|
|
|
With a sharp pain in my shoulders, I came to an abrupt halt just after my head fell below the level of grass. I looked up through tear blurred eyes to see Edmund's hands still clasped in mine. I blinked away the tears enough to see him as well. He was above me, his head and shoulders hanging over the ledge, but the rest of him was hidden by the ground above.
"Don't let go! I've got you!" He shouted down to me.
My legs dangled aimlessly in the air. Panicking, I looked about for something to grab onto: a root, a rock, anything. There was nothing, not within my reach anyway. At Edmund's elbow, there looked to be a promising root from the old Oak tree, but it was too high for me to grasp.
"Edmund, how can we? There's nothing...I can't," I tried as my legs kicked about beneath me.
"Shh, stay calm. I will pull you up," he promised, trying to sooth me. "Just try to hold still."
I stopped my kicking. He began to pull me up, slowly. He was trying to wiggle himself back away from the edge of the cliff while lifting me with his arms. Soon I was high enough to let go of one of his hands and grab the root. I pulled myself up a little and our progress sped up ten fold. The hand still remaining in his was but an inch away from the top of the ledge when the root gave out suddenly.
The root sprang out of the Earth with a strong snap and some of the dirt decided to come with it. Once again, I felt the stomach-flipping sensation of a drop, and this time I did not seem to halt as fast, but a halt did come. Looking up, I could see that Edmund was almost over the edge as well as I. Before only his shoulders had been visible. Now his whole torso was hanging off the cliff with me. His hand still held tightly to mine, and I flung up my other hand to catch onto his.
"How-"
"I think my foot is caught on a root," he said, cutting me off. His face was turning red as his blood fell to his head. I could see him trying to think of an escape, but I knew as well as him- there wasn't one.
I felt the choking sensation building in my throat again, but I would not let it control me. These moments were important and they would not be lasting.
"Edmund...you have to let me go."
"No, I won't-"
"You'll fall too!" I cried out and I felt the burning tears returning. "There is no way to get us both up, but if you let go, you can-"
"No, I let you go once. I won't do it again. I will never let go!" He shouted, and I could hear the tears in his voice though my tears blocked my vision.
"Edmund," I whispered, hardly able to control the forming lump. "I love you..."
I let go with one of my hands. He held on tightly. "Edmund, it's okay, let me go."
"No, no." He cried, but I was slipping. The combination of time warring against his strength as well as gravity and my weight were all working against him. "Don't do this, please. Just hold on," he pleaded in a voice almost more weak and desperate than when he had asked me to marry him.
I gasped as one of my arms fell free as he lost his grip. Yet I did not plummet. With his now free hand, he grasped onto my remaining one with twice the strength. True to his word, he was not letting me go. But I knew, it was our lives or mine.
Persistently, I began "Edmund-"
"Grab him! Throw down that rope, quickly!" Adam's voice came from above, strong and clear to cut me off.
A rope was thrown down nearly a heartbeat after the words had been spoken.
"Millie, grab a hold of the rope," Adam yelled over the ledge. With my free hand I grabbed onto it. "Edmund, let go of her!" He didn't. "We cannot pull her up without her using both her hands. She could fall!" Edmund finally released my hand.
My heart nearly skipped a beat as I tried to do the transfer and slid an inch, but eventually I managed to hold tight. A knot in the rope, perhaps from a lucky tangle, helped to stop me and leave me where I was. I hardly had time to think about it before I was being pulled up, and Edmund was being slid back over the top of the cliff.
I did not let go until my head had been dragged a few feet over the cliff and naught but my calves and feet hung over the edge. Then I let go, crawled forward, and laid on by back breathing heavily.
"Millie? Millie?" Edmund reached my side faster than anyone else. Immediately he took my hand in his. "Are you okay? Millie? I'm sorry I let go. I'm sorry...I had to...I...Millie, talk to me!"
There were tears in his eyes, tears and fear. I reached my hand up to stroke his cheek and gave him a smile.
"Yes, my answer is yes."
And then his lips were on mine and everything in the world seemed right.
 Anne Onymous · Wed Oct 07, 2009 @ 02:54am · 0 Comments |
|
|
|
|
Chapter The 18th...or the one that follows the previous one. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Marry him? It was a dream; it had to be. And yet, there he was, on his knees before me with a pleading look in his eyes.
Marry him? Yes! Of course! Absolutely! Was this not what I had been wishing for? Dreaming of? Desiring? Was this not the secret, deepest aspiration of my heart? Had I not longed for this moment since I understood that man and woman could be more than friends in a sand box?
