Frau Schmidt opened the door of the room, and Maria had to remember to close her jaw as she followed the housekeeper inside. Though to be fair, she wouldn't have been surprised if her mouth had been closed at all since she first walked through the door.
It was the biggest bedroom she had seen in her life. Not only was it twice the size of her room at the Abbey, but, excepting the chapel, it was bigger than all the rooms Maria had been in at Nonnberg.
"The closet is empty, there's a new pen in the desk drawer," Frau Schmidt told her. She lay Maria's carpetbag down on her bed. The poor woman seemed almost bored. 'After doing it eleven times already she probably is,' Maria thought.
"And the bathroom is through there," she finished, pointing at the door next to the large closet.
"I get my own bathroom?" Maria asked.
'Of course you get your own bathroom, you stupid girl,' she mentally scolded herself. 'They have a ballroom.'
"Thank you, Frau Schmidt," she continued, collecting herself before the housekeeper could say anything more.
"What about the children?" she added.
"They will be outside for the next three hours," the housekeeper replied, her voice still in that same robotic tone that indicated she had repeated this information time and time again. "Then they have an hour of leisure time before they freshen up for dinner. You won't need to worry yourself with them until tomorrow."
Maria nodded slowly, setting the guitar case down by the chair.
"Oh, you can put that away," Frau Schmidt said, eyeing the case. "The Captain won't have music here."
"He won't have music?" Maria turned around, incredulous.
But the housekeeper was already gone.
She pulled her bag closer to her, opened it and began to put away her belongings.
She placed her Bible, crucifix and rosary on the desk, and left her small bag of toiletries by the sink in the bathroom. Both her nightgowns, as well as her robe were neatly folded and placed on the shelf in the closet and her underwear in the drawers. The hanging space was completely empty.
Maria tried not to be bothered by it. In any other circumstance; any other house, she wouldn't be. But wherever she looked she was surrounded by opulence the likes of which she had never seen before.
Even before; the way the Captain had scrutinised her clothing; asking her to twirl as though she were something on display, before finally insisting her dress wasn't appropriate. Even though, as she'd told him, it was all she had at the moment. For the first time in her life, Maria was self-conscious about her poor background.
She sighed, her eyes resting on the now-empty carpetbag.
Her best, and only friend had given it to her years ago.
It was the last time she had seen Natascha. They had kept contact for some time, but even that had dwindled into nothing now.
She wished that she had not lost contact with her. Though she doubted Natascha had any more experience at being a governess than she did, it would be nice to have someone to talk to.
She was truly out of her depth.
Sometime later, noises outside caught Maria's attention.
She had spent the last few hours in either prayer, or simply deep in thought. When she wasn't completely losing her mind over what she had gotten herself into, that is.
She opened the door a crack. The children were making their way up the stairs, single file. The youngest was stravaging along at the back. Clearly she wasn't happy.
The girl's gaze wandered and their eyes met.
"Hello, Gretl," Maria smiled.
Gretl didn't say anything, but stopped walking and smiled back.
Maria knew she needed to take things slowly. A child's confidence was like a walled castle for which one must have the key. It wouldn't do any good to try to break the lock and force entrance.* Despite what the girl had said to her earlier that day, Gretl barely knew her newest governess.
She needed to let her, and all the other children, come to her.
"Do you want to come into my room?" she asked. The other six children were already on the other side of the house, over near what Maria guessed were their bedrooms.
"I can do that?"
"Of course," Maria tried to sound bright, but she felt rather sad. This child had been deprived of any real love all her life.
"Don't you want to play with your siblings?" she continued.
"It's only cards," Gretl sighed.
"You can't do anything else?"
"Friedrich and Louisa sometimes play chess," she mumbled, following Maria into the room. "And Brigitta's always reading."
Cards. Chess. Books. This was what the children did for 'playtime'. Maria found herself doubting the contents of the books.
No wonder they were constantly playing tricks on the governesses.
"What's in here?" the girl asked, bringing Maria out of her thoughts. She was bent down over the guitar case.
"My guitar," Maria answered.
"What did you bring that for?"
"For when we all sing together," she continued brightly. Maybe the Captain wasn't happy about music, but surely the children would sing to themselves from time to time.
"What? What's wrong?" she added quickly, noticing the girl's silence.
