Roaring Hearts

Chapter 11

"You don't love someone because they are perfect, you love them despite the fact they're not." My sister's keeper, Jodi Picoult.

-------------------------------------------
In the weeks that passed, the leaves began to change unlike Hasnaa's situation, and the last rays of summer began to fade away. The inevitable finally came; winter. And at the first week of the winter season Hasnaa, who was experiencing winter for the first time, caught a cold which threatened to put a period to her existence. Lord Williams and Lady Magdalena were delighted and wished for her demise.

The sufferings that followed thereafter for her could not be described. And as she lay in her bed, helplessly, she felt her end drawing near with every breath she inhaled and exhaled. Later that week, she would implore James to end her suffering, but he didn't yield to her demands.
He instead sent for Mr. Cameron, the doctor. He arrived two days later, and he gave her something to ease the pain.

James sat close to her to all the days she was ill and every time she opened her eyes, she found right by her side. He did not give up on her and he stayed true to their wedding pledges. With every passing day, Lady Magdalena devoted herself to convincing James to let Hasnaa die but she was unduly dear to him, and he could not stand by and watch her passing.

By the end of the second week of winter, and just a week before her union with James, her illness began to wear out, and eventually, she got better. Lord and Lady Williams were not pleased with her recovery but they had to proceed with their original plans.
Due to her sickness, the Williams household had been preoccupied with her and had left no time for the preparation. Although the initial introduction to the parish had been done before her ailment.

After her healing, the senior lady of the Williams family, Lady Magdalena called for a meeting.
"I understand all present here are aware that my son, James' would be wife almost succumbed to the cold she suffered earlier this month. We were all engaged with her and we ceased to satisfactorily organize the wedding, therefore I hereby postpone the holy union to two months from now. Lord Williams, managed to secure the license at that particular time."
Lady Magdalena announced and immediately she left.

Hasnaa and the others could do nothing but oblige, Lord Williams and his wife had the utmost power to control their lives. She had spent the bulk of the weeks that followed, attending balls alongside Lord Henry and James and at times she would get classes from Lady Eliza. She had not been invited to the balls but James had made certain she was always by his side.

At first, she was reluctant and mindful of the aristocrats. Yet,  she could not quit or shed tears because of the British elites, that's something she had learned in her earlier years from her father. Word traveled first; the youngest son of the Williams was taking to bed a negro and had gone as far as to make her the lady of the house by aspiring to marry her. The worst of all; Lord Spencer Williams and his wife were condoning his blunder.

Every time James entered a ballroom with Hasnaa, a black person, clinging to his hand the town's spinsters and their annoying mothers who had been vying to be  James' wife, would be enraged and every single time more hate grew in their hearts for Hasnaa. But James had always stuck by her side, filling her with confidence and courage to face all those snobbish white men.

The hate which had begun with the highest class of the British elites moved swiftly to the middle class and inevitably to the lowest class. Soon all of London developed not only hate for Hasnaa but also the Williams family, and this threatened to tarnish further the already tainted reputation of the family.
Their hate for her and the Williams family did not bother any of them, since Lord Williams managed to get his work done despite the rumors. While their scorn continued to thrive, James' and Hasnaa's bond grew stronger and in the end, they were invincible.