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Chapter 6
“I cannot do this anymore,” Violette said to herself as she hurried up the stairs toward her chamber. She could feel the tears threatening to fall, only this time, she didn’t let them. She had cried enough times because of her father’s censure and feeling like a humiliation to him when she pretended to be someone she wasn’t. She would not allow herself to cry this time.
She ran into her chamber and turned round on the spot, wondering what to do with herself when a yap caught her attention. She turned to see Rupert had made his way into his basket. Seeing her, he jumped out of the basket and ran toward her. She dropped to the floor to embrace her dog, holding him close, feeling as though he were her truest friend in the house since Victor had left her.
“I cannot live this life, Rupert,” she said in a whisper to the dog as he jumped up into her arms. She stood straight, carrying him as she walked across the room, staring at the paintings of Italy and the drawing Victor had made of Paris.
She had once thought of running away and travelling alone as a lady, but many people had told her again and again what little freedoms ladies had. She was trapped and had no choice. As a woman, running away was impossible. Yet her gaze lingered on Victor’s drawing, realising what freedom he had in comparison.
“If only I could be like Victor,” she said to herself as another thought occurred to her. “No…if only I could be Victor. What life I would lead then!” She lifted Rupert higher in her arms so she could look him in the eye, talking to him as though he could understand her. “I would be free then, wouldn’t I? I could go where I liked with no one telling me that I cannot do that because I am a woman. I could talk about what I liked too, the races and so on, without ever having to talk of embroidery and the pianoforte.”
Rupert yapped and wriggled in her arms, wanting down.
“What is it, Rupert?” she asked him, though of course, he could not answer her. He only became more anxious to be out of her arms. She placed him reluctantly on the floor when he ran to the door, scratching at the wood to be let out. She followed him, releasing him from the room when he took off at great speed across the corridor. “Rupert!” she called anxiously after him, knowing that if Rowena discovered he had been in rooms he shouldn’t have been. There would be hell to pay, and it would be Violette doing the paying. Rupert was permitted in Violette’s room, but no other’s upstairs.
She ran after him across the corridor, grabbing the skirt of her dress and pulling it around her knees to aid her run.
“Come back here, now!” she called to the dog, but he disobeyed her, continuing to run across the corridor until he reached the far end of the house and began to scratch at another door. It was the door to Victor’s chamber. Curious as to what Rupert was doing, she opened the door and let him in.
At once, Rupert bounded into the room, heading straight to a second basket in the far corner. When Victor had been home, Rupert spent alternating nights in their rooms, so hadn’t been here for some time. He took up his position in the basket, sitting there happily and panting as Violette stepped in and closed the door behind her.
It had been left incredibly neat and tidy, thanks to Victor’s valet’s work. Yet, there were the signs of her truly messy brother around the edges. A couple of pairs of shoes had been thrown haphazardly under a chair where the valet had not seen them, and the wardrobe wasn’t quite closed. Violette walked to the wardrobe, about to close it, when she found herself opening it wider, with her earlier thought coming back to her.
“If only I could be Victor,” she said softly, looking at the clothes laid out before her. She passed a hand over the jackets, knowing how well they fitted her. More than once in the past had Victor helped her sneak out of the house, wearing his clothes. They had gone to race their horses once across the Oxfordshire hills.
Another time, they had gone to a small racing meet nearby. Dressed as a man, no one had ever recognised Violette and her parents had never discovered where she had been. They simply thought she had been hiding in the garden all day instead.
“Maybe I can be Victor,” she said, feeling a smile creep into her cheeks as she continued to brush a hand across the clothes. “Rupert, you are a genius!” Her praise made Rupert bark across the room. “Shh, we do not want anyone to know we’ve been in here,” she giggled, to which Rupert panted and wagged his tail happily. “Sometimes I think you are a lot cleverer than we give you credit for, and today is certainly one of those days.”
She began to pull out some of the clothes, holding them up against her body and turning to the mirror. The illusion had worked well in the past, so it certainly could do so again. Yet, there were a couple of things she needed to alter.
“How much like a woman do I sound?” she asked, looking toward Rupert in the mirror. “Hmm, rather too much.” She knew she already had a husky tone, but there was something feminine in the pitch. “How about this, is that any better?” Rupert tilted his head to the side, as though not recognising the voice that came out from her. She giggled at the view. “I suppose it will have to do.”
She looked at her hair, knowing that would have to be cropped short too. She could abandon her make-up and rouge for a while, giving herself a plainer and cleaner look. She even jumped and placed her legs wider apart, trying to adopt a stance she had seen Victor often take.
“Maybe Violette could become Victor. What do you say, Rupert?”
***
Violette waited until all was quiet in the dead of night. There was not a single doubt in her mind about the path ahead. As her mother had said, they had to make the most of their lot in life, only she was choosing a different path altogether to the one her mother had taken.
She wanted freedom, and if she could not have it as Violette, then she would have it as Victor.
Once the moonlight was streaming through the curtains in her chamber, she lit a candle, being careful to leave Rupert behind in his basket, snoring softly.
“Goodbye, my friend,” she whispered to him from the doorway, knowing that she couldn’t take him with her, as much as she longed to. She hesitated, unable to part so quickly. She hurried back into the room and bent down toward him, stroking him in his sleep.
The dog snuffled in his sleep before falling still another time. It was almost as though whilst she was saying goodbye to Rupert, she was saying goodbye to the person she used to be as well. She bent down and kissed the Jack Russel’s head before standing to her feet and leaving.
Once in the corridor, she checked up and down the length of it, looking out for any sign of her parents or any of the staff in the house, but her parents had long ago retired for bed, and with the staff having to arise early each morning, not one of them was still awake at this hour. With that freedom, she hurried down the corridor and went back to Victor’s room.
Inside, she found the clothes she had taken out earlier that night. Being a similar build to Victor, who was slight, she knew they would fit her. She might just have to tighten the clothes a little, for which she was careful to pack a small sewing kit, but other than that, she saw no obstacle.
She threw some of his clothes into a small leather trunk before turning to what she was wearing, throwing off her nightgown and reaching for the clothes she had laid out to wear, pausing when she turned to her figure in the mirror.
Her breasts would not be hidden easily. She considered taking the boarding off the board that stood in front of the fireplace as a face-saver, but feeling how rigid it was, it would never work. It would be as uncomfortable as a corset to walk around in. She wanted freedom from such things, after all!
Seeing the bed stripped of sheets behind her in the candlelight gave her an idea. She reached into a cupboard set in the wall and pulled out one of the sheets that usually sat over the mattress. Taking the scissors out of her sewing kit, she began to cut the sheet into strips before binding her breasts flat to her chest with those strips. She stood before the mirror to analyse the results.
