One Event, Three Mordues OOC: Fuzzytime to before midterm
Alexander Mordue was a wizard who made it his business to know a reasonable amount about many things, but one area he supposed he must admit he was lacking in was what to say to comfort a weeping woman. Fortunately, his wife, Avery, was a sensible, level-headed witch who rarely wept, or at least rarely did so where her husband could see her. Unfortunately, his sister-in-law was less concerned with his comfort, at least at the moment.
Sister-in-law – former sister-in-law? He did not even know what to call her now. As he looked down at her, he cursed – not for the first time that day – the very day his idiot brother had entered the world.
“Cynthia,” he said. “You can’t imagine how sorry I am about – all of this.”
One of her sobs turned into a bitter laugh. “All of this?” she said. “All of this?” He had no idea what to say. He could not deny that it was a thoroughly inadequate way to summarize the situation at hand - that his brother had just abandoned his wife and children, and that there was nothing Alexander could do about this - but he could not think of anything better to say. Cynthia rose from her chaise lounge, where she had been huddled like a child, and walked about restlessly before turning suddenly to face him. “Sorry for all this – is that what I’m supposed to tell the boys?”
“Of course not,” said Alexander.
He had never, he thought, much liked Cynthia, but a mild distaste for her penchant for drama was not why he had been opposed to her marrying his brother from the moment he’d heard about the prospective match. It was true enough that she was an heiress, an heiress with the money and property Nicholas had not stood to inherit from their ill father, but she had struck him from the first as too spoiled, flighty, and nervous to do the job they all really wanted Nicky’s wife to do, which was settle his brother down. It had seemed as clear as glass to him that Nicholas and Cynthia did not balance each other at all, that they would likely bring out the worst in each other and that she would therefore not be very likely to prove a stabilizing influence on his impulsive, chronically irresponsible younger sibling. He had not, however, objected too strenuously – between his father’s illness, the support this meant he, as the eldest son, had been called upon to provide for his mother, and, if he was to be honest, having preferred to give what attention he had left over after all that to his own wife and their infant son, he had never gotten around to finding the words to put Mamma off the project once she’d gotten her heart set on it. The only ones he’d thought of before it was too late had all, after all, involved how it was mainly his mother’s fault that his brother was an idiot who needed settling, that she had petted and indulged her late-in-life child to the point where he was useless for anything but gambling and drink and women and not particularly good, come to that, at the gambling, and he had not seen any good coming from using those words.
That, then, was how the marriage (now a relic of history, courtesy of some dry papers, mainly in French, sent by special overseas messenger owl) had come about – his father’s illness, his own cowardice and distraction, his mother desire to control everything except Nicholas’ worst impulses, and, behind it all, the stacks of gold with no direct heir besides this one girl, already, thanks to her own over-indulgent parents, halfway to being an old maid. To his surprise, though, at first everything had seemed all right. It might not have done, of course, had the two wives not fallen into the family way at about the same time – but they had, and this had given Cynthia a way into the family: commiserating over mysterious feminine discomforts with Avery, playing with Simon to ‘practice’, and then later, after Sylvia and Nathaniel were born, bringing her son to visit with his cousins while she and Avery sipped tea and laughed at the toddler Simon’s devotion to ‘Sisi’ and many, many failed attempts to correctly say Nathaniel’s name. Motherhood had suited her surprisingly well, too; her nerves had never been good, but Nathaniel had quickly become the center of his mother’s universe, making up, he supposed, for anything her husband had failed to give her. He did not think Nicholas had ever really loved her, of course, but few people were in love and few of the few were married to each other; getting along was the thing, and they had seemed to do so, at least for a few years.
They all, Alexander thought, should have known it had all been too good to last. He, at the very least, should have known it had all been too good to last. And yet, here they were.
“What you will tell the boys,” he told Cynthia now, “is that they, and you, have nothing to fear.” Cynthia looked at him sharply, her large eyes still glittering with tears. Her eyelashes were so compressed together with water that they were hard to distinguish, stealing most of what beauty she had left. “Everything’s going to be all right. You are not at fault for this. My brother is the one who – has behaved improperly.” This was a much nicer thing, he felt, to say than any part of the truth. “Not you, and not my nephews. I still regard you as my sister. I will see to it that you – suffer as little as possible from – “ he repeated the bland phrase before he thought, and wished to wince even as he finished the second syllable – “all this.”
