Sepulchre (40 page)
Stimulated more than he wished by the memory of those hours in the rue de Berlin with Marguerite, Constant loosened his collar at the neck. He could all but smell the intoxicating mix of blood and fear, the distinctive scent of such liaisons. He clenched his fists, remembering the delicious feel of her resistance, the pull and stretch of her unwilling skin.
Breathing fast, Constant stepped down on to the rough cobbles of the rue Trivalle and waited an instant until he again was master of himself. He cast a supercilious eye over the vista before him. The hundreds, thousands of francs spent on the restoration of the thirteenth-century citadel did not seem to have affected the lives of the people of the quartier Trivalle. It was as impoverished and rundown as it had been thirty years ago. Bareheaded, barefoot children sat in filthy doorways. Walls of brick and stone bowed outwards, as if pushed by the broad hand of time. A beggar, swaddled in dirty blankets, her eyes dead and unseeing, held out a grimy hand as he passed by. He paid no heed.
He crossed the Place Saint-Gimer in front of Monsieur Viollet-le-Duc's ugly new church. A pack of dogs and children were snapping at his heels, calling out for coins, offering their services as guides or messengers. He paid them no heed, until one boy ventured too close. Constant struck him a blow with the metal head of his cane, splitting open his cheek, and the gaggle of urchins backed away.
He arrived at a narrow cul-de-sac on the left, little more than an alleyway, which led up to the base of the ramparts of the Cité. He picked his way up the filthy, slippery street. The surface was coated with a skein of mud the colour of gingerbread. Debris, the flotsam and jetsam of poor lives, covered the streets. Paper wrappings, animal excrement, rotting vegetables too decayed for even the mange-bitten dogs to eat. He was aware of unseen dark eyes watching him from behind slatted shutters.
He stopped before a tiny house in the shadows of the walls and rapped sharply on the door with his walking stick. To find Vernier and his whore, Constant had need of the services of the man who lived within. He could be patient. He was willing to,wait for as long as it might take once he had proved to his own satisfaction that the Verniers were in the area.
It was only some two weeks since Léonie had left Paris, but already she found it hard to remember the pattern of days at home. To her surprise, she realised she did not miss a thing about her former life. Not the views, not the streets, not the company of her mother or her neighbours.
Both Isolde and Anatole appeared to have undergone something of a permanent transformation since the night of the dinner. Isolde's eyes were no longer clouded with anxiety, and although she tired easily and often kept to her room in the mornings, her complexion was radiant. With the success of the gathering, the genuine warmth of the letters of thanks, it was evident that Rennes-les-Bains was prepared to welcome Jules Lascombe's widow into their society.
During these tranquil weeks, Léonie spent as much of her time as possible out of doors, exploring every inch of the estate, although she avoided the abandoned path that led to the sepulchre. The combination of sun and early autumn rain had painted the world in bright colours. Vivid reds, deep evergreens, the golden underside of branch and bough, the crimson of the copper beech trees and the yolk yellow of the late broom. Birdsong, the bark of a solitary dog carried up from the valley, the rustle of the undergrowth as a rabbit ran for cover, the heels of her boots dislodging pebbles and twigs underfoot, the growing chorus of cicadas vibrating in the trees; the Domaine de la Cade was spectacular. As time put a distance between the shadows she had perceived on her first evening and the chill of the sepulchre, Léonie felt herself absolutely at home. That her mother, as a child, had felt something disquieting about the grounds and house, she now could not comprehend. Or so Léonie told herself. It was a place of such tranquillity.
Her days fell into an easy routine. Most mornings, she painted a little. She had intended to embark on a series of landscapes, undemanding and traditional, the changing character of the autumn countryside. But following her unexpected success on the afternoon of the supper party with her self-portrait, without at any stage taking a conscious decision to do so, she found herself embarking on a sequence, from her fading memory, of the remaining seven Tarot tableaux from the sepulchre. Rather than a gift for her mother, she now had the idea that the paintings might be a souvenir for Anatole of their sojourn. At home in Paris, in galleries and museums, grand avenues and tended gardens, the charms of nature had hitherto left her unmoved. Yet here, now, Léonie found she had an affinity with the trees and views she saw from her window. She found herself painting the landscape of the Domaine de la Cade into each illustration.
Some of the tableaux came more readily to mind and more easily to her brush than others. The image of Le Mat took on the character of Anatole, the expression on his face, his figure, his colouring. La Prêtresse possessed an elegance, a charm that Léonie associated with Isolde. She did not attempt Le Diable.
After luncheon, most days Léonie would read in her chamber or else walk with Isolde in the gardens. Her aunt continued to be discreet and circumspect about the circumstances of her marriage, but little by little Léonie managed to acquire enough fragments of information to piece together a satisfyingly complete history.
Isolde had grown up in the Parisian suburbs in the care of an elderly relative, a cold and bitter woman to whom she was little more than an unpaid companion. Liberated by her aunt's death, and left with few means with which to support herself, she had been fortunate enough to find her way into the city, at the age of twenty-one, in the employ of a financier and his wife. An acquaintance of Isolde's aunt, the lady had lost her sight some years earlier and required day-to-day assistance. Isolde's duties were light. She took dictation of letters and other correspondences, read aloud from the newspapers and the latest novels and accompanied her employer to concerts and the opera. From the softness of Isolde's tone as she talked of those few years, Léonie understood that she had been fond of the financier and his wife. Through them she also acquired a good working knowledge of culture and society and couture. Isolde was not explicit about the reasons for her dismissal, but Léonie inferred that inappropriate behaviour on the part of the financier son's had played its part.
On the matter of her marriage, Isolde was more guarded. It was clear, however, that need and opportunity had played as significant a part in her acceptance of Jules Lascombe's proposal as had love. It was a matter of business rather than romance.
