Lacking something to show her what her hair looked like, Ellen instead brushed Marie’s hands away and felt around her head. Oh dear, how dreadful, she thought as she felt around the soft locks coiled on her head. She could tell even from the touch of her fingers that she instantly hated the style. It did nothing to show off her curls, and instead hid them away in an ugly bun at the nape of her neck that was so tight that not even a few stray tendrils could fall at her cheeks.
Ellen was used to tying her hair only partly up, letting the rest of it cascade down her back. It was far more comfortable and far more flattering, but then, she supposed, mourning dresses and hair were not supposed to be comfortable or flattering. They were about being modest, about evaporating into the walls so that the only thing people could focus on was the dead. But Ellen didn’t need special clothing or hairstyles to do that. There was little else she could focus on.
However, Ellen did not want to focus on her father’s death. She wanted to get up, walk down the hall and find her father in his study, smoking a cheroot and squinting at a piece of paper in his hands which he would mutter under his breath was “an infernal paradox if I ever saw one.”
Oh, to hear his voice again! It would be like angels ringing down from heaven to hear her father say her name just one more time in that way of his, that soft way that made her name sound both sweet and important.
Barring that, Ellen would settle for getting up from her stool, taking the sharp pins from her hair and crawling back into bed. In bed, she could seek refuge under the softness of her sheets as they dried her tears and cocooned her into a deep sleep. Unlike many sleeps she had experienced since her father’s passing.
“Madam, I believe it’s time,” the maid said, waking Ellen up from her daydream. She sighed. Her fantasy was not to be. She needed to play her part, the part of the dutiful daughter walking behind the funeral procession, head down, gaze focused on her hands as she contemplated her lost loved one. It was at times like these when she wished women were not relegated to such customs. In fact, it was at all times that she wished it.
“I suppose you’re right, Marie. There is no sense in postponing the inevitable, is there?” she asked, getting up from the stool and taking a last look down at her dress, smoothing out a few wrinkles as though that could somehow make it look more attractive. She was sure her face mirrored the fabric—unflattering, depressed and wrinkled. The perfect style for a funeral, really.
Ellen’s spirits brightened slightly as she descended the stairs and her guardian and godfather Charles Braiser came into view. Though to most of his acquaintances Charles was a difficult man, closed off and gruff in his mannerisms, Ellen knew the real man, the one she had called “Uncle Charles” since she was a child. That man laughed openly at her jokes, delighted in a jaunt around the garden and begged Cook to make extra currant cakes for him to take back with him to his own apartments just up the road. Surely, he of all people could cheer her up at a time like this.
Though Charles did embrace her warmly and give Ellen what she could only assume was a false compliment about her hair and dress, he immediately ruined the moment when he went on to say, “Lachlan Golgow will be here today. I thought you should know.”
Lachlan Golgow was the Scottish Laird’s son Ellen was to marry in what she believed to be an inordinately short amount of time of just three weeks. She had only found out about the arrangement after her father’s death, and was still privately seething at being handed off so easily to the son of a family she had never met and, were it not for the contract binding them together, would never have wanted to associate herself with.
She had nothing against Scotsmen; she simply didn’t want to marry one, as it would mean leaving Hertfordshire and England. However, it appeared she did not have a choice in the matter, last wills and testaments being legally binding and whatnot.
Ellen’s shoulders slumped at the very mention of the man. “Oh Uncle Charles, I won’t be forced to speak with him, will I? I’m not sure I can bear it, today of all days.”
Charles gestured for Ellen to take his arm and led them both into the sitting room. Ellen took a seat on the chaise nearest to the door. It was her preferred reading spot on sunny winter afternoons when the light slanted in through the windows at just the right angle to provide a pleasant warmth on her cheeks and hair as she laid on a pillow, novel in hand. Today, however, was a cloudy, cold February day with not a lick of sun or warmth to it, and Ellen doubted she would have any time at all to enjoy a good novel. Again, the weather was rather perfect for a funeral.
