CHAPTER 92
On 20th September, the anniversary of Marguerite Vernier’s murder, another child went missing. It was the first for more than a month, taken from the bank of the river downstream of Sougraigne. The girl’s body was found close to the Fontaine des Amoureux, her face badly disfigured by claw marks, red slashes across her cheeks and forehead. Unlike the forgotten children, the dispossessed, she was the beloved youngest child of a large family with relations in many of the villages of the Aude and the Salz.
Two days later, two boys vanished from the woods not far from the Lac de Barrenc, the mountain lake supposedly inhabited by a devil. Their bodies were discovered after a week, but in such poor condition that it was not observed until some time later that they too had been savaged by an animal, their skin ripped raw.
Léonie tried not to pay attention to the coincidence of the dates. While there was still hope the children might be found unharmed, she offered the assistance of both inside and outside staff to participate in the search parties. It was refused. For Louis-Anatole’s sake, she maintained a veneer of calm, but for the first time she began to accept that they might have to leave the Domaine de la Cade, until the storm had blown over.
Maître Fromilhague and Madame Bousquet maintained it was obviously the work of wild dogs or wolves come down from the mountains. During the hours of daylight, Léonie too could dismiss the rumours of a demon or supernatural creature. But as dusk fell, her knowledge of the history of the sepulchre and the presence of the cards within the grounds made her less assured.
The mood of the town grew increasingly ugly, turning ever more against them. The Domaine became the target for petty acts of vandalism.
Léonie returned from walking in the woods one afternoon to see a cluster of servants standing around the door to one of the outbuildings.
Intrigued, she quickened her pace.
‘What is it?’ she asked.
Pascal spun round, a look of horror in his eyes, blocking her view with his wide, solid frame.
‘Nothing, Madama.’
Léonie looked at his face, then to the gardener and his son, Emile. She took a step closer.
‘Pascal?’
‘Please, Madama, it’s not for your eyes.’
Léonie’s gaze sharpened. ‘Come now,’ she said lightly, ‘I am not a child. I am certain whatever you are concealing cannot be so bad.’
Still Pascal did not move. Torn between irritation at his over-protective manner, and curiosity, Léonie reached out her gloved hand and touched him on the arm.
‘If you please.’
All eyes were on Pascal who, for a moment, remained steadfast, then slowly, stepped aside to allow Léonie sight of what he so keenly wished to hide.
The skinned corpse of a rabbit, some days old, had been impaled to the door with a heavy furrier’s nail. A swarm of flies buzzed furiously around a crude cross daubed on the wood in blood and, beneath it, words printed in black tar: PAR CE SIGNE TU LE VAINCRAS.
Léonie’s hand flew to her mouth, the stench and the violence of it making her nauseous. But she kept her composure. ‘See it is disposed of, Pascal,’ she said. ‘And, I would be grateful for your discretion.’ She looked at the assembled company, seeing her own fear reflected in their superstitious eyes. ‘All of you.’
Still, Léonie’s resolve did not waiver. She was determined not to be driven from the Domaine de la Cade, certainly not before Monsieur Baillard returned. He had said he would be back by the feast day of St Martin. She had sent letters via his old lodgings in the rue de l’Hermite, increasingly frequently of late, but had no way of knowing if any had found him on his travels.
The situation worsened. Another child disappeared. On 22nd October, a date Léonie recognised as the anniversary of Anatole and Isolde’s clandestine marriage, the daughter of a lawyer and his wife, pretty in white ribbons and ruched skirts, was taken from the Place du Pérou. The outcry was immediate.
By ill chance, Léonie was in Rennes-les-Bains when the child’s torn and ripped body was recovered. The corpse had been left beside the Fauteuil du Diable, the Devil’s Armchair, on the hills not far from the Domaine de la Cade. A sprig of wild juniper had been pushed between the bloodied fingers of the child’s hand.
Léonie turned cold when she heard, understanding how the message was left for her. The wooden cart rumbled along the Gran’Rue, followed by a ragtail cortège of villagers. Grown men, toughened by the hardship of their daily lives, wept openly.
No one spoke. Then a red-faced woman, her mouth bitter and angry, caught sight of her, and pointed. Léonie felt a frisson of fear as the accusing eyes of the town turned upon her. Looking for someone to blame.
‘We should go, Madama,’ whispered Marieta, hurrying her away.
Determined not to show how frightened she was, Léonie held her head up as she turned and made her way to where the carriage stood waiting. The murmuring was getting louder. Words shouted, abusive, ugly insults, that fell upon her like blows.
‘Pas luènh,’ Marieta urged, taking her arm.
Two days later, a burning rag, soaked in oil and goose fat, was pushed through one of the windows of the library that had been left partially open. It was discovered before any serious damage was done, but the household became even more timid, more watchful, unhappy.
