WHERE: Just outside the back entrance of the house
WHEN: 21 June 1923
WITH: Open to anyone!
It's too quiet outside, far too quiet for a house as big as Montmere, that's so full of people. She wanted to get away for a bit, the kids were asleep, and normally she'd find someone out here. Tonight, though, nothing - and she'd been hoping for a distraction, so she huffs a little breath out and turns back around - right into someone else.
"Oh, I thought it was too quiet for a regular night, here," she says, with a smile. She looks down, at the cigarette she'd snuck out of last job - a little lifted item she'd carry around sometimes, when she wanted to feel like she was one of them, "Did you happen to have a match? I know it's unladylike, but what the children don't know won't hurt them."
WHERE: Lakeside
WHEN: 15 June 1923
WITH: Open to all
Knees drawn up and trousers cuffed around his shins, Felix watched the sluggish wind send reluctant ripples on the water. The boat bobbed by the dock, but it was the fault of that nice kid from the kitchen who had thrust a laden basket at Felix and his companion. Sitting on the shore, mindlessly palming blueberry after blueberry was a life someone else might get used to.
“You come out here often?” he asked. “Lake like that, next to a house like that, where everything’s pretty and no one’s happy. Do you ever wonder what secrets people have drowned in that water before we came?”
"I do," Phoebe answers, softly. She hadn't seen many people out here before, actually - it was mostly just her, and sometimes the children who toddled along after her. She sits next to him, one of the house's guests that's childless, and nods along with the musing.
"I don't know if I'm meant to know any of those secrets," she says, real slow - as if it's what is expected of her. She'd always prided herself in avoiding situations such as that, "But I would think there's probably plenty, in a historical house like this."
the life and times of a modern woman: mind still turning when even the house itself had slept. vita had spent her life confined everywhere else but within herself, shifted from one corner of the world to the next only to still find herself slightly eskew of slotting into place. "and unto you," it's decidedly meek, sat at the very edge of the always populated dining table — features only lit by the lowlight of a flickering candle.
vita's life is one not entirely split clean in half, the fragments intermingle in moments such as this one — in the subtle disquiet when there is only one witness, where she finds herself. "—my curiosity had bested me." it's the plain of saying she'd gone where she shouldn't have, and had much preferred to take a moment of repose in the stale light of the kitchen rather than her own shared bedroom. "i thought-" it's like a sliver of honey in the shadows, something roguish pricking in the upturn of her smile. "well, i don't know what i thought but i heard something and just ... stayed."
"Oh," Phoebe says, easily. She nods at the other woman, and continues about her night - gathering the supplies for a glass of water and smiling softly to herself. A gentle hum comes out, as she manages to get everything together. She turns back, once it's complete, taking a sip - still in her nightclothes, as she hadn't expected to find anyone down there.
"I must admit, this house is so big - I convince myself I've heard things... all the time," it's a hard thing for her to admit - that she's still a little scared of something as innocuous as a manor house, but... well, whatever. She is afraid of things, "I don't quite know how to acclimate to it, my last employer was nothing like this."
Rosie pressed against the bark of the tree, feeling the coarseness beneath her hands: hands softened with soap, but wrinkled as an old woman's from scrubbing and mendin'. She knew without lookin' that Miss Wakefield's hands would be buttery as leather. Hands made for holdin' books and pens. Hands Rosie had no business bein' interested in.
A fat drop of rain fell on her shoulder - an excuse to tear away from Miss Wakefield's plaintive expression to study the deluge that cocooned them from the world.
"I could tell," Rosie objected. "I'd bet I knew before you." She watched Miss Wakefield slyly from beneath the brim of her hat.
Monty was strange. Miss Wakefield had the measure of it. Rosie had been there over a decade and still she felt afraid when she were alone in a room. 'Course, that were nothin' but fancy. Montmere House was a house. A big 'un, sure, but nothin' like those penny dreadfuls her nan used to read.
"If I'm late, I'm late," Rosie replied breezily, although this weren't strictly true. If housekeeper saw her before the cook, there'd be a thrashin'. The cook would be disappointed, but she'd only tut and send Rosie on her way - she were a good egg, that Mrs - but the housekeeper would sit Rosie down and bore her with a long lecture on manners.
Rosie hadn't realised she'd said most of this aloud until she drew breath.
"Anyway," she continued, "all m'sayin' is that there's more than one way to sneak back into that big old house. Though how you'll do it with those skirts is anyone's business." Rosie nudged Miss Wakefield and grinned at her.
"Were you a nun in a past life? I've got a bet goin'."
