Ladies of Esteem: Part One

"Inure thyself to what thou art like to be."

September 14th

Anne had not been able to resist. She had felt the chill the moment she stepped into the chapel; it poured out of a secret door in the wall that had been left just barely ajar. As a means of granting her daughter permission to solve a household crisis in the middle of their visit, Anne had declared she would be happy to spend a little time in prayer. Against the mystery of a secret door, prayers took second place.

Confirming that the chill was sweeping up from a crypt was a disappointment. A secret door in a novel, if it did not open into a chamber ready for a lovers' tryst, almost always led into a crypt. There is truth in literature, I suppose. But Anne had to grant that it was a superior example. The Fitzwilliam crypt was a solemn, boring place. It was almost unworthy of the spit she had bestowed upon it the one time she visited to gloat over her father's tomb. As far as crypts went, this one was stunning. Even when they are dead, the Capulets must have their dramatics.

Will my children lie here, too?

The unbidden thought froze her through and sapped her curiosity. Anne shook her head, but streaks of the crypt - the white jars for ashes or hearts, the stone walls, the weeping statues and dusty tombs in the chamber to her left - blinded her. She turned to go back toward the spiral staircase, only to be confronted with another phantom. For an instant, she thought she saw a flash of red cloak and a green glow at the foot of the stairs.

Stop, stop, stop. He is dead, and she cannot hurt you.

The two days spent at her son's beside with the Queen of the Fae had been enlightening on many topics, including spirits. Although the philosophy had not been quite to her taste, Anne had absorbed all the knowledge that had come with it. In life, it seemed, the spirit could be replenished. In death, the spirit was finite. It could live in eternal perfection, but it would be diminished by unnatural acts. Conjuring and haunting were elaborate tricks and nothing more. The dead could not harm the living without great damage to themselves. After a few such incidents, the spirit would burn away entirely. Assuming a corporeal form was similarly draining. If her shadow friend had carried on as she in Anne's presence, she and her motives had died their final death long ago. 

A grunt echoing against the cold stones caught Anne's ear. More grunts followed, underlined by a scraping – a leather boot dragging, perhaps. It did not have the rhythm of a guard's footfalls. Her curiosity revived, Anne walked back down the corridor and around a corner. 

“My dear girl, what is the matter?”

Juliette started; her heart swept up and thumped in her throat. “Nothing,” she replied hastily. “I am fine.” The following silence was awkward but less so than any elaborating lie would have been.

Had a mother, even a mother-by-law, ever heard a truthful reply of 'nothing'? Anne thought not. Yet, the children always insisted on saying so. Anne considered emotions a fine thing, but years as wife and mother to Darcys had taught her restraint. For some, the color of emotions did not make up for any loss in dignity. She did not believe Juliette to be such a person, but Anne acquiesced all the same with a knowing half-smile. “I will leave you to it, then. Forgive my intrusion.”

No sooner had Anne turned her back than Juliette's voice bounced off of it. “Please, don't go.”

Anne folded her hands against her waist. She knew better than to reach for what was not freely offered. “Would you like to talk about it?”

Almost instantly, Anne was holding the wretched girl up. Juliette sobbed and heaved for breath disproportionately to her tears. Tears were finite even when the cause was not. Anne suspected Juliette had already spilled too many today.

“I'm sor-sorry," Juliette stammered.

“No, do not apologize to me, my dear. You have every right to your feelings.”

Juliette cried, “But that's just the problem!”

A maternal instinct kept Anne quiet. She simply held on to Juliette for some time, present but not pressing. 

Juliette drew back a bit when the torrent eased. Sniffling, she apologized again. “I did not mean to lose control of myself like that.”

“No one ever does,” Anne assured her with a warm smile. “There is no shame in it,” she added, though she knew Juliette would not see it so. That she had come down to the crypts to release her tears was proof enough.

Though her eyes were nearly dry, Juliette wiped them out of habit. She felt pale and worn, like a threadbare gown. “I never thought so, but it seems I was wrong. I am supposed to be better than that now.”

The simplest of queries unlocked another of Juliette's floodgates. Her worries poured out with inconstant intensity, the hardest to admit riding on the backs of the easier. 

To her clear disappointment, Juliette was no longer a common private person. The weight of the family was crushing her into the dust, but she had to project strength. It was all but inevitable that this duty would consume her entirely. She would become Lady Capulet at the expense of Juliette, and Lady Capulet did not cry. “And I begin to think I am not suited, not in the slightest. My choices are always wrong and bearing, apparently, tremendous consequences to which I am naturally ignorant. My every instinct would be our ruin. And yet... yet, I must lead. I must be Goneril's equal at the least; if she is a primary advocate, I must be, even if it would take a miracle for me to be competent!”

Incredulous, Anne raised a brow. “You mean to argue your own case in front of Lady Iden?”

