The Wine Widow

by Tessa Barclay

  Meanwhile, in the next few days, she watched the young people. And it was true: Robert had a special feeling for Delphine. He was fond of his elder cousin Alys, but when they paired off it was always Robert who sought Delphine as a partner.

  What was worse, Nicole began to suspect that Delphine cared for Robert in a special way. Probably it was just a particularly warm friendship ‒ Nicole couldn’t believe that Delphine would actually fall in love with a boy of fifteen. And yet … Robert seldom seemed a boy of fifteen. He was taller than any of them, topping Edmond by almost a head. His voice had already turned to a pleasing light baritone. Acquaintances and visitors seldom addressed him as ‘my boy’ ‒ it was generally ‘young man’.

  Nicole had other worries, never discussed with the family. An enemy was attacking the vineyards.

  The name of this invader was Phylloxera, a small yellow aphis, so small that without a lens it was invisible to the naked eye. This little insect lived on the sap of the roots of vines, and in 1863 it had made its appearance in the vineyards of Provence.

  It wasn’t entirely unheralded. The disease caused by the phylloxera insect had been noted in the mid-fifties in the wild grapes of the Mississippi, but no one had paid any attention to that. Then it began to appear elsewhere in America, notably in the new vineyards of California.

  Poor Jean-Baptiste, Nicole said to herself when she read that report. Was it for this that you gave up the Champagne vines?

  This year the pest had been found in important vineyards of Europe ‒ in those of Bordeaux and Portugal. ‘Don’t worry about it, madame,’ said Leboileau, successor to old Compiain as manager of the vineyard of Tramont. ‘It won’t attack our vines ‒ it’s too cold for it here in the Marne. You can see that, by where it’s gone so far ‒ always in the south, always in the areas of long sunshine.’

  Nicole read every report, every botanist’s thesis. Those experts put forward no grounds to support Leboileau’s claim ‒ there was no mention that the little insect was killed off by low temperatures.

  Certainly, so far, it had made its depredations in the warm areas only. But one day, one day … Who could tell?

  It struck her as ironic that just when Champagne Tramont had reached pre-eminence, the whole of the wine trade was put in jeopardy by something as insignificant as an invisible plant louse.

  This recurring anxiety was kept to herself. So too was the new anxiety brought to her by her sister. She must do something about that, and soon. But what?

  The Gordian knot was cut by Fräulein Geber, the governess. She took to her bed yet again with eyes streaming and nose red. When Nicole went, duty bound, to visit her in her sickroom, she found the poor lady in tremendous discomfort and distress.

  ‘Madame, I regret that I am once again incapacitated. This is three times since June has begun.’

  ‘Don’t let that worry you, Fräulein. It can’t be helped. Is there anything I can do for you?’

  ‘No, alas,’ groaned the governess, moving her grey head about restlessly on her pillows. ‘Madame, I have come to believe it is the climate here that causes the ailment. I never suffered from it at home in Bern. The air there is so clear …’

  ‘The air here is clear enough,’ Nicole rejoined. ‘Somewhat damp at times, I agree ‒’

  ‘How strange it is that all through the winter I was perfectly well, never a cold or a sneeze. Yet the moment the summer comes, I catch this recurring cold.’

  Fräulein Geber had come to them in September. True enough, she had been fit and well until the Champagne district broke into bloom at the end of May and the beginning of June. It was a mystery.

  ‘I have come to the conclusion,’ said Fräulein after sneezing a dozen times into the handkerchief, ‘that I must return home. I deeply regret, madame ‒ I have loved being in your employ and my two charges are charming. Nevertheless, I am of little use to them, nicht wahr, if I am laid low every week or so.’

  ‘Oh, Fräulein, don’t say that. I should hate to lose you ‒’

  ‘I think it best, madame. To tell the truth, I am so miserable each time this plague strikes me, I long to be at home among the mountains. So forgive me if I give notice to leave as soon as possible. I realise I forfeit some salary if I ‒’

  ‘Pray, Fräulein Geber, don’t think of that!’ Nicole’s mind was racing. ‘Tell me, you expect to be perfectly fit once you get to the Bernese Oberland again?’

  ‘Oh, certainly. I’m sure it has to do with the climate.’

  ‘You wouldn’t object to having my girls with you in Switzerland?’

