Sorting out some business left over from the Joyful Quadrille. Carries the usual warning: no Doctor Who elements as such, just a couple of characters who were at the Quadrille. Igenlode and I wrote this using a scaled-down version of the method used to write the Quadrille itself, complete with parallel email discussion of "where does the story go from here" - which may explain why it took a month and a half to write... It follows from L'Aiglonne's appearance at this years Adric Awards ceremony, of which you might like to refresh your memory: http://www.ttrarchive.com/2004-5.html --Paul -------------------- -------------------- For a while after the ceremony comes to an end, Paul continues staring off into space. "I'm beginning to wish I had got around to signing up as a presenter this year," he announces to nobody in particular. "I could have roped in Donald's colleagues, used some of that backstory I always insist exists but which I never actually use." A thought strikes him. "A horror movie, maybe, with omninous owls and sinister butlers and mad wheelchair-bound koala scientists and vampire watermelons..." After a moment, he shakes himself out of his reverie and turns to L'Aiglonne. "Good evening," he says. "I hope you and your family are well?" L'Aiglonne's eyes brighten, as if at a memory, and she nods. "I had a letter from Martinique but two days past." She laughs. "Long months in the travelling, I fear. In all those wild stories of King and homeland of Danilo's telling, never once did any detail so prosaic as the mails feature; and now I may hazard as to that a guess of my own... At home, we have the season of hurricanes, which is peril enough: but here -" she breaks off with a little quizzical air, glancing around, and corrects herself - "but in Schelstein-Hortig, it seems, our poor missives have also snow, mountains, and Italian /banditti/ - to which one may add Customs- agents, as the worst of the four - with which to contend. It is a wonder, I swear, that any word should have reached me at all!" But her eyes are dancing with merriment, and it is clear that the shortcomings of Balkan postal services have been the cause of more amusement than of complaint. She sobers a little. "My father writes in person, trusting to no amanuensis as was his wont, and the news from Mireille is ill, though no more so than we have become accustomed of late. The harvest was poor, and the prices worse. The land is already much encumbered. Thierry will hold the estate together while he lives - but Mireille as it was in the days of my childhood, when Edmond and Emile ran wild, and the white hound Belle and I followed devoted at their heels - Mireille in its golden days will never come again. St-Pierre may prosper, but the great estates have no part in that wealth." L'Aiglonne sighs, and for a moment Paul can glimpse in her eyes the determination of the woman who undertook to run her own company, in the teeth of all expectations and advice. "I will hold what I can for Jeannot. But I fear it will be an inheritance greater in name than in value by the time that he shall come of age..." She has been speaking almost to herself. Now she seems to make a conscious effort to pull herself back into a cheerful mood, shrugging off worries for her former home. "But that has been long foreseen, to be sure, and is no more and no less than we had reason to expect, my father and I. And all else at Mireille goes well; my mother is in better health and has taken herself a pet, a lap-dog of which my father writes with little-disguised loathing - poor beast, I hope it may not be too much spoiled, but the tales of its antics had us in merriment as we read. The Indians wish to build a meeting-house, and my father has set aside an hour of labour a week which they may apportion as they please; he writes that their ingenuity in contriving the materials is almost beyond belief." She glances across at Paul, and laughs. "Oh, but you have no interest in such details, Mister -" "Paul. Just Paul." He swallows. "Actually, I -" "Paul," L'Aiglonne repeats softly to herself, her accent turning it slightly, and for a brief hysterical moment, remembering her pronunciation of 'Brad Willis', Paul finds himself giving thanks that his own name comes easier to a French tongue. "Actually," he manages again, "I meant, um, your new family." "Danilo?" Her face, softened and radiant, is in that moment answer enough. Then she smiles. "He amuses himself well enough. He even begins to take some interest in his lands beyond the pride of his name -" the smile is tender now, indulgent - "when he cannot romp aside with Jeannot and the rest. Imagine to yourself, my Jehan who