September 13th, 1894 — Dempsey Estate, Galway

Don Juan had been prowling the estate all afternoon, looking for the ideal moment to spring a conversation on his mother. He wasn't trying to catch her alone; to the contrary, the larger an audience they had for this supposedly spontaneous conversation, the better. He didn't know whether or not Valencia had already tried to pin down other members of his family, but if he'd spotted her talking to his mother it was clear she wasn't above anything. Best to head her off at the pass on a many fronts as possible.

"I saw you talking to that Spanish woman the other day," he said, aggressively casual. It would have been better to have used her name, but presumably there were few enough Spanish immigrants in his mother's immediate social circle that she would know which one he meant. If his mother hadn't already cornered him about this it was clear that Valencia hadn't introduced herself as Valencia Dempsey, though that was the name he'd left her under; he didn't know which one she was using now. She might not even have used her real first name. "Did she say anything about me?"

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Lowri Dempsey / open to fam!

  

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Her children were - transparent, at best, when it came to interactions they particularly had an interest in. Whether it was because they were generally so horrible at lying or because Lowri as a dutiful and excellent perceptive mother could easily see through to their motivations, she left up to the Fates (though she quite fancied herself at least a better mother than quite a lot of her upper class counterparts, and would never be so crass as to suggest it amongst mixed company).

But today with Don Juan’s opening question, her curiosity was piqued. And with his second question, well her assumptions might as well have been confirmed. Darling DJ had never been able to hide his vanity much. With a telltale quirk of her lips that told her son he’d revealed his cards too soon, Lowri demurred: “Oh to which woman were you referring, darling? I met quite a few foreign women at that party, it was quite a delight! Did you know that Mrs. Haversham’s daughter just returned from Spain on an architecture study? Oh how I envy what she’s seen!”

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His mother was playing with him; he recognized this. Two could play. He nodded, as though this was as much of an answer as he needed to the question, and then shuffled deeper into the armchair he was sitting in. He had a book on his lap, as a prop, and turned his attention towards it as though he were going to read. "You'd know the one, if she had. Nevermind, then."

He trusted that his mother's curiosity would be sufficient to keep the matter from dropping so soon.

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She was more affronted that he would not engage in conversation about Mrs. Haversham’s daughter’s adventures in Spain, but she would go off in search of Eamon to chat with instead later. Lowri’s eyes narrowed at her son over her embroidery, and she sniffed delicately. How she missed the days when her children would immediately take the bait. It appeared as if she’d taught them rather well in the fine art of verbal jousting.

Fine then.

She contented herself to finishing the leaf of the rose she’d been embroidering. Lowri searched in vain for a way to parry but instead found herself lacking. Blast. “You must describe her to me, Don Juan, you know your mother’s memory is not as good as it used to be.” No, in fact it was far better than it used to be (it had to, keeping up with all of her children’s antics was as time consuming as Odysseus warring with Poseidon at sea). “You speak of this woman as if you’d had some recollection of her previously.”

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The silence stretched on for longer than he would have liked; he was not as patient as he pretended. But he managed to keep up the pretense of the book, and eventually she took up the conversation again. "Yes," he acknowledged; he had no intention of denying that he'd met her. Not since she'd forced his hand, anyway. "When I was in Spain. You do remember that I wrote you letters about all the exquisite Spanish architecture, too? Or did that slip through your decaying memory?" he asked, with dramatic emphasis on this supposed flaw. He was teasing, but she deserved it; she was the one who had just said her memory was failing, and he knew very well it wasn't.

He didn't launch into a description of Valencia. First, because he didn't think it was necessary; he was fairly certainly this was just his mother's way of baiting him, trying to pretend she didn't know who he meant. Second, because he didn't think he could stop himself from saying something excessively petty, like oh, not very pretty; altogether average which would have been detrimental to his cause. He didn't want to give any of that away — and she wasn't here to hear it and be hurt, anyway.

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“Don’t be ridiculous darling, of course I remember all those letters. I have them tucked away in a box along with every other letter my children write me.” This was not a lie. The box contained every letter and keepsake that any one of her family had written to her over the years. It was charmed to ward off fire, water and any other destructive element. “You wound me by implying otherwise!” Tying off her thread, Lowri chose another color and began to unwind the floss to get a thinner piece for detail work. But despite her saying so, Lowri was quite the opposite of wounded, and kept a cheshire cat-like smile clear of her features as she rose her gaze to her son.

“Am I to gather that you thought of the architecture as more exquisite and noteworthy than this woman?” There was a challenge in her eyes, more direct this time as she stabbed the needle into the canvas in front of her which emitted a dull poking sound.

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Don Juan supposed this was his mother's way of asking-without-asking whether he'd slept with her. He shrugged, nonchalant. "It would be an exceptional woman indeed to rival the architecture of an entire country."

He tried to remember how long he'd been 'reading' this page, to determine whether or not it was time for him to turn the page. Not that he thought his mother was entirely convinced by the charade, anyway.

