Bright Hair About the Bone (30 page)

“Nothing you've read appears to have cheered you in any way. You speak of nothing but gloom and doom.”

“I'm afraid I have this in common with d'Aubec—I fear for the future. But my fear is unfocused and unseizable. He, at least, has identified a threat and is taking bold steps to counter it. He, at least, we know to have the power to back up his aspirations. Whatever they may be.”

“You're as mad as he is, William!”

“Perhaps it helps me to understand him. Bear in mind, will you, the disquieting things we've discovered about his financial and political dealings. He's made an effective springboard for himself. Oh, not overtly, like his thuggish neighbour to the east, but, in its quiet way, much more impressive. D'Aubec or someone in his outfit,” he said thoughtfully, “is an intelligent strategist.”

“And that would be all very well if these tensions could be decided by single combat,” said Letty. “My money would be on d'Aubec against all comers. But if there were to be another war in Europe, it would come down to men and women, nations fighting each other on battlefields. And nothing will persuade me that the French or the English would be ready to shed more blood so soon after the last lot. We'd be contemplating a generation of women who lost fathers, husbands, and sons. The leaders and their standards may be in place but they should look over their shoulders. No one will be following them.”

“And yet d'Aubec is blazingly confident. He's got
something,
Letty…something we're unaware of.”

Letty was struck by an unwelcome thought. “Some sort of secret weapon, do you mean? William, do you suppose Daniel had trodden the same path—had found out what Edmond was up to…what he'd got hold of?” She sighed in exasperation. “This is barmy! What are we expecting him to be concealing up there? A Big Bertha trained on Germany? I've got to know that fortress well and I don't believe there's space to hide so much as a pea-shooter. It's so ordered and civilised, William.”

“Well, whatever it is—and I'm sure it's more subtle than a cannon under a tarpaulin—perhaps d'Aubec had even confided in Daniel; they were quite close, I think?”

“He's begun to open up to me in the same way. It's lonely work being a megalomaniac, the secret saviour of your country in waiting. It must be a relief to have a sympathetic ear, someone to reassure you that you're not crazy.
Is
he deluded, do you suppose? I mean, one man, William—however energetic and influential—how could he possibly galvanise a weary country?”

“It's happened before. And d'Aubec starts from a much higher base than, let's say, Napoleon. He was a lowly artillery officer, a Corsican, and not even regarded as truly French by most, surviving in a country devastated by years of war and internal slaughter when he burst through. Yet in no time at all he was master of Europe.”

“Not all of Europe. That awkward little island across the Channel refused to be impressed by the Emperor.”

“Imagine what he might have accomplished had we been his ally! If he'd done what medieval monarchs did and made a diplomatic marriage with, say, an English princess, assuming there to have been a selection available at the time? An Anglo-French coalition would have dominated Europe for decades. There would never have been a Waterloo…never a Great War.”

“Oh, Lord! Do you think he sees
me
playing a part in his schemes? A Marianne figure with breastplate and flag…
Allons enfants de la patrie
and all that?”

“Isn't it Britannia who has the breastplate? Marianne, I'm certain, is much more sketchily clad in a Gallic sort of way. But, yes! I'd say you were carefully chosen. Not royal, but I don't believe that counts for much these days. You have the advantage of being young and intelligent, rich in your own right, well-connected, half English, and bi-lingual. And that's your attraction for d'Aubec—you lend him credibility. I'd say you had all the characteristics he required to complete his plans. And it would be your captivating features we'd be seeing on the front pages of newspapers and magazines, in all the newsreels. I'm afraid you'd put the Prince of Wales's nose out of joint. Who wouldn't rather look at you—smiling and confident—than at his soulful spaniel's face?”

“You fail to notice that Edmond and I would make a lovely couple!” said Letty. “‘He so dark, she so fair, both so fashionable, and don't they do a lovely Charleston?'”

“There's that, I suppose. But tell me about this banner—this standard, did you say?—behind which he confidently expects his countrymen to rally.”

“There's no more. I told you everything he said.”

“Pity he was so reticent. This is the most intriguing thing he told you. Let's consider what he gave away…what was it? Something with a troubadourish flavour…‘more alluring than your sleeve on the end of his lance'?”

