In 1800s England, a well-meaning but selfish young woman will do anything to avoid matrimony to the county's finest suitors and to justly prove she doesn't need a husband to find her way in society. Even under the peril of her uncle losing his prope...
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September 1814,
The journey home was as stifling as a mother goose's laying: not a word of quaintness could amount against the looming plague of reserved quarrels and restive umbrage, for a brother's spout was a matter of pride and dignity. Having the first go was quite faint—the four sisters, formerly resolving their own tiffs and piddling bouts, knew this to be a consequence of the most capital sphere in a brother's tie. Male ordinance, as it was, was both a conviction and a misgiving.
And, as it was, Thomas and Maxmillian we're quite equally headstrong.
"Oh for goodness sake! The evening hasn't even come to cease and somehow you've both sown wild oats!" wept Jane in a matter of vexation.
Max adjusted his gloves, finding that the confined space has rather made him cross and said unwillingly, "Jane, let us not weep on it."
Jane managed to hold her tongue, for her eyes did most of the speaking, and she was quite cross. Max, however, was not harried by trivial lectures, for his own ire was quite difficult to compel. The other girls, finding themselves resolved and swayed by the earthly bound of time, idly drowsed and yawned all at once and was the only manner of distinction between the lot before the arrival of their carriage and the dismantling of the coach came anon.
"Oh thank the Lord!" groaned Margo, being the first to withdraw from the pent stifle of pens and needles. Marcella, following second in line, happened to be in more sorts then the latter; for her assumptive optimal evening at the Opera House was utterly ghastly, she ought not blazon among the local hamlets nor ever again purchase the finest spotted or glistening muslin ribbons, or she shall die of shame! Minnie, however, was quite so dog-tired, Jane hadn't the wits nor physical magnitude 'bout her to give a good-natured tongue-lashing to the young spit-fire, no lest meditate the hostility between two boys!
"Jane, let me. I can carry her," conceded alas Maxmillian, whom found he too had no more fire in him to feed his bitter heart. Thomas, no matter, was already past the threshold with the company of Marcella and Margo, silence being the better fold.
Jane acknowledgedly sighed, exchanging the soft snoring little girl into his arms, and brushed a hair behind her ear fondly, all while finding she was exhausted.
Max agreeably nodded, saying, "Perhaps 'morrow we can arrange a picnic? I wager it'll be jolly weather."
"Yes," confided Jane in a matter of sullen airs, "I suppose that'll have to due. And to think I could trust this evening to be a pleasantly unsoiled rendezvous."
"Well," he managed a smile, "it wasn't entirely out of sorts."
"Why's that?"
He grinned softly at the dowsed little girl in his arms, "This was Little Minnie's first opera and I daresay it was quite an eventful one."
Jane wrinkled her nose with thinly pressed lips, "Hopefully her last. I believe our outing made quite a pallid impression of a nut house."
"Yes, but a perfectly sensical nut house," humored Max.
"Don't be daft! I'm quite serious, Max!" tsked Jane distraughtly.
"As am I! Let them think what their ears and eyes betray them! It matters not to me, nor should it matter to you, Jane!" reasoned Max with a chuckle.
She scowled then bit her lips crossly, "You know, ever since hearing your return from university, I thought, perhaps, you'd have changed and all this foolish antics would fly away. . . But now I see the way of it; you're still the wide-eyed little boy whom acts as though the world is but a game. Max, you're not a boy anymore; you're one and seven and one years of age. For goodness sake, when father was young, he purchased an entire company by that time and found a position in trade marketing, that is until he had to sacrifice his position for his brother! You're not even a marquis yet and I daresay, you're not apt to govern yourself, no lest a city!"
Max scoffed, finding himself opposed onto two poles of conviction, saying in a composed whisper, "Aye, I'm not him! I'm not a turncoat or a bloody bigot or even carnivorous cur—!"
"No, you're quite right," her eyes bloomed a shade darker, gray, and steely, "which is why if you do not learn to grow up soon and get your wits 'bout you, then you'll be exactly what you detest."
And with that positively delightfully note, Jane sighed with a fixed frown and gestured toward Minnie. "I think I can manage now."
And without much resistance, Max carefully permitted her assistance, rendering him in quite the stupor. He watched sullenly as she carried such a frail thing with such a thin physical capacity, even so, he did not heed her anymore bother.
No, he was feeling rather queer and small and desolate.
His feet felt quite heavy, his chest sinking into itself, his hands burning as though they've touched a great wielded fire, his heart muscles tautening and flaming white-hot scaldings all at once. Was it heartburn? He couldn't breathe. Was he breathing? Had the air grown thin? Had his arms always felt this long and stout? Was he always this small?
And then, whether by chance of something renewing or compensating, Max drew his gaze to the stars. He wasn't quite certain what it was that he was looking for; rather was it substance? Satisfaction? A rosiness to his own folly? Was it by luck, if there was a God, that he may send an angel—a mule in disguise of Himself– a Tree that can bear good fruit of hope and revival, God himself standing on the clouds of awakening. . .
No. Black void. Stars that do not shine out of sheer compensation. A moon that he isn't quite sure is flat or wide or simply is an illusion. And why is it that the sky is black? Why is it that night is night and day is day? If God desired something from Max, something substantial, he was rendered naked and confused, for the barrier between God and himself was as stifling as counting how many blades of grass there are in one vast plantation. He couldn't see what God wanted him to see. He wasn't quite sure if there was a God turned whom his shoulder from him, remitting his right hand.
If there was a God at all.
Max felt small and heavy. Was he ready? Ready for what the world has to offer him? Beyond painted pictures and frivolous journal entries and grammatical notations—was Maxmillian Knightely truly prepared for his own novelty of life?
In a matter of distract airs, Max proceeded down the threshold and into the narrow-lit foyer. Yet something greeted his senses he hadn't well smelled in his entire remaining childhood—what was that incense again? Why didn't it seem so familiar?
Queer indeed.
"By Jove! Is that you, boy?!"
Max nearly choked had he not swallowed rather abruptly and bemusedly stood rooted to the ground in pure shock.
