Promises Unkept

Secret of rumors.

It was amendment and not mere alteration that they couldn’t understand.

Eden was from the very start an unchatty person when she had first appeared in Ashleyton’s working class and had been so far regarded as such. She had always been a quiet girl to begin with.

That was the reason why no one could point out with any degree of accuracy that what exactly had changed in her. But there was a change in her. An earsplitting, echoing, apparent yet indistinguishable change. One that you could see but not discern.

She was and was not the same.

Not anymore.

Not since the night of Lord Adelwood’s engagement announcement.

She smiled at the right time, talked on the right tongue, nodded her head when she should and kept quiet when there was nothing to say. When she needed something, she helped herself. When she had trouble, she even complained to the one who could help.

On the surface, all was well.

Her eyes though.

What disaster had befallen them? What terrible tragedy had striped them so bare? So vacant? So aloof? Of course, even that throb, you could see only if you cared to look deep enough.

And afterall, isn't it said since ages ago.....

In a broken heart’s verdict,

Love becomes the liar.

Like a flame wrong-footed,

Sets the world on fire.

Perhaps it was best to believe that what was hurting her was her own, very private matter.

Everyone had sensed it on their skin, this queerness of her. They all had grown wary of Eden, the footmen and the maids and the cleaners.

They left Eden alone.

Only one person suffered the most under this change though and that was Maggie. Magpie. Her friend. Her sister.

Because Maggie couldn’t leave her alone.

Because it was Maggie alone who saw how Eden was suffering. Maggie alone, who heard stifled out sobs from Eden’s bed at mid of the nights. Maggie alone who saw how the half moons under Eden’s eyes grew day by day.

Maggie alone who had tried to comfort Eden and had been pushed yet farther away in return.

It’s nothing Maggie. I need some time to myself.

It was Maggie alone who felt alone.

Or perhaps, Maggie was not the only one. Perhaps one more person was enduring the same degree of injunction under Eden’s coldness.

The one was Mr. Andreas Edwin, the first man who had noticed the change.

After that night, Eden had as if snatched herself off his familiarity. His understanding. The closer he had tried to move to her, the more distant he realized she was. He was so baffled by this sudden overturn of events that it took him all his power not to go and hold Eden in his arms and shake her out of the abstraction she had fallen in.

It was a blunder that he had thought it to be the champagne that night.

And years old saying turned out bona fide.

Things can change in a day.

A few moments and a lifetime is altered.

***