Tension and Tenacity

K, who as I may have mentioned several hundred times basically has the best ideas, asked for something along the lines of a Portal/Jane Austen AU for Christmas.

I’m a very slow writer.

I also quickly discovered that I can’t write like Jane Austen. Plus, I tried to historypick this as much as I could, but if I’ve screwed up I’d rather know about it, especially as I might even manage to write the other half of this at some point.

Also thanks to Sunny for the awesome title idea. IT IS PERFECT.

Tension and Tenacity

The dining-room was very big, very ornate, and very empty. As with everywhere else in the rest of the house, its colours were faded white, cold marble and moulded plaster, with a touch of scarlet napery here and there among the polished silverware on the long table.

It was a very long table. The newly-wedded Mr. and Mrs. Pendleton had each taken one of the only two place-settings, one at each extreme end of it, and there was at least twenty feet of dead space between them. A fraught sort of silence presided over the scene, cold and somewhat shell-shocked on one side, nervous and frustrated on the other.

There they sat, stranded at opposite ends of the long table, unspoken opponents in a helpless kind of entrenched cold war.

She ate little. He seemed to eat chiefly to keep his mouth occupied, shoving forkfuls of whatever-it-happened-to-be into his mouth as a substitute for actual speech, swallowing painfully and with a constant nervous cough which made it sound as if he was perpetually on the edge of saying something. He hardly ever did, which was a relief as far as his new wife was concerned. He really did have the most charmless voice- colourless and affected, constrained to the point of strangulation. He didn’t seem able to utter a single sentence without breaking it into little pieces framed by huge, sporadic pauses, making working out what he was actually trying to say almost as difficult for her as trying to appear interested, even when she was in any fit state to pay attention- which, right now, she wasn’t.

“I hope the… the fish is to your liking,” he said, hopefully, being extra-careful with his voice, raising it a bit to carry to the other end of the table.

His wife nodded, a small terse motion. The fish was in fact slightly overcooked, and without thinking she had separated the cooked meat from the delicate skeleton intact with a confident fold of her knife, laying the tiny rack of bones aside. Her method was certainly a lot more efficient than that of her new husband, who had tried to do more or less the same thing but still ended up with a plate of shredded fish punctuated with skeletal shrapnel, which he was now picking around without much appetite.

“Right, yes, not… not much of a conversation-starter, I suppose, fish… never mind, we’ll get to the game course in a minute, that should be interesting. Rabbit, I-I think it’s going to be rabbit, not to spoil the mystery or anything, though- though, suppose I just did…”

There was a long silence, punctuated by the clink of cutlery. She stared blankly at the flower arrangement at the centre of the table, ten feet from her chair, and he poked at his fish as if it was personally responsible for getting him into this situation.

This is it, then. The rest of my life, pretty much summed up, right here. Wheatley Fitzwilliam Pendleton, this is your life. Massive house, hordes of servants, supper at eight sharp every night in a room the size of Basingstoke with her staring at the shrubbery because apparently it’s the more aesthetically pleasing option.

My wife. We’re married. I’m married, to her.

It’s not fair, really, is it? Not fair at all. I’m falling over myself trying to keep her happy and what is she doing? Nothing. Sitting there, silently. Being all clever with her fish. Judging me. I’m not good enough for her- her and… her, both the same. Well, if that’s the way they want it, fine. I’ll show her being… judgey. She’ll learn, you don’t cross a Pendleton. Well- except she is a Pendleton, now, as of this morning, took the- the name- we can’t both not be able to cross each other, that’s like a paradox or s- you don’t cross a Wheatley. You don’t cross me. Because I’m not going to take it.

Why did I ever think this was a good idea? Why did it have to be her? I’m not picky, I wasn’t looking for bloody Helen of Troy or anything. Big house, title, not a complete horse- that was it, that was the whole list. Got to be at least ten thousand- ladies like that- ticking all those boxes in this country alone. And now thanks to- to her, one bait-and-switch later and I’ve got… this. Can’t talk, got that steely gaze like- like some sort of steel… thing, plus she’s clearly only able to fend off her gag reflex at being in the same room as me by staring at flowers. Brilliant. I can see the next forty years are just going to fly by.

The flower arrangement held minimal interest for the new Mrs. Pendleton. Beneath the dull protective blanket of shock, her mind was moving down its usual neat, straight pathways, pitilessly practical, and it had very little comfort to give her.

Trapped.

Even more than before. I’m married to him.

I’m married to him.

She chased a small piece of fish around her plate, barely aware of how hard she was chewing on her tongue. The pain battled the numbness in her head- winning- and she bit unconsciously harder, filling her mouth with the taste of old coins.

There has to be a way out. Has to be.

