Commitment

Part 62

Regan shrugged, "And if I'd paid him a decent wage..."

Lucy stopped fiddling with her hair and pointed out, "Which you would have done if you could have."

"Yes, but..."

"Hey!" Mairie plopped herself down with surprising agility thought Jenny given Mairie was several months pregnant.  "Can I join in? And can you promise to help me later to get back to my feet!" She sat on the grass beside the two women.

"Too late to object!" Lucy smirked. "It would take us, and probably an army to get you to your feet!"

Mairie rolled her eyes. "Yes. Typical! Good job I have thick skin! Heard of tact?"

Jenny squeezed in beside her mother and Regan. "You want me to take him?" She asked Regan who was contentedly holding Neil who was fast asleep. Regan shook her head.

"What are you talking about?" Mairie said having settled down beside Lucy on the ground.

"Gray being mean." Alison told Mairie and frowned as she considered why Gray was being mean as reported by Lucy. "And your husband is signalling, Mairie."

Mairie wrinkled her nose, "Yeah, so?" Regan chuckled at Mairie's show of disdain. Obviously Mairie was deliberately making her husband wait. Her husband grinned at his wife's response. That's what she found amazing about these women and their husbands. They seemed to understand them! "He can wait! Back to Gray." Mairie tucked her legs beneath her, as that might help later. "I thought he was really mean."

"Really?" Alison frowned. "That doesn't match my opinion of him. He was charming, amiable, thoughtful man." And based on what her husband told her, Gray was a good man, albeit reticent.

"Was he talking about Regan?" Mairie retorted.

"I doubt that." Alison smiled taking in the point.

"When was that, Mairie? When was he mean?" Jenny asked as she tried to return to Mairie's previous statements.

Mairie said, "Lucy, Regan and I went to the fayre, you know that." Jenny nodded. Mairie continued, "Well, he made some pithy comment about Regan."

Lucy glared. "I should have smacked him at the fayre! I should go give that man a piece of my mind." Which had Regan, Mairie and Jenny looking at her and grinning: for Lucy's notion of tearing strips of someone was laughable.

Regan smiled as she too acknowledged Lucy's statement. "Mairie as per usual is exaggerating." She winked at Lucy, "And once again, can I remind you, Mairie, that you are pregnant, and your baby will register your anger!"

Mairie cut in. "Rubbish!" Mairie pouted and watched from the corner of her eye as her husband watched her. He was grinning, pretty confident that she had deliberately ignored his signal because she knew he was going to suggest they head home. He was overprotective.

"You are exaggerating!" Regan chuckled.

"He was really obnoxious." Mairie countered. And Alison banked her smiled as she watched the interactions between her two daughters and their two friends. Nothing much has changed in this friendship.

Lucy surmised. "I still feel I should smack him!"

Likea politician, Regan said, "He's entitled to his opinion." 

 This is what she loved about this family and their friends, they were secure in their love for each other that it didn't matter that they had different opinions and they had no problem airing their views. They talked, frankly. They also allowed her to air her views, in the sure knowledge that just because she argued with them, it didn't mean they loved her any less. Usually Regan did her best to keep the peace and she did her best to accommodate what other people wanted in the hope that they would like her. But with the Jones family she knew she didn't have to be anything but herself with them, and that they liked her, loved her even, regardless of whether she accommodated them or not.

Regan laughed. "You can't smack him just because he's ..."

"Being snide?" Mairie queried and added, "And bloody stupid." She grinned.

"Why, what's he doing now?" Jenny asked and looked over toward the French doors that led to the study. She saw that Gray was talking to Mark and Thomas.

"Not doing so much as saying." Mairie corrected as she looked over her shoulder and studied Gray.

"Was he saying stuff today?" Jenny frowned.

Regan, as per normal, provided the other person' view. "He's just a bit cross by the fact that I didn't pay him as a manager when he was managing my farm." Regan tried to excuse Gray's behaviour. Lucy frowned at Regan's statement. "Which is understandable."

"What did he expect? You and the farm are barely breaking even." Jenny remonstrated.

"Yes, but he did put a lot of work in..."

Jenny continued, "And you took them in when they had..."

Only to be interrupted by Regan, "But that's not the point. I...."

Alison backed her daughter's statement, sayinggently, "You gave him a home, Regan."

Lucy countered Regan' statement, by adding, "of course it's the point." Lucy huffed. "He was lucky you took a risk with him! A complete stranger. And you took in his family. Him. His sister. His grandfather. Gave them a home..."

"I didn't tell him I didn't have any money. So it isn't surprising that he thought I got him under slave labour conditions!" She should have told him about her circumstances and leave it to him to decide if he wanted to work on her farm.

"He knows you don't have money!" Mairie announced candidly without thinking. "I told him."

"Oh Mairie!" Alison murmured quietly and watched Regan's reaction tothat news

Regan's forehead puckered. "You told him? What? When?"

Alisonleft the quarrel to her daughters and friends, seeing this was about to erupt and knew from previous experiences with these four, it was best to let the argument run.

"At the fayre." Mairie said primly.

"At the fayre." Regansighed.

"Yes."

"When?"

"Does it matter?"

"Yes!" Regan practically yelled. "Why would you do that, Mairie?" It felt awful knowing that people knew she was penniless. And now he knows. Humiliation washed through her system. "You had no right." Regan pouted.

"Yeah, I know." Mairie bit her lower lip before she said, "I am sorry Regan, but I was just so bloody furious with him."

Regan jabbed Mairie's shoulder forgetting that she was pregnant, and she could not topple Mairie.

"Stop poking me Regan! Remember, pregnant woman, here!" Mairie grouched. "Anyway, well, he was spouting garbage. And I ..."

"If I'd wanted him to know I'd have told him. Honestly! This is mortifying. Who else knows?" Regan glanced around, wondered if everyone around knew about her circumstances. "Did you tell everyone at the fayre? And stop using you pregnancy as an excuse!"

"Ihave pregnant hormones!" Mairie said ruefully and saw the bloom of embarrassment in Regan's eyes.  "I am so sorry Regan. In any case, you know me..."

Lucy retorted, "Yeah, mouth goes into action before brain goes into gear. Worse with your pregnant hormones!"

"I know, I know. I shouldn't have." Mairie said quietly, watching Regan's reactions. She saw Regan's apprehension in her eyes and recognised the distress in the tone of Regan's voice. "I am really sorry Regan."