One Too Much

"The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together."

April 27th

Georgiana let her fingers fall to rest so she could heard the patter of the rain. The rain was the reason she was indoors, pretending to be a musician. Aunt Maria had named her captain of their archery team for the duration of her confinement. Georgiana knew it was family favoritism, but she had tried to take the position as seriously as possible. In daylight, she organized practices and coached up the younger ladies. At night, she worked on the sketches for the painted scenes she would give to Juliette for her birthday. When it rained, she squeezed in music lessons with her mother.

Her mother was a true musician. She had quick fingers and a sweet, steady singing voice that rolled pleasantly through nearly any song. Hers was music meant to be overheard by others. Georgiana's, she well knew, was crippled by fear of it being overheard. She would not sing, she preferred the harp to the piano forte because it was more discreet, and she practiced as little as her mother allowed. Drawing and archery were less intimidating activities. Georgiana had lately taken up her mother on her offers to teach her more often. They were to have had a lesson this morning, but her mother was still in bed.

That struck Georgiana as strange. Her mother didn't care for lying about. She was rarely so sick as to stay in bed for the day. Yet, this would be the third morning in a row that her mother had claimed illness. Stranger yet, if her mother had left the house in the last week, Georgiana didn't know about it. I ought to look in on her.

She knocked and waited to be acknowledged. No word came. She waited several moments before worry got the best of her and urged her on. "Mother?" She ventured another few footsteps at the sight of her mother's back. She was upright, but her hair was a loose mess. Even to bed, her mother never wore it that way. "Mother, are you well?"

"Lock the door," Anne said quietly, "and come here. We need to talk, dearest."

"Yes, of course." Georgiana guided the door shut and held it steady so the lock would turn smoothly. She burned the wasted time hurrying around the bed. "Can I get you anything? Have you had anything to...

"I... I don't understand."

"Yes, you do."

"But you're not married."

Anne's face, washed in sad pallor, sharpened slightly. "Georgiana, I taught you better than that. You know better than to believe that rubbish. "

"That isn't what I mean," Georgiana said, her voice trailing off. Unconsciously, she began to rub the back of her neck raw. "I didn't think you had any male friends, much less... and you said that you and my father... I don't understand why you would... you wouldn't."

Anne's heart sank. Her girl was gasping and gaping like a fish, all because Anne had taught her just a little too well. "Dearest, if I have learned anything from this, it is that everything I told you about love is true. I made a mistake, Georgiana, and I'm sorry." 

The apology did everything Anne could have hoped for. The glimmers of disappointment and disdain in her daughter were extinguished forever. In the moment, Anne couldn't help herself from doing it. Losing her children had become her mortal fear in recent months. That was the price she paid for giving up George's ghost and embracing what she still had, their children, completely. This singular fear was becoming her worst liability as a mother. Her poor behavior after the wedding was now primed to humiliate her children. And now, her desire to be forgiven had prematurely killed any entitlement her self-sacrificing daughter would have to negative feelings. 

Georgiana recognized her mother's guilt, if not the source. "Don't trouble yourself, Mother. We all make mistakes." She put an arm around her and urged her to a seat. "You should rest. You look pale."

"I beg you, don't fuss over me." Anne dug her fingernails into her side. "God in Heaven, how shall I tell your brother?"

"Gently."

No, that won't do at all. 

'I am with child.' He had expected to be happy to hear those words. They might have been early for his taste, but he would have welcomed them. Juliette was young and healthy, and she had expressed a wish to have her first pregnancy behind her when the succession issue came to a head. The child would be welcome and loved. It would want for nothing. Yes, he had expected to be happy to hear those words.

He had also expected those words to come from his wife, not his mother. 

"Have you calmed yourself sufficiently, Fitzwilliam?"

He stood. Standing for a lady, especially an expectant lady, was the polite thing to do. Next on the list was to offer her a seat, and he did it silently. For her comfort, he offered her his own, the one nearest the fire. Although it was April, the nights were quite cool still, and he didn't want her to catch a chill. He asked if she was well. He moved his contemplation spot from the fireplace to the window. What he looked at mattered very little. Tonight, all the world was all red and black to him. 

"Fitzwilliam, we need to finish this conversation tonight."

"I am at your disposal, madam," he replied to the windowpanes.

Anne knew that sharp, falsely polite tone. The love of contemplation came from his father, but the anger under the surface was her own. "You are disappointed in me. You are upset and angry."

"You are a grown woman," he replied stiffly, "as you so ably reminded me the last time we spoke, Mother. Who you consort with, regardless of how it affects your children, is immaterial."

"That is not what I meant." 

