I Want You To Catch Me Like A Cold

[Ophelia Dippet]

April 11th, Saturday

They had turned through the streets of Bartonburg repeatedly, seemingly aimlessly (her grandfather certainly thought so), but in reality, Ophelia was filled with glorious purpose. She had done all of the necessary sleuthing before, and she was quite confident that she would recognize the place when she saw it. Which place? Well, the only place that mattered--the place where he lived. He, of course, being Mr. Adalbert Waffling. Her future husband. Someday. She, of course, had to go through the whole business of engagement still. And courtship. And actually meeting him. But these were all formalities; Ophelia was sure that Mr. Waffling would do very nicely, and so she was determined that it would come to pass.

"Here!" she said in almost tittering excitement upon seeing the place. Her grandfather started at the suddenness of her exclamation, so, with a slight blush and a downcast glance, she ammended, "Here, there's a bench. I was thinking it'd be nice to have a sit for a moment."

The old man seemed suspicious for a few more seconds, but then seemed to shrug it off. "Very good, Ophelia. I was just hoping for a chance to rest my legs a moment."

With a too-quick, too-forced smile, Ophelia flitted down to the bench and perched upon the edge of it, taking a moment to smooth out her skirt and tug her corset down into a position that she hoped was flattering to her rather silght figure. The bench was right across from his front door, and although all of the shudders were presently closed, there was still a chance that he might might look out and see her. She had to look her very best! She reached up and fussed with the strands of hair falling out of her bun at either side of her face, but without much purpose or end goal.

She wondered what he did locked up in his house all day! What was it like to be a writer? Ophelia was bored if a day went by without some sort of stimulating social events. How on each poor Mr. Waffling was content with just his sister's company? She must have been a lovely sister. Ophelia hadn't tracked her down yet, but it was on her to-do list, and she expected Ms. Waffling to be positively delightful. Oh, how happy Mr. Waffling would be when he had a wonderful sister and a wonderful wife! And she was determined to be a wonderful wife. She had found out everything she could about him, since the Witch Weekly article. She'd been sure to do all of her research before going out to find his house, because that seemed like the sort of thing he would like. She'd even gone through the trouble to track down everything he'd written, which had been much more difficult than she anticipated, mostly because what he'd written so far was all of one essay series, not even a proper book yet (he was probably just waiting for the proper inspiration to be able to finish that book he was working on, and that inspiration was most certain her). But she had found them, and she'd read them, and she'd talked to others about them until she had proper opinions on them, and she couldn't wait to show those opinions off to Mr. Waffling! After she met him. Which she was almost certain to do, if she could sit on this bench and stare at his house long enough. He had to come out sometime.

The real test would be how long she could keep her grandfather preoccupied and unsuspicious. Mr. Dippet was currently trying to tell her about the species of flower in the hedge behind them, and Ophelia tore her eyes off of the house for a moment to glance at the flower, just to be sure that he thought she was listening, and gave a noncommital, "Oh, they're so very lovely." Then she went back to examining the house. Only now, someone had moved into her way, and was just standing there in the street--how foolish of them! They were probably lost and trying to find their way--or else maybe they were bending to pick up a sickle in the street--but she had no patience for them. She was in the middle of a proper stake-out, here!

She fidgeted a bit, wondering whether they would leave or whether she would have to say something.

(FYI @Adalbert Waffling )

  

[Adalbert Waffling]

Editing, Bert decided, took way longer than he'd originally anticipated. Shouldn't writing to book take longer than making sure everything was in the right order and spelled right? Regardless, at least this time he had help. It was a little racketeering, having somebody read his work like that, entirely unlike any of the essays he'd published. This was a book a solid, full-length book that people would actually use for reference; or so he hoped.

Needless to say, with the actual writing done and over with, Bert found himself with a little more free time. Not much, he still spent most of his days cooped up in the house by himself, unless Nora decided to pop in like she tended to do. He didn't mind, per say, she just had the worst timing!

Today however, she would be happy to learn that he was leaving the house of his own volition, to the bookstore, but that was neither here nor there. The staff there knew him pretty well as he had them order things for him on a frequent basis and was about the only time people tended to see him outside the house. Thanks to Witch Weekly he was a little sensitive about that, but decided not to let it get the better of him.

