RP:Returning home - a glimpse of the House of Penzance
Background
Cornelius has returned to Vailkrin, the realm of his ancestors - and the land of his birth.
It is a place of nostalgia for him, a place of dreams and nightmares.
It is the place his mansion has been left to decay for three hundred years.
He has avoided his past for a long time, but today he accompanies Jolie on a shopping trip and a stroll into memories he'd rather leave buried.
The Hanging Corpse, a day after Arghen duelled Colton
Cornelius strolls into the tavern, perhaps not quite so dapper as usual - he has, for instance, forgone his usual attempts to rile Urghdak.
Jolie was immediately concerned, but her frown sat on her brow with no accompanying fussing. She was -really- over fussing on men, for now. "Corny," was her greeting. "How's things?"
Cornelius finds his patch of wall, and leans against it. He isn't the type who would want to be fussed over. "Decent, old bean. Decided to go take a look around Vailkrin. Caught a glimpse of the old domicile, wot. Possibly a mistake. I shall postpone taking a closer look for a little while, methinks. Did our friendly neighbourhood carpenter survive the night?"
Jolie's eyebrows shot up, and she opened her mouth as if to say something. Then her jaw snapped shut, and opened again. "Oh.. his wounds." She nodded. "Yes. Yes, he did. Heals fast."
Cornelius allows his eyebrows to match Jolie's "Really? Lucky bastard, wot. Cuts like that would take me a couple of weeks at the very least, wot. Some folks have all the luck"
Jolie's frown was given free reign. "I said he survived. Not that he healed. He's a mess."
Cornelius nods "Ah well, even so, that's something at least. Nothing wrong with the odd scar or two on a man's face."
Jolie made a small 'uh-huh' sound. "So. You up for a walk?" Perhaps some fresh air would ease the snarl from the back of her skull.
Cornelius sketches a slight bow "But of course. I am at the moment otherwise unengaged."
Jolie snapped the cloth off her shoulder and tossed it in a bucket under the bar, took a moment to tidy herself and reclaim her coin purse from the safe. "Got some friends I need to see. About a coat. I think it's on the way." No further preamble than that took her to the door.
Cornelius raises an eyebrow and follows. This time, he does make the effort of blowing Urghdak a kiss as he steps through the door.
Jolie quirked one ear as a heavy thunk sounded against something behind her, and a tankard rolled by her feet.
A stroll along the streets of Vailkrin
Cornelius is laughing as he exits the tavern, Urghdak's angry swearing fading behind him even as the hurled tankard bounces out into Hemlock way
Jolie gave the vessel a little kick, so it tumbled off her path. "West from here. But of course, you'd remember the way."
Cornelius grins "Lead on, M'dear, lead on"
Jolie waved to the mute coffin-maker as she passed his shop at an easy stroll. "Nice fellow." The day was suitably dank, low cloud hung in the perpetual twilit sky covering the silvery shine of the two moons, waxed to full. "I'm not going back, you know."
Cornelius , accustomed as he is to her ability to switch from one thought-path to another, simply comments "Rynvale did seem rather a bit too dull for your tastes. Didn't think it quite suited you, Jolly-girl, even if the beaches are nicer there" He glances back at the coffin-maker's shop. "I imagine that chap is going to be getting a lot of business out of the Tavern, wot"
Jolie gave him a wan sort of smile. "He always did. We all get half off, when its our turn, for the rise in custom."
Further down the street a squad of filthy urchins were playing kick-a-can in the gutter, ignoring an angry and broom-wielding shopkeep shouting from a doorway.
Cornelius laughs outright "Hah! I like the way that man thinks. I'll be sure to let him know my specifications sometime soon." As he casually strolls alongside the uncharacteristically subdued Jolie, he decides to see if her opening comment had been an overture to further discussion of the point "Will anything of Rynvale be coming back with you to Vailkrin?"
Cornelius smiles in the direction of the urchins. Time was they would have been found amongst them, while one used the distraction to steal a couple of hot pies.
Jolie kept pacing along, and didn't answer for a time. Finally she said, "I ought to get my things. But I can't... no, I don't think so. Why?"
Cornelius kept a comfortable silence while they paced along. Down a side alley he saw a young girl sneaking around the corner with a basket of apples. By the time the urchins scattered, taking their tins with them, the girl would be waiting for them with the day's meal. Some things would never change, no matter how much time passed. When Jolie finally speaks he merely says "In all honesty, I've no real curiosity of my own. But you seemed as if you had something on your mind. Something which may fester if not let out into the fresh air."
