Gloaming

by Charlotte E. English

  Margot stared blankly.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Florian explained, shrugging. ‘I can’t determine anything else, except maybe for the oranges. That part might be true.’

  He blinked, for he thought suddenly of a moonlit arbour in a garden somewhere — at Landricourt, again? The place was ringed with small, ancient trees, boughs swaying in the wind. Where had he seen this place, and how could he have forgotten it? But he blinked again and the thought faded, and there was only Margot looking at him like he was mad.

  ‘Try it,’ he said, and offered her the bottle.

  She declined. ‘I can’t think that I would do a better job at guess-the-ingredients than you.’

  ‘You’re afraid of what my master would think.’

  Margot looked ready to deny it, but decided otherwise. ‘All right, yes, I am a little.’

  Florian grinned, and tucked the bottle into the crook of his arm. ‘He is not so imposing really, once you get to know him.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ Margot looked dubious.

  ‘He’s a good man.’ But Florian could not go so far as to say that the master of the Emporium would not be angry, if he knew that they had sampled the elixir concocted for Oriane alone. So he hastily set the subject aside, saying instead, ‘Away we go. We had better get to the emporium before the Chanteraines leave.’

  Margot gave him one of her suspicious looks, and he knew he would wilt under that gaze if he suffered it for too long. So he strode to the door and held it for the lady, bowing slightly as she passed through it. ‘After you, ma’am.’

  ‘Too kind.’ Her tone was haughty, but a smile followed, so he knew it was all right.

  The lamps were lit at the emporium, so it came as a surprise to Florian to find it empty when he and Margot arrived. He went from room to room, but neither Chanteraine nor his daughter were to be found; not in the storeroom, not on the shop floor, and not in the workshops upstairs. The door to Chanteraine’s private chamber was shut, as always; it was the one room Florian was forbidden to enter. He tapped upon the door, but no response came, and no light glimmered around the door.

  It was odd of them to go away during opening hours, and leave the shop unattended. But Mr. Chanteraine had realised that Florian would soon return, no doubt, and consented to be called away.

  He’d left Margot kicking her heels in the storeroom. When he clattered his way back down the narrow wooden stairs, he found her eyeing the rows of coloured-glass bottles lined up upon the shelves. ‘What is in all these?’ she asked.

  ‘Cordials,’ said Florian. ‘Tinctures, elixirs, assorted refreshing beverages.’

  Margot turned to him, her eyes alight, but he could read the question in them without waiting for her to speak. He chose to forestall it. ‘Seigneur does not share the recipes, except with Syl— with Demoiselle Chanteraine, of course.’ He did not add that he knew where the recipes were to be found. His master kept a book, one he had bound himself in crimson leather. It went everywhere with him, and he referred to it constantly — especially when he was in one of the workshops upstairs, brewing up batches of some cordial or another or fashioning one of the trinkets, jewel-pieces or toys that were so popular with the townspeople. Florian did not doubt that all his recipes were written therein, but he had never had the chance to peek at its contents. He was not sure that he would, if such an opportunity materialised. He was as curious as Margot — probably more so — but to steal such knowledge could not sit well with him.

  He’d had hopes, once. He had begun work as the emporium’s shop boy years before, at the age of fifteen; the Chanteraines had taken pity on him, for his mother and father were gone and he’d had two younger siblings to provide for. He had dreamed of a future as the Chanteraines’ apprentice; perhaps they wanted help with creating the strange and wonderful things that were sold in the shop, and he would be taught to assist. But years had passed, his brother and sister had grown beyond his help, and here he still was: a shop boy, bound to keep counter at his master’s need, responsible for the storeroom, and otherwise employed to fetch and carry and make deliveries.

  He had buried those disappointments long ago.

