PotC Big Bang Fic: "Liberties" (4/7)
Title: "Liberties" (4/7)
Author: Luvvycat
Art: shytan
Characters/Pairings: Young Will Turner/Young Elizabeth Swann, Weatherby Swann; Elizabeth Swann Turner/Jack Sparrow (epilogue)
Rating: PG13/Soft R (at most!)
Warnings: Flashbacks to violent events in Prologue; minor sexual suggestiveness in Epilogue; everything else in-between is fairly mild.
Summary: After young Will Turner is rescued from the sea, Governor Swann (at Elizabeth’s suggestion) instals him as a servant in the Swann household. Despite their differences in station, the children find that they have much in common, and become fast friends. For two years the bond between Will and Elizabeth grows stronger, until an act of innocent impulse threatens to end that friendship and separate the pair forever. Based on my previously-posted drabbles "Skirmish", "Resurrected", and "The Gift". The J/E Epilogue is set six years after the conclusion of AWE.
A/N: Dedicated with my most profuse thanks and boundless admiration to my beta extraordinaire geekmama (whose invaluable input greatly improved this tale), and to pearlseed , whose comments to me regarding "Skirmish" inspired the Epilogue.
P.S. -- The incident that occurred "Christmas last" (referred to by Mathilde and Will in this chapter) was documented in my previous Young Will/Elizabeth fic The Christmas Stranger.
Previous chapters:
1. Prologue
2. Chapter 1
2. Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Miss Swann's governess, Mathilde Meriwether, sat on a blanket under the double-protection of a palm tree and her parasol, shielded from the harshest rays of the Caribbean sun. Heaven forfend that her pale, patrician skin should freckle, when she had spent a lifetime cultivating that perfect peaches-and-cream complexion! Her mother-born of a noble family who had managed to retain their good name, but none of their status or wealth-had always taught her that one could tell a lady of breeding not only by her flawless manners, but also by the milky pallor of her unblemished skin. It's a lesson Mathilde had long taken to heart.
A gentle ocean breeze ruffled the loose, artfully-arranged curls peeping from under the edge of her lacy bonnet along with the leaves of the book she was reading, providing welcome relief from the rather warm afternoon. It was, indeed, quite pleasant to have these moments of ease, whilst overseeing the children's play sessions.
She owed a particular debt of gratitude to Governor Swann. Nigh two years ago, her husband-a high-ranking naval officer of advancing years-had died. In a will she wasn't even aware her husband-a widower, with grown children-had in place, he bequeathed all his properties to his eldest son, born of his first wife. The son, who lived in England and whom she had never even met-having no interest in maintaining a house in Port Royal, or in providing for his father's second wife-had decided to put the house on the block. Mathilde suddenly found herself without husband, home, or livelihood, and only a pittance of a widow's pension from the Royal Navy that came nowhere near keeping her in the lifestyle to which she'd grown accustomed. And her pride was such that she would rather die than to go back to England, hat in hand, to appear on some distant cousin's doorstep, like the onerous "poor relation" dependent on her family's charity.
Hearing of her plight, and taking pity on her, the newly-arrived Governor Swann-who, it turned out, had known her husband, though not well-had agreed to engage her as governess to his twelve-year-old daughter. Though she and her late husband had never been blessed with children, nor had she previously taught children, Mathilde was a learned and literate woman, and possessed a quite liberal knowledge on a wide variety of subjects. Her father-who, before his passing, had been a well-respected professor at Magdalene College, Cambridge-had been insistent that, if Mathilde were to attract a spouse of any breeding and intelligence, it behoved her to hone her own intellect and wit as well. Never had she dreamt, though, that her father's foresight would be her salvation once she became a widow.
Now, she had been installed in the Governor's household-not in the servant's quarters, with the rest of the staff, but (no doubt in deference to her former status, and out of respect for her late husband) in well-appointed rooms adjacent to his daughter's chambers. He had even provided Mathilde her own maid to attend to her, and allowed her to join him and his daughter at table for breakfasts and suppers almost as though she were a member of the family. Thanks to Governor Swann, she had gone from near-destitution, to living as comfortably as ever she had in her own home, but without the bother and burden of actually running a household.
And, knowing that the Governor was a widower himself-and a quite attractive one at that, in a charmingly doddering sort of way (not to mention, at forty-two years of age, near three decades younger than her late husband)-it would be quite a feather in her cap if perhaps, some day, he decided to remarry, and discovered he need look no further than his own doorstep ...
