black_wolf (black_wolf) wrote in shadowlands_ic, @ 2018-01-23 18:20:00 |
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Entry tags: | bertie eden, biddie, lucien swinton, maggie swinton |
Who: Biddie, Bertie, Maggie, Lucien, and various NPCs (including Matthew and Jamie)
What: The Black Park London House gets a retrofit with Biddie's help, has a party to celebrate, and Bertie comes by for MAXIMUM AWKWARD.
Where: The Black Park London Home
When: 20 January 1889 [slight backdate]
Rating: PG
The winter tended to stretch on after the New Year -- the snow got grimy and grey, and the weather and extensive stretch of the evening tended to lower spirits. Being away from Black Park could be With that in mind, Lucien and Maggie planned on having a demonstration on electricity and dinner party for the London household to brighten up the evening, with Maggie’s friend, Mrs Linden, as a guest.
It was a decidedly informal affair; after a light dinner, the household staff changed from uniforms into their second-best, everyone got an orange, and there were plenty of puddings set out and a few party games planned before the demonstration.
Betty, the cook, was currently doing her level best to pantomime an animal of some sort when the bell rang, and in the spirit of the evening, Lucien got up to answer it himself instead of having Roberts do it, and was pleased to see Bertie at the door.
“I was hoping you might come by,” he said, smiling. “Come in, then, we’re just getting started.”
"I'm sorry if I'm late," Bertie answered, fairly glowing at the greeting. "I came from the Night Watch. I'm not interrupting, am I? Only I wouldn't miss it, truly, thank you for the invitation."
He sketched a slight bow as accorded to a lord, and then shyly offered his throat as well, just a tilt of his head and stretch of his neck to show submission. When he caught sight of Betty as they moved inside, Bertie brightened even further. "Oh, are the staff dining with us? I wasn't sure how formal it would be...I'm sorry," he tacked on, eyes wide and contrite. "I should let you get a word in."
His silence only lasted a bare moment, as before Lord Black could speak, Bertie blurted out, "Jamie's here. Sorry. I should have offered introductions. I hope that's all right." Bertie glanced at Jamie, who was watching him with amusement, and offered a sheepish, "He doesn't eat much."
"He's dead," Jamie agreed cheerfully. "You haven't introduced us properly ever, you know."
"Haven't I?" Bertie nearly clapped a hand over his mouth as he realized he'd cut Lord Black off again, and compounded the mistake by rushing forward, flustered, with introductions. "Lord Black, James Percy. James Percy, this is Lord Black, Alpha of the Black Park Pack."
“Quite informal,” Lucien replied, his hand resting on Bertie’s shoulder for a quick, friendly greeting.
“And Mr Percy,” he added, with a short tip of his head, looking in the approximate direction of Bertie’s gesturing, unsure as to the proper protocol with ghosts. “I’ve heard a great deal of you, and my deepest thanks for your service to Black Park. You are most welcome, the both of you. Do come in.”
Meanwhile coming down the stairs…
Overall Biddie would be the first to describe all of her employees as diligent, capable, innovative, and energetic. Minor or senior, her people were accomplished.
"—and anyway if something does catch on fire, we can probably blame it on weather conditions or a faulty fireplace. Or kitchen accidents. You can blame just about anything on kitchen accidents, Miss Liddy."
…subtlety, on the other hand, Biddie reflected, was reserved for upper management at best.
"Graham," she said in a tone of infinite patience (and much practice), "do you recall our discussion in the carriage?" The electrician looked cheerfully curious and patently oblivious. "The one where I told you something and you had to repeat it back?"
"Don't open any doors without asking someone from the house first?"
"Yes, but also…"
"Don't pry up any of the boards without asking someone from the house first?"
"And…"
"Don't bring an axe into the house without asking—"
Biddie rubbed a gloved finger at the growing ache between her brows. She had been back from Yorkshire for less than a week, and her stamina was yet what it needed to be. At least in regards to Graham. "The Black Pack."
"Yeah? The Black Pack—oh, y'mean cause of all the 'wolves?" Graham offered sunnily. "But that's what I was talking about when I mentioned the burning. I mean, they'd be able to smell if anything—"
"Superior hearing, Graham."
The young electrician's expression froze, then recalibrated. "Ah. Right. That." He nodded thoughtfully. "So they probably heard all the bits from earlier, yeah? About the burning houses and the like?"
