King of the Castle (37 page)

I suppose it was this memory which led me one afternoon to the graveyard of the de la Talles.

I went to that of Francoise and read her name once more on the open marble book and then I looked for the grave of the lady in the portrait. She must be there.

I did not know her name, only that she was one of the Comtesses de la Talle, but since she had been a mistress of Louis XV in her youth I guessed that the date of her death must be somewhere in the second half of the eighteenth century, and eventually I discovered a Marie Louise de la Talle who had died in the year 1761. This would doubtless be the lady of the pictures, and as I approached the vault with its statues and decorations my foot touched something. I stared down incredulously, for what I saw was a cross similar to that which I had

discovered in the moat. I bent down to look and I discovered that a date had been scratched on it. There were letters too. I knelt down. I could just read it.

“Fidele 1790.”

The same name! Only the date was different. The dog had been buried in the moat in 1749. This dog had the same name and a different date.

This Fidele had died when the revolutionaries were marching on the chateau, when the young Comtesse had had to flee, not only for her own life but for that of the unborn child.

Surely there was something significant about this? I was deeply conscious of it as I stood there. Whoever had painted the coffin-like case about the dog and had written the words “Forget me not’ on the picture was trying to convey something. What?

And here I had stumbled on this second grave of Fidele and the date was important. I knelt down and looked at the cross. Beneath the name Fidele and the date, some words had been scratched.

“N’oubliez pas …” I made out, and my heart beat wild with excitement then, for the inscription was like that on the picture.

“N’oubliez pas ceux qui furent oublies.”

What did it indicate?

Of only one thing was I certain; and that was that I was going to find out, for it had occurred to me that this was not the grave a beloved mistress had made for a dog. There was one dog’s grave and that was in the moat. Someone who had lived in the year 1790 that most fateful and eventful year for the French people-was trying to send a message over the years.

It was a challenge and one I must accept.

I rose to my feet and left the graveyard making my way through the small copse to the gardens. I remembered passing a shed in which I knew gardening tools were kept, and there I found a spade and went back to the graveyard.

As I made my way through the copse I had a sudden uneasy feeling that I was being watched. I stood still. There

was silence except for the sudden flutter of a bird in the leaves above me.

“Is anyone there?” I called.

But there was no answer. You’re being foolish, I told myself. You’re nervous. You’re reaching out for the past and it’s making you uneasy.

You’ve changed since you came to the chateau. You used to be a sensible young woman. Now you do all manner of foolish things. What would anyone think if they found me with a spade, intent on digging in the graveyard?

Then I would explain. But I didn’t want to explain. I wanted to take my discovery complete and exciting to the Comte. Reaching the cross I looked over my shoulder. I could see no one, but it would not be difficult for someone to have followed me through the copse, to be hiding now behind one of those house like tombs which the French erect to their dead.

I began to dig.

The small box was very near the surface and I saw at once that it was not big enough to contain the remains of a dog. I picked it up and brushed off the dirt. It was made of metal and there were words scratched on this, similar to those on the cross. ‘1790. N’oubliez pas ceux qui furent oublies. “

It was difficult to open the box for it had become wedged with rust.

But eventually I managed it; and I think I must have been expecting what was inside.

I knew as soon as I picked it up that when I had uncovered the wall-painting I had uncovered a message which had been intentionally left. For there in the box was the key which was lying beside the dog in the picture. I knew it because at one end was the fleur-delis.

Now I had to find the lock which fitted the key and then I should know what the one who had drawn that message had wanted to say. It was a link with the past. It was the most thrilling discovery I or my father

had ever made. I wanted to tell someone . anyone . the Comte, of course.

I looked down at the key in my hand. Somewhere in the chateau there would be the lock to fit it.

I must find it.

I put the key carefully into the pocket of my dress. I closed the box and put it back in the earth. Then I covered it. In a few days no one would know that the ground had been disturbed.

I went to the toolshed and carefully replaced the spade. Then I went into the chateau and up to my room. But it was not until I was there and the door was shut that I could rid myself of the notion that I had been overlooked.

Those were days of burning heat. The Comte stayed in Paris and I had now exposed the whole of the wall-painting and’ was cleaning it. A process which would not take me very long; and when I had done that and the few pictures in the gallery I should really have no excuse for staying. If I were wise I should tell Claude that I wanted to take up her suggestion.

The harvest was almost upon us.

I had a feeling that we were moving towards a climax and when the harvest was over this episode in my life would be over too.

Wherever I went I carried the key with me in the pocket of one of my petticoats. It was a very secure pocket, in which I carried anything I was afraid of losing, for it buttoned tightly and there was no way in which articles hidden there could be lost.

I had thought a great deal about the key and I had come to the conclusion that if I could find the lock to it I should discover the emeralds. Everything pointed to this. The coffin had been painted over the dog in the picture in the year 1790that very year when the revolutionaries had marched on the chateau. I was certain the emeralds had

2. been taken from the strongroom and hidden somewhere in the chateau and this was the key to open the receptacle in which they lay. This key was the property of the Comte and I had no right to keep it; but I should give it to no one else, and together he and I should seek to find the lock which fitted it.

I had a great desire to find that lock myself. To await him on his return and say to him: “Here are your emeralds.”

They could not be in a casket. That would have been discovered long ago. It must be a cupboard, a safe, somewhere which had gone undetected for a hundred years.

I began by examining every inch of my own room, tapping the panelling where I thought there might possibly be a cavity.

And as I did this I stopped short suddenly, remembering the tapping Genevieve and I had heard in the night. Someone else was searching as I was. Who? The Comte? That was understandable, but why should he, who owned the chateau and had every right to look for hidden treasure which belonged to him, seek to find it by stealth?

