Juliana Leffoy de Marigny (standingwave) wrote in lightning_war, @ 2008-09-15 10:24:00 |
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Current mood: | alive |
Early Tuesday afternoon, 15 September 1942, at Malfoy Manor in Tintagel...
“I wish you could hem this dress now,” Liane Malfoy said wistfully, smoothing the pale silk over her thighs. She could see herself in the mirror. She looked like a film star; Isabella Zabini’s skills were amazing. She didn’t need a dress like this—not even a little bit—but she had wanted it for so long. Sexy, like the dresses she’d worn in Lutetia, but also innocent: pale and clinging and delicate, not dark and revealing. “It really stretches that much when you hang it?”
“Unfortunately,” Bella said, looking critically at the fabric, her face a thoughtful little frown. “When you cut on the bias, that’s just how it works, and I can only speed the process a little with magick. But it’ll all be worth it once it’s done, you’ll be beautiful in it.”
Liane beamed at her. “I feel beautiful now,” she said. “This will make up for having to wear school uniforms a thousand times over.”
“You are beautiful,” said Moruith enthusiastically. “There will be songs about you, when you are older.”
Liane laughed. “I don’t think so!”
“Maybe I’ll write them,” said Moruith teasingly.
Charis looked up at the other girls. She’d been helping, a little; Bella had been surprised that she knew how to sew and how to do household charms, but she was as much a girl as any other; she just had other work that needed doing more, most days. And she felt very alien, sometimes, in the presence of girls like Liane and Bella. Why was she even in here, instead of out on the parade grounds? Because she was hurt, or because they were beautiful? “You are very pretty,” she said diffidently.
Bella smiled, pleased that her work was being received so well. “Just wait, then, you’ll be breathtaking, even if I do say so myself!” she said, laughing.
Liane was overcome, just then, with a wave of admiration and adoration and some other feeling entirely; she leaned over from the block she was standing on and kissed Bella’s forehead, impulsively, then looked down at her, wide-eyed, wondering what she’d done. She’d forgotten that she was still in Britannia, and people didn’t hug or kiss their friends.
Charis’ breath caught in the back of her throat; the mental image was arresting, and she wanted them to kiss for real. Her face went red. She knew that was about as likely as a rain of frogs in midwinter, but even so.
Bella looked up at Liane and smiled gently. “It’s all right,” she said softly. She knew the other girl had meant it innocently.
Liane flushed red. “This is such a cold country,” she said under her breath.
“It can be,” Bella agreed. “Not like Roma at all.”
“Nor Armorica,” said Liane, and glanced at the picture in the magazine again. “This looks better than that, you know. You’re very talented. And you really think you can copy your mother’s suit?” One of Dracaena’s suits, a dark purplish tweed, lay spread out on the bed.
Bella nodded. “I think so. It might take me a bit longer to get the tailoring right, but I’m sure I can with suitable fabric.”
“That blue serge riding habit you brought down would be perfect to make a suit for Liane,” said Charis, pulling it out of the pile they’d brought down from the attics. It was over fifty years old and had once belonged to the Lady Demelza. “The jacket’s almost stylish as it is, with that peplum.”
Bella considered the jacket. “The sleeves are a little too full,” she said, “but that won’t be difficult to fix.”
Charis nodded. “And the skirt…well, you’ll have enough fabric to make her two or three different skirts to go with it. It’s finding the right hat that is going to be the real challenge. Victorian hats just don’t go well at all with modern attire.”
“I can’t believe your mother doesn’t mind us copying her clothes. Comtesse de Marigny would have had fits if I’d worn the same dress as her,” said Liane. “Even in a different fabric entirely! And Sevvie wouldn’t have liked it, but we don’t have the same build, so it wasn’t as much of a problem.” She glanced at Charis. “I don’t know if I want to go to school or not,” she said after a moment. “I want to work, but…”
“It’s not as bad as she says it is,” said Charis, glancing at Bella. “You just need to keep your head down a bit, learn the lay of the land before you decide to make statements about yourself. I can help you learn who’s important not to offend.”
“I’m so tired of that, though,” said Liane, sighing heavily. “I’ve kept my head down for the last two years…” She had thought, and hoped, that coming to Britannia would mean the end of pretence. But she had learned that it was only barely safer to be honest with Lalage Parkinson and Michael Charteris than it had been with the German occupation, although they hadn’t wanted to kill or to fuck her. Knowing too much was still dangerous, and she hadn’t wanted to trust them with her masterwork. Even if they didn’t abuse it, if she didn’t get credit, she wouldn’t ever be taken seriously.
