above and beyond (preposition, idiom): in excess of the expectations or demands of something or someone
Georg strode with purpose, though he tried not to walk too fast and seem overeager. If they just kept moving, if he just kept her moving, she wouldn't have the opportunity to panic and flee. Thus, when he felt a great lurch and looked back to find that Maria had stopped mid-step, his stomach dropped to his feet.
"Sorry," she gestured apologetically, "it's just, well, my things—that is, my guitar is quite valuable. It would not do to leave it behind."
"Of course not, no," Georg agreed quickly, feeling a bit of a boar for not having thought of her things. "Here, let me. Stay here," he said, releasing her and hurrying back to the fountain, where he dashed up the steps and took her carpetbag in one hand and her guitar in the other, grasping firmly. The instrument and its case weighed at least double that of her carpetbag!
"What on earth have you got in here," he grunted as he came up to her.
"Just the instrument and some of my sheet music," Maria murmured, reaching out to take the guitar from him. "It's like I told you when I arrived: nearly all my earthly possessions were given to the poor when I joined the abbey."
"But you made yourself new things, and bought quite a few more, from what I've seen!" Georg exclaimed as he handed the instrument over but shook his head when she tried to take the carpetbag, too, and instead offered her his free arm, which she linked her own through after a moment's hesitation.
"I left it all behind," Maria said. "I thought Louisa might get some use out of them when she's grown a little more. Liesl, too, with some minor alterations. I certainly couldn't, not at Nonnberg."
Georg was silent at this, and quite truthfully, amazed. Though he had so harshly accused her of acting otherwise, of acting selfishly, she had been thinking of his children as she made her escape from his world. And clearly, at that time, she had every intention of returning to the cloister. So… what had changed? Why had it been so ludicrously easy to find her here, find her sitting alone in the dead of night in the old city, muttering to herself about going to Paris? Georg had the very distinct impression that if this woman wanted to make herself unreachable, she could make a fine job of it, small though Salzburg was. She, a native who knew its nooks and crannies, its shadows and its hiding places, had been sitting in open space in the public square.
It was curious.
But, he reminded himself with a shake, clearing his head as they crossed the street from the Altstadt to the bridge that would take them over the Salzach to the walking paths, he hadn't come to question her and back her into corners…
Georg cleared his throat as they stepped onto the path and turned left, not sure where to begin. He had persuaded her of this with a promise to explain himself if she consented to come along. Would it be better to remain silent for a while? He turned his head toward Maria slightly, just enough to get a better look at her through his peripheral vision. Her head was bowed, and she seemed to be watching her feet as they moved along.
This wouldn't do, Georg thought, agitated. They had spent too much time already on their feet, holding their ground, circling one another, arguing…embracing. Passionately. Suddenly very afraid that he would lose control of himself again and kiss her as they trudged along the banks of the Salzach, and quite possibly turn her against him unwittingly, Georg raised his head and looked around, hoping to find a park bench. He needed to sit down for this.
Spotting one a little further down the way, he led his companion to it and gestured that she should take a seat, and he joined her, setting her guitar between their feet. Maria hadn't said a word since he'd asked about her bags, but then, neither had he. She must be wondering what he was doing, must be wondering if he was stringing her along in some silly game, playing her for a fool. What was it she'd said? A fool in love.
Turning only slightly, Georg observed her once again from the corner of his eye and wondered what she was thinking. Her gaze was on the water line, and on the glittering sight of the buildings across the river lit up in the night. It really was beautiful, he thought. Charming and sure and still standing, through millennia. Just as sure as this love for her that burned inside him. Now, to make her believe that.
He sighed. "I had no plans to court anyone, Maria, let alone marry. After my wife died, I didn't believe that I could find anything that could match the love I had for Agathe Whitehead, and so much of why she died—well, really, it is my fault. If only she hadn't borne so many children. There were two miscarriages, you see, between Brigitta and Marta that severely weakened her, and there's barely a year and a half between Marta and Gretl. Nine children over eleven years… what's more, I should have been there, been more involved, taken less assignments, anything other than what I did do. So, I did not particularly find myself worthy. I hated myself for a long time."
Through all of this, Maria had sat beside him silently, with her hands folded in her lap, giving no indication that she could be listening, let alone alive, aside from the slight rise and fall of her chest as she breathed. She looked up, however, with wide eyes and an earnest face when he reached his confession of self-loathing.
"I had known Elsa Schröder for nearly twenty years when Agathe died, and though we did not see each other frequently, we ran in the same circles and I often collaborated with her husband on some engineering designs that were commissioned by the Italians. He died ten years ago, so Elsa had been alone for several years by the time Max persuaded me to at least go out for appearance's sake, after the appropriate mourning period had ended. We ran into each other at a party, started talking, and then before I knew it, we were seeing quite a lot of each other, and I had opened my house in Vienna back up permanently, as I was there so often."
