The Champagne Queen (The Century Trilogy Book 2) (27 page)

“Raymond . . . didn’t you want to join us at our table?” she said, fixing the merchant with a frown.

Raymond Dupont smiled. “Henriette,
ma chérie
! You know what they say: settle where the people sing! I am so extraordinarily happy that our beautiful widow Feininger is in fine form again. And a little bird has whispered in my ear that she is ready to do great things—my congratulations, madame!” He raised his glass in a toast to Isabelle.

Isabelle smiled, but she wondered how he had heard about her plans. She hadn’t said anything, and she was sure that neither Josephine nor Clara had. Had he simply given voice to a hunch to annoy Henriette?

Henriette looked at him disparagingly, then she turned to Isabelle. “So Madame Feininger is in the mood to celebrate? But that should be no surprise. That was quite a trick, selling your sweet concoction to the Americans. Much better than pouring it all down the drain, wasn’t it? Oh,
here
is where I find my dear cellar master. Daniel, don’t you think you should be gracing our table with your presence?” The expression through her heavy makeup was
not
happy. Daniel merely raised his glass as if proposing a toast to his employer.

With a little sniff, Henriette swung around to where Gustave Grosse was sitting; he nodded almost imperceptibly to her.

“The Americans were very happy about my champagne,” Isabelle replied, wondering at the same time whether she had just imagined the look that had passed between Henriette and Grosse. “But you are right, Madame Trubert, sweet champagne is truly a relic of the past. As Monsieur Dupont has already said, I have very different plans for the future.” She looked to Raymond, and they shared a conspiratorial smile.

Henriette raised her eyebrows in mock surprise. “As I hear it, you don’t even have a buyer for your grapes yet, and you’re talking about
plans
? Or”—a flash of hope kindled in Henriette’s eyes—“do you mean you want to accept my offer to buy your place after all?”

“I think you must have misunderstood me,” said Isabelle. With satisfaction, she watched Henriette’s expression darken again immediately, and she realized that everyone at their part of the table was listening to the exchange.

Henriette narrowed her eyes at Isabelle. “You’ll regret it,” she said so quietly that only those sitting very close could hear.

“If there’s anything I regret, it’s the fact that I let life frighten me after Leon died,” Isabelle retorted. “But that is behind me now. I will not let myself be intimidated again, not by God, not by the devil—and certainly not by you.” She held Henriette’s glare steadily. “And I’m not selling my grapes, either. Instead, I’m going to roll up my sleeves and make the best Feininger champagne there has ever been.
Vive la Champagne!
” she said, raising her voice and her glass for her last words.

“Vive la Champagne!”
cried everyone at the table.

Henriette snorted and swept away in a rustle of purple lace.

Chapter Thirty

The next day, a wave of unrest rolled through the village. Wine lovers had traveled from around the world to savor the very special atmosphere that only the grape harvest in Champagne had to offer. Suddenly, there were unfamiliar faces everywhere: casually dressed journalists there to report about the annual hustle and bustle, elegant wine experts, enraptured actors, and wealthy businesspeople. Everyone wanted to watch as the grapes were harvested, so later, with a glass of champagne in their hand, they would be able to say, “I was there when this was born!” In Le Grand Cerf and other restaurants and hotels, the finest dishes of the region were served, and wine knowledge was passed around at the tables. Every bed in every guesthouse was booked solid, and the hoteliers rubbed their hands together at the idea of the profits.

The majority of newcomers, though, did not need hotel rooms and could not afford fine meals in the restaurants. They traveled on foot or in rickety horse-drawn caravans and built their camps on every available patch of meadow and every open backyard. These were the people who’d come to help with the harvest; they had traveled from various European lands, and some from poorer areas of France, to earn a few francs picking the Champagne grapes.

When Isabelle looked out her window one morning, she saw three of these caravans on the meadow at the back of her garden. An hour later, there were ten of them. The weathered, windowless carts and the horses that pulled them all looked as if they had seen better days. Isabelle was astonished to see a small group of women lighting a fire in the center of their camp, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. The wood for the fire came from a stack that Claude, whenever he had a little time, added to, with an eye on the approaching winter. Children and a pack of dogs ran around, shrieking and barking. And if Isabelle’s eyes weren’t deceiving her, a few of the children were helping themselves to her blackberries. What did they think they were doing?

She was on her way outside to stop them when she ran into Claude Bertrand.

“Don’t go trying to read them the riot act,” he warned. “Every year, more than ten thousand itinerant pickers come to the region, and they have to set up their camps somewhere. Without them, we would not manage to get the harvest in at all, so be glad that they have showed up! And one more piece of advice: if a few tomatoes or eggs disappear in the next few days, or perhaps even a chicken, turn a blind eye. If they go too far, then of course you have to step in, but as a rule they know they have to behave.”

