Demelza Poldark (
letitbetrue) wrote2016-11-19 06:37 pm
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Upon meeting Katie under such terrible circumstances, Demelza had meant every last word of support she'd offered, knowing it was the least she can do. Tintern Abbey won't let her return to work until mid-January at the very earliest, a request to which she had very reluctantly agreed, and so now she has nearly two months to fill with nothing but her children.
She loves them terribly, she absolutely does, but Demelza is a woman used to working. She had perhaps gone from being a miner's daughter to a gentleman's wife, but she'd married a wonderful and peculiar gentleman in that he had engaged in just as much work -- and often, considering Jud and Prudie, a good deal more -- as did his servants. Demelza had fallen into that life easily, first as his hardworking scullery maid and than as his equally hardworking wife.
Life in Darrow is easy by comparison. She certainly doesn't dislike it, she finds this place to be quite lovely in every aspect, but she does miss the work of the homestead.
And so she must fill her times in other ways. For this afternoon, that is meeting Katie and her young son at the park with Julia and Jeremy in tow. Jeremy is far too young to play, just barely over two months old himself now, but Demelza hopes Julia is enough to help entertain Katie's son. She speaks a fair bit, though some of it is still nonsense, and she's quite active, running and jumping, but Demelza knows there are many abilities she's not yet mastered that Katie's son will have long since learned.
But if he's as kind as his mother, Demelza is certain all shall get along well.
She's pushing her stroller along carefully, both her children dressed warm against the chill, the stockings under her own long dress now ones made of warm wool, and she smiles when she enters the park and catches sight of Katie.
"Hello," she calls, pushing the children in her direction.
She loves them terribly, she absolutely does, but Demelza is a woman used to working. She had perhaps gone from being a miner's daughter to a gentleman's wife, but she'd married a wonderful and peculiar gentleman in that he had engaged in just as much work -- and often, considering Jud and Prudie, a good deal more -- as did his servants. Demelza had fallen into that life easily, first as his hardworking scullery maid and than as his equally hardworking wife.
Life in Darrow is easy by comparison. She certainly doesn't dislike it, she finds this place to be quite lovely in every aspect, but she does miss the work of the homestead.
And so she must fill her times in other ways. For this afternoon, that is meeting Katie and her young son at the park with Julia and Jeremy in tow. Jeremy is far too young to play, just barely over two months old himself now, but Demelza hopes Julia is enough to help entertain Katie's son. She speaks a fair bit, though some of it is still nonsense, and she's quite active, running and jumping, but Demelza knows there are many abilities she's not yet mastered that Katie's son will have long since learned.
But if he's as kind as his mother, Demelza is certain all shall get along well.
She's pushing her stroller along carefully, both her children dressed warm against the chill, the stockings under her own long dress now ones made of warm wool, and she smiles when she enters the park and catches sight of Katie.
"Hello," she calls, pushing the children in her direction.
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With Jamie, probably, she thinks. He's always been her anchor, but now she needs that more than ever.
Still, the possibility of having a new friend comes as a relief, as does an afternoon spent pleasantly while the children play. "Jamie, this is Demelza. Do you wanna say hi?"
"Hi," he says, and looks at the children with her. "Who's that?"
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"This is my daughter Julia and my little son Jeremy," she says, settling Julia on the ground where she immediately walks forward, still a little unsteady, and then stops at Katie's feet and looks up at her.
"Hi," she chirps, then looks at Jamie. "Hi."
"Jeremy is far too little play with you yet, but I thought perhaps you and Julia might like to meet," she tells Jamie, then smiles at Katie.
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"Nice to meet you," Jamie echoes dutifully, if less articulately. He's clearly curious about the other children, still feeling out the situation. Even though he's been doing well enough with other kids, she's found the last several weeks have him back to feeling somewhat shy around others, sticking close to his mother's skirt. If meeting up with Demelza's little girl helps to pull him out of his shell, even for a bit, it'll be a blessing.
"They're adorable. How old are they?"
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"Julia is just over a year and a half now," Demelza says. "And Jeremy is only two months old."
She smiles kindly at Jamie, sensing that he is perhaps a bit shy or nervous. "How old are you, Jamie?"
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"In February," agrees Katie, ruffling his hair. How the time has gone so quickly, she doesn't know. He was as small as Jeremy just yesterday, as far as she can recall.
"What are you doing?" Jamie asks Julia, ignoring his mother's addition.
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“These,” she says finally, pointing down at her footprints in the soft, damp ground around them. “Play?”
She’s not looking at Demelza, though, she’s looking at Jamie, which Demelza takes as a very good sign.
“Katie, Jeremy and I shall stay right here,” she offers. “If you and Jamie would like to play.”
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It's enough to make Katie's heart fill with warm relief. She's worried so much about him this past while, but if he can make a new friend, he can be okay.
"There's a bench right over here," she says to Demelza. "Why don't we sit?"
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"Do 'ee suppose it ever gets less troubling?" she asks as they sit on the bench. "Watching them go about things on their own? Julia's that independent already and I suppose she do come by it naturally, but it makes my heart feel tight every single time she wants to do something on her own."
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The world is a big and terrifying place, even in Darrow.
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She draws in a deep breath, then lets it out, not wanting to admit Julia's illness that been her fault.
"Ever since then, I find I worry about her all the time," she says. "I came so close to losing her."
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She smiles, watching the pair of them at play. "She seems healthy now. Strong."
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He would love Darrow, she believes. He would have so much to learn.
