I Followed Fires

IX. Adèle

How much can a mother miss her sole daughter after merely two days apart? 

Various parchments and letters sat on Adèle desk, amounting to more than three in total. On her brother’s desk sat even more gifts and handwritten letters from her mother. Common words which were mentioned in all of the letters included ‘missing’, ‘loneliness’, ‘departed’, and the three words that seemed to haunt both Adèle and her brother: come back home.

 Their voyage to the king’s castle was not formed from a mutual agreement between their parents. At first, their mother refused to even let her children travel outside of castle grounds, including the farm regions that their family owned, but their father was a relaxed, and an open-minded man. He claimed the travels would do them good, as they would experience life as nomads; moving from one place to another, crossing rivers and lakes with an intended destination in mind. Their mother, enraged, stated that beasts of the forest would hunt them down after dusk, and money-hungry robbers would come after them like ants and a trail of sugar. But their children were not a trail of sugar, their father stated. They were their children, and were human beings, not ants.

 Their father’s dislike towards her mother’s analogy irked her to such an extent that she refused to stay in castle grounds and headed towards their summer villa as she waited for her calm and composure to return to her. He refused her proposition of a short-term holiday at first, but as the images of liberation from his wife’s austere rules and regulations filled his mind, he accepted without hesitation.

 And with that, the matriarch of the Prouvaire family packed her clothing in her valises and for the next few days, she was to rest in their summer home located in the water’s edge of the French coastline. When Adèle heard the news of their parents’ dispute after their departure to French court, she breathed a long, heavy sigh, and she imagined her brother did too.

“Forgive us, my children, but you father and I have briefly went separate ways as he clearly does not believe that our children are never  safe and that there is a chance that you may be harmed by raiders, looters, plunderers, or pillagers, outside of the château’s walls,” Adèle read aloud one of the sentences from one of the letters sent from her mother, then proceeded to roll her eyes in distress.

“We must return as soon as possible,” stated Jean-Michel, as he threw away the letter that was in his grasp on to Adèle’s desk.

Adèle refused his motion to return to their homelands. “And delay our ongoing relations with French court, and the king and queen of France? Have you gone mad?”

“You see how our mother and father aren’t able to keep a steady relationship without their two eldest children to handle their behavior. The servants back home will not be able to explain to Theo and Cyril as to why their mother has simply disappeared. The boys will think something is wrong, when clearly we know that it is a minor dispute over something that seems so trivial to us,”

“The servants will not speak a word to Theo and Cyril, as no word will be spoken to them unless we tell them to,” argued Adèle. “I’ve become comfortable here, brother.”

“But are you not more comfortable at home?”

Adèle was not able to argue that.

Whilst it was true that she found most of her comfort at home and in the forest and the farmlands she grew fond of, she also took pleasure in living amongst the men and women of French court, and primarily Mary and Francis. “Perhaps you will leave on your own, and I will stay here, for I do not want to anger the king and queen. You will handle our parents by yourself, for I trust you as you are my brother. They’ll think they have behaved wrongly towards us, or we were privately offended by something they said. Please, Jean, I do not want them getting the wrong idea,”

“Very well. Are you sure you will be fine on your own here?”

“I will be more than fine,” she replied. “I have made good friends here, and I am sure Mary will introduce me to her ladies-in-waiting when the time comes, and I shall have my own social group here in French court.”

“Good friends?”

“I have told you that the horse-ride with Mary and Francis yesterday morning went more than well. I assume Mary and me are going to spend more times together than I with you,” she smiled.

“How long do you think will I be gone? A week, perhaps?”

“Take as much time as you need, dear brother. You know how our parents require much more convincing than you think when they momentarily separated, as if they think their marriage has been annulled already. Come back to Theo and Cyril with gifts from French court, and bring them their toys from Paris whilst mother is away,”

Jean-Michel tried to smile as well, but could not help but remain deadly silent as he reviewed the plan she proposed in his head. As a brother, worrying for his siblings was a natural thing to do. For this could be proven by the past few days, the thoughts of little Theo and Cyril, still young and helpless, fogged his mind. Although there were servants to attend to their every need, Jean-Michel could not help but think they were placed into some kind of danger he was unaware of, since he was miles away from his home. And yet, Adèle seemed hardly worried, and he found it strange, for him at least. She was the second eldest sister, the second heir to the Prouvaire fortune after his death. Perhaps it was her childlike ways that made Jean-Michel think that she was forever encaged in a child’s shyness and innocence.

“This is rather silly, don’t you think?” he asked. “I am to leave French court, the home of the king and queen that we pledge to, just to sort out our parents’ fickle behavior. It is as if they were the children of the family,”

They shared a quiet giggle over Jean-Michel’s words. “I’m afraid I should go and pack now then.”

“Let the servants do that for you later,” Adèle replied. “Now, we shall tell the king and queen of France of your plans of returning home,”