Chapter 8

The sound of the ticking clock echoed noisily around the library. That clock had been in the family since before he was born, but he didn't remember it ever being so loud! Or was the house just unusually quiet, these last few days? Three days, to be exact, since Maria had slipped away from the villa before sunrise and returned to Nonnberg Abbey. The children crept through the house at all hours of the day and night like listless shadows. The servants went about their tasks stiff mouthed and grim. Though it wasn't the same thing at all, he couldn't help but be reminded of that terrible time four years ago, when Agathe had left them.

Georg glanced at the sideboard and the brandy bottle, but turned away. He could not return to that dark place, would not turn away from his children again. Three days after the fact, he found it almost painfully embarrassing to recall his foolish, last-ditch effort to keep Maria from returning to Nonnberg. But still, he would always be grateful for what she had done for his family. Now she was gone, leaving him with questions he couldn't quite formulate, and restless for something he couldn't quite name. He wouldn't go back to Elsa, he was sure of that. Sighing, he turned back to his paperwork, trying and failing to lose himself in diagrams and plans.

Suddenly, through the open library window, he heard a commotion: the children, laughing and shouting. So their grief had been short lived after all, only three days. Well, at their young ages, they would be resilient. That was something he was supposed to be grateful for. They would move on more easily than he, just as they had after Agathe's death. This time, he would try not to resent them for it.

The clamor outside the window intensified until he decided he ought to check on them, so he pushed away from his desk and strode through the foyer toward the terrace. It surprised him, how smoothly things had been going; perhaps that was why he'd felt no sense of urgency about finding another governess. When he'd spent time with his children these last few days, it was as though a little bit of Maria lingered among them, refusing to fade into a distant, pleasant memory.

The afternoon sun on the terrace was so bright after the dimly lit library that, at first, Georg thought his eyes were playing tricks on him. His children clustered noisily at the bottom of the steps, and there at their center - yes, it was her, he was certain of it - stood Maria. She was wearing an ill-fitting, cheerfully flowered dress and a vague smile that didn't reach her eyes. There was something oddly tentative about her, as though she'd misplaced her usual sparkle.

"Good evening," were the only words he could find.

"Good evening, Captain." Her greeting was barely audible, and she wouldn't meet his eyes.

"Go," he waved a hand toward the children. "Everyone. Go inside and have your dinner."

"But Father, dinner's not for a half-hour yet!" Friedrich exclaimed.

"This is exactly what happened the last time!" Brigitta complained. "Why do you always send us inside when something interesting is happening?"

Then Kurt chimed in. "Why can't she come with us? We have more to tell her than you do, Father!"

There were times when he still wished for the whistle, and this was one of them. "Go!" he barked, and they scurried away, though he didn't quite like the smirk on Liesl's face.

Maria's wan smile vanished instantly. Her eyes followed the children back into the house, as though she was losing her only allies. Then there was no sound but birdsong, and the wind, moving through the trees like a restless sea.

"Well," he said, breaking the silence at last, "this is a pleasant surprise. I didn't think you'd be allowed to visit at all, let alone after only three days."

A mumbled reply.

"I didn't quite catch that, Maria. Ehrm, Fraulein."

"I said, it's not a v-visit," she said unsteadily. She still wouldn't look at him. "I'm sorry."

His heart gave an odd little leap. "You are? I mean, you are back to stay?"

"Y-yes. I'm sorry, Captain. Th-they-"

"They what? There is no need to be afraid. You are safe here with us. Were they unkind to you?"

"Oh, no!" Her head jerked toward him, so that he could once again see her face, which looked alarmingly like it had that first night when he'd found her by the side of the road: deathly pale, eyes wild and panicky. There was no sign of his plucky, fearless Fraulein.

From the corner of his eye, he saw something move, something that upon further inspection turned out to be seven curious pairs of eyes, peering at them from the salon window.

"Come with me," he said, and taking her by the elbow, he propelled her firmly down along the lakeside path until they reached the old gazebo. Stones skittered everywhere as her feet dragged along beside him, and her arm felt tense beneath his fingers.

"Now," he directed, seating himself on the stone bench that ringed the gazebo, although Maria remained standing, rigid, in the center. "Tell me what happened."

Her voice trembled with the effort. "They said – oh, I can't. I can't. I just can't."

"Come now, Maria. Why did they send you back to us? How bad could it be? What did you do? Sing in the abbey? Waltz your way to mass? Tear your habit?"

Not even the ghost of a smile. She wiped her palms on her skirt and then dug her fists into her eyes for a moment, as though gathering her thoughts and her courage, before opening her mouth to speak. But words failed her, and she clamped her mouth shut again.

