We all depart and I realize that I have never spent a day shopping, let alone even going into a shop to buy one dress. All of my clothes had been handmade with cloth bought from the vendors. In the beginning it is very exciting, as I look at all the gowns and then begin to try them on. However, it does not take long for the newness to wear off and I become weary with the constant attention the shop girls pay to us, as we try to decide on a dress. It seems nothing I try on will suit Jason, and I get to the point to where I lose interest in the gowns I am trying. “Just pick one!” I cry at last. “I will not try on one more dress. Any one of these gowns would work just fine. It is merely a dance!”
“Not just a dance,” Loraine titters. “It will be your first ball and no one has ever met you before. Jason has been eluding marriageable women his whole adult life. Now he has chosen a wife and we must show you off to your best advantage so all the women will realize they could not hope to shine next to you.”
“You are trying to make them believe that Jason married me for my beauty and my choice in gowns,” I frown. “Perhaps I should tell everyone why he really married me,” I grumble.
Jason comes to my side. “And that would be for your charming personality and wild Irish eyes.” he whispers and kisses my cheek. “Very well. Why don’t you pick the dress you like the best,” he relents. “I am anxious to get you the ring.”
I pick a white dress, that is all net and satin, and Jason smiles. “Almost like a wedding dress,” he murmurs. “Loraine, why don’t you and mother take the packages to the carriage, while I go with Rose to find her a ring and then we will go to lunch,” he says to Loraine, and she smiles and nods.
A moment later Jason is guiding me into a jewelry shop and I am looking at rings. I cannot choose, so Jason chooses a green emerald circled in diamonds and pushes it onto my finger. “With this ring, I thee wed,” he whispers, and pays the man for the ring, then tucks my hand through his elbow, and leads me out of the shop.
By the time we sit down to lunch I feel suddenly tired and Jason notices. “Perhaps you need to come back to the house and rest. Mother and Loraine needs to buy you a few more dresses though, for you to wear for the rest of the week, so you will not be draped in black as we tour the town and take in the sights, along with other entertainments. I want you to be refressed for the ball.”
Jason leaves Loraine and his mother at the eating establishment and takes me back to the house, instructing the maids to make me comfortable. Then heads back to town to join Loraine and his mother.
I am relieved to finally be alone. Everything seems to take my breath away but I cannot wait to return to Ireland. I have only been here for one day and I am becoming weary of the fashionable life. The thought of attending a ball, where I will be scrutinized by everyone there, makes me feel nervous. I have only danced with Jason and Franc and I am sure I will look clumsy when I dance. And what will I do if someone else asks me to dance?
I am woken from my nap by Jason kissing my cheek. “Time to get up, my darling,” he whispers. “Mother says to put on your ball gown for dinner and then no one will have to change again. We will leave right after the meal.”
I see the maid is busily putting dresses in the wardrobe, from packages all around the room, and laying my ball gown out on the bed. Jason goes into the dressing room, where a valet helps to dress him and the maid begins to dress me.
The dress I have chosen has puffed net that falls over my shoulders, leaving them bare. Small pink roses are appliquéd against the net. The bodice fits tightly, pushing my full breasts up in mounds at the top of the bodice and the skirt billows out in satin covered with the same netting with little pink roses.
My hair is piled and pined and long dangling diamond earrings brush against my neck, even though I give a squeak, when the maid removes Ferrell’s earrings. But by now, I have betrayed his memory so much, it seems hypocritical to refuse to remove them. A single string of diamonds is chocked against my neck, supporting a single tear drop diamond hanging from it, on a thin gold chain, nestled in the hollow of my throat.
When Jason comes into the room and sees me, his lips stretch across his face and he comes and kisses me on the cheek. “You are stunning, my dear. I am proud to call you my wife.”
I look at him nervously. He is being too kind and it makes me feel unworthy. But I know that while I am here in England I will have to play the loving wife, and afer all, I did allow him to make love to me, so it shouldn’t be that hard to continue to be intimate with him on a lighter level.
“You will do wonderfully,” he encourages me, as he kisses my cheek. “There will not be a lovelier lady at the ball, mark my word.”
When we join Loraine and Mrs. O’Malley, they both smile at me in approval, as we sit and eat. Once the meal is over, we all go out and step up into the carriage. T he gentle sway of the carriage does not rock me into a sence of ease. The closer the horse’s clopping brings us to the Merryweather’s mansion, the more agitated I begin to feel, and I find myself hugging against Jason’s arm, as though he can save me from this experience in some way. Perhaps he could, if he directed the carriage to turn around and go back in the other direction. But I know he will not do that, and he keeps looking down at me and smiling, which does not help in the least.
The carriage slows, and the door is opened by a footman. I am assisted down and Jason is guiding me towards an awe inspiring house, with lanterns hung in the trees all about. Every window of the house is lit. Guests are all streaming towards the opening, where foot men stand, and a butler announces the guests as they enter. I hesitate, but Jason prods me forward.
“Stop worrying,” he whispers. “You look stunning and all you have to do is nod and smile, if someone wishes to approach you for some reason. Put your fan in front of your face and act shy. No one is going to demand you take part in any conversation, if you wish not to.”
