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LoveTheWayYouLie
Star
- Joined
- Apr 1, 2012
- Location
- Waiting to be amused.
With You the Pain Isn't So Bad.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
The darkness had started to release around the young, ten year old Vanessa's sight about a hour after her beating. She had been left on the floor of the hallway, left to bleed and lay there, struggling to breath from the damage her mother had inflected on her ribs.
Her small frame laid on the wood, and wheezed for breath. Even choking on the blood that eased from her mouth and nose. This is what she got for shoving Steven back up the steps to force him away from the danger that was coming. They had heard their mother playing the piano in the den at the bottom floor, and thought that she wouldn't hear them playing from the upper hallway and in the library. Their nanny was out of the home that day, leaving them alone with their mother. It was stupid of them to think that they could play. But the music being played had been upbeat, so the young siblings had assumed their mother was in a good mood. Of course, her moods changed with the wind.
That's when Steven had accidentally knocked a candle stick off one the tables. It hit the floor with a clatter and the wax spilled from the candle sticks to all over the hallway rug and wood. Both siblings had looked at each other in sheer fear as their mother smashed her hands down on the piano keys as soon as the loud sound had echoed through the house.
“Go....Run!” Vanessa had whispered to Steven and pushed her little brother back towards the steps that led upstairs to their area of the house. The sound of their mothers heels on the old wood was heard, her cane hitting the wood hard after her steps. Their mother was angry. “Steven go!” She ordered and shoved him up the steps just as her mother came around the corner of the steps that led to the den below.
“What are you little monsters doing out of your rooms?!” She snapped, she was a tall and slender woman with raven hair. It was tied up on her head, and was lined with gray streaks from aging. Gray eyes saw the mess her children had made and she snarled at her eldest daughter.
“Mommy please.....” Vanessa said softly and lifted her hands at the attack she knew was coming. “It was me....Steven stayed upstairs....please mommy...I'm sorry...” She said just as that cane was lifted back and clocked Vanessa in the face. Knocking her to the ground, her golden curls fell around her face as she landed. Lady Clara Crowley taught her daughter a lesson like she always did, to not leave the attic rooms! Hitting her with her cane over and over as the small girl screamed in pain. Her cries heard throughout the house as she took the beating for her brother. This wasn't the first time....but it was the first time it had been this rough.
Lady Clara didn't stop till her daughter was no longer moving under her hits or screaming. She watched the blood drip from her daughters hidden face as her blonde hair had fallen to hide it from site, but the blood streamed from her.
“You know the rules Devil child. No children out of the attic.” Lady Clara's eyes turned up the steps to look at her son. She sneered at him, “The same goes for you, you sniveling little brat.”
With those last hateful words Lady Clara turned from her lifeless daughter and back down the steps. The long tail of her dress smeared in the blood and trailed after her as she walked. Uncaring that her daughter may even be dead from her actions. If anything she would have found that a blessing. To rid herself of such useless children that did nothing more than use up their resources. Taking money to cloth them, feed them, teach them. They were wastes.
Then, as if nothing had happened, Lady Clara sat back down at her piano in the den and started the music right back where she had left off.
A good half an hour passed before Vanessa's blue eyes even opened and she began to regain consciousness. Struggling to breath or to catch her breath, her hand reach out shaking along the floor. “.....b..brother...?....” Her horse voice quietly whispered, finding her only strength is sitting up was to see if Steven was alright. Unsure if her mother had beat him too in her rage. Her small arms pushed herself up off the floor ever so slowly. Shaking the whole while, and blood dripped from her nose and lips.
Her mother had busted her lip clean open from the first hit, and surely broke her nose. Another cut was along her eye brow by her eye, as it bleed down her face. She took the abuse, she took the horror...all for her brother. It was all for love. If they didn't have each other, they had no one. They were no one.
