Gloaming Read online

  Several small shops clustered around the central square. Arnaud Morel’s bakery was famed for the excellence of its bread, freshly baked every morning; Heloise Guillory made gowns and coats all day long in the establishment beside; Osmont Charron and his wife Nolwenn sold the fresh produce grown in the fields that covered half of Vale Argantel. But chief among them all was Chanteraine & Daughter, a shop central to the needs of all Argantellians. No one could say where old Pharamond Chanteraine and his daughter Sylvaine procured their dazzling array of wares, the likes of which were seen nowhere else. Nor could the emporium’s proprietors be drawn upon the subject. When asked, Pharamond merely shook his head in his mild way, and smiled a small smile, while Sylvaine could be relied upon to raise a single brow, and stare down the asker in formidable silence.

  Margot had long since stopped asking, for though Sylvaine and she were approximately of an age with one another and had long been friends, on this topic the younger Chanteraine steadfastly refused to be drawn.

  As Margot and Florian trudged through the rear door of Chanteraine & Daughter, out of breath and more than ready to set down their burdens, Margot was disappointed to find no Sylvaine there. Seigneur Chanteraine presided over the shop’s counter; he could be heard selling a peach and clover cordial to Madame Courtney, his deep, mild voice instantly recognisable. Once madam was satisfied — and this took a few moments more, for she was unable to resist the additional purchase of a bar of wild thyme soap on her way out — Chanteraine came into the back room, and greeted Margot and his assistant with his customary courtesy. If he felt surprised at finding Margot there instead of Oriane, he concealed it with admirable aplomb, though he did direct one swift, keen look at Margot which she did not know how to interpret.

  For all Pharamond’s exquisite manners, he could sometimes make an imposing figure. He was unusually tall, even for a man, and but little diminished by advancing age. His hair might be grey through-and-through, but it was still thick and shining, framing a grave face lit by bright blue eyes. He was never given to chatter, but the quality of this particular silence did not reassure Margot, and she found herself blurting out: ‘Oriane would have come, Seigneur, I am sure of it, were she not… indisposed.’

  ‘Indisposed?’ he repeated, one white brow lifting in enquiry.

  ‘She has not been seen at Landricourt today. I believe she must be ill, and—’

  ‘Has anybody gone to enquire after her?’

  ‘—and I am on my way to call on her this moment,’ finished Margot.

  ‘If she should be in need of anything,’ he answered, ‘you will send word?’

  Margot understood what he had not said: that he would be pleased if she would find Oriane in want of something — anything, no matter how trifling — so that he may receive news of her condition, but without any trace of impropriety attaching to the exchange. Seigneur prescribed to the old ways, and could never be persuaded that he might express a gentlemanly interest in Oriane Travere without incurring the opprobrium of the townspeople.

  ‘You may expect it, Seigneur.’

  Chanteraine made her a slight bow, his bright blue eyes flicking to Florian. ‘Attend Demoiselle De Courcey, Florian. And you will carry with you a little gift for her, if you please. A…’ He paused, perhaps undecided as to the nature of the gift he felt he might reasonably offer. He excused himself, and disappeared back into the shop for a few moments. When he returned, he bore two items in his large hands: a tiny, delicate glass bottle filled to the brim with a pale gold liquid, and a miniature book bound in peacock-blue silk, a length of violet ribbon fluttering from between its pages. ‘With our compliments,’ he said, handing both to Florian. ‘The elixir will prove restorative, I hope.’

  He did not explain the book, and the brief glimpse Margot received of its cover revealed only that it had no words of any kind printed upon its spine.

  ‘Make haste, Florian,’ said Chanteraine, and Florian made a quick bow.

  ‘We go with all possible speed, Seigneur.’

  2

  ‘You had better give me one or other of those,’ said Margot, having watched Florian trudge the length of the Waldewiese with the book clutched in one hand and the fragile glass bottle swinging jauntily from the other.

  He shot her an amused look. ‘I will not drop them, Margot.’

  She eyed the bottle with misgivings she did not attempt to hide. He had hold of it by its slender neck, and she did not like the way the bottle swayed back and forth with the rhythm of his long steps.

  ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘If it will make you feel better.’ He gave the bottle into her care, and she immediately took hold of it with both hands, cradling it gently. She was fascinated to find that the glass was warm to the touch.

  ‘You are not curious as to the nature of the book?’ she asked later, when silence had reigned between them for a few minutes.

  ‘Excessively.’

  Which was to say that he had no intention of satisfying his curiosity, or hers. She sighed inwardly, for the contents of the Chanteraine Emporium were known for their tendency towards rarity, peculiarity and a strangeness which sometimes seemed almost magical.

  Oriane’s little house was on the very edge of the town of Argantel, nothing standing between her cottage and Landricourt save the gentle upward slope of the valley, thick with grass and clover. A mere ten minutes brought Florian and Margot to Oriane’s blue-painted front door, which stood closed tight against the balmy eventide breeze. No lights shone within.

  ‘Perhaps she is asleep,’ said Florian, and rapped gently upon the nearest window. When nothing came of this tentative advance, he rapped more loudly upon the door.

  Margot did not answer, for her attention had been drawn elsewhere. Nothing ought to be visible of Landricourt at this distance, and at this hour of the day; the Gloaming clad the great old house in deep, impenetrable shadow. But there was something there: a faint, white light, glittering like a star. It could not be a star in truth; it hung far too low, and besides, it was yet too early in the day for the stars to emerge. What, then, could it be?

  ‘Florian—’ she began, but stopped, for as she spoke the light winked out and left the horizon in darkness.

  ‘What is it?’ said he.

  She shook her head. ‘I thought I saw…nothing. If Oriane is asleep, perhaps we ought not to disturb her?’

  ‘Seigneur will want his report. And the door rattles. I think it is not locked.’

  ‘Seigneur Chanteraine cares for Oriane. If she is ill, he will not wish for her repose to be disturbed merely to allay his own concern.’

  Florian glanced uncertainly at the book he held. It was small enough to fit into the palm of his hand, and looked dwarfed there.

  ‘If the door is unlocked, perhaps we might leave these in her kitchen?’ Margot suggested. ‘She will find them when she wakes, and I am sure she will know who to thank for them.’

  Florian remained uncertain, but he agreed to Margot’s proposal. The front door of Oriane’s cottage opened directly onto the kitchen, and thither they crept, careful to place down Pharamond’s offerings without making such noise as might wake her. The house was fully dark.

  They turned immediately to leave, but Margot hesitated upon the threshold. She did not like to leave without seeing Oriane, any more than Florian did. And the unlocked door disturbed her.

  ‘Perhaps I will just look in on her,’ she proposed. ‘A mere moment, no more. I need not wake her.’

  ‘If she is very ill, she may need Doctor Davinier,’ Florian agreed.

  This decided, Margot turned back from the door. She suffered a moment’s confusion in the tiny hall, for she could not remember which of the three other doors there led into Oriane’s bedchamber; she had visited the cottage only once or twice before, and not for some time.

  But by good fortune, her hand alighted upon the correct one, for upon opening the door, she discovered the curtains to be undrawn; the low, silvery-blue light of the Gloaming illuminated a
small bed neatly tucked up with rose-coloured blankets.

  It was empty.

  ‘She is not here,’ said Margot in confusion.

  Florian busied himself with searching the other chambers, tapping politely upon each door before entering. There came no reply, and he returned swiftly from each new exploration, shaking his head.

  ‘She is nowhere in the house? Where, then, can she be?’

  ‘Perhaps she has already seen the doctor,’ suggested Florian, ‘and been taken somewhere.’

  Taken somewhere? ‘If so, then she is gravely ill indeed.’ Margot felt a flutter of alarm. ‘We had better see Madame Davinier at once.’

  ‘I will return to the Emporium,’ Florian said. ‘Seigneur Chanteraine will wish to be told.’

  ‘Not yet. We have nothing to tell, save that she is not at home. Let us receive the doctor’s report, first.’

  Florian made no objection to this, and the two quickly left the silent and dark cottage. Though not without a small delay, for on the way back through Oriane’s tiny, neatly-kept kitchen, Margot observed something she had not noticed before.

