Author's Note: I know, I know, I should be working on the other fic that's in progress. But this story was a request from Mia M. Turner, and of course I couldn't turn it down. She wanted to see a story that was about Victoria as a girl, and what a day in the Everglot household might have been like. This is the story I came up with. Standard disclaimer: I own nothing related to "Corpse Bride" or its characters.
The Remington 1871 Target Pistol
Her dress was lovely, to begin with. Lots of white lace, elaborate flounces on the hem, even some pearls studded here and there on the bodice. Small, elegant embroidered flowers, too, stitched in the same blinding white as the rest of her gown. And her train was twenty feet long, at least, stretching all the way back down the aisle to the end of the church.
And there he was. Standing proudly at the altar waiting for her, looking dashing. He watched her approach, his eyes filled with a passionate affection that bordered on adoration. She looks a perfect vision, he seemed to be thinking, as the two of them shared expectant and completely happy smiles as she continued down the aisle.
He was tall, but not too tall, perhaps an inch or two taller than she was. He was broad through the shoulders, with very strong arms that looked splendid in his formal attire. The weak sunlight that managed to find its way into the church caught on his fair hair and played along the lines of his chiseled, masculine features. He bore a striking resemblance to the drawing of Sir Galahad that graced many a picture book. He was a knight--her knight. She was madly, devotedly in love with him, and he with her--and this day, their wedding day, was surely the happiest day in either of their lives. They'd spend the rest of their lives together, in his grand estate somewhere out in the country. Somewhere where the colors weren't muted, and the sunshine was as bright as it seemed to be described in books. They would be so much in love, and so happy together, that every day would seem like a special occasion. Oh, and they'd have children, most likely--lots of them. Four girls and four boys, that seemed like a nice round number (mostly because she had eight names in mind that she'd very much like to use). And their children would love them, and they'd love their children, and no one would ever be in a poor mood or get into arguments, or care about what nobleman had which title or who was giving a shooting party. She'd be happy and in love until the day she died. It would all be like a dream.
"Child, you are not paying attention!"
Victoria jumped, startled. Her mother's voice cut like a scythe through her lovely daydream. The fantasy, one that Victoria had often and had added to diligently over the past few years, slipped away until all that was left was the hard, cheerless reality of yet another morning of lessons in the drawing room with her mother. A melancholy fell over Victoria--she was always rather depressed when that particular daydream ended. Her imagination was so much more pleasant than the real world. And she was always unhappy to see her dream husband go.
It took a few moments for Victoria to pull herself back to reality. Her mother's hard stare from across the table helped a bit. Victoria felt herself blushing. What in the world would her mother think if she knew what had been on her mind? She cleared her throat quietly and stared at the tabletop, trying to avoid her mother's gaze.
"I'm sorry, Mother," Victoria said to the table. And really, she was sorry--if there was one thing Victoria didn't like, it was displeasing her mother. She tried to be a good, dutiful daughter, she really did. It was simply difficult sometimes. Especially since Maudeline never seemed to be happy with her, no matter how good she tried to be. Victoria had told herself that she shouldn't let her mother bother her--Maudeline never seemed happy. But still, deep down, it hurt.
"What in the world is wrong with you?" Maudeline continued, looking at Victoria closely. "You were sitting there staring out of the window with your mouth gaping open. Quite unbecoming. You looked positively addled. Please don't tell me we're going to have to hide you away in the attic--I don't think I could bear the mortification." Maudeline paused and looked at the ceiling for a moment before looking at Victoria again.
"Not to mention you've put your elbow in the ink," she said, raising an eyebrow.
Victoria blinked, then looked down at her left elbow. It was sitting right in the large inkwell. While she'd been daydreaming with her chin on her hand, she hadn't even felt it. Feeling foolish, Victoria pulled her elbow out of the ink and looked at the black ring that now stained the elbow of her dress.
