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libidomechanica · 1 year

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Untitled Poem # 10344

A curtal sonnet sequence

At kirk, or at larger was Johnny and of Hate; for thy sweet love, that dewly adayes counts me a flirting glanced athwart the night, that I were dead! And should gae mad, o whistle, and God no Grace: not Bull-fac’d Jonas, who can love not,—and yet the same, as river-water hallowed fire, and the Book of Martyrs now drinking of the Plot they might had taught the State; turn’d the stars, Love, your body so young Damon guessed by the water-fall.

And Kings and the bottom shelf, behind the typing of soft misnomers, so divine that Shimei was all the cold, calm kiss of a virgin’s blossoms. So not enuie Aristotless Surface before, therefore she replies, dry as they burr, burr, burr, as loud access of shriek’d, or let him give on till he is watch’d six or seven, and beauty charm’d into all thee to his Throne under then I knew that I am drawn to thee, fa la la.

III

Of paved heaven, either love, our desire. She look’d about her hearts held up saying in slow circles. If ancient Honour mouth and it and Johnny burrs, and spat in those very pore with heavens Annointed dar’d to see him—for he wakes up and scandal share, fresh younglings, run their Master’s charms, I clasp my counterpart,. Your mind spill their tender as a punk; chaste were pools that done, the motion and is part, resigned his should’st depart!

Poor Betty fifty yards were gathere’d to declaim against themselues we carue, and love. The womb all alloted, soon or late; love, if it’s me first Impress but uncurrent out of all Compexions some few thou didst recite thee, thy sacred things … and is part, say, what we can jest, sang Sir Lancelot. From the trains. In ecstasy the herd of such, so not enuie Aristotless with a dribbed shot, loue it self, but is not quite away.

My trembling, while perpetual day so double gilds the margents, which she to spoil are mingled in his hands they join, joints dovetailed on the fridge, pheasant, Slavic and death. He said, My name is Love. If you must go, since libertie is gone, I think to ’stablish dangerous Consequence: for Gods, and touch our poor little day, your loves, her life or limb—oh God forbid! The kind love it more sweet heaven’s gate; and Self-defence his Son, for plight.

Well knew the means bereft, he left and least; yet in her e’e. For in your beauty as you may see, and in Julia’s bed, and self- ingrain’d from Shalott. Whose extended Wand divides the ethereal statues. Ladies, like joy in memory of Civil Wars. To-morrow speak, ev’n with that held the Rabble word that sparkling spire; and bonie Mary. Chance is Natures Eldest Hope, with ev’ry granted prayers to the Jews well I may.

VII

Since in the water chill so that was it? Where thou lookest with woe, vpon so fayre a morow? There his Curst. But soone it and State: the Prophets Sons before eleven. Till she heart or brow,—strong Arm—and open Hand. The rain falls cool as I; but if flames which one Sheaf did bind, blown off and scatter’d loving follow’d in this resuming Cov’nant was forst from serving thro’ me? Farewell love any, so she begins his own world. The buried.

VIII

Came two young and faded face, an ever rue. From the Troop a Sháhzemán, by Name and clean as is the likeness I can say more the mirror crack’d from thinking. I never the daily sight. Whether his scythe can make, what needs twenty Years in snow: seas shall we hate. The Frown, commit a pleasure safe from my loue to euery one, nor tame wild! I’m going’; lit a taper, bowed her far the bush, listening now in sunshine breakfast. Eyes were.

Give me the cleft behind Thee! There is all a matter what or whose Loyns you are all but Luther. A pearl tiara, and clasping and while the Sum of righteous David spoke: with awfull Lord. Pursue it, stand helplessly before my long siege to be! Sang Sir Lancelot. Profess in thee I lay; if on another Sun to Heaven with its merchandize; I barter curl for curl for curl upon a sad quandary; and inward glide.

All love and Fancy leads, o’er the rivers to the morning’s dewy star; in crystal mirror, tirra lirra: ’ robin comes to blast the Polititians neither at once, and runs by where I unswear, and from its towers, be’t in heavens. Surely when we walk you are, shining fair, ah, braid no more rustling. She only said, I am aweary, I would not loue which once for Worship and fool are two hard to Conclusion. Oh me!

As all thee down to him, and take from Camelot: or where all the Rascall Rabble her look was like these thou didst come—to be, belovëd, I surmise, still, yet with doubts and be kind at once forgot; nor Valiant, who better time devour than languid fool, who nere constancy, here I took the Firmament. To mean Rebell. The garden came a youth; one hand he right, his noble Fame there will die together, we will sure undone.

�� XII

Radio, may never noticed what with a glorious July day with gazing on a star upon thy brow, to languid fool, who nere consented thereupon imagination and mistress still on Menie doat, and the pungent Gouda in thee, let be forecast. Yet it was his Wealth, in her tender feeling out, O! In your upper thigh nearly urinating in a lock without a stone-cast from the eyes may seem a fault?

XIII

Though enjoyed, like joy in memory was full sight his carefull Devil and the Doctor nor his name in her ears, and Johnny is not true. Heaven round them warm until he came with suddain Vengeance terrible to endeavour. The desp’rate game of Godly Faction with stirrup, saddle-leather, the Kiss of Welcome one did joyous love shouldst have lived through the Crouds can wink; and not, or he was there he spies her lute doth for Fear.

XIV

The distant vale; therefore I would toil; and every shape of a swain did appears of listning Crowd will sing thee, and never mind that I can first stranger! Her whom wash’d from Praise. The gen’rous thought to find my Johnny’s near, quoth Betty’s in a child: yet Helene, love, your self I swear that he is a handsome weak one’s advocate, the Nation, frozen in private Right to all his Brains wear robin’s lost in jest, we know my heart that I mean.

Those high that was his team, wi’ joy the rest; for Faction while we may his vain to Mire. These Ills the heart, and they what right the pin; and both his life’s small but loue she significance yet, sadness near ally’d; and trouble deaf heaven that she with loue indeed, where have her way; nor asks of hearts: then with a steady Writing; for perchance, except where so I won’t, but know inside of our buried. A little months’ time, all you have done.

XVI

Here in the more I trust th’ event; for Factious Friends let it speak? Oh! And went singing sky of May, and beauties reddest inke Venus for his horse forsook, to hunt the Mind like one of the Soul of thy sweet but vnfelt ioys, exild for ever rue. And in hand, like to a tree. Now, now she’s happy spots the promised length must full force my hand and growing and Take when your war of mocking hearts that harvest. She only said, Alas!

XVII

But pass as the clock than living from the breath; and thinking to praise the cradle, where she daines her sleeping close doth for ever in his good as we pass, you take off my bracelet made tongue’s tune delight. I’ll bring thee to them with her bones: mought ne gang on her thou which the ground-worms riot. Of hospitable Soul that’s in the milk, in this unblest, knight, minstrel, abbot, squire, and I do equally, inevitably ridiculous.

XVIII

And I defaced. I cannot hold the red cheeks o’ bonie blue, the most true to them warm until I get a nod. Universal sound which sounds with numbers he takes the Fleece accompanions be, those sacred beauty with fair acceptance, sir, create; or melt him to obey, even Death repenting Jews: wHose fellow-feeling skill, I paint it. That I were dead! Fly, fly, my dear Perilla, I will pretend; asham’d to owe it Alas!

XIX

Wipe Thou the Wound: they led them when they could he been to secure. Our only born for life. To make me love letters without a friends the world’s wealth, in her breast, and the rarities of nature, tolerant enchanted loudly and what we are done forever; thy baited hooks shall first Rank of the trees borne away: but here under that we could be more a wit than wit. Pushing so close; by their gifts too lavishly are play he trye?

And Peace the unnamed it leads too painful an end: and thighs so close. In distress of going away. Rather than wit. Shall a heauenly Grace and all our sweet is even love to bus’ness, since lingering so close. Even in vain; like Phœbus sung the feast, th’ Offending quest,—who cares? Just like the muses! Kind. And knowing loue, my lad, tho’ father an’ mother’s vow they will not make your eyes best a contraries imploy, with buds and gums.

XXI

This head is not to forgive the Kindred legions Waste, beyond the pale stars he takes on the coming of the place on my frailties why are your bonie Mary. Why are your faces—an earth crumbles away like bloody crusades, knew they lie upon her tolerant enchanted slope in their tongues were before slept quiet to my vow, and benefit of Fate, the Eye would come to ye, my lad, o whistle, an’ I’ll come to ye, my lad.

XXII

His lowly mind now of him, if he is hurt in life and look on Simo’s mate, no ass so meek, no ass so meek, no ass so obstinate: or her, who lost, Love, your lips, which if I should whet my memory of Civil Wars. And Moses, which service, Julia, I must read the promise to suffer more. Anthea, Herrick dies, close thought of love’s chorus led by Cupid; and kissing thy worst all men adore, and rashly judge a Cause?

XXIII

Turning sun has not freely stir all parts fulfill’d t’ engage all time slows down it goes again. And four gray walls, and, Julia, thogh faire mindes resort. Who spin a yarn about Shalott. Her fading and fading eyes that was a paradox becomes you: and younglings, handsome wee thing replete with the river. Imparts not the carefull Breathless arm; time and found his own vision holds her Locks before the hot bloody torment you?

XXIV

I look’d down to all beauty’s rude disdain. Belovëd, I surmise, still, yet still doth thine my heart, his vigorous was thinking leaves to importune to swim naked swayne, with velvet moss uprose; and as soon eclipsed as bright, some Circumstances find: I by the ends of Being and kissin’ Theniel Menzies’ bonie Mary. In generall tearmes, to protected by her love, and yet am buried. These are orphans are to be!

XXV

The last of all humanity,—while thou die before slept quiet to my head, on that she hates and Place; it wants, to playe, a shadow there such harm on her breake; loue did smart; I saw the warm excesses, the river know the thicke, as it he can be wise man she been contemn; but Manly temperate heat spreads her head? It’s a warm room, the pony too: why stand still be sandless; fields of rest: blends, in the hedge to boast of all we feed?

XXVI

It is the Witnesses will pose within my books say, is weak. Of robins, but will, and in hand while thilke god that I were dead! I see a single think about themselues to Tantals smart, wealth or pleasure can never and paid a trades the baite of worldly pleasure, measure safe is your heart and my only chance is past, your hands, to overthrow. As what do still the mouse behind the holy collection holds up Prosperity.

XXVII

Charlie, he’s my darling and far more than Phoebus, if even we, even Death shall together, fierce things are but praise. Me, and the people which it doth sing, my thought to get a part of my beloved of the blue eyes may go unto his house by thee shall your Lamps with his hands, to overcome all past and these; who pul’d before my long delays her various successive Title, Long, and do is eloquence and to their own.

XXVIII

The sparkling spark, sighs for to weare, nor do aspire to Cæsars bleeding, for long cupped in lilies, as reader!—All about to learning for a nobler yet in his grave. Who order’d, that only cross’d the Body, recreate Ideas in the meadows safe from pain. With truth or a something to have come as ye were Gods were na looking backward with equal grace! When she obeys; let fops or forty days of Fasting resides.

XXIX

How is it that I may, in clear as crystal mirror, tirra lirra: ’ they meant by the better her side: and David’s mildness by that terror likewise prove, love thee dear, could Plots, true old Enthusiastick breed; gainst your beauty passeth sone as floures fayre. But we were pools that shine that Shimei taught the peasant, woodcock, of which chokes and bear the Devil and Jebusites; and Pharaoh’s Pentioners: whom, when I knew that where the wrong.

XXX

I dreamed of soul, as earthwards journey take. The other Israel’s monarch, after God’s own predicament will bid somebody die? Dip in the night’s start with bright, have cost my trembling lyre already how am I sick of shame? That new regen’rate in air: so waste garden came across the sun will have Right, for Sums of new light glow’d; on burnish’d occasion gives, but deep enough fowl now betwixt sighes of wounds, distinguish Friend!

XXXI

And Nobler is a lo’esome wee thing to foresee, make Heirs for to lie and horns, and God their glens, on starry clusters brightness duty, all this Numerous train: from thy fingers reaching when her e’re. And nothing that, and the boy who only men incredulous of desier; stellas selfe the same? Now, now she’s happy love, nor taste of the blasted Pine, to the courtly Nymphes, acquaintance be. Short is his innocent warmth to shame.

XXXII

And pain assuaged, and horns, and no offence. Him Staggering day. In two days it will not come, for all the air; i’ll see the Wall, thus from Yugoslavia somewhere, somewhere stands: not Pallas: Hebe shamed! His warm, the snow on this our time to lose with gazing fed; and kissing, and Heav’n has told; and, thy worst, old Time: despite his best all other Country of Christless force, beneath thy beautie’s wonne: yet firme love letters are ridiculous.

XXXIII

Stiff in Opinions, always running Power unpleas’d with velvet moss uprose; and sculk’d behind the Laws. We mortal height, comes love like an angel pure ablution round and kissed and waking still, yet we will I die; I though her, but ambergris and gums. All men could ne’er so sure our path for rhymes to blast the Goal of Honour, and mute than man was given his Treasured motions of life: thus, thou fleets, and watching grace, viewing, rueing love.

XXXIV

But ere I could be sure what parts that air that labour to confesse O noble Fame there is she, where it lies. A day of welcome he shouts of Joy salute him from whose lines that others’ seeing, I leuelde against his starving hopes, urg’d with odours, mirrhe, gum, aloes, frankincense the seasons as thou hast betray my nobler part had drunk in their Brutal Rage; the Pillars of the vain desire to be eddying at their seed attend.

XXXV

Poor Susan’s side, a wound, and in the new way. When the breath’d Witnessed the heau’nly eye; there’s nothing? A vigil or dreaming heavens Decree; which, therefore splenetic, personal, base, a woodman in his faulding slow steps backward with a great Atossa’s mind? This fair guests dropped on the dust; we are not speakes senses fail, this resuming Cov’nant was deemed as thou which erst from the dews were steadfast, still on Menie doat, and the Disease.

XXXVI

Which would make any guilty hand! Of such, so not eares, but come, she said; but speach, alas, the rest of men, and in me do flowe! She saw through green meadows low. In this the Best. And hope; while to shore, so do our mind that seems the lawn, the bonie Mary, charlie, he’s my darling, the kind love is in her face but left his darling, and stirrup fiddle-faddle; but none, and look on thee— behold, he flies. Whose shape of your warm younger hear.

XXXVII

Mounts and we have borne? Of this day, which oft, with poets through the Mass, unchew’d and small, so these fingers show. Yet, Corah, though now my wit, and wishing maid in a country within a mighty beauty all we thy lasing power; ah yes, and spring, but not enamoured of endurance; change by this shot himself to an unwonted calm pervades his laureat head, and talks of common than the lies turning speak, ev’n with him there!

XXXVIII

For humane Good old Cause reviv’d, a Plot require, and seen; for it no form delivers to be told, or hidden: which? In the lamp of a face in from my head, taking a cockney ear. In the King, and God- filled, it is greeting; oh me! The place with so much ease, in middle of the Thespian spring, and he right hand and kissin’ Theniel’s bonie, blooming from the trees, and thy Flock the year to thy everlasting residence.

XXXIX

The night, minstrel, abbot, squire, let Law they were made one foolish heart which makes no store and scandal of old friend, himself employ, with spongy hydroptic Dutch shall make us sad next morning dew, and doth include those scarlet Iudges, thretning bloudie paine. Even such band, the web and floated with becoming bloated stomach, mound, kneebone, and no wind blowing in my cell of succulents, staked by a Brother rites that seem something up.

Were closed eyes to seem to look upon you, you must have my body mine only, you grew up with mortal mixture breed. Which, though she giue but their own weight of the gentle rain, with publick Love; to Head the Faith-preserve the loser in the hole—The little hands they know. Of heaven looks against your will, I am to see, like the Optick Nerve, I wound them gentle wind drove Confusion changeable to the House of the dewy hill.

XLI

When I touched its strings of anger and bade me tie her sharply stopped: the Godless, but do not know my wit, and stane; and the typing of the living and turn an arm of fire so I won’t, but know inside your Father did the ghost since herself, but is not eternal, nor time again, and slake the hallowed into the womb all alone can hit em right: from the torrent dance together. The best to think that tongues could not free our heart.

XLII

Bee, round earth’s human shoots with him Return’d. Oh Thou, who lost, Love, the wiry concord that makes mine eye untrue. Not at the better poet. Trust me, while he might persuade myself an evil stroke of twelve, and Betty, and noble line, rich inheritance of a pleasing fame; nor ought to lisp thy Name: short is his innocence and day break thus far brought the Storms; but the wide worldly pleased to do there randome bold seer in a hurry.

XLIII

Thus from Michelangelo, hands from Yugoslavia somewhere the same? I have been a long have loved each other men forsake the Welkin cleareth. By thy father at once they repent and look for recompense from the Triple Bond he brink she hurries fast, th’ Offenders vain Pretence aside. And with favour or deformed’st creature of Nature’s genial season why such as enables man to arise in my mind!

XLIV

By garden of the Kings can make them a single continuing in complices, they left not Faction wait,—haste, matured, you grew up with my favorite vow. Auspicious Prince: the while he mighty Soul its Grief contains; he meditates delay. Swear it no form delivers to be here hast thy show, is to a weak Woman; nor Liberty; but far than empires, and no less heavy Load, who hath left her mouth a nervous twitch.

XLV

And the fancy bred, or in the sex, as children: saying, Accept all her the pain with headlong forces, weak forces, weak forces. In blood. For what I must ride, and sorely puzzle all the Revenge shall I never noticed you would never noticed you would spie, nor giue each may stand you fall from other turn: gull’d with transparent might refine, nor Crowds, with rein? He shows the pony, where the shoreless as if nothing words, per day.

XLVI

By autumn mild; when my state, like to the Evil Doer, thy sharp repulse, that equal transpires at every doore, lady of Shalott. Today when we walk you are my right away: but hospitable treats did most commend wise Issachar, his kind, E’r one to one way Love drifts into shall the air; i’ll see the wrists I catch: for in their Consent: without what we think of you, if he cannot move rage from me, whose shape of your eyes?

XLVII

For sure he comes the pale stars, and wild warbling birds in bush and glitters but grows stubborn Israel, free from my ear forgot how tender; and you made with me, I cast the Frown, commit a pleasure lent, and, tis my wish, the new soft is Silia! And the cradle wants. So make a broken purpose, artful to offence. Wit can both purgation and he sees him as a Guardian Fire: the Peoples Prayer, or shape, which the fumes of Wine.

XLVIII

Of hands. And with seeing, I leuelde again, across the winter chill so that Golden fruit there: for Lawfull fear his Train their duty, all th’ Haranguers of the day with how few Tears a Pardon’d Rebels, Kinsmen to the tears and the porch … year after point of love, hearing of peace with Susan’s grown, from whose face household the barren of leaves the Blood, the pleasure sees the luminous air of cold and stane; and not blamed shall we feed?

XLIX

She, Mither, quo she, do whate’er shall be true to the Mind growes weary, aweary, I would have you beare onward from dull and down to Camelot; the Faith-preserve my years so tenderness with stars he then worms shall be two loving head upon her tender feeling burn, wi’ Chloris is gone, how can I do? Hell brake out of season was overhead came to all new techniques for me, and in Treason why sullen clouds and Slaves.

Close by a poplar fell upon her belly, buttocks, and drink, loue there, as sure as the sun, follows like the earth is heard, one universal sound: all were the hole—The little God I heard by the Multitude; wise Head—clean Heart’s content to send this Advice above, and sighing and kisses o’er: so, several string, except it’s hardly stew a child! The soul when hot for me to his name in her eyes endured, i’ll bring to requires.

And, if God choose, infers a Right in all Compexions some Expedients with undaunted. There the death-bed over, and Johnny! And water warmed life’s mysterious store: the white birch, glinting in the Waves went then, his Train the hallowed fire, where they share, that echoes rang, amang the hallowed into eyes, I all along. To light, or with better looke, lest unawares I in an hundred years she never found, when lofty shine so cold.

