Fic: Loyalty for Felicity, chapter 5
Feb. 2nd, 2013 12:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerSo my subplot just took over my story... why brain why? (Is it bad when I become more interested in my OCs than the actual characters from the book?)
Fic: Loyalty for Felicity
Fandom: American Girl - Felicity
Rating: PG? Maybe PG-13? No one is injured, but someone gets menaced with a knife.
Felicity wanted to run right up to Elizabeth’s room to see her, but they wouldn’t let her up. “Just to see her! Just for a moment!” Felicity cried.
“She’s very weak,” Mrs. Merriman said, holding her. “And you’re very tired, Felicity. We can’t risk you getting sick too.”
“I’m less likely to get sick if you let me see her,” Felicity insisted. “I’ll fret myself to death if you don’t – just wait and see – ”
Mrs. Merriman looked tired. “If it were up to me, I’d let you in,” she said. “But Mrs. Cole still doesn’t want you to see Elizabeth.”
“I thought they had forgiven me now that she’s better,” Felicity said, and to her shame, found herself close to weeping.
“And now that she’s recovering, they may yet.” Her mother kissed her forehead. “Felicity, truly you must sleep.”
Felicity did not think it possible that she ever could sleep. But her mother fetched her chamomile tea, and helped her out of her dress; and Felicity fell on her bed, and slept for the rest of the day.
***
She woke up at dawn the next morning, her head muzzy and her mouth dry from sleep. She poured herself some water from the pitcher by her bed and drank it, watching the pink dawn filter through the window. No one had thought to pull the curtains, and Felicity was glad. “The reddening dawn reveals the circling fields…”
Pope’s Odyssey. Elizabeth had been so indignant over Odysseus’s romantic adventures: “How could he betray faithful Penelope?” she had demanded.
Elizabeth! Felicity jumped out of bed. Her first thought was to run to Elizabeth’s room, but of course she had to get dressed first, and by the time she was gartering up her stockings, her cooler head had prevailed. Elizabeth was probably still asleep, and probably the Coles still did not want Felicity to see Elizabeth.
Oh – if that were the case, did Felicity have to obey? Surely, surely such an order counted as a form of tyranny. Felicity gave her head a brisk shake. In the early morning sunshine, it seemed impossible that the Coles could be so cruel.
Her heart lightened further when she opened her door to the delicious smell of frying ham. Breakfast! It had been a long time since Felicity had eaten a real meal, rather than just snatching mouthfuls of bread in between looking after Elizabeth.
She tiptoed down the stairs, so happy she wished she could dance. She paused a moment at the window, breathing in the fresh summer air, and then leaning forward in surprise at the sight of Bucephalus running across the lawn, saddled and bridled but without a rider. What on earth?
She could deal with it later. Right now, there was ham to be had!
Tempted as she was by the ham, however, she almost turned back when she reached the dining room, because it was empty but for Annabelle, eating up a few last bites of ham. Annabelle’s pale face reddened at the sight of Felicity, and Felicity felt herself reddening in return; but she couldn’t be so rude as to turn and march back out. “Good morning,” Felicity said instead, and sat across from Annabelle with her head held high. Her fingers trembled slightly as she broke one of Dido’s light biscuits.
Annabelle didn’t answer. Felicity thought that Annabelle meant to ignore her, and had just made up her mind that, all told, being ignored was better than making conversation with Annabelle – but then Annabelle forced out, “Good morning.”
Felicity grappled for something to say. “The weather is very fine,” she replied, spreading strawberry jam on her biscuit.
“It’s going to be hot again,” said Annabelle, spearing her last sliver of ham. “Virginia summers are so dreadful.”
“How nice that you’re going back to England, then,” Felicity said. Annabelle’s face, which had almost returned to its normal color, reddened again. Felicity could have swallowed her own tongue. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Will you still be able to sail this autumn?”
“We’ll sail as soon as Elizabeth is well,” Annabelle said.
Elizabeth’s name speared Felicity. She set her biscuit back on her plate, all appetite gone. “I suppose you want to get her as far away from me as possible,” she said bitterly.
