A Slow Paced Envy (4/15)
Sunday, July 16th, 2023 13:51![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fumblingmusingsA study of a potential Female England characterisation. Snapshots through the years showing how and where her attempts at parenthood and romance run dissonant to the reality of being the motherland of the world's largest empire. There's a lot of people in her head who don't belong there, and it soon becomes everyone else's problem.
Also available on Ao3.
Chapter Four: 1763, or The Royal Proclamation
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
“He hasn’t grown,” sighed England. “All that fighting back and forth and I swear he is no better with Francis.”
She was in one of her melancholic moods, Alfred noted with some level of disgruntlement. She always became nearly impossible to deal with when such persuasions possessed her.
They moved far too slowly through the docks, actively aggravating those trying to move about their work. Alfred tugged a little harder, urging her to hurry up. She did not take the hint.
“What do you mean?” he dared to ask.
A sailor, in a hurry to do goodness knows what, pushed past the pair with a thoughtless aggression. England turned, watching the man go with such a hateful look in her eye Alfred felt compelled to draw her attention back to him. He tugged on her pearl earring, pulling the lobe down.
“Mother?”
She twitched, as if coming back to herself, turning around and squeezing Alfred’s arm tighter. England sighed.
“I mean…”
Alfred pushed a cart out of the way from his mother’s path as she spoke, allowing her and her dress to bustle past. Her thanks was a tap on the wrist, demanding he return to holding her arm. She needed help being held upright, to the point where Alfred had sent her trunk of clothes ahead of her to the ship when he would have been perfectly capable of carting it for her.
The problem with economic troubles - the end result was something of a cold. Or flu, if one had a weak constitution. To Evelyn’s unending consternation, she was of the latter type.
Clammy skinned and thinner than ever. She had emerged out of that war overshadowing France. The rest of Europe no longer trusted her for it. If they ever had.
Not that England gave off any such hint of caring. Instead, she continued to talk about Matthew. Matthew, Alfred’s little big brother, who had swapped hands so many times at this point he surely would have had nausea from the back and forth.
Evelyn had entrusted him these past few years to her brother. Alfred did not know if it was Uncle Alasdair’s reward or punishment for the Jacobite rebellions. He never did find out what Scotland thought of it all, but it did feel rather backhanded to Alfred.
You wanted Nova Scotia for so long, here, take it.
England was still talking.
“Your brother is still as you remember him ten years ago. You have grown fast, far faster than any bamboo in Wang Yao’s garden. Matthew is still small, no taller than a child of thirteen.”
“He was smaller than me even then.”
“As I said. He has not grown. You are now… fifteen? Sixteen?”
“Something like that.”
“It is my hope, now that I have you both under one house, permanently, that things will change. We shall give him a few months to adjust, then bring him over.”
His mother’s hand brushed through Alfred’s golden hair, voicing her hope in a whisper barely audible over the bustle of the docks. She retook his arm, and allowed Alfred to lead her along.
“Are you really going to let him stay Catholic?” he asked.
Her distracted expression twitched, and Alfred did not miss the beginnings of a sneer - the fish hook he called it - appearing in her lip.
“We don’t have the resources for a crackdown. The transfer is tricky enough, I need peace above all things. Who cares what your brother does at church? It doesn’t impact you.”
“But it might. I mean, what if ”-
“What if, what if, what if… That’s enough love.”
“But”-
“That’s enough. You know I hate talking about religion.” She did not need to yell, or grow angry. Alfred bit his tongue to the point that it hurt. Everyday he understood her less and less. She refused to let her sister in her presence and went out of her way to disenfranchise her own Catholics, only to turn around and signed a treaty protecting French ones.
“Did you sleep?” he asked, changing the subject.
Mother looked up at him, a question in her eyes. “I only ask,” he explained, “as I heard thumping in the middle of the night.”
“Thumping? How oddly specific.”
The lightness in her tone was very telling.
“I just” -
She interrupted him with little fanfare. A quiet pat on the forearm made Alfred fall silent. “I know, my love. It is nothing.”
It really wasn’t. There had been a problem getting her laudanum to her these past few weeks. Whether it was her refusal to take it, or the apothecary wasn’t carrying it, Alfred was unsure. He wasn’t allowed to take on such tasks when Evelyn was visiting. It was something of an unspoken and open secret.
“Promise me that you will be good whilst I am gone. Please, Alfred, promise me.”
Alfred hummed non-committedly. “I’ll write.”
“Please. I have to travel so much these days, the letters I receive bring me so much joy. Tell me all of it. Every little thing, even if you believe it of no consequence.”
She wouldn’t write back. Not enough time, she said. Out of sight, out of mind, Alfred thought. The haziness that afflicted her was such that it wasn’t uncommon to have to remind her three times of an upcoming event as simple as the market.
How she had done so well in war, Alfred had no clue. He had never seen her fight. He wanted to. If ever he felt like Evelyn looked at him without ever truly understanding him; the same could surely be claimed of the reverse.
England hugged him very tightly. He was the same height as her now, maybe a bit taller. A growth spurt would happen soon, he was sure of it.
“I’m sorry it took so long,” she murmured.
“What do you mean?”
“For us all to be together. I wanted it for an eternity.”
New questions sprung to mind. Where they were all to live seemed the most pressing. As was, she was leaving Alfred behind, again, with little communication of when he would next see her. Alfred missed her terribly when she was not around for months at a time. She’d told him, so very long ago, that the entire point of this endeavour was to alleviate the long stretches of silence. And Alfred did want his brother around. Matthew was quiet and significantly more timid than Alfred, but he had the same restlessness; a boundless energy which never seemed to be fulfilled. The boys could take care of themselves, when they were allowed to. Evelyn was a comforting thing to come home to, fussing and cooing and saccharine sweetness, but she wasn’t a presence he wanted with him all day every day. Surely there was a happy medium?
Not that he could tell her such a thing. Making his mother upset was something he had learned some time ago not to do.
The feeling of her pushing him away still hurt like a gunshot when he thought of it. God forbid he ever made her cry. He would never forgive himself.
“Mama,” he whispered like the child he tried very hard not to be, “are you lonely?”
She was still for some time in his embrace, then squeezed once, very tight.
“All things pass.” She let go, only to cradle her son’s cheeks. “And bad times become nothing more than a hurtful memory.”
Alfred nodded, not entirely sure he bought it. Nevertheless, he was grateful that she seemed to believe her own words.
Evelyn kissed his cheeks, Alfred making a point of squirming under the blatant affection. It was too busy a space with hardened sailors working to be so sentimental.
England did not seem to care one bit.
“Be good, my love.”
Alfred sighed, stepping back to let her board the merchant ship.
“I’ll try.”
*****
Quebec, Canada
England thread her arm through her brother’s as they walked along the lake. It wasn’t the most suitable of paths considering her skirt, but Evelyn didn’t mind much. Matthew moved ahead, following anything that caught his interest but using his mother and uncle as a centre point to return to. His mother’s skirts had a lot of room to hold his ever growing collections of interesting rocks he found.
