Free Into the Wilderness by Sara Donati

more sensible,
you would see that."
    There
was a moment's silence as
Elizabeth
struggled with her temper.
    "Then
I am not sensible," she said. "But I will not act against my
conscience.
    "There's
no other man suited to you in station or property for many miles."
    "You
will not sell your property, but you will sell your daughter, have I understood
you correctly?"
    "You
are impertinent!" he sputtered. "I would have expected that my sister
might have done a better job with you—"
    "Do
you care, Father, about what I want?"
    "I
care about your welfare."
    "Listen
to me. What I want is independence. It is the grand blessing of life, the basis
of every virtue; and independence I will ever secure by contracting my wants,
though I were to live on a barren heath." Do you know who wrote
that?"
    "I
haven't the slightest idea," the judge said, exasperated.
    Elizabeth
picked up the slim volume she had been reading when he found her and she handed
it to him. "Mrs. Wollstonecraft. A
Vindication of the Rights of Women' ."
    The
judge looked down at the volume in his hand and then shook his head.
    "You
are being influenced by this, by this—"
    "Yes"
Elizabeth
said.
"I have been influenced by these writings. But no more than you have been
by the writings of Thomas Paine."
    The
judge dropped the book on the table. " The
Rights of Man cannot be compared to this drivel."
    "You
haven't read Mrs. Wollstonecraft, how can you know?"
Elizabeth
said impatiently. And then seeing
that she was not going to sway her father,
Elizabeth
stopped and tried to gather her thoughts.
    "Keep
your property and your gift of deed. If you will sign it only on my marriage to
Richard Todd, then it will never be signed. If you continue to attempt to force
me into an alliance which I do not want, I will go back to
England
and
take up my old place in the home of my aunt Merriweather."
    The
judge's jaw dropped. "You would not."
    "I
would. I came here to be free of the restrictions I lived under in
England
. If
there is no freedom for me here, there is no reason to stay."
    Elizabeth
gathered her writing materials together and made her way to the study door.
    "I'll
leave the book with you," she said. "In case you care to read any of
it. Now if you will excuse me," she said, "I have to make myself
ready for your party."
    * * *
    The
parlor was cleared of most of its furniture; only chairs remained in little
groups of threes and fours, and a long table laid with gleaming linen and good
plate ware onto which Curiosity and her daughters had piled food of every
possible kind. The room was lit with beeswax and bayberry candles and a
collection of pewter lamps. Although it was full dark outside, even at five,
the room was as bright as midday.
    Elizabeth
went
about her duties as hostess as she had been trained to do since her earliest
girlhood, making sure that everyone was well supplied with food and drink, that
no one was without a conversation partner for long. She smiled and nodded and
answered questions as they came to her, but she was terribly distraught and
sometimes felt that everyone must see this clearly on her face.
    It
was her father's duplicity which lay heaviest on her mind.
Elizabeth
could not look at Richard Todd, who
smiled at her kindly and was helpful in every way, without thinking that he and
her father had schemed together behind her back to plan a marriage she did not
want and could not countenance. It was hard to be civil under such
circumstances; it was harder to pretend that nothing was amiss. All of her
plans were in peril.
    And
Nathaniel had not come. She was surprised, and a little hurt, and then
distressed at her own reaction. She could not deny to herself that she was
attracted to him, but she also knew that it was an inappropriate preference,
one of which her father would not approve.
    Unlike
Elizabeth
,
Julian seemed to be completely amused by his surroundings; everything was to
his liking, nothing could be improved on. There were pretty