Annabelle didn’t answer for a long time. Felicity searched her mind for a taunt, anything that would make Annabelle respond, but she couldn’t think of anything to say except to beg to be allowed to see Elizabeth, just once, just to know she was well.
“Elizabeth told us,” Annabelle blurted. She seemed unsure of herself, poking at the biscuit crumbs on her plate in a most unladylike manner. Her color rose still further. “That it was her idea and not yours to run away. We didn’t believe her, but she insisted most strenuously, and Mother says that when she’s awake, you can see her again.”
Dear Elizabeth! Felicity’s happiness flooded back. “I ought to have stopped her,” she said. She took a bite of her biscuit. “I should have seen that she would never have suggested such a thing if she wasn’t well.”
“Well of course,” said Annabelle. Her color began to recede, and she said haughtily, “Of course she never would have thought of such a thing at all if she had never met you, but nonetheless it was her idea, and I apologize for – ” And she reddened again, and suddenly all her dignity dropped away. “Oh, Felicity, I’m so sorry I spoke so – so uncivilly to you. I was afraid for Bitsy, and I’m afraid I took it out on you, when you must have been feeling so dreadfully already.”
“It’s all right,” said Felicity, and found to her surprise that it really was all right. “I’m sure I would have spoken just as hastily if I could have found anyone to blame for Elizabeth’s sickness.”
She smiled at Annabelle. Annabelle smiled back, and they sat for a moment, closer to amity than they had ever been. Then Annabelle said, “Of course it will be wonderful for Bitsy to get back to England and learn real manners again.”
“Oh, fie on you!” Felicity replied, laughing.
Soon enough, Annabelle finished up and left. Dido came in to collect her dishes. “Is there any more ham?” Felicity asked, spreading jam on another biscuit.
“What’s your mother always saying to you about patience, miss?” Dido asked.
Felicity sighed.
“Least you don’t have to spend the day in a hot kitchen, miss,” Dido consoled her, and swooped back across the lawn to the summer kitchen, leaving Felicity to munch her biscuit and contemplate.
Would Elizabeth be well enough to go outside yet? Of course Elizabeth wouldn’t be well enough for a forest ramble – oh, how Felicity had longed to show Elizabeth all her favorite places on the plantation! – but they might sit in Grandfather’s old garden. The flowers were still lovely, even if that awful Mr. Jameson had let them get rather overgrown.
Felicity did not see Mr. Jameson enter the kitchen, but the gunshut-loud sound of the door as he flung it open almost made Felicity fall out of her chair. Dido screamed.
Felicity shot across the lawn, skirts kilted up to her knees so she could run. Mr. Jameson’s profanity rang in her ears. “Mr. Jameson – ” she shouted, storming into the kitchen. “Mr. Jameson, put down that knife this instant!”
Mr. Jameson dropped the knife. His big fists clenched and unclenched, and his face turned redder and redder, the broken blood vessels in his drunkard’s nose blooming scarlet. Suddenly his hands darted out, and he threw over Dido’s worktable. Crockery shattered on the floor.
“Mr. Jameson!” Felicity shouted again. She grabbed a rolling pin off its hook on the wall and brandished it. “What is the meaning of this behavior?”
“That bitch’s son ran away, is what!” roared Mr. Jameson.
Felicity looked at Dido, who had pressed herself against the wall. A trickle of blood from a bit of broken crockery ran down one leg. She stared at Mr. Jameson, the whites showing all the way around her eyes.
Felicity looked back at Mr. Jameson, red-faced and scowling. Suddenly Felicity’s fiery anger at him turned very cold: not dying, but stronger and more concentrated. She would see the man sacked before the day was out. “What on earth are you talking about?”
“Her boy Marcus! The one you sent off on Bucephalus. Today Bucephalus got back, and no Marcus on him!”
“It sounds to me like he fell off,” Felicity said. Mr. Jameson’s fists clenched again, and a fiery sense of superiority to him pierced suffused cold anger. She hung up the rolling pin and stepped toward him. “How dare you march in here,” she said quietly, and stepped forward again. “How dare you attack Dido when her son could be lying dead – “ She glanced at Dido, who still watched with huge eyes. “ – or injured, I mean, in a ditch somewhere? Have you no human feeling, sir?”
