Is this what it feels like, having a family, she wonders, looking around the parlour where, until a few minutes ago, Countess Cowper's whole family (or, most of it, the younger of the brothers regrettably withheld from joining them) had been playing cards, Sylvie unaccustomed enough with such pastimes that she hadn't won a single round of anything, maybe she'd also been a tad too busy admiring the lighting that bathed the congregated family members in such a beautiful hue, who can really say. She used to play cards at boarding school, she shouldn't be at a total loss. Oh, but Sylvie would have liked to paint them, right then and there, although today that isn't her purpose with being present. The Countess had invited her along, because she - along with the rest of the family, obviously - is as English as they come and anything else would be improper, most likely, leaving the little artist in her rooms to contemplate nothing but her hands in her lap.
Still, if this is a normal family, then all the luck she didn't have at cards, she suddenly has in love, she thinks. Although she's only stayed at the Countess' house for a few weeks, she's already become quite attached to the whole set-up, all these people here. A mother figure. A father figure. A little sister, Frances, who's the only one Sylvie allows herself to be informal with, if only because she's never been the eldest in any constellation. Always little Sylvie with her, isn't that so?
The Countess' eldest daughter - she's brought her two boys, they're adorable, still, there's time for that all to change, of course - is at the piano, her hands coaxing lovely, relaxing music from the instrument, nothing like the Charleston on the terrace of her brother's manor house or the jazz noisily reverberating off of the walls of Parisian clubs. England is a different world, different from France in every way that matters.
Sylvie's gaze finally lands on the brother, the other and older one, and she's watched him the few times he's been visiting since her arrival. She's watched him, not with a plan but with a hope. Is it because he's someone's older brother, too, and it reminds her of the brother she herself is escaping? It doesn't feel like that, it doesn't feel like the coil and curl in the pit of her stomach that she's fought ever since setting foot in London, nowhere to turn, knowing no one, really, hardly even the language.
No, that had been her luck, remembering Countess Cowper just then. How asking just a bit insistently had led her to her door.
It has led her here.
Taking a deep breath, she moves over next to the taller man, arranging herself only slightly awkwardly, fingers buried in the folds of her tea gown. They have no nobility in France anymore, Sylvie has had to learn the ropes from scratch. While they have been introduced, Lord Melbourne and she, and while they have exchanged pleasantries, she only knows him as the one who isn't married. Anymore. The fact that he has no wife currently is the very thing that nurtures her hope. In time with more and more of her brother's letters finding their way to her, she will take it, although it isn't anything like daylight or water. Then again, Sylvie isn't a plant, and her hope isn't either. This is good enough. It has to be.
"Lord Melbourne," she says, her English pronunciation recognisably French, in just two weeks, she hasn't been able to rid herself of it, but she is practicing, Frances teaches her a little bit every day. "If everyone had the sister you do, there would be nothing but happy families."
A compliment. The English like compliments, don't they?
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Still, if this is a normal family, then all the luck she didn't have at cards, she suddenly has in love, she thinks. Although she's only stayed at the Countess' house for a few weeks, she's already become quite attached to the whole set-up, all these people here. A mother figure. A father figure. A little sister, Frances, who's the only one Sylvie allows herself to be informal with, if only because she's never been the eldest in any constellation. Always little Sylvie with her, isn't that so?
The Countess' eldest daughter - she's brought her two boys, they're adorable, still, there's time for that all to change, of course - is at the piano, her hands coaxing lovely, relaxing music from the instrument, nothing like the Charleston on the terrace of her brother's manor house or the jazz noisily reverberating off of the walls of Parisian clubs. England is a different world, different from France in every way that matters.
Sylvie's gaze finally lands on the brother, the other and older one, and she's watched him the few times he's been visiting since her arrival. She's watched him, not with a plan but with a hope. Is it because he's someone's older brother, too, and it reminds her of the brother she herself is escaping? It doesn't feel like that, it doesn't feel like the coil and curl in the pit of her stomach that she's fought ever since setting foot in London, nowhere to turn, knowing no one, really, hardly even the language.
No, that had been her luck, remembering Countess Cowper just then. How asking just a bit insistently had led her to her door.
It has led her here.
Taking a deep breath, she moves over next to the taller man, arranging herself only slightly awkwardly, fingers buried in the folds of her tea gown. They have no nobility in France anymore, Sylvie has had to learn the ropes from scratch. While they have been introduced, Lord Melbourne and she, and while they have exchanged pleasantries, she only knows him as the one who isn't married. Anymore. The fact that he has no wife currently is the very thing that nurtures her hope. In time with more and more of her brother's letters finding their way to her, she will take it, although it isn't anything like daylight or water. Then again, Sylvie isn't a plant, and her hope isn't either. This is good enough. It has to be.
"Lord Melbourne," she says, her English pronunciation recognisably French, in just two weeks, she hasn't been able to rid herself of it, but she is practicing, Frances teaches her a little bit every day. "If everyone had the sister you do, there would be nothing but happy families."
A compliment. The English like compliments, don't they?