Author's note:
This last chapter is rather shorter than the others, so I decided to post it together with chapter six. Enjoy!
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"Desdemona, Anne! How good of you to come!" Elizabeth Darcy stood in the receiving line of the last ball Mr Darcy would allow her to throw before the family retired to Derbyshire for the summer.
"Elizabeth!" Anne replied, "Darcy, do not look so cross. And Georgiana!" The women embraced affectionately, while Desdemona stood close to Elizabeth for a moment.
"Your condition suits you Elizabeth. You are positively radiant!"
"We will break the news to the family after the ball." For a moment, the two women exchanged a secret smile, before the widows moved on into the ball room.
They could not advance far before they were beset by acquaintances. Even though Anne made a point of being a happy widow, she liked to tease the many would-be suitors she attracted whenever she appeared at a social event of some magnitude. It was not long before most of her sets were taken. Laughingly, Anne let herself be separated from her friend in order to be conducted to the refreshment table by her cluster of admirers.
With a large smile on her own face, Desdemona turned the other way in order to search for some acquaintance.
"Mrs Evans," she was greeted politely by the Fitzwilliam brothers.
"Viscount. General." Once polite greetings were exchanged they fell into comfortable light conversation.
"Only look at our meek little cousin, Richard," the Viscount remarked at one point. "Who would have thought that Anne would turn out such a tease?"
"I certainly never," was his brother's reply.
"And for all of that," the Viscount said with a mockingly low bow, "we have Mrs Evans to thank."
"Oh no!" Desdemona exclaimed and hit the Viscount on the arm with her fan. "Do not make me responsible for Anne's present behaviour. I merely set her free, the rest is all of her own doing!"
"Nevertheless, you will not deny me the pleasure of this dance? As a token of thanks, so to speak?" The first strains of music could just be heard over the throng, signalling the beginning of the first set.
"For a moment," Desdemona laughed, "I though you wanted to flatter me. You should never tell a lady your reason for dancing with her, lest you fall from her grace."
"I will take your admonishment to heart, milady."
Now they had to hurry to be in time to join the set, the pair arrived just as the Darcys made their first move, thus opening the ball.
"Oh do wipe that scowl from your face, Richard!" Anne had sidled up to her cousin unnoticed.
Impatiently, the General shook his head. "Edward-"
This time it was Fitzwilliam who received a clap with a lady's fan. "Please, Richard, I always thought you fairly intelligent. I know you used to enjoy dancing, now do not shoot so many disapproving stares at your brother for doing what you cannot do."
"Exactly, my brother is out there on the dance floor with the woman I-"
"Hush! We do not want to set any tongues wagging yet. And as far as Edward is concerned, he is actually doing you a favour."
"I do not see how." Despite his cousin's words, the scowl had not dislodged itself from the general's brow.
"He is opening a ball with her. What more could he do to mark her as a dear friend of the family? He is actually paving the way for her acceptance at your side."
They watched the dancing couples in silence for a while.
"Why are you not dancing?" the General asked suddenly.
"I never dance the first set as a rule," Anne replied, nonchalantly. "Ah, there is Mrs Powell. She never fails in her attempts to make me marry her son. Mrs Powell, how good to see you." Anne curtseyed and the General bowed when the matron drew near them.
Mrs Powell, however, had nothing to say that could be of interest to the General, so his attention was again drawn to where the Viscount was dancing with Mrs Evans. Absent mindedly, he took his leave of the ladies and began to circle the room, following the movements of the dancing couple.
This time, his father turned up at his elbow and interrupted his thoughts. "Be careful, son, if you continue stalking her like that, you will turn into Darcy before you know it."
The General immediately located his cousin Darcy who did his best to dance with his wife and keep a watchful eye on his sister at the same time. By the looks of it, Mrs Darcy teased him mercilessly for it.
Conceding the point, the General bowed to his father, just as the set ended and Viscount Tyndale arrived in front of them with Mrs Evans at his arm.
"I am sure you do not mind being deposited in the good care of my father and brother, but I fear I will have to hurry to my fair cousin's rescue." He directed their eyes over to Anne who looked as if she had drawn all possible amusement form Mrs Powell and her antics. Anne looked decidedly in need of rescue, thus the threesome watched as Viscount Tyndale made his way over, conversed with Mrs Powell and his cousin for some time and then led the blushing matron to the dance floor, to the visible consternation of Anne.
