part 2 - may i lay beneath the roses that my eyes no longer see
It's Strange How No One Comes 'Round Anymore
Your presence still lingers here
And it won't leave me alone
These wounds won't seem to heal
This pain is just too real
There's just too much that time cannot erase
I held your hand through all of these years...
I've tried so hard to tell myself that you're gone
But though you're still with me
I've been alone all along - Evanescence, "My Immortal"
"God, please bring Papa home safely. Make Mama come home too, then we c’n be a fam’ly ’gain. Papa is so sad, and Nurse says it’s Mama’s fault, but if she comes home she’ll see how much we love her an’ Papa won’t go ’way."
The Commodore pauses outside the nursery, where a spill of golden light has lit up his youngest and only child, kneeling at her bed in supplication to a God he’s secretly come to doubt the existence of. Home early from a voyage to Barbados, still reeling with whores’ perfume and the gentleman’s drink, he muses how Cecily herself is a miracle of that non-existent god; born in the first year of his marriage, back when he’d believed in the power of love and redemption, when he’d still thought it possible to vanquish ghosts-inside the marriage bed and without.
"Papa?" Cecily is transformed-one moment the praying infant, the very picture of her mother as she must have been at that age, the next a completely different child, who races straight for him, nearly knocking them both over. He leans against the opposite wall for support and she buries her face in his midsection, voice muffled. "You’re back!"
Most indecorous for a child, Norrington thinks. But finishing school will take that out of her, many years from now, and though neither of them can know it, this may be the last instance in which they spend any real time together. Not that he’s spent much with her to begin with-his heart suddenly fills with emotion for this small creature whose paternity he’s never been certain of. She may have round brown eyes and no one’s nose, but she’s serious like he is, with a love for the sea.
"Is it for always, Papa?"
"You know the answer to that, Cecily," Norrington replies, gently disentangling her small fists from his coat. Then he does something that later he’ll blame on the copious amount of brandy he’d consumed before coming home that night. "Would you like to visit Mama before I have to leave again?"
"Oh, Papa!" Cecily breathes. "Really?"
There’s no way to take back the impossible words without breaking her heart. "Yes, poppet. Would your Papa go back on his word?"
The light in her eyes dims, and the smile slips from her face. It strikes Norrington to the core. He squats down closer to her level, cupping her chin in his hand. "This time it’s for real, darling. Now go to bed, we have a long ride ahead of us and I want you well-rested to see your Mama in the morning."
Her answering smile, so like Elizabeth’s, should lift the damper that has settled over his spirits. But it does not.
*~*
Norrington has every intention of doing what he usually does the next morning; that is, to embark the Interceptor on some useless errand. Silks, to please the new Governor’s lonely wife, perhaps. He'd not return for another three months, but then at least he can face his child with a guilt-free conscience. Unfortunately, his plans are foiled by Cecily and her nurse, in the entryway bright and early.
Cecily seems torn between despair and hope-stiff-backed, lower lip beginning to tremble, eyes trained on the chequered marble staircase. "Papa!" She cries, but stays in her place, held firmly by the hand by her nurse. She’s lost her childish belief in her Papa long before this moment, and the paltry excuses he’s concocted taste like ashes in his mouth.
The nurse, an indentured woman he’d bought for her grandmotherly looks and not her mammoth proportions, plants herself with a huff squarely between himself and his child. There’s a sour twist to her mouth that he finds most repulsive, and Cecily seems to shrink in fear whenever the woman looms too close.
"Yer honor, I can’t approve of takin’ a child to-"
"I did not employ you for your opinions, Mrs. Salt. You are dismissed for the remainder of the day."
Cecily stares at him, eyes wide. Perhaps her Papa can become a hero again. She takes his proffered arm, and just like the lady she will one day become, demurely lets him lead her to the carriage.
*~*
"Papa, how will Mama know it’s me? She hasn’t seen me since I was a baby. Papa, what if Mama wants to come home with us? She can share my room. Maybe if she comes home she could give you another baby to look after. I should so like a brother, better than any of my dolls…" Cecily has kept up a constant chatter since they left the estate two hours past. Norrington prays that at least Elizabeth is lucid, for Cecily’s sake. It’s only him she pretends with, it’s only him she doesn’t want to see. He prays that courtesy does not extend to their daughter.
*~*
The house on Lime Street is just as he left it that last time-spacious and airy, with French doors that open into a garden overlooking the sea. Against the popular sentiment of the time-what else is there for a man to turn to when his wife’s mind has stopped working? -he turned his back on the advice of both the doctor and his father-in-law and had her installed in a house of her own, where hopefully, with time, she would regain her senses. Insanity-he shudders to think the word-is it curable? Once he thought she would make a proper wife. Perhaps-dare he hope? Perhaps once she sees Cecily, she’ll rethink this whole madness charade.