Georg spread his hands in his lap, staring down at them and needing a moment to think. "She likes to cultivate the image otherwise, more for her own sake than anything, but Elsa loved her husband very much and was quite lost when he passed. It was sudden and unexpected, an accident at a worksite where they were making adjustments to a submarine he had designed. Her reservedness heightened, and she sharpened her claws, so to speak. But we began to talk, that night, and she all but bloomed open like a flower before me, and motivated me to speak of times and places I hadn't thought of since… before."
He shrugged. "It was a free and easy friendship, where neither required anything of the other, and it did not take long for people to start whispering about whether we would announce our engagement. It did make a good deal of sense, after all, and for all intents and purposes, we are a perfect match. I'll not deny that."
Maria had turned to face him. "Then why… why haven't you, yet? Proposed marriage?"
"You see, I had wrestled with that for so long. I knew it made sense. I knew it would be in the children's best interests to have a mother again. I knew we would be good for each other, and that marriage to Elsa would not be the emotional deadweight that I so feared coming back to. Perhaps it is selfish of me, but it is, I think, reasonable."
Maria nodded at this, seeming to agree without judgment.
"Some time ago, I realized that what held me back was that some little part of me was holding back because, although I hold her in high esteem, and value her friendship, and find her desirable, I don't love her. So I stalled even longer. And then, I met you."
Maria's eyes were round as saucers, and she had opened her mouth to protest. Georg, however, placed his hand over hers and shook his head.
"Maria, you turned my world upside down. You made me angry, you annoyed me, and on just your first day in my home you seemed to be on your way out the door just as you walked in—the amount of insubordination in our first few words alone could have done it, but you puzzled me. You confused me. You made me question everything I thought I knew about controlling people. Next, you blew that whistle, and I knew for sure that you were outside my jurisdiction. It made me livid. And then, you sat on that ridiculous pinecone, gave me such a silly excuse for it, and then I knew: I had to escape you, or you would drive me mad, and I would find myself entangled in something more scandalous and unbelievable than even I could fathom."
"I don't understand," Maria murmured, "You don't mean to say…"
"Yes, and I hope you will forgive me of it if you think it indecent, Maria," Georg confirmed. "I was unbelievably, madly, infuriatingly attracted to you."
"Well," Maria breathed. "Well, then."
Knowing he had gone too far by now to erase any possible offense, Georg opened his mouth to carry on with his explanations, but Maria surprised him:
"What was it?" she asked suddenly. "What was it about me that did what such a beautiful, cultured woman such as Baroness Schröder is somehow not equal to?"
Georg gazed at the woman before him and shook his head slowly. "I still don't know," he murmured. "I have done more questioning over that fact alone in the past week alone. I know it makes no sense, I know it's not expected, not what's done, and certainly not decent. But you, you, Maria… you make my world brighter. That moment when I realized tonight that you might be gone forever, my heart hurt. I felt this overwhelming sense of loss… as if someone I loved dearly had died. And that's when I knew. I had fallen in love with you."
Maria stood after this pronouncement, moved a few feet away, her arms crossed over her chest, and began to pace. Georg watched her move to and fro silently, wanting to ask her what she was thinking, but feeling it would be wiser to hold his tongue.
Finally, she turned to him. "I hate the thought that you associate loving me with…pain. I have been that too many times to people, too much a burden, too much an obligation. I can't spend my whole life in that shadow, Captain. If loving me gave you happiness, then perhaps, but…" She shrugged, her lip quivering as her voice shook. "I'm sorry."
Georg was struck by what she said with a full and terrible force. Here it was, at last. Her truth. Love had too long been a thing of pain for her.
Voice catching in her throat, Maria looked up at the night sky and tried to stop the tears that threatened to fall. "I know it's not right, that it's terribly contrary." She turned her gaze back to the sea captain in front of her, biting her lip and giving a desperate stomp of her foot before continuing, "I think of the children, Captain, constantly, of how they're these bright bursts of joy and sunshine in my life that I've come to love so well, perhaps because they too love me unreservedly as I love them, but I think more because they taught me what true happiness feels like. Something you fight for and struggle with, but once you've made the choice to go the journey, it's worth it every step of the way. And I want to have that with you, but to hear you say what you just said… it grieves my heart more than I can even grasp."
Georg opened his mouth to contradict her, but she cut him off.
"Besides, you still have not told me what loving a man such as you would entail."
Her gaze now was hard and unyielding, and Georg was acutely aware that the words he chose would matter above all else he said to his governess tonight. She had admitted again and again to being in love, but had yet to say that she was in love with him. It was clever, it was protective: she was acknowledging her feelings in that they could have these conversations, but she wouldn't give her heart away to be staked on a claim that she couldn't live with. Georg could not help but be awed by the magnitude of her strength in this display.
He had to fight the urge to stand up and kiss her, again, but he stayed seated, no matter how much he wanted to do otherwise. He did not wish to push her away.
"Allow me," he said slowly, "to paint you three different scenarios. To paint them richly and honestly, and then to say the one I choose, and why."
Maria had turned her back to him and was again facing the river, but after a long pause, she nodded. She wasn't certain that she could handle this, but there was no better way to find out.