So why could I not form one simple word: Yes?
The silence lingered between us as I stood astonished and conflicted. I could see it in his eyes. He had realized almost before I had what my answer would be. His eyes went from pleading and passionate to desperate and sad. "Millie, we could be happy here. Say you'll marry me."
"I...I can't," I said and pulled my hand away.
"Why?" He asked, and he sounded so hurt that it nearly pierced my hear to hear the simple word.
I allowed myself to walk past him, back to the edge of the cliff. I felt the need for the fresh air, as it seemed to be stubbornly keeping itself from my lungs. Besides, this way I did not have to look at him, see the pain, feel the pain, as I turned him down.
"It is not that I don't..." I let myself drift off. Love. A simple word, yet so dangerous, so complicated. I could not bring myself to say it at the moment. "You are engaged," I offered as a reply. "I cannot, I will not make you break your word to your fiance. It is not who you are. You know it as well as I do."
"We are not, that is to say Miss Palmerston and I, are no longer betrothed," he said.
I whirled around so fast that my skirts wrapped about my legs. "You?"
"No. You are right about me. Once I give my word, I do not take it back...no matter how much I regret giving it. No, Miss Palmerston broke it off, late last night. She is going to marry Marcus instead. Thankfully he is more rich than I am, and so he has caught her eye. I was foolish to ask for her hand in the first place. It was done out of duty to my family."
"Oh." Somehow that was all I could manage. He must have expected me to say more, but I didn't, causing yet another silence to befall us.
"Millie?"
"Yes?"
"I am not engaged. My offer to you, it still stands. I want you to marry me," he said.
"Because I am now rich? Now good enough for your family to accept?" I asked, turning my head away. I was not sure if I could bare to see his reaction. What if that was why he was asking me?
"Oh Millie..." He said, his voice filling with something like pity. I felt a lump growing in my throat. This was it. The time for him to admit that his family had prodded him to make a good match while he still could before the news of Marcus and Miss Palmerston reached the local ears.
"Millie, when I said that I do not take back my word, even when I regret it, I meant it. I gave my hand to Miss Palmerston, but never my heart. I regretted every moment of our engagement because...because my heart was always yours and my loyalty as a husband should have been given to you as well. I am not sure when I realized it, but I have always loved you Millie."
As he spoke, my eyes began to burn and tingle. Before he was finished, they were wet. Tears? It had been so long since anything had made me cry. Why this? Why now? Were they happy, sad? I could hardly tell myself. I could tell he was waiting for an answer, but my throat was choked up. No matter how hard I swallowed, I could not seem to remove the lump enough to form words. As I tried to gain control, I focused on the tree. Through blurry tears I stared sternly at it, as if it would, simply by the will of my mind, magically release me from the bind I was in.
Suddenly Edmund's hands were in mine. I wretched my eyes away from the tree to look at him. He was down on both knees, kneeling before me in the earth soaked from the earlier rain. He appeared so humble, so small, so desperate as he held each of my hands in his own.
"I want you to be happy Millie, but God help me if it is selfish, I want you to be happy with me. I want you to be mine for the rest of our lives, to eat at my table, share my hopes, sorrows, and joys, and be with me at night. I want your love more than I have ever wanted for a single thing. Please say you'll marry me and make me the happiest man on this earth. Say that you love me!"
I cannot point a finger at an exact cause, but his pleading and begging, his tender, passionate words only made the tears come more swifter. I tried to talk but only a sob managed to push past my lips. I swallowed hard, again trying to find that control. How badly I wanted to say yes, yet could it be that easy?
In one moment, could I go from his servant to his wife? Could I change my mind, leave my loving uncle, and stay? It was all happening so quickly, it made my head spin. "I..."
Subconsciously, I took a step back. Perhaps I had been readying myself to raise him up so that I could give him my answer. Whatever plan I had had in mind, it was not fufiled.
I had been closer to the edge than I realized, and the earlier rain had made the ground soft. In a flutter of a heart beat, I felt the earth dissolve beneath me and the next thing I knew, I was plummeting downward.
Anne Onymous · Wed Oct 07, 2009 @ 02:27am · 0 Comments |
|
|
|
|
Chapter The 17th *Just a guess |
|
|
|
|
|
|
(Aaaaaand, Time jump to the end)
Behind me stood the manor, my jail, my safe haven, my...I had lost the ability to find an exact name for it somewhere in the seventeen years where it become my home. I could not look at it just now. The end was near and I knew it, yet how could I say goodbye?
