Chapter Text
She stares at the ring in front of her with what must be horror. It’s abject, absolute horror. The man in front of her on his knees doesn’t seem to get that and she can only thank her lucky stars that he did not do this in public. She suspects here in her parents drawing room has been agreed upon, her mother is not going to be too far away, there is a crowd of people outside she’s hosting another ball for crying out loud! But the thought of the fact that this has been planned on her accepting makes her sick.
How can he be kneeling at her feet when just the other day a man was doing the same though he was hiking up her skirts and kissing her knee? How can he be smiling at her with such an assured smugness when the smile that sets her heart alight is a small wide eyed thing like a butterfly resting in the palm of her hand.
How has she allowed this to become her life?
The second she thinks that thought she knows what she has to do. God knows they’ve talked about it, he’s even told her how it would work. It’s been a joke before now but if he’s up for it…she thinks of the glittering ballroom, her mother’s shiny smile as bright as poison and the way her father capitulates against her and she thinks…no she knows she will leave tonight.
“I don’t…I don’t know what to say” she says truthfully. She thinks by now any idiot would see she is not happy but he’s a Duke so how would he know? He’s been fed nothing but milk and honey and sweet words his entire life.
“Well yes would be nice!”
“Your…you…I wasn’t expecting this” she says truthfully because she wasn’t. Alright fine she has sat next to him at dinner, she has seen him at the opera but she has never been alone with him in the sense that she has been alone with the man that she loves, she has never…he lives in England for crying out loud!
“Oh?” he askes still smiling. “Your mother seemed to think—”
And then she knows. To be honest it slots into place. Her mother and her damned desire to be the first and the foremost. To run New York, to run the world. Now she has a daughter about to be a British duchess.
And just like that she pulls her hands away.
“My mother told you to propose to me?”
“She said…well…when I appeared at the opera…” he frowns. “Do you not like me?”
Oh God she thinks in horror. He’s like a child. He’s been so spoilt he’s like a child whose face is going to crumple if she says no. Then he will make a scene like a child denied desert.
So this was the price of his appearance at the opera. This…this right here was…she feels sick…she has been sold by her own mother to an English Duke for the price of an opera ticket.
Christ no wonder she doesn’t shut up about him, about how nice he is about how amiable, about how England is lovely in the spring.
“I…every girl dreams about this” she lies through her teeth. “I just…this has happened so soon. I did not think you even liked me?”
“Oh I like you” he says smiling and his smile is now sensual in a way that makes her shiver. “Oh I like you Gladys I like you very much I…I think you will make a wonderful wife for me” he says with a wink and she lets out a startled yelp that he must take for a laugh.
Oh Lord!
She swallows.
“We’d be living in England?” she asks quietly.
“Yes?”
“Then I ask that you give me time to consider…your proposal”
He frowns. He’s not used to be told no she knows that. Neither is her mother. God she doesn’t know which one she wants to hit more.
There is a knock at the door and then…
“—OH Mot—enough of this—” and then her brother is yanking open the door. He takes one look at her face and he knows then and he nods and she nearly melts into the couch.
Larry knows she doesn’t want to marry him and he will cover.
What she does not expect him to do is walk back into the room and announce there is to be an engagement and that everyone should drink champagne.
She does not expect it to be for him and Miss Brooke.
Judging by the shocked but rather pleased look on Marian’s face she wasn’t expecting it either.
That night she slips out of her room and down the passage. Most of the servants are still working but she’s been adapt at this for months now. She knows how to get out and how to get back in again and even then she knows that she can think up a good lie. She’s changed out of her nightgown into something plainer. She blends in with the shadows of her parents house. Perfectly ordinary just as she had always wanted.
Jack is waiting for her cigarette smoke curling into the night air. They meet half hidden behind whatever boxes they can find and carts and nights like tonight mean they can spend hours with each other until she has to go back. Church has sent all the boys to bed, she keeps the door on a latch and she’s good at this. Like her mother they think her a doll with no brains, a windup toy with a puppet strings.
Insipid and airless.
They don’t know that Gladys is passionate and independent. That she longs for freedom and love. And she does…she longs for it.
But Jack does.
Jack gets her.
Jack is hers.
“Hey darlin girl” he says as she sits down on the jacket he’s put out “How did It go—I hear Miss Brooke and your brother—”
“He did that to cover for me” she says quickly. “He proposed marriage.”
“Who your brother?”
“The Duke Jack! Larry walked in and took one look at it and knew I didn’t want…so he covered. I mean I know his intentions I know he and Marian are…I mean I know it was heading there eventually but I thought…he did that for me. Tomorrow when she’s recovered my mother will ask what my answer was…and she has done a deal with him…she sold me for the opera”
She tells him it all, what she knows, what she has figured out and Jack is silent.
