Sepulchre (46 page)

 

Anatole, please,' she whispered. 'I can explain. If we could go somewhere more private. To our rooms. I-'

 

'Did you disobey me and go beyond the Bastide?' He shook her again. 'Well? Did you?'

'No,' she lied, too frightened to tell the truth. 'I enjoyed the Square Gambetta and admired the wonderful architecture of the Bastide. I admit I did send Marieta back to fetch an umbrella - and I should not have done that, I know - but when the rain started, I thought you would rather I took shelter than remain in the open. Did she tell you we went to the Carrière Mage to find you?'

Anatole's expression darkened yet further.

 

'She did not inform me of that, no,' he said curtly. And did you see us?' 'No, I-'

Anatole renewed his assault. 'Even so, the rain stopped more than an hour ago. We agreed that we would meet at half past five. Or did you put that out of your mind?' 'I remember, but-'

'One cannot fail but to be aware of the time in this city. One cannot take a single step without being assailed by bells. Do not lie to me, Leonie. Do not pretend you did not know how late it was, for I shall not believe it.' 'I was not intending to offer such an excuse,' she said in a small voice. 'Where did you take shelter?' he demanded. 'In a church,' she replied quickly. 'Which church? Where?' 'I do not know,' she said. 'Near the river.'

Anatole grabbed her arm. Are you telling me the truth, Leonie? Did you cross the river to the Cité?'

'The church was not in the Cité,' she cried truthfully, distressed at the tears that had sprung to her eyes. 'Please, Anatole, you're hurting me.' 'And nobody approached you? Nobody tried to harm you?' 'You can see they did not,' she said, trying to pull her arm free. He stared at her, his eyes blazing with a fury she had rarely provoked before. Then, without warning, he let her go, all but pushing her away from him.

Leonie's cold fingers stole to the pocket in which she had put Monsieur Constant's calling card.

 

If he should find this now . . .

He took a step away from her. 'I am disappointed in you,' he said. The coldness and lack of affection in his voice chilled Léonie to the core. Always I expect better of you, then you go and behave in this manner.'
Temper flared in her and she was on the point of exclaiming that she had done nothing more than go for a walk unaccompanied, but she bit her tongue. There was no sense in inflaming him further. Léonie dropped her head. 'Forgive me,' she said. He turned away. 'Go to your room and pack.' No, not that.

Her eyes snapped up. Straight away, her fighting spirit rushed back. 'Pack? Why must I pack?'

'Don't question me, Leonie, just do as you are told.' If they left this evening, she would not be able to meet Victor Constant tomorrow in the Square Gambetta. Léonie had not determined she would go, yet she did not want the decision taken out of her hands. What will he think if I do not attend the concert?

Léonie rushed to Anatole and seized his arm. 'Please, I beg you, I have said I am sorry. Punish me if you like, but not in such a manner. I don't want to leave Carcassonne.'

He shook her off. 'There are warnings of further storms and flooding. This is nothing to do with you,' he said savagely. 'Thanks to your disobedience, I have been obliged to send Isolde ahead to the station with Marieta.' 'But the concert,' Léonie cried. 'I want to stay! Please! You promised.' 'Go - and - pack!' he shouted.

Even now, Léonie could not bring herself to accept the situation. 'What has happened to make you wish to leave so abruptly?' she demanded, her voice rising to match his. 'Is it something to do with Isolde's meeting with the lawyers?'

Anatole stepped back as if she had struck him. 'Nothing has happened.' Without warning, he suddenly stopped shouting. His expression softened. 'There will be other concerts,' he said, his voice more gentle. He tried to put his arm around her, but she pushed him away.

'I hate you!' she cried.

With tears stinging her eyes and not caring in the least who saw her, Léonie ran up the stairs, along the passageway into her room and threw herself face down on the bed in a storm of weeping. I will not go. I will not.

But she knew there was nothing she could do. She had little money of her own. Whatever the true reason for their sudden departure - she did not believe in the excuse of the worsening weather - she had no choice. He was determined to punish her for her wilfulness and had chosen the surest way to do it.

Her fit of sobbing over, Léonie went to the wardrobe to pick out something dry to wear and was astonished to find it empty of all but her travelling cloak. She burst through the communicating door into the common part of the suite to find it deserted, and realised Marieta had taken almost everything.

