Sky of Autumn Part One--Beauty
Author's note: This has not been beta-ed. You have been warned.
You are a sky of autumn, pale and rose;
But all the sea of sadness in my blood
Surges, and ebbing, leaves my lips morose,
Salt with the memory of the bitter flood.
In vain your hand glides my faint bosom o'er,
That which you seek, beloved, is desecrate
By woman's tooth and talon; ah, no more
Seek in me for a heart which those dogs ate.
It is a ruin where the jackals rest,
And rend and tear and glut themselves and slay--
A perfume swims about your naked breast!
Beauty, hard scourge of spirits, have your way!
With flame-like eyes that at bright feasts have flared
Burn up these tatters that the beasts have spared!
"The Eyes of Beauty" by Charles Baudelaire
Beauty
Being the third son of a rich merchant wasn't so bad of a thing. The merchant bit meant that any eccentricities were ignored because your father was rich and therefore needed to be kowtowed to, and being the third son meant that you had the leisure to do whatever you wanted--you were never going to inherit, so who cared? It also meant that your father had enough money to fund whatever little projects you wanted to attend to.
I'm not implying that my two older brothers were pretentious, lazy, snobbish, rude--well, whatever you expect rich young men who always get their way to be like. My brothers were beautiful, handsome, and, to my utter disappointment, the most kind souls that I had ever encountered.
My oldest brother Aelric had midnight black hair and sea-blue eyes. He took after our father and was tall and broad shouldered. Both my father and Aelric were slender and lithe with an innate strength that just convinced people to trust them. Unlike our father, however, he had no need to start out as a cabin boy, work up to captain, then eventually become a merchant with his own fleet. He started out with the whole package right from the get-go. Surprisingly, however, Aelric had numbers for brains rather than muscles. Wasn't much into books, he liked practical applications. Most days you could find him either at the shipyard, the docks, or at various merchants around town making connections, learning how the business was ran, and just plain old meeting people.
He made me look bad.
Our middle brother, Darryn, was just as tall and broad shouldered as Aelric, but in a more stocky fashion. With his tousled blond hair falling on his wide forehead framing his sky blue eyes and judiciously dusting his arms, he almost resembled a lumberjack. If one had ever seen a lumberjack in hose and fine tunic, of course. Darryn would have liked to have been a cabin boy, we thought. He wouldn't have minded working from the bottom up. In fact, we weren't certain if he would have bothered to work to the top--he didn't seem horrendously interested in the higher placements in the business. Darryn was the one who could be found at the shipyard, more often than not, bantering with sailors, fixing boats, lifting heavy things--and pretty much making me look bad.
My brothers both had passions that laid outside the house. For the most part? I didn't. It was a large house, why would I ever need to leave it? With several parlors, bedrooms, party rooms, studies, and a fair sized library--why would I ever need to venture outside? I heard some say, at parties that I couldn't get out of attending, that it was a shame I was so anti-social. To think, one of the merchant's boys not shaping up to be a perfect husband! I preferred my books to people, thank you very much. Books didn't trip or make fun of you, they didn't pretend to be polite when they were weren't, they didn't talk behind your back or urge you to marry the Simpson's pretty (and fifth) daughter because obviously you were never going to get better and you might as well settle for what you can get.
Aesop's Fables, Faerie Queen, Odyssey, Homer, Beowulf, Chaucer, they were my friends. They always stayed on the shelves where I put them since neither of my brothers read more than they had to and Father rarely came to the house for anything other than the occasional meal and sleep. The library was my domain. There I learned languages, fell into stories, fell in love and out of love again with characters, wrote--pages and pages of things I'll never remember, and pretty much hid myself away from the world.
I'd like to say that I showed a predilection for this habit at a young age. But, to my governess' dismay, I turned out to like something much more horrifying: gardening.
I had this odd and childlike obsession with flowers from a very young age. My father would later tell me, much later, that my mother had loved flowers too and that I might have picked up the habit or the interest from her--or I was aiming to prolong her memory--but I never knew my mother very well. By the time I was old enough to understand things or remember anything properly, she had fallen quite ill. They had called her the rose of the city, the belle of the ball, the most beautiful woman in three towns. Men proposed to her daily (despite the fact that she was married), women wanted to be her bosom buddy and never said bad things about her, and she always helped someone out who was in need. The gardens surrounding our house were her domain, just like the library was mine. She coaxed vines out of the ground and up the tall stone wall surrounding our home, she convinced flowers to bloom out of season in a hothouse so that we could have fragrant flowers inside the house making every room smell fresh and beautiful.
The only clear memory I have of her must be from when I was quite young, because I only stared at her with large and adoring eyes, but she held my hand in her flower garden, not bothering to stoop or make me feel small, she treated me like a little person, and told me, "Flowers have feelings too, remember that."
Not very long after that, she died.
I didn't understand, of course. Our governess of the time, a strict matron who believed little boys should learn numbers and the way of the business rather than tear through the local park ripping holes in our shorts (in Aelric's case, breeches) and getting mud on our clothing, dressed us in somber colors, crisp finery that itched in the city's heat and made me wish I could wear nothing at all, and took us to her funeral.
Father did not attend.
She had been young, much younger than he when they married. He had proved that his business was flourishing, his success added a sheen to the fact that gray was beginning to emerge in his hair and he wasn't quite as dashing as he used to be, and he had a few suits pending with respectable girls from respected and honored families willing to make a partnership with my father to expand his business. He wanted a wife, yes, and he wanted an heir, certainly, but he was a businessman first and foremost and fully intended upon marrying for the good of his company.
That was where mother came in and ruined that, of course.
She had been new to the city, no one had ever seen her before. She arrived without a chaperon, or even her own mother--she had been completely alone on top of a fine chestnut horse with an enviable stride who could leap over anything you placed in front of her. And, to the matron's of the city's horror, she rode her horse like a man. Head held tall, she clattered into the city, slid to a stop in front of my father, and asked for the name of the nearest boarding house. From what I understand, it was a struggle for my father not to fall to bent knee and propose right then and there. Instead, like a gracious gentleman, he offered the name of a friend's house (rather than his own, which would have been quite inappropriate) and asked her permission to court her.
