January 30th, 1890 — Rigel Hall, Cumbria

For the first time in what felt like a lifetime Ursula woke up feeling a little better. She couldn't remember the last time she hadn't felt like her blood was on fire, and while she did feel like she'd been repeatedly trampled by a dragon, this was a definite improvement. "Ella?" her voice came out a hoarse whisper. It seemed her throat was bone dry and felt like sandpaper. Was it too soon to hope or had she defied the odds?

The last thing she could remember was not being able to breathe and a petrified certainty that death had finally come to claim her, even more so than previous instances. Whatever had happened after that, however long ago it was, she had somehow pulled through. What she didn't know was that that incident had been over a week ago and she'd been solidly unconscious ever since. She had fought the infection following her operation well enough that she hadn't succumbed quickly but she hadn't been strong enough to completely fight it off and it had eventually it had turned into something altogether more aggressive.

"Ella!" Her voice was more urgent this time and a little stronger. It was then that she finally turned her face towards where Ella usually sat beside her and found she was gone. Her reaction probably oughtn't to have been panic, there were plenty of rational reasons for her sister-in-law to be elsewhere, but panic was all she felt and she simply couldn't think straight. What if she had died and she was living in some sort of horrific afterlife, what if hell was real and she was in it? It was too quiet.

If she was dead or this was a nightmare of some sort then there would surely be no reason she couldn't get out of bed and walk around. The amount of effort and the discomfort she felt in just sitting up and pulling back the sheets should have told her that; by her own theory she was not dead or dreaming but she went on ahead anyway. Shakily, she swung her legs out and after a little hesitation, she tried to stand. The result was quite comedic, not for Ursula, but were anyone observing her ridiculous wobbling and the inevitable fall as her legs buckled beneath her they might've found it amusing.

Perhaps she wasn't dead after all, perhaps she'd been so hopelessly ill for so long that everyone had grown tired of watching her die. How long had it been? Ursula felt over her arms and her torso and was alarmed to find that she'd grown scrawny. She didn't have the right look for waifishness, this was a travesty! She must have been sick for at least a few months, it was the only explanation. Growing chilly, she tried to hoist herself up with the bed post so she could get back in to bed. She was halfway up when she froze at the sight of Elladora walking in the doorway. That was to say, she stopped trying to pull herself up while the rest of her body conspired to land her back on the floor.

Embarrassed by her feebleness and resentful of the perceived abandonment by Elladora, Ursula stayed where she fell. She also happened to have exhausted her energy supplies and couldn't lift herself up if she wanted to. Maybe she'd go back to whatever was more important than keeping vigil at her bedside. It was a small consolation that she had at least had the luck to land face down so she didn't have to look at the spinster and feel the full extent of her own mortification. She hoped Ella left, she'd rather wait until she was capable of getting back into bed herself at this point. "Where were you?" she murmured bitterly.

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Elladora Black

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Nine days.

For nine days Elladora’s life had revolved around just a few rooms of the estate. She could lay claim to only a few bursts of inadequate sleep in her own bed and the house elves had wisely given her a wide berth since the day Ursula first went into labour. Occasionally she remembered to eat but for the most part she had distracted herself with reading an arcane text on animagi transformations from cover to cover. She had no idea whether it was relevant or correct but she had forced herself to read and reread every word.

Anything was better than looking at Ursula’s utterly blank face as she slept through days and nights without much sign of waking. The healers had given them no clear idea of what to anticipate and Elladora had long since lost any patience she might have had with them: she would have been better off finding an old wise woman to minister to Ursula. At least they wouldn’t patronise her quite so much.

In between burst of academic distraction she wrote to Phineas with updates on his wife’s condition. His lack of response suggested to her that he was becoming irritated with their sameness but still she sent owls out several times a day. Returning from one such trip Ella froze to the spot in the corridor when she heard her name called. It couldn’t be…

“Ursula?”