As he made his way out the front door, leaving the servants to no doubt scurry into his study in an attempt to tidy it while he was out, Bert winced at the sunlight, but otherwise found the day pleasant. Once it warmed up a little more he'd bring his work out into the garden, though that probably needed some tending... did he have a gardener? He should probably look into that. Attempting to make a mental list, he started off toward High Street.

  

[Ophelia Dippet]

Ophelia was only getting more fidget-y as the person continued to dally. She was sure that her grandfather would have noticed and asked her what was the matter in a few more seconds, but thankfully, mercifully, the bloke who'd been in her way seemed to find his wits and started off down the street again. This momentary break in her line of vision, however, proved to have been quite disasterous--a man had appeared right behind him, and unless he had Apparated there and Ophelia had missed the pop (not likely; she had all her senses keyed in to watching that door), he could only have come from Mr. Waffling's house.

This could only be Mr. Waffling. Mr. Adalbert Waffling, the romance hero of her fantasies. Oh, and he was just as handsome as she knew he would be, just as handsome as the pictures from Witch Weekly that she'd torn out and put into the pages of her journal. Maybe even more handsome in person, though he looked a bit rough around the edges... as though maybe he hadn't shaved or changed clothes that day. He was probably just hard at work on that book of his. Oh, he needed her in his life very badly, Phelia could tell. She would take care of everything, and all he would have to do was write and be handsome and love her unconditionally!

While she was thinking of this, however, it appeared that he was getting away. He'd started off down the street, from the same direction that she and her grandfather had come from, which meant it would take some creative fast-talking on her part to get her grandfather to go back in that direction again. But she didn't have time for that! He'd already started down the street, and by the time she got the old man moving again, she might have lost him entirely.

"Oh, Grandpapa!" she exclaimed, pulling out her wand and executing a very quick spell--hopefully so quick that her grandfather wouldn't have caught exactly what the spell was. When the old man turned confused eyes to her, she blushed and said, "There was a bug, on your knee, and it looked quite frightful. I had to get it off."

What the spell had actually been intended to do was trip Mr. Waffling. She needed to slow him down. And if she could now come to his aid, so much the better. If she was lucky, maybe he'd have hit the sidewalk and would have a bloody nose, or something, and she could offer him her handkerchief, embroidered with her intials. If she had really been thinking, she would have gotten some sort of infatuation-inducing scent on the thing, but alas, she wasn't clever enough to have foreseen he need for that. Next time.

"Oh, grandpapa, look, that man," she said, rising in distress, "We must go and see if he is alright!" Then, without waiting for the old man to rise, she dashed off towards her future husband.

  

[Adalbert Waffling]

Bert was a known shuffler, it was a terrible habit Nora was constantly trying to correct for him, but it was unlikely to be going anywhere any time soon. And for that reason he was not surprised when he managed to catch his toe on something, though he hadn't been able to tell what, if anything had tripped him up. More than once he'd tripped over the flat floor of his study in his pacing, so again, he shouldn't be any kind of shocked.

Fortunately he did not take a serious stumble, catching himself on one knee and his hands. Bert shook his head and stood up swiftly, dusting the dirt from his trousers and imagining what Nora would say if she could see him now. They'd obviously have to be washed, but his staff was used to things like this by now. It wasn't bad enough for him to turn around and go home, nor had he appeared to make a spectacle of himself.

Or so he'd thought, he heard voices behind him and turned to see a young woman rushing toward him, causing the color to rise in his cheeks Bert wondered if there was any way to down play his misstep, but at this point, if she'd seen him, he highly doubted it. Still, he was just fine, no cause for alarm and hopefully it wouldn't be too hard to convince anybody otherwise. He continued to dust off his hands and attempted a smile at the woman. "Careful miss, the road is a little uneven." Right, as if that were the reason.

  

[Ophelia Dippet]

"Oh, I saw!" she gushed as she approached, looking him up and down with eyes full of concern. She taken her handkerchief out as she ran over, but it seemed he wasn't bleeding after all. What a shame. Having taken her handkerchief, having it laundered, and then eventually returning it to her would not only have been cause for more interations between the two of them, but it also would have necessitated him thinking of her, at least passingly, in the mean time. Well. If she couldn't rely on any handkerchief tricks, she supposed she'd just have to be extra charming to get his attention; either that, or she'd just keep stalking him and trying different things until something finally stuck.

