Work Text:
Every move of Siegfried’s approach was deliberate and considered as he made his way from Skeldale House across the village. In contrast to his usual, purposeful march, he kept his head bent low against the morning sunrise, moving slowly as though each step was a penance. His gaze remained stubbornly trained on the small handful of wildflowers clasped in his left fist as he walked. He had grabbed them from the kitchen table on the way past, which had felt like the proper thing to do, but now he was agonising over whether he should have picked some himself. He didn’t think she would mind, given that he hadn’t brought her any flowers for a considerable time. It wasn’t that he’d forgotten her. Far from that. In recent months he had been thinking of her more frequently than he had in years, which was precisely what had prompted this morning’s visit. If this new war had taught him anything, it was that he couldn’t afford to waste another second. Especially now that five and a half years of fear had passed. The end of the war provided a foundation upon which they could all rebuild their lives, and he was tired of the personal internal turmoil he had been battling since long before the war began. Today he needed to be here. To speak. To ask. It was time.
The grave was as it had been when he last visited her. Simple, elegant, and understated. Just as she had been.
Evelyn Beatrice Farnon
1890 - 1926
Beloved
“Hello, sweetheart,” he whispered, kneeling beside her to bring his face level with her name, one knee pressing into the damp earth. It had been decades since he had last voiced that moniker and he was surprised to hear it slip out. The breeze caressed his cheek, which he took to mean she had heard him. For a long time, he said nothing else. He arranged the small bouquet of wildflowers at the foot of the headstone, and busied himself plucking weeds from the ground around her and casting them into the grass behind him.
Tidying. Now she would really know something was wrong, he thought to himself.
Once he was content that her plot had been returned to her standard of neatness, he kissed the first three fingers of his left hand and pressed them to the first three letters of her name, lingering slightly before standing to relieve the pressure from his knee. He allowed himself a small smile, gathered his fortitude, and began.
“Do you remember what I said to you on your last morning at home?” He waited a beat.
“I told you that I would sooner die a miserable, lonely, old fool than endure this life without you.” A robin hopped onto Evelyn’s headstone blinking at him. Once. Twice. He directed his attention to the small bird.
“And you took my hand and told me there were worse things than death. Made me promise to love again.” He cleared his throat to prevent emotion from gathering there.
“I don’t think I smiled until more than a year after you left me, you know. Tristan missed you terribly and I was utterly bereft and neglectful of the poor boy…” he trailed off. Struggling to confess his innermost feelings aloud.
“But then there was Audrey,” the corners of his mouth tugged upwards, quite without his prompting, his words coming slowly and tentatively. “And she restored order to the house, and eventually my life. She's kept Tristan on track and now we've built an entire family at Skeldale. The kind of family you and I dreamed of. I expect you've seen it. Or I suppose you've felt it. In me, that is. I know there's been a change.” The robin continued to look at him, almost staring Siegfried down and waiting for the real confession he had come here to make. He took a deep breath and looked away from Evelyn, his first love, gazing heavenward praying what he was going to say would reach her, because he only had the strength to tell her once.
“I am in love with Audrey Hall.” he said simply. “I think I have been for some time.” A restful quiet fell over them, only the birds and the whispering wind were audible. The quiet sounds enveloped him and carried away his confession to somewhere Evelyn would be able to hear it. It was several minutes before he spoke again, beginning with a bittersweet chuckle.
“I don't quite know when I knew or when it happened, but I have come to realise that I have missed you for longer than I have known you, and I have loved you for longer than I had you, and all of that has turned me into the man that is capable of loving the extraordinary woman who I know is my home. I am not enduring your loss any more. I welcome each moment I have. Because of her.” He finally returned his gaze to her name, tracing the letters as though he might forget the spelling. The robin continued watching.
“I needed you to know,” he said. “Because absent family is family all the same, and you were…are, mine.” Then in a rushed afterthought, “and because I finally did the last thing you asked of me. I know how much you hated nagging me.” Siegfried looked the robin in the eye and blinked, only quiet and rustling leaves between them, until the bird finished its assessment of the man and flitted off. The wind picked up, caressing the trees encircling the small churchyard, sending a dusting of blossom like morning snow. He nodded, almost in response and turned to make his way home.
…
Skeldale House was quiet when Siegfried returned. The Herriots had not yet risen from the bedsit, and the absence of scampering paws greeting him at the back door suggested that Audrey had already taken Jess and Dash for their morning walk. The kitchen was littered with items destined for the village picnic the following day. Their home had become a hub of preparation with Audrey leading the charge and ably assisted by Helen, Jenny, and the children. Mrs Pumphrey had been a frequent visitor too, alternating between delivering contributions from her own kitchen, and bringing ingredients from the manor for use in Audrey's dishes. There were jams, pies, casseroles, sandwiches, baskets of cakes. Every surface was swamped with a physical representation of her big heart. Years ago, he thought, this ordered chaos would be a source of irritation but it struck him he truly wouldn't want their house to be any other way.
Maneuvering around the banquet items, he poured himself a mug of tea from the pot warming on the stove and sat in his usual seat at the head of the table, eyes unfocused.
Her voice floated in through the open door breaking his reverie.
