Barbara Cleverly - Strange Images of Death

‘Just getting away from the rest of us for a bit,’ suggested Jane. ‘It’s rather like being back at school living here. We all want to break out occasionally. Estelle is the one of us who has the courage to do it. I should take yourself off watch, Dorcas dear, and go to bed. Look-if she turns up again at dinner, I’ll tell her to pop her head round the door and say goodnight, shall I?’

Murmuring her thanks, Dorcas excused herself and came out. She closed the door gently and Joe supported her slight form, quivering with rage, back into the safety of the children’s dormitory.

Joe snapped awake in the dark hours, alert and listening. He went to his window and set about opening the shutters, surprised by the sudden force of the wind that almost snatched the iron locking bar from his hand. He stuck his head out and listened for a moment to the Mistral booming down the valley. With this northerly wind scouring the buildings, ancient woodwork would be creaking, unearthly howls would sound down narrow chimneys. He found the words of a prayer he’d not spoken since childhood were on his lips:

In deepest dark no fear I show

For Thou, O Lord, art here below.

I feel as safe as in the light,

Thy hand in mine throughout the night.

He crept silently into the corridor and went to stand by the door of the children’s room, listening. Reassured by the silence, he went back to his bed, imagining Orlando’s scathing comments if he’d been caught out in this show of sentimental vigilance.

Wednesday morning dawned bright and clear. The wind had abated as suddenly as it had arisen, leaving a cool, combed and invigorated countryside behind it.

An equally cool, combed and invigorated Commissaire Jacquemin called for his coffee pot to be refilled and detained with a gesture the landlord of the Hôtel de la Poste who was personally waiting on his distinguished guest. ‘Ferro-tell the Lieutenant over there …’ He nodded at the young man breakfasting by himself at the far end of the room, ‘… to join me at my table, would you? And bring another cup.’

The officer and the additional crockery arrived at Jacquemin’s table at the same time. ‘Ah! Coffee, Martineau? Sleep well? Good, good. Of course, being a native, you must be used to this confounded wind. Now tell me-the motor car-did you manage to get to the bottom of the problem with the … transmission, I think you said? We weren’t handed the cream of the collection for our little jaunt, I think? I want to arrive at the château snorting impressively not jangling like a bag of nails.’

‘Yes. All in order, sir,’ said the young man crisply. His broad brow, intense eyes and tight mouth gave the impression that here was a man incapable of saying or thinking anything but ‘yes’. ‘Snorting like a bull! There’s a mechanic right here in the village who seems to know his business. He sorted it out in no time. All’s ready for our assault on the Devil’s Château.’ He grinned dismissively.

‘Ah, yes! This name … I don’t like to walk unprepared into strange scenes even of the comic opera type I suspect we’re about to experience. A little local guidance is called for, I think.’ He summoned the landlord again and invited him to seat himself. ‘Monsieur Ferro, you know where we’re headed this morning. Tell me-how did the Château de Silmont of venerable name ever acquire the sobriquet of du Diable?’

Monsieur Ferro was delighted to be of assistance. ‘Because devilish things have happened there over the centuries. Oh, the usual murder and rapine, but this castle has always been associated with a particular kind of-I think you have to say, inhuman-evil. The kind that can only come from the Devil.’

‘Monsieur Ferro will be able to point out to you the hill-top lair of the Marquis de Sade of evil repute, not many miles from here, sir,’ the Lieutenant added helpfully. ‘There are many such châteaux dotted about in the villages and each has a reputation worse than the last.’

‘Ah, yes, but the Marquis de Sade was of flesh and blood. It’s at Silmont that the supernatural makes its appearance most strongly through history,’ insisted the landlord, realizing he was talking to a man of Provence. ‘It started with the Devil’s Bride. You must know that story?’

Jacquemin, mildly entertained, exchanged looks with Martineau and poured out more coffee. ‘Do tell. The story hasn’t reached Paris yet.’

It was only slightly encouraging but it was all the invitation Ferro needed.

‘This happened long ago, in the days of the Counts of Provence, when Paris was a backwater and France just a neighbouring kingdom,’ he said with pride. ‘The young heir to Silmont was to be wed. To the lovely daughter of a rich marquis from a nearby estate. The château was en fête for the wedding celebrations. It must have looked like the setting for a fairy tale-guests had come from miles around, days of feasting were planned, there were acrobats and musicians by the score. The young bride-who came with a large dowry-was very taken with her new husband. She must have considered her father’s outlay-some ten thousand crowns, it was said-well spent! The groom was somewhat older than she, in the custom of the times, but handsome and powerful and would inherit one day a splendid castle and lands. Ah! How were they to know …’ He left a dramatic pause, rolled his eyes and sighed. ‘… know that the lord had a rival-a rival more powerful than himself? The girl already had a secret admirer. The Devil! None other!’ Monsieur Ferro made the sign of the cross at the whispered name. ‘Though she was unaware of his plans for her. After the ceremony, the bride, still dressed in her white wedding dress, insisted on playing a game with her friends and all the other little guests who’d been invited to keep her company. It was a game she loved to play. And she was, after all, still a very young thing. A game of hide and seek.

‘She ran away and hid and everyone searched. And searched again. They called and called again. There was never an answer. Everyone feared for her. She did not know the château, her new home, at all. This was her first visit. The child did not reappear that day. And that night the château resounded with sighs and moans in every chimneypiece and no one slept.

‘The search continued for the next day, the next week, the next month. The countryside was combed in the for-lorn hope she had wandered off. Every gypsy tribe within a score of miles was questioned in case they’d snatched her away. But they found no sign. Not even a dropped kerchief. And they were never likely to find her. The Devil had made off with his chosen bride, it was said, from under the lord’s nose. Her lord remarried. He came into his inheritance. The years passed. The first bride was forgotten. I cannot even tell you her name.’

‘Is that it? That’s all?’

Monsieur Ferro paused, shook his head and fixed the men with the glazed eyes of a storyteller who is approaching his climax and resenting an interruption. ‘And then, they say, a hundred years later, when they were rebuilding a part of the castle, they pulled the cover off an oubliette that no one knew was there. And, crouched in the bottom, was a small figure in white. The bride. As they tried to pull out the body, she and her dress crumbled to dust,’ he finished with relish.

‘Not a congenial place, it would seem, for young ladies of flesh and blood-or stone,’ the Commissaire observed.

‘People have so remarked over the years, sir. No one remembers the name of the missing child bride-as I said just now-but everyone knows the name of her successor. One of the young girls who’d played hide and seek on that fateful day was Lord Silmont’s cousin-Aliénore. An impoverished branch of the family … she had no dowry but was famous for her beauty. They made a match of it-no one could deny him this comfort in his sorrow-and she produced a male heir within the year.