The Champagne Queen (The Century Trilogy Book 2) (10 page)

“I can see you’re busy,” said Isabelle. “I don’t want to disturb you. I’m sure we can chat another time.”

“You’re not disturbing us, young lady. On the contrary,” said Micheline. “Perhaps you can even help us resolve a little dispute we’re having.” She glanced belligerently at Marie, then turned back to Isabelle. “If a woman is faced with an important undertaking—and I mean a
very
important undertaking—does she wear her hair in a stiff braid or pinned up neatly? Or does she just leave it loose?” She sounded very earnest.

“First, your undertaking is not
important
. It’s
impossible
,” said Marie, and Isabelle could tell from her tone that this was not the first time that she had argued her point. “And second, Madame Feininger, don’t you think that a woman of Micheline’s age should
never
wear her hair loose?”

“Well, I guess it would depend on what kind of important undertaking this is,” said Isabelle, trying hard to be diplomatic. “If it’s an important business matter, or something difficult to take care of, then I believe a tight braid that doesn’t get in the way would be in order.” She touched one hand to her own hair. “Unfortunately, I’m no expert in this area. My own braids always work loose far too fast.”

Marie looked triumphantly at her sister-in-law. “A tight braid! What did I tell you? Madame Feininger, please, sit down.”

“The young lady hasn’t finished speaking yet,” said Micheline petulantly. “So . . .” She nodded to Isabelle as if to prompt her.

Isabelle sighed inside. She thought she’d managed to extricate herself, but no.

“If a woman—of whatever age—were to have a rendezvous with a nice gentleman—of whatever age—then she would go to a great deal of trouble to pin her hair up as artfully as possible.” She indicated the hairpins. “I know a few very nice tricks, and I’d be happy to show you.”

“You’d help me pin my hair up nicely?” Micheline popped another piece of cheese into her mouth excitedly.

Isabelle, sensing the other Madame Guenin’s baleful look, smiled and nodded.

“But only on one condition! Or rather two. First of all, I’d like to open the bottle of champagne I brought along, because offering a drink is also part of our German custom. And second, after that, I’d like you, dear Marie, to show me how I can put together a decent braid.”

When Isabelle left the house an hour later, she still did not know what Micheline’s “important undertaking” was, but she did have the feeling that she had made her first friends there.

At the next house, there was an iron sign displaying a sewing machine and the name “Blanche Thevenin.” Isabelle knocked on the door, but no one answered. She shifted her weight impatiently from one foot to the other, then knocked again. She was about to leave when the door opened, and a pale middle-aged woman looked out. Her thin hair was pinned up into a bun, which drew attention to her pointy nose. She had a tape measure slung around her neck and at least a dozen pins were stuck into her jacket.

Isabelle introduced herself and repeated her speech about the German custom.

The woman looked at Isabelle from red-rimmed eyes. “
Merci
. But I’m afraid I don’t have time to chat. No one’s given me a winery yet, and I have to work for my living.” She held up the ends of the tape measure as if that would explain everything.

Taken aback, Isabelle put her platter of cheese and sausage away. “Could I maybe help you with something? I have time.”

The woman laughed bitterly. “I wish I could say the same! But there are never enough hours in my day. And right now . . .” She sighed. “Three weeks ago, I was commissioned to tailor an evening dress for
madame
. And it’s supposed to be
extraordinary
.” The ironic undertone she used to talk about her customer suggested that she didn’t like “madame” very much. “I’m not usually at a loss for ideas, but this time, I can’t come up with anything!”

Isabelle thought of the many hours she’d spent in different fashion studios at her father’s behest. After that,
this
ought to be a breeze! “Perhaps something might occur to me if I see what material you have. I’ve got a little experience when it comes to fashionable clothes.” She held up her champagne bottle temptingly. “What would you say to a glass of champagne first? That’s sure to inspire some ideas.”

“Champagne?” The seamstress raised her eyebrows. She looked Isabelle up and down, then shrugged. “If we really must.”

While Isabelle and Blanche Thevenin sipped their champagne, the seamstress told Isabelle that a big festival was to take place at the Trubert estate at the end of March. Madame Trubert and her husband wanted to celebrate the eightieth anniversary of their champagne cellars and invite all the important families in Champagne.

As they talked, Isabelle inspected the rolls of fabric on a large cutting table. Fine Brussels lace in a rose shade, with matching borders in claret red. Mulberry-colored velvet. Lining material in a medium brown—all of it very dignified and expensive but also very boring.

“What’s that?” Isabelle asked, pointing to a large basket beneath the window.

Blanche Thevenin waved dismissively. “Oh, just old scraps.”

Isabelle was already rummaging through the brightly colored leftover cloth. “I think I have an idea.” She took out a section of red fabric and laid it beside a bottle-green remnant, then joined a piece of gold-colored cloth along the edge.