  ‘You had better go home, hadn’t you? Shall I walk you?’ Florian made himself say. He liked seeing Margot there, wandering the storeroom in all her colours, her face alight with wonder and curiosity. He liked that he had been the means of giving her the chance to explore; it made him feel, just a little bit, important. But he could not keep her there, not merely for his own satisfaction. She was weary, and probably hungry, and there was no food to offer her except the various eatables that were sold. He would not plunder those without permission, and anyway, they would make a poor meal. Tiny bite-sized cakes made from clouds and sunlight, as far as Florian could tell from their appearance and texture; pungent sweetmeats wrapped in sugar-veined leaves; bonbons and comfits and pearl-jellies… delicious, in all probability, but not at all sustaining.

  ‘I’ll find my way,’ said Margot, with that ironic curl to her smile that he never knew how to interpret. He only bowed. She hesitated over the coat, still draped upon one arm. ‘I will leave this here, but where shall it be safe?’

  Florian found her an empty store-box to pack the coat into, and she laid it inside with tender care and some regret. It was a pretty thing, but Florian had not previously realised that she cared for fripperies; the skirts and bodices she favoured were colourful but always plain and sensible, devoid of the frills and lace and ribbons that decked the clothing of many other women. She wore her leaf-coloured hair bound up, though it did work rather hard to escape, and he did not remember ever seeing any jewellery on her. But perhaps her choices were driven by necessity, for she spent all the hours of her days engaged in some form of labour.

  He tucked the idea away.

  Margot added Rozebaiel’s ribbon and the book, and Florian contributed the mist-trinket, the bottle with the elixir, and the neckcloth. They closed the lid on this collection of oddities, and stacked the box with the others.

  Then Margot smiled upon him, the first time she had done so — properly done so — all day. ‘Will you be all right here alone?’

  Unused to such care, Florian did not know what to say. He hoped it was not a motherly sort of concern she was expressing, and he hoped that the blush he could feel rising in his cheeks did not show too much on his face. ‘Of course!’ he said stoutly, and busied himself with making certain that the lid of their store-box was properly closed.

  Margot was on the point of leaving when the smile fell from her face, and she said in dismay, ‘Oh no! I have left my basket at Landricourt. All my herbs! They will be withered away by the morning.’ She hovered, probably turning over in her mind the importance of the herbs against the time-consuming labour of another long walk to Landricourt and back. ‘Ah, well,’ she sighed, clearly deciding against the latter. ‘I can gather them all again tomorrow. Goodnight, Florian.’

  The door clicked softly to behind her, and Florian was left alone in the quiet darkness of the emporium.

  He was by no means so averse to returning to Landricourt as she, not least because he had meant to do so anyway. He did not feel that his search of the place was complete, and besides, he had searched only in daylight. What might he notice, under the altered light of the Gloaming, that he had not seen before? And would he find Rozebaiel again, still wandering from room to room in her rosy skirts? With the Chanteraines already gone home, he had little else to do; the storeroom was in order, and the shop, apparently, closed early.

  His mind made up, he left at once, pausing only to extinguish the lamps and lock up at the back. The alley behind the emporium shone silvery-grey in the gloom, and he always fancied that it looked quite different, somehow — as though it were not the same alley at all but a similar one, transposed over the top. Slightly wider, slightly airier, paved in silver rather than stone. And did the wind coil and whisper down it in a different way than it did in the daytime, or during the night? Once, Florian had b
een certain that he heard words folded somewhere within the billowings of the wind, though he had not been able to discern what they were.

  He had the lamp with him, that Margot had borrowed from the jade parlour. He would use it while he explored, and return it to its proper place when he left. And he would fetch Margot’s basket of herbs, too, and deliver it to her on his way home.

  Florian made his way first to Morel’s bakery, and there he spent two precious copper coins upon a hearty portion of meat and vegetables wrapped in pastry. His evening repast secured — he could drink from one of the clear streams that ran behind Landricourt — he set his back to the town, and ventured westwards.

