Chapter 34
Alfred
My heart slams in my chest.
And I cannot meet Annabelle’s eye.
I expected my father’s anger.
But his worry—that I had not prepared for.
I close my eyes for a moment. I think of all the times I shared with my father, the easy and the difficult and the boring and pleasantly mundane.
My father was so proud when I took my degree from Oxford and became a curate for the bishop of Newcastle.
When I was a young boy we used to take tea together, and he explained the inner workings of the church, that world which he spent most of his time thinking about.
He explained the hierarchies and the systems and the beliefs and the different factions that agreed and disagreed and agreed again.
When my mother died, he was kind. Despite being a strict man, he did not scold me when I wept. He folded me into his arms.
All of these memories flash in my mind.
Finally, I turn to Annabelle.
I am ready to face her scorn. And what I suspect will be her veiled hurt.
“Do you despise me?” she says, her tone strangely calm.
“Despise you?”
“I have caused you to lose the good opinion of the one parent you’ve had all your life. It would be little wonder if you abhorred me.”
“Annabelle, you cannot think I take my father’s view.”
I move to hold her in my arms, but she moves away.
“Annabelle,” I say. “Do not be vexed with me.”
“I am not vexed with you,” she says, moving towards the window. The bright afternoon light gilds her profile. She looks like an angel, even with her severe dress and serious expression.
“You clearly are.”
“No, Alfred, I am not.”
“Then why can’t I touch you?”
“I am thinking.”
“About what?”
She turns towards me.
“Does it bother you? That you won’t be able to dine at your father’s table? Or at your friend’s, the MP?”
I bite my lip and run my hands through my hair.
“No,” I say finally. “Not when I have you.”
“You can have me and care about such a thing, Alfred. You essentially said it yourself. Just this morning.”
I turn away from the bright window in frustration.
“Alfred,” she demands.
I turn back towards her.
“Yes, I care,” I say. “Of course I care—but not enough to repent. If that is what you are asking.”
“It isn’t,” she says, looking at me but not moving towards me. “I will never do anything that respectable society demands. I have no one in my life anymore who belongs to the world of my birth. But if you care what they think, Alfred, then it is a different matter. I do not want you to suffer.”
I step towards her, feeling desperate. “You will break with me over that, Annabelle? I will renounce anyone, anything, for you. You must know it.”
“No,” she says. “I will not break with you. I will marry you.”
I cannot speak. I open my mouth and no sound comes out.
“You don’t want to marry me,” I finally manage.
“I never wanted to marry anyone,” she says, her tone one of resignation. “But I will marry you now. It is the right thing to do. And it will hardly be a bother to me.”
“I don’t want you to marry me out of a sense of duty. Or because my father commands it.”
She shakes her head. “It is not that. It is not your father. You will suffer more if I keep you here as mine for the whole world to see but not as my husband. I can have Perry draw up documents. They will be to my advantage.”
Imagining myself as her husband sends a warmth cascading through my chest. But the position will mean nothing if she doesn’t really want it. If I am just a burden to her.
“You don’t want to be my wife.”
“Perhaps not,” she says. “But I want to be the person in the world with the greatest claim to you. Not your father. Not your friends. I want to own you, Alfred. And if marriage is the way that I can get that, if it is the way that I can silence your father and have the greatest claim to you, then I will do it. I didn’t realize before that this would be necessary. Now, I see that it is.”
“That is not the same as wanting to marry me.”
“Listen to me, Mr. Alfred Saintsbury,” she says, her voice low and almost frightening. “You will marry me. It is what I command.”
“No.”
She lifts her chin and I know what is coming before she says it.
“Then I will break with you. Give you a portion and send you back to London to shift for yourself. Because I will not sit here and watch you suffer for something I can fix.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“I do.”
“You wouldn’t do it.”
“I would.”
“Do you love me?” I ask.
She looks at me, her expression almost pitying.
“I cannot love anyone, Alfred.”
“That’s not true. You love the Ludlows. I have seen it. And you must love your friends—the ones back in London.”
“I am fond of them all. I would not call it love.”
“I want you to want it. I want you to love me.”
For the first time, she steps forward. She places her hand on my cheek.
“I care for you, Alfred, more than I thought I’d be able to care for any man. I certainly could marry no other.”
“You don’t want me as your husband, Annabelle.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me.”
“It shouldn’t. I am a selfish creature, Alfred. I will have everything my own way. I want you—and I will have you. And you needn’t suffer any more consequences than necessary. When we tire of one another, you may take other lovers. I will not object.”
“I will not tire of you, Annabelle,” I say, outrage suffusing my body at the callous thought. “That is not the kind of marriage I want.”
“You are too innocent,” she fumes. “You don’t understand the ways of things between men and women.
You will tire of me as I will tire you. We will want to live separately one day.
But we needn’t hasten to that point. But enough of this now.
We must marry immediately. We must marry tonight.
We will have Mr. Peabody do it. And I will have Mr. Perry prepare the marriage articles. All you will have to do is sign.”
“And you will force me away from you if I don’t agree?”
She raises her chin once more.
“Yes.”
I don’t know if I believe her. If she would really send me away.
But I am not strong enough to take the risk.
She doesn’t love me.
She knows she will tire of me.
And yet there is only one answer.
With Annabelle, there is only ever one answer.
I sink to my knees and pull her towards me.
“Yes,” I say. “Then yes, I will marry you.”
Finally, she sinks down into my arms.
I thread my fingers through her hair. In the afternoon light, it coils on my fingers like strands of spun gold.
“Have it all your own way,” I say, my lips at her temple. “I will sign anything. Of course, Annabelle, I will marry you.”
She buries her head into my shoulder.
And I choose to believe that, on some level, she is happy.