“Damn it all to hell” he swears viciously. “I thought…fuck…” he wipes a hand down his face. “I thought we had more time” he whispers and oh! Oh he sounds anguished.
“Jack I don’t want to marry him…please I don’t…”
“Oh my love you think I want you to marry him!. Can you tell the Dragon no?”
Gladys thinks about it and honestly she doesn’t see how. She knows her mother in a way that she suspects her father doesn’t even. She knows this is the icing on the cake for her mother, for her dreams of the family. Marian is nice but she comes with no money and she knows she will already be furious about that when the surprise and the shock wears off. Bertha Russell didn’t think Archie Baldwin was good enough and he came over on the Mayflower…well…his grandfather did.
“No” she says tearfully. “Oh Jack I don’t know how I can…I mean she will demand it or there will be a row and my father will side with her, he can stand up to everyone but her and…” she shakes her head. “I know how this will end, she will drag me down the aisle kicking and screaming by the hair if she has to and I don’t want…he looks at me like…” she struggles to find the words to describe how the Duke looks at her.
“He makes me feel dirty. I can see…I can’t do it but I don’t see how I can…” and she is crying now which is humiliating to say the least but Jack makes a shushing noise and tucks her up into his arms and rocks her back and forth until she has herself under control. He pulls back and takes her face in his hands and kisses away the tears until they are drying on her eyelids.
“Oh hush darlin girl, my love, Gladys, shush now sweetheart. You don’t know what you do to me cryin like that. Let me think…let me think of something—”
“Jack even if you became a multimillionaire tomorrow my mother would never have you in the house” she says flatly. “You’ve seen Mrs Winterton right?”
“To be fair Gladys I never stripped naked and crawled into bed with your father which might be why your mother doesn’t like her”
The thought makes her giggle.
“Its not the only reason why” she says finally but the giggles have made her feel better. “Jack…I think…If you don’t want me then that is fine I know what I am asking you to give up. But I would rather kill myself than marry that man so if this is too much—”
“What are you asking me?”
“To marry me and run away with me”
They have spoken about it, stolen moments of what life would be together. Jack has money from Larry for his invention, he was saying the other day he has enough to get out of work but he doesn’t want to leave Bannister. He has enough to go, he has other trades, he can work and if they flee to parts of the country where her father cannot find her, if they go south enough they can work. She knows she can work, she can teach and they might not live easy lives but it will be happy and comfortable as they can make it. She doesn’t need a crown on her head anymore she just needs to be loved…
And she is never going to get it here. She is going to drown here…she is going to die here, the fire inside of her that he says he loves so much is going to be extinguished and then she is going to be nothing. It frightens her more than her mother’s anger, frightens her more than never seeing her father and brother again. She has been pushed and prodded and ignored for too long. She just wants to be happy.
And she knows she loves this man by her side.
“God Gladys” he says kissing her softly. “You know I would…I want to marry you tonight, I want to love you forever, I will love you forever but darlin you know what you are giving up right? Cause…cause I can do that, I can fade away it will be hard for me…” he carefully doesn’t mention Bridget, Bannister, the cook, his friends here but she knows that she has more to lose than he does. He knows it too.
“But you’re giving up your whole life here. And if Larry puts two and two together then he can cut me off. So that’s you working in a strange part of the country where your father—”
“Then it happens, then he cuts me off, then I am shamed and damned then they are I don’t care! I am happy then and I am free and I love you” she says gripping his face.
“I love you John Trotter.”
For a moment he blinks at her and then he takes her hands in his own and his kiss sets her soul on fire.
“I love you too Gladys Russell and I will be honoured to accept your hand in marriage and run away with you”
She laughs and for once she doesn’t care about the noise.
She is free.
Her mother corners her at breakfast. Larry has the look of a man with supreme confidence and her father just looks confused.
“So…did you answer the Duke before your brother upstaged you?”
“No I did not” she says buttering her toast.
“Well then…I will ask him for dinner…an engagement dinner were going to have to host one of those and then he will ask you again and you will say yes”
Gladys looks at her plate.
“I don’t know” she says testing the waters.
“You DON’T KNOW?!”
“No” she says looking at her mother and then she knows here and now looking at her she will never EVER understand why her mother has done this, what about parenthood means selling your own child.
“Gladys he is a Duke!”
“Bertha—”
“George after all we have done for her she must—”
“I don’t want to move to England” she says changing tact.
Her mother swells like a bullfrog but her father pats her on the arm. “Your mother didn’t want to move to New York when we got married” he says but there is a tightness in his tone that makes her wonder if her father knows how unhappy she is and is trying to do his best. If her father knows what is happening, if her father will finally stand up to his own wife.
“England is not New York” Larry says quietly.
“Enough from you young man” his mother spits, “After your display the other night!”
