Ch 136
Marco started to stand and the gauze slipped from his grip, unfurling as it fell where it extended beneath Phelan's chair. Both Marco and Phelan leaned forward at the same time to retrieve it and bumped into one another.
"Careful!" Elvira shrieked.
Bessie, the bravest hound in all of France, immediately bolted for the safety of the dining room at the sound of the bird speaking. I heard her nails tap against the wooden floors where she struggled to gain traction followed by the table rattling as she dove beneath the first shelter she could find, leaving me to defend myself from the bird.
"She bites!" Elvira called out as she spread her wings and beat them quite valiantly. Briefly she took flight-more of a hop than graceful soaring-and departed Phelan's shoulder in favor of Marco's back while the two of them were both bent over in their chairs. The slender chain attached to a band on her leg slid across Marco's shoulder, the clip that was usually secured beneath my brother's overcoat dangling beside Marco's left ear. Noticing the chain, Elvira grabbed her tether and nibbled on the thin silver link.
Marco froze, head down and eyes immediately pinched shut as he anticipated the bite Elvira had announced. His shoulders tensed while the bird walked across his upper back as if out for a casual Sunday stroll.
"Please remove her," Marco frantically requested. He stifled a curse while remaining hunched over as the bird strutted from his left shoulder to the right, pausing to preen herself.
"Relax," my brother said.
"I cannot," Marco urgently replied.
"Elvira, my dear." Phelan calmly reached out, sliding his right hand beneath the bird's feet where he gathered the length of her chain into his hand. She grabbed his cuff link with her beak and gave it a slight tug, then proceeded to step onto his wrist where she climbed up his extended arm and walked back up to his shoulder as if nothing had ever happened.
Marco took a deep, shuddering breath and hopped to his feet where he stood a safe distance from the macaw. "You and that damned bird," he said under his breath. "My God, she nearly stopped my heart with her beak beside my ear."
"If she wished to bite you, she would have done so immediately."
"That is not very comforting."
"My little feather duster likes you," Phelan said.
"Indeed."
"You should know that Elivra has only voluntarily gone to three people in all the years I have had the pleasure of knowing her, and that list consists of me, Cristophe, and most recently my brother. I'm quite astounded she chose to leave my shoulder for yours."
"Well, that is not the way in which I would like to receive affection from anyone, especially a bird," Marco grumbled. "I trust you will keep a better handle on her going forward to prevent further encounters."
"My apologies, it will not happen again," Phelan replied as he clipped the tether on the inside of his overcoat. He looked as though he wished to say something else, but instead reconsidered.
Marco's lips parted, but he turned away momentarily and adjusted his collar rather than continue the conversation.
I found the lack of communication between them maddening and cleared my throat in order to garner their attention, but Phelan ignored me and fed Elvira dried fruit while Marco avoided looking in his father's direction and adjusted his sleeves.
Frustrated, I shifted my weight, catching Marco's attention at last. When he met my eye, I turned my head to the side and nodded once, silently prompting him to say or do something before the silence continued.
Marco took a deep breath. "Would you please hand me the gauze and salve?"
Phelan reached beneath his chair and retrieved both the gauze and the salve in silence. He handed them both to Marco without lifting his gaze and with no words of acknowledgement. Swiftly Marco wound the gauze up, glancing between both me and my brother with a look of annoyance to accompany his movements.
Fondness for my brother aside, the situation felt increasingly hopeless.
"I was wondering," he said at last, his visage softening. "Do you drink coffee?"
Phelan glanced up, a look of surprise on his face when he realized Marco spoke to him. He gave the last bit of dried fruit to Elvira, his expression mirroring his son's as he nodded and climbed to his feet. "Yes, of course. Like every other normal person in the world."
Marco grunted and placed the gauze and salve on the seat of his empty chair. "I don't care for it myself. The few times I've tried to enjoy a cup I have a splitting headache for the remainder of the day and felt quite unsettled in the evening, like my heart was about to leap from my chest."
"You're like your uncle then with your aversion to coffee," Phelan commented. His gaze slid toward me and I nodded.
"Abnormal, then?" Marco dryly questioned.
"I said no such thing," Phelan groused.
"You implied it," Marco said, his tone matching my brother's.
"Perhaps, but I expressly said that you are like Erik and being compared to my brother is always a compliment."
Marco rolled his eyes. Elvira lifted her left foot as though she wished to reach out to him, but Marco took another step back, his heels on the edge of the ramp.
