Bright Hair About the Bone

by Barbara Cleverly

  The silence was broken by the countess. The first to rise to her feet, she turned to face the image of the Virgin, curtsied, and spoke in a clear voice: “We thank you by singing your greatness; we reach towards your bright light, perceived only by the intellect; we recognise you, true seed of humankind, the womb pregnant with all life to come.”

  The others began to chant:

  “Mother of Creation, Fountain of Goodness,

  From you we will be born again.”

  Five further eulogies of varying lengths and degrees of conviction followed, until all had spoken but for Letty and Gunning. With a shake of the head, Letty indicated that she was content to remain silently singing. She was alarmed to see Gunning getting to his feet and she put out a hand to restrain him. She had sensed him by her side growing increasingly tense.

  Shaking off her grasp, he strode towards the lectern. No self-conscious comments offered from the body of the Church for him, Letty thought, annoyed, but she acknowledged that he was a man performing in a setting very familiar to him. He was playing a part he had been trained for and had practised for years in English churches and on French battlefields. The lack of a dog-collar and priestly garments was disconcerting at first, but his elegant dinner jacket, borrowed from d’Aubec, gave him distinction and authority. Uneasily, Letty identified the sudden rush of emotion she felt as pride. The firmness of his hands on the lectern, the amusement in his sharp blue eyes as they made contact with every person in the congregation, the absence of notes, all spoke of a growing confidence. Letty hadn’t the faintest idea what he would do: tear down the temple or shout hallelujah—neither would have surprised her.

  Father Anselme went to sit down, leaving Gunning in possession of the stage.

  CHAPTER 43

  He chose to speak in English, confident that his worldly audience would have no difficulty in understanding him. A good decision, Letty thought. An Englishman struggling with the French language is a comical figure and Gunning needed at this moment to be taken seriously.

  “Under the challenging gaze of the Magdalene” (he bowed to her stained glass image), “I am prompted to speak to you, her devoted followers, in no less than the Lady’s own words. Words with which I don’t believe you will be familiar.”

  His audience was intrigued and eager to hear more. They were not disappointed. His account of the discovery in the desert of an ancient and tattered manuscript, its passing through the hands of scurrilous dealers and thieves to fetch up in the safety of a museum where its miraculous contents had at last, after years of dusty neglect, finally been understood, was, Letty thought, a little highly coloured, but there was no denying its power.

  Surprise and anticipation were on every face. Father Anselme smiled and looked modestly at the floor as his protégé held them in the palm of his hand. Auguste cast a questioning glance at Constantine, who looked blankly back at him.

  “And the words she speaks are Christ’s own, transmitted through the clarity of her own sharp intellect, undistorted by ambition, fear, jealousy, or doctrinal wrangling. And she had some very fundamental questions to put to the mouthpiece of God: ‘What is matter?’ she asks him. ‘Will it last forever?’

  “And Christ answers: ‘All that is born, all that is created, all the elements of nature are interwoven and united with each other. All that is composed will eventually decompose; everything returns to its roots; matter returns to the origins of matter.’”

  Nods of agreement greeted this uncontroversial statement. They were all certain they’d heard it before somewhere. Gunning seemed to be treading a well-worn path.

  “And again, Mary asks (and who knows the depth of personal need which prompted it?) a question the answer to which we all thirst for: ‘What is the sin of the world?’ And his reply is clear: ‘There is no sin. It is you who create sin when you act according to the habits of your corrupt nature; this is where sin lies.’”

  “He’s making all this up. Surely?” thought Letty. “How can he know? Has he gone over to them?”

  His glance towards the vivid figure of Mary on his right was agonised, seeking strength, and suddenly Letty was ashamed of her suspicions. She was closer than she had ever been to getting a glimpse of the man at the centre of the protective layers he had built around himself over the years. He was speaking from the heart—the heart she had thought atrophied within him.

  “But Mary has a message for you. A message against which all your ears are stopped.”

