Alfonsini shrugged expressively. ‘Then you must remain silent. You cannot perform in this country until the memory of your escapade has faded. Managements and fellow-artists may forgive you in time, but I think it will take at least a year.’
They discussed it for an hour but when the two men left they had remained firm. Laurent had said he would refuse to look for any engagements for her for the foreseeable future ‒ he dared not attract the resentment of other artists. She could of course find another manager but he doubted if anyone would take her. Alfonsini said sadly: ‘Your job was to sing, not to be a politician. Leave politics to those who can’t sing.’
When they had gone, Netta and Frederic had a light meal together. Then she went up to look at her little son, peacefully asleep in his nursery. She couldn’t leave him to travel the world as a singer. It was impossible.
By and by Frederic came to find her. He coaxed her to come away into the warmth and light of their bedroom. ‘My dear, I know you’re unhappy, but that will pass ‒’
‘Oh, you don’t understand!’ she burst out. ‘You’ve never understood! You thought I was just playing at being a singer, but it’s important to me!’
‘Netta, I may have thought at first ‒’
‘I could be a great singer! I could really!’
‘You are a great singer, my love,’ he said, taking her in his arms and holding her close so that her little gestures of anger were stifled. ‘When I hear you sing, you make me believe there really are angels in heaven.’
She was still. Then, raising her head to look into his eyes, she said, ‘But I always thought you regarded it as … as a sort of hobby …’
‘It pleased you. That was enough for me. I’ve always wanted you to be happy, Netta ‒ that before almost everything.’
‘But … but …’ She was staring at him. A strange thought was growing, filling her mind. ‘You … love me?’
‘Oh, my darling wife ‒ what a question to ask!’
‘No, no ‒ don’t laugh, Frederic. Apart from the fact that we get on well with each other and have made a go of things ‒ Freddi … Do you love me?’
He nodded, a mixture of laughter and wistfulness in his dark eyes. ‘It happened. I woke up one morning and found I was in love with my own wife.’
‘Oh, dear God!’
‘Does it shock you so much?’
‘Yes ‒ no ‒ I just never ‒’ She put her head against his shoulder. ‘Have I been a great fool, Freddi?’
‘Never mind about that. Do you love me?’
She snuggled against his shoulder.
‘Do you know,’ she said in a voice he could hardly hear. ‘I believe I do.’
Chapter 11
Nine days later Laura Fournier-Tramont died of pneumonia. Minutes after she breathed her last the newsboys were out on the streets of Paris and the big cities shouting, ‘Dreyfus Pardoned! The President Acts!’
‘If only she could have known,’ Gaby said later, looking back on that day with its strange mixture of sadness and triumph. ‘It would have meant so much to her.’ But at least, she thought, Aunt Alys had got her wish. It was over at last.
It was by no means over. The reverberations of the Dreyfus Affair were to echo over the heads of the French for seven more years until at last, in a complete reversal of former opinions, Alfred Dreyfus was decorated with the Legion of Honour. But the Tramonts didn’t feel compelled to take part in the campaign to clear his name totally ‒they had done what they wanted to do, they had helped to give the prisoner his freedom so that he could undertake that fight himself.
In any case, the Tramonts had problems of their own.
Arnold Simeon and his wife had come to be with their daughter in her last illness but arrived too late to see her alive. Gaby and David could scarcely remember them. Last time they’d seen them, they’d been small children and Grandpapa Simeon had seemed tall, dark, severe. Now he looked an old, tired man, and Grandmama Simeon had hair that was almost pure white under the black veil for the funeral.
Before he left to take ship for New York, Arnold had a conference with the men of the House of Tramont. ‘How’s business?’ he asked, with a wry glance.
‘Not good. That damned phylloxera is still chewing at our vines. We here at Calmady have planted where we can with grafted plants, but it’s an expensive process. Monsieur Simeon.’
The old man didn’t want a lecture on viticulture. He knew nothing about that. What he wanted was something different. The death of his only daughter had stricken him. He wanted to draw his relatives closer.
‘Our vines in America are immune to this bug ‒ am I right?’
