Aunt Wilcox's Gossip

"Have you heard?" crowed Mrs. Wilcox to her nephew-in-law. She'd just returned from taking Matty on a walk one early fall afternoon. "The music-master of the school is leaving!"
"Is he," sighed Zachary from the table where he was counting up the offerings.

"Yes. Such a handsome young man. It is a pity. I thought for sure he would find a pretty girl here and settle down. But he is going off to Scotland again. Can you imagine?"

His wife's Aunt did not approve of foreign places at at all.
"Why don't you go tell Maria?" suggested Father Bede, nodding towards their bedroom. "I'm sure she'd like some company. She's feeling a bit under the weather today."

"Oh, I already told her. This morning," said Mrs. Wilcox.
"Ah. Well, forgive me, but you see I have rather busy with some important buisness now, so maybe you will go talk to her anyway and let me finish it."

"What a silly father you have, Matty," cooed his great Aunt. "He doesn't think gossip is important at all. He doesn't see any signifigance in that boy's leaving!"

Laughing, she set off to her niece's room, where she hoped to find a better audience.

Duets

Maria rarely came to see James anymore, but she was never more glad, nor did she feel more guilty. He understood none of this, of course, and greeted her as warmly each time.
"I thought I might play you the piece--I wrote a second verse, like you thought I should."

She sat, arranged her music, straightened her back, and began to play.

She was finishing the second verse when James seemed to have an idea.
"What if we added some accompinament?" he asked.

"What do you mean?" she asked back.
"The verse you were just playing could be the accompinament for the first verse," he said.
"But this is for services!" she said. "A duet for services?"
"Here. I'll play the second part." And with that he sat down perilously close to her on the piano bench and moved the music closer so that he could see.

Maria's mind was reeling, but she found to her surprise that they managed to keep rhythm together very well. The song finished with a resounding chord."There!" cried James. "How do you like that?"

"It's very nice," Maria agreed.
"You see," he said, resting his hand on hers. "Duets are fit for God's ears, too."
Maria did not know what to say. His hand was still resting on hers lightly, and he was blushing. She let their hands drop onto the keys of the piano, and and a few dischordant notes rang through the whole church.

"Do you think so?" she said. She knew the answer. She knew they were not talking about duets, and she knew James was wrong. But James was far closer to her than God at that moment, and she was very lonely. "I just...don't think it's right."

But now James knew he was wrong, too, for he set her hands gently on the C-chord. "Perhaps not, Mrs. Bede," he said softly. "I begin to think that even musicians must answer to God alone, and in that case perhaps their music ought to be seperate as well."

"No!" cried Maria. "My music has much improved since you started to hear it. I hope you don't mean you won't meet me here again!"
James simply stood to gather up his own music. She could not see his face."I will miss it, Mrs. Bede, " he quietly. "But you are right."
Maria stood too. She did not think she could bear it if she could not see him every once in a while, and spend a quiet afternoon with him and his music.
"Please...Mr. Menzies. I ... did not mean that I did not want to see you. I simply..."

She had nothing to say. He is a better person than even I imagined. I never thought I would regret that in anyone, she thought.
James was suddenly facing her again. "You are an even finer woman than I thought, Mrs. Bede," he said quietly. "I must thank you for keeping me from--being a worse man than I ever imagined myself to be before I met you."

His well-trained voice broke then, along with a thousand other things, and he left the church.

Charles and His Dogs

My wonderful little brother got me both Pets and University expansion packs for Christmas. (And yeah, really that means my parents got it, so thanks, Mom and Dad!) Meet Hestia (grey and white) and Jupiter (camel and brown), the Earl's hunting dogs. Here are some random pictures of Charles playing with them (and his boat).

If you look closely in this picture you can see the Earl off in the background, watching his son.














Hope all of you are having a Merry Christmas!
-Sydonie

Henrietta Cancels the Coach

Henrietta sat up with a start when her husband came in the door.
"It's all set up," Sir Frederick declared, and smiled at her disarray. "We'll even have the same house as last year. That'll be far less of a pain, won't it? And the Earl says he'll come up too, in a little. You'll see Elinor again, and we won't see your brother..."

"No," Henrietta said, and smiled a little. She turned away from him to get up. "Frederick," she said. "I-I'm very sorry..."

