Sprezzatura

[sonreir]

Pretend



I grew up knowing I was not my mother's favorite.

This should be heartbreaking, and I think for anyone else it would have been, but you need to understand: my sister was extraordinary. Anyone would have paled in comparison to her.

By the time I was ten and she was seven, she could embroider as prettily as any woman in the village. When I was fifteen and she twelve, she could break a fever by simply laying her hands on the afflicted.

When I reached eighteen, and should have thought of finding a husband, her beauty was spoken of through our village (as well as the three neighboring ones).

She was sweet and kind, it was said, and she would be one to win the hand of a lord -- a duke, or an earl (or, some said, the king's son himself).

I might have hated her, except that it was impossible: she was as sweet and kind and wonderful as the stories all said. I loved her, helplessly, as everyone else did.

Because I could not possibly stand in her shadow, my mother quietly excused me from the same tasks that my sister was expected to do.

"I am blessed," she said, when I protested, "with a daughter who has all the skills and talents I could ever desire. I know you have no passion for embroidery -- go, find what it is you love and enjoy it."

I took the opportunity and ran with it. I knew that my mother did not love me as much as she loved my sister (for how could she), and that she did not enjoy my company. I was restless, constantly looking out the windows, toward the door, fidgeting and waiting for my chance to escape.

When she excused me from continuing any further -- I saw my chance, and I took it. I darted out the door, into the woods, and there was no one to stop me.


I might have been bitter -- I had been rejected by my mother, in a way -- except we understood each other quite well. I had no skill with a needle. What skill I had with healing, with herb-craft (learned from watching my mother as she taught my sister) was nothing compared to what she could do by simply laying her hands on the afflicted. I was useless, in comparison, and so I stayed in the woods.

Whenever the men or women of the village saw me, asked after my sister (and implied, of course, that there was something odd about what I was doing, where I was), I pretended not to have the answer, or not to care.

"Heavens, I don't know," I might have said, sounding bored. "Healing the sick or helping the poor, perhaps -- it's no business of mine."

Over time, I perfected the tone, the inflection, that would make it seem as though I did not care -- as if I had not spent hours in the woods, talking to trees, studying my reflection in the still pond I knew of, pretending that it did not matter that I was pretty (but not as pretty), accomplished (but not as accomplished), kind (but not as kind).

I spent the daylight hours by myself, returning home only to sleep, and I avoided my family.

Perhaps this may be read as bitterness, but it wasn't, truly -- I held no ill will toward my sister, and I could not fault my mother for preferring her.


During the winter, when it was too cold to spend time in the woods (when the snow was over the tops of my boots, and I could not keep the chill at bay even with a thick cloak and wrap), I found other ways to make myself useful, instead. The village baker was in need of someone to help tend his ovens. We made an agreement that he would teach me to bake (a man's skill, but I was unusual already, and he said he did not care if I did not), and in exchange I would cut wood and keep the fire in the ovens stoked.

He taught me the art of turning flour and salt and water into bread, showing me how to develop the dough, give it structure or make it light and airy. He taught me, too, the making of cakes -- celebration cakes, for the midwinter holiday, and smaller things for sweethearts to gift to one another, just because. I learned how to make ginger-bread, and the secret of shaping marzipan. The baker had never had anyone to teach before -- he was a young man, and had inherited the business from his father, who had worked in the court kitchens, once upon a time, and had taught him everything that he knew -- and there was never any call for it, but he taught me anyway, for the simple joy of sharing the craft with someone.

I pretended it didn't matter to me, what he taught, but it did, and he could see through the facade I carefully maintained.

"You love this," he told me, laughing as I fought to knead a lump of dough to his exacting specifications.

I shrugged, keeping my expression neutral. "It's all right, I suppose. It's something to keep me warm in winter. I'll be gone in spring, probably."

"It's April," he said, cheerfully. "The sun is out and the snow is gone. What spring are you waiting for?"

I knew I had been seen through, and I blushed.

