Port Royal was much the same as it had ever been: a colonialized English
harbor in an exotic location. It had seen only minor changes in the last
three years – marriages, births, deaths, and considerably fewer pirate
hangings (folk swore that the pirate was becoming a dying breed, both
literally and figuratively) – but nothing beyond the ordinary. Governor
Swann had officially retired only two years after his daughter Elizabeth's
marriage, and a replacement for him had come from England within weeks.
The new governor – Charles Forinney – had begun immediately on the revival
of Port Royal, starting with the state of the roads.
Elizabeth Swann walked now along one of these roads, but could have cared less how many ruts pockmarked the way. Her shoes were squelching as she walked, and she had to raise the hem of her dress to avoid splattering it with the dark mud. It was a little chilly for spring in the Caribbean, but the day promised to warm up by the afternoon.
At the crossroads near the outskirts of the town Elizabeth turned right. The shortest distance to her house would have been to go to the left, but it would have required her to walk past Everly Mansion, and she could not suffer herself the shame if someone therein had seen her with muddy shoes and a basket of vegetables from the local market.
Everly was the home of John Norrington, and his new wife: Emma Forinney Norrington. When Governor Forinney had come to the Caribbean he had brought along his beautiful spinster daughter (unmarried by her own choice), and Commodore Norrington had fallen swiftly in love. Elizabeth remembered, a little bitterly, how quickly John had seemed to forget her. She should have been happy, both for him and for herself now that he was no longer emotionally attached to her, but she was not.
It was not that she regretted her choice not to marry him. Elizabeth loved Will, her husband, very dearly, but the fact of the matter was that John's love for her must clearly not have been strong for him to reject her so quickly. And also, Elizabeth was deathly jealous of Emma Forinney.
It was the money that irked Elizabeth more than John's abandoned love. She was happily married, her husband had a job, they possessed a decent home, and were as poor as church mice. Will had had a bit of good luck a couple of months after their marriage when his master had died suddenly, leaving the Smithy to Will as sole proprietor. Will liked being his own master better than servitude – after all, who didn't – but the work wasn't bringing in enough money, and above all Will wasn't happy.
After the escapade with the cursed treasure and Elizabeth's capture by Pirates four years before, Will had had trouble being satisfied with a stationary life in town. Elizabeth pitied him and felt his pain as much as she could for she too felt as if she were not meant to settle down, but there was nothing to ease their trouble. With a wife, and now a child, to support, Will had no choice but to stay in Port Royal and work hard at the only job he could get and the only job he wanted least. Elizabeth could only imagine how repetitive it had to be making swords day in and day out.
She reached her house - her and Will's house: a tall, aging townhouse in the lower middle class part of town, flanked on either side by exact replicas of itself. The street was silent, and darkened by the shadows of the multi-storied buildings as they hovered in dismal resignation over the muddy alley road. Grasping the curvy iron door handle, Elizabeth pushed her way into the house, announced by the door's creaking hinges that sounded and resounded in the empty hallway.
"I'm home!" she called after the sound of the hinges had died away as she removed her hat and hung it on a nail.
"Mistress?" Estrella the maid came bustling through the hall to take Elizabeth's basket, which Elizabeth gladly relinquished due to its rather cumbersome weight.
Estrella had worked for Elizabeth since she was very young. After her mistress became Mrs. Turner, Estrella had simply transferred from the one house to the other, and though the Turner townhouse was nothing like the Swann's mansion she did not complain. Not even when she discovered that because she was the only maid that Will could afford, and that Elizabeth could not do a stroke of work herself, all the household duties fell inevitably on her own shoulders. Of course, after four years Elizabeth had learned how to cook and even clean to a certain extent, but Estrella was still a tremendous help to her and a last little tie to the life she had lived before in the Governor's mansion. Privately, Elizabeth often wondered how Will could even afford to pay their one maid's wages, but said nothing for fear of looking stingy and suffering Estrella's dismissal.
