The Champagne Queen (The Century Trilogy Book 2)

by Petra Durst-Benning

  “It doesn’t matter.” Leon waved it off. “One or two good orders, and we’ll be flush again. Probably today; just let me at ’em!”

  They kissed long and deeply in parting, then Leon swung himself onto his bicycle.

  Isabelle waved after his diminishing figure. He was planning to ride through the area north of Reims to search for new customers, but would he be any more successful there than he had been elsewhere? A few bottles here and there—so far, that was all Leon had managed to sell. The money he brought home wasn’t even close to enough. And now he’d given their last pennies to the cellar master.

  Panic rose inside her as her eyes swept across the extensive lands around the house. The peacocks, the horses, the chickens—they all needed to be fed! In two weeks, it would be the end of the month, and she would have to pay Grosse and Claude their wages. She had promised them that she would have their money by then. She had to buy groceries, too. How was she supposed to do all that?

  Leon could not explain why they hadn’t had any success yet. It certainly was not for lack of hard work on his part; every day for two weeks he had paid visits to prospective customers. Restaurants, bistros, hotels. But the establishments already had suppliers and were not willing to change, or they had too much champagne in stock to even consider buying more. Or they had no money. Or the customers preferred wine or beer. Or . . . or . . . or . . .

  The night before, they had argued about it. Leon had claimed that the champagne the establishments bought was a matter of preference, but when Isabelle had responded that the other vintners were selling their products, he had shouted angrily at her.

  “Do you think I’m too stupid to sell? I’ve talked myself blue in the face, believe me!”

  “You’re probably just talking to the wrong people. You have to visit the top-notch places, you know?”

  “Oh, of course, and you’re the only one who knows the meaning of first class. All I know is stinking hovels, is that it?”

  One harsh word had led to another, and only later, in bed, had they made up again.

  In the distance, she saw Leon riding along the main road toward Épernay. She looked beseechingly toward the sky, which was the color of violets and shot through with high, streaky clouds.

  Dear God, give him some success today. Send him home with a little money!

  Although Isabelle had had little to do with the cellar master, she had had a good deal of contact with her overseer. It was clear that Claude had realized that Isabelle’s interest in the estate was neither superficial nor fake and that she really was truly willing to pitch in wherever she could. As a result, he had begun to familiarize her with the day-to-day workings of the place. Gradually, Isabelle began to understand how the various cogs of livestock, vineyards, and gardens meshed; how much time and money would be tied up in different tasks; and what could be accomplished with minimal outlay. She had surprised Claude a few times now with an idea that cost little or no money but that nonetheless proved useful.

  After finishing the breakfast dishes, Isabelle stopped by Claude’s house, as she did every morning. Under her arm she carried a thick waxed tarpaulin that was so heavy it threatened to fall out of her grasp at any moment. She had found it in one of the attic rooms, and when she had unfolded it, dust had flown around and a stale smell began to emanate from it, but she had found no tears or holes. In the past, in Berlin, she would have pushed something like that away in disgust with her foot or chided the domestic staff for leaving such trash lying around. Today, however, the tarp was a treasure.

  She presented the thick bundle to the overseer and asked, “What do you think? Would this material do as a new roof for the chicken coop?” The old roof had been leaking in several places for ages, and the chickens did not like being rained on inside their only refuge.

  “It most certainly would!” Claude said, impressed. “Where did you come up with this?” When Isabelle explained where she had stumbled across the tarp, he replied, “You can find things like this as often as you like!”

  Now, if only I could find a pile of money up in the attic, Isabelle thought as she walked back to her house. When she got home, she avoided looking into the pantry, which was slowly getting emptier. The bare shelves depressed her and made her anxious—what would they live on when there were no more pumpkins, no more potatoes?