  Landricourt, too, looked different under the Gloaming. No dark, shadowy pile, as it must appear at night, it was a magical display of velvet-dark shadow and silvery light, all set about with stars. Did it always look so? Mist coiled slowly up its gleaming stone walls, eerily pale, and an odd aroma blew upon the wind. There was something of chocolate about that scent, Florian thought, and smoke, and spice, and flowers; a mad mixture of things he could not hope to identify. The afternoon was still warm, Gloaming notwithstanding, but when Florian arrived before the great house, sweating and out of breath, he found it cool and serene — even chilly, for he shivered in his thin shirt and waistcoat.

  The front door was open. Did anybody ever close it? His footsteps echoed hollowly upon the silvered-stone floor of the hall, and a mischievous wisp of wind came sailing through the wide-open door and tousled his hair.

  He went first into the cellars, his lantern held high, and retrieved Margot’s basket. It was not hard to find, for she had left it with all the other trugs, in the same repository for flowers and rosehips which he had himself so often visited that day. He carried it up to the hall and set it by the door, ready to collect upon his departure.

  Was it his imagination, or had starlight winked coyly from a distant doorway as he’d returned to the stairs? He retraced his steps and stopped at the bottom of the stairwell, dimming his lantern with his hand.

  Not imaginary. There was a glimmer there, almost lost within the depths of the passage’s shadows. It beckoned.

  Florian followed.

  He stepped softly along the echoing passage, ignoring door after door in pursuit of the light. Under the archway of a lost door he went, and into a bare chamber of worn stone that he did not recognise. Had he searched this part of the cellars, earlier in the day? He could not remember.

  At first, all was dark. And then came the flicker of light, from the far wall: clear white, and silver-laced, and then mellow blue.

  Was it a window there, admitting that light from somewhere outside? No; he did not see a window. He did not see anything, until he crossed the room and raised his lantern high.

  A mirror. Its surface rippled like water, and reflected in its depths Florian saw nothing of himself. He saw nothing at all, save a thick white mist, and the light winked again from somewhere deep within.

  Was it glass at all? Intrigued, Florian stretched out a hand to touch the curious thing — this, surely, would be of interest to his master! But he had cause to regret his fascination, for his fingers sank into the mirror exactly as though it were water after all, and then the rest of him went, too. He fell helplessly, as though he had thrown himself into the cold embrace of the stream behind the house. Panicking, he struggled, and for a moment he thought he might drown, so hard was it to draw breath.

  And then the sensation of falling was over, and he was no longer in the echoing cellar room. He did not know where he was, for all around him was broad daylight, and there was no sign of the mirror.

  Part Three: Oriane

  1

  They did not make wine in this other Landricourt, nor rosewater either.

  It seemed a waste to Oriane, for the house was as full of abundant blooms as the Landricourt she knew. And what vivid hues, and such fragrance! She felt sure they would produce a wine of exceptional flavour, and lamented to see them left ungathered.

  She had raised the matter, once, with the gentleman in the plum-coloured coat, but he had given it short shrift. ‘It is useless,’ he had said in his cool way, and refused to be further drawn on the subject.

  ‘What matter that?’ Oriane had replied. ‘Of what use is wine ever supposed to be?’ But this question had gone unanswered.

  She was more tolerated than welcomed. Her appearance there had been greeted with no surprise at all, to her puzzlement, but she could interest nobody in the problem of her much-desired return. ‘There is no way back,’ she was repeatedly told, by men and women alike, their eyes quickly sliding from her face, their minds obviously focused upon anything but the mild inconvenience of her involuntary intrusion. They left her to her own devices, neither seeking to make her comfortable nor attempting to evict her, and so she had blended herself into their strange way of life as best she could, and tried not to repine too much for her home.

  The first hours of her strange new life passed in discomfort, unease and the pain of repeatedly dashed hopes. She spent it in a frenzy of activity, searching all over the manor and as far beyond it as she dared go for a way to return to her own little cottage and the pale roses of the Landricourt that she knew. But at last she was forced to accept that they were perfectly right: the mirror in the cellar was gone, and there was no other way home.

