We Seven

A Narnia & Mirror, Mirror Fanfiction

Part 11

No one was speaking at breakfast.

Mr. Pevensie had already gone, while Helen was popping in at the next-door neighbour's, loaning them a cup of flour – or was it two eggs? Susan hadn't been paying attention when she'd said. She couldn't bear to look at their mother just now – both because she was sore over being scolded, and because she felt guilty keeping what she'd witnessed between Nicholas and Jo from her.

Jo – for her part – would neither speak to nor sit near Susan.

Edmund and Royce were still giving one another the silent treatment over their chess argument last night.

Peter wisely avoided eye contact with the lot of them – thinking he was liable to get his eyes scratched out when everyone was in such a snit – and kept his nose in his book; he was becoming very good at that.

Lucy was in fact her cheerful self, but she found the silence at the table far too thick to penetrate and did not attempt it. Like Peter, she knew it was better to let things steam over and hopefully fizz out on their own rather than stick one's hand into the boiling pot and get scalded for your pains.

It felt unnatural, everyone was so frightfully on edge...

And who should come waltzing straight into the silent wasps' nest as if it were nothing, as if he were an untouchable sunbeam shining through their gloom, than Nicholas, still in Mr. Pevensie's slippers!

Jo was relieved to see him. He'd been gone all night and she'd been worried something might have happened to him. "Where were you?"

He was all innocent bulging-wide blue eyes. "Susan said I must find a job."

Susan. Of course. Of bloody course it would be something Susan said. "I can't believe you'd even listen to her!"

Now Susan was nettled into looking up. "Nicholas. Really! That wasn't exactly what I meant." She had been telling him to stay away from her sister – he wasn't meant to actually go out and find employment!

And, if his bright cheeks and happy demeanour were any indication, he had.

Jo picked up on this, too. "Hang on – don't tell me... Someone hired you? In the middle of the night?"

All of them stared in curiosity as he nodded. "I am to be a clerk in a shop." It was good, honest work, and he seemed very pleased with himself to have gotten it.

Jo was hesitant to share his joy completely, a little anxious he might be – under it all – sorry to leave off further schooling, perhaps even the chance – he was bright and excellent with languages – to attend university as Peter would. Still, his obvious pleasure was infectious – she was half smiling in spite of her reservations already. He seemed so glad. She wanted to be glad with and for him. It just struck her as rather cruel he should give up his studies because Susan yammered some nonsense at him out of spite.

Royce asked, mouth full of toast crumbs, "Whaddya gonna sell?"

Without the slightest sign of embarrassment, Nicholas said, "Underthings."

Jo blinked rapidly. He was going to give up his future – perhaps a full career as a linguistics professor, for all they knew – to sell underwear? Oh, if it took a hundred years, if it took her whole life, she was going to pay Susan back for this!

Edmund said he needed some new underwear, perhaps he'd stop in at the shop, be Nicholas's first sale.

At this, Nicholas finally looked discomfited, dimmed slightly, and, clearing his throat, said the manner of underthings at his new place of employment wouldn't 'do for' Edmund.

Lucy got the hint, colouring and struggling against a fit of giggles that left her nearly quaking in her seat, and – hastily – elbowed her brother, but Edmund was oblivious and only shot her a look as if to ask what she thought she was doing. "Why not?"

"They are intended for women – er, ladies."

Peter dropped a pencil so he could laugh under the table.

"Nicholas Kirke," said Susan, surprised she had any voice left to speak with; "only you could leave in house slippers and come back a lingerie salesman!"

"I do not understand why you seem perturbed," he said, a furrow beginning to crease his brow. "You instructed me to do this very thing."

"I did not!" cried Susan.

"Nick, are you sure about this?" asked Jo. "You don't have to sell underwear if you don't want to." You can go back to school or do anything else you like. "I don't know what she" – here she gave her sister a sidelong look of pure venom – "said to make you think you did, but you don't!"

"I didn't tell him to!" Susan could have strangled them both right then. "Really, Jo," she implored, "why would I tell him to become a lingerie salesman?"

"I dunno, Su," Royce chuckled; "for a family discount?"

"Shut up, Royce!" – this was from Jo, Susan, and Peter (who'd recovered himself somewhat) together.

