Investigator of the Supernatural, Brewer of Tea (sedulus) wrote in shadowlands_ic, @ 2017-07-30 21:04:00 |
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Entry tags: | bertie eden, gabriel allen |
Who: Gabriel Allen and Bertram Eden
What: Hatching a plan
Where: The Spectacular Review
When: 26th July, 1888, evening rehearsal
Rating: PG
Since Caspian had extended an invitation, Gabriel made a point of occasionally stopping by Spectacular Review’s rehearsals -- sometimes with Keira, and sometimes alone. It was a pleasant way to spend an hour or two, and Cas seemed appreciative -- and it was truly interesting to see the creative process at work.
There’d be sudden flurries of activity punctuated by long periods where it seemed as if there was not much happening, side-conversations and aimless milling about, but then… it’d all coalesce into something solid, something real, and it was worth the wait. There was also something peaceful about sitting in the relative dark and quiet, to be the one who watched, rather than the other way round.
Today, he was pleasantly surprised to see a familiar face as he took his seat.
“Well met, mon canard,” he said, smiling, as he flopped down next to Bertie. “How have you been keeping yourself?” He asked.
Bertie could possibly not have been more surprised if Lord Black himself had taken a seat in the theatre. "Mr Allen," he exclaimed, catching himself on the 'G' of Gabriel's Christian name just in time. "This is an unexpected surprise. I didn't know you were involved with the Review. Are you involved?" he asked after hardly a pause for breath, realizing that might be the case, as he himself wasn't involved, and yet here he was. "I saw one of their performances, and their...ah, Master of Ceremonies? was kind enough to show me around the stage afterward, and invite me to see a rehearsal."
Bertie's attention had been not on the performers, but on the theatrical technology aiding in their production. Eager to point out what he was waiting to see again, so that Gabriel would not miss it, Bertie pointed to the rectangle cut into the stage floor. "Have you seen the trap door in operation? It's run by hydraulics, lowering and raising whatever is on it, regardless of weight...look, they are going to send something down soon, I think." Bertie shook his head in admiration. "It's marvelous."
“I’m just a rather appreciative patron,” Gabriel replied with a smile and a shrug, raising a hand briefly in greeting as one of the dancers noticed his arrival.
“Do you know,” he added, leaning a little so his shoulder brushed Bertie’s companionably, “they did a rather fantastic effect a few months back where they had someone descend beneath the stage in a cloud of fog-- it quite looked like they were sinking beneath the waves. I’ve also seen it used quite effectively as a passageway to the underworld with a bit of red light and some smoke. Most eerie.”
The trap door lowered smoothly, and Bertie’s expression of keen interest was very nearly as amusing to look at as the mechanics of it all.
"There, do you see? the pulley system...it creates an even pace, a smooth descent, and of course there's the amount of weight it can safely hold...I wonder if they ever use such a system to ascend, as well? I've seen the rigging, up above...have you been on the stage? They have an entire system of ropes and pipes above, of course, but some of the mechanisms..."
Bertie broke off, flushing slightly. "I apologize. If my friend Mr Humphreys were here, this is when he'd chime in for me to leave you be so you could enjoy the rehearsal, not to have me spoil the magic."
He hadn't been paying close attention, but belatedly registered a smile sent their way by a performer, not the same one who'd waved. "You know them well, then? The troupe? They seem well-acquainted with you. I don't believe their attention is for me." He cast a sideways smile at Gabriel, letting him see in Bertie's expression that the appreciation was shared by more than the dancing troupe.
“Ah, but the magic, you see, is when it’s all pulled together at the end. The rehearsal, at least at this stage, is all about creation -- it’s messy, and there are flashes of brilliance, but it’s far more about the process than anything.” Gabriel laughed a little, and looked over at Bertie with a grin. “If I suspect there will be a glimmer of magic in the making I’d rather see without commentary, I shall be sure to let you know.”
