White Chocolate 19 [Divide and Rule]
Title: Trouble
Author: lost_spook
Story: Heroes of the Revolution (Divide & Rule)
Flavor(s): White Chocolate #19 (rage)
Toppings/Extras: Malt - January Games Week I (And, on a slightly random note: has anyone from your canon ever had a pet that they were particularly close to/that was especially important to them? from fachefaucheux.)
Rating: PG
Word Count: 2266
Notes: Feb 1950; Edward Iveson/Julia Graves.
Summary: Julia and Edward nearly come apart at the seams over a cat.
***
Everything had been going so well since Edward and Julia had finally acknowledged that their marriage was no matter of convenience. There had been small troubles and misunderstandings but nothing like the row that had blown up out of nowhere over the neighbours’ cat. It was such a stupidly small incident to have turned into something that threatened to divide them.
Next door’s cat had developed a habit of slipping in the door the moment Julia opened it to take in the milk, and on this particular morning, it had got into the dining room before she noticed. She’d found it in there a few minutes later choking and clearly about to bring up a fur ball or grass it had eaten and she’d got the newspaper under it just in time. It just turned out that she’d grabbed this morning’s paper rather than yesterday’s and Edward, coming down for breakfast a few minutes later, got ridiculously annoyed over it.
“Why was the cat even in here?” he had demanded, taking the seat at the table. “Julia!”
She had turned back with a laugh, only for it to slowly fade as she watched him. “Goodness, you’re serious, aren’t you? Don’t be silly.”
“Of course,” he said, the set of his shoulders stiffening. “I need to see the morning’s news before I do anything - couldn’t you have been more careful? I don’t see that it would have been so much worse just to clean up the carpet afterwards instead of sacrificing the paper.”
Julia looked at him. “Well, no, I don’t suppose you do!”
All would have no doubt been well before the end of the day, since Edward came home fully apologetic, but unfortunately late and in the meantime, Julia had grown more furious herself at his unreasonable behaviour and had been waiting hours to tell him exactly what she thought of him for shouting at her over the demise of a mere newspaper. And when he came in, ready to say sorry, she didn’t even give him the chance. Once she’d finished storming at him, he withdrew into terse, offended politeness for the rest of the evening.
She had stolen back downstairs later to find him in the living room and she had sat on the arm of his chair. “I’m sorry, darling,” she said. “Come on, we can’t let such a silly thing come between us.”
“Of course not,” he’d said, without looking at her, but then he’d got up without a further word and left her sitting there. When she’d followed him upstairs, he wasn’t in the bedroom, and it took her till too late to realise that was because he’d taken himself into the spare room for the night, as if they’d suddenly turned the clock back to last autumn.
Julia had lain there, awake, and growing angry again herself, which had manifested itself in the morning in responding to his stiff politeness with her very best performance of the perfect housewife, an impenetrable barrier to proper conversation. He had come home much earlier that day and made tentative overtures of normality, which she’d been glad of but ignored, waiting for the moment when she felt she’d made him pay enough for making such a fuss in the first place. But, to her dismay, come the night, she’d found herself alone again and suddenly too worried to go into see him. What if, she’d thought, it wasn’t about the stupid cat, what if that was only the last exasperating straw for him, and he was tired of her?
It might have finally blown over in the morning if Julia, hurt by his abstraction over the latest (unmolested) edition of the newspaper, hadn’t snapped out, “Well, I can see why you had to resort to a marriage of convenience if you’re this unreasonable in the mornings! If I’d known, I’d never have married you. I don’t suppose anyone would.”
Edward looked up slowly, but he didn’t say anything.
Somehow his silence only goaded Julia into finding the worst possible thing she could say: “I wouldn’t stay if I had anywhere else to go - if it wouldn’t ruin everything to cause you another scandal!” When he still didn’t say anything, she added, “And anyway, I was assigned to you by the organisation, wasn’t I? I suppose I can’t neglect my duty.”
Still without a word, he put the newspaper and left. Julia hesitated, trembling on the edge of running after him, but knowing instinctively that she’d just made him angrier than he’d ever been with her. Or hurt, she’d thought as she heard the front door close behind him, carefully and quietly. He didn’t even have the decency to slam it like any normal person would.
“Oh, damn,” she said.
She’d tried to apologise since, but he wouldn’t let her. He shut her down quietly but with firmness or simply chose not to hear her.