He had a lot of energy, but did not move as fast as Alfred. His was a quieter presence, less likely to declare something fascinating he had spotted, seeming more happy to keep it to himself, at least until they arrived home. Once or twice he’d cry out, flitting between a number of languages that was hard to keep track of. French, mostly, still.
He seemed less energetic than usual however. It was not hard to guess why. Evelyn groaned internally. She had hoped that being released from Francis would bring relief, instead, the boy was mourning the loss of his father.
Not surprising or shocking in the slightest, but the fact that Evelyn was not not enough to make up for any parental hole made her miserable. She wanted to be enough.
“You taught him Gaelic,” Evelyn murmured to Alasdair.
He nodded, unapologetic.
“Will you make him forget?” he asked, testing the waters of his sister’s mood.
To his partial disappointment, she was sad but resigned. A draining combination to be around, but at least she wasn’t disputative.
“Me? Personally? No… No. I do not know what those with power would say if they knew, though. But if you want him to remember you must speak it to him, no-one else will. I won’t stop you, just try to be discreet won’t you?”
Alasdair mused it over. “It’s just a language.”
“Aye. So it is.” The pair stepped over some unstable ground, kicking mud up in the air. Evelyn held on tightly to her brother, who seemed a little put off at her clinginess. She mused out loud, “You know, I wanted to write down in a volume as much Cumbric as I could before it died hundreds of years ago, when I had to pretend that I didn’t know how to read? I wish I had. I… I cannot remember. All I have are place names. Penrith, Carlisle… Counting sheep and stitches as yan-tan-tethera… Odd. What survives.”
Scotland nodded. It was the same for him. “What about Cornish?”
“Ah, now that I am writing down. A hundred times over. Welsh is not the same, no matter what Rhys says. Breton, of all places though… God forbid I turn to Francis for help.” She frowned, contemplative and melancholic. “They take my words away. Say there is one right way to speak. And it is a nice language, but then again it is the only one I can have? One voice? But we are more than one voice. Why can we not have more than one language?”
“But you do nothing.”
She stopped, confused. “What would you have me do? I am writing it all down so I do not forget. I will sing my songs, tell the stories… What else is there? This is the way of things. Progress, they call it.”
Alasdair was looking at Evelyn with a mixture of contempt and pity. An unpleasant combination to be on the receiving end of. “You give it up fae convenience. Not the same thing.”
Her eyes widened. “Bull!” She began to stomp away, hardly an imposing figure in a pastel linen dress. “Just because I don’t kick and scream like the rest of you does not mean I am happy. Convenience? It would be convenient to be left alone. Christ. Matthew!” she called, having had enough of their family walk. “Time to go back.”
Quietly, just to herself, she repeated, “It’s just a language.”
Matthew ran back with no further prompt needed. He crashed into her like a hammer, throwing the wind from her chest.
“Look,” he opened up his palm to show more rocks. “See the spirals? I crack some rocks open and there they are.”
“I see them. You can find a lot along my southern coasts too.”
“What are they?”
“Very old petrified animals. Some people think they’re snakes.”
“How does that work?”
Both siblings shrugged, and Alasdair patted Matthew’s back, encouraging him to get moving. Evelyn’s arm reached out again, using her brother as a counterweight.
She did not much like the house in Quebec. It was small, just three rooms, but it was not the size that particularly bothered her. It was an alien feeling being here, a distinct sensation of not belonging. She was slow to speak French in town, conscious of any flaw that would mark her out as other. There was no suitable alternative at that time however, Halifax was nothing more than a fort with some wooden huts, and St. John’s was still recovering from its battle the previous year.
Really, it was the French-ness of it all. Of the neighbours, of the shops, of the damn tax system.
The siblings, without saying a word to each other, endeavoured to change that. They had no say in legislation back in the homeland. No, that had been left to Rhys to keep an eye on. His letters - reports even - went into far more depth than any pamphlet, and explained why Evelyn looked less than a day from keeling over into her porridge each morning.
National debt has gone from 74 to 133 million; have to look elsewhere for funds; have sent new cases of Wedgewood pottery, please let me know if you want more.
Evelyn did, but that wasn’t really the point.
Matthew noted that his mother and uncle rarely spoke to each other unless it was absolutely necessary. It did not strike him as though they had nothing in common, quite the opposite even, but Alasdair was more outgoing, more likely to say hello to someone on the street. If someone spoke to Evelyn unprompted, she would be polite, but also looking like with one wrong word she would flee the city, never to return. The siblings’ outlooks were simply too different to gel successfully. And even though they kept their mouths shut for the sake of peace, something odd bubbled between them; a resentment on both sides. Resentment for what, Matthew could not make out.
They passed the summer and autumn with their new charge, and it was the longest period of time Matthew had ever spent in the presence of other nations. Winter came, and both adults bore it fairly well, although England definitely had to wrap up warmer. Uncle Alasdair said it was because she had no fat on her. Evelyn threw a paperweight at him for the comment.
Neither English nor Scottish sibling cared one jot how they only had each other to take care of the house with not a servant in sight. It was actually rather amusing to watch Alasdair work and create a new bench and table for them to sit at. Matthew tried to help, but for the most part he was only good for cleaning up. Alasdair worked largely outside except when the rains came (and oh did it rain). He took Matthew to ‘help’ cut down a tree, using the two horses to pull it back, and worked endless days on creating a place to sit whilst eating. The house had not needed such a thing earlier with so few occupants.
Evelyn quickly became bored lounging in bed all day, with not even Alfred’s frequent letters satiating her. When she saw that the lengths of Matthew’s sleeves were not long enough to reach his wrists anymore, an obsessive fancy overtook her.
Soon, several pieces of wood with threatening needles jutting out appeared in the house, as did a pile of straw. Flax, England stated. They had plenty of money to buy ready made cloth, but England had snorted, not liking what was being produced for Quebec.
It looked tiring. She would start early, claiming that she couldn’t sleep. She ran the straw through a ripple to remove seeds, and Uncle Alasdair proceeded to use them and make into linseed oil to stain his wooden projects. She combed the stems over and over again to uncover the fibres and make it suitable for threading. They would spend several evenings this way, England sitting at a spinning wheel creating an off white thread, Matthew reading his books, Alasdair cooking and writing correspondence.
England sent the thread away one day. When it returned, it was instead in large swathes of fabric. Matthew felt the days endless as his mother fussed over measurements and stitching, but the result was two new shirts. He’d nearly burst into tears when she presented them. Papa had almost always brought him lovely fine things from the continent, but there was something about having the item made for him, which set off his emotions in a way he didn’t understand.
And it was not as though Matthew had nothing to do at this time. England did not trust any French tutor for her charge, so instead Matthew was given book after book after book, quizzed endlessly by both adults as they worked away. Uncle Alasdair continued to speak Gaelic to him and made him write continuously in several languages. Evelyn made him recite poem after song after Catilinarian oration after arithmetic equation. There was nothing about French law, nor English or Scottish, truly. There was only classical philosophy and little on current writers.
