Days passed. Weeks. Months. Summer ended. An earthquake struck Lisbon. Events passed by but I felt no different. I was as “settled” as I could be; Varlemont was properly furnished, the land well kept, and all my distractions faded. I had nothing to do, nothing to say, and nothing to think. I had to face reality and my reality was this: I was alone.
I had received no word from my brother, who I assumed was content wherever he was, which annoyed me. I wasn’t worried much for his safety but his silence bothered me. It had been months since I last saw him. We all knew of of his elopement so what was he waiting for? My father had made his attempts to drag him back home. I thought of writing a letter to him myself, and I spent much time pondering what to say, but I did not trust the staff enough to do so. He could’ve written to our mother and what harm could’ve come from that? We knew where he was. It’s possible my father keep his letters from me. At the time I believed so. I still choose to believe that. It makes my present situation less painful.
Or more - I haven’t yet decided.
I only had Catherine for company - which was poor. As the weeks passed, she spoke more freely of Paris and Court. Her Majesty had a son; we should go to the Opera, the ballets, or walk the gardens of the Tuileries. Madame de X hosts a salons in the Marais; her brother received a promotion; her aunt told her this; and a friend that. It all annoyed me. I had no care for any of it. She could’ve told me that Our Saviour himself was seen walking on the Seine and I wouldn’t have cared enough to leave the island I had built for myself.
I missed my mother terribly. I worried for her as for the first time in my life we were separated. The space between use widened with time. I paced around my room for hours as I thought of her. I knew she wasn’t happy and certainly not safe. At times it was easy for me to forget her. At other times I became sick to my stomach from the guilt that came with my idleness. I was safe, in a sense, but she was so far away, encased in stone, suffering and silent, somewhere between dead and alive.
Those thoughts of mine kept me far into the night. I thought of my brother returning, I thought my mother would weep tears of joy and forgive him, and we would live together like we once did, but much happier than before. I thought my brother and I would laugh, fence in the courtyard, and ride our horses in the woods like we used to. I could see my mother again and speak to her without any of the dark burdens that plagued us. The sun would shine, the flowers would bloom, and somewhere in there I would be happy too. That was the only thing I wanted. The only thing I truly want.
There was only one person I never saw in those daydreams on mine - the one obstacle. If he were gone - though I can’t say I imagined killing him much then - say of some common illness or odd accident then that would all come true. My brother would return; why wouldn’t he? My mother would sage and happy; why wouldn’t she? I would be happy myself; why wouldn’t I? I would step from the shadows and the sun would shine on my family once again. There would be nothing left to do other than return to a childhood of domestic bliss and simplicity I longed for. One where my father would never darken the corners of my mind. One where he would be forgotten, where he never existed in the first place. I could return to the easy life I had when I always knew who I was and where to be. I could stay exactly the same forever; I could be free. I knew what I wanted. I knew what I had to do.
I can’t remember when I decided to kill my father. I had no sudden epiphany. No direct cause and effect. He only became far removed from me. He was only another person. As long as he did not bother me, I was content. As long as I was away, he was not a person I had to deal with. I still clung to the child’s fantasy that he was someone to respect; in the depths of his soul he was a man of reason, and he only did what he thought best. That image in my mind, when I looked up at my father from my low station, crumbled to the ground after sixteen long years because I saw him clearly from the distance. I suppose I had always wanted him dead, but much like my violence to myself, it was not ignited by violent passions. In truth, I only wished him gone and that was the end of it.
I received word from my mother to go back to Calais. Catherine smiled brightly in her boudoir when I told her the news. The journey was not a terribly long one but my heart raced the whole way. It had been too long - some two months - since I had last seen her. The presence of the letter itself worried me and throughout the whole journey I wracked my brain trying to figure out why she needed me there. The carriage moved far too slowly and my nerves allowed me no rest. Relief came over me when I saw the faded white facade of the chateau come to my window.
