Ode to Joy-10.2: Maids Seem to Run

10. Teatime Travesty

ii.     Maids Seem to Run

Orion seated himself across from the maid and his wife. He was this once willing to hire a woman on the spot simply because he dreaded meeting a stranger’s eyes. After the fiasco with Amadeus surely the whole county was talking. Though the virtue of the maid who ran away, Bri reminded him, was fair and she would likely not gossip of her last employer’s home for this would ruin chances employment elsewhere.

Bri always showed him the practical side of things.

Another practical reason to live with her.

But Bri was aloof in the conversation, allowing Orion to interview the new woman with improvised questions.

“Of course we trust you with the baby. We would just prefer she remain in Julia’s watch most of the time. She is still so tiny. I do not even joke. Her head is about this big.” He picked up a tea cup.

That was when he saw it.

The tiny white creature crawling on the floor, standing up like a person to stare at them. Instead of screaming, Orion nudged Bri.

She gave her sudden laugh and this made the maid jump.

Orion felt his insides coil into a knot. They would not flex even as Bri’s words repeated to him in his head.

“She laughs at everything,” he told the maid.

Lately Bri and Orion had become more forthcoming to their staff, especially about Bri’s bizarre laugh.

“Oh yes. I apologize. It’s quite strange but sometimes I laugh for no reason at all, dear.”

Orion folded the napkin on the table into origami as the women spoke and the large rat ran about the room as though it were her own. Her little pink bow was her crown. He saw tiny pellets left in Isolde’s trail. Orion flicked his origami rat under Bri’s nose.

“That’s adorable, muffin. You’re very talented. Isn’t he just darling?” Bri asked the maid.

To Orion’s surprise the young woman seemed charmed. “It’s a mouse, isn’t it?”

“A rat,” Orion corrected with purpose. “We get them in these parts. The size of cats. Legend has it they can grow to be the size of a baby horse in Dartmoor.”

“Yes, Dartmoor is frightfully haunted,” the maid fueled the fire without knowing.

At last Bri’s large eyes widened and she seemed to see the rat at the door as it scurried out.

“Pardon me, dears.”

Orion watched his wife exit. She did seem rushed and so he made an excuse for her, “Probably maternal instinct.”

The maid nodded, a pleasant smile on her face.

Orion liked her. He gave her a smile back. At this moment his stomach had coiled and knotted and his heart was speeding from the earlier panic he felt but with no more purpose. The thoughts had left and yet his body was reeling from the unpleasant experience. “Well, Miss Summers. I am pleased to welcome you on board here. We like to communicate with our staff and we do prefer you to be comfortable. And…”

He felt the tension reach its peak.

“Excuse me.”

He lifted his tea cup, pinky up and lost the contents of his stomach in it. When he thought it was finished he closed his eyes. But another wave hit him and the water and tea of the day spilled into the tea cup.

Orion picked up a napkin and cleaned as best he could.

“I apologize, miss. It’s not contagious.”

He lifted the whole tray from the table. “My wife will get you a fresh tray.”

The woman’s face was frozen, unable to give a reaction.

“Make sure my mother gets put to bed on time,” Orion reminded Bri.

He was lying in bed while his wife felt his forehead.

“Teatime Sick. Orion’s own recipe. If you were feeling ill, why did you not tell me?” Bri grumbled.

“I certainly did not know I was going to vomit into my tea cup, dear.”

“You need to rest. Take your sleep aid.”

“I cannot. The new doctor told me to avoid anything that wakes me or sedates me.”

Bri blinked at her husband for a long time. “That makes no sense. Half the time the problem is you cannot rest. Without those things, what control do you have?”

“I do not know. Did you catch that horrid monster?”

“No,” Bri spoke tearfully. “Poor Izzy. She’s going to be smashed by someone’s foot or eaten by a cat. She’s a pure blood domestic. Imported from Scotland. Never been wild in her life. Little princess.”

“Princess Rat. I remember that tale. The Brothers Grimm told it.”

“Really?”

“Yes. She gets eaten.”

Bri frowned and swatted at Orion with a wet rag that she set on his head. “In a few hours you should eat if you can. Settle your stomach. I will make sure Deanna is taken care of, do not worry.”

“Sometimes she hides in places they cannot find her…” Orion called to his wife as she left the room.

He lay back down in bed and looked to the opium pipe Bri had left on the nightstand. After five days of purging it felt as though he would be trashing his suffering simply to go back to the opiate. But his addiction called to him. And he had been chasing sleep off and on for the past few days. Such purging had made little difference.

