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Background
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a lovely young girl with her way to make in the world, would do well to heed her mother's advice.
This maxim having been drummed into Marguerite Lavecq since her infancy it's no wonder at all that the present day and the age of twenty-five see her one of the more sought-after courtesans of Four Corners: whose name does not, perhaps, resound over land and sea, through the humid groves of Navali and the lush oases of Partharia, whose ambitions have not yet been sated, yet whose gowns change and whose jewels are reset as unerringly as the seasons, whose affairs when known are common coin to the gossips, and whose clientele is strictly limited to the lonely, rich, and appropriately hygienic.
The name Léonie Lavecq would be sufficient in itself to jog the memory of many an old campaigner who survived the conflict between Aequor and Galenthia which led to the establishment of Four Corners, even if it weren't whispered in the same breath as that of a certain Aequorian commander and founding father of that city-state. She was the toast of Lyionesse and of more than one military encampment in the 1830s and early 1840s, until she withdrew from her own particular theatre of war — only to re-emerge into the public gaze in 1844 to ply her trade again in Four Corners, with a small daughter, a baby son, a generous income, and a smile on her face. It is thought, by those who think of such things, that she can't be less than fifty — and of course, officially she retired years ago from the more arduous aspects of a courtesan's profession, making way with deliberate grace for her daughter's debut — but there are some fellows who simply can't get along without her, and while their finances hold she doesn't see any reason why they should.
Her daughter Marguerite was raised in Four Corners — under circumstances never adequately explained, her father's identity never made clear — and is a city creature to the tips of her toes. (She saw a cow once, and was strangely fascinated. So this is where milk baths come from?) Léonie saw to her education by private tutors and then in the most reputable (ahem) of courtesan academies, of which she was herself a graduate: every luxury was lavished upon her in the good years, and then that greatest luxury of all, maternal attention, in the lean ones. In classes with other girls Marguerite was never the first, but certainly never the last: what might be called a good all-rounder, who went on to prove herself more gifted in the ballroom than the classroom. Her studies were manifold. She learned to sing; to dance; to play the lute and the harp; to speak elegantly and write a fair, flourishing hand; to speak with erudition and aplomb (or a hint of beguiling feminine uncertainty) of history, poetry, and ancient lore; to read the expression in a face, the tension in a voice, as easily as a passage in a book; to recognise and appreciate any vintage she might discover in her goblet, and consume tidily yet with a hint of flirtation any exotic foodstuff which might be set before her; to remember names, faces, lineages, small everyday preferences; to smile through boredom, sorrow and pain; to pay close attention to the most tedious of talk and commit it to her memory as though pearls of wisdom; to draw all eyes to herself, and hold them fast; to seduce with compassion and sweetness, or to exert a boundlessly confident claim. She learned, and in truth it was a small portion of her rigorous curriculum, the ways of a man's body and of her own. And, as the second generation of her family to know privilege, she learned better than her mother to comport herself with the graces of a noblewoman — and when and how to lower that exquisite facade.
She possesses in sum every tool, every art, every competency, required to raise her from the second rank of her profession into the first. Why the first freshness of her youth has left her without this happy event coming to pass, is a question even her mother can't answer, though it's turned over and over in their private counsels. Her style of beauty isn't the fashion. Her name was linked with the wrong lord at the wrong time, or hasn't been linked with the right lord at the right time. She occupied herself in childbearing for almost a full year when she was at her peak of beauty. She's too reserved and ladylike in her manners, a criticism flowering from the very training given her. She has been too cautious: she has made no grand gesture to gain the approbation — or, failing that, the sympathy — of the citizenry at large. She is what she was made, and it has sufficed only this far.
Her life has brought her more satisfaction than suffering — comfort many lesser nobles can only dream of, admiration, courtship, constant offerings of love letters and tasty things to eat and gifts small and large. The greatest tribute to her beauty thus far is a magnificent many-stranded necklace of perfect white-golden pearls from Navali, which has become rather her signature. It can be worn in several ways, with or without its associated bracelets and earrings, and the loose pearls given her to match are stitched and unstitched as necessary from hairpieces that go with her gowns.
