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bethbethbeth for Yuletide 2007, the imaginatively-titled fic The First Year After. For future reference, should anyone wonder which fic I’ve written for an anonymous challenge, go for the one with the uninspired title. Never mind, at one point, the fic itself was looking rather distant (especially the point at which hatster_catster was promoting the cause of a Harriet/Peter/Parker/Bunter orgy involving omelettes). Here follows a small snippet from the same train of thought that has been lurking in draft for a while, but didn’t quite fit the structure of the fic.
Godparents
Even with a house full of servants and nurses, an attentive father and an adoring mother-in-law, it seemed that babies took up an awful lot of time, quite disproportionate to their size. Not that Harriet minded - certainly not the time dedicated to the baby himself, who was altogether lovely and rather overwhelming – but having felt that one had more or less got to grips with Wimsey family politics and social ramifications, it was rather irritating to realize that in that respect little Bredon was simply an added complication. Helen had been uncharacteristically sweet about the baby himself – and who would have thought it, because Harriet had no illusions that all women instinctively adored all babies, and had spent enough awkward hours herself trying to think of nice things to say about various howling red monsters not to demand slavish adoration of her own child from anyone but herself and its father – but the subject of the Christening had brought a return to old form and a new appreciation of the merits of Anabaptism. Harriet had declined to ask what exactly Peter had said to cause his sister-in-law's eventual retreat on the subject of godparents, leaving them to thrash it out themselves over bacon and eggs.
"Charles and Mary?"
Harriet hesitated. She liked Charles well enough. He was a pleasant brother-in-law and a good friend to Peter. She knew him to be honest and serious, a loving husband, a dedicated public servant. Kind, compassionate, unimaginative. A man to take his religious responsibilities seriously.
She thought of the hard face of that Barrow-in-Furness disapproval confronting her across the table in the police station, and of that disapproval changing to suspicion and conviction. Of Ann Fentiman heard in passing at a party, commenting bitterly on a dubious case in the papers – "Innuendo's quite good enough for the police, you know; especially when it concerns a woman." Harriet had always acknowledged that the case against her had been strong. To far fewer people, hardly even to herself until recently, had she noted that it was a good deal weaker if one laid aside certain assumptions of how a woman should or might behave and how far one social crime led to another. Charles had mellowed somewhat these days – Mary had surely had a hand in that, though one wondered whether he had discovered before or after his wedding night that his beloved was not the flower of virtue he had believed her during the Riddlesdale case – and he had apologised long ago, but it did not do to examine the terms of forgiveness too closely. One had to live, after all.
Charles took his responsibilities seriously. She could not let her child be one of them.
"How about Jerry and Winifred? I barely know your niece. She might like my asking something of her."
"That’s a thought. It'd probably be good for her. It wouldn't be bad for Jerry to take something seriously for once, even if it's only handing out silver gewgaws on the appropriate birthdays. Bung 'em down." Peter always understood. His hand brushed hers as he took another slice of toast.
bethbethbeth for Yuletide 2007, the imaginatively-titled fic The First Year After. For future reference, should anyone wonder which fic I’ve written for an anonymous challenge, go for the one with the uninspired title. Never mind, at one point, the fic itself was looking rather distant (especially the point at which hatster_catster was promoting the cause of a Harriet/Peter/Parker/Bunter orgy involving omelettes). Here follows a small snippet from the same train of thought that has been lurking in draft for a while, but didn’t quite fit the structure of the fic.Godparents
Even with a house full of servants and nurses, an attentive father and an adoring mother-in-law, it seemed that babies took up an awful lot of time, quite disproportionate to their size. Not that Harriet minded - certainly not the time dedicated to the baby himself, who was altogether lovely and rather overwhelming – but having felt that one had more or less got to grips with Wimsey family politics and social ramifications, it was rather irritating to realize that in that respect little Bredon was simply an added complication. Helen had been uncharacteristically sweet about the baby himself – and who would have thought it, because Harriet had no illusions that all women instinctively adored all babies, and had spent enough awkward hours herself trying to think of nice things to say about various howling red monsters not to demand slavish adoration of her own child from anyone but herself and its father – but the subject of the Christening had brought a return to old form and a new appreciation of the merits of Anabaptism. Harriet had declined to ask what exactly Peter had said to cause his sister-in-law's eventual retreat on the subject of godparents, leaving them to thrash it out themselves over bacon and eggs.
"Charles and Mary?"
Harriet hesitated. She liked Charles well enough. He was a pleasant brother-in-law and a good friend to Peter. She knew him to be honest and serious, a loving husband, a dedicated public servant. Kind, compassionate, unimaginative. A man to take his religious responsibilities seriously.
She thought of the hard face of that Barrow-in-Furness disapproval confronting her across the table in the police station, and of that disapproval changing to suspicion and conviction. Of Ann Fentiman heard in passing at a party, commenting bitterly on a dubious case in the papers – "Innuendo's quite good enough for the police, you know; especially when it concerns a woman." Harriet had always acknowledged that the case against her had been strong. To far fewer people, hardly even to herself until recently, had she noted that it was a good deal weaker if one laid aside certain assumptions of how a woman should or might behave and how far one social crime led to another. Charles had mellowed somewhat these days – Mary had surely had a hand in that, though one wondered whether he had discovered before or after his wedding night that his beloved was not the flower of virtue he had believed her during the Riddlesdale case – and he had apologised long ago, but it did not do to examine the terms of forgiveness too closely. One had to live, after all.
Charles took his responsibilities seriously. She could not let her child be one of them.
"How about Jerry and Winifred? I barely know your niece. She might like my asking something of her."
"That’s a thought. It'd probably be good for her. It wouldn't be bad for Jerry to take something seriously for once, even if it's only handing out silver gewgaws on the appropriate birthdays. Bung 'em down." Peter always understood. His hand brushed hers as he took another slice of toast.