0
June 13th, 1794
It was the early, noisy chatter of the marsh warblers that roused creatures of the South Downs upon Sussex, and their squeaking and griping could be heard through the smallest of cracks in a double-paned window that was often let open to let in the sea breezes into a handsomely decorated room. The walls were of heavy grey stone, and a thick plush carpet of red and gold protected its sometimes barefooted inhabitants from the deep cold air that seemed to emanate from the very floors. No fancily gilded paintings adorned the walls, plain except for long stretches of painstakingly embroidered tapestries that hung from one wall to another, the beautiful calligraphy of some strange, albeit beautiful foreign language stitched boldly in gold thread. A large four poster bed was wedged into one corner, but its silk drapes had already been thrust aside, and the fine linen sheets were knotted, as if someone had hastily pushed them off only moments ago – the recentness which was shown by the small embedment still imprinted upon the swan feather down mattress. Sitting curled up as small as was humanly possible upon the narrow windowsill, her gangly things pressed against her flat chest, was Renée, her dark azure eyes wide with undisguised wonder as she silently watched the sun rise beyond the white cliffs, to the East of the English channel. She pushed the window open farther and closed her eyes briefly with a contented sigh as the cool wind caressed her rosy cheeks, still hot from the tempting warmth of her bed. Grudgingly she glanced back at the bed but shrugged her shoulders – oh, she knew she should get in as much sleep as she can, it was only six thirty in the morning, but who with half a heart could possibly sleep on such a day as this!
Today her father would return from King’s Cross Station in London with her two elder sisters, Desirée and Adele, and true though it was that she despised and distrusted them heartily as they had been nothing but cruel to her these past ten years, nearly eleven, she corrected herself, they would be fresh from their latest year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and that was the news Renée desired more than anything else at the moment. Life here at the manor for the past five months had been so dull, and if she were to be truthful her days had turned from mediocre to awful ever since the newest and most wanted addition to the Mercer family had been born – Edouard, her mother’s only surviving boy out of eight children, one other boy born dead, and her father’s sole legitimate heir to his land and titles. Privately Renée thought it monstrously unfair that only a boy could inherit, for nothing in her limited experience with the opposite sex had proved to her that they were any more capable of running a business or clan than she or any other woman could. Indeed, her small interaction had shown to opposite instead – she thought most of them, excepting her father of course, to be very uncouth and far less interesting than herself. It wasn’t a secret or a surprise to her, at any rate, that her mother Margaux headed most of the family’s domestic affairs for her father; she could only assume from this that because men were too stupid to do any real work, they made their women do it for them.
Clever in a malicious sort of way though, to be fair.
She thought of her mother with a wistful sort of sadness, for although they were very close, these past months caring for the needy, stupid little white-faced, ugly brat of a thing had taken quite the toll on her health, and for days and days Renée had been strictly forbidden from communicating with her mother on her father’s orders, who said that Renée’s whining would worry and upset her. This separation, which was really her father’s fault, only made her hate the innocent little boy more, and for a few seconds she poisonously wished under her breath that he had never been born. Then she quickly recanted for her Margaux’s sake and blushed with shame – What would Mother say if she heard me say so?
The soft peeping of the brown house sparrows joined into the warbler’s harsher melody to form a chorus, and a tiny close lipped smile formed on her face before she took in a deep breath and began to sing, softly at first, and then louder, and the winds carried her fine tuned soprano far off into the wet downs.
“Greensleeves was all my joy,
Greensleeves was my delight!
Greensleeves was my heart of gold,
And who but my Lady Greensleeves? “
The heavy oak wood door to her chambers creaked open, but she paid no attention and continued to sing as a particularly raggedy looking house elf slipped inside, a young but scrawny female with long stringy hair that fell to the base of her pole like neck.
“I have been ready at your hand,
To grant whatever you would crave,
I have both wagered life and land,
Your love and good-will for to have.”
Such a lovely song with such pretty words, such inconstant ones. For if what they say is true and that muggle Tudor King truly wrote this for his Boleyn mistress, it is all a lie…for if he loved her with such sincerity how could he chop off her head, just like that?
The house elf began to stoke the seemingly dead coals into life again with magics of the simplest kind, and as the fire blazed and crackled anew in the hearth, Renée turned and acknowledged its presence with a small grin.
“Good morning, Pax. After you’re done with that and lighting the candelabra you will iron out that new caftan my Aunt Fatma ordered for me from Tangiers, won’t you? I took it out when it came last night and tried to put it on myself and rumpled it all up so now it’s such a mess I don’t know what to do.”
“Y-yes, young Miss! Would you want Pax to bring you your breakfast now, or later with young misses’ sisters when they awake to have in the dining room?”
…And be forced to endure yet another bothersome morning with Angelique asking me ‘why?’ to everything I answer for her? I’d sooner dance the volta with the devil himself.
