a wet hand flops out of the curling lip of the bath, an encouraging gesture and a prop with which fei brings herself to sit higher.
all this time, and there's still the compulsive urge to scrape up the good moments, collect them against her chest before the inevitably faded away. fei finds it happens less and less often as the years go on, particularly since her wedding night, but there are some little joys which never stop inciting that need to hold a good thing against you while it lasts: such as the warmth of a luxurious, overlarge bath.
"it's going to get cold by the time you finish all that puttering." her temple comes to rest against the rim, gaze tracking charlotte as she moves to and fro. "leave the clothes, they're fine."
this woman was a terribly casual paramour, once teased that a wedding band could only make her romantic if it had been on the hand of another. makes it a habit of slinking into all those quiet, untouched places ⸺ always happening upon where vita was most unwanted. she'd like to know things tenderly still, but living such as this has only proved that if victoria were to take anything in this life: it would not be done without maiming something first.
she'd played coy with the want for so long that it had become something else entirely. it became something that she could no longer bare to look at, so allow her to divert her sights. from the argent vanity reflection, to the rain-striken windows in all their vastness and back again. fingers move deftly, quietly abiding the invitation with only a placid closed-mouth smile to show for it. "if i might speak freely ... you wear it well, m'lady."
fei is as if she were the very portrait of ophelia come to life and twice as decadent. looking as if she hadn't allowed herself to drown at all, still baring the romantic trappings. in all of its intricacy, the dress was surely a sight, even still rippling in the small draft as if it were never steeped in english rain. oppositely, vita had been dressed plainly: a lady's maid missing her apron with an intricately mended bodice. she's near enough to feel the damp warmth of fei's skin when motioning to undo the steel clasp at her nape. "is there a dressing gown i can prepare for you?"
she thinks of her husband as vita undoes the back of her dress ⸺ the familiar measure of his hands, each finger overlarge for the minuscule crepe buttons. their undoing still possible, perhaps, for men with patience: each fastener another labour, a whole spine of meticulous hurdles that would yield, in the end, a reward chased to the end of the night. still ⸺ strange, all these extraneous little buttons. made by women, for women. ornamental and completely useless, aside from the function of barring an indelicate gender from them. nearly purposeful.
you wear it well. she pauses. hand cants sidelong, not so much to look at the maid as to catch her in the peripheral. the phrase itself is innocuous, yet there is something stripped down in the woman's tone. without filigree. the sound of the storm fills the room, clatter and din.
"the look of a drowned woman?" faye's gaze turns forward once more, amused. "i'll have to sit for waterhouse."
she thinks of her husband, again, only in vague the matter of tallying up scores. dark-haired vita works gently, quickly. her fingers warm from some prior task she does not know; there is an impulse to ask, but she lets the curiousity patter up against her as the storm does the panes.
"not yet. the water will ruin the silk." spoken decisively, chin raised, as if a matter of respect for finery. it is, instead, the remnants of a financial prudence. "i'll air out first."
Title: Lady Manderley
Full name: Fei Mandrake or Faye Mandrake (Stage name)
Age: 31
Occupation: Actress, former dancer, and verified It Girl.
Faceclaim: Ni Ni (Flowers of War)
❧ There’s a thousand stories like hers. She knows this because she’s heard them all, identical as the pieces of confetti that line the floors of the backrooms these tales are shared within: perfectly aligned in shape, with only a slight difference in colour. Life is hard, and it hurt me. It is, perhaps, why Fei becomes Faye, and why the story she tells of her youth – in the few times she tells it – shifts each time, morphing from something true and hurtful to dishonest and shimmering, no different than a mirage on the skyline: she cannot abide sameness. She could not afford to be like others.
❧ In order to survive, Faye made herself sparkle. After years toiling in vaudeville grandstands to the Zeigfeld Follies and eventually stages curated for herself alone, Faye becomes a dancer celebrated alongside Josephine Baker and Louise Brooks, billed internationally as The Eighth Wonder. Touted along her home country of America and then beyond, Faye makes headlines for daring costumes, daring new acts, and various romantic escapades. While neither the dragon lady nor tragic blossom that the press would have her seem, she cycles through these archetypes willingly in order to maintain public interest. Beneath her carefully languid glamour, Faye is meticulous, every facet of her public image crafted by her own hands: information leaked at her behest, tear-gemmed cheeks seen leaving the theatre, her maid seen throwing out gifted jewels (and carefully retrieving them in an hour’s time, when lurking journalists have finally left). Though no stranger to a good time, she places the pursuit of pleasure beneath the maintenance of a safe, assured life. It’s an exhaustive process, but at least in this life she has a featherdown bed to retire to at the end of the night.
