Vermilion ~ Eight: Jeweller

[annarti.livejournal.com]

The jeweller was suitably nervous as lunch time rolled around. He had spent a busy morning at the front of his shop and his cheeks were sore now from all the smiling he’d had to endure for all the visiting nobility. He hadn’t had the time to even sit down at his workbench all morning, but the continuous distraction—not to mention the weight of his coin chest as he carried it to the back room—made the morning well worthwhile.

Master Vermilion, as was his way, had visited as well, and towed a good many rich lords and ladies in his wake. The young master himself had only bought one piece for himself, a solid gold ear stud shaped like a feather and with a single ruby as its only embellishment, but he had whispered to the jeweller that he was saving the most extravagant for his guests. Let them show off their pieces to the world, he had said, and bring more fame and fortune to Candlewood.

But now, all the distractions were gone. The jeweller was left once more to his nervous thoughts. He carefully locked his coin chest away and bustled around the kitchen, setting a kettle over the hearth and laying out plates for the most important luncheon he would ever serve.

Right on time, his parents announced themselves at the front door, rattling the bell as no polite customer would ever do.

As if it had previously forgotten its nerves, the jeweller’s heart began racing in his ears. ‘I’ll be there in a minute!’ he called. He wiped his sweating hands on a tea towel, poured the boiling water into the tea pot, wiped his hands again on his pants and strode as confidently as he could manage into the front room.

His parents were both peering through the glass-paned cabinets that held his wares. His mother turned to him with a proud smile.

‘They’re half empty already!’ she cried, clasping her hands. ‘You won’t have anything left by the week’s end.’

The jeweller smiled back with a modest shrug. ‘I have more that isn’t yet on display. I’ve been working for this week since our lord and lady announced it.’

‘As well you have,’ his father agreed, equally proud smile hidden under a bushy moustache. ‘And didn’t I tell you it would pay off?’

The jeweller nodded hastily. Both his parents had come from humble beginnings, his father a builder and his mother a scullery maid, at a castle on the very edge of Llayan civilisation. Their lords were cruel and, as soon as they learned his mother was pregnant, the newlywed couple abandoned the castle and moved their lives to Candlewood. To see them standing there, glowing with pride to see their eldest son having risen so high, made it all the harder to confess what they would doubtless see as a step backwards.

He swallowed and held a hand towards his back room and the kitchen. ‘P-please, come through.’ He cleared his throat, hoping his stammer hadn’t been noticed, but knowing full well that it had.

‘Oh, this is lovely!’ his mother cried. ‘Look, dear, he’s brought out the good china and everything.’ She smiled at him, as though to lend him more confidence to say what he needed.

He sat down at the table and clasped his hands in his lap, allowing his mother to pour the tea only because he didn’t trust his own fingers to hold the pot steady. He stared down at his fingers, scarred here and there from working with hot metal for so many years, picking at the newest scab with his thumbnail.

‘I’m in love,’ he announced. His voice was weaker than he had imagined it. He had planned this moment to be his strongest, shout it from the rooftops as they always did in the ballads, but all that emerged was a strangled squeak.

‘Oh, how delightful!’ his mother proclaimed. ‘Who’s the lucky lass or lad to win my son’s affection? Doubtless you have all the town after you, what with your position.’

The jeweller nodded his affirmation, swallowed again, couldn’t look up from his fingers. ‘The blacksmith.’ He almost cringed as he said it, awaiting the verbal blow from his parents that would sting more than any slap.

Instead, silence followed, and that hurt all the more.

He risked a glance up, and instantly they both looked away, but not before the jeweller could catch their expressions. His mother, puzzled, worried, disappointed. His father, angered and saddened.

‘I know—’ He broke off, cleared his throat, swallowed and tried to recapture the strength he had felt last night while he rehearsed this. ‘I know you believe I can somehow do better. Another artist, or the vintner or the castle chef, even the orphan mistress at the castle, but I think—I think your definition of better is not the same as mine.’

