The Card Party

The Card Party

Gentle reader, Cupid and I are at an impasse.

   We sat opposed to each other. I, with the considerable height advantage, conceded to kneel back on my legs, tucking the volume of skirts between calf and thigh to cushion against the grass, while he lounged against the powdered white wall of mother's garden house. Every now and again he glanced up with suspicion in his honey brown eyes at the cards in my hand, a frown marring the smooth space between his brows.

    He was doing remarkably well; Piquet is not an easy game for a child to master. We had reached the 'Trick' stage of our game, having drawn the higher card in the beginning; Cupid lay down the first card.

    After dance instruction, I had retired to the gardens to find him waiting for me. He was no taller than my knee, with hair the colour of straw and cheeks like blushing roses.

    "Miss Dahlia?" he said with a professionalism not expected in a child.

    "Yes?"

     He eyed me up and down; as if I were a brood mare for perusal. "You're pretty. You'll be easy to find a match for—", a statement, dear reader, I found most unbecoming. But then he revealed his arrows. There were seven in total, in a quiver of black mahogany, each stem the brightest silver, the feathers a mix of reds and browns, like falcon feathers, the pointed tips the purest gold. Scrawled along the side of one in particular was 'Dahlia Evanscroft' in neat crimson penmanship.

   Cupid began to organise the cards in his hand into a tidy fan, "I will win" he grinned, puffing out his chest a little as he took another point. I followed his move by playing an eight against his six and stole the point for myself "You were saying?"

   He slouched dramatically, a pout on his pink lips, "This is stupid!"

   I recall once declaring the very same to my mother on my eighth birthday as she had me fitted for a new frock. It was tight and uncomfortable and itched in unfortunate places. She told me 'Women must always look their best, my dear. For people only ever remember the pretty ones.' That day she sat me beside her the whole afternoon as the visiting matrons cooed and gushed over my 'lush blond curls' and 'delicate blue eyes', I don't recall, however, being wished well once that day.

     As a child I remember my mother as a sincerely grey woman, her hair always in place, her smile as constant as a wax figurine. She imparted this bit of advice on my birthday, the very same year my older sister Adeline was married to a wealthy businessman whose never home.

     "We appear to be caught in a state of total disagreement" I mused to Cupid as he took two more points, he seemed so sure I would eventually see his way of things, being hit by one of his sacred arrows-of-love, but I'm quite certain I will not.

     "Falling in love is fun," he said.

     "But you see, you seem to be under the misguided impression that you're doing me some sort of favour," I laughed. "But as far as I'm concerned, your services will not be required today or any other day for that matter. So we're quite at a loss of what to do, aren't we?" I want him gone, and he wants to shoot me, hence the impasse.

     "It certainly does look that way Miss Dahlia," he agreed. "I suppose all we can do for now is to play the game and hope the right man wins."

  "You mean the best man," I corrected him.

     Rather than replying, he played another Trick, taking another point.

     When I saw his arrows, I immediately challenged Cupid to cards, because at the time it seemed a clever idea. Cupid, mighty God of Love he was, was still trapped within the body of an immature, impulsive child and what better way to bait a child than with a game?