Mon, February 06 2012
| TITLE: | A Gift From A Mother |
|---|---|
| AUTHOR: | Moishouki |
| CATEGORY/TYPE: | Bracelet Workshop |
| RATING/WARNINGS: | PG, Gen |
| MAIN CHARACTERS: | |
| DESCRIPTION: | Bracelet Workshop Entry |
| STATUS: | Complete |
| Summary: | Crusader In The Crypt missing scene |
As they were traveling back to London on board the Aurora after passing few days at Shillingworth Magna investigating the mysterious disappearance of Sir Boniface Holderness Fogg’s body, Jules was sitting at the table curiously eyeing the bright heavy gold thing that he had remarked to Phileas’ left wrist, what was -- to look it -- a gold bracelet, piece of really good quality by what the young writer could see. Jules had remarked upon it several times in the past, but now -- with the sun’s rays kindling against it and the reflection shining in his face, while Fogg was reading his newspaper across from him -- it couldn’t be ignored. Jules looked at his friend. “Sorry to bother you in your reading, Fogg, but the reflection of the sun on your bracelet is about to blind me. Can you please pull a bit on your cuff?”
Phileas looked at him. “Huh!” Phileas said, pausing in his reading to look at Jules, and seeing the bright reflected sunlight in Jules’ eyes. “Sorry about that, Verne,” he said, adjusting his position a bit so that the reflection wouldn’t bother the young man again.
As Fogg was moving and going back his reading, Jules continued to look on the item; and finished his thought aloud. “I would well know why such a man as you wear something like that on your person…” When the newspaper lowered to reveal the upper part of Phileas’ head down to his eyes, Jules swallowed his saliva a bit nervously and said, “I’m only curious… I mean why a man would wear something to identify him… when one wouldn’t have wished to be recognized, more often then otherwise…”
Phileas looked from his friend to the item, and back again on his newspaper. “It’s a old habit, so much that I almost feel nude without it.”
Jules asked his friend, “So how did you come to acquire the habit of wearing that?” Phileas stayed hidden behind the newspaper as Passepartout brought more coffee and Rebecca joined them at the breakfast table.
Phileas looked at the cup filled with liquid again and sipped from it few times before saying, “Verne, curiosity is a nasty sin and you ask too many questions.” His tone of voice marked an evident wish to keep the information to himself.
On that, Rebecca looked at them, curious to know what had got her cousin to show his temper in the morning. “What that’s all this about? Thank you, Passepartout.” She said, sitting down and accepting the coffee cup offered to her happily.
Jules looked at her, as the light reflected by the sun’s reflection on Phileas’ bracelet was now focussed Rebecca’s face. Her expression was sufficient to show than the light was bothering her more than a persistent fly flying around her head, which amused Jules and Passepartout as well while the gentleman was quietly reading his newspaper.
“Phileas! Get that thing out of the sunlight right now or I’ll confiscate it from you!” she said.
Phileas folded his newspaper, growling, “What is the damn problem with that this morning?”
Jules looked down to his coffee cup and sipped from it to avoid Phileas gaze. “Nothing, nothing at all, Fogg. I was only curious, that’s all.”
Rebecca looked at Jules. “I bet you asked to know how he’d come to wear that, and -- as usual -- Phileas was reluctant to tell. It’s old, Jules, and it’s been changed over time, but Phileas was a baby when his mother insisted to wear that.”
At her words Phileas sighed deeply, grabbing his coffee cup and his newspaper to walk away and re-settle himself where he could finish his reading and drink -- someplace where he would not hear the story he’d heard so many times, and which sounded so foolish. The truth of the matter was that he enjoyed wearing the bracelet, and had made the most recent modifications himself.
Rebecca giggled to see him react the same way he did each time the story was told, and she continued on. “Well, the day Phileas was born, Lady Elisabeth’s elder sister -- who had long been considered as a bit insane by Sir Boniface -- burst into the manor of Shillingworth yelling as loudly as she could, to anyone who would listen to her, that the baby would face a great danger in growing up. She ran through all the rooms, yelling, until she found her exhausted sister, who was nursing her baby son after several hours of hard labour . There she fell into a sort of trance, holding the baby’s hands, and fainted. After several minutes, she come back to herself and screamed again that the baby would be in danger, growing up. Lady Elisabeth – defending her sister, explaining, trying to convince her husband to not throw her sister out -- cried that if her sister said that, it was because she’d seen it, in her trance. And as the woman started to scream warning once more, Sir Boniface gave McIver the order to throw her out. Lady Elizabeth’s sister gestured wildly as McIver tried to draw her away. A small envelope fell out of her pocket; and when Lady Elisabeth found that, she found a letter with the small gold bracelet. The letter explained what the woman hadn’t had time to do. The gold had come from a blessed gold item of altar furnishings from an old church that had been destroyed; it was destined to protect the boy of from danger that he should undergo.
So Lady Elizabeth put on her son, and she had it modified as he grew; but when she died, Phileas had kept it with him until it could be modified again so that he could wear it. Sir Boniface had never accepted it as the amulet it was destined to be, but grudgingly allowed it to his son as the first and last gift Phileas ever got from his mother.
Rebecca explained and Jules had listened just as Passepartout, and in a way, all of them were thinking about the same thing. A certain danger that the poor madwoman had seen without being able to explain, or understand, more than that it was a thing only God could protect Phileas against -- the coming back to life of devil seeking to make himself the master of the world, Count Gregory.
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