Jolie shrugged. "And some things are better buried deep." She huffed a breath, "This is my home now. Again. I have missed it. And perhaps in its own way, it has missed me." Her gaze tilted up from being fixed on the path ahead, and swept over the building nearby - the armourer, a dingy trinket shop. "At least, I like to imagine so. Funny old place."
Cornelius signifies his agreement with a slight nod. He casually glances at a small pack of dogs worrying at a bloodied carcass. One seems to feel his gaze, and turns its head to stare back, eyes gleaming with a malevolent hint of red in the darkness. "A funny old place indeed"
Jolie stepped into the avenue, and somehow - as the dark pall of the trees was left behind - her grimness made a sudden shift to something brighter; her pace quickened, her conversation became more animated. She spoke of some other friends who haunted the streets here, and some who dwelled in homes that lined the long and winding path, in particular Mathilde, and Nurse Carmen from the blood bank, who apparently was having some on-and-off-again affair with the surly Steadman. "They do say opposites attract. And Cornelius - she's such a little round woman, and he so lanky, it's really very... Oh, and Mathilde's shop is down here, and the tailors I was telling you about.." And on she chattered, pointing out this and that feature unremembered from her early youth and thus presumed unfamiliar to the fop. By the time they'd reached a rather over-embellished shopfront, by which sat two enormous, black dogs with sharp ears and long snouts that were lifted idly toward the pair, she'd filled him on at least a hundred years' worth of local gossip. "Here we are - a brief stop, if you don't mind?"
Cornelius chuckles and with an 'After you' gesture comments "By all means, Jolly-girl. Such cute puppies they have here."
A visit to Gunther and Raoul's Haute Couture
The very facade of this well-tended store speaks to the elegance of its interior, with gilt-framed windows displaying svelte mannequins draped in a glorious assortment of garments tailored and stitched to perfection. Within it the shop's owners, a pair of oddly-matched vampires, are in a perpetual bustle. Gunther is a massively muscled man who'd not look out of place in a fighting pit, with intricately-coiffed blonde hair and a thick scar running diagonally from left brow to right cheek. Raoul, in quite polar opposition to his partner, has a wild swathe of midnight hair and is slender and delicate of build. Both are dressed immaculately in the very latest fashions of their own unique design, and fuss about their patrons with an almost parental concern for customer and garments alike.
Gunther and Raoul are here
Jolie said, "The big one's name is Rommel, and the other's Poochie. They're really very friendly, except when... Raoul!" Her arms suddenly flung wide, and into them floated an exceptionally well-dressed, slender figure, who air-kissed her on either cheek and exclaimed in a faintly exotic accent, "Joliette! You are looking..." He stepped back, dark eyes flashing up and down her figure. "Dowdy. Drab. What has happened? Are you in poverty? This is terrible!" A second figure emerged from out of a curtained room at the back of the shop, this man nattily attired in a severe and impeccable style that somehow complimented his massive frame and the dour demeanour that was immediately turned upon Cornelius. "Ja, Miss Yolie, you are awful, yust awful. Vunderful to see you." His bass rumble, topped with a thin-lipped sneer at her own attire, ended with a flap of hand toward the sundry mannequins and racks filled with silk and tweeds ands twills and many "gorgeous, gorgeous things", which was Raoul's own term for their wares. "You -must- let us help you, you are tragedy itself" Raoul insisted, shoving her off to a fitting room. Meanwhile, Cornelius was studied quietly by Gunther, who intoned, "Yolie, vill your butler be cluttering our shop, or vill he vait outside?"
Cornelius smiles and does not disabuse the oversized chap of his mistake "My dear man, Mistress Joliette asked me to accompany her to ensure that your skill with needles, thread and exotic fabrique, had not waned in her lengthy absence." He inclines his head in a slight bow in Jolie's direction "As a gentlewoman's gentleman, it is my honour to oblige her in that humble task, and other matters for which the regular butler is insufficient. Certainly, the dour garb you yourself are wearing gives me cause for dismay, but the chap Raoul seems to have the right idea, wot." His Cheshire grin takes on a slightly mischievous cast.
Gunther did not see Jolie rolling her eyes, for she was currently being draped in some flimsy bit of velvet and satin in her customary preference of red, Raoul's tongue clicking sharply as he prodded her hips, which in his opinion had widened too far for her own good, and so the larger man merely pursed his lips very tightly, into a primp of dire disapproval, and said, at a volume geared for her hearing, rather than Cornelius', "Good help is hard to get dese days, Ja? Vat viz all the hoi-polloi." He sniffed, flicked a crumb of nothing off the shoulder of his suit, his tone dropping, "If you vere not clad as if your mudder shtuffed you into your grandfadder's Sunday second-best, you'd have almost hurd my feelings, you bitchy liddle footman. Sadly, dis is not de case."