And so Orion gave in to his oldest enemy and friend.

ODE TO JOY: Part 1-4: Brigid's Corset Strings

4.     Brigid’s Corset Strings

MY WIFE has always pulled her corset strings so tightly it will make an onlooker hold his breath. And it is not as though she is trying to accentuate an hourglass figure. She is shaped with a small waist, with or without a corset, and needs no enhancement to bring this out. From all I know about women’s clothing—which is quite more than the average man—a lady can use skirt padding to create the illusion of a smaller waist with much more effectiveness than pulling a corset on too tight.

It troubles me that Brigid does this but not for the reasons one might suspect.

It is only that I know things…they color her actions. As I watch her pull the strings so tightly around herself in a squeezing embrace I can picture a heart hugged in the same way. Some kind of perverse armor around the heart itself, something I myself can relate to on a daily basis. Mine are airs. Smoke or mist set around a heart that has only a fortress of sand.

But my wife has a different heart. It is steady and strong and when I hear it I envy it.

She has confided in me what happened to her in India all those years ago. A young waif with no family to speak of, serving the British soldiers brought in to cool conflict.

When one of those men chose to harm a girl, a mere child, in a way that we can never erase.

I always imagine that was when Bri began to pull her corset strings too tightly.

My poor darling.

BRIGID

“You’re pulling it too tightly, darling.”

Bri cocked her head, her eyes meeting Orion’s in the full-body mirror as she tied her corset strings.

“Oh good. A husband who knows corsets better than I.”

“I am sorry,” he lowered his head. He was not looking well. Nearly a month after Drusilla’s birth and Bri could not recall her husband sleeping. Yet he had the energy to correct the way she dressed.

“I do not want you to faint,” he reasoned. “There’s no need to restrict your breathing in your state.”

“I am not in a ‘state.’ I feel well. I feel happy. Can’t a woman dress herself?”

“Very well,” Orion straightened his own suit from behind her and stepped over to the bed.

Bri would be lying if she said she minded his presence while she dressed. She quite liked him near her at such moments. For all her bickering she found his tips on apparel useful. Her first husband had been so strict in the rules of men and women’s differences that she floundered when she tried to please him. He was not there to point out that she wore a hat backwards or pulled her corset too tightly. Orion may have known more than the average man about female dress. But that was something she found fascinating in him. He did not want to be a woman and yet he could become one when he pleased. Though that height…

Orion towered over everyone. The woman he became stood out as well, as freakishly tall. But not beside Amadeus Frunberg, the tallest person Bri had ever met.

“Why do you do it?” Orion’s voice traveled to her, interrupting her thoughts on his lover Amadeus. She shook her head.

She was patting down her hair as it rested in a bun on top of her head. She glanced at him again through the reflection. He had a book at hand but she knew he was not reading it. She knew his attention span was dead when he was like this.

“I don’t know,” she shrugged. “To make myself look younger. I’m old in case you don’t remember.”

She had not begun to gray yet but she was aging and she knew it.

“You make it sound like you are a century old. I mean, why pull it that extra inch?”

“No reason. Now are you ready?”

He nodded to her, the dark around his eyes warning that this may be a long evening. They were green eyes, alert and sharp. When Drusilla opened her eyes they were the same.

“It is going to be alright,” Bri assured him.

Seeing Charles and Lucy again promised good luck but there were loose ends between Charles and Orion that needed to be tied and that might be troublesome. In any case Bri was prepared to stand by her husband’s side.

“Then let us go!” she reached a hand out to her husband. He stood and took it. Their gloves covered most but their fingers touched.

ODE TO JOY: Part 1-2: Infant Sorrow

2.     Infant Sorrow

“LET ME die!” Bri screeched.

The pain racking her body was that of a thousand hells, pushing its way through her like a demon.

“Mrs. Hookwell, try to breathe,” came a voice.

“Don’t tell me to BREATHE!”

The midwife could be heard huffing as she dipped a rag into a bucket of cold water. It was slapped onto Bri’s head as her screams began to build again. She felt as though she were slowly being split in two by some monster that clawed out of her from the inside.

“Where is Orion!” she demanded. “Where is he?”

“We don’t want to bring him in here!”

“Yes I do! Where is my husband goddamn it! Where’s my muffin?”

