**I don't own BATB, Catherine, Vincent or any other characters mentioned. I also don't own any places mentioned or any scenes that may be similar to another work.**
**The italicized sections are from Peter and Wendy: Peter Pan, the Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up. I do not own this story, all rights go to the author J.M. Barrie.**
The next morning at half the hour of ten, Teresa helped Cat ready for Vincent's visit. At the hour, there was a knock on the main door of the manor and Thomas went to answer before calling for Catherine. Catherine came down the stairs and smiled when she saw Vincent waiting next to her father. At the bottom of the stairs she curtsied swiftly before walking over to Vincent.
"I pray you had a good morning Lady Chandler?"
"Much so, thank you for asking Sir. I pray yours was equaled?"
"More so now that I am to have the company of such a lovely lady." He said making her blush and turn her head slightly away. "Are you ready to take leave Lady Chandler?" Vincent asked trying not to forget his manners that his mother had drilled into his head.
"If it pleases you." Catherine said before she left with Vincent. Once out of the manor he helped her into a carriage before getting in himself.
"So, Catherine, when did you take leave of the ball last night? Shortly after Princess Alexandria's announcement they introduced the royal family of York. Were you there?"
"No, I had already taken my leave. Heather was heartbroken that she was not picked as a ladies maid and therefore did not wish to remain. I didn't fancy seeing them anyway."
"Whyever not?"
"If Nigera's royal family speaks anything, it is that I do not belong in the life of a royalty anyway. And to watch people fawn like a pack of wolves over the two remaining princes? To hunt royalty like some sport, it's disgusting."
"So you dislike all royalty?"
"I don't dislike them because I do not know them personally, but I cannot stand for their actions. Their majesties and their highnesses the Keller's only seek to improve their army and their majesties and her highness the Salter's only care of the perquisites of being royal."
"I cannot speak for their majesties or their highnesses, but as of living within York, I have to say that you come to the sharpest of truths, my lady. If you were in hold of the amounts of power held by the royals Catherine, whatever would you do differently?"
"Honestly?" Catherine asked surprised.
"Yes, in forthright. What would you do differently?" He noticed that for a moment's time she seemed to be deep in thought.
"I can only speak for Nigera, for having never ventured to York, but I would start by improving the crime rates. Too many are being punished for unjust crimes."
"How so?" Vincent asked truly surprised at her response.
"If the royals suffer their people to be ill-educated, and their manners corrupted from infancy, and then punish them for those crimes to which their first education disposed of them, what else is to be concluded, but that they first make thieves and criminals and then punish them?" Catherine asked hoping to get her point across.
"Well, then how would you deal with the issues? Pray tell the punishment for a thief of the marketplace?"
"Simple. Their reprehension would be to put them into a place of work. Therefore, being able to earn and depend solely upon themselves, there would be no reason for them to be taking food and materials in which they previously could not afford."
"I have never thought of the circumstances in such a manner."
"I am sure you would love to continue to question me about my ways of running a country, but may I interrupt to question where we are heading to? I noticed we passed town a while back and I am not familiar to this area."
"I recalled that you said you wish to study in Rome. I cannot give you that, but I had assumed that taking you to the monastic libraries in Amboise would be at best a fraction of equivalency."
"I have always wished to venture there, but my father never had time and without him I would not be admitted. However did you manage access to it Vincent?"
"I come from a family of a high standing so I get basically everything I could wish."
"I thought you didn't wish to be so defined by your status?"
"Taking someone to see something they wish is not using my status in the way others in my family would. My elder brother just uses it as an excuse to be better than everyone else." Vincent said with a tone of abhorrence.
"You do not favor your brother?"
"One is not as bad as the other. My elder brother William is loathsome as a person of high standing, but I am lead to believe that it is of being the second of three. My eldest brother Daniel is better and less loathsome, but only because my parents took great care in ensuring he was an apposite representation of our family. My parents are alright. They have cared for us properly for their status, but it was never in our favor. They just needed to assure that we were apposite for our standings. Our personal tutors raised and taught us properly. What of your family?"
"My mother died when I was just a babe, so I was never able to know her. I was raised by my father who believed that I needed to be raised by someone in my own family and refused to allow a governess teach me. My cousin Teresa came to live with my father and I when I was of the age of seven in sight of her parents succumbing to a dreaded illness so my father took her in and has been raising her as a sister to me. When I was of the age of ten he met my current step-mother and they married the next summer. With a new step-mother also came my stepsister Heather. At the time I had hoped that she would become a friend to me, but she was much too vain for me. I stayed with Teresa as my main sister and also a hold to keep me grounded from becoming vain and cocksure. It was from her that I learned to be so strong headed." Catherine said with a smile as she caught sight of the steps of the monastery. Once the carriage stopped Vincent got out and helped her down. They walked in and he watched her eyes widen in surprise at the amount of books in the library.
"I take it that you prefer the written word?"
"Very much so. When I was young my father would find stories in the market that came from other countries and he would bring them back and read them to me before I fell asleep. I would so many nights fall asleep to the sound of his voice." Catherine said as the memories came to her in flashes. "When he married my step-mother the stories became less frequent most foreseeably because he would spend so much time with me at night, seeing as he would read up to three chapters per night." Vincent was surprised at the smile that remained on her face.
"Out of all the stories, pray tell your favorite?"
"Out of all the stories he ever read to me... My favorite would have to have been the story of Peter Pan. He was a boy..." Catherine started, but Vincent effectively cut her off.
"Who never grew up." He said with a laugh. "My tutor brought the story from Rome after a trip and at the age of ten, I was completely enthralled by a place where a child could escape life and never worry about growing up. Where they could live without status or name, simply enjoy the days as they passed."