The sound of childish laughter interrupted her pleasant reveries, and she glanced up to make sure nothing was amiss with the children, before returning her wandering attention to her fanciful thoughts.
At the beginning, when the Governor had first hired her on, she had questioned the man's judgement in allowing his daughter to play together with a mere servant boy, let alone including him in her daily lessons as though he were Elizabeth's peer, but the girl truly seemed to delight in young Will's company. Besides, who was she to argue, if the Governor himself not only condoned the association but actually encouraged it? Doubtless he had his own reasons for doing so, and it wasn't really her place to question them.
After nearly a year had gone by with no untoward incident (save for something rumoured to have happened over the last holidays whilst Mathilde had been spending Christmas with a friend-something that was only whispered about amongst the servants, but as far as she was concerned had never been substantiated … she, herself, not condescending to listen, nor give credence to, the idle gossip of servants), Mathilde grudgingly accepted that Governor Swann might have been wise, after all, in allowing the playful fraternisation between the two. She supposed, though not exactly decorous behaviour for a young lady of Elizabeth's age and pedigree, the physical exercise provided an outlet for the girl's innate mischief, with which Mathilde had become quite well-acquainted since the high-spirited Miss Swann had become her charge. The girl wouldn't be a child for much longer in any case, and it was best she burn off such unseemly energies before she reached an age when young men started courting her for marriage. No man of sound mind, after all, would want a ... a tomboy ... for a wife!
At present, the children were gambolling in the sand, hacking at each other with wooden swords. This barbaric activity no longer alarmed Mathilde as it once had, when she'd first witnessed this game of theirs. The Governor had long since explained to her his daughter's strange obsession with pirates and their practises, when Mathilde had taken to confiscating those dreadful, lurid pamphlets the little hoyden had proved to be so fond of reading instead of her schoolbooks.
Elizabeth, wearing young Turner's tricorne atop her blonde head, had discarded her shoes and stockings, and hiked her skirts up several inches, to facilitate ease of movement as she darted across the sand, swinging the faux sword in a graceful arc. Mathilde knew it was immodest to make such a display of one’s ankles and calves, but Elizabeth was still a young girl, for all her legs had grown several inches this past year, and the beach was deserted, save for the three of them, and the raucous gulls.
And young Turner … what a handsome lad he was turning out to be! With those lively brown eyes, dark, wavy hair, and flashing white smile, he no doubt would be a favourite of all the young ladies of Port Royal in a year or two. She could well imagine all the serving girls and tradesmen's daughters who would be setting their caps for a fine young man like him.
Mathilde returned her attention to her book, her mind only half focused on the antics of the children.
“Take that, scurvy pirate!” young Will's voice carried over the sound of the rushing sea, the capricious ocean breeze, and the sharp cries of the gulls.
She heard Elizabeth's laughing reply: “You’ll not defeat Captain Jack Sparrow!”
After a moment, Mathilde noticed things had gone unnaturally silent. Had the children wandered off?
She looked up …
... to see Elizabeth stretched out on the sand, on her back. And the Turner boy …
Why, he was leaning over her, one hand at her waist, his lips pressed to her cheek!
And the chit was smiling up at him as he bent to whisper something into her ear; and Mathilde, having been a young maid herself, not so many years ago, could not mistake the look her young charge was giving the boy.
Oh, no ... this was not acceptable! Governor Swann would be very displeased-might even demand her termination notice!-if she permitted this ... this familiarity ... to continue!
With an outraged cry, rapidly seeing her lovely dreams of becoming Mrs Governor Weatherby Swann dwindle into non-existence, she scrambled up from the blanket, unceremoniously casting her book down into the sand, and hastened across the beach as fast as her feet could carry her.
Before she knew it, she had the boy's ear in her grasp, and was yanking it most sharply. "Get off her, you young ruffian! What do you think you're doing?"
The boy let out a pubescent yelp as Mathilde hauled him, by his ear, to his feet. The boy stood, now, nearly as tall as she was, and she vaguely wondered: When had that happened? There was an echoing cry of protest from Elizabeth as she leapt to her playmate's defence.
"Oh, please, Mathilde!" the girl plucked at her sleeve, her eyes wide and shining with maidenly innocence. "I'm perfectly all right, see? We were only playing!"
