Visiting ones Fiancee | Monday 19th, late morning

[George Hardwick III]

Dapperly dressed as always, George stood outside the room that he's soon be sharing with Caroline.  He hoped that she would be in, but was not certain of it.  'I should have sent her a note yesterday', he belatedly thought as he raised his silver tipped walking stick and rapped on the door. It made a shockingly loud sound!  George glanced furtively over his shoulder, and then knocked a second time by hand.

It seemed a very long time since he'd seen her, though it had only been at Church yesterday. He supposed it was mounting nerves that made times feel a bit strange that way, was she nervous too, he half expected her not to be.  Perhaps she was out visiting her friends right now, and without a care or thought for tomorrow.  'Good grief, is she even in?' 

Brow furrowed over eyes that were a tad too intense, and he lifted his gloved hand about to knock for a third time in swift succession.

 

 

Edited May 2, 2023 by George Hardwick III

[Caroline Despanay]

Caroline heard the knock on the door and put down the mirror she was holding. She had been eying her hair, trying to mentally debate exactly how she should wear it for the wedding. She was not expecting anyone specific. Perhaps some servant? As she slipped her bare feet into slippers, there was another knock not quite so loud. She almost called out to announce it was not locked but that would hardly be lady like. So instead donned a bathrobe so she would be suitable for having to open the door herself.

There was a third knock by the time she got to the door. Honestly whoever it was, the individual seemed to be rather impatient. Grasping the doorknob she turned it and opened it.

"George?  I did not expect it would be you," she smiled, opening the door further to allow him easy entry then closing it after his entrance.

"I do believe you are a tad early for our wedding, my dear," she quipped.

[George Hardwick III]

He started as the door suddenly opened, but there was the smiling and teasing Caroline.

"Do you mean it's not Tuesday, I was sure it was Tuesday." He tried to be a joker playing along, "and was just about to say you are a tad underdressed."

He was still stood in the hallway as he said this, his nerves showed in the dart of his eyes beyond her then back to the barely dressed vision she struck in the doorway.  She seemed quite comfortable wearing nearly nothing, well, more comfortable than he felt to look at her like that. He hoped when they were married she planned to wear more than a filmy robe around the house. 

"Um, so you are all well? Ah, and, nothing has come up?" Even now, the day prior to his wedding, he couldn’t believe it was actually to happen.  His luck at cards was exceptional, but in his personal life, not so good. 

 

 

[Caroline Despanay]

"Oh believe me, George, I know the day. I seldom get that drunk. And no, I have not been drinking," Caroline assured him, the last part a lie. Caroline seldom spent a day without at least a few drinks. But she meant imbibing to the extent of being drunk, certainly not.

"As for being underdressed, you will see me completely undressed soon enough. I hope you will be satisfied with what you see then."

Once they were inside and the door was shut, he asked if she was  'all well'? 

"Yes, I am in fine health. I have always been blessed with a hardy constitution," she nodded.

"As for something coming up, no, it has been rather calm, mundane even as I eagerly await the wedding. Oh George, you are not getting last minute doubts are you?" she certainly hoped not.

[George Hardwick III]

"Oh dear.  I am sure I shall have no complaints."  Perhaps it was his over active imagination, fed by prewedding nerves, but everything his wife-to-be seemed rife with innuendo!  (Not even innuendo but bald face questions he couldn’t avoid.)  

"Though I would not object to a little tipple now if you have a bottle open?" George suggested uncharacteristically. For he was unlike Caroline in his drinking habits, infact they had not had a 'drinking session' perse.  

She professed a hardy constitution, which George suspected was also something sexual.  He blushed with a thought that she would require some impressive energy, while holding fears he might yet disappoint her.  

"I know exactly what you mean, yesterday, and now today, have been the longest days ever. But no, not for any cold feet.  I am set upon this completely, it is just all the to do that I have most nerves about." he collapsed into a chair.  "I asked Cadell to be my best man, he said he'd arrange a gentleman’s evening tonight, and have concerns about that also. But perhaps he'll forget."   

