hh_mirror | Owl to Susan Sto Helit (closed RP for Susan and Charles Macaulay)

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Owl to Susan Sto Helit (closed RP for Susan and Charles Macaulay)

((Backdated to just after Henry Winter and Camilla Macaulay's wedding.))

Charles was antsy and bored and wearing a trench in the stone floor of his room from pacing. He needed distraction, somebody to talk to so he could avoid thinking about the honeymoon. Camilla would come back, yes, and his plan could go forward; but for now the fact that she was with Henry, on a honeymoon, was driving Charles crazy. But drink he would not, not after the last time. That just led to mistakes, and Charles refused to make mistakes. Not now. Not this time.

Which mean he couldn't go to Francis. Francis would just encourage him to drink. Or more. More was not a good idea. Richard was out, either - Charles was in no mood to deal with his unrequited melancholy over Camilla. This did not strike him as ironic in the least.

Charles was at a loss: he needed somebody, a friendly face. Someone who could take his mind off of what was likely happening in a hotel room in Mykonos. It occurred to him, somewhat belatedly and after some thought, that there just might be someone who could do that.

Susan. Camilla's friend and maid of honor.

Granted, he'd only just met her, but he'd liked her. Really liked her, not in a sexually predatory way but as a potential friend, and Charles had forgotten how good simple friendship could feel. It had been years since there'd been anyone who was just his friend. She'd seemed to like him, too. Maybe she'd be willing to help take him out of himself, stop him from sabotaging everything he wanted and ruining everything he'd risked.

Maybe she'd know what Camilla was doing.

With this in mind, he sent her an owl, carrying a bag of mini-marshmallows:

Susan,

Come to Hogsmeade with me for some hot chocolate and a change of scenery?

Charles

((Edited for more clarity on Charles' thinking. Shouldn't affect the actual RP at all. :) ))

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"Taste? Camilla gets that from our Nana. Henry -- I don't know where he gets it from," said Charles. He had to balance this carefully. If Susan were going to be his friend, she would be able to tell fairly soon that he and Henry weren't exactly good chums, so he couldn't fake it. On the other hand, he couldn't let his outright hostility show, because that might get reported back to Camilla. "He's an odd duck," he settled on saying. Any other expression would be hidden by a fortuitous tip of his cocoa mug as he drank.

"Yeah, Henry's been there before, if I remember correctly. He would have been there, oh, the summer before we met him. He was a sophomore when we were freshmen. Camilla and I never liked traveling, because of the way our parents died, so we'd never been anywhere like that. It sounded terribly exotic. Our teacher -- Julian -- had been almost everywhere in Europe from the sound of it, and other places too, and our friend Francis had been abroad too. So Henry was part of that, and we felt really provincial. Don't let them make you feel that way. They've never been where you're from either," he said warmly.

Susan had heard a very little about this Nana, who had apparently raised both the twins. She'd known their parents were dead--though whether Camilla had told her, or Henry, or if she'd just heard it in passing, she didn't know--but it would make sense that an older female relative would confer such taste on Camilla. Knowing absolutely zero about the genteel aspects of Southern society, she had no idea just how much of what had gone into making Camilla as she was today.

She saw nothing amiss with hearing Henry referred to as 'an odd duck'; he really was unusual, and Susan fancied he could be as prickly as she herself, if he wanted. She herself hadn't spoken to him, after the Incident, but given the fact that he and Stephen had actually gone and shot one another (stupid silly boys), it wasn't hard to imagine why someone would call him such. Even yet she had no idea that, but for Stephen's nineteenth-century obstinacy, Henry would have shot her, too, but if someone told her, she'd believe it. She liked him, but he was strange, and not someone you really wanted set against you.

Charles's words made her smile, too--he had hit square on the head a nail she hadn't even properly been aware of. Susan might technically be nobility, and in terms of sheer geography she'd been far more places than the entirety of the Greek class combined, but she did not have--and knew she did not have--that air of distinction, of class. She felt, in a word, common, and not in the way she enjoyed. That Charles could understand that told her that he was rather more like her than them--but then, she'd already inferred that from several little things, particularly his choice of pub. Camilla wouldn't be caught dead in a place like the Hog's Head, if she could avoid it, but it was just the sort of place Susan liked, because it was safely anonymous.

