Losing You, Chapter 2
May. 26th, 2012 12:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickIn response to popular one person's demand, we present "Losing You," chapter 2:
Chapter 2
January 28th, 1875
Burtonsville, England
7:23 A.M.
“WHERE IS THAT DRATTED SON OF MINE?!”
Victor jerked awake, nearly falling off the bed in his surprise. “He’s in a lot of trouble!” Nell’s voice continued. “How dare he run off with another woman the day of his wedding rehearsal!”
Victor winced as he sat up. Oh dear – this was going to be fun. For a moment, he was tempted just to hide in his room until someone else had told his mother all the details. But no – he had to face the music himself. It wasn’t fair to let Mother take out her anger on everyone else. He put on his shoes and hurried downstairs, bracing himself to meet his mother’s wrath.
Nell was in the front foyer, glaring at all and sundry. Beside her, his father looked oddly disheveled, with hat askew, hair a mess, and mud on his suit. “I don’t believe this!” Nell snarled to the world at large. “Our Victor – nothing better than a common rake!”
“Please, dear, I’m sure there’s just been some sort of misunderstanding,” William said, putting a hand on his wife’s shoulder to try and calm her down. “Especially considering what we heard the town crier say.”
“I certainly hope so! The other alternative is too horrible for me to contemplate!” Nell spotted her son standing in the doorway, fiddling with his tie. “You! Where have you been? And who was that tart who tried to drag you away from an excellent marriage?”
Victor felt a brief flicker of anger at his mother calling Emily a “tart,” but reminded himself she didn’t know any better. “It’s – it’s r-rather a long story, Mother, and q-quite a fantastic one at that. . . .”
“Victor, the town crier said something about you eloping with a corpse earlier,” William said, peering at him with concern. “There’s not something we should, ah, know about you, is there son?”
Victor frowned at him for a moment, baffled. What was his father getting at? Did they already know the story thanks to the crier? But no, not even that loudmouth could know everything –
And then it clicked. Victor’s eyes went wide with horror. “No! Oh God no, Father! It’s n-not like that at all!”
“She must be an ugly one, to make the town crier mistake her for a corpse,” Nell snapped, fanning herself.
“She wasn’t ug– she was a corpse, Mother.”
“But you just said--” William started.
“She just happened to be up and walking about at the time.”
Both his parents stared at him like he’d just said he was a chicken who laid chocolate eggs. “What?” Nell finally asked, arching an eyebrow.
“It’s a t-terribly long story, Mother, and I’m e-extremely hungry. Could we p-perhaps discuss it over b-breakfast?” Victor pleaded.
“No, we’ll discuss it now! What do you mean, she was a corpse who was up and walking? Such things just don’t happen, Victor!”
“Not n-normally, but – a-after the wedding rehearsal, I wandered into the woods while practicing my v-vows,” Victor started, wishing he could at least sit down. He was feeling very wobbly. “I thought I would h-have some privacy there. I tried again and again, and f-finally I got them right. I was u-using the trees around me as p-props at the time, and I s-slipped the ring onto a root that l-looked like a hand. Except that it w-was a hand, as I quickly f-found out. The hand of a m-murdered bride who t-thought someone had finally come along to claim her in m-marriage. She r-rose from the ground and a-accepted my accidental proposal. I t-tried to run away, but she c-caught up and – and t-took me to the Land of the Dead.”
His parents stared again. “The Land of the What?” William said slowly.
“The Land of the Dead. Downstairs. It’s w-where people – and animals,” Victor added, thinking of Scraps, “go when they die. It’s r-rather like the Land of the Living, only it’s m-much more colorful and some of the people are s-skeletons.” He found himself smiling as he thought of it. “And e-everyone’s as friendly as can be. They w-welcomed me into the ‘family’ almost immediately. Didn’t even matter that I was still alive, or that I was t-treating them a bit – poorly.” He frowned as he remembered his behavior when he’d first woken up in the Ball & Socket. It seemed abominably rude now. At least everyone there had seemed to understand he was in shock and rather frightened.
