CHAPTER 27
DOMAINE DE LA CADE
Léonie screamed. She threw herself upright, her heart thudding against her ribs. The candle had blown itself out and the room was cloaked in darkness.
For a moment she thought she was back in the drawing room at the rue de Berlin. Then she looked down and saw Monsieur Baillard’s monograph lying on the pillow beside her, and realised.
Un cauchemar.
Of demons and spirits, of phantoms and clawed creatures and the ancient ruins where the spider spins her web. The hollow eyes of ghosts.
Léonie fell back against the wooden headboard, waiting for her pulse to stop racing. Images of a stone sepulchre beneath a grey sky, withered garlands draped over a worn escutcheon. A family coat of arms, long corrupt and dishonoured.
Such dark dreams.
She waited for her pulse to stop racing, but if anything, the hammering inside her head was getting louder.
‘Madomaisèla Léonie? Madama has sent me to ask if there is anything you need?’
With relief, Léonie recognised Marieta’s voice.
‘Madomaisèla?’
Léonie composed herself and then called out. ‘Viens.’
There was a rattling at the door, then, ‘Forgive me, Madomaisèla, but it is locked.’
Léonie did not remember turning the key. Swiftly she slipped her chilled feet into her silk savates and ran to open the door.
Marieta gave a quick bob. ‘Madama Lascombe and Sénher Vernier have sent me to ask if you might join them.’
‘What is the time?’
‘Nearly half past nine.’
So late.
Léonie rubbed the nightmare from her eyes. ‘Of course. I can do for myself. If you could tell them I will be down presently?’
She slipped into her undergarments, then put on a plain evening dress, nothing elaborate. She arranged her hair with combs and pins, dabbed a little eau de Cologne behind her ears and on her wrists, and then descended to the drawing room.
Both Anatole and Isolde stood up as she entered. Isolde was dressed simply in a high-necked turquoise-blue dress with half-sleeves decorated with French jet glass beads. She looked exquisite.
‘I am sorry to have kept you waiting,’ Léonie apologised, kissing first her aunt and then her brother.
‘We were about to give up on you,’ Anatole said. ‘What would you like? We are drinking champagne – no, my apologies, Isolde, not champagne. Would you like the same? Or something else?’
Léonie frowned. ‘Not champagne?’
Isolde smiled. ‘He is teasing you. It is a blanquette de Limoux, not champagne, but a local wine much like it. It is sweeter and lighter, more thirst-quenching. I confess,I have quite a taste for it now.’
‘Thank you,’ Léonie said, accepting a glass. ‘I began to read Monsieur Baillard’s pamphlet. The next I knew, Marieta was knocking upon the door and it was past nine o’clock.’
Anatole laughed. ‘Is it so very dull that it sent you to sleep?’
Léonie shook her head. ‘Quite the opposite. It was fascinating. It appears the Domaine de la Cade – or, rather, the site that the house and grounds currently occupy – has long been at the heart of a great many superstitions and local legends. Ghosts, devils, spirits walking at night. Most common are stories concerning a ferocious black wild creature, half devil, half beast, stalking the countryside when times are bad, snatching children and livestock.’
Anatole and Isolde caught one another’s eye.
‘According to Monsieur Baillard,’ Léonie continued, ‘that is why so many of the local landmarks have names that hint at this supernatural past. He relates one tale concerning a lake in the Tabe mountain, the étang du Diable, which is said to communicate with Hell itself. If one throws stones into it, clouds of sulphurous gas apparently rise up out of the water, bringing ferocious storms. And another story, going back to the summer of 1840, which was particularly dry. Desperate for the rains, a miller from the village of Montségur climbed up to the Tabe mountain and threw a live cat into the lake. The animal thrashed and struggled like a demon, so vexing the Devil that he made it rain upon the mountains for the two months following.’
Anatole stretched back, draping his arm along the back of the settee. In the grate, a good fire crackled and spat.
‘What superstitious nonsense!’ he said affectionately. ‘I almost regret putting such a book into your hands.’
Léonie pulled a face. ‘You may mock, but there is always some measure of truth in these stories.’
‘Well spoken, Léonie,’ said Isolde. ‘My late husband was much interested in the legends associated with the Domaine de la Cade. His particular passion was the Visigoth period of history, but he and Monsieur Baillard sometimes talked late into the night about all manner of subjects. The Curé from our sister village of Rennes-le-Château also sometimes joined them.’
