#she gave birth then handed them off to wet nurses and governesses

[shebeafancyflapjack]

When Robin said he had thirty kids and Fanny said "sounds awful" after Julian called him a busy bunny, she wasn't talking about the sex, she was talking about the kids.

[chrysalispen]

Prompt #10 - Foster

@sea-wolf-coast-to-coast

a storm surge ate the draft for the other thing i was working on tonight so it’ll have to wait. instead you get a continuation of yesterday’s drabble, which fits the theme in both a literal and metaphorical sense

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Aurelia hadn't realized just how loud a ticking chronometer could be until it was the only sound in the room.

She sat in her bed with her head bowed, clutching her coverlet with her good hand. The medicus had immobilized and set her broken left arm, with very stern instructions not to attempt any use of it for the next fortnight, while her father and L'haiya had both looked on in stony silence.

At first, there hadn't even been any pain; she had felt nothing save the lingering imprint of remembered terror. She'd sat up from the grass as L'haiya sprinted out the door without bothering to make sure it latched behind her, the pupils in her odd-colored eyes blown wide, shouting her name, and without pausing had gathered Aurelia into her arms and carried her inside. Beneath his dusky skin Sazh had gone pale and was near tears, wringing his hands and sitting on one of the drawing room chairs without speaking to her as the room was filled with the sounds of the chiming linkpearl.

Father had been furious. Aurelia didn't think she had ever seen him so upset.

The pilus prior had promptly seen fit to inform her that if she had enough spare time to climb trees like one of the savages in the southern jungles, she certainly had time to devote to her studies while her injuries were on the mend -- in her room, until further notice -- and that furthermore, she would be packed off to the capitol where her Uncle Janus and Aunt Marcella would straighten her out if she couldn't learn how to behave like a proper young lady.

L'haiya's face had grown tight and cold during his tirade and Aurelia wasn't sure what to make of it other than tacit agreement.

She'd known she was going to get a fearsome lecture from her governess the second she had the chance; every ilm of the fur in the woman's bottlebrush tail had stood on end, and it had swished back and forth with such rapid agitation that it kept thumping loudly against the couch as the medicus worked. But for now L'haiya seemed content to let her young charge stew as she stared at her from the far side of the bed, and Aurelia sincerely wished she could just sink into her pillow and disappear.

Finally, the Miqo'te broke the impasse with a low hiss.

"Aurelia bas Laskaris. Have you taken leave of your senses entirely?!"

"I-"

"Do not. Talk."

Eyes watering, she cringed, staring down at the floral pattern on her coverlet. She could hear the floorboards creaking as L'haiya paced to and fro.

"Your family has made it clear they expect you to be able to sit the entrance exams to the secondary school of their choice within the next four summers. You are far too old to be clambering up trees and playing in the dirt, and yet I take my eyes off you for a half-bell and that is precisely what you are doing, and you frightened poor Sazha half to death in the bargain! What in the seven hells possessed you to do such a stupid, reckless-"

That hot jealousy she'd felt the day before came flooding back, rising like bile in the back of her throat. "I don't care if I scared him," Aurelia spat bitterly. "He deserves it, panting after that aan girl in the marketplace like some savage in a rut-"

L'haiya's sunset-colored eyes went flat and cold.

"What," she said, her voice dangerously soft, "did you just say?"

The girl's chin snapped up and she glared at the Miqo'te in a rare show of defiance. "You heard me."

Aurelia had never seen that look on her governess' face before. Calm, shuttered, and utterly unreadable.

"I suppose I did," she said.

And then, that bland expression never flinching for a moment, L'haiya slapped her.

The hot sting of the woman's palm impacting her cheek was secondary to the shock and hurt Aurelia felt. L'haiya had been part of her entire life. She'd been her wet-nurse. She had been there for Aurelia's very first steps, taught her to read, listened to all her hopes and dreams, had taken care of her during her mother's final illness.

In Aurelia’s twelve scant years of life, L'haiya had never once laid a hand to her in anger. Never.

Until now.

Aurelia stared at her in astonishment. She could see her own surprised hurt mirrored in her governess' eyes---along with a fury that she realized she had never seen only because she had never before been allowed to see it. And that, she realized slowly, was the look she'd seen in those same eyes not a bell past, in the middle of Father's lecture. When he'd made mention of-

Savages.

