The Splendour Falls

by Susanna Kearsley

  “Oh,” said Simon. “Sorry.”

  Garland laughed her tinkling laugh. “Your father fought in France, though, didn’t he?” she asked her husband. “That’s how he met your mother.”

  “Yes.”

  “And Jim was in the Army, Simon, when I married him. We lived in Germany for two whole years.” She shuddered. “God, that awful little apartment, darling, do you remember it? But then I guess it was just fine, for Germans.”

  Christian flicked a brief look down the table, but made no comment. It was Neil who asked the Whitakers just where in Germany they’d lived, and nodded when they told him. “I do know it,” he said, smiling. “There’s a wonderful music festival not far from there, every June. Lovely place.”

  “I hated it,” said Garland with a shrug. “The people were so unfriendly. Nazis, probably, most of them.”

  Her husband pushed his empty plate away and smiled at her with patience. “Now come on, honey, you know they weren’t.”

  “Darling, it’s true. Don’t you remember all those little holes someone kept digging, all over town? Mrs. Jurgen’s dog fell into one, and the police got suspicious? Well, that was Nazis, the police proved it.” To the rest of us she explained: “There’d been money hidden there, or something, at the end of the war, and these people were coming back to find it thirty years later. Incredible. And then there was the time…”

  She was still going, like a wind-up doll on overload, when we finally paid the bill and rose and wound our way through the labyrinth of tables to the front door.

  It was heavenly to breathe the outside air. The restaurant fronted on the long and narrow Place du General de Gaulle, and against the dark green trees the streetlamps glowed a softly spreading yellow. Further up the square the fountain gurgled merrily, and I saw the sign of the Hotel de France illuminated through the shifting leaves.

  Christian apparently saw it too. He mumbled some faint words of thanks for dinner, and wandered off toward the beckoning lights. A moment later Neil Grantham followed suit. He had a long unhurried stride, and watching him I felt again that strange unbidden twinge of interest. I pushed it back, and tried to hold my thoughts to what was going on around me.

  Simon and Garland had switched from Nazis now to neo-Nazis, and the rising tide of tension in Europe. “It’s all the immigration,” Garland was saying. She tossed her auburn head. “It’s the same everywhere, I think, all these foreigners moving in and taking over. It’s like the Jews all over again, isn’t it? I mean, you can’t condone what the Nazis did, don’t get me wrong, but you can almost understand it. These immigrants can get so uppity…”

  It was an ugly thing to say. I stared at her, and Jim burst out: “God, Garland, honestly…!” and then to my delight Simon recovered from his own stunned silence with a vengeance and began to give her proper hell. In the midst of all this Paul turned placidly to me and smiled. “Feel like taking a walk?” he asked.

  “Sure.”

  I don’t think anybody even noticed us leaving. Paul turned toward the river, away from the hotel, and I ambled along beside him, content to let him set the pace.

  We walked past a statue that I recognized from my travel brochures—a seated figure of the great humanist Rabelais, once a traveler and a lover of life, now confined to one small patch of garden at the end of the Place du General de Gaulle. Bathed by floodlights, the seated scholar seemed immense, brooding in gloomy silence as the river murmured on behind him.

  Paul sauntered across the road and round the far side of the statue, where a narrow breach in the river wall revealed a long fall of sloping stone stairs that vanished into the dark water below. On the seventh stair down, he sat and waited for me.

  “I lied,” he confessed, with a sheepish smile. “I didn’t really feel like a walk. I felt like a cigarette.” He shook one loose and offered the pack to me, but I declined, watching his face in the brief flare of the match.

  “I didn’t know you smoked,” I said.

  “Only when Simon’s not around. He’s got opinions on all kinds of things, and smoking’s one of them. I try to avoid arguments when I can. In case you hadn’t noticed.” He grinned suddenly, and I knew that he was thinking not of his brother but of Garland Whitaker, and the little scene we’d just escaped from.

  I envied him his self-control, and told him so. “I’m afraid she makes me lose my temper.”