“Gabrielle's knickers, do you think?” Letty shrugged, then she blushed. “Oh, I'm sorry, William. Whispering together like this in a pew—it takes me back to subversive gossip in the dorm. All he would say was: ‘compelling, bewitching, and female.'”

“Mm…Definitely the knickers, then,” said Gunning morosely. “And speaking of displaced drawers—the revelation you've been storing up to shock me with? Carry on, if you must, though I warn you—nothing you can say will surprise me. Don't expect it.”

Frozen with outrage, Letty rose stiffly and went to stand in front of the fresco of Mary Magdalene. After a few moments he joined her, melting with contrition. “Don't interrupt,” she said coldly. “I'm saying a prayer to someone who understands what it is to be wrongly accused, judged, reviled…I'm begging the saint to give me the strength not to…not to…”

“Put another kink in my nose?” Gunning suggested. “I promise not to duck if you want to take aim. I'm sorry.”

She ignored him, keeping her eyes on the painting, sensing his mortification at his unguarded remark. The voice of reason that always sabotaged her more frivolous flights of fancy now reminded her that the man had been out of society for many years and had lost the knack of censoring his thoughts. “In fact, to tell the truth, William, your fears were very nearly confirmed. It was a pretty close-run thing. I blame that spring! It's a real hazard. They ought to post a warning.
Get wet at your peril!
”

He looked puzzled and waited for her to explain.

“D'Aubec's secret spring—it has a strange effect on the unwary. I dabbled about in it…got thoroughly wet, in fact, and…well, I know I have a vivid imagination and perhaps it was unwise of me to attempt it…”

“Letty!”

“Most odd. I felt about ten feet tall when I came out of the spray, immensely powerful, and…um…not quite sure I have the vocabulary…carnally confident, if you understand me. Like her!” She pointed to the knowing, painted face.

Gunning was making an effort not to laugh. “Lucky old d'Aubec,” he snorted. “But what on earth went wrong for him?”

“It was this same lady who saved me from a fate which was certainly preferable to death and might well have proved very interesting. Just at the
moment critique
my attention was distracted by the horse, who decided to kick up a fuss, and, with the sun just below the horizon, I saw, silhouetted with extraordinary clarity, exactly the shape of those hills there painted in the background. And, William, at that moment of realisation, I was standing with my back to a spring which jets out of the limestone rock-face—just like the one here by Mary's forefinger!”

“Good Lord! Well, I can see that that would put a girl off her stride. Did you raise the matter with d'Aubec by any chance?”

“Oh, yes. I said, ‘Unhand me, sir, and pray take a moment to analyse the geological profile of those hills on the horizon.' I pretended I'd seen an apparition in the trees—a saint or a goddess.”

“And you thought that more convincing than an interest in earth sciences?”

“It had the advantage of being the truth! I had clearly in my head the image of this fresco at the time! And perhaps I did sound convincing, because d'Aubec didn't question it. In fact he said something offhand about himself—claimed to worship the goddess of the grove or something very like that. Joking, you know, but it got us through an awkward moment.”

“Can you find it again? This grove?”

“Oh, yes. Give me your map and I'll show you.”

She took the dog-eared map he handed her and, turning it this way and that, finally pointed. He took a pencil from his pocket and drew a circle around the spot.

“Nothing marked here. Not even the spring. Perhaps the cartographers were discouraged from visiting? Did you realise, Laetitia, just how close this is to the outcrop of rock the château sits on?”

“Well, of course! It does loom over one. We took a circuitous route, as flat as is possible in this part of the world, so as not to strain poor old Dido's legs. It follows one of those old green trackways. Not much evidence of recent use. Rather overgrown.”

“I'd like to take a look. They've all gone off to Lyon, you say?”

“Yes. He's expecting to be away for four days. The countess's luggage was lined up in the hall last night. Two suitcases and four hatboxes. I walked to work early this morning,” she said, “and watched them go by. Just to be certain.”

Gunning looked at his watch. “No chess engagement for me this evening—Anselme's gone away on holiday. And there are three more hours of daylight at least. I'm going over there. We'd better slip out of here separately.”

“Take the car, William. You can drive it within half a mile of the greenway. And why not pause for a second on the bend just beyond the Haras?”

