God's Loving Embrace

Part Twenty-Three

The Bonfire of the Sanities

December 2024

'It was better to dwell in the wilderness, than with a contentious and an angry woman.'

Proverbs 21:19

India Eleanor Trevor was born on a Saturday night early in December. Sir Harry Trevor was present, dutifully holding her wife's hand as the nuns fussed around, but it was a simple birth, at home, Brogan's third, and they were soon left alone. Brogan cradled the little mite in her arms, and Harry perched on the edge of the bed, his expression full of pride. Fatherhood was one of God's miracles and it had moved him visibly each time. He had never loved Brogan more than at that moment, with his first daughter in her arms. His family seemed complete in God's love.

"How would you like to sleep tonight?" He asked, after a while.

"Is that up to me?" Brogan murmured, not looking up from her baby. She was tired but she was not about to let him forget his mistakes. The tone in her voice surprised him, and made him catch his breath. He was losing patience.

"You need to rest, and I will tell Miss Howard to do as you request...she will need another feed at some stage of course...but you should sleep whilst you can."

"Our first born was put to my breast inside the sleeping gown, as I remember. It is possible as long as the guardian positions me correctly I believe."

"I forget all the mundane details." Harry stiffened slightly, annoyed by her attitude. He assumed that she was tired, but there were limits to his tolerance. If she intended to fight a battle of wills, he was determined that she would lose it. She would always lose. He could admire her spirit at times but her behaviour often shamed him, and worse, provoked him into proving that he remained master in his own house.

"I have certainly earned the choice."

"It is my gift to you...nothing is earned...except God's love...or deserved...it is just within my gift, Brogan...as you are my wife and a Daughter of Eve. It is not your choice."

"Oh what it is to have such power, Sir." Brogan did not raise her voice. Harry thought that her calmness made it all so much worse; her disdain, her unspoken insolence. He could hear just a little contempt in her tone. Not enough to castigate her, but enough so that he knew it was there. She made him angrier than anyone else, quicker than anyone else. "But thank you...for giving me this moment of peace with our daughter before having me settled for the night."

"I just thought that you should sleep...the night nurse will settle the baby for us." Harry protested, finally showing his frustrations. He had just watched his wife give birth to his first daughter, and she was accusing him of carelessness? It was unbelievable. But just for once he would not be provoked, despite her impudence. "But there is no rush if you want to hold her a while longer."

"As long as I can, before she is muzzled and covered from head to toe."

"She will grow in God's loving embrace."

"She will grow inside a gilded cage." Brogan hardly said it, almost thinking aloud, as India tried to grip her finger. Her daughter would know no different, of course. Maybe that would be better for her. Brogan sometimes wished that she had decided not to try and expose the Reformists, but if she had not done so, if she had written something else, she would not have India, and she would not have her boys. But she was hardly a hands-on mother. Most of the time she was not allowed the use of her hands at all.

"Are you still worried about Eloise and Grace?" Harry sighed again, grasping the nettle. It was the elephant in their room all of the time. He was tired of it, because it was none of his wife's business. He was doing his best for the girls in the circumstances. "We are their closest living relatives and I intend to adopt them, to treat them exactly as I will treat this little one as one of our family. Honestly Brogan, the way you react you would think that you were the only one who cares for them...you are not being fair."