The Adventuress (14 page)

Amity slouched elegantly in her chair and threw her hands in the air. “There is a capital way to bring a party to a crashing end.”

“Amity.” Jeremy took her hand. His eyes were pained. “Please—”

“I will not apologize, my love,” she said, pulling her hand away. “I am tired of tiptoeing around the very idea of Mr. Neville. He proved himself nothing more than a selfish coward who did everything in his power to take away our happiness. I am sorry for all of you who grieve his loss, but we ought to remember that he chose his course of action with deliberate calculation.

“Mr. Neville may have had no choice at all,” I said, aghast. “His—”

“I am afraid, Emily, that I am going to have to insist that this be the end of the matter,” Amity said. “Enough death, enough jealousy, enough of every negative thing. We are here to celebrate, and if you find yourself unable to do so, then I am heartily sorry. Do not think me cruel, but I cannot bear to see Jeremy suffer any more than he already has.”

“I understand,” I said, doing my best to convince myself that she had not intended to be rude. Her enthusiasm was not always appropriate, but that did not render it deliberately malicious. “Do please forgive me.”

“I do not mean to scold, Emily,” she said. “Only to drag us all—even if it should require kicking and screaming—out of these morose shadows and back into the sunshine.” The sentiment was a noble one, worthy of an Englishman, and I could hardly fault her for voicing it.

A waiter, who now appeared bearing a heavy tray of drinks, could not have better timed his arrival. Margaret made a rousing toast to Mr. Neville, saying that from this moment onward, we would remember only happy things about him, and the mood was restored to its earlier jubilation. After she spoke, Augustus turned slowly and watched me with the same unblinking stare he had unleashed on me that afternoon. I was not the only once to notice.

“He knows something, doesn't he?” Mr. Fairchild asked, pulling me aside when I had got up from my seat to move so that I might better talk to my husband.

“Whatever do you mean?”

“Augustus,” he said, frowning. “He knows more about Neville's death than he is letting on. Did you speak of it with him today?”

“No. The subject only rose when we broached it just now,” I said.

“I am surprised by Amity's words. I thought her fondness for Neville ran rather deeper than it appears it did,” he said.

“I do not believe she meant to disparage him, only to remind us that we ought to live in the present and focus on positive things.”

“Perhaps all the sobbing she did at the funeral cleansed her of her grief.” Mr. Fairchild's lips were drawn in a tight line. “It may not be so easy for the rest of us.”

*   *   *

Margaret could never be accused of failing to follow through on her ideas. The next morning, she sent members of the hotel staff to bang on all of our doors before the sun had risen. In order to cushion the blow, she asked them also to bring breakfast, a gesture that we all appreciated, but that did not eliminate yawns and sleepy faces when we met in the hotel lobby. There were carriages just outside, waiting to take us to the Quai Laubeuf, from whence the ferries to the nearby Îles de Lérins departed. On Saint-Honorat stood a medieval monastery, and it was this island to which Jeremy had attempted to swim. Our destination, however, was Saint-Honorat's sister island, Sainte-Marguerite, home of Fort Royal.

Only twenty minutes from Cannes, Sainte-Marguerite had for centuries served as the favored location for ships to dock when their passengers and crew planned to go to the mainland. The Romans had used it as a military installation, taking advantage of the natural defenses formed by its steep, rocky cliffs, and I ached to see what archaeologists might discover should they ever excavate the site. In the seventeenth century, the infamous Cardinal Richelieu decided to construct a fort on the island. By the end of that century, part of that fort was being used as a prison, and it was here that the mysterious Man in the Iron Mask, made famous by Alexandre Dumas's novel of the same name, was incarcerated.

The Man in the Iron Mask was not the only notorious prisoner held in the fort. Twenty-odd years ago, Marshal Bazaine, former commander of the French army, escaped from his own cell after being sentenced to death for treason. Margaret assured us we would face no criminals during our visit, violent or otherwise. The prison was little used now, and those convicts it did hold were in a separate section of the building from the Man in the Iron Mask's cell.

