Soot by Dan Vyleta

Author:Dan Vyleta [Vyleta, Dan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2020-02-25T00:00:00+00:00

[ 11 ]

The servant fetches Eleanor at the hour of her dinner. When he comes in, she assumes it is simply to put down her tray of food and water. But he stands empty-handed, the door wide open at his back. A hand gesture, curt, impatient—that’s all she receives by way of invitation. Uncle wants to see me. Up close, the servant’s breath is rich with sweet.

Twenty steps, a flight of stairs, another thirty steps. Empty tracks of corridor, not a soul about. A single soldier, guarding an unadorned door, straightening when he catches sight of them. Curiosity is written in his features as he watches her approach in the floor-length shift she was given to replace her Soot-spoilt clothing. The guard steps aside; the servant opens the door. And just like that they are reunited, uncle and niece. He rises to greet her with a kiss.

“Eleanor.”

“Uncle.”

“God, how you’ve grown! Already a woman. And pretty!”

He is not at all how she’d imagined him. Thinner, older. Diminished.

But it’s not this that gives her pause.

“You frown, my dear. Have I grown so very old?”

“No,” she answers, hesitates. “I did not think that you would dress like this.”

“Like what?”

“The dinner jacket. It suits you. It looks expensive. Like you are going to a ball.”

The remark amuses him. And something else: a glitter behind the eyes. She remembers it from childhood, when she did something well or said something clever. A flash of pride.

“Ah, well, what did you expect, a hair shirt and a smock? You see, what happened was that no sooner had we created some semblance of order—reassembled Parliament, organised food distributions and an agricultural quota, set up shelters against Gales—all the young gentlemen at once went to Paris. Literally all! And when they returned after a month of debauchery they all came dressed in dapper suits. Le dernier cri. Some even brought back their own tailors. I resisted, of course—it seemed insultingly frivolous; we were fighting for our lives, the country was in tatters, famine and disease—but then it occurred to me that it was a simple way of finding acceptance. Dr. Renfrew, that dry old stick, wearing the latest rags. It appeased those who eyed me with suspicion and helped me build bridges with my onetime enemies.” He pauses, smiles. “You see, my dear, I am quite changed. I have grown practical. But please, take a seat. I apologise for the chair. It’s like an instrument of torture.”

If she did not expect her uncle’s slim-framed elegance, neither did she expect his fussing, offering to send for tea, closing the window against the draught. Only then does he assume the pinched, precise manner familiar to her from childhood. He dons it like a pair of gloves: it will help protect his delicate hands.

“I would like you to tell me,” he says without further preamble, “what happened on the ship.”

“You already know. There was a Black Storm.”

“Yes, I interrogated the surviving sailors.” He pauses, makes a point of finding her eye. “But I want to hear it from you.

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