"Oh, I never!" exclaimed Lord Matlock, "can that boy never be serious? You will excuse me, Mrs Evans, Richard, I will go calm my nerves in the card room."
"Your brother is incorrigible." Mrs Evans looked up at the General with amusement in his eyes.
"I fear that he is," the General conceded. Before he could say more, however, they were approached by the Bingleys.
"Ah, Bingley!" General Fitzwilliam greeted his cousin's friend, "and Mrs Bingley, as beautiful as ever." He turned to the third member of the group of newcomers. "Miss Bingley."
Bingley, happy man that he was, overlooked the slight to his sister, and after proper bows and curtseys were exchanged, proceeded to lead his lovely wife to the dance floor, thus effectively depositing said sister with Mrs Evans and the General.
"Will you not introduce me to your friend, General? I believe I did not have the pleasure."
"Of course, Mrs Evans, please meet Miss Bingley, Bingley's sister. Miss Bingley, this is Mrs Evans, a good friend of the family."
The ladies curtseyed. And eyed each other up. Thoroughly. Desdemona wondered why she had never heard any body breathe a word of a Miss Bingley, while at the same time Miss Bingley tried to appraise the infamous widow. Her turning up from literally nowhere and instantly becoming intimate with one of the most prestigious families of the ton had set many tongues wagging.
"General Fitzwilliam," Miss Bingley began, finally deciding that the Widow Evans was not worth her interest. After all, there was more at stake; she had not overheard the General's emphasis on the Miss. "How good to see you again! It must be an age since we last met!"
And better that... "Miss Bingley, it is always a pleasure." Inwardly, Desdemona smiled at the General's well hidden insincerity.
This was enough inducement for Miss Bingley to attach herself firmly on the General's arm, effectively placing herself between him and Mrs Evans. She turned a little towards the gentleman, excluding her from their perceived intimacy. Desdemona kept a complacent smile on her face. For nothing in the world would she miss the unfolding drama.
And unfold the drama did. For the next half hour, Miss Bingley monopolized the General's attention with her simpering ways, trying her utmost to ingratiate herself with him. The longer the exchange lasted, the more marked became the heretofore hidden resemblance between the General and his cousin Darcy. The frown on the former's face was certainly a formidable match for that often found on the latter's.
Not a moment too soon the Bingleys appeared again, and Mr Bingley applied for his sister's hand as the next set was to begin. Mrs Bingley was soon whisked away by her sister Mrs Darcy, thus the General and Mrs Evans found themselves alone again. Desdemona was quite sure that the General said something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like "insufferable woman", but did not enquire. Instead she noticed how her companion began to shift uncomfortably.
"General Fitzwilliam," she addressed him, "I find those new slippers to be increasingly uncomfortable while standing still. Will you be so kind as to escort me on a turn around the room?"
For a moment he looked down on her without a word. "Don't," he finally said.
"Pardon me?"
"Pity me." His voice was serious, as was the look on his face. At least the frown was gone.
Desdemona shrugged her shoulders. "I might as well have said that I noticed your discomfort. Instead, I offered you a way out of it without seeming impolite. You might still choose not to accept it." Her eyes locked with his. "You must not think for a moment that I believe you pitiful in any way, General." Her expression had become just as serious as his own.
He continued to look at her silently for a moment, and then released a breath he had not been aware he had been holding in the first place. With a slight bow, he offered her his arm, which was duly accepted. "Please accept my apologies, Mrs Evans," General Fitzwilliam said, after they had advanced some steps in silence. "You meant well to save my vanity, and my reaction was uncalled for. I meant no insult."
Desdemona bestowed a smile on a passing acquaintance before she answered. "None taken, General. Come to think of it, I should have been frank in the first place; you are correct, there is no need to mollycoddle you."
Silently the General thought to himself that he would not be at all adverse to a little mollycoddling from this woman, once he could be sure of her affection. For the moment he had established that she thought that preserving one's dignity was important. Good point.
"You must have had occasion to meet many soldiers with insecurities about how they would be received at home. By their loved ones," he added when she did not immediately reply.
"I always told them if their beloved loved them, missing bits and pieces would not change anything. And if they did, the love had probably not been so very strong in the first place." With all her heart, Desdemona hoped that he would understand.
