A man sits at a typewriter and stares at the keys for a moment, lost in deep thought before he give a small smile. Hidden sadness creeps into his eyes and face as his memory loses it's fog. He has spend his career serving others and now in his retirement he has spent most of his later years conducting interviews with many people. From requesting audience with the Queen to the lowest of the poor in the East end. This wasn't his job to be a journalist but once he had explained his reasons for his questions most agreed to give him his answers.
This man is by his friends as Burr but throughout his career he was simply known by his surname, Bradford. In his lifetime he has served only one family as a butler and this was a unusual family of nobles to say the least. Ever since his services were taken by the family he noticed something off and even after leaving them he couldn't forget them. Now in his nineties and his former employer among the dead he has decided to write down a memoir about his time serving the family.
Bradford was one of the older servants this family had, he witnessed the exchange of two of his masters and saw the end of the family line. He had seen the family be torn apart in a accident that claimed lives and ruined them as well. But he also saw a new staff come in and be treated as family more than as just servants.
Now as he let his fingers rest on top of the keys he started to write about this family and it's history and how it's end came to bloodline :
The Espritmort's were a family of high class and grace that I myself had the honor of serving for more that fifty years of my career; that I have the pleasure of saying that it was a life well spend to serve them. I began to serve under Master Malcolm and Mistress Rosalie, a lovely young couple starting their lives together. They had a large staff of forty servants composed of butlers, maids, cooks and a few gardeners; I was one of these men and women.
Mistress Rosalie was a fragile and fine featured woman, she was quiet and kind towards us. She offend went on business trips with the Master and soon after my engagement into my role she started to show signs of pregnancy and a few weeks after the staff noticed she announced it to the family's friends and extended family a grande party held at the estate. To be honest the couple's future seemed bright on that night, we had no clue that anything of the sort would fallow in due time.
Master Malcolm was the owner and manager of many companies in London, all of them handed down to him from older generations of Espritmort men. The Esprit Clothing Company was a high fashion production for nobles and also made middle class articles, our uniforms were from their designs. Then there was The Esprit Toy's Industry that they manly owned, every child in London had a toy from them in their home, they catered to all the classes with they stock. Catalogs of their industries could be found in many homes across the British empires.
The two of them welcomed their first and only child into the world later that same year. A boy in which they loved greatly, when he was older he helped them with the toys that they produced, samples were brought home and if he liked it the first copy was given to him. The young Master was picky in his early years, there was only one toy that he ever seemed to like, a stuffed brown bear. The young master played with it every day until he was seven years old and he found that it was wearing thin and falling apart. His mother being the woman she was took the toy and placed it in a safe place, assuring him that his friend would stay around for a very long time and she would not let anyone throw him away.
The young Master made his parents very proud, he was well behaved and did well with his tutored lessons. But it was when the Master was ten years old and his parents went on a business trip together with him that he changed and he was no longer the boy that we knew.
