Dermot recoiled in horror.
“Don’t let that worry you, though,” the groom reassured him, as he saddled and bridled the imposing mount with a quiet confidence. “He hasn’t thrown anyone in years.” Émile gave Dermot a leg up. “First time?” he asked, cocking an eyebrow.
Dermot shook his head. “Might as well be, though.”
“Well, take him slow at first. He’s usually friendly, it just takes a while to know him.”
Dermot was not entirely comforted. God almighty, he thought to himself, this is someone’s idea of a joke. But there was no backing out for him now. Simonne and everyone were watching him. He’d have to make the best of the show.
In his lifetime, Dermot had been on a horse a handful of times. He’d worked with the ponies at the colliery, but they were not for riding. He carried the suspicion of the ill-acquainted which the animal sensed immediately. Finding himself up on Cyclone’s back he seemed suddenly very far from the ground. Dermot started to have his doubts, and the animal seemed to share them. He struggled to turn it to face the courtyard, and then it walked out by itself.
Arthur was there. He fell in beside him as Dermot wandered out into the square. “Do you think they know yet?” the big man asked him, nodding towards his boys. “The pair of them haven’t said a thing. I’ve been watching them most of the morning.”
Dermot was conscious of the group, and couldn’t risk drawing attention. He answered Arthur with a shrug while wondering where the animal was taking him.
“No one’s mentioned a damn thing, Dermot, and it’s starting to annoy me. Here are my boys, going about their jobs as normal. It’s not quite right. Is it?”
“Whoa, girl. Whoa.”
“She’s a boy horse, Dermot. Just show the creature who’s boss. But the twins. Has really no one told them yet? I can’t believe they don’t know. What do you think we should do?”
Dermot had given up on the twins – his attention was all on his animal. The damn horse simply didn’t obey and seemed to have little intention of stopping.
“Sophie. Simonne. None of them have breathed a word of it from what I’ve managed to hear or gather. But someone must have set them wise. Just ask them, Dermot, will you?”
“Ask them what?” Dermot was flustered. He didn’t need other distractions right now, and Arthur certainly wasn’t helping. The beast continued to walk on by itself, and Dermot was wandering with it.
“Sorry?” said Sophie, thinking he’d said something to her.
“Nothing,” called Dermot, mumbling equestrian obscenities continuously under his breath.
“Firm with the reins,” she said helpfully.
“Ask them!” Arthur was adamant as he followed beside the stirrup. “What do you have to lose?”
It was too much for Dermot.
“Hey, Émile,” he called to the nearer of the twins. He felt closer to Émile somehow. The boy seemed more genuine, or it was his care for the animals, or it might have been he’d just known him longer.
“Monsieur?” The groom came over.
“Can you give us a hand here, mate?”
“Of course, Monsieur.” Émile brought the horse to a halt.
“Oh, please!” Arthur berated him. “Where’s your mettle, Irlandais?”
Seeing no one was looking, Dermot whispered a reply. “And what am I meant to say?” he told Arthur off. “‘Émile, my friend, any guesses this morning on who your daddy might be?’ You want me to get my head punched in? Is that what you want from me now?”
“Are you all right, Mr. Ward?” It was Sophie again, who seemed slightly concerned.
“No, no! Got it sorted!” He put a heel to the flank of his horse and left Arthur behind.
* * *
Soon after, all mounted and ready at last, the riders moved off. Dermot took one look back. There he saw the tall figure of Arthur standing by himself. He watched till they moved out of view and then wondered if he’d seen him at all. No sooner had they departed the gate than Pierre broke away by himself. He turned his horse west, towards the small bridge, and coaxed her into a trot. Pierre gave them a wave and in a minute, no more, he too was out of sight and gone.
Sophie, Simonne, and Dermot followed the road for a hundred yards before cutting off down to the right. The path here rounded behind the farmhouse, passed through a copse of willow that hugged a stream, and then emerged into the fields beyond. From here the ground rose gradually and left them more exposed. Luckily the wind had let off for the time, though it left a soft drizzle of rain.
