Bright Hair About the Bone

by Barbara Cleverly

  “Both,” he said, surprising her.

  “Well, I could say, tediously, that the casualties were incurred as a result of interstate disputes arising from national, religious, economic, or demographic pressures. Or, I could say that men have slaughtered each other for the usual male reasons: an inborn urge to kill their fellow man to establish superiority, natural aggression, arrogance, land-grabbing greed, and blood-lust.”

  She thought she must certainly have offended a man who, she judged, was guilty himself of most of these dire charges, but Edmond was looking at her with humour and approval.

  “A proponent of the Darwinian evolutionary theory, Miss Talbot?”

  “But of course. And these ancestors of yours bear witness to the truth of it. They owed their existence to a long—and blind—struggle for survival. They are a part of slowly evolving natural history, a sequence, a progression. Natural selection has occurred over aeons and,” she pointed an accusing finger at him, “you, Edmond, are the culmination of all this struggle, this bloodletting and—let’s not ignore the female role in all this—selective breeding.”

  She had expected him to stalk off down the corridor, dismayed by her rudeness, but instead he chuckled and slipped an arm companionably around her waist. “Laetitia, my love, I see at last you’re understanding me!” He looked again at his brother. “I’ve made a vow to him. No more. Never again, Guy.” He repeated the phrase quietly. “Never again.”

  Laetitia did not wish to cut across his thoughts and remained silent. But he looked at her quizzically, expecting a response. “No more war, do you mean? Can anyone ever be certain of that?” she asked tentatively.

  “Oh, yes! I can be certain. France will never again be weak. Never unprepared. Never be sent reeling by the first blow.”

  Embarrassed by his vehemence, she said with an attempt at lightness, “Gosh, for a moment, I thought Napoleon had joined us.”

  “He would not be welcome here. I would have no use for his vainglorious self-interest.”

  “Are you expecting a blow, Edmond? Hostility from some quarter towards your country?”

  “Our country, Laetitia. It’s your native land too. I don’t forget that your mother was French.” The clasp about her waist grew tighter.

  “But we’ve fought the war to end war, Edmond. It’s over. Let it go.”

  “A delusion! War will come again.”

  “L’étendard sanglant est levé? But whose bloodied standard do you see opposing you in your nightmares, Edmond? Germany’s? Surely not? They suffered more than anyone. The country is destitute, bled white by the reparation they are still paying to France, hardly able to live through the peace, let alone another war.”

  He shook his head. “There are forces at work already. For some years now they have been quietly planning, gaining ground, seeking financial backing from abroad, recruiting support from disaffected and mindless riffraff at home.”

  “But who would encourage or finance an aggressive German faction? I can’t imagine…”

  Her naïveté seemed to amuse him. “International banks, the Ford Motor Corporation, Dutch Oil, certain elements of the Anglo-Saxon business world, American senators, English aristocrats…Do you want me to name names? They would be known to you. They would make you gasp.”

  “This is nonsense!”

  “Sadly, it is not. I have clear evidence of this, and a thick file on the activities of the troublemaker at the centre of it all, a nasty little Austrian layabout, a nobody, who yet seems to have the knack of conjuring gold from deep pockets. You are half English and half French, Laetitia, and well placed to understand me when I say that we French must never trust the Anglo-Saxon world. They feel they have much more in common with their Germanic cousins than they have with the French. The British royal family are, after all, in reality exactly that—cousins of the Kaiser, are they not? The United States is heavily populated with German immigrants. France is threatened from two sides.”

  Marie-Louise’s words had been similar. Had Letty’s blend of French and English blood blurred her political vision? Would the day ever come when she would have to decide where her allegiance lay?

  “Are you proposing that something should be, could be, done to prepare for this threat you envisage?”

  “Should be done, could be done, and I’m doing it,” he said with quiet satisfaction.

  “I can’t imagine what a single man, however active and influential, might achieve. The French are too tired to fight again,” she objected. “Materially, they are at a low ebb, and morally, they are exhausted. I don’t believe they would rally to the standard of a d’Aubec, however rampant.”