Amidst the pain that lasted an eternity, Orion’s deep voice spoke to Bri, guiding her through it. The mid-wife did little but irritate her in her already sweating, writhing state. The blankets were soaked in her fluids and the stench of blood hung in the air.

A small panic budded in her heart and began to open wider.

Delirium set to its work in making the woman a fool. At forty-four, would she survive from this gift she had tried to give? Would the gift survive?

She felt her husband’s hand in her own, never moving or pulling from her sharp grip. Her nails dug into his flesh. She loosened the hold and she could hear him shift beside her, a hand on her head.

“Darling? Are you alright?”

“Is it over?”

“Yes. You don’t remember? We have a little girl.”

“Where are they taking it to, Orion?”

“Nowhere. She is in the room. They are cleaning her.”

“If I give her…” she spoke these words without knowing their meaning “If I give her to strangers how do I know they will love her?”

“What? Brigid, what are you talking about?” Orion asked.

“Her chances are better with someone else than with me…” she slurred.

“Brigid…”

“My lord,” the nursemaid’s voice arrived. “She’s delirious. Let us leave her to sleep.”

Bri was half aware that what she spoke made no sense. But the other half was lying on the bed of some cargo ship, surrounded by sailors and a few dark-skinned women. The smell of her own sweat and blood overwhelmed her. She buried her face into the pillow and passed off into another nightmare.

The dark-skinned women had helped her to birth that child. When they showed her the infant girl she believed its crying was grief. Grief in its first moments. She grieved being dropped into this world. The Indians could not make Bri nurse the baby for she feared it. She was only a girl of fourteen and this infant knew it. It resented her for this. It always would…

coming soon: Ode to Joy- a serial novel

Ode to Joy

The story of four Victorians who struggle with mental illnesses yet to be diagnosed. Unlike today there are no proper treatments for their ailments and the problems they pose are pinned to their personality flaws and life. But like today, there is little understanding for what ails them and the love and support of family and friends prove to be their salvation.

Meet Lord Orion Hookwell, the eccentric earl who has spent his life in and out of asylums. Adjusting to the idea of being a father and a secret “sodomite” he must find ways of coping with his cyclical mania and depression. He thinks he may have found his quirky, supportive wife Bri’s long lost child but reuniting the women proves to be more difficult than he at first estimates. Brigid, meanwhile, deals with badly timed flashbacks of her youth in British-owned India. When she cannot shake these flashbacks she begins to wonder if she is as mad as her husband. Their family friends Charles and Lucy Arteberry have baggage of their own. Captain Charles Arteberry, proud alcoholic and libertine is deteriorating before his family and friends’ eyes and Lucy must piece him back together by re-exploring his past and his grief for their shared beloved Fonso. While Charles is slowly dismissed as an immoral and cruel man, Lucy stays by his side. But Lucy has demons of her own. Every winter she is taken with a deep melancholy. But will anyone believe that their rock, the cheery and talented Lucy, could feel such lows. Together they are working toward a huge production to fund a women’s shelter in London. Will Bri and her long lost daughter be reunited? Will Charles dismiss the secret human traffic his ships now support? Will Orion, for the first time in his life, check himself into an asylum for the good of his family and friends?

This will be a serial novel. Meaning while it will be quality it is also written while being published. A character guide and other useful information will be handy on this blog for your viewing pleasure and use. 

Everything is (c) 2012 Luz Briar. No stealing.

DEMONIAC Concept Art

This is a concept cover art done around last year at this time. It is supposed to feature Milla floating in the river of Styx. Unseen in this caption is Cerebus as he devours souls, based off of a Blake painting. Much of Demoniac is inspired by William Blake’s “Songs of Innocence & Songs of Experience” so this was fitting. Not sure how he got cut out of the picture.

More concept art for part I of the story “Innocence.” Milla in a German Impressionistic madhouse where the pages of her diary are sucked into the blackhole-like door at the lefthand corner. The wallpaper looks like prison bars on a curtain. This is little Milla, shortly before she turns 13 methinks.

A doodle of Lady Arteberry. Again with the big heads and the little bodies.  Lady is exceedingly fun to draw.

Finally, a sketch of Buck…licking a sharp object. He and Fonso’s character design are nearly identical, especially uncolored. Another example of big head, little body. Not sure why i draw that way. I can do realistic but stylized is so much more fun!
For a picture of Bri and Orion (who appear in Book 2), click here.
All are pencil sketches because I’m not high tech. Just thought I’d like to share some of the better sketches.
Demoniac: a Memoir and all characters are ©2008-2011 Luz Briar.

