Felicity: An American Girl ROMANCE, PT3, CH5: Forsythe 'Manner'
Just when you thought things could not get worse for Felicity...*sigh*
The spacious grand hall, as Felicity already assumed it would be, was not a warm or inviting place. There was a huge dark fireplace, unlit, just as cold as the dark stone floor they tread upon. The hall was pillared, with a stone staircase rising up out of the middle of it in cold majesty. Everything looked heavy and serious, unemotionally masculine, but Felicity was not surprised. What did surprise her was that someone as frilly and outlandishly dressed as Reginald Forsythe called this place home. But what struck her as being the most eerie-even more so than two suits of polished armour on display just inside the doors, the paintings of grim-looking men and women on the dark-plastered walls, or the ebony urns displayed in the wall recesses between the unfriendly portraits-were the maid servants of the manor, gathered at the base of the stairs. All but two of them were black, and therefore slaves. They wore drab grey and looked empty-eyed, none too pleased that the lord of the house was home.
They struck Felicity as being the sort of women who were rarely happy-and why should they be? They were slaves, they were owned by Forsythe. The two white women standing before the group were stiff-looking, prim and formal in their lighter-grey servant's uniforms, with white mobcaps and aprons that looked almost elegant compared to the drab of the slave womens' clothing. One of the white women was tall and spindly, with dark red hair and spectacles, while the other woman was chubby and brunette, with dark eyes that seemed to immediately suggest that she hid an attitude that most likely would make itself known just as soon as her lord's back was turned.
The two white women looked as though they were ready to address Forsythe as if he were a military general and they his soldiers.
"Genevieve. Esmerelda," Forsythe said in formal acknowledgement of the two white women. They curtsied, as did the slave women standing behind them. Forsythe smiled thinly at the them. "I am home for good this time. I assume everything is in order?"
"Yes, m'lord. 'Tis good to have you back," said Genevieve, the tall, spindley one, sounding like she was not the slightest bit happy he was home for good.
To the plump maid, he inquired "Have you anything to report, Esmerelda?"
"Nay, m'lord, all is well," reproted Esmerelda, who seemed to be thinking that having him home for good was not well at all.
"How is my mother?"
Esmerelda stepped forward, hands clasped behind her back, and said, "She fares the same as before, m'lord. Sits in her room or out in the garden, but still she does not seem to know anything or anyone."
Forsythe pursed his lips and nodded, as if this report was just what he had expected to hear. "I see. Perhaps I shall go up and see her this evening. Send someone to tell her that I have returned."
"Yes, m'lord." Esmerelda seemed to be the type who, although obedient to her master, had something going on behind her grey eyes that seemed to suggest that she had an attitude that did not hesitate to rear its ugly head once the lord of the house's back was turned.
Forsythe turned to Felicity, who was being held by the shoulders by Madame Helga in the shadows, gestured at the servants with his greyhound-headed walking stick and said, "Felicity, this is Genevieve, my head of female staff, and that is Esmerelda, head of kitchen staff." He turned his head to the maids, who gazed at the bewildered young woman being held still by Madame Helga with scrutinizing, unapproving eyes. "Ladies, this is Felicity Merriman! I have brought her here from His Majesty's colonies to be my wife and the new Mistress of this house!"
"I am not going to marry you!" Felicity snapped through gritted teeth, not caring one whit about what the maidservants of Reginald Forsythe were thinking of her. "You stole me from my family and brought me here against my will! And as soon as you are within reach, I am going to get my hands around your throat and make you plenty sorry!" She struggled against Madame Helga's grip but could not get free. If she had been able to, instinct and rage would have propelled her to make good on her threat.
But Forsythe ignored her completely. "She has suffered tremedous shock, having been a victim of the Patriot rabble-"
"I have not!"
He ignored her still. "She has been affected mentally and emotionally, and I know that in time, her personality will be calmed once more under my care and affections-"
"Like hell!"
