Play@YSDC

Lepus bows so low to Miss Ravenscroft that he is practically bent double.

"What a treat for old Lepus to be introduced to such a fine lady," he mutters. "'tis an honour."

Straightening up, he grins at the assembled party.

"Hehehe, my meagre services are at your disposal, so they are. I've a mind to find the mate of this mysterious key, but will find an errant lad on the moors first if the fine company deem it so."

A keen observer may notice that, with something to focus his energies on, he does not caper and gibber so much.

"Yes, we should find him first," says Henry. "The locked room has been undisturbed for some time, and it won't change if we wait a little. The lad will get further away if we don't hurry." He quickly fills Mary in on their discoveries so far.

"'twill be but a trifle to find the lad, provided we don't get lost on the moors," Lepus sniffs matter-of-factly. "Moors are dangerous places, so they are. Give old Lepus a moment..."

He rummages through his clothes, producing a bone and a battered tin plate. Muttering under his breath, he places one onto the other, twisting and waggling his fingers over them. When finished, the bone floats over the plate, pointing north.

"'tis done."

OOC,Lepus embues the tin plate with Know Direction to create a level 0 talisman.

"If I hadn't seen such things..." mutters William under his breath. "We should go quickly."

Vincent shrugs and remains seated. "This foolish man is not my concern. I say Monsieur Harold is right to defend his sister's honor, non? I will stay with Mademoiselle Ravenscroft and we will talk of secret rooms."

Leaving Vincent behind, the other adventurers procure horses and make their way across the windswept and wild moors. The roughness of the landscape makes progress slow. After some time, they catch a glimpse of Henry, standing by his own steed at the side of a cliff, the wind rustling his hair and clothes. He seems to be studying the landscape intently, even obsessively, as if it holds the key to his fate.

Rooter wrote:Vincent shrugs and remains seated. "This foolish man is not my concern. I say Monsieur Harold is right to defend his sister's honor, non? I will stay with Mademoiselle Ravenscroft and we will talk of secret rooms."

Discovering Miss Ravenscroft in her secluded (but hardly secret) chambers in one of her frequent states of agitated melancholy, Vincent is able only to obtain a few coherent statements upon making inquiry of secret rooms.

"The attic! The attic! The screams! The things that should not be!"

At this point she falls into a faint. It will be recalled that the attic -- or, perhaps, more properly the fourth floor -- contains an open but unoccupied area to the east, a large, central locked area, two smaller locked areas to the west, and, beyond them, if one could only pass through, further areas unknown (this being evident from the extent of Highdark Hall.)

"Shall we approach?" Henry asks his companions.

"Old Lepus is of his kind, mayhap I should approach the lad first, yesno?" Lepus whispers.

He walks casually, but carefully, towards Henry.

"'tis a fine vista hm? Fair stirs the blood of Romany folk such as us."

If Henry will allow it, he will approach the lad and bow low.

"Though, I'll wager, not as fair a view as the young lady who longs for you back at the big house - begging the fine gentleman's pardon for making so bold..."

Henry's story

"I perceive that you and I share common ancestry, although I know you not. Perhaps the Fates have brought us together so that one of my kind might know of my history, before it becomes one with the dust.

"Know, then, that my earliest memories, as hazy as wisps of morning fog that rise with the warmth of the day, are of these very moors. As a child, hardly more than an infant, I lived here, alone, like a beast. Of my progenitors, or of how I came to inhabit this wasteland without human company, or, indeed, how I survived before consciousness bloomed within my lonely skull, I know nothing. Perhaps there is some truth to the common fable of persons raised by animals as if they were their whelps. In any case, I lived as one such, and there is still much of wildness which burns in my heart.

"For many seasons I existed in this way. Rain was my drink, small creatures, devoured raw, my meat. No doubt I would have died soon, had not chance brought my pathetic existence to the attention of Lord Highdark. He took me into his home, named me, taught me the ways of men, even gave me something of an education. Whether this was done out of charity, or because my strange condition aroused his curiosity, I dare not speculate.

"Time has its way with us all. Eventually I became what you see before you. As I grew from boy to man, I found myself the object of contempt from Lord Highdark's heir, a burden I bore gladly when it was accompanied by affection from -- divine creature! -- Georgina. It was not merely her delicate beauty and refined manner, although these would easily melt the coldest heart ever to dwell upon this sad globe. No, it was her unremitting kindness to one unworthy to gaze upon her visage. God, that a damned soul should raise his eyes from Perdition, and see the countenance of an angel smile upon him! Would this not make even the flames of Hell bearable?

