A/N: I forgot to say in the last A/N that the exterior of the house is just like the one the character "Mr. Bingley" rented in the "Pride & Prejudice" movie, however the interior is more like the one in the "Sense & Sensibility" movie. The drawing-room is inspired by the room where "Edward Ferras" and "Elinor Dashwood" met for the first time in the movie (with the rest of the Dashwood women, his sister, etc.) I could have used the Dashwood state but it seemed to me it was too big to manage (this story needs a manageable household), same thing with the Darcy household in "Pride & Prejudice" the movie. And the Bennett household in the "Pride & Prejudice" movie seemed a bit humble. The house rented by Mr. Bingley seemed more appropriate.
I do not own any GG or other show and stories characters; if I did the TV show would have ended better than it did.
Before the group reached the drawing-room the Countess asked Mr. Archibald and Mr. Rhodes where her chambers were, so Fritz could go and unpack her luggage. They kindly provided this information to the Countess and her young servant, so she sent the child in that direction just as Mr. Bass had requested. Fritz also took with him her cloak and bonnet to save them with the rest of the luggage.
Upon reaching the drawing-room, everybody started taking their seats. The drawing-room's decoration was in the Neoclassical style, but it also complied with the English trend inside this style (meaning, it had everything that could be needed to look like any other drawing-room of any other English country house at the time). It had walls painted in a sort of pale blue tone, two sofas that were more Rococo than Neoclassical but still simple enough to blend with the new style, a marble fireplace, a few single chairs, candelabra not ostentatious but in enough amount to give proper lighting, and the other things necessary to complete a drawing-room in those days.
Mr. Hudson, Ms. Hudson and Vibiana occupied one of the sofas, sitting in that same order. Across them there was the other sofa which Mr. Rhodes and Ms. Rhodes proceeded to occupy as well. Mr. Archibald, Mr. Bass and the Countess opted for single chairs distributed in the rest of the space. The sofa occupied by the Hudson brothers and Vibiana occupied the space towards the left side of the fireplace, therefore the one occupied by the Rhodes brothers was on the right side. The single chair occupied by the Countess was near the fireplace and next to it followed the sofa occupied by Ms. Rhodes and her brother. After that sofa came the single chairs occupied one by Mr. Bass, the other one by Mr. Archibald, therefore they were both facing the fireplace. They were all pretty much forming a semi-circle around the fireplace because after Mr. Archibald's chair what followed was the other sofa occupied by the Hudson's and Vibiana.
Once they were all in their seats and in silence Mr. Bass proceeded to open the meeting with the following words:
"I'm sure you are all anxious to know the reason why we have requested this meeting. The threat that Numerius, Lucius, Celia and I have uncovered is dangerous enough to merit the urgency we conveyed when we contacted the rest of you, and all the help we can get."
"Alright, but you still haven't told us what this threat is about" the Countess said, not one for pleasantries or delays at that moment.
"Patience, my dear Countess" Mr. Bass said. That one earned him a glare from her. He made a small pause, and if she didn't know him better, she would have thought he was taking a breath before continuing with what he was about to say:
"A few months ago, we started hearing rumors about disturbances in the North."
"What kind of disturbances?" Mr. Hudson asked.
"The kind of disturbances that judging by their description, only our kind is capable of producing" Mr. Bass replied, and although he sounded calm and collected as always, his eyes had a warning while he was answering to Mr. Hudson that seemed to say "don't interrupt me again". Mr. Hudson took the hint because he remained silent and said no more.
"At the beginning, they were only rumors and whispers from townsmen and from our servants," Mr. Bass continued, "but after a while, members of the higher classes were repeating them and the alarm level slowly but persistently started to increase. As per the rumors, the attacks started in the border between England and Scotland, mainly in Scotland, but as the weeks and months passed, the attacks started heading south, near and then around York, and every time a new report comes, the place is south of the area of the last attack."
"As you can imagine, we started investigating, and we requested news from others of our kind that we know live in Scotland. They have also been pursuing the issue for months, before the news started spreading south, and they were as baffled as we were. As we all know, our kind always tries to be discreet for everyone's sake, and these attackers weren't. It wasn't until a month ago that we finally got an answer."
"Which is?" the Countess asked. "And hasn't the government said anything about this?"
