Intermezzo I - Ignorance is bliss

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A/N: As the title says, this is meant to be a series of short stories or vignettes, taking place between the boat incident and the grand and glorious party. The stories won´t necessarily appear in cronological order, not they will be necessarily connected to my other stories. This one has not been submitted to my beta, Mellie D., so beware of the typos and funny grammar structures - English is not my first language, as you know by now.

Mellie dear, this one of for you. I am hoping you´ll have fun with it when you are able to go back. We miss you at the forum!

Disclaimer: The usual - I do not own "The Sound of Music", etc.

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Part One

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As for me, all I know is that I know nothing.

Socrates

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It would be the first time Maria and the children were going to have dinner with the Captain after his return from Vienna. The first time after that unfortunate first experience at the dinner table of an aristocratic family the evening of her arrival… She could only hope that her employer was not keen on first impressions, because, without any modest, and with a great deal of pride, she had to admit that her table manners had improved greatly ever since. It was the children who had helped her in that respect. She had also acquired the strange habit of checking her chair for any foreign objects, so that the pine cone incident was never repeated again, even if her intimidating employer was not there to witness it.

The meal, in itself was not making her nervous, although Maria was a bit wary because it would be the first time she was going to sit at the dinner table not only with the entire von Trapp family, but with other two distinguished guests, one of which – the Baroness – she had met only briefly, in the most embarrassing circumstances.

The Captain… well, she did not like to dwell upon him very much. It was good if she did not even try – the memory of the look in his eyes during his heartfelt apology, after hearing the children sing, was enough to cause the most curious feeling in the pit of her stomach. She had barely seen him since that moment, when she was standing on top of the stairs, her dress still dripping wet, a little worried about the mess it was making in the expensive carpet below her feet. That she had not had a chance to confront him again left her restless and disappointed – the scene in the stairs had such a dreamlike, unreal quality to her now that she wanted to ask him again, wanted to make sure that he had actually said those words. The fact that he, Captain Georg Ritter von Trapp, decorated naval officer of the Imperial Navy, had said those words to her was overwhelming enough. The expression in his eyes, the timbre of his voice when he said it… those were things that were so disturbing to her that she was trying hard not to think about.

"I want you to stay. I ask you to stay…"

It was nerve-wracking, because although the Captain had asked her to stay, he did not say for how long she could stay. She wanted – she needed to know that, for she still felt like she might be sent back to the Abbey at any second, the next time she did something wrong… Which was something that was probably going to happen sooner or later, she had to admit.

She hardly saw him again after he took back his heated words to her by the lake. That same evening, the Captain had taken his guests to dinner in Salzburg and she had dined alone with the children. In the next day, he had been busy showing Max and the Baroness around the property, so that she was left alone with her charges all day. In a way, dinner would be the first time she would be face-to-face with him since the previous evening.

Herr Detweiler – uncle Max, as the children called him - did not intimidate her at all, even though she was yet to meet him. The children have given enough information about him to let her know that the impresario could be as outrageous and outspoken as she, Maria, was in her worst days. No, she would be able to handle him quite well.

The Baroness, on the other hand, was an entirely different matter. Maria still did not know exactly what to think about her. She had never before met with such a sophisticated woman, elegant, as if she had just jumped out of the pages of one of the fashion magazines that her friend Theresa would smuggle into the Abbey, from time to time. She not only had to be the most beautiful creature she had ever seen, but everything about her, the way she walked, the way she talked, seemed… perfect, composed. If what the other servants were gossiping about was true, the woman the Captain chose to be the children's new mother.

That was the precisely the problem.

Although picturing Baroness Schraeder as the Captain's wife, as the next Baroness von Trapp, was easy, Maria could hardly imagine her as a loving mother, even after seeing so little of her. Since Maria now considered it to be her mission to prepare the children for a new mother, naturally the main focus of her attention had to be the Baroness.

"It is too early, Maria, you must give the poor woman a chance," she chastised herself. After all, the woman had arrived, witnessed that terrible mishap with the boat in the lake, then floated away, elegantly unaffected, past Maria, towards the house, as if the full extent of a sea captain's wrath, a wet governess and equally soaked seven children dressed in old curtains were something she saw everyday in the Viennese salons. Yet, less than one hour later, looking regal as usual, however, the Baroness had looked visibly impressed by the children's singing, and oddly touched by the small posy of Edelweiss Gretl had presented to her, with a curtsy.

The Edelweiss…

Maria had to smile at the memory of her little triumph against the Captain's stubbornness. He had, after all, refused to take the flower to the Baroness in Vienna, as a gift from the children. Maria insisted on the idea, and it had worked as she thought it would. The Captain's bride to be had been, indeed, been moved by the gesture. She made a mental note to not let her employer forget about that, the next time he lectured her.