"You know, I was terribly jealous of your sister, once upon a time," she said, not stopping to wonder why she was confiding something like this to a man she had, when all was said and done, just met the other day. "Complete misunderstanding, of course, but at one point I had cause to think I ought to be, and I really was. I eventually decided, once my misconceptions had been straightened out, that it was not her fault she was so attractive, and that she might be worth knowing in spite of it." She took a long sip of her cocoa, warming herself to the tips of her fingers. "It makes me laugh, thinking of that now, but it didn't seem funny at the time. I would never have guessed she'd wind up such a friend."

Edited 2007-12-09 05:50 (UTC)

Charles blinked, then laughed -- not unkindly.

"Why were you jealous of Milly?"

The pet name slipped out without thinking.

Susan actually reddened slightly, making her ghostly birthmark stand out. "It's really quite stupid," she said. "Even at the time I knew it was, and it's so ridiculous I'm embarrassed about it now. Long story short, I thought she was involved with someone I was interested in at the time, and thus proceeded to think I had no chance, life was bleak, and the only option at my disposal was to quietly drink myself into oblivion." She snorted. "Of course, it was all baseless paranoia, and she wound up one of my few close friends."

The 'Milly' did not go unnoticed--clearly, Charles and Camilla had been close as children, which was understandable. Though she'd never had a sibling herself, Susan had worked with many children who did, and though they could occasionally drive one another mad, they were often really quite devoted to one another. They'd been lucky to have one another, especially having lost their parents.

"You shouldn't be jealous of her, ever," Charles said quietly. "She's had a rough time. And now she's married to Henry Winter, which, just between you and me, I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy." A beat, and a wry smile. "I take that back. I would wish it on my worst enemy. You might as well know Henry and I don't, historically, get along well. But we keep the peace for my sister's sake. As you've seen." Very cordial, at the wedding, they'd been.

"Can't blame you for paranoia. That kind of thing often turns out to be anything but baseless, doesn't it?" He took a deep reflective drink of his cocoa, then licked the corner of his mouth to catch a stray drop. "So what ended up happening? Camilla disavowed any interest in anyone but Henry, and everyone lived happily ever after?"

Once again, Susan thought she could understand. Siblings were often very protective of one another, and if Charles and Henry didn't get along, it was only logical that Charles should really have a problem with Henry marrying his sister. "Henry and I have had our differences, too," she said. "He's certainly not the type I'd pick, but he and Camilla are happy together, so I'm not one to judge." Really, she couldn't pass judgement on anyone's relationship, she thought--wryly, but not bitterly.

His next words nearly made her choke on her cocoa. "Not precisely." There was no way she was going to tell him the real story, but parts of it were acceptable. "It was baseless, but there's no such thing as happily ever after." She dumped the last of the marshmallows into her cup, by way of busying her hands and hiding her expression.

"You're right. There's no such thing," Charles agreed with a grim little nod. This little outing wasn't as good for his mood as he'd hoped it would be -- or rather, his mood had a way of darkening everything. "I guess that's as good a reason as any to grab for the happiness you can have while you can have it. Gather ye rosebuds while ye may (http://www.bartleby.com/101/248.html), as the saying goes."

Susan had never heard that particular turn of phrase, but it was rather apt. "Cheers to that," she said, raising her half-drained mug. "In my own experience, you can't rely on anyone to make you happy. It's something you have to do for yourself, even if it does sound like one of those loathesome self-help manuals."

She shook her head, digging her cigarettes out of her pocket, holding the pack out to him in silent offer after she'd extracted one for herself. "Life is much too short to put yourself at other people's mercies. Trust me on that one." She should know, after all. "Ultimately, and I know this sounds terrible, you've got to take care of yourself, because when it comes right down to it, you're the only one who can. Giving too much away can hurt terribly, in the end, so you might as well be a bit selfish and make sure you get what you want, at least sometimes." That was hardly a sentiment one would often find in anyone searching for inner peace, but at the moment at least it had its logic.

"Damn right," said Charles. "If you can take care of yourself, that is. Some people can't."

Charles could take care of himself. He'd proven that, over years cut off from the family. Washing dishes, doing whatever it took to keep a roof over his head. He'd have dug ditches if he had to. Henry hadn't had to get his hands dirty a day in his life, not in a way he didn't want. Puttering around in a rose garden wasn't work.

But Camilla couldn't take care of herself. So she felt like she had to latch onto someone like Henry. Before that, Charles had taken care of her. He'd be there for her again, just wait and see.

"Oh, they don't mind if you smoke here, obviously. But I don't partake, not lately. Gave it up for Lent," he said with a faint smile.

No drinking, no smoking. Clean-living Charles.

Susan would not have needed to take care of herself, if she hadn't wanted to, but she'd chosen to go out into the real world, like a real person, even if she wasn't exactly normal. A job was more than just regular wages, after all.