“He’s gone mad,” Nell said quietly, staring at him over the top of her fan. “He’s lost his mind.”
“Victor, you’re talking nonsense,” William said, in a soothing tone of voice. “There’s no such thing as the Land of the Dead. There’s Heaven, and then there’s Hell.”
“No, Father, it exists! I’ve been there! Alfred Carter was down there – Mrs. Carter’s husband! He’s just a skeleton with a m-mustache now, but it was him! And Scraps was there too! Emily g-gave him to me as a wedding present!”
“Emily?” Nell said, voice sharp. “Is that your other woman?”
“That was the bride, yes,” Victor snapped, starting to get a bit irritated. “Emily – um – j-just Emily.”
“You don’t even know her last name?”
“She never told me,” Victor confessed, blushing with embarrassment. “I guess s-she didn’t feel the need. M-maybe because she t-thought we were married, and thus her l-last name would have been V-Van Dort.”
“Victor, really,” William said, voice still gentle. “Your dog couldn’t be in the afterlife. Animals don’t have souls.”
“It was him, Father,” Victor said, frowning. “I know it was.”
“So you’re saying no one in the church knows what they’re talking about when they say animals can’t go to the afterlife? And that there’s no other realms besides Heaven and Hell?” William asked, turning from soothing to severe. “That’s sacrilege, Victor.”
Victor wasn’t sure what to say for a moment. His father was technically right – he’d grown up being taught animals didn’t have souls, and that there were only two places to go after one died. To go against that felt – weird. But – he’d seen differently with his own two eyes. How could he deny the evidence of his senses? “M-maybe they are wrong,” he said, frowning at his parents. “Maybe Catholicism is the one that’s g-got it anywhere n-near right, with Purgatory. The Land of the Dead c-could be that. A p-place for people to r-ready themselves and take care of f-final business before moving on p-properly. Or it c-could be something entirely different. I don’t know. I j-just know what I saw.”
“Victor!” William gasped.
“I can’t deny what I experienced, Father! I’m not s-saying Heaven and Hell don’t exist, I’m just s-saying there’s something else as well. I am saying animals c-can enter that land. It was Scraps, Father. He was decayed down to a skeleton, but it was the same bark, the same manners – he even still had the collar I got f-for him.”
“Forget your stupid dog for the moment,” Nell said, waving her hands. “I want to know more about this supposed bride. So you don’t know her last name. What did you know about her?”
“That she was murdered by the man she meant to elope with,” Victor said quietly. “None other than Lord Barkis Bittern, in fact.”
“Lord Barkis? That big-chinned fellow who showed up at your rehearsal?”
“Yes,” Victor said. “In the past, he courted Emily, and convinced her to elope with him when her father d-didn’t approve of the match. And then he killed her to steal the gold and jewels he told her to bring.” He felt a sharp pain in his heart just thinking about it. Poor sweet Emily, all alone under the oak tree, waiting impatiently to begin a new life with the man she loved. . .and then a monster appears before her, she screams, and everything goes black. . . . He suddenly wished she was around again, if only to give her a much-deserved hug. “She vowed to wait for her ‘true love’ to come and ask for her hand.”
“And that was you, was it?” Nell said, in such tones of derision Victor felt like he’d been slapped.
“I don’t know,” Victor said honestly. His feelings on the whole matter were very confused. He’d spent most of his time with Emily trying to get away and thinking about Victoria, yes, but. . .he hadn’t been able to just tell her straight out that he was promised to another, for fear of breaking her heart. He hadn’t been able to hate her, even after she’d torn him away from everything he’d known. He’d felt horrendously guilty for deceiving her, for hurting her. He’d been mesmerized by her dancing, her smiles, her giggles. The piano duet they’d shared had been wonderful – he’d never seen such enthusiasm in a woman before. And when he’d said, “I would never marry you,” every atom of his body had rebelled, had wanted to yank the words back – because they simply weren’t true. Goodness, even when he’d discovered marrying Emily properly would require his death, he hadn’t felt any real hesitation to do it. Partially because he believed Victoria was lost to him forever, yes, but also because he couldn’t see death with Emily as being a bad thing. All throughout the wedding preparations, he’d been thinking about what his afterlife with his new wife might be like, and the scenarios he’d come up with had filled him with much the same warmth as thinking about life with Victoria. If Victoria hadn’t been in the church, if Emily hadn’t seen her. . . . “All I know is that I woke her up. For whatever reason, she was able to accept my proposal.”
