Untalked Of and Unseen: Part One

September 20th

"Their understanding begins to swell."

Three o'clock was seen by most at Fitzwilliam House only through the insides of their eyelids. They had been awake not too long before, celebrating Lord Fitzwilliam's birthday in the ostentatious, merry style that was the mark of anything organized by his wife. If his mother, Lady Constance, and her friends thought her successor might have done better to present Lord Fitzwilliam with an heir rather than a party, it was privately done. The evening had declared been thoroughly delightful by all who spoke. Those asked to stay the night, mainly family, would politely repeat their congratulations over a very late breakfast.

Fitzwilliam Darcy regretted that he might have to spoil it all. Lord Fitzwilliam was his Uncle Andrew, a man who had helped lead the Darcys through the fire when they returned to Verona. He had nominated himself to be trustee for his nephew's inheritance, had done the book-keeping personally, and had walked Fitzwilliam through almost ten years of ledgers before his last birthday. When he and Juliette had been struggling to draft a marriage contract, it had been Andrew who advised them. For all these reasons, Fitzwilliam wanted to give his uncle the benefit of the doubt. His uncle might not be an entirely good person, but he was halfway decent and had been unusually good to him personally.

Or so he had thought, until he made his own way through the old ledgers.

Just as he was contemplating the mental relief he might get from throwing one of his aunt's wine glasses into the cold fireplace, Fitzwilliam was surprised by scratching at his door. He lingered a moment, hoping it was one of his aunt's cats, but then he realized the cats wouldn't be picking the lock. With a guilty fervor and no thought for who it might be at the door, he swept up the ledgers and slid across the wood floor to the small wardrobe. He threw the books inside, shut the wardrobe, and made it halfway back before the hinges on the door creaked.

He had never been more pleasantly surprised.

"I knew you would be awake. You had that sleepless frown on your face all evening, the same one you've had pasted on since your cousins turned up." Dramatically, she collapsed onto the sofa and waved for him to join her. "Did you find some cause to suspect Audley is from a line of death-bringing monsters after all?"

He tried to smile but could not. Audley was perfectly respectable in his behavior, and it was extremely unlikely that Lady Catherine would be trying to attach him to her daughter if there was any cause for concern. Nonetheless, it had been Audley's late brother who had visited the late Darcys four times in their final two years, even claiming the dubious honor of  being their final houseguest. From the first, Fitzwilliam had felt an embarrassingly preternatural discomfort around the man, regarding him like he would a ghost. But the man was not a ghost, and belief in signs and omens was not the work of a rational mind. It was a humiliating weakness. "No."

"What, then?"

"Nothing more than my usual appreciation of large, noisy gatherings and reams of strangers." Tomorrow, he would tell Juliette of his uncle's perfidy, but not before he gave the man a chance to explain himself. He owed him that much. "Why did you come? I would have thought you would be asleep."

"I was, but Lady Fitzwilliam put Hermia and Puck into the room next to Georgiana's and mine." The sisters-to-be had volunteered to share a bedroom for the night when Lady Fitzwilliam's hospitality was taxed by a few too many drunk guests. "I never thought twice about it until they woke me up fifteen minutes ago. And I know they went to sleep first, because I could hear Hermia snoring."

"And were you the only one who woke up?"

Juliette grinned at this brotherly inquiry. Her own would have gone to make a scene without a second thought to how he obtained the information. "She was sound asleep, I promise. At least it reminded me to be grateful that Hermia moved to a room so far from mine when she married Puck." A curious thought struck her. "Dearest, is yours near...?"

"Not adjacent, but near. My mother converted the entire family wing into guest quarters, as none of us wanted to sleep there." At last, he cracked a smile. "In fact, I believe I've heard Lady Catherine complain of strange noises in her room at night."

"How shocking, Lady Catherine complaining! And I'm sure she had some method to suggest for ridding one's guest rooms of undead spirits."

