Frederick did not have to tell her, though of course he did, gently. 
He did not have to hear her bewail his decision, and Henrietta was proud of that. When he was done talking, (she could not remember what he said) he put his arms arond her and she buried her face in his shoulder. It was the only thing that comforted her.
He would not leave until early November, and so at first she felt safe. November was remarkably slow in coming, up until the day it came, and then it had been over in an instant.
They stood in the front hall and he kissed her and told her to kiss Lexa each day for him, and that the Earl would recieve all his letters and bring her hers. But even as he spoke to her Henrietta felt oddly empty, as if he were already gone. She struggled to savor a last moment that had somehow already slipped away.
And then he was gone. The house was strange and empty, and everyone was a little more gentle with her. If November had come slowly, it passed even slower.
At the end of the month Maria Bede, herself expecting confinement, noticed Henrietta's condition."Now you have something lovely to look forward to!" she said. And although Henrietta was a little heavier by then, she had to admit she felt a little lighter.
9 comments:
Okay, so the dog picture was extraneous, but adorable.
Coming next, although possibly not for a few days: a plot-driven post!
Another note--today I used BoolProps for the fist time. I think I've had a pardigm shift.
This was so sweet. Beautifully understated, as your writing often is.
Is that a cradle and a changing table I see in those first pictures? Is Henrietta standing in the nursery when Frederick tells her? You're killing me!
What cheats are you using? move_objects and snapObjectsToGrid? A huge number of my chapters would have been impossible without those, and of course the God-sent cheat to turn off thought bubbles.
Also, your latest extraneous dog pictures is pushing me one step closer to getting Pets, come bugs may. :-D
Yes, she was. Poor Henrietta.
I just started using move_Objects a month or two ago (after the story began). Until today, that and motherlode have bee the only ones. What does snapObjectsToGrid do? Which cheat gets rid of thought bubbles?
Today was my first try with Bool props. I love how half of Bool props is amazingly useful and the other half is amazingly dangerous. I bet there's a lesson there...
I'm learning, slowly, how to get better pictures with the new cheats. :-)
And yeah, the value of pets, in total, is the adorable factor. ;-)
Great update, Sydonie. It was amazingly bittersweet. Poor Henrietta...
As for cheats:
showheadlines off is how you rid of thought bubbles.
boolprop snapobjectstogrid false removes the "grid"; you can place objects and sims freely, without the restriction of the grid.
I think "showheadlines off" was new with Nightlife, and I don't know whether you have that EP or not. I would think it would be included in Pets too.
I wrote for months before learning about showheadlines off, and I have so many pictures in the early years where the top of someone's head was cut off to hide a thought bubble. It is such a useful cheat for storytellers. The only thing it doesn't hide is the floating hearts when they do a first kiss and a few special thought bubbles, such as when one Sim is attracted to another or someone moves out.
Starting with OFB there is also a cheat to remove the plumbob, but I can usually shoot around that just fine.
What are you doing with boolprop? I assume you mean the "boolprop testingCheatsEnabled" or whatever it's called... I have a primitive superstition about that one and never use it. I have a ton of hacks and mods installed instead, though, many of which probably replace some of its functionality.
Mao-ooh! Cool! That should be very useful!
Lothere-I need to try that one too. It should be esp useful for moviemaking.
Boolprops is very interesting and incredibly useful, from the look of it. I haven't used it for any posts yet, though. Let's see...you have the reaction tester that can make your sim have dozens of reactions, like laughing, shruging, etc. You can reset everyone's ages and needs and have them grow up whenever you want. There's a clothing rack thing that means you can dress people up as NPC's athought thats not very useful for me. You can make people get pregnant, be freinds, and some other things that you probably do with the insiminator. Also, you can remname sims. I'm sure there are dozens of others I can't remeber or haven't found yet. But for half the functions I don't know what they do and some I know are outright dangerous-like "force error". So you have to be careful.
Lothere, there are a lot of hacks/mods that replace that functionality. Except for having 'overlays' with animations, at least from what I've seen. I have it permanently turned on so I can easily and effortlessly change relationships and reset characters, etc.
I also need it to use allmenus on/off. Which enables every single menu item for all sims/items/etc.
:( *sigh* My heart aches a little for Henrietta. I truly hope that Frederick comes through the war all right.
Post a Comment