All Soul's Day- November 2nd, 1888

[valdemars]

Date: November 2nd, 1888
Time: 10:00am - 10:30 am (service- characters may stay for longer, though)
Location: The chapel
Characters: Everyone [OPEN/CLOSED]

Summary: The household gathers together in the chapel for a short All Soul's Day service.
Warnings: None.


The Valdemar family are not, by and large, particularly religious. "My faith," proclaimed Lady Valdemar once, to the horror of her husband's parents, "lies while science and science alone. If God should have a hand in that, so be it. I couldn't care less either way."

Yet here they were, gathered together in silent prayer before the altar and the glassy purview of King Solomon and a host of angels, huddled in the dark pews at the front as if in collective repentance- not that Her Ladyship seems particularly repentant. From the slant of her shoulders to her poker-straight back to the upward jut of her chin, all of her bearing is far too proud for a humble servant; she watches her husband take to the lectern with an almost feline boredom, thin lips pursed. Even a servant watching from a second floor balcony might note the smear of carmine on them, as if brushed on for the sole purpose of better expressing her disdain.

"The righteous perish, and no one ponders it in his heart; devout men are taken away, and no one understands that the righteous are taken away to be spared from evil." Lord Valdemar seems uncomfortable with so many eyes upon him, and he studiously avoids his wife's stare. He dabs at his brow with a handkerchief before continuing. "Those who walk uprightly enter into peace; they find rest as they lie in death."

His voice, though low and quiet, echoes throughout the space with a new importance that could only have been built into place by a canny architect with an ear for dramatics. A Madonna relief rolls her eyes piously to the ceiling; a spider inches its way down her shoulder and drops onto the organ, silent for years now.

The final stretch now. "I live in a high and holy place, but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite," he finishes- and, the bible closes in a dusty thump. With another mop of the brow, he murmurs something pleading about feeling faint before bolting for the hallway wearing a martyred look.

Lady Valdemar sniffs. "A migraine," she informs no one in particular, rising from the pew. She makes it sound like an accusation. "His health is so tenuous these days."

But for all of her snide comments, that she is the one left rather than her husband does allow for a little breathing room. If anyone should want to light a candle or speak a silent prayer of their own, now is the time.


[This is an open post for all of the household. Threads may either take place during, before or after the service. Lady Valdemar will also be available to speak with, assuming your character is either of the right station or has an excuse to do so- say so in your post's subject line if that would interest you.]

Comments

[anachronisticbilliards]

"Oh...I'm very sorry to hear that." He was quite sincere about that. Shirogane had always liked kids. He didn't like to see them suffer, and he hated to hear that one would not survive to adulthood, even if such things were more common than he'd like. He wondered how it had happened, but he did not ask. To do so seemed rather impolite, not to mention insensitive.

[gentlemanliest]

Robin has never really been one for children but it's hard not to be endeared by the smile that hearing his mother tongue being spoken draws out of him.

"No, I'm not but I spent a few years there," he replied. Russian was always a useful to language to know in his experience, particularly when his closest friend was Saint Petersburg's finest. He pauses briefly. "Perhaps we should speak in English, though. It would help you to learn."

A little harsh, maybe, but practical.

[motherof_bone]

Mary follows where he indicates. She... may or may not remember the man's name. She isn't good with those sorts of things, people tend to blend together for her, all of them tainted in some way, dripping black inside. However, she sees members of the house frequently enough that she may be able to get hold of each uniquely, given a little time and practice. The children of the house most certainly.

"Very good," she praises him, a light pat on the shoulder. "I hope you will like it here."

There were nice things about living in a strange house. There were none of her memories built into the walls, none of her family staring at her with nervous eyes. But every house had its secrets and its filth.

[motherof_bone]

She bats at her hair nervously, very careful not to make eye-contact lest she give something of herself away. Eyes are the windows to the soul and hers is so withered and virulent.

