Out on a Limb

Miss Chatterton

Constance knew she was supposed to be immeasurably terrified and repulsed by her husband's actions, but growing up with the filth that was her father had a way of changing her perspective — at least that's how she saw it.

Unbeknown to the world, Constance understood and (perhaps even more frighteningly) enjoyed the world through her father's same hateful eyes, but where Ferguson lacked the astuteness to show the world one face while wearing another, she had become an expert at the task.

She was very good at being the good girl everyone knew and loved; always doing the right thing at the right time, saying the right words, getting the right grades, making the right friends and dating the right boys. But what she was really good at was seeing the darkness hiding in the light, the darkness that hid in others, and doing just the right things to bring that darkness forward.

It was no difficult task stoking the hateful flame in her father's already charred and blackened heart, so she pursued the greater challenge and used him to refine her skills and apply them to others. The talent bestowed on her (whether gifted through genetics or an oh-so nurturing environment) fed her insatiable voyeurism and twisted it into something dark and disturbing over the years, something neither Donald nor Ferguson ever saw or recognized.

She couldn't say exactly when or how this craving had started, but given her role in events, she assumed it followed the untimely death of her mother. (This in itself was of course a family secret kept closely guarded lest the truth come to light and scandalize their family's reputation — an interesting notion given the nature of said family and its already less than stellar reputation.)

However and whenever her desires started though, Constance knew well enough to keep those feelings closely locked within herself. Being Daddy's good girl didn't work if he found out she took pleasure in bad things, and keeping that secret gave her power and allowed her to manipulate him however and whenever she saw fit. And if there was one thing Ferguson Chatterton had taught his daughter and taught her well, it was to enjoy wielding power.

She took immense pleasure in observing more so than doing, and only rarely injected herself into events, usually doing so only to keep or set things in motion so she could sit back and watch the chaos around her unfold. No matter how intricate her machinations though, she always kept her eyes demurely cast downward and looked appropriately shocked when her father fumed and wailed, and frequently gave comfort to the very people she positioned for a fall.

She saved the release of her joy for private moments when she could relive them over and over, bending the pain of others in her mind until it gave her the pleasure she sought. That meant keeping a calm demeanour when Ferguson screamed at house staff for deeds she had secretly done (like poisoning her father's prize-winning roses) or sabotage she had quietly executed (like bleaching her father's clothes when set aside by one of their many housemaids). They were childish stunts at best, but since she was a child it was the best place she could start, and her father's undocumented immigrant workers were the perfect instruments to hone her skill on from the time she was five until nearly the age of fifteen.

As she matured though, house staff became too low a hanging fruit to pluck and fully enjoy. The fruit was always sweet, but even the most delicious morsels become tasteless when eaten for too long. It was around this same time her father decided she learn the family business and insisted she spend evenings and weekends watching and learning what it took to become a titan of business.

After the usual schooling on mergers and acquisitions, hostile takeovers and reading financial reports, Ferguson would settle into teaching his daughter about employee relations, communicating with your inferiors, and other generalities that would make any Human Resource department cringe.