Bright Hair About the Bone
Page 19
Letty cast an inquisitive eye over Edmond as he came back carrying a tray of champagne. Yes, the rough shirt, the cord trousers were unexceptional and reassuring; they softened the impact of the sharp, aristocratic features. As they clinked glasses and drank each other’s health, Letty judged the time had come to enquire after her mysterious friend, Lady Uffington. When she did so, a look passed between mother and son, and both fell into an uncomfortable silence.
Edmond was the first to speak. “Yes, of course, as you can see—she is not here…”
Seeing Letty’s eyes narrow in suspicion, he added hurriedly, “But she is not far away. Mother, we will have supper in about an hour if that is convenient? Laetitia, come with me.” Taking her by the elbow, he steered her out of the room.
Everything on their journey through the château spoke of ease and elegance, strongly underpinned by affluence. Darkly gleaming paintings and rich tapestries cladding the panelled walls were echoed in the glowing colours of Persian rugs scattered the length of the oak floors. Open doors gave enticing views of other rooms—a library, a music room, a billiard room, and here, towards the rear of the house, a strong smell of strawberry jam accompanied by a peal of laughter and the clatter of cutlery announced the kitchen. They emerged into a courtyard bathed in warm evening light.
The exterior was equally lovingly cared for. Raked gravel was surrounded by formal flower beds, densely planted with bright early summer flowers, and in the centre of each bed, a nursery-rhyme rose tree. In spite of herself she was delighting in the scene unfolding before her as they moved on, crossing a wide stretch of trimmed grass shaded by chestnut trees. Under their spreading branches and revealed by degrees lay the low, golden stone stable courtyard and its wings, stretching forward in welcome, the whole neat, clean, and tidy, redolent of an ancient, solid, and homely efficiency.
As they approached, the clank of pails and stamp of hooves was momentarily drowned by the wheezing clatter of machinery and a muted bell softly sounded the half hour. It was towards this building that Letty was being resolutely steered by her silent guide.
He’s crazy! she thought. He invites me to meet a lady I’ll swear I’ve never heard of and takes me to the stables to do it. Out loud she said, “Lady Uffington I assume to be some kind of a horse enthusiast, as she is to be found lingering in the stables at the aperitif hour?”
“Oh, yes,” came the laconic reply, “you could certainly say that.”
Coming to a halt in front of the entrance, d’Aubec pointed upwards and directed her gaze to the wall over the arch. The focal point of any stable building in France, this was where, traditionally, the owner would have installed a carving, often a statue, of a horse. Letty was not disappointed, though she was puzzled. Here was no flamboyant, rearing stallion, mane flowing artistically in the breeze, but, in this place of honour, was fixed a simple stone shield, carved and coloured.
“If you are your father’s daughter you should be able to interpret the heraldry with no difficulty, though I can help you out if you wish. Tell me, Laetitia, what do you see?”
Stung by his cheerful insolence she focused all her attention on the carving and, finding it a rather simple, if unusual, device she recited without hesitation—“Vert, a horse courant, argent, bearing a seated lady, affrontée, of the same.” Against a green background, a rather crudely drawn silver-white horse was caught in mid-stride, running with rangy legs whilst on his back there perched, with a sideways seat and smiling down at the onlooker, a lady with flowing hair, she too drawn in silver-white.
And then the significance of what she was looking at hit her. The shape of the horse carrying the rider was very familiar. She had passed such a figure several times in England carved in the chalk on the side of the Berkshire downs near the village of—“Uffington!” Letty cried out. “The White Horse of Uffington! But this one has a lady on his back! I’ve never seen such a thing before.”
“And can you tell me, I wonder, what she’s doing here in Burgundy?” said d’Aubec thoughtfully. “So far from home?”
“Lady Uffington! Of course! How do you do, your ladyship? Well, there you are and here am I! Now we’ve finally met—what am I supposed to do next?”
