Bright Hair About the Bone (33 page)

Not waiting for Letty to react, Marie-Louise dashed back along the corridor and returned dragging a Louis XVI chair. She put it in front of the picture, and, running a critical eye over Letty: “I'm smaller and lighter than you” she kicked off her sandals and climbed up.

A squeak of excitement a moment later was followed by a triumphant: “Four words. In Latin.
Vera equis celatur dea.
”

“Very appropriate for a new stable block,” said Letty slowly, buying time as she first translated, then wondered at the text. “Epona the Horse Goddess. You must be familiar with the d'Aubec crest?”

“Oh, yes. Very neat. Very Burgundian,” said Marie-Louise, replacing the chair. “Completely horse-mad, that family. Heaven knows what we'll find in their chapel! Prepare yourself for a freshly severed horse's head on the altar!”

Marie-Louise's eagerness to see the chapel did not propel her past the remaining portraits, and Letty patiently conveyed the sketchy information she had to her interested audience. At last they reached the end of the gallery and turned, following the housekeeper's instructions, down a short corridor which led to the chapel.

A strong oak door, heavily carved and decorated with cascades of wildflowers and fruits that Grinling Gibbons would not have blushed for, stood closed before them. With a glance at her companion and a drawing-in of breath, Letty put a hand on the massive wrought-iron doorknob and levered up the latch.

The door swung open easily on oiled hinges and they slipped inside, closing it behind them.

CHAPTER 31

U
nconsciously, the two girls reached for each other's hands and stood in mesmerised silence.

They had jokingly evoked a Gothic room full of dark secrets, and Letty was aware that the Catholic Marie-Louise with her almost superstitious dread of cults had been physically quivering with some emotion before they came in. Her hand even now betrayed her unsteadiness.

They stared about them, not exchanging a word.

It was the scent that Letty found disturbing. She had expected the usual ecclesiastical assault on the senses: a top note of church incense underlaid by beeswax candles and a base of damp and rotting stone. Familiar and reassuring. But she breathed deeply and drew into her lungs an enchanting blend of jasmine, roses, and wild honeysuckle. Not a trace of incense on the air. Mme. Lepage's fresh flowers stood, a simple delight, in silver vases on table and window ledge.

There was no place, surely, for dark secrets in this airy room. The white-painted walls, bare of any decoration, gathered up the eye and took it vaulting to the apex of the roof, rewarding its leap with a gem of a gilded cherubic face beaming down from the central point. Ahead of them to the east stood an altar, if indeed it was an altar. A rectangular table covered in a white cloth discreetly embroidered with a frieze of green grasses held nothing more than a single vase of meadow flowers—moon-pennies and Queen Anne's lace. The seating before the altar consisted of a dozen or so chairs covered in green velvet. On the west wall behind them was a carved wooden disc, a zodiac she guessed, with painted sun, earth, and stars, connected by mysterious elliptical lines and circles. She'd seen one exactly like it in the ambulatory in Chartres cathedral.

But the drama of the room was provided by the stained glass windows on two sides, the north and the south. In the north window and fired by a gentle light, there glowed dimly a familiar figure. Mary Magdalene, as intriguing as ever, stood barefoot in her dark red dress, long fair hair tumbling about her shoulders. Tucked under one arm she held a jewel-encrusted unguent vase. And on the ground at her feet lay a simple earthenware pot. To the south, and still sparkling with a warm afternoon light, was a representation of the Virgin Mary, and it was towards this that Marie-Louise headed with an exclamation of excitement.

She dipped a curtsey in front of the Virgin, crossed herself, and beckoned for Laetitia to join her. Eyes wide with awe, she whispered: “Do you recognise this, Stella?”

“Not sure…No…I've seen lots of similar pictures but not this one.”

Letty studied the image with the attention it compelled, astonished and wondering. Her first impression was that the style was very ancient. Madonna and Child. Byzantine? Yes, perhaps. The rounded and youthful face was almond-eyed with clear dark brows; the mouth had the slight pout of a mother who has just kissed her baby and is about to kiss him again. The nose was long and narrow. The line of her smooth chin was interrupted by the chubby right hand of her son, who grasped it in the centre—a gesture so natural and affectionate that it brought tears to Letty's eyes. The left hand of the small boy tugged playfully at a fold of the robe hanging at his mother's neck. Surely a painting done from life? The gestures were completely unstudied and accurately observed.

