woodsmoke.
‘I’ll have my men stand guard. Try to trust us. It won’t happen again.’
She blinked. He came into focus and she scrutinised his gaze for honesty.
‘I have to stay. I can’t leave it to anyone else, no one cares as much as I do, why should they? This is what happens when I’m not here.’