“Human feeling!” Mr. Jameson scoffed.
“And if he did run away,” Felicity asked levelly, “why didn’t he take Bucephalus with him?”
“As if anyone would believe that thoroughbred was his!”
That threw Felicity for a moment, and a moment was all it took for Mr. Jameson to give Mr. Jameson his head. “Begging your pardon,” he said, in a tone that made the words a curse, “But you never should have sent that boy anywhere on that horse. He’s a runner: you can see it in his eyes. I tried to beat it out of him, miss, but some of them are just born bad, and that’s a one of them.” He stopped then, nodding to himself, as if to let his speech sink in.
Sickened, Felicity could not speak for a moment. Then she said quietly, “I’ll speak to my mother about your continued employment this afternoon. Good day, sir.”
“You fire me, and you’ll have nothing but runaways!”
“Good day, sir!” Felicity said.
He slammed the door so hard on his way out that the kitchen rattled.
The ham was beginning to burn. Dido moved it off the fire. “Fetch me that broom, miss?”
Felicity fetched the broom from the corner. Dido swept up the broken crockery, dancing around the shards. The soles of her bare cracked feet looked leathery, and Felicity felt suddenly embarrassed by her own soft feet, protected by fine kid shoes and carriages from the hard earth. “I’m sorry,” she said. “He shouldn’t have…” Her voice trailed off.
“He’s an overseer. They’re paid to think the worst of us,” Dido said, bending to right the table.
Felicity hastened to help her. Now that Mr. Jameson was gone she felt shaky all over, as if someone had replaced her joints with jelly. “I’d better…I’d better go after him, maybe, to make sure he doesn’t…try to take this out on anyone else.” She sat hard in the battered cane chair by the door. “Oh, Dido, I am so sorry,” she said. “Poor Marcus!”
“I’m sure you’re right, miss; my poor Marcus must have fallen off that great big horse,” Dido said. “Well, the Lord gives, and the Lord takes away: isn’t that what the preacher always says?”
Something in her voice – not enough sadness; too much deference – struck Felicity. Her stomach clenched. She suddenly felt very small and stupid and ashamed, because the overseer had been right – and Felicity had made a fool of herself – how Dido must have laughed when Felicity sent Marcus with that message! Dido hadn’t care a bit if help never arrived and Elizabeth died, clearly.
And Felicity always thought Dido liked her.
Even now, Dido must be laughing at Felicity’s addle-pated defense. It would be all over the quarters tonight, no doubt, even if Felicity went after Mr. Jameson right now and told him she’d realized he was right.
The thought made her sick to her stomach. Yield to Mr. Jameson – never!
She was staring at Dido, she realized; and Dido was staring back. She knew Felicity knew, Felicity could see that in the stillness of her face; and she was waiting to see what Felicity meant to do.
Well: let Dido laugh. Felicity had played the fool, and she would rather be a fool before Dido than Mr. Jameson.
“I don’t think,” Felicity began, Her voice sounded high and thin to her ears. She cleared her throat. “I don’t think it’s any good looking for him. The tobacco harvest is coming up; we need all hands for that.”
The intensity smoothed out of Dido’s face. “Sure you’re right, miss,” she said. She cut off another slice of ham. “I’m sorry he didn’t make Williamsburg. But you know your mother couldn’t have done a thing for Miss Elizabeth we didn’t do; she would have come through all right either way.”
Felicity did not know what to say. She wanted, suddenly, very much to be somewhere else – anywhere else – off the plantation, perhaps even out of Virginia colony, somewhere without politics and laws and the suffering they caused.
The ham sizzled in the hot skillet. Dido flicked a towel at Felicity. Her face had relaxed entirely now, unreadable as if a curtain hung between them. Felicity wondered how she had never noticed that before. “Now you go on back to the big house where you belong,” Dido said. “Breakfast’ll be done soon enough.”
