Wintergate, page 6
"Jasper." I had put him down once we were past the blaze, but now I called him to me and lifted him into my arms again. His feet, pressed against my night dress, were freezing wet blocks, and, looking down, I saw Flint shifting his weight from one foot to the other, warming the bottom of one on the top of the other. I spoke over his head to Pearl. "We need shoes for the little ones, at least."
She said, "Well, the servants—" and stopped, more flummoxed than I had ever before seen her. Together we children turned to look at our servants, who numbered half again as many as our entire family, and whose bleak faces reflected the red and orange of the flames. Later, I knew that they understood the situation more clearly than we girls did, but in the moment I could only think that for the first time in our lives, our servants were unable to simply step forward with the items necessary to our comfort. All of that fed the fire, and they wore no more shoes or coats than we did.
"The neighbors," I said, without conviction. We had neighbors, in the way that any large town estate had them: at a comfortable distance, separated by well-tended gardens and high walls. They were aware of our predicament: I had heard firebells ringing over the fire's thunder, and I was distantly aware that there were groups gathered up and down the street, but none of them had come near us. I looked to my father, whom I supposed should be heading a rescue effort for his childrens' toes, if nothing else, but I saw a man engulfed with his wife's grief, and an uncomfortable thought intruded on my mind.
Had it been one of our neighbors whose home was burning, my father would not even go so far as to come out of his own gates to see what the fuss was. He had coached us to mind our own businesses all our lives; other peoples' troubles were for them to deal with. I knew the attitude was born from the false sympathy offered after my birth mother's death: people who had hardly known her, or who had looked down on Father's merchant status, had appeared to shower him with false solicitiousness and to look greedily on his three motherless daughters. In his grief, it was possible he had turned away those whose sympathy had been genuine as well, but the habit of keeping to his—and our—own had been long established before I was old enough to notice it at all.
Still, had our neighbors been in such straits, Opal would have gone anyway, unless Father barred the door to her. She would have gone, carrying blankets and soup and comfort, and I would have followed, because since my memory began, I'd always known that Opal did the right thing for others. Pearl might have been shamed in to coming along by Opal's generosity, but perhaps not. The boys were too young to expect much of, but for the first time in my life, facing a moment of need, I realized that my family had not necessarily won themselves the place in the hearts of others that would compel others to offer a helping hand.
Then a stout woman I vaguely recognized, a cook from one of the homes nearby, came through the smoke with blankets and shoes and an expression of loss greater than my own, and under her mothering wing we were escorted away from the ruins of our lives.
* * *
I didn't sleep. The boys puddled around Opal, who, soothed and soothing, drifted into sleep with them. Not even our home burning to the ground could keep Pearl from her own rest; provided with a bed, she returned to slumber before even the boys had. Maman sobbed herself into exhaustion and my father never left her side, so I assumed that he, too, had escaped reality for dreams, but I couldn't. I sat in the window of the bedroom we children had been given, surrounded by a blanket and the wet scent of smoke, and watched until the orange light rising from our burning home was swallowed by the pale blues and pinks of sunrise creeping over the tops of black leafless trees. A hint of icy fog hung in the near distance, but when I went out into it, even the fog had an orange tint, smoke particles clinging to the air.
The smell of smoke was stronger outside, making me realize what I'd smelled inside was my clothes and hair. Remnants of the fire, not its actual strength. I passed through our rescuers' garden, my blanket dragging behind me through thin snow and thicker frost crystals on shards of grass that had not yet succumbed to the snow's weight. A film of ice had coated the street and I was grateful for the ill-fitting shoes I'd been lent as I walked silently toward the smoldering remains of our home.
A tremendous heat still radiated from the ruins, putting paid to any thought I'd had of searching them for surviving trinkets or knick-knacks. Instead I hitched my blanket higher so it wouldn't drag through soot, and paced the perimeter of where the heat-induced melt had reached, venturing closer where I dared. At that distance, the only thing that had survived were the occasional shards of glass, glittering blackly against scorched earth. A flutter began under my heart, wild and frightened, and I dragged in deep breaths of smoky air, trying to quell it. There was no need to be afraid now, when we had all lived through the fire, and I had already known everything we owned had been lost.
Rationality did nothing to calm the rising fear, or to slow my heart. The morning's cold fled beneath my heating blood and I moved faster, faster, until I stumbled at a run around the grounds, searching for anything, anything that might offer a link between what we had been, and what we would be. My chest hurt from the effort and the smoke in the cold air, and my eyes burned with tears born from grief and the rising wind.
A brick or a branch or a frozen lump of earth finally brought me to my knees with a wailing thud. I bent forward, fingers scrabbling at blackened earth and forehead pressed against half-thawed soil, and I cried until the ground beneath my face, at least, had softened with tears and mucus. There were brittle, burned branches in the softer soil, all that remained of the roses I'd tended in our garden.
