blueberry yoghurt and honeydew with whipped cream and chopped nuts
Story: Timeless { backstory | index }
Title: Family Ties
Rating: G
Challenge: Blueberry Yoghurt #22: making repairs, Honeydew #14: sleight of hand
Toppings/Extras: whipped cream, chopped nuts
Wordcount: 1,022
Summary: Edward Ashdown’s ailing mother makes a confession.
Notes: Chopped nuts because Ashdown never actually discovers this secret. Just as well, really. Finally finished posting Blueberry Yoghurt!
The room was quite dark, the curtains drawn halfway, making it feel almost like a den as opposed to the bedchamber of a distinguished Lady At Court. The smell of botanical tinctures was almost visible, a thick green cloud of fuggy scent that made the teenage Edward Ashdown wrinkle his nose as he stepped forwards.
“Don’t just stand there looking bemused, you useless boy. Sit.”
Ah, there it was. His mother’s impatient snapping was something he was well used to although he had never spent much time with her, even in childhood. After all, it was not very fashionable for the nobility to raise their own children. Squinting, he groped his way over to a large chair next to her bed and sat down upon it quickly.
“Good day, Mother,” he said primly.
“Good day indeed!” Lady Ashdown snorted. “You realise I am dying, son, don’t you?”
“Regretfully, that seems to be the case, Mother.”
Finally, he allowed himself to look at his mother properly. Cadaverously thin and with a hawk-like beak of a nose, his mother looked unpleasant as ever. A large feather neck-warmer that looked like a dead vulture was wrapped tightly around her pale throat. Her watery blue eyes squinted at him through the shadowy light.
“Should have taught you to respect your elders,” she grumbled, although she knew that she had taught him well how to stand up for himself without sounding foolish. Her son could verbally outmanoeuvre every boy his own age and plenty older: it reminded her of herself in her younger days.
”Why have you called me here, Mother?” Edward asked idly.
“Ah, yes,” Lady Ashdown wriggled herself into something more of an upright position and brought her bony fingers together to lace over her lap. “I have something of great importance to tell you, Edward, although I expect you to keep it to yourself.”
Young Edward frowned.
“Well, what is it?”
There was a dreadfully long pause. Lady Ashdown twisted on her bed for a moment, and finally decided to plunge on with it.
“James Ashdown is not your father.”
Whatever he had been expecting, it hadn’t been that. To his credit, Edward Ashdown hid his feelings well, which he was always very apt at doing. Oh yes, his mother was very proud of him, although of course she wouldn’t tell that to him, even at gunpoint. That would undo all of her hard work.
“Are you sure?” he asked. He sounded doubtful.
“There is no definite proof,” Lady Ashdown sighed, “But I see your real father in you. Why do you think you’re such a clever boy, Edward? You certainly didn’t get that from my husband.”
“But I...”
“No, listen to me,” Lady Ashdown interrupted him smoothly: she was just about the only person who could get away with doing so. “James and I married under very unusual circumstances. Surely you were never under the impression that we are happy together?”
“Well, it’s marriage,” Edward said, a little disarmed. “Happiness isn’t... essential.”
“I suppose it would seem that way to you,” Lady Ashdown sighed. “And to an extent, that has been proven true. But let me tell you, your father made me very happy. He was a genius, you know. A reclusive genius, but a genius all the same.”
Obviously not that reclusive, Edward thought with some irritation.
“From what sort of background?”
”Of a lower class,” she said after a brief hesitation. “Played the harpsichord in the Court of Queen Elizabeth... long before your time, boy.”
Edward’s lips were pressed tightly together.
“A commoner.”
“Yes.”
There was a long period of silence. Lady Ashdown sighed-distaste for the lower class had been bred into her, yet she had overcome it upon meeting Percival Ingram. Sometimes she wished that the same rules of society had not been so much impressed upon her son.
“What about Rosalind?”
“I’m quite sure she is James’,” Lady Ashdown replied. “She has his green eyes, you see. And yours are blue, such a faint blue. And you’re so intelligent, too. I cannot imagine you being anyone but Percival’s.”
”Where is he now?”
“Long dead.” There was a heavy pause as the two of them regarded each other; mother and son. As a child, Edward Ashdown had always had a lot of love for his father James Ashdown, not to mention pride in him, but of course it had faded over time. He had come to see during his mid and late teens how dull, grey and stony his father was, how intensely boring every view he had was. His lack of opinions. His overbearing presence in the house.
Nevertheless...
”So I am not, in actual fact, an Ashdown?”
“You are, and you shall continue to be one,” Lady Ashdown said, sitting forwards. She reached out and wrapped a claw-like hand around one of his-Edward couldn’t remember the last time he had had any physical contact with his mother. It made him uncomfortable. “The Ashdowns were great once, everyone knows. But somewhere along their bloodline they lost... their inventiveness. Their ingenuity. Their creativeness. They are so dull, Edward-all of them.”
He certainly knew that from the countless family unions and weddings and funerals and galas he had been forced to attend over the years.
“But you have Percival Ingram in you,” his mother finally said, letting go of him and falling back against her pillows. “He was a genius, Edward, a genius. You should have seen the music that he wrote.”
“I don’t...”
“Shush, boy. You have his creativity, his... suppleness of mind, shall we say. It will serve you well. And you will make the Ashdowns great again.”
“How?” Edward asked dubiously. All he wanted to do was read, not reinforce the status of a family he was not, in actual genetic fact, part of.
“You will think of something,” she said, her voice dimming as she grew more tired from the mere exertion of speech. “Leave me now, Edward: I need to rest awhile. Perhaps we will talk more about Percival Ingram another day. For now, get back to your studies.”
“But...”
“Off you go.”