Kuroshitsuji fic: Victorian Vapours
Jul. 26th, 2010 09:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
narcasse2048 words. PG. Following on from Victorian Photographs without which it will make little sense.
Discovering yet more revelations about his father: At Tanaka’s prompting Ciel goes to meet with Manfred de Winter. (I may even be building up to addressing the unrequited Angelina/Vincent pairing of canon.)
Victorian Vapours
Disclaimer: Black Butler belongs to Toboso Yana, G-Fantasy and others.
++++++++++
“The Earl, your father, was prone to some slight malady himself.” Tanaka comments while he discreetly removes yet another chamber pot from beneath Ciel’s bed. And even though Ciel lies back against the pillows exhausted from retching with nothing to bring up, his eyes slide sideways to the old Estate Steward in questioning.
“Thankfully Dr Leberzelle was always on hand on those occasions.”
Ciel stares up at the canopy over the bed. “He was my father’s business associate.”
“He was your father’s friend.” Comes the softly worded reproach.
Flinging an arm across his eyes Ciel indulges in a childish exasperation at what is likely to be no more than the result of undercooked scallops served at a very dull business dinner.
“Of course as the good doctor has since left the country it would be Earl de Winter who would know best in regards to your father’s condition.”
“Why did he leave?” Ciel closes his eyes behind the bar of his arm.
“I couldn’t say, sir. All I know is that he left England rather abruptly after your father’s untimely death.”
“Thank you, Tanaka. That will be all.” Ciel voices the dismissal as if by rote.
“Very good, sir.”
Less than three days later Ciel is well enough again to have made enquiries and have confirmed an appointment to see the aging Earl de Winter. He takes Sebastian with him to pay the visit more out of a desire to have any conversation with the Earl out of the range of Tanaka’s hearing than because he requires Sebastian’s presence. Tanaka knows a great deal but he is unlikely to reveal his information simply on the force of any demands that Ciel might make. It is highly obvious after all that there is something in this meeting with Earl de Winter that Tanaka wishes Ciel to be appraised of, something that it would be entirely gauche for his father’s butler to reveal to him directly.
The de Winter mansion is a vast affair centred around the original Elizabethan buildings, with the sort of oaks around the outer perimeter of the estate that might easily serve as impromptu gallows, and is of ominous architecture enough that Ciel would have quite enjoyed a tour of the grounds. Unfortunately, his observation is limited to a photograph of the estate and a framed schematic hanging up in the main entrance of Earl de Winter’s townhouse. The Earl is in town for business and since Ciel has business of his own to attend to at the same time the convenience of the city has won out. At least, as per his secretive hope, the Earl’s butler directs Sebastian to wait in the hall while his master visits a fellow aristocrat so that Ciel doesn’t have to lower himself to issue such a command. Ciel takes his fair share of gratification in the way in which the elderly butler practically orders Sebastian to remain where he is as if he were a mere footman newly begun in service. Of course with Sebastian’s youthful appearance the older butler will no doubt take him down to the servant’s kitchen, order a maid to prepare some tea for them and then sit down to enquire about his circumstances and proffer some useful advice upon Ciel’s departure, but under the gaze of their betters they must observe strict protocol.
Earl de Winter’s study is comfortable if predictable in its décor and Ciel is left to sip tea and await the Earl’s regrettable, so the butler phrases it, delay. Sitting in one of the wingback chairs, teacup in hand Ciel looks around the room from his vantage point and notes absolutely nothing of interest. The general theme for the room is mahogany and dark leather, and despite the tall windows that let in illuminating shafts of sunlight even the curtains are dark, heavy brocade with no attempt at lighter embellishment. Earl de Winter is not someone who enjoys the light Ciel can ascertain, nor is he someone who cares for delicate ornamentation. There are a few black coloured statuettes on bookshelves but they are fairly standard though surprisingly art nouveau for a man of the Earl’s age. There is a lone photograph in a silver filigree frame on a shelf, the single spot of light in amongst the other dark furnishings, but Ciel can’t quite see it clearly from where he sits and before he can think to go inspect it the Earl himself arrives curtailing that idea.