The stagnant air oppressed me. We rode past the dead grass and the scare staff that wondered the grounds in their greys. I became sick to my stomach as the carriage rode closer. I stood in the courtyard gazing up at the large mediaeval tower and the dirtied windows. A cold wind rustled the trees but it was still largely silent. It was an odd feeling of being somewhere so familiar yet no longer mine. I had only been gone for mere months but it seemed I had been gone a decade. Nothing had changed there and it was no longer a home of my own.
I held out a small bouquet of dried daises, her favorite which I picked from my gardens, to my mother as she stood by the window of her salon, “I brought these for you.”
“Ah, lovely!” she said as she took the flowers in her arms and smiled. “Henriette? Find a vase for these.”
She gave the flowers to the maid. I studied her for signs that something was wrong. I thought there had to be a reason she wanted me there, but I saw nothing. Despite her usual fatigue and languidness, she seemed fine and dressed well in a lavender gown for dinner. I wasn’t very convinced, and seeing her again made me ill. I knew where she was and who my father was and I could not escape the sensation that I had abandoned her. I had been solitary, too selfish, to think about her. I should’ve come back sooner but I didn’t. I should have. It has always been a great regret of mine.
“I grew them in my gardens,” I said. “it’s been coming along nicely.”
“That’s good,” she said as she cast her eyes down into the gray courtyard stone below. “There’s no flowers here now. Mine’s barren.”
The gardens were well trimmed but lacked any of the organic foliage I have in Varlemont. My father was partial to the forests, the game, and the chase. He never worried about the gardens other than to the extent everyone else did. Some time ago he bought a gardener from Paris to make something up in the new fashion but he was let go and the gardens had not been well kept since.
“I can send my gardener,” I said, “there’s always next spring.”
"Mayhaps” she said in a low voice as she turned back towards me, “you should give some to Catherine.”
“I have.” I wasn’t lying.
“How is she?” I didn’t have a true answer. At no point in the months that passed did I know what she was feeling. “Fine.”
“Happy?”
“I suppose.”
She tilted her head at me, “and you?”
“I am,” I said. Not a lie, but not the truth either.
She sat at her small table and held out her arms to me. “Come here.”
I stepped toward her and held her hands in mine. That was something she did when she wished to say something serious to me. There was a sad glint in her eyes.
"I want you to know that your happiness is all I wish for," she said as she squeezed my hands. "I need you to be honest with me."
"Alright." I wavered.
"I know that-"
We both turned at the sound of my father walking through the doors. I never learned what she wished to say to me.
I was seated next to Catherine at supper. The salon had more candles, porcelain, crystal, and staff than on a usual day, but that orchestrated sophistication did not add a new shine to what I knew. The room was still drafty, the windows turned black with the night, and once again I found myself back at the same table with my father. He sat at the head, stoic and unbothered, drinking from his cup as servants set down the silver platters. I kept my eyes down. I only had to let the time pass, and eventually I would be back home.
His mere presence annoyed me. I feared he would say something or look at me in a certain way, which would anger me. His voice grated in my ears, but I kept as cordial as I was able. His tone, which I once thought of as authoritative, became cold, sardonic, and haughty. I noticed how much he ate compared to everyone else, how much he drank, and how much he seemed to please himself. Did he not realize no one else was amused? It was the only time when we were all obliged to be together. I doubt he cared if we were comfortable doing so. At least no one could say he completely neglected his family.
The night wore on, but the clock turned back in time. In a few mere hours, I had become a child again. I settled further into the tar to struggle and suffocate. I saw then, as I stared at him and as he drank in his careless apathy, that as long as he lived on, I would grow only to return to exactly where I began. I never escaped. I ran, only to find my past right in front of me.
"Your wife is very pretty tonight," said my father to me. "Tell her how pretty she is."
Suddenly, I had a severe migraine.
"Yes, very pretty," I muttered, only half glancing at her. She gave me a girlish, blushing smile, which embarrassed me.
"It's about time we had a younger woman here."
I decided not to acknowledge that.
