a golden charade,, garrett

[lillian shaw]

Beneath a scene of an English moor faded with age and seated aside a large tear caused by a careless stagehand , Lillian held fast to the vestiges of her solitude. Life in the theater hardly afforded her a moment where she was completely alone. If it not surrounded by the costume makers poking and prodding or “persuading” Felix King to take on a play she felt worthwhile, then the company of her various admirers were never far off. Only these stolen moments were truly hers and hers alone. Since she joined King’s theater, it had soon become a ritual of hers after a performance to navigate the labyrinthine hallways to the small stairs which lead upward to forgotten room filled with forgotten things. With her chin perched on the flat of her palm, her thoughts wandered as it always did in the wake of silence. It seemed strange to imagine so many years had passed since she had been a young girl defying her mother's wish that she follow the same path she had ventured of a housewife to a humble farmer.

Encumbered in the broad brocade skirts of her character, she slowly rose, carefully managing the narrow distances between the haphazardly placed props and then the descent down the narrow stairs. Her fingers pressed firmly against the aging panels of plaster for balance while another hand clutched the skirts tightly. Her sure steps echoed loudly in the small hallway vacant of even a lone stagehand though sounds of life lingered in the air. Eyes cast downward, her thoughts continued to wander as she walked without a glance past a group of stagehands, a gaggle of dancers still dressed in costume, and a lone musician whose jerky glances to the right and left clearly showed his confusion. As she neared her dressing room door, her eyes fell to the bouquet of roses left prettily before the doorstep, the pristine white corner of a card tucked neatly among the velvet soft blooms. Impassively, her eyes peered down the hallway for a glimpse of the admirer who might have left the bouquet, certain he watched her waiting for a glimpse of her pleasure at receiving his token of admiration. Looking past the portly prop-master and the chorus girl he conversed amiably with , her gaze instead fell to the figure of a familiar young man as he sidestepped the couple and walked down the hall and away from her.

In a moment time had all but ceased. In that instance, her limbs suddenly became as weighty as stone while her heart sped faster than any prized stallion ever could. Joy and a dull pain once forgotten intermingled in the soft gasp that rushed past her parted lips. When the pain of his leaving was not yet new but resilient she had done all she could to erase the memory of him. Gradually, she pushed the memories so past the recess of her mind until his name no longer lingered among her conscious stream of thought. Assured, she had clung to the belief she had forgotten him as a fanatic would their religion , in spite of this she never did. Without a shred of hesitation, she hurriedly walked toward him as her heart beat thunderously in her head.

“Edmund!”

His name shot from her lips like the resilient first blooms of spring, defying the chill of winter and that which had settled over her heart when he vanished without so much as a word . God, how I loved you, she reflected sadly as emotions in conflict flitted across her paint adorned face. Trembling fingers filled with anxiety clung together uncertainly as she stood unsure as to how she could readily look at this man and not feel overwhelmed by renewed feelings. Yet, how could she not? Against her better judgment she had vested so much of herself in return for grief. Firmly set on anger,her gray-green eyes narrowed as they settled in an unflinching glare.

Had he stood before her a year or perhaps several months ago her eyes would have regarded his tenderly, brimming with love. Love, not mere tender affection or other feelings which held more carnal traits . What other word was adequate to name the creature that had stirred in her chest when they were together and turned savage with hurt afterward? Yet, not even her love of him could quell her anger. Whilst other men had tried and failed miserably in grand attempts to gain her ardor, Edmund Kensington had stealthily taken her love as his own . However, in one act he made all her love seem trivial and silly; while she had valued it highly, he may have regarded it as inconsequential nights with a loose woman.

Without a word, he had vanished abruptly and quietly as if he were made of smoke easily done away with a quick wave of the hand rather than of real and tangible flesh. And for that year, his absence left her mind to run tirelessly on several theories to his whereabouts. In the beginning, they had faithfully believed nothing but the best of him. Perhaps, she reasoned pragmatically, he had been called away to handle important family matters, or had fallen terribly ill. Others still were nothing short of outlandish . At last, when time had turned her faith to cynicism and her hollow hopes and assurances pained even her ears, Lillian assumed the only other option that brought more pain than admitting he left her --marriage.

Now, he had returned. In search of what exactly? To reprise her role as his mistress because the insipid privileged little twit who now shared his name and bed perhaps proved too inexperienced or too chilly for his liking. Lillian watched in wait as the young man turned to her impatient to release the barrage of words she kept restrained for a year.“How could you lea- ,” crippled by a sudden shock, her remaining words stumbled to a emotion ridden halt. Almost at once her glare softened to a look of both disappointment and surprise. The terrible wrenching from her revelation overcame her chest. It struck her with an unrelenting force as distress filled the hollows and lined the planes of her face.

