Bitter Conduct: Part Two

"But wonder on, till truth make all things plain"

July 6th

Past midnight, Capulet Manor was wide awake and full of people. When it was announced as certain that Hermia would be giving birth, Juliette dispatched urgent notes to the family. Goneril and Regan had arrived with children and brother in tow, respectively. The children were sent to keep their own company, and Kent went with them, preferring his nieces and nephew to his father. Their husbands were not present; Albany was at home, asleep and ignorant, and Cornwall was still taking every bit of business that kept him out of Regan's reach. Consort, despite his daughters' protests, planted himself among them to wait out the birth. After four children and seven grandchildren, nothing he heard was likely to shock him.

The Summerdreams had also come, arriving in a calamitous fashion. Titania and Oberon went directly to their desolate son and spared attention for no-one else. Despite their efforts, Puck remained convinced that Hermia would die. At times, he would perk up for a moment and beg to be allowed to see her, only to be denied by convention and an iron-fisted midwife. He settled back into his despair with remarkable quickness each time.

Miranda and Juliette were taking turns assisting the midwife. Miranda had been drafted initially for looking calm. The truth was that she was too shocked to be properly afraid for Hermia. After a couple of hours, her calm deteriorated, and a recovered Juliette was asked to replace her. A rotation was Juliette's idea, formed once she realized the midwife's strictness. Though she heartily wished she was her sister's greatest comfort, she felt enough to want her sister to have that person, Miranda, beside her as often as possible. During her short periods of rest, Miranda stood apart from her family, doing battle with her conscience and her fright.

The fear was not of a traditional punishment - the family's pride would never permit them to reveal her treachery to the public or allow the common law to apply itself to her. Even the family's brand of punishment was not her primary concern. If she had to be married off to some sniveling gold-hoarder who made her bastard of a father look like a prince, so be it. Her mother and Aunt Regan both proved that situation was not the end of the world. No, it was the scorn that made Miranda's heart sink. If her handiwork was discovered, nothing she could say would placate Hermia. She had endangered Puck and now Puck's baby, and if Hermia was still undecided about motherhood, she was unwavering about Puck. Without Hermia's friendship, nothing else mattered to Miranda. She would gladly forgo all the wealth and consequence in the world to keep the one person who understood her.

Around two-thirty, Goneril ordered the young ladies to take a rest. It was a kindly meant command, but neither one wanted to abandon Hermia. Titania forced the issue by saying she would like to see Hermia for herself, so she could give her son a first-hand report. This seemed to satisfy everyone and the cousins were sent on their way. They were able to be at almost civil to each other, the veil of bitterness lifted by the potential for tragedy, and discussed their fears and observations. Though Miranda was worried by the long labor, Juliette was heartened by it. "If she was weak, she wouldn't have come this far."

"I suppose you're right. Mother had a horrible time with Ariel, and that was quite early, too, just after your parents... went." The shock of her sister's murder had nearly sent Goneril into labor in the spot. Bed rest held it off for another two weeks, but Ariel had still been born a month too soon. "It was almost an entire day."

Without a destination, the girls eventually arrived on the very opposite side of the large house. A hushed conversation and grunting drew them both toward the little-used house chapel. They were greeted by a most astonishing sight.

Father Laurent, the popular young priest who had married Hermia and Puck, had been summoned to the house by Juliette. There was a general worry that mother or child may need urgent spiritual attention. Father Laurent had been happy to oblige, but, rather than sit with the family, he had asked Tybalt to show him to the chapel so he could make preparations. That had been quite a while ago, for now plain reasons. He greeted the young ladies cordially and asked if there was news. Behind him, Tybalt looked up for a moment until Juliette said there was not. "It seems recent events have led this beautiful chapel to some neglect. Your brother very graciously offered to help me attend to it."

Juliette tried valiantly, but a smirk escaped her. Her brother was obviously being punished - for what, she didn't care. She was still angry with him. He deserved to scrub floors after what he said to the delayed news of her engagement. "Tybalt loves to be helpful."

"So he does," Father Laurent replied graciously. "And I am sure he will also love his sister's assistance."

Juliette's shoulders dropped. Now she was being punished for something, probably arguing with her loose-lipped brother earlier that day. Tybalt had ranted about it to the priest, and now they were both to pay for being quarrelsome and unloving. Yet, as much as she didn't think she had been in the wrong, Juliette couldn't protest. It was not good manners to argue with a priest. Father Laurent could hardly be blamed for using this to his advantage; life in Verona depended on advantages. "Yes, of course."

"And perhaps you," he said to Miranda, "would be so kind as to show me where I might find a few items I will need."