When he slowed for the bend, Letty leapt nimbly into the passenger seat.

CHAPTER 28

T
hey approached the spring, hot from their walk down the overgrown lane, and fell at once into the silence that the grove seemed to impose. Gunning tramped about, scanning the horizon and absorbing the atmosphere. He made a few quick sketches in his book. Finally he joined Letty, who had settled down on the turf to watch him, arms clutching her knees.

“I see what you mean, Letty. A superstitious type, which I'm not, might well describe it as spooky…haunted. Though some would say: holy. And you didn't mistake the outline of the hills. I'd say this was a place of some significance to the people who've lived around here for generations. Have you noticed that it's a circular space, smaller than an arena, bigger than a threshing floor, perhaps, which is where the earliest attempts at what you might call drama were made. And the acoustic qualities are amazing. We've both of us lowered our voices instinctively to a whisper. Can you imagine what it would sound like if we spoke in an actor's voice? Well, let's put it to the test, shall we?”

To Letty's astonishment, he jumped to his feet and began to recite. His priestly baritone boomed out across the open space, reciting, to her greater horror, lines from a pagan incantation from Swinburne.

         

“I have lived long enough, having seen one thing, that love hath an end;

Goddess and maiden and queen, be near me now and befriend.

Thou art more than the day or the morrow, the seasons that laugh or that weep.

For these give joy and sorrow; but thou, Proserpina, sleep.”

         

Satisfied, he sat down again. “Very good! Not quite Epidaurus but all the same—very good!”

“Proserpina? Daughter of Demeter? Is that the goddess whose presence you feel?”

“Yes. Somewhere out there,” he said, waving a hand towards the screen of stunted oaks and bushes, “there's a sympathetic, though mischievous, young presence, don't you think? How did Milton describe the result of the Zephyr's meeting with Aurora? The love child of the summer breeze and the dawn, as he met her once a-maying…

“There on beds of violets blue,

And fresh-blown roses washed in dew

Filled her with thee, a daughter fair,

So buxom, blithe, and debonair.

“She's probably intrigued to welcome you to the grove, Letty—her mirror image, in human form.”

“What? Buxom? Like a barmaid? Not sure that's very flattering.”

“Old English meaning, stupid! ‘Meek and kindly.' And ‘blithe' is the Old English for, er, ‘meek and kindly.'”

“And ‘debonair'? Don't tell me!”

“Ah, now that's Old French for ‘meek and kindly.'”

“Rot!”

“All the same, it's a phrase I find suits you. ‘Buxom, blithe, and debonair.'” He savoured it once more.

From anyone else Letty would have judged this heavy flirting. But from the vicar? With a rush of relief she recalled that men of Gunning's background frequently made a parade of their classical education, and this orchestra-shaped place was just the setting that would incite them to a show of oratory. She remembered her father in the Roman amphitheatre at Orange walking firmly to centre stage and entertaining the startled tourists with a blast of Aeschylus—the messenger's eyewitness account of the sea battle of Salamis, from
The Persians.
She'd hidden behind her guidebook, blushing with embarrassment, pretending to have no acquaintance with this show-off.

“…and the location's intriguing, don't you think?” Gunning was chattering on. “It's sheltered by the bluff from the prevailing winds, which gives it that quality of stillness—have you noticed that not a leaf is stirring?—but it's not overshadowed, so it enjoys and retains the heat of the sun. And where we are now—in late June—that's pretty unbearable!…I say, do you mind?”

He took off his jacket, unclipped his starched collar and threw it down on the turf, unbuttoned his shirt, and groaned with relief.

“Oh, for goodness' sake, William! Why don't you go and cool off in the spring? That's what it's there for.”

He got to his feet, shrugged off his shirt, and made towards the spring. After a couple of steps he turned and grinned at her. “How did it go? ‘Ten feet tall and a rush of heat to the loins?' You sure you want to risk this?”

She listened without turning her head to his yelps of delight. He was splashing about for a very long time, she thought, but she had no intention of interrupting his activities with a nannyish call. After ten minutes he returned, invigorated and dripping wet, and sat down by her side.

“Did you find the goddess?” she asked.

