26 December 1960
"Oh, Jean, you look beautiful!" Mattie squealed as she came flying through the doorway and straight into Jean's embrace. For a moment Lucien watched them fondly, his wife and this girl who was as good as her daughter, the casual, earnest affection they displayed for one another. The sight of them together, trading cheek kisses while Jean complimented Mattie's new hairstyle and Mattie cooed about how well Jean's pregnancy suited her, warmed his heart and filled him with such gladness that he did not even grumble about being forced to stand out on the porch with Mattie's travelling case in hand while he waited for them to clear the entryway.
"Come on then, let's have a cup of tea," Jean said, and Mattie beamed at her, wrapping her arm around Jean's waist whimsically. And so they danced away from him, the sound of their laughter and the faint scent of Jean's perfume floating on the air.
It was really, truly lovely to have Mattie back in the house again, if only for a little while. In the beginning, it was Mattie's presence that had kept him in check - to a certain extent. He would have left town the day of his father's funeral were it not for the fact that Mattie needed time to secure lodgings. In those early days he had moderated his voice for her sake, not for Jean's, for even then he had known that Jean possessed a will of steel and would not be cowed by some man barking at her as he came and went. He had kept his drinking to himself, for the most part, not because he worried what Jean would say but because Mattie was of an age with his own child, and he did not want her to see him in such a state. It was Jean who put him to bed when he'd had a few too many, Jean who came to him when he shouted in the still of the night, Jean who saw him at his lowest points, Jean who knew the name and number of every sin he'd tried to hide from their lodger. Had it not been for Mattie, well, what might have happened to him didn't bear thinking about.
And as he grew more comfortable with his new life in Ballarat, Mattie had been a constant source of joy for him. Jean knew him for what he was, and while she looked after him she remained cooler to him in those early days, wary in many ways. Mattie, though, Mattie burst with life, with laughter, with affection. It had delighted him, having a young woman about, even if he wept into his whiskey glass of a night thinking how he would never know whether his own child shared Mattie's vivacity, if she lived at all. There had been so many questions, so many doubts, so much grief in those days, and it was strange to think how far he had come, how much he owed to the two ladies currently enjoying a cup of tea in his kitchen.
With a smile on his face Lucien stowed Mattie's case by the foot of the stairs and went off to find them. They were seated at the table, laughing over their cups, and when Lucien entered Jean lifted her head and gave him a warm smile.
"There's more, if you'd like," she said, gesturing vaguely towards the kettle. The holidays had all but exhausted her, he knew, and he was not about to request that she make his tea; Lucien was more than capable of completing that task himself, and he wanted Jean to stay right where she was, content and delighted.
"Thank you, my darling," Lucien answered, pausing to rest his hands on her shoulders and press a kiss to the top of her head before he went in search of the kettle. Such easy affection came naturally as breathing to him now, and he did not even think before he spoke, before he acted, did not even consider for a moment how strange this might look to Mattie, who had left them before they made their courtship public. To his mind there was no need now for the obfuscation they had relied on in the days between Jean's return from Adelaide and Mattie's departure, for now he and Jean were wed and she was carrying his child and all the world knew how he loved her. Why then should he worry about letting Mattie see the evidence of that affection?
"It's strange," she mused from the other side of the table, and Lucien turned with teacup in hand to face her, wondering what she could possibly have meant. "Everything is so different now."
"Oh, I think you'll find some things are still very much the same," Lucien said winsomely as he took his seat beside Jean. She lifted her eyebrow at him in question, and he grinned, and her cheeks turned pink, no doubt recalling the kisses they'd snatched while Mattie was still in the house, they way they had been circling ever closer to one another even as they tried to evade her suspicions.
"But you're married now!" Mattie pointed out delightedly. "And you're going to have a baby soon, and Charlie is gone but Matthew is here, and I...I feel as if London is my home, now. It hasn't even been a whole year but I feel as if that's where I belong."
"That's the nature of growing older," Jean told her, and Lucien just took a sip of his tea, thinking how wise, how clever, how kind she was, how damned lucky he was to have this woman in his life. "A place that used to be home feels foreign, and a place that used to be strange becomes home. You can't move back, Mattie. All we can do is move forward. You will always be welcome here for a visit, anytime, but you've found a new place for yourself and that's wonderful."
"Oh, Jean," there were tears in the corners of Mattie's eyes as she suddenly sprang up from her chair and crossed to throw her arms around Jean's neck. "I have missed you both so much," she said softly.
"We missed you, too, sweetheart," Jean answered, just as gently. It was a testament to the change she'd undergone these last few months, the way she'd opened her heart, allowed her affections to show so plainly, that she used the same term of endearment for Mattie now that in the past she had reserved for her sons.
"Very much," Lucien agreed in a low voice, and then Mattie laughed and danced away from Jean to press a kiss against his cheek before settling back down in her chair without the slightest hint of self-consciousness in the wake of her display of affection.