Jolie, oblivious to the rising tension, called out, "Oh - what I came for, was to order a man's long-coat. I don't have measurements, but he's about your size, Gunther. Could be a dear, and let me have one, without a fitting? It's a surprise." Raoul made an ooo-ing sound and there were hissy whispers, and Jolie making some sort of soft and not very convincing denial. Meanwhile, Gunther was staring with vast disdain at Cornelius' shoes.
Cornelius raises both eyebrows as if in polite shock, repeating Gunther's words back to him, and all at the same loud pitch Gunther had started with "Oh, I do say! Clad as if my mother had stuffed me into my grandfather's Sunday second-best? Bitchy little footman? Gracious me, but it seems that somewhere between being struck with the ugly stick and drinking sour wine you lost all of your manners! What a dreary chap you are. I do hope that, like some idiot savant, you make up for your many lacks with something resembling haute couture. If not, I do believe the Hanging Corpse could use another security guard, and you seem to fit the criteria." Somehow, Cornelius' Cheshire grin confirms he is claiming Gunther to be comparable to Urghdak. He then lowers his voice in a 'conciliatory' fashion "I could give you a referral if you like, my good man. Your vulgar tongue would fit right in there"
Raoul’s svelte head poked out from the curtain, his eyes wide, while Jolie snickered madly, tugging at the shoulder of the gown she wore. Gunther was still eyeballing Cornelius' shoes, impassive as one of his own mannequins. A meaty hand raised, he pinched his lower lip between forefinger and thumb, and said in an equally impassive tone, "I cannot be insulted by de vearer of ghastliness." And he glanced to Raoul and back, eyes narrowing, and wheeled away to primp at the skirts of a tulle-layered frock. Jolie stepped from the fitting-room, and twirled before the full-length, gilded mirror appended to a wall nearby. "It's lovely, Raoul." The slender vampire nodded, his delicate fingers tapping together in soft applause. "Yes, it is, is it not? Gorgeous, gorgeous."
Cornelius has the good grace not to gloat as Gunther flees the verbal fencing match, and merely ignores him, directing his attention to the garment. "Oh, I say. I must inform Jean-Pierre that he has competition. He'll be ever so upset. I wonder if this could help drive down his prices a little. In fact, methinks a garment from a rival establishment would be just the tonic to drag his ego down to a manageable level for me. Nice work, Raoul." Cornelius is still stung by Jean-Pierre's increase of prices after four waistcoats were ruined in the space of half a year.
While Jolie twirled a little longer, and then sashayed over to the scarred couturier to negotiate the long-coat, Raoul had flung his hands in the air and sighed, "Jean Pierre!" as though Cornelius had torn out a little piece of the vampire's unbeating heart and done something awful to it. "Nonono, dear footman, he is a butcher, a hamfist, a maker of sackcloth! No wonder you look so... " He shook his head, unable to find a word to match his apparent horror. A tape measure was produced, as a prestidigitator might produce a flower from thin air, this whipped and snapped to a taut line between Raoul's manicured hands. Dark eyes flashed with the thrill of a challenge, and the vampire simpered forward, his gaze riveted on Cornelius' chest. "You'd almost be handsome, if you weren't a footman," he murmured. A loud crash shattered all conversation, Gunther having 'accidentally' dropped a vase of orchids, which lay wet and limp among splinters of glass, his icy glare frozen on his partner, shifting to Cornelius. "Oh I say, Gunther.." Jolie tugged his hem, eliciting a reluctant and equally icy return of attention her way. Jolie dropped the hem, smiling weakly. "...might we discuss the possibility of wool.. in a sort of navy..?" Gunter frowned. "No."
