A Winter's Promise

by Christelle Dabos

  “Check,” Berenilde alerted him. The Knight yawned at length and knocked his piece over with the back of his hand. “If Mr. Thorn were my private tutor,” he said in a thick voice, “I’d make a better chess player.”

  “Come now, Knight, I made sure to find you the best private tutor around. Your progress is undeniable, I assure you. And to be honest, I wouldn’t wish my nephew as teacher on any child in the world.”

  The Knight dunked a biscuit into a glass of milk and took a bite, scattering crumbs over his fine velvet trousers. “Forgive me, madam, you’re absolutely right. I’m already grateful for all you do for me.”

  “Are you happy at your uncle’s?”

  “Yes, madam. He’s a little hard of hearing, but I get on splendidly with his dogs.”

  Ophelia found this scene eerie. A few corridors away, men and women were indulging in every excess. The narcotic fumes shrouding the room were starting to get to her, and she had no desire to end up on the divan with Aunt Rosaline. She would have readily coughed to remind Berenilde of her presence, but she was afraid of revealing her true self. She jumped when it was the Knight who raised his bottle-bottom glasses towards her. From eyelid to brow, he bore the Mirage tattoo. “Are you in madam’s service? Do you work at the manor? Do you find my room pretty?”

  Ophelia just blinked foolishly. So the child’s room, it was his? The Knight’s curiosity at least had the merit of getting a reaction from Berenilde, who gave a semblance of stifling a yawn. “Please excuse me, Knight, but it’s getting late. I’ve had my fill of dancing and playing!”

  “Madam,” said the child, politely bowing his head, “we’ll continue our conversation another time, if you like.”

  Ophelia swiftly offered her arm to Berenilde when she noticed her swaying. Her eyes, normally so limpid, had a glassy appearance. She’d drunk and smoked more than she should, which Ophelia deemed entirely unreasonable in her condition.

  “What are you doing like that?” Berenilde asked Archibald. Sitting upside down in his chair, he removed the hookah from his lips and blew out a ribbon of blue smoke. His old top hat had fallen off and his light hair cascaded down to the carpet.

  “I’m contemplating my existence from a different angle,” he declared, seriously.

  “Are you now! And what do you deduce?”

  “That, right way up or wrong way up, it’s totally devoid of meaning. And that this position makes the blood rush to the head,” he added, grinning sardonically. “You’re leaving us already? Would you like me to accompany you?”

  “No, no, carry on with your meditation.”

  Ophelia understood that it was up to her to take control of the situation. With Berenilde putting all of her weight on her shoulder, she supported her firmly across the games room and along the corridors. Fortunately, they soon arrived in front of the lovely golden gate of the lift. “Good evening, madam!” the liftboy called out cheerily while bowing.

  “My room,” ordered Berenilde.

  “Certainly, madam.”

  The liftboy took them up to the top floor of Clairdelune. Ophelia gritted her teeth as they made their way to Archibald’s quarters. Berenilde was leaning heavily on her and her nails were digging into the skin of her shoulder like blades. Her wedding-­­cake wig alone must weigh several kilos.

  They went into the antechamber, where the gramophone was singing to itself, and on to the apartments assigned to Berenilde. The maids had already unpacked the trunks and put everything away. As soon as Ophelia had helped Berenilde to sit down, she started rummaging in the cupboards. Any lady’s boudoir worthy of the name should have smelling salts in it. She ended up coming across a closet in which mineral waters, cod-liver oil, and a collection of little bottles were lined up. She opened one and reclosed it as soon as the pungent smell reached her nose. She’d found it.

  Ophelia nearly spilt the salts on the carpet when Berenilde grabbed her by the wrist. “That child you saw me with,” she said in a hoarse voice, “never go near him, is that clear?”

  The only thing that was clear right now in Ophelia’s eyes was that Aunt Rosaline was alone down below. She pulled back her wrist and Berenilde finally let go.

  Out in the corridor, the lift had already gone down. Ophelia pressed on the call lever; as soon as the gate opened, the liftboy dropped his friendly smile. “Did you call the lift?” Ophelia nodded and went in, but the boy threw her out so roughly, she was winded. “Who do you think you are? A marquis? Bother me once more, half-wit, and I’ll smash your teeth in.”

