by K C Norrie
"Will you marry me?" he asked.
Riene turned to him with genuine surprise on her face.
"Yes," she answered.
They sealed the pact beneath the stars with a few more passionate kisses.
They walked back into the Grand Hall hand in hand each wrapped in their own feelings, and while Silas dreamed of his new life, there was a nagging thought from the back of his head that said, "My parents will never approve."
****
They decided to run away. Riene returned home the next morning after the dance. Silas’s parents had allowed her a guest room for the night, but she didn't stay there. Silas sneaked her into his own room, and it was there, that they made secret love, and secret plans to be together forever, never sleeping at all the entire night.
"I am to be married," Riene incredulously repeated to herself so many times in the next few days before they were to leave.
Riene owned very few possessions, and she kept them at the church. Silas offered to take her there, but she convinced him that Father Pierre and the sisters may become suspicious. She perceived they would neither understand nor approve.
They were to meet up near the cave where they had met for the first time. As Riene gathered her things into a little bag, she thought of leaving a note for Father Pierre and the sisters to let them know she was okay, as they had all been so kind to her, but a note would raise alarms, and they may come looking for her. She would visit them later when it was too late for them to stop her.
She also made another stop to Gabel's fortune tellers stall, but it remained deserted and Riene worried that some mishap had befallen them. She would have to investigate further when she came back. She very much wanted to get their blessings for her upcoming marriage. Would they have been able to stop her if Gabel had seen anything ominous? Probably not. Some things were better not knowing.
Riene waited for Silas up on the mountain, beside the cave and thought how much her life had changed in a short while. A dream come to life. She smiled thinking of it.
She was seated up on the saddle behind Silas on his beautiful white horse. His name was Phantom. They would ride Phantom all the way across the mountain meadow and take the path that led to the neighboring village of Tromle. As they rode, Riene imagined waving to all the people as they passed them by on a market day. As she imagined this, she thought she saw a white wolf watching them from some brush in the distance. She was just about to point him out to Silas when Silas asked her a question at the same time. When she looked back, the wolf had disappeared.
Silas carried his bride across the threshold a week later. His parents were outraged. If they had wings, they would have flapped them. If they could have roared like lions and bears, they would have done that as well.
The two children were separated and lectured. They tossed the word annulment into the air willing it to grow. It didn't. In the end, nothing changed. The children held their ground, and the parents quietly announced the marriage to the rest of the world.
Chapter 19
When Gabel opened his eyes again, the storm was over, and he was alone. As he sat up, he remembered the vines and how to make a red tea.
He gathered up the vines that had looped around his legs and lay hidden throughout the area, positive, that these were the plants that could make that red tea. He remembered being taught about the vine, but he couldn't remember its name. Where had all those people gone to? Had it been only a dream? It had seemed so real.
When Gabel came down from the mountain with his bundles of vines to Saint Mary's, Father David seemed surprised. "Where have you been? We thought that second storm took you. Your mother gathered up your horse and took it home with her."
He helped Gabel borrow another horse, and he set off for home, curiously wondering why his mother didn't wait.
The land around their farm was flat. Gabel could see his house as he approached, from a long way off. The smoke from the chimney rose straight up into the air. There was no wind today. A short while later his mother came running out of the house, shielding her eyes from the sun as she squinted to see who was riding up toward their home. She was colored with grief and worry, and Gabel wondered why.
There was a joy when she recognized that it was him. She hugged him fiercely as he dismounted, treating him as a young boy instead of the man he'd become.
"Where have you been? Are you all right?" She brushed at his hair. Looked into his eyes. "I have been so worried about you. I thought..." she choked up and tears threatened. "I thought maybe you were dead."
"But why would you think that?" answered Gabel. "I merely went up into the mountain and got caught in another the storm. Of course, I am not dead."
"But you've been gone for so long," she answered.
"How long?"
"Nearly two weeks," she answered. "Where have you been?"
Gabel thought about it as he fed the horses and other animals. It was alarming. He thought he'd been gone two days at most. Had he been asleep in that meadow all that time?
****
Gabel dried the leaves of the vine and served his mother the red tea.
"You are right. It is delicious; comforting even."
They sat together sharing the red tea as Gabel explained about his plans to sell the farm and move into town.
"I feel we are too isolated here on the farm. I think we should sell it. With the proceeds from the sale, we can purchase a shop with living quarters above and open a cafe. We will serve the red tea, along with your meat pies and anything else you'd like to serve."
He explained to her all about the vine. He learned the flowers made a syrupy medicine and planned to sell this as well.
Bereitha listened and sipped the red tea as her son talked. She wondered how Gabel had found out so much about these vines she had never even heard of. But then she was used to such. He had always known things that no one else ever could know.
The thought of leaving the farm and moving to town was terrifying, yet it lightened her heart. Her late husband had taken all the life from it when he died. She'd only stayed on because she thought Gabel was happy here.