  He smiled. “No. You’re right. But I understand my countrymen and the standard that I have in mind every Frenchman will honour and rise to.”

  “Well, knowing the French, I think you’ll need something pretty persuasive to get them going,” she said lightly, disturbed by his dark mood. “I would offer to tear off my sleeve as a favour and attach it, as in days of old, to the tip of your lance, but I think your scenario calls for something more alluring than that?”

  “Yes, it does. I have in mind something utterly compelling and bewitching.” He paused, then added quietly, “And female.”

  Perhaps regretting his outburst, he tucked her arm under his and hurried her along to the library. There she was disconsolately stacking away teacups and putting the books in order, listening out for the dinner gong, when Edmond’s urgent tones broke through as though he had read her thoughts. “No—let’s leave the books just where they are. I’d like you to feel you can come and visit them while I’m away. The bait in my trap, you might say! If you’re not coming for me, then my books, my horses, and your dog might just prove attraction enough.”

  She was moved by his ingenuous good humour and with a rush of affection towards him, unthinkingly went to plant a friendly farewell kiss on his cheek. A swift manoeuvre on his part neatly diverted the kiss to his lips.

  In the distance a gong sounded.

  “Look—we won’t say good-bye, Laetitia,” he murmured. “We’re in the middle of a kiss—you’re to remember that when I see you again. Today’s Wednesday. I shall travel back next Monday. Promise me that while I’m away you’ll do what I suggested?” He held her at arm’s length and studied her face. “Tell me that you’ll come and, well, just be here? Be seen. Clank the keys about a bit? You could get to know the staff…the housekeeper is very prepared to be your friend…exercise the horses—Dido is well enough to be put out in the pasture now, and you could take her for a gentle stroll in the evenings. I want, in the middle of a boring meeting, to be able to think of you here, surrounded by my things—missing me!

  “Jules won’t be here—he’s driving Maman. She won’t entrust herself to the skills of me or Constantine! But I’m leaving Marcel and three lads in and about the stables. One of them can drive and you can use the Citroën. I’ll tell everyone that you are to come and go as you please. I make only one stipulation.” He grinned. “That you don’t invite your buccaneering boss to cross the drawbridge. Paradee must come nowhere near my property! And the same goes for your vicar friend—he’s persona non grata, too. My staff have orders to eject them on sight. Understood?”

  “Of course. But you needn’t be so bossy, Edmond. And I don’t much care to hear you dismissing my friends with such unconsidered derision. Charles Paradee is a man I like and admire, and he’s one of the most talented archaeologists I’ve ever met. He has my loyalty and my regard, and I do believe I’d follow him anywhere. In an archaeological context, that is,” she added, blushing at the instinctive warmth of her riposte. “And the vicar…” For a moment she was lost for words. “Well, he’s a vicar. Perfectly trustworthy. A gentleman. Neither one would welcome an invitation to join me in an assault on your privacy…”

  He gave her a look of exaggerated disbelief which provoked her to say firmly: “They would both refuse, as do I. I’m sure I shan’t have the time to come and visit. I’m ver
y touched that you should ask me to, but no, I’ll be too busy with the dig. I haven’t been giving it my full attention lately and we’re just about to expose the foundations of a side chapel no one realised existed. It’s getting very interesting…” she added lamely.

  “Well, I shall come and pull you out of your trench the minute I get back,” he said easily, quite obviously not believing a word. “Come along, then—suppertime. And on the way to the dining room you’d better work on a convincing reason for rejecting me—if indeed you have? Maman will not be pleased. I noticed she had had champagne put on ice. Could it have been something you let slip, Laetitia my love?”

  Laetitia had no idea whether he was teasing.

  CHAPTER 27

  But, my poor girl! Why didn’t you come to me straightaway with this?” said Gunning the next day. They were sitting whispering together in a pew at the back of the empty church of Mary Magdalene. “I was only playing backgammon with old Huleux—I would have come at once had you called. Your new friend’s clearly barmy, wouldn’t you say?”

