Closed RP: Susan is Not Happy (and when Susan ain't happy, NOBODY is happy)

[usethepoker]

((Backdated to February 10, just after Stephen's popcorn-letter))

Comments

[charlesmacaulay]

Thank God for small favors. Henry and Camilla must indeed have gotten the same letter Susan got, which would have made Henry understand Charles wasn't just talking nonsense.

Charles experienced the uncomfortably contradictory sensation of feeling at once bitter and grateful about the same thing. Under the present circumstances it was a damn good thing Henry could get Camilla to do what he said and be quick about it; all the same, Charles hated knowing it.

It wasn't fair that Henry saw precisely what Charles saw: Camilla would not see just how dangerous her friend really is, Henry had written, and that just drove the pain of it home to Charles. Camilla didn't see how dangerous Henry was, did she? She never had. But right now that was an asset. Henry was dangerous and Henry could keep Camilla safe.

Charles wrote back:

Camilla doesn't see anything she doesn't want to see. Doesn't matter if no one can die here, Susan's got a huge scythe and I don't think she'd hesitate to lop off heads. The last thing she's going to

[h_m_winter]

Henry caught the irony, at least, but made no comment. For once in his life his natural habit of completely observing his surroundings was overridden, knocked about by his lingering tension, and thus he didn't notice Camilla reading over his shoulder.

Charles, he wrote,

We're away--I don't dare tell you where, in case this owl goes astray, but Camilla's safe. Let me know when--if--it's safe for us to return.

He knew there was always a chance there might be no Charles to let them know anything, but he could hardly put that in a letter.

And watch out for Susan--don't underestimate the woman, no matter what she's become. Good luck.

-Henry

Yes. Henry Winter had actually wished Charles Macaulay good luck. It took nothing less than the potential end of the world as everyone knew it to bring that about.

[c_macaulay]

She caught almost the whole thing - he was finishing the last clause of the penultimate sentence when Camilla came to pilfer that cigarette - and what she read shocked her enough to keep her silent until he'd finished writing entirely.

"Susan has something to do with this? Are they fighting? Why didn't he tell me?" The questions spilled out before she could stop herself. She shouldn't ask Henry these things.

"He doesn't love her, you know," she said, and that too was something that came out before she could stop herself. "He ought to come here with us."

[h_m_winter]

Henry almost winced. "He doesn't want you to know about it," he said. "He didn't tell me much, beyond the fact that things were very dangerous."

He raised an eyebrow. The nature of Charles's feelings for Susan was not something he particularly cared about, but his assessment had definitely changed thanks to this. He wasn't about to say so to Camilla, though, beyond putting in, "He clearly wants to be where he is, for whatever reason."

[c_macaulay]

Camilla's eyes were flint in a ghost-white face.

"What do you mean, he doesn't want me to know about it?"

If there was one thing the twins could not abide from one another, it was exclusion. Camilla had committed an unforgivable sin back at Hampden, not only by embarking on an affair with Henry but by keeping it a secret. (To what extent those varying facets mattered to Charles - well, that was a subject she'd never brought up with him, and one on which any discourse from Charles would likely have been manifestly dishonest both with the listener and with himself.)

"That's impossible. She's done something to him, hasn't she? She's bad for him."

[h_m_winter]

That he shouldn't have said. It was a mark of how very distracted Henry was, that he'd say something even remotely like that. Privately, he thought it was the other way around--Charles was very bad for Susan, poisoning her mind against Henry and Camilla's marriage. Part of him, even in these circumstances, was irritated by Camilla's fixation on her brother, on the idea that nothing could possibly be his fault.

"He doesn't seem to want to tell anyone any details," he said, knowing damn well there was no way of backing out of everything now. "In any case, it's his and Susan's business." Especially Susan's.

[c_macaulay]

Had Camilla thought deeply on the matter, she might have suspected Henry had let slip deliberately the fact Charles didn't want Camilla knowing about whatever was happening. It would certainly have been a wedge between the twins; it might well have been satisfying for someone who did want such a wedge reinstated. However, Camilla wasn't in a frame of mind conducive to contemplation just at present.

"It's not fair," she said. Like Charles, she could regress rather startlingly to childishness when dealing with her twin. "If it's dangerous to me then it is my business."

If it had anything to do with her brother, it was her business.

"I can't believe you're going along with this." Turning her frustration toward the available target - something she ordinarily wouldn't have done, at least not with Henry; she simply didn't know what else to do.

