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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.
