Year 1879
❝
PERCHED UPON the third story of the grand residence of the famous House of Deloney was a young lady seated exquisitely next to the window, absorbed in the activity of drawing something. With the splendid view of the lovely scenery, she would often drift off into a world of fantasies as her skillful little paintbrush put strokes of lovely coloring that mirrored the loveliness around.
While her brother and sister enjoyed the beauty of nature outdoors, this fair maiden always reveled in comforts and pleasures indoors, especially when it came to art. But the studding of the beauty of her face with sparkle that excelled before her sister became the reason for the choice of this lady from the reputed Deloney family as the bride for the Prince of Luxtonia. This was a most enviable thing for most girls, but not for this damsel.
Her heart was bursting with a passion for the arts, especially with sketching, and she had always entertained the idea of taking it up professionally.
But alas, when her parents failed to support her against the marriage-upon-which-she-gazed-with-abhorrence, Charlotte wept down her sketches.
Charlotte sat in the confines of her miserable little chamber, lamenting her ill-luck, when a knock came at the door.
"Lady Charlotte, the breakfast is served," said a voice. Charlotte broke in on the lady's words with a flat "Come in." With tears still glistening in her eyes, she quickly wiped them away, but the heartbreaking thought of giving up her dream to be an artist caused them to flow freely.
Charlotte proceeded with her sketching as soon as a young maid entered, trailed by a lady-in-waiting bearing a silver cart full of breakfast delights.
Eleanor, a lady of middle age, Charlotte's personal lady, announced with utmost confidence, "Mademoiselle, your Croque Monsieur comes alongside with a blend of Darjeeling tea", as the maid set the breakfast table with fine silverware and delicate porcelain.
"Lady Charlotte, should you require anything else, by all means, please do call on me,' she added, casting the young lady a smile as she left the chambers.
Morning sunlight filtered through the tall, stained-glass windows of the Deloney estate casting amber and blue shards across the marbled floor. The manor was still except for the faint rustle of silk curtains and the distant ticking of a grandfather clock, measuring time with cruel precision. In one corner of the room, half-hidden by the velvet chaise, sat Charlotte.
She curled in upon herself, her knees pressed tightly to her chest; the hem of her nightgown was snagged around her ankles. Her sketchbook was tossed aside, its fluttering pages still, in the light breeze, like unquiet wings. Long auburn hair fell freely behind her back, partially obscuring the expression of loss on her face.
She spoke when the clanking of porcelain became thunderous. "Helena," she sighed.
The young maid, new to the job, turned from arranging the silver cart and breakfast dishes at the call of her name: "Yes, my lady?"
Charlotte's voice was low, and heavy upon the soft air. "Have you ever..." She trailed off for many moments. "Have you ever thought of running away from it all? Even though it would break someone's heart?"
Helena stopped suddenly, holding the hand resting on the handle of the teapot poised to think of some more important matters. The weight of the question appeared to throw her off balance. "Running away, my lady?"
Charlotte did not glance in her direction. She appeared far away; her mind captured the light like patterns cast onto the floor. "Sometimes, I dream of a different life," she said, almost too quietly to be heard. "Waking up where no one knows my name. Where no one tells me what to do, what to wear, who to marry. Where I could be free. Just... me."
She tightened her embrace around her knees, as if to shield her fragile thought from the world beyond. "But then I think of the expectations. The promises. The duties I never agreed to. I wonder... if I vanished, would anybody even care? Or would they carry on as though they'd lost a fill-in-the-blank in a painted portrait?"
Helena moved slowly toward her, quieted like a shadow. She set the tray down on the low coffee table beside the chaise, craving not to snap the cordial enchantment which had lingered in the air.
"My lady," she murmured, "I cannot know what it is like to have a title or live within walls of velvet and gold. But I know what it means... yearning for something beyond one's station. An urge, so painfully strong, draws you outside even when your feet stay shackled."
It was then that Charlotte raised her head and stared into her eyes, glass-like. "But does that make it wrong to want something else? Something apart from duty and obedience?"
Helena smiled tenderly. "No. Even a bird kept in a golden cage still yearns for the sky. My lady, wanting freedom is no sin— it is human." Silence returned as before, but outside, a stillness now became laden with numerous unasked questions, with fear and longing, and with a quiet courage neither knew how to name just yet.