Edmund poured himself a tall, full glass of orange juice and forced himself to sip it slowly to hide his laughter.

Nicholas explained he would be putting aside all the money he made to buy a shop of his own, with which he would have no difficulty supporting Jo as his wife.

"Now you want your own lingerie shop?" Royce asked, unhindered by being told to shut up and wondering exactly when his brother-in-law had become so obsessed with underwear. "It's weird, but if it's what you want, if undergarments are your dream, I say go for it, man. Who cares what anyone thinks."

Nicholas smiled. "No, Royce – I would only be selling undergarments as long as I work for my current employer. My shop will sell antiques. I mean to become an antique dealer."

Jo's mouth formed an O. Now she was following his line of thinking more clearly. This was a little different. "Nick. You're brilliant." She could see selling antiques as both a way of passing the time and something Nicholas would genuinely find fulfilling. He loved old clocks and watches. He was always carrying funny baubles and bric-a-brac into the house – sometimes much to her parents' dismay – and it wouldn't hurt him to have a place to organise and keep them all, as well as to sell those he wished to and make a living. He wouldn't need to go to university necessarily to achieve this goal, either.

"You came up with this whole scheme in one night?" Susan sounded peeved.

"Yes," said Nicholas. "I have thought of everything. You see, I shall have employment and money. When Jo is twenty-one, we will marry, and she will come to live with me in my shop. There's a flat above the place I am hoping to afford in a few years. It will be enough for us."

Jo's face became stony again. "No."

Nicholas, Peter, and Susan turned their heads in her direction, all their eyes wide with surprise.

"I said no, that's not what I want."

Wounded, "You don't want to live with me?"

Jo shook her head. "It's not that. It's that other thing you said."

He stared at her uncomprehending.

"About marrying me when I'm twenty-one." She drew in a long, sharp breath. "We're already married." She wouldn't invalidate the years of marriage they'd already had, as if their previous vows weren't real, by allowing the need for fresh ones. And Nicholas's legal name now was Nicholas Kirke. She'd be Mrs. Kirke – it would be strange, uncomfortable; she'd feel more as if she were married to the old professor than Alexis if people started calling her that. It was one thing to call Alexis Nicholas – she was used to it. To call herself Mrs. Kirke... To go to the butcher's for a slab of meat and have the man at the counter hand her a wrapped cut of beef and say, "Here you are, Mrs. Kirke," and "Have a good day, Mrs. Kirke," and "My best to Mr. Kirke," would be intolerable.

Relief flashed in Nicholas's eyes. Her objection was not to him. All was still right with the world – with every world. Nothing could be wrong anywhere if his wife was still his.

Susan, however, was indignant. "Jo, how can you? He's offering to do right by you – to marry you honestly!"

"What, as opposed to dishonestly?" Jo sneered.

"Su–" Peter tried.

She didn't heed him. "No, as opposed to some overindulged delusion you married him in another world! Even if such a place did exist, you must grow up and accept you don't live there – you live here! People see you here! People will talk here! You'll make a dreadful scandal here! You're so selfish, Jo!"

The twins and Edmund were gawping at her in goggle-eyed horror. They might have had their suspicions about Susan, about how she viewed Narnia now she was growing up in their own world – they weren't stupid – but it was still an ugly shock for them.

Peter just looked very grave.

Jo turned and left the kitchen, Nicholas following.

Royce recovered his voice first and said Susan was being rather harsh on them. They were a nice couple after all and, to pacify her scruples as sister-in-law, Nicholas had done everything she told him to, even going out and becoming an underwear salesclerk, which – when you thought about it – was rather an odd thing to demand of anyone.

In Lucy's room, Jo flopped angrily onto her bed and retrieved a handful of darts from under her pillow. She started flinging them at a board on the opposite wall.

"I did not intend to cause further trouble between you," Nicholas said.

"It's not you, Nick, it's her," she assured him as one dart bounced wide. "Damn. Missed."

"As I said last night, I think she is confused."

"She's not confused." Wap. This dart struck. "She's jealous."

"But why would she be–"

"It's obvious. She loves you herself."

"No," he said with gracious modesty.

"You really haven't worked it out yet, have you?" Jo lowered her hand – she'd been about to throw another dart. "You never guessed?"

