TF4
Many thanks to houses7177 and empressvesica for their excellent betaing suggestions. Hope youall like it, please let me know what you think.
Tempus Fidgets, chapter 4
Mrs. Turner came by herself to get Dawn the next morning. The very sight of her confirmed that there was, indeed, at least one other tall and flat-chested woman in town besides Dawn-or at least, there would have been, had Mrs. Turner not been quite excessively pregnant.
“Oh, so you were the reason they asked me for a dress,” Mrs. Turner said upon meeting Dawn. “Well, it’s nice to see someone getting some use out of it.” She sighed dramatically, turning laughing eyes to James. “Heaven knows I shan’t be even contemplating wearing one that small for almost another year.”
He watched them with patient forbearance, hands clasped behind his back. “If I might have a word, Mrs. Turner?” He gestured toward his office with one hand, face stoic and unmoved as the smile fell from her face.
James ushered Mrs. Turner into the office and said to Dawn, “Do find someone to harass, Miss Summers. We shall be finished soon.”
She nodded and walked toward her quarters, knowing he was watching, but as soon as she heard the faint click of his door closing, doubled back on tip-toe. Something was afoot, and she had every intention of learning what it was. Crouching down, Dawn placed her ear to the keyhole and focused.
“I thank you for meeting with me, Mrs. Turner-“ James began, but she interrupted him with a charming laugh.
“James, surely you can call me Elizabeth, after all we’ve been through? At least here, alone?”
There was a long pause, and then he slowly replied, “Of course. Elizabeth.” He cleared his throat. “What did you think of Miss Summers?”
A shorter pause. “She appears pleasant… James, what’s this all about? You do not look your best.” There was a thread of concern in her voice, and Dawn knew then that Elizabeth was completely unaware of James’ plans. She frowned; last night, he had purposefully given the impression that it was all settled and official.
“I have had some bad news recently, of a personal nature,” James told her haltingly. “But that is irrelevant to the matter at hand. Miss Summers has suffered a reversal of fortune, and has no home here or abroad. She cannot, of course, continue to live at this facility, but has no money and, I fear, her job skills would not suffice for most employers.”
Hey, Dawn though grouchily.
“You are not far removed in age, and I know you have been lonely since your marriage to Mr. Turner.”
Elizabeth was silent a long time before answering. “Yes,” she said at last, softly. “I have been.”
“Miss Summers is not a person to make distinction of birth or class, Elizabeth. She will treat both you and Mr. Turner with respect and friendship.”
“I would like that,” Elizabeth replied quietly. “What is it you propose?”
“That Miss Summers come to live with you, assist you with your ever-growing brood and generally be a live-in companion. Though somewhat ignorant of our ways (Hey! thought Dawn again, indignant) she is bright and I have no doubt she will swiftly learn how to conduct herself here.”
Elizabeth was silent a moment, considering. Then, “Would people not talk, two young women with Will in the house? Everyone knows we still can’t afford to pay for a girl to help me.”
“People talk now, with just the one of you,” James replied dryly. “You must know that in a place this size, any inkling of scandal is eagerly awaited. It has never seemed to hurt the brisk trade your husband enjoys.”
She sighed. “Yes, just so. And speaking of scandal…” Her tone turned sly. “I hear you had no success in taking the Pearl this time, either. When will you learn, James, that you may command a dauntless ship, but Jack commands a peerless one?”
“Very clever, madam,” James retorted, the scrape of his chair as he stood almost drowning out his words. The rest of his reply was lost, in fact, because a hand grasped Dawn’s arm and hauled her upright.
“You,” said Lieutenant Groves, a darkly amused glint in his eyes, “had best learn to keep an ear turned to both sides.” He fairly dragged her down the hallway, then made a show of walking back up with her toward James’ office just as the door opened, looking for all the world as if they’d happened to arrive just at the end of the Commodore’s meeting with Mrs. Turner.
“So, Miss Summers, I hear you are in need of lodging. I happen to need assistance in my home while I am indisposed. Can we come to terms, do you think?” Elizabeth’s face was alight with good humour and hope, and Dawn found herself smiling back.
