by Marie Laval
After a quick bath in the then lukewarm rose-scented water, she wrapped herself in a soft towel and sat down in front of the fireplace to rub her hair dry. What she wanted more than anything else was to explore the chateau, open all the doors, look through cupboards and wardrobes for trinkets, clothes or books her mother or grandmother might have left behind. But that would have to wait.
She made her way downstairs. Saintclair and Malleval were talking in the drawing room. She heard her name mentioned and paused outside the door.
‘When do you want me to take Madame Norton back to England?’
Malleval chuckled. ‘I have no intention of letting her out of my sight just now. I have plans for her.’
‘What do you mean, you have plans? I thought she was here to sign some papers regarding a bequest from your father.’
‘That’s what she believes, too.’
‘What are you playing at, Malleval?’ Saintclair sounded wary.
What did he mean indeed? She wanted to know more but she heard footsteps behind her. Someone was coming. She took a deep breath and entered the room.
Uxeloup Malleval was a different man tonight. Clad in a smart black suit with a crisp white shirt and an elaborate cravate, he walked towards her, a wide smile on his face.
‘Here she is! Chère niece!’ He took her hand affectionately, his peculiar brown eyes searched her face.
‘I trust you find your room agreeable.’
‘Yes, it’s beautiful, thank you.’
He turned to Saintclair. ‘What about you, old friend? I hope you’ll enjoy one last night of comfort before going back to your quarters in Lyon. The barracks must be cramped by now with all the troops having recently arrived from the north. Not to mention the new recruits.’
‘I’m used to it,’ Saintclair replied with a shrug.
‘Lucky you! I wish I was still fit enough to be part of it all.’ Malleval let go of Marie-Ange’s hand to walk towards a console and pour three glasses of port which he handed to his guests.
‘I suspect you have many questions for me,’ he said after inviting Marie-Ange to sit down.
She nodded. ‘I do, indeed, but first I would like to know how you managed to trace me to Norton Place. I was very surprised to receive your letter at the end November.’
In business, there was nothing better than a direct approach. That was what William Jones used to say. Uxeloup cocked his head to one side and sighed.
‘It wasn’t an easy task, believe me. My father started looking for your mother a long, long time ago. His agents searched all over Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, and England without success, but he was determined not to give up. When he passed away last summer I promised him I would keep on searching. At last, a few months ago, our men stumbled upon records of your parents’ wedding—July 1791, I believe—of your christening and regrettably, of your mother’s death in a church register in Plymouth…After that it was only matter of days for them to pick up your trail.’
Marie-Ange closed her eyes briefly. She had not known the date of her parents’ wedding. Her suspicions regarding her birth were now confirmed. William Jones married her mother in July. She was born five months later. Would she ever find out who her real father was?
She drank a sip of port and carried on. ‘I apologise if I sound blunt, but I am surprised at your father’s generosity. After all, nothing obliged him to leave my mother a share of the Beauregard fortune. From what I heard, he was far from being caring and sentimental.’
Uxeloup pulled a face. ‘Touché! You are correct. My father was a harsh man indeed, but he deeply regretted some of his actions and wouldn’t rest until he put them to right. He had a certain attachment to your mother and wanted to do the right thing by her.’
He smiled and took her hand. ‘There. Have I satisfied your curiosity?’
Although she wasn’t convinced by his explanations, she nodded slowly.
‘When can I sign the papers to release your father’s bequest?’ she asked, pulling her hand out of his.
Uxeloup laughed again. ‘You certainly don’t beat around the bush, dear Marie-Ange! I have always admired the no-nonsense Anglo-Saxon approach. We will visit my notary in Lyon very soon, together with Saintclair. My notary, Maitre Bernard, needs to finalise our…How shall we call it?’ He turned to Saintclair and cocked one eyebrow, ‘our arrangement.’
Saintclair looked distinctly uneasy as he glanced at Marie-Ange. She suspected he would be even more embarrassed if he knew she was fully aware of his arrangement with Malleval and of his gambling debt.