Sorry? He couldn't imagine why she would be sorry. Unless she had invited her brother after all...
"We can't go up to London this year."

"Why not?"

She let out a burst of breath somewhere beetween a sob and laughter, and smiled weakly at him. But he suddenly realized what she had meant, and felt rather stupid. He pulled her against him, laughing. They were both laughing, trembling against one another.

"Ninny!" Henrietta murmered against his neck.

"When?"

"November," she said. She looked somewhat dazed. "It-it's so early, though..."
She was afraid, he realized.
"I didn't want to tell you until later," she said softly. "But I knew we couldn't go up if..."

Frederick was doing math. It was the middle of March. What did that mean? They weren't even as far along as before. But he mustn't let her think like that.
"It is reason enough to cancel the coach, dear," he said. He ran his hand through her hair. "Now all you and I shall have to do is to think up a reason not to invite your brother here in the summer."

"You can say I'm in too delicate a condition to stand the likes of him!" she laughed. And then somehow Frederick knew it would be alright.

Charles' Birthday Gift

It was January 18, 1802, but Charles did not know that when he woke up. What he did know was that today was his birthday, and he was 4. Four seemed very old to him, but he found he did not feel any older than yesterday. Perhaps, he thought, he would begin to feel more grown-up as the day went by.

He hopped out of bed and wondered if he could sneak into the nursery next door and have his breakfast before Nurse Thale came in and made him get dressed, but before he could think about this properly she had come in. She always seemed to know when he woke up.
"All right, Charlie, love. Clothes off."

"But it's cold! Besides, it's my birthday!"

"I know, love. But the faster you get out of your nightshirt the faster you can get into your clothes and the faster you can eat your breakfast and the faster you can go see your father."
"My father?"

Nurse Thale smiled. "He wants to see you, goose. It's your birthday, after all."

Charlie loved to see his father. He lifted his arms hurredly so Nurse Thale could dress him.
Finally Nurse Thale decided that his hair was brushed enough told him he might go look for his father if he was careful not to disturb him. Charlie bounded out of the room.

Charles had lived at Hartfestol his entire life, and he had, in fact, not been off its grounds except to go to church sometimes. Still, the great house enchanted him, starting with the great hall, whose banisters he longed to be big enough to slide down. Today he found himself stopping for a moment just to look up. Then he hurried off to the breakfast room.

He found his father reading a newspaper. Charlie loved the way his father did whatever he liked, which was, in this case, wearing his robe to the breakfast table. No matter how many times he tried to convince Nurse Thale to let him do that, she never did.
His father put the newspaper down when he came in.

"Hallo, Charlie. How does it feel to be four?"

"I'm not quite sure yet."
"Well, you look much older already," declared his father. "Before I know it you'll be ready to go off to school. Good god! Imagine that!"
Charlie could not. But it didn't seem to matter, because his father just kept smiling.

"Try the crumpets this morning, Nurse Thale. Have you had anything yet?"

"No, your lordship. But I couldn't..."

"I have to go out anyway in a moment. Go ahead," his father said. Then, after a moment, he told Charles, "If you go look in the drawing room I just might have left a present for you there."

Charlie turned eagerly towards the drawing room, and found, much to his surprise, that he was not at all sure what his gift was.

"What is it, Father?"

"It's a boat."
"Like the one at Keenan Pond?" Sometimes Nurse Thale would take him for a walk to Keenan pond, which lay on the estate. There was an old rowboat there, which had not been used in 2 or 3 years and which Nurse Thale would never let him play on, much to his annoyance.
"Exactly like the one at Keenan Pond, my boy. Just smaller, for little boys to play with."

I thought I was a big boy now, thought Charlie. "But what are those--things?"
"The sails? They catch the wind so the boat will go. That's how ships work," his father explained. Charlie was still quite confused, but he went and sat down by his toy to better examine it.

His father was still talking, but in a different way now.
"They have ships like that in France," began his father. "Little ones. And do you know what they do with them? The little boys' Nurses take them to the park and they put their boats in the fountains and let them sail around."

This sounded like a great deal of fun to Charlie, but he wondered if Nurse Thale would allow him to do it.
"Your mother and I used to walk around the park when we first met, Charlie. The Luxembourg Gardens. And she and I would walk around there, and she would joke that she wished she were a little boy so she could play with boats in the fountains. She used to say that when she had a son she would take him herself so she could play with him and his boats."

