Bright Hair About the Bone

by Barbara Cleverly

  But he’d gone on to ask her about her impressions of the château, about the layout, the staff, and even the quality of the furnishings and objets d’art. He listened intently to Letty’s descriptions of some of the precious things she had noticed, commenting with a hard edge to his voice, “You’d expect some outstanding décor, after all. Antiques dealing is one of his activities—he didn’t tell you that? No. Hardly dinner table conversation. You wouldn’t know, then, that he owns boutiques in London and New York? He’s always at the salerooms. Unrivalled opportunities for acquiring and disposing of valuable artefacts. I wonder how many of them are legally his to be traded?”

  He hesitated for a moment, then, coming to a decision: “You know, the Police Judiciaire take a keen interest in what they call the trafic de biens culturels. There’s a law, which they enforce pretty strictly, forbidding the sale of objects of a cultural value or national importance out of the country.”

  Letty remembered the auction house catalogues Gunning had shown her on their arrival in France. And here was Paradee voicing suspicions she could with some certainty have confirmed. Someone was getting valuable items out of the country by a devious route and making a good deal of profit in the process.

  Paradee was snorting with derision, “And don’t you think that’s a bit ironical when you consider the piratical depredations that stocked their Louvre museum! That bunch in Lyon are all too ready to hassle me…forever breathing down my neck, asking impertinent questions, checking the logs, quoting the latest regulations. They seem to think that because I’m digging in French soil I must be turning up all kinds of items of interest to foreign antiquarians. Now, Stella, what was the name of that smart young cop from Lyon? The one who impressed you with his investigative routine…and his moustache. What was his name…?”

  “The chap who still has our passports? I think his name was Laval.”

  “Yes, Laval, that’s it.” He gave a nasty grin. “Right then, Laval—it’s time for us to have a little talk. Time to point the finger at one of your own!”

  CHAPTER 22

  She met Gunning, face still lined with dust from his drive back from Lyon, on the doorstep of the priest’s imposing Romanesque house in the rue Tellier. The door swung open before they could speak and they were welcomed into a cool interior by the priest himself. Father Anselme swept ahead of them, elegant in his black cassock, shouting for tea to be brought to the drawing room. As she settled into an armchair by a log fire smouldering lethargically in the hearth, Letty looked around and decided with approval that she had never seen anything calling itself a drawing room that contained so many books. They were stacked on shelves, on the floor, even piled high on a desk under the window. Gunning seemed very much at home here. He automatically cleared papers and books from a tea table and set it ready by her chair. The room smelled agreeably of leather, toast, wood smoke, and a scent she thought she recognised, tracking it down eventually to an ancient hound of indeterminate breed who advanced on her, wagging disarmingly, to nuzzle her hand.

  “Oh, push him away, mademoiselle,” advised the priest. “Borvo! Behave yourself! His problem is that he loves to meet strangers and is not in the least aware that he has become old, smelly, and unattractive. But William tells me—and he has told me much about you—that you live surrounded by dogs and horses in England? You must feel quite at home in Burgundy!”

  They talked agreeably on generalities until the tray of tea things arrived carried in by the housekeeper but, with her disappearance, Father Anselme embarked at once on a consideration of the puzzle of Lady Uffington. He had known Daniel well enough to give serious attention to his final message and appeared unsurprised by it.

  “But of course! This was his deep interest and one which I shared on a professional as well as a personal level. We often spoke of it. Before he died, his—dare I call it—obsession? was becoming overpowering. I was concerned. But Daniel’s mood was not oppressed—rather excited and elated. I had no idea he had communicated his thoughts to you, mademoiselle.”

  “As Mr. Gunning has probably told you, there was little to communicate. Just a vague feeling of anxiety and danger, and suggestions that I might find two goddess figures in the vicinity interesting. I daresay I’ve over-interpreted what he had to say. He was always one to encourage me to ask questions, follow a trail to the end. But in this case, I’m beginning to think I’ve allowed my godfather’s enthusiasms and his weakness for intrigue to run away with me and drop me off in a cul-de-sac. I can’t imagine what I think I’m doing here wasting your time!”

