The Splendour Falls (13 page)

‘Can I go in?’

‘I am afraid,’ Armand replied, ‘that I cannot allow it. This
souterrain
is old, and there is now a road overhead that weakens it. To use it now would not be wise.’ He swung the door shut and the key in the lock clicked firmly. ‘It is not safe.’

Nothing underground was safe, I thought. It was a relief to surface once more into sunlight, and to feel the whisper of the wind upon my face. I stood a moment enjoying the sensation, while the boys walked on ahead with Neil. Armand hung back as well, his face expectant. ‘So, how do you like my vineyard?’

I told him it was fascinating, and he looked pleased. ‘It is my pride, you understand. This estate has come to me from many generations of Valcourts, and one day it will belong to Lucie.’ He looked out, as I had done earlier, across the flat-topped vines. ‘The greatest part of me lies in this place,’ he told me. ‘I’m glad it fascinates you.’

Simon turned ahead of us. He appeared to have recovered quickly from his setback in the cellar, and having ruled out Armand’s tunnel as a hiding place for Isabelle’s
lost treasure, he was eager to get on to other things. He beckoned me impatiently. ‘Emily, come on. We’re going to the Echo next.’

Armand’s eyes narrowed, sliding sideways. ‘He has much energy, that young man.’

‘Yes.’ I couldn’t help the smile. Armand walked with me to the gates, and after a confusing criss-cross of handshakes and thank-yous, he turned to take my hand.

‘You must come back another time.’
Alone
, his dancing eyes said, and his smile was a sinful thing. ‘And you must tell me how you enjoy seeing our Echo. It is quite unique.’

I wasn’t entirely sure how one could see an Echo in the first place, but everyone promised me that it was indeed possible, and that there was a lovely view from the Echo, and that I would be suitably impressed.

And so I kept an open mind as I followed my companions through the gates. Neil left us there. ‘Sorry, but I promised to meet someone,’ was his excuse, and looking like a man well pleased with the day’s work, he strolled away, head bent and humming to himself.

Simon, happy to be back in charge, turned sharply in the opposite direction and, keeping his shoulder to the high wall of the
Clos des Cloches
, led Paul and me around a curve of deserted road to a desolate place where the wind wept softly through the long grass. ‘Here it is,’ he announced, proudly.

There was no mistaking it – a sign posted to one side of a raised viewing platform clearly read:
Ici I’Echo
, and the platform itself, though small, looked rather official.

‘It really does work,’ said Paul. ‘Just stand up there and yell something.’

I climbed the few steps obediently and turned around. The view, as I’d been promised, was a postcard panorama stretching from the château on the one side, out across the silver river and the patchwork roofs and gardens, to the distant hills beyond. Closer than that, across the road, treetops and a tiled roof peeked above an unkempt, rambling hedge. ‘But I’ll be yelling into someone’s yard,’ I protested, and Simon hopped up beside me with a laugh.

‘It’s OK, really. People do it all the time. Here, I’ll show you.’ And he bellowed out an enthusiastic yodel that would have done credit to a native of the Swiss Alps. The sound soared out and came back, crashing loud against the green hills and the ruined walls of the château, like waves striking rocks on a wild shore.

‘Neat, eh?’ Simon grinned. ‘You can even ask it questions, like this …’ Again he filled his lungs, and yelled: ‘Will I ever get Paul to leave Chinon?’

The answer flowed back, faintly questioning in itself: ‘
Non
…’

‘Very funny,’ said Paul. ‘Why don’t you let Emily give it a try?’

I smiled. ‘I wouldn’t know what to say.’

But they weren’t about to let me off that easily. Put on the spot, I closed my eyes tightly and tried to think of something clever. Perhaps I ought to call out Armand’s name, I thought wryly, in case he was standing on the other side of the vineyard wall, listening. It might be good for his ego. But the dark eyes that smiled at me in my thoughts were not Armand Valcourt’s. I tried to push the image from my mind. Oh, damn and blast, I thought. Oh,
help
. So that
was what I yelled, in French. ‘
Au secours!
’

It was a foolish thing to do. If I’d been in a public place, I might have caused a panic – people hurrying to help me; cries for the police.

But here, I only startled Paul, who turned to stare at me while Echo stirred in far-off fields and called back her advice.

‘
Cours
,’ was what she told me.

Run.

‘The day gets better and better,’ Simon said, as we filed out between the houses at the foot of the cobbled stair. I saw straight away what had pleased him.