“What about you Lady Kendishall, how are your arrangements going?”

[Caroline Despanay]

"Well, if you don't like what you see, lie about it then because a woman has her dignity," Caroline laughed. She knew she did not have the best build, light in the chest area but previous romps with men in bed, none had complained. Besides she would make up for it with pure enthusiasm. She didn't get her libertine reputation for nothing.

He then inquired if they might share a drink? She had not expected that, he must be truly nervous. In a way that was sweet, she imagined him quite inexperienced in some things such as between the sheets. Well, she could teach him alright.

"Of course, dearest," Caroline never turned down a chance at a drink. Yes, it was one of her faults. Her entire family drank like fish. In fact it killed her mother. She soon secured two crystal goblets and a bottle of port, one of her favorites. French too.

"Here, this should help those nerves," she poured them each a glass and extended one to him.

"To a happy marriage!" she clinked glasses with him and flashed a sincere warm smile.

After taking a sip she spoke again, "Ah yes, Cadell, I like that man. Not full of himself like some I shall not name."

He asked about her arrangements and called her Lady Kendishall.

"Honestly, George.  Call me Caroline. We are just us two in the room, why the formality? Save that for in public," she chided him in a friendly tone of voice.

[George Hardwick III]

"I am sorry dear, it is force of habit." he apologised for addressing her formally, there being scant enough women in his life that he might speak to informally.  His sister Mirtel was one, but he was yet to think of Caroline as anything like his very difficult (and now deceased) sister. 

Settled with a drink, he shifted long legs and leaned forwards to meet her own glass in a clink to the toast. "Here is to that."  A generous sip was then took

"Though I did not intend to lie to you Caroline, any more than I would lie to myself.  Doesn’t the bible say something in that regard even? Something about a man treating his wife as his own body... its in Ephesians perhaps."  and because the distraction suited him he looked about the room, "Is there a bible in the side table perhaps, I want to look that up now. To check." 

"Yes Cadell is a jolly good sort, I am glad you get along with him also. We shall have to make regular guests of them - I think he is still feeling his way into his marriage and will appreciate the moral support. It's not such an easy thing, I think, to make such a lofty match.  Especially as you said, he is not full of himself." 

[Caroline Despanay]

"No need to apologize, George. It is to your credit you are a gentleman, nothing wrong with that. I could not say that about my late unlamented husband," Caroline revealed.

"But then that marriage was forced upon me. This time I made the choice and I am confident I have made the right one," she added with a smile.

He now struggled with some Biblical quote, like she would be able to help him in that. She was not much of a reader and especially not the Bible. He wondered if the room had one now.

"Oh yes, in that drawer over there I believe. Right side drawer, " she directed him and sipped her drink some more.

"Yes, by all means, you may invite Cadell on a regular basis. I have not met his wife though. Is she even in England?"  she inquired, her conversation with the man had never covered that subject.

"You know, that is another thing I like about you, George, you are not full of yourself either.  Some of these pompous popinjays disgust me. I would prefer not to name names though for that would make me a gossip and I am not one of those people."

 

Edited June 15, 2023 by Caroline Despanay

[George Hardwick III]

"Thank you." George replied to her compliment, a small and pleased smile played on his lips.  He believed she was sincere in saying so, which was not the sort of thing he'd heard in his life often.  "I endeavour to live up to my own expectations of what a good man ought to be, which is not always easy..." his eyes glazed a little as he reflected and then digressed, "and I have learnt that there is a grey area to doing the right thing without doing yourself a disservice... to be honest I am still confused on the morally correct thing to do on that point." 

Which possibly sounded gibberish to Caroline. 

"Hmm yes," he took another sip of his drink as she mentioned her first marriage.  "Do you know that I tried to set up a match for my late sister Mirtel.  She would not have  bar of it though.  I think it says nicer things of your nature that you at least gave it a chance.  Did you father ever admit that he'd made a mistake in the selection?"

Then he was moving across the room, looking though the side table for a bible.  "Aha!" satisfied with the discovery he collapsed back into his chair, searching for the passage while continuing the conversation. (albeit with less focus on the topic of Cadell’s wife.) 