"It looked like quite the fall--goodness, are you alright? Oh, dear, it seems as though you've nearly torn the knee out of your trousers!" she exclaimed, though in reality that was an exaggeration of the most egregious kind. The knee of his trousers was dirty, yes, and perhaos a little worn compared to the rest of the pant leg, but it was nothing near torn. "I know a spell that mends little things like that seamlessly, in just a heartbeat," intentional word choice; Phelia would say things like 'heart' 'love' and 'match' as often as she could in casual conversation, just in case they had any sort of subliminal impact. "But I wouldn't want to do any magic in the street like this--if I got flustered and made a mistake, you might end up indecent, and then I might just have to faint, for propriety's sake; what a mess that would be," she joked, biting her lower lip and giggling sillily. "But really, sir, all my prattling aside, are you alright?"

  

[Adalbert Waffling]

"Just fine thank you." Bert assured the young woman quickly. He hated to be fussed over, it was bad enough coming from his sister sometimes. "My sister says I have the awful habit of shuffling." Which wasn't incorrect in the slightest. It used less energy when he was pacing his studying thinking aloud.

Bert glanced down at the knee of his trousers again. It didn't look so bad, dirty yes, but nothing Mrs. Perkins couldn't handle when he returned home after the bookstore. Had he actually torn them she would have glowered at him like a child who'd returned home and ruined his best pants. Sometimes he had to wonder if both his sister and his housekeeper thought him to be a little too much like a wayward child. He was perfectly capable of doing things for himself!

"I wouldn't want to trouble you." The young woman's offer was very kind, but he really wasn't that worried about it. "Kind of you to offer however. I promise I'm just fine." Embarrassed, because he'd thought nobody had seen him, but other than a little jab at his pride, he was unharmed.

  

[Ophelia Dippet]

Shuffling? What an odd thing to say. Ophelia certainly hadn't noticed him shuffling--or else if she had, she'd already forgotten about it. That was entirely possible, excited as she was. It would be easy to glaze over something like that. "You seemed to have a perfectly fine gait to me!" she said before she'd had a chance to think about what she was saying. "Not that I was paying very close attention, of course," she said, before it occurred to her that this was an odd thing to say. Oh dear. What if he thought she was odd? She was starting to get a little flustered by his presence and it was all she could to do stop her tongue before she blurted out something like 'I'm generally much more normal, I promise, so please don't think I'm strange!'

Ophelia had tried to pause and take a second to recollect her thoughts, so that she didn't end up saying anything silly, but he started talking again and she found herself entirely unable to focus on keeping calm. "It wouldn't be a bit of trouble!" she insisted. "I love using spells I don't get to use often. I'll really look for almost any excuse--I left Hogwarts a bit early, so I suppose I still haven't gotten my fill of what everyone else thinks of as routine wandwork," she gushed. "Oh, but-I'd never presume to perform magic on someone else's things, of course. You mustn't mind me, sir, I'm just prattling--I'm terribly sorry, I must seem quite a silly little fool to a gentleman such as yourself," she said, blushing deeply. At this point she'd said just about everything that she'd decided not to say a few seconds ago, so... well, at least it couldn't get worse?

Oh, except her grandfather was catching up to her. It could probably get worse.

  

[Adalbert Waffling]

Bert quirked an eyebrow as the young lady mentioned that he had a 'fine gait'. What a peculiar thing to say somebody you'd just met, but then again Bert was the king of awkward conversations, so he really had no room to judge. He very nearly smiled out of sympathy when she started to ramble a little bit, but again, Bert was guilty of the same habit, there was no need to be a hypocrite.

Really though, his pants were perfectly fine. And there was the odd chance he could end up without pants somehow should the spell go wrong and he really wasn't sure he would survive any kind of public humiliation. Witch Weekly already thought him to be some strange recluse (again, not wrong), but he didn't need to go adding to the speculation. "It's very kind of you, but it's no fuss, really." He felt bad denying her, especially after the Hogwarts story, but he was also pretty sure that heightened the chances of something going awry.

"No, no, it's quite alright, I'm guilty of the same more often than not." Bert felt a little guilty that she was apologizing for nothing, but he really hated to be fussed over, it really wasn't worth it.