had never seen snow! Less fell this winter, they tell me, than the last; but to me in all conscience, it would seem more than enough." A cloud crosses her expression. "Jehan finds no great favour with /Madame la belle-mère/, I fear. The old Gräfin is over-set in her ways to have patience for a growing boy, and it is hard for the pride of her lineage, to see her son love another man's child..." Her mouth tightens. "I wonder, sometimes, how Danilo grew so sweet-natured as he is; for it was not from his mother he learned it." But the momentary hard line of her lips has already quirked upwards, irrepressible. "Of my own person, she is pleased to approve. Being at the least, as I am given to understand, of Danilo's own religion and complexion - and even approaching near to his station in life..." L'Aiglonne shakes her head. "/Eh bien/, one need not love /la belle-mère/, but at least one should respect her. She has held that land in her son's name since her lord died, some eighteen summers past." She moves slightly in her chair, as if trying to find a comfortable position, and sighs, smiling. "But Jeannot - he has been too long alone. Now he has other playmates, and Osman's eldest daughter has taken him to heart, being at that age when girls become motherly to a young child. Already he learns the language faster than I - who have more Dutch than /Deutsch/, I fear." She looks somewhat rueful. "I make shift well enough among them in my own tongue, or in English - but I would not be forever a foreigner." There is a moment of silence, and Paul finds himself reflecting on his own small ability with the /Deutsche Sprache/. It was never large, and has dwindled since his schooldays to little more than "Guten tag", "Auf wiedersehen", and "Schwarzwalder Kirschtorte"; but he has never felt and is never likely to feel the lack as keenly as L'Aiglonne must do. "Thank you for telling me," he says. "I'm glad to hear that Danik and Jehan are doing well. And Osman and his family, by the sound of it?" His gaze flicks to the stage so recently vacated by Hilde and Linde. "Though I could see already that *some* members of that company are in fine health and spirits..." "Indeed," L'Aiglonne agrees, both eyebrows flying heavenward at once. "I know of only one thing more exhausting to endure than the twins' enjoyment, and that is their desolation. At Christmas-tide Hilde was caught by their mother red-handed amongst the berry-pots -" "Strawberry, I assume," Paul interjects, unable to resist, but L'Aiglonne does not catch the joke. "- one could not say which howled louder, the twin who was whipped or the twin who was not," she is continuing ruefully. "I warrant the noise could be heard halfway to Strelsau - I know not how two sturdy maids can brawl like a schoolboy troop entire..." Paul glances round a little nervously in case either of the twins is in earshot, but they seem to have completely disappeared. "I fear they lack a father's hand," L'Aiglonne is saying softly, with a tiny frown of unhappiness or concentration. "I would not change Danilo even if I could - but he and Osman are no longer boys together, to follow wherever the other shall lead with never a thought behind. He cannot take Osman forever from his home without accounting the cost; but to sail without his friend would be a wound hard for both to bear." Paul wonders if he ought to say something; but everything he can come up with sounds hopelessly fatuous. And L'Aiglonne has started to smile - a little ruefully, but smiling all the same. "We will find a way, the three of us," she says, with that quiet curve to her mouth. "The four of us - for Osman's lady must needs be willing to take my part. But of that I do not doubt. She is all mother to her very soul, that one - I would trust her, at need, with mine." She sighs. "Or with that of my own child. When the little ones were ill, this winter - Katja and little Jenushka - it was Magda who nursed them, and would not have any other near, for fear of contagion, though she took the fever herself and was sorely put to it." "Ill? The little girls? Are they all right?" Paul says quickly, but L'Aiglonne reassures him. "Naught but a childish fever - though it took the roses awhile from Katja's cheeks. She is a sweet child, Ekaterina. She and Liesl are very like to their mother, and Liesl at least bids fair in womanhood to be a beauty." She is laughing at herself now. "When I wed Danilo, I had not thought to gain a quiverful of adoptive nieces! But /Tantchen/ I am to them all, and they heed me as much as they heed any." "Speaking of when you wed Danilo," Paul says, then stops. "It seems a bit presumptuous of me, now I come to it," he