Charlotte bent down to brush her fingers softly along the edge of her open sketchbook. Leaving the fingers behind on the rough outline of a windy, wild, and free cliffside on the open page, she then closed it and said nothing more.
Then she heaved a tired sigh and stared vacantly at the untouched breakfast still sitting on her plate. The silence of the morning was as thick as clotted cream, interrupted only by a faint clattering of knives and forks and the rustle of leaves growing outside the window. Suddenly the stillness was punctuated by a soft voice.
"My lady," said Helena, her voice careful but curious, "have you heard what has happened in Grenswood?" Charlotte turned her head slightly, eyebrows lifted. "Grenswood?"
Helena nodded, took half a step closer with a cloth in her hands. "There was... an accident. A carriage was found at the bottom of a ravine near the old Grenswood path. No survivors recovered. Strangely... no body, either."
"It hung as a sentence in the air.
Charlotte blinked. "No... body?"
"None," confirmed Helena, in a whisper as though the walls might listen. "Only splintered wood, torn-up upholstery, and blood. The coach itself was barely intact, but inside it was a total mess. The Marsheries sealed the site up at once. They said it belonged to a minor noble family-though they haven't released the name yet."
Charlotte's appetite was sapped completely, and she had laid aside her fork. "Is it confirmed to be an accident?"
"That's what people say," Helena replied, her eyes running around the corners of the room. "But they doubt that, actually. Some noises have been made that it might have been staged. There were no signs of struggle outside the carriage— there were no hoof marks leading away. Just the wreck... and silence."
Charlotte shivered uneasily at that. "Do they know who the victim is then?"
Helena shook her head. "They think someone was meant to be inside, but the blood—" she hesitated, "-it was too much for there to be no one... and yet too little to assume death."
Charlotte regarded her for a long moment, unsettled. "You mean to say that the person may still be alive."
"Or was taken," Helena whispered. "Vanished. That is what makes all this so eerie." Such long silence lingered in both of their hearts.
Then heliotrope lights will show on her face, making her an appropriate example for personality transformation: the mother of Charlotte was late in her years, and among those years she had somewhat changed into Madam Cordelia, one of the most striking surprises of in-opportune coming. Though very old, Madam Cordelia retained beauty befitting her starlike descent with silk-like black hair, violet eyes that were bright and very radiant like stars, and red lips that matched her alabaster complexion.
Charlotte had not solely inherited her mother's charm; their aura upon those surrounding them held a power that was otherworldly and wanton.
"Charlotte, the carriage is waiting for you," said Madam Cordelia, her voice equal parts alluring and mysterious, more so with the refinement that lay in them that warranted her the status of great lady among the upper echelons.
At that moment in time, Madam Cordelia inclined all her body language toward Elena, gesturing that she was rather dismissed into the private circle of mother and daughter.
As Helena left quietly, back to her chores, the warmth once alighting Charlotte's face was swallowed like sunlight behind a black thundercloud; her soft features stiffened into an icy mask, remote and unreadable, the wistful girl hunched over her sketchbook gone. What was left was a daughter who had learned to hide her storm beneath a porcelain facade.
The creak of the doors opened.
"My dear," said the familiar voice, soft over iron. "We shall be going to the city. We must prepare for your eighteenth birthday. Aren't you excited? It's a milestone for every young lady to keep close to her heart."
Madam Cordelia's smile was poised and with grace; still, behind the sweetness there was a tension held back, as if speaking lines rehearsed for a play in which Charlotte had no say in the script.
Charlotte remained silent. She remained seated at the table, breaking bread but not really eating, staring silently at her plate. The silence following was deafening.
Cordelia's smile began to fail. "Charlotte?" she prompted again, more firmly this time.
Still, nothing until her voice split through the silence, low and fragile, almost as if it came from far away. "I just do not want to celebrate the day I was born."
The room froze. Cordelia leveled the stare, her practiced warmth all but gone. Her displeasure now cooled into only scorn. "Don't be foolish," she said, her voice edging like a knife. "Is this because of your foolish infatuation with art again?"
