Serenity

The Cotillion

The night felt oppressively heavy, a weight Rose couldn't shake off. She was present at the dance but only in body. Her mind was drifting, and the repetitive dance with Cal became a tedious routine. It was as if she had detached from her physical form, floating in a state of disconnection. Her longing for freedom was palpable, a silent scream amid the grandeur.

The cotillion was brilliant, but it was the same formal dinner-dance affair as always, where the new girl was outed to society to finally be either crowed over or pulled to pieces like a tiny, defenceless mouse discarded by a cat. Sighing inwardly, she played the part of the doting wife-to-be perfectly and knew how much of a grand job she was doing. The societal pressure was a heavy cloak she couldn't shake off, a constant weight on her shoulders. As the sister of the beloved debutante, she had been crowned over herself and questioned about the miracle of surviving the sinking. Questions of how it must have strengthened the handsome couple, as those who believed them to be in love awed or oohed, fawning over them like newborn babies. Instead, she felt like screaming the truth to them to see if they would even care to acknowledge it.

Dancing with Cal made her feel utterly like a prized possession. For folk to marvel at, she may as well have been the latest fashion, such as a hat, coat, or satin glove, because she certainly didn't feel like his fiancée. Their engagement, more of a business arrangement than a romantic union, added to her sense of confinement and expectation.

''Elizabeth looks happy,'' Cal commented as the dance was about to close, and he glanced across to his future sister-in-law, adorned in white.

''She is, this is her completely at ease.'' She was, if anything, a little jealous of the ease her younger sister had taken to society and all of its trimmings. It was a constant reminder of her inadequacy in the social sphere. ''She is the social butterfly,'' and Rose was not, she failed to add, nor was she ever. The contrast between them was stark, a constant source of tension in Rose's mind.

Elizabeth looked stunning in a pure white beaded creation, set off by the red of her hair and lips, as she danced with a handsome, wealthy heir to a mining fortune whose family reigned from England. There had been whispers of his attraction to Elizabeth for quite some time, but he was seven years older than she. Though she was almost seventeen, it felt like a tender age, even though Rose was engaged to a man who had turned thirty.

''Maybe she will marry Mr. Long; I hear his family is established in London. Would it not be good to visit Europe once a year and see her in England? I hear the countryside is well."

The very thought made her stomach unsettled. She was about to respond when the dance ended, and right after, her mother, who had wound herself up into quite a tizz, flanked her.

"I did forget that I had invited Lady Seymour." Ruth quietened her voice as they passed the slight lady, shooing away a waiter carrying a sparkling champagne tray, leaving Rose disappointed; one needed liberation when listening to her mother's crowing. "Her husband was seen in Glasgow this winter last having fornicated with a servant girl who was pregnant with his child." Incredibly, her mother nodded an acknowledgement as they passed the woman who was the focus of her mother's gossip, and then she quickly returned as soon as they were out of earshot. ''The child is said to be born any day, and her husband is here with her. Just what could we make of that?'' Rose smiled at the woman her mother referred to, who seemed pleasant enough, but her mother continued. "I heard from Mrs Newton, who travelled with the family last year. Could you imagine? The sight of the poor devil."

"No, it is a terrible thought," Rose responded dryly, lacking interest in the social gossip.

"I also heard they were in financial ruin; how do I know what is true after he dallies with a maid? Still, they simply should know not to shame themselves by showing their faces within society. Perhaps he is paying the maid to give birth to the cretin silently. Who knows how she could bribe him? That's the trouble with these lowly servants these days; they are worryingly educated at times, and they will not simply stop and serve as they have been instructed to do so for hundreds of years.''