Lavender in Bloom

by Lily Velez

When they first entered the farmhouse, Noah couldn’t immediately place the scene before him. At the center of the sitting room, Camilla sniffed and dabbed away at tears with a handkerchief, poised within the hoop of Genevieve’s arms. Noah’s mother was kissing her on the head. Noah’s father stood toe-to-toe with Jeremie a few paces away, clamping a hand onto the younger man’s shoulder as they spoke, and Noah’s brothers were opposite them, looking between Jeremie and the girls as if baffled by the most impossible riddle.

  “Mamá, what is it?” Margaux set her laundry basket down and flew over, fixing a hand to Camilla’s back instinctively to comfort her. Huddled as they were, the girls had the look of a small congregation of saints gathered together in a circle of prayer. Oil lamps painted their shadows onto the walls in solemn, trembling shapes.

  “We’ve just received the happiest news,” Noah’s mother said then.

  Just like that, the floor began to slant underneath Noah. The room grew suffocating, too, as if transforming into a tomb. He realized Camilla’s tears didn’t hail from sorrow. She was smiling through them.

  “What news?” Margaux pressed. “What have we missed?”

  “It’s Jeremie,” Noah’s mother said, stroking Camilla’s hair.

  Noah’s breath paused in his lungs. His throat tightened, as if two hands had closed around it.

  “He’s proposed marriage to Camilla. We’ll be planning a wedding soon!”

  Noah, head light enough to roll straight off his neck, looked back toward his father and Jeremie, but Jeremie kept his eyes trained on the girls, as if he hadn’t even noticed Noah’s presence, as if it was of no consequence to him. He was simply a tall, wooden figure silently keeping to the shadows.

  Noah had once heard horrific tales of unfortunate souls being buried alive. They were meant to serve as no more than harmless stories told in the dark to make young ones squirm, but the idea had dogged Noah for weeks afterward. He thought about how it’d feel to be laid to rest so deep under the earth while still alive. Would the person have the air choked out of them quickly? Would it hurt? And how long before they were covered in crawling things? The prospect had terrified him. Trapped in a box in the ground with no way to escape and no one even aware of your torment…it was the stuff of nightmares.

  This was far worse.

  Later, after supper, as he watched from a water-stained window while his family bid farewell to Jeremie, there was such a great soreness in his chest, thunder and lightning warring within him, and yet he couldn’t look away as Jeremie rode off. He couldn’t stop his eyes from following the silhouette of man and horse as they disappeared into the distance.

  “There you are,” Margaux said from the doorway, startling him. She was removing the pins from her hair, letting the long, dark locks tumble past her shoulders now that they were done entertaining. She wasn't overly fond of formalities. Indeed, if she had her way, she’d most likely walk barefoot all the day long and go to the market without covering her head.

  “What an evening it’s turned out to be. Camilla and Mamá are beside themselves. They’ll be in festive spirits for some time now.” She joined him at the window and caught the stars with her gaze, pressing her palm to the glass as if she meant to touch the sky. “Even so, we’ll have to postpone our plan for now.”

  The thunder in Noah rumbled so loudly, he was surprised Margaux didn’t hear it. “Why?”

  She laughed at his question. “As I said, Mamá is so elated. Do you really want to take that away from her so quickly? Let her have a few days to celebrate.” She patted his hand. “I’ll speak with them soon. I promise. You need only wait a little while longer.”

  But when had anyone ever told a drowning man to simply wait?

  22

  The storm had yet to pass.

  Much later, Noah’s father came to fetch him—“There’s something your mother and I would like to speak with you about”—and so Noah now staged himself before them in the sitting room. Outside, total blackness had swallowed the countryside whole, making each window in the room look like the soulless eyes of ghoulish things. The only light arose from the shivering flames of the oil lamps, and Noah traced the dark, shuddering apparitions they created with his eyes. His own shadow was long and thin, almost like a flute. His father’s was broad and squarish and surprisingly intimidating.

