It is Mary-Margaret's idea for her to be part of the tableau.
She is practically vibrating with excitement when Regina enters Uncle Leopold's carriage, casting her green eyes upon her and smiling wide.
"What is it?" Regina asks, settling onto the seat. "Is it David? Has he finally proposed?"
Mary-Margaret's smile falls but only slightly – everyone in Storybrooke knows that the charming David Nolan will propose to Regina's fair cousin, the question is only when not if – before she collects herself.
"No," she says, folding her hands primly and properly on her lap. "We have an opening in our charity tableau and I think you should do it." There is a sweet sincerity in her voice that reminds Regina of her aunt Ava, and she wishes (not for the first time) that her mother and aunt had similar traits.
Regina tries not to roll her eyes at the request. Tableaux are in vogue now as ways for young men and women to see each other socially (more like the men ogling the women as they sit, suspended in motion, acting out some scene from literature). She's not quite sure why dances are no longer as popular as they once were, but trends change and anyway, she's too old to fully enjoy them anymore: her dance card hasn't been full since she was sixteen.
"Can't you find someone else? One of your darling friends?" Regina asks, thinking of the girls that her cousin associates with – quiet Belle French and loud Ruby Lucas – and Mary-Margaret shakes her head.
"We need a fourth," she says, then resorts to pleading. "Please, Regina, it's for the Widows and Orphans fund, please – "
Confederate widows and orphans, Regina thinks, and what would I have been if I married Daniel? A burden to my parents or a burden to the community.She will always be a burden, cursed by the time of her birth to have so many men of her generation die in battle, to miss out on all the rites of passage that a good southern girl should have, to watch her family lose their fortune and her youth begin to fade.
Life has not been kind to her, but the mere thought of orphans sets her teeth on edge. She always wanted to be a mother, always wanted children, and yet now –
She sighs. If she cannot have children of her own, then she will help. "You know exactly what to say to get me to agree," she tells her cousin with a smile. She raises her eyebrows as she asks, "and what role will I have?"
Mary-Margaret shifts, smiles, and Regina feels her heart sink; her cousins wears her feelings on her face, and it is quite obvious that for all she wants Regina to participate, the part itself may not be ideal.
"It's the four seasons," Mary-Margaret says voice quiet, and Regina tries not to let her smile falter (she fails).
"Winter," she says, knowing immediately. "Of course."
"Regina, it's the costume not the – " Mary-Margaret starts but Regina shakes her head.
"No – no. It's fitting. The rest of you are in the bloom of youth, and I am very much not." Regina forces a smile, knows it does not met her eyes. "I pity whoever will be fall."
Mary-Margaret laughs – sharp and painful to Regina's ears. "Ruby," she tells her. "The dress is yellow and with her hair – "
"Of course." Regina turns away to look out the carriage window.
They ride in silence. Mary-Margaret tries to engage her in conversation but Regina's thoughts preoccupy her mind and while she is perfect at rehearsal, pleasant and polite to Mary-Margaret's friends, she keeps thinking about winter (cold and barren, just like her).
"You look lovely," Mary-Margaret tells her as they drape the white mink stole across her dress, place a matching cap on her head. When Belle brings her a mirror, the shy girl tells her, "You look lovely, Regina," and it's everything that Regina can do not to cry.
She does look lovely – her skin glows against the white of the dress, the fur. For the first time in a long time, she feels like her old self – Regina Mills, fairest in Storybrooke, belle of the ball. Mary-Margaret is soon behind her, wrapping her arms around her, kissing her cheek and whispering in her ear, "I told you it was the costume."
Regina puts the mirror down in order to compose herself.
…
"Your sister is coming to town," Cora says at dinner that night, and Regina reaches for her wine glass immediately. "She's bringing the children."
"Not her husband?" Regina asks, curious. Zelena was older than her by five years, and far more successful in her mother's eyes. She had hitched her wagon to a prominent railroad man named Walsh and they had moved to Kansas a few years before the war. While it gave Cora fits that her daughter was out there in such a savage and backwards land, the railroad was a steady source of income and Zelena had done well for herself, having several children and establishing herself in Topeka society.
The same could not be said for Regina, of course, and so when Cora replies, sweetly, that Walsh has a job and must stay at home, Regina takes another sip of wine.
"I'm going to be in Mary-Margaret's tableau for widows and orphans next week," Regina tells her parents. "Perhaps Zelena and her little monkeys would like to attend." Across the table, Henry Mills snorts into his napkin (his grandchildren do resemble monkeys, more to be blamed on their father than the mother) and Cora presses her lips together in frustration.
"You're too old for that sort of nonsense," she protests, but Regina shrugs her shoulders.
"They needed a fourth person, and it's for a good cause, Mother," Regina points out. "Besides, who knows? Perhaps those businessmen who are here with the bank will be there as well. You know that Uncle Leopold is well connected." As she watches her mother process this information, she tries very hard not to think about kind blue eyes and a handsome smirk.
(She has thought about the man from the hotel over the past week, wondering why he spoke to her, deciding that he needed some way to pass the time even though there is a part of her, a very small part, that hopes that perhaps he talked to her for other reasons.)
