OOC Information:
Preferred Form of Address on A&A: Liz
Preferred Contact Information: Mjinga Safi on AIM
Other Characters on A&A: John Doyle, Alastair Broderick, Tamsin Pritchard, Jean-Luc Dargeaux (and family), Nolan Quartermaine (and family ;) ), Charles Bourke-Hargrave, Anna Sutcliffe
How You Found A&A: I’m the third member! Joined in June, before the board was even open!

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IC Information
Name:
Haverhill (never goes by first name)

Avatar:
Hector Elizondo

Occupation:
House Steward to Lord Wothersham (also acts as butler and valet)

Age:
49

Gender:
Male

Appearance:
Haverhill is a person of unassuming build and height. He is below average height for a man at 5’8” but weighs more than would be expected for someone of this height at 174 pounds. However this extra weight does not come from soft living but from hard work and a purposeful eating schedule devised by himself to keep his body from going to seed as those of so many older men do. His body structure is lithe as he is not overbuilt, his muscles slightly gnarly, perhaps a little top-heavy but nothing major. He has very good stamina as most of his life has been heavy work.

His hair is thinning, and he has lost some on the sides to baldness, giving him a drastic but distinguished widow’s peak. His hair was brown but is now greying in places, as is his beard near the end of his chin. His beard is kept neatly trimmed and confined to his jaw in a conservative pattern, much the same way his hair is kept close to his head. His eyes are starting to hood from age, but are still a clear grey and sharply observant. His ears are large and set rather far back, and his nose is straight and does not stand out particularly. His face is as yet almost unwrinkled, but lines are starting on his forehead, under his eyes, and at the corners of his mouth—although these last are mostly hidden by the beard. His mouth is generous and usually smiling, although his smile is often only the polite sort. His entire face is deceptively kind, and he appears to be the most honest sort of man possible, with the most generous and courteous soul.

Haverhill always dresses as the steward to an important person. The personal manservant to Baron Doyle and the head of the house staff at all of his residences, Haverhill is always found in the correct attire of dark coat, vest, white shirt, dark trousers and shoes. He is proper and courteous at all times, except when disciplining those under his authority at which time he is only proper. He is singularly dignified.

Personality:
Haverhill is properly mannered at all times. He is friendly and respectful, and not given to making obvious judgments, although he will always form private opinions. He appears as a man without any blame on his soul, and would seem to be a man incapable of telling a lie. This, however, is not true; he is well willing to lie when he feels it necessary, and he is an exceedingly dirty fighter if it comes down to it.

He does as his master says, without question, out of respect for their friendship as tempered by his social relation to Doyle. It is his personal creed to be respectful to all people at all times, even when going against their wishes. He is willing to give people a second chance, but not a third, and is not afraid to keep people on task. He is socially adroit, and well-versed in the customs of both high and low society; he can switch between the two at an eye blink without any sense of discomfort.

He will try to see that any situation runs as smoothly as it may, and will try to flatten the path in front of others so that he need not trouble himself about the repercussions of their encountering bumps on the road. He has a certain amount of kindness in him, but it is tempered by his logic. He is very good at connecting to people and getting them to talk to him, and at the same time withholding any information that he wishes to be withheld. He has an extensive knowledge of the gossip around Lindebo but never starts rumours himself, despite many people trying to winkle information about his master out of him. He finds no shame at all at being in the position of a servant, and indeed feels only that it is a shame that there are some who are so proud as to be unable to truly serve anyone but themselves.

History:
Haverhill was born in Haverford, a village in Pembrokeshire, in Wales. He was the son of an English haberdasher, who gifted him with a very long set of names taken from his wife’s country, Spain. His father expected him to be naturally retiring as his Spanish wife was, but Haverhill was extremely wild and resisted all efforts of his father to settle him; his mother died of typhus when he was two and thus exerted no influence on his upbringing. His father remarried to a Frenchwoman when Haverhill was six, causing Haverhill to escape the house and shop whenever possible. His brother was born when Haverhill was seven, and as retaliation he attached himself to a gang of street children. Things went downhill from there, and by the time Haverhill was sixteen he was the meanest, foulmouthed, and vicious of all. He had no sense of decency or a fair fight, always fighting to win using whatever means necessary.