"It must be something else. I understand if she is lonely, if she misses Caspian and regrets Rabadash, but if she has taken a fancy to me now, she would have had one – more likely than not – in Narnia, when we grew up there, as well."

Jo lifted her eyebrows.

"Well, she never said..." He stopped. Then sank onto the bed. "That day by the hyacinths!"

"Uh-huh. Finally. There you go."

"I thought she..." He paled. "I thought she was giving me her blessing to court you! Because, before she made her grand speech at me, we were talking about how you'd nearly drowned. She said I was kind to stay with you while you recovered. She said a great many strange things that day, but I thought it over afterwards and it seemed the only possible–"

"Nick, she didn't even know you had feelings for me – she didn't find out until after King Lune's visit."

"But that is impossible – I danced with you twice at her coronation ball!"

"You taught me how to dance," Jo remembered wistfully. Then, "She didn't get it, though. She thought you loved her."

Groaning, he put his head in his hands.

"She thought it again after you took her to all those parties here – I know she did."

Lowering his hands and craning his neck to look at his wife in dismay, "Why didn't you tell me?"

Jo sighed. "I was going to, but I promised her I wouldn't."

Only to break her word now? "Jo, I never... It was always you. From the first day, when you came out of the tent and Aslan introduced us properly. I couldn't stop looking at you."

"Yeah, I remember that."

"Then" – one corner of his mouth quirked upwards – "the more I came to know about you, the more I liked you. I imagined Susan knew I was falling in love and was pushing us together." He saw now how foolish the assumption had really been. "When she rescued you from drowning, I felt indebted to her – it was as if she saved you for me. She rescued our future together when she pulled you back to shore." Jo shut her eyes, pained. "She cannot really be in love with me."

"She isn't." She reopened her eyes. "But she thinks she is" – certainly Susan liked Nicholas, and Jo couldn't fault her for that – "and that's enough. She goes around accusing me of pretending, when she's the expert."

"What I cannot understand is I'm not a bit like the men she–"

"She doesn't see you," Jo explained, a trifle bitterly. "At least, not completely, you know. She sees someone she's made up in her own mind and given your face. It's like I told you; when it's time for pretend games, Su's the expert."

He inched closer, took her hand, and laced his long fingers through hers. "You see me, don't you?"

"Yes," she said tenderly, gazing into his eyes. "From that first day. It was like that for me, too. I couldn't stop looking at you, either."

"Lucy, my love, put the leftover cake in the tin, would you?" Helen asked as she went round the table piling up crumb-speckled, buttercream-smeared plates. "I'll see to the dishes, and then I think I'll turn in for the night."

Obediently, Lucy began scooping uneven portions of cake into a circular green tin. "Jo's had such a nice birthday," she declared with wistful dreaminess. "Can we have Victoria sponge cake on my eighteenth birthday, too?"

"Of course we can." Helen bent to kiss her daughter's golden head as she passed her on her way to the sink. "Anything you like. But you don't have to wait until you're eighteen, sweet. I'll make you one for your next birthday if you liked it that much – it's coming up soon."

"I should think we've plenty leftover now." Edmund was leaning against the window, looking out. "It's a bit early to be worrying about the next time Mum'll make one."

Victoria Sponge – one of Jo and Lucy's favourites – had rather too much jam and starch, and after a couple slices gobbled down quickly without thinking it through, it was sweet enough, with its powdered sugar on the top, to bring back the traces of his worst memories of Turkish Delight.

He was, therefore, feeling a little sick. The buttercream alone was giving him a gut-ache and regret.

Lucy was right, though – Jo's birthday had been nice. Even with the too-sweet cake. They'd all enjoyed themselves immensely. Peter went into the drawing room and moved all the chairs and the sofa, crowding them in the centre, so they could build a fort, just like when they were younger. Royce had made a toast which ended in Jo throwing a strawberry plucked off the top of the cake at his head (he'd also cracked a piece of their mum's glassware by banging on it with a spoon to get everyone's attention first). Nicholas surprised them all with strawberry ice cream. Ice cream was a rare treat, since it had been so scarce during the war, and although this ice cream was nearly soup by the time Nicholas got it to the house (Lucy and Peter just poured it over their slices of cake rather than bother to try to eat it with an actual spoon like the rest of them) all of the Pevensies were delighted with it.