  Stupefied, Ophelia watched him shut the gate and take his luxurious lift back down. She had to go through the long corridor of bedrooms to return to the maids’ room. Even the service stairway proved contrary: it obliged Ophelia to go down all the steps of each floor, like any ordinary stairway.

  Fortunately, Aunt Rosaline hadn’t moved from her divan, intoxicated by the ambient fumes. The salts that Ophelia slipped under her nose had the effect of a slap. “Stink bomb and dirty socks!” she babbled, pushing the phial away. Ophelia blinked several times to prompt her aunt to be more guarded. If she started swearing like an Animist, their imposture would go up in flames. Rosaline got a grip on herself when she saw Mime’s pale face peering over her, and she cast a disorientated look around the players of tarot and billiards. “Where’s Be . . . madam?”

  Ophelia’s only response was to hold out her hand. They left the place discreetly and, several floors later, arrived at Berenilde’s. She had thrown off her wig and unwound the cable of the telephone handset right up to her bed. “My staff have returned,” she told the person on the line, “are you happy now? This first evening went by without the slightest hitch.”

  Aunt Rosaline, who had just found herself a fan, was waving it with an offended dignity. Apparently, she had a different opinion on the evening she’d just had.

  “I’ll use my key, don’t you worry at all,” continued Berenil­de. “No, I’ll call you. Good bye.” She handed the ivory telephone to Ophelia. “That boy is becoming remarkably thoughtful,” she said to her, not without a touch of sarcasm.

  Ophelia replaced the phone more impatiently than she should have. Your fate is of real concern to me, hey? Great help that was to her! Berenilde and Archibald were as irresponsible as spoilt children, and Thorn knew it. A man who agrees to abandon his own fiancée in such a den of decadents can’t decently claim to care about her.

  “Close the door,” Berenilde requested from her bed. She had undone her chain to give Ophelia the pretty key studded with precious stones that Archibald had given her. At the first click of the lock, a leaden silence fell upon them. In the antechamber, on the other side of the door, the croaking music from the gramophone had abruptly stopped. “Now we can speak freely,” declared Berenilde with an exhausted sigh. “We’ll be safe from the indiscreet as long as that door remains locked.”

  As Ophelia and Aunt Rosaline looked dubiously at each other, Berenilde clicked her tongue with annoyance. As she removed each pin from her hair, the golden curls bounced gracefully onto her shoulder. “The bedrooms at Clairdelune are the most secure in the Pole, ladies. Each turn of the key places us at one remove from the world. It’s a little as though we were no longer really there, do you understand? You could shout yourself hoarse, and you wouldn’t be heard in the adjoining room, even if an ear were stuck to the door.”

  “I’m not sure I find that so reassuring,” hissed Aunt Rosaline.

  “We’ll only lock ourselves in while we’re resting,” Berenilde assured her, wearily. “And for pity’s sake, lower that light!”

  On those words, she buried her head in her pillow and massaged her temples with a pained expression. The wig had mussed her lovely hair, and her skin, usually so silky, was as wan as a candle. And yet Ophelia had to admit that fatigue made her beauty even more affecting.

  Aunt Rosaline lowered the room’s lighting and shuddered when h
er eyes crossed Mime’s unfamiliar ones. “I can’t get used to that grotesque disguise! Can’t you take it off, just while we’re together?”

  “Better not,” said Berenilde. “Ophelia won’t be sleeping with us—only lady’s companions and nannies are allowed to share their mistress’s privacy.”

  Aunt Rosaline’s naturally jaundiced complexion turned waxen. “And so where will she go? It’s my goddaughter that I’m supposed to be watching over, not you!”

  “I already have a bedroom linked to yours,” Ophelia hastened to reassure her, showing her the key. “I won’t be far away.” Deep down, she hoped her aunt would never set foot in Baths Road.

  “Where’s Mother?” asked Berenilde with concern, having suddenly noticed her absence.

  “In the library,” said Ophelia. “She didn’t seem to be having too boring a time.” She said nothing of the licentious stories she’d seen her enjoying with the other ladies of her age.

