Post by sarah maccrae on Apr 20, 2011 0:00:03 GMT -5
sarah margaret maccrae
[/b][/color][/size] A Miss Sarah MacCrae at the dear age of twenty-four has found herself upon the most curious of situations - entering into London's most tantalizing gossip. "[/i][/color][/font][/size][/ul][/blockquote]
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W R I T E R .
name: brianna!
RP experience: oh dear. YEARS.
how did you find us?: i made us!
age: twenty-three
gender: a lady
P O R T R A I T .
eye color: hazel
hair color: brown
height: 5' 6"
body type: thin
distinguishing features: light freckles on face
fashion style:
M A N N E R S .
profession: prostitute, lady of the night, dollymop, midinette, judy, ladybird
adoration for:
distaste for:
dreams:
fears:
secrets:
main:
P A S T .
family:
main:
Sarah MacCrae was born to Scottish parents in the rookery of St. Giles. Her father used to say they were descendents of Scottish kings – that’s what was told in their family name. But Sarah never knew any kings – just drunken jesters. Her father had never been around often; just long enough to knock her mother up before running off to the alehouses again. After her brother, Teddy, was born though he left for good it seemed. No one has seen him in ten years. For most of her life Sarah was only referred to as “the cursed child,” or was told she had a demon inside her. Her mother even blamed her miscarriage and the gap of time between Sarah and her younger siblings on Sarah. Her mother would say, “she turned my belly sour with all her spite.” Her brothers and sisters weren’t any better. They saw her strong spirit and independence much the same – an inconvenience on the family.
The nine of them lived in poverty and filth, even with all who could walk, working. Sarah owned one dress that she tried to keep from smelling of horse manure. Cholera swept through St. Giles when she was ten. On her way to the wash with her mother and sisters she would step over rotting bodies in the street. The stench was unbearable. But the cholera never got to the MacCrae family. ”We’re a tough breed,”[/font] her father would say. ”Can’t get us – Lord knows your mother has tried.” As they grew older and were able to work, they were able to better their situation – but it was hardly much.
When she was only fourteen, she saw her mother going blind from the lime they used in the vats and her sisters following the same path. Sarah knew if she followed her mother, she too would be living in the same hovel, blind too, with mouths to feed, idling in the filth of her life. It was not for her.
”Mama, I’m not goin’ to be a washerwoman.” Her mother lifted her gaze, the milky film on her eyes giving her a spectral quality. ”Oh yes ye will. That’s what I am, that’s what yer sisters are, and hell if ye aren’t. What do ye think ye can be? A maid in those fancy ‘ouses?”
”“No. I don’t want to be anyone’s servant.”
“Oh, the queen ye’re gonna be?”
”“I –“
“Ye shut ye mouth now girl,” her mother hissed. Her cloudy eyes somehow had found Sarah’s exact stance. ”Stop thinkin’ of ye’re fine new life. Ye aren’t ever goin’ ta leave these streets. Ye ‘ear me?! Ye aren’t worth more than the shite ye walk on.”
Sarah frowned, her mouth set into a deep ridge. Before she could speak, her mother spoke for her. ”Want to know ‘ow I know? Do ye girl? Ye killed me womb. And ye killed me soul. Ye aren’t ever ta find a man for yerself, as what man would want somethin’ so foul? And ye won’t be havin’ no babies, as yer insides are as twisted as ye’re very self. And so where can ye go but take care of yer Ma who ye so befouled? Ye will live ‘ere lass. And ye will die here. Sames as me. Sames as me.”
There was a moment of pause. The sounds of the street filtered into the dark room.
”I hope ye rot in these streets Mama,” Sarah said, her anger too heavy for tears. She walked away and down the alley as her mother screamed her name.
Sarah never came back and has not been in contact with her family since. She lived on the streets for a while and starved on the streets. One night, tucked away in the corner of an alley, she saw three whores laughing as they sauntered down the street. She knew they were whores by the bright dresses they wore, one even seemed to have a blue silk scarf draped around her pale shoulders. They seemed as if lifted from the dark mire that pooled in every crack around them. They were without burden, with no one but themselves to answer to. They were independent women amidst a whipped society – they were free.
