aestheticals | ( fiends!! ) beginnings

Petty crime holds no future for a young lady with potential, that’s what her aunt always told her. She would always fuss over the scraped knees and bruises on her slight, youthful frame, the sort acquired by slipping through small windows and clambering about dumbwaiters in hopelessly elaborate schemes designed to acquire otherwise painfully simple goals. Her aunt wanted her to do better things, to involve herself in real crimes, the sort that made national headlines and made people whisper your name to each other, knowing that they shouldn’t be in awe of your exploits, but they are, they wish they could be as infamous as you. Above all, Issy, my dear, she would say, you must find yourself a partner. Aunt Caroline, in all her aging, glorious beauty, would brush her niece’s hair with a sad, soft smile, and she would tell her that a partner is one of the few joys in a devious life, and the only way that you will succeed.

At the time, the young Isabelle Spencer would protest that she had a partner, that James was the sweetest man, that he treated her like a princess, he bought her the nicest stockings and brought her flowers, but Aunt Caroline would just laugh, in her broad and knowledgeable way. Boys like him - boys, not men - were not “partners”. They were little fools lacking in real ambition who’d bat their lashes at any girl they thought might be capable of doing the little scraps of dirty work they couldn’t do themselves. It made Isabelle so angry, so utterly furious, that her aunt would talk about James like that, so much so that she’d run from the house and run circles around their street for hours on end just to avoid going home, until she was too tired and too hungry and too cold to keep going, and then she’d reluctantly come back, sullenly stomping to her room and only emerging to take the little tray of food Aunt Caroline would leave her. The next day, of course, she would have forgotten all about it. She was only twenty at the time, though she didn’t look or act a day over seventeen, and Aunt Caroline saw too much of herself in her niece to ever punish or scold her. Girls like Isabelle had tempers, but they had loyalty, too. There was nothing that Isabelle could ever do to truly hurt her aunt.

Theirs was a strange arrangement. As a child of eight years old, Isabelle had been deposited in the care of her father’s sister upon him and his wife’s untimely, tragic death. Caroline Spencer welcomed the girl into her life with open arms and overwhelming love, despite not having spoken to her brother for almost a decade before he died. Young Isabelle didn’t even know that she had an aunt until then, and for months and months following the day she became an orphan, she chose not to speak, to be a silent, ghostly little child with empty eyes and white gold hair that fell about her round, soft face in whispy curls. Caroline always knew that she would grow up beautiful, and clever, and thus filled Isabelle’s silence with beautiful things; long afternoons in museums and art galleries, dressing the girl in fine clothes and offering her constant affection. In time, Isabelle found her voice again, along with a precocious, mischievous personality that delighted Caroline to no end.

It took a while for Isabelle to learn exactly why it was that Caroline Spencer was so estranged from her family. It wasn’t the kind of story that one could tell to a little girl, the sort that needed a little age and maturity behind it, though Isabella started asking about it around the age of eleven, showing Caroline a sharpness of mind and a terrible curiosity, for she bothered her aunt for hours on end about it. Caroline would always have some kind of vague, ambivalent answer to give her niece; your father didn’t much like my husband, dear, and it made things between us a little sour, she would say, with a distant smile. Isabelle would ask why not, Caroline would answer that sometimes people simply have differing opinions, and it stops them from getting along.

When Isabelle was sixteen, her Aunt Caroline lifted the veil on her life. Issy, my love - Isabelle loved the way that she said her name, in her rich, smoky voice - when your father and I were young, not much older than you are now, we were an absolute handful. Do you know why? Because we terrorised the north of England for five years, tricking hapless folks out of their cash and laughing about it for hours on end. Don’t you look at me like that, Issy, I know you take apples from the market every week, either by batting your lovely little lashes at the farmer’s boy or through simple good timing. It was a good laugh, you know. We made just enough to keep us on our feet, pay for us to get along and keep fooling around with whoever we saw fit.

It didn’t last, of course, Issy, because nothing does. Everything comes to an end, and your father and I went our separate ways after he met a girl, a beautiful, charming and soft hearted girl that he fell head over heels for. Your mother, of course. She came from a good family, with a good education and high hopes. It went against everything her family wanted for her when she and your father were engaged, but he won them over, in the end. Your mother changed him for the better, taught him the value of a hardworking life and the joys it could bring. In time, my dear brother was even handed over the family company when your grandfather died. Your mother had no brothers the company could go to, though she had uncles and cousins, but no- it went to your father, and what a marvel he made of it. I, on the other hand… well, let’s say I wasn’t suited for a good life. I enjoyed the thrill of thievery too much, and for a long while I continued on alone. My brother didn’t much like it, of course, but as long as I didn’t get myself into too much trouble, it was all fine, but working my way into the hearts and bank accounts of wealthy bores eventually turned terribly dull. At the age of twenty six I was already turning into quite a grumpy little harpy, to be perfectly honest! That was when I met my husband, Jasper. Divorced? Oh no, no, Issy. He died, some years ago. How were you to know, my dear? It’s not as thought I ever talked about it. It’s hard to do that. I loved him awfully, Issy, and I’m sure that was always my biggest mistake in life.

