“I am in that temper that if I were under water I would scarcely kick to come to the top.” Keats

[mistresswanda]

After the party, in the quiet hours before dawn

There seems to be one advantage to living in the middle of nowhere in a country even colder than the society circles of Philadelphia; it is much easier to acquire good whiskey. One of the few things that has worked well in my favour. I stop playing for a moment to take up my glass and take a deep

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[tommi_esterly]

I was just about asleep when I hear the piano. I sit up in bed and listen, hoping it's Mozart or Chopin...

Damn. Beethoven.

I sigh as I slip from my bed and tie on my robe as I head towards the music room. I can always tell what mood Wanda's in by the music she's singing or playing, and Beethoven is a sure indication she's in a very melancholic mood despite her smiles and re-assurances to the contrary earlier at the party.

Just as I reach the bottom of the stairs, the music stops, and I hold out hope she'll just go to bed and have a good cry and fall asleep, but then the music starts again.

Damn!

I continue to the music room and slip in. "Well that's positively cheery." I say lightly, thinking I'll get a equally sarcastic reply back, but then I notice the half drunk bottle of whiskey. "Damn it all Wanda... are you drunk?" I sigh, crossing the room to take the bottle away.

[mistresswanda]

I am quite lost in the music, so much so that when my mother's voice pipes up from behind me in a far too condescending tone, I stumble over the keys for a moment. But only a note or so is misplayed before I right myself again. Maybe if I just ignore her, she will go away.

"Damn it all Wanda... are you drunk?" Her hand reaches out, but before she can touch the bottle, I snatch it away and set it on the other side of the piano, but not before I take a sip right from the bottle.

"And what does it matter, Mother dear, if I am?"

[tommi_esterly]

Not just melancholic, but downright surly.

"I could care less, darling." I reply, taking her half finished glass and drinking the rest of it, so there is a little less for her. The look she gives me is full of daggers.

"Are you going to talk about it or are you just going to keep drinking and sink into a even darker mood than you're already wallowing in?"

[mistresswanda]

"If you could care less then why are you drinking my alcohol?" I throw at her as she finishes off the half full glass.

"Are you going to talk about it or are you just going to keep drinking and sink into a even darker mood than you're already wallowing in?"

"What would you like to talk about?" I ask in a grand fashion, rising from the bench and twirling about the room with my bottle. "The social train wreck you managed to smile and laugh your way through tonight? The fact that I forgot I should have been in mourning today? My cursed life? Your stupidly charmed one?" My voice is rising, and I know it and should have a care about it, but I cannot bring myself to calm down.

"Shall we talk about the gossip that will surely surface about the rich heiress that tried to seduce a young Lord with inappropriate gifts? Or how about Alfie? Is there something I should know about there?" I can feel my lips curled back into sneer, and my voice is sharp and I cannot stop the flow of my words. "Is that why he wants to sleep with you

[tommi_esterly]

The first thing that occurs to me that she is beyond drunk, and is looking for a good, screaming fight by the way she is carrying on.

The second thing that occurs to me is the last time I saw her have a display of emotion like this was a decade ago when she was eighteen and her father demanded she go away for a time after 'the actor incident'. After that, it has always been a carefully controlled grief, a muffled temper, a wary happiness. This outburst is very long overdue, I think.

And thirdly... you have got to be pulling my leg! That bastard!

Cross the room to where Wanda is teetering with the most hateful look on her face, and I wonder for a moment how mad she really is but as I get closer I see within her eyes that she is mortified by her own actions. My hand moves quickly; the bottle flies from her hand and shatters on the floor. Her eyes go wide and her hands fly to her mouth.

"Mother, I am so---"

"Don't!" I bark, taking her by the shoulders and shaking her, mostly gently. "Don't you dare apologize! Scream, yell,

[mistresswanda]

The whiskey goes flying and now I've done it. I can't recall mother ever being cross and I really should not have yelled at her. "Mother, I am so---"

The world bobbles about and she's yelling and my head hurts. She's so cross!---

"If you need to hate me, then hate me! But please! You have to stop hating yourself!"

She stops yelling and the world stops moving about and she's not mad is she? Her eyes, no... not mad at all.

"'M sorry I scared you." I say, because I can be sorry about that. "And I don't hate you, not the tiniest bit. I could never hate you..." And the world is shaking again, but that just might be me, and my eyes cannot focus for the tears suddenly flowing from them. "Dammit, most days I wish I could be more like you. How, how could I... I ever... hate--- hate... you...?"

[tommi_esterly]

It takes a moment for her eyes to refocus and by the time they have, my heart has stopped hammering.

"'M sorry I scared you." I think I just reprimanded her for saying that, but I nod my head in acceptance of the apology. And then she starts trembling all over as she stumbles over her words, and the tears she has managed to blink away for the last year start flowing without hope of stopping. It is only the matter of a minute, maybe two before Wanda's sunk down to the floor and is weeping with no sign of ceasing

[mistresswanda]

I feel like a small child as I take the offered sleeve and dab at my eyes, but I am feeling very... small at this moment, for lack of a better term. Very small and in the need of comforting by my mother.

