HOW CAN YOU MEND A BROKEN HEART
by TB's LMC
RATED FRT |
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Sequel to "My Smile" and based upon canon facts brought to my attention by quiller. Is from my Tracy Symphony Universe and references the story "Projected Losses" as well. Penelope's heart is broken...and not just because Jeff found love elsewhere.
Author's Note: I reference events here that occurred in my story 'Projected Losses,' but you don't need to read that to understand this...except you may wonder who the heck Jenny is... Author's Note 2: This is the second of Lady Penelope's Story Duo, part of a larger work called The Tracy Symphony which consists of two stories for each character. The first of her Duo was the story 'My Smile,' and you may want to brush up on that first before you read this. You can find all the stories in the Tracy Symphony (that have been written so far) at the Tracy Island Chronicles they're also posted here. Author's Note 3: Title of this story is taken from the 1971 Bee Gees song of the same name. Final Author's Note: Totally and completely unbeta'd. Therefore, if it stinks, it's completely my fault. Acknowledgement: I would like to thank quiller for her intrepid TICipedia Canon Foundry (3 double-u's dot ticipedia dot info, if you're interested) fact-finding for the next update to that site. Her information led me to learn that in one version of canon, from John Peel's book 'Supermarionation' (1988), Lady Penelope "...met and married Lord Ward, who sadly died soon afterwards of a hereditary disease, leaving her the family mansion." Given that there is also canon which states there were Creighton-Wards that were Penny's ancestors clear back to at least the year 1730 ('Lady Penelope's Secrets'), I decided I had to try and retrofit the two seemingly disparate canon facts. This is the result. (See what you made me do, Pen?)
Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward's Secret Encrypted Files... It seems so very long ago now. It was, in fact, and I haven't thought of him in years. I suppose having had my heart recently broken, through no fault of the man who broke it, has brought memories of past loves home to roost. Parker knew this evening that I wasn't up for his company as I usually am. His nightly stories are highly entertaining; I look forward to hearing him tell them. And while I know they're mostly fabricated, his antics are far better than what you might find on television these days. But tonight he left me on my own; moroseness makes for a dreary companion indeed. I've never divulged this to anyone, although I'm quite certain Parker knows he does his share of investigating, too, after all. My husband's name was Lord Edward Ward. He was directly descended from King Henry VII, the first monarch of the House of Tudor; Eddy was named after another ancestor of his, 7th Lord Dudley, 2nd Lord Ward. We were distantly related on my father's side, but my father's family was so large and so scattered throughout the British Isles that when we uncovered just how we were related, we realized the blood was very much diluted between us. I'd discovered via routine checks in my early twenties that I could not bear children, so it wouldn't have made a difference from that standpoint and honestly, neither of us cared a whit for how close we were or were not by blood. Eddy and I were like two peas in a pod as I've heard Mrs. Tracy say. We were both a bit mad for adventure and oh, the adventures we shared! From very nearly driving off a cliff in Ireland to getting lost at sea for a week halfway across the Atlantic. From him landing in considerable trouble with the Kent police after misplacing a very important piece of the Crown Jewels collection (I'm not quite certain they ever did retrieve the lost scepter, now that I think on it) to the fact that to this day I still don't know what became of my knickers one night in Cornwall. I have been called sophisticated and refined. Classy and proper. A Lady with impeccable decorum and a pedigree to match. Eddy was the only one who knew there was so very much more to me. He was the only one with whom I ever let down my guard; even Parker, as much as I trust him, hasn't known the parts of me that I suspect would rather shock him. Only Eddy. And I lost him far too soon. He suffered from McLeod Syndrome; one of the diseases it's rumored was responsible for many of Henry VIII's illnesses. In Eddy's case, he became depressed and it quickly turned to psychosis when he was only twenty-six. In short, and there is no delicate way to say it...he killed himself. I sit here with tears streaming down my face, seeing his so clearly before me. I'm tempted to reach out, to reassure myself that he isn't really here because I wish so desperately that he was. How I loved my Edward. How he loved me. As many who have loved and lost do, I no longer wished to show myself to anyone in the aftermath of his death...at least, not my real self. I hid. From society. From the world. I secreted myself in shadows, in the games of spies. That was the true reason I began working for my government. It was a way to stop thinking about Eddy; a way to make a life away from the sad eyes and wagging tongues of society busybodies who like nothing more than to talk of things behind one's back and create their own versions of history. None of which were accurate. Thankfully. Our family name and considerable wealth and standing in the aristocracy ensured no one but the doctor who performed the autopsy, three policemen and me knew that Eddy's death had been by his own hand. The casket was closed so no one would see the mark the rope had made round his neck. But I saw. And to this day, it haunts me. Now and again I find myself waking from the nightmare in which I relive finding him. I can't even bring myself to say how and where. I wish I could block it out. I wish the images would leave me be. I wish I didn't have to lose myself in solving others' problems to avoid facing my own. Is there something I could have done? Something I should have seen? Some way I should have known that this man I knew better than I knew myself might take his own life in spite of how much he loved me?
