A/N: There's not very much Maria/Georg action in this chapter. I'm sorry for that—I really am degenerating into writing plotless chapters. But it's fun—and I'll keep doing it, if you want me too :o) Thanks so much for your kind reviews! Some of you are wonderful writers yourselves, so it's really encouraging hearing more from you (not to mention that the bunnies have attacked, and you've given me inspiration for more SoM stories. Ahhh! Bunnies!). As I always say, tell me if you get bored or have criticism. It helps me out. The next chapter has quite a lot of Maria/Georg to make up for this one :o)
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Chapter 4
"Where are your lovely off-spring?" Max asked, without much concern, as he continued to dig into his breakfast. Georg and Elsa had finished a while ago, but consented to sit with him while he satiated his voracious appetite. Elsa had lit up and was sitting back coolly, Georg was watching Max with a certain measure of incredulity than anyone could eat that much.
"They—most of them—are in the school room, happily drilling away," Georg replied laconically. "They breakfasted over an hour ago."
"Oh, earlier risers," Elsa mourned, putting a templed hand to her forehead with mock sickness.
"Not early—reasonable, and perfectly appropriate," Georg said, a mischievous smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. Elsa, much like other ladies of her class and experience, was decadent—in taste, in fashion sense—and in sleeping hours. The thing that he liked about Elsa, though, was that she was well aware of her own extravagance. Insight, at times, was almost as fresh as simplicity. "Tell me, darling," he began, with a hint of flirtation in his voice, "had I called on you in your room at half past eight, would you have been dressed?"
"Speaking of appropriate behavior, I really shouldn't allow that line of conversation to go further," Max said regretfully. He looked up at his breakfast companions, who were eying him skeptically. Max regarded them blankly and explained earnestly, "I'm here as a buffer, aren't I? I should use what little authority I have. However, this bratwurst is so delicious," he went on, looking down to his plate, "that I'm sure I will miss anything indecent either of you say. 'Tis a pity, really."
"Max," Elsa said, her voice half giggle, half remonstrance. "You really do make an awful chaperone."
"Isn't that why you brought me?" Max returned. "It's alright that I've found you out, Georg. I don't mind being used."
"Used? Oh Max, really. As long as you get to stay in Georg's villa for the duration, am I right?" Elsa teased.
"Naturally," Max said easily, still eating. "Where else would I stay? It's alright. So long as I'm fed properly, all secrets are safe with me."
"We don't have any secrets, Herr Detweiler," Elsa said, her voice dropping, looking sidelong at Georg as she said it.
"Really?" Max replied, playing at curiosity, and then took another bite of his sausage
Georg ordinarily probably would have joined in the banter, because charming abuse of Max was, to all three of them, one of their most amusing entertainments—as first of all, Max deserved every word, and second, Max didn't seem to mind a bit. But Georg's mind had obviously slipped off in another direction, and for the past minute, he had seemed to find the wall of the breakfast room fascinating.
Georg had been doing that more and more often, lately—losing himself in thought. The thoughts were not pleasant—which was why he was so fond of Elsa. Usually, she could recall him to her world—a world that wasn't falling apart, a world like her idea of Vienna: sparkling dinner parties for the wealthy and well-to-do, witty and flippant conversations about politics that didn't affect anyone with a title and without conviction, a sense of beauty, liveliness, and youth that would carelessly go on, despite the changes it went through.
"When am I going to see the little darlings again?" Elsa asked him smoothly, correctly guessing the direction of his thoughts, and wisely sensing that she was not going to change that direction, at least for now. "Or have they all run away, in dread of seeing me again?"
"Darlings?" Georg replied incredulously, raising his brow at Elsa over the breakfast table. He smiled, as he always did when she drew him out of his moods, but the smile was distracted, as was his voice. "Gretl and Marta are darlings, I'm sure, and Leisl is lovely. The rest you will find, I'm afraid, to be incorrigible rascals and hoydens, unfit for your delicate company," he said easily, with half a smile. "Or wasn't it you that Friedrich kicked under the dinner table last night?"
"Don't be hard on him, dear," Elsa said, laughing. "He's at that awkward age." She smiled wickedly and Max laughed, but Georg continued looking at her steadily.
"Which is hardly 'darling'," he replied.
"I'm not sure whether she wasn't being facetious, Georg," Max said blithely, cutting into his breakfast sausage with renewed zest. "What was it then, Elsa? Are they darlings or not?"
"I'm sure I don't know," Elsa said, laughing carelessly. She tapped her cigarette on the tray at her elbow with negligent elegance, and then returned her gaze to the man in front of her. Despite her easy grace, her eyes studied him—as if trying to find answers to questions she wasn't asking.