Léonie’s friends and allies in the town – and Pascal and Marieta too – all tried their best to persuade her accusers that they were mistaken in believing that there was any such beast quartered within the estate, but the town had made up its narrow mind. They believed it was incontrovertible that the old devil of the mountain had returned to claim his own, as he had in Jules Lascombe’s time.
No smoke without fire.
Léonie tried not to see Victor Constant’s ever-present hand in the persecution of the Domaine, but all the same was convinced he was preparing to strike. She attempted to persuade the gendarmerie of this, she begged the Mairie, pleaded with Maître Fromilhague to intercede on her behalf, but to no avail. The Domaine stood alone.
After three days of rain, the outdoor staff put out several fires set on the estate. Arson attacks. The disembowelled corpse of a dog was left upon the front steps under cover of dark, causing one of the youngest parlourmaids to faint. Anonymous letters were delivered, obscene and explicit in their descriptions of how Anatole and Isolde’s incestuous relations had brought such terror down upon the valley.
Isolated with her fears and suspicions, Léonie understood this to have been Constant’s purpose all along, to stir up the town into a frenzy of hate against them. And she understood too, although she did not speak the words aloud, even to herself in the darkness of night, that it would never end. Such was Victor Constant’s obsession. If he was in the vicinity of Rennes-les-Bains – and she feared he was – then he could not fail to know that Isolde herself was dead. The fact that the persecution continued made it clear to Léonie that she had to get Louis-Anatole to safety. She would take what she could with her, in the hope that they would return to the Domaine de la Cade before too long. It was Louis-Anatole’s home. She would not allow Constant to deprive him of his birthright.
It was a plan easier to execute in thought than in deed.
The truth was that Léonie had nowhere to go. The apartment in Paris had long ago been let go, once General Du Pont had stopped paying the bills. Other than Audric Baillard, Madame Bousquet and Maître Fromilhague, her confined existence in the Domaine de la Cade meant she had few friends. Achille was too far away and, besides, occupied with his own concerns. Because of Victor Constant, Léonie had no immediate family.
But there was no other choice.
Confiding in no one but Pascal and Marieta, she prepared for departure. She felt certain that Constant would make his final move against them on Hallowe’en. It was not only the anniversary of Anatole’s death – and Constant’s attention to dates suggested he would wish to observe this – but as Isolde had once let slip in a moment of clarity, 31st October of 1890 was the day on which she had informed Constant that their short-lived affair must end. From that, all things had followed.
Léonie resolved that if he came on the Veille de Toussaint, he would find them gone.
On the crisp and cold afternoon of 31st October, Léonie put on her hat and coat, intending to return to the clearing where the juniper grew wild. She did not wish to leave the Tarot cards for Constant to find, however unlikely it was that he should stumble upon them in such an expanse of woodland. For the time being, until she and Louis-Anatole could safely return – and in Monsieur Baillard’s continuing absence – she had in mind that she would give them into the safe keeping of Madame Bousquet.
She was on the point of exiting through the doors on to the terrace when she heard Marieta calling her name. With a start, she turned back to the hall.
‘I am here. What is it?’
‘A letter, Madama,’ Marieta said, holding out an envelope.
Léonie frowned. After the events of the past months, anything out of the ordinary she treated with caution. She glanced down and did not recognise the hand.
‘From whom?’
‘The boy said from Coustaussa.’
Frowning, Léonie opened it. The letter was from the elderly priest of the parish, Antoine Gélis, inviting her to call upon him this afternoon on a matter of some urgency. Since he was known to be something of a recluse – and Léonie had met him only twice in six years, in the company of Henri Boudet in Rennes-les-Bains on the occasion of Louis-Anatole’s baptism, and at Isolde’s burial – she was puzzled to receive such a summons.
‘Is there any reply, Madama?’ Marieta enquired.
Léonie looked up. ‘Is the messenger still here?’
‘He is.’
‘Bring him in, will you.’
A small, thin child, dressed in nut-brown trousers, open-necked shirt and red neckerchief, holding his cap in clenched hands, was ushered into the hall. He looked dumbstruck with terror.
‘There is no need to be frightened,’ Léonie said, hoping to put him at his ease. ‘You have done nothing wrong. I only wish to ask if Curé Gélis himself gave you this letter?’
He shook his head.
Léonie smiled. ‘Well then, can you tell me who did give you the letter?’
Marieta pushed the boy forward. ‘The mistress asked you a question.’
Little by little, hindered rather than helped by Marieta’s sharp-tongued interventions, Léonie managed to tease out the bare bones of the matter. Alfred was staying with his grandmère in the village of Coustaussa. He had been playing in the ruins of the château-fort when a man came out of the front door of the presbytery and offered him a sou to deliver an urgent letter to the Domaine de la Cade.
