The Sisters Mederos Read online

  Of course, it only made her current status even more laughable. Why was Jone even talking to her? Oblivious, he went on.

  “And you? Your sister? You’ve been away at school, haven’t you?”

  “Yes. We’ve just returned home.”

  A pauper’s school, indeed. The misses had the right of it. Two weeks before, Madam Callier had called them into her study and told them to pack their things; their parents had written for them to return. She gave them back their dusty valises and their old clothes, all far too small now for any good, and packed them into a cart much as they had arrived, only this time without their old nurse. A year after their arrival, Michelina had succumbed to a fever, brought on by the damp mountain air of the north. The girls had not mourned their last link to home. Even toward the end, Michelina had made it clear she blamed them for her exile.

  Tesara had been eager to come home, but had quickly discovered that everything had changed. Except for Sturridges, of course.

  There was a silence between them and Jone made a rueful face, as if he were at a loss to carry the conversation. Still, he did not seem ready to take his leave. He turned toward the window.

  “A fine display, isn’t it? Sturridges always goes all out for Saint Frey’s Day. Have you been inside? Perhaps you can advise me on gifts for my mother and my aunt.”

  “I’m afraid not,” Tesara said, grateful for a chance to escape. “I’ve only time for window shopping today. But anything from Sturridges – I mean, I’m sure you will find something suitable.”

  “Well,” he said. “Then I won’t keep you. Enjoy your excursion, Miss Tesara. It’s a fine day for it. And Happy Saint Frey’s Day.” He made a bow, she curtsied, and then she continued on her way down the fashionable Mile. The street thronged with shoppers and their servants carrying baskets, but no one else acknowledged Tesara, even though the curious turned toward her and then away, as soon as they recognized her.

  Jone had it right about the day being fine – the dazzle on the sea almost hurt the eyes, and the white clouds chased across a deep blue spring sky. The merchant fleet bobbed at anchor in the harbor, far below the Mile. She had missed these days during their long years at school in the mist-shrouded mountains of Romopol. She wasn’t nostalgic for the cut direct, given by all their former society. She wondered why Jone had come up to talk to her – surely the return of the “poor Mederos sisters” was the talk of the drawing rooms and salons all along the Crescent and Nob Hill. And there was all the news in the paper – today was the day of the first hearing, to determine if the family had satisfactorily paid for their crimes.

  If you counted Uncle’s six years in gaol, and her and Yvienne’s purgatory in Madam Callier’s Academy, the answer was yes. But Tesara knew from the hard-won perspective of all her eighteen years that Port Saint Frey would never forget and never forgive.

  A gust of wind came up and blew back the brim of her outdated bonnet. Tesara held it down with one hand and with the other grabbed the front of her old-fashioned pelisse. It had been her mother’s when she was young. The cape was good wool and she kept it well brushed and tidy. You couldn’t even see the darns where she had repaired moth damage unless you were very close.

  She didn’t use to care about clothes. She had been a child then, and she hadn’t understood that clothes were very much more than just something to cover one’s nakedness. Clothing signified wealth, or lack thereof. Station or standing. Service – or served.

  To anyone walking the Mile who did not recognize Tesara Ange DeBarri Mederos, she was nothing more than a lady’s maid who wore her mistress’s hand-me-downs.

  Chapter Two

  Tesara let herself in the small house on the edge of Kerwater Street, catty corner to Chandler’s Row. The little house was a two-story brick cottage with three rooms up and three rooms down, a tiny garden in the back, and fireplaces that smoked. Their parents had moved into it six years ago, after they held off the Guild while the girls escaped to Madam Callier’s.

  The Guild had been remarkably efficient, Tesara thought, as she untied her bonnet and set it on the shelf by the door and hung up her pelisse. As the fleet had been lost and their bank forbidden to extend a line of credit, Brevart had to borrow the money from the Guild and put up the house as collateral. Another judgment was laid, a civil suit by the city for the wrongful use of harbor services by a ship found to be in breach of Guild laws. The summer house in the wine country to the north was advertised for sale, as was grandmother’s silver plate. Then the unkindest cut of all: the civil suit paved the way for individual suits from each creditor, and House Mederos was flensed of its assets with the same precision with which a whaling ship harvested its prey.