Ella arrived in the room just in time to see Ursula tumble to the floor into an ungainly heap. The face that turned towards her was pale, pathetic and blissfully petulant.

“Never mind me my dear,” Ella replied with uncharacteristic warmth in her voice, falling to her knees to wrap her arms around the younger woman, gently pulling the bony frame against her own. “I knew you would come back.”

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What might have seemed like reluctance in the way she very slowly reciprocated the embrace was simply physical exhaustion slowing her down. She managed a few languid, dry sobs against her shoulder and held on a little tighter. "I'm better, I feel better." She wasn't sure if it was too soon to believe herself out of the woods yet but Elladora sounded so pleased that she wanted to believe it all the more. "I thought you'd given up on me - you weren't here." It was supposed to sound accusatory but she'd been unable to hide the hurt from her voice. As it happened, just by mentioning it, she felt relieved of any begrudging feelings she might have had. There had to be a good reason for it and she definitely wanted to know what it was, but for now she was satisfied with the affectionate greeting she was receiving.

"And you know," her eyes finally started to well up a little, "it looks as though you've left me to starve." A noise somewhere between a hysterical laugh and a shrill sob escaped her and further sobbing ensued.

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One utterly embarrassing display of emotion quickly followed another and Elladora cupped Ursula’s cheek gently, reassuring herself that her sister-in-law did was indeed awake and alert, that against every expectation she had pulled through this betrayal by her own body. Leaning forward Ella pressed a dry kiss against Ursula’s forehead, unconcerned by the clamminess of the younger woman’s skin or the musty smell of her hair, instead focussing on the acute awkwardness she immediately felt at the gesture and relishing that Ursula would be alive many years yet for them both to regret the moment.

“I shall have your lady’s maid dig out the corsets you wore before the children came,” she offered, wiping away a tear with her thumb. Ursula had indeed lost weight, quite a startling amount when one took the baby weight into account, and the difference between the woman sitting on the floor with her now and the woman who had been busting at the seams last month was striking. “You won’t mind the loss of a few pounds when you fit back into them I’m sure.”

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Elladora was so affectionate that for a split second Ursula second guessed whether she was actually awake and alive and not dead or dreaming as she'd first feared. "But I think I may be too skinny, Ella, I've never been the waifish sort, except for my waist of course." As if that was entirely natural. Nevertheless she did feel pleased to think she might have reversed some of the marring effects of childbearing. If she could only see her reflection she would probably be far less optimistic about her appearance.

"Oh, Ella, I do love you, I wouldn't be here if it weren't for you, I'm so relieved it's all over." It was by no means over, it wouldn't be completely over until she was no longer confined to her bed most of the day but it wouldn't be long now. "Where is Phineas?" Ursula had no recollection of him since they had argued but she assumed he had joined Ella to some extent in her bedside vigil, there was no way he would have been as devoted as his sister but he'd have been there in some measure.

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Ella hesitated to answer. She doubted it would come as much surprise to Ursula that Phineas had left her bedside during her illness to return to Hogwarts, but the confirmation of his desertion would wound all the same. It wouldn’t have done for him to have observed a vigil at his wife’s bedside, they were not French after all, but even Ella might have expected her brother to be a tad more invested in whether his wife lived. Then again he already had his heirs, and her to run the houses in stead of a wife, so in reality Ursula’s death would likely have meant very little to him.

She kept that particular thought to herself.

“Returned to the castle for the new term,” Ella explained tonelessly, the same way his decision had been explained to her in Phineas’ study. “I have written to him every day whether there was news or not – that’s where I was when you woke as a matter of fact.”

At least the next letter might stir him into actually replying.

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Ursula's face fell immediately. It wasn't exactly shocking to hear but it hurt. He hadn't seemed convinced that she was in real danger when she'd last seen him but things had gotten worse and he'd left her, he'd gone about his life as though she had already died! In fact if she had died he would have had to come away from Hogwarts to attend her funeral and who could say whether he'd be there out of respect for her or a sense of public obligation.