Cynthia dabbed at her nose with a crumpled handkerchief. “But – about – what am I supposed to say – how do you tell two little boys their own father doesn’t care enough about them to even say goodbye to them? To any of us?” Her voice rose steadily in pitch, peaking only just shy of hysteria at the end of the sentence.
To that question, he had no answer. That, really, had been the thing that appalled him most, though he would have been embarrassed to admit it: his brother’s apparent lack of any concern for or interest in what happened to his two sons. Enough to shame the family, enough to not care what society said of his abandoned wife – but his own children!
Behind him, he heard a small noise. Cynthia’s face changed and he knew that she had just told at least one of her boys the thing she hadn’t known how to tell him, probably in the worst way possible. Nathaniel was staring at his mother and uncle, white-faced.
“That’s not true,” said Nathaniel, his voice shaking.
“Nathaniel, darling – “ said Cynthia, but for once, his nephew did not seem inclined to allow her to pet him. He all but leapt away from her attempt to stroke his hair.
“It’s not!” he shouted, his child’s voice high and thin. “It’s – not!” And he fled the room, ignoring his mother calling after him just as she ignored her brother-in-law, who was still standing there, wishing he could really believe all of his own reassuring words to Cynthia of a few minutes earlier.
* * * * * * * *
If Nicholas had to say why he had done it, he supposed that the honest answer was the time old cliche. He had been bored of his wife. He remembered an incident early on in their marriage, when she had had a long day, and was complaining of the blisters on her feet - just look at the size of them! - and he had snapped at her that he didn’t wish to, and didn’t really care for the topic, as it was dull. She had sulked, accused him of not caring, not showing a proper husbandly fondness until he had caved and apologised. From then on, he had tried to be attentive to all the minutiae of her day. She had been more pleased with him, but the trouble was, him pretending to care about these trifling details hadn’t made them, or her, any less boring.
He poured two glasses of champagne, handing one to his secretary. She was blonde, ten years younger than his wife, and another cliche. Only, silk bathrobe sliding provocatively off one shoulder, this one wasn’t boring. The months leading up to this moment, the small brush of her fingertips over his hand as she handed him documents, the way she leant across his desk so he could see down the front of her blouse… Things he had gradually realised were invitation and not accident. They had been like the only moments of colour in the grey blur that had become his life.
He stared out at the golden sand and palm trees beyond the window… There were the boys, of course. He felt bad about the boys… But in a place like this, a place that they so wholly did not belong, it was much easier to put them from his mind. They would be alright - the house and most of their money came from their mother’s side, so they lost very little in losing him. And he was the younger brother. They weren’t heirs to anything much from him. He loved them, certainly - he had always had the luxury of avoiding the day to day frustrations and responsibility of parenthood, able just to swoop in of an evening, be the funny parent, the indulgent parent, although he sensed Nathaniel was getting too old for this cheap and flashy currency to be sufficient. The steady reassurance of his mother… It took longer to win someone over, for a child to see its worth, but Nathaniel had. Perhaps it had not been merely boredom, but pettiness and jealousy that had contributed to driving him out. He had always been impatient, he had always preferred instant gratification - once Nathaniel became mommy’s boy, he knew it would be more work than he was willing to put in to win back any kind of real affection from him. He, himself, would be happier in bed with his secretary than he would be at home, and that alone was enough to draw him away. The thought that there was a limited degree to which he would be missed, to which his desertion would really hurt anyone, was an afterthought, but it was a comforting lie that helped soothe the guilt he might otherwise have felt.