remarks, "considering what short acquaintance I actually have with your husband; but he's one of those people you feel you know really well even on a short acquaintance - don't suppose I'm telling you anything new there..." He catches sight of L'Aiglonne's expression and pauses to contemplate the tangle his sentence has become. He coughs. "When, as I was saying, the news came that Danilo was to be married," he begins again, "I was moved to seek a gift to commemorate the occasion; but as I know nobody to whom I could entrust the task of delivering it, I had resigned myself to waiting until it should chance that his path once more crossed mine." He pulls his backpack out from beneath his seat, and retrieves from it a small wooden box. "I would be grateful if you would convey this to Danilo, with my compliments. It's... a family portrait, to mark the occasion of his having at last acquired a family." He hesitates, then adds: "It is a gift as much to you as to him, and I would have no objection to you looking at it now." L'Aiglonne reaches out to touch his arm briefly. "A portrait? That was no presumption, Paul, but a very gentle thought." She takes the box from him with deft fingers and balances it on her knee, leaning forward a little awkwardly to slide open the catch and reveal the contents. With the tip of her tongue caught back against her upper lip in unselfconscious concentration, for a moment she has the look of a child with an unexpected Christmas present. "I hope you'll like it," Paul says, nerves on edge as he watches her face for the first hint of response. But L'Aiglonne has already turned back the lid. The inside of the box is padded like a jewel-case in cerulean-blue velvet. Within there rests - not the enamelled miniature that, judging by her movement of surprise, she had been half-expecting from his earlier words, but a carved and painted wooden image. Its new possessor has it in her hands, turning it over with a wondering look that becomes a gurgle of laughter as she catches sight of the skilfully-depicted features on the far side. "A portrait in truth! A little Danilo-doll - but you have him here in a likeness of the most wickedly fair..." And indeed, the craftsman has caught Count Danik's image to the very life. The figurine is more splendidly-dressed than is the Ruritanian's wont, at least on those occasions on which Paul knew him, and the bright paint of a brass spy-glass, held loosely in the left hand resting across an upraised knee, is rivalled by touches of gold at belt and throat. But the modelled pose - with one foot resting on a mossy rock to provide the figure's widening base, while the merry grey eyes gaze out, spy-glass unheeded, across fresh seas and pastures new - is every inch Danik of Ruritania. "'Now bring me that horizon...'" Paul says, under his breath, looking from the expression on the painted face to the laughter in the face of the lady at his side. She doesn't seem to have encountered dolls of this type before. He takes it from her, carefully, twisting the two halves apart and handing them back. "The figures are hollow - see? There is a whole family inside..." With a soft exclamation at the ingenuity of the concept, L'Aiglonne extracts a second wooden doll from inside the first, and cannot hold back an chuckle of surprised pleasure. The inner figure has wide- spreading crimson skirts held out in both hands, as if dipping in curtsey; but the vivid hawk-face is crowned with a mass of dark hair braided back, and the hilt of a slender blade is riding at her side. "You flatter me, I think," she murmurs, touching the painted nose with a rueful finger. Paul shakes his head. "No," he tells her quite honestly, "it's an excellent likeness." He is not entirely sure she takes him at his word; but she sets down the two halves of the outermost doll on the empty chair beside her, fitting them carefully back together, and twists her own wooden figure experimentally. "And inside this..?" But even as he nods in encouragement she is pulling out a third, smaller doll, and he sees her eyes warm afresh at the image of a small, brown-haired boy, with the head of a sleepy Great Dane puppy pillowed in his lap. "And Tichot too," she says softly, looking at the dog and shaking her head with a disbelieving smile. "How could you have known..?" Paul, not at all certain how L'Aiglonne is likely to react to a literal answer, swallows and sincerely hopes this is a rhetorical question on her part. Apparently, it is. At any rate, she sets her own image down beside that of her husband, and touches the painted image of her son without a word, with a tender finger that traces the folds of the child's jacket as