A/N: I´m back once more... Real life kept me from the fan fiction world, but today I found myself writing again. The muses are finally waking up! The best way to start and to get some inspiration is to continue publishing the final chapter of the Chronicles. There are 10 more to go, and I hope you enjoy them all.
It´s great to be back!
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Disclaimers, acknowledgements, notes, warnings, etc: Please see Chapter 01.
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The Sound of Music Chronicles
Part I
The Twelfth Governess
Chapter 31
Winds of change
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"Grief has limits, whereas apprehension has none. For we grieve only for what we know has happened, but we fear all that possibly may happen."
Pliny the Elder
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"The human heart has hidden treasures,
In secret kept, in silence sealed;
The thoughts, the hopes, the dreams, the pleasures,
Whose charms were broken if revealed."
Charlotte Bronte
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She had promised a boat ride to the children – to Friedrich, more specifically -, and they would have it, even if she knew, deep inside that their formidable father would certainly not approve of it. Moreover, she also knew that the transgression would be reported to him within the hour, as soon as Franz learned about it, now that the communication with Vienna was fully re-established. It did not matter, her mind was made up. A promise was a promise.
"Fräulein, there is no going back now," Friedrich had said, as they boarded the rowboat.
"How did you know I was going to say anything?" Maria had asked, surprised. Apparently, the boy had inherited his father's telepathic talents
"It's easy – you have a funny look in your face."
"What look, Louisa?" She had no idea that she could be so transparent, but then never before in her life she had to work to hide her emotions.
"I don´t know, you look… jumpy. Like if you were expecting someone to spook you at any minute."
"Well, if you children must know," she shrugged. "I don't intend to break my promise to you all. It's just that… ehm…" she thought for a moment, unsure of what she would say next. Not being completely honest was also a novel experience for her.
"What? Are you afraid?" Louisa had challenged.
"We won´t throw you in the water if that is what you fear, Fräulein," Kurt reassured. "We did that with Fräulein Helga, and it was not fun."
"What?" Maria shrieked in alarm.
"And there was Fräulein Josephine, of course, but we did not try to drown her – she threw herself in the lake instead."
Maria let out a loud moan, thinking that perhaps what the children had done to her had been nothing compared to what some of their previous governesses had suffered. Driving a poor governess to suicide, for pity´s sake! No wonder the Captain was in such a state when she met him, the man probably had enough of it all!
"Kurt, stop that, you are only making everything worse, just see the look on her face!" Brigitta then turned to her. "Don´t worry, Fräulein Maria, Fräulein Helga was not harmed, she was a very good swimmer. She did not catch a fever either because it was a very warm day last summer, just like today. As for poor Fräulein Josephine, she tried to drown herself, but not because of us. She was lovesick, she was in love with the equerry and he was not interested in marrying her at all. Neither of them would not have drowned anyway, the lake is merely a few feet deep." (1)
"Oh, thank you for the valuable information, Brigitta. I think…"
"Besides, what Kurt is really sorry about are the four weeks without desert we missed," said Friedrich, poking his brother on the shoulder.
Maria still looked at them dubiously.
"Didn´t we promise you? No more tricks, we swear!"
"Yes, you did and no, I am not – erhm - afraid," she began, sounding slightly offended.
Afraid of falling into a shallow lake? Her? Furthermore, it would take more than seven children and a sea captain to drive her to commit the ultimate sin of taking her own life.
The children, however, had mistaken the true reason for her apparent uneasiness.
"There is no need to worry, we are very good swimmers too. Marta and Gretl haven't learned yet, but we can help them if they need us!"
This time, she could not help it, she had to be honest.
"It is not the water, Liesl, I…"
"Besides, you must remember that our father was a sea captain, and a good one."
"Surely I know that by now, Brigitta, and I am…"
"We used to go sailing every summer in the old days," Friedrich had said – he had been the one who had asked for the boat ride in the first place. "He taught us well. Liesl is quite good too, and so is Louisa."
