“Do you spy that branch up there?” Sophie said finally, pointing up to a spot high above Dermot’s head, where a thick limb was prominent, forked like a serpent’s tongue. “Where you stand now, Mr. Ward, a young girl was once hanged; she was about an age with my Simonne. The horse that she had been lifted onto was pulled from under her. She swung. The rope drew tight around her neck. They did a poor job of it – that’s what I was told. Her neck didn’t snap, so she choked instead and thrashed for almost a minute. Almost a minute till it was done, when her brain was starved of air. I sometimes wonder how that felt for her and what she was thinking about.”
“It doesn’t sound like a nice way to go.” He couldn’t help looking up.
“The rope was tied to that very branch,” she pointed, confirming his view. Sophie lowered her hand and continued to walk on slowly.
“A girl?” he said, “Why did they hang a girl?” Dermot moved a bit off to the side, away from under that fateful spot.
“A witch is what they called her, their excuse for what was done. She was a young woman, a Roma by birth, that’s how the story goes. Sold as a servant to a wealthy family on a neighboring estate; she was very likely ignorant and almost certainly poor.”
Dermot fought the urge to genuflect. He followed Sophie around.
“And is this where your curse came from? But what nonsense is that! What did she do to deserve her fate, this gypsy girl that was hanged?”
Sophie had approached the tree. She removed a glove and put her fingers up against the bark. She didn’t immediately reply.
“You might have heard, Mr. Ward,” Sophie said, resuming her story, “how the first years of our Republic were very difficult ones?”
Dermot nodded; he remembered his history from the army and the stories men told. It was a time when France was at war with its neighbors, but mainly at war with itself. The Reign of Terror with its short-spun trials and the busy guillotine.
“It was a troubled age,” Sophie went on, “unstable, like our own. And there was much distrust throughout society... even among friends.
“You see the abbey in ruins?” she continued. Its chalky stone shell was clear from where they stood. “There was an accident there, a terrible fire. A dreadful accident that happened over a hundred years ago. Until that day there had been a handful of estates nearby, ownership all scattered about. Worried landowners, all of them, fearful of the new regime. But after that night there was only ours, the Malenfer Estate alone. All were consumed, except for our own, and our family prospered by it.”
“What exactly are you saying?” Dermot read into her tone.
“On the night of the fire, it was said, you could hear the screams of the trapped from as far away as Chevecheix. I don’t believe it, yet the wind has been known to carry a noise. Who knows if that was true?” Sophie put her glove back on and looked back into the branches. She moved away from the trunk once more and circled again around it. Dermot stood nearby, captivated. Simonne had scarcely moved.
“Can you imagine it, Mr. Ward? Please try. All the families gathered together in the abbey for a baptism, all except our own. Can you picture it? Just over there,” she pointed again. “I was told that the leaves on this very tree – the living leaves, Mr. Ward! – they curled with the heat from that fire. They said that afterwards you couldn’t lay a hand on the stones for a day, they were so hot. And that when the rains came the rocks cracked and the abbey fell in ruin.”
A scene of desperation and wild panic filled Dermot’s mind, people falling over each other, unable to escape their end. Such a noise might carry far, even through the centuries.
“Eighty-six people, Mr. Ward,” Sophie continued, “twenty-two of them children. Then the Malenfer estate buying everything up afterwards. Our lands grew six-fold within a month of the tragedy of that fire.”
“This really happened?” he said.
“We have the deeds,” she replied. “They sold.”
Dermot shook his head. “What of the witch? I mean, the girl you said was hanged.”
“Élise Beauvais was her name, the unfortunate servant girl. She took her surname from her reputable family, the ones who had held the baptism. She watched them all die that day. She was there to watch them go.”
“But why was she hanged?” He didn’t understand. “Did she do it?” The thought seemed inconceivable; the whole thing didn’t make sense.
Sophie took a minute before answering, as if carefully choosing her words. “We all have things we aren’t proud of, Mr. Ward. Isn’t that true of us all?”