“Be like that, then,” she’d said that morning, all but ready to throw the marmalade at his head. “I don’t care.”
There was a small meow from somewhere under the table.
“Julia,” said Edward, lowering the paper wearily, “is that blasted cat in here again?”
She’d gone down on her hands and knees to pull it out from under the dining table, holding it against her as it wriggled. “Shut up, you misbegotten moggy,” she said in its ear as she stood. Then she looked down at Edward. “Yes, it is, and I don’t care. At least it shows me some affection occasionally, which is more than I can say for you!”
And now, he hadn’t come home at all. It was Saturday and she didn’t even know where he had gone out to in the first place. Julia paced about the living room and wondered if she should telephone his relatives and find out if he was with any of them. Maybe he’d left her, she thought with a lurch of dismay in her stomach at the idea. He wouldn’t, she told herself. Not Edward. He’d just stay with her and ignore her forever. She blinked back tears at that thought and crossed to the window again, pulling back the curtain without much hope.
She had gone so far past expecting him that it took her a while to realise that the car was parked outside. Julia leant forward, pressing her fingers against the glass, leaning at an angle, because it looked to her as though Edward was still in the car. Oh, honestly, she thought. Was he going to sit there all night?
She hadn’t even paused to notice that without real reason, she already felt immeasurably more cheerful.
She walked out to the car and peered in. “Edward,” she said, as she pulled open the passenger door and poked her head inside, “what are you doing?”
“Something stupid,” he said, and then threw her a rueful look that caused her to breathe out in relief, because he was talking to her again now; the impenetrable politeness gone. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking - well, I do, but I was angry -” He stopped and gave a shrug.
Julia stood back as he got out of the car, watching him with her arms folded in against herself at the chill of the foggy evening. “Ned?”
“Look,” he said, tapping his fingers on the roof of the car and not quite raising his gaze to look at her, “you go on in - I’ll explain in just a moment.”
Julia found herself smiling. “All right,” she said. “I shall be waiting very impatiently.”
“I thought,” said Edward, carefully putting a box down on the living room carpet, “that if we were finished -” He hesitated again, and then gave her a half-smile. “Well, to be honest I was furious, that was all. I wasn’t thinking straight. I just thought to myself that if what she wants is a cat rather than a husband, she can have one.”
Julia dropped to her knees beside the box. “A cat? Well, come on, let the poor thing out!”
“Poor thing?” said Edward. “I thought it was going to destroy the box on the way home and probably follow that up by savaging me, and I’d be finished off in the resulting traffic accident.”
Julia shook her head at him. “Don’t be ridiculous. But, Edward, I don’t know what I’ve got in for him.”
“I know,” said Edward. Rationing had made it hard on keeping pets, especially dogs, but cats too. A distressing side-effect of the war had been a lot of dogs and cats being killed to save rations. It was much better now, but it would be a lot easier once the restrictions had been relaxed. “But he’s only small yet - still a kitten really. And I did at least think to stop and find a few necessities - a basket at least. I’ve put it in the kitchen.”
He crouched down and opened the box, revealing a black and white kitten with yellow eyes, small and entirely innocent-looking. Julia reached in and picked up the cat, only to have him dart out of her hold - off round the room and up and down the curtains.
“Trouble, clearly, I see,” she said.
“He didn’t like being cooped up, or the noise of the car, I think. I realise that I shouldn’t have got him - not like that. I did stop on the way home and ask Nancy if she’d have him instead.”
Julia stopped watching the cat and turned her gaze back to Edward, fighting to keep the amusement out of her voice. “You telephoned Nancy and tried to foist a cat onto her?”
“Er, yes,” said Edward. “Isabel was keen, but Nancy told me I should just get on and speak to you first. She was right, of course.”
Julia dipped her head, her lips twitching, as she continued to try and maintain a straight face. “You were so very angry with me that you went out and found me a cat to show me exactly how angry you were?”
“I know,” said Edward, sitting on the floor and leaning back against the sofa. “Not very rational. I thought about turning around and taking him back, but they were having trouble homing some of them and I didn’t really like to think -”
Julia nodded. “No, of course you couldn’t do that. But, darling, I don’t even like next door’s cat very much. It just gets in sometimes.”
“I’m sorry,” said Edward. “I’m sure Nancy and Isabel would take him -”
Julia stood, detaching the black and white kitten from the long curtains, stroking him. He purred loudly. “Oh, no,” she said. “I mean, next door’s is just an unfriendly so-and-so anyway. We have to keep him. It’s clear that he’s ours. Trouble, as I said.”