"Do you really believe that?"
Apparently, he had not understood, yet Desdemona did not want to lie to him. "I would love to. However, I know that life is hardly ever so easy, and if it is, it does not follow that certain truths are less painful."
"Yet I imagine your words set your patients at ease, at least a little," he conceded.
"Which was, I confess, my primary object in speaking thus."
They continued their way largely in silence, only speaking when greeting acquaintances. As there was no conversation to attend to, Desdemona was at leisure to observe the goings on around her. She promptly noticed that they were looked at a great deal, and she could only attribute it to the General's peculiar appearance. How he must resent being stared at! She most certainly would.
For his part, the General was thinking much along the same lines. His cousin's words came to mind, how he bore the stares. The truth was, that the only person who really seemed to take his maimed face in stride was at this very moment walking beside him. Even his family, Darcy included, could sometimes not avert their eyes quickly enough to escape his notice.
Soon enough, their eyes were caught by Caroline Bingley, who had this very moment spied them from across the room. If looks could kill, Desdemona Evans would have been nothing more than a very small heap of ashes on the Darcys' finely polished dance floor.
With a shake of her head and a chuckle, she said, "well, General, you have an ardent admirer in Miss Bingley, I am afraid. She is practically throwing herself at you."
Now it was the General's turn to shake his head. "I do not know what she means by it."
"You do not?" Desdemona exclaimed with astonishment.
"She can hardly be serious, can she now."
"I cannot pretend to know her beyond what I have seen tonight, but Miss Bingley does indeed strike me as very serious in her designs."
General Fitzwilliam contemplated her words in silence, before he spoke again. "Still, I cannot fathom her intention."
"Please forgive me if I speak plainly, but I think we have established that this should be our preferred way of speaking to each other," Desdemona said, and only continued after the General had nodded his agreement. "Before tonight, I have never heard Miss Bingley mentioned, even though her brother is an intimate friend to the Darcy household, Mrs Darcy is even sister to Mrs Bingley! That leads me to the assumption that she is not suffered by all in society, for reasons I know nothing about. Add to it the fact that she is still Miss Bingley even though she must be nearing thirty, she is facing spinsterhood already. The Bingleys are new money, so she could hardly aspire to the son of an Earl, even if he be a second son, but you on the other hand, might be in a position where you would marry beneath yourself for the sake of being married and procuring an independent fortune. From her point of view, it would be a perfect match."
Fitzwilliam was still not convinced, but began to see the merit in her words. Yet, he had one last argument against them. "I can see clearly how she is repulsed by what is before her eyes."
"Oh General, do not be so obtuse. I was not suggesting a love match. There are many society marriages which are conveniently arranged in a way that would allow husband and wife as little interaction as is strictly necessary."
"Which must be the case for the Collinses," the General said without thinking.
"I believe I have not met them, so I could not tell," Desdemona commented.
"Oh, please excuse me, I did not intend to speak aloud. Mr Collins was Lady Catherine's parson, he held the living at Hunsford. I still do not understand what induced the very sensible Mrs Collins to become his wife in the first place. She was a good friend of Mrs Darcy, perhaps they still correspond."
They had completed their circle around the room by now, and the General turned to his companion with his brow lined in worry. "I am sorry, Mrs Evans, this is a ball after all, and I must be keeping you from dancing."
Desdemona laughed at his comment. "Oh no, General, there is no need to worry. Obscure widows are not en vogue tonight, I am afraid." With her fan, she pointed across the room where Anne was surrounded by her flock of admirers. "Whereas rich widows of known pedigree are very much an object of attention, I believe."
"There are those who believe my cousin would be a good match for me," General Fitzwilliam commented calmly.
"Are you one of them?"
"Seen in a prudential light, the idea has its merits. However, though I love my cousin dearly, I would prefer another." This was as explicit as he would allow himself to be, in the current setting.
Mrs Evans kept quiet for so long, that he finally had to turn to her. The intense expression of his eyes could leave no room for doubt, he hoped. Slowly, a slight smile appeared on her face.
"May I call on you tomorrow, Mrs Evans?" the General asked, suddenly very formal.
"It would be my pleasure."
–
"Oh my, wasn't that a fine ball yesterday?" Anne asked while she plopped herself down on the sofa in Desdemona's parlour.
"Anne!"
