Secret Of Marquise De Champagne

By Dianna Diverno

When the Marquis de Champagne decides to live with his lover on the estate where he produces wine, he realizes that his wife is a surplus...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dianna Diverno
• Release date: Jul 7, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201760953

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SECRET OF MARQUISE 

DE CHAMPAGNE

DIANNA DIVERNO

For Justine,

With love

CHAPTER I

The sound of a piano filled the room, fire was slowly burning in the fireplace and that was in fact the only light what filled the dark corners of the room. The room was in semi darkness and the bed was visible, and a sheet that was casually tossed and a robe. Young woman twenty six years of age was sitting behind a piano and playing some composition. Her eyes were closed and from the light of the fire in semi ̶ dark conditions her eyelashes were casting a shadow shaped like a crescent moon on her cheeks. Her hair was loose and long. It was obvious that the women tied it into a braid, because it was curly in the symbolic and wonderful way, flowing down like sea waves.

She wore a white see  ̶  through gown made from expensive silk and one small ring with tiny stone on her ring finger. It seemed that she is carried away by music, so she didn’t hear when the door opened and closed and a man entered the room.

For several moments the man watched her so carried away by the sonnet which she played and then he walked to the front of the piano so that she could see him.

She pointed her blue eyes toward him, and stopped touching the keys. She seemed to be annoyed by the fact she is seeing him in front of her.

̶  Jacques  ̶  she started quietly, and then she stood up and put her robe on, because she was cold although the room was very warm, and like she has something to hide from him.

̶  You shouldn’t have stopped playing. I always loved your performance of Chopin 

̶  I wasn’t paying attention to the time. I got carried away in the music  ̶  she started slowly, hating herself because of her need to always justify herself, although she didn’t do anything wrong. She quickly looked towards the window and the rain that just started to fall.

̶  Midnight gig! Sounds exciting, doesn’t it? He sat down on the bed.

̶  Marquise de Champagne looked at him for several moments.

̶  Yes. I like playing at midnight. It always attracted me  ̶  she walked up to a window and looked outside, as she was expecting someone special, although at that time she had no one to expect. It was almost midnight. Old cathedral watch was showing half past eleven. – A letter arrived yesterday  ̶  she said.

Did it?

̶  Yes, I think that we should travel to Paris soon  ̶  she turned towards him like she is begging him.  She clenched her fists, like she is angry, although she wasn’t. She was filled with anxiety, even though marquise de Champagne knew very well how stupid that is because, above all, he always had that expressed and repulsive propensity to say no to her even if her proposal was very good, but he always founds some flaw in it all, just to appear bigger, better and superior, something which he truly believed.

Marquise de Champagne never had a real opportunity to show her true face or to reveal herself more for what she truly is.

̶  In Paris? In November?  ̶  he was obviously surprised, smiled although she didn’t smile back. Even now while she was looking at him under the light of the fire, he didn’t seem any warmer or romantic then during day light. Not even the smile made his face pretty. Marquis de Champagne was one of those people that are not pretty, joyful, however he also did not fall in the group of those people that make you divert your eyes. He was simply not attractive, and that feeling filled the room in the same way as the light from the fireplace did.

̶  Why not?  ̶  she asked indifferently, already knowing that he will say no. Even more, she was wondering why is he coming to her room, disturbing her when the goal of his arrival was to prove his superiority. However, she didn’t want to think about him just as she didn’t want to think about him a moment ago. It was as if a part of her thoughts in those moments turned towards someone else, nonexistent character that was a fruit of her imagination.

̶  But it is absurd to go to Paris in November  ̶  he started all of the sudden, and then began to explain in detail the advantages of Paris in December. – You can visit stores with various goods, perfume stores, most stuff are on discount in December – he pointed his index finger like he was threatening her, however that was not the case, he was just making a point. If his finger had a mouth, marquise de Champagne was convinced that it would say more than her wedded husband. – Besides, December is the time of various operas. Don’t forget that you said that you would like to attend to New Year’s performance of opera La Traviata.

