The Champagne Queen (The Century Trilogy Book 2) Page 6

  After a few minutes, they came to a marketplace, around which Isabelle noted the town hall, a bakery, and a small restaurant called Le Grand Cerf—“The Great Stag.” A very pretty young woman with her hair loosely tied up was energetically sweeping out the entrance to the restaurant, and as the coach drove past, she looked up. Her eyes shone like dark-brown sealing wax, but she returned neither Isabelle’s smile nor her greeting. If that’s how you want to be, thought Isabelle.

  “Look there!” Leon cried, and he pointed to a sign attached to the garden fence of a house on a corner. It pointed the way to the Moët champagne estate, but Isabelle did not see a similar sign pointing to their estate anywhere. The horses had almost reached the top of the hill—and therefore the end of the village—when Isabelle spied, beyond the houses on her right, a magnificent estate built atop a small rise. It lay some distance outside the village, a tree-lined lane leading toward it. Finally! Isabelle squeezed Leon’s hand excitedly.

  The coach turned to the right, into one of the last streets of the village. The houses and gardens were larger there, and everything seemed more open and less crowded than in the village below. It is lovely here, thought Isabelle, as the coach pulled up in front of the last building on the right. It was not possible to drive any farther, however, because the street ended just a few yards ahead in a cobblestoned cul-de-sac, beyond which were gardens and fields. Isabelle frowned. There was no way to drive to the estate on the hill from there.

  “I thought the driver knew the way! What now?” she said reproachfully to Leon. Instead of answering, he jumped down from the wagon.

  “We’re here, my dear!”

  Isabelle’s disappointment at finding that her new home was not the large estate in the distance did not last long. Jacques’s elongated two-story house was not grandly situated among the vineyards. It was on the very edge of the village, and there was no tree-lined lane leading to it. But there was a large forecourt with space for many horses and carriages, and the house itself was the largest on the entire street. “Champagne Feininger”—the name stood out on the plain but elegant sign mounted above the large double-winged wooden gate in the middle of the building. Champagne Feininger. Isabelle felt a warm tremor run through her at the sight, but she could not bask in her anticipation for long; too many other impressions were pouring over her.

  The dark-brown gate was so huge that their coach could have driven through it with ease. The roof, made of rust-red tiles, made a pleasing contrast to the white plaster and the dark-brown wood framing the window. And the windows! On the ground floor alone, Isabelle counted five windows on the left of the gate and as many on the right, while the upper floor was the same, everything perfectly symmetrical and exceptionally pleasing to the eye as a result. Every window reflected the late-afternoon sun.

  “Well? Did I promise too much?”

  “The house is beautiful,” said Isabelle. She thought she should pinch herself to make sure she was not dreaming. For once, Leon had not exaggerated. This was just what she’d imagined an elegant country house would look like!

  She pointed to the vines climbing the white walls. “When those flower, the house must look like a fairytale palace.”

  Leon scowled. “That needs to be cut back urgently. See how it’s already gotten up onto the roof? I have no desire to wait for the vines to get in under the tiles and damage the roof.”

  Isabelle glanced admiringly at her husband. Leon really seemed to know what he was talking about. But her thoughts were interrupted by the appearance of an elderly man coming around the corner of the house. Isabelle guessed he was sixty years old, and he wore work pants and a jacket that were not particularly clean. His face was marked by years of weather, and his eyes were friendly. He wore a cap, beneath which sprouted tufts of gray hair. A scruffy knee-high dog trotted beside him, carrying a stick in its mouth.

  He smiled and shook hands first with Isabelle and then Leon. “Claude Bertrand’s my name. Bonjour, Monsieur Feininger. Bonjour, madame. How lovely that you’ve made it!”

  Once the men had carried the luggage into the house, they immediately set off on an inspection tour. Isabelle stayed behind—what she wanted to do most of all was explore the house!

