‘And…and you had them copy out the Queen’s private diary?’
‘Yes.’
‘How could you?!’
‘By paying them enough to motivate them.’ Abruptly, Mr Ambrose rose from behind his desk. ‘It was worth the investment. When Prince Albert looks at our Queen with - what was it again?’ he leafed through the transcript. ‘Ah, yes. When he looks at the queen with an “angelic expression in his dear beautiful face” and suggests to her that I should be granted economic benefits, I hazard she will not be able to resist him.’
I sent him the most disapproving stare I was capable of. To judge by the stony cast of his face, he didn’t even notice. ‘And what now?’ I demanded. ‘Why did you tell me all this? It seems you have everything already planned out to the last detail.’
‘Indeed I have.’ Marching over to a secretary in the corner (unlike me, a wooden one), he pulled a blank sheet of paper out of a stack and returned to his desk. ‘But not every step has been put into practice yet. It will not suffice to approach the Prince - I will have to attack the couple from both sides. To that end, I intend to send the Queen a letter. A letter consisting of ridiculously exaggerated compliments for dear, angelic Albert. In her present state of temporary, romance-induced insanity, it is exactly the kind of thing that will influence her to do what I wish.’
I stared at him. ‘You? You know how to write compliments?’
‘No.’ He put quill and paper down on the desk in front of me. ‘Which is why you are going to write them for me.’
*~*~**~*~*
About half an hour later, I emerged from my office and approached Mr Ambrose’s desk. He was deeply engrossed in the study of mining revenues from Sub-Saharan Africa, and didn’t notice my approach. I cleared my throat.
‘Yes, Mr Linton?’ He didn’t look up.
I thrust the paper at him. ‘Here!’
He took it, and, turning, I started to tiptoe away.
‘Wait!’
His voice froze me in place. Slowly, I turned back to face him again.
‘Yes, Sir?
‘You will remain while I review your work.’
Blast! ‘Yes, Sir. As you wish, Sir.’
He placed the paper of scrawled notes on his desk and began to study it. After a few minutes, he bent forward, his eyes narrowing infinitesimally. He remained like this for a few more moments - then he picked up the paper and raised it to his eyes until his perfectly carved, straight nose almost touched the paper.
With one, long, elegant finger he tapped the beginning of my notes. ‘Really, Mr Linton?’
I nodded, bravely, my cheeks burning with embarrassment. ‘Yes, really, Sir.’
‘Hm.’
His eyes wandered further down the paper. Just about in the middle he stopped abruptly, and it almost seemed as if his eyebrows rose half a millimetre. Slowly, he looked up at me.
‘Somewhat…extreme, don’t you think, Mr Linton?’
My cheeks got even hotter. Bloody hell, was I glad I was too tanned for it to really show! ‘No, Sir! It is absolutely essential, Sir.’
‘But that part, where you say his d-’
‘Yes, Sir!’ I interrupted him, hurriedly. ‘Trust me. I have five sisters. I know what girls want to hear.’
‘Hm.’ Mr Ambrose lowered his gaze to the paper again. ‘I see, Mr Linton.’
He was just finishing the last paragraph when footsteps sounded outside in the hallway. A moment later, a knock came at the door.
‘Enter!’
At Mr Ambrose’s cool command, the door opened, and a willowy young man with glasses on his nose and a folder under his arm stuck his head inside. ‘Um, please forgive the disturbance, Sir, but I thought you would like to know. A messenger from Miss Brand, the palace maid, just arrived, and it appears that-’
It was just then that the young man caught sight of me and nearly swallowed his tongue. He coughed. ‘Sorry, Sir. I didn’t know you had company. What I meant to say is that so far, operation RWN is progressing satisfactorily.’
‘RWN?’ I enquired, eyebrows raised.
The young man reddened, and desperately looked from Mr Ambrose to me and back again. Mr Ambrose waved a hand. ‘Tell him. Mr Linton is my private secretary, and knows all about RWN.’
