Read Online Sepulchre by Kate Mosse - Free Book Online

disparu; "died" is so vulgar,' she corrected, although Léonie could hear her heart was not in the rebuke. 'But yes, in point of fact, the same.'
    'Why is she writing to you so long after the event?' 'Oh, she has written on a couple of previous occasions,' Marguerite replied. 'Once on the occasion of their marriage, then once again to inform me of Jules' death and the details of his funeral.' She paused. 'It is to my regret that ill health prevented me from making the journey and at such a time of the year.'
    Léonie knew perfectly well that her mother would never have returned to the house in which she had grown up outside Rennes-les-Bains, regardless of the season or circumstance. Marguerite and her half-brother were estranged.
Léonie knew the bare bones of the story from Anatole. Marguerite's father, Guy Lascombe, had married young and in haste. When his first wife died giving birth to Jules some six months later, Lascombe immediately gave his son into the care of a governess, then a series of tutors, and returned to Paris. He paid for his son's education and the upkeep of the family estate, and when Jules came of age settled a fair annual allowance on him, but otherwise paid him no more attention than before.
    Only at the end of his life had Grandpere Lascombe married again, although he had continued to live much the same dissolute life. He dispatched his gentle wife and tiny daughter to live at the Domaine de la Cade with Jules, visiting only when the mood took him. From the pained expression that came over Marguerite's face on the rare occasion the subject of her childhood came up, Léonie understood her mother had been less than happy.
    Grandpere Lascombe and his wife had been killed one night when their carriage overturned. When the will was read, it transpired that Guy had left his entire estate to Jules, with not a sou for his daughter. Marguerite fled instantly north, to Paris where, in the February of 1865, she had met and married Leo Vernier, a radical idealist. Since Jules was a supporter of the ancien regime, there had been no contact between the half-siblings from that point onwards.
Léonie sighed. 'Well, then why is she writing to you again?' she demanded.
     
Marguerite looked down at the letter, as if she could still not quite believe the contents of it.
     
'It is an invitation for you, Leonie, to pay a visit. For some four weeks indeed.'
     
'What!' Léonie shrieked, and all but snatched the letter from her mother's fingers. 'When?' 'Cherie, please.'
     
Léonie paid no attention. 'Does Tante Isolde give an explanation for why she is issuing such an invitation now?'
     
Anatole lit a cigarette. 'Perhaps she wishes to make amends for her late husband's lack of familial duty.'
     
'It is possible,' Marguerite said, 'although there is nothing in the letter to suggest that is the intention behind the invitation.'
     
Anatole laughed. 'It is hardly the manner of thing one would commit to paper.'
    Léonie folded her arms. 'Well, it is quite absurd to imagine that I should accept an invitation to sojourn with an aunt to whom I have never been introduced, and for so prolonged a period. Indeed,' she added belligerently, 'I can think of nothing worse than being buried in the country with some elderly widow talking about the old days.'
    'Oh no, Isolde is quite young,' said Marguerite. 'She was many years Jules' junior, little more than thirty years of age, I believe.' For a moment, silence fell over the breakfast table. 'Well, I shall certainly decline the invitation,' Léonie said in the end.
Marguerite looked across the table at her son. 'Anatole, what would you advise?'
    'I do not wish to go,' said Leonie, even more firmly. Anatole smiled. 'Come now, Leonie, a visit to the mountains? It sounds just the thing. You were telling me only last week how bored you had become of life in town and that you stood in need of a rest.' Léonie looked at him in astonishment. 'I did, yes, but-' 'A change of scenery might