“Then it would be for the best if I went and said hello?” said Isabelle meekly as she watched the women setting up clotheslines across the meadow.

Claude shook his head. “It isn’t necessary. All of these extended families have a leader, and usually one leader speaks for several clans.
He
will come to
you
and agree to the conditions for this year’s harvest with you or with Gustave. That’s the tradition, and it’s best to hold to it.”

“Conditions?” Isabelle asked with a frown. “He should know how many pickers I need and what they get paid for their work, shouldn’t he?”

“It’s not as simple as that, I’m afraid,” Claude replied with a laugh. “These people work hard, and in the evening they want a little more in their hands than a crust of dry bread. But you will find all of that out in the next few days.” He patted Isabelle on her arm and strolled away, whistling, his dog at his side as always.

Quite apart from the unrest that the influx of travelers brought with it, something else was in the air. Something invisible but so intense that Isabelle felt she could grasp it. Every morning, when she went out to inspect her vines—something she had started doing again after Clara and Josephine left—she saw the older and more experienced men out prowling through the vineyards, each with a retinue of younger followers. The plump bunches hanging from the shoots were so densely packed that it was impossible to push a finger between the grapes. The older men plucked off the outer grapes and crushed and rubbed them between their fingers, feeling the grapes and their juices. Some of them relied on their tongues, too, to judge the sugar content of the grapes. One might taste the grapes with eyes closed, while another might look up to the heavens as if God owed him an answer. Now? Tomorrow? The men were watched breathlessly by their entourages. And whenever Daniel appeared somewhere, the tension went up another notch. How would
he
assess the grapes? When would
he
begin to pick? Isabelle had come to understand that Henriette’s
chef de cave
was considered
the
master of his trade.

Like the other vintners, Isabelle found herself furtively observing the Trubert vines, waiting to see if Daniel was going to finally signal the long-awaited start of the harvest. Independently, though, she tried to feel her way into the nature of her vines for herself. The sunshine of the last few weeks had dried the soil and the vines now had to push their roots deeper and deeper to get even a little bit of water. With every passing day, she noticed, it became easier to pick the bunches from the shoots, and the deep color of the grapes grew darker, too, with the violet taking on a touch of black. And the balance between sweet and sour changed constantly, she realized, as she crushed the grapes on her tongue. Even the shoots looked different than they had just a few weeks earlier: now, they had developed an almost cork-like structure. But the question was, what did all these observations add up to?

“Not a thing, madame,” Gustave Grosse replied harshly when she encountered him out in the vineyards one morning. “All the hard work and headaches that go into figuring out the best time to start the harvest; it’s out of all proportion! Forget the weather—exactly one hundred days after the vines are in full bloom, the grapes are bright. It’s as simple as that. Just as a woman’s pregnancy is also fixed: it’s always nine months, come rain, hail, or sleet.” As he spoke, he stared in a less-than-seemly way at Isabelle’s body.

“If you’re so clever, then I really wonder what you were doing over in the Trubert vineyards. I just saw you coming from there,” said Isabelle with a nod toward Henriette’s hillside. She narrowed her eyes and looked again. Was she mistaken? Were Daniel and Henriette standing together, over there among the vines?

For a moment, Grosse’s self-confidence seemed to waver. “Well, I . . . I thought . . .”

Isabelle’s face contorted in mockery. “Oh, admit it. You listen to every word Daniel Lambert says, just like everyone else.”

Grosse snorted. “Daniel Lambert can go hang! Who knows how long this good weather will hold? I recommend we start harvesting the red grapes tomorrow.”

There were, in fact, two harvest periods; Isabelle knew that much from reading Jacques’s books. There was one for the red Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier grapes, and a somewhat later harvest for the white Chardonnay grapes.

“But isn’t it true that the grapes become even juicier and put on a lot of weight in the final stage of growth?” she said, stalling for time. Something inside her was balking at making a final decision.

“That’s true enough,” her cellar master replied. “For a few days at the end, their weight stays the same; after that they begin to shrivel and dry out. Do you want to risk that?”

“Of course not. But my feeling is that we should still wait a day or two. Has the leader of the pickers gotten in touch with you? According to Jacques’s paperwork, he always had about fifty pickers a year, so I think that ought to be sufficient again this year. Did you tell the man that?”

“All long finished,” Grosse said dismissively. “Those people know they could do far worse than work here. Jacques Feininger looked after the pickers well. He gave them decent food and wine, and at the end of the season, there was always a big feast with two pigs on a spit. If you do the same, you’ll have no problems with these people. Don’t worry; you’ve got me here!” he added, lifting his chin.

