Huh. This first bit turned out quite more serious than I planned it to. Anyway, this will be the last bit set between LWW and PC (I think it will be, anyway… this story has a mind of its own, and I am not used to writing pieces that are interconnected but not directly sequential. Anyway.)
9/23/16: I changed the ending of this chapter, as a reviewer commented it seemed off. I agreed it was rather over the top (I had suspected it originally to he honest), so I made some alterations. See? Reviews and constructive criticism DO help! (No, very sincerely, I really appreciate honest and helpful feedback!)
Eventually, the immediacy of Narnia began to fade from the children's minds, and their parents stopped worrying quite so much. School starting again helped a great deal in their getting used to the ways of things in England. Peter and Susan and Edmund all were back at boarding school, and Lucy was in the last year of the village school. As the changes in Lucy were, in some ways, the subtlest, Margaret could overlook the one or two peculiarities her youngest child evinced.
The Pevensie parents had their own distractions from the changes wrought in their children. Joseph went back to his work as a lecturer at the university, and Margaret could finally quit the factory and work on restoring the house to its pre-War condition. When Lucy got home from school, she and her mother first worked hard at converting the smaller vegetable patch into a haven for the flowers and pretty plants Mrs Pevensie liked seeing.
After that came washing all of the windows in the house (now they could take those dreadful blackout curtains down!), and repainting all of the windowsills and trim. All very normal, until Margaret came down one morning to discover that Lucy had got up quite early, and had scrubbed the entire kitchen floor. Cheerfully. Without being asked.
So, once more, the Pevensie parents had to contend with the fact that their children were uncommonly good, and they'd had little to do with it. Well, thought Mrs Pevensie, at least Lucy was still prone to going about barefoot every chance she got. The quirk was endearing rather than exasperating, now, and really, who did it hurt?
Joseph kept up his fishing on the weekends, and occasionally took Lucy with him. On one of these trips, he decided to try to suss out the source of some of the changes.
"Lucy," he said one day, as they were walking home. "Your mother told me about Edmund's rather odd reaction to the Turkish Delight when you all first came home. Do you know anything about that?" He knew his daughter was very truthful, and was curious to see what she'd do with a straightforward question.
"Is it still bothering Mother?" Lucy asked worriedly. "Edmund will feel awful if it is."
"Not… exactly," her father replied. "Rather, she is curious. We both are, actually."
"Well," Lucy began slowly, obviously choosing her words with care. "When we left for the country, Ed wasn't… really himself."
"So your mother has told me."
"And the country… where we went to, when we were sent away, was so different than here, it really allowed all of us to be our real selves. Or, begin to learn who our real selves are, at least. Do you know what I mean?" she asked looking up at him.
He had an expression of deep concentration on his face. "I think so."
"All right." She thought a moment. Then, suddenly, "Edmund won't get into any trouble with you if I tell you something, will he? Promise me."
Joseph was a little startled at the demand. "Certainly. I promise."
"Not long after we got there, we all got into this frightful row, and Edmund fell in with some rather bad sorts. Not for long," she hastened to assure him, "and he was very soon regretful, I think, but it is harder to get away from those sorts of people, once you have fallen in with them."
Joseph cast a rather startled glance at her, from the sudden world-weariness, maturity and wisdom ringing in her voice, but didn't comment on it.
Lucy continued. "So he had fallen in with them, and then was sorry for it, and while he was with them they gave him some Turkish Delight, and we nearly lost him then."
"Lost–you mean died?" Joseph cried. "Was it poisoned?"
"No, I don't think so, though I wasn't there," Lucy admitted. "But I think it was more of all of the other miserable things that came with the Turkish Delight and those bad sorts of people he was with."
"I see. So he associates the Turkish Delight with these people?"
"No, it's not that. Or not just that. It's…" She took a moment. "It reminds him, I think, of his choosing to fall in with them, even though part of him knew very well it was a stupid thing to do," Lucy replied thoughtfully. "So it reminds him, now, of just what a bad decision he made."
It sounded like Edmund had been in some sort of a gang, he thought. And he could understand why they'd all keep this from the Professor and his staff, let alone their parents. "How on earth did he get away from them, then?"