His heart sank. "What is it? Are you ill, Maria?" He stood and approached her, coming close enough to see that it wasn't only her voice that was trembling. Her whole body was shaking like a leaf.

""They said,"- he could see her swallow - "that is, they told me-"

"Yes?" he said encouragingly.

"They said I have to m-m-marry you," she wailed.

She looked so miserable that his first and only instinct was to comfort her. Despite her bizarre announcement. For the second time in three days, Georg opened his arms to her.

Surely he must have misheard her. She was trying to explain things in between sobs, but her voice was muffled against his shoulder and he couldn't make out most of what she was saying, something about Vienna, mountains, an envelope, a bus driver, Reverend Mother and God's will. He wasn't going to get anything useful out of her for a while; there was nothing to be done except to rub her back gently, let his hands rest lightly on her soft hair, and murmur comforting words until she was calm enough to be led to the stone bench.

"All right," he said, handing her a big white handkerchief, "take this, and tell me what happened. I'm sure I missed something, because I could have sworn you said-"

"I did," she sniffled. "I'm so sorry. I swear, I was never such a watering pot before all of this happened to me."

"Did I understand you to say-?" he pressed.

"Yes. They sent me back here to m-marry you, even though I tried to tell them it was impossible, that you would never agree to it. I shouldn't have come back here at all, but I don't have anywhere else to go." Her voice wobbled dangerously at the last bit.

The Mother Abbess of one of Europe's most distinguished orders was playing matchmaker? It made no sense. He took the handkerchief from her and mopped his brow.

"Could you please," he said faintly, "start at the very beginning?"

Slowly, in bits and pieces, he got the story out of her.

Upon her return to the Abbey three days ago, Maria had been treated like an honored guest. "I was happy to be back, although," she paused, "I was unhappy, too. They showed me to this – this guest room, with a private bath, and sweet-smelling soap, and a vase of flowers by the bed. They brought me my meals on a tray, the whole time I was there. Not being sent back to the dormitory, not working or praying or even eating with the others? That was my first clue."

"Perhaps they were just trying to ease you back into things?" he asked.

She regarded him with a cynical shake of the head and then went on. "I was hoping to find out how and why I'd left in the first place, but no one would answer any of my questions. That was the second clue," she said bitterly. "Also, every time I asked to see Reverend Mother, all they would say was, 'Soon, Maria darling, soon.' That should have been my third clue. Eventually, it was, 'Maybe tomorrow, Maria darling'. So I gave up and went to bed. I was exhausted, because my last night here, I hadn't slept at all well," she said broodingly.

Georg knew better, remembering how she'd slept soundly in his arms that last night, but he said nothing.

"The next day was exactly the same," she continued. "Finally, after lunch today, I was taken to see Reverend Mother. She wouldn't look me in the eye – well, it was another clue, if I'd been paying attention. I was so stupid not to have seen what was coming. Stupid." She pounded her fist on her knee.

"You are many things, Maria, but stupid is not one of them. What happened next?"

It was at that point, Maria told him, that the Reverend Mother had finally filled in the missing details about the day she'd gone missing from the Abbey, the details that had been lost to her memory. Apparently, it had all started the morning of the terrible storm, only hours before he'd found her by the side of the road.

That very morning, Maria had been informed that it was God's will that she leave the Abbey for good. That she was never going to take her vows. That she would never be one of the sisters.

"After I heard that," she said, "it started to come back to me. I remember being so disappointed that I thought my heart would break in two." Her voice faltered, and fresh tears rolled down her cheeks. Georg handed her back the handkerchief and waited for her to blow her nose noisily before she went on.

"I really thought that this year, it would be my turn at last. I'd been waiting for two years, watching girls who came after me enter the novitiate, and all that time, I prayed and learned and tried, I really did. Oh, they were very kind about it. In fact, they'd found me a teaching job at a school in Vienna. Vienna," she repeated, turning to him with a bleak expression that told him exactly how she must have felt.

He and the Reverend Mother had something in common, then: they had both tried to banish her to Vienna. He reached over and took her hand. "Go on, Maria."

"My train to Vienna wasn't until the next morning. But they sent me back to that little room to wait," - her mouth twisted – "like I was some kind of evil influence. The least they could have done was to let me say goodbye! But I wasn't allowed to go to Vespers, or anything. They gave me that pink dress, like I was going to some kind of party. And I hate pink! That dress – it belonged to Elissa Hassfeld. Our newest postulant. She entered the Abbey in a party dress, for heaven's sake, and they made her a novice after only three months. Three months! Anyway," Maria stopped to blow her nose again, "they gave me a big leather hat, too, and an envelope with money for the train to Vienna, and then …" She took a deep breath.