"It's not foolish." Charlotte slowly looked up at her mother. Her voice was low, but every word trembled with much hurt. "It is my solace, the only thing that feels like mine."
Cordelia's jaw tightened. "You will forget about painting. You are not a commoner lady who's wasting her time on dreams. You are a Deloney. And you are to marry the Crown Prince of Luxtonia—whatever your heart desires."
Charlotte felt the words hit her like a slap across the face, and yet she did not flinch. Pushing her plate away from her, she stood slowly and said with trembling conviction, "I don't care about bloodlines. I care about purpose. About meaning. I am more than your ambition, Mother."
"You do not know what is best for you," snapped Cordelia.
"No, you just can't control what you don't understand," Charlotte shot back. Her voice cracked with every tightening breath. "Have you ever once asked me what I wanted? I don't want to be another girl in a crown, smiling for people who only see a title. I want to live, to be seen, not sold!"
"Enough," hissed Cordelia as her face darkened. "You implant love when duty should take precedence."
"You speak as if duty should silence a soul," replied Charlotte, voice raw, tears blurring her vision. "What am I to you? A pawn? A daughter? Or just a piece in your grand design?"
Cordelia clenched her fists, but for decorum's sake, she stopped short of screaming. "It matters not whether you accept it or not; you shall marry the prince—for your family. That is final."
With that, she turned on her heel and strode calmly out, her heels echoing against the marble floor like the knell for Charlotte.
Now left in the stillness, she sank down with her knees hunched to her chest. The next breath came out as sharp, ragged sobs; at first it was nothing but silence, but afterward louder, unapologetic, and desperate. Her trembling fingers clutched the gown's sleeves in an effort to stay steady.
Why? Why was she being bound and decided, from which there was no chance to voice her opinion?
Now her tears just flowed freely, lining the contours of her cheeks as droplets splashed on her skirt. The solitude enveloped her like second skin—tight and chafing. Gasp-pol gasp. The door creaked gently again.
Another creaking sound-steps across the highly polished floor.
Lady Eleanor stepped in behind her with her lavender gown whispering behind her like the dusk coming forth. Charlotte's curled form broke the once-facade of Eleanor. Her neek with slender arm shivered, sheen disheveled tresses kissed toward vulture, red swollen eyes-Vulture straight into action; across the room in a flash, kneeling beside ther, grasping her in a firm maternal hug. Upon that, Charlotte melted into a firm maternal hug, releasing the sobs anew, a bit louder now, raw and discount.
"Auntie Eleanor..." she gasped, choking on her own voice, hands clutching at the fabric of her aunt's gown in desperate supplication. "They want me to marry a man I do not love... for a future I never asked for... like I have no say in my own life."
"I know," murmured Eleanor, that soft-steadiness voice of hers; fingers weaving gently through Charlotte's silky-black hair. "I know, sweet girl. I heard everything."
She pressed a kiss to Charlotte's head, the gesture filled with an ache of shared sorrow.
"But you won't be kept caged forever. I vow that."
Charlotte pulled back just enough to look into her aunt's eyes, her lips trembling. "But what's the point of having dreams if they're always snatched away?" Her voice shook. "What's the point of hoping, of creating... if the world only wants me to become someone else? What if I never find my purpose? What if I'm just... just a decoration on someone else's shelf?"
The words came out bitter and helpless, terrifyingly frank.
Eleanor was also shining with her own tears unshed, yet she never let loose her grip around Charlotte. Framing the face of a young woman between her palms, she said in a quiet ferocity, "You're not. You are not a decoration, nor a pawn, nor a bird in a cage."
She leaned closer to her and whispered, "You are a flame. They just fear what happens when you start to burn."
Charlotte's shoulders shook. An incredibly heavy but sacred silence passed between them.
She had buried her face into her aunt's shoulder again, fingers trembling against the fabric. Her tears soaked into Eleanor's gown: warm and aching.
"I don't want to be someone else's future," she whispered. "I want to find my own."
"And you will," Eleanor answered, holding her tightly like a shield against the world. "You will carve it out even if you have to walk through fire."
"But how, Auntie Eleanor? How do I escape this fate? What should I do...?"