“Only if you call me Dawn instead of Miss Summers. Miss Summers always makes me feel like I’m in trouble.”
“A familiar condition, I’m sure,” James muttered under his breath, eyes averted to the ceiling, but there was the faintest twist of teasing to his mouth. The women ignored him.
“Dawn, then. And you will call me Elizabeth?” At Dawn’s nod, she continued. “I’m sure you have some things to bring with you, shall I help you with them?”
“There will be no lifting for you in that condition,” James answered for her. “You will return home, and Miss Summers will call on you presently.”
Dawn bristled at his presumption but Elizabeth seemed completely unaffected. “Dear James,” she said, smiling warmly at him. “Thank you for thinking of us.”
He inclined his head, a ghost of a smile on his own lips. Groves volunteered to show Dawn to the Turner home, and Elizabeth left.
Dawn didn’t have much to get; the entirety of her belongings in this era could be stuffed into Joyce’s diaper bag, which Buffy had not had time to grab before the time thingy returned her to 2005.
“Miss Summers,” James called, just as she was about to leave with Lieutenant Groves. When he caught them up, he held up a hand for Dawn’s silence. “You know, of course, that this has not been an eviction. You are still welcome to visit Fort Charles-- provided we are not in the midst of a battle-- or me at any time.”
She had learned by now that this from James was tantamount to anyone else begging her to spend time with him. She stretched up and hugged him tightly; though he wasn’t the second James, he was still close enough for her, and the only thing she had that was familiar in this time.
“Thanks, James,” she whispered, kissing his cheek and pretending she’d knocked his wig askew by accident.
He hem-hemmed and made a great show of tugging his waistcoat back into place, a flush along his high cheekbones, and left forthwith. Groves just grinned and offered his arm once more. Dawn took it, sighing as she glanced back one last time at the fort, and hoped she was doing the right thing by going to live with the Turners. Not that she had a choice. But at least Elizabeth seemed nice.
“What did James mean about Elizabeth being lonely since she married her husband?” she asked Groves.
He seemed startled by her question, and she remembered belatedly that issues of a personal nature tended to be ignored rather than addressed in this time and place.
“I believe,” he began slowly, “that he meant how Mrs. Turner has been shunned by her former associates since her marriage, because he is common and she was the daughter of the Governor, himself a lord and landowner. She married quite beneath herself, it is felt in some circles.”
Dawn frowned at that. “Well, were they in love?” she asked.
Groves smiled. “Oh, yes, utterly,” he replied. “I have yet to see any since who could compare. They risked their lives repeatedly for each other, before they were married, and from the speedy appearance of all these children in such short order would not appear to have lost any of that fervour.”
“That’s all that matters, then,” she declared comfortably, not realizing she had tucked her hand more deeply into the crook of his elbow.
He noticed, however, and covered her hand with his, fleetingly. “Is that so?”
She nodded firmly. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Lefftenant,” she said, stressing the English pronunciation, “but life kinda sucks. There’s not a lot of love in it. You have to grab it when it comes your way, before it’s gone and you missed it.”
He didn’t answer, and she flushed with embarrassment, pulling away a little, but his hand on her arm kept her close.
“No,” he said, “don’t be embarrassed. You’re right.” He turned to her then, and raised her hand to his lips. “You’re right.”
Dawn’s heart felt like it was going to beat right out of her chest, as he smiled down at her with the sun at his back. Even in the wig, he was hot. She wondered what he looked like without it. “What’s your first name?” she blurted.
“Theodore.” He was walking again, turning down a narrow residential avenue from the busier mercantile street they’d been walking along. Though he didn’t look at her as he answered, she could see the curl of his mouth. “But you may call me Theo.”
Feeling mischievous-and a little turned on-Dawn skipped to keep up with his brisk pace. “Can I call Gillette ‘Trev’ like you do?”