Georg understood her questions just as well as anyone at the breakfast table. He knew what she had been insinuating the morning before: that being here with him was exciting because he was showing her parts of himself he hadn't shown to the other socialites in Vienna, that knowing his home and family would bring her closer to him. He was fairly certain that she had understood his meaning as well, and had shared it with Max: that he wasn't sure. She was lovely, witty, clever—all the things he had said—and yet he had to see her here; yes, as he had rather facetiously put it: in his own natural habitat. He needed to see her in his home and determine whether her light, insightful way of taking his mind off heavier things was viable here—to see whether he would still feel the need to leave here as often as he did, to see whether he could stand to replace Agathe in any way.
Elsa had not planned, he supposed, on dining with all of his children and the governess their first night here. They were used to private meals in Vienna, or large feasts with witty, intelligent conversation—not slurping soup and the occasional kick under the table. In a way, Elsa was asking whether he approved—but they both knew the answer. As Max had said, though Georg had not heard: "How could she miss?" Elsa had handled the evening with the grace with which she took everything; she had borne it in exactly the same way she might have taken a meal with any number of her sophisticated friends in Vienna.
Elsa had steered the conversation away from both the children's wet appearance that afternoon and Fräulein Maria's subsequent absence. And she had greeted the governess with the warm confidentiality of women, which Georg had never understood, and which had seemed to disconcert Fräulein Maria. But it had been the Baroness' friendliness to her that seemed to have at last convinced the children that he was not going to do anything untoward to their governess, and for that, at least, Georg was extremely grateful. Elsa's light, witty humor had kept Georg from brooding too much over regrets: his treatment of the children's governess yesterday, and, more importantly, his treatment of the children for the past five years.
Yet now, the Captain preferred to brood. Light amusement was all very well—especially after such a lack of it for so long—but it was not going to change anything. And yet, things had changed. "Elsa," he began, thoughts still distracted. "I'm going to spend today here, at the villa. I won't have you confined, though. You may do what you like."
"Bad form, Georg," Max remonstrated, wiping his mouth and finally throwing his napkin over his plate to signify that he was done. "You said you were going to take Elsa to call on your friends in Salzburg. Not to mention you let drop that you 'friends' have connections to the director of the Klopmann Choir."
"Have I told you yet today that you're an unconscionable, self-interested boor, Max?" Elsa said, the seriousness in her expression not for Max, but for Georg, who seemed to understand that her teasing interjection was merely for form's sake.
"I know I did, Max," the Captain replied, looking at Elsa. His voice grew sharp as he turned to Max. "But I do believe I may do as I please in my own house—and I please to spend today with my children, thank you." He stood then, pushing back his chair.
"No need to get prickly, Georg," Max replied, looking up. "I was just looking after Elsa's interests."
"But Max has no notions of my interests," Elsa said softly, her eyes still locked on Georg. "I please to spend my day with you, Georg—and so, if I may do what I like," she added, standing as well, "Max must go visit your friends alone." She smiled at Georg, who smiled in reply and took her arm.
"It appears," Max said, sighing and looking at the empty breakfast table, "I have no friends."
Georg laughed as he opened the doors to the breakfast room. "Only if you continue to sulk, Max. Elsa, here, might consent to put up with you while you finish showing her the rest of the grounds. She is sophisticated, that way. What do you say, darling?"
Elsa, on his arm, tilted her head to look back at Max, who was following behind. "I'm sure I could manage to pretend I don't dislike him," she told Georg, laughing.
"Well then," Georg replied, dropping Elsa's arm. "If you'll excuse me, I have business to attend to. I shouldn't be more than an hour."
"Oh, business," Elsa said, with exaggerated drama and a hand at her temple. "Business is the Captain's mistress."
"But she keeps tabs on the wealth, dear," Max interjected. "Don't mind her."
Georg, more amused than annoyed, cast his eyes heavenward. "Max, do remember your own your best behavior," he said dryly, and took his leave of the Baroness.
*
Strangely, Georg was glad to be rid of the two of them. Gay as they both were, this morning they were giving him a head ache. And yet he had awakened today feeling more vigorous than he had in a long time. It had been long before Elsa—or Max—had even begun to stir, but the morning had felt so clear, so crisp—the way it does just before snow, though it was summer. He remembered what he had told Elsa—about 'the birds and the bees and the wind that moves through the trees like a restless'—well, something-or-other. Smarmy poetic nonsense, really, but it was true: he felt at home here.
