(no subject)
She didn't know why she chose Paris. Perhaps it was because of the tolerance and anonymity that the city offered. Maybe it was the large population of students and emigres from throughout Europe. In any case, it didn't matter.
As soon as she had moved in with Sophia Delmare, Bella ceased being Belladonna Moriarty and became one of them. The self-styled starving artists who gathered in cafes to drink, talk, and scheme. The ones who played at being poor, but for whom (in most cases) a train ride home would mean a return to wealth and society. They adopted French names and attitudes, and played for a little while at being rebels, radicals. They longed for scandals without truly knowing what the word meant.
It was at one of these meetings that the end of Bella Spellgrove, parisienne, began. She was chatting with a group of Sophie's friends, playing a bizarre sort of forfeits game in which each person had to place himself or herself up for the scrutiny of others. It was Bella's turn.
One of the men in the group smiled and began the interrogation. "Why does such a pretty flower of English womanhood have such a strong Swiss accent?"
Bella stared him in the face. "I went to boarding school in Switzerland. My mother had family there."
In the false world Bella had created for herself, she was the younger daughter of a minor aristocratic family. She was orphaned, and her only surviving relative was an older brother who wanted to force her into marriage. To avoid such a fate, she had run off to Paris with some money and old jewels. She repeated this fiction almost daily, giving it just enough details to convince others (and sometimes herself) that it might be true. All that remained of the real Bella Moriarty was a stack of old books and letters, all locked carefully in a small trunk at the back of her wardrobe.
The man nodded, but one of his friends was quick to jump in. "I think our fair Bella is a spy. She sits and writes and draws for wealthy pigs, and then spends her evenings sipping coffee with us."
Everyone laughed, but the man did not smile. He was evidently serious.
Oswald, a sickly Norweigian painter who acted as the peacemaker for many such games and discussions, put up his hands. "Are we not all different than what we seem? Who is one of us to judge how another spends her time? If Bella is a spy, I'll bet she's spying on the wealthy pigs, too. She'd be damned good at it."
Late in the night, the cafe closed, sending its resident Bohemians into the street. Sophie and Bella walked home. Bella noticed that her paper had arrived in the evening. Despite everything, she was still having the Times delivered. It was her only connection to her father's world, to Milty's world, to the world that she so desperately wanted to be a part of.
As she picked up the paper, she noticed the headline.
Sherlock Holmes Alive: Famed Detective Survives Reichenbach
Are we not all different than what we seem, Bella thought ruefully, as she glanced mournfully at her trunk. The man had been right; she was different from the rest of her circle. But she was not a spy. She was the controversy, the independence that they all pretended to embody. She was truly alone. And very, very soon, she was going to cause a real scandal.
Muse: Bella Moriarty
Fandom: Sherlock Holmes: The Musical
Word Count: 585
Note: Oswald is based partially on the main character of Henrik Ibsen's Ghosts. In the play, he is a sickly artist who scandalizes his pastor with stories of the Parisian artistic life.