“I was right then.” D’Aubec smiled. “I’ve never seen the horse on the hill in Berkshire, but I remembered an illustration from a book on Celtic art. I’m sure this is what your godfather was referring to in his note and where he meant us to start our search.”
Us…our search? wondered Letty. She decided to hold her peace for the moment as she could do no searching on her own account on d’Aubec’s land. “‘The old girl can still show you young ’uns a thing or two,’” she quoted instead, remembering Daniel’s note. “But how on earth do we follow her example?”
“I’ve no idea yet,” admitted Edmond. “I was rather hoping a bright little English archaeologist would be able to work out the next step.”
“Don’t count on it—I have no further inside knowledge on this,” she said doubtfully. “I’m supposed to follow her, but she’s not pointing in any direction, is she? She’s just staring down in an impersonal way at whoever passes through the archway. Is there anything behind the carving? Have you…?”
“I have. There’s nothing. Just solid wall and then the stables. The building you see here was put up in the early nineteenth century when the château was being restored after the, er, unpleasantness. It is tucked up against the western defensive wall—rather clever use of a relatively small space. I should imagine that, on completion, someone found this plaque somewhere about the place—it’s obviously much older than the stables—and they preserved it by installing it here over the arch of the new building. I fear that our lady up there is no more than a distraction—an anachronism, an architectural flourish if you like.”
Letty looked up again at the indifferent stone eyes and wondered.
“It is, as you must guess, my family’s insignia, the paternal d’Aubec, that is. The green background is obviously our own Burgundian hills and the horse was a symbol of the region even before horse-breeding Celtic warriors settled here. But the lady? Who could she be?”
“Any one of several,” said Letty, gathering her thoughts. “She could be the Virgin Mary, of course. She’s not uncommonly found in European heraldry, though you would scarcely find such a thing anymore in Protestant England. Whoever she is, I think your lady with the flowing fair hair is not a visitor. I think she’s at home here, and I think she goes far back in time. You mentioned the Celts just now…magnificent horsemen, and they were thick on the ground hereabouts from about the fifth century before Christ. They weren’t merely the savage, nomadic headhunters most people suppose, you know. They had a strong artistic tradition and their metalwork was outstandingly sophisticated and beautiful. They had a strong, if bloodthirsty, religion too, with a pantheon of gods and goddesses. One of these was the horse goddess, Epona.”
She fell silent. D’Aubec listened intently, nodding agreement. He didn’t seem to mind being lectured, watching her with a slight smile and the indulgent attention of an adult hearing a child read. Provoked, she picked up her theme again, “Yes, I think we might be looking at a representation of Epona…an ancient memory going back through your family and beyond even your Roman ancestors to the fair-haired Celts. A fine lady on a white horse…Perhaps she was worshipped here over two thousand years ago?”
“I should like to think so.” D’Aubec spoke with enthusiasm, then shook his head regretfully. “But I know every stone of this château and every square metre of hilltop and I can’t think of any traces of a civilisation older than the thirteenth-century fortifications. There may have been earlier layers, but the building works of the Middle Ages have quite obliterated them.”
“No—there are always traces…One could…”
“And I don’t,” he warned, “intend to invite a marauding crew of American archaeologists to bring in their spades and dig up my back garden. Even if their assault is fronted by the most a
ttractive figurehead,” he added. “My mother would be horrified at the thought of their big boots stamping through her strawberry beds. Which reminds me that we have strawberries for supper and we’re only halfway through our tour. Come, Laetitia, would you care to see my horses?”
Letty followed him through the arched door into the warm gloom of the stable. As her eyes became accustomed to the low light she made out a long array of stalls for near on forty horses. Half of the stalls were occupied, and by animals the equal of those she’d seen at the National Stud. Two of them were familiar to her—Carnaval and Goliathe had already been unsaddled and rubbed down, and were now feeding. Letty stiffened as she noticed Goliathe, apparently bedded down for the night, and Edmond said in reassuring tones, “Don’t worry about him. Someone will have rung the Stud to say he’s spending the night here. By the time we’ve had supper it will be too dark to ride him back—he’s not fitted with lights, you know.”