Dermot flinched to hear her say it, and he thought again of the hole. Can she know? But there was no accusation forthcoming, only the lingering taste of his guilt.
“I had a relative who was head of our household just after the revolution; we were noblesse militaire back in those days: nobility from rank. Remember, Mr. Ward – we have always served.
“Understand that time!” she appealed. “Understand that we lived in some fear! There was a new order in France, and great danger in not conforming to its twisted notions of patriotism.”
Dermot stood patiently as Sophie’s passion grew.
“The servant girl calls him out. That’s what she did. Old Malenfer stands under this very tree, this very tree!” Sophie seemed incredulous, amazed that such events might happen. “He’s watching the abbey burn to the sky, and Élise Beauvais calls him out.
“‘Le Diable!’ she cries, and throws it in his face. She accuses him in front of everyone of setting the torch himself. She says that the pyre in which her family roasts is all of his handiwork: a murderous bonfire to Malenfer greed and to further Malenfer ambition.
“There is a crowd gathered here, helpless to do anything but watch. Can you see the immolation? And on sacred ground! The crowd stands and listens to the howling of those poor terrified souls, the damned that were trapped inside.”
“Dear God,” Dermot muttered, the thought of the poor trapped children, their frantic mothers by their side.
“Élise Beauvais calls Old Malenfer the Devil! Not a devil, you understand. Le Diable! She says he arranged for it all himself. That sort of talk wouldn’t do, not back then. From a servant? Can you imagine? What would people say to such a thing? He couldn’t let it go by.
“So he calls her a witch, says it is she that did it, that she is guilty of black magic against the very family that has taken her under its wing. Says they gave her good Christian care, but they brought a viper into their home. And then he demands a rope, and so a rope is found.
“He has her hanged for a witch, Mr. Ward. Right here on this spot. And all the while the flames of the abbey still cook the sky above.”
“The good old days,” said Dermot.
Sophie’s voice dropped, the magnitude of the event free to speak for itself. “And a legend was born,” she continued, “with the rope around her neck. Just before she passes to shadow, Elise Beauvais speaks.
“‘A curse on you, Malenfer!’ she cries out. ‘A curse that is born in blood! Know that your name will shrivel and die, that your brood shall know no rest. The Devil always takes his own, and you were spawned from between his legs!’”
“She said that?” Dermot was impressed.
“So legend goes.”
“Well, you can see why she’d be upset.”
He was affected by the dreadful tragedy and disturbed by the likely murder, but curses? Is that what Sophie really believed? Superstitious nonsense! Yet he remembered his strange night in Le Jardin des Cygnes. A night when his own belief in the world took a sudden dramatic swing.
A man who shares a train with a ghost but cannot believe in curses?
He felt the fingers of possibility creep inside his head, just as he had only the day before when he stood looking from that bridge. And as he conceded to the doubt, he suddenly felt cold within. The hair on Dermot’s neck rose up and he looked into the branches.
“Malenfer ordered her body left hanging,” Sophie continued. “S
he was denied a Christian burial and rotted where she swung. The animals eventually took her. That’s the story that’s been handed down.”
Dermot turned to Simonne and watched her watching him. She had not said a word through it all, letting her mother talk on. Perhaps she’d listened to the legend retold countless times before?
“Don’t be upset, Simonne.” Dermot tried to cheer her, for she looked saddened by the tale. “If it did happen, it was all a long time ago.” Simonne smiled at his kindness, but said nothing in return.
“Oh, it happened Mr. Ward,” Sophie put him right, “but that’s not quite the end. Our family has lived under that curse for over one hundred years. The Curse of that Beauvais witch girl. And her word has been good to form, for none of the Malenfer brood has known rest, just as she called down. Since that night there has not been one of our family who has died of honest old age – all of us have been taken early, and most in violent ways.” She paused to let the words sink in.