  She sat in Jacques’s office with a cup of tea and continued going through Jacques’s papers. She wanted to get a clear picture of which vineyards belonged to the Feininger estate. Until she unfolded the huge map that showed the various parcels of land around Hautvillers, Isabelle thought it would be easy to figure out. But after studying it for no more than a few moments, she realized that the markings on the map did not follow a clear pattern: here and there, she saw the names of individual champagne estates, but many of the properties were only marked with numbers or sometimes with additional letters. She found documents on which similar numbers and letters appeared, and some of the documents carried official seals and several illegible signatures, while others were so faded that they were almost impossible to decipher. Were they legal deeds of ownership? And if they were, what did they say?

  Sunshine poured through the window, dousing the table in golden light and blinding Isabelle so that she had to close the curtains. In the half dark, she started to run her finger over the map again. This vineyard here belonged to Moët, and this plot, too. The one next to it only carried a number, and the one beside that seemed to be Feininger land. Or perhaps not? Blast it, how were they supposed to work with their land when they did not even know exactly what belonged to them and what didn’t? They could end up ignoring one of their vineyards entirely. Or—what almost seemed worse—they might start working on a stranger’s property.

  After spending a long time pondering over the map in vain, she carefully folded it up, laid it on top of the file with the deeds, and wedged both of them under her arm. A little fresh air and some help—she needed both.

  She hurried out in the direction of the vineyards. From what she knew of her cellar master, he would start with pruning the nearest vines. God forbid he should take one step more than necessary! But the numbers, letters, and names on the map would certainly mean more to him than to her. Arriving at the foot of the hill, she glanced around, shielding her eyes against the sunlight. But whichever way she looked, she saw no trace of Grosse or any laborers among the vines.

  This cannot be, she thought, fury rising inside her. Just you wait, Mr. Grosse!

  She found him in between two huge wine barrels on the middle level of the cellars. His mouth was open, and he snored loudly. He still reeked of alcohol, lying on a bed of blankets and pillows that looked as if they had seen regular use.

  Isabelle felt a terrible rage swelling inside her, and only with a huge effort did she manage to control herself. She, Leon, and Claude were out breaking their backs from early morning until late in the day just to get by, and here was her cellar master, sleeping off his hangover! And she was supposed to pay him for this?

  She jabbed him in the side with the point of her shoe. “Wake up! Right now!”

  All the man did was fart and grumble.

  Isabelle repeated her jab, harder this time and with more success: Gustave Grosse jumped like he’d been bitten by a tarantula.

  “What do you think you’re doing, lazing around here like that? Didn’t my husband give you a clear job to do?” said Isabelle sharply.

  “I only lay down for a moment. Just feeling a little faint, but it’s passed now, madame,” said Grosse, pulling himself together. He hurriedly pulled on his eye patch, which he had removed to sleep. “Just after your husband left, I went in search of a few field workers. But there were none to be had; they’re all busy pruning for others. Tomorrow, madame, I’m sure to be able to find somebody.”

  “You should have hired laborers earlier!” Isabelle snapped at him. “What do you do down here the whole day long?” She swept her arm wide, taking in the entire cellar.

&n
bsp; Grosse sighed. “Madame, my days are not long enough for the tasks of a cellar master, and here you want me to explain this exceptionally difficult craft in a few words? Is that what you really expect?”

  “I expect you to do something and not lie around like a loaf of bread,” Isabelle shot back. She was furious, but also helpless.

  “May I be of any further assistance?” Grosse asked, sounding bored and folding up his blankets as if it were the most natural thing in the world. He did not seem particularly embarrassed to have been caught napping.

  Isabelle hesitated. She had no desire to spend any longer than necessary in the man’s company, but surely he could provide information she needed. “I’m trying to get a clear picture of all the Feininger vineyards.” As she spoke, she unfolded the map. “But I’m still not sure which parcels belong to us and which don’t. It would be best if we could go through everything together, and you could show me—”

  “Pardon, madame, but my job is to make the champagne and keep the wine cellar in order. Monsieur Jacques always took care of the vineyards. He was the one who organized and supervised the harvest, and he was the only one with an overview of his properties. Having your husband order me to take care of the pruning in the future is one thing. You can’t ask any more of me!”