LII

And pleasure stands they steps into the rush and blood, like the e’enin sun. Charlie, he’s my darling, the young Chevalier. Beauty, your iris tight again! Her belly, buttocks, and Pray; the City’s voice calling me to stay, as you and slept with Vulgar Spright, some beautie can be wise and I fly in thy curious frame,—senses in small, in dale, or a Tory, or Phant’sie scan, airport invited to allot each is at a work divine.

LIII

To tempt Gods Providence so few red fish moving in her brow. But if horror cannot slake flames best delightingales divine. No passions as the dews at even; her tolerant enchanted slope in their tardy ages; this till now had lasted. I’ll begin it Ding, dong, bell. She has all rubs should burst and blinded of that are the ground. Yawning Day, in everlasting mark the first began, I wak’d, she flies. Our hidden: which?

LIV

Change my selfe to seek to tell thy lasing power; ah yes, and fatal mercy more. For idleness to reveal to one most affecting Fame, too full of Angells Metal in his hand he struck not Absál out of heauenly fier, stellas lawes of duetie to describe, unless this golden bars, ended in the Garden of this pow’r again the coming grief and cannot move for joy the tear comes it that I chaunst to fall and of your mind.

An olive, capers, or smallpox, above thee blushing over season of the Laws should toil; and even such a pure unstained prime. So when Hells dire Artificers of these fingers reaching near; and I have, or to Rule, for good woman! Each heart, everywhere? And haunt thatch upon the mouing of them. And dumb presaging Damon loves a woman’s sure as her head, and defraud the whole day in the hour their sighing and ideal Grace.

LVI

But, whenever look be lost. His passion curs’d, the never noticed anything but you but you but once filled up, as vainly as before all women, calling. Not know not Him—become not Thou the Wolf, not for me may moue you, time and me, is a pure moment gains upon her in his own: but charms by accepting, by sun. Divides the chains of roses glow! He is contented to violence, nor bless youth could be sure to death.

LVII

The other names, and all Breast, to feel that all memory, miraculously great, which we Right, all naked of Friends he had kept a vigil or dreams, and here an occasion to create mischief in familiar ease repeat. The Bad, turn’d the Soul that’s out of her stand, a shaft in earnest snatched away, but finds too painfull deed; and even such band, doe you delight. Alley cats expended by the bowl you made a face againe.

LVIII

But no one sigh this unholy band some let Scorn secure beneath the summers’ pride, the Devil is still outran the skies. He shouting to circumvented since her depart. All freshly steep, where nature, pleading clown puff his graven on its hinges! You take of my miserie! Be filled with a rancorous cry, the bane of altering on the morn in floods of tears does Betty Foy? And seem reall, though she giue but the lassie, kind love.

LIX

And fitted Israel’s Crown without my Lover with wondrous sweet love, tender parents’ simple as that we mean, we must to David’s mildness by their story the fresh fortune fly which alters not yet in the ground. And took my eyes did silent picture, or in the old Ways, that never out of sight, and friend: to hear my silent grow, and with shadow-like to the free, he stops talking up the blooming, an upturned ere longer Just.

Will your roabes did equal grace within; desire of rest, where he Paus’d; then I’ll blythely bear it? Thus, with renown, with other self of what Occasion to my mind up to all the red-ribb’d hollows next, a double Danger, when they are sweare he cannot Praise. Pleasure, and dropping with us, your bonie she, and crocuses, and blind below their control; yet who knows not why, ador’d their Care express, still faire, honord by might?

LXI

Strong Bands, in expectation, and as he rode, leave undone.—He couldn’t sleep I dreamed of soul may come you so too; to keep their wills counterpart shall no more, to any though not in the Pack; tho not one time, oh could wildly and while they could be more rich inheritance of him, than breast, that I may cease to be destroys: and once filled up, as vainly as before, the green and purple seaweeds stolne from the fields, and smell may live with leaves.

LXII

England is laid in our breast and a memories, crowne, the Devil and the future Truth reverend pitcher I will prevail: and pity never hear. His head, my loue, is grown, yet had tasted of Love’s old time restore the grave sir, both the Harvest of all her eyes by the madness is in New York and shiver to shake then death and all th’ Haranguers of Death repent, and he as I, when the oxen’s loose Carriers his tree.

LXIII

And ev’ry life is dreary, he cometh not, she says, and your meat; and Paradise was of a kind of ghost. How do we come to playe, I cast then is left ear folds into itself divine by defect, and forest’s maze; the never satisfi’d with oyle of burning the shine, with softness, staring wind and kissin’ Theniel’s bonie Mary, theniel Menzies’ bonie Mary, charlie Grigor tint his Place, was call’d to spy: her look be lost.

LXIV

When there rises every way. May make him alone. Plump, soft, love doth bow to make tomorrow cheerful as you to me, and crush it under our country wind by a path none ever mind grew worse emotion; yet, if therein more and revive; inspired, devoid of grass; shapeless this realme of blisse fit for the dancing above his hands had made: he takes on the distant vale; there’s scarce, yet to flesh stays no father’s wrath, by all pains!

LXV

An eastern she wrote, to keep Touch warm, and cold Caleb free. The kiss in Colin’s eyes the Malecontent, submit they should, if you as Champion of the How; Giving and regret when Chloe sure when I feel to-day as I have shown to find my mouth— your touch on me, a travell our best remember’d such a transitory tone of one nymph that you are you, time and their duty, not the Bridegroome stayes to encounterpart,.

LXVI

Others I see now, who design, asks no firm hand, and the soul when he was by, would rather an’ a’ shouldst not the wing to each other set, swear it no form delivers to worry him. Trembling, cold, the beautiful as you master now. To make thou hast thou that all Confusion change my selfe might lane she change Foundations, white trillium or viburnum, by all past and good, and not, or he wakes up and awful the moonlight, you love.

LXVII

Twice has Pudica been a countenance— smiling in his rage to live ever—or else could adopt your thoughts my deeds there’s none to their Own. The owlets hoot, the Rain to me in me, more sweet fingers, who would I know, and gave you set him whom you love, and lavender blessed you I say, who gave so fair, ah, braid no thought Kings alone, ankle, touch the head? Thus may you flie from my Petition me t’approve the arias of death.

LXVIII

Being wan and with a Swan. The wiry concordance of a whole sex of queens may as well as White, in all you ever hearts, it is but thus conditionly, this conclude them to your leg between which outweighs argosies,—as purply black, an’ it’s like the fields, and determined, sometimes twould weary grow to hang on a sudden spring, the weight o’clock ticking, and God no Grace: with his God, or King: those high that which way to turn.

LXIX

Catch, ere she cannot move for what are tutors, guardian God; and love is indeed the beloved I lost all her face, and by learning and tumbling, he went back my idiot boy! Their budding shrubs, with wondrous brightness, modesty with as fierce pure life, and left the firths of ice, that beauty with myself grew faint thin fine upon her tender-taken by that one was made him his Royal BLood; what Wonders has Espous’d his Wit.

LXX

Henceforth a Series of life. Not by Extortion, nor Usury wrung from the breeze in your upper thigh nearly glistening belates, haunted soules; come wait on hir whom want betrays, her voice as well known an Oath to do—by that seemed midnight’s he jumped up to you gave so faire mindes resort. Flesh melt this—This is no reasonable, so unmov’d, as in a sad quandary. A human breast. And made one foolish am I to this heart!

LXXI

Well then—speak our mind. Swear, till she heart beating head and with midnight they God’s enemies the green. Over the water sinke; and, never, reach’d upon the shadows of thine eye is in my love, love there all in themselves— and yet must both fair aspect and put the father got him wrongfull pray. Devouring speak, ev’n with shadows of threading, prickly bower, that hath motionless; that is all the think’st by hovering race, it seems, had bribe.

LXXII

Give salutation found, while her mind that all religious Actions cast: a little day, your lost Estate; tho far unable too, yet still likely though enjoyed, like a silence and green Shalott. One year that only hating David, severance ruled! Hob nob, they stand, my mind, thy worth, and that he is driving tomb. His Brother an’ a’ should touch our poor lips, which if I spoke as chords do content to gathering pale before how the thought.

LXXIII

And laying his trade, fools are mine. At his fears that new regen’rate in air; choose ye whether that seemed turned think time is compressed in the fair Salámán and Absál the Faiths Defend their deep desires: the Good or Ill—which the hart: dumbe Swans, not chattering its head and fair and balcony, by garden, flowers fresh graffiti sprayed on her belly, buttocks, and then I seemed midnight pass like one burning the prince of personal.

#poetry #automatically generated text #Patrick Mooney #Markov chains #Markov chain length: 7 #193 texts #curtal sonnet sequence

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theawkwardterrier · 4 years

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An Alliance with an Earl

Here’s one for @lavellenchanted. It’s no Steggy AU of A Song for Summer (although what is?) but maybe Regency Jily will suffice, Sarah...

Read on AO3 here

I am going to have to buy Frank Longbottom a very nice bottle of brandy, Sirius thought to himself as he looked down at the letter in his hand, but what he said casually aloud was, “It seems we’ve been invited to a house party.”

James finished whatever he was scribbling, taking care to sign his name with the full flourish before he looked up. Light from the wonderfully sunny day, the kind they would never have been inside for a mere year ago, caught his spectacles as he did. James had worn a pair from the time he and Sirius first met as boys at Eton, but when light used to flash across them, it paired with the grin he once wore nearly constantly and his foolishly infectious laugh. Now Sirius half expected James to take his glasses off and massage his eyes, the way their old headmaster used to do.

Instead he set down his quill and gestured to the letter in Sirius’s hand. “If it’s any of your cousins, I shall have to respond in the negative. Well, perhaps we should have Lupin draft the letter - he is less likely to phrase it as rudely as either of us might.”

Sirius tossed the letter opener he had been using on the day's post back onto the very edge of James’s stupidly massive mahogany desk and barked out a laugh. “As if any of my cousins would allow me to darken their doorway. No, it’s the Longbottoms - it seems that old Augusta has allowed Frank and Alice use of the country place and they’ve invited us to come for the week after next.”

He tipped his head to the side, slouching further into his chair. He had once only done such things in the parlor of Grimmauld Place, his parents’ London residence, because in their view posture, like wealth and good breeding, was one of those things which mattered and he made a point of not allowing such things to matter to him. But the habit was so ingrained in him now that every time he sat, he tended to perch himself with a leg slung over the chair arm or his back placed on the seat and his head allowed to hang. “Not having access to that all-important family tree of my mother’s, however,” he said, “I really couldn’t promise you that I’m not cousins with either of them somewhere along the way.”

“Aren’t we all? I think between the two of us, we must be related by blood or marriage to half the ton.” James stretched his arms back and above his head, rotating his wrists and making a slight groaning sound. “Not, however, closely related enough to stop plenty of mothers from shoving their most eligible daughters into my path at every turn.”

Sirius nearly responded as he once would have, with a jibe about that sort of thing being unavoidable for such a catch as the future Earl of Gryffindor. Two years ago, however, after the deaths of first his mother and then, weeks later, his father, James actually became the Earl of Gryffindor, and seemed to think nothing in that line of humor at all funny anymore.

Quite a lot had become unfunny to James, actually. Some days, Sirius worried that his friend’s shoulders would simply break from the responsibilities settling there. Oh, James still came out with them in the evenings, still made them laugh and could manage to charm nearly any woman in a given room. But his old self, the one who loved racing on the fastest horse or placing the highest bet, the one who thought duels were daring instead of a measure to be undertaken only under direst circumstance, who snickered with Sirius around the corner after they had placed a tripwire across the school corridor...Sirius suspected that boy to be gone for good. In his place was a nobleman who inherited too early, whose indulgent father had thought to have more time to teach him how to grow into the man he needed to be, and who was now struggling to meet the expected role under the weight of who he had suddenly become.

Which was why, Sirius thought, eyes scanning the invitation from the Longbottoms again, this would be perfect. Balls and parties around London brought with them some degree of diversion if not enjoyment, but also held a reminder of responsibility. A playful lack of interest in marriage had once been the subject of jokes between James and his mother, but finding a wife, having a child, had now become a grim and acute duty. Sirius hoped that this more simple gathering, merely a few friends out in the country air, would allow James some desperately needed socialization with much more limited pressure - not to mention that it would tear him away from the deadly dull work which seemed to pile endlessly upon his desk at Gryffindor House in London and at his estate of Godric’s Hollow.

“Anyway, Longbottom’s always done us a good turn,” Sirius said, forcing a bit of a yawn to keep his manner as informal as possible. James went tense at the littlest things these days, at the merest suggestion that he might lay his duties to the side for just a moment or any hint that Sirius thought he might need to relax. “And Alice is a fine girl from what I remember. It’s only polite for us to join them, since they asked.”

James looked over toward the window, the drapes drawn back to reveal the bright, busy Mayfair street outside. The sunlight caught the lenses of his glasses again so Sirius couldn’t see his eyes; still, something seemed to grab at his mouth for a moment and twist it in pain. But the next second, he was turning back to Sirius looking like himself again, or at least like this new self. He picked up his quill once more and said, “You know that I am only ever polite.”

It was a lie, or at least Sirius hoped that it was. Either way, however, it was an affirmative response, which was exactly what he had hoped for.

“I’ll inform the Longbottoms, then,” he said, still maintaining his nonchalance. “My handwriting has always been better.”

This was true, but he mostly said it because being bested at something always made James a bit disgruntled and this time was no different. Without looking up from whatever document he was currently taking careful notes upon, he crushed a piece of paper with his other hand and tossed it toward Sirius’s head.

So there is something of you left after all, Sirius thought with relief as he caught the crumpled ball. Let us hope that some time in the country is enough to bring you out again.

Having known Alice since her own first season four years previous, Lily was quite familiar with her friend’s sweet, detail-oriented, and slightly nervous personality. She had received numerous letters in the weeks leading up to the house party filled with particulars of the menu, questions regarding the ideal number of guests, or worries that there would not be sufficient entertainment, and had tried to send back her reassurances that Alice’s first instance of hosting such an affair would surely be a resounding success.

Yet, as her carriage came to a halt on the wide drive in front of the house, she was unsurprised to see Alice wriggling a bit and twisting her hands as she stood with her husband’s arm over her shoulder.

She alighted from the carriage and went over to greet them, trying to infuse a bit of levity into the way she said “my lady” to Alice, though it didn’t seem to work. Alice linked her arm with Lily’s under the premise of leading her into the house and whispered, high and trembling, “Frank’s mother insisted on joining us and bringing friends of hers, which has my numbers entirely off, and you know what Lady Longbottom is like besides.”

“You are Lady Longbottom as well,” Lily reminded her, but before she could say something else bracing, she saw, striding across the grounds with Sirius Black at his heels, another person who would apparently - and unfortunately - be joining them.

She successfully avoided him over the next several days, making certain to keep at least five people between them even when they were in company. The odd thing was, however, that he didn’t seem to notice her very much at all. No, that wasn’t right. He clearly noticed her, his chin dipping in recognition if their eyes happened to meet across a room, but he did not pursue her in the way he once had.

He did not, in fact, act similarly to the way she remembered in general: his remarks, when he made them, were astute and his sense of humor not at all mean-spirited, he tended to spend most of his time at the edges of the room rather than the center of it, and every time there was dancing he took at least one turn with Hestia Jones, who everyone know was very nearly on the shelf. The whole thing was the slightest bit confusing, though, Lily reminded herself, it was a perfect relief not to be approached. Their paths had crossed less in the past two years or so, but she remembered sharply their prior interactions.

On the day before they were to return to London, the gentlemen were called to a hunt while the ladies attended to their correspondence. Lily had just finished and sealed a letter to some distant cousins in Sussex when the footman brought the morning's post. It did feel a bit Sisyphean, finishing the last of your responses only to have more required, but Lily was certain that none of it would be for her; Alice had invited most of their close friends, after all, and Lily's family was not large.

However: "Oh, here is one for you, Lily," Mary said, picking it up from the tray and passing it over. "From your sister."

Lily swallowed. "How lucky." She stood, tucking the letter in her pocket with fingers that fumbled despite her best efforts. "Do you know, it looks as if it might begin to rain this afternoon. I would like an opportunity to spend some time out of doors before the weather turns. Would anyone like to join me for a walk through the gardens?"

Though Alice looked as if only her duties as hostess kept her inside, the mention of a potential storm made the rest of the group demur, as Lily knew that it would. Within five minutes, she had her cloak on and was making her way alone into Lady Longbottom's lush and splendid garden. She walked until she found a small seat to perch upon and, after taking in a few deep gulps of the air (it seemed that she had not been wrong: there was a tinge of moist heaviness to it that spoke of an oncoming storm) forced herself to open the letter.

She read it through once, then a second time to see if she had misunderstood. She had not. She wanted to cry.

In person or in writing, Petunia never said anything that Lily wanted to hear. They had been friends of a sort when they were small, but Lily had long since given up on her sister understanding her or even loving her despite not doing so, and she no longer sought her approval. If they could have stuck to basic pleasantries or the dutiful exchange of sentiments, that would be one thing, but in the last year, Petunia had turned nasty, and this latest letter...

"Da-Deuce it," Lily said aloud, leaning over to scoop a handful of pebbles from the ground. She pitched one toward the bushes, then threw the next one harder when it seemed not to alleviate any of her upset. Even that did nothing; she flung the full handful. "Damn it!" she shouted, disregarding all propriety, then placed her palms over her eyes, pressing down as if surrounding herself with darkness might help.

"Lily? Er-My apologies. Miss Evans, are you quite well?"

Her hands flew from her eyes. Standing before her, uncomfortable but certainly there, was the Earl of Gryffindor.

The first time he saw Lily Evans, James Potter was standing on the balcony of Lady McGonagall's home with Sirius and Peter. They had left Remus below distracting their hostess; she had been widowed several times longer than she had been married, but it seemed to suit her well and she ruled every occasion hosted at her home, and in the ton generally, with an iron fist.

"She's quite fine," Peter had said, jabbing a finger toward a lady in a pink gown who was being helped from a recently arrived carriage.

"Too fine for the likes of you, Pettigrew," Sirius said carelessly, though James did not get the sense that he was joking. Peter forced a laugh anyway.

"There's plenty of girls here tonight for all of us," James responded, scanning over the street. Most people seemed to have already arrived. "With the season just starting, no one's begged off for the evening or tired of each other's company yet."

Sirius snorted. "That's your opinion. I believe I tired of the company of most everyone here before I was past my dear father's knee."

"Well, there's always—" James started, but did not even complete his thought, much less his sentence. Instead he said blankly, "Her," leaning forward a bit over the rail as if this would help him take in each detail of the new girl who had just stepped from her carriage. She was followed by a slightly older girl wearing a most unattractive expression and a woman he would guess was her mother, but James did not pay them even a moment's mind. His mouth had slackened as he studied her hair - it looked dark from this height and in the barely lit street, though not dark enough to be brown - as he imagined her eyes, and took in each nuance of her expression, excited and just a bit forward, her shoulders thrown back as she stepped toward the party.

By the time James got downstairs and escaped a lecture about etiquette from Lady McGonagall, her dance card was full, but he at least found out her name. The next day, armed with the largest bouquet from the most expensive florist in the city, he stopped at the house that she, her mother, and her sister were renting for the season. There were several other gentlemen in the room already as he was announced, but he paid them no mind as he walked over to her, knelt, and said, "Miss Evans, I would like nothing more than if you would agree to become my wife."

Later, his father would berate him for this, for going about it without asking permission, for being too hasty, introducing himself and proposing marriage in the same breath. But he knew that this would not have made the difference. Because there was a look in her eye, as if she had been expecting this and had prepared her answer, when Lily Evans said, quite coolly, "No, thank you, my lord."

And now here she was, sitting in the garden before him, looking far less collected than she had that day. She had lost the aspect of the ingenue - she was near his age, making her at least two and twenty - though she was no less lovely for it. The deep red of her hair, the arresting green of her clear eyes, were familiar to him by now, though he did not typically see those eyes looking so startled.

“My apologies, Lord Gryffindor. I had thought you had joined the other gentlemen.” She hastily made as if to stand and curtsy, but he gestured at her to keep her seat.

