Thank you for giving this story a chance.
~May 18th 1847~
"Isabella, dear." My maid calls from down the hallway. I glance back through the double, balcony doors which are still open a crack. I don't want to leave the calm sun set because it is an unusually clear night for London, England.
"Yes, Ms. Emma?" I ask her when I am able to pry myself from the balcony.
"Your mother would like to see that you are prepared for the Ball." She say's with a slight smile, her blue eyes antsy. "You look wonderful Madam, I assure you that."
My eyes wander down my fully dressed body. The dress it's self is thick; perspiration covers my entire body underneath. It is a lovely pale pink colour with long sleeves that end in a decretive ruffle. I don't care much for it. It is like every other dress I have ever worn. Ms. Emma can see my distaste.
"Now, Isabella. Tonight you meet the man you will marry. Try to smile." She says while pinching my cheek. "Your mother met your father at a Ball just like the one you will be attending this evening."
She pats the top of my head, shifting the ringlets piled there. I keep up a pleasant smile while she reminds me that my mother is seeking my presence, but the smile fades as Ms. Emma steps from the room.
My knees buckle and I collapse into my skirt; it makes a halo around me on the carpeted floor of my bedroom. I can't help but feel like a horse; what, being prepared all day just to be shown and then auctioned away?
I don't want to marry a man my mother and father approve of; in fact I honestly don't want to marry at all. Years of watching my mother have turned me off of the idea. She is somewhat like a machine. She organizes the servants, oversees that I am getting an appropriate education for a woman, and socializes politely at my father's galas and Balls. She seldom has any expression on her aged face and she never smiles. Never.
I lay still on the floor, picturing myself as my mother. Dressed in my finest just to sit in my home all day and command orders robotically. The shakes begin to roll through my shoulders before I push the frightening image from my mind. I pull myself from the floor, with some difficulty; the dress weighs nearly ten pounds and I was never one with grace.
Reluctantly I push through the double doors and into the main hallway of the house. Servants and cooks fly through the corridors screaming at one another to get this or that. They are preparing the long dining table along with clearing a space for dancing. As they pass me they all pause and take time to comment on my appearance. I simply bow my head to thank them and then they are off again; running like mad through the mansion.
As I approach the staircase my mother's icy voice drifts up to me with an echo. She is giving Ms. Emma a hard time about my not being in front of her when expected.
"Well, where is she?"
"Madam, she is finishing dressing. She will be here shortly."
"I sent you to fetch her and you came to me with nothing?"
"I'm here, mother." I call out when I can see that Ms. Emma is uncomfortable.
"Thank you, Ms. Emma." Mother says stiffly. "You are dismissed."
Ms. Emma gives me one last quick smile before she disappears down a long and narrow corridor. My mother watches her go before she turns her gaze to me, her glassy eyes looking me up and down. I take a deep breath and start my slow decent down the stairway. With each step my mothers frown and the wrinkles on her forehead deepen.
At the bottom she reaches out and places both of her white gloved hands on my shoulders. "You look lovely, dear." She says with the same amount venom in her voice as when she is commanding the help. In my seventeen years I had never heard her speak differently.
"Thank you." I tell her and curtsy clumsily under the weight of the dress.
She takes her hands away from my shoulders and places them at her side; resting them on her skirt which juts out at the hip. "Well, why aren't you smiling?" She asks. "You will be finding a husband at this ball, will you not?"
"Is that a reason to smile?" I fire back, bitterly. I see nothing in the situation that makes me want to smile.
She takes a step back from me, her eye brows furrowing before she stops herself. A lady always keeps a straight face. I can remembering her telling me this when I was merely five years old. I had fallen in the courtyard and cut my knee. When I made a fuss about it she slapped my wrist and taught me the lesson her mother must have taught her and so on.
"Why, yes it is." She says when she has composed herself. "When I was seventeen, I was nearly giddy to meet your father and to start a family."
I stare at her, only seeing myself in the stiff features. I look so much like her, except for the eyes. I received my chocolate brown eyes from my father.
"You? Giddy?" I ask with surprise. "I can't even begin to imagine that."
She has her response at hand quickly; almost as if she were expecting me to challenge her. "Isabella, despite your beliefs I am human and I have emotions. I'm not the robotic fool you think I am."
I let out a slight snort through my nostrils before I give my response.
"How can you expect me to find joy in marriage if I will end up an emotionless, lifeless woman?" I shriek at her. Several of the servants scurrying around on the upper level pause to observe what is happening.
"Marriage," she begins in a weak voice; I have insulted her lifestyle. "is the best thing that can happen to a woman. And you will be married." As she drew to the end of her sentence her smooth tone had appeared once more.
"Mark never got married." I spit back in rage.
Mark, my elder brother, left for Switzerland for schooling and we never heard from him again. My parents never really seemed to care that he never married.
"Mark is a man Isabella. He can get a job and a proper education." She says in a calm, reasoning voice.
"I could get a job." I say feebly.
A slight laugh escapes my mothers lips despite her lack of a smile. "As what? Will you become a cook, or a nanny, or a servant? Or when that fails, will you die in the street?"
I feel as if she has slapped me across the cheek, but I stand staring at her blankly with nothing witty to tell her. If anything her eyes grow even colder and she turns from me and walks slowly down the corridor, shouting orders to the help as she goes.
It takes nearly all of my strength and courage to not scream at her that I wouldn't be marrying anyone, anytime soon. Nor would I be attending the ball. The only thing that keeps me rooted to my spot were Ms. Emma's hands slipping over my shoulders; so much more comforting than my mother's hands. She must have overheard the argument and kept a close watch.
"Your father will be home from the court shortly. He won't want to hear any of this nonsense about you not being married." She whispers in my ear with a stern voice but her eyes and expression are full of nothing but sympathy.
"What do I care what father thinks?" I growl at her. "I barely speak with him as it is."
Father spends most of his day at the court, where he is the master judge. In the evenings he is either smoking his pipes on the terrace or at one of his, or a neighbours social gathering. I don't think little of him, as I do my mother. I know that he is a hard working man who supports our family generously while still maintaining intimacy with my mother; as impossible as that sounds.
"You know your father would like to see you married, dear. Your brother failed to find a woman and your father must want descendants."
"He can live without them."
"Isabella,"
"I don't see why I need a man to live."
Ms. Emma bites her lip a little and her gaze shifts to the upper level of the house. "You don't need a man to live. But if you don't want to end up like me, a man would certainly be to your benefit."
My eyes roam over her bloated body and tattered, stained dress. Her hands are dry from washing too many dishes and her eyes are sleepy from having to take care of me for seventeen years. I honestly don't want to end up like her but I wasn't about let her know.
"I wouldn't mind." I say and hold my head high.
"Just give the ball a go. Will you? For me?"
It's hard to resist the kind smile on her cracked lips. "Alright, I'll go. But I'm not going to fall in love tonight."
Review and let me know if it's wirth continuing