"And then?"

"I ran away, to my mountain. While they were at Vespers. I ended up at the meadow we picnicked in, do you remember? I thought I recognized it that day, but of course … well, at first, I felt a little better, just being up there, but my mind just kept going round in circles, thinking about everything I'd sacrificed to enter the Abbey. Grieving that everything I'd hoped and dreamed and worked for was gone. Gone."

Maria stared out into the night, looking back into her past, he supposed, a past he suddenly realized that he knew nothing about. It was almost as though she'd forgotten he was there and was left alone with her memories: a forlorn figure in a cheerfully flowered dress, desolation evident in her face, her posture, her voice.

"All my happiness was shattered," she whispered. "I had longed to give my heart to God, and He rejected me."

Georg thought his own heart might break along with hers, but he didn't quite know how to tell her that, so he simply squeezed her hand and, after a moment, inquired gently, "How long were you up there?"

"Ehrm-" She shook herself back to the gazebo. "I don't know. I must have lost track of time, because when the storm hit, it was already quite dark."

"Are you mad? Do you know what could have happened to you up there?"

"Oh," she dismissed his concern with a wave of her hand. "I could never get lost up there. That's my mountain! But it was wet, and cold, and by then I was starving. I prayed for help, but then I thought that the Lord probably expected me to correct my own stupid mistakes, and that there was nothing to do but go back to the Abbey. I was on the bus before I realized that I had lost my hat and, more important, the envelope with my money. I was always losing things on that mountain," she said mournfully. "There's an entire meadow full of my wimples up there, I swear it."

He couldn't hold back a chuckle and was cheered when Maria offered him a rueful smile in return.

"I tried to explain it to the driver, that if I could only make my way to the Abbey, they would give me the fare, but of course, I had no proof. To him, I was just a girl in a pink party dress. And so he – he…" she faltered.

"He threw you off the bus."

She nodded. "In Aigen. I remember seeing the bus shelter, and thinking I'd wait out the storm. It was awfully cold out there," she said feelingly. "I started to think again about everything I'd turned my back on when I entered the Abbey. I didn't want to go to Vienna, but I couldn't imagine what I could possibly do instead. The more I worried about the future, the more frightened and confused I became. Just exactly the way Dr. Weiss said it probably happened. The next thing I knew, well," she gestured toward the villa, "you know the rest."

"Yes. I see it now," Georg said. "But you still haven't explained the – ehrm – the other matter."

He couldn't bring himself to say it out loud, but he didn't need to. She was eager to unburden herself now, as though she'd been holding it in until he could help make sense of it for her.

When Maria's search for the red dome had led her to the Abbey gate several days earlier, the sisters had been overjoyed, of course, to know that she was safe. They had listened with great interest to her stories about the von Trapp children, life at the villa and, "I might have said a thing or two about you, but I swear, I didn't tell them that you had offered to…" Her pale cheeks turned pink.

"Then today, Reverend Mother asked me even more questions about the children, and you. And then she explained to me that, as soon as she heard I was back, she had gone into seclusion, and prayed all night and all the next day. About me, can you imagine? That's why I wasn't able to see her. And then, she and the other sisters held council, and she said it became clear to them that it was the will of God that I – well, you know. That I m-marry you and be a good mother to the children. I tried to tell her that you would never go along with her plan, but she said the Lord would show you what to do in His own good time."

The last words came out in a rush and she stopped to take a deep breath.

He saw the whole scheme in a moment. Although the good sisters of Nonnberg Abbey were undoubtedly grateful that Maria had turned up safe, nothing had really changed as far as they were concerned. In the girl's confiding chatter about life at the villa, the Mother Abbess had seen her opportunity to solve a problem called Maria. He doubted that God's will had very much to do with it. Nor, apparently did his own acquiescence matter to anyone.

"I am so sorry, Captain. I tried to explain to her that it was impossible, what she was suggesting, but have you ever tried to argue with Reverend Mother?"

To his horror, the words flew from his mouth before he could stop them.

"Never mind that, Maria. I'll do it. I'll marry you."

She stopped short, shocked into silence, and gaped at him as though he were a madman.

"I mean," Georg groped for the right words. "The children need a mother, they love you and you love them, and you do seem to belong here, somehow. And this way, there would be no question of scandal."

"I don't understand," she whispered. "You want us to be married? Are you in love with me?"

Her question made him go cold with fear.

"I don't know," he said sharply. "I don't know!"

His words pierced her heart like an arrow, and Maria scrambled to her feet, backing rapidly away from him. But he was at her side in a moment.