“Only if you wish him to suffer apoplexy,” Theo replied with a full-blown grin, and paused before a house. It was modestly-sized, of beige brick with black shutters and the most beautiful wrought-iron railings at each tall window. The garden was a mélange of artfully neglected English style, but populated by indigenous flora such as hibiscus and palm, and a winding path led from street to door in a most inviting way.
They started up the walk and Theo raised his hand to knock, but voices inside gave him pause. Once more Dawn shamelessly pressed herself to the door so as to not miss a word, even though they carried clearly. Groves tugged on her hand, trying to pull her away, but her glare told him he’d have to drag her away before she’d go willingly.
“I fail to see how this is such a problem, Will,” came Elizabeth’s voice. “We had discussed getting a girl in to help me, even before this.”
“It is not the concept I object to, Elizabeth, but the person who made it come to pass. Norrington has never liked me, you know this. And he likes Jack even less. I am very suspicious of his suddenly wanting someone to come live with us, now that Jack’s got the Erfzonde as well as the Pearl. What if she’s some sort of spy, and will report to him any word we have of Jack?”
“I don’t know,” Elizabeth said after a moment. “But we can just be careful, and never discuss him before her.”
“What about the girls?” Will challenged. “They love to talk about their Uncle Jack. How can we get them to stop mentioning him?”
She sighed. “She’ll have heard, by now, of our relationship with him. There’s no hiding it. We just won’t tell the girls anything about Jack’s comings and goings.”
“Elizabeth…”
“She’ll be here soon, Will. You should go get ready to greet her.”
There was a brief pause, rife with tension, and then Will’s voice, low and angry. “How much longer are you going to let your guilt for using Norrington get the best of you? It’s not just you it affects, anymore.”
“Please, Will,” Elizabeth replied, sounding tired.
Dawn turned, wide-eyed, to Theo and saw that he did not look surprised in the least by the conversation they’d just overheard. Grabbing him by the lapel, she dragged him back to the street.
“What are they talking about?”
Theo grimaced, darting a glance back at the house before bending his head closer to her ear.
“Years ago, prior to the earthquake that destroyed Port Royal, the Commodore was a suitor for Mrs. Turner’s hand in marriage, while Mr. Turner held her in his affections from afar. There was some… excitement with some pirates, of which Jack Sparrow was one, and Mrs. Turner was kidnapped.
“Mr. Turner enlisted the help of Mr. Sparrow by springing him from gaol, then rescued Mrs. Turner. He himself was captured in the course of this rescue, and the Commodore only saved him because Mrs. Turner requested it, specifically as a wedding present to her.”
He waited while Dawn assimilated that information. “That’s… cold,” she said, glancing at the house where Elizabeth awaited them. “I wouldn’t have thought she’d be so cold.”
“Normally, she would not,” Theo told her. “But one can be pushed to dire straits by love, can one not?”
Dawn chose not to answer that, hoping it was just rhetorical. “Then what?”
“Mr. Turner was rescued and pardoned, but Mr. Sparrow was to be hanged. Mr. Turner staged a dramatic but unsuccessful rescue attempt of him, which Mrs. Turner joined at the last minute, rejecting the Commodore’s suit at the same time, quite publicly.”
“Ouch.” Dawn felt a fine glow of protective anger start up in her chest for James. He was a decent guy, and didn’t deserve that. “So, Elizabeth feels guilty for that? She should.”
Theo tilted his head to one side, in consideration of her. “Grudges benefit no one after a while, Miss Summers. Very little point to them at all, really.”
“Says you,” she grumbled. “Well, we might as well get on with it. But if he hates me and she just mopes around all the time, I’m coming back to the fort whether James wants me to or not.”
“I thank you for the warning,” he replied gravely, earning a poke in the ribs at which he just laughed.
A rap on the black-painted door with an equally-black, elaborate knocker brought Elizabeth to the door, smiling even if her face were wan and one hand was planted in the center of her back.
“Ah, you’re here. Welcome!”