Juliette revealed that she and her inner circle mistrusted, in this particular instance, the advocates usually employed by the family. Her grandfather had been inclined to be a co-advocate himself; without his presence to inspire loyalty, no outsider could be trusted. “My aunts will surely be the ones to speak. Our main contention is that the matter is straightforward - so straightforward that it would, it seems, make me look weak if I could not argue it myself.”

“And I suppose, aside from my son, none of these other advisors has a relevant education?” As Anne expected, the answer was that they did not. “I believe he is giving himself a hunchback researching the relevant points as we speak.”

Juliette confirmed it. “Every day, more than anyone would think necessary, and I think I know why. He' is trying to make it foolproof for me. I have not asked, and he has not offered, but I know it is so.”
 
Anne restrained a sigh. Farcical lapses in communication was a hallmark of her daughter's marriage; she did not want it to become so for her son's. “You know he would do anything you asked of him.”

“It is a tricky thing, and I think...” she hesitated. “I think that is why he has worked so hard at it. He knows my concerns. He is trying to make it foolproof for me, so he can help without appearing to over-step his position. And I understand it.” Juliette bit her lip and looked down at her intertwined hands. “Asking him would be as good as pressing him into service. We made promises to each other. I do not want him to think I have gone back on my word.”

“Oh, honestly.” The sigh had forced its way out with the words. “You two have a very sweet dream, but it will not always be practical. You risked your life to give him the son he needed, and you were so insistent on it that I don't think God Himself dared deny you. You secured the future of his family. Let him return the favor.”

Under the weight of what she saw as a reproachful look, Juliette snapped. “Do you think I don't want to? Do you think I am not screaming inside to do it? But the rest of them push back. My husband is a liability here, they think. He did not take my name – black mark. My son has his name, not mine – black mark. I live in his house - black mark. They make it out like I would be hiding behind him or trying to put a crown upon his head instead of mine!” Unconsciously, Juliette had started pacing across the worn stones. “And now, I begin to think I am the liability. After all,” she continued bitterly, “I am the one with the instinct to disgrace and sabotage us all by 'hiding' behind my husband. I am the one who has committed all of these terrible infractions that can be thrown back at us. There cannot possibly be a strategy good enough to make up for my faults!” she screamed into the empty hall ahead. “What good is any of it!”

“Come here.” The hands Anne waved at Juliette then cupped around her arms in a kind, motherly hold. “Surely, it is my turn to be ignorant, but I want you to consider this carefully. Is this what you want?”

With her eyes cast down, brow wrinkled, and mouth caught open, she looked like she had never been asked. She had been asked. Repeatedly. Fitzwilliam, Hermia, Tybalt, even her grandfather had all asked. There had only ever been one answer. The alternative was selfish. The alternative was unthinkable.

She did not immediately answer. 

“Now, my dear, you may take my observations with all the salt you choose. The best choice my son ever made was to ignore my wishes, as you well know. I could not have been more wrong,” she admitted sincerely, “or happier to be so, but he was following a philosophy I regard highly. If you have to live with the consequences of a choice, you should be the one to make it. The last time my father beat me, it was because I wanted to choose love above the family name. My mother tried to convince me that night that I wasn't made to be the wife of a man so far beneath me. Neither of them would or could live my life for me; I made the only choice I could live with. It's your life up for debate now, choices that will affect you more than anyone else. You deserve to be the one making them, even if it disappoints all the others.”

Juliette shook her head fearfully. “I cannot. I cannot stand down.”

“If it will make you happy...”

“It won't.” She turned her head and latched her eyes onto Anne's. "My aunts wished to ruin my sister and run her out of the country. They look upon my brother as an animal. Miranda and Desi have both been sold off to benefit their mother, Tessa exists only to make Regan a viable alternative to Goneril... and they could have killed their own father! I cannot see how, but I know, I know in my very bones, that they could and would have!” Juliette shuddered, but it was barely distinguishable from the last half-minute of emotional quaking. “I will not let that be my daughters' legacy. If I do not prevail and this babe is a girl – oh!”

“A very early guess, is it?” Anne smiled kindly when Juliette nodded. From her own experiences as a young woman, Anne knew the hope of early days and how often it was dashed. “My lips are sealed.”

After a word of thanks and a moment to regroup, Juliette continued. “If I lose or do nothing, I think this babe and all the others must be Darcys, no matter the sex. I cannot give my daughters a name that brings them shame. How many ladies battled before me so that I might have a name I have carried proudly? My nieces and nephews, my cousins, my cousins' children will all be Capulets regardless. At the very least, they deserve what I had.” Juliette swallowed hard. “I do not even know if this babe exists, but I am already dreading the day she might come to ask why I am a Capulet and she is not. I cannot live with the choice of telling her I just gave up on her birthright. I cannot live with the choice of telling her I allowed Goneril and Regan to define what it means to be a Capulet.”

Anne swept her daughter-in-law into a hug. “Oh, my dear! If that s what you want, then there is only one thing you have to do.

“Stop allowing everyone else to decide what it means to be Juliette Capulet.”

Next Post: "Put thyself into the trick of singularity."