  “Bad luck to lose your temper on the Sabbath—that’s what my mother always tells me.”

  “I’m safe, then. It’s only Friday.”

  “After sundown on Friday.” He smiled. “My Sabbath.”

  It took me a moment to digest that. “You’re Jewish?”

  He shrugged, still smiling. “With a name like Lazarus I’d better be.”

  To be truthful, I hadn’t noticed his surname at all. But then, I fancied myself a different sort of person than Garland Whitaker. I thought again of what she’d said, of how she’d said it… “She really is a hateful woman.”

  “No she isn’t. Not really. She just gets a little bit much sometimes, that’s all.” His eyes touched mine briefly, warmly, then drifted away again, out across the wide expanse of river to the shadowed line of trees that rimmed the opposite shore. “She doesn’t mean anything by it. It’s simple ignorance with her, not spite.”

  I wasn’t convinced. “Sure about that, are you?”

  “Pretty sure. Besides, you get used to it, after a while.” He paused, drawing deeply on the cigarette, still gazing out over the swiftly flowing water. “You see those trees over there? That’s not the other side of the river, it’s an island. You can’t tell, really, unless you see it from the cliffs, or walk across the bridge, there.” His voice was soft and even, storytelling. “They burned the Jews of Chinon on that island in the fourteenth century. Accused them of poisoning the town’s wells. It didn’t just happen here, of course, it happened everywhere. Women, children, no one cared. They just burned them.” He glanced at me and half smiled in the darkness. “The Nazis weren’t the first, you know. It’s been around forever, prejudice.”

  “That’s hardly an excuse for it.”

  “No,” he agreed, exhaling a stream of smoke that caught the shifting light from the street behind us. “But sometimes taking the historical perspective helps you understand a little better why people do the things they do. That’s what life’s all about, I think—understanding each other. Now Simon,” he told me, his mouth curving, “sees things differently. If someone spits at Simon, he spits right back. An eye for an eye. But that doesn’t accomplish anything.” He turned his head to look at me. “People hate too much, you know?”

  His face, in that instant, seemed suddenly older than my own. Centuries older. And then he laughed and looked away, and the moment passed.

  “God,” he said, “I sound like my father.” He pitched the stub of his cigarette away, and it died with a hiss in the dark water. “Come on, I’ll take you for a real walk, across the bridge. You get a great view of the château from over there.”

  He rose, the boy again, and led the way. The bridge was an impressive one, a gentle arc of pavement raised on heavy piles sunk deep into the river Vienne, and the river seemed to be doing its level best to wear away the unwanted obstacle. From the arched openings beneath us the roar of the rushing water rose fiercely to our ears.

  I saw what Paul had meant about the island. It was a small island, to be sure, little more than a wedge of trees and scattered houses stuck oddly in the middle of the broad river, like the lone oaks one sometimes sees stranded in the ploughed stretches of a farmer’s field. It looked quite peaceful, really, pastoral, as if its murderous past had never been. And yet, and yet…

  “There,” Paul announced proudly, “now turn around and look at that.”

  It was spectacular, as he had promised. The soaring walls of Chinon Castle rose in floodlights from the cliffs, its long m
ajestic outline standing sentry over the huddle of ancient houses below. In the river at our feet, the blinding image was reflected clearly, with scarcely a tremor to disturb its still perfection.

  “Beautiful, isn’t it?” Paul asked me.

  I nodded dumbly, gazing up at the pale outline of the tower that marked the furthest jutting corner of the castle walls. The Moulin Tower. Isabelle’s tower. Again I saw the shadow moving softly past the window, but before the shadow formed a shape, a wind arose and rippled down the river, and the bits of bright reflection broke and scattered on a rolling surge of darkness.

  Chapter 5

  “Come out,” he said…

  The telephone was ringing as I stepped from the shower early next morning. Still dripping, I grabbed a towel and made a lunge for the receiver.

  “Hello?”