"So," he started up again after I didn't answer, "how is married life?"
"We're well." I didn't wish to give him any more details about my life than I was obliged to.
"He's been gardening," pipped up my mother with a conversational smile, "brought me flowers today."
"Ah, I see." I hoped that was the end of that.
"Too busy planting seeds in your garden, but not your wife-"
What he said after that, I do not know. I had since stopped listening. I saw his mouth move, but I heard nothing as a disgusted, hot rage rose inside me. If it was a comment he made to me alone, I might have brushed it off like all the other snide, insulting comments he enjoyed seeing my reaction to. Except we weren't alone. We were at dinner. In front of my mother, in front of Catherine. That comment alone might have filled me with more anger than anything else he had said to me in my life. Wide may have been the abuses I was willing to tolerate from him, abuses I would justify in my own mind, but she was someone new, someone good, and someone I did not wish to see sink down into the tar with the rest of us.
And he just kept talking.
"My God," I said in a low voice, "can you just shut up?"
His eyes sharpened. A silence rested between us. A silence which grew louder as I braced myself for whatever was going to happen next. I didn't regret it. I stared at him, expecting him to make his next move. I was ready. Only seconds later, his face softened as he laughed.
"Don't be so emotional," he chuckled and smirked. "I was only joking."
Oh, how badly I wanted to bash his face in for that.
Dinner ended quite abruptly after I walked away without saying a word. My mother, followed closely by Catherine, berated me to apologize in the nearby hall. I did not wish it, but I agreed only if I could wait until morning. I could not handle speaking with him anymore that night.
"I apologize for his behavior," I told Catherine outside our adjoining guest rooms, "and mine."
But she only gave me a shy, uncertain smile and fared me goodnight.
I did not sleep. I stayed wide awake, pacing as I did, as the night progressed. If he wished to see me again, I would be ready to do so. I was too busy thinking to sleep anyway. I sat on the floor, my legs up to my chest, at the door that led to Catherine's. I stared off into the moon-dark room, and my thoughts wandered. It was far from the first time he disgusted me, so I didn't know why I was so angered. Was it because I no longer feared him? No matter what happened, I would go home eventually. He was no longer a person of my present, a living anachronism far removed from me. A man who kept me from the life I wished to live and the life my family could have. One where I would never have to return to Calais. I perceived before me that my mother and brother could stay with me in Varlemont, and we could have all been very happy then. I closed my eyes and imagined the past summer, when the sun was still bright, when the smell of the roses from the garden came in from the windows. I had left my true home to find myself once again listening for sounds on the other side of a door.
Morning came through the curtains. I met with my father in the hall outside his apartments. Catherine, whom I asked to accompany me, stayed silent by my side.
"My apologies, Monseigneur; I had been drinking." That wasn't true. After the wedding, I promised myself I would refrain from drinking except, of course, at supper and sometimes at night. "I find you might empathize."
He looked hard. I smiled. He brushed past. I often pondered why he never retaliated against me. Though I have a guess as to why, it was Catherine. Despite being my wife, she was still a Rohan, a part of a large, extensive family with connections to Court and Society. If he were to mistreat me or anyone in my family, with her witness, she could easily tell her family of it. As her father-in-law, I suppose he had some rights over her, but my father wasn't a fool. His worst fear would be that his good name would be ruined in the eyes of his peers, the only people who mattered, who saw him as a noble man of reason. I decided that for the rest of my time in Calais, he would not find me without her.
I thought it best we left later that morning. I helped Catherine into the carriage before I turned back towards the tall gray tower. I blocked the sun's rays with my hand as I gazed into one of the windows. The cold wind blew, and under the dim glass, I saw my mother watch over me. I smiled and waved. My father came into view to her left. My smile dropped.