Thoroughly miserable, her heavy damp clothes scratchy and uncomfortable, she gathered the few private items the maid had left on the dressing table, then snatched up her cloak and stormed into the corridor, where she encountered Anatole.

'Marieta has left nothing whatever for me to wear,' she protested, her eyes flashing with fury. 'My clothes are wet and I am cold.'

 

'Good,' he said, walking into his room opposite and slamming the door. Léonie turned on her heel and stamped back into her own room. I hate him.

She would show him. She had been careful to behave properly and with decorum, but Anatole was forcing her to take more drastic measures. She would send word to Monsieur Constant explaining why she could not honour their arrangement in person. At least then he would not think ill of her. Perhaps he might even write to express his sadness at their friendship being cut short.

Her complexion flushed with defiance, with determination, Léonie rushed to the bureau and took out a sheet of writing paper. Quickly, before she lost her nerve, she scribbled a few lines of regret, suggesting that letters sent care of the poste restante in Rennes-les-Bains would find her in the event he might wish to put her mind at rest by confirming receipt of this note. She did not feel she could so far forget herself as to give the address of Domaine de la Cade itself. Anatole would be furious.

Léonie did not care. It served him right. If he insisted on treating her like a child, then she would behave like one. If he would not allow her to make her own decisions, then she would henceforth take no account of his wishes.

She sealed the envelope and addressed it. After a moment's pause, she took her glass bottle of perfume from her bag and sprinkled a few drops over the letter, as the heroines of her favourite novels would have done. Then she held it to her lips, as if she could imprint a little of herself upon the white paper.

There. It is done.

Now all she had to do was find a way to leave it with the patron of the hotel without Anatole's knowledge, to be delivered at the appointed hour tomorrow morning to Monsieur Constant in the Square Gambetta.

Then, she could only wait and see what came of it. In his bedroom opposite, Anatole sat with his head in his hands. Screwed in his fist he held a letter that had been delivered by hand to the hotel some half an hour before Léonie had reappeared.

It was barely a letter. Just five words that struck iron into his soul.

 

'CE N'EST PAS LA FINI'. It is not the end.

There was no signature, no return address, but Anatole feared he understood the meaning well enough. It was a response to the single word he had written on the final page of the journal he had left in Paris.

'fin'.

 

He raised his head in desperation, his brown eyes burning bright. His cheeks were hollow and white with the shock.

 

Somehow, Constant knew. He knew both that the burial in the Cimetière de Montmartre had been a hoax and that Isolde was alive, even that she was here, with him, in the Midi.

Anatole ran his fingers through his hair. How? How had Constant learned they were in Carcassonne? Nobody but he, Leonie, Isolde and the household servants knew that they were in the town, let alone at this hotel in particular.

The lawyer knew. And the priest.

 

But not that they were staying at this very hotel.

Anatole forced himself to concentrate. He could not afford to indulge himself in wondering how they had been discovered. This was not the time to concern himself with how Constant had found them - there would be time enough for such morbid analysis later - but rather to decide what they should do now.

His shoulders slumped as the memory of Isolde's broken expression came back into his mind. He would have given anything to have kept it from her, but she had come upon him moments after the letter had arrived and he had been unable to hide the truth.

The joy of the afternoon had turned to ashes in their hands. The promise of a new life together, neither hiding nor fearful, slipped out of their grasp.

He had intended to tell Léonie their happy news this evening. He frowned. After her outrageous performance this afternoon, he decided against it. His decision not to involve her in the wedding was vindicated. She had proved she could not be trusted to behave properly.

Anatole strode to the window, parted the wooden slats of the blinds and looked out. There was no one in the street, except for one drunken fellow, wrapped in an old soldier's cloak, knees drawn up and slumped against the wall opposite.

He let the blind snap shut.

He had no way of knowing if Constant himself was actually present in Carcassonne. Or, if not, how close at hand he might be. His instinct was that their best hope was to return immediately to Rennes-les-Bains.

He had to hold to the slim hope that if Constant had known of the Domaine de la Cade, he would have sent the letter there instead.