She could likely understand, though, that such self-reliance just wasn't possible for Camilla, at least for any extended period of time. Camilla was strong, in her way, but it wasn't the kind of strength that would get you very far in the ordinary world--perhaps it went with that aura of rarified taste. It was almost a kind of fragility, in its own way.

"I can't imagine that," she said, pulling her wand out of her boot to light her cigarette and pausing midway through. "Being one of the ones who can't. You'd be forever at the mercy of other people, which is something I can't even begin to comprehend."

She tucked the pack back into her pocket and actually lit her cigarette. While she didn't know just what Lent was, it sounded like some sort of holiday, so it made sense even if the reference itself was lost. "It's all a matter of give and take, really. So many cultures teach that you should give, always give, and that anything you have for yourself should be given by someone else. What they ought to tell you, and don't, is that there has to be some part of you that's just yours. The people who don't do that are oftentimes the ones who can't make it on their own." Charles might think Camilla couldn't take care of herself, but Susan had a hunch that Henry couldn't hack it without Camilla, either. They were mutually dependent, and Susan now had a relfexive aversion to dependence.

Charles tried to drown his bitterness in his cocoa. It didn't work. Cocoa just couldn't beat whiskey for that. He had to give an unpleasant little chuckle. "You know what my sister would say to that? She'd say, if we have it all figured out, why are we the ones sitting in a dreary dive on our own, and they're the ones having the time of their lives on a Mediterranean holiday?"

Somehow the bitterness only hardened his face in a way that made it not at all ugly, only more solid, an appealing hardness that firmed his boyish good looks into something stronger.

Susan wasn't bitter, anymore. What she was, was tired--the sort of tiredness one might feel while recovering from major surgery, which in a way she was.

"Ah, but you see," she said, gesturing with her cigarette for emphasis, "we're not alone. We've wisely foregathered with one another, rather than mourn the fact that we're still stuck in dreary Scotland while they're off in the sun. And," she added, eying her cup, "they almost certainly don't have cocoa. With minimarshmallows." Somehow, that really did seem like an immense advantage, and she laughed, quietly. "So in a way we're way ahead of them."

Charles would be bitter till kingdom come. He didn't always have to show it, that was all. Right now he was being a little self-indulgent.

"Point," he said. "Or rather half a point. Because if Camilla happened to decide on a whim she wanted cocoa, right at this moment, what do you think would happen?"

Henry would probably move heaven and earth to get her some damn cocoa, that was what.

"Still I award you an A for effort," he decided, with a sudden grin. "We have indeed wisely foregathered, and one man's dive is another man's palace. I'd take this place over Madam Puddifoot's any day." Charles didn't know Camilla had in fact gone to Madam Puddifoot's, nor that she'd taken Susan there. He just guessed it would be the kind of place Camilla would want to go. (Admittedly it would also be the kind of place Nana would want to go. But some of Camilla's prejudices had come from Nana, too -- had been in place long before Hampden.)

Susan had to admit the other half-point. It must be nice, to have someone who would be so devoted to you, though on the other hand it could well prove smothering in unending amounts.

"True," she said, upending her mug and wiping away another marshmallow mustache with immense dignity. "And don't even get me started on Madam Puddifoot's. Camilla and I went there for tea, once, sight unseen--I wasn't even really human at the time and I thought it was awful. I think Camilla did, too, though she was much too polite to say so. I've noticed that she's never even remotely rude, but she can get this sort of stricken look, usually when she's confronted with something mind-bendingly awful. Which, believe me, Madam Puddifoot's was. Nobody should be allowed to put ruffles on lampshades."

Charles set down his mug with a clunk. "You actually went there?" Ruffles on the lampshades ... oh, he could see in his mind's eye that look, the stricken look Susan was describing. When someone meant to be tasteless, Camilla would go cold and blank to freeze them out, but when she was sure they didn't mean it and they just didn't have the taste God gave a warthog, then she got embarrassed on their behalf.

"You really did, didn't you?" He couldn't remember the last time he'd laughed this hard. "She made you stay, too, I bet. Couldn't just turn around and walk out when she saw what she'd gotten into."

"We did," she said, trying not to join his laughter and failing. "And she did. I really don't think she wanted to, but somehow she just sailed onward, right through the most bizarre assortment of tea sandwiches I think I've ever seen. Incidentally, where on earth did she pick up a liking for cream cheese and marmalade sandwiches? I like each on its own, but why someone would ever think to combine the two... Well. Perhaps it's just a cultural difference." The diplomatic way of putting it, at least.

