by Kate Mosse
As she sat in the library, she could hear them laughing, whispering, planning. Isolde’s joy at her brother’s company made Léonie’s awareness of how easily such happiness might be snatched away the more painful.
When she joined them for coffee in the morning room, Anatole raised his head, his gaze for an instant unguarded. His anguish, the dread, the misery laid bare in his eyes made her turn away, for fear her countenance would give him away.
After lunch, they passed the afternoon in playing cards and reading stories aloud, thereby contriving to delay Isolde’s afternoon rest, as Léonie and Anatole had previously planned. It was not until four o’clock that Isolde declared her intention to withdraw to her chamber until supper. Anatole returned some quarter of an hour later with sorrow etched in lines upon his face.
‘She is sleeping,’ he said.
They both looked out at the apricot sky, the last vestiges of sun flecked bright behind the clouds. Léonie’s strength finally deserted her. ‘It is not too late,’ she cried. ‘There is still time to call it off.’ She grabbed hold of his hand. ‘I beg you, Anatole, do not go through with this.’
He put his arms around her and drew her to him, enveloping her in the familiar scent of sandalwood and hair oil.
‘You know I cannot refuse to meet him now, petite,’ he said softly. ‘It will never end else. Besides, I would not have my son grow up believing his father a coward.’ He squeezed her tighter. ‘Nor, indeed, my courageous and steadfast little sister.’
‘Or daughter,’ she said.
Anatole smiled. ‘Or daughter.’
The sound of footsteps on the tiled floor made them both turn.
Pascal stopped at the bottom of the stairs, holding Anatole’s greatcoat over his arm. The expression on his face betraying how little he wished to be part of the matter.
‘It is time, Sénher,’ he said.
Léonie held on tightly. ‘Please, Anatole. Please, do not go. Pascal, do not let him go.’
Pascal looked on with sympathy as Anatole, gently, prised her fingers from his sleeve.
‘Look after Isolde,’ he whispered. ‘My Isolde. I have left a letter in my dressing room, should things . . .’ He broke off. ‘She must not want for anything. Neither she, nor the child. Keep them safe.’
Léonie watched, dumb with despair, as Pascal helped him into his coat, then the two men walked briskly to the front door. On the threshold, Anatole turned. He raised his hands to his lips.
‘I love you, petite.’
There was a rush of damp evening air, then the door shuddered to a close behind them and they were gone. Léonie listened to the muffled crunch of their boots upon the gravel until she could hear them no more.
Then the truth of it hit her. She sank on to the bottom step, rested her head on her arms, and sobbed. From the shadows beneath the stairs, Marieta crept out. The girl hesitated, then, deciding to forget herself, sat down on the step beside Léonie and put her arm around her shoulder.
‘It will be all right, Madomaisèla,’ she murmured. ‘Pascal will not let any harm come to the master.’
A wail of grief, of terror, of hopelessness burst out from between Léonie’s lips, like the howl of a wild animal caught in a trap. Then, remembering how she had promised not to wake Isolde, she muted her tears.
Her fit of weeping quickly subsided. She felt light-headed, curiously empty of emotion. She felt as if there was something caught in her throat. She rubbed her eyes hard with the cuff of her sleeve.
‘Is my . . .’ She paused, suddenly realising that she no longer knew quite how she should refer to Isolde. ‘Is my aunt still sleeping?’ she asked.
Marieta got to her feet and smoothed down her apron. The look on her face suggested that Pascal had confided the whole business to her.
‘Do you wish me to go and see if Madama has woken?’
Léonie shook her head. ‘No, let her be.’
‘Can I fetch you something? A tisane, perhaps.’
Léonie also stood up. ‘No, I will be perfectly fine now.’ She gave a smile. ‘I am sure you have more than enough to occupy you. Besides, my brother will need refreshment when he returns. I would not have him wait.’
For a moment, the eyes of the two girls met.
‘Very good, Madomaisèla,’ Marieta said in the end. ‘I shall make certain the kitchen is prepared.’
Léonie remained a while in the hall, listening to the sounds of the house, satisfying herself that there were no witnesses to what she was about to do. When she was certain all was quiet, she ran quickly up the stairs, running her hand along the mahogany banister rail, and lightly along the passageway towards her room.
To her confusion, she could hear noises coming from Anatole’s chamber. She froze, mistrusting the evidence of her own ears, having seen him depart the house half an hour previously and in the company of Pascal.
She was on the point of continuing when the door flew open and Isolde all but fell into her arms. Her blond hair was loose and her shift open at the neck. She looked quite deranged, as if shocked out of sleep by some demon or ghost. Léonie could not help but notice the raw, red scarring at her throat, and averted her gaze. Her shock at seeing her elegant, controlled and self-possessed aunt in the throes of such hysteria made her voice sharper than intended.
‘Isolde! Whatever is it? What has happened?’
Isolde was twisting her head from side to side, as if in violent disagreement, and waving a piece of paper in her hand.