"Ah, you bet? I wore these big skirts for a reason," they always came in handy in case of a storm - most of her underclothes would hold themselves together just fine, and she'd only have to swap out the top layer before the lessons. It was really good work, actually, from the seamstress at her last house.
She missed her terribly, sometimes. The old woman had been her second mother, when she'd first trekked out on her own, into London.
"And if I'm late, everyone will notice," Phoebe throws back - she knows she will be missed, if she's late to lessons this early on. Perhaps her children will be understanding about the storm - but she does not dare to give the parents anything to hold over her. She'd not make that mistake twice.
She laughs, at the idea of sneaking anywhere, in an outfit like this. She's very much going to be noticed, I'm sure we will figure it out, Miss Evans. It will take two heads, that we can put together, to make this happen."
She startles, at the next question.
"I don't know if I believe in reincarnation, actually, Miss Evans. I'm Catholic, it seems very much against the philosophy. What makes you think I'm a nun, though? Is it the shirts?" She did have a penchant or black jackets and white shirts underneath.
WHERE: Downstairs, the kitchen, late evening
WHEN: Monday, 7 July 1923
WITH: @scville
Phoebe is rushing, hoping to sneak in and out of the kitchen with a glass of water as quickly as possible - but surely, she cannot do anything on plan. That is the nature of this big, full house that never seems to stop moving. She sighs, all drama of the afternoon had gotten to her - and she was more than exhausted.
That's why the other figure in the darkened kitchen is unwelcome, and she sighs a bit dramatically, resigning that she will not be able to retrieve her glass of water and return upstairs, to her shared quarters with the children, without incident.
"Good evening," she says - she recognizes the ladies' maid in the dark, trying to avoid making eye contact. The other staff still leave her just a bit skittish, even though she's not that worried about it any longer, "What brings you down here, this late?"
Rosie didn't have favourites. She had some people that were less awful than others. Miss Wakefield, as it turned out, was the opposite of awful. Which was why, after Rosie had finished polishing silver until 'er 'ands felt they'd drop off, she'd agreed to keep Miss Wakefield company to the village.
It weren't a long walk, not at Rosie's brisk pace. But the governess insisted on wearing these big fluffy dresses that made her look like Rosie's nan, and so it had taken a good ten minutes longer than normal to struggle down the drive. The drizzle only acted as an omen.
"Keep your wig on!" Rosie snapped, peering at the sky. The farming blood in her meant that reading the roiling clouds was easy. They rolled steadily towards the house at a clip that would have Mister Patrick and his stallion in a lather. "Come on."
Rosie grabbed Miss Wakefield's arm (gently) and pulled her beneath a spreading yew tree. As they huddled by the trunk the drizzle turned sideways, and soon enough fat droplets had joined the chorus.
Grinning at the sky, Rosie looked at Miss Wakefield in admiration. "Are you hidin' a sixth sense underneath all those skirts?" she teased. "You've got ears like a cat." Rosie nudged Miss Wakefield and nodded up at the boughs.
"Yew haveth and taketh," Rosie recited. "We'll be alright here. Why're you so worried about the bairns?"
Phoebe feels as if she's running along behind Rosie. This had not been part of this plan - she would have worn much more comfortable shoes! And then they're under a tree, and the rain begins, and Phoebe hates that she's always aware of the weather, somehow.
"Under... my skirts?" She says, and she looks down at her skirt for a moment before shaking her head, "No, I'm just from the Highlands. I know when a summer storm is coming along, it's in my nature. How did you not notice? The clouds have been rolling since we left Montmere's drive."
She looks up, and realizes that Rosie's... far closer than she would normally allow herself to be with another woman. She feels strange about it, too, but she manages to write that all off.
"I am just not looking to be dismissed so soon. Missing lessons is a surefire way to get let go," she says, slowly, leaning just a bit closer when one of the branches begins to drip onto her shoulder. She just hopes her hair isn't completely ruined, the children will definitely mock her for it, "Why aren't you worried, that you'll be late returning back? I swear, this house is so strange - the last man I worked for would've had our heads for being late back, rain or shine."
WHERE: The front lawn
WHEN: Saturday, 15 July 1923
WITH: @evansrosie
And she knew this was a bad idea - knew it!
She hadn't ventured far from the house, just yet - worried terribly about the way people might look at her if she did. Everything had made her feel self conscious for months, and she'd kind of worked herself up about Montmere being more of the same. Perhaps, she'd thought, that was how the entire world was.
Luckily, she was wrong.