"The first scenario, which you suggested, in which I bring you into my bed and make you my lover, is something I would do this very night if you would let me. I would hold you in my arms and cherish you, teach you all the ways to that men and women love each other, and I would claim a kiss for every breath you take. I would bring you to the heights of rapture, and you would know a new depth of feeling, of purpose, and of passion. This, I know."
Maria swallowed hard, gaze still fixed on the lit scene of Salzburg along the river, and nodded. She could do precious little else without betraying what his words made her feel, and as it was, her knees had gone weak. She couldn't trust her voice.
Taking in her nod, Georg watched the woman standing before him carefully, thinking that perhaps he had pushed it too far. But she had not retorted, had not claimed indecency, and there she still stood. He took a deep breath, and then continued: "The second scenario, which you also suggested, would be to send you away to meet in secret. Now, as you were contemplating going away to Paris, I think it is an apt setting for this tale. I could teach you so much about the city, the people, the culture, the language—yes, I meant that—and if you were to become a performer, I would come to see your every show. I would greet you before or after in your dressing room, as you would surely have your own, flowers ever in hand, and perhaps a small little token for a job well-done. I would take you to the finest Parisian restaurants and ply you with fine wine, champagne, whatever you wanted. And then we would take to the most glamourous, ritzy hotels, where I would ravish you until you wept, raw and spent."
Maria felt faint, at this, and her face was by now burning a hot, deep crimson. How could he find it in him to speak such intimacies? But, here she stood, not stopping him. Listening. Heart soaring as he painted these pictures so vividly, so thoroughly, so… passionately. If this is what it could be like to be loved by him…
Georg studied Maria's profile. She hadn't nodded, hadn't spoken, and was just standing there, very still. If she was taken aback, there was nothing to show for it.
Slowly, silently rising to his feet, the sea captain finished, "The third scenario would be to marry you, to make you my wife. I would love you to the end of my days, I would welcome more children with you, I would devote our every private moment to getting to know you better than the day before. We would be free to love each other openly, in front of each other, in front of the children, in front of the world. There would be no secrets and no shame, only intimacies and love and the sure knowledge that we stand side-by-side through anything that comes. I would never abandon you, and I would spend my life reveling in the light that your presence has brought into my life."
Drawing himself straight and tall, Georg went to Maria and laid a hand on her shoulder, coming around to face her. Her head was down, and her arms were still folded. Lifting her chin with a gentle hand, he looked into her eyes and said, "The light you brought into my life, Maria, is not something that was extinguished and then reignited. It is something that was never there before, and something I never wish to lose again. I know what I can stand to lose, now, because I have lost much, but this, I know as surely as the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, I cannot relinquish. I wish to marry you, Maria, and if you say you love me, I will do it, because there is nothing I wish more in the world."
Maria gazed at this man in front of her, lost in wonder and disbelief. There would be so much to overcome, so much to struggle through, so much to learn…
But she breathed deep, the scent of the river and the grassy banks filling her nose, and it was suddenly so clear.
"I love you," she whispered. And then again, louder, with more force, "I love you. I love you."
Face breaking into great smile, Georg held back the urge to crush her into his arms again, and simply bent his head to kiss her softly, waiting patiently, for which he was rewarded: she dropped her arms and wrapped them around him, tentative, but willing, and locked herself into his embrace, bringing the kiss easily from chaste to passionate with her steady, flowing eagerness, and when they finally broke away to look at each other, she stared up at him with those great, blue eyes, and then simply drew close, laying her head against his shoulder.
As he wrapped his arms around her waist to hold her fast, starting to gently sway, Georg thought he heard the faintest whisper emit from her.
"Oh, can this be happening to me?"
He smiled, and closed his eyes, drawing in the scent of her as he breathed, his chin resting on her soft hair. "I love you, Maria," he said.
A while later, the pair had taken up Maria's things and were wandering along the Salzach, happy and full from the little nothings they had spoken of, when at last they came upon the end of the path before the river led to the outskirts of the city, and there was waiting an empty cab with an alert driver waiting.
Georg gestured to the vehicle and said quietly to Maria, "I think you had better head home. It will be best if the children don't wake to find you gone. Perhaps not the most appropriate suggestion ever made, but to them you are still the governess."
Brow furrowing, Maria asked, "What of the Baroness?"
She had explained in the intervening time between her declaration and now just what precisely had happened between the two women tonight, and Georg sighed. "I don't want to make the situation any more scandalous than it will already look, so we should go in together, I think. You go ahead and go to bed, and I will speak with Elsa, as there is a good chance she is still awake."
"Then, you will ask me?" Maria said.
"Yes," Georg nodded, "when I have taken care of my unfinished business, then I will get down on bended knee and ask you to be my wife. For my part, I sincerely hope that my intended will accept me."
Smiling, Maria allowed her soon-to-be-betrothed to stow her things in the car trunk, and then slid in the back seat and waited for him to join her. When the door slammed shut behind him and Georg had given the driver his address, she turned to him with a smile and said, "Your intended desperately wants to say yes. But you must kiss her, first!"
And so, he did.