If any other young, pretty, outgoing woman had ridden into the city and snatched up the finest bachelor in one fell swoop, she would have been accused of witchery. But my mother had been kind and without guile, and everyone loved her.
My father especially.
When she died, that was when he quit frequenting the house as often. My brothers barely seemed to notice. They were old enough to be escorted from the house to visit him at his place of work, they chattered with the servants and our chaperons (to our governess's equal dismay), and just plain old were allowed to interact with other people and experience interesting things.
I blame my introverted behavior on the fact that I was not, and was left to fend with my governess in the house for many years before I was allowed out with my brothers. By then, I simply wasn't interested. It was because I was in the house and had nothing better to do that I attempted to revive my mother's garden. I had no idea what I was doing. I knew that plants grew, and that ours were dying. I knew that they needed water and dirt and love and care. I wasn't sure what sort of care, but I knew it was the sort that involved me being able to play in the dirt and smelling beautiful scents from beautiful flowers.
Not only was my governess quite horrified to find out that I had over watered a barren patch of dirt and gotten myself completely covered in mud, my father was quite upset as well. When he demanded why I was rolling in the dirt like a heathen, neglecting my studies, and ruining the flower borders, I answered with the honesty and temerity that only a very young child has.
"Was only takin' care of the garden for mama," I chirruped. "Until she gets back."
I was not only banished from the gardens, but they were locked up and allowed to grow over and eventually die. I didn't try very hard, I'll admit, to get back out there and finish what I had started. I was easily distracted (still am) and found my nose pointed in an entirely different direction. It was proper, my governess thought, that I got more schooling than my older brothers since the best I could hope for would be to be an accountant for another merchant (maybe even my own brother), or a tutor for children. To do either, I needed to do more bookwork than my two brothers combined. If it got me out of the dirt, my father agreed, I could have as many books as I required.
She didn't last long, I chased her away within the year, but the damage had been done. The only interactions I had with my father were the ones I needed to instigate in order to procure more books for my growing library--until I was old enough to head out on my own. Of course, all he did was pass on the requests to a servant (I had assumed at the time), so perhaps I could have skipped the middle man and done that myself. But I didn't mind requesting things from my father. It got him to slow down and actually pay attention to me for a few moments. I didn't need a whole lot of attention, or even pride or support, but my brothers always complained bitterly about Father being away and not giving them proper attention so I always felt that I should prove that even though I was the odd duck out, I could (at least briefly) get him to look at me and see me--accept me for who I was.
At one point, however, it occurred to him that I spent far too much time in the library. Of course, by then I was venturing out (without a governess, I ditched mine much earlier than my brothers had) into the city to booksellers and other various shopkeepers, eager to expand my general knowledge and try out things I had learned from my books. But that wasn't enough and wasn't necessarily a proper hobby for a young man. My brothers had learned to ride, thanks to an expressed interest, so it was decided that I too should learn--if only to get me out there and doing proper young man things.
I loved horses. I still do. The chestnut filly my mother had ridden into the city had produced a fine line of jumpers, smaller horses than my brothers needed thanks to their heavier frames, but I took after my mother with delicate bones and a light weight.
I say that I took after her, but that's like saying a fuchsia is like a gardenia. They are both flowers (rather than the trees my brothers resembled) but they are absolutely nothing alike. From a young age, I had wished I had been as handsome as Aelric and Darryl, or even pretty like my mother. I wouldn't have minded being of delicate stature and called a Nancy by the other boys in town. At least then I would have been acknowledged of having some sort of beauty.
She had had brunette hair with the prettiest red and gold highlights, I had been told, with sea green eyes, delicate hands that could also control a horse, bright laughter, and a quick tongue that never let my father get away with anything.
I had mousy brown hair, murky eyes that couldn't decide on a specific color to settle on, knobby hands entirely unsuitable for the piano (although they were long enough, they were quite clumsy), and a short and lanky stature that looked waif-ish and disproportionate rather than delicate and petite. I tripped over my feet constantly, stuttered whenever I spoke to highborn, never had anything good to say that didn't pertain to whatever odd tidbit I had recently learned about bakeries or fishermen, and had the social skills of a handicapped child. I preferred my library, but the horses were an acceptable substitute.
After I learned how to ride properly, Father gave me a horse from mother's horse's direct line and told me that if I could keep him alive, he was mine for life. The dilemma? He was less than a day old and his mother had died during birth. As a ploy to get me out of my library it was a bald one, but the light brown baby with his black mane and tale, shaking legs, knobbly knees, and glazed eyes captured my heart from the minute I spotted him.
It was very common, thereafter, to see me wandering the city with Jasper following behind.
Once he got older, that wasn't doable, but when he was very young, Jasper followed me like a duckling. As I had no governesses or chaperons to tell me otherwise, I even slept in the stall with him. From right away we made a bond between the both of us that was never to be broken until his death. He lived a very fine life and although I loved my books, I'll never be too grateful for how he helped me to relate to something other than a fictional character.
To sum my life up: we were rich, I had two older brothers who were handsome, could marry any woman or girl they wished, had an absent father who very likely loved us (and me, surprisingly enough) very deeply, and I had anything I could ask for.
Which meant, of course, that everything went horribly and awfully wrong.
It started with the pirate's daughter.
Yes, you heard me right. The pirate's daughter. Just because we lived in a civilized part of the world did not mean that we did not have pirates circling our waters like sharks.
The Pirate Brandeau was a particularly fierce one. It had been said that anyone who looked at his daughter sideways was guaranteed a slit throat and a trip to Davie's Locker (yes, I read adventure fiction as well. I enjoyed it greatly). Once he found someone in his sights, he followed them to the ends of the earth. If you were the captain of any ship he surrounded and captured, and surrendered gracefully, he'd send you in a sound boat filled with supplies back to shore. Any of the crew that wanted to leave could as well, or they could stay on as pirate crew. Your ship was later returned--empty--but safe and sound. If you struggled or tried to escape with your ship, it would be burnt down.
Pretty clear rules.
However, no one expected his daughter to take a boat, paddle to shore, cut her hair, and travel to our city dressed as a boy. She showed up at the yard prepared to be a cabin boy, but with her knowledge of ships they used her for everything. She could tell you anything from how to build a ship and take it apart, to what weaknesses to avoid in case of a storm, to how to expand a hold so that it would hold more goods. She was invaluable.