Sarah stood from her cowered position and walked up to one of the women, the one wearing the brightly colored scarf.
“Oh, what be ‘ere?” the woman said, raising an eyebrow.
”I want to work,” Sarah said sternly.
“So ye’re askin’ us,” another woman said, her cheeks rouged a deep pink. She begin to cackle, turning to the other women, “Oh ain’t that grand. Get out of ‘ere.”
The woman with the scarf shook her head, “Little thing, ye don’t want to be workin’ with us. Now go on ‘ome.”
“No. I won’t.”
“Now listen, “ the rouged woman spat. “Ye just can’t go up to any of us and demand to be workin’. A young, pretty thing like yerself? Ye would be takin’ away all me clients,” she stepped closer. “And I’ll be damned if I let that ‘appen.”
“Yer already damned Margaret,” screeched the third whore, her wispy blonde hair pulled up in a tumbling bouffant.
”That is true,” replied Margaret, cackling with the blonde.
The woman with the scarf turned to the others. “If this girl finds somewhere else to go, Madame will ‘ave our ‘eads. She’s pretty and young, well after she eats a bit, and she’ll be taken soon enough if this is the way she’s wantin’ to take. And we might be gettin’ extra for findin’ ‘er.”
The rouged whore pinched her face into complete disgust. ”I don’t care. But she ain’t takin’ any of me clients!” she declared as she tromped ahead.
“Come on,” the blonde whore commanded, pushing Sarah gruffly forward as the woman with the blue silk scarf followed alongside, drinking from a bottle that reeked of alcohol. As they walked, Sarah noticed the woman’s scarf wasn’t silk; it was only cotton.
And so Sarah’s life began at Madame’s. After cleaning her up and turning the angles of her wasted body into curves, she began to work. Sarah quickly lost her virginity to a man nearly three times her age. She will never forget the taste of cigars and the feeling that her voice was beginning to numb. But she was lucky – there were those women who did their business on their streets – something only the most desperate would sink to. She and the other girls did their business within the comforts of Madame’s home, where their clients ranged from London’s elite to naïve farmers with an extra penny in their pocket. She never knew whom they were, only judging them on their style of dress as she made up her own story for them.
She adopted the prostitute’s unconstrained lifestyle with wild abandon. Her favorite drink was gin that she drank in abundance at Three-Fingered Jack’s. She was becoming better at pinching a few quid off the gentlemen who shared her company at the tavern. As long as she kept talking, they never noticed.
She was sixteen when she became pregnant for the first time. She immediately could see her life, sitting in squalor, becoming a washerwoman to feed the baby, for Madame kept no babies in her home. It was that sheer terror of losing her freedom that she went and had the baby removed. The other girl had been hesitant before telling Sarah. ”Are ye sure ye want this Sarah?”
”This...thing won’t ruin my life! Tell me where it is.
“But most girls aren’t able to have babies again after goin’. That’s what I ‘eard.”
“I don’t care.
It was in some dark corner of the East End that she found the building. It wasn’t done cleanly and even in her laudanum stupor she remembered being frightened at so much blood. Afterwards, she became extremely ill and went in and out of consciousness for several days in a fever-induced haze.
It was after this that there was a subtle shift in Sarah. She drank even more, got into trouble with the police on several occasions but she was still wanted by her clients, almost even more so now as she lost the awkwardness of her teenage nature. So Madame kept her, but watched her closely - always contemplating turning her over to the workhouse.
She became pregnant twice more, miscarrying both almost as soon as she realized that she was carrying a child. She lives her days now in a stupor of gin and disease, seeing her life not so much as one of freedom, but one of necessity. Her mother’s last words to her were taking a hold on her life.
[/ul]
E T C .
play-by: dalia guenther
password:
rp sample:
'ello.[/blockquote][/size]