  With her heart beating hard, she stood in the dark entryway, from which, left and right, two halls led off. Opposite the large double gate that formed the main entrance to the house was another, almost as wide as the main entrance itself. Isabelle went over to the door and had to use both hands to turn the handle to open it. The room on the other side was dark and cold, and a sour smell rose to meet her. With a frown, she looked at the strange machine that took up almost the entire space inside: a kind of wooden vat fitted with various metal bars. No doubt the entire apparatus had something to do with the production of the champagne, she decided, and closed the door again.

  Behind the first door in the right-hand corridor was a pantry. Sacks of flour, salt, sugar, and other foodstuffs were stored on wooden shelves. Heads of cabbage shared a shelf with squash of different colors; there were jars of preserved fruit and marmalade and more jars containing bell peppers and other vegetables. From the ceiling, sides of ham and smoked sausages hung on various hooks. Isabelle raised her eyebrows and nodded—someone had certainly been looking ahead the previous autumn. On the floor, there were several baskets with onions and potatoes.

  In the next room on the right, sturdy work boots were lined up next to light summer shoes, all of them more or less caked in dirt. Several heavy coats hung from iron hooks alongside a few old gray-brown cardigans. The room had no windows and smelled like sheep’s wool and dubbin, soil and sweat. Isabelle crinkled her nose. A bad habit, that the farm workers would store their work clothes in there! Well, that would change from now on, she decided on the spot.

  Next came a laundry room with two huge washtubs and a stove for boiling water, and an adjoining room in which clotheslines stretched from one wall to the other. But there were no clothes, unwashed or fresh, to be seen. All that’s missing is the kitchen, thought Isabelle.

  And, indeed, hardly had she opened the next door when the smell of freshly baked bread wafted over her. Two long loaves of white bread stood invitingly on a heavy wooden table. The crusts were lightly browned and looked so delicious that Isabelle was tempted to break off a piece. On a stoneware plate beside the loaves lay a piece of ham, a small round cheese, and a bunch of yellow beets. Isabelle smiled. It looked as if somebody had prepared a meal for her.

  The kitchen was the largest room she had seen so far. The pantry and laundry had each had only one window, but here there were two. On either side of the windows hung floral drapes that lent gaiety to the room, but there were no curtains over the windows themselves, so the sunlight streamed through the windows. In the glow of the late-afternoon sun, the brown tiled floor looked to be made of copper. The centerpiece of the room was a large stove in which someone had already lit a fire. Feeling slightly chilled from their journey, Isabelle held her hands in front of the stove and enjoyed the heat it radiated.

  A pot of water bubbled away on the stove. Isabelle considered calling for one of the staff. After the long drive, a cup of coffee or tea would have been wonderful. But it could wait; she had something much more urgent to take care of. She had needed to use a toilet for some time but was too embarrassed to ask the coachman to stop.

  When she opened the final door on the right and discovered exactly what she wanted, she sighed with relief. Luckily for her, Leon’s uncle had been a rather progressive man, so she wouldn’t have to use an outhouse as she had in Grimmzeit. That had been terrible. Here, however, Isabelle was positively enchanted to find a small bathroom with a real bathtub in a room that adjoined the toilet.

  A little later, greatly relieved, she stood in the corridor again, ready to tackle the rest of the house. If the right side was the domestic domain, then the manorial rooms had to be on the left side. There, however, instead of reaching the individual rooms from a long corridor, one passed from
one room into the next. The advantage of that arrangement was that it allowed windows on both sides of the room.

  She was instantly delighted by what she found in the first room. It was a large living room with dark furniture and many lamps. There were two separate sitting areas in front of the windows; the armchairs were upholstered in velvet the shade of honey and looked comfortable, if a little worn. Large paintings of flowers decorated the walls, and trays of colorful wine glasses added even more color to the room.

  Isabelle sat in one of the armchairs, just to try it out. The view over the valley beyond the top of the hill was beautiful. There were grapevines planted over on that side, too, as far as the horizon, and they came so close to the house that Isabelle felt as if she could reach out through the open window and touch them. They must be Feininger vines, she thought, rejoicing in the feeling that, in every sense of the word, she had arrived. She imagined sitting here with Leon in the evening, the day’s work done, a glass of champagne in her hand.

