Page 39 of Somewhere Along The Way (Mackinnon #3)
Chapter Twelve
“Where is everybody?” asked Annabella.
It was half-past eight the next morning when Annabella paused at the door of the dining room and saw her mother sitting alone at the long, mahogany table. The duchess glanced up as Annabella entered the cheerful room.
Actually, cheerful wasn’t really Annabella’s choice of a word to describe the dining room, but her mother’s.
Annabella’s choice was optimistic . Now, some people might think a room could not be perceived as being optimistic, but that didn’t bother Annabella, for there were times when she was blissfully unconscious of convention—at least mental convention.
It was a way she had of escaping the rigid expectations she had lived with all her life, a way to elude for a time the dictates of such matters as decorum, propriety, and etiquette.
Her life might be crammed with restrictions, but there were no such restrictions in her head.
There, she was blessedly free to think at will.
And one of the results of all this freethinking was her tendency to characterize rooms—and the Dunford dining room, with its half-circle bay and floor-to-ceiling sash windows was, in her opinion, optimistic.
Perhaps that was due in part to the brocade drapes of the brightest shade of deep gold, which were always tied back in the morning to let in the most mellow shafts of amber sunlight.
Annabella’s gaze lingered on the lovely room as her shoes tapped out a solitary message across the glossy wooden floors, the staccato tones disappearing the moment she reached the Persian rug. “This place is as deserted as a tomb. I never knew a house could be so quiet.”
“And much more pleasant because of it,” said her mother.
The dining room was a collage of distractions that Annabella would have delighted in at any time less fraught with destiny.
But this morning she paused at the sideboard and gave the hand-painted Chinese paper— bird and flower pattern —a glance.
The glance was a hasty one, but long enough to form an opinion.
The birds, she decided, she did not like, and without further thought on the subject, she removed the lid of the first silver serving dish, stepping back when a column of cloying steam rose from the traditional Scottish dish of herring in oatmeal.
She stared at the herring, deciding it didn’t look any better than it smelled, and clapped down the lid.
Remembering the words of Samuel Johnson, “Oats and grain, which in England is generally given to horses…in Scotland supports the people,” she found yet another English way she preferred to that of the Scots.
She wasn’t sure she would ever become accustomed to some of these favored Scottish dishes.
With much less enthusiasm, she removed the next lid and found Aberdeen butteries, which faintly resembled her own English scones but were not as tasty by half. But she was hungry, so she took one.
“Your father and Gavin have gone to Edinburgh.”
She dropped the butterie and turned to stare at her mother. “To Edinburgh? I thought we were all going to Edinburgh.”
“Your father decided the trip would be too rushed and too hectic for us, and they could make better time going on horseback instead of in the carriage. I suspect he knew we would be more comfortable here.”
Annabella picked up the butterie, placing it on her plate, and removed the next lid, finding Scotch woodcock, a seasoned scrambled egg placed on buttered toast and topped with an anchovy and two capers.
“But I’m not comfortable here,” she said, taking a serving of the woodcock, then replacing the lid. “I’m ready to leave.”
The duchess looked a trifle disturbed. “Annabella, I am sorely vexed to see your mind so ruffled and discomposed. I had hoped that you would warm to the idea of marriage, ere now.”
“Well, I haven’t, but that isn’t the reason I’m so uncomfortable here—at least now that Lord Huntly is gone.” She carried her plate to the table and took a seat across from her mother. “When are we leaving here? I want to go home—back to England.”
The duchess sighed and stirred her tea, placing the spoon in the delicate saucer with a clink . “I know you do, Bella, but your father feels it would be best for you to remain in Scotland.”
“For how long?”
“Until the wedding, I’m afraid.”
The first wave of agonizing homesickness hit her and she gave her mother a dismal look. “And you? How do you feel, Mother?” She asked the question, but she knew the answer. Overwhelmed with despair, she was feeling she had been deserted by everyone, even her mother.
“You know I want you to come back home, but I must agree with your father’s decision.”
If possible, Annabella felt more depressed than before. “But why? Why must I stay here until the wedding? What could it possibly hurt for me to go home one last time?”