  And, of course, at the challenge, each listener unstopped his ears and paid even closer attention.

  “You will not want to hear, you will not want to accept the truth she hands down to us: The Lord calls on us to become anthropos. I offer you the Greek since we have no word subtle enough to express this, in French or English. Fully human, accepting and rejoicing in our humanity, perhaps. ‘Be vigilant,’ Mary warns us. ‘Allow no one to mislead you by saying—“Here it is!” or “There it is!” For it is within you that the Son of Man lives. Go to him. For those who seek him, find him.’

  “Some spark of the creating deity is within each human. We should not seek outside ourselves for external symbols of faith. Those who offer them, who set up objects of veneration, idols, prophecies, promises of divine intervention…” Gunning waved a hand round the chapel, “are misleading mankind, are denying him progress by chaining him to his Stone Age beliefs. We are not primitive hunters, dwellers in caves who do not understand the workings of our planet and must explain them with stories of the supernatural.”

  The audience was beginning to stir uneasily. Auguste’s looks in Constantine’s direction were increasingly flinty. No emotion played on Constantine’s stern features, but his right hand had settled in his pocket. They all flashed anxious glances at the countess and for a moment Letty was reassured. Would they risk a violent scene in front of an old lady whose health was known to be failing?

  “But now they know where he’s going with this, they’ll surely find a way of silencing him,” Letty thought, despairing. “He’s leaving them no choice.” And she saw clearly why Daniel had died.

  They had attempted to recruit him to their cause, just as they were even now trying to capture herself and Gunning. Daniel would have gone along with it in a spirit of intellectual enquiry—that was ever his style: debate, listen patiently to your opponent, get into his skin, then, having understood him, play devil’s advocate, tie him in philosophical knots. But, agnostic humanist that he was, Daniel would, when he finally grasped the enormity of what they were about, have poured scorn on their plans to use religious fervour as a means to their sinister goal. Once he had understood their intentions, he would first have ridiculed them and then flung down a direct challenge. Metaphorically, faces would have been slapped by Daniel’s glove. He would have threatened them with exposure. Letty shivered. She could imagine the old cavalryman’s challenges: “My friend the Archbishop must hear of this…the Pope would expect to be made aware…His Majesty’s government and our allies the United States will take a dim view!” He might even have invoked his old pals at the War Office.

  No, it had not been a peaceful exchange of views, a cosy foursome round the card table. There had been no sentimental tango. One of the four players had picked up the gauntlet. She looked around the assembled company and identified her target.

  “But this is what you are proposing,” Gunning was storming on. “To mislead humanity. With velvet-lined handcuffs you will chain him to his superstitions. You attempt to distort man’s highest impulses and use them to forge no less than a tool of social control. You propose to take the finest images of man’s faith—the Mother, the Virgin, the Giver of Good Gifts and Bringer of Seasons—and blend them into a heady cocktail for a thirsting people. What you are seeking after is a nation which, inebriated and inflamed, will hurl itself mindlessly into action against an enemy chosen for them by you yourselves. By a gang of nationalistic tyrants!”

  Letty cringed. She had seen, in the park one Sunday before
the war, a crowd at Speakers’ Corner attack a pacifist. They had pulled him from his soapbox and begun to kick and pummel the lad. The police were calculatedly slow to come to his assistance and Letty had been dragged screaming from the scene by her father. Gunning was in far greater danger than that young man.

  Auguste’s ascetic features were becoming increasingly strained. François raised a disbelieving eyebrow to his cousin Edmond and shrugged his shoulders. Anselme’s fingers twitched, anxious to clasp a rosary he did not carry.

  “Patriotism!” Gunning’s voice was rasping with scorn. “Love of one’s country! What are these? Virtues? No! Nothing but a sleek mask for nationalism—the evil which has brought Europe time after time to the edge and made it stare into the pit. Tribalism by another name. Have we made no progress since the Celtic Aedui fought their neighbours, the Germani, here in these hills? Have we learned nothing in two thousand years but that our young men are born to be sacrificed to the God of War?

