Sepulchre

  Anatole bent over and kissed the damaged skin. Even now he felt her desire to pull away from the touch of his lips. The scar was a constant reminder of her brief and violent affair with Victor Constant.

  It was only some months into their romance, after the death of her husband, that Isolde had permitted Anatole to see her uncovered and without her customary high collar or scarf or choker concealing the ugly red scar on her neck. It was some weeks later still before he succeeded in persuading her to tell him the story of how she had come by the injury.

  He had thought - mistakenly - that speaking of the past might help her gain mastery over her memories. It had not done so. Moreover, it had disturbed his peace of mind. Even now, some nine months after their first meeting and when the litany of the physical punishments Isolde had suffered at Constant’s hands was familiar to him, Anatole still found himself flinching as he remembered her calm and expressionless recitation of how, in an attack of jealousy, Constant had used fire tongs to hold his signet ring to the coals, then pressed the hot metal to her throat until she passed out from the pain. He had branded her. So vivid was her description that Anatole all but felt he could smell the sickly-sweet scent of her burning flesh.

  Isolde’s liaison with Constant had lasted only a matter of weeks. Broken fingers had healed, the bruises had faded; only that one scar remained as a physical souvenir of the damage Constant had inflicted upon her during the course of the thirty days. But the psychological damage lasted far longer. It pained Anatole that despite her beauty, her graceful character, her elegance, Isolde was now so fearful, so lacking in all self-worth, so afraid.

  ‘It will last,’ Anatole said firmly.

  He let his hand move lower, smoothing over the beloved familiar bone and form, until it came to rest upon the soft white skin at the top of her thighs.

  ‘Everything is in place. We have the licence. Tomorrow we will meet with Lascombe’s lawyers in Carcassonne. Once we know where you stand with regard to this place, we can make our final arrangements.’ He snapped his fingers. ‘Facile.’

  He reached over to the nightstand, the muscles stretched visible beneath his bare skin. He retrieved his case and matches, lit two cigarettes, then handed one to Isolde.

  ‘There will be those who refuse to receive us,’ she said. ‘Madame Bousquet, Maître Fromilhague.’

  ‘I dare say,’ he shrugged. ‘But do you care so greatly for their good opinion?’

  Isolde did not answer the question. ‘Madame Bousquet has reason to be aggrieved. If Jules had not taken it upon himself to marry, she would have inherited the estate. She might even challenge the will.’

  Anatole shook his head. ‘Instinct tells me that if she had intended to do so, she would have done it when Lascombe died and the will was published. Let’s see what the codicil says before we concern ourselves with imagined objections.’ He inhaled another mouthful of smoke. ‘I do concede that Maître Fromilhague might deplore the haste of our marriage. He might object, even though there is no blood tie between us, but what business is it of his?’ He shrugged. ‘He will come round, given time. When all is said and done, Fromilhague is a pragmatist. He will not wish to sever links with the estate.’

  Isolde nodded, although Anatole suspected it was because she wished to believe him rather than because he had convinced her.

  ‘Are you still of the opinion we should live here? Not hide ourselves in the anonymity of Paris?’ she asked.

  Anatole remembered how distressed Isolde became whenever she returned to town. How she was but a shadow of herself. Every smell, every sound, every sight seemed to cause her pain and remind her of her brief liaison with Constant. He could not live like that and he doubted she could either.

  ‘Yes, if we can do so, then I think we should make our home here.’ He broke off, then gently placed his hand upon her lightly swelling stomach. ‘Especially if your suspicions are correct.’ He looked at her, his eyes flashing with pride. ‘I still cannot believe I am to be a father.’

  ‘It is early days yet,’ she said gently. ‘Very early. Although for all that, I do not think I am mistaken.’

  She placed her hand upon his and for a moment they were silent.

  ‘You do not fear that we will be punished for our wickedness in March?’ she whispered.

  Anatole frowned, not understanding her meaning.

  ‘The clinic. Pretending that I was obliged to . . . interrupt a pregnancy.’

  ‘Not in the slightest,’ he said firmly.

  She fell silent once more. ‘Will you give me your word that your decision not to return to the capital is nothing to do with Victor,’ she said finally. ‘Paris is your home, Anatole. You wish to relinquish it for good?’

  Anatole extinguished his cigarette, then pushed his fingers through his thick dark hair.

  ‘We have discussed this too many times already,’ he said. ‘But if it reassures you for me to say it again, I give you my word that it is my considered opinion that the Domaine de la Cade is the most appropriate domicile for us.’ He made the mark of a cross on his bare chest. ‘It is nothing to do with Constant. Nothing to do with Paris. Here, we can live simply, quietly, establish ourselves.’

  ‘And Léonie too?’

  ‘I hope she will make her home with us, yes.’

  Isolde became silent. Anatole could feel her entire body become quite still, tense, as if ready for flight.

  ‘Why do you allow him still to have such a hold over you?’