It was already afternoon, and the sun had grown uncertain, but Thierry, in a burst of optimism, had set the hotel’s tables out around the fountain square. It made a cheery showing, the bright white tables and red chairs. And directly ahead of us, at a table beside the fountain, sat Martine Muret. She was so lovely, so strikingly lovely, with her fashion-model features and cropped black hair. Neil had said that Armand’s wife had looked like that, and pushing back another pang of jealousy I looked more closely at Martine, with eyes that sought to see beyond her to a woman three years dead. Had Brigitte Valcourt’s hair been short as well? The cut certainly suited Martine, and her simple dark clothes set off her beauty as a plain frame
enhances an exquisite painting. Head up, she sat watching the idle activity of the square through expensive sunglasses that hid the expression of her eyes. She looked entirely unapproachable.

Undaunted, Simon raised one hand in cheerful greeting and blazed a path across the square towards her.

Paul looked at me. ‘He never gives up.’

‘Well, one can’t really blame him.’ I stopped, and bent to tie my shoe, tipping my face up towards him. ‘Paul, what does Martine Muret do?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘For a living. Does she work, or …’

‘Oh. She owns the local gallery.’

‘Art gallery?’

He nodded. ‘Yeah. It’s just around the corner there, in one of the smaller squares.’ He pointed off to one side of the hotel. ‘You can’t miss it. There’s a Christian Rand
self-portrait
in the window.’

‘They’re a couple, then, I take it?’ I tried to ask the question quite as if I didn’t care, as if it hardly mattered which of the hotel guests Martine had been out with, when Lucie had wandered off.

Paul shrugged. ‘I wouldn’t say so, no. In fact I’m sure they’re not. Good friends, I think – that’s all.’

‘Oh.’ I yanked on my shoelace, tying it too tightly.
Which one was it
?
I’d heard Armand ask Martine, last night.
The German or the Englishman
? And I’d been hoping, for some foolish reason, that it was the German. I sighed and stood, and looked again at that lovely face. The face that reminded Neil of Brigitte Valcourt. ‘I wonder if
she chose that chair on purpose?’ I asked.

‘Why?’

‘Well, she’s sitting next to Beauty.’

‘What? Oh, the Graces, you mean.’ He scrutinised the fountain sculpture. ‘How can you tell which one’s which?’

‘Neil named them, last night. He thought Splendour faced the sunset, and that one there was Beauty, and Joy had the biggest smile.’

‘That makes sense.’

I folded my arms and frowned. ‘Only they’re not smiling, are they?’

‘Of course they are. That’s what—’

‘—Graces do. I know.’ Still, try as I might, the only smile I saw belonged to Martine Muret herself. And even that smile looked faintly strained.

‘So,’ she said, as we descended on her table. ‘Simon tells me you have toured the
Clos des Cloches
. And how did you enjoy it?’

Simon grinned. ‘It was great, thanks. Mind if we join you?’ His arm was promptly nudged from behind, and he turned round, frowning. ‘What?’ he demanded of Paul.

‘I think she has company already, that’s all.’

There was no one with her at that moment, but it was obvious from the glasses on the table that she hadn’t been drinking alone. Her glass held red wine, but whoever had been with her had been drinking
Pernod
. Martine hesitated for a moment, only a moment, then shook her head. ‘No, it is all right. Please,’ she moved her hand, inviting us to sit down.

I took the chair facing the fountain, where I could watch
the spring-fed water tumble gently past the bowing Graces like a jewelled transparent veil. Across the table from me Martine Muret smiled pleasantly, expectantly.

‘So, what did Armand show you?’

Simon summarised our tour. He didn’t mention anything about the tunnel, though, which surprised me, until I remembered that Paul had termed his brother ‘paranoid’. Perhaps, I reasoned, Simon was afraid to talk about the treasure in case someone else started looking for it. When he came to the end of his animated account, he leaned back in his chair and raked the hair back from his forehead. ‘But I could really use a coffee,’ he concluded. ‘He gave us these huge glasses to taste with. I always thought wine-tasting meant an inch of wine in the bottom of the glass. Who knew?’

Martine’s laugh was a tinkling echo of the fountain spilling down behind her. ‘So Armand has made you drunk, today?’

‘Well, he certainly tried to,’ said Paul. ‘But I’ve still got room for a beer. Emily?’

