Till We Meet Again (68 page)

They were the only male Lancels left; to succeed in this effort was their duty as well as their heritage, and they must shoulder the task for the sake of the family, for the House of Lancel, as well as for every loyal worker in the vineyards. Paul knew that hard years of rebuilding lay ahead, but he felt himself filled with energy and a sense of absolute rightness. He had much to learn—everything!—but champagne making was not a mystery, it followed strict laws that had been laid down, one by one, since Dom Perignon became cellarer at Hautvillers in 1668. His father’s key workers, the
chef de cave
, the vineyard foremen, were still alive, hale and active, ready to teach him everything he needed to know.

He strode up and down the long salon, growing more elated with each step. A new life, by God, after all these years of foreign service! He welcomed it with all his heart, this life that would demand all his still-abundant strength and the fruits of his intelligence. He and Eve would grow young together in Champagne! What a magnificent châtelaine she would make! Four years of ambulance driving in bombed-out London had proved that there was nothing she couldn’t tackle—not that there ever had been. With Bruno, they would restore that life of grace and dignity and productivity which the Lancels had led century after century.

Paul realized, slow shock growing at the same time as his unforeseen excitement, that he, Paul de Lancel, had totally lacked foresight. Busy with his own problems, far from France for decades at a time, he had not dreamed intelligently of this possible future. He had not planned for the day on which he
might suddenly find himself the sole owner of the ancient House of Lancel, the sole proprietor of the vineyards that stretched as far as the eye could see around this well-loved château, the lord of the forest, of the stables, of everything that surrounded him down to the last egg laid by one of the chickens out in their hidden coops, of which Jeanne was so proud. He had left Champagne too young, too unfinished a man to dream of a future that now presented itself to him with the allure and mystery of a bride.

Minute by minute, Paul became more jubilant, more exultant. Carrying on the House of Lancel would give meaning to the rest of his life. He too was Champenois-born, and although he had been absent too long from his native soil, it was not too late to come home. Paul resolved with all his heart to answer the challenge he had just come to recognize fully and embrace. With this resolve, as is often the case with a true Champenois, grew a thirst, and Paul went in search of the finest bottle of champagne the province could provide.

A while later, in the darkest time of the night, an hour before the early dawn of August, Bruno returned to Valmont from Paris. He had made the trip in order to see how matters stood on the Rue de Lille. General von Stern had left his house as he had found it; all was in order, and Georges, his butler, was already directing the servants in anticipation of Bruno’s return.

Of course, the general was now in the hands of the officials who had accepted the surrender of the German garrison of Paris, but Bruno did not fear for his future. The man was as resourceful as he was philosophical, and together, during the past year, he and Bruno had joined their wits and connections to make a series of fortunes together on the black market. The failure with Delphine had not blinded von Stern to the profit motive, and now his money was as safe in Switzerland as was Bruno’s own.

As he entered the château in which he had spent the war, Bruno wished he had not had to return, even for a few weeks, but the current atmosphere in Paris was uncomfortably explosive. Various factions of the Resistance were embroiled in fighting among themselves; accusations and counter-accusations filled the air; arrests of known collaborators were taking place; groups of young hotheads were roaming the streets, conducting kangaroo courts, and, most
dangerous of all, every hour brought fresh denunciations of anyone who was so much as suspected of having been too friendly with the former conqueror. Four years of frustration and fury were erupting all over Paris.
Les réglements de comptes
—final accounting for actions during the war—were the order of the day. He had nothing to fear, surely, for he and von Stern had been utterly discreet—yet could one ever be entirely sure? People had an inconvenient way of knowing more than one expected. Ordinary men were envious of their betters, they always had been, and denunciations were one way in which they could avenge themselves for the inequalities of circumstances. Why, Bruno asked himself, should he take even the slightest chance if reason told him that a measure of caution was still desirable? No, it was not yet safe to move back to his fine Paris house, not yet time to leave the protection of this countryside.