Instead I retreated to one of my favorite spots on all of the Wellington's land: the grand oak on the cliff. With the manor to my back and the ocean to my face, I watched the sun set as a gentle breeze ruffled my loose curls. Would the ocean in Bath look as grand as the ocean here? Somehow, I doubted it, though it would be the same ocean.
Somewhere in my mind, a voice arose. 'Stay!' it cried. 'Stay forever in this place of familiarity, of memories, of...of what? Servitude?
I grasped onto a branch above me so that I could lean my head against my arm before closing my eyes. Letting out a huge sigh, I allowed my mind to explore the few options that could be laid before me.
To leave. I would go away with Uncle Ferris and Edmund would become but a memory, a sigh of what had once been. I could carry on with my life as a lady of wealth and fashion. New doors that have always been closed would now open. Galas, balls, dinners, all the grandness I had dreamed of as a child. No longer Cinderella, but Ella of the ball.
To stay. I would see Edmund married off. To stay would mean seeing every day what I long for, yet cannot have- what I dream of lived by others. And what would my place be? Where would I fit in now? I am no longer Cinderella, the servant, and that is not a position I could return to. Who ever heard of a lady of wealth sweeping the hearth and cooking stew for her desired lover and his wife? No, it just didn't happen. It would be impossible to stay.
The wind tickled my face as it blew wisps of hair around. How hard I prayed for time to stand still, to just freeze in that moment! A moment where I was neither the lowly servant nor the new debutant.
"Your uncle is ready for you."
Startled at the sound of a voice I had not heard approaching, I gasped and jolted upright. Turning away from the blinding rays of the sun, now beginning to sink below the ocean's distant line, I found myself face to face with Edmund. His eyes were squinted to block out the sunlight that made him appear as an angel from some other worldly place.
"Oh," was all I managed to say. I did not know how long I had been standing there, or indeed how long he had been there! I had not even noticed his arrival before he spoke. "I suppose this is goodbye then."
"Yes," he said, but I swear I sensed a hint of disappointment.
"Well goodbye then," I said, steeling myself for the end. What other choice did I have. I reached out my hand to shake his and he took it. "Thank you for everything you have done over the years," I said, as I halted the shaking. Yet our hands stayed fastened. I looked down at our hands, slightly confused, before looking into his eyes.
"It was never a problem to help you. I hope you know you will always be welcome here," he said, still holding onto my hand, but gently. If I pulled, I could break it loose, yet I could not find the will to pull it away.
"I do," I said softly, though inside I had my doubts.
Finally he let my hand drop. For a moment neither Edmund nor I moved. Was this really so awkward or was I making believe that it was so? Was there something being left unsaid? If it was, it would have to remain so. In the far distance, I could see the silhouette of my uncle waiting for us and leaning heavily on his cane. I am sure that standing all day seeing to the direction of my moving out had not eased the pain in his leg at all.
"I must go. They are waiting for me," I said and moved to walk past him.
"Millie, wait!" he said and grabbed my arm.
I turned to him, confused and curious. "Yes?" I asked, my voice coming out more breathless and urgent than I had intended.
"Stay here Millie."
"I can't. Where would my place be?"
"By my side," he said and knelt down. I gasped and whispered the word 'stop', or perhaps I just imagined that I had. Either way, he did not stop. "Marry me Millie. Stay here with me and marry me."
Anne Onymous · Wed Oct 07, 2009 @ 01:18am · 0 Comments |
|
|
|
|
|
|
((This is me writing out of boredom. We shall see where it goes))
Perhaps from the very start of my life, I sensed how out of place in the world I would always feel, or perhaps somewhere in my little newborn mind, I sensed the tragedy I would have to endure in my life. Nothing is for certain about those moments except that I cried endlessly.
My father does not tell the story often. I can tell it causes him a great amount of pain. Usually when I ask about my birth, I get the same narrative.
"Your mother, she was so proud of you. In that moment of pride and accomplishment, she appeared more beautiful than I had ever seen her," he would start and his eyes would glaze over as he returned to the distant memory, a memory of better times. "Her eyes were like stars as she stared down at you. You cried in her arms, but she did not seem to be offended. She merely proclaimed that it was what babies were born to do- cry. To her, your cries meant strength and life. They were welcome signs considering how hard her pregnancy had been and how weak she was. She named you Millie after my sister who owned the inn where you were born."
