February 24th, 1892  — Dempsey Estate

'So who was it?' Christabel asked, as she stalked into the sitting room, tossing the envelope with it's pale yellow paper and lurid pink wax seal onto the side table.  She hadn't even opened it, but there was no mistaking the seal, nor indeed the owl that had delivered it, complete with it's bright pink bow.  The timing of the delivery and the recent edition of Witch Weeklys publication of lonely hearts could hardly lead to any other conclusion as to the contents of the letter sitting before her. 

'So?' she pressed 'Who put this in my name?'  her tone was lower now - not angry shrill but a dangerous control, like the crack of ice on a frozen lake.  'Which one of my darling siblings decided to meddle in my affairs?' with each word her toe tapped the shiney parquet flooring.

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dress

Ozymandias Dempsey  -  Other Dempsey's feel free to pop in Elias Grimstone Holly Scrimgeour Clarissa Cosgrove

  

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I am my mother's savage daughter, The one who runs barefoot cursing sharp stones

I am my mother's savage daughter, I will not cut my hair, I will not lower my voice
MJ made glory

Sina's return had not seen a dissipation of all the restless energy he'd invested into the search for her over the past weeks, but it had caused it to be redirected. He'd started (and quickly abandoned) half a dozen different ideas in his workshop since Monday, and this morning he'd been up before the sun with an idea that had quite inconveniently occurred to him at half past three and refused to leave. He'd worked through breakfast, and had eventually taken a break when he'd grown unable to ignore the complaints of his stomach and unable to continue troubleshooting the particular roadblock he'd encountered. When Christabel entered the sitting room he was sat next to a tea tray, a slice of buttered toast between his teeth. He took his time chewing as he surveyed the scene and tried to figure out what she was so wound up about. The Witch Weekly ordeal seemed like a proper lifetime ago at this point, so it took longer than it perhaps might otherwise have to put the pieces together.

"You seem annoyed," he observed dryly, taking another bite of his toast.

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MJ is the light of my life <3

The immediate lack of 'what are you talking about?' made the culprit clear from the outset. She lifted one of the small throw pillows and hefted it hard at his head - she had not yet ruled out the prospect of throwing some jinxes at him.

'What on earth were you thinking?' she all but shouted, at her eldest brother. 'What could possibly have possessed you to write in on my behalf? Which one was meant to be me?' she prepared to thunder, depending on how vapid or insipid he had made her seem.

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I am my mother's savage daughter, The one who runs barefoot cursing sharp stones

I am my mother's savage daughter, I will not cut my hair, I will not lower my voice
MJ made glory

Oz raised an eyebrow. He thought it strange that she didn't already know which one he'd sent in on her behalf. He'd assumed that was what was in the letter with the Witch Weekly seal, some administrative tidbit regarding her advertisement. If that wasn't the case...

"Someone responded?" he asked, incredulous. Ozy set the remainder of his toast down and sat up straighter, reaching out for the letter. "Maybe you really should open with the line about guillotines at the next ball. Let me see."

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MJ is the light of my life <3

'Perhaps I ought' she said sardonically, coming around the sofa to sit on the low couch opposite the one Ozy occupied. 'I wasn't sure if you would have written me as mewling, desperate...' she struggeled to find an term offensive - yet not entirely scandalous enough to describe the sort of pathetic simpering she had spotted in most of the letters. There were two that read as more interesting and there was a hope that it was one of those. It would really rather depend on who her brother had been intending to play a greater joke on - the traditional chap who found himself writing to Christabel Dempesy expecting some demure and pliant debutante - or Chris herself by writing a letter designed to encourage every mad badger in the Empire to write into the wanna be revolutionary.


'I havn't opened it yet' she said rather matter of factly and tossed him the bowed letter - desperately curious herself as to the sort of man who might have been induced to write in response to what she was sure now was one of the more revolutionary letters. 'Tell me how do you find your new brother in law?' She asked, leaning on her elbow, her feet now tucked up under her on the plush furnishing.

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I am my mother's savage daughter, The one who runs barefoot cursing sharp stones

I am my mother's savage daughter, I will not cut my hair, I will not lower my voice
MJ made glory

Hadn't opened it yet? Wasn't she in the least bit curious? Oz certainly was. Then again, he had the mystery of who had placed the ad already solved; perhaps had he been in her shoes he might have been more preoccupied with that than with the response, too. He unfolded the letter and skimmed the first few lines, but didn't even finish the short missive before he tossed it to the floor with a roll of his eyes.

"He wants to be a writer," Oz said derisively. "We have more than enough of those already."

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MJ is the light of my life <3

'Don't speak so cruely of your future brother in law'she derided snatching the letter, and scanning it's contents. The writing seemed sincere - painfully so, almost - was the word pathetic? She scanned the letter again - yes, yes, it was. And yet her brothers derision was worthy of riling up and if he hated the letters writer that seemed reason enough to lean into it.

'A writer' her tone sounding a little more impressed by the letter as she made a show of re-reading it. 'He would fit in well with us, think about he and Porphyria writing by the fire, father and mother would like him.' she filled her voice with girlish glee, a tone designed to annoy the eldest Dempsey progeny. 'You might be his best man, after all you've introduced us, after a fashion.'

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I am my mother's savage daughter, The one who runs barefoot cursing sharp stones

I am my mother's savage daughter, I will not cut my hair, I will not lower my voice
MJ made glory

Oz recognized that she was trying to goad him, and refused to rise to the bait. Not based on something so silly as a letter from some anonymous suitor which would almost certainly come to nothing.

