Memories: 6, Peril's Dilemma

A month had elapsed since that ill-starred day of Windsy when her waned yearnings attained a burial.

Seven more days later Jared received a letter that borne the message of his father's malady. He unfolded the letter and meandered his eyes around it. The fire was close to its death due to the lack of logs. An unrecognised gleam masked the integrity of his eyes. He felt the sedate fondle of a tender wintry hand—the ivory knuckles evened out the creases, the last bit of anxiety abandoned his broad masculine shoulders. The blue diamond in the middle of her long ivory finger glistened by the now dying dimness of the room. "Jared, my love...will you depart soon?" Asked Vanilla.

Jared looked at her stupendously. His mind was conflicted. She delved her carmine nails deeper, to reach the veins of his neck from where warmth was emanating. His hands gripped a hold of her pale ivory palms. "Vanille, I wasn't certain before but..." He paused.

Vanilla drew him towards her face. His countenance contorted into an ambiguous smirk. Her canines unveiled an uncanny desire. Her crimson petal lips pressed against his. The faint of a blush crept up his skin just above the jugular. The muffler nestled around his shoulder received a neglected fall. The Violets sheltered on the second estresol began trembling for they detected the indistinct eavesdropping of the flies on the conspiracy of the clouds to usher the storm. The letter which was secured in his pocket up until now was being dragged out. The shine that burnt his soul—of her magnetising sea green orbs did not ever plead. The shadow, queer and intense over the golden parchment concealed the sentences of an ill heart. A deceptive smile followed by a benign tug at his chin—the parchment was hurled into the dying debris, producing the bygone flame of terror.

"...now I am. I shall never abandon you, Vanille...regardless the state of occurrences," whispered Jared unfalteringly.

A messenger arrived the next morning resisting the untamed downpour that had been transpiring for the past two days. Vanilla unfastened the latch of the red oak timber door only to reveal a slender spectral frame, standing on three. His mossy green painted willow cane had a round silvery head. A drenched jute sack dangled from his back. He appeared pensive and uninvited with an ungenerous sly grin. He fetched a flower carved maroon cylindrical casket out of his sack, then passed it to her for which I earned a fortuitous glance at his hand that was ornamented with a ring of sapphire—such hue...the worthy opponent of ocean. How incongruous!

In his aged dull-white flecked hands those which embraced the sickly veins as if they remained his very friends. "For Mr. Washington, I come to deliver a message," the frail soul appealed.

"Please come inside," Vanilla said. It was innocuously vicious for her to request the hoary headed being with an iffy smirk.

He entered with wary steps. His presence was uninvited—chiefly the sapphire. I detested sapphire as much as I detested mirror. His blurred vision surveyed the plush velvety couch on which I was resting. From decades of experience I was graced with the learning to discern that he was not a worshipper of feline beings.

"What a little intriguing creature!" His feeble jaw tightened. I displayed no wonder—only a small purr escaped. Vanille was mere inches apart from the purple velvety settee. He was shivering in front of the foyer.

"You may need to get rid of those—just so the settee remains dry," she spoke leniently pointing at his wet clothes. She then gestured him to follow her. "Do help yourself. I expect his clothes will befitting to you." She strode to the kitchen leaving him in front of a wooden cabinet.

The frail clueless soul again fixed his wrinkled aged eyes at me. He failed to make sense of her chilling words as he mulled over—"...his clothes will befitting to you." Jared Washington was never always a frail feeble creature. Perhaps that was the cause of the sweat beads on his temple. But what Vanilla announced was true indeed. He retrieved himself a white satin full sleeve frilly shirt pairing with a mud green leather pant matching with a pair of yellow breeches. He couldn't be below fifty but he was aging sprightly as his silver locks were vindicating so. He positioned himself at the right corner of the settee. I could discern his perturbation—his impotent gaze striving to avert my ominous presence.

The hearth was blazing golden red and the petrified pallid orbs flared upon hearing the abrupt brisk strides of Vanilla.

She situated the cranberry banquet lamp on the ebony table beside the cerulean lapis lazuli teacup. He with great reluctance raised the lukewarm cup in between his fragile fingers. It was Ginger-lemon tea which Vanilla fancied, except that she preferred her tea without sugar, and spice induced. She relinquished consuming sugar even before Marshall.

"I shall wait till Mr. Washington comes home," the shivering lips muttered.

"Very well. But oh... I never stated he isn't at home." Her smirk contented a subtle disdain.

"Then he's at home. How fortunate the hour can be! Can I borrow some of his valuable minutes now?" He seemed agitated.

"Certainly. If you're finished with that little drink I dispensed, you'll reach a study chamber up the stairs and left, where he'll make your acquaintance." She stood up and gestured him quaintly.

