Chapter Text
Like most men his age, all of Stephen's earliest childhood memories were of himself in skirts. It was more practical - perfectly reasonable, even, between nappies and the absurd rate that children grow - for little boys to wear dresses.
He had not questioned it at all, nor any anatomical differences between himself and his few playmates, until one day he was alone in his white dress and being cajoled by his nursemaid into attempting embroidery, while his cousins scuffled in the gardens in breeches - even George, a full year younger than he was! Filled with righteous outrage at this clear insubordination, he had addressed his father in the most sombre tones a five year old could manage the next time he was summoned to Mr Maturin's office, a full week later. "When shall I be breached, Papa?" he had asked, serious and wide-eyed, as his nurse looked on in horror.
His Papa - who in Stephen's memory was less a man and more a pair of elegant breeches and silk stockings - had taken this better than perhaps he might have, and laughed heartily: a rare thing for a soldier who had returned to Catalunya to marry his sweetheart and found her dead, returning home with a natural-born infant daughter and a broken heart.
"That would be a fine thing, little Sonia, a very fine thing." And then he had meticulously explained the anatomical realities of Sonia's position, further scandalising poor Mrs. Winthrope and starting both Sonia's love of philosophical studies, and her detestation of both womanhood and England as he sat her on his knee.
Despite Mr Maturin's denial of the most reasonable request to be given a secretive pair of breeches, he was in all other regards a doting and permissive father, and Sonia was tutored much the same as her male cousins: Latin, French, Latin, Ancient Greek, mathematics and philosophy. She joined in their fencing tutorials - and typically cleared house against them out of sheer determination - and picked the most irascible, flighty, spirited pony in the yards to chase around the Western countryside as the most wild and unruly little girl in Co. Galway by the tender age of nine.
The summer after her ninth birthday, the Maturin's longterm neighbours - an elderly couple with four children grown and married - were visited by their youngest granddaughter, sent to the fresh sea air of the Galway shore by her parents in hopes the change from Dublin's coal-choked air would revive her of a long standing cold.
Mrs Winthorpe, kept on more out of a familial affection than for her influence over Sonia, had seized upon a final, desperate ploy to domesticate her charge, and Sonia found herself primped and prodded into her best muslin dress, her long, dark hair curled, and seated in the playroom of the O’Callahan's manor house, staring with a quiet condescension at the palest, smallest creature she had ever seen. "Sonia, this is Miss Mona, recently arrived from Dublin. Should you like to be her playmate?" Mrs Winthrop had asked in her simpering tones.
Sonia felt rather perturbed at being stolen away from a fencing practise with George - who, now eight, had compounded his subordination of trousers by growing a good deal taller than Sonia and had taken to lording that fact over his cousin; Sonia had planned to thrash him even more severely than was her practise in retribution - to be a playmate for this spectacle of white lace and blue ribbons; nonetheless she was capable of politesse, and so bowed formally, as her cousins might. "God and Mary with you, Mona. Do you like birds?"
She had seen a blue and white magpie carrying a silver chain on the walk over, and as Mrs Winthorpe shared not a bit in her love of natural philosophy, hoped to find a kindred spirit to share this delight with. "Oh, birds ," Mona said, her warm brown eyes wide with appreciation. "We have chickens, an-and I get their eggs for my breakfast!”
This was a much more gratifying answer than Sonia had expected, and she moved to the younger girl's side immediately. "We walked from my uncle's great house to see you, and I saw a magpie carrying a silver chain in its beaks - they are quite draconic in their appreciation for jewellery, you know," she explained, quite enjoying Mona's undivided attention - and taking a quiet pleasure in the fact she was a full head and shoulders taller than the child.
"Do you fence? I could teach you - I can still best my cousins, even if they are all too tall by far!" Mrs Winthorpe’s face held a familiar pinched quality that signified Sonia was behaving too unladylike again, and while she could not care less about appearing as any sort of lady, she felt she ought to present herself well for her new friend, and quickly changed to a more acceptable topic. "Or perhaps we could take my pony out? He is quite tame these days, and is certain not to throw you.”
Mona's nursemaid, joining forces with Mrs Winthorpe, did not seem quite mollified by this more sedate suggestion, looking wildly around the room. "Oh there's no need for that, tearing round the place! You may play in here and do very well: Miss O'Callahan just received a lovely dollhouse as a present."
Sonia shot her own nurse an arch look at this unfortunate suggestion. She did not play with dolls; she was quite grown! But then the tiny child grabbed Sonia's hand eagerly and started dragging her with no little strength towards the structure in question, and Sonia inexplicably let herself be steered. "There is wallpaper for it, an’ a doggy an’ a horse wif a carriage," she explained, dropping hard onto her knees before the miniature house. Sonia sat with only slightly more grace, resigning herself to her charge. She would have to ask about the chickens at a later date.
~~~
Despite this rather inauspicious start, Mona became a not infrequent visitor to the Maturin estate over the course of the summer, and she and Sonia ran wild across the green fields at any opportunity, chasing after birds and rabbits. Sonia managed to teach Mona to fence tolerably well with springy green branches, and to lie silent within the branches of a tree for hours to avoid detection by either man or beast or desperate governess, in order to watch the local stoats.
They were both turned quite dark by the end of the summer, and Mona's hair the lightest gold from the sun. Both were desolate at their parting: Mona was to return to her parents, and Sonia bound to Catalunya and her grandparents for the winter. "I shall write to you every day and tell you each creature I see, and bring you an octopus besides!" Sonia promised on the dreaded day, arms wrapped round Mona in a way remarkably reminiscent of said creature. "And you will practise your piano, so we shall have concerts next year.