  “Don’t trouble yourself! You’re speaking to a very receptive audience, mademoiselle! Well, now you are here, you might as well pursue what is, in fact, a fascinating subject a little further. Let me assure you—Daniel is not the only person to fall victim to the lure of these ladies! I think you’re wondering what the connection between them can be? Mary Magdalene? The Celtic Goddess of Horses? And I would add for your attention: Mary the Mother. I’m sure you’d think a Roman Catholic priest remiss if he did not bring Our Holy Lady into the conversation! There is a thread connecting them and Daniel is, I believe, indeed presenting you with one end of it and challenging you to follow where it leads. It would not surprise me to discover that I am myself built in as one of the steps along the way! Or cast as an unlikely Ariadne, handing you a ball of magical thread to guide you to the centre of the labyrinth! I cannot take you to the end of the road but perhaps I can start you off?”

  He walked to the mantelpiece and lifted a pile of envelopes, hunting about and blowing away dust. “Here we are! My paperweight. Take this in your hand, mademoiselle. It will explain much.”

  Letty held out her hand for the small black carving he was offering her. Four inches tall, no more, the figure was seated, narrow-waisted, full-bosomed, and smiling, and on her left knee she tenderly held a small child. The two men were silent, waiting for her comment.

  “Um…basalt? Is this dark stone—basalt?”

  Anselme nodded.

  She pressed on. “It’s very old. I’ve been shown figures like this in Egypt. Four thousand years old possibly, I’m told.”

  Again an encouraging nod.

  “It’s the mother goddess Isis and she’s nursing her son Horus. I’ve seen paintings of her in tombs in Egypt. She’s always shown holding the looped cross and she’s easily recognisable in the pictures by her red dress. If one were to disregard the distinctive headpiece she’s wearing…” She put a thumb gently over the solar disc between two spreading horns “…she could be the Virgin Mary…or any Mother Goddess. Demeter, Cybele…A truly ancient image. At any rate, she’s pagan. Are you sure you…Aren’t you concerned that someone might be alarmed to see such an object holding down your papers, Father?”

  The priest laughed. “I have no intention of giving her up! She’s very special! She was given to me, on his deathbed, by an old parishioner of mine. I’m not quite sure how she fetched up here in France—though many of these images turn up in remote country churches as well as in glittering cathedrals. Probably brought back by Crusaders. Some say their appearance in this country coincides with the return of the Templars from the Holy Land.” He glanced at Gunning, who grunted in agreement. “I must say, when this was pressed into my hand I was somewhat alarmed. But my parishioner reassured me: ‘Father,’ he said, ‘it’s all right! Don’t you fret! I’ve had her blessed at Lourdes. She’s one of us now.’ And you don’t frighten me with the use of the word ‘pagan,’ Miss! It’s from the Latin paganus—a countryman. And I am proud to confess myself a countryman. Though, in less enlightened times, I suppose I might have risked interrogation and perhaps the stake as a heretic for my interest in mythology.”

  His cheerful openness was disarming.

  “I come from a country town west of Paris. From Chartres, where there was built the most beautiful Gothic cathedral in the world—do you know it?”

  “Oh, yes! I’ve visited twice. Marched around by my aunt, who lives not far away.
I have seen the statue of the ‘black virgin of the pillar’ and the ‘subterranean virgin’ and, the loveliest of all, I think, the ‘blue virgin’ of the stained glass window. Are these connected?”

  “I think so. Perhaps you didn’t know that the hill on which the cathedral is built was the cult centre of a Celtic tribe? The Carnutes. It is from their name that we get the word ‘Chartres.’ The hard c tended with time to be worn down into a softer sound: ‘ch.’”

  “Like caballus—a horse—changing to cheval, you mean?”

