“I’m sorry you’re leaving tomorrow,” he said in a low voice. “I wish we had met earlier.”
“You met me my first morning here. Out in the fields, at dawn.”
“Yes, but I thought perhaps you were a crazy woman.”
She smiled. “Perhaps I am.”
He gave a quiet chuckle. “Let me be more precise: I wish you weren’t leaving.”
“I have to go, for Emma’s sake. But I was hoping—” Rosalyn took a shaky breath. “That is, I wanted to ask you... Could I come back in the fall, to help you workles vendanges?”
“You want to work the harvest?”
“I do.”
“It is hard work. Most grapes here are still picked by hand, since the grapes must be whole and undamaged when they go into thepressoir.”
“I know that. And the grapes come ripe all at once, so there are only a few weeks in which to work, as determined by thecomité. You see? I’ve been learning all about theméthode champenoisewhile I’ve been here.”
“I’m impressed.”
“The point is, if you tell me when you need me, I’ll come. If you want me, I’ll help bring in the harvest.”
“Is the harvest the only reason you will come back?”
“Well, I’m in charge of bringing thegalette des Roisfor Epiphany next year. And besides”—she smiled—“I do believe I’ve developed a taste for champagne.”
Chapter Fifty-four
In the offices of the Small Fortune winery in Napa, Hugh held up his flute of champagne, tears in his eyes. His voice rough with emotion, he said, “Here’s to Emma Kinsley. A grande dame, if ever there was one.”
Blondine and Rosalyn held up their glasses and chimed in solemnly: “To Emma.”
“Oh,please,” said Emma as she returned from the restroom to join them. “Hugh, for the love of God, you sound like you’re toasting me at my funeral.”
They all laughed and took deep quaffs of the golden bubbly, noting their impressions of the sample sent by a winery Rosalyn had connected with while in Champagne. Several thick green glass bottles, topped with their bulbous foil-wrapped corks, were chilled and just waiting to be tasted. But this morning, Hugh had insisted on raising a champagne toast to Emma’s latest prognosis of “guarded, but positive.”
“Hugh, when this child first came to France, she wasn’t accustomed to drinking champagne in the morning,” said Emma, gesturingto Rosalyn. “I want to know: What in the world have you been teaching her all these years?”
Hugh grinned at Emma, and their gazes lingered. As Rosalyn had predicted, the two got along famously—so well, in fact, that lately Hugh had insisted on chauffeuring Emma to and from San Francisco for her treatments. After a few weeks of inpatient care, Emma had been discharged from the hospital and now needed to visit the medical center only once a week, so she had rented a beautiful home in the Napa Valley so she could be closer to Blondine and Rosalyn—and Hugh.
Hugh had helped Blondine to get a work visa, and she was staying with Emma and attending English classes at night school. Blondine loved Napa, and was thrilled to soak in the California sunshine. Back in Cochet, Gaspard was not at all pleased to lose his best salesperson, but after a long phone call from Emma, he had acquiesced with as much grace as he could muster. One of Blondine’s brothers had stepped in to help fill the considerable void Blondine had left at Blé Champagne.
“I should have made a bet with Rosalyn that she’d love Champagne,” said Hugh with a chuckle as Blondine topped off their glasses of champagne. “Could have made a little cash.”
“I don’t have any money, remember?” teased Rosalyn. “I’m still in debt, and Emma pays me a scandalously low wage.”
“This is true,” said Emma. “How do you think I stay so rich?”
In fact, Emma had offered an embarrassingly large salary, which Rosalyn could not in good conscience accept. The two finally settled on a comfortable but not exorbitant retainer, and they agreed to share in any proceeds from the future book, should it sell. Rosalyn was able to cover her debt-repayment schedule, and was well on her way to reestablishing her credit.
Best of all, when she wasn’t training Blondine as her replacement, Rosalyn had been able to devote her energies to deciphering Émile’s letters, finally in chronological order, and was now working oninterpreting the scans of Doris’s side of the correspondence as well. The papers from Lucie’s niche had been donated to the archive in Reims, which had made them available to the public through a computer database. Even though the paper had deteriorated in the dank cave, they were mostly legible; the archivists noted that Mrs. Doris Whittaker must have used very high-quality paper and ink, indeed.
Though Rosalyn would have preferred to hold Doris’s actual letters in her hands, at least the Australian widow’s handwriting was easier to read than Émile’s—or Lucie’s, for that matter. The knitted items they had found in the Dakar “attic” had been donated to the local Reims museum, and Jérôme had recently informed them that the gargoyle had been remounted in its original place on Notre-Dame de Reims. He sent a photograph of the squat little fellow, high on the north side of the cathedral, looming over the city. Rosalyn planned on painting a picture of it.
“Ah, but you’re a published author now, Rosie,” said Hugh with a wink. “Don’t authors make a load of cash?”
Rosalyn laughed. She had been thrilled to publish her very first article, entitled “The Widows of Champagne,” about her experiences in France. It had paid very little, but the article had been well received, and she hoped her book telling the story of Émile and his correspondence with hismarraine de guerre, and Lucie and the caves, and baby Narcissa’s fate, would find its audience. She might even include a little bit of her own odyssey on the page, if she felt brave enough.
