Iylaine is disappointed

For all his loneliness, Malcolm had not wasted his afternoon – he had had the chance to think over a number of subjects that he had been waiting to consider when next he had a good, long moment in which to consider them.

Meanwhile he had called to his cousin three times – the first time, only to reassure himself that she was still there; the second, to ask her when she was coming; and the third, to tell her he would like to go home.

The last time she had replied with something that sounded like a plea for him to allow her to stay a little longer, but now the sun was setting, and beneath the trees it was already growing dark. And he still had to ride home!

“Baby!” he called. “Let’s go home!”

“Just a while longer!” she replied after the echoes had died away.

“Now!” he shouted. “I’m coming!”

“No!” she cried, but he was on his way.

She would have time to send her visitor away, but he thought it would serve her right if he caught them together. He wasn’t jealous, of course, but neither was he her groom, fit only to stand and hold her horse, as it were, while she went off to be with her… her friend, or whomever it was.

He had worked up quite a store of anger by the time he reached her, but apparently not as much as she. She met him just below the hill where the flowers grew, her fists clenched and trembling and her teeth set. “Why didn’t you wait?” she growled.

“You’re welcome! That’s the last time I do you a favor! I waited all afternoon, I shall have you know.”

“Well, you may go home now,” she said imperiously.

“I shall! And so shall you. Let’s go.”

“I shall stay.”

“Oh, but indeed you shall not, my fine Baby! I shouldn’t have left you alone at all; I certainly shan’t leave you here with no one close at hand.”

“Go away!” she whined in frustration. “I don’t want you!”

“You want me when you need someone to take you outside and stand guard over you! It’s the last time I shall, for all the gratitude I get out of you!”

“Please, Malcolm, please!” she begged, with an edge of tears coming to her voice.

“Please what?” he snapped.

“Please let me wait a little while longer.”

Malcolm paused. She had said “wait”. She had been waiting for something to happen, or for someone to come – and was waiting still. He was sorely tempted to ask her for whom or for what, but he doubted she would answer, and he would lose any opportunity of learning more.

“If you allow me to stay here with you,” he offered.

“No, no, please – go back and wait where you were.”

“I shall not,” he said calmly, his anger dying now that he knew she had been disappointed and had met no one, “though the moon be full. At night there are the beasts – and it is growing dark and cold, and I am growing cold and hungry. It’s too late, Baby.”

“Please, no…”

“It’s too late,” he repeated firmly, hoping she would understand in her own way.

“No,” she whimpered, and then she began to cry in earnest.

“Baby,” he sighed. “Don’t cry. We can come back tomorrow, or when next His Majesty lets me have an afternoon.”

“No, no, it doesn’t matter,” she sniffled.

That was something else. Tomorrow or another day would not do. But none of this told him whom or what she had been expecting to see…

“I’m sorry, Baby,” he said, and he laid an arm over her shoulder. He was sorry to see her so disappointed. And he had endured a lonely afternoon for nothing, it seemed.

She wiped her eyes on her sleeve and mumbled, “Take me home.”

“At once.”

Now she walked slowly at his side, her head drooping with her old weariness. But she allowed him to hold her hand as far as the gate, and that was some consolation – at least for him.