The Schooner Bay Home for Invalid and Indigent Seamen:
Fortuna Figg Grover
by Julie Feldman
All canon characters belong to R.A. Dick and 20th Century Fox. The AU characters are mine. I make no money from these stories.
Chapter 1:
The end of September 1874
The summer was over, and the wind had a bit of a nip to it as it blew light white clouds across the otherwise deep blue skies of Maine. The summer folk had left weeks ago and the repairs to the town's larger dock and some of the structures along Front Street were nearly complete. The housewives of the town had opened up their cedar chests to air out the flannel blankets and heavy knit clothes before the autumn rains came along and the whole countryside looked like it was wearing a strange kaleidoscopic bunting with all the winter things hung on each and every laundry line.
The evening before at high tide in Boston Harbor, the SS Calverton docked. As a courtesy to its First-Class passengers, they were regaled with a gala last evening aboard before being required to disembark the next morning. For Albert Allan Cooper and his bride, Phyllida Grover Cooper, it was a fitting end to a nearly six-month honeymoon tour of Europe. Their earlier marital problems were long behind them and when they returned to their own home in Schooner Bay, Phyllida would be settling down to await the arrival of her first child in four short months.
Their arrival the next afternoon in their hometown turned out to be as well-attended as the annual arrival of the circus was. The railroad platform was crowded with well-wishers, making it difficult for the porters to bring their many bags down from the baggage car. Eventually it all got it sorted out, with the senior A.A. (Adolphus Adam) Cooper having one of his heavy-duty work wagons on hand just for the luggage and a brightly waxed carriage waiting for the young couple. Mother Jane Cooper greeted her son and daughter-in-law with hearty hugs and kisses, while Phyllida's father gave her a restrained peck on the cheek and a limp handshake to A.A. (junior).
Phyllida's mother, Fortuna, who had precipitated the young Cooper's marital crisis with her inappropriate information and advice about wifely duty, stepped forward next. Young A.A. quickly turned his back on her. Their last meeting about her role in the sorry state of his marriage had ended with his threats to keep her distant from his wife and future children, punctuated by his throwing the box of medals belonging to Fortuna's late brother, Captain Horatio Figg, at her head. He had no intention of allowing that woman to interfere with Phyllida, now that she was in the family way. He could only imagine the terrible things she would pour into his wife's ear about pregnancy, childbirth and raising an infant! He cut her dead and hoped that, despite her seeming ability to see herself as the center of everything, she would get the message clearly; he wanted nothing whatsoever to do with her.
For her part, Phyllida hesitated about greeting her mother. Before her marriage, she had been completely under Fortuna's thumb. She was the puppet, her mother the puppet-master and her father merely paid the bills. When she finally slipped out from under her control, she discovered that first off, she could actually think for herself and make rational decisions. Secondly, Phyllida realized that the world according to Fortuna was a fabrication. It was neither so daunting and dangerous as it was made out to be, nor was it a world that would sink at her feet because she was both a Figg and a Grover. Lastly, she realized that her mother spent her life trying to make others feel unhappy and jealous just to control the situation. Part of her felt sorry for Fortuna for never having experienced true joy, but the greater part of her was angry at being her mother's pawn.
Phyllida looked at her mother once, with some regret mixed with pity on her face, although, the anger in her also made her eyes glisten fiercely. She quickly turned on her heel which caused her cloak to swirl around her and expose her growing pregnancy.
While the Cooper family had been informed some weeks prior about the impending arrival of their first grandchild, they had been warned not to let anyone else know, most particularly Thaddeus and Fortuna Grover. Phyllida had sent a meagre number of letters to her parents and brother, none of which held any significantly personal information. Thaddeus and David had been busy in the bank with the financing for rebuilding Schooner Bay's harbor-front after the fire and didn't pay much attention to the lack of content of the letters from Europe. Phyllida, however realized exactly what her daughter's letters were saying. Still, she read and re-read them, looking for any little hint of information. Did a turn of phrase imply something? Did her choice of wording have any significance? Was she hiding something or merely angry?
To see her daughter with child, without having any foreknowledge of the fact both hurt and angered Fortuna to her core. This was her first grandchild. It was a time when a daughter normally became closer to her mother, not farther away. Why were these things happening to her? And what was she to do about it?
She went home with Thaddeus in a snit. Her mood did not improve when they sat down to dinner. David had decided to meet with some friends and eat at the Schooner Bay Inn. His mother's moods were nothing new to him, and he took whatever opportunities came his way to steer clear of them.
Thaddeus was quite used to her personality, and after twenty-five years of marriage turned a deaf ear to her complaining. Allowing her to purchase something extravagant and unnecessary usually helped her mood. But where had the vivacious girl he had married gone to? She had always been high strung and turned her nose up at most of her suitors, and she had many. Those that were handsome and complimentary she allowed to court her, but none of them had had sufficient wealth to meet her criteria. The Grover family were relative latecomers to Schooner Bay, and he did not meet her until he was nearly 22 and she was 18. He didn't have the fine, chiseled looks of some of the men who flitted about her, especially the young sailor boys of the town, and there were quite a few of them. His hair was already thinning, and it was an unimpressive non-color; neither light brown nor dark blond. What he did have was the bank that he and his father had started. It was the first (and for many decades the only) bank in town. By Schooner Bay standards, the Grover family was wealthy.
By contrast, the Figg's were solid citizens who had settled in the town in the late 17th century, soon after its founding, staying to build a strong family foundation. They were "comfortable", but Fortuna's mother still did all her own cooking and sewing. Her brother Horatio went to sea in his early years, like many did. Fortuna grew into a tall, slender woman with beautiful brunette hair which was her pride and joy. If she wasn't considered a great beauty, she was acknowledged to be a handsome woman with a fine feminine figure that she dressed to good advantage.
Thaddeus mused that Fortuna had kept her fine figure and lovely hair, even if a few strands of gray could be detected among the goldish-brown. She was still a quick wit, but with every year that passed, more and more acid seemed to fill her veins. And now, to find out about their daughter's coming child in such a back-handed manner, just seemed to make it all that much worse.
What, he wondered, could ever satisfy her?