He’s hers, he’ll do what she tells him, he’s terrified of her. Which means he’ll continue this… facade with me for as long as she’s up in town, as long as he thinks that’s what she wants. Even if he had a mind of his own, even if he was anything more than a fortune with a dull, facile idiot attached to it, he’d still be just another one of her pawns.

She arranged this with him, like I’m just a piece of property- something that comes with the house-

A way out. There has to be-

-but there isn’t. We’re married. There’s only one way out of this, and it involves a lot of pointless digging and one of us wearing black for months.

We’ve been married for six hours and I’m already thinking about killing him. Perhaps she is right about me, after all.

Either way…

She’s won.

She’s won. Her house is safe and I’m- trapped- chained to one of her- her sheep. He’d have been twice as happy if he could just have married the house and left it at that, I can see it in his face.

Suddenly unable to help it, she laughed aloud- a short, joyless, bitter noise. Her new husband started, halfway through refilling his glass with a generous, slightly shaky hand, splashing a small spreading blot of wine across the spotless tablecloth. He stared helplessly back at her across the twenty feet between them, his eyes wide and worried and completely without understanding.

Escape, said her mind, with utter unavoidable clarity, and she obeyed, wiping her mouth on the scarlet napkin by her plate, swallowing the blood from her lacerated tongue, rising from her chair. She started to reach for her slate, then decided that there was no reason on God’s green earth that she should make excuses to him. She inclined her head- near-imperceptibly- in his direction, and walked quickly from the room, fighting down the gulp of another sick, half-hysterical laugh.

*

She began to avoid him completely. She slipped invisibly through the house, through secret doors in the recesses of cobwebby chimneys, up dusty back stairs that even the servants never used, moving like a ghost. She felt like a ghost, locked in her fragile shell of silence, seen by no-one, dodging the fearful clockwork drifts of the servants, the winter sun shifting pale and watery across the walls, the light fading over and over around the edges of the dust-thick curtains.

She knew this house, not just the layout, the rooms, but the dark spaces where a person could watch unseen, the high galleries and carved rood-screens, the spaces behind the walls. She had always had an uncannily good memory, a sense of how things joined up in a complicated space, While she would have traded this forced familiarity in a heartbeat for even a passing knowledge of somewhere- anywhere- else, thishouse was all she had, and she used it to her own advantage.

The house, in all its chilly labyrinthine splendour, wasted no time in swallowing its underqualified new master whole. Easily confused, with next to no sense of direction, he didn’t even stand a chance. He spent hours wandering the long corridors, aimlessly looking into one room after another, trying and failing to grasp the sheer empty echoing scale of his new domain. If she was a ghost, he was more like some kind of hapless, pathologically clumsy poltergeist; tripping on rugs, opening curtains with big unwary flourishes and choking on blizzards of disturbed dust, peering under drapes at the heavy shapes of faded furniture, plunking at out-of-tune pianos with one artless finger.

At the end of the second week, he found the library.

He stood in the doorway, fiddling unconsciously with his cuffs, staring wide-eyed at the soaring, cobwebbed shelves, the little iron stairways rising like stark corkscrew spines at intervals all the way to the desk. The great window was shrouded in dark drapes, a single mote of sunlight falling across the heavy darkwood tabletop, the yellowed blotter, the thick undisturbed layer of dust.

Wheatley Pendleton, unlike his new wife, was no great master of stoicism. As he stood in the doorway, a sharp observer- for example, one that was watching him from a space between two high shelves, a secret eyrie- would easily have spotted his shaky breath, his hard dry-mouthed throat-working swallow, the speeding up of his fretful, fidgeting hands.

He was afraid.

Libraries, studies, anything with a desk and more books than windows- worried him, intimidated him, scared him. Regardless of shape, size, decor, in his mind they were all synonymous with the study, his father’s, which ever since he was six had been synonymous with purgatory- or at least the closest thing to it in the world of the living.

He couldn’t help it- just looking at the desk at the end of the room made his stomach twist up like a wet rag- but he was dragged towards the desk like a moth to a candle, stumbling on the rich, faded carpet, struggling through his own memories. His father, looking at him over the latest reports of his tutors, examining his son in the same resigned, doleful way he might have looked at a new shipment of goods which- having been transported all the way down from somewhere Up North- had arrived broken. Pendleton Sr. hadn’t ever blamed his son, no more than he would have blamed the hypothetical merchandise for being broken, but he would sigh and rub the thinning hair at the back of his head and say that perhaps, lad, you might like to try your hand at something else…

Wheatley reached the desk, pushed back the chair with a jarring screech, and sat down. His knees fit. He supposed that Her Ladyship’s husband, who stared accusingly down at him from the portrait on the far wall, must have been a tall man.

He sat there, hands spread wide on the gritty tabletop, the library silent as the grave around him, the house beyond that- huge, cold, impassive.

His.

