Disclaimers, acknowledgements, notes, warnings, etc: Please see Chapter 01.

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The Sound of Music Chronicles

Part I

The Twelfth Governess

Chapter 33

The unromantic

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"Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,

Old Times is still a-flying:

And this same flower that smiles today,

Tomorrow will be dying."

Robert Herrick

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"You see, I am a very prosaic, unromantic, sensible sort of fellow myself; and I have always had my heart set on finding the most sensible, prudent, level-headed wife in the world. But, on the other hand, it is very important to me that she possess one very particular flaw: she must have no sense whatsoever where I myself am concerned. She would only have to take one look at me and - no matter what her steadiness of mind - she would lose it in the space of seconds... Just lately, I have sometimes thought I may have found what I have always wanted. But just lately I have also noticed she has developed a most irritating habit of looking at the ground whenever we are together. Do you think she could try to overcome it? Well, Charlotte, are you going to look at me now?"

Jane Austen

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It was clear to Elsa that the graveyard incident had disturbed Georg, and not necessarily because she had practically forced him to visit his wife´s grave. The fact that she had her promise to her friend as an excuse certainly helped, although she would have lied about that if she had to.

The reason had been his puzzling behavior in Vienna. At first she had tried to delude herself, thinking that once they approached his beloved Salzburg he would go back to his normal self, but a series of small incidents before and shortly after their arrival told her otherwise. Well, perhaps it would be those erratic changes in his behavior that would finally give her a clue. She never had any illusions about the fact that Georg von Trapp was not a perfect man and that it was his flaws that made him appealing to her. Among other things, he was a dismal liar. It was only a matter of time until he betrayed himself completely and then she would know.

Yes, she had to find out. She needed to find out. And she would find out.

She cared deeply for him. If it wasn´t love, it was the closest thing to it she had ever felt in her life. Not even her husband was deserving of so much blind affection, although she had adored her ugly Baron. Her feelings were the main reason, although all of her other motives were of a more practical nature. Needless to say, Elsa von Schraeder was a woman with an objective, and, as such, she needed to know precisely where her obstacles were. Where or, more precisely, who her obstacle was… that is, if her worst inner fears were proven true after all. All that she had learned from a master, Georg himself. Like him, she too, was a strategist, and like such, she needed to know exactly what she had to face.

First of all, she needed to make sure that whatever was bothering him, it was not Agathe. That alone would set her mind at ease. If the problem was another woman, Elsa could very well fight, and win, whatever female who had the audacity to stand between her and Captain von Trapp, as long as the barrier was in the world of the living. Battling a memory, a ghost, on the other hand, was an entirely different matter, a million times more difficult, if not impossible.

However, he had remained impassive at first – he told her that the sight of Agathe´s grave was "just a place" and that she was "no longer there". She had not believed him entirely – Georg was too much a man of tradition to think so dispassionately about something like that. No, what she did believe is that the place did not affect him as much now. But something else or – and she really hoped it would not be the case – someone else was affecting him.

The wild flowers…

It had been the sight of them that they had found scattered all over the grave that had finally done something to him. She could tell Georg had been oddly moved by the gesture, in spite of his initial annoyance, judging by the way he, almost tenderly, gathered the scattered flowers and bound them together, placing them neatly on top of the grave. His unexpected gentleness after the initial violent reaction added to his frank indignation, the ominous look in his face when she dared to suggest that they threw the weeds away in the nearest waste basket, all that had been disturbing to her.

Luckily, there was nothing like Max´s risqué innuendos and outrageous choices for subjects of conversation, to restore the Georg´s mood, at least in the surface. And there he was now, back to his usual old self, as he gave her a quick tour of the grounds of his magnificent property. The children were nowhere to be seen yet, and, for that, she was glad. Elsa was actually able to breathe a little easier when she discovered that she was not going to be greeted by seven children in a line, wearing sailor suits and saluting her in military fashion. Max had been kind enough to offer her a summarized description of Georg´s unusual educational methods.

"Enough of that," she thought inwardly. She had brooded about Georg for too long. She was, after all, a woman with a mission, and it was time she concentrated in the task at hand without wasting time in needless worrying.

