Title: To Do One's Duty
Author: Celia Caws
Genre: romance
Rating: PG 13
A/N: I'm not sure how well this turned out, but it what it meant to be was a kind of defense for Lucius. I know in the film they made it seem as if there were no intimacy between them at all since he stopped holding her arm, but I just couldn't picture Ivy taking that with no explanation. And I think there's something really honorable about having the courage to protect someone you love, even when they're angry at you for how you do it. Lucius seems like that. Please review (even if it's to beg me never to touch a keyboard again)
The village lay shrouded in shadow, for the days were long and cold this weary winter. The night was pitch-black before dinnertime. As small as their home was, in the pressing darkness, it grew still smaller. The only comfort for Lucius lay in the sky above, so cleanly open, so endlessly high that it stretched clear into what some would call heaven. It was a reprieve from the smallness of his life.
He loved the people of this village—loved the place itself, the quietness and the rhythm of his daily life. But still he yearned for something beyond it. Here, from his porch at least, he could see heaven. And that, he thought, was a very apt description of his life. Always a looker-on, always seeing heaven only an arm's reach away and not once, though sorely tempted, did he reach out and grasp it for his own.
Ivy—he let his mind conjure up her face in all its fresh, untamed beauty…he remembered her smile, that was shy but knowing. How, he wondered, did she so easily see past his reserve? His own mother shook her head in consternation at his silences, urged him to speak further often and without success. She could never be sure of the meaning of his gruff and solemn words. His own mother…and yet, Ivy, Ivy that was the shining opposite to his own lifelessness, saw into his soul. Ivy, who was so young.
He had only to look this way or that and she guessed at his thoughts. Rattling on at his side the day before as he made his way to the watchtower, she had suddenly stopped and said, with unseeing eyes that had such truthful vision, wide-open and clear, "You know, no one would think the less of you, Lucius…if you were to take my arm sometimes, or… touch my hair? I felt you gazing at my hair just now and either it is very dirty indeed or you wished to touch it. You may… touch me, Lucius."
Such innocence was in her voice as could touch him more deeply than any other voice he had ever known. His initial thoughts—the dizziness at her implication… He could touch her.
It was true, he had stared at her ginger curls that at that time had reached down the middle of her back, and he had wanted to feel his fingers running through it. Desiring to do it made him look at it only for a moment and no longer, hardly a gaze. How had she known? How did she know his heart? His wild, beating heart that was like a drum in his chest at the nearness of her…
And she had stopped and stared through him. Lucius' breath caught. Her beauty was never wearing. Never would he be used to the sweetness of the scatter of freckles across the bridge of her nose. Never would he not drown in the cool all-seeing greenness of her blind eyes. Never would he, Lucius Hunt, not be struck with love like a sickness or a holiness within him every time he dared look into Ivy Walker's face.
That lovely face had then gone pale, her mouth twisting in pain. "Will you never touch me?" She had said it as though she knew only too well how long it had weighed on him to do so at last. Or as though she had waited as long as he had.
"I…" he struggled, then spoke with caution, saying those words he knew were the right ones, "I do not think we should speak of such things."
He felt a true pang of defeat as her face crumbled for a moment. Then it lightened, and she smiled, as though she were comfortable with sorrow, had felt it many times. And he wondered…was it duty that prevented him? Or was it that he knew himself and knew that if he did touch her, then he must never quit touching her?
Omniscient in his case as ever, Ivy laughed quietly, a sound like water streaming over stones by the brook. "I will never be so good as you, Lucius Hunt."
He was amazed. "So good as me?"
"Yes…" she'd allowed herself a wry smile, "to deny oneself, again and again, is not that what they call goodness? To do one's duty? But I…I have only to want something and I will pursue the thing, I will know it for myself. You are shocked? You must be. They all are, forever plaguing me to be quiet, to be good. Mother says…" She trailed off, looking as if she had gone down a path she had not planned on.
Quietly, uncertainly, she laughed again—that cheerful laugh, but this time it sounded dry and dead from her throat. Again, she smiled. He saw, pained, how she smiled and made light of what caused her pain. "Am I so wicked? Yes, beyond redemption, I am sure."
She was joking, he knew, but there was an odd coolness to her tone. If she believed only half of what she said, it could be no joke. He must speak. But how?