“It’s bad enough,” Bella insisted with a shake of her head.
There was a knock at the door, so loud it made Aelia look up from her book. Charis got up and answered it; when she saw who it was, she snorted. “This is a girls’ only party, Pritchard. No admittance for wiener dogs.”
Nat Pritchard snorted. “I could ask why you’re here, then,” he said, and looked up at Liane, standing up on the block. “You have post. You understand, I don’t want to know your personal secrets, but I’m supposed to make sure that none of the letters we get here have extra surprises, of the dangerous kind. And the only thing I can read on here is your name. I almost advised Lady Malfoy not to let you have this. As it is, I don’t want you to open it alone.” He held out an envelope, gingerly, by one corner, as if he were afraid that it might bite him.
Liane stepped down off the block, lifting her skirt so she could cross the floor, and peered at it. When she recognised the handwriting, she snatched it out of his hand, then held it out and stared at it for several seconds, trying to make her mind work again. This…was impossible.
“I take it you know the sender?” Pritchard asked quietly.
Liane swallowed, and nodded. She knew him all right.
“Liane?” Bella asked, getting to her feet. “Who is it from?”
Liane took a deep breath, opened the letter, and read it, sinking into a chair, her eyes wide. “C’est de lui,” she said, “mon professeur…il n’est pas mort…” Her voice died. She read it twice over, smiling in spite of herself at the misspelled words, and shook her head, and then, looked up at Bella. “Well,” she said in a tiny voice.
Nat Pritchard looked up at the ceiling. “So what should I tell the Lady?” He knew who she had to be talking about, but he wondered what she would say.
“It’s about my work!” said Liane. “It’s nothing to do with…” She sighed, barely able to finish the sentence even in French. “Partez!” she told Pritchard. “C’est personnelle!”
Nat shrugged and closed the door. He wondered if he should tell Keresek, but decided against it. If Rosenthal was who and where he thought he was, his loyalties were not a question.
Bella came over to Liane’s chair, kneeling by it and smiling. Her French was not good, but nothing Liane had said had been difficult. “He’s not dead. That’s wonderful,” she told her. “Is he well?”
Liane beamed at her. “I think so,” she said, breathing out, “it’s so…it’s so him. Your…cousin? Uncle? Stepfather? He turned my manuscript in, and somehow…he got it.” She folded the letter back up and slipped it, for lack of a better place to put it, inside her brassiere, then touched her face, wiping her eyes a little. “Oh, no,” she said when she saw her hand; there was mascara all over her fingers, and she realised that her face was wet with tears, not sweat. “What’s wrong with me, I always do this…”
Bella shook her head, still smiling. “Mamma does that sometimes, when she’s happy. So does Luce. Fata do,” she said gently.
“We all do it,” said Charis.
Liane was flailing, reaching for a scrap of fabric or something, anything to wipe her face. “I don’t want to ruin this silk,” she said, swallowing.
Bella pulled a handkerchief out of the little pocket on her belt and handed it to her. “I’ll take care of it if you do, it’s all right.”
Liane smiled at Bella through her tears and wiped her face, trying to compose herself. “He must know something though. He said he wanted to meet me on Thursday. Two days! But at Hogwarts.”
“Then you’ll have to go if he wants to see you,” Bella said encouragingly. “You just have to.” The expression on Liane’s face was like nothing Bella had ever seen; a reprieve, a stay of execution, maybe. As if something inside her had been loosed from a cage of cold iron.
Liane laughed. “Of course I’m going,” she said. “I’d go if I had to walk! But what I meant is that either he knows your mother won’t have any choice about sending us back…” She swallowed. “Or he knows I can get out of here! And I don’t think even he could know that.”
Charis raised an eyebrow. “Everybody knows only the family can come and go freely from here, but I hope you’re right.”
Liane stared at the handkerchief in her hand; it was almost black. “Ugh, I’m sorry, I forgot I had that mascara on…it’s not on the dress, is it?”
“No,” said Charis. She went into the bathroom and wet down a cloth, then came out and wiped Liane’s face for her, gently.
“It’s fine,” Bella assured her. It would be easy to charm it out. How could Liane not know?
“I’m going to look like Veronica Lake in this dress,” said Liane. “Assuming I don’t ruin it before you ever finish it. Maybe I should put my own clothes back on?”
Bella nodded. “I can work on it from here, you can take it off, don’t worry.”
“Here,” said Charis. “Don’t touch it, your hands are all black. Let me.” She eased the dress away from Liane’s shoulders, trying hard not to look at the other girl. Think of Minerva, she told herself sternly.