Matthew knew they existed. Alfred had been writing to him about it, in letters that Matthew burned before the adults could see. America would drop names like Hume and Hutcheson and Smith and Diderot and Montesquieu and Rousseau… Somehow Matthew's brother was getting his hands on interesting ideas. How Matthew could do the same, he was unsure. It all sounded very complicated to him.
And thus the odd little family existed, quite merrily, for some time. It suited everyone quite well. England and Scotland had lived so long and off their own resources, lacking a household staff was nothing more than a minor inconvenience at times, negligible even. That didn’t mean Evelyn did not severely miss a helping hand in the mornings to assist her getting dressed.
It was evening now, in mid December, and Alasdair had left for the night. He would stumble back no doubt in the first light of the morning, irrevocably and awfully drunk, but Evelyn allowed it. She had her own vices after all.
The bed that Matthew had was big enough for two. Three was pushing it. She did not enjoy sharing with her brother. With some luck he would find a lovely lady or gentleman with a bed of their own for the night. Or several.
When she went into the third room at the end of the day, it took a moment for her to realise Matthew was already on the bed, bent over and reading.
“What do you have there darling?” she asked, lighting a larger candle near the frame.
Matthew was quiet for a moment. Evelyn prompted again, getting onto the bed with him. When she peeked over his shoulder, she sighed sadly.
It was a pile of pamphlets, all relating to the recently concluded war and the resulting Treaty of Paris. When she wanted Matthew to improve his English, it wasn’t so he could read such tripe.
“How did you get these?” she asked, not angrily.
“People brought them in last month. I stole them.”
“You should not steal,” she chided, this time somewhat angrily. “You don’t need to.”
“I know,” was all he weakly said in response. Matthew remained bent over. “They are yours. They say I am no good for anything aside from hats, that you should have picked Guadeloupe over me.”
“Oh. But what wonderful hats you make.”
Matthew, who seemed predisposed to the same type of melancholia as his mother, simply stated, “You need the sugar more.”
“So say you.”
“Maman…” he quietly complained. “Why all this fighting for so long? Papa didn’t even say goodbye, and then all of these… These people say I’ve never been worth it.”
“And?”
Matthew pouted, violet eyes watering. “I’m confused. If I’m not worth anything, why did you have so many wars?”
“Who says you are not worth anything? People who don’t know you? Who have never even been here?”
Evelyn leaned over his shoulder, rummaging through the pamphlets. “Where… ah. There. Darling, have you read this one?”
Matthew tilted his head. It was a long title, they all were. But it was written by one of Evelyn’s Members of Parliament.
“Not yet… I think,” he confessed.
Evelyn ruffled Matthew’s blond curls. “Mm. Well. It lists a few reasons why I so desperately need my little hat colony, and not another sugar one.” She kissed the boy’s cheek, and unlike his brother, Matthew did not shy away, instead seeming to follow her lips to make the kiss last longer. “I already meet our sugar demand without Guadeloupe. And we have coffee in Dominica, not to mention even more sugar from Grenada, Saint Vincent and Tobago. I have my problems with our sugar supply, but it has nothing to do with its… volume, and it does not concern you. Besides, now that we have all the mainland, who says we cannot have the islands later on, one by one? You, however… Oh darling. You’re large and adaptable and capable of so many things, not just one cash crop. You’re familiar, and maybe one day can be a home away from home for my people. A bit colder in winter maybe, but that is better than the tropical heat.”
“‘One day’. Why all this for a maybe?”
“So much of it was for safety. Those wars and picking sides with the Indians and settlers dying… It was not good. For any of us. One side had to win out, and I am sorry darling but Francis never gave you a chance of winning. It was always going to be Alfred.”
Matthew was listening intently, flipping through the pages of the pamphlet. Evelyn watched him read, nervously petting his blond hair. The blond hair she had once so been disdainful of for how it reminded her of France. It was much more of his own now, she didn’t think of Francis when she looked at him. Instead, all England saw was Canada.
“Darling, do you miss him? Papa?”
“Yes,” he mumbled. “People here still don’t believe it. They think it’s just temporary. That he’ll fight to get me back.”
“...Do you want to go back?”
She saw his hands shake, then he gnawed his lips.
“I don’t know.”
It was to be expected, England knew this, but she couldn’t help the sinking feeling in her stomach. She wanted to be good enough, to not have to share affection with someone else.
“What do you think? About him coming back for you. Do you want that?” she asked quietly.
A beat, quiet aside from the winter winds blowing outside, passed.
Then, in a fit of anger, so unlike him, Matthew crumpled up the pamphlets and began to rip them to pieces. England watched Canada’s - not entirely unwarranted - tantrum, mouth in a straight line, lips pressed together. He was such a biddable boy compared to his brother, but she wanted to let him have this. Sometimes pain came out in funny ways. She could let him have this moment of catharsis. Just this once.
He began to cry and tossed all the papers to the dark wooden floor. Collapsing into a heap on the bed, Matthew’s short and sharp breathing was hard to listen to.
“They said I was a few acres of snow,” Canada whimpered.
“Voltaire said that. Voltaire says many things. And he didn’t. Papa never said that of you.”
“He didn’t say anything. Not even goodbye.”
Evelyn paused, pulling the boy up and around so she could hold him. Rubbing his back, she simply said, “I imagine it hurt too much.”
Another half lie. Francis had a moment of distress pass his face when he read the terms of peace, but only a moment. He still had access to the fisheries off Newfoundland. He said that was all that mattered. Evelyn could not get a good enough read to tell if he was being genuine, or saving face in what was a rather embarrassing treaty to concede to. Either way, it had not helped the transition for the colony.
Evelyn wondered if Antonio had ever done this. If Gabriel had curled up with Brazil and comforted them when they’d cried over heartbreak. She pondered if she would do the same for the other children. She had not even met the little colonies around Havana and Manilla, nor had she done anything herself with the transfer of Minorca.
Those were different, England told herself. They had not wanted her around, and her attempting sentimentality would go down like a rock in water.
She thought of Bermuda, of Barbados and of Jamaica.
Matthew felt her grip around him tremble. He looked up at her, seeing that she had a look that was a thousand miles away. It was not a pleasant expression.
“Maman,” he whispered. She blinked, turning slightly to look at him once more. She swallowed tightly, and ran her hand through his hair once more.
“We often cannot do what we want,” she explained. “It… in that case it simply must be endured.”
“But not even a letter,” Matthew continued. He was picking at his nails, going to bite them until Evelyn stopped the movement, wrapping both his small hands up in hers. She pulled him back against her so she could pepper his neck and exposed cheek with more kisses.
“It is as though you wish me to speak poorly of your father. Do you want that? I will be very happy to indulge you.”