“What do you think?” she asked triumphantly, once she had laid out several lengths of material in the same way.

“Lots of strips of colorful cloth to make a skirt?” Blanche sniffed. “That might be some kind of national costume in Germany, but it’s nothing for an elegant festival here in Champagne. It would be best if you left, madame. I really have more important things to do than waste my time with you.”

Feeling disappointed and angry, Isabelle left the house. Her inspiration might well have missed the mark, but did the dressmaker have to act so ungraciously? Blanche Thevenin would probably never be a friend of hers. Isabelle again thought about the familiarity and intimacy of her friendships. Back in Berlin, she had taken Clara and Josephine for granted, only recognizing how much her friends meant to her after they were hundreds of miles away.

She took a deep breath and knocked at the third door. The image of a wine barrel on the iron sign told her that it was the home of a cooper.

“So you’re from Germany? Berlin . . .” Carla Chapron, the cooper’s wife, sighed rapturously, as if she were picturing Berlin at its loveliest.

Isabelle sipped just as rapturously at the café mocha that the woman had immediately offered her. They were sitting in a sunny living room, and on the round table in front of them was a plate of confections finer than anything Isabelle had ever tasted.
Macarons parisien
, they were called; apparently, they were a favorite of the French king and one of her, Carla’s, specialties, the cooper’s wife explained.

“Isn’t it true that emperors and kings are always meeting in Berlin?” Carla asked, leaning inquisitively toward Isabelle.

Isabelle wiped a crumb from her lips. “That’s true. Once, my parents and I were even invited to a ball at the emperor’s palace.”

Carla listened intently as Isabelle put her heart and soul into one story after another.

In the past, the Berlin party round had often been a horror for her. Having to take care with every word, every gesture, and always having to look perfect, not giving her father anything to reproach her for . . . it had all been so exhausting. But now she positively raved about it, and an hour passed before she stood and said with regret, “I’d love to tell you more, but it will have to be another time. I really must go. I want to visit at least one more of our neighbors before my husband gets home.” She pointed out the window to a small and rather untidy looking house on the other side of the street.

“You want to visit
la maîtresse
? Then you should check first that Ghislaine doesn’t have a man in the house,” Carla said through pursed lips.

“A
maîtresse
? Somebody’s mistress? On our street? I don’t understand,” said Isabelle with a frown. Instead of leaving, she sat down again on the wine-red sofa. “Maybe there’s time for
you
to tell
me
about some things.”

Chapter Ten

The sun was already beneath the rolling hills of Montagne de Reims when Leon got home. Isabelle, hair flying, ran out to meet him and flung her arms around his neck.

“How many crates of champagne did you sell? Do we have a little money again?”

With a laugh, Leon extricated himself from her embrace and propped his bicycle beneath the eaves. His stomach growled as he headed for the kitchen, hand in hand with Isabelle.

“Couldn’t have gone better.”

Isabelle grinned. “I knew you’d be a good salesman! I’m sure they must have been fighting each other for the champagne. Tell me!”

“Later, sweetheart. I’d much rather hear about all the good food we’ve got for dinner.”

“Dinner?” Isabelle squeaked. “Honestly, I didn’t manage to get anything cooked at all. But you’d be amazed at all the things I learned today—we’ve got an actual
maîtresse
living in our own street!”

Leon kissed her on the tip of her nose. “You can tell me all your gossip another time. Let’s go out for dinner. Le Grand Cerf. Claude told me yesterday that they do good, plain food in there.” He was already pulling on his jacket. “According to him, the whole village meets there in the evenings. We can get to know a few people.”

Isabelle hesitated as he held her coat for her. “I thought we had to save. Can we afford it?”

He waved off her misgivings. “Surely I can take my wife to dinner to celebrate our first sales. Really, darling, you do ask some questions!”

Leon had been inside many village taverns. Most of them were dingy, joyless places where a few permanent sots drank away the hours and where the air was sour with the smell of spilled beer and tobacco smoke. Most of the time, he’d only stopped in briefly to take a break from cycling and eat a cheap meal, if there was even something edible being served. So he was all the more amazed when he pulled open the door of the village inn of Hautvillers and stepped into a welcoming atmosphere. Instead of long tables and benches, there were small round cloth-covered tables with green-lacquered chairs around them. The walls were decorated with pastel artwork; the bar was white, with brass-colored taps for the beer.

At the bar, there was a group of elegantly dressed men, all drinking champagne and in high spirits and enveloped in a cloud of aftershave and cigar smoke. Among them was a tall gentleman with impressive muttonchop sideburns, who—with an equally impressive gesture—seemed to be in the middle of proposing a toast.

Leon said a general greeting to the group, which one or two of the men answered with a nod. From their appearance, he thought they had to be champagne barons. Should he join them or sit with Isabelle at one of the small tables? He had not yet made his decision when the man with the muttonchops spoke to him.

“Are you Monsieur Feininger, by any chance?”

Leon nodded, happy to see that, even here, they would recognize him as a cyclist!

The man said something to the others in the group, who laughed quietly in response.

“Why not come and have a drink with us?” said one of the men, handing Leon a champagne glass.

Leon turned to Isabelle. “Darling, Claude Bertrand is just back there. You can sit with him, and I’ll come join you in a minute.”

Isabelle, somewhat put out, walked off in Claude’s direction.

“I’m Simon Souret,” said the man with the muttonchops as he shook Leon’s hand vigorously. “Sales agent for Champagne Trubert. This is my fellow agent at Trubert, Stephane Manot. Then we have Silvain Grenoble from Pommery & Greno, and beside him our man at Piper-Heidsieck.”

Leon happily shook hands with one agent after another. Champagne barons! He couldn’t have been more wrong! These were the famed sales representatives he’d heard so much about in the last two days—experienced, globetrotting men with a talent for selling and an even greater knowledge of champagne.
And at least as big a thirst for the stuff
, he thought with a grin, while the hostess opened another bottle for the group.

“So how’s business on the Feininger estate?” Simon Souret asked, clinking his glass with Leon’s.

“Very good for the start,” Leon replied. “I’m hard at work finding new customers.” He was suddenly unsure what he should say. While he was flattered that these men had accepted him into their ranks so quickly, they were the competition.

“New customers. That’s wonderful! We have enough on our plates with the old ones, right, gentlemen?” the Trubert agent said, and he laughed so hard that his whiskers shook. “I’m just back from a trip to America. And a very successful trip, if I say so myself. Which is also the reason for our little . . . celebration.” The men laughed.

“America?” Leon was suddenly all ears; he might be able to learn something from the man. “Where did your travels take you, exactly?” His question was met with loud guffaws from the others.

Simon Souret grinned broadly—first at his colleagues and then at Leon. “All over the place. In Springfield, Missouri, in Knoxville, Dayton, Cincinnati . . .”

“I don’t believe it!” Leon’s mind was racing. “We’ve got customers ourselves in just those cities,” he said, which touched off a new round of laughter.
What was so funny about that?
he wondered.

“You
have
customers there? Or was it perhaps your deceased uncle, Jacques Feininger, peddling that sweet swill of his?” The salesman was still smiling, but his voice now had an edge to it. The men around them, one or two of whom had been throwing in the odd remark earlier, fell silent.

“What are you trying to say?” Leon asked quietly, glaring now at Simon Souret.

“I’m not
trying
to say anything. Wherever I went in the backlands of America, everyone assumed that the Feininger estate didn’t exist anymore.” He shrugged in mock sympathy.

The Pommery agent took up the thread immediately and said, “And because you were so full of compassion for the poor abandoned customers, you offered them your Trubert champagne in consolation, right?” Then he turned to the others. “The son of a bitch beat us to it again!”

“You . . . you stole Jacques’s customers?” Leon was suddenly so upset that he had difficulty getting the words out. The hostess and a few other guests turned to him.

The man beside Leon clapped him comfortingly on the shoulder. “Don’t take it so hard. Next time, you’ll be the one luring away a maker’s clients.”

“That’s how the game is played these days,” the Pommery salesman added. “On the plus side, you’ve saved yourself a trip to America.”

Again, the men laughed raucously.

“Let’s drink to that. The next round’s on me, again!” Simon Souret said pompously.

Leon’s glass rang as he set it down hard on the bar. “I’ve lost my thirst!”

Isabelle was already at Claude’s table before she realized who was sitting beside him. Micheline Guenin winked at her conspiratorially. But Isabelle’s smile froze when, at the next table, she saw Daniel Lambert. That man, with his loose tongue . . . that was all she needed! Luckily, he had not noticed her. He was deeply involved in a tasting session; there were several glasses and bottles in front of him. The way he swirled his glass, sniffed its contents, and examined the rosé-colored liquid was strangely intimate, and Isabelle looked away quickly. She went to one of the few free tables in front of the floor-to-ceiling transom windows.

She wondered how long Leon planned to stand around with the men at the bar, when loud laughter from the group rang out. The last thing she wanted was to sit around alone, and she was eager to find out how much money he had taken in from champagne sales that day and what he was planning next. The fact that he was taking her out for dinner, at least, was a good sign.

A rushed waitress came to her table, and Isabelle ordered a glass of water. Isabelle took a closer look around the restaurant. Almost all the tables were occupied, the visitors deep in animated conversations. Beer, wine, and champagne flowed freely, and the hostess behind the bar had her hands full keeping up with the orders. Isabelle immediately recognized her: it was the young woman with her hair casually tied up, the one Isabelle had seen in front of Le Grand Cerf the first time they went through Hautvillers.

So that was
la maîtresse
.
Close up, she’s even more attractive
, Isabelle thought. Not so much as a blemish marred her skin, and the same was true for her figure: she had a slender waist and was as petite as a ballerina. Her legs, which showed beneath the flowing fabric of her skirt whenever she moved, were as long as a racehorse’s. As beautiful and bursting with vitality as the woman was, she could have stood up to anyone on a Berlin stage, and nothing about
la maîtresse
looked in any way disreputable or degenerate.
Then again, she doesn’t seem particularly friendly
, thought Isabelle, as she watched the woman hand Leon a glass of water.

“The morals don’t show on the outside, do they?” Isabelle jumped as someone suddenly whispered in her ear.

It was Carla Chapron, the cooper’s wife.

“Can you read minds?” Isabelle whispered back with a smile.

“Ignaz, may I introduce our new neighbor? This is the woman who drank sparkling wine with the emperor of Germany,” said Carla to her husband with pride in her voice. “May we join you?”

Isabelle nodded quickly, relieved that she didn’t have to sit alone any longer.

“See the man standing at the bar? Over on the left, away from the others?” Carla pointed covertly to a man in his early sixties. He was not as elegantly dressed as the group with whom Leon was standing; his pants and jacket looked more utilitarian, like the clothes Claude wore. His bushy moustache was a mottled gray-black; he had a double chin, a red nose and jowls, and his belly was so big that it touched the side of the bar. Just then, he seemed thoroughly amused at some joke that
la maîtresse
had just made, and his whole body quaked with laughter.

“
That
is Alphonse Trubert,” the cooper’s wife murmured meaningfully. “Ghislaine’s lover. Or rather,
one
of her lovers.”

Isabelle stared at the rather unattractive man in disbelief. He had to be twenty-five years older than his mistress. “What does Madame Trubert have to say about the way her husband dallies with his lover like this, in public?” she asked.

Carla Chapron was about to answer when Leon came to the table.

“My turn for an introduction,” said Isabelle. “My husband, Leon Feininger. These are our neighbors, Ignaz and Carla Chapron.” When Leon had greeted both, Isabelle asked archly, “Did you have a nice chat with the men at the bar?”

“Depends,” Leon growled. “But you didn’t miss anything.”

The next moment, instead of the waitress who had come to the table earlier,
la maîtresse
herself slammed a carafe of water and a few glasses on the table. “Do you want something to eat, too?” Rarely had a question sounded so hostile.

Isabelle gave Leon a puzzled look, but when he did not react, she said, “Yes, we would.”

A smile played across the lips of
la maîtresse
then. “But of course, madame. I recommend the baked
andouillette
.”

Isabelle raised her eyebrows. It was not something she knew.

“A specialty of Champagne, but really quite distinctive,” said Carla in a tone that Isabelle could not place.

“Baked sausage? We love that in Germany. Two, please,” said Leon, without asking Isabelle. Ignaz Chapron ordered the same.

The sausage looked like a pale German bratwurst. It had been crisply baked and was smothered in browned onion rings. Two slices of bread lay on the edge of the plate—Isabelle found the sight so inviting that her stomach let out a low growl.

She had just sliced off the first piece of sausage when she noticed a smell. Something vaguely fermented. It smelled like . . . horse urine. She looked around, perplexed. Where was it coming from? And why didn’t someone close the window? A reek like that during dinner was anything but appetizing. But no one else seemed to have noticed it, and Leon and the cooper were digging into their food enthusiastically. Isabelle pulled herself together and put the first piece of sausage into her mouth.

The feeling that she was about to retch was almost overwhelming. It was only with the greatest effort that she managed to choke down the sausage, and then she had to hold her hand over her mouth to smother her coughing and gagging. What . . . was . . . this?

Ignoring the inquiring looks of the others at the table, Isabelle began to examine the sausage more closely. Sticky, gelatinous chunks in different shades of white and pink had been pressed together into a kind of aspic—the sausage was absolutely nothing like a German bratwurst. Isabelle turned to Carla and asked her hesitantly, “So what is this . . .
andouillette
made of?”

“Oh, you need countless ingredients to make it, and every butcher has his own recipe.” Carla’s eyes lit up, and she was obviously enjoying the opportunity to describe the special sausage. “One will use the stomachs of calves, cows, and ducks, but our butcher here in Hautvillers swears by adding lamb’s stomach to the mix. Then you add the intestines of the same animals and their kidneys, spleens, and udders. Everything is cut up very fine, which helps bring out the distinctive flavor. And so as not to damage that, practically no spices are used at all. And it’s a real treat cold.” Carla Chapron sounded so proud that one might have thought that she’d come up with the recipe herself. “Do you like it?”