"I think lessons are finished for today," Maudeline finally said, sounding quite put-upon. She turned to Hildegarde, who was dusting the armoire in the corner of the drawing room.
"Take her to her room," Maudeline said, indicating Victoria. "We're through for today. And tomorrow," here she turned to Victoria, who was trying to hide the ink stain on her elbow with her other hand, "we will have penmanship lessons, not feeble impressions of goldfish. Am I quite understood?"
"Yes, Mother," Victoria replied, trying to sound as contrite and obedient as possible. With a wave of her mother's hand, Victoria was dismissed.
Standing beside Hildegarde at the door, Victoria paused for a moment. She felt as though she should say something more. What, she didn't know. Besides, she lost her nerve to speak almost as soon as she built it up. So she merely dropped her gaze to the floor and headed upstairs with Hildegarde.
O---O
Soon enough, Victoria was on her own again. Hildegarde had only stayed long enough to help her change her dress, and then was off to attend to her household duties. Not that Victoria particularly minded. She was alone most of the time.
She stood at the French doors that led out onto her balcony, pressing her nose against the glass (as she'd been told never to do), staring out at the gloomy, gray day. A new house was being built across the square. A big one, bigger than hers. Victoria had been watching the progress from her window all summer long, and the new house was almost finished. Today the workmen were hauling statues into place on either side of the front stairs. Victoria squinted. She was just a little nearsighted, and she often had to squint to see clearly. Even though Mother said it was unladylike. But glasses were also unladylike, according to Maudeline...so what was she supposed to do? Her mother had often said that a lady didn't need to be able to see all that well--it wasn't necessary. Victoria still hadn't quite figured that one out. Perhaps she was missing something.
In any case, Victoria was alone at the moment, and there was nobody about to see her squinting. So she took a look at the statues across the square, now completely in place.
"They're fish!" Victoria said aloud to herself, amused. What sort of people would have big statues of fish in front of their houses?
"They must be a rather odd sort of people," she said, still talking out loud to herself quietly. She smiled again. Fish statues. Imagine. Victoria watched the workers across the street for quite a while longer. It was rather fun, seeing what other people did all day, even if their activities were a bit boring.
Things got a bit more exciting, though, when a very stout woman with a huge feather in her hair arrived on the scene in a carriage. It took three of the workers to yank the woman's bulk out of the carriage door. Rather than laughing, Victoria put a hand to her face, feeling embarrassed for the lady. But embarrassment quickly changed to surprise as the woman, looking angry, took one look at one of the statues and promptly whacked one of the workers over the head with her parasol. Victoria covered her open mouth with both hands. This was better than the plays that Victoria had heard about, but never been allowed to even entertain the notion of attending.
After a few more minutes, things on the other side of the square died down a bit. Under the stout woman's direction, the workers had managed to align the marble fish to almost mathematical precision, until they were perfectly parallel. The drama seemed to be over, now that the woman was pleased. Victoria had to wonder if that was the lady of the house across the way.
"What a completely mad neighbor she'd make...Mother will be beside herself," Victoria whispered with a little grin. With a sigh, she pulled away from the window. Then she had to take a moment to rub away the smudge her nose had made on the glass.
What to do now? Hildegarde wouldn't be upstairs with her dinner for hours yet. Lessons were finished, her sampler was finished (actually, Victoria had managed to finish eight samplers with all of the quiet time she had), it was too gloomy to go sit in the small back garden, and last week her mother had confiscated the book she'd been reading. In Victoria's opinion, there was nothing at all wrong with Jane Eyre--she'd found the book up in the attic in a box of her late Aunt Lavinia's things. What was worse was that Victoria had just been getting to a good part (apparently that Rochester was keeping his crazy wife in the attic) when her mother had found the book. Plus, she'd been lectured on how reading novels would turn her brain to complete mush, and would give her ideas that a young lady shouldn't have. Victoria didn't understand that at all--perhaps it was because she was only eleven years old, but the only idea that Jane Eyre had given her was that she'd sooner work as a street sweeper than as a governess. So all in all, Victoria felt that her mother was being frightfully unfair. Not that she'd said that, of course. She'd accepted the lecture and the loss of the book without a word, as always. Though she'd refused to say where she'd gotten the book from, which had landed her in even more trouble. But Victoria felt that it was worth it. If she'd told, then she'd lose that entire box of Aunt Lavinia's books in the attic. There were plenty of them. All Victoria had to do was nick another one. And find a better hiding place this time.
