Fic: A Singular Gentleman (10/15)
Title: A Singular Gentleman
Author: quietlygleeful (quietlygleeful)
Artist: animateglee
Beta: neyronrose
Word count: 2,054 for this chapter; 35,858 words total
Rating: PG-13
Genre: AU (historical), friendship, angst, romance
Warnings: some racial, ethnic, and religious slurs and outdated language/attitudes
Characters/Parings: Kurt/Blaine, Sebastian, Quinn, Brittany, Mike, Carole
Summary: The year is 1890, the place: New York City. To the outside world, Blaine Anderson is just another young gentleman, trying to navigate the waters of high-society life. What they fail to realize is that even the most charming people have secrets-and when a family errand introduces him to the city’s new tailor, the secrets Blaine has been hiding begin to seem a little less containable.
~
Near Albany, 1884
The woman’s back was to the door, her long dark hair twisted and pinned into a tight chignon, the hem of her gown dragging on the dark wood of the floor behind her. She was staring out the window at something Blaine couldn’t see, but he couldn’t tell whether she was actually looking at something beyond the glass or whether her mind was really millions of miles away, lost in thought.
“Mother?” he called tentatively, from the spot where he’d paused on the threshold. “You called for me?”
She turned part way, then, smiling slightly as she looked at him. “Yes,” she replied. “Yes, I did. Come in, Blaine-and shut the door behind you, please.”
Shut the door? Nobody shut doors in the Andersons’ house, not unless they were going to sleep-it simply wasn’t done. Besides, it wasn’t as though there was anyone to hide from; it was just his mother and father here now. Well, and the servants, but people never seemed to count them. What, Blaine wondered, could his mother possibly have to say to him that the others couldn’t overhear? He stepped inside, closing the door obediently before walking over to join his mother by the window.
“I planted the garden myself, you know,” she said, and Blaine glanced at her in surprise before following her gaze out onto the grounds. “Not all of it, of course-it’s far to big for that-but it gave me something to occupy myself with after your grandmother died. I planted this bed,” she said, nodding to the clustered blossoms below the window, asphodel and red catchfly and hyacinth, its bluish-purple blooms mirrored by the colour of her dress, “while I was pregnant with you.”
She turned, then, and looked at him with deep hazel eyes so much like his own. “You have my curls,” she murmured, reaching out to brush an errant corkscrew back from his face-and Blaine realized with a shock that he was taller than her; he’d grown again, while he was away at school. “I’m sorry about that,” she said, smiling softly. “They have a mind of their own, don’t they? However hard we try, they never quite manage to do as they ought.”
Something about the way she said it made Blaine feel as though she weren’t just talking about his hair. Heart sinking, he searched her face for clues, and for a moment it seemed as if he were back in short pants, waiting for a scolding. “Mama?” he asked, voice as small as he felt. “Have I done something wrong?”
“No!” she exclaimed, eyes widening. “No, Blaine, you’ve been lovely. I’ve heard nothing but kind words from your headmaster.”
Blaine let out a quiet sigh of relief. He always tried to do his best-he did all his schoolwork, got good marks, was friendly with all the other boys, was almost never late-but sometimes he worried about what would happen if they knew what was happening inside his head. They didn’t know, of course. Nobody knew-except Sebastian, but Blaine knew he wouldn’t tell. He didn’t think he was doing anything wrong-not unless making friends with the boy at the corner shop counted as “wrong,” which he was pretty sure it didn’t-but he wasn’t sure that other boys felt quite so attached to their friendships, and the thought that other people might have a problem with his sentiments was…uncomfortable, to say the least.
He might not get to see his mother very often, now that he was away at boarding school most of the year, but he still loved her. He didn’t want her to think less of him. He didn’t want her to be sad, either-but that, he realized with a lurch, was exactly what he saw in her eyes. She usually got teary when it was time for him to leave, but she always saved it until the morning, when he said goodbye and waved-just once, because he was a grown-up now and it wasn’t seemly to be upset over leaving his mother-through the carriage window as they drove away. Blaine still had a whole day left.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, brow creasing with worry.
