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

bull every day. Antoine returned immediately to the task in hand of bottle-turning as soon as he was satisfied she wasn’t a spy. Louis smiled a warm, concerned welcome. Emile felt his way around the table and along the walls to Nicole. He took her hands.

‘What is wrong?’

She patted his young face. ‘How did you know it was me?’

‘From the moment you put the key in the lock, Madame, the way it turned, the sound of your footsteps.’

‘There is nothing wrong, Emile, thank you for asking,’ said Nicole.

‘You are angry,’ he said.

‘Not at you. Now, how are things going?’

Emile went back to the table and picked up a bottle.

Antoine spoke quietly, without looking up from his task. ‘The sediment that took us months to move to the neck and expel now takes weeks, and with no loss of liquid! Now that the 1811 year of the comet vintage have been through the full process of fermentation and riddling, we have a once-in-a-lifetime batch, ready to go. It’s a remarkable invention, Nicole.’

‘Shame there’s no demand for the extra thousands of bottles,’ said Nicole darkly.

‘It gets one over on Moët and that’s good enough for me and my men,’ said Xavier. ‘Wait ’til I tell the lads down at Etienne’s bar. Moët’s men will have to eat what they said about you. They’ll have faces like smacked arses…’

‘Do you not remember signing the document swearing you to secrecy before you entered this room? No one is to take this invention outside of here. Do you understand?’ She looked each one in the eye, held it until they looked away, cowed. ‘Perhaps the document means nothing to you, so I’ll do it the old way. Each one of you is to swear. Swear to me that my secret is safe. You know what is at stake. A handshake will suffice.’

Antoine came forward first, carefully replacing the bottle in the riddling rack and shaking her hand. ‘I swear,’ he said simply.

Next, Louis. ‘I solemnly swear on my mother’s grave,’ he said, bowing for extra effect.

Xavier approached, awkwardly pulling his cap down over his forehead. He couldn’t look her in the eye. ‘I swear, Madame Clicquot.’ His massive hand gripped hers.

‘Stay there,’ said Nicole to Emile. ‘I’ll come to you.’

Emile held a champagne bottle to his ear. ‘I swear,’ he said, keeping the bottle at a diagonal angle. ‘This one is ready.’

‘How can you tell?’ asked Nicole.

‘I can hear it, feel the tension on the cap.’ He ran his thumb over the top. ‘Ripe as a plum. Ready to go.’

Etienne pulled his hooked knife out of his pocket, released the sediment onto the floor, then replaced the cap.

Nicole took the bottle and held it up to the lamp. Clear as a bell, the fine fizz still intact.

‘Well done, lad,’ said Antoine. ‘It took me more than ten years to know when it was just right.’

Down here, as always, everything was just right. She didn’t want to leave, but she knew what she had to do.

‘There’s only the four of you, so keep at it. From now on, all champagne is laid down in here on my tables and no one else is to know how it works, so it’s down to you.’

The light blinded her when she opened the door from the crayere, the chalk cellar, to the street. Mellow sunshine. Perfect harvest weather.

Perhaps Josette could use one of Natasha’s brown miches. She decided to go back to the square and the boulangerie. The walk and seeing her friend again might calm her.

The sound of marching drums assailed her ears before she reached it. There, in front of the cathedral, was Thérésa on a soapbox, still in her gauzy empire-line dress, looking radiant, with a crowd of young boys drinking in every word. She was a goddess, snake bangles on both arms. Moët stood next to her, proud. A platoon of soldiers stood in rank to one side and Thérésa addressed the crowd.

‘There is no finer thing you can do for your country! You are resourceful in the fields, brave in battle, handsome in uniform. The cream of the countryside ready to fight for your great leader. You will return as heroes.’

The marching band struck up. The collection of farmhands, labourers, boys from the church choir, shopkeepers, husbands and sons followed them. Thérésa dabbed the corners of her black eyes with a handkerchief and waved. She was encouraging these men to certain death, cannon fodder for Napoléon’s increasingly hopeless ambitions, to cover up her dalliance with the Tsar himself.

At the head of them was Xavier’s son, Alain. He would be about the same age as Mentine, only just fourteen. Did his parents know? She searched the crowd of silent women, tight-lipped, watching their men file off. Amongst them Alain’s mother, Xavier’s wife. At that moment, it all made sense. A man like Xavier was easily flattered. He spent most nights at Etienne’s drinking. She had seen him flirting with the young field workers, enjoyed being the big man. A perfect target for Thérésa. And there he was in the heart of her cellars, learning everything there was to know about her riddling tables. Now he was sending his son off to war to impress this glamorous goddess. She had found her mole.

Chapter 22

Malevolent Madonna

October 1813

It was a red sun at midday and a muddy grey haze plunged the countryside into eerie dusk. Nicole tasted the air and checked the clouds. It wasn’t a storm, rather a dry mist. The sun reflected orange on the river, like a daytime sunset, and the air was thick with heat.

The world was on alert. The French were retreating. Change again. Young French lads were lying frozen solid on Russian soil, picked off by peasants with pitchforks and bludgeoned to death, and for what?

She hurried to the cellar to prepare, smoothing down her dress, the best one she had, far too big for her after all these years of hard work. Work that she was determined would not