Better Than Byron

Old Loves Remembered and New Ones Acknowledged

XI

The great art of life is sensation, to feel that we exist, even in pain.

-Lord Byron

Edmund called on the ladies the next day, and Edgar joined them by dint of having little else to do. He kept Margaret all to himself, and she in turn was beginning to single him out. They had been treading along a narrow footpath in the thin copse around the school when Margaret stooped to gather a bunch of bluebells and lilies of the valley that had caught her wandering eye. Edmund and Tilly paused, but Margaret urged them to continue on without her. She would have said the same to Edgar had he not also stooped down and started plucking the same flowers.

"I suspect that these are your favourite," he said, glancing at her for a confirmation. She paused in order to examine his altered looks; his complexion had gained brilliance and his crisp black eyes undulated with warmth. Clearing her throat she said, "Yes, I love them. And you, sir, have you any preference?"

"Preference?" he scoffed smilingly, slipping his gatherings into her fingers. "Since you ask, I have rather an obsession with white flowers."

"Really?" she asked with a startled smile. "Any reason for this?"

"They remind me of my mother and sister."

"Yet you never say anything about them," she said, sinking to the mossy ground. He smiled and then sat down beside her. "How are they?"

"Like white flowers," he replied with a distant smile. She knew it was meant for them, and appreciated his unconscious show of tenderness. "They are gentle, white, graceful, and easy to love. Whenever my eyes fall upon a white blossom, I mechanically think of them and their purity – their overall goodness. However, a wild and gloomy forest has separated us... Look at me, Margaret, thoughtlessly drawing you into my murky mind. I am afraid I am tormenting you."

"It might surprise you to know that I have some dark thoughts inhabiting my mind as well," she said, holding the flowers to her breast and gazing wistfully up at the semi-visible blue sky. "Though it mayn't be as apparent as it is in you. Come, sir, we have sat here long enough. Another minute, and Tilly will have reason to suspect the worst."

"Yes," he whispered acquiescence with a tender look at she who was too concentrated on calming her inward agitation to perceive his marked inclination towards her, and then, wishing she had begged for his help to stand up, he carried on at her tail, admiring the tall and womanly shape moving forth at so brisk and determined a pace, as if marching towards rebellion.

*

"I have decided to write my memoirs," Edgar declared, bursting into Margaret's sitting room in the hot afternoon. She had dozed off with a book in her hand, and her spectacles lay unused on a table hard by.

"Beg pardon?" she uttered drowsily.

"I shall write my memoirs," he repeated, trembling with excitement.

"What for?"

"What for? Why! To exonerate myself! The world must know who I truly am."

"So it is something of a confession?" she asked, replacing her spectacles on the narrow bridge of her nose.

"Yes, I suppose it is," he said, smiling thoughtfully through the window. "And you," he said, regaining his ambitious fire, "You, Margaret, shall be the first to read it."