Now, she gazed at the children proudly. Not only they were not late for dinner, they were a couple of minutes early, their clothes perfectly tidy, their hairs neatly combed. Maria smiled proudly, as she inspected her little troupe – she had made an exceptionally good job with the girls. Even Gretl. The chunk of hair that was missing from the left side of her head could hardly be noticed…

While she was getting the children ready for dinner, Gretl had announced that she wanted to look exactly like Fräulein Maria, and asked Marta to help her. When Maria realized what she meant by that, it was almost too late – Marta, with a pair of scissors, had just cut a sizeable lock of Gretl´s hair… After she stopped worrying about the fact that small children and cutting objects were indeed a bad combination, she and the other children laughed about the whole thing. Well, little Gretl would have to disguise her hair for a while, until it grew even again.

Apart from that, everything seemed in order, as it should be. Maria sighed in relief, as they made their way towards the dining room, silently following the Captain and his two guests. His keen eyes had scanned his children, from head to toe, and, if he had noticed anything about Gretl´s hair, he did not say a word. Nevertheless, if there was one thing she had learned about Georg von Trapp was that he knew only too well just when and how to attack.

"Do not be so sure, if he noticed, you will hear from him later," Maria thought. "He does notice everything!"

She knew that because, as soon as he had inspected the children, she too had been subjected to his quick, but through scrutiny – enough to awaken the curious butterflies in her stomach again. His eyes had narrowed in distaste, when he saw that she was wearing the dowdy gray convent dress. When she opened her mouth to utter her defense, he was already dedicating his full and complete attention to the dazzling Baroness Schraeder. The dress had not been her fault – well, not entirely, because the boat incident had been her fault, in a way. And because of her unscheduled fall on the water, the hideous dress was all she had to wear for dinner that evening.

Once in the dinning room, following the newly acquired habit, Maria quickly looked at her chair before sitting down at the dinner table. It was not only the memory of the pine cone that had taught her to do that. The children started their own little tradition of leaving a little something in her chair every night. It could be anything – a flower, a ribbon, a marble, beads… even a tiny miniature of the SMU-6 submarine their father once commanded.

Tonight, the gift was a very sharp, nasty looking, pointed rock. Smiling, Maria picked it up and laid it on the table, on her left side, glad that she had remembered to check her chair before sitting down, even with the Captain watching her closely, for the ugly looking rock would surely inflict some damage to her posterior had she sat upon it.

"Thank you, children," she said with the usual beaming smile, only to notice that the Captain was watching her with the usual questioning intensity. She began her explanation. "Oh… ehm… it's a…"

"… a secret between the children and you," he finished, with biting irony. "Of course."

"It's from the Untersberg, Fräulein," Friedrich explained hastily. "I picked it up the last time I was there," he added, blushing a little.

"Friedrich thought it would be a good idea to bring the mountain to you, since you cannot go to the mountain at the moment," Louisa explained mockingly. "It looks nasty, doesn't it? Almost like a pre-historical weapon."

"That is why I picked it up, silly!" the boy defended himself.

"That was awfully nice of you, Friedrich. Thank you," Maria said quickly, conscious of the fact that the look in the Captain's eyes had turned dangerous. He was, after all, very particular about dinner conversations, and, without any words, he was telling – no, ordering – to keep the children quiet. She picked the rock from the Untersberg and threw it in her pocket.

"Father?"

"Yes, Marta?"

"Can we really keep Fräulein Maria forever?"

The Captain stole a quick glance at Maria, who held her breath for a moment, hardly believing that it had been Marta, the most shy of all the children, which had dared to ask her father what Maria wanted to hear again. The children had been aware of the fight the previous day, and although Maria had assured them she had been allowed to stay, they too, wanted to hear the definite word from him.

"Can we, father, please?" the other children asked, in unison.

The Captain rolled his eyes. "Children, Fräulein Maria is not a toy, you cannot choose to keep her or not." The young ones looked at him worriedly. "She may stay if she wants to," he said dismissively, trying to end the talk and start paying attention to his distinguished dinner guests, who were watching their interchange with a bored look in their faces.

"Do you want to, Fräulein?" asked Liesl.

"Of course I want to, my dears," replied Maria, keeping her eyes on her plate, not daring to look up at the Captain.

Murmurs of approval from the children were heard, as the meal started.

It was not the quiet affair Maria had witnessed before. Max Detweiler and Baroness Schraeder, apparently, were not as averse to dinner conversation as the Captain was. Maria was too busy concentrating on her newly acquired table manners to pay attention to what they were talking about – probably harmless subjects, such as the weather and the wine that was being served. She knew, however, that it was the guests that had his full attention now, not the children, least of all her person – but she also knew that he would immediately realize if something was not as it should be.

