The Secret of Provence House

by Aubrey Rhodes

  ‘That’s absurd,’ she said angrily. ‘I’d call James about it right now if it wasn’t such a terrible time for him.’

  She made an effort to calm herself while cursing Carmensina.

  ‘You two will be fine,’ she said.

  ‘I certainly hope so, Miss.’

  The house felt different to her. The week before she had been treated like a daughter. Her meals had been served, her laundry taken care of, her bed was made for her and her bathroom tidied by the time she came back to her room each afternoon. After what had been an initial, standoffish period, she and Camilla had bonded. Now Camilla was dead and Laura was being cast out like a hired consultant who had made the mistake of taking too much for granted. The week before, the estate had been absolutely Camilla’s. She had dominated the scene with confidence and naturalism. One had the sense of a woman who genetically belonged there. Now it felt unmoored and adrift and it was hard for Laura to imagine it being run with the same sort of elegant ease by anyone else. On the train heading south from London that morning she had been looking forward to her arrival, to getting back to her magnificent room, and to working with the actual artefacts nearby. She had looked forward to feeling grounded again, if only for a while. It had been her hope that she would continue to be looked after there and be left alone, with occasional visits from James.

  Consumed with frustration at not being able to call him she sent Fiona a text:

  The wife is booting me out of the house!

  Fiona called right away but only managed to plant further worries, about the validity of Laura’s contract and possible new powers Carmensina might have, now that the head of the house was gone.

  She reviewed her original list of bed and breakfasts in the area and reserved a room in a place that was just a block away from The Wounded Hart. Having that settled and packing her things made her feel marginally better. She realized she was going to have to have a serious conversation with James, on a professional level, one she would rather not have now that they were getting involved.

  After a kind but awkward lunch in the kitchen with Finn and Bidelia, Finn drove her into town and made sure she got good treatment at the B&B. The room was neither as nice as she had hoped, nor as dreadful as she had feared, and after a fitful nap she fired up her computer and resumed work.

  Chapter 32

  Yeshua did not speak again until we returned to Gades. Our ship put in there for two days. I was gripped by a strong desire to revisit the Temple of Melqart, an inclination neither Octavius nor Yeshua shared. I took Canlia with me. Though she carried his child, though her loved ones and her community had been slain, so that there was no further need for pretence, and though her sister no longer dominated the affections of Yeshua, she had nevertheless grown closer to me. With her mother, father and sister gone, and the father of her child turned away from her, my own value had increased.

  We reached the temple within an hour. I introduced her to this foreign god, and she knelt down before the statue with such awe and longing it moved me to see it. She walked among a vast grove of olive trees adjacent to the temple – trees as old as her abandoned homeland and that were exotically new to her. The red soil, the tufts of grass, the gentle sun and the sparkling sea spread out below us, in such contrast to her natural environ – induced a sense of wonder in her and a possibility of hope.

  She walked down a path and sat on the low thick wall of stone from where, years earlier, Yeshua and Octavius and Lucca had enjoyed their rock-throwing contest. I sat beside her and put my arm around her. She looked at me and, without bothering to stand, disrobed. By then she was three months away from reaching fruition. She placed her garments upon the wall and lay back on them. It was an invitation so bold, so tender, so unexpected, that I felt myself responding, and as I lay with her, she cried out and wrapped her arms around me – that young girl, so bereft and far from her jagged shores, accepting this aging merchant from the Levantine desert. Never had I been so grateful to Melqart, and I thought to myself, not without some degree of shame, that, for me, my nephew could remain silent and in mourning for as long as he wished.

  And as if by intuition, that very same evening as Canlia slept and Octavius roamed the city, Yeshua finally broke his silence.

  ‘I had grown accustomed uncle.’ He said it just like that, staring into space.

  ‘To what Yeshua?