Norrington raises his hand to the knocker, gives it two sharp raps. Five minutes pass, then ten. The heat is stifling. He knocks again. Through the window, a muffled expletive, then the door swings open to reveal a mob-capped servant, bonnet askew, one eyebrow lifted suspiciously.
"Yass?"
"Is the lady of the house-presentable?"
"Depends wot y’ mean by ‘presentable’, guv," the girl sneers. "An’ jus’ oo might yew be?"
"That should be obvious. Unless Elizabeth has taken to entertaining other gentlemen callers, which I doubt. I am Norrington."
"No ya bloody well ain’t. Iv’ryone knows the commodore don’t ever come ter call."
"That’s enough impertinence from you, my gel!" A frightful old besom, nonetheless imposing for all her wizened stature, storms up to the wench and gives her a smart box to the ears. "Sir," she curtsies. "I must apologize for my tardiness. There’s been an…incident…in the gardens.
Norrington feels the blood drain from his face. "Incident?"
"Wiv that bloody monkey, she means."
"Sally! That’s enough!"
"Aw, but Missus Gibbs-"
"Mrs. Gibbs," Norrington smoothly interjects, "dismiss Sally without a reference. You know I dislike impertinence from the servants. Now, how is my wife? Is there any improvement?"
Mrs. Gibbs is suddenly shoved aside by Sally, who flees howling into the bowels of the house. The housekeeper regains her balance, shaking her head somberly. "Nothin’s been the same since my boy Joshamee left. Polly’s run off wit’ a pirate, th’ gardener’s boy joined His Majesty’s army, an’ then the sailor man brung back a monkey for my lady-"
"Mrs. Gibbs. I trust you received the letter expressing my condolences regarding your loss, and the five extra pounds a year?"
"It don’t bring them back, " Mrs. Gibbs shakes her head. "Who’s this darlin’ creature, then?"
"Cecily!" Norrington thunders. "I told you to stay in the carriage!"
"It’s no trouble, sir. I’ll just take this lovely young lady down to the kitchens to take her tea," she says with a wink he isn’t sure he’s seen, "you can see the ‘improvement’ to your wife yourself. "
"No, no, you misunderstand the nature of this visit, Mrs. Gibbs. I-"
"Do you take care of my Mama?" Cecily tugs at Mrs. Gibbs’ skirts. "Papa says we’ll see her today. I’ve never met her, but Papa says she might like me to visit her sometimes. Do you think she’ll like me?"
"You see?" His eyes implore the housekeeper over Cecily’s golden head, and Mrs. Gibbs feels a crumbling in her heart for this sad-eyed man who put his wife away because he didn’t know how to handle her. For the wife, she no longer feels pity, only exasperation. She’s used up her last drop of pity long ago.
"Zelda!" Mrs. Gibbs shouts, and a willowy black girl appears as though by magic. "Why don’t you show the young miss to the gardens?"
"Go on, Cecily," Norrington ushers her forward, then turns back to Mrs. Gibbs. "Now, what’s this about a sailor and a monkey?"
*~*
Fifteen minutes later, guts churning with mingled jealousy and impotent rage, Norrington bursts in on a pastoral scene-Elizabeth, parasol held by young boys jostling for a turn, reading pirate tales to an assorted mixture of children on the lawn. Cecily is nowhere in sight. "Elizabeth!" Norrington whispers, hands fisted so tightly his knuckles are white. Composing himself, he strides across the grass, dreading what is to come. The children scatter-some across the rosebushes, but most up a ladder over the ivy-clad wall. There are no words to describe the way it makes him feel when her eyes skim past him, over him, beyond him-but never rest on him. "Elizabeth," he implores, frozen in place by her beauty like a schoolboy glimpsing the perfectly sculpted flesh of a courtesan for the first time. She is exquisite-ringlets streaked gold from the sun, skin glowing with cream and rose, long-limbed and slender-waisted as ever. He holds out a hand, and then draws it back, because she is gone to him again-face bent over the volume, hair rippling loosely in the breeze.
"Mama?" The pain in his guts expands to his chest, and he wants to pull Cecily to him, to save her from this inglorious pain, but instead he hides in the shadows of the lime tree, closing his eyes against the sweet treble notes of his daughter’s happiness. "Mama, it’s me. Cecily. Papa said you were beautiful, but Mama-" her voice sinks to a reverent hush Norrington must strain to hear, "you look like an angel."
"Cecily…what a pretty name. I had a baby once; I named her Cecily, after Will’s mother. But my Cecily is dead like Will, gone, gone, gone…"
"Mama, I’m your Cecily."