‘He has gone! To fight!’ she cried. ‘We must prevent it.’
Léonie turned cold, realising Isolde had laid her hands prematurely on the letter that Anatole had left for her in his dressing room.
‘I could not sleep, so I went to find him. Instead, I found this.’ Isolde stopped abruptly and looked Léonie in the eye. ‘You knew,’ she said softly, her voice suddenly calm.
For a fleeting instant, Léonie forgot that even as she spoke, Anatole was striding through the woods to fight a duel. She tried to smile as she reached out and took Isolde’s hand.
‘I know of the steps you have taken. The marriage,’ she said quietly. ‘I wish I could have been there.’
‘Léonie, I wish . . .’ Isolde paused. ‘We wished to tell you.’
Léonie put her arms around her. In an instant, their roles reversed.
‘And that Anatole is to be a father?’ Isolde said, almost whispering.
‘That too,’ Léonie said. ‘It is the most wonderful news.’
Isolde suddenly pulled away. ‘But you knew of this duel also?’
Léonie hesitated. She was on the point of evading the question, but then stopped. There had been enough dishonesty between them. Too many destructive lies.
‘I did,’ she admitted. ‘The letter was delivered by hand yesterday. Denarnaud and Gabignaud have accompanied him.’
Isolde went white. ‘By hand, you say,’ she whispered. ‘So he is here then. Even here.’
‘Anatole will not miss his mark,’ Léonie said with a conviction she did not feel.
Isolde put her head up and pushed her shoulders back. ‘I must go to him.’
Taken by surprise at her abrupt change of mood, Léonie fumbled for a response.
‘You cannot,’ she objected.
Isolde took not the slightest bit of notice. ‘Where is the contest to take place?’
‘Isolde, you are unwell. It would be foolish to attempt to follow him.’
‘Where?’ she said.
Léonie sighed. ‘A clearing in the beech woods. I do not know precisely where.’
‘Where the wild juniper grows. There is a clearing there where my late husband would sometimes go to practise.’
‘It may be. He said nothing more.’
‘I must dress,’ Isolde said, slipping from Léonie’s clasp.
Léonie had no choice but to follow. ‘But even if we leave now, and we find the precise location, Anatole left with Pascal more than half an hour ago.’
‘If
we go now, we may yet stop it.’
Not wasting time with her corset, Isolde pulled on her grey walking dress and outdoor jacket, pushed her elegant feet into boots, her fingers falling over one another as she laced each hook and eye haphazardly, then ran towards the stairs, Léonie on her heels.
‘Will his opponent abide by the result?’ Léonie suddenly asked, hoping for a different answer to the one with which Anatole had earlier furnished her.
Isolde stopped and looked up at her, despair in her grey eyes.
‘He is . . . he is not a man of honour.’
Léonie grasped her hand, seeking reassurance as much as to give comfort, as another question came into her mind. ‘When is the child due?’
For a moment, Isolde’s eyes softened. ‘All being well, June. A summer baby.’
As they stole through the hall, it seemed to Léonie that the world had taken on a harsher hue. Things once familiar and precious - the polished table and doors, the pianoforte and tapestried stool, within which Léonie had placed the music taken from the sepulchre - seemed to have turned their back on them. Cold, dead objects.
Léonie reached down the heavy garden cloaks from the hooks inside the entrance, handed one to Isolde, wrapped the other around herself, then pulled open the door. Chill dusk air slipped around her legs like a cat, wrapping itself round her stockings, her ankles. She took the lighted lamp from the stand.
‘At what time is the engagement due to take place?’ Isolde asked in a quiet voice.
‘Dusk,’ Léonie replied. ‘Six o’clock.’
They looked up at the sky, a deep and darkening blue above them.
‘If we are to be there in time,’ Léonie said, ‘we must hurry. Quick, now.’
CHAPTER 81
‘I love you, petite,’ Anatole repeated to himself, as the front door juddered shut behind him.
He and Pascal, holding a lantern aloft, walked in silence to the end of the drive, where Denarnaud’s carriage was waiting for them.
Anatole nodded at Gabignaud, whose expression revealed how little he wished to be a part of the proceedings. Charles Denarnaud clasped Anatole’s hand.
‘The principal and the doctor in the back,’ Denarnaud announced, his voice clear in the chill dusk air. ‘Your man and I will ride at the front.’
The hood was up. Gabignaud and Anatole climbed in. Denarnaud and Pascal, looking uncomfortable in such company, faced them, balancing the long wooden pistol case on their lap between them.
‘You know the appointed place, Denarnaud?’ Anatole asked. ‘The glade in the beech wood to the east of the property? ’
Denarnaud leant out and gave the instructions. Anatole heard the driver flick his reins and the gig moved off, the harness and bridle rattling in the still evening air.
Denarnaud was the only one with an appetite for talk. Most of his stories involved duels with which he had been involved, close shaves all, but always ending well for his principal. Anatole understood he was trying to put him at ease, but wished he would hold his tongue.
