1910s: Alice returns home for the holidays

-

 

As Alice is having her transformative experiences in Britechester, life goes on in its own pace in the Whittaker households. Thanksgiving is a quiet affair where they after dinner just spend time together. Abigail teaches Melanie to knit, the boys play together in Williams room, Joseph reads to the children. 

On Saturday Frank hosts a small birthday party for his closest friends. It's a fairly successful affair, or so Emily thinks, especially as Frank stays in and does not go out with James and Mathias after the evening is over. Her boys are developing well, Harold oh so quickly, and Edward and John seem to take care of each other, playing in the first snow of the season. The scout movement has been good for them, she thinks. Taking them out of the house on the long weekends where Frank is more likely to be in a foul mood.

 

The new reverend is proving interesting and provides the town with plenty of gossip as he quickly marries Viviana Sinclair. How such as fast marriage is possible no one knows, but it surprises everyone as Viviana has not looked at another man since the death of her husband all those many years ago. 

And then the poor Hutson girl seems to be cursed, as the Godeaus, both of them, dropped dead within days of her joining them as their maid. Now no one dares to take in the poor girl, even for work, and she is shipped off to Britechester to work there. (Do we have our very own Typhoid-Mary in the game?) 

Rhett is now the only Godeau left, and will be the most eligible bachelor in town the moment he returns from university. But for all the gossip in town, the reverend does prove himself as he holds his first sermon burning with fury about the war and encouraging action and commitment from his parish. Anna hangs on every word as he says the things she's been thinking. "We cannot leave people to fend for themselves, it's our duty to help when we have the ability."


Then finally, it's time for Alice to return for Christmas break. Anna, having read her letter but being unable to respond in time, runs out the door to greet her sister.


She (im)patiently waits while Alice goes inside to greet everyone else:


Then quickly snatches her away and brings her back to her room. Locking the door so no one can come in she implores her sister to tell her everything and leave nothing out:


And Alice does. She tells her sister about the small Thanksgiving dinner they had in the dorm. About how she and Lizzie kept looking at each other and how she couldn't tear her eyes away from her. She tells her about how badly Lizzie wanted to visit the pub in town, and how she went along, and how while everyone else were partying and celebrating in the center of the room the two of them found a table far, far in the back and just talked all night. She tells her about the way Lizzie looked in the light from the fire, about their slow walk home after a couple of glasses of nectar. About how Lizzie suddenly took her hands and how she couldn't resist for a moment longer. She tells her about the first kiss, and the next, and how the two took forever to get home because they could not stop kissing. She tells her how right it felt, even though she knows it's supposedly wrong.


Anna is worried. "How do you know it was not just the nectar?" 
Alice shrugs. "I know what I feel, I trust in what Lizzie feels." 
"Have you kissed since?" 
"There hasn't been opportunity. There is always people around, but I am not worried." 
"Just be careful." Anna warns. Alice promises she'll try.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Whittaker Saga: the setup

-
Image
 I  was vastly inspired when reading the decades challenge, and as a history teacher, I could not stop myself from giving it a try. Of course, true to my nature or refusing to do things by the book, the first thing I did was break the rules. How? By creating as my protagonist a single, working woman living on her own! Gasp! Why? Partly because a story popped into my head, but also, partly, to honor the many women who - by choice or necessity - actually worked, and worked hard for their living in the 1890s. We tend to forget them, but the working women were there - from the hard working farmers that we often downgrade by calling wives, as if they weren't an essential part of the economy of the farm, to the working class women working as domestic help or in the factories where they were only payed half of a man's wages.  So with that, I introduce Abigail Spencer, a single, working, middle class woman in 1890s Willow Creek:  As middle class there is only a few jobs avai...
Read more

An interlude: The 1940s, WWII-gameplay and the latest family tree:

-
Image
As we go into the 1940s, I thought I'd take the time to reflect on what this new decade might mean for gameplay. The 1940s were, naturally, dominated by WWII. In the US this is especially true after the attack on Pearl Harbor in December of 1941. Things that are reflected in the original rules of the challenge by feeding sims cow plant cake and sending them to live elsewhere. Anyone who read this story through WWI knows that's not how I play. So let's take a look at the facts and figure out what this will mean for this particular story and my gameplay: WWII: going to war (or work) and deaths. In the US 16,1 million men were either drafted (10 million) or volunteered (6 million) in WWII. Yet what did that mean in relation to the population? According to the 1940 census, there were a total of 65 million men in the US, of which 35 million were between the ages of 18-45 (draft-age after the Pearl Harbor attack). So in other words, 16 million men out of a pool of 35 million. Tha...
Read more

1890s: Starting out in a new town

-
Image
After moving into her small house, getting some chickens and some simple crops to extend her pay, Abigail started her life and work in Willow Creek. She likes her students and quite enjoy her work as a teacher:   Still she is a bit stressed about fulfilling her aspiration, and finding love when it's entirely inappropriate to be the one to initiate flirting is apparently hard! But she tries, and she has met all four eligible bachelors at this time. She met Joseph while taking a stroll in the park. They got along quite well and enjoyed a game of chess together:     They have really hit it off and quite enjoy each other's company, and after Sunday service in church, Joseph even flirted with her for the briefest of moments before becoming friendly with her again.   In general, Abigail is really happy about Sunday services. It's a great place to meet all the people in town, the reverend is nice, and holds good sermons (although the congregation is very bad at l...
Read more