“I did not realise that Marian was such an impression for you” Larry mutters dryly. “I shall remember that when the grandchildren are born”
It shuts his mother up so much she nearly gets whiplash. Larry shoots her a cold look.
“Gladys should marry who she wants” he says flatly. “I think the Duke a terrible bore. He dragged her off into the room the other night with no thought of her reputation either”
And then he has stood up and gone and she knows she will miss him for the rest of her life.
The last night of her life here is the night before Larry’s engagement party. She is packed as best she can, warm clothes a few books she cannot leave behind, her old teddy. She has managed to keep her stuffed bear despite the fact that her mother has thrown out most of her old childhood toys when newer ones could be bought. She takes her riding boots and practical things she needs and then she raids her jewels. She will sell them all along the way from here to wherever they go if she has to.
She sits at her table after the family retires to the living room and wonders what to write. She plans out the message in her head and she cannot look at her father whose eyes are on her with concern written in them.
“You know” he says after port has been served sitting next to her. “If you don’t…if you do not wish to marry him I will handle your mother”
“I don’t want to marry him” she confesses. “But I don’t expect you to defend me to her”
He looks hurt.
“Gladys”
“You will never defend me” she says flatly. “I know that.” She looks at her hands. “You have trapped me father, by loving her you have trapped me here”
He blinks at her somewhat speechless.
“This is your home Gladys this is not a prison”
She scoffs, she really cannot help herself.
“I will talk to your mother, I did not forget I made you a promise”
“And I did not forget you broke it when you allowed her to sell me”
He frowns as if he doesn’t know what the hell she is on about but Church comes with an urgent telegraph from Clay about the stock market or the unions or something like that and it detracts him a little.
She moves to stand next to her brother.
“Walk me up to bed” she says quietly.
Larry nods and as she goes she turns to look at her mother and father and she would for all the world hug her father one last time watching him frown over the note as her mother stirs sugar into her tea but she knows then the game would be up.
“Goodbye” she mouths.
Neither one of them look up.
Story of her life really.
Larry walks her to stairs and then she hugs him. She wraps her arms around him tight and he laughs a little and she has to close her eyes to the tears that are threatening to overwhelm her.
“I love you” she says quietly. “I am so glad you are marrying Marian…never…never let mother drag you apart will you?”
“Please” he laughs easily. “Mother doesn’t have power over me with that and she knows it” he looks down and then up at her still a little boy. “Besides we will have to get married fast” he says and she stares.
“I don’t—”
“Your going to be an Aunt a lot sooner than you should be” he says with a wink. He should be mortified but her brother is pleased and she gasps.
A part of her would she has to admit really like to be here when her mother finds that out but instead she hugs him and this time her tears are real.
“You are going to be a wonderful father” she says into his coat. “You are going…that child is going to be the luckiest child in the world Larry”
“If I get to see it. Marian has a notion that my mother will murder me and Mrs Van Rhijn will pass her the shovel for my burial” he says grinning. “But it will mean a small wedding and that is what she wants. Plus she wants Miss Scott there, what mother is going to do with that I don’t know” he looks positively thrilled at the thought.
“I love you” she says again. “I love you so much Larry”
He frowns at her.
“Look…I mean it I’m going to be a scandal and a half I am sure that will make the Duke bolt…”
She shrugs. She knows what will make the Duke bolt. But she is not going to say so.
“I love you” she says again. “Goodnight”
He watches her go and she thinks as she leaves him there that even though she knows this is the right thing…he will be the hardest thing about leaving New York.
She sends Adelheid back downstairs. Her gown tonight was laced up at the front for a reason and so she sends the girl back down for the cake the staff have pitched in for Mrs Bruce’s birthday. She gives her some hair ribbons as she goes and asks that she keep them for practice and Adelheid grins at her.
Adelheid. The first thing that was ever hers, the first person who was ever in her corner, the first real person she met her own age.
She writes a note to Larry that confesses she has ran away and why, she writes down what her mother has done. She will not mention Jack’s name. If something should happen to her she wants Jack to have the option of going home to his mother’s grave even though he says he can do without.
She writes as best she can why she is doing what she is doing, that for him at least her door will never be shut. She writes a postscript for Marian only to ask that she look after her brother that she stand with him through this though she knows that Marian will. She says only that her maid is innocent and that should her mother’s wrath fall on her she hopes Marian will give her employment. She apologies to Marian for missing the wedding and for missing the birth of their children.
She cannot write to her father. She does not know what she is going to say so she does not. Larry will no doubt hit the roof when he finds out.
So she writes to her mother.
Or she thinks she will.
In the end her message is as clear and as clean and as farewell as she can make it.
Mother. I choose freedom, I choose happiness, I choose myself.
Goodbye.
Gladys.
Her mother has made sure that she can never say anything more.
She waits until they are all asleep and then she slips out.
Jack is there.
She takes his hand and takes a step towards her future.
She does not look back.