  “Exactly. According to tradition, the priests of the Carnutes held that spot to be their holy place. Nemeton in their language, a sacred grove. Not a temple but a holy space open to the sky, a space where they worshipped their deity, who was most likely the Mother Goddess. The Virgo Paritura, she who is about to give birth. Such a site underpins Notre Dame in Paris also. In this Holy of Holies they would be facing the east—for the Celts faced the rising sun—in front was life; behind them, to the west, was death. Our Christian churches are designed also for the congregations to look to the east, it is said because that’s the direction in which lies the Holy Land, but the traditional alignment is inherited from a much older culture.

  “The Celts had many gods but they all represented no more, I believe, than aspects of the unifying force of creation and renewal. Countrymen, you see—pagani. They understood and celebrated the elemental forces of nature. And do you know what underlies that vast symphony in stone at Chartres? Deep below the cathedral there still lies the holy well of the Celts. Water is a vital element of the holiness—the numen—of these sites. And it is said that there was once, on an altar by the well, a statue, a very ancient statue carved from black stone, perhaps like the one you hold in your hand, and it was venerated there. It disappeared…long ago…but I believe it is the memory of it that lingers on in the depictions of the black virgins. There are many in this part of France and in the south also.”

  “But why are they black?” Letty asked. “Is that significant? There seems to be a quite deliberate attempt to colour them or choose a dark wood to represent the virgin.”

  “No more than artistic tradition. The small carving you have there is of basalt, as you say, a very black rock and one difficult to work, which, of course, makes it all the more precious—the harder the rock, the more enduring the image. And then—if your inclination is to esotericism—you could argue that the very darkness of the virgin is a promise that, like the dark phase of the moon, she will bring forth light.” He smiled, shrugging apologetically for his philosophical proposition.

  “So—trailing after the goddess, through Gothic and Celtic cultures, we are taken back to the time of the ancient Egyptian civilisation?” She handed back with some regret the small figure which felt so comfortable in her hand.

  “No. Older even than that,” said the priest with a smile. “The journey back into mankind’s artistic—and possibly religious—past is quite dizzying! The very first carvings ever made by his hand were of female fertility figures, the Paleolithic Mother Goddess. Mostly of stone, sometimes of mammoth ivory, they began to appear fifty thousand years ago all over Europe and through to Turkey. In the Dordogne there’s a particularly fine rock carving—the Goddess of Laussel. Now, I’m afraid I can’t offer you one such to hold, but…”

  He passed her a copy of an archaeological report and she opened it at the marked page.

  “Daniel was most impressed by this carving.”

  Letty studied the photograph. It was of a naked and heavily pregnant woman with pendulous breasts. The face had been obliterated so it was impossible to guess her mood, though Letty would have gathered from the flaunting way she carried her body that it would have been one of pride and fulfilment. Her left hand was poised protectively over her swollen belly while, with her right, she triumphantly brandished an object which might well have been a cornucopia. The image of d’Aubec’s English ancestor came at once to mind and Letty smiled at the resemblance between two women separated by twenty thousand years.

  “This crescent shape?” she asked, pointing to the object the woman held. “Is it a horn of plenty?”

  “A bison’s horn, perhaps. It may represent the moon. In the Stone Age the phases of the moon were vital for timekeeping—for agriculture, for hunting, for the regeneration of the tribe, in fact. In its simple way, this carving makes a timeless statement. When the first artists discovered their skills they used them to portray the most vital, most precious aspect of their existence: rebirth, renewal. And the source of this to a primitive society was the female principle. A concept more readily understood by a Catholic, I think, than an English Protestant.”

  “Daniel wasn’t, I suppose, contemplating a conversion to Catholicism, was he, Father?” she asked uncertainly.

  “As far as I know, he remained to the end an interested and enquiring agnostic,” said the priest. “He did not appear to me to have the bump of religiosity. He would pursue the Madonna with the same enthusiasm as Celtic Epona without ever feeling the need to sink to his knees before either. If Daniel ever sought the Divine on a personal level, I’d say he turned his searchlight on himself. He believed that the Spirit, the Creator, was to be found in each of us. A divine internal spark? And that was sufficient for him. Such men are exceptional. Most men and women need to see and feel outward symbols of their faith. And if it’s solidly carved in granite or cast in gold, so much the better. And what image speaks to them so directly as the nurturing mother or the suffering son?” He waved a hand to a painting nestling between bookcases. A medieval oil painting, a Pietà, showed Mary the Mother, Mater Dolorosa, distraught, weeping, but still finding the strength to cradle the tormented body of her dead son on her lap.