  She dropped her eyes and immediately he regretted speaking his mind. He knew Isolde was well aware how it frustrated him that Constant was so often in her thoughts. In the early days of their liaison, he had told her how inadequate her continuing fear of Constant made him feel. As if he was not man enough to banish the spectres of her past. He had allowed his irritation to show.

  As a consequence, he knew that she had decided to hold her tongue. Not that her memories of the suffering she had endured troubled her less. Now he understood how the remembrance of mistreatment took longer to heal than their physical evidence. But what Anatole still struggled to comprehend was why she felt so ashamed. On more than one occasion she had attempted to explain how humiliated his abuse of her made her feel. How she felt disgraced by her emotions, polluted, that she had been so deceived as to believe she could fall in love with such a man.

  In his darkest hours, Anatole feared that Isolde believed she had forfeited the right to any future happiness because of that one fleeting error of judgement. And it saddened him that, despite his reassurances and the extraordinary measures they had taken to escape Constant’s attentions - going so far as the pantomime in the Cimetière de Montmartre - she still did not feel safe.

  ‘If Constant was looking for us, we would know of it by now. He made little attempt to conceal his malevolent intentions in the early months of the year, Isolde.’ He paused. ‘Did he ever know your real name?’

  ‘He did not, no. We were introduced at the house of a mutal friend where Christian names alone sufficed.’

  ‘He knew you were married?’

  She nodded. ‘He knew I had a husband in the country who, within the usual bounds of respectability, was tolerant of my need for a measure of independence provided I was discreet. It was not something we discussed. When I told him I was leaving, I cited the need to be with my husband.’

  She shivered, and Anatole knew she was thinking of the night he had nearly killed her.

  ‘Constant never knew Lascombe,’ he said, pressing his point. ‘That is right, is it not?’

  ‘He was not acquainted with Jules.’

  ‘And nor did he ever know of any address, any connection, other than the apartment in the rue Feydeau?’

  ‘No.’ She paused. ‘At least, never from my lips.’

  ‘Well then,’ Anatole said, as if he had proved his case. ‘It has been six months since the burial, has it not? And nothing has happened to disturb our tranquillity.’

  ‘Except the attack upon you in the Pa
ssage des Panoramas.’

  His brow furrowed. ‘That was nothing whatever to do with Constant,’ he said immediately.

  ‘But they took only your father’s timepiece,’ she protested. ‘What thief leaves a notebook full of francs?’

  ‘I was in the wrong place, at the wrong time,’ he said. ‘That’s all.’

  He leaned towards her and stroked her cheek with the back of his hand. ‘Since we arrived at the Domaine de la Cade, I have kept my ears and eyes open, Isolde. I have heard nothing, seen nothing untoward. Nothing that could cause us a moment’s disquiet. No questions have been asked in the village. No strangers have been reported around the estate.’

  Isolde sighed. ‘Does it not concern you that there has been no word from Marguerite?’

  His frown deepened. ‘I admit, it does. I was reluctant to write, after all the efforts we went to to obscure our whereabouts. I can only assume it is because she is engaged with Du Pont.’

  Isolde smiled at his ill-concealed dislike. ‘His only crime is to love your mother,’ she rebuked him gently.

  ‘Then why does he not marry her?’ he said, more sharply than he had intended.

  ‘You know why,’ she said gently, ‘she is the widow of a Communard. He is not the sort of man to flout convention.’

  Anatole nodded, then sighed. ‘The simple truth is that he occupies her time and, God help me, despite my antipathy to the man, I worry less about M’man knowing she is in his company in the Marne than if she were alone in Paris.’

  Isolde took her peignoir from the chair beside the bed and draped it over her shoulders.

  Concern flickered in his eyes. ‘Are you cold?’

  ‘A little.’

  ‘Is there anything I can fetch you?’

  Isolde put her hand upon his arm. ‘I am fine.’

  ‘But in your condition, you should—’

  She smiled. ‘I am not ill, Anatole,’ she teased. ‘My condition, as you put it, is perfectly natural. Please, do not worry so.’ The smile slid from her lips. ‘But, on the question of family, I am still of the view that we should confide the real reason for our visit to Carcassonne to Léonie. Tell her what we intend.’

  Anatole ran his fingers through his hair. ‘And I am still of the opinion it is better she does not know until after the event.’

  He lit another cigarette. White wisps floated up into the room, like writing in the air.

  ‘Can you really believe, Anatole, that Léonie will forgive you for keeping her so in the dark?’ Isolde paused. ‘Forgive us.’

  ‘You are fond of her, are you not?’ he said. ‘I am glad of it.’

  Isolde nodded. ‘It is why I baulk at deceiving her further.’

  Anatole drew deeply on his cigarette. ‘She will understand that we considered it too great a burden to place upon her to involve her in our plans beforehand.’