Draining the Humor- artwork & link

(click to enlarge. Nothing stupendous. I’ve done better, this is just a doodle. I love how their facial expressions came out though. In order from left to right; Charles, Orion, with Mini Muffin and Bri.)

If you have yet to read the story, click HERE to see it from the start.

There is another story following this one. But I’m not releasing any details yet as it isn’t even written. Check back for more if you like Orion and Bri.

(More Starving Artists coming soon.)

© 2011 Luz Briar.

Draining the Humor- Epilogue

Epilogue

Orion followed Bri into the parlor. There was a heavy April shower outside and the falling was pattering the roof, but peaceful.

Charles, Lucy and Amadeus were playing cards at the table. Charles was cursing in good humor, challenging something his wife had said. Meanwhile, Lucy chattered back while laughing, her red dress blending with the table cloth. Amadeus took a swallow of his wine and then turned in Orion’s direction and smiled.

Bri’s manner had softened toward the sailor. She now understood Charles method toward Orion. Like mad-doctor, Charles had needed to drain the bad humors from his ex-lover, to force him to heal. For that Bri was grateful.

Bri smirked and pulled her husband by his sleeve. For once he did not seem afraid of their company and for that, she was immensely grateful to Amadeus. The two got along smashingly. Bri sat opposite her man and he claimed a chair beside Amadeus.

The five continued laying the cards down among idle chitchat and Bri watched Orion smile up at Amadeus with innocence. She could tell his hand must be on the bigger man’s thigh. The other night, she heard her husband give in, letting himself go and offering himself up to Amadeus. In the room beside hers, she heard them make love all night and she tried not to laugh, with fodder to tease her husband the next day and with relief. Orion had released himself from restriction.

“Happy birthday, Muffin,” Bri told him, managing to whisper. Her laugh popped up and Orion laughed.

“Are you ready, dear?”

She nodded and Orion stood.

“The real reason we called you here was because we have an announcement to make.”

Lucy covered her mouth, crystal eyes widening. Charles cocked a brow and Amadeus looked on with his usual intensity.

“Brigid and I are expecting.”

Lucy squeaked and Charles gave Orion a generous nod. “Well done, Orion. Well done.”

Lucy stood, breaking the general eloquence and threw her arms around Bri. It was that moment she realized she loved the Arteberrys and their friend Amadeus.

“Brigid, congratulations, darling!”

Charles raised his glass and it was understood. The others did as well.

“To the Hookwell’s healthy infant. The fourth earl of Constance, perhaps.”

When the giddiness wore off, and the wine was taking its effect, Bri climbed the stairs to the largest room on the first floor. She threw open the balcony doors to breathe in the fresh air. From this location, the view was perfect for the pond. Bri watched the swans and leaned on the stone banister. There was a light drizzle that wet her, but the air was hot and the stickiness was womblike. She herself had never met her mother. She remembered a baby of her own once, long ago, the product of a terrible intrusion on her body. How she had wanted to keep the infant, but how she knew she would have to give it up to people who could care for it.

“It’s a beautiful view,” Orion’s voice found her.

“Like you,” she half-teased, but her sincerity was right beneath her skin. She felt tears welling up.

Yesterday her husband had told her all at last. She was still coming to terms with how someone could betray such a gentle creature as Orion. At the end of the broken heart, there was the worst fate, being locked in a madhouse in an attempt to get him out of the way. The fact that he escaped and functioned in society was a miracle in itself.

“Like you,” Orion took her face in his hands. “Thank you, Bri.”

She noticed that Orion had brought company. Mini Muffin, the baby swan with the bad wing.

“I told you I was right. You feel better now, don’t you?” she said, petting the swan.

“Holding it in was…rottenness. It festered. The older I had gotten, the harder it would have been to tell you. I am glad we did before the baby,” he stopped himself. His voice had caught.

Bri took his face now and stood on tiptoe to kiss him. “You’re going to be a father.”

“I know, Bri. Thank you, Bri. You set me free.”

“I think Mini Muffin is well,” he announced.

“Darling, his wing is deformed.”

Orion smirked and let the baby swan go, it flapped its good wings and flew from the balcony to join its family. Bri gaped at Orion.

They embraced as the drizzle fell heavier.

© 2011 Luz Briar. All Rights Reserved.