‘Yes.’
‘Whyn’t you sell up and move to America, then?’
‘To do what?’ Frederic asked, astounded.
‘To make wine, of course. Plenty of wine made in California and round the Great Lakes.’
Robert thought fleetingly of his father, Jean-Baptiste Labaud, at Bracante Norte. For him the idea had attractions. And yet … Jean was in his seventies now ‒ what was the point of removing to California to be with him when he might not live many years longer?
Gavin was already shaking his head.
‘You can’t make champagne in North America,’ he said.
‘Why not? It’s just a sparkling wine ‒’
‘No, no. No other sparkling wine is champagne. Only the wine made here ‒ Gavin threw out a hand to indicate the mist-wreathed landscape outside the mansion’s window ‒ ‘only our wine is champagne.’
‘You mean to say that you’re going to go through all this expense, grafting French twigs on American roots, just so you can grow the damned things in this rotten climate?’
The three wine-makers looked at each other. Then Robert said calmly, ‘Yes, Father-in-law. If that’s the only way we can save the champagne grape, it has to be done. And it can only be done here.’
‘You’re mad,’ grunted Monsieur Simeon. Frederic grinned. ‘I think you may be right,’ he said in his strongly accented English, ‘but that’s how it has to be.’
Before them, he knew, lay a great struggle. The small wine-growers of the Champagne region were stubborn, conservative, suspicious of change. The bigger firms, the negociants, might want to replant with grafted vines, but the families that owned the little vineyards couldn’t believe their own vines, the true vines of Champagne, wouldn’t withstand the pest. Besides, they begrudged the money for grafted plants prepared in expensive hothouses and nurseries.
It was all a plot, they were sure ‒ a plot on the part of the negociants to force them into subjection. They began to band together to withstand what they thought of as the underhandedness of the big firms. Already this year, at harvest time, there had been hard words between growers and buyers over the price offered for grapes. The crop had been poor, vineyards had expected big sums for what was available, but the great houses had not been as generous as they’d expected.
Sometimes, after Arnold Simeon had left, Robert dearly wished they had accepted his offer to find finance for a new beginning in America. At least there they might have had some peace from the bickering that went on in Champagne.
Money became very tight. A family conference was called, with even young Pierre and Gaby taking part. ‘We have to find capital to finance the re-stocking of the rows,’ Robert said. ‘We have to offer money on favourable terms to the small growers so that they’ll buy the grafted vines. Otherwise we won’t get anything to press, and we’ll have smaller and smaller vintages.’
‘What did Maqueras Fils put in that so-called vintage they sold this year?’ Frederic asked. ‘I had a London shipper call in on me in Paris, and he was furious over what he’d got from them. He practically put a gun to my head to make me swear Veuve Tramont’s wine was made from Champagne grapes.’
‘It’s said Maqueras bought grapes from the Yonne. I don’t know how true it is,’ Gavin said. ‘But you have to remember that Maqueras have a funny idea of “vintage” ‒ that stuff
they’re marketing has only been in cellar two years.’
‘Terrible, terrible,’ sighed Robert.
He was often depressed these days. The death of Laura had hit him hard. Gaby had come home to stay at Calmady to ‘look after him’, although he never paid the slightest heed to her pleas that he work less hard and rest his lame foot.
‘One of the big problems is getting the grapes. We’ve got to convince the vineyard-owners other than the big firms to grow grafted vines. They ought to see that if makers can’t get Champagne grapes because of the phylloxera, they’ll go elsewhere.’
‘Only if they’re prepared to tell lies about the wine,’ Gavin put in.
‘We-ell …’
A silence ensued.
‘So where’s this money to come from?’ Gavin went on, brushing up his moustache with his knuckles. ‘The bank isn’t going to lend us funds to lend to other people.’
‘We must sell the Paris house.’
‘No!’ cried Netta, springing instantly to the defence of the place she now thought of as home.
But her husband was already nodding. ‘That makes sense. Property on the Avenue d’Iena is fetching very high prices.’