"I would have fallen down dead if she didn't." At the thought of his aunt's incessant, ridiculous streams of advice, he started to frown again. Aside from her veiled insults, her advice was the most irritating part of her presence, but that it was given sincerely (though not at all kindly) made him hold his tongue. In her own, rude way, the lady was trying to be helpful. Fitzwilliam believed he might have preferred her to be simply evil. "To speak of falling down dead, I think she would become an undead spirit herself if she walked in right now."

"Well, Fitzwilliam Darcy!" Juliette cried in her best (and well-practiced) Lady Catherine voice. "I see that bird-faced flirt of yours has preyed on your muddied blood lines. What shocking, deviant behavior! You are no better than your parents, the both of you!"

After a good laugh, they both settled back with a certain unease. The joke reminded Juliette of why she had come in the first place. It was true that her sister and brother-in-law had woken her up with an aural exhibition, but it was not nearly the first time something like it had happened. Several months and two children into their marriage, Hermia and Puck were as involved in each other as ever. Every day in their presence was a reminder of two facts: the first, that she and Fitzwilliam were not behaving that way, and the second, that Hermia had dumped the future of the House of Capulet entirely onto Juliette's shoulders. Hermia might not turn down headship, but she had certainly decided other things were more important, and this prodded Juliette into second guessing her own priorities.

"Do you think there something wrong with us?"

Although the question alarmed him, the answer was immediate and honest. "No." He could only hope for the same from Juliette. "No, dearest, I don't." He steeled himself. "Do you?"

She tried to push her fingers through her hair, only to be prevented by her braid. Frustrated, she glared at it as though it would unwind to please her. "I don't know. I don't know what's right. I can't... there isn't anyone to ask. There's no-one's opinion I trust who has a right to an opinion, and so I am stuck with observations."

"What are your observations?"

"Nothing extraordinary. Anyone who can count knows my mother and sister were less than patient. My parents always seemed happy, and there's no questioning my sister's happiness. Your parents eloped halfway across the civilized world, and you've told me how happy they were. And here we are, opposite them."

"But when we discussed it-"

"Yes, exactly! I can't imagine your parents or mine had a discussion about it, like a pair of monks debating philosophy. I can't imagine anyone just conversing about the issue, the same afternoon we chose hymns for the wedding. And that makes me worry that there is something wrong between us, because we aren't irresponsible. Shouldn't we be overcome with... well, with something?"

"You aren't?"

"You are?"

"You haven't noticed the open doors, the constant third person in the room? Juliette, I love you, and I am going to feel every hour until we're married. But if I have to wait to be sure I start our married life with just you and not a city full of snickering morons on my mind, I'd wait forever."

"But you're so calm!" Juliette could hardly believe she had been fooled, but if there was one thing Fitzwilliam was not, it was an outright liar. "You never look uncomfortable, and I would have sworn I'd know if you were... like I am, when I want to climb the walls to make it stop."

"Only because we had our dry discussion about it." And how he missed that dry, fully clothed, daytime discussion in that moment! "I knew I loved a lady with more on her mind than marriage, but I had to hear it from you. I needed that memory, to remind myself that a few months is nothing, if there are good years to come. And if I'm putting on a facade for you, it's only because I didn't want you to start doubting yourself. It seems I've caused it anyway. Juliette, I'm sorry."

She knew she loved him, but Juliette was never unhappy to be reminded why. He was not her opposite but her balance. Apart, they were broken pieces of a whole, uneven and and weak. Together, they made something larger than themselves - and if he was to be reasonable, she would be cheeky. "Here I was, thinking you were perfect, and then you just decided our future for us. Good years! What if I want to be miserable and die young?"

"Then you're marrying the wrong man. I've already planned on happiness and long lives."

"Well, the least you could do, you overbearing oaf, is share these plans with me."

"I think they ought to be a surprise."

"If you insist, but I will still drag a little entertainment out of you." When he looked at her quizzically, she explained, "I heard from a little bird that you are an accomplished storyteller."

Fitzwilliam owed his sister a toad in her bed, if he could ever discern the adult equivalent. "My father was the one who could make up stories." He still remembered bits of the last story he had heard, an incomplete tale of pirates and giants, before his father disappeared. "I'm sorry to say my repertoire is limited."