"Was the market crowded, ma'am?" Estrella was asking. Elizabeth removed the shawl from around her shoulders and hung it beside her hat.
"No, not terribly. It is a rather soggy day out, and perhaps that is the reason," she replied.
"I see. Oh, very good vegetables ma'am. And the melons are not soft, too."
"I checked them specifically," Elizabeth mentioned. "I was determined not to bring back rotten produce like last time." Estrella smiled and went to put the basket in the kitchen.
Elizabeth lifted her skirt a little to examine her shoes. They were caked with mud that spread so as to even splatter her stockings, and now they were dirtying the floor. She slipped her feet out of them with a sigh.
"Estrella, where is Henry?" Elizabeth called as she tiptoed barefoot down the white washed hall. Estrella stuck her head out of the kitchen.
"He's playing, ma'am, in the nursery," she said.
Elizabeth turned onto the staircase and clung tightly to the rail in order not to lay the whole flat of her unprotected feet on the cold wooden steps. Once at the second floor she dashed into her room for another pair of socks before gliding down to the nursery.
She pushed the door open very softly and looked in. Her baby, two-year-old William Henry Turner, was sitting up in his crib singing a song to his toes. The dim gray light of the morning shone through the window and caused Henry's yellow curls to glow like a halo around his little head.
Elizabeth smiled tenderly at her son, lovingly dubbed her Sweetest Angel by herself, and even occasionally by Estrella. The baby had come a year after his parents' wedding, and Estrella claimed openly that there had been no handsomer child before him. Naturally, Elizabeth agreed.
"Henry," she whispered. Henry turned and looked at her with his big blue eyes. Cooing happily, he clambered to the side of his crib and reached out his tiny arms for his mother to hold him.
"Here's mama's baby!" Elizabeth crowed happily as she went to pick him up. "What are you doing?"
Henry bounced up and down and babbled a little because he hadn't really understood.
"We'll go downstairs to see Estrella," Elizabeth told him as she swung him happily out of his crib, "and you can play in the kitchen with the stirring spoons."
The baby repeated the word 'spoons' questioningly.
"Yes, that's right," his mother answered. Situating him on her hip Elizabeth went back downstairs to join the maid who was working laboriously over a pot of stew for lunch.
"Could you watch Henry, Estrella, while I clean the silver?" she asked. "He won't be trouble, I'm sure."
Estrella nodded.
Gathering up a small collection of ladles Elizabeth deposited them with the baby on the floor where he began to play happily.
"There's so much you can do with spoons," Elizabeth remarked about the scene. "The simple things in life, I suppose." She smiled at Estrella and left.
The parlor was dark when she entered, and the dust in the air stung her eyes. Covering her mouth with her hand Elizabeth marched over to the large twelve paned windows and flung them open. Light streamed into the room, covering the harp-backed chairs and mahogany cabinets in the dusty blue glow of a rainy morning.
Elizabeth surveyed it all proudly. The parlor contained her most prized possessions; the dark, highly prized mahogany furniture her father had given her when she married Will - cabrioled chairs and a polished table all covered delicately in cotton sheets to protect them from the dust; the matching breakfront cabinet wherein was displayed all of Elizabeth's silver, most of which had belonged to her mother, with a few pieces as gifts from the wedding. Since Will was poor there had been no further collecting of any silver for Elizabeth to add to her stockpile, but she at least loved and treasured what she had.
She pulled a cloth from a drawer in the sideboard and went to inspect the shining display in the niche of the breakfront. Elizabeth rarely got time to clean her silver now with Henry on her hands all the time and the lack of attention was becoming evident in the now tarnished luster of the sedentary dishes and tureens. Sighing softly, Elizabeth opened the glass doors and carefully lifted her largest gadroon-edge salver onto the table. The salver was followed by many other items of all sorts and when nearly every piece of silver lay out on the rudimentary tablecloth sheet - Elizabeth went to work. Outside the sky was beginning to darken and large black clouds to gather.
