by Lily Velez
Inside, the chateau was even more striking. Noah had to crane his neck back to stare up at the soaring ceilings, which reached so high, it was as if they held up the very sky itself. Everything was grand and outsized—the curved double staircases, the Maria Theresa chandeliers dripping glass, the marble statuaries positioned throughout like sentinels at the ready. The curtains hadn’t yet been sealed shut for the evening, and so everything was cast in the soft, honey glow of the sunset.
Jeremie, joined by a servant, led them to the ‘east wing’, where Noah and Camilla were each shown the room prepared for them. When Noah stepped into his quarters, he was certain he’d been mistakenly taken elsewhere. The space at his feet was of prodigious size, enough to suit a family—no, several families! He drifted to the poster bed with its elegant fabrics, the carpet underneath his feet so thick, he sank into it with every step. He hesitated to touch anything, to do as little as lay his things down for fear he’d set the entire room out of order. Instead, he peeked behind the drapery of his floor-to-ceiling window. From here, he had an unobstructed view of the expansive landscapes, which included colorful gardens with a hedge maze, where butterflies danced above the flowers as if to music.
Shortly following this, after permitting them time to settle in, Jeremie fetched the siblings to provide them with a comprehensive tour of the chateau.
“Yours is the most magnificent home I’ve ever seen,” Camilla said as they walked the lofty halls of the estate.
They’d come upon a corridor outfitted with large paintings in majestic, gilded frames. Noah studied one of the portraits. It featured a man in a blue, velvet coat with a powdered periwig adorning his head.
“That’s a work by van Loo,” Jeremie said. “He was born right here in Aix-en-Provence. He painted for many churches in Rome as well as for the Duke of Savoy in Turin and many members of his court. He painted, too, the Prince and Princess of Wales.”
“Does he paint still?” Camilla asked.
“I’m afraid van Loo died some decades ago. With his health failing, he retired to Paris and then eventually to Provence.”
“I wonder if there were paintings he never got to finish.”
“Perhaps.”
“How sad, don’t you think?”
Jeremie nodded, his face emanating something akin to despair. “I agree,” he said. “It’s a terrible tragedy when we leave things unfinished.”
26
Later that evening, they dined with Jeremie’s mother and father, who’d at long last arrived from a social call.
The dining hall was no less grand than the rest of the estate, dominated by a stately, oak table with clawed feet that stretched the length of the room and was topped with Valenciennes lace, floral arrangements, soft porcelain dishware, and a spread of provisions such as Noah had never before seen. It was far from supper. It was a banquet.
Game of all varieties assumed shimmering, silver platters: hare, wild boar, and venison, each garnished with greens and berries, each with a curling ribbon of steam rising from the baked flesh like a charmed snake. White-gloved, straight-backed servants with vacant eyes continued to deliver side item after side item: foie gras, roasted potatoes, candied fruit, frumenty, stuffing, and plums stewed in rosewater.
“How terribly underdressed I am,” Camilla moaned. When Jeremie joined them, she asked if his family was expecting other guests.
“No, it’ll only be the five of us this evening.”
“All this food couldn’t possibly be for us. What will be done with the remains?”
“I’m sure my mother and father will see to it the staff has their fill.”
Noah caught a pair of servants exchanging a brief, doubtful look. It was his first glimpse into the natures of Monsieur and Madame Perreault. The second came only moments later when man and wife entered the dining hall, their fleet of servants straightening at once, as if someone had suddenly yanked their marionette strings. Among their ranks, two flew to the end of the table, one pulling the chair at the head, and the other the seat adjacent to it.
The whole display was so affecting, Noah wondered if he shouldn’t stand at attention as well, perhaps salute the Perreaults. He looked toward Jeremie for a clue, but how Jeremie had changed. His posture was stiff, the color drained from his face. In truth, he looked as if he’d taken ill.