  ‘I hold the opposite opinion. I believe that Léonie would do anything for you, accept anything you confided in her. However . . .’ She gave a slight shrug of her shoulders. ‘If she feels slighted, if she - indeed, rightly - thinks we do not trust her, then I fear that her anger might lead her to behave in ways that she - and we too - might very much regret.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  She took his hand. ‘She is not a child, Anatole. Not any longer.’

  ‘She is only seventeen,’ he protested.

  ‘She is already jealous of the attention you pay to me,’ she said quietly.

  ‘Nonsense.’

  ‘How do you think she will feel when she discovers we - you - have deceived her?’

  ‘It not a question of deceit,’ he said. ‘It is a question of discretion. The fewer people who are aware of what we intend, the better.’

  He placed his hand upon Isolde’s belly, making it clear he considered the subject closed.

  ‘Soon, my love, it will all be over.’

  He cupped her head with the other hand and drew her to him, kissing her lips. Then, slowly, he slipped the peignoir from her shoulders, revealing her full breasts. Isolde closed her eyes.

  ‘Soon,’ he murmured into her milky skin, ‘everything will be out in the open. We can start a new chapter of our lives.’

  CHAPTER 56

  CARCASSONNE

  THURSDAY 22ND OCTOBER

  At half past four, the gig pulled away down the long drive of the Domaine de la Cade with Anatole, Léonie and Isolde inside. Marieta sat up front with Pascal driving, a single blanket draped over their knees.

  The carriage was closed, but the cracked leather hood was inadequate protection against the cold early morning. Léonie was swaddled in her long black cloak, drawn up over her head, squashed warmly between her brother and her aunt. She could smell the must and mothballs of the fur throws, used for the first time this autumn, which covered them from chin to toe.

  For Léonie, the blue light of the early hour and the cold only added to the adventure. The romance of setting out before dawn, the prospect of two days in Carcassonne to explore and go to a concert and eat in restaurants, she could not wait.

  The lamps clinked and knocked against the cab as they made their way down to the Sougraigne road, two points of light in the darkness. Isolde admitted she had slept badly and consequently felt a little nauseous. She said little. Anatole, too, was silent.

  Léonie was wide awake. She had the early morning scent of the heavy, damp earth in her nose and the fragrant mingling scents of cyclamen and box, the mulberry bushes and sweet chestnut trees. It was too early, yet, for sound of lark or pigeon, but she heard the hoot of owls returning from a night’s hunting.

  Despite their early start, the blustery weather conditions resulted in the train arriving more than an hour late into Carcassonne.

  Léonie and Isolde waited while Anatole hailed a cab. Within moments they were flying across the Pont Marengo to a hotel in the northern quartier of the Bastide Saint-Louis , recommended by Dr Gabignaud.

  Situated in the rue du Port, on the corner of a quiet side street close to the église Saint-Vincent, it was modest, yet comfortable. A semicircle of three stone steps led up from the pavement to the entrance, a black-painted door framed in chiselled stone. The pavements were raised above the cobbled street. Ornamental trees stood along the outer wall in terracotta pots, like a line of sentries on duty. Window boxes upon the sills cast their green and white shadows against freshly painted shutters. On the side wall, the words HÔTEL ET RESTAURANT were painted in high block capital letters.

  Anatole took care of the formalities and oversaw the bags being carried to the rooms. They took a first floor suite for Isolde, Léonie and the maid, with a single room for himself across the corridor.

  After a light lunch in the brasserie of the hotel they agreed to rendezvous at the hotel at half past five in time for an early supper before the concert. Isolde’s appointment with her late husband’s lawyers was fixed for two o’clock in the road called Carriere Mage. Anatole had offered to accompany her. As they departed, he exacted a promise from Léonie that she would go nowhere without Marieta and that she would not venture unchaperoned across the river beyond the boundaries of the Bastide.

  It was raining again. Léonie occupied herself talking to another guest, an elderly widow, Madame Sanchez, who had been visiting Carcassonne for many years. She explained how the lower town, the Basse Ville she termed it, was constructed on a grid system, much like the modern American cities. Availing herself of Léonie’s all-weather pencil, Madame Sanchez ringed the hotel and central square on the plan de la ville provided by the proprietor. She also warned how many of the street names were out of date.

  ‘Saints have yielded to generals,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘So now we listen to the band in the Square Gambetta rather than the Square Sainte-Cécile. All I can tell you is that the music sounds exactly the same!’

  Noticing the rain was easing off and impatient to begin her explorations, Léonie excused herself, reassuring Madame Sanchez that she would manage perfectly wel
l, and made hasty preparations to go.

  With Marieta struggling to keep up, she headed for the main square, La Place aux Herbes, led by the shouts of the hawkers and market traders, the rattling of cartwheels and harness filtering up the narrow street. As Léonie drew closer, she could see that many of the stalls were already in the process of being dismantled. But there was a delicious smell of roasting chestnuts and freshly baked bread. Punch flavoured with sugar and cinnamon was being ladled from steaming metal containers hanging from the back of a wooden handcart.