I can never stop thinking of her. In the depths of night, in moments of silence, and in moments of distraction, I see her again. I see again the things my father had done to her, and I feel again the guilt I have knowing that he's still connected to me despite the time and distance. The guilt of knowing she is still trapped forever in the past, silent and suffering, pleading and begging, awake and unconscious, both dead and alive. I sense a near void where she once stood. Before my very eyes, I perceive her, and as I run into my ink black horizons, she is the white luminescent wraith that haunts me. When I hold my wife's hands, I feel hers-lithe and cold-against my own. When I look up at her portrait, I see her for who she is. My past and my present. She is everything I could've been and everything I am.
Yet there she was, sinking still, and I, her son, had left her there. It was my duty to protect her and my responsibility to make her happy. There was nothing I could do when I was young and small, but I was then a man grown. I had options. I had plans. I may have escaped in my own way, but I could not leave her, not with him, never again.
In my moments of anger, I imagined pushing him down the stairs so he would break his neck, of slipping into his room at night and suffocating him with a pillow, or of taking one of his pistols and shooting him directly in the forehead. But in reality, it wasn't a simple thing. A son murdering his father is just as sinful as killing His Majesty or Cain murdering Abel. If I were to succeed, no amount of water would cleanse me. For the rest of my life, I will walk the world as a man damned and when I pass, my soul will burn forever into eternity. In my dreams, I saw myself walking up to the gallows and the executioner's sword gleaming in the afternoon sun. I preferred to keep my head on my body. If my family was going to be together again I had to be alive to see it, so being sent to the gallows would've been quite counterproductive. My father dying of some odd accident or illness in the near future did not seem in the sights. He was still quite young and healthy, with no problems with his health as far as I knew. In the mornings, he would go on walks around the estate, ride, and hunt with no signs of slowing. If I were to follow the natural course of things as God intended, I suspect he would've had quite a long life. If he were to die, preferably sooner than later, there was one option I could think of: I had to poison him.
At night, I stared at the bottle on my nightstand. The candlelight flickered from the glass. I had to ask myself: would it be worth it? When I thought of myself, I believed it wasn't. When I thought of my mother, I believed it was. A life without her wasn't a life I wished to live, and as time grew, my mind conjured up dark thoughts on how he must have been treating her. I jolted awake in the small hours, and as I stared into the darkness of my room, my blood boiled again within me, and I prayed for him gone. He was the perpetual leech that robbed me and my family of our lifeblood. I could never be happy if he was alive, never safe; he would always be there lurking. In the corners of my room, behind my shoulder, and inside the depths of my mind. But in that darkness, I also saw the figure of my mother that I had long reached for. She was my comfort; she was everything I had known; she was the anchor in the restless bashing waves and crashing thunder; and she was the one I cared for-the first woman I truly loved. I would damn myself for eternity for her, as long as I knew she was at peace. I would smile and laugh at the flames, and as I burned, that knowledge would be my solace, and her happiness would become my own.
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So, to answer the question of why I decided to kill my father, I only have to say this: I can't say I did it for me.
I received word from her again. I was slower to respond as I had little time to recover from my last visit, and I had no wish to call again, but I did. I pondered the ways I could've poisoned him, but none seemed smart or possible. I thought of some poisonous plant in his food. I must have had a book somewhere with some information on it. But only the kitchen staff in the small outbuildings were near any of the meals prepared, and they would find it odd if anyone in the family, outside of my father, ventured there. Even if I found myself some pretext, there would be no way of being certain I wouldn't also poison myself or anyone else in the process. For the same reasons, I could do nothing in the wine cellar. The only place I could possibly have access to without arousing suspicion was my father's study. He drank the most in the depths of night, when he found his rage, and after the mornings I would see the bottles that littered his desk. If the drinking caused his rage or only intensified it, I do not know. Some of the worst things he did to us happened then. He was often calmer the day after, unsure if it was exhaustion or repentance, until he became increasingly agitated. Then the cycle repeated.
