Sorry for the delay. The holiday did a number on my free time.
After some brief thought, you determine that the best thing for your social life and for your pocketbook will be to impose about dear Aunt Valeriana. You send off a brief note ahead of yourself, linger over a glass of wine along with some bread and cheese at a public house, and then hire yourself a hackney carriage to carry you to your aunt's house. It is a relatively short drive, as she lives in a fashionable home just outside of the waterfront district and soon you are alighting from your cab in front of the townhome. You pay your driver off after he helps unload your dunnage and seachest, and you mount the stairs with a hurried trot. You tug at the bell-rope and wait--soon the door is opened by a well-attired footman, who looks at you with an imperious air.
"Yes, ah…" Her eyes flick over you and you half-imagine what he sees. Your hair, a rich auburn brown, is kept back in a neatly braided queue underneath a cocked hat (three-cornered were still generally the style when you left, though since you have landed you have seen vastly more of the two-cornered type being worn athwarts or at a suitably rakish angle and suspect change has blown in whilst overseas). Your normally fair face has been tanned darkly by your time in the tropics and is dusted with freckles. Your uniform is a frock-coat in sea blue color, a little faded from the sun, and trimmed at the cuff with buff-yellow. The shoulders, appropriate for your rank, bear a pair of gold epaulettes (with only the one on your left shoulder bearing a disc and fringe). At your waist is your walking-out sword (slender and straight-bladed in the court style). Your waistcoat and breeches match your cuffs in color.The uniform is finished with white stockings and polished black shoes with silver buckles (actual silver, not pewter). You'd worn your best rig possible, though of course two years at sea does make it difficult.
"...Madam Lieutenant?" He finishes.
"Lieutenant Romanitza Stanciu. Here to call on Mrs. Acominata," you say with a slight bow.
"Ah, of course, Lieutenant Stanciu. We received your note. I'll retrieve your luggage--you may go in. Mistress Acominata is in the second floor sitting room. Up the stairs and to your right," he adds at your questing look. You smile.
"Thank you very much," you say and brush past, leaving him to summon forth another footman to deal with your baggage. Tucking your hat under your arm you mount the stairs and sweep into the second floor sitting room, where your aunt Valeriana sits with a book in her lap. As you enter, she beams happily and rises to her feet.
"Nitza! Oh, goodness, you've gotten darker since last I saw you," she enthuses as she moves to embrace you in a warm, welcoming hug. "I got your note. Of course you're welcome to stay here for now. I understand being put ashore must be a trying experience. When Peggy was ashore as a lieutenant he would always mope about the place as if someone had died," she continued in reference to your father.
"But sit, tell me all about your cruise! The South-West Isles must have been an exciting…"
The expected warmth and hospitality of your aunt's house helps to assuage some of the angst you've felt over being put ashore and dinner that evening, attended by Valeriana, your cousin Sarah, and uncle Dimitri is a salve on wounded pride. You regale them with tales of the crystal clear blue waters of the South-Western sea, the vivid tropical islands, and the stifling heat. You leave out the tropical disease and the near constant presence of slaves in those places, considering those topics rather unsuitable.
You are made to feel very welcome, and told that you are welcome to stay for the indefinite future, which is a great salve to your pocketbook as your half pay is likely to leave you wanting for a great many of the finer things--especially with the economy struggling and the price of the finer things ever increasing. For families like yours, hereditary sword-nobility, the cost of keeping up appearances continues to rise. Even for those with land things are becoming more difficult, and the costs of the last war, if the latest newspapers are to be believed, still haven't been paid off! It's enough to make anyone sweat.
Privately you wonder if perhaps it mightn't be better to leave the Navy if this continued. You dearly loved the service, but as the captain of a merchant vessel the work would be steadier and the pay better, almost certainly… No, no. It wouldn't do for someone from your family to turn merchant! So you settle down to wait at your new lodgings. The first two weeks are intolerably slow, but soon your aunt has introduced you to a few of the good people who make up the society of the town and you are being made welcome at rather a lot of luncheons, dinners, and concerts which eat up your tie and makes your life more tolerable.
Soon, you are presented with what might be considered an inevitable choice: what event to make time for your on your admittedly quite empty calendar.
[ ] A concerto and luncheon hosted by a friend of your aun unclet's. You do love music, having learned to make some noise upon the clarinet, and it will certainly be a worthy diversion of an afternoon to hear some music played well, in charming and quite respectable company.
[ ] A salon. This is your cousin Sarah's idea of a good time, and while it is an evening engagement you think it best not to fill your days overmuch. It is certain to be diverting, as it is these places where the politics and philosophy of the day are discussed, often with pots and pots of coffee well into the night. The set of people you might meet here are not necessarily less respectable, but tend more towards the merchant classes than the truly noble.
