Two Hundred Livres and a Promise of Rain

The newspaper Dolores had read yesterday claimed that the second son of Durand de Morton stood to inherit a portion of the family's business, and that he had returned from studying politics and economics at Ludigeden Academy in Triabeul, their neighboring country, all for that very purpose.

She had heard that he'd gone abroad to study, but never from Xavier directly. The details were almost entirely unknown to her.

Dolores finally asked the question that had been circling in her mouth. Of everything, that alone was more than she could bear.

"...Did you give it up completely? The violin."

Instead of answering, Xavier, who had been glancing back at her, curled the corner of his mouth like a mischievous boy.

"If I'd wanted to see it that badly, shouldn't I have come looking for it at least once? A trip, a visit, anything...."

"Why are you talking in circles?"

"Fab said so himself. That you missed me terribly."

"You're the one who left without a word."

"And if I'd said something before leaving, what would have changed?"

Dolores stopped. Hating herself for admitting it, there wasn't the slightest lie in what he said—nothing would have changed.

"Fine. I was pathetic."

"What do you want me to say?"

Don't call me that. Don't call me. Fury surged up her throat until the blood rose in the back of the hand gripping her cane.

Unable to say a word, she only glared at him, until Xavier rose lightly from the swing.

"You still don't know what you want."

"And why should you pretend to know what I want and don't?"

"Because I do."

He was so outrageously brazen that she found herself struck speechless.

Xavier took a step toward her and said,

"If you're glad I'm back, say you're glad. If you missed the days we spent together, say you missed them."

"I'm not glad, and I didn't miss them."

"You didn't say you don't miss them, though, did you?"

His right hand tucked into his pocket, Xavier tilted his head until his eyes met hers at the same level.

He was smiling. His left hand covered the back of hers where it gripped the handle of her cane.

"Say what's actually inside you. Even if it stings, I don't mind."

"I have no interest in your explanations. I don't know what I was last year, but at the very least, you and I are nothing to each other anymore."

"I have no intention of explaining either. It's hardly important.... But you are curious, aren't you? About how I've been all this time. ...About whether I still play."

Dolores pushed his hand away and faced him squarely.

"When I say I have no interest in your explanations, it means I begrudge even wasting my time on you."

When she'd met him days earlier, Dolores had shown him all the sincerity she could muster. A perfect refusal—her will, spelled out.

What irritated her more was that Xavier knew this and simply didn't care. Just as he hadn't cared about her, about the very person she was, when he'd vanished without a word the year before.

"I know."

"Then go home."

"Claudie will be upset."

"Then see her separately and say your goodbyes before you leave."

Xavier studied the stubborn Dolores for a long moment, then smiled meekly. And then, as though he hadn't spent the whole conversation clinging so shamelessly, he brushed past her.

"Stay home. It might rain this evening. I'll see you soon."

The sky looked far too clear for any possibility of rain.

Dolores shot daggers at the back of his neck as he receded into the distance, and called out that she would send back the money he'd given Pablo—but he didn't seem to hear her at all.

Watching him walk away stirred up a discomfort in her, like staring at a button sewn into the wrong hole.

She returned to the front entrance. Right beside the doorway, two younger siblings' faces clung to the window like barnacles.

"What did he want?"

"Nuna, what did you talk about with Xavier?"

Anaïs wore a sulky expression; Pablo's face was full of expectation.

Dolores, scrutinizing her siblings with piercing eyes, reversed her steps toward her room and walked over to the window instead. Then, without ceremony, she held out her hand.

"Pablo. Hand it over."

"Hand over what?"

"The money Xavier gave you. I'm returning it, so give it here."

Anaïs's eyes flashed. Lips rounded into a little oh-ho as she shot Pablo a sidelong glance, she then raised her voice as if deliberately ensuring their father upstairs could hear.

"Good heavens! The eldest son of the Artois family, accepting bribes!"

"Nuna, stay out of it!"

