by Kate Mosse
Léonie closed the book.
It so precisely matched her experience. The question was, had the words lodged themselves deep in her unconscious mind and thus directed her emotions and reactions? Or had she independently experienced something of what her uncle had seen? Another thought came into her mind.
And can Isolde really know nothing of this?
That both her mother and Isolde felt something disturbing in the character of the place, Léonie had no doubt. In their different manners they alluded to a certain atmosphere, they hinted at a sense of disquiet, although admittedly neither was explicit. Léonie pressed her hands together, making a steeple of her fingers as she thought hard. She, too, had felt it on that first afternoon when she and Anatole arrived at the Domaine de la Cade.
Still turning the matter over in her mind, she returned the book to its hiding place, slipping the sheet of piano music within the covers, then hastened downstairs to join the others. Now her fear had retreated, she was intrigued, determined to discover more. She had many questions she wished to ask of Isolde, not least what she knew of her husband’s activities before they were married. Perhaps, even, she would write to M’man to enquire as to if there were any specific incidents in her childhood that had caused her alarm. For without knowing what she was so certain about, Léonie was sure that it was the place itself that held captive the terrors, the woods, the lake, the ancient trees.
But then, as she closed the bedroom door behind her, Léonie realised she could not mention her expedition for fear she would be forbidden to return to the sepulchre. For the time being at least, her adventure must remain secret.
Night slowly fell over the Domaine de la Cade, bringing with it a sense of anticipation, a sense of waiting and watching.
Supper passed agreeably, with occasional rumbles of disconsolate thunder in the distance. The matter of Léonie’s adventure into the grounds was not mentioned. Instead, they talked of Rennes-les-Bains and adjoining towns, of the preparations for Saturday’s supper party and the guests, of how much there was to do and the enjoyment they would have doing it.
Pleasant, ordinary, domestic conversation.
After they had eaten, they withdrew to the drawing room and their moods changed. The darkness without the walls seemed almost to be alive. It was, at last, a relief when the storm struck. The very sky itself began to growl and shudder. Brilliant and jagged forked lightning ripped silver through the black clouds. Thunder clapped, bellowed, ricocheted off rock and branch, echoing between the valleys.
Then the wind, stilled momentarily as if gathering up its strength, suddenly hit the house in full force, bringing with it the first of the rain that had threatened all evening. Gusts of hail lashed against the windows, until it seemed to those cowering within the house that an avalanche of water was cascading over the face of the building, like waves breaking upon the shore.
From time to time Léonie thought that she could hear music. The notes that lay inscribed on the sheet hidden in her bedroom, taken up and sounded by the wind. As, indeed, she remembered with a shudder, the old gardener had warned.
For the most part, Anatole, Isolde and Léonie attempted to pay no heed to the tempest beyond the walls. A good fire crackled and spat in the grate. All the lamps were lit and the servants had brought extra candles. They had been made as comfortable as possible, but still Léonie feared the walls were bending, shifting, caving in under the onslaught.
In the hall, a door came unlatched, blown open by the wind, and was quickly secured. Léonie could hear the servants moving around the house, checking that all the windows were shuttered. Because there was a danger that the thin glass of the windows in the oldest casements would shatter, all the curtains had been drawn. In the upstairs corridors, they heard footsteps and the chink of pails and buckets set at intervals to catch the drips, the leaks that Isolde told them allowed rain through the loose tiles on the roof.
Confined to the drawing room, the three of them sat, strolled, paced, talked. They drank a little wine. They attempted to occupy themselves with normal evening pursuits. Anatole stoked the fire and replenished their glasses. Isolde twisted her long, pale fingers in her lap. Once, Léonie drew back the curtain and stared out into the blackness. She could see little through the slats of the ill-fitting shutters except the silhouettes of the trees in the parkland beyond, lit on the instant by a flash of lightning, plunging and tossing like unbroken horses on a rope. It seemed to her that the very woods seemed to be calling out for help, the ancient trees creaking, cracking, resisting.
At ten o’clock, Léonie suggested a game of bézique. She and Isolde settled themselves at the card table. Anatole stood, his arm resting upon the mantelshelf, smoking a cigarette and holding a glass of brandy.
They spoke little. Each of them, whilst pretending to be oblivious to the storm, was listening for the subtle changes in the wind and the rain that might indicate the worst was over. Léonie noticed how very pale Isolde had become, as if there was some further threat, some warning within the storm. As the time limped slowly on, it seemed to her that Isolde struggled for composure. Her hand strayed often to her stomach as if she was ailing for some sickness. Or else her fingers plucked at the fabric of her skirts, at the corners of the playing cards, at the green baize.
A crack of thunder struck directly overhead. Isolde’s grey eyes flared wide. In a moment, Anatole was at her side. Léonie felt a spurt of jealousy. She felt excluded, as if they had forgotten she was there.
‘We are quite safe,’ he murmured.
