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

as can be expected in these strange times. You twist my words, but too much has gone between us to ever feel the same about you again.’

‘Oh stop sounding like a boring ex-lover! I will take whatever your big heart can give me and be satisfied with that. Tell me all the news since we last met, darling. I’ve missed all that charming country chat about vines and bottles and harvests and tasting the terroir.’

Despite everything, Nicole couldn’t stop. As the victory parade slowly ascended the Champs-Élysées, she told Thérésa about her fears for her Cuvée de la Comète, her commitment to her workers, the sheer loneliness of being a woman running a business in Reims. They didn’t discuss in front of Mentine quite why Moët was such a rival, or her bitterness at losing Louis to another woman, but she knew Thérésa understood and that was enough. How beautiful and beguiling this woman was in her victory. As strangely alluring as a cliff-edge.

When they got to the Arc de Triomphe, Thérésa gave instruction for their safe passage to meet their transport at the Pont de Bercy.

‘I know you too well to ask you to stay in Paris for the victory party. You’ll want to buzz around your vineyards, fighting off the Russians when they come trampling over everything in their big boots looking for the veuve’s vin mousseux they adore so much. Off you go and look after my little Mentine. She’s like one of my own!’

‘I know. Mentine told me how you’ve taken better care of her than I have and I’m grateful for it. In that sense, you have been more of a friend than I believed.’

‘Oh stop. It was all for my own benefit. I missed you and she was the closest I could get. Now, fly away and do battle in Reims. Try not to be too serious, my little firefly, but do what makes you happy.’

And she was gone, back into the midst of the parade, the straight ranks of soldiers losing formation momentarily to make way for her carriage, a beautiful kink in the natural order of things.

Chapter 25

Loot

March 1814

The war had already reached as far as Champagne. As the cold, uncomfortable cart bounced over rutted roads, Mentine and Nicole clung to each other. A few miles outside of Reims, plumes of smoke rose amongst the trees and the army camps were visible from the road. It had been a squash at first with all the other passengers escaping the chaos of Paris, but now they were all gone and Nicole missed the comfort of the diverse crowd: a soldier returning home from Russia, two richly dressed silver merchants sitting on whatever they could stuff into a bag, and a pair of elderly sisters going to stay with family in the country. They’d all been dropped off one by one and now it was just the two of them and the driver.

‘Look forward and don’t catch anyone’s eye if they pass us on the road. We don’t know who’s on which side any more,’ Nicole whispered to Mentine.

The driver lashed the horses to speed up. She would use her own bare hands to kill anyone who even so much as looked at her daughter.

A small marching battalion of Prussians and Cossacks stopped to let them pass. Her heart stalled, but they saluted reluctantly under their sergeant’s orders. Sullen, desperate, boots cracked and broken, uniforms tattered, cheekbones protruding hungrily through scabbed faces, some with grimy bandages encrusted in blood. She wouldn’t like to meet them away from the command of their officer, and she feared for all her friends in Reims. Natasha’s bakery would be irresistible, the everyday prosperity and bustle of her town extreme temptation to these hungry and war-weary men – and everything there for the taking with so many men still away and displaced, despite yesterday’s surrender.

The lights at her parents’ home, the grand Hôtel Ponsardin, blazed through the windows as if the allied troops weren’t patrolling the streets outside at all. What was it about your childhood home, even when you were grown up, that always seemed safe?

Mentine was engulfed in her grandfather’s arms and ushered into the warmth. Her mother fussed over the dark circles under Nicole’s eyes.

‘Take your coat off and relax for once, you look as if you’re going somewhere,’ said her mother.

‘I am. I have to get to the cellars straight away to check them, Maman. Will you watch Mentine for me?’

‘I don’t need watching.’ Mentine scowled. ‘You promised you wouldn’t leave me!’

‘It’s just for an hour or so. I’ll come and say good night, I promise.’

‘No, you won’t, you’ll be there for hours. There’s always something going wrong and I’ve only just got home!’

Mentine clung to her, but she had to check on her stocks. Her father told her the Russian occupation was peaceful so far, but she knew there had been looting and everyone was on their guard. She prised Mentine’s fingers off her guiltily. She’d been away too long.

When she got to her cellars at the Place des Droits de l’Homme, Xavier was standing guard outside, holding a hammer, a rake propped up against the wall next to him. Two skinny lads from the orphanage accompanied him, clutching a mattock and a spade.

The door to her cellars had been bricked up as instructed, but a big hole was smashed through.

‘Xavier, I’m back! What happened?’

‘About bloody time. While you’ve been poncing around in Paris with fops and low-lifes and God knows who, we’ve been fighting off thieves with n’importe quoi. I’ll smash their heads in with a shovel if I have to.’

‘I’m grateful, Xavier. But you shouldn’t, it’s dangerous. A spade’s not much use against a musket.’

A half-scrubbed-off message was daubed in red paint by the cellar door. She squinted to make it out.

‘Wine… hel…’

‘Don’t worry about it,’ said Xavier.

‘What did it say?’

He shrugged. The lads looked sheepish.

She gave them a coin each. ‘You’re relieved. Go and get something to eat. God