It was not him. He was not her Edmund.

Her cheeks paled to sickly white as her eyes peered in disbelief at the young man. For a moment, Lilian desperately wished she were like the delicate woman who fainted into oblivion if the smallest thing upset their precarious constitutions. If she were weaker, she need simply to close her eyes to all that upset her and awaken to a scene that did not cause her heart to rile against the cage of her ribs. Instead, she stood stiffly before the young man who surely thought her to be strange.

They shared an uncanny resemblance, she noted miserably. Apparently, one adequate enough to fool her into believing the young man who stood before her, head tilted in question could have been Edmund. All at once, as her eyes peered intently into his face Lillian realized that the two men shared as much of a resemblance as roses to the wildflowers she picked as a child. How could she have ever confused the two? Whereas Edmund’s gaze had been warm, this stranger’s blank stare caused her to recall the other men who frequented the theater dressed handsomely in finery that would never find its way onto the backs of men like her father and brothers unless stolen. Like the young man before her, their eyes all recited the same story :a life of entitlement where nothing was ever truly out of their arrogant grasps; a life of security and never having the need to worry about more in life than proper decorum. “I- I…I apologize for I’ve you confused…I had…I had believed you were someone I knew.”

[garrett kensington]

The steady ticking of the antique grandfather clock was the sole acknowledgment that time still passed as Garrett stared at the small pile of captured chess pieces to his right. He had already lost the game to his cousin, Emaline, and he merely needed to determine how long he wished to prolong the inevitable. A smirk curved along the camber of his lips as he glanced toward Emaline. The warm glow of the fire seemed to ignite the mischief in her dark eyes. She arched her brow and motioned with a slight nod between Garrett and the board. She, too, knew his fate. Neither had spoken since they had retired to the sitting room after dinner. Silence had replaced conversation within the Kensington household, and in many ways it spoke louder than they ever could. The words spoken aloud were hollow and vapid. Garrett could no more grab hold of their meaning than he could the thick fog that blanketed the streets after a warm summer day.

It had not always been this way. The sitting room had once been alive with childish laughter as Garrett and his brother, Edmund, took turns placing tin soldiers inside the intricately carved door on the grandfather clock that hid the mechanisms powering the machine from view. They would pretend that the clock had the power to send the soldiers to far off lands where they would battle dragons alongside Sir Lancelot. The game had continued past childhood, changing to reflect each of the Kensington boys desire to escape the obligations that accompanied their birthrights, until one day, Edmund had declared that the game was childish; wishing held as much power as the blink of an eye. Edmund had been wrong, though: nothing was more powerful than the split second it took to blink. In that moment a gun could be fired, a horse spooked, and a brother lost. No one spoke of that day. No one spoke of the thick scar that now marred the perceived perfection of the Kensington family. No one spoke at all, and the silence threatened to suffocate Garrett.

A loud sigh interrupted the stillness, and Garrett’s gaze was drawn to where his mother sat, winding skeins of yarn into balls that she would never use. He wondered if she too though of Edmund on nights such as these, when their silence only served to accentuate the hole his death had left on the fabric of their family. He would never ask and his mother would never admit to her grief. They were all islands now, each separated by the vast ocean of grief. She looked up, her eyes catching Garrett’s for a brief moment. Garrett quickly averted his gaze back to the game of chess. It was too late, the damage had been down. Amelia Kensington cleared her throat, breaking the stillness, creating a bridge between herself and her son.

He ignored it.

“I saw Mrs. Watts today,” Amelia said to no one in particular. “She spoke of the new play at the theatre.” Garrett responded with a noncommittal grunt of breath as he moved his pawn. Emaline, however, was not as accustomed to conversations that were meant to be carried alone and opted to engage his mother instead. “Did she enjoy it? I have not heard any reviews to date.”

“It has not opened. She was merely inquiring to see if we might be in attendance as she has not seen us at a play in quite some time.”