Thought Manfred de Winter is of course much taller than Ciel, even when Ciel gets to his feet to shake hands, there is no trace of amusement in his features at Ciel’s small statute. He greets Ciel like an equal rather than a child playing at his father’s role and for that alone he immediately gains a small portion of Ciel’s respect. They seat themselves on either side of the unlit fireplace and the butler returns with, Ciel notes, black coffee for the Earl.
Once the butler departs Ciel wonders how they will begin before he is spared the trouble of social niceties.
“Your butler, this Michaelis fellow, is rather young for the position.” The Earl states the matter abruptly.
“Sebastian is perfectly capable of his duties.”
“What were his references like?”
Ciel takes a sip of his tea. Of course Sebastian didn’t come with any references.
Manfred de Winter smiles thinly. “The family resemblance is quite remarkable.”
“I am my father’s son.” Ciel responds, wary of the sudden change in topic.
“Not you: your butler.” He laughs.
“Lord-“
“I’m not implying anything. He’s hardly one of Vincent’s bastards. But get him to grow his hair longer, it’ll hide the shape of his face at least.”
“If he’s not one of my father’s bastards then what exactly do you think he is?” Enunciating every word sharply and deliberately neglecting any form of courtesy address in his icy retort.
“I’ve no idea.” Manfred shrugs. “But you’re learning quickly, none of this ‘my lord’ nonsense. You can call me ‘Manfred’: I was your father’s friend and I can be yours if you’ll let me.”
It’s not the idea of such a brash offer that gives Ciel pause but rather the offer itself. Manfred de Winter is a rich man with business interests sat squarely in the financial sector. Yet he doesn’t and hasn’t ever shown an interest in manufacturing or export, both areas in which the Phantom Company excels. Perhaps then the Earl is talking in terms of financial investment.
“I’m not talking about business. I never invested in Vincent’s damn company and I never will.”
“Was there something objectionable about my father’s business practices?”
“Morally, quite possibly: legally, of course not. He didn’t need my investment and neither do you.”
“But an offer of friendship from one businessman to another…well, it’s to be expected, isn’t it?” This time Ciel lets a sly smile cross his face.
Manfred grins broadly. “But an offer of friendship from one blackguard to another is an entirely different thing. No, don’t frown over it. Your father was as much of a scoundrel as I was, as Carl was too back in those days.”
That family of vile noblemen… The phrase drifts though Ciel’s mind and though he can’t recall precisely where he first heard it, he’s heard it enough times to wonder at his own family’s reputation.
“It was never anything serious of course, never anything where Vincent might dirty his pristine, lily white hands but there was always one thing or another that, totalled up in books of blood, might very well have his name on it.” Manfred continues conversationally.
“…murder?”
“Perhaps but never directly, whatever it was. The Phantomhives never did any of their own dirty work and you shouldn’t either.”
“I-“
“You go haring off around London as if you have to pull the trigger yourself. Putting yourself in the line of fire when by rights a gentleman of your station should be sitting idly at home waiting for the confirmation of whatever he’s waiting for.”
“I’m doing my du-“
“You are doing no such thing! Do you know what your father did in the afternoons, regularly, during the week?”
Ciel shakes his head, silenced by the force of Manfred’s vehemence and again a little confused by the apparent change in conversational direction.
“He use to put on little fainting spells and drop into the arms of either myself or Carl pretending that he had the vapours.”
“What? Why?”
“So he didn’t have to deal with his afternoon appointments. He’d faint conveniently and have to be carried upstairs while all those self-important businessmen, those petite noblesse were turned away at the door. ‘I’m sorry, his Lordship is feeling a little unwell today’ Tanaka would say and encourage them to leave in that viciously genial way of his.”
Ciel shakes his head a little in amazement rather than disbelief.
“And do you know what would happen not a handful of hours later? He’d be up again, perfectly well enough to go out to the opera or to dinner or anywhere else where he’d be seen. And when they’d approach him, those would-be business associates, he’d just tell them that he’d got better and turn away from them as if they didn’t even exist.”
