Do Us Part {A Crimson Peak fanfic}

by SincereJester

[Author’s note: I had meant to wrap this fic up before February–unless there was enough demand for me to continue it, of course. 😉 ] but reality intervened. I fell and gained myself a lovely concussion and damaged leg, and could only periodically work online during bed rest as my brain healed. So, we missed one of my deadlines, but at last I can post part 8. Enjoy!]

Part 8 

Lucille, acting as gracious hostess, set out a simple lunch
and offered tea to everyone. Constable Webber found the whole scene a tab
macabre, but the young lady was poised and calm as she distributed teacups and
saucers, a tribute to her proper upbringing. Inspector Root was eager to
continue his inquires, however, requesting an audience with her immediately.
With a deferential nod, she rose to follow him.

A clattering of horses’ hooves and rattling of carriage
wheels on the dirt drive to Allerdale Hall announced
the sudden appearance of new arrivals. A well-appointed coach pulled up,
stopping before the door. Everyone rose at this unexpected visitation, moving
as a group into the foyer. Lucille was quick to recover, waving at Finlay to
greet the strangers and escort them in.  

Lucille and Thomas stiffened in surprise as Mr. McFarlane
exited the carriage, followed by a graceful but slight gentleman they did not
recognize. “Mr. McFarlane!” Lucille exclaimed, stepping forward. “This is quite
unexpected; we thought you had been called back to Scotland.”

“Indeed, Miss Lucille, I was vacating the depot and on my
way to the station when I encountered this most affable gentleman approaching
in his coach, inquiring after my person. Miss Lucille Sharpe, allow me to
introduce Sir Harold Stackhurst, Professor at Charterhouse of Surrey. And
this,” he continued, “is to be your charge, Sir Harold; Master Thomas Sharpe.”

The envoy from Surrey! They greeted each other with well-mannered
politeness, but Thomas regarded this newcomer with a mixture of curiosity and
dislike. Lucille continued to play her gracious role. “Won’t you please come
in, sirs? I do hope you’ll forgive us; I’m afraid we are quite unprepared to
receive you properly.”

Mr. McFarlane frowned as Dr. Jones and Inspector Foot
appeared in the foyer, with Constable Webber shadowing behind them. Lucille set
out more tea for them, in the great room. She took Thomas’ hand and asked to
retire for a few moments, to allow them to refresh themselves. Inspector Foot
reluctantly allowed the children a brief recess. After hasty introductions, the
inspector informed the new arrivals in a most somber tone that the lady
Beatrice was deceased.

Mr. McFarlane gaped at him. “Sir, you astonish me! Why, I
called on Lady Beatrice not more than a day ago. Pray, tell us what has
occurred?”

Inspector Foot cleared his throat importantly. “We are still
attempting to ascertain all the facts, but there is no question that she was
murdered.” He went on to lay out their findings before the two gentlemen,
following with questions of his own for them. Once satisfied, he took up the
teapot and refreshed their cups. “I am terribly sorry to inconvenience you,
sirs, but we must finish our business here before the children will be
relinquished to you, and we will request that all involved remove to town as
soon as possible. Mr. McFarlane, Dr. Jones is overseeing the removal of Lady
Beatrice’s remains to Farlam. If you’d be so kind to confer with him regarding
whatever funeral arrangements will be required.”

“Yes, yes, of course,” Mr. McFarlane replied. “In fact, I
shall do so immediately.  Professor
Stackhurst, I am so sorry for your delay; can I perhaps assist in seeing to
your accommodation during this unforeseen situation?”

“That is quite kind of you, sir,” Sir Harold replied. “I
would be much obliged.”  

“Not at all, sir, not at all! It was fortuitous that our
paths crossed before my departure. I must send a wire as soon as we are in
town. And Inspector Foot, might I have some words with you alone then, also?”
Foot nodded, already excusing himself to go question Lucille.

@8@ * @8@

“You have to eat, Thomas.”

“I’m not hungry,” he muttered.

“You are,” Lucille argued, taking up her own spoon. “Eat.”