Darryn took a shine to her, and her love of numbers, and introduced her to Aelric. That, as they say, is all they wrote.
I wouldn't have been upset if Aelric had fallen in love with another boy. Surprised that he had it in him, yes (he didn't seem the type), but not upset in the least. Normally, the scandal surrounding a girl masquerading as a boy then announcing marriage to a man would have been enough to chase any young woman out of town, but everyone was just so relieved that Aelric had chosen an actual girl, not a boy, so the bans were published immediately.
Unfortunately, the Pirate Brandeau recognized his daughter from a marriage ban that one of his crew fetched to his ship and decided to steal her away from my brother.
Aelric was smitten with her. When he started coming home every night, invading my library with lovelorn sighs and implausible stories, I thought he had gone off the deep-end for speaking so long and so often of a boy I only knew named as Nate.
"Nate's brilliant," Aelric told me, waving his mug of tea over a stack of rather important books I was attempting to translate.
I surreptitiously folded them closed and moved them out of hot liquid splattering range.
"Oh?" I twirled my stub of pencil between my fingers, pretending to be interested but hoping that he would eventually get a clue and figure out that I was not the one to be talking to about romance.
"Whenever I'm with Nate, I feel brilliant too. Everything I do is enough and perfect. And the things Nate comes up with..."
"Yes?"
"Beauty, I think I'm in love."
Oh, did I mention? My name is Beauty. If you hadn't noticed, I used to be rather obsessed with the concept. And since it was all I could talk about as a child, even after I became obsessed with books and learning, my brothers started calling me Beauty as a joke, and it stuck
I dropped the pencil.
"You're what now?"
"I'm in love," he sighed. "I want to marry Nate. I want to do it soon, too but..."
I waited for the whammy. The thing about my brilliant plans and intentions of showing up my brothers, such as my ploy to get Father to acknowledge me more than them, is that they were both gracious enough to admit that I must be the favorite so any correspondence with Father would be better made with me. Any favor needing his help was always directed to me first so that I could bring it up with him.
I sensed that this was one of those moments.
"You want to get married."
This, of course, is when Aelric turned his roiling and stormy blue eyes upon me and begged, "Please, brother, will you speak to Father about marrying Nate? I don't think I could ever do without her."
"Wait, wait," I raised my hands in the air. "I can't make any promises, of course, but just explain this to me for a moment: What do you mean, her?"
That, was when I learned that Nate was actually Natalie. I wasn't sure whether to be relieved that I wouldn't have to explain to Aelric why two males couldn't be married, or to brace myself for the scandal that his marrying a cross-dresser was sure to bring. But he loved her, truly and honestly.
That is probably what makes our story so much of a tragedy.
Father, to his credit, didn't bat an eyelash when Aelric proposed to Nate. He approved wholeheartedly, I suspected, that my older brother was to marry someone who could give him a run for his money, was smart, successful in her own right, and would love him to the end of time. That was evident to any street urchin, there was no doubt of it. She would never be the woman you took to balls and parties bedecked with diamonds and jewels, but she could tell a mast from a mainstay.
Which I could not.
They decided that Nate, or Natalie, would finish her apprenticeship to a shipbuilder before they married. The men seemed awfully accommodating--probably thanks to the fact that the first person who accused Nate of being incapable of man's work was kicked in a very tender place--so she continued to dress as she pleased and work in the shipyard. She was to be an apprentice for three years, and in that time Aelric would work to be a partner with Father in the merchant business. It was all worked out: they would live here with us, take on more and more of the family business, Father would retire, and Nate and Aelric would run it together.
At that time, we had no idea whose daughter she was.
Then we received word that the Pirate Brandeau had struck a fleet of our ships on the ocean and burned down every single one of them.
I was never sure whether he thought we held her captive, or just that any man who professed an interest in his daughter was sentenced to death row. But he began such a vendetta against us that our business began to fail. No one wanted to ship goods with a company who was the sole target of an infamous pirate who would stop at nothing to retrieve his daughter. Well, first he would destroy us, then he would retrieve his daughter.
Things from the house began to leave. China, lace, furnishings. Father sold off what he could to compensate the wives of the crews who drowned at sea. He took money from his own pocket to pay the salaries of our servants and called in favors with everyone he knew to make sure that the men who worked at his shipyard found other places to go.
Just when all seemed hopeless and we were hovering on the edge of bankruptcy, two things happened: the Pirate Brandeau took Nate back, and one of our accountants took what was left of our goods and our money and fled the city.
We had nothing left.
Debt collectors began to close in. The house had to be sold, of course, if only to pay off the last of our employees and what we owed to the businesses who had financed failed expeditions. Father had a lot of friends in the city, but his luck was poor enough that no one wanted to get involved for fear that it was catching.
Father was home more often. He mostly sat in his study with his face in his hand and murmured things I didn't get close enough to hear. He might have been mourning his lost business, our money, or even my mother for all I knew. All I knew was that I hadn't ever seen him at home for so long of an amount of time in my entire life. It was very strange. The only thing that would have been stranger would have been if he had wandered the halls like a lost ghost.
Instead, Aelric was the one who did that. He was devastated that Nate was gone. I suspected that she would ever be the only one for him. He was the type to fall in love and never again. It sounds like a tragic and cliche Romeo and Juliet mock story, but it was very true.
Without her, he was a ghost of himself.
Darryn had made himself scarce entirely.
I, on the other hand, was quite busy. Father and Aelric were the ones that knew all about the business of being a merchant, ship building, and what have you, but I was pretty much the only accountant in the family. I was more than an accountant, really. I had a head for numbers that rivaled Aelric and a memory of an elephant. The lists of what we owned and what we owed and how much we could get for what we owned so as to pay off what we owed slid through my mind like paintings. Since Aelric and Father had descended into the pits of despair and Darryn had made himself disappear, it was up to me to salvage what I could of our lonely family and make sure that we did more than survive--we needed a new life.
We owed a lot of money, but in return for what was left of our business--the books, the ships, the yard, the offices, many old friends of Father's were willing to let us leave with our debts canceled. We still had to sell our belongings and our house had been claimed as well, but they even let us stay in it until we made arrangements for where we were going to go.