She has acquired a measure of renown to go with all these luxuries, which she enjoys chiefly as a means of keeping score: it's to a courtesan's benefit to make sure that heads turn in her direction when, walking, she lets her cloak fall from her face, that she can't step inside a shop without being greeted by name, that small boys run after her elegant carriage drawn by matched sorrels, that she couldn't even if she wanted to make a secret assignation in an inn. But her fame runs only as far as the city walls of Four Corners: they've never heard of her in Galenthia, or even twenty miles down the road. She has yet to break through her profession's diamond ceiling. And there are new girls, younger girls, every year. Her particular rival has always been Olimpia Callot, who though six months younger was in all her classes at the academy. Olimpia's skill is beyond doubt; her beauty is of a different type, dark and stormy — it's Marguerite's fear that her temperament, her stronger natural passions, hold that key to ultimate advancement which she herself cannot seem to grasp. They despise one another, and act the best of friends.
Rather than keeping an establishment of her own she resides in her mother's house, a manse in a very good neighbourhood which was once the seat of a great banking family. A merchant prince who was that lady's patron for quite some years bought it at a knock-down price when the bank crashed; it was their love nest and then her parting gift. Marguerite has her own suite of rooms and when the ladies are in charity with one another these accommodations are more than spacious. When they've had Words those walls of fine pale grey stone seem to draw nearer and nearer, and the noise of Léonie's parties permeates to every cellar and every attic. Nonetheless Marguerite couldn't command quite such luxury by herself — and it's a better address at which to receive clients — and there's ample room, too, for Sidonie, her four-year-old daughter.
It wasn't her intention to bear a child: but a long and splendidly remunerated idyll with (TBD) put a grave strain upon the precautionary measures she had been taught to rely upon, and when it came to the point she denied the well-intentioned advice of her elders and carried her daughter through nine months of illness and inconvenience.
During this time troubled in so many ways (her mother, whilst very much in favour of children in principle, considered it the most absolutely impractical time to be having one in practice) it was sometimes more than she could manage, with all her skill, to appear radiant with health and maternal satisfaction when she ventured into the public eye, and to carry conversations as lightly and wittily as ever before. Her figure being her fortune, Sidonie at birth was put straight to another woman's breast — and Marguerite was put straight onto a diet. Perhaps it was nightly perusal of the family's account books which put her off her food, and enabled her to regain her perfect shape and begin in record time reacquainting her most intimate masculine associates with what they'd been missing. Some stood by her; some, alas, did not, and had to be replaced with more, better, richer, nobler, more generous.
Her brother Clovis, at twenty-two three years her junior and fathered, they are given to understand, by a different gentleman, is in and out of the house on business of his own, frequently inebriated and a trial to the servants. To Marguerite he's an odd mixture of trial and blessing: for instance, during the Great Raid of Four Corners in 1865, when raiders from White Hall overran the city, Marguerite was away in Aequor paying his way out of a sticky situation involving a bill for lodgings, an innkeep's daughter, and a flock of geese. Léonie meanwhile was on a bender with one of her old warrior friends, who personally slayed nine raiders (or eleven, or fifteen — the number grows each time he tells the tale) whilst carrying his whilom love to a place of safety, thrown across the pommel of his horse. It was just the sort of incident which, had it befallen Marguerite, might have lent her that extra air of romance, that extra degree of fame, to lift her once and for all above her peers. But Marguerite was being a dutiful sister, and Léonie had all the fun.
Marguerite has been fond of most of her clients (perhaps not one or two of the earliest, those who came to her more by her mother's choice than her own, or simply because in her youth and inexperience she couldn't think of a good reason why not); in her girlhood she sometimes felt desperate infatuation, for a week or two, with a man she hardly knew, or fell asleep thinking of a face glimpsed in the marketplace. But she has never been in love. Her mother and their friends watched her as she grew, waiting for the trouble to come, expecting it any day now — that it never has come, seems proof positive that there's just something wrong with her. Something missing. Some depth not yet plumbed; some part of her still, despite all, untouched.