“So if you’re married to a dead girl, then where on earth is she?” Nell demanded, looking around. “Have you got the corpse stuffed into your closet?”
“No! Look, as it turned out, we weren’t actually m-married – a living man couldn’t marry a dead bride. So we had to do our vows again, only t-this time I had to drink poison during my vows, so I could. . .w-well. . . .”
“You agreed to kill yourself?” William said, eyes wide behind his spectacles.
“I thought there was n-nothing left for me up here – Mayhew told me Victoria was getting m-married to another. You do know what happened to Mayhew, right?” he added hurriedly.
“Of course we do – we found his body on the road after your father had to take the reins,” Nell replied, rather carelessly. “Sad business, admittedly – bad way to die. And extremely inconvenient. But we heard that news too! The Everglots wanted to marry her off to some wealthy newcomer, all because you disappeared!”
“I know, and I’m sorry,” Victor said, wincing. “I never wanted to see Victoria – er, Miss Everglot – m-marry someone else. Especially not Lord Barkis.”
“Lord Barkis?! So she’s Lady Bittern now? Victor, you’ve really--”
“She’s Widow Bittern,” Victor said quickly, holding up his hands. “It’s very complicated, but they ended up at the church where Emily and I were to say our vows--”
“So now they ended up in this Land of the Dead?”
“No, the ceremony had to take place in this world. Emily stopped me from d-drinking the poison because she didn’t w-want Victoria to suffer like she h-had, Lord Barkis t-tried to steal Victoria back, Emily r-recognized him as her murderer, there was a fight, and he e-ended up drinking the poison meant for me.”
“So he’s dead now?” Nell said, seizing on the one thing she actually understood.
“Yes,” Victor nodded. “Dead and gone.”
“All right. And this Emily person – is she still around? Are you engaged to any other girl except the one we picked for you right at this moment?”
“No,” Victor said. “Emily’s – moved on. And I assure you, I don’t have any s-secret girlfriends about.”
“None at all?”
“No. I promise, Mother.”
“Good! That’s all I wanted to know. We may be able to salvage this yet. You’ll probably have to wait a year for the girl, but I can live with that, I suppose.” Nell turned to the door. “Let’s go see the Everglots and beg them to--”
“Please, Mother, I’m starving,” Victor begged, clasping his hands. “I haven’t had anything to eat for at least a day. May we please have breakfast first?”
“The Everglots are most likely having their morning meal now too,” William told his wife. “We shouldn’t interrupt. And I could do with a good cup of tea myself.”
“Oh, all right,” Nell sighed deeply. “But straight over afterward!”
***
Breakfast was a surprisingly quiet affair – Nell seemed to understand that the fastest way to get her husband and son out the door was to let them get on with the business of eating. Victor practically inhaled his food, beyond grateful to finally have something he could eat set in front of him. Even though the residents of the Land of the Dead were some of the kindest, most generous people he’d ever known, they weren’t exactly the best at cooking for living guests.
After he’d finally eaten his fill, Nell hurried the men into their carriage. Victor honestly thought it would be faster just to walk across the square, but didn’t dare argue with his mother. She was in a mood, frowning deeply at everyone and waving her fan mechanically in front of her face. Victor knew he was going to catch holy hell if this didn’t work out the way Nell wanted. At least I know that Victoria’s on my side, he thought. I certainly hope her talk with her parents went better than mine!
They arrived at the Everglots and popped Nell out of the carriage. “I really do hope they’re still willing to consider you,” Nell said as they ascended the steps. “Do you always have to make such a mess of things, Victor?”