The downstairs was one large, sunny room. The middle of the far wall was dominated by an immense fireplace, and to the right seemed to be the kitchen area, with various cupboards and counters as well as a table flanked by two long benches. To the left seemed to be the living area, with padded chairs and stools arranged around the fireplace. It felt cozy and lived-in, and Dawn found herself charmed by it even as she wondered how charming it would be after six months when the romance had worn off.
Two little girls ran in the back door, followed by a handsome young man whose damp hair indicated he’d just washed his face.
“These are my darlings,” Elizabeth said, pride clear in her voice. “My husband Will, and my daughters, Isabel and Margaret.”
The men shook hands, and Will bowed perfunctorily over Dawn’s hand but there was a set to his jaw that told her he was still pissed off about her being there. Uneasy, she turned to the children instead.
“Hi,” she said to them, crouching down to their eye-level. “I’m Dawn. Let me guess; you’re Isabel, and you’re Margaret?” she asked, pointing at each of them, purposefully getting it backwards.
“No,” said the older girl, about four years old, quite seriously. “I’m Isabel, and that’s Margaret.” Both were adorable little things, with curly brown hair and enormous dark eyes.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Dawn replied, shooting a grin up at the other adults. “Do you forgive me?”
The younger girl, Margaret, didn’t answer, just jammed her thumb in her mouth and stared with big eyes, but Isabel nodded after a moment of careful consideration.
“Dawn will be staying here and helping Mummy for a while,” Elizabeth said, sinking into a deep leather chair with a sigh of relief and helping Margaret clamber up onto her lap.
“Because of the baby?” Isabel asked.
“Yes,” Will answered, coming to stand behind his eldest and placing a hand on her curly head. “Until the baby comes and your Mum is little again, it’s hard for her to take care of all of us by herself.” He shot a teasing glance over at his wife, who frowned playfully, their disagreement of before seemingly forgotten.
“Are you a good cook?” Isabel asked Dawn. “Because Papa eats a lot, and it won’t do to have him eating rubbish.”
“I’m, um, a good cook where I live, but you’ll have to make sure I cook well here, too,” she replied, a little nervous. This kid was strict.
“Isabel will keep you on your toes,” Elizabeth said with a fond smile.
“Like her mother, that one,” Will added, sending another grin her way. “Miss, it was an honour to make your acquaintance, but I fear I must return to the smithy else the day is wasted. I shall see you all at dinner.” He dropped a kiss on Elizabeth’s head and rumpled his daughters’ hair once more, and was gone. Theo, too, had to return to his duties, and departed after promising to visit soon.
And then they were alone, just the four females.
“Well!” Elizabeth said, heaving herself upright. “Let’s get you familiar with everything.” She gestured around them at the room. “This is the common room, as you can see. Out the back door is a pantry, and beyond that is the chicken coop and the privy.”
She gestured to the corner, where was tucked a narrow staircase.
“Upstairs are the bedrooms, one for Will and I and one for the girls… you’ll be sharing with them, unless you want a pallet down here, that you would roll up each morning?” At Dawn’s assurance that sharing with the girls would be fine, she continued, “I shan’t go up with you, as I’m trying not to take the stairs more than once a day, but Isabel and Margaret will be glad to show you, don’t you, darlings?”
The girls nodded and then the house resounded with the sound of their thundering little feet as they dashed upstairs. Dawn followed at a rather more leisurely pace. The rooms were cozy just like the first floor, with one large bed, clothing cupboard, and small fireplace in each. The girls’ room was characterized with dolls and toys scattered around, while their parents’ was neat as a pin.
“Margaret hogs the covers,” Isabel informed her solemnly.
“Don’t,” said Margaret calmly, and without removing the thumb from her mouth, pulled back her foot and delivered a hefty kick to her sister’s shin. The resultant wail echoed through the room and made Dawn think longingly of Murtogg and Mullroy; they were always bickering but there was never (ok, rarely) any overt hostilities.
She steered the girls downstairs and decided now was as good a time as any to ask what, exactly, was her authority in this house.
“I want to know if I can punish the little angels,” she said bluntly.
“Certainly,” Elizabeth replied immediately, eyes twinkling as she heaved herself from the chair. “Just don’t beat them too badly, or Will might feel bad,” she joked. The girls looked distinctly unimpressed.