“No, I am sorry,” said Edward more quietly. “I’ve not behaved well from start to finish of this. I don’t even know what to say.”
Julia released the kitten again, and sat down beside him, giving a tremulous smile. “No, I don’t think you have, but then neither have I. I didn’t mean the awful things I said. I just can’t bear it when you ignore me. Please don’t do that again, Edward, not like that. Don’t go and hide in the spare room. No matter what it is, we can make it all right if you’ll only talk to me. I have a stupid temper, but it rarely lasts long. You should know that by now. And,” she added, casting a glance over at him, “I promise never to wreck your dratted newspaper again.”
“I was in a bad mood,” he said. “It didn’t really matter. I bought another one on the way in to Westminster.”
Julia leant against him, playing with the material of his open jacket as he slid an arm around her tightly. “I don’t like it when you leave me all alone in the dark.”
“Don’t you?” he said, with a smile and a light in his eyes as he leant in to kiss her, only to draw back abruptly with a short yell. “Julia, get it off me, can’t you?”
She stared at him for a moment before understanding his difficulty. Then, laughing, she hastened to detach the kitten, which had run along the sofa seat to jump onto Edward’s back, just where it was most awkward for him to reach, and dug its claws in as it landed.
“The poor thing probably wants feeding, and there we were, forgetting it already. Come on, Trouble,” she said to the cat, carrying it off towards the kitchen as Edward followed.
“You can’t call him that,” he said, as she poured out a saucer of milk and water, and put it down for the cat.
Julia looked upwards, momentarily still crouching on the lino beside Trouble. “But he is. What else could he be?”
“I suppose,” said Edward, giving way to a smile and holding out a hand to her as she stood. “Julia, I am sorry.”
She put her arms around him, pulling him into a too-tight hug. “Me, too. But, Ned, I mean it. Don’t hide from me like that.”
“No, well,” he said, with another brief smile before he kissed her. “I have to say, I’m not all that fond of the spare room, either.”
“And, after all, we can’t go on like that if you’re going to bring home a pet every time you’re angry,” said Julia. “We’d have a menagerie!”
***
Author: lost_spook
Story: Heroes of the Revolution (Divide & Rule)
Flavor(s): White Chocolate #19 (rage)
Toppings/Extras: Malt - January Games Week I (And, on a slightly random note: has anyone from your canon ever had a pet that they were particularly close to/that was especially important to them? from fachefaucheux.)
Rating: PG
Word Count: 2266
Notes: Feb 1950; Edward Iveson/Julia Graves.
Summary: Julia and Edward nearly come apart at the seams over a cat.
***
Everything had been going so well since Edward and Julia had finally acknowledged that their marriage was no matter of convenience. There had been small troubles and misunderstandings but nothing like the row that had blown up out of nowhere over the neighbours’ cat. It was such a stupidly small incident to have turned into something that threatened to divide them.
Next door’s cat had developed a habit of slipping in the door the moment Julia opened it to take in the milk, and on this particular morning, it had got into the dining room before she noticed. She’d found it in there a few minutes later choking and clearly about to bring up a fur ball or grass it had eaten and she’d got the newspaper under it just in time. It just turned out that she’d grabbed this morning’s paper rather than yesterday’s and Edward, coming down for breakfast a few minutes later, got ridiculously annoyed over it.
“Why was the cat even in here?” he had demanded, taking the seat at the table. “Julia!”
She had turned back with a laugh, only for it to slowly fade as she watched him. “Goodness, you’re serious, aren’t you? Don’t be silly.”
“Of course,” he said, the set of his shoulders stiffening. “I need to see the morning’s news before I do anything - couldn’t you have been more careful? I don’t see that it would have been so much worse just to clean up the carpet afterwards instead of sacrificing the paper.”
Julia looked at him. “Well, no, I don’t suppose you do!”
All would have no doubt been well before the end of the day, since Edward came home fully apologetic, but unfortunately late and in the meantime, Julia had grown more furious herself at his unreasonable behaviour and had been waiting hours to tell him exactly what she thought of him for shouting at her over the demise of a mere newspaper. And when he came in, ready to say sorry, she didn’t even give him the chance. Once she’d finished storming at him, he withdrew into terse, offended politeness for the rest of the evening.