“Maybe you can get married in it,” Aelia suggested, coming back into the room.
Liane glared at her. “You really have a very filthy mind,” she said primly.
“Aelia, if you are that invested in Liane being married, you better ask her for the honour yourself,” Bella told her, getting up to help Charis with the dress. Liane began to giggle uncontrollably.
“I don’t know,” said Aelia, “you were the one she kissed!”
“I’m spoken for,” Bella said airily.
“It’s quite all right,” Liane said, still giggling. “I’m a career girl, you know. Got to be above it all. Don’t want to waste myself or my talents on anyone petty and stupid. Who doesn’t appreciate me.” She glanced at Bella. “Um, not that you’re petty and stupid. I was thinking of Reynard.”
Bella laughed softly. “No, it’s all right, I didn’t assume.”
“Don’t forget Parkinson,” said Charis, crossing her arms across her chest.
“Please, can’t I?” Liane asked her prettily, standing there in her bra and girdle and ankle socks while Charis wiped the mascara off her hands.
“Wouldn’t we all like to?” Bella asked, gathering up the silk and setting it aside before handing Liane her clothes.
Liane stepped into her trousers. “You didn’t sleep with him,” she said. “Not that I got much sleep.”
Charis shrugged. “I wouldn’t let you sleep either if you were my girl,” she said with a shrug. “But you’re my cousin, so I’ll simply compliment Parkinson’s taste.”
Liane laughed out loud, then looked at the two black dresses she’d brought with her, including the one that Charis had coveted—the one she had never wanted to see again. “How about a trade,” she said. “You gave me all those things you brought in here. This is the dress you said your mother would never let you have?”
Charis stared at it. “I…couldn’t,” she said. “It’s too…”
“Expensive?” Liane asked with a shrug. “You are absolutely right that it cost too much, but I never want to wear it again. I don’t know what I was thinking when I packed it. Please, take it away.”
Charis cocked her head to one side. “I thought you said it was a gift from someone.”
“That doesn’t mean it didn’t cost me,” said Liane. Her hands were clean, so she picked it up and thrust it out at the other girl. “Take it away. Or I’ll burn it.”
Charis took the black dress and draped it over her arm. “You’re sure?”
“Absolutely,” said Liane. “It would make me happy if you wore it on a date with your girl. If you have one. Or use it to find a girl! That…would be suitable.” She shrugged. “If you don’t want it, I’ll give it to Bella, but I think Bella would look better in red. I have an idea, something I think she should make for herself. I don’t have anything red to give away.”
“I want it,” said Charis, biting her lip.
“Good,” said Liane.
Charis took off her breeches and blouse and slipped the dress on over her head. It didn’t look quite right with duellists’ hose and no brassiere, but it did fit her.
“Maybe nip it in the waist a little,” Liane suggested. “And no offence, but my bust line is…bigger than yours. Though I actually think it looks better on you for that reason, a little. I always thought I looked a bit like a whore in it.”
“Sometimes that’s the idea,” Aelia said brightly. Moruith elbowed her.
Charis shook her head. “I have the right brassiere to fix that, but you’re right, just an inch in the waist, and if I could make it an inch or two longer…you’re taller than me, I know, but I don’t feel right in this hemline. Bella, can you make it longer and narrower? I don’t really get how you do what you do.”
Bella nodded. “Easily, that’s no problem. I’ll have to check the hem, make sure I have enough fabric to let it down, but I should.”
Liane swallowed hard. “Good,” she said. “I feel almost like myself again. No offence, Charis, but I can’t keep my head down. Not here. I’ll deal with it if people don’t like me, but I’ve spent the last two years pretending not to be smart, pretending to be nice, pretending to be biddable. I’m going to be the same bitch I was at Beauxbatons again.”
Bella smiled. “Look out, Hogwarts,” she said, though there was a lump in her throat. She didn’t want anyone to leave, but she really didn’t want Liane to leave. But if Liane’s professor wanted her…she had to go. Bella would have gone if Jamie had sent for her, after all.
Liane smiled back at her. “I wish you’d come back with us,” she said, almost shyly. “I could still use your help with Colette. And I know you think you’re not smart, but you are. You should become a couturiere, I mean that. I know you want to marry your Jamie, and you absolutely should, you shouldn’t wait another minute. But it shouldn’t stop you from having a life.”
Bella’s smile turned a little shy, and she shrugged. “Maybe. If he thinks it would be all right,” she said, turning the idea over and over in her mind. She had always imagined a life of babies and running a household, the same life her Mamma had had with her Pappa once, except hopefully with a lot less fighting.