Fic: Loyalty for Felicity
Fandom: American Girl - Felicity
Rating: PG? Maybe PG-13? No one is injured, but someone gets menaced with a knife.
Felicity wanted to run right up to Elizabeth’s room to see her, but they wouldn’t let her up. “Just to see her! Just for a moment!” Felicity cried.
“She’s very weak,” Mrs. Merriman said, holding her. “And you’re very tired, Felicity. We can’t risk you getting sick too.”
“I’m less likely to get sick if you let me see her,” Felicity insisted. “I’ll fret myself to death if you don’t – just wait and see – ”
Mrs. Merriman looked tired. “If it were up to me, I’d let you in,” she said. “But Mrs. Cole still doesn’t want you to see Elizabeth.”
“I thought they had forgiven me now that she’s better,” Felicity said, and to her shame, found herself close to weeping.
“And now that she’s recovering, they may yet.” Her mother kissed her forehead. “Felicity, truly you must sleep.”
Felicity did not think it possible that she ever could sleep. But her mother fetched her chamomile tea, and helped her out of her dress; and Felicity fell on her bed, and slept for the rest of the day.
***
She woke up at dawn the next morning, her head muzzy and her mouth dry from sleep. She poured herself some water from the pitcher by her bed and drank it, watching the pink dawn filter through the window. No one had thought to pull the curtains, and Felicity was glad. “The reddening dawn reveals the circling fields…”
Pope’s Odyssey. Elizabeth had been so indignant over Odysseus’s romantic adventures: “How could he betray faithful Penelope?” she had demanded.
Elizabeth! Felicity jumped out of bed. Her first thought was to run to Elizabeth’s room, but of course she had to get dressed first, and by the time she was gartering up her stockings, her cooler head had prevailed. Elizabeth was probably still asleep, and probably the Coles still did not want Felicity to see Elizabeth.
Oh – if that were the case, did Felicity have to obey? Surely, surely such an order counted as a form of tyranny. Felicity gave her head a brisk shake. In the early morning sunshine, it seemed impossible that the Coles could be so cruel.
Her heart lightened further when she opened her door to the delicious smell of frying ham. Breakfast! It had been a long time since Felicity had eaten a real meal, rather than just snatching mouthfuls of bread in between looking after Elizabeth.
She tiptoed down the stairs, so happy she wished she could dance. She paused a moment at the window, breathing in the fresh summer air, and then leaning forward in surprise at the sight of Bucephalus running across the lawn, saddled and bridled but without a rider. What on earth?
She could deal with it later. Right now, there was ham to be had!
Tempted as she was by the ham, however, she almost turned back when she reached the dining room, because it was empty but for Annabelle, eating up a few last bites of ham. Annabelle’s pale face reddened at the sight of Felicity, and Felicity felt herself reddening in return; but she couldn’t be so rude as to turn and march back out. “Good morning,” Felicity said instead, and sat across from Annabelle with her head held high. Her fingers trembled slightly as she broke one of Dido’s light biscuits.
Annabelle didn’t answer. Felicity thought that Annabelle meant to ignore her, and had just made up her mind that, all told, being ignored was better than making conversation with Annabelle – but then Annabelle forced out, “Good morning.”
Felicity grappled for something to say. “The weather is very fine,” she replied, spreading strawberry jam on her biscuit.
“It’s going to be hot again,” said Annabelle, spearing her last sliver of ham. “Virginia summers are so dreadful.”
“How nice that you’re going back to England, then,” Felicity said. Annabelle’s face, which had almost returned to its normal color, reddened again. Felicity could have swallowed her own tongue. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Will you still be able to sail this autumn?”
“We’ll sail as soon as Elizabeth is well,” Annabelle said.
Elizabeth’s name speared Felicity. She set her biscuit back on her plate, all appetite gone. “I suppose you want to get her as far away from me as possible,” she said bitterly.
Annabelle didn’t answer for a long time. Felicity searched her mind for a taunt, anything that would make Annabelle respond, but she couldn’t think of anything to say except to beg to be allowed to see Elizabeth, just once, just to know she was well.