“I need to tell you something, dear,” she said, her face as serious as Blaine had ever seen it. “Come and sit with me?”
Blaine nodded, and followed her dumbly to the settee nearest the window. He watched as she carefully settled her long skirts around her, hands smoothing over the soft fabric of her lap, as if to rid it of wrinkles. She only ever fussed with her clothes when she was distressed-when somebody said something she disagreed with or when Blaine did something wrong and she had to correct him. She never fussed when she was happy.
“You know I went to stay with my mother in New York City when she was ill, don’t you?” she said finally, looking up to meet his anxious gaze. “Amelia was already there, of course, but she’d just been married, and I didn’t want her to have to care for mother, not alone. I knew-” she broke off and looked away, as if talking about it would somehow be easier, if she didn’t have to look at him. “I knew the way you sometimes do, when you care about somebody, that she was going to die.” She blinked rapidly a couple of times, then turned back to Blaine and said, in a steadier and more rapid voice, “Cooper was almost nine years old at the time, so I felt comfortable leaving him to the care of the nanny and governess. I went to stay at your grandmother’s house in the city.
“It wasn’t so bad, at first. In the beginning, she was still very much herself. We chatted, and I read to her from her favourite books. Sometimes, on good days, we would even go down and have tea together in the parlour. But as time wore on, she just kept getting worse. It’s not an easy thing, Blaine, to watch another person die-particularly someone you love. It got to the point where she spent most of the day asleep, and when she wasn’t sleeping she was in pain. I-” She laughed in that mirthless way that people sometimes do, when everything seems so awful or wrong or simply unbelievable that laughter seems the only option, and shook her head. “I started walking the city, just to get away from it all-to get out of the house. I suppose I was in denial. I didn’t want her to die. I-” She paused and looked down, folding her hands carefully in her lap.
“Blaine,” she said, in a voice somehow tinged with something that sounded like desperation. “I know this isn’t an excuse, but I need you to understand that things were…strained, between your father and I. He was always away on business, and even before I left to stay with your grandmother, I’d hardly seen him in months. We…we tried to have other children, you know, after Cooper, but none of them…caught,” she said, her eyes sad. “I felt like he blamed me for that. We never talked about it, really, but he had always wanted a large family-we wanted a large family, in the beginning-and I felt I had disappointed him. I thought…I thought, perhaps, he no longer cared for me.”
She seemed to steal herself, then, drawing a deep breath before looking up to meet Blaine’s gaze again with determined eyes. “I had an indiscretion,” she admitted, and Blaine’s heart lurched because-that could really only mean one thing, couldn’t it? “I didn’t mean for it to happen, I just wandered into the wrong part of town, looked up and-there he was. I was an unaccompanied woman, lost and alone in a foreign part of the city, and he stepped forward to lend me a hand. He was so kind, and polite, and-and handsome, I suppose,” she said, laughing self-deprecatingly, “though I’m sure few people would see it that way. He saw my distress when no one else did. He listened to me talk about my mother, about how frightened I was of losing her, and he told me about losing his own family. We met several times over the following weeks, and…well, eventually one thing led to another, I suppose.”
“Why are you telling me this?” Blaine asked, fearing he might already suspect the answer.
“Because,” she said, smiling sadly, “a week after my…indiscretion, my mother died, and I came back here. And nine months later…you were born.”
Blaine stared at her.
“Blaine,” she said softly, leaning forward, “I know this isn’t what you were expecting to hear when I called you in today, but I needed to tell you. I was young, I was foolish, and I never should have done what I did, but the fact is that it happened, and it affects us. I would never have burdened you with this if I thought it could be avoided, but, Blaine-”
He forced himself to look at her, then-really look at her, ignoring the roaring in his ears and the pain in his stomach, because this was important-and he needed to listen. He needed to stay calm for her. Later, when he was alone-then he could allow the growing cloud of panic to cloud his brain.
“Blaine, the reason I’m telling you this is because he-the man I met in New York City, your biological father, was a Celestial.”