‘According to Monsieur Baillard,’ Léonie interrupted, ‘local legend holds that the storms are sent by the devil when the world is out of kilter. When the natural order of things is disturbed. The gardener said much the same this morning. He said that music was heard over the lake last evening, which—’
‘Léonie, ça suffit!’ Anatole said sharply. ‘All these sorts of tales, demons and diabolic happenings, those curses and maledictions, they are merely stories to scare children.’
Isolde threw another glance at the window. ‘How much longer can this last? I do not think I can bear it.’
Anatole fleetingly let his hand drop on to her shoulder, then withdrew it, but not so quickly that Léonie did not observe the gesture.
He wishes to look after her. Protect her.
She pushed the envious thought away.
‘The storm will blow itself out soon,’ Anatole said again. ‘It’s just the wind.’
‘It’s not the wind. I feel something . . . something terrible is going to happen,’ Isolde whispered. ‘I feel as if he is coming. Getting closer to us.’
‘Isolde, chérie,’ Anatole said, dropping his voice.
Léonie’s eyes narrowed. ‘He?’ she echoed. ‘Who? Who is coming?’
Neither of them paid her any attention.
Another gust of wind rattled the shutters. The sky cracked. ‘I am certain that this dignified old house has seen much worse than this,’ Anatole said, trying to inject a lightness into his voice. ‘Indeed, I wager it will still be standing many years after we are all dead and buried. There’s nothing to fear.’
Isolde’s grey eyes flashed feverishly. Léonie could see his words had had the opposite effect on her to the one intended. They had not soothed, but instead raised the stakes.
Dead and buried.
For a fraction of an instant, Léonie thought she saw the grimacing face of the demon Asmodeus looking out at her from the leaping flames of the fire. She felt herself start back.
She was on the point of confessing to Anatole the truth of how she had passed her afternoon. What she had seen and heard. But when she turned to him, she saw he was gazing at Isolde with a look of such tenderness, such concern, that she felt almost ashamed to have witnessed it.
She closed her mouth again and said nothing.
The wind did not relent. Nor did her unquiet imagination give her any rest.
CHAPTER 42
When Léonie woke the following morni
ng, she was surprised to find herself on the chaise longue in the drawing room of the Domaine de la Cade rather than in her bedroom.
Shafts of golden early morning light were slipping in through the cracks in the curtains. The fire was dead in the grate. The playing cards and empty glasses sat on the table, abandoned, where they had been left last evening.
Léonie sat for a while listening to the silence. After all the pounding, the hammering of rain and wind, everything was now quiet. The old house no longer creaked and groaned. The storm had passed on.
She smiled. Last night’s terrors - thoughts of ghosts and devils - seemed quite absurd in the benign morning light. Soon, hunger drove her from the sanctuary of the sofa. She tiptoed to the door and out into the hall. The air was chill and there was a pervasive smell of damp everywhere, but there was freshness in the air that had been lacking the previous night. She went through the pass door separating the front of the house from the servants’ quarters, feeling the cold tiles through the thin soles of her savates, and found herself in a long flagstoned corridor. At the end, behind a second door, she could hear voices and the clattering of cooking utensils, someone whistling.
Léonie entered the kitchen. It was smaller than she had imagined, a pleasant square room with waxed walls and black beams from which hung a variety of copper-bottomed pans and cooking implements. On the blackened top of the stove, set within a chimney large enough to accommodate a stone bench on either side, was a bubbling pot.
The cook was holding a long-handled wooden paddle in her hand as she turned towards the unexpected visitor. There was a scrape of chair legs on the flagstones as the other servants, eating breakfast at a scarred wooden table in the middle of the kitchen, rose to their feet.
‘Please, don’t get up,’ said Léonie quickly, awkward at her intrusion. ‘I wonder if I might have some coffee. Some bread, too, perhaps.’
The cook nodded. ‘I will prepare a tray, Madomaisèla. In the morning room?’
‘Yes, thank you. Has anybody else come down?’ she asked.
‘No, Madomaisèla. You are the first.’
The tone was courteous, but the dismissal clear.
Still Léonie delayed. ‘Has there been any damage from the storm?’
‘Nothing that can’t be put right,’ the cook said.
‘No flooding?’ she asked, worried that perhaps Saturday’s dinner party, although some days off, would be postponed if the road up from the village was damaged.
‘Nothing serious reported from Rennes-les-Bains. One of the girls heard tell there’s been a landslide at Alet-les-Bains. The mail coach is held over at Limoux.’ The cook wiped her hands on her apron. ‘Now, if there’s nothing else, Madomaisèla, perhaps you will excuse me. There is a great deal to prepare for this evening.’
Léonie had no choice but to withdraw. ‘Of course.’
As she left the kitchen, the clock in the hall struck seven. She looked through the windows outside to see a pink sky behind white clouds. In the grounds, work had begun sweeping up the leaves and gathering the wood and branches that had blown loose from the trees.
