CHAPTER 43
Course after course was brought to the table. Fresh trout, pink and melting from the bone like butter, followed by dainty lamb cutlets served on a bed of late asparagus. The men were poured a strong Corbières, a hearty local red wine from Jules Lascombe’s excellent cellar. For the ladies, a semi-sweet white wine from Tarascon, rich and dark, the colour of singed onion skins.
The air grew hot with conversation and opinion, arguments of faith and politics, of north and south, of country living versus the town. Léonie glanced across at her brother. Anatole was in his element. His brown eyes sparkling, his black hair glistening, she could see how he was charming both Madame Bousquet and Isolde herself. At the same time, she could not fail to notice there were shadows beneath his eyes. And that, in the dancing light of the candles, the scar on his eyebrow looked particularly vivid.
Léonie took some little time to recover from the strong emotions her conversation with Audric Baillard had aroused in her. Little by little, self-consciousness and embarrassment at having revealed herself so openly – and so unexpectedly – began to give way to curiosity that she should have done so. Having recovered her composure, she became impatient for an opportunity to rekindle their conversation. But Monsieur Baillard was deeply engaged in debate with the Curé, Bérenger Saunière. To her other side, Dr Gabignaud seemed determined to fill every moment with talking. Only with the arrival of dessert did the opportunity present itself.
‘Tante Isolde says you are an expert in many matters, Monsieur Baillard. Not only the Albigensians, but Visigoth history, also Egyptian hieroglyphs. On my first evening here, I read your monograph Diables et Esprits Maléfiques et Phantômes de la Montagne. There is a copy here in the library.’
He smiled, and Léonie felt that he, too, was pleased to return to the conversation.
‘I made a gift of it to Jules Lascombe myself.’
‘It must have taken a long time to gather so many stories together in one volume,’ she continued.
‘Not so long,’ he said lightly. ‘It is but a matter of listening to the landscape, to the people who inhabit this land. The stories often recorded as myth or legend, spirits and demons and creatures, are as much woven into the character of the region as the rocks and mountains and lakes.’
‘Of course,’ she said. ‘But do you not also think there are mysteries that cannot be explained?’
‘Oc, Madomaisèla, ieu tanben. I believe that too.’
Léonie’s eyes widened. ‘You speak Occitan?’
‘It is my mother tongue.’
‘You are not French?’
He gave a sharp smile. ‘No, indeed not.’
‘Tante Isolde wishes the servants to speak French within the house, but they lapse into Occitan so frequently that she has given up reprimanding them.’
‘Occitan is the language of these lands. Aude, Ariège, Corbières, Razès – and beyond, into Spain and Piedmont. The language of poetry, of stories and folklore.’
‘So you come from this region then, Monsieur Baillard?’
‘Pas luènh,’ he replied, passing lightly over her enquiry.
The realisation that he might translate for her the words she had seen inscribed above the door to the sepulchre was followed swiftly by the memory of the scratching of claws on the flagstones, like the grating of a trapped animal.
She shivered. ‘But are such stories true, Monsieur Baillard? ’ she asked. ‘Of evil spirits and phantoms and demons. Are they true?’
‘Vertat?’ he repeated, holding her gaze with his pale eyes for a moment longer. ‘True? Who is to say, Madomaisèla? There are those who believe that the veil that separates one dimension from the other is so transparent, so lucent, as to be almost invisible. Others would say that only the laws of science dictate what we may and we may not believe.’ He paused. ‘For my part, I can only tell you that attitudes change over time. What one century holds as fact, another will see as heresy.’
‘Monsieur Baillard,’ Léonie said quickly, ‘when I was reading your book, I found myself wondering if the legends followed the natural landscape. Were the Fauteuil du Diable or the étang du Diable named for stories that were told in these parts, or did the stories grow up as a way of giving character to the place?’
He nodded, and smiled. ‘That is a perceptive question, Madomaisèla.’
Baillard spoke quietly and yet Léonie felt all other sound retreat in the face of his clear, timeless voice. ‘What we call civilisation is merely man’s way of trying to impose his values upon the natural world. Books, music, painting, all these constructed things that have so occupied our fellow guests this evening are but attempts to capture the soul of what we see around us. A way of making sense, of ordering our human experiences into something manageable, contain-able. ’
Léonie stared at him for a moment. ‘But ghosts, Monsieur Baillard, and devils,’ she said slowly. ‘Do you believe in ghosts?’
‘Benleu,’ he said, in his soft and steady voice. Perhaps.
He turned his head to the windows, as if looking for someone beyond, then back to Léonie.
‘This much I will say. Twice before, the devil that haunts this place has been summoned. Twice he has been defeated.’ He glanced to his right. ‘Most recently, with the help of our friend here.’ He paused. ‘I should not wish to live through such times again, unless there was no choice.’
Léonie followed his gaze. ‘Abbé Saunière?’
