Sepulchre (39 page)

'So, now,' said Isolde. 'How shall we occupy your time while you are here? Anatole tells me you are interested in local history and archaeology? There are several excellent trips. To the ruined castle at Coustaussa, for example?'

'I would like that.'

 

'And of course, reading. Anatole always says you have a hunger for books as other women have for jewellery and clothes.'

Léonie blushed. 'He thinks I read too much, but only because he does not read sufficiently! He knows all about books as objects, but is not interested in the stories that lie between the pages.'

Isolde laughed. 'Which, of course, may be why he was obliged to resit his examinations for his baccalaureate!'

 

Léonie shot a look at Isolde. 'He told you this?' she asked. 'Of course not, no,' she said quickly. 'What man brags of his failures?' 'Then-'

 

'Despite the lack of intimacy between my late husband and your mother, Jules liked to be kept informed of the events in his nephew's education and upbringing.'

Léonie glanced at her aunt, with interest. Her mother had been quite clear that the communication between her and her half-brother had been minimal. She was on the point of pressing Isolde further, but her aunt was speaking again and the moment was lost.

'Have I mentioned I have recently taken out a subscription with the Société Musicale et la Lyre in Carcassonne, although so far I have been unable to attend any concerts? I am aware that it might become rather dull for you, cooped up here in the country, so far from any entertainments.' 'I am perfectly content,' Léonie said.

Isolde smiled her appreciation. 'I am obliged to make a trip to Carcassonne some time in the next few weeks, so I thought we might make an outing of it. Spend a few days in the city. How would that be?'

Leonie's eyes widened with delight. 'That would be wonderful, Aunt. When?'

'I am waiting for a letter from my late husband's lawyers. A point of query. As soon as I receive word, we will make the arrangements to travel.' 'Anatole too?'
'Of course,' Isolde replied, smiling. 'He tells me you would like to see something of the restored medieval Cité. It looks quite unchanged, they say, from the thirteenth century. It is really quite remarkable what they have achieved. Until some fifty years ago, it was a ruin. Thanks to the work of Monsieur Viollet-le-Duc, and those who carry on his work, the slums have almost all been cleared. Nowadays, it is safe for tourists to visit.'

They had reached the end of the path. They struck out towards the lake, then on in the direction of the small, shaded promontory that afforded a wonderful view of the water.

 

'So now that we are better acquainted, would you mind if I asked you a question of a rather personal nature?' Isolde asked.

 

'Well, no,' Léonie said cautiously, 'although I suppose it would depend on the nature of the question.'

 

Isolde laughed. 'I wondered, only, if you had an admirer?' Léonie blushed. 'I . . .'

'Forgive me, have I presumed too much on our friendship?' 'No,' Léonie said quickly, not wishing to appear gauche or naïve, although in truth all her notions of romantic love had been acquired from the pages of books, 'Not in the slightest. It is just that you .. . you took me by surprise.'

Isolde turned to her. 'Well, then? Is there someone?' Léonie experienced, to her surprise, a momentary flash of regret that there was not. She had dreamed, but of characters she had met between the pages of books or of heroes glimpsed upon the stage singing of love and honour. Never, yet, had her unspoken fantasies attached themselves to a living, breathing person.

'I have no interest in such things,' she said firmly. 'Indeed, in my opinion, marriage is a form of servitude.'

 

Isolde hid a smile. 'Once, maybe, but in these modern times? You are young. All girls dream of love.' 'Not I, I have seen M'man-'

 

She broke off, remembering the scenes, the tears, the days when there was no money to put food on the table, the procession of men coming and going.

Isolde's serene expression was suddenly sombre. 'Marguerite's situation has been a difficult one. She has done what she can to make things comfortable for you and Anatole. You should try not to judge her harshly.'
Léonie felt her temper flare. 'I do not judge her,' she said sharply, stung by the rebuke. 'I... I just do not wish such a life for myself.'

'Love - true love - is a precious thing, Leonie,' Isolde continued. 'It is painful, uncomfortable, makes fools of us all, but it is what breathes meaning and colour and purpose into our lives.' She paused. 'Love is the one thing that lifts our common experience to the extraordinary.' Léonie glanced at her, then back to her feet.

'It is not only M'man who has made me turn my face away from love,' she said. 'I have witnessed how sorely Anatole has suffered. I daresay this affects the way I see things.'

Isolde turned. Léonie felt the full force of her grey eyes upon her and could not meet her gaze. 'There was a girl he loved very much,' she continued in a quiet voice. 'She died. This past March. I do not know precisely the manner of her death, only that the circumstances were distressing.' She swallowed hard, glanced at her aunt, then away. 'For months afterwards we feared for him. His spirit was broken and his nerves shot to pieces, so much so that he took refuge in all manner of ill. . . ill practices. He would spend whole nights away and-'

Isolde squeezed Leonie's arm against her. 'A gentleman's constitution can cope with forms of relaxation that to us seem insidious. You should not take such things as an indication of a deeper malaise.'