"Now," she said, "tell me everything. Have you thought about names?"
Lucien and Jean exchanged a wry glance at that, and Mattie, to her credit, noticed it at once.
"What is it?" she asked eagerly.
"We have a...difference of opinion on the subject," Lucien said lightly.
"But you'll find out what we've chosen soon enough," Jean supplied. She had rather deliberately dodged the subject of their little wager, and Lucien respected her decision not to bring it up in this moment. While it was for him a bit of a lark, their friendly disagreement as regarded the gender of the baby, he knew it was deeply personal for Jean, and there was no need to go into the somewhat morbid thinking behind their arrangement on this beautiful afternoon.
"Do you know, I've been reading about research they've been doing in Scotland. They're using ultrasonic sound waves to create an image of the fetus in the womb. It actually creates a sort of photograph, and they've been able to use it to identify the stage of development. You can actually see the baby's head!"
As Mattie spoke Jean went a bit pale, one of her hands rising up subconsciously to rest against the swell of her belly, as if to protect Little Blake from the mad Scottish scientists.
"That can't be safe," she said.
Lucien draped one of his arms over her shoulders, and sought at once to reassure her. "No, no, I've read about it, too," he began. "They've been doing this for several years now, and there have been no ill effects on the children. They're thinking that with more time and study they may be able to refine the images. It's possible that at some point they might be able to use this process to determine the baby's sex and check for anomalies prior to birth. It's very promising, even if the rest of the world hasn't quite caught on yet."
Jean gave a soft little hmph of displeasure. "Well," she said, "I'm perfectly happy to wait until he gets here. I don't need to see a photograph to know that he's perfectly healthy."
"Of course, my darling," Lucien answered her. He pressed a kiss to her temple and she shifted more firmly against him, and the conversation carried on to less weighty subjects.
It was much later that evening when Mattie came slipping down the stairs, intent on fetching a glass of water. They had passed a lovely few hours together, laughing and chatting. So many of their friends had come round for dinner, Charlie and Danny and Matthew and Alice, and Mattie had enjoyed herself immensely. But she was exhausted from the travel, still somewhat out of sorts with the shift from a London winter to a Ballarat summer, and Jean looked equally wrung out. So they had all agreed to turn in early, and Mattie had departed up the stairs to her old room at once. Having unpacked a few of her belongings and changed into her pajamas she found herself a bit parched, however, and so she left her bed behind in favor of the kitchen.
She had thought as she left her room that everyone else must surely be in bed, but as she reached the bottom of the stairs she heard the soft sound of voices coming from the sitting room. As quietly as she could she approached, and peaked in through the doorway to find Lucien leading Jean towards the wireless by the hand.
"Dance with me, my darling," he was saying. Evidently they had only just finished the washing up, but it would seem that Lucien was not quite ready for sleep. Mattie did not hear Jean's answer, but then she supposed she did not really need to for in a moment there was the gentle sound of music, and they were sliding their arms around one another, soft smiles on their faces as they began to sway to the beat.
Mattie hardly dared breathe, moved almost to tears by the sight of their gentle affection for one another. After Lucien had gone tearing off to Adelaide Mattie had been certain that they were in love, had wasted all her girlish enthusiasm on the thought of how wonderful it would be for them to find their way together. Two people both widowed by war, who had of necessity grown rather close to one another, two people Mattie adored; it was to her mind like something from one of those paperback novels her school friends had hungrily devoured in their younger days. And now here they were, together, dancing as close as Jean's swollen belly would allow, the light of love shining from their eyes as they gazed so fondly at one another.
That's one lucky child, Mattie thought, for her own parents had harbored no such fondness for one another. There had been no dancing in her house when she was young, no gentle, casual affection such as Lucien and Jean showered on one another. They would make wonderful parents, she knew; she had seen Jean with her sons, and with Danny, had seen how Lucien dropped everything to tear off to China the moment he found his daughter, had seen how tenderly the pair of them treated her when she was a lodger in this house, and she felt that this little one, boy or girl, had been rather blessed when it came to the matter of his parents. This child would grow up in a house full of music and love and laughter, and Mattie could think of nothing better.
And she was delighted, too, to see Jean and Lucien smiling so widely, no longer stalked by the ghosts that had for so long haunted their steps. Sorrow had hung like a cloud upon that house for so long, as Jean mourned for her husband, worried for her boys, as Thomas fretted over his son and then left them all behind, as Lucien came storming in wearing his pain as a badge of honor upon his chest. Not so any more, for love had come bursting through as sunshine through the windows, and now there was nothing but smiles and delight in that place. Lucien bowed his head to kiss his wife and Mattie turned away, drifting into the kitchen on silent feet, her heart at peace. Yes, London was her home now, but a piece of her would always reside within these four walls, with those two people who had so shaped her into the woman she had become.