"You didn't like it when I hit you," L'haiya said very softly, "did you?"

Slowly, unable to think of anything to say, Aurelia shook her head.

"Do you like feeling small and humiliated? Lesser?"

Again, a shake of the head. Her dark blue eyes welled with tears.

"Then don't you ever. Ever. Call anyone a 'savage' ever again. Do you understand me?"

"But-"

"No buts." The woman made a slow, soft, trembling inhale. "That is an awful thing to say. And I think you know it's an awful thing to say or you'd not have said it."

"I... but F-Father says -"

"Your father says a lot of things that he shouldn't say, but he does as he pleases because there is no one of his rank willing to countermand him. He thinks there is a natural order of things, and that I, and Sazha, and the people of Ala Mhigo and Eorzea and beyond, are beneath you and him." L'haiya leaned forward, grasped her shoulders, and gave them a hard shake. "You are not better than me because you are Garlean. You are not better than Sazha because you are Garlean."

"I don't..." she whispered, "I've never thought like that about-"

"If you're going to say you don't see us as Miqo'te, then do not finish that sentence."

The anger she'd felt was gone and all that it had left in its place was an awful, mortifying shame, the sort that pooled in the back of the throat and made it hard to swallow.

"I have done my level best to raise you the way I was told to raise you. But your father did give me some leeway to do so in the manner that I see fit. You are not better nor worse than a single solitary person on this star, and I will not let you float through life treating me and mine like possessions or pets to be owned and subjugated. You are in your rank by naught save a happy accident of birth. You did nothing to deserve that, and even the least of the smallfolk are your equal."

"I-"

"If you ever utter that word in my presence again I will write it on your forehead and walk you through the marketplace for every man, woman, and child in Ala Mhigo to see. Perhaps if you feel the humiliation that we are made to feel every time one of your people calls one of us a ‘savage’, you might think twice before opening your mouth in the future."

The girl tried to speak, to say anything at all in her defense, but she had none, and all that emerged was a wrenching, remorseful cry. She collapsed against her governess, her tears wetting the woman's fine cotton shirtwaist. The pressure sent a dull throb up her hurting left side, through the potion the medicus had made her drink, but she was able to ignore it.

A broken arm was nothing to L'haiya's disappointment in her.

"I'm sorry, Elle," Aurelia cried. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to hurt you, I was just upset, I wouldn't- I-... please don't be cross, Elle, please don't hate me, please-"

After a few moments of her broken sobbing, there was a long and resigned sigh. She felt a weight sink into her bed shortly before an arm wrapped about her shoulders and pulled her in for a snug embrace. It only made her cry harder, and she doubled over until her head lay in L'haiya's lap, curling around the heavy cast on her left arm with her knees tucked into her chest.

Right after Mama died, she'd had bad nightmares, and she used to curl up with L'haiya like this for comfort. She couldn't remember the last time...

"Relia, my sweet sunshine girl," L'haiya said finally, and she felt a gut punch of sorrow at her old nickname, one she hadn't heard since she was very small. She felt her fingers carding through her hair. "I am disappointed because I thought I raised you better than to be spiteful. But I don't hate you. I'm angry because you frightened me, and no one likes to be frightened. Is this about J'syla? The girl at market yesterday who was selling the star fruit?"

Mutely she nodded.

"Oh," came the answer, then, laden with a meaning Aurelia didn't really understand: "Oh."

"I don't want him looking at her like that," she whispered. "She doesn't even know him. He's my friend."

There was a soft laugh over her head.

"What?" she said defensively. "What's so funny?"

"Nothing, darling. Sometimes I forget you're starting to grow up, that's all."

Aurelia felt her eyes drooping shut at the soft, repetitive sensation.

"I know that one day I shall have to give you up to the world," L'haiya said much more softly, "and you will be exposed to all of its hardships and sorrows and struggles. I know I have no choice but to let Garlemald have you someday. But I refuse to let you become callous or cruel. The world is full of too much heartache as it is. All right?"

"All right," she mumbled, and she felt a soft kiss pressed against her temple, just above her ear. "M'sorry."

"I'm sorry I hit you," L’haiya continued. "I just didn't know what else to do, child. There's a light in you, and I don't want to see it go out before it can begin to shine."

Aurelia had no idea what to say to that. So she lay still and let her foster mother's touch and the lingering drowsiness from the potion carry her into sleep.

