Characters for survivors RP :
Moira and Nigel Grandfield
Moira was the third daughter of William Fiberson, a shoemaker in a village in southern Wales. Disappointed with the birth of a third daughter instead of the desired heir for his business. Her father has not taken more care of Moira than of her elder sisters, Elaine and Sarah-Louise Moira has been sent to school until the age of eleven – she knows how to read and to write and basic arithmetic.
At the age of twelve her parents sent Moira as a housemaid to a family of local notables, the Suttertons. She was mainly hired to help in the kitchen, to take care of the washing and ironing, and occasionally to serve when the family received guests. During her first year, Moira still went home for the night, but with the birth of several children after her, among which four lived, there was not a lot of space for her in her parent’s house.
At the age of thirteen, Moira moved to her employer’s house, where she remained until her marriage with Nigel in the year of her nineteenth birthday. In the daily contact with wealthy and cultured family, her taste and her knowledge evolved. Moira discovered that she likes fashion and learned to sew. She inherited several dresses from the elder daughter and transformed them to her own taste. She read, mainly classic poetry and pious novels, but her natural curiosity led her to devore the book-shelves of the entire family in her meagre free time.
She met Nigel, a young vicar, at a dinner in the Sutterton’s house, when she helped out. Nigel was then 27, ten years older than her. He had been sent to seminar by his uncle, both of his parents had died from cholera in the Indian colonies. After a year of discrete courtship, he asked her to marry him, which she would have willingly accepted, but her father refused. Her mother had recently died in childbirth, the twelvth and last child, the long expected son. With her two elder sisters married already, and Moira’s closest younger sister working for better wages than herself he wanted his daughter back home. Moira and the Suttertons refused and during a heart-wrenching year, Moira faced the wrath of her father and the growing pressure from Nigel, even if he understood her refusal to marry him and live in the same city without her father’s blessing.
It was thus Nigel’s idea to leave for a community in Australia, where he is promised land and a house if he becomes the vicar of a newly founded town. Moira accepted this and they got married less than a week before setting sails. Moira was then nineteen, rather tall (1m75) and thin, with long, hazel-nut brown curls and dark-brown eyes. Her vivid intelligence was continually underchallenged. Her nose covered with sunspots, she is rather cute than beautiful, rather cuddly than elegant. Nigel was 29, not taller than his wife with dark-blonde hair and green eyes. He was very sincerely in love with Moira, whose abilities he saw better than herself. Pious and learned, he could read and write, knew Latin and Greek, played and organ and piano, but had no experience of country life.
Moira admired her husband for his studies and knowledge, and was happy with the perspetive of a different life in a far-away country. She enjoyed his company and thought of this kind affection as love.
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Nichts Schöneres unter der Sonne als unter der Sonne zu sein.
(Ingeborg Bachmann)