'You did not see him,' she cried fiercely. 'He was a man lost to himself. To me.

'Your affection for your brother is a credit to you, Leonie,' Isolde said, 'but perhaps the time has come to worry less about him. Whatever was the situation, he appears to be in good spirits now. Would you not agree?' Reluctantly, she nodded. 'I admit he is much improved on the spring.' 'There. So this is the time to think more of your own needs and less of his. You accepted my invitation because you, yourself, stood in need of a rest. Is that not so?' Léonie nodded.

'So now you are here, you should think of yourself. Anatole is in safe hands.'

Léonie thought of their headlong exit from Paris, her promise that she would help him, the sense of threat that came and went, the scar upon his eyebrow as a reminder of the danger he faced, and then, in a moment, felt a burden was being lifted from her shoulders.

'He is in safe hands,' Isolde repeated firmly. As are you.' They were now on the far side of the lake. It was peaceful and green, quite isolated and yet in full view of the house. The only sounds were the crack of twigs underfoot, the occasional flurry of a rabbit in the undergrowth behind. High above the treeline, the caw of distant crows.
Isolde led Léonie to a curved stone bench set on the rise of ground. It was the shape of a crescent moon, its edges softened by time. She sat down and patted the seat to invite Léonie to join her.

'In the days immediately after my husband's death,' she said, 'I came often to this spot. I find it a most restful place.'

Isolde unpinned her white, wide-brimmed hat and placed it on the seat beside her. Léonie did the same, removing her gloves too. She glanced at her aunt. Her golden hair seemed to shine bright, as she sat, as ever, perfectly straight, her hands resting gently in her lap and her boots peeking out neatly from the bottom of her pale blue cotton skirt.

'Was it not rather. .. rather solitary? Being here alone?' Léonie said. Isolde nodded. 'We were married only a matter of years. Jules was a man of fixed habits and customs and, well, for much of that time we were not in residence here. At least, I was not.' 'But you are happy here now?' 'I have grown accustomed to it,' she said quietly. All of Leonie's previous curiosity about her aunt, which had faded somewhat into the background during the excitements of the preparation for the dinner party, flooded back. A thousand questions leapt into her mind. Not least of them why, if Isolde did not feel entirely comfortable at the Domaine de la Cade, she chose to remain here. 'Do you miss Oncle Jules so very much?'

Above them, the leaves swayed in the wind, whispering, murmuring, eavesdropping. Isolde sighed.

 

'He was a considerate man,' she replied carefully. And a kind and generous husband.'

Leonie's eyes narrowed. 'But your words about love-' 'One cannot always marry the person one loves,' Isolde cut in. 'Circumstance, opportunity, need, all these things play a part.' Léonie pressed further.

'I wondered how it was that you came to make one another's acquaintance? I was under the impression that my uncle rarely left the Domaine de la Cade, so-'

'It is true that Jules disliked travelling far from home. He had everything he wished for here. He kept himself well occupied with his books and took his responsibilities for the estate seriously. However, it was his custom to pay a visit once a year to Paris, as he had done when his father was still alive.'

And it was during one of those visits that you were introduced?' 'It was,' she said.

Leonie's attention was caught, not by Isolde's words, but by her actions. Her aunt's hand had stolen to her neck, which, today, was covered by a delicate high lace collar despite the mildness of the weather. Léonie realised how habitual a gesture it was. And Isolde had turned quite pale, as if remembering some unpleasantness she would rather forget. 'So you do not miss him so much?' Léonie pressed. Isolde gave one of her slow, enigmatic smiles.

This time, there was no doubt in Leonie's mind. The man about whom

 

Isolde had talked with such longing, such tenderness, was not her husband.

Léonie stole a glance, trying to summon the courage to pursue the conversation further. She was hungry to know more, but at the same time she did not wish to be impertinent. For all the confidences Isolde appeared to have shared, in point of fact she had explained little of the history of her courtship and marriage. More, Léonie had the suspicion several times during the course of the conversation, that Isolde was on the point of raising some other issue, unsaid between them, although what this could be, she did not know.

'Shall we return to the house?' said Isolde, breaking into her reflections. 'Anatole will be wondering where we are.'

She stood up. Léonie gathered her hat and gloves and did likewise. 'So do you think you will continue to live here, Tante Isolde?' she asked, as they made their way down from the promontory and headed back towards the path.

Isolde waited a moment before answering. 'We will see,' she said. 'For all its undoubted beauty, this is a disquieting place.'