"I think it was a great success. I mean, you spent so much time with Richard-"
"Anne, is there nothing else you have to do?"
Finally, her friend's tone of voice registered on Mrs Pratt. "No, actually there is not," she owed with some confusion.
"Go visit your Darcy cousins, then," Desdemona suggested, none too friendly.
"Desdemona, one might almost think that you want to get rid of me. Whatever is the matter?"
"General Fitzwilliam asked to call on me."
"But Desdemona, this is wonderful news, I do not understand why-"
"This morning."
"Oh!" Anne jumped back to her feet. "In this case, I think I remember an appointment with my dressmaker..."
"The Honorary General Fitzwilliam," Desdemona's housekeeper announced that very moment. Desdemona briefly closed her eyes, taking a few deep breaths before she felt herself up to the task of not strangling her friend on the spot.
"General, please, do come in and take a seat," she greeted him, when she was sure she could trust her tongue not to leash out an Anne.
"I must apologise," General Fitzwilliam said. "I did not mean to intrude upon you ladies."
"You would never intrude, General," Desdemona said with a sideways glance at Anne. "I was just calling for tea, will you keep us company?"
Thus, the three of them sat down to tea, each of them wishing Anne were some place else, including Anne. After the polite half hour had passed in this fashion, Anne announced her intention to leave, and her cousin felt compelled to offer his company.
Once Desdemona could be sure their guests had left the house, she took the tea pot and forcefully smashed it on her perfectly polished floor. To see how the china scattered into tiny little pieces helped to alleviate at least some of her bad mood.
–
"I was never one to entertain violent thoughts against women," the General exclaimed, agitatedly pacing Darcy's library later the same day, "but upon my word, I could have strangled Anne!" For emphasis, he pounded his cane on the floor. He did not derive much satisfaction from it, however, as Darcy's lush carpet swallowed the sound almost completely. Highly frustrated, he turned to his cousin and brother, who had taken seats in front of the fireplace. Both gentlemen, however, did not seem to show the proper amount of indignation at all, as in fact, they were both trying to hide grins in Darcy's large tumblers. Trying, and failing. Miserably.
"You are no help at all!" The General cried, and continued to wear a path into the offending carpet.
"Come on, brother!" Viscount Tyndale finally addressed his agitated sibling, "you will simply call on her tomorrow and settle the matter. You have waited for so long, what does one more day signify? Why, nothing!"
General Fitzwilliam honoured his brother's speech with a derisive snort.
"Tyndale is right," Darcy spoke up in his usual, quiet way. "Tomorrow is another day."
"Oh goodness! Do you not understand? I asked to call on her specifically today, tomorrow she might just be off to the group home or some such place before the proper visiting hour even begins!"
While Darcy was just able to conceal his mirth, Tyndale laughed outright. "Richard! Knowing the Widow Evans I bet she instructed her housekeeper that she is not at home to any body who does not answer to the name of Richard Fitzwilliam for the next week!" He shook his head, an amused smile still gracing his features. "It would be a shame to force her to stay indoors for so long."
With a pensive look on his face, General Fitzwilliam tilted his head to one side, and took a long, calculating look at his brother. "What is it, little brother?" Tyndale asked, "have I made you see reason or why are you looking at me so strangely?"
"Oh," Fitzwilliam said conversationally, "I am just calculating the greater range my cane will allow against you being quicker than I am."
Now it was Darcy's time to laugh, while the Viscount knocked back the contents of his glass with a grunt.
"Anne apologised over and over again, once we had made it into the carriage," the General continued his tale, much calmer now.
"See? Anne will not dare show her face any place near Mrs Evans until your engagement is announced," Darcy commented, while refilling his other cousin's glass.
"Still, I wonder..." General Fitzwilliam hesitated.
"Wonder about what?" his brother demanded to know, when he would not continue.
"I wonder if it was a sign, somehow, not to make my move just now." He shrugged. "After all, I will bring her to Glassmere one day, and I have yet to see the place myself. Perhaps I should go there first and-"
"Richard!" The Viscount practically jumped out of his chair. "Richard Emerson Fitzwilliam, if you do that I will never speak to you again! Are you out of your mind?"
"Be careful, Edward-"
"No, you be careful! If you continue to spout such nonsense I will have you committed to Bedlam this very evening!"
"Richard," Darcy interrupted, before the argument between the two brothers could get any more heated, "go visit her tomorrow."
