Florence
It is truly painful to look into the face of disappointment. I try to convince myself that I don't care, that I've hardened my heart to that constant feeling of letting him down, but the expression on my father's face cuts deep between my ribs.
"I just don't know what to do."
Sometimes, it's like he's talking to my mother, as if he's asking her for advice. Where did he go wrong? How can he save me now? But he's looking into my eyes instead of hers, and I am the one that shoulders his weariness now. I make him tired.
"I don't know," I whisper. I was prepared to fight after my poor behavior at the ball, but by the time the party had dispersed he was too tired from being cold toward me that we didn't speak, and now several days later it's as if the silence between us has continued to drain him. Still, I can't bring myself to apologize to him. All of the hurt won't erase my own anger and disappointment.
"You don't even try to get to know them before you've decided you don't like them. You are beginning to acquire a reputation." His tone isn't biting, but the words hurt anyway.
"As what," I ask, "A shrew?"
"I am not at fault for how others think of you."
"And neither am I!"
"Yes, Florence," his voice is a sigh, and he doesn't look at me as he runs a hand over his face. "Yes, you are."
"I am either chattel or a shrew, and nothing in between."
"It is your decision to think of it that way. You are responsible for how you view the situation."
And he's right, in a way. But why should I have to make the best of it? "I resent that."
"What would you have me do?" His question is a continual echo through our conversation. There is no answer I can give that will satisfy him. "I've given you time, I've given you your choice of good men. You know that I'm being more generous than anyone else in my position. But you have a responsibility—"
"An obligation."
"Call it what you like." Here, his voice takes an edge, and he finally looks at me. His face is guarded, as if he's talking to a stranger, and I realize that perhaps to him that's what I've become. "Your mother and I were barely acquaintances when we married, but we both understood our responsibility to our station and our families. Do you think it was easy?"
"But you both wanted to be married."
"We both had romantic notions about what marriage should be, and that wasn't it. But we made it work because we wanted it to work. Love only grows if you let it."
"But you wanted it!"
"Do you not want to be married?" My father takes my hand in his, and for a moment I'm swayed by the familiar touch. His presence used to comfort me when life was scary, and now he is that part of my life that scares me.
"I don't know," I admit, and my stomach is tied in knots. It is a rebellion against everything I've grown up believing. Love and marriage are what my friends have aspired to for as long as I can remember. And all that time I've never confessed what I truly thought—how wonderful it would be to simply exist for myself—because I know how foolish, how selfish, that sounds.
"What would you have me do then?" The question again.
"Let me choose my own way."
"What will that be? I can give you your freedom but that doesn't mean the world will follow suit."
"I don't care. I could be a teacher, or a governess—"
"You, a governess!" He stands, his voice rising with the movement. "You would trample our name, give up your privilege, in order to be abused by some brat who could only dream of the opportunities that you already have? That's your freedom?"
My throat is dry, and I don't respond. I don't know how to convey to him how I feel. I know that it's hopeless in many ways.
"Listen to me, Florence. There are different kinds of freedom. You may find freedom in working your fingers to the bone for your bread, but others would find freedom in never having to feel that desperation. Do you understand that?"
"Yes, but—"
"There is some freedom in roaming the countryside at abandon, but there is also freedom in knowing that your needs are met and that you will always be safe. There is freedom in being able to move through society as a respected person."
"I know that, papa."
"Then what kind of freedom are you looking for?"
The freedom to exist separately from what is expected of me. The freedom to love, suffer, and make mistakes and pick myself back up from the dirt. The freedom of being a whole person. "Perhaps a kind that does not exist."
He doesn't say anything as he stares at me, but his gaze has softened. I know he wants to resolve our tension just as badly as I do, but we will never not be at opposite ends of the discussion. He knows how the world is, and I know how I'd like it to be. I don't know that there's anything he could do to help unravel the turmoil in my heart, but just once I wish that I could tell him how trapped I feel and have him really, truly listen. Just once would be enough.
"Florence," he offers a slight smile that doesn't reach his eyes. "All I'm asking is that you give one of these young men a chance. I'll give you the rest of the year to figure it out. You don't have to make a final decision about who you'll marry; just agree to be courted long enough to get to know someone."
"Or else?"