  There stood a sturdy rocking-chair in one corner of the kitchen, directly by the hearth. What Margot had taken for a blanket thrown over the back was no such thing, for it gave a strange glimmer in the half-light — a glister not unlike the misplaced star that had shone, briefly, over Landricourt.

  ‘Hold a moment,’ she told Florian. Quickly, she lit the modest candle that stood waiting upon the oaken table and held it nearer the bundle of fabric. This would not do; all she saw was a blossoming of colour — mauve — and an intensifying of the silvery glimmer. She gave the candle into Florian’s hands and, carefully, picked up the gossamer folds.

  She held a gauzy coat, of such lightness it barely weighed anything, though she lifted it high. It was a strange thing, for the sweep of gossamer resembled a pair of folded moth’s wings, with flimsy sleeves attached to the rest only by a set of fluttering ribbons. Never had she seen its like; it could not be further removed from the simpler garb of cotton and linen and wool that the folk of Argantel customarily wore, sometimes enlivened by a rustle of silk.

  ‘How curious a thing,’ she murmured.

  ‘One of my master’s oddities, perhaps,’ suggested Florian.

  ‘Oh? Have you seen such a garment at the emporium?’

  ‘No,’ he admitted. ‘Never quite like that.’

  Where had Oriane come by such a thing? For its delicacy alone proclaimed it a costly garment, and the wages of a winemaker were far from princely. And there was that glister besides, which came from intricate embroidery tracing the shapes and markings of the moth wings. It drank in the light of Florian’s candle and threw it out again, twice as intense and eerily moon-pale.

  Margot laid the pretty coat down again, feeling oddly troubled by its presence. What harm could come of a mere coat? It was only Oriane’s absence that unsettled her, she told herself. Were it not for that, she would have admired the coat exceedingly, and felt no flicker of unease.

  A visit to Madame Davinier, who lived quite on the other side of Argantel, established not only that she had issued no orders for Oriane to be cared for outside of her home; the doctor also denied having seen or heard from Oriane at all.

  They found her at home in her study, shown there by a servant only slightly more elderly than she. The doctor sat hunched over her modest desk, the meagre glow from a single lamp casting back the evening gloom. ‘Travere?’ said Madame Davinier, looking up from her book in mild confusion. ‘No, no. I have not been called to attend upon her since the winter.’ She blinked brown eyes in blank incomprehension. ‘Is she unwell? I will come this moment.’

  In so saying, she was already jumping out of her oak-carved chair and reaching past the shelves of leather-bound books for the capacious black bag that held all the tools of her trade.

  ‘No, no!’ cried Margot. ‘She is not unwell. That is, we are not sure.’

  ‘You are not sure?’ Madame Davinier slowly set down her bag again, her gaze darting from Margot to Florian and back in puzzlement.

  ‘She is not at home,’ Florian supplied. ‘And she has not been seen at Landricourt all day.’

  ‘Strange,’ said the doctor. ‘But she is caring for another who is sick, perhaps, or engaged upon some other urgent task.’

  This was quite the possibility. ‘Depend upon it,’ said Margot as they left the doctor’s house, ‘Oriane is with her mother, or a neighbour who is sick. You know how kind a heart she has.’

  ‘With Seigneur’s help, she will be the more quickly found,’ suggested Florian.

  ‘I would not wish to worry him unduly.’

  ‘Why do you suppose he would be unduly worried?’

  Margot could not explain, for her concern was based on nothing more distinct than the alert, intense look about Pharamond Chanteraine as he had spoken to her of Oriane. ‘As you wish,’ she said instead, for Florian must know his employer better than she.

  Her misgivings were soon proved well-founded, for the moment Seigneur Chanteraine heard their news, he lost all his customary air of quiet serenity. The hour was growing late and he had closed the emporium for the night, but he lingered still in the stores at the back, checking the stock for the morrow. He set down his pen, looked long at Margot — who spared a thought to wish that he would not, for her long labours followed by her search for Oriane had left her in a state of some disorder — and demanded, ‘Tell me everything.’

