A/N: This is my take on what happened after Maria left the Von Trapp's on the night of Elsa's party. I decided to change the year to when the real Maria Kutschera was living with the Von Trapp family as to avoid having to deal with WWII in this story (it just doesn't fit with my own timeline and ideas).
After She Left is set two years after Maria left the party, and in this version of events she never returned or has had any contact with the Von Trapp family since.
AFTER SHE LEFT
Chapter 1: Victor Kühn
Salzburg, November 1928
"I can't."
"Why not?" Victor pressed, sensing Maria's poorly hidden hesitation.
"A ball at an upper class charity event? Have you seen the likes of me, Victor?"
"And you think they would have invited me if I hadn't been the head representative of the organization itself? Come with me, let's be the two odd ducklings in a crowd of upper-class snobs."
Maria smiled and took a sip of her lukewarm tea as she considered his offer. Victor Kühn*. If there were one person in the whole of Austria whom she believed could convince even Michael Hainisch** to change his mind about a particular political stance or belief, then, no doubt, it would be Victor. But to go to such an event, to be amongst the upper class once more, it wasn't a decision to be made lightly.
"Picture yourself," he began, "in a gorgeous velvet dress. Young men throwing googly eyes at you all night, drool dripping from the corners of their mouths."
"You really don't know me at all," Maria laughed.
"A joke," he smirked. "I know you're worth twenty of those men on any given day. Maria, you have a heart of gold and the intelligence of a wise old owl, and when some rich Baroness approached our organization in Vienna a couple of weeks ago asking if she could host an event at her villa in support of the Meldemannstraße dormitory***, I immediately thought of you. You could be of such tremendous help to us. We want to expand. Establish a dormitory right here in Salzburg. I remember how you were with those unfortunate souls when you were still a postulant. You care. I have yet to see a nun in that Nunnery whose heart bleeds for another soul like yours did back then."
"Do not speak ill of the sisters, Victor. They were there for me when no one else was, and they are still doing tremendous good in a world that needs many more people like them."
"I apologize," Victor said, his cheeks turning a faint shade of scarlet. "What I meant to say is that you understand. You know what it's like. Not all of them do."
And that she did.
Sweet Victor, a man whose lips never did stop moving. She had known him for a long time, knew his intentions were always sincere no matter how badly his words sometimes conveyed his mind's intentions.
They had met some years ago, not long after Maria had entered the abbey in 1924. A new postulant filled with trepidation, she had found an ally in Victor at the numerous charity events that the sisters organized throughout the year. Most of those events involved the poor and homeless of Salzburg, and sometimes Victor would be there to help when the sisters could not. He would come all the way from Vienna, a special friend of the Mother Abbess, and for some reason he had taken an instant liking to Maria.
"You're a ray of dying sunshine," he had said when they met. "The only postulant here that lives like an ensnared bird struggling to break free. You are caging such bright potential, my dear."
She had felt insulted by his observations. Joining the abbey had been the only wish that had ever come true for her. She had wanted to become a nun more than anything. Who did this stranger think he was? He didn't know her. That a friendship could possibly blossom despite a comment so nasty was unthinkable to her. But then it did. In the weeks that followed she would meet Victor at more Nonnberg Abbey charity events. They would talk, and somehow he managed to charm her into liking him. In hindsight, getting to know Victor meant that she now also knew that what he had sensed in her then, was what she had never been able to accept about herself until her time with the Von Trapp family.
It was on the very eve of Baroness Schräder's party that she understood what Victor had meant. Yes, she was a bird, ensnared in a net of her own making. Falling in love with an unattainable man had opened her eyes to what she now remembered as being one of the most heart-shattering experiences of her life. When she left the Von Trapp villa on that hot July night in 1926, she could not have known to what extend that choice would influence the decisions that would follow.
"I don't know, Victor. You of all people should know why I don't feel particularly thrilled at the prospect of attending a high society event."
"A charity ball, and you'll be in my constant glorious presence. Besides, Maria," his tone more serious now, "didn't the Mother Abbess always used to say that one should face ones fears, not avoid them?"
Maria huffed.
"The Mother Abbess also used to say that to look for trouble is to expect disaster."
"Ah! Such a wise woman. But all jokes aside, what do I have to do to convince you to come with me to this event?"
"Try begging," she smiled and shook her head. Victor had never asked her for anything, had always helped her when help was needed. It was true that he had no censor, but that didn't mean he didn't deserve a yes.
"I'll tell you what, I will go with you on one condition only."
Victor leaned back in his chair, his eyes narrowing to slits.
"That's not quite your style."
"For this one time it will have to do."
"Very well, pray, do tell, what is this condition of yours?"