‘Curé Gélis has a niece who does for him, Madama Léonie,’ Marieta said. ‘Prepares his meals. Sees to his laundry. ’
‘Was the man a servant?’
Alfred shrugged.
Satisfied that she would learn nothing more from the boy, Léonie dismissed him.
‘Will you go, Madama?’ asked Marieta.
Léonie considered. There was a great deal she had to accomplish before their departure. Conversely, she could not believe that Curé Gélis would have sent such a communication without good reason. It was a unique situation.
‘I shall,’ she said, after a moment’s hesitation. ‘Ask Pascal to meet me at the front of the house with the gig immediately. ’
They left the Domaine de la Cade at nigh on half past three.
The air was heavy with the scent of autumn fires. Sprigs of boxwood and rosemary were tied on the door frames of the houses and farms they passed on the way. At the crossroads, impromptu roadside shrines had sprung up for Hallowe’en. Ancient prayers and invocations scribbled on scraps of paper and cloth were laid as offerings.
Léonie knew that already in the graveyards of Rennes-les-Bains and Rennes-le-Château, indeed in every mountain parish, widows draped in black crêpe and veils, would be kneeling on the damp earth before ancient tombs, praying for deliverance of those they had loved. More so this year, with the blight that had fallen over the region.
Pascal drove the horses hard, until sweat steamed up from their backs and their nostrils flared wide in the chill air. Even so, it was almost dark by the time they had covered the distance from Rennes-les-Bains to Coustaussa and negotiated the very steep track leading up from the main road to the village.
Léonie heard the four o’clock bells ringing down the valley. Leaving Pascal with the carriage and horses, she walked through the deserted village. Coustaussa was tiny, no more than a handful of houses. No boulangerie, no café.
Léonie found the presbytery, which adjoined the church, with little difficulty. There appeared to be no signs of life inside. No lights were burning in the house that she could see.
With a growing sense of unease, she knocked on the heavy door. No one came. No one answered. She rapped again, a little louder.
‘Curé Gélis?’
After a few moments, Léonie determined to try the church instead. She followed the darkening line of the stone building around to the back. All the doors, to front and side, were locked. A guttering, dim oil lamp hung miserably from a bent iron hook.
Increasingly impatient, Léonie made for the dwelling on the opposite side of the street and knocked. After a shuffling of feet from within, an elderly woman slid back the metal grille set within a hatch in the door.
‘Who is it?’
‘Good evening,’ Léonie said. ‘I have a rendezvous with Curé Gélis, but there is no answer.’
The owner of the house looked at Léonie with sullen and distrustful eyes, saying nothing. Léonie dug into her pocket and produced a sou, which the woman grabbed.
‘Ritou is not there,’ she said in the end.
‘Ritou?’
‘The priest. Gone to Couiza.’
Léonie stared. ‘That cannot be. I received a letter from him not two hours past inviting me to call upon him.’
‘Saw him leave,’ the woman said, with evident pleasure. ‘You’re the second to come calling.’
Léonie threw out her hand and stopped the woman from closing the grille, leaving no more than a fraction of light dripping from inside out on to the street.
‘What manner of person?’ she demanded. ‘A man?’
Silence. Léonie produced a second coin.
‘French,’ the old woman said, spitting out the word like the insult it was intended to be.
‘When was this?’
‘Before dusk. Still light.’
Puzzled, Léonie withdrew her fingers. The grille slammed immediately shut.
She turned away, pulling her cloak tight about herself against the onset of the night. She could only assume that in the time it had taken the boy to make the journey on foot from Coustaussa to the Domaine de la Cade, Curé Gélis had given up waiting and been unable to delay his departure longer. Perhaps he had been obliged to attend to some other urgent errand?
Increasingly anxious to return home after her wasted journey, Léonie took paper and pencil from her pocket of her cloak and scribbled a note saying how sorry she was to have missed him. She pushed it through the narrow letter-box on the presbytery wall and then hurried back to where Pascal was waiting.
Pascal drove the horses even faster on the return journey, but every minute seemed to stretch and Léonie almost cried out with relief when the lights of the Domaine de la Cade came into view. He slowed on the drive, slippery with ice, and Léonie felt like jumping down and running ahead.
When at last they stopped, she leapt out of the gig and ran up the front steps, possessed by a nameless, faceless dread that something, anything might have happened in her absence. She pushed open the door and rushed inside.
Louis-Anatole came running towards her. ‘He’s here,’ he cried.
Léonie’s blood turned to ice in her veins.
Please God, no. Not Victor Constant.
The door slammed shut behind her.