–
Needless to say, General Fitzwilliam heeded his cousin's advice. The very next day, at a hardly proper hour, he made his way up the stairs to Mrs Evans's home. The part of him which was still capable of logical thought reasoned that his early appearance at her doorstep was calculated as being long before any time his cousin Anne would be up and about, thus minimising the chances of meeting her again. The other part of him quietly wondered whom exactly he wanted to convince with such reasoning.
The General paused on the top of the steps, his hand suspended in mid air. Wryly, he tried to remember when he had last been so full of apprehension, as not even the battles on the continent were able to raise such a violent turning of his stomach. Resigned to his fate, and aware that he could not very well spend the rest of the day staring at the door, Fitzwilliam worked the knocker. The thought that Nurse Evans would consider it a good thing that his present emotions could overshadow his past ones made him smile, just as the housekeeper answered his knock.
In no time, General Fitzwilliam was issued into the parlour, where he met the object of his desire, quite alone for a change. Pleasant, if halted greetings were exchanged, and silence dominated the room until tea had been brought and the servants had withdrawn.
"Will you not sit?" Desdemona asked, forcing herself down on the settee she had vacated upon the General's entrance. Dutifully, her visitor lowered himself into a chair opposite to hers, but practically jumped out of it before he could have properly sat, and went to look out of the window.
Trying to hide her own agitated feelings, Mrs Evans quietly prepared a cup of tea for her visitor, and another for herself. When he gave no signs of returning from his vantage point she carried the two cups over. General Fitzwilliam turned slightly, and smiled down at her as he accepted his cup.
"Mrs Evans," he began after several minutes which they passed in companionable observance of the traffic out in the street, "you can be at no loss to know why I am here." Now fully turning to her, the General discarded his cup on the window sill. "Please," he said, taking her free hand, "if I felt less, I could perhaps speak more eloquently, but as it is... You once told me that you would consider a second marriage only for love, and fully aware of this wish, I ask you-" there he faltered a little, "I ask you, will you do me the honour of accepting my hand in marriage?"
Tears welled up in Desdemona's eyes, not so much at what General Fitzwilliam had said, but at what he had not said. She took a deep breath to calm herself, but could not yet trust her voice.
"I am sorry," he said when no answer was forthcoming, "if I caused you pain." Slowly, he let go of her hand and turned away from her.
"Wait!" Desdemona suddenly exclaimed, putting her teacup next to his with hardly restrained impatience for the necessity. Finally free from the offending artefact, she stepped around him, so that they would face each other again. He had such a look of vulnerability on his face as made her heart constrict. She took his hand, moved very close to him and tenderly placed her free hand on his left cheek, feeling his scarred skin twitch under her palm as various emotions played out on his face. Their eyes locked, and for a moment, nothing around them existed, as they were fully consumed by the closeness of the other. Slowly, the General bent down and brought his forehead to rest against hers.
"I love you," he whispered.
"I know," she whispered back. "I trust you. And I love you, too."
Relief of the acutest kind made him close his eyes, and with a deep breath he released all the pent up tension of the last months. "I only wish I could make you a proper offer, down on my knees before you."
Desdemona's mouth widened into a loving smile. "Your offer is all that is proper."
"Will you accept it, then?" Their position had not changed.
"Of course I accept it."
No longer able to hold the flood of emotions their encounter had caused in him at bay, the General straightened to his full height and pulled her close to his chest. Desdemona willingly stepped into his embrace, and rested her cheek at the lapels of his uniform. Very gently, he placed a kiss on top of her head.
"I thought you might refuse me because of my abominable behaviour when we were last at Pemberley. I loved you, even then, I should at least have made you an offer directly."
"I would not have believed you, had you spoken of love to me then," Desdemona said, quietly. "I was too much caught up in my own feelings to determine what yours might have been, and I think I can safely say that our feelings were very much the same, in hindsight."
"They probably were."
Many more minutes passed thus in quiet talk. With their new found understanding they could now freely express what had been left unsaid by necessity. When the General began to shift uneasily at length, they relocated to the settee Desdemona had occupied earlier, in order to talk about more practical things.
"Have you thought about where we should live?" she asked, momentarily returning to the windowsill to withdraw their abandoned teacups.