On the Grid
- Overview
- In the looking-glass
- The product of her tuition
- Tokens of appreciation
- Portraits
- Logs
- Memoirs
- Musical accompaniment♫
- So you'd like to hire the Gilded Lily
A courtesan must before anything else be an acknowledged beauty: and Marguerite is that, though owing the credit less to any one of her features than to the harmonious arrangement of all. She possesses a high, unsullied white brow, round blue-grey eyes, and a full, soft pink mouth; the strength of her nose was her childhood's despair, but as a woman grown she finds it lends dignity to her profile. The elegant line of her white swan's throat leads the eye first to sharply-defined collarbones, then the high swell of her bosom— But there the description must end, for what lies beneath her glorious garments of silk and samite it is the privilege of only the highest-paying clients to fathom.
Hints are offered, of course, by one or another gown cut lower, or fitted more tightly to her healthy, well-proportioned young female form. The slenderness of an ankle, displayed in its silken stocking thus far and no farther, if she should happen to prevail upon a man to fasten the buckle of her shoe, suggests long, shapely legs; likewise the curve of an arm left half-bare (with its tracery of blue veins inside the wrist, its pure soft white skin above) speaks of milk baths, scented unguents, and all possible care taken of her person. By the canon of feminine beauty her hands are, perhaps, a little large — but they are otherwise elegant, in their shape, their softness, their long fingers and immaculate nails, the hands of a woman entirely unaccustomed to labour.
Her hair is long and thick, treated to maintain its silkiness and shine. Its pale red hue and golden sheen are natural, but the curls in which it is often seen are sheer artifice. The bloom upon her skin, the pink of her lips, these may be God's gifts to her or further proof of skill in her profession — the fragrance which accompanies her, warm, slightly spicy, with a touch of honey and a touch of something beyond naming, might be infused through her garments, or might be in her skin itself — few can hope to know for certain.
From her childhood Marguerite has been moulded into a chameleon creature. All things to all men, if their wealth suffices. The indolent aesthete, the sparkling wit, the tigress, the virgin, the light-hearted seeker of pleasure — these and more are the archetypes she can embody at a word, or a hint, or a dumb yearning. Her clients don't see the real woman: even if that's what they ask for, what she promises to give, it's not what they truly wish. Her life is a performance in which she must always keep one eye on how she is playing to the gallery — and so she is adept in seeming to relax, to amuse herself, to abandon herself, whilst all the while thinking of others' pleasure before her own, showing her best angles, and watching to see the candles don't burn down. Ensuring the perfect evening for someone else rarely means you have one yourself; and if you're a professional party guest, such fetes are quick to lose their lustre. Thus this daughter of pleasure is a thoughtful, analytical woman, older than her years though she may yet appear younger, who enjoys her style of life and the license and independence it provides her, yet who enjoys just as much a quiet afternoon in her own company. She would like to have more friends, but in her position it's difficult. She considers herself a truthful person, but she lies as easily as she smiles. She believes she's ambitious, but how far will she go…? With every breath she takes she hears the ticking of a clock.
- Locally Renowned: Having lived all her life in Four Corners and being one of its beauties, Marguerite is a well-known figure about the city. It is of course of benefit to her in her profession to cultivate this fame, to ensure her name is spoken admiringly by as many lips as possible — but every year it's more difficult for her to go anywhere discreetly, and once in a while the attention she receives makes her glad to have a guard or two at her side.
- Perceptive: Time and training, the judicious application of intelligence and experience, have polished Marguerite's natural knack for reading not only people and situations, but feelings and desires, into another of the arts of a courtesan. One cannot fulfill a client's deepest unspoken cravings if one can't work out what they are.
- Gifted With Charm: She's charming.
- Unsatisfied Ambitions: … But the question of whether Marguerite's ambitions are her own is uncertain. Her mother brought her up in the confident expectation that she would in due course equal, and then surpass, her own success in their shared profession: Marguerite has understood this all her life and never questioned it. That she hasn't yet fulfilled her mother's hopes and her own potential, she likewise understands. There is more to be done. There is more which must be done. Rather than a burning desire, it's an acceptance of duty; rather than a driving necessity, it's a fact of life.