"Someone came, and rescued Ed from those bad people and their influence. And He was able to get Ed utterly, utterly free of them." Joseph wondered at the sudden gleaming joy in her voice. "And that Someone is very loving, and very kind, and very wise, and fierce, and wild, and wonderful. And He took Edmund aside and spoke to him."
"About what?"
"None of us knows," she replied. "And it doesn't matter. It's Edmund's story, not mine. But when Ed came back to us after speaking with Him—oh! The change in Ed's face! He was himself again. Really and truly himself, for the first time in a long time."
"It sounds like this someone is quite remarkable. I'm glad you all met him."
"Oh, so am I. And I do hope I get to see Him again someday!"
"I should like to meet him myself."
"That would be lovely." Lucy beamed up at him. "You have no idea."
He decided, then, that it was time to break up this conversation, which had taken several unexpected and serious turns. Though he'd learnt a lot that went a long way to explaining the changes in his children, carrying on such a weighty conversation and turning to find it was his child, not a colleague, with whom he was speaking, was a little unsettling. "Well, Lucy, what else have you got planned for today?"
"I was going to go over to Marjorie's house for a bit to work on our essays for English."
"Are you going over soon?"
"When we get home and wash up. I'll be home by teatime, if not sooner."
"I thought you were doing well in English this year. Your reports from your teachers have all been good."
"I know. But Marjorie doesn't seem to understand that an essay is a story," Lucy explained earnestly. "It's a very formal story, with rules as to how it should go, but it's still a story."
"And what is Marjorie writing, if she's not writing an essay?"
"A list of facts," and here Lucy sounded quite repressive.
He laughed at her tone. She sounded exactly her age, just then. Who would want facts when you could have a story, after all? "Don't be too hard on your friend," he said "Storytelling doesn't come naturally to everyone."
"At least she's not as bad as Eustace," Lucy sighed. "Then there'd be very little hope at all."
Joseph's laugh echoed as they turned up their walk. "You have fun with your school-friend," he said. "And do remember she is not Eustace."
She laughed in turn, as she ran inside to get cleaned up.
When she was gone, Joseph told his wife about some of the things he'd learned.
"So, I think most of these changes can be laid at the feet of this mysterious benefactor," he said. "It seems someone intervened before any of the children went down any terribly wrong paths, and if the outcome of that is that they are particularly good, I will simply be happy in that. Besides," he added with a laugh, "I'm sure school will knock some of the perfection of goodness off of them."
"Joseph!"
"School can be very difficult," he said unrepentantly. "Come, now. Don't tell me the girls in your school lent themselves to everyone always being on their very nicest behavior."
"Well, no," Margaret admitted. "Some would drive you to pull their hair out, in fact."
"Especially when they flirted with your fiancé," he teased her, and she flushed.
"That only happened once," she said, putting on an immense dignity. "And Ellen quite regretted it."
Wisely, Joseph elected not to ask exactly how she was made to regret it, and they went inside.
His prediction came true, when the older children came home for the Christmas holidays. Mostly, anyway.
Susan had slipped a bit into being her old rather bossy, fussy self, and only caught herself when Edmund or Peter gave her a look.
Peter was boisterous and a bit more boyish than he had been during the summer, playing Tag with Lucy in the yard, or staging snow battles with Edmund against Lucy and Susan, but then would come in and talk with his father about the goings-on in England after the War.
Edmund was a trifle more inclined to get into a foul mood, but the times he didn't catch himself, Lucy would grin up at him until he laughed and let go his anger.
Lucy seemed to get the littlest bit more childish when her older siblings were home, romping around the house in high spirits, but then Joseph would pass by the living room and see all four of them sprawled around and on top of one another, discussing something seriously in low voices. And once, when he slid past the open door, he noticed that Lucy was speaking of something that made her face shine with a joyous solemnity, and the other children were listening to her attentively, not dismissing her as might be expected.
Certainly there were still instances of what Margaret had termed 'slightly peculiar behavior,' but Joseph couldn't honestly bring himself to mind them, as they were all the sorts of things he wished he'd had enough courage to do when he was their ages.
Peter came home late one day, obviously having been in a fight, and he refused to speak of it with anyone. Later, Margaret found out what had happened from a neighbor who'd been there.