He set the teacup down on the table and ascended the stairs noiselessly. Vanilla went after him. There on the left of the top of the staircase was situated a rather compact brown door of a chamber—a black thread knotted in several parts was tied to the doorknob. The door creaked and the classy joints stepped inside. As soon as he did that a severe opaque arduous sensation burdened his feet. The room was tidy—a rectangular bed teeming with pearl white pillows, a long bolster wrapped in orange cover, a similar ebony table beside the bed—on it a glass of cold water, a towel beside; a lean spectral shadowy appearance shuddering under the svelte layers of the beige blanket—his hair hanging by the side of his ear, some of them gray, fragile, suffering from some nameless ailment. The emerald in his index lost its sparkle like his eyes...and the greenish annihilated veins in the skeleton fingers remained famished.

Later getting a glimpse of his olden familiar acquaintance, he struggled to raise the upper half of his body from the ever slumber bed. "Water," he mumbled.

Vanilla helped him to drink the water. Their hands touched. The subtle caress of her wintry willowy knuckles upon his sweltering muggy skin compelled him to lift his flimsy fore at her features. "Vanille, love...is he..?" The words barely slipped his tongue.

"He is here to have a word with you, my love," said she impassively.

"I see. Mayhap the time isn't proper...I feel unwell." Jared stifled a cough.

The lean ashy haired creature settled his composure. "Mr. Washington...this matter I believe should be personal to you—about the passing of your father. As you are aware, Young sir, I have been one of his oldest servitors. He couldn't trust this with anyone else." He took a stop, awaiting on his reply.

Jared blinked at him then at Vanilla. Just when he was about to speak the previous cough that he stiffled, captured him followed by severe fits of dry coughs. Eventually they ceased for the moment and he parted his lips to lay hold of her consent. She tilted her head at left in affirmation and crossed the threshold. The door slammed behind her.

She took a step towards getting down. She had worn an distressingly unnerving smile. The knot thread undulated once forming another knot at the end. The last knot that was black before, became red for a bare second before turning back to its previous state. In the chamber, the agitating murmur of the vintage archetypal keeper, rose with the flare of the banquet lamp.

"Young sir, I get wind of a wicked miasma." His eyes were conflicted and distant.

"You are patently insinuating the air around me, aren't you Peril? Since my affliction is intensifying..." The fragile muscle named Peril seemed astonished by his previous master's question. Jared cleared his throat with a rasp.

"By no means I'm wrong and you know that. Young sir, have you grown to cognize your image in the reflector of late?" Asked Peril peering at the long case clock on the ochre coloured wall.

Jared seemed taken aback by his query but he behaved nescient. His frontline locks were thinning swiftly and the shrivelled earlobes discarded wordly noises. "Is this what we shall discuss this hour? My health?"

"That too included... But I am about to broach the subject regarding your father," the wrinkled Peril answered. He was once the devoted reverent watcher of Mr. Washington the major. A caregiver and devotee of Washington the young. Jared was merely ten years of age when his father assigned Peril to tend to him. Since then he had been a staunch servitor to him.

Jared's exceedingly glassy orbs contained a vacant stare. His wand like fingers clasped the front of the blanket. "I'm all ears, Peril."

"That you are Young sir. Your father—my master had received this weird foreboding feeling two weeks before his quietus. And I personally dispatched another letter even before your father did. Tell me my Young sir, did you not receive it?" He ended the sentence with a faint hint of a guilt. Perhaps that was the guilt of not stopping him when he abandoned the old manor.

Jared turned his head around the left where the window was half open and a very mild wild jasmine fragrance was making its way to the inside of the chamber. "I'm not certain what you're implying, Peril. As far I'm concerned, I already rendered the gold sterlings two months ago," said he, crossing the arms near his ribcage.

"That you did, Sir. But did you receive any letter? You did not see my master in his deathbed. Can you still not comprehend what your father's intentions were?" He sighed then pulled out a piece of folded paper out of himself. The paper was neatly folded with red silk thread. He drew the short portion of the thread to unwrap the letter. "This, he wished me to deliver you in person as he dreaded that he might not get to catch sight of you in his empty gray days."

Jared pressed the letter in between his index and thumb. His eyes roamed about the dark plump alphabets in the dimness of the lamp.

"Interesting... isn't it?" Peril smirked weakly. "You may wonder if I have gone through your letter. No, your father already told me about the content of the letter."

Peril waited for him to speak. Jared folded it then looked at the eager aged eyes. "Father! He feared my..." Jared gasped.

"If it was only about that... My Young Sir. But I'm afraid it's far dense and dark. The day I commenced my journey with this letter...as if the climate seemed to become my nemesis. When I reached your doorstep, I felt an unforeseeable heftiness emanating from your manor..." Peril paused for a long moment to perceive his reaction which was again nescient but he was listening to him atleast.

_to be continued.