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Chapter 3
“Dear, oh…” Rowena paused as she closed the bedchamber door behind her. “Are you crying?” She appeared most afeared at the idea, staring at Violette as though she had grown two heads.
“Is there any surprise, Mother?” she asked, crossing the room, and reaching for her bedside table where there was a handkerchief. Rupert seemed to lose interest in following her around the room and raced toward a basket in the corner of the chamber instead, making himself comfortable in a blanket she had laid there for him that morning.
“Well…is it a crying matter?” Rowena asked uncomfortably, walking toward her.
“Mother, I did not want to play, and he made me do it anyway. Then he embarrassed me in front of your guests.” Violette explained as she mopped up her tears. Rowena said nothing though she walked toward Violette and tapped her shoulder, attempting some kind of comforting action though she retrieved her hand rather quickly, looking even more uncomfortable than before. “Why are you here, Mother?”
“To talk about your father,” Rowena said as she took a seat on the bed. Violette sat down beside her, trying to mop her tears dry even more. “I know he is stern—”
“Stern?” Violette repeated in shock. “Mother, he is rude too! He insists on me being proper and refined, yet he does not seem to notice when he makes a faux pas.”
“He was simply ashamed and wanted to make you stop playing as quickly as he could.” At Rowena’s words, Violette looked up to her mother with her eyes wide.
“Thank you, Mother. I needed that spelt out so clearly,” Violette said with sarcasm as Rowena winced.
“That did not come out quite the way that I intended it to.”
“I am sure it did not,” Violette said, sniffing and trying to stop herself from crying any more. Her thoughts turned to the Earl of Northrive, fearing what he must think of her after her shocking playing.
“Your father’s manner comes from a loving place, really,” Rowena said, sitting a little taller in her place and urging Violette to look back to her. “He wants to see you settled with a good marriage. You will be provided for then. You will have a good life ahead of you.”
“What if the life I want for myself is not one of marriage?” Violette scoffed at the idea as her gaze slipped past her mother toward the paintings and her brother’s drawing on the wall. “Why is the only option for a happy future to both your and father’s minds, one of marriage? Are there truly no other options?”
Rowena said nothing for a second, though she pinched the bridge of her nose in clear frustration.
“It is the world we live in, Violette.”
“And you think that makes it all right?” Violette asked, hurriedly standing to her feet. Now that her tears had finished, she tossed the handkerchief back down on the bedside table with such rage that it slid to the back and nearly fell off. “Just because it is the way it is done, must all we ladies stand in line, like soldiers following orders. Father says I must marry. Therefore, it must be so! Do you not hear how absurd that sounds, Mother?”
“Dear, please—”
“No, Mother, please, tell me something,” Violette asked, pleading with her mother. “Did you ever want another life? Something else other than a life of marriage?”
“What I wanted was immaterial.” The surprisingly harsh tone that came out of Rowena’s lips made Violette fall still. “It is the world we live in, Violette. A woman cannot provide for herself very easily. You want to be happy? You want to wake up every morning with food on your table? Then you must marry. That is the end of the matter.” Rowena got to her feet and walked across the room, signalling the end of the conversation. Violette balled up her hands into fists, feeling her stomach burn in anger at the unfairness of it all.
“Yet…Victor can have any life he chooses,” she said miserably.
“Have you missed the fact that he was born a man, Violette?” Rowena asked, turning round with a hand on the door handle, preparing to leave her chamber. The words were so harsh, speaking the facts so plainly that Violette struggled to answer right away. She looked up at her mother, feeling that fury burn all the more.
“Mother, please….”
“We cannot hear any more of your objections,” Rowena said, holding up her hands and stopping any more words from coming. “Things are changing now, Violette. There will be no more hiding in the garden. You will attend all of your lessons with Mrs Anderson, practising the piano, French, and all the other accomplishments you need to be called a fine young lady.”
Violette felt her spine slump a little in refusal. What if she wasn’t fussed about being called a fine young lady?
“When your lessons are finished, you will make your debut at the end of the summer. If you practice your accomplishments well, you will no doubt marry quickly and have a happy future ahead of you.” Rowena reeled off the words as though they had been rehearsed or taken out of some book. Violette could imagine the book very well, and the title too. A Lady’s Guidebook on How to Behave and Marry a Lord!
“Mother, marry me off, and I will forever see it as trapping me in a future I do not want,” Violette said, keeping her voice calm this time. “I will be miserable and forbidden from doing the things that make me happy.”
“What is that? Your sports? Your horse riding?” Rowena scoffed at the ideas. “You have grown up now. It is time you left your boyish ways behind you. They will not make you happy forever.”
Violette felt the tears prick her eyes again. She was unable to stop them, with the tears trickling down her cheeks to fall on her dress.
“They are what make me who I am, Mother. Just by you denying them, it cannot change who I am,” she said, between tears, feeling her body hiccough with the gasping cries as the tears overtook her completely.
The tears were out of grief now. Grief that her mother didn’t appear to love the person she was and had no care to protect that person.