Suddenly a cold wind blew into the little parlor. Elizabeth looked quizzically into the sky as she hurried to collect her scattered silverware.
"Looks like a storm's brewin'," Estrella called from the kitchen.
====================================================
A/N: Please bear with me here. This story is going to get much more intense...
Elizabeth Swann walked now along one of these roads, but could have cared less how many ruts pockmarked the way. Her shoes were squelching as she walked, and she had to raise the hem of her dress to avoid splattering it with the dark mud. It was a little chilly for spring in the Caribbean, but the day promised to warm up by the afternoon.
At the crossroads near the outskirts of the town Elizabeth turned right. The shortest distance to her house would have been to go to the left, but it would have required her to walk past Everly Mansion, and she could not suffer herself the shame if someone therein had seen her with muddy shoes and a basket of vegetables from the local market.
Everly was the home of John Norrington, and his new wife: Emma Forinney Norrington. When Governor Forinney had come to the Caribbean he had brought along his beautiful spinster daughter (unmarried by her own choice), and Commodore Norrington had fallen swiftly in love. Elizabeth remembered, a little bitterly, how quickly John had seemed to forget her. She should have been happy, both for him and for herself now that he was no longer emotionally attached to her, but she was not.
It was not that she regretted her choice not to marry him. Elizabeth loved Will, her husband, very dearly, but the fact of the matter was that John's love for her must clearly not have been strong for him to reject her so quickly. And also, Elizabeth was deathly jealous of Emma Forinney.
It was the money that irked Elizabeth more than John's abandoned love. She was happily married, her husband had a job, they possessed a decent home, and were as poor as church mice. Will had had a bit of good luck a couple of months after their marriage when his master had died suddenly, leaving the Smithy to Will as sole proprietor. Will liked being his own master better than servitude – after all, who didn't – but the work wasn't bringing in enough money, and above all Will wasn't happy.
After the escapade with the cursed treasure and Elizabeth's capture by Pirates four years before, Will had had trouble being satisfied with a stationary life in town. Elizabeth pitied him and felt his pain as much as she could for she too felt as if she were not meant to settle down, but there was nothing to ease their trouble. With a wife, and now a child, to support, Will had no choice but to stay in Port Royal and work hard at the only job he could get and the only job he wanted least. Elizabeth could only imagine how repetitive it had to be making swords day in and day out.
She reached her house - her and Will's house: a tall, aging townhouse in the lower middle class part of town, flanked on either side by exact replicas of itself. The street was silent, and darkened by the shadows of the multi-storied buildings as they hovered in dismal resignation over the muddy alley road. Grasping the curvy iron door handle, Elizabeth pushed her way into the house, announced by the door's creaking hinges that sounded and resounded in the empty hallway.
"I'm home!" she called after the sound of the hinges had died away as she removed her hat and hung it on a nail.
"Mistress?" Estrella the maid came bustling through the hall to take Elizabeth's basket, which Elizabeth gladly relinquished due to its rather cumbersome weight.
Estrella had worked for Elizabeth since she was very young. After her mistress became Mrs. Turner, Estrella had simply transferred from the one house to the other, and though the Turner townhouse was nothing like the Swann's mansion she did not complain. Not even when she discovered that because she was the only maid that Will could afford, and that Elizabeth could not do a stroke of work herself, all the household duties fell inevitably on her own shoulders. Of course, after four years Elizabeth had learned how to cook and even clean to a certain extent, but Estrella was still a tremendous help to her and a last little tie to the life she had lived before in the Governor's mansion. Privately, Elizabeth often wondered how Will could even afford to pay their one maid's wages, but said nothing for fear of looking stingy and suffering Estrella's dismissal.
"Was the market crowded, ma'am?" Estrella was asking. Elizabeth removed the shawl from around her shoulders and hung it beside her hat.
"No, not terribly. It is a rather soggy day out, and perhaps that is the reason," she replied.
"I see. Oh, very good vegetables ma'am. And the melons are not soft, too."
