Bright Hair About the Bone (32 page)

Marie-Louise listened, wide-eyed, to the meandering explanation, and managed a stiff smile. “But you could have borrowed Maman's bicycle! Just let me know if you need it.”

“Going somewhere interesting?” Gunning asked politely.

“Oh, no! Just taking these things to my aunt down the road.” She waved a hand at the vegetables. “It's the courgette glut! You'll be having courgette soup for supper every day for the next week, I'm afraid.” She nodded at both of them awkwardly then cycled away.

“Marie-Louise looked a bit hot and bothered, wouldn't you say?” remarked Gunning as they drove off.

“Could it be that she was purple with suppressed rage at seeing us together out of context? Do you think she noticed your collar's on back to front and your trousers are damp?” said Letty.

“And that you've got a dead harebell over one ear and grass stains all down your shirt? No, I don't suppose so.”

“Still—fences to mend there, as my father would say,” murmured Letty thoughtfully.

CHAPTER 30

A
re you sure this is going to be all right, Stella?”

This was the third time Marie-Louise had asked the question, and her uncertainty was beginning to chip away at Letty's confidence. Panting with the effort and the heat, the two girls had abandoned the attempt to cycle up the slope to the château and were pushing the heavy-framed bicycles the last few metres to the entrance.

Letty took her bunch of keys from the bike basket and rattled them. “These are symbolic, I know, and I wouldn't like to have to try to find the doors they opened, but just you wait—drawbridges will crash down, trumpets will sound, gates will swing open at our approach. You'll see!”

She prayed that the local schoolmistress was not on d'Aubec's ejection list. Though initially cool towards Letty the day after their encounter in the lane, Marie-Louise had responded warmly enough to her request, over breakfast, to borrow Mme. Huleux's bicycle. “If you're sure your mother wouldn't mind? It would be a godsend—save me having to bother the poor old vicar again. Tell you what—why don't you come too? I'm getting off work a couple of hours early—it's the new schedule. Paradee's making us start and finish earlier while the weather is so unbearably hot. When I've checked the horse, we could go on up to the château to round off the ride and be back in time for supper. There's something very ancient and very Burgundian I'd like you to see,” she had offered temptingly.

And Marie-Louise had presented herself ready for the outing, fresh and eager in a white pleated tennis skirt and pink blouse, hair held back with a pink flowered scarf. Divested of her straight-cut, sober serge, and wearing colours that set off her dark looks, she was a very attractive girl, Letty noted, and was saddened by the thought that a dreary cycle ride with her English guest should be the occasion for such bubbling anticipation.

She had watched as Letty had whistled up Dido in her pasture and checked her over, and then followed when she set off boldly up the hill. Halfway there, with the size and severity of the building looming over them, the French girl had lost confidence. Stopping to get her breath, she'd confessed that she'd never visited the château before. D'Aubec, although generous in other ways with both time and money, was jealous of his privacy and, as far as Marie-Louise was aware, no townspeople were ever invited to go up there. The last time a marauding band of villagers tracked up here, she confided, was in 1790 and what they had in mind was the looting of a château whose owner had fled with his family to London. Two further reassurances were necessary before she could be persuaded to present herself with Letty at the gate.

To Letty's relief the door in the wide wooden gate was opened on their approach by a manservant who recognised her: “Ah, here you are, mademoiselle. We missed you yesterday. No—allow me—I'll take your bicycles.”

The housekeeper was waiting by the front door with a warm smile. Tea and iced lemonade were offered. Gaining rapidly in courage, Letty asked for it to be served in the library. “My friend, Mlle. Huleux, is a schoolmistress and shares my deep interest in books and local history…” she began to explain, but trailed off with the realisation that no explanations were expected.

Mme. Lepage acknowledged Marie-Louise with a polite tilt of the head. “Of course. Guillaume Huleux's daughter. You are welcome, mademoiselle.”

“Mme. Lepage is—perhaps you didn't know, Stella?—the sister of the pâtissier's wife, Agnès,” explained Marie-Louise, apparently encouraged by the encounter.