[encyclopedia-victoria-blog]

History Behind the Story - The Baby Princess

Queen Victoria and Prince Albert’s first child, Victoria Adelaide Mary Louisa, the Princess Royal, was born at Buckingham Palace on the 21st of November 1840. The real baby Vicky was actually nicknamed “Pussy” for the first few years of her life - something the ITV series chooses not to recreate!

Read more about the baby Princess under the cut.

Queen Victoria and Prince Albert’s first child arrived three weeks early, taking everyone by surprise. ‘Just before the early hours of the morning of the 21rst[of November]’  Victoria wrote in her journal, she had woken feeling ‘very uncomfortable & with difficulty aroused Albert from his sleep’:

Tried to get to sleep again, but by 4, I got very bad and both the Doctors arrived. My beloved Albert was so dear & kind. [The Doctor] said the Baby was on the way & everything was all right. We both expressed joy that the event was at hand, & I did not feel at all nervous. 

Unusually for the era, Prince Albert stayed with his wife throughout her labour. He was, wrote Victoria, ‘the greatest comfort and support.’ The baby arrived at two that afternoon (‘alas! a girl & not a boy, as we both had so hoped & wished for’) and was immediately whisked away ‘stark naked’ to be shown to the official witnesses including the Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne, the Foreign Minister and the Archbishop of Canterbury.

“Victoria asleep, aged 3 weeks” - pen and watercolour sketch by Queen Victoria dated 12th December 1840 (Royal Collection)

Queen Victoria recovered quickly from the birth - a day later she ‘felt as well as if nothing had happened’ and by mid-December happily reported that she was ‘walking about the house like myself again.’ Both mother and baby were strong enough to travel to Windsor for Christmas. Victoria had chosen not to breastfeed her new daughter, and hired instead a Mrs Ratsey of Cowes, Isle of Wight, to act as wet nurse. Mrs Ratsey was required to show deference to the baby’s rank by always standing while she breastfed her.

Baby Victoria, or “Pussy” as her parents began to affectionately call her, slotted in easily to Queen Victoria and Prince Albert’s busy lives. She was brought down from the nursery to see them twice a day - once after breakfast and again in the afternoon when Victoria changed for dinner. Victoria loved to show off her daughter to visitors to the place, and would produce the baby for even her cabinet ministers to see. On the 11th of December 1840 Victoria proudly described ‘our dear little Child’ in her journal:

She gets daily prettier, & is so "éveillé" [alert] for her age. I hope & think she will be like her beloved Father. She has large, bright, dark blue eyes, a nice little nose & mouth, a very good complexion, with a little colour in her cheeks, very unusual, for so young a Baby.

Lithograph of Victoria, Princess Royal with her parents Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. Published by William Spooner c.1840. (British Museum)

The doting parents micromanaged every aspect of baby Vicky’s infant life. Prince Albert wrote long memoranda outlining how the nursery should be run - the Princess was not to be left alone, she couldn’t be shown to anyone or taken out of the nursery without the express permission of her parents, and the nurses had to consult either the Queen or Prince Albert before they acted on the doctor’s orders. Prince Albert even slept with the key to the nursery under his pillow.

The baby Princess was christened in the Throne Room at Buckingham Palace on the 9th of February 1841, her parent’s first wedding anniversary. She was given the names “Victoria Adelaide Mary Louisa” after her mother, both grandmothers, and Queen Victoria’s aunt, the Dowager Queen Adelaide. Victoria recorded the day in her journal:

Today it is a year, that I have been blessed by becoming the wife of my beloved Albert. What perfect happiness I have enjoyed since then! & how I pray it may continue. This anniversary must ever be the most precious one in my life. — Albert gave me a little brooch representing a cradle with the Child in it, — the quaintest thing I ever saw & so pretty. 

[... I] Dressed in a white ribbed silk gown, trimmed with my wedding lace, with my diamond Diadem, necklace of Turkish diamonds, & Albert's beautiful sapphire & diamond brooch. He was in his Field Marshal's uniform with high boots, & looked so handsome. We went into the Green Drawingroom & received all the Company. When all had arrived, the Archbishops of Canterbury & York, the Bishops of London & Norwich, & the Dean of Carlisle (as Vicar of the Parish in which our child was born) went into the Throne Room, which was very handsomely filled up as a Chapel. We 2, with our suite, went in soon after we then sent for the Child who looked very dear in a white Honiton point lace robe & mantle, over white satin. [...] The Archbishop of Canterbury christened the Baby from the new Font, & with water from the river Jordan, sent by Dr Browning for the purpose. The names the child was given were: Victoria, Adelaide, Mary Louisa. She was wide awake & never cried, though the Archbishop held her most uncomfortably. My sincere & fervent Prayers were offered up for our dear Child. [...]  Albert a I agreed that all had gone off beautifully & in a very dignified manner.