"Probably, yes."
"Well, that's not too good, is it."
Biddie added a second finger to her forehead. "Graham?"
"…I should go back down to the cellar now?"
"If you would, thank you."
He turned to go, and paused. "And the axes are—"
"No axes."
The electrician fled. Biddie sighed and rested her hand over her eyes. She spoke without turning around. "Maggie, dearest, is there any chance this conversation wasn't actually overheard by the majority of your household? Blatant lying would be appreciated.”
“In that case of course they didn’t.” Maggie couldn’t help the laughter in her voice as she approached her friend. “Honestly the only one who’ll be paying him any attention right now is Roberts, but I’ve found he’s rather suspicious by nature. How I passed his muster is something I’m still mystified about.”
She gave Biddie a light hug once the older woman turned around. “How are you? Did the Yorkshire countryside tire you out?” If she knew one thing about Biddie it was that she positively adored the city and was not a fan of country life.
Biddie returned the hug with – practiced - care.
"Bucolic. Or possibly bubonic." Biddie's tone made them synonymous. "There were green things. In January. Admittedly, most of them were indoors and in pots, but still. One needs the sanity of certain seasonal principles. I honestly don't comprehend how you manage to spend so much time at a country estate. Another week and I'd have gone howling in the wood just to keep things interesting. I couldn't even go hunting."
Disengaging, she twined Maggie's arm with her own. "Come on now. Your sheepdog can chaperone my shrimp for a while yet, without anyone catching fire." Probably. "Meanwhile we may steer back into civilized waters. By which, of course, I mean to wherever Betty is keeping the ices."
Betty was currently red-faced and laughing as the household called out their guesses as to which animal she was trying to pantomime.
“A duck?”
“A goose!”
“Naw, it was more a chicken. You saw that head bob.”
“Oh, Good lord,” she cried out finally, and she would’ve tossed her apron over her head if she were wearing it to hide her burning cheeks. As it was, she put her hands up to cover them. “It were a swan.”
There were some good natured laughs by way of reply, and she sat on a sofa, shaking her head.
“You make for a lovely swan,” Matthew replied, bumping her shoulder, upon which she gave him a light shove.
“Aw, tch.”
Bertie smiled as stepped up to offer his own greeting and compliments, reaching out shyly to clasp her hands if she permitted. A great deal was done at Black Park - and here at the London house - that would be frowned on elsewhere, but Bertie liked the freedom of the pack, the way it sorted each into rank and made them all equal at the same time.
"You were wonderful. I'm glad to see you out of the kitchen." Seeing Matthew beside her, Bertie offered him the same greeting he had to Lord Black, with perhaps a slightly sweeter smile. "I'm glad to see you as well, Mr Hill. I've wanted to speak with you...later, if you'll permit. I didn't know that I'd see you tonight, or I would have brought something with me, for you...but I don't want to interrupt."
Biting his lip as if that could keep in the bubble of light happiness from being among the pack, Bertie glanced between Betty and Lord Black. "Did you mention there was a lecture tonight? Is it on a scientific subject?"
“Of sorts,” Matthew replied cheerfully. “We’re lookin’ to add some electricity to the London house, and a friend of th’ Lady Black is so kind to give us a hand, and show us how to not burn down th’ entire house.”
Lucien rolled his eyes at Matthew’s cheek, and grinned. “Yes, well,” he said, “it’s high time we modernise some, and as you know, it’s perfectly safe when properly managed.”
"Especially now that you've confiscated Graham's ax," Biddie said, stepping into view with Maggie. "And since he never tries to smuggle in more than three, I think we are perfectly – ah."
For a moment, Biddie was honestly and truly surprised. For a moment, she could feel her own arm turn to seasoned oak in Maggie's grasp. For a moment, the evening's script fell of the page. For a moment, Biddie was…unsure.
But only for a moment, and moments were cheap.
"Mr. Eden," she said delightedly. She glanced at Maggie with warm curiosity. "I swear London shrink more and more under our very feet, with the ways one runs into familiar faces. It's a wonder there are any strangers left in this town."
Blast it, she thought. Then: blast it, damn it, fudge.
What the puking, boiling, snivelling, plume-plucked, rotting, piss-guzzling, brazen, quailing , fobbing, gnarling, beef-witted, venomed, stinking, greasy, fen-sucked, fly-bitten, dog-hearted, bat-fowling, sheep-biting bloody hell was Eden doing here?