Cornelius has long been a student of body-language and psychology, and recognises Gunther's reaction for what it is. With a blithe smile he states "Oh gracious me, Raoul, I may have misled by omission! None of my clothes today are of Les Chateaux Jean-Pierre. No, to maintain my disguise, clothes of a coarser cut are necessary. You see, my fine man, I have come to investigate the remnants of my family's estates, left abandoned so many years. Cornelius Von Penzance, at your service." As much as he has no real interest in men, he puts a slight emphasis on 'fine man' and 'at your service', his peripheral vision keeping tabs on Gunther. "I have no doubt at all that I shall return to avail myself of your services, my dear man... as a couturier, of course." With a smile, and a wink at Gunther who right now is very much the bull in the china shop, he makes his way to the door, still subconsciously ready to play the matador "Adieu for now, mes amis. I shall be sure to grace your establishment again at a time more convenient for leisurely attire"
Raoul visibly crumpled, as though he'd been slapped, his charitable gushing a sudden and dismayed silence as his exotic, wounded gaze sought some sort of heroic comfort from Gunther, but the larger man was staring at Cornelius' retreating back as if he'd just mistaken a lemon for a peach, and remained very still for the moment. Jolie hurriedly paid for her gown and the coat, whispering to Raoul, whose beautiful eyes were moistening, his agony unbounded, "Black wool, full length. And don't feel bad. He was pooped on by pigeons for a couple of centuries, bound to make anyone a bit snippy." The couturier’s lower lip trembled as he nodded, patting her arm. "You are a goddess. An angel, Joliette. Take care." With a last, sympathetic look to the still stricken Gunther, she wafted from the shop, her former attire in a stylish carry-bag emblazoned with a flourished, intertwined 'G&R'. Outside, the dogs pricked their ears, and Jolie muttered to her 'butler', "You really can be quite bitchy, you know. Shall we go on to the Manse, now?"
Cornelius simply grins "The daft oversized lummox asked for it. 'Little footman' indeed, the silly git." He grimaces at the thought of visiting the manse. Looking at it from a distance had been bad enough. Still, he should get a closer look at the very least.
Jolie couldn't help a soft snicker, as she tugged his sleeve, missing the current expression Cornelius wore as he thought on his former home. "It's not far now, and after we'll go for some tea."
A Glimpse of the House of Penzance
Cornelius follows Jolie to the place where he had once lived the life of a Vailkrinni nobleman, but stops at a distance from the main gate. He stares implacably at the derelict mansion in the distance. Beneath its ivy-choked and cobwebbed entrance would be the ornately engraved entrance bearing the spread-winged raven of Penzance. Once the gardens would have been vibrant, the lawns impeccably manicured, the mansion walls dignified and not decayed with age. The sight of his ancestral home is like the opening of a floodgate: silent and still as a statue, Cornelius closes his eyes, and the memories come - crashing like waves through the carefully built barriers in his mind.
Jolie had caught on to Cornelius' dread, as they walked the once-refined path to the Manse's outer grounds, and while she was not entirely aware of their source of his pain, she knew enough to wear a glum face of her own; no matter how they might vie, Jolie liked the dandy and it pained her to see him in obvious distress. She'd say, gently, after giving him a moment, "Are you alright, pet? We don't have to stay, if..." The house seemed to be gaping at them through the empty sockets of its several broken windows, its dismal state of repair heart-breaking in itself, she supposed, for one who'd know its former glory. Let alone whatever had occurred to make Cornelius Penzance unveil a true emotion, a piece of himself, without any guardian, deceptive masque thrown across it. ".. if you're not.. feeling up to it."
With his eyes closed, it is as if the mansion is restored to its former glory, and Cornelius enters the mindscape of his memories, alighting from the carriage at the estate's main gate. It is cold, and dark, but this is Vailkrin, and such things are the status quo. It may as well have been a sunny Spring day, however, for Cornelius is in a festive mood. The day's most important business transaction had been a grand success, and the Penzance Family coffers would be thankful of his finesse with the negotiations. Striding up the cobbled path to the mansion he pats the pommel of the elaborately furnished rapier seated by his left hip. The blade has been cleaned of the transaction's history, but the merchant who had hired him as a negotiator would know of his success before a day had passed. His hand opens the main door, and he hears the sound of laughter. His children rush out to meet him, exuberant and lively as their mother, his first wife, had been. But here Cornelius' mind balks, violently resists the memory, and their faces blur as he snaps moistened eyes open. With a deep, ragged breath, he forces himself back to calmness. Looking at the dark and forbidding building that has replaced what was his home, he realises that he is not ready. Not ready to face his own memories... and not ready for whatever foul presences Anastasia's excesses would have drawn to the blood-tainted mansion. There are many things in Vailkrin which would have gathered to the scent of his family's destruction, like vermin to a corpse, feasting off the psychic energies left in Anastasia's wake: the deathscreams of his children in particular would have been a rare feast for such foul beings. With carefully controlled words he responds to Jolie "I think that, perhaps, such would be for the best. But this is not over. I shall return, and properly equipped for the task." So saying, he spins on his heel and stalks back to the intersection, using each step to rebuild the mental defences until, upon reaching the leafy arches, he is once again his presumably normal self.}