  The line crackled unhelpfully for a few seconds, and then a deep familiar voice came booming down the line. “Emily? Is that you?”

  “Daddy?”

  It would have been difficult, at that moment, to judge which one of us was more surprised to hear the other.

  “What the devil are you doing in France?” demanded my father. “You ought to be in Essex.”

  “I’m on holiday,” I told him.

  “What?”

  “Holiday,” I said, raising my voice above the static of the transatlantic line. “In Chinon.” I frowned. “How did you get my number?”

  “Didn’t know it was your number, did I? They must not have heard me clearly at the front desk, I suppose… put me through to the wrong room.”

  My frown deepened. “What are you talking about?”

  “I was trying to reach Harry.”

  “Harry?” My voice was swallowed by a sudden burst of static that didn’t quite disguise my father’s sharp oath.

  “Blast these telephone lines,” he said. “We can put a man on the moon, but we can’t talk to him, there’s the tragedy. Can you hear me now? I was saying,” he went on, speaking more distinctly, “that I was trying to reach Harry. Trying to return his call, rather.”

  “Harry telephoned you?” I repeated, stupidly.

  “Apparently. He left a message on the machine.”

  “When was this?”

  “I’ve no idea, love. Yesterday, I suppose, or perhaps the day before. I’ve been in Buenos Aires for a few days, on business.”

  “What, golfing with Carlos again, you mean?”

  “Carlos is business, my girl, so don’t you go sounding all superior,” my father set me straight. “Anyhow, I’ve not rung to talk to you, now have I? So fetch me Harry, will you? Put him on the phone.”

  “He isn’t here.”

  “He’s not out in the ruins at this hour, surely? It can’t be breakfast time there, yet.”

  “Half six,” I told him. “And he really isn’t here. He was supposed to meet me yesterday, but he hasn’t turned up yet.”

  “Hasn’t turned up?” My father feigned surprise. “Our Harry? Now, there’s an item for the evening news.” His voice was dry. “We are talking about my nephew, aren’t we? The same boy who kept you waiting seven hours at the airport because he wanted to see where a footpath went?”

  I smiled. “Yes.”

  “The same boy,” my father went on, “who was supposed to meet you at the festival in Edinburgh, that one year?”

  “The very same.” I’d gone to Edinburgh, as it happened. Harry had made it as far as Epping, where he’d met up with an old girlfriend… but that was, in itself, another story.

  “Well,” said my father, “when he does turn up, tell him I’m waiting with bated breath to find out why he rang.”

  “I will.”

  “Mind you, he didn’t sound too urgent in his message. He’s probably forgotten all about it, now. Gone off on the trail of King John’s coat buttons, or some such other nonsense.”

  I smiled. “That reminds me… wherever did you find that coin for him? That King John coin?”

  My father coughed, pretending not to hear me, and asked a question of his own: “What are you doing there on holiday? You haven’t gone on holiday in years.”

  “It was Harry’s idea. He thought it would do me good to get away.”

  “Well,” said my father, faintly pleased, “he might be right at that. The village life’s no good for you, you know—not healthy, stuck down there away from everything.”

  I could have reminded him that he had turned out healthy enough, having grown up in that same village, and that I’d only gone there in the first place because he’d asked me to mind the house for him, but I wasn’t given time to answer back.

  “Must go now, my dear. Enjoy your trip.”

  “Daddy…” I said, but the line had already crackled and gone dead. With a sigh, I set the receiver back in place. Honestly, I thought, they were all the same, the men of my family. Cut from the same cloth.

  I shrugged my arms into my dressing gown and yanked my window open to let out the steam from my shower. Leaning out across the sill, I drew a deep breath of the morning air, drinking in the peaceful scenery.

  I couldn’t see the castle from my room—that view was blocked by another building squared against the hotel wall, its windows tightly shuttered still against the morning sun. But if I leaned a little further out and looked off to my left, across the tops of the trees that filled the square, I could just see the river, shining silver, beyond the head of the Rabelais statue.