  He listened to their account in silence, though there was not much to be told. Once they had done, he stood in thought for some time, though Margot could not guess at what was running through his mind.

  ‘She is gone away on a journey, perhaps,’ he ventured after a while.

  This was absurd, and he must know it. The nearest town was many miles away; such an expedition had to be meticulously planned. ‘The stage does not call at Argantel for two more days, Seigneur,’ Margot reminded him. ‘And the last coach was three days ago.’

  The faint hope died in his eyes, and his lips tightened grimly. ‘Sylvie,’ he called, scarcely raising his deep voice at all.

  Margot had not realised that Sylvaine was present, so quiet had she been. Her quick step was heard from the shop floor, and one slim brown hand appeared betwixt the dangling wooden beads that made up the dividing curtain. She stepped through, making the beads sing in a chorus of clicks and clatters, but the smile she directed at her father swiftly died. ‘What is the matter?’ she said.

  Sylph-like Sylvie was as short as her father was tall, though he never looked down upon her with any condescension. Even now, in all his concern for Oriane, the soft look of approval and affection warmed his gaze, and a swift, unbidden thought flickered through Margot’s mind: had her own father ever looked upon her in that way, when he had lived?

  ‘Oriane is not to be found,’ said Seigneur Chanteraine very softly.

  Sylvaine went still. ‘She has been searched for?’

  ‘To some degree. A proper search must be undertaken.’

  Sylvaine touched one hand to the wispy halo of heathery-purple hair which framed her delicate face, and her gaze turned distant. Where did her thoughts go? Margot watched as something unidentifiable passed behind Sylvie’s eyes, and then she came back to them. ‘‘I will see to it,’ she said.

  Sylvie was a marvel of efficiency, always. To her, Margot gave all the credit for the clever arrangements at the emporium; not a single thing was ever mislaid or out of place, no matter how small or insignificant. Under her direction, all of the emporium’s neighbours were roused to the hunt for Oriane, and the search proceeded apace.

  But she was not found. Not with her mother, who was growing elderly and often needed the care of a loving daughter; not at any of the houses that shared a street with her little cottage; not with the winemakers, not at the baths, and not seated beneath her favourite lemon tree that stood on the edge of the town square. She had not been seen all day, not at the baker’
s or the greengrocer’s or the tailor’s; no glimpse had been caught of her, not anywhere.

  Margot was released to her home some hours later, when the Gloaming gave way at last to the deeper darkness of night. So weary was she that she could scarce put one foot in front of the other, but she had not had the heart to request anybody’s assistance. What carriages, ponies and mules were available had been pressed into service; beasts and their owners were still engaged in the search for Oriane.

  But Pharamond Chanteraine had given up on the likelihood of finding her, as had Sylvie. Was it only Margot’s imagination, or had they felt little real hope of finding her at all? What had been the meaning of Seigneur Chanteraine’s long silence, and the odd thoughts drifting behind his daughter’s eyes? They had exchanged a long look, back there in the storeroom of the emporium, and many thoughts had gone unspoken aloud.

  Attendant with her sense that they knew a number of things they had not shared, she would have sworn that the news of Oriane’s absence had not quite been a surprise to them. Privately, Margot had hoped that the two would announce some insight, some secret information that only they knew, and which would somehow serve to discover where Oriane had gone.

  But they had not. She had left them feeling, to all appearances, as frustrated and concerned as was she herself, and with no other suggestions to offer.

  It was only later that night, alone in her cramped but beloved little house, and comfortably ensconced in her cool stone parlour with a plate of oat cakes before her, that she remembered an omission: the moth-wing coat. She had not thought to tell Seigneur Chanteraine about it, and Florian had not mentioned it either. The coat, for all its strange beauty, had slipped her mind in the urgency of Oriane’s absence.

  Had she been wrong? She did not see how it could be relevant, but he had said: Tell me everything. Did that not suggest that anything could be important? She made up her mind to see the Chanteraines again upon the morrow, as soon as she could be spared from Landricourt, and then she would bear them her forgotten snippet of news.