"Why do you ask?" Phelan impatiently questioned.
Marco rolled his tongue along the inside of his cheek. "I had considered asking if you would like to go out for coffee the next time you are in town."
Phelan regarded Marco for a moment before he stood. "As long as you allow me to buy you a cup of tea."
"I would consider it."
Phelan exhaled. "Good."
Their exchange was painful to witness, like two rams incessantly clashing their horns together, both of them stumbling apart momentarily before they went back for more. Quite frankly I found the two of them rather exhausting.
"After you." Marco stiffly gestured for Phelan to enter the house first as he grabbed both of the chairs and placed them up against the exterior of my home, matching the exact location of where the feet had been using the moss-covered wooden boards as guidance. He nodded with a look of satisfaction on his face before he turned and handed me the gauze and salve that he had left on the seat of one of the chairs. In silence he lingered for a moment, preferring to pull off the rest of the ivy over immediate conversation.
Phelan briefly met my eye before he muttered something under his breath and continued into the house alone.
"Marco," I addressed the young man fidgeting with the ivy.
He pursed his lips. "Yes, Monsieur?"
"Are you well?" I asked, closing the back door.
He pulled the dark green leaves from the ivy and loosely knotted the length of vine before tossing it aside. "Not really," he answered. Sullen blue eyes glanced up at me and he attempted to force a smile. "I apologize for the Today did not go as I expected and I am almost certain that the five minute walk to the ice cream parlor around the corner will feel like an eternity given the company."
Since he was my brother's son, I should have expected an honest answer, but I found myself unprepared to reply to such a melancholy response.
Silently I wondered if I had ever made a remark that left my own uncle speechless. I had been quite hesitant at first to trust him and had chosen each word I spoke with care due in part to stammering and because I feared his reaction if I misspoke.
I memorized my words before I dared to speak like an actor preparing for a role, fully intending to give him a character worthy of his time rather than his shy, painfully awkward nephew. In the beginning I expected wrath similar to my father's, to be struck when I spoke too fast or the words came out jumbled and incoherent. Patience and kindness had been foreign concepts, but within months my fears were quelled and I felt more at ease not only in his presence, but in my own terrible skin.
"I don't want to be angry with him," Marco continued, keeping his voice low. "With your brother. With my…" He shrugged off using the word 'father'. "But I don't feel ready to forgive him. At least not yet."
I inhaled and turned the jar over in my hand. The label had started to come unglued, the bottom corner of one edge curled. I pressed it down with my thumb, but it refused to stay in place as I desired.
"Should I?" Marco asked. "Should I want to forgive him?"
I eyed him briefly, feeling as though he had come to the wrong person when it came to inquires regarding exoneration.
"Eventually," I said. "When you have had the time to consider what you want."
"I don't want anything," Marco said quite defensively. His hands immediately balled into fists, his complexion turning crimson. "I don't need financial assistance and I have no interest in the deed to his home…"
I remained silent, thumb still pressed to the corner of the label, allowing him a moment to collect himself and his thoughts. I knew what he felt like, both angry and hurt, warring emotions that had often banded together and fought the meager good senses I possessed.
"You think I should want something?"
"It doesn't matter what I think you should or should not want." I looked up at him, at the young man whom I was certain looked a great deal like my brother when he was a man in his mid-twenties. A man who had lost his younger brother, who felt like a burden to his cousin, who had no relationship with his parents or uncle and a young child of his own with whom he had no relationship.
"Assets aside, do you want Phelan to call you his son?" I asked.
Marco's gaze immediately dropped to the wooden ramp where he stood. His jaw worked in silence as he considered my inquiry.
"I don't know," he said. He shifted his weight. "I'm no longer a child and I don't need him–" He looked up at me with his lips parted, his gaze almost childlike and filled with bewilderment. "I mean to say I don't need a father the way I did when I was younger."
Younger, I thought to myself. When he was a child berated by the men who had not embraced him as their nephew, seeing him instead as a disappointment as their family name died with them. Younger. When he had overheard the rumors of his siring at parties and family gatherings, whispers of a bastard child. Younger. When he had grown up with only his mother and by the sound of it, she had not defended her child or addressed the rumors that dogged her only son.
"Perhaps when you return from your holiday I can make an appointment to speak with you in private?" he suggested.
"No appointments."
