let there be...

[colored_gowns]

The mansion is light again

Comments

[sixpearls]

"Mrs. Strange!" says Mary, in great concern, although these days she is usually white and shaky herself.

[colored_gowns]

She straightens up, and smiles, almost. "Mrs Watson. Good day."

[sixpearls]

"Are you well?"

[colored_gowns]

"I shall be, thank you."

[jarndyceheir]

And he's startled enough to forget propriety for just an instant. "Arabella! ...Mrs Strange. Are you quite alright?"

[colored_gowns]

"O, I am-- I'll be fine, thank you."

[jarndyceheir]

"You look as if you've had a fright, or been ill."

[colored_gowns]

"Yes, something like that," she agrees absently. "But I'm sure it will pass."

[ironicalsmile]

[not too late, I hope? ): ]

Of course, Mr Jonathan Strange does not appear to have noticed his wife's prolonged absence. Nor has he noticed the re-appearance of natural light, though that is more easily explained by the continuance of the darkness around him. When he does encounter his long-missing wife, it is after she has been helped to her room by Mr Carstone, considerably later in the evening.

'Why, there you are, my love,' he says absently, crossing to the writing-table at the window to examine some notes and papers left scattered on its surface, and hardly even glancing at her.

[colored_gowns]

(of course not!)

"My dear," she replies weakly, straightening and mustering a very convincing smile.

[ironicalsmile]

[ah, but I am always late...sorry, again and again...XD oops.]

The smile is wasted, unfortunately, as Strange's gaze is set upon his papers; he frowns, perplexed, at one sheet covered in his characteristic haphazard scrawl, and then slowly looks up, to frown in even deeper perplexment at the window just before him, and the moonlit scene outside.

'My love,' he says, 'tell me, have you noticed anything -- different, to-night?'

[colored_gowns]

"Different?" she echoes. "Such as...?"