A/N: I guess a little clarification is needed. I'm doing it in this chapter as the last two weren't about Millicent.
About the illness I mentioned in chapter 35: I stated that someone was ill and Millicent said "...that they thought it was just a normal illness." I didn't say that it was her having been ill.
And it's not an illness that one normally dies from.
Cal had no idea why Lavinia was still so cold around him.
Hadn't he tried enough already?
His mother had told him that Lavinia was still not pregnant and felt his father's eyes in his back. He knew how Nathan wanted to get rid of Lavinia the sooner the better. But Cal wasn't going to let Lavinia down.
She had done nothing wrong, so far and had always been a good wife to him.
"I'm sorry for you two," Millicent had told them.
Cal didn't know, if he should be happy or worry about the fact that his mother was now treating Lavinia better. There was something in the wind. Millicent had always been so harsh against his wife and now this should've changed suddenly overnight?
This didn't seem very likely to him.
Nathan on the other hand didn't take much trouble into hiding the fact that he hated Lavinia more than ever and wanted her out. But of course he didn't know what his wife knew. Maybe his opinion would've been different otherwise.
With his limited knowledge however, he just kept telling Cal how much better he would be off with Rose. He was praising her looks, whenever he could, not caring, if Lavinia was hearing everything.
"She needs to know everything, Cal."
Lavinia understood that for Nathan she was only second best, not even that.
Maybe she should simply agree to the divorce?
But her parents would never speak with her again and she would next to dead to society. She would've to live in shame for the rest of her life. Despite the fact that women were slowly getting more rights and divorce wasn't as uncommon anymore as it had been before the war, divorcees especially the women were still seen as insane.
Some exceptions were made, if the husband was really violent or if the marriage was never consumed, but nothing of this was true for her. Cal was sometimes shouting at her, but not in a violent way. In public he was treating her with utter wonderfulness.
Cal meanwhile had prepared himself to talk with his father. Nathan had to stop with his constant attacks against his wife. But Nathan sure enough had no intention for such a conversation. He was the patriarch of the family and wasn't about to tolerate any opposition.
This was especially true for Cal. His son needed to know where his duties lay within the Hockley clan.
Lavinia was trying her best to avoid Nathan, figuring that if she didn't speak with him, he wouldn't be able that she should go. It was so unfair.
Cal and she had been intimate quite a lot in the past weeks, but she still wasn't with child.
She didn't understand any of this. Surely there was something wrong with her. She had once read that stress wasn't helpful, when wanting to conceive. In short: the more she wanted a child, the less she would get it.
Sure she was still young and could have a dozen children, but the word divorce was swinging over head like the sword of Damocles.
Why had Millicent convinced Nathan to let her stay married to Cal?
Why was she helping her?
Lavinia had visited Jack two more times in the past week, of course with Olivia. She found him a bit better looking, but still didn't think much of Rose. His wife was leaving him alone and Lavinia hated her for this.
Of course Jack hadn't told her about their meetings with Patricia, feeling like it was none of her business. Jack believed that she had problems with Cal and tried to comfort her. Olivia found this nice and knew that he kept the distance. Lavinia however, only misjudged this again as upcoming feelings for her. Olivia only encouraged her in it.
Lavinia could hear Cal shouting at his father.
Finally he was standing up against his father. If he did to protect her or more to show his father that he was a real man, Lavinia didn't know. At least he did something.
She heard every word and by the time they had stopped talking she was full of tears.
Nathan had told Cal that he would send Lavinia back to her family, if she wasn't pregnant within half a year.
"We've waited long enough."
Cal had protested, telling his father that Lavinia was his wife and that he had no right to treat her like this.
"You may of course go with her," Nathan had simply answered laughing.
He knew his son, knew that he wouldn't do it.
Cal's duties were with him, not his wife.
Millicent had put a, what seemed like, comforting hand around the distressed Lavinia.
"We'll find a solution, my dear. In fact I already know something."
Lavinia looked at her confused.
As Cal was coming out of the room, Millicent didn't get the chance to tell her anything more.
"We're going to talk later on," she only whispered in her ear, while Cal sat down besides his wife.
He wasn't good a soothing people, but now with Lavinia he tried his best.
It was the first time that Lavinia actually didn't feel like an outsider in this family.