"Ivy, I've never known such goodness… as yours." His words fell into the air around them. He saw Ivy's face soften, her eyes lighting up. It was wrong of him to give her hope, wrong of him to speak to a girl ten years his junior, with such intimacy. He knew the rules, his duty as an honorable man. He knew them, he would not…
Her bright eyes met his. How, he could not know. He felt a pain within him, an ache like she'd gently pierced his soul.
And then…though she but fifteen, he reached for her hand—
"Your innocence…" He struggled. He wanted to put into words his feelings, his conviction. She was intuitive, yes, and strong and full of spirit and beauty and warmth. But she was an innocent, too. He must not trespass on what was, essentially, a time that belonged to her. These were the years she must cherish as her childhood, thought she was not a child.
It was more than respect for rules, for the ways of doing things. After all, it was simply a mark of disrespect to Mr. Walker, to court a girl before her older sister was spoken for. If that were the only thing…but it wasn't. Ivy belonged only to herself now. He would not burden her with his weight, by telling her that she had owned a man ten years older, body and soul, for years. He must resist her, he must deny her, if only to keep her safe.
"My innocence!" Ivy looked at him, exasperated. "And what makes you think you know better what is best for me, than I do?"
He shook his head, overcome with the need to speak, struggling with the words to say. Why did she always do this to him? She was not ready. They were not ready.
"Your father knows what is best for you," he said, appealing to her sense of caution, her respect for her parents, "Would he have us speaking this way?"
Immediately, he knew the words were damning. Ivy looked as though she'd been slapped. Her eyes burned, her lips trembled, but whether it was tears or anger, he could not tell—if he could only take them back, they had not come out as he'd intended. Oh, what a fool he was! As if there were ever a girl who loved her father better, who knew the price of duty more, judged as she was, for playing boy's games.
Her face gave way to grim resolve. "Then perhaps I should not speak at all." She turned away and Lucius felt his heart rise up into his throat. Wait!
A moment longer in your company, Ivy, please…
"Ivy! Look, come look! It's-it's capital…" Noah had appeared, excitement evident. He was bursting, it seemed, to run, to grab Ivy and run away with her. His eyes flickered anxiously to Lucius' face and he came forward, a little suddenly, a little too eagerly. Yet, Lucius perceived, as Noah reached for Ivy's hand, to pull her with him, he was trying very hard in his way to be calm and to be gentle. "Ivy, come!"
"Noah! What do you have up your sleeve?" She was trying to jest as she did so often with Noah, but her voice was soft, tense and it lacked that animation Noah loved. The boy, his eyes moving back and forth between her and Lucius, seemed to feel it. Her eyes remained fixed on Noah however, as if she had forgotten Lucius' presence entirely. But for a gleam in her eyes, an odd flush in her cheeks, she was her usual, cheery self.
Noah gestured to the hills beyond them, bare and unseen from inside the village. "Ivy—"
"Ivy—" Perhaps it was the desperation in his voice, that made her turn, in spite of herself, to face Lucius, now speaking. He opened his mouth, feeling so filled to bursting with promises, pledges, with pleas. Marry me. "Ivy, I…"
She looked down at the trodden grass beneath her feet, the buttercup crushed. In the springtime, those would be twisted into the braids of her hair, standing out, beautiful, from the brightness of her hair. It was odd to see one there in winter. "Yes?"
Her voice was…polite.
He looked at Noah, touching Ivy easily on the shoulder, tugging her, and burned with inexplicable despair. Muted, as he so often was, he could say nothing, except—and would she know his meaning?
"Take care."
Ivy took Noah's hand. "I will, Lucius Hunt, I always do."
She broke his heart so easily, it was done only in a moment.
Noah bounced from one foot to the other. His free hand spasmodically clenched and unclenched. He looked at Lucius, his smile fixed.
Lucius, seeing the smile, smiled back weakly. The triumph in Noah's smile, Lucius thought, he must have imagined.
"Goodbye, Lucius," said Ivy then, and sounded kind. Then Noah tapped her—she was it—and she giggled.
He watched intently as they ran away, watched as they turned a corner and out of sight. No, he told himself, he did not mind her going off with Noah. How could he mind it? In his heart he could know only the truest compassion for the man that loved Ivy Walker and would never have her.
Let Noah, a mere boy now, a playmate, run and play while he could with her.
One day, she would know that by those words, 'take care', he did not mean goodbye. He meant, be cautious. Be gentle with my heart, you hold it in your hands. One day she would be a woman, a child no longer and he would set about making her love him again. Until then, he would do his duty by her and wait.