He obeyed her as he always did, but without much enthusasim.
He wanted to leave home, he thought, realizing he truly didn’t want to remain
on Crimson Peak. He didn’t want to stay here, this dark, miserable museum of a
house, a place he hardly knew outside of the attic. He wanted to go away, far
away, to places he had only read about, exotic places where he could breathe
and explore and learn. He wanted to have adventures; he wanted to be free.

He looked up at his sister who was cutting each bit of her
food into precise pieces before delicately spearing them. She was perfectly
poised, a dignified young lady almost ready to join society. She was beautiful
to him, despite the angry red scratches on her face. They truly were orphans
now, he and Lucille; they only had each other. They were beholden to
no-one…well, other than each other, and the family name. The last of the
Sharpes.

Inspector Root interrupted their moment’s respite as he
entered the kitchen. Lucille set down her cutlery and daintily dabbed her mouth
with a napkin before rising. She laid a hand on her brother’s shoulder as she
followed the inspector out. “Eat,” she pleaded.

Thomas, alone in the kitchen, stared at his plate in
silence. Lucille was correct, as usual; he was hungry, but he was more eager to
leave the confines of the kitchen, or even the house. He considered dashing out
to the garden behind the house, but the afternoon heat was prohibitive. With a
sigh he began to eat, but it was a mechanical action devoid of any interest.

Out of habit he cleared away his dishes when he was done. He
moved toward the lift, and then hesitated. The elevator was a noisy
contraption, and Thomas was long accustomed to being silent and unseen outside
of the nursery.  Sneaking to the foyer
exit, he crossed the foyer and crept up the stairs, passed the gilt frames of
the portraits lining the stairways, through the corridors of menacing woodwork
and exotic works of art displayed on marble tabletops until he reached the
nursery door.

Pointedly ignoring his packed trunk, Thomas wandered around
the rooms aimlessly. This space was his entire world, his refuge and his
comfort. He both loved it and hated it. The familiarity of it was reassuring,
from the fading mural on the wall to the very scent of the place. But it
frightened him, also. There was a sense of things hiding in the corners—not
just here but everywhere in the house. Lucille had always dismissed these fears
as childish foolishness, but Thomas was certain that there were ghosts; spirits
of those who had dwelled here before, lurking about, and something worse….He
didn’t have names for the strange alien feel of these unseen creatures, but
they were aloof and cold and in some way cruel; malevolent was the best he
could describe them.

It was easy to trust Lucille’s dismissal of them: they were
so intangible and his own imagination so vivid. They could just be figments of
his minds, dramatic fictions manufactured in his mind to distract him from more
real terrors. Thomas’ thoughts turned the envoy sipping tea in the great room
far beneath him. He was already late to enroll in school at almost thirteen
years old, but he dreaded the idea of being alone in a house full of boys like
himself. He dreaded the requirement of joining his social peers and
participating in more formal academics; he was more than happy pursuing his own
interests without company. He would be housed at the Charterhouse dormitories
during the year, of course, but during holidays he would room with his Aunt
Florence, and he couldn’t even begin to speculate what that would be like. Did
she live at a fine estate? Was she generous and kind? He hoped she was; if so,
then perhaps he could prevail upon her to allow Lucille to join them in Surrey.

His foot caught the edge of the stolen book that had fallen
to the floor when their mother had intruded on them. He reached down and lifted
it up, allowing the pages to ruffle like a fan from cover to cover in a blur of
lurid color. He slammed it shut suddenly. He should hide this book, and
quickly, before he was discovered. He tucked it away into the hole in the wall,
next to the jewelry box Lucille had concealed. Just in time, too, as he heard
footsteps outside the room and Lucille appeared with Finlay in tow.  

Lucille handed Thomas the small sack he had carried away the
night before. “I thought you might want that,” she remarked. “Help Finlay with
your trunk, Thomas; I need to pack some things. Mr. McFarlane is removing us to
town. And just after I settled everything in the larder!”  She shrugged and patted the braids pinned up
on her head. “It cannot be helped, but I’ll pack up a hamper for us to take
along. Be sure you have what you want to take with you; it will be some time
before we return, I should think.”