The ice cream was – apparently – not Nicholas's only birthday gift for Jo. He'd had a brown-paper parcel under his arm, too, when he came in; but as he neglected to give it to her in front of the others, and considering where he worked, it was thought best if nobody asked too many questions regarding the contents or tried to lift the paper to peek inside.

"I wish Susan could have been here, too." Lucy was licking a stray glob of buttercream off her thumb before rising on tiptoe to set the tin on an upper shelf next to the honey pot and treacle jar; it was a tricky business, doing this without knocking anything over and making a mess.

Jo walked in and tossed a dishtowel at Edmund, who started and – wadding it – threw it into the laundry pile a few feet away. "She wanted to be with her real friends. Anne Featherstone's hosting some stupid party."

"We had a party here," said Lucy innocently.

"Not her sort. She thinks we're like babies," Edmund added. "She's so grown up now we don't matter as much to her as we used to."

The plates clattered as Helen set them in the sink. "Edmund, you know that isn't true."

"Yeah, don't be stupid" – Royce appeared with a paper hat on his head and a glass of blackcurrant cordial in one hand – "everybody knows she wanted out tonight because she hates Jo."

"Royce!" Helen was appalled. "That is definitely not true."

"She's always fighting with her."

"Sisters fight, Royce."

Royce shrugged. "Lucy and Jo don't."

"Royce" – this was Peter, noticing their mum's face was twisting like she about to cry – "that's enough."

Turning her back to them, Helen turned the water on and began scrubbing the plates with too much vigour. She hoped they couldn't hear the one sniffle she failed to suck back in time. She'd asked Susan if she wouldn't mind not going out tonight – in her exasperation, she'd nearly threatened to make her stay, to withdraw her permission for her to go to Anne Featherstone's altogether – but Susan said she was sure Jo would have a much nicer time without her.

Her older girls were each convinced the other hated them, and it was breaking Helen's heart.

They could – usually – be civil, but there was a coldness, a stiff formality – almost like they were bad actors in a play – that hadn't been there between them before the trip to America, which she was beginning to think might have been a huge mistake.

Neither would tell her what happened, why they were so mad at each other.

She'd noticed Susan was less friendly to Nicholas as well – certainly she didn't ask him to take her out anymore, even when Helen protested her going alone – and whenever she saw him and Jo whispering privately or sitting close, or simply with their heads bent together over some project or game, she got a sour expression on her face like she'd sucked a lemon or smelled something bad.

The Pevensies' sole telephone – the one in Mr. Pevensie's closet-sized office behind the drawing room, where their father also kept his lecture papers, essay sheets, and much-cherished typewriter – rang suddenly, the noise making the walls buzz with its metallic vibration.

"Who would ring at this hour?" Helen wondered aloud. The lump in her throat was softened slightly by piqued curiosity. "Peter, get that, would you?"

"Yes, Mum."

Lucy followed him, curious herself. Mr. Pevensie's office was really only big enough for one person, but she waited under the uneven door-frame with her head inclined.

"Eustace?" Peter sounded surprised. "Is everything all right?" He stopped, put a hand to his mouth then slid it down, letting it drop to the little desk with a loose-fingered thud. "Oh. Thank you for telling us. That's... Yes, it is rather a shock. You'll have to forgive me. It feels like yesterday we saw him crowned. No, no, I'm glad you called to let us know. I do realise it can't have been easy for you, either. Yes, thank you again – goodnight, Eustace." He set the phone down and sniffed.

"Peter?" Lucy asked.

His eyes were rimmed with red when he turned to her. "That was Eustace."

"Is he all right?"

"Oh, he's fine." Peter felt shaky. "Let me out of this room first, will you? I think I need moving air. The dust, you know."

"What's happened?" Lucy squinted into his taut, ashen face. "You're afraid of telling me – don't be."

"He's been back to Narnia, Lu – with a school-friend of his."

"But that's good, isn't it? Aslan said he might. At least, he didn't say he wouldn't." The last time – with Caspian on the Dawn Treader – had been the last time for herself and Edmund, but Eustace had only gone the once before, so she supposed he might still be having his turn. "He only said I didn't need to know."