"All right – if we must, we must!" Maria had exclaimed gaily, giving up in her attempts to explain herself to the children, at least tell them that she was an excellent swimmer herself. Nevertheless, if they wanted to believe that she was afraid of drowning, let them! It might be easier for them do understand than the truth about her deeper feelings, a truth she was having a difficult time understanding herself.
"Just may take the place by the bow, Fräulein. Liesl and I will stay aft and do the hard work."
"All right, Captain Friedrich von Trapp," Maria saluted him. "Just – erhm - point me to the bow, please."
"We are in trouble, she doesn't even know where the bow is," giggled Louisa.
"I'm sorry, Fräulein. Friedrich though that you would probably know aft from bow after reading father's instructions."
"Hmmm. There wasn't a word about that in any of the twenty-five pages, Liesl" she said, accommodating herself in the front part of the rowboat. "Not that I remember!"
"Only twenty-five? You were lucky!"
"Really? Why is that?"
"Fräulein Katherine complained about 100 pages. Father must be slacking," said Louisa, laughing.
"I don't want Friedrich to be the Captain, he is always the Captain and he is a mean one when he wants to. You'll be our Captain today, Fräulein Maria!"
"Yes, Marta is right. You'll be Captain Fräulein Maria!" Gretl giggled.
"Hmm!" Maria muttered, not sure she had the required qualities for being a naval commander, even of such a small boat. Her employer certainly would have agreed with her reluctance.
"Marta, do you really think I would be a good Captain if I don't even know aft from bow, or portside from starboard? Your father would not be happy if the boat turned over, no matter how fun that would be," she said, accommodating herself on the boat, facing the children.
"Not to worry, Fräulein. Father is in Vienna, and who knows when he will be coming back," Louisa had said. "It would certainly be very unlucky of us if he returned today, wouldn't it?"
"Oh please, Lord, don't let it happen," she prayed silently, looking heavenward – she had just realized that Louisa might have tempted fate with her comment.
The lake was so calm and placid that it looked like a mirror as the rowboat cut through it, breaking its perfection. Inside it, Maria tried not to worry too much, but she felt a little apprehensive. Well, more than a little actually. She was singing with the children, going through scales and voice exercises and trying her best to make them fun for them, and yet, probably for the first time since her arrival, her mind and her heart were not completely into it.
The children sensed it, of course. They were wrong about her motives, but they did realize that was something was amiss. It was simply amazing how perceptive, how sensitive they could be. It was all too obvious to everyone who spent only a few hours in their company…
"Well, not perhaps to their own father," she reminded herself, distastefully. But then, as far as she knew, he never spent hours in their company anymore, only a few minutes at a time.
Although she was used to working with children at the orphanage, it was the first time in her life Maria had the opportunity to be around them all day long, and she was learning so much from it. Sometimes she only wished that she would have to live in a cloister after taking her vows, because the truth that, if she were given a choice about that, she would rather continue working with the little ones at the orphanage. The experience with the von Trapp children was teaching her too much; it would be such a change that her newly acquired knowledge would be wasted in the future.
"The Reverend Mother is so wise, perhaps she could be convinced to "bend the rules" a little bit in my case," she shrugged, optimistically.
She gave her charges full attention again. They were so protective of each other that it was endearing.
"Well, they only have each other," she considered.
She needn´t have worried about the fact that Marta and Gretl hadn´t learn how to swim yet, their older brothers and sisters were watching them like a mother cat caring for her kittens. Brigitta had both of her arms around them, and sometimes she held them so tightly that the little ones complained.
No, the children had been wrong. Maria did not fear drowning, nor did she fear that one of the little ones would fall in the water. She had grown up surrounded by mountain lakes in Tyrol, and she would take full advantage of the rare warm summer days to go swimming. It was a wonder that she had not drowned when she was little, because she had learned how to swim on her own, without anybody´s help. And she had learned well, because if there was one thing Maria prided herself in was that she was indeed a good swimmer. If any of them fell, she would be at their side so quickly there would not be time for them to be scared.