Again with the ignorance. "So I ask that you give her space and plenty of patience while trying to overlook her...afflictions as she settles down-"
" 'Afflictions'?" Felicity's green eyes went even wild in outrage. "I am not afflicted with anything but a plague of you! You took me from my family and forced me here! I will not be calmed, nor will I ever become calmed, and I absolutely WILL NOT MARRY YOU!"
Forsythe merely smiled his thin, uppity-stiff smile, turned to helga and said as casually as could be, "Madame, will you please show my fiance to her room I chose for her so that she may rest and refresh herself?"
"I am not your fiance, you weasel!"
"Come along, Missy!" bossed Helga, steering her squirming charge toward the grand staircase. The black slave women quickly stepped aside, giving the burly Swedish woman plenty of room to drag the unruly girl from the colonies up the steps. "Your days of spiteful behavior are over! You vill learn t'be a lady and vife of a lord!"
"Oh no I won't, Madame she-bear! I am the victim of a wrongful snatching! If you do not let me go I will make the most trouble for this place you've ever seen! I'll raise more hell than Satan himself could manage! I'm not afraid of you! I'm not afraid of anyone here! And if you think for one that I will ...!"
As the girl and woman exchanged loud declarations furthur on up the staircase, the black women glanced at each other nervously, Genevieve and Esmerelda exchanged a look that clearly said, 'This is not good,' and Forsythe himself just sighed and rubbed his forehead aggitatedly. Bringing Felicity Merriman to the manor had not gone at all the way he had imagined it would. Why did she have to be so defiant? why couldn't she just see all of this was done for her own good as well as his? Women were supposed to be submissive and demure!
But Lucille was this way, too. So full of life and energy! Lucille needed proper tutilage, too, and she would have become the finest of gentlewoman as I grew to become a fine gentleman, and then she and I could have-
"M'lord!" shrilly whispered Genevieve, scurrying over to him with Esmerelda hot on her heels. "That girl is a hellion! Why choose a girl of no class or breeding-a commoner, m'lord! She's nothing but brash lit'l chit!"
"The situation is under control, Genevieve," assured the actually unassured Reginald Forsythe, pinching the bridge of his skinny nose. "I want her, so she is here."
"B-but...the American colonists are so uncivilized!"
"Genevieve, I do appreciate your concern, but the matter is settled. I have chosen her, and there will be no more tiff about it. She is distressed, that is all. Traumatized, you see. Once she and I are wed she will see that she has no choice but to settle down and enter into her role as wife and lady of the house."
As part-head of the maid-staff at Forsythe Manor, Genevieve did not like the soaund of that. Not one bit.
"Which reminds me..." Forsythe spun, turning to Smedley, who had been patiently waiting the orders which he knew were coming. "See to it this message is delivered to the rector of St. Mary Redcliffe before evening. Be quick about it." Forsythe pulled a folded parchment from his inner coat pocket, sealed with the wax impression of his family's crest, and handed it to the expectant old gentleman. "I want to start the process immediately."
"Of course, m'lord," acknowledged Smedley blandly.
" 'Process,' m'lord?" inquired the plump and inquisitive Esmerelda, also not liking this blunt intrusion of the lower class.
Forsythe gave her an irate 'What of it?' look and replied, "Why, the publication of the banns, of course!"
"Oh," sighed Genevieve and Esmerelda in grevious disappointment.
"And Esme," instructed Forsythe smoothly, "I want you to augment a large pinch of this to everything my fiance consumes." He handed Esmerelda the vial of white powder.
"Your mama's powders, m'lord?"
"That is correct. It will help calm her down so that she will be...more agreeable. As head of kitchen staff, you are to oversee all meals that are prepared for her. Make damn sure she gets it. 'Tis imperative."
"Y-yes, m'lord." She curtsied quickly and took off for the kitchen, scolding at the balck women she was in charge of to hurry along.
"Now I myself will freshen up for dinner. It has been a most tiring morning." losening his overly-frilly cravat. Forsythe started up the stairs with a lot on his mind.
Watching him ascend, Genevieve quickly drew close to Smedley and whispered, "Why has he chosen to take an ill-bred for a wife?"