A sudden image of the three men huddled together over books flashed into Léonie’s mind, and she wondered if Isolde had resented being so often excluded.
‘Abbé Saunière.’ Anatole nodded. ‘Gabignaud mentioned him on the journey from Couiza this afternoon.’
‘Having said that,’ Isolde continued, ‘it would be fair to say that Jules was always cautious in Monsieur Baillard’s company.’
‘Cautious? How so?’
Isolde waved her slim white hand. ‘Oh, perhaps cautious is the wrong word. Reverential, almost. I am not entirely certain what I mean. He had great respect for Monsieur Baillard’s age and knowledge, but was also somewhat in awe of his learning.’
Anatole replenished the glasses, then rang the bell for another bottle.
‘You say Baillard is a local man?’
Isolde nodded. ‘He has furnished lodgings in Rennes-les-Bains, although his main residence is elsewhere. Somewhere in the Sabarthès, I believe. He is an extraordinary man, but a very private one. He is circumspect about his past experiences and his interests are wide-ranging. In addition to local folklore and customs, he is also an expert on the Albigensian Heresy.’ She gave a light laugh. ‘Indeed, Jules remarked once that one might almost believe Monsieur Baillard had been a witness at some of those medieval battles, so vivid were his descriptions.’
They all smiled.
‘It is not the best time of year, but perhaps you would like to visit some of the ruined frontier castles?’ Isolde said to Léonie. ‘Weather permitting.’
‘I would like that very much.’
‘And I shall place you next to Monsieur Baillard at dinner on Saturday, so you may question him all you wish about devils and superstitions and the myths of the mountains.’
Léonie nodded, remembering Monsieur Baillard’s tales. Anatole, too, fell silent. A different mood had entered the room, slipping in among the easy conversation when no one was watching. For a while, the only sounds were the ticking of the golden hands of the long-case clock and the spitting of the flames in the hearth.
Léonie found her eyes drawn to the windows. They were shuttered against the evening, yet she was strongly aware of the darkness beyond. It seemed to have a living, breathing presence. It was only the wind whistling around the corners of the building, but it seemed to her as if the night itself was murmuring, conjuring up the ancient spirits of the woods.
She glanced at her aunt, beautiful in the soft light, and so still.
Does she feel it too?
Isolde’s expression was serene, her features impassive. It was impossible for Léonie to tell what she might be thinking. Her eyes did not flicker with the grief of her husband’s absence. And there was no suggestion of anxiety or nervousness at what might lie beyond the stone walls of the house.
Léonie looked down at the blanquette in her glass, then drained the last of it.
The clock chimed the half-hour.
Isolde announced her intention to write the invitations for Saturday’s supper party, and withdrew to the study. Anatole took the squat green bottle of Benedictine from the tray and declared he would remain a while longer and smoke a cigar.
Léonie kissed her brother good night and quitted the drawing room. She walked across the hall, a little unsteady on her feet, with memories of the day in her mind. Of those things that had given her pleasure, and those that had intrigued. How clever it was of Tante Isolde to guess that Anatole’s favourite bonbons were Pearls of the Pyrenees. How comfortable, for the most part, the three of them had been in one another’s company. She thought of the adventures she might have, and how she would explore the house and, weather permitting, the grounds.
Her hand was already upon the banister rail when she observed that the piano lid stood temptingly open. The black and white keys were bright in the shimmering candlelight, as if they had recently been polished. The rich mahogany surround seemed to glow.
Léonie was not an accomplished pianist, but she was unable to resist the invitation of the untouched keyboard. She played a scale, an arpeggio, then a chord. The piano had a sweet voice, soft and precise, as if it was kept tuned and cared for. She let her fingers go where they wished, sounding out a mournful and antique pattern of notes in a minor key – A, E, C, and D. A single strand of melody echoed briefly in the silence of the hall, then faded. Sorrowful, evocative, pleasing to the ear.
Léonie ran the backs of her fingers up the climbing octaves with a final flourish, then continued up the stairs to bed.
The hours passed. She slept. The house fell, room by room, into silence. One by one the candles were extinguished. Beyond the grey walls, the grounds, the lawns, the lake, the beech wood lay quietly beneath a white moon. All was still.
And yet.