“I had some business which necessitated my return to the house,” he said, trying to hold himself straight, the way his father would have done, but it did not work. He shrugged his shoulders, sagging a bit back to himself. “Well, that is not the truth of it. It is what I said when I begged off, but to be frank with you, I wanted a moment with my thoughts. And they were planning on shooting deer besides, something I have never quite been able to stomach. The Potter crest features both a doe and a stag, you know, and the deer are truly beautiful when they run - it always seems such a terrible thing to do, killing them.”

Fool, he thought despairingly, refusing to allow himself to collapse with his face in his hands. The first time you have spoken with her in years and you come off as a blibbering fool who is unmanned by the thought of a hunt. Not to mention using her given name - even if it is how you address her in your head.

But, strangely, instead of regarding him with even her usual disdain, she was watching him with a slight smile: the first, he thought, she had ever directed toward him.

“Do you refrain from eating venison then, my lord, in honor of your family crest, and the sight of the deer running?”

The lightly teasing sound of it, as if they were any sort of friends at all, made him grin far wider than the comment meritted. “I’m afraid that by the time I find myself at table, my stomach does not have such high minded ideals.”

She actually laughed now, and it made him comfortable enough to gesture to the place beside her. “May I sit?”

“Oh, of course.” She glanced over and saw her letter still there, crushed at the edge, and snatched it up. All traces of laughter left her face as suddenly as they had come.

“Have you received bad news from home?” he asked as carefully as he could, seating himself a decent distance from her, even on the small bench. “I know that you have a sister - is something amiss with her?”

Her mouth pinched inward, though not, he thought, as if his question had angered her. She swallowed and then said, “I would not say that something is amiss with her, no, though she certainly seems to think something is amiss with me. Or, I suppose, she thinks that I am still too much a miss.”

“I’m sorry?”

“As am I.” Her laugh now held no lightness nor humor, and he valued the true one she had given him all the more for it. She glanced over at him, seeming to examine his face closely; he did not have time to shift his expression, but whatever she found there was apparently correct, for she began, slowly, to speak.

“My mother passed this last autumn and since then I have been living with my sister and her husband, an arrangement which suits none of us. In their view, I should have been long since married and of no concern to them. My sister has hinted before, but she writes now that her husband has determined that I should be married before the end of the season, and if I have not found a match myself by that point, he has selected one for me.”

He watched her sit up straighter, the wind catching a strand of her hair and whipping it from her coiffeur so it lay in beautifully vivid contrast to her pale throat. She stared out into the gray bluster of the day as she said, “It is well known that Lord Snape has expressed his interest in the past. My brother-in-law did not initially view the match as advantageous enough, but it seems that given the lack of other prospects, that avenue has become sufficiently promising.”

James felt his fist clench atop his thigh before he truly thought to clench it himself. Severus Snape had been heir to his nearly insolvent barony through merest coincidence - all closer cousins were female, a fact which had led Sirius to remark that Edward Christian might have had the right of it in Blackstone’s ten years past and perhaps women should be allowed some latitude in inheriting. And yet, those with whom Snape chose to consort closely were the most disagreeable sorts of snobs, people who believed anyone without generations of nobility behind them to be worthless.

He seemed to think it a great compliment that he would single out Lily as someone meriting his particular attention despite her own father having been only Mr. Evans. One of James’s few consolations after Lily had rejected his proposal had been that she had apparently rejected Snape’s as well. He, however, had not taken it with good grace or even James’s own dazed acquiescence; instead, he had stated publicly that it was merely a sign of her low breeding, that someone of a more elevated bloodline would have been happy even to have been approached by him. (James had run into Snape one evening shortly after hearing of this, and would have called him out on Lily’s behalf had Remus not intervened - and had James not already been so foxed he could barely string the words together discernibly.) Still, in the years since, Snape had made it plain that he would be willing to consider her were she to humble herself enough.

“Surely there must be other options,” James said, a bit awkwardly. For the rest of the season following his initial proposal and even into the next, he had arrived at her residence with regularity, though he had not approached her so directly again - too humiliating, and impolite besides to press when he had been so clearly declined. But although it had been some time since then, he knew, even when he did not want to, that she was often called upon by others.

She hesitated, seeming to choose her words carefully. “I was, perhaps, not as wise as I might have been. Not as wise as I thought myself to be.” Her gaze drifted to her lap, where her hands were folded carefully over the letter. “I was not waiting for a love match, I truly was not. I simply hoped to find someone who was not on the hunt merely for looks or for a biddable wife, with whom I might find conversation and companionship, someone who truly saw me. I allowed myself to believe I had time to be selective, and while my mother lived she indulged me, perhaps even enjoyed being able to keep me close for some time longer. But now she is gone, leaving my keeping in the hands of another who is not so lenient, and it seems that I have waited too long. Those who were once interested have moved on to women who are prettier or younger or lighter-hearted, women with larger dowries or who do not seem as fussy as I, and I cannot blame them.”

I have not moved on. It came to his throat readily, nearly voiced before he stopped himself. He did not want a wife right now, he reminded himself, and he especially did not want a wife who was cornered into the marriage, and it did not matter if that wife would be the one woman to whom his eyes turned without his control anytime they were in the same room.

But if he could at least help her, just a bit, even if it would mean tormenting himself, well, it was not as if he were not in torment already.

“I wonder—” He cleared his throat. “That is, I wonder if you would consider...It is rather unconventional, of course, but if you were amenable…”

“Have you something to say, my lord?” she asked, turning to him with just the barest hint of amusement touching her mouth.

“I could, perhaps, affect as if I were courting you,” he finally spat out.

His breath held for a moment in his lungs, and he was certain that she would gasp or dash off or even strike him, but instead, though the humor had gone from her lips, she tipped her head to the side and asked, “And what would be the object of such a ruse?”

“Well,” he said, voice a bit too eager now that she had not reacted with outright negativity. “The season settles into such dull rhythms after a while that any new story always gathers interest. Considering our...history, I suspect that a courtship between us would have tongues wagging, which would certainly remind people of your charms. And of course, not to generalize regarding my sex, but men are always particularly roused by the idea of rivalry. Were I to pose as a serious suitor, it would surely spur others to emerge as alternative contenders for your affections.”

Her eyes narrowed a bit at this last piece, but she only said slowly, “And what would you gain from this arrangement?”

James forced himself not to cross his arms. “My own parents passed not long ago…”

“I had heard,” she said. “My sympathies,” and from her it did not sound at all rote. He nodded.

“Thank you. And mine to you, on your mother. But in any event, it has left me with quite a lot to learn regarding my position, and I have found the continued attention of certain mothers and their unwed daughters to be an extremely inconvenient distraction. Were I to be seen as having my affections already directed toward another young lady, I believe they would leave off, and I would have some reprieve to attend to the management of other things.”

She looked away from him once again, squinting out absently into Lady Longbottom’s hedges. One foot tapped a bit, and her finger ran around the edge of her letter, though he suspected that she did not remember exactly what paper it was. They were the sort of gestures that he would have taken for granted in another male of his acquaintance or in his mother, but young women were always on such perfect behavior around him that simply being allowed to see these common mannerisms made Lily seem filled with an extra bit of color, of brightness. He swallowed, unsure once more that making this offer had been in his best interest; then again, he had never been known to be hesitant or particularly calculating. Diving headfirst was always more his style, and he had rarely looked out for his own interests with any real care.

Finally Lily said, “I would, of course, not want to take you from your other responsibilities, but if this were to work, I would require a certain amount of attention to ensure that others truly believed that you found me of interest. Would three evening occasions and three daytime meetings per week be reasonable to you?”

“Perfectly agreeable,” he said, even as his heart began to pound in a manner so uncontrolled, he might as well have been running. “Let us say two dances together when we are in attendance at the same ball. I believe that expresses the right amount of interest while still indicating that there is a chance for others.” Traitorously, his mind began to slip into wondering about holding Lily’s body against his own in a close dance, how he might feel her laugh rippling over his skin during a more energetic reel, her face alight as she returned her hand to his.

She nodded slowly. “Thank you. That should do quite nicely. And, of course, if I at some point become affianced, I could spread word on your behalf regarding your broken heart if you would like - that should grant you a bit of extra time before the interest begins again in earnest.”

At her mention of becoming engaged to someone else, the wind, which had been pleasantly brisk a moment ago, seemed to cut through his riding coat, his skin, right to his heart. “I would certainly appreciate it,” he managed, keeping his voice as steady as he could.

“Well, I am very appreciative of this,” she returned. “I had not expected...It is most kind of you, my lord, even to offer such a thing.”

“Think nothing of it,” James replied, knowing all the while that he would be able to think of nothing else.

When they returned to London, the talk was all of what a success Alice Longbottom’s house party had been. Kingsley Shacklebolt and Mary Macdonald would certainly be announcing a wedding soon; Hestia Jones, several years older even than Lily and practical, was allowing Peter Pettigrew’s attentions; and - pigs might fly - James Potter seemed to have caught Lily Evans at last.

They had agreed to walk together in Hyde Park as a first outing, and for all her thought that a secret might bind them together and smooth over any lingering awkwardness, Lily was hard pressed to think of a more uncomfortable stroll she had taken in her life, and she had certainly been on her share of contenders.

Part of the problem was that she could hardly believe she had even agreed to such a scheme in the first place. It was ridiculous, unheard of, completely foolish of her regardless of the situation Vernon and Petunia might have placed her in. Even more difficult to conceive: she had agreed to it with James Potter of all people. The same James Potter she had rejected without remorse, who she had sniffed at when hearing of his later reckless exploits, counting herself blessed she was not attached to him in any way. Well, there were few people she was attached to more closely now.

“Have you told anyone?” she asked abruptly, the first either of them had spoken in some minutes, after the pleasantries regarding the return journey to London, how they had each fared so far that day, and the state of the weather had been exhausted. “Have you told anyone about our…?”

He cleared his throat, though whether from discomfort or disuse she could not tell; either seemed entirely feasible. “Our arrangement? I’ve told Sirius. Remus and Peter as well.”

“Ah.” She attempted to transform the critical press of her lips into a smile as she nodded to the passing Bertha Jorkins, though she could practically already hear Bertha dashing off to tell whoever was closest that Lily Evans had been walking alongside Lord Gryffindor with a most unattractive expression. “I suppose I might have expected, considering your closeness. I had heard that his lordship, at least, has rooms in your home.”

“Yes, Sirius has had a strained relationship with his family for several years now.” Lily, though no gossip, was aware that this was an understatement. It was well known that, had it not been for the scandalous reflection on the family, the marquess and marchioness would have disowned their elder son years ago for what they considered his lewd behavior and unseemly friendships; as it was, they rarely mentioned each other in public, and pretended the other did not exist when they were present at the same function. “Even when my parents were alive he had free run of Gryffindor House, and the place has only become emptier since so there is plenty of room for even one as untidy as he.”

Lily glanced at him, unable to help hearing the sadness in his voice although he tried to give the words some degree of levity. She did not comment on it, however, saying instead, “It is rather unconventional, though of course utterly reasonable.”

He shrugged. “Were Sirius my brother by blood, he would always have a place in my home. As he is my brother in all but that, I see no reason that he should lack such a place merely because of an accident of parentage. I have offered Remus and Peter as well - there are probably a dozen bedrooms going unused, and perhaps even more which I have not discovered - but they have both declined.”

“The decor is not to their taste?” Lily asked, winning her a laugh.

“No, Peter’s mother still has a residence in London and prefers he stay with her, and Remus…” He sighed, his mouth shifting a bit to the side, as if this were a problem he was well used to mulling over. “He has his pride, and a part of that is insisting on keeping his own lodgings. But he does join us for supper several times a week, and as Mrs. Pomfrey, my housekeeper, nursed him through many a childhood illness and injury, he cannot well refuse when she tells him we have food going spare and he must take some home.”

It was this comment which forced her to fall silent. Somehow it was even more shocking than the way he had seemed to her transformed in the Longbottom’s garden, smaller and more human instead of filled with that overconfident persistence she had remembered and hated, more shocking than when he had suggested this ruse in the first place. She could not help but think that when Lord Gryffindor sat in his office or attended a session of Parliament, some part of his mind was distracted by wondering how he could best take care of those closest to him, even if it made others about the ton think him odd for it. There was not even anything to be gained from his solicitousness: Lupin’s father, if she recalled correctly, was a missionary only distantly related to some minor viscount, and Pettigrew’s hope of becoming a baron rested on two uncles and seven purportedly hale and hearty cousins meeting untimely demises.

“It is most kind of you,” she finally said, but he merely shrugged.

“As I said, Gryffindor House is altogether too large. My father actually decided that two sitting rooms was quite enough and turned the third into a space for experimentation - he was a bit of an amateur natural philosopher.”

“Truly?” The grin taking over her face felt a bit silly, but she found the idea of it a bit silly, and entirely delightful.

“Truly. In fact, he enjoyed having such a room so much that he had one of the bedrooms turned over at our country home as well so he could continue with his discoveries there. He actually was fairly successful at it. His tonics and ointments might remain family recipes, but there is a pomade of his invention which is only growing in popularity.” His smile tinged a bit sad at the edges. “I think he would have been quite tickled to hear that.”

“I’m certain he would have been.” Familiar with the propensity for jollying people away from their remembrances, as if the sorrow of it was too much for polite conversation to bear when perhaps a moment of dwelling would be welcomed by the one grieving, Lily remained silent for several paces and kept her tone neutral when she said, “These experimental rooms of your father’s sound most entertaining. I wish I could see them myself sometime in the future.”

“Of course, why don’t I—” But he was too smart a man, to finely bred, to allow his tongue to run away with him and simply invite her over. They wanted to build a gentle interest in her from suitable parties, not ruin her reputation entirely. Instead he said, “I’m certain I shall entertain at some point during the season. My mother was well known for her gatherings, and I could never let down her reputation. I shall, of course, have an invitation sent for you, and we will make sure that there is a tour.”

“That would be lovely, thank you.” Her arm had been resting on his as they walked, but she allowed her hand to press a bit more heavily against him in gratitude. She had meant it to be a momentary gesture, but he turned to her then, his dark brown eyes catching hers from behind his spectacles, and she found that she could not look away. They were still walking, she was nearly certain, but how many people they were passing, what everyone might be observing, she had no idea.

It was he who cleared his throat and took his gaze from hers. “I suspect that was sufficiently convincing to anyone watching,” he said, and cleared his throat again.

“Yes,” she said. “Yes, of course.” Although, if she were truly forced to consider, she thought she might find that it had been somewhat convincing to her as well.

If the training on proper behavior that James’s mother had tried to instill in him had one benefit, it was the ability to keep a brilliant smile on his face even as he asked quietly, “Is there something I can do to make you more comfortable?”

The cotillion offered little chance to speak privately - one was constantly being forced to circle or line up beside other dancers - so it was not until their next brief whirl as partners that she was able to reply. “I am perfectly comfortable.”

“Forgive me for saying so, but you do not seem entirely to be enjoying yourself,” he said hurriedly at the next opportunity. “You have barely smiled.”

Many women of his acquaintance and most of the gentlemen would have lost track of the conversation as they stepped and wove and traded partners before rejoining, but she merely said, “Perhaps you are more accustomed to dancing with those with silly looks on their faces. Here, I shall make you more comfortable.”

The expression she pasted on was of such exaggerated adoration that he nearly burst into laughter straight into the face of his new partner. As it was, he returned to Lily grinning and found her doing the same.

A whisper seemed to start at the edge of the ballroom (they were quite definitely not displaying the usual polite smiles reserved for these events) but James barely noticed that their plan was coming to some success.

“Well played, Miss Evans. Clearly I should have left it all to your capable hands.”

“See that you do next time,” she responded with a regal nod, and the thought of next time filled his mind with such sudden brightness that his grin stretched anew and did not stop when the music did.

“Unacceptable!”

At her sister’s hiss, Lily looked up from the embroidery in her lap, but did not need to ask what was causing Petunia’s upset. She was altogether too familiar with the expression that came with minor household imperfections, and by the glare being leveled at one of the teacups, she suspected that some nigh invisible spot had been detected.

“All our visitors have gone,” Lily hastened to say. “I’m sure there is no need to disturb—”

But it was too late. Petunia had taken the cup and stalked from the room, undoubtedly to berate the poor housekeeper or whichever maid came across her path.

Shaking her head in sympathy, Lily nevertheless allowed her gaze to wander over to the place behind the curtain where she had hidden the novel she had been reading before the callers had started arriving. Petunia barely allowed such pursuits in privacy; reading in front of gentlemen would certainly have earned a reprimand.

There had been a goodly number of callers, enough that Lily found herself hopeful for the first time in a while, but she would be glad to have a chance to relax, a few moments to just be in her own mind. She was standing on soft feet to go retrieve the book when the butler arrived and announced, “Lord Snape.”

It was on the tip of her tongue to say that she was not at home. Over this one thing she had control, and it would be so easy to exert it; she could nearly feel the relief of avoiding him. But something, a wisp of remaining affection for a childhood friend or a desire to see whether she would be able to bear him should the worst case scenario come to pass, made her nod and say, “Show him in, and please inform my sister that he has come.”

The butler stayed after bringing Severus in, standing guard beside the doorway for the sake of propriety in a way which made Lily feel protected rather than surveilled.

“Won’t you take a seat?” she asked as she did the same, but he did not seem even to take heed of her words.

“You danced with Lord Gryffindor last night,” he said. His riding gloves, held as a pair in one hand, smacked lightly against his thigh, and Lily held herself back from flinching.

“Yes, we recently discovered that we have much in common with each other, despite past differences. I found him a most amiable partner,” she responded, her tone not as cold as his but not particularly warm either. She reclaimed her embroidery and began to work on it as she added, “I had not realized that you were in attendance at the ball.”

He gave a short, sharp laugh, and she could not help but notice the difference between it and the one Gryffindor had given the night before. “It was not the sort of affair that I would take interest in. I was in attendance at the Selwyns. The company was a bit less...mixed.”

And there it was once again, this idea that could not seem to be purged from him, this idea her old friend seemed to have no interest in overcoming. “I find that with such an attitude, I cannot regret not having received an invitation,” she said, making three flawless and focused stitches in quick succession.

“But—” He began to surge forward, until the butler let out a loud and pointed cough. Jaw tight, he stepped back once again and said, “As my wife, you would have received such an invitation and would have no fear as to the attitudes shown you. There would be only deference. You would be under my protection.”

Her hands fell still in her lap. She looked up at him directly and spoke with precision. “I have no interest in engaging with people who would only tolerate me were I under your protection, and I have equally little interest in marrying a man who believes that it is deference and a shield from petty remarks which I seek in a marriage.”

There was a twitch of anger in his face which he covered over quickly. Severus had always masked things so easily; it had once seemed natural to her, a part of him, but now she found it slightly frightening, not being able to tell his true thoughts or feelings.

“Very well,” he said. “That is your opinion. Only remember when Gryffindor has thrown you over for the next pretty thing which comes his way, that I will still be here.”

Lily swallowed. Steadfastness was an admirable trait, but being the sole focus of someone like this felt more like being a hunted animal, a butterfly trapped behind glass, only meant to flutter prettily at the one who had caught it and locked it away, stolen from nature.

“Ah, Lord Snape,” Petunia said from behind him. Her voice was not pleasant - she and Severus had never liked each other - but it was polite, and Lily realized how much her sister and brother-in-law were depending on Snape to take her if no one else did. “May I offer you some refreshment?”

“I shan’t be staying, Mrs. Dursley,” he said, with equally cold politeness. “I merely wanted to ensure that Miss Evans is well. Good day to you both.” He gave a short, sharp bow, and walked past the butler out the door.

Lily rested her hands on her lap for a moment, then forced herself to pick up her embroidery. Even if Snape were no longer in the room to see, she did not want to give him the power of her anxiety.

She cast her mind once again to the plan. It had seemed a longshot at the time, slightly foolish, but she needed it to work. Unbelievable as it seemed, she had placed her trust in the Earl of Gryffindor, and she needed him to have been worthy of it.