It was obvious to me that we couldn't stay in the city. There were far to many memories and people for Father to run into--it would break him. Aelric needed to get away from every ban notice announcing his now null and void engagement to Nate as quickly as possible, and even Darryn and I were effected. I had never had great needs when it came to money, but I don't think I had ever truly stopped and thought about how much books truly cost. Also, they become worth a lot less if you had written in them. I had never had any reason not to. Why buy paper if I already had the margins to scribble in? There were some acquaintances of mine who were willing to buy portions of my extensive collection--if only for the gems of insight I had written inside of them, and while I was out taking care of that sordid business, I gathered as much information about the country as I could.
Not everyone who lived in the city had been born in the city like my brothers and I. Father had been born in another city, and who knows where mother had truly come from. Many of the shopkeepers I spoke with on a regular basis had originally been from somewhere else--some from other cities, some from the country, some from small villages and towns. I knew people from all over. So when it became apparent that we would have to leave the city for somewhere else, I started speaking with all who I knew and collected various favors. I had been well liked, if thought odd. But most people don't care if you walk down the street with your nose in a book once you've pulled an obscure poultice out of one and saved their horse from dying.
Money makes your eccentricities overlooked, kindness makes them accepted.
In the city, I learned, you can buy anything you need. Need eggs for a cake? Buy them from the market down the street. Need meat for dinner? Go to the butchers. Need vegetables? Also found at the market. Smaller places didn't have those things, people told me. In fact, the smaller or the more isolated a place was, the more you were expected to procure those things on your own. Most families had their own chickens at the very least, if not a goat or a cow to produce milk.
From the woman at the market I learned the basics about raising chickens and collecting eggs, from the farrier I learned how to care for my horse if I chose to have him unshod--blacksmiths aren't everywhere, after all. A shopkeeper whose daughter I taught to read gave me packets of dried seeds that he told me would be ready next spring. He told me which should be opened and planted when and I wrote the dates on the wax paper in oil pencil so as not to forget. I doubted that I would, but better safe than sorry. A milkmaid taught me how to milk a cow or a goat, then she showed me how to churn it for butter. She also warned me that butter didn't keep long and used up milk fast, so it was best saved for special occasions.
The clothier, however, was the best stop I made. I had originally entered the shop of one young Anna Maria so as to learn about the clothing we should wear (as we, obviously, could not leave the city in our finery. Not only would that be impractical, I assumed that we would be selling those as well) and perhaps how to make them. She willingly showed me what we should wear, but had an odd air about her so I finally asked her if there was something the matter. She hesitated, then she answered.
"Forgive me for being forward," she said demurely, fingering a soft damask that I was trying hard not to covet. Unlike my brothers, I cared nothing for fashion, but soft items had always been my weakness.
"Yes?" I replied, wondering what in the world she would have to be forward about. She was the most polite young woman (though she was older than I) I had ever met. Just that day I'd had a daughter of another merchant, silk dress held high above the dusty road, spit at my feet. I doubted that Anna Maria could possibly offend me.
"Darryn...I love Darryn."
Okay, I hadn't been expecting that. I raised an eyebrow in surprise. "Oh?"
She dropped the cloth and smoothed down her skirts, looking at her pale but worn fingers against the light brown cloth. "He loves me too, at least, he's said so."
"I don't doubt that he does," I said readily. Darryn was not a man to tell a girl that he loved her and not actually mean it. It certainly explained why he had made himself so scarce recently, actually.
"We planned on getting married," she bravely forged ahead.
At this rate, I knew that I would be there all day.
"You do realize that he hasn't a penny to his name, our reputation is in tatters, and we are leaving the city soon?" I said, hoping that I could prompt her to be more forward, as she obviously wasn't quite enough.
"Oh yes! I ah--I'm not sure if you knew this, but I came from up north, from a small village. I moved here to apprentice to be a clothier. Back home I apprenticed with a weaver but I wanted to learn more about clothing than just how to weave it."
I nodded encouragingly, hoping that this meant she would get her story out.
"Darryn doesn't want to ask your father, since things have gone so wrong, because he is afraid of upsetting him. But I've never cared about whether or not Darryn has money. I had planned on running my own shop sometimes soon--I have some money saved away...."
The shop wasn't hers. She was no longer apprenticed, but she worked under another clothier in an effort to save up to be her own. She was fully trained, however, and quite talented. One of the highest ranking ladies in town wore one of her dresses and claimed it to be the most beautiful (and the most comfortable) gown she had ever worn."
"Darryn tells me that you speak with his father more, and more easily, than he and Aelric. That you can convince him of things. From working in the shipyard, Darryn has realized that he likes working with metal and well...I know that back in my village the blacksmith is looking for an apprentice to train up so that he can retire. Darryn and I want to move there. There's a little house in the village with a few rooms that's open, the little old lady who lived there died, and I could take up weaving there and sell my things at the market. It wouldn't be a fine lifestyle, but we truly are in love, Beauty. Do you know how we can tell your father?"
This, this wasn't what I had been expecting.
I gave her my full attention. "Anna Maria, are you telling me that you want to elope with Darryn to the country to be a weaver and a blacksmith? If you two would be happy that way, Father would give his blessings. God knows that's the best offer any of us has seen."
Her eyes opened so wide and so without guile that I suddenly saw what Darryn saw in her.
"Oh no!" she cried, looking straight at me and pulling her shoulders back as if for strength. "The house is too much for both of us, but it's inexpensive and my mother is there and well...we'd want all of you there!"
Father, bless his heart, reacted with little surprise.
"Darryn wants to marry the clothier?" he asked from behind his desk, his eyebrow raised in almost the same way mine had been only hours earlier.
"Not only that," I confirmed, "but she's found us a house. For all of us. Darryn won't leave us behind, apparently, but she knows how important family is and invites all of us to move together."
"Well," he said slowly, seriously contemplating the matter. "I don't see any other options for us. When shall we leave?"
"The auction of the rest of our belongings is in a week," I stated.
He nods. "I'd like to meet this clothier, Anna Maria did you say? If my son loves her, I'm sure she's lovely, but I think I'd like to know more about where she would like to take us."
And for the first time in weeks I saw him stand from his study desk with a slight smile.
"Thank you, Beauty," he said.