"You will never ask me to attend a high society ball, event or party of any type ever again. My focus as a charity representative will be solely on the poor and homeless. I can't deal with the financial side of the organization. People in need, yes, but not the people who are generous enough to finance us."
Victor took a moment to consider this new yet unsurprising piece of information. Of course, he was aware of the fact that somewhere along the line Maria had developed a somewhat questionable and uncharacteristically negative attitude towards the rich. It was no coincidence to him that it so happened that she had developed this attitude not long after she had returned from a governess position at the home of Salzburg's most decorated Naval hero two summers ago. Captain Georg von Trapp, a wealthy upper class, high society man. A man, whom in her letters, Maria had spoken of with much frustration.
"Stubborn donkey, won't listen to a word of reason," she had written. Reminding Victor of another such donkey.
But he was also, "a father still grieving the loss of a wife who had died four years previous. A woman whom the littlest children didn't even remember anymore."
She had adored those children almost instantly, and they had adored her. But it was the Captain and the way Maria had written about him that made Victor suspect that her leaving the villa so abruptly had been directly connected to her sudden and unexpected change of mind about becoming a nun. These days Maria avoided the upper class like the plague, as though they reminded her of an unresolved issue that not even the Mother Abbess had been entirely privy to at the time.
"Did they hurt you?"
The question caught her off-guard.
"Who?"
"The von Trapp's. When you were their governess. Were they unkind to you?"
"Unkind? No, of course not! You know very well how much I adored those children."
She bit her lip, and stared at her hands. This was an unexpected change of subject; she couldn't remember Victor ever having spoken about what had transpired between her and the von Trapp's, yet, she also could not blame his mind for wandering in that direction given the topic of conversation. He knew her all too well.
"Yes, that's what you said at the time, yet you left them so abruptly."
"I had no choice. I truly wish it had all gone down differently, but I also know and accept that they have a mother now who cares for them as much as I did. And truth be told, that was why God sent me to them in the first place. To prepare them for a new mother."
"But you left long before they married."
"Yes."
An extensive silence fell between them. Victor studied her for a moment while Maria stared at the now empty teacups on the coffee table.
"Maria, I never asked you. I never pried, but I always wondered."
"Please Victor, can't we at least keep one of our conversations civil?"
"It's been two years. We've been friends for over four, shouldn't we be able to talk about these matters?"
"I'm trying to put it behind me. I want to forget, not be reminded."
She rose from her seat, took the two teacups from the table and made for the kitchen.
"And I applaud you for your efforts," Victor called after her, "but can you really put it behind you if you insist on treating the symptom rather than dealing with the problem. What happened between you two?"
Maria whirled back, her tone sharp.
"What do you mean, what happened?"
He had hit a nerve.
"You and the Captain."
"What exactly are you implying?"
"Your letters. You said so yourself. He changed. And then your whole attitude towards him did too. When you wrote about the puppet show and how the children voted for him to sing. I don't think you realized it yourself then, but there was something in the way you wrote about that moment. About him. When you returned to the abbey a couple of weeks later, I was there. We were preparing another charity event at the time and I saw you return. You were in quite a state, hardly even noticed who guided you to bed. I just assumed…."
"Nothing like that ever happened. He never did a thing…"
She vehemently shook her head before sitting back down, the teacups returned to their designated spots on the coffee-table.
"You thought for two years that he—?"
"What else was I to think?"
Maria felt the color drain from her face. Who else would have just assumed? The sisters too? Had she unwittingly disgraced the Captain's reputation by keeping her mouth shut for so long?
"It wasn't like that."
"But there was something," Victor stated, not letting the matter drop.
"It wouldn't have been appropriate. You know that."
"But did he feel the same way?"
"I don't know, perhaps."
"Why didn't you stay?"
"Victor, I really wish you would stop asking me these questions. It's got nothing to do with either your charity or the ball, and I don't have any answers for you. I left that night because I was frightened. I didn't know how to deal with feelings I had no control over, and the Baroness didn't make it any easier for me."
"Was she the one that caused you to run?"
"Victor!"
"Alright, alright," Victor raised his hands in surrender. "I will drop the matter for now, but one of these days you're going to have to tell me what happened. Confession is good for the soul, Fräulein," he mocked.
"Do you want me to come with you to the ball or not?"
He smiled.
"Very much so, my dear."
"Then stop teasing and tell me whose ball we're to attend."
* Victor Kühn is wholly and solely my own original character
** Michael Hainisch was the the second President of Austria, after the fall of the monarchy at the end of WWI
*** the Meldemannstraße dormitory was a public dormitory for men, which aimed at reducing the number of Bettgeher in Vienna between 1905 and 2003. Bettgeher were poor people with no fixed abode, often shift workers from the countryside, who paid a small fee for the use of a bed in a private house for a few hours during the day