“They never beat us,” Isabel told Dawn smugly. Margaret nodded agreement.
“Perhaps I should start, then!” Elizabeth said, and gave each of them a playful swat on the backside. “Isabel, don’t tease Margaret, and Margaret, no kicking. No pudding for either of you tonight.”
Both pouted, but she ignored them, turning to Dawn with a smile. “So, dinner! What shall we have? Will brought a rasher of bacon with him earlier, and there’s eggs of course, and half a wheel of cheese. Coffins would be nice and easy for your first evening here.”
Dawn blinked. “I… don’t think they call them that where I come from,” she said slowly. “What’s in them?”
Elizabeth was already opening the cupboard doors, withdrawing a bowl. “Small pies, filled with eggs and cheese and crumbled bacon,” she explained.
“Uncle Jack loves coffins,” Isabel piped up, pulling open the drawer of flour and withdrawing a big scoop with both hands. She was so busy spilling flour on the clean, polished boards of the floor that she didn’t notice how her mother’s spine snapped straight, or how Dawn’s ears practically twitched at the mention of the name.
Elizabeth snatched up a wire basket and thrust it at her oldest daughter. “Darling, go get us a half-dozen eggs. You remember how many a half-dozen is, don’t you?”
Isabel dropped the scoop back into the flour drawer and held up all five fingers on her right hand and the thumb of her left. “This many.”
Elizabeth gave her a tight smile and nodded, shooing her and Margaret out the back door toward the chicken coop. As soon as they were gone, she paused in scooping out spoonfuls of lard for the coffin pastry and turned to Dawn.
“You’ll learn in time that our family is somewhat… unpopular, due to our friendship with he whom the girls call Uncle Jack,” she said, stirring salt and soda into the flour she’d salvaged from Isabel. Cutting lard into the mixture, she continued, “Doubtless you’ve heard of him.”
Dawn nodded slowly. “James doesn’t think much of him.”
Elizabeth snorted, a most unladylike sound, and turned back to the table. “James is a hard man to impress.”
“Don’t I know it,” Dawn replied. “But he’s a really good person, if you can get past the wig.”
“Yes, he is rather married to his career,” Elizabeth sighed, misunderstanding Dawn’s mockery of the good commodore’s wardrobe. “I always hoped he’d find a suitable woman, had a family…”
“Since you were unavailable,” Dawn blurted, then wished she could sink through the floor at her insensitivity.
But Elizabeth was unperturbed. “Yes, I knew you’d have heard of that, too,” she commented, her face wistful as the girls tromped back inside the house, more straw from the chicken nests than eggs in the basket. “I was sorry it ended up as it had. But one must follow the dictates of the heart, mustn’t one?”
She rested a floury hand on each curly head, smiling down at her daughters when they protested that she was getting them messy. She was the very picture of contentment, and it sent a pang of longing through Dawn’s chest.
“Yes,” Dawn said around the growing lump in her throat. “One must.”
* * *
Three Months Later
Will was at the forge once more, Elizabeth had taken the girls on their weekly visit to their grandfather and Dawn was left alone with the housework-again. She’d been up since sunrise, baking bread from the sponge she’d set last night and making breakfast for the household. It was now nearly noon and she’d just finished the laundry.
Pulling it, fresh-scented and sun-bleached, from the line nailed between the chicken coop and the house filled her with a sense of satisfaction. Who’d have thought she could find some measure of peace here? Sure, it was an idyllic island paradise, but it was still 1690-something. The odds hadn’t been good, all told.
She lugged the laundry upstairs, folded the clothes, put it away. There was a single large chest of drawers in Elizabeth’s and Will’s room, and that contained all the family’s “smalls”, or underwear. The outer garments were simply hung on pegs in the wall, one peg per person. Will had shot Dawn a dubious glance when he’d added a peg for her clothes, as if skeptical that she was worth putting another hole in the girls’ bedroom wall.