That was the first time I remember my father ever thanking me, but it turns out not to be the last.
You are a sky of autumn, pale and rose;
But all the sea of sadness in my blood
Surges, and ebbing, leaves my lips morose,
Salt with the memory of the bitter flood.
In vain your hand glides my faint bosom o'er,
That which you seek, beloved, is desecrate
By woman's tooth and talon; ah, no more
Seek in me for a heart which those dogs ate.
It is a ruin where the jackals rest,
And rend and tear and glut themselves and slay--
A perfume swims about your naked breast!
Beauty, hard scourge of spirits, have your way!
With flame-like eyes that at bright feasts have flared
Burn up these tatters that the beasts have spared!
"The Eyes of Beauty" by Charles Baudelaire
Beauty
Being the third son of a rich merchant wasn't so bad of a thing. The merchant bit meant that any eccentricities were ignored because your father was rich and therefore needed to be kowtowed to, and being the third son meant that you had the leisure to do whatever you wanted--you were never going to inherit, so who cared? It also meant that your father had enough money to fund whatever little projects you wanted to attend to.
I'm not implying that my two older brothers were pretentious, lazy, snobbish, rude--well, whatever you expect rich young men who always get their way to be like. My brothers were beautiful, handsome, and, to my utter disappointment, the most kind souls that I had ever encountered.
My oldest brother Aelric had midnight black hair and sea-blue eyes. He took after our father and was tall and broad shouldered. Both my father and Aelric were slender and lithe with an innate strength that just convinced people to trust them. Unlike our father, however, he had no need to start out as a cabin boy, work up to captain, then eventually become a merchant with his own fleet. He started out with the whole package right from the get-go. Surprisingly, however, Aelric had numbers for brains rather than muscles. Wasn't much into books, he liked practical applications. Most days you could find him either at the shipyard, the docks, or at various merchants around town making connections, learning how the business was ran, and just plain old meeting people.
He made me look bad.
Our middle brother, Darryn, was just as tall and broad shouldered as Aelric, but in a more stocky fashion. With his tousled blond hair falling on his wide forehead framing his sky blue eyes and judiciously dusting his arms, he almost resembled a lumberjack. If one had ever seen a lumberjack in hose and fine tunic, of course. Darryn would have liked to have been a cabin boy, we thought. He wouldn't have minded working from the bottom up. In fact, we weren't certain if he would have bothered to work to the top--he didn't seem horrendously interested in the higher placements in the business. Darryn was the one who could be found at the shipyard, more often than not, bantering with sailors, fixing boats, lifting heavy things--and pretty much making me look bad.
My brothers both had passions that laid outside the house. For the most part? I didn't. It was a large house, why would I ever need to leave it? With several parlors, bedrooms, party rooms, studies, and a fair sized library--why would I ever need to venture outside? I heard some say, at parties that I couldn't get out of attending, that it was a shame I was so anti-social. To think, one of the merchant's boys not shaping up to be a perfect husband! I preferred my books to people, thank you very much. Books didn't trip or make fun of you, they didn't pretend to be polite when they were weren't, they didn't talk behind your back or urge you to marry the Simpson's pretty (and fifth) daughter because obviously you were never going to get better and you might as well settle for what you can get.
Aesop's Fables, Faerie Queen, Odyssey, Homer, Beowulf, Chaucer, they were my friends. They always stayed on the shelves where I put them since neither of my brothers read more than they had to and Father rarely came to the house for anything other than the occasional meal and sleep. The library was my domain. There I learned languages, fell into stories, fell in love and out of love again with characters, wrote--pages and pages of things I'll never remember, and pretty much hid myself away from the world.
I'd like to say that I showed a predilection for this habit at a young age. But, to my governess' dismay, I turned out to like something much more horrifying: gardening.
I had this odd and childlike obsession with flowers from a very young age. My father would later tell me, much later, that my mother had loved flowers too and that I might have picked up the habit or the interest from her--or I was aiming to prolong her memory--but I never knew my mother very well. By the time I was old enough to understand things or remember anything properly, she had fallen quite ill. They had called her the rose of the city, the belle of the ball, the most beautiful woman in three towns. Men proposed to her daily (despite the fact that she was married), women wanted to be her bosom buddy and never said bad things about her, and she always helped someone out who was in need. The gardens surrounding our house were her domain, just like the library was mine. She coaxed vines out of the ground and up the tall stone wall surrounding our home, she convinced flowers to bloom out of season in a hothouse so that we could have fragrant flowers inside the house making every room smell fresh and beautiful.
The only clear memory I have of her must be from when I was quite young, because I only stared at her with large and adoring eyes, but she held my hand in her flower garden, not bothering to stoop or make me feel small, she treated me like a little person, and told me, "Flowers have feelings too, remember that."
Not very long after that, she died.
I didn't understand, of course. Our governess of the time, a strict matron who believed little boys should learn numbers and the way of the business rather than tear through the local park ripping holes in our shorts (in Aelric's case, breeches) and getting mud on our clothing, dressed us in somber colors, crisp finery that itched in the city's heat and made me wish I could wear nothing at all, and took us to her funeral.
Father did not attend.
She had been young, much younger than he when they married. He had proved that his business was flourishing, his success added a sheen to the fact that gray was beginning to emerge in his hair and he wasn't quite as dashing as he used to be, and he had a few suits pending with respectable girls from respected and honored families willing to make a partnership with my father to expand his business. He wanted a wife, yes, and he wanted an heir, certainly, but he was a businessman first and foremost and fully intended upon marrying for the good of his company.
That was where mother came in and ruined that, of course.
She had been new to the city, no one had ever seen her before. She arrived without a chaperon, or even her own mother--she had been completely alone on top of a fine chestnut horse with an enviable stride who could leap over anything you placed in front of her. And, to the matron's of the city's horror, she rode her horse like a man. Head held tall, she clattered into the city, slid to a stop in front of my father, and asked for the name of the nearest boarding house. From what I understand, it was a struggle for my father not to fall to bent knee and propose right then and there. Instead, like a gracious gentleman, he offered the name of a friend's house (rather than his own, which would have been quite inappropriate) and asked her permission to court her.
If any other young, pretty, outgoing woman had ridden into the city and snatched up the finest bachelor in one fell swoop, she would have been accused of witchery. But my mother had been kind and without guile, and everyone loved her.
