Page 1 of Chateau Reverie

Prologue

1790

The death of Claire Marchand occurred on the third day of June in the year 1790, what would be now known as 13 Prairial, according to the calendrier républicain. It happened in a carriage, on the road between Paris and Le Havre, where a ship had been waiting to pull them from the hungry jaws of the Revolution. It happened with a smashed window, a turning handle, and a cruel laugh. It happened the hour after midnight, and it happened quickly. Genevieve always tells herself it happened quickly.

It is in concrete terms that Genevieve must remember Claire’s death: the year, the day, the month, the road. Let these be the language by which tragedy is spoken of, the logical and the certain—without feeling, without regret. Genevieve does not want to remember the darkness of that night and the beauty of the starlight, nor the way Claire was smiling softly as she looked out the carriage window. She does not want to remember Genevieve’s foot in Claire’s lap, the slow circling of fingers around her ankle and the tenderness of her touch. She does not want to remember how Claire read from their English phrase book and stumbled over the word through—how difficult these consonants were, that required tongue to teeth in such unnatural form!—and how the trundle of the carriage wheels was a sort of music: the music of liberty, of ending and beginning.

But she remembers it all, of course. Memory is a stubborn creature. No matter how much one tries to release it, the past clings to you, draws its claws across your skin, and leaves you scarred. Genevieve remembers the moment the carriage stopped; the screams of the coachmen and guards; the shattering of glass; and the hand that reached through the window, lowering to unlatch the carriage door. She remembers how arms pulled them out, and how Claire’s hand felt for Genevieve’s, scrabbling, desperate, as she was flung to the side of the road.

How often she sees the men. Who were they, in truth? Jacobins working for the revolutionary cause? Well-prepared bandits taking advantage of fleeing nobles on the road? She still does not know. How often she hears the question they asked her. How often she hears her own failure to respond, speech fluttering in her throat like a swallow beneath a net.

Whenever she closes her eyes, she sees the crumpled corpse in the amaranth dress, hears the dark laughter of the men. In her sleep she tastes the salt of her tears and the sting of the sobs in her throat, and feels as if she is still running through the dark. The lanterns are following, the men are calling: Come to us, little bird! You are free now!

Now and forever, she remembers the ocean and the emptiness. She remains in the bowels of the ship, and the voice in her head whispers, Alone, alone.

Memory is a stubborn creature. It does not die.

But Claire Marchand died that night.

And Genevieve de Vienne died, too.

One

DEVON, 1795

Genevieve Célestine de Vienne,

Reverie and Sons

Humbly request your attendance at

THE AUCTION OF SECRETS

Upon the first day of Floréal, year III of the Republic

At Château Reverie, the Commune of Saint-Yvanne, Basses-Alpes

Reward beyond your wildest imaginings; your deepest desires fulfilled; for the price of honesty, all but death may be undone.

Should you wish to attend, please inscribe your heart’s desire upon the obverse of this paper and burn it so the ashes fall upon the soil.

The letter comes as letters always do, in ink and upon paper, sealed and pressed. The paper is heavy cream, faintly textured and scented with lilies; the wax seal is a violent red, imprinted with a pattern of intertwined vines. It is addressed to Mademoiselle de Vienne, Brambling House, Devon. Genevieve reads it once, reads it twice, and laughs to herself softly in astonishment. She is sitting upon the swinging bench in the corner of the manor gardens, a waterfall of wisteria shading her from the spring sun. She loves the wildness of these gardens, the ancient trees and the snails that draw glittering lines across their leaves. They are nothing like the repressive gardens of Versailles, where each hedge was trimmed to within a tenth of an inch of another, where the flowers sat in ordered rows like soldiers waiting for a command.

She loves it here, loves all of her grandfather’s manor. Brambling House is her most steadfast friend, dependably simple in its old-fashioned painted walls and bare wood furniture, warm with its blazing hearths and thread-worn rugs. Still, she is not well today. Genevieve did not sleep peacefully—she never sleeps peacefully. The past, that stubborn creature, howls in her head whenever she dreams. She sees carriages and dark nights and broken glass, and she always awakens long before the sun rises. Now, quite suddenly, exhaustion overwhelms her: the letters on the invitation, extravagantly serifed and italicised, blur before her; the floral perfume that has been sprayed upon it overpowers her senses.

What is this invitation? An elaborate sham, or an ill-conceived conversation piece? Before the Revolution, auctions at Court were as much social endeavours as commercial ventures; several-day affairs with entertainments and socialisation, before the inevitable bidding at the event’s end. They were merely an opportunity for everyone to display their extravagant wealth. But such things in France, Genevieve had understood, are now long forgotten since Versailles fell. This letter is the sort of whimsical nonsense that once, as a girl, she witnessed in the corridors of the palace: like posies of lavender said to cure bad dreams, or clockwork birds that twittered when their cogs were wound.

Why should someone bother with such a thing now?

But beyond the foolish message, there seems something bizarre about it, also, some indescribable weight to the lettering, and the simplicity of its instructions. Reward beyond your wildest imaginings; your deepest desires fulfilled.

Before Genevieve had received the letter, she had been reading, practising her English. There is a pencil on the bench beside her for making annotations. A few feet away, sitting at the garden table, her grandfather is puffing on a cigar, staring sightlessly into the distance.

‘Pépé,’ she says.

‘Yes, my dear?’

‘I am coming to use your striker,’ she tells him, and she approaches to take the fire striker from the table. He smiles in her direction and taps the box of cigars on the table in offering. He is a quiet man, considerate, but perfectly charming when it is required—much like his granddaughter. He does not know what she wishes to use the striker for, and she knows he will only laugh if she tells him.