"From what we know, this either hasn't reached the top levels of government, or they have dismissed it as peasant's rumors, which is what we hope is happening. We do know that the local authorities are having troubles coming up with explanations about why the bodies don't have any blood, but apparently they haven't been able to get the government's ears. Besides, at this moment the government has bigger concerns, what with the issues in the Mainland and the threat of war" Mr. Bass replied.
He paused again for a few seconds, and then continued. "As for the threat…. It's him."
"Him who?" the Countess asked.
"You know who" Mr. Bass replied, locking eyes with her.
The Countess swallowed, seemed to get paler if that was even possible, and didn't say anything else.
"Wait a second, who are we talking about?" Vibiana decided to ask, confused and annoyed by such vague answer.
Nobody said anything for a few moments, Mr. Bass and the Countess still with their eyes locked, Mr. Archibald, Ms. Rhodes and Mr. Rhodes without daring to say a word, and Mr. Hudson, Ms. Hudson and Vibiana more confused than ever. Mr. Archibald was starting to consider continue the explanation when Mr. Hudson intervened.
"Are you…, are you talking about the man who turned you?" Mr. Hudson asked, incredulous.
His intervention was what finally caused Mr. Bass and the Countess to break their stare.
"Yes" Mr. Bass replied solemnly while looking at Mr. Hudson. "We are talking about him."
Mr. Hudson and company were too stunned to say anything else. So was the Countess, who couldn't take her eyes away from Mr. Bass. Ms. Rhodes couldn't do anything other than lower her head and look at her hands in her lap.
"Based on the reports we have received, he goes by the name Xavier at this moment, but he's likely to go by other aliases as well" Mr. Bass continued. "And he has an army of followers. Apparently not all the humans they have bitten were dried off," the women in the room flinched at that mention, "but some were turn instead. However he already had the main part of his followers when the attacks started."
"Excuse me," Ms. Hudson decided to intervene in that moment, "but why now? Why after all this time?"
"As you know" Mr. Bass said while looking around to include everybody, "this is not the first time he reappears. You will remember that we tried to hunt him down a while ago…"
"Yes." Ms. Hudson interrupted. "But why reappear now? What could he get from…?"
"We don't know." Mr. Bass said. "But knowing how he works, we can only expect chaos and destruction. From what we know, he might want to turn the entire human race into our kind, who knows" Mr. Bass added, looking sideways.
"As you can see, we need to stop him, and we need to work fast" Mr. Archibald said, entering the conversation. "We need to do this before the humans realize what is going on. Whatever his mad plan is, he's risking exposing us all and causing unnecessary deaths. And we don't know when he's going to stop either. As Gaius said, for all we know he could want to turn the entire human race. There is no say when and where he would want to stop. He might as well pass to the Mainland, and with enough followers he could be very difficult to control. We need to prevent him from getting more followers as well."
"We already sent word to our peers in Scotland" Mr. Bass said, "explaining who he is and what he does and can do. We are also sending word to whatever others of our kind that might be in England at the moment, though I think that will be more difficult. As you know, our kind highly values discretion. And we also requested help from the persons who know him best."
"You sent word to Rian and Moya?" the Countess asked, still stunned by everything.
Mr. Bass looked towards Mr. Rhodes, silently asking him to continue.
"It wasn't easy, but I have contacts in the Mainland" Mr. Rhodes started. "I asked them to look for Rian and Moya, and they were able to find them. As you can imagine, they were up North. And yes, they are still looking for him."
"From their brief reply, it seems they have been without a lead for a long time" Mr. Archibald continued, "which explains how he managed to get into Britain unnoticed. They will be here tomorrow night. I'm not sure yet if they will come with the others, but it's likely."
There was another pause, where everybody was too stunned, sad or worried to say anything else. Finally Mr. Hudson was the first one able to say something.
"This…, this is too much" he said, looking everywhere, itching to stand up and pace but deciding not to do so.
"Of course it is too much" the Countess suddenly said, full of energy. "We need to stop him. We need to put an end to this before is too late."
"We? He's the one that turned you" Mr. Hudson said, looking towards the Countess, Mr. Bass, Mr. Archibald and Ms. Rhodes. "Can't you just…?"