“Ours is a cursed family, Mr. Ward, of that you can be sure. And when Michel passed away, so young, the last of our line passed with him. Your name will shrivel and die,” she echoed the witch’s words.
“Except Émile and Pierre are Malenfers too,” he pointed out.
“Indeed,” Sophie replied. “You brought them that gift. And how do you think they feel about that?”
Dermot did not know what to say.
“Mixed blessings, Mr. Ward? You said last night my father had the children’s identities hidden. Was he worried? I left the farm myself.”
“But you came back,” he said needlessly.
“What choice had I? We are fated, we Malenfers; it’s what we are.”
“You think the Colonel hid the twins to save them from a curse? You don’t think his own reputation or that of his son had anything to do with it?”
“Your skepticism can be unkind,” she bit back. “You don’t think it’s true? Over a hundred years, Mr. Ward! One hundred years. And all of us die early. Think of those boys now, think of the twins. Is that a trade worth making? A fortune they can lay their hands on in exchange for an early grave?” Sophie had gone full circle now around the once-great tree. She came slowly back to her horse and mounted in one fluid motion.
“The Devil takes his own! Do you think they thought about that last night? That was quite the news you brought with you, although how were you to know?”
She pushed her mare to a slow walk and turned her towards the abbey. Simonne made sure that Dermot was fine, and then they fell in together following. They parted to either side of the trunk and left the dead tree behind them.
* * *
They skirted the wreck of the abbey that stood up from the invading grasses, its broken walls a wind break for sheep that came inside to forage. Dermot could scarcely believe it had been standing a century before – the place seemed broken from antiquity, as if Frankish kings had warred there.
How fleeting, he thought, is our mark on this world. But the notion gave him comfort, for were not some things better forgotten? Their memory lost in history? Perhaps the abbey was one such place, and the curse that had sprung from its passing.
He cast around, half expecting to see the spirit of Élise Beauvais, her dark reproachful eyes watching somewhere from among the stones.
“Simonne!” Sophie called out, and Dermot was just quick enough to stop her fall from her saddle.
“Are you all right? What happened?” He strained to keep her up. Simonne jerked and shook, as if snapping awake, and once more regained her balance. She turned to look at him, her braids sent spinning.
“Don’t you feel her?” her smooth lips asked, but he didn’t understand.
She was pale. She blinked to clear her eyes as if she’d just been crying. He had a hand on her arm, but she pulled it away from him.
“I thought you had it too?” She sounded hurt.
“What’s the matter, Simonne?” Sophie was at her side. “Are you ill? What happened?”
Simonne sat quiet and steady once more and looked only ahead down the road. Then she opened her mouth and spoke clearly and slowly, with a paucity of emotion. “The witch girl is here, mother; she’s come back again. Another Malenfer will die soon, just like our Michel.”
“Goodness, Simonne! Don’t say such things!”
“Let’s go home. Let’s leave this place. Please, mother. I’m sorry we brought you, Mr. Ward. We’ll have to forego our picnic.”
They left the abbey behind them with the wind suddenly rising. Dermot caught a faint scent in the breeze: the bitter smell of burning.
18
The New Malenfer
On their return, they found the house in an anxious state of confusion. They could see the front doors open and there was shouting from without and within.
“What’s going on, Émile?” Sophie asked. The young man ran to meet them as they drew their horses up. Something was clearly wrong: His arms pumped like pistons as he crossed the cobbled square.
“Have you seen my brother?” He couldn’t ask them quickly enough.
“No, not since this morning,” she relayed. “What’s happened? Is there trouble?”
“Pierre’s horse came back, not half an hour ago.” He took the reins from her as she dismounted.
“His horse?” Simonne questioned. “Then where’s Pierre?”
Émile shook his head. “The horse came back riderless. I hoped he was with you.”
“He never joined us, but there could be a hundred explanations,” Sophie replied sympathetically, yet Dermot saw the fear on her face. Both were reminded of Simonne’s chilling words when she’d had her ‘turn’ at the abbey.
