The French House by Helen Fripp (english readers TXT) 📗

his nose, to a mouse who danced to François’ violin at a customer’s mansion in Schleswig-Holstein.

Josette fluttered in and out every now and then with fresh baked bread, Louis’ favourite Neuchatel cheese and summer strawberries, which they shared as they talked.

Every morning when she woke, he was there watching her, hastily picking up Don Quixote as she opened her eyes.

By Friday she felt stronger and the doctor took the dressing off her forehead under Louis’ watchful eye. Out of the window, Xavier was setting off to the vineyards. The sun was already up over the horizon, late to be going out into the fields, and the cellar door was wide open.

‘Where are all the workers, what’s happening out there? Who’s overseeing it all?’

‘I was there at sunrise, with Xavier. The sun and rain and soil are all doing their job without you. It’s the best I’ve ever seen it. Perfect.’

‘Why is no one here? The remaining bottles need riddling, I can’t afford to lose even one more. I’m going back to work today, so you might as well tell me everything.’

Louis put down his book and sighed.

‘There is nothing to salvage, Nicole, and it’s impossible to even enter the cellar. One of the girls got halfway down the steps and fainted. Luckily, she wasn’t hurt, but I’ve banned all cellar work. It’s just too dangerous.’

‘How long?’

‘Impossible to say. Weeks, Babouchette. Maybe months.’

Josette came in with fresh croissants and coffee and a bowl of glossy blackberries.

‘First of the year, Madame,’ she said as she arranged the tray, plumping up her pillows.

Nicole breathed in the blackberries and her head whirled with jumbled memories. Stained fingers, musty sweet stuff, her sister’s white dress smudged with purple fingerprints. The bloom of blood on a white sheet, the reproach of a sour berry.

‘Babouchette?’

Louis’ stare was sharp, so blue.

Josette fiddled with the fire. Her dress was torn. When was the last time she had paid her wages? Nicole couldn’t remember.

‘Josette, bring me my dress and my field overcoat, please. Don’t look at Louis for orders, I’m much better, so just do as I say. I promise to go slowly, but I’m back to work today with immediate effect.’

‘I was quite getting used to having you there, to myself, incapable of giving out orders,’ said Louis.

Josette helped her dress and insisted on supporting her as far as the front door. Outside in the courtyard, she was vexed at how unsteady she was on her feet on the uneven cobbles, but when she arrived at the vineyard, the leaf she brushed was sun-warmed, the grapes sticky and pungent. Another week at the most and they would be ready. She could start anew. All the indications were that this crop was a once-in-a-lifetime best. Even better, the comet was back, fizzing above the horizon, watching over her and her vines. But she realised the yard was empty of people. The vineyards too.

‘Emile!’ She called her stable boy. He’d tell her what was happening, even if Louis wouldn’t.

‘He’s at home, recovering, Babouchette. I didn’t tell you until you were strong enough, but he was blinded. Glass in his eyes.’

She crossed herself. ‘Jesus have mercy.’

Emile Jumel, the horse boy who ran errands to Paris and back for her. Rosy cheeks, a bum-fluff moustache, Marie’s pride and joy. She tried to remember the colour of his eyes and couldn’t.

‘I’ll visit them later. Would you send Xavier to withdraw five hundred francs from my personal account today?’

‘Are you sure? It’s a tragedy, but the losses you’ve already made…’

‘Please, just do it.’

‘Yes, Madame. I see you have made a complete recovery.’

Nicole smiled, but the despair nearly choked her. There would be nothing left.

‘Enough soft-soap, Louis. I need to know everything, starting with why the press and fields are deserted at such a crucial time?’

‘This may be 1811, and we’ve been through a revolution, but superstitions haven’t changed. They say you’re bad luck.’

‘You mean Moët’s poster campaign in the square?’ she asked, sick to her stomach.

Louis nodded. ‘I wish to God it was better news. That bastard was never going to go quietly.’

‘I’ll pay the workers more.’ But she ran the figures in front of her eyes and she knew it was hopeless. She hadn’t lost her ability to visualise her account books, at least. The red column expanded and hurt her head. The debts were mounting. It would be impossible to pay more and, anyway, there was plenty of work elsewhere in a harvest like this. Why would they work for a woman with a bad name and a string of disasters behind her? Moët had won. For now. ‘At least I have you back,’ she said.

‘Absolutely.’ He knelt and inspected the rose bush at the end of the row for infestations, unable to meet her eye. ‘I’m out of savings and I need to earn a living again, with a baby on the way.’

He looked at her sheepishly. Nicole’s mind was racing in confusion. Had she missed something when she was drifting in and out of consciousness?

‘A baby?’

‘You remember I told you about the family in the Russian hostel where Thérésa deposited me? The daughter was kind and she kept my bed warm at night. I was foolish, but I couldn’t leave her like that. We married in the wooden church in the village. Her parents wept and I promised I’d cherish her. I’m all she has now. I’m collecting her from the inn at Rethel tonight to bring her home. She’s learning French, trying her hardest.’

‘You’ve hidden it from me all this time?’

‘I hid it through selfishness, Babouchette. Forgive me.’

It was her turn to check the rose to hide her disappointment. She had got her Louis back, only to have him snatched away again. They had never said anything to each other, but the look in his eyes at her bedside, the little attentions to everything he knew she loved. She’d got used to having him to herself and it was only now that she knew she was losing something she didn’t