She cast a withering glance at the girl before turning her basilisk glare back upon the boy. "Yes! I could see with mine own eyes what he was playing at, all too well!" Still latched onto his ear, she shook the boy, and he yelped again. "Now, get your shoes back on, the both of you! We're returning to the house ... now!"
* * * * *
All the way back to the Governor's mansion, Elizabeth floated above the ground, replaying Will's words to her ... the words he had breathed in her ear, after pressing his soft, warm lips to her flushed cheek.
"Captain Sparrow ... you're beautiful!"
She had always been fond of Will, and he of her. They had been playfellows for going on two years now, nigh inseparable when their free time coincided, sharing confidences and stories and dribs and drabs of their childhood memories, as well as the occasional "adventure." In Will, she had found not only a companion, a playmate, but a confidante, a friend, for the first time in her young life. Since they had pulled him from the cold, cold sea, and Father had commended him to her care, she had ever harboured feelings of affection toward Will.
But, hearing his words today, it was as though a little fire had been kindled in her heart, hot and bright and tingly. Her entire self seemed aglow with that lambent warmth.
He called me beautiful! Will thinks I'm beautiful!
And she blushed as she suddenly found herself thinking what it would feel like to have those lips not on her cheek, but pressed, soft and warm, against her mouth ...
She stole a sidelong glance at Will, but found him frowning, his face bright red, shuttered and grim, still rubbing his scarlet ear where Mathilde had grasped him so cruelly.
But she knew ... she knew ... that something had changed between them. Something that had nothing to do with playtime and childish games and shared giggles.
Nothing to do with childhood.
And everything to do with love.
* * * * *
Once she had settled Elizabeth upstairs and set her to her reading, Mathilde went downstairs, trudging toward the Governor’s study with leaden feet and a heavy heart. She was reluctant to approach him, fearing that he might turn the blame onto her for what had occurred ... what he'd think she allowed to occur, since she's the one whom he had entrusted with the responsibility of watching over the children's play.
But, as the girl's father, the man needed to know what had happened today. Her conscience would not allow her to withhold such vital information, regardless of the consequences to herself
Straightening her back and taking a deep, bracing breath, Mathilde rapped gently but firmly on the door …
Author: Luvvycat
Art: shytan
Characters/Pairings: Young Will Turner/Young Elizabeth Swann, Weatherby Swann; Elizabeth Swann Turner/Jack Sparrow (epilogue)
Rating: PG13/Soft R (at most!)
Warnings: Flashbacks to violent events in Prologue; minor sexual suggestiveness in Epilogue; everything else in-between is fairly mild.
Summary: After young Will Turner is rescued from the sea, Governor Swann (at Elizabeth’s suggestion) instals him as a servant in the Swann household. Despite their differences in station, the children find that they have much in common, and become fast friends. For two years the bond between Will and Elizabeth grows stronger, until an act of innocent impulse threatens to end that friendship and separate the pair forever. Based on my previously-posted drabbles "Skirmish", "Resurrected", and "The Gift". The J/E Epilogue is set six years after the conclusion of AWE.
A/N: Dedicated with my most profuse thanks and boundless admiration to my beta extraordinaire geekmama (whose invaluable input greatly improved this tale), and to pearlseed , whose comments to me regarding "Skirmish" inspired the Epilogue.
P.S. -- The incident that occurred "Christmas last" (referred to by Mathilde and Will in this chapter) was documented in my previous Young Will/Elizabeth fic The Christmas Stranger.
Previous chapters:
1. Prologue
2. Chapter 1
2. Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Miss Swann's governess, Mathilde Meriwether, sat on a blanket under the double-protection of a palm tree and her parasol, shielded from the harshest rays of the Caribbean sun. Heaven forfend that her pale, patrician skin should freckle, when she had spent a lifetime cultivating that perfect peaches-and-cream complexion! Her mother-born of a noble family who had managed to retain their good name, but none of their status or wealth-had always taught her that one could tell a lady of breeding not only by her flawless manners, but also by the milky pallor of her unblemished skin. It's a lesson Mathilde had long taken to heart.
A gentle ocean breeze ruffled the loose, artfully-arranged curls peeping from under the edge of her lacy bonnet along with the leaves of the book she was reading, providing welcome relief from the rather warm afternoon. It was, indeed, quite pleasant to have these moments of ease, whilst overseeing the children's play sessions.