"Lucy..." Peter swallowed hard. "Do you recall how it was our second time? How sorry we were not to meet the beavers or Lune or Tumnus?"

She nodded gravely, expecting bad news indeed.

"It was Eustace's turn for that, but it hadn't been quite so long for him – only, the thing is, bother! There's no easy way to– Well! I might as well come out and say it, though it's difficult to bring myself to." He drew in a sharp breath. "Caspian's gone. Died of old age."

"We must tell her, Jo." Nicholas was adamant. "Think how you would feel if it were me."

"I'm not sure Susan even remembers him – not now," Jo said miserably, trying to talk around her toothbrush. She was bent over the bathroom sink brushing her teeth. She spat twice then cupped her hand under the cold faucet to rinse out her mouth. "She acts like he was someone we made up in a game. Unless she's even better at pretending than I thought, she's mostly mixed up her memories of him with you." Likely, if Jo's guess was correct, that was another reason Susan was extra bitter towards her these days. "She's not gonna thank us. If anything she'll just be nastier."

"She has been very difficult to you, Jo, I know, but that doesn't–"

"We've been very difficult to each other," Jo cut him off. "I haven't exactly been trying to be her best friend this last year or so."

"Then, it's simple! Be her friend now – tell her what has happened." He saw Jo's bottom lip quiver. "Well, perhaps I'm being unjust. I ought to volunteer to tell her about Caspian myself."

"How d'you figure that?"

"It's my fault she's angry with you."

"No, Nick, it isn't."

"I never noticed she had feelings for me, and I was kissing you on the bed when she came in... I think my ignorance may have... What's that phrase your brother uses sometimes... Helped her to go wrong?"

"Not-uh." Jo turned off the cold faucet with a squeak and – coming over to him – grasped his arms. "Listen to me. You're not to blame. None of this is your fault. Don't you ever say it is again. And I don't think you should tell her."

"Why not?"

"We're sisters – like Mum says." She grimaced. "It's my job. I'm the one who let things go bad between us. I caused it" – she released his arms, her own shoulders slumping – "so I have to fix it." In a more timid voice, "I just don't know if I can make myself do it."

Bending forward, he kissed her cheek. "Courage, Jo – courage."

Jo told her. She waited up, after everybody else had already gone to bed, including their parents, in order to tell her. She sat in the drawing room pretending to read a magazine. Although she stared at the cover for an hour, Jo couldn't have – if asked – told anyone what was on it.

Susan had come in gaily enough, though her smile dimmed when she saw it was Jo waiting up. "I thought you were Mum for a minute." Funny, that. Jo didn't look anything like their mother, not being related to them, but Susan – from the corner of her eye – had really mistaken her.

"Su, I know it's... We've... But I've got to tell you something."

When she told her, Susan didn't act like she'd even heard.

"Susan?"

"Hmm?"

"Did you hear what I just said?"

"Of course," she said airily. "So, did you wish for anything tonight?"

"What?" Jo blinked as if a fly had flown into her face.

"When you blew out your candles."

"Candles?" she repeated dumbly.

"You didn't have candles on Mum's sponge cake tonight?" Susan smiled teasingly. "And here I thought I'd missed a birthday party."

"I–" She shook her head. "No, I didn't wish for anything."

"Why not?"

Jo thought later she should have lied; she should have made up a reason, or else forced the topic back then. Instead, she blurted the truth. "I already have everything I want."

Susan pulled a pin from her hair, releasing a tumble of thick black curls down to her shoulder. "How nice for you."

"Yeah... Uh, you heard me, though, right?" Jo tried one last time. "About Caspian?"

"I don't have time for these games of yours. I'm exhausted, Jo." She stretched her arms over her head and yawned. "Those of us who weren't wanted here actually ventured out into the world tonight."

And – watching Susan take off her heels and carry them in the crook of her arm, almost the way one might carry a child, as she staggered off to her lonely bedroom – Jo felt a sinking horror her sister might not be entirely wrong.

She tried very hard to remember whether, rather than assume she knew she was because it was at the house, she'd even invited her sister to her birthday party, much less told her she wanted her there.

Jo guessed she didn't have everything she wanted after all.