Albert wrote proudly that his daughter was:

awake, but did not cry at all, and seemed to crow with immense satisfaction at the sights and brilliant uniforms, for she is very intelligent and observing.

Princess Victoria’s christening as painted by Charles Robert Leslie c. 1841-2. Adelaide, the Queen Dowager, whom the Princess was named after, steps forward to name the baby. (Royal Collection)

Albert had designed his daughter’s christening font himself (silver gilt with cherubs and waterlilies to represent purity and new life), and he composed a chorale for the banquet held that evening in the princess’ honour. The centerpiece of the grand occasion was a tiered christening cake topped with an edible sugar figure of Britannia holding a tiny sugar Vicky. Lady Sarah Lyttleton (who was later appointed governess to the royal children) was among the attendees. In a letter to her daughter, Lady Lyttleton described her impression of the baby princess:

She is a fine, fat, firm, fair, royal-looking baby, sitting bolt upright, and too absurdly like the Queen; grave, calm, and penetrating in her look, most gentle and sweet-tempered. She wore a very plain white pelisse of muslin, and a droll little Quaker-shaped straw bonnet; no bows or bustle about her, and she surveyed us all most composedly for a minute. She was shewn at her carriage-window to all the standers-by, and it was amusing to us who followed to see the universal grin left upon all faces after their look at her. She will soon have seen every pair of teeth in the kingdom. They say she laughs, crows, and kicks very heartily, and the Prince tosses her often. 

Although both of her parents had initially felt disappointed that Vicky was not the son and heir they had hoped for, they had quickly became besotted. Albert in particular doted upon his baby daughter and the pair remained close throughout their lives. 'Our young lady flourishes exceedingly,’ wrote Queen Victoria to her uncle Leopold when the princess was six weeks old:

I think you would be amused to see Albert dancing with her in his arms; he makes such a capital nurse (which I do not, and she is much too heavy for me to carry), and she already seems so happy to go to him.

There is a popular myth that Queen Victoria hated her own children, largely inspired by a series of letters she wrote to Vicky in the 1850s and 60s after Vicky had married and was beginning to have children of her own. Victoria, who had by this stage had given birth to nine children (and likely suffered postpartum depression after some of the births), wrote that being pregnant made her feel ‘like a cow or a dog’ and that she disliked very little babies:

I have no tendre [fondness] for them until they become a little human; an ugly baby is a very nasty object - and the prettiest is frightful when undressed - till about four months; in short as long as they have their big bodies and little limbs and that terrible frog-like action. 

But sensational articles like “Queen Victoria hated her children, say academics” (Telegraph, 2012) and “Queen Victoria adored Prince Albert so much it made her loath her nine children” (Mirror, 2016) do not tell the whole story. Queen Victoria had a whole host of complex feelings about motherhood, including a deep and sincere love for her children. In another letter to Vicky, she reminisced fondly about her daughter’s babyhood:

[...] though I hated the thought having children and have no adoration for very little babies, (particularly not in their baths till they are past 3 or 4 months, when they really become very lovely) still I know what a fuss and piece of work was made of you [...] I used to have you in my dressing room - while I dressed for dinner, dancing on Mrs Pegley’s [the nurse] knees - till you got so lively that you did not sleep at night. All that was very foolish, and I warn you against it - but one is very foolish with one’s first child.

Miniature of the Princess Royal as an angel by Sir William Ross, signed and dated 1841. Prince Albert had this miniature copied and made into an enamel brooch set with sapphires, rubies, emeralds, diamonds and topazes which he gave to his wife that year for Christmas. Victoria was ‘delighted’. (Royal Collection)

Further Reading:

Queen Victoria’s letters and journals

An Uncommon Woman: The Empress Frederick by Hannah Pakula

Queen Victoria’s Children by John van der Kiste

Victoria the Queen by Julia Baird