We stepped off the boat onto the island's small dock and followed a narrow path along the coast, gradually making our way uphill as we passed the stone houses of the few civilians who lived on the island. Many of them operated businesses that catered to the fort's soldiers, and we saw more than one welcoming café. I was particularly taken with the almost medieval scene of a group of women washing their laundry at a public well, where the water had been directed to flow through multiple stone troughs worn smooth by years of repeated use. The women sang and gossiped as they scrubbed their coarse clothing against the sides of the rock; I could easily imagine the scene having been repeated with little change over many previous centuries.

Lush vegetation lined both sides of the cobbled path once we had gone beyond the little village, and its incline increased. Colin offered his arm to Cécile, whose face had grown red with exertion. Amity and Margaret were skipping, arm in arm, as if they were schoolgirls.

“Don't you adore her?” Jeremy asked, slipping his arm through mine. “She has such a passion for life.”

“She does indeed.”

“I do so want the two of you to be friends,” he said.

“How could I not befriend the only girl who has ever managed to capture your heart?” I asked.

“Other than yourself,” he said, winking. The gesture warmed my heart, as it had been so long since he had acted that way, but even as I relished the feeling, it reminded me that I must be careful not to flirt back lest Amity read more into our behavior than the well-worn habits of old friends.

As we walked past spots where the plants lining the path thinned, I could see bits of old brick, Roman from the look of them, narrow and long. It was as if the island had swallowed up abandoned buildings, revealing their crumbling remains to remind us that we, too, were only temporary guests. This was my first inkling that there was something sinister about the island. In any other setting, the path would have made for a pleasant garden stroll, but here, history and war and violence and crime converged. I increased my pace and soon realized I was all but dragging Jeremy alongside me.

When the tall, grey walls of the fort were nearly in front of us, the path opened to become wide stairs, its incline too steep to be managed efficiently in any other way. After we passed the ravelin, separate from the main part of the fort, and often the first line of defense, we approached the Royal Gate, where a smartly uniformed guard snapped to attention and nodded to us as we walked through. He was used to tourists.

Inside the walls stood what looked, for all practical purposes, like a town. There was a church with a large clock on its tower, and rows of stone buildings that in other circumstances would have housed shops and living quarters. Here they were barracks, and despite the cheerful green hue of their shutters, I found them ominous. In a way, the fort was charming, but at the same time a desolate sense of isolation permeated it, chilling me to the bone. Even the sounds of soldiers marching and the barked commands of their officers got lost in the sound of the wind whipping off the ocean below.

“Madame Michaels, I have been expecting you,” a young officer said, greeting Margaret with a bow. “I am eager to give you a tour of this fascinating place. Do please come with me.” We followed him, first to the chapel, which was typical of its sort, a simple, functional space that would amply serve its purpose. From there, we continued up the stairs that went past its door, and onto a grassy hill that led directly to the top of the parapets. The view was incomparable, and if one directed one's focus strictly to the Mediterranean and the coast of the Riviera stretching far to the east and the west, one would be swept away by sublime beauty. The water sparkled and the buildings looked as if they were stacked like children's blocks up steep cliffs. But if one were to turn, even slightly, so that the battlements and the barracks and the prison came into view, the earth seemed to split between the gentle and the evil.

Most likely, these feelings consumed me because I knew too well the legend of the prisoner in the Iron Mask, but my soul grew uneasy on Sainte-Marguerite. For thirty-four years, that anonymous man languished here in his cell, with his guards ordered to shoot him dead should he dare remove his mask. No wonder, then, that he inspired so many stories, so many theories as to his identity, none of which ever could be proved true.

“The building just below us is used to store explosives,” our young guide explained. “You see it is built lower than where we stand, almost dug into the hill, so that should there be any sort of unfortunate accident, the damage would be minimized.”

“Happy thought,” Amity whispered to me. “Are you enjoying yourself?”

“I am, thank you,” I said, “although I must confess that there is … something terrifying about this place.”

“I could not agree more,” she said. “I feel as if evil lurks here. Do not laugh at me, Emily, I forbid it.”