“No…”
She had a rant at the ready, entirely self serving and distressing. Francis was always a two faced, narcissistic prick who was capable of making one feel adored and the centre of the universe itself, only for his attention to be taken elsewhere, and all the warmth would be gone, leaving such a desperate desire to please and win the love back. It was poison. It was very familiar.
Instead, England let go of Matthew and collected the pamphlet scraps, sliding off the bed and kneeling on the floor. Hauling herself back up was hard, and she could not help the whimper that escaped her as she did so. Matthew’s eyes shot up as she moved, properly looking at his mother for the first time since she came into the room. His cheeks flushed red, chiding himself for complaining when his mother had struggled so hard and for so long to have him, even to the point of her being unwell.
He just didn’t understand why he could not have both, and why Francis had cut off contact with seemingly little effort. Did he agonise over it? Matthew understood the way politics worked, or at least he thought he did. He would not have resented France anything, if only he had come and hugged him one last time to say goodbye.
It was slow going, Evelyn’s movements as she clung to the plastered walls, but she managed to throw the pamphlets into the fire in the next room. Matthew waited patiently for her to return. She smiled sadly as he got up, immediately wanting one of her hugs once more. His eyes were red, cheeks blotchy and pink.
“I was worth nothing too,” she said as if whispering a terrible secret. She pressed her cheek against his hair, smushing him in close.
Matthew looked at her. “Pardon?”
“All I was good for was tin. Chalk and some limestone, maybe. Something you could get elsewhere at better prices and quality. I was worth nothing to Rome, my mother Britannia was - to him - a pest who kept helping nearby barbarians and needed to be brought to heel for the sake of peace. My mother saw me as her death sentence, so we were not close, and I cannot bring myself to consider any ancient as my father. Rome was… Well. He abandoned me when those tribes got too strong and he was needed in his city, his home. All that land and people and yet there was no aid to be had. He left me so that he could die, and soon my mother followed. I was raided and invaded more times than I can count. It hurt for a very long time, and yet here I am. I learned how to farm better, and I learned about sheep. I used to make the best wool in Europe. Still do, if you ask me. And I did it mostly alone. You, meanwhile, will never be.”
Canada sniffed, the very picture of sweet and sad. His mother sighed, watching the candle in the corner burn.
“I will not abandon you, sweet darling boy. Yes, true, there is not much here now, but now is not forever. And I am not my government. Let the politicians say what they want, hmm? Let the silly power hungry men in powdered wigs think of us how they please. We will do what they ask us, of course, and England and Canada will perform what is required. But Evelyn and Matthew? I promised you when you were a little baby, as I got to hold you in my arms for the first time and I fell in love… I promised you that I would look after you, until it is your time to look after me. Will you swear that oath back?”
Matthew’s big eyes were wide open, processing and experiencing something of a revelation.
“I promise.”
“Besides, Scotland adores you, right?” Matthew nodded and Evelyn continued, smiling broadly, “You remind him so much of his homeland. And Alfred has been dying to see you once more. Fur or no fur, we will find a place for you. Right here with me. As you always should have been.”
“Thank you,” Matthew whispered.
“Can I ask again… Do you want papa to come back for you?”
He squeezed his arms around her. “You won’t leave?”
“No,” Evelyn stated.
“Then no, I don’t.”
England smiled against Canada’s hair, feeling for the first time in an unfathomably long time, like she’d had an unconditional victory.
Upon getting Matthew to bed, she walked back through to the main room to dampen the fire. Three letters sat on the mantelpiece. Alasdair had brought them in earlier, but neither sibling had read them. One was undoubtedly from Alfred.
Evelyn picked up the one she recognised the handwriting for, cracking open the seal to see what news Alfred had.
Matthew waited for his mother to join him, only to find when she didn’t, he became concerned. He hadn’t heard her fall, but she may have slid to the floor. That had happened once or twice. He climbed out of bed.
When he caught a glimpse of her as he turned the corner, he was confused. She was standing, back to him, right next to the fire. He couldn’t see her hands, she held them right in front of her. Maybe she was holding something.
“Maman?” he asked, forgetting to speak English “Ça va?”
England jolted, and finally Matthew saw her hands. She threw something into the fire, the flames flickering harder for just a moment, before she turned and smiled at him. It looked painful.
“Come on. Bed time.”
*****
Historical Notes:
- 1763 brought about the end of the Seven Years War for England, France, Spain and Portugal in February with The Treaty of Paris. Britain gained Canada, several Caribbean islands and huge chunks of formerly French America. In return, Spain got back Manila and Havana, and France got back Guadeloupe, Martinique, and Saint Lucia. Seen as an armistice more than a lasting peace, Britain was viewed by Europe as a greater threat than France, and former allies and enemies felt betrayed or were looking for vengeance.
- France did not fight hard to keep Canadian lands, asking only that they retained access for fishing around Newfoundland, and that the colonists could still be Roman Catholic. As England was after the war broke af, they couldn't afford to do as they had done in Acadia by forcibly removing French colonists, nor could they afford to deal with an uprising of pissed Frenchman in the New World.
- England agreed to let profitable Guadeloupe go largely for strategic reasons: removal of French threat to American colonists; Britain was able to meet its sugar demand already; and Canada had ~potential~. It was not the popular choice, either in the UK or elsewhere. Voltaire famously thought they sucked.
- The removal of English troops due to the French no longer being a threat in America became a hot topic, as did the promise of sort of tolerance towards Catholics. The Royal Proclamation in October 1763 made things worse, pissing off Americans who did not understand why they could not settle in lands which the British and Colonial forces had won a war over.
- The Jacobite Rebellions concluded definitively with George III's ascension or the Battle of Culloden depending on who you ask, ending any chance of an absolutist Catholic becoming King of Britain. It's not a straightforward 'all Scots/all Catholics/all Highlanders' were Jacobites; however the Highlands felt the largest impact afterwards. One result of this was the beginning of the Highland Clearances, where Scottish and English landowners would kick off crofters to make way for sheep grazing. England had been inclosing public land since the Reformation, often with protests being violently put down, but the Highland Clearances targeted Gaelic speakers and Catholics disproportionately. Many displaced people from the clearances would emigrate to Canada, and Gaelic communities would be set up.
- Josiah Wedgwood is a chap famous for his lovely alternatives to porcelain. He is equally as famous as an abolitionist. You have likely seen his design 'Am I not a man and a brother?' on posters or medals. He was also Charles Darwin's grandfather.
- The Enlightenment is in full swing, with the most notable contributors being French, Scottish and German.
- Cumbric was a dead Celtic language that used to be spoken in modern day Cumbria and Southern Scotland, in the same family as Welsh. It died out in the 1100s, with no primary sources surviving of what it was like save place names and - perhaps not that oddly - a counting system.
- Cornish, another Celtic language was dying too, with no monolingual speakers left in the late 18thC. It, unlike Cumbric, did have written sources, which let it carry on at least as a second language for a bit longer. As with many things, the Reformation is partly to blame. The language would indeed be extinct by the 1800s. Fortunately, it has been revived and is now protected. Cornish is very similar to Breton in France, and to a lesser extent Welsh.