"I shall practise every day and tell you of my chickens, Sonia, only do not forget!" Mona swore in similarly sombre tones, head tipped back to stare adoringly up at her beloved friend. "You will not forget about me?" she reiterated piteously.
"Never in life, nor in death," was Sonia's fervent vow.
And she had meant it, heart and soul, at the time, had had the best of intentions! But ensconced in her grandparents' tumbledown castle, with no Mrs Winthorpe to insist on ladylike behaviour, Sonia realised with no small sense of guilt that she had not written Mona in more than a few weeks, nor even given her much thought outside a vague wish to be followed about by a small eager cloud of lace. Determined to set this to rights, she took up pen and ink and began sketching new copies of her best anatomical diagrams to include as a bribe of sorts.
12 December
Serra de l'Albera
My dearest Miss Mona!
Do not think, acushla, I have forgotten you - I have only been so busy I have not had a second to think! You will forgive me, I know, when you see the lovely sketches I made you: I was not allowed to keep the octopus, for we had it for our dinner, but I was allowed to filet it; you may have the beak, if you should like, if only you will forgive my indifferent abilities as correspondent.
I helped with a good deal of lambings already, and more will occur soon - only do not tell your nurse, for she will certain tell Mrs Winthorpe, and I think she would consider lambing not entirely ladylike. One of Grandfather's ewes sadly died, and I now have my own lamb. He is quite tame and sleeps at my feet like Jonathon’s wolfhound, except he smells of grass and milk instead of dog. His name is Bach for the composer, as his bleating could almost be termed musical, if one were feeling generous.
Do you remember how late I told you we dine in Catalunya? As late as five in the evening, and supper not until nine or even ten! And yet we wake early and break our fast almost with the sun. Grandmother says this is to accommodate for the siesta , when everyone, even grown and important men, take a nap in the afternoon, to avoid the heat in the summer. It is very warm here, even now when I imagine Dublin to be covered in snow, so summers must be very bad; I was small the last time I spent a summer here, smaller even than you, my Mona.
I hope your pianoforte practise goes well, and that you are enjoying your Bach. Here, in detail, is a list of the best and most interesting creatures I have seen here:
- A she-wolf upon a hill
- A brown bear fat for her winter's slumber
- A herd of chamois
- Three herds of red deer
- Egyptian vultures eating a lamb
- Egyptian vultures eating a deer
- Egyptian vultures eating a man
- Perhaps three-hundred rabbits in winter coats
- Plethora mice and rats
- An unidentified owl
- A dolphin far out to sea, or perhaps a very small whale
- An octopus (eaten)
- A sea-urchin
- Lampreys (eaten)
- Many, many flying insects, unidentified
I have included my most expert recreations of a few of these, namely the octopus, a chamois, and the vulture with a lamb. Pay particular attention, my dear, to the entrails of the lamb!
Now I must finish this letter, for we are to town shortly, and Grandfather will frank this for me. May God bless and keep you, Mona, until we meet again!
You affectionate servant,
Sonia Niamh Maturin i Domanova
PS: Is that not much more grand than ‘George William Maturin’? He says I will develop airs and graces beyond my station as only a natural-born daughter of a second son, but I think it is very fitting for one who lives half the year in a castle! I shall give you your octopus beak next summer.
~~~
Sonia returned to Eire in the spring, and the change from warmth and sun to constant grey, soggy skies had a naturally detrimental effect on her moods. So, too, did her new governess: a Miss Briony McDermott, niece of Mrs Winthorpe, who had determined to retire to care for her grandchildren.
Miss McDermott was a lovely young woman, well bred and well educated on such ladylike subjects as French and music, but rather set in her opinions of what behaviours her charge, newly ten, should be indulged in. And Mr Maturin, always so indulgent of Sonia's more boyish interests, had taken to his bed before Sonia had returned from Catalunya with a terrible, unidentified fever, and could not be seen to be prevailed upon: after losing his lover, he dared not risk his affliction spreading to his daughter.
The Sonia who greeted Mona's return that summer, therefore, was a quite changed creature from the wild thing of the previous summer. She was well on her way to outplaying Miss McDermott on the pianoforte, and had descended on Mr Maturin's violoncello with an almost manic ferocity. Her French nearly rivalled her natively-spoken Catalan or Irish, and was in danger of outstripping her English comprehension for want of use. She had always drawn well, so long as she was only expected to draw her flora and fauna, and had improved in that as well; in all, she was as accomplished a young lady as one could expect a ten year old raised alongside male cousins to be.
And she was miserable - a state of being obvious to even the most unpractised observer. Dark shadows accumulated under her eyes from lack of restful sleep - so accustomed to an active lifestyle was she that she simply did not tire enough to sleep until close to dawn each night - her skin had an unhealthy, yellow pallor, and her scowl was both so ferocious and so permanent as to make her almost wholly unrecognisable.
But she had kept up her correspondence as best as she could in Catalunya with its wild riches to tempt her from her desk, and religiously upon her return to Eire, and so greeted Mona with an enthusiasm Miss McDermott had never seen in the sullen, taciturn creature. At this time, as the dreary clouds retreated and the Connacht countryside burst into a warm green glory, Mr Maturin seemed to manage some small recovery from his sickbed, and so curbed a number of Miss Mcdermott's efforts: Sonia and Mona were allowed to roam the lands belonging to their families each afternoon, so long as they applied themselves to their schooling each morning. As such, the summer of 1785 continued, perhaps not quite as idyllic as the year before, but peaceful.