"You don't like cream cheese and marmalade sandwiches?" His astonishment wasn't feigned for humor. It was genuine. The twins assumed everyone liked cream cheese and marmalade.

Susan laughed. "Not together, no," she said. "Then again, I'm not really fond of tea sandwiches in general. They don't fill you up--all they do is make you hungrier."

"That just goes to show you haven't had a proper cream-cheese-and-marmalade sandwich. It ought to be on really thick bread, ideally wheat or even pumpernickel if it's around. It's substantial in its own right," Charles insisted, wide-eyed and earnest. "Tea sandwiches are little flimsy thin things. A good cream cheese and marmalade sandwich is anything but."

Something about his earnestness made Susan smile. There was something almost childlike about it, even though there was nothing childlike about Charles himself. It was a different sort of earnestness than Camilla's, certainly, even if in some ways they suggested one another.

"I might have to try a piece of one, maybe," she said, somewhat doubtful. "Though I think it might wind up with nougat on the 'not a chance' list." There were few things Susan genuinely hated, but nougat was one of them.

As quick as that, Charles was up from his seat and over at the bar, having a word with the barman. He appeared to be having an almost showily surreptitious conversation with the man -- whether for Susan's benefit or the man's might be hard to say, but all evidence pointed to the latter, considering that when the man disappeared into a back room for a moment, Charles threw a quick look and a wink over his shoulder to Susan.

Whatever twin-magic he'd worked, Charles returned to the table with a grubby checkered cloth in which was wrapped the queen of all cream-cheese-and-marmalade sandwiches, made to the specifications he'd just mentioned: a thick crusty dark bread, probably what the barman himself liked, spread thickly with cream cheese and with a tart golden citrus jelly. It was in fact bitter orange marmalade (https://www.jollygrub.com/OnLineStore1/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=195&zenid=9cde4c3bf87269f02aadc53d53c74b03), which Charles believed made the cream cheese seem sweeter. He'd become a connoisseur of marmalades.

"There." He placed it on the table before Susan with a triumphant expectant air. "I'm throwing down the gauntlet."

Susan stared at the sandwich a moment, and let out a peal of honest, unreserved laughter. "Oh, well, if it's a dare, I suppose I have no choice," she said, unwrapping the cloth. She took an experimental bite, hoping she wasn't about to be utterly sickened. Much to her surprise, it was rather better than the anemic sandwiches she'd had at Madam Puddifoot's. It wasn't something she'd choose to eat every day, but it wasn't grotesque, either.

"Not bad," she said. "Though I don't think I can eat the whole thing." It really was a huge sandwich, and while Susan had a capacity for food that seemed rather astonishing for her size, there was no way she could eat it all.

"Don't worry, we won't let it go to waste." Charles took it from her and tore off rather a sizable chunk before handing the rest back. Sticky-fingered, grinning, he munched at his hunk of dairy-and-citrus bliss. It was childlike, in the way Camilla could sometimes seem too -- childlike without being childish or twee, somehow. Innocent.

All right, it was quite impossible to remain in a brown study when the person across from you has just taken a giant bite out of your sandwich. Susan snorted into her cocoa, very nearly sending it out her nose, and managed to laugh and cough all at once.

"Well, that's one way to solve the problem," she said, wiping her mouth on her handkerchief and taking the sandwich back. The piece she took was not nearly so large as Charles's, but she was certainly doing her part. She tried to imagine Camilla doing such a thing and failed, but certainly she must have at some point, having grown up with Charles. Then again, if one took into account Camilla's ability to climb trees like a monkey, it made it easier to picture.

"So, the verdict?" Sandwich in one hand, he extricated his handkerchief from an inner breast pocket with the other, and laid it out as an impromptu placemat on which he could then set the sandwich down. "I could live on this stuff, personally. I think Camilla and I both did, for weeks on end. Especially when papers were due."

Cream cheese and marmalade were the flavors of a happier time.

"My feelings won't be hurt if you don't like it, of course," he assured Susan. "More for me that way. But if you end up not liking Lucky Charms either, I might start to think it's personal."

It was a light little joke -- he clearly didn't have any personal attachment to Lucky Charms cereal (though his relationship to cream cheese and marmalade sandwiches might be perceptibly fraught). Susan's reaction to the sandwich, cocoa-spluttering and all, had launched him into a more effusive and jovial mood.

Owl to Susan Sto Helit (closed RP for Susan and Charles Macaulay)

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