a Sunday ficlet, Post #40
Dec. 19th, 2021 12:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
usedtobeljsEven though it is incredibly hot in the subtropics right now, I have been requested to write a ficlet with the prompts of "snow" and/or "power outage."
I don't think this is quite as festive as was intended, but nevertheless, Lord Peter and Harriet, some years after their marriage --
The world – or at least this small corner of London on this particular Sunday morning – lay in cold, snowy silence.
Peter Wimsey stood at his study window, gazing out at Audley Square but remembering an equally cold Sunday morning in a trench in northern France. The overnight snow had dressed the walls and ladders with lace, but the drifts around one's feet had chilled every inch of one, and it had not been quiet.
His hand closed on the curtain and gripped, as if to choke any memory of the incessant shelling, the inability to hear oneself breathe, the fear of everything coming down all around one as it had indeed—
"Peter?" Harriet said from behind him. "What are you doing in this cold room all alone?"
He looked over his shoulder at his wife, who stood smiling at him from the doorway. She was wrapped in her oldest dressing gown, one usually reserved for stays at Talboys where the new boiler was temperamental and not always fit for purpose on the coldest nights.
A power cut in Mayfair had much the same effect, he thought. It had been the cessation of sound that had awakened him this morning, not the cold, but chill was stealing ever closer on little cat-feet, just like bad dreams—
"Bunter's just lit a fire in my study, and the boys are there and already climbing the walls," she said. "Care to join us? I could use the reinforcements."
Trench. Cold. A hell he had escaped long ago, to find this small corner of heaven.
"As you wish, my lady," he said, and came away from window and memory into her arms, and kissed her to take away the remembered taste of war, and then kissed her because she was Harriet and she was ever his refuge.
From down the corridor came the roars of their sons, as loud but more welcome than any fusillade.
"Let us go, then, you and I," he said, and stole another kiss, laughing at himself.
He was not Prince Hamlet nor was meant to be, and he rejoiced to be but her attendant lord.
Happy days to all, and happy birthday to ALH!
I don't think this is quite as festive as was intended, but nevertheless, Lord Peter and Harriet, some years after their marriage --
The world – or at least this small corner of London on this particular Sunday morning – lay in cold, snowy silence.
Peter Wimsey stood at his study window, gazing out at Audley Square but remembering an equally cold Sunday morning in a trench in northern France. The overnight snow had dressed the walls and ladders with lace, but the drifts around one's feet had chilled every inch of one, and it had not been quiet.
His hand closed on the curtain and gripped, as if to choke any memory of the incessant shelling, the inability to hear oneself breathe, the fear of everything coming down all around one as it had indeed—
"Peter?" Harriet said from behind him. "What are you doing in this cold room all alone?"
He looked over his shoulder at his wife, who stood smiling at him from the doorway. She was wrapped in her oldest dressing gown, one usually reserved for stays at Talboys where the new boiler was temperamental and not always fit for purpose on the coldest nights.
A power cut in Mayfair had much the same effect, he thought. It had been the cessation of sound that had awakened him this morning, not the cold, but chill was stealing ever closer on little cat-feet, just like bad dreams—
"Bunter's just lit a fire in my study, and the boys are there and already climbing the walls," she said. "Care to join us? I could use the reinforcements."
Trench. Cold. A hell he had escaped long ago, to find this small corner of heaven.
"As you wish, my lady," he said, and came away from window and memory into her arms, and kissed her to take away the remembered taste of war, and then kissed her because she was Harriet and she was ever his refuge.
From down the corridor came the roars of their sons, as loud but more welcome than any fusillade.
"Let us go, then, you and I," he said, and stole another kiss, laughing at himself.
He was not Prince Hamlet nor was meant to be, and he rejoiced to be but her attendant lord.
Happy days to all, and happy birthday to ALH!
