Once Before

12 - Wilfred

The night seemed to know no end.

The orchestra continued to play their piece, the attendees took their turns to dance and rest their feet, all before they immediately make their way back onto the dance floor once their thirst had been quenched, and Arthur had been kind enough to stay with me whenever his position as a host and an earl permitted him, but it was clear that many of his guests were eager to have a private audience with him, the dance ball be damned.

I had lost track of time as I made myself useful and lingered about from groups to groups, all of whom seemed interested enough to question me but not comfortable enough to invite me to join their circle.

Do I blame them for treating me thus?

If growing up in Ashford had taught me anything, is that we are a close-knit community, and I can only imagine how amplified the notion would be two centuries ago, especially in a small town such as this.

Perhaps they saw me as a stranger. An intruder who have garnered the attention of their beloved earl - which must've been quite the deal in this era.

When I realized that no one had looked at me or approached me in the past 10 minutes, I took the chance to slip out through one of the doors that led back to the hallway where Arthur and I first entered the ballroom several hours ago.

It was abandoned, and yet the echo of the silence became an invitation to linger for a moment longer, to shelter myself from the overwhelming crowd and constant reminder of how I should look, talk, and act.

Minutes passed, but the longing for something more grew even stronger. The quietness was not enough, not for tonight. I needed to move farther away from the ballroom, I needed to breathe the fresh air outside, stand under the looming dark clouds, clear my head enough to remind myself that this feeling of being trapped wasn't permanent.

This wasn't permanent.

Am I supposed to find joy in that? And with it, sorrow as well? It was all becoming a big blur.

The balcony overlooked the wide horizon of green pasture which surrounded the estate, dotted by ancient trees and humble abodes of the farmers, the lights in their windows were dimmed as their owners were having the night of their lives in the ballroom.

Even in the darkness, the view still managed to astound me.

Looking back over my shoulders, I now realized that this whole estate was a reminder of the familiarity I've felt over the course of my life, like flashes of image I couldn't quite clearly make out.

Or maybe those images were memories of something I couldn't remember, the core of the longing I felt all these times, of something that I didn't even know.

They were all at the back of my head, but they were there. They were the dreams one couldn't remember once dawn broke, which leaves only the wisps of a feeling.

I know I will cherish the moments I spent here - however much time there was left - for as long as I live, but how long would it take before new memories begin to bury the old ones, and all of this faded with time, becoming a blur until I can no longer tell the difference between it being a memory or a dream?

Though the night's event had proven to be stress inducing, to say the least, I wasn't really ready to embrace the idea that my life here wouldn't last either. 

There were so many moments I wanted to live and re-live with no one else but Arthur, thoughts to share, days to spend, kisses to exchange, and a whole lifetime of loving each other until our hearts wear us out and our age catches up to us, and even then when my spirit parts with my mortal body, I know that I'll continue to love him still.