"So long as they're sitting around his fire, not mine," Ozymandias said as he lifted his cup of tea. "Despite what you might believe based on the current state of things, I do not intend to convert the estate into a foundry for wayward authors. If you intend to marry a writer you shall have to relocate to his — doubtless terribly Romantic — hovel."

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MJ is the light of my life <3

She gave an affronted expression and raised a mornful hand to her forehead and gave a dramatic sniff, as though his revelation of the future of the estate was exactly that, a revelation. The reality was she rather expected it - but hoped that her father had a long span of years left to him, so she needn't worry about it, until she was either married, or so old and set in her ways that she was past caring.

'Then I shall have to leave my romantic life in your hands for a few more months yet' she threatened, 'If you wish me gone, and apparently you have the way with the gentlemen, perhaps we ought to leave the matter to you to see of lovely brother in law you find for yourself? she folded the letter back up and flick it at him so the letter with it's gaudy pink ribbon thwacked him in the chest.

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I am my mother's savage daughter, The one who runs barefoot cursing sharp stones

I am my mother's savage daughter, I will not cut my hair, I will not lower my voice
MJ made glory

Oz brushed his chest off, as though he expected the letter to have left a stain on his jacket. He dropped the crust of his toast back on the tea tray and shook his head. "You don't want any of my friends for a husband," he pointed out. He was perhaps being slightly uncharitable — surely some of them were fine fellows, or had the potential to be once they'd cast their bachelor ways aside — but in general he didn't think anyone would take issue with the sentiment. He himself had been a rather infamous rake before marrying, and — well, whatever people thought of him now, they certainly didn't think he was a model husband.

"And I'm not going to go meet people to find a brother-in-law," he continued with a shrug. "Finding someone to spend your life with was supposed to be your job. It's hardly my fault I've done a better job of it in an afternoon than you've done in half a dozen years."

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MJ is the light of my life <3

'How unsporting of your Oz' she harumphed at her brother, her tone full of mock annoyance, 'There was me thinking you were rather a patron of the arts. Or at least a better judge of the male character than I.' Grudgingly - and she did so grudge to acknowledge either the wit or the sense of the eldest Dempsey - and certainly not his undeniable place as the eventual successor to their artistic -and indulgent patriarch. And the seismic change that that would make in the life of the various Dempsey children - she was not quite yet a spinster, but it was a fate fast approaching and she could not help the vague panicked clench of her stomach when she thought of it.

When pressed she could hardly think of the sort of man she might be able to tolerate for the length of a marraige, 'You are lucky, brother, perhaps I will follow in your footsteps and marry someone who can just about tolerate me.' she moaned, 'I sometimes think that any gentleman who might be inclined to take me couldn't possibly be sensible enough for me to care for.'

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I am my mother's savage daughter, The one who runs barefoot cursing sharp stones

I am my mother's savage daughter, I will not cut my hair, I will not lower my voice
MJ made glory

"My arts patronage has nothing to do with it," Oz said, shaking his hand at her in a gentle shooing motion. "If you're looking for an artistic husband, that's probably half your trouble already." Their father being the notable exception (and only then because he had been born into an estate), artists were seldom able to support themselves properly, much less a household. Of course, Oz had no say in the matter of who his sisters married or didn't; even if his parents died with the lot of them unmarried (which seemed increasingly likely by the year) he doubted any of them would seriously want his input or his blessing, whatever Christa said in the moment. Still — he could not imagine any of his sisters being happily married to someone without the means to support them in the same lifestyle they were currently accustomed to, and artists generally didn't fit the bill.

"It shouldn't be hard to find someone to tolerate you," he teased lightly, ignoring the jibe about his own marriage. "There are moments when even I find you slightly tolerable."

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MJ is the light of my life <3

'Oh Oz! Your sentimental affection for your sister shall be our secret' she teased him, never let it be said Ozymandias DEmpsey was a man prone to hyperbolic expressions of affection. 'It is truely every young woman's dream to be considered merely tolerable' she rolled her eyes in an exaggerated fashion.

Still, she clapped her hands together as though she had reached some firm and final decision. 'It is settled then, I shall marry some elderly wizengemot member who is in need of an heir, or a nurse maid and thus be out of your hair - and simply take me unknown letter writer as an intellectual lover. she expressed the last word with obvious relish designed to get a rise out of her elder brother and someone with an obvious vested interest in the reputation of the family.

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I am my mother's savage daughter, The one who runs barefoot cursing sharp stones

I am my mother's savage daughter, I will not cut my hair, I will not lower my voice
MJ made glory

Oz recognized that she was probably trying to get under his skin, but if she thought he was going to be shocked by the idea of an intellectual lover when he himself had several physical lovers, she was bound to be disappointed.

"That's the spirit, Christa," he said, turning his attention back to his tea. "Then when you get bored of him or think him too stupid, you can move straight on to the next one."

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MJ is the light of my life <3

She fought a pout, not wanting to see that he had disappointed her by not giving in to any affront he might have felt - she had rather been hoping for some expression of outrage. 'I'll let you write for the formal introductions' she threw the letter at him again, really hoping she cleave him in two - alas it didn't.

And flounced out of the room, cursing the fact that not enough people died as a direct consequence of hubris.

Somewhere in wizarding England, Linus Meeks had a vague sense disappointed that he couldn't quite place.

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The following 2 users Like Christabel Daphnel's post:2 users Like Christabel Daphnel's post
   Ozymandias Dempsey, Porphyria Dempsey

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I am my mother's savage daughter, The one who runs barefoot cursing sharp stones

I am my mother's savage daughter, I will not cut my hair, I will not lower my voice
MJ made glory