"Decimus, please" Ms. Rhodes looked up from her lap and effectively interrupted him, with a pleading tone. They locked eyes for a moment before he put his face in his hands, sitting with his elbows over his knees. He remained like that for a moment and he finally looked up and said:
"Alright, I will help you. Helvetia," he said, addressing his sister, "if you want, you can return to the Mainland, or you can…"
"I'm in." Ms. Hudson said, effectively cutting him off. "I will help too."
"Are you sure?" Mr. Hudson asked, still a bit apprehensive. "I mean, you don't have to if you don't want to. I… We can arrange…"
"I said I will help too." Ms. Hudson said cutting him off again. "Decimus, I know you're worried," she said, turning towards her brother and trying to soothe him, "and I get it, I do. But I'm capable of defending myself, and I can fight as well as any of you. You don't have to worry about me. You know that I have lived alone in the past, and here I am. And I'll be careful, just like everybody else will be careful."
Another silent moment passed, and Mr. Archibald decided to ask the only person that was pending to give her consent.
"Vibiana?" he said, addressing her.
"I'm in" she answered. "Whoever this guy is, I agree he needs to stop. As much as we all want to survive and are willing to defend ourselves in case of a threat, I think we can agree that neither one of us desires to create more of our kind. There are enough people of our kind in the world, and some nut can't go around deciding whether the world needs more of our kind or not."
"You would know whether someone should decide how many more of our kind the world needs, wouldn't you?" the Countess said with a cool demeanor, addressing Vibiana.
"Alright," Mr. Bass said, cutting off the discussion that was sure to start if he didn't put an end to it. "This is the plan for the night then. We need to go to eat. We have horses in the stables for everybody and today we can go to the nearest town. Numerius and I can lead the way and Celia and Lucius can go at the end watching that everything is in order and nobody gets lost. Cornelia's things need to get installed in her chamber, I assume Fritz can continue with that while we are out?" he asked, addressing the Countess, to which she was only able to nod with her head, still too impressed by everything. "Good. I assume everyone else has already occupied their chambers?" he asked, addressing Mr. Archibald.
"Everybody has unpacked already, and we also have rooms ready for our visitors tomorrow." Mr. Archibald replied.
"Very well then. When we return from our meal, we can continue strategizing and planning what we are going to do while Rian and Moya arrive."
"As for what happens in the daylight, the movement in this house is quite simple. We do sleep in the upper rooms, but we don't sleep in the same rooms every day. The servants arrive during the early hours of the morning and as far as they know, we already left the house for the day, and we don't return until sunset. Every morning I leave written instructions to our administrator with a list saying which rooms the servants can clean up and which tasks they need to complete. The servants cannot enter the rooms excluded from that list and we have bolts behind the rooms as a precaution if someone gets confused and tries to open one of the forbidden rooms. We sleep in the rooms excluded from the list for a day or two and then we switch to the ones already cleaned up and we sleep in those while the servants clean the ones we already used. Usually what we do is that we occupy rooms in the second floor for a week and then we move to the rooms in the third floor the following week, and so on."
"The servants believe we take breakfast, lunch and dinner in the places or towns we go visit during the day. The rooms have secret doors and connect by internal corridors that also lead to the stables. What we do is that before sunrise we go to the stables, move a carriage to a secret site near the house but not visible by the public, and we left the carriage's horses there with enough food and water for the day. It is also dark enough so they can sleep. After sunset we go back to the secret site, return in the carriage, reach the front of the house and leave the servants take the carriage to the stables before they leave for the day. The servants also don't know that we switch rooms, so any laundry is left always in what they believe are our rooms so they can take care of it during the day. They also take care of the main rooms and the property around the house. Since we don't eat here, the human food in the house is mainly for their use although we have made them believe that we might eat breakfast or dinner here at some point. Any question?" Mr. Bass asked the others.
The visitors felt too stunned to ask anything else, and the inhabitants of the house felt they didn't have anything else to add to such explanation.
"Oh, and we have thick curtains in the bedrooms that prevent daylight from coming in, so you don't have to worry about that" Mr. Bass remembered to add.
"You knew that we would have to occupy more than one bedroom and yet you told me about unpacking in one of them…" the Countess started saying.
"Don't worry, we will tell you in advance when you have to move from one room to another and you will be able to take your things with you" Mr. Bass said to calm her. "Besides, I wouldn't worry about it too much. It won't be long before we have to travel again, this time up North, so you won't have to spend too much time here. Once Rian and Moya arrive, we will know when we will have to leave. Anything else?" Mr. Bass asked.