[h_m_winter]

"From what he implied, it's dangerous to a great many people," Henry said, figuring that since he'd let out one bit, he might as well let out another. "And besides, it's none of our business. Whatever's happened, Charles chose to do what he's doing." Whatever that might be. There was a certain...satisfaction in it, almost; it meant that Charles wasn't at Camilla's beck and call. Henry hadn't said what he'd said on purpose, but he wanted that wedge there--as much as he'd thought Charles was only using Susan, and was rather bad for her, it had turned into a very fortuitous thing. (Or it would be, provided Susan didn't, you know, go out and raze the Earth.)

[c_macaulay]

Camilla couldn't believe what she was hearing. The world had flipped completely upside-down. It was as though the poles had inverted, or switched polarity, or whatever on earth that entailed (Camilla had a very vague and provisional memory of something like this in National Geographic). Charles had sent her away and Henry had cooperated with Charles in this. Charles had cooperated with Henry.

Something was going wrong with Susan, who, after all, was Camilla's closest female friend, and whom Camilla did care about, and Charles was mixed up in it, and Susan was furious and possibly dangerous to a great many people as Henry said, and Charles wouldn't have sent Camilla away if Susan weren't a danger to her, and ...

Camilla's eyes went almost impossibly wide.

"Oh God," she said. "Susan found out, didn't she?" There was nothing to find out, really! But if Susan really were in love with Charles, and Charles was pretending to be in love with her (he couldn't possibly have genuine feelings for her), and Susan had found out about

[h_m_winter]

...THAT had never occurred him. How on Earth Susan could have found out about...that...Henry didn't know, nor did he like to speculate. That was something he did his best not to think about.

"If that were the case, I don't think he would have stayed," he said, with infinite dryness. He sighed. "You got that owl, didn't you? The one from Maturin, saying he'd popcorned?" While he didn't know just what Susan was doing, he was damn sure why. "You know she's had Issues where he's concerned."

[c_macaulay]

"Yes, he would. He would have stayed to protect me," Camilla insisted. She was sure it was true. (In fact she wasn't far wrong. Given such a scenario, Charles would have stayed to protect her, if there were absolutely no chance he could induce her to flee with him.) "And yes, I got that owl. What about it? Shouldn't she be happy Stephen's gone?"

For such was Camilla's mindset. She would have been happy, in Susan's place. She would have been grimly satisfied, and might have dropped by the popcorn room just to give the kernel a once-over.

Camilla could imagine only too well any number of ways in which Susan might have found out about the twins. Saying the wrong name at a Highly Inopportune Moment, for example.

"If it's about Stephen, goodness, Charles didn't even know him. They ought to have owled me. I knew him." Good job, Camilla. Remind Henry about that too. "I could have done something, I'm sure." Exactly what, she didn't know. She could have improvised something! "I could do something

[h_m_winter]

"Yes, well, it's Susan he stayed with," Henry pointed out. All right, yes, him wanting to drive a wedge between Charles and Camilla was personal, but it was also practical. "Camilla, you have to let your brother go. You're not joined at the hip, and he's got every right to have Susan." After all, she had Henry; she didn't need to be holding onto the idea that Charles needed to pine away and die. For one thing, it suggested a mindest Henry didn't like at all--as though she wanted Charles to be in reserve, just in case. Better for everyone if Charles should happen to be serious about Susan.

[c_macaulay]

Camilla's jaw didn't drop open quite. Her lips did part a little, though. She gazed at Henry in utter astonishment.

"What are you saying?"

[h_m_winter]

This was the perfect opportunity to get Certain Things off his chest, things he'd had no chance to voice until now. Even if it did mean talking about some issues he really didn't want to speak aloud.

"I'm saying that you can't expect your brother to sit there and pine after you for the rest of his life," Henry said, bluntly. "It's hypocrisy. You want him to let you go, in that sense, yet from what you're saying, it doesn't sound like you want to do the same. I have no idea just what is really between Charles and Susan, and I don't particularly care, but you need to accept the fact that he has as much right to theoretically love someone as you do."

[c_macaulay]

Camilla simply stared at Henry for long moments more. Was he really saying these things? Was he really saying these things to her?

"Are you saying you think I'm still in love with my brother?"

[h_m_winter]

"No." Yes. Sort of. "I'm saying that I think you want to make sure he is still in love with you, and his seeing Susan doesn't work with that want. Camilla, I know you well enough to know when you're jealous, and you have been for quite some time now. You need to let it go, because it's only making you miserable." And making him angry, for several reasons.