"Oh your Peter, such a stalwart young man," the woman had sighed. "He'd been walking by that invalid hospital, and it seems there was a young soldier who'd lost an eye, an ear, and an arm to gangrene during the War. He was rather despondent," the woman had added.
"But how was Peter involved?"
"Well, Peter ran into him when he'd been on the verge of—of throwing himself in front of an omnibus," the woman had said in a hushed whisper, and shuddered. "No one had time to get to him, when they realized what he was about. But suddenly Peter was there, and jerked him back just in time. Well, I don't mind telling you, the young man was furious, and swung at Peter, who ducked it—mostly—and they fought for a minute or two, until Peter tackled him and sat on him until the hospital orderlies came out and took him inside. Anyone would have said Peter had done quite enough, you know, but he followed them inside and asked to sit with him a while.
"A nurse-aide told me a little of what Peter said to him, something like, 'Now, if you're energetic enough to fight me to die, you're energetic enough to fight yourself to live…' and then they were whisked into another room and she didn't hear any more. But she said Peter had such command in his voice. If it had been her, she wouldn't have dared try to kill herself when Peter told her not to. And it seems the young man has had a change of heart, and goes around to other fellows and helps them keep their spirits up. The nurse told me it was just the breakthrough the young man needed."
"Oh," Margaret said faintly, not really having expected something like this. She had assumed someone had made a snide comment about a girl, perhaps, or mocked Peter for being sent away to the country during the War. She hadn't expected to hear that her son had intervened in a suicide, and she sighed for the world her children were growing up in. Perhaps if they were all inclined to act a little more nobly than their peers, it wasn't a bad thing after all.
Susan and Edmund didn't get into any dramatic incidents, and Mr and Mrs Pevensie had begun to relax into enjoying the winter holidays when Lucy, of all people, nearly got into a great deal of trouble.
About four days after a really lovely Christmas, Susan and her mother had gone out to the shops, Peter and Edmund were playing chess in their rooms, and Mr Pevensie was working on drafting a lecture in his study. Lucy had been sitting in the front window watching the snow fall into the street outside, when she suddenly exclaimed and ran outside, not bothering to grab a coat or a hat as she did so, though she did bag one of Joseph's walking sticks as she passed. (She was, fortunately, wearing shoes.)
Joseph heard her exclamation from his study, heard the front door bang open, and stepped out into the hall curiously. His study looked out into the back yard, not the street, so he didn't see Lucy run out.
Peter and Edmund's heads poked out of their room, and the moment they saw the front door standing open, both muttered, "Lucy," and came charging down the steps. Their obvious alarm infected Joseph, who hurried to the front door.
The scene he saw made him stop in horror for one long second. Fortunately, his sons charged straight past him and toward their sister.
Lucy was facing off against a ferociously snarling dog that had gotten loose. It was nearly as big as she was. She stood between the dog and an obviously terrified young woman, who'd evidently been carrying her marketing home when she encountered the dog.
"For shame, Sir!" Lucy was rebuking the dog, holding the walking stick up in front of her, ready to strike. "Where are your manners? Bad. Badly done!"
The dog's ears came up for a second, and it whined, before lowering into a crouch, ready to spring. The growls seemed half-hearted now, though.
"Down," Lucy insisted, and the ears came up again, and the crouch lolled into nearly lying down, despite the snow. The dog whined, apparently confused. It growled again.
By this time, Edmund and Peter had reached the little tableau, and Peter gently removed the walking stick from Lucy's hand, though he kept an eye on the dog as he did so. It stayed where it was, but kept alternating between low growls and high-pitched whines.
Edmund gathered up the lady's bags and quickly walked her around the dog and his siblings, and urged her to get home. Just as they reached the corner, they met with a sweaty man, who looked frantic. "Have you seen a dog?" He panted. "Brutus got out of the yard."
"We have," Edmund said severely. "It quite terrorized this young woman, and nearly savaged my sister. It's round the corner, with my brother."
"Sorry, frightfully sorry," the man gasped to the young woman, who gave the whole lot of them a bewildered look, and hastened her steps toward her home.
Edmund turned back to his brother and sister. Their father and the dog's owner reached them at about the same time. Peter was carefully standing between Lucy and the dog, who was still alternating between half-hearted growls and whines. The girl was not screaming, and this evidently confused the dog. Joseph was reading off a tirade to the man, who looked very contrite.