  

[Ophelia Dippet]

In any conversation like this, Ophelia would have been reminding herself to keep her best, most charming smile on her face, but in this case, she didn't really have to think about it. She was genuinely so happy to have finally met him! And he was just as handsome as the pictures from Witch Weekly, too. She found herself wishing there was a way to translate memories into photos, because she would have loved to have added this entire encounter to the collection of Mr. Waffling pictures in the back of her diary.

"Oh, my chaperone is catching up," she commented, with a slight, delicate (and hopefully ladylike and lovely) gesture towards Armando Dippet. That meant that the conversation was likely about over... but they hadn't been officially introduced yet! Of course, that was her guardian's job, not hers, but her grandfather never thought about such things--when he had been born two hundred years ago, they must not have had seasons and Coming Out balls, because he really was quite hopeless. She could not count on him to make the introduction, and yet she refused to let her first meeting with her future husbad end without him even knowing her name.

"Should we have made introductions?" she asked with an air of innocence, although she knew the answer perfectly well. "I'm not properly out into society yet for another month, so I'm not sure exactly how it's done, but my grandfather will be cross if I've been in any way impolite!" she said. Technically only a third of the statement was a lie. Nevermind the fact that she should have been out in society two years ago; she was perfectly content to let Mr. Waffling thing that she was younger than she was.

  

[Adalbert Waffling]

While Bert was not completely up to date on societal rules, he did know that intructions should be made by a third, common party, but in this case, he was unfamiliar with the man also making his way toward them. The poor gentleman seemed to be elderly (to put it mildly, if that were even a thing to say) and moving at a matching pace, but Bert still wasn't sure he should introduce himself like this.

"I believe waiting for your chaperon is the most appropriate course of events." Not that Bert was strictly against fudging propriety for harmless things like this, but the young lady had been awfully kind so far, he didn't want to be the one who seemed rude or ungrateful. He also didn't think affronting the young lady's chaperon would be a good idea either.

He waited a moment longer, to see if he could figure out long it would take the older gentleman, and though perhaps they should meet him in the middle so he didn't have to walk the whole way. Subconsciously he edged in that direction as he wasn't really sure what to do in this instance and was hoping the more seasoned gentleman among them would have a better idea of how this should go. (Though really Bert was trying not to make a bigger fool out of himself than he already had.)

  

[Ophelia Dippet]

Oh, damn. Damn and double damn! Not only was Mr. Adalbert Waffling unwilling to introduce himself (which she had to admire inspite of her frustration at it; he was so charmingly proper!), but now he was moving away from her, as well, if only a little. Ophelia took a step towards him before she could think about it, and then had nothing to do but to keep walking. If she had stopped, it would have looked odd, like she wanted to be too close to him, and she couldn't give that impression. So instead she simply crossed to his other side, to be closer to her approaching grandfather, and offered him her smallest and shyest smile as she waited for the old gentleman to finally catch up.

She couldn't wait to be married and be rid of the shackles of her grandfather always wandering around with her. Not that he had ever done anything wrong--aside from his being altogether uninterested in her love life compared to what she thought proper of a guardian trying to get a young woman married. He was actually quite a pleasant conversationalist, but she couldn't wait to be able to choose to talk to him, instead of being forced to do it any time she wanted to leave the house. And he was probably tired of chaperoning her, too. Really, Armando Dippet just seemed tired in general, compared to her, but whether that was a reflection of his age or her energy was anyone's guess.

"Well, sir, I'm very glad you were alright," she said to Mr. Waffling as her grandfather got within a few feet, his cane clacking on the cobblestones as he walked.

Mr. Dippet nodded his agreement with his granddaughter's sentiments. "Yes, very glad. I didn't actually see you fall, sir, but you seem to be in perfectly good health at the moment," the man said, shifting his weight to his cane and then looking primly at Ophelia. She could almost hear the unspoken words, so clear was his body language. Well, then, child, shall we be off? Damn and double damn. Without so much as an introduction.

This just wasn't fair! All this trouble, and nothing to show for it! Mr. Waffling might not even remember her, so fleeting had been their little run-in. Ophelia tried her best to smile at her grandfather, for the sake of appearances, but inside she could feel her soul withering in despair.

"Well," she said reluctantly, letting her eyes linger on Mr. Waffling as her mind tried to devise some way of making the visit longer--though she knew perfectly well that there wasn't one to be found. "Take care, sir."