Blaine froze. A Celestial? But he didn’t look like a Celestial-did he? Weren’t boys supposed to look like their fathers? Wasn’t that how it worked?
“Blaine, soon you will come of age, and you may meet someone you wish to marry. You may wed her, and have many children and be very happy together, with no-one any the wiser. But there’s a chance…there’s a chance that if you have children, they will look like your father-they will look like the children of a Chinaman, and everyone will know. I’m not…I’m not saying you can’t marry, or that you can’t have children. When the time comes, you’ll have to weight the risks for yourself, and decide whether it’s worth the possible cost.”
Blaine was silent for a moment his mind whirring, filled with a thousand questions. Why did you do it? Was it hard to leave him? Did you only see him the once, or was it a more prolonged affair? Do I remind you of him? Do you ever think of him, now? The one that came out, though, was the practical one: “Does Father know?”
“Yes,” she nodded, and Blaine was relieved to know what she meant that he didn’t have to clarify with Cooper’s father or your husband. “I thought I owed him that honesty, at least. Besides, I had no way of knowing what you’d turn out like.”
Blaine realized, then that he could have come out looking like a Celestial-that if he had been a little less lucky, he might never have been able to pass as his father’s son at all. He’d heard rumours that there were ways of dealing with unwanted pregnancies, ways to get rid of the baby before it was even born, and for one horrified moment he wondered if his mother had ever attempted it-if she’d ever thought about it. He wondered what would’ve happened if he’d been born looking like the man who sired him. Would they have given him away? Sent him to an orphanage? It was a disturbing thought.
“Mother?” he said, and when she looked at him, her eyes were the same as usual-a little more anxious, perhaps, but no less kind.
“Yes, dear?”
“I…” He searched her face for any sign that she regretted it, regretted him, that she loved him any less. She didn’t look any different-but who could tell? “Thank you,” he said finally. “For telling me. I’m going to go up to my room for a bit, all right?”
“All right, dear,” she replied, and there was no mistaking the relief in her eyes. “Dinner will be ready in about an hour; I’ll have Eliza fetch you when it’s time.”
next
Author: quietlygleeful (quietlygleeful)
Artist: animateglee
Beta: neyronrose
Word count: 2,054 for this chapter; 35,858 words total
Rating: PG-13
Genre: AU (historical), friendship, angst, romance
Warnings: some racial, ethnic, and religious slurs and outdated language/attitudes
Characters/Parings: Kurt/Blaine, Sebastian, Quinn, Brittany, Mike, Carole
Summary: The year is 1890, the place: New York City. To the outside world, Blaine Anderson is just another young gentleman, trying to navigate the waters of high-society life. What they fail to realize is that even the most charming people have secrets-and when a family errand introduces him to the city’s new tailor, the secrets Blaine has been hiding begin to seem a little less containable.
~
Near Albany, 1884
The woman’s back was to the door, her long dark hair twisted and pinned into a tight chignon, the hem of her gown dragging on the dark wood of the floor behind her. She was staring out the window at something Blaine couldn’t see, but he couldn’t tell whether she was actually looking at something beyond the glass or whether her mind was really millions of miles away, lost in thought.
“Mother?” he called tentatively, from the spot where he’d paused on the threshold. “You called for me?”
She turned part way, then, smiling slightly as she looked at him. “Yes,” she replied. “Yes, I did. Come in, Blaine-and shut the door behind you, please.”
Shut the door? Nobody shut doors in the Andersons’ house, not unless they were going to sleep-it simply wasn’t done. Besides, it wasn’t as though there was anyone to hide from; it was just his mother and father here now. Well, and the servants, but people never seemed to count them. What, Blaine wondered, could his mother possibly have to say to him that the others couldn’t overhear? He stepped inside, closing the door obediently before walking over to join his mother by the window.
“I planted the garden myself, you know,” she said, and Blaine glanced at her in surprise before following her gaze out onto the grounds. “Not all of it, of course-it’s far to big for that-but it gave me something to occupy myself with after your grandmother died. I planted this bed,” she said, nodding to the clustered blossoms below the window, asphodel and red catchfly and hyacinth, its bluish-purple blooms mirrored by the colour of her dress, “while I was pregnant with you.”