Monsieur Perreault, for his part, was a man made of stone. He bore hard eyes and a rigid, uncompromising demeanor that made it no trouble imagining him at the helm of numerous, successful businesses. Noah could easily envision the man dispensing orders to those under him and expecting nothing less than the perfect execution and fulfillment of such orders.
Then there was Madame Perreault. She’d barely glimpsed their way as she took her place at the dining table. To be fair, she’d barely glimpsed at much of anyone. She donned a fur-lined pelisse with frog fastenings and braided trim, and her hair was pulled back into a matronly bun under a feathered cap. She might’ve passed for a severe governess.
After the initial introductions, Monsieur Perreault began the inquisition. “Jeremie tells us you hail from Avignon. What nature of business is your father in?”
“Farming, monsieur,” replied Camilla, sitting so erect in her chair, it was as if an iron rod had pierced through her backside.
“Farming?”
“The entire family is rather industrious,” Jeremie chimed in as he spooned a portion of bright chutney onto his meat. “They regularly sell goods in the local market.”
“What category of goods?”
Camilla answered again. “Cream, butter, eggs, and jams mostly. Our mother’s jams are an absolute delight among the townspeople. Her candles and soaps as well.”
A silence.
Then Madame Perreault spoke. Her only interaction with another thus far had been a mere hand gesture to indicate to a servant when her wineglass had been sufficiently filled. “And who is your patroness?”
“Madame?”
“Surely a girl of your common means somehow secured a patroness to show you off at the military reviews and galas. A dowager perhaps?”
Jeremie swept in with ease. “The Capets hail from remoter parts, Mother, far from any country dances or balls. I don’t know that any of the sisters have formally come out at such events. The eldest, however, was briefly married until the untimely death of her husband. The second eldest…” Here, he paused. “She presently flourishes in Lyon,” he finished.
“I see,” said Madame Perreault, but her tone suggested she didn’t understand the departure from standard form in the least.
“Is this—Noah, was it?—your only brother?” Monsieur Perreault asked then.
“No, Noah is the youngest of three.”
“And where did they receive their education?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Surely your father has impressed upon you the importance of formal education?”
Camilla’s cheeks went as red as the cranberry jam on her plate. “Our mother has schooled us, of course, but my brothers haven’t attended university. Not yet at least.”
Another silence.
The game in Noah’s mouth could’ve been a wood chip. It certainly tasted as so. He chewed with little interest, little appetite. Usually, a person arrived to another’s home as a stranger and departed as a friend, but Noah felt more and more like an outlander as the evening progressed.
“Noah,” Monsieur Perreault moved on, “perhaps you might share your thoughts on Jeremie’s new venture in Avignon. As I understand it, you’ve been a great help to him in readying the store. I, for one, find it to be a waste of time, energy, and money. It’s certainly not what his mother and I had in mind for him following Cambridge.”
A muscle in Jeremie’s jaw twitched, but he only continued cutting at the meat before him. Noah faltered.
“Are you surprised by my honesty? I suppose Jeremie didn’t adequately prepare you then. You’ll find I don’t mince my words. When you’re a businessman such as I am
, you simply can’t afford to. I suppose that’s the main difference between Jeremie and myself. Jeremie is an idealist, a dreamer. He believes the world to be a grand stage and his life to be one of its many vignettes, existing solely for his own amusement and the amusement of others.
“I, however, know the opposite to be true. We’re here to work hard and make our namesakes proud. The Perreault family is filled with men who knew this and who contributed great things to society as a result. Take your father, for instance. You say he’s a farmer. Have you any intentions to live a life beyond that of farming?”
Heat expanded in Noah’s chest as every pair of eyes in the room switched to him. He shook his head, desiring nothing more than to be rid of the attention.
“Precisely my point. See, Jeremie? A man who knows his place in the world. Noah recognizes the life he was born into, and he’s made peace with that. All he’ll ever be is a farmer, like his father before him. There’s no shame in it. It was simply the fate assigned to him at birth.