“Because Scotland will be your home—is your home now. Returning to England would only make it more difficult to leave a second time.”
Annabella felt tears burn the back of her eyes and knew a flood of tears would have come if she hadn’t been in the presence of her mother. Never return home? Never see England again? “You mean I am to be married here?”
“Your father deems it best.” Seeing her daughter on the verge of tears, the duchess said, “Try to look on the bright side, Bella. There are so many lovely places to be married here in Scotland. Why, you could be married in the same kirk your father and I married in, if you like. All of our family and friends from England would attend. It isn’t as if you would be surrounded by strangers. ”
But that was exactly how Annabella felt, surrounded by strangers.
Even her own parents seemed strangers to her now.
And how else could she feel, for it seemed even they had turned against her.
Grief welled inside her. For all her life she had done her dutiful best to be a loving, obedient daughter, never giving her parents a moment of grief, always striving to be what they expected and wanted her to be, even above what she, herself, wanted.
Why must it always be this way? Why must I always sacrifice what I feel, what I want, in order to comply with what my parents want?
Annabella was hurt and confused. She knew her parents loved her dearly—there was no doubt of that—but they always wanted her to live up to their expectations.
Why was having her parents’ approval so important to her?
Why did she always have to give up part of herself to please others?
Perhaps it was too late to ask this question now.
She had been this way, had been this other person for so long, she wasn’t sure the real Annabella existed anymore.
She felt she had lost everything. Her parents. Her home. Even herself.
For a moment Annabella didn’t say anything.
She had an odd, newly awakened consciousness of a wrongness in her life.
Her heart began pounding as the scene of a few days ago flashed back into her mind as vividly as if it were just happening.
She had been talking to Ross, down by the loch, the night of the ball. He had asked her:
“What else have you missed out on?”
“I haven’t missed anything. I have been very well educated, for a lady, you might say. I draw and paint, and I’ll have you know I’ve been thoroughly drilled in the deportment that becomes a gentlewoman.”
“Oh, I’m sure you have been thoroughly drilled. It’s obvious with every rigid little step you take. Don’t you ever loosen up?”
Suddenly Annabella felt the most scalding anger she had ever known surge into her heart. Her parents had betrayed her, thrown her to the wolves. “You must hate me very much to do this to me,” she said, trying her best to speak slowly and calmly.
The duchess wasn’t at all prepared for the severity of this mental jolt, and it showed in her expression. “Why, Annabella, how can you say such a thing? You know your father and I care as much for you as for your sisters.”
“But you let them marry Englishmen.”
“We’ve been through all of this before, Bella.”
“I know, and it’s never been resolved. I can’t marry Lord Huntly, Mother.
Please don’t make me. I won’t ever give you a moment of trouble.
I’ll never ask to marry anyone. I’ll be a spinster.
I’ll stay in my room for the rest of my life.
I’ll do anything.” She paused for a breath. “I’ll go to America.”
“You needn’t wring your hands and beg, Bella. You will marry Lord Huntly,” said the duchess angrily. “It’s already been decided. I, like you, have no say in the matter. Your father has arranged for you to marry Huntly, and that’s what you will do.”
Annabella realized the futility of pleading further with her mother. The duchess wouldn’t be swayed any more than her father. Annabella’s anxiety, her misery, welled up within her, and with a helpless shriek she leaped up from the table and fled the room, running up the stairs.
Lord Percival had just returned from a ride with Ross.
He had planned on leaving in a few days to return to his home in England, but at the old duke’s urging, he decided to stay on a bit longer.
He had reached that decision only this morning and was on his way to inform His Grace when he happened to see Annabella dash up the stairs.
Poking his head into the dining room to see what all the ruckus was about, Lord Percival was almost run down by the duchess, who was hot on her daughter’s trail.
“Honestly,” she said, “I don’t know what has come over that child of late.
It’s a blessing in her favor that her father isn’t here to witness this, but I’m of half a mind to tell him everything that’s happened here this morning.
Indeed I am.” Without further ado, she rushed up the stairs, moving as if someone had set her skirts afire.
A moment later Annabella’s door was slammed.
Lord Percival shook his head. Women , he said to himself. Who can understand them?