Baillard gave no indication he had heard her. ‘These mountains, these valleys, these stones – and the spirit that gave life to them – existed long before people came and tried to capture the essence of ancient things with language. It is our fears that are reflected in those names to which you refer.’
Léonie considered what he had said. ‘But I am not sure you have answered my question, Monsieur Baillard.’
He placed his hands upon the table. Léonie could see blue veins and the brown marks of age written upon his white skin. ‘There is a spirit that lives in all things. Here we sit in a house several hundred years old. It is established, one might say, antique by modern human standards. But it stands within a place that is many thousands and thousands of years old. Our influence upon the universe is nothing more than a whisper. Its essential character, its qualities of light and dark, were set millennia before man attempted to make his mark upon the landscape. The ghosts of those who have gone before are all around us, absorbed into the pattern, the music of the world, if you like.’
Léonie felt suddenly feverish. She put her hand to her brow. To her surprise, it felt clammy, cold. The room was spinning, swaying, shifting. The candles, the voices, the blur of servants moving to and fro, everything was blurred around the edges.
She tried to bring her thoughts back to the matter in hand, taking another sip of wine to steady her nerves.
‘Music,’ she said, although her voice sounded as if it came from a long way off. ‘Can you tell me about the music, Monsieur Baillard?’
She saw the expression on his face, and for a moment thought that he had somehow understood the unspoken question behind her words.
Why, when I sleep, when I enter the woods, do I hear music in the wind?
‘Music is an artform that involves organised sounds and silence, Madomaisèla Léonie. We consider it now an entertainment, a diversion, but it is so much more than that. Think instead of knowledge expressed in terms of pitch, that is to say, melody and harmony; in terms of rhythm, that is tempo and metre; and in terms of the quality of sound, timbre, dynamics and texture. Put simply, music is a personal response to vibration.’
She nodded. ‘I have read that it may, in certain situations, provide a link between this world and the next. That a person might pass from one dimension to another. Do you think there could be some veracity in such claims, Monsieur Baillard?’
He met her gaze. ‘There is no pattern the human mind can devise that does not exist already within the bounds of nature,’ he said. ‘Everything we do, see, write, notate, all are an echo of the deep seams of the universe. Music is the invisible world made visible through sound.’
Léonie felt her heart contract. Now they were approaching the core of it. All along, now she knew, she had been moving towards this one moment when she would tell of how she had found the sepulchre concealed with the woods, led there by the promise of arcane secrets laid out within the book. Such a man as Audric Baillard would understand. He would tell her what she wished to know.
Léonie took a deep breath.
‘Are you acquainted with the game of Tarot, Monsieur Baillard?’
The expression on his face did not alter, but his eyes sharpened.
Indeed, almost as if he was expecting such a question.
‘Tell me, Madomaisèla,’ he said at last, ‘is your enquiry related to matters we have been discussing previously? Or separate from it?’
‘Both.’ Léonie felt her cheeks grow hot. ‘Although I ask because . . . because I came upon a book in the library. It was written in a most old-fashioned manner, the words themselves are obscure, and yet there was something . . .’ She paused. ‘I am not certain that I divined the true meaning.’
‘Go on.’
‘This text, which purported to be a real testimony and was . . .’ She stumbled, not certain if she should reveal the authorship of the text. Monsieur Baillard completed the thought for her.
‘Written by your late uncle,’ he said, smiling at the look of surprise she could not conceal. ‘I am aware of the book.’
‘You have read it?’
He nodded.
Léonie breathed a sigh of relief. ‘The author – that is, my uncle – talked of music woven into the fabric of the corporeal world. Certain notes that could, or so he claimed, summon the spirits. And the Tarot cards also were associated with both the music and the place itself, pictures that came to life only during the course of this communication between worlds.’ She paused. ‘A tomb within these grounds was mentioned, and claim of an event that once had taken place here.’ She raised her head. ‘Have you heard stories of such happenings, Monsieur Baillard?’
He met her green gaze with steady eyes. ‘I have.’
Before embarking on the conversation, she had intended perhaps still to conceal the fact of her expedition from him, but under his wise, searching eyes, she found she could not dissemble.
‘I . . . I found it,’ she said. ‘It lies higher up, in the woods to the east.’
Léonie turned her flushed face towards the open windows. She longed, suddenly, to be out of doors, away from the candles, the conversation, the stale air in the overheated room. Then she shivered, as if a shadow had stepped behind her.
‘I know it too,’ he said. He stopped, waited, then added, ‘And I believe there is a question you wish to ask of me?’
Léonie turned her head back to face him. ‘There was an inscription written upon the arch above the door of the sepulchre.’
She recited it as best she could, the unfamiliar words clumsy in her mouth.
‘Aïci lo tems s’en, va res l’Eternitat.’
He smiled. ‘You have a good memory, Madomaisèla.’
‘What does it mean?’