No, what troubled her was something much more elusive…
She never believed himself to be the kind of person to have that magical "sixth sense" people sometimes commented about – especially Frau Schmidt who seemed to have a strange fascination with what she called "the occult". On the contrary, she always saw herself as essentially practical and very, very realistic. For that reason only she did not allow herself to be carried away by the sense of foreboding that gripped her ever since she woke up that morning, feelings that became stronger when she found the late Baroness von Trapp´s grave in the little cemetery by St. Baptist´s Church.
"The grave yard - that must be the reason," she tried to convince herself. "That grave, the poem engraved in it, everything else you heard about Baroness von Trapp… all that combined to what her death did to her husband, and consequently to her children as well. It became simply too… real. Agathe von Trapp is not an ethereal fairy tale character envisioned by her children and her husband, she existed. She had slept in that house, in the same master bedroom that the Captain still occupied. She had strolled in the gardens surrounding it, waltzed with her husband in the ballroom and played with her children in the nursery. Her death left a man broken-hearted, everyone else who knew her is still in mourning. Such dark, heavy atmosphere would take its toll one you one of these days, and today it finally happened." She sighed deeply.
"We've been so good in keeping up with the Captain´s schedule – most of the times, at least. Wouldn´t it be funny if he caught us exactly when we are doing something he hadn't predicted?" Liesl winked, distracting Maria from her not so pleasant reveries.
"That would make him mad!" exclaimed Kurt. "Doesn't that make you wish he stayed in Vienna a bit longer, Fräulein?"
"Oh no, quite the contrary," Maria tried to reassure them. "You made so much progress with your singing and I am looking forward to seeing your father's reaction."
"Are you?"
"I am Brigitta, I really am!" she had answered Maria, honestly. "Although…"
"What? Don´t you think we are ready yet?"
"No, you are more than ready, but I think we should tell him… ahem… little by little. Yes, that is the trick, I should think. If we tell him all at once, it might overwhelm him and he might not react well… We must give him time to… digest things. Oh, why is it now? Why the sad faces? Don´t you miss your father?"
"Of course we miss him, but he is not the same anymore."
"Yes. Whenever he leaves we always hope he will go back to what he was when he returns, but it never happens," Brigitta said forlornly.
Maria´s heart ached for the children.
"Well, I am sure your singing will help. Once he hears you, he will realize once again how wonderful his sons and daughters are, and I am sure he will think twice before leaving you alone again."
"But it is so difficult, Fräulein!"
"Ahem – difficult?" For a second, she did not know what to say. Were they talking about their complicated relationship with their father of about their music lessons? Neither were easy, she had to admit. "Why difficult, Louisa?"
"Because it is not opening our mouths and sing. We had to be in tune, there is the tempo to worry about, and all those different voices you want us to do. It can be all very complicated."
"Yes, I know. It would not be so much fun if it were very easy, would it? You are all doing a wonderful job, you should be proud. I am sure your father will be too when he hears you. Meanwhile…"
"Yes?"
"We practice!" Maria exclaimed happily, while the boat headed towards the middle of the lake.
"Remember, what we must do is to have fun with the notes. Once they become your friends, you´ll know when you sing a wrong one. They will not like it, it will sound awful, painful to your ears, and you´ll know what you did wrong and how to fix it…"
Nevertheless, her charges did not look at all convinced.
"Very well then, let us do something else. Let us just… sing, without worrying about the pitch or the tempo. We can do that, can´t we?"
This time, the children agreed wholeheartedly. Miraculously, singing in that carefree manner did wonders to Maria´s mood. She no longer felt apprehensive, all gloomy thoughts were forgotten – just as it happened whenever she used to run to her beloved mountains…
A/N: (1) Once again, I am using an idea from the draft of "maxisback"´s unwritten story, "The 11 Governesses".