Author's Note: So so sorry about the delay... I moved house recently and everything has been a bit crazy. Absolutely no time for writing. For those who may be reading 'Battle of the Angels', the same applies to that story. I hope to have the next chapter of that uploaded by tonight. Anyway, enjoy, although things are getting a little darker as of now and will get progressively worse... poor Esme.

Warnings: Violence of sorts

Disclaimer: Twilight does not belong to me. Repeat... DOES NOT. Thank you.

Chapter Four

18th February 1917

Esme's POV

I sit in my bedroom, staring idly out of the window. Just in the distance I can see that tree I fell out of six years ago. Six years! It seems almost no time at all since Doctor Cullen was here in the house, treating me for my broken leg.

I still remember that day, far back at the end of nineteen-eleven when I saw him drive past in his car, on his way out of Columbus forever. I am sure there was a moment when he turned his head and looked at me... but perhaps that is just my fanciful imagination.

A lot has happened since that day, when I was sixteen and had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. I am sure I know now. I have always had a soft spot for small children... for any children, really. I often babysit for the couple who live near to us, about a mile away. When I was in my teen years they had three small children and I used to go over about once a fortnight to look after them. I flatter myself that children like me.

I do not want to get married. I know it sounds ridiculous. Why wouldn't I want to get married? It is every girl's dream. To have the beautiful dress and the handsome groom. But no. I believe that to be married you have to have passion. And the only passion I have ever felt for any man is virtual hatred for my father and an unrealistic love for a certain doctor who left Columbus about six years ago. I wish to be a teacher. A teacher of small children, preferably. I am competent in all the maidenly pursuits, thanks to my mother. I know how to play the piano in a basic manner. I can sew, draw and cook. I have a smattering of English Literature knowledge and a fairly solid comprehension of sums and math. My French is not so good, even though mother employed a Monsieur Pierrot to come and tutor me for one afternoon a week when I was fifteen, but it is comprehensible. I believe I would make a good teacher and I have my heart set on it.

Why, not every woman has to be married. My Aunt Lynne has lived as an old maid all her life and she is nearly fifty now. Yet I hear my father talk about her with a sneering air and I know he is not the only one. Whether I like it or not, an unmarried woman past the age of twenty-five is odd in this society. It may be petty of me, but I do not wish to be talked about like they talk about my Aunt Lynne. Even my mother is almost unbearably cruel about her when she believes I am not listening.

Still, they are my parents, and I know they love me. I hope that they will accept my decision. I am twenty-one and will turn twenty-two at the end of this year. December the fourth to be exact. I want to move West and possibly start up my own school. That is my dream.

My mother is busy in the drawing room, attempting to mend the drapes that have been fraying for months now.

'Mother?' I ask, tentatively. She looks up and smiles at me.

'Just hold on a minute, darling. Come and sit by me.' She pats the cushion next to her and I perch myself there, almost rigid with nerves, my heart beating hard in my chest. Soon enough she puts aside her needle and thread and turns to face me. This is it.

'What is it, Esme?'

I anxiously fiddle with one of my curls which has fallen from where I swept my hair back this morning.

'I wished to talk to you about... about my future.' My mother beams at me, genuine joy lighting her otherwise tired features.

'Oh! You've met a young man in town? Is he suitable? Is he going to court you? Oh, Esme, this is so exciting!'

Wincing, I try and stop her tirade.

'No, no, mother. I have not met anyone. I wanted to talk to you about something different.'

My mother frowns. 'Different?'

'Yes. I... I want to teach. In schools, probably small children. I have been looking at advertisements in the papers. There is a position open just West of here...'

I freeze at the look on my mother's face. Her lips have drawn into a thin line and her eyebrows have pulled together. I know this look and my courage shrivels inside me. Sure enough, her tone is as cold as ice.

'Esme Anne Platt. You are not going to head off into the West to become a school teacher. You are going to stay in Columbus and you are going to marry one of the many eligible men in this town. That is your duty. Do you understand me, or do I have to call your father?'

Oh, there are so many things I wish to say at this moment! I look at my mother's once beautiful, now tired, face and wish to tell her that I do not want to end up like her. I yearn to say, Yes, call for father all you wish, you will not change my decision. I wish I had courage. Instead I shake my head dumbly, feeling the tears start to prick at my eyes. But I shall not weep. I have at least enough strength for that.

'Good,' my mother announces, after scrutinizing me closely for a few seconds longer. 'Then we shall say no more about that sort of foolishness. Shall we?'

'No mother,' I murmur quietly, my gaze still cast down submissively at the carpet. There is silence for a few moments longer and then I feel my mother's weight shift as she moves closer to me. Her hand clasps mine which is lying in my lap.