❧ Faye Mandrake had been her stage name before she’d met him, and the papers celebrate the fortuitous — and perhaps rather conspicuous — union of an American darling with a young English noble. Baron Manderley, as she meets him, is handsome and hungry: a playboy who charms his way backstage, into her heart, and her bed — not necessarily in that order. It’s as much lust as it is the next step in her survival, Faye unable to separate pragmatism from the veins of her heart: to become Lady Mandrake, rather than Faye Mandrake, stage vixen and it girl, is to secure something steadier and heavier. A place to finally rest.
❧ Though never quite the exotic, lurid creature the press would have her seem, time has perhaps shaped Faye into something more truly resembling those tropes she once played: dragon lady and withering flower; a beautiful, burning thing, and one mired under hurt. Play a role long enough, and you’re bound to become it. Her relationship with Lord Mandrake notoriously taut, they pace around one another relentlessly, often involving casualties. Their arguments, similarly, are ceaseless: she resents his attempts at control, particularly in her career, and he accuses her of looking for a way to slip the leash; they both misuse the fleeting attentions of others. Shared passion keeps the pair together, but with the notion of divorce recently raised during a row in their London home, she follows him resentfully to Montmere, her husband’s recommendation of a place to cool off literally and figuratively.
❧ While capable of mirroring the occupants of the household, with the stress of her tumultuous marriage and the strain of leaving her beloved stage, Faye is less amenable to playing the glittering It Girl that she would normally perform. It comes in spades, the charm and that famous wit – the kind one can only forge through the necessity of creating a new self at every hard turn – and then as soon as it comes it retreats again. Enigmatic as a dark cat on the shining grounds of Montmere, she becomes as unfathomable as her reputation, lounging in the imported fashions she’s turned to trend. Dazzling but irritable in her boredom, prone to misbehaviours for the attention of her husband, if this conduct didn’t come from a deeply-seated melancholy, you’d think it another ploy for public relations.
❧ Has recently debuted as an actress, and despite criticism of the move from stage to film as emblematic of a new lot in life rather than passion (a rare true fact, for the press), the two pictures have been a massive commercial and critical successes. She longs, however, for the dark smoke of the stage and fixated eyes of a live audience.
the rain has slicked everything, even the innards of the house: without even the touch of rain itself, montmere has grown damp, allowing everything within it to slide at a hastened pace ⸺ furniture, people, opportunities. the staff scurry with renewed vigour, wary of their employers irrigated temperaments, setting footsteps and tasks in intricate, sprightly motion, and even the upstairs occupants seem to move quicker than their normal, languorous pace: discomfort, it seems, is a rational plague. it effects all equally.
fei, perhaps, is alone in her listlessness. indifferent to the cloying wet of her dress and familiar the the practice of endurance, she strays absently to the vanity as she waits for yanyu to return. it's in that cool silver reflection that she catches a presence, slim and pale, fixed with a cloud of hair dark as the place where a dream emerges from.
"miss saville," her eyes, hard found in the dim lighting of the room. fei searches for them regardless, her fingers pressing into the flesh of an earlobe, releasing the backing of a pearl earring by memory. "would you enter, please?"
victoria weren't meant to be there, in the doorway like a long black shadow ⸺ or perhaps like death if it had risen as a woman only half-sopped and still smelling like the dripping lilacs she had been perched beneath earlier that evening. maybe vita had only felt like death, or like a flower that had gotten tired of weeping and decided to dry up still in it's watered vase. she'll tell herself that it were the weather, how could she feel so insipid in this big, warm house?
the ripple of fei's voice in all that stillness excites like a wild tonic, does much to remind vita that she were in fact still where she should not have been. that nonetheless, she had stayed. she had to follow the sound by ear alone before lifting her gaze, moving forth with so little as a fluttering thought mouth is finally primed for speaking. "you'll have to forgive me," there's no mention as to what for ⸺ for staring, for the unfortunate weather, or perhaps for wanting so very badly to be near fei. vita crossed the room languidly, halting just before the vanity bench. "would you allow me to assist you?"
it's a very female bunch of words she offers, a bouquet of no particular meaning that reeks of womanhood ⸺ you'll have to forgive me. for what? vita hasn't said, but it doesn't particularly matter. fei has learned that they're always meant to be sorry as women: for something they've done or something they haven't, for lingering, for leaving, for wanting. she watches vita through the mirror as she approaches, a hard slip of a thing, sylphish but with defined edges.
