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‘Don’t you dare defend him!’ Letting go of me, she stared up at me, her face wet with tears. ‘You didn’t see yourself last night. You didn’t see what had happened to you. Oh, Lill!’
‘Ella, I…’
‘I know you love him-’
O really?
‘-but you can’t defend what he has done.’
Don’t intend to while you’re glaring at me like that, trust me.
‘I thought he was good for you, Lill, I thought he loved you, but a man who can do that to a girl is not worth a grain of feeling. Please, Lill, I know it must be painful, but try to rid yourself of those feelings. They will only hurt you. He will only hurt you.’
I felt almost like laughing. Poor Ella! If she only knew that all her concerns were for nothing. If she only knew that there was no special man in my life, certainly no man who could do anything to hurt me.
An image of Mr Ambrose’s hard, chiselled face flashed across my inner vision. Suddenly, I didn’t feel so much like laughing anymore.
‘Please, Lill! Won’t you try to forget him? For me? Please?’
She looked so forlorn, so torn apart by anxiety. What could I do?
‘Of course.’ Tightening my arms, I pulled her towards me. For some reason, tears started to prick my eyes, too, and as our cheeks touched as we hugged, our tears mingled. ‘I’ve learned my lesson. Don’t you fear. Everything will be all right. Everything will be just fine.’
‘Oh Lill!’
‘Shh.’
Gently, I held her in my arms and rocked her from side to side until her sobs had subsided. The Rocking made my head ache, but seeing her like this made my heart ache, and that was far worse.
Reaching around me, Ella gently stroked my hair.
‘I… I’m sorry. I know I’m asking a lot of you. I know it can’t be easy to give somebody up, when you feel about them this strongly.’
Feel strongly? Did I feel strongly about Mr Ambrose? I had, on more than one occasion, wanted to take him by that short, shiny black hair of his and slam his head into a wall. But those probably weren’t the kinds of feelings to which Ella was referring.
‘Yes. It will be very difficult to stay away from him.’ Particularly since I want to see a pay cheque from him at the end of the month, and he isn’t going to cough it up if I’m not there, doing my job. ‘Almost impossible. But I’ll try.’
And I’ll fail. But you don't need to know that.
‘Oh Lilly. Thank you!’ Once more, she hugged me with a ferocity I would not have suspected could fit into her small, slender form. ‘It may cause your heart terrible agony now, but you will see, it is for the best.’
She let go of me. Relief was shining out of her still watery eyes, but it was mixed with apprehension.
‘You won’t blame me for
this, later, will you?’ she asked fearfully. ‘You won’t say I was terribly harsh and robbed you of your love? Please, Lill, I couldn’t bear it if you thought that of me. I’m only trying to look out for you. And it’s not as if I don't understand what you’re going through. I and Edm-’
Her lips clamped shut, and her eyes widened in shock.
I knew perfectly well whose name had almost escaped her mouth. Immediately, my headache was pushed to the back of my mind, my attention focused. Could it be that not all her tears were for my sake? Was she afraid of her approaching elopement? Had she found out when it was to take place? Dread flooded my chest. Imagining my life without my little sister… it was a barren prospect.
‘Oh, you don't need to worry about anything like that,’ I said with an airy wave. ‘I know you were only giving me good advice - stay away from men. And why not? They are all beasts, anyway, the whole lot of them.’
Ella’s cheeks flushed. ‘Some are not so bad. A few can be really nice.’
Probably in particular if their names began with ‘Edm’. But I didn’t voice my thoughts out loud. Instead, I said:
‘I won’t ever start to hate you, Ella. How could I? You’re my little sister, the one who has always been there when I needed someone to talk to, or to undress me because I was passed out drunk…’
