Who: Marguerite Blakeney and Chauvelin What: Apparently ignoring bitter creeper ghosts doesn't always work. When: Late afternoon, 19 September Where: Streets of Lawrence Warnings: Creeper is a creeper, taunting, threatening. Status: COMPLETE
Marguerite had jinxed herself. She never should have told Peter that she would eventually be fine so long as Chauvelin didn't show up. Because what happened two days later? Just that. At first she had been confused as to how he had just...shown up in her apartment. And even though people were saying that they were being visited by ghosts, the man seemed far too lifelike to her. Even if he were dead, it didn't bring any sense of peace to the actress because Percy was still dead. And the Seal instead brought Chauvelin to haunt her.
The days were trying. Because if there was one thing Marguerite refused to do, it was to show weakness in front of her former lover. No longer was he friend, or even an acquaintance. No. He was a man she hated with all the passion they both knew to fill her. It was draining to hate, but Chauvelin had lied and blackmailed, threatened Armand, killed Percy and was waiting to do so to her and Armand back home. It had been reckless to attempt to strangle him after agreeing to share his bed to save Armand. But seeing him hurt her brother...still, if she had succeeded, they could have gotten out. Especially knowing what she now knew. That her husband had been there the entire time.
She knew that people recommended salt. Iron. Well, it was hard to remain in a salt circle when she had rehearsal to go to. And it was hard to adhere to the buddy system when the one person she wouldn't feel bad asking was having panic attacks from a vampire in town. Which meant she was alone with Chauvelin's ghost going to and from the theatre.
During rehearsal, it wasn't so bad. She was focused. And while Petra was more loose in her ways, it was nothing more than a role. And like all roles, she gave her all to it. But she couldn't stay at the theatre forever and that was where the issue was.
Sighing as waited at a crosswalk, the displaced French woman tried to ignore the man beside her. It really was all she could do right now.
Chauvelin had watched her on the stage of course. He'd stayed and watched every second of his actress playing her part. And she was good. She was very good, wasted in a place like this really. But she was ignoring him. She'd tried it as a tactic but he would not be ignored. Not by her. Of all people not by her. He knew her even if was pretending to be someone new. Changed. Oh the foolish woman. He knew her so completely and she could lie to herself all she wanted but he'd find it in her . Let her use that hate she felt for him. She couldn't hurt him, but he could hurt her if he had a need. And maybe he would. Maybe to get his Marguerite back he would need to.
"Well is this it, is this the life you live now. Always the actress. Still at least this is a part you can play hm?" he began wondering just where it had all gone wrong for the girl he'd once known. "Are you planning to ignore me Marguerite, or run to your fellows here, our countrymen. The brave revolutionary perhaps. Do you think if he knew what you were he wouldn't drag you back to me himself? Or any of the others you claim to have befriended. How many of them have you lied to and betrayed.?” His hand reached up to her face as they waited at the crosswalk, turning it toward him with a grip a little stronger than that of a former lover.
"Do you believe if you ignore me I will just go? Perhaps to be replaced with him. Do you really believe life so kind. I certainly do not. Its hard, and you have to work to gain anything. And its a shame that our...that the one that brought us here chose me. Do you think it for your sins Lady?"
Marguerite knew he was watching. Could feel his eyes on her. He used to watch her rehearse back in France, and then it hadn't been such an issue. On stage it hadn't been an issue, either. Merely an annoyance and as she was the only one who could see him, she could not have him removed. But that was only in the theatre, once they were outside it was another story completely.
The light seemed to be taking forever, or perhaps it was just because he was talking. And then forcing her to look at him. She heard his words, the insults. The smug nature and callous words. And she glared in response.
"I ignore you because I have nothing to say to you." Pulling away, the red head started across the street as the light turned green. It would be nice if Percy would replace Chauvelin, but life didn’t work that way. "You and I both know life is never that kind so why would I waste my time hoping for such a thing?"
Back tense, she shook her head.
"And the only reason there was any betrayal was because of you and your blackmail. Just as the only reason I am left to play the eternal actress is because you had Percy killed."
Managing not to get choked up at the memory, Marguerite ignored the jabs about Enjolras dragging her back to Chauvelin. About how the role she presently had was similar to her own past. No. She knew that here she was very much alone.
Foolish woman. How ‘love’ had changed her. Once she had been so so much more than the pitiful wife of an enemy of the people. Oh yes, Marguerite had been so different once. “And why do you imagine I blackmailed you. I asked you to help me did I not, I tried to remind you of the woman you should be. But nothing would do it, nothing but your traitor of a brother. So yes, I did. I blackmailed you, and I would do it all again. You gave up on the dream Lady Blakeney.” her name was almost spat from his lips as he was at her side again.
That was the thing about ghosts of course, they did not so easily leave. They did not so easily push themselves away. And why would he, given a chance to return even in this strange place, say no?
“Do you remember it at all? Before him, when it was just you and me and France?” God help him even now he would give so much to have that back again. But her love was to an enemy and so she was as much a traitor as her brother. So he would torment her. In whatever time he had, because she deserved nothing less for what she had done to him.