My father especially.
When she died, that was when he quit frequenting the house as often. My brothers barely seemed to notice. They were old enough to be escorted from the house to visit him at his place of work, they chattered with the servants and our chaperons (to our governess's equal dismay), and just plain old were allowed to interact with other people and experience interesting things.
I blame my introverted behavior on the fact that I was not, and was left to fend with my governess in the house for many years before I was allowed out with my brothers. By then, I simply wasn't interested. It was because I was in the house and had nothing better to do that I attempted to revive my mother's garden. I had no idea what I was doing. I knew that plants grew, and that ours were dying. I knew that they needed water and dirt and love and care. I wasn't sure what sort of care, but I knew it was the sort that involved me being able to play in the dirt and smelling beautiful scents from beautiful flowers.
Not only was my governess quite horrified to find out that I had over watered a barren patch of dirt and gotten myself completely covered in mud, my father was quite upset as well. When he demanded why I was rolling in the dirt like a heathen, neglecting my studies, and ruining the flower borders, I answered with the honesty and temerity that only a very young child has.
"Was only takin' care of the garden for mama," I chirruped. "Until she gets back."
I was not only banished from the gardens, but they were locked up and allowed to grow over and eventually die. I didn't try very hard, I'll admit, to get back out there and finish what I had started. I was easily distracted (still am) and found my nose pointed in an entirely different direction. It was proper, my governess thought, that I got more schooling than my older brothers since the best I could hope for would be to be an accountant for another merchant (maybe even my own brother), or a tutor for children. To do either, I needed to do more bookwork than my two brothers combined. If it got me out of the dirt, my father agreed, I could have as many books as I required.
She didn't last long, I chased her away within the year, but the damage had been done. The only interactions I had with my father were the ones I needed to instigate in order to procure more books for my growing library--until I was old enough to head out on my own. Of course, all he did was pass on the requests to a servant (I had assumed at the time), so perhaps I could have skipped the middle man and done that myself. But I didn't mind requesting things from my father. It got him to slow down and actually pay attention to me for a few moments. I didn't need a whole lot of attention, or even pride or support, but my brothers always complained bitterly about Father being away and not giving them proper attention so I always felt that I should prove that even though I was the odd duck out, I could (at least briefly) get him to look at me and see me--accept me for who I was.
At one point, however, it occurred to him that I spent far too much time in the library. Of course, by then I was venturing out (without a governess, I ditched mine much earlier than my brothers had) into the city to booksellers and other various shopkeepers, eager to expand my general knowledge and try out things I had learned from my books. But that wasn't enough and wasn't necessarily a proper hobby for a young man. My brothers had learned to ride, thanks to an expressed interest, so it was decided that I too should learn--if only to get me out there and doing proper young man things.
I loved horses. I still do. The chestnut filly my mother had ridden into the city had produced a fine line of jumpers, smaller horses than my brothers needed thanks to their heavier frames, but I took after my mother with delicate bones and a light weight.
I say that I took after her, but that's like saying a fuchsia is like a gardenia. They are both flowers (rather than the trees my brothers resembled) but they are absolutely nothing alike. From a young age, I had wished I had been as handsome as Aelric and Darryl, or even pretty like my mother. I wouldn't have minded being of delicate stature and called a Nancy by the other boys in town. At least then I would have been acknowledged of having some sort of beauty.
She had had brunette hair with the prettiest red and gold highlights, I had been told, with sea green eyes, delicate hands that could also control a horse, bright laughter, and a quick tongue that never let my father get away with anything.
I had mousy brown hair, murky eyes that couldn't decide on a specific color to settle on, knobby hands entirely unsuitable for the piano (although they were long enough, they were quite clumsy), and a short and lanky stature that looked waif-ish and disproportionate rather than delicate and petite. I tripped over my feet constantly, stuttered whenever I spoke to highborn, never had anything good to say that didn't pertain to whatever odd tidbit I had recently learned about bakeries or fishermen, and had the social skills of a handicapped child. I preferred my library, but the horses were an acceptable substitute.
After I learned how to ride properly, Father gave me a horse from mother's horse's direct line and told me that if I could keep him alive, he was mine for life. The dilemma? He was less than a day old and his mother had died during birth. As a ploy to get me out of my library it was a bald one, but the light brown baby with his black mane and tale, shaking legs, knobbly knees, and glazed eyes captured my heart from the minute I spotted him.
It was very common, thereafter, to see me wandering the city with Jasper following behind.
Once he got older, that wasn't doable, but when he was very young, Jasper followed me like a duckling. As I had no governesses or chaperons to tell me otherwise, I even slept in the stall with him. From right away we made a bond between the both of us that was never to be broken until his death. He lived a very fine life and although I loved my books, I'll never be too grateful for how he helped me to relate to something other than a fictional character.
To sum my life up: we were rich, I had two older brothers who were handsome, could marry any woman or girl they wished, had an absent father who very likely loved us (and me, surprisingly enough) very deeply, and I had anything I could ask for.
Which meant, of course, that everything went horribly and awfully wrong.
It started with the pirate's daughter.
Yes, you heard me right. The pirate's daughter. Just because we lived in a civilized part of the world did not mean that we did not have pirates circling our waters like sharks.
The Pirate Brandeau was a particularly fierce one. It had been said that anyone who looked at his daughter sideways was guaranteed a slit throat and a trip to Davie's Locker (yes, I read adventure fiction as well. I enjoyed it greatly). Once he found someone in his sights, he followed them to the ends of the earth. If you were the captain of any ship he surrounded and captured, and surrendered gracefully, he'd send you in a sound boat filled with supplies back to shore. Any of the crew that wanted to leave could as well, or they could stay on as pirate crew. Your ship was later returned--empty--but safe and sound. If you struggled or tried to escape with your ship, it would be burnt down.
Pretty clear rules.
However, no one expected his daughter to take a boat, paddle to shore, cut her hair, and travel to our city dressed as a boy. She showed up at the yard prepared to be a cabin boy, but with her knowledge of ships they used her for everything. She could tell you anything from how to build a ship and take it apart, to what weaknesses to avoid in case of a storm, to how to expand a hold so that it would hold more goods. She was invaluable.
