Spring, 1973
The phone on Marigold's desk rang, interrupting her reading. A number of conferences on virology had just been announced earlier that month. Reviewing the internal candidates to present their work to the international community was key, but more so was the need to see what the competition was up to. After a year or so of shadowing the European branch executives, the department had begun to grow dependent on her.
Tricell Pharmaceuticals had a waning influence in the market these days, although they were still pulling in top candidates on the strength of their strong brand. Her information held that they were intending to release a large number of stock shares next month and that some of the major stakeholders could be willing to part with their shares for a price. Spencer had approved a budget for her to proceed with getting a firm foothold established. The repeated bemused questions as to how she had picked up an acumen for business so quickly were growing stale for Marigold, but he seemed more pleased in his own hiring choices than anything.
Correspondence courses helped. Developing something close to an eidetic memory helped the process along considerably. Alexander had set up an account with a buyer in London to handle specific requests, and subscriptions to the academic journals in the field, as long as the ones with greater reach. She had little time to actually go to classes, of course. The directors she had worked with had attempted to use her as a glorified secretary, in the beginning, snidely referring to her work as a 'rich girl's hobby' when they thought she couldn't hear.
Really, finishing school had developed some marvelous reflexes for holding herself behind a coolly polite facade. She had hardly destroyed any furniture that first year.
Then Spencer would call to congratulate them on nabbing a contract they'd barely started the work on. Earl Beardsley would ask around ask to who was managing the account with the major investor that none of them had dreamed of approaching. Little by little, they realized that the pretty society girl with the fixation on hygiene, who never took off her gloves unless absolutely necessary, was there to work.
Her little liaison department had started small, but now she had at least one representative in each regional headquarters, and often inside the labs themselves - someone had to be nominated on the local level to herd the scientists along and interact with the larger world, she had reasoned to corporate.
Early last year, she had begun to beg off going into the London office, claiming a need to rest and recover from ongoing health issues. Her schedule itself had a good deal of travel throughout the year, slowly delegated out to others under her regime. Mornings were for reading, study, and more often than not, adding to the growing set of ledgers charting the course and changes stemming from her exposure five years earlier. Some early hiccups - executives who tried to get too familiar with her, interns who had cleared away dishes, staff at restaurants she had briefly tried to frequent - had led to those exposed becoming sensitized to her particular moods. Lingering too long at her door. Distance was safer for her, and for them. The reclusive air of mystery generated by the young heiress, steering the fortunes of a rising star in the pharmaceutical industry, made meetings with her a hot commodity in the community.
While there was nothing she could do for those working around the manor, they had grown used to it, and she had the power to rotate people out without raising questions. The office didn't have the strict social hierarchy that the manor did.
She frowned at the telephone, then checked the time. Lunchtime had come and gone, and thus her time was fair game for her secretary to access (phrasing bad). A tray had been left on the tea table by the door. With a sigh, she accepted her fate and picked it up. With an apology, her secretary asked if she had a moment to be put through to a Derek Simmons, who had claimed to know her from school.
A few of the Americans she went to school with had ties to the Family. While everyone who operated at that level seemed to 'know' secret enclaves of the 'true' power in the world, the scope of contacts that Daniel Simmons seemed to have access to had put the rest to shame. His family seemed to have a particular interest in the tools and levers being developed to maintain American hegemony. Marigold had casually courted that influence during her short, rather abortive rise to prominence in polite society, knowing that her father had been working towards would require investment, in time, partners. She had enquired into the state of a notorious and hotly debated bioweapons law, one that her brother had been fussing over as a potential roadblock to his future while discussing Alexander's work on a high level. Daniel himself knew little, but he had taken on a speculative look as they spoke.
Connecting to taking the call, Derek's East Coast accent came through the receiver. "Marigold, hello!"
She smiled in spite of herself. Cheerful sincerity and cutthroat directness were a difficult combination to balance. She liked that about Daniel, at least from a distance. "Daniel! It's been ages, hasn't it? I hope you got my wedding gift?" The nuptials had been in the spring, not six months after the passing of the 1972 Bioterrorism Act in the US Senate. The Umbrella logo had been present on the stationery of the card attached.
"Yes, Luisa was quite thrilled. No one quite knew where you had gone for a while, but you seem to be doing quite well?" Speculative, seeking an opening.