  “I do wonder what else we are to think of a man who sees himself as a reincarnated Jeanne d’Arc? Frightening!”

  “Yes, distressing enough, but…” He stirred impatiently. “But we were prepared to discover some power complex of the sort. It’s not that that disturbs me. It’s the blatant manipulation of you, Letty. This stuff and nonsense about their plans for your future.”

  “An annoying bit of well-meant interference. It’s the sort of thing parents do all the time. And, in theory, on paper, so to speak, it’s not all that mad an idea. We’re a jolly good match! Surely even you can see that? Anyway, I can shrug off parental manoeuvrings. No, William, it’s the countess’s barely stated implications that upset me. She was leading me by subtle hints to reconsider my relationship with Daniel. She planted in my mind the idea that he might actually be my real father.”

  “Good grief!” Gunning was shocked and took a few moments silently to digest the information. “But if you understood her properly, this amounts to a quite disgraceful piece of calumny against those concerned, doesn’t it? What is she implying about your mother…Sir Richard…to say nothing of Daniel himself? I’m amazed that you can tell me of it with so little emotion.”

  “With one sentence, she turns my mother into a slut, my father into a cuckold, and Daniel into a Casanova who’d betray his best friend. Emotion, you say? Just wait until I’ve thought this through! Just wait until I know the truth! Then you’ll see an outpouring of emotion!”

  The words were bold but Gunning was not deceived.

  “Well, I never expected to see it.”

  “See what?”

  “Your Achilles’ heel. Your sensitive spot. A girl who can incapacitate a count, challenge the Cambridge Constabulary, get the better of Sir Richard Talbot, that redoubtable leader of men—your father—” he said with emphasis, “it’s rather surprising that the half-suggestion of a dotty old lady should derail you. You can’t allow yourself to be swayed by the word of a stranger who sees every advantage in exploiting you. Go straight to Capitaine Huleux and ask if you may use his telephone. Ring up Sir Richard and seek reassurances.”

  “‘Seek reassurances’? That’s easily said! How do I frame my question? ‘I say, er, Daddy, could you possibly confirm that you are, in fact, my father? A certain suggestion has been put to me out here in Burgundy that you have been deceiving me and concealing my parentage all these years…and it is further asserted that the guilty party is your best friend.’ I can’t do it, William.”

  “And there you are! When you rehearse the situation like that, it takes on its proper ludicrous character. I can’t imagine why you did not immediately dismiss the scurrilous proposition.”

  “One thing held me back: a memory. William, it’s a convincing account. And there’s the problem. Daniel did pay me a lot of attention as a child and everyone knew it. But not everyone knew—as I did—” She gave him a speculative look, then, deciding to make an awkward confidence, finished with a rush, “…that he was in love with my mother.”

  “Good Lord! But however did you…?”

  “Listening at doors, behind sofas…creeping up on people when they didn’t expect it…you’ll recognise a persistent trait, I think? I believe that with childish intuition I had always known, but in later years he talked of his affection openly with my father when they were together. Sir Richard was aware of his feelings and they’d arrived at the stage, after my mother’s death, when they could talk about it if not with humour, with an indulgent tenderness. Her death, I’d say, brought them closer. They shared a huge loss.”

  “I can just about believe all this, but it’s no evidence that Daniel was your father,” Gunning said firmly. “Do you mind, Letty, if we examine the proposition a little more closely, check the facts of this bold assertion?”

  “I wouldn’t expect anything less,” she said. “Never the emotional response from you, William!”

  “If it were true that Daniel was your father it wouldn’t be at all unusual, Letty. I mean, in the circles in which your family moves in London…enlightened…would that be the word?”

  “Oh, you’re too polite, William! ‘Bohemian’ is the word you’re trying to avoid. Progressive, modern, dissolute, free-thinking? Take your pick. They’d all do, without necessarily being accurate. And I’m not unaware of the ‘arrangements’ that are frequently made in families at this level of London society. I could tell you stories that’d scorch your ears! And can one ever really know one’s parents and what they are capable of? I feel I know the truth in my bones and my blood—literally—but without evidence I cannot possibly conjure up so far from home, I don’t have the strength to take on these people.”