- England was indeed very good at wool and tin. The switch from raw materials to constructed goods is a change that came with empire and mercantilism.
Link to Chapter Five.
Also available on Ao3.
Chapter Four: 1763, or The Royal Proclamation
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
“He hasn’t grown,” sighed England. “All that fighting back and forth and I swear he is no better with Francis.”
She was in one of her melancholic moods, Alfred noted with some level of disgruntlement. She always became nearly impossible to deal with when such persuasions possessed her.
They moved far too slowly through the docks, actively aggravating those trying to move about their work. Alfred tugged a little harder, urging her to hurry up. She did not take the hint.
“What do you mean?” he dared to ask.
A sailor, in a hurry to do goodness knows what, pushed past the pair with a thoughtless aggression. England turned, watching the man go with such a hateful look in her eye Alfred felt compelled to draw her attention back to him. He tugged on her pearl earring, pulling the lobe down.
“Mother?”
She twitched, as if coming back to herself, turning around and squeezing Alfred’s arm tighter. England sighed.
“I mean…”
Alfred pushed a cart out of the way from his mother’s path as she spoke, allowing her and her dress to bustle past. Her thanks was a tap on the wrist, demanding he return to holding her arm. She needed help being held upright, to the point where Alfred had sent her trunk of clothes ahead of her to the ship when he would have been perfectly capable of carting it for her.
The problem with economic troubles - the end result was something of a cold. Or flu, if one had a weak constitution. To Evelyn’s unending consternation, she was of the latter type.
Clammy skinned and thinner than ever. She had emerged out of that war overshadowing France. The rest of Europe no longer trusted her for it. If they ever had.
Not that England gave off any such hint of caring. Instead, she continued to talk about Matthew. Matthew, Alfred’s little big brother, who had swapped hands so many times at this point he surely would have had nausea from the back and forth.
Evelyn had entrusted him these past few years to her brother. Alfred did not know if it was Uncle Alasdair’s reward or punishment for the Jacobite rebellions. He never did find out what Scotland thought of it all, but it did feel rather backhanded to Alfred.
You wanted Nova Scotia for so long, here, take it.
England was still talking.
“Your brother is still as you remember him ten years ago. You have grown fast, far faster than any bamboo in Wang Yao’s garden. Matthew is still small, no taller than a child of thirteen.”
“He was smaller than me even then.”
“As I said. He has not grown. You are now… fifteen? Sixteen?”
“Something like that.”
“It is my hope, now that I have you both under one house, permanently, that things will change. We shall give him a few months to adjust, then bring him over.”
His mother’s hand brushed through Alfred’s golden hair, voicing her hope in a whisper barely audible over the bustle of the docks. She retook his arm, and allowed Alfred to lead her along.
“Are you really going to let him stay Catholic?” he asked.
Her distracted expression twitched, and Alfred did not miss the beginnings of a sneer - the fish hook he called it - appearing in her lip.
“We don’t have the resources for a crackdown. The transfer is tricky enough, I need peace above all things. Who cares what your brother does at church? It doesn’t impact you.”
“But it might. I mean, what if ”-
“What if, what if, what if… That’s enough love.”
“But”-
“That’s enough. You know I hate talking about religion.” She did not need to yell, or grow angry. Alfred bit his tongue to the point that it hurt. Everyday he understood her less and less. She refused to let her sister in her presence and went out of her way to disenfranchise her own Catholics, only to turn around and signed a treaty protecting French ones.
“Did you sleep?” he asked, changing the subject.
Mother looked up at him, a question in her eyes. “I only ask,” he explained, “as I heard thumping in the middle of the night.”
“Thumping? How oddly specific.”
The lightness in her tone was very telling.
“I just” -
She interrupted him with little fanfare. A quiet pat on the forearm made Alfred fall silent. “I know, my love. It is nothing.”
It really wasn’t. There had been a problem getting her laudanum to her these past few weeks. Whether it was her refusal to take it, or the apothecary wasn’t carrying it, Alfred was unsure. He wasn’t allowed to take on such tasks when Evelyn was visiting. It was something of an unspoken and open secret.
“Promise me that you will be good whilst I am gone. Please, Alfred, promise me.”
Alfred hummed non-committedly. “I’ll write.”
“Please. I have to travel so much these days, the letters I receive bring me so much joy. Tell me all of it. Every little thing, even if you believe it of no consequence.”
She wouldn’t write back. Not enough time, she said. Out of sight, out of mind, Alfred thought. The haziness that afflicted her was such that it wasn’t uncommon to have to remind her three times of an upcoming event as simple as the market.
How she had done so well in war, Alfred had no clue. He had never seen her fight. He wanted to. If ever he felt like Evelyn looked at him without ever truly understanding him; the same could surely be claimed of the reverse.
England hugged him very tightly. He was the same height as her now, maybe a bit taller. A growth spurt would happen soon, he was sure of it.
“I’m sorry it took so long,” she murmured.
“What do you mean?”
“For us all to be together. I wanted it for an eternity.”
New questions sprung to mind. Where they were all to live seemed the most pressing. As was, she was leaving Alfred behind, again, with little communication of when he would next see her. Alfred missed her terribly when she was not around for months at a time. She’d told him, so very long ago, that the entire point of this endeavour was to alleviate the long stretches of silence. And Alfred did want his brother around. Matthew was quiet and significantly more timid than Alfred, but he had the same restlessness; a boundless energy which never seemed to be fulfilled. The boys could take care of themselves, when they were allowed to. Evelyn was a comforting thing to come home to, fussing and cooing and saccharine sweetness, but she wasn’t a presence he wanted with him all day every day. Surely there was a happy medium?
Not that he could tell her such a thing. Making his mother upset was something he had learned some time ago not to do.
The feeling of her pushing him away still hurt like a gunshot when he thought of it. God forbid he ever made her cry. He would never forgive himself.
“Mama,” he whispered like the child he tried very hard not to be, “are you lonely?”
She was still for some time in his embrace, then squeezed once, very tight.
“All things pass.” She let go, only to cradle her son’s cheeks. “And bad times become nothing more than a hurtful memory.”
Alfred nodded, not entirely sure he bought it. Nevertheless, he was grateful that she seemed to believe her own words.
Evelyn kissed his cheeks, Alfred making a point of squirming under the blatant affection. It was too busy a space with hardened sailors working to be so sentimental.
England did not seem to care one bit.
“Be good, my love.”
Alfred sighed, stepping back to let her board the merchant ship.
“I’ll try.”
*****
Quebec, Canada
England thread her arm through her brother’s as they walked along the lake. It wasn’t the most suitable of paths considering her skirt, but Evelyn didn’t mind much. Matthew moved ahead, following anything that caught his interest but using his mother and uncle as a centre point to return to. His mother’s skirts had a lot of room to hold his ever growing collections of interesting rocks he found.
