‘Please, don't ask,’ I blurted out. ‘I, um… promised him to tell nobody. Yes, I promised!’
This was such a lousy excuse that no little sister in England would have accepted it. Other little sisters would have dug and bored and drilled until they had uncovered every last bit of the truth. But all those little sisters probably didn’t have a secret lover.
Moisture sparkled in Ella’s eyes, and the words ‘just like me and Edmund’ practically blinked on her forehead for all the world to see.
‘Of course.’ Nodding eagerly, she enfolding me in her arms. ‘I understand. Of course you have to keep your love’s secret. I understand more than you can ever know.’
Somehow I doubted that. I knew perfectly well why she was feeling so deeply for my supposed plight, and it didn’t have anything to do with her general compassionate nature but rather, I suspected, with a certain young man who would soon be waiting for her at the garden fence.
‘I really hope you two will find a way to be together,’ she breathed into my ear, her voice sounding tearful.
Well I sure as hell didn’t. I had to work hard to keep myself from laughing at the idea of my marrying Mr Rikkard Ambrose. It would perhaps make an interesting tragedy for the theatre, with all the participants ending up strangled within the first five minutes, but in reality? No, thank you!
However, I didn’t think that was what Ella wanted to hear.
‘I’m sure we will. I think he’s getting really attached to me, and it’s quite likely that we will spend more time together in the future.’ That last part at least was true. ‘But enough of my problems,’ I continued, holding Ella away from me with both hands. ‘Let us talk about you and the man prowling around you. What about Sir Philip?’
Ella’s face paled. ‘He was here earlier today,’ she muttered.
‘To visit you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did he bring flowers?’
‘Quite a lot of them, yes.’
‘And what do you think of him?’
‘He… is a very pleasant gentleman,’ Ella replied, doing her best to sound enthusiastic and failing miserably.
‘That is wonderful! Simply wonderful!’
I was testing my newfound acting skills. Of course I knew Ella’s interests lay in another direction, but I couldn’t tell her that I had overheard her and Edmund pledging their eternal, epic and everlasting love. She would vaporise from embarrassment. And I wouldn’t get another chance to eavesdrop on her and her lover, which was essential both for my plans of furthering the happiness of my little sister and as my favourite evening entertainment.
‘So you want to marry him, do you?’ I asked with a fake, bright smile.
What little colour had remained in Ella’s cheeks vanished. ‘Um… maybe not as such.’
‘Why not?’ I pressed. ‘If he likes you and you like him, why wait?’
‘Well, we’re both so young. Too young, I think, to really think of marriage.’
‘There are girls who get married at fifteen. That is two years younger than you.’
‘True, but still… there’s no need to rush things and… and I…’
She was desperately groping around for another explanation. I had to say I was impressed with her. Of course her flimsy little lies wouldn’t even fool a cocker spaniel with severe concussion, but I was amazed that she even made the attempt. For Ella to lie to anybody, let alone me, was an impressive achievement. She really had to like this fellow Edmund.
~~*~~*
The confirmation of this very theory I received not three hours later. After my nap and an oh-so-delicious meal of porridge and cold potatoes, which I consumed with more relish than usual, I took up my usual post behind the bushes in the garden and waited for the two lovebirds to arrive. Just in case, I had taken the masterpiece of my favourite author with me: Mary Astell’s A Serious Proposal to the Ladies for the Advancement of their True and Greatest Interest, by a Lover of Her Sex.
Hey, I said she’s a great author. I didn’t say she was great at coming up with snappy titles. Secretly, I thought that How to Squash Chauvinists would have been a much better title, since that was what this fabulous book was all about - but I never dared to voice that opinion. If I had a heroine, Mary Astell was it. She had lived over a hundred years ago and already tried to grind the oppressive patriarchy of Great Britain into dust.
Today though, I didn’t get any new tips on man-to-dust-grinding. I had just opened my battered copy of A Serious Proposal to the Ladies when the lovebirds made their appearance. One fluttered in from the direction of the neighbours’ house, and it was not long after that Ella flew out of the back door and towards the fence.
‘Oh Edmund!’
‘Oh Ella!’
They both clutched the fence in their hands. Their eyes were drawn to the other’s as if by some magnetic force.
‘My love,’ Ella breathed, moisture in her eyes - and she didn’t need any onions for it. ‘How I have longed to see you again.’
‘And I you, my love. I have longed to see you again even more than you have longed to see me! Your sweet voice is to my ears as honey to my tongue.’
‘Impossible!’
‘I assure you, it is. The cadence of your speech…’
‘No, no, I don’t mean the bit about the honey! I mean the bit about you longing for me more than I longed for you! I have definitely longed more for you than you for me. How could I not? You are my pillar of strength in the midst of my woe, Edmund. My sole reason to continue living.’
That was laying it on a bit thick, wasn’t it? Nice walks in the park, reading, fighting for women’s rights… I could come up with half a dozen good reasons to continue living off the top of my head. And they most certainly were better reasons than some stupid man!
‘I assure you, my dearest Ella, that I have longed for you more than you for me. That is the only way it could be. For who am I? Nobody but a simple merchant’s son. You are the light of my life, queen of my heart, infinitely more important than me.’
You got that right mister. Satisfied, I nodded to myself. At least the fellow knew his place.
Apparently though, Ella didn’t. ‘You are not a nobody!’ she protested. ‘And I’m not more important than you!’
What the… of course you are! Through a gap in the foliage, I shot a glare at my little sister. She should squash this fellow until he was her willing slave, not try to build his self-esteem! Men’s heads were big enough already.
Ella seemed to think otherwise. ‘You are everything to me, Edmund,’ she declared. ‘Everything!’
‘As are you to me.’
‘Oh, Edmund.’
‘Oh, Ella, my love.’
For a few more minutes they continued their protestations of love and debate about who had missed whom more in the unimaginably long twenty-two hours or so that they had been separated. Finally though, they seemed to run out of sweet compliments and flowery similes for the passionate strength of their love.
The first pause ensued, and then, in a voice as tense as could be, Edmund asked:
‘How do things stand, my love? What of Sir Philip?’
Ella took a moment to answer. Peeking through the bushes, I saw that she was clutching the fence for support.
‘He came to visit me today,’ she whispered.
Edmund’s eyes slid shut, and he let himself fall against the fence. ‘Oh fearful harbinger of doom!’ he groaned.
‘He brought me flowers.’
‘What agony!’
‘They were pink roses.’
‘This is unbearable! Please, God, strike me down with a bolt of lightning!’
I glanced up towards the night sky. It didn’t look like God was in the mood to oblige Edmund. I wished he would. Then at least the moaning and groaning would stop.
‘And he said I was more beautiful than any flower he had ever brought me.’
‘Enough! Enough!’ With another groan, Edmund slid down the fence until he was on his knees in the grass. ‘Have mercy on me!’
‘He also said I was the most beautiful girl he had ever laid eyes upon,’ Ella continued, blushing. ‘I asked him how it was he had met that few girls, and he laughed.’