"We are going to have a glorious time here!" she exclaimed joyfully, in an attempt to break his silence, as they strolled along the lake.

"That is precisely what I am aiming for, darling," he purred.

"Oh, I do hope so. This really is exciting for me, Georg, being here with you."

He laughed, mockingly – not quite the reaction she expected.

"Oh ho ho ho ho ho. Trees, lakes, mountains. When you've seen one, you've seen them all," he said playfully, looking around him, playing with the riding crop it distractedly.

The breathtakingly beautiful scenery did not seem to affect him at all, and she found that oddly depressing. Yet, at the same time, he had the bearing of a man completely at ease and in control in his own dominion. He was the lord and master of his domains, but also a man who would simply fit in any place, whether he owned it or not. She knew that was a stance that only a man of his birth and breeding would have. To Elsa, there was hardly anything sexier than that.

"I´ve traveled everywhere, to the most beautiful places on earth, and nothing really compares to this. It´s so idyllic! I can certainly understand why you have chosen to be here… No, do not look at me like that, it is not what I really mean and you know it. It is not only this beautiful scenery that really appeals to me."

"Ah, then you mean me. I am exciting!" he exclaimed, feigning surprise, but not without a good dose of his good, old sarcasm.

"Is that so impossible?"

"No, just – uh - highly improbable. I´m nothing but a Captain without a ship, merely living on memories of past glories…"

"There you go, running yourself down again," she censored him.

"Well, I'm a dangerous driver."

"There he goes again, using his charm and humor as a shield," she thought, although she could not keep herself from laughing this time, trying not too hard to think about the double meaning of his words.

There was nothing wrong with his driving skills whatsoever. Yes, he drove too fast at times, but with such ease that it was impossible not to feel completely safe. His driving methods were not what his comment was about, and they both knew it.

"Sometimes I am almost able to guess what goes on in that dark brooding mind of yours."

"I did not know you were also psychic, my dear!" he mocked.

"Oh, I am not, I assure you. I am very observant; I never made any secret of that to you."

"Do tell me, what have you… uh… observed about me this time, my darling?"

"I think I will keep that to myself for the moment." She fluttered her eyelashes and lowered her eyes with a Monalisa smile, resorting to one of the feminine tricks in her repertoire that she had not used since she was eighteen years old with the first man she had ever tried to seduce.

"Minx," he said softly.

She laughed.

"There he is, the fascinating man I know and adore. Who was the other one and what has he done with you?" It was his turn to chuckle. "You know, you're - you're much less of a riddle when I see you here, Georg."

"In my natural habitat?" He looked around him. Possessively and proudly but still bored.

"Yes, exactly," she replied, and resisted the temptation of asking him if Aigen was really his natural habitat.

Aigen, Salzburg – or the sea that had been essential to him during most part of his life. The sea and Agathe, his greatest loves. His arm around her shoulder distracted her, once again.

"Are you trying to say that I'm more at home here among the birds and the flowers and the wind that moves through the trees like a restless sea, hmm?" he asked, poking her elbow with the riding crop.

"How poetic!"

He smiled, almost shyly, and scratched behind his ear.

"Yes, it was rather, wasn't it?"

"To say that I was once told that the forbidding Captain von Trapp was a poet deep inside," she said. "A lousy poet, but a romantic nonetheless."

"Hmm," he frowned, and then he rambled on, steering to safer waters. "That is something my wife would say to me every now and then," he said, distractedly, but there was no sadness in his voice.

"Do you honestly believe I am more at home here than in Vienna?" he asked abruptly, returning to the original subject of their conversation. "In all your glittering salons, gossiping gaily with bores I detest, soaking myself in champagne? Stumbling about to waltzes by Strausses I can't even remember? Is that what you're trying to say?"

"More or less, yes," she giggled.

"Now, whatever gave you that idea?" Elsa´s giggle turned to a laugh.

"Darling, but you do all that so elegantly, so beautifully. No one would ever guess that you longed to be somewhere else, to do something else!" She let out a genuinely happy sigh. "How I do like it here, Georg. I never imagined I would love it so much, and yet I do, I really do. It's so lovely and peaceful. How can you leave it as often as you do?"