Marco's expression faltered. "Oh. My apologies, Monsieur, I thought–"
"Opera house managers and music publishers must schedule at least two weeks in advance for a moment of my time. Nephews, however, are not obligated to schedule meetings with their uncles," I said, unable to imagine my own son requesting an appointment with my brother. Undoubtedly if Phelan had lived in Paris still, Alex would have made a habit of visiting his uncle whenever the mood struck–and I had no doubt that would have been quite frequently.
Marco smiled at last. "Uncle," he said fondly as he regarded me. His posture stiffened in the next moment and he took a step back. "Unless you prefer Monsieur Kire."
He had the same sharp blue eyes as my maternal grandfather, the cheekbones Phelan and I had inherited from our mother, and his mother's black hair and fair complexion. Waves of thick hair and dimples reminded me of Alex. He looked every bit like a part of the family I had always desired.
"Nephew," I replied. "There is no need for formality."
His smile widened. "I've never had a real uncle. It is unexpectedly welcome."
"I've never had a real or false nephew," I replied as I reached for the door handle. "And I am quite hopeful that my newly acquired nephew will come to supper this evening."
"I will do my best," he promised.
"No matter what happens between you and my brother, your cousin Alex would appreciate the opportunity to speak with you further, as would I."
"How old is your son?"
"He will be nine at the end of October."
It didn't seem possible that Alexandre was nearing nine years of age. He should have still been an infant swaddled in blankets or a toddler banging his rattle on my desk or my shoulder, screaming at the top of his lungs.
"He's exceptionally well-spoken. I would have thought he was a few years older when I heard him speak."
"He's very well spoken," I agreed. "With the exhausting imagination one would expect from a child his age."
Marco furrowed his brow. "Exhausting?"
"If you come to supper, you will see what I mean."
Phelan was standing outside of my front door when we walked down the hall. I heard him speaking to someone as we approached and realized it was Hermine Leach frantically gesturing at him.
"Monsieur Kire!" she called when she caught sight of me. "This way, please!"
"Am I being abducted, Mademoiselle?" I grumbled.
She gave an exasperated sigh. "A courier delivered a message from the theater this morning, yes? It should have been marked 'urgent'."
I narrowed my eyes. "Perhaps."
"Did you read it?"
"Not yet," I admitted.
Hermine shook her head at me as if I were a child disappointing her. "Then that explains why you are not at the theater. Come with me."
"I beg your pardon?"
"Antonio requests your appearance at the signing," she said. "It's for the press."
I looked down at my clothing and realized I was hardly dressed for a formal meeting that included press.
"Now?" I groused.
"A half hour ago, actually, hence why his note was marked urgent for you to read at once."
My heart stuttered, thinking of how the messenger boy insisted I give a reply to him at once and I had waved him off. "I would have to change first…"
Hermine clapped her hands twice before she walked into the foyer and shooed me toward the stairs. "Quick change! Make haste, Monsieur. Leach Carriages will deliver you to the Golden Palace stairs as swiftly as possible. We guarantee arrival at least three minutes ahead of our competitors."
All of the commotion drew Gertie and Julia out of the kitchen.
"What is wrong?" Julia asked.
"Tardiness," I'm afraid, Hermine said with another shake of her head. "Your husband has a very important meeting at the theater."
Hermine had the audacity to begin issuing orders, starting with Marco and Phelan, whom she ushered out the door. The two of them scattered far quicker than I would have imagined and Elvira flapped her wings as she screeched, "Stop that!"
Once the front door was closed, Hermine motioned me up the stairs. "Julie dear, we must get your husband dressed in eight minutes."
"I'll have him down in six," Julia promised.
"What do you need me to do?" Gertie asked.
Hermine placed her hands on her cousin's shoulders. "I need you to simply look beautiful, which you already do, Gertie, my love," Hermine cooed.
Julia walked up the stairs ahead of me and immediately began opening drawers and laying out clothing.
"Thankfully everything is freshly laundered," she said over her shoulder.
I pulled the note from Antonio out of my pocket and read the contents far too late, noting that the theater manager had indeed made mention of the contract signing he wished for me to attend–and multiple times at that.
"Damn it," I muttered, imagining how furious Le Blanc would be once I arrived nearly an hour later than he desired.
"Here," Julia said, holding out a shirt.
I tossed the note aside and began unbuttoning the shirt I wore, which I handed to Julia in exchange for the new one.
"Was that Marco I saw leaving with your brother?" Julia asked over her shoulder.
"Yes," I answered.