The plans took time to complete. One of their neighbors had four grown sons and they needed more room. They readily purchased the farm from them.
A perfect shop in a desirable location was hard to find. Each one they looked at was too small or too expensive. They had walked past a ruin of a building several times before Gabel took notice and began to think of possibilities. It was a narrow three-story building on a corner that had been damaged by fire. When Gabel inspected the damage, he found the fire had started in a front corner room on the first floor. The damage extended up through the third-floor roof. The rest of the building had been mostly untouched, including the stairway that led to the upper floors. The floor at the top had access to a flat rooftop that Gabel envisioned, could be used for star gazing whenever the weather permitted. The middle floor pleased his mother with its street side balcony.
Gabel thought the ruined part of the building could be torn down and left open. The building had been vacant for nearly a year. The owner, who lived across the street, had no money for repairs and accepted Gabel's offer.
It took many weeks, but in the end, Gabel created an outdoor patio from the ruin, taking away the debris and salvaging enough stone and tile to make both the floor and build a low wall around the outside. He created a new entryway accessible from the patio, and fitted it with heavy twin doors, also recovered from the ruin. He painted them red.
They never returned to their original market day stall except to gather the Fortune Tellers sign and the big red canopy that would serve as the shelter for the outside tables at their new cafe. As they did so, Gabel kept his eye out for Riene, but she never appeared. He knew his mother watched for her as well. He had a feeling she had already started that new life he had "seen" for her and hoped that she was happy.
They began serving the red tea and other refreshments beneath the red canopy in the new caf
e patio. Inside, Gabel hung his familiar sign and read fortunes. He also sold the tea leaves and fresh tea vines.
"They were meant to be shared," was a thought that lay at the back of his head.
During one evening under a full moon Gabel and Bereitha journeyed up to the mountain field to gather the flowers to make the syrupy medicine. He showed her how to find the vines that blended in so invisibly with the other foliage. Once you could identify them, they could be found everywhere.
He didn't know how he knew this. It was as if he had been born with the knowledge. It seemed natural enough to him. He had never been taught colors but knew them instinctively.
He thought about the odd people who gave him the tea and spooned the syrup into his mouth, He didn't think they were real. They transmitted such odd colors. That was all just a dream.
****
Months later, Riene spotted a red canopy. She rode through Saint Ange with Silas on what she called the Golden Horse as he was such a beautiful golden-brown color.
She had ridden past Gabel and Bereitha's market stall many times since her marriage, watching it change from empty and lifeless, to filled with strangers. She missed her adopted family terribly and felt the lostness she had felt for much of her life, return.
Today, turning down a side street, something red caught her eye, and she determinedly headed closer.
It seemed to be the same familiar red canopy positioned over a patio furnished with small round tables. Customers sat, sipping tea, and eating. A sign named it "The Red Cafe." Other smaller signs adorned the business. One said, Red Tea served here. Another said, Apothecary, but there was no Fortune Teller sign.
Spying an empty table, Riene dismounted and tied her horse at the horse tie. A confused Silas dismounted and followed her.
"I'd like some refreshment," she told him. "Red Tea" sounds intriguing."
A stranger served the tea, to Riene's disappointment. Then she noticed a customer eating a meat pie! It had to be!
"Is Madame Bereitha here?" she asked.
The young woman who'd brought the tea nodded shyly.
"Please tell her Riene is here."
She would not look at Silas; she could hardly contain her excitement.
Bereitha burst through the red doors followed by Gabel.
****
Silas was enraged. Riene had tried to fool him, pretending this meeting was by chance. He watched carefully the way she looked at the fortune teller. Silas put on a smiling show, shaking hands graciously with Madame Bereitha and then with Gabel, but the fortune teller seemed to see right through to his very soul. His rage grew.
Both Gabel and Madame Bereitha sat down at the little table with them and shared the red tea. The talk began with the terrible storm all those months ago. Gabel gave his account first, and then Riene. Silas sipped his red tea. It was incredibly good. He added a little sugar.
He listened as Riene explained how they had met in the cave, and the dance and how they had fallen in love, running away to get married.
Madame Bereitha explained how Gabel had disappeared for two weeks and came back with the tea. Gabel explained how they had sold the farm and moved into town.
As Silas listened and sipped on his tea, he felt the anger just let go of him and slip away. Once the anger left, he couldn't understand why he had been angry in the first place. Riene had been open from the start, that she had adopted these two as her surrogate family, making Gabel more a brother, not a rival. No wonder she had been happy to find them again, thinking them lost. He squeezed her hand. Riene was his whole world. He loved her so.
****
Gabel watched Silas and the colors he emitted. He was volatile, unstable, jealous, and secretive, keeping his feelings well hidden. As he drank the red tea, he changed into a calm and normal personality. Silas joined in the conversation telling them about what he'd seen of the storm from the vantage of the Chateau high up in the turret.
