Sepulchre (30 page)
Léonie nodded. What better evidence that her uncle's testimony was based on true events? She moved closer. The question was - why these eight, of the seventy-eight cards her uncle's book had detailed? With excitement fluttering in her chest, she started to copy out the names, but she was running out of space on the tiny scrap of paper she had found in her pocket. She cast her eyes around the sepulchre looking for something else on which to write.
Peeking out from beneath the stone feet of the altar, she noticed the corner of a sheet of paper. She pulled it out. It was a leaf of piano music, handwritten on heavy yellow parchment. Treble and bass clef, common time, with no flats or sharps. The memory of the subtitle on the front cover of her uncle's book volume came into her mind and his testimony he had written the music down.
She flattened out the music and attempted to sight-sing the opening bars, but could not catch the melody even though it was very plain. There were but a limited number of notes, which at first glance reminded her of nothing so much as the sort of four-finger exercises she had been obliged to struggle through in her childhood piano lessons.
Now another thought, quick, following on the heels of the last. If the music remains in the sepulchre, why not also the cards? Léonie hesitated, then scribbled the date and the word 'Sepulchre' across the top, as evidence of where she had found the music, then slipped it into her pocket and began a methodical search of the stone chapel. She pushed her fingers into dusty corners and crevices, looking for concealed spaces, but finding nothing. There were no pieces of furniture or furnishings behind which a deck of cards could be hidden. But if not here, then where?
She moved around behind the altar. Now her eyes were accustomed to the sombre atmosphere, she fancied she could make out the outline of a small door concealed within the eight panels of the apse. She reached out, looking for some disturbance in the surface, and found a slight depression, perhaps the markings of an old opening that once had done service. She pushed hard with her hand, but nothing happened. It was quite firmly fixed. If there had been a door here, it was no longer in use.
Léonie stood back, hands on her hips. She was reluctant to accept that the cards were not here, but she had exhausted every possible hiding place. She could think of nothing else for it but to go back to the book once more and seek answers there. Now she had seen the place, surely she would be able to read the hidden meanings in the text. If indeed there are any.
Léonie again glanced up at the windows. The light was fading. Shafts of tree-filtered light had slipped away, leaving the glass dark. Now, as before, she felt the eyes of the plaster statues were turned upon her, watching. And as she became aware of their presence, the atmosphere within the tomb seemed to tip, to shift.
There was a rushing of air. She could discern music, inside her head, coming from somewhere within her. Heard, but not heard. Then a presence, behind her, surrounding her, skimming past without ever touching, yet pressing closer, a ceaseless movement, accompanied by a silent cacophony of whispering and sighing and weeping. Her pulse started to race. It is but my imagination.
She heard a different noise. She tried to dismiss it, as she had dismissed all other sounds from within and without. But it came again. A scratching, a shuffling. The clip of nails or claws upon the flagstones, coming from behind the altar.
Now Léonie felt as if she was a trespasser. She had disturbed the silence of the sepulchre and of the listeners, the watchers who inhabited its dusty stone corridors. She was not welcome. She had looked upon the painted images on the walls and stared into the eyes of the plaster saints that kept vigil. She turned, held in the malicious blue eyes of Asmodeus. The descriptions of the demons of the book came back to her with full force. She recalled her uncle's terror as he wrote of how the black wings, the presences, bore down upon him. Tore into him.
The marks on the palms of my hands, like stigmata, have not faded. Léonie looked down and saw, or imagined she saw, red marks spreading across her cold upturned hands. Scars in the form of a figure eight on its side upon her pale skin.
She picked up her skirts and bolted for the door. The malignant gaze of the Asmodeus seemed to mock her as she passed, his eyes following her down the short nave. In terror, she threw the full weight of her body at the door, succeeding only in closing it more firmly shut. Frantic, she remembered it opened inwards. She grabbed at the handle and pulled.
Now Léonie was certain there were footsteps behind her. Claws, nails, slipping on the flagstones, coming after her. Hunting her. The devils of the place had been released to protect the sanctuary of the sepulchre. A horrified sob escaped from her throat as she stumbled out into the darkening woods. The door fell heavily shut behind her, rattling on its ancient hinges. She was no longer afraid of what might be lying in wait in the twilight of the trees. It was as nothing compared to the supernatural terrors within the tomb. Léonie picked up her skirts and ran, knowing the demon's eyes were watching her still. Realising, only just in time, how the ancient gaze of spirits and spectres kept guard over their domain against intruders. She plunged back through the chill air, dropping her hat, stumbling and half falling, retracing her steps all the way along the path, over the dry stream, through the dusk-draped woods to the safety of the lawns and the gardens. Fujhi, poudes; Escapa, non.