"I confessed my love, and, miracle beyond imagining, it was returned. As you well may think, this aroused the enmity of Harold to a pitch of unrestrained wrath, to which, to my shame, I responded with like passion. Somehow I felt the power of my ancestors rise within me, knew my nature, and used it to dissolve all recollection from his mind.

"Here I now stand, among the moors I left so long ago, pondering whether to wander the Earth until the Devil claims me for His own, or to return to Highdark Hall and face the punishment and humiliation which is what I deserve, or to hurl myself from this precipice and end an existence which has only brought misery to all."

Lepus strokes his beard.

"'tis a sad tale..."

He grinds his teeth in concentration - this is going to take delicate tact and diplomacy...

"Blast your mewling hide! Throw yourself off then!" he yells. "Or, if you truly are of my blood, you will fight! Psssht! You loveth her, she loveth you - naught else matters! March to that big house and drag her away if need be; their fancy pantaloons be damned!"

He stamps his foot in indignation.

"Be a man, be a Roma! Aye, claim your prize and hang the consequences!"

"Perhaps we should have approached first after all," observes William to Lord Dunwich at the sight of this outburst. "Oh, a pox on my better angels." He rides up to the pair and says, "Return with us, lad. The harm you inflicted has been undone, and there may yet be time to heal this rift. Georgina's love for you has not dimmed."

Abashed by this accusation of cowardice, and reassured that his regrettable assault on Harold's mind has been reversed, the melancholy lad agrees to ride back to Highdark Hall with the others. Upon arrival, he requests, and is granted, a private interview with Lord Highdark. Georgina is relieved by his safe return, but prevented from speaking to him by the firm intervention of her brother, who appears barely able to control an impulse to violence.

After the interview in Lord Highdark's office, from which can be heard occasional raised voices, Henry emerges, in a state more downcast than ever.

"It is as I feared," he confesses. "Lord Highdark will admit of no connection between us. I am to leave the estate at once." He pauses, and sighs. "I would make bold to ask Georgina to escape with me, but the fierceness of Harold's defense of her honor admits of no possibility. Moreover, I could not ask her to share the life of a vagabond. Farewell, my friends. I face a long and lonely road."

"My brother Sir James is the Baronet of Linton," says William. "If you present yourself there and give him my name, he may have a place for you in his service. It would be a harder life than you lived here, but it surely preferable to a vagrant's existence."

One might surmise he is perhaps motivated by guilt at the part his own actions may have played in this turn of events.

"I am sorry to see you go," says Henry to his namesake. "I've never been without a home myself. Even when I travel, I always have somewhere to return. I cannot imagine a vagabond's life. You may wish to consider the good captain's offer. Whatever your decision, I wish you the best."

Lepus is not exactly well versed in matters of the heart, but even he has sympathy for Henry. Listening outside, lest he be thrown out of the fine house by it's outraged owners, he catches the lad as he leaves. Feeling that he's failed some sort of test, he attempts to make ammends.

"The fine young lady will not stay under her parent's thrall forever. Mayhap the gallant soldier William will pass his brother's address to her so that she can write, hm?"

He presses the plate and bone talisman he has recently created into the lad's hands.

"Take this - t'will stop you from getting lost; least for a short while."

Silently accepting the gift, Henry makes his way into the world, ready to present himself to the Baronet of Linton with the kindly offered recommendation of William.

Within Highdark Hall, it soon becomes clear that Georgina is inconsolable, having retreated to her room and not emerging from therein even to dine. From inside the room can be heard occasional sobs and whispered prayers.

By this time, Vincent will have no doubt reported his strange interview, if such it can be called, with Miss Ravenscroft, which would seem to raise more questions than it answers.

"Shall we see what the key unlocks now?" asks Henry.

"Indeed," says William.

A brief time of experimentation reveals that the key, after some effort, due to the ravages of time upon the mechanism, unlatches a heavy lock that keeps the central room of the attic sealed. Within is a dark room, furnished only with the barest necessities; a small table with a carafe of water and the remnants of a simple meal of bread and cold meat, a cot with straw for bedding, and so forth. Seated upon the floor, dressed in what might have been a fine gown some decades ago, but is now little more than rags, is a woman of advanced years, muttering unintelligibly to herself. Her matted gray hair is extremely long, hiding her features from view. She does not acknowledge the arrival of the visitors.