"It looked liked lanterns fell from the sky and landed up in the mountain behind the Chateau. From the other side of the Chateau, I watched them land into the streets of Saint Ange. I wanted to investigate, but the storm was too dangerous. I even tried to search in the rain the next morning, but the mud kept me from the paths. By the time the weather cleared there was nothing to see."
That was interesting; Gabel had not noticed them land in town from his window on the farm. He was still curious as to what they were, but by now they would probably never find out. It began to grow late, and the young couple needed to leave. Gabel supplied them with the Red Tea leaves to serve at the Chateau and let them know they would be happy to send more whenever they ran out. They parted as friends.
If Gabel ever found himself alone with Riene again, he planned to let her know how the tea had calmed her angry husband. Or perhaps he would just pass the information for his mother to tell her. Just giving her the tea had changed the colors surrounding their near future, but he worried about what would happen when the tea wore off.
****
Riene felt much lighter now that she had reconnected with Gabel and his Bereitha. It was a relief to know that they were safe and happy. The world seemed a better place.
She returned to the Chateau in a carefree mood that lasted the evening as she showed Madeleine, her personal maid, how to make the tea and all through the dinner served in their own separate living quarters.
Dining alone here with Silas and keeping to their own quarters made life easier. Silas did not get on well with his parents and Riene perceived herself to be the cause.
She had been worried that Silas would be jealous of Gabel and expected to endure what she now thought of as a Dark and Stormy Night.
They had been married for over six months now, and there had been only one other dance. Riene was formally introduced as the new Madame Montrell. The women she was introduced to, were less than friendly, but Riene gave that no mind. She danced every dance with pleasure having asked for more instruction and she returned every smile given by the admiring men in attendance. She should have noticed Silas's darkening mood, but she hadn't.
It was later, after the dance, that he had made his displeasure known. The things he had accused her of made her shudder even now. It had been one of Silas's mother's concerns that they hadn't known each other well enough. Well, she knew Silas much better these days. She watched her step and knew when to back down.
She made friends with the younger members of the staff and Madeleine, her own personal maid, was her chief confidante. One night, Riene had been so frightened of his temper; she had Madeleine hide her from Silas. She returned to him hours later, thinking he must be over the rage by now. Instead he was drunk and even more abusive. When Silas woke the next morning, Riene was dressed and packed with just a few personal possessions to take with her. She told Silas she was returning to the church. Silas begged forgiveness on his knees, telling her how much he loved her and promising to never act that way again. Riene had forgiven him, but it had happened again.
Instead of dances and fetes these days, Monsieur Montrell hosted dull dinner parties every few weeks, in which men discussed the country's affairs and women talked of people Riene didn't know.
Madame Montrell had created a past for Riene, saying she came from a wealthy background but was sent here after her father lost the family fortune in the United States. No one questioned it. America was thought outlandish and wild. Anything Riene did that did not meet their customary ways was attributed to an American way.
Riene loved listening to the men speak of the faraway places they had visited and interesting events that occurred around the world.
Because she listened so intently to the men's conversations, she often appeared distracted and dullish when the women attempted to bring her into theirs. She had no opinion of the color yellow on Francine’s pale daughter, nor was she curious about why Mavis looked so distant these days.
Once, Riene asked a question to the men. A horrified Madame Montrell took her aside and explaine
d that the men's conversation was to be ignored. "We are not to be involved," she said.
Silas, who was supposed to ask questions, never spoke a word during these dinners. Occasionally a man addressed a question to Silas. Then it was his turn to appear dullish, which infuriated his father.
Riene, seeing the way things were, began to supply Silas with his own questions to ask and told him he only needed to nod his head at the answers. This way Riene herself began to learn about her country, the family's wealth, and how it was earned. If she had to endure a Dark and Stormy Night on occasion... she felt it a small price to pay. She didn't really want to leave to live on the streets again. She loved Silas and her life with him most of the time.
Now as she sat across the table from her handsome husband, eating the delectable meal just served to them, she thought about how special this day had been and she gave thanks for it. First, she had been finally reunited with Gabel and Bereitha. Then there had been that miraculous red tea. It had done something magical to her. It made her feel capable and sure. It made her feel she was already enough and didn't need to be anything else.
Silas had been angry. She could see it in his face and hear it in his voice when he spoke to Gabel. A jealous rage would follow. Nothing to be done for that she thought. But then something happened. The anger was not there anymore. Silas was relaxed. He talked to Gabel like a friend.
"It must have been the tea," thought Riene. If all it took was the red tea to calm her husband's temper, well then…
****
Three enchanting years marched by. Only one thing was missing. Madame Cari Montrell considered it of utmost importance. It was time for Riene and Silas to start their own family. It was time for Madame Cari to become a grand-mere.