I shook my head. ‘You don’t have to buy me a drink, it’s quite all right.’ But Paul insisted, and he would have kept right on insisting if I hadn’t finally given in and opted for my favourite drink of white wine and blackcurrant cordial. ‘I’ll have a
kir
, then, please.’

My own wine-tasting flush seemed to have worn off, but Thierry, when he came over to take our order, wasn’t altogether convinced. He sent me a piercing, faintly paternal look. ‘You have eaten lunch, Mademoiselle?’ he asked me.

‘Well, not exactly.’

He shook his head, disapproving. ‘No food at all?’

‘Well, no, but—’

‘It is not good,’ he chastised me, ‘to drink the wine without food first.’ But he brought me my
kir
in the end, along with a small dish of peanuts that he’d smuggled from behind the bar. ‘These are for you,’ he said, setting the dish down in front of me. ‘Do not let Simon steal them.’

Simon sent him a wounded look. ‘You never bring me peanuts,’ he complained.

‘This is true,’ agreed Thierry, without apology. ‘Is there anything else your table is missing? No? Then I leave you to enjoy. I have promised to Monsieur Grantham that I will find for him my little stereo so he can listen to his tapes.’

Martine frowned. ‘Did he not have a stereo already?’

‘My big one, yes,’ said Thierry with a wistful nod. ‘But this morning, it has broken, and so …’ His shrug was resigned. ‘He is lucky it is only the machine that breaks, and not his violin. I warned him of this yesterday.’

When I asked him what he meant by that, he shrugged again and grinned. ‘Only that he plays every day his … how do you say it in English …
les gammes?
’

‘Scales,’ said Paul and I, in unison.

‘Yes, his scales, and then the symphony by Beethoven. But yesterday,’ he shook his head, ‘yesterday, he also plays the song of love, and Isabelle, she does not like to hear such songs.’

I heard the sharp clattering of a glass against the tabletop. Across from me, Martine Muret quickly righted her wine glass and reached for a paper napkin to mop up the small spill. ‘How stupid of me! No, it is all right, it is nothing …’

His offer of help refused, Simon took advantage of the moment of confusion to sneak a handful of peanuts from the dish in front of me. ‘Queen Isabelle, you mean?’ he asked Thierry, showing off his knowledge, but the bartender shook his head emphatically.

‘She is no queen, this Isabelle. She is our
fantôme
.’ He cast his eyes upwards, searching for the English word. ‘Our ghost.’

‘No kidding?’

‘I do not kid,’ he said to Simon, stiffly. ‘She lived here, in the last war.’

Definitely not Isabelle of Angoulême, I thought. Not King John’s young and tragic queen, but someone else, some later Isabelle, who couldn’t bear to hear Neil play a love song. I felt a sharper twinge of curiosity. ‘Have you ever seen her, this ghost?’

‘Of course he hasn’t,’ said Simon, mumbling through his mouthful of peanuts. ‘There are no ghosts.’

‘Ah,’ said Thierry, ‘are there not?’ He slanted a superior eye down on this upstart sceptic from the New World. ‘Then it will not upset you to know that you sleep each night in the room where Isabelle died.’

‘Isabelle.’ Madame Chamond curled herself gracefully onto the seat opposite me and tilted her head to one side, smiling faintly. She was a lovely woman, tall and dark and elegant, with all her husband’s grace and charm and then some. ‘But this is such a sad story to tell, Simon, and I do not wish to spoil the evening for everyone.’

Which was a rather hollow argument, I thought,
considering what a sorry-looking bunch we were, the lot of us. The boys and I had just come back from dinner at the
Coeur de Lion
, and the food had made me drowsy. Paul, too, was leaning back with half-closed eyes, while beside him Neil lounged in his corner seat, unmoving. Even Christian Rand, who’d dropped in for a nightcap at the bar, looked rather like he might fall off his stool from sheer exhaustion. Simon appeared normal enough, but then nothing seemed to tire Simon. And Garland Whitaker, recovered from her headache, was back in full voice, snuggled like a kitten on the chair beside her husband.

She smiled a faintly pouting smile of encouragement at Madame Chamond. ‘You won’t spoil our evening one bit. Anyway, you’ve got us all curious now, about this Isabelle person.’

‘Think of how I feel,’ Simon chimed in. ‘She died in our room, for Pete’s sake.’

Behind me, at the bar, I heard Monsieur Chamond’s low and pleasant laugh. ‘Isabelle did not die in your room,’ he said. ‘Who told you this?’