  ‘Ha?’ cried Fräulein in surprise.

  ‘It seems to me ‒ they are making very slow progress with their German conversation, sad to say. Wouldn’t it be a good thing if they went with you for a month or two ‒? Naturally, I should have them put into a good hotel with you and you would continue to treat the summer months as a holiday period. In that way you could complete your year’s contract with me, and then … Then I believe I shall send them to London, to improve their English!’

  ‘What an excellent plan!’ cried Fräulein Geber, for the moment regaining her voice and her enthusiasm for life. The prospect of losing one-quarter’s salary had been dispiriting.

  When the girls heard the plan they greeted it with differing emotions. ‘Bern?’ cried Alys. ‘Mama, why on earth must we go to Bern? According to Fräulein, there’s nothing there but mountains!’

  ‘I think it will be interesting. There are some very fine buildings, I believe. It will interest Robert,’ said Delphine.

  ‘Robert is not going,’ Nicole said. ‘Neither is Edmond.’

  ‘What? You mean you are sending us off without them?’ Alys protested. ‘Oh, Mama, that’s not fair! We always spend the summer together.’

  ‘My dear,’ Paulette put in, ‘I can’t afford to send my two boys off on a three-month trip to Switzerland.’

  Delphine looked reproachfully at her mother. She was waiting for her to say: Money need be no object.

  But strange to say, Mama made no move. And Aunt Paulette went on: ‘In any case, I think it would be a good idea if I took my two to Paris. I should like to buy some new clothes for Edmond ‒ one doesn’t want him turning up at university looking like a country bumpkin.’

  ‘Paris!’ cried Edmond, eyes sparkling. ‘Well, that’s not so bad!’

  ‘How about you, Robert? You don’t want to go to Paris, do you?’ coaxed Delphine. ‘Come with us to Switzerland.’

  ‘Certainly not!’ his mother intervened. ‘It’s time in any case to make a change in our routines. We can’t go on for ever spending the summer in each other’s pockets.’

  ‘I don’t see why not! We’ve always enjoyed it up to now! Mama, tell Aunt Paulette she’s to let the boys come with us to Bern.’

  ‘Hey, not so fast!’ objected Edmond. ‘I would much rather go to Paris.’

  ‘But Paris will be so hot and dusty in summer ‒’

  ‘But a lot less dull than Bern!’

  ‘All right then, you go to Paris. Robert comes with us. Mama won’t mind paying for one extra. You’d rather come to Bern, wouldn’t you, Robert.’

  ‘Much rather,’ he agreed, looking anxiously at his mother for permission.

  She shook her head. ‘No, dear, we impose far too much on your aunt already. She’s given us hospitality every summer for a dozen years or so. It’s time to make a change ‒’

  ‘But why? Why, when we’ve always loved it just the way it was?’ cried Delphine. ‘Mama, tell Aunt Paulie that it doesn’t matter about “imposing” ‒’

  ‘Delphine, dear, the time comes when everything has to change. I want you to go to Bern and speak good German. Then I want you to go to London for a year to learn English ‒’

  ‘London!’ cried Alys. ‘Oh, Mama!’ She rushed at her, to throw her arms around her and kiss her thoroughly. ‘Oh, London! How wonderful! Shall we see the Queen? And the handsome young Prince of Wales?’

  Even Delphine’s objections w
ere overcome by this news. Nicole, observing her, was relieved. Fond though she might be of her cousin Robert, she was fonder still of the idea of a year in one of the world’s great capitals.

  Chapter 16

  Alys de Tramont was very annoyed when at last the disdainful English footman had closed the room door behind him.

  ‘This isn’t at all what I expected!’ she cried, taking off her travelling bonnet to throw it in exasperation on the walnut dressing table. ‘Mama has cheated us!’

  ‘Oh, Alys, come now ‒’

  ‘What do you mean, come now! You know we both expected to be staying with Lady Grassington ‒’

  ‘You expected it. I don’t know that I did. After all, Mama hasn’t met Lady Grassington above twice, and her friendship with milord is for business only.’

  ‘But when we wrote to her ‒ I always took for granted that we would be in a house in Mayfair ‒’

  ‘Did you actually say so? If you had, I’m sure Mama would have put you right at once.’

  ‘Oh, Delphine,’ cried her sister, sitting down on the end of the bed and beating the blue satin quilt with her fists, ‘why must you be so reasonable about it?’