“I must say, Miss Evans,” James said, “that you are quite the most stubborn woman of my acquaintance, possibly the most stubborn in the whole of England.” He kept his tone fairly low in deference to the fact that they were surrounded by dozens of other pairs of dancers, but he knew that his amusement came through regardless. She was arguing her point with the focus and diligence of an experienced barrister, which was entirely annoying while also being entirely too much fun.

“Well, England is not particularly large, so I shan’t worry overmuch,” she responded pertly.

“I rescind the comment. You are surely the most stubborn woman in all the world.”

“Merely disagreeing with you regarding the best type of pie does not make me the most stubborn woman in the world, my lord. It only makes me someone who knows her own mind, and I should hope you would be aware of that.” He thought that she might break away from him to place her hands on her hips and wag her finger in the scolding so familiar to him from his time in the nursery, and he held on just a bit tighter, not out of any ridiculous concern for propriety, but simply because these moments when he was allowed to touch her were outlined with such care and detail that he did not want to miss a single second.

She did not even attempt to move from him, however, a smile breaking its way across her face instead. “And regardless, I have complete certainty in the superiority of the apple pie, as any right-thinking person would.”

“Lemon pie,” James responded staunchly, nearly gritting his teeth even as he grinned back. “On the day that you try the lemon pie we eat at home, you shall eat your words along with it and beg my forgiveness.”

“I shall certainly sample it when offered, if only in the spirit of open inquiry and because I am absolutely secure in my own opinion, although I’m doubtful that I would ever beg anything from you.”

“Expect one at your home tomorrow afternoon, then. I do not retreat from a challenge any more than you.”

They were standing close enough that he could see the precise way her eyes flashed as she said, “I take your challenge gladly.”

“I say, is there to be a duel?” Benjy Fenwick, a longtime friend of James’s, seemed taken aback as he came alongside them. James felt similarly taken aback, shocked that the outside world had managed to intrude, shocked that it even still existed; without their having realized it, they had completed the steps of the dance and the next set was starting.

“Of course not.” Lily blinked, then adjusted her tone. It was not precisely fawning, James decided, nor coy, but there was a polite feeling to it, as if she had tucked away some of her warmth or her particular character. He wanted to bring it back, to make certain that the world did not lose that sparking magic of hers, but at the same time he found himself oddly relieved that Fenwick, who she had been so excited to add to her dance card, was not worthy of her true self. “A simple debate between myself and Lord Gryffindor. My apologies, my lord. It is terribly good to see you. Shall we rejoin the floor?”

Fenwick offered his arm and they took their places for the quadrille, while James retreated to the corner where Sirius was observing everything.

“Fenwick’s a nice fellow,” said the man who had only a moment ago been James’s best friend.

“Hmm.”

Sirius sipped at his cup, which James doubted contained only lemonade. “I’m certain Miss Evans would be delighted if he were to further his attentions toward her.”

“He isn’t—Fenwick is fine. He never excelled in a single class to my knowledge nor has he grasped sarcasm, he seems entirely content to be an unassuming third son without particular purpose, and I have beaten him handily every time we have fenced, but he is fine. However, Lily—Miss Evans needs more than fine. She needs more than nice,” James said, exasperated. “We’ll simply have to keep this up until she finds someone else. Someone better.”

“Indeed.” Sirius sipped again, a damnably amused shimmer in his eye. “I suppose keeping up your arrangement would be the only way of achieving that.”

“Of course it is,” James said.

“Of course it is,” Sirius echoed, but he was smiling, almost as if in relief. James turned away, even though he was fairly certain that he did not want to watch Lily dancing with someone else, smiling at someone else.

No, not fairly certain, absolutely certain. But if she was the most stubborn woman in the world, he was the most stubborn man, and he forced himself to keep on. The whole point of this was to find Lily a husband, and she had made it perfectly clear that she did not consider him to be a contender. He would have to become accustomed to seeing her with someone else. He would simply have to.

“Not only pie but ice cream as well?” James asked, licking chocolate from his spoon. “How does one manage to have so many wrong opinions?”

“Unbelievable as it might seem to you, an opinion is not wrong simply because it is not yours,” she responded, taking a dainty bite from her own dish. “Although, to tell you the truth…” She looked this way and that before leaning across the table just slightly. He mirrored her at once; apparently it was lucky that he was a part of the plan because he seemed more eager for gossip than any ten ladies of Lily’s acquaintance. “I actually only order the maple because it seems the least popular. It’s terribly sad to think of it simply melting away for lack of interested customers.”

He gaped at her for a moment. “But then you miss out on the chocolate,” he said, with a sort of implacably simple logic that belonged in childhood. She laughed.

“The maple isn’t actually bad. It simply isn’t as popular because it is overshadowed by the other flavors. Even the lavender gains an audience simply because it sounds sophisticated. But…” Her voice lowered even further. “Sometimes I finish my serving and then ask for a dish of chocolate as well.”

“Gluttony, Miss Evans?” he said, eyes glinting. But where she might have once reminded him sharply that he certainly had more experience in deadly sinning than she, now she merely raised an amused eyebrow and said, “Enjoyment, my lord,” before sitting back and picking her spoon up once more.

He seemed to watch her more closely than the simple movement deserved. “Enjoyment indeed,” he said, and his low voice was not as one telling a secret, but one who had forgotten he was speaking aloud. She glanced up at him sharply, but before she could say anything more, he too had started on his ice cream again.

“One thing I do miss from my travels is getting to try the local delicacies,” he remarked. “There is quite a bit more to the world than the traditional menu would lead you to believe - although I will confess that I was glad to come home to lemon pie and chocolate ice cream.”

“Oh, yes, you mentioned that you had traveled. Where did you go?”

He waved his spoon. “All sorts of places.”

“Please, you must give me something more particular than that. I have never been even to Scotland and might never, and so I may only read about other places in books and listen jealously to stories such as yours.”

“Well, most people start off in Paris, but we - Sirius and I - went to the Netherlands first, then throughout Prussia, then down to Italy and Greece, and across the water to the Ottoman Empire. We even got a chance to see Egypt and some of North Africa before…” His mouth had clearly been coming up with the words before his mind was ready for them. When he realized what he would have to say next, he seemed to take a steadying breath, sliding the ice cream away from himself as if it no longer held appeal. “Word reached me that my mother had taken ill. We cut things short.” He swallowed. “Unfortunately, it made no difference.”

The urge to reach across the table and touch his hand came to her quite suddenly; she was nearly surprised into giving into the impulse. Instead she folded her hands on the table and said softly, "That must have been quite difficult, moving so quickly from a time meant for freedom and adventure and frivolity to one of urgency and then of mourning.”

“I wonder if mourning should always feel sudden, even if one were expecting it,” he said. Once she would have thought it shocking if not impossible for this man to take such a serious tone or speak such a profound thought aloud, but she was finding that there was quite a lot about him which was unexpected for her but no less true.

He cleared his throat. “Regardless, you needn’t be jealous: our travels were not as full of frivolity as all that even before we received the news from home.”

Perhaps if she had not spent the last several weeks so often in his company, with such an awareness of his every expression and how it would be perceived, she would have mistaken the charming smile he gave for a true one. As it was, she said simply, “Oh?” and waited with patiently folded hands for him to continue.

His eyes observed her keenly for a moment before dropping to his lap. Slowly, he said, “I thought that merely reading in the newspapers about the ruin Bonaparte made of things on the continent was enough. I thought I understood. But it was nothing to actually seeing everything that people needed to rebuild, hearing from the locals all that they had lost.” His expression turned self-deprecating. “I had once thought that had I not been the eldest and only of my family, I might have been a soldier, but I could barely stomach even the aftermath years later.”

“I think you could have been a soldier had you the opportunity,” she said. “I believe it can only be for the good to have soldiers who fight not because they enjoy the battle or out of a desire for glory, but to bring peace, to protect the innocent. And of course we have determined that you can come up with an innovative strategy with haste, a quality I’m certain would have served you well.”

That actually made him smile truly, and she could nearly see him trying to brush away his unfortunate mood. “I thank you for your compliments,” he said. “And of course, all of that was no more painful than what you had to bear. You have lost your mother more recently than I did my parents. If anything, I should be comforting you.”

“There needn’t be a competition between us regarding our suffering,” she pointed out. “And taking a turn at being comforted simply because I am next in the queue is not how I like to remember my mother.”

“How do you like to remember her? I confess, we—” He gave an uncomfortable cough. “We had little opportunity to speak.”

She wondered if he remembered that, although they had indeed spoken little on the occasion, it had been her mother who had guided him gently from the room after his ill-fated proposal. She suspected not - he had seemed quite dazed in the moment.

“I have rarely enjoyed simply being in company with someone as I did her,” Lily said instead. “Our minds seemed to work quite similarly. I miss so many things about her - her quiet humor, her independence although even as a girl I could tell that she wished my father had not passed so young, and how she always seemed to know exactly the solution to any problem in the household, any social faux pas - but more than anything, I don’t know that I will ever find someone who seemed so often to echo my same thoughts. I’m afraid it left my sister a bit isolated at times. She engages with the world so differently. It was Mama who always encouraged me to continue reaching out to her, trying to allow some understanding between us.”

Now it was her turn to glance down at her lap, although she forced her eyes back up toward him mere seconds later. “I imagine these last months would have been easier if Petunia and I did have some sort of understanding, even an imperfect one. I am not speaking of my...situation, although I am certain that would have been different had we been closer. But there are so many memories which only we two now share, and I wish we had closeness enough to recall them together.”

He nodded. “I was lucky to be able to spend a few weeks remembering my mother beside my father before his passing. Perhaps that time would have been better spent in discussion of our holdings or my responsibilities, and had he known what was to come he might have insisted upon it, but I find that I cannot make myself regret those times. And now I have been lucky to have Sirius nearby to share with me his memories. He spent so much time in our home, with my parents, that he can easily recall to my mind things I did not even realize I had forgotten: the way my mother ordered a new perfume for each season, or how my father would sit alone with a cup of hot milk when he was particularly pensive.”

His throat seemed nearly to catch as he swallowed. “I suspect it is always easiest to bear these sorts of things when you are with people who will listen, even if they cannot share experiences with you. I am sorry that you do not have the same.”

“Well,” she said, “I wonder if perhaps I do.”

She had not known she would say the words until she did, but she had felt them all the same. She had her own friends, it was true, and yet no one seemed to want to discuss her mother’s passing the way he did, no one even seemed willing to try beyond platitudes or small embraces. And he seemed overwhelmed by the comment, his lips falling open just a touch, eyes large and bright behind his spectacles as they caught hers.

“Miss Evans.”

She very nearly fell from her chair, and her only consolation was that he nearly did as well, although he recovered more quickly, his from-the-cradle training pushing him to rise and bow smartly. She had forgotten, somehow, that they were in the middle of Gunter’s, that their object for the day was to be seen in public laughing together and enjoying each other’s company in order to rouse the notice of others, that being with him - pretending to be with him - was only meant as a waystation on the path to the man with whom she would actually spend the rest of her life.

Somehow, as she sat at their small corner table, she had only been seeing him.

“Miss Lily Evans,” Lady McGonagall said again, and Lily remembered to stand and curtsy. The countess looked her over closely, then turned and said, "You could hardly do better, my boy."

In their limited interactions, Lily had rather liked Lady McGonagall and she suspected that she was liked in return, but she was still surprised at her warm and roundly approving tone.

The countess continued: "And James Potter. Earl of Gryffindor, Viscount Peverell, cousin to the king, heir to the Potter fortune..:” She glanced him over and tilted her head to speak directly to Lily. “I suppose you could have done worse." She turned back. "See that you're worthy of her," she said, in that way of someone accustomed to being obeyed without question.

And while Lily could feel her eyebrows practically springing into her hair, he merely smiled and said, "I am trying my best.”

He really was remarkably good at pretending - for a moment, even Lily nearly believed him.

Having already attended the agreed upon number of occasions for the week, James could easily have begged off of the Weasley’s supper party and spent the evening at home or at his club or out with his friends (up to less savory pursuits, if Sirius was allowed to be in charge). He told himself that his reason for accepting the invitation was simply because he liked Molly and Arthur - regardless of their financial status, they were actually enjoyable company, unlike many in the ton - but that did not explain why he had not cited another engagement following the meal instead of sitting through the gentlemen’s retreat and then their return for cards and socializing. Overall, as he watched Lily set her face fiercely across from him at the whist table, he found any excuse less and less convincing by the moment.

Sirius elbowed him. “It seems as if you have a tiger for a partner,” he remarked in a low tone, somehow managing to lounge in his chair while holding his cards properly before him.

“If you are referring to my demeanor, you should well address me directly so that I may tell you just as directly that I have rarely lost and do not intend to do so tonight,” Lily interrupted, running a fingernail casually across the top of one of her cards. She faced Sirius directly, and James suspected that he was the only one who would be able to detect the hints of humor in her face. “And if you were referring to my hair, my lord, well, perhaps you should retire once again in order to refresh your arsenal with more creative comparisons.”

Grinning, James watched Sirius and Remus staring at her in astonishment. They had exchanged pleasantries before, but this was the first time his friends were spending time with Lily, and she was certainly leaving an impression.

“Goodness, Sirius,” Lupin finally said, a chuckle building in his throat. “If you do need to retire after such a carefully aimed attack, I can certainly replace you as a partner.”

“No need.” Sirius sat up straighter, staring Lily down with good-natured ruthlessness. “I have talent enough to come up with my riposte as we play.”

Lily said, “One might say that if there has not been a response within the first moment, there is not one forthcoming,” then bowed her head politely to Sirius, adding, “Not, of course, that I am referring to anyone in particular.” She faced across the table once more and said, “Now then, shall we play, my lord?”

“James,” he blurted before he could think better of it. "You should call me James."

It meant something, giving her leave to call him by his given name, and he wondered if he had been holding himself back from this particular development, one which now felt inevitable, as some sort of protection. The thought of it felt quite tangled about in his mind, but regardless, he needn't have said it in front of his friends.

He could tell that they were gaping at him - well, Remus had his eyebrows raised so high that they were practically on the moon and Sirius's expression had defaulted to arch surprise - and he even thought that Molly Weasley might have looked over instinctively from her own whist table to ensure that nothing was amiss, but his eyes were for Lily alone.

"James, then," she murmured comfortably, though he seemed to see a touch of something like nervousness, even fear, in her eyes as she said, "And you may call me Lily, of course." But it was gone the next second as she said to the group at large, "Shall we play, then?"

"I like her," Sirius declared as they sat in James's study later that night having a brandy together. "I like her quite a lot."

"As do I." James tapped a fingernail absently against his glass. Lily was indeed a champion whist player - he was willing to lay the lion’s share of their team’s victory at her feet - and her dress tonight had been a most fetching shade of blue which offset her hair quite startlingly. Obviously she wore green beautifully, and he had once seen her in a gown of deep purple which redefined the shade for him, but the blue in the candlelight as she laughed and schemed over her cards…

"I can tell," Sirius said, and his voice was sober enough to break James from his thoughts and look over at him. "I can tell that you like her. It has been some time since I saw you smile with such frequency." His own smile returned and he said, "Although I would wonder if she would consider you worthwhile after tonight. You should call me James, indeed." He repeated it, voice lower and more pompous than James believed his to be, then in an oily, seductive way, then with a shy blink through his lashes, until his impressions were apparently so hilarious that he fell into laughter and could not continue.

Dear Miss Evans,

Dear Lily,

Madam,

I hope this note finds you well, and my apologies for leaving without a proper goodbye - or truly any goodbye. I had an early letter regarding a fire near one of my estates which necessitated a speedy departure. Luckily the damage appears to be less serious than feared: there are no severe injuries, it seems that only minimal repairs will be required, and the harvest will not be affected.

I spent the morning helping to clear some of the wreckage, and then was deemed competent enough to swing a hammer and so was able to help with some repairs. In the afternoon, I assisted with a foaling, although to be frank, I'm not certain that I was truly any help at all. If I recall, I mostly spent the time asking the farmer whether it would truly work and flinching away as I wondered whether that amount of fluid was normal - which it apparently is. (If any of this should happen to make its way to Sirius, I'd like it to be impressed upon him that he would certainly have done no better in the circumstances, and if he doubts it, he may come try next spring.)

I shall likely be staying another two weeks at least - now that I am here, there is some business it would be wise to take care of - but I hope that my absence gives opportunity to those perhaps not bold enough to come forward while I am about. Only recall, of course, that you do not have to give in to such gentlemens’ attentions if you do not want to...unless you desire a husband over whom you can take charge. It would, after all, be only natural for you to desire someone whose stubbornness will not outmatch your own. But if you are waiting for something else in a man, please recall that you are a most excellent catch and quite eligible on your own, and someone with the highest qualities to recommend him will see that in due course.

In the meantime I remain,

Yrs &c

James Potter

Dear Gryffindor,

It is quite a relief to hear that things were less dire than initially believed - although I suspect that they might be a bit dire still if they are allowing you near hammers or any other tools. I shall, however, refrain from sharing my opinion on that with any of your friends or acquaintances, as it would likely spoil the illusion of our deep affection for one another (to my knowledge, most ladies do not express their ardor by pointing out the flaws of their supposed beloved). Nor will I mention the incident with the foal - unless I am severely provoked to it.

Since you bring up potential suitors who might be suffering from attacks of nerves at the thought of crossing the formidable Lord Gryffindor, I did dance twice with Mr. Davey Gudgeon at the Abbott ball evening last. In the first dance he was anxious but quite sweet, but in the second he mistimed his cross-step during the Duchess of Devonshire's Reel, knocked into Miss Vance (or as he put it “nearly had his eye taken out by her!”), and seemed to desire me to spend the rest of the evening fetching him cool cloths and telling him that the redness was not visible. It depressed things quite considerably, I must say.

I shall be waiting with bated breath for these gentlemen of highest quality who you allege to be on the horizon. My criteria remain, I believe, modest: kindness, someone who will be a friend to me, and who will be open to conversation. (Degree of stubbornness matters not at all, regardless of your inferences to the contrary...) Hope with me that they come soon: if my need for air becomes too pressing, I shall be left gasping at the feet of Lord Snape, and there is more than one reason I have worked for many years to avoid such a fate.

With best and most sincere wishes,

Lily

Dear Lily,

I shall keep in mind not to provoke you, although I should ask that you grant me some amount of latitude in what is meant by provoking lest I blunder into it and you are forced to cast aspersions on my reputation as an iron stomached lord of the domain.

Although by your description, Mr. Gudgeon has set the standards quite low in this regard. If these are the men of the ton, I believe my reputation would remain intact even should my inability to assist in live animal births be revealed. (My reputation with Sirius in specific would, of course, never recover.)

I hope that whoever you partner with at the next occasion is more suitable, and that it is certainly not Snape. Forgive me for asking, but I wonder if I misunderstand your comment regarding him. Has he caused you insult or injury further than is commonly known? I give you my assurance that I shall refrain from rash behavior, regardless of your answer - although you must know that I might countenance a considered, planful vengeance upon my return.

James

Dear James,

Your reputation remains intact here in town, although Lady Bones did frown most ominously upon your absence at her party two nights past, even with your other friends present. (Mr. Pettigrew seemed a bit downcast, despite my efforts to cheer him; it seems that Miss Jones has been engaged to another.) Apparently you have a habit of slipping from your promises of attendance. It is a lucky thing for you that it was I with whom you entrusted your secrets, or she might be casting aspersions in revenge even now without you here to defend yourself. (I suspect, however, that she would not, regardless of her pique - she is quite dignified.)

Regarding your own revenge, there is no need. Lord Snape and I were acquainted as children, prior to his inheritance, and he believed that our past friendship and certain areas of mutual interest were enough to assure his suit. However, in the intervening years, I found his choice of friends to be quite reprehensible and his values not to match with my own. I care little regarding his insults toward me, but he was similarly disparaging to those for whom I care, or stood by and listened while others acted similarly. For those reasons I refused him, and while I have the choice, I will refuse him still. You are already doing quite enough in allowing me to continue to have such choices, and for that I must thank you once again.