 

CHAPTER 52

 

Carcassonne

 

Monday 28th September

 

The porter opened the door to the first-class carriage and Victor Constant stepped down to the station platform at Carcassonne.

 

Un, deux, trois, loup. Like a game of grandmother's footsteps. Coming to get you, ready or not.

The wind was ferocious. According to the porter, the region was forecast to suffer the worst series of autumn storms for many years. Another, predicted to be even more devastating than those preceding it, was expected to hit Carcassonne perhaps as early as next week. Constant looked around. Above the railway sidings, the trees were plunging, lunging like unbroken horses. The sky was as grey as steel. Menacing black clouds scudded across the tops of the buildings.

'This is just the overture,' he said, then smiled at his own joke.

He glanced along the platform to where his manservant had disembarked with the luggage. In silence, they made their way out through the concourse and Constant waited while his man procured a cab. He watched with little interest as the bargemen on the Canal du Midi lashed their péniches to double moorings, or even to the bases of the lime trees that lined the bank. Water slapped against the brick embankments. In the kiosk selling newspapers, the headline of the Dépêche de Toulouse, the local journal, was talking of a storm that would strike that very evening, with worse to come.

Constant secured lodgings in a narrow side street in the nineteenth-century Bastide Saint-Louis. Then, leaving his man to begin the tedious process of visiting every boarding house, every hotel, every house with private rooms, to show the portrait of Marguerite, Anatole and Léonie Vernier purloined from the apartment in the rue de Berlin, he set out immediately on foot for the old town, the medieval citadel that stood on the opposite bank of the River Aude.

Despite his loathing of Vernier, Constant could not but admire how well he had kicked over the traces. At the same time, he hoped that Vernier's apparent success in disappearing might lead him to be arrogant, foolish. Constant had paid the concierge in the rue de Berlin handsomely to intercept any communication addressed to the apartment from Carcassonne, relying on the fact that Vernier's need to remain undiscovered would mean that he did not yet know of his mother's death. The thought of how the net in Paris was tightening, even while he remained ignorant, gave Constant immense pleasure.

He crossed to the far side via the Pont Vieux. Far below, the Aude swirled black against the sodden banks, and sped over flat rocks and choked river weeds. The water was very high. He adjusted his gloves, attempting to alleviate the discomfort of the soft blistering between the second and third fingers of his left hand.

Carcassonne had changed a great deal since last Constant had set foot in the Cité. Despite the inclement weather, entertainers and men with sandwich boards now handed out tourist brochures, it seemed, on every street corner. He skimmed the tawdry pamphlet, his unforgiving eyes passing over the advertisements for Marseille soaps and La Micheline, a local liqueur, for bicycles and boarding houses. The text itself was a mixture of civic self-aggrandisement and history rewritten. Constant crumpled the cheap paper in his gloved fist and threw it to the ground.
Constant hated Carcassonne and had good cause to do so. Thirty years ago, his uncle had taken him to the slums of La Cité. He had walked among the ruins, seen the filthy citadins who lived within its crumbling walls. Later that same day, full of plum brandy and opium, in a damask-draped room above a bar in the Place d'Armes, he had had his first experience of a working girl, courtesy of his uncle.

That same uncle was now sequestered in Lamalou-les-Bains, infected by one connusse or another, syphilitic and mad, believing his brain was being sucked out through his nose. Constant did not visit. He had no desire to see how the disease might work, over time, upon him.

She was the first Constant had killed. It was unintentional and the incident had shocked him. Not because he had taken a life, but because it had been so easy to do so. The hand on the throat, the thrill of seeing the fear in the girl's eyes when she realised that the violence of their coupling was but a precursor to a possession more absolute.

Had it not been for his uncles deep pockets and connections in the Mairie, Constant would have had nothing but the galleys or the guillotine to look forward to. As it was, they had left swiftly and without ceremony.

The experience had taught him much, not least that money could rewrite history, amend the ending to any story. There was no such thing as a 'fact' when gold was involved. Constant had learned well. He had spent a lifetime binding to him friends and enemies alike, through a combination of obligation, debt and, when that failed, fear. It was only some years later that he understood that all lessons came at a cost. The girl had her revenge after all. She had given him the sickness that was painfully leaching the life from his uncle and would from him. She was beyond his reach, many years below ground, but he had punished others in her place.

As he descended the bridge, he thought again of the pleasure of Marguerite Vernier's death. A flush of heat shot through him. She had, for a passing moment at least, obliterated the memory of the humiliation he suffered at the hands of her son. The fact remained that, even after so many had passed beneath his depraved hands, the experience was the more pleasurable when the woman was beautiful. It made the game worth the candle.