She turned, then, and looked at him with deep hazel eyes so much like his own. “You have my curls,” she murmured, reaching out to brush an errant corkscrew back from his face-and Blaine realized with a shock that he was taller than her; he’d grown again, while he was away at school. “I’m sorry about that,” she said, smiling softly. “They have a mind of their own, don’t they? However hard we try, they never quite manage to do as they ought.”
Something about the way she said it made Blaine feel as though she weren’t just talking about his hair. Heart sinking, he searched her face for clues, and for a moment it seemed as if he were back in short pants, waiting for a scolding. “Mama?” he asked, voice as small as he felt. “Have I done something wrong?”
“No!” she exclaimed, eyes widening. “No, Blaine, you’ve been lovely. I’ve heard nothing but kind words from your headmaster.”
Blaine let out a quiet sigh of relief. He always tried to do his best-he did all his schoolwork, got good marks, was friendly with all the other boys, was almost never late-but sometimes he worried about what would happen if they knew what was happening inside his head. They didn’t know, of course. Nobody knew-except Sebastian, but Blaine knew he wouldn’t tell. He didn’t think he was doing anything wrong-not unless making friends with the boy at the corner shop counted as “wrong,” which he was pretty sure it didn’t-but he wasn’t sure that other boys felt quite so attached to their friendships, and the thought that other people might have a problem with his sentiments was…uncomfortable, to say the least.
He might not get to see his mother very often, now that he was away at boarding school most of the year, but he still loved her. He didn’t want her to think less of him. He didn’t want her to be sad, either-but that, he realized with a lurch, was exactly what he saw in her eyes. She usually got teary when it was time for him to leave, but she always saved it until the morning, when he said goodbye and waved-just once, because he was a grown-up now and it wasn’t seemly to be upset over leaving his mother-through the carriage window as they drove away. Blaine still had a whole day left.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, brow creasing with worry.
“I need to tell you something, dear,” she said, her face as serious as Blaine had ever seen it. “Come and sit with me?”
Blaine nodded, and followed her dumbly to the settee nearest the window. He watched as she carefully settled her long skirts around her, hands smoothing over the soft fabric of her lap, as if to rid it of wrinkles. She only ever fussed with her clothes when she was distressed-when somebody said something she disagreed with or when Blaine did something wrong and she had to correct him. She never fussed when she was happy.
“You know I went to stay with my mother in New York City when she was ill, don’t you?” she said finally, looking up to meet his anxious gaze. “Amelia was already there, of course, but she’d just been married, and I didn’t want her to have to care for mother, not alone. I knew-” she broke off and looked away, as if talking about it would somehow be easier, if she didn’t have to look at him. “I knew the way you sometimes do, when you care about somebody, that she was going to die.” She blinked rapidly a couple of times, then turned back to Blaine and said, in a steadier and more rapid voice, “Cooper was almost nine years old at the time, so I felt comfortable leaving him to the care of the nanny and governess. I went to stay at your grandmother’s house in the city.
“It wasn’t so bad, at first. In the beginning, she was still very much herself. We chatted, and I read to her from her favourite books. Sometimes, on good days, we would even go down and have tea together in the parlour. But as time wore on, she just kept getting worse. It’s not an easy thing, Blaine, to watch another person die-particularly someone you love. It got to the point where she spent most of the day asleep, and when she wasn’t sleeping she was in pain. I-” She laughed in that mirthless way that people sometimes do, when everything seems so awful or wrong or simply unbelievable that laughter seems the only option, and shook her head. “I started walking the city, just to get away from it all-to get out of the house. I suppose I was in denial. I didn’t want her to die. I-” She paused and looked down, folding her hands carefully in her lap.