  ‘To wellbeing.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘To falling asleep and waking by her. To the sound of the little girl breathing. To the view from the wood down to the bay. To the days and the nights and the seasons running into each other. To the winter fires and the spring rains. I had grown accustomed uncle. It was my life. Not my mother’s or my father’s, not even yours who brought me there and showed me the way, but mine, my own life. I had grown accustomed to it in my own way.’

  I felt obliged to say to him, ‘Of all those things to which you became accustomed, all those things that took you from your past, two cling still.’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘All is lost.’

  ‘Two cling still,’ I insisted, ‘Venusha’s sister and the child she carries that comes from you.’

  ‘Canlia is Venusha’s ghost,’ he said. ‘Each time I see her I am only reminded of what I have lost – and of how.’

  ‘Canlia is not a ghost,’ I said. ‘I assure you. But a fair young woman of flesh and blood, and within that flesh and blood, swimming in it, curled within it, growing from it, is your own living child.’

  ‘No,’ he said, for the third, and for me, final time. ‘My children are no longer of this world.’

  It was the one thing he kept within him, always, that was there the day we left Nazareth and there the day he died. It was as if the world spun round him, so that much of the love he gave out to the world was a mirror reflecting back upon him.

  Chapter 33

  Laura put her coat on, grabbed a notebook, and walked into town, past The Wounded Hart, on to the livelier gastro-pub for a drink and an early dinner. The word used in the codices had been ‘ὕβρις’. ‘Altier’ or ‘hautain’, ‘arrogant’ or ‘proud’ were the adjectives that came to mind when trying to translate what Joseph of Arimathea was saying about his nephew. It was a harsh criticism she thought – certainly with its grain of truth – one applicable to all megalomaniacs. How else could you describe a person who came to believe they were God come down to earth in the form of a man? But she also considered the possibility that it was too harsh an assessment – in this case at least.

  She wondered how old Joseph of Arimathea had been when he dictated this. She imagined he must have been in his early forties when they began their journey, forty-three or forty-four then in Gades which was modern day Cádiz, and in his sixties when recounting it for the scribe. He seemed to have been a confirmed bachelor when Miryam asked him to take her oldest son away from the Holy Land. How odd was that in those times and in that culture? And when he did marry it was in a cavalier fashion to a young pagan girl thousands of kilometres from Jerusalem. She considered the possibility that Joseph might have been gay. Perhaps, she thought, when he speaks of the courtesans and servant girls he bedded down, he is in a Proustian mode substituting Albertines for Alberts. Then again, his lust for Canlia at the Temple of Melqart, and his reluctance to cede her to his nephew felt genuine. In any event, his sexual preferences were beside the point. What she perceived within his harsh view of Yeshua – or maybe she was just being too influenced by recent events in her own life – was a certain coldness, a numbness to his nephew’s suffering. When Yeshua was kidnapped by the Arab slave traders the uncle’s main concern was how the news would reflect upon him with respect to Miryam, not for his nephew’s fate per se. When he encouraged Yeshua to buck-up after a trauma of catastrophic proportions in Cornwall, he seemed insensitive to what a person, young and in love and equipped with a more normal sensibility, might be going through not a month after witnessing the brutalized remains of his wife and children. Then again, the adole
scent Joseph of Arimathea had seen his own father’s throat slit before avenging it. If such an experience did not harden one to life’s precariousness, what would?

  Fathers and sons, she thought, entering the bar. Though Yeshua worked with his father as a boy – the commoner, the carpenter – the parent he bonded with and stood by was his patrician mother. The only father he refers to ninety-eight percent of the time is a heavenly one, not the joiner who shed tears for him when saying goodbye.

  Although it was the evening of the day Camilla had been laid to rest, the loud and jolly atmosphere prevailing at the gastro-pub, the local youths ordering pints at the bar, the blaring Irish rap music, and a range of passable French wines by the glass, were just the things Laura needed. She convinced herself that Camilla of all people would understand, and she decided that if things did not improve with respect to her status at the estate, she would cancel the painters and return to her apartment in New York straight away. James, she knew, was in a tough spot at the moment and cutting him some slack would not only be smart but also the most appropriate thing to do. He might not be the strongest fellow she had ever met, but she was fairly certain he was not a liar. The intimacy they had shared felt real.