  Only then, exhausted and distressed, did she contrive to collect herself, and to seek the calm resignation that had often supported her before. Oriane Travere was known as the woman to seek in a crisis. She did not panic, she did not lose her wits or her good sense; indeed, she tended to be particularly blessed with these qualities at times of difficulty.

  Well, she needed them now. She thrust away the fear that fluttered in her belly, silenced the voice in her mind that shrieked incoherently of disaster and ruin, and gathered her composure until she could wear it like a cloak, or a mask. And then, at last, she had leisure to look about herself, and consider.

  It soon began to strike her that, however involuntary and inconvenient her absence from home might be, and however troubling the apparent impossibility of making any return, she had been granted an uncommon opportunity to explore a highly interesting place. Its differences and its similarities to the manor she knew were equally profound, and equally striking.

  There was the matter of the light. Her first headlong rush through the halls of Landricourt had been accomplished in blinking confusion, for it was as brightly-lit there as it had been dark at home. Why?

  Then there was the season, for she had left the sweltering heat of high summer behind. This place, for all its excess of sunlit hours, lay under the deepest chill of winter. At first, her heart pounding and the blood rushing wildly through her body, her eyes meeting new surprises and questions and alarms everywhere she looked, she had hardly noticed the cold. But with her restored calm came an immediate awareness that she was half-frozen, and she began to shiver so hard her teeth chattered. The layers of green linen that made up her summer gown could do nothing to ward off the freezing draughts that drifted down the passages and seeped in through the windows. Rigid with cold, arms wrapped tightly around herself in a futile attempt to conserve warmth, she paused at last to take note of where she had ended up.

  A high ceiling arced overhead, elaborately decorated with paintings of lush, pastoral serenity. A rambling thicket of roses climbed up — or down? — the far wall. Three long windows lit the wall, filled with odd, watered glass cut in tiny squared panes. Airy curtains of blue silk framed them, and a vast, intricate rug covered most of a pale stone floor. At one end of the room stood a velvet chaise longue surrounded by matched chairs; at the other stood a large table draped in frothy lace, its surface cluttered with glass decanters and painted cups.

  A cross between a drawing-room and some manner of parlour? The chamber seemed undecided as to its function. Oriane had wandered too far and in too much confusion; she could not now determine where she stood in the house.

&nbs
p; So frozen was she, the spill of lace over the table looked to her most appealing. She could snatch it up and wrap herself in it, perhaps her shivering would ease—

  ‘Wist!’ came a voice from the arched doorway, and a woman stopped upon the threshold. She fixed great dark eyes upon the trembling figure of Oriane and looked her over, her surprise deepening into dismay. ‘Sooth, again, is it?’ she said upon a sigh, and advanced into the room. ‘Still, it has been long since the last time. And you cannot help it, can you, poor dove?’ She was as oddly attired as everybody else Oriane had seen: her robust figure was arrayed in a full-skirted ivory silk dress abundant with lace, a fluttering scarf of something indigo and impossibly gauzy trailing from her throat. She wore lilies tucked into her amber-coloured hair, and her eyes were as deep and dark as the sea at night. But traces of a ready smile hung about her full mouth, and despite their unnerving intensity her eyes were kind.

  The look of consternation upon the newcomer’s face could not lift Oriane’s flagging spirits, though the benignity of her words went some way towards mending the impression. And so grateful was she for a little kindness, or any attention at all, that she would have borne a great deal more for it. ‘Oh, ma’am!’ said she, with a sensation of relief, ‘Can you, then, tell me where I am, or how I came to be here? Do I understand that such a thing has happened before?’

  The woman went to the table and extracted one of the bottles that stood upon it. It was empty, but she unstoppered it and tipped it up over one of the cups anyway, crowning this inexplicable mime by carefully stoppering the bottle again and carrying the cup to Oriane. ‘Drink it all down, dear,’ she instructed.

  Oriane took the cup doubtfully and peeped into it. ‘But there is nothing in it to drink,’ said she.

  Those deep, dark eyes twinkled with a tolerant mirth. ‘You try it and see.’