Silence is Golden

07. Royal Example

When I got home that evening, I was still thinking about Mr Ambrose's report on operation RWN. That's the only way I can explain my not noticing the calculating looks my aunt threw me all through dinner. Only when my sister Ella nudged me and whispered: 'Why is Aunt Brank looking at you like that?' did I glance up and see her.

Hurriedly, she looked away, trying to make it appear as if there were nothing more interesting in the world to her than the plate of mushy boiled potatoes in front of her. But it was too late. I had already seen the look on her face: concentrated, cool and calculating – as if she were judging a slice of beef in the meat market. I knew that look all too well.

'Bloody hell, no!' I groaned.

'Lill!' Ella gasped. 'Watch your language!'

'Sorry.'

'What is the matter? What has upset you?'

'Upset me? You want to know what has upset me?' Leaning closer, I jabbed my fork in my aunt's direction, and whispered: 'She's found another you-know-what for me!'

'No!' Ella covered her mouth with one delicate pale hand. 'Surely not!'

'Surely yes! I know that look on her face. You can bet on it.'

'But...so soon?'

'Yes.'

'After you, um, grabbed the last one by the...err....and did...that thing to him?'

'Yes.'

'How would she be able to find someone willing?'

'Trust me, Aunt can get inventive when she wants something. And she wants us out of the house, married to the richest men she can lay her greedy paws on.'

'Now, really, Lill!' Ella shook her head. 'I can't believe that. Aunt may be a bit, well, forceful in trying to find matrimonial arrangements for us, but I'm sure she only wants our happiness.'

I looked at my little sister, one eyebrow raised. 'You think that do you?' I patted her head. 'Bless you.'

She gifted me with one of her radiant smiles that lit up the whole room. 'So you agree with me?'

'Not in a million years! But I'm sure it's very noble of you to be so ridiculously trusting.'

After dinner, I slipped out of the dining room before my aunt could catch me and drag me off to her latest you-know-what. Grabbing my favourite book from where I had hidden it from Aunt Brank, at the very back of the small library's lowest shelf, I made my way into the garden, behind my favourite bush, where no dogs ever peed and no aunts ever disturbed me.

Sighing with contentment, I flicked open Some Reflections upon Marriage. I didn't even have to leaf through it. I knew the book so well, it fell open just at the passage I was looking for.

But, alas! What poor Woman is ever taught that she should have a higher Design than to get her a Husband? Heaven will fall in, of course; and if she makes but an Obedient and Dutiful Wife, she cannot miss of it. A Husband, indeed, is thought by both Sexes so very valuable, that scarce a Man who can keep himself clean and make a bow, but thinks he is good enough to pretend to any Woman!

I gave another contented sigh. How wonderful it was to have found someone with whom I was completely and utterly of one mind – even if she had already been dead for over a hundred years.

I was so lost in Mary Astell's witty treatise that I nearly missed the light patter of feet passing my bush. Nearly, but not quite – because some part of my mind had been waiting for that sound all along. Raising my head, I saw a flash of white between the branches of the bush, and knew I had been right. It was she!