Biddie released Maggie's arm and turned to beam at – "Betty! Angel of my heart and tongue, are there ices?"
(Inside her, the screaming continued.)
Maggie looked between her friend and the inspector, Biddie’s reaction was most unusual for her. “Inspector Eden is a friend of the Pack. I had no idea the two of you were acquainted as well.”
She made her way over to Lucien’s side and gave him a light kiss. “Everything is ready dearest, assuming Graham hasn’t found another ax.”
Wrestling expression and posture to 'pleasantly normal' was somewhat like punching herself in the gut, repeatedly and hard, but Biddie had weathered worse. She was built to weather worse. The inexplicable annoyance of Bertram Eden wasn't even among the top ten disturbances in her experience. Although the dear boy seemed dead set on climbing the list…
"Then I congratulate both parties on their luck," Biddie said agreeably. "Mr. Eden – ah, sorry – Inspector Eden kindly helped me more than once with some unique troubles." She gave a sudden rueful smile. "I think I've become so used to meeting him in unusual circumstances than I'm disgracefully unprepared to meeting in nice ones. Is that a sign of getting old, do you think? Hmm. Always figured my hair or knees would be the first signs."
Biddie raised her wrist to study the watch neatly clasped over the cuff of her glove, then nodded to the knob newly set into the wall. "Now then provides Maggie is right about the axes…would anybody like to count off?"
In truth, the wiring had been finalized over twenty minutes ago and could just as easily wait another twenty for demonstration, but if there was ever a need for a timely distraction…
Biddie held up one gloved finger, eyes still on her watch. “Start back from twelve - now.”
"Bertie."
Jamie's warning had been the only one, and given too late, before Lady Black had swept in and her friend - her</i> friend - Mrs Linden was there, something hard and shocked in her eyes before the smile had been applied, like another layer of lipstick, a mask as concealing as one made of butterflies.
Psyche.
Eurydice.
Bertie made a sound, soft and stifled, but there were werewolves all around, so that was no help.
"Bertie," Jamie breathed again, and Bertie knew, he knew, but there was nowhere to go, nothing for it but to play along.
He edged behind Matthew on instinct, seeking familiar, solid comfort (a friend of Lady Black) and only realizing that he had also backed into Jamie when the air around him was suddenly chillingly cold, shocking the breath from his lungs. Bertie jerked away again, and tried to cover, badly, sketching a bow to the ladies that hid the sudden tremble in his hands, murmuring something automatic and polite that he couldn't remember a second after saying it.
It was surprise, nothing more--and perhaps an echo, uncanny and unwelcome, of that place, and the ghosts, the table, the wine, the woman with only a skull for a face.
There was also the fact that Bertie now knew what Mrs Linden could do to him, or with him, anytime she chose, and what she'd threatened to do to Gabriel, and what the ghost she'd wailed and wept over was capable of, wearing someone else's body like a suit of clothes. He'd been suspicious and wary of her before, but ignorant. He ought to feign ignorance now, but oh, it was far too late for that.
"Nine..."
"Eight..."
"Seven..."
They were counting. What were they counting? Bertie had lost the thread somewhere in his startlement, too surprised at seeing Mrs Linden here, beaming at Betty as though they were old friends...which perhaps they were.
"Six..."
"Bertie," Jamie said a third time, insistent, dark and hollow, a warning wrapped in a threat and staring out from dead eyes.
Something about axes. And a fire. That she would burn the house down. As the factory had burned...oh, God, Bertie had to warn them, and he didn't know how.
"Five..."
"Four..."
He drew in breath to say something, anything, knowing already it would be high and panicked, and not nearly fast enough, since they were...
"Three..."
...already nearly...
"Two..."
...and Jamie swayed forward, cast in shadows that had no source and silent now and wrong, or perhaps just clearly, inarguably dead. Bertie flung out a hand--to stop him? to hold onto him?
"One!"
Electric light, steady and clear, flooded the room.
Matthew turned, a concerned question in his expression, as he clapped a hand on Bertie’s shoulder. The young man had a pale, worrisome look about him, and smelled… off.
Afraid.
There was enough in Matthew’s turn to draw Lucien’s attention -- he caught a quick glimpse of the two of them before the lights popped on, causing a few muffled yelps and surprised gasps around the room.