"Ah, pretending to be madly active, I suppose."

"Hmm, I find that very hard to believe. You don´t need pretending, my darling, you are one of the most madly active men I have ever known. Perfecting submarines, writing your memoirs, writing about… what was the book you were telling Max during our drive today? The one you have been working on, that it is about ready to be published."

"Strategies of submarine warfare," he provided, unable to disguise a great deal of pride in his statement. After all, few men knew more about the subject that he did, even though he had not been in active duty in quite a while.

"There! You have all that, and you also have your horses, your seven children to raise..."

While Elsa spoke, he shook his head vehemently, grimacing visibly when she mentioned the children.

"That is not quite what I mean, Elsa. There is a subtle difference between being active and being merely busy. Being busy is merely filling the time with as many tasks as you possibly can. That is what I am. Activity, on the other hand, requires a purpose. It suggests a life filled with purpose." He smiled sadly.

"Oh darling, sometimes you are just too much of philosopher for my taste. But I forgive you. You are right, of course - you are a very busy man, not an active one."

"It makes a difference, Elsa, whether you believe it or not. It is not merely semantics. My brand of semantics, at least."

"Could you be simply running away from memories?" she dared to ask the obvious. "Or running to them," she added in thought.

"Mm hm," he agreed. "Or perhaps just searching for a reason to stay."

"Something that calls you back here while you are away?" she asked, tentatively, taking the risk of pushing him a little farther and he nodded. "I remember something Agathe used to say about seafaring men, long before she even met you."

"What was that?" he asked grimly, and she knew he had uttered the question out of politeness, more than anything else.

"She used to say to me that every sailor needs a woman to return to, and every woman needs someone to wait for, which resulted in a perfect combination, of course."

He smiled, and it was such a sad smile that Elsa felt immediately sorry that she had reawakened another memory and for the second or third time that day… She couldn´t help it, however, and she would push him as far as she would have too, in order to get the answers she needed. She was more than willing to be that woman waiting for him if she needed to, whether he was out sailing the seven seas or equally unreachable, when he was brooding, locked in his study. The question was if she, Elsa von Schraeder, was the woman he longed to go back to.

"Oh, I dare to hope that's why you've been coming to Vienna so often. Or were there other distractions there?" she asked, lightening the tone, poking him a little, hoping to have a hint about his inner thoughts at the same time.

"Oh, I'd hardly call you a mere distraction, darling," he said, pulling her by the waist next to him.

He had cleverly used her question in order to avoid giving her an answer – cleverly done, as usual. This time, she did not mind it, because he had also touched her. It had been such a spontaneous gesture, so natural. He rarely took the initiative to touch her, even in their more intimate moments and even knowing that she would welcome his touch, as she had made clear to him so many times before. This time his hand lingered on her waist for a while, and it was her who stepped away, breaking contact. There was still that something she wanted to be sure of – and that was more important at the moment than to have him simply touching her so casually.

"Well, what would you call me, Georg?" she asked bluntly.

"Mmmm…" He examined her face, analytically, as if studying a classical sculpture. "Lovely. Charming, witty, graceful. The perfect hostess."

She did not try to interrupt his string of comments, because she was enjoying herself too much, and she glowed in feminine pride, although her mind screamed: "He still hasn´t answered you, you fool!"

"And, uh - you're going to hate me for this - in a way, my savior. In more ways than one, I should add."

It was not the first time he had told her that, but she was also aware that she had not merely helped him enjoy life again. In a small but very effective way, she had brought his beloved sea back to him, by encouraging him to go back to writing about what he knew, about what he had experienced, and by encouraging him to put his expertise in naval engineering to practical use again. Nowadays, the British Royal Navy now never dared to turn one single screw in any of the submarines in their fleet without consulting Georg von Trapp first. She often wondered what the officers in the highest ranks would say if they knew that they owed the safety of their men underwater partly to what most people believed to be a shallow Viennese socialite.

