Oh my goodness, can it be I love him?
No it is impossible; this jumbled mess of emotions cannot mean that!
He was just walking away, his shoulders slumped and he dropped the flag and I think in that moment I forgave him. I must have done for I no longer felt that fire of indignation burning inside me at the very thought of him, or the simple mention of his name in passing. I was just so mad at him for doing that for letting me down for letting himself down; for seemingly jumping down from that pedestal I had set him on with barely a hint of regret as if my good opinion mattered so little to him, whereas for me his seemed of the most import!
And then the way he looked at me no joy no spark of the man he was, how could I ever have even considered betraying him. For that is what it would have been, a betrayal; not doing my righteous duty, or my honourable discharge but a betrayal of the man I…
Do I love him?
Is that possible after everything, that only now when I have lost him and there is this impassable chasm between us that I finally realise it.
I think I do you know, love him…..
Just to say it out loud, I love Walter Corey, our Mr Jarvis, our esteemed butler…No I love the man beneath that mask, today he let me see him, just a little, when all that confident bravado had gone and he was slumped and dejected and in pain. Then I realised there are two of them, the butler and the man, I had admired the butler but I am in love with the man.
The man who lashed out at me in his pain, the one who shared his bitterness over his re-naming, I had never known he felt shame before that night. He had always seemed so proud to carry the title before, Jarvis, the head of the household and insisted everyone myself included address him by it and he has always used my title to.
Well except for once, just the sound of my given name rolling off his tongue was like a bolt through the blindness of my rage and I reacted the only way I could by pushing that familiarity away terrified of the barriers it broke down. So he resorted to using my honorific, Mrs Ryan, spitting at me like a curse taunting me as I clung to the title in desperation, hiding behind its comforting anonymity like a shield.
How will things be now between us?
He is such a private man and now I have seen beneath the glamour he will never be able to fully force me out, he will never be able to be the infallible Mr Jarvis for me now and I think that terrifies him almost as much as my confession has me. I am in love with a man of iron, who is as soft at his centre as gold, and he has let me see his weaknesses and he his not a man with whom that will sit well. He has had to fight for too long and too hard to get where he has and perhaps he thinks letting someone in will jeopardise that illusion of security he has.
Does he fear me now?
Fear me for what I might yet do? Or what I might yet say? The foolish man if he looked hard enough he would see I could never again be a threat to him, I would rather dash myself against the rocks than let him fall. Perhaps in a way I already have, after all I have allowed him to buy my soul and my silence not that I have any desire for the money but he needed a reason that he could understand for my actions otherwise he would never rest easy again.
Will I ever rest easy again?
Knowing that the man I love can never will never return my feelings even if I ever found the courage to tell. But I have no such reserves of courage, I could never risk loosing him completely and I feel it would have to be an all or nothing gesture when I have nothing left to loose...
Perhaps that day will come but it is not today.