  Noah braced himself. He had a good sense of what this was about. He’d skipped supper once more, this time laying claim to a stomachache, and he knew how his absence had looked in the wake of Camilla’s engagement news, especially if Elliot and Colin had peddled their doctrine of Noah despising Jeremie to any listening ear. His mother and father would petition for an explanation. They hadn’t raised their children to behave in such a manner. Noah’s thoughts spun like gears in a clock as he tried to sew together a makeshift defense.

  His father was the first to speak. He stood beside the chair Noah’s mother assumed, his arm draped over its broad back. They could’ve been posing for a portrait. All they lacked was a snapping fireplace behind them and a side table topped with a rose bouquet. “Who would’ve thought a visit to a humble bookshop one afternoon would yield Camilla a husband?”

  Camilla would’ve thought just that, Noah said in his mind. He didn’t think his family could be so blind to Camilla’s puppet strings in all this. His mother was in love with love, certainly, but surely Jeremie hadn’t been the suitor she’d imagined for her puerile, youngest daughter.

  “I’ve enjoyed becoming better acquainted with Jeremie,” his father went on. “He’s a fine young man.” It sounded more as if he were resigning himself to the fact, though, as if he would’ve rather discovered the opposite to spare himself from giving away a daughter.

  Noah’s mother swept in to resurrect the celebratory mood from earlier. “He’s wonderful,” she said. “Camilla will be very happy with him. He’ll take only the best care of her, I’m sure.” She wore her golden hair pulled back in a chignon, but two errant curls on either side of her face hung free, giving her a youthful appearance, as if she’d been the model for a child’s doll. Noah had always thought she had the look of an angel, but it was hard to stomach her enthusiasm over the engagement. He couldn’t help but feel betrayed.

  His father spoke again. “Jeremie wishes to bring Camilla to his mother and father’s estate south of here.”

  Noah’s stomach roiled. The Jeremie he’d known had gone on about wealth and grandeur meaning very little to him. Poverty doesn’t at all scare me, he’d said. Only a passionless life. How extensive his charade had been, how foolish Noah had been to believe him. Tension sat on his shoulders, wrapping around his neck like a tight cord.

  “The reason we wished to speak with you,” Noah’s father continued, “is because we have a small request. As you know, your brothers are still busy with the harvest, and so your mother and I thought it best you be the one to join Camilla as her chaperone.”

  Noah’s thoughts halted so fast, they tripped over themselves and piled up into a heap. He drew his head back stiffly, his entire body tensing, his stomach as heavy as lead. He offered them nothing more than an incredulous stare. They couldn’t be serious.

  “I can’t,” shot out of him before he even had time enough to realize he’d decided to respond. The words sounded shaky as they flew from his mouth.

  The answer caught his mother off guard, who frowned, the joy draining from her face and her bright eyes flooding with concern. “Why ever not?”

  “The farrier work…” It was the first thing he could think of.

  “I’m sure it’ll be no trouble,” his father offered. “It’s only a matter of a few days.”

  “I have commissions,” Noah said. “I gave my word.” He had no commissions. He’d given no such word to a single soul. But there was no way for them to know that. He’d simply go into town when required as if meeting with a client.

  “Can you not postpone the work? Whose horses are you shoeing? I can speak with the men myself if you’d like.”
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br />   Noah asked if Genevieve and Margaux couldn’t simply accompany their sister.

  “I’d feel more comfortable,” said his mother, “if Camilla was accompanied by a brother.”

  Noah suggested Elliot or Colin then. He’d be more than happy to step in their place to continue the harvest work. It wouldn’t be a problem in the least.

  “Oh goodness, no,” his mother said. “I won’t have you overexerting yourself like that. Not after what happened last time.”

  ‘Last time’ had occurred more than two years ago. Noah had been assisting his father and brothers in the fields then, happy to do hard work beside them for once. It’d been a broiling day, as if the very weight of the sun had rolled onto their backs, as if its fire had spilled onto their faces, but Noah didn’t complain. He didn’t want the others to think of him as less than. He bore the work silently, beads of sweat as big as pearls rolling down his temples and nose. By the time the work day was finished, he was red and breathless and sweaty, but it’d felt good to be in the fields, so he didn’t think much of the lightheadedness or the way his steps swayed as he entered the farmhouse with the others.

