by Kate Mosse
Hal had sold the Domaine de la Cade in March 2008. There was no money in the business, only debts. He had settled his ghosts. He was ready to move on. But he had stayed in touch with Shelagh O’Donnell, who now lived in Quillan, and she told them that an English couple, with two teenage children, had taken over and had successfully transformed the business into one of the leading family hotels in the Midi.
‘So, ladies and gentlemen, please put your hands together for Ms Meredith Martin.’
There was an explosion of riotous clapping, not least, Meredith suspected, because Mark had finally finished talking.
She took a deep breath, composed herself, and stood up.
‘Thank you for that generous introduction, Mark,’ she said, ‘and it’s great to be here. The genesis of this book, as some of you know, comes from a trip I made while I was working on my biography of Debussy. My research took me to a delightful town in the Pyrenees called Rennes-les-Bains, and, from there, into an investigation of my own family background. This memoir is my attempt to lay the ghosts of the past to rest.’ She paused. ‘The heroine of the book, if you like, is a woman called Léonie Vernier. Without her, I wouldn’t be here today.’ She smiled. ‘But the book is dedicated to Mary, my mother. Like Léonie, she’s one amazing lady.’
Meredith saw Hal hand Mary, who was sitting between him and Bill in the front row, a tissue.
‘It was Mary who introduced music into my life. It was she who encouraged me to keep asking questions and to never close my mind to any possibility. It was she who taught me to always stick with it, however hard things got. Most important,’ she grinned, lightening the tone a little, ‘and especially appropriate tonight, I guess, it was Mary who showed me how to make the best pumpkin Hallowe’en lanterns ever!’
The gathering of family and friends laughed.
Meredith waited, now excited as well as nervous, until silence fell over the room once more. She lifted the book and began to read.
This story begins in a city of bones. In the alleyways of the dead. In the silent boulevards and promenades and impasses of the Cimetière de Montmartre in Paris, a place inhabited by tombs and stone angels and the loitering ghosts of those forgotten before they are even cold in their graves.
As her words floated out over the audience, becoming part of the mass of stories to be told that Hallowe’en night, the comfortable sounds of the old building were Meredith’s accompaniment. Chairs creaking on the wooden floorboards, the spluttering of the old water pipes in the roof, the blare of horns from cars in the street outside, the coffee percolator wheezing in the corner. From the bar next door, the strains of a piano coming through the walls. Black and white notes winding through the skirting, the floorboards, the hidden spaces between floor and ceiling.
Meredith slowed down as she came to the end of her reading.
For in truth, this story begins not with the absence of bones in a Parisian graveyard, but with the deck of cards.
With the Vernier Tarot.
There was a moment of silence, and then the applause began.
Meredith realised she’d been half holding her breath, and exhaled with relief. As she looked out at her friends, her family, her colleagues, for a fraction of a second, there in the shifting of the light, she imagined she saw a girl with long copper hair and bright green eyes, standing at the back of the room, smiling.
Meredith smiled back. But when she looked again, there was no one there.
She thought of all the ghosts that touched her life. Marguerite Vernier in the Cimitière de Passy. Of the cemetery in Milwaukee, close to the point where the three rivers met, where her great-grandfather Louis-Anatole Vernier - soldier of France, citizen of America - had been laid to rest. Of Louisa Martin, pianist, her ashes scattered to the winds. Her birth mother, buried on the shores where the sun set over Lake Michigan. But most of all, she thought of Léonie, sleeping peacefully in the ground of the Domaine de la Cade.
Air, water, fire, earth.
‘Thank you,’ Meredith said, as the applause died down. ‘And thank you all very much for coming.’
AUTHOR’S NOTE ON THE VERNIER TAROT
The Vernier Tarot is an imaginary deck, designed for Sepulchre, painted by artist Finn Campbell-Notman and based on the classic Rider Waite deck (1910).
