(no subject)

[anachronisticbilliards]

Date: November 2, 1888
Time: 1:00 PM - 3:00 PM
Location: Various locations around the house.
Characters: Shirogane (anachronisticbilliards) and YOU! [OPEN/CLOSED]
Summary: Shirogane's just trying to do his job and is available to be bothered.
Warnings: Moving furniture. The horror.



What with all of the people constantly coming and going at Aungier House, furniture needed to be moved around quite often. Rooms needed to be prepared. Some rooms didn't have enough furniture. Others had too much. Other rooms had the appropriate amounts of furniture and were well-used, but the furniture still needed to be moved so that the maids could clean.

That's where the footmen came in. Today, Shirogane found himself doing just that--moving furniture. For the most part, he didn't mind the work. It could be physically demanding, true, but at least there was a point to it. A purpose other than that someone somewhere thought criminals needed to walk on treadmills or turn pointless cranks for hours on end. For a few hours in the afternoon, he could be found moving furniture between rooms as he'd been directed. If he needed to be bothered or pulled away for some other task, well, he was just a footman. He didn't quite have as much governance over his own time as he would have liked.

Comments

2pm, in the first floor Drawing Room

[mouthbreathing]

Hindsight would likely remind Warsman later that walking along while reading wasn't the most sensible thing to do with his time, but until then karma was only too happy to pick up the slack.

In his defense, the books here really were quite unlike anything he'd ever seen before; there were so many in one place, and on so many subjects from so many years gone by. Reading in English fluently was a skill that, even after seven years, still required honing on his part, but he knew more than enough to dive into some of the lighter texts on offer. So much that picking between the array of volumes jammed onto each and every shelf took him far longer than he'd anticipated, and he hadn't even noticed Shirogane getting to work in the room next door.

Which was probably why, as he made to leave with his latest acquisition open in his hands, he completely failed to notice the chaise shuffled rather closer to the doorway than usual- and walked right into it. Giving an impressively loud oof, Warsman stumbled over the back of the sofa and landed mask-first in the cushions, while Moll Flanders took to the air with aerodynamics that would have captivated any physicist. That it was also likely to catch Shirogane hard on its way back down was less worth boasting about.

[anachronisticbilliards]

Shirogane had been rather focused on the small chest he was in the process of trying to move, and so he completely failed to notice Warsman's presence until it was too late...if, by "too late," one meant "a copy of Moll Flanders suddenly came out of nowhere to hit him in the head." There was a bit of swearing as Shirogane suddenly dropped the small chest he'd been carrying and turned to glare at whoever had thrown the book at him. At least, he assumed it had been thrown.

[mouthbreathing]

Righting himself on the chaise, Warsman didn't even realise Shirogane was around to give him that filthy look until he finally lifted his head, one hand pressed to his helmet to try and steady his head. As his sight settled first on the young manservant and then on the book now lying on the floor beside the dropped chest, though realisation dawned.

"Ah-" He struggled back to his feet and around the sofa, holding his hands up defensively. "I'm sorry! I wasn't-- are you alright?" Trying to apologise properly could wait- if he was right, the poor man had a look more on his mind than explanations. Quite literally.

[anachronisticbilliards]

"There are other ways of getting my attention that don't involve throwing books at me." Shirogane rubbed at the spot where the book had conked him in the head. Perhaps the tone wasn't as polite as what he should have taken with a guest of the family who was therefore more important than he was, but he was fairly certain he'd just had a book thrown at his head. This, despite the fact that Warsman had already apologized.

[mouthbreathing]

Oh, dear. Judging by his face, he was going to have to do better than hurriedly sputtering out an apology like hot fat in a frying pan. Warsman at least had the decency to look as shame-faced as he can manage with his mask's limited range of expressions.

"I didn't mean to throw it- I tripped on the sofa and it flew out of my hands. I really am sorry." He took a hesitant, hopeful step forward, silently praying that he'd been clearer this time. "I hope it didn't hurt too badly...?"

[anachronisticbilliards]

Tripped? On the sofa? The sofa Shirogane had moved so that it was partially blocking the doorway while he got that end table into the proper position?

Oops. That realization seemed to blunt the worst of his anger, at least. "Ah...no, no, I'm fine..." How very awkward. "I did not realize I'd placed the sofa so far out there in the way..."

