Emmeline of Cambridgetown
Chapter 5
Snow is gently falling, illuminated by the setting sun. A cold breeze tickles Emmeline and carries away her frozen breath into the sky. The hairs of Emmeline’s fur coat are freezing at the tip and the soft white catches the sun’s waning rays and immediately Emmeline is wearing a sublime golden robe. Her heart beats in tandem with her muffled footsteps in the fresh snow as she sets towards Dante.
Dante Corvette is standing in a two week large pile of his own piss and shit.
Emmeline feels contempt well up in her, her fists clench as she remembers grammar school in East Sussex. Dante had been the handsomest and richest of young men. While most of the males paid no heed to Emmeline, Dante noticed her, in the worst of ways. He would jokingly steal Emmeline’s things, and pawn them off in London, only to spend the money on a fighting kangaroo named Jubjar. Emmeline hated that kangaroo more than anything, Dante’s petty thievery was one thing, but the perpetual terror of being ambushed by a kangaroo wearing boxing gloves and a top hat was too much.
Dante is now a mere quarter furlong away, Emmeline avoids looking at him and breathlessly rehearses what she will say.
“Dante, you incorrigible buffoon, have you no decency? What, has your life become so bleak you wish to once again torment me? I wish you away Dante, and may God’s mercy treat you better than I would prefer.”
Dante is now a mere sixteenth furlong away. Emmeline looks up and sees those same deep, dark eyes and byronic curls. His ivory skin is accented with a patchy black beard that stops just short of his magnificent cheekbones.
Heart pounding, Emmeline summons her courage and speaks. “Dante, you incorrigib…”
Before she can even finish Dante has embraced her, he deftly places his lips on hers and the world disappears. All Emmeline can feel is his soft lips, her hand touches his and the words that were in her mouth are melted away by his breath.
“Oh father! They’re kissing!” Anga is peering out the window, eyes wide with excitement for her unkempt, disgusting, sister.
“Huzzah!” Upchamp’s gusto throws him off balance, crashing into a thin column supporting a ming vase which plunges to the ground and shatters on his face. Anga rushes over to help him but steps in a wash bin of boiling water and cries out just as Upchamp rolls into her, splitting her shin open and throwing her into a shelving unit which, jostled, tilts forwards. Anga and Upchamp look up with fear as the shelf, adorned with priceless miniature glass animals, creaks forward, but only slightly. Anga and Upchamp breath sighs of relief, Anga goes to assist her father but slips on a smear of pus and tumbles into the shelf. The massive oak construct crashes forward, crushing the two. Their mouths fill with broken glass as they scream.
But in the yard, in Dante’s arms, all Emmeline hears is music.
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