'Please understand me, darling,' she says, and her tone is so unusual for her that I raise my eyes to meet hers. 'I do not forbid this just to hurt you. Believe it or not, I know what it is like to have unrealistic dreams. But that is all they are. Dreams. They cannot come true. All I want is for you to be happy and I know that marrying and acquiring a good standing in society and surrounded by children is what you need.' She pauses and raises a hand to stroke my curls affectionately. 'You have brought me so much joy darling. I do not want you to miss out.'

The tears still feel like they are going to fall, but this time it would be for a very different reason. It is rare indeed that my mother opens up to me this way. So often she is corseted by the etiquette of society or my father. I decide, on a whim, to take advantage of her unusual frankness.

'Did you want to marry father?' I ask her bluntly, my eyes searching her face.

'No,' she responds after a long pause and a quick glance around to make sure that we are entirely alone and no servant is hovering who could report back to her husband. 'I did not. I did have my eye on another young man but unfortunately my feelings were unrequited and he got married to his sweetheart. They were a golden couple and I was left on the sidelines.' There can be no mistaking the truth and sadness in my mother's features and I am astonished that I never knew any of this before. She clutches my hand tighter. 'I do not want that for you. I do not want you to be left on the sidelines. Esme... you are twenty-one-years-old. If you do not get married soon then you will be left like your Aunt Lynne. Alone and mocked by society. I could not bear that.'

'I understand,' I whisper, and I do. I have always known that my mother wants the best for me, or what she believes is the best. And she is probably right. After all, she has many years of experience and must know the ways of the world. Perhaps getting married will bring me happiness. I will never have my doctor, my ideal husband, but maybe I can have second best. And even if I am not happy... my mother will be.

My mind is made up. I shall marry and be happy about it. Even if it kills me.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

December 17th 1917

So, this is being married. Strange... I had imagined it to be different. I thought I would feel different, perhaps older and more mature. But I feel the same as I did this morning when I was still Esme Anne Platt. Now I am Mrs Esme Evenson but it seems like nothing has changed.

My mother cried during the ceremony. I expected that. My father sat, gruff and dry-eyed throughout the whole service. I expected that too.

I had thought that Charles my husband, Oh Gosh my husband, would have said something like You look beautiful as I stood at the altar with him. But he said nothing, even though my wedding dress was the height of fashion, created in the new short style. Mother and I had designed it ourselves and she had spent a lot of money on the material and the pattern. I believed I looked nice, and Cynthia Briar, my bridesmaid and closest friend had told me so. But from Charles... not a word.

And now we are here, at the little house near the centre of Columbus that is to be our married home. No honeymoon for us, for Charles is keen to return to work. He opens the door and walks in, hanging his hat and coat up on the hook just inside the hallway. I pause for half a second, hoping against hope that he will sweep me up in his arms and carry me over the threshold. That is what they always do in my books, and then the new bride giggles and they share a passionate and loving kiss.

Charles turns to me, smoothing a hand over his hair, frowning. 'What are you hovering out there for Esme? Come on, you are letting the cold air in the house.' His words are not especially sharp but they make me flinch a little nonetheless. He sounds so – bored. Like we are not venturing out into a new life together as husband and wife. Still, perhaps I am expecting too much. And he was certainly romantic enough during our courtship, in the latter few months of nineteen-seventeen. He proposed on my birthday... my twenty-second. I remember he produced a slightly wilted bunch of red roses and clasped my hand. He then proceeded to make a speech about profitable unions and I have to confess I did drift off a little. Still, my mother assures me that it was most romantic, so I suppose it must have been.

Coming abruptly back to the present, I move over the threshold on my own two feet, clutching my handbag to me tightly. As soon as I clear the door Charles sighs almost irritably and quickly shuts it behind me.

'I suppose you shall be wanting to straighten things up,' Charles says gruffly.

I am at a bit of a loss. Do I? I suppose so, that's probably what newly married women do, isn't it?

'Have all the trunks and suitcases been arranged then, darling?'

'Yes. As far as I know they have been stored in the drawing room and upstairs in the master bedroom. You should probably get started with it, otherwise it will not get done before tonight and I want to sleep in a properly set-up bedroom.' He turns to face me and there is a strange, greedy expression on his face that I have not seen there before. I feel a slight shudder run up my spine and a squirmy, queasy feeling settle in my stomach. Of course. The wedding night. My mother did try to prepare me as much as possible for it and she brought me a pamphlet on the subject putting me under strict instructions not to let my father see it.

It all sounds a little intimidating if I am honest but I was assured by my mother that it is quite pleasant once you get used to it. Feeling my face flush with a sudden heat I lower my gaze to the slightly threadbare carpet.

'Of course, darling.'

He has lost interest and is already turning to head towards his new study.

'You can fetch me a stiff drink. I shall be at my desk, there is some important work to be done.'

'A drink already, darling? But it is only three o'clock in the afternoon.'

He stops, halfway down the hall, and I see his muscles tense around his shoulders and back. Very slowly he turns around.