Marguerite listened, filing away the words he spoke. She knew his stance, of course. She had always known it. It had been part of what had come between them. The fanatical drive to rid France of the aristos. And oh Marguerite had agreed with the ideals. She always would, that hadn’t changed. Her problem was with the way things went. The bloodlust, the deaths of those who had done nothing wrong but being born into a family of wealth, just as those like herself had been born to the gutter rats.
Shaking her head in disgust, the actress shot an annoyed look to the side where Chauvelin walked (or whatever it was ghosts did) beside her.
“The woman I was supposed to be? You mean someone who does not care who dies and judges people on a single aspect just as they judged us? You really are mad!”
Laughing in shocked disgust, Marguerite managed to bypass a person who stumbled into her path, going silent. This really would be a time she should invest in a mobile phone so she could pretend to be on that while arguing with Chauvelin.
“Never did my dreams include murder. You’ve always known that. Just because I fell in love with an ‘enemy’ does not mean I gave anything up. It is actually quite possible to agree with the ideals and be disgusted by the way things played out. And what had become of my home? That was something I would never stand behind.”
Did she remember? Of course she did. She remembered it all. The passion and intensity. She remembered how he became more obsessive and more willing to kill. People died all the time, she wasn’t naive, but to be killed? Sometimes just for disagreeing? She would never understand how people could support that, laugh as another head fell from their precious madame.
He laughed at that, couldn’t help it. But the idealism of thinking there was a way to win without the deaths of the aristos. “And what were we to do? Lock them all away, so many with so many crimes? Were we to do that? Or ship them to England as your husband was so fond of doing? No, they had to die. And with a single swing, oh its almost humane. More than other ways of doing the deed, don’t you think.” He loved it of course, watching the fear in their eyes as they waited, watching them kneel to the new Queen of France and then...
“Am I supposed to believe you are a hero now? Is this what you claim? Perhaps you’d like me to believe my replacement was a hero too?” Yes, was. No sense in making her happy, she didn’t deserve it, traitor that she was. “He fell to her just the same did he not”
Cruel perhaps but had she not driven him to it.
“I am here to make you think, make you remember, and oh yes, make you sorry for your lies. And that my dear, I will do. Make no mistake.”
Marguerite knew Percy was dead, she had seen it with her own eyes. The constant reminders of this fact, the jabs at it, they were painful, they tore at her constantly but she still held herself together because she refused for him to see her break because of him. He had already taken her husband from her, he wouldn’t get the remaining shards of her dignity as well.
“And the children? They were judged just on their parents. Entire families judged on one person’s crimes. People killed without trial for disagreeing with the new regime. You say it was justified, but when a majority of the supposed crimes were just having money? Please.”
Because how often were there actually trials to see if the ones denounced and accused were actually guilty of the crimes they were charged with? There were beheadings daily. She may have hated St. Cyr, but hate and wanting someone dead were far from being one and the same.
The comment on calling herself a hero caused Marguerite to scoff.
“Please, I am no hero nor have I ever claimed to be as such.”
And she hadn’t. What was the point? There was nothing heroic in betraying a man and his family to keep her past hidden. Was Percy a hero? Yes. If only by going by the criteria Henry had laid out before her when he was teaching her about superheros.
“And Percy was far more than a replacement, Chauvelin. He was a better man than you and didn’t feel the need to resort to killing. You both fought for what you believed in, yes, but he saw more than you ever could.”
There was so much about Percy that she had known yet had been closed out from because of Chauvelin. Because of St. Cyr’s murder by her betrayal. The man she had seen in those weeks, that she had given her heart to. So much beneath the surface. And now he was dead. Dead because of her sins and her ties to Chauvelin and Chauvelin’s need to have power and kill any he felt to be a traitor. But oh how Percy had outwitted him those months, had outwitted them all.
He was tired of mention of that man. His unexpected nemesis. And he supposed Percy had played them all rather impressively. Chauvelin would never have believed him capable of being the Pimpernel. But it seemed he had been and so he had once again been fooled and outwitted by the Englishman. But no more. It would happen no more.
“And yet you believe he still loved you at the end? That your lies, your history, it wouldn’t catch up with you. Oh it did.” With a flash of anger Chauvelin grabbed her arm pulling her into a side street and pushing her against a wall. “Free woman” he seemed to sneer. “You live now as nobility, following English society, so much more than they deserve. But I know what you were don’t I? I remember better than anyone.” His hand once again traced her cheekbone before reeling back to slap her. “Before you betrayed me of course. Before you walked away from me, from France, from everything you once were.”
He had lied to her about St.Cyr yes. But there were some things he had felt it would be better that she not know. That she not ever know. So yes, she’d given him up and Chauvelin had had him found, hunted down and dragged before the guillotine. It was more than the man deserved to have a quick death delivered him. And his family too. “...Paris needed to be cleansed. Cleansed of their filth and of their lies. Do you not see? You can run all you wish, run to the nobility of another land. Poor little displaced Frenchwoman. Do they know where you come from? And your friends here, do they know how quickly you can turn if you must.”