  “And perhaps, for the moment, there’s an even more urgent question we must ask ourselves: What tricks is the countess playing with you, Letty? This is a strange cruelty, isn’t it? What can these people hope to gain?”

  “Well—me for a start! Edmond’s proposed marriage. At least I think he’s proposed marriage. It wasn’t perfectly clear,” she finished awkwardly.

  “Evidently. But why you? This is a man who could have his pick of the foremost families of France—or abroad. You’re going to be wealthy, but on a world scale you’d hardly figure. There are richer and prettier girls by the dozen in…” He thought for a moment. “In America. He could do better. No, there must be some other unlikely reason.”

  “Apart from my wit and allure? William, you might at least allow that he’s fallen in love with me. His mother seems to think he has.”

  “I suppose that might be an answer,” he said doubtfully. “I have other suspicions. Esmé would have a technical explanation for their behaviour! I think she’d say that this was a calculated piece of manipulation. Think, Letty: away from your home, disoriented, far from friends and family and any emotional support—they’re not aware you have me on tap, of course—sad at the loss of someone dear to you, the earth suddenly shifts under your feet at her revelation. Dizzily, you reach out for someone to steady you and—lo!—here, arms outstretched and waiting, is handsome young d’Aubec, a suitor chosen for you by the man who could perhaps be your father. The man who had your best interests at heart. The man you could trust to choose someone in his own image—handsome, dashing, sharing your interests. It’s a strong brew, Letty! I’m impressed that you were hardheaded enough to resist.”

  “The head was never targeted, William,” she said wistfully. “They were aiming for the heart.”

  Something in her tone alarmed him. Hearing a distinct sniffle and detecting a small sound which might well, if not checked at once, develop into a sob, he reached for his handkerchief. “Are you all right, Letty?”

  “No. I’m putting on a good show but—you said it, William—a bit dizzy…earth shifting a little…could do with a hug…”

  She shuffled closer and, uncertainly, he placed his arms around her, patting her back. She stayed for a few moments in the frozen circle of his a
wkward embrace, her cheek resting lightly on his tweed jacket, regretting her faux pas and waiting for the earliest moment she could, without offence, pull away and end his embarrassment. “Well, their machinations have had a delayed reaction—they’ve pushed me into a pair of waiting arms, though not the intended ones,” she said, attempting feebly to explain her neediness.

  “Yes,” he agreed. “Wrong arms. Sorry about that.”

  After a moment, he asked carefully, “Have you told me everything?”

  “Not yet. No. I have one more revelation…something rather startling happened to me in that grove…I’ve never felt anything like it before…but I thought first of all I’d let you wrestle with the problem of d’Aubec’s delusions of grandeur, now the evidence is in.”

  “You dismiss the man too lightly.”

  “But his theory of impending attack from Germany is a clear indication of what Esmé would call paranoia, don’t you think? I mean—it’s a bit far-fetched, isn’t it? The League of Nations would never countenance such an attempt. My father insists that the real threat—if threat there be—is from farther east, from Russia.”

  “It disturbs me to say the man’s fears are not as outrageous as you may think. The sinister movement he mentions exists, Letty. It grows. It bides its time. It looks to the future and indoctrinates its young. And, believe me—this is no innocent Kibbo Kift! It’s a deeply unpleasant and infectious variety of nationalistic fervour. It seeks alliances. It marches under the banner of what they call ‘National Socialism,’ and before you ask—yes, it’s true that it has some appeal for certain sections of the British hierarchy. Oh, not for the Man in the Street!” He smiled. “The man standing in the soup queue or the market or walking behind the plough would say the expected: ‘That’s the bloody Hun for you! ’Ere we go again!’ And he will shuffle forward when called on, part of a new generation, to do his duty.”