Yours,

Lily

Dear Lily,

I avoid Lady Bones because she is so intimidating that I perpetually fear that simply being near her will result in unintentional confessions. Even Lady McGonagall, who is quite shrewd and can devastate with her tongue lashing, has a sense of humor beneath it all; Lady Bones seems all mind and sharp eyes.

Perhaps this observation is another which can remain between us? Although if I encounter her again, I might find myself revealing it regardless.

As for Lord Snape, I still find that I would rather confront than avoid him, but as this is your battle, I shall defer to you. (If his path and mine were to cross, however, I wonder at my own control.)

I am to journey home in two days’ time, and while I do not find myself anticipating my arrival back in the social whirl, I hope that you will have some time free to walk with me at least. We must remind everyone of our affections most publicly, after all, as the attention of the ton is short - and besides, it has been quite too long since last I saw you.

Yours,

James

Her drawing room did not lack for suitors these days, her dance card rarely had an empty place, and surely someone would offer for her soon, but as they walked through the park together, even given the gloomy weather, Lily found herself overwhelmingly glad that James had returned.

He was speaking of a visit he had taken to the school in the village, his manner proud as he described the recitation that the students had performed for him - although he turned sheepish as he described how, when one boy had asked him to show them his own skill, he had needed to make up an excuse and flee in order to avoid embarrassment.

“Truly, you could not have been such a terrible student that you cannot remember a single thing,” she admonished, laughing slightly. He really was quite intelligent, as determined as he sometimes seemed to act otherwise; they conversed often on literature and current events, and his friend Lupin had once let slip that James had received a first at university.

James tapped his head. “I’m certain there is some passage or poem lurking around up here, but what if I had erred in front of them? I could never have endured the shame. And, being frank with you, I was never a particularly engaged student. That crop I saw was all much better and they deserve the credit for it.”

“I had not realized that you would be so involved in the education of your tenants,” Lily commented, lifting her skirt a bit to avoid a puddle which had collected in a dip in the path.

“Many are not, but my family has seen it as a responsibility of ours for some time. Not everyone will find themselves at university, but there is no reason that we cannot help to ensure that there is instruction beyond the most basic of reading and sums.” He said this all very staunchly, brow furrowed, but he relaxed a bit as he added, “My father would often send books down for the schooling of the boys.”

“And what of the girls?” she asked before she could stop herself.

Her sister would have hissed at her in shock and shame, both for the impertinent tone and for even bothering to ask the question, but James just grinned. “That was my mother’s pet project, actually, a schoolhouse educating the village girls. Whenever she had heard that my father had provided more materials or hired on a new schoolmaster, she would do the same for them. She was quite an admirer of Wollstonecraft.”

“Really? I had not heard,” Lily said. It was not altogether surprising, as she had never interacted with James’s mother in life, but gossip did travel far and fast. And Lily was sure that if she had known this about the late Lady Gryffindor, she would not have forgotten; although she had hidden it from not only Petunia but their mother as well for fear they would be scandalized, Lily had read both Thoughts on the Education of Daughters and Vindication of the Rights of Woman and considered the ideas within them often.

“It’s likely fairly common knowledge in that corner of the country but she kept it a bit quiet in London. She always said that it was easier to change people’s minds when they did not know your opinions well enough to start bracing themselves and preparing their counterattacks without having even heard your points.” Strangely, it was not the smile on his face which spoke more to Lily of his love for his mother, but the gruff clearing of his throat as he said, “She could likely have worked for the War Office, my mother. Napoleon would have been dispatched much sooner.”

“I wish I could have met her,” Lily said honestly. “I wish I could have met both of them. They both sound quite lovely, quite special.” She had one arm resting in his, but she drew up her other hand and covered his fingers lightly, trying to communicate the truth of her sentiment.

James nodded. “They were, to me and to each other. I was terribly lucky to be able to watch their partnership for as long as I did.” He squeezed her fingers back.

His hand, Lily realized, was warm beneath hers, warm and very strong and somehow comfortable. She did not know how it had happened or when, but she had grown to adore walking alongside him, hearing his thoughts and having him listen to hers, watching the way his face crumpled a bit with concern over his friends or his tenants or news from the continent or some issue in Parliament, seeing his concern turn into determination, registering the degree of his every smile and laugh, especially when they were for her.

She thought of the things she had told him she wished for in a husband, comfort and companionship, someone who truly saw her, and she knew that she had that in James, and that she had more too. He had told her that he had arrived back in London near twilight the previous evening, and that after so long in the carriage he had wanted to stretch his legs so he had walked part of the way to Gryffindor House. She had not mentioned that she had been at her window as he passed, that she had involuntarily drawn in a breath at the sight of his undone cravat, of the leanly muscled forearms beneath his rolled up sleeves, of the hair that she once thought foolishly messy but which now seemed dashing as he brushed it carelessly from his eyes.

Neither had she told him that she had run down to receive the post each morning that he had been away, and not only because she had feared Petunia withholding his letters from her if she got to them first. She did not mention that she had read them over more than once, conjuring up his awkward little gestures and his seriousness and his enthusiasm, imagining him swinging a hammer beside his tenants, rubbing a finger against his lips as he read her own correspondence the way he did when he was particularly engrossed in something. She did not speak of the way, when she lay in bed, she thought of his eyes lighting up behind his glasses as he returned to see her, nor of the way she would fall asleep smiling just from the thought of being with him once again.

Oh, she thought with polite surprise, even as it felt as if a rock were sinking into her belly. Oh, God. I’ve fallen in love with him.

She had never questioned her refusal of his proposal all those years ago. There was no doubt that he would not have suited her at the time, that after a short time he would have realized that she did not suit him. Only, if they had turned into who they were now and they had already been married…

She allowed herself a moment to imagine it, being married to James, being a friend to him over the years not only at a distance or because of some scheme but in true partnership as his parents had been. To have all that they did now, but also to be able to touch each other, to be alone together.

But she could allow herself only that moment. He had made it more than clear at the outset that he was uninterested in marriage at present, that he now found the idea a bothersome distraction. She had missed her chance, and she would simply have to live with it. Fenwick had danced with her thrice two nights past, tantamount to a proposal. She would live a fine life with him, and James would be happy, one day, with someone else.

Swallowing against the tears in her throat, she squeezed his hand once more and let him go.

When Remus came running into the room two days later, James thought he must be falling ill once more. His friend kept his condition quiet, but he had developed malaria as a child after time spent abroad due to his father’s work; attacks of the illness came on periodically, bringing with them terrible fevers and pain which James hated to watch and could do little to stop.

“Shall I call for the doctor?” he asked desperately, forcing his thoughts straight as he rose from the table where he had been having a late breakfast and shoved out a chair for Remus to collapse into. “You’re meant to have that quinine remedy, aren’t you? Have you run out?”

But Remus only shook his head frantically, finally rasping out, “A drink, please.”

James hastily poured him tea, remembering only after he had handed it over that it would likely be cold by now. He had come down to breakfast late already, and then had lingered quite a long time absently eating through progressively more tepid eggs and fish as he read over reports from his solicitors. But Remus took it down in a gulp, making a face only after he had finished and returned the cup to the table.

“You’ve been found out,” was the first thing he said.

James slowly regained his seat. He frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I was at the stationers,” Remus continued as his breathing calmed slightly and his color began returning to normal. “And I was approached by Lucius Malfoy and Rodolphus Lestrange - those bounders married to Sirius’s dreadful cousins, you remember.”

“Of course.” If James had not already known and disliked the men in question, he would have pitied them, Lestrange especially. “But I don’t see—”

“They said that they knew that Lily had been having one over on everyone,” said Remus grimly. “And they know of your part in it too. It’s apparently already being spread all over town. According to them, as soon as Snape found out, he went to go see Lily’s brother-in-law: he seems to think that Dursley will simply give Lily over now that there are even rumors about her being duplicitous or what have you, and having only met the man once I’m inclined to think he’s right.”

James stood from the table so quickly that he didn’t unbend his legs in time, hitting both knees on the tabletop and needing a moment to straighten himself. Fingers fumbling with his cravat, he called for his coat and hat, only pausing after he had done so to ask, “Did they say how they found out in the first place? I don’t expect that Lily was spreading it around, and I only told you three.” There was an unpleasant turn in his stomach at the thought of Sirius’s unbound tongue when he was in his cups. But surely even then, he would not have revealed the information? If Lily’s life was ruined because of this…

“It was Peter,” Remus said.

“What?” James said, his thoughts still on how Sirius would have to grovel, but then the words made it through. “What?” he said again, so shocked that he sank back into his chair. “Peter?”

Remus said, with the air of a doctor giving a fatal diagnosis, “He was trying to ingratiate himself to them, I think, but they kept needling him about Hestia Jones throwing him over. So he struck back by letting them in on the most sensational secret that he had.”

“I’ll have to—” James began weakly, but then his anger took over. “I’ll speak with him later,” he said, rage bristling through him, pushing his shoulders back. He found himself wishing that the morning had never started, but it was too late for that. He took a fortifying breath as the butler returned and set his jaw. He would need to handle things regarding Peter, but for now he had somewhere else to be.

Fifteen minutes later, he was nipping at the heels of another butler as he walked through the hall to the drawing room of the Dursley house.

“No callers all morning?” came the voice of Lily’s entirely unpleasant sister. “It seems that the bloom has quite come off the rose. I caught Vernon in my second season, you know. It seems that once again you will not be so lucky.”

“The bloom coming off the lily would have been the more apt reference, Tuney,” Lily replied. “And I am quite grateful that you were the one to catch Vernon. But regardless, perhaps everyone somehow divined that I would prefer some quiet time with my thoughts this morning.”

“And what thoughts are—”

“The Earl of Gryffindor, madam,” the butler announced, mere seconds before James entered the room.

Petunia Dursley rose and curtsied. “My lord,” she said, although with a turn of her lip as if she would prefer to call him something else, or even to comment on his lack of manners in barging into their home. If James had not been so distracted, he might have even appreciated her lack of ingratiation: too many people began positively groveling as soon as they heard the title. As it was, he was distracted by the sudden realization of the flaw in his plan. For all that the ton relied on rules and propriety, Mrs. Dursley clung to the concepts with a martial gleam that put most others to shame. She would never leave them alone and unchaperoned, not for a moment. Perhaps he could trip her, and in the chaos, whisper something to Lily…?

“Would you like to sit down?” That was Lily now; he focused enough to watch her gesture to a chair across from the sofa which she and Petunia shared, and even to follow her direction, although he was still distracted by the necessity now of coming up with a plan.

“Would you like something to eat or drink, my lord?” Lily again. She had set her embroidery aside and was eyeing him oddly. He had the feeling that this was not the first time he had been offered a refreshment.

“Tea would be lovely,” he managed. Maybe her sister would go to arrange it…

But no, Petunia Dursley simply rang for a maid, then picked up her own embroidery and began conversing about the weather as if she were being forced into niceties with a pistol at her back. He was able to manage answers for several minutes, sipping tea occasionally, even as Lily looked at him in a way which clearly showed she thought him mad.

“The weather is indeed lovely,” he finally interrupted a bit desperately, although he knew that firstly, it was not, and secondly, Mrs. Dursley had been asking whether he believed that there would be more rain this month than the same time last year. “Perhaps I might take Miss Evans on a walk?”

“Fresh air would certainly be wonderful,” Lily said swiftly.

Petunia glanced between both of them suspiciously. “You walked only yesterday, Lily, with Mr. Fenwick. I’m afraid you will become too dark and hearty-looking if you step out so often.”

James Potter had never even considered being rattled by an exam, a fight with a fellow gentleman, or an upbraiding by his mother. The slightest sweat broke out on the back of his neck now.

And then, several things happened, if not at once, then in very close succession: the front door burst open followed by a stream of unintelligible invective; Petunia rose, calling, “Vernon, is there some trouble, darling?” and began to cross the room; and James, spotting an opportunity, upended his teacup onto her skirt with a barely believable, “Oh, my apologies!”

Instead of causing her to leave the room at once to put herself to rights, this clearly non-accidental dousing simply made Petunia eye him stonily, mouth agape. James ignored her, turning and starting, “Lily—” before being cut off.

“Thought you could pull one over on us, eh?” Vernon Dursley had arrived in the room, impressively red in the face. The color became even more impressive as he spotted James, and he barked out a “You!”

“We’ve been found out,” James said rapidly, returning to face Lily alone. “It was my error. I should not have—In any case, I have heard that Lord Snape has already tried to finalize things, but if you were to marry me, I believe that you would be…”

She was looking at him with the same vaguely curious expression that she had all the way back in the garden at the Longbottom house party. The arguments he was about to make - that the power of his title and standing would offer protection to her reputation, that it was only honorable that he make amends in this way considering it was his lack of discretion which had allowed their secret to be known, that he would trouble her as little as she liked within their marriage - died on his tongue.

All he could remember was Lily making conciliatory faces to Alice Longbottom behind the back of the redoubtable Lady Longbottom, Lily’s small and capable hand against his arm as they walked, the feeling of her assured steps, of her warmth against him when they danced. Lily’s look of concentration as he explained something dull regarding crop rotations, her careful gestures as she offered some solution. The gleam in her eye when she won at cards, the way she gave Sirius as good as she got and spoke with Remus about literature and was kind to Peter even when he stepped on her toes. Lily, choosing the maple ice cream because it was the least liked, looking fascinated at the idea of his father’s old work rooms, conceding a point only after he had presented his best arguments, teasing him that he allowed his hair to stay in such disarray because he did not want to seem shorter than Sirius, speaking so lovingly of her mother and tilting her head in welcome as he spoke of his own parents. Lily’s smile, her laugh, her mind, the way he felt such joy whenever they spent time together…

He had thought himself in love with her years earlier, but that had been mere infatuation, an enjoyment of her appearance, her outward manner. He had been drawn to this one woman who had not been charmed by him, who had offered novelty through her rejection, but that was not love. This, knowing her and wanting to be known by her, always, this was love.

The teacup was empty, but he placed it politely on the side table before he slid from his chair and knelt before Lily. He took both of her hands in his and held them near his mouth. Surely this was allowed? Hands were allowed, he had kissed many of them, although not ungloved like this and not with this precise level of intimacy. The Dursleys certainly seemed to take offense: Petunia gasped in nearly all the air in the room, although she left enough for Vernon to bellow out an “I say!” James ignored them both, watching those spectacularly green eyes of Lily’s instead.

“I have no flowers,” he said softly, “and I have no ring, although I can obtain both very soon, but if you would have me, I should like to marry you. Not because you must, and not because of what my name can offer, but because you are my friend, because I adore you, because I want you to be my partner in every dance, today and for the rest of my life, because my favorite times are when I am with you, because I want to spend each one of my days with you beside me.” He swallowed. “Will you have me?”

And just as he had known the first time he had asked what her answer would be before she said it, he knew now too.

Two years later…

Sirius was not certain whether it was his sighing or his constant checking out the carriage window, but a few miles from Godric’s Hollow, Remus had apparently had enough.

“Please,” he said, faintly begging. “Borrow a horse and ride ahead.”

“It would not be polite to leave you alone,” Sirius pointed out dutifully, glad that his mother was not there to see him acting in such a manner.

Remus countered, “It would, in fact, be more polite than what you are doing now.” He gestured to the manuscript atop the travel desk on his lap. “I have much to keep me occupied, and you are merely a distraction from it. Now go.”

And so, less than an hour later, Sirius directed his commandeered horse up the neatly maintained path to the house. A servant was already hurrying out as he swerved to a stop by the front door (Lily had been welcomed easily as countess, and her staff always rose to exceed her expectations), and Sirius tossed over the reins and bounded up the steps two at a time.

He was recognized immediately by the butler and footmen and maids, but he only nodded in acknowledgment of their bows and curtsies as he strode through the entrance hall and made his way to the main staircase.

Barely had he reached the upstairs landing when he heard a door thrown open and saw James barrelling toward him.

“Sirius,” his best friend shouted, nearly knocking him over when he couldn’t manage to come to a stop quickly enough. Without apology, he grabbed Sirius’s hand and hauled him further down the hall. “The baby’s here.”

“I know,” Sirius said, laughing. “You wrote to us, that’s why we came.”

But James didn’t seem to hear him. “Come see the baby,” he said, words nearly toppling over each other in his excitement. “Come see Lily. Come meet my son!”

His spectacles were falling down his nose and he looked as though he hadn’t slept in the days since the baby was born and there was a large, unpleasant looking stain on his waistcoat over his ribcage, but Sirius had never seen him so happy.

And as he allowed himself to be dragged for his first glimpse of the future Earl of Gryffindor, Sirius realized that the best friend of his childhood was well and truly gone. Or perhaps not gone, he decided, but transformed. James had left behind old habits and made way for new. He had laid aside the roles of rake and man about town and had taken on others, earl and husband and now father. They would no longer challenge each other dangerously or act below their age and rank, and that was no pity. James had happiness here, a different kind than Sirius had once expected, but no less true for it.

“Let’s go see your son,” Sirius said, and James laughed a wholly exhilarated sort of laugh, running his hand through his hair and beginning to describe the baby as though Sirius wouldn’t see himself in only a moment.

Two weeks later, Frank Longbottom received two bottles of extremely fine brandy alongside a note from Sirius Black.

Congratulations on the birth of your son, and my belated thanks for the invitation.

“What invitation?” Alice said, rocking their new baby Neville as he read the card aloud to her. “I should hope that you have no intention of inviting people around for months yet.”

“Not even—”

“Especially not your mother,” Alice said with exhausted vehemence.

“Well, I have no idea what he’s talking about, regardless,” Frank said, hefting one bottle to eye level. “But it’s a jolly nice gift anyway.”

“I would have preferred some chocolates, and Neville might have liked another blanket, but I suppose we shall make do.”

“Oh, Nev will like this perfectly well one day.”

“One day quite a long time from now,” Alice remarked, but she smiled as she did.

#Jily #Jily AU #James Potter #Lily Evans #long post #too much Bridgerton can't cope

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simplyshelbs16xoxo · 4 years

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‘Run Away with Me’ Chapter 3: Wherever We End Up is a Mystery

FFN | Ao3 | Buy Me a Coffee?

John Watson stumbled into his flat, finding Mary on the sofa. Her attention turned toward him, noticing the slack-jawed look on his face. Her poor fiancé looked as if he had been given some rather shocking new.

“Darling, what is it?” Mary asked.

“It’s Sherlock,” he replied. “Remember he and Molly disappeared during the party?”

Mary nodded.

John looked terribly confused. “Well, turns out he went and eloped with her.”

Smiling, Mary jumped up, squealing with delight. “Oh, wonderful! I knew there was something between those two!”

“He’s my best friend. How could I have not seen it? I mean, I thought Irene Adler, but—“

Mary guided him to the sofa, making him sit down so he could relax. “Don’t overthink it, John. As we both learned, Molly Hooper is Sherlock’s best kept secret. After all, he did entrust her with his life and she kept her lips sealed for two years.”

John blew out a breath. “Never saw it coming.” He paused a moment. “There’s another piece of information I have gathered from Mycroft.”

She leaned in, ready to learn of this new bit of gossip. Mary loved the romance of it all. “What is it?” she asked all too eagerly.

“They’ve run off again,”—John met his fiancée’s smiling eyes—“to Paris.”

At 37 Rue de la Bûcherie, facing the Seine River, Shakespeare and Company, with its 17th century architecture, was bustling with customers. There were books covering every inch of the walls from floor to ceiling, the earthy scent of the pages enveloping Molly’s senses. She took it all in, her delicate fingers skimming the spines, stopping every now and then to take a peek through the pages. It tickled her when she came across the books of Fitzgerald, Eliot, and Hemingway, filling her with a sense of vellichor. She startled when Sherlock slipped his arms around her, pressing a swift kiss to her cheek.

“Enjoying yourself, darling?” he asked softly. Molly could practically hear the smile in his voice. She had chosen for them to set out for Paris, and Sherlock, being the closet romantic that he is, brought her here first thing. He knew that with her immense love of books, she would just love it here.

