The Broken Daylily

CHAPTER THREE: Family dinner

"Look, Mama, I am a bird," the three year old Francis said before he jumped off a chair with his arms fluttering wide.

"Bird," the soft voice of Alice spoke.

"Yes," Victoria said, looking down at her two year old daughter in her arms, "he is a bird."

The little girl's eyes widened as they focused on her mother. "No!"

The people around them laughed while Andrew laid a hand on his wife's shoulder.

"Bird there," Alice said with one hand pointing at the window.

"Yes, that is true," Victoria said. "Birds are outside."

Francis gasped and ran toward the door.

"Francis," William called after him, his voice stern. "Where are you going?"

"Outside. I am a bird," the young boy told his father.

"No, it is too dark to go outside now."

"But Father," Francis complained. "Birds are outside in the dark as well."

"But you are a special bird," Elizabeth told her son. "And you ought to stay inside."

"Yes," William agreed. "Do not listen to your aunt Victoria." He gave her a jesting mean look. She gave a similar one back.

"O do not kill each other, you two," lady Anne said with an exaggerated eyeroll. "You are even worse than Mary and Thomas."

"No one can be worse than Mary and Thomas," Andrew retorted.

"That is his fault," Mary said, pointing at Thomas. He stuck out his tongue in response.

Before she could do the same to him, Elizabeth said: "Thomas, stop it. You are not teaching Francis proper manners like that."

He looked at young boy and saw him sticking out his tongue. It made Thomas laugh before he walk to his nephew and crouched in front of him. "That is not proper. So you should not do it when your mother is watching."

A silent chuckle went around the room, while Elizabeth sighed loudly. "Thomas!"

He quickly stood up and announced: "I believe it time for dinner."

"Thank goodness, yes," lady Anne agreed and stood up. "Let us hope no one kills someone with a knife."

Thomas bend down and picked up Francis. "I do not want to go to dinner. It is boring," the young boy said.

"I know," Thomas admitted. "But mayhap you may join Alice in the playroom when you are finished."

"Do I have to eat?"

Before Thomas could respond, Elizabeth suddenly gasped. "Victoria!"

Everyone turned around to look at the chocked face of both ladies. Victoria looked down at her dress where Elizabeth was pointing. "What?" Then suddenly her head shot up and she smiled.

"Are you...?" Elizabeth asked, but she did not finish her question. Victoria looked at Andrew who was holding their child now, before she nodded.

With a shriek, Elizabeth jumped forward and hugged her friend. Lady Anne clapped her hands together and gave her son a hug. Mary looked at them with a smile.

"What is going on?" Francis whispered in Thomas' ear.

"I do not know," he responded.

They continued watching everyone hug Victoria and Andrew, while asking the most random questions. Thomas only understood what was going on when Victoria said: "we wanted to be certain before we told you," to which Elizabeth responded: "and now you are almost four months."

"O dear," Thomas whispered.

"Why are they all caressing her belly?" Francis asked. "It is very odd."

"I believe," Thomas told him with a smile, "that soon you will have another cousin."

The young boy gasped and said: "Yes! I hope it is a boy, so that I can play bird with him."

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"How is Lindenberg?" William asked Thomas from the other side of the dining table. It had been almost two months since he had inherited the estate from his uncle. He had stayed there to watch over the changes he wanted. And now that all was finished, he had returned to be with his family for a while. In a few weeks, he would probably go back to enjoy his new estate.

"Much calmer than here," he answered his brother-in-law.

"Well," Mary said from the other side of the table, "it has also been much calmer here since you are gone."

"Of course," their mother interrupted. "You have no one to annoy anymore."

Thomas laughed at it, and Mary shot him a mean look.

"Thomas, dear," lady Anne said with a loud sigh, "do not kill your sister and tell me instead when you will get married."

Now it was Mary's time to laugh at him, while he sighed. "Mother, I am not going to marry yet. I am in no rush."

"Unfortunately," the woman said under her breath. "But I am. You never know when I will pass away."

Everyone around the table sighed.

"Mother," Andrew complained, "do not start talking about your death again."

"What? It worked on you, did it not?"

Andrew sighed while his wife chuckled.

"Why do you not push Mary into a marriage?" Thomas asked his mother. "She is a woman, she likes it more."

"I am only twenty-two," Mary said like it explained everything.

"That is old enough to get married."

"That does not mean I want to."

"Enough, you two," lady Anne said. "I understand. I will not ask anymore. But if I die before you found yourself a wife, do not go saying you wished your mother was at the wedding."

"Mother," Thomas complained. He was quite certain the woman would ask him again when he was planning on finding a wife, so he was not too happy with her words. She had said such thing quite a few times before, and he knew that now she would ask anymore for the next few months. But too soon, the questions would rise again.

"But do you not want children, Thomas?" Elizabeth asked.

Thomas shrugged. "I have a nephew and a niece, and soon another one. My own children can wait."

"You know what I think it is," William said. "He wants children, but not a wife, for a wife means no more lovers."

It stayed quiet around the table. No one dared commenting and just looked around, hoping someone else would break the awkward silence.

William cleared his throat. "I should not have said that during dinner."

"No," his wife agreed.

"Anyone want dessert?" Thomas asked, trying to save the family dinner.