  Somewhere close by a bell was counting out the hours. Seven times the bell rang out, then silence. I was straining further across the sill, trying to get a better view, when the silence was abruptly shattered by a reverberating crash from the room next door. The window just beside mine on the left had opened inwards, and after a long moment’s pause I heard a burst of helpless laughter followed by a cheerful curse that floated out into the clear morning air.

  I must have made some sound myself, because Paul’s dark head came round the painted window frame, his expression apologetic.

  “Sorry,” he said, in a hushed voice. “Simon’s knocked the curtain off again. Did we wake you up?”

  I shook my head. “I was awake already.”

  Simon’s head joined Paul’s at the window. “Some crash, eh? I swear Thierry hangs the thing low on purpose, just to make life difficult for me. Don’t you have any problem opening yours?”

  “No.” I glanced upwards at my own curtain rod, which hung a good inch clear of the top of the frame.

  “I told you,” said Simon to Paul, his chin defiant. “It’s only us. He does it on purpose.”

  Paul shrugged and grinned. “Yeah, well, you’re on your own this time. You can tell him yourself.”

  “I don’t know the word for curtain,” Simon hedged, a little hopefully, but Paul stood firm.

  “So go look it up in the dictionary. It’s the only way you’ll learn the language.”

  After a final glance at his brother’s face, Simon withdrew from the window, and Paul turned back to face me, still grinning.

  “Beautiful day,” he commented. “You must have brought the sunshine with you; we’ve had nothing but rain for three days.”

  It was beautiful, I conceded. The shadows hung sharp and clear on the turreted houses and tightly clustered rooftops of the medieval town center, and the pale stone walls gleamed brightly above the tufted green tops of the acacia trees. Two cars swung round the square below us, but the noise of traffic was muffled in the distance and the cheerful gurgle of the fountain carried over everything.

  A second bell began to chime, quite near and rich and ringing, and I looked at Paul in some surprise.

  “I thought the bell just went,” I said.

  “There are two bells. I’ve been trying to figure out exactly where the second one is—it’s either at the Church of St. Maurice, just up the rue Voltaire
, or it’s at the City Hall, which is that big building over there.” He pointed out the large square building to our left, at the spot where the fountain square narrowed into the Place du General de Gaulle. “I can’t quite make it out. But the first bell, the one you heard a few minutes ago, that’s up at the château.” He used the proper French word for the castle. “Which reminds me,” he went on. “Do you have any plans for this morning? Because Simon and I are going up to the château to putter around for an hour or so, and we thought if you didn’t have anything else to do…”

  Well, I certainly wasn’t going to waste my first full day in Chinon hanging about the hotel in the hope that Harry would show up. He’d be here soon enough, I thought drily, and in the meantime there was no law that prevented me from touring on my own. “I’d love to come,” I told Paul. “Thanks.”

  “Terrific. It’s really something to see, and you shouldn’t waste this sunshine. The weather here can be kind of unpredictable.”

  We both heard the stern knock from the corridor.

  “That’ll be Thierry,” Paul said, with a wink. “He’ll be irritated.”

  “Wouldn’t it be simpler to just leave the curtain off, instead of always hanging it back up again?”

  “Oh, sure.” He shrugged. “But it’s sort of a game for them, I think, and Simon considers it a personal challenge. Simon,” Paul told me in a positive tone, “loves a challenge.”

  Which was, I learned as we set out after breakfast, quite a thorough summing up of Simon’s character.

  He took charge of our impromptu tour party the moment we passed through the front doors of the hotel and stepped onto the pavement. “OK,” he began firmly, “since this is Emily’s first real day in Chinon, I think we should take her down the rue Voltaire first, and then up to the château from there. It’s a lot easier than going straight up those steps, anyway.”

  He meant the broad, inviting flight of cobbled steps that cut between the buildings to our right, in a direct line with the fountain. The steps themselves didn’t appear to be particularly steep, but it looked a long way up. I could just see the small cluster of yellow-white houses peering over the edge of the cliff that rimmed the town.