Chapter Six

Eliot knocked softly on the door to his mother’s chambers, his shadow dancing in the flickering light of the corridor lamps. She’d told him she wanted to talk to him alone and had asked him to come after they’d gone to their rooms for the night. Climence being out for the evening meant no risk of any unwanted interruptions.

Curiosity made it impossible to stand still, and he was about to knock again when the door opened.

Jenay, Marcelin’s plump, diminutive maid, stood on the other side, her gap-toothed smile crinkling the skin around her eyes. “Ah, young sir, my lady’s expecting you. Come, come.” Despite her age, Jenay was surprisingly spry, darting ahead of him to lead the way to the inner chamber. “It’s Master Eliot, my lady.”

Marcelin looked up from her seat at the dressing table, a pale blue robe over her gown, the white streaks in her dark hair more prominent when it hung loose. “Any sign of little miss busybody?”

Eliot shook his head. “There was no sound coming from her room when I crept past it,” he said, bringing over the chair by her bed. Settling on it, he reached over and grabbed a misshapen, partially rough wooden bowl off the table. “I wish you’d let me finish this off properly.”

“You say that every time you see it, and my answer is still and always will be, no.”

“But it’s ugly.”

“It’s perfect.”

His fingers traced the roughened wood. “Surely you mean the opposite.”

“I love it as it is,” said Marcelin, taking it from him and carefully replacing it on the table.

Eliot had begun making the bowl with the help of Dacey, Marcelin’s second husband and Lina’s father. But the man had succumbed to a weak heart, like his father and brother before him. Eliot had finished it as best as a nine-year-old could and had given it to Marcelin a few weeks after Dacey’s funeral. “He was good with his hands, wasn’t he?”

“Even as a child, he was always making things.” Marcelin’s fingers rested on a small carving of a bird on a branch, one of many Dacey had made for her, and Eliot and Lina.

Marcelin and Dacey had been childhood friends. He and his family had moved away, but he’d returned around the time Marcelin had married Ruvane, and they’d renewed their friendship. A year and a half after Ruvane’s loss, Dacey had confessed his love to Marcelin, and she’d eventually agreed to marry him mainly for Eliot’s sake.

“There’s something I wanted to tell you,” said Eliot, “I only remembered this evening. The last day of the trade gathering–”

“The day that lout smashed the window in the building?”

He nodded. “When we were saying our farewells to Lord Jarek, he introduced us to someone who said he’d known Father, my father, and I wondered if you knew him. Master Aridai.”

Marcelin’s head jerked back as she gasped.

“You do know him.”

“What did he say?” Her voice shook slightly.

“That they’d worked together and had been friends. Good friends.” He continued to frown. “You do know him?”

She nodded. “We met a few times after I married your father. They worked together, yes, mainly to do with your father’s business. To hear his name again after all this time.” Blinking back tears, she continued, “It caught me by surprise.”

They sat in silence for some moments. Eliot wanted to ask more about Aridai, but his mother’s melancholic expression stopped him. Then he remembered why he was in her chambers. “You wanted to tell me something.”

Startled out of her reverie, she said, “Yes, yes, I did.” Pulling a letter out of the pocket of her robe, she hesitated before handing it to him. “This came for you, it was delivered personally.”

His brow furrowed as he stared at the unfamiliar writing. Taking it, he studied the seal, which was also unfamiliar. Finally, he opened it, his gaze first seeking out the name of the sender – Hugo Lambert. He read it then handed it to Marcelin for shock had robbed him of speech.

‘Master Severin, I pray this letter finds its way to your hands and that you are well. I write to you once again with regards to your father’s business here in Salmarin. There are matters I am duty-bound to discuss with you. As I have had no reply from you, I have no choice but to assume you have either not received my letters or you do not wish to know of your father’s business. Regardless, I will be in Mariosha in a matter of days and will contact you then. Respectfully, Hugo Lambert.’

“Uncle Leighton was right.” Marcelin shot to her feet and began pacing the room. “He suspected Mother, but I didn’t want to believe she’d do such a thing. Yet here is the proof.” She shook the letter at Eliot. “She’s been taking Hugo’s letters.”

“Why?” Eliot couldn’t think of anything else to say.

Marcelin shook her head and kept shaking it as she clearly fought to calm her fury. Breathing deep, she returned to her seat and placed the letter on the table. “I don’t know. I don’t know why she has to be so, oh I don’t know.”

“You know about this, this Master Lambert wanting to talk of Father’s business?”

“Hugo had contacted me a year after your father’s, after Ruvane had passed. He said Ruvane had left instructions about the business. He was always far-sighted, your father,” she said with a wistful smile, “always thinking ahead. Hugo said he would contact me again nearer your sixteenth birthday to go over Ruvane’s plans with us, you and me. I had one letter from him, in reply to mine informing him you’d turned sixteen. I wrote to him again but heard nothing. Until now. Oh, what must he think of me?” She clasped her hands together.

“What must he think of me?” said Eliot, wincing. “He probably thinks I’m some ne’er-do-well who doesn’t even have the decency to acknowledge his letters.” He ran his long fingers through his hair. “I don’t understand. Climence doesn’t like me, she’s always made that plain, yet she keeps these letters from me even though it probably means I’ll leave. Why?”

“Oh, my dear boy.” Tears filled Marcelin’s eyes as she leaned forward and took his hands in hers. “It was so much easier to protect you from her hurtful behaviour when you were younger. It’s not your fault. None of it is to do with you. She’s never forgiven me for marrying Ruvane. She didn’t approve and did her best to keep him from me.” Digging in her pocket, she fished out a handkerchief and dabbed at her eyes.

Eliot didn’t say a word. He had no idea his parents’ path to marital bliss had been difficult. He wanted to know more but didn’t feel comfortable insisting Marcelin tell him.

She swallowed a couple of times, the light from the lamp sparkling off her wet lashes. “Mother didn’t like Ruvane because of his close friendship with tall-folk. I didn’t care. I was ready to give up everything to marry him.” Her voice softened as she looked past Eliot as if seeing something visible only to her. “I never believed in love at first sight, you know, until I met him. So many people present, but they all disappeared, all I saw was him. So tall, skin smooth as velvet, his deep voice so gentle…”

Eliot felt his nose prickle as tears stung his eyes. In this moment, his mother looked more like a young woman again. Then she blinked and she was herself once more.

“It’s thanks to Grandfather that we did marry. He threatened to leave Deverell to me, not Mother, and that made her relent. Her only condition was that we live here, not in Salmarin. If you’ve ever wondered, that is why you have Grandfather’s name,” she finished with a smile.

Sniffing, Eliot wiped away his unexpected tears with his sleeve.

Marcelin laughed. “You still do that, like when you were a child.” Her fingers brushed his hair, traced the curve of his face. “You look so like him,” she whispered. “You walk like him; your laugh is so like his…” She cupped his face in both her hands and pulled him close to kiss his forehead.

He scrunched up his face to stop fresh tears that threatened to fall. “Sometimes, sometimes I feel I’m betraying Father, I don’t think of him that often.”

“Oh, Eliot.”

“When I think of my father, I usually think of Papa Dacey. When Master Aridai said he’d known my father, I thought that’s who he meant. I remember what Papa Dacey looks like, but I’ve forgotten what my own father looked like,” he said softly.

“Then look in the mirror, my dear. For you do look so like him.”

As he smiled back at Marcelin, Eliot couldn’t help but wonder if his resemblance to his father added to Climence’s animosity.