by Alice White
“I’ve done it,” Georgette had said with a flushed face and eyes that were slightly glassy, “I’ve managed to do it when everything was going against me.”
“Going against you?” Sacha had asked, feeling confusion and dread all at the same time.
“Of course! For who would want to marry the light of a lamp when they could have a star instead? Who would settle for a lump of coal when they could have a diamond? I know what you are, little dove, and I know what I amount to while I exist beside you.”
“No! No, please. Don’t talk that way about yourself, Georgette. You’re perfectly lovely, you really are.”
“Bah,” she had scoffed, waving Sacha’s comments off like a fly that would not stop bothering her, “say what you will. We both know the truth. Everyone in this house knows the truth, everyone in the city. But it doesn’t matter now, does it? Hugh may not be the most interesting man in the world, not the most intelligent or handsome, but he seems to love me well enough and he wants me to be his wife, so that’s enough. I won’t have to worry about it anymore, will I? I won’t have to worry about moving through my years alone.”
Sacha hadn’t known what to say then and thinking about it now, she still wasn’t sure what to feel. Who wanted to be given coal when they could have a diamond instead? What a horrid way to think of oneself! But then again, and this was the question she would never speak out loud, who wanted to be thought of as a diamond and as nothing else? William Shaw didn’t seem to think of her in those terms. He asked her opinion on matters and even seemed to listen to her answers (or most of the time at least, and really, who could expect to be listened to all of the time?). He knew that she had hobbies and he seemed to appreciate her skills and excellence in those arenas. When he had first come to court her she had thought that he must be the same as every other gentleman who had come calling. He himself was quite good looking and had the easy charm of a man who knew it without the arrogance that often times accompanied that sort of knowledge. In the beginning she had entertained him because she was polite and because her parents had insisted upon her doing so. But his continued presence had made an impression on her and by the time he asked for her hand in marriage, she had honestly (albeit it tentatively) believed that he valued her for her mind and her heart as well as her beauty and her wealth. And so she had accepted his proposal six months ago and the time had flown. Tonight was the night of her engagement party and very soon she would be somebody’s wife. Somebody’s wife. She couldn't help wondering to herself how long it would take before she felt like that was really true.
Chapter Two
“Darling, what are you moping about for? Why, one might think that you’ve no interest in your own engagement party. That’s what one might think. I for one simply can’t believe a thing like that. After all of this time with you sending suitors off like they were as common and readily available as a glass of water, you must be overjoyed to be finally settling down. You don’t show it, the good Lord knows that much to be true, but you simply must be. I won’t allow for you not to be. Simply won’t allow it.”
Sacha sat idly, listlessly even, at her vanity and peered into her gilded mirror without really seeing herself at all. Mrs. Clarkson, her very busy and very imposing mother, had bustled into the room and was beyond put out to find her beautiful yet flighty (not so, not so, NOT SO) daughter completely unprepared for the engagement party ball that was being thrown in her honor. It was still a few hours away and as far as Sacha was concerned there was still plenty of time for her to make herself presentable. Her maid had already come in to prepare her and been kindly sent away with the understanding that she would return at what Sacha considered to be a more reasonable hour. Or what she considered to be a reasonable hour. Judging by her mother’s presence in the room and the expression of dawning horror on her face, the concept of a reasonable hour was variable. Sacha made eye contact with her mother in the mirror and then sighed. She loved her mother, really she did, but sometimes her relationship with her felt taxing. Coraline Clarkson, formerly of the lovely and wild traveling gypsies, had taken to the good life as easily as a fish might take to the water. She loved her husband very much and it was that love (at least in part) that had driven their assimilation with the high society of New York City. It was a society that was very high indeed, therefore requiring quite a bit of assimilation before she was able to be even partially accepted by the circle her husband moved through. Not to say that there weren’t still little whisperings, rumors amongst the very upper echelon about the gypsy woman who had managed to make good. Sacha knew that her mother had always felt a need to somehow counter those things, but Sacha herself found it strange and funny. Strange because she in no way understood why people were so quick to judge, why they took such delight in doing so. Funny because her mother had never actually lived as a gypsy. That was the group from which she was descended, the Romanian Gypsies to be precise, but she had never actually lived as one, nor her mother before her. She was, for all intents and purposes, as well bred a girl as any other. It was only the legacy that lived in her blood that made her an unknown entity, and once considered unknown there was really no way to completely shed the stigma, was there? As if the whole if the city, the whole of the country at large, was not one great amalgamation of people from all different sorts of beautiful, terrible backgrounds with secrets and tales of their own to tell or to hold close.