Everything comes to an end, remember? Don’t ever fall in love, Issy. Love others, give them yourself and your love, but never be in love. I’m still never quite sure if it’s worth all the pain.

Jasper and I made a formidable team. We must have fooled half of Europe into handing over their wealth and dignity. He was a wild and boisterous man, full of crazy ideas that I thought would easily get us caught or arrested, despite the fact that I still went along with them, I never complained for a moment, but I think that’s what drew me to him so much. We met in Hull, of all places - don’t ever go there my dear, it’s an utter bore of a place, and so drab. I still wonder how on earth it ever came to exist. It happened that we were both trying to make fools of the other at the time, targeting each other out of sheer boredom. In the end, he managed to steal my purse, but I stole his wallet. The rest is history, my love.

See, your father wished that I would take the same road that he did, find someone worth being a decent person for, but I went and did the exact opposite. He could never like Jasper, and he wasn’t the sort of man to hide it. It didn’t bother Jasper, every snide or bad spirited remark. Those things ran off him like water off a duck. Eventually, though, I grew tired of it. Your father and I thus decided never to speak again, and I didn’t think that I would ever see hide or hair of your family ever again - not until you were brought to me, of course, Issy. God rest your dear parents’ souls, but you’ve been a gift to me, my dear.

It would be something of a lie to say that Isabelle had not been a little groomed by her Aunt Caroline to follow in similar footsteps. She was something of a project for the older woman, whose life in the years between Jasper’s death and Isabelle’s arrival had been lifeless. Like a book that suddenly ran out of words and became blank in the middle. She wasn’t a stupid woman; she never turned to drink, or anything else as destructive. She merely stopped caring about the world around her. Nothing interested her. Isabelle changed that. Upon learning the truth about her Aunt Caroline, Isabelle practically devoted herself to the idea of being just like her.

Petty crime doesn’t suit you, her aunt would always tell her. You should try something more adventurous; perhaps it’s time for us to leave Bath and go to London for a while. I have a charming apartment then just off of Marylebone. It’s not enormous and I’m sure it’s terribly dusty now, but you and I should go stay for a little. Wouldn’t you love to see London, Issy? It’s a place where dreams start, my love, when they aren’t escaping to have the occasional jaunt around Hull. Besides, you need to forget about that wretched James fellow. He doesn’t even begin to understand what you’re worth, my dear, and how far you can go.

In the end, London was exactly where Isabelle Spencer’s dreams began, just as her aunt predicted they would, where she shed her name and took on another, stepping from one life into another and picking up a partner on the way.

Diniz Moniz caught her eye for a multitude of reasons, not least because he was a very tall and striking man, impossibly handsome to her, and foreign. Over the years she had met plenty of people from France, from Spain, India, Pakistan, Germany, but he was the first man she had ever met from Portugal. Her fascination in this detail was almost childish in a way; she knew nothing about the country. It was one of those elusive places to her, so close but so far. Before she even saw him for the first time she heard his voice, his accent, and the attraction had clutched her wildly before she laid eyes on his clean shaven jaw and his impenetrable eyes.

Impenetrable, and guarded by a bottomless sadness.

Maybe she sought him out because he seemed broken, because she was a nosy cow who wanted to see the story behind the grief that she saw in him, utterly blind and unconcerned to the wedding ring on his finger, but whatever motivated her to do it, she forgot. Nowadays she could only tell you that it just seemed like the right thing to do, that she simply knew that she wanted him and no one else in London. She strode into his life with her chin tipped up and a bright sparkle of intent behind her eyes, a scrawny slip of a girl, a few weeks shy of her twenty second birthday, not yet knowing how to dress herself suitably, with long and wild ringlets of hair.

“Iseile Spencer. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Moniz.”

A name that her father had given her, long ago, when he used to tell her stories about adventures she would have in her dreams, a fearless princess of a far away world who would take down dragons and warlords. Iseile, an unusual, strange name, the very moment that she chose to leave Isabelle and her innocence behind.

In a way she would never be able to tell you what it was that Diniz saw in her, what drew him to her in turn. She has never thought to ask (part of her fears that his answer would be noncommittal, that it would be nothing to do with her, that he merely wanted a way out of his life and that she was just his opportunity).

It didn’t matter to her for a moment that he was over ten years her senior, a foot taller, and married. These were trivialities that she could easily forget and overcome - in fact, their difference in height became something she enjoyed a great deal. She liked how easily he could lift her from his lap whenever she slipped into it in occasional moments of privacy, never quite giving into her advances, not at first. She liked it almost as much as the look on his face when she told him she’d been steadily collecting trinkets of his over the week - a pair of cufflinks, a watch, various amounts of money - the sudden narrowing of his eyes as a moment of anger crept into his features, the crease of his brow and the line of his mouth, the way it softened in surprise when she offered to return all these things to him.

She liked the way he would have to lean so far down while she stood on her tiptoes, fingers digging into his shirt, in order for their lips to meet. She liked the way he smiled - in a small, private way - at her surprise when he told her he’d be willing to leave everything behind, his wealth, his wife, to be the scourge of Europe with her. Her surprise at achieving exactly what she had set out to do.

What had Aunt Caroline said? From then on, it was history.