Darryn took a shine to her, and her love of numbers, and introduced her to Aelric. That, as they say, is all they wrote.
I wouldn't have been upset if Aelric had fallen in love with another boy. Surprised that he had it in him, yes (he didn't seem the type), but not upset in the least. Normally, the scandal surrounding a girl masquerading as a boy then announcing marriage to a man would have been enough to chase any young woman out of town, but everyone was just so relieved that Aelric had chosen an actual girl, not a boy, so the bans were published immediately.
Unfortunately, the Pirate Brandeau recognized his daughter from a marriage ban that one of his crew fetched to his ship and decided to steal her away from my brother.
Aelric was smitten with her. When he started coming home every night, invading my library with lovelorn sighs and implausible stories, I thought he had gone off the deep-end for speaking so long and so often of a boy I only knew named as Nate.
"Nate's brilliant," Aelric told me, waving his mug of tea over a stack of rather important books I was attempting to translate.
I surreptitiously folded them closed and moved them out of hot liquid splattering range.
"Oh?" I twirled my stub of pencil between my fingers, pretending to be interested but hoping that he would eventually get a clue and figure out that I was not the one to be talking to about romance.
"Whenever I'm with Nate, I feel brilliant too. Everything I do is enough and perfect. And the things Nate comes up with..."
"Yes?"
"Beauty, I think I'm in love."
Oh, did I mention? My name is Beauty. If you hadn't noticed, I used to be rather obsessed with the concept. And since it was all I could talk about as a child, even after I became obsessed with books and learning, my brothers started calling me Beauty as a joke, and it stuck
I dropped the pencil.
"You're what now?"
"I'm in love," he sighed. "I want to marry Nate. I want to do it soon, too but..."
I waited for the whammy. The thing about my brilliant plans and intentions of showing up my brothers, such as my ploy to get Father to acknowledge me more than them, is that they were both gracious enough to admit that I must be the favorite so any correspondence with Father would be better made with me. Any favor needing his help was always directed to me first so that I could bring it up with him.
I sensed that this was one of those moments.
"You want to get married."
This, of course, is when Aelric turned his roiling and stormy blue eyes upon me and begged, "Please, brother, will you speak to Father about marrying Nate? I don't think I could ever do without her."
"Wait, wait," I raised my hands in the air. "I can't make any promises, of course, but just explain this to me for a moment: What do you mean, her?"
That, was when I learned that Nate was actually Natalie. I wasn't sure whether to be relieved that I wouldn't have to explain to Aelric why two males couldn't be married, or to brace myself for the scandal that his marrying a cross-dresser was sure to bring. But he loved her, truly and honestly.
That is probably what makes our story so much of a tragedy.
Father, to his credit, didn't bat an eyelash when Aelric proposed to Nate. He approved wholeheartedly, I suspected, that my older brother was to marry someone who could give him a run for his money, was smart, successful in her own right, and would love him to the end of time. That was evident to any street urchin, there was no doubt of it. She would never be the woman you took to balls and parties bedecked with diamonds and jewels, but she could tell a mast from a mainstay.
Which I could not.
They decided that Nate, or Natalie, would finish her apprenticeship to a shipbuilder before they married. The men seemed awfully accommodating--probably thanks to the fact that the first person who accused Nate of being incapable of man's work was kicked in a very tender place--so she continued to dress as she pleased and work in the shipyard. She was to be an apprentice for three years, and in that time Aelric would work to be a partner with Father in the merchant business. It was all worked out: they would live here with us, take on more and more of the family business, Father would retire, and Nate and Aelric would run it together.
At that time, we had no idea whose daughter she was.
Then we received word that the Pirate Brandeau had struck a fleet of our ships on the ocean and burned down every single one of them.
I was never sure whether he thought we held her captive, or just that any man who professed an interest in his daughter was sentenced to death row. But he began such a vendetta against us that our business began to fail. No one wanted to ship goods with a company who was the sole target of an infamous pirate who would stop at nothing to retrieve his daughter. Well, first he would destroy us, then he would retrieve his daughter.
Things from the house began to leave. China, lace, furnishings. Father sold off what he could to compensate the wives of the crews who drowned at sea. He took money from his own pocket to pay the salaries of our servants and called in favors with everyone he knew to make sure that the men who worked at his shipyard found other places to go.
Just when all seemed hopeless and we were hovering on the edge of bankruptcy, two things happened: the Pirate Brandeau took Nate back, and one of our accountants took what was left of our goods and our money and fled the city.
We had nothing left.
Debt collectors began to close in. The house had to be sold, of course, if only to pay off the last of our employees and what we owed to the businesses who had financed failed expeditions. Father had a lot of friends in the city, but his luck was poor enough that no one wanted to get involved for fear that it was catching.
Father was home more often. He mostly sat in his study with his face in his hand and murmured things I didn't get close enough to hear. He might have been mourning his lost business, our money, or even my mother for all I knew. All I knew was that I hadn't ever seen him at home for so long of an amount of time in my entire life. It was very strange. The only thing that would have been stranger would have been if he had wandered the halls like a lost ghost.
Instead, Aelric was the one who did that. He was devastated that Nate was gone. I suspected that she would ever be the only one for him. He was the type to fall in love and never again. It sounds like a tragic and cliche Romeo and Juliet mock story, but it was very true.
Without her, he was a ghost of himself.
Darryn had made himself scarce entirely.
I, on the other hand, was quite busy. Father and Aelric were the ones that knew all about the business of being a merchant, ship building, and what have you, but I was pretty much the only accountant in the family. I was more than an accountant, really. I had a head for numbers that rivaled Aelric and a memory of an elephant. The lists of what we owned and what we owed and how much we could get for what we owned so as to pay off what we owed slid through my mind like paintings. Since Aelric and Father had descended into the pits of despair and Darryn had made himself disappear, it was up to me to salvage what I could of our lonely family and make sure that we did more than survive--we needed a new life.
We owed a lot of money, but in return for what was left of our business--the books, the ships, the yard, the offices, many old friends of Father's were willing to let us leave with our debts canceled. We still had to sell our belongings and our house had been claimed as well, but they even let us stay in it until we made arrangements for where we were going to go.