“But, according to…” According to etiquette, gentility? Ciel doesn’t even know anymore.
“His time was at a premium as is yours. They were vying for his attention: he wasn’t obligated to give it.”
“But to pretend to faint!”
“It’s not his fault that they never even realised he was faking it. None of them, so concerned with cultivating his favour, ever took the time to notice that every time he did faint he never had anything in his hands that he might land on once he’d dropped it, that he always had space enough so that he never fell against furniture, that he always fainted backwards and that Carl or I were always right behind him so that he never even hit the floor when he went down.”
“All those things might be circumstantial.”
“Possibly, but Vincent always had to try his luck with that sort of thing. If none of them figured it out from that then the rest of it should have done the trick because I doubt there’s a man in England who’d let his legs go out from under him with a hand to his forehead like a heroine on a stage and a sigh like Ophelia to go with it.”
Almost without realising Ciel begins to laugh. The idea is so ludicrous and yet so strangely authentic that laughter is the only recourse. It takes him some moments to recover himself and when he wipes unexpected tears of mirth from his eyes he find himself focusing on Manfred’s genial expression. There is no trace of malice in that surprisingly unlined face, that without the framing of grey-streaked hair might easily look so much younger, and that alone is enough to suggest that the tale hasn’t been shared in an attempt to malign his father’s memory.
“There’s so much I don’t know about my father.”
“And asking Tanaka will do you no good.”
“Tanaka? He’s actually the reason I came here.”
“I’m not surprised. He was an old man when I was still young myself and he knows far too many secrets. There are things that he knows that even the Lady Francis doesn’t, I’ll wager. Things that I don’t know, things that even Carl never got wind of.”
“Carl Leberzelle?”
Manfred nods, expression now solemn. “Your father only ever fainted twice in his life and both times it was Carl’s name that he called out as he collapsed.”
“You just said he only pretended to faint.”
“Yes, but the real thing happened too, just twice and both times he was absolutely terrified. Carl tried to explain it to me once, said that it was some sort of blood deficiency related to haemophilia but I can’t tell you more than that.”
“But Dr Leberzelle could?”
“If you can find him. He always use to say that I was the one who spent my time daydreaming like some love struck boy but when Vincent died he was the one who couldn’t bear the sight of England anymore.”
Manfred rubs a hand across his eyes and Ciel realises that it would be best for their interview to come to a swift close.
Standing up Ciel considers offering his hand before deciding that a short bow is best. “Thank you for your time… Manfred. I can see that I have a lot to learn from you but if you’ll forgive me I have a few other pressing engagements that I must attend to today.”
“Of course.” The Earl makes no attempt to move or even remove the hand that covers his eyes.
Ciel nods as if acknowledging a more formal farewell and then quietly lets himself out of the study.
In actuality Ciel has no further appointments that day and simply returns to his own townhouse to consider what he’s heard. There is so much about his father that is contradictory: the implication of murder on his hands in sharp contrast to his childish game of fainting to escape appointments, Tanaka’s photograph matched against the evident effects of his father’s death on Manfred de Winter, the gaiety of youthful escapades dissolving into the voluntary exile of one of their triumvirate. And where does his mother factor into all of this? Or aunt Francis or even his late aunty Ann? There is too much that he doesn’t yet know and certainly he doesn’t even have enough information to begin to piece together the entire picture. There isn’t enough evidence to start to investigate though he’s sure Sebastian could find some of it if he asked. But every order, every request for some demonic insight, some forbidden knowledge comes at a price and Ciel is not yet ready to open such negotiations again. So he will wait. Tanaka is after all leading him down a curious path that is perhaps darker and stranger than anything that a demon could dream of.
“Humans have a great capacity for perversion.”
The memory of his father’s voice is comforting and for the first time that fragment of conversation, a quip drawled by his father accompanied by laughter and a tilt of the head exposing a pale throat, begins to make a certain, if malignant, sort of sense.
++++++++++
The de Winter estate of course may very well look like a combination of Milton Hall in Cambridgeshire and Menabilly in Cornwall but probably more closely resembles the version in the Hitchcock film.