When Charles grew older, he would think back on what his father had said and wish he could remeber it better, for when he grew older he realized that his father's real gift to him on that day was a piece of his mother, and his father guarded those pieces very closely. But at that moment he was only a little boy, and so he said, "Father, do you think I could go to the Lux-em-burg...--the park, I mean--and play with my boat?"

But his father laughed. "I don't think so, Charlie. You see, France is somewhat far away from Hartfestol--from Cennanceaster, in fact. You'd have to take a big boat just to get there. And besides, right now the French are our enemies, and so no one goes to France. But maybe one day you and I can go, when the war is over."

Maria's Question

"Now down you go, Matty, and see if you're a big enough boy to play with Miss. Pershing," instructed his mother.

"Down!" he cried joyfully.

"He's not old enough," declared Miss. Pershing, wrinkling her nose. "I'm too big for him."

"Oh?" asked Maria.
"Babies are smelly and loud and suck their thumbs," she explained.
"I think I saw you sucking your thumb in church last week, Miss. Pershing. But you're not a baby, are you?"

"No! I'm a girl--a big one. I hate babies."
"I see. Where's your mama today?"

"I dunno. She's feeling sick again, I think."
"Sick again?"
"I think she's in her room. But Mina probably went to get her after she let you in, because that's what she's supposed to do when company comes. Except sometimes my father says--"
"Sorry, Maria. I was getting dressed."
"How are you? Your little Brit here says you're feeling sick..."
"Oh, well," said Grace, bringing her voice to a modest whisper. "I havn't exactly explained this to her yet, but it's just the usual."
"Oh! Grace! Again? Already? But Percival isn't a year old yet!"

"Don't begin." Grace laughed. "He'll be a year old next month, anyway. Not that I'm looking forward to another round of the--'customary ills', as Harold says. Why don't you have the next one, huh?"

But she seemed to have struck something with the last part, for Maria looked away.

"I don't think so," Maria said quietly.
"Why? Maria...?"
"We haven't--not for a while--I don't know..." Maria did not seem to know what to say, but that only meant that Grace would not know what to think, so she told Brittany to go tell Mina that Jemmy had torn the hem of his gown again. It was a poor excuse, but Brittany didn't seem to need any to leave "the baby's" company.
Maria looked at her hands carefully for a moment, and then she spoke. "I--I think it's my fault."

"What do you mean?"
"He just--one night he just started--lecturing me. He told me that I had forgotten my wedding vows and--that I didn't care about him anymore."

"And do you?" asked Grace.

The moment the words came out of her mouth, she realized that she had said something neither of them would ever forget. They often spoke about their husbands, who, besides being the two most prominent men in town excepting Sir Arnold ant the Earl himself, were both stern, stuborn, and often overly critical. They spent hours comparing these atributes of the men they had married, and when they returned home they found them easier to bear. But they had never dared to ask one another whether they were really happy.
"I thought I cared for him enough. I made sure there was a dinner and I helped him at the church and played the music and I took care of Matty and I--well, I had Matty. And I never was shrewish or argued with him. But all he had to say was that--I wasn't affectionate."

Suddenly Grace remembered her churching, eight months ago. "What about when you came over and called him 'dear' and took his arm at my churching? That was affection. He liked that, I remember. Tell him about that."
"I--what?" Maria asked. After a moment's recollection she smiled gently. "Oh, Grace. I was only trying to prevent another fight between our husbands. You know how they can be--both always sure they are right..."
"Always..." agreed Grace.
"Let's not talk about it anymore. If he forgives me for it--and I think he will--then I'll just start being more affectionate."

"What if he doesn't?"
"I don't know," whispered Maria. "What would you do?"
They were quite silent, and then--this was an odd part--for a moment it seemed as if Maria was about to say sometimg more. But then she was distracted by preventing Matthew from playing with the fire poker.
All Grace knew was that she was relieved to find, despite their husband's similarities, that she was fairly certain Harold would never say such a thing to her. He was unstintingly certain she adored him, and though it annoyed her to no end most of the time once she realized the alternative she was positively grateful. She was fortunate. She would never have to know the answer to Maria's question.