Disclaimer: Anything you recognise belongs to the BBC and whichever writer came up with the ideas I use (yeah, it's hard to keep track with Doctor Who so that's the best I can do with crediting people :L).
Note: Well, this is a bit different and new. I thought for a change I would divert from my usual Harry Potter and Blackcest stories to give a Doctor Who fic a go. I have been feeling rather inspired to write a Vastra/Jenny fic for a while now so I'm just hoping that it will turn out to be as good as I'm hoping it will be. Anywho, (see what I did there? Oh I'm so witty :L ) on with the show and all that. I hope you all enjoy and reviews are more than welcome!
Love always
Shadow of a Black Rose xxx
Warning: I'm not sure where I'm going with this yet but knowing me it'll probably get a bit steamy so I'm warning you now so that no one can say I didn't! ;)
Home
As always the room was pitch black as Jenny Flint opened her eyes in the early morning. A bitter chill filled the room and she tugged on her thin bed sheets in a futile attempt to shield the tender flesh of her neck from the breeze entering through the broken window. It was at times like this when she cursed her family for their poverty stricken state, but then she remembered that it really wasn't their fault and she was suddenly overwhelmed with guilt. She knew both her mother and father did their best to make enough money for the family, and she herself worked herself nearly to the point of collapse every day, it just wasn't good enough. Some families were just unlucky and Jenny knew that that was the exact situation her family found themselves in.
The wind continued its endless attack on the small window of Jenny's room and she finally gave up on the idea of sleep, slowly sitting up on her rickety bed, a little apprehensive of its ability to stay upright under the shifting of her weight. She wondered what time it was. It had to be early morning, it was still pitch black outside as opposed to the murky grey shade that tinted the sky as the morning passed on through time. A part of her thought that lighting a candle to check the time would be a good idea but then she began to debate the matter - she knew that she only had a candle and a half left and business had been slow lately. Barely anyone even gave her a second glance as she walked the streets attempting to sell her matches recently, she may as well have been invisible and sometimes she thought she was with the way the toffs passed her by with their noses in the air. There was no way she'd be able to buy more candles any time soon if business carried on the way it was going. Even so, she was awake and with no hope of getting back to sleep again she decided she may as well make herself useful and start the day early.
Blindly Jenny felt along the surface of the floor by her bed and eventually caught hold of her half used candle in its holder and her personal matches that she kept by its side. Her hands shook from the cold as she attempted to light a match and more than once the matches snapped under her numb fingers. Jenny cursed under her breath. She may have been a match girl but that did not mean she could afford to just throw good matches away. She was expected to give all of her earnings to the man who gave her the matches and she would be given her own wages in return. If the correlation between matches and income wasn't right she knew she'd get a good whack for it at least, most likely losing out on her week's wages in the process which was the last thing she needed. Instead of giving up Jenny retrieved the good half of the last match that had snapped and tried again, finally getting a spark which gradually grew into a small, dancing flame at the end of the half match. Carefully she lit her candle and blew the match out, placing it back with the others in the small matchbox in the hope that it may work again and save her any waste.
The floor was ice as Jenny swung her legs over the edge of the bed and her delicate little feet pressed onto the splintered wood. She didn't wince, barely aware of the temperature that she was far too used to or the tiny shards of wood digging into her flesh. She held the candle up a little higher so that its orange glow lay a hazy light across the room. She hated how bare the room was. It only contained a handful of furnishings: her own bed, a small set of draws, a wicker chair in the far corner by the door and her little brother's bed opposite her own. Jenny peered over at her brother's sleeping form to assure herself that she hadn't disturbed him before quietly standing and tip-toeing over to the chest of draws, pulling out her dress, an old corset of her mother's, a worn down pair of stockings and garters to hold them up. Quickly she dressed (with a little difficulty when it came to the corset which her mother usually helped her with) and slipped on her leather boots that one of her slightly wealthier cousins had bought for her last Christmas. The boots were the most expensive thing Jenny owned and she remembered the shock she had experienced on receiving them. At first she had attempted to protest, telling her cousin Jane that she simply couldn't accept anything so lavish but Jane had insisted.
"You're family Jenny," she had stated matter-of-factly "and family look after one another. Your job will be much easier with boots like these, I can't bear the thought of you traipsing through the streets in those flimsy things that you call boots." So really Jenny had had no choice but to accept the gift.
Jenny often envied Jane's situation in comparison to her own. Jane had been recommended by her father's employer as a house maid for a rich couple who lived on the outskirts of London when she was thirteen and she had been employed there ever since. As the couple had begun to start a family Jane had even been promoted to act as a personal assistant to the nursery maid and was given a little extra money on top of the salary she received as a maid. Despite the fact that the patriarch didn't pay particularly well for the job Jane did it was a lot more than Jenny had ever earned and she would often hope that one day someone would recommend her as a housemaid to some family or another and she could finally live in a house where the windows weren't broken and the furniture didn't constantly seem to be falling apart.
