The Sentimental Man

[Walter Brownhill]

November 15th at his wife's charity drive

Walt could hardly complain about a charity drive, nor had he, when his wife had informed him of her plans (informed, not asked; though she sometimes still pretended to seek his opinion on the details of her campaign events it would be an fallacy to pretend he had any actual agency in the planning of these things). Actually, he'd been a bit relieved about this one, since it wasn't overtly political; he'd come along in the hopes that maybe for one day, he could pretend that Ellie was still the charity organizer, author, mother and wife she had been for the past decade. In the past month she had transformed into Eleanora, the potential Minister, and although he hadn't said as much--and wouldn't say as much--he wasn't sure he liked the transition. Did Eleanora the potential Minister still have time to do all the things she had done before, or did one of her myriad of roles need to go in order to make room for these new political ambitions? If something was on the chopping block, so to speak, Walt had a feeling it wasn't going to be her charities or her books.

That was the real reason he would never bring it up, he supposed. As maddening as it was to wonder whether he and the girls were taking a distant second in her new chain of priorities, it was better than having it confirmed in some kind of ultimately unsatisfying and unproductive argument. The race would be over in a little over a month--and despite what Walt kept telling everyone he spoke to on the subject, he didn't really think that Eleanora would win, if for no other reason than she was a woman and not the sort of wealthy and well-connected woman that Josephina Flint and Evangeline Orpington were--and things would go back to normal.

Today, he was just going to pretend things were already normal, he'd decided. He'd almost certainly have to talk politics with someone sooner or later during the event, but in the meantime, this was just a charity drive. Winter clothes for children; who could complain about that?

He'd wandered over towards the door to refill his cup--black coffee, which he'd been drinking more and more of since Eleanora had flooded their social calendar with campaign events--but spotted a familiar coat sticking up in one of the donation bins. Drawn to it like a moth to a candle, Walt found himself abandoning his empty mug on a nearby shelf and plucking the coat out of the bin to take a closer look at it. It was Clementine's, his youngest daughter's. Eleanora must have put it in there, to jump start the drive. Clementine had outgrown the sleeves on it that year, so it was more or less the perfect thing to bring to a drive like this--but quite out of nowhere, Walt resented Ellie having donated it without his knowing about it. He didn't even know why seeing it in the bin produced that sort of reaction from him, because there was no reasonable, logical way to explain it. It wasn't as though he was involved in the day to day decisions about what the children wore, as the head of the household, but... well, this seemed personal, somehow. This was theirs, it was his daughter's, and he didn't want it being sacrificed for the cause.

Besides, he noted, none of the twin's things were in the bin--because Clementine would wear them soon, or would grow into them over the next few years. If they'd had another child, a younger child, then Clementine's jacket wouldn't have been in here, either--and the fact that it was seemed like a visceral confirmation of everything he'd been subconsciously fearing, a sort of slap in the face for not only him, but his family.

Walt folded the coat over his arm and turned towards the door--he'd secret it out and get it home, somehow, without Ellie seeing it, but he couldn't stand to see it in the bin right at the moment, no matter how irrational he knew it was. Before he could take a step, however, he realized that someone else had just arrived--and had probably, from their perspective, seen the husband of the event's organizer robbing the donation bins. He blinked at them, momentarily at a complete loss as to how to explain himself.

  

[Elias Grimstone]

Elias hadn't made up his mind to attend too many of the campaign events. There was a Ross one for business owners coming up soon that he was considering stopping by; but for the most part he didn't think he'd learn much more about the candidates besides their schmoozing strategies, and between their official platforms and his gut instincts, he thought he would probably be able to come to a conclusion for himself. If he wanted to know more, he could always ask Tony. Tony usually knew.

But a charity drive wasn't in the same sphere as campaign balls and dinners: it was for a good cause and shouldn't be too dull, and in any case he didn't know very much about the Brownhills. He didn't have many children's clothes lying around, obviously, but he had some spare hats and scarves, and his mother had sent him with a great assortment of things. (Between him and Tony and their teenage growth-spurts, there had been many casualties in the too-short-trouser department, some of which had apparently survived to this day.) Elias wouldn't put it past his mother that she'd sewn together some new garments altogether, either: so it turned out, as he approached the bins, that he'd come with rather a lot to donate.

Now, he didn't like to be the one to show up at a campaign event and spark off confrontations left and right, especially not with the man he was fairly certain was this particular candidate's husband, but Elias had seen and Mr. Brownhill had clearly seen that he'd seen, and by that point, it didn't seem like the sort of thing that could be ignored, especially.

He cleared his throat and then raised an eyebrow.

"I don't know if that coat's quite your size," Elias deadpanned, not wanting to jump straight to accusatory, but also quite sure the point of a charity drive was to donate things to charity and not just pile the clothes up for show and then change your mind about it. Anyway, if that was the plan, they could really try and be a little less conspicuous. "Might be a bit short in the sleeves, you know."