At the head of the table, Cora appears to find this idea pleasing. "Very well, but try not to wear too much rouge, darling. You're old, not a whore," before picking up her fork and returning to her meal.
That night, Regina studies herself in the mirror. There as a time when she was the fairest girl in Storybrooke – fairer than Zelena, fairer than even Cora when she was her age - and as she looks at her face, she thinks it's still possible that beauty has not left her completely. There are some lines around her eyes, and several creases in her forehead, but she does not look old and haggard – not yet. She is still fair, though not as fair as Mary-Margaret, but she is not an old maid.
It is a small comfort, in spite of everything else.
..
Zelena arrives the week of the tableau, little monkeys trailing behind her, and all conversation revolves around her dear Walsh and her dear children and her dear clubwomen and her dear charities.
Regina's never gotten along well with her sister – they are both selfish and vain like their mother, who pits them against each other in constant competition – and so she pours more wine at dinner and tries to ignore the feeling of inadequacy that Zelena leaves in her wake.
The day before the charity tableau, Regina tries on the dress that she will wear the following night, plays with her makeup. She is seated at her dressing table, applying lipstick, when Zelena enters.
"You look lovely, dear – the perfect Winter," her sister says. Regina glances up into the mirror and then returns to coloring her lips, focusing on her reflection and not the woman behind her. "So cold and solitary, so utterly alone," Zelena says, leaving the room before Regina can react.
The words echo in her ears and bury themselves deep inside her soul. She looks in the mirror and all that she can see is cold and barren and alone.
She is the perfect Winter after all.
…
On the night of the tableau, Regina arrives at Mary-Margaret's house alone, dress in hand. As the other girls preen in front of the mirror, she remembers her mother's comments about how Mr. Gold from the bank would be there, and to make herself look as pretty as she could (Zelena hid her smirk behind a gloved hand, and the monkeys ran down the stairs chasing each other).
"I need some air," she tells no one in particular, leaving Mary-Margaret's bedroom and going downstairs, heading straight for the garden. It should be unoccupied at this time, as guests have yet to arrive.
It's not.
"Hello," Robin Locksley says, as he stands at the edge of the footpath. He is dressed smartly in a suit, and holds his hat in his hands. The setting sun makes his hair shine gold, and he paints such an impressive picture standing there that her breath catches in her throat.
Behind him, the roses are in bloom, violent and red, and Regina tries to shift her focus to them.
"You're a bit early," she points out. She is clad only in a red dressing gown, her hair pinned up and ready for her costume, and as she goes to clutch her gown, to hold it tighter lest he see something, Regina realizes she doesn't care if it is scandalous, to be here like this. She is thirty-five years old – she is not a young slip of a thing, frightened of a man's gaze. On the contrary, Regina is surprise to find that she wants him to look.
She clenches her hand at her side instead, brushing past him to smell the flowers.
"I had business to discuss with Mr. Blanchard," he tells her. "You know, we were never properly introduced." He smiles at her. "Robin Locksely." He holds out his hand, and she places hers in it.
"Miss Regina Mills," she says, mirroring the smile, appreciating the warmth of his hand beneath her fingertips. He brings it up to his mouth, brushes a kiss against her knuckles (his beard is coarse against her skin, but she likes it more than she would have thought).
"A pleasure, Miss Mills." She likes how he looks at her, how he smiles at her, and when he asks, "what is your role in the tableau?" she tells him.
"Winter." She runs her finger over the petals of the rose before looking back at him. "It's quite fitting," she adds, and in her head, she thinks cold and barren and alone so she is surprised by his response.
"I would agree," Mr. Locklsey says, "for I can think of no one else in this town fit to capture the austere beauty of a winter landscape than you, Miss Mills."
Her heart stutter-stops and she frowns, uncertain she's hearing him right. "I know you're new to town, but I can assure you that it's been quite some time since I was called a 'beauty', Mr. Locksley." Regina pauses, removing her hand from the rose. "I believe the term 'old maid' is far more commonly used."
"Well, I'd have to disagree with that assessment." He reaches between the two of them, fingers grabbing the stem of a rose. "You are far too fair to be considered an old maid." He twists his wrist and plucks the rose from the bush, holding it out to her.
"You're just as free with your opinions as you are my uncle's roses, it seems," Regina says. She takes the flower, bringing it up to her nose to smell it. "Thank you for the compliment, Mr. Locksley."
"It is the truth, Miss Mills, and you are very welcome to it," he tells her with a slight bow, and Regina turns on her heels, retreating from the garden and back into the house, rose clutched between her fingers.
When she returns to the room with the flower, Mary-Margaret insists that she add it to her costume, and so they tuck it behind her ear ("it looks like a spot of blood on all this white," she protests, but Mary-Margaret is proud of her handiwork and so it stays).
The words of the carpetbagger Mr. Locklsey linger in Regina's mind as she sits during the tableau, and for the first time in forever she allows herself to be something more than just a burden, more than just a spinster, more than just cold and barren and alone. She thinks of winter mornings, sunlight across a frozen pond, the stillness of the earth, and thinks of the beauty of nature.
She can be that.
And so she keeps her head high, her eyes forward, and when they happen to fall on a certain pair of blue eyes in the corner of the room, she finds it very hard not to smile.
