This is also part TBT as what I am about to show you comes from the annals of my Random Scrivner File.
No inspiration today, just falshy fiction stuff.
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It was spring, just on the edge of summer, although one could have said it was already summer, but one never said it was really summer until it was and so that is why is must still be spring. Either way, that evening, Miss Abigail Triste of 1456 Pennyworth Lane stepped out of her house with her mother to attend a concert. By any account it was to be dreadful. Not in any fashion due to the quartet playing, but due to the fact that Mrs. Trsite was in no way happy about being snubbed.
There was in fact a ball that night being held by Duchess Smithweston, the head of London Society and Mrs. Triste’s former close friend. We say former in that they grew up being very close, but upon debb-ing they experienced a breaking as it were and have sense kept in touch only through the faintest of notes. It was however an understanding between the two old friends that when Mrs. Triste’s daughter debb-ed, Duchess Smithweston was to help Abigail along.
Abigail sighed as the hired driver helped her into the carriage, careful about the ruffles on her dress. It was a gift from her father for her return from school. It was pale blue with ruffles of cream at the hem and sleeves. It was by no means extravagant, but she loved it all the same.
She wore, much to her mother’s dismay, a small watch-like contraption pinned to her breast. The small time-teller, was at once a clock, as well as a great many other things. Most which Abigail had yet to discover.
The time-teller was a gift from her headmistress upon Abigail’s graduation. It will be a puzzle for years to come, the Headmistress had told her. Having already tried several times to figure out the complex set of locks and hinges, the only thing that Abigail could say about the time-teller was that it told time. Quite accurately at that, it hardly ever needed winding.
There would be no escaping her mother tonight. None at all, and Abigail had so been looking forward to the music. Lady Worthington had promised her that the finest mechanical pipes would be in use. Abigail was so fond of the strange machines that produced a lovely music all their own.
“How will we ever expect you to find a suitable match at a concert.” Her mother said the word like it was a vile word of the four-letter variety, which Abigail had only heard at the docks where her father worked. “Your grandfather was a Count! No, we will not go,” Mrs. Triste declared, even as she settled herself into the carriage. Her dark gown of blue with black net overlay, seemed to squash Abigail into a small corner of their conveyance.
“Mama,” Abigail said soothingly. “We have already hired and paid the driver. Not to mention you promised Lady Worthington that you would be in attendance tonight. What sort of people would we be if we did not live up to our word?”
Mrs. Triste considered her daughter’s words carefully. “Of course we will attend, darling, but we must consider that we are somehow above this all. It’s our duty, I suppose, as peerage.”
Abigail fiddled with the small buttons on her gloves. Buttoning them and unbuttoning them. Her mother liked to constantly bring up her father’s peerage. Yes, her father had been a count, a penniless one at that. Mrs. Triste had married Abigail’s father because he was a wealthy merchant and she was a girl with no dowry to speak of. Let us make no mistake, however, there was money involved but it was in fact a love match. Mr. Triste was the only one who seemed to not only understand his wife, but also cajole her into submission. A trait which Abigail tried to learn, but had never quite perfected.
“Exactly,” Abigail breathed.
The gas lights glowed brightly in the growing dark. Abigail watched the world outside her carriage as her mother prattled on at who was likely to be there. Technically speaking, Abigail was not ‘on the market’ yet. The season would not officially begin until summer and then she could be shuttled from ballroom to ballroom in the hopes of making a suitable match.
She wanted nothing to do with it.
The streets of London were particularly busy that evening, but then again they had become this way with the discovery of werewolves and vampires. Not to mention all the other others. Ghosts, witches, and some even whispered the undead—although all those with a practical mind knew better than to believe in the walking dead— all made their lives in the night. Abigail was looking forward to her debut in the hopes that she might attend a ball and dance with a werewolf or perhaps even a vampire. Then she might be able to inquire about the transformation process. It had been lightly touched upon in her education, but certainly not discussed at length. Even a proper education respected private matters. If not the transformation, then perhaps what life had been like decades ago. That would be splendid, she thought. A history lesson from someone who actually lived it.