He looked down at the steaming cup of tea, and wished he could read the patterns in the tea leaves at the bottom of the cup.

‘I think,’ his father rumbled, ‘that you forget where you’ve come from.’

The jeweller shook his head, and dared to look up and meet his father’s gaze. ‘Quite the contrary,’ he argued, very deliberately using the formal language that speaking with the nobility had taught him. ‘I remember all too clearly the soil from which I am grown. Because of it, I am only too thankful for where I am today. How could I ask for better when I already have it?’ He spread his hands to encompass the more than respectable kitchen, his carved and polished furniture, his fine china and the delicate silverware he had crafted himself. ‘I only ask now for the perfect person—not the perfect class or the perfect profession—with whom I can share it.’

They were silent for a while longer. Only the creak of his mother’s chair as she shifted in it sounded over the solid silence in the room.

‘And that person is the blacksmith?’ she asked, still puzzled as to why he might choose such a person. ‘But that filthy workroom and the, the smell of burning iron all day, are you to be bringing that to your beautiful home, to this side of town? What would people think, to have that stinking and banging metal all day? Not to mention that she’s twice your age, dear. She has a daughter three years your senior. Why not court her, if you’re so fixated on the idea of adopting a workman’s life?’

The jeweller flinched at every accusation, knowing in his heart that he could answer every one of them with the same words, but knowing his parents would never understand them, not while they were thinking like this. He shook his head and steeled himself as best he could. He would say them anyway. ‘Because I love her,’ he reminded them, ‘not her daughter. I’m not throwing away my own life to be with her, mother, and neither is she throwing away hers.’ He met his mother’s eyes calmly, hoping to convey to her the love he felt. ‘I love her.’

Still, she didn’t see it. ‘But why?’ she pleaded.

‘Because she’s my soul mate,’ he said. ‘Because of the way she looks at me as though I were the only person in her world. Because of how she believes in me, because she loves me, not my talents nor my coin chest. Because I can talk openly and easily with her better than I can with anyone else. Because she holds my hand and shares my jokes and calms my tears and she loves me.’

They stared at him like he was a little boy who couldn’t know any better. Like it was a phase they hoped he would grow out of.

He sighed and looked down again at his hands. He knew he had lost. Life wasn’t like the ballads at all. He could feel tears prickling behind his eyes, and he gasped out one last attempt before they could overwhelm him. ‘Will you allow me to court her? Please.’

Again, the chairs creaked in the silence. The jeweller glanced up to see his parents exchanging their own unspoken words, before his mother finally sighed and looked over at him, warning in her eyes. ‘I can’t, in good conscience, allow you to fall so far behind yourself. Maybe in a few years, if you haven’t yet found anyone more suitable, then we may talk on this again.’

The jeweller’s eyes dropped. His chest turned to stone and his fingers clenched into white-knuckled fists in his lap. His legs were too stiff to rise and see his parents out. He heard their footsteps echo on the wooden floorboards, the door to the front room lock closed, the murmur of voices as they crossed through the front room, and finally the bang as the front door shut behind them.

For a long time, he couldn’t move, couldn’t even bend forward to rest his forehead on the table. Only his chest moved, wracked with quiet weeping that seemed to boom in the otherwise silent kitchen.

The bell in the front room rattled, making him start and bump his clenched fists on the table. A customer, in this state?

‘I’m closed for lunch,’ he called out, wiping his eyes with the back of his hands.

‘I’m not here as a customer,’ Master Vermilion’s voice called back. ‘I’ve come as a friend.’

The jeweller sniffed all the harder. It was true, ever since Vermilion had awarded him patronage to start his jewellery business all those years ago, he had almost come to think of the young man more as his friend than as his future lord. But was his friendship close enough that he could see the young master in this state?

With a shaky sigh, he drew himself to his feet, blew his nose into a handkerchief, and slouched through his work room. With his hand on the doorknob, he took a few deep breaths to calm himself, then smiled and opened the door to the front room.