She had stolen back downstairs later to find him in the living room and she had sat on the arm of his chair. “I’m sorry, darling,” she said. “Come on, we can’t let such a silly thing come between us.”
“Of course not,” he’d said, without looking at her, but then he’d got up without a further word and left her sitting there. When she’d followed him upstairs, he wasn’t in the bedroom, and it took her till too late to realise that was because he’d taken himself into the spare room for the night, as if they’d suddenly turned the clock back to last autumn.
Julia had lain there, awake, and growing angry again herself, which had manifested itself in the morning in responding to his stiff politeness with her very best performance of the perfect housewife, an impenetrable barrier to proper conversation. He had come home much earlier that day and made tentative overtures of normality, which she’d been glad of but ignored, waiting for the moment when she felt she’d made him pay enough for making such a fuss in the first place. But, to her dismay, come the night, she’d found herself alone again and suddenly too worried to go into see him. What if, she’d thought, it wasn’t about the stupid cat, what if that was only the last exasperating straw for him, and he was tired of her?
It might have finally blown over in the morning if Julia, hurt by his abstraction over the latest (unmolested) edition of the newspaper, hadn’t snapped out, “Well, I can see why you had to resort to a marriage of convenience if you’re this unreasonable in the mornings! If I’d known, I’d never have married you. I don’t suppose anyone would.”
Edward looked up slowly, but he didn’t say anything.
Somehow his silence only goaded Julia into finding the worst possible thing she could say: “I wouldn’t stay if I had anywhere else to go - if it wouldn’t ruin everything to cause you another scandal!” When he still didn’t say anything, she added, “And anyway, I was assigned to you by the organisation, wasn’t I? I suppose I can’t neglect my duty.”
Still without a word, he put the newspaper and left. Julia hesitated, trembling on the edge of running after him, but knowing instinctively that she’d just made him angrier than he’d ever been with her. Or hurt, she’d thought as she heard the front door close behind him, carefully and quietly. He didn’t even have the decency to slam it like any normal person would.
“Oh, damn,” she said.
She’d tried to apologise since, but he wouldn’t let her. He shut her down quietly but with firmness or simply chose not to hear her.
“Be like that, then,” she’d said that morning, all but ready to throw the marmalade at his head. “I don’t care.”
There was a small meow from somewhere under the table.
“Julia,” said Edward, lowering the paper wearily, “is that blasted cat in here again?”
She’d gone down on her hands and knees to pull it out from under the dining table, holding it against her as it wriggled. “Shut up, you misbegotten moggy,” she said in its ear as she stood. Then she looked down at Edward. “Yes, it is, and I don’t care. At least it shows me some affection occasionally, which is more than I can say for you!”
And now, he hadn’t come home at all. It was Saturday and she didn’t even know where he had gone out to in the first place. Julia paced about the living room and wondered if she should telephone his relatives and find out if he was with any of them. Maybe he’d left her, she thought with a lurch of dismay in her stomach at the idea. He wouldn’t, she told herself. Not Edward. He’d just stay with her and ignore her forever. She blinked back tears at that thought and crossed to the window again, pulling back the curtain without much hope.
She had gone so far past expecting him that it took her a while to realise that the car was parked outside. Julia leant forward, pressing her fingers against the glass, leaning at an angle, because it looked to her as though Edward was still in the car. Oh, honestly, she thought. Was he going to sit there all night?
She hadn’t even paused to notice that without real reason, she already felt immeasurably more cheerful.
She walked out to the car and peered in. “Edward,” she said, as she pulled open the passenger door and poked her head inside, “what are you doing?”
“Something stupid,” he said, and then threw her a rueful look that caused her to breathe out in relief, because he was talking to her again now; the impenetrable politeness gone. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking - well, I do, but I was angry -” He stopped and gave a shrug.
Julia stood back as he got out of the car, watching him with her arms folded in against herself at the chill of the foggy evening. “Ned?”
“Look,” he said, tapping his fingers on the roof of the car and not quite raising his gaze to look at her, “you go on in - I’ll explain in just a moment.”
Julia found herself smiling. “All right,” she said. “I shall be waiting very impatiently.”
“I thought,” said Edward, carefully putting a box down on the living room carpet, “that if we were finished -” He hesitated again, and then gave her a half-smile. “Well, to be honest I was furious, that was all. I wasn’t thinking straight. I just thought to myself that if what she wants is a cat rather than a husband, she can have one.”