No matter though, at least not to Mrs. Clarkson. She was determined to be the best of the best in everything she did, and the one time Sacha had attempted to discuss her feelings on the matter, things had not gone well. Her mother held the same opinion that so many others seemed to: that Sacha’s value lay in her beauty and her beauty alone, therefore negating the need to listen to any opinions she so foolishly ventured to express. Because it was so important to her to be a well-liked and upstanding member of the New York high society, she could not for the life of her understand why her daughter would even consider turning down an offer of marriage to one of that society’s members. Even when her eldest daughter Georgette (who she had so ungraciously described as being solid of mind and rather plain of face) had married the perfectly acceptable man who wanted her for his own; all Mrs. Clarkson had really been able to see was the fact that her Sacha had not yet been swept off her feet. Now that that special occasion was imminent, she meant to see that nothing derailed it, nothing at all come hell or high water.
“Sacha? Sacha! Please, daughter, you’ve got to collect yourself. This is something you should be so very excited about, just as the rest of us are. Please, let’s at least begin dressing, shall we? Martha? Martha! Your services are needed. Immediately!”
The formidable Mrs. Clarkson called out in a less than delicate voice for Sacha’s maid, whose little feet could be heard running as quickly as they could carry her immediately, as if she had been waiting for just such a call. And so it was to begin, whether she was ready for it or not, the great vast process of PREPARING FOR THE EVENT. That was how Sacha heard it in her mind, anyway. She heard it with all capital letters in a great booming voice that revealed just how important the whole thing was. How important this whole thing was to everyone around her. And to her? Was it as important to her as it was to all of the people who loved her dearly and still failed to really see her at all? Sacha did not know the answer to that question, and she found that for the time being, she did not want to know. It was one of those dangerous questions, the kinds that once truly asked were akin to the opening of Pandora’s box. No, she would not venture into those murky waters. Instead, she would allow her mother to fuss over her and Martha to make her hair and dress look just so. She would ascend the stairway of their grand family home with everyone who might be anyone standing in the foyer to ooh and ahh over her to just the proper degree. And there, right at the foot of the stairway, would be William, the man who had managed to make her feel as though her opinions mattered. For now, that was enough. It had to be enough. For what more could a woman be promised
of a life, what really? So she smiled at her mother’ frown, noting with satisfaction when the expression on the older face turned from one of disapproval to one of satisfaction. This was going to be alright. Everything was going to be perfectly alright.
“Excuse me, mum? Could you spare a bit of bread, do you think? It’s frightful cold outside and I ain’t got anything to eat.”
Sacha looked towards the massive wrought iron doors that served as the means of entrance for her home. Perhaps she had taken one too many cordials just as her sister had at her own engagement ball. For the last thing she expected to find in that front hall was a dirty little boy begging for some bread. She looked again, squinting this time just to be sure that what she was seeing was truly there to begin with, and saw that he was indeed. He was a small boy, such a terribly small boy, and he was covered in what looked like soot (but could in reality be any manor of awful things) from head to toe. If she had to guess, Sacha would have said that he was around seven years old, and as she knelt beside him she saw that he was indeed shivering. She glanced behind her, knowing full well what her mother or sister would have had to say about her engaging with a street urchin at a time like this, and when she saw that the coast was clear she turned back to her young surprise of a guest. He was filthy, that much was too true to possibly deny, but Sacha could see that beneath all of the grime of the city he was also quite beautiful. He had blonde curly locks and sweet sad eyes, a cherubic little face that would have looked just like one from a Raphaelite painting had it been fed and cared for properly. For Sacha, he was exactly the sort of thing she could not possibly ignore and after licking her thumb to wipe away some portion of the soot, she stood and took his tiny little hand in her own.