Impolite as it was, Fitzwilliam still refused to look at his mother directly. He glanced at her reflection in the window instead. "And would you care to tell me what you did mean? Or is that too 'none of my business'?"

"Punishing me is what is not your business."

"Punishing you?" He stalked across the room, his feet hitting the floor like boulders. "Madam, the only person I wish to punish is the coward who has left you to fend for yourself."

"Fitzwilliam, you are being entirely unreasonable." Noting how her son's shoulders spiked, Anne felt she was close to bursting him open. She pressed on. "I have no desire to set off a ruckus by involving an outsider. And I'm hardly some serving girl out on her backside without a copper. I can well afford whatever expense this will come to. There's no need of you laying out anything if it so disgusts you."

At last, her son turned toward her. His face, familiar to her for more than twenty-two years now, surprised Anne. He looked almost sad to her. He looked as though the anger was simply the most accessible buffer against despondence. "Expense? I don't give a damn about the expense! Whatever you and the child need will be provided. Don't be foolish."

"Then for what purpose would you need his name? Swords at dawn? To orchestrate a clandestine wedding with no thought to my wishes?"

"Indeed. It will be difficult indeed to both kill the child's father and force you to marry him. I can't imagine how I will work on you to agree to the latter if I am too disgusted to support you financially." He kicked at an imaginary speck of dirt on the floor. "You have a shocking opinion of me, Mother."

Heat swelled in Anne's cheeks. "You might think it would patch up a thing or two."

"Only if you wished it so. Bringing that sort of creature into the family is more sickness than cure as things stand. Unless we choose to lay our private actions open to the world, you will risk ridicule and your well-being and he risks nothing. That my own mother could be ridiculed and mocked by creatures not worth the dirt on the ground! It's intolerable, utterly intolerable." He paced, talking more to himself than to her. "I hope to God no-one would risk such a thing with Georgiana, but then how are we come to this? I cannot see how this happened."

Another job well-done, Anne. All that is left is to make the babe miserable and you can be properly pleased with your mothering 'skills'. "I am a grown woman, Fitzwilliam, a widow. I am not a maid."

"That is not the point."

"You are in a lather over nothing," Anne said. "She is perfectly safe with you. You don't need to worry about her."

"I'm worried about you. I mention her because a girl in her situation typically receives the consideration you should have enjoyed - from me, from this scoundrel. I will not pretend that...that you..." He winced, unable to continue his thought. "But that I cannot guess at his identity and you are so unwilling to speak it tells me his interest was almost as far from honorable as could be. That he held you that low in his estimation is absolutely..." Clenching his fits, he shook off the thought. "No, enough. Enough of that."

Fitzwilliam knelt next to his mother's chair and wrapped his hand around hers. "Forgive me, please. We'll speak no more of it." Anne could see it was a front, that he would be wrestling with his feelings a while yet, but she was heartened by the effort. "Forgive me for being short with you. Tell me, how do you wish to proceed?"

Privately, she wished to proceed backwards until she had undone this entire mess. She was a fool. Anne had grieved the loss of her son since his wedding, but there had been no loss. He was still her little boy. He was still aching to fight a dragon with a wooden sword for her. She hardly deserved it - not after the wedding and not after tonight. "Discreetly. I will go away on some premise for my confinement, and an arrangement will be made for the child."

He paused. Anne guessed he was trying to summon up the words from his stomach. "You do not wish to keep it?"

There was no question of keeping it, even if Anne had wished to. "I would rather be a grandmother," she assured him, "than a mother again, and the child will have a much happier life without this stigma. Surely, there must be a Fae family that would be glad to have a baby." An instant after she put her hands to the arms of the chair to stand, Fitzwilliam helped her to her feet in such a way that she barely felt herself move. Given time, his fastidious care and protection could become stifling. For this moment, it was pure joy to her.

"We will make arrangements with Puck when the time is nearer. For now, we need to find you a good situation and someone to look after you." Fitzwilliam cleared his throat. "I hope you would agree that Georgiana must remain here with me. We can arrange a visit from all of us at an opportune time."

"That would be lovely. And there is no need of worrying about a companion. I will go to my mother tomorrow. Few would think to question a lady of her age needing to recover from some ailment and my going with her."

"Will she agree to that plan?"

"I think she will." There was a certain distance between her and her mother because of the elopement, but it was no more than the distance enjoyed by her siblings. She might have to literally beg her to miss the birth of Andrew's potential heir. This once, Anne was not above begging. "She won't let it go without a lecture about causing another scandal, but we mothers are very keen on our children."

"And some of us on our mothers."

Next Post: "So is my love still telling what is told."