"I don't know how to sing." Gretl's lower lip was trembling.
Maria's heart sank as she realised she was wrong. She wanted to chalk it up to the fact that she was the youngest, but in her heart of hearts she knew if Gretl didn't know how to sing, then it was highly likely that the other children didn't know either.
'We'll have to fix that,' Maria though to herself.
But at least now she knew where to start.
"Where's Gretl?"
"I haven't seen her…"
"Maybe she went to..."
"No, she wouldn't do that…"
Snatches of a conversation outside prevented her from giving the girl an answer. It was clearly the children but, Maria noted sadly, that they weren't talking over one another. Rather they were taking turns, like they were in a business meeting rather than siblings.
"They must be looking for me," Gretl announced quietly, in the same quiet, composed tone. "I should go."
"Alright then," Maria walked the girl towards her bedroom door. "I'll see you soon, okay?"
"Okay," whispered Gretl, slipping out into the corridor.
Maria watched her youngest charge walk to the other side of the mezzanine. She wasn't marching now, but she was certainly not moving like any other five year old Maria had ever known.
These weren't children. These were shipmates. They didn't know how to be children, because he was a sea captain and they were his crew. In their free time they didn't climb trees or roll in the grass or anything close to what she had done when she was their age. They played card games or chess.
And they didn't have music. It baffled Maria as much as it annoyed and upset her. How could anyone live without music? How could the Captain allow such a thing? It was wrong for him and wrong for the children.
She would fix that as soon as possible, regardless of how her employer felt about it. Forget the children, she couldn't last the rest of the summer without music.
"My day in the hills has come to an end, I know," she began to sing softly.
She and Natascha had made up many songs when they were younger. Their favourite was to the tune of the Laendler and was about a little goatherd.
This particular one had been concocted one hot, lazy day up on her mountain. To this day, she thought of it as her mountain's song, and it never failed to lift her spirits.
Georg closed the door and walked purposefully across the mezzanine towards the stairs. The book he'd been looking for was clutched tightly under his arm. He'd thought it had been in the study, but he had left it in his bedroom and forgotten he'd put it there.
As he was drew ever closer to the stairs, something made him pause, and caused his blood to boil.
A sound.
And not just any sound. Somebody was singing.
"To laugh like a brook when it trips and falls over stones on its way"
He was just outside the nursery and the children's bedrooms, which were as silent as ever. Despite the immense irritation he was currently feeling, he was proud that his children obeyed the first rule of the house and behaved in a disciplined and orderly fashion.
But if the sound wasn't the children, then that meant it was coming from the governess's room.
Of course it was.
'I should've expected it,' he thought. Snooping in the ballroom. Refusing to use the whistle. And now singing. The biggest infraction of all. The girl – for she couldn't be more than a few years older than Liesl surely – had been more troublesome for him in less than an hour than the past eleven had been in their entire time in the household.
And given his track record with governesses, that was no small distinction.
He was just about to knock on her door and explain the rules to her – again, when -
"Captain," Frau Schmidt was calling from downstairs.
"Yes, Lili, what is it?"
"There was a call for you from Vienna. Baroness Schraeder," she said. "I have the number in the pantry-"
"I know the number," Georg interrupted irritably.
Secretly he was rather relieved. Elsa's call would provide a welcome distraction. He would deal with the governess later.
Two and a half weeks later
Georg pushed opened the door and, following the sound, strode purposefully towards the parlour. The closer he got the more his anger dissipated, turning into first intrigue, and then something else entirely.
Something that he couldn't name.
Peering through the door, he could see that the Fraulein had been right. Not that he had expected her to lie. She might have been completely unsuitable to manage his children, but he did not doubt her honesty.
Elsa was sitting on the sofa, quite engrossed in the performance in front of her. Which, Georg knew was a big deal for her. The children were all huddled in a group, Liesl strumming a guitar. Their damp hair was the only indication they had ever disobeyed his commands.
But it was far from the biggest change. They were singing. But it wasn't just that there was music in the house; something that hadn't happened in five years. They looked happy.
Georg hadn't realised it at the time, but they had been happy back on the rowboat. Even after they'd fallen out of it, they seemed happy.
They were being children.
The children they used to be. The children they deserved to be. Children who would run around, play games and have fun. Even if that meant doing what their father, blinded by selfishness and ignorance and grief, had forbidden them from doing.