  The Mederos family was living on a small annuity paid from a policy taken out by Grandmother Balinchard and all but forgotten in the tumult of the destruction of their life. It was just enough to rent the house, feed them, and pay for a housemaid.

  “Hello?” Tesara called out. She could smell the morning’s breakfast of herring and beans, and wrinkled her nose. Had the girl not cleaned up?

  “I’m in the kitchen,” Yvienne called, her voice muffled from somewhere in the depths of the house.

  Tesara squeezed around the staircase and into the kitchen. Yvienne wore an apron and had her arms up to her elbows in the sink, scrubbing at the dishes. Her dark hair, such a contrast to Tesara’s pale locks, was skinned back tight from her forehead save for one long strand that hung down along her narrow, thin-lipped, stark-white face.

  Of the two of them, Yvienne had it the hardest, Tesara thought. She herself was well known as the family dunderhead, but Yvienne had been acknowledged the smartest girl in Port Saint Frey, even when they were little. The academy was more a holding pen for the daughters of families with pretensions of nobility and little understanding of what a fine ladies’ seminary should be, so it was not as if Yvienne had been denied access to an education of any real value, but to see her forced to work long into the night scrubbing floors was heart-breaking. I wish I could make it up to her. But she didn’t know where to begin.

  Tesara sighed and rolled up her sleeves, grabbing another apron. “Don’t tell me,” she said. “The girl quit?” This was the fourth one, Alinesse said. Ever since Uncle Samwell had gotten out of prison, six months before they had come home from school, they had not been able to keep a housemaid.

  Yvienne rubbed viciously at the large pot. “She said that she was a virtuous girl and did not need to be treated like a slattern by folks what have come down in the world but think they don’t stink.” Her accent was impeccable. Tesara giggled reluctantly.

  “Well you can’t blame this on me,” she said, thinking of governesses. How many had been driven away by her talents when they were children? She grabbed a dish towel and began to dry the dishes.

  “No, but I can blame Uncle,” Yvienne said, and she dunked the pot in the steaming rinse water as if wishing it were Uncle’s head. “He must approach them with improper advances. It would be laughable, except the girls aren’t laughing.” When her hands came up they were red and chafed, the knuckles swollen from hard work. Neither girl had the fine hands of a merchant’s daughter anymore. It had been surprisingly easy to learn to be a servant, Tesara thought with bitterness. All one had to do was sleep little, eat less, and work oneself to the bone.

  To banish the thought, she took the pot from her sister and began to dry it, supporting the pot awkwardly with her crippled hand. “What did Mother and Father say?”

  “You know how they are now.” Yvienne pushed back the fallen lock and left a smear of harsh soap across her forehead. Indeed, Tesara did know. The long years of their trials had taken their toll. Alinesse had become old and bitter, and Brevart, broken. “Father didn’t even notice and Mother just snapped at Uncle. He snapped back and told her that she should just boot him out into the street.” She struck a pose and intoned, “But we’re House Mederos and House Mederos sticks together.”

  Tesara snorted. “Sin
ce when?” she muttered, setting the pot on the table.

  “Exactly. But they’re desperate to hold onto this image of the besieged House Mederos. It’s the only thing they have left, I suppose.” Yvienne sighed. “And it wouldn’t be fair to kick Uncle out. He served six years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. He was framed, Tesara. Yes, he was stupid for not insuring the fleet, but that isn’t a crime. It was a risk.” Her expression hardened. “And if the ships hadn’t sunk, no one would have dreamed of bringing a suit against the family.”

  It was her old complaint, and it made Tesara uneasy. “Have we heard anything yet?” Today was the hearing, when it would be determined if there would be any more sanctions against House Mederos. What else could they do to us that they haven’t already done? she wondered. You can’t get blood from a turnip, as the saying went.