  “Mon Dieu!” his mother had exclaimed upon seeing him. She took his face in her hands. Already he could hear his brothers teasing from behind over who was clearly the preferred son.

  “I’m fine,” he told her, gently turning his head out of her hold. In truth, his mind was spinning, and he wanted to escape to his bed.

  “You don’t look at all fine. Where is your father? Did he have you work in the sun all day like this?”

  “How come you never worry over us like you do Noah?” Colin asked, laughing. “We were in the sun just the same as he was.”

  She waved a hand at him. “You’re used to it. Noah isn’t.”

  “It’s only a little burn. He’ll survive.”

  “I would’ve rather he not burn at all.”

  Then somewhere in the midst of their back-and-forth, Noah fainted.

  When he came to, his mother was leaning over him, half-fussing, half-crying as she pressed a wet cloth to his face. He realized his entire family was looking down on him as he lay on the floor like an invalid. It was the last time he was ever permitted to work the harvest.

  Thinking back on it, Noah knew his mother would never relinquish the incident to the past. Still, he tried to persuade her. “I’m older now.”

  “We know you are,” his father said.

  “Then can’t another go?”

  “I don’t understand your opposition,” his mother said. “Is something the matter? Do you not approve of the engagement?”

  “Yes, Noah, you’ve acted quite strange these past weeks. If something’s awry, we’d hope you’d tell us. For Camilla’s sake foremost but for the whole family’s sake as well. That’s what families do. They look after one another.”

  “Talk to us, mon chou. What is it? You needn’t keep it from us. Tell us now.”

  Noah’s temples pulsated. He was a cornered animal now. If he objected any further, it’d only arouse suspicion, and the last thing he needed was for his family to observe his every action and word more closely in the days ahead. Self-consciously, he hid the hand Jeremie had touched behind his back. There was no way for them to know about that, but he didn’t trust himself to not give it away, just as he didn’t trust his present resistance to not reveal the truth behind what had happened between them.

  So in the end, he relented. There was nothing else he could do. His mother was delighted by his agreement, jumping to her feet to hug him and press a kiss to his cheek. His father patted him on the space between his shoulder blades. All was well in their world, even as all had been torn apart in Noah’s.

  23

  The morning Noah and Camilla were set to head out with Jeremie, Noah envisaged the various accidents into which he might fall that would impede his ability to serve as chaperone. He could plummet down an empty well, for instance, the way Colin had done those many years ago. One of the draft horses could always injure him with a well-placed kick as they’d done on several previous occasions during their shoeing. Or he could simply grow deathly ill out of nowhere and, pale and sweating, present himself before his mother, knowing she wouldn’t force him to assume the long journey to the Perreault estate.

  As it were, none of these misfortunes befell him, try as he did to attract them, and so when the dawn approached, a rosy hue blanketing the lands and their round beads of morning dew, the animals waking one by one to the melody of birdsong, there he waited beside the horse wagon as his father checked the wheels and asked after the horses.

  “Thank you for doing this for your sister,” he said. “I know Camilla appreciates it. Jeremie, too. As do we.” He rested a hand onto Noah’s shoulder. “You’ll be back on the farm in no time.”

  Camilla, for her part, was proud as a peacock, exchanging hugs and well-wishes with their mother and sisters as if she’d struck some unfathomable fortune. “How I’ve longed for this day,” she sang, as if all heaven and earth had conspired to ensure this union between her and Jeremie.

  Noah resisted the urge to roll his eyes, letting them fall instead to the fresh wagon tracks carved into the earth, two parallel grooves that stretched from the barn to where he now stood. Perhaps he’d lay his neck before one of the wheels and be done with it all.

  Without warning, an image flashed before his eyes. The bodies of his birth parents, the dark, wet cobblestones beneath them. His heart twisted, and he reared back in shame, glancing about him as if he feared someone might’ve witnessed his thoughts.