“Are you taking the ridge route, mother?” Simonne inquired. Their destination was the abbey, just as Sophie had said.
“No, dear,” her mother corrected. “I thought we’d keep to the lower woods and come at it from around the other side.”
“It takes longer,” Simonne pointed out.
“Yes, dear, but it isn’t a race, and the trees provide some shelter.”
Simonne didn’t seem disappointed. She rode close by Dermot’s side.
The path they followed wound back and forth as it traced the contour of the valley, and the rising land on their right hand side pushed them steadily over. If the valley floor looked tamed and kept, the hillside, in comparison, was wild; it had been turned over to grazing sheep, the scattered inhabitants visible in clusters. From up ahead, though out of sight, came the distant low of cattle.
The path for the moment was wide enough for three to ride abreast. Dermot took the middle spot with Sophie on his left. The ladies were polite hosts. They avoided the state of the local clergy and trivial neighborhood gossip, and generally eschewed topics that they felt Dermot was unfit for. They were charmed to find him in a curious mind, inquisitive about things in general, and he asked them a great many questions about their family in particular. He willfully acknowledged his ignorance on the subject of rural matters, and they happily spent an amusing hour filling his ears with details: lambing and contracted labor, grain tariffs and harvest schedules, the basic points of viniculture, and the perils of staff succession. Dermot learned the myriad details that are the workings of an estate. He was filled in on matters that had encapsulated rural life since back in feudal days. With half a lifetime spent underground, he amused the ladies with his questions. They laughed, just as Persephone might, at his blunders and amazement.
They passed alongside a vegetable garden overseen by a mossy glasshouse. There were stacks of pots and empty crates and bundles of tied-up cane.
“And that one?” he asked.
“It’s a potato plant, or it will be, come the spring.”
“But how do you know?”
“Now you are teasing me, surely?” When Simonne said it, he reddened.
He knew he’d taken a shine to her, and that she bore a certain charm. But what he couldn’t fathom was the way he was behaving. She was seven years his junior, and they’d only recently met, so why did he feel like a blushing schoolboy whenever she was around? I clearly need to think about this more.
“Please, Mr. Ward.” Sophie was inquisitive. “I am interested to know why you remained here in France, once the war was over. Are you not married?”
It seemed to Dermot that the small talk was over. “No, no. I have never had that particular pleasure myself.”
“No family at all, then?” she continued.
“Siblings. I had a brother. And my mother. They’re all doing well enough without me. I left home a long time ago.” He didn’t wish to expand.
“Well, even without a family to support, wouldn’t events in your native Ireland have called for your attention?”
The comment earned Sophie a measure of Dermot’s respect. The subject was unexpected out here in the French backwoods, but it was clear that Sophie had an ear to the ground for international events. Simonne looked confused.
“Oh, they have. Indeed they have. I follow developments with some interest.” He elucidated for Simonne’s benefit. “There’s a growing independence movement in my own country, Mad
emoiselle. The party that champions that cause, Sinn Féin being their name, they recently won the election there, taking the majority of Irish seats.”
“Sinn Féin?” The word sounded alien on Mademoiselle’s tongue.
“Politics, Mademoiselle. A party made by Irishmen who want their own free country. We ourselves is what it means. Right now London rules all the land, and they’re having nothing to do with it. So those Irishmen have refused to go to England to take the seats they won.”
“You’re not disinterested then,” Sophie observed.
“No, I don’t suppose I am. The British have ruled in Ireland for going on 800 years. Right now it looks as though things are about to change. Them that won the people’s vote have met for an Irish assembly. It’s the first of its kind, it is. They’re calling it the Dail Eireann. Their leader won’t be there to see it, though, he’s in a British jail. Éamon de Valera. That’s the fellow’s name.”
“And what did he do to get himself in jail?” Simonne asked.
