Bridget Connelly
From SuspireWiki
Sarah Meeks, Lancea Sanctum
- Niall McGee, Lancea Sanctum
Before Atlanta
1848
Bridget’s earliest memories were those of the dank, dark ship hold and the smell of death. The coffin ships brought hundreds of Irish at a time from the blight struck lands of Ireland to the hope filled ports of America. Usually only two thirds of those who made the journey lived. Out of Bridget’s extended family that made the trip, 3 died – both grandparents and her baby brother.
1849
At the tender age of seven, Bridget along with her mother and father are shuttled from the ship to the home of their master, Mr. Frankfort. Like many unable to afford the cost of their passage, Bridget’s mother and father sold themselves into bonded labor for seven years. Her father was to work as a carpenter’s apprentice while her mother was to work in the same household as domestic labor. Bridget, it was agreed, would go to the public school house then return in the evenings to help her mother.
1853
For several years it seemed as if things would work fine for the O’Connell family, until the master of the house started aiming lecherous looks at the eleven year old Bridget. Unknown to her husband, Bridget’s mother quickly became aware of the danger her daughter was in and bartered her own body for her daughter’s protection. Frankfort took his pleasures often.
1856
With the term of the indenture drawing to an end, Frankfort became even more determine to sample Bridget despite the sacrifice her mother had been making for the last three years – without her husband’s knowledge. Frankfort pinned the fourteen year old girl against a table and tore open the bodice of her gown, completely prepared to rape her when her mother walked in. Bridget’s mother struck the man over the head with a heavy pan and knocked him to the side – them kept striking him until he no longer moved.
Sentiments were not kind to Irish immigrants in the city nor in the time period and when the murder was found out, as it was, self defense was not believed – and if it was, many men thought Frankfort was just taking what he had bought and paid for. To protect his wife, Bridget’s father claimed the actions as his and hung for them. However, fearing retaliation and lacking any protection, Bridget and her mother fled in the night to the South.
1859
Three years later, Bridget nursed her mother well into the night as the older woman finally took her last breath. Over the past three years both Bridget and her mother had found out the hard way that two women alone can simply not survive. Bridget’s mother died of syphilis, an occupational hazard.
1860
After selling every thing of value, Bridget purchases a single nice dress and moves to the nearest large city – Savannah, Georgia. With fake jewelry, her nice dress and an accent and tone mimicked from steadfastly watching her betters, Bridget fakes her way into a society party with one goal – to find a protector. The news of the war on the horizon makes her goals all the easier with people seeking personable connections.
1863
By the time Bridget is twenty one, she’s one of the most sought after mistresses in Savannah. Wives pretend she doesn’t exist, men duel over her, and through it all she steadily grows a small fortune in jewelry. Her amusing tendencies and rapier wit – both things that make a good mistress and a horrible wife has also started to attract the attention of other creatures that only circulate in the night; much like Bridget.
1865
Bridget makes a careless comment about how her skin looks so much better in moonlight than sunlight and an inspired Courtier asks her if she’d like it to be so forever; she laughingly replies that she’d adore it. That night he embraces her. Being the talk of the town, the embrace isn’t particularly wise and he sprints Bridget away to nearby Atlanta.
In Atlanta
1869
After secluding themselves on a plantation outside Atlanta for four years to establish both wealth and cement Bridget’s education, her sire is finally ready to allow Bridget to introduce herself to Atlanta society. Immediately he petitions the local Invictus to allow her a Manumission, which is granted and she passes.
1874
Within five years, Bridget’s a social force to be reckoned with and proud of his accomplishment her sire slips into torpor. Bridget caringly sees that his body is sheltered in a bricked off room of her haven among a bed of silk sheets and pillows. Immediately, in a fit of depression, Bridget embraces a childe of her own.
1882
Bridget throws a bash to celebrate her childe’s successful Manumission. It’s ruined by werewolves. She never forgives them, mostly due to the fact that her childe soon leaves the city afterwards. He continuously reassures her that’s not the reason, but she doesn’t believe him.
1906
One of Bridget’s favored retainers participates in the race riots and is later killed by Bridget herself – for calling attention to himself and her haven. She moves to Vinings, citing that Downtown is becoming too wild.
1910
Bridget joins the Courtier bloodline and starts to write to others she knows of the blood via the journal her sire left.
1921
Bridget is unmoved by the leaving of Anthony Anderson from the Invictus. She doesn’t expect the Carthian Experiment to last. Several comments are made to other Invictus that "he’ll be back when they fail."
1930
With the Great Depression finally reaching Bridget’s financial holdings she watches her accounts drop with despair. Unlike other Invictus she doesn’t retire into torpor. With her current Invictus lover being one of the Kindred falling to eclipse, she takes his holdings by force to combine them with hers. She considers it her right and doesn’t think twice. This bit of thievery allows her to float out the rest of the depression with minimal loss.