The young man cleared his throat. ‘Royal wedding night,’ he explained with a sheepish look on his face. ‘Um…I’ve just remembered, there’s somewhere I should be.’
‘Take this.’ Mr Ambrose handed him my paper with suggestions. ‘Have Plaskett write it up in appropriately elegant handwriting and send it up for me to sign.’
‘Yes, Sir.’ The young man bowed hurriedly. I wasn’t looking at him, though. I was staring at Mr Ambrose, my mouth agape.
The door closed with a click behind the young man, and I was still staring.
‘Operation RWN?’ I demanded, my voice sounding a little bit weaker than I would have liked.
Mr Ambrose cocked his head and gave me a look. One of those looks. ‘Do you still wonder how I knew about the clothes in your garden shed?’
Royal Example
When I got home that evening, I was still thinking about Mr Ambrose’s report on operation RWN. That’s the only way I can explain my not noticing the calculating looks my aunt threw me all through dinner. Only when my sister Ella nudged me and whispered: ‘Why is Aunt Brank looking at you like that?’ did I glance up and see her.
Hurriedly, she looked away, trying to make it appear as if there were nothing more interesting in the world to her than the plate of mushy boiled potatoes in front of her. But it was too late. I had already seen the look on her face: concentrated, cool and calculating - as if she were judging a slice of beef in the meat market. I knew that look all too well.
‘Bloody hell, no!’ I groaned.
‘Lill!’ Ella gasped. ‘Watch your language!’
‘Sorry.’
‘What is the matter? What has upset you?’
‘Upset me? You want to know what has upset me?’ Leaning closer, I jabbed my fork in my aunt’s direction, and whispered: ‘She’s found another you-know-what for me!’
‘No!’ Ella covered her mouth with one delicate pale hand. ‘Surely not!’
‘Surely yes! I know that look on her face. You can bet on it.’
‘But…so soon?’
‘Yes.’
‘After you, um, grabbed the last one by the…err….and did…that thing to him?’
‘Yes.’
‘How would she be able to find someone willing?’
‘Trust me, Aunt can get inventive when she wants something. And she wants us out of the house, married to the richest men she can lay her greedy paws on.’
‘Now, really, Lill!’ Ella shook her head. ‘I can’t believe that. Aunt may be a bit, well, forceful in trying to find matrimonial arrangements for us, but I’m sure she only wants our happiness.’
I looked at my little sister, one eyebrow raised. ‘You think that do you?’ I patted her head. ‘Bless you.’
She gifted me with one of her radiant smiles that lit up the whole room. ‘So you agree with me?’
‘Not in a million years! But I’m sure it’s very noble of you to be so ridiculously trusting.’
After dinner, I slipped out of the dining room before my aunt could catch me and drag me off to her latest you-know-what. Grabbing my favourite book from where I had hidden it from Aunt Brank, at the very back of the small library’s lowest shelf, I made my way into the garden, behind my favourite bush, where no dogs ever peed and no aunts ever disturbed me.
Sighing with contentment, I flicked open Some Reflections upon Marriage. I didn’t even have to leaf through it. I knew the book so well, it fell open just at the passage I was looking for.
But, alas! What poor Woman is ever taught that she should have a higher Design than to get her a Husband? Heaven will fall in, of course; and if she makes but an Obedient and Dutiful Wife, she cannot miss of it. A Husband, indeed, is thought by both Sexes so very valua
ble, that scarce a Man who can keep himself clean and make a bow, but thinks he is good enough to pretend to any Woman!
I gave another contented sigh. How wonderful it was to have found someone with whom I was completely and utterly of one mind - even if she had already been dead for over a hundred years.
I was so lost in Mary Astell’s witty treatise that I nearly missed the light patter of feet passing my bush. Nearly, but not quite - because some part of my mind had been waiting for that sound all along. Raising my head, I saw a flash of white between the branches of the bush, and knew I had been right. It was she!
Closing my book and slipping it into my pocket, I peeked around the bush - and there she was! My little sister, Ella, hurrying towards the barrier between our garden and the neighbours’. And there, on the other side, was he - Edmund, the piano tuner’s son, who, for the last year had been romancing my little sister, and whom, in my magnificent mercy, I had not yet decided to eviscerate.