Léonie arrived back at the house frozen to the bone, to find Anatole pacing the hall. Not only had her absence been noted, but it had also caused great consternation. Isolde threw her arms around her, and then quickly withdrew, as if embarrassed by her display of affection. Anatole hugged her, then shook her. He was torn between chastising her and relief that no ill had befallen her. Nothing was said about the earlier quarrel that had driven her out alone into the grounds in the first place.
Anatole continued to fire question after question at her. Had she seen anyone? Had she strayed beyond the boundaries of the Domaine? Had she noticed or heard anything out of the ordinary? Under such a sustained verbal interrogation, the fear that had taken hold of her in the sepulchre loosened its grip. Léonie rallied and started to defend herself, his determination to make so much of the incident encouraging her to do the opposite.
'I am sorry if our concern seems excessive to you. Of course you are perfectly at liberty to walk wherever you please. It is just that there have been reports of wild animals coming right down into the valley at dusk. Sightings of mountain cats, wolves perhaps, not far from Rennes-les-Bains.'
Léonie was on the point of challenging the explanation when the memory of the sound of claws on the flagstones of the sepulchre came sharply back to her. She shuddered. She could not say for certain what had turned the adventure into something altogether else, and so abruptly. Only that in the moment she began to run, she had believed herself in danger of her life. From what, she did not know.
With an exhalation of disgust, he spun away, his hands on his hips. 'There are also warnings of more bad weather coming in from the mountains,' Isolde said. 'We were fearful you would be caught out in the storm.'
Her comment was interrupted by an ominous rumble of thunder. All three looked to the windows. Brooding and malevolent clouds could now be seen scudding across the tops of the mountain. A white mist, like the smoke from a bonfire, hung suspended between the hills in the distance. Another rumble of thunder, closer at hand, rattled the glass in the panes. 'Come,' said Isolde, taking Leonie's arm. 'I will have the maid draw you a hot bath, then we will have supper and a fire in the drawing room. And, perhaps, a game of cards? Bézique, vingt-et-un, whatever you wish.'
Léonie remembered. She looked down at the palms of her hands, white with the cold. There was nothing there. No red marks branding her skin. She allowed herself to be taken to her room.
Léonie hesitated, not wishing to stir her unsteady nerves, but then got up and retrieved Les Tarots from her workbox. With cautious fingers, she turned the pages until she came to the passage she wanted.
There was a rushing of air and the sensation that I was not alone. Now I was certain that the sepulchre was full of beings. Spirits, I cannot say they were human. All natural rules were vanquished. The entitles were all around. My self and my other selves, both past and yet to come . . . It seemed to me they flew and swept through the air, so that I was aware always of their fleeting presence . . . Especially in the air above my head there seemed ceaseless movement, accompanied by a cacophony of whispering and sighing and weeping.
It so precisely matched her experience. The question was, had the words lodged themselves deep in her unconscious mind and thus directed her emotions and reactions? Or had she independently experienced something of what her uncle had seen? Another thought came into her mind.
That both her mother and Isolde felt something disturbing in the character of the place, Léonie had no doubt. In their different manners they alluded to a certain atmosphere, they hinted at a sense of disquiet, although admittedly neither was explicit. Léonie pressed her hands together, making a steeple of her fingers as she thought hard. She, too, had felt it on that first afternoon when she and Anatole arrived at the Domaine de la Cade.
Still turning the matter over in her mind, she returned the book to its hiding place, slipping the sheet of piano music within the covers, then hastened downstairs to join the others. Now her fear had retreated, she was intrigued, determined to discover more. She had many questions she wished to ask of Isolde, not least what she knew of her husband's activities before they were married. Perhaps, even, she would write to M'man to enquire as to if there were any specific incidents in her childhood that had caused her alarm. For without knowing what she was so certain about, Léonie was sure that it was the place itself that held captive the terrors, the woods, the lake, the ancient trees.
But then, as she closed the bedroom door behind her, Léonie realised she could not mention her expedition for fear she would be forbidden to return to the sepulchre. For the time being at least, her adventure must remain secret.