1940
Bridget presents her stables to the soldiers at Fort McPhearson when they return to train for World War Two. With a full scale prostitution ring in the offing, Bridget not only regains her losses from the Depression but profits.
1945
Bridget is stunned by the death of the Michael Winchester and the sudden ascension of the Anthony Anderson she realizes that she hadn’t been paying much attention to what had been going on above her, so busy had she been in her own world of mortal manipulation.
1946
She’s even more surprised when Anthony Anderson offers her the position of Seneschal. Immediately she accepts it, if only because she thinks it will be the Invictus’ only attempt to salvage the city.
1950
Bridget is frustrated and disappointed when her Seneschal position is nothing but secretarial and secretly plots for more ways to discretely pull power out of the position. In the meanwhile she maintains a pseudo-harpy appearance in Elysiums.
1962
Bridget considers it a victory for the Invictus when she's granted embrace rights. Immediately she sets about to find a proper candidate.
1965
Bridget finally selects the childe that she thinks will assist her in rebuilding the losses the Invictus suffered over the last one hundred years and embraces Charles Winston.
1970
After training her childe for five years, it’s finally time for another Manumission. The childe slips through just barely. Many Invictus suggest that it’s only due to Bridget’s place on the Inner Circle that the childe is allowed to pass. This time the Manumission party is uninterrupted.
1972
Charles continues to be a disappointment to Bridget now that he’s in Kindred Society. While he seemed like such a bright gem among mortals, among the Damned he’s nothing but a flawed piece of glass. Bridget starts to despair. Several Kindred remark that she seems depressed.
1978
At the urging of the other Councilors, Bridget finally bites the bullet and kills Charles, only after he makes a fool of himself in Elysium by openly mocking the Prince’s Titoism as “Un-American.”
1979
As punishment for Charles’ bad decisions, and thus Bridget’s bad decision in embracing him, Bridget is forbidden to embrace for another twenty years. The humiliation of the punishment nearly causes her to frenzy and she’s struck by a strange affliction that nearly brings her to knees. It’s almost as if she’s whipped by invisible cords – bloody marks appear across her face.
1984
In resistance to her natural desire to slink into the shadows after the humiliation, Bridget moves back into the public light with a vengeance. She throws party after party and sits in Elysium, prepared to verbally strike back at any one who dares make a slightly less than intelligent comment with a piece of cutting wit. For years her name becomes synonymous with "bitch." People are afraid to go to Elysium except on business in case they become the next target.
1985
Threatened with losing her position if she doesn’t tone it down a little, Bridget purposely curbs her temper and people start filtering into Elysium again. While they remain wary of her, she makes a concerted effort not to automatically snap at people who speak.
1992
Elysiums are relatively peaceful with Bridget’s temper back in check, parties and gatherings continue a pace.
1999
Bridget’s period of no-embrace is over. She idly thinks about embracing again, out of rebellion.
2003
Bridget actively starts looking for someone to embrace again – with more requirements.
2007
Amidst a bevy of unsuccessful embraces and even her ever-present childe, Emmett DuBois leaving her side, Bridget attempts to gain leverage for the First Estate by becoming lovers with Prince Anthony Anderson. However loneliness fueled by disappointment in both her childer and her covenant cause the point of her mission to slip behind the desire for companionship. Regardless, Bridget's natural ambition as well as her sense of duty to the Inner Circle of the Invictus required her to betray Anderson when the opportunity presented itself to overthrown his Praxis in a near bloodless coup.
Unknown to most, Bridget herself almost ruined the successful coup d'etat within the days afterwards due to the heavy sense of guilt and crushing despair that came from knowing that she willingly forfeited her companion. With the shiny title of Duchess looming and her own greedy nature, as well as seeing kinks in the Carthian's support structure spreading out of control, Bridget steeled herself against the difficulty and decided to keep what she had won and regain what she lost in the process. To that extent she set herself to regaining Anderson much as one attempts to win a prize -- in doing so, she realized that winning over Anderson to her side would not only regain her companion but would also neutralize a very real threat to her power structure. She viewed her solution as simply the only way to win.
Despite dubious attitudes from her allies on all sides, Bridget brought Anderson to her side and treated him with the loyalty and adoration due a privileged friend instead of the man just betrayed and overthrown. Many people were no doubt bewildered when she declared her intention to enter into a Cyclic Dynasty with him, however for Bridget it was the most logical conclusion she could reach. She no longer had to seek out a childe for companionship that would ultimately fail; she could rely on Anderson's experience in running a city; she no longer had to fear his vengeance or that of the allies he left behind; and finally she converted an enemy to a stringent and protective ally.
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