  And as her father and uncle always added, “But you can still get juice.” And they had chuckled back in the day, when they had been the ones doing the squeezing.

  If the Guild so decided, they could take what little juice was left from the Mederos family, and leave them with less than nothing.

  “Not a word yet, and we may not even have a verdict today, according to Dr Reynbolten,” Yvienne said. Dr Reynbolten was the family lawyer, who had stayed loyal. Yvienne’s expression grew wistful. “I wish they had let me come. I would have liked to have been there.”

  Tesara shuddered.

  “I can’t think of anything worse,” she said. It was bad enough that all the misses stared at her; the hearing would be full of merchants and Guildsmen, all sitting in judgment over her family. She shuddered again. Yvienne gave her a curious look, but evidently decided not to question.

  “And where were you earlier?” she asked, instead.

  “Window shopping on the Mile,” Tesara admitted. “Don’t fuss. It was a lovely day and I just needed to be – out.” The small house was too confining and she had little to keep her busy, so she walked, carrying a basket as if she had errands. She envied Uncle his frequent trips to the coffee house down at the docks, in search of his cronies from the old days. He was barely tolerated and probably abused behind his back, but it would be lovely to be able to sit in a tea shop and people watch.

  Not that there was money for such simple pleasures. She had no doubt that if any of them were seen to be squandering their half-groats in Mrs Lewiston’s Tea Emporium that it would set Port Saint Frey society into a froth of gossip.

  “Not fussing,” Yvienne said.

  Tesara shrugged, tossing the dishcloth onto the hook over the sink. “I kept to myself and hardly noticed I was being shunned.” She laughed suddenly. “And then you know what? Jone Saint Frey bowed to me. And we had quite a conversation.”

  “Goodness!”

  “I know!”

  They both laughed, but the laughter rang hollow. It was hard to keep one’s chin up in the face of relentless disapproval. The Merchants Guild was merciless but Port Saint Frey society was even harsher; Tesara had never questioned that until now. The past two weeks had been an education in how her world had been upended. And her parents had been enduring it for six years.

  “How do Mama and Papa stand it?” she burst out.

  Yvienne understood. “They must stand it. The Guild has given them no choice. It wasn’t enough just to ruin us, Tes. They wanted us to see how thoroughly they have destroyed House Mederos. After all, what good is it to set a lesson if there’s no one around to learn it? We serve a useful purpose – an example to any other House that dares to step outside the Guild’s law.”

  They would pay and pay and pay, until there was nothing left. The Guild would never let them restore their wealth.

  When she was little she had hoped for their parents to swoop them away from Madam Callier’s and they would go away, start over. Now that they were all together again, it was clear her parents still wouldn’t go. Their spirits were broken. The Guild was bad, but the outside world was worse.

  “Is the pain bad today?” Yvienne asked.

  Tesara started. She had forgotten her sister’s presence and had absentmindedly begun chafing her fingers again. “A bit,” she said with a shrug. She didn’t want Yvienne thinking about her fingers. “It doesn’t matter,” she added, and straightened the dish towel. Yvienne didn’t say anything. The sound of the front door opening gave Tesara a welcome escape.

  “Good. They’re home.”

  Chapter Three

  I tried to protect her and I failed.

  Sometimes the guilt of her failure got the better of Yvienne. It especially occurred at the times when she could tell her younger sister’s fingers were paining her. The experience of seeing Madam Callier maim her sister, and she unable to stop her, was a heavy memory, a sickening remembrance. Yvienne could still hear the snap of bones reverberating in her mind, and she shuddered.

  Tesara looked at her curiously. “What?” she said.

  “Nothing,” Yvienne said, trying to shake off the strange, visceral memory. She gave a small laugh. “A goose walking over my grave, I suppose.”

  Tesara gave her another sidelong glance, but made no further remark. Yvienne chided herself for her reaction. She was the practical one, the logical one. It was Tesara who had always been the strange one, by turns dreamy and inattentive, or quick to lash out and combative. It had been remarked upon by their parents until Yvienne had taken it for granted, the way one does as children. It was only in the last few years that it had come to her attention that their parents were not the best judge of their youngest daughter, or for that matter, of Yvienne herself.

