"You get a strange feeling when you're about to leave a place...like you'll not only miss the people you love but you'll miss the person you are now at this time and this place, because you'll never be this way ever again."
― Azar Nafisi, Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books
August 3rd 1884
It was the last night Arabella would spend in her own room at Bingham Park.
Tomorrow she would be married and by the time evening came she'd be on a train to London where she and Bertram would spend three days before continuing on to Bristol where they'd set up house and live until February.
It was daunting and exciting all at once.
The rest of her siblings had arrived the previous day to her delight, and they'd spent the day together, telling tales of how they'd been since last seeing each other. Lilly was with child, Emma had just past her third birthday and Oliver reported that he and Valentina were very much in love and that Valentina regretted she was not able to come.
The day had been full of laughter and the exchange of stories. Arabella had felt a kind of frantic happiness to be back with her siblings. For a little while it had been almost like back in the old days, when marriage and growing up had been just a distant concept, unlikely to really occur.
But now here she was, the day before her wedding, a woman grown. It was an exhilarating prospect.
She fell asleep with a smile on her lips and a light heart.
The next morning went by in a blur and it seemed almost too fast that Arabella was dressed in her wedding gown, staring at her mirror while Lizzie and her sisters fussed around her.
"Where's the sapphire choker?" Alice asked, rummaging through Arabella's jewellery box which had been packed and ready to go only five minutes previously.
"Is it not there?" Arabella asked nervously, fighting the urge to look for it herself as Lizzie finished pinning the last side of her hair up.
"Found it," Alice pulled the necklace out and shut the jewellery box with a snap.
"You have your something borrowed, yes?" Lizzie asked, sliding what must have been the fiftieth pin into the bride's hair.
"Yes, Vivienne lent me the gloves," Arabella looked at the lace gloves perched on the top of her nearly empty vanity
"Done," Lizzie proclaimed, stepping back to admire her handy work.
Arabella's hair was pulled back on top of her head in little coils threaded through with pearls and strands of gold. The dresses' sleeves went to the end of her wrists, secured by little silk covered buttons. The skirt fell straight to the floor, the cream taffeta embroidered through with silver thread and overlaid with lace. The bodice was close fitting, making Arabella uncomfortably warm in the August heat. She fanned herself with the mother-of-pearl fan Isabella had given her (it had belonged to Isabella's mother) as Lilly secured the choker around her neck.
Finally, the thin veil was placed on her head.
"Am I done?" Arabella asked, looking at the three other women.
"Yes, you look lovely," Alice smiled, kissing her cheek. "Bertram is a very fortunate gentleman."
"Thank you. Well, shall we go?" Arabella cast another look at her room, stripped of most of her personal possessions.
"We'd better go," Lilly said and Arabella looked at her sisters, smiling waveringly. Lilly squeezed her hand and the three of them made their way downstairs.
YOU ARE READING
An Acceptable Marriage (BOOK 5)
Historical Fiction(sequel to Rushbrooke End) Arabella Thorpe has always dreamed of marriage and becoming the wife of a great lord. When she finds herself in a betrothal with the handsome Bertram Cook, Baron Filbert, she is beyond delighted. As their marriage progress...
