An Expectation

3

Once upon a time, there was a princess who was living in a tiny village, and did not know she was a princess. She passed her days by working for an old lady who enjoyed sewing gowns for noble ladies. 

One day the old lady said to her, "It is time that you learn the art of sewing, for my eyes have grown too weak to sew, and my fingers are too stiff to hold the needle."

The princess was worried, for she had never tried to sew fine fabric before. Her duties until then had consisted of  cleaning, cooking, and mending little things- but her fingers had never touched silk, or chiffon, or embroidery done in gold thread. She grabbed the needle and threaded it in gold, but the old lady stopped her.

"No, my child," said the lady. "You mustn't start with the embroidery. First, we must cut the fabric to fit."

You see, the old lady was hiding the princess from enemies of her father's kingdom and had pledged to hide her identity until the spring after her sixteenth birthday. It was three days until the princess's birthday, and the old lady had decided to make a gown for the princess to present her to the king and queen. What better way than to teach the girl to sew her own dress, so it would mean more to her?

The girl struggled with the heavy fabric and the scissors too big for her hands. Eventually she threw them down in frustration.

"I can't do it," she cried. "This is too much for me, and I don't understand why you can't just make the dress. You're much better at this than I am."

The lady put her hands on the girl's lap. "Look at my hands. They are scarred and tough because I have worked with them for so long. I have accidentally poked myself with needles and cut my hands more times than I can count, and it was a painful experience. Many times I have wanted to put my shears down and never pick them up again."

"Why didn't you?" asked the girl, and the old lady smiled.

"Because I knew that I had a purpose in creating, and that someday, somehow, I would be repaid for my troubles a thousand times over." She lifted the silk onto the girl's lap. "Try again, love, and fear not; I will always help you."

Strengthened by the old lady's resolve, the princess created a gown of pure lavender silk, such as the village had never before seen. The bodice was covered in lace flowers floating over the shoulders, and the skirt flowed as a waterfall to cover a pair of perfect white slippers, with silver edging on the neckline to resemble diamonds. It was the first day of spring when the dress was finished, and the girl looked proudly upon her work. 

"You can't see all the places that I stitched wrong," she noted, "and I envy the girl who will wear this gown. Tell me, who is this for?"

"It is for the princess of the land," replied the old lady. 

Sadly, the girl ran her hands over the fabric. "I see. When will she come to retrieve it? Are we certain it will fit?"

"It is for you, my dear."

The girl stared with wide eyes as she understood the old lady. And she put on the dress, and put her hair up, and as she stepped out of the dressmaker's shop and into the world, she stood straight, and remembered all of the times she had almost given up on the gown, and how glad she was that the old lady had put the cloth back into her hands, for now she knew who she was, and she could never forget that.

Marion smiled and pictured James, sitting in a hospital bed, writing such a fairy tale. 

I hope you enjoyed the fruits of my boredom. Not much has been going on lately but I still miss you more than anything, and am still sick. There's talk of sending me home. They think I have bronchitis and I am not healing from this cough and chills that I have had for the past few months. I hope they send me home, because I long to see the country and the girl I have fought for.

I may send you another story. I've been mostly reading lately and have thought of some good ideas for tales. Maybe you'll have to start a collection, and someday it may well be famous. People always look for memorabilia of wars, and as this will be the war to end all others, I think it may be significant- what say you?

Love, and thank you for the photo,

James.

"Come on, Marion, it's time to blow out the candle," groaned Marion's roommate, a testy spinster named Abigail. "I have early morning duty."

"We all must be up at dawn," said Marion, folding up her letter.

Abigail rolled over and glared, pushing her curly black hair out of her face. "And all you have to do is give some men their medicines, while I have to walk them around the gardens. No, push them around. I've got the ones that can't walk, remember?"

Marion blew out the candle and felt her way to her bed. "I'm sorry, Abigail, but maybe you shouldn't have joined the nurses if you couldn't handle the jobs."

Abigail harrumphed, and Marion pulled the sheets over herself. Her eyes were adjusting to the moonlight that filtered from behind sparse clouds.

One year she'd been here at Abbot House, and eight months since James had enlisted and gone to France. A girl of twenty-one she'd been, when her heart had been captured by the countryside, the house, and, most of all, the young man set to inherit it all. 

Now she was a year older, a year wiser. She'd seen a dozen men die after prolonged illness and injury at the hands of the enemy. She'd learned that if James came back he'd likely be as battered and broken as anyone. The war changed everything about people. Who knows if James would come back to her at all? Would he keep his love? Would anything come out of it?

She could hear a bell ringing in the kitchen, and soon after, her door creaked open.

"Marion," whispered the servant girl, "I'm sorry to wake you, but Mr. Stewart and Mr. Miller's bell is ringing."

"It's alright," she replied, slipping out of bed and putting a robe over her nightgown. She slipped her shoes on and hurried through the moonlit halls.

Screams were coming from the room, and she began to run. Marion threw open the door to reveal Lewis thrashing about in his bed, yelling incomprehensible words. Tears poured out from under the bandage on his eye.

She grabbed his flying hands and with all her strength pinned them to the bed, then threw herself atop him to still his legs. Lewis didn't struggle, he just lay there and sobbed.

Marion relaxed her grip and rolled off the bed. 

"The dreams," he whispered. "They don't leave. I saw my brother again. He was by me, in the trench and-"

"Shhh," she soothed, cradling his head, soaked with sweat and tears.

"I couldn't save him when the shells came," he cried. "I saw my baby brother being blown to bits by German shells, and there was nothing I could do."

"Don't think about it," she whispered, rocking him gently as he clung to her. "You're safe now."

Lewis sobbed anew. "I can't stop," he gasped. "Then the burning building came tumbling down atop me and the next thing I knew--"

"It's alright," she said, but her insides were writhing. She didn't want to picture what Lewis was telling her, but she couldn't help it. Of course, she didn't know what a shell looked like, though she'd seen plenty of shrapnel. She could picture the aftermath, though- wood gone through an eye, flames enveloping the man halfway before he was pulled out from under the wreckage with an arm so badly crushed there was no choice but to amputate it.

It wasn't alright.

It would never be alright. 

But she held Lewis as he calmed down and clung to her, and she found herself with her nose in his hair, and planted a kiss on his head as he fell asleep.