In the Beginning... ficlet

[lilachigh.livejournal.com]

Title: In the Beginning...
Author: lilachigh
Rating: PG13
Words: 314
Summary: Written for still_grrr challenge for evil sidekicks



IN THE BEGINNING…


Of course she’d always known something was wrong. Now, standing at her husband’s grave, staring down at the coffin where her flowers lay, she went through all the things that had happened, that had shown her the way things were – if she’d only opened her eyes.

The number of servants who’d just upped and left. And this was from a family who paid the highest wages around.

The first nursery maid who’d hung herself, the second one who’d gone mad and had to be sent to an asylum, foaming and screaming.

She’d stopped buying puppies three or four years ago.

The endless cheerfulness that was so - wrong.

Perhaps she could have pushed these things to the back of her mind except for the dates.

There was no escaping them. Her darling husband had been away in the army for two months before she discovered she was pregnant. And she knew there had been nobody else. So how had she - ?

It had been lucky that she was a large woman – family and friends had never guessed and the baby had come “early”.

The midwives had wrapped him in blankets and given him to her. She had almost been scared to look down, frightened at what she might see.

Beneath the lace cap tied round his head, two bright eyes had beamed up at her – and he’d smiled.

She shuddered and gazed across the grave to where he was standing, his head bent, his shoulders shaking. But she knew it wasn’t from grief. No, he was laughing. He’d been alone with his father when he died. And she could only wonder how long it would be before she found herself alone with him, too.

The mourners were leaving now – the funeral of Richard Wilkins II had finished and his eight year old son looked up at the sky and smiled.