‘It is something of a corruption, but in essence it means: “Here, in this place, time moves away towards eternity.”’
For a moment, their eyes met. Hers glassy and sparkling with blanquette, his steady and calm and wise. Then he smiled. ‘You remind me very much, Madomaisèla Léonie, of a girl I once knew.’
‘What happened to her?’ Léonie asked, momentarily diverted.
He said nothing, but she could see he was remembering. ‘Oh, it is another story,’ he said softly. ‘One that is not yet ready for the telling.’
Léonie saw him withdraw, wrapping his memories around himself. His skin seemed, suddenly, transparent, the lines on his thin face deeper, as if etched in stone.
‘You were telling of how you found the sepulchre,’ he said. ‘Did you enter?’
Léonie’s took her mind back to that afternoon. ‘I did.’
‘So you read the inscription upon the floor: “Fujhi, poudes; Escapa, non.” And now you find the words haunt you?’
Léonie’s eyes widened. ‘Yes, but how could you know? I do not even know their meaning, only that they repeat endlessly in my head.’
He paused, then said: ‘Tell me, Madomaisèla, what do you think you found there? Within the sepulchre?’
‘The place where spirits walk,’ she heard herself say, and knew it to be true.
Baillard was silent for what seemed like an age. ‘You asked me before if I believed in ghosts, Madomaisèla,’ he said eventually. ‘There are many types of ghosts. Those who cannot rest because they have done wrong, who must seek forgiveness or atonement. Also those to whom wrong has been done and who are condemned to walk until they can find an agent of justice to speak their cause.’
He looked at her. ‘Did you look for the cards, Madomaisèla Léonie?’
She nodded, then regretted it, for the action made the room spin. ‘But I did not find them.’
She stopped, feeling suddenly sick. Her stomach was churning, lurching, as if she was on board a boat on a rough sea. ‘All I found was a sheet of music for the piano.’
Her voice sounded muffled, woollen, as if she was speaking from under water.
‘Did you take it from the sepulchre?’
Léonie pictured herself thrusting the music, with the words written upon it, into the deep pocket of her worsted jacket, as she ran down the nave of the sepulchre and out into the twilight of the forest. Then, later, slipping it between the pages of Les Tarots.
‘Yes,’ she said, all but tripping over the word. ‘I did.’
‘Léonie, listen to me. You are steadfast and you are courageous. Forca e vertu, good qualities both when used wisely. You know how to love, and well.’ He glanced across the table to where Anatole sat, then his gaze flickered to Isolde, before returning to Léonie. ‘I fear there are great trials ahead for you. Your love will be tested. You will be called upon to act. The living will be in need of your services, not the dead. Do not return to the sepulchre until – if – it becomes absolutely necessary for you to do so.’
‘But I—’
‘My advice, Madomaisèla, is that you return Les Tarots to the library. Forget all that you read within it. It is, in so many ways, an enchanting book, a seductive book, but for now, you should put the whole matter from your mind.’
‘Monsieur Baillard, I—’
‘You said perhaps you feared you had misunderstood the words in the book.’ He paused. ‘You did not, Léonie. You understood very well.’
She jolted at the unadorned use of her name. ‘So it is true? That the cards can summon the spirits of the dead?’
He did not reply directly. ‘With the correct patterning of sound and image and place, such things might happen.’
Her head was spinning. She wanted to ask a thousand questions, but she could not find the words.
‘Léonie,’ he said, drawing her back to him. ‘Save your strength for the living. For your brother. For his wife and child. It is they who will need you.’
Wife? Child?
Her confidence in Monsieur Baillard momentarily faltered. ‘No, you are mistaken. Anatole has no—’
At that moment Isolde’s voice rang out from the end of the table.
‘Ladies, shall we?’
Immediately, the room was filled with the scrape and slide of the chairs on the polished wooden floors as the guests rose from the table.
Léonie got unsteadily to her feet. The folds of her green dress fell like water to the floor.
‘I do not understand, Monsieur Baillard. I thought I did, but now I find I was mistaken.’ She halted, realising how utterly intoxicated she was. The effort of remaining upright was quite overwhelming suddenly. She put out a hand to steady herself on the back of his chair.
‘And you will heed my advice?’
‘I shall do my best,’ she said, giving a crooked smile. Her thoughts were going round in circles. She could no longer remember which words had been spoken out loud and which only uttered within her muddled head.
‘Ben, ben. Good. I am reassured to hear it. Although …’ He paused again, as if he was undecided whether to speak further. ‘If the time does come when you need the agency of the cards, Madomaisèla, then know this. You may call upon me. And I will help you.’
She nodded, again making the room spin wildly.
‘Monsieur Baillard,’ she said, ‘you did not tell me what the second inscription meant. Upon the floor.’
‘Fujhi, poudes; Escapa, non?’
‘Those words, yes.’
His eyes clouded. ‘Flee, you may; escape, you cannot.’
