Chapter Text
June, 1882
London
It doesn’t do to give children too much praise, any parent worth their salt knows that. Tell them every day that they are brilliant and perfect and they become like my half-brother Finarfin’s children, useless and spoiled. I have high expectations for my sons, and will not tolerate any lack of effort on their part. But any man who tries to claim that I am not proud of each and every one of my boys will soon have his assumptions quite firmly corrected.
There was quite a lot to be proud of, in the summer of 1882. All the oldest boys were doing well; Maedhros was excelling at Oxford as always (and, I’d heard, earning quite a reputation among the local girls), while Celegorm and Caranthir were earning good marks at St. Francis and generally staying out of trouble. I suspected that being allowed to keep his dog on the school grounds was the primary factor in Celegorm’s recent good behavior, but who was I to question what worked? His commitment to academics was clearly improving as well, as he’d written that he was considering studying Natural Sciences at university once he finished at St. Francis.
Maglor, meanwhile, was in his last year of music school in Vienna, and by all accounts was a great success. My wife had been worried about sending our son abroad when he was only fourteen, but four years later the boy was top of his class, could play seven musical instruments, and was fluent in German and Italian. Precisely as I had predicted, of course. We were an accomplished family indeed.
The morning after the youngest boys’ primary school let out for the summer, I returned from fetching the post to find Nerdanel in the dining room pouring tea and dishing out porridge, her bright copper hair in fetching disarray. I paused for a moment in the doorway and admired my wife, in my opinion the most beautiful and talented woman in London. When we were first married, some called her plain, but I called those people blind, for how could they not see how remarkable she was?
She looked up at last, with a wide, brilliant smile. “What’s that in your hand, dearie?”
“A letter from Herr Meissner at the Royal Academy,” I said, kissing her on the cheek and handing over the heavy envelope. “He’s written to tell us that Maglor and some of his fellow students will be performing their final project on the 10th of the month, and asks if we will be able to attend.”
“How exciting!” Nerdanel exclaimed, inspecting the letter. “Do you remember how worried the poor lad was at Easter about finishing his operetta before graduation? Utterly silly of him, really.”
“So I presume you would not be adverse to heading to Vienna at the end of next week?”
“Of course, my love! It’s a shame Celegorm and Caranthir won’t be able to come, it’s before their term ends, but I’m sure Maedhros will be delighted to join us, you know how proud he is of his brother. Only…” She hesitated. “Are we going to take the wee ones? It’ll be a long trip, after all, and they do tend to get into trouble.”
I glanced down the table at my youngest three sons, the last ones not yet in boarding school. Eleven-year-old Curufin, the only one of the children to have inherited my passion for science and invention, was picking at his porridge with his nose buried in a book about steam locomotives; he would be all right on the trip to Vienna, I was certain. The twins, on the other hand, had decided that eating breakfast was passé and were studiously using their porridge to paint designs on each other’s faces. One would think that at eight years old they would be past this kind of behavior, but one would be wrong.
“I would certainly prefer to bring them,” I said. “It would be an excellent opportunity for them to absorb some culture, and they really ought to be there to support their brother. All we need to do is explain the standard of behavior we expect from them. Boys?”
All three looked up at me expectantly, a blob of porridge dripping off Amras’ nose. I sighed, handing him a napkin. “All right, boys, did you overhear any part of what your mother and I were discussing?”
“I heard the word ‘Vienna’,” Curufin said. “So I assume Maglor is either graduating from that stupid school or he’s been expelled.”
“It’s the first one.”
“Bully for him,” replied Curufin curtly, before turning back to his book.
“Are you and Mum going to Vienna, Dad?” asked Amrod through a mouthful of food. “Can we come along?”
“ May we come along, and do not speak with your mouth full. Yes, your mother and Maedhros and I are going to Vienna. And we would like very much to bring the three of you along, but traveling abroad is not to be taken lightly, and if you wish to come you will have to behave like young gentlemen.”
“But we can’t be gentlemen, you know,” Amras pointed out. “We’re not grown up yet.”
“Nevertheless, you will behave like gentlemen, or you will stay home. That means no running off, no rudeness to your elders, no hiding under dinner tables, and absolutely no painting with porridge. Do you understand?”
The twins looked at each other intensely, as if conferring. I often wondered if my youngest sons were somehow able to communicate without speaking; perhaps it was a skill all twins developed before their birth. I made a mental note to try and conduct a study on the subject later.
“All right,” Amrod and Amras chorused at last. “We will be good.”
“I hope you’re not going to hold them to that, Father,” Curufin muttered. “They’re just babies, you know. They’ll fall off the boat halfway across the Channel.”
“We will not!”
Nerdanel winked at me. “Are you sure about this, Fëanor? We could always sneak off to Austria by ourselves and call it a second honeymoon.”
“The thought is very tempting, my love,” I said, putting an arm around her shoulders. “ Very tempting, in fact...but we would most likely get completely distracted with each other and completely forget to attend poor Maglor’s performance.”
“And what a tragedy that would be,” Nerdanel replied with a smirk, kissing me on the lips. “You’re right, we must bring the children, if only for the sake of propriety.”
Amrod and Amras wrinkled their noses in unison. “ Disgusting .”
I am proud of all my sons, though occasionally I do wish some of them could be more mature.