“Do you know what we shall do, my dear?” She said in a bright, conspiratorial voice that could not help but pique the little lad’s interest.
“What’s that, mum?” he asked in turn, his hand finally starting to warm inside of hers.
“We shall take a little adventure down to the kitchens, that’s what we shall do, but only if you can promise to be very, very quiet as we go. We’ll have to be very close to the wine cellar, which is where father keeps the cigars. There are loads of people here tonight, and wine and cigars are just the sort of thing they’re apt to come looking for.”
“And I’m to be a secret, is that it, mum?”
“That’s exactly it,” Sacha replied, her heart swelling with love and pity for this tiny little boy who seemed to catch on so very well, “a secret, or like we’re playing a game. There’s a great big grand party here tonight and I’m not the one who gets to choose who can stay and who must go. If it were up to me I would bring you right into the ballroom and introduce you to everyone I know. But it’s my mother who's really in charge you see, and she didn’t invite any children at all. So I’m afraid you’d stick out, just like--”
“Like a sore thumb!” the boy crowed, delighted with how much he knew. She gave him a startled look and he immediately clamped his hand over his mouth, only just then realizing how loud he was actually being. She nodded at him, to show him that she wasn’t angry and to show him that he was exactly right, and then led him cautiously by the cellar she was worried about. She saw William in there with a few of his friends, and, for a moment, her heart positively leapt in her chest. He had the door open and she could hear his voice and the voices of his friends wafting through the air. They were so wrapped up in their own conversation that they hadn’t noticed the intrusion, much to Sacha’s relief. She was determined to get this young man some food, it seemed like the only really important thing that would happen in this whole evening. She helped him up into a chair and fixed a plate piled high with the best bits of food she could find. By the way the boy’s eyes widened and his mouth dropped open into a perfect round O, Sacha judged that he probably hadn’t seen a meal like this in a long, long time; maybe ever. She was starting to feel really good about the evening for the first time when she heard a conversation floating her direction from the wine cellar and humidor that made her stomach drop into her feet.
“So what made you decide to marry this one, William? Was it the looks or the money? ‘Fess up, old chap, you know we’ll have it out of you soon enough.”
“Please, Randall, that’s my future wife you’re talking about.”
“You’re right,” the man identified as Randall replied in a heckling sort of a tone, “she is your future wife. And do you mind telling the lot of us by what miracle that came to pass in the first place? When she’s turned down practically every eligible suitor who’s offered his had so far? Why, if I didn’t know any better I’d think that you were the Prince of Wales. Although I’m quite certain that you’re nothing of the sort.”
“It was no miracle, not at all. It was so simple, in fact, that I’m almost embarrassed that nobody thought of it before me.”
Sacha held her breath, just as keen on hearing William’s explanation as the rest of his fellows must be. Surely he would say something lovely, something appropriately dulled for the benefit of his male friends but still suitable poetry. How could he do anything else? She must trust her future husband. She must learn to do that. It had to be part of a marriage. It just had to be.
“I made her think I found her interesting. That’s it. That’s all it took. Just made her think I was listening and by the time I asked the question, the only answer she could give was yes.”
“And do you? Find her interesting, I mean?”
“Really, what kind of question is that? Do you think that I’ve spent these last months wasting my time listening to a woman prattle on? We all know where the value in this one lies, chums. She’s extraordinary in her ability to serve as decoration, and that is all I require. And the dowry doesn’t hurt things any, that goes without saying.”