“And I know them well enough, I suppose,” he added. “Mr Finn, the Master of Ceremonies, is a friend, and I’ve been by often enough to get to know some of his troupe as well. And yes -- they have, I believe, a system of flies that has the most ingenious counter-weights -- I’ve seen them raise and lower papier-mache and wire creations the size of trees, and make it appear as if it were snowing, and they had a piece once with a trapeze ascending as the artist spun round -- she was dressed as the most marvelous bird. But not anything to the scale of the trap-door, I’m afraid.”
"Oh," Bertie breathed, imagining such a thing--a wire, perhaps, or an actual mechanism? A clockwork of some kind, turning with careful precision and bearing the weight of a person as it was raised higher above the stage? "I wish I could have seen it," he admitted wistfully.
It occurred to him that he had never managed basic pleasantries nor even answered Gabriel's first question, and he flushed anew. Without Bartholomew, it seemed, he was hopeless.
"How have you been?" Bertie asked, deciding that later was better than never in this circumstance. "Are you pining for French cuisine and company already? Thank you, again," he added more sincerely. "I could not have progressed as I did without you."
“Oh, I’ll be back soon enough, I’d imagine,” Gabriel replied with a grin and a shake of his head. “Wrangling the courts to get my mother’s property back is rather a Sisyphean task, but at least the food is marvelous when I go. And the company… well,” he said, raising an eyebrow, and looking over at Bertie. “This last time round, it was rather pleasant, I must say,” he said, mildly.
He smiled a little. “I’ve been keeping well enough,” he said, “no particular complaints. And you? How’s the case been progressing? I’ve been ever so curious.”
He kept half an eye on the stage, but the actors and crew were currently in their “milling about” phase of the creative process, with some intense conversations off to the side trying to hammer something or another out.
Bertie frowned a little at the mention of the courts. "If I can help, let me know?" he asked tentatively, hoping that didn't overstep the bounds of their brief acquaintance. "I...I find the company pleasant as well." His delivery was nowhere near as smooth as Gabriel's had been, but it was earnestly meant. Bertie ducked his head again, and focused on details of the case.
"I believe I've found a way to examine Fitzwilliam Swinton's remains without asking for an exhumation," Bertie confided, his voice low. They were in a theatre, and Bertie didn't know how well voices would carry from the audience to the stage, but since the acoustics worked very well in the opposite direction, he didn't want to chance it. "It's slightly complicated, but if it works, we'll know of any evidence left behind, and possibly have new leads to follow. There are just a...few small hitches."
That was perhaps underplaying the matter slightly, but Bertie was an optimist, and in the grand scheme, having Miss Bakst on retainer was a greater accomplishment than Bertie's contrasting failure to find the lingering spirit of a deceased coroner. He fidgeted slightly in his seat, then went still again, not wanting to draw any attention from those rehearsing, or - more importantly - those in the audience looking around while they waited for something to happen onstage.
“If there is any investigating to be done,” Gabriel replied, “you shall be the first to know of it. Thank you,” he added, looking over with a fond grin, before leaning back in his own seat, stretching his legs. “So you’re switching gears to the father, then. I can see how that’d be a good tact if the French case isn’t bearing any fruit.” He raised an eyebrow. “And you’re a resourceful sort, I’m sure you’ll figure out a way around it.”
“What sort of hitches, if you don’t mind my being frightfully nosy?” Gabriel continued with a smile. “Unless it’d be massively unhelpful to dwell over them,” he added, “in which case, I’m more than glad to talk pulleys and flashpots and the marvelous things one can do with wires.”
"No, no," Bertie promised, flashing a reassuring, albeit distracted, smile. "It's...well." He lowered his voice even further, leaning in to confide quietly near Gabriel's ear. Even more than the other, this was something he didn't wish to have getting out. "I've told you I can communicate with ghosts. One of them suggested that instead of bringing the body to a coroner, I simply, ah..." Bertie rubbed his nose a little, embarrassed. "Bring a coroner to the body. Directly."
He waited nervously for Gabriel to recoil in horror, or with accusations of necromancy, but when neither of those things happened right away, Bertie hurried on. "Only spirits can be difficult to speak with at the best of times, and finding a coroner in the correct condition, let alone of an agreeable disposition, has proven...challenging. I did find a witch willing to...carry, she said? the ghost to the grave once I find one, but that means first finding one. I do have a volunteer, but..."