Julia dropped to her knees beside the box. “A cat? Well, come on, let the poor thing out!”
“Poor thing?” said Edward. “I thought it was going to destroy the box on the way home and probably follow that up by savaging me, and I’d be finished off in the resulting traffic accident.”
Julia shook her head at him. “Don’t be ridiculous. But, Edward, I don’t know what I’ve got in for him.”
“I know,” said Edward. Rationing had made it hard on keeping pets, especially dogs, but cats too. A distressing side-effect of the war had been a lot of dogs and cats being killed to save rations. It was much better now, but it would be a lot easier once the restrictions had been relaxed. “But he’s only small yet - still a kitten really. And I did at least think to stop and find a few necessities - a basket at least. I’ve put it in the kitchen.”
He crouched down and opened the box, revealing a black and white kitten with yellow eyes, small and entirely innocent-looking. Julia reached in and picked up the cat, only to have him dart out of her hold - off round the room and up and down the curtains.
“Trouble, clearly, I see,” she said.
“He didn’t like being cooped up, or the noise of the car, I think. I realise that I shouldn’t have got him - not like that. I did stop on the way home and ask Nancy if she’d have him instead.”
Julia stopped watching the cat and turned her gaze back to Edward, fighting to keep the amusement out of her voice. “You telephoned Nancy and tried to foist a cat onto her?”
“Er, yes,” said Edward. “Isabel was keen, but Nancy told me I should just get on and speak to you first. She was right, of course.”
Julia dipped her head, her lips twitching, as she continued to try and maintain a straight face. “You were so very angry with me that you went out and found me a cat to show me exactly how angry you were?”
“I know,” said Edward, sitting on the floor and leaning back against the sofa. “Not very rational. I thought about turning around and taking him back, but they were having trouble homing some of them and I didn’t really like to think -”
Julia nodded. “No, of course you couldn’t do that. But, darling, I don’t even like next door’s cat very much. It just gets in sometimes.”
“I’m sorry,” said Edward. “I’m sure Nancy and Isabel would take him -”
Julia stood, detaching the black and white kitten from the long curtains, stroking him. He purred loudly. “Oh, no,” she said. “I mean, next door’s is just an unfriendly so-and-so anyway. We have to keep him. It’s clear that he’s ours. Trouble, as I said.”
“No, I am sorry,” said Edward more quietly. “I’ve not behaved well from start to finish of this. I don’t even know what to say.”
Julia released the kitten again, and sat down beside him, giving a tremulous smile. “No, I don’t think you have, but then neither have I. I didn’t mean the awful things I said. I just can’t bear it when you ignore me. Please don’t do that again, Edward, not like that. Don’t go and hide in the spare room. No matter what it is, we can make it all right if you’ll only talk to me. I have a stupid temper, but it rarely lasts long. You should know that by now. And,” she added, casting a glance over at him, “I promise never to wreck your dratted newspaper again.”
“I was in a bad mood,” he said. “It didn’t really matter. I bought another one on the way in to Westminster.”
Julia leant against him, playing with the material of his open jacket as he slid an arm around her tightly. “I don’t like it when you leave me all alone in the dark.”
“Don’t you?” he said, with a smile and a light in his eyes as he leant in to kiss her, only to draw back abruptly with a short yell. “Julia, get it off me, can’t you?”
She stared at him for a moment before understanding his difficulty. Then, laughing, she hastened to detach the kitten, which had run along the sofa seat to jump onto Edward’s back, just where it was most awkward for him to reach, and dug its claws in as it landed.
“The poor thing probably wants feeding, and there we were, forgetting it already. Come on, Trouble,” she said to the cat, carrying it off towards the kitchen as Edward followed.
“You can’t call him that,” he said, as she poured out a saucer of milk and water, and put it down for the cat.
Julia looked upwards, momentarily still crouching on the lino beside Trouble. “But he is. What else could he be?”
“I suppose,” said Edward, giving way to a smile and holding out a hand to her as she stood. “Julia, I am sorry.”
She put her arms around him, pulling him into a too-tight hug. “Me, too. But, Ned, I mean it. Don’t hide from me like that.”
“No, well,” he said, with another brief smile before he kissed her. “I have to say, I’m not all that fond of the spare room, either.”
“And, after all, we can’t go on like that if you’re going to bring home a pet every time you’re angry,” said Julia. “We’d have a menagerie!”
***