Miranda acquiesced without so much as a look back at her put-upon cousin. As she led the way down the hall, her mind was at work. She recalled a conversation she had once overheard. A very angry man had complained to her mother that she had chosen to have a wall breached, flooding the property he rented from her. Goneril had told her tenant that some part of the wall had to give way so the rest would remain. Curiously, Miranda's stomach felt just like it was flooded with tightness and undesirable emotions swelling around her secret. If she breached it - that is, if she told her secret - surely the rest of her would become stronger.

She turned upon the priest with the first thing like a smile in hours. "Do you have a moment for me, Father?" With his assent, Miranda led the priest past the main hall and outdoors. The night was considerably cooler than the last, but not unseasonable. It was a refreshing delight to her senses to be out of the gloomy air hanging in the house. For just a fleeting moment, she forgot the sour stones in her heart.

"Perhaps we should not stray too far from the house?"

"We mustn't be overheard," she replied, drifting toward a bench she hoped was out of earshot of the house.

He had suspected that the young lady wanted to make a confession rather than have a conversation, and her anxiety confirmed it. Outdoors, in the view of a large part of the house, was not his idea of a good location for Confession, but the general chaos indoors probably made all options equally perilous. Rather than guide Miranda to the traditional form of the sacrament, he chose to let her pace and mutter until she was ready to speak.

Father Laurent's outward calm remained as he listened to Miranda's tale, masking his surprise at her violent jealousies and her utter coldness. This girl, of an age of be concerned with gossip and young men, was instead deluded by fantasies of an outsider's existence. She spoke at length of her dream of living away from society, studying the great artists and traveling. The only partner in this fantasy was her cousin, Hermia, who he rightly guessed was no longer enchanted with the idea now that she was married. Watching Miranda light up speaking of this dream made Father Laurent realize how dead her eyes otherwise were. While he could understand a little of what she felt, for joining the priesthood was not what his own people would have chosen for him, he wondered what made her want to rebel so completely. He wondered indeed. "You confess very strong feelings for Hermia, though you helped her marry her husband."

"My feelings have nothing to do with that. If she wishes to copulate and breed, then she must have a man, and why not a good one? I don't care about that, but she is supposed to be my closest friend, and I hers! I never dreamed I would actually be replaced. Me, replaced by a... a man!"

"Then you aimed for Puck," he realized, "and Hermia got in your way."

Miranda, her eyes watering, confessed all. "I chose mint tea because she hates it. She never drinks mint tea! Puck came home, and of course I was then invisible," she spat, "so I offered to prepare it. I put the claret salt in while it brewed, and I poured him a cup, but he put it down. He was supposed to drink it! And then Tybalt came in and poured some out, and he spat it out like a pig, saying it was bitter. Puck only sniffed it, but she... I never thought she would drink it. If I thought she would drink it, I would never have done it!"

In his short time in Verona, Father Laurent had learned many things about its people. His fellow candidates had mocked him for his 'easy' post in the wealthy capital; he had found ministering to the souls here anything but. Shocking as she was, Miranda Capulet wasn't even the most spiritually bankrupt person in her own family. Yet, her impulsiveness and coldness could lead her down the path to such a dubious honor if she was not checked. "I beg you, do not cry."

"I'm sorry," she sniffed.

"No, you aren't."

The red in Miranda's eyes quickly switched from tears to anger. "What did you say to me?"

"These tears are not for what you did, only for your mistakes. You are sorry only that you endangered the wrong person." Unimpressed, he held up a hand to halt her before she spoke. "Think a moment upon what you said to me. You intended to murder your cousin's husband. Another of your cousins nearly drank your poison, and your response was irritation that it spoiled your scheme. If you killed these men, would you be weeping now?"

She snapped defensively, "Nobody would cry over my cousin. He is a brute and a liar!"

"And what are you, my lady?"

"A Capulet," she growled in a familiar style, "and as a Capulet, I demand you give me absolution this instant!"

The priest smiled, only further aggravating Miranda. "Oh, no. You and your family may buy your favors, even from the Church, but you cannot buy redemption from me. Sins are not merely actions, they are also intentions. Savages and imbeciles are not condemned to Hell for ignorance any more than you are saved because you know your sacraments. Penance requires that you be sorry for what you did, but you are sorry for the outcome only."

"I did not intend to do what I did! That was a mistake. How can I be sorry for making a mistake?"

"You cannot," he replied. "But you knew better than to do this, and I will not absolve you as a matter of form."

Livid and desperate, Miranda was shaking all over. "You cannot tell," she reminded him. "I tried to make Confession, so you cannot tell anyone!"