Bertie broke off to chew on his lower lip, thinking of Jamie's helpful suggestion and feeling ill at the memory of Miss Bakst's warnings of risk and riddance, when they came attached to the person of his dear friend.
"There are risks, I'm told," Bertie said at last, low and miserable. "And I...the gentleman in question, is...very dear to me. A very good friend. I'm worried that something will go wrong."
He took a breath, thinking he ought to let Gabriel get a word in, but plunging onward before he could lose his nerve. "And that is even before finding a way to get Miss...the witch...to the grave, without anyone being alarmed at her presence and something going wrong...if Jamie should come to harm because of me, I could not live with myself. And the grave is at Black Park, and I have promised..." The misery increased, and Bertie slumped lower and smaller into his chair. "I have promised not to return there. I can stand at the border, but I cannot break that promise."
“Mr Eden,” Gabriel replied, surprised, sitting up more in his chair at this outpouring. “That is… that is indeed quite the burden you’ve been carrying around. On many fronts. I can see how that would be worrisome.”
He frowned a little, resting a hand briefly on Bertie’s arm before patting it and leaning forward in thought.
“I am assuming there’s good reason to not want an exhumation,” he said, looking over at Bertie, “but is there reason you cannot ask for permission for an exception to go onto the property for purposes of investigation? Given all the work you’ve been doing on the family’s behalf… as well as the fact that they’d no doubt want this solved… I can’t imagine they’d turn you away.”
Bertie waved an unhelpful hand, rallying a bit at Gabriel's concerned questions. "Lord Black has every reason to wish this investigation kept quiet, and an exhumation would tip off the murderer, if there is one, that suspicions have been aroused. Lord Black has just had an attempt upon his life--I cannot risk being the cause of another, if my investigation should spook the killer into acting more quickly on a second try. And I could ask, of course, and I am sure he would understand and give permission, it is not as if..."
Bertie stopped there, because the reason he'd been turned out from the pack's presence was personal, and not a little scandalous, particularly considering Mal's impending marriage. Bertie thought that if anyone would sympathize, it might be Gabriel, but there was no need to burden him with even more of Bertie's frivolous anxieties.
"I just don't wish to distress him," Bertie explained quietly. "Asking would only get his hopes up, when I'm not certain I'll have anything to offer after this experiment. And besides," he sighed, doing a very good impression of someone moping about not receiving a wedding invitation even if he wouldn't admit that aloud, "he's newly wed, and on honeymoon."
After another moment (not moping), Bertie straightened abruptly. "Matthew," he exclaimed. "If I could...I don't believe I could sneak a letter in, but perhaps if I...if someone were to catch his attention, I could speak with him. Matthew would scent someone on the grounds, I'm sure of it, and if it wasn't the witch, who might smell worrisome...if it were someone harmless, and pleasant, who simply didn't belong there..."
Bertie realized that he was looking at Gabriel with a sort of expectant, hopeful expression, and looked away again, shamefaced. He'd only just finished thanking Gabriel for the favor he'd done, and Bertie was already thinking of another to ask him.
“Who is Matthew, then?” Gabriel asked, raising an eyebrow. He brushed his leg against Bertie’s as he shifted, a slight, comforting, ‘I’m listening’ sort of move, and tipped his head in Bertie’s direction. “And what would be the harm in writing this Matthew, if it’s to do with the case?” He asked. “Or would you prefer to beg forgiveness after?” He added.
He hummed at Bertie’s suggestion, knowing all too well what the look implied. “...Given recent security concerns, the pack might be a bit touchy about any strange interloper, no matter how charming…” he added. “Although I’m assuming I wouldn’t be arrested outright if I were to be there as an assistant to the Night Watch, they might not be in the mood to ask questions politely.”
"No, you're quite right," Bertie agreed, glad that he hadn't asked outright, even if Gabriel had been quick to catch onto what Bertie was thinking. "Matthew--Mr Hill is the pack's beta, and he tends to keep an eye out. I wonder if...I'd thought perhaps I could just...wave," he explained lamely, beginning to chew on a fingernail as he thought. There were rather a lot of problems with his plan, even more than he'd originally shared with Gabriel. "But I don't know..."