“I didn’t mean to, Mother,” Victor said. “Do you think I w-wanted to raise the dead?”
“Don’t even start.” Nell rang the bellpull, sending a sonorous “booom” into the morning air. “Ugh, we go to all this trouble to get you a good, society-approved bride, and you have to ruin it by running off with some other silly woman who’s already been jilted by another man.”
Victor’s hackles rose. “Emily was--”
“What did I just say about not starting?” Nell rang the bell again, frowning. “Goodness, they could at least answer their door!”
“Maybe they’re out?” William said, leaning on his cane.
“Where would they be right after breakfast?” Frustrated, Nell rapped hard on the door. “Now see here, we’re not--”
She stopped dead as the door creaked open under her fist. There was a long moment of silence. Then Victor darted forward, pushing past his mother and throwing the door open.
The entrance hall was in complete disarray, with an upturned table in front of the fireplace and food and china scattered everywhere. Victor ran past it and up the stairs, where he knew the bedrooms were. “Lord Everglot? Lady Everglot? Victoria?!”
No one answered his cry. Heedless of the rudeness of his actions, he wrenched open the doors of the various upstairs rooms. The bedrooms looked like disaster zones, with wardrobes hanging open and leftover clothes lying on the beds and floors. A few vases had been knocked to the floor and broken, and in the upstairs hallway, a couple of paintings had been knocked askew. But there was no sign of any people. “Victoria?!” he cried again. “VICTORIA?!”
No answer. Just silence and emptiness all around him. He returned to the top of the stairs, where his parents were taking in the scene with wide eyes. “. . .they’re gone.”
Quick explanation for the religion thing -- I generally write Victor and his family as being Protestant, which doesn't have Purgatory.
January 28th, 1875
Burtonsville, England
7:23 A.M.
“WHERE IS THAT DRATTED SON OF MINE?!”
Victor jerked awake, nearly falling off the bed in his surprise. “He’s in a lot of trouble!” Nell’s voice continued. “How dare he run off with another woman the day of his wedding rehearsal!”
Victor winced as he sat up. Oh dear – this was going to be fun. For a moment, he was tempted just to hide in his room until someone else had told his mother all the details. But no – he had to face the music himself. It wasn’t fair to let Mother take out her anger on everyone else. He put on his shoes and hurried downstairs, bracing himself to meet his mother’s wrath.
Nell was in the front foyer, glaring at all and sundry. Beside her, his father looked oddly disheveled, with hat askew, hair a mess, and mud on his suit. “I don’t believe this!” Nell snarled to the world at large. “Our Victor – nothing better than a common rake!”
“Please, dear, I’m sure there’s just been some sort of misunderstanding,” William said, putting a hand on his wife’s shoulder to try and calm her down. “Especially considering what we heard the town crier say.”
“I certainly hope so! The other alternative is too horrible for me to contemplate!” Nell spotted her son standing in the doorway, fiddling with his tie. “You! Where have you been? And who was that tart who tried to drag you away from an excellent marriage?”
Victor felt a brief flicker of anger at his mother calling Emily a “tart,” but reminded himself she didn’t know any better. “It’s – it’s r-rather a long story, Mother, and q-quite a fantastic one at that. . . .”
“Victor, the town crier said something about you eloping with a corpse earlier,” William said, peering at him with concern. “There’s not something we should, ah, know about you, is there son?”
Victor frowned at him for a moment, baffled. What was his father getting at? Did they already know the story thanks to the crier? But no, not even that loudmouth could know everything –
And then it clicked. Victor’s eyes went wide with horror. “No! Oh God no, Father! It’s n-not like that at all!”
“She must be an ugly one, to make the town crier mistake her for a corpse,” Nell snapped, fanning herself.
“She wasn’t ug– she was a corpse, Mother.”
“But you just said--” William started.
“She just happened to be up and walking about at the time.”
Both his parents stared at him like he’d just said he was a chicken who laid chocolate eggs. “What?” Nell finally asked, arching an eyebrow.