She remembered her words, however opera La Traviata wasn’t what interested her and she knew that there is no point in arguing.  He was again perfect and superior.

She took a deep breath. Night that started with wonderful sounds of a piano was threatened to be destroyed with his endless explanation of advantages and meaning of Paris in December.

Since she married him when she was sixteen, marquise de Champagne seemed not up to the role that was expected from her.

She grew up in a poor family in Lion, she was the second of six children of Jean ̶ Mark and Poly Toulzane. She spent many nights with an empty stomach. Mostly, she wore worn  ̶  out, used clothes from her niece. The clothes were given to her by her aunt Rosemary, they lived much better than her parents and that was something that Caroline fantasized about for a long time. Better life is still a life that is not easily presented to you, or easily reachable.

When she was thirteen her older sister married a rich senior gentlemen from Marseille. That is when a large dowry and a piece of land came into to possession of her family. For the next three years they lived a little better, however Caroline understood that it was the only destiny that awaits her.

When she was sixteen she visited for the first time the Champagne region. Many suitors asked for her hand in marriage, but it seemed that her father was persistent in granting the best suitor the wish to live with his daughter.

Marquis de Champagne at the time was a widower with his forty three years of age. His wife died from a great flu that roamed at the time. He was alone, but as every man he valued reputation. He determined that at the time he missed a young, pretty being that will cheer him up and make his life better and joyous.  Since he didn’t want to visit brothels, he decided to marry a nice, pretty girl. Three girls were in the narrow selection but he chose Caroline.

She became marquise Carolina de Champagne. She was in the place where many other women would envy her, and all because marquis wanted a young being. The feeling she is with him just because she is young and she makes him feel good, and that he likes to take her and drin her as he much as he wanted made her feel like a timid person. The feeling that her father sold her, that is, got rid of her for a new piece of land and a nugget of gold made her start hating and despising the life that she lived as marquise de Champagne. On occasion she would remember herself as a little girl while she fantasized about the beauty of rich man’s life, realizing that every type of life has its price.

She was rich now, but she didn’t feel happy, relaxed and calm.

She got used to him, he would come in the evening hours approximately every other day. He never wondered how she feels or is that something that she likes. She was here only because he liked it.

Also, she was too young to take over the jobs that concerned leading his great estate or to get involved some more in vineyards. Occasionally she occupied herself with some form of art, she liked to paint, although her pictures weren’t anything special and she liked to play a piano in evening hours. The compositions fascinated her. She first practiced playing on a piano with a chef who knew the basics of music and thought them to her, at least when marquis the Champagne wasn’t there, so that she felt more relaxed and at the same time she was able to devote herself to compositions.

She couldn’t get pregnant, not because she didn’t want to, but because he was sterile. In his previous marriage he also couldn’t have children, which made him grumpy, angry mostly because he didn’t know whom to leave his great estate, because family de Champagne didn’t have heirs.

Occasionally Caroline would propose to him to adopt  a child, however he didn’t even want to hear about it because he showed a certain dose of selfishness, so he couldn’t leave  a piece of his estate to some kid  god knows from where who he doesn’t even know, that he didn’t even like or cared about. Caroline de Champagne wondered would he like his own child, or was he simply damaged in that area, and couldn’t feel sweetness and grace for someone or to love someone. He, she thought to herself during those long nights, looks more like alcoholics that are not capable to love anyone, and spent most of their time thinking about who loves them and are they loved enough to feel nice and comfortable.