Far from finding the size of it hard to grasp, sitting here at the heart of it he could picture it all-too-easily, imagine every brick of it weighing down directly on his back, crushing him into the ground. He was its master- in charge, singlehanded, with no higher power to turn to. He had so much to prove-

Something moved, hidden in the stacks- a faint morning-dress flutter, a closing door. Paralysis broken, he stumbled out of the chair and fled, leaving hasty fingerlong streaks dragged in the dust of the table, scuffing the floor where only one other pair of feet- smaller, surer- had left tracks for the best part of a decade.

He had no desire to go back- but he did, the next day, and the next, and every day after that. Before another week had elapsed his feet started taking him there automatically upon venturing from his room each morning, carrying him with them through the musty arctic hallways to the library, drawn despite himself to the desk and its dreadful deadweight of responsibility, the seat of power. He opened the curtains, squinting in the grey light, attempted to dust- the servants wouldn’t go near the library, hadn’t, it seemed, for years. He sat, and wrote letters, and tried to read, fighting his growing unease and hanging on grimly for the moment when he’d finally feel as if he was supposed to be there. As if the whole place and everything in it- this chair and this desk and this library, the halls and rooms and portraits and furniture and ice-locked garden, the eerie servants and his silent, cold, invisible wife- as if it really did belong to him.

*

“Who’s there?”

Detected, Wheatley ducked sheepishly under the low doorframe, poking his head into the scullery. The maid looked up at him, a snowy basket of linen in her arms, and bobbed an automatic curtsey.

“Er- no, it’s alright, carry on, carry on- I just wondered if you’ve seen your mistress anywhere around, by any chance? You know, my- my wife, is she-”

“Resting,” said the maid, blinking her pinkish eyes, and then as an afterthought, “Sir.”

“Oh, resting, having a rest, is she? Right, of course. Resting. Because I suppose it really takes it out of you, drifting around hiding and doing nothing all day. Must be exhausting, that. You know, between you and-”

He stopped. Oh, he wanted to talk, just talk to someone- anyone- but he knew it Wasn’t Done. Just one of the many, many rules drilled into his head by years of despairing tutors, desperate to make somethingstick in their pupil’s unremarkable mind- One Does Not Converse With Servants. A proper gentleman would barely notice there were servants, would probably pretend that the basket of linen was being conveyed by some ethereal, invisible force. From the way the maid was looking at him- her bland incurious attention, politeness untempered by any particular amount of respect- she knew it too.

It was bad enough that he’d wandered down here in the first place, into the world behind the scenes. A proper gentleman would never have done that, either. All of a sudden he felt like an intruder, a hindrance- foolish.

“Well- fine,” he managed. Despite the freezing air- was nowhere in this house ever warm?- he could feel himself starting to sweat.

“That’ll be all. As you-” The cultured facade of his voice had slipped under the weight of his frustration, become animated and accented, horribly unpolished. He stopped, tried to concentrate, shaping the syllables of his exercise carefully in his head.

Whether the weather be cold, or whether the weather be hot,
We’ll be together whatever the weather, whether we like it or not.

“As you were.”

That was more like it- if only he could fully flatten that tricky, treacherous r. The maid, at least, was too polite to notice; she simply curtseyed again, shifting her hold on the basket. Taking his cue, he backed off as if she’d been the one to dismiss him, not-quite-remembering to duck the doorframe in time. The resulting hollow thump rattled his teeth, and he hurried back down the chilly whitewashed passage, ears burning, the maid’s unsettling pink stare burning into his back.

*

His skull was still smarting by the time he finally dragged himself out of the library for supper- several hours, two abandoned letters to his family, and one bewildering attempt to fathom the monthly accounts later. He sat at his end of the long table, head aching, the nervous twitch in his leg slowly speeding itself up to a manic jiggling, working his way through the meal without actually tasting or seeing much of what was placed in front of him. Eventually, about halfway through the sweet course, he couldn’t stand it any longer.

“Why don’t we hold a ball?”

She glanced up, spoon paused over the half-pomegranate on her plate. He tried for an encouraging smile, but then decided that if it looked anywhere near as strained as it felt it probably wasn’t doing him any favours. He looked down instead, fiddling absently with his knife.

“That’s an idea, isn’t it? You could invite your friends, we’ll get the neighbours in- there must be some, nearby, I’m sure you must have a- a list or something. Yes? Use the ballroom, music, dancing- not that keen on dancing if- if I’m honest but- well, you know, that sort of thing. Might be a good way to get to know people, expand our- our sort of circle of acquaintance- because- because, not really a circle at the moment, to be honest, is it? More sort of a line. Little two-pointer line, of acquaintance- me, you, that’s it, only us in it- well, and your- your mother, I suppose, if she was around at the moment, that’d make it a triangle of acquaintance- anyway, point is, a ball, could be fairly fu- diverting, fairly diverting, right? Worth a try. What do you think?”

