Her lashes flickered slightly in Eden’s sleep as a soft disturbance of murmuring filled her lethargic ears. The voices were dull initially, with even duller echoes renouncing them, but with every moment slipping by, the conversation became clearer and somewhat more intelligible to her sluggish intellect.
She recognized the commotion.
It was Maggie whispering. And it was someone else.
A man.
A gentleman, if she judged by his eloquence.
“_...but I am not sorry, I confess, for attempting it.” She picked Maggie saying. “You see, Eden needed me. And for in that moment, I could think of nothing more dear to me than Eden herself, I went with her. I am sorry to upset you so but I am absolutely not sorry for what I did, even now.”
“So much for her!” Remarked the gentleman, in an unsuppressed surprise. “You make me envy Miss Henley, Magpie.”
Maggie giggled at that. At least that’s what the snickering sounded like, to Eden.
Her sore eyes were still shut and her body still throbbed. Eden lay as still as dead, in her place, under the blanket.
Hardly awake, but very much conscious.
“Now then, that’s a harsh thing to say. You must not spite her, dear sir.” Maggie stated after a pause. “I hold Eden in a very much different regard of love as I do hold you.”
“Say as a sister?” The man suggested.
It was kind of him to say that, Eden thought.
“Sister? Sister!” Maggie repeated in consideration. “Yes and no. Well there, don’t you smile sir! I will explain it to you. I shall. Eden to me is more than a sister. She has been my friend all this time, and she has heard into all my ranting, she has confided her secrets in me. She has been a sister too, guiding me at places where I was an utter fool and where I needed a superior judgment, she has judged for me superiorly. But utmost all this, I find in her a motherly shadow Mr. Penfield, which is so rare to find and so precious to possess. She loves me unconditionally. I cannot but love her back above all and everyone, in this world.”
“Above me too, Margaret?” was the subtle question posed, on the man’s behalf.
Full of passionate jealousy. Full of hot affection and cold yearning.
“Oh don’t!” Maggie entreated. “Don’t make me measure up my affections for two parallel horizons of the same sky. I love you and I love Eden, differently but one no less than the other. Is that not enough?”
“Well,” The man whispered, with a soft chuckle. “I ought to feel this selfish when it comes to your affections. I ought to feel that I should have been your only one.”
“And you are.” Maggie affirmed.
“Liar.” He returned, but with a laughter in his voice.
And the issue of rationing the love was resolved, then and there.
Eden sighed a relief.
And that was when other, more pressing things started to goad her thoughts.
So, for one, Maggie was in an engagement with Mr. Robert Penfield, the very man who had kissed Maggie on the very day of their first encounter. On whom Maggie had spilled a big jar of jam.
Second in, Maggie loved him as much as she loved her which, considering her own experience, was very much.
And thirdly, he was here, in their room, with her lying on the bed asleep and Maggie chatting to him…..
Downright disgrace!
Eden sat up so abruptly that one or two bones in her back cracked sharply, shooting a pain in her back, making her grimace as she turned around to see the chatting pair on the window seat, gaping at her in complete mortification.
Maggie’s cheeks colored as her eyes met the reproachful eyes of Eden and the girl was instantly up and at a measurable distance from the mentioned gentleman, who in turn was also upright now but looking away from Eden, out of the window, for the sake of propriety.
Her propriety.
Not that she was improper in anyway, Eden wasn’t. But still, no girl ever deserved to be seen in the vulnerable after-state of sleep by any stranger and he exempted Eden on that.
Eden was instantly conscious of his gentility and lack of her own refinement. She redid her shawl and stood up, smoothing her gown and hair as soon as she could.
“Mr. Penfield, sir.” She began gravely, after dropping suitable hints that she was decent. “I didn’t realize, forgive me, that you had a business here. In our chamber.”
Maggie’s color heightened.
But what Penfield noticed was the truth of Magpie’s word.
A mother, a sister, a friend.
That was what Eden was to his Margaret.
“It’s I who should be excused, Miss Henley.” He answered, with a bow of head, never mind her being a mere maid. “But, I want it to be known_ I insist it to be know, that my business is wherever Margaret belongs. I didn’t mean to propose offense.”
Eden was impressed by his fervor, his straightforwardness and his decidedness about Maggie. She raised her brows at him, however, to give him an impression of authority.
“Define that, Sir.”
“I love Margaret, Miss Henley.”
Maggie choked, retreating yet into the corner but in the middle of the room, Eden and Mr. Penfield remained firm to each other’s eyes, testing the challenge that it had provoked; his words.
“Yes.” Eden smiled frostily. “Men often say that to contain their intentions.”
If Penfield took offense to this, he didn’t show it up by even a blink of his eyes. But no wonder yet, his demeanor darkened somewhat.
Eden, on the other hand, spoke with her past knowledge and this made her look genuine in her reproof.