They rushed towards each other like Pyramus and Thisbe, separated by an impenetrable barrier. Only where the two characters from Greek mythology had had to make do with a solid wall, fate had bestowed dozens of gaps between the poles of a fence on this happy pair.
‘Ella, my love!’
‘Edmund, my love!’
‘My everything!’
‘My sunshine!’
I glanced up at the sky, wondering idly if either of them had noticed it was already nighttime, and the moon was standing high. Probably not.
‘Oh, Ella! Words cannot express how much I love you! The hours away from you have been torture!’
‘So have mine! So have mine, Edmund! The entire day I was writhing in pain until I could see you again!’
Really? I cocked my head. I didn’t particularly notice that when you asked me to pass you the salt at dinner, little sister.
‘Oh, Ella!’
‘Oh, Edmund!’
‘Oh, my Ella!’
‘Oh, my Edmund!’
‘I love you so!’
‘And I love you even more!’
‘Impossible! Nobody could possibly love anybody more than I love you!’
‘Except me!’
‘No!’
‘Yes!’
‘Definitely not!’
‘Definitely yes! I love you!’
‘And I love you more!’
Sighing, I sank back behind the bush. The conversation of the two hadn’t exactly gotten any more interesting in the last few months. I admit, in the beginning, it had been mildly entertaining - like a romantic comedy playing out in my own back garden. But a girl could only stomach so many ‘I love you’s before she felt an intense desire to hurl into the bushes. And since the bushes were my favourite reading spot, hurling was to be avoided at all costs.
I lost myself in the words of Mary Astell once more. But I had hardly been at it for five minutes, when a gasp from beyond the bush brought me to attention.
‘What? Edmund! What did you say?’
My head darted forward, and my eyes found the piano tuner’s son. He was leaning forward, against the fence, an intense expression on his face.
‘It has been a year and a day since we first confessed our love to each other. I think it is time!’
Ella was as pale as a sheet. ‘B-but…’
‘I know it is a big step. But we love each other. Why wait?’
‘But…Edmund…before marriage? It is not right! I couldn’t…I wouldn’t…’
He leaned forward even more, until his face was almost touching hers through one of the gaps in the fence. ‘Don’t you love me, Ella? Don’t you want me?’
Ooh la la, this was a new tune! No more I-love-you-I-love-you-too. To judge from the look on the face of the piano tuner’s son, he was ready to get down to business. Slowly, he reached out through the fence to touch Ella’s face. Not quite so slowly, I reached out and grabbed a stout walking stick with a heavy iron knob I had stashed out here in the garden, just in case Edmund’s head would ever need to be introduced to Mr Metal.
‘Ella,’ he murmured in a low voice that was probably meant to be seductive. Judging from my little sister’s expression, she was by no means as immune to it as I was. ‘Please. I love you. I need to feel you so badly.’
‘I need you too, Edmund,’ my little sister whispered back, giving me a renewed urge to hurl. I fought against it bravely.
‘Then come to me. Let me touch you. Let me feel you. We have loved each other for over a year. The time is right to take the next step - now!’
All right! That’s it, my friend!
Grabbing Mr Metal in both hands, I started forward and was about to step out from behind the bush when Ella stumbled back, breathing heavily.
‘Give me some time!’ she begged. ‘Just a little time to…I…well…a little time, that’s all! Please!’
And with that she whirled around, and dashed back towards the house.
*~*~**~*~*
By the time Ella arrived in our shared bedroom, I was already lying in bed, breathing very, very regularly. A ladder at the window can work real wonders, sometimes.
The room was dark. I could only see the pale silhouette of my little sister in the moonlight. Wordlessly, she slid out of her dress, into her nightgown and under the covers. We lay there for a while in companionable silence.
‘Lill?’
Her voice was soft, but not really quiet.
‘How did you know I was awake?’
‘I always know, Lill.’