‘But ‒ but ‒’
‘You could come and live here, Netta,’ Gavin said. ‘After all, it is the family home.’
‘Yes, dear,’ agreed his wife. She leaned forward to touch her daughter fondly on the cheek. ‘It would be nice to have you close at hand, Netta.’
‘But the men need somewhere to stay when they have business in Paris.’
‘Oh yes ‒ quite true. But we could take a little pied-a-terre, my love. No need for a damned great house ‒ excuse me,’ Frederic added with a glance of apology at his mother-in-law for the swearword.
‘You’re quite right, Frederic, it is a damned great house. And it’s also full of damned expensive furniture ‒ you know Mama filled it with antiques when she bought it, all in keeping with the architecture and all that. So there’s money in the furniture too. The Americans are great at buying French furniture. The silly British too,’ Alys added with a grimace at her British husband.
Netta gave up trying to argue against it. She could see the menfolk had made up their minds, and anyhow, it hardly mattered any more. She had given up the idea of pursuing a singing career seriously. She was now nearly twenty-nine years old, and if she had been going to set the world of music alight, she should have done it by now.
Too many other things had intervened.
Life itself seemed to have diverted her from time to time from the direct path she should have followed if she had been destined to be a star of the concert platform.
The sale of the Paris house caused some comment in the gossip columns. The House of Tramont must be going through hard times indeed, hinted the journalists.
The year had turned and the new century had begun when the last private belongings of the Tramonts were loaded aboard a pantechnicon to be taken to Calmady. Netta turned her head away as it drove off.
‘Courage, my love,’ Frederic said teasingly, ‘the natives out in the wilds won’t eat you.’
‘But I’ve grown so accustomed to Paris, Freddi …’
‘It will be better for Pierre. He can run wild a bit. Paris is for adults, not for children.’
It was true that at Calmady little Pierre seemed much more at home. His mischievous temperament was less troublesome, he could rush about, play with the dogs, get under the horses’ feet, beg for rides on the carts, and have a lot of fun. Gaby spent much of her time with him, while Netta helped her mother run the house and estate.
‘We mustn’t allow Gaby to stay around the house so much,’ Alys said to her daughter. ‘It’s lovely of course to have her take Pierre out for walks and so forth, but it’s no life for a young girl.’
‘Do you think she’s ever really recovered from that business with the awful Vourville?’
‘Who knows? But time’s going by, you know, dear. Perhaps we ought to do something about finding someone else for her.’
‘Oh, do you think so, Mama? Gaby’s so independent …’
‘But she’ll soon be twenty-one! Who would ever have thought a Champagne Girl would still be unmarried at that age!’
Netta sighed. She’d found that nickname a burden. It pre-supposed a certain kind of girl, a certain kind of life ‒ and these days there was hardly the kind of money to support the legend.
‘We ought to find her a nice young man,’ Alys went on, ‘someone who understands the circumstances of the wine industry and doesn’t expect too much of a dowry at present. Someone from our own circles.’
But Gaby had already found someone ‒ not at all suitable and certainly not from her own circles.
She met him on an outing with Pierre and his nurse, Flori, who had come to France from Portugal with Alys, had decided to become a fat little old lady when she turned forty, recognising that she would never now get married but that the Tramonts would always look after her even if there were no children to nurse. She’d cared for Netta and Philip, Gaby and David, and now there was little Pierre.
He was too much for her and always had been, since the day he took his first step. But Mademoiselle Gaby seemed willing to do all the running about, so they would ramble about the grounds and the countryside, Gaby actually looking after the little boy and Flori acting as chaperone.
Pierre liked to beg a lift from one of the carters going out from the wine cellars. He’d be given a ride to the crossroads, where he would be set down to await the arrival of Gaby and Flori at their more sedate pace.
One afternoon they found him sitting on the shoulders of a great chestnut draught-horse, one of a pair drinking at the horse trough. ‘Look at me, look, look, I’m riding the horse!’
‘Ooh-h ‒ be careful, Master Pierre!’ shrieked Flori, trying to waddle a little faster.
‘He’s all right,’ said the carter easily. ‘Aren’t you, lad?’
