A meeting at a gala

Lucille had always been used to her mother's trips to the city, to charity fundraisers or Ministry meetings or philanthropy discussions; her mother was involved in everything. Most of these weren't places for children, so Lucille had almost never tagged along. So it came as a surprise to her when her mother asked her if she wanted to attend a gala.

Now, Lucille may be an adventurous sort, and she was very excited about new experiences, but a gala didn't seem like it would be her cup of tea. Either way, she did accept, because, nonetheless, she did want to see what it was all about. And so, Lucille and her mother traveled to London to attend a gala at the Hamilton mansion.

Lucille's face was decorated with little makeup. She had sensitive skin, so she tended to not use a lot of products on her face. Her dress, too, was a little plain by Rosenhart standards, but Lucille liked it, and it was quite comfortable. She entered the large hall close behind her mother. "You know, I think they have a daughter about your age. Perhaps you'll make a friend," her mother said with a smile. Lucille laughed a little, but she was intrigued. She hadn't met a lot of witches and wizards her age; most she had met were just her mother's friends.

As the pair walked in, Lucille looked around, trying to spot the girl her mother had mentioned.

The door opened, letting in a woman and a young girl of about Elizabeth's age.
Elizabeth watched them enter, the girl was wearing a soft and not too tight dress, Elizabeth was a little envious of her, she was wearing a tight and rather heavy dress.
The young girl had brown hair and a darker complexion than Elizabeth's.
The girl's mother waved to her. Elizabeth understood the message and walked towards the girl and her mother

"- Hello, my name is Elizabeth Hamilton, and I am happy to welcome you to the humble home of the Hamilton family, for this fantastic gala. If you will follow me."

With these words the young girl turned her back to approach the living room where there were large white linen sofas, in front of them there were coffee tables with wine wormsElizabeth invited the two women to sit down.
When his family had sat down, his parents launched into one of their long and boring speeches, extolling the merits of the Hamilton family. After 10 minutes Elizabeth could no longer hold her and she stood up, saying:

"- Sorry to interrupt you, but with your agreement I would like to show the music room to the young girl here."

Her mother agreed and with a friendly gesture she held out her hand to the girl.

Lucille returned the girl's greeting with a polite smile, straightening her posture, and almost clocking out, allowing all her social training to kick in. Which, to be fair, ended at what she had learned at school. And, perhaps, the way she had to behave and present herself when her mother invited one of her colleagues. Truly, nothing had prepared her for this, but Lucille was getting by. She didn't have the grace or elegance one could expect at a gala, but she did have the polite, formal behavior.

When they sat down, Lucille was a little excited. Until the hosts started speaking and rambled on and on and the other girl didn't say two words to her. Apparently, a gala was just like a meeting. Lucille zoned out, not paying attention at all to their words, until the other girl spoke and asked to go to the music room.

Lucille glanced at her mother as the other girl turned to her, and her mother gave her an encouraging nod. Music room must be better than listening to people talk, she concluded, and took the other girl's hand. She rose elegantly, subtly fixing the skirt of her dress as she did so, and offered the girl a warm smile.

"I'm excited to see that," she said, keeping her voice low to not disrupt the atmosphere of the room.

Elizabeth smiled as the girl took her hand and gave her a warm smile. She tells him that it would probably be more interesting, Elizabeth laughs in B
She walked the girl through the many corridors and stairs, finally arriving in front of the music room which was opposite Elizabeth's room
The girl pushed open the large dark oak door, being careful not to snag her long dress
Inside stood a piano, a cello, a violin, a guitar and a flute. In the corner on the right a sofa, similar to the ones downstairs, sat near a fireplace. Inside it, embers were still hot.
Elizabeth turned to her guest

"- Let me introduce you to my favorite room, the music room. It is surely more interesting than my parents' speech

The young girl had said the last sentence while laughing a little.
Then she spoke again :

" - Do you play an instrument? I play a little bit of all of them. "


While waiting for the girl's answer, Elizabeth sat down at the piano, a beautiful white grand piano, with a red leather seat. Elizabeth played "Experience" by Ludovico Einaudi. An Italian artist, a pianist known because Elizabeth knew most of his songs.

Lucille felt a little bit intimidated by the music room. Playing music wasn't something anyone in her family was really involved in, so she didn't really have a lot of experience with them. Moreover, she was terrified of breaking something or knocking something over so, as Elizabeth easily moved to sit at the piano, Lucille followed behind her slowly and then proceeded to stand awkwardly in the middle of the room.

She offered a smile to Elizabeth when she joked about her parents' speech, not wanting to laugh for fear of being rude. It was one thing for their daughter to make fun of them, but Lucille was sure she must not do the same.

