Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
“Father, you cannot be in earnest!”
“I am.”
Anna Adley stared at her father across the breakfast table, her fork hanging loosely in her hand.
He had come home impossibly late, risen with red eyes and the stench of smoke and brandy, sat at the breakfast table in a mope for most of the meal and now had the indecency to tell her, mumbling the words into his morning coffee, that she would soon be married.
“To whom shall I be married?”
“Mr Klane.”
Anna’s fork clattered against her plate and her father winced.
“But-but,” Anna barely knew where to begin.
“Anna,” her father raised his hand placating. “He is the richest man in London.”
“With a terrible reputation!” Anna exclaimed. “Everyone says he has no background, he does not even have a title, he is thought uncouth, and hard, and possibly a criminal! You truly want to align our family with his?”
“It is no longer about want. I am doing what I must.” Her father rubbed his red eyes. “He will take my title for your firstborn son.”
“But-but that is Andrew’s title,” Anna’s heart constricted as she thought of her brother. “You told me no other man would ever bear it, that it died with him?—”
“Everything died with Andrew!” Her father jumped from his chair, his plate, eggs and coffee cup smashing to the floor.
“Papa!” Anna rose quickly, sweeping a napkin off the table and bending down to clean it up. She was reluctant to call the servants when her father was like this.
“You should not even mention his name to me!” her father roared. “If you hadn’t been in that carriage?—”
“It was your idea, Papa!” Anna cried, rising up to face him. “You told us to attend the ball.”
She didn’t see her father move but his slap made Anna stumble against the breakfast table, spilling the teapot. She pressed her hand against her stinging cheek, her eyes smarting as she stared at her father. Since he had begun drinking, these violent tendencies had been emerging.
“I will not marry him,” her voice was tremulous with tears. “You cannot make me.”
“There may be nothing I can do to force the words of marriage from your lips, but I can tell you the truth.” He lifted his red, feeble eyes to her face.
They were filled with malice. “Our finances are ruined. You cannot expect another offer of marriage to be made to you once the news of our misfortune is made known in Town. How will your poor mother fare, do you think, when we are ruined?”
She could not believe her father was leveraging her mother’s poor health against her.
Then again, a year ago, she would not have believed her father would gamble away their fortune, trade her happiness for gold, and strike her when she dared to speak her mind.
She did not know him anymore. There was only one more bargaining chip she had.
“Andrew would not want this for me,” she said softly. “If he were here, he would stop you.”
Her father looked at her with hard eyes. She saw his hands clenched into fists and winced, anticipating a second attack, but he did not move.
“If he were here, you would not be.” Her father shook his head. “No amount of wishing can change that.”
Anna drew in a sharp breath, pained by his words. She knew he wished his children’s places were exchanged, he had said before, but it burned just as much as the first time he had said it.
“Will you accept him?”
The question was moot. Her father was really asking if she would save her mother. It took an army of doctors and specialists on rotation to attend to her various medical needs. Without financial support, she would surely perish.
“On one condition: You will take care of my mother. You will not gamble away her health with the money my new husband gives you.” Her voice caught on the strange word. Soon she would have a husband. “You will swear this.”
“I swear.” He spoke the words too quickly, his watery eyes darting to avoid meeting her own. She doubted him completely but had no idea how to make him care. “When will he come?”
“Tonight. You will be married in three days.” So soon. Her heart was weak with the immediacy of it, but she stood firm. “I have told your mother.” Anna nodded. At least she was spared that task.
“Well, I should have a conversation with her.”
Anna swept out of the room, walking quickly upstairs so that her father wouldn’t hear her tears.
She rested against an upstairs door, letting her sobs fill the heavy, silent air.
Their money problems had started the day that her elder brother Andrew died.
Her father had walked into an alehouse and not come out for three days.
Her mother was so worried she had taken to her bed.
It had been five years, and Anna had been forced to run back and forth between the two, trying to mend something that she soon realized could not be fixed.
In the last year, her father had held the estate together on a thread of promises and loans.
Anna was tired of the humiliation, of lying to society and asking the cook to stretch the side of beef as far as it could go. She was so exhausted.
“Anna, darling? Is that you?” Her mother’s voice drifted to her from down the corridor. Anna rubbed her hand across the back of her nose, sniffling hard before heading to her mother’s suite.
“Yes, mother?”
Anna’s mother sat in bed, resting against a pile of cushions. Anna’s heart clenched when she saw her pale, drawn face and thin grey hair braided into a neat plait. The years since her brother’s death had aged her - she looked like an old woman.
“Have you been crying?”
“No, mother.”
“Come, sweetheart, don’t lie to me.”
Her mother patted the bed beside her with a frail hand. Clearly, she was having one of her better days. Though her body seemed weak, her eyes shone with some of their old spark. Anna crossed the bedroom to sit on the embroidered quilt beside her mother.
“Papa told you?” she asked dully.
Her mother nodded. “This morning. He said he has made a fine match for you. You are unhappy with it?”
“The man, he… he is not…”
Anna struggled with her words. How could she explain her fear of being matched with such a disreputable man without potentially putting her mother at more risk? Doctor Graham, her primary physician, had been very clear about not putting additional strain on her mother’s nerves.
“He is not what I expected,” she finished lamely.
“Oh my dear, no man ever is!” Her mother smiled gently. “Every young girl feels trepidation before their wedding.”
“It’s not that I - I - don’t,” Anna’s voice broke and she bit her lip. She stared down at her fingers as they twined together anxiously. “I - I don’t love him,” Anna whispered. “We always dreamed that I would marry and be in love and be happy, I don’t know him, I’ve never even met him!”
“Oh, Anna!” Her mother’s hands pressed against her trembling fingers, gentle but still strong. “I never expected you to love your husband before your wedding.”
“You didn’t?”
Her mother laughed softly. It was not quite her twinkling laugh of full health, but the sound of it filled Anna with joy, nonetheless. She couldn’t help but smile.
“No, darling. Even if a couple professes to love one another before they are wed, it is not usually true love, the love that comes from knowing a person deeply. It is usually a childish infatuation. Like how I felt about your father.” Her mother sighed deeply, her eyes drifting as she was lost in memories.
“Love is a wonderful thing, Anna, it’s right that you want it for yourself. ”
“What if I don’t feel it with him?” Anna blurted out. “What if we marry and I despise him?”
“Oh, darling. You must not worry about that. Every marriage is a step into the unknown.”
Her mother touched her face. Anna was overwhelmed by the gentleness of her mother’s touch and her tears fell even quicker.
Her father had dropped the news of her marriage so quickly that she had not even really had a moment to consider how the dreams she had built in childhood of meeting a man and falling in love had fallen apart.
“I worry I cannot love a man like him,” Anna gasped. “With his… reputation…” Anna stopped herself from saying more. She didn’t want to upset her mother, but her mother batted away her concerns with a wave of her hand.
“My dear, who a man is known to be and who he truly is are two entirely different things. Do not concern yourself so much with reputation. You never know the truth of a man’s heart until you live with him in matrimony.
Anna, look at me.” Anna lifted her blurry eyes to her mother’s face.
“You must give him a chance. You must give love a chance.”
“Oh, Mama!”
Anna fell forwards into her mother’s arms, relaxing into the comforting scent of her: The strong, herbal tang of her balm of Gilead that she took for her nerves and the soft, warm smell of her cotton nightdress.
Anna breathed deeply, her mother gently stroking her head until her breathing steadied.
Her mother’s words comforted her deeply and she closed her eyes to rest a moment, safe, in her mother’s arms.