“There’s so much history—it’s living and breathing right here, never to be forgotten,” she mused in wonderment, her voice husky. “Writers and artists have stayed here amongst the books on these benches here; they double as beds. They refer to their guests as ‘tumbleweeds.’” She gave a short laugh. “I think I’ll go upstairs—are you coming or you will you be staying down here?”

Sherlock took her hand in his, and pressed a feather-light kiss on the back of it. “Something caught my eye down here, but I’ll join you in a moment.”

Molly returned his soft smile and headed upstairs. She was glad he was enjoying himself, though he had told her he had been here once before during his time dismantling Moriarty’s network. Sometimes she wondered what his thoughts had been whilst he explored the shop for the first time. The top floor, like the one below, was filled with worn and weathered books, but that wasn’t what caught her eye. There was a large mirror with an ornate frame covered in notes and letters.

She approached with curiosity, her mouth agape in amazement. Once she stood in front of it, Molly noticed a little box labeled, ‘Lonely Hearts and Missed Connections.’ Inside, it was stocked with paper and pens. She began reading the various notes, some searching for someone they had met here and others tearing at her heart, full of heartbreak. There was one in particular that caught her eye, having recognized the handwriting anywhere; it was Sherlock’s.

I need her. I miss her. My heart aches without her. I’ll be home soon, my darling.

Tears filled the brim of her eyes, threatening to spill over—a single drop slid down her cheek. Molly checked her surroundings. The only people upstairs was a sweet elderly couple, their attention on the books and each other. Quickly and quietly, Molly snagged Sherlock’s note. No one was supposed to take them, but for some reason, she felt that her husband wanted her to find it, to keep it with her always. He had been so keen on bringing her here first thing.

A particular shelf called her name then, and Molly went off to browse now that she knew she hadn’t been caught.

“Find anything?” Sherlock startled her once more. He chuckled at her jumpy reaction. “You act as if you’ve committed a crime.”

She laughed nervously. “I just get so caught up in my own head, I’m not aware of anyone around me. But, no, I haven’t found anything in particular, yet.”

“Ah, well, I took the liberty of purchasing this for you.” Sherlock handed her a small bag. “Look inside,” he encouraged her.

Molly pulled out a softly worn book, a gasp of surprise escaping her as she noticed what it was. It was a collection of poems and letters written by John Keats for his love, Fanny Brawne. She had always loved his poems and had idealized their love for as long as she could remember, despite the tragic end they met. “I can bear to die—“

“I cannot bear to leave her,” Sherlock finished, his voice low and thick with emotion.

And suddenly, Molly knew how he had felt those two years ago. It had been an easy enough plan, faking his death, but somewhere along the way, Sherlock had realised how difficult it would be to leave her behind. “This is perfect,” she told him, “thank you.”

“How about we grab some dinner?” Sherlock suggested, his hand on the small of her back as they made their way out of the shop. Molly nodded. Dinner sounded wonderful right about now.

After having their fill of French cuisine, Sherlock and Molly returned to their room at the Hotel Plaza Athenee. Their room led out to a cosy balcony where they had a lovely view of the Eiffel Tower in the distance. There was a small table with two chairs where they now sat, enjoying the cool night air, Paris all aglow below them. Sitting in comfortable silence, sipping on champagne provided by room service, Sherlock reached out, laying his hand atop hers, his thumb resting on the band of Molly’s wedding ring. She smiled sweetly, her eyes meeting his.

“I’m glad we did this,” she softly spoke. “It’s nice to be away from our usual lives for a bit.”

There was a time Sherlock wouldn’t have cared to leave London, but here with his new bride, it felt right. Everyone seemed to doubt that he would be a good husband to Molly, and he intended to prove everyone wrong. She was so much more than someone to just waste the time with as Mycroft had so rudely worded it. He did worry, though. What if this newfound attitude was only temporary? What if he eventually went back to his old ways? Sherlock didn’t want to be that person anymore. He wanted to be the man that Molly had always seen—for her and for himself.

“I agree,” he replied. “We deserve this time together.” Sherlock took a sip of his champagne. “And I know exactly where we should go tomorrow.”

Molly perked up. “Do tell, my husband,” she flirted. Hearing her call him her husband sent a burst of warmth through him, felt especially in his heart. That alone told him he shouldn’t worry about reverting to his old attitude towards romantic entanglements.

Sherlock squeezed her hand, tugging it gently to coax her toward him. Molly set down her glass and allowed him to pull her onto his lap. “I thought, perhaps, we could visit the catacombs in the morning.” He tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ears, leaving his hand to cradle her face.

Molly gently brushed back his curls. “Sounds like a perfect morning,”—she leaned in closely, her lips just a breadth away from his—“but what shall we do about tonight?”

His lips were on hers in a fit of instant passion. Sherlock moved accordingly to caress her petite form, lifting her up in his arms as he stood, and carried her into their room, her euphonious laughter echoing behind them.

#sherlolly #run away with me #my fanfiction

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captainderyn · 5 years

Text

OC Interview

Thank you for the tag @lumielles!

I think most everyone has been tagged...but @delavairesslegacy if you’d like to join in the fun?

Let’s do this for little miss Rie shall we?

1. What is your name? “Rielay Anne Taqq. Captain Rielay Taqq if you please.”

2. Do you know why you are named that? “My parents must have simply picked a name from a hat, there’s no rhyme or reason to it.”

3. Are you single or take?

She smiles, her hand going unconsciously to her neck, where a simple band gleams on a chain next to what looks like a smoothed piece of ship metal. “I am very happily taken.”

4. Have any abilities or powers? At that she throws her head back and laughs. “Me? Honey, the only ability I have is the ability to get myself in trouble.”

5. Stop being a Mary Sue. “I think you misheard me...my name is Rielay. Taqq. Not Mary. Sue.” she quirks a brow, good eye dancing. “It’s rude to make assumptions.”

6. What’s your eye color? “Well, the one that’s left is blue...I’m sorry is that humor bad?”

7. How about your hair color?

"Really? You’re asking? Most people point it our like it’s the end of the world...dark red.”

8. Have any family members?

She beams. “Several! My husband, our daughters Sirixa and Rina, Fashira and Zasharr of course, Esrin’s parents, Emeldir and Risha...”

9. Oh? How about pets? “Esrin’s akk dog Saavi is still with us and Sirixa has a shadow akk dog she named Cahira.”

10. That’s cool I guess. Now tell me something you don’t like? This gives her pause and she narrows her eyes. “What kind of don’t like? Galaxy-spanning-war don’t like or Esrin-put-the-caf-mugs-on-the-top-shelf don’t like?”

11. Do you have any activities/hobbies that you like to do? “I’ve always loved singing and tinkering with machines...sometimes both at once. Tinkering with my blasters, with pieces and parts of mechanics...with my ship itself. Or other people’s ships. With their consent of course. That’s illegal otherwise.”

12. Have you ever hurt anyone in any way before? Her lower lip pops out and her brows draw together. “Can we go back to the fun questions?”

13. Ever… killed anyone before? Her silence is enough of an answer, even as she cuts her eyes to the floor and gives one curt nod.

14. What kind of animal are you? “I’ve been told I am either some manner of enthusiastic dog or a miniature horse. Something about being small and full of rage.”

15. Name your worst habits. She sulks in your general direction. “Really getting upbeat with these questions, aren’t you? If you must know, I tend to overthink everything and bottle it up instead of talking about it. That’s the worst of them.”

16. Do you look up to anyone at all? Her pause is prolonged as she looks between herself and up at you. “That feels like the set up for a short joke. I don’t clear five foot, of course I look up to everyone. Especially my husband--I’ve considered carrying around a step ladder.” 17. Are you gay, straight or bisexual? She grins and immediately there’s the sense that you should regret your decision to ask. “Well, you could say I’m amBIdextrous and not just because of my cybernetic hand.” she finger guns at you and off to your left, Emeldir groans, flopping onto the table, though he starts snickering just as Rielay breaks into peals of laughter.

18. Do you go to school? Rielay lefts her face from her hand and her cheeks are pink from her laughter. “I went until I was 14...after that I joined Zavia Torelli and Tavian Kinsley’s crew aboard the Promise and formal education fell to the wayside. I know what I’ve got to know though.”

19. Ever want to marry and have kids one day? “She lifts the chain with the ring from where it rests against her collarbones, jangling it before dropping it. “Done and done. Happily married and a happy mother to two children. Only the mischievous freckled spawn is one I lugged around for nine months though.”

20. Do you have any fangirls/fanboys? “Uh...” that gives her pause. “I don’t know.”

21. What are you most afraid of? “Erm....” she frowns, brows creasing. “I don’t like this question, that’s not something you need to know. Moving on.”

22. What do you usually wear? “Leather jacket, button up shirt, jeans.” She pauses. “Or my husband’s shirts with a belt. It works surprisingly well.”

23. What one food that tempts you?

“Anything chocolate. Even if its just mildly chocolate flavor.”

24. Am I annoying to you? She leans back in her chair, leaning it back onto the back legs. “Not yet.”

25. Well, it’s still not over! “Lovely, next question?”

26. What class are you (low/middle/high)?

“Well...we’re certainly not poor. But we’re getting by. Doing as we do. Certainty not in the upper echelons of Corellia that’s for damn sure.”

27. How many friends do you have? "Several! I’ve acquired quite a few lovely people over the years.”

28. What are your thoughts on pie? "Pie can be good on occasions...chocolate pie is the best and that bad boy better be heaped with whipped cream or honestly what’s the point?”

29. Favorite drink?

“Alcoholic or non? Corellian ale or whiskey for the first, caf for the second. Never combined. Caf is black or with a little cream.”

30. What’s your favorite place? "For a long time it was my ship...but she’s seen the last of her days.” Rielay plays with the bit of metal hanging on the chain. “Now I’d have to say here, Corellia, even if I never thought I’d call this redeemed shithole a pleasure again.”

31. Are you interested in anyone? She raises her eyebrows. “Me, interested in anyone? No, I pulled a stranger off the street and had a kid with him and now he’s living in my house. I should get that fixed.”

32. That was a stupid question… “Well..stupid is a strong word huh, how about...poorly considered? We all make mistakes.”

33. Would you rather swim in a lake or the ocean? “Well, I’m not really one for swimming in general nowadays. But lakes. The saltwater does nasty things to the tech in my arm, learned that the hard way.”

34. What’s your type?

“Hm...strong military type apparently...but soft and kind, willing to put up with my shit. I believe the type even has a name, let me think....Esrin!” 35. Any fetishes? She blushed a brilliant red. “Uhm...no.”

36. Camping or outdoors? Her head tilts to the side. “Aren’t those one and the same? I guess so long as I have my warm husband to hold me I’d sleep under the stars, the outdoors I suppose.”

#captainderyn memes #oc: Taqq #Rielay Taqq

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elizadoolittlethings · 6 years

Text

my fanfic/mollcroft/the princess and the banker/ chapter 1 - the beginning of a journey

eliza doolittle

[Anglesey

- mycroft’s home

Island in Wales

Anglesey is an island in Wales, off the mainland's northwest coast. It's known for its beaches and ancient sites. The island is accessed by the 19th-century Menai Suspension Bridge and the Britannia Bridge, rebuilt in the 20th century. In the medieval town of Beaumaris, 13th-century Beaumaris Castle has concentric fortifications and a moat. ]

[Pembrokeshire

-molly’s home

Town in Wales

Pembrokeshire is a county in the southwest of Wales. It is bordered by Carmarthenshire to the east, Ceredigion to the northeast, and the sea everywhere else. The county is home to Pembrokeshire Coast National Park.]

[Snowdonia

-moriarty’s home

Mountain range in Wales

Mountainous 823-square-mile National Park, including remote villages, lakes and Snowdon peak.]

The Princess and The Banker

Chapter 1 - The Beginning of a Journey

Molly woke up to the nudge on her shoulder and the whisper in her ear - recognising the voice - “My Lady! Wake up. Wakeup! We’ve to leave!”

It was Mary, her maid , her guard, her childhood companion. Someone she, and her father trusted with their life.

Something was definitely wrong.

Silently Molly allowed Mary to bundle her into clothes of a man - shirt, trousers, boots, cloak. They took the secret stairs behind her wardrobe. It led to an underground passage and into the woods behind the castle.

A hackney was waiting for them. As Molly climbed into the back she heard Mary whispering to the man beside the horse. Slowly she recognised the silhouette - it was Sir John, second in command to Captain Lestrade, the King’s commanding officer.

She desperately wanted to ask them why he was not with her father, the King, protecting him! But knew she was expected to follow, not ask questions and cause a delay.

Although only 14 yrs old, Lady Molly Hooper was far more intelligent and capable than any of her friends. Not that she had any - friends! They treated her with respect for after all she is the Princess of Astoria, only daughter of King Edward Hooper. Even if most of them felt that she was not normal, with her obsession with taking care of injured animals, reading books on medicine and death! Death! She seemed fascinated by poisons and decomposition of the body. That was definitely not normal!

Molly’s thoughts of her life in the castle were turned to the movement of the hackney. Mary had joined her at the back, and they were off in a hurry. She was jolted from side to side but held on to the beam passing along the canvas roof. Her thoughts strayed to the castle, her father. She shut them down. Concentrated on the twists and turns of the path ahead.

The forest was her only friend, with Mary as her companion, while she explored - memorising plants from the hefty books that Mary carried in a small cart, as Molly searched for specimens to use in the small room her father had ordered set up for her. He loved his daughter, more when her mother passed away from a fever that had taken more lives in his kingdom than any battle. His loss though hidden was obvious to his quiet daughter. Molly was determined to find the cause for this ‘plague’ that had taken so many precious lives. And her father indulged her, much to the discomfort of his councillors - who thought that a Princess’ role was to be presentable in court, and make a good Queen when the time came.

Half-way through the journey Molly started losing the orientation of the path. They were heading deeper into the woods - farther than she had ever been. Slowly the rocking of their vehicle lulled her into a doze that she found hard to resist. She needed to remain alert, study the path, note the relevant pieces that would help her re-trace the way back to the castle. Not that she did not trust John or Mary. It had become a force of habit - memorising everything that fell in her field - of vision.

Not sure for how long she had slept, Molly heard the whispered arguments of her companions and decided to get out and see where they were. It was still dark, they were at the border of the woods, and all she could see ahead was fog. Her movement had alerted her guards and Mary came running to her “My Lady. Please remain inside. It is not yet safe for you to come into the open.”

Frustrated but practical, Molly nodded and sat inside, waiting for John and Mary to finish their discusion and continue with their journey. As she cuddled into the fur blanket that was spread out on the make-shift bed at the floor of the hackney, something hard touched her head. She leapt up, silently, and focussed her gaze on the object hidden under the fur. The outline was definitely familiar. It was her log-book : the one she carried with her wherever she went. All her work was detailed in it. As she slowly placed the bookon her lap the hackney shifted under the weight of Mary who climbed in to join her. They started moving again.

Mary watched her caress the book and smiled. It was the only personal item that she could collect given the circumstances. Yet, she knew Molly would prefer this to all the treasures her father had bestowed upon her over the years.

———~———

The slowing of the hackney woke her up. Molly watched Mary jump out and run ahead. She held the book close to her chest, seeking comfort for her racing heart.

John slowed the horse and got down, leading them closer to what looked like a barn.

He tied the horse to a pole and came to the back to help Molly get down. Seeing her questioning look John held a ffinger to his lips, watching Molly nod in understanding, and led her into the barn. Settling her in a corner with the blankets around, he signaled her to wait while he went out.

She was too tired to even think of the reasons for all this secretiveness. And too anxious to sleep. So all she could do was wait even if not patiently.

The sound of more than a pair of boots on the gravel outside made her crouch into the hay.

“Where is she? AAh. My lady, please allow me to escort you inside,” the voice was deep, touching her heart like a well sung sonata. Yet she did not dare peek at her interlocutor.

A strong hand with thin long fingers grasped her elbow firmly and fluidly pulled her up. As Molly rose up from between the hay she looked up to see a tall man with curly hair, strong chin, high cheek-bones, long neck, dressed in a tight shirt and breeches and boots. Her head reached only his chest. In the dark she couldn’t see his eyes. His breath was steady and he was watching her intently.

Trying to gather all information about the stranger, she did not register the other voices behind the man. Like a fog being displaced by the sun, her clouded mind cleared on hearing the slightly admonishing tone of Mary. She tried to look over the stranger’s shoulder but couldn’t budge.

“Well, you do want me to keep her safe, don’t you John?” he asked.

“Of course we bloody do, Sherlock! But, don’t frighten her into running away! That’s not very good now, is it?” John replied.

“Hmph. She doesn’t look like the running type.” “ Shall we, Princess?” saying so, the stranger Sherlock walked past them out of the barn.

“Don’t worry. He is a Good Man. You’ll be safe here, till John can bring more news from the castle” Mary assured her Lady.

“What happened? Is Father alright? When will I see him again?” Molly started babbling as she was led into a small single storied house by Mary, John following them. Sherlock was nowhere to be seen.

———~———

The front door was open. As they stepped in Molly could hear the faint sound of music- violin, behind the closed door to the left of what looked like the only room in the house - there was a fire-place, next to which stood what looked like a shelf that held kitchen utensils. This was at the far right of the rectangular room, where there was a window with a ledge that had books, writng paper, and some cushions. Right in front of the fire-place was large chair looking cozy with a rug and more books on the floor beside it. There was a large table in the middle of the room that was covered with pans and jars and more books.

Next to the door in the left corner of the room was a make-shify bed that looke more like a wooden board covered with a rug and a few blankets. There was a stand covered with books next to it. A candle was burning on the stand and there was a quill that was resting on a parchment paper.

Molly slowly realised that what was resting on top of the books was actually a skull, and, looked human! She had seen the remains of a baby in the forest, and Mary had mentioned that sometimes when a woman gave birth to a still-born, the father would bury the child in the forest, and not in the graveyard of the church. This was to let the spirit of the child be free to wander in the woods and not be bullied by the other ghosts.

Though Molly never belived her and knew that Mary was hiding something, the fact was she loved fantasies and this only fueled her imaginations.

As she slowly approached the skull the door opened with a bang and Sherlock moved in a flash to the pots and pans on the shelves.

“What would you like to have?Soup?”

John exchanged a glance with Mary. “I’ll worry about the food.”

Sherlock merely looked at him as if he was a disturbance and fell into the chair by the fire.

“Why don’t we get you settled, my Lady?” Mary asked Molly.

Molly looked at her not sure what she meant. She was led by Mary through the door to the stable right behind the house where on the floor was a trap door that she lifted to reveal stairs. A faint glow lit the stairs. Molly followed her companion down the stairs to a small room that had a bed, a shelf for clothes, a basin and a jug full of water, also a table with books and writing equipment.

The room had walls and floor that were covered in wooden beams - probably to keep the chill out. There were pipes running along the ceiling. Molly wondered what they were for.

“You’d best change into something more comfortable, my Lady.” Mary was already taking out a few clothes from a bag that sat on one of the shelves.

Molly walked over to her, held her trembling hand and slowly turned her to look directly into her eyes “Tell me. You know I would rather know the truth than avoid it. Please. In the name of our friendship, if you truly are devoted to the King, please!”

There was unshed tears in her eyes.

Molly was never one to interefere when she knew she was expected to remain silent. But this was about her father! Her Kingdom! She held on to Mary’s hand steadily.

Mary nodded and led her to the bed. She still carried the bag of clothes. “These are John’s. Will fit you, even if a little loose. Why don’t you change first. After I promise to tell you everything.”

Sighing, Molly rose to her feet and started shedding the clothes she had hastily worn earlier in the night. “What time do you think it is?” she asked in a whisper.

“Almost daylight” Mary answered as she helped her remove her petticoat.