He made no move to add the bundle of clothes in his arms to the bin.

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   Walter Brownhill

[Walter Brownhill]

Walt flushed at the man's words. He thought he looked a bit familiar - the sort of person he'd probably seen in passing at a social event or two before but never had occasion to speak to in any sort of real-world context. Did he recognize Walt as Eleanora's husband? Probably. There hadn't been any photographs of him in the Daily Prophet for any of his wife's various articles or events (too unimportant, too superfluous, like the young, silly wife of a respected gentleman of society; when the reporters were around, Walt was reduced to set dressing on the scene of Eleanora's political life), but he felt conspicuous all the same. He assumed that everyone he met these days recognized him immediately, and thought about him in relation to Eleanora. At one of her campaign events, that was probably justified (at least, more rational that it was when he was walking down the street, or sitting in the Ministry break room).

The comment could have been a joke, but there wasn't much mirth in the other man's tone. Walt wasn't sure whether to defend himself or try and laugh it off, and settled for some vague middle ground. "It's my daughter's," he said quickly, which wasn't a lie; he continued with, "She hasn't outgrown this one yet," which was. Hopefully Eleanora wasn't anywhere nearby, because she would be able to confirm that Clementine was too big for this jacket at a glance and ruin his cover story.

"It must've gotten put in the wrong pile when we were sorting through everything," he continued, hoping that the mental image of the whole family sitting down and going through everything in their closet looking for charity donations might do something to repair the damage he might have done with this one ill-conceived gesture. What a wholesome scene that would be. It was entirely fabricated, of course; Walt clearly hadn't been consulted and he doubted that Eleanora had taken time out of her busy schedule to do something as mundane as sorting through their daughter's old clothes. Clementine probably didn't even realize it was gone. Some maid would have plucked it out of her closet and marked it for donation. It may have been sitting in a charity pile at their house for months already, since the weather hadn't necessitated warm coats, waiting for Eleanora's next charity event. Even before running for Minister, she'd always been the Queen of the Causes.

Somehow the idea of a maid shoving it away in a closet somewhere made it even worse for Walt. It was so impersonal, so clinical, and he rejected the idea not in his rational mind but somewhere deep in his gut. He wanted to take this home and hide it somewhere that no maid would think to look for it... but before he could do that, he still had to smuggle it out of the charity. He glanced back at the event proper, suddenly paranoid that his wife would appear from the moderate crowd and ask him what on earth he was doing, shattering the illusion he'd created with his story and putting him back on the defensive. He wouldn't have any excuse for her, since he knew, rationally, that there was no way to explain this behavior. The idea of facing his wife with such an action was even worse than trying to talk his way around it with this relative stranger, and he had an impulse to put the jacket back in the bin and forget the whole thing.

Now that he'd concocted this story of mistaken donations, though, it would be suspicious for him to put it back. Merlin, where was he going to hide this so that Eleanora wouldn't see it before the end of the event? And what if someone else saw him before he was able to secret it away and people started talking about it? Someone might mention it casually to Eleanora (even if he believed Walt's story, this young man might very well bring it up if he had nothing better to talk about) and then her face would cloud over with confusion. Her brows would lower and she'd glance over at Walt and frown, and that would probably be the most she allowed the news to phase her in the middle of a campaign event, but it would be enough. Afterwards, he'd have some explaining to do.

Merlin.

  

[Elias Grimstone]

Whether he was Mr. Brownhill or not, he had a fair excuse for fishing out the coat. Elias felt a little unreasonable about having questioned the scene at all: after all, the man didn't look much like a thief. If he were digging through the donations because he was in need himself, well, he wouldn't be clutching a little girl's coat, would he (and if he had a little girl in need... that, too, was fair); and if he were Mr. Brownhill and this event were just a total sham of charity, Elias supposed they would have at least had the foresight to be slightly more subtle.

"Oh," Elias said lightly, shoulders lifting in a short laugh like he'd been joking all along. More relaxed now, he stepped up to the bins properly and lowered the pile of things in his arms into a ball atop one, beginning to pull apart the bundle to place the items in the appropriate collections. As he began to do so, he regarded the man again, more good-naturedly. "That would have been a pity," he agreed easily, eyes drifting to the coat.

"How old is your daughter?" He asked conversationally, his curiosity generally without motive (although if this was Mr. Brownhill, Elias supposed he didn't actually know much about Mrs. Brownhill's family to begin with, and that might be interesting to learn before he thought about voting that way). It was the sort of question he might not have leapt to so earnestly a few years ago: but thanks to having a niece and nephew now, understanding childhood development and the sort of thing a child's age actually meant wasn't such an impenetrable fog as it had used to be. All he'd known before that - beyond what he remembered of Rue and Tony in their early days - was the sort of broom one might feasibly be able to ride at what age (and what was apparently too young, as if there was any such thing. If they could hold their head up, they could hover -) Anyway.