“Yes, she was at home. She sends her regards. She was pleased to see me and complimented me on the removal of my moustache.”

“Moustache?” Letty peered at him. “Oh, yes. So you have! Shaved it off, I mean. Yes, an improvement, I agree. Didn't much care for the Douglas Fairbanks look. Here, put your shirt on, William, or you'll catch your death! You're cold to the bones and shivering. You were a long time in the water. What were you doing?”

“Oh, poking about. I found that someone's been doing a bit of minor engineering. Nothing much…a stone channel has been fitted into the head of the spring—to make it jet out in a more dramatic fashion from the rock face, I suppose. And pushed down the side of the channel, and still dry, was this.”

He dragged a small shining object from his back pocket and held it out to her. As she studied it in stunned silence, he talked on. “Have you ever thrown a coin into a fountain? For good luck? Old Celtic custom. The Celts often placed spells, requests, invocations to their gods in holy places like this, especially where there's water present in some dramatic form. Carved on stone, bits of slate, even sheets of lead. You know the sort of thing: ‘How about a bit of help with the rheumatism? Don't let me die in childbirth like my two sisters. May all the ewes produce twins this year.'” He looked at her steadily. “‘This is the image of my chosen one. Let her love me'?”

Letty stared at the photograph in its silver frame.

“I'd say the chap was deadly serious, wouldn't you, Letty? As though his personal charms and his vast estates were not enough to do the trick, d'Aubec's calling up a little divine intervention. He means to have you for his nefarious purposes.”

“Don't be so pompous! It wouldn't have occurred to you that he might just be a young lad in love?” She took the photograph from him. “This is very touching. A
human
side of d'Aubec? He was trying out his new camera…he's got one of those tiny Leicas…He asked me to stand in the courtyard where the light was good—I'd no idea I was about to be offered up to the goddess. What a cheek!” Her wondering smile belied her words.

“Well, it clears one thing up. He put you to stand in front of the stables, dead centre, I'd guess. But if you'll stop staring at yourself for a moment and look at the extremes of the photo. There—on either side of the building. Do you see the hills?”

She glanced up at the bulk of the mound behind them. “The stables are right there. In line with us.”

“Yes. If you were to demolish them, you'd see the same contour we're looking at now. More or less. Not quite. From down here, can you see the river that passes between the two hills on the left? No, you can't. But it's there on the fresco all right. I think this place is right for direction but wrong for elevation. The place where we were intended to be standing, the viewpoint, is no longer visible. It's up there, obscured by the stable block.”

“Just what Epona's been telling us all along.”

“Interesting. But nothing further we can do about it this evening, I think.”

Gunning settled back on the grass at her side, put his arms under his head, and closed his eyes with a sigh of satisfaction. Free from his sceptical and censorious glare, she dared to study his face, relaxed for the first time—in her company at least—his mouth narrowed in a half-smile. She reached over and gently ran a finger over his top lip. With its bristling defence removed, the skin below was smooth and she noticed now, evenly tanned like the rest of his face. He must have shaved it off on their arrival in France.

“I'm sorry I didn't notice, William. And Domina Luci was right—it does suit you!”

His half-smile became a full one. He turned his head and gently bit her finger.

She snatched back her hand, surprised by her own over-intimate gesture, and wondered whether she should apologise. A contented wuffling sound from deep in his throat suggested that perhaps this was not necessary, and she took up again her covert inspection. Had she missed other obvious changes? Mme. Huleux's cooking had continued the good work begun in Cambridge, and his skin-and-bone frame, though it would never be robust, was now slender and elegant.

“Keep your hands and your lecherous thoughts off the Goddess's Chosen One, Talbot,” he advised. “She might fly into a jealous rage and turn you into something small and disgusting. I don't want to have to take you back to Sir Richard in a cardboard box.”

Letty laughed. “What risks I run! This is a dashed dangerous place!” She picked up his clerical collar and handed it to him. “Here, put this back on. I could never lay wanton hands on a man having this to protect his virtue. It's just as well you're a Man of God, William, now you're getting so handsome.”

He half opened his eyes and looked at her in amusement. “But I'm no such thing, Letty. Hadn't you realised?”

“What? Not handsome? Oh, come on—you're too modest—”

“No! I'm not a Man of God.”