I only had to poison one of the bottles in his cabinet. How I did not know. I couldn't open a bottle there and easily close it. I had the expensive wines and liquors in my own study. There were many possible plants I could've used, but I feared any peculiar or violent symptoms would give me away. I had only the laudanum. I thought that if he drank the bottle during one of his drink bouts, his physician would think he died like all other drunks do. This plan left a good margin for error. I knew there was a chance he would never drink it. There was also the chance I would have to wait days, weeks, or months for my plan to be realized. The flaws did not worry me much. Once I gave him the bottle, it would be out of my hands, and I found I preferred it that way. It would be up to God at that point. I would not have to be the sole executioner. I could've never killed him as directly as I sometimes wished I could; he was still my father after all.
If we were to die, I did not want Catherine to accompany me. Which was a task I found more difficult than my decision to kill him in the first place. She did not understand why I didn't want her to come with me, and I didn't have a good enough answer. She relented eventually, with some tears, but I believe seeing my father dead would've been worse for her.
The one thing I hated about my plan was that it required I waste a good Burgundy on him. In my study, I took a bottle, poured the laudanum, and re-corked the bottle. That was it. It was quite simple. It seemed quite low-risk-a thought that may seem callous. Which it is-because I am.
"I've brought this for you," I said with a disarming smile as I stood in his study. I was not comfortable being in the same room with him, but it was a risk I needed to take. No one needed to know I gave him anything.
He took the bottle from my hands, stared down at it, and huffed. "Cheap."
I supposed I had failed.
He set the bottle on his desk with a thud. "Have you brought your accounts?"
"Yes," I muttered, and I handed him a stack of papers detailing my expenses since I moved to Varlemont. He sat in his chair and studied the papers for some time.
"five hundred livres a month to your wife?"
"Yes."
He shook his head. "You will spoil her."
Like I cared.
We sat for supper for the last time in the same salon we always did. I stared at my father from across the table for the last time. My nerves heightened. I feared he would try to anger me yet again. I didn't eat anything for fear of shaking, so I only drank.
"Where is Catherine?" asked my mother.
"In Varlemont," I said, "she's ill."
"Oh! Is she alright?"
"Yes, she's fine; it's, um," I said. "It's nothing serious."
"You should be there with her."
"It's fine, truly."
"With child?" asked my father with his brow raised.
I paused, "unlikely."
He did not like that and did not speak to me again during the rest of our last supper. Though I had long since stopped caring. It was not my responsibility to please him. Instead, I spoke with my mother about things too small and inconsequential to remember now. It was quite peaceful, actually. The few candles on the table burned low and reflected off the crystal in the cold night. I had almost forgotten. It was only me and my mother. He was no longer someone I worried about; he was dead already.
After a few hours, my father stood up from the table, saying nothing.
"Father?" I said. He stared at me for the last time. "Goodnight."
I had no knowledge that he would actually go to his study and drink the wine I gave him, but I liked the dramatic effect in any case. I decided there that no matter what happened, I would never see him again. I retired to bed and for the first time in a long while I fell asleep without thinking.
I awoke in the early hours to the screaming of a maid. I pushed myself out of bed, tangled in the sheets, and dressed with haste. I made my way, dazed and confused, through the mass of servants that congregated in my father's study. They shrunk away to make room, and before my eyes, I saw him. I stared down at my father. He seemed to be asleep, his head on his desk, and the bottle I gave him next to him had, thankfully, many other kinds. Frozen, I stayed, my mouth agape, not believing what was true.
That's it then, I thought, my nerves uneasy, but I said nothing. I could feel the staff look up at me for directions, but I could not find a word to say about it. The maid who screamed was still crying in the room somewhere. Was I supposed to say something? Was I supposed to cry? Or yell? I didn't know. I didn't think of it. I did not really expect him to die that day. I had not prepared myself for my reaction. I only stared at him, at his pallid face, and my mind could not believe that in a world of immense possibilities, our fate is determined by only one thing: the power of coincidence.
I began to say something, but my voice wavered. A figure of white linen and silk came in with a cry, "My God! Don't just stand there! Move him to the divan! Call Monsieur Charlett!"