The tap-tapping sounds in the empty bedroom ceased. She sat back in her office chair and squeezed her eyes closed, forcing wave after wave of sadness to manifest large, glistening tears and roll them down her cheeks unbidden. The pain had never disappeared; it had only been buried. She swallowed hard, the lump in her throat growing so fast and hard that it nearly choked her. A hand on her shoulder made her entire body go stiff. That anyone should see her in this state "M'lady?" She puffed out a breath that hung there in the silence between them like a giant leaden bubble. "H'I'm sorry to 'ave h'intruded, m'lady, but Misteh Scott's just h'arrived in Thun'erbird One." Penny's eyelids lifted as she turned red-rimmed eyes to her longtime companion. "Coo," Parker breathed. "M'lady, h'I shall tell 'im you're not to be disturbed this ev'ning." She nodded her thanks and turned away. He lingered, fingertips barely grazing her shoulder as though they didn't want to lose their minute points of contact. A swish of air and a white monogrammed handkerchief appeared before her. "Thank you, Parker," she whispered. "Since Misteh Scott's h'arrival was rather h'unexpected," Parker stated with all the authority of the Lord of the Manor, "h'I shall make your excuses h'appropriately, m'lady." He wanted her to speak. She wanted anything but. Her stubbornness won out. With a small sound that she knew was a sigh he could always shrug off as a snuffle, his fingertips left the skin on either side of her pink floral sundress straps cold. The soft snick of him closing her bedroom door left her alone. The silence left her to think. To miss Eddy. To wonder why Jeff had chosen someone like Jenny who was admittedly a lovely girl, if not far too young for him by Penelope's standards over her. To believe that perhaps she was somehow cursed, having first fallen for a man genetically predisposed to die too soon, and then having fallen for a widower who'd found love in a completely different direction than England. To think that there was a reason she never let herself think about this sort of thing to begin with. Dabbing at her eyes, wiping at her cheeks, Penny moved to her bedroom window and peeked through the pale pink lace patterned curtains to where Parker and Scott Tracy were engaged in conversation some distance away with Thunderbird One standing as a large, silent backdrop. No doubt Parker was telling Jeff's eldest that she was indisposed. No doubt Scott was enquiring as to her health. Parker was saying she was fine, simply busy with some sort of grandly made-up spy game he'd conjured up on the spot. Scott was probably telling him he needed to refuel. Parker was most likely notifying Lil to whip something up for an always-hungry Tracy. Then Thunderbird Two appeared over the trees and Penny sighed. Time to find her smile and plaster it back onto her face again, for she couldn't very well be rude to an entire family simply because her heart had chosen to re-break over first Jeff and then Eddy. She watched as Parker turned toward the mansion; she would have sworn in England's highest court that he not only knew she was there, but was making direct eye contact with her. A smile did grace her face, then. This lovable rogue, as she'd affectionately described him to Jeff in the early days, who knew her so very well...well enough to have not made an issue of finding her dissolved in tears. Well enough to know precisely where she was even though there was no way he could actually see her from that distance. Well enough, apparently, to read her mind, too. For as Thunderbird Two's bulk came to rest on her lawn, and its massive engines became silent, Parker turned back to Scott and, if his gesturing was any indication, invited him and his brothers to the kitchen. When Scott made his way to the opening side hatch on Two, Parker turned once again to face the mansion. And once again, Penny would swear he could see her. An idea punctuated with a rather large exclamation point when he gave her a thumbs-up that the brothers couldn't possibly see. She laughed out loud. Then realized she'd laughed. "Only you can make me laugh that way," she whispered as she drew away from the window and headed for the bath. As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Penny stopped mid-step, nearly falling forward before she remembered to put her other foot down on the expensive Oriental rug covering the hardwood floor. "Only you can make me laugh that way," she repeated. A new thought indeed. And one that had, by the time Penelope had showered, dressed and joined the rowdy, hungry, overly-tired Tracy boys in her kitchen, nearly made her forget her broken heart. Yes, Jeff had moved on with someone else. And Eddy was gone. But when Parker winked surreptitiously at her as she walked up to the table where they were all seated, Penelope knew in her gut, as though such a thing had never before occurred to her, that she wasn't alone. She never had been.
Credit: To Sylvia Anderson, who used the term 'lovable rogue' to describe Parker in a recent conversation that Jaimi-Sam and I had with her for an upcoming issue of the NTBS Newsflash "Thunderbirds" newsletter. I suppose that's also partially what inspired me to want to dive into Penny a bit 'er ladyship herself! |