I felt no better at all when I finally lifted my head again. There was no catharsis in sobbing; I didn't feel lighter or emptier or more able to move on. I felt cold, my shins and forearms numb against the ground, and thirsty. I sat up stiffly, wiping my arm across my nose, and gathered myself to stand. Glitters of glass shone against the soot in front of me. In them, a spot of color caught the light. I reached for it, and found, half-buried, a piece of glass the size of my palm. I recognized it instantly as a survivor of the stained glass window in our library. It had looked out over our rose garden, though its height was such the garden couldn't actually be seen through it. Still, it reflected the blooms it had faced: glass roses had spilled rich shades of colored sunlight onto my pages for all the days and months and years I'd spent reading in our library.
Our library was gone.
I closed my hand around the edges of the rose, as if the heavy lead could cut away the ache that suddenly rocked through me, and stared hard at the little piece, trying to will away any more tears. The exterior of the rose was entirely lined in heavy lead, probably explaining its survival: its smaller interior pieces had been protected by the heavy lead, and supported by the finer threads of lead between them. The colors were filthy now, but they would wash, and it was something, at least, from our home.
I rose awkwardly, the glass rose in my hand, and returned to my family.
* * *
Father, as tidy as a man could be after a house fire and no bath, was sitting with the rest of the children in our borrowed bedroom, when I returned. I did not often see all of us together, and hesitated in the doorway with a smile despite it all. Father was in his fifties and hearty, with carefully applied color in his hair that left his temples grey and a sense of reliable solidity about him. His features were excellent, deep eyes and a craggy nose set above a patrician mouth and a still-strong jaw. He had fought in the Border Wars as a youth, using his meager pay to buy a ship of his own when the war ended, and as an older man retained most of the broad build he'd developed as a soldier. Age had not yet stooped his shoulders, and his sight remained keen, save for the glasses he wore to read.
Pearl, more awake than I might have expected her at this hour, lounged near him, her own long features a flawless but feminine recreation of his. Her hair lay darker against her shoulders than Father's ever had, a legacy from our birth mother, as was the exceptional paleness of her skin; Father was more sun-touched, though no browner than the sun could make naturally light skin. Opal, still surrounded by the boys, was much prettier than Pearl, but not nearly as beautiful: dark honey-colored hair, tied back in loose waves from a round face with large eyes and rosebud lips, gave her a gentle mothering look that was easier to approach than Pearl's haughty perfection. Suitors thought so, too, and often believed themselves more successful than Pearl's beaus did, because Opal was kind to all of them, and Pearl kind to almost no one.
I lay between them in looks: my hair was closer to Father's in shade, darker than Opal's and lighter than Pearl's. Pearl had Father's nose and mouth; Opal had our dead mother's, and I had an asymmetrical combination of both that earned me the title of striking. Men and women both looked on my sisters with pleasure, drinking in their features, but they studied me, examining my face as if it was a puzzle to be solved. It had bothered me as a child, but I'd grown to find it amusing, especially when I'd learned I could often take the measure of a person by studying them in return. Most people became guilty and looked away, but a rare few would meet my gaze until we were both smiling, or breathless. Those led to my favorite dances at the balls, and once or twice to more.
The boys, puddled around Opal, all favored Maman in skin tones, sharing some degree of her mahogany coloring. Jet, barely two years old, was darker than she, and still had a baby's bridgeless nose, while Jasper had inherited much of Father's profile and a burnished depth to his skin that set him as destined to grow up as beautiful as Pearl. Flint was closest to Maman in all ways, pretty and delicate and warmly brown, with an artist's hands: he could already play the piano better than I ever would, and I loved to watch him practice. We were an attractive family, and in some way I thought that, as well as our wealth, would protect us from the world.
"Amber." Father extended his hand toward me with a welcoming, but serious, smile. "We wondered where you had gone."
"To the house." I took his hand and sat at his feet, thinking that if Maman was here, that if we were dressed as beautifully as we usually were, that the poses we all now held might have been rendered in oils, a family portrait full of affection and fondness. "There's nothing left. How is Maman?"
Father's expression became even more sombre. "Not well. The fire frightened her. I hope the warmth and safety of a salon will bring her comfort, but, girls," he said, and then, with a fond smile at Flint and Jasper, "children, as you boys are old enough to hear household truths now—"
"Some of us are hardly children, Father," Pearl said in her mildest tone, the one that warned most imminently of danger, and Father's smile broadened before falling away.
"No, some of you are not, nor have been for several years now. Still, you are my children, regardless of your age. We will not be retiring to the Queen's Corridor, nor to the Grande," he said, naming the two finest hotels in the town. I loved the Corridor, although the queen had never stayed there. It had been built along the road she took after the king died and she went to war to protect our country, and its walls were covered in mosaics that told the story of her victory…and of the loss she faced afterward, when her son the prince had vanished from the earth. She had been young then, and was very, very old now, but her health was reputed to be strong and I half believed the stories that she had sworn her soul to a witch in order to live until the prince's return.
"The Noble, then," Pearl said with a shrug. "Nowhere else could be considered fine enough."
"We will go to the Crossroads," Father said, and all three of us girls caught our breaths. Flint and Jasper, wide-eyed, looked between us, but still did not understand, when Pearl said, "But that's a common inn, Father," how far we must have fallen to choose it as our refuge.
"All of our wealth was in the house, Pearl," Father said steadily. "Until the trading ships come in, we must be frugal."