“Oh, they’ve had it in for him, you know, for quite a while already. There was a revolution in Ireland while the war was going on. Back in 1916, most of it in Dublin. He was a part of that. The Easter Rising it was called, and the British army put it down. A lot of men were executed for treason to the crown. De Valera only missed a firing squad because he was an American – born in New York City, he was, as Providence would have it.
“Anyway, as your mother was saying, Ireland right now is in flux, and an Irishman of any heart has an opinion either way. Right now in Paris, they’re petitioning the Peace Conference for independence. Not that they’ll get it, Britain won’t have that, but still... at least they’re trying.”
“Yet you stay here with us? Happy to be here in France?” Sophie pressed him.
“I imagine that I’ll return one day, maybe even soon.” He’d answered her question honestly. “But for the moment I’m sorting myself out, and doing my duty to friends.”
Sophie seemed to consider this and didn’t pursue him any further. He used the opportunity to shift the conversation.
“And what about you, Mademoiselle? What are you interested in? What amuses Simonne?”
“Interested in? Why, lots of things.” She seemed unfamiliar with talking about herself. “My future, I suppose.”
“And what is there in Mademoiselle’s future that interests her the most? If you don’t mind my asking, of course.”
Simonne wasn’t shy to talk at all; she leapt at the opportunity. “It’s a simple thing I covet, a small thing, Mr. Ward. Easier to say than it is to do.”
“Certainly sounds intriguing. And what might that be, then?” Dermot noticed that Sophie too was paying keen attention.
“I want to make my own choices; I want my freedom. My freedom is what I want, Mr. Ward. I told you it was a small thing.”
“A noble aspiration,” he pronounced. He looked across at her; she seemed very serious, even tensing for a fight. “And what will you do with it when you get it, Mademoiselle?”
“You don’t doubt me then?” She seemed surprised. “Or are you making fun?”
“Not in the least. Why should I? I asked the question.”
“You think I’ll get my way?”
“I see Mademoiselle getting whatever it is she sets her mind to do.” She seemed pleased, flattered even, and she relaxed her defenses a little. “But supposing that you get your wish, what choices will you make? What life will Mademoiselle decide to live when she has the freedom that she wishes?”
She laughed then. “I don’t know which I like the most: your impudence or your honesty.” Their eyes met again. “But I like your questions, Mr. Ward, so I think that I will answer.” Simonne drew up tall in the saddle before she spoke, and when she did she was animated and flushed with obvious excitement, as if this were a game they might be playing of make-believe and fancy. “I’m going to see the world, for one thing,” she began. “I’ve only been to Paris, and it’s very fine for sure, but I want to go to London and to see America too.”
“Simonne!” her mother despaired, but her daughter paid no notice.
“I want to go where things are happening,” she continued, “which isn’t here.”
“I wouldn’t be so hard on this place,” Dermot defended.
“Have you traveled, Mr. Ward?”
“I’ve been to London, at any rate.”
“You’ve been?” She was excited to hear it.
“Worth a visit. But it’s still a city like any other, I imagine.”
“Then I think your imagination needs stretching.” Once constructed, she wouldn’t allow any mark on the picture she’d painted.
“You could be right,” he conceded. “Full of shops and parks, and galleries and museums. Oh, it was fine, don’t get me wrong, but I’ve always fancied the countryside.”
“For raising a family in, Mr. Ward?” Sophie put in from over her shoulder.
“Well, eh… there are lots of advantages...” but Simonne saved him.
“I don’t want to live here ever!” she announced. “And who mentioned anything about a family? We were talking about me, mother, and what I get with my choices. Now please leave poor Mr. Ward be.”
He was grateful for her intervention and found her gentle teasing funny. “Very well. So Mademoiselle’s going to see the world and enjoy her newly won freedom. All the finest cities in Europe, then America over the sea. What comes after that?”
“After?”
“You can have anything you want, Mademoiselle.” And now it was her turn to redden.
“Robert’s good fun,” her mother interrupted. “Perhaps your fiancé will take you somewhere nice after the pair of you are married. Why don’t you ask him if he’ll take you to America for your honeymoon? Would you like that, darling?”
