If I was granted one wish it would be for everything to be exactly the same forever - except maybe my father could’ve been nicer to my mother. I could’ve wished for something better but I was the kind of person who aggressively let life happen to them. It was the only thing I knew. Honestly I could’ve lived as I did then for another ten, twenty, or fifty years. I could’ve survived my father. I could’ve outgrew my childhood. I could have - if only my brother hadn’t left me.

In the little hours after the masquerade I awoke and getting sick. A few hours more my brother shook me from my nauseated drowse.

“Fuck off,” I groaned into my pillow. An intense headache seared into my temples.

“He wants to see us,” he said rough in my ear. I signed and rolled over. Of course he did. I was right - as always. I sat up in bed and rubbed my face and the sudden motion nauseated me even more. I steadied myself on the bed pole. I only glanced at myself in the mirror to see if I was somewhat presentable. The pink suit I fell asleep in was wrinkled and wax-stained but I didn’t care.

“Are you going to change?”

“No - fuck no - just walk.”

“Fine.”

“Stop yelling at me.”

“I’m not yelling.”

My eyes burned from the early sunlight as we both stood before our father. I attempted to gauge his mood but he was never someone who I could decipher. Annoyed at my brother and myself for thinking he wanted my company I regretted inciting my father’s anger over something so inconsequential.

“Where were you?” he said in his affected sang-froid.

“At the Royale,” said oddly sardonic, “the Duc hosted a masquerade - we just had to go.”

I focused my sight before me as I felt them stare at each other. I didn’t want him to be punished and I wanted whatever was going to happen to end as soon as possible. Despite everything I was still willing to sacrifice myself for him - because he was my brother.

“It was my idea,” I said in a quiet but inarticulate mumble.

My father barely looked at me and gritted, “shut up.”

“You think you can leave as you wish? Attend such filth and send your mother into hysterics when she found the both of you gone? The disrespect you show me - show our house while you gallivant around-”

“I can do what I want.”

I then actually wanted to kill myself as a deep silence fell down upon the room. I tried to fade the world out around me as my brother smirked and my father rose from the desk.

“Get out!”

“Yes Monseigneur,’ I muttered and relieved to get out of the room. As I dragged myself back to my room I heard splices of two-sided yelling and insults though I didn’t pay attention to the words - I was too sick to care.

Of course I didn’t escape his wrath either - that happened later. Neither did I escape my mother’s disappointment. Once back home I had to spend many weeks begging for God’s forgiveness with many visits of her confessor for whatever in her mind I got myself into that night. While I could bear my father’s, her disappointment was too high of a price to pay for something that gave me absolutely nothing to begin with.

After a day of many tirades from every angle imaginable I spent the rests of the day in bed. Deprived of any meals and not having an appetite I slept the rest of the evening away.

“Charles,” I heard a hushed whisper say, “get up.”

Still drowsed, I didn’t get up until I felt his hands on me. I jolted up and saw his face in his candle’s light.

“Can you let me sleep for once?” I said - suddenly sick of seeing him showing up in my room unannounced.

“We need to talk,” he said as he put his candle down on the bedside table and sat at the end of my bed where he looked at the floor.

“I’m leaving tomorrow,” he said but still not looking at me.

“Yes,” I said, “I know.”

He hesitated and still not looking me said, “I’m not coming back.”

“What?” I said confused and slow at recent waking.

“I met a woman. A girl - last year when father took me to court. Elisabeth Elliot, she’s the daughter of the Comte de Martigny. Her father died and she’s his sole heir. We’ve written and planned everything - I just need to get to Lorraine-”

My vision faded around me and my breathing shallowed. I saw his mouth moving but I couldn’t hear his words. I thought myself in an odd dream but saw no evidence of dreaming. Why? Why didn’t he tell me any of that earlier?

“M.Nerrison will take me to Lunéville we will get married.”

“How - how long have you been planning this?”

“Since last year.”

“A year?”

He nodded and began to pace the room.

“Why are you just telling me this now? You could have told me this before!”

“I’m telling you now, am I not?” he continued to pace.

“Please don’t - please don’t leave me here.”

“Charles you don’t understand,” he said and walked to me and placed his hand on my shoulder, “I need to leave and have my own life away from our father - away from this life.”

In my confused state of jumbled questions I didn’t have the capacity to ask how exactly he met her and why he didn’t tell me about that at the time either. I didn’t think to question how he planned on getting married in secret - if he even planned on it being secret. But in a quick flash a problem pushed itself to the forefront of my mind.

“What about Catherine?”

“What?” he scoffed and paced again, “I don’t care.”

“No,” I said, “no, no you can’t just leave and marry some random woman you’re betrothed. We saw the Rohan’s - you can’t just leave and dishonor her - dishonor our family. You can’t just-”

“Betrothed isn’t marriage,” he said, “and I’ve wanted to marry Elisabeth before our father even arranged all that.”

“Why didn’t you just ask to marry her instead!”

“Because he wouldn’t have agreed! Her family was only recently ennobled and not as rich as the Rohan’s.”

I rubbed my eyes, “oh my God.”

He sat down on my bed again, “listen - look at me - I love her. I really do. I can’t live here anymore. I’m suffocating and this is the only way I’m going to be happy.”

It was that word I think - happy that melted all my inhibitions - or maybe it was that solid and determined stare that he shared with my father that said he had made up his mind and he couldn’t be persuaded. In any case happiness was what I wanted to him - the only thing I wanted for myself. I didn’t think of the consequences of his leaving, or the effect it would have on our family, or the disgrace it would bring. I only thought of what he wanted and I thought what he wanted and what would bring him happiness stood above so-called familial duty and honor.

I took the velvet bag of money on my bedside table and held it out to him, “take this if you think it will help you.”

“How much is it?”

“About 20 Louis’s.”

He took the bag from me and smiled sweetly, “I knew you would understand.”

In the early morning I saw my brother off in the courtyard of our hotel. Servants busied themselves loading the carriages with the last of the luggage. My father was still too displeased to bid him farewell and was no where to be seen. My mother teared up as she hugged him - who was deeply worried about being separated from him for so long. I tried to make myself remember the exact scene - the chill air blowing his dark greatcoat as he stood in the center of the stone courtyard and the smile he gave our mother as he said goodbye as I didn’t know the next time I would see him.

“Promise me you will be alright?” he said in a low voice after he hugged me. I nodded and he smiled at me.

As I watched the carriage leave out into the city streets my stomach dropped. In a way I was glad - glad I did something to make my brother happy because he was my brother and I loved him. But as I felt the thread that connected us tighten more and more into sights unknown I was overcome with a dawning sensation that something had died.

It was a depressing trip back north knowing what I knew. I was unable to look my mother in her tear-stained eyes and had to watch the landscape pass me by in the window. As we crossed further and further north, back into the grey, I breathed in the rain soaked air and was cleansed of all my miasma.

Chapter IV: Left for Dead

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