She laughed. "Well, it seems like there's a good amount of crossover from managing events to running a business, so I get by." A polite, obvious lie that wouldn't be challenged. Daniel was fishing for something but didn't want to do it over the phone. "Tell Luisa not to worry. How is she, may I ask?" He'd married a classmate of hers, one of the few who hadn't jumped ship when Marigold had been forced to 'take a break' from her budding social career. Possibly because Luisa was one of the few who knew, and would be the most damaged, by the truth getting out.
They'd been so very close, after all.
They made plans for lunch when she was back in the office the next week, and offered a tour, graciously accepted. The line clicked, and her secretary came back on the line. An afternoon was cleared so she could manage this one personally, with a representative she favored for backup.
Citing a headache, she asked the other woman to call Spencer's office for any relevant talking points on the Stateside facilities that she'd need to be brought up to date on. Her weekly call with the older man would be interesting. Those facilities had a secretive element that gave her chills, with their banal, family-friendly presentation of perfectly ordinary biochemical research. Despite being critical members of the founding team, neither Marcus nor Bailey, now in Africa managing the cave facility, ever seemed to come up in company discussions. Most knew who they were, surely, but their work? Almost never.
She smirked. Getting Simmons on board would mean more trips Stateside, and Marcus seemed to barely suppress a panic attack whenever she came to the little town with the cute name, rapidly expanding to house and support Umbrella personnel flocking to the region. As much as the exposure situation was concerning, that particular case held a delicious degree of schandefreude for her. Knowing the man, his staff likely appreciated the break every so often.
With international dialing finally being standardized over the last few years, a party calling in from the South Pacific did better to call a residence in southern England, most of the time, and relay the necessary changes in country codes. There was often a delay of several seconds and the reception was often awful. Still, Alexander and Marigold had agreed to a strict monthly schedule in order to check in. He had hemmed and hawed when she had chosen to start working from home more often, but the reports from Umbrella seemed to assure him that she was managing- thriving, even, given her strict limitations.
Which was good, given how the Antarctic facility had begun to kick into full gear. Starting out with a skeleton crew, he had seemed to be mostly working by himself. The call that he was to be a father (twins!) a few years ago had been startling, but he had seemed to mellow just a touch in the last few years. When she enquired about the mother he had ducked the question, claiming he wouldn't say more over the phone. Their combined paranoia - it's not paranoia if they're really out the get you- had effectively allowed that topic to rest, but she would get answers.
A journal article detailing the latest bioethical debate surrounding human cloning had arrived at the home some months later, with a note scribbled inside it: 'Not your samples, don't panic at me. Not up for debate. Love, A." A doodle of the family crest gave her a clue into his line of study- he really *had* gone after the old bird. Frustrated but sated enough with breadcrumbs, she would wait.
She snatched the receiver from its cradle before it could finish its first ring. The voice of a little girl rose above the static of the poor connection. "Aunt Callie! Father scared all of the crows outside and now they are aaaallll sitting outside and yelling!" The two-year-old girl's speech was crisp and articulate, but clearly amused by the imminent bird invasion. A little boy wailed excitedly in the background. They had agreed to call her Callie in front of the twins- short for Calelunda, a Latinized Marigold. They would explain the truth one day. Maybe. If their little house of cards held.
"Sounds like a most murderous murder on your hands." Marigold intoned solemnly. Little Alexia giggled, and Alexander came on the line. "Sorry, I had to close the curtains."
"Yes, plotting murders is tiring work I imagine."
"Oh for…" A burst of giggles could be heard in the background. "At least they're entertained."
"Are we still on for Christmas? When should I expect you all to come up here?"
Silence on the other end of the line. "Mar— Callie, I can't. I've told you that."
She firmly swallowed the lump forming in her throat. "I'll come to visit there then. You said yourself I needed to do a follow-up. I can't self-administer all of it." Not quite true; the healing factor had increased to the point where she could manage her own marrow extractions. The first attempt had been…rough. Follow-up attempts had been done well away from any of the household staff picking up on her distress. She timed these extractions on fair days, when even the beleaguered family butler would smile and allow that she could manage for an hour or two.