In the next moments he'd heard laughter and singing echoing through the house—a wonder that it hadn't awakened Elsa—and he'd marveled at how much he'd missed it, how right it seemed in this house, despite the fact that laughter had been rare here in these past few years, and singing nonexistent. It was then that he'd understood the renewed energy in his chest, the feeling of vigor strangely fresh in him: he had something to do, here. It was wonderful to work, he'd thought, to actively fix something, instead of watching helplessly from afar. He would not do so for the Nazis—and nor would he for his family. He could right the things that had been wrong—he could come to know his children again.
He had gone to the school room to see the children, but the view of Kurt and Friedrich sitting diligently at their desks, of Brigitta lounging in her corner reading, of Leisl helping Gretl through her alphabet and some simple spellings, and of Fräulein Maria's golden head, bent close to Marta's, reading out of the lesson book—had filled him with a strange sense of something he hadn't felt in a long time: peace.
He hadn't wanted to disturb them. What he had wanted to do, oddly, was sit down and watch them—watch them, in part, because they had changed so much and he wanted to know them again, but also because he'd wanted them to stop changing: he wanted to freeze the moment, to always remember them looking so content, so happy. He'd wanted to look at them and think that they would always be able to be this way, together, as a family, in this house, without a care for the outside world. But he'd known it would all change—knowing that his children had changed already, that he didn't know them any more.
Now pensive, considering this, Georg again paused as he approached the lesson room. The children were gathered about Fräulein Maria, their backs to him as they talked and laughed with their usual uproar. "Alright, children," Maria was saying. "Brigitta, it's your turn. It was Kurt's yesterday, climbing trees and boating—"
"Brilliant idea," Louisa muttered moodily.
"It wasn't my fault the boat tipped," Kurt retorted indignantly.
"None of you told me you weren't boatmen," Maria said innocently, shrugging.
"You almost got her fired," Brigitta announced, looking reprovingly at Kurt.
Georg's brows shot up, but he remained silent, hands locked behind him as he stood in the shadows of the door and listened. "Brigitta," Fräulein Maria admonished. "How many times have I told you—?"
"—not to gossip or unduly speculate," Brigitta replied in monotone, obviously saying something she had memorized and had had to repeat many times. "Yes, yes. Is that a nun thing?"
"But Father was very angry, wasn't he?" Marta asked, her little piping voice quavering.
Kurt rolled his eyes. "Silly, that's why he was going to fire—"
"Kurt!" Fräulein Maria said over their voices—they all spoke quickly and on top of each other, firing comments back and forth until Georg could barely understand what even the loudest comments above their general din were.
"If it were my turn," Gretl announced wistfully over the top of them all, "I would want to spend the day with Father."
"So would I," Brigitta agreed, "but he wouldn't want to spend it with us."
"Why not?" Gretl demanded.
"The Baroness is here," Liesl explained simply. "That makes things different—doesn't it, Fräulein Maria?"
"I don't see what she has to do with anything," Louisa, muttered, looking petulant, while Marta said plaintively: "The Baroness has white hair. And she has a mole."
"Children—" Maria began, her voice sharp.
"Do you think she's a witch?" Kurt asked, sounding more excited than anything else.
At that moment, Georg decided it would be wise to make his presence known. He stepped forward into the school room, a very real scowl on his face. The noise ended abruptly. The children—startled, and a little confused about what to do—scrambled into their lines. Fräulein Maria, surprised, looked as if she might say something, but the Captain's glare was directed at his children. "You were saying, Kurt?" he demanded.
"Well . . . I . . . we . . . think the Baroness . . . well, looks—"
"He doesn't actually want to know, stupid," Friedrich told Kurt, and then fell silent under his father's stern look.
Georg turned to the governess, his eyebrows raised. He could sense the worried glances of the children, exchanged from one to the other. They were protective of their governess. "And this is the discipline you've kept around here while I've been gone, Fräulein?" he asked her, his voice neutral.
"No, only since you've returned, Captain," Maria replied. Georg blinked at her frankness, but her brow merely lifted inquisitively at his narrowed eyes. It seemed to be a challenge—and she went blithely on. "They're quite happy to see you, you know," she informed him.
"Hm," he said, his face puzzled, as if trying to figure her out. He waved a hand at his children, his eyes still studying Fräulein Maria's open, clear expression. "You may dispense with the lines," he told them laconically.
"Father?"
Friedrich's voice. "Go on," he said, sparing them a glance and waving his hand again. "They're no longer necessary." He glanced at them again, feigning surprise at their lack of obedience. "Well, do you like standing about in the order of your birth?"