“Robert!” Simonne spoke it like a rash. Nothing Dermot had heard to this point had pleased him more to hear.
“I want to be in charge of my life!” Simonne said. “I want to make my own decisions.” She spoke it to the trees. Dermot read the subtext; this was a familiar appeal and one her mother was not happy hearing.
“Thing is,” Dermot put in, trying to mollify them, “that a lot of advice folk hand out is often well meant. An experience shared is twice learned, and all that sort of thing.”
“If you’re trying to kiss up to my mother, Mr. Ward, you best save your breath and efforts,” Simonne called him out. “Grand-mère signs the diktats here and maman follows orders. Just like everyone else.” She spoke the last words wistfully.
Dermot couldn’t see Sophie’s face but felt embarrassed for both of them.
“I’m engaged to a man who loves me, Mr. Ward, and whom I find quite pleasant. My family encourages me in the match; I’m an animal at market. They worry at the price I’ll fetch because I don’t meet their conventions. They think I’m odd – a little strange – but I’m only what they made me.” She brought her horse to a stop, and Dermot’s halted also. Sophie’s still walked on, away, lengthening their distance. “What should I do then, Mr. Ward? What do you think of my choices?”
Dermot didn’t know what to say; his heart was in his throat. He found her vivacious and contagious and she scared him half to death. He couldn’t help himself, he only knew he cared. He wondered if she had spoken the truth about her fiancé, and what could she mean by revealing it?
“Love as you please, Mademoiselle,” he spoke from his soul, “and marry as your heart advises. I don’t think anyone else has the right to decide your happiness.” He blushed as he said it despite himself. He felt suddenly like he’d shown a hand of cards he should have better guarded.
“Well, exactly, Mr. Ward! Do you hear that, maman?” she shouted out ahead, and Sophie turned to listen. “Mr. Ward is a true French romantic, despite his awful accent!”
* * *
They passed loose stone walls and tight briar hedges that ran sporadically to their trail, and the scaffolding of vineyard turned to fields of plowed
brown earth. Fallow ground awaited seed it would not see for months.
They followed the course of an angry stream with wood on either side, water churning as it drained the higher ground. Diluvial aggression taunted them and challenged them to cross.
They now reached a point where the bank sank down, and the river slowed and fell. The ladies coaxed their horses in, though Dermot could not see the gravel bed. Simonne stayed back and with her help, he won the other side.
Eventually the trees started thinning. They had gone half the circumference of the hill and were on its other side. They emerged into a glade. Within the clearing stood a grand oak tree, a solitary sentinel. Beyond it, Dermot made out the washed bones of a once impressive building – the remains of the Abbey of Saint D., as Simonne and Sophie had promised.
They had arrived.
17
The Malenfer Curse
The oak was venerable, a twisted muscle of limb and trunk that thrust up from the grass. In leaf its canopy might have consumed the sky, but today its branches were bare. The tree was dormant – brittle and utterly dark. As they drew closer, Dermot saw the illusion for what it was. The tree was dead. It would not leaf again. It was too stubborn to lie down gracefully and admit its fate.
They dismounted at the tree’s base, standing beneath the skeletal boughs, the Abbey in the distance. The blackened branches dripped with moss; the thick bark was peeled or fallen. The trunk was scaled with lichen and choking ivy had taken hold. The undergrowth, held back for generations, was fast reclaiming ground.
“You heard about our curse, Mr. Ward?” Sophie asked the question. “You alluded to it last night.”
Dermot thought she was joking until he caught her look. Her mouth was tight, which spread wrinkles around her eyes.
“Your mother didn’t wish to talk about it. Does that mean she thinks it’s true?”
Sophie walked on, a little deep in thought, as if wondering where to begin. She didn’t reply at once.
Dermot looked to Simonne, who remained quiet, close-lipped, and unmoving. She did not seem too happy.
Murder at Malenfer Page 17