CHAPTER 41
Léonie arrived back at the house frozen to the bone, to find Anatole pacing the hall. Not only had her absence been noted, but it had also caused great consternation. Isolde threw her arms around her, and then quickly withdrew, as if embarrassed by her display of affection. Anatole hugged her, then shook her. He was torn between chastising her and relief that no ill had befallen her. Nothing was said about the earlier quarrel that had driven her out alone into the grounds in the first place.
‘Where have you been?’ he demanded. ‘How could you be so thoughtless?’
‘Walking in the gardens.’
‘Walking! It is almost dark!’
‘I lost track of the time.’
Anatole continued to fire question after question at her. Had she seen anyone? Had she strayed beyond the boundaries of the Domaine? Had she noticed or heard anything out of the ordinary? Under such a sustained verbal interrogation, the fear that had taken hold of her in the sepulchre loosened its grip. Léonie rallied and started to defend herself, his determination to make so much of the incident encouraging her to do the opposite.
‘I am not a child,’ she threw back at him, thoroughly irritated by his treatment of her. ‘I am perfectly capable of looking after myself.’
‘No you are not!’ he shouted. ‘You are only seventeen.’
Léonie tossed her copper curls. ‘You talk as if you feared I had been kidnapped!’
‘Don’t be absurd,’ he snapped, although Léonie intercepted a glance passed between him and Isolde.
Her eyes narrowed. ‘What?’ she said slowly. ‘Whatever has happened to make you overreact so? What is it that you are not telling me?’
Anatole opened his mouth, then closed it again, leaving Isolde to step in.
‘I am sorry if our concern seems excessive to you. Of course you are perfectly at liberty to walk wherever you please. It is just that there have been reports of wild animals coming right down into the valley at dusk. Sightings of mountain cats, wolves perhaps, not far from Rennes-les-Bains. ’
Léonie was on the point of challenging the explanation when the memory of the sound of claws on the flagstones of the sepulchre came sharply back to her. She shuddered. She could not say for certain what had turned the adventure into something altogether else, and so abruptly. Only that in the moment she began to run, she had believed herself in danger of her life. From what, she did not know.
‘See, you have made yourself quite ill,’ Anatole raged.
‘Anatole, enough,’ Isolde said quietly, lightly touching him on the arm.
To Léonie’s astonishment, he fell silent.
With an exhalation of disgust, he spun away, his hands on his hips.
‘There are also warnings of more bad weather coming in from the mountains,’ Isolde said. ‘We were fearful you would be caught out in the storm.’
Her comment was interrupted by an ominous rumble of thunder. All three looked to the windows. Brooding and malevolent clouds could now be seen scudding across the tops of the mountain. A white mist, like the smoke from a bonfire, hung suspended between the hills in the distance. Another rumble of thunder, closer at hand, rattled the glass in the panes.
‘Come,’ said Isolde, taking Léonie’s arm. ‘I will have the maid draw you a hot bath, then we will have supper and a fire in the drawing room. And, perhaps, a game of cards? Bézique, vingt-et-un, whatever you wish.’
Léonie remembered. She looked down at the palms of her hands, white with the cold. There was nothing there. No red marks branding her skin.
She allowed herself to be taken to her room.
It was only some time later, when the bell for supper had rung, that Léonie paused to contemplate her reflection in the looking glass.
She slipped on to the stool in front of her dressing table and stared with unflinching eyes at the mirror. Her eyes, although bright, were feverish. She could see plainly the memory of the fear etched upon her skin and wondered if it would be evident to Isolde or Anatole.
Léonie hesitated, not wishing to stir her unsteady nerves, but then got up and retrieved Les Tarots from her workbox. With cautious fingers, she turned the pages until she came to the passage she wanted.
There was a rushing of air and the sensation that I was not alone. Now I was certain that the sepulchre was full of beings. Spirits, I cannot say they were human. All natural rules were vanquished. The entities were all around. My self and my other selves, both past and yet to come . . . It seemed to me they flew and swept through the air, so that I was aware always of their fleeting presence . . . Especially in the air above my head there seemed ceaseless movement, accompanied by a cacophony of whispering and sighing and weeping.
Léonie closed the book.
It so precisely matched her experience. The question was, had the words lodged themselves deep in her unconscious mind and thus directed her emotions and reactions? Or had she independently experienced something of what her uncle had seen? Another thought came into her mind.
And can Isolde really know nothing of this?
That both her mother and Isolde felt something disturbing in the character of the place, Léonie had no doubt. In their different manners they alluded to a certain atmosphere, they hinted at a sense of disquiet, although admittedly neither was explicit. Léonie pressed her hands together, making a steeple of her fingers as she thought hard. She, too, had felt it on that first afternoon when she and Anatole arrived at the Domaine de la Cade.
Still turning the matter over in her mind, she returned the book to its hiding place, slipping the sheet of piano music within the covers, then hastened downstairs to join the others. Now her fear had retreated, she was intrigued, determined to discover more. She had many questions she wished to ask of Isolde, not least what she knew of her husband’s activities before they were married. Perhaps, even, she would write to M’man to enquire as to if there were any specific incidents in her childhood that had caused her alarm. For without knowing what she was so certain about, Léonie was sure that it was the place itself that held captive the terrors, the woods, the lake, the ancient trees.
But then, as she closed the bedroom door behind her, Léonie realised she could not mention her expedition for fear she would be forbidden to return to the sepulchre. For the time being at least, her adventure must remain secret.
Night slowly fell over the Domaine de la Cade, bringing with it a sense of anticipation, a sense of waiting and watching.