“Does he entertain delusions of being anyone but? You heard him yourself. He does not. He must do what’s expected of him. Imagine if tomorrow, men began leaving their trades en masse. Why, it would be hysteria. The order in our world, have no doubt, would fall to ruins. No, we’re each born with a destiny, and the sooner a man accepts that, the happier his life will be.”
After that, Noah and Camilla spoke little. Monsieur Perreault transitioned into talk of his recent travels and business ventures, and Madame Perreault remained behind the walls of her condescension. The room had grown cold, the type of cold that felt like frost on the bones.
Noah thought it fitting. This residence was a chateau in name and sight but a mausoleum at heart, filled with individuals as lifeless as those in the many framed portraits that hung in its silent corridors.
27
The following days delivered Noah and Camilla into September and assumed an exceptionally tedious pattern. The strange world of the Perreaults devoured them, and they more often than not floundered in it despite their best efforts at treading water.
The daylight hours were filled with riding or walking the trails surrounding the estate, afternoon tea with social callers, games of backgammon, cricket, and cards, and scriptural readings from a visiting minister. The evening hours were no less involved. They entailed more insufferable suppers with Monsieur and Madame Perreault with their showpieces for food—except others now joined the table (though Camilla was never introduced as Jeremie’s betrothed)—and rounds in the drawing room, where man and wife entertained a slew of high society guests and spoke exhaustively of politics, religion, and social issues.
One afternoon, Monsieur Perreault had invited Noah to join him and a small hunting party for a fowling endeavor. When Noah respectfully declined, Monsieur Perreault had pressed for a reason, and Jeremie explained Noah didn’t much go in for activities of that sort.
“In actuality, he keeps ducks as pets back on his family’s farm.”
“What a bizarre notion,” Monsieur Perreault had said, a pattern musket hanging from his shoulder. He had the look of a commander ready for war and bloodshed. “God has given us dominion over beasts, has he not?”
After that, whenever Noah heard the pops of ammunition from afar, it was as if each shot gripped him. He wondered what—or more aptly, who—Monsieur Perreault thought upon whenever he pulled his rifle’s trigger.
He’d ease himself, or try to at least, by visiting the stables. His family’s horses, as Jeremie had promised, received excellent care. Their stalls were always immaculate and their coats freshly groomed. Noah appreciated this, but he’d never done so little labor in all his life, and his hands craved preoccupation. As a result, he thought of the farm frequently, which in turn made him think of his usual routine there, which in turn made him think of how that routine had been upended upon Jeremie’s arrival in Avignon.
This, then, would lead to extensive consideration of the situation at hand with Jeremie. They hadn’t, as of yet, resolved anything between them, not for want of trying. If ever they were together, Camilla was in their company. The rare times she hadn’t been, Jeremie had attempted to pull Noah aside only to be interrupted by a servant on one occasion, have his presence requested elsewhere in the chateau on another, and receive a social call from an acquaintance on the last. The only other opportunities to speak existed in the presence of Monsieur and Madame Perreault, and Jeremie always conducted himself warily before them, as if tiptoeing through a shop of delicate crystals in the dark.
One evening, from his bedroom window, Noah had spotted him roaming the hedge maze of the gardens, his head bowed as if in prayer or reflection. At one point, he’d paused at a fountain, gazing up at the gleaming stars above and the thin crook of the moon. Noah watched on, his breath forming a circle of condensation on the glass. Jeremie was a sepulchral figure straight out of a tragedy in that moment, and in the midst of all his family’s grandeur and wealth, Noah had never seen anyone look so lonely.
Camilla endured struggles of a different breed. She drained all her hours in the company of Madame Perreault and her intimates, and Noah had caught her on more than one occasion endeavoring to mirror their social graces. She’d adjust herself where she sat in the drawing room so that her posture matched theirs, style her hair similarly, laugh when they laughed and in the exact manner, and pretend to be their total and complete equal. She made mistakes, though. Once, she’d spoken out of turn about a subject she knew nothing about, and Madame Perreault hadn’t hesitated to correct her before the others. A flush of embarrassment had turned Camilla’s face scarlet.