“It’s a t-terribly long story, Mother, and I’m e-extremely hungry. Could we p-perhaps discuss it over b-breakfast?” Victor pleaded.
“No, we’ll discuss it now! What do you mean, she was a corpse who was up and walking? Such things just don’t happen, Victor!”
“Not n-normally, but – a-after the wedding rehearsal, I wandered into the woods while practicing my v-vows,” Victor started, wishing he could at least sit down. He was feeling very wobbly. “I thought I would h-have some privacy there. I tried again and again, and f-finally I got them right. I was u-using the trees around me as p-props at the time, and I s-slipped the ring onto a root that l-looked like a hand. Except that it w-was a hand, as I quickly f-found out. The hand of a m-murdered bride who t-thought someone had finally come along to claim her in m-marriage. She r-rose from the ground and a-accepted my accidental proposal. I t-tried to run away, but she c-caught up and – and t-took me to the Land of the Dead.”
His parents stared again. “The Land of the What?” William said slowly.
“The Land of the Dead. Downstairs. It’s w-where people – and animals,” Victor added, thinking of Scraps, “go when they die. It’s r-rather like the Land of the Living, only it’s m-much more colorful and some of the people are s-skeletons.” He found himself smiling as he thought of it. “And e-everyone’s as friendly as can be. They w-welcomed me into the ‘family’ almost immediately. Didn’t even matter that I was still alive, or that I was t-treating them a bit – poorly.” He frowned as he remembered his behavior when he’d first woken up in the Ball & Socket. It seemed abominably rude now. At least everyone there had seemed to understand he was in shock and rather frightened.
“He’s gone mad,” Nell said quietly, staring at him over the top of her fan. “He’s lost his mind.”
“Victor, you’re talking nonsense,” William said, in a soothing tone of voice. “There’s no such thing as the Land of the Dead. There’s Heaven, and then there’s Hell.”
“No, Father, it exists! I’ve been there! Alfred Carter was down there – Mrs. Carter’s husband! He’s just a skeleton with a m-mustache now, but it was him! And Scraps was there too! Emily g-gave him to me as a wedding present!”
“Emily?” Nell said, voice sharp. “Is that your other woman?”
“That was the bride, yes,” Victor snapped, starting to get a bit irritated. “Emily – um – j-just Emily.”
“You don’t even know her last name?”
“She never told me,” Victor confessed, blushing with embarrassment. “I guess s-she didn’t feel the need. M-maybe because she t-thought we were married, and thus her l-last name would have been V-Van Dort.”
“Victor, really,” William said, voice still gentle. “Your dog couldn’t be in the afterlife. Animals don’t have souls.”
“It was him, Father,” Victor said, frowning. “I know it was.”
“So you’re saying no one in the church knows what they’re talking about when they say animals can’t go to the afterlife? And that there’s no other realms besides Heaven and Hell?” William asked, turning from soothing to severe. “That’s sacrilege, Victor.”
Victor wasn’t sure what to say for a moment. His father was technically right – he’d grown up being taught animals didn’t have souls, and that there were only two places to go after one died. To go against that felt – weird. But – he’d seen differently with his own two eyes. How could he deny the evidence of his senses? “M-maybe they are wrong,” he said, frowning at his parents. “Maybe Catholicism is the one that’s g-got it anywhere n-near right, with Purgatory. The Land of the Dead c-could be that. A p-place for people to r-ready themselves and take care of f-final business before moving on p-properly. Or it c-could be something entirely different. I don’t know. I j-just know what I saw.”
“Victor!” William gasped.
“I can’t deny what I experienced, Father! I’m not s-saying Heaven and Hell don’t exist, I’m just s-saying there’s something else as well. I am saying animals c-can enter that land. It was Scraps, Father. He was decayed down to a skeleton, but it was the same bark, the same manners – he even still had the collar I got f-for him.”
“Forget your stupid dog for the moment,” Nell said, waving her hands. “I want to know more about this supposed bride. So you don’t know her last name. What did you know about her?”