Everyone remained silent. Mr. Bass then remembered another thing.
"There is still the issue of our names here. I believe you all know by now that I go by Mr. Charles Bass."
"And that I go by Mr. Fitzwilliam Archibald" Mr. Archibald said.
"I think you also know that Celia is Ms. Catherine Rhodes and that Lucius is her brother, Mr. Richard Rhodes."
Everyone nodded at that, and Ms. Hudson exchanged a small smile with Mr. Rhodes.
"I believe you all also know by now that Cornelia is the Countess Constanze Waldorf. Are you going to stay as Countess here?" Mr. Bass asked the Countess.
"I've thought about it and yes, I wish to stay as Countess" she replied.
"Very well then. We will say that you are visiting from Germany and that your family has an old friendship with ours. You must know," he said, addressing everybody, "that here we have said that Celia and Lucius are my cousins from my mother's side, but they were left orphans at a very young age and that they grew up with me as my brothers, and that Numerius is a friend from my college days that is paying a lengthy visit and he's also considering buying a property nearby." After another brief pause, Mr. Bass continued:
"I think we all also know that Decimus and his sister are going by Mr. Randolph Hudson and his sister, Ms. Jane Hudson. What are we supposed to say that you do for a living, Decimus?" he asked dismissively, addressing Mr. Hudson.
"I think you can all say that I'm Numerius's secretary" Mr. Hudson said with a sigh. He was already accustomed to Mr. Bass treatment. "Or even attorney. That has come here to help Mr. Archibald in the search of a property, or start drawing the papers for the one he has chosen. And that I travel everywhere with my sister because she has no one else and we are orphans too."
"You don't have to say that you work for me…" Mr. Archibald started rather sheepishly.
"And what else are we going to say? That we went to college together? Who else is going to believe that?" Upon hearing this Mr. Bass snorted, and the Countess scrunched up her nose in disgust. "Exactly" Mr. Hudson said upon hearing and watching Mr. Bass and the Countess, while gesturing to them.
"We are going to say that you are Mr. Archibald's attorney, that has come here to help him decide which property he's going to buy" Mr. Bass said to close the issue. There was only one thing left. "And… her?" he asked, gesturing towards Vibiana.
"I'm Vivian Parker" she said, with her head held high. "That's my name here, Vivian Parker. And you can say I'm their servant girl" she said, while gesturing towards the Hudson brothers.
"We don't have to say that, we can say that you are my friend…" Ms. Hudson started saying.
"And who is going to believe that?" Vibiana replied, using Mr. Hudson's words from a moment ago. "It's easier for all to say that I'm a servant girl who also works as your chaperone. You could also say that I'm your personal maid, I wouldn't mind, but that would be riskier if you are only the sister of a lawyer. There is also always the other choice."
"What other choice?" Mr. Hudson asked.
"You could also say that she's your personal slave." Mr. Bass said taking the hint of what Vibiana was trying to say. Mr. Hudson immediately started denying with his head. "You could say that you acquired her from the Americas, that a family member sent her to you…"
"No" was Mr. Hudson reply, cutting off everyone else. "No. I won't say that. I won't say she's my slave. I'm an abolitionist, and there is no way I'm going to say that I have a slave."
They all observed him for a few moments and Mr. Bass finally said: "It's settled then. Vibiana goes by Vivian Parker and she's the Hudson's maid. If anyone asks, however, you will have to say that either she or her parents emancipated" Mr. Bass concluded in a serious tone, while looking at Mr. Hudson directly.
"Fine" Mr. Hudson said, not entirely too pleased, but he knew Mr. Bass was right.
Nobody said anything else. Mr. Bass exchanged a look with Mr. Archibald and then they proceeded to stand, which caused everybody else to stand at the same time.
"Right. Let's allow time to Cornelia to install in her chambers and let's meet again here in an hour to go to the town for our meal."
"Come Cornelia, let me show you your chambers" Ms. Rhodes said, and she had begun to entwine arms with the Countess when Mr. Bass interrupted.
"If you don't mind, sister" Mr. Bass drawled, "I wish to show Cornelia her chambers."
"Well, I do happen to mind" the Countess replied, taking a step towards Mr. Bass while disentangling herself from Ms. Rhodes. "I'm sure Celia is perfectly capable of showing me my chambers and I certainly don't want you anywhere near them."