I became fond of the baker, over time, though I was always careful not to tell him. I didn't want him to get the wrong idea -- and anyway, I knew that he would prefer my sister. It was easier to keep the arrangement strictly business only, to pretend that our developing friendship wasn't as, if not more important, than the skills he taught me.

It was easier to pretend that I only showed up because I needed something to do; that baking hadn't become vitally important to me, that he wasn't my best friend and the one in the village I was closest to -- the first true friend I'd had since childhood. Easier to pretend that it didn't matter, that I could go one way or another, and leave the rest be.

I learned everything he had to teach me, and in time I became as good at baking as he was. We never spoke of it, always keeping our conversations light, and if he saw through me, he said nothing.


When I was twenty and one, the king's son came riding through our small village, familiarizing himself with the folk that he would come to rule over. His father was about to step down from the throne, it was said, and he was coming to know his kingdom and what he could do for his people before he did.

The rumors in our village, of course, were that he had heard stories of my sister -- of her beauty and talents, and had come to see for himself -- but I never believed this was true. What would a future king want with a simple village girl, even one was wonderful as she was? His fate had been sealed from the moment he was born. He was to be wed to someone from a far-off kingdom, to seal some alliance with them, open new trade routes. He had no choice in his fate.

I didn't say this, though, for it would have been taken the wrong way. Jealousy, maybe, that the king's son (who was said to be quite handsome) wanted nothing to do with me, even though I knew my place in the world and where it was that I fit in.

He met my sister. My mother might have engineered it; I can't be sure. There were stories in the village, later, about how it was "love at first sight", how taken he was with her beauty.

I had thoughts about that, about what love truly was (and how you couldn't come to love someone simply by looking at them, romantic as the notion was), but no one would have listened to me even if I'd voiced them. For all my studied carelessness, I knew what my reputation in the village was, how the slightest hint of jealousy would be enough to blow over the cover I had spent so long carefully building, dismantling the idea that I truly was indifferent and instead establishing a different narrative, that of the bitter, deeply envious sister. I kept my mouth shut to protect myself.

He met my sister -- and he left. He was promised, as I said, to someone else -- and anyway, no matter how beautiful she was, I wondered privately how a simple village girl could compare to any of the women of the court.


A few months later, when it became obvious what had happened, my mother desperately planned for something, anything, to save face.

My sister, kind and gentle as always, accepted her fate.

"I made my choice," she told our mother. "I'm not a victim; I went into this with my eyes open. He promised nothing. I simply did what I wanted."

I listened to this from the warmth of my bed, as they talked in low voices well after dark.

"We can send you to a far-away village," said my mother quickly. "We can say that your husband was a woodcutter, that he died in an accident, or that he went to sea and drowned..."

"I won't lie," came my sister's voice, gentle and strong. "I made my decision, mother -- I will face the consequences."

I heard my mother sigh. "There is always your sister," she suggested. "Perhaps..."

"Perhaps what?"

"She has no future in front of her, not the way that you do. Perhaps if we sent both of you away and had you come back with the child, later, we could say that it was hers."

I froze, in my bed. I knew that I was not my mother's favorite, but not to such an extent as that.

"And then what?" My sister's voice was icy. "No -- I have made my bed, and I will lie in it. Any man that would shame me for having a child out of wedlock is no man for me."

"So be it," said my mother, and her voice was just as frosty as my sister's. "But, Rose -- know this. You bring shame upon our family. You were our best and brightest hope."

"I was your only hope to become part of the court," said my sister evenly. "I know. But, Mother -- that was never my dream."


I never spoke of the conversation I had overheard. My sister began to show, around her fourth month, and I said nothing. I brought home extra bread from work (the baker was nothing if not sympathetic), and began giving it to her when our mother was not paying attention, pretending that I had only noticed an increase in appetite, and not the cause for that increase, until she stopped me one morning, as I pulled on my stockings and boots and prepared to walk to the bakery.

"Lise," said my sister, her voice hesitant. "I would speak with you."

I finished tugging on my left boot; rose to my feet. "About?"

"Lise, you must know that I am with child."

I shrugged. "And?"

