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Little White Flowers
Written for the 'White' Drabble Challenge

by Erinya
August 29, 2005

"He's afraid young Jack will make off with his wig again," laughs Elizabeth, leaning on her elbow in the grass in complete disregard for the health of her white muslin sleeves. "Poor Father. He had to have a new one made--the old one didn't look quite right after the jailhouse dog got hold of it."

"As I recall, I received a very severe lecture that afternoon about taking small boys in hand." Will grins broadly. "And I did take him in hand, when I was done laughing. But it seems even the harshest justice makes little impression on Jack. I'm afraid he takes after his godfather that way."

Elizabeth considers her eldest child. Jack flashes her an angelic smile to match his golden curls before he returns to his pursuit of the large toad that resides at the bottom of the garden; the creature retreats hastily into the lilacs, croaking to itself about a plague of little boys. "I think that's Father's concern, as well," she says, with far less concern than the Governor would consider seemly. "But it's not to be helped. Jack's just too clever by half, and finds mischief far too tempting when he gets bored."

"On second thought," says Will, seriously, "perhaps it's his mother he takes after, and not Jack Sparrow at all."

Elizabeth pouts prettily at him, and punches him lightly on the shoulder. But her retort is cut off by small Anne, who runs up to them, breathless, carrying a circlet of daisies.

"Look, mama! Now you are the Queen of the May."

Elizabeth bows her head gravely, accepting her coronation. "That makes you a Princess," she tells Anne. "Quick! You must have a crown of your own." But when the five-year-old has roamed some distance away in search of more flowers for her tiara, Will catches an oddly wistful expression playing across his wife's face.

"Come back to me, Elizabeth!" he says, touching her hand. "You were so far away there for a moment. What is it?"

"Only a memory," she answers, and twines her fingers with his; but that far-off look still lingers in her eyes.

"Good memory, or bad?"

"A little of both, I think." And she is silent for so long, then, that he is startled when she finally speaks again. "My mother died in springtime, you know."

Doubly surprised, he says gently, "I didn't know. You never speak of her."

"I got out of the habit," she says. "It used to upset Father so....And I don't remember her as well as I'd like. I was only a little older than Annie is now, when she sickened." She frowns slightly. "I do remember knowing something was wrong, but no one would tell me what. Everyone thought I was too young to understand."

"She must have been very lovely, if she was anything like you."

"She was beautiful," Elizabeth says softly. "Even at the last, when she was very ill. Father took us out to the country that year. The doctors said it would make Mama well again. And it did, for a little while." She picks up a stray daisy fallen from her hair, looking inward again, searching for words. "We did nothing but lie in the sun, and she taught me to make flower chains. It was a lovely time. I think...I think we were all pretending that everything was all right, that it would last forever."

"But it couldn't," says Will, thinking of his own mother, her tired, pretty face, her forehead beaded with sweat from the fever that took her. He was older than Elizabeth had been, too old to pretend, and he'd been the only one there to take care of Mary Turner in the end.

"No," she says. "It was all over by the next week. That was my last clear memory of her, with red roses in her cheeks from the consumption, and little white flowers in her hair." Her smile trembles only a little. "Not a bad way to remember her, I suppose."

"Not bad at all," Will says, and pulls her close to him; she sighs, and buries her head in his shoulder.

But this moment, too, is not fated to last. An unearthly shriek echoes across the garden, and two small forms tackle the adults at top speed, bowling them over. After a confusion of giggling, wrestling, and screaming guaranteed to disturb the Governor at his accounts, during which everyone gets quite thoroughly grass-stained, a much-harassed toad can be seen vacating the area at top speed. Anne, her crown of small white blossoms all askew, clings to her mother, crying "Mama, he set a TOAD on me!" while a mulish Jack struggles in Will's grasp, objecting strenuously that his new pet is escaping. And the over-bright sparkle in Elizabeth's eyes, as she lifts a wry eyebrow at her husband over Anne's dark curls, could be as easily attributed to laughter as to tears.

~.~

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