As we enter, the butler announces, “Mr. and Mrs. Jason O’Malley,” and I hear a murmur go thought the crowd, I see several women’s heads turn to look at us as we come down the entrance steps, into the ball room.
I feel like every eye is on me, and I can see women talking to each other excitedly behind their fans, as their eyes do not leave our progress through the room. Jason merely smiles and he pulls me into a dance as the orchestra begins to play a waltz. Then I am twirling in Jason’s arms and he is smiling into my eyes. “You are doing just fine,” he tells me, pulling me closer to him, leaning his cheek against mine.
The moment the dance ends, someone is bowing and asking me for the next dance. Jason introduces him to me, then I see a woman come up and begin to talk to Jason and he takes her and begins to dance with her, as the man who has approached me starts to dance with me as well.
“Jason has chosen a charming bride. I take it he found you in Ireland, since he has just returned from there,” the man who had been introduced to me, but I can’t remember his name, tells me.
“Yes. He was a friend of my family. My husband died and he took me in so I wouldn’t be destitute. Eventually we discovered we suited, so I agreed to marry him,” I lie, even though it is close to the truth, I decide.
“Well he is a lucky man. He always said he wanted to live in what he called his homeland. He was born in Ireland, you know, but then moved when he was still a lad. He always wanted to go back but his father had holdings here in England and it wasn’t until he died, that Jason was able to return there for good. He used to spend summers there sometimes when he could talk his father into letting him.”
“Strange. I never saw him until he came to stay and take over the tenants of the manor,” I say, trying to remember if I had ever seen Jason before that time.
“But you did say he was friends of your family,” the man responds.
“Yes, after he came to take over his father’s manor,” I murmur.
“We always thought he was misplaced somehow. He never seemed to fit in here as well as he could. Always shunning all the beautiful English women, j
oking that if he ever took a wife, it would have to be an Irish lass, and here you are.”
I just stare at him. Did Jason want to marry an Irish woman, because his manor was in Ireland, and having an Irish wife would make him more accepted by his tenants? Taking one of his tenants as his wife would help him all the more, especially one that had a husband who died as a martyr for the cause, because the Fenians and many Irish over the years, were against the big land owners, whether they be English or Irish. It had been stated in the Proclamation of the Irish Republic that Jamie read in the first meeting I had attended, that the Fenians did not want a war with the English but merely were against the aristocratic locusts, as they put it.
Perhaps he understood enough to know that he would get sympathy from the cause, if his wife was one of them. He was playing both sides, staying involved with the English to try and put down the uprising, while marrying someone involved in the Fenian group, because of my dead husband’s involvement in it. None of the Fenians knew I had joined the cause, since I had dressed as a boy, but perhaps he thought, through me, he could help put a stop to any uprising against his own manor, if he could get me to fall in love with him, and plead his case for him, if the Fenians were able to take over eventually. Either way he would be protected, either by the English, or by the friends of his own wife.
Now it is becoming more clear to me why he took me on as his ward in the first place. Just doing that would put him in good with his tenants, because of his compassion in helping a poor widow who’s husband died for the cause. But if he married me, how much stronger would that tie bond him to his tenants, and the Fenians? He would have a wife that understood the plight of the farmer and the farmers would trust him because of it. It wasn’t until the group started becoming a concern that he decided to force me to marry him. The love of his life indeed, I frown to myself. He just wanted an Irish tenant wife to secure his own position, as insurance no matter which way the dice landed.
It is clear he wants me to stop being involved with the cause, so in the end I did not get hung. It would surely go bad for him, if his own wife was involved. Only my association with the group and the tenants is what he really needs, I believe. That is why he wants me to leave Jamie, and agree to comit to him as his wife. That way I won’t have a reason to be tied to the cause so strongly, if I was not in love with one of the group.
The man thanks me for the dance when it is over, but I do not see Jason anywhere, and then someone else is asking me to dance. The night seems spent dancing with one man and then another, all strangers who all want to meet Jason’s new wife. Once in a while, I catch a glimpse of Jason dancing with women as well, leaning his head towards them as he talks and they flirt, while they dance. I am beginning to decide I do not much like the kind of social function where men dance with women other than their wife, and their wife dances with men other than their husband. I suppose the one dance I did have with Jason was the only requirement even if his wife was brand new.
I remember how Jason told me I could practice my flirting. Apparently he was allowing other women to practice their flirting with him, as well, and that is what these affairs were all about. Was it their way to just flirt and look for a lover on the side, beyond their wives or husbands? Was there really no sacredness to marriage, or maybe just marriages like my own? After all I had a lover before I married Jason, but our marriage was rather unusual, I decide. Jason did not marry me out of love, even if he was trying to fool everyone else into believing he had.
By intermission time, I have decided that dancing all night can be rather tiring, and remembering anyone’s name is beyond me. I can’t wait until it is all over. Finally Jason manages to find me, now that he is not dancing with anyone, and it seems to be the custom to remain with your spouses during times you are not flirting with everyone else.
Jason takes me out onto the back patio, for some fresh air, and places his arm around my waist as we look down onto the garden where other couples are strolling. “Are you enjoying yourself?” he asks.
