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Ella’s lower lip began to quiver.
‘Which is?’
‘Sir Philip Wilkins still pursues you.’
‘Oh, cruel, cruel Edmund! How can you remind me?’
Edmund reached through the poles to squeeze her hands, and she immediately ceased her lamentations.
‘I must remind you,’ he persisted in a gentle tone of voice. ‘I must, because we must form plans and find an escape, find some way to forge a future for ourselves.’
Her eyes tearing up again, Ella suddenly stumbled forward and sagged against the fence.
‘No plans can save me,’ she whispered. ‘I have no future!’
Now that’s just not true! I shook my head disapprovingly. If people only could be more accurate about such things. She might have a future wherein she would be absolutely miserable, married to a man she couldn’t stand and separated from her one true love - but she would definitely have a future. One should always be accurate. Ten hours a day and six days a week of sorting files for an office tyrant teaches a girl that much.
‘That is why I said we would forge a future, Ella. You may not have one now, but we will find a way.’
‘How, Edmund, my love? How can we possibly find a way?’
‘I do not know yet. But take heart, my love. With time, we will surely devise a plan and…’
‘With time?’ More tears running down her delicate face, Ella stared through the fence in desperation. Now the moon was out from behind the clouds and I could actually see the mournful expression clearly. It made me wish for darkness again. ‘With time? Edmund, you do not understand. We do not have time. I… I believe…’
‘What?’ Edmund stepped closer to the fence and grabbed the metal poles. ‘What are you keeping from me? Tell me! I beg you, my love, tell me!’
‘I believe,’ Ella said in a breathless whisper, ‘that Sir Philip will shortly propose matrimony.’
‘No! Say it isn’t so!’
‘Yes, my love.’ Reaching up, she swiftly touched his pallid cheek with her fingertips. ‘Yes, it is. I wish it were not so, but I cannot change it. I cannot change my fate.’
There were a few moments of heavy silence. Edmund was staring at the ground, his fists clenched at his sides. Curious, I leaned forward, trying to get a look at his face, but it was impossible to see from here.
Blast! And this is the best part of the drama!
I should have gotten a seat closer to the stage.
Then, suddenly, he raised his head again, and I blinked in surprise. I hardly recognized him. All the despair was gone from his face, replaced by a look of iron, immovable determination.
‘Yes, you can,’ he said in a hoarse voice. ‘You can change your fate, my love. Run away with me! Run away with me and become my wife!’
You could have knocked me down with a feather. Actually, half a feather might have done it. Or maybe a very small piece of yarn?
Ella, I could see, was equally taken aback. She wasn’t gaping open-mouthed at Edmund like I was - proper ladies don't do that sort of thing - but she had definitely turned an even whiter shade of pale than she normally was.
‘M-marry?’ Her voice was almost inaudible over the soft wind that had picked up and that rustled the leaves in the trees as well as the soft folds of her dress in an appropriately romantic manner. ‘But how… Aunt Brank would never agree!’
‘I as
ked you to run away with me, my love,’ Edmund reminded her, his voice gentle but firm, his gaze never leaving her face. ‘That means she wouldn’t have to agree.’
‘But… go against the wishes of her and all my family…?’
‘Yes.’
‘Shame them before all the world? Hurt them in such a way?’