On a lighter note: I know why the vampire sparkles! - Crossed Genres: Science in My Fiction
Discovering yet more revelations about his father: At Tanaka’s prompting Ciel goes to meet with Manfred de Winter. (I may even be building up to addressing the unrequited Angelina/Vincent pairing of canon.)
Victorian Vapours
Disclaimer: Black Butler belongs to Toboso Yana, G-Fantasy and others.
++++++++++
“The Earl, your father, was prone to some slight malady himself.” Tanaka comments while he discreetly removes yet another chamber pot from beneath Ciel’s bed. And even though Ciel lies back against the pillows exhausted from retching with nothing to bring up, his eyes slide sideways to the old Estate Steward in questioning.
“Thankfully Dr Leberzelle was always on hand on those occasions.”
Ciel stares up at the canopy over the bed. “He was my father’s business associate.”
“He was your father’s friend.” Comes the softly worded reproach.
Flinging an arm across his eyes Ciel indulges in a childish exasperation at what is likely to be no more than the result of undercooked scallops served at a very dull business dinner.
“Of course as the good doctor has since left the country it would be Earl de Winter who would know best in regards to your father’s condition.”
“Why did he leave?” Ciel closes his eyes behind the bar of his arm.
“I couldn’t say, sir. All I know is that he left England rather abruptly after your father’s untimely death.”
“Thank you, Tanaka. That will be all.” Ciel voices the dismissal as if by rote.
“Very good, sir.”
Less than three days later Ciel is well enough again to have made enquiries and have confirmed an appointment to see the aging Earl de Winter. He takes Sebastian with him to pay the visit more out of a desire to have any conversation with the Earl out of the range of Tanaka’s hearing than because he requires Sebastian’s presence. Tanaka knows a great deal but he is unlikely to reveal his information simply on the force of any demands that Ciel might make. It is highly obvious after all that there is something in this meeting with Earl de Winter that Tanaka wishes Ciel to be appraised of, something that it would be entirely gauche for his father’s butler to reveal to him directly.
The de Winter mansion is a vast affair centred around the original Elizabethan buildings, with the sort of oaks around the outer perimeter of the estate that might easily serve as impromptu gallows, and is of ominous architecture enough that Ciel would have quite enjoyed a tour of the grounds. Unfortunately, his observation is limited to a photograph of the estate and a framed schematic hanging up in the main entrance of Earl de Winter’s townhouse. The Earl is in town for business and since Ciel has business of his own to attend to at the same time the convenience of the city has won out. At least, as per his secretive hope, the Earl’s butler directs Sebastian to wait in the hall while his master visits a fellow aristocrat so that Ciel doesn’t have to lower himself to issue such a command. Ciel takes his fair share of gratification in the way in which the elderly butler practically orders Sebastian to remain where he is as if he were a mere footman newly begun in service. Of course with Sebastian’s youthful appearance the older butler will no doubt take him down to the servant’s kitchen, order a maid to prepare some tea for them and then sit down to enquire about his circumstances and proffer some useful advice upon Ciel’s departure, but under the gaze of their betters they must observe strict protocol.
Earl de Winter’s study is comfortable if predictable in its décor and Ciel is left to sip tea and await the Earl’s regrettable, so the butler phrases it, delay. Sitting in one of the wingback chairs, teacup in hand Ciel looks around the room from his vantage point and notes absolutely nothing of interest. The general theme for the room is mahogany and dark leather, and despite the tall windows that let in illuminating shafts of sunlight even the curtains are dark, heavy brocade with no attempt at lighter embellishment. Earl de Winter is not someone who enjoys the light Ciel can ascertain, nor is he someone who cares for delicate ornamentation. There are a few black coloured statuettes on bookshelves but they are fairly standard though surprisingly art nouveau for a man of the Earl’s age. There is a lone photograph in a silver filigree frame on a shelf, the single spot of light in amongst the other dark furnishings, but Ciel can’t quite see it clearly from where he sits and before he can think to go inspect it the Earl himself arrives curtailing that idea.
