Promises Unkept

A man in love.

The night was a little wet, a little deep; a little dense but sacred in its gloom. A speck strange and so familiar. The dilemma was vast, the sky was confused, with no moon to enlighten it and no stars to embellish. And clouds_ so heavy, so grey. Unstoppable.

Such hindrance! Such sorrow!

‘Atleast that would ensure for you to remember me henceforth.’

The backdrop was filled with echoes of explosions, thunders gurgling and a constant hum of rain hitting the soil, the walls and the trees. Nothing acquitted. Nothing pardoned.

While thus out, in a certain chamber of a stoned up manor called Ashleyton_ wet in the rain but standing proud and high, triumphal in acres of the terrain_ sat two strangers, side by side_ way too far to love each other and way too near to not.

As foreign to each other as night is to day. As familiar to each other as moon is to earth.

Or fairies are to childhood.

How complex it was! How problematic!

He, who was filled with guilt of his past deeds gazed into the flames of the hearth, unblinkingly, not knowing a way on how to put his numbness down and tell her things he so badly wanted to confess and she, who was certain as death itself that he hated her and was disgusted by her mere existence, sat coldly, looking beyond the window in the rough flicker of rain and lightening.

Both a little gauche. Both a little forlorn.

Both silent but neither at peace.

Ambivalence was this.

Peace and silence were never the same thing.

It was a crisis of words.

It was a torrent of passion.

A calamity. An emergency. A call of cosmos.

And alas, no one to rescue.

All of a sudden, Lord Stephen stood up and walked away from the hearth to some dark recess of the room. Eden didn’t ask him where to. It was not her business.

But she kept a watch on his progress from the corner of her eyes. He walked to the door that adjoined his bedroom to this longue. He stepped in and only his footfall noise remained behind. It was dark in his room with certainly no candles lit.

Or any fire made.

She resumed her gaze at the mist painted window. Her hair was dry now.

With slight shambling noise from beyond the door, Lord Adelwood reappeared into the bright longue, something in his hand.

A shawl.

His eyes met hers. No smile, all earnestness. He sauntered toward her and handed her the shawl. She took it and stared at him in askance.

“Yours is wet at the back.” His lips hardly moved when he said that.

And indeed, hers was wet at the back, having soaked all the moisture from her braids.

She changed without much argument. He was right and there was no point being stubborn. When she had changed, she spread her own shawl at the end of the couch so that it could dry.

And then, when she looked up, she found him watching her intently.

He hurriedly looked away.

Odd.

He was acting odd tonight.

But not really. He was not acting odd tonight. He was only acting the way he could. The way you act when you realize that you are about to lose something dear and you know what you are about to lose. And when.