“Oh, Lordy be,” Samantha, one of the housemaids, exclaimed, as Roberts sniffed the air suspiciously, eyes narrowed.
Lucien stood, smiling warmly (after shooting Matthew another quick look). “Well done,” he said, nodding his head. “Quite well done.”
"Isn’t it thought?" Biddie agreed. She turned her gaze around the room with satisfaction, inspecting the new angles and dimensions the fixed light brought up. That gaze lingered just for a moment – oh, always the risk of the sudden, revealing moment – at spot near Bertie before returning back to her hosts.
"Such a fresh perspective to things," Biddie said. "You really see everything in the room, I mean."
She knew. Bertie didn't doubt it, not after the way Mrs Linden's eyes had danced around the presence of ghosts before, the way she sometimes looked as though she could catch them from the corner of her eye, hear them if she tilted her head just so. She knew Jamie was there.
Bertie turned in his direction, trusting Matthew as a cover when he whispered, "Jamie." Just that--a warning not unlike the one Jamie had just given him, and Bertie saw Jamie begin, reluctantly, to fade in the bright light of the room. He should have been translucent already, under the electric bulbs, but he'd been darker and stronger a moment ago than he normally was.
Bertie would think about that another time.
"It is very impressive," Bertie said at normal volume to Mrs Linden, with the sort of smile on his face that his parents had trained into him for guests at an early age, along with which fork to use and how to take tea. "I had no idea you could manage such things. But in your line of work, you must have to keep a great many secrets."
Too aware of Jamie's presence and vulnerability nearby, Bertie opened the conversation to the others, aiming for cheerful and, he would admit, slightly brainless. He tended toward babbling on without thought more often than he'd like to admit--it would do no harm to let that work for him, for once, to provide something of a smokescreen to hide truths behind.
"Industry is making such incredible advances, isn't it? Only the other day, I was taken for a ride somewhere I'd never experienced before. An automobile," Bertie clarified after the briefest pause, turning his smile away from Mrs Linden, though his instincts screamed to watch her, to not let her out of his sight. His heart was pounding so insistently he thought Matthew must be able to hear it where he stood. "It was quite fantastic. Do you think we'll reach a point of individual airships, as there are for motorcars?"
"Not secrets, but surprises," Biddie offered gamely. "Progress should be as much about revelation as improvement. And a dedication to follow through, of course. You've got to be willing to dig deep to hit pay dirt."
Six feet ought to do it, Biddie thought coldly.
She sat down, twitching a skirt fold into military correctness. No matter how dainty the lace or sleeve, Biddie almost always gave the impression of having come in uniform - or armor. Tonight's dinner dress was fine-grained and rosy, but nonetheless had a utilitarian bearing; the high-necked collar and fitted cuffs gave the impression that the wearer was expecting either an assignment or an accident. A green amber butterfly, its thin body cast in gold, gleamed wetly at her shoulder.
"Do you fancy the idea of sailing through the skies alone, Mr. Eden?" Biddie asked. She sounded genuinely curious. "It sounds rather lonely. I've always thought that company is what makes travel an experience. I think sometimes it even overshadows the homecoming." She looked rueful again. "But then I'm biased."
Be brave, Bertie told himself, and thought of Dex, of Zipporah, of Gabriel.
(He did not let himself think too much of Lady Black, and light laughter and butterflies, and electricity wires in the London pack house.)
Bertie managed to both look and sound humble rather than on-edge when he answered, "I find myself constantly reminded of how fortunate I am in my friends and companions." He looked around the small circle with unfeigned gratitude, letting the presence of the pack, the quiet pride of his place here among them, straighten his spine. "I don't believe I'd truly be alone on any journey."
He laughed then, and it only rang slightly false. "Perhaps two-person airships, then, as there are with automobiles. A navigator and a captain. So that no one is ever lost along the way."
“It’s frightfully cliche, but if I had my druthers,” Lucien replied, “I would rather go running with a crew than on my own. I suppose the need for good company whilst on a journey is a universal one. As well as the desire to not get left behind,” he added. “Progress can have a way of… well… progressing whether you’re on board or not.”
He was doing his best to be cheerful, to follow the thread of conversation, but he couldn’t help but feel as if there was a second conversation buried under the first -- one he couldn’t quite follow. He shot another look over at Matthew, who raised an eyebrow -- he seemed equally flummoxed, although he’d slung an arm over Bertie’s shoulder after he said the bit about never being alone -- and then looked over to Maggie, a hint of desperation in his glance.