"Mother says I've brought shame upon the family." She bit her lip, looked down at the ground. "I..."

I waited for her next words.

"He said he would come back for me," said my sister. "I didn't believe him, even then, but I went with him willingly, Lise, and that was the only lie between us. What shall I do?"

"Have the baby," I said calmly. "Give it a good name. Continue earning money with your leech-craft. We all know you're the best healer in three villages; no one's going to give a damn that you're with child."

"Mother will care," she said. "What am I to do?"

"Keep doing what you have been doing," I told her. "What else can you do?"

"Despair?" she offered. She laughed quietly, but there was no humor in it. "I..."

"You were supposed to be the good one," I said. "So you're not. She'll get over it. Make your own way in the world. If you don't care, no one else will. Everyone loves you, Rose -- you must know that. Half the men in the village would still marry you, child or no, and raise it as their own. They won't care, if you'll deign to marry them."

She shut her eyes. "What if I care?"

I shrugged again. "What if you do? If you pretend you don't, will anyone know?"

She looked up at me suddenly. "You..." she started.

I smiled slightly. "I know something of these things. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to get to work..."


When her condition could not be hidden anymore -- when it was obvious what had happened to her -- the rumors flew around the village. Some said that the king's son would come back for her; that he would return and sweep her (and the child, as her day grew nearer) away on a white horse, take her to court with him.

After she had the child, and he still did not appear, new rumors began -- that it wasn't the king's son after all, but a minor lord, instead, one of the members of his household, who would still appear and take her away.

She corrected these, when she encountered them -- never revealing just who it was she had lain with, but setting things aright. "No one is coming for me. There is nothing as can be done."

She couldn't pretend that she didn't care -- I saw the hurt that crossed her face every time someone asked when her child's father would come to meet and marry her -- but she was resolute and continued to feign her indifference.


After she had the babe, my mother threw me from our house, saying that she needed the room for a cradle.

"And anyway," she said. "You're old enough to find a place of your own, now."

Never mind that this was not the standard, for women in our village -- you lived at home until you were wed, and even then sometimes after, if your husband's family didn't have room for you, or if he did not have a house of his own. I saw this for what it was -- my mother's way of reasserting control over a situation she felt helpless in, regaining her dream. She had been behind some of the stories in the village, that someone else was coming to take my sister away -- building her up, I was sure, to make a good marriage despite having a child out of wedlock.

I left, with my small bundle of things, and set out for the woods.


The baker sussed out what had happened long before I told anyone, before rumors of my undignified departure reached anyone's ears.

He saw it, I suppose, in my face, when I turned up to stoke the ovens and begin the process of making the dough for the day's bread.

"Stay here," he said, before I could say anything. "With me, I mean. There's enough room."

"I'm fine," I told him. "I don't need charity."

"Charity be damned," he said. "You more than earn your keep, working here, and anyway, haven't you seen it?"

I braced myself, preparing for him to say that he was in love with my sister, that he was preparing to marry her -- that I had somehow missed it, in all of our conversations about bread and life in the village and everything in-between. He knew her, he knew all about her, and he knew of the current dilemma. Hadn't he given her bread, through me, to sustain her? Hadn't he commented, as everyone else did, what a kind and beautiful woman she was? He never had an ill thing to say about her (not that anyone did), and he had more of a right to her than anyone. I put my own feelings aside, and I prepared for the worst. Inwardly, I wondered what I would say to Rose, how I could prepare her for what was ahead of her. He was a good man, but how could I keep the despair out of my voice as I told her, you have won the only thing I have ever wanted?

"I love you, Lise," he said, his voice tight. "And I think you love me too, for all that you pretend you don't give a damn about anything."

"I..."

"Stay with me," he said. "Marry me. I would have asked you years ago, but you never let me close enough to tell you. I love you, and I want you to be my wife."

I took a deep breath, wondered how to play this off, the last thing I was expecting. "I..."

I had practiced for years, what I would do when my sister announced her engagement, how I would handle spinsterhood. I did not think anyone would want her, in relation to me. Hadn't everyone made that clear, over the years? Hadn't I learned to tamp down my own bitterness about the future, the empty years that yawned before me?