  The next room was a library, with bookshelves running along all the walls. Among the books, Isabelle noticed immediately, were a large number of specialist volumes about viticulture and champagne manufacture. There were books about chemistry and other technical topics, but also a lot of novels, biographies, and ancient tomes clad in leather, with text on the covers that Isabelle could not decipher—she assumed that they were valuable antique treasures. Most of the books were in French but a number were in German. Isabelle could not help thinking of how much she had been starved for books in Grimmzeit. Her own library—she would certainly never get bored here.

  The third room was a study, in the center of which stood a very large escritoire. As in the previous room, a lovely tiled stove stood along one wall. With so many stoves, they would never have to be cold. As soon as Leon came in, she would ask him to light a fire; she wanted their first evening in their new home to be cozy.

  Every room radiated so much airiness and joy that Isabelle’s own heart grew lighter, too. Clearly the man who had lived there had enjoyed having beautiful things around him. Was this the French savoir vivre that so much had been written about? Enjoying life with all one’s senses—was that how Leon’s uncle Jacques had lived? With every room she entered, she had the feeling that she was discovering more facets of the man’s personality—such a pity that she had never met him herself.

  She hurried up the stairs to find the bedrooms. To the right were several smaller rooms, no doubt the accommodations of the domestic staff. To the left were three bedrooms that could be used either as guest rooms or for children. The last room at the end of the corridor was the biggest and grandest of all. It was furnished with white-lacquered furniture, which did not fit in very well with the rest of the house but was beautiful in itself and seemed very stylish. That evening, she would sink into Leon’s arms in there, and they would inaugurate the bedroom in their own way. Isabelle sighed with longing.

  Then a gold-framed picture hanging over the bed caught her eye. A portrait in oil. It was . . . Leon . . . body and soul! The artist had even captured the small furrows on each side of his mouth. And his brown hair—so much detail that Isabelle could only stand and wonder. But why would Leon’s uncle hang a painting of his nephew in his bedroom? The next moment, it was as if the scales fell from her eyes. The man in the picture was not Leon. It was Jacques himself! And the remarkable resemblance could only mean . . .

  Isabelle stared in bewilderment at the picture, then a smile spread across her face. Was this the reason that Anni’s eyes lit up whenever Jacques’s name was mentioned? Was this why Oskar Feininger always reacted with such hostility if someone so much as mentioned his brother? If Leon really was Jacques’s son and not Oskar’s, it would certainly explain the generous inheritance.

  Chapter Six

  “There’s no help in the house? What do you mean?” Isabelle laughed in confusion. “Who do all those heavy boots and clothes in the workroom belong to if not the farmhand and the maid?” Aghast, Isabelle looked across the table at her husband.

  Because no maid had appeared, she had carried the bread and other victuals into the living room herself. From one of the many silver trays, she had taken two colorful wine glasses and a carafe, which she filled with ice-cold water from the well. She had not yet ventured into the cellar, so there was neither wine nor champagne on the table.

  When he had come in, Leon had sat down at the table and, without a word of praise for her industriousness, immediately began to tell her all about what he had found out on his rounds with the overseer. Now he bit hungrily into his second chunk of bread—which she’d discovered Claude had left for them—and, with his mouth full, he said, “Claude’s wife, Louise, passed away last year. Jacques didn’t take on anyone else after she died. He got the laundry done somewhere else, but Jacques and Claude divided up the rest of the work between themselves. The system seemed to work, too; from what I’ve seen, the place is in great shape.”

  “You don’t seriously think I’m going to stand over a stove or sling a rag around like some maid! And who’s supposed to look after the animals you told me about? And there’s that huge vegetable garden!” Isabelle was almost shouting.

  There were two horses and a coach, and two wagons, Leon had reported enthusiastically. Add in a few chickens, a herd of sheep, and even two peacocks. It’s a farm, Isabelle thought with horror when she heard Leon’s description. Had she ended up in a French Grimmzeit after all?