“Do not fret. You won’t be expected to speak to him today. Today, you are allowed to occupy a corner of the church by yourself and mourn in quiet solitude. No one is expecting anything of you today, my dear. However, we will soon need to nail down plans for the future, for your future with the Golgows. It cannot be avoided. I hate to mention it today, but I’m afraid it is of a time-sensitive nature, with the wedding so close.”
“Can it not? Can it not wait even today?” Ellen cried, slumping further onto the seat of the chaise. “Uncle Charles, why did Father do this? Why did he tie me forever to a man I don’t even know? Why couldn’t he have allowed me to choose my own partner in my own good time, a nice, quiet Englishman who would let me reside right where I’m supposed to—here?!” Ellen said, her voice thickening as she spoke.
Why didn’t he take my feelings into account? Ellen asked herself, and not for the first or even third time since her father’s death.
She couldn’t help it—even thinking about Lachlan Golgow caused her skin to prickle with a combination of fear and anxiety. She was so scared to leave her home, to try and slot herself into someone else’s life. She had barely come to terms with her father’s death, and in just three weeks she was expected to leave the only home she had ever known and become some strange man’s wife.
It simply did not seem fair, given all that had happened. And more so than that, she was without any sort of female influence to help her prepare for the wedding. Absent a mother and with few close friends, there was no one to tell her what to expect from marriage, how to handle the relationship between a man and his wife both inside and outside the bedroom. Though, if Ellen was being honest with herself, it was the bedroom relationship that concerned her most. Try as she might, she had scoured all the books in the library and come up with few explanations of just what to put where.
Seeing her distress, Charles scooted his armchair closer to Ellen and took her hand, squeezing it in comfort. “You know why he did it. You might be far smarter than most women at twenty years of age, but the fact of the matter is that you cannot run the company on your own. It isn’t proper. You must have a man by your side, and at the time that this deal was struck, your father thought that the Golgow boy was the best man for the job, so to speak.”
“But I wouldn’t be alone! You own half of the business anyway! You could help me learn what I should do with the business. Why do we need another man to complicate things? You know I’m smart enough to hold my own as a businesswoman. Father has been letting me help him with his correspondence since I was a little girl. I know the ins and outs of it all. I know I could do it, Uncle Charles. I just wish someone would let me.”
Charles sighed, and suddenly Ellen could see that for as hard as this had been on her, it must have been even harder on him. He had been the one to call the doctor, arrange the funeral, settle her father’s affairs with the solicitors, all while continuing to run the business. Though Ellen had bemoaned the fact that she was forced to sit inside, with the windows and mirrors covered and her wardrobe stripped of anything that wasn’t black, at least she had time to rest. Grief was exhausting, and she imagined it was even more so when you were dealing directly with the repercussions of it, as Charles had been.
“Uncle Charles, I’m sorry. I know I’m being a nuisance. I’m just tired and upset and missing my father. It’s unfair of me to take it out on you just because I’m feeling this way.”
&n
bsp; “I miss him too, child,” Charles said, smiling sadly and squeezing her hand. “But we must both of us be strong today, for him. I know you might not understand his wish to see you married after he died, and to the Golgow boy of all people, and especially to a man you’ve never met, but trust that he had a good reason. When did he not? Your father was the smartest man I knew,” Charles said, laughing to himself.
He continued, “There wasn’t a thing he didn’t understand. He read every one of those books in that library and could debate better than any Oxford scholar I’ve ever met. And you were his whole world. Everything he did, he did for you. So we must both place our trust in him, in his intelligence and his good nature and his love for you. I, too, am confused about the marriage, but we must continue on despite our misgivings. Soon, this day will be over, and you and I can retire back here with a pot of tea and biscuits and relax. Do you think you can stand it until then?”
Ellen sighed. She sat up and nodded, pasting a smile on her face. “Yes, I do believe I can. Shall we?” she said, getting up and gesturing toward the clock. “It’s nearly ten. The pallbearers will be arriving at the church soon.”