"I'm sorry, Maria. I don't want to hurt your feelings, but I don't know," he repeated, more gently this time, and she let him take her hand and lead her back to sit beside him on the bench.

"You must please try to understand, Maria. For a man in my circumstances, I don't think it's possible to fall in love with anyone. That kind of thing is behind me, I regret to say. But I am terribly fond of you, and-"

"That's not the same thing," she said flatly.

"Are you in love with me?" he shot back.

"I love the children," she said grudgingly.

Maria wasn't going to tell him how handsome and clever she thought he was – she had a feeling he knew that already – nor how he'd haunted her dreams for weeks. But she could admit to this: "And I admire you, Captain. Not only because you were a hero in the war, but also because of how you made things right with the children. Yes," she finished. "I admire you. That's it exactly."

She was the worst liar he'd ever known. "Is that all?"

"I don't know what you mean."

"Come, Maria, you can't deny that there has been – ehrm – something happening between us. That morning in the nursery, the dance in the ballroom, the other night in the library. In case you hadn't noticed," he slid an inch or two closer to her, close enough to feel the length of her leg against his, and catch her sweet scent, "I am quite attracted to you-"

She gave a nervous laugh and flew to her feet again.

"It doesn't matter. You can't marry me," she said.

"Why not?" he smiled. "You can't tell me who to marry!"

"You can't marry someone, when you're in love with someone else." She paused. "Can you?"

"Maria. I told you. My engagement - it's been called off. There's not going to be any baroness. Well, I mean, there will be, I suppose, if you…" he trailed off.

"I'm not talking about Baroness Schrader," she said quietly, moving around the gazebo's perimeter as if she wanted to put space between them. "I'm talking about your wife."

"Agathe?" The smile slid from his face. "At one time you accused me of running from her memory, and now you think I am still in love with her?" Georg broke off abruptly and shook his head. "I mean, I am still in love with her! Look, I tried to explain it to you, Maria. I will marry you, and I will do my best to be a good husband to you, but I don't think I can-"

"I don't think I can either, Captain. Marry someone who doesn't even lo-"

"Well, then. The offer of the cottage is still open, if you would prefer. With no – ehrm – strings."

"Absolutely out of the question. I don't want to leave the children," she said stubbornly.

He lifted his hands in a helpless gesture. "Those are your choices. The cottage, or stay here and marry me."

Maria bit her lip and looked longingly toward the door of the gazebo, as though she wanted to flee, but lacked the courage. After a long moment, she sighed.

"I don't have a choice, then," she said sadly. "I'll marry you, Captain."

"Not the most romantic acceptance I might have imagined," he said wryly. "I'll try not to take it personally. Then again, the proposal wasn't my idea in the first place. You might consider using my actual name, though. If that's not moving too fast for you."

"I'm sorry. It's just going to take some getting used to."

"Well, you're going to have a chance to get used to it," Georg said, "because tomorrow morning, I am going to have to leave again."

"No!" she burst out. "I want you to stay!" Although she was not at all certain this marriage thing was a good idea, still, it was disappointing and worrisome, his leaving so soon. Undoubtedly, once they were apart, it wouldn't take long for him to realize the terrible mistake he had made by agreeing to marry her.

He raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.

"I mean, I ask you to stay. Not for me, but for the children," she pleaded. "You're never home long enough for them. Why do you have to leave again?"

"I can't stay here," he explained. "People will talk. They're probably already talking."

"For how long?"

"Long enough so that, when the time comes, people will know we didn't have to get married."

Her brow wrinkled in innocent confusion. "I don't understand."

He opened his mouth to explain things and then thought the better of it. "It will all make sense to you after a while. I should think it will be a month, at least. Two would be better."

She took a deep breath. "Are you going to Vienna?"

"No, Maria," he said gently. "I am not going to see Elsa, if that's what you're suggesting. That is all behind me now. I intend to honor our marriage vows, even if this hasn't been the most conventional - ehrm - courtship." The very use of the last word elicited a grim chuckle. "I'm not sure where I'll go, actually. You'll be able to reach me through my solicitor if you or the children need me."

She nodded and smoothed some invisible wrinkles from her skirts. "Well, then, it appears to be all settled, Captain," she said, sounding relieved, before scurrying the rest of the way across the gazebo. She was halfway out the door when he rose, and in a few long strides, caught up with her.

"Maria? I am not finished yet. For one thing, what do I have to do to get you to call me by my name? And for another," Georg put his hands on her shoulders, turning her to face him, only to be stopped dead by the look on her face.

"You are still afraid of me?" he nearly begged. "I just agreed to marry you! Surely you don't think I'm going to put you back out on the street."

