(This little piece happened after a passing Twitter Conversation with the excellent book reviewer and blogger The Picky Bookworm – find her here: https://linktr.ee/ThePickyBookworm. Where would a short short piece completely smothered in cliché go? Galloping off in the direction of 1930s pulp melded with pseudo-Gothic romance as it turned out – what on Earth.)
So here it is:
THE CLICHÉ
(‘Who knows what evil lurks in the heart of the pen? The Cliché knows!’)
Chapter 119: Uncle Wymark Reveals Himself!
It was a dark and stormy night, and Emily released the breath she didn’t know she was holding.
“I won’t marry you, Edward; I can’t; I shan’t!”
Dropping the teacake, she fled sobbing into the library.
Edward’s thoughts flew back to the events of the previous evening. Had something happened at the Grand Duke’s reception to discompose her so?
Suddenly he remembered: the sinister old curio dealer from the Rue de Giuliani – he had been there, emerging stealthily from the crowd, cutting into their dance and dragging Emily aside to whisper to her for over an hour in a shadowy corner.
Afterwards she had been strangely subdued, white as a sheet, and trembling like a leaf; but Edward had thought nothing of it at the time.
Now he followed her, but circumspectly, for unbeknownst to her he had a secret of his own, one that preyed on his mind, but that he dare not yet reveal. Little did she know that he was not the same man she had loved that bitter evening in Prague.
With a sigh of relief he found her in front of the mirror, her flame-haired beauty only enhanced by her ivory skin and by her breathless agitation.
“Emily,” he exclaimed loudly, “As you know, we have been hoping to marry for almost a year, and have only delayed for lack of funds. But now that, through good luck and hard work, the old silver mine is working again, we need have no further worries on that score.”
Emily tossed her hair and bit her lip. “It is not that. It is Uncle Wymark. He told me of his disapproval in no uncertain terms!”
Edwin’s jaw dropped. “That, then was uncle Wymark?” he cried. “I did not recognise him without his cummerbund.”
Emily tossed her hair endearingly. “He has always had designs on Elfinglott Hall! He made no secret of the fact! He muttered darkly about a connection between the abandoned funfair and the unearthly light people have seen out on the moors!”
Edward could not repress a slight start. Very quickly, he was overcome by a slow despair. Never before had the mysterious gloom of the old house seemed so full of shadows. And yet somehow he knew that as long as this wild-haired beauty was beside him, all would be well.
She smoothed her hair, and looked at him quizzically. “What is it, Edward?”
“I dreamed of him,” he burst out. “I had such fitful dreams, last night. For how did he know? How did he know we would be at the Grand Duke’s reception?”
“Was it the reception that was grand, or the Duke?” she asked shyly, twisting her hair around her finger.
“Both,” he promised gravely, and she felt a warm sense of reassurance flood through her.
“You will think of something, Edward!” she murmured softly, contemplating her heart-shaped face with its frame of flaming curls in the mirror. “Your uncle Wymark’s aquiline face will not haunt us forever!”
“My uncle Wymark?” he ejaculated. “I thought he was your uncle Wymark!”
He took her by the arm, to indicate that the chapter was almost over.
“If he is neither your uncle nor mine, then he has no claim to Elfinglott, and we can be free of him at last.”
Outside, the wind still howled. Emily’s full mouth grew dry as Edward’s eyes moved over her face. She fell into his arms, knowing at last that she would win through in the end, and find happiness, through courage, and a good heart.