"A land where anything was possible and rule didn't exist. Where time stood still and the bad guys were easy to see. They had hooks and lived on ships. Villains who were the only ones to grow old." Catherine continued with a smile.
"Exactly." He said as he lead her through the library, only stopping in front of a small bookcase. He carefully looked through the books and selected the smallest of the group. He showed her the cover and reveled in the smile that appeared on her face. The cover of the book read -Peter Pan: The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up-. He handed it to her and watched as she ran her hands over it before opening it and carefully slipping through it.
"How ever did you know where to find it?"
"Every time I visit Nigera with my family I sneak away to venture here and I always read this. It gives me a chance to escape reality." He said as he picked up another copy and lead her out to the garden where they took a seat beneath a tree. He noticed as she started to read the book silently and was enthralled with her as he watched her eyes go across the page as she followed the words. He laughed as she started to read aloud without notice.
"...Of course the Neverlands vary a good deal. John's, for instance, had a lagoon with flamingos flying over it at which John was shooting, while Michael, who was very small, had a flamingo with lagoons flying over it. John lived in a boat turned upside down on the sands, Michael in a wigwam, Wendy in a house of leaves deftly sewn together. John had no friends, Michael had friends at night, Wendy had a pet wolf forsaken by its parents, but on the whole the Neverlands have a family resemblance, and if they stood still in a row you could say of them that they have each other's nose, and so forth. On these magic shores children at play are for ever beaching their coracles (simple boat). We too have been there; we can still hear the sound of the surf, though we shall land no more.
Of all delectable islands the Neverland is the snuggest and most compact, not large and sprawly, you know, with tedious distances between one adventure and another, but nicely crammed. When you play at it by day with the chairs and table-cloth, it is not in the least alarming, but in the two minutes before you go to sleep it becomes very real. That is why there are night-lights.
Occasionally in her travels through her children's minds Mrs. Darling found things she could not understand, and of these quite the most perplexing was the word Peter. She knew of no Peter, and yet he was here and there in John and Michael's minds, while Wendy's began to be scrawled all over with him. The name stood out in bolder letters than any of the other words, and as Mrs. Darling gazed she felt that it had an oddly cocky appearance.
"Yes, he is rather cocky," Wendy admitted with regret. Her mother had been questioning her.
"But who is he, my pet?"
"He is Peter Pan, you know, mother."
At first Mrs. Darling did not know, but after thinking back into her childhood she just remembered a Peter Pan who was said to live with the fairies. There were odd stories about him, as that when children died he went part of the way with them, so that they should not be frightened. She had believed in him at the time, but now that she was married and full of sense she quite doubted whether there was any such person.
"Besides," she said to Wendy, "he would be grown up by this time."
"Oh no, he isn't grown up," Wendy assured her confidently, "and he is just my size." She meant that he was her size in both mind and body; she didn't know how she knew, she just knew it..."
Catherine stopped with a blush on her cheeks as she felt Vincent's gaze on her. She looked over and was unsurprised to see him focused on her. She gave a nervous laugh. "I'm sorry. My mouth tends to speak when I am drawn into a book and Mr. Barrie was such an exquisite playwright." She said before turning her gaze to look down into her lap. Vincent moved his hand to rest under her chin and carefully lifted it so she was once again looking at him.
"Catherine, to be forthright... Your mouth keeps me hypnotized." He said before giving another laugh as she blushed even more. "Out of all of the people whom I have been told this story by, not one has had the enrapturing voice and sense of reading that you show."
"It must have to do with my mind running away to the past. While I read, I picture the times where it would be my father's voice in place of my own."
"Would you possibly be willing to read further?"
"Are you sure?" Vincent nodded and watched as she skimmed to find where she left off.
"...Mrs. Darling consulted Mr. Darling, but he smiled pooh-pooh. "Mark my words," he said, "it is some nonsense Nana has been putting into their heads; just the sort of idea a dog would have. Leave it alone, and it will blow over." But it would not blow over and soon the troublesome boy gave Mrs. Darling quite a shock.
Children have the strangest adventures without being troubled by them. For instance, they may remember to mention, a week after the event happened, that when they were in the wood they had met their dead father and had a game with him. It was in this casual way that Wendy one morning made a disquieting revelation. Some leaves of a tree had been found on the nursery floor, which certainly were not there when the children went to bed, and Mrs. Darling was puzzling over them when Wendy said with a tolerant smile:
"I do believe it is that Peter again!"
"Whatever do you mean, Wendy?"
"It is so naughty of him not to wipe his feet," Wendy said, sighing. She was a tidy child.
She explained in quite a matter-of-fact way that she thought Peter sometimes came to the nursery in the night and sat on the foot of her bed and played on his pipes to her. Unfortunately she never woke, so she didn't know how she knew, she just knew.
"What nonsense you talk, precious. No one can get into the house without knocking."
"I think he comes in by the window," she said.
"My love, it is three floors up."
"Were not the leaves at the foot of the window, mother?"
It was quite true; the leaves had been found very near the window.
Mrs. Darling did not know what to think, for it all seemed so natural to Wendy that you could not dismiss it by saying she had been dreaming.
"My child," the mother cried, "why did you not tell me of this before?"
"I forgot," said Wendy lightly. She was in a hurry to get her breakfast.
Oh, surely she must have been dreaming.
But, on the other hand, there were the leaves. Mrs. Darling examined them very carefully; they were skeleton leaves, but she was sure they did not come from any tree that grew in England. She crawled about the floor, peering at it with a candle for marks of a strange foot. She rattled the poker up the chimney and tapped the walls. She let down a tape from the window to the pavement, and it was a sheer drop of thirty feet, without so much as a spout to climb up by.
Certainly Wendy had been dreaming..."
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