Smedely sighed stressfully. "Because she bears a startling resemblance to the late Lucille Elswick."
Genevieve gasped, brought her bony hands up to her mouth. "Indeed! The governess in that painting 'e used to sit and stare at all the time!"
"Yes," affirmed the irritated butler. "He believes that he can make that girl over into the dead one."
"Bosh!" scoffed Genevieve in dislbelief. "That 'girl' is as uncivil as I've ever seen! Aint no way I am going to take orders from that lit'l wench! I have not spent a whole heapin' chunk of me life trainin' his negros just to give over to the likes of her!"
"Be quiet, woman," Smedley advised in a low tone. "He will listen to no one. He is beyond reasoning. It should give you some assurance to know that the girl has no desire to be his wife or mistrss of this house. She is quite adamant about that."
With intensely curious eyes, Genevieve whispered, "Did he really snatch her away from the colonies, Mr. Smedley?"
The blank-faced butler was quiet for a moment. At length he replied, "Depends upon how you view the situation, Miss Peach. His rationale is that he rescued a beautiful girl from the ravages of uncivil society who just happens to resemble the late Miss Elswick."
"But did 'e just steal her away from her home, like she's yellin' about?" pressed the maid persistently.
Again there was another contemplative pause. "Yes. I suppose he did." He sounded as if the fact had just occured to him.
Genevieve's eyes went wide and her mouth agape. "So it's true! But still, why-"
Smedley stared her directly in the eye with quietly burning forcefulness. "I told you why. And you will not say anything to anyone about it, lest you wish to lose your job, and I know you do not, because with England spending so much money on war the lords of the land are not exactly seeking maids and butlers for hire. Do we not understand each other, Miss Peach?"
Genevieve gulped, her pressing intensity immediately turning docile. "Aye. Of course, Mr. Smedley." In other words, it was 'keep your mouth shut and you will not get fired or end up in the bottom of a ravine because you know things that you should not.' Genevieve was not entirely oblivious to how the Forsythes disposed of trouble.
"Very good. Now I believe we both have work to attend to..." Hands clasped behind his back, he turned and left her standing there to think.
And what she was thinking was how much she hated the nuisance colonist that had just been brought into this house. Not even from a family of wealth and title! Not even English! Lord Forsythe had always been odd, but this just beat all she had witnessed since she had come to work for the quirky family. So let 'im have the lit'l trollop! Just as long as she does not interfere with my control!
The room Felicity was taken to was eerily bright and elegant compared to what she had seen thus far of Forsythe Manor. Madame Helga had slung her into a room that had sky-blue walls above whait dados and wainscoting, a white marble fireplace unlit but displaying various porcelean figures of Roman women on its mantle, white furnishings and a bed with four tall iron posts with muslin drapery over an ironwork canopy.
As soon as Felicity was slung into the room the door was shut and bolted from the outside. Felicity whirled around and screamed in anger, started at the door to commence pounding and hollering, but stopped just short of running into what she thought at first was the doorless wall. She blinked rapidly in confusion, wondering where in blazes the door went, but upon closer inspection saw that the room had a jib-door-the type of door that seemingly disappeared into the wall around it. That still did not relieve any of her rage and nervousness, though. The door was still bolted on the outside.
Her hands in fists, she kicked furiously at the door's white lower half. She was not going to accept this. There had to be another way out! But then, where in God's name would she go if she did escape? Would she be able to find anyone that would listen to her and help? Just because this was England did not mean that everyone in it was like Forsythe!
Felicity paced back and forth, from bed foot to fireplace, her mind spinning like mad, her every emotion strained to a near breaking point. There had to be something she could do! The thought of her life ending in this bizarrely bright room within a house that was more like a glorified dungeon was just unbearable! If it came right down to it, she would be willing to die here by her own hands-smash that silver hand mirror on the white vanity dresser and cut herself open with a shard of its glass was a thought-but if there was a way, any way at all, to get out of here alive, then she'd do it!