  “Calm down, my dear!” Laughing, he took Isabelle’s hand in his and gave it a kiss. “You’re acting like you’ve just been threatened with ten years in a dungeon! We’ll find a solution for everything, I’m sure. Claude can look after the animals. If I understood him right, that was already one of the things he took care of. I’ll ensure that the work in the vineyards is done properly, and making the champagne is the cellar master’s job. His name is Gustave Grosse, by the way, and he’ll be here tomorrow around midday to show us how everything works. I can hardly wait! There’s nothing to do in the vegetable garden yet, so all you’ve got is the bit of work around the house. And I’m sure you’ll cope with that.”

  Isabelle looked speechlessly at her husband. The two champagne glasses that she had set at the end of the table caught her eye. She’d actually been thinking that on their first night in their new home, Leon would open a bottle of champagne for them. But here he was, telling her unpleasant stories instead.

  “Just think about how good you’ve got things now,” Leon went on in his most persuasive tone. “At my parents’ home, it always annoyed you that my mother had the final word. But here, you’re the mistress of the house. You make the rules!”

  “The rules . . . I will most definitely do that,” Isabelle replied vehemently. “First thing tomorrow, I’m going to ask around among our neighbors to see if they can recommend a young woman who can clean and do the washing for us. And I’ll be keeping a lookout for a good cook, too. I’m sure it won’t be too hard to find the people we need. If you think I’m going to waste my time with that kind of thing, think again! I’ll have enough to do just being the face of the estate and keeping the house organized.” Satisfied with her own resolution, she sliced off a sliver of ham and put it on her bread.

  “It isn’t that easy, Isabelle.”

  “Oh, really?” she said archly. “I see no difficulty at all.”

  “I don’t know how to say this . . . I mean, we’ve never talked about money. While my uncle left me this estate, he did not leave me any money with it.”

  Isabelle found the sight of him helplessly scratching his head, messing up his hair, so moving that she softened right away. There they were, sitting together on the first evening in Hautvillers, and they were fighting over nothing at all.

  “Don’t worry. I’m not planning to buy anything big. The house can stay as it is for now,” she said gently. “I’ll make sure that the staff is as frugal as can be. Of course, we will have to have some kind of here-we-are party for our neighbors, but w
e don’t have to break the bank with it. A small dinner, three courses, four at the most—”

  “Isabelle, my darling, there you go getting carried away again! You’ll just have to be patient for a little while with the invitations. And we simply don’t have any money to pay a maid or laundress. The little bit that my mother gave me we spent in Reims. And so far we haven’t had any support from your father, either. For now, things are tight.”

  Thunderstruck, Isabelle could only sit there while she tried to understand what he was saying. Her husband was penniless? He thought that money would come from her side?

  Until that moment, she had always assumed that Leon had a certain income at his disposal. After all, he was one of Europe’s best racing cyclists! And in the big races, the prize money was certainly considerable. Besides, what kind of man proposed to a young woman knowing full well that he would not be able to support her? It was unimaginable. For that reason, Isabelle had never thought about money, not once! And when they had lived in Grimmzeit, she hadn’t needed any, because she had simply lived in Leon’s parents’ household. Mentally, she quickly calculated how much she had left in her purse. After what she had bought in Reims, it wasn’t much.

  “Now don’t go looking so horrified,” said Leon. “It’s really just a temporary hole in the wallet. I’ll win another big race, and things will look different again.”

  “Cycle racing! I don’t want to hear about that anymore,” Isabelle replied harshly. “We are champagne makers now, in case you forgot. Somewhere down there”—she pointed in the direction of the cellar—“there must be many, many bottles of champagne. What we need to do is sell them off as quickly as possible. Then we won’t have to worry about money. I really cannot comprehend how you can even think about a race now. We should go straight into Jacques’s office and look for the addresses of his customers. Then you can visit them tomorrow and sell them as many cases of champagne as possible,” she said, feeling both impassioned and relieved at the same time. Everything was just a matter of a few days. With her mind made up, she stood and began to move toward the office to look for the papers.