“I shouldn't dream of laughing,” I said. “The same thought occurred to me.”

“If the two of us came to it separately, it must have some merit to it,” Amity said, slipping her arm through mine. “Do you think the Romans sacrificed virgins here?”

“The Romans did not sacrifice virgins,” I said. “Animals, however were a different matter.”

“Either way, it is deliciously creepy, but at the same time truly frightening,” Amity said. “I am disappointed about the virgins, though.”

“If you will continue this way, please,” the officer said, waving us down from the walls, back around the chapel, and into the midst of the barracks. “This, as is obvious, is where my fellow soldiers and I live while we serve here. Not of any interest, I assure you. Barracks do not provide much beyond the most basic of comforts, and although they are fitting for soldiers, they would be shocking to ladies. Through here, you can just see the terrace on which Marshal Bazaine paced while he was a prisoner. I shall delay no longer in bringing you to what you came for. Onward to the prison.”

We crossed through a large, dusty parade ground, on the far side of which an imposing building stood, its back abutting the fort's wall. A round tower faced inward, and I wondered if it was within its confines that the Man in the Iron Mask had languished. The officer led us into the building, chatting congenially with the guards at the entrance, and motioned for us to follow him into a wide, dimly lit corridor.

“This is the cell in question,” he said, pointing to one in a row of heavy wooden doors studded with metal. “You may visit at your leisure. I shall wait for you without.”

Christabel and Jack reached the door first. She poked her head in, squealed, and pulled it out. “I have no interest in going in all the way,” she said. “It is entirely too awful for my tastes. I shall not photograph it.” Jack, gallant gentleman that he is, accompanied her back outside, though not before he took a quick look into the cell. Augustus, whose expression communicated nothing but boredom and disdain, followed soon thereafter. Mr. Fairchild and Margaret were thick as thieves, pacing the room in an attempt to measure it.

“It is much bigger than I would have expected,” Margaret said. “It must be at least fourteen feet across. And a window! Did you expect such a window?”

There was a quite large window on one side of the fireplace—yes, the cell contained a fireplace—but three sets of sturdy metal bars, one flush with the cell's wall, one another foot beyond the first, and the last on the far end of the deep windowsill, a good four feet from the wall, ensured that its presence would offer no hope for escape. A toilet was installed on the other side of the fireplace, sunk into the wall by a foot or more. Square terra-cotta tiles covered the floor, and I wondered if the fire would be adequate for keeping away the chill in the damp winter.

Not that comfort was the goal of such a room. The prisoners here were allowed basic furnishings, and the officer, who had peeked back in to see how we were getting along, told us that the Man in the Iron Mask had tapestries and rugs. On the wall opposite the fireplace, someone had painted an elaborate mural, that, despite its state of disrepair, seemed to me an attempt at the sort of decoration one might have found in a Roman villa. Urns and garlands and figures that were now too decayed to recognize filled the space above the door. I wondered if a prisoner had painted them, but our guide did not know.

“Much more pleasant than a townhouse in London at the height of the season,” Jeremy said. “I think I shall inquire as to the possibility of taking up temporary residence here.”

“I can assure you your future wife would object in the most strenuous terms,” I said.

“Emily is too right,” Amity said. “I do believe I am going to rely on you as an ally, Emily. Between the two of us, we might be able to civilize him.”

“Only if you use an extremely liberal definition of the word civilize,” I said, sending Amity into a gale of lovely laughter. As the sound echoed in the chamber which, though large for a prison, was still, to my mind, claustrophobic, I began to feel once again that sense of evil that permeated Sainte-Marguerite.

Cécile appeared to share my feeling. “I do not like it,” she said. “To hold a man here, for all those years, keeping his identity secret. I cannot stand to spend another moment in the confines of these walls.” Colin looked to Mr. Fairchild, I suppose hoping that he would offer to escort her out, but his friend was so taken with looking out the window that he showed no sign of having heard Cécile, so my husband ushered her from the space. Jeremy and Margaret followed them.