Spending one decade with him as he is, it was obvious that she is starting to feel worn̶  out every time she starts thinking about those old days when she was poor and fantasized about a rich man’s life thinking that she will live better and different. Truthfully, that was best seen in the fact that she wore better clothes and drank better vines and ate crabs shipped from port in Marseille, because marquis de Champagne suffers from ulcer and it was recommended that he watches his diet and eat sea food. And now, the fact that their account for fine, sea cuisine kept growing wasn’t the thing that bothered him but some other small things could really make him angry. Say, if she would buy a new dress or jewelry or some canvas to paint on. In time, unfortunately she determined that he has less and less feelings for her and that her youth doesn’t thrill him as it did when she was sixteen. Maybe because in time she couldn’t get any younger and she determined that in time all marriages come down to the same thing̶  they become just another boring community of spouses that don’t have much to say to each other that already wasn’t said or to discover something new. Maybe their life would be different and more complete if they had children, something that would bring them closer together, if anyone could get close to marquis de Champagne, ever. For years she didn’t investigate anything regarding his feelings towards his deceased wife, if he could feel anything, or did he reserve all of his feelings for his vineyard and vine cellar, pile of barrels, that weren’t beautiful at all, or attractive, so that they would be kept longer in the huge cellar where he spent most of his time during the day.

His cellar was the same as any other cellar, dark, moist, stinking of mold or perhaps alcohol if some would were to get spilled and it seemed no matter how long that little window stays open the cellar will never be properly aired out. The cellar was the least of her problems, so that she was somewhat absent because he traveled too much to Riviera to get his, beloved crabs, and she spent too much time behind a piano where she practiced composition, hating being a woman and unable to perform in an opera. In the first months of the marriage she visited operas (however, seldom) although she was too shy and withdrawn to make new contacts. She would mostly sit, cool herself down with a fan, always aware of the looks of women on the side that would sit in their new clothes and cooled themselves with the fan in that obnoxious, artificial way even when it wasn’t hot. Some of them would go through life wearing their parade glasses, that is, glasses that they wore because of their looks not because they needed it.

Marquise de Champagne found her best friend in a maid that was forty years old, although that relationship could be characterized as the relationship between relatives or mother and daughter, because her maid Emma was old enough to be her mother.

She mostly led an empty life subordinated to her husband, his needs and demands, although that way and style of life did not interest her at all.

––––––––

Carriages slowly approached the big house of the Champagnes. Tiny pebbles rolled under the wheels and horse’s hoofs, the dust was created because at the time it was unusually warm and the sandy part of the area was covered in the cloud of dust that flew in through the window with the slightest breeze and left a thin layer of dust, always visible with a naked eye and visible enough so that the maids hate it. You could hear horses and some strange noise like gurgling, but that was crackling of old carriages that seemed as they were not properly screwed in certain places.

The curtain on a narrow window moved and an older lady with glasses on her face peaked outside and then hid behind the curtain visibly happier that she was finally closer to the house.

Finally, the carriage stopped not far from a beautiful fountain that was located in the yard into which lot o Champagne’s money went, more than into all that fine sea cuisine. Enough so that Caroline hates that fountain and enough that the marquis de Champagne always brags about it like it fell from heaven.

Finally the doors opened and an older women, shorter in growth with a cane in her hand, limping  on her left leg due to rheumatism, stepped out of the carriage holding on to the rail so that she wouldn’t fall. She wore flat shoes and black clothes. It was Johanna de Champagne, aunt of marquis de Champagne who looked like him so that everyone thought that she was his mother. Mother of marquis de Champagne, Mrs. Emma died during labor and care about the mischief marquis fell on his elderly aunt, who took him to Paris and then realizing that he is too mischievous they returned to the region of Champagne where he paid for his mischievousness by collecting grapes and taking care of the vine even though that was not the most appropriate school for a marquis. School later paid off, and aunt Johanna returned to Paris to her peace of mind and her habits, far away from the vineyard, grapes and cellar which she visited once but as it was stuffy and she didn’t want to go there again.

With Caroline she always maintained a good relationship, somewhat commanding, but respectful enough. She wore glasses and had a little bulging watery blue eyes, sometimes she knew how to be invasive and boring, as all older cranky people, left on her own and somewhat untamable which was the resemblance between her and her nephew.