“I wouldn’t want to be on my own either. But if you have friends then you’ll never be alone.” Maggie wasn’t sure at all what was going on, but even she could recognize that Bertie was afraid. Something that she was quite sure hadn’t been there before she and Biddie had come downstairs, and she knew that Bertie wasn’t afraid of her.
Therefore, for some reason, he was afraid of Biddie. There would be an explanation for why her friend was terrifying a friend and ally of her pack in the pack’s London home. But for now she would have to be diplomatic. “I think progress can be a wonderful thing, but we have to make sure that people aren’t left behind by it or left on their own without help. Wouldn’t you agree Bertie?”
Bertie had felt himself trembling slightly under Matthew's arm, but the reassurance on all sides settled in quickly, and he bowed silently in gratitude to Lady Black, dipping his head to show her respect. He didn't quite trust his tongue now that the foolhardy bravery of the moment before had passed--nor did he trust himself to look at Mrs Linden and the winking butterfly at her breast.
"I'd argue that progress which only benefits one man isn't progress at all," Biddie agreed. "It's extortion or worse. Science of that sort is the bloodless equivalent of manslaughter."
She laced her hands over knee, her expression one of consideration. "But it does raise certain questions, this tangle of betterment and innovation. Where sits our loyalty? For example, does one side with clients or employee when laying down foundations for the future? After all I have no company without the former, and I have no company without the latter. By humanitarian reasoning that makes them equal and thus, in accordance with mathematics, interchangeable."
"But." Biddie snapped her fingers, the sound a sharp crack. "Our society doesn't work like that. Indeed nobody's society works like that. We are inherently hierarchical. So in whose bed lies loyalty then, who do you protect is forced, for the sake of progress, to choose - the people one serves or the people who serve?"
"Moot point personally, though. I'd deny it to the last outside these walls," Biddie added cheerfully, "but frankly I'd skin a baron before leaving one of my own out in the cold. Which is probably why my cousin sits on the board."
“Ooer,” Samantha whispered to her neighbor, “s’ like a tennis match, innit?”
“Beg pardon,” one of the footmen, Daniels, spoke up with a clearing of his throat, and Lucien nodded, which was enough to make him bear on despite his fluster. “What about the role of government? The… the responsibility of governing, I mean to say. Which isn’t to say that Lord Black, fr’ instance, isn’t well looking out for us, because he is, but there’s also a bigger obligation. Ideally. To serve everyone as best as y’ can.”
“Thank you for that, Daniels. Governance still has its fair share of inequity,” Lucien replied, “and perhaps always will, but there is value in attempting to improve it, and it does somewhat re-frame the notion of who one’s own is, as well as re-defining who is served, and for what end. Ideally,” he added, with a small, swift smile and another nod Daniels’ way.
"My grandmother used to say that personal obligation is a matter of honor and mass responsibility is a form of obedience," Biddie said dryly. "Then again, she was French."
At the time, anyway, she added silently.
Maggie rolled her eyes, increasingly exacerbated at how a party meant to introduce electric light to the pack had turned into a mock debating society with a second underground conversation going on within. She wanted to drag Biddie off into another room and demand why the other woman was scaring poor Bertie half witless (though she wondered sometimes just how many wits he really had, the poor dear) by her very presence and words, but this wasn’t the proper time.
“Well the French are hardly a good example anyway.” She replied, feeling irrationally irritable at the moment. “What with several revolutions and six different means of government in less than a century.”
Taking a deep breath she pushed her irritation to the side and put a smile on her face. “Enough of such serious talk for this evening though.” She turned to her husband. “What shall we do to lighten the mood darling? Another game perhaps?”
“Agreed,” Lucien replied, with a note of relief. “Perhaps that shadow puppet show? Here, Matthew, Roberts, Bertie, might you give a hand to set it up? It shouldn’t take long.” He looked over to Biddie. “And I do believe ices are in order. I’ll fetch some.”
Betty looked as if she were about to protest, but Lucien raised a finger. “I’ll just be a minute.”
"Graham's likely done revolutionizing your cellar by now," Biddie said. "Maggie, love, do you think someone could rush down and haul him in? Make sure they check him for contraband - thoroughly."
God knew the evening didn’t need any more surprises.