He had a lot of energy, but did not move as fast as Alfred. His was a quieter presence, less likely to declare something fascinating he had spotted, seeming more happy to keep it to himself, at least until they arrived home. Once or twice he’d cry out, flitting between a number of languages that was hard to keep track of. French, mostly, still.
He seemed less energetic than usual however. It was not hard to guess why. Evelyn groaned internally. She had hoped that being released from Francis would bring relief, instead, the boy was mourning the loss of his father.
Not surprising or shocking in the slightest, but the fact that Evelyn was not not enough to make up for any parental hole made her miserable. She wanted to be enough.
“You taught him Gaelic,” Evelyn murmured to Alasdair.
He nodded, unapologetic.
“Will you make him forget?” he asked, testing the waters of his sister’s mood.
To his partial disappointment, she was sad but resigned. A draining combination to be around, but at least she wasn’t disputative.
“Me? Personally? No… No. I do not know what those with power would say if they knew, though. But if you want him to remember you must speak it to him, no-one else will. I won’t stop you, just try to be discreet won’t you?”
Alasdair mused it over. “It’s just a language.”
“Aye. So it is.” The pair stepped over some unstable ground, kicking mud up in the air. Evelyn held on tightly to her brother, who seemed a little put off at her clinginess. She mused out loud, “You know, I wanted to write down in a volume as much Cumbric as I could before it died hundreds of years ago, when I had to pretend that I didn’t know how to read? I wish I had. I… I cannot remember. All I have are place names. Penrith, Carlisle… Counting sheep and stitches as yan-tan-tethera… Odd. What survives.”
Scotland nodded. It was the same for him. “What about Cornish?”
“Ah, now that I am writing down. A hundred times over. Welsh is not the same, no matter what Rhys says. Breton, of all places though… God forbid I turn to Francis for help.” She frowned, contemplative and melancholic. “They take my words away. Say there is one right way to speak. And it is a nice language, but then again it is the only one I can have? One voice? But we are more than one voice. Why can we not have more than one language?”
“But you do nothing.”
She stopped, confused. “What would you have me do? I am writing it all down so I do not forget. I will sing my songs, tell the stories… What else is there? This is the way of things. Progress, they call it.”
Alasdair was looking at Evelyn with a mixture of contempt and pity. An unpleasant combination to be on the receiving end of. “You give it up fae convenience. Not the same thing.”
Her eyes widened. “Bull!” She began to stomp away, hardly an imposing figure in a pastel linen dress. “Just because I don’t kick and scream like the rest of you does not mean I am happy. Convenience? It would be convenient to be left alone. Christ. Matthew!” she called, having had enough of their family walk. “Time to go back.”
Quietly, just to herself, she repeated, “It’s just a language.”
Matthew ran back with no further prompt needed. He crashed into her like a hammer, throwing the wind from her chest.
“Look,” he opened up his palm to show more rocks. “See the spirals? I crack some rocks open and there they are.”
“I see them. You can find a lot along my southern coasts too.”
“What are they?”
“Very old petrified animals. Some people think they’re snakes.”
“How does that work?”
Both siblings shrugged, and Alasdair patted Matthew’s back, encouraging him to get moving. Evelyn’s arm reached out again, using her brother as a counterweight.
She did not much like the house in Quebec. It was small, just three rooms, but it was not the size that particularly bothered her. It was an alien feeling being here, a distinct sensation of not belonging. She was slow to speak French in town, conscious of any flaw that would mark her out as other. There was no suitable alternative at that time however, Halifax was nothing more than a fort with some wooden huts, and St. John’s was still recovering from its battle the previous year.
Really, it was the French-ness of it all. Of the neighbours, of the shops, of the damn tax system.
The siblings, without saying a word to each other, endeavoured to change that. They had no say in legislation back in the homeland. No, that had been left to Rhys to keep an eye on. His letters - reports even - went into far more depth than any pamphlet, and explained why Evelyn looked less than a day from keeling over into her porridge each morning.
National debt has gone from 74 to 133 million; have to look elsewhere for funds; have sent new cases of Wedgewood pottery, please let me know if you want more.
Evelyn did, but that wasn’t really the point.
Matthew noted that his mother and uncle rarely spoke to each other unless it was absolutely necessary. It did not strike him as though they had nothing in common, quite the opposite even, but Alasdair was more outgoing, more likely to say hello to someone on the street. If someone spoke to Evelyn unprompted, she would be polite, but also looking like with one wrong word she would flee the city, never to return. The siblings’ outlooks were simply too different to gel successfully. And even though they kept their mouths shut for the sake of peace, something odd bubbled between them; a resentment on both sides. Resentment for what, Matthew could not make out.
They passed the summer and autumn with their new charge, and it was the longest period of time Matthew had ever spent in the presence of other nations. Winter came, and both adults bore it fairly well, although England definitely had to wrap up warmer. Uncle Alasdair said it was because she had no fat on her. Evelyn threw a paperweight at him for the comment.
Neither English nor Scottish sibling cared one jot how they only had each other to take care of the house with not a servant in sight. It was actually rather amusing to watch Alasdair work and create a new bench and table for them to sit at. Matthew tried to help, but for the most part he was only good for cleaning up. Alasdair worked largely outside except when the rains came (and oh did it rain). He took Matthew to ‘help’ cut down a tree, using the two horses to pull it back, and worked endless days on creating a place to sit whilst eating. The house had not needed such a thing earlier with so few occupants.
Evelyn quickly became bored lounging in bed all day, with not even Alfred’s frequent letters satiating her. When she saw that the lengths of Matthew’s sleeves were not long enough to reach his wrists anymore, an obsessive fancy overtook her.
Soon, several pieces of wood with threatening needles jutting out appeared in the house, as did a pile of straw. Flax, England stated. They had plenty of money to buy ready made cloth, but England had snorted, not liking what was being produced for Quebec.
It looked tiring. She would start early, claiming that she couldn’t sleep. She ran the straw through a ripple to remove seeds, and Uncle Alasdair proceeded to use them and make into linseed oil to stain his wooden projects. She combed the stems over and over again to uncover the fibres and make it suitable for threading. They would spend several evenings this way, England sitting at a spinning wheel creating an off white thread, Matthew reading his books, Alasdair cooking and writing correspondence.
England sent the thread away one day. When it returned, it was instead in large swathes of fabric. Matthew felt the days endless as his mother fussed over measurements and stitching, but the result was two new shirts. He’d nearly burst into tears when she presented them. Papa had almost always brought him lovely fine things from the continent, but there was something about having the item made for him, which set off his emotions in a way he didn’t understand.
And it was not as though Matthew had nothing to do at this time. England did not trust any French tutor for her charge, so instead Matthew was given book after book after book, quizzed endlessly by both adults as they worked away. Uncle Alasdair continued to speak Gaelic to him and made him write continuously in several languages. Evelyn made him recite poem after song after Catilinarian oration after arithmetic equation. There was nothing about French law, nor English or Scottish, truly. There was only classical philosophy and little on current writers.
