CHAPTER 54
The clement weather held until Tuesday 20th October.
A gunmetal-grey sky sat low on the horizon. A damp and obscuring mist wrapped the Domaine in chill fingers. The trees were but silhouettes. The surface of the lake was choppy. The juniper and rhododendron bushes cowered in a gusting south-westerly wind.
Léonie was glad that Anatole had had his day’s hunting with Charles Denarnaud before the rain set in. He had set off with a brown leather etui à fusil slung across his shoulder holding his borrowed guns, the buckles gleaming in the sun. Late in the afternoon, he returned home with a brace of wood pigeon, a weatherbeaten face and eyes flushed with the thrill of the shoot.
As she glanced out of the window, she thought how much less pleasurable an experience it would have been today.
After breakfast, Léonie took herself into the morning room and was curled up upon the chaise longue with the collected stories of Madame Oliphant when the post was delivered from the village. She listened to the front door being opened, a murmuring of greetings, then the clipped footsteps of the maid on the tiled floor crossing the hall to the study.
For Isolde, it was approaching a particularly busy time of year on the estate. St Martin’s Day, 11th November, was a month away. It was the day of annual accounting and, on certain estates, evictions. Isolde explained to Léonie that it was the day the tenants’ rents were settled for the coming year, and as chatelaine, she was determined to fulfil her role. It was more a question of listening to the estate manager and acting on his advice rather than making decisions per se, but the matter had kept her cloistered away in her study the past two mornings.
Léonie dropped her eyes back to her book and continued reading.
A few minutes later, she heard raised voices, then the unaccustomed sound of the study bell jangling. Puzzled, Léonie put down her book and, in stockinged feet, ran across the room and opened the door a fraction. She was in time to see Anatole bounding down the stairs and disappearing into the study.
‘Anatole?’ she cried after him. ‘Is there news from Paris?’
But evidently he did not hear her as he slammed the door firmly shut behind him.
How quite extraordinary.
Léonie waited a moment longer, peering inquisitively around the door frame, hoping to glimpse her brother, but nothing further happened, and soon she grew weary of watching and returned to her settee. Five minutes passed, then ten. Léonie continued to read, even though her attention was elsewhere.
At eleven o’clock, Marieta brought a tray of coffee into the morning room and set it out on the table. There were, as usual, three cups.
‘My aunt and brother will be joining me?’
‘I have not been given orders to the contrary, Madomaisèla. ’
At that moment, Anatole and Isolde appeared together in the doorway.
‘Good morning, petite,’ he said. His brown eyes were shining.
‘I heard the commotion,’ Léonie said, leaping to her feet. ‘I wondered if you had received news from Paris.’
His expression faltered a moment. ‘I’m sorry, no. Nothing from M’man.’
‘Then . . . whatever has happened?’ she asked, realising that Isolde, too, was in a state of some excitement. Her complexion was high and her eyes too, were bright.
She crossed the room and squeezed Léonie’s hand. ‘This morning I received the letter I have been waiting for from Carcassonne.’
Anatole had taken a position in front of the fire, his hands behind his back. ‘I believe Isolde may have promised a concert …’
‘So we are going!’ Léonie leapt up and kissed her aunt. ‘That is perfectly wonderful!’
Anatole laughed. ‘We had hoped you would be pleased. It is not the best time of year for such a journey, of course, but we are at the mercy of circumstances.’
‘When shall we go?’ Léonie asked, looking from one to the other.
‘We will depart this Thursday morning. Isolde has wired to inform the lawyers she will be there at two o’clock.’ He paused, exchanged another glance with Isolde. Léonie caught it.
There is something more he wishes to tell me.
Her nerves again fluttered within her chest.
‘In point of fact, there was one other matter we wished to raise with you. Isolde has most generously suggested that we might extend our stay here. Perhaps even until the New Year. What would you say to that?’
Léonie stared at Anatole in amazement. In the first instance, she did not know quite what she thought of such a suggestion. Would the pleasures of the country pall if they remained longer?
‘But . . . but your work? Can the magazine spare you for so long? Do you not need to oversee your interests from closer at hand?’
‘Oh, I dare say the magazine can manage a little longer without me,’ he said lightly. He accepted a cup of coffee from Isolde.
‘What of M’man?’ Léonie said, assailed suddenly by an image of her beautiful mother sitting alone in the drawing room of the rue de Berlin.
‘If Du Pont can spare her, we had thought, perhaps, to invite her to join us here.’
Léonie stared hard at Anatole.
He cannot believe she will ever leave Paris. Or return here.
‘I do not think that General Du Pont would wish it,’ she said as an excuse for the refusal that would surely be the response to such an invitation.
‘Or perhaps you are too bored with my company to wish to remain here longer?’ Anatole said, coming across the room and draping his arm around her shoulders. ‘Does the thought of further weeks spent confined here with your brother distress you so?’
The moment stretched, taut and expectant, then Léonie giggled.
‘You are a fool, Anatole! Of course I would be delighted to stay longer. I cannot think of anything I would like more, although—’
‘Although?’ Anatole said quickly.
The smile slipped from her lips. ‘I should be glad to hear from M’man.’
Anatole put down his cup and lit a cigarette. ‘As would I,’ he said quietly. ‘I am certain it is only that she is having so agreeable a time that she has not yet found the opportunity to write. And, of course, allowing time for my letter to be forwarded to the Marne.’
Her eyes narrowed. ‘I thought you believed they must have returned to Paris?’
‘I suggested only that they might have done so,’ he said mildly. Then his expression lightened again. ‘But the thought of a trip to Carcassonne pleases you?’
‘Indeed, yes.’
He nodded. ‘Good. On Thursday, we will take the morning train from Couiza. The courrier publique leaves from the Place du Pérou at five o’clock.’
‘How long will we staying?’
‘Two days, maybe three.’
Léonie’s face fell in disappointment. ‘But that is hardly any time at all.’
‘Quite long enough,’ he smiled.
This time, Léonie could not fail to notice the intimate glance that passed between him and Isolde.