Thought Manfred de Winter is of course much taller than Ciel, even when Ciel gets to his feet to shake hands, there is no trace of amusement in his features at Ciel’s small statute. He greets Ciel like an equal rather than a child playing at his father’s role and for that alone he immediately gains a small portion of Ciel’s respect. They seat themselves on either side of the unlit fireplace and the butler returns with, Ciel notes, black coffee for the Earl.
Once the butler departs Ciel wonders how they will begin before he is spared the trouble of social niceties.
“Your butler, this Michaelis fellow, is rather young for the position.” The Earl states the matter abruptly.
“Sebastian is perfectly capable of his duties.”
“What were his references like?”
Ciel takes a sip of his tea. Of course Sebastian didn’t come with any references.
Manfred de Winter smiles thinly. “The family resemblance is quite remarkable.”
“I am my father’s son.” Ciel responds, wary of the sudden change in topic.
“Not you: your butler.” He laughs.
“Lord-“
“I’m not implying anything. He’s hardly one of Vincent’s bastards. But get him to grow his hair longer, it’ll hide the shape of his face at least.”
“If he’s not one of my father’s bastards then what exactly do you think he is?” Enunciating every word sharply and deliberately neglecting any form of courtesy address in his icy retort.
“I’ve no idea.” Manfred shrugs. “But you’re learning quickly, none of this ‘my lord’ nonsense. You can call me ‘Manfred’: I was your father’s friend and I can be yours if you’ll let me.”
It’s not the idea of such a brash offer that gives Ciel pause but rather the offer itself. Manfred de Winter is a rich man with business interests sat squarely in the financial sector. Yet he doesn’t and hasn’t ever shown an interest in manufacturing or export, both areas in which the Phantom Company excels. Perhaps then the Earl is talking in terms of financial investment.
“I’m not talking about business. I never invested in Vincent’s damn company and I never will.”
“Was there something objectionable about my father’s business practices?”
“Morally, quite possibly: legally, of course not. He didn’t need my investment and neither do you.”
“But an offer of friendship from one businessman to another…well, it’s to be expected, isn’t it?” This time Ciel lets a sly smile cross his face.
Manfred grins broadly. “But an offer of friendship from one blackguard to another is an entirely different thing. No, don’t frown over it. Your father was as much of a scoundrel as I was, as Carl was too back in those days.”
That family of vile noblemen… The phrase drifts though Ciel’s mind and though he can’t recall precisely where he first heard it, he’s heard it enough times to wonder at his own family’s reputation.
“It was never anything serious of course, never anything where Vincent might dirty his pristine, lily white hands but there was always one thing or another that, totalled up in books of blood, might very well have his name on it.” Manfred continues conversationally.
“…murder?”
“Perhaps but never directly, whatever it was. The Phantomhives never did any of their own dirty work and you shouldn’t either.”
“I-“
“You go haring off around London as if you have to pull the trigger yourself. Putting yourself in the line of fire when by rights a gentleman of your station should be sitting idly at home waiting for the confirmation of whatever he’s waiting for.”
“I’m doing my du-“
“You are doing no such thing! Do you know what your father did in the afternoons, regularly, during the week?”
Ciel shakes his head, silenced by the force of Manfred’s vehemence and again a little confused by the apparent change in conversational direction.
“He use to put on little fainting spells and drop into the arms of either myself or Carl pretending that he had the vapours.”
“What? Why?”
“So he didn’t have to deal with his afternoon appointments. He’d faint conveniently and have to be carried upstairs while all those self-important businessmen, those petite noblesse were turned away at the door. ‘I’m sorry, his Lordship is feeling a little unwell today’ Tanaka would say and encourage them to leave in that viciously genial way of his.”
Ciel shakes his head a little in amazement rather than disbelief.
“And do you know what would happen not a handful of hours later? He’d be up again, perfectly well enough to go out to the opera or to dinner or anywhere else where he’d be seen. And when they’d approach him, those would-be business associates, he’d just tell them that he’d got better and turn away from them as if they didn’t even exist.”
“But, according to…” According to etiquette, gentility? Ciel doesn’t even know anymore.
