| Frenemies |
[May. 24th, 2011|09:36 pm] |
Marguerite pulled off the road and up the long gravel driveway that led to the Broken Oaks mansion and mentally berated her father once again at the assignment he’d given her once he’d found out that Nanette Passebon was in residence in Honfleur. He knew well she didn’t care for the alchemist, but amused him to send her to make manners with the woman.
The vampiress sighed and put the automobile into park after pulling up in front of the decrepit looking home. Whatever her wishes, a command from the Lord of House Dufoix was something that could not be disobeyed if she wanted to keep her head attached to her shoulders. Not that it was likely her father would be that angry with her, but it was also a small thing to risk the anger over as well. The thought lingered in her mind as she made her way up the battered brick walkway and pressed the doorbell to summon the butler, smoothing out any wrinkles in her dress as she waited.
Nanette had never considered herself an actress; that sort was never much for company or conversation, in her estimation. But spending days on end playing the part of the charming and sweet country doctor was putting her alongside Sarah Bernhardt. Her morning had been filled with snot-nosed little brats called off from school with little more than a late spring cold, and the afternoon had brought decrepit old men and woman whose rheumatism was acting up and whose internal plumbing wasn’t doing much of anything at all. Finally the evening had come, and she had closed up shop, smiling a saccharine smile and nodding to those patients she passed on her drive home.
Finally, she was alone, and the play-acting could end.
For all the peeling paint and overgrown acres surrounding the exterior of the old plantation home, the interior was just that much more extravagant. Nanette had spared little cost in making Broken Oaks suitable to her tastes before moving in. She sat quietly with one of several newspapers brought to her daily from New Orleans and took her evening coffee - a bit of a commonality but a comfortable vice nonetheless - on an antique settee in the formal parlor. The old butler who stood at attention beside the door flinched slightly when the doorbell rang and looked to his mistress for instruction; she raised her eyes from her paper only long enough to wave him towards the front hall and the door beyond.
Marguerite raised an eyebrow at the sight of the butler when the door opened. Where had the alchemist dug up such an old fossil? The man had to be well past normal retirement age for normal work, they had laws about that sort of thing now didn’t they? Marguerite found it hard to pay attention to such things when her own ageing had ceased more than three quarters of a century past.
“Is your mistress at home and receiving visitors? I am Marguerite Dufoix, she’ll know the name.”
( An Unexpected Visit ) |
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| My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean |
[Aug. 26th, 2009|09:46 am] |
"My Bonnie lies over the ocean," Nanette's sweet, high voice lilted into the stillness of the attic. "My Bonnie lies over the sea..." She hummed the next lines to herself, focusing on the needle and thread in hand as she worked.
Nanette had always been somewhat proud of her needlework. Her first sampler, done at the tender age of eleven years so long ago, had been prized at the small school for the children of the upper crust in Havana. When visitors came to her father's plantation and Nanette was made to demonstrate her skills, her embroidery had always brought the most praise, even beyond her skillful playing of the piano and kind, astute manners. In later years, Dr. Passebon had taught her more intricate methods of stitching, which had come to be quite useful.
( Bring Back My Bonnie To Me ) |
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| Cosmetics |
[Aug. 2nd, 2009|09:15 pm] |
"Martin!" she snapped, fist gripping a weathered stone pestle as she furiously ground it against the battered mortar. "Apuro!" She had taken the aged Mexican servant into her home when he was but a child, and though the years had been kinder to him than to most, he was still well beyond the years usually reserved for such arduous servitude, and moved much more slowly than Madame Passebon would have liked. The time was nearing, she knew, when he would be relagated to naught more than further fodder for her potions and serums, and he would have to be replaced.
But it was so difficult to find good help anymore! More and more, Nanette found herself longing for the days when a faithful servant was bought at the auction block and his loyalty and obedience wrought with the whip. The years might not have been hard on her pretty face, but they had certainly done their work upon her patience, and Nanette could not abide a slow, slovenly servant who might demand his wage.
"Martin!" she shouted again, just as the old man ambled in, carrying with him the limp corpse of a young prostitute, aged little more than Nanette looked. "Put it on the chaise and do try to keep the head tilted up, would you? The last, you'd left it lolling about and I'd gotten gore all over the upholstery."
"Si, Senora Passebon," the old man responded obediently, tottering towards the chaise.
"Martin!" Nanette snapped, voice going icy with rage. "WHAT have I told you time and again?"
The old man winced at the sound of her anger, nearly dropping the dead girl to the floor. "My apologies, Madame," he corrected. He had been at Madame Passebon's side long enough to mistake just what he was meant to call her from time to time; the snowy white hair at his temples was testament enough to that.
( Beauty Ritual ) |
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