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MJ made this <3

It was, at best, another non-answer; and a shock to Lowri that she was as displeased with the answer as she was. She expected of herself to have more patience when it came to her children’s evasion tactics. Instead, she was getting restless wondering how long Don Juan would keep this up. Sighing to herself, she stabbed the embroidery work once more before pulling the thread a little too taught. I told Eamon that naming our child Don Juan was going to end up biting us in the arse, she stewed to herself. Determined as ever to get her son to reveal the details he’d left out of his question, she settled upon a different tactic.

“I quite agree,” She said, before taking a breath. “In fact you know that is exactly what your father said to me once, I believe it was on our honeymoon, or perhaps when I was pregnant with you; or was that before? You know I do believe that you might have actually been conceived in one of the most breathtaking Spanish churches that I’d ever seen? Then, of course perhaps the view might have been improved by the fact that you father and I were otherwise occupied.” It might have been when they snuck off together, parting from their tour group to go and admire the arch work.

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Don Juan raised an eyebrow at his mother. She was trying to make him blush — a fool's errand. He did not blush. Certainly not at the mere suggestion that his parents had slept together — there was evidence enough of that already. Or did she think he would be shocked by the setting, as if he hadn't ever slept with anyone in a church? She should have known better; no one would ever have accused him of being pious. A church on a weekday was actually an excellent venue; easy to find privacy, and with a wealth of acceptable excuses should one be caught wandering around, provided one could manage to avoid the vicar. "I would imagine the view would have been degraded in that case, not improved," he said dryly. "As a significant portion of it would have been blocked."

His mother's efforts to embarrass him might not have had the intended effect, but he was annoyed by this turn of the conversation — they were getting off topic, and he'd been waiting an age for a good opportunity to bring up Valencia. Now that he'd done it, this was his only chance to finish the conversation — bringing her up again would have been suicide, as it would have let on he was thinking about this far more than he would have admitted. How to steer back towards her, without seeming too pushy? He'd really been counting on his mother being at least a little interested in why he'd brought her up in the first place; if she refused to ask he didn't know what to do. But surely she was interested, and just being stubborn? He couldn't risk letting the topic die, though, in case she failed to resurrect it. k

"Suffice it to say I found the architecture more compelling than her company," he said, tone aloof. "Though in fairness I never put them in such direct competition as you apparently did."

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Damn, what was she thinking, that this would work on Don Juan?! Lowri wanted to scold herself for thinking that DJ wouldn’t be able to pick that up. In fairness, there were times when he was about as oblivious as a garden gnome, but clearly today was not one of those days. So for lack of any other option (Lowri did not have the patience to go through all of her tactics today) she settled for the direct approach: “Oh, Don Juan I do not have all day to play riddles with you, now do tell me what it is about this girl that is so captivating and vexing for you that you would happily suffer through detailed descriptions of your father and I copulating rather than talking about her?”

She huffed, aggressively stabbing at her embroidery piece as she glared at her son.

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Finally! His gamble seemed to have paid off; now he could only hope he'd struck the right balance of tone thus far. He'd wanted to give the appearance of nonchalance, while giving the impression that this was important; in short, that he was only nonchalant about it because he was nonchalant about everything. His mother's use of the word captivating implied she hadn't entirely bought that part, but maybe he had towed the line close enough that it was salvageable.

"Oh, she was rather obsessed with me for a while," he said, tone passive. He frowned thoughtfully at his book (this seemed the safer choice than looking at his mother, where he would have to think not just about the expression on his face but the look in his eyes as well; he was a good liar, he thought, but lying to one's mother was always a dangerous game). "It's why I left Spain. She was..." he paused and frowned again, as if carefully combing through his large vocabulary for exactly the right word to convey her behavior while still staying inside the bounds of polite conversation. "Persistent... and aggressive. I'm happy to hear she's moved on."

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And he was still acting as if this wasn’t all some ruse to get some sort of information out of her. And if it wasn’t that, he had some ulterior motive, of that she was sure. She sighed again, this time softly and more resigned. “You have your father’s persistence, I’ll give you that.” She muttered as she stabbed yet another part of her embroidery. Settling back in her chair, she continued her work. “Obsessed in what way?” There was no reason she couldn’t pepper him with questions that might satisfy him whilst finishing her work.

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   Don Juan Dempsey

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"The usual way," he said carelessly. (He was monstrously pleased internally, both that she was playing along with the conversation as he'd envisioned it now and that she had compared him to his father). "She tried to marry me. And she was practically rabid when it didn't work out."

None of this was a lie, technically. This was his strategy: that he could tell her enough of the truth that anything Valencia told her, later, would have lost its teeth. Valencia wasn't going to tell her the whole story, either, he was sure of that. No one walked up to a woman like his mother and admitted to getting themselves into trouble, being pressured by their family into marrying, and then giving herself up without first asking whether or not he was free to marry. And if she tried to start in directly with an accusation pertaining to deception or bigamy — well, she had no proof of that, he knew. He could merely ask her to produce this alleged first wife, and she would never be able to — Ana was gone now. It would be easy to spin it as a desperate ploy by a jilted and jealous woman.

"I was worried when I saw her approach you and my sisters that she was cooking up some new plot," he continued. "But I'm pleased to hear it's nothing to do with me."

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