I thought of the treasure hunt when I found the clues and I knew that the words scratched on the box were a clue of a similar sort.

Could those who had been forgotten be those prisoners of the past who had been chained to their cages or dropped into the oubliette^ The servants believed those dungeons to be haunted and refused to go there. That might have applied to the revolutionaries storming the chateau. Somewhere down there was the lock which would fit the key I carried in my petticoat pocket.

It must be in the oubliette of course. The word forgotten was the clue to that.

I remembered the trap door, the rope ladder and the occasion when

Genevieve had shut me there. I longed to explore the oubliette, and yet remembering how I had once been shut down there I was reluctant to go alone.

Should I tell Genevieve of my discovery? I decided against it. No, I must go alone but I must make sure that it was known I was there so that if by some chance that trap door should be shut down I should be rescued.

I went along to Nounou.

“Nounou,” I said, “I am going to explore the oubliette this afternoon.

I think there may be something interesting under the lime-wash. “

“Like that picture you’ve been finding?”

“Something like that. There’s only a rope ladder for getting in and out, so if I should not be back in my room by four o’clock, you would know where to find me.”

Nounou nodded.

“Though she wouldn’t do it again,” she said.

“You need have no fear of that, miss.”

“No; but that’s where I shall be.”

“I’ll remember.”

I also took the precaution of mentioning where I should be to the maid who brought my lunch.

“Oh, will you, miss,” she said.

“Rather you than me.”

“You don’t like the place?”

“Well, miss. When you think of what’s gone on there. They say it’s haunted. You know that, don’t you?”

“That’s often said about such places.”

“Well, all those people … shut down there to pine away … Ugh, rather you than me.”

I touched the key beneath my skirts and thought of the pleasure I should have when I took the Comte to his oubliette and said to him: “I have found your treasure.”

I was not going to let the fear of ghosts scare me.

As I stood in that room with its trap door which was the only entry to the oubliette, watching the play of sunlight on the weapons decorating the walls, it occurred to me that the lock which would fit the key might be in this

room, for those who were about to be forgotten had first passed this way.

Guns of various shapes and kinds! Were they ever used now? I knew it was the duty of one of the servants to come to this room periodically and make sure everything was well kept. I had heard it said that the servants came in twos.

If there was anything here surely it would have been discovered long ago.

As I stood there my eye caught something gleaming on the floor and I went swiftly to it.

It was a pair of scissors the kind which I had seen used for snipping off grapes which were not up to the required standard. There had been occasions when, as I had stood talking to him, I had seen Jean Pierre take such a pair of scissors from his pockets and use them on the vines.

I stooped and picked up the scissors. They were of an unusual shape.

Could there be two pairs so much alike? And if not, how had Jean Pierre’s scissors come to be here?

I slipped them into my pocket thoughtfully. Then deciding that what I sought was more likely to be in the oubliette, I took out the rope ladder, opened the trap door and descended to that place of doom where the forgotten had perished. I shivered as I relived those dreadful moments when Genevieve had pulled up the ladder and shut the trap door leaving me to experience a little of what hundreds must have felt before within these walls.

It was an eerie place, close, confined, dark, except for the light which came through the trap door.

But I had not come to let my fancies rule my common sense. Here was where the forgotten had ended their days and this was where the clue had led me. I believed that somewhere in this enclosed space was the lock which the key would open.

I examined the walls. Here was the familiar lime-wash which must have been done about eighty years ago. I tapped the wall gently to test for cavities but I could find nothing of interest. I looked about me, at the ceiling, at the flagged stone floors. I went into that aperture which Genevieve had told me was a maze. Could it be in there somewhere? The light was too poor for me to examine it well, but as I put out my hand to touch the stone pillar I could not imagine how anything could be secreted there.

I decided to make a through examination of the walls, and while I was doing this what little light there was disappeared.

I gave a little cry of horror and turned to the trap door.

Claude was looking down at me.

“Making discoveries?” she asked.

I stood looking up at her and moved towards the rope ladder. She pulled it a few inches from the ground rather playfully.

“I’m wondering whether there are any to make,” I answered.

“You know so much about ancient castles. I saw you come here and guessed what you were up to.”

I thought: She is watching me, all the time, hoping that I will make the decision to go.

I reached out to touch the ladder but laughingly she jerked it upwards.

“Don’t you feel a little alarmed down there. Mademoiselle Lawson?”

“Why should I?”

“Think of all the ghosts of dead men who have died horrible deaths cursing those who left them there to die.”

“They would have no grudge against me.”

I kept my eyes on the rope ladder which she held just out of my reach.

“You might slip and fall down there. Anything could happen. You might be a prisoner there … like those others.”

“Not for long,” I answered.

“They would come to look for me. I have told Nounou and others that I’d be here so I shouldn’t be left long.”

“You’re very practical as well as clever. Do you think you are going to find wall paintings down there?”

“In castles like this one never knows what one will find. That’s where the excitement comes in.”

“I should like to join you.” She let the ladder fall and I felt a relief as I was able to touch it.

“But I don’t think I will,” she went on.

“If you discover something you will let us know fast enough, I’m sure.”

“I shall let it be known. I’m coming up now, in any case.”

“And you’ll be investigating again?”

“Very probably, although the examination I have made today makes me think I shan’t find anything down here.”

Firmly I grasped the ladder and climbed up to the room.

Claude had made me forget my discovery in the gun room, but no sooner had I returned to my own room than I remembered the scissors in my pocket.