Another trap like the one at the Lion d’Or opened up in front of Letty and she said swiftly, “Goliathe may be spending the night as your guest but I’d rather not, if you don’t mind.”
“Of course,” came the courteous reply. “I have arranged that Jules will drive you back whenever you wish.”
Turning her attention back to the horses in an attempt to recover her dignity, she appreciated the perfect order, the litter of fresh straw, the winking brasswork. A familiar object fixed to the wall above the stalls caught her eye. “So you have these in Burgundy too?” She pointed upwards. “That’s a Corn Dolly, isn’t it?”
Obligingly he reached up and took the straw figure from the wall, shaking off the dust. “We call this the Corn Maiden. At harvest time the last clump of wheat to be reaped is brought home and plaited into this rather unconvincing representation of what I’ve always supposed to be an ancient harvest goddess of some sort. The farm girls like to dress her up in ribbons and bows, as you see. The Maiden ensures fertility for the coming year—there’ll be abundant crops, the herds will increase, and there’ll be babies in the cradles before the next harvest time. It’s a tradition I wouldn’t care to break!” He put the figure back on the hook. “And there she stays until her year’s up.”
“What happens to her at the end of her time?”
“Oh, she’s torn apart and fed to the horses. Minus the ribbons, of course.”
“It seems a mean reward for her year’s service.”
“Seems to work—I have a lot of luck with my breeding mares.”
“But not with this one, evidently.” Letty’s words were hushed, her voice full of pity. Coming at last to the end of the line, in a loose box, was a sight which had made her cry out with surprise and distress. No silken hindquarters here; instead, a lacklustre grey rear, a drooping head, and four bandaged legs. A bucket nearby was half full of stained waste and the clean smell of iodine cut through the pervading smell of horses.
“An accident?” she asked.
“Not exactly,” he replied curtly, and made to move on.
“But what, then?” Letty persisted. “What happened to this poor creature?”
“This is Dido,” he said, making the introduction with a wide gesture. The horse lifted her head and shuffled forward to nuzzle his outstretched hand. “She’s North African—a young broodmare…is…or was…my best horse. But…” His eyes focused over her shoulder and he went on rapidly in a monotone. “Last month she was with foal for the first time. I was away from home but intending to be back in time for the birth; I had her put safely to graze in an upper pasture. I had taken into my employ—reluctantly—the son of one of my outdoor staff.”
“Reluctantly?”
“Yes. The lad was a well-known tearaway. But for the sake of his father, who’s worked for me for years, I gave the boy a chance. He went into apprenticeship with Jules, in the stables, though he made it quite clear from the start that he had no time for anything that didn’t have an engine and wheels. The other day, looking for easy jobs for him to do, Jules asked him to find Dido and bring her in from the pasture as the time for her confinement was getting close. A boring task. The lad decided to liven it up a bit and save his legs by rounding up the mare on a motorbike. I keep a Moto Guzzi in the garage. Too much of a temptation, I’m afraid. He started it up and rode to the pasture, entered the field, and tried to corner her, still aboard the machine.”
Letty could guess at the disastrous ending.
“Of course, she was terrified and bolted. She’d never been close to an engine before. She tried to escape from the field by jumping a ditch and a hedge topped with barbed wire. Old barbed wire. I thought it had all been removed. She nearly made it. Her legs were badly cut, as you see.”
“And the foal?”
“She lost the foal. Will never have more. People keep telling me—pityingly—that I should have her put down…she’ll never amount to anything…but…” He broke off to stroke the soft nose.
“You got fond of her?”
He nodded and prepared to move on.
“What happened to Paul Morel?” she asked, in dread of his answer.
“He drove off and disappeared. Reported the incident to no one. He left her struggling, entangled in the wire. If Jules hadn’t got worried and checked on the boy, she’d have died where she lay.”