It felt disloyal to say it, from the lofty height of a Cambridge education, when Bertie looked up to Matthew so much. "...I don't know whether he can read," he admitted in a rush, and took a deep breath just to let it out again. "And begging forgiveness would be well and good, but I can't...I can't," he repeated, swallowing rising tension. "I've promised."
Gabriel looked over at his friend, reminded for a moment of how very young he was -- this clearly meant a great deal to him, and making sure it was done while taking scrupulous care to be proper (albeit in a remarkably convoluted manner) seemed nearly as important as the end result -- a set of priorities that Gabriel couldn’t say he entirely understood, but he could admire Bertie for attempting as best he could to both stick to his principles and be of help, even though he was bending over backwards to do so.
“I see,” he said, a little surprised -- Lord Black seemed a stand-offish sort from the few interactions they’d had at the occasional party, and Gabriel’d chalked it up to a sense of superiority (and, frankly, a bit of self-denial), but the revelation that his second was, by implication, quite salt-of-the-earth, tended to suggest otherwise.
Bertie’s face was currently expressing an epic poem’s worth of worry, and he sighed. “I would be more than willing to help, if it’d take some of the weight off,” Gabriel replied. “Do you want me to go ahead as an envoy, and talk to Matthew before your arrival of your intentions? Or come along with and run messages back and forth?”
Bertie shook himself a little, giving himself a stern order not to be so maudlin, and not to rest his worries on a friend to whom Bertie was already indebted. "No, it will be fine," he promised, pledging as he said it that it would be so. "I'll find a way. Thank you." He made certain to meet Gabriel's eyes as he said that last, to impress the sincerity of it.
Turning away in search of some distraction, he seized on the first thing to catch his eye. "Oh look, they're bringing out some sort of vehicle, have you seen it used before?"
“Mon canard,” Gabriel replied in a low, confidential tone, “I wouldn’t offer if I didn’t mean it.” He leaned back in his chair once more, giving Bertie a slight smile and roll of his eyes at the obvious re-direct. “I believe there’s a bicycle hidden under the shell,” he said. “Most ingenious, really.”
Bertie fidgeted for another moment in silence, chewing on his fingernail again, and finally let his hand fall to his lap with a sigh. Turning to Gabriel, he met his gaze directly and said, "I think I've asked enough of you already, don't you?"
It wasn't only the trip to France; it was also carrying Bertie's secrets, including the one he kept most to himself...the two he kept, if you counted buggery, which Bertie largely forgot to because he was careful not to think of it at all when he could manage it. And it was carrying him, not just his secrets, through the pouring rain to bandage his ankle, and a thousand other small kindnesses, which Bertie had not even begun to repay.
He swallowed, and wished that he could think of some other way to manage things than to involve Gabriel yet again.
Gabriel met his gaze evenly, a small, wry curl on the side of his mouth. “Mr Eden, I happen to like your company,” he said, lightly. “Running about the countryside negotiating with tetchy werewolves and assisting ghosts in a murder investigation sounds like it might be an adventure, and I’m not gathering receipts to be collected upon later,” he added, looking back at the stage. “Besides, when you pout like that, you give me no end of indecent ideas,” he continued, his voice low, the curl growing into more of a grin.
He shrugged. “But I can understand fully if you don’t want to feel obligated, to tangle personal and professional more than you have already, and I know… well. I’m full aware of the need for the appearance of propriety. If you’d rather I keep my distance, I shall.”
"No." It was said quickly, and with an accompanying touch to the back of Gabriel's hand that Bertie risked in the dark theatre because it could easily mean anything, not necessarily improper familiarity, and he needed badly to touch Gabriel in that moment to apologize, because he couldn't do anything more.
He looked back at the stage before his expression could give too much away, but when he removed his hand, he set it down close by on his knee, his little finger touching Gabriel's leg. "I'm sorry. That's not it at all, I didn't mean to give you that impression. Of course I would be grateful for any assistance you're willing to give. I just...I feel I'm asking a lot, for such a short acquaintance."