Supper passed agreeably, with occasional rumbles of disconsolate thunder in the distance. The matter of Leonie's adventure into the grounds was not mentioned. Instead, they talked of Rennes-les-Bains and adjoining towns, of the preparations for Saturday's supper party and the guests, of how much there was to do and the enjoyment they would have doing it.
After they had eaten, they withdrew to the drawing room and their moods changed. The darkness without the walls seemed almost to be alive. It was, at last, a relief when the storm struck. The very sky itself began to growl and shudder. Brilliant and jagged forked lightning ripped silver through the black clouds. Thunder clapped, bellowed, ricocheted off rock and branch, echoing between the valleys.
Then the wind, stilled momentarily as if gathering up its strength, suddenly hit the house in full force, bringing with it the first of the rain that had threatened all evening. Gusts of hail lashed against the windows, until it seemed to those cowering within the house that an avalanche of water was cascading over the face of the building, like waves breaking upon the shore.
From time to time Léonie thought that she could hear music. The notes that lay inscribed on the sheet hidden in her bedroom, taken up and sounded by the wind. As, indeed, she remembered with a shudder, the old gardener had warned.
For the most part, Anatole, Isolde and Léonie attempted to pay no heed to the tempest beyond the walls. A good fire crackled and spat in the grate. All the lamps were lit and the servants had brought extra candles. They had been made as comfortable as possible, but still Léonie feared the walls were bending, shifting, caving in under the onslaught.
In the hall, a door came unlatched, blown open by the wind, and was quickly secured. Léonie could hear the servants moving around the house, checking that all the windows were shuttered. Because there was a danger that the thin glass of the windows in the oldest casements would shatter, all the curtains had been drawn. In the upstairs corridors, they heard footsteps and the chink of pails and buckets set at intervals to catch the drips, the leaks that Isolde told them allowed rain through the loose tiles on the roof.
Confined to the drawing room, the three of them sat, strolled, paced, talked. They drank a little wine. They attempted to occupy themselves with normal evening pursuits. Anatole stoked the fire and replenished their glasses. Isolde twisted her long, pale fingers in her lap. Once, Léonie drew back the curtain and stared out into the blackness. She could see little through the slats of the ill-fitting shutters except the silhouettes of the trees in the parkland beyond, lit on the instant by a flash of lightning, plunging and tossing like unbroken horses on a rope. It seemed to her that the very woods seemed to be calling out for help, the ancient trees creaking, cracking, resisting.
At ten o'clock, Léonie suggested a game of bézique. She and Isolde settled themselves at the card table. Anatole stood, his arm resting upon the mantelshelf, smoking a cigarette and holding a glass of brandy.
They spoke little. Each of them, whilst pretending to be oblivious to the storm, was listening for the subtle changes in the wind and the rain that might indicate the worst was over. Léonie noticed how very pale Isolde had become, as if there was some further threat, some warning within the storm. As the time limped slowly on, it seemed to her that Isolde struggled for composure. Her hand strayed often to her stomach as if she was ailing for some sickness. Or else her fingers plucked at the fabric of her skirts, at the corners of the playing cards, at the green baize.
A crack of thunder struck directly overhead. Isolde's grey eyes flared wide. In a moment, Anatole was at her side. Léonie felt a spurt of jealousy. She felt excluded, as if they had forgotten she was there.
According to Monsieur Baillard,' Léonie interrupted, 'local legend holds that the storms are sent by the devil when the world is out of kilter. When the natural order of things is disturbed. The gardener said much the same this morning. He said that music was heard over the lake last evening, which- '
'The storm will blow itself out soon,' Anatole said again. 'It's just the wind.' 'It's not the wind. I feel something . . . something terrible is going to happen,' Isolde whispered. 'I feel as if he is coming. Getting closer to us.'
Another gust of wind rattled the shutters. The sky cracked. 'I am certain that this dignified old house has seen much worse than this,' Anatole said, trying to inject a lightness into his voice. 'Indeed, I wager it will still be standing many years after we are all dead and buried. There's nothing to fear.'
She was on the point of confessing to Anatole the truth of how she had passed her afternoon. What she had seen and heard. But when she turned to him, she saw he was gazing at Isolde with a look of such tenderness, such concern, that she felt almost ashamed to have witnessed it.