"I'm terribly sorry. He's a guard dog, and he slipped out of the yard, and—hey! Little girl, don't put your hands near him!"
Lucy had crouched down and was reaching toward the dog, speaking very quietly to it. "He won't hurt me," she said calmly. "He has just forgot his manners. I'm sure he really knows better than to run off and snarl at people who are not doing him any harm."
"Lucy, it's a strange dog. Get back." Her father said curtly, and she looked up, surprised by the vehemence in his voice. But at the inflexible tone in his voice she obeyed, stepping back. "Peter, do you have control of the dog?" Mr Pevensie asked.
"I can keep it from hurting Lucy, if it thinks to do so, sir," Peter said, raising the stick to the ready. "But I don't think it will. It's calmer now."
Everyone was surprised when Joseph suddenly grabbed the dog's owner by the collar and dragged him up the three or so inches of height difference between them, so that Mr Pevensie and the man were eye to eye.
"Do you see my little girl, there?" He asked fiercely, shaking the man.
"Ah—ah—yes—"
"Do you understand that this is my first Christmas with my little girl in three years? With any of my children? And because you do not know how to control your dog, we could have had a disaster on our hands. At the very least, my little girl would have had to watch one of her neighbors be torn apart by your dog."
"Oh, he wouldn't have—" the man blustered, but Joseph shook him again.
"He might have." Joseph said coldly. "And you know it, too, or you would not have thought your dog might bite her hands just now."
"I'm—I'm—sorry—" the man gibbered. "I'll keep a better eye on him, I promise."
"You'd do better to ensure your dog is properly trained," Mr Pevensie said tightly, and with a glance at his children, bit off whatever else it was he would have said.
He let the man down, but Peter could tell, by the way his hands curled into fists, he wished he could teach the man a more permanent lesson. But Mr Pevensie shrugged off the feeling, seized Lucy and Edmund by the hands, and started back through the snow toward the house, saying only, "Come, Peter," before turning away.
Peter paused in the street long enough to watch the man slip a lead onto the dog and lead it away around the corner.
As soon as they entered the house, Joseph grabbed Lucy and shook her slightly, then crushed her to him in a hug. "Lucy, Lucy, what were you thinking? You could have been mauled, or killed."
"She never can leave someone in distress," Edmund said, a hint of humor in his voice.
"Next time, grab an umbrella," Peter suggested, apparently taking his sister's near demise in stride. "At least an umbrella has a sharp metal point."
Joseph gaped at his sons for a second. "And just what were you two going to do if the dog had attacked?"
"Fought it off," they replied in unison.
"But Lucy had things reasonably in control," Edmund added. "She may run off in a hurry, but at least she usually thinks on her feet."
"Thinks? What thought went into putting herself in danger?" Mr Pevensie nearly yelled.
"She did grab a stick," Peter said. "And Lu's got a way with animals, generally. The dog did calm down."
Joseph sighed, as the adrenaline stopped rushing. "Well, I suppose everyone's all right. And I'm glad you went to someone's aid, Lucy, but next time could you please call for me before you go charging off?"
"I'll try," Lucy said contritely. "I didn't mean to worry you, honestly."
"No." He bussed the top of her head. "I'm sure you didn't. Don't do it again."
Later when they were inside, and Peter was making some chocolate to warm them up, Edmund said, "Dad. Are we going to tell Mother about this?"
It was a good question. Well, no harm had come of it, after all, and Margaret had only just begun to relax about her children's 'oddities.' "No," he said slowly. "I think it would just worry her unnecessarily, don't you agree?"
"That's what I was thinking," Peter said. "Though if she asks us I'll tell her the truth."
"Let's try not to have her ask, then," Joseph said hastily, suddenly thinking that if Margaret thought one of her children might be more inclined to die under their father's watch, she'd simply never let any of them out of her sight again.
The War had changed them all in different ways, and Joseph was beginning to realize that Margaret's alteration was showing itself in an overwhelming anxiety about her children's lives and their futures. He'd try not to add to that burden if he could.
Please let me know what you think, good or bad. It'll take fifteen seconds to drop a line in a review box. I promise!