'I said get me a drink Esme.' His voice is heavy, dull and slightly threatening. I recognize it from twenty-two years of living with my father.

'Of course, Charles.' I hurry into the kitchen and get a crystal tumbler out of one of the cabinets. Most of the essentials have already been put away by our newly hired housekeeper, Myrtle, although some of the personal items have been left for me to deal with. The ice chinks against the side of the glass as I pour his drink and I knock gently at the door of the study before hearing him say I can enter. I have already decided that I do not wish to anger him. Besides, he may just be in a bad mood. I know he is essentially a gentle man, if a little boring. Why, everybody in town believes him to be very respectable and they cannot all be wrong, can they?

'Here you go, darling,' I say softly, putting the glass down on a mat next to him. He is scrawling away at his paper, doing what look like to me, incomprehensible sums. He pauses for a moment and looks up at me. His face creases into one of the first smiles I have seen from him all day.

'Thank you, Esme.' I feel a warmth flood me at his words and almost skip back out of the study. I knew he had just been stressed, and were we not all allowed to get a little tense and irritable from time to time?

Seven Hours Later

Ten o'clock in the evening. I have spent the time since arriving sorting out our few personal belongings and arranging them in the various rooms. In doing this I have discovered another passion of mine. Arranging houses and decorating them brings me a peace and joy which I used to acquire from climbing trees, gardening and sketching.

I am proud of what I have achieved with my first house of my very own. I assume that once Charles and I begin to have children we might move somewhere a little larger because there is not much room for babies here. As it is, I believe I have made this house cosy and homely... a refuge for Charles to return to when he has had a bad or stressful day at the bank. I can hear him now, his heavy tread ascending the stairs.

I am sitting at my dressing table in our master bedroom. There is a smaller one just off the upstairs landing and to the right which I have designated our guest room.

Myrtle went home two hours ago after clearing up our late dinner and Charles has been in his study since then, working nonstop. I glance quickly around our room, making sure that everything looks to be in its place, and then continue pulling a brush through my curls. Those butterflies are back and fluttering more madly than ever. I view my reflection in the mirror. I do not look too bad. My mother helped me to pick out some nightgowns which are alluring and yet proper at the same time. She told me that Charles would not want his wife to look like one of those 'fast' girls, but that there was no harm in a sophisticated yet tempting nightgown.

'After all, dear,' she had said to me. 'You are young enough to get away with it.' My figure is not bad at all, that much I will allow. I am perhaps not quite as thin as some of the girls in town, yet I am slender. Years of healthy exercise and walks in the garden have done that for me at least, even if they did not make me into a lady.

I see my hazel eyes widen in minor panic as Charles thuds along the landing and then the door creaks open.

'Hello, darling,' I say, turning on my stool to look at him. 'How did your work go? Did you get all of it done?'

'Most of it,' he grunts, abruptly starting to disrobe. I stare at him, finding it impossible to pull my gaze away, and yet longing to nonetheless. I am sure there is supposed to be something before we actually... you know. Some sort of passionate and yet loving build-up. But perhaps that is fiction, just as the threshold idea apparently is.

He is down to his undershorts now, leaving the rest of his clothes in a heap on the floor. With a sigh he pulls back the covers on the bed and gets in. Only then does he meet my eyes.

'Come on then. Please do not hang around there forever.'

I blink, panic starting to beat wildly in my chest. I do not know what to do. I do not know how to behave! I would have thought that we could have explored this together...

Tentatively I move over to the bed and delicately slide in beside him. Instantly his hands are on me, grabbing at handfuls of my nightgown and pulling it up and over my head. I do not stop him, why would I, he is my husband, and yet I feel somehow ashamed. Nobody has ever seen me like this before. I have never felt so exposed in front of somebody else.

This is apparently a problem he does not have. Perhaps it is different for men. He throws my gown aside and then shuffles out of his undershorts. Panting now, he latches his mouth onto mine and this is very different from the dry and chaste kiss he gave me at the altar. His tongue is sliding over my lips and I am reminded of a slug. It takes everything I have not to pull away.

I feel his, excitement, poking at the outside of my bare thigh and panic surges again. Charles appears not to notice. With a few more grunts and muffled words which I cannot make out, he shuffles in the bed so that he is lying on top of me. I manage to twist my head away from his insistent kisses for a moment.

'Be gentle. Please,' I whisper. He does not respond and a few seconds later I feel an incredibly sharp and searing pain. If he sees my agonized expression or hears my slight cry, he does not mention it, nor does he slow down. Gradually the pain fades as he thrusts, yet my tears carry on continuously... long after he has rolled off me and fallen asleep.

Okay, so next update will be tomorrow. I have a few more chapters written so updates will be quite regular. Hope you enjoyed and as always if you did, please review. If you write on here you'll know how much a review means to an author! xxxx