"Yes," she agrees faintly, a tremulous smile. "But I'll light my candles today."

As if that explains it all away, proves what a good mother she is.

[anachronisticbilliards]

Shirogane was enough of a gambler to see that a nerve somewhere had inadvertently been struck. He assumed the discomfort was simply upset at the mention of her child, not any sort of guilt over it. He tried to return her smile with a reassuring one of his own. "That's all any of us can do."

Even though he had no intention of doing so himself, nor did he think the practice would actually accomplish anything. But reassurance was reassurance, and if she needed such things, he'd not say anything otherwise.

[muscovy]

Nodding, Ivan attempts a few sentences but realizes that he lacks the vocabulary for all of them. In the end, he decides on: "Not many childs."

It's neither a positive nor a negative thing to him, but it does make him wonder how his father wants to get his education going. Timo said that he wanted him to learn more than the little that he knows, but if there are no other children, his father won't be able to pawn him off on their teachers - that is how it happened back where he is from. If children visited and were accompanied by a governess or another type of teacher because they stayed that long, he was sent to learn with them, but he was never considered important enough to employ someone for his sake if that road could be walked, too.

As with most things, he guesses that he will find out.

[ryuuzaki]

"Hm. Father's things." A noncommittal echo.

The house had been sold years ago, and L's characteristic lack of sentimentality meant that a number of their father's personal belongings had remained in storage. Their father hadn't taken any serious interest in him past the expected paternal one until he was older, almost ready for University--he had been taken up with his work and his new wife and child. But then, L's own interests had proved to be more in line with the elder Mr. Latimer's than Robin's had been, and then in line with Lord Valdemar's... he had slipped from one family into another.

A young Lady Valdemar of the mid-eighteenth century seemed to be gazing down at them both with an expression of curiousity. "I can't say that I have a strong recollection of everything that was placed in storage. Are there any items of particular significance?" A few of his books were in L's personal library, and there was the matter of his mother's jewelry, but....

[ryuuzaki]

"It's quite all right if your father shows you around the public areas of the house." This will be understood, he thinks, to mean that other people's bedrooms are off-limits, along with locked areas. "However, you shouldn't wander unaccompanied. Your father, or Miss Saint Croix, or Mr. Lyall must be with you at all times, or Lord and Lady Valdemar will be displeased." More to the point, it seems more than plausible that a child, particularly one of an age to still be in the nursery, would be capable of unintentionally disrupting any number of experiments, destroying valuable books, and so on.

He offers the lemon drop again. "Take it." His attempt at a small, encouraging smile doesn't quite make it to his eyes... but then, it rarely does. He's rarely an indulgent man.

[gentlemanliest]

"No, not particularly." Again, he applied some selectivity and skipped pointing out that most items of value had been left to his elder brother in the will anyway. He wasn't bitter about it by any stretch of the imagination; it would have done no good to leave such things to the son who would spend most of his time on the other side of the world. "But I thought that you might like to check and see if there was anything you wanted before I disposed of them or put them into a more permanent storage."

Unfortunately, Robin didn't share his reasoned lack of sentimentality and, left to his own devices, he probably would have kept everything in the damned trunks. But this was no time for getting misty-eyed over dusty heirlooms- perhaps he had to reawaken the calculating general still lying dormant inside him.

[ryuuzaki]

L nodded, once, then frowned. Most of those items had been sorted almost thirty years earlier, and again since then. However, because it had been such a very long time, the possibility that seeing something might reawaken his interest in all of it existed. Something else occurred to him, too--people he hadn't considered at the time, people who were very small or, mostly, had yet to be born.

"The children might be interested. It's difficult for me to be certain--they didn't know him. There was a watercolour that Grandmama had painted as a girl... a landscape near Bath, I seem to recall." Old family miniatures, a watch chain or two. Some of them would think it was decrepit junk, but some might regret the chance if it passed them by. It was hard to say who would take which tack... hard for him to say much about the children at all when only Misaya was at home.