*~*~*~*~*~*
The years passed from this moment, just like sand in an hour glass. As the children of the Crowley house hold grew older, their parents allowed them to leave the attic. Oh course, the attic was still where the brother and sister had their small rooms, and living area. This did not mean the beatings or the abuse eased, it was far from the case. Their father, Sir Morgan Crowley was a large beast of a man. Tall and fit with all the patient of a nat. He was quick to his temper on everyone, from his wife to the very little help left in the Crowley home.
Lady Clara had grown no less bitter and hateful towards her children either, even though she allowed them out of their rooms, she had only done this to her own health concerns were an issue and she needed to be attended to. Her husband had come home one night to learn that all their families money was nearing its end, no matter how hard he attempted to win it back through the markets that took it. But without steady in come from their home, and both he and his wife's love of travel and the best of things, they were nearly down to nothing.
In an argument, Sir Morgan lost his head and struck his smaller and much weaker wife. Knocking her to the ground from where the children watched from the top of the steps. In his rage, he had broke her leg under his boot. Leaving her there as he left the home and took a horse to town. Only then, didn't Lady Clara call for her children and the remaining help from the house. Timidly her children had come to her aid......taking her to her room and with the help of a doctor, took care of her.
The evening was quiet tonight and Lady Clara was passed out from her nightly tonic she took for the pain in her leg. Sleeping soundly in her lavish bed on the second floor and in the west wing of the home. The servants were all in their area of the home, eating and talking among each other. There was only a few of them left. Two men, two women, and the nanny. The nanny was no longer needed as their Crowley children where now grown, but she stayed as a source of mother comfort to them.
The wind outside blew hard against the old frame of the mansion, causing the house to moan under its sound. The home had severely lost its glory from what it used to be. Vanessa had never seen it be anything other than this trash pit. The carpets were rubbed nearly bare, and the furniture was nearly twenty years old. Everything was worn and used in this house, as there was no money for anything new. There hadn't been money for anything....for a long time. It was a blessing they were got by. With what their father did make was used to feed them all, house them, and pay their servants nearly nothing.
The sound of the piano played quietly from the den in low somber tones. It was not Lady Clara who sat there now, it was Vanessa. Sitting her made her feel like she had some sense of ownership in her life. As if everything around her wasn't sheer chaos and pain, it grounded her, it let her thoughts ease and clear from their normally wild ideas.
Her fingers danced lightly over the ivory keys of the well toned piano, and her long golden hair was tied up on her head. Bits and pieces fell around her face in loose ringlets, while no jewelry hung on her. She didn't own any. Her big blue eyes were closed, and she ignored a bruise on her cheek from where her mother smacked her earlier that day from her bed side for feeding her the wrong soup.
One her plump ruby lips there was a light scar from when she was a child, as well as a scar right above her eye. None the less, Vanessa was beautiful. A true site to behold, as her fingers danced on the keys in the dimly light den. Her dress was the color of deep purple, with black lace around her neck and wrists. It was a simple dress as they didn't have enough money to buy anything outlandish. Nor did she really care on matters like that.
What did matter was the conversation she had with mother that day. Well more like her mother telling her something. It seemed that when Sir Morgan had his yearly hunt at their home, one of the men had shown a liking to Vanessa. The young man came from a very rich family and Sir Morgan was in talks with the Lockslot family in regards to arranging a marriage. Vanessa had said nothing to mother as she spoke on this, having gotten a letter from father on the subject that day.
Why hadn't she said anything? Because she felt like she was going to throw up. She had only seen Sir Robert Locklot for a total of fifteen minutes when she went out to the stables were the men were, just to give them their riding leathers the servants had cleaned. How could Sir Robert even taken a fancy to her so quickly, it all seemed so....strange to her. Vanessa hadn't even notice him outside of knowing who he was, and that alone. Vanessa didn't notice men in all honesty, well she did, but that was best kept a secret from every soul.
Another howl of wind gusted against the old home, and snow flakes started to fall from the dark cloud covered sky.