1870, Philadelphia, USA.
Martha Whitcomb, the wild child of Philadelphia society, is now a grown woman, independent in wealth and in personality. At twenty-three, still unmarried and childless, she is exposed to constant rumors and ridicule, crushed...
I'm making good progress on the upcoming chapters, and I'm hoping that soon, I'll be able to return to a two-chapter week. I'm still a little hesitant as I've been working 50-60 hours a week at my job and I don't want to post more quickly than I'm writing, but we're getting there!
As always, if you enjoy the story, don't forget to vote and leave a comment if you're so inclined. Madam has been at the top spot in the Saloon category for at least a week now, and Rhodora sits at #2 in the Historical category, so things are progressing nicely and you're the BEST readers!
As a side note, I'm anticipating this story is going to be longer than Rhodora. I never expected it to become quite so complex, but as these new characters are developing, new plot threads are connecting them and you might have noticed that I'm weaving quite a thing that will inevitably have to be untangled.
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Martha hesitated at the foyer entrance, regarding the massive front doors of Cedarvale and contemplating whether she should do something so improper as going for a walk in the nearby woods. She felt as though she might go mad if she remained cooped up in this place one more day, locked up with her still-inconsolable mother and her own confining mourning costume. Crepe was absurdly uncomfortable, and she suspected it was by design. The stiff collar rubbed against her neck, irritating her skin as though nagging at her to never forget the loss of her brother, even for a moment. The heavy fabric weighed her down, adding resistance to each step, each gesture, a physical manifestation of the heavy weight in her heart. She felt like some sort of harbinger of doom, a shadow lurking in the hallways, instructed to remain as pathetic and solemn as possible at all times. The costume wore her, leaving her afraid to even speak above a whisper, so consumed was she by this black shroud of misery. Five more months of this, she reminded herself with a frown.
No, she decided, turning away from the beckoning entry doors. The moments of calm freedom and badly-needed fresh air in the early summer sunshine would not be worth the shrill lecture she would receive on how disgraceful it was to even leave the house, let alone to enjoy herself while she was meant to be mourning William. How could she have the gall to feel at peace for even an hour under such circumstances, she would be asked. She was unfit to be seen in society if she could not learn to conduct herself with propriety, she would be told. No man would put up with such an unmannerly wild thing, she would be threatened.
She had heard it before, but was simply too tired to hear it again. So she remained as she was, a silent ghoul sullenly moving down the hallway on her way to the library. Reading was proper enough, so long as she remembered not to smile or appear to take any manner of pleasure in the story.
As Martha walked, she was pulled in by the muffled sound of a man yelling, and came to a stop outside her father's study. She shifted uncomfortably, her unease quickly churning into a small storm as she realized it was her father's voice. It took her far too long to accept this conclusion, as she could not imagine who else might be causing such a ruckus, but her father was such a soft-spoken, gentle man, and hearing his anger sparked a soft dread in her belly, along with bitter remembrance. It was a sound she had not heard since William's departure for the army two years prior.