‘Thierry.’

‘Ah.’ Our host nodded. ‘Well, he does not know the story very well. Even I do not remember all of it. It was so long ago, before I myself was born, you understand …’

‘She was a Chinon girl,’ Madame Chamond began, relenting. ‘She worked here as a chamber maid, during the war, the occupation.’

Garland raised her eyebrows. ‘Occupation? I thought France collaborated.’

‘Not all of France. Not Chinon,’ Madame Chamond
answered firmly. ‘We were occupied. This hotel was used to garrison … that is the right word? … garrison the German officers. And that is how Isabelle met her Hans.’

‘A romance!’ Garland’s eyes gleamed victoriously. ‘Oh, how wonderful! I always
love
a wartime romance, don’t you? That’s how Jim’s parents met, when his father was stationed in … where was it, darling?’

Jim Whitaker balanced his second double Scotch with care on his outstretched knee. ‘Normandy.’

Madame Chamond smiled rather gently. ‘This was happy for your parents, that they could find each other. But war is not so kind to many people. Not to Hans and Isabelle.’

Cradling her wine glass, she settled back against the cushions, warming to the tale. ‘They met in 1944, in the spring. They say that Isabelle was very beautiful, a beauty one does not forget, though she had only sixteen years. The German officers noticed this, of course, but Isabelle guarded well her reputation. She had no love of Nazis. Her older brother had joined already the
Maquis
, the Resistance. In time Isabelle might herself have joined them. But instead, she met Hans.

‘He came from a good family, Hans. He spoke French and English also, not just German. He was educated. The other officers would bother Isabelle when she was working, say things to her, but not Hans. Always to Isabelle he was a gentleman, a quiet handsome gentleman. She did not wish to think of him, but …’ Her shrug was philosophical. ‘Life does not always let us choose. And so they fell in love, the French girl and the German officer. For both of them the
risks were very great. Always they would meet in secret, for an hour of stolen happiness that could not last.’

Madame Chamond paused to sip her drink, quite calmly, though she must have known she had drawn every one of us into the web of her story. Like an audience waiting for the curtain to rise on the second act, we sat in silence until the wine glass was lowered and once more that lovely, lulling voice took up the narrative. I leaned back, listening, my eyes fixed on the dancing flame of the candle on the low table in front of me, and as Madame Chamond went on speaking, my own mind conjured up the images like something seen through darkened glass. I saw young Isabelle, alone and waiting, listening for the familiar footsteps of her lover. And I saw the German officer slip through the sleeping town, heart pounding … saw him reach the cliffs and find again the hidden door behind the fall of rock …

He turned the corner of the tunnel, blindly. Six steps on, and then another right … He counted off the paces in his mind. It wasn’t safe to use the torch, not yet – the faintest glimmering of light, the smallest shadow, would bring the sentries running. The tunnels had made them all nervous at first. They’d made him nervous, too, the thought of them, the thought that underneath his feet the earth was riddled with the things, with hollow caves and passages that twisted off, unseen, into the darkness. But now he knew the tunnels well, and welcomed them, and on this night he was more worried about meeting one of his own men than he was afraid of the
Maquis
.

Two paces more, then left … he switched the torch on,
blinking in the sudden brightness of the ghostly limestone walls that curved round him like the walls of a tomb.

‘Hans?’ Her voice, uncertain. ‘Oh, God, I was so worried …’

How could he have known life before, without her in his arms? He pulled back, smiling … touched her face. ‘You must be brave for me.’

‘I don’t want to be brave.’ Her eyes seemed very large, there in the darkness.

‘Please. For me.’ They would both have need of bravery, he knew, before the month was over. It had been weeks now since the enemy had come ashore upon the Norman beaches to the north. Weeks, and still the Reich was fool enough to stand its ground. They knew, they all knew, it was over. Just last night, Jurgen – strong solid Jurgen who had been there longer than anyone – had turned world-weary eyes on Hans above his glass of whisky. ‘We’re finished, you know,’ Jurgen had told him. ‘Finished. Only the Führer won’t admit it. He thinks we’ll win it back for him, the fool.’ It was treason to talk like that, but Hans hadn’t said anything. Jurgen had looked at him again, and smiled wryly. ‘Ah well, I’ve lived enough, I think, and there is no one left at home to miss me when I’m gone. Tell me, do you still see that girl?’