Thomas was relieved when he and Lucille were packed into the
coach, his trunk and her valise loaded onto the roof, joined by Lucille shortly
after. Lucille was calm and collected, somber-faced and her posture ramrod
straight. She squeezed his hand quickly as the coach lurched and rattled across
the path to town.  Dr. Fredrick Jones,
Inspector Foot and Constable Webber had gone on ahead to the mortuary with the
wagon. Mr. McFarlane and Professor Stackhurst were seated across from the
siblings, but everyone was silent on the journey. Lucille stared out the window
at the sun-withered meadowland.

The swaying of the carriage eventually lulled Thomas into a
doze, only to have him startle awake when they reached Farlam. He had been to
town before, although it had been several years ago now. It was small, more a
village than a true town and certainly not as large as a city like London. He
was unused to so many people rushing back and forth like busy little ants that
he found himself studying them as the carriage rattled through the dusty
streets. The townsfolk all seemed so intent on their purpose, each having
something to do, some destination, some work to be done right away; Thomas
could only imagine what a place like London was like…or even Surrey. He sat
back, trying not to think about Surrey, or the future, or anything, and lapsed
back into a numb state of disbelief. Everything felt disjointed and distant.

Lucille took his hand and led him out of the coach into a
building he didn’t recognize, trailing after their new guardians. There was
talk of funeral arrangements and a reading of a will that didn’t interest
Thomas in the least; he was content to stay with his sister, all but ignored.
They were brought to a parlor; Thomas supposed this was an inn, or perhaps a
boarding house, and they sat on a stiff, uncomfortable sofa.

“Might we go for a walk?” he asked abruptly. “It’s so stuffy
in here.”  

Lucille glanced at him. “I cannot see why not,” she replied.
“The weather is pleasant enough. I will ask.”

He was eager to leave the confines of the tiny rooms of the
boarding house for the expansive outdoors, and was relieved when they were
given permission to stroll along the avenue and in the small garden beside the
inn.

Once excused, Thomas took Lucille’s arm in his and they
strolled along the street until the end of the row of shops and houses, then
turned back. The sun was still bright in the waning afternoon, but they
continued on, pacing back and forth. Fences dotted the way, with well-tended
patches of green behind them. Lucille pointed out various examples of flora and
fauna that caught her eye on their little expedition, even smiling at a bird
that flit off from a branch nearby. It was an odd feeling of peace that fell
over them.

“Lucille, let’s not go back,” Thomas suggested.

“Thomas…” Lucille protested, exasperated.

He stopped, taking both her hands in his. “We’re happy now,
like this. We’re free. We can go anywhere we wish. “

“And what will they think, if we were to run off?” Lucille
shook her head. “We still have obligations, Thomas. Be patient. You have the
family title to consider, and we have the care of Allerdale Hall. It’s all we
have left. And we deserve it.”

Thomas shrugged, knowing the futility of his suggestion.
“You do, more than I,” he replied, kissing her hands. “I’ll take care of you,
Lucille. You’ll want for nothing, I swear.”

“We will take care of each other,” Lucille replied, “as we
should.” She cupped his face tenderly, kissing his forehead before stepping
back. “Let’s go out to the garden and pick some flowers, shall we?”

“I want you with me in Surrey,” Thomas commented.

A shadow flickered across her features. “We shall see,
dearest brother. Tomorrow is the funeral for Mother, after which Mr. McFarlane
informed me he will be seeing to legal matters. We must be strong, Thomas, and
all will be right. Come along; we must get back. It looks like rain this
evening.”

strangership:

kiriamaya:

beahbeah:

so i feel like i should tell you guys that i’ve found the formula for a perfect and incontrovertible insult:

[adverb][adjective][expletive][noun]

examples:

you perfectly rectangular shitbowl!
you obscenely lamentable assbasket!
you fantastically nauseating dicksoiree!

go forth and blaspheme

I am laughing so hard.

Suddenly everything is beautiful.

pun-cat:

tassiekitty:

ranetree:

extravagantshoes:

cellostargalactica:

IT’S NOT ‘PEEKED’ MY INTEREST

OR ‘PEAKED’

BUT PIQUED

‘PIQUED MY INTEREST’

THIS HAS BEEN A CAPSLOCK PSA

THIS IS ACTUALLY REALLY USEFUL THANK YOU

ADDITIONALLY:

YOU ARE NOT ‘PHASED’. YOU ARE ‘FAZED.’