* * * * * * * *
They (a collective, a threatening stormcloud made up of all the adults who were still Here) wanted him to go to stay with Uncle Alexander and Aunt Avery for a few days, him and his mother and his little brother, just until they could get their feet under them again, but Nathaniel had refused to do so. He didn’t want to see his uncle ever again – how could Uncle ever forgive his mother for what she had said? – and at the moment, he didn’t even want to see Sylvia. Not until everything went back to normal and everyone knew Mother had –
Well, not lied. Mama did not lie. Made a mistake. She had been – confused. Or maybe he didn’t want to see his uncle because it was his uncle who had told the terrible lie, had upset his mother so and put this sick knot of fear and rage and the overwhelming urge to cry into his stomach for days – it had been his uncle who had given her the idea that Dad had done something very bad, that these papers she had received in the mail (he could still see it in his head, sharp as a photograph: her usual pale, tired look in the morning becoming one of confusion, then disbelief, and then – ) meant his father was never coming back.
They didn’t, though. Of that, Nathaniel was certain. His father wouldn’t just leave forever. Dad was...well, sometimes Nathaniel thought wistfully that it would be nice if he were more like Uncle Alexander, someone who one could count on to be there all the time, but - well, he always came back eventually, and when he did, it was always the same – surprises for Nathaniel and Jeremy, usually something for Sylvia and Simon, too, laughter, funny stories about where he’d supposedly been that he told just to see if they would believe them. He’d bring Mother jewelry, too, and she would tell him the jewelry was beautiful and then she would smile at Nathaniel and Jeremy even if Nathaniel could tell from the little lines around her eyes that she had a headache and he had started to notice that she always had headaches when his father came home and showered them all with gifts and attention….
He tried to ignore that thought. It was not as though Mother never felt unwell at other times, after all. It didn’t have to mean something, any more than the thought that he sometimes felt he would really rather Dad just act like other people instead of being a surprise every minute meant anything. The times when Dad wasn’t at home, Nathaniel reasoned, were so they would appreciate him more when he was – everything was wonderful at first when he came home, mostly, then everything was just normal, so something had to happen before things could be wonderful again. Dad always said that you pay for everything and what’s life without a little variety? Variety wasn’t always good, but it all had to happen so the good kind could happen sometimes. This was what he told himself as he hid in different spots around the house: now under his bed in his room, then in the playroom where the fabulous model train set he and Jeremy had received for Christmas still chugged away, another time still under the desks in his schoolroom. He liked being alone, folded up into some small space he wasn’t supposed to be in. It seemed easier to believe none of it had ever happened that way.
He was hiding in his wardrobe when his mother entered his room. She walked around for a moment, stopping to look under the tumbled-about blankets and then the bed itself, and then walked toward the wardrobe. She hesitated for a moment and Nathaniel dared to hope, but then she opened the door and looked down at him.
“I’ve told you, Nathaniel,” she said, one hand twisting at the seam of her skirt. “You should never shut yourself into anything – “
Nathaniel burst into tears.
He didn’t realize his mother had fallen to the floor in front of him until he felt her pulling his head toward her shoulder. Unable to stop crying, he decided he could at least not have her see his face while he was behaving so disgracefully and allowed it. She rocked him back and forth, making soothing noises, until he exhausted himself. Then she pushed him back a little, enough to look him in the eyes. He dropped his, ashamed of himself, but she put her hand under his chin and made him look at her.
“I need you to be good now,” she said shakily.
“Yes, Mama,” said Nathaniel.
“Your father – I didn’t mean what I said – that day, to your uncle,” she said, and Nathaniel could tell she was telling a lie. “Your father loves you very much. It’s just – he’s decided it would be best – best for all of us if he – stayed somewhere else for a while.”
“Then why don’t we go there?” demanded Nathaniel. A spasm of panic followed the words – to leave his house, move away from his aunt and uncle and cousins, away from Sylvia – but his mother was already shaking her head.
“He’s…he’s decided it would be better if your uncle took care of us for him. At least for now. Sometimes men…some men do things…and they don’t need us in the way.” She tried to smile. “But – he told me to tell you, you have to be a little man now, and help me with your brother. You have to be so very good so Jeremy can see how he should behave….”
Nathaniel hugged her fiercely. “I’ll be good, Mother,” he promised. And I won’t ever do anything if it’s something where you or Jeremy would be in the way, he promised again in his head. I’ll be good, and take care of everyone, and Father will be so pleased when he comes back. He’ll be so pleased that then, everything will be wonderful always.