Alice & Jared
I'm doing this basically for me and Laur @littlepeakydevil who asked me about them. I don't expect anyone else to read this.
So, first of all, did Jared love Alice? Yes. I'm glad I changed what I originally said about him, about being violent towards her. He wasn't, never was. Jared loved Alice and her suicide was terrible for him even if he didn't cry for her because "men don't cry" but it affected him a lot.
In Dublin in 1883, Jared met Alice when went to the theatre one night... she was there because Alice was an actress. He felt attraction at first sight. She was a beautiful young woman with long red hair and blue eyes. She was playing Lady Macbeth when he met her and after that night he kept going just to see her. Eventually he began to send her flowers and letters.
But.
Despite being an actress, a good one, with several suitors who loved her; despite Alice went to nightclubs and had a social life, she was from the old school (old even for 1880s) besides she was religious fanatic. One thing doesn't cancel out the other. Being a fanatic is a key of her personality. Yet, the moment she saw him was waiting for her by the stage door, Alice felt something for Jared. Not just he was an excellent match (from good family, rich, a young prestigious doctor....) but she liked him. Monsters recognise monsters, I guess.
The thing that finished to corrupt Alice was having sex before marriage with him. Jared was her first time and she enjoyed a lot. They taught her that sex was only to have kids but she discovered something new. She did judge women who didn't wait until having a husband and now was one of those and she hated it... But loved it, hope it's not confusing. Like, it was against all her beliefs and yet couldn't deny that was all she wanted. Still, her hypocrisy was with her all her life even after Jared because she still judged women was selfish and was a bad person in general. She never was an angel despite going to church every Sunday and read the Bible every night.
Too much sex inevitably ended with an unwanted pregnancy. There was a baby before Jared jr, but she had an abortion because wasn't married and her parents were awfully strict. Neither of them regret it nor talked about it ever.
They got married two years after they met in 1885. In 1886 Jared was born, in 1887 James and finally in 1891 Jay. Her job as actress was almost over because despite having nannies and wet nurses for the boys her body had changed and didn't fit for the roles she was used to. So, in top of everything she became resentful towards her sons... Except James, maybe because he remembered her of herself but James managed to get a soft spot in her heart the other two didn't. Still, the bar is very low, so... Maybe that resentment was one of the reasons she never intervine when Jared disciplined the boys. That and like I said before, she was from old school "fathers punished their sons" so for her it was perfectly fine.
In 1898, her husband found her in the kitchen that was full of smoke (in modern times opened the burner gas) There wasn't a letter nothing so Jared and the boys never knew why she did it. Then, like I wrote in my story, Jared took his sons and the four moved to London in 1899.
She committed suicide because didn't find anything else to do with her life. Her career was over, the boys were growing up (even when she didn't care for them, so...), she blamed her husband for what happened to her.
Finally, did Alice love Jared? No.