̶  Hey, ho!  ̶  she would always yell that when exiting the carriage. A phrase that she picked up in her youth from a captain she was in love with.

̶  I thought that we will never get here.

She looked in front of her.

̶  Everything is the same as I left it. Nice and fine. Tell me boy, are marquis de Champagne’s vines successful?  ̶  she looked at the coachman, personal coachman of marquis de Champagne who she knew for a long time, and whose name she could never remember, just as she always forgot the names of unimportant people.

̶  Of course. Couple of days ago some people from Spain were here. They ordered piles of that new bubbly vine, whose name I forgot – he paused and handed her the briefcase. He was a young man, but in her opinion rude and she told her nephew many times to find something more suitable because she thinks that all servants are like goods on the market, you can always find something better. Of course, she thought that her nephew should be pickier and find a better wife, as he was already lead by the motto to buy him a wife, he should find something more suitable for him and a wife that he could show around.  But her youth attracted him and the question now was how to make from an old patch a new cover, that is, how to make from Caroline a woman that was good to be seen in Paris circles.

̶  Ah, I also forget a name. Champolignety or Champinolety or.... she guessed. – It simply is principled enough, I am always saying that sticking to principles is very important and vines should be named after the region from which they originate. Let’s say Champagne vine  ̶ she paused, as if she came up with something new, although about the name of the champagne they already had many conversations. – Isn’t that lovely?

̶  Certainly madam  ̶  he followed her and carried two more large and heavy suitcases that seemed to contain several kilograms of rooks or stones.

̶  All that business with endings with ty does not attracts me, not even a bit, it’s too Romanian, Italian.. Yes, yes I know, you will say that my nephew spends a little too much time on the Riviera and hence his obsession with Champoligne ̶ ty or Champinole ̶  ty endings.  It should be harmonious enough. There is quite a lot of us here  ̶  they were already inside, and as usual no one was there to welcome them because she didn’t announced herself, and marquis de Champagne was in the room where she played some composition too busy to see who came in the carriage  ̶  who doesn’t go to̶  she continued loudly  ̶  to Riviera, and all that means nothing to us. We are from around here. We need something that we understand. Like this region  ̶  Champagne. Of course I like more the name of Champagne region than Riviera or Burgundy. I am not saying that drink from Burgundy are not special, but those people there, pardon me, those masters... what is their name?

̶  Sommelier  ̶  he said quietly, they were in the hall.

̶  Yes, those sommeliers were adjusted to the region, and so we have Burgundy vine or Burgundy drink, the name of the region was in the name of the drink. It isn’t called Burgundety or Burgundietty, there is no Italian ty ending.

They stood facing each other. He was partly bored because during his working hours he mostly listens about drinks and vine, carried barrels, loads, guests and buyers, visitors, friends and relatives with whom he discussed about the bubbly wine from Champagne and he already had an impression that he will go crazy from that subject.

̶  In any case  ̶  grandma turned around  ̶  no one welcomed us.

That was nothing new, because marquise de Champagne only sometimes awaited her guests or her husband guests, mainly the servants were tasked with greeting them, placing them, so that travelers can rest in one of guest rooms and appear for lunch or dinner depending on the time they arrived at Champagne’s house.

Soon one of the maids lead aunt Johanna up the lovely wooden carved stairs to one of the guest rooms on the first floor. Because receiving saloons were located downstairs, and in the other part of the house there were rooms for servants and workers, kitchen, closets and pantry for vine and all sorts of glasses in various shapes and colors and all that in sets on sliver trays.

Aunt Johanna de Champagne followed her, watching her step, having a feeling like she was in the old place and that everything was hers, even though it all belonged to her  deceased sister. One of the guest rooms (favorite room of aunt Johanna) was prepared and aired out, warm enough and heated that the elder lady felt comfortable and at home. She walked in and stood in one place enjoying the smell of the past that overwhelmed her, even though for thirty years, more accurately since her nephew got married, and agreed to step on the crazy stone realizing that marriage was head spinning and boring community