But oh, how he thirsted for the moment when all would be normal! The glorious future lay just a few short weeks away. Paris, as always throughout history, would become itself again and he would be there to revel in its revival. He, Vicomte Bruno de Saint-Fraycourt de Lancel, would take his place once more in the only world he had ever known that was worth living in and living for. Now he would never need to grub at a job, never be obliged to do anything except allow his money to make more money while he enjoyed a gentleman’s ease and sport and splendor, moving as it pleased him from salon to salon of the Boulevard Saint-Germain, entertaining in his beautiful house, collecting new women—Parisian women again, after a necessarily limited, yet far from uninteresting diet of provincials—as he would collect great paintings and splendid furniture and precious objects from the stupid new poor whom the war had ruined. He would buy back one of the Saint-Fraycourt châteaux and live in it as if history since the Revolution had never happened. Yes, Bruno thought, as he strode quickly upstairs to his room in Valmont, yes, all things considered, he had had a very good war, and in weeks, just weeks, he would return, triumphant as a prince on his coronation day, to the world of the old aristocracy, which was, when all was said and done, the only love of his life.

He walked into his room, turned on the light and froze, every muscle contracted in alarm.

“What the devil!” he exclaimed.

Paul’s tall figure rose from the chair in which he had been sitting in the dark, waiting for his son.

“My God!”

“Did I frighten you, Bruno?”

“But it’s
impossible
 … how could you be … where … when?” Bruno babbled, shocked into immobility.

“I got here this morning.”

“But that’s fine—yes, wonderful, a great surprise, you came almost as quickly as Patton—you’ve seen Jeanne, then? She gave you a good dinner, I hope.” Bruno’s good manners, which never let him down, rallied to carry him through this moment with the father he had not seen, or cared to see, for eleven years.

“An excellent dinner. Aren’t you going to offer me a glass of champagne, Bruno?”

“You mean Jeanne didn’t open a bottle? It’s late for champagne, almost morning—but of course, to toast your return—why not? Like everybody else, we had to sell almost everything we produced to the Germans—I’m sure Jeanne told you—but I can still find something fit to drink.”

“Why not a pink champagne, Bruno, a pink champagne from a vintage year, the kind your grandfather took such pride in? Will you not offer to open a bottle of the best Lancel?”

“You sound strange, Father, not yourself, not at all. I understand … the shock of Grandmother’s death … a sad homecoming … I should have realized sooner. Perhaps you should try to get some rest.”

Paul took a key on a gold chain from his pocket. “My father gave me this when I left for war in 1914, to remind me of Valmont, wherever I was. I used it tonight, to open
Le Trésor.”

Involuntarily, Bruno took a step backward.

“I don’t have to tell you what I found.”

“No,” Bruno said coldly, “don’t give yourself the trouble.”

“There used to be half a million bottles there, Bruno.”

“I used them, as would any intelligent man. While you had your soft war in London, far from your country, tagging after your courageous, talkative general, never seeing a German, I did what I had to do.”

“For whom did you do it?” Paul’s dry voice was empty of emotion. He might have seemed merely curious.

“For myself.”

“Not even for the Germans?”

“I repeat, for myself. I have no intention of bothering to lie to you.” The primitive contempt in Bruno’s voice cracked like a lash on tender flesh.

“It was the black market, of course.”

“If you say so. A market is a market—the only difference is who sells and who buys.”

“And the money you made?”

“Safe. You can never find it.”

“What makes you think you can get away with this?”

“Think?
I have
. It’s done. Finished, over. You can’t retrieve those bottles, can you? And you can prove nothing. Nobody in this world except the two of us knows that they were ever there.”

“Your word against mine?”

“Precisely.”

“Leave Champagne,” Paul commanded.

“Gladly.”

“Leave France.”

“Never!
This is my country.”

“You have no country from this time onward. If you do not leave France, I will expose you, and I will be believed.
I promise you dishonor such as you cannot imagine
. You dishonor your name, you dishonor your family, you dishonor your tradition, you dishonor our dead. No one in France will ever think of you without horror. We have long memories. Your country is lost to you.”

“You won’t be able to make people believe all that.” Bruno still sneered.