"She's yet to be truly ill since," she says with a smile. "For which I'm that grateful. I know it's yet to come, all children fall ill, but I think we would all be happy enough to wait some time before it comes again. Is it difficult? Seeing all those sick children?"
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"But sometimes there's nothing we can do. I can never get used to that."
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She pauses and smiles, "I think he'd quite like it here. I think he'd quite like you. Dwight loved to learn and was always interested in speaking with other surgeons who did know more than he."
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"Twas 1789 when I left home," she says, then grins. "Nearly two hundred years before you. Am I still quite fresh for my age?"
In truth, though she is young and the time difference does not make her any older, she knows she feels older than many people her age. She's lived so much more than some others have.
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"Well, you've aged beautifully," she teases. "You hardly look a day over 180. Are you figuring everything out alright?"
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Abby had demonstrated how she might hook it up to a speaker in their home and so Demelza can play music when she's cooking, which she loves so very much. Such things hadn't been possible at home.
"And it's been quite useful in emergencies," she adds. "I was putting flowers on the bare graves in the cemetery when Jeremy decided he was coming and I was so far from the city, but I was able to call Ross."
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"I'm still partial to a record player for music," she admits. "Which I guess is new to you, too, but it's considered pretty old-fashioned around here. But it's what I grew up with."
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She understands her telephone and CDs are supposed to be easier and more convenient, but she likes the sound the record player produces.
"I miss playing music," she admits. "Ross had a spinet at home and tis similar to a piano, but whatever may be similar to it, we can't afford anything like that here. I play sometimes at work if we're not terribly busy."
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She can't regret that now. Between Jamie and life in general, there's no way she could afford an instrument these days, and she can't be sorry about that when she doesn't know how to play anything. But Jamie might still learn something when he's older. If he wants to then, she'll figure it out somehow. For now, he's young enough that his instrument of choice is still banging his toys around.
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Besides, Ross isn't embarrassed of her, so she sees little reason to care.
"Mostly as a server, though I do also tend bar when it's busy," she says. "It's not often I'll get to play while I'm working, though now and then they'll ask me to and it's quite nice."
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She pauses, having told very few people of her plan, but she likes Katie and as the woman has been through so much and has still become a doctor, Demelza thinks she will encourage any further education.
"I think I'd like to study for my GED," she admits. "I know very little of it, but I d'understand tis required for more meaningful work."
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"Perhaps," she says. "I feel as though... well, there are some things you must do on your own, are there not? I feel this way about learning more."
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"Ross do say I sometimes insist on doin' things all on my own without help even when I don't need to," she admits. "But I think it's only that... well, once my mother died, there weren't no one else to help me. I have six younger brothers and it were just me and them and our father and Lord knows he was more often in his cups than not."
Tom Carne was a useless man. She doesn't miss him at all.
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"My father died when I was a teenager," she says, "so it was just my mom and the four of us. I wanted to strike out on my own as soon as I could so she wouldn't have to take care of me." She lets out a small laugh. "And because I wanted to be independent and I thought I was old enough." She doesn't think it was leaving home that was the mistake in the end. It was David. "I get wanting to do things for yourself. I think it's the best way to learn. And not just in school."
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"I ran off when I was sixteen because my father... well, he saw my mother in me. Blamed me for her being dead and he weren't a nice man when he'd get in his cups. He was angry with my mother for leaving, for dying. Angry with me for daring to look so much like her. I had to leave my brothers behind, but by then the oldest boys were getting bigger and stronger, Luke was fourteen and already taller than our father, so I knew he'd not hit 'em the way he did me."
She shrugs and smiles a little. "So I left. Just me and Garrick, my dog." And how much her life has changed since then.
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"You did what you had to," she says, nodding. "That was brave." It must have taken such strength, she thinks, to walk away and fend for herself. Sometimes that doesn't even seem like an option. "There's never any excuse for it, not really. My first husband was like that. Not just when he drank. He got into these awful moods, like he was someone else. But it was him."
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Others have suffered, too. Others have lost bits of themselves as well.
"I'm that sorry," she says and she means it in the way only someone else who's seen the same sort of anger possibly can. "My father tried to come and take me home. He brought men from our village and they attacked Ross. Said all sorts of awful things about him havin' taken in a child, that they knew what he really wanted me for, but he never once did nothin' untoward. He never touched me, not until I was older and I... I went to him first. I loved him so much. But that day when my father and the miners came, he fought to keep me at his home where I'd be safe and not because of anything I was givin' him, just because it was right. People like him make all the difference when sometimes you might think... maybe you did somethin' to make 'em that way."
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Sometimes that's the worst part of it. Not that he hurt her, but that he undid her own sense, turned her against herself like that. Not that she couldn't trust him, but that she couldn't trust herself.
"But there are still good men in the world. Your Ross. My Russell. Ross sounds like a wonderful person. It's no wonder you love him so much."
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Should it happen to her, she'll go on out of necessity. She'll push on for her children and she realizes in an instant that is what keeps Katie moving forward as well. Her Jamie.
"I think 'ee'd quite like Ross," she says. "He can be terribly rude to some, but tis only that he's not the sort of suffer fools. Surgeons, though... I mean doctors, especially doctors who are smart and who are always open to more learning, he quite likes them. Finds them very respectable. He'd not be rude to you."
And now that she's promised it, she must make sure it's true.
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She wants to believe the best of people, and she still, in many ways, does. But she's lived too long not to have woken up to a few things in the end, and that includes the fact that not everyone is what they seem to be. She'd rather someone be who they are, even at the cost of propriety and politeness.
"And besides, he must be pretty great to have won your heart."