"if you have a moment. my maid has gone downstairs to aid the household staff, leaving me alone in this watery grave of a dress." one pearl earring clatters against the desk. her fingers return for its matching set until it too lays on the dark oak of the vanity. "its removal is a task i would charge my husband with if it weren't for the delicacy of the buttons."
the rain has slicked everything, even the innards of the house: without even the touch of rain itself, montmere has grown damp, allowing everything within it to slide at a hastened pace ⸺ furniture, people, opportunities. the staff scurry with renewed vigour, wary of their employers irrigated temperaments, setting footsteps and tasks in intricate, sprightly motion, and even the upstairs occupants seem to move quicker than their normal, languorous pace: discomfort, it seems, is a rational plague. it effects all equally.
fei, perhaps, is alone in her listlessness. indifferent to the cloying wet of her dress and familiar the the practice of endurance, she strays absently to the vanity as she waits for yanyu to return. it's in that cool silver reflection that she catches a presence, slim and pale, fixed with a cloud of hair dark as the place where a dream emerges from.
"miss saville," her eyes, hard found in the dim lighting of the room. fei searches for them regardless, her fingers pressing into the flesh of an earlobe, releasing the backing of a pearl earring by memory. "would you enter, please?"
As usual, [she] vacillated between experiencing emotions passionately and restraining herself from sentimentality; the former was her nature and the latter was her principle. She never admitted to feeling sad or empty, and only the keenest observer could perceive a change in her confident self-possession.
amid the crowd of dripping arrivals waiting for tea & emotional compensation for a ruined afternoon, FAYE substitutes in a new, and perhaps more dangerous game. ╱ ( open : 0/2 )
her voice, when it rises above the din of the parlour room, carries smooth and confident across the surfaces of every present head: landing squarely upon each crown until the weight presses them into a curious quiet.
had she not filled the stage so eloquently with a body, faye would have found quick employ with that voice.
"well, it seems to me there's no cause for such atmospheric upheaval unless someone has committed a mortal sin." though her hair is still slick, the waves dampened and loosening in some part by her ear, she fusses not at all with it, which in turn makes the gleam appear natural; the utter comfortability gives the impression of one perhaps misplaced on dry land. hadn't she once had an act emerging from a shell, decorated only in roping lengths of milky pearls? dark eyes glow amber in the dim light, fei's gaze casting around the room like a lantern. "shall we hazard a guess as to whose the cause?
⸺ most creative allegation to be named the winner, of course."
name: names are a tricky thing. born zhang feifei, her first billings see her printed as faye wong before she would become known as a solo act under fei or faye mandrake, depending on the publication. similarly, she signs her communications largely with a simple, flourished F, but can be found using fei or faye interchangeably. married name tba when connection is taken up.
title(s): lady, by marriage.
referred to as: lady manderley. "the eighth wonder of the world" has been her stage by-line for years.
nickname(s): lady mandrake, if you're cheeky. wonder or marvel, if you're affectionate.
age: thirty-one
gender: cis woman.
sexual orientation: fairly amorphous and without label. public-facing she performs heteronormative, though there have been occasional salacious rumours of sapphic affairs with other performers.
occupation: actress, former dancer, & general celebrity.
nationality: american.
religion: chinese folk religion, almost entirely lapsed save a few lingering impulses.
class: old money (by marriage), formerly new money (by ambition).
place of birth: lower manhattan, new york. chinatown district.
hometown: prior to her marriage and current residence in london, england, she was touring extensively, making her something of a nomad. in her few rests, she was based out of new york city.
faceclaim: ni ni ( the flowers of war ).
physical description.
height: 5'6"
weight: 110lbs.
build: very fine-boned and slightly pear-shaped, with a particularly long, elegant torso & rounded hips. fairly well-endowed for one so slim, a mark of grace for a former showgirl who was already on the shorter side. devoted to calisthenics, and is taut for it. tends to appear taller than she is due to the willowy frame. notorious for her alleged 23-inch waist (whether this is exaggerated or not is up to your discerning eye).
distinguishing marks: an inch-long scar on her right hip, thin as a razor blade. after the lead in a performance at the follies fell ill, faye took her place with moments to spare. in the refitting of the costume, a pin slipped through the flesh of her hip. without time to readjust, she performed with it lodged inside her, never missing a beat. various misgivings on her feet, the hallmark of a lifelong dancer.