She owed a particular debt of gratitude to Governor Swann. Nigh two years ago, her husband-a high-ranking naval officer of advancing years-had died. In a will she wasn't even aware her husband-a widower, with grown children-had in place, he bequeathed all his properties to his eldest son, born of his first wife. The son, who lived in England and whom she had never even met-having no interest in maintaining a house in Port Royal, or in providing for his father's second wife-had decided to put the house on the block. Mathilde suddenly found herself without husband, home, or livelihood, and only a pittance of a widow's pension from the Royal Navy that came nowhere near keeping her in the lifestyle to which she'd grown accustomed. And her pride was such that she would rather die than to go back to England, hat in hand, to appear on some distant cousin's doorstep, like the onerous "poor relation" dependent on her family's charity.
Hearing of her plight, and taking pity on her, the newly-arrived Governor Swann-who, it turned out, had known her husband, though not well-had agreed to engage her as governess to his twelve-year-old daughter. Though she and her late husband had never been blessed with children, nor had she previously taught children, Mathilde was a learned and literate woman, and possessed a quite liberal knowledge on a wide variety of subjects. Her father-who, before his passing, had been a well-respected professor at Magdalene College, Cambridge-had been insistent that, if Mathilde were to attract a spouse of any breeding and intelligence, it behoved her to hone her own intellect and wit as well. Never had she dreamt, though, that her father's foresight would be her salvation once she became a widow.
Now, she had been installed in the Governor's household-not in the servant's quarters, with the rest of the staff, but (no doubt in deference to her former status, and out of respect for her late husband) in well-appointed rooms adjacent to his daughter's chambers. He had even provided Mathilde her own maid to attend to her, and allowed her to join him and his daughter at table for breakfasts and suppers almost as though she were a member of the family. Thanks to Governor Swann, she had gone from near-destitution, to living as comfortably as ever she had in her own home, but without the bother and burden of actually running a household.
And, knowing that the Governor was a widower himself-and a quite attractive one at that, in a charmingly doddering sort of way (not to mention, at forty-two years of age, near three decades younger than her late husband)-it would be quite a feather in her cap if perhaps, some day, he decided to remarry, and discovered he need look no further than his own doorstep ...
The sound of childish laughter interrupted her pleasant reveries, and she glanced up to make sure nothing was amiss with the children, before returning her wandering attention to her fanciful thoughts.
At the beginning, when the Governor had first hired her on, she had questioned the man's judgement in allowing his daughter to play together with a mere servant boy, let alone including him in her daily lessons as though he were Elizabeth's peer, but the girl truly seemed to delight in young Will's company. Besides, who was she to argue, if the Governor himself not only condoned the association but actually encouraged it? Doubtless he had his own reasons for doing so, and it wasn't really her place to question them.
After nearly a year had gone by with no untoward incident (save for something rumoured to have happened over the last holidays whilst Mathilde had been spending Christmas with a friend-something that was only whispered about amongst the servants, but as far as she was concerned had never been substantiated … she, herself, not condescending to listen, nor give credence to, the idle gossip of servants), Mathilde grudgingly accepted that Governor Swann might have been wise, after all, in allowing the playful fraternisation between the two. She supposed, though not exactly decorous behaviour for a young lady of Elizabeth's age and pedigree, the physical exercise provided an outlet for the girl's innate mischief, with which Mathilde had become quite well-acquainted since the high-spirited Miss Swann had become her charge. The girl wouldn't be a child for much longer in any case, and it was best she burn off such unseemly energies before she reached an age when young men started courting her for marriage. No man of sound mind, after all, would want a ... a tomboy ... for a wife!
At present, the children were gambolling in the sand, hacking at each other with wooden swords. This barbaric activity no longer alarmed Mathilde as it once had, when she'd first witnessed this game of theirs. The Governor had long since explained to her his daughter's strange obsession with pirates and their practises, when Mathilde had taken to confiscating those dreadful, lurid pamphlets the little hoyden had proved to be so fond of reading instead of her schoolbooks.
Elizabeth, wearing young Turner's tricorne atop her blonde head, had discarded her shoes and stockings, and hiked her skirts up several inches, to facilitate ease of movement as she darted across the sand, swinging the faux sword in a graceful arc. Mathilde knew it was immodest to make such a display of one’s ankles and calves, but Elizabeth was still a young girl, for all her legs had grown several inches this past year, and the beach was deserted, save for the three of them, and the raucous gulls.