IF IT HAS BEEN A VERY LONG DAY, YOU ARE ‘WEARY’. IF SOMEONE IS ACTING IN A WAY THAT MAKES YOU SUSPICIOUS, YOU ARE ‘WARY’.

ALL IN ‘DUE’ TIME, NOT ‘DO’ TIME

‘PER SE’ NOT ‘PER SAY’

THANK YOU

BREATHE – THE VERB FORM IN PRESENT TENSE

BREATH – THE NOUN FORM

THEY ARE NOT INTERCHANGEABLE


WANDER – TO WALK ABOUT AIMLESSLY

WONDER – TO THINK OF IN A DREAMLIKE AND/OR WISTFUL MANNER


THEY ARE NOT INTERCHANGEABLE (but one’s mind can wander)

(HIGH/LOW) WAISTED – HAVING TO DO WITH ONE’S WAIST

WASTED – PAST TENSE VERB FOR THROWING AWAY SOMETHING, POPULARLY USED TO DESCRIBE A VERY DRUNK PERSON

ALSO

REGARDLESS – NOT REGARDING THE THING, E.G. “REGARDLESS OF THAT…”

IRREGARDLESS – REGARDING THE THING, REVERSES “REGARDLESS”

AND

“FOR ALL INTENSIVE PURPOSES”
“FOR ALL EXTENSIVE PURPOSES”
“FOR ALL INTENTS AND PURPOSES”

THANKS

please DO NOT assume that just because my character is doing something that i as the writer

thedevilsbartender:

  • approve of it
  • am romanticizing it
  • have a kink with regard to it
  • think it is okay for anyone to ever do ever

because sometimes my character does things that I absolutely cringe at and which are almost painful to write.

but my writing a villain does not make me a villian

understand that it is fiction and I do not condone the wrong actions that sometimes are written out on my blog for in-character purposes.

Pronoun is publishing for authors

forpoetry:

forpoetry:

In case any of you need a legit way to sell your ebooks, Pronoun is the way to go.  I’ve done my research and it’s legit.  I recommend it to all self publishing authors who are serious about their work and looking to stay independent.  It’s free to sign up, free to publish, pays you 100% of your net earnings, and also assigns you an ISBN for each ebook you plan to sell.  You also retain the rights to ALL of your work.  Your work would be sold through retailers like Apple, Kobo, Google Play, Barnes & Noble and Amazon. 

Please boost for all writers!  Support is everything! 

in case you missed this.

Pronoun is publishing for authors

thebibliosphere:

When I was nine, possibly ten, an author came to our school to talk about writing. His name was Hugh Scott, and I doubt he’s known outside of Scotland. And even then I haven’t seen him on many shelves in recent years in Scotland either. But he wrote wonderfully creepy children’s stories, where the supernatural was scary, but it was the mundane that was truly terrifying. At least to little ten year old me. It was Scooby Doo meets Paranormal Activity with a bonny braw Scottish-ness to it that I’d never experienced before.

I remember him as a gangling man with a wiry beard that made him look older than he probably was, and he carried a leather bag filled with paper. He had a pen too that was shaped like a carrot, and he used it to scribble down notes between answering our (frankly disinterested) questions. We had no idea who he was you see, no one had made an effort to introduce us to his books. We were simply told one morning, ‘class 1b, there is an author here to talk to you about writing’, and this you see was our introduction to creative writing. We’d surpassed finger painting and macaroni collages. It was time to attempt Words That Were Untrue.

You could tell from the look on Mrs M’s face she thought it was a waste of time. I remember her sitting off to one side marking papers while this tall man sat down on our ridiculously short chairs, and tried to talk to us about what it meant to tell a story. She wasn’t big on telling stories, Mrs M. She was also one of the teachers who used to take my books away from me because they were “too complicated” for me, despite the fact that I was reading them with both interest and ease. When dad found out he hit the roof. It’s the one and only time he ever showed up to the school when it wasn’t parents night or the school play. After that she just left me alone, but she made it clear to my parents that she resented the fact that a ten year old used words like ‘ubiquitous’ in their essays. Presumably because she had to look it up.