if brushing across the clothing of the living boy. She looks up. "Paul -" And to his discomfort he sees that her eyes are bright with a sudden rush of tears. "Wait," he says quickly to stave off the moment, taking the Jehan- doll from her and twisting it. "There's still -" He breaks off. L'Aiglonne, catching sight of this action, has frozen, her lips half-parted. She has flushed suddenly, hotly, as if dipped in scarlet. Her glance goes sidelong, to the tiny shape half-revealed within the smallest doll, then unconsciously down. Paul, following her gaze almost without thinking, sees, as if for the first time, the hands clasped in that instinctive, protective gesture beneath the waist of her loose gown. Remembers the careful way she has been moving all evening. Looks again at the nesting doll he has just started to open... showing what should be the youngest - current - member of the family. The nature of L'Aiglonne's secret dawns. Paul comes, belatedly, to the same conclusion as Mistress Helen. "Oh," he says. The next couple of seconds threaten to be the longest of his life. He wonders, frantically, if felicitations from an individual of the male persuasion whom she's only just met are likely to be considered indelicate; decides that the answer is almost undoubtedly 'Yes'. Which leaves the problem of what on earth he's going to say next. "Um," he manages. Taking inspiration from the little figure in his hand, he slides Jehan's upper half free and empties out the miniature lustrous shape at the dolls' core. The innermost statue is not wooden like the others, but wrought from metal that seems to gleam softly silver in the light. The delicate wings on either side of the tiny vessel quiver a little in his cupped palm, as if alive. For a moment he half-expects to see the ship he holds take flight. "*Oh*," L'Aiglonne breathes, all awkwardness forgotten now in wonder, lifting the shining barque from his hand into her own with a feather- light touch. "Oh, Paul..." She holds the gift up to the light, the filigree of the pinions trembling at her breath as if her own heart is leaping forward with the spirit of the ship, and this time the tears do spill over. She leans over and kisses him impulsively, her wet cheek against his. "Oh Paul, he will love this. He will..." Paul smiles, feeling tears prickling at the corners of his own eyes. "That's... good to know," he says softly, swallowing the urge to thank *her* for being pleased. It is with a little jolt that he realises that they are almost alone now, the last few of the audience starting to take their leave. Worried that he probably ought to be going, but unsure how to say goodbye, he looks round for inspiration. But L'Aiglonne, following his gaze, has clearly been struck in the same moment by a recollection of her own. "Hilde and Linde... I bade them carry their romp outside, if romp they must, and I have left them far too long. They will be at some mischief if I do not make haste -" She is 'making haste' even as she speaks, setting each statuette within the two halves of its parent ranged before her, and laying Paul's gift, reassembled, back into its sky-velvet nest. Paul scrambles to his own feet, backpack in one hand, and finds himself just too late to offer her help to rise. L'Aiglonne smiles at him, extending her fingers towards him in a parting gesture. "Good-bye, Paul." "Goodbye," Paul says, a little distractedly, wondering if he is expected to salute the outstretched hand with his lips or if it would come across as terribly uncultured to shake it instead. Self- preservation suggests that the manly grip is less likely to go wrong. "Goodbye," he says again, more firmly, holding out his own hand to meet hers, and finding his clasp returned, after the first moment of uncertainty, by fingers that are both stronger and more calloused to the touch than he had somehow expected. They shake hands solemnly, as if on a business deal; and he watches her go, a little heavy in her movements but still graceful, with an air of determination that suggests the errant twins may yet find themselves with some explaining in store. The room seems smaller when she has gone; and it occurs to him ruefully, a few minutes later, that this is one more trait she shares, in her way, with the irrepressible Count. He stands for a moment looking around the now-empty auditorium, feeling vaguely that he ought to produce some apposite remark on which to close. Nothing occurs to him - beyond the thought that, when it comes to remarks, "apposite" has always been somebody else's middle name - and after a moment he shrugs self-consciously, hoists his backpack onto one shoulder, and makes his own exit.