“His time was at a premium as is yours. They were vying for his attention: he wasn’t obligated to give it.”
“But to pretend to faint!”
“It’s not his fault that they never even realised he was faking it. None of them, so concerned with cultivating his favour, ever took the time to notice that every time he did faint he never had anything in his hands that he might land on once he’d dropped it, that he always had space enough so that he never fell against furniture, that he always fainted backwards and that Carl or I were always right behind him so that he never even hit the floor when he went down.”
“All those things might be circumstantial.”
“Possibly, but Vincent always had to try his luck with that sort of thing. If none of them figured it out from that then the rest of it should have done the trick because I doubt there’s a man in England who’d let his legs go out from under him with a hand to his forehead like a heroine on a stage and a sigh like Ophelia to go with it.”
Almost without realising Ciel begins to laugh. The idea is so ludicrous and yet so strangely authentic that laughter is the only recourse. It takes him some moments to recover himself and when he wipes unexpected tears of mirth from his eyes he find himself focusing on Manfred’s genial expression. There is no trace of malice in that surprisingly unlined face, that without the framing of grey-streaked hair might easily look so much younger, and that alone is enough to suggest that the tale hasn’t been shared in an attempt to malign his father’s memory.
“There’s so much I don’t know about my father.”
“And asking Tanaka will do you no good.”
“Tanaka? He’s actually the reason I came here.”
“I’m not surprised. He was an old man when I was still young myself and he knows far too many secrets. There are things that he knows that even the Lady Francis doesn’t, I’ll wager. Things that I don’t know, things that even Carl never got wind of.”
“Carl Leberzelle?”
Manfred nods, expression now solemn. “Your father only ever fainted twice in his life and both times it was Carl’s name that he called out as he collapsed.”
“You just said he only pretended to faint.”
“Yes, but the real thing happened too, just twice and both times he was absolutely terrified. Carl tried to explain it to me once, said that it was some sort of blood deficiency related to haemophilia but I can’t tell you more than that.”
“But Dr Leberzelle could?”
“If you can find him. He always use to say that I was the one who spent my time daydreaming like some love struck boy but when Vincent died he was the one who couldn’t bear the sight of England anymore.”
Manfred rubs a hand across his eyes and Ciel realises that it would be best for their interview to come to a swift close.
Standing up Ciel considers offering his hand before deciding that a short bow is best. “Thank you for your time… Manfred. I can see that I have a lot to learn from you but if you’ll forgive me I have a few other pressing engagements that I must attend to today.”
“Of course.” The Earl makes no attempt to move or even remove the hand that covers his eyes.
Ciel nods as if acknowledging a more formal farewell and then quietly lets himself out of the study.
In actuality Ciel has no further appointments that day and simply returns to his own townhouse to consider what he’s heard. There is so much about his father that is contradictory: the implication of murder on his hands in sharp contrast to his childish game of fainting to escape appointments, Tanaka’s photograph matched against the evident effects of his father’s death on Manfred de Winter, the gaiety of youthful escapades dissolving into the voluntary exile of one of their triumvirate. And where does his mother factor into all of this? Or aunt Francis or even his late aunty Ann? There is too much that he doesn’t yet know and certainly he doesn’t even have enough information to begin to piece together the entire picture. There isn’t enough evidence to start to investigate though he’s sure Sebastian could find some of it if he asked. But every order, every request for some demonic insight, some forbidden knowledge comes at a price and Ciel is not yet ready to open such negotiations again. So he will wait. Tanaka is after all leading him down a curious path that is perhaps darker and stranger than anything that a demon could dream of.
“Humans have a great capacity for perversion.”
The memory of his father’s voice is comforting and for the first time that fragment of conversation, a quip drawled by his father accompanied by laughter and a tilt of the head exposing a pale throat, begins to make a certain, if malignant, sort of sense.
++++++++++
The de Winter estate of course may very well look like a combination of Milton Hall in Cambridgeshire and Menabilly in Cornwall but probably more closely resembles the version in the Hitchcock film.
On a lighter note: I know why the vampire sparkles! - Crossed Genres: Science in My Fiction