“That she was murdered by the man she meant to elope with,” Victor said quietly. “None other than Lord Barkis Bittern, in fact.”
“Lord Barkis? That big-chinned fellow who showed up at your rehearsal?”
“Yes,” Victor said. “In the past, he courted Emily, and convinced her to elope with him when her father d-didn’t approve of the match. And then he killed her to steal the gold and jewels he told her to bring.” He felt a sharp pain in his heart just thinking about it. Poor sweet Emily, all alone under the oak tree, waiting impatiently to begin a new life with the man she loved. . .and then a monster appears before her, she screams, and everything goes black. . . . He suddenly wished she was around again, if only to give her a much-deserved hug. “She vowed to wait for her ‘true love’ to come and ask for her hand.”
“And that was you, was it?” Nell said, in such tones of derision Victor felt like he’d been slapped.
“I don’t know,” Victor said honestly. His feelings on the whole matter were very confused. He’d spent most of his time with Emily trying to get away and thinking about Victoria, yes, but. . .he hadn’t been able to just tell her straight out that he was promised to another, for fear of breaking her heart. He hadn’t been able to hate her, even after she’d torn him away from everything he’d known. He’d felt horrendously guilty for deceiving her, for hurting her. He’d been mesmerized by her dancing, her smiles, her giggles. The piano duet they’d shared had been wonderful – he’d never seen such enthusiasm in a woman before. And when he’d said, “I would never marry you,” every atom of his body had rebelled, had wanted to yank the words back – because they simply weren’t true. Goodness, even when he’d discovered marrying Emily properly would require his death, he hadn’t felt any real hesitation to do it. Partially because he believed Victoria was lost to him forever, yes, but also because he couldn’t see death with Emily as being a bad thing. All throughout the wedding preparations, he’d been thinking about what his afterlife with his new wife might be like, and the scenarios he’d come up with had filled him with much the same warmth as thinking about life with Victoria. If Victoria hadn’t been in the church, if Emily hadn’t seen her. . . . “All I know is that I woke her up. For whatever reason, she was able to accept my proposal.”
“So if you’re married to a dead girl, then where on earth is she?” Nell demanded, looking around. “Have you got the corpse stuffed into your closet?”
“No! Look, as it turned out, we weren’t actually m-married – a living man couldn’t marry a dead bride. So we had to do our vows again, only t-this time I had to drink poison during my vows, so I could. . .w-well. . . .”
“You agreed to kill yourself?” William said, eyes wide behind his spectacles.
“I thought there was n-nothing left for me up here – Mayhew told me Victoria was getting m-married to another. You do know what happened to Mayhew, right?” he added hurriedly.
“Of course we do – we found his body on the road after your father had to take the reins,” Nell replied, rather carelessly. “Sad business, admittedly – bad way to die. And extremely inconvenient. But we heard that news too! The Everglots wanted to marry her off to some wealthy newcomer, all because you disappeared!”
“I know, and I’m sorry,” Victor said, wincing. “I never wanted to see Victoria – er, Miss Everglot – m-marry someone else. Especially not Lord Barkis.”
“Lord Barkis?! So she’s Lady Bittern now? Victor, you’ve really--”
“She’s Widow Bittern,” Victor said quickly, holding up his hands. “It’s very complicated, but they ended up at the church where Emily and I were to say our vows--”
“So now they ended up in this Land of the Dead?”
“No, the ceremony had to take place in this world. Emily stopped me from d-drinking the poison because she didn’t w-want Victoria to suffer like she h-had, Lord Barkis t-tried to steal Victoria back, Emily r-recognized him as her murderer, there was a fight, and he e-ended up drinking the poison meant for me.”
“So he’s dead now?” Nell said, seizing on the one thing she actually understood.
“Yes,” Victor nodded. “Dead and gone.”
“All right. And this Emily person – is she still around? Are you engaged to any other girl except the one we picked for you right at this moment?”
“No,” Victor said. “Emily’s – moved on. And I assure you, I don’t have any s-secret girlfriends about.”
“None at all?”
