After the wedding, my father forced me to place my hands in his when he told me that he would let me live at Varlemont- my current home. A sort of ceremony which was series to him but I found both archaic and quite embarrassing for his sake. He agreed to give me the income from its environs, much larger than my allowance before, to support me and Catherine until I found a proper proper rôle for myself. The position that was supposed to be my brother’s was taken by a son of another family. My father was angry and I was pleased until I realized I was once again alone in that regard. My father would expect me to do something else with my life other than just staying alive.

In the meantime, I was at peace. I can’t say I was happy per se but at least content. Varlemont lays not far from Arras, surrounded by woods with bright lawns, made of white Artesian stone. I’ve always thought it a great misstep on his part of let me leave Calais, as this period of my life allowed me to see the situation clearer than when I was embroiled in it. The light illuminated the dark. I suppose he only did it because it was expected, or because he didn’t like me, or a likely combination of the two.

The first week or so I didn’t know what to do with myself. In Varlemont there was strong sensation that everything was a only a soft mirage- some waking dream I conjured up to be pulled away from me at any moment. I was so used to my life before that I didn’t know how to live in my new one. Calm and quiet surrounded me. There was nothing to worry about - but worry I still did.

I had to find something to pass the time. In the mornings I would ride in the woods, read in my study, and work in the gardens. Under the hot sun, with my shirt sleeves rolled up my arms, I would plant trees, flowers, and other plants in the dirt. I imagined in my mind’s eye what a good thing it would be to grow everything needed on the land. I imagined an ice house, repairs to the château itself, and a lime avenue that lead to the courtyard. The lime trees were small then but I would smile to myself at the thought of seeing them grown. At times I would sit in the garden, twirl the little flowers between my thumb and finger, and try to see the animals in the clouds. I saw then that I would grow old and die here. A place where there’s nothing to worry about. I could keep my routine forever and into eternity - what a peaceful life.

It was all a pleasant distraction for me. I was afraid to spend too much, as my father required that I send him a complete account of my expenses but more staff appeared around me. I hired a gardener who I would speak to in the afternoons about my plans and more men for the stables. I bought my first horse - a white horse I named Clement. I ordered more clothes - heavily embroidered silk suits and crisp linen shirts. More furnishings for the previously bare rooms - blue silks and dark wood furniture. Books filled the empty shelves of my study. Some I had brought from my room in Calais but others were from Paris, bound in blue Moroccan leather, on the sciences and nature. I would stay there going through my expenses and reading until the afternoon sun turned into the midnight moon.

As long as I worked on the estate I didn’t need to think of my old life and my old self. That was all only a night-mare and I lived in the real world. No longer a child - married, living on my own estate, with my own money. Of course nothing was actually mine - it was all my father’s. His estate, his money, and his marriage that he had forced me in. But I could forget that because he was far away - and how calm I felt outside of his gaze. I received a few letters from him during that time, but what about do not know because I promptly threw them into the fire.

I would think back on my previous life as if through a looking glass. I could physically remember my past but it had no effect on me, as if I was looking upon a painting or remembering a far off dream. I couldn’t connect to that previous life of mine. While a minor part of my mind constantly thought about the things I had seen, the larger ignored. When I did reminisce on my memories I would wonder what was wrong with me - I had no cause to think or act that way. I only had to wait. I though all my previous antics and emotions so dramatic and so nauseatingly immature that it made me sick to think about. In a way, I looked down at my small self and thought myself better, older, and mature. My memories and that old self of mine all lived apart from me.

There were still some problems of course. The first was that I still had to live with Catherine. To be fair, there has never been anything wrong with her. In the eyes of everyone, I should’ve liked her from the start - she’s pretty, fair, graceful, and noble. The problem was that there had always been everything wrong with me. Most of the time she was another faceless wraith that floated around the exterior of my vision who I never needed to think of as a person of consequence. I would wake up much earlier in the mornings so I didn’t have the chance of facing her. I decided that I was obligated to see her only at supper, which - to the surprise of no one- only became more awkward as time went on. I knew I had to support her, which was fine, but my solution to the anger I had towards the marriage forced on me was to pretend I wasn’t married at all. She only lived with me. I would respect her as a separate person and I preferred that person’s life stayed separate from mine.