Dermot could imagine a number of reasons why rider and steed had become separated, though none of them were good. As if thinking the same thing, the group of them looked to the small winter sun that was hiding low in the west. The light wasn’t good and would soon be gone entirely. The sky was shrouded in the ashen cloud that had drizzled on them all day, and the estate was a vast area over which to look for one lone man. If Pierre was badly hurt or even knocked unconscious... this was no night to spend outdoors, injured or otherwise.
Their arrival galvanized the household. Gustave was just leaving, dispatched to raise assistance from the tenants who lived close by. Dermot resolved to join Émile. Arthur’s son planned to retrace the route his brother had taken that morning, hoping that if Pierre had fallen, it would be somewhere along the way.
“What are you doing?” Dermot asked Arthur. He had seen the ghost emerge from the house and come across to join them. But as he watched him climb onto the horse he’d just left, he felt the need to inquire.
“What does it look like? That’s my son out there!”
“You can’t come with me! Where are you going to sit? On the back? You’re barely going to fit!” Dermot, for the moment, was in no danger of being overheard. The ladies had gone inside, while Émile was busy swapping Sophie’s tack, apparently intent on taking her horse for himself.
“I don’t weigh a damned thing,” Arthur said tersely. “What the hell’s the problem? You’ve got plenty of room. If I could actually hold the reins, I’d be out there already. Come on. We’re wasting precious time.” He was clearly set on going, and Dermot found to his surprise that he was pleased for the company. He managed to relax. Having Arthur’s ghost with him was a comfort he’d not have thought possible.
“I’m sure everything’s all right.” Dermot tried to console the anxious father. He didn’t mention Simonne’s recent vision. What, after all, could be helped by that? Another Malenfer will die soon.
Madame provided a list of the rents so they knew whom Pierre had been visiting. Simonne ran it out to give it to the men, with the housekeeper close at her heels.
“You had better not refuse my basket of food, sir!” And indeed Dermot did not.
Émile took the list from Simonne and looked at the names on the paper. He nodded. “It’s what I thought.”
“
I know them all,” Arthur said, looking over Émile’s shoulder as he sat up on the horse. “They’re miles out, though.”
Beyond this intelligence they had nothing to go on for the moment, but it was the best plan they had for the present. They hoped to find out where he’d been sighted last and narrow the search from there. Arthur grabbed Dermot around his waist; it felt like being draped in a blanket.
“We’ll be back as soon as we can.” Dermot assured Simonne. “Take care, Mademoiselle.”
Simonne laid a hand on Dermot’s leg, looking up as he returned her salute.
“You too,” she added as they started off, and she stood there watching the riders till they’d passed from sight.
* * *
Their plans did not work out as well as they’d hoped. By seven that evening it was completely black out, very difficult conditions for the twenty people the Malenfers had raised in the search. By nine at night the number had doubled; almost fifty now combed the roads and ditches, despite the rains coming on even worse and the temperatures falling.
Everyone out there knew Pierre by sight. Knew the boy who had grown up there. Knew the man he had become. He was one of them, whether they liked him or not. Few needed convincing of the urgency in their hunt. It went unspoken, but everyone was thinking of the perils of a fall. Pierre coming off his horse and breaking his leg, or Pierre taking a blow to his head not paying attention to a branch, his horse bolting then wandering off, leaving him on the ground. The worry was the weather and the danger it posed. A man outside who had no shelter was a man in mortal peril. Dermot had found soldiers in craters during the war. Wet, cold, and tired, they had finally gone to sleep never to awaken again. The race tonight was against time, and they had precious little of it left.
Eventually they managed to establish his last sighting, and for a short while their hopes were buoyed. At two o’clock that afternoon Pierre had visited and collected from the final “overdue” on his books. This croft was only two miles from the Manor, but after that there was no further trace. The bad news was he could have gone anywhere if he hadn’t gone straight home, and all that was hours ago.
Murder at Malenfer Page 18