"Oh? But it's such a pity, my dear Countess" Mr. Bass said to tease her. "I know the house as well as my dear sister and we do have some issues that we need to discuss. I do remember very well how fun your chambers used to..."
"Come on all, that's enough" Ms. Rhodes interrupted. She knew that she was the only one capable of stopping all this. She was aware that her brother and Mr. Archibald refused to intervene in this matter, and that rest were too shocked, too tired or too annoyed by the entire thing to say a word that would cut if off. "Cornelia and I are going to her chambers, and you can tag along if you must. But that's about it" she said, standing up to Mr. Bass, while entwining arms again with the Countess.
"Fine then" Mr. Bass said with an eye roll and a sigh. He knew he couldn't win against both women. And he really believed there would be a couple of issues that the Countess would want to ask him once she reached her chambers.
"Then we will meet again here in an hour" Mr. Archibald said, and they all nodded their consent. Then they all proceeded to bow at the same time, as per the custom of the day, and started leaving the drawing-room by different exits and with different directions.
Ms. Rhodes and the Countess took the route that would take them to the grand staircase that lead to the upper floors where the bedrooms were, and Mr. Bass also accompanied them. Ms. Rhodes would have engaged in small talk with the Countess, but knowing that with Mr. Bass near her friend would no longer be in the mood for that for fear of revealing too much, she abstained of saying anything. Therefore the three of them remained silent until they reached the chambers assigned to the Countess.
Just before Ms. Rhodes was able to open the chamber's door, the Countess got ahead of her and gave a knock to the door while saying aloud in German: "Fritz, it's me, I'm going in."
Mr. Bass rolled his eyes to her behavior. He knew perfectly well that this was a secret signal between them to alert the child that she was not alone and there shouldn't be valuables on display.
Naturally Ms. Rhodes got a little startled and gave a funny look to the Countess, not getting what was all that about, but before she could consider again try to open the door, it got open from the inside and there stood Fritz, who did a bow to everyone and then stepped aside so they could come in.
The Countess entered the room first with Ms. Rhodes and Mr. Bass behind her, all the while examining the room. She found it satisfactory and above her standards, not that she was going to say that to Mr. Bass. It did had a grand canopy bed with beautiful linen, a grand marble fireplace that was already heated, a big wood closet with a rich decoration work, a small set of single chairs with a tea-table in the middle that were near the fireplace, a bathroom set and the thick curtains that Mr. Bass had described, which at that moment were not concealing the beautiful French windows.
"Do you like it?" Ms. Rhodes asked the Countess, gushing again since she was regaining the mood she had prior to the meeting. "I picked it up myself" she said, referring to the room.
This forced the Countess to having to say out loud her appraisal of the room.
"It's… It's beautiful Celia" she answered, hesitating for a second in one last-minute attempt to give a downplayed reply, but unable to do so because she didn't want to upset or sadden her friend.
Ms. Rhodes squealed and ran to hug the Countess, while Mr. Bass smirked and looked at the floor for a moment. He knew what she would have liked to say due to his presence in the room, and he also knew why she couldn't do it at the end. It was always good to see Cornelia and Celia together.
Once the two friends disentangled from the hug, the Countess continue to look at everything while holding both of her friend's hands. The paintings in the ceiling, the candelabra, the mirrors above the fireplace and in the dressing table… Suddenly she remembered a very important issue.
"Where is Fritz going to sleep?" she asked, and without thinking she addressed Mr. Bass instead of her friend when saying the question.
Mr. Bass, who was reclining in the doorway with his hands in his pockets, immediately straightened himself up and started walking slowly towards them. He was expecting her questions.
"Well, I imagine you wouldn't want our servants to notice him, so even if we originally considered giving him a room in the servant's quarters, I guess we can disregard that idea" he said, with his right hand inside his pocket while gesturing with his left hand.
The Countess nodded with her head. Without realizing she had lowered her walls and her doe-eyes showed vulnerability, because she was a bit anxious. It made him want to soothe her and dispel her fears. Although he liked to tease her, and he wanted her back, he didn't want her to be upset.
"We could give him a chamber next to yours. There is no one next door, so if you want we could prepare one of those for him" Mr. Bass said.