At the risk of defending myself, I didn’t completely ignore her - I wasn’t necessarily trying to. I only didn’t know her, or what to say around her, or how to act around her, and I was otherwise occupied. I was so used to only speaking with my family and while that wasn’t always pleasant at least it was what I knew. This new person, Catherine, was something else entirely. As we took our supper, in vast silence dotted with cordial conversation, I would realize that I couldn’t read her. Was she pleased or unhappy? She seemed pleased. Sometimes she would smile as she spoke to me but if it was sincere I could not tell. There was something that annoyed me in her graceful satisfaction and fashionable dress - I had no idea what she was to be pleased about. Sometimes I wished she would do something to make me dislike her, so I would have something to complain about, or - better- that she would hate me.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

After the wedding, I stayed in Paris for a few weeks before going back north. We kept separate bedrooms and I never ventured into hers. I spent more time with her family but they were all as elusive to me as she was. All strangers - all of them. Every moment stranger than the last. How false I was in a position I didn’t belong in. The Rohans existed in a Society that wasn’t made for me - someplace they all existed in at ease that I had no want or need for. A Society where everyone always knew what to say, how to behave, and how to integrate to their proper place in the mass of others. The only thing I got from it was embarrassment.

“How are you faring?” I asked Catherine one day across the table - a half hour too late.

“I’m well, Monseigneur,” she said back in her usual pleasing tone which I found false, “and you?”

“I’m just Charles - no need to use vous with me,” I said as I moved food around with a fork on my plate. A moment passed before I remembered I had to reply. “I’m well.”

“I received a letter from my brother,” she said, “he asks we come to court soon.”

“Why?”

“For my presentation.”

Blank.

“To Her Majesty.”

“Oh,” I had forgotten In truth, the last thing I wanted was to spend another excruciating journey with her - I had only barely returned back from the last one. It had only been a month or so.

“Yes - once we’re settled.”

Whatever “settled” meant. I had no intention of ever returning to Paris. I had no need to leave Varlemont - I had everything I needed. I hoped she would busy herself with whatever it was she did to pass the time and forget about it.

“I miss him sometimes,” as least we had that in common, “and Papa.”

“I’m sure.”

The second problem were the night-mares. I had always had them, far and few between, but they began anew only a few days after I arrived in Varlemont. Many times I would wake shaking in a cold sweat and not remember why. Other times I had the same dreams over and over again. There was one where I would stand in a similar, but not the exact same, bedroom as the one I have. I would walk through the large white and blue paneled halls, content and unbothered, until I felt a sudden urge to flee. I would try to find a way outside but as I tried I would only walk through more drawing rooms, bedrooms, studies, antichambres, and stairs where I never saw an exit. Panic would set in, trapped as I was, and that odd sensation would come back over me - and at that dawning sensation I would wake up.

Of course other times I dreamed of my father - the things he did to me. Sometimes I dreamed of my mother. I had many dreams of me screaming at him while he sat unbothered at his desk, expression blank, as I pleaded for him to look up at me, to notice me, but he would only lay back in his chair and take snuff. Strangely, I also dreamed of my tutor, my first one, who was fired when I was eight after a disagreement with my father. I saw myself clutching onto his leg as he left me forever.

Needless to say, I also had trouble sleeping. I thought about using the laudanum but holding the bottle seemed intensely wrong. In the darkest hours of the night, I had that odd sensation again, something akin to homesickness. I didn’t miss my father, or my old home, or my old self. Memories of my past life would give me such a mortification that it kept me up. Yet I missed my mother, and my tutor, my studies, and how I always knew what to do and where I had to be - when I was still a child and still had my mother.

I would lay there as the summer night air came in from the windows and feel such as sickness - a sickness knowing that my mother was still there and she would never be safe. A sickness knowing I was still small and wishing I wasn’t. A sickness when I wished I had nothing to worry about at all. I attempted to ignore it and try to sleep but I found myself pacing in my rooms, in my study, in the halls - thinking about her there, missing her, and how much I felt I needed to flee. I only had to go back home - but I didn’t want to go home. I didn’t even know what my home looked like. It was difficult to make a home out of place where around every corner, every chair, and every hall I saw the dark shadow of my father. A home where I would also hear her - screaming in the middle of the night.

But the mornings came. I smile at the tree lined horizon, when I see the garden bloom, as I ride through the trees, as I fall asleep to the pattering of the rains on the window, and when I look at my wife because it’s mine - it’s all mine. Somewhere there is a light - I can outrun my childhood - I only have to run fast enough. If only I can do that then I can be content. If I can be content then I can be happy. Every other second I think of the things that happened to me, somewhere in the dark recesses of my mind, but how little that matters when contrasted to my surroundings - my artificial life. My life of hot summer light, fresh flowers, and bright green grasses. No matter what happens, no matter the circumstances of my situation - I will make my peace in these weeds.