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

is your dominion,’ he said as they reached the bottles to be loaded. ‘It’s a bit dark and claustrophobic down here for someone who loves her freedom so much, isn’t it?’

‘It’s where all the magic happens. Each bottle has its own life to lead.’

‘Each one special, with its own personality?’

‘Exactly! No two are ever the same, if you understand how to taste them.’

‘Do you mind?’ Alexei gestured to the cellars, stretching off into the darkness.

‘Please,’ said Nicole.

Alexei strolled around, surveying the stacks of bottles, the bottles in the sand ready for riddling, the reds, the whites, the champagne. While he did so, her mind was racing on the task ahead, picturing in her head the order of the loading, which batches should go, which still needed time, the despatch notes and instructions to the drivers.

When she looked up, he was there, scrutinising her, as if trying to work something out about her.

‘Sorry, I was miles away. There’s so much to get done,’ she smiled.

‘Of course, you never stop, I can see that. There’s so much work in all this. I’ve never seen such an ordered cellar,’ said Alexei. ‘You put your heart and soul into it all. Do you know how much this town talks about you? You’ve defied them all with your obsession. Why do you spend all your time worrying about early frosts and workers’ wages and pest control when you could be living an easy life? By all accounts, you come from a rich family, with everything provided, but you won’t take a sou, insist on embarrassing your family and working your fingers to the bone on all of this. I’m impressed, Veuve Clicquot, but why?’

‘At first, it was my husband’s life, it’s what brought us together. Now, it’s my life. Nothing else, apart from Mentine, matters. I still miss him every day. He was like the vines, a cycle of nature. Sometimes he withered and sometimes he bloomed. In my heart of hearts, I knew he would leave me too soon.’

She hadn’t meant to give so much away, but there was an honesty and directness about Alexei that made her want to tell him everything. It was a relief to let her guard down with this relative stranger.

He didn’t let her down with the usual platitudes, but just blinked in sympathy. A lamp fizzed.

‘I’ll get started,’ he said.

He shrugged off his jacket and pushed up his sleeves. A crude scar sliced the inside of his arm, the white vulnerable skin.

‘How did you get that?’

He yanked his sleeve down.

‘I deserve worse than this scratch. The blade that cut me killed someone very dear to me. I wish I had died instead.’

‘Who?’ she said gently.

His eyes clouded, but he didn’t reply.

‘Some scars just won’t go away, will they?’ she whispered. ‘I’m sorry I pried.’

‘Don’t be.’

Hooves clattered on the press yard cobbles and they ran up the stairs to meet them. Ten strapping men jumped down from their mounts and stood to attention. Nicole scowled. The characters who’d tried to attack her cellars were standing there in her yard, sober and lined up in front of her as if nothing had happened, Emile riding with the soldier who had smacked her head against the wall. He helped Emile down from his horse solicitously.

‘You brought them here?’ was all she could say to Alexei.

‘We owe you; it had to be them. They’ll behave, don’t you worry about that.’

‘You can tie your horses over there in the stables,’ Nicole instructed.

‘Then report back here for duty,’ said Alexei. ‘You’ll do exactly – exactly – as instructed by Madame Clicquot. For this afternoon, she is your general, in my place, and there is to be no subordination. You will address her as General and obey her as you would on the battlefield, without question.’

Even with her own workers, there was rarely such unqualified respect and willingness. Someone always knew better, or rolled their eyes, or had put their back out, or needed to leave early to help with the milking. It was like conducting an orchestra, running the press on a daily basis – a mixture of encouragement, instruction, cajoling, diplomacy and, above all, absolute knowledge of every single aspect of the operation to gain the respect of her workers and keep it all going in harmony.

Today all she had to do was say the word and it was done with unquestioning efficiency.

‘I could get used to this,’ laughed Nicole to Alexei.

‘It’s a match made in heaven. You’re clearly used to giving orders, and they’re trained to follow them.’

It was Alexei they were obeying though. He had a way with them, joining their ranks every now and then, then pulling back and overseeing the whole thing. Each man was rotated with scrupulous fairness, so that each took turns at the most back-breaking tasks, like heaving the crates up the hundreds of stairs and passing them up the ladders as the loads got taller on the carts.

As the sharp morning sun mellowed to afternoon, Nicole inspected the crates, calculating. She could count the bottles just by running her eye along them, she’d done it so many times. Two thousand five hundred and the same to go again. She called a break for lunch and Josette brought out the little they had and laid it out on the press table. Some cheese, a few stale baguettes and preserved fruit. They waited for the word from Alexei, then tore at it hungrily. Just men, desperate and hungry, somebody’s son or husband or brother, land workers like most of the men who were on her books. Wouldn’t they have done the same to the cellars if they were in Russia and the tables were turned? She prayed they all made it home to whoever was waiting for them. Did Alexei have someone waiting?

There weren’t enough coffee cups to go around, so she took a sip and gave him hers. He took a sip and passed it back, the coffee warm and bitter, like him. They smiled to