He sat, bolt upright, looking out at the winter countryside, thinking that perhaps it was the last time he would see the world. The avenue of trees lining the drive was covered in hoar frost. The heavy fall of the horses’ hooves on the hard ground echoed around the park. The darkening blue sky above seemed to glint like a mirror, as a pale moon rose in white splendour.
‘These are my own pistols,’ Denarnaud explained. ‘I loaded them myself. The case is sealed. You will draw lots to decide whether we use these or your opponent’s.’
‘I know that,’ Anatole snapped, then, regretting that he sounded abrupt, added, ‘My apologies, Denarnaud. My nerves are on edge. I am most grateful for your careful attention. ’
‘Always worth running through the etiquette,’ Denarnaud said in a voice louder than the confined space of the carriage and the situation required. Anatole realised that Denarnaud too, for all his bluster, was nervous. ‘We don’t want any misunderstandings. For all I know, matters are conducted differently in Paris.’
‘I do not think so.’
‘You have been practising, Vernier?’
Anatole nodded. ‘With the pistols from the house.’
‘Are you confident with them? Is the sighting good?’
‘I would have had more time,’ he said.
The carriage turned and started to move across the rougher ground.
Anatole tried to picture his cherished Isolde, sleeping upon the bed with her hair fanned out on the pillow, her willowy white arms. He thought of Léonie’s bright, green, questioning eyes. And the face of a child not yet born. Tried to fix their beloved features in his mind.
I am doing this for them.
But the world had shrunk to the rattling carriage, the wooden box upon Denarnaud’s lap, the fast, nervous breathing of Gabignaud beside him.
Anatole felt the fiacre swing again to the left. Beneath the wheels, the ground became more rutted and uneven. Suddenly Denarnaud banged on the side of the carriage and shouted to the driver to take a small lane on the right.
The gig turned into the unmade track running between the trees, then emerged into a clearing. On the far side stood another carriage. With a jolt, although it was what he knew he would see, Anatole recognised the crest of Victor Constant, Comte de Tourmaline, gold upon black. Two bay horses, plumed and blinkered, were stamping their hooves upon the hard, cold ground. Beside them stood a knot of men.
Denarnaud alighted first, Gabignaud followed, then Pascal with the pistol case. Finally Anatole stepped down. Even from this distance, with their opposite numbers all dressed alike in black, he could identify Constant. With a shudder of revulsion, he also recognised the red-raw, pock-marked features of one of the two men who had set about him on the night of the riot at the Opéra in the Passage des Panoramas. Beside him, shorter and of poor appearance, a dissolute-looking old soldier in an archaic Napoleonic cloak. He, too, seemed familiar.
Anatole drew his breath. Even though Victor Constant had been in residence in his thoughts from the moment he had met and fallen in love with Isolde, the two men had not been in one another’s company since their one and only quarrel in January.
He was taken by surprise at the rage that rushed through him. He balled his hands into fists. A cool head was what was required, not an impetuous desire for revenge. But suddenly the wood seemed too small. The bare trunks of the beech trees appeared to be closing in upon him.
He stumbled on an exposed root, and nearly fell.
‘Steady, Vernier,’ murmured Gabignaud.
Anatole gathered his thoughts to him and watched as Denarnaud walked towards Constant’s party, Pascal trailing behind him carrying the pistol box across his arms as if it was a child’s coffin.
The seconds greeted one another formally, each bowing briefly, sharply, then they walked further up into the clearing. Anatole was aware of Constant’s cold eyes upon him, piercing, straight as an arrow, across the frozen earth. He noted, too, that he looked unwell.
They moved to the centre of the clearing, not far from where Pascal had set up the makeshift shooting gallery the day before, then measured the paces from where each man would take aim. Pascal and Constant’s man hammered two walking sticks into the damp ground to mark precisely the spot.
‘How are you holding up?’ Gabignaud murmured. ‘Can I fetch any—’
‘Nothing,’ Anatole said quickly. ‘I need nothing.’
Denarnaud returned. ‘I regret we lost the toss for the pistols. ’ He slapped Anatole on the shoulder. ‘It will make no difference, I am certain. It’s the aim that counts, not the barrel. ’
Anatole felt he was a man walking in his sleep. Everything around him seemed to be muffled, happening to someone else. He knew he should be concerned about the fact that he was to use his opponent’s pistols, but he was numb.
The two groups moved closer to one another.
Denarnaud removed Anatole’s greatcoat. Constant’s second did the same for him. Anat
ole watched as Denarnaud ostentatiously patted down Constant’s jacket pockets, his waistcoat pockets, to make sure he had no other weapons, no pocket book, no papers that might act as a shield.
Denarnaud nodded. ‘Nothing amiss.’
Anatole lifted his arms while Constant’s man ran his hands over his body to check that he too had no concealed advantage. He felt his watch fob being taken from his pocket and unchained.