Letty tried to stroll as to the manner born along the corridors as they made their way to the library, pausing to wash their sweaty hands in the cloakroom. “I know you—and the whole town probably—must have been speculating in a perhaps overheated way about my activities up here with the count,” she began, and hurried on when Marie-Louise smiled and seemed about to interrupt. “I've dragged you out all this way to show you exactly what I've been working on.”

“We had rather hoped you'd been working on the count,” said Marie-Louise surprisingly.

“Great Heavens! Aren't you aware that he's engaged to be married to his cousin Gabrielle? Why, he's even now in Lyon fixing the date.” Her voice sounded evasive even to her own ears.

Marie-Louise was scornful. “Not that again? It's been rumoured for years. We were hoping he'd forgotten about it. Changed his mind. The lady is not much liked hereabouts. Snooty, manicured, tailored, skittish as an over-bred horse. She's a city girl by nature and hates coming out here to the depths of the country.” She eyed Letty standing, red-faced, in bush shirt and trousers. “The town's money is on you,
ma chére.
We appreciate a woman with dirt under her fingernails, sweat on her brow, and the courage to square up to d'Aubec. The Revolution seems not so distant, you know, to some. We're not all the forelock-tugging yokels you take us for! Just over a hundred years ago we were busily chopping off the heads of the aristocracy and setting up altars to the Goddess of Reason. There's an old carpenter in the town—Bernard Dutronc. He's very old…he must be over ninety…and he well remembers his grandfather—also a carpenter—who worked on the construction of the local guillotine. It's said that Bernard keeps the original design for the contraption in his workshop to this day. My great-great-grandmother probably knitted at the foot of it!”

This little speech was delivered with relish.

“Great Heavens!” said Letty. “I had no idea! I'll be sure to warn Edmond that you still have the skills, Citoyenne.” She was beginning to get the measure of Marie-Louise, she thought. The words “republican, revolutionary, anarchic” occurred to her, though she drew the line at labelling anyone “Bolshevik.”

Marie-Louise's reaction to the library was everything Letty had expected. After her initial gasp of appreciation, she'd begun to move about, excited but restrained, firing question after question, looking but not touching. Finally they settled to an inspection of the ancient books d'Aubec had left on the table.

“But these should be put away, surely, in safe conditions to preserve them, not just left lying about,” she protested, refusing to put a hand on them. “If they are what you say they are they should be in a museum, properly cared for and available for inspection by anyone who has an interest in them. They ought not to belong to d'Aubec—they should be handed over to the nation.”

“I think that's exactly what he's got in mind. They seem to have worn well so far. I would guess that the conditions here in this room are congenial. It's north-facing, cool, and dry. He cares too much to let them suffer in any way. Don't worry about that, Marie-Louise.”

“But what about this?” Marie-Louise said, gingerly poking at the scroll of architectural designs which Letty had left between the two piles. “This has no leather backing to protect it. It shouldn't be left here on the table for anyone to handle.”

“That one's not particularly old, you'll find—1810 or thereabouts. Plans for the construction of the stable block and the chapel. All completed by Hippolyte, I'm told—the chap who escaped the attentions of Dutronc's device. He returned from exile with an English heiress on his arm and they proceeded to spend a great deal of money refurbishing and expanding. It won't crumble, I promise, if you want to have a look.”

Intrigued, Marie-Louise held open the sheet by its edges and studied it, turning it this way and that. “Ah, yes, here are the stables. And the architect's notes. More than a touch of Ledoux. Very grand. Just what a man eager to re-establish himself would spend his money on. He knew how to behave, this young man. He employed local labour, cared for the estates…Oh, and here are plans for a chapel. Of course. Defender of the old faith, a traditionalist, countering the forces of republicanism and anticlericalism. A wise move. And your Edmond continues the good work. He has his friend the curé to dinner once a week and the bishop twice a year. But I had no idea there was a private chapel—d'Aubec and his mother both worship at the church of St. Mary Magdalene. Have you seen this chapel, Stella?”

“No, I haven't.” As she spoke she realised her voice had conveyed a sudden doubt. D'Aubec had never offered to show her the chapel. The hesitation was instantly picked up by Marie-Louise.