He could not fault them for that.
He wanted to be angry; at his children, at their governess, at the world. But he found that he just couldn't. Hearing the seven sweet voices of his wonderful children stirred something inside Georg; made him realise what he'd been missing since Agathe had died.
And all at once, he realised he knew this song.
It was the one Fraulein Maria had been singing the day she arrived. Try as he might; as he had, to not pay attention to her voice that day, it seemed that his subconscious had absorbed those words.
And, as he found himself being drawn into the room, words he didn't realise he knew spilled from his lips:
"I go to the hills when my heart is lonely"
The children's voice died out and they all turned to look at their father. Even Elsa and Max were staring at him, but he only had eyes for the seven young people staring back at him with wide eyes and open mouths.
When he finished he stepped his way tentatively towards the group. He was afraid to do something wrong, unsure of their reaction, and suddenly realised he knew how they had felt all these years.
The barest hint of a smile was all it took for Brigitta to come crashing into his arms, soon followed by the other six.
As he held his children close, Georg realised he had never loved them as much as he did right now.
Standing outside the parlour, her dripping wet dress no doubt puddling on the floor, Maria couldn't help but smile. As she watched the Captain and his children embracing each other she forgot, if only for a moment, how sad she was.
While she admitted she could've found a better way to broach the subject, she didn't regret for one minute saying what she had said. Even though it had cost her the job. The Captain needed to see reason; that he had seven beautiful children in front of him, all eager and desperate for his love. He ignored them, brushed them aside and everyone was suffering for it.
No one else was going to stand up for these children. If someone had, they probably would not have needed twelve governesses, and she probably wouldn't be here.
'Not that you're going to be here much longer,' she thought sadly.
She felt terrible at having to leave them, especially after bonding so strongly with them. But she could only hope things would get better, knowing at least that the dream she'd had since day one had been completed.
Gretl looked over at her, and she motioned for her to give the nosegay of edelweiss she was holding to the Baroness, just liked they'd practised. Unsure if she should, or could, stay much longer, she turned and made for the stairs.
"Fraulein," a voice stopped her just as she reached the first step. She turned to see the Captain standing in the foyer looking up at her. If she didn't know any better, she would have said he was feeling awkward.
"I behaved badly," he admitted. "I apologise."
"Oh, I'm far too outspoken," she replied regretfully."It's one of my worst faults."
"You were right," he stated. "I don't know my children."
He was still the same stern employer she'd met that first day, and yet he wasn't. His emotions were still as under wraps as ever, but Maria had never seen him so open or vulnerable before.
"There's still time Captain," she said imploringly. She wanted to make sure than her actions hadn't been for naught, and that, after she'd gone things would change. "They want so much to be close to you."
"You brought music back into the house," he continued. Even with the simple, matter-of-fact tone, his remorse was palpable. "I'd forgotten."
Maria didn't know what to say to that, so, getting colder by the minute, she resumed walking up the stairs.
She had taken all of two steps when he spoke again and made her pause. "Fraulein. I want you to stay," he paused, before amending his statement: "I uh, ask you to stay."
Maria's heart swelled, not only at the change in his voice but the words themselves. She had never heard somebody tell her they wanted her around, and certainly had never been given any choice in the matter.
"If I could be of any help," she breathed.
"You have already," he answered seriously. "More than you know."
He stood there for a moment before returning to the parlour. Maria watched him go, feeling more grateful every second.
She knew this was a second chance. And even with her nonexistent history of those, she knew that she could not have received a better one. Her heart singing, she clasped her hands together and raced up the stairs.
I hope you enjoyed!
From my earliest days of TSOM love I have always believed that Maria made up the title song. But being a fanfiction writer 'It's a movie' is not a viable reason as to why Georg knows the words, and while I love stories like lemacd's How to Stalk a Nun, that has never been canon for me. Additionally, one of the few things I think makes slightly less sense in the movie than the musical is why the children run to Maria's room during the thunderstorm. So when this story popped into my mind, almost fully formed, I had to get it out ASAP.
The asterisked phrase is quoted from The Story of the Trapp Family Singers. I thought it worked so well, I just had to include it. Also, if you've read certain other stories of mine you may be familiar with Natascha, and if not, I have a few stories with her planned, covering the moments brought up here.