And young Turner … what a handsome lad he was turning out to be! With those lively brown eyes, dark, wavy hair, and flashing white smile, he no doubt would be a favourite of all the young ladies of Port Royal in a year or two. She could well imagine all the serving girls and tradesmen's daughters who would be setting their caps for a fine young man like him.
Mathilde returned her attention to her book, her mind only half focused on the antics of the children.
“Take that, scurvy pirate!” young Will's voice carried over the sound of the rushing sea, the capricious ocean breeze, and the sharp cries of the gulls.
She heard Elizabeth's laughing reply: “You’ll not defeat Captain Jack Sparrow!”
After a moment, Mathilde noticed things had gone unnaturally silent. Had the children wandered off?
She looked up …
... to see Elizabeth stretched out on the sand, on her back. And the Turner boy …
Why, he was leaning over her, one hand at her waist, his lips pressed to her cheek!
And the chit was smiling up at him as he bent to whisper something into her ear; and Mathilde, having been a young maid herself, not so many years ago, could not mistake the look her young charge was giving the boy.
Oh, no ... this was not acceptable! Governor Swann would be very displeased-might even demand her termination notice!-if she permitted this ... this familiarity ... to continue!
With an outraged cry, rapidly seeing her lovely dreams of becoming Mrs Governor Weatherby Swann dwindle into non-existence, she scrambled up from the blanket, unceremoniously casting her book down into the sand, and hastened across the beach as fast as her feet could carry her.
Before she knew it, she had the boy's ear in her grasp, and was yanking it most sharply. "Get off her, you young ruffian! What do you think you're doing?"
The boy let out a pubescent yelp as Mathilde hauled him, by his ear, to his feet. The boy stood, now, nearly as tall as she was, and she vaguely wondered: When had that happened? There was an echoing cry of protest from Elizabeth as she leapt to her playmate's defence.
"Oh, please, Mathilde!" the girl plucked at her sleeve, her eyes wide and shining with maidenly innocence. "I'm perfectly all right, see? We were only playing!"
She cast a withering glance at the girl before turning her basilisk glare back upon the boy. "Yes! I could see with mine own eyes what he was playing at, all too well!" Still latched onto his ear, she shook the boy, and he yelped again. "Now, get your shoes back on, the both of you! We're returning to the house ... now!"
* * * * *
All the way back to the Governor's mansion, Elizabeth floated above the ground, replaying Will's words to her ... the words he had breathed in her ear, after pressing his soft, warm lips to her flushed cheek.
"Captain Sparrow ... you're beautiful!"
She had always been fond of Will, and he of her. They had been playfellows for going on two years now, nigh inseparable when their free time coincided, sharing confidences and stories and dribs and drabs of their childhood memories, as well as the occasional "adventure." In Will, she had found not only a companion, a playmate, but a confidante, a friend, for the first time in her young life. Since they had pulled him from the cold, cold sea, and Father had commended him to her care, she had ever harboured feelings of affection toward Will.
But, hearing his words today, it was as though a little fire had been kindled in her heart, hot and bright and tingly. Her entire self seemed aglow with that lambent warmth.
He called me beautiful! Will thinks I'm beautiful!
And she blushed as she suddenly found herself thinking what it would feel like to have those lips not on her cheek, but pressed, soft and warm, against her mouth ...
She stole a sidelong glance at Will, but found him frowning, his face bright red, shuttered and grim, still rubbing his scarlet ear where Mathilde had grasped him so cruelly.
But she knew ... she knew ... that something had changed between them. Something that had nothing to do with playtime and childish games and shared giggles.
Nothing to do with childhood.
And everything to do with love.
* * * * *
Once she had settled Elizabeth upstairs and set her to her reading, Mathilde went downstairs, trudging toward the Governor’s study with leaden feet and a heavy heart. She was reluctant to approach him, fearing that he might turn the blame onto her for what had occurred ... what he'd think she allowed to occur, since she's the one whom he had entrusted with the responsibility of watching over the children's play.
But, as the girl's father, the man needed to know what had happened today. Her conscience would not allow her to withhold such vital information, regardless of the consequences to herself
Straightening her back and taking a deep, bracing breath, Mathilde rapped gently but firmly on the door …