Supper passed agreeably, with occasional rumbles of disconsolate thunder in the distance. The matter of Léonie’s adventure into the grounds was not mentioned. Instead, they talked of Rennes-les-Bains and adjoining towns, of the preparations for Saturday’s supper party and the guests, of how much there was to do and the enjoyment they would have doing it.
Pleasant, ordinary, domestic conversation.
After they had eaten, they withdrew to the drawing room and their moods changed. The darkness without the walls seemed almost to be alive. It was, at last, a relief when the storm struck. The very sky itself began to growl and shudder. Brilliant and jagged forked lightning ripped silver through the black clouds. Thunder clapped, bellowed, ricocheted off rock and branch, echoing between the valleys.
Then the wind, stilled momentarily as if gathering up its strength, suddenly hit the house in full force, bringing with it the first of the rain that had threatened all evening. Gusts of hail lashed against the windows, until it seemed to those cowering within the house that an avalanche of water was cascading over the face of the building, like waves breaking upon the shore.
From time to time Léonie thought that she could hear music. The notes that lay inscribed on the sheet hidden in her bedroom, taken up and sounded by the wind. As, indeed, she remembered with a shudder, the old gardener had warned.
For the most part, Anatole, Isolde and Léonie attempted to pay no heed to the tempest beyond the walls. A good fire crackled and spat in the grate. All the lamps were lit and the servants had brought extra candles. They had been made as comfortable as possible, but still Léonie feared the walls were bending, shifting, caving in under the onslaught.
In the hall, a door came unlatched, blown open by the wind, and was quickly secured. Léonie could hear the servants moving around the house, checking that all the windows were shuttered. Because there was a danger that the thin glass of the windows in the oldest casements would shatter, all the curtains had been drawn. In the upstairs corridors, they heard footsteps and the chink of pails and buckets set at intervals to catch the drips, the leaks that Isolde told them allowed rain through the loose tiles on the roof.
Confined to the drawing room, the three of them sat, strolled, paced, talked. They drank a little wine. They attempted to occupy themselves with normal evening pursuits. Anatole stoked the fire and replenished their glasses. Isolde twisted her long, pale fingers in her lap. Once, Léonie drew back the curtain and stared out into the blackness. She could see little through the slats of the ill-fitting shutters except the silhouettes of the trees in the parkland beyond, lit on the instant by a flash of lightning, plunging and tossing like unbroken horses on a rope. It seemed to her that the very woods seemed to be calling out for help, the ancient trees creaking, cracking, resisting.
At ten o’clock, Léonie suggested a game of bézique. She and Isolde settled themselves at the card table. Anatole stood, his arm resting upon the mantelshelf, smoking a cigarette and holding a glass of brandy.
They spoke little. Each of them, whilst pretending to be oblivious to the storm, was listening for the subtle changes in the wind and the rain that might indicate the worst was over. Léonie noticed how very pale Isolde had become, as if there was some further threat, some warning within the storm. As the time limped slowly on, it seemed to her that Isolde struggled for composure. Her hand strayed often to her stomach as if she was ailing for some sickness. Or else her fingers plucked at the fabric of her skirts, at the corners of the playing cards, at the green baize.
A crack of thunder struck directly overhead. Isolde’s grey eyes flared wide. In a moment, Anatole was at her side. Léonie felt a spurt of jealousy. She felt excluded, as if they had forgotten she was there.
‘We are quite safe,’ he murmured.
‘According to Monsieur Baillard,’ Léonie interrupted, ‘local legend holds that the storms are sent by the devil when the world is out of kilter. When the natural order of things is disturbed. The gardener said much the same this morning. He said that music was heard over the lake last evening, which—’
‘Léonie, ça suffit!’ Anatole said sharply. ‘All these sorts of tales, demons and diabolic happenings, those curses and maledictions, they are merely stories to scare children.’
Isolde threw another glance at the window. ‘How much longer can this last? I do not think I can bear it.’
Anatole fleetingly let his hand drop on to her shoulder, then withdrew it, but not so quickly that Léonie did not observe the gesture.
He wishes to look after her. Protect her.
She pushed the envious thought away.
‘The storm will blow itself out soon,’ Anatole said again. ‘It’s just the wind.’
‘It’s not the wind. I feel something . . . something terrible is going to happen,’ Isolde whispered. ‘I feel as if he is coming. Getting closer to us.’
‘Isolde, chérie,’ Anatole said, dropping his voice.
Léonie’s eyes narrowed. ‘He?’ she echoed. ‘Who? Who is coming?’
Neither of them paid her any attention.
Another gust of wind rattled the shutters. The sky cracked. ‘I am certain that this dignified old house has seen much worse than this,’ Anatole said, trying to inject a lightness into his voice. ‘Indeed, I wager it will still be standing many years after we are all dead and buried. There’s nothing to fear.’
Isolde’s grey eyes flashed feverishly. Léonie could see his words had had the opposite effect on her to the one intended. They had not soothed, but instead raised the stakes.
Dead and buried.
For a fraction of an instant, Léonie thought she saw the grimacing face of the demon Asmodeus looking out at her from the leaping flames of the fire. She felt herself start back.
She was on the point of confessing to Anatole the truth of how she had passed her afternoon. What she had seen and heard. But when she turned to him, she saw he was gazing at Isolde with a look of such tenderness, such concern, that she felt almost ashamed to have witnessed it.
She closed her mouth again and said nothing.
The wind did not relent. Nor did her unquiet imagination give her any rest.