hair colour: jet black, never dyed. meticulously combed with rosemary oil for shine.
hair style: has previously been seen in the shingle/bob as well as the eton crop, but these days it's a shoulder-length finger wave per ni ni in the flowers of war. can be seen with a scarf or turban weaved through her hair, particularly in more casual looks.
eye colour: brown.
clothing: fashion forward & forever furthering. a highly studied trendsetter, faye's closet is varied and at times envelope-pushing - even tearing. aside from western clothing she also favours silk cheongsams, which previously she had handmade with imported materials at a shop in nyc's chinatown by an expat master. she's not found anyone up to her standard in the uk, and subsequently treasures the pieces she currently has, only able to accumulate more in travel. though she loves a good hat or silk scarf, you won't see faye in a headpiece unless she's deliberately chasing an eccentric look - she knows the impact of her face is startling in its simplicity: jet black hair, ivory skin, and red lips.
scent(s): varied, much like her closet; fei is well aware of the impact of fragrance. she adjusts perfume according to her look & goals of the day, but prefers the smouldering, headier scents. during the day she favours lighter without growing too sweet: think white flowers, tuberose or ylang-ylang, or mediterranean fig. night scents are deeper & more enticing; musk, mandarin, sandalwood, somalian incense. has been known to layer her husband's cologne with some of her own scents, giving her that touch of why does she smell like my man?
accent: american, but without any detectable influences of dialect/accent. slow and deliberate speech pattern, even toned & without a single trace of filler words. she gives you more than enough rope to hang on her every word.
personality.
summary: the perception and actuality of faye have been very disparate things for a long time, only recently narrowing into something more closely aligned. she is above all things persevering, having come from a harrowing childhood poverty (and the abuses that often come with it) and building herself into a woman of means alone. that she's in possession of such an iron spine is hidden behind languid, lacquered glamour; aside from her trusted friend and maid, no one would see the careful machinations beneath. now thoroughly situated on her pedestal of celebrity - a woman to become a face of the decade alongside louise brookes and josephine baker - fei relents to at least some honesty of self: her opinions laid bare, her desires pursued. while neither harsh nor sharp, she is in her thoughts resolute - challenging, when she wishes to be. atop this, her dissatisfaction of late has eaten through some of her coating, leaving a certain spot of softness - an unwilling ripeness of self - to appear. to be added to or edited because i can't do a succinct summary to save my life.
moral alignment: chaotic neutral at best, neutral evil at worst.
natal chart: scorpio sun, moon/rising tbd.
habits: smiling closed-lipped. flower arranging. never forgetting a parasol. nightly administration of cream. unwavering eye contact. only speaking when there's something interesting to say. the slow revolution of one ankle when she's bored, not unlike the tail of a cat. tapping out the beats of a song with her fingers. abandoning a drink when the ice begins to melt. fan collecting. quiet participation in various superstitions, both western & chinese. humming/singing when alone. a cigarette for nerves. touching/trailing her collarbone in thought.
character tropes: i'm terrible with tv tropes, but there's a slew of real life inspirations that helped influence fei, aesthetically or in history: marchesa luisa casati, josephine baker, louise brooks, louie fuller, isadora duncan & anna may wong to name a few.
HUSBAND. connection to be sent to the main ! two incredibly singular individuals, their coming together crafted an it-couple that crossed nations. the connection between them singed from the first, and it's this intensity of passion that keeps them bound together - but only two years into the marriage, they pace one another relentlessly, falling into arguments as often as one another's arm. after a particularly terrible row in which fei used that unutterable word (divorce), the earl suggested they retire from london's heat and noise to the countryside in order to calm down. they have, unfortunately, seemingly brought fever and loudness to montmere instead.
MAID & BEST FRIEND. connection to be sent to the main ! the pair have been knit together since youth - the true youth, the one faye never talks about. with faye as the thicker-skinned of the pair, she took the brunt of the blunt objects thrown their way in her clawing to the top, and in return they have remained ceaselessly by her side. also potential for this to be a cousin or sister.
AIMLESS, SWEET. the difficulties of the earl and lady manderley were known to you before they arrived; how anyone could find fault with such a creature is what escapes you at meeting. a crush. lingering in the garden. blushing in the parlour. her hand on your wrist & a note slipped under her door, perhaps.
those she's met while on tour; anyone who finds the presence of a dancer/actress rather unsavoury; anyone desperate to gain association to such a celebrity; former brief and dazzling love affair(s) that now they no longer speak of.