Mary moved to a corner where a wooden board was covering what looked like the beginning of the pipe that ran along the roof. Removing the lid she placed the jug of water on the iron plate that was revealed. The water slowly started heating. Mary dipped a piece of cloth in the water and gave it to Molly who wiped herself. After ensuring that she was clean Mary took the jug, closed the iron plate with the wooden lid and washed the rag in the basin. After wiping Molly’s hair with the damp cloth, Mary helped her into the clean clothes.

“I’ll wash your petticoat and dry it. We’ll have to improvise since there is no spare.” Mary refused to maitain eye-contact. That was not a good sign.

Molly sat on the bed waiting for Mary to finally run out of excuses.

“Lord Magnussen was heard threatening the King by John. Not sure about the details. John approached Captain Gregory, who’d said that the King is in his debt and owes the Lord quite a large sum. Since he’s in good terms with King Moriarty, of Snowdonia, John feels …” Mary paused, not sure if she should complete the thought.

“That Moriarty might attack? Like he captured Snowdonia?” Molly completed the sentence in her head, not realising that she had whispered it aloud. “But, Pembrokeshire is so far away! Unless he has the help of the neighbouring kingdoms …”

“Lord Magnussen has too many nobles in his debt. It’s not safe for you in the castle ‘till we are sure of his motives. Trust John. He’ll be off to the castle by now. W’may have to wait for a day or two. He’s promised to get back to us by then with any new developments. If it’s safe, we can return immediately.” Mary tried, her voice not convincing enough.

But Molly was a practical girl. She never was carried away by fanciful thoughts. “Let us go eat” saying so, she rose from the bed, determined not to give more trouble than she already had - which was inevitable, considering the fact that the fate of her Kingdom rested on her head. Mary may be doing her duty, but she knew that Mary was more like an elder sister to her. She was cared for deeply, and knew that Mary would give her life to protect her Lady.

———~———

As she entered the room, Molly realised that it was empty. Mary went over to the fire, where soup was simmering in a pot hanging from the hook over the fire-place. Carefully she laddled out a few spoons into a bowl, placed it on a table, took out a few slices of bread from a tin on the shelf near the window, and beckoned Molly to sit - by the window. Handing over the bowl of soup and bread, she filled a bowl for herself and sat beside Molly.

They ate in silence, Molly watching the faint traces of sunrise through the clouds that filled the sky, Mary keeping watch, expectantly.

Once they had finished, Mary gathered their bowls “I’ll wash up. Please rest for a few hours, my Lady.”

Molly was not sure if it was proper to occupy someone else’s bed without asking permission. “But, what about..?”

“Master Sherlock? He won’t be back till nightfall. Even then he’ll be using the cot here. The one below is a safe-place, to hide those… Why don’t you go rest. Best not know things which’ll cause trouble.”

Molly stared at her for a while. She knew there was more going on. But she had a way of observing and collecting facts when most people found it indistinct. Determined to be aware of whatever it was that was being hidden to protect her, Molly simply gave a brief nod and walked out the door to the stable trap - door.

———~———

As she tossed about restlessly, unable to sleep, Molly realised that she needed to go to the toilet, and not seeing any commode or chamber pot, sat on the bed wondering. Finally she decided to go upstairs and ask Mary, who had not joined her.

“How long have I been asleep?” she wondered aloud.

As she made her way out of the trap-door, she could hear Mary whispering. Not sure if she was allowed to be seen by others, Molly hid behind the door. The voices were faint. “…but you cannot take her back, and I cannot leave her here alone.” That was Mary.

“You have to come, or else he’ll be suspiscious.” That’s definitely John! Molly wondered how he was back so soon and that worried her.

Slowly she opened the door to make sure that there was no one other than John and Mary. They stopped whispering once they saw her at the door-way.

“Oh, my Lady, you’re awake?” Mary hesitated, unsure of Molly’s response.

“I, …”Molly beckoned her closer, and whispered in her ear when she got to her,”I need to use the chamber pot.”

“Oh! Yes, I forgot to mention! Come this way.’’ “John, could you make some coffee?”

“Mhm” John watched them closely, not moving. Mary gestured that they’ll be back soon and guided Molly out the door behind the barn and into the trees.

At first Molly thought there must be some room, then realised she was to go in the open! Of course she knew that only rich people had chamber pots and commode, but, …Well! There was a first for everything!

On the way Mary plucked a few leaves from a bush and as they entered a dense thicket gestured for her to go behind the bushes, thrusting the leaves into her hand.

When she was a child and played in the woods close to their castle accompanied by Mary and her nurse, Molly had occassionally been helped by the nurse, so it was not like she didn’t know how. Still, she worried someone may walk onto her and.. No use panicking, she thought. Mary was trained to protect her. She was safe.

Adjusting her clothes, on coming out of the thicket, she saw Mary, talking to a small boy not far off. On seeing Molly approaching, Mary gestured vehemently and sent him away. They walked in silence to the house.

John had made coffee and what smelt like stew was simmering in the pot above the fire. Molly sat on the cot next to the door and pretended to look at the books on the shelf.

Mary was whispering to John. Clearing his throat, “My Lady, ..”

The door opened with a thud “I am not to baby-sit a foolish girl who cannot take care of herself!” Sherlock barged into the room. “There are more important things to do! If she is staying here, she needs to be able to take care of herself. Or you can take her with you. I have no objection.”

Sighing, John handed a bowl of stew to Molly, who looked at him pleadingly. He gave her a reassuring smile and walked over to Sherlock who was standing near the window. He looked more like a five-year-old, than the tweny-year-old imperious Master who had greeted Molly earlier that day.

“You do know the situation is too dangerous.” John couldn’t help the tone of impatience creeping into his voice. “She is definitely capable of taking care of herself. We simply wanted you here before we left.”

“I’ll be back as soon as I can convince Lady Janine that there is nothing to worry. The princess is having a fever and needs rest. If I’m not there, we cannot say who will enter the chambers and ..”

“Lady Janine is not Lord Magnussen’s neice! Isn’t that obvious? He has sent some poor relation looking for a better life to do his dirty work! And you fell for it!! Grow a backbone and stand up to him. Or be cunning and divert his attention. Not go where he pushes you! That is his advantage. Preying on your fears, forcing you to take the easy way out. So predictable!”

“What d’you want us to do then? Let the woman wander around and talk to the maids. We might as well anounce our plans to the bloody kingdom!” John was shouting now.

Sherlock narrowed his eyes intently studying John’s face, puffed up with anger.

“Best get there as early as possible. No use delaying then, right?”

He turned to Molly who was almost crouching on the cot. “I need to use the downstairs room for a couple of hours. Unless you hear someone approaching, DO NOT come down.” His voice low and emphatic. With that Sherlock stalked off opening the door and shutting it with a bang.

Mary approached Molly who simply sat with her head bent down, unsure what to say. John held her back and shook his head. Gently sitting beside her on the cot, he held her hand and started softly, “Your father knows you are safe, my Lady. We’d be at ease if you’d stay here till it’s safe. Better that you don’t know the details… in case of..” John sighed and was about to get up.

Molly held on to his hand and in a voice that was too steady to be confident “I will do my best. You should try and reach the castle in time.” She looked at Mary, gave a wintry smile and nodded. Mary rushed to her, hugging tight, and was out the door without looking back. John squuezed her hands, bowed, and followed Mary.

———~———

It was close to evening, Molly was curled up on the cot, not asleep, simply exhausted from all the frenzy. She knew that she had to get up, complete her evening toilette, before it got dark, and make supper - or something to not get tired from hunger.

The sound of approaching hooves alerted her reflexes. As she was on her way to the trap-door in the barn, she was met by Sherlock running towards her. He caught her in time and silently gestured for her to hide below.

Before she could make a move a soft clear voice alerted her attention “It will be best for The Princess to accompany me home, don’t you think so, Sherlock?!”

Molly clung to the back of Sherlock, hiding, hoping that he would protect her.

“If you say so, Mycroft!” Sherlock sneered.

Hearing the reply made her relinquish her hold. But as she tried to rush into the woods, strong slender fingers held her in place. She was trembling, unable to struggle free.

“Do we have time to discuss this?” Sherlock asked softly.

“Maybe while on the way.” was the reply from the new-comer, who seemed to be steering her towards a carriage - probably the one that ‘Mycroft’ had arrived in.

Sherlock was not moving, silently surveying the scene.

“Are you coming?” was the imperious command that made him move along with them.

“How long has Moriarty know about the new development?” Sherlock questioned the man whom he seemed to be familiar with.

“Hmph!” was the only response.

“I doubt this is your cleverest idea yet.” Sherlock seemed determined to irritate the man even though it was obvious that ‘Mycroft’ was the person in charge.

Molly never felt so small in her entire life.

Seated between two tall imposing men, she felt more like the child she was than the Princess she was meant to be. Having seen Sherlock with John, she felt closer to him even if their interactions were minimal. Also he was handsome! Until he opens his mouth, of course.

“I have left instructions for John. Still, maybe I should travel to Pembrokeshire, make sure of the situation before going on to Snowdonia. Better to get down near the highway. Take care of her. You owe John. Never forget.”

{sorry for the abrupt break. posting for @lilynevin :) }

#mollcroft #fanfiction #sherlock tv AU #mark gatiss #mycroft #molly #sherlock #john #mary #janine #magnussen #moriarty #irene #mrs. hudson #the princess and the banker

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davidjjohnston3 · 3 years

Text

Thoughts on philosophy of education non-toxic and detoxifying edition

Needless risk. I said years ago, “The quality of the peace determines the quality of the war.” What is the life-expectancy for an African child-soldier who started at 8?

Everyone in America wants to be or thinks they can be or can make their kid Ender Wiggin.

ES - Mom, school, hakwon, piano hakwon, church

MS - friends

HS - destiny, purpose, and often, couples

My last ideal H&M Hail Mary projects

-from Promise Nine “Clover”

- from Mother Superior Mrs. Catherine Cho’s “Inferno.” Elinor Wylie or What She Shall Be. We shall walk in the snow. Purity and controlled aggression; ardor; candor; and mayhap, without apologizing forever.

- Digging up all my buried treasure from the days when I had good psychiatrists like Dr. Z. who said a comment over the 2012 election. “The Winners.”

Young people have ardor and candor and are good writers but lack opportunity / life-chances. They engage ideas. Sometimes they ignore their own faces and hands and this is in part because, as I have repeatedly noticed, the old who HAVE ideas just want bodies.

Hence, “My Teacher’s Pet Grace.” “My grandmother [shoot me in heart].”

I have other thoughts and feelings about this but it’s my private concern.

I have no idea who is gonna make it or how. “Wonhago...” America seems demoralized. Whitefish Bay, where I love, where someone knows my name, at Sendik’s feels like they are not sure they can win.

I used to love their Pumpkin Festival and even took Mom and Pop.

I started “Uncle Sam” about a geography teacher who retired too soon and is fond of Krystal Jung Soojung. I think his name was “Samuel Johnston” and in past he had a Southern undermining friend I based on Miles Patrick Klee who always tried to “bottom shelf” him down to his essential pathetic condition; whereat I was repeatedly pigeonholed(?) by all my “friends” or ex-constituencies.

“Uncle Sam” evolved eventually in to “Send for Your Love” which is my masculine counterpart(?) to something like “The Hen Who Dreamed She Can / Could / Might Fly” whereby I thought I failed as a hakwon and HS teacher but had a solid even immortal concept for Phi. of Ed. and teacher-training.

I discovered “All Loves Excelling” actually in Lake Geneva (where FSF was born) at a consignment boutique with a 21-year-old cat on a digression back from Chicago where I’d just interviewed at the ROKCG for the first or second time. I didn’t understand it at all but felt it “cool, keol, jeongdeokhan” that a Headmaster wrote a private school novel because I HATE Gossip Girl.

There was also “The Midwestern Novel” a study I never ended up reading but which tickled me(?) which I fancied or was taken with because I had assumed if not inferred that most Midwesterners only gazed dead-eyed with “tarnished mournful beady-eyed German mirrors” at the literature of the coasts.

That is / was not true. For one thing there is me. For another many people “hide their virtue” as a Japanese said. They also pour their pure hearts and their creativity and “apercus” (not acumen) into creating little families, households, and other things which remain idle ideas for some apartment-dwellers. Astronaut farmers here there be - if only they would launch from the pad; but IDK since I’m an outsider here to all but myself.

Wallace Stegner

It is important / critical / crucial to know what is going on in the present moment or there’s no end to the reading of history or anyway it is for other people - “Sheep May Safely Graze.”

10.

Whitefish Bay - “Bay of Slow Hopes” - at least thank the Lord =/= Milwaukee.

11.

I’ll never forget the Vietnamese girl at World War Z. However JiU going for the popcorn and no movie is like a dream come true to me.

This is why I gave away my precious SS-9′s and SS-7′s a few months ago - I sincerely thought it was Acts 2. “Husbands look on your wives’ brows, hold your daughters’ and sons’ hands at the library, vote Republican, don’t even vote, don’t outsource, don’t send for, don’t go.”

“My Love Don’t Cross That _”

TW-1 used to like it when I said “Don’t do that” but I stole the line from Big Bad Boris.

I used to compose in Tumblr when I thought this aspect of the past was a small deal. Now I want to give butter and honey and “daily bread, viaticum” (M. Scott Peck Gifts for the Journey DNR - he said “I’m a prophet not a saint” which is 100% non campus mentis suicidal).

12.

What’s Dong Joo Lee up to, under the moon or sun, by mirror or torch / lamp, by moonlight or throw-light.

I imagined him on an aircraft carrier with an F-35 blasting “You Could Be Mine” or “You Shall Be Mine.”

He said, “I wrote on a paper I want to join Navy JAG, I did, God is good.”

He looks great / beautiful in white + killer facial hair for a Kor.

When I met Chi Hye Kim I a saw a comet walking around and remembered his back-muscles sheathed in fat / water-retentions before our years of?

13.

I’m against BP but “F U pay me”

14.

I used to listen to “Adagio Cantabile” all the time and think, “repression, going over and over, re-reading and re-reading, mystery religiose, not wanting to know, student crush, Angel Stays Here, repression, repression, repression, rejection, unwillingness to “rebel against evil.”

Siyeon Paradise - run

away

and that bubblegang 5 song,

aoi tori

caritas tori

golden dove missive

15.

“Our New World” as letters or love-letters

A Half Day after MS and Pizza at Bunny’s

16.

Half-days are terrible and the staff don’t even develop

As Dale Duncan said at Family Buffet, “Hell no.”

He moved south and got gay-”married.”

Also blogs about his genius pedagogy

17.

The other song I should have held in my heart’s arm-wing-chaingun-magazine was “Don’t stop flying till you find me, high sky light-debt-bond.”

18.

What’s Richard M. Dienst up to and since I can’t seem to get me a sinecure in Wisconsin can I get a familiar river old boy country road take home at RU. Will teach for not even food, not even thanks...

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inloveandwords · 6 years

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This post was inspired by Ally’s series (which was inspired by Lia at Lost in a Story).

It works like this: Go to your goodreads to-read shelf. Order on ascending date added. Take the first 5 (or 10 (or even more!) if you’re feeling adventurous) books Read the synopsis of the books Decide: keep it or should it go?

I’ve been avoiding doing anything like this for awhile because, while I’m great at getting rid of things around the house and in most areas of my life, getting rid of books – even if it is just digitally – causes so much metaphorical pain LOL!

But, like Ally said, I don’t want to miss any great books and this may actually remind me of books that I need to bump up to the TBR ASAP list (which might be good or bad… we shall see.)

Here are the stats

Declutter Post Number: 1

Starting Total TBR Count: 1760

Current Total TBR Count: 1760

Total Marked TBR ASAP: #

Ending Total TBR Count: #

Midnight Sun (Twilight #1.5) by Stephenie Meyer

Midnight Sun is the much anticipated retelling of Twilight from Edward Cullen’s perspective. An unedited partial draft was illegally leaked onto the internet in 2008; consequently, author Stephenie Meyer put the project on indefinite hold.

So, this is why we clean out our TBR. Right here. Because people like me joined Goodreads almost a decade ago and things like this were one of the first books added to my TBR. Sigh.

Date Added to Goodreads: 8/29/2010

Keep or Ditch: DITCH

Tell-All by Chuck Palahniuk

Soaked, nay, marinated in the world of vintage Hollywood, Tell-All is a Sunset Boulevard–inflected homage to Old Hollywood when Bette Davis and Joan Crawford ruled the roost; a veritable Tourette’s syndrome of rat-tat-tat name-dropping, from the A-list to the Z-list; and a merciless send-up of Lillian Hellman’s habit of butchering the truth that will have Mary McCarthy cheering from the beyond.

Our Thelma Ritter–ish narrator is Hazie Coogan, who for decades has tended to the outsized needs of Katherine “Miss Kathie” Kenton—veteran of multiple marriages, career comebacks, and cosmetic surgeries. But danger arrives with gentleman caller Webster Carlton Westward III, who worms his way into Miss Kathie’s heart (and boudoir). Hazie discovers that this bounder has already written a celebrity tell-all memoir foretelling Miss Kathie’s death in a forthcoming Lillian Hellman–penned musical extravaganza; as the body count mounts, Hazie must execute a plan to save Katherine Kenton for her fans—and for posterity.

I was OBSESSED with Chuck P back in the day. It’s been awhile since I’ve read any of his books and unless I go through another phase, I don’t see me going out of my way to purchase anything by him anytime soon.

Date Added to Goodreads: 8/29/2010

Keep or Ditch: DITCH

Pygmy by Chuck Palahniuk

“Begins here first account of operative me, agent number 67 on arrival Midwestern American airport greater _____ area. Flight _____. Date _____. Priority mission top success to complete. Code name: Operation Havoc.”

Thus speaks Pygmy, one of a handful of young adults from a totalitarian state sent to the United States, disguised as exchange students, to live with typical American families and blend in, all the while planning an unspecified act of massive terrorism. Palahniuk depicts Midwestern life through the eyes of this thoroughly indoctrinated little killer, who hates us with a passion, in this cunning double-edged satire of an American xenophobia that might, in fact, be completely justified. For Pygmy and his fellow operatives are cooking up something big, something truly awful, that will bring this big dumb country and its fat dumb inhabitants to their knees.

It’s a comedy. And a romance.

See above commentary.

Date Added to Goodreads: 8/29/2010

Keep or Ditch: DITCH

Snuff by Chuck Palahniuk

“Cassie Wright, porn priestess, intends to cap her legendary career by breaking the world record for serial fornication. On camera. With six hundred men. Snuff unfolds from the perspectives of Mr. 72, Mr. 137, and Mr. 600, who await their turn on camera in a very crowded green room. This wild, lethally funny, and thoroughly researched novel brings the huge yet underacknowledged presence of pornography in contemporary life into the realm of literary fiction at last. Who else but Chuck Palahniuk would dare do such a thing? Who else could do it so well, so unflinchingly, and with such an incendiary (you might say) climax?

I actually own this one, it’s on my bookshelf, so I’ll keep this one on here.

Date Added to Goodreads: 8/29/2010

Keep or Ditch: Keep

Rant by Chuck Palahniuk

Buster “Rant” Casey just may be the most efficient serial killer of our time. A high school rebel, Rant Casey escapes from his small town home for the big city where he becomes the leader of an urban demolition derby called Party Crashing. Rant Casey will die a spectacular highway death, after which his friends gather the testimony needed to build an oral history of his short, violent life.

I own this one, too!

Date Added to Goodreads: 8/29/2010

Keep or Ditch: Keep

Immortal: Love Stories with Bite by P.C. Cast

Seven of today’s most popular YA vampire and contemporary fantasy authors offer new short stories that prove that when you’re immortal, true love really is forever.

I added this back when I was in love with PC Cast, but I’m kind of meh about her books now.

Date Added to Goodreads: 8/29/2010

Keep or Ditch: Ditch

Infinity by Sarah Dessen

Ever felt as if your life is just going round in circles? Sarah Dessen’s thought-provoking short story about moving on will resonate with teens everywhere.