"Oh, how unromantic! The bad poet is back, I see. Is there a way to get rid of him?" Having learned from a master, she tried to hard her disappointment behind sarcasm.

"Grow up, Elsa. What were you expecting him to say? "My future wife?" Yes, that was what you wanted to hear, wasn´t it? The woman he would always long to return to…" she thought.

Yet, he continued in the same serious tone, too serious for her liking.

"Well, I'd be an ungrateful wretch if I didn't tell you at least once that it was you who brought some meaning back into my life."

It was her turn to be baffled by the intensity in his gaze. She tore her gaze away. If she was certain that she alone was the cause of the hot, passionate look in his eyes, and not the unknown demons he had been fighting for the past few weeks, she would have held her ground. Maybe she would throw her arms around him and kiss him passionately. It was partly what she wanted to hear, wasn´t it? He needed her, and if there was something that she had always known about herself, even before she was married, was that she would never want a man unless he needed her desperately.

Instead, it was her turn now to use irony as a weapon.

"Oh, I am amusing, I suppose. And I do have the finest couturier in Vienna. And the most glittering circle of friends. And I do give some rather gay parties." It was not what he meant, and they both knew it.

"Oh ho ho, yes," he said, taking her arm, as they started walking again.

"But take all that away and you - you have just wealthy, unattached little me - searching just like you."

Georg chuckled, and squeezed her hand.

"Now who is running themselves down?"

"Most women do when they're seeking reassurance." She paused, allowing him time to register what she had just said.

"Reassurance. You? You are one of the most self confident women I have ever met!"

"You know, when I give myself up to all this beauty, I begin to wonder whether Vienna is all that important to me after all... If you could bear to live far from the sea, maybe I could bear to be far from my Vienna. Do you think I'd be a fish out of water here, Georg?"

"Certainly the loveliest fish that ever gasped the Tyrolean air..."

"There he is again! Dear Lord, won´t the bad poet ever leave? That's not very much of an answer, especially considering the fact that we are not in Tyrol!"

It was his turn to laugh.

"Come on; let's go see what our chaperon is up to."

"Still eating, Max, hm? Tch, tch. You must be unhappy," Georg said, as he climbed the stairs to the terrace. His eyes scanned his surroundings quickly.

Where were the children?

And where was that governess?

It was all so silent, so lovely and peaceful as Elsa had called it. What she had no way of knowing was that, although the villa in Aigen was undoubtedly lovely, he was hardly expecting it to be peaceful, at least not seven children were running around with a governess that, as far as he could tell, was very much a rebel.

"That marvelous mixed quartet I've been trying for months to steal away from Saul Feurock…" Max grumbled, taking another bite of his apfelstrudel.

"What happened, darling?" asked Elsa.

"Yesterday, Sasha Petrie stole them first. If there's one thing I hate, it's a thief."

"Max, you really must try and learn to – uh - love yourself," Georg said scathingly.

"I am trying! For this I had to call Paris, Rome and Stockholm," Max rambled on, ignoring his friend´s barb.

"On Georg's telephone, of course," noted Elsa.

"Well, how else could I afford it? Oh, dear, I like rich people. I like the way they live. I like the way I live when I'm with them."

"I wonder where the children are…" Georg said, hardly paying attention to whatever Max and Elsa were saying about Stockholm and his telephone.

"Obviously, they must have heard I was coming and went into hiding," said Elsa.

"Oh ho, no, I don´t think so, darling. My children can be many things, but they are not cowards. In fact, I was hoping they'd be here to welcome you. I left very specific instructions."

"They could hardly be here to welcome me, if you made a point of arriving by surprise," suggested Elsa.

"It was not the children I wanted to surprise, it was their governess," he thought grimly.

He frowned at Elsa.

"Yes, but they were not supposed to be elsewhere,not at this hour. They should be studying in their rooms studying." Well, if the children were not around, he would find them – and her. Franz and Frau Schmidt had been absurdly enigmatic about it.

"Uh, Max, uh, do step out of character for a moment and, uh, try and be charming."

With those parting words, the Captain strode into the house, with the intention of finding his children – and their governess – once and for all.