"So that's why you've been speaking so well of him lately, isn't it? Father would find this fascinating. He'd be furious—he'd ground you, wouldn't he? Two weeks this time? Three? How long do you think your house arrest will be?"

Pablo's face had begun to redden as if it might burst, yet Anaïs seemed to regard it as charming proof of his guilt.

"Don't!"

Before Dolores could even intervene, under Anaïs's relentless assault, Pablo grumbled and dug into his pocket, producing two crumpled hundred-livre notes.

"There! Happy?"

It wasn't an enormous sum by any means—but neither was it pocket change.

Two hundred livres was enough to secure front-row seats to the famously expensive Vaguesdorées Municipal Dance Company, or a performance featuring Avi Toulouse of the Vaino troupe. To someone else, it might have amounted to no more than a few days' wages.

Anaïs snatched the bills away as if plucking them midair and flicked them between her fingers.

"How can the son of a Bransen household have such small hands? Well, I suppose being this stingy is how they got rich."

Anaïs, who had taken after their father a shade more, had long shown a cynical streak toward bourgeois and gentry families alike.

It had become thoroughly natural ever since she'd entered adolescence and come to understand just what kind of family theirs was—and who the real power brokers of Lange were.

"Unnie, I'll hold onto it and return it to him myself. He'll be coming back anyway."

Dolores was about to absently say fine when she caught Anaïs's small coin purse swallowing the hundred-livre notes. It had looked so natural she'd nearly been fooled.

"And how exactly would you run into Xavier to return it?"

"Knowing him, he'll show up again."

"Nuna, you're just trying to steal it!"

Pablo, who had been watching Anaïs's little heist with suspicious eyes, jumped at his chance.

"No—give it here. I'll sort it out myself."

Dolores plucked the bills away. Anaïs's eyes went wide with injured innocence.

"What? I was being serious. Do you see me as disloyal as Fab?"

Dolores shrugged with perfect composure and said, "Everyone rest quietly until dinner," before heading straight to her room.

She thought it best to at least nap a little before evening came.

She glanced out the window without thinking—the sky was still clear. Not the slightest hint of rain.

And so she sank into a deep midday sleep. She dreamed. It was a dream of rain. The sound of it soaking in, raindrops drumming on the ground, and the wreckage of an overturned carriage, and the sound of a heart pounding....

By the time she woke, the day had already tipped over. Outside the window, the dusk was bleeding pink.

What a relief.

No rain, so the laundry hadn't been soaked after all.

Her gaze drifted sideways, dry of all feeling. In her hand, the two hundred livres were still clutched fast.

Just then, a commotion rose from downstairs. The moment her father's voice reached her, she snapped awake.

Dolores hurriedly threw on a robe and grabbed her cane. She'd realized she hadn't prepared anything for the meal.

Theirs was not a family of means. Her mother's long illness had stripped away what little estate they'd had.

So whatever service they received amounted to this: twice a week or so, Madame Audry from next door came to clean the whole of their quaintly handsome but aging house and look after the household.

Strictly speaking it wasn't service at all, but hired help—paid with a token fee at intervals.

Fortunately, Anaïs was downstairs preparing tonight's dinner. Or rather, it seemed she had already finished eating.

"Pablo and I already had dinner."

Dolores brushed the hair that had slipped loose from her face and looked into the sitting room. Her father was already asleep on the sofa, deep in his cups.

"He said something good happened. I didn't ask what.... He fell straight asleep. Didn't even notice you'd been resting, unnie. Pablo's in the barn right now."

Anaïs watched Dolores relax, then ladled her soup into a fresh bowl.

"I saved yours. This is for you."

Shredded carrots and cucumbers, the bread from midday, and freshly made chicken soup were set out on the table.

Dolores sat down and ate, her gaze fixed on Anaïs with a strange, unreadable feeling.

Throughout the meal, Anaïs sat across from her, flipping through a book. She'd conceived the absurd notion of creating a cipher out of it, and so did nothing but turn one page after another.

"Why are you so interested in making a cipher?"

"A script only you know, and only the other person knows—there's something romantic about that, isn't there?"