"No, Father, but—" Brigitta began.
"I don't like it," Gretl said stridently, hands on her hips in imitation of one of her older sisters.
Georg found a smile creeping up to his face as he looked at his out-spoken youngest daughter. It was strange; he could feel in his mouth that he was unused to smiling. He went to lift Gretl up into his arms, now really smiling at her delighted giggle. "There now, that's better, isn't it?" She nodded, a smile full in her chubby cheeks, her plump arms wrapping around his neck.
Gretl's way of clinging to him was instinctive, but holding her, he realized how long it had been since he last lifted her. When had she gotten so heavy? Georg was suddenly intensely aware of Fräulein Maria, who was watching him and the children with open fascination. Had she imagined him too much of a monster to even hold his children? Perhaps he had been, at times. "And what were you saying Gretl, about how you wanted to spend the day?" he asked her seriously, turning his attention back to the load in his arms.
"With you, Father," Gretl replied simply, straight-forwardly.
"And so you shall," he affirmed.
"Really?" several of them said at once, at last breaking up, murmuring among themselves as seven children are prone to do, pressing up against him the way they did when they were sure he wasn't angry. He looked down at them in surprise—and not a little bit of pride—in their love for him, their need for him, their spontaneous joy in his company. His full attention was enraptured by the many bodies seeming to press around him, and he found their laughter almost contagious.
"All day, Father?" Louisa added, skeptically.
"Well, that depends," Georg replied, chuckling. "How did you sleep, Louisa?"
Louisa looked surprised. "Ill," she said finally, frowning.
"Any nightmares?"
"She too old for nightmares, Father," Gretl informed him, her cheek still close to his.
"Really Gretl," Georg replied, looking at Louisa with a raised brow. "And Kurt, how was breakfast?"
"He's still hungry."
"Naturally, Friedrich. And you've not been getting into too much trouble, I hope?"
"Friedrich? Trouble? You shouldn't ask," Brigitta said archly, her expression knowing—but her eyes gleaming as her father smiled at her.
"And Brigitta, read any good books while I was gone?"
"Ever so many," she affirmed, grinning. "You were gone a long time."
"Well then, I suppose it's settled. It seems as if I shall have to spend all day with you, just to find out what's happening to you all." He smiled as their murmurs crescendoed into a general racket, and he could feel Marta hugging his legs while Brigitta fought her way—among others—into his embrace.
"We have ever so much to tell you Father!" Gretl announced, bouncing in his arms.
"Oh?" he asked jovially, walking toward the door, his children moving with him. It was a good feeling, to have them loving him like this, looking up to him—but not fearing him. Their pure, innocent joy, their love for him, was a beauty and a justice where he had not sought them. "Well, out with it. What have you got to tell me?"
"Fräulein Maria taught us how to sing!" Marta exclaimed, amidst the chatter of the other children. She'd left off hanging onto his legs and was somewhere behind him.
"He already knows that, stupid," Kurt hissed, attempting to shush her.
"Oh yes," Georg murmured gently, turning around to find Fräulein Maria. He'd half forgotten she was there; the old feeling of being one with his boisterous family overwhelming his usual awareness of a relative stranger. The governess was a pace or so behind the bunch; Marta had fallen behind to take her hand. Maria was looking down at his daughter, quietly smiling—but feeling Georg's eyes, she looked up and met his gaze openly. "Gretl," Georg said, taking his eyes off their governess and putting down his youngest child amidst the others by the door to the schoolroom. "Can I trust you to look after your brothers and sisters for a while? I'm going to have a word with your Fräulein Maria."
"Oh," Gretl said, giggling, looking up at her older siblings—but the rest of them were silent.
"Father," Brigitta began suddenly. "You won't—"
"Not a word, Brigitta. You'll leave now, while I have a word with your governess." He waved his hand, shooing them out the door. They seemed reluctant, obviously recalling his stern voice as he'd questioned Maria's discipline, moments before. "Go on. Do that thing children do—what is it you called it, Fräulein?—'play'?" Liesl smiled at his joke of feigned ignorance, but Louisa was looking at him suspiciously, and Friedrich didn't seem to want to trust him. "Run along, children," he said dismissively. "Play."
"Go on, Marta," Maria said, with an encouraging smile, and let go of Marta's hand. "Do as your father says. We'll only be a while." The smile faded as she looked toward the Captain.
Georg watched as the children, still reluctant—with last longing looks at Maria, as if they would never be seeing her again—trouped out.
"Do you think he's going to fire her now?" one of them asked, and another one hushed the voice.
*
