#eveline.

“ You ought watch yourself, you convivial rat. ”    Alcina mutters darkly, a smirk flickering for a second, before it is swallowed by her large wine glass. He amuses her, she’ll let him have that. The time is midwinter             and how does he travel in it?  Anyone who isn’t a fool is indoors               so they sit on opposite couches by the fire, golden heat proving a true balm for old bones.   He tells her his little anecdote, and at the mention of Eveline, Alcina shuts her eyes tightly, and pinches the bridge of her nose. Mortification              less at Evelines manner but her existence             eats at her. Once more, she is landed with little things to raise alone as if her use is in her maternal nature. This was once the exact future she loathed for herself, being treated like some leashed St Bernard, pups in her mouth and fulfilling whatever duties a good dog-wife might do. This ignored that Lady Dimitrescu was rotten and liked it that way, thank you.  Surprisingly, she snorts. It’s something Daniela has questioned to her before too. “Children are ignorant.” She says, because it is proper. Then, when the aftertaste of the wine ebbs and it is only her grey tongue in her mouth once more, she adds: “The child asked me where my husband had gotten to.”  And, here, she sounds both thickly vicious with disgust and ... perhaps amused at the notion, also. Eveline is not nearly so bad as the circumstances of her birth, and the cloud of dishonour tethered here now by her veins, like some sick child’s birthday balloon.

                  ❝ PITY . ❞ That bored, archly-enunciated drawl is all that falls from the Lady Dimitrescu's large, dark-painted mouth. What a plight it must be, she thinks, to be the second favourite to a dead child. What a horrible joke. GET IN LINE, she wants to hiss.                       Then, violently self-correcting, her eyes harden : THIS CREATURE AND SHE ARE NOTHING ALIKE !                       Eveline is a child without inheritance, without a home, without a family name. Even her given name is only a perversion of what went before it: EVA. If there was value to be garnered in the wretched little thing, she would only have adored seeing it shimmer to the murky surface of this disappointing investment at any point. Spare them all the indignity of Mother Miranda's keening over the thing she allegedly loved most. But no.                       ❝ Lying implies we care to create an untruth for you, child. Do you think we care ? ❞ and then, because she cannot bear it any more, she sparks a thin, vogue cigarette at the end of her quellazaire and inhales. It soothes her. Her lip twitches, her eyebrow raises. The Lady Dimitrescu shakes her head with glacial irritation. ❝ LOOK AT ME WHEN YOU SPEAK. I simply loathe a MUMBLER. ❞