“Blaine,” she said, in a voice somehow tinged with something that sounded like desperation. “I know this isn’t an excuse, but I need you to understand that things were…strained, between your father and I. He was always away on business, and even before I left to stay with your grandmother, I’d hardly seen him in months. We…we tried to have other children, you know, after Cooper, but none of them…caught,” she said, her eyes sad. “I felt like he blamed me for that. We never talked about it, really, but he had always wanted a large family-we wanted a large family, in the beginning-and I felt I had disappointed him. I thought…I thought, perhaps, he no longer cared for me.”
She seemed to steal herself, then, drawing a deep breath before looking up to meet Blaine’s gaze again with determined eyes. “I had an indiscretion,” she admitted, and Blaine’s heart lurched because-that could really only mean one thing, couldn’t it? “I didn’t mean for it to happen, I just wandered into the wrong part of town, looked up and-there he was. I was an unaccompanied woman, lost and alone in a foreign part of the city, and he stepped forward to lend me a hand. He was so kind, and polite, and-and handsome, I suppose,” she said, laughing self-deprecatingly, “though I’m sure few people would see it that way. He saw my distress when no one else did. He listened to me talk about my mother, about how frightened I was of losing her, and he told me about losing his own family. We met several times over the following weeks, and…well, eventually one thing led to another, I suppose.”
“Why are you telling me this?” Blaine asked, fearing he might already suspect the answer.
“Because,” she said, smiling sadly, “a week after my…indiscretion, my mother died, and I came back here. And nine months later…you were born.”
Blaine stared at her.
“Blaine,” she said softly, leaning forward, “I know this isn’t what you were expecting to hear when I called you in today, but I needed to tell you. I was young, I was foolish, and I never should have done what I did, but the fact is that it happened, and it affects us. I would never have burdened you with this if I thought it could be avoided, but, Blaine-”
He forced himself to look at her, then-really look at her, ignoring the roaring in his ears and the pain in his stomach, because this was important-and he needed to listen. He needed to stay calm for her. Later, when he was alone-then he could allow the growing cloud of panic to cloud his brain.
“Blaine, the reason I’m telling you this is because he-the man I met in New York City, your biological father, was a Celestial.”
Blaine froze. A Celestial? But he didn’t look like a Celestial-did he? Weren’t boys supposed to look like their fathers? Wasn’t that how it worked?
“Blaine, soon you will come of age, and you may meet someone you wish to marry. You may wed her, and have many children and be very happy together, with no-one any the wiser. But there’s a chance…there’s a chance that if you have children, they will look like your father-they will look like the children of a Chinaman, and everyone will know. I’m not…I’m not saying you can’t marry, or that you can’t have children. When the time comes, you’ll have to weight the risks for yourself, and decide whether it’s worth the possible cost.”
Blaine was silent for a moment his mind whirring, filled with a thousand questions. Why did you do it? Was it hard to leave him? Did you only see him the once, or was it a more prolonged affair? Do I remind you of him? Do you ever think of him, now? The one that came out, though, was the practical one: “Does Father know?”
“Yes,” she nodded, and Blaine was relieved to know what she meant that he didn’t have to clarify with Cooper’s father or your husband. “I thought I owed him that honesty, at least. Besides, I had no way of knowing what you’d turn out like.”
Blaine realized, then that he could have come out looking like a Celestial-that if he had been a little less lucky, he might never have been able to pass as his father’s son at all. He’d heard rumours that there were ways of dealing with unwanted pregnancies, ways to get rid of the baby before it was even born, and for one horrified moment he wondered if his mother had ever attempted it-if she’d ever thought about it. He wondered what would’ve happened if he’d been born looking like the man who sired him. Would they have given him away? Sent him to an orphanage? It was a disturbing thought.
“Mother?” he said, and when she looked at him, her eyes were the same as usual-a little more anxious, perhaps, but no less kind.
“Yes, dear?”
“I…” He searched her face for any sign that she regretted it, regretted him, that she loved him any less. She didn’t look any different-but who could tell? “Thank you,” he said finally. “For telling me. I’m going to go up to my room for a bit, all right?”
“All right, dear,” she replied, and there was no mistaking the relief in her eyes. “Dinner will be ready in about an hour; I’ll have Eliza fetch you when it’s time.”
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