"Surely she is returned also, she is renown for being a tad clingy and prone to hysterics if neglected."

And then Caroline complimented him a second time, which felt excessive to the surprisingly modest man.  (Though Georges modesty did not run into his fashion sense, his costume was sheer perfection and he knew it.)

"Please my dear, ought I ration you to one compliment a day - lest you too quickly run out of them.  I don’t know if I can continue to impress you multiples every day." he jested, but was serious also. 

Meanwhile he continued to flick through the bible pages looking for the quote of how Husbands should treat their Wives. 

[Caroline Despanay]

He was right, Caroline did not quite follow the gist of what he was saying. But perhaps she got enough of it then as she now ventured to give her own views.

"Ahhh, yes, to be moral...or morally correct. Well, who can honestly say they have always done the right thing or been...moral in everything. Are we not all sinners and even the best of us must have made mistakes along the way. I am a perfect example of this. I would never be mistaken for a saint - in fact I have done some terrible things for which I can only hope God in heaven will choose to forgive me for."

"But most often I try to do the right thing. I try to be a good person, how successful I am at it...well, let's just say I am still a work in progress," she smiled.

"So it probably is with you too, George my dear. As long as you want to be good and try to be good at least most of the time,  one an expect no more.  We are imperfect creatures are we not?"

"Father never directly apologized for what he did to me that time, no. But then to this day he does not even know the whole story, almost no one does. At this point in my life I don't need his apology," she did want to answer that specific question.

"Too many compliments indeed? Can one ever tire of compliments?  I know I cannot. And as for you rationing me, I must tell you I do not like rationing of anything. I once was...as a child at that, rationed during a long and bitter siege. Granted that was food not compliments. So I am afraid you must allow me to compliment you to my heart's content. "

 

 

[George Hardwick III]

This was new ground they tread, and George was pleased to discover that his soon to be wife could consider the world theoretically.  He nodded quietly as she self reflected upon morality and touched upon perspective. Then coming to a conclusion upon her own, a conclusion that was pleasant. 

"We are indeed imperfect!" with a wry laugh he agreed, "While the ideals which we may fail to reach are often enough also set by imperfect men, thus fallible in themselves."

She had mentioned her own sinfulness, and while George was content to overlook her past, he thought it worth mention now.  "I suspect that even then you did not intend any harm to your soul  nor to others. And what is Christianity but the ability to forgive.  While may I say, from my perspective, I have nothing requiring that quality towards you.  We move forwards from the point of our promises to each other, do we not, and since that I have thought you impeccable." 

Impeccable might have been an excessive word, he knew she could not be perfect, but still he'd discovered nothing to complain about Caroline. 

 "Oh, and here it is." he interrupted their conversation as his eyes fell upon the bible passage he'd misquoted. The then read aloud, "Ephesians chapter 5 verse 28 'So men ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever hated his own flesh; but nourished and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the Church." 

Finishing the quote, he leant back in his chair, satisfied to have found it. Though, he could not quite recall why he'd wanted to read that?

Caroline revealed that her father had been, and still was, largely in the dark to the depths of failure that had been her first marriage.  "It is kind of you that you have not put this upon his head." George considered, discovering yet another fine quality in his fiancée. "And now there is a new future mapped, he need never know." he supposed, "Most particularly if the experience causes you no mental anguish anymore." 

He paused, then added. 

"Should you need anyone to confide matters near the heart, I hope you might consider talking to me?"

He laughed at her refusal, citing a childhood story of unpleasant rationing as justification for excess.  "Why do I have the feeling that you shall carry this concept into many areas of our lives?!"  because good greif, he suspected she was also talking about the marital bed again. 

"Err, shall I read some more of the book of Epehsians?  It really has a great deal of marital advice.  Or... ha, shall we discuss the traditon of brides selling grog to her lady friends at the chapel. I really dont think we need you to do that, though if you truly insisted, I shall insist it be the finest cognac on offer."