‘Because of the special bond we share as siblings?’
‘Because you snore when you sleep.’
A pillow flew out of my bed and barely missed the small hill under the blankets that was Ella.
‘I don’t snore!’
‘Yes, you do. But in a very nice, ladylike way.’
‘Oh, really? Thanks so much for the compliment.’
There was a pause.
‘Lill?’
‘Yes, Ella?’
‘What would you do if a man asked you to…you know…before you were married?’
I remained very still.
‘I’d chop his head off! Or better yet, I’d turn him over to Patsy!’
Ella gasped. ‘That? Just for a kiss?’
My head whipped around. It was even darker in the room by now. I couldn’t see enough of her face to see if she was making fun of me. But, knowing Ella, I highly doubted it.
‘A kiss? Only a kiss?’
‘Well…yes.’ Now Ella sounded puzzled. ‘What did you think we were talking about?’
My silence was answer enough. Or at least it would have been, for anyone whose mind was not as blissfully innocent as that of my little sister Ella.
‘Well?’ she persisted.
I cleared my throat. ‘I was referring to, um, congress.’
I could practically hear Ella’s frown. ‘Isn’t that some assembly of delegates in America?’
I cleared my throat again. ‘Amorous congress.’[5]
The gasp that came out of the darkness was pure horror.
‘Lill!’
‘Um…sorry. But it’s true.’
‘How could you think…I would never…I couldn’t…I wouldn’t!’
‘Yes, of course not. Sorry.’
I had to apologise half a dozen more times before Ella had calmed down enough to speak in complete sentences again. When she was finally lucid once more, she said: ‘I certainly did not want to ask your advice about that.’
‘No, of course not.’
‘Because, of course, you wouldn’t know anything more about that than I do. You’re just as innocent as me.’
In that moment, I was fervently glad that the room was pitch black. I wouldn’t have liked Ella seeing my ears turn red.
A hard body grinding against mine, pressing me into the mattress, buttons popping, hands moving, lips meeting in a frenzied dance-
‘What I wanted to ask you,’ Ella continued, blessedly interrupting the torrent of my memories, ‘is a
bout, um…well…kissing.’
She somehow managed to endow the word with the forbidden lust of original sin.
‘Yes?’ I prompted.
‘Well…do you think there should be any of that before marriage?’
‘Kissing where exactly? The hand?’
‘Well…no.’
‘The cheek?’
‘Not really, no.’ Ella’s voice was nothing more than a soft squeak by now, hardly audible out of the darkness. ‘I was thinking more of on the…you know…’
‘No, I don’t actually.’
‘On the l…li…lips.’
‘Ah.’
‘Not that I intend to do anything of the sort, Lill! I mean, haha, who would I do it with? I mean, I don’t know any young men, and certainly not well enough to go around kissing them or letting them kiss me, even if I wanted to, which I don’t. It’s merely hypothetical, you understand? Completely hypothetical. I would never contemplate doing something like that in real life! Never, for one moment!’
Up until that moment, I had never been a great fan of Shakespeare. But I had to admit that with his phrase ‘The lady doth protest too much, methinks’, he had pretty much hit the nail on the head.
‘So, as a purely academic exercise,’ I enquired, ‘you would like my opinion on whether or not a hypothetical lady should give a theoretical kiss to her imaginary lover before they enter into a stochastic marriage?’
‘Yes!’ Ella breathed a sigh of relief. ‘Exactly!’
‘Well…’
‘Yes? Yes?’
‘I have no experience on the subject myself, of course,’ I lied.
‘Of course.’
‘And I would never consider marrying, myself, of course.’
‘Of course.’
‘But…’
‘Yes?’
‘I heard that the Queen kissed Prince Albert before their marriage.’
Ella’s first gasp had been nothing in comparison to the one that escaped her now. It was the queen bee of all gasps. ‘No!’
‘Oh yes.’
‘Really? Pinky swear?’[6]
‘Pinky swear with bells on!’
‘How do you know this? How would you know anything about Queen Victoria?’