“Ah! A
secret
chapel? Sounds intriguing! But, wouldn't you like to see it? I think you should! It may hold revelations regarding the state of his soul. Better find out before it's too late whether your count is a disciple of the infamous Gilles de Rais. Perhaps they keep it locked up, stuffed full of guilty secrets? Upside-down crucifixes, pentangles on the floor, severed heads in niches, you know the sort of thing…”

Marie-Louise fell silent in embarrassment as the housekeeper entered with a tray of tea things.

“Oh, sponge cake and strawberry jam! How lovely! You are too kind! Madame Lepage, tell me—the chapel—is it kept unlocked? We were just thinking how very much we'd like to see it,” Letty said brightly, aware that the housekeeper must have overheard. Good servants, in her experience, always listened to the last sentence uttered before they came through the door.

“Of course,” was the smiling reply. “And you will find we change the flowers there every day—even when the family are not at home. You know where to find it, mademoiselle? Take the long corridor and it's right at the end, on the western side of the house.”

Madame Lepage withdrew and Letty waited for Marie-Louise to finish her slice of cake. “Well? What about it?” she said. “An assault on Bluebeard's lair? Are you up to this? You don't have to, you know.”

“Oh, do you think we dare?”

Letty laughed. “For a girl who claims descent from marauding yeoman stock, you're not very adventurous, Marie-Louise. In fact, I'm not sure that your antecedents can have been the bold despoilers you'd have me believe! I have noticed that much of the pre-Revolutionary furniture and decorations are still in place. They appear not to have been stolen or defaced. Not so much as a moustache drawn on a portrait.”

“True, most probably,” Marie-Louise admitted. “It's said that when the townspeople reached the gate it was flung open by the maître d'hôtel, who greeted them by name and politely but firmly sent them about their business. They were informed that they were not able to speak to the count, who was away in London, but he sent them his greetings and looked forward to seeing them on his return.”

“Well done, the maître d'hôtel! And I hope he kept his head! Pity there isn't a portrait of him to admire, but we can have a look at his liege lord. Come on! We pass him on the way to the chapel.”

Marie-Louise's awed enthusiasm for the portraiture slowed them down to a point where Letty had to mask her impatience. Starting with brother Guy, whom she remembered and said a prayer for, they progressed along the line, Marie-Louise's commentary more anecdotal and salty than the official introduction d'Aubec had given her.

“Oh, look! That must be old so-and-so…Now it's strongly rumoured that every time he went to Paris…Ah! The family face! Do look at those ears, Stella—you'll see the very same on old Gaston at the Lion d'Or!” And on down the line until she stood, enthralled, in front of Hippolyte and Charlotte and the tumbling brood of round-faced children. “Good grief! How many?”

“Well, there were more to come. Eleven all told, according to Edmond. He says this was painted in 1810 on their return.”

“But had they the time to produce so many…five…six…seven…little cherubs?”

“Oh, yes. He went off to evade the clutches of your mob in 1790-ish…married and came back, let's say, in 1808? That's plenty of time for a d'Aubec to show his paces, I'd have thought.”

“And we can be certain of the date? Perhaps it's a year or so later than you calculated?” said Marie-Louise, her voice giving away the excitement of an art historian on the verge of making a discovery. “We ought to be able to work it out exactly. Look at the background!”

Letty looked. And looked again. How had she missed it? The now familiar outline of hills partially obscured by the half-built stable block. “Right for direction. Wrong for elevation,” Gunning had said. This angle was right for both. Her eye was being directed firmly beyond the rising wall of the stables to the dark encircling cliff side behind, a cliff side about to be concealed by the elegant golden stone lining rising in front of it.

“You must look past the flamboyant figures in the foreground, all showy silks and muslins, pink cheeks and smiles of satisfaction, and study the background,” Marie-Louise was advising in her schoolmarm voice. “The stables are only half built, do you see? And we know the plans were drawn up in June of 1810—did you notice the date on the plans? So there, that dates it pretty accurately, doesn't it? This was painted in late summer—look, she's holding on her lap corn, poppies, apples, late summer things. There's no way you could get the plans approved and a building team on site and work advanced to such a point in two months. No, this was done in 1811,” she finished firmly. Suddenly she grasped Letty's arm. “Look—you can hardly make it out, but—isn't that an escutcheon, there, right over the centre, the place where the arched doorway appears on the plans? There's something written on it. A date perhaps? Get a chair, Stella!”