by Jane M. R.
The parlour maid returns. “Follow me, Mr. Frondaren.”
I follow last into the parlour, the room clustered with flowers and more candles and enough perfume that I start to feel dizzy. Mother embraces her sister-in-law, both women sobbing silently onto the others’ shoulder. It is a similar sight the two women exchanged after the death of my uncle eight years ago, though with more sobbing. Perhaps Aunt Magara had already sobbed out her heart when her husband died.
A wicker basket across the room holds Durain’s body. I refuse to look at it, standing by the door as my parents go over to the seventeen-year-old boy who died of a heart attack.
A heart attack. At seventeen.
There is this odd sort of hope that he had just fallen into a coma like reports had witnesses before, leaving his body in the parlour to be guarded over day and night to see if he would wake up. But he has still yet to do so. And never will. The hearse parked outside will carry him away.
My step-grandmother on my mother’s side and my grandfather sit next to the wicker basket. My biological grandmother died before I was born. Living in the small hamlet of Valemorren, the residents have been able to avoid most of the deaths that happen too often in the bigger cities of England: Cholera, typhoid, and the like are not biased against gender or age, except they like the taste of young ones best.
Which is odder still, because my grandmother, uncle, and cousin died of none of those.
A gold frame portrait draped in black cloth on the papered walls of the parlour beckon my attention. It is the daguerreotype of when my uncle died. My mother wanted a copy along with Aunt Magara, so after an agonizing twenty minutes of standing absolutely still, a copy now hangs in the foyer in my house too.
They had propped my uncle up in a chair to make him look alive with Aunt Magara sitting next to him, Durain over her right shoulder, Andlas on her left, and the extended family clustered at both ends. It was to immortalize Uncle Scottlen but that picture, for me, would immortalize Durain instead who is still alive in it.
I remain by the door because at this spot I still can’t see Durain’s body. Maybe he is still alive somewhere, after all.
After more embraces and tears and condolences to Aunt Magara and cousin Andlas, everyone gathers on the veranda while the wicker casket is carried out of the house feet first and laid into the heavy black casket on the ground behind the hearse. A gold inscription plate on the coffin winks sunlight – why is the sun still shining? – into my eyes, begging my attention. But I don’t need to look. I know what it says. Durain Ivan Ishnar, 1825–1842. Died 21 April. Heart attack.
The pallbearers pick up the coffin and insert it into the back of the hearse. I only move because my father pulls on my sleeve and we walk across the grass toward our coach.
“Miss Frondaren?”
I look up. And stop. My mother and father stop, too. Somehow the shock replaces my grief for a brief moment.
“Mr. Whaerin?” I manage without losing my breath to disbelief. Jaicom Whaerin?
My father stutters as he speaks. “M – Mr. Whaerin,” he echoes. “So… so nice to see you?” My father tries to word it as a casual greeting but the hint of a question at the end is undeniable.
The blond haired young man of eighteen standing in the grass tips his black pin-striped fedora at me. I’ve only seen – never spoken to – Jaicom a handful of times when social gatherings have forced our near-equaled status together, though enough details from my father who has his eye out for marriageable young men testifies that Jaicom is on his way to taking over the family’s three hundred something year old lumber business and will be the wealthiest man in Valemorren.
And he has just addresses me.
His blue eyes connect. “Miss Frondaren,” he says and I flinch. He’s never spoken to me before and for him to come unannounced and uninvited to Aunt Magara’s house lacks so much etiquette for me to be flattered. Maybe certain etiquettes are ignored if you are the richest family in Valemorren. I notice how his eyes flick to the coach bearing Durain’s body before coming back to mine.
“Hello,” I reply, hesitant.
“I was wondering if I could give you a ride to the parish?”
Silence fills me. Jaicom’s eyes slide over to my father. “If that is alright, Mr. Frondaren?”
A brief pause. This is the very reason Queen Victoria had chosen to have women tied into their dresses, so a male and female could be alone together without being accused of the unrighteous. It is still bold, however, to ask a female to accompany a man without a chaperone. Not forbidden, just… a much deeper step into a courtship that hadn’t even begun.
My father recovers from the shock quicker than my mother and I. “Of course.”
Jaicom looks back at me. “If you would like to, that is.”
“Nod,” my mother whispers next to me. I do so, unable to come up with ideas on my own at the moment. Females being forbidden to follow the corpse to the parish, mother and I were going to ride in Andlas’s coach. But that was soon to be adjusted so I could ride in the coach with the richest bachelor in Valemorren.
I move as if another force is in control of my limbs and Jaicom leads me to his coach; the two black horses pawing at the gravel, froth gathered under their harness. Did Jaicom run them here?
Jaicom opens the door to his coach and I step inside. He follows directly behind and sits opposite. As remarkable as it is that Jaicom Whaerin is escorting me alone, the oddity still cannot come close to the grief swallowing every inch of space inside me.
He, however, doesn’t seem much bothered by the randomness. Removing his hat, he rubs the palms of both hands into his face. The gesture is odd for someone as composed as him… well, from what rumors said, anyway. I know nothing about him.