‘But you wrote that the papers were ready for me to sign here, at Beauregard!’ She remembered Uxeloup’s most recent letter.
He arched his eyebrows. ‘Did I? I don’t recall. Anyway, you will enjoy Lyon. Even though it’s dull and provincial compared to Paris, it’s still more exciting than the Beaujolais. Apart from hunting, there’s really nothing to do here. And the neighbours are all frightful old bores.’
‘Actually, there is someone I would like to meet—Hermine Marzac, my great aunt. I believe she lives around here.’
Malleval snorted.
‘The old battleaxe? Don’t count on me to take you to Marzac. Hermine is a fossil from the Ancien Regime. She believes in the God-given superiority of the aristocracy whereas Saintclair and I, together with the best part of the population, are nothing but dirty peasants unworthy of cleaning her boots. And of course, she particularly hates me, seeing that my father married into her family under rather difficult circumstances.’ He let out a sigh, shook his head. ‘However, I can understand why you wish to meet her. After all, you and she are, I believe, the only living Beauregards left in the country.’
He stood up, impatient all of a sudden. ‘I will see what is keeping Sophie. I won’t be long,’ he muttered before walking out.
‘So what do you think of the chateau? Is it as you had imagined?’ Saintclair asked when they were alone.
‘It feels like coming home,’ she mused wistfully. ‘Or rather it feels like I have been here in dream and I remember…’
Malleval came back to say that supper was ready, and they followed him into the dining room.
He sat at the head of the table, with Marie-Ange and Saintclair on either side and Sophie opposite him. The young woman had lost her kind smile tonight. She sniffled, held a handkerchief to her red, swollen eyes all through the meal and hardly said a word, even when Uxeloup praised her for the sumptuous meal.
‘If you’re going to be miserable all evening, you might as well stay in your room,’ he snapped at last. ‘You know I cannot stand weeping females.’
Sophie let out a strangled cry and ran out, holding the handkerchief to her mouth.
‘There was no need for that,’ Saintclair remarked. ‘She doesn’t look well.’
Uxeloup laughed. ‘Sophie’s just being unreasonable. What is it with women? Whatever you do, you can never please them.’ He cut a large piece of cake and poured cream all over it before stabbing his fork in it.
He seemed a volatile character. He drank large quantities of red wine and alternated between indolence, anger and good humour. When a maid brought a basket of fruit and a platter of cheese at the end of the meal, he leant over and wrapped his arm around her waist before whispering something in her ear. The girl giggled and swayed her hips as she walked out, casting him a provocative glance over her shoulder.
‘You’ll have to come hunting here again when I’m better,’ he told Saintclair. ‘Remember the great times we used to have? What fun! What was the name of the dark beauty who accompanied you sometimes?’
Saintclair opened his mouth to reply but Malleval raised his hand.
‘Wait, I remember. Her name was Caroline, was it not? You too seemed to get along very well…a little too well at times.’
Marie-Ange looked down at her plate and tightened her lips. So Caroline Dupin and Capitaine Saintclair were lovers, and had been for some time. For some unknown reason, it annoyed her.
‘No. I haven’t been up to much,’ Malleval replied. ‘But it’s all about to change, thanks to Marie-Ange here.’
She looked up, surprised.
‘Yes, my dear,’ Malleval said cheerfully. ‘You are going to make everything wonderful again.’
‘I do not understand.’
Malleval drained his glass of wine and threw his napkin onto the table.
‘Come with me, I want to show you something.’
He took them to the library, a lot more welcoming tonight thanks to numerous candelabras giving off a warm, bright light and a fire burning high in the hearth. Malleval’s opium-smoking contraption had been removed, but the sickening smell lingered.
‘Take a look at this,’ Malleval gestured for Marie-Ange to join him in front of a painting, the portrait of a man.
‘Count Saint-Germain,’ he announced. ‘The mysterious, legendary, elusive, Count Saint-Germain.’
‘My mother’s godfather?’ She stepped closer to the painting, curious.