“And what of when she ages? What will you do with your little bauble then?”
“Why, I’ll put her back up on the shelf where she belongs. I’m sure she’ll have served her purpose by then. She can stay home with the children while I go out and play.”
Out of all of the answers her William could have given, out of all of her worst imaginings, this was the most unbearable. All of the things she was the most afraid of being seen as were encompassed in that man’s cruel string of statements. All of the things she did not want for herself were encased within the picture of their future he had painted. She felt her vision begin to close in around her and from somewhere very far away, heard the sound of the china teacup she had only moments ago been holding in her hand go crashing to the ground. Then, mercifully, there was nothing. She had fallen into a dead faint.
Chapter Three
“Excuse me, miss, are you looking for someone?”
“What? I’m sorry?”
“Are you looking for someone, miss? You seem a little lost. Must be, for you to have found yourself all of the way out here. Doesn't seem like there would be much for you in a place like this.”
Sacha struggled to make herself really pay attention, to understand what this man was trying to say to her. She was dismayed to find herself so entirely confused and disconnected from things. It was entirely unlike her (being one of the things she found most annoying in her dealings with others), but at the moment it was who she was. Not that many people could have blamed her. Not after the horrific last few weeks she had suffered through. Her dropping of the china (her mother’s really good china, something nobody had mentioned to her but for which she felt guilty nonetheless) had resulted in two things. The first was that the little boy she had so wanted to help had been removed from the home without a second thought. The sound of the china breaking had brought William and his companions running and their first assumption was that said little boy had somehow managed to offend Sacha so badly that she had fallen unconscious. The second thing that had happened was that her impending marriage had come to an end before it ever really began. Sacha would not walk down the aisle of the grandest church in the city towards that man. Had t
hings gone precisely as she wished them to, she would never have looked upon his face again. It wasn’t that she didn’t know that there were other men who had considered her in the exact manner that William and his indecent friends had displayed. That was why she had never accepted any of the proposals previously made to her. The really awful thing, the truly gut-wrenching thing about what William had done was that he had managed to make her believe in him before dashing it all to bits. In relatively few words he had managed to make true all of her worst fears about what a man would feel he should offer her. The things that she had woken up from in the middle of the night, a film of sweat covering her whole body, were very similar to what she had heard him say. She wanted to be a person. She wanted to be heard, something she now knew she would never feel with William.
She realized that she did not love him, so at least there was that. When she had come out of her faint she found that she had opened Pandora’s box after all and what it contained was the knowledge that there was no love on her part. On either of their parts, so it seemed. That had made it much easier for her to call off the wedding, at least for her. William and his parents had been furious, had come pounding on the Clarkson’s door for days, weeks after her throwing him aside. They had insisted that it had been the excitement of the evening that had made her think she heard those terrible things. Sacha’s own family had insisted so as well, all except for her father. It was her father who had pulled her into his office and told her that she could take her dowry with her with or without marriage so long as she never accepted William’s company again, had been what gave her the courage to make the drastic move she had made. She had found the advert for the Kansas ranch man looking for a wife in the back of one of his papers and when she had brought it to him, her father had given her his blessing. He had done so begrudgingly, but he had done it and that was what really mattered to her. Her mother had cried when she boarded the first class car of the train, and Sacha suspected that things would be tense between her parents for some time to follow. Things had been that way between the two of them before. They would move past it, once Sacha was settled and safe. Once, God willing, she found her own little piece of contentment. That was a large part of what she prayed for now, when she prayed for herself, that was. She prayed not to be happy but to be content, to find her little bit of peace. She decided that she was just as likely to do so on an unknown ranch in Kansas as she was in New York City. More likely, really. New York felt cold to her now, cruel and unyielding. In New York, everywhere she looked there was some terrible reminder of things she did not want to think about. Everywhere she went there were people whispering about her and the embarrassing thing that had happened to her. At least in Kansas nobody knew who she was or of her almost marriage. That had to count for something.