"Rubbish. You must know a good story about a beautiful princess with red hair."

"A beautiful princess with red hair. A beautiful princess... red hair...." He paused to think. "No, I'm afraid I don't know any stories like that. It might be a lack of inspira-"

"Fitzwilliam!" She slapped the hand hovering over her shoulder.

"I suppose I might know one." He flexed his smarting fingers. "Now, a very long time ago, the world was consumed by war."

"What was it called?"

Fitzwilliam looked sideways at Juliette. "You're going to do this?"

"Yes."

"Of course," he grumbled. "It was consumed by the... Big War." He pretended not to hear Juliette's groan. "The only place in the world not touched by war was the world's most beautiful kingdom, Capulet...lia. The kingdom was always ruled by a beautiful queen who made all the other kingdoms very jealous, but it happened that the last queen died too soon. The goodly queen left her kingdom to whichever of her two granddaughters who proved herself worthy, but her wicked daughter was allowed to rule as queen until they were grown-up.

"As the princesses grew, it became the wish of the few people lucky enough to know them that the firstborn princess, Juliette-" When interrupted by a pointed cough, he rolled his eyes but corrected himself. "They all hoped the firstborn princess, Princess Julietta, would become queen because she was intelligent and thoughtful. Julietta knew she must choose her prince wisely so she would be accepted by her people as queen, and so she rejected all the arrogant princes who came for her hand.

"Her younger sister, Princess Hermie, was not so thoughtful, and when she fell in love with the court jester, Duck, she wanted to marry him immediately. Now, as it so happened, a long-forgotten fairy aunt had put an enchantment on the princesses of Capuletlia for all time that obscured part of their beauty and charm to all but the worthy man who truly loved her. This charm was only lifted on the day of a wedding, and so the royal weddings were always very popular. On the morning of Princess Hermie's wedding, she woke up with terrible rash all over her skin and no potion or fairy aunt could cure her. She banned all the kingdom, even her sister, from attending the wedding. But, because they required a witness, the princess permitted Froth, the hunchback who counted the queen's gold in the tower and was Duck's closest friend, to be present.

"Naturally, Princess Hermie could not prevent the disappointed guests from assembling outside of the church for a glimpse of her. But they were sorely disappointed when the princess and her new prince emerged, because Hermie was wearing one of Duck's elaborate jester's masks. For many, many weeks after, nobody in all the kingdom could talk about anything but Hermie's mask and what it was hiding. Some even began to say that the princesses, both of them, were ugly without the enchantment.

"Nobody was more upset by this than Froth. He knew Princess Hermie and Duck had gone against tradition and spent the day before the wedding together, and he knew that the princess' terrible rash was caused by the feathers on Duck's costume. He was sorry for his friend and the younger princess, and he was truly angry that the people were saying unkind things about Princess Julietta only because her sister had been foolish. Froth knew he was the one who could see the firstborn princess as she was, because he loved her with all his heart. He wanted nothing more than to make all the kingdom see her as he did every day from the tower."

It was here that that the storyteller noticed his audience had become dead weight on his shoulder. Briefly, he wondered how far she had made it into the story, if she had known where it was headed. He hoped so.

"Juliette." She didn't stir, so he shook her gently. "Juliette."

She moaned and leaned forward. "Oh, I fell asleep."

"Yes, I noticed. You really shouldn't sleep on my shoulder all night."

"You're right. I'll go back to my room."

"No, no, I mean you won't be comfortable. You can go back in the morning, when everyone is shuffling around. Take the bed and sleep for a few hours." He batted down a few half-hearted objections to carry his point. There was no telling who else might be out of bed, and, selfishly, he wanted her near. Even if she was halfway across the room, she was a comfort.

"Fitzwilliam," Juliette asked after climbing into the bed, "when we have daughters, will you tell them that story? I would like to hear the end sometime."

"I'm afraid that in our daughters' version, Duck, Froth, and anyone else who approaches the princesses will be eaten by dragons. Large dragons, possibly with several heads each, to be exact."

"Then will you tell me how this version ends? What happens to Froth and the princess?"

"I believe they live happily ever after."


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