She later bemoaned the incident as she walked the garden paths with Noah. “I see the way they look at me. As if I’m some classless, country mouse. They ask after things they know I have no familiarity with, and just yesterday, Madame Perreault asked me to play the pianoforte for her guests despite my previously informing her I wasn’t accomplished at it. It was utterly mortifying. She’s a viper of a woman. I like her not.”
She twisted at the buttons on her Spencer jacket, a nervous habit. “I hope Jeremie and I have little to do with her once we’re married. His father, too. I know they must be trying to bring the engagement to an end somehow. I’m clearly not who they’d imagined as their future daughter-in-law, and if they have their way, it’ll be over. I just know it. I’ll be damned to the countryside forever.”
Her voice changed then and she slowed. She clutched the side of her chemise dress with a small fist and frowned. “I’ve always dreamt of getting as far away as possible one day, of marrying into a family of means so that I could have a more comfortable life and raise children who’d have more opportunities than I’ve ever had. Now, for the first time ever, I fear it may never happen.”
Her eyes shone in the sunlight. It was all unspeakably genuine, and therefore it was a rare show. Noah watched her, at a loss for how he might comfort her, surprised he felt compelled to do so. But then, much as she drove him mad, he’d never wished ill upon her.
It was clear to him now. She didn’t desire a husband simply for the sake of it. She yearned for a family of her own. It was so selfless a desire, this wish to rear children and bring up a family, and it caught him off guard. Then he only pitied her and wondered in what other ways he and Camilla had misunderstood each other all their lives.
The thought remained stuck in his mind later that evening when, while meandering about the estate, he became lost and found himself in the chateau’s library. It took his breath away once more, just as it’d done during Jeremie’s initial tour of the chateau. The bookshop in Avignon was the first time Noah had ever been around so many books at once, but this space was many times that. Like much of the chateau, it extended high to the heavens, ending at a barrel-vaulted ceiling that arched overhead. There was even a second level to which one could ascend by means of a spiral staircase in the far corner.
Noah furthered into the library. There had to be thousands of books contained within
its walls. Spines of all colors and widths beamed at him like stripes in a tapestry. In some areas, shelves sagged under the weight of their books, bearing lopsided smiles.
It made him think of how much Jeremie no doubt missed his bookshop. He’d had to commit it into the care of a fellow townsperson before their departure, one Noah’s father had recommended, and though incredibly trusting, perhaps even to a fault, Jeremie had to be stricken with anxiety from time to time over the entire ordeal. Noah recalled the warning they’d received from the café owner in Avignon about thieves, and the words had to be lingering in Jeremie’s ears.
“Do you read a great deal?”
Noah’s shoulders jerked up. He turned to find Madame Perreault approaching him.
The way she walked, it was like she was gliding across the marble floor. She honed in on his eyes, but she didn’t recoil. She studied them the way one might study a lion safely contained in a cage.
He shook his head in response to her question.
“No? How odd. In his letters, Jeremie claims it’s all the two of you ever speak of. Books.”
She stopped just before him. She almost reached his height, and she held herself in the same proud manner of her husband. This close, the lines around her mouth and at the corners of her eyes were more visible. His mother might’ve called such marks lines of laughter, but Noah didn’t think Madame Perreault had laughed a day in her life. Before he could process what she’d just revealed, that Jeremie had written of him, she continued speaking.
“Stranger still how frequently Jeremie mentioned you in those letters when we didn’t even learn of your sister until mere weeks ago. I’m sure you can understand our shock then. For Jeremie to unceremoniously announce that he’s now betrothed to this girl—it’s all rather unsettling. We know nothing about her. For instance, for how long has Jeremie even been acquainted with your sister?”