Experts cannot agree on the antique origins of the Tarot - Persia, China, Ancient Egypt, Turkey, India - all have claims. But the format of the cards we associate now with Tarot is usually accepted to date from mid-fifteenth century Italy. There are hundreds of decks - and more come on to the market every year. The most popular continue to be the Marseille Tarot, with its distinctive bright yellow, blue and red illustrations, and the narrative Universal Waite deck, devised in 1916 by the English occultist Arthur Edward Waite and with illustrations by the American artist Pamela Colman Smith. The deck used by Solitaire in the James Bond film Live and Let Die, painted by the artist Fergus Hall, drew strongly from the Universal Waite Tarot.
For those wishing to find out more about Tarot, there are plenty of books and websites. The best all-round guide is Rachel Pollack’s The Complete Illustrated Guide to Tarot, published by Element (1999).
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I have been extremely fortunate to have the support, advice, and practical help of so many people during the course of writing Sepulchre. It goes without saying that any mistakes, in fact or interpretation, are mine.
My agent Mark Lucas continues to be not only a superb editor and a good friend, but also the purveyor of multicoloured Post-it notes - this time, red! Thanks, too, to everyone at LAW for their hard work and support, especially Alice Saunders, Lucinda Bettridge and Petra Lewis. Also, Nicki Kennedy for her enthusiasm, Sam Edenborough and the team at ILA; and Catherine Eccles, friend and fellow Carcassonnais, at Anne Louise Fisher.
In the UK, I’m lucky to be published by Orion. It all started with Malcolm Edwards and the incomparable Susan Lamb. With Sepulchre, publisher Jon Wood (super-energetic), editor Genevieve Pegg (super-efficient and calm) and copy-editor Jane Selley have worked tirelessly and made the whole process, from start to finish, huge fun! Also, thank you to the often unsung heroes and heroines in production, sales, marketing, publicity and beyond - in particular Gaby Young, Mark Rusher, Dallas Manderson, Jo Carpenter and everyone at LBS.
In the US, I’d like to thank George Lucas and my wonderful editor at Putnam, Rachel Kahan. Also, at Droemer in Germany, Annette Weber; at Lattès in France, Phillipe Dorey and Isabelle Laffont.
A special thank you to author and composer, Greg Nunes, who helped with the Fibonnaci passages and who composed the beautiful piece of music, Sepulchre 1891, which appears in the book and on the audio version. I’m also very grateful to Finn Campbell-Notman and the art department at Orion for the eight Vernier Tarot cards.
My gratitude to Tarot readers and enthusiasts on both sides of the Atlantic, who were generous with their advice, suggestions and experiences - I would especially like to thank Sue, Louise, Estelle and Paul; Mysteries in Covent Garden; Ruby (aka the novelist Jill Dawson) for doing a reading for Meredith; as well as those who prefer to remain anonymous.
In France, thanks to Martine Rouche and Claudine l’Hôte-Azema in Mirepoix; to Régine Foucher in Rennes-les-Bains; to Michelle and Roland Hill for giving me sight of the diary; to Madame Breithaupt and her team in Carcassonne; and to Pierre Sanchez and Chantal Billautou for all the practical help over the past eighteen years.
A huge thank you to friends, especially Robert Dye, Lucinda Montefiore, Kate and Bob Hingston, Peter Clay-ton, Sarah Mansell, Tim Bouquet, Cath and Pat O’Hanlon, Bob and Maria Pulley, Paul Arnott, Lydia Conway, Amanda Ross, Tessa Ross, Kamila Shamsie and Rachel Holmes. Special mention must go to the Rennes-les-Bains research gang of Maria Rejt, Jon Evans and Richard Bridges, all of whom have spent more time than they might have wanted at that pizzeria!
Most of all, my love and gratitude to my family, most particularly my fabulous parents, Richard and Barbara Mosse, and my mo
ther-in-law, Rosie Turner, who keeps everything on track.
Our daughter, Martha, is always happy and enthusiastic, upbeat and supportive, never doubting the book would get finished. Felix spent months and months walking the Sussex Downs, brainstorming ideas, making plot suggestions, offering editorial insights and ideas - without his input, Sepulchre would be a very different book.
Finally, as always, Greg. His love and faith, providing everything from editorial and practical advice to all that backing up of files and food night after night, makes all the difference to everything. As it always has.
Pas à pas . . . every step of the way.