This, of course, got him into trouble with the law, and Haverhill was sent to prison when he was twenty, to await sentencing for a violent robbery. He escaped from prison and fled to London to lose himself among the large population. He avoided police capture on the way up there by cleaning up his appearance and pretending to be a servant. He was mistaken in London for the footman of a high-status merchant by the merchant’s drunken butler, and decided to hide out at the merchant’s house by pretending to be the man; he discovered that he did indeed look enough like him to pose in his stead. He clobbered the actual footman when he returned to the house and shipped him out, unconscious, in a cargo container bound for India.

Haverhill, possessing a keen intellect and realising that he needed to clean up his act if he was to survive, applied is intelligence towards learning the trade of a footman, and the manners required of the higher servants; he had an eye towards being promoted. He had to leave London suddenly, however, because six months later the footman returned, very bothered by his treatment at the hands of Haverhill.

Haverhill relocated to Edinburgh in Scotland, where he found gainful employment as a footman to a baronet. He stayed in this man’s staff for twenty years, rising to the position of house steward. Unfortunately, the merchant passed on, and Haverhill found himself unnecessary t the rest of his family. He relocated again, since no one in Edinburgh would hire the servant of another well-known man, and traveled to Newcastle-Upon-Tyne.

There, he found that John Doyle, not then Lord Wothersham, was in need of a house steward, but required the man to have a rather exacting set of credentials and thus had so far been unable to fill the position. Haverhill applied for the part, and was hired when Doyle took a liking to him for his intellect. Haverhill has now been Doyle’s house steward for nine years, following him every time he moved. He also functions as Doyle’s valet and butler, because Doyle is particular and did not wish a different man for either position. He has very little to do in the part of valet, as Doyle much prefers to dress, shave, and otherwise take care of his own person, despite customs of the time.

Haverhill, after a time (five years) informed his employer of his checkered past, and was assured that Doyle was not concerned with it in the slightest; this endeared his employer to him forever. Doyle is the only one in Lindebo besides Haverhill’s brother that knows of Haverhill’s former criminality, and Haverhill is Doyle’s only close friend and confidant.

Strengths:

• Intelligent
• Well-off
• Head of household staff at all of Lord Wothersham’s residences
• Only truly trusted friend of Lord Wothersham
• Able to keep his mouth shut
• Charismatic when he wants to be, large circle of acquaintance
• Physically fit
• Used to hard work
• Intimately familiar with the way both the lower circles and higher circles of society operate
• Does not see himself as bound by the ways of a gentleman (although he usually behaves as one)

Weaknesses:

• Aging
• Bound by life as a servant –has virtually no free time to spend on his own pursuits
• Must be at the beck and call of Lord Wothersham at all times
• Must put up with all manner of snubs from the upper classes with a smile on his face
• Touchy about his past

Picture:


NPC: Amaury Bertrand Yves Remi Haverhill [pr. Ah-moh-hee Behr-ton Eev Hrreh-mi] (Avatar Michel Lapidus)
Haverhill’s brother, 42 years of age. His father’s unfortunate tendency towards rather long names continued even after he married his second wife; the only difference is that he chose names from his second wife’s country of origin, France. Amaury is the half-brother to Haverhill by George Haverhill’s wife Yvette Rosseau. He, too is a servant in John Doyle’s employ, the butler of his country estate, Wothersham Manor. Haverhill secured the position for him some time ago, and Amaury has ever since been grateful. Wothersham does not mind him but is nowhere near as attached to him as he is to Haverhill.

Amaury is a shy and retiring fellow. Quite efficient when left to his own devices, he is a good manager for the estate when Doyle is not staying there. However, it is just as well that his brother always travels with Doyle, since Amaury loses his facility when confronted with his employer. He is kind, courteous, and always avoids confrontations. He speaks quite softly, and with a heavy French accent.



Note: This character is really a fleshed-out subsidiary of John Doyle’s. He will often be “modded” by that character.

:banana: Approved.

:mjinga: