The French House, Helen Fripp [e textbook reader .txt] 📗

‘Sometimes something bigger and more powerful like the river sweeps the despair away.’

How could she not have known this about the man she had married?

‘I’m not strong enough for three. I need you here, with me,’ she said.

‘You have the whole of me, the dark and the light. You think I’m weak, I can see it in your eyes, but I can fight this. You just need to let me be alone sometimes. I promise I’ll never leave again without telling you.’

‘Give me some time to think, I need to try to understand. I will try, I promise.’

He put his hand on her stomach. ‘How’s our baby?’

‘Missing his papa,’ said Nicole. But she couldn’t forgive him. It was her turn to leave.

Natasha narrowed her eyes.

‘There is more than one thing,’ she guessed. She was making dough, ready for the next day. She slapped it on the block and flour flew up in a cloud, waiting for Nicole to answer, kneading rhythmically.

‘I’m pregnant,’ she blurted and promptly burst into tears.

‘Milaya, don’t cry, it’s a happy thing, no?’

Natasha gave her a floury hug, handed her a big napkin and held her tight until the tears subsided. She sat her down gently. There was flour everywhere – on her face, her dress, on Natasha’s apron and hands. They both looked at each other and laughed.

‘That’s better,’ said Natasha. ‘Now, tell me everything.’

Natasha listened without interrupting. It was such a relief to tell her.

Natasha thought for a while. ‘The Tsar’s second cousin suffered in the same way. We heard about it in the palace kitchens when I was the pastry cook there. He was the most charming man I have ever met, apart from François.’

‘Not so charming now.’

‘Yes, charming. Yes, the right man for you. No one is perfect, my young friend, including you.’

How could she be on François’ side?

‘You want me to rail and shout and roll my eyes with you at how men are? Well I won’t,’ said Natasha. ‘Look at yourself. You have a child inside you, something I was never blessed with, and God knows I have lain awake at night filled with regret and longing. Your husband is the most charming, intelligent man in Reims and he is yours. There is a saying in Russia. With the brighter light comes the darker shadow. I’ve seen the way he looks at you. No one else could make you so happy. When he’s fragile, cherish him. Enjoy each other when he’s well. Things can never stay the same. You knew in your heart how he was, and you married him anyway.’

Yes, she had seen it and buried it inside her. The fizzing, heightened gaiety, the days of deep despair she had mistaken for worry about the wine. She forged a straight path. Sharp-eyed, efficient, fair, astute, like her father. She got things done. François dreamed.

‘How do you see so clearly, Natasha?’

‘I’ve lived longer than you, that’s all.’

‘I’ve been meaning to ask you something since my wedding day.’

‘Yes?’

‘How did you know to decorate our wedding cake with crimson grapes? Did you know that François and I found a bunch the first day we met?’

A shadow flew across Natasha’s face. ‘You found bright red grapes? What was the first thing you thought of?’

‘Blood. Fresh blood. The colour when you cut your knee and it’s really red.’

‘A strange coincidence, that’s all, I suppose. I thought of them in a dream, with the red to symbolise love and of course to represent both of your love of the vines.’ She opened the door for Nicole to leave. ‘It’s late. I need to finish my bread, milaya. Go back to him and be happy.’

When Nicole went into the night, back to their house in town, relieved, happy and scared all at once, she could see Natasha silhouetted, spinning her salt bag in furious figures of eight.

At their grand Reims house, the hall was filled with irises. Extravagant, fluffy, purple-scented bunches stood on the hall tables and in the vases next to the sweeping stairs, covered the marble mantelpiece, reflected a million times in the mirror-lined drawing room, lined up in jugs on the long dining room table.

‘I got more than you could destroy,’ said François. ‘Where have you been? I was worried about you both.’

The both was the best part. She threw her arms around him. It was impossible to stay angry with him now he was back home, standing in front of her. She adored the way his dark eyebrows arched upwards in the middle when he smiled, opening up his angular, intelligent face into such an expression of delight at seeing her. He held her tight.

A man came marching into the hallway. He fished one of the irises out of a vase and put it in his buttonhole.

‘Widow Joubert can surely take the rest of the year off, my friend. You must have bought the entire greenhouse.’

François shook his hand, beaming at Nicole. ‘Let me introduce my oldest friend, Louis Bohne.’

A shock of russet hair, a ridiculously large wolfskin coat and a smile as warm as brandy. He bowed and kissed her hand. ‘At last, François has done something sensible.’

‘He’s just back from Russia. You don’t mind if he stays a few nights?’ asked François.

‘I have tales from ballrooms lined with amber, descriptions of fashions beyond your wildest dreams and dark deeds from bearded Cossacks to pay you with.’

‘Just the dark deeds will do,’ said Nicole, disappointed not to have François to herself, but charmed by this new friend.

Louis was the Clicquots’ star travelling salesman and no sale, no village or town was too far. He would travel a hundred miles into the wilds of Norway for the prospect of selling a ten-year-old vintage for a week’s wages, or brave the furthest-flung Russian steppe to reach a rich landowner’s summer dacha to lay out a Clicquot champagne, blended by Monsieur Olivier himself at the most sophisticated, sun-kissed grand cru vineyards of Reims. Indeed, he was indispensable, and