Chapter 7 – Lady of the Household #7
There was a great deal more such information, page after delightful page, and later she would linger over every word, imagining Remin as a boy with a cat, a boy learning to ride a horse, a boy who had snuck out to gorge on green apples, with unfortunate results.
The duchess was right; Remin would never think to tell her such stories about himself.
Finally, I have included with my gifts a package of his mother’s belongings, which he would never have requested if he did not hold you in highest regard.
I am sure you know how precious these things are to him, so please treat them with great care and respect.
They are beautiful objects in their own right and might be handed down to your own daughter, in time.
I had some acquaintance with his mother, and I promise nothing would have pleased her more than for you to keep and use them.
I look forward to your reply. Please keep yourself well and look after my dear boy.
With greatest affection,
Liliet Ereguil
“Go on,” said Remin as soon as she set the letter aside, sitting up straight in his chair as if he needed to brace himself.
Rising, she untied the strings of the parcel, opening the cloth wrapping to reveal another, softer cloth inside. It was a pretty pink blanket trimmed in white fur, the sort that might go over a lady’s lap on a cold winter day.
“Is this your mother’s?” she asked as Remin’s large fingers reached to stroke the fur.
“Yes. One of the maids saved it from the fire.” Even as she watched, she could see the emotion bleeding away from his face, the sharp, arrogant angles hardening. “She grabbed everything around my mother’s chair.”
Ophele wondered who that maid was. She wanted to ask, to know that such a good and faithful servant had lived and been rewarded. But she thought it was best to let it pass, for the present. Suddenly, she was nervous as she drew back the blanket to reveal the rest.
Wrapped inside was the promised embroidery box, a beautiful object of gold-flecked burl wood with a glass lid depicting a willow tree over a lily pond.
The silk thread inside was a little faded with age, but carefully spooled and ordered by color.
There was a needlebook with silver needles of graduating sizes, and silver shears with playful cats forming the handles, their peridot eyes glittering.
A large squashy strawberry served as a pincushion, with worn green leaves.
Above her, Remin’s hand reached toward the box, hesitating for a moment before he plucked out the strawberry. Ophele watched as he lifted it to his nose. The look in his eyes made her hastily drop the cat shears and go to him.
“It’s all right,” she said as his arms wrapped around her, so tight she could barely breathe. Her arms went around his neck. “It’s all right. ”
With his face pressed to her breast, she felt him draw a deep, deliberate breath. His words were muffled, but steady. “It still smells like her.”
“Oh, Remin…” Helplessly, she stroked his black hair. Grief was like this, she knew; years later, her grief for her own mother could still rise up and strangle her without warning. It was hard, and cruel, and there was no remedy for it.
“We can put it aside for a bit, if you want,” she said when he lifted his head. His face was as forbidding as ever.
“No. They’re meant to be used,” he said, cuffing her in a rough, grateful caress. “I’m fine, wife, go on and look at the rest.”
He pulled her into his lap as she carefully withdrew the remaining objects.
In a smaller cloisonné box, there were a half dozen thimbles, several of them jeweled and exquisite, and three of them quirky little treasures that must have come as a set: a frog, a bluebird, and a fox.
Charmed, she slipped one onto her finger and felt Remin’s arms tighten around her waist.
“There are six of them,” he noted, a little gruff, but making an attempt at his usual humor. “One for each of our daughters.”
“But I want to keep the frog,” she replied, tapping it against his lower lip like the peck of a kiss. It drove the shadow in his eyes back another step.
The last treasure was in the bottom, a folded piece of silk that must have been the last thing his mother ever made.
House Roye, whose emblem was the starling, gregarious birds who formed massive flocks over summer meadows in the evenings.
The beginnings of that soaring dance were captured in the silk, larger birds in the foreground diminishing to small silhouettes.
They looked so real, as if Remin’s mother had captured the motion of their flight with silk.
“I will learn to do this,” Ophele said softly as she held it up, more to herself than to Remin.
Not just because embroidery was something a noblewoman should know how to do.
This was the inheritance Remin’s mother had left for his wife.
A woman’s art passed from mother to daughter, a challenge to become more than what she was.
And later that night, as she dreamed of mothers and secrets and things left behind, a windstorm blew through the Andelin Valley, and swept the leaves from the trees.