The painting depicted a man of average height wearing a plain dark grey suit. He had intelligent brown eyes and his mouth was stretched in a smile. He was holding a roll of parchment and a gold cross incrusted with precious gems which seemed clipped onto some kind of glass phial. Marie-Ange stepped closer and repressed a cry of surprise. Saint Germain wore a golden pendant that looked identical to a locket her mother had left her—the only piece of jewellery she had inherited from her. Could it be the same one?
‘I can’t read the date,’ she remarked, pointing to the bottom of the painting.
‘This was painted in 1783,’ Uxeloup replied. ‘One year later Saint Germain supposedly died at the court of the Grand Duke of Holstein in Denmark.’
She turned to him. ‘Supposedly?’
He fixed his intense brown eyes on her. ‘Saint Germain did not die.’
‘Come on, Malleval!’ Saintclair interrupted. ‘You cannot believe the tales about the man being immortal! I always thought it was a shame that legends surrounding Saint Germain out shadowed his achievements as a statesman and diplomat. All people ever remember are these silly stories about him being a Rosicrucian, an alchemist able to turn copper coins into gold, melt small diamonds to produce larger ones and, of course, being immortal.’
Marie-Ange gazed at the portrait again. Her father had never mentioned alchemy, let alone immortality.
‘Saint Germain was—and still is—a mystery,’ Malleval carried on, oblivious. ‘He held everyone under his spell. King Louis XV was so taken by him he sent him on missions all over Europe. He valued his advice on all matters, especially occult sciences. Even a hardened sceptic like Voltaire famously said of him, and I quote, ‘Count Saint German is a man who was never born, who will never die, and who knows everything.’
Saintclair burst out laughing. ‘Well, if you believe that, you will believe anything. The man had great talents—I grant you that—especially for pulling the wool over people’s eyes when it suited him.’
‘What is he holding on that painting?’ Marie-Ange pointed to the cross.
‘It is called La Croix de Vie,’ Malleval answered. ‘Like the Crux Vaticana which holds pieces of the True Cross, it contains a relic. A most wonderful relic.’
‘That piece of white cloth here in the phial?’ She pointed to the base of the Cross.
Malleval nodded. ‘A long time ago, my family came in possession of documents relating to the Cross and the relic.’
He walked to a glass cabinet displaying ancient manuscripts and gestured for Marie-Ange to join him.
‘Have you ever heard of Polycarpe de la Rivière?’ he asked. ‘He was a prior and a famous scholar back in the seventeenth century. He discovered these documents relating to the Cross.’ He pointed to the manuscripts in the cabinet. ‘Coded documents written by the Knights Templar themselves as far back as the 1100’s, when they were the Cross’ keepers.’
Marie-Ange leant forward to examine the thick, yellow parchments. Her heart beat faster. She had seen these symbols before, on her father’s desk one day when she had sneaked into his study. She recognised the strange writing—lines, circles, squares, crosses, triangles and dots…But why would William Jones have documents written in the Templar code in his possession? He was a lawyer, not a historian.
‘As you can see, the scroll Saint Germain holds is written in the same code.’ Malleval pointed to the portrait. ‘These parchments were acquired by my family centuries ago. They relate the story of the Cross of Life and its extraordinary power.’
Saintclair raked his hair with his fingers and sighed. ‘What power are we talking about now?’ He sounded faintly amused. ‘The faculty to change metal into gold or make a man invisible?’
Malleval’s eyes shone with excitement. ‘The power to give eternal life.’
‘You need to ask your physician for a draught to clear your head. You’re not making any sense.’ Saintclair paused. ‘Anyway, you said the Cross belonged to the Knights Templar…How then did it come to be in France and in the possession of Saint Germain?’
‘After the fall of St Jean d’Acre in 1291, the body of Guillaume de Beaujeu, the Great Master Templar, was taken to Paris and buried in the Temple’s chapel along with the Order’s most precious objects and documents,’ Malleval explained. ‘Among these was the Cross of Life. When the Order was disbanded by Philippe le Bel in 1307, Jacques Molay—the last Great Master—asked Guichard de Beaujeu to rescue the treasure hidden in his ancestor’s tomb. Guillaume’s body, along with the treasure, was reburied in the family chateau in Arginy, not far from here.’