“Men do, indeed.” He nodded, in calm earnestness, eyes fixed to the ground. “But the appraisal should rather be of their intentions, Miss Henley, than of what they do say and do not.”
“And what then is your intention, Mr. Penfield?” Eden demanded, no less slightly.
He turned a little, now facing Maggie and smiled at the girl so softly, so elusively, that Eden was suddenly enlightened of several tense emotions overpowering the small room.
“What is the intention of a man willing to spare himself to just one woman for the rest of his life? It’s universally known, is it not?” He stated gently.
It could have been his words, or perhaps, his smile it was, that braced Maggie so much as to come near him and hold his hand as he looked down in her face, consumed in bare admiration.
“You wish to marry her?” Eden whispered, mortified but equally obliged.
“I do.” He murmured, still looking at Maggie, lost and in love.
Maggie squeezed his hand, her cheeks running crimson as his own gaze intensified.
But before something inconvenient could happen, Eden cleared her throat out loud. “Since how long are you two….”
“Together?” Mr. Penfield finished for her. “Well, long enough Miss Henley, on my side_ since the very day of my arrival at Ashleyton. That day, when I first met Margaret, I_”
“You took the liberty of kissing her, Mr. Penfield, that day when you first met her.” Eden commended sternly.
The gentleman started and then colored slightly, while Maggie covered her mouth with her hand to hide her laughter.
“Well_” He began awkwardly, recovering from the bold condemnation of the girl infront. “That was_ very impertinent of me, I confess Miss Henley. But believe me, I suffered enough from then on for after that, Margaret avoided me like some plague for one whole week. And if by mistake, our eyes met on occasion or two, she would either leave the room instantly or stop looking at my side of the room altogether. It was I, Miss Eden, who had to seek her out and she didn’t make it any easier for me even then. But I never gave up and yet, I assure you, I am ready to court her for all my life if that’s what she desires.”
He might have begun his this little speech in reluctance but with every word he spoke, and his words were honest to be sure, he grew ardent in his admission and higher in Eden’s esteem.
“What do you mean,” She asked. “What do you mean by courting her all your life?”
A sad and yet tender smile enlivened his young face as he faced Maggie once more. “Here is the tragedy, Miss. Margaret wouldn’t have me. She refused my proposal for marriage.”
Her eyes widened in disbelief as Eden looked at Maggie now.
She refused him? Maggie refused?
Tragedy indeed!
“Maggie?” She breathed, not knowing what to ask. “….Why?”
“Why? Eden?” Maggie contoured her face into a scowl. “You ask why? Why, for you. I cannot, cannot leave you now. Not now, when they all, the whole world, has selfishly turned itself against you. I cannot be them. And we discussed a shared dream, didn’t we? I cannot seek my own living when yours is in indecision! I cannot believe you ask me ‘Why?’”
Eden mouth hung as she sought an answer in the material things around her. In the curtains. The draperies. Doors. Windowsills. Chandelier.
Anywhere!
In Mr. Penfield’s face who, meanwhile, appeared extremely pained right now.
“Maggie.” She sighed at last. “Think practically and_”
“No, Eden. Wait!” Maggie snapped, with a frown. “What do you mean by ‘practically’ and why, in the divine name, do you both think I am impractical?”
“For you are!” Eden retorted harshly. “Why is everything so childish with you Margaret? You are nineteen, an adult. Be like one. Stop living in fantasies.”
The big blue orbs that had looked annoyed so far were suddenly filled with tears as Maggie’s lips wobbled on the verge of breakdown. “I do not--- I do not live in fantasies.”
“You do, Margaret and believe me, you are a fool to do that.” It was impulsive that Eden had raised her voice to this level as she never had before.
She knew what she was doing for to hurt Maggie was the only way of breaking this intense attachment she held with Eden.
Besides, it was a high time for Maggie now, to know that the world didn’t function the way she thought it did.
It had a more brutal, a more severe conduct of operation; this world.
“You are too cruel, Eden, on your own person.” Maggie sniveled miserably. “But you cannot make me hate you, even with this.”
“Learn the ways of the world Maggie.” Eden bit back coldly. “I will hear no more of your stupid conjures.”
Mr. Penfield shook his head, begging her to stop but Eden knew better.
“One day_” She grumbled, panting and in a low voice. “_ you will think of this day and laugh at your fanciful dreams.”
And what was held back, broke out.
Maggie’s tears, every drop spilled, was a debt that Eden would pay later in her life but for now, the pain of this visualization was enough.
Keen for solitude and the commemoration of her grief, Maggie stomped as far as the door but then stopped, abruptly and turned to face Eden, wet eyed and hurt beyond explanation.
“No, Eden.” Maggie sobbed, wiping her face with the back of her palm. “One day, I will not be there at your side and you would wish that you had never said all this to me.”
Mr Penfield ran after Maggie to hold her but Eden didn’t.
She was too frozen for that.
The future had just been whispered to her.
Death.
___________________
You are all safe, I hope.