Flames of Revenge

Dinner Party

13th March 1872

  

GENEVIEVE CHAPWORTH

The night of the fire.

A birthday. What a silly occasion to celebrate. I never have been a fan of the commemoration of just another boring year lived, but this one will be different, I tell myself. I smile to myself in the mirror, fiddling with my hair and dress out of habit. This birthday will be very different indeed.

I grin as I think of how they will all react, and I am glad to find that for the first time I do not give a damn what anyone else thinks. Today is my birthday, my eighteenth, and today is the day that I will announce that I am getting married. Tomorrow. By then there will be nothing they can do about it. 

My dress is beautiful, folds and folds of green silk. I will probably get married in it tomorrow. But I could get married in a burlap sack, and I'd be content. I would be content because he loves me, and I love him. And that is all that matters. He won my heart, even when I thought that I had kept it so well hidden. He found it.

He was the only one to succeed, but definitely not the only one to try. Arnold Preswell, he tried to win my heart with boastfulness and pride, thinking that I was a possession to be acquired and that I would simply stand beside him and act impressed. He did not know me at all, and he never will. He tried, but he couldn't find my heart. He couldn't see it past his ego.

"I tell you, Genevieve my dear," he told me. "I think that we would make a fine couple,wouldn't you say?" I was about to reply but he didn't give me a chance to. "You really have a chance to make a life for yourself and do good by your family, with someone like me. I'm successful, rich and come from a very good family."

 "But Arnold, I--" 

 "Not like your father's sister," he continued. "She married a pauper and then came crawling back, did she not?"

 "Yes, but--"

  "Answer me this, Genevieve," he asked, "What would you say if I asked you to marry me?"

 I shook my head. "If you asked me, I would say no. A thousand times."

He turned to me, shocked. I bet he was under the impression that I was going to cry out a yes, and throw myself into his arms with joy, maybe even faint with happiness. He didn't know me and he never would. 

"But..." he stammered, "But...why not?"

 "Because I don't like you. And I'm sick of having to pretend that I do. Don't take it personally." 

"But what does liking have to do with marriage? You're just a naïve young girl, with ignorant dreams of romance and love. Story time is over, Genevieve. It's time to grow up now. I'm rich, I have excellent social standing and I am the heir to a fortune! You will not do much better, by your father or by yourself." 

"My answer is still no, and it always will be. And what you have just said has set it in stone."

"What more do you want?" His expression changed to a sneer. "I bet there's someone else,isn't there? Who is he, a prince?" He laughed haughtily but without much humour. "He would have to be royalty to keep you happy, wouldn't he, Miss Chapworth?"

I sighed. "You really are an egotistical idiot, aren't you?" I said, and then turned to walk away, my shoes breaking the tranquil silence in the gardens with clacking sounds on the pavement. I walked back inside, leaving him gaping there like a fool.