Anyway, Mr Scott, was doing his best to talk to us while Mrs M made scoffing noises from her corner every so often, and you could just tell he was deflating faster than a bouncy castle at a knife sharpening party, so when he asked if any of us had any further questions and no one put their hand up I felt awful. I knew this was not only insulting but also humiliating, even if we were only little children. So I did the only thing I could think of, put my hand up and said “Why do you write?”

I’d always read about characters blinking owlishly, but I’d never actually seen it before. But that’s what he did, peering down at me from behind his wire rim spectacles and dragging tired fingers through his curly beard. I don’t think he expected anyone to ask why he wrote stories. What he wrote about, and where he got his ideas from maybe, and certainly why he wrote about ghosts and other creepy things, but probably not why do you write. And I think he thought perhaps he could have got away with “because it’s fun, and learning is fun, right kids?!”, but part of me will always remember the way the world shifted ever so slightly as it does when something important is about to happen, and this tall streak of a man looked down at me, narrowed his eyes in an assessing manner and said, “Because people told me not to, and words are important.”

I nodded, very seriously in the way children do, and knew this to be a truth. In my limited experience at that point, I knew certain people (with a sidelong glance to Mrs M who was in turn looking at me as though she’d just known it’d be me that type of question) didn’t like fiction. At least certain types of fiction. I knew for instance that Mrs M liked to read Pride and Prejudice on her lunch break but only because it was sensible fiction, about people that could conceivably be real. The idea that one could not relate to a character simply because they had pointy ears or a jet pack had never occurred to me, and the fact that it’s now twenty years later and people are still arguing about the validity of genre fiction is beyond me, but right there in that little moment, I knew something important had just transpired, with my teacher glaring at me, and this man who told stories to live beginning to smile. After that the audience turned into a two person conversation, with gradually more and more of my classmates joining in because suddenly it was fun. Mrs M was pissed and this bedraggled looking man who might have been Santa after some serious dieting, was starting to enjoy himself. As it turned out we had all of his books in our tiny corner library, and in the words of my friend Andrew “hey there’s a giant spider fighting a ghost on this cover! neat!” and the presentation devolved into chaos as we all began reading different books at once and asking questions about each one. “Does she live?”— “What about the talking trees” —“is the ghost evil?” —“can I go to the bathroom, Miss?” —“Wow neat, more spiders!”

After that we were supposed to sit down, quietly (glare glare) and write a short story to show what we had learned from listening to Mr Scott. I wont pretend I wrote anything remotely good, I was ten and all I could come up with was a story about a magic carrot that made you see words in the dark, but Mr Scott seemed to like it. In fact he seemed to like all of them, probably because they were done with such vibrant enthusiasm in defiance of the people who didn’t want us to.

The following year, when I’d moved into Mrs H’s class—the kind of woman that didn’t take away books from children who loved to read and let them write nonsense in the back of their journals provided they got all their work done—a letter arrived to the school, carefully wedged between several copies of a book which was unheard of at the time, by a new author known as J.K. Rowling. Mrs H remarked that it was strange that an author would send copies of books that weren’t even his to a school, but I knew why he’d done it. I knew before Mrs H even read the letter.

Because words are important. Words are magical. They’re powerful. And that power ought to be shared. There’s no petty rivalry between story tellers, although there’s plenty who try to insinuate it. There’s plenty who try to say some words are more valuable than others, that somehow their meaning is more important because of when it was written and by whom. Those are the same people who laud Shakespeare from the heavens but refuse to acknowledge that the quote “Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them“ is a dick joke.

And although Mr Scott seems to have faded from public literary consumption, I still think about him. I think about his stories, I think about how he recommended another author and sent copies of her books because he knew our school was a puritan shithole that fought against the Wrong Type of Wordes and would never buy them into the library otherwise. But mostly I think about how he looked at a ten year old like an equal and told her words and important, and people will try to keep you from writing them—so write them anyway.