“Surely she must be mistaken? I attended the concert with you…”

“Indeed,” Amelia interrupted. There was a false lightness to her voice, a feigned eagerness Garrett had grown accustomed to whenever his mother gossiped. He wondered if it had always been there or if he had just begun to notice since the silence had grown so loud. “It is not us whom Mrs. Watts is seeking out. It is no secret that her daughter, Franny, has her hopes set on making a match with Garrett. Of course, it is most unfortunate that the only good fortune she possesses is in the bank. The girl resembles a horse I once had…”


The conversation had continued about and around Garrett, forgetting that he was present, until he found himself unwillingly obliged to attend the play with his cousin. Edmund had been the one who loved the theatre, spending any time he could there. The only thing appealing about the theatre, as far as Garrett was concerned, were the girls that bled into the painted scenery. They were never the focus of the show, the play able to continue with or without them. They were always pretty and young – welcome distractions for the nonsensical ramblings onstage. Garrett had made the mistake of mentioning this to Edmund once and was treated to a long lecture rather than brotherly solidarity. He hadn’t understood the firm set of Edmund’s jaw or the anger glinting in his eyes as he spoke of the intelligence and vibrant passion for life the actresses possessed. As Garrett watched the play – or, more accurately the lithe brunette in a green gown – he was only certain of one thing: unlike the rest of London, these women were not afraid to admit they played a part.

Garrett feigned interest in the storyline, though he would be hard-pressed to discuss anything aside from the slight curves of the brunette. Somewhere through the second act, Emaline had to nudge him awake. The tales were all the same, circling around love and the wistful longing in between. Garrett detested the theatre and could not comprehend why his brother had insisted on seeing as many performances as his schedule would permit.

Once the final bow had been taken and the thick velvet curtain was pulled close, the final act of the evening commenced. Dressed in finery, London’s elite would gather and gossip, offering biased reviews of the play and one another. The ladies would gather in small clusters of satin and lace, fanning themselves as they eyed the eligible bachelors in attendance. Meanwhile the men would wait for the women they had accompanied to finish their business before departing for the evening, occupying themselves with cigars and gathering cloaks.

Garrett wanted no part of any of it.

He walked slowly through the crowd, nodding in polite acknowledgement to familiar faces, all the while loathing their presence. Once he had cleared the exodus from the theatre to foyer, he strode purposefully toward the stage and through the side door that led to another world.

Garrett had no particular plan once he entered the backstage area. Perhaps he would seek out the brunette who had held his attention for the majority of the evening, but now that it was a possibility, he found that he was already losing interest. Instead he meandered through the organized chaos of props and actors. The sets that had appeared so lifelike and pristine from his family’s box were faded and worn now that he was close to them, like a debutante who refused to accept that bloom of her youth had withered long ago. A pile of costumes sat in a heap in a wicker basket, their collars stained with thick makeup. Backstage was far more enthralling than the play he had attended, and Garrett wondered if this was what had endeared the theatre to Edmund. Unlike the lovesick men clutching bouquets, Garrett was content to be ignored by those who the theatre belonged to. He enjoyed how this view dispelled all of the illusions cast on stage. It was like discovering how a magic trick was performed, and he felt that he could remain here forever. But he had to return before his mother noticed his absence; Emaline, he was certain, wouldn’t care.

“Edmund!”

Garrett tensed at the sound. The name was no longer a familiar combination to his ears. It had never been discussed, just executed. To speak of Edmund would be to acknowledge what his absence meant for the Kensington family. They all knew that Garrett would never be able to replace the ease Edmund had exuded as heir to the Kensington name. No one had to tell Garrett that he would never add up, he already knew. He knew he should keep walking and pretend that the sound of his brother’s name meant nothing to him, but there was something in the woman’s voice that compelled him to stop and turn toward the sound.

A beautiful woman hurried toward him, anger and hope shining in her jade eyes. He watched silently as the emotion shifted as the distance between them lessened and she realized her error and reached the same conclusion as everyone else: Garrett Kensington was not like his brother. “I-I … I apologize for I’ve you confused … I had … I had believed you were someone I knew.”

“Clearly,” Garrett replied smoothly. His face remained impassive as he surveyed the young woman before him. A woman he had never heard of before, but who had apparently been more than a passing acquaintance of his brother’s. Try as he might, Garrett could not reconcile the image of Edmund, perfect son and heir, with the wild creature before him. He could not imagine Edmund as the sort who would have a tryst with an actress, especially after the lecture he had given. He could walk from her and she would never know that he and Edmund were brothers. Maybe Edmund had told her about his family at some point, or maybe they had been kept as much of a secret as she had. “Though it is not the first time that I have been mistaken for someone else.” He paused, debating his next words, assessing the strange woman once more. No, she had not known Edmund Kensington. His brother was not the sort to have engaged in such behaviour. “Who is it that you believed me to be? Perhaps I can help you find them.”

Even as the words slipped with practiced confidence across his lips, Garrett wondered if there might have been a part of his brother he had never known.

OOC: oof! so a year later. you have my permission to hate me... I am so sorry!!