I want to ask questions but I don’t want to ask without sounding odd so I settle with the silence he doesn’t bother breaking either and I look out the window.
The two horses clip along in a steady rhythm almost in sync with each other. Buildings develop into my view as we come into town, passing people on foot shrouded dismally in either hats or veils.
The bell above the parish tower dongs three times. The coach stops and Jaicom exits, assisting me down the steps. We wait in humble silence as Durain’s hearse rolls in front of the parish. Wait longer still as his coffin is pulled out. Jaicom falls into step behind my father as we all follow the coffin inside.
The organ’s giant rows of copper pipes are moaning out Chopin’s Funeral March. Despite stained glass windows, long dead saints painted on the walls, and candles to light the dark corners, this place of worship is the most frightening place I have ever set foot in.
Jaicom pulls me left and I follow, looking after my father who continues to walk down the isle with my mother. I hesitate. For Jaicom to be so bold as to sit away from my father means yet a deeper level of… if I had been suspicious of him escorting me alone to the parish, the fact he now wants to sit away from my father verifies my suspicions.
Jaicom Whaerin is courting me? This is so odd and out of place that Jaicom has to tug on my arm again to get me to move. Maybe there are some things that can still find room in my grief. Sitting alone with a woman doesn’t happen until later in the courtship, even later than accompanying me unchaperoned. For Jaicom to be so bold already made me suspicious, not lucky.
Movement in the crowd to my right reveals Jaicom’s father. Aklen Whaerin spins back quickly to face the front again but not before I catch dark, narrowed eyes locked on me. What? My mind is buzzing with too many emotions for me to keep my reality straight right now.
The bell above the roof crashes again and the low murmuring voices in the parish fall silent.
The priest emerges from the sacristy behind the bier which holds the coffin. In his black robe he looks more like the demon who leads people to hell than the priest who screams for people to repent so they won’t go there. The somber drone of the organ and the flickering candles make me wonder if hell is not beyond the door he just c
ame through.
His hair is short gray but tight skin will not let show the wrinkles of his age. He stops in front of the bier and faces the congregation.
“Three days ago,” he begins in a voice full of intensity as if it were Sunday and he was preaching, “Durain Ishnar left his body, continuing on his immortal quest to salvation…”
My tears finally break and I duck my head to mop them with my rumpled black handkerchief. The death of my best friend is a death of many things and I am not ready to let any of them go.
The priest continues and I look upon the coffin bearing the body that convinces everyone he had died of natural and unfortunate causes. My childhood had been forged outside of four walls. Durain and I learned what plants were edible, which were poison, and which ones caused heart attacks.
The priest ends with a prayer and invites the congregation to meet behind the parish for the burial, calling for all the family of the deceased to meet in the sacristy to finalize the Will.
People stand and begin filing out reverently. Jaicom leans toward me, close enough that I can smell his cologne. I don’t like it. “I’ll meet you outside.”
I nod and my neck feels like wood. I join my parents who have already disappeared into the adjacent room. Entering it myself, I stand next to my father who puts a warm arm around my shoulders, indicating he’s aware I sat alone with the richest bachelor in Valemorren and he is proud.
Maybe I will at some point feel lucky, too.
Aunt Magara with her new husband of five years, Durain’s older sister Andlas, and her husband assemble in the room with us, Aunt Magara’s face hidden behind a black lace veil. Andlas is holding tightly to her mother’s arm, Andals’s husband standing awkwardly to the side as if not sure whether he should join the distressed pair or give them space.
The priest and executor enter, the executor’s spectacles perched on the tip of his nose. “Please, have a seat.”
The rustle of cloth sound much too loud in the small windowless room as chairs are occupied. The executor stands center of us with a piece of paper in a hand that looks as if it hasn’t seen a day in the sun. Due to the high rate of infancy deaths in England, Final Will and Testaments were done as early as six years old and updated every year.
“The Final Will and Testament of Durain Ishnar,” the executor begins. “Words witnessed the eighteenth of October, eighteen forty-one by the hand of the above mentioned…”
Father disapproves of me giving into distractions. I absentmindedly begin folding my moist handkerchief in my lap. Who would poison Durain? And why?
It hurts too much to accept that he had just died, leaving me to a world I’m not willing to accept, a world filled with careful breeding for a husband to take and increase his standings in society.
I look at every face in the room to include the priest. The females are sobbing appropriately while the men hold steady expressions of grief. The women’s eyes are hidden behind black veils so it is difficult to tell if their sobs are genuine…
I shake my head sharply to clear the ugly thoughts that Durain’s own family would seek ill on him, shamed that I had even entertained that thought since Durain’s father had also come to an untimely death eight years ago. My grief seeks someone in the room to blame. It is much easier to deal with anger than sadness.
“…left a few possessions to be given to the family.” The executor turns to a desk along the back wall where a large oil lamp coughs. On the desk are a few objects.
The executor picks up a long wooden cylinder I recognizes as Durain’s flute he would play on nights of a full moon. He said the Fae always listen to music played on full moon nights. As if he knew anything about the fabled Fae.