"Of course not. I know that. And I'm not afraid of you."

But he could see the rapid beat of her pulse at the base of her throat, could almost feel her shrink from his touch.

"Maria. If I'm going to be your husband, you've got to learn to trust me."

She wrapped her arms around herself, making a neat, defensive little package, and kept her eyes fixed on her feet. "All right. It's just that - if we get married, then of course you'll want me to – I mean, it's perfectly fair for you to expect us to-"

She stopped and looked up at him pleadingly.

"Lie together?"

Cheeks flaming, she managed a nod.

"I'm not going to force myself on you," Georg said tightly, "if that's what you're worried about. I promise. Nothing will happen without your consent. Am I too old for you? Is that it?"

"Oh, no," and her eyes went wide. "It's not that at all. It's the things you say, and do, when we're alone. The way I feel. No, the way you make me feel. Like I've lost hold of myself and I'm slipping away, falling and falling, with nothing to grab onto, nothing to catch me. If it's anything like that, I don't think I'm going to like it."

The most curious expression came over his face, a mixture of amusement, affection and tenderness, but his blue eyes gleamed with something dangerous.

"Don't laugh at me," Maria flared.

"I am most definitely not laughing at you. I am amazed that someone so innocent captured it so well in words." He brought his face close to hers until their foreheads touched. Purely by instinct, she raised her hands to his chest, intending to push him away, but he captured them with his own and held them still.

"You're going about it all wrong. The next time you feel that way, what you need to do is hold onto me. Like this." He lifted her hands to his shoulders and fixed them there. "And I will hold onto you," he slid his hands down to circle her waist. "And then," he said in a rough whisper, "we will fall together."

She couldn't look away from that mesmerizing gaze.

"Would you like that, Maria?"

A tiny, nearly imperceptible nod, but it was permission enough. He caught her by the chin and brought her face to his, giving her one last chance to pull away before pressing his mouth to hers in a gentle kiss. A kiss as light as a feather, as soft as a cloud. She had barely responded when he pulled away.

"Just so you know," Georg said quickly, with a half-smile, "I'm an honorable man, but not a patient one, and I'm definitely not a saint. I promised I wouldn't force you, but fair warning: I will try to change your mind."

Before Maria could form the question in her mind – how, exactly, was he going to do that?– he walked past her, out of the gazebo and toward the villa, whistling the whole way.

His mood was unaccountably light for a man in an absurd situation. The only wife he really wanted, he'd lost forever. Only very recently had he even allowed himself the comfort of Agathe's memory; how could simply turn away from that and give his heart to someone else? Yet he seemed to have been talking of marriage left and right, calling off one engagement and promising to marry someone else in the space of a few days.

He shook his head at the irony: with Elsa, the promise of no messy emotional entanglement hadn't been enough to lure him into her bed, while- there was no point in denying it – he was so hungry for Maria that he was foolishly overlooking her obvious feelings for him. Maria wanted his heart, which he would never be able to give her. He wanted her body, a prospect she viewed with understandable ambivalence.

Maria. His vexing little governess. Perhaps he did love her after all. Either that, or he was insane: although he wanted her desperately, somehow, he had agreed to a chaste marriage, if that was her wish. He wouldn't even be able to entice her into bed with the promise of children, not when he'd already given her seven of them.

Yet he couldn't stop the smile that spread across his face. Twenty years ago, when he'd wanted a woman in his bed, he'd always gotten his way. True, when that woman was Agathe, he'd traded his freedom for the chance to possess her, and he'd been glad to do it. Somehow, tonight, he'd given Maria a piece of himself, but this time, nothing had been promised in return. Still, there had been something about that fleeting kiss that held out the promise of success. Perhaps it was the look on her face just afterward. Perhaps it was the tremor he felt run through her for the merest fraction of a moment.

Georg wasn't sure exactly how to go about it, but he knew he could change her mind.

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

Is Georg a dog? Be patient with him, I implore you. And yes, there's quite a lot here that was inspired by a scene in the Story of the Trapp Family Singers, except I badly twisted the context (poor RM! What a devious schemer I've made her!) Also I got some bits from Maria's memoir, including that line, "All my happiness…" To my reviewer FM, whom I couldn't reply to privately, yes, exactly, I was thinking of Princess Yvonne when I wrote the Elsa scene, and please be assured that like every author, I read every single review avidly, and reply when the reviewer allows it. To the rest of you: I have never gotten such thoughtful, interesting reviews, nor had such provocative PM exchanges afterward. Thank you! Lots more fun ahead (the next chapter is one of my favorites)! I don't own TSOM or anything about it, it's all for love.