“Dash! You are not to take that branch into the house. Mr Farnon will not thank you for the mess!” A warmth bloomed in his chest, though she still sounded far away. The sound of the spaniel's claws frantically charging up the garden path made his smile grow and he was soon greeted by a tangle of foliage, paws, and a proud wagging tail, fighting its way over the threshold.
“For heaven's sake, what has got into you this morning?” He could hear the amusement in her voice, much closer now. As Dash broke free of the door frame, Siegfried stood to catch the smaller dog before the half-tree he was carrying did any damage to Audrey's hard work.
“Not so fast,” he chuckled, making a grab for Dash and only coming away with a handful of leaves for his troubles. Siegfried quickly changed direction to head off the dog on the other side of the table, successfully getting him to stop with a swift down command, laced with authority. Dash was definitely more Audrey's dog than his but the pup was sensible enough to listen before getting himself into further mischief.
“My, you have been busy, haven't you?” Siegfried had to bite his cheeks to prevent himself from laughing as he knelt to the ground and extricated Dash from the greenery clamped in his jaws. He discarded this, pushing it towards the door and began plucking the twigs and other remnants of Dash's adventure from his fur. He adjusted the dog's collar and stopped dead as his eyes met the last piece of debris trapped between leather and fur, as though it had been intentionally placed there.
He was dimly aware of Jess arriving slowly in his peripheral vision, the older dog ambling towards him and sniffing the man's ear in greeting before heading to flop in the basket. Audrey was close at her back, having taken to walking at Jess's pace as the golden retriever aged, and had already launched into action having noticed Siegfried on the floor.
“I can only apologise, Mr Farnon, Dash has been having a funny five minutes this morning. I can't recall the last time he caused such trouble this early in the day…” she trailed off having finished hanging her coat as her eyes fell on Siegfried’s ashen face.
“Siegfried? Whatever is the matter?” Concern warped the edges of her words, cracking as they escaped her lips.
“Nothing,” he said too quickly, eyes darting to meet hers and snapping back into focus. She didn’t look convinced. “Nothing at all,” he added with a small smile. Her eyes travelled all over him as if a visual scan was needed to confirm his wellbeing. Her gaze lingered on the white feather clasped between his thumb and index finger, tilting her head in a question he chose to ignore.
“Must get on,” he mumbled and bustled out placing the feather into his waistcoat pocket as he went. Audrey heard the surgery door close softly a few moments later.
…
It was past two o'clock before Siegfried finally emerged from the clinic room having seen four ducks, a grumpy ferret, three dogs, and finally a cat who had seen fit to tear two buttons from his white coat and one from his waistcoat, followed by a shower of vomit on the vet for good measure. He marched into the kitchen, grumbling about it being one of his favourite waistcoats and absentmindedly apologised to Mrs Hall as he threw the ruined garment onto the washing pile before thundering upstairs in search of a replacement. Audrey simply watched the flurry of activity in silence knowing something beyond his damaged waistcoat was bothering him. She set about preparing a pot of tea for when he came back downstairs, the cure-all for emotional ills. Within minutes she had taken a tea tray to his desk where she knew he would likely retreat to. Her eyes drifted to the framed photo of Evelyn on the top of the desk.
“What shall we do with him, eh?” Audrey had never met Evelyn but she liked to think the two would have been friends. She often spoke to Evelyn when she was tidying the study and venting about the perpetual untidiness of the men of the house, presuming Evelyn had known the same battle all too well. Audrey had heard a lot about Siegfried’s late wife from Tristan, especially when she had first arrived as housekeeper and the young boy was still desperately mourning the loss of his second mother figure. She liked to think Evelyn understood that she had come to care for her boys more than anyone in her life with the exception of Edward. Audrey hoped Evelyn understood, wherever she was.
She was jolted from her thoughts by fragments of words reaching her from the direction of the stairs.
“Lot of superstitious nonsense,”
“No logic to it, man.”
“Pull yourself together Farnon.”
Audrey looked back to Evelyn and would almost swear to seeing a knowing glint in the woman's eye, frozen behind glass. Quickly heading back to the kitchen she retrieved what she needed and then returned to the study with a saucer of biscuits in time for Siegfried to enter the study wearing a clean waistcoat, although his jacket had been discarded somewhere along the way.
“I've brought some tea for you,” she said with a warm smile.
“Ah, whatever would I do without you, Mrs…” he stopped short as his eyes met the framed photo and the white feather tucked into the bottom corner. He looked at his housekeeper, his companion, the woman he had secretly loved for longer than he knew how to admit, knowing without a doubt that their lives were about to change irrevocably.
“They say that if you find a white feather, it has been sent to you by a loved one,” Audrey breathed into the room.
“Or in this case, an excitable springer spaniel returning from his morning walk.” Siegfried quipped.
She hummed in agreement. “All the same, I prefer to believe they might be thinking of us. Wherever they are. It's a comforting notion, don't you think?”
They remained silent for a few beats until Siegfried finally moved to take his seat. She turned to leave, not expecting an answer.
“You always know just the right thing to say,” he spoke slowly, as if considering every syllable. She paused but didn’t turn back to him.
“Thank you…Audrey.” Her name came out like a prayer. She slipped from the room with a smile, her face flushing scarlett, leaving Siegfried alone with his thoughts.