‘So the Cross of Life was hidden in Arginy when the Templar Order was dissolved?’
Malleval nodded. ‘Yes, until Anne de Beaujeu searched the crypt of the chateau and discovered it in the fifteenth century. I don’t know how Saint Germain came to be in possession of it, but it was the Cross and its relic which made him immortal.’
‘This relic…could it be the bones of a Saint?’ Marie-Ange asked.
Malleval smiled. ‘Oh no my dear, it’s much better than that.’
‘In Saint Germain’s portrait, it looks like a piece of white cloth in the glass phial,’ she remarked.
He leant closer to her. ‘Saint Germain hid the Cross before he faked his death.’ He grabbed Marie-Ange’s wrists and pulled her towards him. ‘Your mother knew where it was. She told you before she died, didn’t she? You must tell me too. You must!’ He gripped more tightly and shook her. The candlelight cast strange shadows on his face, the yellowy centre of his iris glowed and made him look deranged.
‘Malleval! What on earth are you playing at?’ Saintclair roared as he stepped forward with his fists clenched.
Malleval let go of Marie-Ange, who immediately stepped away towards the door.
‘I’ll go up to my room now, Monsieur. I don’t know what you are talking about and I regret I really can’t help you.’ Her head high, she turned and walked out.
‘Oh, but you can, my dear, and you will.’ She heard Malleval say.
The man was a lunatic, there was no other explanation. As she walked out of the library she heard Saintclair call after her. She wanted to be alone, so she ignored him and walked faster, but he caught up with her in the stairs.
‘Did he hurt you?’ he asked.
‘A little.’ She rubbed her wrist where a red mark had appeared. ‘Why did you not warn me the man was crazy?’
He shook his head. ‘I have never heard him talk about all this nonsense before. Do you still want to stay until you have signed the papers? If you don’t, I suppose I’ll have to take you back to England, but I will require a couple of days to make arrangements.’
For a moment, she thought he looked genuinely concerned. Then she shook her head. Who was she kidding? He was only worried because if she left Beauregard now, Uxeloup would demand the repayment of his gambling debt and get his hands on his family house.
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br /> She tilted her chin to look at him and replied haughtily. ‘Do not worry about me, Capitaine. I can take care of myself.’
She left him in the staircase and went back to her room. But once alone, the reality of her predicament hit her. She was on her own, at the mercy of a madman. She had no idea what Uxeloup Malleval was talking about. The Cross of Life, the Knights Templar, a crypt in a nearby castle, her mother’s godfather being immortal…How could anyone in their right mind believe in immortality?
She remembered her mother’s locket. Pulling it out of her velvet jewellery pouch, she held it in the candlelight. It was solid gold, its cover embossed with the design of a five-petal rose, and with a heart at its centre it looked identical to the one Saint Germain wore in the painting. Thoughtful, she slipped it back inside the pouch.
What was she going to do? Was it safer to play along with Malleval and pretend she knew about this Cross, at least until he gave her the money he had promised? Or should she tell him the truth, namely that she had no idea what he was talking about?
A couple of hours later, she still hadn’t reached a decision. By then, the fire had all but died down. The chateau sounded quiet, as if it were asleep. She undresed and unpinned her hair which tumbled down her shoulders. She took her time brushing it, feeling the knot of anxiety at the pit of her stomach slowly loosen with each long, soothing stroke.
The scream came from the floor above and echoed in the chateau. She dropped the brush onto the floor.
Chapter Seven
Who had screamed? Why?
Marie-Ange held her breath but there was only silence now. She tiptoed to the door and opened it. Saintclair was walking down the dark corridor, a candle in his hand. His shirt hung open at the chest, as if he too had been ready to go to bed. She stepped into the corridor to meet him, far too alarmed to notice the cold or the fact she was only wearing her nightdress.