Isabelle, who could not decide if that was more a curse or a blessing, sighed. Then she took a deep breath and said resolutely, “Let’s give the grapes just a bit more time. Meanwhile, you can wash out the barrels again. In the two big barrels for the Chardonnay, I found some sticky residues around the top edge from old foam. You know as well as I do that cleanliness is paramount for making champagne.”

Gustave Grosse shrugged, unmoved, and said, “As you wish, madame.”

“In the final stage of maturity, the sugar content of the grapes increases one last time, and this has exceptionally positive effects on the flavor, as you know. My advice would be to leave the grapes on the vines for another two, maybe three, days,” Daniel said insistently. He was very close to wringing his hands and openly pleading. In the last few days, he had said the same thing to Henriette so many times that he could recite his litany in his sleep. “The weather will hold. You would not be taking a risk, I promise you.”

“You promise!” Henriette repeated disparagingly. “It isn’t enough that the others look up to you like the God of grapes; now you think you’re the Almighty yourself, don’t you? It’s high time somebody brought you back down to earth.” She took a step toward him, so that her face was only inches from his. He could smell her foul breath and see the furrows around her mouth. Her eyes flashed as she said, “Every day we wait costs us money I don’t want to spare. I have called for the workers to be here at ten on the dot, and they will start picking
at ten
!” Stiff-backed and with her head held high, she turned and walked away.

Daniel watched her for a moment. He should have been furious. He should have ranted and raved, because she had flicked away him and all his expertise as she would an annoying mosquito. But all he really felt was resignation—resignation paired with something else for which he could find no words. Had he become jaded from being through far too many scenes like this in recent years? Had Henriette lost the power to move him, deep down, because of that? If that was the case, it was time he looked around for a new job.

“My God, Monsieur Lambert, something’s got your hackles up! You look like you’ve been watching it rain for a week.” The voice, coming so unexpectedly from right beside him, made him jump.

Isabelle Feininger. He had seen her in the distance but had not heard her approach. She was wearing a green plaid dress, the color just a shade lighter than the green of her eyes. She had tied her red hair into a loose braid that hung down her back. She looked beautiful.

“I thought we were using first names?” he said with mock severity. It pleased him to see a touch of color come to Isabelle’s face.

“I’m sorry. I’m just not used to it.”

“Maybe that’s because we see each other so rarely? But to come back to what you said, what’s got my hackles up has a name: Henriette.” He smiled wryly. “Every year, it’s the same—Madame Trubert and I have different views when it comes to deciding the right time to start picking. But I can’t do anything. She’s the boss.”

“I’ve just been having the same discussion with my cellar master! Monsieur Grosse was far from amused when I told him we’re still going to wait another day or two,” said Isabelle, slapping one hand over her mouth in phony horror. “Don’t tell me I’m turning into Henriette Trubert, or I’ll throw myself off the nearest mountain!”

There was something conspiratorial about the way they laughed together, and Daniel felt his bad mood evaporating.

“I admit I feel far from certain about what I’m doing,” said Isabelle, becoming serious again. “But my instinct tells me I should give the grapes more time.” She shrugged.

“Then trust it!” said Daniel bitterly. “If I had my way, I’d wait, like you. Unfortunately, that’s not how things work here. Which is why I am about to go back to the Trubert estate, round up the workers, and pick grapes that are two days from reaching perfection.”

“Ah,” said Isabelle. That one small word contained more understanding and sympathy than if they had spent hours talking about their mutual antagonist.

Their eyes met, and they shared a momentary smile, then Isabelle turned and pointed to the nearest vines. “When I first came here, the vines were weeping. And now they are proudly bearing fruit.” Her voice had turned a little raw, almost reverent. “This might sound strange to you, but for me, this ripening process is little short of a miracle. If there’s a God anywhere, then He shows himself in this.”

Daniel nodded. Isabelle Feininger had changed so much! In spring, at their first encounter, she had been little more than pretty: arrogant, supercilious, and at the same time an empty shell. She had gone parading among the trellises as if she were at a fashion show. Today, though, in her simple linen dress, her hair braided, wearing no makeup, she looked like a beautiful, down-to-earth woman. Was it the loss that she had suffered that had sharpened the contours of her face? The passionate timbre of her voice when she talked about the vines, the strength and power that she radiated with her every movement—everything about her presence seemed to make the air vibrate. But at the same time, he sensed a vulnerability in her, a depth of feeling that moved him like nothing else had in his life. And as before, in Troyes, he felt that urgent need to take her in his arms and protect her.
Watch out, or you’ll fall head over heels in love with l’Allemande!
a quiet voice in his head warned. Or had he already?