  “Our warrior no longer runs naked into battle welcoming a hero’s death, fighting hand to hand with a single enemy, the image of himself. Our new Achilles lurks in the shadows, slaughtering hideously and indiscriminately from a distance. He doesn’t see the light leave a man’s eyes, he doesn’t hear his death gasp, doesn’t feel his last breath hot on his cheek. When this warrior strikes it is not one man who falls nor yet an army but a whole people.

  “And you would put Nationalism into harness with Religion to power the charge of the unreasoning masses? You plan to replace God with yourselves! Do I need to remind you of the name of the last being to attempt this?” he said, turning his unearthly blue gaze on d’Aubec. “His name was Lucifer!”

  At last it came and Letty, alert to every changing expression on the faces around her, was astounded to catch the slight nod that gave the order to silence him. The signal without which no one would have taken action came from a totally unexpected quarter but there was no mistaking it. It was accompanied by the flash of a great ruby in a ring too massive for the emaciated finger that wore it.

  CHAPTER 44

  All eyes had been looking in the countess’s direction—Letty had been aware of this—concerned, she had supposed, for the old lady’s health. But with the peremptory gesture she understood at last that, at the centre of the web around her, there had always been the countess. The Lady. Who else? The cornerstone of their matrilineal tribe. The one they looked to for command.

  And this command was translated into furious action as Constantine, released at last, leaped forward, cosh in hand, and laid Gunning low with a single vicious blow behind the ear.

  With everyone’s attention on the slumped figure of Gunning lying motionless at the foot of the lectern, no one saw Letty’s hand reach out and snatch the Luger from under the concealing sprays of ivy and roses at her elbow.

  Anselme dashed forward and fell upon the body of Gunning, covering him protectively with the folds of his white robes. Constantine and François advanced on him menacingly, shouting at the priest to move away. Gabrielle shrieked and the countess watched, impassive.

  Letty was confused; she despaired of getting the attention of this circus. She could have shot any one of them dead where they stood but they milled about, oblivious of the menace in her hand.

  She took a deep breath, found her target, raised the Luger, and aimed for the left eye.

  The crash of the shot in the enclosed space was deafening. All movement ceased and all sound save for a small whimper from Gabrielle.

  “Bad shot!” said Letty. “I hadn’t meant to destroy the whole face.”

  What remained of the gilded plaster cherub’s head at the apex of the roof stared down blindly at the group below. They coughed and swatted at the dust and shards that rained down from the ceiling.

  “Jules’ Luger,” she said concisely. “I’m sure you’re familiar with it. Nine millimetre, butt-loaded, well maintained. Seven bullets, two now used up, which leaves me five. And I have six targets. Oh, dear! I shall be one short.”

  They saw the firmness with which she held the angled grip of the gun; they eyed the menace of the steel grey barrel trained unwaveringly on the countess’s heart; they flinched before the purpose in the steel grey eyes directing her aim, and they stayed very still.

  Constantine tore his gaze from Letty and raised his head to examine the eyeless cherub, assessing the shot. He looked back at her and spread his hands in a placatory gesture.

  “Anselme! Get Gunning out of here. Send for a doctor,” said Letty.

  The countess looked at her thoughtfully. Letty had not asked for the police to be called and she calculated that the wise woman was guessing the significance of the omission: They had already been summoned. Letty managed by a superhuman effort to keep her attention on the group and ignore the limp body of Gunning as the priest tugged it by the armpits through the door and out into the corridor.

  D’Aubec took a step towards her, arms outstretched, alarmed and loving. “Laetitia, my darling! Your loyalty does you credit, but this man has battened on you, used you, filled your head with silliness. He’s obviously unhinged. You heard him ranting just now…Neurasthenia, perhaps? He has suffered. Poor chap! But dangerous…We ought never to have asked him here.” He threw an apologetic glance at his mother. “He’s not dead. Constantine has merely silenced him for the moment. We’ll look after him.”