I stepped out of my boots and flung them aside while unbuttoning my trousers at the same time.
"He looks familiar," Julia said.
"Does he?"
"Yes, but perhaps he looks familiar because he favors his father."
"He looks quite a bit like his mother as well," I said, turning to face the mirror to see that I had skipped a button in my haste.
"Here," Julia said, apparently noting my growing frustration. She placed the rest of my clothes on the bed and stepped toward me, moving my boots and discarded trousers aside with her foot so that she stood in front of me.
I dropped my arms to my side and allowed her to re-button my shirt, my jaw tense and tongue firmly against the roof of my mouth.
"Are you ready for tonight?" she asked softly.
"No, I haven't packed a single thing and I can't remember if the train leaves at ten or eleven," I answered. My anxiety escalated when I said the words aloud.
"The train leaves at ten-forty-five from platform three." Julia looked up at me once she reached the top button and allowed her fingertips to gently caress my jaw. "You are so tense."
"I am not at all prepared," I answered, pulling my mask up. I wiped my upper lip with my index finger. The room felt stifling hot, my face beaded with perspiration. "There is too much left to do for the remainder of the day and now Antonio wants me at the theater and I imagine this signing will take ninety minutes, which leaves me with an hour and a half less than I had already anticipated," I blurted out.
"Relax, my dear. Everything is inside of the trunk."
My eyebrows raised, my erratic breathing suddenly caught in my throat. "You-you prepared everything for me?"
She smiled and nodded. "Of course. I started several days ago and finished this morning. I can't have my esteemed conmposer of a husband in a foreign country walking about a dairy farm in his underclothes, now can I?"
"I fully intended to wear a burlap sack for the duration of our holiday."
Julia took a step back and reached for my overcoat. She had decided on dark blue with a matching waistcoat that had a pattern of silver leaves embroidered on it. The waistcoat had always reminded me of constellations and had been one of my favorites.
"What would the cows think?" Julia teased as she helped me first into my waistcoat and then into my overcoat.
"They would think I looked like a bag of grain," I answered.
Julia wrinkled her nose. "I assume my dear husband is able to button his own trousers?"
"If you offered, undoubtedly dressing would become undressing," I said as I fit my mask into place.
As expected, she shook her head at me and opened the bedroom door. "You have two minutes to spare, Monsieur Kire."
"Time enough to steal a kiss," I said as I closed the bedroom door once more.
Julia linked her hands around my neck as I bent and kissed her on the mouth. Her back was to the door, her body deliciously crushed to mine. She lifted my mask and pressed her forehead to mine, eyes blissfully closed.
"Have I told you recently how sincerely I adore you?" I whispered.
"Not recently," she answered, her tone matching mine.
My lips found hers and I kissed her softly, savoring each stolen moment. Her tongue prodded mine, the heat of her breaths soft against my cheeks.
"I believe you have one minute remaining," she breathlessly said.
"They can wait an eternity," I replied.
"I believe they have already waited almost an hour." Julia sighed. "The sooner you are out the door, the sooner you return home and once you are back, I have every intention of keeping you to myself for as long as possible before supper."
Reluctantly I exited a moment later and walked downstairs where Hermine Leach began waving her arms as though she were on fire.
"Make haste!" she screeched, her tone far more ear-piercing than my brother's bird.
With no other choice, I followed her out the door to a carriage waiting in front of my home. The second we were both seated inside, she pulled on a braided cord and a bell chimed, signaling the driver.
I stared out the window as the carriage lurched forward, preparing myself for the inevitable overzealous start to a conversation I could not escape. Perhaps she would break into song or start with the opening lines of her next performance, holding me captive as her audience for the duration of the carriage ride.
A half-dozen scenarios passed through my mind before we reached the intersection at the end of the street and I realized that we were sitting in absolute silence. I risked a glance at Hermine and saw her staring at me. Once I looked at her, she turned away and pretended to stare out the window.
My brow furrowed. The lack of conversation was far more concerning than her breaking into song or rattling off a dozen different questions about the weather, politics, or her next performance. I had not known Hermine Leach to go for more than ten seconds without speaking, clapping, or otherwise making her presence known. Her silence became quite concerning.
Again I looked at her and saw her still gazing out the window, but with her eyes glassy and lips pursed.
"I beg your pardon, are you–"
"Noooo," she wept, drawing out the single word into a horrid moan, her face contorted into a ghastly expression of feminine hysteria, the likes of which I was not prepared to encounter.