  ‘Because I don’t see much to get in a great state about.’ Delphine made a little gesture that took in their comfortable surroundings. ‘What’s wrong with this?’

  It was a pretty room, not large but neatly arranged. It had a big double bed with deep blue hangings, covers, and valances that came down to meet a Turkey carpet. There was an elegant wash-stand of Italian marble, a dressing-table of the latest design, and a little desk for work on any of the studies undertaken by the pupils of Mrs MacArdle’s School for Young Ladies.

  ‘I’ll tell you what’s wrong with it,’ protested Alys. ‘It’s in Kensington! Kensington! I didn’t come to England to be tucked away in a village ten miles from Buckingham Palace ‒’

  ‘I’m sure it’s not as far as that, Alys. It’s only about four ‒’

  ‘Four, five, a million! It’s outside the possibilities of an afternoon stroll, at any rate! What chance of meeting the Prince by accident, of having him raise his hat to us, as he did to Mademoiselle Fibranc?’

  ‘Dear sister,’ Delphine said, untying her bonnet strings and laying the bonnet carefully on the bed, ‘I must tell you that I am unconcerned whether or not the Prince of Wales raises his hat to us. As far as I could tell as the carriage brought us in, this seems a pleasant spot. There are gardens and a good street with shops. No doubt there are ballrooms and concert halls. It may not be London proper, but it certainly offers more possibilities than Bern.’

  Alys began to laugh. Their sojourn in Bern had been a mixed pleasure. The town proved rather more sophisticated than they’d expected, with plenty of agreeable young gentlemen with whom they went boating on the Aare or on carriage rides to the Botanical Gardens, under the watchful eye of Fräulein Geber. There had also been frequent occasions when, Fräulein having gone to spend an evening with her parents, the two girls slipped out to visit a café and join in the singing and dancing to a Bernese peasant orchestra.

  On the other hand, they had been taken to museums to admire very dull paintings, attended lectures on the history of Switzerland, and made to do mathematics, geology, and to sketch in the mountains. All the while, they were strictly forbidden to speak French ‒ German only was permitted. Since Alys wouldn’t apply herself, Delphine had had to do most of the talking, and very boring it became. Fräulein Geber was Protestant, and talked mostly about the Protestant religion.

  ‘Mama, you’ve no idea how monotonous it became,’ Alys had reported when they were met by their mother in Paris. ‘I think she wanted to convert us.’

  ‘And did she succeed?’

  ‘Of course not. I never really listened.’

  ‘Then what are you complaining of?’ Nicole laughed. ‘Ah, you didn’t have a bad time, I can see that. You both look very well. And I assure you that Mrs MacArdle is a good Catholic so you will have no such problems in England.’

  ‘And who is Mrs MacArdle?’

  ‘The directrice of the school to which you are going.’

  This was the first they had heard of it. Alys argued all the way from Paris to Boulogne, and was still arguing when Nicole bade them goodbye on board the steam packet.’

  But it had done no good. Here they were and here they would stay, under the governance of Mrs MacArdle, a gentlewoman from County Clare.

  ‘It will be quite enjoyable,’ Delphine smoothed. ‘At least we don’t have a governess any more, watching our every move. And the other girls may be fun. Besides …’ Delphine went to the window and looked out. ‘I see a hackney stand not far off. Alys my darling, we can hire a hackney any time we are free, to take us to the town.’

  ‘Do you think so?’ groaned Alys. ‘I wager Mrs MacArdle won’t let us go anywhere unchaperoned. ’

  But life wasn’t as grim as that. Mrs MacArdle’s regime was based on ‘Trust and Honour’. It was written up in Gothic lettering in gold on a purple shield which hung over the mantel in the dining-room.

  ‘You’ll find she’s quite reasonable,’ the de Tramonts were told by Louise Quezerel, another French pupil of some months’ standing. ‘If you show an interest in the songs of Thomas Moore and his friend Lord Byron, she will approve of you, and with her approval comes her trust.’

  ‘But in what way are we “trusted”? Can we go out alone?’

  ‘Oh yes. But only for limited periods, of course. Sundays are the worst ‒ we have to go to church twice on Sunday and carry our rosaries in our hands when we go out.’

  ‘Dear heaven,’ said Alys. ‘Another religious crank!’

