Stand By Me Darling
Chapter 231: Past Regrets

Chapter 231: Past Regrets

The whole lunch, Talia tried to act properly with the Dowager and she couldn’t help but grin everytime she looked at her grandfather.

The Dowager watched her great granddaughter who looked very similar to her daughter, looking at her grandfather with a wide grin. The same grin she saw when she was so little. Along with that wide grin, there was a touch of longing and guilt she tried to hide.

She is very close to him. And could she be blamed?

A bitter feeling developed in her heart.

She loved her great granddaughter the most. As an elder, she is not supposed to have favourites among her great grandchildren, but she did. It was her... Talia Mary Ann.

She, as someone over nine decades old, belonged to a different time. In her times, the Palace had a set of rules and her children weren’t raised by her. Both of them had their nannies and governess and that’s how they were raised. As they reached schooling age, they were sent to a boarding academy where all the Royal children finished their school for many generations.

She’d meet her children during vacations and the relationship between them was always distant and respectful. As a daughter of a Duke, that’s how she was raised and as a Queen Consort, that’s how her children were raised too.

Apart from the arduous labour she went through as she gave birth to them, she couldn’t remember anything she did for her children. Yes, she would talk to them and they’d go for vacations and picnics together, but there always was a distance between her and her children.

She spent her entire life supporting her husband and share his mountainous workload and she had a very intimate relationship with her husband, the King. He is the smartest and kindest person she knew and she as promised, served him with all her heart. He treated her like the apple of his eye and she treated him as her Lord and friend.

As for her children, they were well-behaved and she felt like that is all she needed to care for regarding her children.

Even when any of them is sick, it was the caretakers who take care of them. When she is sick, her children will come and talk to her and after advising her caretakers, they’d leave.

Unlike her husband that is.... He always stayed with her whenever he can, when she is sick. That’s how it’s been always.

Like how she took her role as the Queen Consort seriously, she expected her children take their roles seriously too.

Lillian - she was so perfect. She was kind like her father and had the same smile as him. She had a charm that made anyone swoon and she was not shy and helped others in any way she could. Her beauty was Heavenly and her smile was angelic. Her charm- no one could stay angry with her.

She was the epitome of perfection and grace.

Till she was eighteen, she did her duty with grace and elegance. She learnt administrative duties from her father. She listened to the courtiers and no one ever raised a question against her.

Maybe that’s why when her daughter - the Crown Princess, came to her telling that she fell in love with an artist she met at her school, she couldn’t understand it.

How could she not understand the role she is born into and is willing to abandon everything?

She tried to browbeat her to get in line; to be the one respectable enough for the throne. But something she never dreamed in her wildest dream happened - her daughter, eloped.

The Palace became really unstable because of the scandal of the Crown Princess and the Royal family became the laughing stock at pubs being laughed at by everyone.

The King, her husband, searched for their daughter everywhere, but to no avail. She was so angry at her daughter for abandoning her duties, leaving her father to be criticised. She was angry. Too angry to even think in her daughter’s shoes. To understand what forced her to leave.

Selfish brat! Ungrateful, selfish brat!

A couple years later she received a tearful letter from her daughter to help her sick husband. She, the dutiful Queen Consort, threw her daughter’s letter in the fire.

She ran away abandoning her duty. There is no reason for me to help her. Let her face the consequences of her actions herself.

That’s what she kept telling to herself. But she had another thought she only shared with her husband. ’If something happened to her husband, she’d return home and everything will return back to normal’.

When she said that, her husband looked at her. He had never looked at her like that ever; like he was disappointed with her. His look froze her heart.

Am I heartless?

She pretended nothing had changed and did all the duties she always did without any break. There was a little emptiness in her heart and she covered it up with work. Months passed slowly.

When she learnt where her daughter was, she was already in Esteria. Her heart was filled with turbulence and she didn’t talk to her husband about it either. She secretly kept tabs on her. When she checked some months later, she learnt that her husband was well and he had gotten a job in an university and they are living moderately well.

She sighed. Everyone around her that day might have interpreted that as a sigh of despair, but she actually sighed in relief. Even if her daughter wasn’t near her, she is living well.

I can settle my heart with that.

Slowly people forgot about the Princess who left. Many were content that the Royal family actually abandoned their unfilial daughter who didn’t respect her parents. The more she heard such reports, the more she believed that her decision was right.

