There be more. My Madness is responsible for most of the dialogue in this chapter. Thank you for the review so far.
Hurriedly tying the waistband of her coat she headed towards the door. She was certain that she must be the last one out and picked up an umbrella from the stand thinking that she would have to make haste. It was only force of habit- from years of checking no one was being left behind or going to get locked in somewhere- that made her throw a haphazard glance over her shoulder at the kitchen. And she came to a jarring stop when she saw him standing there.
"What on earth are you doing?" she asked almost to herself, as it couldn't have been loud enough for him to hear, turning back towards the kitchen as opposed to the back door.
Even if it had been audible he probably wouldn't have heard it. He seemed quite in his own little world. He was standing just as he had been while they watched the paint dry- leaning up against the kitchen table and still towering over her. When he showed no sign of having noticed her, she moved further into the room and towards him.
"I thought we'd agreed that the paint had dried?" she asked him softly, smiling a little.
It was enough to break his reverie, quiet as it was, and he turned towards her; returning the smile as she came to stand beside him. Both facing the wall, they were quiet and rather self-conscious, as if they expected someone to burst in on them at any moment; which was odd as everyone else had already departed for church.
"I've been thinking," he admitted as much to the wall as her. "I want to marry you. Tell me you will..."
She waited a whole beat, convinced that she must have misheard. But no, she thought, he was watching her anxiously, waiting for her response with such a look on his face that might have broken her heart had she not been so taken aback. The morning light from the high little windows was shining on that ridiculous brown paint and tinting his face just a touch with the colour. Perhaps it had turned him delirious. She felt herself give no discernible reaction except to place the umbrella carefully down on the table beside her, to avoid dropping it.
"Say yes," he told her quietly, as if it were a prayer "And I will go inform his Lordship."
Her mouth opened and shut but no answer and certainly no wisdom came out. She seemed unable to do anything but stare straight ahead at that stupid wall. She couldn't speak; she couldn't think of anything except to wonder vaguely if her eyes really were such an unfortunate colour.
"Elsie."
It was a plea that she had to answer. She could feel his eyes on her and tore hers from the paint to look at the skirting board.
"You can't mean it." she half-declared in an attempt at a reasonable tone of voice, "We've never... Nothing. Not even a kiss. You've never held my hand or..."
"There is time for all that. I know it all, how wonderful it would be... even if we haven't..."
His voice was lullaby soft. She shut her eyes tightly, trying to concentrate.
"There are things I've never told you," she pressed determined that he should hear something- what she knew not. That she hadn't exactly led a nun's life in the past, presented itself quite forwardly, though she might as well have for all the happiness it had brought her. Probably the worst combination possible. And she'd practically given up on that sort of thing...
"You can tell me once we are married," he assured her. "Tell me everything then. Or now if you'd rather. Or never," he added almost as a dismal afterthought.
I'd given up on those notions – it rang resoundingly through her head, with certainty- except for those foolish thoughts I had had of you.
"When you started all that nonsense about the paint and my eyes..." she began.
"It wasn't nonsense though, Elsie. Not to me. It was something that needed saying. Not the actual words, perhaps... But the sentiment."
"The sentiment being what, Charles?" she asked. She dared herself to look him in the face.
He dropped his head after a false start at getting something out. It occurred to her that the way she was looking at him might have put him off, but she pressed on.
"You've asked me to marry you and there is something you can't bring yourself to say?"
Suddenly, it was too much to tell her he loved her.
"How do you feel about me?" he finally managed.
"I don't know the words... but I know I don't belong with anyone else. I don't belong to anyone else," she said and she looked at her shoes. "I haven't said, 'No.' to your question," she explained. "Does that help?"
He bowed his head.
"I shouldn't have sprung the question on you like that," he apologised, "Forgive me, I should have waited."
She shook her head at him, blinking slowly.
"You don't need to apologise, Charles," she told him gently, "Women tend to take it as a compliment, you know, if someone asks them to marry them."
He almost smiled at that. Then, without thinking about it, from where she stood beside him she reached out and placed her hand on his elbow, giving it a quick squeeze. She knew she lingered longer than she should have. The action, in all its haste, seemed to move them into some of the slowest moments of silence she had ever endured. There was a throbbing, palpable, wonderful tension between them and she couldn't think of anything to say. Her first mad impulse was to take it all back and say there and then that she'd marry him without further ado, but she couldn't do that to him, knowing her brain would catch up with her as soon as she'd said it.
"Think about it?" he implored her at last, "Please, Elsie, think about it."
"Of course I'll think about it," she assured him.
She got the feeling little else would occupy her thoughts in the immediate future.
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