The smile that had been growing as he talked so lovingly of my mother would always fade suddenly at this point. His eyes would grow hard and he would look off into the distance, as if trying to stare down the devil himself.
"And then they came. They took her, and they ruined our happy family," he would say in a quite voice as his hands tensed.
I never knew who 'they' were. I tried to ask. Did he mean angels? I knew my mother died shortly after my birth. Did he mean the men who took her to the grave and buried her? Who? Who was they? I thought for sure that I would never found out, yet I always tried.
"Who? Who took her?" I would ask each time, trying to change my tone in hope that he might change his mind and tell me. Sometimes it would be full of curiosity, other times, soft and cautious or loving and prodding. Yet he never told me.
"It was a long time ago, and it doesn't matter. She died and as you cried as an infant, I cried with you." His eyes would loose their glaze and it would be replaced by a sadness that made my heart ache. I could never decide if asking about my mother was worth it. He would start out so happily, but end so sadly with a "Let's not talk of it now." As I grew older, I asked to hear the tale less and less.
My father never remarried. I am sure he never even looked at another woman after my mother. Although he never said it directly, I knew he loved her nearly as much as life itself. I think if he had not had me, a small infant, to take care of, he would not have walked on the earth much longer after my mother departed it.
As it was, he stayed with me on this earth. I knew very little about my beginnings. I had been born on July the 16th in the year 1837, the year Queen Victoria took her reign. I was born in Aunt Millie's Inn on the other side of London. Soon after my mother died, my father decided to find work in the south. He claimed that he did not want me growing up in the dirty city, but I always had the sense that he was running from the sadness, hoping that it would fade with distance. I am not sure that it ever did.
Anne Onymous · Tue Oct 06, 2009 @ 03:06am · 0 Comments |
|
|
|
|
Thoughts for a Period Piece Drama |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Brainstormin'/Outlinin': Millie is one of the many servants at a grand manor. She is in love with the son...the ELDEST son, Edward. Definitely a no no of the social statuses. It is made even more complicated because he is engaged to a young lady of fortune. Millie is not sure if he is in love with his fiance, or if he is just going along with the pretenses of his family.
Edward has always been the down to earth sort. He consorts with the servants and was even Millie's friend growing up. Their mutual friend, another servant of the house (a guy), is now one of Edward's best friends and closest confidants. I shall temporarily name him Joseph.
Is there a servant who is in love with Millie? Is he nice, or mean? Leaning towards yes, and nice, but NOT the same person as Edward's confidant, Joseph.
Perhaps a foil to Edward could be his cousin. A bit older than him, more of a partier, and much more forward with the women. He would arrive to the manor on a visit (perhaps his family wanted him out of town till a scandal died down? Perhaps that is a twist for later). My inspiration for him comes from Willoughby in Sense and Sensibility as well as the older brother in Mansfield Park. He would be more crude and fiendish than even Willoughby could be.
Millie is an orphan. Her mother died soon after her birth (and I have a twist about her mother). And her father has either died recently, or will die in the course of the story. Either way, he must be dead when her long lost uncle arrives. I vote for him dying in the story, so that he can reveal some, but not all of her mother's history.
The only thing she has of her mother's is a locket that she cannot get open (that the uncle will show her how to open as it was a gift to his beloved little sister from him).
Her mother was actually a rich man's daughter who fell in love with a poor boy. When she found out she was to be engaged, she ran away with Millie's father. (They will live with his sister who owns an inn) They got married in the eyes of god (since they could not get legally married, lest her family find her), and lived as a couple does. Her family finally found her just days after Millie was born. Her father tells her to forget Millie and her husband and he will not make life hard on them. She does so, for their sake, and goes home with her father. But she cannot forget the man she loved, nor the vows she made. She runs away to return to her husband and Millie. But she is still weak from childbirth, and the journey is long and cold. She gets pneumonia and dies soon after arriving. Her family disinherited her and forgot all about them. Soon after Millie's mother's death, the father takes Millie and they move away to a place where he can forget the past. He gets a job with Edward's family, and there Millie grew up.
Millie's mother's brother (the Uncle) was away at school abroad when all of this happened. He has been searching for Millie and her father ever since and only finds them at the end of the story when Millie is an orphan. Everything was left to Millie's uncle. He has no children, and he loved his sister very much. He decides to make Millie his ward.
So at the end of the story she is faced with leaving Edward to become a rich lady.
Anne Onymous · Tue Oct 06, 2009 @ 02:41am · 0 Comments |
|
|
|
|
|