"He left me to die..." she murmured, still processing the information. There was a Deputy Headmaster for a reason, he could have stayed home or at least come home in the evenings if he'd wanted to, but he hadn't. "He abandoned me." Her eyes were starting to fill with tears despite her willing them to stay dry. "'In sickness and in health' he said, and where is he now?" Even in their worst moments she had thought Phineas would at least come through if it was a matter of life and death. But he hadn't.

Ursula's expression darkened as a realization struck her. "Ella, everyone will know, everyone will know that he chose to be at that school while his wife lay dying. At least society didn't know what our marriage was before but he's destroyed the illusion!" It was like a second blow to her heart, this one even worse than the first. People would think it was her fault, that she was so wretched a wife that her husband didn't care what became of her. He'd gone too far. This was beyond her capability to forgive.

She had worked herself up and she was already feeling effects of it. She weakly tried to brush her cheeks dry. "It's too much, I shouldn't have..." Ursula leaned in and slipped her arm limply over her sister-in-law's far shoulder and nestled her head in the crook of the other and shut her eyes. "I love you."

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Trapped in a moment of intense discomfort over her brother’s conduct was Elladora’s idea of hell however it would have been foolhardy to expect any other reaction from Ursula. Phineas had abandoned her in her moment of need and while Ella was practical enough to know that even if the worst had happened and the healer’s predictions for Ursula turned out to be accurate life would have gone on she would have at least waited until the death itself before getting back to the matters of the day. The thought of the actual mourning period she would have observed for Ursula was inconsequential now, so Ella ruthlessly struck it from her mind.

Or she would have done if Ursula hadn’t gone and said that!

Elladora felt every breathe she took for the next few moments and became clarifyingly aware of how much they matched Ursula’s. Her sister-in-law clung to her shoulder like an overly warm limpet and though Ella’s feet were beginning to numb from sitting on the floor for so long – at her age too, the maids would have a conniption when they saw the dust on her robes – but still she couldn’t move.

“They won’t dare speak of it,” she said finally, addressing the social panic because though she was a definite feature of the wings rather than the centre stage Elladora knew how the blocking of society worked perfectly well. “When you return triumphant in the spring they will all of them be forced to believe that the rumours were merely the tattling of healers.” Carefully she leant her head to the side, resting on top of Ursula’s unwashed hair. “And I will have words with anyone who says otherwise.”

It wasn’t as though the house elf was going to talk.

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Ursula ardently hoped that would be the case but she wouldn't know for sure until she was returned to society and right now it seemed like a different world entirely. It was such an abstract, intangible thing to her at present that it was quite easy to feel reassured and comforted. But when had Elladora become her gallant defender? Phineas might not defend her honor but clearly his sister would and it almost set her off weeping again. "Would that I could have married you instead." If Elladora's mind in Phineas' body... The thought was enough to make her feel quite suddenly very self-conscious - among other things.

"I think- I'm tired, would you help me...?" Not that her sister-in-law was left with much choice in the matter she had already tried to get back into bed on her own and failed spectacularly.

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“Of course,” Ella replied, shuffling to her feet, helping Ursula to her feet with ease given the other woman’s reduced weight, actively ignoring what her sister-in-law had said. It spoke to something deep within her she never acknowledged – the injustice that her brother could have things denied to her; position, purpose, a public partner.

“You need your rest,” she added, inconsequentially, sitting Ursula down on the edge of the bed, the exhaustion beginning to catch up with her just as surely as it was Ursula. Measuredly she leaned down to press a soft kiss to Ursula’s hairline, muttering to the top of the other woman’s head: “I love you too.”

Putting several steps worth of distance between them Ella resumed her earlier post in the chair by Ursula’s bed. The charged moment would normally demand her immediate flight but she could see it would be cruel to leave Ursula again, so raw from the revelation that Phineas had been keeping his distance.

“I’ll be right here.”

(OOC: wrap?)

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