Chapter Text
The garden was massive. Marianne imagined that one could easily get lost in here, or live and never be found. She had been invited by a friend to a masquerade. Marianne was quite excited for the event. She had been invited to many things before, dinners, plays, concerts, dances, but never a masquerade.
The event was held at a large estate owned by a count who’s wife she had once painted. Marianne had never met them here though, always in their house in Paris. It had been a long time ago, she doubted they would still recognise her.
The exterior of the house was elegant and imposing with pilasters, a balcony, a small tower, decorations around the windows, marble steps leading to the door and statues on the roof. she took a moment to look at them when she had stepped out of the carriage. The statues seemed to be greek inspired, but she couldn't quite see which from the ground.
There were others arriving all around her, some donning their masks when they stepped outside, some already wearing them. Many were wearing a wild arrange of colours and extravagant masks. She felt a little plain in comparison, though also realised she would be really uncomfortable with half a swan on her head.
Marianne was wearing a blue mask that matched her dress. It had a little leaf pattern and covered three quarters of her face like ivy. It wasn’t half as extravagant as the things those other guests were wearing, but she loved it.
She met her friend and her husband at the door and together they walked inside.
The interior was just as extravagant and imposing as the exterior. There was a blue carpet, paintings on the walls, the walls were decorated with flowers and there were statues in the corners. They were lead into a hall to the right where the rest of the main event appeared to be.
After a while the trio separated as Anna went to dance with her husband and Marianne was left on her own. There was a banquet to the east side with a wide array of small foods that she decided to busy herself with while observing the crowd.
There was a quartet of violins playing and about twenty couples waltzing to the music. There were so many colours swirling around each other it was almost like a dream. The dreamlike feeling was supported by the amount of masks resembling animals. Marianne found it strange but mostly funny. There was a swan dancing with a horse, a cat dancing with a mouse, there were birds in various colours, cats, wolves there was even someone with an elephant mask. And then there were the plainer ones, they were a lot less strange but nice still, they were small with just one colour or with little decorations on them.
Those who weren’t dancing were, like Marianne, observing the room or talking. She found it funny to hear people pretend that they didn’t know each other. The tone of their voice clearly revealing that they did. She overheard a hilarious conversation between two cousins acting surprised at their similar last names, wondering if they might be related. And one between a brother and sister where someone introduced them to each other, the third party genuinely not knowing the two were siblings. Some of the people around her really didn’t seem to recognise each other though. There was a woman who Marianne recognised as a baroness daughter named Sophia, who she had met a few days ago at a dinner, talking to another woman that Marianne had recognised from the same event. They were talking to each other as if they had really just met. Then again when Marianne had met the girl before she hadn't struck her as especially bright.
There were a couple of other people she recognised, but she didn’t want to use this time to stay around the people she knew. She wanted to meet someone new.
There was a woman on the other side of the banquette table, she had one arm crossed over her chest and the other was at her lips, pondering over the items before her. The woman had something familiar about her, but she couldn’t quite placed it. She was blond, taller than most and was wearing a mask with a red flower pattern matching the dress she was wearing.
Marianne moved closer in an attempt at finding out why this woman seemed so familiar. She decided to strike up a conversation.
“Try the chocolate, one can never go wrong with that.” She suggested when she was close enough for the woman to hear. The woman seemed to startle at her voice and turned around. Once they made eye contact Marianne couldn’t help but be taken aback as well. She knew those eyes, she was sure because she dreamed of them still.
“Marianne”
“Heloise”