Isobel Courtenay
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This character is currently on hiatus.
The Torrington family is reputed to be morally lose, while excessively Wealthy.
Contents |
Short Stats
- Character Name: Isobel Courtenay
- Title: daughter of a Viscount
- Estate Name: Torrington, Somerset
- Nationality: English
- Age: 17
- Gender: Female
- Eye Colour: Blue
- Hair Colour: Corn silk blond
Physical Attributes
Isobel, with her corn silk colored hair, pale skin, long pale eyelashes, and bright blue eyes in an almost foreign almond shape, has a ghostly exoticism about her looks. She's blessed with a strikingly pretty but angular sort of face and a straight nose is offset by a pair of bee-stung lips that soften her otherwise sharp seeming features. Her sharp features and intelligent eyes lend a haughty, knowing and perhaps cunning air.
She is 5'5" and thin, much more so than she'd like to be, on the verge of appearing much more delicate than the way in which she would like to be perceived. Still there is a grace and an almost inappropriate awareness to the way she carries herself that her slight build is easily forgotten.
Initial Impression of Personality
On first impression, Isobel seems quietly amused by everyone and everything; as if she, with a raised eyebrow, is the recipient of some private joke. Many may view it as an unwarranted pride or arrogance. Most she meets are surprised by her reserve; that while she is a ready conversant and has a rueful and often pointed sort of dry wit, she does not seem to be nearly what one would expect from a child of a man like Viscount Torrington. Still, there is something she is hiding in her eyes, a knowledge or quiet confidence and sensuality that suggest perhaps she did not fall as far from the tree as all that.
Background
Over the recess, Isobel does not head to Newmarket, nor indeed stay in England, much to the chagrin of her father who would have preferred that she make more connections among those at court, but to the satisfaction of her mother, perhaps if only because the Viscount Torrington’s plans for his daughter were thwarted. Isobel herself, is just as glad to be doing something so singular. She finds even after a season at court she has little interest in following the crowd, however much it may benefit her later.
Her mother’s younger brother Michael Sotherton, and his wife Margaret make arrangements to bring Isobel with them to Italy where some of Michael’s connections in the wine trade reside. Isobel is only too happy to travel with her aunt and uncle who are beloved relatives. Her uncle’s business is a successful one, and her aunt, who has no children of her own and money to burn, insists that Isobel must let her purchase gowns for her niece as she will not have the Catholic’s think that the English can’t also turn it out.
It is Rome that Isobel takes to especially, and as it is the Holy Year Jubilee, the city is filled with artists, musicians, pilgrims, and dignitaries of all sorts. Despite, its religious tenor, Isobel can’t help fall under the spell of the new sounds and delights of the holy city’s music and arts. She falls in love with the magic heat of Italy and the parties and dinners. The circles in which her aunt and uncle move are various and exciting to the young girl and she is introduced to a young violinist and composer named Arcangelo Correlli. A rising star in the pantheon of musicians patronized by the abdicated and catholic Queen Christina of Sweden, he and Isobel form a fast friendship. He endeavors to teach her Italian, horrified that she is only able to speak German and French, apart from her own language.
Isobel also forms a friendship with Lady Anne, daughter of the King and the Duchess of Cleveland. The two become fast friends over a shared love of music and talent in their respective disciplines. However, the young composer, with whom both girls have made friends, eventually comes between them. And Anne, after seeing the Corelli and Isobel alone, breaks the friendship and declares herself the young Courteney’s enemy, despite Isobel’s protests to the innocence of the meeting.
Isobel however, soon finds more to worry about than fractured friendships, as she falls ill with Marsh Fever and her aunt and uncle fear her imminent death. She is critically ill and saved only by a new treatment wherein Quinine is administered to the sufferer of the disease. She recovers fully while still in Italy but even as she heads home to England there are fears she will suffer relapse and an early death.
Isobel’s plans to return home for a quiet two months before she proceeds to Windsor are shaken the moment she arrives, as is the happiness with which she left London. She is greeted, on her return, by her mother, who informs her with carefully controlled anger that the Viscount Torrington has gone to fetch her brother and sister, whose mother has died and whose closest relative is their father, her father. He has decided, to bring them to live at Torrington. Jonathan, 16 and her sister, Anne, 13, will be living with them from now on. A step closed for discussion as far as her father is concerned. But her mother, will not allow her husband to have the very final say. And when he returns home, she is packed and ready to take a house elsewhere. In London or wherever she may have to go to be away from the Viscount despite Isobel’s efforts to calm her.
Isobel, who has invited Richard to come see her if he is able, has been anxiously awaiting her father’s answer to the Earl’s letter and her disappointment and unease over this new situation and its consequences are acute. While her own discomfort is dwarfed by her mother’s anger, for the first time she feels keenly the way her father’s and the rest of her family’s impropriety might affect her in some way. She speaks to him little, especially after the departure of her mother, and is civil and polite, but no more so, to her siblings.
She tries to keep herself busy with other things, but those other things seem just as muddled as her home. She writes letters to Richard who may have been able to handle a painting but she is frightened will not be able to bear her family’s total lack of propriety. She attempts to write to Anaique, another of her father’s mistresses, although she has done so in the past with little success. And she begins to make inquiries into the handkerchief she found in the park with Corporal Hale, unease over the resolution of that grizzly discovery still playing in her mind. She also writes to Lady Patterson, to see how she fairs. Meanwhile, as she plays the part her mother vacated in the household, the Viscountess regularly corresponds with her daughter, placing her directly in the middle of her grievances with the Viscount.
Isobel, makes her way to court in Windsor with much on her mind, happy to be away from the strangeness of her own home and hopeful that things may turn out for the better, despite her mother’s most recent letter stating her own intentions of coming to Windsor.