"I'll make a decision for you."
My voice is barely audible. "And if I don't agree?"
He sighs and turns to the door. "Don't do that, Florence. Don't make me threaten you."
And then he's gone, and my bedroom feels a little colder. I don't know why I push and push. He can't change the world for me, and I know that marriage wouldn't be as miserable as I sometimes fantasize it as being. Truthfully, I don't want to be a governess, and I don't want be a pauper. I don't think that's freedom either. It shouldn't be so impossible to exist outside of the narrow path society has carved for me.
My thoughts spiral into anger, toward what? Not toward my father, or England, or Daniel White, but to some nameless force that shapes reality without thought or care. My throat aches as I lie down in bed and pull the blankets up to my chin, but I refuse to cry. When sleep comes, it is troubled and shallow.
It's late when my father gently pushes my bedroom door open and steps inside. I blink quickly at the sudden realization of his presence in my room, but I close my eyes partially again and pretend that I'm still asleep. He usually checks in on me after we've argued, when he believes I'm fast enough asleep to not notice how his guilt has kept him from his own rest. But we are two of the same creature, and frequently I'm also lying awake, replaying each biting word I threw at him.
Instead of simply checking in and quietly closing the door behind him, he takes another step inside. A sudden chill courses through me from my toes up to the hair on the back of my neck as I realize that the footsteps on the floor are made by heavy boots, not the quiet slippers my father usually wears at night. I open my eyes wide and sit up quickly in bed, my mind reeling to wake up. I expect the shadow to disappear when I blink, like some dark terror that appears on the edge of sleep and is gone just as quickly, but the tall silhouette—much too tall for my father—only moves more quickly toward my bedside.
"Papa?" My voice hitches and I push myself back on the bed, away from the figure. There is no response. "Papa?" And then it's at my bedside, but just as I begin to scream a heavy hand clamps tightly against my mouth from behind. Another arm circles my ribs in a crushing hold, cutting my breath short. Heart beating hard enough to fill my ears with the drum of my blood, I thrash against the assailant behind me as the silhouette rounds the end of my bed to stand before me. I lash out with my nails, striking flesh, before twisting just enough to bite hard on the hand at my mouth. To my surprise the hand doesn't jerk away as I taste copper, only repositions to cover my mouth once again. I can feel the blood smear across my cheek as he adjusts his grip and reaches in vain to trap my arms. I cry out again into his hand, and he shakes the noise from me roughly.
"If you scream, who will come to your room first?" The voice comes from behind me, a deep Scottish burr growled into my ear. I stop fighting long enough for him to pin my arms tightly to me. It would be Ada or Josie, and they wouldn't expect to find anyone but me in here. "Good girl," he purrs. His stubble scratches my cheek and I do my best to jerk away. "That one maid is a pretty thing; it would be a pity to mar her face on your account." Between his tight grip and the hand smothering my face, my lungs are burning from the shallow breaths I'm allowed to take. The fire that courses through me urges me to fight, to run, but the other man in the room has positioned himself by the door, and I find myself pleading with god to not let my voice have woken up either of the servants sleeping nearby. "We don't want to hurt anyone, understand? Not the servants and not your father, and not you either. Nod your head if you understand." I nod and he chuckles, but the sound is menacing. "I'm going to take my hand away but you are going to be very quiet and very still, or else my friend will kill each and every person who comes this way—and then we'll kill you too. Still with me?" I nod again, and the hand lifts very slowly from my face. I take a deep breath and the dizziness in my head begins to subside, but my heart remains at its rabbit's pace.
"Who are you?" I manage to whisper. "What do you want?" The other man comes to stand before me, but this time I don't try to scratch him, I don't try to do anything. When he pulls my wrists together and binds them with a length of rope, I feel the urge to scream rising in my throat, but I stay quiet even while every part of me yearns to fight, to beg for help, to seek protection in someone that is not myself.
"We are your temporary keepers, and as long as you and your father are both able to do as you're told, no harm will come to you."
"You want something from my father." Ransom.
The arms slip away from me and instead a hand roughly grips my upper arm. "Something akin to that." In the darkness, I can see the dim outline of his face—a bristled jaw, a crooked nose, and lips that turn in a dark smile. "A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Ms. Blackmore."