“I’m not going to ask anything of you,” she said.
“Very well,” he replied tersely.
Hector left the conservatory with his lilies under his arm, his steps loud upon the stone floor. She sat in the solarium for a long while, finally rising and sweeping into the salon, where she found Hector and Antonina. She was putting the flowers into a white vase.
“Look, Cousin. Hector has brought me lilies again,” the girl said, her smile wide.
“I know,” Valérie said. “I saw them.”
She patted Nina’s hand, a dismissive gesture, glancing at Hector with detachment.
***
HE WAS NOW A REGULARfixture, dropping by three days a week, and the zeal earned smiles from Gaetan, who thought his cousin had finally netted herself a sweetheart. Valérie had thought he’d end the charade after the third, fourth visit. She’d quietly bet on it. But there came the tinkle of the bell, which never failed to draw a shiver from Valérie, and then the sure steps of Hector upon her polished floors.
Most days, she ignored him, wearing a stoic mask. Seldom did she permit him to glimpse a stray glance of affection. But one day, well, it had been a long day. Last week, her cousin had stopped by to ask for money. It was the same old conversation. They had nothing, only the stones of Avelo, which had once been a great fortress and was now a ruin, and the house in Loisail where she’d grown up, which was falling to pieces with each passing year. Wouldn’t Gaetan advance them money? They needed another loan.
Valérie despised this mendicant’s dance. She had accounts at the best stores in the city, but her family didn’t need gloves and hats and silver pins for their hair. She required cash, and that meant having to ask Gaetan. She put it as best she could, using her sweetest tone. Gaetan followed her lead in most things, but when it came to her family or his bank account, he was cautious.
“It’s a little nothing of a loan,” she said.
“Valérie, I have given him three loans in two years,” Gaetan protested.
“You could have bought him that army post, and then it would be no concern. But since you refused—”
“Buying an army post. Valérie, what a thought. That would have been in poor form.”
It was tradition that military officers who had not attained certain ranks at appropriate times were forced out of service, and this is what had happened to her cousin, who was rudely divested of his crimson uniform. It did not have to be like this. Merit was the usual coin in the army, men rising by skill and not due to their fortune alone, but althoughthe system of commissions had been mostly abolished, it was not entirely gone: the king’s personal corps maintained the practice. There had been a chance for the cousin to find himself in a comfortable position, but Gaetan had refused to provide the required sum of money for this purpose. Now Valérie’s cousin faced the fate of all men like him: doomed to mingle at taverns frequented by soldiers, his clothes growing more threadbare, trading stories and drinking cheap wine.
“Besides, he is trouble, he got himself in all those scuffles,” Gaetan said. “There was also that unpleasant business with a young woman.”
When it came to the Véries, they should be a paragon of virtue and decorum. Valérie gave him a hard look, but she ceased in her protests. After walking around his office nervously, Gaetan finally agreed he would deposit the money in her cousin’s account.
How she hated these performances! When they were over, she had to act the grateful wife and kiss her husband’s cheek when she wished nothing more than to spit on him. Antonina was not forced to beg like this. A snap of the fingers, and she had whatever she wished, and Valérie seethed that afternoon as they waited for the brat to finish dressing and join them for a walk in the park.
Hector sat in the drawing room and Valérie stood, resting a hand upon the mantelshelf. She was more restless than usual, which he noticed, leaning forward.
“Is everything all right?” he asked.
She gave him a sarcastic laugh and a wave of her hand. What a silly question. There was no way to answer it. She let herself fall upon a chair in front of him, propping her head on her right hand, and glanced at him with her usual dismissal. She had a thought to say a cruel phrase, for the amusement of it. But as he sat there, looking rather earnest, Valérie let out a sigh.
“Do you remember what it was to be young?” she asked. “Every trouble would be solved by sundown, and every dawn you’d have a new chance to remake the world.”
He paused for the longest interval, nodding. “Yes,” he said.
“I’m tired,” she said.
He stood up and she thought he might try to approach her. Quickly she shook her head and returned to her place by the mantelshelf.
“We might have a picnic, if you’d like it. It always lifted your spirits,” he proposed.
“‘Always,’” Valérie said with a chuckle. “We only went on two picnics.”
“And it worked like a charm each one of those times.”
Distant Frotnac. Thinking of it was like viewing a scene through frosted glass. She might have done anything back then, reckless with youth. Now she did nothing, encased in iron.
“Let us have a picnic, Valérie. I’ll arrange for the food and drinks, and afterward we can go to the theater, watch a silly, light performance.”
