Anne approached her little sister with a smile that could have scared off a tiger. ‘Congratulations, my sister. They are truly beautiful flowers.’
‘Thank you,’ said Ella earnestly, blushing.
‘I truly believe,’ said Anne, ‘that the bouquet might be even larger than the one I have got.’
‘What?’
‘Didn’t you know?’ If possible, Anne’s smile got even nastier. ‘Sir Philip sent me a bouquet very much like that three days ago, and one to Maria the day before that. He seems to be fond of giving away flowers.’
‘Oh,’ said Ella. ‘I’m sorry yours wasn’t as large. Do you want mine? I wouldn’t mind.’
I had to steady myself against the wall, otherwise I would have collapsed from fits of silent laughter. Anne’s acid-sour face was a picture!
‘Don’t be too confident, little sister,’ she hissed, gathered up her skirts and rushed away with Maria right behind her. Ella looked after them, a puzzled expression on her face, then turned to me.
‘What was that about?’ she asked.
I waved the question away, while trying to conceal my smile with the other hand. ‘I’ll explain it to you someday, when you’re ready.’
‘Um… thank you very much.’
We might have said more to each other, but at that moment my aunt rushed into the room again.
‘Oh Ella, Ella my dearest! Isn’t it wonderful? Such beautiful flowers! Show me again, will you? We have to find a vase for them, so when he comes to visit he will see…’
She was still rotating like an overexcited top, her voice too loud to even think of going to bed in peace. So I took a book out of my uncle’s library and strolled into the garden. I hadn’t indulged in my favourite hobby as much as I would have liked, lately. Too much had been going on. But at least now I had a few hours before I had to go to bed.
What do you think I picked? Some wonderfully romantic novel that dealt with falling in love with tall, dark and handsome strangers? No, thank you! One tall and dark stranger in my life was quite enough. If those books gave help on how to organize a file system, that would have been one thing. But one glance years ago had been enough to tell me that all they were concerned with was strolling around gardens and mooning after men.
I preferred another kind of bedtime story: an atlas of the world from my father’s old book collection. Just my kind of book: no chauvinist heroes, no soppy heroines, and plenty of strange, foreign lands promising adventure. If only I could really go there - just like Anne Thornton, who had dressed up as a man to sneak aboard a ship bound for distant lands! I had never felt so envious in my entire life as when her story had gone through the papers a few years ago. I could hardly imagine how exciting a trip to inner Africa or the unexplored, icy regions of Canada might be. Much more exciting than dreary old London, I was sure.
Slowly, I wandered through the garden and settled in the grass behind a clump of bushes, where I often sat when I wanted to avoid my aunt. The light of the moon was just enough to see by, so I opened the Atlas and started leafing through it.
I had just managed to lose myself in China, somewhere between Peking and Quingdao, when my thoughts were pulled from their Asian idyll back to Ella. I tried concentrating on my book, but just couldn’t. Poor, innocent Ella. After what I had seen at the ball, it was clear as the day that Sir Philip had his eyes on her. She was just hopelessly clueless. I sighed and turned the page. Well, I would just have to talk to her and explain a few things about what went on between men and women. Was my aunt in bed and out of the way yet?
I was just about to move on from Quingdao to Hong Kong when a voice from the garden disturbed me.
‘Psht!’
Or rather, not the voice disturbed me - but the fact that it was a man’s voice. Definitely not Leadfield the butler! And my uncle? He wouldn’t be seen dead in the garden. Who in God’s name…
‘Psht! I’m here, my love.’
My love? Now things were getting a bit thick! I sat up straight and peered through the foliage but couldn’t see anybody. And in the next moment I stopped looking, because what I heard made me forget all about the man.
‘I’m here! I’m here, my love,’ came the answer to the lover’s call in the sweet, innocent tones of my little sister Ella.
I dropped the atlas on my foot.
Unsuitable Suitors
‘Ouch!’
‘What was that, my love? Did you hurt yourself?’
‘No, my dearest Ella. Why do you ask?’
‘I could have sworn I heard somebody crying out.’
‘It must have been my heart crying out in joy at the sight of you, my dearest, my loveliest Ella!’