  “You must go and fetch her soon, dear girl. In the meantime, make us some tea.”

  Berenilde’s apartments included a small kitchen. While Aunt Rosaline put a cast-iron kettle on the gas ring, Ophelia prepared the cups. She broke only one. “Why mustn’t I go near the Knight?” she asked, while looking for the sugar bowl in the pantry. Prostrate on her bed, Berenilde mopped her brow with her lace handkerchief. She would have been lucky not to feel ill after all she’d drunk and inhaled that night.

  “Neither you nor Madam Rosaline must,” she sighed. “He’s a redoubtable illusionist. You would be the loser in his game, my dear.”

  “And yet together you made a charming picture,” said Ophelia with surprise, as she now gathered up the sugar cubes she’d scattered on the floor.

  “A different battle was going on behind our innocent game of chess. That child tries to catch me in the trap of his imagination and I exhaust myself eluding him! He’d be quite capable of toying with you simply because you’re part of my retinue.”

  “Toying with us?” queried the aunt, frowning.

  Berenilde turned her head on the pillow to give her a mocking smile. “Are you familiar with hypnosis, Madam Rosaline? It’s like dreaming while remaining awake,” she said, rolling each “r.” “Except that dream is forcibly imposed upon you.”

  “What a little horror! Back home, kids aren’t always angels, I’ll admit, but their most reprehensible pastime consists of ringing a doorbell and then bolting like rabbits.”

  As she listened, Berenilde let out a laugh so devoid of joy, it sent shivers down Ophelia’s spine. “But what’s he got against you?” she insisted. “To me, you seemed pretty kind to him.”

  Berenilde slipped her shoes off with her toe and contemplated the canvas sky above her bed. “I’m indebted to him. It’s an old story, I’ll tell you about it some other time.”

  The whistling of the kettle filled the silence that ensued. Aunt Rosaline served the tea, her lips tight as a clothes peg, but Berenilde pushed her cup away with a grimace of disgust. “My dear Ophelia, could you bring me my cigarette case, my lighter, and a little brandy, please?”

  “No.”

  Berenilde sat up on her pillow and Aunt Rosaline spilt her tea. As incredulous as each other, they stared at the little man planted in the middle of the carpet, sugar bowl in hand.

  “I don’t think I quite understood you,” Berenilde said, in a falsely sweet tone.

  “No,” Ophelia repeated, calmly. “Forgive my candor, but I can smell your breath from where I stand. Can’t you see what you’re putting yourself through, you and your baby? If you’re incapable of being reasonable, I will be, in your place.”

  Aunt Rosaline’s horsey teeth revealed themselves, just long enough for a fleeting smile. “She’s right, a woman of your age should be particularly careful.”

  Aghast, Berenilde arched her brows and crossed her hands over her stomach. “Of my age?” she stammered in a flat voice. “How dare you?” Too weary to show her anger, she instantly let her head fall back on the pillow in a cascade of blond curls. “It’s true that I feel a bit weird. I fear I’ve been unwise.”

  “I’m going to get you some nightclothes,” Aunt Rosaline declared, drily.

  Lying on her bed, lost in her beautiful crumpled dress, Berenilde suddenly seemed so vulnerable that Ophelia softened, despite herself. I should hate this woman, she thought. She’s capricious, narcissistic, and calculating. So why can’t I stop myself from worrying about her?

  Ophelia pulled a chair over to the bed and sat down. She’d just understood that that would doubtless be her true role here: protecting Berenilde from her enemies, from her family . . . and from herself, too.

  The Library

  The weeks that followed were the strangest that Ophelia had ever lived through. Not a day went by—or rather, “a night,” since there was no daylight at Clairdelune—without Archibald having the urge to organize a costumed ball, a grand banquet, an improvised play, or some other eccentric pastime of his own invention. Berenilde made it a point of honor to attend every event. She made conversation, smiled, embroidered, played, danced, and, back in the privacy of her room, passed out with exhaustion. These episodes of weakness didn’t last long; Berenilde was keen to show herself once again in public, more radiant than ever.