And there just had to be a way!
She strode over to one of the room's two tall windows and flung apart in the middle its dark blue swirly flower patterned curtains. Right away she began trying to lift the sash, emiting little grunts of frustrated effort. It was difficult, but she managed to get the window open just enough to stick her head out of it and look around; to her left, the ivy vine snaking up the manor's front went past the window. Just from looking at it she could tell it was nowhere near strong enough to support her for a climb down. Though she was only on the second floor, it was a high second floor. She was sure to cause herself serious injury if she dared to dangle from the sill then attempt to drop on down.
As if broken bones were worse than being Reginald Forsythe's captive! There was nothing to her right that would be to her advantage at all. There were no trees close to the house, no shrubbery below to drop into to break her fall (she thought briefly of Arthur Pratt and prickly bushes, so long ago!), and nothing at all useful at other windows on this floor. That settled that, then; escape by window was not an option. Not a physically safe one, anyway. She swore, drew her head in and shut the window angrily, and with greater ease than she had gotten it open.
With her arms folded tightly against the chilly winter air outside, she walked back to the bed and sat down on the foot of it, glaring intensely at the dark blue square rug that covered alomost all of the room's hard wood floor. She bit her bottom lip. 'Twas so hard to think when her head hurt and she had little energy! Getting upset now was not going to do her a bit of good, either, but she felt the familiar rising of helplessness and despair rising in her chest and throat, threatening to clog her breathing if she did not let it out. I'm so tired! So drained. My head nags me and I just want to go to sleep and never wake up!
But she was only human. Even the strongest emotionally of humans had to have a breaking point, a need for release. She missed her family so very much. And this was even Yule-time! Though he hated her, she missed Ben terribly. She missed Elizabeth and Arthur. And Penny! A soft sob escaped her throat against her will. Everyone was so very far away! A whole mighty sea-world away, and here she was in England.
Alone.
The notion of 'if you do not save yourself, nobody else will' coursed through her mind and soul. Even the strongest heart needed to unload. So she allowed herself to cry some at last, quietly but hard. She even laid back upon the bed and wept into the bend of an arm until she fell asleep from sheer exhaustion. 'Twas so hard on the soul to be on one's guard all of the time! She knew she mustn't let that guard down for long. There had to be a way out.
There just had to be!
Later that very evening, the door unbolted and Reginald Forsythe strolled in, findinf Felicity seated at a skinny white tripod table, eating the rest of a late meal of beef stew. She looked wary of him, drowzy and moody, but at least she was eating. She glared up at him with muted green eyes burning with hatred as she spooned her beef stew. To his tremendous dismay, however, she was still wearing the same dark green day dress she had been wearing when she left Williamsburg; it was dingy with tears in it here and there where it had either snagged on something or just became worn from continual wear. Her red hair was terribly mussed and ratted-she looked like an actual with, he thought. He did not like it and her told her so.
"Well! I expected to find you just as refreshed and rested as I am, or at least wearing one of the lovely gowns in the wardrobe I had made for you over there, but here you are, looking as if you have been out harvesting potatoes in a wind storm!" He himself was wearing an ensemble of royal blue over white. His even frillier cravat nearly came up to his chin, and the cuffs of his blouse poofed out from his coat sleeves, reminding Felicity of the way corn kernels look when they had been popped over an open fire.
Had her head not been nagging her and her whole body not been feeling so lethargic, she would have pointed at him and laughed her head off.
"I do not want your gowns," she told him evenly. "I do not want anything of yours."
He sighed, pulled up an elegantly carved white chair across from her and sat down in it, folded both of his white gloved hands over the head of the walking stick. It unnerved him how even after having administered powders to her last meal, she was still fighting the effects even after a tiresome sea voyage. "You may as well cease this rebelliousness, Felicity. It will not help you any."
"No more than your forcefulness will help you," she vollied back flatly.
"Ah, but my 'forcefulness,' as you call it, has already accomplished my getting you to England and into my magnificent home!" He gestured wide with a gloved hand. "Do you not find your new surroundings to be extremely pleasant?"
