Chapter 12 #2
Seraphine shook her head, trying to explain it. “He’s so beautiful and so, well, pure and sad. It seems like a strange word to use for such a big man who’s so handsome and so…”
“Tempting,” the dowager teased. “I know. He’s my grandson, but I see the effect he has upon you.
And I’m glad. We should want young men and young ladies to be tempted by each other when there’s love.
But you’re correct. I don’t know why,” the dowager duchess said, “it is like this. But several members of my family have melancholia or intensity or other things that drive them very hard. I cannot regret it,” she said.
“I would not regret it for a moment because it makes us who we are, but it can make things difficult, and it can dissuade other people from being a part of our lives.”
What people? she longed to demand. Fools!
“But you are all so wonderful,” Seraphine gushed.
The dowager laughed. “I’m glad you think so. I don’t know if you thought so at first.”
She considered this. Hadn’t she considered flying? “Well, I was surprised by you, I suppose.”
“How so?”
“I was surprised that you could all be so happy,” she explained. “So exuberant without the sort of pursuit of power that I’ve seen from everyone else.”
“Well, we are powerful,” the dowager duchess said.
“Yes, you are,” Seraphine agreed, but knowing there was more to it. “You’re a dowager duchess, and you all belong to a dukedom, but you also all don’t really care.”
“But we do,” the dowager said, her eyes shining with the sort of knowledge that came hard won. “We take a tremendous amount of responsibility in it. We’re always helping other people. We understand the stakes, my dear.”
“Yes, but the responsibility and stakes don’t denote your self-worth or who you are,” she rushed, truly inspired, truly amazed. “All of that, all the things that you do, it’s because of who you are as a family.”
The dowager smiled. “You’re very wise.”
Seraphine groaned. “I haven’t really felt it.”
“You’re young. You have time,” the dowager said kindly. “And the more you are yourself, the wiser you’ll become.”
“Do you think so?” she asked.
The dowager nodded. “Indeed.”
She hesitated but decided to be bold. “Why are you worried about Laertes? I can see that you are.”
The dowager’s brow furrowed. “Because out of all my grandchildren, he’s always had the most artistic heart.
My daughter, Juliet, loves to act. She’s like me in that score, but most of the family, while they love the theater and singing and dancing and writing, they don’t have a heart like that.
They don’t have a heart that is, well, touched by… ”
She did not know why but she blurted, “Sorrow.”
“Yes,” the dowager agreed, though she clearly did not like having to do so.
Seraphine pressed her lips together, searching deep within for her words. “You know, sometimes when I look at Laertes, I think that he is a very old soul, as if he’s seen this all before. As if he’s seen this more than once. He’s not dismayed by it, but it makes him sad, the world.”
His grandmother laughed. “You are wise, my dear. You do understand him. When he was born and he was quite small, I’d take him into my arms and I’d look into those dark eyes and he already had it in him, that look, that dark look, that melancholia that said, ‘Oh, Grandmama, what a world we do live in, how very sad it is, and yet how very beautiful.’ He knows how to hold both things true, my dear.
The beauty and the sorrow. Most can’t do that.
The Briarwoods can for the most part, but the ache never quite leaves him, I think.
And it is my greatest and only real regret about my grandchildren.
I wish that he did not feel sorrow so much.
But then I remember, how could I wish him to be different than who he is? He is beautiful just as he is.”
Seraphine hesitated, her insides spinning. She knew she had to make a choice. And her care for Laertes could not be denied. The power of it spun through her and up her throat, and she blurted, “Well, when he is sorrowful, I will be there.”
“Will you?” the dowager duchess asked.
She swallowed. “Yes, I will, because he is there for me, isn’t he?”
The dowager just smiled again. “My goodness, what a revelation you are having.”
She nodded. “Yes, I think I am.”
“But can you do it, my dear? I’ve seen the way you’ve struggled with yourself.”
“Is it so very obvious?” she asked as tears stung her eyes again.
The dowager took Seraphine’s hand in her wrinkled yet soft one.
“It’s been a great war inside you. But I’m glad to see that you are winning it, not your mother.
She’s not a bad woman, your mother. She had good intentions, I think, but she’s hurt her children very much.
It wasn’t her intent to hurt you. It was her intent to save you, to shape you, to make you into good human beings, but in so doing, oh dear heaven, she has cut you off from yourselves.
And that is the worst thing a parent can do, even though they don’t mean to do it.
Oliver has found his way back to himself, and you are on your way. ”
She nodded, feeling almost whole, feeling powerful. Feeling good. “I won’t let her do it anymore. Because…”
“Yes?” the dowager duchess asked, her eyes shining with hope.
She squeezed the dowager’s hand. “Because I choose him. I choose this.” Tears of joy filled her eyes, and she leaned forward and declared, “I choose all of this.”