(123-01-25) Moving Vignette
Moving Vignette
Summary: Literally!
Date: 09/02/2016
Related: This conversation the previous day.
Players:
Margot..Camillo..

In the hive of nobility which is the Hightower, the worker bees have by far the most interesting view of its preposterous number of queens. Overlooked, discounted, not really people in the strictest sense… hearing half a lady's conversation with her lord whilst serving their private supper; bringing her trays when she's not well and hasn't done her hair; or witnessing, for instance, the recently bereaved Lady Rowan superintending the placement of a large frame of golden wood over which is stretched the cloth upon which she's embroidering in her moments of leisure a winter garden in thread of silver and gold and white silk, with only tiny touches of colour. She wants it by the best of her new sitting-room windows, to catch the light.

Her eyes are as swollen as yesterday and shadowed beneath; her lips colourless; her whole being almost as pale as her gown of white linen, with no more vibrance in it than that pale garden beginning to creep upwards from the bottom of her embroidery-frame. She clears her throat more than is necessary, her voice is hoarse from speaking or weeping or both, and yet none of her courtesies to the servants of her own and the others borrowed for the occasion have been stinted during her and Lady Bryony Tyrell's grand removal upstairs.

The latter has only just arrived and is darting from one vase of lilies to the next, burying her nose, exclaiming: "Oh, Margot, they're beautiful—!" And then looking anxiously to see whether her cousin agrees, or whether she only returns that same drawn look marking her as a fit subject for fretting.

The embroidery frame angled just so, Lady Rowan is sincere in her thanks to the young man who carried it here beneath her eye. Silver changes hands.

Camillo has quietly kept an eye on the proceedings. He lent a hand with moving some of the heavier items, but he has also kept a watch on where the servants' hands go, making absolutely sure not the smallest item goes into a pocket while he is repsonsible for this move. He is now seeing to it that the Hightower servants complete the last remaining details. Once the embroidery frame is in place, he asks, "Shall I dismiss the house servants, now, or is there anything else that needs done, my lady?" That to Lady Rowan, since she gave the order to move in the first place.

When Camillo speaks Lady Rowan turns to him with an expression of grave thoughtfulness upon her rather lovely but rather drawn face. "I believe that's everything, yes," she agrees quietly. "I must thank you for seeing everything taken care of so smoothly — you left me hardly a care."

Lady Bryony, smaller and rounder and with honey-blonde hair, extracts her pretty little nose from the arrangement of lilies presently occupying almost her whole attention and breathes out a sigh of contentment. "And it's you we've to thank for the flowers, too, I think?" she asks. "They really are marvelous — such a treat for us!" And, drifting nearer the conversation, she begins to fish about first in one pocket and then in the other. "Oh — I don't seem… to have…" Anything but an awkward light of apology in her eyes.

"It's taken care of," puts in Lady Rowan gently, for upon her first sight of the chambers arranged for them by Camillo, more pleasing to her sensibilities even than those in which they were lodged before, and so nearly adjacent to the rooms occupied by their cousin Lady Marsei, she did indeed dip her own hand into her own pocket and produce more of her shimmering bounty.

Camillo makes a sign to the servants to let them now they may go. Camillo's gaze swivels from Margot to Bryony. "Lady Rowan was the one to request them, my lady," he replies, removing himself from responsibility for the lilies. "She mentioned they were a favorite of yours." What he means by adding that is hard to say. "No need," he adds in reply to Bryony's apologetic look, but that does not mean he neglects to take the coin from Lady Rowan. "If there's nothing else I can assist with…?"

The impecunious Lady Bryony murmurs something appreciative, ostensibly to Camillo but with a warm smile for her cousin; whilst Lady Rowan inclines her head toward the indispensable domestic. "I'm certain everything is as it ought to be," she confirms, "and that if it is not, we shall soon have it so."

Whilst she's speaking a piercing sound rises in an adjoining chamber, the door of which is ajar — there being no battlefields handy, it can only be a baby in distress. Lady Bryony blanches and puts her hand on her cousin's arm. "He's making that noise again//," she utters in an urgent hush.

A fresh-looking girl in a dress of Tyrell green with two tiny golden roses on her collar immediately brings forth the culprit, red-faced and teary-eyed, less than a year old, bawling enthusiastically and with a true note of misery. She takes him not to his mother but to Lady Rowan, whom the eyes of nursemaid and mother alike appeal to in that moment; "Thank you, Camillo. You may go," offers Lady Rowan, opening her arms, turning away to hide the look of utter bleakness in her eyes as she offers comfort to this warm, living little boy. She carries him to the windows, beginning to sing a nonsense song popular in nurseries all through the Reach, her voice low and resonant and his cries softening at once as though he can't resist the sound and the scent of her.

Lady Bryony watches Lady Rowan's proud white back for an instant; then, as the chamber quietens, clears her throat and adds, "Thank you, Camillo."

Camillo withdraws with an inclination of his head to acknowledge the thanks, and softly shuts the door.

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