But it was the colours that drew and held the eye. The background was a wash of gold; a blue robe covered the girl from her head, hanging down in folds, with wide sleeves showing an underdress of gold and pink. The sun streamed through a lighter, silvery patch on Mary's right shoulder, highlighting a single emblem. Letty moved closer and peered, trying to identify it.

Following her gaze, Marie-Louise whispered: “Six petals. It's a rose. Mary's emblem.”

“No, it's not,” said Letty. “Those aren't petals! Too narrow. It's a star. A six-pointed star.”

“You don't know the story, do you?”

Letty shook her head.

“You must have heard of Bernadette Soubirous?”

“Who hasn't? If you mean the little country girl who claimed to have seen visions of the Virgin Mary in a grotto at Lourdes and dug up a spring reputed to have healing powers.”

“Yes, that Bernadette. When she grew up she went to live with the Carmelite nuns in Nevers, and when asked why she refused all pictures of the Holy Mother with which she could have decorated her cell, she maintained that none of them looked remotely like the Lady she'd seen at Lourdes. She never called her the Virgin, or Madonna—always the Lady,” Marie-Louise added thoughtfully. “And, one day, she was offered a fresh image. It was a copy of a famous icon from the cathedral in Cambrai. Bernadette accepted it at once, saying: ‘This is her! This is the Lady I saw!'

“And now
you
are seeing her. The Madonna,” Marie-Louise said with the warmth and formality of one making an introduction. She was clearly looking for an appropriate reaction from the silent Laetitia.

As no words would come, Letty made the sign of the cross and gazed back in unfeigned admiration at the picture. This was not the place; this was not the companion with whom she could air her thoughts.

“This is a version in glass of that image in Cambrai. And, Stella, the fascinating thing is—the original icon, which is quite small”—she sketched out with her hands a size a little larger than a sheet of foolscap paper—“came to France in…oh…1400 and something…from Byzantium. But before it fetched up there, it's said, it came from the Holy Land and was painted by Saint Luke himself! What do you think of
that?
”

Laetitia truly thought she'd recognised, in the slightly unfocused gaze and the gestures of maternal pride, an enduring image, a universal image. Mary, certainly. But also Isis or any one of man's visions of the Goddess-Mother.

“I believe it all,” said Letty, smiling. “Whoever painted her and whoever she is, for
me
she's the Virgin, the Mother. I feel I've met her and yet she's inspiring and imposing. Wonderful!”

Marie-Louise appeared pleased with the reaction. She went to repeat her curtsey, murmured a prayer before Mary Magdalene, and then settled on one of the green chairs in front of the altar to look around her again.

The Good Catholic, then, appeared to have given the chapel her approval. Staring ahead at the expanse of the eastern wall beyond the altar, Laetitia wondered if her friend had responded too swiftly. Perhaps there was a third window piercing the white-painted stone wall? One certainly looked for an image of some significance in that place. Difficult to judge, since a linen curtain hanging from a black iron pole had been drawn across the entire wall. If there was a stained glass offering behind it, the effect must be very spectacular speared by morning light, Letty thought. She joined Marie-Louise and, head bowed, went through her familiar routine when praying by herself in French churches. She found, with some surprise, that she was offering up a prayer, a request for indulgence for William Gunning.

Raising her head when she thought Marie-Louise had finished her devotions, she gave her a gentle nudge. It was difficult to speak out loud and her voice came in a whisper. “Look behind the altar, Marie-Louise. What do you suppose that curtain conceals? Do you think we could take a peek? I should like to. The other two windows are truly lovely and the third, if there is one, is in pride of place and probably even more spectacular. It must be well worth seeing.”

Receiving a doubtful nod as assent, Letty moved forward and pulled on a fold of the curtain. Light poured into the chapel as she tugged it clear of the window it had been hiding, and she was aware of puzzlement on Marie-Louise's face. Moving back to get the window in focus, she sat down again by her side.

“But what is this?” Marie-Louise hissed. “I'm not sure what I was expecting to see, but it certainly wasn't this! I don't understand. Are we to imagine ourselves at Eleusis? Did the priests not close the Ceremony of the Mysteries in ancient Athens with just such a piece of nonsense?” She stirred uneasily, glancing to right and left, calming her doubts with the comforting familiar presence of the two Marys. “An ear of wheat? Just an ear of wheat? Are we supposed to be impressed? I've seen more impressive symbols in a baker's shop! And what is that framework surrounding it meant to represent?”