  “At the court, it’s survival of the fittest,” she would repeat to Ophelia at the rare moments they were alone. “Reveal a sign of weakness in front of others, and tomorrow, all the newspapers will talk only of your decline.”

  This was all fine, but Ophelia now had to live at the same rhythm as her. Every room in Clairdelune had its own “service clock,” that little device on which one only had to move the hands to the right room, in the sleeping quarters, to call one’s valet from anywhere at all in the castle. The 6, Baths Road bell board rang out at all hours, allowing Ophelia no rest, to such an extent that once, she found herself falling asleep while serving the tea.

  Satisfying Berenilde was exhausting. She demanded blocks of ice, ginger biscuits, menthol tobacco, a footrest at the right height, cushions not filled with feathers, and then it was up to Ophelia to track down what was required. She suspected Berenilde of taking advantage of the situation, but her aunt’s fate, forced into the passivity of a lady’s companion, didn’t appeal, either.

  Indeed, sometimes, Archibald ordered long sessions of idleness. His guests then had to remain seated doing nothing other than smoking. Those who read or chatted quietly to keep boredom at bay during these sessions were very badly thought of. Ophelia would have been eternally grateful for them if she hadn’t been obliged to remain beside Berenilde, standing around in the opium fumes.

  However, the hardest problem for Ophelia to resolve was that of the lavatories. As a valet, she didn’t have access to the conveniences for women. As for those for men, they were cruelly lacking in privacy. Ophelia had to look out for occasions when no one was around, and they were rare.

  The upkeep of her personal effects wasn’t an easy task, either. Ophelia could take her shirts, handkerchiefs, trousers, and stockings to the laundry, but she didn’t have a spare livery. And without a livery, she was no longer Mime. So she had to wash it all herself, in the basin in her room, and put it on before it was dry. She so frequently had a cold that Fox himself ended up sympathizing with her. “What a pity they palmed such a damp corner off on you, kid!” he sighed when he saw Ophelia blowing her nose mid-service. “Give me an extra sandglass and I’ll arrange for Gail to link you up to the main stove.”

  Easy to say. Since Ophelia had been working for Berenilde, she hadn’t obtained a single break. One had to recognize that by continually breaking Archibald’s earthenware dishes, she couldn’t really hope for any favorable treatment. Fortunately, in Thorn’s grandmother, she had found a precious ally; it was she who had given her her very first green sandglass, to thank her for bringing her a shawl. When Ophelia was looking for a snuffbox she bumped into
Fox, who was himself off to serve a herbal tea to Lady Clothilde. She took the opportunity to pass him her gratuity.

  “Congratulations, sonny!” he crowed, instantly pocketing it. “Promises are made to be kept, so I’m going to teach you your first lesson.” With his eyes he discreetly indicated the policemen posted in the corridor. “Those gentlemen aren’t there just to look good,” he whispered very quietly. “They assure the safety of the family and the guests. Each one possesses a white sandglass—a one-way ticket to the dungeons! Lose your key just once, do the slightest untoward action, my lad, and they’ll pitch into you.”

  That same day, Ophelia got herself a chain so she’d always have her key around her neck. She was checked every morning; she no longer wanted to take any risk.

  All things considered, these measures were understandable. Archibald offered sanctuary to nobles who feared for their lives, prominent ministers, envied favorites. Indeed, Ophelia realized that no one here really liked anyone else. The Mirages disliked Berenilde’s presence among them, but they also distrusted Archibald and his sisters, in whose hands they had placed their lives. There was plenty of smiling, but looks were equivocal, utterances ambiguous, and the atmosphere was toxic. No one trusted anyone, and if all these people drowned their sorrows with parties, it was to forget how scared they all were of each other.

  The one among them who disturbed Ophelia the most was the little Knight. He was so young, so polite, so gauche behind his thick glasses that he gave the impression of being innocence itself. And yet he made everyone feel uncomfortable, in particular Berenilde, whose company he fervently sought. She conversed with him without ever looking him in the eye.

  Ophelia soon discovered some new faces at Clairdelune. Many courtiers and officials came and went as though they were just passing through. Ophelia would see them hurrying into lifts that were under close surveillance, in the central gallery of the castle. They would only come back down a few days later; some never returned.