The Dragoon's Proposal

I watch him from the french doors of the salon. He comes in state and stiff uniform, trotting his mare up the drive. His brass buttons glint their false promise in the sun, through a camouflage of dust from the horse’s hooves. He dismounts smartly his sword swinging a sweep of the pendulum: my time is up. He addresses my father as he comes to the door.

“I’ve come to take your darling Dorris away”

The words tumble out of him and I see the moment my Father’s heart cracks open with anticipated loss, a brief chasm in the space time continuum. The Dragoon hands over a small parcel tied with string: a prize for a prize.  My Father is still picking his wits from the dust motes dancing in front of his eyes so my Step Mother intercepts it with a curt nod of her head.  A gift from the dragoon to sway my heart.  Some trinket to pay the price from maiden to madam; a ribbon for my hair. A gift of his love or his longing? I cannot tell the tale written in his heart; I know nothing of the language of love. Maybe this is a business transaction?
I fear being ripped from my childhood innocence, all that I know, and run from the salon clutching my hand to my heart. Nothing will come of it but I cannot help this desperate attempt to escape the inevitable.  Onse I reach my room I dive for comfort in my tenty little space between the chaise and the armoire. I duck down in a nest of feathered pillows, huddled beneath silken shawls from across the Ottoman empire.  My toy dog, Monkey, peeps from under a bolster and whimpers at my distress. I pluck a bonboniere of chocolate dipped cherries from a side table and begin to suck furiously at the juice, trying to distract myself from the hard stone at the centre of my fearful thoughts. The alarm has sounded, the red lantern raised, making me search labyrinthine alleyways in my mind for a way out. But thought is a complex device and the more I chase around it the more I rip holes in the fabric of sense. I will hide here until I feel safe or until I can climb a pole to the sky and ride a dolphin through the clouds of confusion back to safer shores.

This hour is my step-mother’s child, I am sure of it. She is a wolfish queen with a trebuchet for prickly words that she flings into the peace and contentment of our lives. She choses her ballast carefully, rolling words around her mouth, testing them for strength and efficacy. She only releases them when she can be sure of maximum damage then stands back with a wry smile enjoying the devastation her power wields. She wheedles my Father when he is most pleased with her. Like a fat greedy cuckoo, she slowly pushes the natural chick from the nest. I remember now.  It started with the argument about my girdle. That evening I had heard her talking with my Father.

“She is like a wild thing. She needs to be tamed, Henri. She is too old to be running barefoot in the woods looking for fairies. You cannot have your ‘little girl on tiptoes’ forever. She must be warmed to the ways of womanhood. Leave it to me, I will take her in hand.  I will make you proud Henri.”

Then there was a whispering silence and I knew that they were sealing this pact with a private affection I knew nothing of.

But why must I be brought in hand, have my hair pinned and my girdle pulled tight?  What kind of horrible sanity is this that I must make dark the light and reach up through the waves to grab an anchor to live by. No, I will not do it. I will run from here, away from the dark edges scything the greenery of my youth. I will roam free with the gypsies and learn the messages in the lark-song. I will dance to the fiddle with bells at my ankles and ribbons streaming in my hair. I would be a bride to nature and keep the red side of the apple for myself.