"I don't know… I don't want him to feel alone in such a big room. He could always sleep here, but I've never been in favor of humans sleeping in the same room as our kind. You never know when that could be dangerous for the human" she said, while gesturing Fritz to come near them. Once he arrived, she put her left arm over his shoulders, giving him a sideways hug.
"We could always switch the room, and give them connected rooms" Ms. Rhodes said.
"You have connected rooms?" the Countess asked Mr. Bass and Ms. Rhodes.
"Well yes, my dear Countess" Mr. Bass said playfully. "You will remember that this house was originally built by humans. The nuptial chambers connect by a communication door for the Master and Mistress of the house, and some of the visitors chambers also have communication doors, for whatever married couples that would come to visit."
She gave him a glare for that one, but eventually sighed and looked at the child, while saying: "I don't know…"
"I'll tell you what" Mr. Bass said, "why don't you let him sleep next door for tonight? I'm sure that if you explain him the situation he will be able to sleep alone in the room. And tomorrow you can both switch to a set of visitor's chambers connected by a communication door. Unless you want the nuptial chambers?" he said at the end to tease her.
That one earned him another glare, and Ms. Rhodes decided to intervene before they started to argue, knowing that her friend was going to accept the idea (sans nuptial chambers of course).
"This whole thing reminded me, how are we going to explain to the servants that Vibiana is a servant but they don't see her?"
"There is nothing to explain" Mr. Bass said. "Vibiana is Helvetia's servant and she has to go with her everywhere she goes, so she's out of the house at the same time her mistress is out of the house. The same thing about Fritz, he goes wherever Cornelia goes. If anyone asks that's what we will tell them. But if it makes you feel better" he said to soothe Ms. Rhodes, "we can tell the others about this."
"I think it would be the best" Ms. Rhodes said.
"This also reminded me" the Countess started, "where is the secret door to the hidden corridors? And do these corridors really connect all the rooms?"
"Let me show you" Mr. Bass said, and going towards a wooden-paneled wall, he proceeded to show everybody where the hidden door was and how to open it. The Countess and Fritz took a peek at the corridor. "The rooms that we use are the ones connected by the corridors. We don't use the few rooms that don't have this connection. This network of corridors was actually started by the previous owners of the house, following the nobility's customs I presume. We just expanded it as much as we could and connected it to the stables. And don't worry, these doors have locks too, so nobody can enter from the corridor either" he said, adding this last part with a playful smirk because he knew that getting that information was the hidden intention behind her question. She wanted to know if there was a chance that he would try to enter her chamber from the corridor.
Naturally the Countess figured out that he had discovered her ploy to get that information, so she continued with another question.
"And what about the moment we need to move to another room? My things were unpack here. How are we going to…?"
"You don't have to unpack all your things at once if you don't want to" Mr. Bass interrupted her, "I believe we say we would leave Fritz unpacking your things while we went for a meal. You can leave part of your things in their trunks, locked with key, and when the time comes I'm sure the others will gladly help you move things from one room to another, since I'm sure you won't want my help" he said, with a rather serious tone at the end.
The Countess remained silent for a moment, contemplating his answer, and finally she said. "Fine, we will do that for now."
"Besides," Mr. Bass added "if you remember it won't be long until we need to travel again."
"Of course" the Countess replied rather tightly.
"Alright, I think it has been enough conversation for now" Ms. Rhodes decided to intervene at that moment. "Cornelia needs to freshen up from her journey and I'm sure she will want to leave instructions for Fritz."
"I'm going to need food for him so he can also eat while we are out" the Countess said.
"Don't worry, like I said there's human food in the house for the servant's use and because we have made them believe that we might eat here at some point" Mr. Bass replied.
"He's also going to need candles to move around the house, or at least know where the candelabra are in any room…"
"The house is properly illuminated, but we can tell him those things anyways. You can arrange that and any other details with Celia. She also has the keys for the locks of the bedroom door and the secret door; you can ask those to her."
"Really? How do I know you don't have a secret copy?" the Countess asked.
"Believe me, I don't. Otherwise Celia would kill me" Mr. Bass said while turning around to leave the room.
"You are right that I would" Ms. Rhodes called out to him. Upon hearing her Mr. Bass turned around, now in the threshold of the bedroom's door, and with a smirk he bowed his goodbye, leaving the women and Fritz alone in the room.
"Finally" Ms. Rhodes said with a sigh while going to close the door. "I thought he would never leave."