  Eventually, he made his way atop the wagon’s straight-backed bench, Camilla beside him as Jeremie traded final words with the others a short distance away.

  “You know,” she said, organizing her things at her feet, two engorged carpetbags and a hatbox among them, “you’ve been in a deplorable mood for weeks now. You really should lighten up.”

  Noah gathered the horse reins. He would pretend she hadn’t spoken. He’d uphold the act for the entire trip if he had to.

  “I know you must despise me for taking away your only friend, but that’s the way of life. A man becomes one with his bride. There’s no room for others.”

  He wanted to tell her he didn’t despise her for taking anything away from him. That would imply he cared. Jeremie had hardly been a friend. Noah had gotten by plenty fine before him, and he’d continue getting by all the same after him as well.

  “I thought you’d at least be happy to spend more time with Jeremie before the wedding. I imagine that’s why he insisted to Papá that you be the one to chaperone.”

  The words struck Noah like a battering ram, and the reins fell from his hands, slapping against the buckboard. He bent forward to retrieve them, face burning, heart missing a beat. For some reason, his fingers fumbled against the leather straps.

  Camilla didn’t notice. She was busy fixing the ivory pins in her hair. “I admit I objected to it at first. I was afraid the two of you would have more to talk about than he and I did. It wouldn’t be long before I was altogether forgotten. But then I realized how silly I was being. I’m his fiancée now after all.

  “And besides, you’ve treated him horrendously ever since he first called on me. I have no idea why. You’ve never had any problem with being left out before. Anyway, in spite of your behavior, being the gentleman he is, Jeremie wants to repair his friendship with you. He told me so himself. So really, Noah, stop being so cross. If you ruin this for me, I’ll never forgive you.”

  Noah stared at her. He tried to detect any indication that she was lying. Camilla was notorious for half-truths, but her expression, for once, was purely genuine.

  The horses whinnied, anxious to begin their voyage. They stomped at the dirt and flicked their tails, but Noah didn’t have the mind to click at them reassuringly. He’d fallen into a daze, looking past Camilla to Jeremie, who shook hands with Noah’s father before turning to head for the wagon. All of Noah’s previous conclusions sudde
nly clouded over. He wanted to ask Camilla if she was certain about what Jeremie had said, but no, that would be ridiculous, and he didn’t want to sound the least bit hopeful anyway.

  He told himself she had to be playing a game. He could accept no other possibility. But then, once Jeremie had boarded the wagon, once Noah urged the horses onward, once his family waved and called out their goodbyes, once the farmhouse was as far away behind them as the other side of the world, Noah couldn’t help but notice the way his heart rattled as he hung onto Camilla’s revelation as if hanging desperately onto the edge of a cliff.

  He didn’t know what it meant, and worse still, he didn’t know what he wanted it to mean.

  24

  During the initial hours of the journey, Camilla barely paused to catch a breath in between all her talking. It amazed Noah how some people simply couldn’t stand silence, beating talk into a froth. What was it about silence that unnerved them so? Did it perhaps say more than any words could?

  Whatever the case, Camilla rambled on interminably about any number of things: how she’d have to commission a wedding dress to be made for her—did Jeremie have connections in Paris?; the number of flowers they’d require for décor—did France produce enough to sate her appetite?; her role once she was Madame Perreault, both as a wife and as the daughter-in-law to Jeremie’s mother and father.

  “Will they like me, Jeremie?”

  “Of course they will,” he assured her. “What’s not to like?

  It wasn’t long before an unexpected sight began to materialize in the distance.

  “What’s that?” Jeremie wondered, positioning a hand to his brow to block out the sun.

  Far ahead, there stood a great stone building with flourishing rows of lavender striping the fields before it. Up and down the violet aisles, people danced and sang and laughed, the women donning flowers and streamers in their hair. Other celebrants lounged on blankets and picnicked or watched on as costumed players presented vignettes on a small, makeshift stage. There was music and food, pony rides for the children, and games for all ages.