Page 39 of The Widows of Champagne

Gabrielle

G abrielle caught a familiar wisp of flour and sugar as Marta hastened past her. She watched the older woman approach her grandmother, her own thoughts swirling. Sorrow built, a need to mourn reared, but Gabrielle remained determined to think only of the journal, and finding the truth, not that her grandmother’s closest confidante was a woman other than herself. The revelation did not belong in this moment.

Marta paused beside Josephine. “You are sure you want your granddaughter to read your private thoughts?”

Josephine hesitated. “I think, yes. Oui. ”

“All right.” The housekeeper continued to the nightstand, then shoved it aside before lowering to her hands and knees. She removed a section of the baseboard that ran along the floor and retrieved several items from the wall. She handed them, one by one, to Josephine. A diamond bracelet. A rope of pearls. More jewelry. A pair of silk stockings.

The treasures kept coming.

Gabrielle watched her grandmother accept each item, study it, then set it aside on the nightstand. Not a single light of recognition showed on her face. Josephine had retreated to some hidden place in her mind.

A sense of failure crept along Gabrielle’s spine. She fought it. Von Schmidt wasn’t dead, not by her grandmother’s hand. Or her mother’s. There was another explanation for his disappearance. There had to be. She would find it.

At last, Marta’s hand came away from the wall with the leather-bound journal. Bypassing Josephine, she gave the book to Gabrielle. She opened the cover and began leafing through the pages as her grandmother looked on. Reading Josephine’s most intimate thoughts felt wrong, a violation of her privacy. It had to be done.

Gabrielle continued flipping, skimming the pages. She kept searching for...she would know when she found it. There were long, emotional, beautifully worded entries that read almost like poetry. She ignored those—no time, no time—and concentrated on the lists. Then the entries that included dates and times and brief descriptions of events, many pertaining to the current war, some from the previous one.

The entries were as varied and sporadically penned and randomly phrased as Josephine’s recent behavior. Gabrielle hadn’t expected that. Nor had she expected the very real sense of sorrow fluttering in her stomach as she read what seemed to be the ramblings of a senile old woman. She continued flipping through the entries. The time it took gnawed at her patience.

She stopped at a list of family heirlooms. The hair on the back of her neck quivered. Some of the items had marks by them, others did not. She asked Marta for clarification.

The housekeeper studied the page. “Those—” she pressed a fingertip to several items with marks next to them “—are the valuables your grandmother and I hid from the Germans.”

Another jolt of surprise. No time for shock. “And the ones without the marks?”

“Those are the valuables that have gone missing since Hauptmann von Schmidt arrived.”

The swine. She turned to a single entry about a shipment to Portugal. Her mind worked quickly, measuring, calculating, drawing conclusions until certainty filled her. This was it. Proof, or at least the suggestion of proof, that von Schmidt hadn’t met his doom in this house. He’d run off to a neutral country to sit out the rest of the war at the LeBlancs’ expense. It wasn’t hard evidence, but perhaps enough to deflect suspicion away from her mother.

It was, quite possibly, even the truth. At the bottom of the page was a personal note. Von Schmidt is a swine. Something must be done to stop him.

More proof, pointing away from Hélène. And straight to Josephine. Gabrielle ripped the page from the journal. Confident she had a viable theory to bring to Mueller. But at what cost?

Her hands started to sweat. She had to think, had to protect both women. Her finger moved over Josephine’s personal notation, smudging the ink, blurring the incriminating words.

Josephine came up beside Gabrielle. The older woman said nothing, not a single whisper of a word passed her lips. Only a firmness around the mouth showed her mood, a light in the eyes that spoke of quiet resolve. Gabrielle remembered how they’d stood in this same posture. The night before von Schmidt left for Paris. Something must be done to stop him.

Her finger moved faster, scrubbing at the page, erasing the evidence against her grandmother. Her throat went dry. It couldn’t be true. Grandmère wasn’t strong enough of body, or mind. Others were. Others loyal to their family. Gabrielle could think of at least three candidates, four if she included her mother.

Needing to know the truth, she asked Marta to follow her into the hallway. “Did you help my grandmother get rid of von Schmidt?”

“She would not have asked that of me.”

“Would she have asked it of my mother?”

“ Non. Of this I am absolutely certain.”

Gabrielle wanted to be as confident as the other woman. Something held her back. She consulted the paper in her hand, then thought back to the page before it. Almost immediately, she remembered the entry, and the personal note beside it. I have very brave men in my employ.

Pierre. Francois. She needed to speak with them both. Francois first. He would be in the wine cellar. She hurtled toward the back of the house, chased by the roar of blood in her ears and the cold dread that her grandmother had followed through with her threat.