[mouthbreathing]

Watching realisation dawn on Shirogane's face was something of a eureka moment for Warsman; the very last impression he thought he'd be combating that day was of someone so utterly dismissive of those around him that he saw fit to demand their attention by throwing someone else's (probably expensive) property at them.

"You hadn't," he answered gently. "I was reading at the time. I really should have been more aware, but..." But it really was a startling read. He paused, glancing almost plaintively to the floor again. "... not to undermine my apology, but... do you think you could help me find it? The book, that is. I have a sneaking suspicion it might have been a first edition."

[anachronisticbilliards]

Shirogane nodded. "I think it bounced off somewhere in that direction..." Not like he'd been watching the book when it ricocheted off his head, but he at least felt the thing bounce off. That had to help with something. "What book was it?" Not like this would help with the search process much. There would only be one book lying around somewhere in there, right?

[mouthbreathing]

Right. A direction. That was a good start. Warsman turned towards the corner of the room and padded carefully across the floor, shoes clipped on the floorboa-- ah, he'd heard a thump when it landed as well as after it hit its mark, hadn't it? If it had landed on one of the Persian rugs this family seemed so very fond of the sound would have been swaddled by the carpeting.

Indeed, he was so preoccupied by his search that he didn't think to put off giving his answer, and found himself saying, "'Moll Flanders', by Mr. Daniel Defoe," before he could review whether or not it was wise to advertise his literary habits in this particular instance. "It has a brown cover..."

[anachronisticbilliards]

"I hope it's not going to blend in with the flooring..." Shirogane was not at all well-read in the least, and so the title failed to elicit any sort of judgement from him one way or another. A lost book was a lost book, even if this one seemed as though it would make for a formidable weapon in a worst-case scenario. He got down on his hands and knees, the better to peer under chairs and tables. "What's it about?" He was a bit curious as to what a mechanical man might have been so engrossed in reading that he walked straight into a couch.

[mouthbreathing]

For a moment, when the realisation of just what his admission might have entailed caught up with him, he thought he'd gotten away with it. How silly of him.

If he'd had cheeks, Warsman would have blushed. "It's..." How could he possibly make this sound appropriate? It wasn't that he'd been caught with an issue of The Pearl, but it seemed like precisely the sort of thing he could be misunderstood about. "It's about the life of a sinful woman," he settled on eventually, then busied himself leaning over a nearby armchair to check behind it, completely missing the book at his feet in his hurry.

[anachronisticbilliards]

"Ah." Shirogane was sorry he'd asked. He'd spent more than enough time hanging around areas of varying levels of disrepute to know exactly what being a "sinful woman" would entail. He supposed it was one of those novels that would present the life of such an individual in great, scalacious detail, only to hastily add that this narrative existed only to provide the gentle reader with an example of the horrors of sin. It was definitely not the sort of thing he would have expected a mechanical man to be perusing. No wonder he wanted to find the book. Leaving something like that lying around where one of the children might find it probably wasn't the best idea.

Shirogane had started up his own search on the other side of the room and had his back to the book on the floor, but at Warsman's explanation of its contents, Shirogane couldn't help but turn to look at the other in surprise. When he did that, he spotted the book by Warsman's feet. He breathed a sigh of relief and went to pick it up, opening it up to flip through the pages as he did so. Morbid curiosity, one might call it. "Is this it?"

[mouthbreathing]

'Ah'. That said it all, really, didn't it? Silently, Warsman cursed himself for not having the ingenuity to lie on the spot- though if he'd been caught out at some later point, the man would doubtless have thought him frightfully rude as well as a sensationalist.

He winced slightly as he found and held the book up, not only because he'd miss it in so obvious a place but because it meant the evidence was right in front of his face. "Yes... yes, that's it."

Rather than claim it immediately, though, he at least had the grace to let the manservant leaf through it first; if he were Robin he'd probably have been able to leap in then and there with page numbers and recommendations, citing the most affecting and elegantly written passages, but all he could do was stand by in slightly embarrassed silence. "... I... really couldn't give you an opinion on it yet," he forced himself to say eventually. "Mr. Defoe's works are apparently held in very high regard, though. You're welcome to borrow it when I've finished."

[anachronisticbilliards]

Shirogane closed the book and handed it back to Warsman. He seemed surprised at the suggestion he read it later. "Ah, I usually don't often have much of a chance to read," he said, embarrassed. "I generally play cards on the occasion I do have a bit of time to myself..."