Almost equally puzzled, Letty considered the window. Plain uncoloured glass for the most part, a dash of colour had been inserted towards the centre. A circular maze, delicately etched and tinted black, swirled in a continuous line around an open space. And in the centre was shown, in gold, the offending single ear of wheat.

“It looks very simple,” she agreed. “All that plain glass…it's almost like a marker, a stopgap, holding the space for something more important to come. Striking, though, what there is of it.”

“Well, I think it's disappointing but at least it's not a pentangle.” Marie-Louise crossed herself hurriedly as the last word slipped out.

“And I'll tell you what else is missing,” said Letty, “from our shopping list of religious arcana. Crucifixes. Not one, right way up or otherwise.”

Marie-Louise crossed herself again at the glancing reference to Satanism and said uncomfortably, “Can we leave now, Stella? I'm pleased to have seen Mary, but there's really not a lot more here to claim the attention, is there?”

As they walked back down the corridor, Letty pursued her theories. “All the same, the similarity with the cathedral at Chartres is striking, you know. No crucifixion scenes to be seen there, either—nor, I believe, in any of the Gothic cathedrals which shot up all over northern France in so short a time. And they were all rather bare of ornament originally and soaring like a symphony. When I was small, and left sitting by myself in the cathedral, I used to think that if I struck one of the columns with a tuning fork, the whole building would sing to me. I had much the same feeling in that chapel. And the maze…there is a maze on the floor in Chartres. I've walked it many times.”

All this cathedral lore seemed to be soothing Marie-Louise.

“I'm sure there was no pagan undertone,” said Letty. “Just a nod to the Burgundian way of life. I expect the architect dissuaded Hippolyte from putting a stallion argent passant up there and the wheat was no doubt a concession. It could just as easily have been a bunch of grapes or a vine leaf or two, but I suppose that would have struck a wrong Dionysian note. At least there are frequent references to wheat in the Bible—all that sowing and reaping and falling on hard ground.”

“Well, anyhow,” Marie-Louise said, shrugging, “there was something about it…It wasn't Roman Catholic.”

“With the Blessed VM well to the fore?” said Letty. “You can't get more Catholic than that. And la Madeleine, the local patron saint, backing up on the right flank?”

“But I didn't quite feel easy there.”

“No. I have to say it: nor did I,” Letty admitted. “But then, we were interlopers. It's a family place and we ought not to have been there. But—tell you what—there is a place we will feel welcome. We've got bags of time before supper and our road home's all downhill…would you like to inspect the stables before we leave?” She was eager to take a fresh look at the building in the light of the revelation in the portrait. “And there's something special to show you,” she added, remembering.

Marie-Louise pulled a face. “Oh, would you mind if we didn't? I don't care for horses very much.” And, catching Letty's disappointment, hurried to add, “Oh, but I
would
be interested to see the architecture.”

They crunched over the gravel and stood in front of the symmetrical façade, looking up at the carved relief of silver-haired Epona above the arched entrance.

“‘
Vera dea,
'” commented Marie-Louise. “The true goddess. And I expect the rest of the building is a shrine to her.
Ça alors!
Nothing but the best for the horses! There are people in the town who have much less opulent accommodation.”

Before they started their tour of the stables, Letty looked in on Bella and her single remaining pup. To her joy, both animals came fussing forward to greet her. Marie-Louise was less enchanted. “Ah. Dogs. I don't mind dogs. Those are pretty.”

She paid little attention to the horses themselves, seeming even to have for them an aversion she was trying to conceal behind an over-bright reading out of their names from the brass plates fixed over their stalls. She kept well clear of the bumping rear ends and watched carefully where she put her feet. “How many can one man need?” she said critically. “But at least I suppose they provide employment,” she conceded, watching as a groom came in whistling, greeted Letty, and began to attend to a chestnut hunter.

“Oh, Marcel!” said Letty. “I wonder if you've made arrangements for Dido tomorrow? I understand there are going to be fireworks let off in the evening. I wouldn't want her to be alarmed and dash around damaging herself again just when she's so nicely healed.”