Promises Unkept

Ambivalence

It is a fact worth noting that this whole cosmos and the creation beyond, has been pedestalled over the verity of ambivalence. It’s dithering.

It’s two and yet one.

It’s several and all alike.

Nothing in this world that is wrong is entirely wrong. Nothing in this world that is right is entirely so. What’s wrong is equivalently right. And the right is as much wrong.

Absolute is nothing. Nothing is absolute.

Regardless of what we argue and what we propose, this whimsical truth is unbendable.

And in that moment, when Eden realized from behind that thin wooden plank of a door, that Lord Adelwood was here for her and her strictly, to find her, to redeem her and take her away, this totality of immense ambivalence filled her heart towards him. The whole universe condensed and saturated her little flesh installment.

Love and hate.

En masse.

A  fine balance.

A maddening alchemy.

What she felt for him, in that second, was something we all are unqualified to understand until we touch it ourselves. Like texture.

She was quick enough to cover Maggie’s mouth with her palm who was so thrilled by his arrival that she almost had squeaked. She looked wide eyed into the questioning blue eyes of her companion, and shook her head in a_ ‘Don’t.’

And then cautiously, she allowed her trembling palm off Maggie’s mouth. Maggie’s smile had died down somewhat although her eyes still remained lit in unsubtle exhilaration.

“Why?” The girl mouthed.

“Please.”

Inside, the silence had plagued all words. It could have been anything that had decreed such tranquility. The very presence of Lord Adelwood perhaps, the fact that he had a business here, in the cheapest tavern of Hertfordshire, the supple way in which he had said ‘Where is Eden?’, as if he would collapse the next very moment, or simply the fact that there was nothing to say.

Eden’s heart thrummed with the same heaviness as the clouds that gurgled in the sky right now.

Silence lingered a moment more, and then words spilled out like brooks, from Miss Murphy’s stuttering mouth.

“S-Sir?” Her voice was hoarse, but it was remarkable that she had a voice afterall, the way thins threatened. “Fawgib me but, may I enquire who ye be?”

“I am Stephen Richard Adelwood.” Was the grave, growled out reply. Gasps filled the room, both manly and femalely. “This is where Mr. Adam Marks is admitted?”

“Aye me lard.” Miss Murphy replied. “Aye, Tis the place. He is in da bedroom, ye see.

“And may I inquire what this_ man_ is doing here?” Lord Adelwood had vile in his voice. Purely fatal.

“Aye me lard, ye may. This rascal’s ‘ere to fleece mah Adam. He’s joshin’ me awl-while of it. Uncultured swine!”

“Ye, Murphy, will mind yer sickly tongue.” Jerry at last found his fierce filthy voice back. “Liar, me lard. This whore’s a lier! Won’t con a man, I ever. Tis Adam owes me ma money and I must gerr-it back, m’Sir!”

“How much?”

Lord Adelwood’s question startled everyone in the room including the two audience from the balcony. He was a fool if he meant to give him that demanded ransom. Atleast that was what Eden believed.