Léonie also learnt more about the series of incidents in the area that had caused disquiet in Rennes-les-Bains, to which Monsieur Baillard had alluded, and which had, for no clear reason she could comprehend, become associated with the Domaine de la Cade. Isolde was not clear on the specifics. There had also been allegations in the 1870s, of depraved and inappropriate ceremonies within the deconsecrated chapel in the woods of the estate.
At this, Léonie had found it difficult to conceal her innermost feelings. The colour drained from her face, then rushed back as she remembered Monsieur Baillard's comments about how Abbé Saunière had been called upon to attempt to quiet the spirits of the place. Léonie wished to know more, but it was a story told second-hand by Isolde and heard some time after the event, so she could not or would not tell her.
In another conversation, Isolde told her niece how Jules Lascombe was considered by the town to be something of a recluse. Alone since the death of his stepmother and departure of his half-sister, he was content in his solitude. As Isolde explained it, he had no wish for company of any description, least of all a wife. However, Rennes-les-Bains had increasingly come to mistrust his bachelor status and Lascombe found himself a focus of suspicion. The town questioned, vociferously, why his sister had fled the estate several years previously. If, indeed, she had ever actually left. As Isolde explained it, the drizzle of gossip and innuendo grew stronger until Lascombe was obliged to act. It was in the summer of 1885 that the new parish priest of Rennes-le-Château, Bérenger Saunière, suggested to Lascombe that the presence of a woman at the Domaine de la Cade might go some way to reassuring the neighbourhood.
A mutual friend introduced Isolde to Lascombe in Paris. Lascombe made it clear that it would be acceptable - indeed, agreeable - to him for his young wife to remain for most of the year in town at his expense, provided she was available in Rennes-les-Bains when he required it. The question flitted into Leonie's mind - although she was not bold enough to ask - whether or not the marriage had ever been consummated.
It was a pragmatic and unromantic story. And although it answered many of the questions Léonie had about the nature of her aunt and uncle's marriage, it did not explain of whom Isolde had been speaking when she had talked so tenderly on that first walk they had taken together. On that occasion, she had hinted at a grand passion straight from the pages of a novel. She had given tantalising glimpses of experiences about which Léonie could only dream.
During these peaceful early weeks of October, the storms forecast failed to materialise. The sun shone brightly, but not too fiercely. There was a temperate, but moderate, breeze, nothing to disrupt the tranquillity of their days. It was a pleasant time, with little to disturb the surface of the domestic and self-contained life they were constructing for themselves at the Domaine de la Cade.
The only shadow on the horizon was the lack of word from their mother. Marguerite was a lackadaisical correspondent, but to have received no communication whatsoever was surprising. Anatole tried to reassure Léonie that the most likely explanation was that a letter had been mislaid on the mail coach that had overturned outside Limoux on the night of the storm. The postmaster had told him that an entire consignment of letters, packages and telegrams had been lost, hurled by the force of the accident into the River Salz and carried downstream in the floods.
At Leonie's persistent prompting, Anatole agreed, albeit reluctantly, that he would write. He addressed the letter to the apartment on the rue de Berlin, thinking that perhaps Du Pont had been obliged to return to Paris and that Marguerite therefore might be there to receive the letter.
As Léonie watched Anatole seal the envelope and give it into the hands of the boy to be taken to the post office in Rennes-les-Bains, a feeling of dread suddenly overwhelmed her. She all but reached out a hand to stop him, but checked herself. She was being foolish. She could not think that Anatole's creditors were still pursuing him.
At the end of the second week of October, when the air was filled with the smell of autumn bonfires and the scent of fallen leaves, Léonie suggested to Isolde that perhaps they might pay Monsieur Baillard a visit. Or, indeed, invite him to the Domaine de la Cade. She was disappointed when Isolde informed her that she had heard it reported that Monsieur Baillard had unexpectedly quit his lodgings in Rennes-les-Bains and was not expected to return before Toussaint, the Eve of All Saints.
They passed an agreeable morning in the town. They ran into Charles Denarnaud and took coffee with him on the terrace of the Hôtel de la Reine. Despite his bonhomie and cordiality, Léonie still could not bring herself to like him, and from Isolde's manner and reserve, she realised her aunt felt similarly.
Isolde did not say anything in response, but raised her eyebrows in such a manner as to confirm she shared Leonie's misgivings. Léonie was relieved when Anatole stood up to take his leave.
Anatole's brown eyes glinted brightly at the prospect. 'I would be delighted, Denarnaud, although I warn you I have more enthusiasm than skill. And, I am embarrassed to inform you, I am ill prepared. I have no gun.'
'Ladies,' said Denarnaud, raising his hat. 'Vernier. Monday next? I'll send what you need up to the house ahead of time, if that is agreeable to you, Madame Lascombe.' Isolde nodded. 'Of course.'
As they promenaded, Léonie could not help but notice that Isolde attracted a certain amount of interest. There was no hostility or suspicion in the scrutiny, but there was a watchfulness. Isolde was dressed in sombre clothes and wore her half-veil lowered in the street. It surprised Léonie that, even nine months after the event, she was still expected to dress as Jules Lascombe's widow. Periods of mourning in Paris were brief. Here, there was clearly a requirement for a longer observation.
The highlight for Léonie of their visit, however, was the presence of a travelling photographer in the Place du Pérou. His face was hidden beneath a thick black cloth, and the box contraption was balanced on the spindly wooden legs of a tripod with metal feet. He came from a studio in Toulouse. On a mission to record the life of the villages and towns of the Haute Vallée for posterity, he had already visited Rennes-le-Château, Couiza and Coustaussa. After Rennes-les-Bains, he was to progress to Espéraza and Quillan.