  An additional advantage to the gastro-pub was that it had a row of battered computer consoles in the back, set up for violent video games catering to teenagers with raging hormones, and that could also be rented to send and retrieve email. Using her New York based mobile phone was stupidly expensive and there was no Wi-Fi at the inn. Before sitting down to dinner, she ordered a glass of wine and went online and was immediately rewarded with an email from Jean-Paul Bonnerive that included an attachment.

  Dear Laura,

  It was a pleasure to meet you the other day and how very exciting it was to engage with a fellow researcher in possession of such valuable documents. Just when I had given up all hope of encountering anything new you have come along and surprised me.

  Please find attached a scanned copy (I believe that is how it is called – I asked an assistant to do it for me) of a piece of correspondence from Gerard of Amiens addressed to Eleanor of Castile that in all likelihood refers to the document you are working on. As you will see, the notion that people during the Middle Ages were a bunch of dark and irrational religious fanatics is grossly exaggerated. I look forward to your response and commentary.

  Yours, JPB

  She opened the attachment and what appeared on the screen was an elegant image of two sheets of yellowed parchment covered with script written in old French in a hand now familiar to her. The irony of her contemplating this document in the room she was seated in, with the music of Black 47 vibrating from large corner speakers, and the computer screen just to the right of hers displaying muscle-bound commandoes shooting the heads off bearded terrorists, was not lost on her.

  Your Highness,

  I trust this finds You and His Majesty comfortably at Your leisure in Paris. I am now more than halfway through my work transcribing the manuscript You so graciously left in my keeping and I hope that when we next meet, I shall have two copies finished. I also hope You will agree that I have managed to chart a course that preserves the narrative flow and the lyrical tenor while enabling me to preserve my head. I continue to marvel at this most extraordinary text, just as I continue to scold my own cowardice. Woe to all of us who live in such intolerant times, and yet, thanks to Your great generosity and counsel, I know the path I have chosen is the correct one. I remain your most humble and grateful servant.

  Gerard

  She answered Bonnerive and then moved back into the dining room to order some food. All of the day’s setbacks were erasing themselves from her mind. Here was the first bit of outside, corroborating evidence, supporting the validity and provenance of the scroll and codices. It was proof as well, as Jean-Paul had indicated, of a future Queen already skilled at showing her public the face of a devout monarch while hiding a free spirit, someone receptive to the intellectual rewards that can come from keeping an open mind. The idea of writing a book someday about this ignored and fascinating woman suddenly felt like an obligation. Halfway through the meal her phone rang, and it was James. She took it outside onto the much quieter street.

  ‘Laura,’ he said – she loved the way he pronounced her name, ‘I just got off the phone with Finn and he told me what’s happened.’

  ‘It’s OK,’ she said.

  ‘No. It is not OK. And I told him to go and get you right away and to bring you back to the house. I am livid.’

  ‘James,’ she said, ‘There’s no need to rush. We can wait a day or two.’

  ‘That’s my point. Not today of all days. This does it for me. It is unconscionable. She is out of control. Finn and Bidelia work for me. The house is mine. The estate is mine. The project is now mine, and you shall have all you need to finish it properly, and you shall be my guest for as long as you wish.’

  ‘James.’

  ‘I can’t speak any longer I’m afraid, but I just needed to reach you and to tell you this and to hear your voice. I am so sorry.’

  ‘Do you think one day we’ll be able to stop telling each other that?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘one day very soon, I hope. I’ll call you tomorrow from Barcelona and I’ll get up there as soon as I can.’

  ‘All right. Good.’

  ‘I miss you terribly.’

  ‘Me too. And I’m sad you’ve had to deal with this.’

  ‘I’ve got to run.’

  ‘Bye James.’

  ‘Ciao Laura.’