That's what she could do. She could sneak up to the attic and get another book. Victoria brightened at the prospect. While she hated to disobey, she also liked to read. The two feelings were constantly conflicting--and reading usually won. Besides, she had nothing else to do with her afternoon.
Feeling wicked (but also, if she was honest, rather exhilarated), Victoria opened her bedroom door and quietly made her way to the stairs.
O---O
The back staircase that led all the way up to the attic was, fittingly, at the back of the house. She'd have to sneak down the main staircase, through the entry, and then down the back hall past her father's study to get to it.
Victoria made it to the back hallway almost without incident. She only had to duck for cover once when Hildegarde had come down the hall, swinging her feather duster idly and humming to herself. So now here she was, heading down the corridor toward the back staircase, past her father's study.
But something caught her eye. Victoria stopped and went back to the open study door. The open study door. Father never leaves the door open, she thought. Curious, she held onto the doorframe as she peered into Finis's little sanctuary. She'd never seen it before. All of her previous intentions about getting a new book were gone now.
I shouldn't be here, Victoria thought. I'll be in trouble if I'm caught. But she didn't move, or leave. The room was just so...fascinating. A bit scary, yes, because of all of the taxidermied animals and guns, but fascinating nonetheless. Granted, Victoria didn't know too much about either of her parents--but this room seemed to be completely her father's. All of his interests, his personality, even the smell of tobacco and maccassar oil that Finis always seemed to give off, it was all here. And it was almost mesmerizing, for some strange reason.
She'd been told countless times to stay out of her father's study--it wasn't a place for young ladies. Yet, she'd also been told to keep out of the parlor, the drawing room, the conservatory, the dining room, the attic, the kitchen, the spare bedrooms, the morning room, and pretty much every other part of the house that wasn't her nursery, and that had never kept her from doing a bit of exploring when she was sure she wouldn't be found out. And truly, there didn't seem to be anything scandalizing about those other rooms. So, going against her better judgment, Victoria took a cautious step into the study.
For a moment she simply stood stock-still just inside the door, hardly daring to move her head. Her heart was beginning to beat fast, and the back of her neck felt prickly and cold. Ooh, would she be in trouble if she were found in here...Victoria kept her ears keened for the sound of footsteps in the hall. But there was only silence.
When it became apparent that she was alone, and the risk of getting caught was slim, Victoria was heartened. Why, what was so wrong? This was the Everglot mansion, wasn't it? And she was an Everglot. Ergo, she could go wherever she pleased in this house. Squaring her shoulders, Victoria held her head up proudly as she'd seen her mother do, completing the stance by thrusting her nose in the air. In looking around, she was rather surprised to find that she liked it in here--the leather on the furniture, the dark wood, the marble around the fireplace, the dark colors, even the glass-fronted cases displaying an array of guns and the deer heads and antlers on the walls--it all had a certain appeal. She'd like to have a room like this, despite the fact that it was a man's room. Of course, Victoria knew she'd never be able to say that she liked this sort of room, nor would she ever be able to have one--it wasn't very feminine, after all. But still, wanting to have this sort of room for her own could always be just another one of those daydreams that Victoria kept to herself, way down deep, where nobody else would ever know about them.
And then she made her way over to the desk, pretending that this was her study, and that she was the mistress of a grand mansion. When she was married and living in her own house, nobody would be able to tell her that keeping a study like this was unladylike--she could decorate however she pleased, and pooh to anyone who tried to tell her differently. Victoria supposed that the ability to say "pooh" to anyone in real life, and not just in her imagination, would come with growing up--at the moment, she'd never dare to say anything like that aloud.