She returned her attention to the pomegranate, a slight crease of concentration between her brows, digging the spoon into the raw red flesh.

“No, come on,” he said, raising his voice a little, trying to carry across the twenty feet of chilly space. He hated the sound of it, the powerless, wheedling note. “Really, being serious here, what do you think? Come on, talk to me, I can see you’ve got your little slate there, just write what you think and slide it on over. That’s what it’s for, right? Or- it is a distance, I’ll give you that, table the size of a small barge here, you might not want to hurl it all that way, could be dangerous- tell you what, though, we can just ring for someone to sort of ferry it over to me- or I’ll come and have a look myself, that’d probably be best. We can sort something out, just…”

She wasn’t listening. All of her focus seemed fixed on her plate, where the sharp-edged spoon was busy, busy, dissecting the pomegranate into smaller and smaller pieces inside its scooped-out half-shell. He put his knife down, harder than he intended, striking a sharp note from his own untouched plate.

“Come on, talk to me, you don’t have to write a novel or anything, just a couple of sentences, a few words- yes or no, that’d be perfectly acceptable. Two or three letters, that’s hardly asking a lot, is it? Just scrawl a few- you know what, don’t even have to use words, Y or N, that’d be fine, or a tick or cross or- I don’t care what you put, really, honestly, just talk to me. Talk to me!!”

He hadn’t even intended to raise his voice, but as the dam of his frustration finally burst his voice didn’t just raise, it thundered, gaining for three short words all the power and command it usually lacked. It shocked him, his own voice echoing off the walls, owning the space.

It shocked her. He saw her head come up, her dark disdainful eyes widen, the spoon freeze in place.

Ohh, now you’re listening.

For once, he could tell without a shadow of doubt that she was seeing him, really looking at him, and oh, it felt good. The flicker in her eyes was something like fear, apprehension- and the closest to respect she’d ever shown him. A bitter-tasting victory, maybe, but still a victory, and if it was the only kind he could have-

Then she pushed back her chair, stood. Her face had set again, hardened to a composed, stony wall, and he felt a sudden lurch of guilty panic.

“Come back,” His voice cracked, all but pleading, rising at her back as she walked away from the table. “Come back, please, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to- look, if you’d just listen to- hey, I’m talking to you, come back, I order you to come back!”

The dining-room door shut behind her, a firm, final impact like a terminal full-stop.

Wheatley prised his fingers from the edge of the table and stared across the acres of tablecloth at her empty place-setting. Her spoon was still jammed upright in the fruit on her plate, juice bleeding slowly out across the white china, the curved rind wobbling like a rudderless ship.

He looked up, following the vibrating line of silver, drawn to the mantlepiece and the carved of Her Ladyship’s crest. A complex, ordered design of gilt and bright-painted, fading wood, it could be found in dozens of places throughout the house, usually accompanied by the carved banner curling beneath.

Quod Opertet Nos
Facere Possimus

Wise words, probably. Words to live by. They’d certainly got Her Ladyship a long way, demonstrably- not least, in the management of her darling daughter.

Perhaps, thought Wheatley, extracting himself grimly from his chair, it was time to look up what they actually meant.

chell jane austen my writings portal II wheatley work in progress lolbroidery
  1. underneaththestarryskye reblogged this from waffleguppies
  2. rabbitsaremagic reblogged this from waffleguppies
  3. jeneralization reblogged this from waffleguppies
  4. katzensass reblogged this from rubitrightintomyeyes
  5. rubitrightintomyeyes reblogged this from waffleguppies and added:
    Oh my god you pulled...19th century domestic drama. HOW??
  6. leaper182 said: Holy FREAKING GOD, HOW DID YOU DO THIS? YOU PUT WHEATLEY IN THE CHASSIS. HE AND CHELL ARE ALREADY MARRIED. OMG, *IS* THERE GOING TO BE A HAPPY ENDING? (So, wait, is GlaDOS Wheatley’s mother? Or some kind of advisor? And what’s with Chell’s mom?) MORE
  7. tribute27 reblogged this from waffleguppies and added:
    finished reading Jane Austen...book. brb reading
  8. onceuponarageface reblogged this from momoneymoboolits
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  10. momoneymoboolits reblogged this from waffleguppies and added:
    really “place” them...walls. The descriptions are
  11. disasterscenario said: HOLY BALLS. WHY ARE YOU TWO SO PERFECT WITH YOUR WRITING THINGAMAGIGGERS Seriously the description of the house is brilliant and those scenes at the table between the two of them— HNNG. Man I admire you guys so much…. NEVER STOP KTHXBYE
  12. wasserplane reblogged this from waffleguppies and added:
    absolutely loved...Can, if my translation
  13. reasonablysunny reblogged this from waffleguppies
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