Matthew knew they existed. Alfred had been writing to him about it, in letters that Matthew burned before the adults could see. America would drop names like Hume and Hutcheson and Smith and Diderot and Montesquieu and Rousseau… Somehow Matthew's brother was getting his hands on interesting ideas. How Matthew could do the same, he was unsure. It all sounded very complicated to him.
And thus the odd little family existed, quite merrily, for some time. It suited everyone quite well. England and Scotland had lived so long and off their own resources, lacking a household staff was nothing more than a minor inconvenience at times, negligible even. That didn’t mean Evelyn did not severely miss a helping hand in the mornings to assist her getting dressed.
It was evening now, in mid December, and Alasdair had left for the night. He would stumble back no doubt in the first light of the morning, irrevocably and awfully drunk, but Evelyn allowed it. She had her own vices after all.
The bed that Matthew had was big enough for two. Three was pushing it. She did not enjoy sharing with her brother. With some luck he would find a lovely lady or gentleman with a bed of their own for the night. Or several.
When she went into the third room at the end of the day, it took a moment for her to realise Matthew was already on the bed, bent over and reading.
“What do you have there darling?” she asked, lighting a larger candle near the frame.
Matthew was quiet for a moment. Evelyn prompted again, getting onto the bed with him. When she peeked over his shoulder, she sighed sadly.
It was a pile of pamphlets, all relating to the recently concluded war and the resulting Treaty of Paris. When she wanted Matthew to improve his English, it wasn’t so he could read such tripe.
“How did you get these?” she asked, not angrily.
“People brought them in last month. I stole them.”
“You should not steal,” she chided, this time somewhat angrily. “You don’t need to.”
“I know,” was all he weakly said in response. Matthew remained bent over. “They are yours. They say I am no good for anything aside from hats, that you should have picked Guadeloupe over me.”
“Oh. But what wonderful hats you make.”
Matthew, who seemed predisposed to the same type of melancholia as his mother, simply stated, “You need the sugar more.”
“So say you.”
“Maman…” he quietly complained. “Why all this fighting for so long? Papa didn’t even say goodbye, and then all of these… These people say I’ve never been worth it.”
“And?”
Matthew pouted, violet eyes watering. “I’m confused. If I’m not worth anything, why did you have so many wars?”
“Who says you are not worth anything? People who don’t know you? Who have never even been here?”
Evelyn leaned over his shoulder, rummaging through the pamphlets. “Where… ah. There. Darling, have you read this one?”
Matthew tilted his head. It was a long title, they all were. But it was written by one of Evelyn’s Members of Parliament.
“Not yet… I think,” he confessed.
Evelyn ruffled Matthew’s blond curls. “Mm. Well. It lists a few reasons why I so desperately need my little hat colony, and not another sugar one.” She kissed the boy’s cheek, and unlike his brother, Matthew did not shy away, instead seeming to follow her lips to make the kiss last longer. “I already meet our sugar demand without Guadeloupe. And we have coffee in Dominica, not to mention even more sugar from Grenada, Saint Vincent and Tobago. I have my problems with our sugar supply, but it has nothing to do with its… volume, and it does not concern you. Besides, now that we have all the mainland, who says we cannot have the islands later on, one by one? You, however… Oh darling. You’re large and adaptable and capable of so many things, not just one cash crop. You’re familiar, and maybe one day can be a home away from home for my people. A bit colder in winter maybe, but that is better than the tropical heat.”
“‘One day’. Why all this for a maybe?”
“So much of it was for safety. Those wars and picking sides with the Indians and settlers dying… It was not good. For any of us. One side had to win out, and I am sorry darling but Francis never gave you a chance of winning. It was always going to be Alfred.”
Matthew was listening intently, flipping through the pages of the pamphlet. Evelyn watched him read, nervously petting his blond hair. The blond hair she had once so been disdainful of for how it reminded her of France. It was much more of his own now, she didn’t think of Francis when she looked at him. Instead, all England saw was Canada.
“Darling, do you miss him? Papa?”
“Yes,” he mumbled. “People here still don’t believe it. They think it’s just temporary. That he’ll fight to get me back.”
“...Do you want to go back?”
She saw his hands shake, then he gnawed his lips.
“I don’t know.”
It was to be expected, England knew this, but she couldn’t help the sinking feeling in her stomach. She wanted to be good enough, to not have to share affection with someone else.
“What do you think? About him coming back for you. Do you want that?” she asked quietly.
A beat, quiet aside from the winter winds blowing outside, passed.
Then, in a fit of anger, so unlike him, Matthew crumpled up the pamphlets and began to rip them to pieces. England watched Canada’s - not entirely unwarranted - tantrum, mouth in a straight line, lips pressed together. He was such a biddable boy compared to his brother, but she wanted to let him have this. Sometimes pain came out in funny ways. She could let him have this moment of catharsis. Just this once.
He began to cry and tossed all the papers to the dark wooden floor. Collapsing into a heap on the bed, Matthew’s short and sharp breathing was hard to listen to.
“They said I was a few acres of snow,” Canada whimpered.
“Voltaire said that. Voltaire says many things. And he didn’t. Papa never said that of you.”
“He didn’t say anything. Not even goodbye.”
Evelyn paused, pulling the boy up and around so she could hold him. Rubbing his back, she simply said, “I imagine it hurt too much.”
Another half lie. Francis had a moment of distress pass his face when he read the terms of peace, but only a moment. He still had access to the fisheries off Newfoundland. He said that was all that mattered. Evelyn could not get a good enough read to tell if he was being genuine, or saving face in what was a rather embarrassing treaty to concede to. Either way, it had not helped the transition for the colony.
Evelyn wondered if Antonio had ever done this. If Gabriel had curled up with Brazil and comforted them when they’d cried over heartbreak. She pondered if she would do the same for the other children. She had not even met the little colonies around Havana and Manilla, nor had she done anything herself with the transfer of Minorca.
Those were different, England told herself. They had not wanted her around, and her attempting sentimentality would go down like a rock in water.
She thought of Bermuda, of Barbados and of Jamaica.
Matthew felt her grip around him tremble. He looked up at her, seeing that she had a look that was a thousand miles away. It was not a pleasant expression.
“Maman,” he whispered. She blinked, turning slightly to look at him once more. She swallowed tightly, and ran her hand through his hair once more.
“We often cannot do what we want,” she explained. “It… in that case it simply must be endured.”
“But not even a letter,” Matthew continued. He was picking at his nails, going to bite them until Evelyn stopped the movement, wrapping both his small hands up in hers. She pulled him back against her so she could pepper his neck and exposed cheek with more kisses.
“It is as though you wish me to speak poorly of your father. Do you want that? I will be very happy to indulge you.”
“No…”
She had a rant at the ready, entirely self serving and distressing. Francis was always a two faced, narcissistic prick who was capable of making one feel adored and the centre of the universe itself, only for his attention to be taken elsewhere, and all the warmth would be gone, leaving such a desperate desire to please and win the love back. It was poison. It was very familiar.
