“My love, such activity is not…”
Jillian balled her fists at her side. “Lewis Bradford, if you are going to tell me that it is ‘not appropriate’ again, I think I shall scream! When will you allow me to do something meaningful with my time, something that really matters to me? Am I forever to be taking baskets to struggling tenants, and nothing more?”
Lewis glanced from his wife to his parents and back. He looked as if he were caught between Scylla and Charybdis.
“Perhaps a less hands-on role might be a worthy compromise?” he suggested cautiously. “You could hold fundraising teas and use the monies you collect to purchase food or clothing for these orphans.”
Jillian stared at her husband. Tea? He wanted her to arrange tea parties? “I feel…” she said slowly, trying to hold back what she really wanted to blurt out, “that is not the best use of my time. Besides, how would I know if these supplies were given to the neediest or whether the children received kindness in addition to these items of charity? I want to stop the cruelty, not just the hunger, Lewis. Don’t you understand how important this is to me?”
The scathing tones of Lady Bradford cut off any response from Lewis. “Our son understands that your involvement in such low work would dishonor the Bradford name. Are you so intent on making a fool of us and your husband? You cannot simply run off like a…”
“Groundskeeper’s daughter?” finished Jilly. “Because that’s what I am. And I have never been ashamed of it. Being part of the so-called upper class, however, has brought me nothing but frustration and disappointment. All this strutting and posing and sticking to arbitrary rules just so that you can appear more important while forgetting what it is to be human. I don’t want it. I never did.”
She turned mournful eyes upon Lewis. He opened his mouth to say something, then decided against it. So, he was choosing their side once again.
Jillian stared at the family. Even Penelope, her fellow free spirit, was silent. At least she had the good grace to look at the floor with some embarrassment.
Jillian wanted to flee the room, the house, the whole of London. She wanted to run until she could run no more. Then walk until her knees buckled. Crawl and drag herself if she must,anything to reach Ermenbrough again—the place where she was understood and valued as she was.
She loved Lewis. But it was not enough. He had accepted his role as Philip’s replacement, dragged them both into a life they had not agreed upon. Where were the barefoot picnics? Where were the chickens? The laughter? It had all disappeared into a distant mist of forgotten promises.
Compromise? It was a word he liked to throw about. But what washegiving up? The compromise seemed always to be hers.
“Jillian,” he said at last, “I’m sure we can find a way…”
“For me to compromise? No, thank you. Not this time. You ask too much of me, Lewis. Too much.”
And with a parting glance of antipathy toward his parents, she rushed from the room. Cry. Scream. Burst into song. She could do none of these without a similar look of disapproval from them.
To prove her point, she heard Lady Bradford say with what Jilly imagined were pursed lips and rolling eyes, “Do you see, my son? This is what we tried to warn you about.”
Jillian did not wait to hear Lewis’s reply. She did not want to know how he would explain away her actions. More and more, she had become a nuisance. More and more, he had become like his parents.
What was here for her now? She did not mean London. She meant this marriage. It was no longer a source of happiness. She was losing herself to it.
Jilly halted in her headlong rush to get away. After all, where would she go? She must take a stand, here and now. Fight for herself. Claim the right tobeherself. What did she have to lose? They didn’t approve of her even when she played bytheirrules.
It was time, Jilly decided, to live by her own.