Caught up in her little game of pretending, Victoria kept her nose in the air as, trying to imitate her mother, she sat down slowly and regally in the big leather desk chair. Her feet didn't come near touching the ground. Goodness, she felt...powerful in this chair. Important. The feeling was entirely new, and she had to admit that it was a rather nice one. To her left was the gun case, and to her right an enormous rack of antlers hung on the wall. Inspecting the top of the desk (even for all her pretending, Victoria would never go so far as to rifle through the desk itself), she noticed that there was a gun, a rather small one, on the desk blotter. Just lying there, right in front of her. Victoria almost reached out a curious hand, but quickly snatched it back, folding her hands together in her lap. She was skittish around guns that weren't behind glass.
"Why does Father enjoy guns so much?" Victoria wondered aloud into the empty room. She knew that Finis was rather disappointed in her for her fear of firearms, so she usually tried to cover it. Even though Victoria was a girl, Finis was still firm in his opinion that all Everglots should love guns. In his mind, even if Victoria couldn't use or even understand firearms, she should at least appreciate them. And so Victoria tried. She truly did. Sitting there at her father's desk, looking at the small gun, she made an attempt to be a true Everglot and find something nice about the weapon. It looked a bit like the big ones in the case, just on a smaller scale. The wood that made up the handle was pretty. That was about all she could come up with. Perhaps, as with so much her parents tried to instill in her, there was simply something Victoria just wasn't getting. So for quite a while she sat there, stroking her chin with her fingers and regarding the gun.
"I think, when I'm grown up, I'll keep flowers on my desk instead of guns," she said to herself at length.
"What are you doing in here?" came a voice from the doorway. Victoria jumped before she looked up. It was Finis, staring back at her and looking dumbfounded instead of angry. Well, that was a plus.
Victoria jumped out of the chair and stood next to the desk, unsure of what to do. She should just apologize and then run for her life. But her father was blocking the doorway, standing with his arms behind his back and regarding her silently. So Victoria stayed where she was, and so did Finis. He was frowning, curling his lip and raising one eyebrow all at the same time. That expression usually meant that he wasn't happy (he wore it often).
"I'm...terribly sorry, Father," Victoria finally managed to say, more to her feet than to her father.
"You are not allowed in here," Finis said. Then, beginning to walk toward her, he asked accusingly, "Did you touch anything?"
Victoria shook her head, unable to speak. The pit in her stomach that always formed whenever she was in trouble was beginning to make itself known. She wished her father would just order her out and be done with it. The silence was becoming unbearable. Finis walked right past her and sat down in the chair that Victoria had just vacated. His feet didn't touch the floor either, she noticed. From his new seat, he glanced at Victoria, then at the gun on the desk, then back at Victoria.
"Do you know what this is?" he asked gruffly, pointing at the gun. Victoria gaped in surprise. She hadn't been expecting that. Uncomfortable, she shifted from foot to foot.
"A gun?" she asked hopefully in return. Finis narrowed his eyes as he sat back and thrust his thumbs into his lapels.
"What are you, some sort of ninny?" he grumbled. "Don't you know a pistol when you see one? Really, what sort of Everglot are you?"
Silence seemed like the safest answer to those rather insulting questions. Victoria figured she might be accused of being cheeky if she said something like, "No, of course I'm not a ninny."
"Well?" he asked. Victoria glanced longingly at the door briefly before pursing her lips and focusing her gaze on the desk.
"I'm sorry," she finally whispered. To her surprise, her father harrumphed.
"Stop apologizing," he said, sounding impatient. "Everglots do not apologize. Just be quiet and listen." Victoria nodded, trying to be agreeable. She had, after all, invaded her father's private room--she supposed her punishment was being treated to a lecture on guns. And she was right.