  She called the Bed & Breakfast to ask them to tell Finn where she was and to say she would be checking out. Finn, all smiles, walked into the gastro-pub twenty minutes later.

  ‘Top of the morning to you, Mr MacShane,’ she said.

  ‘And to you, Miss.’

  ‘Have a seat.’

  He sat opposite her, looking about.

  ‘What will it be?’ she said. ‘I’m inviting.’

  ‘It’s a lively place isn’t it? You’ve heard then from Mr Figueras?’

  ‘I have.’

  ‘He called us – imagine, on a day like this – called to see how we were doing, and to make sure you had all you needed to be comfortable – so of course I was forced to tell him about his missus.’

  ‘He’s a good man Finn.’

  ‘That he is.’

  The waitress appeared and he ordered a glass of stout and a shot of Jameson’s.

  ‘Now there’s a healthy combination,’ Laura said. ‘Perhaps I should take the wheel on the way back.’

  ‘There’ll be none of that.’

  ‘How long have you known James?’

  ‘He was barely twenty when we first came to work for Mrs Trevelyan.’

  ‘My goodness. He’s like fifty now. How old were the two of you back then?’

  ‘We were in our twenties as well, Miss.’

  ‘Do you and Bidelia have any children?’

  ‘No, Miss. Which is fine by me, though it’s been Bidelia’s great tragedy.’

  ‘Right. So, you must have known Camilla’s mother too.’

  ‘Oh yes, Miss, for many years.’

  ‘What was she like?’

  His drinks arrived and they toasted.

  ‘Thank you for coming to get me Finn.’

  He had a sip of the stout and then downed half the shot of whiskey.

  ‘My pleasure, Miss. I expect we’re all feeling a slight better than we were a few hours ago.’

  ‘I’m glad.’

  ‘Mrs Trevelyan’s mother was a lady of the old ways, and she was a grand dresser, with a healthy appetite for food and wine. She’d often tell us how when she was a girl the norm was to eat five full meals a day. Meat and fish courses at breakfast – that sort of thing.’

  ‘But she wasn’t overweight.’

  ‘Far from it.’

  ‘And how did they get along do you think, she and Camilla?

  ‘Badly. If I may be so bold, I’d say she was
jealous of her daughter’s youth and never forgave her for it, and she was very disapproving of the husband, the Spanish gentleman.’

  ‘How long ago did she die?’

  ‘It will be five years this winter, Miss, though during the last year of her life she hardly knew who or where she was.’

  ‘Camilla’s youth,’ Laura said, almost to herself. ‘She seemed young to me even though she was seventy.’

  ‘She was a very active person. And she’d become very fond of you, Miss.’

  ‘Thank you, Finn.’

  ‘It’s true. We could tell.’

  ‘And now there’s the Carmensina situation.’

  ‘We’re not looking forward to it, I can tell you that. I’m sure we’ll retire as soon as we can.’

  ‘You think she is that bad?’

  ‘Look at today, Miss.’

  ‘Why do you think James married her in the first place?’

  ‘That’s not for me to say. Why does any man marry? Mrs Trevelyan was well off of course and owned lots of property but she lacked liquidity I fear, relatively speaking, and I think Mr Figueras was eager to find himself a good paying position, and then Miss Carmensina came along.’

  He had more stout and finished the whiskey. It suddenly dawned on Laura why Camilla had been so eager to auction off the scroll and the codices – she was probably worried about James and his overdependence on the resources of Carmensina’s family.

  ‘Do you and Bidelia have any idea what I’ve been doing here?’

  ‘Yes, Miss. Mrs Trevelyan told us before you came to see her, that you were going to make sense of the old scroll in the library chamber.’

  ‘She told you that before I arrived?’

  ‘That she did.’

  Laura recalled the two Oxford dons she had been warned with and smiled.

  ‘Do you have any idea what’s in it?’

  He paused, considering his answer.

  ‘A little,’ he said. ‘According to Bidelia who heard it discussed in the dining room. She’s upset by it.’