“No. I promise, Mother.”
“Good! That’s all I wanted to know. We may be able to salvage this yet. You’ll probably have to wait a year for the girl, but I can live with that, I suppose.” Nell turned to the door. “Let’s go see the Everglots and beg them to--”
“Please, Mother, I’m starving,” Victor begged, clasping his hands. “I haven’t had anything to eat for at least a day. May we please have breakfast first?”
“The Everglots are most likely having their morning meal now too,” William told his wife. “We shouldn’t interrupt. And I could do with a good cup of tea myself.”
“Oh, all right,” Nell sighed deeply. “But straight over afterward!”
Breakfast was a surprisingly quiet affair – Nell seemed to understand that the fastest way to get her husband and son out the door was to let them get on with the business of eating. Victor practically inhaled his food, beyond grateful to finally have something he could eat set in front of him. Even though the residents of the Land of the Dead were some of the kindest, most generous people he’d ever known, they weren’t exactly the best at cooking for living guests.
After he’d finally eaten his fill, Nell hurried the men into their carriage. Victor honestly thought it would be faster just to walk across the square, but didn’t dare argue with his mother. She was in a mood, frowning deeply at everyone and waving her fan mechanically in front of her face. Victor knew he was going to catch holy hell if this didn’t work out the way Nell wanted. At least I know that Victoria’s on my side, he thought. I certainly hope her talk with her parents went better than mine!
They arrived at the Everglots and popped Nell out of the carriage. “I really do hope they’re still willing to consider you,” Nell said as they ascended the steps. “Do you always have to make such a mess of things, Victor?”
“I didn’t mean to, Mother,” Victor said. “Do you think I w-wanted to raise the dead?”
“Don’t even start.” Nell rang the bellpull, sending a sonorous “booom” into the morning air. “Ugh, we go to all this trouble to get you a good, society-approved bride, and you have to ruin it by running off with some other silly woman who’s already been jilted by another man.”
Victor’s hackles rose. “Emily was--”
“What did I just say about not starting?” Nell rang the bell again, frowning. “Goodness, they could at least answer their door!”
“Maybe they’re out?” William said, leaning on his cane.
“Where would they be right after breakfast?” Frustrated, Nell rapped hard on the door. “Now see here, we’re not--”
She stopped dead as the door creaked open under her fist. There was a long moment of silence. Then Victor darted forward, pushing past his mother and throwing the door open.
The entrance hall was in complete disarray, with an upturned table in front of the fireplace and food and china scattered everywhere. Victor ran past it and up the stairs, where he knew the bedrooms were. “Lord Everglot? Lady Everglot? Victoria?!”
No one answered his cry. Heedless of the rudeness of his actions, he wrenched open the doors of the various upstairs rooms. The bedrooms looked like disaster zones, with wardrobes hanging open and leftover clothes lying on the beds and floors. A few vases had been knocked to the floor and broken, and in the upstairs hallway, a couple of paintings had been knocked askew. But there was no sign of any people. “Victoria?!” he cried again. “VICTORIA?!”
No answer. Just silence and emptiness all around him. He returned to the top of the stairs, where his parents were taking in the scene with wide eyes. “. . .they’re gone.”
Quick explanation for the religion thing -- I generally write Victor and his family as being Protestant, which doesn't have Purgatory.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2012-05-26 05:40 pm (UTC)Guess I'm the one person, eh?
It's good, I like it. I still want to punch Nell in the face, but I like it. Seriously, did she even WANT children? Having one of my own, I can't stand to think of parents like her. I'm glad Victor turned out to be a decent human being at least.
Edit: Wait, she wanted a girl, didn't she? Still, no excuse...
no subject
Date: 2012-05-26 10:55 pm (UTC)I'm glad you're enjoying it. And yes, she wanted a girl, though I can't imagine her being a much better mother to a daughter. She's honestly not the type who really wants to RAISE children. She'd be better off with dolls. Or Sims.
no subject
Date: 2012-05-27 10:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-27 11:46 pm (UTC)