It’s too much; he can’t bear the confusion in his little girl’s voice. The Commodore slips from the trees, past forget-me-nots he doesn’t remember, roses he doesn’t smell, to a wife he never listened to when she was sane. "Look at our child, Elizabeth. Your baby is here now. Are you ready to be her mother?"
"I don’t have a baby. They took her away. He drowned out there, where the mermaids sing, and they took her away because she had his eyes."
Norrington sneaks a glance at Cecily’s eyes. They hold no secrets.
"Little Cecily, would you like it if I read you a story? Shhh, it’s about pirates. I can tell you a story that isn’t in here, it’s about a pirate named Jack Sparrow, who impersonated-" the book is torn from her slim hands by her husband, who flings it over the sea wall, where is lands with a satisfyingly wet splash on the other side.
He grabs Elizabeth by the shoulders, he means to make her look at Cecily, and then he sees it. A spark of real defiance, real Elizabeth there in her eyes and then he’s shaking her and shaking her and Cecily is sniveling with fright. She runs away into the lime trees, and it's just the two of them. That’s when his wife turns into the woman he’s always loved and hated.
"James Norrington!" She shrieks, raking his cheek with her nails. "How dare you!"
"No, Elizabeth, how dare you? I should put you away for this…this… pretense!" He’s holding her arms so tightly he’s afraid they might snap, and she reels back to hock a glob of spit on his brow.
"Haven’t you already?" She hisses. "I never wanted to marry you!"
"You came to my bed willingly enough once that blacksmith died!"
"You killed him! You killed him, and you took our baby away!"
"He’d been dead barely three weeks before you finally crawled into my bed, you dirty little whore! You begged me to take you, and by God, no other man would’ve had you! You’ve been lucky these past six years!"
"As a prisoner? Your mad little wife that you keep locked away with while you crawl between the sheets with the new Governor’s wife? Don’t think I haven’t heard the whispers, James. I’m not your prisoner!"
"Well, you’re certainly not my wife! Any other husband would’ve clapped his wife in the madhouse and forgotten about her by now-I knew you were pretending! I should beat you like the bitch you are," the last words come out in a harsh growl, she’s stopped struggling and he can feel every inch of her pressed up against him.
"But you won’t. You still want me, I can feel it, " she jeers nastily, rubbing up against him, and it’s true, he’s hardening with sick lust. "I want you to roger me like you’ve never rogered me before. My quim is wet for you, James. I’ve had no man between my thighs for six years."
"What about that sailor, then?" He roars, and there is a noise from the foliage somewhere between a whimper and a moan. He lets Elizabeth go-his only mistake-and drops to his knees, imploring Cecily as he gathers her up in his arms. "Hush, poppet, hush now. Papa’s here."
"He’s a better lover than you ever were," his lady wife spits out as though every word is poison, and James claps his hands over Cecily’s ears-a bit too late, and his second mistake. "He’s the real father of my baby."
"Will is dead, Elizabeth. This is your baby-look at her! She’s a big girl now, six years old. She needs you…I need you."
"No! He came to me last night, his lips tasted of the sea. I’m going to run away with him and we’re going to find Jack. We’re going to be pirates. Father wants me to marry the Commodore, but I married Will already and he doesn’t even know. It’s a secret!" She giggles like a little girl.
"Wake up! Will is dead! Your father is gone! You’ve been here for too long, playacting at madness! Grow up and be a mother to your child, Elizabeth!"
"I’m waiting for Will, three lights he said. Three lights and I’m to meet him dressed like a boy, down at the docks. We’ll commandeer a ship and bring it to Jack, that’ll show them!" Elizabeth’s smile is far away again, and that’s when Norrington extricates himself from the child to tower over his wife.
"He’s dead," he says simply. And then he slaps her.
*~*
Cecily grips her father’s hand tightly, as they hurry back to the carriage, biting her lower lip as she tries to block out the screams echoing through the house. She will never ask God for any more favors-at this moment, her Papa isn’t much of a hero to her either. As they approach the gates, a wicked-looking old salt with a salt-and-pepper beard and a bow-legged gait looms out of the shrubbery. There's a monkey on his shoulder that chitters happily. The Commodore growls, "I might have known."
*~*
James Norrington sees, now, that his wife’s madness is merely a convenience in which to hide from the world. She cannot imagine a world in which Turner does not exist, and quite frankly, he thinks the two of them better off without her. Even if he did tell her the truth about Turner’s death, she’d run away. Cecily ends up motherless either way, for he doesn’t intend to remarry. He’ll never give up on the woman of his dreams.
Part Three::Shore Leave