"This decision requires some serious thought. Perhaps you can understand that I would not like to live under your late husband's roof. Neither," he continued, "would I like to be a permanent visitor to my parents any more."
"The house is mine," Desdemona answered, taking a sip of her tea. With a disgusted curl of her lip, she put the cold liquid away. "It is part of the settlement Henry bestowed upon me. He knew me well, and calculated everything as to make me eligible enough should I wish to re-marry, and independent enough should I wish not to."
"I was of the opinion that the house would go to Alexander, with the rest of his father's inheritance."
"Henry had high hopes for his son, and determined that Alexander might as well buy a house in a more fashionable area of Town. Will you want to live with me here, in the house that is part of my dowry?" Somehow, this seemed to be important for Desdemona.
The General nodded thoughtfully. "There is another possibility." And then he told her of Glassmere, and how it would be his wedding present from his parents.
"You will be a landed Gentleman!" Desdemona exclaimed. "Such grandness! Just imagine, we can spend the winters in Town, here in our house, and the summers on our estate. We will be quite the fashionable couple, do you not think?" She laughed mirthfully.
The General, as of yet unable to share her good humour, asked earnestly, "so you will come to Glassmere with me, even though it appears to be in a sorry state?"
Sensing his insecurity, Desdemona placed a hand on his arm. "Richard, I will go with you wherever you want me to go. Do not doubt this, ever. I would very much like to convert Glassmere as well as this house into a home for both of us, and for the children. For I could never give up my children!" A sudden fear had crept into her voice, and it was the General's turn to ease her mind.
"I could never ask you such a thing, Desdemona. Alexander and Sarah will have a home with us as long as they want it. You are not," he swallowed, "adverse to having more children?"
Smiling, Desdemona shook her head. "Not at all."
"Well then, shall we go and inform the little rascals of their good fortune?"
–
General Fitzwilliam and his bride were married quietly in London, in the parish the new Mrs Fitzwilliam had lived in since her return from the continent. It was a rather colourful group which met in their town house afterwards, in order to enjoy the wedding breakfast together. Mr Brown was there with his sisters, as well as the General's family, and the Baker children were almost awed into silence by the presence of the Earl.
No major catastrophes occurred, however, and the Fitzwilliams were left alone eventually, as Anne had offered to take Alexander and Sarah with her for a few days, in order to give the newly weds some privacy. The offer was much appreciated and accepted with alacrity.
In the summer of the same year, they made their first journey to Glassmere together, taking the children along. It was obvious at first sight that the estate would require a tremendous amount of diligent work to be made profitable as well as presentable, but neither of them shied the challenge.
The children were ecstatic as they ran through the house, and were set upon discovering all the secrets that must surely be hidden there within the first week. In fact, it took their parents much longer to unearth all the little bits and pieces which were in disorder about the estate as a whole, but when their first child was born not quite two years into their marriage, they were able to receive the Darcys and Anne in tolerable style.
Many years later, a grey-haired General Fitzwilliam sat on a garden bench, waiting for his wife so that they could enjoy the beautiful summer sunset together. Their youngest had just gotten married the week before, and the house, though not overly big, seemed eerily quiet.
He turned as he heard the faint rustling of the grass which signalled his wife's arrival. She walked up to him with the low sun in her back, thus making only her silhouette discernible.
Slowly, Desdemona Fitzwilliam walked towards her husband, drinking in the scene and committing it to memory. The years had not left him untouched, the many joys and sorrows of parenthood as well as the traces of other hardships they had endured were etched firmly into the lines around his eyes. However, despite the trouble his age old injuries and their consequences gave him, he still stood tall. He had presented a very handsome and dashing picture as he led their daughter to the altar a few days ago.
When his wife was close enough, Richard extended a hand, and pulled her down next to him on the bench. For a moment, he looked at her rather than at the setting sun, and wondered about his good fortune of having married such a wonderful woman, who even after decades of marriage still fascinated him as she had the very first time he had set eyes on her, on that fateful day in his cousin Anne's parlour.
Smiling, Desdemona turned her head and kissed his left cheek, as she had done countless times over the years. He smiled about her way of bringing him to focus, and turned to view the sun set behind the hills of Derbyshire, just as she did the same. He never let go of her hand.
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Author's note: Thank you all very much for reading, and for your kind comments! You did a lot to help this first time poster through her stage fright, so to speak. I hope to read you all soon!