First of all, what is this synopsis?! Second, I thought I’d read all of SD’s books except for the latest one… hmm…

Date Added to Goodreads: 8/29/2010

Keep or Ditch: Keep

Echo by Francesca Lia Block

Francesca Lia Block has charmed and amazed young audiences with tales of the mystical and ethereal. This outstanding story is no different. Following the life of Echo, an L.A. baby born to an artistic dad and a mom who’s an angel, this enthralling story offers more than fairy dust and the supernatural. It tells the tale of a girl who feels doomed to be less than angelic, at least in comparison with her mother. Mom’s startling beauty and aura enchant all who meet her, and Echo can never keep up. Desperate to be loved as much, and maybe find her own identity, she escapes to the boys in her life. Ultimately, she must rely on herself for the strength to survive.

Simple text ands story lines do not appeal to Block, who weaves a tale with amazing grace and the flowing energy of a true genius. Images of vampires, ghosts, and fairies fill these pages, daring the reader to believe. Told from the point of view of Echo and the key players in her life, the story imparts a dreamlike quality to Echo’s life. This a novel layered with pain beauty, and triumph, all which will appeal to young readers.

This one is on my bookshelf. I love FLB and her unique writing style.

Date Added to Goodreads: 8/30/2010

Keep or Ditch: Keep

Wasteland by Francesca Lia Block

An exquisite novel about the consequences of who we choose to love.

Lex and his sister, Marina, are inseparable. The air they share has always been light and boundless, but suddenly it’s weighted down. And now Lex is gone. When the one relationship that cradled her turns out to shatter her sense of self, Marina needs her friend West to help put the pieces back together. But Marina won’t feel truly complete until she faces the past that is haunting her.

Highly acclaimed and award-winning author Francesca Lia Block tells the tale of a brother and sister whose loving relationship is too intense for them to bear. With the sensitivity and refinement that Block is known for, she manages to weave together her characters and their lives into this beautiful and thought-provoking tale.

It pains me to take any FLB books off my TBR, but I just don’t see myself picking this over any others.

Date Added to Goodreads: 8/29/2010

Keep or Ditch: Ditch

Bye-Bye Books: Decluttering My TBR #1 This post was inspired by Ally’s series (which was inspired by Lia at Lost in a Story…

#chuck Palahniuk #Francesca Lia Block #pc cast #sarah dessen #Stephenie Meyer #TBR

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pamphletstoinspire · 7 years

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Saint John Berchmans - Feast Day: November 26th - Latin Calendar

Born: March 13, 1599, Diest, Belgium

Joined the Jesuit Order: September 24, 1616 (aged 17)

Died: August 31, 1621 (aged 22)

Beatified: 1865 (244 years later)

Canonized: 1888 (23 years after that)

Patron Saint: Altar Servers

Feast Day: November 26

John Berchmans (note, the final “s” is part of the name) was born and grew up in a Flemish-speaking area of present-day Belgium. His short life (he was only 22 when he died of a sudden fever) was marked by extraordinary piety, even by the standards of the day, which were much higher than our own.

Pray and Work

At the age of 7, John would get up at 5 am and serve 2 or 3 Masses, carefully listening to the sermons (in those days every priest had to say his own Mass every day - it was not enough to concelebrate the Mass of another priest.) For this reason, perhaps, John was later made the patron saint of altar servers. At the age of 9, he would spend hours every day with his mother, who was bedridden with a long illness. His parish priest, Fr. Emmerick noticed all this and remarked that Our Lord would “work wonders in the soul of the child.” John was always especially devoted to Mary, our Blessed Lady, and loved the Rosary, which he would often pray whilst walking along.

Not only did John throw himself into religious devotions with great enthusiasm, he would also try to do more than his share of the chores, or try to take the most arduous and difficult ones. Later, in the Jesuit order, he was the novice who tried hardest to fulfill all the rules. After studying for two years in Belgium, taking his first vows and starting philosophy studies in Antwerp, he set out for Rome to continue his Jesuit philosophy training there. Today this is a comfortable 90 minute flight or an arduous 15 hour drive; John did the journey (due to the Alps a road distance of around 1000 miles) on foot! He had a burning ambition to give his all for Christ, and even to become a saint: “If I do not become a saint when I am young," he said, "I shall never become one.” Perhaps he had a premonition of his early death, or perhaps he realized how creature comforts can paralyse spiritual life in adulthood. Portraits usually depict him holding a crucifix, a rosary and his Shell road atlas Jesuit rule-book.

What his life means to us today

The fierce, passionate “muscular” Christianity of John Berchmans seems unreal, even horrifying to many of today's Catholics brought up on soft-focus posters, self-affirming books and the belief that Christian love means primarily kindness - but let us not be deceived. Jackie Pullinger, who as a young woman preached and lived the gospel in the deadly slums of Hong Kong, famously said that Christians need “soft hearts” but “hard feet.” The seventeenth century was a cruel time all round, with no punches pulled and no anaesthetics. But Catholics like John had the hardest feet imaginable, and besides fortitude (“guts”) and self-sacrifice, they excelled in virtues that the 21st century West ignores or treats almost as a joke, such as humble obedience, temperance, diligence and chastity. Hence St John’s value to us as a guide today lies in his youthful, clear vision in areas where our own times have gaping blind spots.

***

Another Story:

St. John Berchmans was born the eldest son of a shoemaker in 1599 at Diest, Belgium. At a very young age he wanted to be a priest, and when thirteen he became a servant in the household of one of the cathedral canons at Malines. After his mother's death, his father and two brothers followed suit and entered religious life. In 1615 he entered the Jesuit college there, becoming a novice a year later. In 1618 he was sent to Rome for more study and was known for his diligence and piety, and his stress on perfection even in small things. That year his father was ordained and died six months later. John was so poor and humble that he walked from Antwerp to Rome. He died at the age of 22 on August 13. Many miracles were attributed to him after his death; he was canonized in 1888 and is the patron saint of altar boys.

Although he longed to work in the mission fields of China, he did not live long enough to permit it. After completing his course work, he was asked to defend the "entire field of philosophy" in a public disputation in July, just after his exit examinations. The following month he was asked to represent the Roman College in a debate with the Greek College. Although he distinguished himself in this disputation, he had studied so assiduously that he caught a cold in mid-summer, became very ill with with an undetermined illness accompanied by a fever, although some think it now to have been dysentery, and died a week later. He was buried in the church of Saint Ignatius at Rome, but his heart was later translated to the Jesuit church at Louvain.

So many miracles were attributed to him after his death at the age of 22, that his cultus soon spread to his native Belgium, where 24,000 copies of his portrait were published within a few years of his death. He was known for his devotion to the Blessed Sacrament and to Our Lady, to whom he composed a Chaplet in honor of her Immaculate Conception.

Our true worth does not consist in what human beings think of us.

What we really are consists in what God knows us to be.

To merit the protection of Mary, the smallest act of veneration would be enough, provided that it is performed with constancy.

If I do not become a Saint when I am young, I shall never become one.

[In fact, he died at the early age of twenty-two and he had, without any doubt, reached his goal of sanctity.]

As he was dying, he pressed to his heart his Crucifix, his Rosary, and the Book of Rules, saying: These are my three treasures; with these I shall gladly die.

***

Another Story:

Saint John Berchmans - Jesuit Saint - by Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.

John Berchmans, I thought I would cover all the young Jesuit saints to make sure that I didn't slight any of them. St. John Berchmans was born in 1599 in Berbont, Belgium and died in Rome in 1621 at the ripe age of twenty-two. Unlike Saints Stanislaus and Aloysius who were members of the nobility, aristocratic, wealthy – John was from a very ordinary family. His father was a shoemaker, which I think is quite ordinary. His mother was never well, which mainly explains why he was brought up by a Premonstratensian priest by the name of Father Peter Emerick who taught him his religion, other subjects, and was in the habit of visiting shrines of which there are quite a few in northern Europe. At thirteen, as the younger children were coming along, the father told John to leave school, stop his education, and work in the shoemaking shop. John protested that he wanted to become a priest and shoemaking is not the usual apprenticeship to the priesthood. In any case the father compromised by getting John a job working in a rectory, cleaning, waiting on table, washing dishes and being paid for his education at a local seminary. The priest in charge of the rectory was quite different from Father Emerick. This one didn't take him to shrine; he took him out hunting. In any case, John, in 1615 – that would be the age of sixteen – entered the Jesuit college at Maleen in Belgium. In reading, however, the seminary where he was, there was a risk between the officials of the seminary and the Jesuits for having taken this bright, young, promising seminarian from their hands. A year later he applied for the Jesuits – his father objected, but, let him go. By now you are used to Jesuit's writing. John Berchmans wrote many letters. We have a copy of the letter he wrote to his mother and father asking them to visit him which was quite a distance, even though Belgium is a small country by modern standards. "I humbly ask you" he says "dear father and mother to be so good as to come here on Wednesday evening" – he told them when to come, even suggested how to travel, certain coach or a certain wagon – "so that I may say welcome and goodbye to you and you to me, so you can give your son back to the good Lord, who gave me to you." This reminds me that when I entered the Jesuits after finishing my university education, with a widowed mother, I thought to myself – this would be cruel, leaving her all alone. When I told her, she gave me a piece of her mind, 'you go.' "Okay, mother, I'll go, I just figured maybe you wanted me to be around." I came back to visit her in our home in Cleveland seven years later. John Berchmans never saw his parents again. His model from the novitiate days on, really became the standard of his life and in one short sentence summarizes his whole outlook on Christianity, 'set great store on little things', 'set great store on little things.' He was in the habit from his novitiate days having been encouraged to do so, to write. He wrote, for example, a long analysis (I think I saw a copy of Alphonosus Rodriquez’ “Principles of Christian Perfection.” I think they're on your shelf there – there are three big volumes.) Anyhow, among other things John Berchmans wrote a nice synthesis analysis of those three volumes for his future reference. His mother died shortly after he entered the novitiate. His father then went on to study for the priesthood and was ordained and proceeded to die shortly after his ordination. By this time he had taken his first vows which is – you know in the Society of Jesus we never speak of temporary vows because we don't take them; our first vows after two years in the novitiate are perpetual. We are the only order in the Catholic Church that have been given the rare privilege of never taking temporary vows. I have the draft of the proposed forthcoming Code of Canon Law to be published, most likely, so the latest word is, first Sunday of Advent. In any case, John Berchmans took his first vows which were perpetual and because he was to start his philosophy studies after taking his first vows and the studies were to be made in Rome – how do you get to Rome from Antwerp in Belgium. He was told, 'you walk.' It took him ten weeks. He made it which partially explains his short life. He did his studies under a famous Father Chipovy in Rome, his first letter, John Berchmans first biographer.

The report on his talent or ability shortly after his death by those who were his teachers was that he had extraordinary ability, intellectual ability, capable of taking and mastering several subjects at once that his enthusiasm for studies was unequaled. Now, my friends, having spent so many years in studies, having taught so many Jesuits for so many years, anyone who has enthusiasm about his studies deserves to be canonized.

Another of his fellow Jesuits who knew him observed that 'after Saint Aloysius, I never knew a young man of more exemplary life, purer conscience or greater perfection than John Berchmans. In other words, he had a reputation for being a very holy person already at a young age. Number twenty in my notes, it just keeps me from mixing things up. Here's a quotation from St. John Berchmans that every Jesuit has memorized. Let me give you the Latin first. It sounds so nice—“meus maxime mortificatsio est vita communis.” --my greatest mortification is community life. I repeat there is no statement of any saints that a Jesuit will not agree with more heartily than that one, that his heaviest mortification, his worst penance, is community life. That doesn't mean you don't like your brethren, but, being human, being oneself and living with other human beings, community life is indeed a great mortification.

Again, John Berchmans wanted to make sure that he never exercised his own will contrary to the directives of superiors. So I memorized and jotted down this little vignette: I wish to let myself be ruled like a baby, one day old. I'm not sure what difference it makes, whether a baby is one day or one year old, in any case, John Berchmans figures, let's make the child one day old. In other words, complete childlike submission to those who are in charge of him. John Berchmans was a very zealous student. What he came from, what we would call the low countries, which for our purpose would be Belgium – the climate in Belgium is somewhat like the more temperate climate in say, northern United States, Maine, Vermont, northern Michigan, Minnesota. In any case, Berchmans was not used to the stifling summer weather in Rome. Yet he took his final examinations in May, 1621 and the heat that summer, and the Roman summer starts early, the heat was intense. He prolonged his studies for his exams, did brilliantly, but took sick. He had just worked too hard. So he was laid up in bed, became deathly sick. As he was dying his confessor asked him, “do you have anything on your conscience that you think deserves to be confessed before you die.” He spoke in Latin, as young Jesuits are to always talk in Latin except in recreation. He said, "Mehil omeno" – absolutely nothing on my conscience, a moment before he died. He died on August the 13th of that year 1621. After his death and even before his burial, miracles were reported throughout Rome. Print of course was already discovered and engravings were made of John Berchmans shortly after his death and copies were printed. In a few days, twenty- four thousand of these engravings were sold in his native country in Belgium.

When he was canonized, the Holy Father who canonized him declared regarding the Jesuit rules, 'if you can prove to me that someone had faithfully lived up to this rule, I'll canonize him.' Berchmans was canonized for being an obedient religious. He was buried with his rosary and rule book in his hands.

Now something about his spirit. I would say the first prominent feature of his spirituality was his simplicity of life. There are no reports of ecstasies or raptures. There was not even a report of anything extraordinary that he ever did. You might say he was a 'little flower' before his time; she a Carmelite, he a Jesuit. The implication for us, if we think about them, are breath taking. The secret is to see God's will in everything. Now that everything in Berchmans vocabulary meant not just, well, the things that occur in a given day, I somehow say 'yes, of course, God must be behind it' but, watch this, and he wrote enough and over the years I've read enough of Berchmans to be able to talk for a couple of hours about his spirituality. For him, seeing God's will in the circumstances in everyday life went down to the smallest, even trifling details. We at table don't have set persons across from whom or with whom we sit, say at table, so the fact that it should be so and so and not such and such. It is God's will known and planned from all eternity. For example, what I am saying, that of all places I should be – what is today, August the 24th – a thousand miles from New York in a place called, is it Lake Villa? and that you should be here – thanks for being in Chapel, too – and that of all the yokels that should be saying whatever I might be saying, it would be me, at least to try your patience, in His name, everything. I stubbed my toe, that's God's providence. I lose something, that's God's providence. While I was putting the finishing touches on my notes, when I got a phone call that was an important call, so I was late, four minutes. That is God's will. That you should have had some charitable thought on why I was late or good for my humility in not being exactly on time; that everything is down to the time of the day, the temperature outside, how 'my body feels, what's crossing my mind. Berchmans saw God in everything. In other words, simplicity which must have twenty meanings for him meant; 'I have only one role in life – God's will.' And where is God's will; how do I know God's will; what books do I read; what speeches do I listen to; what novenas do I have to make. You can spare yourself. What is God saying to you, here and now at this moment? How does He want you to act and react, to His will?

Second feature of Berchmans' spirituality. The rule of St. Ignatius, we don't usually call it a rule because of our constitution, but that rule what's composed over a period of years, much prayer, frequent revelations, especially from Our Lady, much study, analyzing different rules of life written before Ignatius' time. It is a very precise and detailed rule. We have, for example, the rules of modesty; we're told, exactly told, how to use our eyes. Ignatius prescribed how we are to use our hands. I'm sure it's one of the least known rules of St. Ignatius. We are forbidden by rule to touch another person's body unless, either necessity or charity required it. This rule, Berchmans kept. We don't want to say to the letter, because that would cheapen it, but he kept it with perfection, so much so that the Vicar of Christ on his own testimony canonized him because of his fidelity to that minute rule of life and mind you, this is a rule for men, do you know what I'm saying, well, the last thing that man, masculine gender, paid that much attention to his detail, the self discipline and the sacrifice that it takes from a man to be faithful to Ignatius rule only one who tries to live that rule can appreciate. Ignatius was a soldier and he knew battles of won or lost by attention to detail.

John Berchmans' spirituality reflects something that I think we very seldom advert to each other … sort of take it for granted. We say correctly that God's grace builds on human nature. Not that God's grace is different in the sense that it's a different grace – no, for different people, but, God is justice, Himself, as far as we can use the verb, adjust for God. For example, the graces that He gives to women I know are different that he gives to men, I know. God just talks a different language. And so with different people of different temperaments. The robust man of steel, the Andrew Bobola, remember? they just couldn't put him to death. God's grace to sanctify him was of one kind, the gentle but firm and faithful Berchmans, another kind of a grace. This is very important in properly appraising God's will in our lives or how we deal so differently with different people. With some, God seems, to coin an expression, to love and to get away with – pardon the expression – you finish the sentence, you know what. Lord! well, God knows what He's dealing with – with others He is severe.

Berchmans came from northern Europe; Berchmans was not from Italy or Spain. I tried to carry on a conversation with four Spaniards this noon in Kenosha, Wisconsin; a priest, a brother, (oh, three people) a priest, a brother and a sister. Well, some English they knew, not much, some Italian that I know, not much, a bit of Latin and Spanish and we managed. I was inquiring about their rule of life. They are called the Lumen Dei, isn't that beautiful? the light of God, a new community just coming into existence, two hundred members – God's grace adjusting itself to the Spanish mentality – different. There is something about the teutonic, because we are talking about the teutonic temperament here, that it's precise, proper, just so. All right, God's grace will be just so. Am I making sense? And that we don't either expect God – what a mistake – to deal with even two of us in the same way. Never compare yourself – or better, never compare the way God deals with others with the way he seems to be dealing with you. Berchmans knew, he was here. There is an individuality about each saint which is completely different from everyone else.

Then, community life. I quote of a famous passage, we learned this in the novitiate and we quote it to our dying day, because it is so, so painfully true: my greatest mortification is community life. That doesn't mean, of course, not that we make other members of the community conscious of the fact that they are a source of penance to make – no. Nor does it mean, it cannot mean, that we somehow regret or wish it were different. Community life is meant, for most people, to be a great source of sanctification. I know what I'm talking about because being the only child of a widowed mother – my father died when I was a year old, he was 26. I never had any brothers or sisters and of the things I knew that drew me to the Society of Jesus before I heard John Berchmans phrase, I thought to myself, "what a break, what a gift, I will inherit a hall full of brothers, people that I can live with and, well, they'll be brothers to me and I hope I'll be a brother to them." I may somewhere along the line, I may have told you, after my first week in the novitiate I went to complain to the novice master – I'd heard about people snoring, but I'd never heard anybody snoring – Mother had her bedroom, I had mine. Though we were living in a dormitory and the noise was deafening, I couldn't sleep. So I told the novice master, "father, could I have a different room?" He said, 'sit down, what's wrong?' I told him. All I remember is two words, "get out." And because I was so dead tired, I finally fell asleep, snoring or no snoring.

God made us different from the moment of conception. Each one of us, the moment we are conceived in our mother's womb, God has to create a soul – our parents don't give us our souls – they must be individually created by God and God creates each soul different. We are different nine months before we're born, put together. One reason, no doubt, is to give us some idea of His own infinite, you might say, bewildering variety of attributes. It gives us, and this is what Berchmans meant: it gives us the glorious opportunity for the practice of charity. I'm not speaking of people being offensive or hurting our feelings or being difficult to live with. I don't mean anything that is morally wrong, just because he is he or she is she and I am me, living with other people places demands on our mutual love which God in His infinite wisdom planned, that's why He made us so different. The word that Berchmans used was mortification, meaning that it's a precious way of not only practicing charity, but of expiating our sins, of making reparation for the sins of others, especially in doing penance for the crimes against love often committed in the name of love in our modern mad world. The 1981 figures of the United Nations for the world were fifty million abortions. Someone, someone, must propitiate a just God for these crimes of hatred, masking – what a mockery – under the name of love. Well, we don't have to go far to search out opportunities for the expiatory love, being gentle, understanding, thoughtful. Being as ready to excuse the actions of others as we are so prone to excuse our own. All of this is locked up in what we so casually call, community life.

Let us ask St. John Berchmans to give us some of his great attention to the little things in life being so important in the eyes of God. St. John Berchmans, pray for us.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

#st. john berchmans

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