Raised Ambitions

The Farewell

Ivan was already two years old when Marianne and Brandon brought him back to Betancourt with them tucked in between them in their open carriage. It was only a month after that Eliza had sent word to them to come for the boy.

His mother had come out to bid him farewell. How forlorn she looked there, Marianne thought, standing alone, her eyes tinged red and a bit puffy, perhaps from a whole night of crying. Ivan's mother did have a smile on her face though, in a brave effort to comfort her son.

Eliza did desire the best for her son. It was such a grand offer that Colonel Brandon had made to her. It was much better than what he had done for her, but she supposed that now, being married, it was within his means. She was grateful, for what mother would not wish to do more for her son? If Colonel Brandon was willing and offering, she would not ignore his attentions towards her son. Ivan deserved it, he was the son of a gentleman, even if that father was not gentlemanly enough to be responsible for his own offspring. She would miss him terribly though. Being her only stead company for the two years that she had raised him, Eliza would feel his absence strongly.

Marianne, though feeling deeply for Eliza, was eager to get their Ivan home. Their Ivan. A warm feeling spread through her. Although she harbored no romantic feelings for Willabey any longer, she felt that saving his son from an obscure and oblique future was almost the same as salvaging the broken pieces of her heart that had once been so brusquely rejected. For Ivan was a representation of a young love that had been tasted for a short time pleasure and abandoned without another moment's thought.

The little boy shed not a tear upon bidding his mother farewell, rather quite excited, he allowed Colonel Brandon to lift him into the carriage.

"I'm going mama! Look at me! I'm going in the carriage!"

"Yes my boy! Isn't it grand?" There was a heavy ache within her heart. Yet she still forced her lips to stretch into a smile for him. He was too young to notice the difference. His young mother moved about, not allowing herself to feel anything, remaining in a dreamlike state.

"Thank you Eliza, this means a lot to my wife, and thus, to me as well. He will be well cared for" the Colonel said.

"Thank you Colonel," she bit her lip to keep her emotions in check, for her boy's sake.

With a hand on her shoulder, the Colonel said his goodbyes. Away they rode, leaving the young girl behind. She looked frail with her thin worn shawl hanging about her, but perhaps it was the wind that battered her long skirts all around her and disheveled her up-swept hair, perhaps it was the quivering of her bottom lip or the glaze in her eyes that she now allowed to be filled as her only relation road away, a small spec now.