Karin’s Sims 2 stories

The Fitzwilliam family

In the short period since we moved to Batavia, I knew I had already found a woman I wanted to marry. Being from a well-to-do family, I thought my parents, Eleanor and Henry Fitzwilliam wouldn’t question my choice. And I was right, because my mother agreed with me completely. Although my father is to give his formal consent too, I know he doesn’t do anything against my mothers wishes.

We sit for a while and talk about how wonderful life has become, ever since we took the step to move to a new country. My sister Victoria is already engaged to the King and will soon marry him. These preparations will take much more time, so I plan to marry my Elisabeth Van Ravenswaaij before that. If she will accept my proposal of course.

I can’t imagine how happy I will feel the moment Elisabeth and I are pronounced man and wife, connected to each other for life. I am very interested in reading and studying, but I also want to be a good heir and continue the Fitzwilliam legacy in the best possible way. I hope Elisabeth will soon give me sons to ensure all that.

While I’m thinking about that, I look up to my parents who seem to have forgotten about me and are kissing in the parlour. I can see they are still fond of each other, despite my mothers interest in money and properties and my fathers interest in the other women.

My sister Victoria has withdrawn herself into the library. She is very much like me and is very serious about becoming a Queen. She dug up some books about Dutch etiquette, grammar and history. After all, Willem used to be Dutch and life at the Batavian court is heavily influenced by the Dutch way of life.

Now that my parents have given their content to marriage plans, all I have to do is ask the consent of Elisabeths brother Van Ravenswaaij. So I invite him over to our place and show him where his sister might come to life. I can tell he is impressed by it, although our grounds are not as vast as his.

Then we order some tea and coffee and go to the parlour to do business.
“Sir Van Ravenwaaij, I have something to ask you.”
“I think I have a clue what it is about. Please, continue.”
“I would like to have your consent to mary your sister, miss Van Ravenwaaij, and make her my wife.”
“On the condition that she agrees to your proposal, I will give my consent. I think it is suitable to our families to be connected through marriage and to strengthen the new country of Batavia in this way.”
“Of couse you must be aware of the difficult financial situation we are all in ever since we moved to Batavia. Therefor I would like to ask you for a small dowry. Say, 5000 pounds.”
“5000 pounds. That sounds very reasonable to me. After all, the Van Ravenwaaij will be connected by this marriage to the King’s wife so it’s worth this dowry.”
“I’m glad we have reached an agreement. Tonight I will invite your sister to come and propose to her.”
“Very well, then.”

And we continued an agreable conversation, until Sir Van Ravenswaaij announced he had to leave. I was most pleased about the consent of Sir Van Ravenswaaij and was in excited anticipation for this evening. I couldn’t imagine Elisabeth reclining my proposal, but of course I couldn’t be sure.

When the evening finally came, I sent a servant to invite Elisabeth, Miss Van Ravenswaaij, to visit my place. Fortunately, she accepted and soon she arrived. I hardly took the time to greet her and immediately took out the little box with the ring I had carried with me all day. I knelt down before her and asked her the most important question of my life, at least so far.

I was the luckiest man of all men when I heard her sweet voice say “Yes”. She wanted to become my wife and live with me for the rest of her life. Full of joy I took her in my arms and kissed her gently. Then we walked around the garden and talked about our future together. We agreed to get married as soon as possible and were glad to discover we had the same ideas about the wedding party.

In a few days only, we arranged everything for the ceremony and the party, sent the invitations and hired extra personnel. Every night we would see each other, discuss how everything was going and dream about the future. And then finally, the day arrived when we were to be wed to one another.

We didn’t invite a very large party, just the nobles , the Jones family since they came with us to Batavia and of course the King, Victoria’s fiance. The weather was fine and we held the ceremony in our garden, surrounded by our family and friends.

Everybody was impressed by the ceremony and it didnt take long before the party was getting good. My sister and her fiance contributed to the great atmosphere by the joy they had in viewing our wedding ceremony. They are both looking forward to their own wedding. I think they will be one of the rare couples that marries not only for property or connections but also for love.

And despite the traditional opening of the ball by the bride and groom, Victoria and Willem started to dance together as soon as the ceremony was over. I was way too hungry to follow their example. My wife though felt like dancing too and went to the dancefloor with her brother Frederik.

I don’t think they have as good a realtionship as I have with Victoria. But I think Frederik is a nice guy and he takes his responsibility as head of the Van Ravenswaaij family very well. I sure hope ‘he and his wife Charlotte will settle down more once their baby is born.

Later during the party I overheard my sister and my wife discussing engagements and rings and such. I do hope they will have a good relationship. My wife will start to live with my family, so things could become difficult if they don’t get together well. On the other hand, my sister will soon marry into the royal family, but that consists now of only one person. So she will have no relatives in the palace and we are the only relatives in Batavia she has.

Besides, I think it is good when women can share their own things and little problems amongst themselves. So we can concentrate on the main choices that have to be made in life.

There was however one person who didn’t seem to enjoy herself at the party: Marie-Claire De la Tourvelle. She normally has a very melancholic look on her face and even a wedding party couldn’t change that. She wandered around without really talking to people. I only saw my father tell her some jokes and that seemed to enlighten her face for a few moments. But it’s hard to resist my father when he is charming like that.

I also overheard Thomas Jones talking about setting up a commercial center in Batavia and the difficulties he seemed to encounter. From what I heard I understood Hendrik Koopmans wasn’t very willing to let another businessman participate in his projects. So Thomas really had to start on his own in a foreign country. Lucky for him, he had moved with us and since we were going to be connected to the royal family, maybe we could help him with his business.

When the end of the party was near, it dawned on me that I didn’t dance with Elisabeth yet, so I took her by the arm and let her to the dancefloor. While the others were looking at us we danced until we were picked up for our honeymoon.

Our honeymoon was great and we both enjoyed our trip to Guernsey. We spent some time in a wonderful hotel and enjoyed being together.

When we were back home, we took some time for ourselves too and we shared our bed for the first time. And we were finally really to make WooHoo to each other for the first time.

Very soon, Elisabeth started to feel ill, especially in the mornings. And she had to run off to the toilet to throw up every once in a while. At first I was concerned for her health and hoped she hadn’t caught some fever down at Guernsey. I decided to call for the doctor and have her examined. We were soon comforted though: Elisabeth was perfectly fine, just pregnant with our first child.

When we got that news, we were overjoyed. I felt very proud of my wife and I could she was really happy too.I’m hoping that it will be a boy to carry on the Fitzwilliam legacy.