It was obvious to me that we couldn't stay in the city. There were far to many memories and people for Father to run into--it would break him. Aelric needed to get away from every ban notice announcing his now null and void engagement to Nate as quickly as possible, and even Darryn and I were effected. I had never had great needs when it came to money, but I don't think I had ever truly stopped and thought about how much books truly cost. Also, they become worth a lot less if you had written in them. I had never had any reason not to. Why buy paper if I already had the margins to scribble in? There were some acquaintances of mine who were willing to buy portions of my extensive collection--if only for the gems of insight I had written inside of them, and while I was out taking care of that sordid business, I gathered as much information about the country as I could.
Not everyone who lived in the city had been born in the city like my brothers and I. Father had been born in another city, and who knows where mother had truly come from. Many of the shopkeepers I spoke with on a regular basis had originally been from somewhere else--some from other cities, some from the country, some from small villages and towns. I knew people from all over. So when it became apparent that we would have to leave the city for somewhere else, I started speaking with all who I knew and collected various favors. I had been well liked, if thought odd. But most people don't care if you walk down the street with your nose in a book once you've pulled an obscure poultice out of one and saved their horse from dying.
Money makes your eccentricities overlooked, kindness makes them accepted.
In the city, I learned, you can buy anything you need. Need eggs for a cake? Buy them from the market down the street. Need meat for dinner? Go to the butchers. Need vegetables? Also found at the market. Smaller places didn't have those things, people told me. In fact, the smaller or the more isolated a place was, the more you were expected to procure those things on your own. Most families had their own chickens at the very least, if not a goat or a cow to produce milk.
From the woman at the market I learned the basics about raising chickens and collecting eggs, from the farrier I learned how to care for my horse if I chose to have him unshod--blacksmiths aren't everywhere, after all. A shopkeeper whose daughter I taught to read gave me packets of dried seeds that he told me would be ready next spring. He told me which should be opened and planted when and I wrote the dates on the wax paper in oil pencil so as not to forget. I doubted that I would, but better safe than sorry. A milkmaid taught me how to milk a cow or a goat, then she showed me how to churn it for butter. She also warned me that butter didn't keep long and used up milk fast, so it was best saved for special occasions.
The clothier, however, was the best stop I made. I had originally entered the shop of one young Anna Maria so as to learn about the clothing we should wear (as we, obviously, could not leave the city in our finery. Not only would that be impractical, I assumed that we would be selling those as well) and perhaps how to make them. She willingly showed me what we should wear, but had an odd air about her so I finally asked her if there was something the matter. She hesitated, then she answered.
"Forgive me for being forward," she said demurely, fingering a soft damask that I was trying hard not to covet. Unlike my brothers, I cared nothing for fashion, but soft items had always been my weakness.
"Yes?" I replied, wondering what in the world she would have to be forward about. She was the most polite young woman (though she was older than I) I had ever met. Just that day I'd had a daughter of another merchant, silk dress held high above the dusty road, spit at my feet. I doubted that Anna Maria could possibly offend me.
"Darryn...I love Darryn."
Okay, I hadn't been expecting that. I raised an eyebrow in surprise. "Oh?"
She dropped the cloth and smoothed down her skirts, looking at her pale but worn fingers against the light brown cloth. "He loves me too, at least, he's said so."
"I don't doubt that he does," I said readily. Darryn was not a man to tell a girl that he loved her and not actually mean it. It certainly explained why he had made himself so scarce recently, actually.
"We planned on getting married," she bravely forged ahead.
At this rate, I knew that I would be there all day.
"You do realize that he hasn't a penny to his name, our reputation is in tatters, and we are leaving the city soon?" I said, hoping that I could prompt her to be more forward, as she obviously wasn't quite enough.
"Oh yes! I ah--I'm not sure if you knew this, but I came from up north, from a small village. I moved here to apprentice to be a clothier. Back home I apprenticed with a weaver but I wanted to learn more about clothing than just how to weave it."
I nodded encouragingly, hoping that this meant she would get her story out.
"Darryn doesn't want to ask your father, since things have gone so wrong, because he is afraid of upsetting him. But I've never cared about whether or not Darryn has money. I had planned on running my own shop sometimes soon--I have some money saved away...."
The shop wasn't hers. She was no longer apprenticed, but she worked under another clothier in an effort to save up to be her own. She was fully trained, however, and quite talented. One of the highest ranking ladies in town wore one of her dresses and claimed it to be the most beautiful (and the most comfortable) gown she had ever worn."
"Darryn tells me that you speak with his father more, and more easily, than he and Aelric. That you can convince him of things. From working in the shipyard, Darryn has realized that he likes working with metal and well...I know that back in my village the blacksmith is looking for an apprentice to train up so that he can retire. Darryn and I want to move there. There's a little house in the village with a few rooms that's open, the little old lady who lived there died, and I could take up weaving there and sell my things at the market. It wouldn't be a fine lifestyle, but we truly are in love, Beauty. Do you know how we can tell your father?"
This, this wasn't what I had been expecting.
I gave her my full attention. "Anna Maria, are you telling me that you want to elope with Darryn to the country to be a weaver and a blacksmith? If you two would be happy that way, Father would give his blessings. God knows that's the best offer any of us has seen."
Her eyes opened so wide and so without guile that I suddenly saw what Darryn saw in her.
"Oh no!" she cried, looking straight at me and pulling her shoulders back as if for strength. "The house is too much for both of us, but it's inexpensive and my mother is there and well...we'd want all of you there!"
Father, bless his heart, reacted with little surprise.
"Darryn wants to marry the clothier?" he asked from behind his desk, his eyebrow raised in almost the same way mine had been only hours earlier.
"Not only that," I confirmed, "but she's found us a house. For all of us. Darryn won't leave us behind, apparently, but she knows how important family is and invites all of us to move together."
"Well," he said slowly, seriously contemplating the matter. "I don't see any other options for us. When shall we leave?"
"The auction of the rest of our belongings is in a week," I stated.
He nods. "I'd like to meet this clothier, Anna Maria did you say? If my son loves her, I'm sure she's lovely, but I think I'd like to know more about where she would like to take us."
And for the first time in weeks I saw him stand from his study desk with a slight smile.
"Thank you, Beauty," he said.
That was the first time I remember my father ever thanking me, but it turns out not to be the last.