FIRST BORN
--Chapter Five— excursion Mere hours later, Jonathan found himself gripping Bridget’s hand and tugging her through the rosebushes round the back of the O’Connell Mansion, wondering why the sight and scent of rosebushes made him oddly queasy. Before he’d felt slightly guilty that the heavy suitcase held tightly in his other hand was making quite a mess of Evie’s handsomely paid for garden, but now he rather felt like the damn rosebushes deserved it. Nasty little buggers. “Jonathan!” Bridget hissed at his side for what must’ve been the thousandth time since they’d left the train station. Cringing, the glare Jonathan sent the woman was angrier than he’d planned and he softened it by giving her hand a good squeeze and looking away. “Just hang on a minute, Bridge. Let me think.” “I’ve been letting you think since we left the house, Jonathan.” She grumbled, creeping through the bushes to stand closer to him. Her eyes darted around nervously, frowning at the house, “At this point whatever your brilliant plan is, it’s starting to seem a lot like breaking an entering. Where on earth are we?” “We’re not breaking and entering, Bridge- I’ve got the bloody key.” “Oh.” That shut her mouth. Silence. At last. Time for Jonathan to think, time to take a breath, time to figure out how he was going to get out of this mess unscathed. Time to decide how to present the future unwed mother of his child to his socially correct sister. Oh yes, he was in for one hell of a night. And night it was soon becoming. Jonathan had made it back to Cambridge from this very house at a quarter to six, and after packing Bridget’s things and shuffling her back to London night had fallen and the only way they were even able to see where they were going was from the ominous glow expelling from the windows of the house. They had a clear view of the back door from the rosebushes, but Jonathan didn’t feel the appropriate time had come just yet. One would think that perhaps Jonathan would need some time alone after all the information he’d recently been privy to. Maybe a good sit in his comfy man’s chair, a cup of tea, and a good old fashioned pipe would do his aching brain muscles a bit of good after a day like today. Unfortunately for Jonathan his life had for the most part been spared any major issues to contend with. He had managed to slither through his first forty-two years letting other people handle his problems. Perhaps that was the reason that the first and only solution to grace his mind had been to find his sister as soon as he possibly could, and have her fix the problem. Of course, this involved enduring her wrath, but at this point Jonathan was confident enough in his helpless oaf charm that he knew it would only take so many puppy dog eyes and feeble smiles to win Evie over. Now the only hurdle to jump was walking through that door. “Oh so this is your sister’s house!” Bridget exclaimed suddenly, smiling at Jonathan full of pride in her newfound realization. Thank God she was pretty. -- “Do you think Uncle Jon knows we’re watching, or does he actually think we haven’t caught on?” Rick shook his head, his eyes never leaving the bushes where Jonathan was rustling about with an unidentified companion. “Nope, I think he’s clueless. If he knew we were watching he wouldn’t still be there.” Father and son stood peering through the library window, looks of amusement gracing their more and more similar expressions. After Jonathan had left for Cambridge and Alex lost his uncle as both babysitter and playmate, young O’Connell began spending the vast majority of his time emulating O’Connell senior, in everything from American accent to merciless Jonathan ridicule. “What’s he doing in the bushes anyway?” Alex asked with genuine interest, standing on his tiptoes to see more than what his height allowed. A smile played on Rick’s face and he shook his head out of the sheer bizarreness of it all, “I don’t know, but he’s lucky your mother’s not watching. He’s not alone.” “You can see that? Who’s he with?” Rick began to answer, being able to see the top of a woman’s curly blonde head over the bushes, but sudden movement stopped him. He and Alex watched with raised eyebrows and widening eyes as Jonathan & Co. burst through the bushes and made a break across the lawn toward the backdoor, moving at an angle that allowed their audience at the window to see. But really, they could see enough. They could see Jonathan’s awkward gait as he pulled a too-heavy suitcase in one hand, and a too-pregnant woman in the other. They could see in full view the blonde curls and huge belly, Jonathan’s nervous eyes and the woman’s confused frown. They could see all the poor planning and shoddy logic that went into this brilliant plan, this cunning dart across the garden lawn in the middle of the night seeking solace and solution and- “So…do you think that’s Bridget?” It only took a thoughtful meeting of eyes for the two to hurry toward the kitchen, hoping to discover just whom Jonathan had brought along with him. -- “Ouch, ouch, ouch! Jonathan you’re hurting me!” Bridget’s angry whimper preceded them through the door, loud enough to fill the kitchen but soft enough to not announce their presence to the whole household. She knew enough at this point to keep her voice low; her unasked question had been given a sturdy answer what with all the sneaking in and secrecy of their obviously unexpected visit- Jonathan hadn’t told his family about her yet. The thought actually made Bridget’s head spin, and once the couple breached the kitchen door she jerked her wrist free of Jonathan’s grasp and glared at the back of his head as he hurried to the opposite door, checking if they’d been detected. Sure, Jonathan hadn’t known she was pregnant the last time he had seen his sister’s family- but was pregnancy and shame and probable scandal the only reason to inform his relatives of her existence? Oh, the whole thing was simply infuriating! “Jonathan.” Bridget said firmly, crossing her arms (just barely) over her pregnant belly and clenching her jaw. Spinning around from peering out the swinging doors toward the living room, Jonathan raised a brow at her and set the heavy suitcase down slowly, finding the tone in her voice somewhat unsettling. “Darling?” She glared. She sneered. She sniffled. And then finally she spoke, looking away from him in slight embarrassment, “I have