No one had been... as strange as the people she'd worked for or alongside in the city. For that, she was grateful. She'd even felt well enough to wear a dress that wasn't completely collared up to her throat, for the walk over to the village. Which was a mistake, because now it was slowly beginning to drizzle - and surely there will be a summer storm about to begin!
"Rosie, we cannot get soaked in this. I have lessons, with the children, just before dinner!" she exclaims, a little nervous that a mishap might convince the master of the house to let her go - still not entirely confidence in her position here, "We must find a shop to step into for a moment!"
Weight: She has curves, in all the places a fine corset would accentuate. It's too bad that that she doesn't wear them
Build: She's athletic enough to chase after children in a full dress, but not so athletic as to win any races
Distinguishing marks: She's covered in little scars from mishaps in her youth - from touching a hot iron to spilling a pot of water on her foot, there's evidence that she has been in something service-adjacent her entire life
Hair colour: Black
Hair style: Always pinned up with the nicest thing she owns, expensive hairpins she secured as gifts from her former employer
Eye colour: Blue
Clothing: She dresses how you would expect a governess to: very modestly to the fashions of the day
Scent(s): She prefers to put on small bits of very cheap perfume, she is very self conscious about how she looks and smells
Accent: Scottish <3
𝐏𝐄𝐑𝐒𝐎𝐍𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐓𝐘
Summary: It's hard, for her, to be completely normal when she's spent so much time being something other than herself that she isn't quite sure... where the facade ends and she truly begins. She became a governess to get away from home, truly. Yes, it was her passion - but being pushed into marriage and coated in expectations she couldn't feasibly meet led her to the trade, and she has not looked back since. Sometimes, her eyes will catch on the wrong thing - a flash of porcelain leg above a high heel instead of the perfect angle of a man's jawline, and she's convinced that she'll lose everything if she doesn't pretend none of those feelings exist within her at all. She's soft, far too soft, to be strong enough to admit anything to even herself.
❧ She doesn’t remember a time when she wasn’t caring for children. The eldest daughter always stayed home, watched over her little siblings as they ran amok around the house. And she was excellent at it, her mother always insisting Phoebe, you’ll make a perfect wife one day - or - Phoebe, you’ll have so many kids of your own one day. She never quite knew why the knowledge of that filled her with dread - when she loved her siblings dearly and adored caring for them. But it did, all the same, and she ended up engaged like she was supposed to at just sixteen - with butterflies in the pit of her stomach as he handed her a family ring.
❧ And there’s something wrong with her, she just knows it. She doesn’t wish to get married, even though it’s a dream to anyone else - really, she had hoped she could learn a trade. She ignores the fact that she doesn’t feel any kind of attraction to Charlie. As much as he does love her, she cannot love him back. She ignores the way that her eyes always seem to catch upon a well put together corset, instead of the line of a man’s suit. It is simply easier to ignore than to actually put a name to those fears.
❧ She breaks the engagement out without a reason, just after she is accepted to a women’s school. She wishes to learn, to become a teacher - and she cannot do that when she is expected to bear children for a husband she never really wanted or asked for. Charlie is devastated, and Phoebe feels horrible about it, because she’s soft-hearted, not because she actually has any regret for the decision. He asks her to reconsider, every evening for three months. She flees Lochcarron a few days early, just so that he cannot talk her into anything.
❧ She excels, in school, and learns everything she must in order to do her job. It’s a novelty, a place for women to go to learn the trade - and she becomes a hot commodity the second that she is out of it. She speaks Scots, Gaelic, French and Italian, to start, and she’s actually educated. She is hired nearly immediately by a Baron, interested in both science and her. But, becoming a Governess is easy - avoiding becoming the Mistress to a man who holds far more power than her is not.
❧ Montmere House calls upon her, and she answers - because it’s a promotion to go from a baron’s children to the house of an earl. Phoebe ignores how relieved she is to be escaping the environment of her first job, and how relieved she is to be teaching younger children. At the Baron’s, the children were in their early teens and outclassing her with their reading already. Here, they’re still small enough to be taught the most basic of things. And, it seems, the men of the house are nowhere near as forward as her last employer. She’s altogether relieved, for she’d feared she may have to return home and see if Charlie wanted to get married, after all, if that was all that life was meant to be.
❧ Once she’s settled in, though, she realizes something - there are very beautiful women traipsing around the house at all hours, and she’s having a lot of trouble keeping her eyes off of them. She will not jeopardize her job, but… Sometimes, she has to stop her daydreams in their tracks, knowing that things like that would be her ruin.
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