Charles got up slowly, his age showing as various joints cracked with the effort, but when he stood up, he was the very picture of the strong, forthright businessman. No one except Ellen would ever know that as he walked out of the sitting room and followed his ward to the door, tears were brimming in his eyes.
Chapter 2
The church was filled with people as Ellen entered and took a seat in the back row. Faces both familiar and strange turned to her, peering at her as though they might be able to see through her veil to the dejected woman beneath. Ellen kept her head lowered, not wanting anyone to know just how distraught she was feeling.
She’d thought she would be able to handle seeing the casket; after all, nothing could have been worse than seeing her father lying on the floor of their front entryway, blood soaking his clothes, his eyes glassy and unmoving. In comparison, Ellen had assumed that the casket, which was, after all, just a few pieces of wood nailed together, would be hardly more upsetting than any other part of the day, but she was wrong.
Oh, was she wrong.
Because the moment the pallbearers placed the casket onto their shoulders and began their procession, Ellen’s eyes had filled with tears so quickly she could barely see. She’d stumbled as she walked, stubbing her toe on a crack in the street and nearly falling to her knees, scuffing her boots and the hem of her dress in the process. Even after she had righted herself and regained a steady gait, she felt off-kilter, and continued to feel so now, like the world was at an odd angle, giving everything a distorted, dizzying slant.
The casket, with her father inside, had been sitting in the morning room of the house. The room had been draped in black cloth by the maids while a local midwife—in fact, the woman who had helped Ellen’s mother deliver both her and her brother—prepared his body.
Ellen had been so relieved when Charles had hired professionals to keep vigil over her father’s body, as was the custom; at the time, she had been too far into the throes of grief to even contemplate sitting in the same room as her father’s dead corpse. Ellen laughed bitterly, realizing the fate she thought she had avoided had come to pass regardless. And the church looked remarkably similar to the glimpse of the morning room she’d had; the windows were draped in black, and no expense was spared in making it look like a den of depression and misery.
At least the service itself was thankfully short, the vicar giving the briefest of eulogies, as was her father’s request, him not being a man able to cope with the verbosity of usual Anglican sermons. The casket was spirited away to the graveyard to be buried, something Ellen was quite glad she would be missing. She wasn’t sure she would be able to handle seeing the remnants of her father lowered into the ground like so much detritus.
At the gathering back at her father’s home, or rather, her home, with the funeral bells still ringing in her ears, Ellen found the crowded room was hardly preferable to standing in the light spring rain at the graveyard, tossing in the required three clumps of fresh earth.
At least there would have been fresh air outside, instead of the stuffiness of a hundred people cramped into this room.
The library was indeed filled to the brim with her father’s business acquaintances, old family friends and neighbors, all of whom dressed in the same drab colors that clashed terribly with the cheerful, bright hues of the furniture. Ellen had always loved the way her mother had decorated their house, but now, the colors seemed somehow mocking given the somber occasion, as though like everything else, they too should be draped in black cloth.
“Ellen? Ellen, my dear, how are you holding up?” Ellen’s neighbor, Mrs. Brown asked. Ellen looked over and was met with wide, sympathetic eyes that instantly made her feel more comfortable. Mrs. Brown had been her mother’s friend since they were children, and after her mother’s death she had often stopped by for tea to check on a then-adolescent Ellen. Ellen only wished she could spend more time with Mrs. Brown now; but before she would be able to receive callers, she would be off to Scotland, sipping tea with strange women with red hair and odd, unintelligible accents, absent the soothing tones and sympathetic looks of the woman in front of her.
“As well as can be expected, Mrs. Brown. I miss Father terribly, but I suppose there’s nothing I can do about that. It was the same with Mother, and as I remember, the feeling dissipated with time. I just have to wait for the pain to ebb,” Ellen said, trying for a smile but managing only a grimace.