“If he really loves you as much as you say he does,” Liane said softly, taking Bella’s hands in her own, “he’ll want you to do great things.”
“I know he does,” Bella said. “I just…never thought about doing anything else. Besides getting married, I mean.”
“But your mother is so powerful…” Liane said, confused.
“Mother used to be married to Bella’s father,” said Charis. “She and Aelia had other mothers. You did know our mother was a man, once?”
“I’ve heard that,” said Liane. “It’s just so hard to believe.”
“She’s actually my father,” said Charis. “And Lucius’ father, too.”
“It’s true,” Bella said with a little nod.
“Well,” said Liane. “At least you won’t get into trouble for disobeying her and wearing that black dress. If she’s not the mother who told you no.”
Charis laughed. “Not hardly! But Bella…Bella and I lived with other people for a long time. We’ve only recently come here to live.”
“I can’t see Mamma telling you that you can’t wear that dress,” Bella told Charis. “I think she’d like it.”
“She probably would,” Charis agreed. “It looks good on me.”
Liane smiled. “Better on you than it ever did on me,” she said, and sighed, and took the letter back out of her blouse and looked at it again, shaking her head. “He still can’t spell to save his life!” she said, re-reading it over and over again.
Charis raised an eyebrow. “You say that…like you think it’s cute.”
Liane rolled her eyes. “Don’t be ridiculous. It’s just…it’s really him. It couldn’t be anyone else.”
Bella smiled and shook her head. “At least some things haven’t changed?”
Liane nodded. “Not a word about how he got here or whether or not he’s all right. Just things I can’t even repeat, because they probably really are going to classify my work. And I should have gone with Estrada…” She flushed, and put her hand to her face. “That’s how I know he’s okay.” She groaned. “I haven’t even had a chance to read that paper. Where does he think I am getting that journal in Occupied France?”
Charis snorted. “Are you some kind of frigging genius?”
“I think she is,” Bella said honestly.
“Maybe,” said Liane thoughtfully. “Maybe I am.”
“Be prepared to get really bored,” said Charis. “And don’t take Scalara’s class, you could probably teach it better than she does.”
“She’s horrid anyway,” Bella supplied helpfully.
“Professor Rosenthal seems to think much the same thing,” Liane said wryly. “Now he is a genius…”
“Uh-huh,” said Aelia under her breath.
Charis shrugged. “I think she does have a crush on you,” she told Liane. “She’s certainly jealous enough.”
Bella laughed. “I told you Aelia, you’d better ask now if you’re going to be that interested in her love life.”
“I do not! I like Princess Ximena,” Aelia blurted out, and then covered her mouth in shock at her own lack of discretion. “But she’s probably going to marry Lucius. That’s what her father wants.”
Bella’s eyes widened. She went quiet; she had not been expecting that in the slightest.
“Well,” said Liane, “doesn’t Lucius like someone named Kat? I heard him say that to someone, didn’t I?”
Aelia shrugged. “Kat’s a commoner. And she used to be a Weasley.”
Liane’s eyes narrowed. “Well, you should talk to Ximena about it yourself,” she said. “I wouldn’t marry anyone because someone else wanted me to. If I were willing to marry someone just because my father thought it was a good idea, I’d be married to one of the German officers by now. I’d rather face a firing squad.”
“Wait,” said Charis. “Your father is a Nazi sympathiser?”
“I don’t know,” said Liane. “I think he just does whatever he thinks will get him ahead. I honestly don’t think he believes in anything. Pritchard asked me last night if I thought he was a traitor. I really don’t, because that’s not to his advantage here.”
“Huh.” Charis shrugged. “Melina thought Pritchard was making a pass at you. Valeria acted like she thought he was.”
Liane snorted. “He almost married my cousin, so I don’t think he’d be interested in me.” After a moment she sighed. “I feel badly for Valeria…I just realised, Séverine is Yvon’s sister, so if Sevvie comes here and Nat and she get back together…” She shrugged. “But they probably won’t.”
“Nat is a loose cannon and he only fires at moving targets,” said Charis knowingly. “He’ll get bored with Valeria if she doesn’t stop being jealous.” She sighed. “You should tell Mother about your father’s politics, you know.”
Liane sighed and looked down at the letter again. “I should,” she said, remembering the joy her father had seemed to take in telling her that Rosenthal was dead. “But right now I have a letter to write of my own. If you all don’t mind.”
aeliana, bellissima, lamerveilleuse, myr_avallenau (Moruith myr’Steren), nat_pritchard and standingwave