Her skin grew red where he had slapped her and Chauvelin could not help but trace the mark, he almost felt sorry for her. Almost.
“Never forget how well I know you.” he whispered softly. “If I hurt you, and its likely I will, but if I do it is because of how much you hurt me. Do you understand? You did this to yourself when you walked away.”
Chauvelin may be tired of the mention of Percy, but if he brought him up, Marguerite would state his name. If it made sense in context of the conversation, Marguerite would mention her husband’s name. And she had been about to retort that her past didn’t matter, that Percy knew from when she had confessed her sins and history to the Pimpernel, that he had told her to find her husband, because he still loved her, but instead she was being shoved against a wall, more words being hurled at her. Reminding her of her past. Of how she had transplanted. Oh, English nobility had never been her life, not really. She had been able to fit in but by being alone because of Percy’s act, of Armand’s travels, she had never been able to find a niche for herself. To see if there was a way she could make a change.
The slap came as a surprise. She knew that the ghosts could get violent, had seen others claim it as such. And while she knew that Chauvelin had a temper, she still hadn’t expected that. It wasn’t the first time she’d been slapped in an alleyway. Not all clients were willing to part with their money. She had been nothing to them and the same for her. But it kept her and Armand fed and protected and that was all that mattered to her at the time before she had a more steady source of income from the theatre.
Marguerite remained tense as he traced the mark where he had slapped her, watching him warily. She knew he could hurt her in ways no one would understand. He knew her too well for her liking in this situation. When he had turned from friend to enemy. Because she betrayed him. But they had long been over in their liaison when she had met Percy and yet that still was a betrayal to him. Would she turn on those here, though? She didn’t have any real connections despite being here for over two months. But there also was nothing to hold over her. No brother to protect. Percy was still dead in Paris. She had never gone into the details of her past, not really. The only one who knew most of it was Henry. Little Henry who was like Armand at that age. And even that wasn’t much, just that she had lied to protect herself. But she had meant it when she said she never would have betrayed her husband’s secret. Because then she could have found another way...
The soft whisper sent chills down Marguerite’s spine, because she knew Chauvelin just as he knew her. She knew that he would indeed hurt her. Because she couldn’t always be protected by rock salt and iron. Yet to blame her for his actions? She wasn’t holding anything against him to make him do anything. She wasn’t telling him what to do in this instance. This was all him.
“You can blame me all you want for the actions you do against me, but in the end, they’re of your choosing and doing.”
The correlation to their conversation in France before she’d been sent to the prisons with Armand was not lost on her. How they could have had a future but now she died a traitor and alone... yet he was the one who was alone. She may have been sentenced to die, but not alone. Because she had Armand and knew he loved her, even if at that point, she doubted Percy did still love her beyond the assurances of the Pimpernel.
“My doing?” he asked actually genuinely curious as to how she had worked that out in her deluded little mind. She’d forgotten who she was. She’d done that a long time ago and so he’d used her for the good of his people. Her people too of course. Much as it seemed she had forgotten that. “I do not know how long I’m here for, but for however long. I will remind you of all your misdeeds, and oh yes, you’ll pay for them.”
She’d had every chance to be so much more than the ‘Free’ woman she’d been when he found her, they’d blazed a trail together since that fateful day at the Bastille, but she’d walked away from it, from everything, and for a noble. For some foolish noble idiot. And Chauealin still stood by his opinion of Percy, truth or no. He still knew an idiot when he saw it and no one was that good an actor. What did she see in him? How, just how, had that English fool replaced him...
He grabbed her arm and pulled her back out of the alley.
“Back home I expect Marguerite. Won’t that be better.” he added, it wasn’t a question of course but he expected she knew that.
Chauvelin would always live in his delusions. She never had forgotten that France was her home, the people still her people. There had been times in England where she wanted to go home, she missed it. But all the death, the hatred, well... it was too dangerous. Of had she not seen what was happening, had she turned a blind eye to it all, she would have been safe. But she was outspoken, she said what she felt . And no one determined what she felt, no matter what Chauvelin wanted to believe.
“You can claim I made you do it, but I never have held information over you, never threatened the life of someone you love. There has been no coercion on my part in the things you may do to me here. That? That is all you.”
Marguerite’s eyes had narrowed, never wavered. She well expected him to remind her of everything she had done. Some would be actual misdeeds, the betrayal of Percy’s confidence, the death of St. Cyr and his family despite the promise they would remain unharmed. But there was also the imagined misdeeds that only Chauvelin would consider to be because of who he was.
As he pulled her out of the alley, the actress pulled her arm free of Chauvelin’s grip, glaring at him. She knew that back home was not much better. She had been in the process of being led up the guillotine before she was here. That certainly was not better. But it would be swift in any case.
“Oh exceedingly.”
The comment was said with a roll of her eyes. There was nothing waiting for her back home. Just death and then Armand’s death. Once one was a traitor, no trial was necessary. It was simply execution. But she would at least die knowing Percy did love her.
Even though she knew that he wouldn’t be leaving her alone, knew that ignoring him really got her nowhere, Marguerite started back towards the complex. Apparently it was time to look for rock salt.