Is the Law of Our Side?: Part Six

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"The sins of the father are to be laid upon the children."

November 20th

"De-e!" 

"She did it again, Desi! She knows your name!" 

The cheers and giggles ringing out from the nursery drew Cornwall closer. Lately, his daughter had become something of a pet to Goneril's younger daughters, Desi and Ariel. Though he didn't know his nieces particularly well, he was grateful for their attention to her. Tessa had no natural playmates in the family; the other children of her age were Hermia's or Juliette's. Plans were surely in place to eventually foster - or force - a bond between Tessa and Miralene, but Miralene would still be only one child. The fawning from her older cousins was saving Tessa from a sad, solitary existence. As far as he was familiar with the emotion, he was pleased.

But how long could this situation last? As soon as Tessa was old enough to be taught, the lessons from Regan would begin. An alliance with Miralene would be but a small, innocuous part of that curriculum. It would take a far better man than Cornwall to counteract that influence, and he felt uneasy to wish his daughter had a more neglectful mother. He couldn't make up for that. He wasn't cut out to be a father at all. He didn't know how to raise a girl to be a lady. He didn't have any wit or greatness to impart. In fact, the best thing he could do for her was try to ensure she wouldn't grow up to be like him. Slugging through the muck toward the grave was not any kind of a life.

So, he kept his distance. To be sure, he looked in on Tessa regularly, but he tried to be careful with interactions. He had overcome the fear of physically dropping her, which was the sad sum total of his achievements as a father. He could still break her in other ways. He wasn't meant to be a father, and she had done nothing to deserve that burden. Looking in on her now, when she had her cousins to distract her, was ideal. 

"Ladies." His uneasy bow was returned by his nieces in manners befitting their ages. 

Women Grow By Men

"Giddy Fortune's furious fickle wheel."

March 6th

Kent felt sick. At the moment it happened, he had been thinking of Cornwall. It had never been right to want his sister's unwanted husband. Yet, he had sat down to breakfast yearning to be wrong. He wanted Cornwall's thimbleful of emotions back in his possession, to displace all his misery with love. He wanted to push his sister, his lifelong protector, out of her place with her husband. Those had been his thoughts as Regan rose from the breakfast table and collapsed.

The Heavens Lour Upon You

"The voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries"

August 28th

Cornwall dropped his shoulders as he crossed the threshold of Middleham House. Had he followed his heart, he might have disappeared forever, but something else told him it was time to come home. The first meetings with both Regan and Kent promised to be, at best, unpleasant, and he hoped to avoid them this evening. So far, his luck had held at the gate, by the stables, and all the way across the courtyard. All that stood between him and a quiet night were two staircases.

Bound More Than a Madman Is

NSFW.

"O, what may man within him hide..."

Here Come the Capulets

June 1515 (Three Years Earlier)

"Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown"

Contessa Capulet, mother and matriarch, was admired by many in Verona. She was known as a fair and strong woman, one whom one did not need to question or wish to cross. When provoked, she acted decisively, but rarely in anger. She did not hesitate to be forgiving or harsh when it was the right course, whether in her home or the Council Chambers. The wisdom that came with age had seen her through the dark and turbulent period following her daughter's murder, and many blessed her for doing so without plunging the country into war. The loss naturally made her value peace and family more than she previous had, but she remained sharp and vigorous. Everyone, including Contessa herself, expected her to live to a ripe old age.