“But you caught up with him when you got back? In the café the other night.” She remembered the purposeful stride which took him straight to the boy’s table. “How did you know he was there?”
He gave her a steady look, a defiant look. “His father told me. He was there, in the café that night. He left and telephoned me from the auberge.”
She had a sudden memory of an elderly man pushing his way anxiously past the waiter bringing them their drinks.
“The punishment was expected. He thinks his son got off lightly. A public chastisement to cancel the family dishonour. But no arrest, no accusation, no long-drawn-out court case, no shameful references in the newspapers. Not even much pain. Did you not notice the lad was wearing a leather jacket? I can assure you there were no marks on his body when it was found two days later. By you, I understand?”
Unwilling to hear argument, recrimination, or accusation, he turned and walked back towards the château.
Letty followed across the courtyard, thoughtful and with a hundred questions still to ask him, one of them, perhaps: By what authority had the results of the autopsy been made known to him already?
He had waited for her just inside the door.
“And no, I didn’t finish the boy off. But I shall find out who did.” He sighed. “Now, we have a few minutes before dinner to take a look at the library. This is where your godfather was to be found every evening for the last few weeks of his life. I’ve had his things left as they were—the books he was consulting, the notebooks he was using. The police contingent stirred them up a bit, I gather, hunting for clues of some sort or another, but mostly they’re as he left them that night. You, who understood his working methods, may well be able to find an answer to our mystery here.”
He led the way down a panelled corridor hung with the portraits of long-dead Counts of Brancy, and Letty was intrigued to note the familiar nose repeating itself down the centuries. She was looking with curiosity for the luckless generation which had suffered the revolution of 1789, but so seamless was the continuation she almost missed it. She had to turn and go back a few paces before she was sure that she was looking at d’Aubec the Survivor. She identified him by the style of the dress worn by his wife. In the foreground of an out-of-doors bucolic scene, sat, large, blonde, and smiling, la Comtesse, wearing the puff-sleeved, gauzy muslin gown of the First Empire, its low-necked bodice barely equal to the task of containing her rounded bosom. In her lap she held a woven cornucopia overflowing with autumn fruits and ears of corn. A superfluous piece of symbolism, Letty thought, counting, wide-eyed, the line of small d’Aubecs disappearing into the depths of the perspective.
She became aware that the present count was
standing behind her. “Eleven,” he said. “They had eleven children eventually. And, unbelievably, they all survived. And the lady herself lived to be eighty, though she grew extremely plump.”
“She doesn’t look very French,” Letty said, nodding towards the countess.
“No. She was English. When times got hard for Hippolyte, he fled across the Channel like many of his compatriots. But, unlike most of that ne’er-do-well bunch, he was clever and hardworking and he knew whom to please. He made a fortune for himself in London, married Charlotte, herself an heiress, and the two of them, in more settled times, came back to France and re-possessed the family estates.”
He moved on down the line to the last group of pictures, obviously the work of the same artist. The first was evidently a wedding portrait of his mother and father. The countess, clearly recognisable and spectacular in her belle époque froufrous, stood proudly holding the arm of a handsome man in army dress uniform. Letty couldn’t work out his rank but from the weight of gold frogging in evidence it seemed to have been a high one.
“My parents were cousins of some sort,” said the count vaguely. “My mother was a d’Aubec by name also, before she married.”
“A military family?”
“Oh, yes. Down the generations. We were always able to offer up a soldier. Though it didn’t always work out as planned.” He smiled and drew her attention to the last two portraits. “This distinguished fellow is my uncle Auguste. My father’s younger brother.”
Letty looked and admired. A painting done some years ago, she assumed, as the recognisably d’Aubec features were youthful and dark.
“He’s grey now and somewhat worn down by the effort of helping to raise me as well as his own two children, but still a handsome old devil. Not sure I should introduce you, Letty.”
“You’re fond of your uncle?”