It was when she noticed what Brigitta was doing.

Brigitta was not unlike Maria in at least one aspect – she did not like to waste time. In her case, reading time, especially if she was currently with a book that captured her attention. When that happened, she would carry the book wherever she went. At the dinner table, it would remain in her lap, and she would even read a few words during the meal, if she had the chance. Maria had already advised her not to one day, after Brigitta had thrown up all over Liesl, after having spent a good part of dinner with her eyes shifting from the pages of Arabian Nights to her plate.

Maria stole a glance to the Captain. He was holding his wine glass, and his low laugher could be heard, after the Baroness had said something that amused him. Making sure that his attention was held elsewhere, she whispered, in a low, hissed tone, "Brigitta!"

"Mmm?" the girl answered, raising her eyes from the book in her lap.

"Not now!" Maria warned, this time merely forming the words with her lips. Brigitta, however, did not understand.

"What?" she asked, loud enough to catch the attention of her father, and halt the conversation in the other end of the table.

"No!" Maria whispered, with more authority now, only to notice that it was no longer the Baroness but her who held the Captain's full attention now.

"Fräulein!" he warned.

"Captain?" she inquired, as if she had absolutely no idea about what he was talking about. He said nothing, but he kept glaring at her.

Maria shrugged, then she threw here one of her best disingenuous, wide eyed looks.

"I am not doing anything! I have no idea of what you are talking about," was the message she tried to convey with her eyes. Curiously, she realized that she was actually able to carry full conversations with her employer without saying a word – the Captain had a very expressive face when he wanted to. When he did not, he could be as inscrutable as a sphinx.

The sphinx was back, as his lips thinned, and he turned to his daughter. "Brigitta, put that book down, will you please?" the Captain said sternly. "No reading at dinnertime," he added, raising a finger to make his point, but softening his command with a smile.

"What are you reading so attentively, my dear?" Max asked. "Is it one of the books Uncle Max has brought you from Vienna?"

Yes it was, but Brigitta looked at Maria, uncertainly. Knowing what the book was about, Maria shook her head, advising the little girl not to reveal the exact title.

"Brigitta, I believe your uncle Max has asked you a question," the Captain urged.

Brigitta looked uncertainly between Maria and the Captain. Maria gave another shrug. "Well, he asked for it," she thought.

"It is called Wiggling Worms and other Slimy Creatures," the girl answered.

Max laughed, amused. "I knew they would like that one!"

Maria narrowed her eyes at the Captain, in her best "I told you not to ask" face. Giggles from some of the older children could be heard, and the Baroness let out a little moan of disgust. Max laughed openly.

"Max, if this was your idea of a joke," the Captain started, his face dangerously cold. Maria immediately concluded that Herr Detweiler knew about the nature of the children's pranks, and had decided to amuse himself at their father expense. He then shook his head, and turned his attention to his daughter. "Uh… Wiggling worms, Brigitta?"

"Yes. Mostly earthworms. They are surprisingly interesting, father."

"I thought you children were done with playing tricks on your governesses," the Captain said, ironically, looking at Max instead.

"On Fräulein Maria, yes," Louisa said slyly, staring fixedly at the Baroness, who shifted uncomfortably in her chair. Her gaze alone spoke of what was going on her mind.

The Captain stopped cold. Max chuckled.

"Oh Lord," Maria thought. She could very well defend herself against their pranks, and she had done so, brilliantly. The question was, would she be able to be equally successful defending the Baroness? Did the children respect her authority enough by now so that they would leave his father's future bride alone, if she asked them too?

"Father, did you know that earthworms are herma… hermaphroditic?" Brigitta´s sweet voice asked.

"What does that mean?" asked Kurt, who always seemed to be interested in the meaning of any new word she happened to hear. "Does that mean that they can be eaten?"

"Good Lord!" the Baroness exclaimed.

"It means that they are male and female at the same time," the Captain answered distractedly, probably still worried about what Louisa had just hinted.

"Fräulein Maria, did you know that?" Brigitta asked.

"That is interesting, Brigitta. The good Lord certainly knew what He was doing. It certainly saves a lot of trouble, doesn't it?"

It had been a completely unnecessary comment, Maria thought later, one that could be easily avoided only if she could control her running mouth. When would she learn to think before speaking? The innocent comment was what led the conversation to an unexpected turn.

"No, it would not, because they still have to mate to…," the Captain began, almost forgetting himself. He dropped his fork. "Children, wiggling worms and their mating rituals are hardly a suitable subject for a dinner conversation."