As if the house had been reading her thoughts at that very moment a particularly harsh gust of wind pummelled against the window so hard that it crashed open and smashed against the outer wall of the building so that one of the panes of glass slid out and smashed onto the street below. Jenny felt herself tense at the noise and immediately looked over to check that her brother was still sleeping. Of course, he hadn't even stirred at the noise. It often amazed Jenny how Sam could sleep through just about anything. The slightest noise had always had the ability to wake her but her little ten year old brother could sleep through howling storms without the slightest sign that he was aware of what was going on. Satisfied that Sam was still slumbering soundly Jenny hurried to the window and tried to close it again as securely as she could, frowning at the missing pane of glass and wondering how on earth she would ever be able to sleep now that there was even more cold air getting into the room. Sighing softly she resigned herself to the state of things and went about making her bed and getting her matches together before taking them along with her still flickering candle down to the kitchen.
Entering the kitchen Jenny grimaced a little. Because of their lack of money her family had been forced to share the house they lived in with another family who, to Jenny's dismay, didn't seem capable of cleaning up after themselves. While Jenny, her parents and her brother occupied the two upstairs rooms of the house the Green family (made up of a couple and their four children, all aged between eight months and seven years old) held ownership of the two rooms downstairs. The kitchen was a communal area but Jenny was forever arguing with Mrs Green over the state that her family left the room in. There was always some form of mashed up food that they fed to the babies all over the table and it was impossible to find a space on the floor or chairs that wasn't piled high with clothes that needed washing. Even the fire place seemed to be host to the children's toys and play things so that whenever any member of the Flint family wanted to use the kitchen they had to have a through clean up before hand. Jenny couldn't remember the last time she had seen a member of the other family attempting to clean up their mess. That morning was no exception for the vile state the room was in and Jenny had to pick her way across the room just to place her candle down on a small section of the table that wasn't occupied by objects or filthy. She threw some tattered and filthy old sheets off of a nearby chair and lowered herself into it, fearing that she may have chosen the one with the rotten leg but being delighted to find that she had managed to locate the only good chair in the house.
Looking at the small clock that sat over the fire Jenny found that she still had an hour or so before she had to think about starting her work day and so she sat quietly in thought for a short while, wondering when her mother would be up to make her father's breakfast. She didn't eat breakfast herself, preferring to save food for the one important meal at the end of the day, but Jenny knew that her father couldn't last as long as her without some form of nourishment (if you could call it that). Her father worked on the docks, loading and unloading ships as they brought in the produce Britain traded with far off lands. He needed all the energy and food he could get for such a difficult and tiring job.
On several occasions Jenny had wondered what it might be like to visit far off lands like those which traded goods with her own country. The thought of a whole new place fascinated her and she was especially interested in the people who lived in those places. How different would they be to the people she saw each day? Would they look different? Would they speak differently? Would they even be able to understand Jenny if she tried to communicate with them? She had always had a fascination with the wider world around her ever since she was a child, something her mother had always been uncomfortable with, but her father saw no harm in it.
"The girl's got interest in the world around 'er, 'aint nothin' wrong with that" he always said, with a lopsided smile and a wink aimed at his daughter. Jenny admired her father for his attitude to the world. He seemed to understand it better than most. She didn't think there was anything that could shock him about it.
Just as Jenny was about to look back up at the clock she heard footsteps on the stairs and a few moments later her mother entered the kitchen, looking a little startled at the sight of her daughter.
"Good 'eavens, you gave me a fright Jenny." To look at Jenny's mother it was plain to see where Jenny had got her looks from; she was a petite woman with dark hair (slightly greying with age and hardship) that she kept pinned tightly behind her head. Her cheek bones were high and prominent and she had big dark eyes and a delicate nose over soft, smiling lips. Despite the hard life she lead, Mrs Flint always had a smile for anyone who saw her. She was a seamstress and would often communicate with all kinds of women from the class just above their own. She prided herself on being the most approachable and accomplished woman in her profession, but despite her accomplishments a seamstress's job still wasn't a very well paying one and her wages were only enough to pay for the roof over their heads while Jenny and her father both put money in for the food the family ate.
"What are you doin' down 'ere so early?" the woman asked her daughter, frowning a little as she tried to find a reasonably clear path to the pantry at the back of the kitchen.
"That damn window's been playin' up again." Jenny sighed, still trying to figure out if there was any way she could fix said window. "A bit o' glass's gone now, I don't think I'm ever gonna get to sleep again."
"I'll 'ave your father look at it later to see what 'e thinks" and with that she disappeared into the pantry. Jenny took her opportunity to check the time and, seeing that it had almost been an hour she retrieved her matches and picked up her shawl from the back of the chair where she had left it the night before and, with a quick farewell to her mother she slid out of the door into the cool morning air.