“Indeed it does take time, but it will recede, and perhaps more quickly now. After all, you are so much older now than you were then, in years and in maturity. You have been through so much in your short life, but I have no doubt you will get through this hardship too, my dear girl, and go on to lead the happy life your mother, father and brother would be proud of,” Mrs. Brown said, reaching out and patting Ellen on the shoulder affectionately.
Ellen wished that she and Mrs. Brown could secret themselves away somewhere in the house, far from the crowds of mourners to somewhere warm, with a fire and a large plate of biscuits. She wanted to ask Mrs. Brown the same question she did nearly every time she saw her: “Tell me a story about my mother.” Mrs. Brown always told Ellen the most wonderful stories about their shared childhood growing up in London, but Ellen knew such a request would be inappropriate at a time like this.
She would have to visit Mrs. Brown before she left for Scotland and get her fill of stories then, as well as beg the woman to write to her. Lord knew she would need someone other than poor Charles to moan to when her life in Scotland went sour, which she knew it would inevitably do. No one had ever achieved safety and happiness in the arms of a stranger, of that much she was sure.
Since they could not talk of the late Mrs. Holton, instead, Ellen and Mrs. Brown talked of drab, mundane things, like embroidery and where the next ball would be held and when. Ellen answered “yes” when Mrs. Brown asked if Ellen would be attending; she knew she couldn’t yet inform people of her engagement to Lachlan Golgow, not until after the funeral. It would seem untoward to be boasting of what, to most people, was a happy occasion in the midst of so much sadness, though Ellen thought the engagement was nearly as depressing as the funeral itself.
“I see Mrs. Hughes over by the cold meats, my dear, and I’ve been meaning to ask for a clipping from her rose bush for my spring garden. Would you mind if I left you? I want to catch her before she flits away again,” Mrs. Brown said. Ellen smiled and nodded, glad to have a moment to herself. Finding that she was suddenly quite thirsty, she began to walk over to a table where hot tea was being served by one of the maids.
But before she could get herself a fortifying cup, Charles’ voice sounded behind her. “Ellen, my love. How are you? I haven’t laid eyes on you since we left the house,” he said, leading her to a quiet spot in a corner by the far window of the library. Ellen looked longingly at the tea befor
e turning to her guardian.
“Fine, just fine, Uncle Charles. A little tired, but that is to be expected, I suppose,” she said, hoping that Charles would take the hint and send her up to her room to rest. If she couldn’t have tea, a nap was the next best thing. And bless him, it was as though Charles read her mind, for that is exactly what he did.
“You are looking quite exhausted, my dear. I don’t like those dark circles marring your eyes one bit. Why don’t you adjourn to your room and rest for a few hours? There is no obligation for you to socialize any more than you already have. I hereby release you from your duties,” he said, adding a laugh at the end that, to passersby, almost seemed genuine.
Ellen smiled and did her best not to run from the room, though she knew that her walk was quite a bit faster than was proper. She sped past the various faces peeking out from drab black suits and crepe dresses.
But she didn’t care. Finally, she could undo her hair from its vicious bun, ring for her maid to undress her, and crawl back into the warmth and safety of her bed, just as she’d been imaging earlier that day. At least one of her dreams was coming true.
Though Ellen thought that Charles was merely being emotionally sensitive in sending her away, in fact, it was because there was business he had to attend to, and he didn’t feel comfortable doing so with her in the room.
* * *
It seemed there was always business to attend to nowadays, ever since Victor’s death. First with the doctor, then the solicitor, then clients, the men they did business with, and now, he had to attend to a far more delicate matter: the matter of Ellen’s betrothal to the oldest son of the Golgow family, Lachlan. Raibert and Lachlan Golgow had journeyed down for the funeral and Charles knew it would be rude if he did not take them aside and speak with them about the future, about the wedding. It was unorthodox, of course, but with their departure to Scotland and the wedding so soon, the topic was unavoidable.
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