"I am sorry, father. It is just that they are so curious," apologized Brigitta.

"It's all right, darling," the Captain replied softly. "Just remember it the next time. And stop bringing books to the table"

"You mean you didn't know that, Fräulein?" Louisa asked Maria, ignoring her father.

"Louisa…" he warned.

"No, I had no idea," Maria replied, with a slight shrug of her shoulders. With the corner of her eye, she noticed that the Baroness and Max chatted on their own, without any interest in the children's conversation.

"That is a first!"

"What is a first, Kurt?" the Captain asked.

"Fräulein Maria knows everything, Father," Gretl answered instead.

The Captain looked her. "Hah! Did you know that, Fräulein?"

"Know what, Captain?" She much too distracted by the dessert placed right in front of her. Frau Schmidt's famous apfelstrudel, served with a generous portion of hot vanilla sauce.

"Know that you know everything," he added, somewhat impatiently.

She looked up at him and rolled her eyes. "Oh, the only thing I know, Captain, is that I know nothing". She proceeded to take the first generous bite on her strudel.

"Socrates!"

"Well said, Liesl," she exclaimed, just before sinking her teeth in that delicious delicacy.

"Thank you," the girl said proudly.

"There is one thing Fräulein Maria does not know…"

"And what is that, Marta?" asked the Captain, who was about to sip his wine. In fact, he was about to ask them to be quiet again, but Marta's comment apparently had made him curious. The little one was also grinning like a cat who had just swallowed a canary.

"She doesn't know where babies come from," said the girl innocently.

Maria's mouth was full of pastry, and she choked on it quite violently. She coughed until tears came to her eyes.

From the corner of her eye, she vaguely saw the Captain paralyzed, his wine glass half way to his mouth, staring at her. Max nearly doubled over in laughter, and even the Baroness looked amused, although she tired hard not to show it, stifling a giggle with her hand. Friedrich and Brigitta looked as disconcerted as their father – the boy was even blushing. Gretl, Marta and Kurt were the only ones who continued what they were doing like nothing out of the ordinary had been said. Liesl was looking at her with gentle understanding in her big sapphire eyes. Louisa had left her seat to come to her aid and was slapping her back, not too gently.

"It's all right, Louisa, you'll break her ribs that way," said Liesl, trying not to giggle.

The Baroness did not have the same problem. "Oh really? How do you know that Marta dear?" she asked, amused.

"Because I asked her," was the candid answer.

Eleven pairs of eyes were fixed on Maria now, who tried her best to act like nothing out of the ordinary was going on, but being hopelessly betrayed by the color of her face.

"Say something," she urged herself. "Anything!"

"Mmmm…. Hmm… errr… yes, you certainly did, Marta," she said, recovering her voice. She cleared her throat. "And I didn't quite say I did not know, did I?"

It was the wrong question to ask, because Marta answered. "No, you didn't Fräulein."

"Good!"

"You said you needed some research in order to answer me properly".

"That's right," Maria said, her presence of spirit more or less recovered now. If only the Captain would stop looking at her like… oh, she didn't know. She didn't dare to meet his eyes, but he was either glaring or mocking her. Maybe both…

"I am impressed with the way you apply the Socratic method in dealing with my children, Fräulein, although… uh… research?" he asked, with biting irony.

She looked at him for a moment, as he stared at her, eyebrows raised, waiting for her to answer.

Why didn't he just drop it? What kind of answer could he possibly be expecting from her?

The last thing she would imagine was that considering his aversion to conversations during meal times, if subjects such as earthworms were not acceptable, least of all would his children's proper education about the facts of life. She also knew him well enough not to provoke or challenge him during those times. The truth was that her intention was to talk to him first about Marta's question, since her complete previous lack of experience in dealing with children – not to mention her equally complete lack of experience in the subject itself - made it impossible for her to handle that particular subject in her usual nonchalant manner.

"Mm hm", she answered simply.

"Theoretical research, I hope," Elsa chuckled, and for the first time Maria could swear she saw the Captain fire one of his fierce glares at his bride to be.

"Where ignorance is bliss, / 'Tis folly to be wise,' he quoted, distractedly, taking another healthy sip of his red wine.

"Who said that?" the Baroness asked.

"Thomas Gray said it," he answered.

"Yes, and so did Casanova," Max could not help but taunt him, earning himself a fierce scowl from the Captain, to which he answered with a mock toast with his own glass of wine.

"What does Casanova have to do with any of this," Maria thought, just as she was saved by the bell. More exactly, by Kurt, who chose that moment to fall off his chair. The focus shifted elsewhere, and Maria could almost sigh in relief, as she helped the boy rise again, making sure he was not hurt.