“To my sister Andlas,” the executor quotes as he approaches the woman, curls of gold flowing beneath her black head wrap, “I leave my flute.” He hands the white shaft to her. She takes it and bows her head.
He returns to the desk and picks up a small white in color tube thing, longer than it is tall, and approaches me. “To my cousin Brinella Frondaren, I leave my white container.”
I accept the object and the executor bustles back to the desk. I look at it; a white rectangle that stretches the length of my palm. Each of the six sides are smooth except for the long surface of the top which has a shallow impression of some black script I can’t read. If flowers and trees wrote in cursive, this would be it, I believe, because that’s what it reminds me of.
I thumb the sides, trying to figure out what this thing is made out of. It is cold so I first think metal, but it has a very slight spongy kind of feel. Like skin, except that it is most definitely not.
I have no idea what it is.
I put it in my handbag and fix my gaze on the oil lamp as two more items are given away and the priest exposes his eternal sorrow one more time before inviting us to the grave site.
OOO
Durain’s casket is lowered into the ground. The women begin to sob. Not me. I sense father’s disapproving glance but I’m too numb to care or cry. Tears will not bring Durain back, or honor his senseless death.
With the casket settled, everyone files by and drops in a rose. Family drop in a red rose because they are blood. Friends drop in yellow. Everyone else drops white.
Dropping my flower, I spin and walk away. I did all my crying the night he died.
I’m walking so fast that Jaicom has to jog to keep up. A spike of irritation shoots down my spine when he comes even with me. The richest, most eligible young bachelor in Valemorren and I wish he would leave me alone. He helps me inside the coach and climbs in after. He knocks on the wall against the driver’s box and the coach lurches forward.
My gaze is fastened out the window all the way home; at the trees sliding past, at the leaves fanning sunlight into shadows against the road.
The ride feels much longer going home, but the horses finally make that left to my house and stop. Jaicom opens the door and I step down, kept in his care to the porch.
I want to run to my room but my smothered conscience berates me to keep my manners even if I can’t keep my emotions bridled.
“Thank you for letting me accompany you, Miss Frondaren,” Jaicom says. I look him in the eye. “I hope you will let me call on you in the future?”
I can’t shake that he would be suddenly interested in me. There are probably fifteen prettier, more lady-like females in Valemorren who have been groomed their wholes lives just to catch the eye of this very man.
I don’t want him calling on me. But my father would want that, and so I nod. Score one for Fabrin.
With a bow at the waist, Jaicom leaves and I escape inside.
True devastation hasn’t found me yet, though I feel it chewing the edges of my denial.
Slumping into the chair in the foyer, I look across to the daguerreotype hanging on the retro velvet wallpaper. Uncle Scottlen is the main focus of the picture but I only see Durain. Alive.
“Durain,” I whisper, forcing, willing the frozen likeness of Durain to hear me, “who poisoned you?”
He doesn’t respond. He’s not even smiling. Nobody in the picture is smiling.
The click of hooves on gravel alert me to the coach pulling in front of the house. I wish that denying to have dinner with the family at Aunt Magara’s house would not be considered rude because I can’t… can’t deal with death anymore today. Not for the next week. For the next year. Because dining in the household where Durain’s energy once pulsed is like going to church were the priest has denounced his religion; pain, despair, and an angry prayer to God because someone needed to be blamed.
And the next four weeks of mourning have just begun.
CHAPTER THREE
BRINELLA
I wish I could have been happy that the final day of my four-week mourning had arrived, but I’m not. Because my dress of a prison is only changing colors.
As soon as Queen Victoria was crowned she decided that certain etiquettes needed to be practiced throughout England in the wake o
f all the atrocities that were left unbridled during King George’s rein. One of those is the sexual purity of women. To assure that purity, all women are expected to be tied into their dresses as soon as that woman reaches her first menstrual bleed. Queen Victoria has a bunch of other ‘proper’ etiquettes almost required by law to observe, but this one is the single most dominating factor ruining my life.
For the next thirty minutes I stand like a mannequin as the Frondaren Household macramist, Varseena, circles me, her fingers moving deftly to unlace the ribbon weaved at my back and around the entirety of my waist to keep the corset-like bodice tight and secure to my skin.
The dresses can’t be removed without help and if the macramist does it correctly the knots and weaves she ties are so complicated that only that same macramist can undo them again. Of course that could all be defeated with a knife, but then the intrusion would be obvious. Likewise, someone with enough patients could unlace the complicated weave as good as any lock, but by then the lustful heat of the moment would have passed. It’s just a deterrent. Like locks on doors and window panes.
And did I mention it was ruining my life?
The black mourning dress removed, Varseena leaves and I spend the next while gazing out the window, watching the light slid across the valley as the sun sinks into the west.
The haunt of Durian’s unnatural death still shrouds me, has plagued me every day for the four weeks I wore black. Who would poison Durain? No one. Durain had no enemies.
My father comes by and the familiar click of the door as he locks it confirms my sentence until morning. Thank you Queen Victoria for that “precaution” too.