Alexander was still hesitating, and the children- well, Alexia, who was accompanied by the toddler-patois of her brother- started asking when aunt Callie was coming, could she come, could she meet the crows- and she couldn't help but laugh. "I have some news that will give you some space to breathe, if that's the issue. There's going to be far more focus on the American labs in the next few years, if I play the next few weeks right."
They went in circles on the issue for few more minutes, and Alex finally agreed to a Christmas visit…with strict rules for distancing and managing spread around the twins. "Preventing" as a goal had been slowly falling out of use in these conversations- her condition was a huge boon for a lot of things, but not for those within her immediate orbit. She needed to get her data over to him, mostly to verify, but also to get copies out of her own home.
At some point, with Alexander living in such a remote location and Marigold creating an island of silence around herself, they had fallen into a black box strategy to maintain their respective secrets. If they wanted to keep to that, fine. But it would be better to make plans where they would be free to talk, and to do so before the twins started forming solid memories, and repeating everything they heard.
"Lady Ashford?" Poppy, the head housekeeper, peered around the door of the study. Marigold looked up, and saw the thin woman had come with a glass of scotch on a tray, along with a small plate of meat and cheese. "There's dinner downstairs, but if you aren't hungry again you should at least eat *something.*" After five years, the woman still seemed slightly scandalized at the thought of her mistress not eating properly, albeit most resigned so long as she didn't waste away in the study.
The consistency was comforting. Marigold gave the woman a weary smile. "Thank you Poppy, it's been a very long day. I may come down in a bit." She eyed the drink. "I overheard the oddest rumour, down in the village, about a special cup that gets used for love potions. Do I need to start washing my glasses in the bathroom sink? We don't need that sort of attention."
Poppy blanched, but stepped into the room, closing the door behind her. "I'm sorry miss, we..." She looked a bit lost for a moment. "A few people on staff got married this past year, and that means moving a bit closer to the grounds. It's better for everyone if their sweethearts...join. Not 'till the wedding!" She rushed to explain as Marigold furrowed her brow in exasperation. "But, they find us a bit strange, I think. And, we get renters sometimes. Some of them ask a lot of questions about the manor."
Fantastic. Either someone was sending minders, or someone else was poking around her business. A thought occurred to her. "Poppy, there are enough cults in the news - I really don't want one in my backyard."
The other woman shrugged, setting the tray down in from of Marigold. "Honestly, I think you have suitors. They seemed rather interested in your social life, for one. Hasn't that Beardsley fellow been sending you invitations to visit his estate?" Poppy reflected her exasperation back. "Even if children aren't an option, you know how to run a household - more than that, from the look of all of this." Poppy gestured vaguely to the study. "Your da, rest his soul, had his work to fall back on after your lady mother passed, but that's not particularly common. I could easily imagine a few silver foxes sniffing around to get a look at what the mystery heiress of the manor is up to, sure."
Marigold grimaced. "I try not to think on it much," she admitted. It had been five years since she had first fallen ill, and she still looked nineteen. So far it had been fine - a well-rested woman of means looking a bit fresher than expected was something that could be mediated with a credible makeup routine. She was starting to worry about the next five years, though, if this kept on. She'd be expected to be receptive to that sort of interest. She also didn't want it anywhere near her if it hastened discovery. As much as she avoided the idea of what would happen in the future, it would have to be addressed soon.
Poppy, almost preternaturally sensitive to her mistress' moods, brightened. "We had a delivery in the afternoon, by the way. Bit heavy, and it clanked when William brought it to the back. Why on earth are you ordering railroad spikes?"
Marigold blinked at her, then smiled. "Ah. Those are for the range - my knives keep breaking." She stretched her legs out under the desk to abate the stiffness. "I'll need the range cleared for a few hours tomorrow morning. I could use a bit of exercise."
A normal woman would have blanched at the request. Poppy had been in her company for years - the dreaming look had left her eyes, but that was more a matter of the locals building up a tolerance to her presence. She nodded in agreement, but seemed wary. "Of course miss, but really. Are you planning to go to war?" Her voice was light- the lady was always so gentle with the staff, so kind and careful. Poppy couldn't imagine such a thing of her.
The weariness in Marigold's eyes deepened, and her next words would haunt Poppy for the next several weeks. "Planning? No. Whether it will come anyways is the real question."