 

CHAPTER 62

Léonie waited for Anatole in the lobby, standing with her hands clasped in front of her and in silence. Her eyes were defiant, but her nerves were cracking for fear the patron would give her away.

Anatole descended the stairs without a word to her. He went to the desk, spoke briefly with the patron, then strode past her and out into the street where the fiacre was standing in readiness to convey them to the railway station.

Léonie gave a sigh of relief. 'My thanks, Monsieur,' she said quietly.

 

'Je vous en prie, Mademoiselle Vernier,' he said, winking at her. He patted his breast pocket. 'I will see the letter delivered as you wish.'

 

Léonie nodded her farewell, then hurried down the steps to catch up with Anatole.

 

'Get in,' he ordered in a cold voice as she climbed into the carriage, as if he was speaking to a lazy servant. She flushed.

 

He leaned forward and slipped a silver coin to the driver. 'Fast as you can.'

He did not address another word to her during the short ride to the railway station. Indeed, he did not even look at her.
The traffic through the town was slow in the drenched and sodden streets and they made the train with only moments to spare, rushing along the slippery platform to the first-class carriages at the front. The guard held the door for them and ushered them on.

The door slammed shut. Isolde and Marieta were settled in the corner.

'Tante Isolde,' Léonie cried, forgetting her ill humour at the sight of her. There was not a drop of colour in her cheeks and her grey eyes were rimmed red. Léonie was certain she had been crying.

Marieta stood up. 'I thought it better to stay with Madama,' she murmured to Anatole. 'Rather than withdraw to my carriage.'

 

'Quite right,' he said, not taking his eyes off Isolde. 'I'll settle it with the guard.'

 

He sat down on the banquette beside Isolde and took her limp hand.

 

Leonie, too, drew closer. 'Whatever is the matter?'

'I fear I have caught a chill,' she said. 'The journey, the weather also have quite worn me out.' She looked at Léonie with her grey eyes. 'I am so very sorry that, for my sake, you should miss the concert. I know how much you were looking forward to it.'

'Léonie accepts that your health comes first,' Anatole said sharply, not allowing her the chance to answer for herself. 'Also that we cannot risk being stranded this far from home, despite her inconsiderate perambulations this afternoon.'

The unfairness of his rebuke stung her, but Léonie managed to hold her tongue. Whatever the real reason for their hasty departure from Carcassonne, Isolde was clearly sickening. There was no doubt that she needed to be in the comfort of her own home.

Indeed, if Anatole had said as much, I would have made no complaint.

Resentment at how he had put her in the wrong pricked at her. She would not forgive him. She persuaded herself that Anatole had provoked the quarrel and that she, in fact, had really done nothing.

So she sighed and sulked and looked pointedly out of the window. But when she stared at Anatole, to see if he was observing her displeasure, her mounting concern for Isolde started to eclipse the memory of her quarrel with her brother.

The whistle blew. Steam exhaled into the damp and blustery air. The train juddered forward. On the opposite platform, a matter of minutes later, Inspector Thouron and two Parisian officers disembarked the train from Marseille. They were some two hours late, having been held up by a landslide brought on by heavy rain on the track outside Béziers.

Thouron was greeted by Inspector Bouchou of the Carcassonne gendarmerie. The two men shook hands. Then, holding their flapping coats tight about them and clasping their hats firmly on their heads, they battled their way down the squally concourse into the fierce headwind.

The foot tunnel linking one side of the station to the other was flooded, so the stationmaster was waiting at a small side gate that gave on to the street, holding the chain hard for fear it would fly back in the storm and break at the hinges.

'Good of you to meet me, Bouchou,' said Thouron, tired and ill-tempered after his long and uncomfortable journey.

Bouchou was a corpulent, red-faced man, close to the age of retirement, with the dark colouring and stocky physique Thouron associated with the Midi. But, on first acquaintance, he seemed an amiable enough fellow, and Thouron's concerns that as northerners - worse still, Parisians - he and his men might be treated with suspicion seemed ill-founded.

'Delighted to be of assistance,' Bouchou shouted to make himself heard over the wind. 'Although I confess I'm puzzled as to why someone of your standing should make such a journey in person. It is only a matter of finding Vernier to inform him of the murder of his mother, é?' He turned a shrewd eye on Thouron. 'Or is there more to it?'