  ‘No, no ‒ I think it is more a demonstration to the public of the moral climate of her “establishment”. But only learn a few songs by Thomas Moore and sing them at our soirées, and she will love you like a daughter.’

  The girls handed over the letters of introduction they had brought from Calmady. Mrs MacArdle wrote inviting the various people to call. Lord Grassington came, bringing his wife; who stalked about the school looking for dust on picture frames and behind ornaments. ‘Not bad, not bad,’ she remarked. ‘You can mention to Madame de Tramont, when you next have business with her, that the place is by no means deficient in its standards.’

  Gerrard Arkley, Earl of Grassington, smiled fondly at his lady. She was a good sort, always had been. He had no reason to regret his marriage to her, for she had given him a son and a daughter, was the best rider to hounds in Cumbria, and stood no nonsense from anybody.

  But he had never loved her. He had found diversion in the usual places as a young man, had had a mistress or two among the pretty married women of his circle. He never had any difficulty attracting affection ‒ tall, with the pale complexion and bright blue eyes that often go with red hair, he wasn’t unattractive, though far from being exactly handsome. But it was his open, outgoing kindliness that drew people to him.

  When Gerrard Arkley first met Madame de Tramont, he felt as if a thunderbolt had hit him. He had never believed in love at first sight, and certainly not for men in their forties ‒ yet it seized him like the talons of a hawk and thereafter never let him go. Now that he was nearing fifty, his heart still leapt like a boy’s if he had news of a projected meeting with Nicole. Just to be with her for an hour or two was delight. To be able to spend a night with her was bliss itself.

  Her two daughters were known to him already: he had met them on visits to Tramont. But it was almost a year since he had seen them. He was surprised at the difference in them. They had ceased to be children ‒ they were young ladies now. Alys must be … what . . ? eighteen by now. And even the younger one, always the quieter and the less excitable of the two ‒ she too, little Delphine, seemed almost a woman now he saw her again.

  ‘Invite ’em to spend an evening, Emma. Or better still ‒ let’s take ’em to a theatre and a theatre supper.’

  ‘Oh, d’you think so, Gerry?’

  ‘Why not?
It must be pretty dull for them, out here in the sticks. And look here ‒ Milly’s birthday party ‒ why don’t you tell Milly to send them an invitation?’

  So, although not fully in the swim of the London winter season, the two girls were asked out and about. ‘This is more like it!’ said Alys under her breath to her sister as they were handed out of their carriage at the Grassingtons’ mansion in Belgravia. ‘This is what I thought we came to London for!’

  Lady Grassington had gone out of her way to provide a throng of pleasant young people for her daughter’s twentieth birthday party. It wasn’t done for the sake of the French visitors, but for Milly who, now entering her twenties, was still not engaged. She had been ‘out’ for two seasons, and was growing anxious that she’d be reduced to accepting a match made for her by her parents.

  ‘It’s so vexing,’ she sighed to the two French girls. ‘I nearly got Harold DeBarclay in the spring, but Laura Spofforth hooked him from under my nose.’

  ‘I am so sorry,’ Delphine said politely. ‘Did you care for him particularly?’

  ‘Not particularly,’ Milly confessed, wrinkling her rather broad nose, ‘but he was the best of the bunch last March. And then we went down to the country for the summer, and I thought Matthew Primm was going to offer, but he hurt his back poling a punt and had to be taken home lying flat in a waggonnette.’

  ‘How very sad,’ said Alys, stifling a laugh. She glanced about urgently for the young man whose name appeared on her carnet for the next dance. She was longing to escape from this stocky, uninteresting girl.

  Help came in the form of Gavin Hopetown, a personable young man in a very elegant set of evening clothes. Moving across the salon to find the partner he had been promised to for the polka, he caught Alys’s wildly signalling glance. Impelled by more than sympathy ‒ for she was an extremely pretty dark-haired stranger in a fetching crinoline gown of soft rose pink ‒ he deflected his path.

  ‘Our dance, I believe?’ he remarked, offering her his arm.

  Alys consulted her card. ‘Monsieur Dennis?’

  ‘Not in the least,’ said he, capturing her hand as it hovered over his sleeve, ‘but you want to escape and I am at your service.’ He led her through the arch to the second drawing-room, where the floor had been cleared for party dancing.