A few servants moved his body, limp and lifeless, to the divan. My mother stood near him, still in her dressing gown and her loose un-powdered hair past her shoulders. She called his name, and nothing he said. What's the point? I thought. I was frozen. I only observed. People rushed around me in an air of thick molasses. The edges of my vision were blurred. I breathed slowly. I saw his mouth had a blue hue, which I found odd, and I realized something horrific-he was still breathing.
I ran out of the room. I shook and ran my hands through my hair as I paced up and down the hall. He wasn't dead. He would live. What then? My skin tensed. What was I to do? He couldn't live. He couldn't. My mother's face came before my own, breathless, telling me something, but what I did not comprehend. She hugged me, and for a time, which could have just as well been eternity, unaware of myself, I sobbed hot tears into her shoulder. It would take at least an hour for his physician to arrive; would he be dead by then? What if he wasn't? How long would it take? I did not know, but the questions repeated in my mind. It was this uncertainty that made me faint. I only wished for him to die quickly and with ease, but it was much, much more sickening than I saw in my mind's eye. I would have to suffer along with him until the end.
After I calmed, I trailed behind my mother back to my father's study. My father lied there on the divan in his great purple chamber robes, the ruffles of his shirt puffed out, his skin more pallid and gray than only moments before. With the room quiet, I could hear the slow, labored breathing he made. Servants dashed around doing God knows what until the physician arrived.
Do they know? I gazed around the room. No one looked at me strangely and seemed to ignore my existence. Everyone was too busy to have any suspicions, and, after all, what did it look like? It looked like my father, known for his excessive drinking, drank far more than he thought he could handle. In the worst-case scenario, if his physician discovered he took laudanum, there was no way to know it was malicious. Who would even have the will to kill him? Me? No, not sweet and harmless Charles. No one would suspect a thing. But, unknown to anyone else, spiteful and resentful Charles could do anything he wanted.
My mother knelled next to the divan and held his hand. His mouth seemed to move, trying to say something, but nothing came out. I became nauseous. It was not what I intended. I did not want him suffering for hours; though he may have deserved that, I did not want to wait and linger for an uncertain future. I only wished him gone. I could not stay in that room for long, watching him grate for air, so I left down the stairs and went outside to the courtyard. I got sick on the stones, and as I looked up, I saw a carriage in the distance move down the avenue. I cursed under my breath and went back inside. I did not respect Mr.Charlett enough to be the one who greeted him.
The geriatric man examined my father, still alive but unresponsive, where he still lied. The room smelled of vomit from the purgatives and the vinegar used to clear the air. I never knew why my father trusted a man like Monsieur Charlett, an insipid, decrepit man with more matter than brain, to be his physician. He said something in his common pedantic, drawn-out tone, shaking hands to my mother to say things we already knew. It always seemed to me that Monsieur Charlett always told my father what he wanted to hear and was paid well for it. I hoped he would tell me what I wished to hear as well.
I went back out and paced the halls yet again to get myself out of the way. Waiting, wondering, and watching. Servants rushed to and from the large, dark doors. Was I supposed to be doing something? I didn't know. What was I supposed to say? It seemed well handled. My mother slipped from the doors a half hour later.
"What is it?"
"Oh, it's horrible," she said, shaking her head as she clutched a handkerchief. "He won't be able to take confession."
"What did he say?"
"He says he did everything he could, but he is scarcely breathing now." She said, "Come, the priest will be here soon."
"In thee, O Lord, have I put my trust; let me never be put to confusion; but rid me, and deliver me in thy righteousness; incline thine ear unto me, and save me-"
The air became hot and stagnate from all the people. My mother and I knelt in the room as the priest rehearsed his prayers. I muttered the words, but I did not think of prayers but only myself. I prayed for the suffering to end. I prayed that my fate did not end in the gallows. In an odd way, I felt myself in a sort of odd peace for the first time that day. Time stood still, and there came over me a solemn knowledge that everything happened for a reason. I had nothing to worry about. This was always meant to be. God himself had willed it.