“Elizabeth told us,” Annabelle blurted. She seemed unsure of herself, poking at the biscuit crumbs on her plate in a most unladylike manner. Her color rose still further. “That it was her idea and not yours to run away. We didn’t believe her, but she insisted most strenuously, and Mother says that when she’s awake, you can see her again.”
Dear Elizabeth! Felicity’s happiness flooded back. “I ought to have stopped her,” she said. She took a bite of her biscuit. “I should have seen that she would never have suggested such a thing if she wasn’t well.”
“Well of course,” said Annabelle. Her color began to recede, and she said haughtily, “Of course she never would have thought of such a thing at all if she had never met you, but nonetheless it was her idea, and I apologize for – ” And she reddened again, and suddenly all her dignity dropped away. “Oh, Felicity, I’m so sorry I spoke so – so uncivilly to you. I was afraid for Bitsy, and I’m afraid I took it out on you, when you must have been feeling so dreadfully already.”
“It’s all right,” said Felicity, and found to her surprise that it really was all right. “I’m sure I would have spoken just as hastily if I could have found anyone to blame for Elizabeth’s sickness.”
She smiled at Annabelle. Annabelle smiled back, and they sat for a moment, closer to amity than they had ever been. Then Annabelle said, “Of course it will be wonderful for Bitsy to get back to England and learn real manners again.”
“Oh, fie on you!” Felicity replied, laughing.
Soon enough, Annabelle finished up and left. Dido came in to collect her dishes. “Is there any more ham?” Felicity asked, spreading jam on another biscuit.
“What’s your mother always saying to you about patience, miss?” Dido asked.
Felicity sighed.
“Least you don’t have to spend the day in a hot kitchen, miss,” Dido consoled her, and swooped back across the lawn to the summer kitchen, leaving Felicity to munch her biscuit and contemplate.
Would Elizabeth be well enough to go outside yet? Of course Elizabeth wouldn’t be well enough for a forest ramble – oh, how Felicity had longed to show Elizabeth all her favorite places on the plantation! – but they might sit in Grandfather’s old garden. The flowers were still lovely, even if that awful Mr. Jameson had let them get rather overgrown.
Felicity did not see Mr. Jameson enter the kitchen, but the gunshut-loud sound of the door as he flung it open almost made Felicity fall out of her chair. Dido screamed.
Felicity shot across the lawn, skirts kilted up to her knees so she could run. Mr. Jameson’s profanity rang in her ears. “Mr. Jameson – ” she shouted, storming into the kitchen. “Mr. Jameson, put down that knife this instant!”
Mr. Jameson dropped the knife. His big fists clenched and unclenched, and his face turned redder and redder, the broken blood vessels in his drunkard’s nose blooming scarlet. Suddenly his hands darted out, and he threw over Dido’s worktable. Crockery shattered on the floor.
“Mr. Jameson!” Felicity shouted again. She grabbed a rolling pin off its hook on the wall and brandished it. “What is the meaning of this behavior?”
“That bitch’s son ran away, is what!” roared Mr. Jameson.
Felicity looked at Dido, who had pressed herself against the wall. A trickle of blood from a bit of broken crockery ran down one leg. She stared at Mr. Jameson, the whites showing all the way around her eyes.
Felicity looked back at Mr. Jameson, red-faced and scowling. Suddenly Felicity’s fiery anger at him turned very cold: not dying, but stronger and more concentrated. She would see the man sacked before the day was out. “What on earth are you talking about?”
“Her boy Marcus! The one you sent off on Bucephalus. Today Bucephalus got back, and no Marcus on him!”
“It sounds to me like he fell off,” Felicity said. Mr. Jameson’s fists clenched again, and a fiery sense of superiority to him pierced suffused cold anger. She hung up the rolling pin and stepped toward him. “How dare you march in here,” she said quietly, and stepped forward again. “How dare you attack Dido when her son could be lying dead – “ She glanced at Dido, who still watched with huge eyes. “ – or injured, I mean, in a ditch somewhere? Have you no human feeling, sir?”