“You don’t dare to risk it
. The man who could sell the heart’s blood of Valmont on the black market did not stop there. What other crimes did you commit during the war? All criminals leave a trail, particularly when they do not act alone. Do you imagine that the government of a free France will fail to deal with men like you? I offer you no choice.”

Bruno whirled and lunged toward the desk, where he kept a revolver. He plunged his hand into the drawer but found nothing, for Paul had searched the room while he waited for his son’s return.

“You would do that too, would you?”
Paul cried. He raised the riding crop he had taken from Bruno’s night table and, with the unnatural strength of a man who is forced to kill
a vile and deadly snake, lashed out and laid open Bruno’s upper lip so that his teeth showed white through the blood.

“Go!”
he said, keeping his voice low.
“Go!”
When Bruno held his ground, Paul used the riding crop again and again, until Bruno turned and started running down the stairs, with Paul, his arm raised, following closely, ready to rip Bruno’s face apart if the foul traitor did not leave the land he had desecrated.

20

“T
HE thing I do outstandingly—everyone agrees—is sell cakes,” Freddy said to Delphine, her smile wide with enthusiasm. “I had so much valuable experience at Van de Kamp’s, back in Los Angeles, and the knack of pastry selling is something you never lose. My mother-in-law was terribly pleased—she said they’d never had such a successful cake sale at any winter church bazaar since she could remember—there wasn’t so much as a single soggy scone left on the table, and the apple pies I baked myself were the first to go. We made twenty-five pounds for Doctor Barnardo’s.”

Delphine lay back languidly on the cushions of a sofa in the sitting room of the roomy new apartment she and Armand, married at last, had rented on the Rue Guynemer, opposite the Luxembourg Gardens. Freddy and Tony Longbridge were staying with them for a few days, before going on to visit Eve and Paul at Valmont, on their first trip outside of England since the end of the war, a year earlier.

“Who’s Doctor Barnardo?” Delphine asked in idle curiosity.

“He runs orphanages—the money goes for Christmas presents for the kids. I was also involved in the jumble sale to raise money for a new roof for the village church. Every Sunday morning we sit there, singing hymns as softly as possible, waiting for the old one to come crashing down. A really rousing sermon would mean disaster.”

“What a dreadful way to go, after all those years of not having a bomb land on your head,” Delphine murmured in indolent agreement.

“Precisely! That’s why I volunteered to help run the sale,” Freddy said fervently. “Since gas is still not to be had, even if you have the ration coupons, I hitched a horse up to a cart and drove it absolutely everywhere—you can’t imagine the stuff people gave me! They turned their attics upside down; heaps of bric-a-brac, old books, china they didn’t even remember they had, old clothes—you name it. I didn’t turn
down a single donation—you never know what’s going to appeal to people—and we had a near sell-out. It’s amazing what you can accomplish with only one ancient horse … Tony was so proud of me.”

“As well he should be, Honorable Freddy,” Delphine agreed benevolently.

“In June the summer church fête will be held on the vicarage lawn. Everybody tells me it’s incredibly colorful,” Freddy said, sparkling with anticipation. “There’s going to be Maypole dancing and pony rides and a pet show, but the main attractions really are the contests for the best flowers and the best vegetables. The competition can be very heated, I hear. So much prestige is involved! I haven’t decided yet whether to concentrate on peonies or tomatoes, but I’m beginning to wonder if I shouldn’t do both. I have to make up my mind as soon as we get back, and start working. It’s more of a challenge, don’t you think, Delphine, when you don’t specialize in just one area?”

“Oh, absolutely. I couldn’t agree more. Personally, I’d go in for the Maypole dancing.”

“Oh, Delphine! That’s for the children, not for old married ladies like us.”

“Be careful who you call an old married lady,” Delphine growled lazily, patting her belly complacently.

“Old married, very, very pregnant lady.”

“Leave out the ‘old’ and I’ll agree to the rest.”

“You were always so vain … I guess you’re entitled to that much of a concession … twenty-eight isn’t really old.”