"Nay, I do not."
"Nevertheless, Felicity, you will grow accustomed to them just as you will to me." His chin came up with a smirk. "I have come to tell you that we will be wedded by the end of the week."
Felicity's insides clenched with tension and fury. However, she dared not let him see how much she feared that revelation. If he was awaiting a reaction of some sort he would get none. Finished with her soup, she laid aside the silver spoon and said blankly, "I will not marry you."
"But you will, my angel. You have no choice. If you wish to see your-"
"Oh, that again!" she interrupted seethingly. " 'If I ever want to see my family again, I must do this and I must do that.' And I am telling you my family would understand my refusal. What are you going to do to me, Reginald? Deny me food and water until I give in? Go ahead, then! I'm ready to die-I've just spent a month and a half at sea making peace with my Lord in preparation for death. There is absolutely nothing more you can take from me because you have already taken all that I cared about. I have nothing left but my life, and I am ready to end it." She smiled briefly, wickedly, for emphasis.
Forsythe fumed inwardly. It bothered him immensely that she was right: He had taken her from all that she loved. What else was there but her life? He had nothign to threaten her with, but then he actually did not want to threaten her at all. He wanted her to come to him willingly, submissively, like he had wanted Miss Lucille to remain with him. Surely she would see that becoming a wife would have to change her!
"You are a woman," he attempted to reason yet again, trying to remain calm and unaffected. "'Tis a woman's place to yield to a man when she becomes of marrying age. Perhaps they do not teach you that in that uncivil colony from whence you came, but I am trying to instruct you in the refined, proper and acceptible ways of life. A girl is under her father's keeping and then her keeping is transferred to that of her husband."
Felicity braced herself coldly. "And because you tell me so, I must unthinkingly obey at once?"
"Yes!" Forsythe smiled encouragingly. "That is quite correct!"
"Well then, *Casse-toi, pauvre con," Felicity stated viciously with a snarly smile, and Forsythe, who understood his French, grew red with anger.
"You will not say such disrespectful things in my house!" he ordered hotly.
But Felicity remained docile, albeit burning with anger. "I do not even want to be in your house!"
He stood up fast, bristling, and tapped the end of the walking stick on the floor with each emphasized word. "Now you listen to me! We are to be married by the end of the week. You therefore have four days to get used to the idea. And if you do not start behaving like the wife and lady you were meant to be, then I'll-I'll-"
"What," encouraged Felicity darkly and daringly, "have me whipped? Starve me? Put me in a dungeon in leg irons? Fine. You do all of that if it makes you feel better. But those are all situations that quickly lead to death, and I just told you I am ready for that. I much prefer death to you, anyway you look at it!"
His breathing quickened, his cheeks reddened, and he seemed to be at a momentary loss for words, for his mouth opened and shut several times, but no sound came forth. Felicity folded her arms tightly against herself, leaned back in the chair and just stared at him defiantly. He gulped, his struggle to maintain his control obvious. "You-you will- I will increase your dosages of powders threefold! You will be so senseless that you will have to do as I say willingly! I-I will show you who is in control here!" He strode away from her little tripod eating table to the jib-door. "Lucille would never have treated me this way! She would have never defied me the way you do!"
"But I am not Lucille," she told him evenly. "And I will not marry you."
"Yes you will!" His beady hazel eyes flicked over her fiercely. "You will have no choice since you will not be coherent enough to stop it from happening! The rector will approve our union because I am telling him that you have been traumatized by war in the colonies and that my love alone can heal you! When he sees you under the effect of the powders he will sympathize! I have it all explained to him, and he will marry us! The generous donation I've made to his church funds has helped sway any uncertainty of my story he might have had in the beginning. Accept it, Felicity. You are mine at last!'
"Never!' she hissed vengefully.
"And another thing-since you refuse to make your physical appearance a priority, I will have Madame Helga force you to clean up! And if you defy her, I will make it a point to come and watch!"
Felicity winced sharply.