Instead, England let go of Matthew and collected the pamphlet scraps, sliding off the bed and kneeling on the floor. Hauling herself back up was hard, and she could not help the whimper that escaped her as she did so. Matthew’s eyes shot up as she moved, properly looking at his mother for the first time since she came into the room. His cheeks flushed red, chiding himself for complaining when his mother had struggled so hard and for so long to have him, even to the point of her being unwell.
He just didn’t understand why he could not have both, and why Francis had cut off contact with seemingly little effort. Did he agonise over it? Matthew understood the way politics worked, or at least he thought he did. He would not have resented France anything, if only he had come and hugged him one last time to say goodbye.
It was slow going, Evelyn’s movements as she clung to the plastered walls, but she managed to throw the pamphlets into the fire in the next room. Matthew waited patiently for her to return. She smiled sadly as he got up, immediately wanting one of her hugs once more. His eyes were red, cheeks blotchy and pink.
“I was worth nothing too,” she said as if whispering a terrible secret. She pressed her cheek against his hair, smushing him in close.
Matthew looked at her. “Pardon?”
“All I was good for was tin. Chalk and some limestone, maybe. Something you could get elsewhere at better prices and quality. I was worth nothing to Rome, my mother Britannia was - to him - a pest who kept helping nearby barbarians and needed to be brought to heel for the sake of peace. My mother saw me as her death sentence, so we were not close, and I cannot bring myself to consider any ancient as my father. Rome was… Well. He abandoned me when those tribes got too strong and he was needed in his city, his home. All that land and people and yet there was no aid to be had. He left me so that he could die, and soon my mother followed. I was raided and invaded more times than I can count. It hurt for a very long time, and yet here I am. I learned how to farm better, and I learned about sheep. I used to make the best wool in Europe. Still do, if you ask me. And I did it mostly alone. You, meanwhile, will never be.”
Canada sniffed, the very picture of sweet and sad. His mother sighed, watching the candle in the corner burn.
“I will not abandon you, sweet darling boy. Yes, true, there is not much here now, but now is not forever. And I am not my government. Let the politicians say what they want, hmm? Let the silly power hungry men in powdered wigs think of us how they please. We will do what they ask us, of course, and England and Canada will perform what is required. But Evelyn and Matthew? I promised you when you were a little baby, as I got to hold you in my arms for the first time and I fell in love… I promised you that I would look after you, until it is your time to look after me. Will you swear that oath back?”
Matthew’s big eyes were wide open, processing and experiencing something of a revelation.
“I promise.”
“Besides, Scotland adores you, right?” Matthew nodded and Evelyn continued, smiling broadly, “You remind him so much of his homeland. And Alfred has been dying to see you once more. Fur or no fur, we will find a place for you. Right here with me. As you always should have been.”
“Thank you,” Matthew whispered.
“Can I ask again… Do you want papa to come back for you?”
He squeezed his arms around her. “You won’t leave?”
“No,” Evelyn stated.
“Then no, I don’t.”
England smiled against Canada’s hair, feeling for the first time in an unfathomably long time, like she’d had an unconditional victory.
Upon getting Matthew to bed, she walked back through to the main room to dampen the fire. Three letters sat on the mantelpiece. Alasdair had brought them in earlier, but neither sibling had read them. One was undoubtedly from Alfred.
Evelyn picked up the one she recognised the handwriting for, cracking open the seal to see what news Alfred had.
Matthew waited for his mother to join him, only to find when she didn’t, he became concerned. He hadn’t heard her fall, but she may have slid to the floor. That had happened once or twice. He climbed out of bed.
When he caught a glimpse of her as he turned the corner, he was confused. She was standing, back to him, right next to the fire. He couldn’t see her hands, she held them right in front of her. Maybe she was holding something.
“Maman?” he asked, forgetting to speak English “Ça va?”
England jolted, and finally Matthew saw her hands. She threw something into the fire, the flames flickering harder for just a moment, before she turned and smiled at him. It looked painful.
“Come on. Bed time.”
*****
Historical Notes:
- 1763 brought about the end of the Seven Years War for England, France, Spain and Portugal in February with The Treaty of Paris. Britain gained Canada, several Caribbean islands and huge chunks of formerly French America. In return, Spain got back Manila and Havana, and France got back Guadeloupe, Martinique, and Saint Lucia. Seen as an armistice more than a lasting peace, Britain was viewed by Europe as a greater threat than France, and former allies and enemies felt betrayed or were looking for vengeance.
- France did not fight hard to keep Canadian lands, asking only that they retained access for fishing around Newfoundland, and that the colonists could still be Roman Catholic. As England was after the war broke af, they couldn't afford to do as they had done in Acadia by forcibly removing French colonists, nor could they afford to deal with an uprising of pissed Frenchman in the New World.
- England agreed to let profitable Guadeloupe go largely for strategic reasons: removal of French threat to American colonists; Britain was able to meet its sugar demand already; and Canada had ~potential~. It was not the popular choice, either in the UK or elsewhere. Voltaire famously thought they sucked.
- The removal of English troops due to the French no longer being a threat in America became a hot topic, as did the promise of sort of tolerance towards Catholics. The Royal Proclamation in October 1763 made things worse, pissing off Americans who did not understand why they could not settle in lands which the British and Colonial forces had won a war over.
- The Jacobite Rebellions concluded definitively with George III's ascension or the Battle of Culloden depending on who you ask, ending any chance of an absolutist Catholic becoming King of Britain. It's not a straightforward 'all Scots/all Catholics/all Highlanders' were Jacobites; however the Highlands felt the largest impact afterwards. One result of this was the beginning of the Highland Clearances, where Scottish and English landowners would kick off crofters to make way for sheep grazing. England had been inclosing public land since the Reformation, often with protests being violently put down, but the Highland Clearances targeted Gaelic speakers and Catholics disproportionately. Many displaced people from the clearances would emigrate to Canada, and Gaelic communities would be set up.
- Josiah Wedgwood is a chap famous for his lovely alternatives to porcelain. He is equally as famous as an abolitionist. You have likely seen his design 'Am I not a man and a brother?' on posters or medals. He was also Charles Darwin's grandfather.
- The Enlightenment is in full swing, with the most notable contributors being French, Scottish and German.
- Cumbric was a dead Celtic language that used to be spoken in modern day Cumbria and Southern Scotland, in the same family as Welsh. It died out in the 1100s, with no primary sources surviving of what it was like save place names and - perhaps not that oddly - a counting system.
- Cornish, another Celtic language was dying too, with no monolingual speakers left in the late 18thC. It, unlike Cumbric, did have written sources, which let it carry on at least as a second language for a bit longer. As with many things, the Reformation is partly to blame. The language would indeed be extinct by the 1800s. Fortunately, it has been revived and is now protected. Cornish is very similar to Breton in France, and to a lesser extent Welsh.
- England was indeed very good at wool and tin. The switch from raw materials to constructed goods is a change that came with empire and mercantilism.
Link to Chapter Five.