‘I’m fine, I’m a big grown-up driver with a pair of big horses!’
The man took off his cap as the two women arrived. ‘I was sure you wouldn’t mind,’ he said. ‘I’m Louis Peresqueau. Of course I know who you are, ladies.’
‘Come down this minute!’ Flori cried.
‘No, no,’ said the carter. ‘Leave him alone ‒ he’s all right.’ He glanced at Gaby. ‘Can I give the two of you a lift back to the gates, Mademoiselle Tramont?’ In the neighbourhood, the name was usually shortened to the one the villagers thought important ‒ the name of the wine house.
‘Yes, do, do, Aunt Gaby! And I’ll drive the horse from up here!’
‘That would be very nice, Monsieur Peresqueau.’
He put his hands to her waist then without apparent effort swung her up to the driving seat. He looked up at her. She had coloured, because his hands had lingered a moment before he took the trouble to lift her. She should object now, if she wanted to. But the moment passed, and he turned to Flori.
For her he set two boxes, one on top of the other, helped her clamber up, set one of the boxes on the flat bed of the dray as a seat, and settled her. Flori grasped the back of the driving seat grimly. She was sure she was going to be shaken to death.
Peresqueau took hold of the headstall of the nearer horse. ‘Up, my beauties!’ Obediently the two great beasts turned away from the trough, the unwieldy vehicle turned a great circle in the crossroads, and they were heading at a slow pace towards Calmady.
‘Faster! Faster!’ shouted Pierre.
‘No, no, lad, we can’t go any faster or we’ll bruise the ladies’ tender portions.’
Gaby heard Flori give a gasp of horror, and she herself felt a start of surprise. But then she reflected that the man was a simple creature, unused to dealing with ladies of her class.
‘Do you work for Monsieur Trusoit?’ she inquired to cover the embarrassment.
‘Me work for a master? I should say not. Didn’t you see my name along the side? This is my wagon.’
‘Oh, you
work on your own account. How splendid.’
He tilted his head to look up at her. He had light greenish eyes, like one of the great cats. ‘Oh, yes, I’m sure you’re impressed,’ he said drily.
He had put his cap in the front pocket of his coarse blue smock. His hair was a vigorous rich brown, springing up in a curling shock. He had a beard that covered his jaw up to the earline in little crisp ringlets. One tanned forearm and hand were visible where he grasped the headstall to lead the horse.
‘You ‒ you do cartage for the House of Tramont?’
‘Occasionally. When they need extra haulage. Could do with more work from you ‒ you might put in a word for me with your papa.’
‘Monsieur!’ cried Flori in protest.
‘It’s all right, Flori ‒ it’s a joke.’ She said to Louis Peresqueau, ‘You don’t lack a good head for business!’
‘Oh, a poor man like me has to use what chances he gets. Don’t often hobnob with one of the ladies of the house.’
Pierre was bouncing about on the mare’s shoulders, urging her to move faster despite the restraining hand of her master. The big, good-natured beast plodded on uncomplainingly, nodding in unison with her partner as they covered the half mile to the estate.
On the journey Gaby learned that Louis lived in a cabin a little to the west of the village of Calmady, that he was a widower, that he planned to buy another team and wagon in about two years’ time if all went well.
When they stopped at the entrance to the estate, he swung Pierre down in one great swoop that caused the boy to scream with terrified delight. He lifted Flori down just as easily but with more sobriety. Then it was Gaby’s turn.
He looked up at her. She met his glance. He held up his arms. She leaned forward into them.
While Flori fussed with Pierre and prevented him from embracing one of the great feathered hooves in love and gratitude, Louis Peresqueau unnoticed picked up Mademoiselle Tramont, held her close against him as he brought her to the ground, and rubbed his bearded chin against her cheeks before letting her go.
Scarlet and speechless, she stared at him.
‘You must come and visit me one day,’ he murmured as he put a hand on the wagon to swing himself aboard. ‘Artists have painted my cottage ‒ they call it “picturesque”.’
The Champagne Girls Page 18