Renée picked at imaginary stray threads on her cream colored nightgown and cast her eyes down to hide her irritation.
“Actually I’d prefer to break my fast here in my room as soon as you’re finished here, Pax.”
“Yes, and a letter came for you with the morning post, young Miss!”
Her first instinct was to raise her eyebrows in surprise – who would write to her so late at night to make the morning post ? – but she managed to control that instinctive urge and gave an elegant, dismissive shrug of her shoulders.
“If it’s not from Mother or any of my aunties I don’t wish to bother myself with it now. Put it on the mantel and then go and fetch my breakfast. I’ll read it later…maybe.”
Renée watched with some envy as Pax gave a little bow and then disapparated with a pop; she wished she could melt away into thin air and reappear again like that – but no, she still had to wait for a terrible eternity of three long months before she would learn anything useful about controlling her magic. A bit bored now that the birds had flown off, her gaze fell on the letter sitting quite innocently above the mantel, and when she saw the wax seal of the House of Lafayette situated in Calais, France, this time her eyebrows really did shoot up with shock. Quick as a water-snake in the reeds, she rushed to it and ripped through the seal, her eyes reading as quickly as her poor literacy in French would allow. The writing was cramped and small, barely legible, and this was how she read it –
“A mon ami, Rori , Je n'espère pas que vous souvenez moi, mais mon nom est François Armand Lafayette et je vous ai rencontré pour la première fois quelques ans il y a à mon cinquième fête d'anniversaire a l'manoir de Mon Oncle à Cornouailles, Angleterre. Bientôt je suis dans Calais avec mon Père, ma Mère, et ma petite soeur. Depuis je vous ai vu plusieurs fois et j'espère que vous me souvenez moi, surtout puisque nous assisterons l'Académie de Hogwarts cette année. Je me souviens que vous avez deux plus vieilles soeurs qui sont dans Slytherin, et j'ai aussi trois plus vieux frères dans Slytherin. Cyrille est de bons amis avec Desiree. Je suis désolé.. J'espère que vous vouliez être dans Slytherin, comme je fais, mais indépendamment de Maison que nous sommes mis dans j'espère que nous resterons amis. Votre vrai et fidèle ami, Armand.”
How could I not remember him? He was the only boy my own age at all the adult parties who actually paid any attention to me – and he wasn’t afraid to talk to me and joke and act normally as if I were not some monster with contagious germs instead of just a girl. I already knew his brother Cyrille is ‘friends’ with Desi…she batted her eyes at him like a drunk cow ever since Christmastide last. Anyone with the sense the gods gave a cat could see that. His French is as bad as mine – if it were any better I wouldn’t have been able to read it at all.
With a secretive smile, Renée pressed the parchment against her chest and locked it away in her cupboard with a silver key that hung upon a slender chain around her neck, and decided she would not reply. If he had been anyone really important, of course she would have written back immediately, but although Armand was kind, he was only a fourth son and practically a nobody compared to her. And by the sound of his devotion, she was sure he would forgive her by the time they met once again at King’s Cross come the fast approaching September.
An hour later, Renée, fully dressed in the gorgeous caftan her favorite Auntie had sent to her from Morocco, admired her reflection in the mirror as vain as a peacock. Her long gold brown hair was set in pretty waves that fell to the small of her back, and the turquoise and pearl earrings that dangled from her ears perfectly matched the oceanic blue sash of the traditional Moroccan gown and sapphire, dragon leather slippers. She was not allowed to wear makeup and such a young age, but as she smiled coyly at herself in the looking glass she thought she made a pretty enough picture without the Egyptian kohl and eyeliner her sisters so adored to abuse. A knock on her door startled her briefly from her vanity, but she cleared her throat to signal that Pax could enter.
A frown puckered between her eyebrows when she saw that the nervous looking house elf did not carry a silver platter topped with hot tea and biscuits like she expected and which her aching stomach looked forward to.
“Yes?”
She snapped a bit rudely with a roll of her eyes.
“Pax is sorry to not have your breakfast here now, but it is downstairs instead with the Lord Mercer and your sisters…and also Pax is supposed to let young Miss know that there is a guest waiting for her in the foyer before she goes to eat. I is sorry!”
But who could it be? How annoying, and so early too! This had better be someone important.
“…Fine. Tell Father and my guest that I will be right down, Pax.”
“Y-yes, young Miss.”
In less than five minutes, Renée had bid her father good morning and completely ignored her younger siblings, who reminded her of the quarrelsome birds outside with all of their unnecessary noisiness, and then proceeded to the foyer at the opposite wing of the manor by the main entrance, escorted by Pax – as if she had not, in fact, lived here for years. The two mahogany doors swung inward, and she forced herself to slow her pace and greet the guest, whoever they were, with a polite smile…
Edited by A. Renée Mercer, 25 October 2010 - 07:54 AM.
Sadie can be too, I'm sure...