"I checked them specifically," Elizabeth mentioned. "I was determined not to bring back rotten produce like last time." Estrella smiled and went to put the basket in the kitchen.
Elizabeth lifted her skirt a little to examine her shoes. They were caked with mud that spread so as to even splatter her stockings, and now they were dirtying the floor. She slipped her feet out of them with a sigh.
"Estrella, where is Henry?" Elizabeth called as she tiptoed barefoot down the white washed hall. Estrella stuck her head out of the kitchen.
"He's playing, ma'am, in the nursery," she said.
Elizabeth turned onto the staircase and clung tightly to the rail in order not to lay the whole flat of her unprotected feet on the cold wooden steps. Once at the second floor she dashed into her room for another pair of socks before gliding down to the nursery.
She pushed the door open very softly and looked in. Her baby, two-year-old William Henry Turner, was sitting up in his crib singing a song to his toes. The dim gray light of the morning shone through the window and caused Henry's yellow curls to glow like a halo around his little head.
Elizabeth smiled tenderly at her son, lovingly dubbed her Sweetest Angel by herself, and even occasionally by Estrella. The baby had come a year after his parents' wedding, and Estrella claimed openly that there had been no handsomer child before him. Naturally, Elizabeth agreed.
"Henry," she whispered. Henry turned and looked at her with his big blue eyes. Cooing happily, he clambered to the side of his crib and reached out his tiny arms for his mother to hold him.
"Here's mama's baby!" Elizabeth crowed happily as she went to pick him up. "What are you doing?"
Henry bounced up and down and babbled a little because he hadn't really understood.
"We'll go downstairs to see Estrella," Elizabeth told him as she swung him happily out of his crib, "and you can play in the kitchen with the stirring spoons."
The baby repeated the word 'spoons' questioningly.
"Yes, that's right," his mother answered. Situating him on her hip Elizabeth went back downstairs to join the maid who was working laboriously over a pot of stew for lunch.
"Could you watch Henry, Estrella, while I clean the silver?" she asked. "He won't be trouble, I'm sure."
Estrella nodded.
Gathering up a small collection of ladles Elizabeth deposited them with the baby on the floor where he began to play happily.
"There's so much you can do with spoons," Elizabeth remarked about the scene. "The simple things in life, I suppose." She smiled at Estrella and left.
The parlor was dark when she entered, and the dust in the air stung her eyes. Covering her mouth with her hand Elizabeth marched over to the large twelve paned windows and flung them open. Light streamed into the room, covering the harp-backed chairs and mahogany cabinets in the dusty blue glow of a rainy morning.
Elizabeth surveyed it all proudly. The parlor contained her most prized possessions; the dark, highly prized mahogany furniture her father had given her when she married Will - cabrioled chairs and a polished table all covered delicately in cotton sheets to protect them from the dust; the matching breakfront cabinet wherein was displayed all of Elizabeth's silver, most of which had belonged to her mother, with a few pieces as gifts from the wedding. Since Will was poor there had been no further collecting of any silver for Elizabeth to add to her stockpile, but she at least loved and treasured what she had.
She pulled a cloth from a drawer in the sideboard and went to inspect the shining display in the niche of the breakfront. Elizabeth rarely got time to clean her silver now with Henry on her hands all the time and the lack of attention was becoming evident in the now tarnished luster of the sedentary dishes and tureens. Sighing softly, Elizabeth opened the glass doors and carefully lifted her largest gadroon-edge salver onto the table. The salver was followed by many other items of all sorts and when nearly every piece of silver lay out on the rudimentary tablecloth sheet - Elizabeth went to work. Outside the sky was beginning to darken and large black clouds to gather.
Suddenly a cold wind blew into the little parlor. Elizabeth looked quizzically into the sky as she hurried to collect her scattered silverware.
"Looks like a storm's brewin'," Estrella called from the kitchen.
====================================================
A/N: Please bear with me here. This story is going to get much more intense...