The next few days passed quietly.
Léonie had the run of the house and grounds. She breakfasted in her rooms and was free to spend the morning howsoever she chose. Often she did not see her brother and Isolde until luncheon. In the afternoons, she and Isolde walked in the grounds, weather permitting, or explored the house. Her aunt was unfailingly attentive, gentle, but with a sharp and amusing wit. They played Rubinstein duets on the piano, clumsily and with more enjoyment than skill, and amused themselves with parlour games in the evenings. Léonie read and painted a landscape of the house from the small promontory overlooking the lake.
Her uncle’s book and the sheet of music she had taken from the sepulchre were much on her mind, but she did not return to them. And, in her perambulations of the estate, Léonie deliberately did not allow her feet to take her in the direction of the overgrown path in the woods that led to the deserted Visigoth chapel.
Saturday 26th September, the day of the dinner party, dawned bright and clear.
By the time Léonie had finished eating breakfast, the first of the delivery carts from Rennes-les-Bains was rattling up the drive of the Domaine de la Cade. The boy jumped down and unloaded two large blocks of ice. Not long after, another arrived with the viande, cheeses and fresh milk and cream.
In every room of the house, or so it seemed to Léonie, servants polished and primed and folded linen and set out ashtrays or glasses under the eye of the old housekeeper.
At nine o’clock, Isolde appeared from her room and took Léonie with her into the gardens. Armed with a pair of secateurs and thick rubber overshoes as protection against the damp paths, they cut flowers for the table displays while the first dew was still on them.
When they returned to the house at eleven o’clock, they had filled four flat trug baskets with blooms. They found steaming coffee waiting for them in the morning room and Anatole, in excellent spirits, smiling up at them from behind the newspaper.
At midday, Léonie finished the last of the placement cards, the names printed and designed to Isolde’s specifications. She extracted a promise from her aunt that, when the table was ready, she could lay out the cards herself.
By one, there was nothing left to do. After a light lunch, Isolde announced her intention to retire to her chamber to rest for a few hours. Anatole withdrew to attend to some correspondence. Léonie was left with no alternative but to do the same.
In her room, she glanced to her workbox where Les Tarots lay sleeping beneath red cotton and blue thread, but even though some days had passed since her expedition to the sepulchre, she was still reluctant to disturb her own peace of mind by getting caught up again in the mysteries of the book. Besides, Léonie was well aware that reading would not occupy her this afternoon. Her mind was too skittish, such was her state of anticipation.
Her eyes instead darted to where her colours, brushes, easel and book of cartridge papers sat on the floor. She stood up, feeling a wave of affection for her mother. This would be the ideal opportunity to make good use of her time and paint something as a souvenir. A gift to present to her on their return to town at the end of October.
To eclipse her unhappy childhood memories of the Domaine de la Cade?
Léonie rang for the maid and instructed her to fetch a bowl of water for her brushes and a sheet of thick cotton to cover the table. Then she took out her palette and tubes of paint and began to squeeze out beads of crimson, ochre, tourmaline blue, yellow and moss green, with ebony black for edging. From her book of cartridge paper, she took a single heavy cream sheet.
She sat for a while, waiting for inspiration to strike. Without having any clear idea of what she might choose to attempt, she began to sketch the outline of a figure in thin, black strokes. As her brush glided over the paper, her mind was concentrated on the excitements of the evening ahead. The painting began to find its shape without her. She wondered how she would find the society of Rennes-les-Bains. Everyone invited had accepted Isolde’s hospitality. Léonie saw herself admired and complimented, picturing herself first in her blue gown, then the red, then her green dress from La Samaritaine. She imagined her slim arms in various evening gloves, favouring the particular trim of one pair or the length of another. She imagined her copper hair held in place by mother-of-pearl combs or silver hairpins that would most flatter her colouring. She toyed with a variety of necklaces and earrings and bracelets to complete the look.
As the shadows lengthened on the lawns below, as she passed the time in pleasurable thought, stroke by stroke the colours thickened upon the sheet of cartridge paper and the image came to life.
Only when Marieta had returned to clear away and quitted the room did Léonie take stock of what she had painted. What she saw astonished her. Without in the least intending to do so, she had painted a figure from one of the Tarot tableaux on the wall of the sepulchre: La Force. The only difference was that she
had given the girl long copper hair and a morning dress that looked quite the copy of a gown she had hanging in her own closet in the rue de Berlin.
She had painted herself into the picture.
Caught between pride at the quality of her handiwork and her intriguing choice of subject matter, Léonie held the self-portrait up to the light. As a rule, all her characters looked rather similar and bore little relationship to the subject she had been attempting. But on this occasion, there was more than a passing resemblance.
Strength?
Was that how she saw herself? Léonie would not have said so. She examined the picture a moment longer, but aware that the afternoon was drawing to a close, she was obliged to prop the portrait behind the clock on the mantelshelf and put it out of her mind.