Then the war came and there was poverty everywhere... Rosandale, Esteria... People everywhere scrambled for food and basic necessities.

Is my daughter fine?

Her heart wavered. She secretly sent some of her loyal aides to bring her daughter back. She was willing to even bring her daughter’s husband back, if that would change her mind. Her daughter need not live in another country suffering. She can live well in her country, in the Palace where there is abundance. But her daughter refused to come back.

Should I beg to help her?

She decided to keep on trying and would send her aides secretly, every month, with some food, clothes and money. But her daughter, the stubborn one didn’t accept a penny from her. ’Tell her not to worry about me. My husband is fine no thanks to her. We can take care of each other’ - her daughter sent this message, the last she heard from her.

So be it!

The aides sent afterwards couldn’t find her and after strenuous efforts, they could only gather little information about her. She learnt that her daughter was pregnant.

What should I feel about that? A grandchild?

There was some weird emotions squeezing her heart and she suppressed it all. Months passed and no one could find where the Princess disappeared into. Slowly months passed to years and then came the news.... That her daughter died. In fact, she’d been dead for years. The child inside her... It didn’t survive either. Her daughter - a Princess was so malnourished, she couldn’t survive childbirth.

Ahhh!

She slept in a separate room that night and she didn’t know how, but she cried the entire night and the next day too. She postponed all the engagements she had for the next week - something she had never done in her life.

She’s gone! My daughter is gone! She died unjustly! Did I let her die?

She couldn’t eat, she barely slept and she didn’t talk to her husband either. She feared the look he gave her that day. And so she suffered alone.

Her husband was a very wise man; kind too. He knew she was in deep despair. They had shared decades together by then. Throughout their life, they trusted each other more than anyone else. They trusted each other more than they trusted themselves. She didn’t know if it was love. Everyone said so. The feeling they both had was not one like burning like a wildfire: the one that makes one lose themselves forgetting everything else - something her daughter had. But it was more soft and steady, like a flowing water that could even break rocks - they were a team, partners working together.

Oddly, he comforted her. He didn’t let her know what he felt, but he stayed by her side and comforted her. She rose up and once again became that Queen Consort everyone knew.

Am I doing the right thing?

She had always wondered. But what is the use? Her daughter died hating her. It is something that will never change.

If only I accepted her love... If only I stood up against the court and let my daughter choose her life partner.... If only I helped her husband when she begged... If only! If only!

She worried for a while... She worried till all her hair turned grey. But then she blocked her daughter from her mind. She put every photographs of her daughter away from her eyesight and blocked it all from her vision.

Out of sight, out of mind, right?

Yeah, it was all fine. For some decades at least, everything was fine. Her husband passed away in that time, her son became the King and everything went around as it should. The world moves on with or without you.

And then she saw her, those eyes... Those eyes very similar to her husband’s. It was a child, a very pretty child who somewhat resembled Lillian. She was just three years old then and she saw her in a friendly cricket match between Rosandale and Esteria. They were trying for peace back then and announced that friendly match. It was talked big that time and so she attended it too since her husband wished for peace between Rosandale and Esteria. Esteria - the nation she used to hate. The place that hid her daughter.

Esteria.... The land where my daughter is buried.

She couldn’t hate that land anymore. She felt that odd feeling when she stepped on Esterian soil. She sighed. She didn’t even know where her daughter is buried.

Pathetic!

But that child... That beautiful child sitting with her grandfather, with no care in the world - the Duke of Oakley’s granddaughter. She had a seat beside her grandfather. When every noble sat with his wife, only he sat with his granddaughter. That child that resembled her husband... and her daughter. That child that was so well-behaved even at that small age. The child that had the best smile... A happy child.

No! I must be overwhelmed!

She let it go. The peace talks didn’t hold and the cold War between the Nations continued.

Her great grandsons weren’t raised like her children. Their mother raised them like any normal family would. And those boys were happy boys as they grew up and got into troubles often.

Everyone feared her. Feared that the boys’ mischievous nature will be off putting for her and might make her angry. But oddly, those undisciplined brats didn’t make her angry. On the contrary, their happy laughs healed her heart and she let them be.

Maybe children should be allowed to be free to make their own decisions.... After all, don’t they deserve to be happy too? Just because they were born in the Royal family, should their happiness be sacrificed?