“Human feeling!” Mr. Jameson scoffed.
“And if he did run away,” Felicity asked levelly, “why didn’t he take Bucephalus with him?”
“As if anyone would believe that thoroughbred was his!”
That threw Felicity for a moment, and a moment was all it took for Mr. Jameson to give Mr. Jameson his head. “Begging your pardon,” he said, in a tone that made the words a curse, “But you never should have sent that boy anywhere on that horse. He’s a runner: you can see it in his eyes. I tried to beat it out of him, miss, but some of them are just born bad, and that’s a one of them.” He stopped then, nodding to himself, as if to let his speech sink in.
Sickened, Felicity could not speak for a moment. Then she said quietly, “I’ll speak to my mother about your continued employment this afternoon. Good day, sir.”
“You fire me, and you’ll have nothing but runaways!”
“Good day, sir!” Felicity said.
He slammed the door so hard on his way out that the kitchen rattled.
The ham was beginning to burn. Dido moved it off the fire. “Fetch me that broom, miss?”
Felicity fetched the broom from the corner. Dido swept up the broken crockery, dancing around the shards. The soles of her bare cracked feet looked leathery, and Felicity felt suddenly embarrassed by her own soft feet, protected by fine kid shoes and carriages from the hard earth. “I’m sorry,” she said. “He shouldn’t have…” Her voice trailed off.
“He’s an overseer. They’re paid to think the worst of us,” Dido said, bending to right the table.
Felicity hastened to help her. Now that Mr. Jameson was gone she felt shaky all over, as if someone had replaced her joints with jelly. “I’d better…I’d better go after him, maybe, to make sure he doesn’t…try to take this out on anyone else.” She sat hard in the battered cane chair by the door. “Oh, Dido, I am so sorry,” she said. “Poor Marcus!”
“I’m sure you’re right, miss; my poor Marcus must have fallen off that great big horse,” Dido said. “Well, the Lord gives, and the Lord takes away: isn’t that what the preacher always says?”
Something in her voice – not enough sadness; too much deference – struck Felicity. Her stomach clenched. She suddenly felt very small and stupid and ashamed, because the overseer had been right – and Felicity had made a fool of herself – how Dido must have laughed when Felicity sent Marcus with that message! Dido hadn’t care a bit if help never arrived and Elizabeth died, clearly.
And Felicity always thought Dido liked her.
Even now, Dido must be laughing at Felicity’s addle-pated defense. It would be all over the quarters tonight, no doubt, even if Felicity went after Mr. Jameson right now and told him she’d realized he was right.
The thought made her sick to her stomach. Yield to Mr. Jameson – never!
She was staring at Dido, she realized; and Dido was staring back. She knew Felicity knew, Felicity could see that in the stillness of her face; and she was waiting to see what Felicity meant to do.
Well: let Dido laugh. Felicity had played the fool, and she would rather be a fool before Dido than Mr. Jameson.
“I don’t think,” Felicity began, Her voice sounded high and thin to her ears. She cleared her throat. “I don’t think it’s any good looking for him. The tobacco harvest is coming up; we need all hands for that.”
The intensity smoothed out of Dido’s face. “Sure you’re right, miss,” she said. She cut off another slice of ham. “I’m sorry he didn’t make Williamsburg. But you know your mother couldn’t have done a thing for Miss Elizabeth we didn’t do; she would have come through all right either way.”
Felicity did not know what to say. She wanted, suddenly, very much to be somewhere else – anywhere else – off the plantation, perhaps even out of Virginia colony, somewhere without politics and laws and the suffering they caused.
The ham sizzled in the hot skillet. Dido flicked a towel at Felicity. Her face had relaxed entirely now, unreadable as if a curtain hung between them. Felicity wondered how she had never noticed that before. “Now you go on back to the big house where you belong,” Dido said. “Breakfast’ll be done soon enough.”
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Date: 2013-02-02 06:32 am (UTC)No, because this is a GREAT subplot and super-interesting.
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Date: 2013-02-02 05:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-02 05:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-02 07:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-02 11:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-02 11:53 pm (UTC)