  “Our experiences of life are so vastly different, but there is one thing all creatures have in common—we’ve all had a mother. For most, she remains to the end the most fundamental influence on our lives. After all, Christ himself learned his language, his attitudes, his stories, his compassion, and his strength from his mother. From Mary. His words, his stories, were her words, her stories, learned at her knee. I believe there is no stronger force for good or evil in this world than a mother’s words.”

  He turned to Gunning. “Your four years of working amongst the dying must have given you insights into man’s relationship with his Maker? In extremis, a man’s faith reveals itself in its raw state, unvarnished by ritual?”

  “Yes, indeed. Though I don’t despise ritual—good old Sunday school! It put hymns remembered from childhood onto men’s lips when nothing else would come.” His face clouded. “One of the most terrible sights I’ve seen was, in fact, one of great beauty and one which stirred my soul to its roots. One summer morning, I watched as a company of Welsh infantry marched by on their way up the line to the trenches. They were singing and, Father, if you’ve never heard Welshmen sing, you’ve missed one of life’s acutest pleasures. They were singing a hymn. ‘Guide Me, O Thou Great Redeemer.’ We all just stood entranced, listening until they were far into the distance. Until the last moment, when their song was obliterated by the obscene crash of the German artillery they ran straight into. Their Great Redeemer was apparently deaf to the pleas of angel voices that morning.”

  “Celtic voices,” the priest corrected quietly. “The Welsh are a Celtic race, are they not? I’m glad to hear they survive in some part of your land.”

  “It’s the Anglo-Saxon you hear most often, unfortunately,” said Gunning, breaking away from his dark thoughts. “Disappointingly, half the men whose last words I heard died cursing. Though you’re right: many men died calling out for their mothers. With their last breath they’d beg me to write to their mothers. ‘Tell her I died bravely. Tell her I didn’t suffer. Tell her I love her.’ It became routine. I remember automatically asking a sergeant dying of a stomach wound what he would like me to tell his mother. ‘My mother, Padre?’ he gasped in surprise. Then, ‘Tell the old bat I’m slinging my hook and the only good thing about that is t
hat where I’m going I’m not likely to bump into her again.’ But he was the exception.”

  “But I think you’re right, Father,” Letty ventured an opinion, “when you say most people need some image external to themselves to help them understand…painting, sculpture…rosary beads…a cross. One of the most telling events early in the war involved a sighting of the Virgin. Or was it an angel? At Mons. The Angel of Mons. We were all thrilled and awed and—yes—heartened by the appearance. Thousands of our troops, vastly outnumbered by the German forces, claim to have witnessed an appearance in the sky, a holy presence, a female presence, whom they believed to be on their side and, indeed, inspired by this, they went on to fight bravely and many escaped the net.”

  Gunning gave a sharp laugh. “I was at Mons,” he said, “during the reported incidents. At the defence of Mariette Bridge on the canal. I was continually watching the sky for enemy aircraft. One German plane crashed in flames, that’s all. I saw nothing unusual. Nor did any soldier I met. But, do you know, this is the first time I’ve admitted that? The story ran through the army and the whole of Britain like wildfire—thanks to the newspapers and the radio—and was unthinkingly accepted, to such an extent that anyone denying that it happened would have been denounced as unpatriotic.”

  “But so many claim—” Letty began to remonstrate.

  “Mass hysteria,” said Gunning firmly. “Self-deception on the most enormous scale. One loose observation, a misinterpreted comment, a newsman standing by to pick up and run with the idea—that’s all you’d need. Those men had had little sleep and no food for thirty-six hours. It was a hot Sunday. But the only religious activity was in the square of the village of Cuesnes. Right there in the middle of what had become a battlefield, the church bells suddenly rang out; people dressed in their Sunday best flooded into church, held a service, and went back to their homes. Then all hell broke loose.