"Your secret is safe, so relax, if you please. If do you wish a penance for your carelessness, I will give you that much." After Miranda nodded her agreement, he continued, "For your recklessness, you are to stop interfering in your cousin's life. That includes unburdening yourself to her or anyone else; knowing how her closest friend has betrayed her would be more a punishment to her than to you."

"Very well."

He grabbed Miranda's arm to stop her from storming away. "And so you do not think me completely heartless, I offer you this relief: your poisoned tea was bitter because you prepared it incorrectly. Claret salt is poisonous only when dissolved in alcohol, which removes the bitter taste." With concealed disappointment, he watched Miranda work through an onslaught of emotions. She expressed joy, relief, and lightness, laughing away her anxiety before running off into the house. Not a single moment was given to gratitude for her good fortune, nor for the peace of mind she had been given.

Quietly, he started to pray on Miranda's behalf, knowing it was only the first of many times he would have to do so. The young lady, and anyone who displeased her, were likely to be endangered by her broken soul for quite a while. If Hermia was delivered of a baby, Father Laurent would push for an early baptism. "And we thank you, Father, for the gift of ignorance, through which you protect your wretched children, and pray we need not depend upon it again."

Well after dawn, the family was still assembled where generations of Capulets had waited for the next to arrive. Half of the party, those who had been through births before, remained rather calm. The other half were desolate, wincing at every scream and straining to hear every groan. Even the Summerdreams, neither of whom had attended a birth other than their own, began to fret for Hermia.

"Once more!" the midwife urged Hermia after ten o'clock. "You're nearly there!"

Hermia shook her head. She was past exhaustion, past crying, past screaming. She was even past demanding the midwife somehow just pull the baby out of her. Whether she died now or decades from now, it would be with the same, immovable baby in her womb. One more minute of this soul-squeezing, blood-wringing trial would kill her for sure. "Just tell him I tried, Miranda."

"You will tell him yourself, Hermia!" Miranda, ever-present since relieving Titania hours earlier, gripped her cousin's hand. Her fright had miraculously converted to determination, making her both steady and invaluable. If she had to haul Hermia through her ordeal on her back, she would. "Lysander is counting upon you. You cannot give up now."

"To Hell with Lysander," Hermia cried. "And his damn useless father, too!"

"You don't mean that."

"The hell I don't!" Yet, with a great, ear-splitting scream, Hermia put everything into a last effort to expel the baby. It was a process of more than a few moments, but it passed over her as a single wave of blinding agony. She would never know how long or how much it took to finally give birth to her son.

Miranda was similarly insensible once the babe emerged. She was amazed that her cousin had been right about his sex and amazed that such a small creature could have required so much toil. Everything she knew about what a disappointment it was to a Capulet to bear a son was momentarily forgotten. This tiny thing was the great danger to Hermia all along, and he was out, and under the mess, pink and noisy. These observations took longer than Miranda realized, because she only came back to the moment when the midwife thrust the squalling, filthy newborn into her arms and turned away. "What is this?"

"Take him, clean him up," she ordered without looking away from Hermia. "Something's not right here."

Hermia's ordeal ended soon thereafter. A very subdued Puck begged to be allowed to see her, only to be turned down by everyone. Miranda knew firsthand that Hermia wouldn't want even Puck to see her as she had been when Miranda last let go of her hand. However, she left the convincing to others, mainly Titania, after a very stony look from Father Laurent. It was a desperate, nervous, and weary Puck who finally breached the door of the bedroom an hour later. One glance of it all was enough to keep him nearly pinned to that far wall.

"You see," Hermia cooed to the pinkish, naked creature in her arms, "he came after all."

"Are you...?"

"Of course I am."

"But you look so-"

"Do you have any idea what I just did?"

"No, not really." He smiled at the scolding. "I might have, around sunrise, if your brother hadn't tied my arm to the chair."

"Well, are you tied to the door now or are you going to come and see us?"

He only needed to be asked once.

Gingerly, Puck picked up the little white bundle from the bed. Her didn't know much about babies, and he had always thought they all looked alike, but he was sure this was one of the two best-looking babies ever born. The baby in Hermia's arms looked smaller and paler than its sibling, but one reproving look was enough to keep him from asking irritating questions. "Which one is this?"

"That is your son, who is a very good boy, and we're calling him Lysander."

Willing to agree to anything just now, Puck nodded and smiled at his son, "So you're a good boy, Lysander? I don't know where you got that from, but I'm sure we can fix it."

"If it makes you feel better, your daughter wet everything, including the midwife, when she tried to swaddle her."

Puck snickered. "Are you sure we can't name her after you, sprite?"

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