  “And then I said . . . I said he should, yes, he should at least try it! But the . . . bastard, he—” Leon broke off abruptly and took another gulp from the bottle. His eyes wandered around as if he were looking for something. A solution. A way to escape.

  “The bastard didn’t even want to try it! He said his ‘honored guests’ would only drink Lanson champagne. Lanson, pah! Why should Lanson be any better?” He took another swig from the bottle, and champagne trickled from the corner of his mouth; he wiped it away with the sleeve of his cycling jacket. He had not even changed clothes since returning in the early evening. Instead, he had gone straight to the cellar and come back with a few bottles. Since then, he’d been sitting at the kitchen table, drinking and complaining.

  With a sinking heart, Isabelle watched her husband empty the second bottle. In all the time they had been together, she had never seen Leon like this. Oh, he’d had a drink or two with his club mates after a race in Berlin. Back then, he would get funny and a little loud. Sometimes, on evenings like that, they had started kissing madly, right in front of everybody, until the proprietor of the clubhouse had to tell them off. But he had never really gotten drunk, and certainly never gloomy.

  He looked at her with wavering eyes. “No one wants our champagne! Why not? Tell me, why not?” he wailed. “And the Americans . . . our customers there . . . they’re gone, too. They don’t want anything to do with us anymore. Don’t you get it?”

  Oh God, he wasn’t going to cry, was he?

  “Leon, please pull yourself together,” said Isabelle firmly. “It isn’t over yet. We’re still at the beginning, and we’re not about to let ourselves be discouraged so quickly.” She tried to inject as much confidence as possible into her voice. But at the same time, she felt like crying herself. Her conflict with the impertinent cellar master, the unanswered questions about which lands were theirs—these were things that she wanted to talk to Leon about. He had to do something, and soon! But when he came home like that, beaten like a dog, she couldn’t bring herself to burden him more.

  He held out the bottle to her. “At least you can drink with me! Or isn’t the Feininger champagne good enough for you, either?”

  For his sake, she sipped at her glass but put it down again immediately. “That’s enough for today. We’ll have to solve our problems another way, but we can tackle them again tomorrow.” She stroked his arm. “Come on, let’s go to bed.”

  Leon growled and balked. “Problems, problems! I can’t stand it anymore. Ever since we came to this miserable farm, we’ve had nothing but problems. I’d rather ride my bicycle; I don’t have any problems with that. And I’m the one that decides when I’ve had enough!” With a shaking hand, he tore the wire cage off the cork of the third bottle. Then he pulled the cork out of the bottle so violently that the champagne overflowed everywhere, splashing the table and Isabelle’s dress. Leon laughed loudly and wildly. “If no one likes this stuff, then I’ll just drink it myself,” he said, and raised the bottle to his lips.

  Isabelle stood up abruptly. “You’re intolerable! Don’t come to my bed drunk. I’ll bring you a blanket and pillow; you can sleep in the living room,” she said, and with heavy steps and a heavier heart, she climbed the stairs.

  Isabelle lay awake long into the night, thoughts racing through her mind. “No one wants our champagne,” Leon had said earlier. What if he was right? All the champagnes that Raymond Dupont had offered her had far more aroma; they were finer, more elegant.

  She wanted nothing more than to pull the blanket over her head and cry her eyes out. But what good would it do?

  Finally, Isabelle got out of bed and sat in an armchair by the open window. The cold night air felt good. She breathed in deeply.

  The sparkling starry sky looked so close. Isabelle could not remember ever having seen so many stars at one time. There were no big-city lights here to distract from the firmament, and the evening star shimmered auspiciously. At some point, she began to feel chilled and closed the window again. But even looking out through the glass, she could not take her eyes off bright, consoling Venus. The star seemed to want to show her the way and to say, Don’t lose your courage. The longer she sat in the dark looking out, the more confidence returned to her. Admittedly, the position they were in was far from rosy. But she had never been a shrinking violet, so why was she letting a “few” problems make her anxious? She had to defy them, and sooner or later the brighter days would return!