  Their parents and their uncle came back from Courts, drained and somber, aged beyond their years. Alinesse had always been vital, a dark energy radiating from her. Now she was thin, narrow, brittle. Brevart had become dreamlike, almost nebulous. And Uncle Samwell, the cause of their strife, was truculent and sullen. Six years ago, he had been fat, indolent, self-indulgent, and self-congratulatory. Six years in a Guild prison had burned away everything but his bluster.

  He was blustering now, as they crowded in the front hallway, bickering.

  “What can you expect from Reynbolten?” he was saying, as they hung up their coats and removed their wet galoshes, leaving puddles and mud in the hallway. Yvienne stifled a sigh. She would be mopping that afternoon, along with the washing up.

  “Reynbolten isn’t the trouble, Sam,” Alinesse snapped at her little brother. “For goodness sakes, where are we supposed to get another lawyer?”

  “I told you, the Colonel has offered his man.”

  “Sam, be serious. Your old gossip Colonel Talios isn’t anything but grand schemes and empty promises, not to mention he continues to keep company with That Woman.”

  “He’s a modern man and these are modern times, Alinesse.”

  “Modern has nothing to do with it, Sam.”

  “Why won’t the Guild just rule?” Brevart put in. “It’s simple enough. We’ve paid, and we’re done paying. I don’t understand what’s left.”

  “Oh Brevart,” Alinesse sighed. “Dr Reynbolten explained that it’s a matter of all parties must be made whole. We’ve had our defense, and now it’s up to the Guild high court to determine if claims against us have been restored.”

  “It seems to me,” Brevart was saying, by which time the crowd had all made their way into the kitchen. He broke off and blinked at his daughters. “Oh,” he said, as if surprised to see them.

  “Hello, Father,” Yvienne said, coming forward to give him a kiss. She looked at them all. “Well? How did it go?”

  “The ruling will come down later, but Dr Reynbolten said we have a good chance, a very good chance, that we will receive a made whole judgment,” Alinesse said.

  “If she doesn’t bungle this one,” Uncle Samwell muttered. He sat down heavily at the kitchen table. He was once a natty dresser; now his best waistcoat was stained and his shirt cuffs were tattered. “Here, now, a cup of tea would hit the spot.”

  “We have no
wood for the stove,” Yvienne said. “I’m afraid we can’t make tea.”

  “No wood!” Brevart exclaimed with mild surprise. Alinesse tsked with deep irritation.

  “I must say, that is bad,” she said. She sat down at the rickety kitchen table next to her brother, and began unselfconsciously rubbing her stockinged feet. One toe poked through an inexpertly darned hole. “It is very bad, Yvienne. I don’t blame you, but surely, you could have seen that we would need wood?” She shook her head. “Well, I don’t know what we’ll do.”

  “How are we to have our dinner?” Uncle Samwell added.

  “Where did the girl go?” Brevart asked.

  The air in the kitchen grew decidedly colder. Uncle Samwell looked down. Alinesse took a deep breath.

  “She’s gone, dear. Remember? She left in a huff this morning. Servants are so prickly nowadays, are they not?”

  “Or, they simply do not like being the subject of advances,” Tesara put in. “And now there’s no tea, and no wood, and no dinner,” she added, with venomous pleasure.

  Yvienne felt a throbbing in her temples. Why, oh why, did they have to moan and blame? So much could be done if they just pulled together. Instead, they took pleasure in being miserable.

  “I’ll go to Mastrini’s and put another notice in,” she said. Her simple reticule already carried a neatly written notice for a diligent, sturdy housemaid for daily work, not to live in, a guilder half per week. She also intended to put in for a position herself, as governess. She knew better than to tell her parents that. Better to present it as a fact, after she had been engaged in a household.

  And her third errand would not be discussed at all, neither before nor after.

  “Someone needs to talk to Uncle,” Tesara persisted, giving her relative a glare. “He has to stop.”