Vermilion looked up from his inspection of the cabinets with a hopeful smile, which died as soon as he saw the jeweller’s red-blotched face. ‘Oh, don’t tell me that,’ he lamented with a slow shake of his head.

The jeweller nodded and felt the tears threaten all over again. ‘They think it a phase that I’ll grow out of in a few years,’ he confirmed. ‘They think her so far beneath me that they can’t…’ He held a hand to his eyes as his breath hitched in another sob.

To his amazement, Vermilion set both hands on his shoulders, forcing the jeweller to look up and meet his intense gaze.

‘This isn’t your end,’ Vermilion promised him. ‘They want you to wait? So wait, and when they allow you your chance, your victory will taste all the sweeter.’

The jeweller took a deep breath and nodded, though he couldn’t feel the young master’s confidence. He knew his parents too well. ‘Thank you, sir,’ he said all the same, then he turned to the cabinets. ‘Can I offer you something, in thanks? I saw you admiring the golden vine bracelet earlier.’

Vermilion released him and awkwardly cleared his throat. ‘More so the matching neck chain,’ he admitted, then shrugged as though allowing himself something. ‘Actually, since it seems all Candlewood will know by day’s end, I suppose you should hear it from my lips rather than the gossipers.’ He sighed theatrically, looking down at the delicate jewellery under the glass-topped cabinet. ‘It’s for one guest in particular. This whole to-do, I mean, not just the bracelet.’

The jeweller smiled, back in his element as he rounded the counter and pulled out his key chain. He might have asked who, but he well remembered the young woman hanging off his arm earlier that morning, as well as the gentle smiles he returned her.

He unlocked the drawer, pulled his white gloves on and drew the delicate piece from the cabinet. It was comprised of an intricate network of golden links, made to look like a continuous vine, and decorated with clusters of gold vine leaves and polished round amethysts like tiny bunches of grapes. It had been painstaking to work on, and the jeweller would be happy to see it be gifted to one who would appreciate it—the first gift from a new love would always remain special.

‘And the matching neck chain, too,’ Vermilion added as he fished his coin purse from his pocket. ‘I know I said I should leave the best for the guests, but, well.’ He shrugged and gave the jeweller one of his languid smiles. ‘I rather like the best, myself.’

Comments

[saiena.livejournal.com]

Poor lad. Class boundaries are always worse when you’re being pushed up from below :(

You capture the wants of his parents really well, compared to the poor jeweller's own needs. I hope he succeeds.

[annarti.livejournal.com]

I've already decided that he definitely does. Nor for years, but he does succeed. Sucked in, Mum and Dad >D

[ladylight.livejournal.com]

Poor kiddo!

Much as I would like to know that the jeweller is victorious, I do like to see the parents' side of things presented in a sensible light (concern for their son) rather than an evil, merciless 'bahaha you will be miserable because it suits the family' kind of way. Much more effective (and probably more sad).

And man, Vermillion is an interconnected sort of bloke. He has got to be a politician and a half, for sure.

[annarti.livejournal.com]

He could just elope, silly bugger.

Vermilion makes a point of knowing everyone, especially the richer everyones XD

[drazzi.livejournal.com]

Awww, poor boy is nervous of his parents visiting? Don't be silly sweetheart, you've clearly been selling very well today. What could they possibly say?

OH NO YOU HAVE BAD NEWS. But so far they sound like lovely supportive people, I bet it won't be bad at all.

Oh your hand lust. I see it there.

(Man a blacksmith and a jeweller would be a good match in my mind. Iron work and fine metal work. MATCH MADE IN HEAVEN)

But oh man, I WAS WRONG I GUESS. But they are only angry because they care about their baby. BUT STILL. Waaah Ugh and the way he describes his love for her is soooo gorgeous. Oh you flowery Llayans.

Vermilion, you just pop up all over town to poke your nose into love lives. Do you have a 6th sense?

THOSE BRACELETS AND NECKLACES SOUND SO PRETTY THOUGH

[annarti.livejournal.com]

(THAT WAS MY THOUGHT TOO :D)

He's Llayan nobility. Love IS life XD