"We don't have anything like this at home," she offered. "No one really plays an instrument. I can tell you really enjoy music, though, so I suppose it's understandable for you to have a place like this. For me, I adore reading, so I suppose my equivalent to this is our library," she said with a soft laugh. She hoped Elizabeth understood what she was getting at. Lucille had the tendency to ramble on and say quite convoluted, confusing things. In her mind, she would be clear, but whatever she was saying would sound like nonsense to the other person.

She listened quietly as Elizabeth played the piano. The melody was intriguing, played quite well, and it was clear that Elizabeth was quite experienced. "You're really good. That sounded quite nice," Lucille said, smiling at Elizabeth and clapping her hands lightly.

Elizabeth saw the young girl who refused to laugh when she made fun of her parents, she didn't blame him, not everyone can laugh at everything, especially when it comes to the family that welcomes her.
Elizabeth was going to tell her that she could laugh without any problem, but she was reconsidered, if she didn't want to laugh Elizabeth wasn't going to force her.
The young girl told him that her family was not much into music, and that she preferred books.
Elizabeth smiled when she told her that she was playing well. It was a basic compliment, but coming from a stranger it made Elizabeth happy.
At the end of the piece, Elizabeth stood up and said:

"Thank you, so you prefer books, well I can find your paradise."

Elizabeth walked towards a section of wall and pulled on a candlestick. The wall next to the chandelier opened and revealed a passage in the darkness. With a smile on her face, Elizabeth says

"- Will you follow me?"

The secret passage led to the library. If you read the adventure books, it was easy to discover all the secret passages. But Elizabeth left the surprise to her new friend

"- You didn't tell me your name. My name is Elizabeth.

Lucille's eyes widened in surprise at the secret passage. "Oh, that's cool!" she exclaimed, her voice a little high. Very quickly, she curbed her enthusiasm, though. She sped up to follow the girl, who she now knew was Elizabeth, into the passage, half-running until she caught up, and then slowing back down. The dress she was wearing hardly hindered her, as Lucille was quite careful to only wear dresses she felt quite comfortable in. So, all she needed to do was lift it up a little bit with her hands, and she was free to walk however she liked. Of course, she let it drop back down when they walked slow.

"Right, sorry," she said with a little laugh. "My name's Lucille." She paused, looking around at the walls and ceiling for a second. "This is genuinely quite interesting. Is the house old? This is the sort of thing I'd expect to find in some old lord's house," she said, trying to analyze the walls to see if they looked cracked with wear or not. She was unsuccessful, as her eyes hadn't quite adjusted to the lighting enough for her to observe her surroundings easily. Still, she felt as if the place held many secrets, old or not. Perhaps Elizabeth's family had built it, and it contained countless hidden areas all tailored to their needs. Her own house was certainly built to cater to them, but they definitely hadn't inserted any secret passages in it.

Once in the secret passage, Elizabeth grabbed a torch that was hanging on the wall and rubbed it against it. The torch ignited and illuminated the passage. Lucille asked Elizabeth if the house was old. Elizabeth, before answering this question, remembered her hearts of history, which most often related to the Hamiltons' home.

"- The Hamilton house dates from 1874. It was built by the Baron, James Hamilton. He had conceived, in his mansion, innumerable secret passages and secret rooms. Most of them have not yet been discovered and the Hamilton, who now resides in this house, has abandoned the search. Personally, I would like to resume the research and find all of them. "

Elizabeth had ventured into most of the secret places and passages, but she only knew the ones her family revealed to the guest. In fact, she had to use one of them to make a prestigious entrance during her small piano concert.
The end of the tunnel was approaching, with a breath Elizabeth blew out the flame, it went out. The girl pushed open the door and entered the library
There were shelves that went up to the ceiling, they were filled with books of all kinds. The ceiling is not usual, it is open and a magnificent gold rosette prevented the rain from penetrating inside.


"- This is your paradise!"

Lucille giggled as Elizabeth almost recited the mansion's history. [color=#]8c1c1c]"It sounds like you're reading from a book,"[/color] she said with a laugh. It looked like Elizabeth knew her family history perfectly, something Lucille could not relate to. She hardly knew anything about her lineage and, although she envied that Elizabeth had that knowledge of herself, it usually didn't bother her or come to her mind.

Lucille looked around at the sprawling library. "Oh, this is amazing," she said excitedly, rushing to a shelf and gingerly running her finger along the spines of the books. Some of them were old; some were new. But all of them were intriguing to her. Still, Lucille didn't pull a single one out, of course. She wasn't sure if she should.

"Do you read? I imagine if I lived here I would never leave this room. So many books just waiting to be read."

She hoped Elizabeth wouldn't find her enthusiasm strange. From what Lucille had seen, Elizabeth was more of a musician. Of course, that didn't necessarily mean that she didn't like reading, but from the way she had played the piano, Lucille assumed she spent most of her time with her music.

Finally stopping herself from darting around like a firefly at midnight, she turned back to look at Elizabeth, a big smile on her face.