"Frugal?" asked Jasper, and Opal slipped her hand over his shoulder, gentle and reassuring.
"It means we cannot spend money freely. That we must think of necessities, instead of luxuries. Simpler clothing, no new books, plainer meals."
"We will buy fine gowns for you girls," Father said, and in the momentary silence following that surprising remark, understanding fell.
Opal, softly, said, "You mean we are to marry at once."
"You've had many suitors," Father replied. "It will help stabilize our fortunes if you marry now, and well."
"We've had suitors we've turned down," Pearl said. "I'm sure no one will think it desperate at all if we suddenly decide now is the time to wed, particularly if we are to stay somewhere so common as the Crossroads, Father. You cannot have it both ways successfully. It is either the Noble," and I noticed that she had, at least, selected the least expensive of the three finest hotels in town, "or spinsters on your hands. Surely our name will give you enough credit to await the ships."
Father took a breath, and Opal's gaze met mine. A knot bound itself in my belly, pressing upward, and I clutched the bit of rose window still in my hand. I did not want to hear what he had to say next, but the words came anyway, relentless with calm. "I'm afraid our credit is already strained, Pearl. The past few seasons have not been as profitable as I might have hoped—"
A gasp parted Pearl's lips, the sound small and sharp enough that she might have taken a blow. Father's jaw rolled, but he continued. "—and our fortunes depend on the incoming ships."
"Why did you not tell us?" Pearl's voice did not rise. She was too cultured for that, but her eyes flashed with fury.
"Because no father wants to tell his children that they verge on destitution, and because we are not so desperate that a good season would not turn it all around. If the next ships had come in with little to show for their journeys, I would have told you then of our situation. The fire has forced me to do so now. I wish it was not so."
"And yet Pearl is right," Opal said in a thin voice. "The house fire is bad enough. If our fortunes are in decline, do we not need a pretense of continuing wealth to ensure good marriages?"
"Beauty rarely requires wealth to come along with it," Father said. "One excellent marriage will offer the other two better chances, and none of you are plain."
"There's no way for us to marry without looking as though we are hastily seeking refuge in another home." I glanced at the rose, hidden in the skirt of my nightdress, then looked back at my father and sisters. "On the other hand, it might seem a perfectly reasonable time for us to do so. It will be months, even years, before our home is reconstructed, and we girls cannot be expected to live in a hotel forever. Society would accept that Father and Maman and the boys might live somewhere more modest for a while, but why would three women of marrying age remain unwed under these circumstances?" I tried to smile, though it felt weak. "You know there are those who say we only stay at home because no one else can match the luxury of our father's house. If he can no longer provide that luxury…."
Pearl examined me as though I had briefly become something new and interesting. Like the puzzle so many others saw me as, perhaps. "I didn't know you could be so mercenary, Amber."
"Well." My smile strengthened. "I do expect you to make that first marriage, Pearl. Yours is the ruthless beauty."
She lowered her lashes in a display of modesty that no one who knew her would believe, then brought her gaze to Father again. "I need at least a month at the Noble to make a marriage, Father. Even I can't do it from the Crossroads."
He looked at her and, though I could see it was against his better judgment, bowed his head. That moment was the first I truly realized my father could not tell his daughters—and perhaps his sons—no. We had always teased him about it, but I had never fully believed it, and I did not then understand the price we would all pay for his generosity.
* * *
We spent less than a day at our neighbors', and yet the retreat to the Noble came as a relief. Maman joined us, elegant with fragility as Father escorted her from the neighbors' house to the hired coach. I could not begrudge the neighbors for not wanting us, all still stinking of smoke and ash, in their own coach; it would be difficult enough for their servants to air feather mattresses and scrub the smell out of bedclothes. Should it settle into the leather of their carriage, they would carry it with them for months. I did, for the first time in my pampered life, worry a little about the expense, but that was beyond my purview, and if it did not fall out of my head, neither did it keep me from sleeping, as the days went by.
The first day we luxuriated in baths, each of us girls and father having clean, hot water poured for us, because the filth of soot and smoke blackened the tub so badly with Father's bath that we could not be expected to get clean without new water. The boys had to share a bath, but even they were glad to be rid of the smoke scent, and exhaustion claimed us all as its own that night.
In the morning we were visited by a dressmaker beside herself with concern over our displaced state. We girls received half a dozen new dresses each, with cunning overlays and wraps in different colors that could be switched around to make our wardrobes look thrice the size they were. Maman had three gowns of her own, and Papa two suits; the boys made do with a jacket apiece and two sets of new trousers, tights, blouses, and shoes, the last of which were the quickest in coming, as the cobbler had pre-cut soles ready for the stitching, and we all needed shoes badly.
Most of our servants had been let go, for we had nowhere to house them and no work for a groundskeeper or cook even if we could pay them. Father had his manservant, who helped with the boys, and we four women shared a lady's maid who fussed us into our new gowns and did our hair and made us presentable to the world. Within a week of our house burning, we were comfortable enough at the Noble, taking two rooms for sleeping and a third as our public room, that we might have visitors without being exposed to all the city who came by.