The inventory of Marguerite's possessions (and their eventual fate) is kept by her steward Elen, in two books of bound vellum. The origins of gifts are noted in greater detail even than purchases, so that if so-and-so should visit for an evening his appalling faux-imperial statuary may be disposed in the corners of the entrance hall as though they lived there all year round. It would, alas, be too time-consuming to replicate these documents here. She is however noted for possessing a magnificent necklace of white-golden pearls and assorted small accoutrements to complete the set (her maid sews the loose pearls to various hairpieces to match her gowns, and unpicks them the next morning, to use again as needed); and for her collection of hand-painted fans, several of which sport an elegant yet innocuous design on one side and something far more delicious and risqué on the other. To catch a glimpse of the inside of her fan, when she's reluctant to grant it, is fine sport for an aspiring client.
Received ICly:
- From Guillaume Tyres (1866/08/20): A bracelet of fine chains of silver, around the stylized and detailed depiction of a leaf, an inch and a half in length, finest craftsmanship from a true artisan, with tiny sapphires worked onto it. (Sent back.)
- From Guillaume Tyres (1866/08/24): A pair of elaborately crafted earrings made of gold, stylized depictions of lilies in full bloom, executed with astonishing detail.
(aurore cassius event frederick guillaume jarret julieta liana log marguerite mattias milicent myrana salim stellan thomas)
(carnival emrys event gisela guillaume julieta log marguerite philippe shirlyn siada thomas yves)
(amaury arielle clovis event francois guillaume log marguerite mattias)
The musical instruments Marguerite most often plays are:
- A ten-course lute with a shell striped in gleaming dark and light hardwoods. Its rose is not a rose at all but an intricately carved sunburst glittering with gold leaf; the same masterful artisan's hand contributed also a garden of golden lilies upon the ebony-veneered fretboard. To a connoisseur's ear its sound is extraordinarily clear and mellow, golden in truth.
- A lap harp some 29" in height, its graceful walnut arches and paler soundboard of cedar well-polished by custom. Its tuning pins are made of a pale golden hardwood; its soundbox is inlaid front and back with a single perfect lily, in the same golden wood; and when it's nestled in her lap, its curves somehow echoing her own, the music she coaxes from those twenty-six strings is bright and clear and warm.
The first step is to ensure that you're filthy rich.
Being born into privilege helps, of course; if not, it is advisable to spend ten to fifteen years scheming and slaving and elbowing others out of your way in order to make your own fortune in the cut-throat marketplace of Four Corners. While you're at it, try to get elected to high political office, or take over a Syndicate family.
Next you've got to see that your name is inscribed across a block of hours in her busy schedule. Abandon all thought of insinuating yourself into her company in the public gardens, or trying to pick her up at a party, or otherwise getting something for nothing. Inquiring at the Academy, with either her name or a hysterical trembling description of the redhead who knocked you unconscious with a glance yesterday evening, will yield the advice that if you wish to arrange an engagement you should call upon her steward, Elen. Better yet, you might send a creditable functionary of your own to deal with the matter: that always looks nicely prosperous.
The answer will be non-committal. It's Mistress Lavecq's own choice whom she sees; and until she's had time to consider the question, no answer can be given, can it? Expect to wait a day or two to hear, if you're a very well-known personage; longer, if more research is necessary.
Then, perhaps, a brief meeting or a dinner will be arranged. In a week's time, perhaps two or three — depending upon the time of the year, the lady's previous commitments, and whether she's genuinely eager to see you.
The Lily's time is for sale by the hour, in gold.
What might or might not take place during those golden hours is at her own discretion. You might well be obliged to wine and dine and court her for weeks or months at a time before being considered for one of her particularly special, particularly expensive overnight engagements.
Presents help. Presents always help. Bear in mind that she's a thoroughly spoiled creature, and neither thoughtfulness nor expense alone really impress her anymore — but only their combination…
Relationships
Master Raevyn : A young man whom Marguerite has met in passing and knows chiefly as Julieta's pupil; she admires his music and would be delighted to hear it again… |