I had never prepared for a proposal. I had never thought I would receive one.

"Yes," I said, stunned.

"Yes?"

"Yes, I'll marry you," I clarified. I added, as an afterthought: "I've been in love with you for years."

"I know," said the baker, and swept me up in a kiss.


We wed a week later. There was no need to publish the banns and no need for a large wedding. His family was dead; my mother, upon finding out I was to be wed, had quietly declined an invitation.

My sister sat in the pews of the church and watched as we exchanged our vows, holding my nephew in her arms.

She moved in with us a few weeks later, after I gave her some excuse about how we were in need of someone to help us sell the bread, both of us uninterested in standing behind the counter, making light conversation with the customers. She was glad, I think, of the excuse to get away from our mother, though she never said anything one way or another.


A year and a day after my nephew was born, when I was with child myself, a minor lord from a neighboring estate happened to ride through our town. He had heard stories about a bakery where the woman who sold the bread was as beautiful as the dawn, and he wanted to see if they were true.

He met my sister. He bought bread from her, and complimented her loveliness.

She laughed the compliment off and pretended not to care, but he continued to come back -- riding through the village with his manservant every time he had even the ghost of an excuse, always stopping in at the bakery.

They met in the spring and wed in the fall. My husband and I attended their wedding -- holding our nephew through the ceremony and keeping him from wiggling while they exchanged their vows.

The lord that my sister wed was a minor one, the fourth son of a duke, and did not stand to inherit more than the small estate that he already inhabited. He loved my nephew as if he were his own child, and treated my sister with the respect and compassion she deserved.

My mother was not invited. She feigned indifference, at the lack of invitation, though I am told that she drank herself stupid at the village pub, the night of the wedding.


It would have been fitting, perhaps, if I had never spoken to my mother again -- if, after my sister was safely married and away at her husband's estate, his grand house, I had simply refused to speak to her, had instead pretended that we did not know each other.

It would have been fitting -- but I had never wanted her approval, and didn't seek it after the birth of my daughter. I wanted, simply, to mend the bond between us.

I knew a little, by then, of what my mother's life must have been like: my father dying shortly after the birth of my sister, how she had scrabbled to bring us up, to raise us properly, selling eggs from our hens and vegetables out of our garden to earn us enough coin for the things we needed. I saw how mercenary she had been, how my sister must have seemed like the only way out of her life and into a comfortable dotage, when she was too old to earn her own coins.

I reached out to her. It began simply: I had her meet my daughter, once she was three months old. After that visit, when she cooed over her and bounced her and treated her just as well as I could have hoped, I began taking her bread, once a week. When winter came, I cut firewood for her.

She pretended not to notice, or not to care -- that she was indifferent to what I did for her; that she did not notice how my husband mended the holes in her leaking roof, made sure that her cottage was snug and warm.

I could see through it. She had raised me, after all. I took it for what it was, and did not begrudge her her pretending.


I am not my mother's favorite, but I am her daughter.

Her mask is slipping, and we have talked of the past.

One day, I think, I will hear her tell me that she is sorry for how she behaved, when I was a child.

I do not wait for that day, but I know it is coming.

I already know what I will say, how to shrug off her apology while simultaneously making it clear that I accept it and she is forgiven.

We understand each other, after all.

Comments

[static_abyss]

I absolutely love the way you take well known tropes and hit them from new angles to make them into new wonderful stories. I enjoy everything you write, and I loved the way you approached this story. I also loved the ending, and the acknowledgement that mother and daughter understand each other.

[sonreir]

Well, thank you! I've really enjoyed what you've written, so that means a lot to me! :)

[bsgsix]

Wow. This just - blew me away. It's intense, and it twists tropes and stories and makes them new and wonderful. And those last two lines! This is excellent!

[sonreir]

Thank you! I wasn't quite sure how to end it - - I'm glad I stuck the landing, so to speak :D

[the_eternal_overthinker]

It's almost a fairy tale and yet it isn't and that's what makes it special because its "LIFE" and that's how it is. I loved this take and I enjoyed the twists and turns in this. Well done! Kudos!