to use the Ladies.” A moment passed before Jonathan grinned, crossing the room and placing his hands on Bridget’s arms, kissing her on the forehead. He nodded just behind her to a door past the sideboard, “Just through there.” Eyes lowered, Bridget smiled weakly, “Alright.” She felt a hand move from her shoulder to tilt her chin up and her eyes fixed on Jonathan’s raised-brow expression. “And cheer up, darling. I’ve got everything under control.” It was an old trick of his, saying this sort of reassuring thing aloud, whether he believed it or not. “What a hand I’ve got here!” “Of course I can make it to the lecture in time!” “Don’t worry Jon old boy, you’re only forty two! Life’s not over yet!” He sounded so sincere he almost fooled himself. Perhaps he did have everything handled. This sudden wave of reassurance lasted to see Bridget leave for the loo. It lasted for Jonathan to lean on the kitchen counter confidently and pop a hard candy from the bowl near the stove into his smirking mouth. It even lasted for a few moments into seeing Rick and Alex come breezing through the kitchen door with smug knowing looks on their faces. It lasted up until Jonathan realized he was caught red-handed, and sub -sequentially inhaled the hard candy right down his windpipe. Smashing. Through tear-filled eyes, Jonathan watched as Rick and Alex stood just inside of the swinging door, Rick’s arms crossing over his chest and Alex copying in suit. He coughed and he sputtered and beat his chest like a great bloody ape and all they did was stand there. Bunch of heathens. After a solid minute and a half of Jonathan coughing up a lung, Rick finally broke his silence with a knowing look, “So, where’d you stash her?” Finally choking the candy back up into his mouth, Jonathan took a few breaths, making a face as he realized he really didn’t want the candy anymore. He crossed the room, opening the sideboard to spit the toffee into the garbage. “Stash who?” “What do you mean stash who?” Alex exclaimed, saving his arms about, “The pregnant lady you just sprinted across the garden with.” Jonathan opened his mouth to speak, leaning back on the counter once more and scratching the back of his head nervously- but Rick interrupted. “Oh c’mon Alex, your uncle has obviously forgotten in his old age.” Rick gave his son a pat on the back before raising a brow at Jonathan, “Big bellied blondie, about yea-high?” “Oh THAT pregnant lady, yes I remember.” Jonathan exclaimed sarcastically, lowering his tone and glancing down at his hands, nodding over his shoulder, “She’s in the loo.” Rick smirked, shaking his head, “And she’s really…?” He finished off this question by miming a large pregnant belly. Without a sound, Jonathan nodded, rolling his eyes a bit. “Oh boy.” Frowning at his father for not being the one to move ahead with the questioning, Alex piped up excitedly, sounding eerily similar to his mother, “But what are you doing here of all places! Mum’s going to kill you, you know that.” “Sssshhhh!” Jonathan hissed, snapping to attention and glancing uneasily at the doorway, “Bloody hell, Alex, keep you voice down. I know all that, but I didn’t know what else to do.” “A real picture of maturity you are, Jonathan.” Rick droned, crossing past his brother-in-law to retrieve a bottle from above the refrigerator, “Guessing you wouldn’t object to a drink?” “Why start now?” Jonathan replied with a weak smirk, watching Rick fetch down two glasses and promptly fill them with Scotch. Staring at the two of them in disbelief, Alex let out a lofty snort as he climbed onto the barstool, “Great idea. Mum will love to hear the news from a couple of drunkards.” Rick sent Jonathan a look, which he failed to notice through the bottom of his upturned class, before father-mode kicked in and he nodded toward his son, “Alex, why don’t you head up to bed, give your uncle and me some time to smack some sense into him.’ “But Dad!” “But nothing, kid. And don’t let your mother catch you out of bed.” Pouting, Alex hopped off the barstool and trudged toward the door, grumbling incoherently as he went. His uncle watched his shuffle-footed departure with little regret as Rick refilled his drink, and called after the boy in a chipper farewell, “Night Alex!” As the kid opened the kitchen door his pout melted away into a positively evil little smirk, looking over his shoulder at Jonathan and sarcastically singing, “G’night Uncle Jon!” For a moment, Jonathan couldn’t figure out what Alex was so bloody smug about- a moment that too quickly faded. The kitchen door. The evil bedtime disdain. His sister’s voice chiming through the hallway toward the door, confused and bewildered. Alex’s retreating form was striding away with confidence and Jonathan wistfully recalled liking him so much more a decidedly mature eight-year-old. “Uncle Jon? What do you mean Uncle-“ Evelyn rounded the door into the kitchen to the sight of her husband downing a glass of Scotch, her brother next to him gaping at her in horror, and her son skipping off to bed in her peripheries. “Jonathan what are you doing here?” The stunned silence of the room was intermingled with the clinking of ice in Rick’s glass as he slowly lowered it, and Alex’s farewell of ‘Goodnight, Mum’ in the distance as Jonathan smiled painfully. Could he still cut and run? Was it too late? He figured it couldn’t possibly be too hard to catch Bridget on her way out of the loo, drag her out of town and leave Rick to explain. Jonathan even briefly entertained the idea of making off without Bridget— she’d only slow him down! In the end, it might have been that thought exactly which brought upon the following events- bad karma and whatnot. Or perhaps Bridget’s ears were burning as Jonathan thought about her, causing her to hurry back and catch him in the act. But probably she was just done in the loo and returned to the kitchen by nature, unknowingly walking into an O’Connell/Carnahan reunion. We’ll never really know. But there they all were, Bridget gaping at Evelyn, knowing exactly who she was, Evelyn staring at Jonathan, having not noticed the newcomer, Jonathan sending pleading glances at Rick to man up and save him from certain doom, and Rick watching everyone, mentally calculating who was going to crack first. And for the second time thus far, Rick sighed and mumbled faintly, “Oh boy…”
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