Bertie reached up and rubbed the back of his neck with his other hand. "I'm glad I didn't think of this at a different time," he admitted. "I should have made even more a mess of it if I'd tried to ask you for a favor when I might have had you at a disadvantage. Oh, bugger," he sighed, the irony of that particular oath not lost on him. "I'm still doing it. What I mean to say is that however you feel is best to proceed, I shall take your advice and your aid, and gladly."
“For the record, I don’t think I would’ve particularly minded that approach,” Gabriel replied back, tipping his head in a slight acknowledgement, his smile a little softer. “I’d like to help, if you think it would make your life a little easier, given everything else. And as I recall, I offered before you asked.” Bertie’d all but spelled it out with signal flags beforehand, but the point still stood.
“I shall be certain to tell you if there’s something you ask of me I’d rather not do,” he added, “and I’d like to think you’d likewise do me the favor, should it come to that. I see no point in biting one’s tongue and getting resentful. I am a demon, darling,” he said, his voice dropping again. “We tend to thrive on both giving and receiving enthusiastic consent.”
“So,” he said, matter-of-factly. “I’ll handle the concerns of the beta and ensure we’ve permission to enter the grounds -- I might ride out ahead with an introductory letter on official letterhead on the day of to at least have something to show him. And then there’s the matter of your friend,” he said, no end of curious since Bertie’d mentioned him in his litany of woes. “Jamie, was it? I’m not sure I can be of any help on that count, but I am sorry you’re worried about his wellbeing.”
"I can type something from the Night Watch," Bertie suggested after a moment of thought, having to choose what to reply to first and what would take some additional consideration. "To make it safely official. Lord Black did come to the office with his concerns, after all, even if I am pursuing it largely off the record for the time being."
That matter was the easiest. Jamie, for all that Bertie knotted into worry over the thought of him in danger, was nearly so. "I would like for you to meet him," Bertie said quietly. "Jamie. James Percy. He's a...resident, of the night Watch office, I suppose, though no one else sees him." Remembering a past conversation on that theme, Bertie asked suddenly, "If you would do another favor for me...since you've said I may ask, now," he added, with a smile to show he meant it teasingly, "would you...say hello to him, when you meet? Introduce yourself? He's...the others know he's there," Bertie explained uncomfortably. "Since I've told them. But they don't speak to him, and I...I believe he might be lonely."
Taking a breath, Bertie addressed the greatest challenge; mending the personal slight he'd caused by his thoughtlessness. "If you should be agreeable," Bertie said, as quietly as he could without drawing obvious attention by whispering, "I would very much like the opportunity to ask you for those favors over again, while I am taking thorough advantage of you, so that I may receive your enthusiastic consent. Just for the record."
He finally glanced over again, smiling warmly, letting a touch of playful mischief show through in his expression. "And if you should like to ask for any return favours in kind, I'm almost certain I would be as enthusiastically agreeable."
“He sounds like a good sort,” Gabriel replied, “and his willingness to help despite the risk speaks highly of his consideration for you. I’ll be sure to introduce myself.”
“And Mr Eden,” he continued, shifting slightly in his chair to brush his leg against Bertie’s hand, “I do believe that would be quite acceptable. It is important to be thorough, after all.”
He paused, and rested a hand on Bertie’s knee briefly, nodding to the stage. “I do believe they’ve sorted out something rather lovely, just now,” he said, leaning forward. “If we’re lucky, they’ll test it more thoroughly. Oh -- see?” He said, grinning, as the fish like vehicle that’d been wheeling around the stage suddenly lifted into the air on wires, looking for an impossible moment like it was flying, scales flashing, the rider whooping and laughing as it rose.
Ghosts, witches, werewolves...all the worries pressing at Bertie faded away as the vehicle rose into the air, theatrical magic unblemished by the knowledge of what lay hidden within the trick. Bertie watched with an expression of awe and wonder, his lips parted in astonishment, and felt his spirits rise along with it.