One peg was all that was needed; Elizabeth couldn’t afford to give Dawn more than two gowns. She had one for everyday, and a slightly dressier, less-worn one for special occasions.
“I never realized,” Elizabeth laughed one day, “how expensive cloth was. And unless you’re a talented seamstress, having things made costs dearly, too.”
Dawn was not a talented seamstress. Her efforts at sewing had borne limited and lopsided fruit, and she was permitted only to hem unimportant things, like aprons and bed sheets, that few people would see. Even then, her hems rose and ebbed like waves on a sea.
“Well,” Will said diplomatically, “at least you can cook decently well.”
It was a grudging compliment, but one that had made Dawn beam for an entire week. It had taken her almost a month to get the hang of cooking over a fire. Using a spider, an iron skillet with long legs raising it over the fire, and baking in the little niches of the hearth’s walls had taken even more time to get right.
But once she had, even Will-- her greatest critic-- had to admit that she had talent. Dawn’s teenaged fascination with bizarre food combinations had translated, with maturity, to a genuine interest in cooking, to the point where the general Scooby consensus was that she was the best cook out of the entire group.
Bet they’re missing me now, Dawn thought with satisfaction at the idea of them being subjected to everyone else’s feeble attempts and rare successes at the culinary arts. Buffy was agreed to be the worst cook of the bunch, with Giles trailing a distant second. Xander was ok at things like assembling English muffin pizzas but actual from-scratch cooking continued to elude him, and Willow’s repertoire was pretty much restricted to cookies.
More than slightly horrified by the sheer amount of lard the Turner family habitually consumed, Dawn had begun using more risen and sourdough breads than pastry. That accomplished, she began incorporating more vegetables-fresh, if possible-and less meat into their diets. Getting the girls to snack on fruit and carrot sticks instead of the sweets Elizabeth indulged them with was harder, however. It was no wonder everyone had dental problems in this time period. Having to brush your teeth with a rag dipped in salt didn’t help any, either.
Dawn had hoped that Buffy and her friends would be able to find some way of saving her, but as the weeks passed with no hint of rescue in sight, she became resigned to the fact that she might be stuck here forever.
It could have been worse. She and Elizabeth became friends, Isabel and Margaret were delightful (most of the time), and even Will was warming up to her. She saw James every few days for lunch, and Lieutenant Groves came calling (this century’s term for “dating”) several nights a week after supper.
She was fairly certain he was falling in love with her. His steadfast attention, the expression in his eyes when he looked at her, and most of all the fine tremor she felt in him whenever she touched him, even accidentally, all told her that he had strong feelings for her.
To a certain extent, she was pleased by this. He was handsome, and kind, and had a good sense of humour. But-and she fully admitted that this was her own shortcoming, not his-she had to admit she found him a little boring, after the first month. There was no drama there, no excitement. He actually reminded her a bit of Xander, cute and fun and initially appealing, but ultimately more of a brother than anything else.
The bed she shared with the girls sporting fresh linens and a pretty quilt, now was left only their parent’s bed to make. Once she was done with that, it would be back downstairs to start on lunch for Will. She had managed to score a decently-sized bit of fish from one of the fishermen down at the dock, and she had some leftover mayonnaise… she thought she’d treat him to a novelty: the tuna sandwich, except made with mahi-mahi instead of tuna.
Things had been rough between them at first. He had not wanted her intrusion in his home, and she knew he continued to be at least a little suspicious of her because of James, but gradually he was thawing toward her. He was more game for her somewhat odd food ideas than the rest of his family, and Dawn found it amusing that, failing any other point of reference for them to build upon, they were bonding over food.
Dawn blew impatiently at a stray wisp of hair that had escaped the knot at the back of her neck, hands too busy trying to tuck the sheet around the lumpy mattress to brush the wayward strand away. Filled with straw, the tick seemed to thwart her every attempt at hospital corners.
Muttering a foul word under her breath, she gave up and just shoved the wad of fabric under the edge of the mattress.
“Now, now, Elizabeth,” drawled a voice from behind her. “Don’t tell me that dear Will has been teaching you that sort of language?”