“I find it tiring,” I say truthfully. “I have nothing in common with these people, so it is hard to carry on a conversation. I don’t know their friends and they don’t know mine. The only thing we do have in common is the fact that we both happen to know you,” I smile.
“If you are finding it a bore, I suppose I could send you back home. I know that Mother and Loraine would want to remain. So I will send you in the carriage on your own, if you wish. Mother would not like me deserting her and Loraine so early in the evening. After all, I will only be here for a mere week.” He looks at me a little worriedly. “At least everyone has had the chance to see you, and the stir is all over,” he chuckles, as he takes my elbow and leads me back through the hall.
Soon I am sitting in the carriage riding away from the lighted mansion, with the faint sound of music drifting away in the background. I am feeling a little hurt. Jason had been thoughtful concerning my complaints, yet he chose to stay and send me home alone. Well I never professed to love him anyway, and he knows it. After my rejection of him this morning, he probably wishes to let one of his many women friends sooth his ego again. I have discovered his real reason for wanting to marry me, anyway, and the reasons behind why he wants to try to seduce me into loving and trusting him. There is no reason to hope that his sudden kind treatment of me, has anything to do with his actually wanting to make this unconventional marriage something more than what it really is.
The man had said he spent summers at the Manor, but if he had, he probably never came to the farms. That is why I… I stop and suddenly recall one summer, just before I got married to Ferrell. A young man had come up and started talking to me. I didn’t know who he was. He wasn’t dressed in fancy clothes, but I remember wondering who he was, because I knew all the tenants. He said his name was Jamie, and he had an English accent. That is why I thought it strange that he was there. All the tenants were, of course, Irish, and even our landlord was Irish. He did not say he was from the manor and since he offered to help me plant the potatoes, it didn’t dawn on me that he would be from the manor. I never saw him again and the next summer I married Ferrell.
The carriage brings me to Jason’s mother’s home. The footman opens the door, and lets me into the house. I go upstairs and ring for a maid to remove my gown and then put the night-gown over my head. I wish I was back in Ireland, laying in bed with Jamie. Jason said he would get tired of me eventually. I wondered if he ever would? He had told me that he couldn’t live if he didn’t think he could make love to me any more. Was that just his way of keeping me meeting him and letting him make love to me? Was I all caught up in the need to revenge Ferrell’s death so strongly, that I was in love with an ideal, and not the man? Was my passion for the cause mixed up with my passion for Jamie? Now I am questing myself, just the way Jason wants me to.
Just as I am starting to fall asleep, I feel Jason climb into bed with me. He pulls me to him, but I pretend to be asleep, and so he just hugs me against him and eventually I fall back to sleep.
In the morning, Jason is still hugging me to him but I turn and stretch and then get out of bed to use the water room. Jason had a longer night than I did and though he is awake, he remains in bed, watching me walk across the room. W hen I come near the bed, he reaches out and grabs my hand.
“Everyone was impressed with you last night,” he tells me. “After you left, they were all asking for you.”
“Except for your women friends,” I laugh. “I am sure they were happy I had left.”
“They could never take your place,” Jason tells me. “If that were the case, I would have married any one of them ages ago. Do you know I met you, when you were about fifteen or sixteen. It was before you had gotten married. I thought you were a beauty then.”
“I vaguely recall meeting you. You helped me plant some potatoes. I didn’t know you were the landlords son, though.”
“Nor did I want you to. You would have turned up your nose at me.”
/> “I would have been afraid to talk to you, that is for sure,” I respond.
“Exactly. Which is why I didn’t tell you. Only the next time I came, I was told you had been married. I was hoping to get to know you better. I guess I just did not impress you enough.”
“I grew up with Ferrell. It was always assumed that we would marry, and we did. I loved him.”
“But you have forgotten that love, and taken on a lover. I had planed to wait the year of your mourning, before I ever approached you to marry me. I would take you on as a ward, and by that time, you would have gotten to know me better. Instead, you join in with your friends against the land owners and you think nothing of taking a lover, after vowing that you would love Ferrell forever, giving me little hope you would ever forget him, and think to look at me. Getting mixed up with the cause was too dangerous. Your husband was killed because of it. Therefore I had to marry you, instead of wait. I could see you were too headstrong and I might lose you before I ever had you. Don’t go back to your lover, Rose. Forget about the Fenians.”
“A very touching story,” I say. “Perhaps I would have believed it, except for the fact that you showed no attraction to me. You were going to marry me off to someone else, until you realized I would not marry anyone else, and then perhaps you felt it might be an advantage to you to have an Irish wife, who was close friends to the tenants and involved in the cause.”
“I don’t know what you are talking about. I wanted you to choose me, so I pretended I was preparing you to get married to someone else, so by the time I asked you, you would know what it was like to be a lady and live in a Manor. You never would have had anything to do with me if I had asked you to marry me the moment your husband had died. I wanted to give you time, but instead you were rebelling against everything I tried to do to help you. I couldn’t forget the girl I helped to plant potatoes and then suddenly you were free of your husband, but vowed never to marry again. What else could I do?”
Wild Irish Rose Page 12