"Deliver me, O my God, out of the hand of the ungodly, out of the hand of the unrighteous and cruel man-"
I opened my eyes and stared at him yet again. It's not meant to be this way. In my mind's eye, I always had more time. I wished to have time with him alone, but his blue-gray face made it seem he would pass before I got the chance.
"For thou, O Lord God, art the thing that I long for; thou are my hope, even from my youth-"
I had to speak with him. I had to. I had to say something. I had only one chance to do so freely, but there were so many people in the room. In my mind, there were far fewer people, far less fuss, and it was all much simpler.
"as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be: a world without end. Amen."
"Amen," said my mother and I as we crossed ourselves. I rose to be at my father's side. I knelled next to him and felt his hand in mine, ice-cold and limp, and his eyes stared off, unseeing somewhere before him. His lips no longer quivered, but his breathing remained shallow. There were many times I thought about what I would say to him on his deathbed. There were many times in my youth that I imagined him awake; he would hear me as I screamed at him and ranted on all the reasons I hated and despised him. I would scream at him that it was me, his own son, his blood, who killed him, and he would look at me with horror, and for once in my life, I would be in control. But he wasn't looking at me. He was looking nowhere. Even if I said anything, he would not hear me. He never did. He would never know how much he hurt me. He never cared. He only laid there, a ton of flesh slowly withering into the corpse he would become. It was so intensely sickening and so horrifically unsatisfying that I almost wished he would recover just so I could kill him again and make it worth it.
I rubbed his hand with my thumb as a tear rolled down my cheek. I opened my mouth to say something-what I do not know now-and from his mouth came a faint croaking groan.
"Father?"
His chest stopped moving. The room no longer hung to the sounds of his breaths. He was gone, and left was the silence.
"Father?"
My heart twisted and deflated. When he died, I thought I would be able to feel the ground sigh under my feet. A great peace would come over me. The clouds would blow away and expose the warm sun. But there he was, dead and dying, and I felt nothing at all. There was no change. The ground remained just as fragile as before.
"And teach us who survive, in this and other like daily spectacles of mortality, to see how frail and uncertain our own creation is; and so to number our days, that we may seriously apply our hearts to that holy and heavenly wisdom."
"Monseigneur?"
I did not realize the servant was speaking to me.
"Monseignuer?"
"Yes?" I said, and the servant continued on. Something about the constable had arrived. I wiped my tears with the back of my hand. My mother cried in the distance.
"Yes, of course."
The servants hurried around the estate. My mother and I met with the constable in the drawing room, an outdated room of the last century barely used as my family wasn't the kind who often received people. My father disliked the local nobility and despised anyone lower so there were rarely guests.
The constable sat in the chair before us. My mother sat near me, drying her tears with her handkerchief.
Can't this wait? I thought.
He was a man older than myself, similar in age to my father, with an authoritative air to him. He listened to my mother, who spoke the most between us, and he silently wrote something down in his papers. What was he writing? I so wanted to know. He obviously drank himself to death-why the need for such fuss? I told myself it was only a formality. It needed to be done, but I felt he could see right through me.
My mother recounted everything we already knew. She was awakened by the screaming maid and by the rest of the household rushing to my father's apartments. I agreed and recounted the same. The last time she saw him well was when he took his leave from supper. I also agreed.
"Did Monsieur le Comte drink before supper?"
"Yes," said my mother, "I noticed he had much before he retired for the night."
I did not notice that.
"Is it often? Or only last night?"
"Some nights," she began, but she stopped herself and said in a low voice, "every night."
"How much? What kind?"
"Forgive me, Monsieur; I do not know," she began. "I am a lady. It would be improper to concern myself with such things."
"I see," he said. He nodded and wrote something. "Do you know, Monseigneur?"
"He's partial to wine at supper," I began, "gin at night."