"You are not an embarrassment." I shake my head in the negative. "Not really. Well, maybe sometimes..." I admit, and smile, just a little. "I... as much as I wanted to sink in to the carpet at the scene you created tonight... and as mad as I was at you for not thinking first and at Alfred for not trying to talk you out of it... secretly, deep down, I thought it was hilarious. The look on Mrs. Sherrard's face..." I laugh again, even as the tears keep flowing.

"At least it distracted me from being sad about Sebastian for a few hours." And I can feel my face fall even as I say his name.

[tommi_esterly]

"You are not an embarrassment. Not really. Well, maybe sometimes..."

"Only sometimes? I am losing my touch then." I muse with good humor as she laughs in a tired sort of way. She rambles on, and my mouth tightens when she mentions Alfred, and we will be getting back to him, but her mood swings from bemusement to melancholy in space of one statement. I am still very worried about her, but at least she's talking. More than she has in years

[mistresswanda]

Mother picks us up off the floor and moves us to a more comfortable seat. She proceeds to tell me that I shouldn't try to be what everybody wants anymore. Didn't Arabella tell me almost the same thing earlier? "I've been myself; it's brought embarrassment and unwanted publicity to the family." I remind her. "Besides... how can I be myself when I frankly have no idea who that is?"

I would think we would delve more into that, but then Mother takes the conversation in a different direction. One I have no interest in going in with her. Or any one.

"Darling, he was already sick when you two met. You were never going to have a future---"

"Stop!" My voice cracks as I wrench my hands away and rise, putting several feet between us. The tears have started again, and my chest feels tight. "I know we were never going to have a life together..." I admit miserably. "But don't speak ill of the dead."

[tommi_esterly]

"That 'embarrassment' was a decade ago," I remind her with a arched eyebrow. "and you should realize by now that I could care less about what everyone else thinks. If your happy, then I am happy too."

The mere mention of Sebastian has her up and backed away. Of all the things she endured before him; the scandal at eighteen, the abuse at the hands of a brute, and the shock of a sudden and impossible accident... it's the broken heart over an inevitable death that broke her.

"You say you know, but you act as if you're half in the grave with him most days." Wanda pales and she turns away again. "Mother, stop..." "I will not." I tell her resolutely. "Sebastian was a wonderful man. I know you loved him, and I loved that he made you so happy for a time. I know you miss him terribly, and I miss him too. But God forgive me, I hate him. I absolutely hate him for not leaving you the second he knew he was going to die!" My emotions are now getting the better of me, and I can see that my words are causing her pain, but I have kept

[mistresswanda]

Talking through our differences is one thing; defaming Sebastian and his memory is something completely different. I do not have to stay here and listen---

"I absolutely hate him for not leaving you the second he knew he was going to die!"

I can feel my blood run cold. Surely I could not have heard that correctly? I turn back, thinking my hearing has been affected by the amount of whiskey I have consumed, but she's still ranting on about him in the most horrible way.

"---by his side as he withered and died! I hated him for being so selfish---"

My hand stings from the impact, and I should not have done that, but she needed to stop talking.

The silence stretches out between us, and finally I cannot bear it any longer. "I am sorry, Mother. I should not have done that." My voice is even and quiet, and I think I have managed to cry myself back to some semblance of sober. "But that was cruel."

[tommi_esterly]

We stare at each other forever before she finally speaks. I rub the spot on my cheek, the sting receding. "Well, I wanted you to let it out, can't rightly complain when you do." I sigh, noting she's gone quiet again.

"I'm sorry Wanda. It wasn't fair, not at all. To have made it through all the other crap to find someone that you could have had a life with, only to have it taken away... but it was awful of him to let you live through that hell, Wanda. I hated him for that. It's how I felt then and I still do now and I won't apologize for my feelings." I tell her, wishing now that I hadn't broken the bottle because I could really use a drink right now.

[mistresswanda]

I cross the room again and sink back down onto the piano bench. My head is pounding and all my body wants to do is crawl into bed and give into sleep

[tommi_esterly]

The silence that descends upon us is only broken by the muffled creaks and groans of the old manor home and Wanda's occasional sniffle.

"You and I? We need to talk more. I never knew that..." Wanda chuckles and the corner of her mouth twitches up. "You keep too much to yourself, you always have." I chide her, nudging her shoulder with mine. "And it's okay to be mad at him, and to miss him... and to want to move on. You're young, you have a whole life head of you. I was devastated when your Father died, and for a little while, the world went grey for me. I didn't care if I lived or died..." And now it's Wanda's turn to look at me with surprise.

"Not a day goes by that I don't miss your father." I tell her softly. "But he wouldn't have wanted me to sink into despair, and I don't believe that Sebastian would have wanted you to either. We're both still here, may as well make the most of it."

[mistresswanda]

"I cannot even imagine you being that sad. I mean, I know you miss Father, but to think of you so despondent..." My annoyingly animated and lively mother so heart-broken that she did not want to carry on? Impossible. "You are right, we do need to talk more often. We may just need more whiskey..." I tease her a little, looking at the broken bottle across the room.

"And you are also right about my needing to move past the bad and remembering the good." I add a bit more softly. "I don't want to forget him. It was stupid of me to try." I rub my face with my hands and give her a critical look. "When did you become so wise, anyway?"