[sonreir]

Thank you! I definitely started out thinking about fairy tales, but it took a very different path. Glad it worked for you!

[rayaso]

This was a marvelous story, so very well written. I loved the character of the older sister, and that she was not jealous of her sister or bitter about how her mother treated her. The plotting was great as well.

[sonreir]

Thanks! It was really important to me to tie it all together and make it clear that it wasn't really anyone's "fault" - - no evil witch here. :) Glad you liked it!

[sarcasmoqueen.livejournal.com]

I loved this so much. Well done!

[sonreir]

Thank you!

[babydramatic_1950]

A magnificent story!

[sonreir]

Thanks, I appreciate it! :D

[dmousey]

This is a wonderful read... And so well written. I found myself admiring your style of writing in this. Thank you for sharing! 🐭🐀✌😊

[sonreir]

Thank you! I keep trying to get out of my comfort zone...glad to hear it worked for you! :)

[adoptedwriter]

This is totally the relationship I have had w my own mom. Wow!

[sonreir]

It's similar to the relationship I have with my mom, too. It's gotten better over time, but dang.

[tonithegreat]

This is amazing! What a protagonist! A very enjoyable read. Thank you for sharing.

[sonreir]

Thank you!

[murielle]

Lovely tale! You wove all the nuances and colors and emotions through it beautifully. Sprezzatura through the generations.

I love the finished fabric of the piece, the understanding that came to all the characters. Well done!

Brava!

[sonreir]

Thanks!! I really wanted to pull it all together at the end and make it clear that while some of the characters made questionable choices, they weren't bad people, necessarily. I'm glad that came through!

[kehlen.livejournal.com]

You story is my absolute favourite this week. Bravo! I love how it unraveled at that unhurried pace that left nothing to chance, and how you developed all the characters in their journeys.

And I could relate to Lise, as well, because while my brother was not considered better, or a favourite, he was a problem child, and got more attention then I did, because all was 'well' with me. Mostly it was, but when it was not, I never learned to trust my parents enough to show it.

[sonreir]

Oh, dang - - thank you!

I was definitely Lise growing up, myself. My sibling was the favorite (and was chronically ill and frequently in the hospital). I know what you mean by not letting on when something wasn't quite "well", and I hope you, like me, have a better relationship with your parents now. <3

[kehlen.livejournal.com]

I am uncertain. It is better in that it is less complicated, because I say what I mean more often and assert myself much stronger, but we still often speak different languages.

Has yours improved?

[megatronix]

I like how well these characters can see through the feigned indifference when they know each other well enough. Like how the baker sees through the narrator's indifference because they've become close through the years, and how the mother and daughter both do this pretending not to care thing, too. I love the sisterly care given between sisters, too. This is really such a nice story, and the way you wrote it kept me hooked, which I always enjoy immensely!

[sonreir]

Thank you! It was important to me to make it clear that the sisters really DIDN'T resent each other (so much as the situation they'd been thrown into).

[halfshellvenus]

I really enjoyed this story-- and oh, that stoic mask of indifference was so necessitated by having that mother, and what a surprise to discover at the end that it was learned from her by example as well.

I'm not sure I could have forgiven that mother her cruelty-- to both daughters, over time. But the narrator is a much more reasonable person than I am. ;)

[sonreir]

Thank you!

I based this (loosely) on my relationship with my own mother. I don't, uh, forgive her? for the choices she made, but as an adult I can understand why she did what she did, and that helps...

I think if I'd dared to make this any longer, that I would have probed that a bit more, but, well. :)

[hwango]

Nice job! I wasn't sure what I was going to think about Rose until she stood up to their mother - it was nice to be able to like both daughters. = )

[sonreir]

Thanks! It was important to me that both were likable :)

[bellatrixe]

I was really hooked reading this! You have a real gift for creating a gripping atmosphere :D

[sonreir]

Thank you! :D

[alycewilson]

This story drew me on and kept me reading.