"Sorry my love" the Countess said to Fritz in German while giving him another sideways hug with her left arm, which she had stopped doing during her conversation with Mr. Bass, not that the child had left her side for one second "I didn't mean to left you out, but I needed to ask some things and it was easier in English" she said, while passing her hand through his hair.
Given that Ms. Rhodes was still in the room, Fritz was too shy in that moment to do other thing than nod with his head.
"Don't worry sweetie" Ms. Rhodes said in German walking towards him, taking him by his hand and walking a few steps with him to finally sit on one side of the bed "now that we are alone we can talk in German. Don't be frightened, I'm your mistress's friend. She and I go a long time ago" she said, while passing her right hand by the boy's left cheek.
The Countess rolled her eyes and started walking towards them. "Dear Celia, do you really think I wouldn't have told him that and where we were going?" she said in German, while sitting at Fritz's other side and putting her left arm over his shoulders. Ms. Rhodes just shrugged her shoulders while passing her right hand through the boy's hairs.
"Listen Fritz," the Countess started in German, now giving him another sideways hug, "the movement in this house is different from our home. They have servants here that don't know anything of what is actually going on. It's better if they don't see you. Therefore we are going to need another chamber for you, so you won't stay in the servant's quarters. Also, we are going to make sure that your room is always next to mine. Due to the servant's presence, the habitants of this house change rooms every day or two, and we will have to do the same. Therefore we will sleep in rooms with a communication door, but since that was not planned before tonight, for tonight you will sleep next door but there isn't going to be a communication door, although your room will also have a secret door towards the corridor, and you will get the keys for that door and the main door in your room, like I will have for this room. Right Celia?" the Countess said addressing her friend.
"Right," Ms. Rhodes replied "and for all the rooms you occupy."
"I know that for tonight you could share this room with me, but you know that is better if you don't sleep in the same room than I do" the Countess said.
"Yes Milady" the boy said. The Countess kissed his head.
"Good boy. Now, since we are going to move from one room to another, you won't have to unpack all our trunks. Just finish the ones you started and don't open the rest. And don't worry, I've been told that we will receive help to move all the trunks every time we need to move" she said, while giving a wink to her friend, who just giggled.
"Yes Milady" Fritz said again
"Good boy. Now go finish unpacking while I talk with Ms. Rhodes. In a while we will go downstairs to prepare your meal, and while you eat we will go to eat too. After I return we will try to study something, not much because you are surely tired. But we do need to keep practicing your English. We are going to stay here for a while" the Countess sighed at the end.
"Yes Milady" Fritz said in English while standing up.
"Oh Cornelia, he's so cute!" Ms. Rhodes gushed again. Placing both her hands in the child's cheeks, she continued gushing. "You are so cute!" The minute she heard him talking in English, she forgot all about German and started speaking in English herself.
"Do forgive my friend, Fritz" the Countess said, "she tends to do that a lot." And with that she gently placed her hands on the boy's shoulder and managed to take him out of Ms. Rhodes's hands and send him towards the trunks.
"I'm sorry," Ms. Rhodes said bashfully "it's just that's been a while since I've been near a small child and…"
"It's fine, I get it" the Countess said. To change subjects the Countess said:
"Now, tell me all about England, and I will tell you about France and Germany."
Ms. Rhodes smiled, and they started talking while Fritz continued to unpack the trunks.
A/N: It wasn't my intention to finish the chapter here, but it was longer than expected, I didn't know there were so many details to consider while writing a fanfic.
To further clarify:
Serena is Celia (fake name Catherine Rhodes)
Blair is Cornelia (fake name Constanze Waldorf)
Chuck is Gaius (fake name Charles Bass)
Dan is Decimus (fake name Randolph Hudson)
Nate is Numerius (fake name Fitzwilliam Archibald)
Jenny is Helvetia (fake name Jane Hudson)
Eric is Lucius (fake name Richard Rhodes)
Vanessa is Vibiana (fake name Vivian Parker)
For now all I can say about the real names is that there is story behind them and they are only their first names, but I won't get into that until later in this fanfic. This is also part of the reason I keep referring to them by their fake names. There are other reasons that I will explain along the way. Also, I will try to update soon, it hasn't been easy lately because of life and work, in fact I'm posting this while on vacation and I will try to get something before vacation finish but I can't promise anything, fingers crossed I will make it.