He nodded and continued to write. I do not recall the rest of the questions, but it was over before long. The constable only stood up and took his leave. I could not read if he was satisfied or not. My mother looked over at me and departed from the room. The rest of the night, people moved to and fro, and I recall little of it. I only stayed near my mother, trying to comfort her, and she cried in bed. I stayed in Calais for three days before my mother convinced me to go back to Varlemont to tell Catherine. And that was the extent of it. That is how I killed my father.
I've never regretted it. I never cry myself to sleep at night thinking about him. My father was a cruel man, a fact about himself I believed he enjoyed, though it took me this long to realize it. Even after I killed him, I thought there was still a good version of him that I killed, but I know that all his terrible selves were the extent of him. They all blended together into one great muck. He was never a man I loved, though I often wish I did. In truth, I never knew him. I don't believe anyone has. I never heard of him speak of his childhood even once, of his father, or anything else about himself. The only thing I know is that his father died a few years after he married my mother; his mother died when he was ten; and his little brother died at eight. He never spoke of it. I know little of my family's line because of him. He had no memories. I suppose he wanted that. He wanted to be an empty vessel. A force only defined by how it exerts itself. I don't even see him as a real person with real emotions, memories, and dreams. He is, and always has been, just my father. How cold, serious, and silent was he.
I believe it might be our family curse-our extreme penchant for apathy. It might have started with my father, or his, or all the other fathers down into the mists of time. I suppose nothing matters when one is wealthy. Everything else has been predestined. You enter a noble profession, take a wife selected for you, have an heir and spare, and live your life fitting your station with the respect you deserve. That is all. There is nothing else to care about. It is this coldness, this carelessness, and this numbness at the end of our skin that have destroyed our family the most. Other houses may rise and fall, but we shall continue yet, not through intrigue or wealth but because, through the centuries, we are the men who idle. We wander and search desperately for the satisfaction we crave, hoping that one day we will be better, wiser, stronger, and honorable men, only to become another name to add to a long line of faces that all look exactly alike. We may think ourselves different, we may think that our generation is better than the last, but there are some wheels that are left unbroken because we are the people who never learn. We wander only to return to exactly where we started.
I am reminded of a dream I once had months after my father's death. I walked behind my father, wrapping a wool greatcoat around me as I braced against the cold, hard wind as we journeyed across the white cliffs of the Cape. I was a child, perhaps ten or so, and would barely keep up with my father's fast, wide strides across the grass. We reached the high point, and my father looked out into the horizon towards Dover. But it was not a clear day; there was too much fog and rain. I saw nothing but a horizon of gray and a murky sea.
"Do you see anything?" I said. He smiled as another burst of wind blew through us. I shivered under my clothes. I longed for the warmth of the fire, but there was nothing but the dark clouds and the gray skies. He ignored me and grinned for a long time.
"I can't see anything," I said as I squinted my eyes in the rain. I did not know where I was. I wanted to be warm. I wanted my mother. I wanted my brother. I wanted to leave and go back home. I had begun to cry. "Father, it's too cold. I want to go home!"
He finally looked down at me as he kept smiling. He was younger, perhaps not much older than I am now, and his face still had a boyish quality to it before drinking aged him beyond his years.
"Why are you upset?" He said as he knelled down to meet my height. He placed his hand on my shoulder. "This is our home. Isn't it so beautiful here?"
Hot tears warmed my face as the gray-hued skies darkened to black and the fog thickened into a white wall around us. Fear shot through me as thunder boomed somewhere in the distance. "Where's maman? I want maman!"
He frowned. "She's not here."
He stood back up and pulled out the golden watch from the pocket of his coat. He studied it for a moment before sighing. He turned his back on me and walked back down the slope, leaving me at the top of the cape.
"Don't leave me!" I shouted after him, "Papa! Papa!"
But he did not turn back to me. The last thing I saw was the black silhouette of my father, his greatcoat blowing in the wind, walking further and further away from me, down the slope, distorting and disintegrating into the great white fog. Into nothing.