  “I’m sure you will. Look after him by throwing him from a height to cover the blow to the head? From the battlements? Perhaps if you can revive him, the countess would like to dance a last tango with him? Every bit as fatal, I think. Go and stand behind the altar table, all of you.”

  The gun remained steady while they moved with varying degrees of co-operation. Auguste gave the countess his arm and they made their way to the far side of the altar with the insouciance of a couple setting out for a stroll in the Bois de Boulogne. Constantine took up a position on the edge of the group, tense as a tiger, ready to spring the moment her attention wavered. D’Aubec stood on the other side looking at her with affectionate amusement. In their different ways, each was a danger.

  “Darling, that gun’s far too dangerous a toy for you to be playing with. Why don’t you just hand it to me, and I’ll make it safe and give it to Huleux, who must be searching everywhere for it…”

  “Shut up!”

  “Children! Children!” scolded the countess. “Do you think we could all do with a cup of tea?” she suggested brightly. “Or a tisane, perhaps? All this dust is making me thirsty.”

  “What about a game of belote while we’re waiting?” said Letty. “We’ve got enough players. You need four, I understand. Just as on the night Daniel died. You were there, madame, with Daniel. And, hurrying from Lyon to deal with the emergency my godfather was creating—your lieutenants. Your brother-in-law Auguste and Constantine. The Top Brass. All three of you alarmed to discover finally the depth of Daniel’s disgust with your plans. He must have made you aware, in his honourable way, of his intention, if you did not at once abandon them, of shouting the truth from the rooftops.”

  They listened to her with polite attention, in silence, becoming more relaxed as the seconds ticked away. Letty was conscious that she was following exactly the same lethal path as her godfather and was filled with exaltation. No possibility of a retreat now and her present position was untenable. Her finger was growing rigid on the trigger. She was not sure how much longer she could hold the heavy gun convincingly at the ready.

  She knew the peril she was in. This group was thinking as one entity, and they had realised that time was on their side. They simply had to wait. Avoid attracting her attention. The gun or her spirit would inevitably droop. And one moment’s loss of concentration and she would be disarmed. Seconds later, Gunning would die. How much longer?

  Gabrielle began to examine her fingernails. Auguste studied the stained glass. The countess coughed pathetically into a lace handkerchief. Waiting. Waiting.

  “Keep going, Letty! Don’t look bac
k!” Daniel’s voice.

  Forward then. There was only one course open to her. Break the deadlock. She had to provoke an attack to which she could legitimately respond. One last attempt at retribution for Daniel. She would have to shoot one of them. She looked along the group and made her choice.

  “It was of no importance that Edmond was not present that evening.” Her voice was calm. “No loss. Decisions can be taken without him. Edmond—the dud of the family…the howitzer shell fitted with a useless one-hundred fuse…all thunderous delivery and no explosion.”

  Letty’s shot rang out the instant d’Aubec leaped towards her, screaming his fury, catching him in the right shoulder, hurling him backwards, and spinning him round. He crashed to the floor, blood spurting between the fingers of the hand he held over the wound. Letty watched his expression turn from incredulity to agony. He turned away from her and through clenched teeth, he muttered, barely audible, one word: “Maman!”

  The countess, oblivious of the gun, dashed forward and threw her arms around him, murmuring.

  “Mater dolorosa,” Letty whispered, her gun now pointing at Constantine. “Then, more firmly: “Madame, your son’s bleeding. Use the altar cloth.”

  Three agonising minutes later, the door burst open and Huleux, accompanied by two armed officers, came in, openmouthed with horror but training revolvers steadily on the group behind the altar. Huleux rapped out a few commands and warnings, and it was some time before Letty realised that most of these were addressed to her. Sensing her paralysis, he approached and gently touched the hand holding the gun in a frozen grip.

  “It’s over, mademoiselle. Let me have the gun. We were just entering the building when we heard the first shot. Go to the vicar. He is conscious and calling for you.”

  CHAPTER 45