"This pistol," Finis said with emphasis, picking it up, "Is as old as you are. A Remington target pistol. Walnut stock, shoots almost like a rifle. Already a collector's item."
Victoria nodded again, hoping that she looked interested.
"It's...quite pretty," she said warily. She was telling the truth--in a strange way, she did find the pistol to be rather pretty. But Finis just harrumphed again, this time almost disgustedly.
"Pretty," he repeated in a low grumble. Suddenly he thrust the pistol across the desk at Victoria, who stepped back in alarm. While she often had the feeling that her parents didn't like her all that much, she'd never thought that one of them would shoot her. Seeing her response, Finis rolled his eyes.
"Just take it. Here," he said, gesturing at her with the pistol. "You are an Everglot. I don't care if you're a girl or not--since I didn't get a son, you'll have to do. And you will learn about firearms. They're quite fascinating."
Those were the most words Finis had ever said to Victoria at once. It was almost sweet, in a gruff and disinterested sort of way. Gingerly Victoria reached out and took hold of the pistol, quite afraid that she was going to shoot herself. When the gun didn't immediately go off, she felt a little less skittish. Holding it in the flat of her hands, she tested the weight of it. The steel was cold, but the wood was actually rather warm to the touch. It wasn't bad. Finis nodded. He was still frowning, but he also looked approving. Victoria was warmed. She even smiled a little as, under Finis's gruff direction, she adjusted her hold on the pistol until she was holding it in firing position.
And when Victoria looked up again, she realized with horror that she was aiming squarely at her mother, who was standing in the doorway looking shocked.
"What is this?" Maudeline barked. "What are you doing?"
Victoria figured that her mother wasn't expecting an answer, so she stayed silent. Finis merely shrugged.
"Victoria, come here this instant," Maudeline ordered. Bowing her head a little, Victoria took a few steps toward her mother. She was rather surprised to see Maudeline take a corresponding step backward, holding her hands up in front of her as though in the middle of a train robbery.
"Put the gun down first!" Maudeline said, sounding as close to nervous as Victoria had ever heard her. She also could have sworn that she heard Finis snicker quietly to himself, but she wasn't completely sure.
Hiding a small smile, Victoria obliged. She carefully placed the pistol on the desk, then folded her hands behind her back. Keeping her head down, she made her way over to Maudeline. Without a word, Maudeline pointed down the hallway. The meaning was clear: Go to your room.
Victoria could feel her parents' eyes on her as she left the room. She tried not to pay any attention. As she walked down the corridor to the entry hall, Victoria could hear Maudeline demanding to know whether or not Finis had completely lost his mind. After that strange scene in the study, the day was completely back to normal.
When she got to the foot of the stairs, she paused. With one hand on the banister, Victoria turned to look at the grand piano that sat in the entry. She was expressly forbid to touch it. But it was always there--Victoria had no idea why, since no one ever used it. It just sat, all alone, waiting for someone to sit and play it. To make it come alive, to allow it to do what it was built to do. The piano couldn't be all that happy. It probably felt much the same way she did (if, in fact, pianos ever felt anything. Victoria felt rather sure that they did). Forlorn and sorry for the piano, Victoria looked at her feet.
Then she smiled to herself. She took a quick look over her shoulder down the hall, making sure that Maudeline wasn't about. Moving at what was almost a scamper, Victoria was soon in front of the piano. After taking one more look behind her and confirming that she was alone, Victoria reached out boldly with one hand. With her index finger, she ceremoniously pressed down on one of the keys.
The noise was louder than she expected, echoing in the cavernous entry. But it was lovely. Slowly Victoria drew her hand back, closing her eyes for a moment. Then she smiled to herself, running her fingers lightly over the keys. She could make the piano play, if she wanted to. If she was allowed to. She could do it. That was a heartening realization.
And now it was time to hide up in her room, just in case Maudeline had heard that one note being sounded from the piano.