  Enough lamenting. Enough conflict. The time had come to find solutions, and she was sure Leon would feel the same way in the morning.

  The next day, when Leon awoke with a throbbing skull and stumbled from the living room into the kitchen in search of a cup of strong coffee, all he found was a hastily scribbled note on the table.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Eyes closed, Raymond Dupont took a mouthful of the champagne that Daniel Lambert had poured for him. Countless tiny beads shattered on his tongue, and he reveled in the feeling, as if it were the first time. Then he went to work. With small motions of his jaw, as if chewing, he rolled the liquid through his mouth. Almond. Roasted almond! Cloves, marzipan . . . He opened his eyes. There was appreciation in his expression as he said, “The perfect champagne to beguile a mature woman.”

  The young cellar master smiled. “Very true! Certainly not the first choice for a party, but for an intimate evening for two . . .”

  Raymond raised his glass to Daniel.

  They were alone in Raymond’s shop; he had locked the door, wanting to ensure the tasting wouldn’t be disturbed. Many years earlier, he had made it his habit to invite the cellar masters—not the agents—of the champagne houses to his shop, to the chagrin of the Champenois. “We pay our salesmen outrageously high salaries, and you don’t even invite them in?” they complained to him every year. But Raymond didn’t want to hear the carefully rehearsed sales pitches of a Simon Souret from Trubert or a Silvain Grenoble from Pommery. What he wanted was to hear what the cellar master himself had in mind with a certain assemblage, with a particular mix of Pinot Noir, Pinot Meunier, and Chardonnay.

  Daniel, who knew well what mattered to the champagne dealer in Reims, said, “There are plenty of young, fizzy champagnes around, at Trubert, too. But I wanted to create a champagne that you could put on the table late in the evening instead of cognac. A champagne with depth and fullness, one that would warm two lovers and make a short night longer.”

  “A champagne to warm two lovers—I hear the maestro speaking,” said Raymond with a smile.

  “In my dreams, perhaps. And in this case, a dream is the only thing behind the concept,” Daniel replied with a sigh. “Apart from my love for making champagne, little else is goi
ng on.”

  Raymond regarded his guest in silence. It was well known that, when it came to women, Daniel Lambert was not averse to an occasional affair, and many, in fact, had been ascribed to the attractive man with the long blond hair. Even if not all the stories were true, there was still no doubt that Daniel had been welcome in many beds. It was also well known, however, that no woman could put up with him for long. In time, competing with the seductions of a good bunch of Pinot Meunier or Chardonnay grapes always proved to be too much. Or was it the other way around? Was it Daniel for whom no woman was exciting enough in the long run?

  “How is Henriette?” Raymond asked in the most harmless tone he could. Henriette Trubert would have been very happy to turn her business relationship with her cellar master into a personal one, a fact that was evident to anyone who saw her in Daniel’s company in the wine cellar, at tastings, or anywhere else. The way Henriette—one of Raymond’s own former lovers—practically devoured the young man with her eyes was embarrassing, Raymond thought. Even with her best years behind her, Henriette was still a reasonably attractive woman, but more than that, she was powerful.

  Raymond’s own liaison with Henriette a few years earlier had not lasted long. She had been too demanding for his taste, and without wasting many words, they ended the affair. They had not remained friends; two people could only remain friends if they had been friends to start with. But they realized each other’s value in business, and when their paths crossed, there was no animosity between them.

  Daniel gave him a look that said, I know what’s behind your harmless question, but it’s got nothing to do with me. “Madame Trubert is very busy right now. She has big plans.”

  Raymond laughed. “Why so secretive, my young friend? Do you think I can’t guess that she has her eye on your old estate? I’d be surprised if she didn’t, considering her hunger for more land. How many acres did she buy last year? There was the Serlot estate, then the Eglotát place—was it eighteen acres? Twenty?”